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Trump Tells Reporters: ‘Walls Work - Just Ask Israel’ - BreitbartPresident Trump stood by his campaign promise to build a wall along the southern border Thursday, telling reporters: “Walls work — just ask Israel. ”[Trump made the remarks at a White House press conference with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos. Santos was asked about comments Trump made in his remarks when he cited his proposed border wall as an important tool to stop drugs from coming into America. Santos avoided discussing the wall directly and instead pointed to areas where the U. S. and Colombia were working together. “I believe the best way to fight drug trafficking is by collaborating,” Santos said. “It is a world problem and we have to all work together. We declared the war on drugs 40 years ago … and it’s a war that has not been won, so we must be more effective and more efficient. ” He pointed to a number of areas the U. S. and Colombia are working together to fight the international drug trade and said that they had agreed to double down on that commitment in the meeting at the White House. “By working together we can be much more effective and that was the commitment we ratified this afternoon,” he said. Trump, however, was much more direct in his answer. “That was a long and a very diplomatic answer to your question,” Trump joked. “I will say it a little bit shorter — walls work, just ask Israel,” he said. “They work, believe me, they work, and we have no choice. ” Trump was referring to the multiple barriers Israel has set up along its border to combat both the influx of terrorists and illegal immigration. Israel’s borders are frequently heralded as proof that such barriers can in fact work. In January, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted his support of Trump’s policy and pointed to the wall along Israel’s southern border as proof of success. President Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea 🇱🇺🇸 — Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) January 28, 2017, Adam Shaw is a political reporter for Breitbart News. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY.

Will America Survive the Next 4 Years?9 Shares 7 0 0 2 Citizens of the United States have chosen the wealthy businessman, Donald Trump, as their new President. Trump, who was considered a wild card candidate, will take control of the country in January to fill his four year term. Violent protests are raging and attacks against those who oppose Trump or fail to fit his criteria of acceptability are on the rise. Trump supporters have also been attacked. To say the very least, this is the dawning of a new age in America. To put it mildly, Trump alienated huge swaths of humanity during his campaign. Women, Mexicans, Muslims, Blacks, the media… have all taken their turns at his whipping pole. Trump’s harsh words have been used to condemn huge groups. The only people Trump hasn’t attacked are White American males. The only people Trump hasn’t attacked are White American males. Interestingly, Trump shares many traits with the man who brought Germany to its knees during WWII, Adolph Hitler. Hitler rallied Germans by directing national anger toward two primary groups, the Communists and the Jews. Trump rallied Americans by directing high doses of anger toward Mexico and Muslims. Trump’s perception of Mexican immigrants is way off the mark, as the majority of those who emigrate to the US are hard working people willing to perform roles most White Americans avoid, like field harvesting. Nonetheless, Trump has described them as rapists and criminals, tossing a blanket over every human being who finds their way to the US through illegal means. When it comes to Muslims, Mr. Trump is exceptionally ignorant. He fulfills the thoughts of those in the Middle East who already believe the US has a long range plan to eliminate Islam. Millions of Americans are having a meltdown over the election of Trump, while those who supported his bid for presidency continue to express anger and simultaneously, imitate Trump’s bully demeanor by attacking those who disagree with their point of view, particularly in social media. Insults have never been so foul and widespread. Everyone is riled, people are unsure of what to do. It seems almost certain that things are going to get a lot worse before they could ever get better. MORE... Defeating White Liberalism in the Age of Trump Brian Cloughley: “The Greatest Achievement of Mr. Trump would be Engage in Positive Discussions with Russia and China” Arise President Trump (or Why it's not the End of the World as We Know it) Trump's sexual predator characteristics - His Grandfather was a pimp, but at least he paid the women he hired On a positive note, Trump has backed off on his threat to dismantle Obamacare. One thing is certain, Donald Trump is extremely willing to toss out ideas and positions and then change his mind the following day. Unfortunately, Trump did this when initially exposing the connection between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and ISIS. It is an absolute fact that the United States was directly responsible for starting two more wars in the Middle East, in Syria and Libya. Both conflicts were deadly and destabilizing and waged at the request of Israel, as a Wikileaks cable recently confirmed. The mere idea that nations are trampled this way cements our understanding of how Obama and Clinton operate. It also speaks volumes about the dark ways that the US has been manipulated by the Zionist government of Israel, a nation that drains US taxpayers of more than $4 million a day. The track record of human rights violations in Israel goes well beyond unforgivable. The ISIS expose was a golden moment for Trump, even though he didn’t stick to his guns. The wars the US has been waging in recent years are all unjustified conflicts used to make large amounts of money for groups like Halliburton and mercenary organizations. While the US government spends trillions on killing, it has historically ignored the suffering its allies direct toward their own citizens. One great example is Saudi Arabia, the radical Wahhabi government that still beheads people in public in strict violation of international law.These problems have sullied US support for many years. The only hope for the future lies in peace and reconciliation. For Clinton, maintaining peace was a seemingly impossible task. Lest we forget it was her threats of war toward Russia and Iran that crossed the line for large numbers of Americans. Parading as a liberal, Hillary Clinton’s warmongering is legendary. The Democratic National Committee debacle that derailed the only promising candidate, Bernie Sanders, was equally reprehensible. In the end, there were no good choices for US voters. The pro-Trump crowd may not feel as victorious once they realize that Mr. Trump does not care about them in any way, shape or form. Only days after the election, it is already being announced that the tax cuts Trump promised will only be a fraction of what he claimed, it is reminiscent of former US President George Bush's famous words, "Read my lips: no new taxes". Of course each man offered the promise as an election gimmick, each time it was enough to convince Republicans. Trump is here to promote his own needs and to meet his own goals. Perhaps some of his political moves will coincide with the wishes of his voters, perhaps not. In the meanwhile tempers are flaring, and Americans are increasingly turning against each other. The real unavoidable truth is that Donald Trump will be the next US President. He says he is going to make America great again and many of us wonder exactly what that means. In the post-WWII years there was peace, unless you were Black. Americans had freedom, unless they were women or minorities. The United States has always waged illegal wars, dating back to the very beginning when one treaty with Native people after another, was broken. Is Donald Trump going to keep the US out of wars for the next four years? It would be a very good thing if he did. On one hand, it seems entirely doubtful that the country will make it through four years of Donald Trump, but giving up is not the answer. If Trump goes too far out of sync, or becomes embroiled in charges that he can't pay off or threaten away, there is an impeachment process that Americans can follow.

Commissioner Starts to Press Cleveland Indians About Logo - The New York TimesCLEVELAND — The Cleveland Indians returned home to Progressive Field on Tuesday for the first time since an agonizing Game 7 defeat to the Chicago Cubs in the World Series. They raised the 2016 American League pennant and handed out rings before the focus turned back to the current season. It is a season in which the Indians may again be one of the top teams in baseball, but it is also one in which they may have to wrestle increasingly with the issue of Chief Wahoo, the smiling caricature that has long been an Indians logo but has come to be seen as offensive and wildly outdated. Among those who think it is time for the club to decisively move away from the logo is the Major League Baseball commissioner, Rob Manfred, who in continuing discussions with the team’s ownership is beginning to apply a little bit of pressure on the club to come up with a plan of action. In a statement to The New York Times, Pat Courtney, a spokesman for Major League Baseball, said Manfred, in his talks with the Indians’ owners, had made clear his “desire to transition away from the Chief Wahoo logo. ’’ “We have specific steps in an identified process and are making progress,’’ Courtney added. “We are confident that a positive resolution will be reached that will be good for the game and the club. ’’ Although Manfred had previously acknowledged a willingness to engage in talks with the Indians about the logo, Courtney’s statement appears to be the first time that Manfred is identified as having staked out a clear position on the issue. It is an issue, however, that may not be that easy to resolve. Although many people, including baseball fans around the country, would welcome the removal of Chief Wahoo, there is a significant segment of the Indians’ fan base that still cherishes the logo, which has existed in various forms since 1947. “Chief Wahoo is the Cleveland Indians,” said Karen Hale, a local Indians fan who was outside the stadium before Tuesday’s game. “I think there comes a time when you have to take a stand for what you believe in. I don’t think it’s hurting anybody. ” Philip Yenyo, the executive director of the American Indian Movement of Ohio, has been protesting at the Indians’ opening day games for years and vehemently disagrees with Hale and others with similar views. He would prefer the team eliminate the logo, and the Indians name as well, but he would be happy for the club to start with the logo. During this year’s protest, Yenyo engaged in a cordial conversation with a team employee. And Yenyo said that over the years the Indians had been very cooperative in arranging for security to protect the two dozen or so protesters who do show up outside the stadium. Still, as Yenyo spoke through a megaphone at Tuesday’s demonstration, a man barreled through the protesters and yelled at him: “It’s a caricature. Get over it. ” Bob DiBiasio, the Indians’ senior vice president for public affairs, said during Tuesday’s home opener that the club understood the passion on both sides of the issue and that in some ways the team was caught in the middle, trying to find an amicable solution. “We certainly understand the sensitivities of the logo, those who find it insensitive and also those fans who have a longstanding attachment to its place in the history of the team,” he said. DiBiasio called the continuing talks productive between Manfred and Paul Dolan, the Indians’ chairman and chief executive. With their sights set on a return to the World Series, the Indians would prefer to address Chief Wahoo after the season to avoid any distractions that could alienate a large swath of fans while games are being played. “Our primary focus right now is on the team,’’ he said. And it may be a really good team, especially with the addition of Edwin Encarnacion, the slugger who left Toronto to sign a $60 million contract with the Indians. The club has already sold 1. 3 million tickets for the 2017 season, DiBiasio said, noting that it did not reach that mark until the end of July last year. In 2016, Cleveland’s attendance was 28th out of 30 teams with 1. 59 million tickets sold, but in the wake of the Indians’ 2016 postseason run, that number is now likely to soar. Manager Terry Francona noted Tuesday that his team seemed to thrive when the stadium was full, as it was Tuesday, when the Indians prevailed in extra innings against the Chicago White Sox. And sure enough, many of the fans in attendance wore the Chief Wahoo logo on their hats and shirts. The move to do away with the logo appeared to begin when Mark Shapiro, who is now running the Blue Jays, was the Indians’ team president for baseball operations. Shapiro was the driving force behind the block C logo, which has been seen on Cleveland caps since 1902 and has recently become more prominent on various uniform and cap combinations the Indians use, as well as around the stadium. During last year’s American League Championship Series between the Blue Jays and Indians, Shapiro said that he was personally troubled by the Wahoo logo and suggested that its days were numbered. “I think there will be a day, whenever that is, that the people that are making decisions here decide that Chief Wahoo is no longer fitting,” he said then. When the Jays playoff series moved to Toronto last October, an indigenous Canadian citizen filed for an injunction to prevent Cleveland from using the Wahoo logo while in Canada. Major League Baseball joined the Indians in opposing the injunction, which was not granted. But in its statement at the time baseball said it also welcomed dialogue about the logo. That dialogue began in the weeks after the World Series and will most likely continue until a resolution is reached. At Tuesday’s game, the Chief Wahoo logo could not be seen anywhere on the stadium building or on the field, but it was on the left sleeves of the blue jerseys worn by the Indians players and on their caps. And it was on the white uniform shirts worn by the Cleveland sports legends Jim Brown, Austin Carr and Jim Thome when they went to the mound to throw out the celebratory first pitches before the game. The logo could also be found on many items in the team souvenir shop, along with stickers depicting an even harsher representation of Chief Wahoo from an earlier period. For now, at least, the logo still survives and even thrives.

Re: Babylon Mystery Religion Series« Reply #1 on: Today at 08:44:21 PM » Part 2 Mother & Child Worship https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWtZPg2RP-M Logged The answer to 1871 is 1776I am one of the people, not a fictional entity created by an incorporated state issued Birth Certificate.

The UN Plans To Implant Everyone With A Biometric ID, This Is Not A DrillIt sounds like something out of a Philip K. Dick novel, replicants and all. The United Nations is planning to have all humans imprinted with biometric identification cards . Via AlternativeNews If you’re not sure what this means for you, it would basically be sci-fi meets 1984. The world government would know where you go, what you do, who you’re with, and who you are at all times, anywhere, every day and every night. It means more restrictions and less freedom. The United Nations wants everyone to have a biometric identification tag by 2030, which is part of their Global Goals agenda . The United Nations is already working hard toward the implementation of this goal – particularly among refugee populations. The UN has partnered with Accenture to implement a biometric identification system that reports information “back to a central database in Geneva”. … And these new biometric identification cards will not just be for refugees. According to a different FindBiometrics report, authorities hope this technology will enable them to achieve the UN’s goal of having this kind of identification in the hands of every man, woman and child on the planet by the year 203o. … The following comes from the official website of the World Bank… Providing legal identity for all (including birth registration) by 2030 is a target shared by the international community as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (target 16.9). The World Bank Group (WBG) has launched the Identification for Development (ID4D) cross-practice initiative, with the participation of seven GP/CCSAs sharing the same vision and strategic objectives, to help our client countries achieve this goal and with the vision of making everyone count: ensure a unique legal identity and enable digital ID-based services to all. Source: The Economic Collapse If you were wondering how the world powers would truly tighten their grasp on the liberties of its citizens, this is how it will happen. Everything you do and say will be monitored and recorded to be used to shepherd you towards obedience. The United Nations has always been a force for world dominance, and this program will be enforced the world over. This is already being done through social media, but because services like Facebook are not obligatory for all citizens, the next logical step is to force citizens to participate in this very program. Are they running behind schedule ? This was supposed to happen by 2017 in the United States: Source : (Truth & Action)

Trump Attacks Senator’s Credibility Over Gorsuch’s Comments - The New York Times■ President Trump met with airline industry executives and complained that “we spent six trillion dollars in the Middle East, we got nothing. ” ■ Representative Tom Price could finally get a vote as soon as Friday to be confirmed as secretary of health and human services. ■ Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, and Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the labor committee, are going after Andrew Puzder, Mr. Trump’s embattled nominee for labor secretary. It was a bit of a moment when Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, told reporters that President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, had called Mr. Trump’s attacks on the judiciary “demoralizing” and “disheartening. ” The account was readily confirmed on the record by a White House adviser, Ron Bonjean, working to advance the Gorsuch confirmation. But that wasn’t enough to stop the president from going after Mr. Bluementhal where it hurt: The president was referring to 2010 news, broken in The New York Times, a media outlet he has openly criticized, that Mr. Blumenthal had exaggerated his service. The president, who might want to be making friends with the senators who need to confirm Judge Gorsuch, tipped his hand as to what news program he was watching Thursday morning: CNN, where Mr. Blumenthal was being interviewed. Mr. Trump registered his discontent. Actually, Mr. Cuomo did ask about Mr. Blumenthal’s service, he said. It is also unclear what was “fake” about a story that relied as much on the people shepherding the Gorsuch nomination through the Senate as on one of the senators who will cast a vote. Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, confirmed the Blumenthal account Thursday morning, as did former Senator Kelly Ayotte, a Republican and one of Judge Gorsuch’s shepherds. Mr. Cuomo also did not ask the senator about the president’s bone spurs. Maybe he was just not positively disposed toward the United States Senate Thursday morning. After taking a whack at Senator Blumenthal, Mr. Trump turned to an old nemesis, Senator John McCain of Arizona, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, whose actual Vietnam heroism, beyond dispute, was disparaged by Mr. Trump. This time, the president was unhappy that Mr. McCain had suggested that the recent raid in Yemen that resulted in the death of an American commando, multiple civilians and possibly a child who was an American citizen was not a success. The president’s tweets came after his press secretary, Sean Spicer, asserted Wednesday that the senator owed an apology to Chief Petty Officer William “Ryan” Owens, who lost his life in the raid. Mr. McCain offered no such thing. “When you lose a $75 million airplane and, more importantly, an American life is lost, I don’t believe you can call it a success,” he told NBC News. Jeff Sessions’ bruising confirmation as attorney general Wednesday evening set off a predictable flurry of news releases that declared the Alabama senator to be a great American who would “make America a safer place” (the National Rifle Association) or “a lap dog” and a “dangerous gamble” (the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence). But for all the bombastic pronouncements, a more measured, note came from, wait for it, the pot industry. Mr. Sessions has been a longtime foe of legalizing marijuana, but the National Cannabis Industry Association was totally chill. “We look forward” to working with Mr. Sessions to maintain the Justice Department’s current approach to state marijuana policies, the association said. “We will work with him to do that,” the industry said cheerfully. In other words, don’t bogart that joint, my friend. When President Trump met with the airline industry on Thursday, the executives had plenty to complain about: an air traffic control system that is out of date, an airport infrastructure that is failing, computers that are melting down. And in the president, the executives found a sympathetic ear. Airports are getting “the wrong stuff,” he said. The air traffic control network is “a system that’s totally out of whack. ” Why? “We spent six trillion dollars in the Middle East, we got nothing,” the president said. “And we have an obsolete plane system, we have obsolete airports. ” The day President Trump took the oath of office, he filed paperwork to declare his candidacy for not so much because he was overeager but because money was still flowing into his campaign coffers, and any funds raised over $5, 000 in 2017 would have had to be returned unless Mr. Trump registered as a candidate. And we know the president doesn’t like refunds. So what’s a federal employee to do with a boss who was technically running for office the day he stepped into the Oval Office? The Office of Special Counsel has answers. It has told federal employees that they may not express a view about whether Mr. Trump should be or defeated in 2020 while on duty or in the workplace, but it assured them that they were otherwise free to express support or disapproval about Mr. Trump and his policies. A new guidance document was issued on Tuesday after the office said that it had received numerous inquiries about the impact of Mr. Trump’s filing for . In contrast, former President Barack Obama filed such paperwork more than two years after his inauguration. The office — an independent agency that watchdogs protections — said that with the exception of expressly advocating Mr. Trump’s success or failure in the 2020 election, federal employees were still pretty free. “Because the 2020 election is still more than three years away, at this time not all expressions of support or opposition to President Trump constitute political activity for purposes of the Hatch Act,” which prohibits federal employees from politicking, it said. The office also developed a new answer to its list of frequently asked questions that spells out with greater detail the scope and limits of federal employees’ right to express their views while they are at work or on duty. The new answer distinguished between expressing a view about current events, policy issues and matters of public interest — which federal employees are always free to do — and political activity, meaning advocating the success or failure of a particular political candidate or party. For example, it said, federal employees on duty or in the workplace are free to say “I agree with health care reform,” but not, “If you disagree with health care reform you should support candidate X. ” Andrew Puzder, the chief executive of the corporation that gave the world Carl’s Jr. Hardee’s, and racy ads of women eating large hamburgers, is finally getting his confirmation hearing (on Feb. 16) after multiple delays. And Democrats see a cabinet nominee they may just be able to derail. Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader, called on the president to withdraw Mr. Puzder’s nomination, describing his business record as “ . ” He also picked up the conservatives’ war cry, assailing Mr. Puzder for hiring an undocumented immigrant to clean his house. “They ought to withdraw Puzder’s nomination before he further embarrasses this administration and further exposes the hypocrisy of President Trump in saying one thing to the workers of America and doing another,” Mr. Schumer said. Momentum may be building. Democrats have attacked his record at CKE, the parent company of the chains. Opponents have moved to unseal divorce records, which may contain details of domestic violence accusations leveled by his then retracted. And until Mr. Schumer chimed in, conservatives — led by the White House adviser Steve Bannon’s Breitbart News — were the leading voices attacking Mr. Puzder for employing an undocumented immigrant. Well, if he doesn’t get confirmed, Mr. Puzder will have a nest egg to fall back on. Ethics documents released Wednesday night showed that he pulled in a $3. 4 million salary last year, owns as much as $55 million in company stock that he must divest himself of, expects a bonus of $1 million to $5 million and even secured a relocation benefit worth between $250, 000 and $500, 000. And he would not be nearly the richest member of the cabinet. Budget season is fast approaching on Capitol Hill, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis met for a private breakfast on Wednesday with the lawmakers who will largely decide on the Pentagon’s coming request for more money to increase what President Trump has said are the nation’s badly “depleted” armed forces. Mr. Mattis and top aides met with the senior Republican and Democrat on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, and their counterparts on the House and Senate Appropriations Committees that control the Pentagon’s purse strings. The big is complicated, however. Under the terms of the 2011 Budget Control Act, both domestic and military spending is subject to hard, statutory budget caps. Republicans want to lift those caps for the Defense Department. Democrats insist that they will go along only if the caps are raised for domestic spending as well. For a guy who famously — and rightly — rejected the polls that showed he would not win the presidency, Mr. Trump has suddenly become quite enamored with those surveys. Vexed by the federal courts and questioned by the press, the president has turned to public opinion to bolster his policies, especially his temporary ban on visas to travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations. And it’s not just polls of Americans. Hey, polls of Europeans back him up too. And of course, polls also back up his feeling for the news media — which, as you might have noticed, he doesn’t like.

Clinton Advisor LOSES IT In Leaked Email Over Hillary’s Illegal ActivityClinton Advisor LOSES IT In Leaked Email Over Hillary’s Illegal Activity Posted on October 28, 2016 by Dawn Parabellum in Politics Share This Nothing is more satisfying than Democrats turning on each other, and that’s exactly what has happened in the Hillary Clinton camp. As if we haven’t heard enough of Hillary’s incompetence and corruption, a newly leaked email shows a top Clinton advisor absolutely losing it over Hillary’s illegal activity, and her shocking admissions don’t paint a pretty picture for the Democrat Party. Thieves and liars are commonplace, but when a person is running for President of the United States, perhaps they should conduct themselves in a manner that commands respect. Hillary Clinton has never been trustworthy in the eyes of rational Americans, and even her advisors picked up on the trouble she’s gotten herself in. The leaked emails are telling and have shown the Clinton campaign as struggling with damn near every aspect of her run for president because Americans are fed up with her lies and corruption. Hillary Clinton In newly-released emails from WikiLeaks, Neera Tanden, co-chair of Clinton’s transition team, cusses at John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman. Tanden is upset about Hillary using the private email and server system, wondering who could have approved of such a thing, which literally left Hillary’s team hoping that the Democratic Party isn’t “suicidal.” Obviously, Tanden is angry because the scandal is damning to Hillary’s political career, and they are all linked to the corrupt Democrat. Email from Tanden to Podesta complaining about Hillary’s email debacle Tanden actually said that whoever gave the OK should be “drawn and quartered,” calling the whole situation “f***ing insane” in the July 2015 message. Podesta even agreed with her assessment and that the refusal to mention it earlier was “unbelievable.” Hillary Clinton advisor, Neera Tanden “[I] guess I know the answer,” Tanden replied. “[T]hey wanted to get away with it.” Hillary Clinton has still declined to answer to any of the revelations leaked in the Podesta emails. It’s likely that there is absolutely no good way for her to handle any of this. She could claim her advisors are liars, but then we would question her judgment in selecting them. She could admit that everything is true, but that’s just coming out stating emphatically that she’s a corrupt criminal. Or, she could just ignore it and hope her lapdog media will make it go away, which seems to be exactly what she’s doing. The leaked Podesta emails are not done, and with the election coming upon us quickly, it’s hard to image what else will be released. Those of us who actually do care about the abuses of government, unlike the mainstream media, will keep a diligent eye and report what’s found because we all know that the media is trying to sweep this under the rug permanently. Too bad for them, it’s not going to work, and thanks to the internet and social media, not only can we inform ourselves, we can spread the information to others without relying on the equally corrupt press who are covering for that crooked Clinton.

Art Laffer: ’Paul Ryan’s Just About Perfect Right Now’ - BreitbartFormer President Ronald Reagan economic adviser Arthur Laffer weighed in on the Obamacare repeal’s passage Sunday on New York AM 970 radio’s “The Cats Roundtable. ” Laffer praised House Speaker Paul Ryan’s maturation, saying he is working with President Donald Trump “beautifully. ” “What you’re seeing happening is the very quick evolution of an administration,” Laffer told host John Catsimatidis. “What happened with Paul Ryan in getting that health care bill passed, shows you exactly how Paul Ryan has matured immensely as Speaker of the House and is working with Trump beautifully,” he continued. “Paul Ryan is just about perfect right now. ” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent

How Donald Trump Will Be Blamed For Economic CrashHow Donald Trump Will Be Blamed For Economic Crash by IWB · October 26, 2016 Tweet The elite will pin the coming economic crash on Donald Trump. This amazing video lays it all out. It’s 15 minutes long. Please watch. VERY IMPORTANT! At one level, many globalists actually want Donald Trump to be elected President so they can BLAME HIM for the economic collapse they’ve barely held back for eight years. This mini documentary reveals the hidden agenda to crash the global debt pyramid if Trump wins the White House. After all, the political elite can never blame themselves for all the problems they’ve created. So they’ll use a Trump victory to turn him into a scapegoat for the massive, catastrophic collapse that’s imminent.

New World Order Pushes Back on Brexit RevolutionNew World Order Pushes Back on Brexit Revolution November 03, 2016 New World Order Pushes Back on Brexit Revolution (LONDON) - England's High Court ruled on Thursday that the British government requires parliamentary approval to trigger the process of exiting the European Union, upsetting Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit plans. The government said it would appeal against the decision and a spokeswoman for May said the prime minister would press ahead with the planned timetable of launching talks on the terms of Brexit by the end of March. The pound rose on the court's ruling, hitting a three-week high against the dollar. Many investors took the view that lawmakers would temper the government's policies and make an economically disruptive "hard Brexit" less likely. "The most fundamental rule of the UK's constitution is that parliament is sovereign and can make and unmake any law it chooses," said Lord Chief Justice John Thomas, England's most senior judge. Thomas and two other senior judges did not spell out what action the government needed to take. They also did not say whether it would need to pass a new law to trigger the divorce proceedings, which could face opposition and amendments from both houses of parliament, particularly the House of Lords, the unelected upper chamber. Once again, those individuals who are pushing for a New World Order will do ANYTHING to stop the will of the people from being implemented, because those in power think they know better than the very people who elected them. - TRUNEWS In theory, parliament could block Brexit altogether. But few people expect that outcome, given that the British people voted by 52 to 48 percent to leave the EU in a referendum in June. However, the ruling makes the already daunting task of taking Britain out of a club it joined 43 years ago even more complex. It also puts at risk May's March deadline triggering Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, the formal step needed to start the process of exiting the bloc. "The government is disappointed by the court's judgment," trade minister Liam Fox told parliament. "The country voted to leave the European Union in a referendum approved by acts of parliament. The government is determined to respect the result of the referendum." Making clear the government planned to stick to its timetable, the spokeswoman for May said: "Our plan remains to invoke Article 50 by the end of March, we believe the legal timetable should allow for that." "HARD BREXIT" NOW LESS LIKELY? The court ruled that the government could not trigger Article 50 without approval from parliament. "The court does not accept the argument put forward by the government," Thomas said. "We decide that the government does not have power ... to give notice pursuant to Article 50 for the UK to withdraw from the European Union." The judges granted the government permission to appeal to the Supreme Court, Britain's highest judicial body, which has set aside Dec. 5-8 to deal with the matter. Investment manager Gina Miller, the lead claimant in the legal challenge, said the case was about "process, not politics" and rejected accusations of trying to usurp the will of the people. "One of the big arguments (in the referendum) was parliamentary sovereignty," she told reporters. "So you can't on the day you get back sovereignty decide you're going to sidestep or throw it away." Lawmakers largely voted to remain in the EU in the June referendum. Many investors believe greater parliamentary involvement in the process would therefore reduce the influence of ministers in May's government who are strongly pro-Brexit. TRUNEWS warned listeners and readers back in July about the attempts to hijack the Brexit win. READ MORE in the article entitled BREXIT TIMETABLE NOT SET IN STONE This could reduce the likelihood of a "hard Brexit", a scenario in which Britain prioritizes tight controls on immigration over remaining in the European single market. Nigel Farage, head of the anti-EU party UKIP, said on Twitter that he feared the ruling could turn into an attempt to scupper Brexit altogether. "I worry that a betrayal may be near at hand," he said. "I now fear every attempt will be made to block or delay triggering Article 50. They have no idea (of the) level of public anger they will provoke."

Pokemon Go players are inadvertently stopping people committing suicide in Japan Pokemon Go players are inadvertently stopping people committing suicide in Japan @Tkbeynon over on Twitter writes, “Pokemon Go players inadvertently stopping people committing suicide is definitely my favourite story of the day”

California Senate Race Is a Tale of Diversity and a Flailing G.O.P. - The New York TimesLOS ANGELES — Kamala Harris made history when she became the first black woman to be elected attorney general in California. Now she is vying for the United States Senate, and she has managed to stay the in the race ever since she announced last year, just days after Senator Barbara Boxer, a fellow Democrat, said she would leave the seat she won in 1992. With the help of allies, Ms. Harris nudged aside other prominent Democratic contenders, including Antonio Villaraigosa, the former mayor of Los Angeles, and United States Representative Xavier Becerra. But as Tuesday’s open primary for the seat approaches, Ms. Harris’s chief rival is from her own party — Loretta Sanchez, a congresswoman from Southern California. And their competition says as much about California as it does about the candidates. In a state with one of the most diverse electorates in the nation, where Latinos are the largest ethnic group, a victory by either woman would be a milestone: Ms. Harris would be the first black woman in the United States Senate since Carol Moseley Braun, an Illinois Democrat who served from 1993 to 1999, and Ms. Sanchez would become the first Latina elected to the Senate. A recent Field poll shows the two leading a crowded ballot, including a pack of Republicans. The open primary — approved by voters in 2010 — will send the top two regardless of party, to the November election. That contest will offer insight into just how diminished the Republican Party is in this state. Polling suggests that none of the many Republicans in the race can draw enough votes to even make the final ballot. In a recent interview, Ms. Sanchez said she knew she faced a formidable obstacle because many of the state’s leading Democrats would back Ms. Harris — who, like most statewide elected officials, comes from the Bay Area. “I knew that I would not have the establishment with me — they sent a message to all of us in Southern California,” Ms. Sanchez said. “But I’ve been told ‘no’ many times, and go on to make it work. ” Ms. Sanchez surprised many in the political world when she was elected to the House of Representatives 20 years ago, beating a Republican incumbent in Orange County, which for decades had been a Republican stronghold. Now, as then, Ms. Sanchez is counting on deep support from Latinos. Latino voter registration in California has nearly doubled this year, according to the secretary of state’s office, as voters also prepare to choose presidential nominees. Many believe those newly registered voters will turn out on Tuesday, driven in large part by rhetoric from the Republicans’ presumptive nominee, Donald J. Trump. In a poll released in late May, Ms. Sanchez had the support of roughly 48 percent of Latinos, compared with 19 percent for Ms. Harris. “What’s the one thing that can motivate more Latino voters than ever before? Donald Trump,” said Dan Schnur, the director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California. “The question will be how strong those loyalties are. ” Far from ceding any ethnic voting bloc, Ms. Harris has spent much of her energy courting Latinos. She secured endorsements from Hilda Solis, a Los Angeles County supervisor who was President Obama’s first labor secretary, and Dolores Huerta, a farmworkers advocate who appears in a commercial for Ms. Harris. Speaking recently to a crowd of union officials in Commerce, a city east of Los Angeles, Ms. Harris emphasized her own family’s immigrant roots and her support for overhauling immigration law. “Latino voters are my voters,” she said. “They care about people’s commitment to their issues, and I’d match my record against anyone when it comes to looking at my longstanding commitment to all communities, including the Latino community. I reject the notion that this race is going to come down to ethnicity. It’s going to come down to what you’ve actually done and what you’ve demonstrated you can get done. ” For much of the race, Ms. Harris has largely ignored the rest of the field. She relies on the phrase “smart on crime” to convey her views on criminal justice and uses the label “fearless” in campaign advertisements. While her experience as the state’s top law enforcement official is her most important credential, she has never taken a position on a 2014 measure to release thousands of inmates and reduce sentences for nonviolent offenders. Ms. Sanchez, who is running her first statewide campaign, points to her work in Congress to portray herself as the candidate most prepared to deal with national security. She has promoted her support from colleagues in the House, campaigning with several of them in recent appearances. Representative Filemon Vela, Democrat of Texas, released a statement late last month calling the California Democratic Party’s support for Ms. Harris “insulting to Latinos all across this country. ” “Not one single Democratic Latina has ever been in the United States Senate,” Mr. Vela said in the statement, adding that the party’s position is ”a disrespectful example of wayward institutional leadership, which on the one hand ‘wants our vote’ but on the other hand wants to ‘spit us out.’ ” Though both women have aired commercials in the expensive media markets of the Bay Area and Los Angeles, Ms. Harris has raised more than three times as much money as Ms. Sanchez — $11 million compared with about $3. 5 million as of Friday, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In the two televised debates, the three leading Republicans in the race focused much of their attacks on Ms. Harris. For them, the path to November relies on uniting Republican voters and a significant chunk of independents, who make up about a third of the state’s registered voters. “We have two people at the top of the national ticket who are really divisive,” said Duf Sundheim, a Republican candidate and a former chairman of the state party, who has not said whether he will back Mr. Trump in the fall. “I think it’s really important to have someone in the Senate who can really do things in the middle. ” Tom Del Beccaro, another Republican candidate and former chairman of the state party, has called for a flat federal income tax and said Congress should focus on setting stricter immigration laws. Just as often as he talks about his positions on issues, Mr. Del Beccaro discusses the mechanics of Tuesday’s primary ballot. With 34 names spread across two columns, he said, the ballot is too complicated, making it more likely that voters will not check boxes correctly. “The primary drives down participation and creates a lot of guess work,” Mr. Del Beccaro said. Though he has raised hardly any money and has spent little time on the campaign trail, perhaps no other candidate has more directly pursued supporters of Mr. Trump and Senator Bernie Sanders than Ron Unz, a software engineer and political writer who has endorsed both an increase in the federal minimum wage and more limits on legal immigration. Mr. Unz rose to prominence here more than a decade ago when he backed a ballot initiative opposing bilingual education. “The Republican Party in this state has almost been annihilated,” Mr. Unz said. “It’s going to be embarrassing for Republicans if they don’t even have a candidate in the fall, but this shows some enormous dissatisfaction with our respective parties that we will have to deal with in the future. ”

Exclusive: Source Says Megyn Kelly ‘Would Not Be Welcomed Back’ at Fox NewsControversy usually creates cash and big ratings — except if you are NBC News’ Megyn Kelly. [After Kelly’s controversial and interview with Alex Jones tanked by again failing to beat out reruns of 60 Minutes and America’s Funniest Home Videos, New York radio host Mark Simone tweeted on Monday that NBC is trying to unload Kelly and convince Fox News to take her back. But a Fox News source told Breitbart News that there is “no way” Kelly could come back to the network. Quite simply, the source told Breitbart News, Kelly “would not be welcomed back. ” Inside scoop: NBC now trying to get rid of Megyn Kelly. Even trying to get FOX to buy out her contract and take her back. — MARK SIMONE (@MarkSimoneNY) June 19, 2017, Simone also suggested that if Kelly becomes more toxic and her ratings tank even more, “NBC will have to take her off the network,” and “if they are stuck with her, they’ll give her an MSNBC show. ” NBC will have to take her off the network — if they are stuck with her, they’ll give her an MSNBC show, — MARK SIMONE (@MarkSimoneNY) June 19, 2017, Before she bolted to NBC, Kelly anchored The Kelly File on Fox News. During the 2016 election cycle, Kelly won praise from mainstream media journalists when she tried to undercut Donald Trump during the first Republican presidential debate in August of 2015 in Cleveland, Ohio. She also gave “Never Trumpers” a forum on her primetime show to constantly slam Trump throughout the election cycle. And as the Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove noted, Kelly also “hastened [Roger] Ailes’ forced resignation last July with her fateful decision to recount his misconduct to a team of lawyers hired by 21st Century Fox to investigate allegations made in the sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit filed by Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson. ” New York magazine’s Gabriel Sherman reported that Kelly “told investigators that Ailes made unwanted sexual advances toward her about ten years ago when she was a young correspondent at Fox. ” As Grove pointed out, Kelly, in her book, said there was some “poetic justice” in the role she played in helping boot Ailes out of Fox News. “I worked my tail off … I established myself as a serious person,” Kelly wrote. “I built my own power. And when the allegations against Roger hit, I used it. Perhaps there is some poetic justice in that. ” NBC reportedly invested nearly $20 million a year to bring Kelly to the network, and NBC’s investment has not paid any dividends at all. After her interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kelly was mocked for being way out of her league. And when HuffPost obtained the full unedited interview in which a “nervous” Kelly lobbed Putin “softballs,” Kelly was subjected to another round of criticism. Her interview with Jones did not have any news value and may have damaged NBC’s and her reputation more than it helped. Advertisers like J. P. Morgan Chase fled while Kelly lost credibility in the eyes of many when, in a leaked recording that Jones released, Kelly is heard telling Jones, “It’s not gonna be some gotcha hit piece, I promise you that. ” NBC did not help matters when it released a photo of Kelly and Jones that, as The Hill’s media columnist Joe Concha described, looked “like they were on a Tinder date pulling up to a . ” Yet despite all of the hype, Kelly’s interview with Jones still flopped. 60 Minutes and America’s Funniest Home Videos reruns even beat Kelly’s show by nearly 40 percent in the coveted 18 to demographic, as Concha noted. A television executive told CNN over the weekend that NBC’s “fundamental mistake” was thinking that Kelly was actually a “superstar. ” NBC executives have already reportedly determined that viewers are not going to tune in to Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly just to watch Kelly and are “freaking out” over the “ratings disaster” that is Kelly.

In Break With Precedent, Obama Envoys Are Denied Extensions Past Inauguration Day - The New York TimesWASHINGTON — Donald J. Trump’s transition staff has issued a blanket edict requiring politically appointed ambassadors to leave their overseas posts by Inauguration Day, according to several American diplomats familiar with the plan, breaking with decades of precedent by declining to provide even the briefest of grace periods. The mandate — issued “without exceptions,” according to a terse State Department cable sent on Dec. 23, diplomats who saw it said — threatens to leave the United States without envoys for months in critical nations like Germany, Canada and Britain. In the past, administrations of both parties have often granted extensions on a basis to allow a handful of ambassadors, particularly those with children, to remain in place for weeks or months. Mr. Trump, by contrast, has taken a hard line against leaving any of President Obama’s political appointees in place as he prepares to take office on Jan. 20 with a mission of dismantling many of his predecessor’s signature foreign and domestic policy achievements. “Political” ambassadors, many of them major donors who are nominated by virtue of close ties with the president, almost always leave at the end of his term ambassadors who are career diplomats often remain in their posts. A senior Trump transition official said there was no ill will in the move, describing it as a simple matter of ensuring that Mr. Obama’s overseas appointees leave the government on schedule, just as thousands of political aides at the White House and in federal agencies must do. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about internal deliberations, said the ambassadors should not be surprised about being held to a hard end date. The directive has nonetheless upended the personal lives of many ambassadors, who are scrambling to secure living arrangements and acquire visas allowing them to remain in their countries so their children can remain in school, the diplomats said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the matter. In Costa Rica, Ambassador Stafford Fitzgerald Haney is hunting for a house or an apartment as his family — which includes four children and his wife, who has been battling breast cancer — struggles to figure out how to avoid a move back to the United States with five months left in the school year, according to the diplomats. In the Czech Republic, they said, Ambassador Andrew H. Schapiro is seeking housing in Prague as well as lobbying his children’s school to break with policy and accept them back midyear. In Brussels and Geneva, Denise Bauer, the United States ambassador to Belgium, and Pamela Hamamoto, the permanent representative to the United Nations, are both trying to find a way to keep daughters from having to move just months before their high school graduation. Ronald E. Neumann, the president of the American Academy of Diplomacy, a nonprofit association for former ambassadors and senior diplomats, said it was reasonable to expect ambassadors to return at the end of a term, given that they are direct representatives of the president with broad grants of authority. But he could not recall an occasion on which such a strict timeline had been applied. “When you have people out there whose only reason for being an ambassador is their political connection to the outgoing president of a different party, it’s pretty logical to say they should leave,” said Mr. Neumann, a career Foreign Service officer who held ambassadorships in Algeria, Bahrain and Afghanistan. “But I don’t recollect there was ever a guillotine in January where it was just, ‘Everybody out of the pool immediately. ’” W. Robert Pearson, a former ambassador to Turkey and a scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said the rule was “quite extraordinary,” adding that it could undermine American interests and signal a hasty change in direction that exacerbates jitters among allies about their relationships with the new administration. With the world already primed to be worrying about such an abrupt change, “this is just a very concrete signal that it is going to happen,” Mr. Pearson said. At a White House farewell reception that Mr. Obama held on Wednesday night for noncareer ambassadors, many of them commiserated, attendees said, comparing notes about how to handle the situation. Some expressed dismay that Mr. Trump, whose wife, Melania, has chosen to stay in New York to avoid moving the couple’s son, Barron, to a new school midyear, would not ensure that such allowances were made for American ambassadors. They are weighing a direct appeal to Rex W. Tillerson, Mr. Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, or other top transition officials to reconsider the policy. Derek Shearer, a professor of diplomacy at Occidental College who is a former United States ambassador to Finland, said it was difficult to see a rationale for the decision. “It feels like there’s an element just of spite and payback in it,” he said. “I don’t see a higher policy motive. ” The State Department informed all politically appointed ambassadors in a letter the day after the election that they were to submit letters of resignation effective Jan. 20. It instructed those who wanted to seek extensions to submit formal requests explaining their justifications. Incoming presidents of both parties have often made exceptions to allow ambassadors to wrap up personal affairs and important diplomatic business while their successors were in the confirmation process, which can take months. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Mr. Obama all granted extensions for a few politically appointed ambassadors. Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell offered particularly wide latitude to ambassadors facing family issues, said Marc Grossman, a longtime diplomat and former top State Department official who is vice chairman of the Cohen Group, a Washington consultancy. “This was something that was important to Secretary Powell because of his own experience living and serving all over the world, so when people asked him, ‘Could I stay another couple of weeks, couple of months my kids are finishing school,’ he was very accommodating,” Mr. Grossman said, adding that his flexibility was an “exception” to the general practice. “He was trying to, I think, send a message that family was important. ”

How Will ‘Brexit’ Vote Go? Monty Python May Offer Clue - The New York TimesLIVERPOOL, England — Jackie O’Neill, a administrative assistant, was explaining the other day why Britain should vote to divorce itself from the European Union in this month’s referendum. As she enumerated her many grievances, I couldn’t help thinking of the scene in Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” in which a bunch of disaffected Judeans sit around, complaining about the Romans. “They’ve bled us white, the bastards,” says their leader, Reg, played by John Cleese. “And what have they ever given us in return?” His colleagues mention a few things, by way of example. O. K. Reg says. “But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the freshwater system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?” Even Britain’s most enthusiastic European Union supporters would not argue that Europe has been quite so helpful to their country, of course. But as chance would have it, Ms. O’Neill was heaping her abuse on Europe in a spot that has been a particularly enthusiastic recipient of European largess over the years. So when she declared, of the European Union, “We’re subsidizing them, and what do we get out of it except for a load of laws that we don’t vote for?” it was an easy question to answer. For one thing, there was the large building directly behind her, the Echo Arena and BT Convention Center. When the complex was built, in 2008, Europe kicked in 50 million pounds. “Well, I’ve never been to the Echo Arena,” Ms. O’Neill said. Just as many Britons feel emotionally apart and even alien from Europe, so they see the European Union as an opaque, bewildering abstraction, a mysterious bureaucratic behemoth that hoovers up their money and independence while giving little (or nothing) in return. British understanding of its workings and purpose has not been helped by the arguments being thrown around in the debate over the referendum, set for June 23. No one likes having this debate anyway, much less the unpleasantly descriptions of its sides: “Brexit” (go) and “Remain” (stay). But underlying all the dire predictions of doom — that staying or going will cause Britain to fall apart in various apocalyptic ways — is a deeper emotional issue that speaks to the country’s sense of self. Who does it think it is, and where does it think it belongs? Has it ever felt like it’s part of Europe? Separated from the Continent by language, tradition, historic antagonism and an inhospitable body of water, Britain has always seemed to be an uneasy participant in the wider European project. It took years to sign up, and its agreement was always marked by caveats and exceptions to the rules. Even when it did join, it felt to many Britons as if someone had given a British pub owner a bunch of fancy French Champagne bottles and said, “Here, use these for your British ale from now on. ” The trappings might be different, but the beer is still the same. In the 15 years I lived in London (I returned home to the United States three years ago) I was constantly struck by the sense of otherness with which many English people regarded Europeans. (It’s more complicated for Scots, whose mistrust of Britain’s government makes them more and for younger people and Londoners, who generally feel part of a wider world.) But travel around England, talking to older people, and you find below the surface a sense of unease, of distrust. Even people who believe that Britain should stay in the European Union, for economic and trading purposes, do not feel very European. At every turn, Britain proclaims its singularity. Most countries fly the European flag next to their national flags Britain doesn’t. Most of Europe uses euros Britain uses pounds. British airports have a passport line that says “British and E. U. Passports. ” British politicians in the last 20 years have increasingly talked about British values and British traditions, about what sets Britons apart from Europeans rather than what they have in common. British people don’t speak the same language as other people in the European Union — not literally, not metaphorically. This is a country where one of the main railroad stations, Waterloo, commemorates Napoleon’s defeat by the British, where a serious objection to building the Channel Tunnel was that it might encourage rabid animals to sneak in from France, and where Beauchamp Place in London is pronounced “ . ” The idea that things are easily lost in translation is reflected in the opening line of P. G. Wodehouse’s “The Luck of the Bodkins,” as a Briton confronts the daunting prospect of having to make himself understood on the Continent. “Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes,” Wodehouse writes, “there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty, hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to talk French. ” The special relationship with the United States isn’t providing much comfort to the Brexit side these days President Obama’s recent admonition to vote no in the referendum enraged many people who believe America should stay out of it and let their country think for itself. As for Europe, some of the British sense of dissonance comes from loss of empire and the country’s complicated feelings about World War II, a moment that showed Britain at its shining best while simultaneously stripping it of its position as a major international power. And some of it stems, simply, from an sense of otherness. “I might be part of the E. U. but I live on an island,” said Alan Lyon, 49, who shovels cullet — broken glass — in a glass factory. Mr. Lyon’s lost both legs in World War I his grandfather fought in World War II. “We couldn’t mention Germany or France around him, he hated them so much,” he said. Britain’s populist tabloids have a long history of slipping happily into remarks. “Up Yours Delors” read a famous headline in 1990 in The Sun, urging its readers to tell Jacques Delors, then the French head of the European Commission, to “frog off. ” (Mr. Delors supported increased European economic integration, which The Sun did not.) Prince Harry once wore a Nazi commandant costume to a party. And in 2006, officials specifically warned fans traveling to Germany for a soccer match not to do things like shout “Sieg heil” at the referees, or to put their fingers under their noses in a way meant to evoke Hitler’s mustache. Perhaps the favorite television episode here is one on “Fawlty Towers” when a hotel owner, played (again) by Mr. Cleese, responds to a group of German guests by lapsing into xenophobic insanity, around the dining room and referring to prawn cocktail as “prawn Goebbels. ” (“You started it,” he says when the traumatized customers object. “You invaded Poland. ”) The side has tapped into feeling by conflating the European migrant crisis with what many Britons see as a local immigration crisis caused by lax European laws and porous European borders. In their view, the country is being overrun by foreigners who not only take their jobs and welfare benefits, but also bring fundamentally different values into Britain. Recently, Britons were appalled at the news that a German comedian who went on television and recited a rude poem about Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, is to be prosecuted under a German law prohibiting the insulting of foreign leaders. As a way to thumb its nose at both Germany and Turkey, the influential Spectator magazine started a “President Erdogan Offensive Poetry” competition, inviting readers to submit limericks. The winner was Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London and leader of the Brexit campaign, who implied in his poem that Mr. Erdogan was overly fond of goats. Announcing the winner in the magazine, Douglas Murray, who organized the competition, said the existence of the poem (and of Mr. Johnson) showed Britain’s superiority over Germany, which is part of the European Union, and Turkey, which would like to be. “I think it a wonderful thing that a British political leader has shown that Britain will not bow before the putative caliph in Ankara,” he said. “Erdogan may imprison his opponents in Turkey. Chancellor Merkel may imprison Erdogan’s critics in Germany. But in Britain we still live and breathe free. ”

Blind Mystic Who Predicted 9/11 Has Bad News About TrumpRemember the blind Bulgarian mystic who predicted 9/11 and the rise of ISIS? Well, she’s got some bad news for, dare I say it, Commander in Chief Donald Trump. Via UsualRoutine Baba Vanga, who’s known to her followers as the ‘Nostradamus of the Balkans’, has claimed Obama is the last President of the United States of America. Vanga allegedly called the election of Barack Obama as well, predicting the 44th president of the United States would be an African American – also making the chilling claim that he would be the ‘last U.S. president’. Usually, I’d be happy to dismiss the reaction to Vanga’s prophetic prediction as the public clinging onto a ray of hope in today’s new political climate, but actually, the blind mystic has a pretty great track record with her visions. The prophetess, who died aged 85 in 1996, is alleged to have made hundreds of predictions about the future with an 85 per cent accuracy rate, from her home in Petrich, Bulgaria. These prediction include climate change and the melting of the polar ice caps, which she allegedly foresaw back in the 1950s, saying: “cold regions will become warm … and volcanoes will awaken”. Vanga’s followers also say she predicted the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, warning a ‘huge wave’ would descend on a “big coast, covering people and towns and [causing] everything to disappear under the water”. Back in 1989 she warned that the ‘American brethren’ will be attacked by ‘two steel birds’, a possible reference to the Twin Tower attacks in 2001. She also warned that a group of Muslim extremists would invade Europe by 2016, foreseeing a ‘great Muslim war’ that would be kick-started by the Arab Spring in 2010 and play out in Syria, eventually resulting in the establishment of a caliphate by 2043 with Rome at the center. According to The Mirror she claimed this ‘2016 invasion by Muslim extremists’ across Europe would mean the continent would ‘cease to exist’ by the end of the year. She specifically said: “[Extremists] would use chemical warfare against Europeans.” Vanga’s political predictions take on a new poignancy posthumously; could her assertions about the elusive 45th President equate to predicting an assassination attempt, or simply that Donald Trump is, as previously expected, a cyborg? Baba Vanga for President? Anyone?

Total Vetting Fail: Left-Wing Snowden Fan Girl Reality Winner Gets Access to Our NSA SecretsThe news reads like something out of a screwball comedy: a activist named “Reality Leigh Winner” somehow received clearance to work for the National Security Agency, which she allegedly proceeded to rob of classified material in the name of the kookburger “Resistance. ” In the Snowden era, how does someone like this get anywhere near sensitive data? [Speaking of Snowden, Ms. Winner is a huge fan of his. He was one of only 50 accounts she followed on Twitter, along with WikiLeaks, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, and the Anonymous hacker collective. Her own Twitter posts were filled with tirades such as, “Why burn a flag? Donald Trump thinks crosses burn much better. ” She was also a supporter of climate change hysteria and the Black Lives Matter radical movement. Her last Tweet, from February, was advice for rapper Kanye West to “make a shirt that says, ‘being white is terrorism. ’” She didn’t just follow the Iranian Foreign Minister, she tweeted at him. “There are many Americans protesting U. S. government aggression towards Iran. If our Tangerine in Chief declares war, we stand with you!” she gushed to Zarif. She also referred to President Trump as “the orange fascist we let into the White House,” and some other names that cannot be reprinted at a website without exceeding our allotment of asterisks for the day. “On a positive note, this Tuesday when we become the United States of the Russian Federation, Olympic lifting will be the national sport,” she sneered in advance of the 2016 election. The totality of the Reality Winner experience reads like a joke put together for a presentation by bored NSA staffers about the sort of person that should never, ever be given a security clearance. It’s as though a blog downloaded itself into a human brain and chose a name by reading its own comments section. It should also be noted that the circumstances of this Iran fangirl’s data theft are a blistering indictment of agency procedures. Even with a valid top secret clearance, Winner had no legitimate reason to see the documents she allegedly purloined. She was only caught because the website she reportedly leaked to contacted the NSA to ask if her material was legitimate. The agency that was stunned by how much sensitive material Edward Snowden managed to abscond with still doesn’t seem to be properly compartmentalizing information and enforcing rules. Fans of the “Deep State” keep saying Trump made a big mistake picking a fight with them, but if the adventures of Reality Winner are an indication of the Deep State’s skill and discipline, Trump doesn’t have much to worry about. Also, it’s worth repeating that nobody voted to give the Deep Staters or Reality Winners control over America’s national security, law enforcement, and foreign policy. Some hay has been made over Winner’s support for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential election, but that’s not nearly enough reason to question someone’s security clearance by itself. It is, however, fair to ask when the media will get around to asking Sanders if he disavows his treacherous supporter — as the press would certainly be doing if a MAGAphile supporter of Donald Trump, boasting a Twitter feed full of causes and celebrities, had looted the NSA to help a “resistance” movement take down President Hillary Clinton. In the alternate universe where that happened, you may rest assured the media freakout about Trump saboteurs threatening the very fabric of democracy has pushed all other stories off the front page today, and the upcoming Sunday talk shows are already booked solid. Of course, as we all know, Democrat politicians are firewalled from the misdeeds of their followers, and no Climates of Hate are ever detected. Certain Democrats have no compunctions about actually encouraging criminality, secure in the knowledge their party will never be made to pay a price for going off the rails: Now more than ever we need whistleblowers to come forward. I created an official website on how to leak to the press https: . — Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) May 17, 2017, Remember the Democrat about President Trump supposedly compromising American secrets by warning the Russians about a terrorist plot? Some of them don’t actually seem all that concerned about real leaks of sensitive information, as long as it furthers their political goals. Democrats have created an environment that’s guaranteed to drive their more supporters around the bend. If one believes, as Reality Winner evidently does, that Donald Trump is an illegitimate president who must be resisted by any means necessary, it’s not difficult to justify lawbreaking or even deliberately damaging America, for the greater good of shoving that usurper out of the White House. Our security services absolutely must take this into account when granting clearances and sweeping sensitive departments for risky personnel. No one with Reality Winner’s political beliefs can be trusted with anything sensitive, period. Democrats created the environment in which cannot be trusted in sensitive posts, not Donald Trump. Leftists and extreme NeverTrumpers excuse every offense against this administration by saying Trump brought it on himself, just by being himself. That’s not how the rule of law works. This climate has to be shut down, and fast, before permanent damage to our national interest is inflicted, if that hasn’t happened already. A few words from top Democrats about acknowledging elections, honoring their oaths, and respecting the Oval Office even if you despise the current occupant (remember that?) would be very helpful.

In Somalia, U.S. Escalates a Shadow War - The New York TimesWASHINGTON — The Obama administration has intensified a clandestine war in Somalia over the past year, using Special Operations troops, airstrikes, private contractors and African allies in an escalating campaign against Islamist militants in the anarchic Horn of Africa nation. Hundreds of American troops now rotate through makeshift bases in Somalia, the largest military presence since the United States pulled out of the country after the “Black Hawk Down” battle in 1993. The Somalia campaign, as it is described by American and African officials and international monitors of the Somali conflict, is partly designed to avoid repeating that debacle, which led to the deaths of 18 American soldiers. But it carries enormous risks — including more American casualties, botched airstrikes that kill civilians and the potential for the United States to be drawn even more deeply into a troubled country that so far has stymied all efforts to fix it. The Somalia campaign is a blueprint for warfare that President Obama has embraced and will pass along to his successor. It is a model the United States now employs across the Middle East and North Africa — from Syria to Libya — despite the president’s stated aversion to American “boots on the ground” in the world’s war zones. This year alone, the United States has carried out airstrikes in seven countries and conducted Special Operations missions in many more. American officials said the White House had quietly broadened the president’s authority for the use of force in Somalia by allowing airstrikes to protect American and African troops as they combat fighters from the Shabab, a militant group that has proclaimed allegiance to Al Qaeda. In its public announcements, the Pentagon sometimes characterizes the operations as “ strikes,” though some analysts have said this rationale has become a prophecy. It is only because American forces are now being deployed on the front lines in Somalia that they face imminent threats from the Shabab. America’s role in Somalia has expanded as the Shabab have become bolder and more cunning. The group has attacked police headquarters, bombed seaside restaurants, killed Somali generals and stormed heavily fortified bases used by African Union troops. In January, Shabab fighters killed more than 100 Kenyan troops and drove off with their trucks and weapons. The group carried out the 2013 attack at the Westgate mall, which killed more than 60 people and wounded more than 175 in Nairobi, Kenya. More recently it has branched into more sophisticated forms of terrorism, including nearly downing a Somali airliner in February with a bomb hidden in a laptop computer. About 200 to 300 American Special Operations troops work with soldiers from Somalia and other African nations like Kenya and Uganda to carry out more than a raids per month, according to senior American military officials. The operations are a combination of ground raids and drone strikes. The Navy’s classified SEAL Team 6 has been heavily involved in many of these operations. Once ground operations are complete, American troops working with Somali forces often interrogate prisoners at temporary screening facilities, including one in Puntland, a state in northern Somalia, before the detainees are transferred to more permanent prisons, American military officials said. The Pentagon has acknowledged only a small fraction of these operations. But even the information released publicly shows a marked increase this year. The Pentagon has announced 13 ground raids and airstrikes thus far in 2016 — including three operations in September — up from five in 2015, according to data compiled by New America, a Washington think tank. The strikes have killed about 25 civilians and 200 people suspected of being militants, the group found. The strikes have had a mixed record. In March, an American airstrike killed more than 150 Shabab fighters at what military officials called a “graduation ceremony,” one of the single deadliest American airstrikes in any country in recent years. But an airstrike last month killed more than a dozen Somali government soldiers, who were American allies against the Shabab. Outraged Somali officials said the Americans had been duped by clan rivals and fed bad intelligence, laying bare the complexities of waging a shadow war in Somalia. Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter said the Pentagon was investigating the strike. Some experts point out that with the administration’s expanded justification for airstrikes, a greater American presence in Somalia would inevitably lead to an escalation of the air campaign. “It is clear that U. S. support to Somali security forces and African Union peacekeepers has been stepped up this year,” said Ken Menkhaus, a Somalia expert at Davidson College. “That increases the likelihood that U. S. advisers will periodically be in positions where Al Shabab is about to launch an attack. ” Peter Cook, the Department of Defense spokesman, wrote in an email, “The DoD has a strong partnership with the Somali National Army and AMISOM forces from Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Burundi operating in Somalia. They have made steady progress pressuring Al Shabab. ” The escalation of the war can be seen in the bureaucratic language of the semiannual notifications that Mr. Obama sends to Congress about American conflicts overseas. The Somalia passage in the June 2015 notification is terse, saying American troops “have worked to counter the terrorist threat posed by ’ida and associated elements of . ” In June, however, the president told Congress that the United States had become engaged in a more expansive mission. Besides hunting members of Al Qaeda and the Shabab, the notification said, American troops are in Somalia “to provide advice and assistance to regional counterterrorism forces, including the Somali National Army and African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) forces. ” American airstrikes, it said, were carried out in defense of the African troops and in one instance because Shabab fighters “posed an imminent threat to U. S. and AMISOM forces. ” At an old Russian fighter jet base in Baledogle, about 70 miles from the Somali capital, Mogadishu, American Marines and private contractors are working to build up a Somali military unit designed to combat the Shabab throughout the country. Soldiers for the military unit, called Danab, which means lightning in Somali, are recruited by employees of Bancroft Global Development, a company that for years has worked with the State Department to train African Union troops and embed with them on military operations inside Somalia. Michael Stock, the company’s founder, said the Danab recruits received initial training at a facility in Mogadishu before they were sent to Baledogle, where they go through months of training by the Marines. Bancroft advisers then accompany the Somali fighters on missions. Mr. Stock said the goal was to create a small Somali military unit capable of battling the Shabab without repeating the mistakes in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the United States spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to build up large armies. Still, American commanders and their international partners are considering a significant expansion of the training effort to potentially include thousands of Somali troops who would protect the country when African Union forces eventually left the country. Maj. Gen. Kurt L. Sonntag, the commander of the American military’s task force in Djibouti, the only permanent American base in Africa, said the proposed training plan would increase and enhance the Somali national security forces, including the army, national guard and national police. “The specific numbers of forces required is currently being assessed,” General Sonntag said. He added that it must be large enough to protect the Somali people but “affordable and sustainable over time, in terms of Somalia’s national budget. ” Independent experts and aid organizations say the Somali Army is still largely untrained, poorly paid and poorly equipped, and years away from coalescing regional militias into a unified army. American policy makers tried to avoid direct involvement in Somalia for years after the Black Hawk Down episode. But in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Special Operations troops and the Central Intelligence Agency began paying Somali warlords to hunt down Qaeda operatives in the country. In 2006, the United States gave clandestine support to Ethiopian troops invading the country to overthrow an Islamist movement that had taken control of Mogadishu. But the brutal urban warfare tactics of the Ethiopian troops created support for an insurgent movement that called itself Al Shabab, which means “The Youth. ” American involvement in Somalia was intermittent for several years afterward, until the Westgate attack refocused Washington’s attention on the threat the Shabab posed beyond Somalia. The Shabab still control thousands of square miles of territory across Somalia. A Somali university student who travels in and out of Shabab areas said the group’s fighters were becoming increasingly suspicious, even paranoid, checking the phones, cameras, computers and documents of anyone passing through their territory, constantly on guard for another American attack. He said Shabab fighters were becoming younger, with a vast majority under 25 and many as young as 10. American law enforcement officials think that the bomb that nearly brought down the commercial jet in February was most likely made by a Yemeni who is believed to have constructed other laptop bombs in Somalia. Pictures from an airport machine show the explosive packed into the corner of the laptop, next to a battery. Several aviation experts said that the bomb was obvious and that airport security officials in Mogadishu might have intentionally allowed it through. The bomb exploded about 15 minutes after takeoff, punching a hole through the fuselage and killing the man suspected of carrying the bomb on board, though the pilot was able to land safely. Aviation experts said that if the bomb had exploded a few minutes later, with the cabin fully pressurized, the fuselage would have most likely blown apart, killing all of the approximately 80 people on board.

Free Care a ‘Blessing’ for Victims of Orlando Nightclub Attack - The New York TimesRodney Sumter had three gunshot wounds, including one that seemed to be “a hole the size of a baseball. ” But during the 16 days he was in a Florida hospital, and in the weeks after a gunman opened fire at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, he never worried about the cost of healing his body. He had insurance, as well as a hunch: Some manner of charity care was probably in the offing. His intuition was proved correct this month when Florida Hospital and Orlando Regional Medical Center said they would not bill victims of the June 12 siege, which left 49 people and the gunman, Omar Mateen, dead. “It’s definitely a blessing for everybody involved,” said Mr. Sumter, 27, who was working as a bartender at the gay nightclub. “You know, we’ve been through a lot. ” The hospitals said the donated aid, including emergency care and surgery, could be worth more than $5. 5 million. The hospitals treated more than 50 people, some of whom died from their injuries. “It was incredible to see how our community came together in the wake of the senseless Pulse shooting,” Daryl Tol, the president and chief executive of Florida Hospital, said in a statement. “We hope this gesture can add to the heart and good will that defines Orlando. ” Next month, the OneOrlando Fund, which raised at least $23 million, is scheduled to begin issuing payments to victims of the shooting, during which Mr. Mateen pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State. Those disbursements, fund officials have said, have “no strings or obligations attached” and are intended to “serve as a gift to the victims of the Pulse tragedy. ” But medical bills have long been a leading concern in Orlando, where many victims suffered multiple gunshot wounds. Still, Mr. Sumter, who was also grazed by a fourth bullet, said officials had never discussed financial issues during his hospitalization. “It really wasn’t on my mind heavy, too heavy, because the doctors and the nurses, they were all really supportive,” said Mr. Sumter, who participates in physical therapy three times a week. Hospital officials, he said, “never really told me the estimated amount” associated with his medical care. Orlando Health, which operates Orlando Regional Medical Center, where Mr. Sumter was treated, said it had “not sent any hospital or medical bills directly to Pulse patients, and we don’t intend to pursue reimbursement of medical costs from them. ” The health system said that it would seek funding from other sources, including insurers and the state’s crime victim compensation program, but that its unrecovered costs could exceed $5 million. “The Pulse shooting was a horrendous tragedy for the victims, their families and our entire community,” David Strong, Orlando Health’s president and chief executive, said in a statement. “During this very trying time, many organizations, individuals and charities have reached out to Orlando Health to show their support. This is simply our way of paying that kindness forward. ” But Orlando Health, which runs the area’s premier trauma center, acknowledged that some Pulse patients might require continuing care, a poignant reality that corresponds with mounting concerns that the flow of donations might be insufficient when perhaps tens of millions of dollars are needed for disability services and lost wages. “We can’t predict the future needs of these patients, their financial situations, or what the state or federal governments may require us to do for charity policies,” the hospital said. “So, while we can’t assume the answer is free care forever, we will use our very generous charity and financial assistance policies to assess the best way to ensure our patients get quality care here at Orlando Health in the most fiscally responsible manner. ” Mr. Sumter, for one, said he was grateful for the donations by the hospitals, as well as the forthcoming money from the OneOrlando fund, which officials promised to victims soon after the attack. “You hear that often, but you don’t know what exactly everything is going to happen when the smoke clears,” he said. “It’s just good to know that not only are we receiving a nice fund, we don’t have to worry about the hospital bills. ”

The most durably Democratic county in the country could go for TrumpPrint In 2012, voters in Elliott County, Kentucky, came close to breaking a streak that, at the time, had lasted 136 years. Elliott County was formed in 1869, and since its first presidential election, in 1872, it had voted for the Democratic nominee every time — the longest span of any U.S. county. President Obama — like the previous Democratic candidates for president — won Elliott County in 2012 , extending its streak. But the margin by which he won — 2.5 percentage points — made it, by far, the closest presidential election the county had ever seen, and the first time the Democratic share of the vote fell below 50 percent. Will 2016 be the end of the streak? Demographically, Elliott County looks like the kind of place where Donald Trump could do well.

Fed’s Challenge, After Raising Rates, May Be Existential - The New York TimesIs the Fed at risk for real this time? Throughout American history, few institutions have inspired such persistent mistrust among voters and their elected officials as the mysterious authority that determines the value of their money. The Federal Reserve wasn’t even around yet when the fiery Nebraska populist William Jennings Bryan rose to the Democratic presidential nomination in 1896 by charging that the gold standard that ruled monetary policy at the time was crucifying the workingman “upon a cross of gold” to serve bankers’ interests — depressing farm prices and crushing indebted farmers by limiting money in circulation. Since its inception in 1913, the Federal Reserve has been alternately accused of either making money too scarce and expensive or making it too plentiful and cheap. In 1981, a Democratic congressman, Henry B. Gonzalez of Texas, threatened to introduce a bill to impeach the Fed chairman, Paul A. Volcker, and most of its other governors, accusing them of squelching the economy with tight monetary policy. Thirty years later, on the Republican presidential campaign trail, another Texan, Gov. Rick Perry, famously suggested roughing up the Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, for “printing money” to stimulate growth: “I don’t know what y’all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. ” On Wednesday, a Federal Reserve led by Janet L. Yellen — confirmed three years ago in the Senate by the tightest margin in at least 35 years — is likely to get a taste of this vitriol. As my colleague Binyamin Appelbaum noted on Monday, the Fed is all but certain to raise its benchmark interest rate, setting itself on a path to prevent an acceleration of the economy and ward off an uptick in inflation — a course that is in clear tension with President Trump’s stated goal to stoke growth at all cost. The pressing question for this era of populist policy making and popular anger is whether the Federal Reserve as we know it — arcane and academic, with the autonomy to set monetary policy as it sees fit — will survive the tension this time. Given the ferocious discontent with the “establishment” stoked by Mr. Trump among his angry electoral base, the threat against the Fed this time seems of a higher order. As Adam S. Posen, an American economist who has served on the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, told me, “The sense that the Fed’s independence could be taken away by a simple act of Congress is very real. ” The pressure is already on. Mr. Posen, who now heads the Peterson Institute for International Economics, points out that the Fed already lost powers it deployed to counter the recession spawned by the financial crisis a decade ago: The financial reform legislation stripped it of its authority to lend freely to nonbanks, which it used to keep money market funds, insurance companies and others that had bet on the wrong side of the housing bubble from imploding and taking the economy with them. Efforts that stalled in the last Congress — to subject the Fed’s funding to congressional approval, to reduce its discretion in setting monetary policy and to subject it to the oversight of Congress’s Government Accountability Office — have acquired a new lease on life, cheered from the right and the left. Disgruntlement in Congress will only grow worse as the Fed gradually winds down the enormous stash of bonds it built over the last eight years to support the mortgage market and encourage lending. This will inevitably push up interest rates and produce paper losses for the Fed as it marks the price of securities to market. As Donald L. Kohn, former vice chairman of the Fed, noted in an analysis of the Fed’s independence three years ago, “it will be a complex exit involving many steps — with lots of opportunity for kibitzing and objecting over a long period. ” Congressional action might not be the Fed’s biggest problem. Mr. Trump’s appointments to the Federal Reserve Board could prove as destabilizing: Two of the seven positions are vacant, and a third will come open with the retirement of Daniel K. Tarullo in April. By the middle of next year, Mr. Trump will also have the opportunity to replace Ms. Yellen as Fed chief and Stanley Fischer as her deputy. Alan S. Blinder, a vice chairman of the Fed during the Clinton administration, recalls the damage caused in the 1970s by Arthur F. Burns, who Mr. Blinder said juiced up the economy as Fed chairman to help President Richard M. Nixon’s bid and cracked down hard afterward. “I’m worried about the people Donald Trump will send over there,” he told me. “If he sends over toadies beholden to Donald Trump, it would be a very serious threat to the Fed’s independence. ” So what is Ms. Yellen’s Fed to do? To a point, this is not just about the Federal Reserve. The European Central Bank, too, is navigating political waters charged with populist mistrust. In Britain, the Labour Party’s shadow chancellor of the Exchequer has called for “democratic control” over interest rates. The argument for central bank independence is as powerful as ever. Political influence over monetary policy would produce more destabilizing booms — as politicians pumped up growth to serve their electoral purposes — and inevitable busts. Expecting consistency of elected officials is decidedly risky: The Republican accusation that the Fed was putting the economy at risk by keeping interest rates at rock bottom to help the Obama administration will inevitably spin 180 degrees now that Republicans control the White House. Still, not all the criticism is mendacious. The popular mistrust of central bankers should not be ignored. After all, central bankers failed to prevent the most devastating financial crisis in generations — looking on idly, at best, while financial institutions peddled shady bonds to fuel a housing bubble of gargantuan proportions. And central banks have emerged, at least implicitly, with a bigger job than before, adding the preservation of financial stability to their duty to ensure low inflation and, in the Fed’s case, full employment. Some central banks — though not the Fed — have been given new tools for this new job. Given this power, it is inevitable that the enormous discretion central bankers have in executing their mandate will inspire popular mistrust. “The financial crisis was very difficult to digest, costly, and had redistributional consequences,” said Lucrezia Reichlin, former head of research at the European Central Bank and now a professor at the London Business School. “Central banks were at the center of the response, so the demand to open up this discussion is natural. We should not be afraid of talking about accountability. ” Perhaps. Perhaps there is a discussion to be had over whether the Fed should keep its role as supervisor of financial institutions, or whether the job should be placed with another agency. Maybe financial supervision should be made more less subject to regulators’ discretion. Maybe there is a better way for Fed officials to communicate with Congress and explain the thinking behind their decisions. Maybe the Fed needs extra tools — to impose limits on indebtedness, for instance, or to adjust monetary policy to serve measures of financial stability. Maybe it could benefit from a tweak in its mandate, to ensure a better balance between its goals of fostering employment and curbing inflation. And yet the populist streak driving through American politics seems unlikely to yield such measured outcomes. The Federal Reserve was designed to be insulated from the full force of democracy in order to protect its mandate from political opportunism, to ensure that policy hewed to technical expertise. It was designed — precisely — to protect it from a moment like this. One can only hope that the protections hold.

'Russia has no intention of attacking anyone -this is absurd,' says Vladimir PutinOctober 28, 2016 112 While the Western press continues scaring its public of "Russian aggression" and blaming Russia for influencing the 2016 American presidential elections, Vladimir Putin just made a speech that is unlikely to appear in any mainstream media. Share on Facebook At the meeting of experts at the Valdai Club in Sochi on October 27, Putin said about the U.S. elections: “a look at various candidates’ platforms gives the impression that they were made from the same mould – the difference is slight, if there is any.” Putin called U.S. stories of “Russian hacking the U.S. election” as a “mythical and imaginary problem” and “the hysteria the USA has whipped up over supposed Russian meddling in the American presidential election,” instead of focusing on the domestic issues: “The United States has plenty of genuinely urgent problems, it would seem, from the colossal public debt to the increase in firearms violence and cases of arbitrary action by the police. You would think that the election debates would concentrate on these and other unresolved problems, but the elite has nothing with which to reassure society, it seems, and therefore attempt to distract public attention by pointing instead to supposed Russian hackers, spies, agents of influence and so forth.” “Does anyone seriously imagine that Russia can somehow influence the American people’s choice? America is not some kind of ‘banana republic’, after all, but is a great power. Do correct me if I am wrong.” Putin reminded us who the real rulers are: “The expanding class of the supranational oligarchy and bureaucracy, which is in fact often not elected and not controlled by society, or the majority of citizens, who want simple and plain things – stability, free development of their countries, prospects for their lives and the lives of their children, preserving their cultural identity, and, finally, basic security for themselves and their loved ones.” Referring to the Western elites’ downplaying the growing gap between rich and poor, Putin said: “It seems as if the elites do not see the deepening stratification in society and the erosion of the middle class, while at the same time, they implant ideological ideas that, in my opinion, are destructive to cultural and national identity. And in certain cases, in some countries they subvert national interests and renounce sovereignty in exchange for the favor of the suzerain.” Putin reminded everyone that current situation of instability in the world is a direct result of the choice made by the United States after the end of the Cold War to take “the course of simply reshaping the global political and economic order to fit their own interests.” By taking this course, the U.S. missed a chance to make globalization “more harmonious and sustainable in nature.” In their euphoria of winning the Cold war, the United States “essentially abandoned substantive and equal dialogue with other actors in international life, chose not to improve or create universal institutions, and attempted instead to bring the entire world under the spread of their own organisations, norms and rules. They chose the road of globalization and security for their own beloved selves, for the select few, and not for all. But far from everyone was ready to agree with this.” This victorious attitude led to the system of international relations where “rules and principles, in the economy and in politics, are constantly being distorted and we often see what only yesterday was taken as a truth and raised to dogma status reversed completely. “ On the Western hypocrisy and double talk, Putin said: “If the powers that be today find some standard or norm to their advantage, they force everyone else to comply. But if tomorrow these same standards get in their way, they are swift to throw them in the bin, declare them obsolete, and set or try to set new rules.” Russian president reminded about the U.S.-led decision “to launch airstrikes in the center of Europe, against Belgrade, and then came Iraq, and then Libya,” and turning the UN into a tool of U.S. foreign policy: “The operations in Afghanistan also started without the corresponding decision from the United Nations Security Council. In their desire to shift the strategic balance in their favor these countries broke apart the international legal framework that prohibited deployment of new missile defense systems. They created and armed terrorist groups, whose cruel actions have sent millions of civilians into flight, made millions of displaced persons and immigrants, and plunged entire regions into chaos.” In the global economy, multilateral institutions also became a tool to promote the interests of few: “We see how free trade is being sacrificed and countries use sanctions as a means of political pressure, bypass the World Trade Organization and attempt to establish closed economic alliances with strict rules and barriers, in which the main beneficiaries are their own transnational corporations. And we know this is happening. They see that they cannot resolve all of the problems within the WTO framework and so think, why not throw the rules and the organization itself aside and build a new one instead.” Always referring to the U.S. as “some of our partners,” Putin stressed that they “demonstrate no desire to resolve the real international problems in the world today.” Instead of making OSCE, “a crucial mechanism for ensuring common European and also trans-Atlantic security,” it was shaped into “an instrument in the service of someone’s foreign policy interests.” About constant vilification of Russia and trumpeting of “Russian aggression,” Putin said: “they continue to churn out threats, imaginary and mythical threats such as the ‘Russian military threat’. This is a profitable business that can be used to pump new money into defense budgets at home, get allies to bend to a single superpower’s interests, expand NATO and bring its infrastructure, military units and arms closer to our borders. Of course, it can be a pleasing and even profitable task to portray oneself as the defender of civilization against the new barbarians. The only thing is that Russia has no intention of attacking anyone. This is all quite absurd. It is unthinkable, foolish and completely unrealistic. It is simply absurd to even conceive such thoughts. And yet they use these ideas in pursuit of their political aims. The question is, if things continue in this vein, what awaits the world? What kind of world will we have tomorrow? Do we have answers to the questions of how to ensure stability, security and sustainable economic growth? Do we know how we will make a more prosperous world?’

США—КНР: на кого возлагать ответственность за развитие ракетно-ядерной программы КНДР? | Новое восточное обозрениеСтрана: Китай Заявления КНДР о завершении своей программы развития ядерного оружия вызвали всплеск дискуссий на тему «кто виноват». Точнее, кто несет главную ответственность за то, что ситуация дошла до нынешнего уровня, и на фоне развивающегося противостояния США и КНР Пекин начали обвинять еще и в этом, причем разброс обвинений разнится от «ничего не делал, хотя мог» до «активно помогал». Начнем с высказываний кандидата в президенты США Хиллари Клинтон. 13 октября 2016 г. агентство Associated Press, ссылаясь на сайт WikiLeaks, сообщило, что еще в июне 2013 года в ходе лекции среди должностных лиц Goldman Sachs Хиллари Клинтон указала на то, что народно-освободительная армия Китая является главным спонсором КНДР. И уже тогда обозначила позицию о том, что если Пекину не удастся сдержать КНДР от создания межконтинентальной баллистической ракеты, способной нести ядерное оружие, США могут взять Китай в кольцо системы ПРО и военно-морских баз. Японская «Санкэй симбун» цитирует министра обороны США Эштона Картера: «на Китае лежит большая ответственность за нынешние действия КНДР. Он покрывает опасное поведение этой страны» и подводит аудиторию к мысли о том, что налицо заговор Пекина, который, постоянно получая от США за великодержавную политику, решил ответить Вашингтону таким образом. В доказательство японцы ссылаются на «Чосон ильбо», которая сообщила, что, по словам бывшего сотрудника Разведывательного управления министерства обороны США Брюса Вектора (Bruce Vector), озвученным 1 сентября, северокорейская ракета — это точная копия китайской двухступенчатой твердотопливной баллистической ракеты Цзюйлан-1, которая размещается на подлодках. Выступая с лекцией в Сеульском государственном университете, помощник госсекретаря США Тони Блинкен также заявил, что о северокорейской экономике невозможно говорить без упоминания о Китае. Пхеньян полностью зависит от сотрудничества с Пекином, поэтому на Китае лежит особая ответственность в реализации антисеверокорейских санкций. Цель подобных обвинений – вынудить КНР быть «более конструктивной». Между тем в заявлениях китайских политиков постоянно проговаривается, что ЯПКП не вызвана действиями Пекина, и КНР не располагает волшебным ключом к её разрешению. Корни проблемы берут начало в противоречиях между США и КНДР, и конструктивный подход должна проявлять Америка. Как отметила 12 сентября 2016 г. официальный представитель МИД КНР Хуан Чуньин, суть ядерной проблемы Корейского полуострова заключается в противоречии между КНДР и США, и американская сторона должна взять на себя ответственность. «Мы еще раз призываем все стороны смотреть на общую ситуацию, действовать осмотрительно и избегать взаимных провокаций, совместно продвигать процесс денуклеаризации, прилагать реальные усилия для достижения мира и стабильности на Корейском полуострове», сказала китайский дипломат, отметив, что сегодняшнее развитие ситуации свидетельствует о важности и неотложности скорейшего возвращения к шестисторонним переговорам . 14 сентября в газете Жэньминь Жибао были отвергнуты американские предложения о том, что КНР должна принимать активное участие в изоляции КНДР . Там заявляют, что основную долю ответственности за текущую ситуацию несет не КНДР, а США. 21 сентября на своей речи в ООН премьер-министр Ли Кэцян также не упоминал про санкции. 2 ноября 2016 г Хуа Чуньин вновь заявила, что одними санкциями и давлением добиться коренного решения проблемы Корейского полуострова невозможно. Комментируя недавнюю встречу глав делегаций США и Республики Корея на шестисторонних переговорах, в ходе которой вновь прозвучали призывы ужесточить санкции и усилить давление в отношении КНДР в надежде, что новая резолюция Совета безопасности ООН введет принудительное ограничение экспорта северокорейской угольной продукции, Хуа Чуньин указала, что рассмотрение и обсуждение северокорейской ядерной проблемы в СБ ООН идет. Однако в важной содержательной части резолюции 2270 СБ ООН говорится о необходимости возобновить шестисторонние переговоры и стремиться к разрядке напряженности в Северо-Восточной Азии политическими и дипломатическими средствами. Это и есть путь коренного решения северокорейской ядерной проблемы . А двумя днями позже, 4 ноября, она же заявила, что размещение американской системы противоракетной обороны на Корейском полуострове подорвёт стратегический баланс сил в регионе и Пекин оставляет за собой право принять необходимые меры для защиты собственной безопасности. Действия США противоречат усилиям по обеспечению мира и стабильности на Корейском полуострове, сказала Хуа Чуньин, призвав соответствующие стороны учитывать законную обеспокоенность Китая. В основе такой политики КНР – как проблема THAAD, которую КНР видит направленной на сдерживание его ракетного потенциала, так и более широкое восприятие антисеверокорейских военных приготовлений США, как направленных на деле против КНР. В результате, несмотря на ряд острых противоречий между странами, в отношениях Пекина и Пхеньяна работает принцип «враг моего врага – мой друг». Проще поддерживать КНДР на плаву, чем рисковать более серьезными последствиями, которые могут наступить, если её прижмут слишком сильно. Готовность Китая расследовать нелегальные торговые связи ряда китайских компаний с КНДР показывает, что «окно не закрыто полностью», и это можно рассматривать как попытку ослабить американские усилия по введению санкций против китайских компаний, ведущих дела с КНДР легальным образом. Одновременно Китай и Северная Корея расширяют экономическое сотрудничество, несмотря на действие международных санкций. Как сообщила газета «Нодон Синмун», 25 октября в Пхеньяне состоялась третье заседание межправительственной комиссии КНДР И КНР по пограничным вопросам. Китайскую сторону возглавлял заместитель министра иностранных дел Лю Чжэньминь, а северокорейскую – заместитель главы МИД Пак Мён Гук. Обсуждались вопросы организации нового пограничного перехода, ибо уже в сентябре нынешнего года построен мост между северокорейским городом Синыйчжу и китайским Хуньчунем. Кроме того, в ближайшем будущем будет открыт мост между Синыйчжу и китайским Даньдуном. Кроме того, товарооборот между СК и Китаем в третьем квартале нынешнего года по сравнению с тем же периодом прошлого года вырос на 3,4%. В СЭЗ Расон китайцы строят новые склады и офисы, что означает приток инвестиций. Резко вырос импорт машин из КНДР в КНР. Вырос и импорт китайского риса. По данным Таможенного управления Китая, в сентябре 2016 года из Китая в КНДР поставлено 18,477 тонн зерновых культур. Это в 2,7 раза больше, чем в августе, и в 6 раз больше, чем в сентябре прошлого года. В сентябре импортировано 16 тыс. тонн риса, что на 2 тыс. тонн больше, чем в период с января по август. И хотя южнокорейские эксперты объясняют это решением северокорейского руководства о стабилизации цен на рис, поскольку запасы риса, сделанные в прошлом году, фактически исчерпаны, с некоторого времени у них любой факт, имеющий отношение к КНДР, расценивается только как знак скорого голода и краха. В общем, пока одна сторона обвиняет и бряцает оружием, другая ищет способы урегулирования проблемы, и это хорошо показывает, кто мог бы подключиться к установлению диалога, но не желает этого. Константин Асмолов, кандидат исторических наук, ведущий научный сотрудник Центра корейских исследований Института Дальнего Востока РАН, специально для интернет-журнала «Новое Восточное Обозрение». Популярные статьи

F.A.A. Investigates Errant Flight Involving Harrison Ford - The New York TimesHarrison Ford, the actor known for his portrayal of a cocky smuggler and spacecraft pilot in the “Star Wars” movies, mistakenly flew a private plane over a commercial airliner carrying more than 100 people at a California airport on Monday, according to a news report. Mr. Ford, 74, an avid pilot and collector of vintage planes, had been instructed to land on a runway at John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, Calif. He correctly read back the instructions but landed instead on a taxiway parallel to the runway. In doing so, he flew his plane, a Aviat Husky, over a 737 that was stopped just ahead of the runway. NBC News, which reported on the episode, said Mr. Ford’s plane flew over an American Airlines jet with 110 passengers and a crew. It was unclear how far above the airliner he was. NBC reported that Mr. Ford could be heard on control recordings asking, “Was that airliner meant to be underneath me?” For Mr. Ford, who played Han Solo, the swashbuckling pilot of the Millennium Falcon in the “Star Wars” movies, the errant landing was the second notable episode involving an aircraft he was piloting in nearly two years and the fourth since 1999. On Tuesday, Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration’s Pacific division, confirmed most details of the episode and said that the agency was investigating it. No one was injured. Mr. Gregor did not confirm that Mr. Ford was piloting the private plane because the agency does not identify people involved in aircraft episodes or accidents. Mr. Gregor, speaking in general, said in an email that pilots who violated agency regulations could face penalties ranging from a warning letter to having their licenses suspended or revoked. Landing on a taxiway is a violation of federal safety rules. United Talent Agency, which represents Mr. Ford, referred inquiries to his publicist, Ina Treciokas, who declined to comment Tuesday night. Mr. Ford is certified as a private pilot and is rated by the F. A. A. to fly several types of aircraft, including a helicopter, according to agency records. He has been inducted into the Living Legends of Aviation and has an honor named after him, the Harrison Ford Aviation Legacy Award. Other episodes involving Mr. Ford and aircraft: • In March 2015, Mr. Ford was injured when a World War training plane he was piloting crashed onto a golf course in Venice, Calif. shortly after taking off from Santa Monica Airport. The plane had engine trouble on takeoff, and Mr. Ford was forced to make an emergency landing. He was “banged up” but walked away from the scene, his publicist said at the time. • In June 2000, while landing in Lincoln, Neb. a gust blew Mr. Ford’s plane from the runway. The aircraft, a Beechcraft Bonanza, sustained minor damage, and neither Mr. Ford nor his passenger were injured, AirSafe. com, a website about plane crashes, reported. • In October 1999 in Santa Clarita, Calif. Mr. Ford was on a training flight in a Bell 206 helicopter when he and the instructor made an emergency landing in a dry riverbed, according to AirSafe. com. Neither Mr. Ford nor the instructor were hurt, but the helicopter was substantially damaged.

Ask Holly: What’s everyone’s problem?Ask Holly: What's everyone's problem? 27-10-16 Dear Holly, Apparently hardly anyone wants to listen to me on the radio, even though I work so hard discussing pointless drivel with myself for hours on end interspersed with soul-destroying tracks by Coldplay and Michael Buble. What’s everyone’s problem? Chris London Dear Chris, My dad’s had a great idea for Channel 4’s new direction with Bake-Off. Instead of all this old lady nonsense about Victoria sponges and gingham and witty lesbians, the new version should be called ‘The Great British Man-Off’ and it’ll be a load of competitive middle aged blokes being bawdy and doing manly stuff like re-sealing the bath and shouting at the radio and getting frustrated with tools. Everyone on the show will be worried about going bald and every episode will end with an embarrassing scuffle in a pub car park. Hope that helps,

Fed Raises Key Interest Rate, Citing Strengthening Economy - The New York TimesWASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate Wednesday for just the second time since the financial crisis of 2008, saying the American economy is expanding at a healthy pace and setting itself up as a counterweight to Donald J. Trump’s push for considerably faster growth. The Fed cited the steady growth of employment and other economic measures, and signaled that it expects to raise rates more quickly next year to prevent the economy from growing too quickly. “My colleagues and I are recognizing the considerable progress the economy has made,” Janet L. Yellen, the Fed’s chairwoman, said at a news conference after the announcement. “We expect the economy will continue to perform well. ” The widely expected decision moves the Fed’s benchmark rate to a range of 0. 5 percent to 0. 75 percent, still very low by historical standards. Low rates support economic growth by encouraging borrowing and . The American economy has expanded by about 2 percent a year over the last six years, and the unemployment rate has fallen to 4. 6 percent. The Fed’s assessment that the economy is growing at a healthy pace — not too hot, not too cold — is starkly at odds with Mr. Trump, who has promised 4 percent growth and has described job creation as “terrible” and economic growth as anemic. Already on Wednesday, one Republican member of the House Financial Services Committee, Representative Roger Williams of Texas, criticized the Fed’s move. “Today’s decision by the Fed to raise the interest rate is entirely premature and will be burdensome to a nation already struggling to pull itself out of this Obama economy,” Mr. Williams said in a statement. “By making rates even higher, the Fed is effectively making our hardships even harder. ” Mr. Williams did not object when the Fed raised rates last December. In announcing the decision after a meeting of the Fed’s committee, the central bank gave little indication that Mr. Trump’s election had altered its economic outlook. The Fed said it still expected a slow economic expansion and a steady march toward higher rates. In separate forecasts also published Wednesday, Fed officials predicted three rate increases in 2017. For the first time in recent years, however, there is a real possibility of significant changes in fiscal policy. Republicans will control the White House and both chambers of Congress, and Mr. Trump has promised to increase economic growth and job creation through tax cuts and infrastructure spending. Those measures could spur faster growth after a presidential campaign in which Mr. Trump regularly disparaged the economy’s performance under President Obama. But the Fed reiterated Wednesday that the economy is already expanding at roughly the maximum sustainable pace. Fed officials also see evidence that the labor market is tightening. Several Fed districts reported labor shortages in the central bank’s most recent compilation of economic reports. In the Philadelphia district, construction workers are hard to find. Atlanta reported a shortage of nurses Kansas City, truck drivers Dallas, tech workers. Faster growth, in the Fed’s judgment, would probably lead to higher inflation. As a result, if Republicans succeed in invigorating growth, the Fed is likely to raise rates more quickly. The greater the stimulus, the faster interest rates are likely to rise. “Your expectation should depend very little on what you think that the F. O. M. C. is thinking and very much on your view of Trump policies and their macro effects,” said Jon Faust, a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University and a former adviser to Ms. Yellen, referring to the Federal Open Market Committee. “Don’t focus on the Fed. As James Carville regularly reminded the other Clinton on the campaign trail: It’s the economy, stupid. ” Ms. Yellen emphasized that the Fed was not prejudging the likely course of events. She declined several times to comment on the merits of Mr. Trump’s plans or to predict their consequences for the economy. “We’re operating under a cloud of uncertainty at the moment,” Ms. Yellen said. Fed officials predicted that they would raise the Fed’s benchmark rate a little more quickly in the coming years, reaching 2. 1 percent by the end of 2018. In September, they had predicted that it would reach 1. 9 percent by the end of 2018. The new projections, however, reflect a significantly slower pace of increase than last December, when they expected the rate to reach 3. 3 percent by 2018. The combination of steady growth and faster rate increases indicates that some Fed officials expect the central bank to end up offsetting a modest increase in fiscal stimulus. But Ms. Yellen said most Fed officials were reserving judgment. “Changes in fiscal policy or other economic policies could affect the economic outlook,” she said. “Of course, it is far too early to know how those changes will unfold. ” The tensions between monetary and fiscal policy will develop slowly. Legislation takes time to write, and any economic impact would generally be felt in coming years. Political pressures, however, may build more quickly. Mr. Trump has made clear in the past that he likes low interest rates — and some of his plans, like infrastructure investment, will be much easier to fund if rates remain low. “The Fed is in a tricky place,” said Michael Feroli, chief United States economist at JPMorgan Chase. “They’re trying not to prejudge how Congress and the administration duke it out, but once they see that, I think they will respond. ” There is also uncertainty about the Fed’s leadership. Ms. Yellen’s term as chairwoman ends in February 2018, and Mr. Trump has said he would prefer a Republican. Ms. Yellen could remain on the board, a possibility she said Wednesday she had not ruled out. But the Fed, under different leadership, might well choose a different path forward. Some conservative economists, notably John Taylor of Stanford University, argue that the bank should already have raised rates above 1 percent. The economy, for now, keeps plodding along. Steady job growth has reduced the unemployment rate to a level the Fed considers healthy. A little unemployment is natural as people change jobs and businesses close. Ms. Yellen and other Fed officials have said they see some signs of stronger wage growth. Inflation, too, has picked up a little in recent months, although both wages and inflation continue to rise more slowly than the Fed would like to see. Ms. Yellen described the rate increase as “a vote of confidence in the economy. ” The decision was made by a unanimous vote of the 10 members of the Federal Open Market Committee, the first time in recent months the Fed has acted by consensus. Some economists argue that the Fed should wait until inflation strengthens before raising rates, to test whether a stronger economy would persuade some people sidelined during the downturn to start looking for jobs. That would expand the labor force. Unemployment remains particularly high among minorities. That view, however, has found little support among Fed officials, who worry that interest rates will have to be raised more quickly if they wait too long, increasing the chances of pushing the economy into recession. “Apparently, Fed officials think the economy is growing too quickly,” said Ady Barkan, the director of Fed Up, a coalition of liberal groups that has pressed the Fed to continue its stimulus campaign. “I doubt you can find many other Americans who share that opinion. And it’s a strange conclusion to draw in the wake of an election that was so heavily impacted by voters’ economic discontent. ”

La expresión “no, lo siguiente” ya es la más utilizada no, lo siguiente, en el castellanoLa expresión “no, lo siguiente” ya es la más utilizada no, lo siguiente, en el castellano SE HA HECHO VIRAL NO, LO SIGUIENTE Real Academia de la Lengua El uso de la expresión “no, lo siguiente” ha aumentado no, lo siguiente, en los últimos cinco años. “La gente es bastante fan no, lo siguiente, de esta expresión que lo está petando”, concluía esta mañana la Real Academia de la Lengua (RAE) en la presentación de su informe “Una lengua viva no, lo siguiente”. “Quien acuñara esta forma de hablar la ha liado porque se ha hecho viral”, insisten los académicos, que certifican que el castellano es la lengua más hablada no, lo siguiente, después del chino e incorpora constantemente “formas de expresión que se convierten en memes porque las emplean usuarios que son prescriptores y tienen la tira de seguidores”. “Es un zasca en toda regla al castellano normativo”, confirman los expertos. “También te digo: un día estas aquí y otro allí”, reza el informe de la RAE, refiriéndose a numerosas expresiones que antes molaban pero que “por hache o por be han dejado de estar en el candelabro y al final a la gente se la sudan”. La entidad ha animado a todos sus seguidores a compartir esta nueva información en su muro y a darle a RT.

As Trump Berates News Media, a New Strategy Is Needed to Cover Him - The New York TimesWell, that sure escalated quickly. “That” was Donald J. Trump’s inaugural news conference as a duly elected United States in which he called BuzzFeed a “failing pile of garbage,” dismissed CNN as “fake news” and more or less told the whole lot of reporters at Trump Tower to stuff it when it comes to his unreleased tax returns because everyday Americans don’t care and, anyway, “I won. ” There were two big lessons in the Wednesday morning melee. 1. Mr. Trump remains a master media manipulator who used his first news briefing since July to expertly delegitimize the news media and make it the story rather than the chaotic swirl of ethical questions that engulf his transition. 2. The news media remains an unwitting accomplice in its own diminishment as it fails to get a handle on how to cover this new and wholly unprecedented president. It better figure things out, fast, because it has found itself at the edge of the cliff. And our (fingers crossed) democracy needs it to stay on the right side of the drop. Journalists should know this by now: Trump’s gonna Trump. But it’s time for them to take a page from the playbook — accept the things they cannot change and then find the courage to change the things they can, in the right ways, not the wrong ways. Given Mr. Trump’s past behavior, there was hardly any doubt that he was going to kneecap his inquisitors on Wednesday. It’s a passion, after all, if not a strategic imperative. But BuzzFeed handed him the steel rod hours before, with its decision to publish an unvarnished dossier filled with unsubstantiated, compromising reports about Mr. Trump allegedly collected by Russian agents, presumably for blackmail purposes. BuzzFeed said it was “publishing the full document so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the that have circulated at the highest levels of the U. S. government. ” Ben Smith, the BuzzFeed editor in chief, wrote that “we have always erred on the side of publishing” and that “publishing this dossier reflects how we see the job of reporters in 2017. ” Mr. Smith’s stated rationale highlights the extent to which WikiLeaks and Gawker, which is now defunct, have changed the nature of journalism. Both have at times taken a “publish first, fill in the answers — or don’t — later” approach, but they held particular, outsider roles in the journalistic firmament. And both have run into great trouble because of their styles, in Gawker’s case, fatally (if wrongfully). BuzzFeed, under Mr. Smith, has built up a fine traditional news team that has won journalism awards precisely because it succeeded in the ultimate purposes of its craft: to establish fact from fiction and enhance its readers’ understanding of reality. That’s the opposite of pumping out a bunch of unsubstantiated allegations and then leaving it to readers to “make up their own minds” about them with no reportorial guidance. You can argue that the dossier was going to get out there anyway. But it hadn’t until BuzzFeed published it, even though many news organizations, including this one, had the dossier for months. And had they leaked by some other means, it would be up to journalists to establish their veracity ignore them if possible, debunk them if necessary. That’s what BuzzFeed has done with its reporting on the “fake news” phenomenon, helping to shine an early light on the false stories so many Americans were sharing on Facebook and other social media platforms throughout the campaign. But every journalistic misstep gives more fodder to people who want to stop the efforts against “fake news” by turning the tables and labeling those efforts — or any other solid journalism they don’t like — as “fake news” as well, corrupting the term for their own purposes (a classic case of “no, you are! ”). That’s what Mr. Trump did Wednesday morning. In calling BuzzFeed a “failing piece of garbage,” Mr. Trump gave it a cri de coeur. But there was collateral damage: Mr. Trump’s “fake news” charge against CNN, in front of many millions of Americans, went directly at the network’s core purpose as a global news provider. CNN drew Mr. Trump’s hostility by breaking the news on Tuesday that a former British spy had compiled the Russia dossier and that intelligence officials included a synopsis of it in briefing materials for the . Once CNN opened the door, BuzzFeed followed by publishing the document itself. But as CNN pointed out, it did not share the details of the memos, and it did not even link to the BuzzFeed report, despite false claims to the contrary by Kellyanne Conway, Mr. Trump’s adviser. Its decision, the network said, was “vastly different than BuzzFeed’s decision to publish unsubstantiated memos. ” That, in turn, drew protest from Mr. Smith of BuzzFeed, who said he was “not going to participate in an attempt to divide the media against each other. ” And so, Mr. Trump won again, by succeeding in doing just that. It was all part of a show in which he used news organizations as props in their own lampooning while he played them off each other with labels of good and bad and selectively answered their policy questions. A united front would have given the reporters stronger footing. But that was woefully lacking when Mr. Trump shouted down Jim Acosta of CNN, who said Mr. Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, threatened to eject him. The other reporters in the room readily took Mr. Acosta’s place, happy to have their own questions answered. But they could be next. They’re going to have to decide how much they want to abide by Mr. Trump’s decision to selectively quarantine colleagues whose coverage he does not like. There is some precedent for doing the right thing here, from the early days of the Obama administration, when it questioned Fox News’s credentials as a “news organization. ” That was followed by an attempt by the Treasury Department to exclude Fox News from a round of interviews, which the rest of the news media resisted. Speaking in Fox News’s defense, Jake Tapper, then of ABC News, publicly criticized the administration for its effort to exclude “one of our sister organizations. ” So it was fitting that, later on Wednesday, Shepard Smith of Fox News got behind CNN. “It is our observation that its correspondents followed journalistic standards and that neither they nor any other journalists should be subjected to belittling and delegitimizing by the of the United States,” he said on his program. (The same couldn’t be said for his colleague, the opinion host Sean Hannity — proudly “not a journalist” — who on Wednesday night celebrated the news briefing as “the single greatest beatdown of the abusively biased mainstream media in the history of the country. ”) Mr. Acosta, interestingly, made history last spring by becoming the first American journalist to ask a question of a Cuban leader, Raúl Castro, since the earliest days of the Castro regime. It was a hopeful sign of a new day for press freedom in the restrictive communist country. His with Mr. Trump, on the other hand, is a bad sign for press freedom at home. The news media can’t afford a backslide. It’s going to have to do its part to avoid one.

‘Sunk Costs’: $58 Billion Wasted On Imaginary Weapons Since 1997Get short URL 0 37 0 0 A new government report released this week states that the Pentagon spent at least $58 billion over the last 20 years on weapons systems that not only were never built, but often never made it past the design phase. The report, released by the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Frank Kendall, is an internal review of the Defense Department’s acquisition activities, and contains a chart of 23 pricey projects that received billions in initial funding but were later canceled. The report shows this happening as far back as 1997. © REUTERS/ Master Sgt. Kevin J. Gruenwald Pentagon Prepares to Start Raqqa Offensive Within Weeks The Army’s Future Combat System was one of the most expensive of the doomed military-money pits, costing over $20 billion, with the RAH-66 Comanche attack and reconnaissance helicopter second with a $9.8 billion price tag before operations were ceased. Taken together these two programs account for 50 percent of what was deemed “sunk costs,” according to the Washington Examiner . The $3.7-billion National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, the $2.7-billion Lockheed Martin VH-71 helicopter, and the $2.5-billion JLENS air-defense blimp are a few of the other pricey and failed ventures detailed in the report. Out of 23 projects, eight were able to spend all of their allocated money before the plug was pulled. ...

Changing the Montenegrin leader does not change the ideologyChanging the Montenegrin leader does not change the ideology Source: Submitted By Milko Pejovic The statement of the Prime Minister of Montenegro Milo Djukanovic concerning his resignation and the transfer of powers including the formation of a new parliament is actively discussed In Montenegro. Despite a positive outcome for the opposition forces the situation has not changed. Djukanovic explained his resignation by an anti-governmental conspiracy involving foreign intelligence services and the Serbian minority. Under the pretext of dealing with “conspirators” arrests of opposition leaders and activists are being continued in the country. The story about the arrest of “terrorists” who were planning to capture state institutions of Montenegro on the night of 17 October is still discussed in media. Special public prosecutor of Montenegro Milivoje Katnich declared the disclosure of this crime’s plan. However, after a few days weapons seized from the militants were not found in the stock where they were delivered. According to workers of the Prosecutor’s office the weapons were destroyed according to the order of Katnich. The elimination of the main evidence is at least a strange decision. A few days after the elections opposition activists Željko Šćepanović and Gordan Konatar were detained on suspicion of financial fraud. According to law enforcement they had a large amount of money with them. Šćepanović is s member of the party “Movement for Change” and is a relative of Nebojsa Medojevic who is one of the leaders of the DF. The persecution affected not only active participants in the political process but also Aron Shaviv who is the adviser of the DF. Pro-government media ganged up on him with “accusatory” articles. Representatives of law enforcement agencies staged a covert persecution. Anonymous letters are being sent via email and SMS to regular citizens who support the political initiatives of the “Key” and the “Democratic Front” and other parties. Montenegrins are forced to hide their political commitment to the opposition. Activists objectionable to Djukanovic’s regime are under strict ideological pressure from the authorities and law enforcement agencies. Montenegro has long been a police state where it is dangerous to tell the truth, where political changes in the management team does not improve the situation.

U.S. Drone Strike Targets Taliban Leader - The New York TimesWASHINGTON — An American drone strike targeted the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan, United States officials said on Saturday, in the most significant American incursion inside Pakistan since Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden, the Qaeda leader, in 2011. In a statement issued on Saturday, Peter Cook, the Pentagon press secretary, said the military was still assessing whether Mullah Mansour was killed in the strike, which was carried out by an unmanned drone. Mr. Cook said Mullah Mansour was “actively involved” in planning attacks in Kabul and across Afghanistan, and had been “an obstacle to peace and reconciliation between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban, prohibiting Taliban leaders from participating in peace talks with the Afghan government that could lead to an end to the conflict. ” A United States official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the military operation, said that the strike occurred around 6 a. m. Eastern time on Saturday, and that Mullah Mansour and a second adult male fighter traveling with him in a vehicle were probably killed. Even so, officials offered caution because early assessments of the deaths of militant and terrorist leaders in American strikes have proved inaccurate in the past. The drone strike, authorized by President Obama, took place in a remote area of Pakistan along the border with Afghanistan, southwest of the town of Ahmad Wal. The strike was carried out by several unmanned aircraft operated by United States Special Operations forces, the official said. News of the strike came as Gen. Joseph Votel, head of the United States Central Command, was completing a secret trip to northern Syria, where he visited American Special Operations forces and met with local fighters being trained by the United States in the battle against the Islamic State. General Votel is the American military official to travel to Syria during the war. But the strike against Mullah Mansour served as a reminder that even as the Obama administration has talked of an end of combat operations in Afghanistan and has focused on fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the fighting in Afghanistan — and the risk of rising militancy there — has continued. “Since the death of Mullah Omar and Mansour’s assumption of leadership, the Taliban have conducted many attacks that have resulted in the death of tens of thousands of Afghan civilians and Afghan security forces as well as numerous U. S. and coalition personnel,” Mr. Cook said in a statement announcing the airstrike. Mullah Mansour had long remained a mystery to American policy makers and the United States military. In the 1990s, he was the Taliban government’s chief of aviation while Afghanistan had few planes he also oversaw the tourism department when there were few tourists. But in the years after the Taliban leadership was driven into exile in Pakistan in 2001, Mullah Mansour became central to the group’s reincarnation as a powerful insurgency. After the death of the Taliban’s founder, Mullah Muhammad Omar, Mullah Mansour became the group’s supreme leader and the architect of the most recent insurgent assault that swept across northern Afghanistan. Yet even as he was acting leader of the Taliban, he kept secret the fact that Mullah Omar had been dead since 2013. And unlike Mullah Omar, Mullah Mansour did not live in hiding. Some of the time he lived in a southern neighborhood of Quetta, Pakistan, in an enclave where he and other Taliban leaders from the same Pashtun tribe, the Ishaqzai, had built homes. And although he is on the United Nations list, Mullah Mansour has repeatedly taken flights in and out of Pakistan, Afghanistan officials said, to Dubai, where he has a house and several investments. Even as the Taliban operating inside Afghanistan remains a formidable and violent force, Mullah Mansour has had difficulties uniting his ranks after months of infighting. In April, for example, a Taliban spokesman said the new leader had appointed the brother and son of Mullah Omar, the movement’s deceased founder, to senior leadership posts. Mullah Mansour has faced criticism and even rebellion from field commanders who distrusted his ties to Pakistan and his handling of the succession. He brutally quashed breakaway groups and sought to buy the support of other skeptical commanders, all while maintaining a publicity campaign that has portrayed him atop a united command. After his confirmation as the new leader of the insurgency, when large gatherings of Taliban were held in Quetta, Mullah Mansour had limited his movements in recent months, Afghan officials say. While the reason given to his subordinates was security — he narrowly missed an attempt on his life, blamed on dissidents within Taliban ranks, in December — keeping the leader at a distance from the commanders follows a pattern that became routine under Mullah Omar. Mullah Mansour’s deputies, including Sirajuddin Haqqani, who is largely running battlefield operations, continue to move freely in Pakistan.

U.S. Intelligence: ‘Expect al-Qaeda attacks Monday in New York, Virginia and Texas’U.S. Intelligence: ‘Expect al-Qaeda attacks Monday in New York, Virginia and Texas’ Will terror attacks sweep 3 major cities and help the Establishment suspend the elections? By Shepard Ambellas - November 4, 2016 ( INTELLIHUB ) — The U.S. Intelligence community has warned that al-Qaeda may attack three U.S. cities Monday, one day before the U.S. Presidential Election comes to a head. Sources believe that New York, Virginia and Texas may be threatened but are mentioning no specific locations. “The counterterrorism and homeland security communities remain vigilant and well-postured to defend against attacks here in the United States. The FBI, working with our federal, state and local counterparts, shares and assesses intelligence on a daily basis and will continue to work closely with law enforcement and intelligence community partners to identify and disrupt any potential threat to public safety,” the FBI told ABC News. If such a terror attack were to happen, keep in mind that President Barack Obama would likely use executive authority to remain in office after declaring a State of Emergency and suspending the elections. #FalseFlag Shepard Ambellas is an opinion journalist, filmmaker , radio talk show host and the founder and editor-in-chief of Intellihub News & Politics. Established in 2013, Intellihub.com is ranked in the upper 1% traffic tier on the World Wide Web. Read more from Shep’s World . Get the Podcast . Follow Shep on Facebook and Twitter . Image: faungg’s photos/Flickr

What If I Told You Cannabis Is Great for Reversing Alzheimer’s?by PAUL FASSA You might think I’m joking. But I’m not. Yes, the accepted perception of cannabis aka marijuana’s effect on the brain is normally forgetfulness and goofy behavior, so one may not normally think cannabis would be a positive influence for any stage of dementia or Alzheimer’s. While in office, president Ronald Reagan declared: “… the most reliable scientific sources say permanent brain damage is one of the inevitable results of the use of marijuana.” That declaration was based on a lone Tulane study authored by Dr. Robert G. Heath that force fed pot smoke into monkeys wearing masks, which gave them virtually no options of breathing normal air, equivalent to 30 joints daily for 90 days, after which the monkeys withered away and died. Although autopsies confirmed many brain cells were damaged, critics claimed the monkeys brain cells suffered from oxygen deprivation, not from cannabis THC. Many attempts to duplicate Heath’s study failed. Evidently it was only designed and executed to satisfy the anti-pot agenda. A “Lost” Marijuana Study That Didn’t Fit the DEA Agenda But there is a study that avoided the public radar completely, forcing the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) to withdraw funding on that study in 1974 when the University of Virginia Medical College researchers began observing cancerous brain cells restored to healthy brain cells in mice instead of THC causing harm to normal brain cells, the DEA’s desired outcome. The DEA went beyond shutting that research down . All the papers from that research were confiscated and President Gerald Ford put a stop to any further research on whole plant produced cannabis while encouraging Big Pharma’s synthetic THC research. Studies Show Cannabis’s Ability to Reverse Alzheimer’s Gary Wenk, Ph.D, a professor of neuroscience, immunology and medical genetics at Ohio State University, is one of the pioneers for cannabis research regarding dementia and other neurodegenerative disorders. “I’ve been trying to find a drug that will reduce brain inflammation and restore cognitive function in rats for over 25 years; cannabinoids [found in cannabis] are the first and only class of drugs that have ever been effective,” he told Time Magazine. He believes the stigma of marijuana conditioning from the late 1930s on, still hinders cannabis-based medicine from being widely accepted, but is hopeful that things will change. “I think that the perception about this drug is changing and in the future people will be less fearful.” A 2013 Spanish study using mice that are genetically predisposed to brain plaque accumulation associated with Alzheimer’s discovered “.. stimulation of CB2 (cannabinoid) receptors ameliorates several altered parameters in Alzheimer’s disease such as impaired memory and learning, neuroinflammation, oxidative stress damage and oxidative stress responses … .” (Abstract) Another research example was provided by independent scientists at the Roskamp Institute in Sarasota, Florida with their study, “Role of the cannabinoid system in the transit of beta-amyloid across the blood–brain barrier”. That study, published June 25, 2013 in the journal Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, explained how the accumulation of abnormal structures called beta-amyloid (Aβ) plaque blocks neuron communication of brain cells. Lead author for the study, Corbin Bachmeier, Ph.D, explained that abnormal production of this plaque wasn’t the source of dementia or Alzheimers (AD), but “the result of impaired Aβ clearance from the brain.” The research team found cannabinoids from cannabis, of which the psychotropic THC is but one, through both in vitro (lab only) and in vivo (using live animals), enabled the plaque to be expelled through the blood brain barrier. This function occurs normally among those who are not afflicted with AD. (Study) Earlier in 2013, Tim Karl, Ph.D, a senior investigator at Neuroscience Research Australia , found that mice with Alzheimer’s experienced dramatic improvements in memory after treatment with cannabis’s cannabidiol (CBD). Researchers tend to focus on CBD, one of over 60 cannabinoids, because it’s without the THC’s psychoactive effects. “It basically brings the performance of the animals back to the level of healthy animals,” Karl told Sydney Morning Herald . Another in vitro lab culture study focusing on THC during 2012, published in the journal Neuropathology and Applied Neurobiology, demonstrated protection from Parkinson’s Disease (PD) neuron damage. (Abstract source) In 2004, the Prague Movement Disorder Center sent out anonymous questionnaires to attendees as part of a study: “Survey on cannabis use in Parkinson’s disease: Subjective improvement of motor symptoms”. Of the many respondents who confided they used cannabis for PD treatment, almost half of them reported improved physical motor movement and reduced tremors. (Source) Go to the comments section of this article to view some positive anecdotal reports using cannabis for Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia Cannabis With or Without THC’s Psychoactive Effects According to Canadian Rick Simpson , who pioneered and popularized cannabis oil , “smoking pot lets a lot of cannabis healing go up in smoke.” Cannabis oil is a decoction of the hemp plant with THC to produce very thick molasses type oil. Rick used it for his skin cancer and post head trauma affliction that mainstream medicine couldn’t handle. Then he gave it freely to his small town fellow Nova Scotia neighbors who cured everything from cancer to cardiac issues. His video documentary, “ Run from the Cure ” is available free on youtube. Currently, most cannabis oil providers use grain alcohol instead of naphtha like Rick did to decoct the oil from the plant. Hemp plants can be bred to have lower THC levels. That’s what CBD (cannabidoil) is about. It’s used to greatly reduce seizures without side effects in epileptic children without concerns of THC’s psychoactive effects. The psychotropic compound THC is normally relatively inactive in the raw plant. But it takes a lot of plants to sufficiently juice hemp with THC therapeutically. Most medical marijuana card carriers are restricted with how many plants they can grow for themselves. Cannabis THC has to be highly heated to become more active, and producing cannabis oil involves heating. Some patients who use cannabis oil have resorted to inserting the oil or cannabis oil suppositories rectally to experience minimal or no psychotropic effects. Of course, there are still restrictions in many states for medical cannabis with THC. But you do also have the option of using inexpensive and legal coconut oil to avoid or even reverse Alzheimer’s. It’s also important to maintain a schedule of moderate exercise, even walking briskly for a mile most days out of the week, to help improve your ability to naturally flush out those beta-amyloids before they accumulate. Ironically, it appears the fastest growing group of cannabis use is among the very senior citizens who used to be against it. Paul Fassa is a contributing staff writer for REALfarmacy.com. His pet peeves are the Medical Mafia’s control over health and the food industry and government regulatory agencies’ corruption. Paul’s contributions to the health movement and global paradigm shift are well received by truth seekers. Visit his blog by following this link and follow him on Twitter here Sources:

Report: Megyn Kelly to Kick Off NBC Show with Kardashian Family InterviewMegyn Kelly is gearing up for the debut of her Sunday newsmagazine show on NBC in June — and the anchor’s first interview on her new network may be with the Kardashian family. [According to TMZ, the former Fox News star was spotted in Los Angeles Thursday morning headed into the same studio in which the family were filming a 10th anniversary special for Today. The whole family was reportedly there, including Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney Kardashian and Kylie, Kendall, and Kris Jenner — though brother Rob Kardashian was absent, as was Caitlyn Jenner, who remained in New York on a press tour. Sources told TMZ that Kelly taped an interview with the family and it would be the centerpiece of the anchor’s debut Sunday news show on NBC in June. Kelly is set to headline both a Sunday show and a morning news show when she begins working at NBC next month, though the morning show is not expected to premiere until later this fall. The Sunday show will reportedly be produced by former Dateline executive producer David Corvo and NBC producer Elizabeth Cole. The New York Post‘s Page Six reported this month that NBC News chairman Andy Lack had traveled to Russia in an attempt to obtain what would likely be a ratings bonanza, an exclusive interview with Russian president Vladimir Putin. The network was rumored to be trying to get the Putin interview for Kelly’s debut show, though established NBC anchors Matt Lauer and Lester Holt were also said to be in the mix to do the interview. Kelly reportedly turned down a $100 million, contract offer to return to Fox News, telling the Washington Post‘s Erik Wemple in December that she wanted her next job to have “greater balance” so she could spend more time with her children. The former Kelly File host had also clashed with fellow talent and executives at Fox, including former network chief Roger Ailes, whom she accused of sexual harassment in her recently published memoir, Settle For More. A representative for NBC News didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter @dznussbaum

Your Local 1-Percenters May Not Be as Rich as You Think - The New York TimesAt the Democratic National Convention this summer, Hillary Clinton said were due for a tax increase. “This is not because we resent success,” she said. “But when more than 90 percent of the gains have gone to the top 1 percent, that’s where the money is. ” But defining America’s 1 percent — and finding out “where the money is” — has become an increasingly subjective endeavor. As wealth becomes more concentrated in certain states and even counties, the gap between the national 1 percent and the local 1 percent is growing, creating wealth clusters that are pulling away from the rest of the country. To be in the top 1 percent of incomes nationally, families need to take in a minimum of $389, 436. The average income of America’s is $1, 153, 293, according to a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute. Yet when incomes are measured state by state, the study shows wildly diverging fortunes for . in the New York metro area (which includes parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania) earn at least $673, 000. Those in the Conn. area make at least $1. 4 million. Both are eclipsed by the of Jackson, Wyo. who earn at least $1. 7 million. Why Jackson? Billionaires have been flocking to Wyoming, attracted by its outdoor lifestyle and low taxes. Teton County, Wyo. is the richest in America when it comes to 1 percent incomes, with earning more than $2. 2 million. New York County, or Manhattan, ranks second, with a $1. 44 million threshold, followed by Fairfield County, Conn. with just under $1. 4 million. The tech boom has helped the 1 percent in San Mateo County and Marin County, Calif. where they earn at least $1. 1 million. By contrast, you need only $97, 000 to be a in Holmes County, Miss. or Lamar County, Ala. or $108, 000 in Grayson County, Va. “All high incomes are going up, but they’re going up much faster in places like New York, Maryland and California,” said Mark Price, a labor economist at the Keystone Research Center and of the Economic Policy Institute study. It’s no surprise that the most expensive states have the highest incomes at the top. And wealth, by nature, has always been relative. Yet economists and wealth experts say the economic distance between in rich states and the in middling or even affluent states has widened drastically, creating a new national landscape of the 1 percent. “We have a growing concentration of wealth and income by locality,” said Edward N. Wolff, an economics professor at New York University. “The localities and those top earners are moving away from the rest of the country. ” Regionally, the Northeast has been pulling away the fastest. The income threshold of the top 1 percent surged 101 percent in the Northeast from 1979 to 2013, according to Mr. Price. In the South and Midwest, the threshold has grown by about half that. In Massachusetts, ’ incomes jumped 130 percent from 1979 to 2013 they’ve increased by 112 percent in New York and 113 percent in New Jersey. In New Mexico, they’ve grown only 22 percent over the same period, and in Nevada, only 15 percent. Yet the rich are also moving beyond the traditional hubs of the Northeast and California, creating some unlikely enclaves, such as Wyoming. North Dakota also moved up the ranks — from 45th to ninth from 1979 to 2013 — as the oil boom lifted the fortunes of its fortunate. The new peaks and valleys of America’s elite have made national definitions less and less useful. The 1 percent is no longer the very top layer of the national economy, but a much deeper slice of residents in states like New York, Connecticut and California. The shift has important policy and cultural implications. Calls to tax the 1 percent nationally are really calls to tax the top 5 or 10 percent in the richest states — while missing the top 1 percent in many Western and Southern states. “A tax on the 1 percent is increasingly a regional tax,” Mr. Price said. “On average, more folks will be touched by higher rates in New York than, say, West Virginia. ” Many economists say that’s as it should be — people making more than $389, 000 should pay higher tax rates, regardless of where they live. “They should pay more,” Mr. Wolff of N. Y. U. said. “It shouldn’t matter where they live. They’re earning large amounts of money. ” Yet they may not feel like top earners. People making $389, 000 in New York or Connecticut, for instance, are only in the top 10 percent for their states. They may not feel like since so many people around them are far richer. “I have friends who may be in the 1 percent nationally but say they don’t feel rich because they have friends who are richer,” Mr. Wolff said. “Psychologically they don’t feel like a . They don’t feel rich. But they really are. ”

Dr. David Duke with Mark Collett of the UK. Collett explains why Duke & Trump victories would change politics forever!Dr. David Duke with Mark Collett of the UK. Collett explains why Duke & Trump victories would change politics forever! October 28, 2016 at 10:34 am Dr. David Duke with Mark Collett of the UK. Collett explains why Duke & Trump victories would change politics forever! Today Dr. Duke had Mark Collett from the U.K. as his guest for the hour. They talked about developments in Dr. Duke’s race for the U.S. Senate. They also talked about the media’s attempts to avoid discussing the barrage of revelations from WikiLeaks that would sink Hillary’s campaign if the media was doing its job. Mark Collett reported on the Muslim invasion and other developments in Europe. They also talked about the collapse of morality and culture led by this same vicious and anti-white racist Zio media. This is a great show for weekend listening. Please share it widely. Our show is aired live at 11 am replayed at ET 4pm Eastern and 4am Eastern. Click on Image to Donate! And please spread this message to others.

In Statement to Senate, Wells Fargo Chief Is ‘Deeply Sorry’ - The New York TimesThe chief executive of Wells Fargo, John G. Stumpf, will say in testimony Tuesday morning that he is “deeply sorry” for selling customers unauthorized bank accounts and credit cards and that he takes “full responsibility” for the unethical activity, according to a copy of the remarks prepared for a Senate Banking Committee hearing. In his testimony, which was obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Stumpf strikes a decidedly contrite tone about the scandal over the fake accounts, which has engulfed Wells Fargo since it reached a $185 million settlement with regulators on Sept. 8. Mr. Stumpf has been criticized for publicly attributing the illegal activity to approximately 5, 300 employees who were fired as a result of the sham accounts. Former employees say that workers felt enormous pressure to bend the rules to meet unrealistic sales goals set at the highest levels of the bank. At the same time, Mr. Stumpf will tell lawmakers that the illegal activity, which also included as many as 565, 000 unauthorized credit cards and 1. 5 million sham bank accounts, was not part of an “orchestrated effort, or scheme, as some have called it, by the company. ” “We never directed nor wanted our employees, whom we refer to as team members, to provide products and services to customers they did not want or need,” he will say, according to his testimony. On Tuesday, Mr. Stumpf is expected to face questions from the Senate Banking Committee over what the top managers at Wells Fargo knew about the widespread illegal sales activity and what they had done to stop it since it was first made public almost three years ago. Employees were still being fired well into this year for selling questionable accounts. In his testimony, Mr. Stumpf acknowledged that the bank failed to do enough to stop the behavior from continuing. “I want to apologize for not doing more sooner to address the causes of this unacceptable activity. ”

CNN Statement Distances Network from Buzzfeed Fake News Dossier - BreitbartCNN has released a statement trying to distance their reports from BuzzFeed’s decision to publish unverifiable memos about Donald Trump. [Midday Tuesday, CNN tweeted a full statement from their Twitter account saying, CNN’s decision to publish carefully sourced reporting about the operations of our government is vastly different than BuzzFeed’s decision to publish unsubstantiated memos. The Trump team knows this. They are using BuzzFeed’s decision to deflect from CNN’s reporting, which has been matched by the other major news organisations. The statement continues, We are fully confident in our reporting. It represents the core of what the First Amendment protects, informing the people of the inner workings of their government in this case, briefing materials prepared for President Obama and Trump last week. We made it clear that we were not publishing any of the details of the document because we have not corroborated the report’s allegations. The statement then poses a direct challenge to the transition team of Trump, Given that members of the Trump transition team have so vocally criticized our reporting, we encourage them to identify, specifically, what they believe to be inaccurate. CNN’s report is here. Buzzfeed’s report is here. Update: Buzzfeed editors are trying to avoid a public argument with CNN over their decision to publish the unverified documents. Editor @BuzzFeedBen tells me they’re ”not going to participate in an attempt to divide the media against each other” following CNN criticism, — Michael Calderone (@mlcalderone) January 11, 2017, The full comment from CNN can be read below: Statement from CNN: pic. twitter. — CNN Communications (@CNNPR) January 11, 2017, Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart Tech covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lnolan@breitbart. com

C.E.O.s Ponder a New Game, With Trump’s Rules - The New York Times“If you were to look at our game board of all the possible outcomes of the election, this one wasn’t even on the sheet. ” That was how Mark T. Bertolini, chief executive of the large health insurer Aetna, described the election of Donald J. Trump as the next president. He was speaking with me last Thursday on stage at The New York Times’s annual conference, DealBook: Playing for the Long Term. “We started with a fresh piece of paper yesterday. We had no idea how to approach it,” Mr. Bertolini said. Business executives across the nation and the world have been whipping out fresh pieces of paper to map how Mr. Trump’s election and Republican control of the White House, Senate and House — which may make Washington’s notorious gridlock a memory — will reshape economic policy. The stock market has jumped, taking many prognosticators by surprise, in anticipation of the seismic changes Mr. Trump has promised: a repeal or refashioning of the Affordable Care Act, a dismantling of the regulations for Wall Street, a substantial haircut for corporate and personal income tax rates, and a major infrastructure spending program, among other things. While the new conventional wisdom may be that the nation is about to see comprehensive change, the truth is that it is likely to be more incremental than across the board. Take, for instance, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. While you would think much of the finance industry would salivate at the chance to rid itself of the law, its view is more nuanced. Most companies have made large investments and changes in their business practices to comply with the law. So it’s hard to see how even the law’s opponents in the industry would press for the full repeal that Mr. Trump said he would pursue. “That omelet has been made that toothpaste is out of the tube,” Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, said at the conference. “I wouldn’t want regulation to be repealed in toto,” he added. “If you want to be good for bankers, you have to have policies that would be good for economic growth. ” More likely than a repeal, Mr. Trump’s administration will try to eliminate the components he has criticized most. A Trump administration could try to weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the watchdog agency created by which Republicans loathe, for example. “The C. F. P. B. probably won’t be eliminated,” Ian Katz, a research analyst at Capital Alpha Partners in Washington, wrote in a note to clients. “It would be horrible politics and optics to get rid of an agency that was established to protect the little guy. ” Mr. Katz predicted that the Trump administration would be able to push through a switch that critics of the agency have long lobbied for: a shift in control of the consumer bureau from a single director to a bipartisan commission. Mr. Trump might also focus on changing a rule for small banks that grow to more than $10 billion in assets. Currently, such growth catapults a bank into a new regulatory category, one that comes with much stricter scrutiny and more elaborate reporting requirements. This rule has been criticized by the banking industry as an impediment to growth and competition. As for the return of — something Mr. Trump has talked about — don’t bet on it. “The Republican Party’s call for a return to a division of commercial and investment banking shouldn’t be taken seriously,” Mr. Katz wrote. “That was part of a campaign document. Big banks are useful as a populist scapegoat, and Trump may continue to use them in that way. But neither he or his top aides are interested in 2. 0. ” Piecemeal change may also be true of Mr. Trump’s pledge to undo Obamacare, which was one of his bedrock campaign promises. Mr. Bertolini of Aetna predicted: “There will be a repeal first, and I think the repeal will be at a minimum in name. ” It’s nearly impossible for the law to be replaced with the flip of a switch. “Because what’s going to happen in the next year?” he said. “We have people signed up we have to honor that through 2017. We’ll have to work quickly to have something for 2018. ” Mr. Bertolini said that whatever replacement plan might materialize, the government was not going to just stop insuring the 20 million or so people who are covered under the Affordable Care Act. “You can’t put them out on the street without insurance,” he said. His expectation is that Medicare Advantage will be expanded. The backpedaling on the “repeal” pledge has already begun: Mr. Trump has said in the past several days that he intends to make sure that health insurers will not be able to turn away people with conditions, and that people under the age of 26 will still be able to have coverage under their parents’ plans. About the latter provision, Mr. Trump said he would “very much try and keep that. ” In an interview with Lesley Stahl of “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday night, the said that the measure “adds cost, but it’s very much something we’re going to try and keep. ” Of course, the biggest question is how Mr. Trump is going to create a new manufacturing class in America. He has suggested that he is going to renegotiate trade agreements, increase tariffs on goods and deport illegal immigrants — both for security reasons, he contends, and because they take jobs from Americans. How those ambitions ultimately play out is anyone’s guess. One issue that Mr. Trump has seemingly avoided is that of how new technologies are steadily taking American jobs. “The jobs that are routine are going to be replaced by technology,” Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, said at the conference. That’s a truth that may be at odds with Mr. Trump’s ambitions. Still, Mr. Schmidt had an optimistic outlook about how technology already provides unappreciated benefits. “Manufacturing jobs are infinitely safer today because robots do the dangerous work,” he said. “We take that for granted. ” Despite all of the among C. E. O.s surprised about the outcome of the election, there was a sense of optimism — or at least a sense of hope — that pervaded their words. “We all know a lot about Trump the campaigner — now we have to find out about the Trump who needs to get things done,” Mr. Blankfein said. “He will start to think not about getting elected but about what his legacy is going to be,” he continued. “I assume you go into that office and you think about your place in history and things change. ” Mr. Blankfein added, “I’m going to see how it goes before I become mournful. ”

Spicer on Brady’s Stolen Jersey: ’Another Bad on the Press’ - BreitbartSean Spicer thanked the media for returning Tom Brady’s stolen jersey pic. twitter. During Tuesday’s White House press briefing, press secretary Sean Spicer took a jab at the former executive of a Mexican tabloid newspaper who allegedly stole New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady’s jersey after Super Bowl LI. “By the way, I am very happy that the individual in the press corps who took Tom Brady’s jersey, that that has been returned properly,” Spicer said to laughter. “Another bad on the press but we have righted that wrong. ” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent

A Scaredy-Cat’s Investigation Into Why People Enjoy Fear - The New York TimesHalloween is here again. That means your have planted surprise spiders around the office. You’ve been invited to a haunted hayride. Your neighbor’s yard has a full cemetery, rigged with motion detectors and zombies. from the start, I have always dreaded this time of year. Haunted houses, ghost tours and horror film fests are not my thing, and why people love having the daylights scared out of them completely escapes me. I decided to try to understand my friends who are on the lookout for thrills this time of year. As it turns out, there are many possible reasons some people like to be scared stiff. Each person’s threshold for experiences that provoke fear is made up of a unique recipe that blends nature and nurture. “The ingredients vary from person to person,” said Frank Farley, a psychologist at Temple University and a former president of the American Psychological Association. Dr. Farley is interested in what draws certain people to extreme behaviors, like driving racecars, climbing Mount Everest and flying hot air balloons across oceans. In the 1980s, he coined the term “Type T” personality to refer to the behavioral profile of . What makes someone he said, comes down to a mix of genes, environment and early development. David Zald, a neuropsychologist at Vanderbilt University, studies one piece of the equation. His research partly focuses on dopamine, a chemical involved in our brain’s response to reward. In the past, he has found that people who lack what he calls “brakes” on dopamine release tend to pursue thrilling activities. When you go to a haunted house, you’re grappling with a conflict, Dr. Zald said: The experience could either be fun or terrifying, and how you weigh that balance could depend in part on dopamine levels. “Having a greater amount of dopamine pushes someone to pursue the goal of excitement,” he said, “whereas someone who basically has less dopamine is more likely to hold back and say, ‘No, this isn’t worth it to me. ’” Socially, we get cues about how to respond to fear from those around us, said Margee Kerr, a sociologist and author of the book “Scream: Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear. ” Early on, that’s taking notes from our parents about how to deal with distress. Later, experiencing stressful situations with others can cultivate social bonds. Part of that has to do with emotional contagion, or a communal response to shared experiences, Dr. Kerr said. If your friend is captivated by the horror movie you are watching together, you process that by recreating the same feeling in your own mind, and that can bring you closer together. People also tend to hold onto memories of fear more intensely, she said, so if you have positive associations with a scary situation, like going to a haunted house, you’ll likely want to do it again. can also be a way of testing oneself. Josh Randall and Kristjan Thor, creators of Blackout, a haunted house experience that consistently tops rankings of “Most Extreme Haunted Houses,” said they see many people coming to their events with a goal of . “It’s almost like a dare to themselves,” Mr. Thor said. “People want to be able to conquer something. ” For many, being scared is a jolting escape from daily life. When immersed in a scary situation, you can suspend your disbelief and live in the moment — and that loss of control can feel really good. This is key for Blackout, Mr. Randall said: “For a finite period of time, that audience member can turn off the real world, and live in a fantasy world. ” After talking with the experts, I was starting to see why some friends love getting spooked. But why do I hate being scared so much? It could be because I was never exposed to horror movies or haunted houses growing up, so by the time I did experience these things, I was . It could be that the regions in my brain involved in coding fear and anxiety are more sensitive. Most likely, it is a mix of many different factors. Regardless of the reason though, “it’s perfectly O. K. not to like scary things,” Dr. Kerr said. For people who cannot fathom sitting out a haunted house, it’s important not to coerce your more cautious friends into doing something they do not want to, Dr. Kerr said. “That can compound the fear, and make it even worse. ” So, for any friends who were thinking of inviting me to the haunted house this weekend, save your breath — I have a doctor’s note.

The Left’s VisionBy Thomas Sowell November 1, 2016 The political left keeps announcing as if it is a new breakthrough discovery of theirs, that life is unfair. Have they never read Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” more than two and a half centuries ago? What about economic historian David S. Landes’ statement: “The world has never been a level playing field”? In the joint autobiography of Milton Friedman and his wife Rose, they say: “Everywhere in the world, there are gross inequities of income and wealth. They offend most of us. Few can fail to be moved by the contrast between the luxury enjoyed by some and the grinding poverty suffered by others.” Moreover, Professor Friedman left behind a foundation dedicated to promoting school choice, so that disadvantaged children could get a better education for a better chance in life. What is it that the political left is saying that they think is so new, such a breakthrough and such a necessity for progress? More important, what test of evidence — if any — have they ever subjected their notions to? No one has presented the social vision of the left more often than Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times — and no one has been more certain that those who do not happen to share his vision “just don’t get it,” as he has repeatedly declared. Mr. Kristof’s essay “Growing Up Poor in America” in the October 30th New York Times is a classic example of the mindset of the left. It begins with the story of a poor black teenager in Arkansas, being raised by a single mom. Sometimes he goes hungry and his home does not have even one book. But it does have television sets with huge screens, and apparently, there is money enough to buy marijuana. Surely we can all agree that this young fellow has very unpromising future prospects ahead of him and that this is a human tragedy. The circumstances of his life are unfair to him and none of us would want to be born into such circumstances. Moreover, he is just one of many who are brought up in a setting that is full of dangers and with a low probability of improvement. But that is not enough for Mr. Kristof or for the political left in general. Of such youngsters he says, “as a society, we fail them long before they fail us.” Whoa! Just when did “society” make the decisions and engage in the actions that have led to this teenager being in the bad situation he is in? And just when did “society” acquire either the omniscience or the omnipotence to prevent it? When the left says “society” they usually mean government. That is apparently what “society” means in this case, for Kristof laments that this teenager is “the kind of person whom America’s presidential candidates just don’t talk about.” If the left chooses to believe that government intervention is the answer to such tragedies, that is their right. But, if they expect the rest of us to share that belief, surely they could subject that belief to some empirical test. But we can, however. The 1960s were the triumphant decade of those who wanted government intervention to “solve” what they called “social problems.” How did that workout? What were things like before this social vision triumphed? And what were things like afterward? Homicide victimization rates among black males were going down substantially in the 1940s and the 1950s. But homicide victimization rates reversed and skyrocketed in the 1960s, wiping out all the progress of the two previous decades. When the 1960s began, most black children were born into families with both a mother and a father. After the great welfare state expansion during the 1960s, most black children were born to a single mother, like the youngster in Arkansas today. When the 1960s began, most black children were born into families with both a mother and a father. After the great welfare state expansion during the 1960s, most black children were born to a single mother, like the youngster in Arkansas today. Very similar trends occurred in England after very similar visions and policies also triumphed there in the 1960s. Perhaps it is the left that just doesn’t get it — or cannot face the hard fact that its own vision and policies worsened the very things they claimed would be made better. The Best of Thomas Sowell Tags: Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His Web site is www.tsowell.com .

Showdown Looms as U.S. Questions Chinese Deal for German Chip Designer - The New York TimesHONG KONG — A Chinese company is setting up a rare and potentially showdown with the American government over its deal to buy a firm that the United States says could impact national security. The showdown involves Aixtron, a German semiconductor firm being acquired by a Chinese company, Fujian Grand Chip. In a statement on Friday, Aixtron said an American security panel that advises the White House on foreign deals had recommended the two sides drop their plan, citing unspecified national security concerns. Normally, a recommendation like that would be enough to persuade the companies to scotch their plans. But in its statement, Aixtron said it and its Chinese suitor would do something unusual: They would appeal to President Barack Obama directly to approve the deal. Chinese and German companies “plan to continue to actively engage in further discussions to explore means of mitigation that may be amenable” to the White House and the American security panel, according to the Aixtron statement. Mr. Obama has 15 days to decide the fate of the deal, though most likely Mr. Obama will scupper it given presidents usually follow the recommendations of the panel. If the deal is struck down, it would send the message that the United States will continue to carefully scrutinize similar deals — and may act quickly to kill them for national security reasons. The unusual move is sure to spotlight the growing tensions between the United States and China over the latter country’s ambitions to become a power in microchips. While China has made major advancements in technology and computers in recent years, its chip industry is in its infancy, and it still relies on foreign companies for the chips that power even sensitive systems. The move will also shine a light on the shadowy security panel that recommended the deal be dropped. The panel — called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, and commonly known as Cfius — has been increasingly at odds with an expansive new Chinese effort to spend billions acquiring foreign companies. The panel is composed of representatives from major departments and intelligence agencies like Commerce and Justice and the Central Intelligence Agency. Cfius has the power to review any deal that could impact American national security, and either come up with ways to mitigate that impact or recommend the president block the deal. While the Aixtron deal does not involve an American company, Aixtron itself does considerable business in the United States, and lack of American approval would shut that business off. Beijing has highlighted its intentions of catching up to the rest of the world in semiconductors. It has spent hugely to help fund efforts by private Chinese companies and national champions to acquire foreign firms that make microchips, the brains of everything from supercomputers to smartphones to guided missiles. But Cfius reviews or concerns about them have derailed a number of proposed Chinese acquisitions of chip makers around the world. Earlier this year a group of Chinese investors abandoned plans to spend $2. 9 billion on a majority stake in a business owned by Philips of the Netherlands after Cfius noted the business specialized in a material key to making semiconductors. In the case of Aixtron, the companies are asking Mr. Obama to decide directly — a move that has been made only twice before. In 1990 President George H. W. Bush canceled the sale of an aviation company to Chinese bidders. In 2012 President Obama forced a Chinese firm to divest from a wind project deemed too close to a Navy facility in Oregon. The continuing Aixtron saga is a study in how difficult it can be to track which Chinese investments are private and which are state led. In October, The New York Times highlighted how a Chinese customer that dropped a large order — in turn crashing Aixtron’s shares — had a relationship with the acquirer, Fujian Grand Chip, through government investment funds. The connection doesn’t indicate wrongdoing, but does illustrate the blurred lines between Chinese industrial policy and the constellation of privately owned but companies that have been tasked with acquiring new Chinese technological capabilities. In a surprise move last month, German authorities withdrew approval for the takeover without specifying a reason. Because Cfius decisions are considered confidential, the regulator did not say what concerns it had with the acquisition. One possibility is Aixtron’s leading position making technology that creates chips based on an advanced semiconductor material called gallium nitride. The technology has been used in tech as mundane as Disc players, but its resistance to heat and radiation give it a number of military and space applications. Chips based on the technology are used in radar for antiballistic missiles and in an Air Force radar system, called Space Fence, that is used to track space debris. Cfius’s recommendation against the Philips deal earlier this year stemmed in part from that business’s involvement in gallium nitride.

FBI Obtains Warrant To Search Huma Abedin's EmailsFBI Obtains Warrant To Search Huma Abedin's Emails zero hedge While we explained earlier today why the DOJ and FBI had found themselves in the awkward position of knowing that Anthony Weiner's computer contained thousands of Huma Abedin emails sent from Hillary Clinton's private server, yet were unable to access them, we noted it was only a matter of time before this particular hurdle was rectified. A few hours later, according to CBS' Jeff Pegues, in the matter of the FBI having much needed access to begin poring over Weiner's emails, which we now know number roughly 650,000 (and thus will take the FBI months to pore over), the FBI has just obtained the needed warrant. — Jeff Pegues (@jeffpeguescbs) October 30, 2016 As NBC confirms , the FBI obtained a warrant to search emails related to the Hillary Clinton private server probe that were discovered on ex-congressman Anthony Weiner's laptop. The warrant came two days after FBI director James Comey revealed the existence of the emails, which law-enforcement sources said were linked to Weiner's estranged wife, top Clinton aide Huma Abedin. The FBI already had a warrant to search Weiner's laptop, but that only applied to evidence of his allegedly illicit communications with an underage girl. The warrant came moments after Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid scolded Comey, saying in a letter that he " demonstrated a disturbing double standard for the treatment of sensitive information, with what appears to be clear intent to aid one political party over another. " Reid added that his office determined that Comey may have violated the Hatch Act, which bars government officials from using their authority to influence elections. The following screengrab from WaPo, perhaps summarizes best how the democrats' take on things has changed dramatically over the past few weeks: Meanwhile, the CBS reporter also noted that according to law enforcement sources HumaAbedin Is cooperating and "seemed surprised that emails were there." #developing #law enforcement sources also say #HumaAbedin Is cooperating and "seemed surprised that emails were there." — Jeff Pegues (@jeffpeguescbs) October 30, 2016 Finally, Pegues also points out that after having fieled much pressure from Democrats for the past 48 hours, FBI Director Comey has been quietly reaching out to members of Congress as pressure mounts on him. #BREAKING News #FBI Director #Comey has been quietly reaching out to members of #Congress as pressure mounts on him. — Jeff Pegues (@jeffpeguescbs) October 30, 2016 So will the FBI promptly announce that nothing of material important was found among Weiner's emails, or will it now begin a protracted, intensive investigation? Will Comey resigns? Will Huma quit from her role in the Clinton campaign? Will Loretta Lynch take some of the blame? We hope to have some of these much needed answers in the coming days as the FBI's reopened probe begins gaining traction. Share This Article...

Trump Administration to Take Harder Tack on Trade With China - The New York TimesPALM BEACH, Fla. — The Trump administration is planning to roll out its first concrete measures against China on trade, administration officials said on Thursday, hardening its position toward America’s largest trading partner just as President Trump welcomed President Xi Jinping of China to his seaside club here for their first meeting. Sometime after Mr. Xi leaves the United States, these officials said, Mr. Trump plans to sign an executive order targeting countries that dump steel into the American market, an aggressive measure aimed mainly at China. It is unclear exactly what the order would do or how harsh it would be, but it would be designed to begin to make good on Mr. Trump’s promise during the campaign to redress China’s huge trade surplus with the United States. In addition, an official said, the White House is moving out a senior economy policy official, Andrew Quinn, who had helped negotiate the Partnership, former President Barack Obama’s signature trade initiative. Mr. Quinn had become the subject of a battle between two camps in the White House: economic nationalists, who wanted him out, and more mainstream backers of free trade, who defended him. Taken together, these developments constituted a potentially significant victory for the coming off a string of setbacks in their efforts to persuade the president to deliver on the most combative planks of his presidential campaign. But the ultimate outcome of this policy debate is still far from clear, several officials said. Mr. Trump does not plan to confront Mr. Xi with the most aggressive of his campaign threats: a 45 percent tariff on Chinese goods. Nor is the United States likely to designate China a currency manipulator, something he promised to do as a candidate. Holding back those moves suggests Mr. Trump is also heeding the more moderate voices among his advisers, who argue that the United States cannot afford to ignite a trade war with China. “The nativist and nationalist forces certainly have influence,” said Nicholas Lardy, an expert on the Chinese economy at the Peterson International Institute for Economics. “But it looks like it’s dwindling rapidly. ” Mr. Lardy said cases on steel were mostly symbolic, since American imports of steel from China accounted for only a few percentage points of the trade deficit. The Obama administration filed multiple cases with the World Trade Organization. Still, the pitched battle over trade policy, on the eve of Mr. Trump’s meeting with Mr. Xi, injected an unpredictable note into an encounter that has been billed mostly as a session for the two leaders. Mr. Trump made it clear the informal setting would not prevent him from confronting his guest with the chronic imbalances between the United State and China. “We have been treated unfairly and have made terrible trade deals with China for many, many years,” he said to reporters on Air Force One. “That’s one of the things we are going to be talking about. ” Mr. Xi arrived in Florida on Thursday afternoon, stepping off his Air China flight into the humid air of Palm Beach. On Thursday evening, he attended a formal dinner at Mr. Trump’s estate. A series of meetings were scheduled for Friday morning, followed by a working lunch. Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson greeted Mr. Xi and his wife, who walked on a red carpet, flanked by an honor guard carrying flags of both countries. Mr. Trump, who arrived from Washington later, greeted Mr. Xi in an arrival ceremony at the front steps of the estate. Speaking to reporters afterward, Mr. Tillerson said the president was prepared to demand an “economic relationship that is fair on both sides” and said the chief goal of the nation’s trade policy would be fashioned after the president’s “America First” credo. “To that end,” he said, “we will pursue economic engagement with China that prioritizes the economic of the American people. ” For weeks leading up to this meeting, China has served as a kind of proxy for Mr. Trump’s advisers to play out their clashing worldviews. The contingent — led by the president’s chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, and the director of the National Trade Council, Peter Navarro — squared off against the more traditional group, which included two former Goldman Sachs executives, Gary D. Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council, and the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin. Mr. Mnuchin, one official said, has gravitated in recent days toward a tougher line on China. Mr. Bannon, officials said, pushed hard for the removal of Mr. Quinn, a special assistant for international trade, investment and development. Mr. Quinn had the support of his boss, Mr. Cohn, a Democrat who has emerged as an influential voice with Mr. Trump on economic policy. But he was unable to save Mr. Quinn, who will return to his previous post with the Office of the United States Trade Representative. In a conciliatory gesture, the two countries are expected to announce they will continue to hold an annual dialogue on strategic and economic issues, which began during the George W. Bush administration and continued under Mr. Obama, though there has been some talk of elevating the session to the level of Vice President Mike Pence. Among the sensitive topics that may come up is American concern about the possibility that Chinese investors might seek to purchase the nuclear power business of Westinghouse Electric Co. Westinghouse, once a symbol of America’s leadership in nuclear energy, was forced to file for bankruptcy in late March, in the face of mounting losses. Though many of its wounds were — a disastrous deal for a construction business proved too costly — broad market and industry forces have also changed the economic calculus for nuclear energy. American officials are profoundly concerned about the potential national security implications of a purchase of Westinghouse by interests with ties to the Chinese government, including the danger that a sale could deliver sensitive nuclear secrets to that nation. A White House official said Thursday that the administration is watching the potential sale closely but declined to comment on options that the United States government might have to block the sale to Chinese interests. Bloomberg News first reported about the government’s concern about the sale. Discussions about the issue are underway among top American officials at the Department of Energy, the State Department and the Treasury Department. Even before the bankruptcy, Westinghouse’s Japanese parent was already moving away from the business of building nuclear power plants, focusing instead on maintaining existing reactors and developing reactors. It follows a broad pattern in the business, as big companies reassess the viability of nuclear and the field of players shrinks. General Electric has pared its nuclear operations, while the French builder Areva is going through a major restructuring. China has been moving to fill the void, as it increasingly develops its nuclear abilities and pushes homegrown players to look for opportunities beyond their borders. But China’s increasing presence in nuclear energy has raised security concerns in some countries.

Pew: American Trust Level in Federal Government Plummets to Historic Lows - BreitbartPew Research Center’s national survey on the overall trust of the American people in the federal government is “near historic lows,” with just 20 percent saying they trust it to do what’s right “always or most of the time. ”[Those that trust the government “some of the time” is much higher — 68 percent — and 11 percent said they “never trust the government. ” Pew points out in the article accompanying the survey results that a shift in power at the White House and Republican control in both chambers of Congress has shifted perspectives of the government: The changes in the dynamics of power in Washington have registered with members of both political parties. Somewhat more Republicans express trust in government today than did so prior to the election, while views among Democrats have moved in the opposite direction. For the first time since George W. Bush’s presidency, Republicans (28%) are more likely than Democrats (15%) to say they can trust the government in Washington to do the right thing just about always or most of the time. The number of Americans who describe their feeling toward the federal government as “frustrated” were in the majority at 55 percent. This compares with 22 percent who chose “angry” and only 19 percent who said they are “basically content. ” Confidence in the country’s future also reflects partisan attitudes, Pew reported. Overall, 41 percent of Americans say they have “quite a lot” of confidence in the future of the U. S. while 30% have some confidence. The number who say they have “little or no confidence” is 28 percent, up from 15 percent in the fall of 2015. Since then, the share of Republicans expressing quite a lot of confidence in the nation’s future has increased 19 percentage points — from 40% to 59% — while falling 22 points among Democrats — 50% to 28%. Pew Research Center conducted the survey between April with 1, 501 adults participating.

Islamic State Supporting Former National Guardsman Pleads Guilty to Terrorism Charge in VirginiaFormer National Guardsman turned Islamic State sympathizer Mohamed Jalloh of Sterling, Virginia pled to guilty in federal court Thursday to a terrorism charge related to a July arrested during an FBI sting operation. Jalloh, a 27 year old naturalized citizen from Sierra Leone was arrested on July 3rd as part of an FBI counterterrorism operation in which he had communicated to a federal informant that he was interested in participating in a “Fort Hood ” style attack. Jalloh was apprehended by federal agents after purchasing a Stag Arms rifle at a Virginia arms dealer that had been rendered inoperable as part of the operation. According to the U.S. Attorney’s office , authorities discovered during their operation that Jalloh was attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State by “assisting in the procurement of weapons” to be used in an attack on U.S. soil. Following his arrest, Jalloh admitted to traveling to Africa to join the Islamic State, adding that he had quit the National Guard after listening to online lectures from deceased al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Aulaqi. Via Justice.Gov …in March 2016, a now-deceased member of ISIL brokered an introduction between Jalloh, 26, of Sterling, Virginia, and an individual in the United States who actually was an FBI confidential human source (CHS). The ISIL member was actively plotting an attack in the United States and believed the attack would be carried out with the assistance of Jalloh and the CHS. …Jalloh stated that he recently had taken a six-month trip to Africa, where he had met with ISIL members in Nigeria and first began communicating online with the ISIL member who later brokered his introduction to the CHS. During their meeting, Jalloh also told the CHS that he often thought about conducting an attack and that he knew how to shoot guns. Jalloh praised the gunman who killed five U.S. military members in a terrorist attack in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in July 2015, and stated that he had been thinking about conducting an attack similar to the November 2009 attack at Ft. Hood, Texas. During the May 2016 meeting, Jalloh asked the CHS about the timeline for an operation and commented that it was better to plan an operation for the month of Ramadan. Jalloh also asked if the CHS could assist him in providing a donation to ISIL. Ultimately, Jalloh provided a prepaid cash transfer of $500 to a contact of the CHS that Jalloh believed was a member of ISIL, but who was in fact an undercover FBI employee. During federal court Thursday Jalloh’s attorney , Joe Flood, stated that the defense plans to “ provide context ” during a February sentencing hearing in an effort to explain the defendant’s actions and what lead to his decisions. Jalloh currently faces up to 20 years in federal prison.

Western QLD Drovers Show Solidarity With C.U.B Workers By Only Drinking Sauv Blanc – The Betoota AdvocateFollow on Facebook Print This Post CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT The nationwide boycott of all Carlton United Brewery products reached new heights over the weekend, after it was revealed that a camp of ringers in Queensland’s Channel Country have only been drinking Sauvignon Blanc for the last five weeks. They join a growing political movement of punters that are abstaining from drinking any of Australia’s highest-selling beer brands, in a showing of support for 55 workers who lost their jobs at Carlton & United Breweries (CUB) in June. These men and women are also known as the #CUB55. The maintenance workers lost their jobs after CUB terminated a machine maintenance contract with employer Quant, they were then offered their jobs back again at a 65% lower wage, after penalty rates and other entitlements. E.H Pearson Cattle Company ‘s head stockman, Ronnie Austin says although he and his mates often punch on with the unionised Betoota shearing contractors, joining the CUB Boycott was a “no fucking brainer”. “I’m usually not a big supporter of the Unions, but you can’t carry on the way these blokes have been” “It’s fucking crook, mate” Austin says it’s been hard work trying to avoid getting stuck into a few green demons at knock off after pushing cattle all day, but it’s their duty as fellow workers to support the CUB 55. “It’s been tough. But we are all starting to get around the lively fruit flavours of the Jacob’s Creek Sauvignon Blanc” “The passionfruit and citrus prevail across the palate, which is pretty much enhanced by the fresh natural acidity which provides vibrancy and length on the finish” With the Mount Isa New Years Eve Rodeo as the next big event pencilled in on their calendars, Austin says the Betoota boys are prepared to throw down with anyone who questions their choice of drink. “If CUB haven’t sorted this mess out by then, well yes of course we will still be drinking white wine on New Years Eve” “If anyone has problem with it then they can come and talk to me and Rocko. It won’t be the first time we’ve had to bust heads in the Isa” “In fact anyone who wants to drink VB around me better have a note from their doctor because It’s just bloody unaustralian” It seems the CUB boycott has travelled across all cultures and state borders in Australia, with workers unions in Brisbane marching as well as hipster musicians now being forced to choose between supported the workers and drinking Melbourne Bitter ironically.

Spicer to Reporter: ’We’re Going to Raise Our Hands Like Big Boys and Girls’ - BreitbartThursday at the White House press briefing, press secretary Sean Spicer rebuked New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush for yelling out a question. When Thrush tried to shout out a question Spicer said, “Glenn, this isn’t a TV program … OK? You don’t get to just yell out questions. We’re going to raise our hands like big boys and girls. Because it’s not your job to just yell out questions. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

Leaders Applaud Gorsuch Confirmation as ’Win for Pro-Life Movement’National leaders are celebrating the confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court as a huge “win for the movement. ”[The Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) is featuring a photo of President Donald Trump’s letter to leaders, expressing his gratitude for their efforts to confirm Gorsuch to the Supreme Court: Here’s the letter @POTUS sent us thanking Susan B. Anthony List members for taking action to #ConfirmGorsuch #ProLife pic. twitter. — Susan B Anthony List (@SBAList) April 7, 2017, Congratulations to our new Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch thank you @POTUS for nominating him! #ProLife #ConfirmGorsuch 🎉🎈🍾 pic. twitter. — Susan B Anthony List (@SBAList) April 7, 2017, The Senate’s vote to confirm Gorsuch comes one day after Majority Leader Mitch McConnell moved to change the procedural rules of the chamber and end the Democrats’ filibuster of Trump’s nominee. “The swift fulfillment of President Trump’s commitment to appoint Supreme Court justices is a tremendous win for the movement,” said SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser in a statement. “Susan B. Anthony List has been rallying the grassroots behind Judge Gorsuch’s nomination for months, including rallies in seven states where came out in force to urge their Senators to confirm Gorsuch. ” Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life, also applauds Gorsuch’s confirmation: We were pleased to support Judge Gorsuch’s nomination, as were our grassroots activists from across America who sent thousands of messages to their Senators in support of his nomination. We thank Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for remaining steadfast throughout this process and President Trump for keeping his promise to the American people in nominating a Justice to the Supreme Court. ”The March for Life congratulates Judge Neil #Gorsuch on his historic confirmation to the Supreme Court today.” https: . — March for Life (@March_for_Life) April 7, 2017, In exit poll reporting in November, CNN observed that 70 percent of voters said appointments to the Supreme Court were important to their vote, with 56 percent of Trump voters stating they were the most important factor. Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, also hailed the Senate’s vote to confirm Gorsuch. “Judge Gorsuch’s confirmation is Exhibit A for the argument that advocates for life and religious liberty need to vote,” said Pavone. “Without the active participation of social conservatives in last year’s elections, today we would be looking at a Supreme Court dominated by extreme justices. Instead, there’s great hope for the future. ” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said the Supreme Court vacancy after the sudden death last year of Justice Antonin Scalia “became a defining issue of the 2016 presidential election. ” “President Trump made history by telling voters who he would appoint to the Court by providing a list — the American people chose him and he in turn chose from the list, keeping his promise,” Perkins added. Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, said Gorsuch’s confirmation is “a huge win for the Trump administration and for the movement. ” “Students for Life commends President Trump for keeping his promise to appoint a judge in the mold of the late Justice Scalia, and we look forward to the day when abortion on demand, in all nine months of pregnancy is no longer the law of the land,” she said. Maureen Ferguson, senior policy adviser with The Catholic Association, said Gorsuch’s confirmation will help to correct the “alarming erosion” of the First Amendment right to practice one’s faith without discrimination. “Senate Republicans have restored the true tradition of confirming justices without filibusters and the of recent years,” she added.

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French Vogue’s March Cover Features a Transgender Model - The New York TimesValentina Sampaio is one of those leggy, lush brunette models for which Brazil is famous. And it was her striking beauty and “sparkling personality,” the French Vogue editor Emmanuelle Alt said, that led her to feature the on the magazine’s March cover. Ms. Alt wrote in her editor’s letter that transgender people are “the ultimate of a rejection of conformity” — the sort of “icons that Vogue supports and chooses to celebrate. ” French Vogue is not the first fashion magazine to feature a transgender model on its cover. Hari Nef appeared on Frische, a fashion and art magazine, in 2014 Andreja Pejić was on Marie Claire Spain a year ago and Ms. Sampaio on Elle Brazil last October, to name a few. But the action was groundbreaking for the Vogue empire as well as the French fashion establishment, in part because of the cover line — “Transgender beauty: How it’s shaking up the world” — below Ms. Sampaio’s face. Ms. Alt wrote that being transgender “is a detail one would prefer not to have to mention,” adding that Ms. Sampaio was not on the cover only for her looks “but because despite herself she embodies an arduous struggle to be recognized and not be perceived as something Other, a gender exile. ” French Vogue’s editorial choices have long pushed social limits. In the 1970s, it published sexually charged images by Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton, most notably Mr. Newton’s 1979 picture of Gia Carangi, fashion’s first openly lesbian model, wearing an Yves Saint Laurent evening gown and being seduced by an androgynous woman in a Saint Laurent tuxedo. (It is worth noting that Ms. Sampaio greatly resembles Ms. Carangi.) In 2007, Carine Roitfeld, then the French Vogue editor, ran a Bruce cover of the blonde Carolyn Murphy horsing around with Andre J. a black, bearded androgynous model who was wearing a mini trench. Still, the fact that the current issue reached newsstands the same week that President Trump reversed federal policy protecting some rights of transgender students — and during a French presidential campaign in which populism looms — made Ms. Alt’s cover statement that much more pointed. Jonathan Newhouse, the chairman and chief executive of Condé Nast International, the parent company of French Vogue, called the cover a brilliant decision. “It reinforces the power of the Vogue brand as a bold, innovative and highly relevant voice in the worlds of journalism and fashion,” Mr. Newhouse said. “I am not aware of any commercial impact, either positive or negative. My impression is a lot of people liked it. ” Olivier Lalanne, the magazine’s deputy editor, said the public response had been “positive and encouraging” with “no backlash at all for the moment. ” Ms. Sampaio concurred. “I’ve only had supercool feedback,” she said last week. On her Instagram feed, @valentts, her following has shot up by several thousand to more than 53, 000, and the Vogue cover image has received laudatory comments such as “You are beautiful,” “History made” and “#finally. ” It helps that Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, the photographers who shot the cover and its accompanying fashion story, were careful to avoid clichés or fetishizing Ms. Sampaio. The magazine published two cover versions: In one, Ms. Sampaio shimmers in a gold lamé Saint Laurent evening gown, her eyes piercing a haunting violet light in the second, a she is bathed in a flare of fuchsia. For the fashion spread, Ms. Alt dressed Ms. Sampaio in a series of sexy 1970s throwbacks, such as a Louis Vuitton sheer black gown over a black cutout bodysuit a Balenciaga red poppy print blouse and skintight pants and a pair of slouchy Dolce Gabbana leopard print sequined pants, her naked torso and modest breasts painted gold. “It’s not gratuitous,” Mr. Lalanne said. “It makes sense as a story, therefore it doesn’t shock. ” Ms. Sampaio, who grew up in Aquiraz, a fishing town in northern Brazil, said, “I always felt like a girl. ” She refused to reveal what her name was before she chose Valentina, or when she transitioned, but did allow that her father, a fisherman, and her mother, a schoolteacher, “were always supportive and are very proud” of her choice. Her schoolmates accepted her, too, “since they already saw me as a little girl. ” She was studying fashion when she was discovered by a makeup artist a few years ago and signed by a modeling agency based in São Paulo. At first, there were a few “incidents,” as she puts it — clients who refused to hire her because she was transgender — and she considered giving up her new career. But after other transgender models, like Ms. Pejić, Ms. Nef and Lea T, Riccardo Tisci’s muse, moved firmly into the fashion mainstream, Ms. Sampaio found herself working steadily for magazines and on the runways. Last year, L’Oréal produced a short film about Ms. Sampaio, which it released on International Women’s Day. She is now one of the brand’s ambassadors. It was Mr. Alas and Mr. Piggott who brought Ms. Sampaio to the attention of Ms. Alt and Mr. Lalanne. “They found her beautiful,” Mr. Lalanne said. “And we agreed. ” Ms. Sampaio traveled to London for the shoot in December and had no idea it included the cover until she was on the set. “For Vogue to shine a light on someone who changed her sex when it is such a hotly debated topic projects a calming image of tolerance,” Mr. Lalanne said. “Fashion is freer than other domains in the arts. It opens doors, and we are able to highlight people who are social antagonists. So we have. ” As for Ms. Alt, she said she longed for the day when a transgender person “poses on the front cover of a fashion magazine and it is no longer necessary to write an editorial on the subject. ” Only then, she said, “will we know that the battle is won. ”

Trump Veers From Party Line on Gun Control - The New York TimesWASHINGTON — Donald J. Trump said Wednesday that people on the terror watch list should be barred from buying firearms, putting himself in the center of a debate in Congress revived by the worst mass shooting in United States history. Mr. Trump’s stance, expressed in a Twitter post, does not necessarily jibe with the positions of the Republican Party and the National Rifle Association, whose endorsement Mr. Trump frequently boasts about on the campaign trail. His tweet could be read to support measures pushed by Democrats and opposed by Republicans in Congress, reflecting the unusual nuances of the issue, which touches on public safety and civil rights beyond the Second Amendment. “I will be meeting with the N. R. A. who has endorsed me, about not allowing people on the terrorist watch list, or the list, to buy guns,” Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, wrote Wednesday morning on Twitter. His comment came three days after 49 people were killed when a gunman who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State stormed an Orlando nightclub. On the same morning, a group of Democrats took to the Senate floor in a filibuster to protest the lack of improvement in gun safety measures in recent years. “I’ve had enough,” said Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, who spoke on and off for more than 14 hours. “I couldn’t just come back to the Senate this week and pretend like this is business as usual. ” When he finished talking shortly after 2 a. m. on Thursday, Mr. Murphy said he had secured agreement for votes on the measures. “I am proud to announce that after 14+ hours on the floor, we will have a vote on closing the terror gap universal background checks,” Mr. Murphy said in a Twitter message posted around 1:50 a. m. The filibuster drew significant attention online, with supporters tweeting support and encouragement as the hours dragged on. Mr. Murphy acknowledged that support after ending the filibuster. “This would never have happened without you,” he said in a separate Twitter post. “Without your outpouring of support — your calls, tweets emails. ” The Democratic legislation, sponsored by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, would seek to prevent individuals on the government’s terror watch list from purchasing guns on the recommendation of the Justice Department alone. Ms. Feinstein unsuccessfully proposed a similar measure last year, after 14 people were killed by an Islamic extremist couple in San Bernardino, Calif. The legislation she is now proposing goes even further, covering not just people on the watch list at the time of purchase, but anyone who had been on the list in the preceding five years. The Orlando gunman, Omar Mateen, had been on the list but was removed after an F. B. I. investigation turned up no evidence that he was plotting any crimes. N. R. A. officials said on Twitter that they would be happy to meet with Mr. Trump, but that the group had not changed its position: withholding guns from people on the terrorist watch list, the vast majority of whom have not been charged with a crime, would give the government too much power to deny people of their Second Amendment right. At one point in 2014, the list had 800, 000 names, and in the past famous Americans like Senator Ted Kennedy and Representative John Lewis had undergone additional screening at airports because their names were similar to those on the list. The group has supported a competing measure put forward by Republicans, led by Senator John Cornyn of Texas. Under the proposal, when someone on the watch list tried to buy a gun, federal prosecutors would have three days to persuade a judge that there is probable cause to deny the purchase. Democrats say that burden is too high. “The N. R. A. believes that terrorists should not be allowed to purchase or possess firearms, period,” said Chris W. Cox, the executive director of the group’s Institute for Legislative Action, in a statement. “At the same time, due process protections should be put in place that allow Americans who are wrongly put on a watch list to be removed. ” A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump confirmed that he met with Mr. Cox in New York on Tuesday, though the terror watch list was not on the agenda. Mr. Trump’s campaign did not clarify Wednesday how far his proposal would go or articulate which of the dueling measures — Mr. Cornyn’s or Ms. Feinstein’s — Mr. Trump most agrees with. Democrats were not counting on Mr. Trump’s support and almost seemed not to want it. They have been more than happy to associate him with the N. R. A. which Democrats view as the biggest obstacle to gun control. Republicans are under pressure to show some action in response to the Orlando shooting, and Mr. Cornyn said on Wednesday evening that he was working with Ms. Feinstein on a potential compromise. But Ms. Feinstein, speaking to reporters after a classified briefing on the Orlando shooting that Mr. Cornyn also attended, said she doubted a deal would be reached. As for Mr. Trump’s role, she was dismissive. “Oh, Trump just makes everything worse,” Ms. Feinstein said. During the primaries, Mr. Trump, who is a gun owner, spoke often about his affinity for guns as a way to prove his conservatism. He is in step with the N. R. A. on virtually all other gun issues, including his opposition to a ban on assault weapons. “By the way, I’m going to save your Second Amendment,” he said Wednesday at a rally in Atlanta. As he has after other mass shootings, Mr. Trump said Wednesday that more gun ownership was the answer, not less. He said that the carnage could have been minimized “if some of those great people that were in that club that night had guns strapped to their waist or strapped to their ankle, and if the bullets were going in the other direction. ” Actual floor debate on any of the proposals in Congress was not expected until Thursday at the earliest. Mr. Murphy was aided by a large cast of Democrats but especially his fellow Connecticut senator, Richard Blumenthal, as well as Cory A. Booker of New Jersey and Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the minority whip. They yielded briefly for questions from Republicans but otherwise talked incessantly about the need for tighter gun control. By early evening, the Democrats brought out a poster showing photographs of victims of the Orlando shooting. Senator Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin, stood next to the poster, reading out the victims’ names and speaking about their lives. A spokesman for Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said that the speechmaking by Democrats was merely delaying the consideration of the measures, as well as proposals on F. B. I. financing and other amendments to the Senate appropriations bill. Jonathan Lowy, director of the Legal Action Project of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said that while the Democratic legislation was “a very promising step in the right direction,” none of the proposals currently under consideration go far enough. “We need to require background checks for all gun sales if we truly want to keep guns out of the hands of terrorists and other dangerous people,” Mr. Lowy said. Mr. Lowy added that he still does not entirely understand what Mr. Trump is proposing. “You certainly can’t enact the tweet into law — you need more specifics than that,” he said. “We’ll have to see what actual legislation, if any, Trump actually supports. ”

How the Oligarchy Has Prepared the Groundwork for Stealing the ElectionHow the Oligarchy Has Prepared the Groundwork for Stealing the Election In addition to the cyber manipulation of electronic voting (see http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/11/01/very-easy-to-invisibly-steal-us-elections/ ), Finian Cunningham explains a second method the Oligarchy has prepared that would allow the election to be stolen for Hillary. The groundwork that has been officially established indicates that a false flag cyber attack is the preferred method. A Digital 9/11 If Trump Wins by Finian Cunningham There are disturbing signs that a digital 9/11 false flag terror attack is being readied for election day in the US to ensure that Donald Trump does not win. Such an attack – involving widespread internet and power outage – would have nothing to do with Russia or any other foreign state. It would be furnished by agencies of the US Deep State in a classic “false flag” covert manner. But the resulting chaos and “assault on American democracy” will be conveniently blamed on Russia. That presents a double benefit. Russia would be further demonized as a foreign aggressor “justifying” even harsher counter measures by America and its European allies against Moscow. Secondly, a digital attack on America’s presidential election day this week, would allow the Washington establishment to pronounce a Trump win invalid due to “Russian cyber subversion”. Invalidation is a prepared option if the ballot results show Republican candidate Donald Trump as the imminent victor. Democrat rival Hillary Clinton is the clear choice for the White House among the Washington establishment. She has the backing of Wall Street finance capital, the corporate media, the military-industrial complex and the Deep State agencies of the Pentagon and CIA. The fix has been in for months to get her elected by the powers-that-be owing to her well-groomed obedience to American imperialist interests. The billionaire property magnate Trump is too much of a maverick to be entrusted with the White House, as far as the American ruling elite are concerned. The trouble is that, despite the massive campaign to discredit Trump, polls show his support remains stubbornly close to Clinton’s. The latter has been tainted with too many scandals involving allegations of sleazy dealings with Wall Street, so-called pay-for-play favors while she was former Secretary of State, and her penchant for inciting overseas wars for regime change using jihadist terrorist foot-soldiers. As one headline from McClatchy News only days ago put it: “Majority of voters think Clinton acted illegally, new poll finds”. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article112635048.html#emlnl=Evening_Newsletter Trump is right. The US presidential election is rigged. The system is heavily stacked against any candidate who does not conform with the interests of the establishment. The massive media-orchestrated campaign against Trump is testimony to that. But such is popular disgust with Clinton, her sleaze-ball husband Bill and the Washington establishment that her victory is far from certain. Indeed in the last week before voting this Tuesday various polls are showing a neck-and-neck race with even some indicators putting the Republican narrowly ahead. Over the weekend, the Washington Post, which has been one of the main media outlets panning Trump on a daily basis, reported this: “The electoral map is definitely moving in Trump’s direction”. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/04/dont-look-now-the-electoral-map-is-definitely-moving-in-donald-trumps-direction/?wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1 In recent days, American media are reporting a virtual state of emergency by the US government and its security agencies to thwart what they claim are Russian efforts to incite “election day cyber mayhem.” In one “exclusive” report by the NBC network on November 3, it was claimed that: “The US government believes hackers from Russia or elsewhere may try to undermine next week’s presidential election and is mounting an unprecedented effort to counter their cyber meddling.” http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/white-house-readies-fight-election-day-cyber-mayhem-n677636?cid=sm_tw On November 4, the Washington Post reported: “Intelligence officials warn of Russian mischief in election and beyond.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russia-seen-as-unable-to-alter-election-but-may-still-seek-to-undermine-it/2016/11/03/b7387160-a1cd-11e6-8832-23a007c77bb4_story.html Apparently, the emergency security response is being coordinated by the White House, the Department of Homeland Security, the CIA, the National Security Agency and other elements of the Defense Department, according to NBC. These claims of Russian state hackers interfering in the US political system are not new. Last month, the Obama administration officially accused Moscow of this alleged malfeasance. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/07/us-russia-dnc-hack-interfering-presidential-election Russian President Vladimir Putin has lambasted American claims that his country is seeking to disrupt the presidential elections as “hysterical nonsense”, aimed at distracting the electorate from far more deep-rooted internal problems. http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/putin-rejects-claims-russian-interference-us-election-43103312 The Obama administration and its state security agencies have not provided one iota of evidence to support their allegations against Russia. Nevertheless the repeated charges have a tendency to stick. The Clinton campaign has for months been accusing Trump of being a “pro-Russian stooge”. Clinton’s campaign has also claimed that Russian hackers have colluded with the whistleblower organization Wikileaks to release thousands of private emails damaging Clinton with the intention of swaying the election in favor of Trump. Wikileaks’ director Julian Assange and the Russian government have both rejected any suggestion that they are somehow collaborating, or that they are working to get Trump elected. But on the eve of the election, the US authorities are recklessly pushing hysteria that Russia is trying to subvert American democracy. Michael McFaul, the former US ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014 is quoted as saying: “The Russians are in an offensive mode and the US is working on strategies to respond to that, and at the highest levels.” NBC cites a senior Obama administration official as saying that the Russians “want to sow as much confusion as possible and undermine our process”. Ominously, the news outlet adds that “steps are being taken to prepare for worst-case scenarios, including a cyber-attack that shuts down part of the power grid or the internet.” Nearly two weeks ago, on October 21-22, the US was hit with a widespread internet outage. The actors behind the “distributed denial of service” were not identified, but the disruption was nationwide and it temporarily disabled many popular consumer services. One former official at the US Department of Homeland Security described the event as having “all the signs of what would be considered a drill”. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/white-house-readies-fight-election-day-cyber-mayhem-n677636?cid=sm_tw Could that cyber-attack have been the work of US Deep State agencies as a dress rehearsal for an even bigger outage planned for November 8 – election day? The Washington establishment wants Clinton over Trump. She’s the marionette of choice for their strategic interests, including a more hostile foreign policy towards Russia in Syria, Ukraine and elsewhere. But Trump might prove to be the voters’ choice. In which case, the shadowy forces that really rule America can trigger a “digital 9/11”. It’s not difficult to imagine the chaos and mayhem from internet blackout, power, transport, banking and communications paralysis – even for just a temporary period of a few hours. Months of fingering Russia as a destabilizing foreign enemy intent on interfering in US democracy to get “Comrade Trump” into the White House would then serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy. In that event, the US authorities could plausibly move to declare the election of Donald J Trump null and void. In fact the scenario could be contrived to a far more serious level than merely invalidating the election result. The US authorities could easily feign that a state of emergency is necessary in order to “defend national security”. That contingency catapults beyond “rigged politics”. It is a green light for a coup d’état by the Deep State forces who found that they could not win through the “normal” rigging methods. Originally published: https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201611061047117877-digital-9-11-if-trump-wins/ The post How the Oligarchy Has Prepared the Groundwork for Stealing the Election appeared first on PaulCraigRoberts.org .

Ya hay más reencuentros de “Operación Triunfo” que ediciones de “Operación Triunfo”Ya hay más reencuentros de “Operación Triunfo” que ediciones de “Operación Triunfo” SE ESTÁN REENCONTRANDO COMPAÑEROS QUE AÚN NO SE CONOCEN Televisión Española La fiebre de los reencuentros de antiguos concursantes de “Operación Triunfo” ha llevado a Televisión Española a apostar por el formato de la nostalgia hasta el punto de que, según confirmaba el propio canal esta mañana, ya hay más ediciones de “OT: El reencuentro” que de “Operación Triunfo”. Un portavoz de la productora Gestmusic reconocía que “se están reencontrando cantantes que sólo se conocen desde hace dos días”. “El concierto de ayer fue mítico, hay que repetirlo. ¿Cómo lo tenéis mañana?”, preguntó ayer un ejecutivo del Ente público a Chenoa y David Bisbal, que confesaron estar hartos de reencontrarse tras 16 reencuentros consecutivos. “Yo necesito no reencontrarme con la misma gente tantas veces”, apuntó la cantante. Bisbal confesó tras las cámaras que, a estas alturas, los reencuentros merecen la pena no tanto por la ilusión “como por lo que se cobra”. “No sé quién es Julio Rojas porque me perdí el programa de ayer, pero dicen que esta noche se reencuentra con Vero, que tampoco sé quién es, y va a ser la bomba porque parece que hubo algo entre ellos casi desde que se conocieron hace menos de dos días”, comenta un seguidor acérrimo de este formato. TVE ha firmado ya la producción de doce ediciones de “Operación Triunfo” con doce reencuentros cada una. La imposibilidad de cuadrar la parrilla de programación ha llevado a celebrar el reencuentro de concursantes de una edición que aún no se había grabado. “Es muy emocionante reencontrarte con los compañeros a los que vas a conocer dentro de un mes”, explicaba Yuri Sedasso, ganador de la edición de OT de 2023.

At Chatsworth House, a Tale of Five Centuries - The New York TimesLONDON — If walls could talk, Chatsworth House, with its sublime Painted Hall, Sculpture Gallery and endless parade of gilded staterooms, would have some tales to tell. Considered one of the great treasure houses of England, set amid the rolling green hills of the Derbyshire Dales, the estate has played host over the last 500 years to some of Britain’s most captivating and infamous women, including: Bess of Hardwick Mary, Queen of Scots Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire Kathleen Kennedy, known as Kick (sister to John F. Kennedy) and Deborah Mitford, known as Debo. Their stories, and much more, will be revealed as part of an exhibition, “House Style: Five Centuries of Fashion at Chatsworth,” which opens to the public on Saturday. Curated by Hamish Bowles, international editor at large at American Vogue, and with creative direction and design by Patrick Kinmonth and Antonio Monfreda, the exhibition will delve into Chatsworth’s rich sartorial heritage, using the lives of its inhabitants and their glamorous guests as mannequins on which to hang stories of the wider history of the house. “To be let loose in the wardrobe rooms, the gold vaults, the muniment room and the closets, cupboards and attics of Chatsworth — a place I came to as a little boy with a ticket in my hand and wonder in my eyes — has been a truly joyous experience,” Mr. Bowles said recently in a telephone call from the stately home. Lady Laura Burlington, the of the current Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, conceived of the exhibition while hunting for a christening robe. She found umpteen perfectly preserved options complete with capes, underdresses and bonnets, which led her to wonder what else might lie undiscovered. Six years later, Mr. Bowles has seen his curatorial vision become a reality. The exhibition is organized by theme, including Coronation Dress Bess of Hardwick and the Tudor Influence the Georgiana Effect and Country Living and Entertaining at Chatsworth, though a standout moment for him may be a reimagining of the Devonshire House Ball, situated in the grandest staterooms in the house. Held in 1897 to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, the ball, with 400 guests dressed as allegorical figures (and, crucially, photographed) was the grandest fancy dress ball of the century. Assistant curators for the exhibition spent months tracking down a handful of the original costumes, bringing them together for the first time since the night of the party. Mr. Bowles gasped as he described a Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, gown made by the couturier Worth for Louise, the formidable wife of the eighth duke, and arguably the jewel in the display’s crown. “So often,” Mr. Bowles said, “clothing is the most vivid entry point into getting a sense of how people of the past lived and existed in an environment or even a single moment in time. To create this exhibit on the landscape of Chatsworth, where so many legendary lives and moments have unfolded, has just been extraordinary. ” Lady Burlington, a former model and fashion buyer, said that her first meeting with Mr. Bowles was less than auspicious. “We met many years ago on an fashion shoot for Harper’s and Queen,” Lady Burlington said, “where Hamish was the stylist, I was the model, and thanks to an overly snug Vivienne Westwood corset, I promptly fainted. ” Mr. Bowles helped revive her, she added, by giving her a cup of tea and a biscuit. Luckily, their next meeting proved more fruitful. Beyond the historical gems they unearthed, the exhibition is notable for its wealth of contemporary contributions, with garments from modern fashion labels like Alexander McQueen, Erdem, Maison Margiela, Vetements, Vivienne Westwood and Gucci, the exhibition’s principal sponsor. Last year, Gucci shot its 2017 cruise collection at Chatsworth, and the house clearly made its mark on the creative director Alessandro Michele, who said it was “unlike anywhere else in the world, full of charm and rituals. ” “You can see history everywhere,” Mr. Michele said, “yet everything is alive. ” The most recent Gucci runway collection was packed with what Lady Burlington termed “Chatsworth detail,” including fabrics, colors and bejeweled bugs and bees crawling over suiting and shirts. Given the calligraphy offerings on the Milan runway last month, Mr. Michele may also have been taken with the 11th duke’s trove of novelty slogan pullovers, printed with phrases like “Get Up and Do Something,” “Far Better Not” “All Passion Spent” and “Never Marry a Mitford. ” The duke’s wife, Debo Mitford (one of six Mitford sisters who dominated British high society in the 1930s) died in 2014, but she is represented in the exhibition. An ice pink satin “Carmel” gown she commissioned from Dior from its spring 1953 collection is a centerpiece of the show, while other highlights include her collection of bug and butterfly brooches and a pair of her favorite slippers, emblazoned with the image of Elvis Presley. Lady Burlington added wistfully that there might have been even more from the dowager duchess in the exhibition had she not willingly given away so many treasures. “Debo kept some things for sentimental reasons but generally thought nothing of passing clothes on,” she said. “As a result, her garments could turn up in the most unlikely of places. ” Lady Burlington recounted a story told by Charlotte Mosley about a time when the author had attended the local nativity performance alongside the duchess. The two had been sitting there for some time before the dowager suddenly sat upright in her chair, her eyes lit up. “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe it,” Lady Burlington said, repeating the account of the duchess’ reaction. “The Angel Gabriel is in my Givenchy!”

The Uncomfortable Love Affair Between Donald Trump and the New England Patriots - The New York Times“I’m not talking politics at all,” Tom Brady said in response to the first of several questions about, predictably, politics. Brady has been getting a lot of these, beginning with Super Bowl week’s Opening Night on Monday at Minute Maid Park in Houston. This is not your average Super Bowl week in America. The chaos in Washington, bedlam at airports and protests across the country serve as an unsettling crowd noise to even the serene superstar quarterback for the New England Patriots. Brady is friends with President Trump. So are the Patriots’ owner, Robert Kraft, and Coach Bill Belichick. No sports team has been more closely associated with a new president, or perhaps any president, at least since Richard Nixon very publicly adopted the Washington Redskins as his own and even called occasional plays for Coach George Allen. Like Trump, the Patriots are a divisive juggernaut that tend to engender strong passions for and against. The team represents a kind of sporting ideal of Trump’s promise to make “America win so much, you’ll be bored of winning. ” New England, which will appear in an N. F. L. ninth Super Bowl on Sunday, is a team that wins so much that a lot of America has become, yes, bored of its winning. And no small number of fans are convinced that the Patriots (like Trump) achieve their victories through dubious means and wish they would just go away and get off their TVs forever. The three main architects of the team’s success — Kraft, Belichick and Brady — have taken pains to emphasize that their allegiance to Trump is based on friendship and loyalty, nothing more. They play golf and attend weddings and call to congratulate one another on elections and Super Bowl wins, those kinds of everyday things. They are quick to assert their bipartisan or apolitical bona fides. Kraft has been a supporter of many Democrats and Democratic causes over the years Belichick declared himself apolitical in response to queries last fall after Trump at a campaign rally in New Hampshire read aloud from an effusive note of congratulations that Belichick had sent him. Brady started getting questions about Trump last fall when a red “Make America Great Again” cap was spotted in his Gillette Stadium locker, reportedly put there by Kraft. Brady at first gave sheepish, responses suggesting that it would be cool to have a golf pal as president. (“There’d be a putting green on the White House lawn,” he predicted.) But the questions took on an edgier urgency as Trump’s victories and offenses kept mounting — ending with Trump where he is now, and Brady dropping into a reflexive every time Trump’s name is mentioned to him. Brady, whose makeshift podium on the Minute Maid field on Monday night was swarmed with a few hundred reporters, was the central battlefield of incoming questions. He countered with his most anodyne deflections. “I’m just a positive person” became Brady’s blow off, which he also deployed in the face of several questions about Deflategate, the scandal given new life this week by the prospect of Commissioner Roger Goodell’s having to award the Super Bowl trophy to the man he suspended for four games to begin this season. Other Atlanta Falcons and Patriots players were also invited to weigh in on political matter but mostly demurred. The Falcons receiver Mohamed Sanu, a practicing Muslim, was asked to discuss Trump’s executive order banning immigration from seven countries. He declined politely, other than to say that it was “ a very tough situation” and “hard for me to talk about right now. ” I asked two of the more thoughtful members of the Patriots, the defensive linemen Alan Branch and Chris Long, if they had anything to say about these developments. They absolutely did, they said, and would speak out at some point later, but they did not want to create any “distractions” during Super Bowl week. The Patriots tight end Martellus Bennett did say that if the Patriots won on Sunday and were invited to the White House, he would probably not go, because “I don’t support the guy that’s in the [White] House. ” And really, was that so distracting? One enduring reason the Patriots are constantly being asked about their Trump connections is that the new president is hardly shy about reminding people of them. He has been dropping Brady’s name — and Kraft’s, and Belichick’s — at every opportunity over the last several months. This first became evident to me in the fall of 2015 as Trump was enjoying his unlikely rise to status in the Republican primaries and I had several visits with him for a profile I was writing for the magazine. A few months earlier, I had written a story about Brady, who had just won his fourth Super Bowl and was then embroiled in the Deflategate fiasco, in which the league said it was “more probable than not” that Brady was “at least generally aware” that a minuscule amount of air pressure might have been removed from the footballs he used in the first half of the Patriots’ blowout of the Indianapolis Colts in the A. F. C. championship game. When Trump learned that I had recently spent time with Brady and around the Patriots, he became even more animated on the subject — and insistent that I enlist the star quarterback to say nice things about him for my story. “He’s a good friend of mine,” Trump said about Brady for the first of many times. “A really good friend of mine. ” Trump declared himself “disgusted” by the N. F. L. ’s treatment of Brady over Deflategate. “It’s so ridiculous what they’re doing to him. ” He mentioned he had just spoken to Brady. “He said: ‘Mr. Trump’ — he calls me Mr. Trump, which he shouldn’t, because we play golf all the time. Anyway, he says: ‘Mr. Trump — Donald,’ he doesn’t even know what the [expletive] to call me. It’s the craziest thing. He’s a friend of mine. ” Also, Kraft — great friend, great friend. George Steinbrenner — “big time winner” — was Trump’s best friend, he said, and now Kraft is right up there, too, as one of his favorite guys. Kraft had visited him a few days earlier, and Trump said he chastised the Patriots owner for not fighting harder against the league’s suspension of Brady, in addition to other sanctions levied by the N. F. L. against the Patriots (including the loss of a draft pick and a record fine). “You know, Bob Kraft is also one of my best friends,” Trump told me. “I said, ‘Bob, you should have never made the deal. ’” “Bob said, ‘I had a wink from the commissioner,’” Trump added, meaning that Kraft seemed to think that by standing down and not fighting the N. F. L. the league would reduce Brady’s penalty on appeal. Kraft was under pressure, Trump explained. “He choked, just like Romney choked. He said: ‘You know what? They winked at me.’ I said, ‘Bob when you make a deal, you should have gotten it all wrapped up.’ Who ever heard of making a deal like that? Now you got this mess. ” Kraft should never have trusted Goodell, he said. “The commissioner is a weak guy,” Trump said. “When he made the Ray Rice deal, everybody said: You’re stupid. You’re weak. And it was such a weak deal. So now he’s going overboard with their star, Brady. ” He added: “The commissioner is a dope. He’s a stupid guy. ” By far the best deal Kraft ever made was hiring Belichick, Trump said. Who, by the way, is also “a great, great friend” of Trump’s, even though everyone just assumes he’s “a really rough guy. ” “So I go to the Patriots game last year,” Trump said. “I’m on the sidelines with Kraft. He’s got Les Moonves right here. He’s got a lot of different people. And Belichick comes over in his Patriots sweatshirt and the hoodie and the whole thing. He hugs me, and he kisses me, and he said: ‘I love you. You’re the greatest. ’” Trump sat at his cluttered desk and seemed almost dreamy at the memory, as if the reception from Belichick genuinely moved him. “He just feels warmly toward me, Belichick does,” Trump said. “Isn’t that the craziest thing?” After the Deflategate ruling was handed down by the commissioner that spring, Trump said he tried to persuade Brady to sue the league personally. “I said, ‘Tom.’ — I gave him a lawyer. — I said: ‘Here’s what you do. Sue the N. F. L. for $500 million tomorrow. Sue ’em up in Boston, for everything. They’ll come to the table.’ He said, ‘Aw, man.’ He really was torn. He’s not Trump. He said, ‘I just want to win another Super Bowl. ’” Trump told Brady that he understood. A few weeks later, the future president was showing me around Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. We were accompanied by Damon Winter, a Times photographer who had, a few months earlier, photographed Brady for the profile that was published in February. At one point, as Trump showed me around his golf Xanadu on the Pacific, he looked over at Winter. “Who’s got a better body, me or Tom Brady?” he asked. (No answer from Winter that I recall.) In the course of my time with Trump, he kept urging me to call Brady and ask him about his great friendship with Trump. Brady would say great things, no doubt. “Ask him, ‘How is Trump as a golfer? ’” Trump urged. Brady had been particularly hunkered down during the Deflategate ordeal. N. F. L. politics can be brutal like the kind. Plus, the in the press over his friendship with Trump was not making Brady any more eager to engage beyond his usual helpings of football platitudes. Finally, after Trump kept insisting, I reached out to Brady, fully expecting a polite from the quarterback, and who could blame him? “I really have no interest in political talk right now,” Brady wrote. “I have learned way too much about politics the last seven months. ”

John McCain Withdraws Support for Donald Trump After Disclosure of Recording - The New York TimesSenator John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, withdrew his support on Saturday for Donald J. Trump as the Republican Party descended into chaos. On Friday, a recording was released showing Mr. Trump speaking about women in lewd and degrading terms. Though he faced calls from many in his party to step aside, Mr. Trump vowed in an interview that he would “never drop out of this race in a million years. ” He later took a stronger stance on Twitter. Ms. Trump said in a statement on Saturday that although his words about women were “unacceptable and offensive” to her, she hoped that “people will accept his apology, as I have, and focus on the important issues facing our nation and the world. ” Mr. Trump showed up just before 5 p. m. in the lobby of Trump Tower in Manhattan, accompanied by his campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, and his eldest child, Donald Trump Jr. Security officials stopped reporters and attempted to bar them from getting near Mr. Trump as he went outside and immersed himself in a crowd of supporters, who had gathered hours earlier for a rally. “Hundred percent,” Mr. Trump told reporters who yelled questions about whether he would stay in the race. He ignored other questions about his response to the defections by Republicans. Separately, one of Mr. Trump’s advisers, Rudolph W. Giuliani, a former mayor of New York City, was seen on CNN getting into a car outside Trump Tower, which he had earlier entered for planned debate preparation sessions. “There is nothing that will cause his dropping out,” Mr. Giuliani said. “That is wishful thinking of the Clinton campaign and those who have opposed him for a long time. ” Robert and Rebekah Mercer, the Republican megadonors who previously supported Senator Ted Cruz, suggested Mr. Trump’s remarks were irrelevant to the race. “If Mr. Trump had told Billy Bush, whoever that is, earlier this year that he was for open borders, open trade and executive actions in pursuit of gun control, we would certainly be rethinking our support for him,” they said in a statement. The Mercers also compared Mr. Trump’s actions to Bill Clinton’s treatment of women. The tactic is a favorite of Mr. Trump’s supporters, including Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, who devoted most of his show on Friday evening to allegations of abuse by Mr. Clinton. • Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state under President George W. Bush, who has generally has not discussed politics since becoming a private citizen, called for Mr. Trump to leave the race. She said she hoped to support someone who has the dignity and stature to be president. “Enough!” Ms. Rice said in a Facebook post. “Donald Trump should not be President. He should withdraw. ” • Mr. McCain, who has criticized Mr. Trump repeatedly, officially withdrew his backing. “I have wanted to support the candidate our party nominated,” he said in a statement. He added: “But Donald Trump’s behavior this week, concluding with the disclosure of his demeaning comments about women and his boasts about sexual assaults, make it impossible to continue to offer even conditional support for his candidacy. ” • House Speaker Paul D. Ryan said he was “sickened” by Mr. Trump’s behavior and disinvited him from a Saturday event in Wisconsin. There, he referred obliquely to the episode. “There is an elephant in the room. That is not what we are here to talk about today. ” (Here’s how Mr. Ryan and Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, have condemned Mr. Trump in past statements.) • Former primary opponents such as Carly Fiorina and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio said Mr. Trump should stand down. Mr. Kasich declared that the warning signs were right and that he would never vote for Mr. Trump. • Mr. Trump’s most strident defender, his running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, called the remarks from the 2005 video indefensible. • We are also tallying the number of Republican leaders who say they won’t vote for Mr. Trump. Experts say that swapping out a presidential nominee at this stage of the game would be virtually impossible unless Mr. Trump dies, becomes incapacitated or decides to quit. Trying to change the Republican National Committee’s rules with so little time until Election Day would be a logistical nightmare, and those rules do not give the party the power to change the nominee because people are unhappy. If Mr. Trump did decide to drop out, the logistics would also be challenging because ballots have been printed and voting has already started in many places. We break it down in our Q. and A. Still, as unlikely as that scenario appears to be, that remains the best hope for finding a new nominee. The showdown between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton on Sunday night takes on even greater importance after Mr. Trump’s latest controversy. Unless he speaks beforehand, it will be his first chance to publicly take questions about his behavior on the recording. The audience could approach 100 million. Many Republicans who have yet to denounce Mr. Trump have suggested that the debate will be a moment for him. Take a look.

The Strange, Unending Limbo of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak - The New York TimesCAIRO — In many ways, life is not so bad for Egypt’s deposed ruler, Hosni Mubarak. At the Cairo hospital he calls home, he enjoys regular deliveries of flowers, newspapers and takeout restaurant meals visits from his wife, two sons and grandchildren and a sweeping view over the Nile. To mark his 88th birthday recently, a throng of gathered at the hospital gates and sang, danced and waved his portrait. Mr. Mubarak pulled open a window and waved back. However, the one luxury Mr. Mubarak has not been afforded is the right to simply walk out of the hospital — which is something of a conundrum. In May 2015, a judge decreed that Mr. Mubarak had completed his prison sentence for corruption, in the only successful prosecution of the onetime strongman since his turbulent ouster in 2011. Technically, he was a free man. Yet Mr. Mubarak remains confined to the hospital room that has doubled as a jail cell for the past three years, with a guard posted outside his door. His legal limbo continues even as many of his former allies, men who grew fabulously rich during his three decades of rule, are quietly cutting deals with the government to overturn their own convictions. Mr. Mubarak’s longtime lawyer, Farid declined interview requests. But several of Mr. Mubarak’s friends, including those who visit him in the hospital, explain the situation as a delicate deal between him and Egypt’s powerful military. They say the military has been generally lenient toward figures since President Abdel Fattah took power in 2013, but wants to avoid the likely outcry that would accompany Mr. Mubarak’s release. So the two sides have reached a compromise: Mr. Mubarak agrees to stay in the hospital for now, and the government agrees that his two sons, Alaa, a businessman, and Gamal, once seen as his political heir, will remain free. Both were released from jail last year. “His weak point is his two sons,” said Yousri Abdelraziq, a volunteer lawyer for Mr. Mubarak. “And whenever he speaks in public, the authorities get upset. ” Mr. Abdelraziq said he had received Mr. Mubarak’s permission before speaking to a journalist and produced a cellphone picture of himself standing beside the former president, looking grumpy inside his hospital room. Security and his medical treatment are other factors in Mr. Mubarak’s hospital stay, friends say. A military spokesman declined to comment on the possibility of an arrangement with Mr. Mubarak. Mr. Mubarak’s legal limbo is a reflection of the curious place he occupies in Egyptian public life, five years after the heady protests that ended his long rule. Many Egyptians still despise him as the totemic symbol of the rampant cronyism and repression that plagued Egypt for decades. His incarceration is one of the last remaining victories for the leaders of the 2011 protests, many of whom are now languishing in Mr. Sisi’s jails. But others have started to look back on Mr. Mubarak’s rule with a twinge of bitter nostalgia, as a time of relative freedom compared with the harsh authoritarianism of Mr. Sisi’s rule. “Of course Mubarak was corrupt, but he knew how to take good advice,” said Osama Diab, an anticorruption researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a prominent rights group in Cairo. “Now it’s a disaster. Mubarak was a competent dictator Sisi is not. ” As hard feelings toward Mr. Mubarak seem to be receding, so do his legal woes. The humiliations of 2012 and 2013, when he was forced to sit in a courtroom cage, are largely over. He avoided prosecution on the most serious charges, like the deaths of protesters in 2011, and he now faces a retrial in one final case. There is little prospect of it coming to court anytime soon, lawyers say. Instead, Mr. Mubarak is whiling away his days at the Maadi Military Hospital, a towering complex overlooking the Nile. Staff members there say he lives under a permissive yet firm regimen. Security is tight, and all visitors are vetted by the Ministry of Defense, a security official said. He chats on his cellphone (he has an old Nokia model without Internet access) and occasionally receives a barber who dyes his hair. Nurses sometimes see him shuffling the halls as part of therapy for a fractured pelvis he suffered in a fall in the bathroom in 2013. Mr. Mubarak frequently receives flowers from admirers, and visits from his wife, Suzanne, his sons and his grandchildren, and a tight circle of ardent admirers. They say his mood veers from high spirits to embittered grumbling, describing a man who is scornful of the allies who abandoned him, dismissive of the young protesters who pushed him out, and largely unrepentant for his 29 years in power. “He feels betrayed,” said Hassan Ghandour, a former Republican Guard who befriended Mr. Mubarak. “When he sees critics on TV who used to suck up to him, it leaves him very irritated. ” Maadi Military Hospital has been the stage for other political dramas. In 1980, the shah of Iran died there, on the floor below Mr. Mubarak, having fled to Egypt from revolutionary Iran. The next year, Egypt’s own ruler, Anwar was rushed to the hospital after being shot by Islamist officers at a military parade. He died hours later, paving the way for Mr. Mubarak to take over. Mr. Mubarak is very conscious of his own legacy, said Mr. Abdelraziq, the lawyer, and was “very upset” to be convicted of corruption. He gently nudged his way back into the spotlight last year, giving a rare if unrevealing phone interview to a television talk show. Shortly afterward, security at his room was tightened. Since Mr. Sisi took power in 2013, the government and courts have shown great leniency toward the powerful figures of Mr. Mubarak’s era — business tycoons, ministers and cronies, now exonerated or released from jail — underscoring the sharp limits of change in Egypt since 2011. In the latest case, on May 4, an appeals court overturned a sentence for corruption against Ahmed Nazif, who served as prime minister under Mr. Mubarak from 2004 to 2011. Others are seeking to buy their freedom with cash payments. A lawyer for Hussein Salem, a billionaire businessman and Mubarak confidant who fled to Spain in 2011, has agreed to transfer 75 percent of his wealth — 5. 5 billion Egyptian pounds, or about $626 million at the official exchange rate — in exchange for the overturning of two convictions, carrying sentences of seven and 15 years. “The deal is done from our part,” said the lawyer, Mahmoud Kebaish. “Now we are waiting for the government. ” Adel of the Illicit Gains Authority, which handles such deals, said it had received more than 30 settlement requests from businessmen and former officials linked to Mr. Mubarak. Another Illicit Gains Authority official said Mr. Mubarak, too, was hoping to cut a deal, offering about $10 million in return for the quashing of his corruption conviction. That bid is unlikely to succeed soon, and few believe Mr. Mubarak will be heading to his villa in Sharm el Sheikh anytime soon. But short of a full release, he may have an eye on shaping his legacy and overturning his conviction so the state will restore his military honors and ensure a state funeral. “What matters now about Mubarak is how he goes down in history,” said Mr. Diab, the researcher. “When he dies, the fight will be over whether he was a thief or a military hero, whether he was responsible for the current chaos in Egypt, or whether he saved the country from it until he was kicked out. ”

Poverty Rose in 96% of U.S. House Districts, During Obama’s PresidencyPosted on November 5, 2016 by Eric Zuesse. Eric Zuesse On November 3rd, Morning Consult’s Jon Reid bannered, “Poverty on the Rise in Nearly All House Districts” and he reported that, “A Brookings Institution study , released less than a week before the election, shows that the number of people living in poverty has increased in 96 percent of congressional districts between 2000 and 2010-2014.” That finding fits along with others, such as that the economic ‘recovery’ after Barack Obama came into the White House in 2009, went virtually entirely to the very rich. According to the top experts on wealth-inequality in the United States, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, American wealth-inequality soared faster during 2003-2013 than ever since the period 1923-1928, right before the Great Crash of 1929. Their study “Wealth Inequality in the United States Since 1913” , published in the May 2016 Quarterly Journal of Economics , reported that ever since the remilitarization of the U.S. from the 2003 invasion of Iraq onward (and continuing under Obama, with boosts to NATO, and invasions such as of Libya in 2011), the percentage of total wealth owned by the richest .1% of American families (those families whose net worth was $111 million or higher) rose from 15% of the total in 2003, to 22% of the total in 2013, and this means that the percentage going to the lower 99.9% declined from 85% down to 78% during that time. America’s soaring inequality during the George W. Bush Presidency continued unaffected by the 2009 change of Presidential Administrations. In fact: whereas Bush’s stock-market plunge in 2006-2008 hit the richest the hardest, Obama’s coming into oiffice restored their lost wealth rapidly, while the wealth of the bottom 90% of the U.S. population flatlined throughout his Presidency. The Obama economic recovery was no recovery at all for the bottom 90% of Americans. Not just wealth but personal income also soared for the super-rich under Obama. The “Share of income earned by top 0.1% wealth holders” soared throughout Obama’s Presidency, at least up through 2012, which is the latest figure shown there for that. So: at least the bottom 90% of U.S. families have experienced none of the Obama economic recovery; what ‘recovery’ from the ‘recession’ there is, went only to the very rich. Findings such as those are consistent with, and might help to explain, the finding in the new Brookings study, that 96% of House districts have experienced increased poverty under Obama. The nation’s poor have gotten political rhetoric, but not much else, and the middle class also have received no net benefit, under Obama.

Huma Abedin Seeks FBI Immunity DealPosted on October 30, 2016 by Sean Adl-Tabatabai in News , US // 0 Comments Huma Abedin is seeking an immunity deal with the FBI in the wake of James Comey’s announcement that the agency have reopened their investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. Abedin, who serves as vice chairwoman of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign for President, is allegedly seeking the immunity deal so that if she testifies against Clinton and Obama, she will not face prosecution herself. According to an FBI insider , Huma has indicated that she would be willing to talk to them as long as they guarantee her immunity. related content

A Single Mom Escapes the Friend Zone, One Non-Date at a Time - The New York TimesThe nicest thing I own is the first thing you see when you walk into my house: a red handmade rug bought in Tehran, haggled over in Farsi and delivered, in person, to the Brooklyn apartment of the man who would become my husband. Back then, James told me the woman who gave him the rug, a woman he had recently dated, was by then “just a friend. ” I didn’t believe men and women could be “just friends. ” At least not if they were single, with one or both actively seeking a romantic partner. Yet I also agreed to be “just friends” with James, at first. I was the one who contacted him. We had both joined a dating service called, pretentiously enough, The Right Stuff, after seeing an ad for it in The New Yorker. “I liked your profile,” he wrote in his first email, “but didn’t contact you because you have a child. ” At least he didn’t write, as several others had, “Thank you for being so honest. ” It’s a line that makes you ask yourself: How could a mother lie about being a mother? Not ethically, but logistically? Maybe a liar would wait until the man is smitten, then spring the child on him and shout, “Surprise!” But to what end? I had tried to meet other single parents. I met a man who about the $ child support his demanded for his daughters’ clothing allowance. I met another who asked how much I weighed, as if I were a chicken he was considering for a recipe. Then there was the man who told me about his summer plans to share a house with other singles on Fire Island. “Do you do that every year?” I asked. He let out of a puff of air. “Of course not. Next year I’ll be married. ” “Married to who?” I asked. “I don’t know yet. ” Meeting my eyes over his mojito, he said, “Maybe to you. ” I also met plenty of nice men with whom I had nothing in common except similar philosophies on effective potty training. So when I saw the Right Stuff ad, I thought: At least someone I meet through an ad in The New Yorker will be someone who reads The New Yorker, and we’d have that to talk about. Maybe I could find a man who reads the arts listings, and maybe even (if I could be this lucky) the poetry and fiction. I did. He was JamesNYC125. I was RedWeather. He responded to my first email: “A redheaded editor in Brooklyn — what could be better? But dating a woman with a child would be complicated, as I’m sure you know. ” I did. “Let’s not date,” he suggested. “Let’s just get together as friends. ” That summer we both had travel plans, so a whole month passed before our first date — or our first “playdate,” I guess. In the meantime, we emailed every day. I sent him poems. He sent me music. Even while discussing academic publishing, from my side as an editor and his as a researcher, we couldn’t help flirting. An economist, he would answer a question with: “Probability of 1. ” “I love it when you talk math talk,” I’d say. And he would reply, “I can do it any time you want. ” Our first meeting was on Smith Street. We talked books, then strolled to BookCourt, slid a novel off the shelf and read passages aloud. His timing was perfect, his voice what I’d hoped it would be from the emails. “I’d love to walk with you on the promenade,” he said, and then sneezed. “But I should nurse my cold. ” I wanted to nurse his cold, too. I wanted to boil him a pot of tea and kiss him. Later I did, leaning against a car parked at a meter outside an elementary school. We both pretended I hadn’t. The next morning, he called to ask me to a modern dance performance in two weeks. We both lived in Brooklyn but met, for the second time, in Manhattan. His hand grazed my thigh in the dark, a moment I would replay over and over in my head. For our third I suggested attending a concert on a barge docked near the Brooklyn Heights Promenade. Our knees touched in our cozy seats two rows from the string quartet. Next we hiked Bear Mountain. “I didn’t think a skinny girl like you could outpace me,” he said. Then later: “I’m only letting you walk ahead so I can get a good view from back here. ” So I vamped my hips. When we removed our hiking boots and socks in the car, we stared at each other’s naked feet. No. 5 was dinner at my place. Back then, the nicest thing I owned was also the first thing you saw when you entered: a red futon couch. I chose the cover from the remnants section of a fabric store on the Lower East Side. It was something I could unzip and clean whenever a child spit up, spilled Cheerios or wiped peanut butter on it. When I pulled a book off the shelf to show James, the Pokémon cards I used for bookmarks fell out. Later, we found ourselves in bed. Finally. And that’s when he confessed, “I’m dating someone else. ” She was a fellow economist he had met at a conference around the same time he met me, an who lived in Washington, D. C. “Now you tell me?” “You knew we could only be friends. ” “You have sex with all your friends?” I removed his hand from my belly. “I bet she doesn’t even know about me. ” I told him we had to either date or not see each other again. We were both traveling for Thanksgiving, so we decided not to email or phone until we returned home. Then he would call and tell me which woman he chose. Somehow I had turned myself into a contestant, a version of one of those “Bachelor” shows my friends watch. I flew to Austin, Tex. to share the holiday with my brother. “I’ve met the one,” I said. “Just because it sounds corny doesn’t mean it isn’t true. ” “Does he feel the same way?” my brother asked. I asked myself that question from the time I woke up until the time I went to bed, and sometimes in the middle of the night, too. James and I had emailed every day for months, long letters detailing our whole lives. I kept checking my inbox in Austin, though I knew it would come up empty. On the flight home, I tried to imagine my competitor. She grew up in the center of an ancient civilization. I grew up in Detroit. Her furniture probably smelled like an exotic perfume, not peanut butter. She was not a single mother. He had already informed me about how complicated dating a single mother could be. Did I even have a chance? Trying to think like a statistician, I put my odds at . Or, as an economist would say: probability 0. 5. Minutes after I arrived home, James called. “I choose you,” he said. I dropped the phone and fell onto the bare floor. Weeks later, he buzzed me up to his apartment. The door opened to reveal the most beautiful rug I had ever seen, so finely woven it was more like a tapestry. The kind of precious object that could be ruined by a few stray Cheerios crumbs. “It’s a gift from a friend,” he said. “She bought it when she visited her family in Iran. ” “She’s trying to get you back,” I said. “What? She’s just being kind. Don’t you love it?” “Sure. ” I loved imagining what I would do to it after it collected enough dust. I’d take it outside, hang it and beat it with a stick. But James turned out to be right. Sometimes a rug is just a rug. And sometimes men and women can be friends, even after they have been romantically involved. Rug Woman never tried to win him back. Time passed, and I asked James if he ever wished he had chosen her. “No,” he said. “You’re perfect for me. ” Right. I wasn’t the kind of person who would fantasize about walloping a beautiful rug. At least I wasn’t anymore. Months later, James met my son, Jonah. I cooked Jonah’s favorite, “chicken with crumbs,” and after our dessert of apple crisp, we played Clue. The next day, Jonah asked, “Can I have another playdate with my new friend?” “Which one?” “James. ” Now we share the rug. It holds a place of honor in the house James and I bought together. We wipe our feet on the porch before crossing the threshold, food is banned from the entryway, and I vacuum it with care. I treat the rug as we all deserve to be treated. Like a friend.

Boeing Suits Up for Future of Spaceflight with New Spacesuit Design - BreitbartIn preparation for the scheduled 2018 launch of their Starliner spacecraft, Boeing has unveiled an innovative redesign of the traditional astronaut’s space suit.[ In the service of crawling out from beneath Russia’s current monopoly on spaceflight, NASA contractors Boeing and SpaceX continue to push toward the completion of American craft. And while both are working hard on their respective rocket designs, Boeing was eager to demonstrate another vital element of the mission: The next generation of space suit. The “Boeing Blue” suit is leaner, lighter, more mobile, and sports quality of life improvements across the board. Crew and Mission Systems Director Chris Ferguson explained, “Astronauts had formerly had these relatively bulky, heavy suits with thick neck rings. And we learned throughout the years that maybe we didn’t need that. ” The new suit has been “simplified,” replacing the sealed with a heavy zipper, and adding breathable mesh beneath the surface to maximize comfort, mobility, and airflow. They are offering “pressurized mobility, while still preserving unpressurized comfort. ” Its gloves have been enhanced with special material on the palms and two of the fingers to allow for “capacitative” touch screen interaction. That means that astronauts can now interact with their capsule’s advanced touch interfaces, without leaving the protection of the suit. It’s also much lighter. While current space suits come in at a hefty 33 lbs, the Boeing design is barely 12. Ferguson claims that you can lie in the cockpit without any real need for external cooling, and it is comfortable enough to stand around in without developing an uncomfortable “heat load. ” The boots are “breathable and slip resistant,” and zippers on the torso have been designed to make it easier for a suited individual to “comfortably transition between sitting and standing. ” And, of course, the head provides communications built right in, and significant improvements to peripheral vision. Despite the current — and somewhat convoluted — challenge of getting our intrepid men and women into space right now, we’re finally getting on track for a return to the forefront of tech. And we’re doing it in style. Follow Nate Church @Get2Church on Twitter for the latest news in gaming and technology, and snarky opinions on both.

Trump Floats an Olive Branch: Might Keep Parts of the Health Law - The New York Times Donald J. Trump overhauled his transition team from top to bottom on Friday, expanded his outreach to more establishment Republicans, and even offered an olive branch to President Obama — albeit a narrow one. On the other side, Democrats signaled they would move left in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s defeat, and the ’s legal antagonist, Gloria Allred, made it clear that neither she nor many of the women who have accused him of sexual assault are going anywhere. Join us again on Monday for continuing live updates on the transition to the 45th presidency of the United States. Mr. Trump said Friday that, after talking with President Obama this week, he might be willing to leave in place parts of the Affordable Care Act once he’s in office. Mr. Trump made the comments to The Wall Street Journal in his first interview since winning the election. The newspaper said Mr. Obama had urged the to reconsider repealing his signature health care law, which Mr. Trump said had become “unworkable. ” But in the interview, Mr. Trump said he told the president that he would consider keeping two provisions of the law: the prohibition against insurers denying coverage because of a patient’s condition and the one that allows parents to keep their children on their insurance plans until they turn 26. The problem: Without a mandate for everyone to buy health insurance, the popular condition provision could send insurance companies into a tailspin, because their costs would rise with sicker customers, and that would not be offset by healthy consumers forced to buy insurance. Mr. Trump said in an interview to be shown on “60 Minutes” Sunday that Mrs. Clinton “couldn’t have been nicer” in a congratulatory call she made to concede the election, and that Bill Clinton had complimented him on “one of the most amazing” presidential runs he had ever seen. “It was a lovely call, and it was a tough call for her — I mean, I can imagine, tougher for her than it would have been for me,” Mr. Trump said. “She couldn’t have been nicer. She just said, ‘Congratulations, Donald, well done. ’” Mr. Trump, who on Thursday said he would seek Mr. Obama’s counsel about the presidency, said he would consider asking for Mr. Clinton’s as well. Mr. Trump also promised that there would be no lapse in health insurance for millions of Americans covered under the Affordable Care Act when he repeals and replaces the law. “We’re going to do it simultaneously — it’ll be just fine,” Mr. Trump said. “That’s what I do. I do a good job. You know, I mean, I know how to do this stuff. We’re going to repeal it and replace it. And we’re not going to have, like, a period and we’re not going to have a period where there’s nothing. ” Mr. Trump has quietly reached out to Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee who took an impassioned stand against Mr. Trump during the campaign. The call came after Mr. Trump’s surprise victory on Tuesday night, according to two people briefed on it, although it was unclear how it went and what was said. Aides to Mr. Trump and Mr. Romney did not respond to requests for comment. With her eye on the right’s Paula Jones legal crusade of the 1990s, Gloria Allred, the civil rights lawyer representing women who have accused Mr. Trump of sexual assault, is trying to lure the into a legal battle before he takes office. Ms. Allred challenged Mr. Trump on Friday to retract his threat to sue his accusers for defaming him and suggested that she might bring a case against him if he refused. She also said that she was prepared to countersue if Mr. Trump made good on the threat. “ Trump now has the opportunity to act presidential,” Ms. Allred said at a news conference with Summer Zervos, the former contestant on “The Apprentice” who said last month that Mr. Trump tried to seduce her and grabbed her breasts in 2007. Ms. Allred cited a precedent for suing a sitting president: Ms. Jones. “Obviously the lawsuit against President Clinton by Paula Jones did proceed while he was in office for actions that were alleged to take place prior to his becoming president,” she said. The Jones case forced Mr. Clinton into a deposition that resulted in his impeachment on charges of lying under oath about an affair with an intern. A sobbing Ms. Zervos sat next to Ms. Allred and offered her own solution: “What happened to a good, I’m sorry?” Vice Mike Pence will take the lead on the ’s transition. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who is under a cloud after two aides were convicted of conspiring to shut down traffic on the George Washington Bridge in the Bridgegate scandal, moves aside. Mr. Trump told advisers that he wanted Mr. Pence’s Washington experience and contacts. An executive committee, which will include members of Congress, will advise Mr. Pence as the process moves forward. See the full story. Corey Lewandowski, who was fired as Mr. Trump’s campaign manager and then went to work for CNN, even as he continued to consult with the campaign, resigned Friday from his political commentator role, the network confirmed. Mr. Lewandowski is expected to take a position in the Trump administration. He was seen in Trump Tower on Wednesday immediately after Mr. Trump’s victory, chatting with senior aides and attending meetings. Mr. Lewandowski did not return calls for comment. Mr. Lewandowski was viewed as a controversial appointment by the network he had signed a nondisclosure agreement with Mr. Trump that prevented him from criticizing the candidate publicly, and he was still being paid by the campaign while working for CNN. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the incoming Democratic leader, threw his weight behind Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota on Friday to be the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee, the clearest sign yet that, in defeat, the party will move to the left. After losing the Rust Belt to Mr. Trump, Democrats could have recruited an populist like Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, who represents the Youngstown area. But Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont quickly backed Mr. Ellison, who is black, Muslim and an ardent progressive. Two former governors, Howard Dean of Vermont and Martin O’Malley of Maryland, also expressed interest Friday in being the party’s new committee chairman. So much for a warm welcome to Washington. Groups on social media are trying to coordinate a Million Woman March the day after Mr. Trump’s inauguration in protest of the new president. The march will go from the Lincoln Memorial to the White House on Jan. 21 to show “strength, power and courage. ” Men are also encouraged to attend. “No woman is free unless all women are free,” the organizers of the march wrote on the Facebook page where it is being organized. State groups for the march have already been formed for people to coordinate travel to the capital. However, some fear that the idea could become a logistical nightmare coming so close to Inauguration Day because of the lack of hotel rooms and the potential for clashes with Trump supporters Among the ’s most pressing questions as he prepares to take office is where he should live. Mr. Trump, a provincial homebody who divides his time among golf courses in Florida and New Jersey and his townhouse apartment in Manhattan, is weighing how much time to spend in Washington, according to two people familiar with his deliberations. One option is spending weekends in New York and most of the week in Washington. Mr. Trump’s wife, Melania, is ultimately planning to move to Washington, according to one person briefed on the discussions, but their son, Barron, is still in school. Mr. Trump may be triumphant, but Gloria Allred isn’t done with him yet. More than 10 women accused Mr. Trump of sexual assault after a video bragging about his groping habits emerged last month. Ms. Allred, the lawyer who has been working with many of the women, does not appear to be letting the off the hook. At 2:30 p. m. Eastern time on Friday, she said that she was going to issue a challenge to Mr. Trump at a news conference with one of his accusers who has already come out publicly to tell her story. Ms. Allred would not reveal the name of the woman before the event or share any details of the challenge. Before the election, Mr. Trump said that the accusers were all lying and that he might sue them. Ms. Allred told ABC News on Thursday that her clients had no plans to sue Mr. Trump at this point, but that they would countersue if he did so. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the departing Democratic leader, added his voice to the postelection statements on the . Unlike most Democrats, he gave no quarter: Some of the protesters who have taken to the streets this week are supporters of Mr. Sanders, and on Friday the former Democratic presidential candidate reminded them that creating chaos and disorder should not be their goal. Trump Tower, the skyscraper on Fifth Avenue and the home base of the has become a fortress in the wake of the election. The lobby, designated a public space by the City of New York, was closed off on Friday morning as Mr. Trump met with advisers. A large police presence surrounded the building. The tower was built with a special permit more than 30 years ago. The city granted Mr. Trump extra space in exchange for maintaining public access to the lobby. Peter Thiel, the Silicon Valley libertarian who secretly financed a lawsuit against the website Gawker, was named a member of the Presidential Transition Team Executive Committee on Friday afternoon.

WaPo Tries to Compare Elizabeth Warren Breaking Senate Rules to MILO Being Shut Down by Violent Riot - BreitbartThe Washington Post tried to compare Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s speech being stopped after she attacked Attorney General Jeff Sessions and broke the rules in the Senate this week to Breitbart Senior Editor MILO’s at UC Berkeley last week in an opinion piece citing the Streisand Effect. [“What’s the best way to make sure a message gets heard? Try to muzzle it,” declared The Washington Post‘s Catherine Rampell on Thursday. “Both liberals and conservatives are newly rediscovering the political power of this phenomenon, known as the Streisand Effect. The term refers to what happens when an attempt to censor information backfires and instead unintentionally draws more attention to the censorship target. ” “After all, suppression of speech not only generates more public interest, as bystanders scramble to learn what all the fuss is about it can also win the speaker sympathy and the moral high ground,” explained Rampell, before comparing Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s attempt to suggest Jeff Sessions was a racist before his confirmation as attorney general to MILO’s Berkeley event, which was violently shut down by rioters. “The riots didn’t silence Yiannopoulos, however instead, the resulting coverage megaphoned his ugly message to a much broader audience and will help him sell more books, schedule more lucrative speaking gigs and receive more sympathetic tweets from our sitting president. ” Throughout the piece, Rampell failed to go into detail on why Warren, who was stopped from speaking after she broke Senate rules and falsely branded Sessions as a racist, was remotely similar to MILO, who was forced to evacuate UC Berkeley after violent rioters started several fires, smashed up buildings and ATMs, assaulted numerous attendees, and attacked cars passing by. “There are many compelling arguments for why protecting free speech, including speech you disagree with or even abhor, is important,” concluded Rampell. “But one underappreciated argument is . Forcibly silencing and thereby martyring your opponents — rather than employing to expose them as wrong or, better yet, ridiculous — may be exactly what they want you to do. ” Whereas Warren clearly broke the rules of the Senate by slandering Sessions, and was thus punished and not unfairly silenced, MILO was violently stopped from delivering a speech at a college he was invited to. MILO was also threatened with more violence by activists should he return to Berkeley to deliver his speech, while Warren, as far as Breitbart News is aware, has not been violently threatened by fellow senators should she return to the Senate.

A Crumpled School Bus Leaves Chattanooga Dazed - The New York TimesCHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — Jasmine Mateen was standing outside her home here on Tuesday afternoon when her cellphone went off: Two of her daughters, who were injured when their school bus crashed on Monday, were being discharged from the hospital. The news pulled her briefly from her grief. Moments before, Ms. Mateen had been talking about her daughter Zyaira, the girl with the new coat, who died in the same bus crash that injured two of Ms. Mateen’s other daughters. “My baby’s coming home, but her sister’s dead,” Ms. Mateen said as a single tear rolled down her left cheek. “Even though she was the one who told me my baby was dead, I just didn’t want to believe it,” she said of her other Zasmyn. The third daughter on board, Zacauree’A Brown, is 10. “I couldn’t believe it. You know how you try to hold on to hope?” This city, just north of Tennessee’s border with Georgia, reeled on Tuesday as it coped with the grim toll of the deadly school bus crash. The authorities said that at least five Woodmore Elementary School students — four girls and a boy — had died, and that 12 others were still hospitalized. Six of the children were in intensive care. Elsewhere in Chattanooga, the bus driver, Johnthony K. Walker, 24, was jailed and charged with vehicular homicide after the authorities said he had recklessly sped and swerved during his afternoon route. “We are heartbroken for all of our students and their families,” said Kirk Kelly, the interim schools superintendent in Hamilton County. “Yesterday was the worst day that we have had for Woodmore and for Hamilton County Schools that I can recall in my life as an educator and as a parent and as a member of this community. ” Three of the students who died were in the fourth grade. The other children who were killed were in kindergarten and first grade, Dr. Kelly said, but he did not identify the students. “They will always be with us throughout our lives,” he said. “This is something that we will never forget here as a community. ” The bus was removed from the scene on Tuesday, and crews worked along the blocked street to restore the utility pole that the police said Mr. Walker had struck. A small memorial of stuffed animals and flowers took shape, and investigators reviewed the crash site. The National Transportation Safety Board opened an investigation, and it will be months before federal officials reach any conclusions. But the Chattanooga authorities moved quickly to assign blame, and in an arrest affidavit issued on Tuesday, a police officer wrote that Mr. Walker had been driving “at a high rate of speed, well above the posted speed limit of 30 m. p. h. ” Eventually, the police said, Mr. Walker “lost control of the bus” and swerved off the narrow roadway. The bus, which ultimately landed on its side, struck a mailbox, an elevated driveway, a tree and a telephone pole. The officer, explaining the decision to charge Mr. Walker with vehicular homicide and other crimes, cited “the reckless nature” of his driving, as well as “his very high speed and weaving within his lane. ” Tests for drugs and alcohol are pending, Chief Fred Fletcher of the Chattanooga Police Department said in an interview on Tuesday. Federal investigators say they expect to interview Mr. Walker, who received his commercial driver’s license in April and was involved in a minor bus crash in September. Mr. Walker’s employer, Durham School Services, which holds a contract to bus thousands of Hamilton County students each day, said in a statement that it was “devastated by the accident. ” The statement did not address questions about the company’s hiring practices, nor did it respond to reports that parents, including Ms. Mateen, had complained about Mr. Walker. A criminal history report from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation indicated that Mr. Walker had no arrests before the crash on Monday, but State Department of Safety and Homeland Security records showed that his license was suspended briefly in 2014 for an insurance violation. No one answered the door at Mr. Walker’s apartment on Tuesday morning, when a woman who said she was a tried to slip a note under his door. The safety record of Durham, which is based near Chicago and says it transports more than a million schoolchildren in communities around the country each day, was also under scrutiny on Tuesday. A federal regulator, in statistics published late last month, said the company had received 10 “driver fitness violations” over the course of two years — a figure better than only a fraction of other similarly sized transportation companies. The federal Department of Transportation said Durham’s drivers had been involved in 346 accidents in two years, but the statistics did not distinguish whether the company’s employees were to blame for the wrecks. And although federal officials had flagged Durham for its record on driver fitness, the company had not drawn special attention for a history of unsafe driving. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said the company had a “satisfactory” safety rating. A company spokeswoman did not respond to emailed questions, but the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Christopher A. Hart, said the panel would look into the company during its investigation. Student fatalities aboard school buses are rare in the United States, where an estimated 25 million children use them daily. In a May report that examined crash data between 2005 and 2014, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that 53 children had died in accidents while they were riding in what the government classified as “school transportation vehicles. ” Emotions were raw on Tuesday outside Woodmore, where Demetrius Jenkins stood around daybreak and thought about how he had not yet told his son about the crash. “I don’t know how to explain it,” Mr. Jenkins said while students ran, walked and skipped toward the school for their final day of classes before Thanksgiving break. The school district said that about 100 of Woodmore’s approximately 315 students were in their classrooms on Tuesday. The crash occurred about 16 months after a gunman opened fire at two military sites in Chattanooga, killing five servicemen. “Five is a cursed number in our city right now, and so we are again dealing with unimaginable loss,” Mayor Andy Berke said. “The most unnatural thing in the world is for a parent to mourn the loss of a child. There are no words that can bring comfort to a mother or a father. ”

She Died And Came Back To Life With This Incredible Message For HumanityShare on Facebook Doctors had given Anita Moorjani just hours to live when she arrived at the hospital in a coma on the morning of February 2nd, 2006... Unable to move as a result of the cancer that had ravaged her body for almost four years, Anita entered another dimension, where she experienced great clarity and understanding of her life and purpose here on earth. She was given a choice of whether to return to life or not, and chose to return to life when she realized that “heaven” is a state and not a place. This subsequently resulted in a remarkable and complete recovery of her health. Anita's riveting talk will inspire you to transform your life by living more authentically, discovering your greatest passions, transcending your deepest fears, and living from a place of pure joy! Her true story will radically alter your current beliefs about yourself, your purpose on earth, your health, your relationships, and your life! In this new Ted Talk Anita shares her unbelievable story. Related:

How the Fight for a National African-American Museum Was Won - The New York TimesEleven years ago, Lonnie G. Bunch III was a museum director with no museum. No land. No building. Not even a collection. He had been appointed to lead the nascent National Museum of African American History and Culture. The concept had survived a bruising, racially charged congressional battle that stretched back decades and finally ended in 2003 when President George W. Bush authorized a national museum dedicated to the experience. Now all Mr. Bunch and a team of colleagues had to do was find an unprecedented number of private donors willing to finance a public museum. They had to secure hundreds of millions of additional dollars from a Congress, Republican controlled, that had long fought the project. And they had to counter efforts to locate the museum not at the center of Washington’s cultural landscape on the National Mall, but several blocks offstage. “I knew it was going to be hard, but not how hard it was going to be,” Mr. Bunch, 63, said in an interview last month. In less than three weeks, though, with President Obama presiding, the new museum, a project that once thirsted for money, land and political support, is scheduled to open on the Mall. Visitors to the $540 million building, designed to resemble a crown, will encounter the sweeping history of black America from the Middle Passage of slavery to the achievements and complexities of modern black life. But also compelling is the story of how the museum itself came to be through a combination of negotiation, diplomacy, persistence and cunning political instincts. The strategy included an approach that framed the museum as an institution for all Americans, one that depicted the black experience, as Mr. Bunch often puts it, as “the quintessential American story” of measured progress and remarkable achievement after an ugly period of painful oppression. The tactics included the appointment of Republicans like Laura Bush and Colin L. Powell to the museum’s board to broaden bipartisan support beyond Democratic constituencies, and there were critical efforts to shape the thinking of essential political leaders. Long before its building was complete, for example, the museum staged exhibitions some on the fraught topics it would confront, such as Thomas Jefferson’s deep involvement with slavery. A Virginia delegation of congressional members was brought through for an early tour of the Jefferson exhibition, which featured a statue of him in front of a semicircular wall marked with 612 names of people he had owned. “I remember being very impacted,” said Eric Cantor, then the House Republican leader, who was part of the delegation. Mr. Bunch said that he hoped the Jefferson exhibition criticism by establishing the museum’s bold but balanced approach to difficult material. “Some people were like, ‘How dare you equate Jefferson with slavery,’” he recalled. “But it means that people are going to say, ‘Of course, that is what they have to do. ’” And the museum began an exceptional effort to raise money from black donors, not only celebrities, like Michael Jordan ($5 million) and Oprah Winfrey ($21 million) but also churches, sororities and fraternities, which, Mr. Bunch said, had never been asked for big donations before. Nearly of the gifts from individuals were from . An unusually high amount — $4 million — came from average people in gifts of less than $1, 000. “We were able to raise a level of awareness that really galvanized people to make small contributions,” said Kenneth I. Chenault, the chief executive of American Express, who led the capital campaign. “Based on their income level, some of them on a percentage basis were significant. ” The Alfred Street Baptist Church, in Alexandria, Va. donated $1 million to the museum, while three couples who belong to the church gave individual contributions totaling an additional $4 million. “There is no doubt that we knew you couldn’t build this with money alone,” Mr. Bunch said, “but we also know that there was much more money in this community than most cultural institutions had ever tapped. ” The idea of a national museum had been hatched more than a century ago by black Civil War veterans. It picked up a bit of steam in Congress in the 1980s, led by Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, who joined the efforts of Mickey Leland, the Texas Democrat. For 15 years, though, a bill to create the museum was defeated. “Once Congress gives the go ahead for ” Senator Jesse Helms, an opponent, warned in a 1994 speech on the Senate floor, “how can Congress then say no to Hispanics, and the next group, and the next group after that?” But in 2003, after winning support from Republicans like Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, the museum escaped from the congressional back burner. “The community has had a particularly difficult road in the United States,” Mr. Brownback, who is now governor of Kansas, said in an interview. “It was time. ” Even with congressional and presidential support, the battle to find a spot on the Mall dragged on. Congress had rejected a site near the Capitol. Critics said the Mall was already too crowded. The World War II Memorial had only opened there in 2004. “It was bad timing,” said Judge Robert L. Wilkins, who led the committee on a commission that made recommendations to Congress. He and other museum supporters ultimately argued successfully to the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents that a prime location would, among other things, guarantee the most visitors and the most success. In 2006, the Regents chose a site on the Mall near the Washington Monument. Private had to be much more of a concern for this federal museum, the 19th in the Smithsonian portfolio. Its predecessors had received public funds for all or most of their building costs. But the legislation that created the museum authorized the government to pay for only half. Mr. Bunch had to raise the other $270 million from private donors. Foundations helped with major gifts, and the museum identified companies likely to give. Some had expressed an interest in diversity or were led by people familiar to the museum’s board. Mr. Bunch made hundreds of trips to meet donors. His pitch: “You don’t get a chance to build a national museum every day. ” The private money was crucial in securing funds from Congress, officials said. It showed politicians how seriously their constituents were taking the museum. A membership program that has become one of the most popular in the Smithsonian demonstrated public support from individual congressional districts. Also crucial, multiple people said, was the canny persistence of Mr. Bunch, who had intimate experience with Chicago politics and who had honed his skills as a facilitator while president of the historical society there. Those skills helped him when he turned to the byzantine entanglements of the Smithsonian, of Washington and of the federal government. “You cannot be a director at a place like the Smithsonian without being political,” Mr. Bunch said. He made allies on the Hill before asking them for money. His first supporters were friends from Chicago, like Senator Dick Durbin, and then others, like Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina. “He has a really good demeanor for a particularly touchy subject in the United States,” said Governor Brownback. “He needed to have an optimistic outlook. This is not about retribution. ” To maintain momentum, the museum tried to exist in some fashion long before the construction materials had even been delivered. “We had to be real from the very beginning,” Mr. Bunch said, so that people would understand that the museum was not a dream but inevitable. So the museum put out books, asked IBM to create a website, and staged exhibitions at the National Museum of American History. One of the first, in 2009, focused on the Scurlock family of black Washington photographers. Beyond land and money, the new museum needed things to show and a building to show them in. No Smithsonian museum had ever started life without a collection. The museum’s team collected artifacts from around the nation in an “Antiques Roadshow” program in 15 cities called “Save Our African American Treasures. ” The program yielded many of the 40, 000 objects the museum now holds — 3, 500 will be exhibited when the building opens — and elevated the museum’s profile. For the design of their new home, museum officials created a selection committee and displayed the final six plans at the Smithsonian Castle in an effort to be transparent about the process. The winning design, by a team led by the British architect David Adjaye, spoke of “uplift, resiliency and spirituality,” Mr. Bunch said, and the bronze color gave the building the symbolism he sought. “I love the notion of a darker building,” he said, adding: “There’s always been a dark presence in America. There have always been in this country shaping it whose story gets overlooked or undervalued. ” It was also a vast departure from some of the design proposals he had been sent within days of his appointment as director in 2005. One envisioned a building shaped like a fist, hardly appropriate for the museum he foresaw or that Congress had agreed to finance. He quickly moved on to other options. “I knew what I didn’t want,” he said.

Father of Manchester Suicide Bomber Arrested in Libya - Breitbart(Reuters) The father of the attacker who killed 22 people in a suicide bombing in Manchester has been arrested in the Libyan capital Tripoli, according to a force spokesman and a witness. [The force detained Ramadan Abedi outside his home in the Tripoli suburb of Ayn Zara on Wednesday afternoon. An eyewitness said he was handcuffed by armed men who drove him away in two unmarked vehicles. (Writing by Aidan Lewis editing by Patrick Markey) Read more from Reuters here.

4 Secrets About True LeadersWaking Times You can only get so far with orders, and the misuse of power. The same goes with the restriction of human action. The war on drugs has been an abject failure , as has been the American ‘democracy.’ It is the same with a corporatized prison system, and so too, will be the attempted overtaking of the American people by a corrupt cabal. If the 2016 elections have taught us nothing else, it is that we should be very careful who we make into our political martyrs. Despots and tyrants can rule effectively for a time, but in the end, they always perish – their civilizations and accomplishments with them. The fall of Rome ring any bells? It doesn’t matter if you voted for Hillary Clinton with her ties to the Rothschilds and Rockefellers, or for Trump who has alienated women, minorities, gays, and educated leftists alike with his misogynistic comments, and brash unpredictable actions. This election is a call to find our inner hero . We need her/him, as never before. This election has caused monumental stress because it has exposed our deep, perhaps subconscious desire to shirk responsibility and off-load it onto a public figure. We want an external hero. What happens when someone truly leads , is a different, and positively inspiring story altogether. 1.) What a Leader Isn’t “When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.” ~ Joseph Campbell A true hero, or heroin — the quintessential leader of our time is not a politician. The etymology of the word leader comes from the root word ‘lead’, which means, to guide and inspire. The word hero is derived from both Greek and Latin words meaning to watch over and to protect. It doesn’t mean to lord over. It has nothing to do with warnings and chastisements, nor the use of force, either legislatively, financially, socially, or politically to get people to do what you want them to do. A true leader doesn’t divide and conquer. They gather masses without trying in a unified cause by being in service, by acting, as Anthony Robbins once said, ‘as a slave’ to a purpose higher than protecting themselves. This could be family. It could be community. A leader might inspire a few, or several thousand but their work endures, even after they perish because its intent was pure. Many leaders are quiet. Others are bold, but they are never self-serving. A tell-tale sign of a true leader, is one who needs no ‘credit’ for what they have given to society, and who simply thrives on the action of their own internally driven inspiration. They don’t check the poles and they don’t need your ‘vote.’ As Lao Tzu has said, “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” Hitler wasn’t a true leader, nor was Stalin. Their rise to fame and power was brief. Add to that list, George Soros, Bill Gates, The Clinton’s, the Trumps, the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, et al. Instead, look to individuals like Edward Leedskalnin , the Latvian emigrant who built one of the most impressive structures on the planet, not for fame, but to honor a lost love. People still can’t surmise how coral castle was created. Look to Nikola Tesla whose work is used in every conceivable manner still today (some of his inventions known and others still hidden by those who seek false power.) As another true leader, R. Buckminster Fuller would say , “ You never change things by fighting existing reality . To change something you create a new model which makes the old one obsolete.” The self-appointed ‘leaders’ of our time fight against the masses. They fight against Mother Nature , and they torment themselves trying to accumulate more power to wield over the world. What could they be reflecting in us is the question we should really be asking. 2.) A True Leader Often Won’t Fit in with ‘Regular’ Society “Men do not accept their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and worship those whom they have tortured to death.” ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky Between the years 325 and 787 A.D., many people were treated poorly by society at large because of the different conflicts that were going on. One of the main conflicts in this era surrounded religion. If you were not like the Roman Catholics, and decided to believe in freedom of religion, you were “excluded” from the Roman Catholic Church and thereby, society. Those seeking religious freedom were deemed sinners, and lawless hooligans. This is just one of many incidents in history that we can look back on and observe that the societal conscience always changes. It isn’t absolute. A leader is never swayed by the ‘popular’ or the ‘common.’ They think only about what is best for society in that time and space. There have been numerous outcasts of various degree who were true leaders. Malcolm X, Bob Marley, Indira Gandhi, Hatshepsut, Aung San Suu Kyi, etc. 3.) A True Leader Can’t Solve All of Your Problems Number three is a big one. A true leader will never solve all your problems, and they don’t even try. Their sole purpose is to help you find the strength to display heroic acts of your own. They inspire. They exemplify, but they realize that by solving your problems they would actually be taking away your opportunity to learn, and grow. You’ve earned whatever lessons you currently face, but you will also receive the gifts hidden in a challenge, only when you take full responsibility and face your shadowed projections. The wicked will shout for you to change your ways. The divine will whisper, and wait for you to heed the encouragement of grace. 4.) A True Leader Will Never Ask You to Follow Them Saints and yogis are notorious for sending aspiring followers away. They’ll ignore them, cajole, them, and even ridicule their seemingly fervent desire to learn from a master. That’s because they want you to do your work first. If you are expecting some miraculous cure or salvation from anyone, even a saint, you’ll be waiting a good long while. This doesn’t mean that divine intervention doesn’t happen, or that we shouldn’t look to others for help or advice, but ultimately, a leader shows the way simply by doing his own work. The one thing we can learn from this example is to do ours, too. A final note — A true leader is ‘God’ in action. As Joseph Campbell has said, “What is a god? A god is a personification of a motivating power of a value system that functions in human life and in the universe.” No credentials or filibusters needed. About the Author Christina Sarich is a freelance writer, musician, yogi, and humanitarian. Her insights appear in magazines as diverse as Weston A. Price, Nexus, Atlantis Rising, and the Cuyamungue Institute, among others. She was recently a featured author in the Journal, “Wise Traditions in Food, Farming, and Healing Arts,” and her commentary on healing, ascension, and human potential inform a large body of the alternative news lexicon. She is also a staff writer for Waking Times . Like Waking Times on Facebook . Follow Waking Times on Twitter . This article ( 4 Secrets About True Leaders ) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Nathaniel Mauka and WakingTimes.com . It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution and author bio. ~~ Help Waking Times to raise the vibration by sharing this article with friends and family…

Muslims DEMAND Locals Don’t Walk Dogs In Public – Violation Of Sharia And “DISRESPECTS” ThemThey are a group that calls themselves “Public Purity”. Somehow, they have found the audacity to demand the Brits stop taking their dogs out in public because, wait for it… Dogs are considered impure under Sharia Law . Of course, these Muslims feel entitled to make this demand because it appears that they believe the British citizens are required to do certain things in order to keep Muslims from feeling uncomfortable. Somehow, it’s become the responsibility of the Brits to ensure that Muslim residents feel more at home. This intrusive behavior being served up by Muslim immigrants does in part explain British citizens refusal to remain in the European Union. Does that make any sort of sense to you? It’s like you allow guests into your home, and one day you wake up and they start telling you what you can and can’t do in your own home because…you are offensive and you must change your way of life, because YOU are the one who is wrong. @JPexsquaddie Btw this was what is on the other side of the leaflet pic.twitter.com/y3Wzm6Mg0G — Gemma Winter 🐸 (@GEMWINTER) July 12, 2016 It’s inconceivable really. The audacity! No it’s not a joke!, it’s been posted in letterboxes in Manchester! A nation of Dog lovers! WTF😡 pic.twitter.com/XC2kcSBzem The problem is this…these immigrant Muslims are used to a way of life that is entirely different from that of FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE CLICK LINK

Hillary Campaign Now in Bed with PAC Staff That Donated $500K to FBI Agent's Wife After InvestigationGetty - Justin Sullivan The Wildfire is an opinion platform and any opinions or information put forth by contributors are exclusive to them and do not represent the views of IJR. Earlier this week, Americans learned that Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe's Super PAC, Common Good VA, donated $500K to Jill McCabe's senate run. Jill just so happens to be the wife of Andrew McCabe — the current Deputy Director of the FBI — who oversaw the investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server. If that wasn't enough to give you trust issues, it turns out that Hillary Clinton herself headlined a fundraiser for Common Good VA. The event took place in June of 2015, just one month before the FBI officially launched its investigation into Clinton's email server. According to The Daily Mail , the fundraiser that Clinton helped spearhead raised over a million dollars. Clinton returned to Common Good in October of 2015 for another speech. That speech conveniently took place just one week before Jill McCabe received two donations, one on October 25th in the sum of $175,000 and the other on October 27th for $125,000. In addition, one of Common Good's biggest donors, James Bernard , gave the PAC $100,000 just three days before McCabe got her October donations. There's more. Bernard is a big Hillary supporter, too. In fact, he's listed on her site as a “Hillblazer,” someone recognized for raising or contributing $100K or more to the campaign. Yet, he's the not the only Hillblazer who donated to Common Good before McCabe was given her biggest campaign contribution. Independent Journal Review discovered that Louisa Cohlan also donated $100k to Common Good. Her $100k donation took place on Sept 30th of 2015, which was one day before McCabe received a $150,000 from the PAC. Cohlan has an interesting tie to the Clintons. In 2014 , Louisa and her husband Johnathan purchased a 4.1 million dollar vacation home that the Clinton family used while Bill was still president. 'Auction planned for home where Clinton family stayed during Skaneateles vacations' http://t.co/dsPxh4qkws #PLANY pic.twitter.com/8tkSMPVl9w Other donors who contributed $100K to the PAC include: Samuel Nappi, who is also a major Clinton Campaign donor and supporter. The late Mark Weiner , a good friend of Bill Clinton and major fundraiser for the Democrat Party. And Robert L. Johnson, America's first African American billionaire who also donated $100K to the Clinton Campaign However, the deep ties Hillary's campaign has to Common Good go even deeper than that. The Daily Mail's investigation revealed the ties Clinton's staff have to the PAC: Zuzenak, who oversaw the donations to Jill McCabe, left Common Good VA last May to join the Clinton campaign as its Virginia field director. He isn't alone in the move. Common Good VA's executive director Michael Halle also joined the Clinton campaign as battleground analytics director in the spring of 2015. The group's former fundraiser, Amanda McTyre, is now a finance director for Clinton, and staffer Marissa Astor left to become an assistant Clinton campaign manager. And the cake-topper, Clinton's current campaign manager, Robby Mook, also worked for the PAC prior to the campaign role he has now. One thing is for certain: Such revelations will raise new questions about possible foul play and major conflict-of-interest surrounding Hillary's candidacy. Because with it all staring you in the face, everything seems all too convenient to just be a mere coincidence.

Still Not Over: They Are Trying to “Flip the Electoral College” To Block Trump’s Win OK, theoretically, everything will go according to plan, and Donald Trump will be the next president. But technically, the (s)election hasn’t really taken place yet. Presidential electors of the mystified electoral college must still actually vote for the president, and there isn’t anything to keep them from ‘voting their conscience’ and choosing someone other than Donald Trump. Moreover, it appears that there is an active effort to flip the electoral college to deny Trump the presidency, and toss the White House to either Hillary or a GOP loyalist. The #NeverTrump crowd and plenty of bitter Hillary supporters are still hoping for a coup, though even they admit it is a long shot – completely unprecedented and anything but likely. According to the Blaze : Donald Trump may have won the electoral votes necessary to win the White House, but he he’s likely going to lose the popular vote to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. And now two electors have launched a last-minute effort to convince their colleagues to abandon the president-elect. “This is a long shot. It’s a hail Mary,” Bret Chiafolo, a Washington state elector who previously pledged not to vote for Clinton, told Politico Monday. “However, I do see situations where — when we’ve already had two or three [Republican] electors state publicly they didn’t want to vote for Trump. How many of them have real issues with Donald Trump in private?” Chiafolo along with Colorado elector Micheal Baca have launched what they call a “moral electors” movement in hopes of convincing 37 of their Republican colleagues to deny Trump their votes. Should they succeed in their radical effort, the presidential decision would be thrown to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. […] The Electoral College consists of 538 members who are expected to convene in their respective state capitals on Dec. 19 to formally vote for the next president… Baca said he hopes the move launches a serious national discussion about abolishing the Electoral College , which would require either a constitutional amendment or legislation in several states. The speculation is that if this maneuver were to be successful, the GOP-led Congress could be persuaded not to choose Hillary, but to write-in a selection for a party loyalist – like Mitt Romney or John Kasich… maybe even a Bush. Of course, there have also been reports that Team Hillary has been hard at work attempting to persuade electors to switch their votes in the hope, however desperate, that they can still flip the election and take the White House: On December 19, the Electors of the Electoral College will cast their ballots. If they all vote the way their states voted, Donald Trump will win. However, they can vote for Hillary Clinton if they choose. Even in states where that is not allowed, their vote would still be counted, they would simply pay a small fine – which we can be sure Clinton supporters will be glad to pay! We are calling on the Electors to ignore their states’ votes and cast their ballots for Secretary Clinton. Why? Mr. Trump is unfit to serve. The larger issue here is that the system is badly broken, the people are harshly divided along demographic and political lines, and the future is gambling on extreme versions of itself – larger than life candidates, and bizarre back-door maneuvers in attempt to hack the system and bend it in one direction or another. Trump has taken his place on the stage in a thunderous revolt of the people, but his legacy will be tested out the gates by the heavy pressures of Washington lobbyists, intrigue on the part of political insiders and the cults of opposition that are springing up in response to his controversial journey to the White House. The entire political establishment have been knocked off their perch, though their hold on power has not necessarily been loosened. A whole new era is born, and it remains to be seen how it will play out. Read more: It’s Not Over Yet: “They Are Probably Still Trying To Steal The Election” | Calls For Electoral College To Ignore Will Of People Clinton Insider Confesses: Trump Protests Are Just More Pre-Paid “Soros Riots” to Stir Unrest “Beware of the Shadow Government”: Ron Paul Advises President-Elect Trump Surrounded By Bankers, Wall St. Insiders Banging on the Door to Get In: “Draining the Swamp?” “Violent Revolution If Trump Lets Them Down”: People Remain Poised for Angry Revolt – Roberts

Al Sharpton to Dems: No Point Appealing to ‘Archie Bunker’ Trump Voters - BreitbartReverend Al Sharpton thinks that in order to win elections, Democrats must stop trying to get the “Archie Bunker” vote and instead focus on maximizing the party’s minority vote. During a Friday afternoon MSNBC appearance, Sharpton railed against elected officials and consultants who want Democrats to “try and become elephants with donkey skin on,” emphasizing that it was pointless to appeal to “Archie Bunker” voters who support President Donald Trump. Sharpton insisted that these “Archie Bunker” voters will never cast their ballots for Democrats. He made his remarks a day after Republican Greg Gianforte won his special election for Montana’s open House seat by six points even after he allegedly a reporter the day before the election. In a recent interview with BuzzFeed, Sharpton said Hillary Clinton’s biggest mistake in 2016 “was that she did not mobilize in the black community. ” “You lost Michigan, by what, 15, 000, 20, 000 votes? You could’ve got that if you mobilized two housing projects or three churches,” he told the outlet. “Never touched them. So in many ways I think that the whole question of, ‘Oh we gotta reach out to the Appalachian and the blue collar workers and stop the identity politics’ — well, that’s one strategy. But what I’m saying is that you never worked your own base. You took your base for granted, so it’s not that you need to go another way, you didn’t identify with those in identity politics, that’s why you had the lowest turnout you had around blacks in a long time. ” Sharpton said though Clinton came to his National Action Network convention, her campaign “never engaged us in the campaign. ” “And I think that’s where they did the wrong math in the Clinton campaign. They assumed that we’ll go get all of this because everybody will stay here: young voters, black voters, Latino voters, like Obama, and it didn’t happen,” he said. As Democrats plot their electoral strategies for 2018 and 2020, the party is split between those who want to double down on identity politics and those who think Democrats need to appeal more to white voters.

Do you think there will be as many doom sayers if trump should get in office ?Report Copyright Violation Do you think there will be as many doom sayers if trump should get in office ? I notice here at GLP the amount of doom sayers seems to go down when a republican is in office (Bush). But when the left get in office the doomsaying increases. Now i am sure the effect is opposite. If trump gets in office i am sure the doomsaying will increase on the left side of the political spectrum. Page 1

Democrats Jump on Sessions Resignation Band Wagon - Breitbart“After lying under oath to Congress about his own communications with the Russians, the Attorney General must resign,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi ( .) said in a statement released Wednesday night. [“Sessions is not fit to serve as the top law enforcement officer of our country,” Pelosi said in the statement, according to the Boston Globe. The Boston Globe also reported that Sen. Elizabeth Warren ( .) has called for Sessions’ resignation. “We need Attorney General Jeff Sessions … to resign,” Warren said. “We need it now. ” The Associated Press tweeted on Thursday that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ( . Y.) has joined he ranks of Democrats calling for Sessions to resign. “Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer calls on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign,” AP tweeted. Despite their claims that Sessions’ contact with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak when he was a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee is grounds for resignation, the press secretary for the Russian Embassy in Washington, D. C. said that, while they don’t release the names of lawmakers and other visitors who have had contact with Russian officials, diplomatic contact with members of Congress and others “occur on a daily basis. ” “The embassy doesn’t comment on numerous contacts with local partners, which occur on a daily basis in line with diplomatic practice,” the press secretary told Breitbart News.

Russia and Turkey now sharing intelligence dataWed, 26 Oct 2016 19:54 UTC © AFP 2016/ BULENT KILIC Commenting on the recent reports that Russia has started exchanging intelligence data with the Turkish Army to ensure the effectiveness of Ankara's Euphrates Shield operation in Syria , retired Turkish Air Force Lt. Gen. Erdogan Karakus told Sputnik that the move signals major changes in Turkish foreign policy. Russia has already started sharing its intelligence data with the Turkish army, which will ensure the effectiveness of Ankara's Euphrates Shield operation in Syria, Russia's Izvestia newspaper reported on Monday. According to the newspaper, the agreement was reached during recent negotiations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan. First Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Defense and Security at the Federation Council (upper house of parliament) Franz Klintsevich told the newspaper that Turkey quietly joined the intelligence sharing pool created by Russia, Syria, Iraq and Iran . "We pass Turkey data on our radio intercepts, electronic intelligence and imagery intelligence that may be of interest to it," the senator said. "In response, they also share information. Turkey has very effective intelligence agencies and very good agents in Syria ," he added. Commenting on the move, Retired Air Lieutenant General Erdogan Karakus, General President of TESUD (Turkey Retired Officers Association) told Sputnik Turkiye that the pace of development of Russian-Turkish relations amid the mounting tension in Turkish-American relations signifies major changes to Turkish foreign policy. Ankara is demonstrating its readiness to upgrade its cooperation with Moscow to an unprecedented level , creating prerequisites for further strategic partnerships, including in the military-political sphere. "Turkey pays high importance to the Open Skies Treaty. Signed in 1992, it is aimed mainly at strengthening trust between the signatories," Erdogan Karakus told Sputnik. "Unfortunately this February Turkey denied Russia an observation flight over its territory. However the situation has drastically changed since then and Russian inspectors now perform observation flights over Turkey . This is one of the major indications of a new stage in development of Russian-Turkish relations," he added. "The exchange of intelligence data, negotiations on the creation of a Turkish anti-missile defense system with the deployment of Russia's S-300 and S-400 systems, the opening of its territory for observation flights signifies the growing trust in relations between the two countries," Karakus said. Retired Air Lieutenant General noted that such a development is only more natural as the American 'Greater Middle East' project equally worries both Russia and Turkey. To be able to prevent all the threats arising from this project the cooperation between the two countries should be ultimately upgraded to a strategic level. There are no hurdles for the further strategic partnership between the two, Karakus finally stated. Comment: This should pretty much put to rest any speculation that Ankara at risk of coming to the aid of the terrorists in eastern Aleppo. Russia would not develop such close ties with them if there was a risk Turkey would basically go to war against the Syrian army, and thus the Russians as well. In all likelihood, Erdogan is acting within certain clearly defined limits in northern Syria.

Alt-Right Architect Glenn Beck Opens Fire On Alt-Right: ‘Grave Threat To The Republic’ (AUDIO, TWEET)Alt-Right Architect Glenn Beck Opens Fire On Alt-Right: ‘Grave Threat To The Republic’ (AUDIO, TWEET) By Darrell Lucus Glenn Beck was, by all accounts, the primary architect of the tea party. Yet, he has become an unrelenting critic of one of its loudest descendants, the alt-right. He issued his sharpest critique to date on Friday’s edition of “The Glenn Beck Program,” saying that this white supremacist and Islamophobic movement represents a clear and present danger to this country’s very existence. During the first hour of Friday’s show, Beck, a charter member of the “NeverTrump” movement, declared that the alt-right represented nothing less than a “grave threat to the republic.” The alt-right, as many of you know, has rallied behind Donald Trump, and effectively took control of the Trump campaign when Breitbart chairman Stephen Bannon became campaign CEO. Breitbart is widely reckoned as the main mouthpiece of the alt-right, and Bannon is the main architect of the effort to give the alt-right a place at the table on the wingnut fringe. has a very clear design for where he wants to take the alt-right after the campaign. Apparently it includes building closer ties between the alt-right and the rest of the wingnut fringe. He plans to speak at David Horowitz’“Restoration Weekend” two days after the election. This gathering is a known hotspot for right-wing bile of the worst type. However, Beck claimed, the alt-right would have likely blossomed without Trump. . @glennbeck : This has nothing to do with @realDonaldTrump or @HillaryClinton … it would be happening with someone like @tedcruz in as well. — TheBlaze Radio (@TheBlazeRadio) October 28, 2016 How’s that, you ask? Well, Beck argued, the American alt-right seems to be taking its cue from the European far right. Listen here. Beck said that Bannon and the rest of the American alt-right think along the same lines as the far right in Europe–“burn the entire thing down, and out of the chaos, we will rise.” He’s apparently referring to an email exchange between Bannon and Breitbart reporter Matt Doyle from 2014, in which they discussed plans to “turn on the hate” in order to make it easier to “burn this bitch down.” He claimed that neither Trump nor even his most ardent supporters know this. Beck was actually building on a Facebook post from Thursday night, in which he shared an article in the New York Observer–ironically, owned by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner–detailing the links between Russia and far-right elements in Europe. In a lengthy commentary on Facebook, Beck claimed that there are disturbing parallels between far-right tactics in Europe and the alt-right’s tactics here in this country. Just like the European far right, the alt-right in this country is extremely fixated on “cultural preservation and homogenity.” He also argued that the Kremlin may already be funding “dangerous people” in the United States. For that reason, Beck claimed, the alt-right is “a great danger to the republic,” and must be rooted out by true conservatives. He promised to do chalkboards on these links after the election, but was reluctant to do so now because “right now it would be viewed as pro or anti C or T.” I never thought I’d see the day that I would find myself agreeing with Beck. After all, as we’ve seen already, Trump has more or less twiddled his thumbs while alt-right trolls acting on his behalf have brutally attacked and threatened anyone who dares speak out against him. Moreover, the alt-right has made no secret of its vicious anti-Semitism; they were the bottom-feeders behind “ echoes ,” an attempt to flag Jewish-sounding names online. But if these people are “a great danger to the republic,” Glenn, why wait until after the election to tell us more? I suspect that Beck is afraid that he’ll have to admit that he was the architect of most of the bile we saw from the tea party–including its resistance to any form of compromise. That mentality seems to have passed on to the alt-right. Perhaps Beck himself hasn’t seen it yet–or doesn’t want to see it. Still, when the architect of the tea party sounds like a voice of sanity, there can no longer any doubt–the GOP civil war is well under way. ( featured image courtesy Gage Skidmore, available under a Creative Commons BY-SA license) About Darrell Lucus Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC . Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook . Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello. Connect

More Politicized Justice to Protect Hillary More Politicized Justice to Protect Hillary More Politicized Justice to Protect Hillary October 27, 2016, 9:04 am by Roger Aronoff Leave a Comment 0 By: Roger Aronoff | Accuracy in Media A recently revealed connection between Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a local Virginia politician and the FBI exposes, at the very least, another deceptive conflict of interest that was likely intended to help protect the viability of Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions. These politicians believe they can get away with such actions because they trust that they can count on a complicit mainstream media to cover for their corruption. A case in point is the funding McAuliffe arranged for Dr. Jill McCabe, the wife of the future deputy director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe. McAuliffe steered nearly $500,000 from his political action committee, Common Good VA, and another approximately $200,000 from the Virginia Democratic Party to Mrs. McCabe for her state senate campaign in 2015. Her campaign had a total budget of $1.8 million, and according to The Washington Post, in 2015 the state allowed candidates to use campaign funds for personal expenses so long as the campaign was operating. “No, it’s not at all a normal amount [of money],” said State Senator Dick Black, the incumbent who defeated McCabe in 2015 and kept the seat, on the Steve Batton Show . “In fact, the amount that was involved is comparable to what you would have in a full congressional, a hotly contested congressional race.” Black, who served as a pilot for the Marines during the Vietnam War, was later the head of the Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon. “The amount of money that was put in was astounding,” Black continued. “It was four times as much as the Democrats had put into the former race when this was an open seat.” At the time that Jill McCabe announced her campaign, her husband Andrew was running the Washington, D.C. field office of the FBI. He was later promoted to the number three position, and then promoted to deputy director. His wife’s campaign failed, and, according to The Washington Post, Andrew McCabe avoided handling Virginia public corruption cases during her campaign and didn’t “participate in” campaign events. Yet, given that the main funder of his wife’s campaign, Governor McAuliffe, is a long-time Clinton ally who chaired Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and chaired the Democratic National Committee, Andrew McCabe should have recused himself from the Hillary Clinton investigation—no matter at what level he was serving. According to a cutting Wall Street Journal editorial , “All of this asks voters to believe that Mr. McCabe as the No. 3 official at the FBI had nothing to do with the biggest, most sensitive case at that agency. This strains credulity.” It was the Journal that broke the story this week about McAuliffe steering money to McCabe. The editorial continues, “Before he became No. 3 at the FBI Mr. McCabe ran the bureau’s Washington, D.C. field office that provided resources to the Clinton probe. Campaign-finance records show that 98% of the McAuliffe donations to Mrs. McCabe came after the FBI launched its Clinton probe.” Three months after McCabe’s defeat, her husband became the FBI deputy director helping to oversee the Clinton email case. Not only does this have the appearance of impropriety—it doesn’t pass the smell test. “So the Democratic Party actually suspected that this woman was a Republican because she hadn’t been active in any politics,” said Black. “She came out of the blue, which was quite mysterious. Why this woman, why was she chosen?” Black described how another Democratic Party operative had already filed to run for the state senate seat, but the party decided that Jill McCabe would be the candidate—without holding a primary. As we have reported, the whole FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of classified email and private server stinks—and the fix was clearly in . Not only did the FBI grant immunity to five people deeply involved in the case, it also made a deal to destroy evidence on two witnesses’ computers once it finished reviewing material found on them. “Sources said the arrangement with former Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills and ex-campaign staffer Heather Samuelson also limited the search to no later than Jan. 31, 2015,” reported Fox News. “This meant investigators could not review documents for the period after the email server became public—in turn preventing the bureau from discovering if there was any evidence of obstruction of justice, sources said.” In addition, the FBI failed to empanel a grand jury to look into the case, instead relying on non-aggressive interviews which were not recorded. We have long maintained that EmailGate is not just about hiding information from the public, but is also a national security scandal. The Obama administration is clearly using political considerations to determine who receives punishment for mishandling the nation’s secrets. Among the latest WikiLeaks revelations is further proof that President Obama was well aware that Mrs. Clinton was doing government business from a private, unsecured server, though he denied it, and that staff members were scrambling to figure out how to contain the fallout. The Washington Post reports that another government official who mishandled classified information, leaking it to the press, failed to escape judgment. Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman General James E. Cartwright’s “greatest mistake was not talking to reporters or lying about it; he failed to play the Washington game skillfully enough to avoid becoming a scapegoat for a system in which senior officials skirt the rules and then fall back on their political power to save them,” writes Josh Rogin for the Post. He describes how Cartwright “was a pariah to many of the Very Important People in Washington’s national security elite.” Cartwright “pleaded guilty to the felony charge of lying to the FBI during its investigation into the leaking of classified information about covert operations against Iran to two journalists” and could face up to five years in jail and a $250,000 fine, writes Rogin. Before that, Cartwright was known as “ Obama’s favorite general .” But clearly that is no longer the case, or presumably he would have gotten off scot-free, just like Hillary, from the highly politicized Obama Justice Department. Hillary’s mishandling of classified material was part of her daily routine for years—far more egregious than anything that Cartwright did. As Rogin pointed out in the Post article, Cartwright spoke to The New York Times’ David Sanger about the Stuxnet program designed to slow down Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons. Sanger had previously “had meetings on Iran with several other high-profile administration officials, including National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns and even Clinton herself. There’s no evidence of any other Stuxnet leak investigations of high-level officials.” But only Cartwright is taking the fall. “In his statement taking responsibility for lying to the FBI,” writes Rogin, “Cartwright asserted his motivations were patriotic. ‘My only goal in talking to the reporters was to protect American interests and lives; I love my country and continue to this day to do everything I can to defend it.’” We may have to wait for Cartwright’s memoir to find out the rest of this story. In 2013, the Times’ Sanger said that the Obama administration was the “most closed, control-freak administration” he’d ever covered. But Hillary got a pass, in order to run for the White House to succeed President Obama. We have reported on how this administration has systematically and to an unprecedented level targeted leakers and journalists . But the whitewash of an FBI investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email practices is looking more and more like a cover-up. That the McCabes felt indebted to Clinton associate McAuliffe cannot be definitively proven, but it defies common sense to assume that they both were purely impartial about the investigation into Hillary. If only the mainstream media would do their job and report on the facts of this case, instead of simply lambasting Donald Trump and his supporters for his inartful comments. If only. Roger Aronoff Roger Aronoff is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and a member of the Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi . He can be contacted at roger.aronoff@aim.org . View the complete archives from Roger Aronoff . 0

North Carolina, Saturated and Surprised, Reels from Hurricane Matthew - The New York TimesLUMBERTON, N. C. — Brittany Graham had been confident that Hurricane Matthew would bring no more than a few inches of rain to this inland city. But by Sunday afternoon, her grandfather’s small farm was underwater. A grazing field was submerged. No one knew where most of the cows were. Floodwaters, perhaps three or four feet deep in some places, had covered the wheels of two trucks and flowed into a supply barn. Relatives squealed as they watched fish from the family’s pond swim across the road. “My grandpa’s still in shock,” Ms. Graham, 29, said. “He didn’t prepare anything because from what we heard, we were just going to get a little bit of rain. Basically, all his stuff is ruined. ” “This,” she added, “is completely devastating. ” Here in Lumberton, and in much of eastern North Carolina on Sunday, residents were taking stock after Hurricane Matthew pounded the state over the weekend with a furor that seemed improbable days earlier. North Carolina officials reported eight deaths, a figure that accounted for nearly half of the hurricane’s death toll in the United States, and Gov. Pat McCrory warned that the casualty count was “expected to increase. ” “I wouldn’t assume that there aren’t people clinging for life right now in houses that are underwater that we have yet to reach, especially in lower populated areas,” Mr. McCrory said. “That’s what my major concern is. ” Still, dozens of boat and aircrews rescued more than 1, 000 people, more than 700 of them in Cumberland County, which includes Fayetteville and Fort Bragg. The state also had countless informal evacuations and rescues, strung together by residents and visitors who sometimes acted with little warning. Melissa Fineman, the general manager of a Comfort Suites hotel in coastal Brunswick County, had retreated to her room on Saturday night when she heard creaking in the building, which was filled with evacuees and linemen from a local utility company. “The pressure and the gusts just started cracking the walls,” she said. “With each gust of wind, it just got wider and wider. ” Ms. Fineman decided to empty the hotel. After a effort that she said took just minutes, the property’s 123 guests, and their 45 animals, had escaped through a back stairwell, ultimately fleeing to a nearby high school and escaping the wrath of a storm that once seemed poised to spare this state. But the havoc in North Carolina was an unwelcome reminder of both the inherently deceiving nature of the Hurricane Wind Scale — the storm was barely classified as a Category 1 hurricane when its bands hit North Carolina — and the behavior of a tropical cyclone. As recently as Thursday, when forecasters were predicting that Hurricane Matthew would leave North Carolina mostly unscathed, Mr. McCrory said he was “cautiously optimistic” about the storm. Then the hurricane shifted, losing power but maintaining moisture and taking aggressive aim at much of North Carolina’s coastline and the state’s inland counties. Some areas recorded more than a foot of rain, and by Sunday morning, Mr. McCrory and his constituents were lamenting an increasingly dire landscape of devastation. “When you go from a Category 4 hurricane to a Category 1, the danger of harm is still there,” Mr. McCrory said. “What those categories don’t include is how water can kill. ” In North Carolina on Sunday, more than 3, 000 people were in shelters, and some 770, 000 homes and businesses were without electricity. Parts of Interstate 40 and Interstate 95 were closed, and the authorities warned that more trouble was to come as rain poured into rivers and raced toward the coast. Some local governments ordered evacuations and curfews. The National Weather Service, which said that many of its river gauges in eastern North Carolina showed major flooding, predicted that the Lumber River would remain above record levels until at least Friday. In Rocky Mount, the Tar River was expected to surpass its record height by nearly three feet. And near Goldsboro, the Neuse River was forecast to reach 29. 6 feet on Monday, nearly a foot above its record. “That’s always the trouble in eastern North Carolina — because the saturation tables are so low, the water doesn’t have anywhere to go,” said the Rev. William J. Barber II, the president of the North Carolina chapter of the N. A. A. C. P. and a pastor of a church in Goldsboro. “We’re downstream. If a storm drops a lot of rain in the Raleigh area, it comes down like a wall this way. ” In Florida, Georgia and South Carolina on Sunday, residents turned much of their attention to recovery as people removed trees, cleared roadways and increasingly found their electricity restored. People in coastal communities who had heeded orders to evacuate returned to their homes to survey the damage, often trading text messages and pictures with one another to share what they had found. Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina, citing requests from local officials, maintained evacuation orders in two counties, but she allowed people to return to Charleston, the state’s city, and its surrounding area. “The weather looks good next week, which is a great sign as we want to try and do the recovery, so that’s the one blessing that we do have,” Ms. Haley said. And here in North Carolina, residents were girding for a hard recovery in places like Hope Mills, where Marie Pelkey, 42, stared through the trees at her younger sister’s waterlogged home. “She’s probably lost everything,” Ms. Pelkey said, her face flushing as tears rolled past her thick black sunglasses. A neighbor, Cathy Swain, walked over to wrap Ms. Pelkey in her arms. She, too, knew the extent of the devastation and how it rivaled the destruction of previous storms. “Major roads are washed out,” she said. “Bridges are gone. I’ve been here 53 years. I was here through Fran, Floyd — never seen anything like this. It’s going to take a long time. ” She added, “I’ve never seen the Walmart closed. ”

The Lives They Loved: Submit Your Memories - The New York TimesAs part of the magazine’s annual The Lives They Lived issue, we invite readers to contribute a photograph and a story of someone close to them who died this year. A number of submissions will be chosen to be published on The New York Times website. All entries must be submitted by Dec. 31, 2016, to be eligible for consideration.

Achieving Mindfulness at Work, No Meditation Cushion Required - The New York TimesIn a recent seminar I gave for over 100 business professionals, I asked the participants to play a simple word association game with me: “I say mindfulness, you say ________. ” The word that rang out in unison was, of course, “meditation. ” Mindfulness, it seems, has become a mainstream business practice and a kind of industry in its own right. Meditation instructors are the new management gurus, and companies including Google, General Electric, Ford Motor and American Express are sending their employees to classes that can run up to $50, 000 for a large audience. Many mindfulness apps exist, nearly all of which focus on “mindfulness meditation. ” The proliferation of meditation in the name of mindfulness and the combination of the two terms naturally lead people to equate the two. Mistakenly so. By most definitions, mindfulness is a attention that involves noticing changes around us and fully experiencing them in real time. This puts us in the present, aware and responsive, making everything fresh and new again. Meditation is simply one of several tools for achieving mindfulness, and in the context of work it may not be the most suitable for many people. For those who, like me, can’t seem to get the hang of meditation, there is good news: You don’t have to meditate to become more mindful. There are two approaches to mindfulness: Eastern and Western. The Eastern view indeed positions meditation as an essential tool to achieving a mindful state. But the Eastern view is more about quieting the mind and suspending thought. This philosophy is almost the complete opposite of the Western view of mindfulness, which centers on active thinking. I would argue that given the speed of change today, it may not be realistic to suspend or stop thinking. Rather, we need to actively think through problems in new ways to achieve innovative, elegant solutions. These will not rain from on high in a meditation session. Both views share the same goal: avoiding mindlessness. When we’re mindless, the past is riding herd over the present. We get trapped in categories created in the past, stuck in rigid perspectives, oblivious to alternative views. This gives us the illusion of certainty. For example, imagine that the numbers in the incorrect Roman numeral equation below are movable sticks. Leaving the plus and equals signs as they are, what is the least number of sticks you would have to move to correct the equation? XI + I = X Most people react immediately with an answer of “one. ” But that is a mindless answer, based on knowledge acquired long ago. The optimal answer would be “zero,” arrived at by looking at the problem from an alternative perspective. By looking at the problem upside down, you could read the equation literally right to left, so that X (10) = I (one) plus IX (nine). Or you might recognize the visual symmetry, and reflect it in a mirror. By noticing different ways to view the problem, you move from mindless to mindful. This kind of noticing mindfulness is similar to the concept of the impartial spectator first introduced in the 18th century by Adam Smith, who wrote that we all have access to an “impartial and spectator. ” This spectator’s form of attention puts us in the present and gives us a more unbiased perspective — much the way our attention is focused when we travel to a new place, noticing details that the locals take for granted. The key to mindfulness is learning to look at the world in a more conditional way. Understanding that our perspective is merely one among alternative views requires us to embrace uncertainty. When we’re uncertain and unsure, our surroundings become interesting again, like the peculiar little details we notice when we arrive in an unfamiliar place. The most effective technique I’ve found for moving from mindless to mindful without meditation involves a form of and talking to yourself as an objective adviser would. It is achievable in a few simple steps. Suppose you’re facing a situation that’s causing you stress — perhaps a change at work, a tough problem or an important decision. The first step is to realize that you’ve already made two unwarranted assumptions: that something will happen, and it will be bad. Next, give yourself three reasons the issue you’re worried about might not happen. Notice that it immediately becomes less stressful, because you just went from “it’s going to happen” to “maybe it will happen, maybe it won’t. ” Now give yourself three reasons that, if the situation does turn out bad, good things will happen. Those reasons are easy to find once you ask the question. Now you’ve gone from thinking “there’s this terrible thing that’s going to happen” to thinking “there’s this thing that may or may not happen, but if it does, it could have both good and bad outcomes. ” It’s an easy method that leads us to become less reactive to the world — still responsive, just not reactive. In the end, the entire key to eliminating mindlessness without meditation may simply be realizing that the issue looks different from a different perspective, and then taking that perspective.

World’s First Zero-Emissions Hydrogen-Powered Passenger Train Unveiled In GermanyDuring last week’s Berlin InnoTrans trade show, French company Alstom unveiled the world’s first zero-emissions hydrogen-powered train. According to The Local, the Coradia iLint hydrogen train...

Confused by Chip Credit Cards? Get in Line - The New York TimesYou’re at the checkout counter. Your items have been bagged. Your credit card is in your hand. Do you swipe it or insert it? The question has become vexing enough in the United States that a plea from one Twitter user for the country to “get on the same page” has become the unofficial, albeit vulgar, mantra of the nation’s consumers, with tens of thousands of retweets and likes. Ten months into the transition to chip cards, it’s clear there’s no going back. But as the national frustration grows, here are answers to some burning questions. There is reason to hope. About 75 percent of credit cards are . If all businesses upgraded their terminals — which they are not required to do by law — at least the confusion over whether to swipe or insert would be settled. So far, about of the nation’s merchants have made the transition, said Jason Oxman, chief executive of Electronic Transactions Association, a trade group for companies that deal with payment products and services. But while many of them have the terminals, they are waiting to get them certified for use, said Jared Drieling, the business intelligence manager for the Strawhecker Group, a consulting company for the industry. Technological improvements generally make things easier, but that’s not what this change is about. The longer wait times at checkout occur because of all these steps in the process: • The chip creates a code. • The payment terminal sends it to the bank. • The bank matches it to an identical code. • The bank then sends back verification. Voilà! The good news: New software is being developed to allow chip cards to be inserted and quickly removed, speeding up the process, Mr. Drieling said. Security. “You can’t counterfeit a chip card,” Mr. Oxman said. “You can very easily counterfeit a strip card. ” Financial institutions changed the rules attached to their terminals last year. Now, if a counterfeit card is used because a merchant doesn’t have the technology to process cards, the merchant is responsible for paying the fraudulent charges. Businesses that sell goods, like electronics, that can be easily resold on the black market are often targeted by people with fraudulent cards. Because of that, they have a lot of motivation to upgrade. If they don’t, they must pay the bill for all those purchases. “But the local coffee shop might not be getting a lot of fraud activity,” Mr. Oxman said, so there’s less motivation to get the new terminals. There is a chance, then, that at the onset of a purchase, you’ll never really know whether to swipe or dip. Get used to it. “The loud, annoying beep that you’re referring to is to remind you to take the card out,” Mr. Oxman said. “The goal of the noise is to get your attention, and it sounds like it’s working. ” But as Kathleen Dunn, 27, of Nashville pointed out, the sound rings of rejection. “I hate the noise. It makes me feel like my card got declined, and I panic every time,” Ms. Dunn said via a message on Twitter. Dieter Bohn, the executive editor of The Verge, a technology site, characterized the situation as a “checkout dance” in an article. That dance is caused in part by the fact that many places that have the new terminals can’t use the chip reader technology yet. They’re not broken — they’re just waiting to be certified, and that process can sometimes take months. Until then, retailers are responsible for any fraudulent charges, and they’re not happy about it. It’s likely, but their transition is long in the past now. “We’re really one of the last G20 nations to adopt E. M. V. ,” said Mr. Drieling, referring to the chip technology by an acronym for Europay, MasterCard and Visa, the technology’s early advocates. The chips work a little differently in the 150 other countries using them: The cardholder also enters a PIN at the terminal, which lets the verification process happen offline, Mr. Oxman said. Banks and retailers are at odds over why the United States isn’t adopting the PIN system. Why it has taken so long to adopt the chip technology in the United States has a lot to do with its bigger and more complex market. “Changing it is a huge undertaking,” Mr. Oxman said. Probably not much longer. Most of the new terminals that accept the cards are also equipped with the technology to accept contactless payments, like Apple Pay or Android Pay. And while there is disagreement about whether mobile wallets are faster than chip cards, mobile payment makes it feel as if the transaction is moving more quickly. “There is a perfect storm brewing for mobile wallets,” Mr. Drieling said. Until then, perhaps you can use that extra time at the checkout counter to commiserate with the cashier. “I always bring it up during the awkward silence caused by the amount of time the chip takes to read,” Ross Schickler, 19, of Springfield, N. J. said in a Twitter message. “They always laugh and agree. ”

Britain sends hundreds of soldiers and tanks to Estonia in biggest military deployment since Cold WarWed, 26 Oct 2016 15:47 UTC © Getty A total of 800 troops, drones and tanks are moving to Estonia as part of the biggest military build up on Russia's borders since the Cold War. Britain is sending hundreds of soldiers and hardware to Russia's borders as part of a huge military deployment. A total of 800 troops, drones and tanks are moving to Estonia next spring, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said. The move is part of the biggest military build up of NATO troops on Russia's borders since the Cold War . © REX Mr Fallon said the deployment of the battalion, supported by French and Danish troops, will start from May 2017. "Although we are leaving the European Union, we will be doing more to help secure the eastern and southern flanks of NATO," Mr Fallon said. London is also sending Typhoon fighter aircraft to Romania to patrol around the Black Sea, partly in support of Turkey. It comes after an increase in tensions between the West and Russia in recent months. Earlier this month, 40 million Russians reportedly carried out nuclear evacuation tests after officials warned that the West wanted to launch strikes on the country. NATO is now pressing allies including the US and Britain to contribute to the military presence as the alliance prepares for a long quarrel with Moscow. Last week, a Russian aircraft carrier passed through the English Channel as it traveled to Syria in a show of force along Europe's shores. Alliance defense ministers aim to make good on a July promise by NATO leaders to send forces to the Baltic states and eastern Poland from early next year. The United States hopes for binding commitments from Europe to fill four battle groups of some 4,000 troops, part of NATO's response to Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and concern it could try a similar tactic in Europe's ex-Soviet states. Comment: This propaganda still lives despite Russia showing no interest invading any country. France, Denmark, Italy and other allies are expected to join the four battle groups led by the United States, Germany, Britain and Canada to go to Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, with forces ranging from armored infantry to drones. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the commitments would be "a clear demonstration of our transatlantic bond." Diplomats said it would also send a message to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has complained that European allies do not pay their way in the alliance. The battle groups will be backed by NATO's 40,000-strong rapid-reaction force, and if need be, further follow-on forces, for any potential conflict, which could move into Baltic states and Poland on rotation. The strategy is part of an emerging new deterrent that could eventually be combined with missile defenses, air patrols and defenses against cyber attacks. However, the alliance is still struggling for a similar strategy in the Black Sea region, which Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said is becoming a "Russian lake" because of Moscow's military presence there. Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey are expected to soon come forward with a plan to increase naval and air patrols in the area, as well as a multinational NATO brigade in Romania. For the Kremlin, the U.S.-led alliance's plans are already too much given Russia's grievances at NATO's expansion eastwards. Stoltenberg denied going too far. "This is a credible deterrence, not to provoke a conflict but to prevent conflict." Comment: Stoltenberg's thinking is flawed since moving troops to a country's border based on no threats is an act of aggression that promotes conflict. Next year's deployments have taken on greater symbolism since Russia pulled out of several nuclear disarmament agreements in the past two months while moving nuclear-capable missiles into its Baltic exclave in Kaliningrad. The so-called Iskander-M cruise missiles can hit targets across Poland and the Baltics, although NATO officials declined to say if Russia had moved nuclear warheads to Kaliningrad. "This deployment, if it becomes permanent, if the presence of nuclear weapons were confirmed, would be a change in (Russia's) security posture," the United States' envoy to NATO, Douglas Lute, said. Tensions have been building since Crimea and the West's decision to impose retaliatory sanctions, but the breakdown of a U.S-Russia brokered ceasefire in Syria on October 3, followed by U.S. accusations that Russia has used cyber attacks to disrupt the presidential election, have signaled a sharp worsening of East-West relations. EU leaders met last week to consider fresh sanctions over Russian bombing of civilian areas in Aleppo and NATO's Stoltenberg said he fears the Russian warships heading to the Mediterranean could launch new attacks on the Syrian city. Even before the break down of the Syrian ceasefire, Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended a treaty with Washington on cleaning up weapons-grade plutonium, signalling he was willing to use nuclear disarmament as a new bargaining chip in disputes with the United States over Ukraine and Syria.

Brooks: Trump ’Siding With a Foreign Leader Against the US President’ on Israel and Russia - BreitbartOn Friday’s broadcast of “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks argued that especially with Israel and Russia Donald Trump is “siding with a foreign leader against the US president. ” Brooks said, “What’s sort of remarkable is that, especially in the Israel and the Russia cases, you’ve got a US citizen, Donald Trump, siding with a foreign leader against the US president. There is a reason why have tried to remain mute during their transitional periods, relatively, because you just don’t want to be for somebody — some other country against your own government, and especially when you’re about to take the helm of that government. And there will be a lot of permanent people who are just going to be stuck there, who’s — who are now in a war between the and the guy they’re currently serving. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

There’s Toxic Air In Your Home and This Is You Can Get Rid of It NaturallyDid you know that poor air quality in the home can cause a condition called “Sick Building Syndrome”? This is caused by an accumulation of toxic gases known as Volatile Organic Compounds ( VOCs ) which are released from common household goods , including everything from your cleaners to appliances and even the food you eat. In addition to being carcinogenic and neurotoxic, long-term exposure to VOCs can lead to other serious health implications including, respiratory dysfunction, genetic abnormalities, and dermatitis. It begs the question, what are we subjecting ourselves to, doesn’t it? NASA’s Clean Air Study reports how certain houseplants help to filter and remove toxins from the air. Houseplants have long been known to clean the air in small spaces, but some of these plants are more beneficial—and prettier to look at—than others. For those of you who prefer the bright colors of flowering plants, the following list shows the best beauties for filtering the air in your home. 5 Indoor Plants That Will Improve Air Quality Succulents Everyone loves the ease in caring for succulents and some of these create delicate flowers too. Here’s a quick fact: when photosynthesis stops at night, most plants absorb oxygen and release carbon dioxide? But, there are a few plants – like orchids, succulents and epiphytic bromeliads that will take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen at night time. Meaning, these would be ideal plants to have in bedrooms to keep the oxygen flowing at night. Flamingo Lilly AKA Flamingo Flowers, these are durable and fairly easy to grow in low light, low water situations. They can thrive for many years under ideal conditions but are hearty enough to maintain growth for up to two years in even the most adverse situations (i.e., this is a perfect flowering plant for those lacking a green thumb!) . They have large, deep green, heart-shaped leaves and produce long lasting, bright red or hot pink flowers. The Flamingo Lilly is great at removing the toxins formaldehyde (found in many paper products), xylene (found in tobacco smoke and vehicle exhaust), and ammonia (found in cleaning products) from the air. *Beware that the Flamingo Lilly (like a lot of flowering plants) is toxic to dogs and cats, so be sure to keep them away from your family pets. Barberton Daisy The Barberton daisy is available in many colors ranging from white to bright red. The hybrids sold in garden centers typically produce two or more single stemmed stalks with a single flower sprouting from each one. These flowers are up to four inches wide and are quite impressive to look at. The Barberton Daisy can be grown indoors in medium-levels of sunlight, with moist soil. They can flower at any time of the year and each flower blooms for approximately six weeks. Barberton Daisies filter out trichloroethylene (found in ink, paint, rubber products, lacquers and varnishes), formaldehyde, and xylene. Peace Lilly The Peace Lilly is easy to care for and gives a telltale droop when it is in need of water. They flourish in shade and low light and you can expect your Peace Lilly to bloom with dozens of striking white flowers in the springtime. Peace Lillies are extremely effective at filtering multiple toxins from the air. They work on trichloroethylene, formaldehyde, xylene, benzene (used in plastics, detergents, dyes, and glue), and carbon monoxide. If you can only have one flowering plant in your home, the Peace Lilly might be a good bet. *Like the Flamingo Lilly, this one is toxic to pets as well, so beware. Florist Chrysanthemum The Florist Chrysanthemum requires bright light and moist, high-quality soil, so it needs a bit more care and upkeep than the other flowers listed here so far. But with the proper maintenance and right kind of soil, the Florist Chrysanthemum will produce lots of big, beautiful blooms (typically in the red and pink color family, though occasionally you will see bright purples and yellows) that will last for up to 8 weeks. Like the Peace Lilly, the Florist Chrysnthemum filters out multiple toxins including trichloroethylene, formaldehyde, xylene, and benzene (used in plastics, detergents, dyes, and glue). *This plant is also mildly poisonous to dogs and cats (if the stems are ingested they will cause stomach upset and disorientation) so again, use caution. If you feel that your home suffers from poor air quality or quite possibly sick building syndrome, start adding some indoor plants to frequented rooms and see if your health improves. Pamela Bofferding is a native Texan who now lives with her husband and sons in New York City. She enjoys hiking, traveling, and playing with her dogs. This information has been made available by Ready Nutrition Originally published October 29th, 2016 How To Grow Pineapples Like a Pro! How to Select the Best Grow Light for Your Indoor Garden Strong Correlation Seen Between Flowers and Emotional Health The Most Poisonous Plants and How to Recognize Them Infographic: Composting 101

A Connecticut Reader Reports Record Voter Registration–Inspired By Trump

Germany Reacts to Merkel-Trump Visit: ‘Could Have Been a Lot Worse’ - The New York TimesBERLIN — A strong relationship with the United States is a bedrock of German foreign policy, so when Chancellor Angela Merkel met President Trump on Friday, German journalists and analysts scrutinized their body language and the tone of their remarks for clues about how they might work together. “Not warm, but not distant,” wrote the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung in its online edition on Saturday. “It could have been a lot worse,” Germany’s daily, Bild, wrote of the relationship that is the cornerstone of the NATO alliance and vital to global security. The initial reaction from Ms. Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, emphasized the positives. Mr. Seibert welcomed Mr. Trump’s support of efforts to resolve the crisis in Ukraine and the president’s confirmation of the importance of NATO. Mr. Seibert also reaffirmed Germany’s commitment to spend 2 percent of its gross domestic product on its military by 2024, as pledged during last year’s NATO summit meeting. But that did not seem to be enough for Mr. Trump, who insisted on Twitter early Saturday that Germany owed the alliance “vast sums of money. ” “Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel,” he wrote. “Nevertheless, Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!” According to figures released by the alliance, Germany spent 1. 2 percent of its gross domestic product on its military in 2016, compared with 3. 6 percent for the United States. As security experts have pointed out, NATO members spending more on their defense does not automatically translate into more money being sent to Brussels or Washington. The style of making one point and swiftly changing direction reminded some foreign policy experts of the way Mr. Trump acted on the campaign trail, when his position on certain issues could veer wildly from one day to the next. “Once again, we’ve seen Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” said Sylke Tempel, the editor in chief of Internationale Politik, published by the German Council on Foreign Relations, remarking on the approach that Mr. Trump took during the leaders’ joint news conference on Friday. “He was Mr. Jekyll while reading his statement, saying nice things about economic ties, his commitment to Ukraine, common friendship all the niceties,” Ms. Tempel said. “Then, in the session, he’s his old self: disparaging the media, criticizing the British. ” Although memories of Ms. Merkel’s warm relationship with President Barack Obama remain fresh in the minds of many Germans, it took repeated meetings over several years before the chancellor reached that level with Mr. Obama. During a joint news conference in Dresden in June 2009, she displayed stiff body language and a chilly formality, months after she had denied Mr. Obama permission to speak in front of the Brandenburg Gate during the 2008 presidential campaign. In 2006, Mr. Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush, sought to win her over with a playful shoulder rub, a move abruptly rebuffed by the pragmatic chancellor. One year later, however, at the summit meeting of the Group of 8 industrialized nations, she coaxed Mr. Bush to voice support for her vision of a global plan to combat climate change. Yet both of Mr. Trump’s most recent predecessors followed diplomatic conventions and worked within the institutions established after World War II to foster communication and cooperation among nations. Mr. Trump’s “America First” approach and his disparagement of global trade agreements have caused uncertainty among German politicians and industry leaders. Asked by a German journalist about this approach, the president insisted that while he was not against trade, the United States had been treated unfairly in global trade agreements. “But I am not an isolationist,” he said. Less than 24 hours later, however, Mr. Trump’s government refused to back a pledge to fully oppose trade protectionism at a meeting in Germany, of the finance ministers of the Group of 20, which comprises industrial and countries as well as the European Union. Participants last year had agreed to resist “all forms” of protectionism. Germans have been both fascinated and horrified by Mr. Trump’s willingness to ignore the strictures of diplomacy when dealing with foreign leaders. For example, he has castigated Ms. Merkel for allowing refugees to flow into Germany in 2015, and he has called into question War II alliances, including NATO and the European Union. Germans have not been entirely sure what to make of him. “One thing we can depend upon, that we saw yesterday: Donald Trump says what he wants,” Nikolaus Blome, deputy editor of Bild, wrote in its online edition. “He has predictable political interests. What he doesn’t have is a predictable way to pursue them. ” Ms. Tempel, of the German Council on Foreign Relations, said simply: “If this mission was really about getting a first impression, you got your first impression. ”

Justin Rose Outduels Henrik Stenson for Golf Gold Medal - The New York TimesRIO DE JANEIRO — The lives of the world’s top golfers revolve around a village much smaller than the facilities in and around Olympic Park, where they received a warm reception in the sport’s return to the Olympic program after a absence. In a typical week on the PGA Tour, the players are handed the keys to luxury vehicles. In Rio de Janeiro, they rode in shuttle buses or were driven around in armored cars by members of a security detail. On Sunday, a week after Bubba Watson finished in a tie for 25th at the PGA Tour stop in Connecticut and collected a $47, 226. 66 check, he earned nothing for finishing tied for eighth at the Rio Games, which he described as “one of the greatest golf trips I’ve ever been on. ” The biosphere that the golfers normally inhabit was broadened immeasurably during the weeklong competition that culminated with the coronation of Britain’s Justin Rose, who closed with a 67 to win the first gold medal awarded in golf since 1904. Rose, the 2013 United States Open champion, finished at 16 under par, two strokes ahead of the reigning British Open champion, Henrik Stenson of Sweden. Rose and Stenson arrived at the 18th hole tied at 15 under. Rose hit his third shot about three feet from the hole and then watched as Stenson for bogey. Rose made his birdie putt to claim the gold. Matt Kuchar of the United States carded the day’s lowest round, a 63, to claim the bronze at 13 under. As he came off the 18th green, Kuchar pulled his wife, Sybi, into a lingering embrace. When they separated, he told her, “I’ve never been so happy with a finish in my life. ” Despite not winning a medal, Watson, a Masters champion, said: “This is the greatest sporting event I’ve ever been a part of. I get to go to the Masters for the rest of my life, but it’s just golf. ” The sport’s return to the Olympics got off to an inauspicious start, with many of the best players, including the top four in the rankings, opting out because of health concerns, security fears and scheduling issues. Those who came appeared prepared to leave with lasting memories and no apparent regrets. “Once we got down here, we realized what a great experience it was,” said Rose, who was inspired to win a medal for his wife, Kate, a former member of the British acrobatic gymnastics team. She was a European champion who rose to fourth in the world before retiring at age 17 without having had a chance to compete in the Olympics because her sport was not included in the Summer Games. “I was very excited about golf in the Olympics,” Kate Rose said. “At least one of us will get to the Olympics. So from the beginning, he really embraced it. ” While golf’s Big Four — Jason Day, Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy — stayed home, Rose and his wife ventured out to watch gymnastics. Watson turned up at diving, swimming, women’s field hockey and men’s basketball sessions. Stenson checked in at handball matches. When golfers talk about their team, they typically mean their caddies. At the Olympics, Rose’s support group included all the athletes competing for Britain and every fan on the course waving the Union Jack. A sellout crowd of 12, 000 flocked to the course Sunday. The spectators’ support for their countrymen dispelled the notion that golf is an individual sport. “With the flags and everything, it’s as emotional as I’ve ever felt about a win,” said Rose’s caddie, Mark Fulcher. “Honestly, bless athletics,” he added, referring to track and field. “It looked great, but it was a stadium. There was nothing about this place today. It was an amazing atmosphere. ” At the start of the week, Rose and Fulcher added an app to their phones to receive alerts whenever a British athlete wins a gold medal. “It’s going to be pretty amazing seeing the gold flip up with Rosie,” Fulcher said. During his down time, Kuchar attended a bronze medal tennis match featuring the American doubles team of Jack Sock and Steve Johnson. He watched the Americans finish off their Canadian opponents and run toward the players’ box, shouting giddily about getting to wear their “podium jackets. ” The scene stuck with Kuchar, who said he got to thinking about how nice it would be to wear the United States jacket that was reserved for the medals ceremony. On Sunday, his eyes welled up as he talked about his podium jacket moment. “It was just an overwhelming feeling of pride,” he said. Kuchar’s caddie, John Wood, stood by his man all day only to be separated from him for the medals ceremony. Wood did not care that the caddies do not get medals. He choked up and took several seconds to compose himself. “Being a part of this,” Wood said, “I don’t need anything else. ”

Iceland’s Water Cure - The New York TimesOn a frigid February day in Reykjavik, I stood chested and dripping wet just inside the dressing room at the Vesturbaejar pool, facing a long, cold walk to the outdoor hot tubs. My host was stoic, strong, a Viking. I was whining. “I just don’t want to go out there,” I said. “How do you make yourself do it?” “You must, to swim in the pool,” Valdimar Hafstein said with a shrug. He is a folklorist at the University of Iceland who studies the country’s pools. “Kids hate it, too. I have to haul my kids kicking and screaming. ” I took a deep breath and tried to think of warm things. Wearing only a Speedo bathing suit — I had packed three, in honor of the island’s reputation as one of the company’s most avid markets — I stepped onto the deck. It was a few degrees below freezing. Imagine the feeling you get when you hold an ice cube tight, that combination of sting and ache, except imagine it all over your nearly nude body. Battling my ingrained instincts never to run at a swimming pool, I fell into a kind of brisk aiming for the large set of interconnected hot tubs in the center of the complex. I’m sure I looked ridiculous. The good news: I’d never been less concerned about my appearance while wearing almost nothing in public. Small snowflakes glittered in the sky, which at 4 p. m. was already darkening toward dusk. I reached the largest hot tub and sank to my chin. For one glorious moment, I felt my mind go blank: There was just my body, my big, stupid body in its stupid bathing suit, enveloped in warmth, the cold wind on my ears only heightening my delight. Behind me, Valdimar ambled across the deck, saying hello to a neighbor in another hot pot. Every Icelandic town, no matter how small, has its own pool. There are ramshackle cement rectangles squatting under rain clouds in the boonies. There are fancy aquatic complexes with multilevel hot tubs and awesomely dangerous water slides of the sort that litigious American culture would never allow. All told, there are more than 120 public pools — usually geothermally heated, mostly outdoors, open all year long — in Iceland, a country with a population just slightly larger than that of Lexington, Ky. “If you don’t have a swimming pool, it seems you may as well not even be a town,” the mayor of Reykjavik, Dagur Eggertsson, told me. I interviewed him, of course, as we relaxed together in a downtown hot tub. These public pools, or sundlaugs, serve as the communal heart of Iceland, sacred places whose affordability and ubiquity are viewed as a kind of civil right. Families and teenagers and older people lounge and chat in sundlaugs every day, summer or winter. Despite Iceland’s cruel climate, its remoteness and its winters of 19 hours of darkness per day, the people there are among the most contented in the world. The more local swimming pools I visited, the more convinced I became that Icelanders’ remarkable satisfaction is tied inextricably to the experience of escaping the fierce, freezing air and sinking into warm water among their countrymen. The pools are more than a humble municipal investment, more than just a civic perquisite that emerged from an accident of Iceland’s volcanic geology. They seem to be, in fact, a key to Icelandic being. This past winter, I visited Iceland and swam in 14 pools all over the country. I found them full of Icelanders eager to discuss what role these underwater village greens played in their lives. I met recent immigrants to the Westfjords town Bolungarvik as they mingled with their new neighbors, their toddler carrying fresh handfuls of snow into the hot tub and delightedly watching them melt. I saw Icelandic parents splash with their kids to calm them before bedtime I talked to adults who remembered that ritual from childhood and could summon the memory of slipping their bodies between cool sheets. I heard stories of divorcing couples splitting their local pools along with their possessions and retired couples bonding by swimming together every day. I watched four steaming septuagenarians swim laps in a northern Iceland pool while the sunrise lit up the mountains behind them and an attendant brought out foam cups of coffee balanced on a kickboard. “I think the swimming pools are what make it possible to live here,” the young artist Ragnheidur Harpa Leifsdottir said. “You have storms, you have darkness, but the swimming pool is a place for you to find yourself again. ” For centuries, Iceland was a nation of seamen who regularly drowned within sight of shore. One local newspaper reported in 1887 that more than 100 Icelanders had drowned that winter alone. In 1931, a boat carrying four farmers capsized while they tried to row a panicking cow across Kollafjordur fjord. Three of the men died one, who had studied swimming, survived. Incidents like this fostered an enthusiasm for swimming education. At the time, the only place to learn was a muddy ditch downstream from the hot spring where the women of Reykjavik did laundry. Inspired by that hot spring, and using a heavily mortgaged drill that had been brought to Iceland to search fruitlessly for gold, the city soon tapped the underground hot water generated by Iceland’s volcanic underbelly. Iceland’s first geothermal heat flowed into 70 homes and three civic buildings: a school, a hospital and a swimming pool. The national energy authority offered loans to villages across the country to encourage geothermal drilling, and within a generation, the ancient turf house had nearly disappeared from Iceland, replaced by modern apartment buildings and homes, all of them so toasty warm that even on winter nights most Icelanders leave a window open. With hot water flowing through the country and a populace eager to take a dip — swimming education was made mandatory in all Icelandic schools in 1943 — pools soon popped up in every town. “Because of the weather, we don’t have proper plazas in the Italian or French style,” the writer Magnus Sveinn Helgason explained to me. “Beer was banned in Iceland until 1989, so we don’t have the pub tradition of England or Ireland. ” The pool is Iceland’s social space: where families meet neighbors, where newcomers first receive welcome, where rivals can’t avoid one another. It can be hard for reserved Icelanders, who “don’t typically talk to their neighbors in the store or in the street,” to forge connections, Mayor Dagur told me. (Icelanders generally use patronymic and matronymic last names and refer to everyone, even the mayor, by first name.) “In the hot tub, you must interact,” Mayor Dagur continued. “There’s nothing else to do. ” Not only must you interact you must do so in a state of quite literal exposure. Most Icelanders have a story about taking visitors, often American, to the pools and then seeing them balk in horror at the strict requirement to strip naked, shower and scrub their bodies with soap from head to toe. Men’s and women’s locker rooms feature posters highlighting all the regions you must lather assiduously: head, armpits, undercarriage, feet. Icelanders are very serious about these rules, which are necessary because the pools are only lightly chlorinated tourists and shy teenagers are often scolded by pool wardens for insufficient showering. The practice was even the subject of a popular sketch on the comedy show “Fostbraedur,” in which a zealous warden scrubs down a reluctant pool visitor himself. That one of the naked bystanders in that viral video, Jon Gnarr, was later elected mayor of Reykjavik demonstrates that Icelanders are quite conscious about nudity in the service of pool cleanliness. This was made most clear to me, perhaps, in a dressing room in the town Isafjordur, where a chatty store manager named Snorri Grimsson told me a long story about the time a beautiful Australian girl asked him to go to the pool but then revealed that she doesn’t shower before swimming. He mugged a look of comic horror, then brought home the kicker: “It was a very difficult decision. Thankfully, the pool was closed!” I could tell this bit killed with his fellow Icelanders, but my own appreciation of it was somewhat impeded by Snorri’s delivery of it in the nude, his left foot on the sink, stretching like a ballet dancer at the barre. “It’s wonderful,” an actress named Salome Gunnarsdottir told me in the pool one evening. “Growing up here, we see all kinds of real women’s bodies. olds, aged, pregnant women. Not just people in magazines or on TV. ” Her friends, all in their 20s and pregaming for a Saturday night out in the bars, nodded enthusiastically. “Especially pregnant women,” Helga Gunnhildursdottir agreed. “You can see: Oh yes, she really got quite big. ” “It’s so important,” Salome said earnestly. “You get used to breasts and vaginas!” As a journalist, I will never forget the uniquely Icelandic experience of shaking hands with handsome Mayor Dagur and then, just minutes later, interviewing him as we each bared all. (In the tradition of politician interviews everywhere, an aide lurked nearby, in a manner I would call unobtrusive but for the fact that he was also naked.) I admit I found this disconcerting at first, but eventually there was something comforting about seeing all those other chests and butts and guts — which for the most part belonged to normal being bodies, not sculpted masterpieces. And that comfort extends out into the pool proper, where you might be covered — only a little, in my case — but are still on display. But nudity, by encouraging a slight remove from others, also allows the visitor to focus, in a profound and unfamiliar way, on his own body, on its responses and needs. Despite its being a social hub, the pool also cultivates inwardness. Results of a questionnaire distributed by Valdimar’s research team suggested that women in particular go to the pool to seek solitude. According to women I talked to, most everyone respects the posture of aquatic reverie — head tilted back against the pool wall, eyes closed, mouth smiling a tiny smile of satisfaction — that you adopt when you come to the pool wanting to be left alone. Sigurlaug Dagsdottir, a graduate student researching the pools, speculated that the sundlaugs’ social utility in Icelandic communities derives in part from the intimacy of the physical experience: In the pool, she said, you can “take off the five layers of clothing that usually separate you from everyone else. ” As such, the pools are a great leveler: Council members in Reykjavik make a point to circulate among the city’s sundlaugs, where they often take natured grief from their constituents. The filmmaker Jon Karl Helgason, who is shooting a documentary about Iceland’s pools, said, “When people are in the swimming pool, it doesn’t matter if you are a doctor or a taxi driver. ” His girlfriend, Fridgerdur Gudmundsdottir, added, “Everyone is dressed the same. ” On the way from Reykjavik to Keflavik airport is the Blue Lagoon, a luxurious water spa that is one of Iceland’s most popular tourist destinations. There, for 40 euros, you can shower in private stalls and float in rich water — discharge from the nearby Svartsengi power plant, which uses turbines twice as tall as a man to generate 75 megawatts of electricity and 150 thermal megawatts of heat for the surrounding towns. My final day in Iceland, I turned off the highway just after the Blue Lagoon and instead drove into one of those towns, the port Rekjanesbaer. The lobby of the town’s pool is dotted, fittingly, by a series of like windows. The woman working at the desk charged me nine bucks and asked, “Is this your first time in an Iceland swimming pool?” “Nope,” I said with some pleasure. The familiar signs in the showers were supplemented by notices in Polish, targeting the new wave of immigrants who have found work in Rekjanesbaer. I snapped on my Speedo, steeled my courage and exited the warm lodge into the chill. The Celsius hot pot was full of enormous men with type physiques and also a small girl in a pink ruffled bathing suit. The largest of the Blutos rose from the water, picked up the girl and carried her, giggling, to the family pool. His biceps sported a tattoo of a roaring bear consumed by flames. This time I didn’t approach anyone, didn’t ask any questions. I didn’t speak at all. I concentrated on what I could feel: the water pressing lightly on my skin, the wind prickling my beard. All around me was the soft white noise of a community. The conversation the connection the freedom, within that flurry of sociability, to withdraw and simply be within yourself. It called to mind something a Ph. D. student named Katrin Gudmundsdottir told me on my first day in Iceland. She was describing a certain ineffable emotional state to me, a native Icelander’s sense of comfort while immersed in her neighborhood sundlaug. When I thought of what she said, a perfect G chord strummed inside me. “It’s not exactly like you’re happy,” she had mused. “It’s that you know how to be in the swimming pool. ” The sun was low on the horizon, bright but evanescent. The only other thing in the blue sky was the contrail of a jet, pointed to the west. I closed my eyes. I was in the pool.

US to Hold Off on Cyberwar With Russia Until After Election - Jason DitzUS to Hold Off on Cyberwar With Russia Until After Election Obama wants to do it together with Clinton Antiwar.com While the Obama Administration has made much of its intention to start a full-scale cyberwar against Russia at a “time of their choosing,” the most recent reports suggest that the war is effectively on hold at least until the presidential election in two weeks. From President Obama’s standpoint, the hope is to work with Hillary Clinton, if she becomes president-elect, to launch a cyber war that they both can get behind. Indeed, both have appeared very hawkish against Russia, and Obama apparently doesn’t want to deny Clinton a chance to participate in the early days of a war she’d inherit. Starting a cyberwar ahead of a Trump win would be even less wise, as Trump has opposed the idea of picking fights with Russia, and expressed strong doubts about Democratic Party “certainty” that Russia is behind hacks against them. Rep. Adam Schiff (D – CA), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, says that another factor is concern about provoking Russian retaliation for such a US attack before the vote, with many Democrats concerned Russia could release “forged” documents to embarrass the Clinton campaign. Earlier this month, Vice President Joe Biden reported that he has informed Russia of an imminent retaliatory hack, and says the Obama Administration will pick a time which will “have the greatest impact.” Russia has denied any involvement in the hacks.

M.T.A. Shortens L Train Shutdown to 15 Months - The New York TimesThe Metropolitan Transportation Authority had good news on Monday for subway riders worried about the shutdown of the L train: The closing will be shorter than expected. The authority’s board voted to approve a $477 million contract to close the L train tunnel between Brooklyn and Manhattan for 15 months to repair damage caused by Hurricane Sandy — instead of 18 months as originally planned. The work is set to begin in April 2019. After several board members raised concerns about a company that was awarded the contract, Judlau Contracting, officials assured the board that the company was the best choice for the project and would finish the work on time. “I expect this project to be completed in 15 months,” said Lawrence S. Schwartz, an authority board member. “I want to make sure that Judlau and everybody else who is going to be involved on this project understands that it will not be tolerated or accepted to be 15 months and one day. ” Brooklyn residents who rely on the L line have grown increasingly anxious over how they will commute during the closing. Officials at the authority have discussed several alternatives using nearby subway lines and buses, but they have not outlined a specific plan yet. About 250, 000 people take the line under the East River each day. The L train tunnel, officially known as the Canarsie Tube, was one of several subway tunnels inundated by floodwaters during the hurricane in 2012. Workers must demolish and replace thousands of feet of crumbling walls, tracks and cables. The agency awarded the contract to two companies, Judlau Contracting and TC Electric. Judlau Contracting had been criticized for delays on the Second Avenue subway and in rebuilding the Cortlandt Street subway station, which was damaged on Sept. 11. One authority board member, Charles G. Moerdler, said the company had done a “dreadful job” on the Second Avenue subway. “I am reluctant in the extreme to vote to give Judlau yet another chance,” Mr. Moerdler said at a board committee meeting last month. Stephen Plochochi, an official at the authority who oversees subway and bus procurements, said officials had looked at the company’s “full body of work,” including the rehabilitation of the Montague Tube, which was also damaged during the hurricane. If it takes longer than 15 months to fix the Canarsie Tube, the company will be fined $410, 000 per day, Mr. Plochochi said. Cesar Pereira, a vice president at Judlau Contracting, said in a statement that the company had a “long and successful history” of working with the authority. “With the help of its employees and subcontractors and the M. T. A. ’s very capable staff and designers, Judlau and TC will once again deliver a successful project to the M. T. A. and the riding public,” Mr. Pereira said. Transit advocates have urged the authority to provide robust bus service during the closing, including dedicated bus lanes on the Williamsburg Bridge, 14th Street in Manhattan and Grand Street in Brooklyn. A proposal for a “PeopleWay” on 14th Street would prioritize buses, bike lanes and wider sidewalks over cars. If people use Uber and other car services or private shuttles during the L train shutdown, street congestion will become even worse, said Paul Steely White, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group for pedestrians and cyclists that is campaigning for the PeopleWay. The authority should announce its plans for alternative service by this summer so that commuters can plan their lives, he said. “It’s going to completely gum up the streets unless some aggressive bus prioritization measures are instituted,” Mr. White said. “It will lead to catastrophic traffic congestion. ”

What Time Will the Presidency Be Decided? - The New York TimesIt has been a very, very long election season. But we will soon know the result. Hillary Clinton enters Election Day with a clear if not insurmountable advantage over Donald J. Trump. If the polls and conventional wisdom are correct, we might know the result fairly quickly. If not, it could be a long night. The final national polls give Mrs. Clinton a lead, and her path to the presidency is straightforward: win the states carried by John Kerry in 2004, in addition to New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Virginia. She has led in nearly every live interview survey of those states so far this year, though the large number of white voters in many of these states gives Mr. Trump a shot at an upset. Mrs. Clinton is also competitive in North Carolina, Florida, Ohio and Arizona. If she won all four, she would have a sizable victory in the Electoral College. The Upshot’s model gives Mr. Trump a 16 percent chance of winning the presidency. It would certainly be a big upset, but it would not even be the most stunning electoral surprise of the last few cycles when you consider races, from the standpoint of the data. Anything from a narrow victory for Mr. Trump to a decisive victory for Mrs. Clinton seems fairly easy to imagine. We’ll be tracking the results live after the polls close, using early returns to try to infer how the rest of the country might vote. There are two basic paths for how the evening might proceed. Here’s what we’ll know, and when. Mrs. Clinton will probably win the presidency if she can win Florida or North Carolina, states worth 29 and 15 votes in the Electoral College. (The magic number is 270.) A win in Florida would probably allow Mrs. Clinton to survive losses in both Michigan and Pennsylvania, where she’s favored but vulnerable enough to merit late campaign stops. A North Carolina win would let Mrs. Clinton survive the loss of one but probably not both. The polls show a tight race in Florida and North Carolina, as they have for most of the year. The two states are deeply polarized along racial lines, and the result will hinge as much on turnout as on anything else. The early vote has given Democrats a lot of hope in Florida, where Hispanic turnout has shattered previous baselines. North Carolina’s early voting has been more mixed for Democrats. We will know very quickly whether Mrs. Clinton is poised to deliver a knockout blow in either state. The polls close in most of Florida at 7 p. m. and early vote results — which could represent 65 percent of the final vote — will come in fast. In 2012, half of the vote was counted by 8 p. m. The early vote will be fairly representative of the eventual outcome: If Mrs. Clinton holds a comfortable lead, it will be hard for Mr. Trump to mount a comeback. North Carolina polls close at 7:30 p. m. and the vote is counted quickly there as well. It’s a little less clear whether the early North Carolina results will be representative of the outcome. In the 2014 midterm, the early vote dropped first, and the Democratic senator Kay Hagan had a big early lead that slowly eroded as the Election Day vote came in. The 2012 election was different in North Carolina: Democrats had a big advantage in the early vote, and yet President Obama didn’t take an early lead, suggesting that the early votes were not counted first, or that Election Day votes from the rural part of the state were counted fast enough to cancel it out. Either way, we’ll have a good sense by 9 p. m of whether Mrs. Clinton is poised for a clear win. If Mr. Trump can avoid a knockout blow in the Southeast, his chances will then come down to whether he can break through Mrs. Clinton’s firewall: states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and New Hampshire. If these states are close and end up deciding the election, it might take a while. Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota — three states that lean blue, but perhaps not so overwhelmingly as to allow an early call — can take a very long time to count their votes. In 2004, it was well after midnight Eastern before the networks projected that Mr. Kerry would win Minnesota and Michigan. The big Democratic cities in Wisconsin and Michigan usually take a long time to report. Obviously, a more comfortable victory for Mrs. Clinton could permit an earlier call. Michigan, for instance, was called when the polls closed in 2012. Mrs. Clinton’s chances in the “firewall” will depend on how much she improves among white voters compared with how much she loses among less educated white voters. The situation is different in these states than the brute turnout contests of the racially polarized Southeast, which raises the possibility that these states could go in a different direction: A weak black turnout, for instance, may doom Mrs. Clinton in North Carolina, but she might still win Michigan if she holds up a little better than expected among white Democrats. Similarly, it’s imaginable that Mr. Trump could stay in striking distance in these states with a surge among white Democrats, without being able to hold off a big Hispanic vote in Florida. Pennsylvania, where polls close at 8 p. m. Eastern, could be a somewhat faster call. The state counts its vote pretty quickly. And the most Democratic parts of the state tend to report first, in contrast with many states. If Mrs. Clinton wins Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump’s path to victory starts getting very narrow. If Mrs. Clinton wins the presidency, she might not take the lead in the national popular vote for hours. If she barely wins the popular vote, it could be weeks before she retakes the lead. The vote count in the West Coast and the big urban centers of the Northeast and Midwest usually proceeds far more slowly than the vote count in the rural East and South. In 2012, President Obama didn’t take the popular vote lead until long after he had won the Electoral College. It led Mr. Trump to tweet that Mr. Obama had won while losing the popular vote, and say that “we should have a revolution in this country. ” A little while after that tweet, Mr. Obama took the lead, for good. He would ultimately win by almost four percentage points. A similar pattern could unfold this year, especially with the huge Democratic margin expected in California. Here’s a simple rule of thumb: if Mrs. Clinton is even within four or five points in the popular vote between 9 p. m. and 11 p. m. she’s probably going to win it. If Mrs. Clinton has carried her firewall states, or either Florida or North Carolina, she could win the presidency around 11 p. m. in the East, when polls close on the West Coast.

U.N. Relief Official Calls Crisis in Aleppo the ‘Apex of Horror’ - The New York TimesThe top aid official at the United Nations gave a gloomy assessment of the Syria relief effort on Monday, saying no convoy deliveries had been made to besieged areas this month and that the suffering in Aleppo, once Syria’s commercial epicenter, was the “apex of horror. ” In a briefing to the Security Council, the official, Stephen O’Brien, the under secretary general for humanitarian affairs, said that while he welcomed Russia’s support last week for a in Aleppo — as he had proposed earlier in the month — there had been no assurances from other combatants. “This cannot be a offer,” Mr. O’Brien said. “Plans are in place, but we need the agreement of all parties to let us do our job. ” United Nations officials have said that the fighting in Aleppo — pitting Syrian government forces and their Russian backers against an array of insurgents, including Islamist militants — has left 275, 000 people in eastern Aleppo completely cut off from food, water and medicine, and has severely limited aid deliveries to 1. 5 million people in western Aleppo. Humanitarian access to hundreds of thousands of Syrians in other combat zones has been blocked by fighting, security concerns and the Syrian bureaucracy, Mr. O’Brien said, despite an international agreement reached in May to permit truck convoy deliveries. As a result, Mr. O’Brien said, no convoys were dispatched in August, despite some successful, if limited, deliveries in July. “We unfortunately appear to be, once again, in reverse gear,” Mr. O’Brien said. He described the crisis in Aleppo, portrayed in images of dead and wounded children like that of a boy pulled from the rubble last week, as “the apex of horror at its most horrific extent of the suffering of people. ” While he said efforts were still underway to secure the proposed in Aleppo, Mr. O’Brien expressed little hope of avoiding “a humanitarian catastrophe unparalleled in the over five years of bloodshed and carnage in the Syrian conflict. ”

After Berkeley, Treat the Violent, Anti-Speech Left Like the KKKThe violence that stopped Breitbart tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking at the University of California, Berkeley this week happened after some incredibly irresponsible statements by university administrators and local politicians. [Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin tweeted that Milo’s “hate speech” was not “welcome in our community. ” UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks said that the university not only opposed Milo’s views, but also his ostensibly harmful presence on campus. Yet most of the blame must lie squarely with the rioters, who include Black Bloc anarchists and “Antifa” ( ) activists, who exemplify the very fascism they supposedly want to resist. These groups openly and explicitly declare their intention to disrupt public gatherings where conservatives — or, really, anyone they do not like for whatever reason — are scheduled to appear. They not only celebrate violence, but they come armed, masked, and prepared to fight and vandalize. Were these groups merely showing up at events to protest — to express their views without silencing others — they would be perfectly entitled to do so. But lately, they have taken advantage of the timidity of the police — which they helped engineer, through their participation in the Black Lives Matter movement — to run amok, breaking up events and assaulting innocent people in full view of law enforcement officers and even the media. They are almost never pursued and never punished. Consider this, from the Berkeley campus newspaper, the Daily Californian: while there were three arrests made Wednesday — two in connection with violence earlier in the day — only one of them was made by campus police at the protest itself, despite the violence. As for the city police, “[a]ccording to Berkeley Police Department spokesperson Officer Byron White, the city of Berkeley did not make any arrests in connection with the protests Wednesday night,” the Daily Californian reported. The groups that showed up Wednesday seem to exist to prevent others from exercising their civil and constitutional rights of free speech and assembly. It is time to treat them the way that the Southern Poverty Law Center — before it busied itself with suppressing conservative opinion — took on the Ku Klux Klan. It filed a civil suit against the KKK under a theory of agency, wherein the organization was held collectively responsible for any and all of the crimes and civil rights violations its members committed in furtherance of its aims. In this case, that would mean holding radical groups collectively accountable for damage and civil rights violations by individuals at any particular protest — whether of Milo in Berkeley or Gavin McInnes in New York. An objection might be raised: these groups are . That is, they are just a bunch of kids with Twitter accounts. Unlike the KKK, which had a national headquarters that it was forced to hand over to a black woman because of a $7 million civil judgment over the murder of her son, there are no assets to seize, no institutions to shut down, no one financially liable. Well, maybe. In at least some cases, there is a paper trail connecting disruptive protests to large, organizations. In October 2016, Breitbart News reported that the George Democracy Alliance had funded groups with “materials, food, supplies, stipends and bail funds to sustain and escalate their disruption of business as usual. ” A document obtained by Breitbart News showed the Democracy Alliance taking credit for participating in the “uprising in Baltimore. ” It is well past time for the government, or conservative legal foundations, to pursue the donors behind groups that proudly and deliberately prevent others from exercising their civil rights. And it is time to shame them: the black masks of the Black Bloc and “Antifa” activists should be regarded like the white hoods of the Klan — as the uniforms of extremist hatred. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. His new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Statistical Propaganda: How many Syrians has US regime-change killed?October 31, 2016 - Fort Russ - Aleksandr Khrolenko, R IA Analytics - translated by J. Arnoldski - Hardly a day goes by without foreign media circulating the false accusations that the leadership of the Syrian Arab Republic is guilty of the deaths of hundreds of thousands and even millions of Syrians. Even authoritative international organizations are cited as the sources of the dissemination of such information. In July 2013, according to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, the death toll in Syria exceeded 100 thousand. In October 2014, the Jordanian prince and UN high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Raad al-Hussein, determined the number of people killed in Syria to be 200,000. By October 2015, according to UN figures, the number of killed in Syria was more than 240,000. In September 2016, the UN officially presented the figure of 300,000 Syrians killed and more than half of the Syrian population as refugees. According to the Dubai news channel “Al-Arabiya,” in October 2015, the number of killed had already surpassed 250,000. The New York Times produced similar figures. After the beginning of the Russian air force’s operation in Syria, the figures of casualties presented by Western sources did not change for the better. Of course, the countries participating in the conflict “correct” the data in favor of their interests and many media outlets operate with unverified information from the Supervisory Board on Human Rights of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights created by the opposition. How objective are these disseminated figures? The Russian Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences has conducted its own study using data from the Central Statistical Bureau of Syria. This was reported at a press conference entitled “Syria: The Thorny Path to Reconciliation” at the Russia Today media agency by the UN’s senior advisor and representative on Syria, Russian Academy of Science correspondent Vitaliy Naumkin. In 2011, the population of Syria amounted to 22.51 million people. According to the figures of the Syrian Central Statistical Bureau, the Syrian Arab Republic’s population has declined to 17.87 million. Given the average growth rate of the population excluding refugees, the total number for today was supposed to be 24.64 million people. As of October 20th, 2016, the number of Syrian citizens (including emigrants) is 24.54 million. Given correct calculations, the number of Syrians killed over five years of war has been determined, taking into consideration that around 7 million people have left Syria as refugees. According to the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the total number of Syrians killed is 105,000. The losses of the government army and militia amount to 45,000. 24,000 militants of terrorist organizations from among the local population have been killed, and 35,000 civilians have been killed. The largest number of civilians have been killed at the hands of jihadists and the so-called “moderate opposition.” Around 18,000 in Syria have been killed by foreign mercenaries of terrorist groups including citizens from 80 countries. Earlier, the ex-head of the Israeli secret services Nativ, Yaakov Kedmi, presented almost identical figures of Syrian losses (around 40,000 civilians). American assessments, as a rule, range from several hundred thousand to millions killed, which is beyond the boundaries of reality. But the point is not even in the statistics. The death of people in principle should not become an object of political speculation or an instrument of information war. American lies on the number of people killed in Syria is doubly disgusting because it is the US that developed and attempted to realize regime-change projects against unfavorable leaders in a number of Middle Eastern and African “rouge states” by means of terrorists from “moderate oppositions” and fomenting civil wars... The American coalition does not want to publicize the civilian losses resultant of their air strikes on ISIS in Iraq. And yet the coalition has repeatedly hurled accusations against others for losses among the civilian population. During the Iraq War (2003-2011), 460,000 Iraqis were killed. The assault on Mosul is also resulting in many victims among the civilian population. Palestinian political analyst Azzam Abu Saud remarked in the Norwegian newspaper Dagsavisen: “The US has made a mass of mistakes in Syria. The war in Syria never would have been so bloody if the US had not supplied weapons to rebels. The US, in addition, created the Islamic State, which has now spun out of their control.” Another Norwegian publication, ABC Nyheter , adds: “The US claims that only 55 civilians and 45,000 militants from ISIS and other militant Islamists have been killed as a result of more than 11,000 coalition airstrikes on ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria since 2014…Even when the American leadership is presented with the lists of civilians killed in Syria and Iraq and their photographs, they refuse to acknowledge their deaths.” The Russian approach to resolving the Syrian and other Middle Eastern conflicts remains the same: there is no military solution. Success is possible only through dialogue and national reconciliation. Follow us on Facebook! Follow us on Twitter! Donate!

Why Self-Help Guru James Altucher Only Owns 15 Things - The New York TimesIt was around 10 a. m. on a summer morning, and James Altucher, perhaps the world’s least likely success guru, was packing his worldly possessions, about 15 items, into a small canvas bag. “If I were to die, my kids get this bag,” Mr. Altucher said sardonically as he packed away his laptop, iPad, three sets of chinos, three and a Ziploc bag filled with $4, 000 worth of $2 bills (“People always remember you if you tip with $2 bills,” he said) and departed a friend’s loft on East 20th Street. A few months ago, the boyish let the lease expire on his Cold Spring, N. Y. apartment, and dumped or donated virtually everything he owned, more than 40 garbage bags of sheets, dishes, clothes, books, his college diploma, even childhood photo albums. Since then, he’s been bouncing among friends’ apartments and Airbnb rentals. It is not that he is down on his luck. Several of the 16 books he has written, including his 2013 manifesto, “Choose Yourself,” continue to sell briskly. His weekly podcasts, “The James Altucher Show,” featuring interviews with notables as diverse as Ron Paul and Luther Campbell of 2 Live Crew, and “Question of the Day,” with Stephen Dubner, are downloaded about two million times a month. Mr. Altucher is simply practicing what he preaches. Over the last this former tech entrepreneur, venture capitalist and financial pundit has reinvented himself as a guru, preaching survival in an era when the American Dream — the college diploma, the corner office, the home — seems like a sham. So one by one, he has shed all of them. “I have ambition,” he said, “to have no ambition. ” “In the past 25 years, income has gone down for the student loan debt is at an high,” Mr. Altucher said over a lunch of zucchini pancakes at a Russian restaurant in the Flatiron district. “We had $3 trillion in bailout money, and income inequality got higher than ever. People feel like they were scammed. ” Mr. Altucher’s diagnosis will come as no surprise to the anxious middle class, the downsized and the dispossessed who have propelled the angry populism of Bernie Sanders and Donald J. Trump. But while there is no shortage of anger and confusion about the supposed waning of the American Dream, what makes Mr. Altucher stand out are his conclusions. College, he says, is a waste of money. Although he graduated from Cornell, Mr. Altucher argues that the college degree has become a costly luxury in a world where millennials feel like debt serfs and professional jobs are scarce. In a 2012 book, “40 Alternatives to College,” he argued that young adults could travel the world, educate themselves online and start a business with the same $200, 000 they may spend on college. Investing the money with even a 5 percent return would offer greater financial benefit over the course of a lifetime, he wrote in a blog post. Similarly, he believes homeownership is a foisted upon unwitting citizens by a $14 trillion mortgage industry. “It’s a total scam,” he said in an online interview. “Nobody should put more than 5 to 10 percent of their portfolio, their assets, in any one investment. But when people buy a home, they go crazy. They put like 50, 60, 70 percent of their net worth into this one investment. It’s illiquid, so when times are hard, you can’t sell it. ” And he think stocks are a racket. It’s a fierce worldview that is rooted in Mr. Altucher’s own life. In the 1990s, as a young Silicon Alley whiz, Mr. Altucher made millions with a company, Reset Inc. that counted Sony and Miramax as clients. Soon, he and his wife at the time, Anne (they divorced in 2010) were living in a loft in TriBeCa that he bought for $1. 8 million and spent another $1 million renovating. He felt flush enough to take a helicopter to Atlantic City on weekends to play poker. The lavish lifestyle did not fill his emotional void. “Nobody should feel sorry for me,” he said. “I was really stupid, but I thought I was dirt poor. I felt like I needed $100 million to be happy. So I just started investing in all these other companies, and they were just stupid companies. Zero of these investments worked out. ” As his fortunes collapsed, he was forced to sell his apartment for a $1 million loss (it was after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001). To reclaim his wealth, he set his sights on the stock market. He read more than a hundred books on investing, and eventually wrangled a job writing for James Cramer’s site, TheStreet, and later The Financial Times. Before long, his trademark hairdo, which looks like carnival cotton candy spun from steel wool, was a familiar sight on CNBC. But his fortunes crumbled once again during the financial crisis that began in 2008. The hedge fund he started ran out of gas, various withered, writing gigs dried up. With few options open, he decided to chronicle his failures on a personal blog, which he named Altucher Confidential. “I just said, ‘I’ve made every mistake in the book: Here’s what they are,’” Mr. Altucher said. To Wall Street friends, he seemed like Howard Beale, the anchorman in “Network” who had a meltdown . Instead of touting the latest hot mutual fund, he wrote posts like “10 Reasons You Should Never Own Stocks Again. ” (Reason No. 1: You’re not that good at it.) He confessed thoughts of suicide. “Financial people were like watching a train wreck in real time,” Mr. Altucher said. “I had friends I hadn’t talked to since high school call me and say, ‘Hey, are you O. K.?’” He soon discovered a sizable audience of people whose own dreams had just gone down the sinkhole. They, too, were looking to claw their way out. “The No. 1 search phrase on Google that takes people to my blog is ‘I want to die,’” Mr. Altucher said. But Mr. Altucher seems like an unlikely person to look to for solace. Bookish, contrarian and given to speaking in staccato bursts, this skinny computer geek from North Brunswick, N. J. is like the Robbins, the strapping star. His appearance turned out to be a plus, as he developed a following blogging about his “life hacker” experiments. There was “the 5 p. m. diet,” in which he eats nothing after that time (“Your face gets more angular. I’ve seen it happen. Not just with me. With everyone on this diet”). There was “the alien trick” to beat anxiety, in which he pretends to be an alien and wake up every day on another planet with a new body (“I have no worries because tomorrow I will be in a new body. No envies. No worries. Only new things to explore”). There was his zombie email gimmick, when he would respond to unread emails from seven years ago: “Sure! I’ll have coffee today” (“People laugh and all is forgiven,” he said). By writing candidly about his own triumphs and flameouts, Mr. Altucher “shows readers how they can succeed despite their flaws, not because of a lack of flaws,” said Tim Ferriss, author of the “ ” series. “This is hugely refreshing in a world of gurus who are all forced smiles and . ” It helped that Mr. Altucher, despite his biting views on topics like college, maintained a positive tone. “I am an optimist,” he said. “There’s a great novel from the ‘60s by Richard Fariña called ‘Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me.’ Basically, I’ve been down on the floor so many times, I know now that I can always bounce back, and it gets faster each time. ” His philosophy is perhaps most clearly articulated in “Choose Yourself,” which he summarized over lunch like this: “If you don’t choose the life you want to live, chances are, someone else is going to choose it for you. And the results are probably not going to be pretty. ” Chapters include “How to Be Less Stupid” (“I lose at least 20 percent of my intelligence when I am resentful”) and “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Mediocre People” (procrastination, he writes, “is your body telling you that you need to back off a bit and think more about what you are doing”). A key tenet of the book is the Daily Practice, a wellness regimen that comprises the physical (eat well, try to go to sleep by 9 p. m. and rise by 5 a. m. break a sweat for at least 10 minutes a day) emotional (be around people you love, who love you) mental (write a list of 10 ideas each day to exercise the “idea muscle” before it atrophies) and spiritual (feel gratitude every day). He calls them the four pillars of happiness. “A chair needs four legs to be stable,” he said. And there has never been a better time to choose yourself, he said. You do not have to be Mark Zuckerberg, he said, to be an entrepreneur. “You can learn basic web development,” he said. “You can go to Codecademy. com, learn the basic skills in three months, then sell them on Freelancer. com, where there are millions of jobs. I know who are making a few thousand dollars a month. ” Thanks to you don’t have to be Deepak Chopra to write books. “Everybody is or can be an expert on something,” he said. “Take me: I haven’t been in the kitchen in 20 years. I hate eating vegan. But how hard would it be to read every book on veganism, buy some ingredients, write up a little book: ‘The ’s Vegan Cookbook’?” He would know. “Choose Yourself,” which Mr. Altucher on Amazon, sold more than a copies, he said, and made The Wall Street Journal’s list. His fans swear by him. One reader, Beck Power, recently wrote an essay on Medium about how he inspired her to ditch a frustrating job to start her own online travel business. “I dance in my underwear,” she wrote. “I don’t have panic attacks anymore. ” A talk he gave at a London church last year drew about 1, 000 people, and fans have organized “Choose Yourself” meetups in cities around the world. On LinkedIn, where he publishes original free essays, Mr. Altucher has more than 485, 000 followers and is ranked the No. 4 “influencer,” after Bill Gates, Richard Branson and Mohamed A. the financier and author. “He’s the Oprah of the internet,” said Kamal Ravikant, a tech entrepreneur who wrote the Amazon best seller “Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It. ” Unlike most gurus, “James is on a very personal journey, allowing his readers and listeners to experience it in real time,” said Brian Koppelman, a creator of Showtime’s “Billions,” who also moderates “The Moment,” a podcast on Slate. “He’s telling you the story on Saturday, on Sunday he’s talking about how it failed, and on Monday he’s talking about doing it a different way. ” Mr. Altucher, in fact, disputes that he is a guru in the first place. “I am not a guy at all,” he said. “Advice is autobiography,” he added. “I only say what has worked for me, and then others can choose to try it or not. ” Besides, what worked yesterday may not work tomorrow. “It’s like Mike Tyson says,” Mr. Altucher said. “‘Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. ’”

Trump’s Religious Liberty Order Gives Sessions Major Leeway - BreitbartPresident Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday reiterating the administration’s commitment to religious liberty and authorizing Attorney General Jeff Sessions to issue guidance for all federal agencies. [The expected order did not go as far as some news outlets had earlier reported it might. The Nation reported a leaked February draft that would have “create[d] wholesale exemptions for people and organizations who claim religious objections to marriage, premarital sex, abortion, and trans identity. ” The text of the actual order hands authority to issue guidance on federal religious liberty law for all federal agencies to Attorney General Jeff Sessions. The protection of religious freedom has been seen as a priority for the new leadership at the Department of Justice. Due to the broad interpretive power of federal agencies, this guidance authorization could yield major changes in federal policy as it relates to the exercise of religious beliefs. For example, the Justice Department, through existing authority, has already been able to halt the implementation of the previous administration’s transgender policy for schools. The order also specifies that the Department of the Treasury and other federal agencies should not pursue adverse action, most prominently revocation of status, based on the speech of religious individuals and organizations in relation to moral and political issues not “ordinarily … treated as participation … in a political campaign. ” This language may give religious leaders more leeway in speech on articles of faith, like biblical positions on homosexuality, marriage, and transsexualism, that have entered the public discourse as political issues, without fear of losing their tax status. The order also directs the Secretaries of the Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services to revisit regulations issued by their agencies relating to “ ” mandates under Obamacare. The specific section referenced in the order has been used by these agencies to require religious employers to provide contraceptives and other types of services in contravention of their beliefs.

¡Demoledor amparo contra Salgado, Keiko y 72 congresistas más!Páginas Libres ¡Demoledor amparo contra Salgado, Keiko y 72 congresistas más! Socios | 5 de noviembre de 2016 Caso 3 directores BCRP: Exp. N° Juzgado Constitucional de Turno de Lima Escrito N° 01 Amparo por sensible violación de los derechos constitucionales: 1.- a contar con funcionarios públicos elegidos legítimamente; 2.- al voto congresal válido, con apego a la Constitución Política, ley respectiva y al Reglamento del Congreso; y 3.- a la transparencia de los actos de los diversos órganos del Estado que garantice el acceso a la información pública. SEÑOR JUEZ CONSTITUCIONAL DE TURNO: GUILLERMO OLIVERA DÍAZ, DNI 08365472; con domicilio real y ad líttem en Avenida San Borja Sur 520-201, SAN BORJA, en la demanda que promuevo, por propia iniciativa y convicción, en defensa de la constitucionalidad y legalidad de los actos del Estado, así como la acrisolada moral y ética política que el país reclama, a su Despacho digo: Que, siendo todo acto del Estado, y de personas particulares, pasibles de control constitucional, cuando se violan o amenazan derechos fundamentales, interpongo demanda de amparo contra: a.- la Presidenta del Congreso, Luz Salgado Rubianes; b.- la ciudadana Keiko Sofía Fujimori Higuchi; c.- y todos los congresistas, cuya relación adjunto en hoja oficial aparte, que, en la sesión del Pleno del Congreso, del 27-10-2016, votaron por la elección inconstitucional, ilegal, antirreglamentaria, con fraude procesal, de 1.- José Chlimper Ackerman; 2.- Rafael Rey Rey; y 3.- Elmer Rafael Cuba Bustinza, como miembros del Directorio del Banco Central de Reserva, según aparece en la Resolución Legislativa del Congreso N° 008-2016-2017-CR, del 27-10-2016, publicada en El Peruano al día siguiente, cuya nulidad debe ser declarada, porque se dictó en violación de los Artículos 86°, 94° y 102°, inciso 2, de la Constitución Política; del Artículo 11° de la Ley Orgánica del Banco Central de Reserva del Perú; y del Artículo 64°, 1ª. parte e inciso c del Reglamento del Congreso. Extraña proponente, con fraude procesal.- A prima facie, la aludida elección fue hecha ante pedido, con claro dolo de fraude procesal, misterioso, nada transparente, sospechoso y asaz temerario, planteado por la ciudadana Keiko Sofía Fujimori Higuchi, quien es una persona particular, lideresa máxima del partido político Fuerza Popular y no ejerce función alguna en el Congreso. Que ella propuso a Chlimper y Cuba lo confesó el congresista fujimorista Miguel Ángel Torres Morales, al declarar sin ambages al periódico Perú 21, el 2 de noviembre del año en curso. ¡Keiko pidió ayer y tuvo efecto al día siguiente, por una suerte de arte congresal de birlibirloque, manumitido, porque así opera con eficacia y velocidad el fraude procesal (Art. 416, Código Penal) que ella sigilosamente puso en marcha! No dijo Torres Morales si tal proposición de Keiko Fujimori fue oralmente, por escrito, por fax o tuit, ni ante qué autoridad u órgano del Congreso lo hizo, aunque se sabe que fue puesta en conocimiento de la Junta de Portavoces del Congreso, que preside Luz Salgado, recién ese mismo día, 2-11-2016, a las 4 de la tarde, y la meteórica y espasmódica elección fue al día siguiente, 3-11-2016, en horas de la mañana, en menos de 24 horas, sin debate alguno en el Pleno, sin que los congresistas votantes tengan entre manos el Currículum Vitae, o siquiera algunos documentos, que permitieran apreciar o escudriñar sobre si los candidatos propuestos tenían o no los requisitos que la Ley Orgánica del Banco Central de Reserva exige, como son “reconocida solvencia moral” y una “amplia competencia y experiencia en economía y finanzas”, y que “no representen a entidad o interés particular alguno”. Obviamente, estos requisitos deben acreditarse con documentos, no deducirse, y no inferirse del aire, por tratarse de hechos macizos, sostenidos en el tiempo, tampoco supeditarse el voto a consignas partidarias, amén de la subida trascendencia del elegido. PETITORIO Que, en estricta aplicación del Artículo 40° del Código Procesal Constitucional que permite interponer demanda de amparo, a “cualquier persona”, por violaciones a los “derechos difusos que gocen de reconocimiento constitucional” (como al aire, al agua, al medio ambiente, al patrimonio cultural e histórico, al legítimo ejercicio de la función pública, a la institucionalidad con cabal asidero constitucional, legal y reglamentario, si acaso alguien los ha logrado contaminar o averiar), interpongo esta demanda de amparo por la afectación o lesión, que agravia al Estado o a la sociedad en general, de los siguientes derechos constitucionales: 1.- a contar con funcionarios públicos elegidos legítimamente; 2.- al voto congresal válido, con apego a Constitución Política, Ley Orgánica del Banco Central de Reserva y al Reglamento del Congreso; y 3.- a la transparencia de los actos del Estado que garantice el acceso a la información pública. En consecuencia, solicito que, reponiéndose las cosas al estado anterior a la violación de los derechos denunciada, se declare la NULIDAD (dejar sin efecto) de la Resolución Legislativa N° 008-2016-2017-CR, de 27-10-2016, publicada en El Peruano, el 28-10-2016 y del Procedimiento Especial Parlamentario que le sirve de antecedente, de la misma fecha, donde se ¡omitió adrede el debate! y se adoptó ¡acuerdos, vía votación ilegítima, sin previo debate!, que el Reglamento del Congreso exige (Artículo 64°), pasos procedimentales que son de obligatorio cumplimiento, por estar previstos en normas especiales, atinentes precisamente a la elección de los miembros del Directorio del Banco Central de Reserva que le compete al Congreso, tal como lo prevé el Artículo 86° de nuestra Carta Política. FUNDAMENTOS DE HECHO y JURÍDICOS 1.- Derecho a contar con funcionarios públicos elegidos legítimamente El Artículo 86° de la Constitución Política se ocupa expresamente de la elección, por el Congreso, de tres (3) miembros del Directorio del Banco Central de Reserva. Por lo tanto, los ciudadanos tenemos el derecho que esta selección o elección sea minuciosa, ponderada, responsable y legítima, contando con los elementos de juicio del caso. No se elige a ciegas, por consignas inalámbricas, sin verle la cara al elegido, sin escucharlo y sin examinar quién es, como en realidad se hizo. ¡Se violó, pues, con suma torpeza esta norma constitucional! Como quiera que la propia Constitución Política no consigna otros ingredientes de tal elección, ella misma se remite a que sea el Reglamento del Congreso el que la desarrolle. De eso se ocupa el Artículo 94° de la misma Carta Política, cuando establece: “El Congreso elabora y aprueba su Reglamento, que tiene fuerza de ley”. Con este Reglamento el Congreso opera, actúa o funciona y no a discreción de la presidenta, o pero aún de una persona particular como Keiko Fujimori. Con tal sentido y propósito el aludido y vigente Reglamento del Congreso trata expresamente de la elección de esos tres directores, en un llamado “procedimiento parlamentario especial”, el mismo que ha sido burlado, transgredido o violado, pese a su asidero constitucional y su indiscutido rango legal. Veamos lo que establece su Artículo 64°, inciso c, del “procedimiento especial”, como uno de los 3 “procedimientos parlamentarios”: “Los procedimientos parlamentarios son el conjunto de actos sucesivos e integrados que se realizan para promover el debate y los acuerdos del Congreso destinados a producir leyes y resoluciones legislativas, actos de control político y designaciones y nombramientos. Pueden ser: a.- Procedimiento Legislativo; que comprende el debate y aprobación de leyes ordinarias, leyes orgánicas, leyes autoritativas para ejercer la legislación delegada, leyes presupuestales y financieras, leyes de demarcación territorial, leyes de reforma de la Constitución Política, del Reglamento del Congreso y de resoluciones legislativas. b.- Procedimientos del Control Político; que comprende la investidura del Consejo de Ministros, la interpelación a los Ministros, la invitación a los Ministros para que informen, las preguntas a los Ministros, la solicitud de información a los Ministros y a la administración en general, la censura y la extensión de confianza a los Ministros, la investigación sobre cualquier asunto de interés público, la dación de cuenta y el antejuicio político. c.- Procedimientos Especiales; que comprende la designación del Contralor, la elección del Defensor del Pueblo, de los miembros del Tribunal Constitucional y de 3 miembros del Directorio del Banco Central de Reserva, así como la ratificación del Presidente de dicho Banco y del Superintendente de Banca y Seguros”. (Artículo modificado aprobado por el Pleno del Congreso de fecha 6 de marzo de 1998). En consecuencia, el “procedimiento especial”, donde resultaron elegidos los 03 directores en cuestión, vulneró o violó lo que dispone la parte general e introductoria de este Artículo 64° del Reglamento del Congreso, aplicable a aquél, respecto de todo “procedimiento parlamentario”, que es definido como el “conjunto de actos sucesivos e integrados que se realizan para promover el debate y los acuerdos del Congreso destinados a producir...resoluciones legislativas, actos de control político y designaciones y nombramientos”. Lo real y apodíctico fue que en aquella sesión donde se produjo la elección ¡no hubo debate alguno!, por lo que no se examinó nada que permita colegir que se eligieron o escogieron a quienes tenían una “reconocida solvencia moral” o quizá “amplia competencia y experiencia en economía y finanzas”. ¡Todo fue un remedo! Como se podrá fácilmente advertir la elección del jueves 27-10-2016 ¡no se hizo en un procedimiento especial reglamentario!, sino en uno trucado, ¡sin promover el debate!, y, además, ¡sin adoptar los acuerdos como producto de dicho debate! Por lo tanto, no solo se transgredió el Artículo 86° de la Constitución Política, sino también la primera parte y además el inciso c del Artículo 64 del Reglamento del Congreso, de expreso fundamento constitucional, con lo cual la ciudadanía peruana toda, de la que formo parte, resultó agraviada en su derecho a contar con funcionarios del Banco Central de Reserva constitucional, legal y reglamentariamente elegidos. ¡Por ende, los 3 ciudadanos que de este modo vedado resultaron electos: José Chlimper Ackerman, Rafael Rey Rey y Elmer Rafael Cuba Bustinza, frente a una proposición de Keiko Fujimori con fraude procesal, son ilegítimos! 2.- Derecho al voto congresal válido, con apego a Constitución Política, Ley Orgánica del Banco Central de Reserva y Reglamento del Congreso Como se sabe la elección de los 3 miembros del Directorio del Banco Central de Reserva fue por 84 votos, la de Elmer Cuba; por 72, la de José Chlimper; y por 71, la de Rafael Rey. Ningún guarismo de esa votación puede considerarse válido, legítimo, porque ninguno de los votantes tenía la información documental que oficialmente se debería haber presentado, distribuido a cada uno de los parlamentarios y examinada como fundamento de su voto. La propia misteriosa proposición de dos candidaturas por Keiko Fujimori sabemos que no apareja ningún documento de los candidatos, pese a que la Ley Orgánica del Banco Central de Reserva, en su Artículo 11°, exige como requisitos, de los que aspiren a ser miembros del Directorio del Banco, tener “reconocida solvencia moral” y una “amplia competencia y experiencia en economía y finanzas”. Se trata de elementos reales, de hechos que deben probarse con documentos indubitables que el votante tiene que tener ante sí, para analizar, contrastar, evaluar y decidir su voto con apego a derecho, sin falsear su decisión a través del voto no informado o por intereses vitandos que agreden al país. Reza el violado y desacatado, al votar inválidamente, Artículo 11° de la citada Ley Orgánica: “ Los Directores deben ser peruanos, tener reconocida solvencia moral y poseer amplia competencia y experiencia en economía y finanzas. No representan a entidad o interés particular alguno y su voto debe tener en cuenta únicamente el cumplimiento de la finalidad y las funciones del Banco”. Si todos los congresistas votantes nunca vieron, dentro del llevado a cabo “procedimiento especial parlamentario”, al que hemos antes glosado, ningún documento de los 3 propuestos, 2 por Keiko y otro dizque por el APRA, ni hubo debate alguno –el cual se obvió adrede- respecto de sus calidades personales y profesionales, el voto que emitieron fue ciego, inducido por el mentado fraude, sin deliberación mental alguna, al carecer de elementos de juicio objetivos reales sobre esa “reconocida solvencia moral”, la necesaria “amplia competencia” y además la “amplia experiencia” que deben favorecer a cada uno de los propuestos para un voto aprobatorio, válidamente emitido. ¡Si los hechos-requisitos y su prueba concomitante no están ante sí del congresista votante, su voto resulta viciado, por ende ilegítimo y nulo! 3.- Derecho a la transparencia de los actos del Estado que garantice el acceso a la información pública. Todo indica que nada en este procedimiento parlamentario de elección de estos 3 directores del BCRP fue transparente; todo fue turbio, de principio a fin, con un clarísimo fraude procesal iniciado por la demandada Keiko Fujimori. Tanto la repentina proposición fraudulenta hecha por Keiko Fujimori, el día 26-10-2016, un día antes de la elección, sin que se sepa hasta hoy cómo fue, ante una Junta de Portavoces que no recibió ni vio los Currículum Vitae de los propuestos; así como la aluvional votación llevada a cabo el día siguiente, el jueves 27-10-2016, sin examinar ningún documento acerca de los requisitos que la ley exige a los candidatos y sin el debate que el Artículo 64° del Reglamento del Congreso requiere para esta elección específica, en un procedimiento parlamentario especial, en relación a las calidades personales y profesionales, de los 3 futuros miembros del Directorio del Banco Central de Reserva, no reviste la obligatoria transparencia que deben adornar a los actos del Estado, como éste del Congreso, que prevé y regula la Ley 27806, o Ley de Transparencia, a fin de garantizar el derecho fundamental del acceso a la información que consagra el numeral 5 del Artículo 2 de la Constitución Política. Cuando los actos estatales realizados en todo el procedimiento especializado parlamentario en cuestión no son transparentes, como en efecto no lo han sido, el derecho fundamental a la información pública resulta vulnerado, lo cual debe ser reparado. ¿Fue la bravura de una bravísima KEIKO, su audacia o un interés nefando que la llevó a proponer con fraude a miembros del BCRP? ¡Por lo menos, se sabe que fue Keiko Fujimori quien propuso, ¿oralmente o por escrito?, a su secretario general de su partido político, José Chlimper y a su ocasional asesor Elmer Cuba, como directores del BCRP, ambos activistas de su campaña electoral presidencial última, y ninguno de los 72 congresistas suyos chistó, rechistó, ni hizo amago de mueca alguna, todos doblegaron la cerviz y designaron, de un día a otro, mediante su voto, a los propuestos, sin trámite ni debate alguno, ciegamente, sin examen de requisitos legales y sin tener a la vista a semejantes candidatos, ni siquiera oírlos porque tenían una premura inusitada! ¿Tiene una persona particular, como Keiko Fujimori, lideresa de una agrupación partidaria, el derecho de proponer, con efectos legales e inmediatos, en un procedimiento especial parlamentario, sin ser congresista, a directores del citado Banco, nada menos que al Secretario General de su partido Fuerza Popular y a otro activista de su reciente campaña electoral presidencial? ¿Serán los propuestos, de contundente actuación político partidaria, las personas independientes que contribuyan a la autonomía que requiere el BCRP sin poner en riesgo la confidencialidad de una sana política bancaria y monetaria en particular? ¡Lo confiesa alegremente que ella fue la que propuso a estos 2 candidatos, su atento y comedido lugarteniente congresista Miguel Torres Morales, hijo de un antiguo fujimorista, ultramontano, Carlos Torres y Torres Lara, ya fallecido; pero que dejó a su heredero universal en el Congreso y precisamente al lado o detrás de Keiko. ¡Su padre estuvo detrás de don Alberto, hoy preso! Si esta proposición fraudulenta, silenciosa y nada transparente fue suficiente para que 72 votaran por ella, significa que Keiko Fujimori ¡maneja a su antojo a los 72 congresistas de su partido Fuerza Popular, ora directamente o por interpósita persona, como lo hacía antes Vladimiro Montesinos Torres (hoy también preso), en los años 90! Además, la proposición y decisión adoptada viola el texto expreso del Artículo 11° de la Ley Orgánica del Banco Central de Reserva del Perú. INCONSTITUCIONAL, ILEGALIDAD, DELITO y PRODUCTO ILEGÍTIMO La conducta es la pluralidad de actos realizados que exteriorizan una voluntad; y el producto es el resultado conseguido con esa conducta. Los congresistas, mayormente fujimoristas, que designaron a José Chlimper, Rafael Rey y Elmer Cuba, para integrar el directorio del Banco Central de Reserva del Perú (BCRP), violaron la Constitución Política, las leyes Orgánica de dicho Banco, de Transparencia y el Reglamento del Congreso de la República, en la forma antes anotada. Cuando tales parlamentarios producen actos administrativos, como es designar miembros del directorio del BCRP, o integrantes de otros organismos, están obligados a respetar las normas constitucionales y las legales de todo tipo y no zurrarse en ellas sin incurrir en responsabilidad. Su designio es respetar las normas preexistentes. La Ley Orgánica del Banco Central de Reserva del Perú, en su artículo 11°, obliga que se designe como miembros del directorio del Banco a quienes tienen "reconocida solvencia moral" y además "amplia competencia y experiencia en economía y finanzas", requisitos que son hechos macizos, que deben ser reales y acreditados con los documentos respectivos. El congresista que vota por alguien propuesto no puede crear estos hechos en su cabeza, deducirlos de meros dichos o inferirlos por consigna partidaria. Viola la ley si desoye este mandato legal; comete, pues, una ilegalidad, una arbitrariedad. Del mismo modo, todo parlamentario debe "velar por el respeto de la Constitución y de las leyes", porque así lo establece el Artículo 102°, inciso 2, de la Constitución Política. Hasta podríamos aseverar que deben dar el ejemplo en acatar la Constitución y lo que dispone toda norma legal. Este precepto constitucional fue desacatado por todos aquellos congresistas que designaron con su voto a Chlimper, Rey y Cuba, como miembros del BCRP, sin que estén acreditadas las situaciones de hecho que la citada Ley Orgánica ha previsto. Violaron, por ende, esa norma constitucional que les obliga a respetar las leyes en general y la del BCRP en particular. ¡Produjeron una infracción constitucional! Esta acción judicial (proceso de amparo) debe anular el ilegal acto administrativo que surgió sobre la base de dicha ilegalidad e inconstitucionalidad y el quehacer delictivo fraudulento antes reseñado y hacer efectiva la responsabilidad de los infractores si no está cubierta por la inviolabilidad de votos y opiniones. El delito de fraude procesal que se ha cometido está previsto en el Artículo 416° del Código Penal, que sanciona el uso de cualquier medio fraudulento para obtener resolución contraria a la ley. En efecto, se violó el Artículo 11° de la Ley Orgánica del Banco Central de Reserva, sin que se conozcan si los propuestos por Keiko reunían los requisitos exigidos. MEDIOS PROBATORIOS Ofrezco como medio de prueba puntual, lo siguiente: a.- Copia de la Resolución Legislativa N° 008-2016-2017-CR; b.- Copia de la nota periodística de Perú 21, del 2 de noviembre del 2016. c.- 3 copias de la relación de congresistas demandados que votaron aquel 27-10-2016. ANEXOS a.- Copia del DNI del demandante, Anexo 1; b.- Copia de la Resolución Legislativa, Anexo 2; c.- Copia del periódico Perú 21 del 2-11-2016, Anexo 3; d.- 3 copias de la relación de los congresistas demandados y que votaron aquel 27-10-2016. POR TANTO: Solicito, a vuestro juzgado constitucional, admitir la presente Demanda de Amparo contra Luz Salgado Rubianes, Presidenta del Congreso, Keiko Sofía Fujimori Higuchi y otros más, tramitarla conforme a ley y declararla FUNDADA, en su oportunidad. OTROSÍ DIGO.- Pido al juzgado que se sirva requerir oficialmente la relación de los congresistas que votaron por la elección de los señores José Chlimper Ackerman, Rafael Rey Rey y Elmer Rafael Cuba Bustinza, a quienes también los estoy demandando y el juzgado los considerará como tales, al haber cumplido sumisamente con el sentido de la proposición fraudulenta que les formuló su codemandada Keiko Sofía Fujimori Higuchi. Lo hago de este modo ya que en la web del Congreso no aparece esta relación de los congresistas que votaron del modo cuestionado. Ni siquiera es posible agenciarse del acta de la indicada sesión del Pleno de aquel aciago 27-10-2016. Aunque unos colaboradores me han proporcionado el documento respectivo que acompaño. Lima, 04 de noviembre del 2016. Tomado de http://senaldealerta.pe/noticias/%C...