President Obama is expected to deliver the fourth veto of his presidency after Congress passed legislation Thursday overturning new union election rules which labor groups believe could help boost membership but business groups say will leave employers at a disadvantage during organizing drives. Opponents of the new rules, issued last year by the National Labor Relations Board and set to take effect next month, refer to them as allowing "ambush elections," because they could allow a representation election to take place in less than two weeks after an official petition is filed. Under current rules, those elections can take place no sooner than 25 days after filing, and often take place considerably later than that. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for instance, said the rules would "stack the deck against employers" and "virtually eliminate employers' opportunities to communicate their views, stifling a full and robust debate among employees about unionization." The NLRB, however, said the new rules represent a long-delayed update to union election procedures, one "designed to remove unnecessary barriers to the fair and expeditious resolution of representation questions" by streamlining procedures and allowing for modern electronic communications instead of paper-based filings. Major labor groups strongly support the changes. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called them "modest but important reforms" that would "help reduce delay in the process and make it easier for workers to vote on forming a union in a timely manner." "Too often, lengthy and unnecessary litigation over minor issues bogs down the election process and prevents workers from getting the vote they want," Trumka said in December. The Senate approved the bill this month, 53 to 46, on a party-line vote that had Republicans in favor of overturning the rules and Democrats opposed. The House voted Thursday, also largely along party lines, 232 to 186. The Obama administration indicated March 3 that the president is likely to veto the bill, saying the new rules will help "level the playing field for workers so they can more freely choose to make their voice heard." The bill comes to Obama's desk amid tensions with labor groups over his pursuit of fast-track trade authority to complete the sweeping Trans-Pacific Partnership trade accords. Should Obama use the veto, it would be his second since Republicans took control of the U.S. Senate. Last month, he vetoed a bill mandating approval of the Keystone XL pipeline; the Senate came five votes short of overriding the veto.


More than 300 Baloch separatist militants have surrendered over the past few months, Pakistani government officials said, after a ceremony to mark the downing of guns and militants return to civilian life. The surrenders are part of government efforts to end a decade-long insurgency in the southwestern Baluchistan province by offering amnesties and financial rewards to soldiers and commanders to help them re-integrate into the society. In a high-profile ceremony on the lawn of the Baluchistan provincial assembly in the western city of Quetta, the regional capital, some 313 militants from three separatist movements handed over weapons to Nawab Sanaullah Zehri, the Chief Minister of the province. I will hug all that who believe in integrity and sovereignty of Pakistan but will not tolerate (those) who will challenge the writ of the State, Zehri said at the ceremony on Saturday. Pakistani government officials say about 2,000 militants have surrendered over the past 18 months. In April, the government held a similar ceremony where about 400 militants handed over their guns. The latest ceremony saw surrenders by 143 militants from the Baloch Republican Army (BRA), 125 fighters from the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and 17 from Baloch Liberation Front (BLF), according to officials. Under the agreement, foot soldiers are given 500,000 rupees ($4,700) and the top-level commanders receive about 1 million rupees ($9,500) to help them and their families build a life after militancy. Baluchistan s government and the powerful army, which has a huge say in the running of Pakistan s poorest province, tout the amnesties as an effective way to reduce the power of separatists who accuse Islamabad of exploiting Baluchistan. While security has improved in Baluchistan over the past few years, critics and human rights groups say the army has crushed dissent and free speech, while separatists accuse security officials of extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances. The military denies abuse claims. Pakistan s desire to dismantle the insurgencies has grown in urgency amid vast Chinese investment from Beijing s Belt and Road infrastructure splurge. China has frequently urged Pakistan to improve security, especially in Baluchistan. A new transport corridor (CPEC) through Baluchistan, linking Western China with Pakistan s Arabian Sea port of Gwadar, is due to become operational in late 2018. Separatists have vowed to disrupt CPEC, and earlier this week China warned its citizens of a security threat inside Pakistan.


President Trump called Obama s agreement with Australia to bring in economic parasites disguised as refugees to the US a bad deal and a dumb deal . President Obama made this deal right before leaving office dumping it into the lap of the incoming administration. Trump was unhappy about this dumb deal but reluctantly decided to send US officials to vet the refugees:US Officials just abruptly halted screening and left the offshore detention centre on Friday. Is this a sign that this bad deal is upside down and will not go forward? We certainly hope so!AUSTRALIA, Christmas Island: Here are some of the so-called asylum seekers from the hordes of Muslims who have been washing up on the shores of Australia and demanding asylum, even though most are not political refugees, but economic parasites. Do these Iranian illegals look like they are starving to you? THIS WAS A SETUP BY OBAMA THE US HAS NO BUSINESS TAKING ECONOMIC PARASITES FROM IRAN!THE LATEST ON THESE ECONOMIC PARASITES:Reuters Reports:US officials interviewing refugees held in an Australian-run offshore detention centre have left the facility abruptly, throwing further doubt over a plan to resettle many of the detainees in America.US officials halted screening interviews and departed the Pacific island of Nauru on Friday, two weeks short of their scheduled timetable and a day after Washington said the United States had reached its annual refugee intake cap. US officials were scheduled to be on Nauru until July 26 but they left on Friday, one refugee told Reuters, requesting anonymity as he did not want to jeopardise his application for US resettlement.In the United States, a senior member of the union that represents refugee officers at US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a Department of Homeland Security agency, told Reuters his own trip to Nauru was not going forward as scheduled.Jason Marks, chief steward of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1924, told Reuters his trip has now been pushed back and it was unclear whether it will actually happen.The Australian Immigration Department declined to comment on the whereabouts of the US officials or the future of a refugee swap agreement between Australia and the United States, which President Donald Trump earlier this year branded a dumb deal .An indefinite postponement of the deal would have significant repercussions for Australia s pledge to close a second detention centre on Papua New Guinea s Manus island on October 31.Only 70 refugees, less than 10 per cent of the total detainees held in the camp, have completed US processing. The US deal looks more and more doubtful, Ian Rintoul from the Refugee Action Coalition said.Former US President Obama agreed a deal with Australia late last year to offer refuge to up to 1250 asylum seekers.The Trump administration said it would only honour the deal to maintain a strong relationship with Australia, and then only on condition that refugees satisfied strict checks.In exchange, Australia has pledged to take Central American refugees from a centre in Costa Rica, where the United States has taken in a larger number of people in recent years.The US government confirmed on Thursday that its refugee intake cap of 50,000 people had been reached with the new intake year not due to begin until October 1.The majority of the detainees interviewed on both Manus and Nauru by US officials in April are from Sudan, Somalia and Afghanistan.Australia has already offered detainees up to $25,000 to voluntarily return to their home countries, an offer few have taken up.


Two leading advocates for reforming illegal and legal immigration enforcement were appointed by President Donald Trump to serve as senior advisors for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). [Jon Feere, the former legal analyst for the Center for Immigration Studies, and Julie Kirchner, the previous executive director for the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR) have both been appointed to senior positions. Feere, who work with the Trump campaign and transition team on immigration policy, will serve as the senior adviser to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency Director Thomas Homan. Kirchner, a campaign alum as well, will serve as the senior adviser to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Kevin McAleenan. Center for Immigration Studies Executive Director Mark Krikorian told Breitbart Texas that the Trump Administration appointed a person who "knows the ins and outs" of immigration when they chose Feere to serve. "ICE needs somebody like Jon because he's worked on immigration policy for many years," Krikorian said. "After eight years of Obama, there were civil servants and people at ICE who weren't as quite up to date on immigration enforcement. " FAIR spokesperson Ira Mehlman told Breitbart Texas that Kirchner's appointment is welcome news. "They're both people with long experience and deep knowledge and they're highly qualified for their positions," Mehlman said. Both the Center for Immigration Studies and FAIR have long been advocates for increased border security, a wall, reforming foreign guest worker visas and lower levels of legal immigration to help American wages to rise. The appointments have come with the usual media backlash that the Trump Administration has grown accustomed to. CNN, for instance, has written that Feere and Kirchner's appointments have "alarmed" the open borders lobby. The network propped up opposition to the appointments through the Southern Poverty Law Center, with Director Heidi Beirich claiming that that the Center for Immigration Studies and FAIR publish "racist" and "xenophobic" reports. Krikorian, though, said the open borders lobby is only outraged because they know how effective both nominees could be. "This isn't a complaint about qualification," Krikorian told Breitbart Texas. "Jon and these others know what they're doing and that's what the groups are afraid of. " John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.


Poland s ruling party lawmakers gave preliminary approval on Friday to two bills allowing parliament and the president to replace top judges, plans the opposition and the European Commission denounced as a threat to the rule of law. Once finally approved and signed into law by the president, the bills would likely deepen the right-wing government s standoff with the EU, potentially reducing the flow of EU development funds to Poland. Law and Justice (PiS) party deputies sent the bills authored by PiS-ally President Andrzej Duda to parliamentary committees after Duda vetoed in July PiS-sponsored bills that would have given the justice minister large powers over judges. Duda cast his veto after prolonged mass protests across Poland in July. Several thousand people in more than 100 cities protested the bills again on Friday night, although the demonstrations fell short of the mass summer rallies. I do not suppose that something will change in the way the authorities act, because these authorities are not listening to the people, said 29-year-old Jakub, a company worker who did not want to give his last name. But we are here to show that we will not agree to everything, we will not agree to laws, which lead to us leaving the European Union. In November, Duda and PiS reached an agreement on the shape of the judicial reform, according to which parliament will need a three-fifths majority to appoint new members of the National Council of the Judiciary (KRS), a key panel that appoints judges in Poland. Details of the judicial reform bills are expected to be revealed on Tuesday and PiS has said all work on them could be finished in December. The PiS currently has an absolute parliamentary majority, but not a three-fifths one. The euroskeptic PiS says reform of the judicial system is needed because the courts are slow, inefficient and steeped in a communist-era mentality. But critics of the government said the bills are part of a PiS plan to increase its powers over the judiciary and reflect its drive towards authoritarianism, both charges PiS denies. Will this demolition speed up court cases? No, lawmaker Krzysztof Paszyk of the opposition PSL told parliament on Friday, adding the bills would introduces pathology into the justice system. The European Commission s deputy head, Frans Timmermans, said earlier in November that Duda s bills - which row back from direct government interference in the judiciary envisaged in the original PiS bills - were still not acceptable. The socially conservative PiS, in power since late 2015, is already at loggerheads with fellow members of the European Union over migration policy, its push to bring state media under more direct government control, as well as over an earlier overhaul of the Constitutional Tribunal. Also on Friday, PiS deputies initially approved a bill amending the electoral system, which the opposition said would threaten the fairness of elections.


Qatar s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani will hold talks in Ankara on Thursday with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, an ally of Doha in its dispute with Gulf Arab neighbors. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain cut diplomatic and trade links with Qatar three months ago, suspending air and shipping routes with the world s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas. They say Qatar supports regional foe Iran and Islamists. Qatar denies the charges and says the economic boycott aims at neutering an independent foreign policy it says promotes peaceful regional reform and fighting terrorism. Last month Turkey held joint military exercises with Qatari forces in the Gulf state. It has said it will deploy 3,000 troops at a military base there and has increased trade with Qatar since the start of the embargo. Turkey s presidency announced Sheikh Tamim s trip in a statement on Wednesday but gave no details of the talks, which will coincide with a visit to Ankara by the prime minister of Kuwait, which has sought to mediate in the Gulf Arab dispute.


Danish fishermen could be hit hard by Britain s decision to leave the European Union if it leads to restrictions in their access to British waters, a research report made on request of the Danish government concluded on Wednesday. The Danish fishing lobby has strong clout in Copenhagen and could press the government to adopt a tough stance in Britain s negotiations with the EU on a post-Brexit trade deal. European fishermen want Brussels to use its trump card - continued access to the essential EU market - in negotiations on how to divvy up the seas. Those Danish fishermen that operate the most in British waters could lose more than half of their current catch in the worst of four imagined scenarios, researchers from Copenhagen University concluded in the report. The actual consequences will depend on the negotiations between Britain and the other 27 EU countries, Minister for Fisheries Karen Ellemann said. We are working with the other affected countries to maintain our fishing opportunities and access to British waters, she said in a comment on the report. Each of the years from 2012 through to 2016 Danish fishermen have unloaded fish from British waters worth between 700 million and 1 billion Danish crowns ($109-156 million). That corresponds to 34 percent of the total value of fish uploaded by the Danish fishermen, and 45 percent of the volume. Herring and mackerel would be especially hit, and it would indirectly hurt Denmark s onshore fish processing industry. The Danish vessels might change behavior in a way which has not been foreseen in the analysis, or other fishing opportunities might become possible, for instance in the Norwegian zone, the researchers said in the report. Danish fishermen have argued that if the British get free access to sell fish in the EU, then EU fishermen should also get free access to fish in the British fishing zone. Europe imports about 75 percent of the British catch. Britain has said it plans to allow foreign ships to fish in UK waters after Brexit but claims the right to decide the extent of access. The EU will be seeking to maintain something close to the status quo, industry sources have told Reuters.


The first edition of Charlie Hebdo since terror attacks in Paris last week left 17 people dead sold out at newsstands across France shortly after going on sale Wednesday. Residents in Paris formed lines at dawn and by mid-morning kiosks sported signs that said "No more Charlie Hebdo" and "Out of stock." Local French media reported scuffles broke out as people realized copies were selling quickly. A black market quickly developed, with copies selling on eBay for thousands of dollars. One auction ended Wednesday evening with a bid of $20,000. "Normally they sit in a box in front of the kiosk and you just help yourself — and normally, the Charlie Hebdo box always has some copies in it," said Marie Dupont, 22, who was passing through Gare du Nord train station on her way to work in Paris. Wednesday's 16-page issue of the satirical newspaper featured a cartoon on its cover depicting the prophet Mohammed. He is crying and holding a sign in his hands that says, "Je suis Charlie" ("I am Charlie") — a reference to the slogan adopted by anti-violence and free speech campaigners in the wake of the attacks. It is forbidden under Islam to show images depicting the prophet. Three million copies were printed — 60,000 are usually published— and that may be extended to 5 million, local French media reported. It has been translated into six languages and is being distributed internationally for the first time. A week ago, gunmen linked to radical Islam murdered eight staff members at the newspaper along with four other people. Five more people were killed in separate attacks on a policewoman Thursday and at a kosher supermarket Friday. Benoit Redureau, a veterinarian in Paris, called the cover "cheeky" and also "very brave.' "Their cover is militant, they don't let go, despite the pressure, despite the dead, they remain loyal to their (editorial) line, to their soul…to what we like about them," said Redureau. Another Parisian, Yann Legall, 58, called the issue funny as well as sincere but also restrained. "I wonder: did they refrain themselves? Did they go half-measure on this publication? They could have gone a lot further on this, when you have people who get executed like dogs, they could have done something more drastic, they could have been accusatory,'' Legall said. On pages two and three of the newspaper Wednesday were drawings created by four cartoonists killed in the attack. One by Bernard "Tignous" Verlhac depicts two Muslim jihadists with one saying: "We shouldn't attack Charlie Hebdo people." The other replies: "(yeah), they will become martyrs and once in paradise, will steal all our virgins." Distributors said they would try to get more copies by Thursday or even later Wednesday. Printer Messageries Lyonnaises de Presse decided to increase the print run following the fast depletion of stock, French daily Le Figaro reported. "I feel very concerned over what happened (to Charlie Hebdo) and I want to read what the surviving journalists wrote this week," said Anne Brisson, 59, trying to get a copy. "Still, it's the type of collective craziness in which I don't want to take part — it's like suddenly there is no more sugar so everyone buys 10 kilograms of sugar for the next 10 years." Fabrice Perticoz, 48, who was manning a Paris newsstand, echoed many others selling the magazine Wednesday when describing how people lined up at 6:15 a.m. for his 120 copies. "By 6:45, they were all sold out," he said. At his stand, a woman begged. "Please keep one for me tomorrow, I pay for it, really," she said. But Perticoz refused to take her money. "It gets too complicated, I might forget," he said. "One man wanted to call the cops claiming I refused to sell to him." The publication of Charlie Hebdo's controversial new cover comes as France's government was preparing tougher anti-terror laws. The French government announced Wednesday that 54 people had been detained in a crackdown on hate speech, anti-Semitism and glorifying terrorism. Among those arrested was Dieudonne, a controversial but popular comic who defended terrorism in comments posted on Facebook earlier this week. In Turkey, police searched trucks carrying the entire print run of the daily Cumhuriyet newspaper early Wednesday to make sure none of the newspapers reprinted cartoons from Charlie Hebdo that depicted the prophet Mohammed. "When the police proceed to check in advance the copies without a clear decision of the court, I think it is an alarming procedure reflecting perfectly disproportional interference in press freedom in Turkey," said Erol Onderoglu, a Reporters Without Borders representative in Turkey. In a separate development, al-Qaeda in Yemen on Wednesday reiterated claims of responsibility for the attack on Charlie Hebdo. The group released a video in which Nasr al-Ansi, a top commander of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP as the branch is known, said the attack by Said and Chérif Kouachi on the Paris newspaper was in retaliation for insulting the prophet Mohammed. The video was briefly available on YouTube before being taken down. Last week, the same group released a statement to the Associated Press in which it claimed responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo killings. In the video, Al-Ansi says France is part of the "party of Satan" and warns of further "tragedies and terror." Al-Ansi says Yemen's al-Qaeda branch "chose the target, laid out the plan and financed the operation." Amedy Coulibaly, who held hostages at the Jewish supermarket, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in a video released Sunday.


Laughing at their own tribulations, Venezuelan theatergoers have been enjoying a new satire about a senior official who broke with President Nicolas Maduro and fled the socialist-ruled country in a boat. Former chief state prosecutor Luisa Ortega has been one of the protagonists in this year s political crisis in Venezuela, denouncing rights abuses and corruption before finally going into hiding and moving to Colombia in mid-August. Dressed in a blonde wig and Ortega s trademark office suit, actress Mercedes Benmoha recreates some well-known scenes - and imagines others - in a 15-minute show called The Prosecutor, which is proving popular at a small venue in a mall. Benmoha, who happens to be a lawyer like her subject, acts out a news conference and an imaginary phone call with Ortega s nemesis, state election board head and diehard Maduro ally Tibisay Lucena. She also recreates the once-powerful Ortega s attempt to re-enter her office after authorities fired her and security forces surrounded the building. Jokes fly about corruption, Maduro, and Ortega s own precipitous fall from power. We use humor as a defense mechanism, Benmoha, 35, told Reuters on Friday night, minutes before going on stage for her sellout show. It s our way to survive, to breathe, to entertain ourselves but also to reflect. Venezuelans have had little to laugh about this year. A fourth year of recession and runaway inflation have pummeled households, with shortages and hunger widespread. Months of opposition-led protests led to about 130 deaths and thousands of injuries. Having first fled to Aruba in a speedboat, Ortega has been traveling round Latin America denouncing the Maduro government, which in turn has accused her of corruption. While Venezuela s opposition has applauded her stance against Maduro, activists also remember she was until recently a pillar of the socialist government and that her office had spearheaded its jailing of political foes. Benmoha, who co-wrote the script for her show, said she watched more than 800 videos of Ortega to study her gestures and mannerisms. But with her subject still making news almost daily, the play is regularly updated. When the show started in early August, a producer actually invited Ortega, but she was never able to attend. After Ortega left the country, however, one of her assistants sent a Lady Justice statue that had been in her office. Now, it adorns a Caracas stage every night.


An old review of an academic monograph on agrarian revolutionaries in 1930s China is hardly a political third rail in Beijing today, even by the increasingly sensitive standards of the ruling Communist Party. That such a piece appeared on a list of some 300 scholarly works that Cambridge University Press (CUP) said last week the Chinese government had asked it to block from its website offers clues about the inner workings of China s vast and secretive censorship apparatus, say experts. President Xi Jinping has stepped up censorship and tightened controls on the internet and various aspects of civil society, as well as reasserting Communist Party authority over academia and other institutions, since coming to power in 2012. Far from being a well-oiled machine, though, China s censorship regime is fragmented and often undermined by gaps, workarounds, and perhaps even hasty officials, say academics specializing in Chinese politics. Crude is the word, said Jonathan Sullivan, an associate professor at the University of Nottingham in Britain. The blunt way in which articles were chosen for censoring ... suggest to me that there was not a lot of thought put into it. CUP, the publishing arm of Britain s elite Cambridge University, on Monday reversed its decision to comply with the request to censor the articles published in the journal China Quarterly following an outcry over academic freedom. China s response remains to be seen. The education ministry, foreign ministry, cyberspace administration and state publishing authority all declined to comment. The list of articles the authorities wanted blocked covered topics that are considered sensitive by the government, including the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy protests, the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, Tibet, Taiwan and the violence-prone far-western region of Xinjiang. But it was far from thorough or comprehensive. The article on 1930s agrarian revolutionaries may have got there by mistake, say experts. What appears to have condemned the scathing but otherwise innocuous 1991 review of Kamal Sheel s book about a Communist base area in China s southern heartland was the fact the place was named Xinjiang, and the word appeared in the book title. The Chinese characters are different for Xinjiang, the village, and Xinjiang, the mostly-Muslim region more than 2,500 km (1,550 miles) to the northwest that is beset by ethnic tensions and occasional unrest. But in English they are indistinguishable. Xu Xibai, a doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford, tweeted a brief analysis of the list that noted that its creators appear to have hastily searched the China Quarterly database for taboo words in titles and abstracts. The censors probably used a few keyword searches to locate just enough articles to make a nice, long list to impress their superiors, Xu s post said. They did not bother to read the articles or go through the content list manually. An article defending Mao Zedong was on the censored list, for instance, while others more critical of the former paramount leader were not. Some sensitive subjects seem to have eluded the officials net. The Communist Party tightly controls discourse on the 1958-61 Great Leap Forward, in which millions starved to death due to ill-conceived economic policies. Censors have banned books on the topic but it was apparently not on this list. Nor were the brutal, Communist-led land reforms of the 1950s, or the Hundred Flowers Movement, an effort by Mao to lure critics out of the woodwork by feigning openness, only to punish them. The party s efforts to censor news and information have sometimes backfired or left outsiders perplexed. In 2009, software designed to check pornographic and violent images on PCs blocked images of a movie poster for cartoon cat Garfield, dishes of flesh-color cooked pork and on one search engine a close-up of film star Johnny Depp s face. Citizen Lab, a group of researchers based at the University of Toronto, compiled a list of words banned as of last year on popular live streaming sites in China. Among them: Moulin Rouge , braised rabbit , helicopter and zen . The request to block the articles was passed to Cambridge University Press by its import agent, but without knowing where it originated it is hard to draw firm conclusions, said Sebastian Veg, a China scholar at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences in Paris. The censorship system is of course centrally directed, but not uniform, Veg said. Lee Siu-yau, assistant professor of Greater China studies at the Education University of Hong Kong, suspects the request was a trial balloon. They usually start with something small-scale and gradually expand and make their requirements more difficult, he said. This might be one of the first steps that the Chinese government would take to see if it could actually influence international academic publishers. (Story refiles to add dropped words a and an in paragraphs four and six.)


(Before It's News) by Leon Pantenburg I bought this knife to review. At the time of publication, Kellem Knives had no sponsorship relationship with Survivalcommonsense.com. I'm a sucker for old time knife designs, especially when they are re-created with modern materials. IMO, this makes for a time-tested, utility design that will do the job. I particularly like the Scandinavian Puukko design, so that's why I got a Kellam Hawk. The Kellam Hawk The puukko is a Finnish knife, and the name lends itself to the Finnish word "puukotta," which means "to stab/knife." The prefix, "puu" means "wood" in Finnish. The design of the puukko is attributed to the indigenous Sami people, who created several knives to use for day to day tasks; the puukko was the smaller option, used to skin fish or animals. "Although historical records vary, the puukko dates back about 1000 years. Both men and women carried (and carry) puukkos, although the sizes change depending on the person, as the puukko handle is meant to fit the hand size of the user. (From: EDC History: Pukko – A simple knife with a rich history.) The old design is getting some attention from modern knifemakers. I recently reviewed the Battle Horse Knives Feather Stick, another knife with the Puukko design, and it worked out really well. Here's the Hawk's specs: Product Details: Blade: 3″ Carbon Steel Handle: 4.5″ Stained Curly Birch Full Tang construction Dangler-style leather sheath Total Length : 7.5″ Grind: Convex is my all-time, go-to favorite grind , but scandi is a close second or third. For a beginner, it is the easiest to learn to sharpen on. The bevel is sharpening guide – all you do is lay it flat on a whetstone and hone away. The scandi is also a great woodworking grind, and a practical choice for someone looking for a bushcraft knife. The Hawk handle fits my large hands very well. Handle: I have big hands – size large gloves – and many otherwise excellent knives don't work for me because the handle is too short. I don't like two or three finger grips. IMO, they don't give a secure grip for hard work, and I'm concerned they might twist in my hand. The 4.5-inch handle fits my hand really, really well. It is made of dyed curly birch, a common wood in Russia and Scandinavia, with nice figure. The wood makes a handle that doesn't transfer heat or cold. This is a consideration for a knife that will be used in Finland's frigid winter. The diameter is large, which gives me a good, solid grip. When wet or slimy from cleaning fish, or bloody from butchering, the handle seems to get "grippier." A comfortable, safe handle is a really important aspect of a user knife. Pretty doesn't cut it (pun intended) when there are lengthy cutting tasks to be done. Steel: The high carbon steel holds a wicked edge. I don't know exactly what it is, but the Hawk's steel held up nicely to normal cutting and bushcraft tasks. Traditionally, Blade materials can vary from the three-layer approach, which combines strong and flexible steels, to composite designs. Most are made with Finnish steel, Ovako 100Cr6, which is equivalent to U.S 52100 bearing steel, according to Nordic knife blog Nordiska Kniva r. Spine: I would like the spine to be ground at a 90-degree angle, like an ice skate, so it could be used for processing tinder or scraping a ferro rod. It isn't. But a few passes on a grinder could fix that. Sheath: The dangler-style, form-fitted leather sheath holds the knife securely. Almost too securely. It requires a slight twist to loosen the Hawk. It's a consideration – the knife won't fall out, but it's a two-hand job to remove it. This might be a deal-breaker for some users. I find this annoying, but you can get used to the tight sheath. Full tang construction with a brass bolster. I prefer a full tang on any rigid blade knife, even though I've never needed that extra strength. In fact, one of my favorite user knives, the Mora 840 Companion , has a plastic handle and a three-quarter tang. For the strongest knife available, though, get a full tang. Hand made in Finland. The Hawk is a user knife, able to handle a variety of tasks. In actual use , the Hawk lives up to the user reputation of the Puukko knives. It went along on Fremont District's Webelos Woods, a Boy Scout outing, recently. It was used to whittle sticks and do the assorted tasks associated with camping. On the way home, on an isolated section of highway, I saw a fast-moving car hit a deer up ahead of me. The front end of the vehicle was demolished, and the hood popped. The air bag deployed and the radiator was steaming. After checking out the driver and passenger for injuries, (they were shaken, but fine) the driver and I followed the injured buck. It had dragged itself across the road and was severely injured. It was still alive, with two broken legs, probable internal injuries and it was in agonizing pain. We called 911. Rather than wait a possible half-hour for the Oregon State Police to arrive, we ended the deer's suffering with the only tool available – the Kellam Hawk. The knife worked quickly and humanely for the sad, but necessary task. That's the mark of a good knife. It gets the job done. Do you need a Hawk? Everybody needs a good knife . The Hawk is based on a proven design, with quality materials. The Hawk has proven to be a very useful tool, and one that can be used in a variety of situations, from slicing a bagel at work, to hunting and fishing. The knife retails for $74.95, and that's a steal for a handmade knife. If you're looking for a good-looking user, that you can work hard and pass down to your grandchildren, the Hawk is a really good choice. Please click here to check out and subscribe to the SurvivalCommonSense.com YouTube channel, and here to subscribe to our weekly email update – thanks!


Our White House is currently occupied by someone who s likely certifiably insane, yet for many on both the right and the left, the real travesty is that Trump s predecessor is *gasp* earning a lot of money in speaking fees, just like just about every white male former president in the last 40 years.The news that former President Barack Obama will reportedly accept $400,000 to give a speech to Wall Street investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald has inspired a strange paroxysm of rage from writers on the center-left. Obama s $400,000 Wall Street speaking fee will undermine everything he believes in, Vox s Matt Yglesias proclaimed. Obama and Bill Clinton biographer David Maraniss said the 44th president does not need the money and should not accept it. Others noted the unseemliness of the fee at a time of income inequality and seemingly rampant populism, especially since Barack and Michelle Obama have already struck insanely lucrative book deals.Even Elizabeth Warren was troubled by Obama s speaking fees. Bernie Sanders called the fees distasteful. Well, everyone can relax now. On Wednesday it was announced that the Obamas would be giving that amount and far more to help youth in Obama s adopted hometown of Chicago. One of the things that we ll be starting this year is Michelle and I are personally going to donate $2 million to our summer jobs programs here in the community, he said at the South Shore Cultural Center. [It s] so that right away young people can get to work and we can start providing opportunities to all of them. Obama is expected to use the center as he focuses on issues such as criminal justice reform and education for underprivileged children now that he has left office. Social media was quick to notice that the Obamas are literally donating five times what he will earn for that one speaking fee.THIS is President Obama. Compassion & class. FIVE times his speaking fee. The @GOP can now shut the hell up. #ObamaFoundation #DemValues ?? https://t.co/IfQH7zvV08 Fight Back America (@RonIsrael) May 3, 2017Will all the commentators who condemned Obama for his $400,000 speaking fee commend him for his $2,000,000 charity donation today? Crickets. eli friedmann (@eligit) May 3, 2017@bravenak @edfischman @JessikaJayne @Endoracrat @tinalc1958 @KikiAdine @webgenie01 @Wharfrat2004 @MonicaChilton @imwithher61 @Quietness_Trust @HerbertjeJames @Fangirl31 @Toncuz @SadCondiment @edisn @total_janarchy @adirado29 @dcpetterson @pollyollydoodle @RoseRoselaurie @JustAGurLnSwedn @Zebop @Deemoney521 @IngridBush @Wilkey43 @alaskawater @EmilyEggbert @Eviljohna @Playfulimp @jamescoleman07 @JohnSmithChgo @ShirlsAdams @goodtroubleme @abracadabraNY @livemusic4me @jmichaelkell @RBReich @PolitikMasFina Bernie has the audacity to attack Obama over his speaking fee? When has Bernie ever given to charity? pic.twitter.com/j7FWPkBkSc Impeach tRump (@vicsepulveda) May 3, 2017Obama just donated $2 million to a summer jobs program so I don t want to hear shit about his $450,000 speaking fee. ?liberal bitch? (@ALiberalLady) May 3, 2017Of course, there s also the fact that President Obama is retired. He can spend the rest of his days Twitter trolling Donald Trump and passing out Kenyan flags and it would be perfectly within his rights. But that s not who Obama is. As this proves, he still has his principles and he s still managing to kick everyone s ass in his game of three-dimensional chess.


An Egyptian lawyer who is helping investigate the case of murdered Italian student Giulio Regeni was prevented from flying to a U.N. conference and detained by a special prosecutor, his supporters and a security source said. Ibrahim Metwaly, who founded the Association of the Families of the Disappeared after his son disappeared in suspicious circumstances four years ago, himself went missing while heading for his flight to Geneva on Sunday. Members of his group said he was taken from Cairo airport by airport security and he was not heard from until Wednesday when a state security prosecutor ordered him detained for 15 days on charges of joining a group founded illegally , judicial sources said. There was no comment from the Interior Ministry. A security source said Metwaly was legally arrested and not subjected to any violations. Rights activists say Egyptian security forces resort to kidnapping government opponents and keeping them in secret jails where they can spend weeks, months, or years without charge. The authorities deny the accusation. Italian graduate student Giulio Regeni, who was conducting research on Egyptian trade unions, disappeared in Cairo on Jan. 25 last year. His body was discovered in a ditch on the outskirts of the Egyptian capital on Feb. 3, showing signs of extensive torture. Metwaly has been assisting lawyers working on the Regeni case as an expert on enforced disappearances, according to one of the lawyers. I have no doubts Ibrahim s arrest was in connection to the Regeni case and his upcoming trip, a source at the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF), a Cairo-based NGO, told Reuters. ECRF lawyers are providing legal representation for the Regeni family in Egypt. Metwaly s son Abdelmoniem Metwaly said his father was now in a Cairo jail and that he was also charged with conducting espionage on behalf of a foreign entity , something he said referred to the U.N. Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances which he was due to address in Geneva. There was no immediate comment from the U.N. body. Regeni s murder has strained ties between Italy and Egypt, traditional Mediterranean allies with strong economic ties. Security and intelligence sources said Regeni was arrested the day he vanished and taken into custody. Egyptian officials have denied any involvement in his death. Italy recalled its ambassador in April 2016 as it sought to obtain evidence from Egypt to solve the murder. Magistrates in Rome and Cairo have met half a dozen times over the past year but no one has been charged. A new Italian ambassador arrived in Cairo on Wednesday. Pier Antonio Panzeri, an Italian lawmaker who chairs the European Parliament s Subcommittee on Human Rights, said in a statement: I am disturbed by alleged reports that lawyer Ibrahim Metwaly was arrested ... while he was about to fly to Geneva to address the U.N. Working Group.


Dead Coloradans are Lining Up to Vote for Hillary. Is the zombie apocalypse upon us?  According to a report by the Washington Examiner ,  Local officials in Colorado acknowledged "very serious" voter fraud after learning of votes cast in multiple elections under the named of recently-deceased residents.  A local media outlet uncovered the fraud by comparing voting history databases in the state with federal government death records . "Somebody was able to cast a vote that was not theirs to cast," El Paso County Clerk and Recorder Chuck Broerman told CBS4 while discussing what he called a "very serious" pattern of people mailing in ballots on behalf of the dead.  It's not clear how many fraudulent ballots have been submitted in recent years. CBS4 reported that it "found multiple cases" of dead people voting around the state, revelations that have provoked state criminal investigations.  There are dozens of documented examples of dead people voting and they can be found all over the internet.  One thing is for certain.  The Clinton operatives seem to believe in the old adage… if you ain't cheatin' you ain't tryin'… On October 1st it was reported "Young Virginia Democrat Andrew Spieles confessed this week to registering 19 dead people to vote for Hillary."  You can't stop these people. You can call the election rigged if you want, but how can we argue with people who have the power to summon the dead?  When I die, I plan to vote conservative.  OK, my attempts to be humorous are often lost in an overcrowded sea of stupidity. This would not seem to be the exception.  The only good Hillary voters are obviously the dead ones , because at least they have plausible deniability. Hey bro, " I didn't vote for Hillary — I died in 1960. "  Likely story.  Article posted with permission from DCClothesline Don't forget to Like Freedom Outpost on Facebook , Google Plus , & Twitter . You can also get Freedom Outpost delivered to your Amazon Kindle device here . shares


By John Anthony When federal agencies promote programs, like Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, or Common Core they conduct sophisticated and often deceptive marketing campaigns that...


It gets more outrageous by the day for the Trump campaign when it comes to racism and racists. It appears Trump has assembled a political team and a fan base of individuals who are racist to the core. Take for example current Trump campaign spokesperson Katrina Pierson. Back in 2012, Pierson took to Twitter and lamented at the lack of pure breeds running for president in reference to President Obama, who has a father of Kenyan descent, and Mitt Romney, whose father was born in Mexico.Perfect Obama's dad born in Africa, Mitt Romney's dad born in Mexico. Any pure breeds left? #CNNDebate Katrina Pierson (@KatrinaPierson) January 20, 2012In her tweet, Pierson implies that having a parent born oversees somehow makes someone less American, or to put it in more eugenical terms, less pure. That s interesting, since Donald Trump s mother was actually born in Scotland. One can easily infer why she would find Scotland more acceptable to be born in than Kenya or Mexico.Pierson is in agreement on all of Trump s policies, including supporting the ban on Muslims from entering the United States. She also advocates using America s nuclear arsenal in some capacity against perceived enemies saying, What good does it do to have a good nuclear triad if you re afraid to use it? Katrina Pierson is not without a checkered history. She s been accused of collecting thousands of dollars in welfare benefits while working. She also made a recent appearance on CNN where she wore a necklace made of bullets. After anti-gun advocates called her out, she promised to wear a necklace made of fetuses. Pierson also has an arrest record for shoplifting. Ironically, four years before her wacky tweet, Pierson sued her previous employer for racial discrimination.Donna Pierson s antics and her checkered history shouldn t be surprising. After all, she s helping steer one of the most racist and frightening presidential campaigns in American history. Let s hope that the country can find a few good laughs with these crazies and put them all in the dust bin of history when the time comes.Featured Image Via YouTube Screenshot.


By: Voice of Reason | Facebook has done some pretty bad stuff this last year. They spent a lot of money and personal resources to help Hillary Clinton out during the election, but not any more says CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg! After the liberal media tried to make him turn on one of his oldest friends, Peter Thiel, for donating to Donald Trump , Zuckerberg finally decided to fight back. Since Zuckerberg is still technically supporting Hillary for President, in the following video I suggest what his real motive may have been for lashing out with pro-Trump rhetoric, and why the person he's defending doesn't win Zuckerberg any humanitarian awards either… He wrote a scathing post, telling people that Facebook will stand for more than just the ideas of a few tech elite, but instead for the ideas of the people. Zuckerberg even acknowledged there are GOOD reasons that people support Trump : They believe strongly in smaller government They want a different tax policy They want a better health care system They want to maintain religious freedom They worry about American gun rights Or ANY other issue where he disagrees with Hillary He ended the post by saying: "That's ultimately what Facebook is about: giving everyone the power to share our experiences, so we can understand each other a bit better and connect us a little closer together." So, despite the fact that he still supports Hillary Clinton , I want to thank Mark Zuckerberg for having the common decency to acknowledge the Trump Train even though all his tech billionaire friends will attack him for it. Now let's get this shared out everywhere so we can show the world that Hillary's "network" is finally turning it's back on her. In related news, could what happened just hours after the final debate be the REAL reason Zuckerberg came out of the closet as a pro-Trump keyboard warrior? Several hours after what was arguably Trump 's best performance of the campaign so far, one of the world's top political experts gave Trump the best news he could hope to hear… Danny Gold continues: If you love Trump , today just became a HECK of a lot better! A very well respected political professor from Syracuse has just given Donald Trump the best news of the entire election. Professor Helmut Norpoth stepped forward today, despite HUGE opposition from his peers, to announce that his scientific formula has predicted the TRUE results of the election. And the result is… There is an 87%-99% chance that Donald Trump will WIN the election! Heck yeah! See, at least there are still some people who have not been bought off by Hillary Clinton. According to Northrop, all the other predictions are based entirely on opinion polls, which are inherently wrong. Instead of opinion polling, Norpoth relies on statistics from candidates' performances in party primaries and patterns in the electoral cycle to forecast results. His model has correctly predicted the victor in every presidential election since 1996. (H/T- The Gateway Pundit ) So if you wanted something to celebrate, I mean other than Donald Trump 's epic win over Hillary Clinton at the final Presidential debate, then Helmut Norpoth has just given you exactly that. Now let's help share this GREAT news to everyone else in the entire world. Let every Trump supporting Facebook friend you have know! First of all, Zuckerberg may be a flaming liberal, but he's no fool. It's no secret that Zuckerberg has enjoyed a cushy relationship with Obama and the White House over the past eight years, but a Trump presidency could pose a threat to Mark Zuckerberg's current role as the self-proclaimed arbiter of "free speech." As Facebook's CEO, Zuckerberg has almost absolute control over what is, and what is not "acceptable" to believe in, or talk about on the Internet. Then, there's the whole issue of who Zuckerberg was defending when he had his micro-aggression and temporarily boarded the " Trump Train." It's not like he was defending Mother Teresa's good name or something. Peter Thiel, the guy who is Zuck's BFF that people were ragging on for donating to Trump , just happens to the chief henchman of the Bilderberg Group, and chairman of its steering committee. It's worth noting too, that Peter Thiel is HARDLY Zuckerberg's closest connection to the Bilderberg group. I won't discuss it here, but he's got another connection that hits MUCH closer to home, so before everyone gets all excited thinking that perhaps Zuckerberg isn't such a bad guy after all, it's more likely he's just hedging his bets, and Hillary was probably fully aware of what he said ahead of time. THE VOICE OF REASON is the pen name of Michael DePinto, a graduate of Capital University Law School, and an attorney in Florida. Having worked in the World Trade Center, along with other family and friends, Michael was baptized by fire into the world of politics on September 11, 2001. Michael's political journey began with tuning in religiously to whatever the talking heads on television had to say, then Michael became a "Tea-Bagging" activist as his liberal friends on the Left would say, volunteering within the Jacksonville local Tea Party, and most recently Michael was sworn in as an attorney. Today, Michael is a major contributor to www.BeforeItsNews.com , he owns and operates www.thelastgreatstand.com , where Michael provides what is often very 'colorful' political commentary, ripe with sarcasm, no doubt the result of Michael's frustration as he feels we are witnessing the end of the American Empire. The topics Michael most often weighs in on are: Martial Law, FEMA Camps, Jade Helm, Economic Issues, Government Corruption, and Government Conspiracy. Submit your review


0 82  Looking over the global landscape, the areas most touched by US interventionist foreign policy are objectively in the worst, most desperate shape. The mainstream media will report that the current disaster in Syria came about because the people decided to stand up to a cruel dictator in the "Arab Spring" that swept through the greater […]


President Trump spoke via pre-recorded video to cole miners at the announcement of the opening of the first coal mine in 6 years. This is another campaign promise fulfilled!Trump speaking via pre-recorded video to ceremony marking #coal mine opening in Somerset County, PA. pic.twitter.com/5OQgajZW4m Daniel Moore (@PGdanielmoore) June 8, 2017PRESIDENT TRUMP MET WITH REPRESENTATIVES FROM THE COAL INDUSTRY IN FEBRUARY OF 2016: President Trump keeps proving the doubters wrong He keeps following through with his campaign promises like his promises to bring coal back. He met with representatives from the coal industry to sign a bill undoing Obama s coal mining rule. The people s president is a worker!OUR PREVIOUS REPORT ON SCOTT PRUITT S APPOINTMENT TO EPA CHIEF THE LEFT WENT BONKERS!OKLAHOMA ATTORNEY GENERAL SCOTT PRUITT is another perfect choice from President-elect Donald Trump. He s sued the feds several times for their overreach in regulations on the coal industry. You have to love his commitment to keeping the federal government on the straight and narrow. It s funny that so many of Trump s picks have gone against Obama s policies We love it! The lefty politicians in DC wasted no time tweeted out their displeasure:When the Environmental Protection Agency proposed rules regulating carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, Scott Pruitt sued. When the Justice Department offered legal status to young undocumented immigrants, Scott Pruitt sued. And when the Obama administration sought to give tax credits to states that hadn t set up their own health insurance exchanges, Scott Pruitt sued.Since becoming Oklahoma attorney general in 2010, Pruitt has filed or joined lawsuits against federal agencies at least a dozen times. Even when Oklahoma isn t an actual party in litigation, the state often submits a legal brief against the federal government. Besides air pollution, immigration and health care, Pruitt has fought federal laws and regulations on banking, contraception and endangered species. These days, whenever states go to court against the Obama administration, the chances are that Pruitt is somehow involved.Not that Pruitt is alone. During Obama s presidency, the entire cadre of Republican attorneys general (27 at present) has coordinated cases against federal agencies at an unprecedented pace. But Pruitt is at the center of the action. He has set up a first-in-the-nation federalism unit, which seeks to combat instances of federal overreach by every possible means.


Officials from the U.S. government's health research agency are to be questioned by a congressional committee about why taxpayers are funding a World Health Organization cancer agency facing criticism over how it classifies carcinogens. An aide to the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform told Reuters that National Institutes of Health officials have agreed to give an in-person briefing to the committee after questions were raised by lawmakers over its grants to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a semi-autonomous part of the WHO based in Lyon, France. The hearing will be in private, with NIH officials answering questions from committee investigators, the aide said. The committee is working with the NIH to schedule the briefing soon, the aide said, but no date has yet been set. The briefing comes after the committee's chairman added his voice to growing concerns among some senior U.S. lawmakers about the way IARC reviews and classifies substances. In recent years IARC has caused controversy over whether such things as coffee, mobile phones, processed meat and the weed killer glyphosate cause cancer. Its critics, including in industry, say it is sometimes too quick to conclude that substances might cause cancer, causing unnecessary health scares. It defends its methods as scientifically sound. In a Sept. 26 letter to NIH director Francis Collins, Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz describes IARC as having "a record of controversy, retractions, and inconsistencies" and asks why the NIH, which has a $33 billion annual budget, continues to fund it. "IARC's standards and determinations for classifying substances as carcinogenic, and therefore cancer-causing, appear inconsistent with other scientific research, and have generated much controversy and alarm," Chaffetz wrote. The NIH confirmed in an email to Reuters that it had received Chaffetz's letter and "will respond directly to the committee". The WHO referred Reuters to IARC for comment. A spokeswoman for IARC told Reuters that Chaffetz's letter contained "misconceptions" which IARC's director, Chris Wild, has sought to address in a letter of his own to the NIH director. Wild's letter, dated Oct. 5 and copied via email to Reuters on Thursday, rejects Chaffetz's criticisms and says IARC's classifications, known as "monographs", are "widely respected for their scientific rigor, standardized and transparent process and ... freedom from conflicts of interest". Wild also defends IARC's evaluation of coffee and disputed Chaffetz's description of it as a "retraction". IARC's previous assessment of coffee as "possibly carcinogenic" was updated in June this year, when IARC said it had found "no conclusive evidence for a carcinogenic effect". "The (coffee) report in 2016 was not a 'retraction' but a re-evaluation based on an additional 25 years of scientific evidence," Wild said. Chaffetz, however, asks the NIH to detail its standards for awarding grants and the vetting and oversight of grantees. It also asks for full disclosure of NIH funds to IARC or money spent in relation to IARC's activities. Questions over grants awarded by NIH to IARC could put a significant portion of IARC's funding at risk. IARC's resources are relatively modest. Its 2014 revenue was about 30 million euros ($33 million). In his letter, Chaffetz's cites the NIH's grant database as showing that it has given IARC more than $1.2 million so far this year. The database also shows that since 1992, NIH grants to IARC have totaled some $40 million. The American Chemistry Council also joined those voicing concern, issuing a statement following Chaffetz's letter accusing IARC of "a long history of passing judgment on substances through a fundamentally-flawed process that yields questionable results". "We welcome the interest of the House Committee ... and hope it will shed light on the close and somewhat opaque relationship between IARC and NIH, including the use of taxpayer dollars and resources to support IARC's activities," it said. IARC is also in dispute with the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and United Nations and United States regulators over glyphosate, a widely-used weedkiller developed by Monsanto. IARC says glyphosate is "probably carcinogenic", while EFSA and several other regulators say it isn't. This dispute prompted Robert Aderholt, chairman of the U.S. congressional Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, to write in June to NIH's Collins questioning funding of IARC. In that letter, Aderholt says IARC's conclusions "appear to be the result of a significantly flawed process" and adds that "some in academia have raised questions about the quality of the science and the transparency of the process". The glyphosate dispute also held up a decision on whether to relicense the product for use in Europe. ($1 = 0.8941 euros)


Seriously. Apparently, he thought being president would automatically make everyone love him.The Women s March on Washington was clearly several times larger than Donald Trump s inauguration. In fact, it was so big that it happened around the world.Trump has been absolutely obsessed with his crowd size since inauguration day just like he is still obsessing over losing the popular vote on Election Day in November.The bottom line is that Trump is an illegitimate president and the truth hurts.And according to White House sources who spoke to the Associated Press, Trump has been whining about the massive protests and media coverage against him because he can t enjoy being president as long as both continue to occur.After relishing in Friday s inaugural festivities, the new president grew increasingly upset the next day by what he felt was biased media coverage of women s marches across the globe protesting his election, according to a person familiar with his thinking Two people close to Trump said he expected his coverage to turn more favorable once he took office. Instead, he s told people he believes it s gotten worse. The bad press over the weekend has not allowed Trump to enjoy the White House as he feels he deserves, according to one person who has spoken with him.If Trump really did not want to be protested, hated, and covered intensely by the media he should not have run for president in the first place. Now he gets to deal with all the pros and cons of the job. Surely, he knew about this stuff prior to throwing his hat in the ring. After all, conservatives constantly attacked President Obama for eight years. Obama also received threats against his life and had all sort of racial epithets hurled at him, something that Trump definitely has not had to deal with.But if Trump wants all the protesting and bad press to stop he has two choices. First, he could simply stop being a dick and start protecting all the progress this country has made over the last 70 years instead of destroying it piece by piece. Or, second, he could just resign.Because the more he whines and the more he tries to restrict the free press, free speech, and the right to protest, the more protests and bad news he will get in return.For some reason, Trump expected everyone to kiss his ass on Election Night and again on inauguration day. He seriously thought he would be adored for destroying the lives of millions of people and embarrassing America around the globe. He assumed the presidency would be just one long vacation and that everyone would worship him and that no one would ever protest him or write something negative about him. In short, he thinks he is the dictator of North Korea, not President of the United States.Donald Trump is a thin-skinned bully, so protests should continue to be a theme over the next years and the free press should get to work telling the truth about Trump every chance it gets. Because the more pissed off he gets, the more clear it will become to the American people that he is totally unfit for the office he holds.


U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell set up a vote late on Monday to expand the Federal Bureau of Investigation's authority to use a secretive surveillance order without a warrant to include email metadata and some browsing history information. The move, made via an amendment to a criminal justice appropriations bill, is an effort by Senate Republicans to respond to last week's mass shooting in an Orlando nightclub after a series of measures to restrict guns offered by both parties failed on Monday. "In the wake of the tragic massacre in Orlando, it is important our law enforcement have the tools they need to conduct counterterrorism investigations," Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican and sponsor of the amendment, said in a statement. The bill is also supported by Republican Senators John Cornyn, Jeff Sessions and Richard Burr, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. Privacy advocates denounced the effort, saying it seeks to exploit a mass shooting in order to expand the government's digital spying powers. Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, criticized a similar effort last month as one that "takes a hatchet to important protections for Americans' liberty." The amendment would broaden the FBI's authority to use so-called National Security Letters to include electronic communications transaction records such as time stamps of emails and the emails' senders and recipients. The Obama administration for years has lobbied for a change to how NSLs can be used, after a 2008 legal memo from the Justice Department said the law limits them largely to phone billing records. FBI Director James Comey has said the change essentially corrects a typo and is a top legislative priority for his agency. NSLs do not require a warrant and are almost always accompanied by a gag order preventing the service provider from sharing the request with a targeted user. The letters have existed since the 1970s, though the scope and frequency of their use expanded greatly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The amendment filed Monday would also make permanent a provision of the USA Patriot Act that allows the intelligence community to conduct surveillance on "lone wolf" suspects who do not have confirmed ties to a foreign terrorist group. That provision, which the Justice Department said last year had never been used, is currently set to expire in December 2019. A vote is expected no later than Wednesday, McConnell's office said.


U.S. lawmakers said Thursday they will seek to recover the missing emails of Colin Powell from his time as U.S. secretary of state by going directly to AOL Inc, whose email service he used for his work. The decision came a few minutes after U.S. State Department officials testified in a hearing that the department never contacted AOL to recover the missing records, despite repeated requests by the National Archives and Records Administration over the last year. The hearing, by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, was the latest in the fallout from Hillary Clinton's decision to use an unauthorized private email system for official email while secretary of state. Clinton, the Democratic Party presidential candidate, has said her decision was wrong, but it has continued to dog her effort to defeat Republican rival Donald Trump in the Nov. 8 election. Her defenders have pointed to some similarities in Powell's earlier use of private email, which drew fresh scrutiny at Thursday's hearing. "I don't get this, it's ridiculous," said Democrat Stephen Lynch, a committee member. "This is the National Archives asking you to contact AOL, but you didn't do that." Patrick Kennedy, the State Department's most senior management official, said that Powell, a Republican, never replied to the department's request to ask AOL to attempt to recover his work emails, which were not properly archived at the agency. He said the department's lawyers decided to decline the National Archives' requests that the department go to AOL directly. "We cannot make a request for someone else's records from their provider," Kennedy said in his testimony. "That request has to be made by them." Jason Chaffetz, the Republican who chairs the committee, then agreed to a request by the committee's most senior Democrat, Elijah Cummings, to try to recover the emails from AOL, using a subpoena if necessary. AOL is owned by telecommunications provider Verizon Communications Inc. A spokeswoman for Powell did not respond to a request for comment. AOL did not immediately respond to questions, and has previously said the its privacy policy precludes it from discussing a customer's emails. The State Department did not have a fully functioning email system when Powell joined it in 2001, according to agency officials. Powell has said he told technology officials to set up a computer with his AOL account in order to become the first secretary of state to use email. In contrast, Clinton eschewed the official state.gov email system when she took office in 2009. Department officials have said she would not have received permission for this had she asked.


ALEXANDER MERCOURIS | THE DURAN R ussia's use of its aircraft carrier in the Syrian conflict is principally intended to learn lessons for the design of more potent such warships in the future, rather than to change the situation in Syria itself. The Russian navy's deployment of aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean has provoked a very confused response in the Western media.  On the one hand it is described as a major escalation, as if was a US style super carrier. On the other hand there has been a great of deal of derision , with the ship called an obsolete rust bucket dangerous mainly to its crew. Where does the truth lie? The Admiral Kuznetsov is the first and only Russian aircraft carrier capable of launching fighter aircraft conventionally. The preceding Kiev class carriers were smaller ships, which could only launch a small number of aircraft vertically. Contrary to what reports say, Admiral Kuznetsov is by the standards of navy carriers a relatively new ship. She was launched in 1985, commissioned in the then Soviet navy in 1990, but only became operational after prolonged trials in 1995. The US navy currently operates 10 Nimitz class supercarriers. If the age of a ship is determined by its date of launch; then three of the US navy's Nimitz class supercarriers are older than Kuznetsov; if by date of commission, then five are; if by entry into service then six are. The Russian navy had no previous experience of operating carriers, so the lengthy time scale of her sea trials between commission and entry into service is not surprising. In addition what undoubtedly extended this period before her full entry into service was the political and economic crisis Russia experienced during the 1990s. Given the severity of this crisis, it is a wonder a ship as large and complicated as Kuznetsov was brought into service at all. Either way talk of Kuznetsov as some sort of archaic ship from a bygone era is exaggerated, whilst jokes about Kuznetsov being "….practically old enough to have been deployed in the 1905 Russo-Japanese war…." are simply silly. The Admiral Kuznetsov is expected to deploy off Syria, carrying 15 warplanes, including new MiG-29K/KUB fighters and the Su-33a, shown here. Aircraft carriers as it happens tend to be long-lived ships. Coral Sea, a US Medway class carrier, served in the US Navy from 1947 to 1990. By the standards of aircraft carriers Kuznetsov is not an old ship. What is true about Kuznetsov is that because she was the first of a type of ship of which the Russians had no previous experience, and because of the fraught period during which she was commissioned and brought into service – which made it impossible to sort out her teething problems properly – Kuznetsov suffers by comparison with US navy carriers from design flaws and from engine problems. The ship's engines are unreliable, because they are insufficiently powerful for a ship of this size. The Russians when they built Kuznetsov lacked suitable nuclear reactors for this type of ship (they were designed for the intended follow-on Ulyanovsk carrier, which because of the 1990s crisis was however never built). They also lacked conventional engines large enough for a ship of this size, which was roughly twice as heavy as the largest other ship the Russian or Soviet navy had commissioned before. The Russians accordingly came up with a complicated solution of using multiple steam turbines and turbo-pressurised boilers to make up for the lack of power of the individual engines. Like all complicated arrangements, this arrangement is unreliable and prone to breakdown, with the engines experiencing stress especially in heavy seas. To compound the trouble with the engines, they were built by a plant in what is now independent Ukraine. As political relations between Russia and Ukraine deteriorated, servicing of the engines by this plant became increasingly erratic, and has now stopped completely. It is these problems with the engines that account for the practice of accompanying Kuznetsov on long range deployments with a tug. The tug in question – the Nikolai Chiker – is the most powerful tug in the world. This same tug played a key role in successfully hauling Kuznetsov's uncompleted sister ship Varyag from Ukraine to China in 2005, where she has now become the Chinese carrier Liaoning. The fact Kuznetsov is accompanied by a tug on long range deployments has provoked some derision. However it is common practice in any navy to accompany large surface warships with service ships, and accompanying Kuznetsov with a tug ensures in Kuznetsov's case that the carrier will get to where the Russian naval staff are sending it. The engine problems will not affect Kuznetsov's Mediterranean deployment when the carrier finally reaches its position. Kuznetsov suffers from other problems, which are unsurprising given that Kuznetsov is so much bigger and so different to any other ship the Russian navy has ever previously commissioned, and the unhappy times when it was launched. The arduous deployment of the Russian flotilla. Everything is harder for the Russians. (BBC) There are for example known to be problems with Kuznetsov's water pipes, which have a history of breakdowns and of freezing up in Arctic weather. These problems too however will not affect Kuznetsov's capabilities as a warship when the carrier finally reaches the eastern Mediterranean, and the close proximity of Russian bases in Sevastopol and Tartus means they can be dealt with quickly if they arise. Once this deployment is ended Kuznetsov will go through a lengthy refit, which unlike previous refits is intended to be practically a rebuild. With Russia developing a new range of much larger and more powerful engines, Kuznetsov's current unsatisfactory engines will finally be replaced, and the other teething problems like the problem with the water pipes will finally be addressed. Ultimately this is a potent warship, bigger than any other carrier other than those operated by the US navy, and once the refit is done it will be a powerful asset. In the meantime the ship already provides the Russian fleet with a carrier capability matched by no other navy apart from that of the US.  The Russian carrier passing through the English Channel. In saying this it is important to stress however that the US navy carrier force – with its 10 nuclear powered supercarriers – dwarfs the capability of any other navy, including Russia's, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Neither the Kuznetsov, nor any other carrier the Russians might build, nor any other navy, can match or rival it. A more pertinent criticism of Kuznetsov is that though Kuznetsov is a large ship (at 55,000 tonnes standard weight and with a 305 metre length Kuznetsov is midway between a US Medway class carrier and a US Forrestal class supercarrier) the air group it carries at 40-50 aircraft is relatively small (by comparison a smaller US Medway class carrier carried an air group of 75-80 aircraft in the 1980s). This suggests that Kuznetsov is inefficient in its use of its spaces, a fact which again reflects Russian inexperience designing this sort of ship when Kuznetsov was built. However it also partly reflects differences in Kuznetsov's intended role. At the time Kuznetsov was built the Russians did not envisage using their carriers for the sort of long range carrier type operations carried out by the US navy. Unlike US navy supercarriers Kuznetsov prioritises air defence of the fleet rather than long range strikes. That explains why Kuznetsov's fighter aircraft take off from the carrier using a ski jump rather than steam catapults. Ski jump takeoffs put less stress on the pilots and shorten takeoff times, enabling more aircraft to take off from the carrier more quickly, which can be important in an air defence situation. The penalty is that aircraft are limited in the loads they can carry by comparison with aircraft launched by steam catapults. For air defence – the purpose for which Kuznetsov was designed – this is unimportant since fighter aircraft carrying out air defence missions only carry light air to air missiles rather than heavy air to ground missiles and bombs. However it does significantly reduce the air group's capability to carry out long range strikes. Combined with the relatively small size of the air group, this means that Kuznetsov's ability to carry out long range ground strikes is fractional compared to that of a US navy supercarrier. If Kuznetsov is not really designed to carry out long range ground strikes, why are the Russians deploying Kuznetsov off the coast of Syria? The plan to deploy Kuznetsov to the eastern Mediterranean was made many months ago, long before the recent collapse in relations with the US over Syria. The decision therefore can have nothing to do with deterring the US from declaring a no fly zone over Syria, as some people are suggesting. Most likely the intention is to gain experience operating aircraft against ground targets from an offshore carrier. This is not something the Russians have ever done before. Even if Kuznetsov's capability to do it by comparison with a US navy supercarrier is marginal, the fighting in Syria does at least give the Russians an opportunity to try it out to find out how it is done and what it involves. That way they can learn lessons that will help them with the design of the far more powerful ships that are to come (see here and here ). In other words the deployment of the Kuznetsov to the eastern Mediterranean is essentially a training exercise. It does not merit either the derision or the hype that has been created around it.


Stocks are listing, bonds are drifting and suddenly gold is back in vogue. Global investors appear to be facing the prospect that next week's U.S. presidential election may not play out as they have been expecting. Until last Friday, when the FBI said it had re-opened a probe of Democrat Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, the prevailing view among the investment set had her coasting to victory. And most investors have said in surveys they were more comfortable with that outcome than a victory by Republican Donald Trump. Now, though, several polls depict an ever-tightening race as the clock counts down to Election Day on Tuesday, although the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Clinton still with a 6-point lead. Investors generally see Clinton as a known quantity who would not make major changes that would upend financial markets, while Trump's positions have been difficult to nail down. Yet against the tumultuous political backdrop, some of the biggest American stock funds remain either too sanguine, too confused or too focused on extending the bull market to guard against an Election Day result that could shock the world like the Brexit vote did in June. U.S. large-cap mutual funds, which oversee $4 trillion in assets, are heading into the showdown for the White House with only a thin layer of cash to absorb any potential shocks from the stock market. Gerry Sullivan, who runs USA Mutuals' $234 million Barrier Fund, said it would be hard to reposition his portfolio even if he knew the election results ahead of time. "There is so much confusion," Sullivan said. U.S. funds that invest in stocks with large market capitalizations are not showing any drastic moves toward precaution. Overall, they have only 3.1 percent of their assets dedicated to cash, according to the latest data from Morningstar Inc. These same funds held more cash, about 3.4 percent, before Barack Obama defeated John McCain in 2008. Multi-asset investors are more defensively positioned, especially those outside the United States, according to the latest Reuters asset allocation poll. Funds in Europe held 8.1 percent of their portfolios in cash in late October, while U.K.-based funds had some 9.6 percent of their holdings parked on the sidelines. "Investors are holding higher-than-normal levels of cash," said Mark Haefele, global chief investment officer for UBS Wealth Management in London, who oversees around $2 trillion in assets. "That's one way of hedging the uncertainty." Nonetheless, Haefele said: "We've not seen significant de-risking around the election, but we have seen generally a consistent level of caution in the global client base." With uncertainty about the outcome on the rise, a risk-off mood has enveloped markets around the world. The S&P 500 index has declined for eight days in a row, its longest losing streak since the market crash in October 2008, while a benchmark for global stocks, the MSCI All-World Index, has dropped for seven of the last eight sessions. Both sit near four-month lows. Safe-haven bonds, recently under pressure from expectations the U.S. Federal Reserve is on track to raise interest rates this year, have seen only a modest boost in the meantime, but gold has surged to a one-month high near $1,300 an ounce. "The trades you're seeing in the market at the moment will go further in the event of a Trump victory," said Mike Bell, global market strategist at JP Morgan Asset Management in London. "You'd expect more downside to U.S. equities, the dollar and Treasury yields." More than half of the stock and bond fund managers polled by Northern Trust in the third quarter said they expected the election to cause a large increase in market volatility. Prices for certain S&P 500 index options expiring in the days after the election indicate a market swing of between 2 and 4 percent, in either direction, by then. Still, portfolio managers sitting on a lot of cash, some with more than 20 percent of assets, say the stockpile is not a sign of worry about the outcome of the race. "It's due to the diminished risk-reward profile of investment opportunities in a mature profit cycle," said Meggan Walsh, a portfolio manager at the $18 billion Invesco Diversified Dividend Fund. "We do not feel the election is an investable event." Some value-oriented large-cap fund managers say the stock market is over-valued and they are on high alert for a market correction as the election coincides with a bull market nearing completion of its eighth year. "It can be tempting to forget that nasty downturns happen with some regularity, and there is never a bell rung to announce their arrival," portfolio managers Arik Ahitov and Dennis Bryant recently warned investors in the $800 million FPA Capital Fund. After Britain surprised the world with a vote to leave the European Union, the S&P 500 Index tumbled nearly 4 percent on June 24. It soon recovered, however, and had regained record territory by mid-August. Even in Britain, the referendum's unexpected outcome has yet to show it has long-lasting effects for investors outside of the currency market, where the British pound has sunk to a three-decade low against the dollar. London's FTSE 100 index is up around 14-percent from its post-Brexit trough. The FPA Capital Fund managers had nearly 28 percent of the fund's $800 million in assets in cash during the third quarter. They see the stock market as too expensive and are ready for a high level of panic, if that happens, according to their October letter to investors. "An elevated level of forced selling, combined with a lack of liquidity, might result in challenges for many fully invested products such as index funds, many ETFs, and funds that have no to very low levels of cash cushions," the FPA Capital Fund portfolio managers said. "In a down market, cash helps mitigate losses and affords one the opportunity to buy when others are being forced to sell, generally the best time to buy."


On top of failing to pay charities for months after the fundraiser, despite already having beneficiaries listed, it turns out Donald Trump actually lied about how much was raised to the tune of around a million and a half dollars. And now, four months later, his campaign is admitting it.In fact, as of this time, only a little over three million has actually been paid out, meaning it s possible that even the new number given by the Trump s campaign is false. That, or worse, it simply disappeared. According to his campaign, donations were pledged that were not received. But that begs the question: If $4.5 million was definitely raised, where did it go?In any case, the amount of time between the fundraiser and actually paying the money is questionable, and Trump has been called out by many people for it including Sandra Miniutti, the vice president for Charity Navigator, a service that rates charities:In recent weeks, Trump and his campaign repeatedly declined to give new details about how much they have given away. Why should I give you records? Trump said in an interview with The Post this month. I don t have to give you records. In the past few days, The Post has interviewed 22 veterans charities that received donations as a result of Trump s fundraiser. None of them have reported receiving personal donations from Trump.Did Trump make good on his promise to give from his personal funds? The money is fully spent. Mr. Trump s money is fully spent, Lewandowski said.Who did Trump give to, and in what amounts? He s not going to share that information, Lewandowski said.Of course not.Featured image by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images


Email  Aren't you surprised that Hillary and the presstitutes haven't blamed Putin for FBI director Comey's reopening of the Hillary email case? But the presstitutes have done the next best thing for Hillary. They have made Comey the issue, not Hillary.  According to US Senator Harry Reid and the presstitutes, we don't need to worry about Hillary's crimes. After all, she is only a political woman feathering her nest, just as political men have done for ages. Why all this misogynist talk about Hillary? The presstitutes' cry is that Comey's alleged crime is far more important. This woman-hating Republican violated the Hatch Act by telling Congress that the investigation he said was closed is now reopened. A very strange interpretation of the Hatch Act. During an election it is OK to announce that a candidate for president is cleared but it is not OK to say that a candidate is under investigation.  In July 2016 Comey violated the Hatch Act when he, on orders from the corrupt Obama Attorney General, announced Hillary clean. In so doing, Comey used the prestige of federal clearance of Hillary's violation of national security protocols to boost her standing in the election polls.  Actually, Hillary's standing in the polls is based on the pollsters over-weighting Hillary supporters in the polls. It is easy to produce a favorite if you overweight their supporters in the poll questions. If you look at the crowds attending the two candidate's public appearances, it is clear that the American people prefer Donald Trump, who is opposed to war with Russia and China. War with nuclear powers is the big issue of the election.  Hillary's problem has the ruling American Oligarcy, for which Hillary is the total servant, concerned. What are they going to do about Trump if he wins? Will his fate be the same as John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, George Wallace? Time will tell. Or will a hotel maid appear at the last minute in the way that the Oligarchy got rid of Dominique Strauss-Kahn?  All of the American and Western feminists, progressives, and left-wing remnant fell for the obvious frame-up of Strauss-Kahn. After Strauss-Kahn was blocked from the Presidency of France and resigned as Director of the IMF, the New York authorities had to drop all charges against Strauss-Kahn. But Washington had succeeded in putting its French vassal, Sarkozy, in the presidency of France.  This is how the American Oligarchy destroys those it suspects might not serve its interests. The corrupt self-serving Oligarchy makes sure that it owns the government and the media, the think tanks and increasingly all of the major universities, and, of course, through the presstitutes, Americans' minds.  The Oligarchs are now hard-pressed to rescue Hillary as US president, so let's see if the Oligarchs can once again deceive the American people.  While we wait, let's concern ourselves with another important issue. The Clinton crime syndicate in the closing years of the 20th century allowed a small handful of mega-corporations to consolidate the US media in a few hands. This vast increase in the power of the Oligarchy was accomplished despite US anti-trust law. The media mergers destroyed the American tradition of a dispersed and independent media.  But really, what does federal law mean to the One Percent. Nothing whatsoever. The One Percent's power makes them immune to law. Hillary's crimes might cost her the election, but she won't go to jail.  Not content with 90% control of the US media, the Oligarchy wants more concentration and more control. Looks like they will be getting it, thanks to the corrupt US government. The Federal Trade Commission is supposed to enforce US anti-trust law. Instead, the federal agency routinely violates US anti-trust law by permitting monopoly concentrations of business interests.  Because of the failure of the federal government to enforce federal law, we now have "banks too big to fail," unregulated Internet monopoly, and the evisceration of a dispersed and independent media.  Not so long ago there was a field of economics known as anti-trust. Ph.D. candidates specialized in and wrote dissertations about public control of monopoly power. I assume that this field of economics, like the America of my youth, no longer exists.  Rahul Manchanda explains that "yet again another huge media conglomerate is being swallowed and acquired by another huge media conglomerate, to create another gargantuan media outlet, in another consolidation of the enormous power, money, wealth, intimidation, conspiracy and control" that eviscerates the US Constitution and the First Amendment. Join the debate on Facebook Paul Craig Roberts is a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. Roberts' How the Economy Was Lost is now available from CounterPunch in electronic format. His latest book is The Neoconservative Threat to World Order . More articles by: Paul Craig Roberts next -


President Obama has done something that no other President has ever done on national television, and it s going to drive every Conservative in the country nuts. During an Alaska shoot with survivalist Bear Grylls to highlight climate change, the President painted his nails.In a gloriously un-macho moment, Bear Grylls offers the President some foraged nail paint, and suggests the President might wish to take advantage of the wonderful shade of fuchsia. On camera and with zero homophobic mockery, the President applies the paint to his nails (quite deftly I might add) and sits back and enjoys his handiwork.The footage is an outtake from President Obama s shoot with British survivalist Bear Grylls for a special edition of Running Wild with Bear Grylls.


Chinese authorities have collected DNA and other biometric data from the whole population of the volatile western region of Xinjiang, Human Right Watch said on Wednesday, denouncing the campaign as a gross violation of international norms. Hundreds of people have been killed in Xinjiang in the past few years in violence between Uighurs, a mostly Muslim people, and ethnic majority Han Chinese, which Beijing blames on Islamist militants. The unrest has fueled a sweeping security crackdown there, including mass rallies by armed police, tough measures that rights advocates say restrict religious and cultural expression, and widespread surveillance. Police are responsible for collecting pictures, fingerprints, iris scans and household registration information, while health authorities should collect DNA samples and blood type information as part of a Physicals for All program, the New York-based group said in a statement, citing government a document. The mandatory databanking of a whole population s biodata, including DNA, is a gross violation of international human rights norms, and it s even more disturbing if it is done surreptitiously, under the guise of a free health care program, Human Rights Watch s China director Sophie Richardson said. According to the Xinjiang-wide plan posted online by the Aksu city government in July, main goals for the campaign include collecting the biometric data for all people between the age of 12 and 65, and verifying the region s population for a database. Blood type information should be sent to the county-level police bureaus, and DNA blood cards should be sent to the county police bureaus for inspection, the plan said. Data for priority individuals should be collected regardless of age, it said, using a term the government has adopted to refer to people deemed a security risk. Government workers must earnestly safeguard the peoples legal rights , plan said, but it made no mention of a need to inform people fully about the campaign or of any option for people to decline to take part. Xinjiang officials could not be reached for comment. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang, asked about the report by Human Rights Watch, accused the group of making untrue statements. He told a regular news briefing in Beijing the general situation in the region was good. Human Rights Watch cited an unidentified Xinjiang resident saying he feared being labelled with political disloyalty if he did not participate, and that he had not received any results from the health checks. State media, reporting on the campaign checks, have said participation was voluntary. The official Xinhua news agency in November cited health authorities as saying 18.8 million people in the region had received such physicals in 2017 for a 100 percent coverage rate.