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Donald Trump’s merry band of supporters are surely not known for being the brightest crayons in the box. If anything, they tend to be a dull gray. The GOP nominee himself has even bragged about his loyal following of “poorly educated” dumbasses from across the country. His most fervent backers tend to have shoe sizes with larger numbers than their IQs. However, what Trump’s followers are known for is their tendency to plan for retaliation if Hillary Clinton wins the presidential election on Tuesday. They have promised a civil war and bloodshed if Trump loses, which they are convinced could only happen if the election is rigged. When you combine these two traits, a penchant for violence and good old-fashioned stupidity, the result can sometimes be terrifying. Other times, it can be downright laughable. This would be a prime example of the latter. Meet John. John vehemently supports Trump and his plan to “Make America Great Again.” Fearing a Clinton presidency, he has decided that if she wins the White House, he will have no choice to engage in an act of “civil disobedience.” You know, to show the government that he means business and all. Consequently, this brilliant man has managed to come up with the dumbest act of “civil disobedience” ever. So just what does John the genius plan to do? He’s going to block the drive-thru at McDonald’s. After all, this is where all the illegal immigrants are working. That’s it. That’s his scheme in its entirety. Blocking the drive-thru at McDonald’s. Because, that’ll show ’em, dammit! John, 67, says if Trump loses he’ll do civil disobedience like blocking the drive-thru of McDonald’s where illegal immigrants work. pic.twitter.com/pESFnD83E2 — Daniel Dale (@ddale8) November 5, 2016 Trump supporters certainly don’t represent the best and brightest that America has to offer. But despite the fact that the majority of them are idiots, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to fill out a ballot. These people will be voting. The only way to keep these racist morons from deciding the fate of the country is for Democrats to turn out in droves on Tuesday and defeat Trump in a landslide…even if it does mean that grabbing breakfast at McDonald’s may take a little longer than usual on Nov. 9 due to a crazy guy blocking the drive-thru. Featured image via Twitter

Friday, forecasters expect the Labor Department will report that the economy created 190,000 jobs in October—that’s well below the 260,000 averaged in 2014. We can also expect the White House to again proclaim that the economy is doing well—touting 61 consecutive months of jobs creation—and liberal commentators like New York Times columnist and CNBC analyst John Harwood will no doubt offer this as more proof that the economy does better with a Democrat in the White House. So much depends on the circumstances in which each president governs. For example, does his party control one or both houses of Congress and more importantly, what was the state of the economy bequeathed by his predecessor? The best apples to apples comparison are the rather difficult conditions of Presidents Reagan and Obama inherited and how the fortunes of America’s families then progressed—with the former relying on conservative prescriptions and the latter on activist government to stimulate growth. Obama confronted a terrible financial crisis and endured a punishing recession. Unemployment peaked at 10 percent in his first term, but since the economy has reclaimed and added 12.6 million jobs and employment is up 9.8 percent. The Gipper faced tough times too—double-digit unemployment and interest rates and a bruising recession. Unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent but subsequently the economy added more than 17.2 million jobs and employment rose 19.4 percent. The reason Reagan was able to create so many more jobs—in a much smaller economy—is quite simple. It wasn’t just lower taxes and less spending but rather, a reliance on private decisions to guide recovery. He cleared a path for businesses, large and small, to invest as they deemed fit and raise wages as they decided they could afford, and encouraged the unemployed to get out and look for work. Whereas from subsidies for solar energy projects and mandatory health insurance to incessant preaching that ordinary folks are victims of racism, sexism and the evil machinations of the well-off, Obama has sought to micromanage business through an explosion of regulations and to pacify a middle class under siege and Americans underemployed or not working at all with giveaways from free contraception to forgiving college debt. Through the first 25 quarters of Obama’s recovery, GDP growth has averaged 2.1 percent, whereas during the comparable period for Reagan, GDP advanced at a 4.6 percent annual pace. And whereas Reagan’s social safety net assisted the unemployed, Obama’s pays the unemployed to be idle. The 7 million men between the ages of 25 and 54 who are neither employed nor are looking for work are rewarded with food stamps, the earned income tax credit if their spouse is a low-income worker and federal healthcare subsidies—and even virtually free health care through Medicaid in many states. For folks refusing to do anything productive with their lives, Obama is offering an even more attractive benefit—free money in the form of a government pension. Despite the fact that Americans are living healthier and longer lives and work is generally less physically challenging, the percentage of adults ages 16 to 64 certified as permanently incapable of working by the Social Security Disability Insurance program now stands at 5.1 percent—about double the figure in Reagan’s day. A broken appeals system offers a decided advantage to those crafty applicants who hire a lawyer—a situation the Obama administration refuses to fix. For hard working families, the results are predictable—annual family incomes have declined about $1650 during the Obama years, whereas those increased $3900 during Reagan’s tenure. For the indolent, this is the Second Age of Pericles but for those who toil for their daily bread, Obama’s pronouncements that the economy is much improved and performs better with Democrats in control have a decided Orwellian ring. Peter Morici served as Chief Economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission from 1993 to 1995. He is an economist and professor at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, and a widely published columnist. He is the five time winner of the MarketWatch best forecaster award. Follow him on Twitter @PMorici1.

MADRID (AP) — Basque separatist group ETA says it has not abandoned its goal of an independent Basque state along the border despite giving up its arms. [In a communique Sunday in the Basque newspaper Gara, ETA said disarmament “wasn’t going to be a bargaining chip, but rather a way to show the intransigence of the (Spanish and French) states and to further the independence movement. ” Two weeks ago ETA gave French authorities a list of eight caches where police found weapons, ammunition and explosives in a historic step toward disarmament. Inactive for over five years, the ETA killed 829 people, mostly in Spain, in a campaign for independence. Spain and France have both demanded it disband. ETA made no mention of dissolving in Sunday’s communique, its first since handing over its weapons.

Rep. Devin Nunes ( ) told donors on Saturday that Orange County is one of the key battleground regions in the upcoming 2018 midterm elections. [Speaking at the Orange County GOP’s annual Flag Day fundraiser on Saturday, Nunes — who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee — sounded off on the importance of receiving support from Republican donors in the region, which is seen as critical in the fight against the Golden State’s Democratic stronghold. “It is so critical for us to win here and keep winning here,” Nunes, who was the event’s keynote speaker, said, according to the Los Angeles Times. A Republican California enclave, Orange County is now at risk of turning blue. The 2016 presidential election was the first since 1936 that the county went to a Democrat, Hillary Clinton. In February, the Democrats launched an assault on 20 Republicans whose seats are seen as being at risk during the 2018 midterm elections. Four of those seats are wholly or partially in Orange County, and belong to :Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Rep. Ed Royce ( ) Rep. Darrell Issa ( ) Rep. Mimi Walters ( ) and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher ( ). Republicans have similarly launched a campaign against at least four California Democrat Congressmen who they plan to target and defeat next year. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC)’s “top offensive targets” are Reps. Ami Bera ( Grove, 7th district) Salud Carbajal ( Barbara, 24th district) Scott Peters ( Diego, 52nd district) and Raul Ruiz ( Springs, 36th district). On Saturday, a crowd of protesters stood outside the GOP’s Flag Day celebration: Little protest outside an OC GOP dinner tonight, where @DevinNunes expected to speak pic. twitter. — David Siders (@davidsiders) June 18, 2017, About 70 protestors outside OC GOP annual Flag Day dinner, where Rep. Nunes will speak later. pic. twitter. — Seema Mehta (@LATSeema) June 18, 2017, Speaking to the Los Angeles Times about Saturday’s protesters, Rep. Darrel Issa ( ) said, “They’re pathetic. There were almost none. ” He reportedly added, “There’s a couple million people in the surrounding communities and to have those few tells you the real momentum of this movement has really died. The same has been happening at our office where they come every Tuesday. There’s less every week. ” Rep. Rohrabacher reportedly said, “They don’t want me to talk to my constituents more they want me to talk to them. ” He added, “They don’t represent my constituents. None of them represent my constituents. … They are a political organization asking me to pay homage to them. Forget it. ” Keeping in line with tradition, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher whipped out his guitar for a tune. The theme of Saturday’s song was reportedly “fat bureaucrats. ” The room is nearly clear, but @RepRohrabacher has grabbed a guitar and is singing about ’fat bureaucrats’ pic. twitter. — David Siders (@davidsiders) June 18, 2017, During his speech on Saturday, Nunes reportedly said the mainstream media was in part to blame for Rep. Steve Scalise ( ) being shot during practice for the Congressional baseball fundraiser last week by a Bernie Sanders supporter. Three others were also injured in the attack. “You could almost see this coming when it happened last week because the level of civil discourse has reached a point that I’ve never seen in my time in office,” he said, according to the Times. “What you’re seeing is a political party not willing to accept what happened in the last election. Hopefully it’s a warning sign and hopefully the media will get back to at least pretending to do some real investigative work. ” In February, Rohrabacher’s staffer, Kathleen Staunton, was reportedly knocked unconscious by protesters as she attempted to leave her office. Adelle Nazarian is a politics and national security reporter for Breitbart News. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

Home › SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY › GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISTS DISAPPOINTED THAT HURRICANE MATTHEW WASN’T WORSE GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISTS DISAPPOINTED THAT HURRICANE MATTHEW WASN’T WORSE 0 SHARES [10/26/16] J.D.HEYES – Only the sickest, most warped and ideologically polluted minds would secretly hope for greater death and destruction to their own people and country, but such is the case with “climate change” zealots . As pointed out by Investor’s Business Daily (IBD), it was former President Obama crony and current Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel who once infamously remarked that political leaders should never let serious crises “go to waste,” because they can use them to advance a political agenda where they could not do so before. As for the recent Hurricane Matthew, it appears as though a number of political operatives and true believers in the global warming religion likely wanted it to be worse than it actually was (which, to many people, was bad enough). Why? Because that would be consistent with their history. For the record, the storm killed 30 Americans and more than 1,000 people in total. Early damage estimates were put at about $5 billion. Yet that is not enough death and destruction for the global warming hoaxers. For the record, the hoaxers have tried advancing the narrative that in this day and age, thanks to man-caused actions, the weather is getting worse and more severe . Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton enlisted the assistance of the hoaxer-in-chief, Al Gore, her husband’s vice president and today’s chief global warming liar, to use Matthew to advance the phony narrative. Only, before the hurricane actually made landfall days ago in South Carolina, it had been more than 4,000 days since a hurricane actually struck the United States. That’s 10 years, 11 months and some change. Alarmists were “itching for a large-scale disaster,” IBD reported, because every day that passed that didn’t herald a major weather event, especially one on an epic scale, meant that their dire predictions of more and bigger storms made them look like clueless, silly con artists (which they are). Their sick impatience for a major weather-related crisis was summarized very well a couple of years ago when a guy named Greg Blanchette announced that since the weather is getting worse and more severe , that he “kind of” hoped that North America “gets it’s a** kicked this hurricane season. It would motivate us on climate action.” Like we said, sick . This may or may not be the same Greg Blanchette who advocated placing scary global warming warnings on gasoline pumps – which is now law in North Vancouver, British Columbia. That doesn’t matter, though, because if it’s not the same person, that only means there are two global warming hoaxer cranks out there sharing the same name. Then, as IBD noted, a couple of years before this Blanchette dude was hoping for weather-related death and destruction, British naturalist David Attenborough noted that a “disaster” was required to wake people up to the massive threat of climate change. Up to that point, the “disasters” that the U.S. had experienced “with hurricanes and floods … [didn’t] do it.” So, a cataclysmic event was needed in order to scare enough people into demanding some sort of action, which of course would come in the form of costly government regulations that are not based on sound, demonstrable and replicable scientific data. Then, as Matthew tore up Florida’s Atlantic Coast, Marshall Shepherd, an atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Georgia, outed the sick hoaxers , tweeting that he was hearing “ridiculous complaining” that the hurricane was actually less powerful than anticipated. “Some seem disappointed there isn’t tragic loss of life/apocalyptic,” he noted, adding: “I am thankful.” IBD summed up the facts: While the environmental movement contains sincere people, it is also replete with idiots and lunatics who yearn for a planet devoid of humans (with the exception of themselves, of course). Attenborough himself has complained to the British press that human beings are a “plague on the Earth.” (We assume he is counting himself as well, which – if he is – seems even less rational, if that’s possible.) There are nothing but theories claiming that man-caused activity is responsible for changing weather patterns. There is no hard evidence and there is no replicable data, which there should be if such claims were provable outside of anecdotal findings . If this was a real issue the language would not have changed from “global cooling” in the 1970s, to “global warming” in the 1980s and ’90s, to “climate change” today. Post navigation

Back in June, three days after Donald Trump announced his candidacy, I predicted that the most mischievous pranksters on the internet would rally around him — and that they’d represent a significant electoral and cultural force. [I predicted that his campaign would focus on trolling the lazy, entitled Establishment elites the American people hate so much. I predicted this combination of sass would prove almost impossible for feeble opponents like Jeb Bush to overcome. As always, I was right. By the way, regular readers of this column will know how much I hate to toot my own horn, but I also predicted Trump would perform well with blacks. Polling shows him at anywhere between 12 and 25 per cent with black voters in a general election with Clinton. That’s more than double what the GOP normally achieves. Trump’s supporters have treated the campaign as one long trollfest. First Jeb, then Marco and finally Lyin’ Ted all stumbled and fell before the chaotic power of Trump’s troll army. Facing a hilarious combination of YouTube remixes, and Photoshop mashups, Trump’s opponents were subjected to ridicule from the cultural powerhouses of the web. The internet made them look stupid. The internet made them look weak. And what begins on and leaks out into Twitter has a way of colouring media coverage and, ultimately, public perception, even among people who don’t frequent message boards. TV commentators often talk about Trump’s preternatural power to indelibly “brand” his opponents, from “ ” Jeb to “Little” Marco and “lying” Ted. No matter how crude and simplistic the labels, they always seems to stick, dumbfounding political observers who are used to candidates competing for the “high road. ” The strategy of GOP bigwigs appears to be: “lose badly, but remain virtuous. ” The power of Trump’s branding is partly down to the media’s hunger for drama, and partly thanks to his business acumen — but it’s also in large part due to his internet supporters, who have an uncanny ability to create and popularise cultural tropes. Or, as we on the internet have come to know them, memes. Part of this involves taking Trump’s campaign victories, his slogans, and his “brands” and using the power of the web to amplify them. Trump’s repeated humiliations of Jeb Bush were overlaid online with Sad Romance, an tragic violin tune that was already a web meme. “Little” Marco, of course, like another but diminutive conservative figure, was repeatedly photoshopped to make him look like a dwarf. Meanwhile, YouTube sensation “Can’t Stump The Trump” (whose name, naturally, was a nod to an Trump meme) has attracted more than 5 million views on YouTube just by remixing Trump’s debate performances, adding air horn noises whenever the candidate scores a particularly effective zinger. Trump’s pledge to “build the wall” has also been seized upon by the internet. Countless jokes, GIFs and videos can now be found around the web dedicated solely to the Great Wall of Trump. This meme has gone so viral, it still gets the biggest cheers at Trump rallies. Establishment types no doubt think this is all silly, schoolyard stuff. And it is. But it’s also effective. And it’s not just effective with the young ‘uns, either. Older generations may not be as as millennials, but it doesn’t take them long to catch on. One of our staffers’ old parents enjoyed Can’t Stump The Trump so much that they watched five of the videos . Meme propaganda is funny, memorable, persuasive — and it works. Still, the Establishment doesn’t care. They’d rather take the high road and lose than go down in the dirt and win. Well, they’re getting what they wanted! Trump’s internet army did more than just riff on his media performances, of course. The relationship between the candidate and his mischievous internet brigade is deeply symbiotic. As well as reacting to Trump and the campaign, the internet has created and popularised its own memes, sometimes out of thin air. Take the hilarious, infamous comparison of Ted Cruz to the Zodiac Killer. Although it was started by a progressive on Twitter, it was popularised by Trump supporters. Before long, the meme made its way out of obscure internet communities and into the national media. It got so bad that Heidi Cruz actually had to respond to the rumour, telling voters a day before the Indiana primary that “my husband is not the Zodiac Killer!” In another case of a meme reaching the real world, during his victory speech in Indiana, Trump himself referenced the “Trump Train” — a meme that had been created and popularised by the internet. For web trolls, having one of their pranks garner national attention is the Holy Grail. They call it “meme magic” — when web memes become so influential they start to affect events. Trump’s candidacy affords the internet the ability to do so virtually every day. No wonder they love him. Other memes are out there just for the fun of it, but they still help to cement Trump’s reputation as an engine of chaos. There are depictions of Trump as the “God Emperor” of Warhammer: 40, 000 mythology. There are depictions of Trump as Pepe the Frog, one of the ’s most popular memes. The internet had a minor heart attack when Trump retweeted one such depiction from his Twitter account — along with a link to a Can’t Stump The Trump video. ”@codyave: @drudgereport @BreitbartNews @Writeintrump ”You Can’t Stump the Trump” https: . pic. twitter. ” — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 13, 2015, The mirthful, prankish nature of Trump’s young supporters was revealed again in the closing hours of Ted Cruz’s campaign, when Cruz made the mistake of trying to engage them directly. The university debate champ no doubt expected to have a heated, but ultimately with Trump’s supporters. But they were playing an entirely different game. He received a stream of memes and ridicule instead. Arguing with denizens of Twitter and internet forums is almost always a losing proposition, as Cruz would know if there were anyone on his campaign team who understood the culture. . @tedcruz crosses the street to confront @realDonaldTrump backers on the sidewalk https: . — Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) May 3, 2016, Elsewhere, a Bernie supporter — another constituency which enjoys a particularly young and effective web presence — offered Cruz a handshake before rapidly withdrawing it and yelling that the candidate “looks like a fish monster. ” Juvenile? Yes. But the kids know this stuff will go viral. The press laps it up. And voters at home don’t want to associate with candidates who keep showing up as the butt of the joke. WATCH: Protester fakes out Ted Cruz with handshake, tells him he looks like a fish monster: https: . https: . — Good Morning America (@GMA) May 3, 2016, Before he bombed out, Cruz tried to tread into meme territory himself with a cringeworthy video of Simpsons impressions. It might have scored points with young voters, oh, say 15 years ago. It didn’t work. Cruz, bless him, was so terminally unhip that he fed the Trump meme brigades on a daily basis. While not as as the disastrous Jeb, he certainly wasn’t Mr. Smooth. From not helping Carly Fiorina up after her fall on a campaign stop in Indiana, to accidentally elbowing his wife in the face twice after his concession speech, there was always something awkward about the oleaginous Cruz. There are some people who are at one with the web, and Cruz wasn’t one of them. I knew little of meme culture before 2014, but after we discovered each other, it wasn’t long before I became a walking, living, breathing meme myself. I don’t know if Donald Trump spends time thinking about 4chan, but he has a character and a style that is perfectly in tune with what the web’s miscreants are looking for. And it’s clear from his Twitter account and speeches that he knows what’s going on and enjoys it. Among the Republican field, Trump was the only candidate who enjoyed a base of support that was truly . He combined Ron Paul’s strange ability to mobilise the internet’s meme brigades with an unstumpable media profile. Caught between the hammer of Trump’s media machine and the anvil of his online troll army, The Donald’s opponents never stood a chance. Trump understands the internet, and the internet might just propel him into the White House. Meme magic is real. Follow Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) on Twitter and Facebook. Android users can download Milo Alert! to be notified about new articles when they are published. Hear him every Friday on The Milo Yiannopoulos Show. Write to Milo at milo@breitbart. com.

@angryman78 Time to End Police Militarization Now! https://t.co/JUFy46rOeA

Uh oh RT@WesleyLowery: .@LauraKHettiger reports shooting victim last night in #Ferguson was 19 y.o. male, shot multiple times by county cops

TPMtv Extra: South Carolina Ronald Reagan Debate

‘Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars Family Edition’ Cast Revealed

Ex-president of Colombia Uribe has COVID-19.

The information is spilling out little by little but we now know that HILLARY CLINTON put America s National Security at risk when she peddled influence for money using our State Department. Is there any doubt that she s lived up to her name Crooked Hillary ? What s even worse is that the FBI wanted to investigate The Clinton Foundation but Obama s DOJ blocked the investigation. This is exactly why an outsider like Donald Trump is what we need ASAP!The Trump campaign seized on reports Thursday that the Obama administration rejected requests from three FBI field offices that wanted to open public corruption cases involving the Clinton Foundation and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. After banks alerted the field offices to suspicious activity involving the Clinton family charity, the FBI wanted to investigate conflicts of interest stemming from foreign donations during Mrs. Clinton s tenure as secretary of state, CNN reported. Today s news that President Obama s Department of Justice overruled three separate DOJ field offices and the FBI in declining to open a public corruption charge against the Clinton Foundation shows a troubling pattern of Obama and Clinton politicizing any government institution for their own personal political interests, Trump campaign spokesman Jason Miller said in a statement. This latest refusal to allow even a cursory investigation into the Clinton Foundation s pay-for-play dealings smacks of political favoritism. This is exactly why the American public has lost trust in the U.S. government and is ready to elect an outsider like Donald Trump, Mr. Miller said. Read more: WT

@RWwatchMA No one should live in a town where the people think they are above the law by blaently stealin lottin destroying others property

Maxine is the worst enemy of the black community and Americans! She needs the struggle to continue so she can be reelected. Wouldn t it be dangerous to her reelection if Donald Trump was successful at helping the black community? The fear mongering is how she gets reelected! Remember the housing crisis? Maxine was responsible for much of the crash in housing yet she s never taken responsibility for it. She and Barnie Frank pushed and pushed to get home loans for people who should have never owned a home! The black community should run this woman out of town! In the period 1989-2008, topping the list of recipients of contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Sen. Dodd (D-Connecticut), who received $165,400. Second on the list is Sen. Obama (D-Illinois), receiving $126,349 with only three years in the Senate. Rep. Frank (D-Massachusetts), received $42,350.February 1990Madeline Talbott, a well-known radical ACORN leader and banking industry agitator, challenged the merger of a Chicago thrift, Bell Federal Savings and Loan Association, who responded that they were being bullied into irresponsible affirmative-action lending policy. 1991ACORN interfered with a House Banking Committee meeting for two days protesting a move to bring CRA reform.1992Enforcement of CRA was sporadic, as the Washington Times notes, until a Federal Reserve Bank of Boston study asserted that there were substantially higher denial rates for black and Hispanic applicants than for white applicants. Co-author Lynn Browne was approached by co-author Alicia Munnell to do the study because community activists were complaining that mortgage loans were not being made in minority communities. According to the Times, however, the study had mishandled statistics on minority default rates. When the errors were accounted for, the same study showed no evidence that nonwhite mortgage applicants were being discriminated against. Frank Quaratiello, writing in the Boston Herald, cites Stan Liebowitz, My guess is that they were interested in finding a particular result. Said Liebowitz, Richard Syron was head of the Boston Fed at the time. He went on to be the head of Freddie Mac. They were looking for mortgage discrimination and they found it. According to Quaratiello, Syron became Freddie Mac CEO and chairman in 2003 and faced increasing pressure to buy up more and more risky mortgages, some of which the Boston Fed s guide had, in effect, served to legitimize. Regarding Syron s total compensation in 2007 of $18.3 million, Liebowitz reportedly quipped, Nice reward for presiding over unprofessional research behavior, bankrupting Freddie Mac and crippling our financial system, all in the name of politically correct lending. September 1992The Chicago Tribune described the ACORN agenda as affirmative action lending. And, writes Kurtz, ACORN was issuing fact sheets bragging about relaxations of credit standards that it had won on behalf of minorities. October 1992Congress, enacting the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992, allowed legislation to amend and extend certain laws relating to housing and community development. The Act created the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) within HUD to ensure that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are adequately capitalized and operating safely. It also established HUD-imposed housing goals for financing of affordable housing and housing in central cities and other rural and underserved areas. Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa) warned about the impending danger non-regulated GSEs posed. As the Washington Post reports, his concern was that Congress was hamstringing the regulator. Complaint was that OFHEO was a weak regulator. Leach worried that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were changing from being agencies of the public at large to money machines for the stockholding few. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) countered, as the Post reports, the companies served a public purpose. They were in the business of lowering the price of mortgage loans. September 1993The Chicago Sun-Times reports an initiative led by ACORN s Talbott with five area lenders participating in a $55 million national pilot program with affordable-housing group ACORN to make mortgages for low- and moderate-income people with troubled credit histories. Kurtz notes that the initiative included two of her former targets, Bell Federal Savings and Avondale Federal Savings, who had apparently capitulated under pressure.July 1994Represented by Obama and others, Plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit alleging that Citibank had intentionally discriminated against the Plaintiffs on the basis of race with respect to a credit transaction, calling their action racial discrimination and discriminatory redlining practices. November 1994President Clinton addresses homeownership: I think we all agree that more Americans should own their own homes, for reasons that are economic and tangible and reasons that are emotional and intangible but go to the heart of what it means to harbor, to nourish, to expand the American dream. . . . I am determined to see that you have the opportunity and together we can make that opportunity for the young families of our country. I am committed to a new and unprecedented partnership between industry leaders and community leaders and Government to recommit our Nation to the idea of homeownership and to create more homeowners than ever before. June 1995Republicans had won control of Congress and planned CRA reforms. The Clinton Administration, however, allied with Rep. Frank, Sen. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) and Rep. Waters (D-California), did an end-around by directing HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo to inject GSEs into the subprime mortgage market.As Kurtz notes, ACORN had come to Congress not only to protect the CRA from GOP reforms but also to expand the reach of quota-based lending to Fannie, Freddie and beyond. What resulted was the broadening of the acceptability of risky subprime loans throughout the financial system, thus precipitating our current crisis. The administration announced the bold new homeownership strategy which included monumental loosening of credit standards and imposition of subprime lending quotas. HUD reported that President Clinton had committed to increasing the homeownership rate to 67.5 percent by the year 2000. The plan was to reduce the financial, information, and systemic barriers to homeownership which was amplified by local partnerships at work in over 100 cities. Kurtz concludes, Urged on by ACORN, congressional Democrats and the Clinton administration helped push tolerance for high-risk loans through every sector of the banking system far beyond the sort of banks originally subject to the CRA. So it was the efforts of ACORN and its Democratic allies that first spread the subprime virus from the CRA to Fannie and Freddie and thence to the entire financial system. Soon, Democratic politicians and regulators actually began to take pride in lowered credit standards as a sign of fairness and the contagion spread. Attorney General Janet Reno, with a number of bank lending discrimination settlements already, sternly announces, We will tackle lending discrimination wherever it appears. With the new policy in full force, No loan is exempt; no bank is immune. For those who thumb their nose at us, I promise vigorous enforcement, reiterated Reno.1997HUD Secretary Cuomo said GSE presence in the subprime market could be of significant benefit to lower-income families, minorities, and families living in underserved areas . . . 1998By falsifying signatures on Fannie Mae accounting transactions, $200 million in expenses was shifted from 1998 to later periods, thereby triggering $27.1 million in bonuses for top executives. James A. Johnson received $1.932 million; Franklin D. Raines received $1.11 million; Lawrence M. Small received $1.108 million; Jamie S. Gorelick received $779,625; Timothy Howard received $493,750; Robert J. Levin received $493,750.April 1998HUD announced a $2.1 billion settlement with AccuBanc Mortgage Corp. for alleged discrimination against minority loan applicants. The funds would provide poor families with down payments and low interest mortgages. Announcing the Accubank settlement, Secretary Cuomo said, discrimination isn t always that obvious. Sometimes more subtle but in many ways more insidious, an institutionalized discrimination that s hidden behind a smiling face. October 2003Fannie Mae discloses $1.2 billion accounting error.November 2003Council of the Economic Advisers Chairman Greg Mankiw warned, The enormous size of the mortgage-backed securities market means that any problems at the GSEs matter for the financial system as a whole. This risk is a systemic issue also because the debt obligations of the housing GSEs are widely held by other financial institutions. The importance of GSE debt in the portfolios of other financial entities means that even a small mistake in GSE risk management could have ripple effects throughout the financial system, from a White House release.Mankiw explains that any legislation to reform GSE regulation should empower the new regulator with sufficient strength and credibility to reduce systemic risk. To reduce the potential for systemic instability, the regulator would have broad authority to set both risk-based and minimum capital standards and receivership powers necessary to wind down the affairs of a troubled GSE, says a White House release.February 2004Fiscal Year 2005 Budget again highlights the risk posed by the explosive growth of the GSEs and their low levels of required capital, and called for creation of a new, world-class regulator: The Administration has determined that the safety and soundness regulators of the housing GSEs lack sufficient power and stature to meet their responsibilities, and therefore . . . should be replaced with a new strengthened regulator, reports a White House release.Mankiw cautions Congress to not take [the financial market s] strength for granted. Again, the call from the Administration was to reduce this risk by ensuring that the housing GSEs are overseen by an effective regulator, says a White House release.June 2004Deputy Secretary of Treasury Samuel Bodman spotlights the risk posed by the GSEs and called for reform, saying We do not have a world-class system of supervision of the housing government sponsored enterprises (GSEs), even though the importance of the housing financial system that the GSEs serve demands the best in supervision to ensure the long-term vitality of that system. Therefore, the Administration has called for a new, first class, regulatory supervisor for the three housing GSEs: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banking System, the White House reports.September 2004OFHEO reported that Fannie Mae and CEO Raines had manipulated its accounting to overstate its profits. Congress and the Bush administration sought strong new regulation and authority to put the GSEs under conservatorship if necessary. As the Washington Post reports, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac responded by orchestrating a major campaign by traditional allies including real estate agents, home builders and mortgage lenders. Fannie Mae ran radio and television ads ahead of a key Senate committee meeting, depicting a Latino couple who fretted that if the bill passed, mortgage rates would go up. Again, GSE pressure prevailed.October 2004Rep. Baker again warned about the coming crisis in the Wall Street Journal: Then there s the lesson of a company, Frankenstein-like, seemingly grown so powerful that it can intimidate and arrogantly flout all accountability to the very government that created it. Baker adds, Although their bonds bear the disclaimer not backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, the market does not believe it and looks right past the companies risk strategies to the taxpayers pockets. In a subcommittee testimony, Democrats vehemently reject regulation of Fannie Mae in the face of dire warning of a Fannie Mae oversight report. A few of them, Black Caucus members in particular, are very angry at the OFHEO Director as they attempt to defend Fannie Mae and protect their CRA extortion racket.Chairman Baker (R-Louisiana): It is indeed a very troubling report, but it is a report of extraordinary importance not only to those who wish to own a home, but as to the taxpayers of this country who would pay the cost of the clean up of an enterprise failure. . . . The analysis makes clear that more resources must be brought to bear to ensure the highest standards of conduct are not only required, but more importantly, they are actually met. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): Through nearly a dozen hearings where, frankly, we were trying to fix something that wasn t broke. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): Mr. Chairman, we do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly at Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-New York): And as well as the fact that I m just pissed off at OFHEO, because if it wasn t for you I don t think that we d be here in the first place, and now the problem that we have and that we re faced with is: maybe some individuals who wanted to do away with GSEs in the first place, you ve given them an excuse to try to have this forum so that we can talk about it and maybe change the, uh, the direction and the mission of what the GSEs had, which they ve done a tremendous job. There s been nothing that was indicated that s wrong, you know, with uh Fannie Mae. Freddie Mac has come up on its own. And the question that then presents is the competence that, that, that, that your agency has, uh, with reference to, uh, uh, deciding and regulating these GSEs. Uh, and so, uh, I wish I could sit here and say that I m not upset with you, but I am very upset because, you know, what you do is give, you know, maybe giving any reason to, as Mr. Gonzales said, to give someone a heart surgery when they really don t need it. Rep. Ed Royce (R-California): In addition to our important oversight role in this committee, I hope that we will move swiftly to create a new regulatory structure for Fannie Mae, for Freddie Mac, and the federal home loan banks. Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Missouri): This hearing is about the political lynching of Franklin Raines. Rep. Ed Royce (R-California): There is a very simple solution. Congress must create a new regulator with powers at least equal to those of other financial regulators, such as the OCC or Federal Reserve. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-New York): What would make you, why should I have confidence? Why should anyone have confidence, and uh, in, in you as a regulator at this point? Armando Falcon, OFHEO Director: Sir, Congressman, OFHEO did not improperly apply accounting rules. Freddie Mac did. OFHEO did not fail to manage earnings properly. Freddie Mac did. So this isn t about the agency engaging in improper conduct. It s about Freddie Mac. Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut): And we passed Sarbanes-Oxley, which was a very tough response to that, and then I realized that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac wouldn t even come under it. They weren t under the 34 act, they weren t under the 33 act, they play by their own rules, and I and I m tempted to ask how many people in this room are on the payroll of Fannie Mae, because what they do is they basically hire every lobbyist they can possibly hire. They hire some people to lobby and they hire some people not to lobby so that the opposition can t hire them. Rep. Artur Davis (D-Alabama): So the concern that I have is you re making very specific, what you have correctly acknowledged, broad and categorical judgments about the management of this institution, about the willfulness of practices that may or may not be in controversy. You ve imputed various motives to the people running the organization. You went to the board and put a 48-hour ultimatum on them without having any specific regulatory authority to put that kind of ultimatum on em. Uh, that sounds like some kind of an invisible line has been crossed. Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut): Fannie Mae has manipulated, in my judgment, OFHEO for years. And for OFHEO to finally come out with a report as strong as it is, tells me that s got to be the minimum not the maximum. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): Uh, I, this, you, you, you seem to me saying, Well, these are in areas which could raise safety and soundness problems. I don t see anything in your report that raises safety and soundness problems. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California): Under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines, everything in the 1992 Act has worked just fine. In fact, the GSEs have exceeded their housing goals. What we need to do today is to focus on the regulator, and this must be done in a manner so as not to impede their affordable housing mission, a mission that has seen innovation flourish from desktop underwriting to 100% loans. Rep. Lacy Clay (D-Missouri): I find this to be inconsistent and a and a rush to judgment. I get the feeling that the markets are not worried about the safety and soundness of Fannie Mae as OFHEO says that it is, but of course the markets are not political. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts): But I have seen nothing in here that suggests that the safety and soundness are at issue, and I think it serves us badly to raise safety and soundness as kind of a general shibboleth when it does not seem to me to be an issue. Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): Mr. Raines, 1.1 million bonus and a $526,000 salary. Jamie Gorelick, $779,000 bonus on a salary of 567,000. This is, what you state on page eleven is nothing less than staggering. Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): The 1998 earnings per share number turned out to be $3.23 and 9 mills, a result that Fannie Mae met the EPS maximum payout goal right down to the penny. Rep. Don Manzullo (R-Illinois): Fannie Mae understood the rules and simply chose not to follow them that if Fannie Mae had followed the practices, there wouldn t have been a bonus that year. Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Connecticut): And you have about 3% of your portfolio set aside. If a bank gets below 4%, they are in deep trouble. So I just want you to explain to me why I shouldn t be satisfied with 3%? Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae CEO: Because banks don t, there aren t any banks who only have multifamily and single-family loans. Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae CEO: These assets are so riskless that their capital for holding them should be under 2%. January 2005-July 2006Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Nebraska), co-sponsored by Sens. Sununu and Dole and later Sen. McCain, re-introduced legislation to address GSE regulation. The bill prohibited the GSEs from holding portfolios, and gave their regulator prudential authority (such as setting capital requirements) roughly equivalent to a bank regulator. In light of the current financial crisis, this bill was probably the most important piece of financial regulation before Congress in 2005 and 2006, reports the Wall Street Journal.Greenspan testified that the size of GSE portfolios poses a risk to the global financial system. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to bail out the lenders [GSEs] . . . should one get into financial trouble. He added, If we fail to strengthen GSE regulation, we increase the possibility of insolvency and crisis . . . We put at risk our ability to preserve safe and sound financial markets in the United States, a key ingredient of support for homeownership. Greenspan warned that if the GSEs continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road . . . We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk. Bloomberg writes, If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. . . . But the bill didn t become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn t even get the Senate to vote on the matter. That such a reckless political stand could have been taken by the Democrats was obscene even then. April 2005Treasury Secretary John Snow again calls for GSE reform, Events that have transpired since I testified before this Committee in 2003 reinforce concerns over the systemic risks posed by the GSEs and further highlight the need for real GSE reform to ensure that our housing finance system remains a strong and vibrant source of funding for expanding homeownership opportunities in America. . . . Half-measures will only exacerbate the risks to our financial system, from a White House release.May 2005At AEI Online, Wallison warned that allowing Fannie and Freddie to continue on their present course is simply to create risks for the taxpayers, and to the economy generally, in order to improve the profits of their shareholders and the compensation of their managements. It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit. January 2006Chairman Greenspan, in a letter to Sens. Sununu, Hagel and Dole, warned that the GSE practice of buying their own MBS creates substantial systemic risk while yielding negligible additional benefits for homeowners, renters, or mortgage originators. He stated, . . . the GSEs and their government regulator need specific and unambiguous Congressional guidance about the intended purpose and functions of Fannie s and Freddie s investment portfolios. March 2006Sens. Sununu and Hagel introduced an amendment to a Lobbying Reform Bill directing GAO to study GSE lobbying and requiring HUD to audit the GSEs annually.May 2006After years of Democrats blocking the legislation, Sens. Hagel, Sununu, Dole and McCain write a letter to Majority Leader William Frist and Chairman Richard Shelby expressing demanding that GSE regulatory reform be enacted this year to avoid the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the Housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole. May 2006Sen. McCain (R-Arizona) addressed the Senate, Mr. President, this week Fannie Mae s regulator reported that the company s quarterly reports of profit growth over the past few years were illusions deliberately and systematically created by the company s senior management. . . . Fannie Mae used its political power to lobby Congress in an effort to interfere with the regulator s examination of the company s accounting problems. . . . OFHEO s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay. McCain stressed, If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole. I urge my colleagues to support swift action on this GSE reform legislation. April 2007Sens. Sununu, Hagel, Dole, and Mel Martinez (R-Florida) re-introduced legislation to improve GSE oversight.April 2007In A Nightmare Grows Darker, the New York Times writes that the democratization of credit is turning the American dream of homeownership into a nightmare for many borrowers. The newfangled mortgage loans called affordability loans represent 60 percent of foreclosures. September 2007President Bush: These institutions provide liquidity in the mortgage market that benefits millions of homeowners, and it is vital they operate safely and operate soundly. So I ve called on Congress to pass legislation that strengthens independent regulation of the GSEs . . . the United States Senate needs to pass this legislation soon. 2007-2008The housing bubble began to burst, bad mortgages began to default, and finally the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac portfolios were revealed to be what they were, in collapse. And the testimony is evident as to why. As Wallison noted, Fannie and Freddie were, I would say, the poster children for corporate welfare. September 2008Rep. Arthur Davis, whose testimony is found above in October 2004, now admits Democrats were in error: Like a lot of my Democratic colleagues I was too slow to appreciate the recklessness of Fannie and Freddie. I defended their efforts to encourage affordable homeownership when in retrospect I should have heeded the concerns raised by their regulator in 2004. Frankly, I wish my Democratic colleagues would admit when it comes to Fannie and Freddie, we were wrong. Today 2008The narrative is of another socialist experiment failed, this time a massive federal effort, imperiling the whole US banking industry. Facing this economic disaster, will an informed American people put their trust Obama s socialist ideology to bring remedy? To do so is to trust in an acetylene torch to put out the fire. Read more: AMERICAN THINKER

"The geography of poverty has changed fundamentally in the last 15 years," with more of it concentrated in fragile and conflict states.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bernie Sanders’ upstart U.S. presidential campaign may be headed to defeat, but his goals of reining in Wall Street, ending big money in politics and eradicating income inequality were the big winners in the bruising Democratic race. Sanders, who started as a little-known long-shot, pushed the party and established front-runner Hillary Clinton sharply to the left during a long primary battle. Along the way, the 74-year-old U.S. senator from Vermont energized young and progressive voters and prepared the ground for what his allies predict will be a lasting influence on the party. Clinton, one of the best-known political figures in the United States, clinched the Democratic Party’s nomination in a last round of state nominating contests on Tuesday. But even before her victory, Sanders began taking steps to turn his newfound political influence into an enduring progressive movement. In the last few weeks, he has lent his influence and fundraising power to progressive congressional and state legislative candidates who share his agenda, urging his supporters around the country to donate to their campaigns. Sanders also appointed prominent activists to the panel writing the issues platform for the party’s convention in July, ensuring a strong voice in the process. His convention delegates will push for changes to party primary rules, including letting independents vote in primaries and reducing the influence of superdelegates, the hundreds of party elites who can support any candidate regardless of voting in their constituencies, and who in this primary season have largely backed Clinton. “I do think we are going to see real changes in the Democratic Party going forward because of Bernie. The future of the party is with the people supporting Sanders,” said Charles Chamberlain, executive director of Democracy for America, a liberal Vermont-based group that rose from Howard Dean’s failed 2004 presidential bid and endorsed Sanders this time. “He has proven the power of this message,” Chamberlain said. During the campaign, Sanders forced Clinton to tack left repeatedly on issues ranging from her support for a higher minimum wage to her opposition to the Asian trade pact and Keystone XL oil pipeline. Sanders’ progressive allies said those shifts by Clinton will be helpful in the Nov. 8 election against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has touted an anti-trade and pro-jobs economic agenda, and for Democrats in their efforts to recapture a majority in the U.S. Senate. “When the story of the 2016 election is told, a major part of it will be that Bernie Sanders helped the Democratic Party turn up the volume on economic populism issues,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the liberal Progressive Change Campaign Committee. If Democrats win back the Senate in the November election, Sanders will be in line for either the chairmanship of the Budget Committee or the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, both powerful platforms to advance his ideas. Chamberlain said Sanders would create a formidable one-two punch in the Senate with Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts senator who has been the leader of the party’s progressive wing. “Bernie Sanders is going to fight all the good fights,” he said. “With Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren we’re going to see a Senate team that will be very powerful.” Sanders’ investment in the next generation of progressive politicians, meanwhile, is aimed at spawning a new generation of liberals who back his agenda. He has sent emails to his grassroots fundraising list urging his donors to back six insurgent congressional candidates and eight statehouse candidates who echo his economic message, sparking a flood of donations to their campaigns. More endorsements are expected. “Our movement is so powerful that we can change congressional elections overnight. Let’s keep going,” Sanders said on Tuesday in an email to supporters asking them to support two more candidates for Congress - Eric Kingson in New York and Paul Clements in Michigan. Justin Bamberg, a first-term state representative from South Carolina, said he received about $70,000 in small-dollar donations after Sanders sent an email to his supporters backing Bamberg. In Bamberg’s first campaign, he raised $21,000 during the entire cycle, he said. “They don’t know me from Adam, but they believe in Senator Sanders, and because of that they believe in the people that Senator Sanders has supported,” Bamberg said, adding he was also getting calls offering to volunteer on his behalf. Terry Alexander, a South Carolina state representative backed by Sanders, said he also had received about $70,000 in donations after the Sanders email. The money freed him from worrying about raising funds, giving him more time to focus on meeting voters, he said. “It has made a difference in how people see my candidacy, it’s created a lot of enthusiasm and a tremendous boost in fundraising,” he said.

For a long time now, the mainstream media has avoided questioning Donald Trump about the questionable relationship between a donation he made to the Attorney General in Florida and her decision to give his allegedly fraudulent Trump University a pass. After progressives complained about the issue on social media, the press has finally begun asking Trump about the details of his gift to Pam Bondi, which was recently flagged as a violation of the law by the IRS, resulting in a fine.Asked about the cash gift and the later favor delivered by Bondi, Trump immediately got caught in an inconvenient lie. I never spoke to her, first of all. She s a fine person, beyond reproach. I never even spoke to her about it at all. She s a fine person. Never spoken to her about it, never, Trump said Monday while campaigning in Ohio. Many of the attorney generals turned that case down because I ll win that case in court. Many turned that down. I never spoke to her. Marc Reichelderfer who worked as a consultant on Bondi s reelection effort told the Associated Press in June that Bondi spoke with Trump and solicited the donation herself. Reichelderfer said that Bondi had not been aware of the complaints against Trump University when she asked for the contribution.Trump doesn t have to have spoken with Bondi about his donation to her for it to be clear evidence of a pay for play scandal, but it is telling that as usual his first, off the cuff remark about Bondi turns out to have been false.Trump also made a donation to the attorney general in Texas, who then dropped a probe of Trump University, and it is unknown how many other government officials got nice checks from Trump before they made decisions about his business interests.But we do know that his first instinct was to tell an easily provable lie.Featured image via YouTube

Arnold Schwarzenegger “Shocked” About Eliza Dushku’s ‘True Lies’ Allegations, Calls Her “So Courageous”

Nick Viall: Why January Jones Turned Down Her Bachelor Crush's Offer

“@MichaelSkolnik: Mike Brown was to start studying at Vatterott College on Monday. #Ferguson” so sad..

@noisykafir @kvkv_ @froomkin you need to love urself a bit 😂 why so burnt man , go enjoy life a bit

Ben Affleck and Lindsay Shookus step out for coffee date

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Ben Carson, a retired neurosurgeon who made a failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination, to oversee the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. Referred to as HUD, the agency had a budget of $48 billion in 2016 and is best known for the administration of public housing

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell told Reuters on Wednesday he expects bipartisan support for approval of a bill authorizing taxpayer and industry funding for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The bill to reauthorize the Prescription Drug User Fee Act would let the FDA continue to collect hundreds of millions of dollars from drugmakers and medical device companies to partially cover the cost of reviewing new products, with U.S. taxpayers funding the remainder. “It’s an extremely important bill that I think we’ll be able to move on a bipartisan basis,” McConnell said in an interview. [L1N1IQ1CH] The FDA has been charging companies to review their products since 1992. On Tuesday, President Donald Trump proposed in his 2018 budget that the industry pay the full cost of drug and medical device reviews. The industry at present pays about 60 percent. That proposal is unlikely to be approved in this cycle. Reauthorization of the user fee bill is typically negotiated between the FDA and industry over a period of several years. Earlier this month, the bill was approved by a Senate panel by a 21-2 vote. It must be renegotiated every five years. The FDA reviews drugs for approval or rejection for many companies, including major ones such as Pfizer Inc, Merck & Co Inc and Johnson and Johnson. Pharmaceutical companies based overseas, including Roche Holding AG and Novartis AG, also pay these fees for U.S.-approved drugs.

Kellogg Company, the nation’s largest breakfast cereal manufacturer, is again announcing major cut backs and has slashed its sales forecast as profits continue to fall. [On February 9 the company cut its sales projections for the year after experiencing another quarterly decline. The company imagined it would have flat sales but instead found a two percent decline. “For the quarter ended Dec. 31, Kellogg reported a loss of $53 million, or 15 cents per share,” the Associated Press reported on Thursday. “Not including items, it said it earned 92 cents per share. Analysts expected a profit of 85 cents per share. Total sales were $3. 1 billion, slightly better than expected revenue of $3. 07 billion. ” But that wasn’t the only cuts Kellogg Co. reported this week. The company also told investors and employees that big cuts in facilities and workers are coming. On Wednesday the company announced it was closing a large number of distribution centers across the U. S. and that layoffs would result, WKBN reported. Some insiders have said Kellogg’s is looking to cut sales representatives, merchandisers, and shuttering as many as 39 distribution centers. Kellogg spokesman Kris Charles released a statement saying the move is a “difficult decision. ” While this is the right move for the company to achieve our objectives, it was a difficult decision because of its impact on employees. On average, our distribution centers employ approximately 30 workers. As the distribution shifts from our network to our retailers’ networks, so too will the work. We’ve been actively engaged in conversations with some of our biggest retail partners who have expressed strong interest in hiring these employees for roles once the transition is complete. As a result, we are optimistic that our employees will find similar employment once this transition is complete so the net impact is impossible to quantify. As the affected employees work throughout the U. S. this change will not have a sizable impact on any one community. ” The closures and layoffs are to be completed by the fourth quarter of this year, the company said. John Bryant, Kellogg Company Chairman, and CEO, said that the “retail landscape continues to change” and Kellogg has to keep up with that shift. “We have to change the way we reach and communicate with consumers. Because our customers’ and our own warehouse distribution systems have become more efficient and effective, we can now redeploy resources previously tied to DSD and direct them to the kinds of brand investments that drive greater demand with today’s consumers − ultimately growing our business and our retailers’ businesses,” he said. This latest move is on top of the major cuts already announced this year. Early in January Kellogg Co. announced it was firing 250 workers. The continued moves to scale back the company comes after Kellogg’s decided to cut its advertising with Breitbart News at the end of 2016, thereby snubbing Breitbart’s 45, 000, 000 readers. In November, Kellogg’s noted that Breitbart News’s conservative readers are not “aligned with our values as a company. ” While the decision by Kellogg’s to cease advertising made virtually no revenue impact on Breitbart. com. it did represent an escalation in the war by companies like Target and Allstate against conservative customers whose values propelled Donald Trump into the White House. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com.

The Queen of the DNC is in big trouble 1000+ Berners walked out CA is GONE UT Gone Oregon Gone ..& more #DNCWalkOut 1/2 empty #Demexit https://t.co/1uG9312AS6 #AllLivesMatter (@BootStrapzOrg) July 27, 2016

Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. Security Question: What is 4 + 2 ? Please leave these two fields as-is: IMPORTANT! To be able to proceed, you need to solve the following simple math (so we know that you are a human) :-) Doom and Bloom

Kailyn Lowry Sets The Record Straight: “I Didn’t Leave Javi For Anyone”

Scott Wallace wants to tax families of five for 'irresponsible breeding'

@Rae_B88 @lordxmen2k Had to...he was headed for a Gun Show.

Overkill in #Ferguson. Officer won't answer my question about why this is needed. http://t.co/izk1lrzB7x"

A headline alleges that the first pregnant woman with coronavirus gave birth in Macedonia.

ANKARA (Reuters) - Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday Tehran would stick to its 2015 nuclear accord with world powers as long as the other signatories respected it, but would shred the deal if Washington pulled out, state TV reported. Khamenei spoke five days after U.S. President Donald Trump adopted a harsh new approach to Iran by refusing to certify its compliance with the deal, reached under Trump s predecessor Barack Obama, and saying he might ultimately terminate it. I don t want to waste my time on answering the rants and whoppers of the brute (U.S.) president, Khamenei said in a speech to students in Tehran quoted by state television. Trump s stupidity should not distract us from America s deceitfulness ... If the U.S. tears up the deal, we will shred it ... Everyone should know that once again America will receive a slap in its mouth and will be defeated by Iranians. Trump s move put Washington at odds with other parties to the accord - Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union - who say Washington cannot unilaterally cancel an international accord enshrined by a U.N. resolution. Khamenei, who has the final say on Iran s state matters, welcomed European support but said it was not sufficient. European states stressed their backing for the deal and condemned Trump ... We welcomed this, but it is not enough to ask Trump not to rip up the agreement. Europe needs to stand against practical measures (taken) by America. Under the deal, Iran agreed to curb its disputed uranium enrichment program in return for relief from international sanctions that crippled its economy, and U.N. nuclear inspectors have repeatedly certified Tehran s compliance with the terms. Trump accuses Iran of supporting terrorism and says the 2015 deal does not do enough to block its path to acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran says it does not seek nuclear arms and in turn blames the growth of militant groups such as Islamic State on the policies of the United States and its regional allies. In decertifying the nuclear deal last week, Trump gave the U.S. Congress 60 days to decide whether to reimpose economic sanctions on Tehran that were lifted under the pact. In a major shift in U.S. policy, Trump also said Washington will take a more confrontational approach to Iran over its ballistic missile program and its support for extremist groups in the Middle East. Tehran has repeatedly pledged to continue what it calls a defensive missile capability in defiance of Western criticism. The United States has said Iran s stance violates the 2015 deal in spirit as missiles could be tipped with nuclear weapons. Tehran has said it seeks only civilian nuclear energy from its enrichment of uranium, and that the program has nothing to do with missile development efforts. EU foreign ministers on Monday urged U.S. lawmakers not to reimpose sanctions on Tehran but also discussed Iran s missile program, which they want to see dismantled. They must avoid interfering in our defense program ... We do not accept that Europe sings along with America s bullying and its unreasonable demands, Khamenei said. They (Europeans) ask why does Iran have missiles? Why do you have missiles yourselves? Why do you have nuclear weapons? The Trump administration has imposed new unilateral sanctions targeting Iran s missile activity. It has called on Tehran not to develop missiles capable of delivering nuclear bombs. Iran says it has no such plans. Iran has one of the biggest ballistic missile programs in the Middle East, viewing it as an essential precautionary defense against the United States and other adversaries, primarily Gulf Arab states and Israel. Americans are angry because the Islamic Republic of Iran has managed to thwart their plots in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and other countries in the region, Khamenei said. Supporters of the deal fear Trump s decision to decertify the deal could eventually unravel it, causing more tension in the crisis-hit Middle East, where Shi ite Iran is involved in a decades long proxy war with U.S. ally Sunni Saudi Arabia. If the deal falls apart, Iran s anti-Western hardliners will gain authority in a backlash against pragmatic President Hassan Rouhani, who engineered the accord to help end Iran s political and economic isolation, analysts and insiders say.

Atrocities such as the horrific shooting in Charleston provoke heartrending anguish and grief in people everywhere. However, for members of the black community who have too often experienced senseless violence due to racial hatred, our sorrow is visceral and makes us question whether our country will ever be free of racial animus. The answer is no. Not because America is inherently racist or because it is not a just society. Rather, it is because racial hatred is premised on evil — an evil that takes over rational thought, thereby allowing irrational and destructive thinking to cloud one's judgment. It is this same evil that took the lives of four beautiful school girls in Birmingham, Alabama, more than 50 years ago, and it is the same evil that will always be present in the hearts and minds of some people. In light of this, what, as a country, are we to do? As I try to answer this, I imagine myself as one of Reverend Pinckney's congregants sitting on the pews of Emanuel AME Church studying the Word on that fateful night. I imagine posing the question to him. I imagine hearing him provide the following answer: "We are to do as Christ teaches us. We are to love. We are to treat others the way we would want to be treated, and we are to forgive those who trespass against us." Although many of us have been taught these lessons since childhood, it is admittedly very difficult to put them into practice during heartbreaking times such as this. However, this is not only what we are called to do but also what we must do in order to heal racial tensions that threaten the progress our country has made. Here in South Carolina, there has been much improvement in the racial climate, particularly as it relates to whites and blacks. State officials took swift and just action against former police officer Michael Slager in the death of Walter Scott, and the General Assembly recently passed new legislation requiring body cameras for all state and local law enforcement officers. However, disagreements on issues ranging from the placement of the Confederate flag on state grounds to the racial and economic disparities in educational opportunities remain. When discussing these and other race-related issues, starting from a place of love and empathy instead of accusation and distrust can help move us forward to a place of mutual understanding and advancement. As a black community, we cannot let our pain and anger harden our hearts such that we stop engaging in meaningful dialogues about race relations with others who neither look like us or think like us. The white community cannot retreat from the uncomfortable conversations about race, or harden their hearts to the painful experiences that blacks and other minorities have endured and continue to endure on a daily basis. If we are to combat the evil that darkened Mother Emanuel's door, we must learn from her and interact with one another in the same loving and welcoming spirit as she has shown for nearly 200 years. May God's love provide comfort to the victims' families and to our country during this difficult time.

During a private speech to journalists, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull let his inner comedian shine with a hilarious impersonation of Donald Trump. Not only does he nail the dialogue, he perfectly executes the portrayal down to Donald s awkward and childlike arrogance. The Donald and I, we are winning and winning in the polls, he said Wednesday in a leaked video. We are winning so much, we are winning, we are winning like we have never won before. The Journalists in attendance had agreed not to report or share the brilliant mockery they witnessed that night, but an editor from Nine Network couldn t help but share this gem with the world. I have this Russian guy. Believe me, it s true, it is true, added Turnbull, alluding to the Russian scandal playing out in the White House.In the wake of the backlash from the leaked video, Turnbull told Melbourne Talk Radio that his mockery was a light-hearted jest and a good-humored roast. He thinks people should lighten up about it.You can pretty much guarantee Trump won t be lightening up about this genius comedy act making fun of him in the best way possible. When respected world leaders are trying their hand at stand-up comedy to make fun of Trump, he s probably not going to take it lightly.Check out this amazing piece of comedy that is sure to go down in history as one of the great Trump portrayals:Featured image via screen capture

Muslims @ChuckCJohnson #CharlieHebdo Terrorists Attended Radical Mosque Paris http://t.co/bxmUldmtSc #JeSuisCharlie http://t.co/c5XpU0HYtk

This post was originally published on this site Russia calls on Western countries to persuade Ukraine to carry out its obligations as part of the Minsk settlement process, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday in remarks announcing preparations for four-way talks next week. “Russia sees its task in encouraging Western partners who have influence on the leadership of Ukraine to urge Kiev to strictly follow the obligations assumed in the framework of the Minsk process,” the ministry said. The ministry said it was preparing for Normandy format talks in the Belarusian capital of Minsk next Tuesday, November 29, after receiving an invitation from Germany and France. DONi News Agency

by brandon turbeville in the latest development in the johnson johnson talcum powder saga a st louis jury has awarded a california woman over

“Be ye therefore perfect . . . even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Let’s compare Christ with the perfected Sufi. First, what are Christ’s teachings on the attainment of perfection? Almost everyone is familiar with Jesus’ teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. We have all heard of the Master’s injunction to his disciples: “Love thine enemy” and “Turn the other cheek.” These verses from the Gospel of St Matthew are perhaps the most quoted verses in the New Testament: “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you: Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others ? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Matt. 5:38-48) Here is a sufi story that addresses the very same concept, but in a different manner; that of strength as opposed to what is typically perceived as weakness. Don’t just read the story, reflect on it, extend it out in your mind and see where it takes you. In that search, you will discover issues within yourself that must be addressed. There once was a sufi master who was a soldier. During a protracted war, he was at one point engaged in fierce, mortal combat. In the thick of furious battle, he finally overcame a vicious, determined foe. Besting the enemy and driving him to ground, the sufi closed in for the kill. At the very moment he was about to deliver a fatal thrust of his sword to the neck of his prostrate enemy, his foe cried out in anguish, “Ah, If only I had your sword for a single moment, how different things would be!” At once the sufi stopped his attack and surrendered his sword to his fallen enemy. The soldier was dumbfounded. Taking the sword from the sufi, he said: “Why did you do this? You could have killed me! I was lost, and now you stop and present me with your sword! Why would you do such a stupid thing? — for it is now I who will kill you! ” The sufi shrugged. “I come from a family that grants any request, no matter how great,” he replied cooly. “You asked for my sword. I am honor bound to fulfill your request.” The fallen soldier rose, and recognizing the sufi as a perfected master, returned his sword to him. Falling at the feet of the man who had just spared his life, he asked to become his disciple. From that day forth, he followed the sufi as his master. Like this? Share it now.

21st Century Wire says Yesterday, we were told by US media that one of the country s key military installations, Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, home of the president s Air Force One airliner, was in lockdown following reports of an Active Shooter situation.While the entire US media went into orange alert mode for over 2 and a half hours, 21WIRE recognized exactly what it was, a drill, and called it correctly while the news was breaking. We re told that initial reports of a active shooter were prompted by an emergency 911 call to outside law enforcement about a gunman seen on the base. The fact that this alleged distress call came from a staff member at the Malcolm Grow Medical Facility located inside Andrews (one of the country s most secure closed military facilities) should have raised some pertinent questions like why base security were not informed first, as one would expect. Furthermore, any reports by the US mainstream media characterizing the event as a genuine active shooter crisis should have been immediately squashed by the fact that Joint Base Andrews was also running a no-notice Active Shooter Exercise scheduled for 9 am that morning. Sadly, this did not happen, and all US media outlets began their crisis reporting complete with the usual panel of security experts and justice correspondents on CNN and other mainstream networks.21WIRE Calls it CorrectlyWhile the US media was reporting the base was in full lockdown and appeared confused about what to make of the situation, 21WIRE analyst Patrick Henningsen appeared on RT International while the story was breaking, offering a very different take on the event than what was being reported at the time throughout the US media. Here s what he said:PART 1: PART 2: Finally, 1 hour later, US authorities finally admitted that it was only a drill and that the dramatic lockdown had been lifted.Some might say this was not a hard event to call, and in fact was a no-brainer and in this case they would be correct. For any keen student of false flags and high-profile mass shootings in recent years, it was overtly obvious what kind of drama was playing out.The real story however, is how the entire US media transformed into one giant web of media disinformation amplification from the moment the false media reports and official Tweets from the US military hit the news wires without even pausing to consider that they were all knowing, or unknowing (but certainly willing) participants within their media/press compartment of the so-called Active Shooter drill.JBA is currently on lockdown due to a report of an active shooter. All personnel are directed to shelter in place. More info as it comes. Joint Base Andrews (@JBA_NAFW) June 30, 2016The mainstream media did their level best to use this falsely presented nonevent in order to reinforce the federal government s prime PR compliance directives; a running list of mindless Orwellian police state throw away slogans like, See something, say something, and Shelter in place. The end result of all this is a public who are unnecessarily traumatized, or subjected to psychological stress, in effect terrorizing the public, as a result of poor media reporting and dereliction of journalism by a media profession who are all too happy to go along with a high TV ratings draw of a Active Shooter narrative.Rather amazingly, one reporter from CBS News even admitted that the national lockdown scare did not even interrupt that day s drill and that their on-base Active Shooter exercise would continue throughout the day. This should provide as much evidence as one would need to deduce that the media scare was indeed part of the drill itself, although this concept might prove just too difficult to grasp for any US mainstream news anchor or reporter. Watch the CBS report here: What happened is a common thing, it s just, you know, it s sort of the times we live in there were two personnel carrying rifles, long guns, someone in the medical center saw that and phoned in there was a shooter on the base Williams then brushed the misreporting off as normal, before also parroting the tired mantra, When you see something, say something. Watch as a confused Williams tries to rationalize the day s over-the-top media debacle: Luckily, it did not, but yesterdays event does raise some very crucial questions about the highly reactionary and irrational nature of our security-obsessed media, and a police state fusion apparatus which spends hundreds of millions of taxpayer funds each year in order prepare for some ubiquitous threat which statistically does not actually threaten very many Americans and yet seems to overly-dominate media coverage, as well the operating budgets government agencies and first responder cohorts nationwide.The following is a short video which every American should watch, which explains some of the more worrying aspects of America s new obsession with domestic hyper militarized responses in preparation for what seems like an endless stream of mass shooting and domestic terror events: Support our work and Become a Member @ 21WIRE.TV

Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi’s Marriage At Breaking Point: Portia Removes Wedding Ring – Report

October 27, 2016 @ 11:59 am I’m voting for him – but will be very quiet about it. I believe there Are many out there who are doing the same. Islam is not gay-friendly. It’s the leftist idiot who would believe that it is despite a mountain of evidence showing the truth about Islam. However – too many follow the company line. It is getting very demanding these days, and frankly very strange. But doesn’t the left always do that? Whatever problem there is within the right – at least there is enough room, and more than the case now with the left. Well – at least for this ‘cis’ white male. AndyT October 27, 2016 @ 11:39 am As a gay man I despair of my fellow gays. Here in the UK most have this “poor refugee” mentality. By time the penny finally drops it will be too late BareNakedIslam October 27, 2016 @ 12:34 pm Andy, while the majority still have that “poor refugee” mentality, I have seen a number of gay people commenting here and/or emailing me who know the truth. They’re just afraid of the ridicule they will get by talking about it in within their liberal circles. Manual Paleologos October 27, 2016 @ 10:56 am The irony is that the LGBTQWERTY community is almost uniformly liberal. They support the people who are stoning them, throwing them from buildings, and hanging them. They have ceded any influence with the political Right, as no matter what the Right does, they will not get any meaningful Gay support. That means that just or unjust, there is absolutely no upside to supporting Gay issues. There is a small upside from the Christian Right, to pissing on them. Meanwhile, although we disagree on some major issues, we are probably their best friends. We are the people who would die to protect them.

Savagely murdering innocent people brings only shame, not honor. Monsters. #CharlieHebdo

■ Donald J. Trump is postponing until January his announcement about how he will handle his private business interests. ■ The Clinton campaign breaks its silence and demands declassification of the intelligence on Russian election meddling. ■ Mr. Trump takes to Twitter to deny Russian involvement in his victory. ■ Senator John McCain says there is no doubt about Russian hacking, which he called “warfare. ” ■ Carly Fiorina for director of national intelligence? She certainly took the ’s line on China. For those waiting to see Mr. Trump hold a news conference to discuss the ethical concerns about conflicts with his business, you’ll have to wait a little longer. Transition officials said on Monday evening that they were postponing a news conference scheduled for Thursday at which Mr. Trump had said he would reveal his plans to avoid conflicts of interest with his sprawling real estate business. The instead will make that announcement in January — likely before his inauguration and after an extended vacation at his resort in Florida — officials said, confirming a report in Bloomberg News. Officials said the focus on building a cabinet had consumed more of Mr. Trump’s time than expected. And they said that it was taking time to address how to address the large, iconic real estate holdings that are part of the global Trump business. As the swirl of allegations around Russia’s efforts to elect Mr. Trump roils Washington, one voice has been absent: Hillary Clinton’s. John D. Podesta, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, broke the silence on her behalf, demanding the declassification of all information about Russia’s meddling as well as an explanation from the Obama administration of what it knew and when it knew it. “We now know that the C. I. A. has determined Russia’s interference in our elections was for the purpose of electing Donald Trump,” Mr. Podesta wrote in a statement. “This should distress every American. Never before in the history of our republic have we seen such an effort to undermine the bedrock of our democracy. ” “This is not a partisan issue, and we are glad to see bipartisan support in the Congress for an investigation into Russia’s role,” he continued. “We believe that the administration owes it to the American people to explain what it knows regarding the extent and manner of Russia’s interference and this be done as soon as possible. To that end, we also support the request from members of the Senate Intelligence Committee to declassify information around Russia’s roles in the election and to make this data available to the public. ” Thrown on the defensive, Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said on Monday that the White House did not announce a major probe of Russia’s interference before the election partly because many voters would have seen such an announcement as political meddling. He said Russia did not hack the electoral process or the counting of votes. “But what is also clear is that the results of the hack and leak effort carried out on the orders of Russia were extensively discussed prior to the election,” Mr. Earnest said. With evidence mounting that Russian intelligence promoted his election, the continued his denial, via Twitter. That second post is a head scratcher. The United States government formally accused Russia of trying to sow discord in the democratic process through its hacking in early October. It stopped short of saying the goal was to elect Mr. Trump. And forensic analysis does allow experts to trace the source of a hack. Oh, and fresh off his shot at Boeing over the cost of an Air Force One upgrade, Mr. Trump took a jab at another expensive military program, the stealth fighter. On that one, he will have bipartisan support — just not in congressional districts where the fighter is built. Mr. McCain said on Monday that there was “no doubt about the hacking” by Russian intelligence services into Democratic campaign accounts, which he called “another form of warfare. ” Appearing on “CBS This Morning” with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the next minority leader, Mr. McCain said the investigation of Russian meddling in the election would include his committee as well as the Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees. He said a Senate investigation would be necessary despite President Obama having already ordered up an inquiry, as that one would not be completed before the end of the Obama administration. The implication was that the new Trump administration would not follow through. “We don’t want to point a finger, and I don’t want this to turn into the Benghazi investigation,” Mr. Schumer added, referring to the House investigation into the attacks on an American compound in Libya, which he said had been partisan. “This is serious stuff. ” One week before the Electoral College meets to ratify Mr. Trump’s election victory, 10 electors — including a Texas Republican who has turned on Mr. Trump, and Christine Pelosi, the daughter of Representative Nancy Pelosi — have demanded their own intelligence briefing on Russian efforts to elect Mr. Trump. Their request: Ms. Fiorina, the former chief executive, emerged from a meeting with the at Trump Tower on Monday to talk tough, not on Russia but on China, which she called “our most important adversary and a rising adversary. ” Ms. Fiorina was called in to discuss the job of director of national intelligence, a senior transition official said. And Ms. Fiorina, once a bitter foe of Mr. Trump’s, was effusive. “We talked about hacking, whether it’s Chinese hacking or purported Russian hacking,” she said. “We talked about the opportunity that the has to literally reset things, to reset the trajectory of this economy, to reset the role of government, to reset America’s role in the world and how we’re perceived in the world. And I think it’s why he’s getting such fantastic people in his administration. ” Mr. Trump and Ms. Fiorina clashed bitterly when she ran against him for the Republican nomination. Mr. Trump denigrated her appearance last year in an interview with Rolling Stone, saying, “Look at that face!” Ms. Fiorina briefly agreed to be Senator Ted Cruz’s running mate before he, too, was vanquished by the eventual nominee. All appears to be forgiven. “First I want to say, he has really cool stuff in his office,” she said. “All of these athletes have given him all this incredible memorabilia. I was particular taken by Shaq O’Neal’s shoe, which is huge. I guess it takes a champion to know a champion. ” Three days ago, an image calling for the extermination of Muslims was posted on former Representative Allen West’s Facebook page. The outrage prompted an aide to Mr. West, a former Army lieutenant colonel, to claim credit and take the image down. The outrage wasn’t too great to deny Mr. West another audience with the on Monday at Trump Tower. Nor was it enough to prompt a question from the reporters in the Trump Tower lobby, though they did ask Mr. West about Russian efforts to elect Mr. Trump president. Reporters: Should there be a bipartisan investigation of Russia hacking? Mr. West: “I think there are more important things. We’re about to see a collapse in Syria, Iraq is falling apart. the Iran nuclear deal is horrific. China and Russia are expanding. I think that’s where we need to focus your intelligence efforts. ” The Trump transition team officially named Gary D. Cohn, the longtime president and chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs, to be the director of the White House National Economic Council. After a campaign full of attacks on Wall Street — and Goldman Sachs in particular — Mr. Trump will have Goldman’s No. 2 in the West Wing and a former Goldman partner, Steven Mnuchin, next door at Treasury, if he is confirmed. But the transition team tried to find something inspirational in the latest multimillionaire: That is one of the rare moments where Shaker Heights, an affluent suburb of Cleveland, is mined for inspirational struggle. Mr. Trump is looking at appointing a rising Republican star from South Dakota, Representative Kristi Noem, as his secretary of agriculture, a senior official working on the transition said Monday. The transition team is vetting Ms. Noem now, and she is scheduled to meet with Mr. Trump this week. Ms. Noem, 45, would be one of the younger members of Mr. Trump’s cabinet — a group that so far consists mostly of older men. She has been planning to leave Congress at the end of her next term in 2018 to run for governor of South Dakota. Another name floated for the agriculture job, Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, is being considered for a variety of jobs, including energy secretary. Because she is a Democrat — and would likely be replaced in the Senate by a Republican — the transition official said she could essentially have “whatever job she wants. ” Speaking of roles, the former Texas governor, Rick Perry, who wanted to eliminate the Department of Energy but could not remember its name on live television, has emerged as a leading candidate for energy secretary. Although Texas is rich in energy and Mr. Perry is big on extracting it, he cannot afford too many “oops moments” if he is named to that post. The Energy Department’s primary role is to design nuclear weapons and ensure the safety and reliability of the nation’s aging nuclear arsenal — through a constellation of scientific laboratories. The two men who served as President Obama’s energy secretaries were scientists, one with a Nobel Prize, the other from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mr. Trump is also looking at two other possibilities for energy secretary. He likes Senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota — both Democrats — for the job. Both are under tremendous pressure from fellow Democrats not to accept a cabinet job.

Lamar Odom’s GF Slams Blac Chyna For Partying Amidst Rumors Kardashian Exes Are Dating

Donald Trump and his team are getting absolutely hammered for their lies or as they called it alternate facts. And rightfully so Trump hasn t even been President for a week and his team is already proving to be riddled with falsehoods and a complete lack of transparency.On Monday, new White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer gave a truly infuriating response during his first White House press conference. When a member of the press asked Spicer if he could produce some sort of proof to validate the claims that Trump had resigned from his businesses, America got a terrifying look at what the next four years were going to bring.Spicer said I believe we have to a question regarding documents showing that Trump had handed his businesses over to his two sons. However, White House staffer Hope Hicks jumped in and stated that these documents are not public. Spicer continued: Yeah, but he has resigned from the company as he said he would before he took office. Don and Eric are fully in charge of the company. He s taking extraordinary steps to ensure that that s happened. So once again, we have more and more secrecy from Trump s team combined with a lack of kept promises to the American people. It should be noted that ProPublica stated that Trump has not stepped away from his businesses at all.As of last Friday, ProPublica examined several of Trump s major companies. These companies were registered in three different states Florida, Delaware and New York. These states make changes to companies almost instantly documents are pretty much added to the system immediately or within a day or two at the latest. However, when ProPublica spoke to officials in these states recently, it was discovered that Trump has not submitted any filings to transfer the control of his companies to his sons.You can watch Spicer lie through his teeth below:Featured image via Alex Wong / Getty Images

Robert Pattinson, Chris Pratt & More Stars Who Dream of Going Off the Grid

Home › WORLD NEWS › VENEZUELAN OPPOSITION ANNOUNCES HISTORIC MARCH AGAINST PRESIDENT MADURO VENEZUELAN OPPOSITION ANNOUNCES HISTORIC MARCH AGAINST PRESIDENT MADURO 0 SHARES [10/27/16] The Venezuelan opposition announced a national strike planned for Friday, October 28 and warned President Nicolás Maduro’s adminstration that it will hold another November 3 that leads to the Presidential Palace of Miraflores if a date is not set for the recall referendum postponed indefinitely early this year. “We demand the government reverse this unconstitutional decision,” said Governor of the state of Miranda and leader of the opposition Henrique Capriles. “Either you return the constitutional order or we’re going to Miraflores on November 3.” Capriles stressed that people are willing to go out into the streets to defend the constitution. “Tell (President of the National Electoral Council) Tibisay Lucena that in the coming hours, she has to announce the date of an election and let the people decide because if we remain in this coup attitude next week … the people will mobilize at Miraflores,” the opposition leader said. Post navigation

Remember when college campuses were considered a safe space for political and social debate?DePaul University will no longer allow students to chalk political messages on the sidewalks of its campus because of the offensive, hurtful, and divisive nature of pro-Trump chalking found on campus last week. While these chalk messages are part of national agendas in a heated political battle, they appeared on campus at a time of significant racial tension in our country and on college campuses. DePaul is no exception, Depaul s vice president for student affairs Eugene Zdziarski wrote in a campus-wide email obtained by Campus Reform. The university has been addressing campus climate issues in an effort to provide an inclusive and supportive educational environment. In this context, many students, faculty and staff found the chalk messages offensive, hurtful and divisive. Consequently, Zdziarski explained that DePaul s status as a 501(c)3 tax-exempt non-profit organization prohibits students from participating in any political activity that could be interpreted as a reflection of the university s views or opinions. Political chalking on Depaul s grounds, Zdziarski argued, fits this description.Last week, Depaul s College Republicans organized a chalking campaign on campus, during which phrases such as Make DePaul great again, Blue Lives Matter, and Trump Train 2016 were scrawled on the sidewalks.The campus grounds crew removed the chalkings the following morning but cited routine maintenance as one of the reasons for their removal. After some investigation, it turns out this happened for two reasons, the university wrote in a statement. First, the crew regularly cleans up chalk messages on our sidewalks. This is a part of their duties. Secondly, some among the crew considered the messages inflammatory. The crew has agreed to consult about such matters in the future. Although the grounds crew regularly cleans up chalk messages, meaning DePaul students regularly chalk their campus sidewalks, this appears to be the first time university officials have expressly addressed their chalking policies. Zdziarski noted, after the Trump chalkings appeared, that students are not even allowed to chalk on sidewalks at all. Students or student organizations may not post partisan political flyers, posters, signs or images on University bulletin board, buildings, electronic message boards, forums or sidewalks. This includes chalking on campus property, he said.Via: Campus Reform

Episode #199 of SUNDAY WIRE SHOW resumes on Aug 20th, 2017 as host Patrick Henningsen brings you this week s LIVE broadcast on the Alternate Current Radio Network covering all the top news stories both at home and internationally LISTEN LIVE ON THIS PAGE AT THE FOLLOWING SCHEDULED SHOW TIMES:5pm-8pm UK Time | 12pm-3pm ET (US) | 9am-12am PT (US) This week we deliver another LIVE broadcast from the UK, as SUNDAY WIRE host Patrick Henningsen is joined by two incredible guests to discuss the disturbing political situation in America. In the first hour we ll be joined by artist and the brilliant and controversial best-selling author and internationally acclaimed jazz artist, Gilad Atzmon, to discuss Charlottesville and the problem of Left vs Right identity politics in the West, as well its roots in Jewish ID politics, and how society might be able overcome the downward spiral it currently finds itself in. In the second hour we re joined by author and analyst, Jay Dyer, from JaysAnalysis.com to talk about America s new culture wars and why Leftist activists are now pulling down statues across the country and how this might accelerate to more censorship and ceremonial book burning activities. In the final segment, we hear a thought-provoking interview with an American man who managed to turn from hating all Muslims to adopting a more open-minded, civil approach to dialogue proving that communication is the key to conflict resolution. Our guest Gilad Atzmon s book, Being In Time: A Post Political Manifesto is available now on: Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and gilad.co.uk. Also guest Jay Dyer s book, Esoteric Hollywood: Sex, Cults and Symbols in Film is available now at Amazon.com. SUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TVStrap yourselves in and lower the blast shield this is your brave new world *NOTE: THIS EPISODE MAY CONTAIN STRONG LANGUAGE AND MATURE THEMES*Download Episode #199Sunday Wire Radio Show Archives

@Independent no not quite, entirely so.Almost exclaimed "Jesus wept!" But....damn!!

« L’art de la guerre » Comment voter « Non » aux armes nucléaires par Manlio Dinucci Les États-Unis viennent de faire rejeter —par leurs alliés au sein du Premier comité de l’Assemblée générale de l’Onu— une proposition visant à l’élimination totale des armes nucléaires. Cependant, il est possible pour les États abritant illégalement des bombes atomiques états-uniennes d’en exiger leur retrait de leur territoire en application de l’article 2 du Traité de non-prolifération. Réseau Voltaire | Rome (Italie) | 2 novembre 2016 italiano « Merci, président Obama. L’Italie va continuer avec une grande détermination son engagement pour la sécurité nucléaire » : c’est ce qu’écrivait le Premier ministre Matteo Renzi dans un message tweeter historique. Six mois après, aux Nations Unies, Renzi a voté « Oui » aux armes nucléaires. Se mettant à la queue des USA, le gouvernement italien s’est rangé contre la Résolution, approuvée à grande majorité dans le premier comité de l’Assemblée générale, qui demande la convocation en 2017 d’une conférence des Nations Unies pour « négocier un outil légalement contraignant pour la prohibition des armes nucléaires, qui amène à leur élimination totale ». Le gouvernement italien a ainsi mangé son chapeau sur ce qu’il avait promis à la Conférence de Vienne, il y a deux ans, aux mouvements antinucléaires « exigeants », en les assurant de sa volonté d’opérer pour le désarmement nucléaire en jouant un « rôle de médiation avec patience et diplomatie ». Ainsi tombe dans le vide l’appel « Exigeons le désarmement nucléaire total », dans lequel on demande au gouvernement « la poursuite cohérente de l’engagement et de la lutte pour la mise au ban des armes nucléaires », dans un parcours « humanitaire et juridique vers le désarmement nucléaire », dans lequel l’Italie pourrait jouer « un rôle plus qu’actif, possiblement de pointe ». Par conséquence tombent dans le vide aussi les motions parlementaires de la même teneur. Les appels génériques au désarmement nucléaire sont facilement instrumentalisables : il suffit de penser que le président des USA, artisan d’un ré-armement nucléaire de 1 000 milliards de dollars, a été décoré du Prix Nobel de la Paix pour « sa vision d’un monde libéré des armes nucléaires ». Le mode concret à travers lequel en Italie nous pouvons contribuer à l’objectif du désarmement nucléaire, énoncé dans la Résolution des Nations Unies, est celui de libérer notre pays des armes nucléaires états-uniennes. À cette fin il faut non pas en appeler au gouvernement, mais exiger qu’il respecte le Traité de non-prolifération (TNP), signé et ratifié par l’Italie, qui à l’article 2 stipule : « Chacun des États militairement non nucléaires, qui soit Partie au Traité, s’engage à ne pas recevoir de quiconque des armes nucléaires ou autres engins nucléaires explosifs, ni le contrôle sur de telles armes et engins explosifs, directement ou indirectement ». On doit exiger que l’Italie cesse de violer le TNP et demande aux États-Unis de retirer immédiatement toutes leurs armes nucléaires de notre territoire et de ne pas y installer les nouvelles bombes B61-12, fer de lance de l’escalade nucléaire USA/Otan contre la Russie, ni d’autres armes nucléaires. Il faut exiger que des pilotes italiens ne soient plus entraînés à l’utilisation d’armes nucléaires sous commandement états-unien. C’est l’objectif de la campagne lancée par le Comité No Guerra, No Nato et d’autres sujet. La campagne a obtenu un premier résultat important : le 26 octobre, au Conseil Régional de la Toscane, a été approuvée à la majorité une motion du groupe Sì Toscana a Sinistra (Oui, Toscane à gauche) qui « engage la Junte à demander au Gouvernement de respecter le Traité de non-prolifération des armes nucléaires et faire que les État-Unis retirent immédiatement toute arme nucléaire du territoire italien et renoncent à y installer les nouvelles bombes B61-12 et autres armes nucléaires ». À travers ces initiatives et d’autres on peut créer un vaste front qui, avec une forte mobilisation, impose au gouvernement le respect du Traité de non-prolifération. Il y a six mois nous demandions sur les pages du Manifesto s’il y avait quelqu’un au Parlement disposé à exiger, sur la base du TNP, le retrait immédiat de l’Italie des armes nucléaires états-uniennes. Nous sommes encore en attente de la réponse. Manlio Dinucci Traduction Marie-Ange Patrizio Source Il Manifesto (Italie)

Five years after the Euromaidan, the Ukrainian economy is in disarray. From 2013 to 2017, the inflow of direct foreign investments has decreased threefold - from $ 5.5 bln USD to $ 1.87 bln USD. For all other indicators, the last five years have showed a negative trend.

Zimbabwe s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) called for a peaceful return to constitutional democracy on Wednesday after an overnight military coup against 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe. The MDC, the main political challenger to Mugabe s ZANU-PF party for the last two decades, also said it hoped the military intervention would lead to the establishment of a stable, democratic and progressive nation state .

The Vatican on Friday tried to tamp down a firestorm ignited by Pope Francis’ comments assailing Donald Trump’s views on U.S. immigration as “not Christian”, assuring the Republican presidential front-runner that it was not a personal attack or attempt to influence the U.S. campaign. Francis told reporters during a conversation on his flight home from Mexico on Thursday, “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.” Trump has said if elected president, he would build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border to keep immigrants from illegally entering the United States. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told Vatican Radio the pope’s comments, in response to a reporter’s question on Trump, were an affirmation of his longstanding belief that migrants should be helped and not shut out. He said the pope believed people “should build bridges, not walls”. “In no way was this a personal attack, nor an indication of how to vote,” Lombardi said. Trump, who leads Republican candidates in opinion polls, lashed out on Thursday, dismissing the pope’s remarks as “disgraceful” for questioning his faith. “If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS (Islamic State), which as everyone knows is ISIS’ ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president,” Trump said. Later, during a television appearance, he rowed back, calling Francis “a wonderful guy.” The extraordinary exchange between the billionaire real estate developer and leader of the world’s 1.25 billion Roman Catholics, which occurred days before Saturday’s Republican nominating contest in South Carolina, was headline news around the world. On Friday, New York’s Daily News gave it the front page. Against a backdrop of an image of Trump, a headline blared: Anti Christ! The New York Post ran a front page photo of Trump and the pope wearing boxing gloves with the headline: Trump & pope: Bible belters. It was unclear what, if any, effect the tussle might have on the vote in South Carolina, a conservative state that is home to many evangelical Protestant Christians. Patrick Hornbeck, chairman of the department of theology at Fordham University in New York, said on Thursday that Francis’ words were not surprising given the poverty he had just seen in Mexico. “There is very little common ground between Pope Francis and Donald Trump,” Hornbeck said. He predicted the pope’s words on electoral politics would have little effect on any U.S. Catholics who liked Trump as a candidate. At a CNN town hall in Columbia, South Carolina, on Thursday night, Trump said he had “a lot of respect” for Francis but that the pope had been influenced by hearing only Mexico’s side of the border issue. The pope’s statement also had been exaggerated by the media, he said. “I think he said something much softer than it was originally reported by the media,” Trump said. Earlier on Thursday, Thomas Groome, director of the Boston College Center on the Church in the 21st Century, said Francis’ comments were entirely in keeping with his focus on mercy. “The pope is commissioned to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s his job,” Groome said. “So when he was asked a direct question, he gave Trump the benefit of the doubt, he said we have to be sure he said this, but if he said this, it is not Christian.” (Reporting by Emily Flitter; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Toni Reinhold) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production.

@Santa401 @lldzne @AdamWagner1 that was when authoritarians who scapegoated ethnic groups during an economic depression were in power?.

Donald Trump really should have just apologized or kept his mouth shut.On Tuesday, Trump told a crowd in North Carolina that the only way to stop Hillary Clinton from nominating judges to the Supreme Court is for Second Amendment nuts to gun her down. Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment, Trump said. By the way, and if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don t know. The remark was bad enough that even the Secret Service was forced to respond, which is totally unprecedented.Trump has since been roundly criticized for the remarks but actually took to Twitter to do some serious spinning, going so far as to claim that he said something else entirely.Media desperate to distract from Clinton s anti-2A stance. I said pro-2A citizens must organize and get out vote to save our Constitution! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 10, 2016But that is not what Trump said and Twitter users were not about to let the Republican nominee get away with such bullshit revisionism. .@realDonaldTrump what s it like to have so much cognitive dissonance that you can t say I m sorry. Clapping harder won t help you, champ. Adam Mordecai (@advodude) August 10, 2016@realDonaldTrump You are a coward. David Slack (@slack2thefuture) August 10, 2016 .@realDonaldTrump Actually, that s not what you said. Here s the video: https://t.co/2VfqpkS3LD Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) August 10, 2016Just one problem: you didn t actually say any of those words in reality. https://t.co/qm6AbzWZlo @realDonaldTrump Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) August 10, 2016 @realDonaldTrump Why not be a grown-up and not say stuff in an ambiguous fashion and save the media from having to seek clarification? Ralph Midnight (@Cooksphere) August 10, 2016@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/BqqZFKIGI6 Whiteboy7thst (@Whiteboy7thst) August 10, 2016 @realDonaldTrump no you didn t I don t know if you heard about this technology called video but people can see what you said The Mountain Goats (@mountain_goats) August 10, 2016@realdonaldtrump Not what you said. You said something should be done AFTER she s elected re: judges she can appoint. You re sick. Mike Rundle (@flyosity) August 10, 2016 2nd amendment = right to bear arms so 2nd amendment people bear arms and you want them to do something about hillary @realDonaldTrump antonio (@antoniodelotero) August 10, 2016@realDonaldTrump that s not what u said we all have ears and at ur rally tnite ppl were yelling kill her kill her ur a dengerous lunatic griega1953 (@noula1953) August 10, 2016 @realDonaldTrump You re a bad man. pic.twitter.com/JXjF60cJOT pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) August 10, 2016@realDonaldTrump No sir, you clearly said if she picks her judges that means she s ALREADY elected so you did not mean get out the vote Mike Garrigan (@MikeGarrigan23) August 10, 2016 @realDonaldTrump you re a full blown idiot. Sarah Colonna (@sarahcolonna) August 10, 2016@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/ql3gHvns47 Declan Cashin (@Tweet_Dec) August 10, 2016 Unfit @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/p3idCG2jlK Trump = Cheeto Jesus (@Blob_Fish) August 10, 2016@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/EuqzCGeiIT SEAN O CONNOR (@seanoconnz) August 10, 2016 Does @realDonaldTrump speak his mind or does he have Turrets? @boycotkochbros #P2 #TCOT #PJNET @HouseGOP @SenateGOP pic.twitter.com/iL8Iqx6eYM Fair and Balanced! (@The_Anti_Fox) August 10, 2016.@realDonaldTrump Excuse me, Mr. Trump, I think you dropped this #TrumpWhistle #uspoli #cdnpoli #TrumpPence16 pic.twitter.com/uNNb5U7i4r Fake Ezzie (@fakeezralevant) August 10, 2016The bottom line is that Donald Trump called for shooting Hillary Clinton and that s a felony that should result in his arrest. Republicans should be ashamed of themselves for making this guy the leader of their party.Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Rep Mike Pence Web site

@BigBoi @rolandsmartin cuz they was coming up with a good lie

It can be said that having Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary isn t only a dumb idea, it s an absolute nightmare for public schools.In addition, DeVos, much like Donald Trump, should probably stay off Twitter if she s going to try to at all be taken seriously.Not only did the Education Department tweet out W.E.B. Du Bois name incorrectly and leave it up, as seen here:Education must not simply teach work it must teach life. W.E.B. DeBois pic.twitter.com/Re4cWkPSFA US Dept of Education (@usedgov) February 12, 2017But then DeVos herself asks this idiotic question:Day 1 on the job is done, but we re only getting started. Now where do I find the pencils? :) pic.twitter.com/0vRKF1opE9 Betsy DeVos (@BetsyDeVos) February 9, 2017Which for most people, including Whoopi Goldberg of The View, was enough to put them over the edge.Like most people aware of public school teachers, Whoopi laid into DeVos about that idiotic pencil question. Because if DeVos knew anything about public schools, she would know that public school teachers go into their own pockets and pay for school supplies for their students on their own.Whoopi also sent a message to DeVos saying that if she really cared about aiding the education of this nation and had an actual interest in making it better, she would use some of her own money (you know, the money she used to buy her the Secretary position) and get schools and teachers the funding they deserve.Watch here:Education Sec. Betsy DeVos tweet asking where the pencils are got backlash online the co-hosts give their take on it. pic.twitter.com/kkrtEbR4qS The View (@TheView) February 13, 2017Featured image via video screen capture

A debate over Islam -- first sparked by Donald Trump not correcting a town hall questioner who called President Obama a non-American Muslim, and now Ben Carson saying a Muslim should not be president -- has unexpectedly shifted the conversation in the Republican presidential race. So far, neither candidate at the center of the furor is backing down. Trump has said he had no obligation to correct the man who wrongly called Obama a Muslim. And Carson is doubling down on his remarks from Sunday. Carson, a Christian and retired neurosurgeon, initially commented on whether a Muslim should be president on NBC's "Meet the Press." "I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation," Carson said. "I absolutely would not agree with that." He later told The Hill that the next president should be "sworn in on a stack Bibles, not a Koran." He explained, "I do not believe Sharia is consistent with the Constitution of this country." Carson's comments were attacked by Democrats, while fellow Republicans gave a more careful answer to the same question. In a primary race that so far has been as unpredictable as it is unruly, the Muslim debate marks the latest sharp turn -- after previous heated debates over illegal immigration and other issues. Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said Sunday, "It's hard to understand what's so difficult about supporting an American citizen's right to run for president. "But unsurprisingly, this left Republicans scratching their heads. Of course a Muslim, or any other American citizen, can run for president, end of story." In a separate appearance on NBC, fellow 2016 GOP candidate Ohio Gov. John Kasich, was asked whether he would have a problem with a Muslim in the White House. "The answer is, at the end of the day, you've got to go through the rigors, and people will look at everything. But, for me, the most important thing about being president is you have leadership skills, you know what you're doing and you can help fix this country and raise this country. Those are the qualifications that matter to me." Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who taped Sunday an episode of Iowa Press, an Iowa Public Television program, was asked if he agreed with Carson's statements on Muslims being president. "The Constitution specifies that there shall be no religious test for public office, and I am a constitutionalist," Cruz said. Fellow GOP contender and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio suggested the entire matter is a distraction. He told ABC News: "This has nothing to do with the future of our country. These issues have been discussed ad nauseam over the last few years. It's a big waste of time. Barack Obama will not be president in a year and a half. It's time to start talking about the future of America and the people that are at home." Carson, a top-tier 2016 candidate and popular among the GOP's evangelical wing, made the statement Sunday after fellow Republican candidate Trump was addressed by a man during a rally Thursday in New Hampshire who said President Obama is a Muslim. "We have a problem in this country," the unidentified man said. "It's called Muslim. ... You know our current president is one." Obama is a Christian. But Trump has declined to address the issue, saying he is not "morally obligated" to set straight the record. Carson also described the Islamic faith as inconsistent with the Constitution. However, he did not specify in what way Islam ran counter to constitutional principles. Carson said he believes Obama is a Christian and has "no reason to doubt what he says." He also said he would consider voting for a Muslim running for Congress, depending on "who that Muslim is and what their policies are." Carson also made a distinction when it came to electing Muslims to Congress, calling it a "different story" from the presidency that "depends on who that Muslim is and what their policies are, just as it depends on what anybody else says." Congress has two Muslim members, Democratic Reps. Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Andre Carson of Indiana. "If there's somebody who's of any faith, but they say things, and their life has been consistent with things that will elevate this nation and make it possible for everybody to succeed, and bring peace and harmony, then I'm with them," Carson said. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A Maricopa Country judge has finally stood up to the vile, crooked, racist Sheriff Joe Arpaio and charged him along with three of his top cronies with being in contempt. His crime? He hasn t stopped his illegal and unconstitutional racial profiling of Hispanics.Thanks to that darn liberal activist group the ACLU, Arpaio will be in hot water if he continues to practice his clearly racist policies.Judge G. Murray Snow, after a lengthy yearlong investigation after the ruling in Ortega Melendres v. Arpaio, concluded that Arpaio was in contempt on one charge while Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan was found in contempt on two counts, and retired Chief Brian Sands and Lt. Joe Sousa each were found in contempt of one.In the 162-page ruling, Judge Snow wrote:In short, the Court finds that the Defendants have engaged in multiple acts of misconduct, dishonesty, and bad faith with respect to the Plaintiff class and the protection of its rights.The three contempt charges stem from three requests from Judge Snow that Arpaio and his band of thugs refused to comply with:According to ArizonaCentral:Snow found that deputies had detained and turned over to federal authorities at least 157 individuals who had not committed state crimes, in violation of his order.Snow said both Arpaio and Sheridan made numerous misstatements under oath.Not only did Sheriff Joe and his deputies knowingly fail to comply with a court ruling, they openly flaunted it and thought that they were above the law.Now the Department of Justice is getting involved. After slapping down Sheriff Joe last year over his racial profiling, the DOJ will work closely with Snow to implement proper sanctions. Should Snow feel so inclined, he may refer the case to criminal contempt. Perhaps jail time might await the Sheriff? One can only hope.But while we wait for this monstrosity to be put in prison, the people of Arizona are faced with another option: voting him out of office. This is an election year, and Sheriff Joe is running. Every election his support shrinks. In 2000, Arpaio won with 66 percent of the vote. In 2012, he garnered only 51 percent.With Trump on the rise as the GOP s newest face, Hispanic voter registration has spiked all across the southwest, including Arizona something that should scare Arpaio and his cronies to their core. This is what happens when you rule with fear instead of the common good.Now it s 2016, and this man s reign of terror and shame must come to an end. Let the courts deal with him in court, and let s have the voters throw the bum out of office once and for all.Featured image via Ethan Miller/Getty Images

@mrlfrager @inthewordsofkim @imassah @GlobalGrindNews @UncleRUSH topical thing people don't want the truth they start putting you down

Next Swipe left/right This letter from Manchester City Council is a strong contender for facepalm of the year Someone at Manchester City Council might need to a) Google the term “Hellenic” and b) use a spellchecker. Manchester City Council sent this piece of beauty to someone recently: pic.twitter.com/w5jwlpZHbF — George Zacharopoulos (@GreekGeordie) November 1, 2016

@Nick_d_Williams @_TheGMan @frank_fisher @PeterTatchell 'Mute her' because you know she's telling the truth.

Wouldn t it be great to have a president who made our national security a top priority? The Obama administration will agree to let Iran bypass questions about its past nuclear military work under any final deal signed in the coming weeks, according to reports.Western officials were quoted as telling the Associated Press on Friday that the United States has given up a major concession to Iran on the military front.While senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry, have long insisted that Iran will immediately have to submit to wide-ranging inspections and disclosures regarding its past nuclear work, the new reports indicate that this demand has been cast aside as world powers work to strike a final deal with the Islamic Republic by the end of June.According to the AP report:After a November 2013 interim accord, the Obama administration said a comprehensive solution would include resolution of questions concerning the possible military dimension of Iran s nuclear program. But those questions won t be answered by the June 30 deadline for a final deal, officials said, echoing an assessment by the U.N. nuclear agency s top official earlier this week. Nevertheless, the officials said an accord remains possible. One senior Western official on Thursday described diplomats as more likely to get a deal than not over the next three weeks.Via: WFB

STOCKHOLM — The Swedish police said on Saturday that they had arrested a man they believed had hijacked a beer truck and carried out a terrorist attack by driving the truck into a crowd of people in Stockholm the day before, killing four and injuring at least 15 others. Prosecutors and police officials did not identify the suspect, but Anders Thornberg, the head of the Swedish Security Service, said at a news conference that the man had been on the authorities’ radar some time ago. Mr. Thornberg said that the agency had looked into information it received on the suspect last year, but that it had not led to anything. He said the suspect was not on any current list of people being monitored. “The suspect didn’t appear in our recent files, but he earlier has been in our files,” Mr. Thornberg said. The Swedish national broadcaster SVT reported that a bag with explosives had been found in the truck used in the attack. On Saturday, the police chief, Dan Eliasson, said: “We have found something in the truck in the driver’s compartment, a technical device that should not be there. I cannot say whether this is a bomb or some sort of flammable material. ” Prosecutors said the suspect had not spoken, and there was no immediate word of any criminal charges. But Chief Eliasson said there was “nothing to indicate we have the wrong person. ” He added, “We cannot exclude the possibility that others are involved. ” Lars Bystrom, a spokesman for the regional police, said earlier on Saturday, “We have one person in custody, and we think he is the driver of the truck. ” Chief Eliasson would not say how long the suspect had been living in Sweden. “We are focusing on how he entered the country, where has he been,” he said. “We need to establish what kind of contacts he had. ” He said there were clear similarities with the deadly attack in London last month. On Saturday, people placed flowers outside the department store in Stockholm where the attack occurred as a memorial to the victims. Karolinska Hospital said that six of the injured had been released. The police said eight people remained hospitalized. The beer truck, stolen earlier on Friday, mowed down pedestrians along Drottninggatan, a busy pedestrian shopping street. It came to a stop after slamming into the Ahlens department store. After the rampage, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said: “Sweden has been attacked. This indicates that it is an act of terror. ” The manhunt brought transit systems to a halt and put Parliament under lockdown. The suspect was detained in a northern Stockholm suburb on Friday and later arrested on suspicion of having committed a terrorism crime, the police said. Elias Broth, 19, a high school senior, was on a bus at the intersection of Drottninggatan and Kungsgatan when he heard a loud noise. “I look up and I see the truck passing by, driving really fast,” he said by phone on Saturday. “Then I heard a big boom when it crashed into people. ” He said he had stayed in the bus a bit longer, before taking shelter in a clothing store on Kungsgatan. “The first thing I saw when I stepped off the bus was a woman. Her body was in pieces,” he said. Juncker, the European Commission president, said in a statement on Friday: “One of Europe’s most vibrant and colorful cities appears to have been struck by those wishing it — and our very way of life — harm. An attack on any of our member states is an attack on us all. ” Peng Wu, 35, a postgraduate student from New York who moved to Stockholm in late 2013, was leaving a coffee shop near the shopping center when he saw people rushing toward him, many of them crying and in shock. Initially, he said, he did not know what had happened, but as he made his way to his wife’s office, he saw people lying motionless and police officers with body armor rushing to the site. He said he expected locals to bounce back quickly, though. “Swedes are pretty resilient people,” he said. While the city was under lockdown, the hashtag #openstockholm sprang up on Twitter. Jenny Nguyen, 22, a law student in Stockholm, said she had come up with the hashtag to encourage people to open their homes to commuters, tourists and others who were stranded after the transit system was shut down. “This idea is actually not a new one,” she said in a phone interview. “I was following the attack in Paris when that occurred. I saw that someone started a hashtag to tell people where to go and where they could find company. ” “Suddenly, I felt the world was not as dark as people who commit these types of actions want it to be,” she said.

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Normally, you’d be confused. Why would HBO lower the curtain on Season 5 of “Girls” with two episodes on Sunday rather than the usual one at a time? Why not give the show’s 10 episodes a full 10 weeks? But there are the mysteries. Then there are the realities. And the presumable reality is that decks needed clearing and hatches needed battening for next weekend’s simultaneous resumption of “Game of Thrones,” “Veep” and “Silicon Valley” — and the Saturday unveiling of whatever this Beyoncé “Lemonade” thing is supposed to be. So Sunday’s “Girls” finale points to the national indifference that’s accrued around a show whose fealty to discomfort, poor choices and social cannibalism, which felt new in 2012, are now just part of television’s oxygen. In the last two seasons, the show’s senses of satire and pathos are stronger and more pungent than everBut it’s true: Funny narcissists are indeed easy to come by (even on HBO). Perhaps instead you’re watching “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” “Veep” “Transparent,” “Togetherness” “Crazy ” and “You’re the Worst. ” And “Girls” didn’t invent them. There they were, for instance, on “The Golden Girls,” “Will Grace,” “Sex and the City” and “30 Rock. ” But “Girls” keeps finding ways of dramatizing its satire so that it doesn’t always seem satirical. Few shows better explore the complications of personality and behavior. Even if it doesn’t appear as robust, refined and specific an achievement as, say, “Transparent,” the show still has the confidence to jump along a tightrope of displeasure. [ Has “Girls” gotten better? Read our discussion. ] The show’s ringmastered by its chief protagonist, Hannah Horvath (Lena Dunham) pinball off one another, going from friends to lovers to frenemies. What set the show apart this year — from both its previous seasons and most of its peers — is the use of the space, place, framing, allusion and mood to house that narcissism. Bad manners are met with mannerism. Shoshanna’s first adult job landed her in Tokyo and, for a few episodes, the show went with her. Her intoxication with the culture — without her Japanese pals losing sight of her foreignness — felt like a gentle rebuke of the incurious insularity of a movie like “Lost in Translation. ” She wasn’t a citizen. Nor was she a tourist. This season’s seventh episode was particularly handsome. Written by Sarah Heyward and directed by Richard Shepard, it turned the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese into a piece of immersive theater staged inside and around a stately apartment complex, which was meant to evoke the building near where Genovese was killed, while her neighbors went about their business. The killing inspired decades of research the show used the case as an ideal test for the characters’ own emotional nearsightedness. (“Hello Kitty” is the episode’s title.) Hannah enters the building lobby with her current boyfriend, Fran (Jake Lacy) and leaves devastated that her ex, Adam (Adam Driver) might be sleeping with one of her best friends, Jessa (Jemima Kirke). As usual, the comedy comes, in part, from Hannah’s obnoxious rebellion against propriety, which tends to be represented by poor Ray (Alex Karpovsky). His morality, civic engagement, loyalty and earnestness (culturally, he’s a generation older) are constantly disrupted, compromised and exploited by everyone else. This time he just wants to lose himself in some theater and no one will let him. The small silences in this episode are rich and absorptive. They’re too much, though, for Hannah, who keeps breaking them to muse about the artifice of it all. When her friend Marnie (Allison Williams) enters one apartment, newly single and almost radioactively aglow, she doubles the obliviousness. It’s unclear she even knows she’s at a play. They’re there to see Adam perform as half of a squabbling married couple, but by the time the play reaches its grisly climax, none of these people are really paying attention. Adam looked across the courtyard at Jessa, who’s vamping at him on a fire escape, while Hannah watches them both in disbelief. They ignore the screams and barely notice the amateurish plaster statues that stand in for the victim and her killer. There’s just Brenda Lee misting up the soundtrack. Basically, a crime loses out to a figurative one. It’s one of the show’s most sophisticated and most intricately filmed gags about selfishness. The camera glides toward windows. It cranes downs at the plaster . It oscillates from Jessa to Adam to Hannah. Perhaps you think about “Rear Window,” “Monsieur Hire,” “Stakeout” or any other movie involving voyeurism, danger and a little melodrama. And the atmosphere is so rich you can practically feel the balm of warm spring air. But Hannah and Marnie peel off to commiserate. And by the time you see these two spread out on somebody’s bed, they’ve cast themselves in their own sitcom: “The Sorrow and the . ” But the show manages to maintain the gravity of both transgressions: an ambitious if seemingly dumb take on real tragedy and the tragedy that Hannah thinks is her life. It’s a kicky, poignant of television — half of which is spent elsewhere at a Manhattan party, featuring Hannah’s roommate, Elijah (Andrew Rannells) who is trying to hold his own among greasy gay celebrities. Each plot warranted its own episode, but that was “Girls” this year: so many good ideas, so little space to unfurl them. There were moments during the series’ underrated fourth season when, between Hannah’s damningly indulgent stint at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the invention of a carnivorous named (Gillian Jacobs) the show looked as if it had found its groove as a farce. This fifth season ended on a note, after Hannah runs into Tally (Jenny Slate) a college classmate, with a dark cloud of hair, who has become a literary star. She’s like Bizzaro Hannah: Her narcissism doesn’t repel success it vacuums it up. Tally encourages Hannah to steal a guy’s unlocked bike (it’s a sign, Tally says) and through two montages — set first to Vanity Fare then to Nicki Minaj and Beyoncé — they take a ride, smoke a joint on Hannah’s bed, and dance in her apartment. And for half an episode, as Tally and Hannah pedal and puff, “Girls” is no longer “Girls. ” It’s “Broad City. ” On that show, Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson mount a perfectly calibrated celebration of millennial obnoxiousness, while also nailing the ridiculousness of consumer culture. The two shows have unruly young women and Brooklyn in common. That’s about it. But the way Ms. Slate is made to look resembles — passingly, cartoonishly — Ms. Glazer. These scenes between Ms. Slate and Ms. Dunham suggest a lunatic road not taken. “Girls” has some great slapstick. But it’s bending toward maturity that “Broad City” doesn’t care about. When it started, “Girls” was received as an anthem for entitled white women. Detractors had a field day with Ms. Dunham, who created this show and has written and directed much of it, for privileging privilege, as if she couldn’t be aspiring to the withering heights of Luis Buñuel or Carrie Fisher. Through 52 episodes of television — some of them, like that Kitty Genovese episode, marvelous — “Girls” has never stopped looking for the grander, harsher psychological picture. It’s never stopped looking for tough laughs. It fights American absurdity with its own version of it, as it does in the final episode of the season, in which Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet, a crayon turning at last into a scalpel) rebrands Ray’s coffee shop as a haven for people who actually work — that is, for “adults,” in other words. But in its highest gear, the show peerlessly vanishes the line between sociocultural satire and mental instability, between send up and crack up. That business with Hannah, Adam and Jessa closes the season with an unnerving cliffhanger. Hannah performs her pain for the storytellers’ radio hour “The Moth,” which obviously she takes to like a to a flame. The night’s theme is jealousy. In her tale, she proves she’s overcome it by delivering a peace offering in the form of a fruit basket. But the story deepens and darkens a deranged argument that took place a few minutes earlier. Suddenly, Hannah’s narcissism seems terroristic. Her personality disorder has the power to disorder other people’s personalities. Maybe, she’s the disorder. One of the last shots hovers about a demolished living room. But it’s not exactly a cliffhanger for the show’s next and final season. It’s a view of the wreckage in the canyon. Plus, there’s something about the way the camera lingers on the basket outside the door that makes Hannah’s offering seem more than a gift. It looks like a bomb.

@dlvrymon @owillis says the tea bully with no facts to back up his claims

Movie theaters around the country are screening a glamorous new movie about a Indian in the United States — but viewers aren’t told that the movie was funded by lobbyists to help import more foreign workers for the moviegoers’ own jobs. [The movie, “For Here Or To Go?” offers a very flattering image of the almost 1 million holding jobs throughout the United States. The movie follows the efforts by contract workers to get green cards and dates. It features a number, but it sidelines the wishes and worries of many young Americans whose salaries and careers are being undercut by the flood of cheap contract workers. The movie’s basic message is that foreigners are entitled to live in the United States if they want to do so, regardless of American law or Americans’ wishes. “You can build your life where you choose to. The question is and always will be this: Where do you think you belong? Where is home?” says one supporting character to the lead character. “I have actively supported this movie realizing its importance as an advocacy tool [and] many renowned venture capitalists, founders, entrepreneurs, academics have also been supporting it,” said an online statement from Tahmina Watson, an immigration lawyer serving Indian and Chinese customers in Seattle, Wash. “Some [supporters’] names include Brad Feld, renowned [venture capitalist] [ booster] Vivek academic and think tank, the Instagram founder [Mike Krieger] and many many more,” she wrote March 31. Investor “Brad Feld donated $25, 000 to the movie! … my dear friend and [immigration lawyer] member Joel Paget who donated a huge sum to the movie,” she wrote. In 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump promised to revamp the program so that it doesn’t hurt Americans workers. “These are temporary foreign workers, imported from abroad, for the explicit purpose of substituting for American workers at lower pay,” said a March 2016 statement from the campaign. “I remain totally committed to eliminating rampant, widespread abuse. ” That promise was a winning argument for many university educated voters who were being pressured by peers and employers to pull the lever for Hillary Clinton. However, many companies favor the program, so it remains largely unchanged since Trump took office. Immigration lawyers expect the administration to start issuing another 85, 000 visas starting April. Multiple Democratic and GOP politicians hope to further expand the program. For example, SGOP Sen. Orrin Hatch said in a March 30 that “we’ve had a process for bringing workers from other countries to the United States to fill jobs for which there is a shortage of American labor … But the system is . Our immigration laws cap the number of worker visas — also called visas — that employers may obtain each year at a number that is far below demand. ” Also, both Hatch and North Carolina’s GOP Thomas Tillis want to provide a path to citizenship to any foreigner who pays for a graduate degree at an American university. “Our laws also lack a straightforward path for companies to hire foreign students at American universities on a permanent basis after graduation … This makes no sense,” said Hatch. “We should have a policy that basically staples a green card on the back of their diploma, with the agreement that they will work and contribute to the American economy,” Tillis said . But that “staple” policy would create an unlimited supply of Indian, Chinese, South Americans, European and African professionals eager to underbid salaries sought by young and American professionals. In Washington, the new movie is being touted by Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine and by the CATO Institute, which favors an easy flow of labor across national borders. It is also being supported by Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg’s lobby, FWD. us, via its head, Todd Schulte. The movie is also being touted by Jose Andrews, an immigration proponent who hires cheap labor for his D. C. restaurants. It is “the movie that you want to watch — it is an amazing story of immigrants in America. ” “We’re trying to tell a new story here … and I’m fully supportive of it,” said Ash Kalra, an city councilor in San Jose, California, “This is really where the best and brightest of the Indian community have come to contribute. ” Last September, the movie was shown to staffers in Congress, said Watson. September 2nd 2016 was a very special day. It was the day that the movie For Here or To Go? had a special private screening at the Rayburn House one of the Buildings where Congressmen have their offices. Fresh off the heels of the announcement of International Entrepreneur Rules, this movie screening was so timely. The private screening was attended by staffers, lawyers, lobbyists and other influencers. We were especially grateful that the White House Assistant Director of Entrepreneurship Doug Rand attended in person. We were also delighted that Senator Tim Kaine’s office was represented. While Sen. Kaine is now candidate for Vice President, he was one of the original of the Startup Visa. A huge thank you goes to my very own Congressman Adam Smith ( ) who in holding the event. The Congressman’s office went above and beyond in helping with the event, for which we are so grateful. We were also able to partner with Unshackled Ventures, an organization that recognizes the invaluable contributions of international entrepreneurs and has been at the forefront of the issue. And lastly, we wouldn’t have had refreshments without the generous support of FWD. us and it’s president Todd Schulte. In addition, two of my colleagues Joel Paget, immigration lawyer in Seattle and Sonal Verma in Washington DC both gave incredible support and encouragement in holding the event. … Rishi and I had the privilege of attending a reception at the CATO institute where we had the distinct pleasure of meeting immigration policy extraordinaire Alex Nowrasteh! The movie is opening at 29 theater screens, including four screens in the D. C. area, three in Texas and six screens in California. The annual inflow of roughly 110, 000 takes jobs for rates at U. S. companies, universities, and . That makes sense for the foreign workers because many hope to get the hugely valuable prize of citizenship from the U. S. government after perhaps ten years of work. The citizenship bonus can also be duplicated for their parents, siblings, children ad grandchildren. The deal is also rational for U. S. employers because they pay rates and also don’t have to pay the citizenship bonus to the workers. That good for many U. S. companies because it means they can get subcontracting work done for cheaper and because it also lowers the marketplace salaries for all U. S. professionals. are hired by many companies, displacing Americans who want jobs with Microsoft or Facebook, Caterpillar or Goldman Sachs or McDonald’s. At least 100, 000 are also employed in universities, hospitals, and government research centers as professors, scientists, doctors, and therapists. But critics — and much evidence — say the program is rife with corruption, including fake resumes, fraudulent visa applications, payments, workplace and hiring discrimination against Americans, as well as false claims by lobbyists and corporates that too few Americans want to work at companies such as Goldman Sachs or Facebook. Additional programs deliver The inflow of workers cuts salaries for young Americans who are in direct competition with — mostly software experts, medical researchers, accountants, doctors, statisticians. But it also reduces the salaries of other American professionals — designers, journalists, business school graduates and even — by increasing the nation’s supply of skilled, flexible experts who can perform a variety of skilled jobs. A 2016 report by the National Academies of Science showed that immigration annually transfers roughly $500 billion from American employees over to investors and employers. Follow Neil Munro on Twitter @NeilMunroDC or email the author at NMunro@Breitbart. com,

#Ferguson police chief says he released the robbery video because he was getting FOIA requests for it. How did anyone know to request it?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted the framework agreement reached by world powers to curb Iran's nuclear program, repeatedly calling it a "free path to a bomb" that will spark an arms race in the Middle East. Under the framework announced last week, international sanctions would be lifted in phases if Iran meets its commitments. The International Atomic Energy Agency would conduct inspections to monitor significant limits on Iranian nuclear facilities, and the restrictions would be in place for at least a decade. In a series of interviews on Sunday political talk shows, Netanyahu called for world leaders to strike a "better deal" that significantly — and permanently — rolls back Iran's nuclear infrastructure. Sanctions should be ratcheted up — not lifted — to pressure Iran until it stops its "aggression in the region," he said. Netanyahu questioned whether inspections would be effective, saying Iran has shown that it cannot be trusted. "I wouldn't bet the shop on inspections," the Israeli leader said on CNN's "State of the Union." "It's not a country that you can place your trust in. And it's not a country that you're going to resolve its congenital cheating. You're just not going to replace it by placing more inspectors there." The "very, very bad" agreement only allows Iran to build a vast arsenal by placing temporary restrictions and lifting sanctions that had crippled the country's economy, Netanyahu said. He repeatedly said the agreement would "pump up their terror machine worldwide." Echoing concerns among skeptics of the framework, Netanyahu said it would spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, with Sunnis states already seeing Shiite Iran as a major threat. "I think this is a dream deal for Iran and a nightmare deal for the world," Netanyahu said on NBC's "Meet the Press." Netanyahu did not outwardly criticize President Obama, but he said there is a "legitimate difference of view" between the two leaders. Netanyahu said he believes Obama is doing what is best for the United States. But the agreement will jeopardize not only Israel but also surrounding countries in the Middle East, the Israeli leader said on ABC's "This Week." The framework agreement does not block Iran's path to nuclear weapons, and instead paves it, he said.

Wisconsin’s attorney general and state treasurer ordered the daughter of Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson not to discuss climate change on state time.

The United States wants a meeting soon aimed at reviving a four-way dialogue between itself, Japan, India and Australia to deepen security cooperation and coordinate alternatives for regional infrastructure financing to that offered by China, a senior U.S. official said on Friday. The so-called Quad to discuss and cooperate on security emerged briefly as an initiative a decade ago

Get short URL 0 27 0 0 On Tuesday, National Intelligence Director James Clapper said that the US must focus on limiting North Korea’s nuclear capabilities, because convincing the isolated country to halt nuclear development is a “lost cause.” Pyongyang has conducted over 20 ballistic missile tests this year and two nuclear explosions. There is concern in Washington that the DPRK could be developing a weapon that could reach the American mainland. Their most recent underground nuclear explosion took place in early September. © AP Photo/ Wong Maye-E US Still Committed to Denuclearization Process in North Korea At the Council on Foreign Relations, Clapper said "I think the notion of getting the North Koreans to denuclearize is probably a lost cause…They are not going to do that — that is their ticket to survival." Washington has consistently maintained its position on not recognizing North Korea as a nuclear-armed state. Numerous sanctions, and negotiations to trade aid in exchange for disarmament have not stopped Pyongyang’s nuclear program. Despite this, the US State Department announced that it will continue to demand the communist country’s denuclearization. Clapper described his trip to North Korea in 2014 to secure the release of two Americans, saying it gave him a "good taste" of the country’s perspective on nuclear development. © AP Photo/ Koji Sasahara North Korea Blasts US, Japan, South Korea for 'Destabilizing Northeast Asia' "They are under siege and they are very paranoid, so the notion of giving up their nuclear capability, whatever it is, is a non-starter with them…The best we could probably hope for is some sort of a cap, but they are not going to do that just because we ask them. There's going to have to be some significant inducements." Defense experts in the US believe Pyongyang currently has between 13-21 nuclear weapons, and by 2020 could have as many as 100. State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters in Washington that he had not seen Clapper’s comments, and that the US still hopes to resume aid-for-disarmament negotiations, which have been stalled since Pyongyang pulled out in 2009. © REUTERS/ KCNA US Announces Extended Deterrence Doctrine Against North Korea Kirby said, "We want to continue to see a verifiable, denuclearization of the peninsula. We want to see a return to the six-party talk process, and that means we need to see the North show a willingness and an ability to return to that process which they haven't done yet," according to Yonhap News . Clapper acknowledged that the DPRK had not yet tested it’s KN08 intercontinental ballistic missile, a weapon capable of striking the Western US, so its utility is unknown, but he recommended that Washington not wait until the missile is tested to prepare. "Nevertheless, we ascribe to them the capability to launch a missile that would have a weapon on it to reach parts of the United States, certainly including Alaska and Hawaii…They could do it. We have to make the worst-case assumption here," he said. ...

TUCSON, Ariz. — Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders made a pair of spirited pitches here Friday night to address continuing gun violence and pass comprehensive immigration reform during a boisterous rally that drew an estimated 13,000 people to a city park. In a departure from his usual stump speech, which focuses heavily on economic inequality, the senator from Vermont began his remarks by zeroing in on two issues that have been prominent in Arizona — and on which his positions have not always been as liberal as most others. Sanders, who is heading into Tuesday’s first Democratic debate in a stronger position than most anyone anticipated, referenced two shootings Friday at campuses in Arizona and Texas. In Flagstaff, Ariz., a college freshman was taken into custody after he shot four people, killing one, near a residence hall at Northern Arizona University. [Bernie Sanders says he is pulling together a plan to address gun violence] Sanders offered his condolences and prayers, but then added: “We also know that we are tired of condolences, and we are tired of just prayers.” “The truth of the matter is … the issue of gun violence is not going to be solved easily,” Sanders said, but he said that is no excuse not to seek common-sense solutions and to move the current debate beyond “yelling and demeaning” one another. Sanders, who represents a state with a deep hunting tradition and little gun control, has a mixed record on the issue, including a vote in 1993 against the landmark Brady Bill. But he has pledged to develop a comprehensive package of reforms to stem violence, including stronger background checks for gun purchases and “a revolution” in the way the country treats mental illness. [Bernie Sanders to oppose Obama’s nominee to lead the FDA] On immigration, Sanders sought to connect with a racially mixed crowd in a state with a large Latino population by relaying the story of his father’s arrival in the United States from Poland at age 17 with little money and little ability to speak English. “My family’s story is a story very similar to many people who are here tonight, and that story is the story of America,” Sanders said, calling it “a story rooted in family and fueled by hope.” Sanders repeated calls he has made previously to provide legal protection for 11 million undocumented workers in the country and for Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform. And if elected president, he said would take executive actions aimed at keeping families together. “Our job is to bring families together, not tear them apart,” Sanders said. Despite his inclusive tone, Sanders has in the past found himself at odds with immigration advocates at times, including a 2007 vote against a comprehensive immigration bill and voicing concerns that “open borders” are a threat to American jobs. On Friday, he stressed his vote for a 2013 comprehensive immigration bill, and other aspects of his rally suggested a commitment to a path forward on the issue. Among the speakers who took the stage before Sanders were 10-year-old Bob de la Rosa, who relayed to the audience that his mother had been deported and remains in Mexico. “She tells me we are separated because she wants me to have a good education,” de la Rosa told a hushed crowd. “Kids like me need our families together.” A mariachi band entertained the crowd gathered in the city park before Sanders took the stage at an outdoor performance center. Several audience members who sat on the stage behind Sanders held signs that spelled out “VIVA BERNIE.” Sanders also picked up his first formal endorsement from a sitting member of Congress: Rep. Raul Grijalva, a liberal Democrat whose southern Arizona district that includes Tucson. Grijalva  is co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which Sanders helped co-found as a House member in 1991. Grijalva is also a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and in a position to help Sanders with outreach to Latino voters, one of the challenges confronting his campaign once the contest moves beyond Iowa and New Hampshire. Grijalva told the crowd he considers Sanders a friend and shares his values. “It’s way past time that we had a national campaign and a voice that speaks truth to power,” he said. While the endorsement was a boost to Sanders, it also served as reminder of a big advantage that Hillary Rodham Clinton maintains in the Democratic race even as Sanders has gained or surpassed her in early state polling: More than 100 members of Congress have already endorsed Clinton. In the nomination process, such party elites are more than just cheerleaders. Roughly one-fifth of the delegates who will pick the Democratic nominee are super delegates — elected officials and other party leaders who are not bound by voting in their states. And to this point, they’ve broken overwhelmingly in Clinton’s direction.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander on Tuesday made the first move by a senior Republican to work with Democrats on repairing Obamacare after his party failed to repeal and replace the healthcare law, announcing work on bipartisan legislation to stabilize the individual health insurance market. Alexander, who chairs the Senate health committee, urged U.S. President Donald Trump to drop his threat to cut government subsidy payments to insurers that make Obamacare plans affordable and to allow the payments through September. The senator also said fellow lawmakers should fund those payments for one year. Alexander’s announcement followed the spectacular failure last week by Senate Republicans to pass their own repeal or replacement of the Affordable Care Act, former President Barack Obama’s signature domestic initiative also referred to as Obamacare. The Tennessee Republican said the Senate health committee “will hold hearings beginning the week of September 4 on the actions Congress should take to stabilize and strengthen the individual health insurance market so that Americans will be able to buy insurance at affordable prices in the year 2018.” The goal, Alexander said, would be legislation sponsored by both parties that would stabilize the insurance market and help lower premiums in 2018 for the roughly 18 million Americans who buy health insurance in the individual market, instead of getting insurance through an employer. Trump, frustrated that he and Republicans have not been able to keep promises to repeal and replace Obamacare, has threatened to let the law implode, including by cutting off about $8 billion in subsidies that are used to make Obamacare health plans more affordable for low income Americans. Insurers, who are finalizing their insurance premium rates for 2018, have asked Congress to guarantee that those funds will stay in place for the rest of this year and 2018. Without the subsidies, they say they will need to raise premium rates by about 20 percent. Without an answer, insurers have filed preliminary rates based on different parameters: Some set rates that assumed the subsidies would be paid, others set rates that assumed they would not, and some submitted two different set of rates reflecting both outcomes. Senator Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the health panel, welcomed Alexander’s statement and said she looked forward to working in a bipartisan manner to stabilize the healthcare market and reduce premiums. In the House, a bipartisan group of 43 lawmakers on Monday called for Congress to quickly stabilize the individual insurance market by appropriating money for the cost-sharing payments and creating a stability fund for states.

The White House is getting really nervous today after Donald Trump Jr. tweeted out damning copies of an email chain of a discussion about setting up a meeting with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer in order to obtain dirt on Hillary Clinton. Also at the meeting was Trump s son-in-law, Jared Kushner and the alleged president s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort. The meeting was held in Trump Tower in 2016, but the amateur president claims to know nothing about it even though he touts himself as a micromanager.Junior s brother, Eric Trump, stepped in to defend him on Twitter Tuesday. By the way, Junior s father has been strangely quiet on Twitter since the news broke but Eric put his juice box down and took to his Twitter account to defend his scandal-plagued brother. This is the EXACT reason they viciously attack our family! They can t stand that we are extremely close and will ALWAYS support each other, Eric Trump tweeted.This is the EXACT reason they viciously attack our family! They can't stand that we are extremely close and will ALWAYS support each other. https://t.co/1f7JqxScMr Eric Trump (@EricTrump) July 11, 2017Eric said that while retweeting a video clip posted by United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) and Brexit leader Nigel Farage who was defending Donald Trump Jr., saying the amateur president s (OK, he didn t say amateur but still) eldest son is being attacked for supporting his father.Twitter users could see that Eric s whiny defense sucked.Eric Trump proclaims the 60% of Americans who dont support his father hate close families. Yah, that's it. (Eric shhhh! Ur not helping.) Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) July 11, 2017Supermodel Chrissy Teigen weighed in.What happens when you see garlic christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) July 11, 2017Tweeting out a discredited racist to defend your family is admirably on-brand. Dave Zirin (@EdgeofSports) July 11, 2017No, Eric. The reason we attack your family is that you're a bunch of corrupt imbecilities, driving our country like drunk monkies. Kelly Scaletta (@KellyScaletta) July 11, 2017While playing victim Eric doesn t seem to realize that his brother tweeted out his own emails, which, by the way, threw Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort under the bus. In fact, he threw the entire White House under the bus.The subject line of the emails was titled, Russia Clinton private and confidential. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government s support for Mr. Trump, Rob Goldstone, who set up the meeting, wrote. If it s what you say I love it, Trump Jr. said in response to the potential information on Hillary Clinton.Well now! Maybe Junior, Jared and Paul Manafort were attacking Hillary because they can t stand that her family is extremely close. Trump responded to the email dump by his own son in a statement Tuesday, saying that Don Jr. is a high-quality person and I applaud his transparency. Except that the only reason Junior was transparent was because he was caught. Junior outed his emails before the New York Times could publish them.Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images.

Brazil s government has secured between 270 and 280 of the 308 votes needed to approve a bill to overhaul the country s bloated social security system in February, President Michel Temer said on Friday. It was the first time Temer has said how many votes are still needed to reach the three-fifths super majority to pass the unpopular legislation that investors see as vital to bringing a huge budget deficit under control. That is the reason why we put off the vote until February, Temer said at the swearing-in of a cabinet minister who will be responsible for mustering the votes shortfall. The measure is due to be put to the vote on Feb. 19, after the Christmas to Carnival Congressional recess, when it could meet with greater reluctance from lawmakers as the 2018 general election approaches. The delay has increased market skepticism over Brazil s ability to rein in a deficit that caused the loss of its investment grade credit rating. Temer s new minister of political affairs, Carlos Marun, said the bill s approval will be his biggest challenge as he takes over government relations with Congress. Marun was sworn in to succeed Antonio Imbassahy, whose PSDB party quit Temer s governing coalition and is split over delivering its 46 votes in the lower house to help pass Temer s pension plan.

Britney Spears Appears Terrified as Man Crashes Stage During Vegas Residency: 'He's Got a Gun?'

November 8, 2016 279 The wars the US is waging in the Middle East fulfil none of the definitions of guerrilla or "terrorist" war. The US simply calls them that so that it can deceive the American people and circumvent constitutional safeguards in order to wage wars of aggression. For those fighting and dying there – only Death is real. For the American people, Middle East Terrorism is a total fabrication. A standard definition of War is that it is “a conflict carried on by force of arms” We all know the old face of war in the classical days, where two sides in different coloured uniforms lined up and charged at each other until the sun set. Whoever had the most soldiers standing at the end of the day was the winner and they took over the territory of the losers. It was all about territory and redrawing borders. This kind of warfare held up until around the time of the American Civil War. Since then lines have become blurred. A standard definition of Guerrilla War is that it is “the use of hit-and-run tactics by small mobile groups of irregulars operating within a territory controlled by a regular military”. By the the time of the Anglo-Boer War (circa 1900) the Boers had invented Guerrilla Warfare, where small bands went in and did as much damage as possible using what they had. It was very effective. — An online register lists the names of 293,209 British Soldiers who had to be brought in to wage the war. However, adding in all the other Colonials it was probably closer to 500,000 who were needed to subdue about 30,000 rag-tag South African Boers. Eventually the British found a very workable solution. They rounded up all the women and children remaining on the farms (who had been feeding and sleeping the rebels every night) and put them all in concentration camps. Their suffering was extreme. The men had to give up. Guerrilla warfare is not about capturing Territory, but about demoralisation, damage to infrastructure, and forcing vast numbers of very expensive regulars to guard infrastructure. A standard definition of Terrorism is that it is “the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims” By the 1960s another form of warfare was emerging. We called it, “Terrorism”. We can all agree that none of the above methods are mutually exclusive. Modern mainstream Media spends a lot of time blurring these lines for the public, but I think we have a reasonably clear understandings of what the differences are. Modern Terrorism is actually more complicated than this definition. It started as aircraft high-jacking; then evolved into small bands shooting innocent people at certain events; and has now evolved into its ‘classic’ contemporary form of suicide vests, suicide vehicles etc. Terrorism is always an “Asymmetric Warfare” (for obvious reasons) where the powerful side, (usually a State or Country) has state of the art military equipment and the other side has very little other than hand held weapons and human bodies. Suicide-vests are the quintessential weapon of terror. Because they are hidden they can have a kill ratio of ten or more to one. They are therefore extremely effective as psychological weapons. Terrorists are almost by definition a very small group of disenchanted radicals who do not have access to modern sophisticated and expensive military equipment, so they have to resort to this sort of asymmetric terrorism. Terrorism has a different aim and a different modus operandi from conventional war. For terrorists time and place of battle or time and place of victory are not a factor. Terrorists choose a target, and then over time slowly start infiltrating the area. They look like regular people. They remain as “sleepers” until called to action. They are unobtrusive and have no visible weapons; they often befriend and mix freely with the local population. Once activated, they make sure that they terrorise the population. Terrorism is not about capturing Territory; it is aimed at destroying economic infrastructure, about killing and wounding the local population in a game of demoralisation, economic destruction, discrediting the existing government, and sapping the morale of the local people, which can then lead to an economic collapse and/or making the State ungovernable. History does not show many (if any) instances of a conventional military winning against Terrorism. The British-Irish insurrection lasted from 1915 until 1998 without a military victory. Finally a political settlement had to be agreed upon. The US’s standard duplicitous propaganda has given the American People a totally false view of what is going on in Syria and much of the Middle East. Most of the mainstream media are in on the game of deceit about America’s war on Terrorism. In Mosul, Raqqa, Aleppo, and all the others, the “terrorists” have magically acquired large numbers of tanks, howitzers, rocket platforms, cannon Vehicles, armoured personnel carriers, etc. They seem to have flags, uniforms, and badges. Somehow they all have the entire range of military equipment. This is absolutely not asymmetric Terrorism, this is genuine conventional war. The US and its surrogates are in a real military war. The American (and allied) politicians should be held accountable. US Politicians and mainstream media have allowed the US government to hide behind a false flag of “Terrorism”. This has fooled the people into supporting a conventional war without realising that that is what it is. When the US announced its ‘War on Terror’, it was creating a subterfuge. When a country is put on a war footing, the powers-that-be understand well that under a condition of war the conventional laws-of-the-and can be modified and sidestepped. Lots of things which would never be acceptable in times of peace can be justified in times of war. In the Middle East (and a few other places) the US cannot ever admit that they (and their surrogates) are in a military war. This would be unconstitutional . By declaring a ‘War on Terror’, the US leadership has been able to legitimise its illegal war making and put its illegal acts in a pseudo- legal framework whilst without formally declaring war placing the nation onto a war footing. The US has developed the habit of declaring anything and anybody they wish to hurt, anywhere in the world, as “terrorists” so that they can the use their loosened set of rules. Somehow the American people have failed to hold their media corporations, or their elected and appointed officials accountable. Instead they routinely allow them to subvert the Constitution by subterfuge and deceit. When the government of a country allows the well being of its people to be compromised in this way, the outcome is usually civil disobedience and/or revolution. In extreme situations, the final refuge of governments wishing to escape responsibility for their failures is War.

Part 1 : The Six Stages of the Exorcism Process By LOBRO VAN HELSING PART 1 of this article is authored entirely by Lobro van Helsing and consists largely of graphic details about the exorcism process as described by Malachi Martin in his controversial book, Hostage to the Devil . PART 2 of the article, entitled ‘The Deceiver of the World’, is by Lasha Darkmoon and continues where Part 1 leaves off. This reflects on various apocalyptic issues, such as Armageddon and the Last Days, the problem of good and evil, and the role of the Jews in human history. “The Devil’s finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist.” — Charles Baudelaire Why is it so hard to accept, at least hypothetically, that in the words of observant thinkers like Baudelaire, the Devil’s finest trick is to convince us that he does not exist? It is generally accepted that the Devil preys on human souls. And what do predators do in all the settings, natural, political, online? They all use disguise and it shouldn’t be beyond comprehension that the Devil, if he existed, would use whichever cloak of invisibility was the most effective for the occasion. Therefore, not seeing the Devil or sensing his presence, proves absolutely nothing. For those who are interested, the material here comes from a book, Hostage To The Devil , by Father Malachi Martin, a trained exorcist in the Roman Catholic tradition. Fr Malachi’s material, featuring several cases of authentic demonic possession and their accompanying exorcisms in modern day America, was carefully vetted through use of tape recorders and reinforced later on by lengthy interviews with the participants in the exorcism process. — § — In 1906 in South Africa , Clara Germana Cele, age 16, reportedly made a pact with the Devil. As a result, her behavior suddenly took a bizarre turn for the worse. In August of that year, the startled nuns at the convent school where Clara was a student witnessed her tearing at her clothes, growling like an animal, and engaging in conversation with unseen entities. Nuns reported that the girl’s skin would burn when sprinkled with holy water. She would lash out violently when crosses or other sacred objects entered her presence.She also reportedly developed clairvoyant powers and was able to describe personal details of other people’s lives that she couldn’t possibly have known ab out. The accounts of several nuns also reported that Clara possessed the ability to speak and understand several different foreign languages to which she had never been exposed, including Polish, German, French, and several others. It was said that Clara had been imbued with superhuman strength as well, easily overpowering authority figures at the school when they attempted to restrain her. Another seemingly far-fetched assertion from many witnesses was that Clara began levitating up to five feet in the air on a regular basis, her clothes sticking to her body as if they too had managed to defy the laws of gravity. It was claimed that only after being sprinkled with holy water could she be brought back down, during which time she would also temporarily snap out of her possessed state. Most outlandish of all were the claims that the young woman had the ability to transform into a sort of snakelike creature, her body becoming as flexible as rubber as she slithered across the floor. At one point she was said to have bitten a nun on the arm and left puncture marks like those of a serpent’s fangs. (See here ) Note. This case history is not to be found in Malachi Martin’s Hostage to the Devil. I have added it to the article as an afterthought, since it contains within it many of the typical features found in demonic possession. Before you read any further, please watch this 2-minute video in Spanish with English subtitles. WARNING. This article contains material that is deeply disturbing. Those of sensitive disposition are advised to refrain from further reading. Apart from the quoted extracts, randomly chosen among many to illustrate various aspect of possession or exorcism, I wish to make the following points: Although the book deals only with cases in the Catholic community, demonic possession is a universal phenomenon and has been noted and researched in countries all over the world. The Possessor (often referring to itself as “the Kingdom” or in plural as “We”) selects victims gripped in some spiritual, emotional and intellectual conflict with the accepted mores of family, society and church, inserting itself undetected into these fault lines and exploiting them with catastrophic consequences. Loss of self identity, soul, or personality follows as a result. There is invariably an element of guilt on the part of the victim who has initially invited possession by his or her aberrant behavior and life style. In extreme cases, the possessed individual has actually made a formal request for possession in order to gain some advantage, e.g., worldly wealth or fame. The process of expelling the possessing malignancy moves through identifiable stages. “One of the most experienced exorcists I have known,” Malachi Martin notes, “who was in fact the mentor of the exorcist in the first case related in this book, gave names to the various general stages of an exorcism. These names reflect the general meaning or effect or intent of what is happening, but not the specific means used by the evil spirit or by the exorcist. Conor, as I call him, spoke of six stages: Presence, Pretense, Breakpoint, Voice, Clash, and Expulsion . Exorcism exacts practically intolerable toll on the priest in charge, not infrequently resulting in his death, at which point the junior helper must take over the task. Demonic possession is not an isolated or freak phenomenon. It seems to be on the rise, especially in the United States. Perhaps this has something to do with the demise of religious authority, the proliferation of Satanist covens, child abuse and sacrifice, the prevalence and glorification of Satanist elements in pop culture, and, finally, the wide acceptance and promotion of sexual perversion as a new norm. “The incidence of Exorcism,” Fr. Martin begins by pointing out, “has been on a steady rise. There has been a 750 percent increase in the number of Exorcisms performed between the early 1960s and the mid-1970s. Over the same period, there has been an alarming increase in the number of requested Possessions – that is, cases in which the Possessed formally request Satan to possess them — in comparison to the cases of incurred Possessions, which result from other sorts of activities of the Possessed that facilitate Possession. Each year, some 800 to 1,300 major Exorcisms and some thousands of minor Exorcisms are performed. For experts in the field, this is a sobering barometer of the increase in known cases of Possession. But it is still more sobering to realize how many more cases of Possession cannot be addressed at all. The thousands of letters I receive from people who are desperate for help — Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, and unchurched — are eloquent, anguished, and a steadily mounting testimony to the crisis. Law officers, meanwhile, are increasingly confronted on every side by the incontrovertible signs of crimes committed in the course of ritualistic Satanism, or as a grisly result of an individual’s participation in such rituals. They are very often left out of the shrunken loop of expert advice and assistance. Advice and assistance that was once routinely to be found. To those who are active in the field of Exorcism, and who therefore acquire a greater than usual ability to uncover and recognize the marks of ritualistic Satanism for what they are, it is clear that in many police precincts the Satanist character of a crime is either relegated to the background or not mentioned at all — at least not in public reports. By and large, the police have no other choice. They have neither competence nor authority in the rarefied and dangerous field of Satanist behavior.” Most of the above points were made on numerous occasions in mythology and folklore, e.g., vampires, werewolves, and the tale of Dr Faustus adapted by Marlowe and Goethe. Jesus Christ was of course the Grand Exorcist, not only in the Gadarene swine incident but his opus seems to me to have been focused on confronting the Devil in Judaism for which he paid with his life … the tale does not end there in my view but I leave these speculative elements to the reader. — § — THE SIX STAGES OF DEMONIC POSSESSION From the moment the exorcist enters the room, a peculiar feeling seems to hang in the very air. From that moment in any genuine exorcism and onward through its duration, everyone in the room is aware of some alien Presence . This indubitable sign of possession is as unexplainable and unmistakable as it is inescapable. All the signs of possession, however blatant or grotesque, however subtle or debatable, seem both to pale before and to be marshaled in the face of this Presence. There is no sure physical trace of the Presence, but everyone feels it. You have to experience it to know it; you cannot locate it spatially- beside or above or within the possessed, or over in the corner or under the bed or hovering in midair. In one sense, the Presence is nowhere, and this magnifies the terror, because there is a presence, an other present. Not a “he” or a “she” or an “it.” Sometimes, you think that what is present is singular, sometimes plural. When it speaks, as the exorcism goes on, it will sometimes refer to itself as “I” and sometimes as “WE.” This is reminiscent of the possessing entity in the Gospel who, when asked his name by Jesus, replied: “I am Legion.” ‘I AM LEGION.’ Invisible and intangible, the Presence claws at the humanness of those gathered in the room. You can exercise logic and expel any mental image of it. You can say to yourself: “I am only imagining this. Careful! Don’t panic!” And there may be a momentary relief. But then, after a time lag of bare seconds, the Presence returns as an inaudible hiss in the brain, as a wordless threat to the self you are. Its name and essence seem to be compounded of threat, to be only and intensely baleful, concentratedly intent on hate for hate’s sake and on destruction for destruction’s sake. — § — In the early stages of an exorcism , the evil spirit will make every attempt to “hide behind” the possessed, so to speak-to appear to be one and the same person and personality with its victim. This is the Pretense . The first task of the priest is to break that Pretense, to force the spirit to reveal itself openly as separate from the possessed-and to name itself, for all possessing spirits are called by a name that generally (though not always) has to do with the way that spirit works on its victim. As the exorcist sets about his task, the evil spirit may remain silent altogether; or it may speak with the voice of the possessed, and use past experiences and recollections of the possessed. This is often done skillfully, using details no one but the possessed could know. It can be very disarming, even pitiful. It can make everyone, including the priest, feel that it is the priest who is the villain, subjecting an innocent person to terrible rigors. Even the mannerisms and characteristics of the possessed are used by the spirit as its own camouflage. Sometimes the exorcist cannot shatter the Pretense for days. But until he does, he cannot bring matters to a head. If he fails to shatter it at all, he has lost. Perhaps another exorcist replacing him will succeed. But he himself has been beaten. Every exorcist learns during Pretense that he is dealing with some force or power that is at times intensely cunning, sometimes supremely intelligent, and at other times capable of crass stupidity (which makes one wonder further about the problem of singular or plural); and it is both highly dangerous and terribly vulnerable. Oddly, while this spirit or power or force knows some of the most secret and intimate details of the lives of everyone in the room, at the same time it also displays gaps in knowledge of things that may be happening at any given moment of the present. But the priest must not be lulled by small victories or take chances on hoped-for stupidities. He must be ready to have his own sins and blunders and weaknesses put into his mind or shouted in ugliness for all to hear. He must not make excuses for his past, or wither as even his loveliest memories are fingered by ultimate filth and contempt; he must not be sidetracked in any way from his primary intention of freeing the possessed person before him. And he must at all costs avoid trading abuse or getting into any logical arguments with the possessed. The temptation to do so is more frequent than one might think, and must be regarded as a potentially fatal trap that can shatter not only the exorcism, but quite literally shatter the exorcist as well. Accordingly, as the Pretense begins to break down, the behavior of the possessed usually increases in violence and repulsiveness. It is as though an invisible manhole opens, and out of it pours the unmentionably inhuman and the humanly unacceptable. There is a stream of filth and unrestrained abuse, accompanied often by physical violence, writhing, gnashing of teeth, jumping around, sometimes physical attacks on the exorcist. — § — A new hallmark of the proceedings enters as the Breakpoint nears, and ushers in one of the more subtle sufferings the exorcist must undergo: confusion. Complete and dreadful confusion. Rare is the exorcist who does not falter here for at least a moment, enmeshed in the peculiar pain of apparent contradiction of all sense. His ears seem to smell foul words. His eyes seem to hear offensive sounds and obscene screams. His nose seems to taste a high-decibel cacophony. Each sense seems to be recording what another sense should be recording. Each nerve and sinew of onlookers and participants becomes rigid as they strive for control. Panic-the fear of being dissolved into insanity-runs in quick jabs through everyone there. All present experience this increasingly violent and confusing assault. But the exorcist is the one who rides the storm. He is the direct target of it all. The Breakpoint is reached at that moment when the Pretense has finally collapsed altogether. The voice of the possessed is no longer used by the spirit, though the new, strange voice may or may not issue from the mouth of the victim. In Thomas Wu’s case, the alien voice did come from the possessed’s mouth; and that was why the police captain was so startled. The sound produced is often not even remotely like any human sound. At the Breakpoint, for the first time, the spirit speaks of the possessed in the third person, as a separate being. For the first time, the possessing spirit acts personally and speaks of “I” or “we,” usually interchangeably, and of “my” and “our” or “mine” and “ours.” Another very frequent sign that the Breakpoint has been reached is the appearance of what Father Conor called the Voice . The Voice is an inordinately disturbing and humanly distressing babel. The first few syllables seem to be those of some word pronounced slowly and thickly-somewhat like a tape recording played at a subnormal speed. You are just straining to pick up the word and a layer of cold fear has already gripped you-you know this sound is alien. But your concentration is shattered and frustrated by an immediate gamut of echoes, of tiny, prickly voices echoing each syllable, screaming it, whispering it, laughing it, sneering it, groaning it, following it. They all hit your ear, while the alien voice is going on unhurriedly to the next syllable, which you then try to catch, while guessing at the first one you lost. By then, the tiny, jabbing voices have caught up with that second syllable; and the voice has proceeded to the third syllable; and so on. If the exorcism is to proceed, the Voice must be silenced. It takes an enormous effort of will on the part of the exorcist, in direct confrontation with the alien will of evil, to silence the Voice. The priest must get himself under control and challenge the spirit first to silence and then to identify itself intelligibly. As in all things to do with Exorcism of Evil Spirit, the priest makes this challenge with his own will, but always in the name and by the authority of Jesus and his Church. To do so in his own name or by some fancied authority of his own would be to invite personal disaster. Merely human power unadorned and without aid cannot cope with the preternatural. (It is to be remembered that when we speak of the preternatural, we are not speaking about what are known as poltergeists.) Usually, at this point and as the Voice dies out, a tremendous pressure of an obscure kind affects the exorcist. This is the first and outermost edge of a direct and personal collision with the “will of the Kingdom,” the Clash . We all know from our personal experience that there can be no struggle of single personal wills without that felt and intuitive contact between two persons. There is a two-way communication that is as real as a conversation using words. The Clash is the heart of a special and dreadful communication, the nucleus of this singular battle of wills between exorcist and Evil Spirit. — § — Painful as it will be for him, the priest must look for the Clash. He must provoke it. If he cannot lock wills with the evil thing and force that thing to lock its will in opposition to his own, then again the exorcist is defeated. The issue between the two, the exorcist and the possessing spirit, is simple. Will the totally antihuman invade and take over? Will it, noisome and merciless, seep over that narrow rim where the exorcist would hold his ground alone, and engulf him? Or will it, unwillingly, protestingly, under a duress greater than its single-track will, stop, identify itself, cede, retire, disappear, and be volatilized back into an unknown pit of being where no man wants to go ever? Even with all the pressure on him, and in fullest human agony, if the exorcist has got this far, he must press home. He has gained an advantage. He has already forced the evil spirit to come out on its own. If he has not been able to until now, he must finally force it to give its name. And then, some exorcists feel, the exorcist must pursue for as much information as he can. For in some peculiar way, as exorcists find, the more an evil spirit can be forced to reveal in the Clash and its aftermath, the surer and easier will be the Expulsion when that moment comes. To force as complete an identification as possible is perhaps a mark of domination of one will over another. It is of crucial interest to speculate about the violence provoked by Exorcism-the physical and mental struggles that are so extreme they can bring on death. Why would spirit battle so? Why not leave and waft off invisibly to someone or someplace else? For spirit itself seems to suffer in these battles. Time and again, in exorcism after exorcism, there occurs that curious thing to do with spirit and place, the strange puzzle mentioned previously in connection with the room chosen for the exorcism. When Jesus expelled the unclean spirits, those spirits showed concern for where they might go. In record after record, as well as in several exorcisms recounted in this book, the possessing spirits wail in lament and questioning pain: “Where shall we go?”“We too have to possess our habitation.”“Even the Anointed One gave us a place with the swine.”“Here . . . we can’t stay here any longer.” Evil Spirit, having found a home with a consenting host, does not appear to give up its place easily. It claws and fights and deceives and even risks killing its host before it will be expelled. How violent the struggle probably depends on many things; the intelligence of the spirit being dealt with and the degree of possession achieved over the victim are perhaps two one could speculate about. Whatever determines the actual pitch of violence, once the exorcist has forced the invading spirit to identify itself, and sustained the first wordless bout of the Clash, and then invoked its formal condemnation and expulsion by the Exorcism rite, the immediate result is generally a struggle tortuous beyond/imagining, an open violence that leaves all subtlety behind. The person possessed is by now obviously aware in one way or another of what possessed him. Frequently he becomes a true battleground for much of the remainder of the exorcism, enduring unbelievable punishment and strain. It is sometimes possible for the exorcist to appeal directly to the possessed person, urging him to use some part of his own will still free of the spirit’s influence and control, and engage directly in the fight, aiding the exorcist. And at such moments no animal pinned helplessly to the ground struggles more pathetically against the drinking of its life’s blood by a voracious and superior cruelty. The very nauseous character of the possessed person’s appearance and behavior appears to be a sign of his desire for deliverance, a desperate sign of struggle, evidence of a revolt where once he had consented. Increasingly what had possessed him is being forced into the open, all the while protesting its victim’s revolt and its own expulsion. The violence of the contortions and the physical disfigurement of the possessed can reach a degree one would think he could not possibly withstand. The exorcist, too, comes in for full attack now. Once cornered, the evil spirit seems able to call on a superior intelligence, and will try to lure the exorcist on to a field boobytrapped and mined with situations from which no human can extricate himself. Any weakness in the religious faith that alone sustains the exorcist or any fatigue will allow the exorcist’s mind to be flooded with a terrible light he cannot fend off-a light that can burn the very roots of his reason and turn him emotionally into the most servile of slaves desperate to be liberated from all bodily life. These are only some of the dangers and traps that face every exorcist. His pain is physical, emotional, mental. He has to deal with what is eerie but not enthralling; with something askew, but intelligently so; with a quality that is upside down and inside out, but significantly so. The mordant traits of nightmare are there in full regalia, but this is no dream and permits him no thankful remission. He is attacked by a stench so powerful that many exorcists start vomiting uncontrollably. He is made to bear physical pain, and he feels anguish over his very soul. He is made to know he is touching the completely unclean, the totally unhuman . “THE TOTALLY UNHUMAN” ( CLICK TO EXPAND ) All sense may suddenly seem nonsense. Hopelessness is confirmed as the only hope. Death and cruelty and contempt are normal. Anything comely or beautiful is an illusion. Nothing, it seems, was ever right in the world of man. Here is an atmosphere as bizarre as Bedlam. If, in spite of his emotions and his imagination and his body—all trapped at once in pain and anguish—if, in spite of all this, the will of the exorcist holds in the Clash, what he does is to approach his final function in this situation as an authorized human witness for Jesus. By no power of his, on account of no privilege of his own, he calls finally on the evil spirit TO DESIST, TO BE DISPOSSESSED, TO DEPART! — AND TO LEAVE THE PERSON POSSESSED. And, if the exorcism is successful, this is what happens. The possession ends. All present become aware of a change around them. The sense of Presence is totally, suddenly absent. Sometimes there are receding voices or other noises, sometimes only dead silence. The recently possessed will wake up as if from a dream, a nightmare, a coma. Sometimes he will remember much of what he has been through; sometimes he will remember nothing at all. — § — Many people could be demonically possessed without knowing it. Here are two individuals who, in my opinion, might benefit from the ministrations of a good exorcist: IS THIS WOMAN DEMONICALLY POSSESSED? Who knows? . . . but many have said so. (Click here for a spooky 2-minute video) IS THIS WOMAN DEMONICALLY POSSESSED? Who knows? . . . but many have thought so. Apart from the demonic expression that disfigures her face, this woman preaches White genocide—the total destruction of the European race. What more do you have to do to qualify for demonic possession? (See HERE for more details on Barbara Spectre’s psychopathy and compare the expression on her face with Figure 1 of this illustration from a medical textbook on demonic possession ) . As I wrote in a recent email to Lasha Darkmoon: “I feel that the entire tribe of Judah is demonically possessed. They always have been for centuries. Jesus made that point over and over again in his homilies. And clearly the Jews’ works bear that out. They are now the Devil’s agents on Earth to promote his policies and spread contagion into the body of the goyim. History bears me out on this.” I will not quote Dr Darkmoon’s response here. It is too long and would require a separate article of its own. Suffice to say that she disagreed with me on several counts, though she accepted my general premise that demonic possession was an authentic and veridical phenomenon and not just a superstitious relic of the Dark Ages. Continued in Part 2: The Deceiver of the World , by Lasha Darkmoon LOBRO VAN HELSING is a retired Canadian academic who is constantly on the move and likes visiting strange places; at present he is living in South East Asia. 2 thoughts on “ Demonic Possession Today (Part 1) ” Franklin Ryckaert says: November 19, 2016 at 10:23 am “…LOBRO VAN HELSING is a retired Canadian academic who is constantly on the move and likes visiting strange places; at present he is living in South East Asia…” That sounds like “our” Lobro of the commentariat of this website, but I thought he was of Croatian descent and “van Helsing” is a Dutch or Flemish name.

After Donald Trump declared that he would do far worse things than waterboarding, it has left the questioned to be begged, what should be done to gain intelligence that doesn t involve torture? A very valid question, and one that our intelligence community probably grapples with daily considering, no, you can t torture people to gather intelligence.When posed with this question on CNN, Ben Carson replied that he would promote a much more humane medical way of intelligence gathering.Pressed on what this medical way would be by CNN s Poppy Harlow, Carson responded: I believe there are a number of ways to extract information. Including, you know, some medical ways of, you know, putting people into a less than conscious state which allows information to be extracted much more humanely. Carson was then asked to explain further, so he said: Well, the average person might understand it as truth serum. But, you know, there are ways where you decrease a person s conscious defenses and they might be much more willing to give up information. Seemingly perplexed by the concept of a truth serum as though it were coming from a Harry Potter novel, Harlow again asked Carson to explain in greater detail what he means. Carson explained: Sodium amytal, but you know there are a variety of different things we can use now. We ve made some advances in that kind of science. So, instead of torture people, Carson is advocating drugging them against their will. It may seem more humane, but it s not necessarily more ethical.Carson never did actually answer the question regarding if waterboarding should be used, and pivoted away into a non-answer of I don t think we necessarily need to be broadcasting what we do. Well, okay then. Why answer questions anyway? It s not like he s running for Commander-in-Chief or anything.Watch the interview unfold here:Featured image: YouTube

40 overs of action and we still do not have a winner. The match is heading to the Super Over. Both sides had the game in their hands at one point or the other but none have been able to latch onto it and the game is heading to the Super Over. It was Marcus Stoinis with the bat in the final over and he has managed to do the unthinkable with the ball and has dragged the game into Super Over.

finally, the police are going to go after those looters and arrest them, bringing them to justice ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) @YourAnonNews @ryanjreilly

@CruzanChoklate This is such a serious issue but every time I scroll my Mentions now, I start cracking up!!

Britney Spears Brought Andy Cohen On Stage, But May Have Forgotten His Name — VIDEO

The prospect of Donald Trump winning the presidency is scaring the hell out of the world s markets, and conservatives are to blame.The economy is facing a free-fall that will make Brexit look like a yawn if Donald Trump pulls out a win. As the electoral votes came in for Trump on Tuesday night, Dow Jones futures dropped an astonishing 750 points while the value of the dollar dropped just over one percent.According to Market Watch,Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged nearly 750 points before modestly paring losses as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump s lead in the Electoral College over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton widened.Dow futures YMZ6, -3.63% were off 700 points, or 3.9%, at 17,574. The U.S. dollar USDJPY, -3.23% slumped 3.2% to 101.64. The ICE U.S. Dollar index, a measure of the dollar s strength against a basket of six rivals, was off 1.2% at 96.68.And the damage was not isolated to the United States as Asian and Australian markets also fell and the Mexican peso dropped in value to a new record low as well.In Asia, stocks opened sharply lower, with Hong Kong s Hang Seng index HSI, -2.82% down 607 points, or 2.7%, at 22,299. The Nikkei 225 NIK, -4.79% slid 783 points, or 4.5%, at 16,387. Australia s all-ordinaries index XAO, -2.26% was off 143 points, or 2.7%, at 5,198.Meanwhile, the Mexican peso USDMXN, +12.0999% plunged more than 11% to a new record low at 20.30 pesos to the dollar.Unrelated but still worth noting, the Canadian immigration website has crashed, presumably because people are scared to death at the prospect of a Trump presidency.Republican voters literally put America s economy at serious risk by voting for Donald Trump. If the world economy takes a major hit and consequently hurts this country and erases all of the progress we have made since the Great Recession eight years ago, Republicans will OWN this. It will be their fault and they will be the only ones to blame.This election is a seriously embarrassing moment in our history and our reputation around the world just went from one of respect to a total joke.These conservative voters in rural areas just got duped into thinking that this billionaire blowhard actually cares about them, their families, their jobs, and their financial future. But they are about to be severely disappointed because Trump only cares about himself. He does not care about making sure people get a fair wage. He does not care about all those blue-collar workers who somehow think Trump will bring back manufacturing jobs. This is a guy who imports materials from China because he d rather buy cheap instead of buying from American companies.So if you are a conservative and you lose your job, home, and savings. Look in the mirror and blame yourself. You caused your own misery and you deserve every bit of it.Featured Image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The U.N. s freedom of speech expert said on Wednesday he was concerned about the ramifications of a decision in the United States to roll back net neutrality, since it could lead to small and independent voices being drowned out on the web. Last week the U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted to repeal rules intended to ensure a free and open internet, setting up a court fight over a move that could recast the digital landscape. David Kaye, an American law professor and the U.N. Human Rights Council s independent expert on freedom of expression, said net neutrality, the idea that all internet traffic should be treated the same regardless of content, was essential. Net neutrality is a really, really important principle from the perspective of ensuring broad access to information by all individuals, Kaye told reporters in Geneva on the sidelines of the Internet Governance Forum. I don t want to say that tomorrow there will be a huge amount of censorship, but over the long term, combine this with the concentration of media in the United States and in most places around the world, I think we should be worried about the ability of smaller voices that often (find it) harder to get traction in the market. He said it would take years to know exactly what impact the U.S. move would have. My concern in the U.S. space is that over time the companies will make decisions based more on their business model than on the content of information and the breadth of information that people should have access to, he said. That s a long-term problem and that s why I m very, very concerned about the rollback of net neutrality. As companies blur the lines between providing the infrastructure and the content that makes up the internet, there is increasing risk of political pressure creeping in, Kaye said. We used to think of telcos being very separate from content providers. But there s a lot of convergence now. So one of the risks is as content and infrastructure are merged more, the pressures on both, which might be of a political nature ... might restrict certain kinds of coverage.

President Donald Trump signed legislation Monday that rolls back two education regulations — one regarding teacher training programs and another regarding requirements for states in meeting directives of the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). [Trump signed H. J. Res. 58, which overturns the U. S. Education Department’s (USED) rule that relates to how teacher training programs are assessed. Additionally, the president signed H. J. Res. 57, which nullifies USED’s rule relating to state accountability requirements under ESSA. The teacher training program requirement, part of the Higher Education Act, mandated states to rate training programs for teachers each year based, in part, on student outcome measures. The Washington Post describes the Obama rule as “broadly unpopular”: Teachers unions said the regulations wrongly tied ratings of programs to the performance of teachers’ students on standardized tests colleges and states argued that the rules were onerous and expensive, and many Republicans argued that Obama’s Education Department had overstepped the bounds of executive authority. The ESSA rule concerned states’ accountability in identifying failing schools and reporting their plans for improving them to the federal government.. In his remarks about these two House joint resolutions, Trump said they “eliminate harmful burdens on state and local taxes on school systems that could have cost states hundreds of millions of dollars. ” “So it’s the states and school systems, and that was very important,” the president added. “Parents, teachers, communities, and state leaders know the needs of their students better than anyone in Washington by far. So we’re removing these additional layers of bureaucracy to encourage more freedom and innovation in our schools. ” The Congress and Trump are overturning some rules and regulations via the Congressional Review Act.

Stephen Colbert hit the nail right on the head and surely touched on some conservative nerves when he did a little ditty on the US Treasury s announcement they d be putting Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. Colbert starts by pointing out that to do that you first have to remove Indian stabber ummm Native American stabber Andrew Jackson.Jackson, who was considered a kind slave owner because he gave the nearly 300 human beings he kept shackled and owned a place to sleep and food and allowed the women to have children. The last one is a no-brainer if you own people babies are just free slaves. Jackson s rise to the presidency was also the beginning of the Democratic party that opposed Lincoln and ultimately seceded from the union.Colbert does quite a bit of poking fun at the founding slave owners, because, well they owned people. Jackson, in particular, was all about preserving the 3/5ths of a person slaves were counted as for census, which gave the South s big plantation enormous blocks of voting power within their state. And just how will Tubman feel being carried around next to the likes of Washington and Jefferson?Colbert also brought up the gender pay gap, noting that the $20 bill with a woman on it will now only be worth $17. Yet another dig at the conservatives who are at this moment trying to put out fires in racist back country congressional districts where they don t like to be left out of the decision-making process for such important things as denying African-Americans and their heritage any role in American history. Remember, these are the same people who oppose black history month, because why should they get their own month when whites only have the other 11?Racism, plain and simple, will be the thing people will remember most about Tubman s debut on the $20 bill. Sad but true.Featured image via screen capture

0 comments Retired assistant FBI director James Kallstrom made history this week when he publicly endorsed Donald Trump for president. According to the Conservative Post , never before has an FBI director endorsed a presidential candidate. “I’m endorsing Donald Trump,” Kallstrom said on Fox News. “I’ve known him 40 years. I’ve never endorsed a candidate. He’s a good human being. He’s a generous person. He’s got a big heart. He’s done hundreds and hundreds of things for people without fanfare.” “He’s a good guy. He’s a patriot of this country and regardless of what he says, his acts show that he is not that person. He’s been in this Hollywood crowd that talks like that, a lot of people talk like that,” he continued, in reference to the leaked audio tape from 2005 in which Trump made lewd comments about women. “He doesn’t do these things. He’s a good guy. I’ve known his family from the time they were kids. Look at his children. Could you find a better family than he brought up in this country? This country is absolutely going in the wrong direction.” “Seventy percent of the people want change,” Kallstrom added, as reported by CP . “You’re not going to get change with Hillary Clinton. This is the woman that lied when she was on the Watergate staff. I mean, she’s a pathological liar.” Watch:

@strangeeisbeast @ericdondero @iyad_elbaghdadi @MelissaTweets Hitler didn't kill because of religion. educate urself: http://t.co/tfwClRnWRc

An image of a doctor goes viral with the claim that Dr. Usman Riyaz died while treating coronavirus patients in Delhi, India.

Brad Pitt plays Gen. Dan McMahon, a parody of Afghanistan war general Stanley McChrystal, in the first teaser trailer for Netflix’s satire film War Machine. [Here’s the full synopsis from Netflix: “A war story for our times, David Michôd (Animal Kingdom) recreates a U. S. General’s rise and fall as part reality, part savage parody — raising the specter of just where the line between them lies today. His is an absurdist look at a born leader’s march right into the dark heart of folly. At the story’s core is Brad Pitt’s sly take on one of the most polarizing war figures of a generation: successful, charismatic General Stanley McChrystal, who leapt in like a rock star to command NATO forces in Afghanistan, only to be taken down by a journalist’s exposé. ” Tilda Swinton, Ben Kingsley, Topher Grace, Will Poulter, Anthony Michael Hall and Lakeith Stanfield . War Machine is on Netflix May 26. Watch the teaser trailer above. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum

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