BAZINGA! Donald Trump Has Ten Point Swing In Polls BEFORE FBI Reopened Crooked Hillary Investigation The poll was conducted Oct. 24-27 among a random national sample of 1,148 likely voters with a margin of error 3 points. According to the poll, Republicans appear more energized, as 81 percent of registered Republicans signaled that they are likely to vote, up six points from last week. 29, 2016 Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump is rising in the polls, according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll.  EDITOR'S NOTE: Just so you know what you're looking at here, let me break it down for you. Liberal news organ ABC News took a poll among likely voters for the time period of October 24-27, and it showed Trump up by 7 points and Crooked Hillary down by 3. That's a 10 point increase for Donald Trump, all that happening before the game-changing announcement by the FBI on reopening the investigation on Crooked Hillary and her illegal emails. Bazinga!  Donald Trump is now at 45 percent with likely voters , up seven points from his low of 38 percent earlier in the month. Hillary Clinton is at 47 percent while Gary Johnson is at four percent and Jill Stein is at two percent. Newt Gingrich: Trump is likely ahead in the polls  That marks a seven point jump for Donald Trump in just four days. Trump's opponent Hillary Clinton has seen her numbers drop three points in the same time period, making a 10 point swing in Trump's favor.  According to the poll , Republicans appear more energized, as 81 percent of registered Republicans signaled that they are likely to vote, up six points from last week.  Eighty-six percent of Republicans now support Trump, up from 82 percent last week, and 84 percent of Republican leaning independents are now supporting Trump, up six points from last week.  The poll was conducted Oct. 24-27 among a random national sample of 1,148 likely voters with a margin of error 3 points. Partisan divisions are 37-29-29 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents. source


By wmw_admin on November 5, 2016 Rebecca Rosenberg and Daniel Halper — New York Post Nov 4, 2016 Weiner on horse at The Recovery Ranch rehab centre. Click to enlarge  This horse's ass is getting touchy-feely with a new partner.  As this exclusive Post photo shows, Anthony Weiner spent Friday morning getting a dose of "equine therapy'' for his sex addiction at The Recovery Ranch at Nunnelly, TN, a tony woodsy respite for deep-pocketed patrons.  The perverted former Queens pol wore a bright-blue riding helmet, green T-shirt, blue jeans and sneakers as he saddled up his poor animal and hopped aboard, accompanied by a blonde.  Weiner — who was caught obsessively texting other women, including an underage girl , while married to top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin — looked pensive as he meandered through the trees at the expansive ranch.  But he turned decidedly glum when approached by The Post and asked for comment. He refused to say a word before riding slowly off.  Weiner recently got in more hot water with the Democratic Party when authorities investigating his sexting scandal discovered he had e-mails on his computer that could be linked to the FBI probe involving Clinton's private server.  The bombshell development couldn't have come at a worse time for Clinton, who faces Donald Trump in a presidential-race showdown Tuesday.  But Weiner, 52, is now worlds away, putting his time in at the secluded recovery ranch after Abedin jettisoned him when it surfaced that he even sexted selfies with their 4-year-old son sleeping in the background .  Weiner is bunking down at The Ranch's Swan Creek House, one of several lodgings catering to its addled well-heeled clientele about an hour west of Nashville.  "Nestled amid rolling hills dotted with mature oaks and maples, Swan Creek House is a 15,000-square-foot home that features warm and inviting living spaces and breathtaking views of the surrounding hills,'' The Ranch's Web site says.  "The home's sprawling outdoor spaces include a pond, natural rock landscaping and rolling hills as far as the eye can see.  "Also situated on the property is a state-of-the-art equestrian center equipped with lights, heated water and a ¾ bath, as well as 12 stalls, a wash area and a vet area for the equine partners."  The center's equine therapy 'involves caring and interacting with horses in ways that provide valuable lessons in accountability and in how we relate to others,'' the site says.  Weiner is without his cell phone in the 15-bed facility, which is specifically for sex addicts — who are kept strictly separate by gender.  Plunking down a cool $25,000 for the 35-day program, according to online reviews, the disgraced dad still has to make his own meals and clean up after himself.  Participants get daily group therapy. In addition to riding on a horse at least once a week, they also get plenty of other physical activity such as rope-climbing, zip-lining, hiking and canoeing, as well has have access to a gym.  Ironically, Rob Weiss, who heads the ranch's sex-recovery unit, penned an article for the Huffington Post in 2013 in which he talked about Weiner and fellow sex-shamed former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer — as well as Ariel Castro, the monster who held captive and raped three young Ohio women for more than a decade.  Another center at the 2,000-acre ranch — which singer Rihanna reportedly once considered to get treatment for a "love addiction" — revolves around a Native American sweat lodge.  The sweat lodge is designed to offer "opportunities for physical detoxification, spiritual connection and emotional processing,'' the ranch's Web site says.


The Seattle judge who temporarily banned the White House's refugee reform plan acted after mistakenly claiming the federal government has not arrested jihadi migrants from the seven Muslim countries covered by the reform. [But the federal government has arrested and jailed at least 76 people since 2001 from the seven countries covered in the first stage of the president's reform, which was announced late January. That fact means there is a huge error in the judge's rationale for imposing a "Temporary Restraining Order" ban on the president's popular reform of the expensive refugee and immigration programs. In a hearing before the decision, Judge James Robart told a lawyer from the Department of Justice that the federal government has not arrested people since 2001 from any of the seven countries named in the reform, since the 20o1 atrocity in New York. "How many arrests have there been of foreign nationals for those seven countries since ?" he asked. The justice department's lawyer replied, "Your Honor, I don't have that information," prompting Robart to answer his own question: Let me tell, you, the answer to that is none, as best I can tell. You're here arguing on behalf of someone that says we have to protect the United States from these individuals coming from these countries and there's no support for that. But according to a database built by the Senate's immigration subcommittee, the federal government has arrested and convicted at least 73 people from the seven countries of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Sudan, and Yemen. The Senate's database was assembled despite repeated refusals by Obama's deputies to provide data to the Senate subcommittee in 2016. However, by reviewing public data, "at least 380 of the 580 individuals convicted of terrorism or offenses between September 11, 2001 and December 31, 2014, were born abroad," the report concluded in June 2016. The committee's report also added: At least 380 of the 580 were (71 were confirmed and the remaining 129 are not known). Of the 380 at least 24 were initially admitted to the United States as refugees, and at least 33 had overstayed their visas. Additionally, of those born abroad, at least 62 were from Pakistan, 28 were from Lebanon, 22 were Palestinian, 21 were from Somalia, 20 were from Yemen, 19 were from Iraq, 16 were from Jordan, 17 were from Egypt, and 10 were from Afghanistan. A check by Breitbart News shows that the people convicted include five Iranians, 19 Iraqis, two Libyans, 21 Somalians, six Syrians, three Sudanese and 20 Yemenis. That's a total of 76 people, at least. The committee's review of arrestees was overseen by Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, of the Senate immigration panel. Sessions is expected to become the nation's Attorney General, and will likely reverse the justice department's 2016 policy of hiding information about terrorists' immigration status from the public. A review of the Senate's data in 2016 by Breitbart News showed that at least 100 men named for Mohammed have been arrested and convicted for crimes since 2001.


U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with Saudi King Salman on Wednesday and the two leaders agreed Salman will visit the White House early next year, the White House said in a statement. In the phone call, Trump and Salman also discussed ways to continue advancing shared priorities, including enhancing security and prosperity in the Middle East, the statement said.


Laura Ingraham is dialed in on the Republican s inability to get a good budget bill. She held up the Washington Post to show how Pelosi and Schumer are celebrating the victory of the budget. The Democrats got pretty much everything they wanted at the expense of the American people. We do not have a Republican Party on Capitol Hill that can get its act together. Laura IngrahamLet s face it the Republicans didn t fight for us and Ingraham knows it. She mentions key parts of the spending bill in her rant on Fox & Friends. We re happy she mentioned the ***Refugee Resettlement Program because that s one part of the bill that we re very disappointed in. The Refugee Resettlement Program is so bloated and needs to be overhauled or defunded altogether. We re sick about it:The bill would include a total of $3 billion towards migration and refugee assistance, which is roughly the same that was spent in Fiscal Year 2016. It would also include $50 million towards the emergency refugee and migration assistance fund, which is also the same amount spent in the previous fiscal year.


On Thursday, failed 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney met with William Kristol. Kristol, considered an influential voice on the right, is leading the effort to draft an independent candidate to challenge the party s presumptive nominee, Donald Trump.According to The Washington Post, Kristol and Romney met privately at the J.W. Marriott hotel in Washington to discuss the possibility of Romney entering the race as a third-party candidate.Kristol confirmed the little meeting during a phone interview with The Washington Post on Friday, saying: He came pretty close to being elected president, so I thought he may consider doing it, especially since he has been very forthright in explaining why Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton should not be president of the United States. The Washington Post reports that Kristol has been desperately seeking a prominent political or military figure who could be drafted into the general-election contest, in hopes of stopping Donald Trump.Kristol previously attempted to draft retired Marine Gen. James N. Mattis, who turned down the proposition.According to statements made by Romney later on Thursday, the former candidate said he is not interested in launching an independent run, however he appeared to wholeheartedly support the idea.The Washington Examiner reports that Romney said: I m certainly going to be hoping that we find someone who I have my confidence in who becomes nominee. I don t intend on supporting either of the major-party candidates at this point. He continued, saying: I am dismayed at where we are now, I wish we had better choices, and I keep hoping that somehow things will get better, and I just don t see an easy answer from where we are. No Republicans, there really is no easy answer from where you are. Where you are is totally screwed.There is no super-hero Republican political or military figure who is going to save the GOP from the monster it created. Even if there was, it certainly wouldn t be Mitt Romney, who was already trounced by Democrats in 2012.Lest we forget, the 2016 primary season began with 22 Republican candidates.The candidates included a long list of Republican all-stars : Rick Santorum, Ben Carson, Bobby Jindal, Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee, Rick Perry, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, John Kasich, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Jim Gilmore, Rand Paul, George Pataki, Lindsey Graham, Scott Walker, Jack Fellure, Andy Martin, Dennis Michael Lynch, Mark Everson, Jimmy McMillan and of course, Donald Trump. Needless to say, none of the other 21 primary candidates managed to stop Donald Trump.The fact that Republicans are now hoping against hope that somehow Mitt Romney can save the Republican party from certain death is almost comical.The Republican base clearly doesn t want another candidate. If they did, they could have picked any one of the 21 other morons who entered the 2016 primary race.Sadly, they want Donald Trump. Sadder still, they want Trump because his politics of hate aptly represent the dregs of society that the right-wing has been recruiting into the party for decades.Image credit: John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images


President Obama s response to the attacks on Belgium were dignified and hopeful, and it was exactly the opposite of the divisive and racist rhetoric of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, who took turns describing the frightening things they would do to Muslims if one of them is elected president. At a baseball game in Cuba, the president said: It s always a challenge when you have a terrorist attack anywhere in the world, particularly in this age of 24/7 news coverage. You want to be respectful and understand the gravity of the situation. But the whole premise of terrorism is to try to disrupt people s ordinary lives and one of my most powerful memories and one of my proudest moments as president was when I watched Boston respond after the marathon. Unlike the president, Ted Cruz s response was venomous and hateful and he had a sickening new plan, calling for Muslim neighborhoods to be under police watch. He said: We need to immediately halt the flow of refugees from countries with a significant al Qaida or ISIS presence. We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized. We need to secure the southern border to prevent terrorist infiltration. And we need to execute a coherent campaign to utterly destroy ISIS. Then of course there is the crazy Donald Trump. Instead of sending condolences and creating unity, here s what he had to say: I ve been talking about this for a long time. Brussels was a beautiful place. Zero crime, and now it s a disaster city. It s a total disaster and we have to be very careful as to who we allow into this country. As usual, nothing but opportunistic Republican politicians looking to cash in on a tragedy. But the president s words resonated hope. He continued by saying: They cannot defeat America. They don t produce anything. They don t have a message that appeals to the vast majority of Muslims or the vast majority of people around the world. What they can do is scare and make people afraid and disrupt our daily lives and divide us and as long as we don t allow that to happen, we re gonna be okay. Cruz and Trump are clearly falling into the trap of what terror is designed to do. Let s hope they don t succeed because if they do, that means that terror has succeeded.Watch Video Here:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDdTiKLhCcc]


Germans are far more satisfied with the direction of their country and less politically polarized than other European nations, a survey showed on Wednesday, underscoring why Angela Merkel is expected to win a new term as chancellor this month. The survey by the Bertelsmann Foundation showed that 59 percent of Germans believe their country is headed in the right direction. Some 77 percent say their personal economic situation has improved or stayed the same over the past two years, while 80 percent describe themselves as political centerists. The results contrast with other European countries where dissatisfaction with the economy and political establishment has led to a surge in support for populist parties on the right and left in recent years. By contrast, German voters seem keen for continuity. Merkel is widely expected to win a record-tying fourth term on Sept. 24, with polls showing her center-right bloc 13-15 percentage points ahead of its closest rival, the Social Democrats (SPD). These findings point to a highly content and status quo oriented German society and contrast starkly with the situation elsewhere in Europe, the authors Catherine de Vries and Isabell Hoffmann said. In Italy, for example, just 13 percent of respondents said they were satisfied with the direction of their country. In France and Britain, satisfaction levels stood at 36 and 31 percent, respectively. The average satisfaction level across the 28 countries in the EU was 36 percent. Both Germany and France showed sharp increases in satisfaction levels over the past months. In a survey conducted in March, before young centrist Emmanuel Macron was elected president, just 12 percent of French said their country was headed in the right direction. German satisfaction levels stood at 32 percent in March. Among the big European countries, France was the most politically polarized, with just 51 percent of respondents describing themselves as centrist. Some 24 percent identified as left or extreme left, while 25 percent described themselves as right or extreme right. In Germany, just 13 percent of respondents described themselves as left or extreme left, and only 7 percent as right or extreme right. The Bertelsmann survey was conducted in July and based on interviews with 10,755 Europeans in all EU member states.


Early Tuesday morning, a wave of Turkish airstrikes reportedly struck a headquarters building used by the Kurdish YPG militia in northeastern Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 18 YPG fighters and media officials were killed in the attack. [Turkey also conducted airstrikes in the Sinjar region of Iraq, ostensibly aimed at the militant Kurdish separatists of the PKK. However, Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Iraq — another key U. S. military ally against the Islamic State — also said the Turks hit their positions, killing five of their troops. The YPG released a statement saying its headquarters in Mount Karachok near the border was hit by Turkish planes, damaging a media center, radio broadcast facilities, and military installations. The YPG described Turkey's attack as "treacherous" and "barbaric" and even accused the Turks of attempting to undermine the planned offensive against Raqqa, the Syrian capital of the Islamic State. Critics of Turkey have accused it of tacitly supporting ISIS against the regime of Bashar Assad in Syria and of covertly profiting from trade with the Islamic State. Syrian Kurdish leader Salih Muslim asked the United States to defend them against further Turkish strikes. "A people that is fighting terrorism is being stabbed in the back. Coalition forces must not remain silent against this. No one should accept these attacks," Muslim said. The Turkish military said these airstrikes were intended to stop the PKK from smuggling weapons into Turkey. A statement from the military described the targets as "terrorists" and "terror hubs. " According to the Turkish military, 70 militants were killed in the airstrikes. The PKK recently claimed responsibility for a bomb attack on a police compound in southeastern Turkey that killed three people. The attackers dug a tunnel beneath the compound to plant what they described as "more than 2. 5 tonnes of explosives. " Turkey accuses other Kurdish forces, particularly the YPG in Syria, of being in league with the PKK. The PKK does have a presence in the Sinjar region, in part because it came to the aid of the Yazidi minority when ISIS tried to exterminate them. The PKK has been training and arming Yazidis to fight the Islamic State and has said it will not withdraw from Sinjar until Yazidi forces control the area. The Kurdish administration has been urging Yazidis to join the Peshmerga and other militia units instead of the PKK. Peshmerga commanders have asked the PKK to withdraw from the area. This is a difficult conflict for the United States to negotiate. On the one hand, Turkey is a NATO member and an important regional ally the U. S. is nervous about alienating. The U. S. classifies the PKK as a terrorist organization, just as Turkey does. On the other hand, the Peshmerga and YPG are crucial American battlefield allies against the Islamic State. The Peshmerga and YPG have also clashed among themselves, even while both cooperate with the United States. American military officials reportedly visited the Mount Karachok region by helicopter on Tuesday to assess the damage from Turkey's airstrikes. Turkey's Daily Sabah, which has a bent, began its report on the visit by stating the YPG is an "offshoot" of the PKK terrorist group and said banners depicting jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan can be seen in the background of photos that showed U. S. officials walking with YPG representatives. The U. S. coalition in Iraq and Syria issued a statement encouraging all forces in the region to "concentrate their efforts on ISIS and not toward objectives that may cause the Coalition to divert energy and resources away from the defeat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. " The Iraqi Foreign Ministry denounced Turkey's strikes as a violation of its sovereignty, warned that a larger Turkish military incursion would "destabilize northern Iraq," and asked the international community to block further "interference" by Turkey.


Republican Congressman Will Hurd - whose district spans 800 miles (1,290 km) of the Texas-Mexico border - on Friday criticized plans under consideration by the Trump administration to build walls and fences costing an estimated $21.6 billion to deter illegal immigration. Reuters on Thursday revealed details of an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that estimated the cost of covering the entire border. It called for the first phase of construction to begin in San Diego, California; El Paso, Texas and the Rio Grande Valley. "Building a wall is the most expensive and least effective way to secure the border," Hurd, whose district includes El Paso, said in an email. He said his district includes rough terrain where "it is impossible to build a physical wall." The estimated price tag in the report is much higher than a $12 billion figure cited by Republican President Donald Trump in his campaign and estimates as high as $15 billion from Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The border wall was one of Trump's main campaign promises. Trump, who took office on Jan. 20, has vowed to make Mexico pay for it, but the United States' southern neighbor has repeatedly said it will not fund its construction. Many congressional Democrats reacted strongly to the news of plans for the wall and its estimated price. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the senior Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a telephone interview that he welcomed the debate in his committee over funding the wall. "Instead of funding this costly and ineffective proxy for real action on immigration reform, we should be directing our resources toward finding cures for cancer, building schools for our children, feeding the hungry and rebuilding our bridges and our roads," Leahy said. Five Democratic senators on Friday wrote a letter to Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly claiming that the money would be misspent. The letter was signed by Senators Kamala Harris of California, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Tom Udall of New Mexico, Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Warren, a star of the political left, was silenced in the Republican-controlled Senate on Tuesday evening for speaking out against Trump's attorney general nominee, Republican Senator Jeff Sessions. Sessions was confirmed on Wednesday. The senators wrote, "We are extraordinarily concerned that President Trump's executive order appears to require that you divert DHS funds meant for critical security priorities to instead fund the border wall." They asked that Kelly respond to a series of questions, including how much funding will be diverted to cover costs for building the wall. Hurd said he had seen estimates as high as $40 billion for the barrier's construction, citing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology study released in October.


In an interview with TIME, Donald Trump pussygrabber extraordinaire went after Stephen Colbert for referring to The Donald s mouth as a place where Russian dictator Vladimir Putin keeps his d*k warm. You see a no-talent guy like Colbert. There s nothing funny about what he says. And what he says is filthy. And you have kids watching. And it only builds up my base. It only helps me, people like him. The guy was dying. By the way they were going to take him off television, then he started attacking me and he started doing better, Trump said. But his show was dying. I ve done his show. But when I did his show, which by the way was very highly rated. It was high highest rating. The highest rating he s ever had. On Thursday, the late night host shot back at Trump, and it just had to be painful. The president of the United States has personally come after me and my show. And there s only one thing to say: Yay! Colbert said during his monologue. I won! Mr. Trump, there s a lot you don t understand, but I never thought one of those things would be show business, Colbert said. Don t you know I ve been trying for a year to get you to say my name? Oh, please, don t make me trend on Twitter again! Don t throw me in that #briarpatch! Making jokes about you has been good for ratings. It s almost as if the majority of Americans didn t want you to be President, Colbert informed The Orange One. But you know who s got really bad ratings these days? You do. Terrible approval numbers. I hear they re thinking about switching your time slot with Mike Pence. Colbert s takedown of Trump was blistering, but the most painful part was when the comedian pointed out that the Trump show was not the highest-rated. As for who was? Let s just say his name rhymes with Neb Kush. Watch it below:featured image via screengrab


Teachers in Peru started returning to classrooms on Monday after union leaders announced they should suspend a strike that had sparked unrest and dragged on for more than two months in some places. Teachers at public schools in Peru had sought a sharper salary hike than the government s 12 percent proposal for next year and opposed evaluation-based firings. But union leader Pedro Castillo announced a temporary end to the strike during the weekend after the government threatened to dismiss teachers who did not return to class. The strike threatened to force 3.5 million school children to repeat the academic year and had sunk President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski s approval rating as teachers blocked roads and clashed with police. The Education Ministry urged parents to work with teachers to set up schedules to make up for lost time. The government offered to introduce its proposed salary increase to a minimum of 2,000 soles ($618) per month in November instead of next year and said teachers 55 and older could retire early. Kuczynski s approval rating dropped 13 percentage points to 19 percent in August, according to a monthly opinion poll by GfK - a new low for the former Wall Street banker in his year-old government.


Yevgeny Yevtushenko, an internationally acclaimed poet with the charisma of an actor and the instincts of a politician whose defiant verse inspired a generation of young Russians in their fight against Stalinism during the Cold War, died on Saturday in Tulsa, Okla. where he had been teaching for many years. He was 83. His death, in a hospital, was confirmed by a close friend, Mikhail Morgulis, with the TASS news agency. It said he had been admitted late Friday in "serious condition," but the cause of death was not specified. His wife, Maria Novikova, and their two sons, Dmitry and Yevgeny, were reportedly with him when he died. Mr. Yevtushenko's poems of protest, often declaimed with sweeping gestures to thousands of excited admirers in public squares, sports stadiums and lecture halls, captured the tangled emotions of Russia's young — hope, fear, anger and euphoric anticipation — as the country struggled to free itself from repression during the tense, confused years after Joseph Stalin's death in 1953. In 1961 alone Mr. Yevtushenko gave 250 poetry readings. He became, as one writer described him, "a graying lion of Russian letters" in his later years, teaching and lecturing at American universities, including the University of Tulsa, and basking in the admiration of succeeding generations before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But it was as a tall, athletic young Siberian with a spirit both hauntingly poetic and fiercely political that he established his name in literature. He was the best known of a small group of rebel poets and writers who brought hope to a young generation with poetry that took on totalitarian leaders, ideological zealots and timid bureaucrats. Among the others were Andrei Voznesensky, Robert Rozhdestvensky and Bella Akhmadulina, Mr. Yevtushenko's first wife. Mr. Yevtushenko did so working mostly within the system, however, taking care not to join the ranks of outright literary dissidents. By stopping short of the line between defiance and resistance, he enjoyed a measure of official approval that more daring dissidents came to resent. While they were subjected to exile or labor camps, Mr. Yevtushenko was given state awards, his books were regularly published, and he was allowed to travel abroad, becoming an international literary superstar. Some critics had doubts about his sincerity as a foe of tyranny. Some called him a sellout. A few enemies even suggested that he was merely posing as a protester to serve the security police or the Communist authorities. The exiled poet Joseph Brodsky once said of Mr. Yevtushenko, "He throws stones only in directions that are officially sanctioned and approved. " Mr. Yevtushenko's defenders bristled at such attacks, pointing out how much he did to oppose the Stalin legacy, his animus fueled by the knowledge that both of his grandfathers had perished in Stalin's purges of the 1930s. He was expelled from his university in 1956 for joining the defense of a banned novel, Vladimir Dudintsev's "Not by Bread Alone. " He refused to join in the official campaign against Boris Pasternak, the author of "Doctor Zhivago" and the recipient of the 1958 Nobel Prize in Literature. Mr. Yevtushenko denounced the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 interceded with the K. G. B. chief, Yuri V. Andropov, on behalf of another Nobel laureate, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and opposed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Mr. Yevtushenko wrote thousands of poems, including some shallow ones that he dashed off, he admitted, just to mark an occasion. Some critics questioned the literary quality of his work. Some writers resented his flamboyance, sartorial and otherwise, and his success. But his foes as well as his friends agreed that a select few of his poems have entered the annals of Russian literature as masterpieces of insight and conscience. Written and read to crowds at critical moments, Yevtushenko poems like "Stalin's Heirs" caught the spirit of a nation at a crossroads. In Russia, writers could be more influential at times than politicians. But they could also be severely rebuffed if they offended, as Pasternak did with his novel "Doctor Zhivago," and as Solzhenitsyn did with "The Gulag Archipelago" and other works. lingered in the Kremlin after Stalin's death. In one instance, nervous officials thwarted efforts to raise a monument at Babi Yar, a ravine near Kiev, Ukraine, where thousands of Jews were and buried in a mass grave in 1941 by the invading Germans. The reason the Kremlin said it resisted a memorial was that the Germans had shot other people there, too, not only Jews. Mr. Yevtushenko tackled the issue in 1961 in blunt verse that stunned many Russians and earned him acclaim around the world. The poem "Babi Yar," composed after a haunting visit to the ravine, included these lines: There are no monuments over Babi Yar. But the sheer cliff is like a rough tombstone. It horrifies me. Today, I am as oldAs the Jewish people. It seems to me now, That I, too, am a Jew. Alluding to the pogroms that erupted at intervals over the centuries, Mr. Yevtushenko went on: It seems to me, I am a boy in Byelostok. Blood is flowing, Spreading across the floors. The leaders of the tavern mob are ragingAnd they stink of vodka and onions. Kicked aside by a boot, I lie helpless. In vain I plead with the brutesAs voices roar:"Kill the Jews! Save Russia!" In a country ruled by Marxist myth, ostensibly free of bigotry, "Babi Yar" touched nerves in the leadership, and it was amended to meet official objections. Even so, it moved audiences. Whenever Mr. Yevtushenko recited the poem at public rallies, it was met with stunned silence and then thunderous ovations. He wrote once that he had received 20, 000 letters hailing "Babi Yar. " Dmitri Shostakovich composed his Thirteenth Symphony on lines from that and other Yevtushenko poems. But Mr. Yevtushenko was not allowed to give a public reading of the poem in Ukraine until the 1980s. "Stalin's Heirs," published in 1962, also stirred Russians, appearing at a time when they feared that repression might return to the country. It was published only after Nikita S. Khrushchev, the party leader who was then involved in a power struggle with conservatives, intervened as he pushed his cultural "thaw. " Stalin had been condemned anew the year before as having been a mad tyrant. The poem appeared in Pravda, the Communist Party's official newspaper, and caused a sensation. "Stalin's Heirs" opens with a description of Stalin's body being borne in his coffin out of the Red Square mausoleum to a grave near the Kremlin wall. Sullenly clenchingHis embalmed fists, He peered through a crack, Just pretending to be dead. He wanted to remember all thoseWho carried him out. Mr. Yevtushenko went on: I turn to our government with a plea:To double, And triple the guard at the grave siteSo Stalin does not rise again, And with Stalin, the past. And later, the main point of the poem: We removedHimFrom the mausoleum. But how do we remove StalinFrom Stalin's heirs? By the time democratic changes brought down Soviet Communist rule early in the 1990s, Mr. Yevtushenko had risen in the reform system to become a member of Parliament and secretary of the official Union of Soviet Writers. Along the way he received high honors, was published in the best periodicals and was sent abroad as an envoy of good will. He also endured abuse, jealousy, frustration and censorship. He once joked that Moscow censors were his best readers, the most expert at catching his meanings and nuances. Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Gangnus was born on July 18, 1933, in Zima Junction, a remote lumber station on the Railway in the Irkutsk region of Siberia, near Lake Baikal. His father, Aleksandr Rudolfovich Gangnus, was a geologist, as was his mother, Zinaida Ermolaevna Evtushenko, who became a singer. His parents divorced, and the boy took his mother's surname. Yevgeny spent his early childhood with his mother in Moscow. When German troops approached the city in late 1941, the family was evacuated to Zima and stayed there until 1944. Yevgeny's father would sometimes take the boy on geology expeditions to wild regions of Kazakhstan and the Altai Mountains and, along the way, recite poetry to him. Yevgeny learned to love nature and literature. He was also drawn to sports. At 16 he was selected to join a professional soccer team. But sudden literary success compelled him to abandon that ambition. Soon his poems began appearing in newspapers, popular magazines and literary monthlies. The authorities praised his early poems, which he later called "hack work," and he was admitted to the elite Gorky Literary Institute and to the Soviet Writers' Union. But after Stalin's death — Mr. Yevtushenko was almost crushed to death in a funeral stampede in Moscow — his work began to run counter to Soviet Realism, the officially sanctioned artistic style it reflected instead new thinking about individual responsibility and the state. Themes of state repression and fear had recurred in his poetry over the years, but he also began introducing personal matters into it, as he did in his long poem "Zima Junction," about a return to his hometown in 1953. Published in 1956, it was followed by more volumes of poetry that refused to conform to the approved modes of expression. After he praised "Not by Bread Alone," Dudintsev's caustic 1956 novel about Soviet life, Mr. Yevtushenko was expelled from the Literary Institute. But as the 1950s grew to a close, he had published seven volumes of poetry and was allowed to read his work abroad. In the next few years he became familiar to literary circles in Eastern and Western Europe, the United States, Cuba, East Africa and Australia. Indeed, a virtual cult began to develop around him after Time magazine put his portrait, as an "angry young man," on its cover in April 1962 and printed a laudatory article about him as a leading spirit in a changing, liberalizing Russia. For his part, Mr. Yevtushenko stressed that American writers had been important in his literary development. Later that year, he exchanged words with Khrushchev at a Moscow exhibit of contemporary art. Khrushchev, who had simple tastes and was facing serious political challenges, flew into a rage against abstractionism and made threats of coercion. A crackdown on modern art, literature and music was felt soon after the confrontation. Mr. Yevtushenko kept a loyal following, writing about nearly everything of importance at home and abroad. He paid tribute to Senator Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. after they were assassinated. He honored Allison Krause, one of the students shot to death at Kent State University during a Vietnam War protest. He chided John Steinbeck for not protesting the war in Vietnam. In the poem "Russian Tanks in Prague," he criticized the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. (It was circulated only hand to hand, going unpublished until 1990.) In the Mr. Yevtushenko championed the glasnost campaign of "openness" waged by the Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. In a speech to the Writers' Union, Mr. Yevtushenko assailed privilege, censorship and the distortion of history. He was a member of the first freely elected Supreme Soviet, the country's standing Parliament. He went on to publicly defy the conservative plotters of an attempt to seize power in 1991. The coup attempt, which temporarily deposed Mr. Gorbachev, sent a shock wave across Russia and around the world. Mr. Yevtushenko was later given a medal as a "Defender of Free Russia. " The upheaval became the backdrop for "Don't Die Before You're Dead," one of two novels he wrote. Mr. Yevtushenko did not write only about political and social issues. He composed verses on love, nature, art, travel and the various pains and joys of life. In 1956, for example, while married to Bella Akhmadulina, he wrote "My Beloved Will Come": My beloved will comeAnd wrap me in her arms. She will notice the changesAnd understand my fears. Through the black downpour, from night's gloom, Forgetting in haste to shut the taxi door, She will run up the decrepit stairwayFlushed with joy and longing. She will enter soaking wetWithout knocking. She will take my head in her hands, And her blue fur coat will slipHappily from the chair onto the floor. Mr. Yevtushenko had four marriages. He married Galina Semenova after he and Ms. Akhmadulina divorced. (Ms. Akhmadulina died in 2010.) His third wife, Jan Butler, was an English translator of his poetry. His widow, Ms. Novikova, whom he married in 1986, has taught Russian at a preparatory school near the University of Tulsa. Besides Alexander and Dmitry, he had three other sons, Yevgeny, Pyotr and Anton. A complete list of survivors was not immediately available. Mr. Yevtushenko kept homes in Russia and in the United States and, besides the University of Tulsa, taught at the the City University of New York and New York University (where one student remembered him dressed in silver suits "stalking back and forth across the front of the lecture hall" as he read his poems in "booming Russian"). He traveled widely, reading his poetry, lecturing, teaching and giving speeches to overflow crowds at universities. Through it all, Mr. Yevtushenko regarded himself as a patriot. In "Don't Die Before You're Dead," he summed up his ambivalent feelings of triumph, nostalgia and remorse as a survivor of the defunct Soviet system. In a poem on the final page, "Goodbye, Our Red Flag," he wrote: I didn't take the czars' Winter Palace. I didn't storm Hitler's Reichstag. I am not what you call a "Commie. "But I caress the Red Flagand cry. Poetry made him famous, but Mr. Yevtushenko preferred in his later years to describe himself as a "poet, writer and filmmaker. " Besides the two novels, he published dozens of volumes of poetry, which have been translated into dozens of languages. He acted or appeared as himself in several films, directed two others, wrote essays and compiled three volumes of his photographs. He preferred Oklahoma to New York. "In some provincial cities you can find the real soul of a country," he told The New York Times in 2003. "I like the craziness of New York, but New York is really not America. It's all humanity in one drop. Tulsa is very American. " He called Tulsa "the bellybutton of world culture. " There he enjoyed watching younger generations coming into their own. "Someone is near," he said to one class in dramatic tones. "I feel it. Someone always has to be the leader of a generation. Someone has to be born. Why not one of you?" He had shown the same fervor a decade earlier, in July 1993, when the Concert Hall of the Rossiya Hotel in Moscow was the setting for a celebration of his 60th birthday and, by extension, a testimonial to the defiant poets and writers of the 1960s who had broken through the iron grip of Stalinism. "Today you, one of the initiators of the Sixties movement, turn 60," President Boris N. Yeltsin wrote in a congratulatory letter to Mr. Yevtushenko. "Your innate, multifaceted talent arose brightly in the years of the 'thaw.' The civic consciousness of young poets then played a huge role in the spiritual liberation and awakening of the people of Russia. " A woman agreed, telling a reporter: "He was a symbol for us then. Later he was attacked for not being exiled or sent to the camps, for making a career of protest. But not many of us had the courage to stand up to the regime, and he did. You can't blame him that he survived. " Mr. Yevtushenko, still the in a brown silk suit, closed the evening by reading a poem called "Sixties Generation": "We were a fad for some, some we offended with our fame. But we set you free, you envious insulters. Let them hiss, that we are without talent, Sold out and hypocrites, It makes no difference. We are legendary, Spat upon, but immortal!"


Five magistrates named by the opposition-run congress who had been holed up in the Chilean ambassador s residence to avoid arrest fled in the early hours of Monday and escaped over the border to Colombia, a source said on Tuesday. The Chilean Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Elenis Rodriguez, Luis Marcano, Jose Nunez, Beatriz Ruiz, and Zuleima Del Valle had left the premises on Monday, but did not offer further details. Relatives came to get them at 5 a.m. yesterday. They escaped via (the Colombian border city of) Cucuta, said the source close to the five, who have been granted asylum by the Chilean government. From there they will travel to Washington D.C. to meet with the Organization of American States, the source added. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro threatened the opposition-named magistrates with jail in July after they challenged the existing Supreme Court, which has heavily favored the ruling Socialist Party. The status of the other magistrates remains unclear. Three were detained, although local media reported they were subsequently freed. Others have fled to the United States and Colombia. Venezuela s Information Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Venezuelan opposition COPEI party member Roberto Enriquez remains in the home of the Chilean ambassador in Caracas, the Foreign Ministry added in its statement.


By riding his appeal among whites to the top of the Republican Party, Donald J. Trump has emboldened conservative thinkers to press their party of business and the privileged to reshape its economic canon to more directly benefit poorer workers it has often taken for granted. The policy prescriptions of these reform conservatives, or "reformocons," would not only break with some longtime Republican orthodoxy — disavowing tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the rich, for example — they would also counter more recent stances by Mr. Trump on trade and immigration. And because of a lack of policy specifics in Mr. Trump's campaign, reform conservatives see an opening through which to push their prescriptions. "What it means to be a conservative is up for grabs," said Reihan Salam, the executive editor of the conservative National Review. Whether Mr. Trump prevails or the party is left to rebuild from defeat, these conservatives in think tanks, advocacy groups and the news media — and a few in political office — will be pressing for a new agenda: to update the playbook with an eye to voters without a college education who form the Republican base. Ronald Reagan's notions that policies that benefit the rich and big business lift all incomes now appear outmoded in an era of rising wealth inequality and stagnant wages. The challenge to the party could be every bit as contentious as Mr. Trump's ascent has been. Beyond conservative think tanks and activist circles, the new breed of conservatives has not made significant inroads among House Republicans, for instance. And even these Republicans do not agree on everything. But some common ideas suggest their proposed road map for the party: • Reject additional tax cuts for those making more than $250, 000 a year, but expand breaks for and workers through tax credits for children, the tax credit or a new wage subsidy using tax dollars to bring low wages toward the local median level. • Promote the benefits of global trade agreements, but help displaced workers. • Rule out fully privatizing Social Security and Medicare, and reassure workers they will be exempt from . • Acknowledge that universal health care is here to stay, but push for changes. • Disavow mass deportations and promote the economic benefits of legalizing longtime workers who are in the country illegally, but reduce the legal entry of immigrants. "What we have going on right now, and Trump's position in the Republican Party, makes this recalibration that much more important, that much more urgent," said Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah. "Some within the party," he added, "have been all too willing to wear the label of the Republican Party as being the party of Wall Street, or the party of the top 1 percent. " Although most of them oppose Mr. Trump's candidacy — Mr. Salam called him "an overwhelmingly noxious and negative force" — these conservatives do credit him with engaging voters and dealing them into the economic conversation. "The biggest thing that Trump offers these voters is finally somebody paying attention," said Henry Olsen, a scholar at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center. "Imagine that they're the wallflowers at the high school dance and they're sitting off, ignored by everybody. Suddenly, the football hero comes up and says, 'Come dance with me.' That's intoxicating. " Led by younger conservatives, the push for new approaches began in the past decade, as big spending and military interventions by the Bush administration and a Congress vexed many in the party. Capturing the ferment was a 2008 book, "Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream," by Mr. Salam and Ross Douthat, who is now a columnist for The New York Times. "The Trump phenomenon has really opened things up — people are more inclined to listen, elites within the party are more inclined to listen," said Mr. Salam, who, with Mr. Douthat, recently updated their book's theme in an opinion article in The Times. The authors wrote in their that Mr. Trump's white supporters were "clearly voting against a party leadership that pays them lip service while ignoring their concerns" — a revulsion that will not disappear even if Mr. Trump does. Proponents of a new conservative agenda have critics in both parties. Democrats dismiss their ideas as repackaging a familiar agenda. Some Republicans and conservative media figures like Rush Limbaugh condemn their cause as a return of moderate Republicanism or a capitulation to liberalism. Michael A. Needham, the chief executive of Heritage Action for America, the political arm of the Heritage Foundation, said reform conservatives and Tea organizations like his are allies in their desire to rewrite a "stale" economic agenda tilted to Republican donors. But he acknowledged differences in tactics and substance. His group and its allies favor conflict, like government shutdowns, for instance. And they still want to repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut taxes for everyone. Yet conservative agitators were mostly talking among themselves until Mr. Trump toppled the party establishment, along the way flouting longstanding party dogma on taxes, trade and immigration. Democrats have long charged that white Americans who vote heavily Republican do so against their economic interests. A new poll for The Wall Street Journal and NBC News had Hillary Clinton ahead over all but trailing Mr. Trump by 13 percentage points among whites without a college education and by 21 points among men in that group. Past polls had her even further behind with those voters, however. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said in an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" last week that the Democratic Party bore some responsibility. While its policies may be geared toward workers, he said, "The Democratic Party over all hasn't spoken enough to those voters" — the "ordinary people busting their necks. " It was an echo of the Republican now playing out. For all of Mr. Trump's outreach to whites, Robert VerBruggen, the managing editor of The American Conservative, said the party platform that emerged from the Republican convention was further evidence of the gap between the party's support from white workers and its agenda that all but ignores them. "The breakdown of the working class was neglected," he wrote in his magazine. "There seems to have been little discussion of the economic anxieties of working families, the safety net or the drug epidemic sweeping rural America. " "Instead," Mr. VerBruggen wrote, "their focus on the bottom half of the economic spectrum seems to have been limited to a debate about the purchase of unhealthy snacks with food stamps. " Oren Cass, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the former domestic policy director for Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign, even suggested that Republicans look for ways to harness labor unions for constructive relationships. He also predicted more openness among conservatives to raising taxes when justified. "It's hard to imagine the Grover Norquist tax pledge having the salience it once did," Mr. Cass said, referring to the longstanding vow that most Republican candidates take. "That model of 'no tax increases, ever, under any circumstances' I think is probably on its way out or gone. " Mr. Norquist scoffed at the suggestion. "The pledge came out in '86," he said. "Every six months from then somebody has said, 'Oh, the pledge won't hold.' " It is, he added, "nonnegotiable. "


Report Copyright Violation BREAKING...Hillary Clinton's E-Mail Server Company Got Almost $1 Million In Gov't Loans After Wiping E-Mails "Hillary Clinton's e-mail server company got almost $1 million in government loans starting immediately after they were secretly asked to wipe Hillary Clinton's name from her e-mails " Last Edited by thatonedad on 10/26/2016 02:29 PM Anonymous Coward


Thu, 27 Oct 2016 16:45 UTC © Yves Herman / Reuters The Belgian government has reached a deal with the Wallonia region on the free trade agreement between the European Union and Canada, according to Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel. Michel said "an agreement" was found after a last minute round of negotiations with Belgium's French-speaking community who have been holding up the deal. Brussels has not released the details of the compromise. The signing of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) was cancelled on Thursday after the deal was blocked by Wallonia's regional parliament. Comment: Belgium's Wallonia region defying EU Junker's CETA trade deal Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was forced to cancel Thursday's trip to Brussels as the negotiations had stalled. Wallonia premier Paul Magnette said the region was not opposed to an EU trade deal with Canada. However, he insisted the secret arbitration scheme allowing corporations to sue governments had to be dropped from the agreement. Regional leaders in Wallonia voted 46 to 16 against CETA over fears of job losses due to cheaper farming and industrial imports. CETA promises to eliminate tariffs on 98 percent of goods immediately after ratification and also encompasses regulatory cooperation, shipping, sustainable development and access to government tenders. CETA's supporters say the deal would yield billions in added trade through customs and tariff cuts and other measures facilitating business ties. Opponents claim the trade deal will only benefit the wealthy and large corporations. For CETA to be ratified, all 28 European Union countries have to agree the treaty. Until now, Belgium has been the main obstacle to the free trade deal. "All parliaments are now able to approve by tomorrow at midnight. Important step for EU and Canada," Michel tweeted.


President Donald Trump said on Friday he would spend an extra day in the Philippines during his trip to Asia, which the White House confirmed would be to attend the East Asia Summit taking place there. "We're actually staying an extra day in the Philippines. We have a big conference, the second conference, and I think we're going to have great success," Trump told reporters at the White House before leaving for his trip.


A group of Republican and Democratic U.S. senators introduced legislation on Wednesday that would provide an additional 2,500 visas for Afghans who have assisted U.S. forces by working as interpreters or in other support functions, often risking their lives. The U.S. State Department said last week it would soon run out of visas for the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, designed to help bring to the United States those who have worked for the government during the decade and a half that U.S. forces have been engaged in the country. The U.S. embassy in Kabul has stopped scheduling interviews for applicants seeking a visa through the program. The bill was introduced by Republican Senators John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Thom Tillis, and Democrats Jack Reed, the committee's top Democrat, and Jeanne Shaheen. Tillis and Shaheen are also members of the panel. The four senators led efforts in the Senate to extend the Afghan SIV program last year. "This legislation would ensure the continuation of this vital Special Immigrant Visa program, and send a clear message that America will not turn its back on those — who at great personal risk — stand with us in the fight against terror," McCain said in a statement. The National Defense Authorization Act passed late last year added 1,500 visas to the program, while tightening requirements for eligibility. Shaheen's office said more than 10,000 applicants are still in the process of obtaining visas. The Afghan visa announcement came as U.S. officials prepared to implement President Donald Trump's executive order, effective this week, that temporarily bans the admission of refugees and some travelers from six Muslim-majority countries. Afghanistan is not one of the six but some members of Congress have resisted expanding the SIV program out of concern that militants could use it to enter the United States. Supporters of the program dismiss the concerns, noting that applicants are subjected to intense screening.


21st Century Wire says This will rank as one of the most egregious miscarriages of consumer trust in US history. In a brief statement to Reuters, according to these Silicon Valley executives: Yahoo is a law-abiding company, and complies with the laws of the United States. Actually, Yahoo is in breach of the law. The laws they think they are talking about do not allow for flipping a dead switch on the 4th Amendment and conducting mass surveillance on all US citizens.In reality, the US Constitution is meant to be the supreme law of the land and Yahoo just colluded with an out of control US federal government to trash the 4th Amendment.So who is Marissa Mayer, the Yahoo CEO who willingly colluded behind closed doors with the NSA and the FBI to submit all of Yahoo s customer base to unwarranted surveillance? Why was this 37 year old neophyte allowed to walk into the top spot from Google with no real managerial experience, and put in charge of such a large corporation and then given a $54 million golden parachute after this dark spying debacle? She has quickly amassed net worth of approximately $500 million half a billion dollars.It sounds like she was definitely hand-picked for this particular job SELL OUT: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer sold out her customer base to an out of control, data-hungry Federal government.The GuardianYahoo last year secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers incoming emails for specific information provided by US intelligence officials, sources have told Reuters.The company complied with a classified US government directive, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency (NSA) or FBI, according to two former employees and a third person who knew about the program.Some surveillance experts said this represents the first known case of a US internet company agreeing to a spy agency s demand by searching all arriving messages, as opposed to examining stored messages or scanning a small number of accounts in real time.It is not known what information intelligence officials were looking for, only that they wanted Yahoo to search for a set of characters. That could mean a phrase in an email or an attachment, said the sources.Reuters was unable to determine what data Yahoo may have handed over, if any, and whether intelligence officials had approached other email providers besides Yahoo with this kind of request.According to the two former employees, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer s decision to obey the directive troubled some senior executives and led to the June 2015 departure of the chief information security officer, Alex Stamos, who now heads security at Facebook.( ) Andrew Crocker, staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that the use of the word directive to describe the program indicated that the request may have been ordered under the section 702 of the 2008 Fisa Amendments Act, which allows the government to target non-US citizens abroad for surveillance.Revelations by Edward Snowden about the Prism and Upstream programs of which the Yahoo program looks like a hybrid, Crocker said show that US citizens were also subject to mass surveillance. The fourth amendment and attendant privacy concerns are quite staggering, Crocker said. It sounds like they are scanning all emails, even inside the US the fourth amendment protects that fully. It s hard to see how the government justifies requiring Yahoo to search emails like that; there is no warrant that could possibly justify scanning all emails Continue this story at The GuardianREAD MORE SCI-TECH NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Sci-Tech Files


Insists ISIS Capital Will Be Attacked With 'Forces Available' by Jason Ditz, November 02, 2016 Share This  Secretary of Defense Ash Carter today confirmed that negotiations with Turkey are ongoing related to the upcoming invasion of the Syrian city of Raqqa, the de facto capital city of ISIS. Carter suggested Turkey's involvement would only happen " further down the road ."  The US announced that it intends to launch an invasion of Raqqa very soon, will conduct the operation concurrent with the ongoing invasion of Mosul in Iraq, and that Kurdish YPG forces will be providing the vast majority of the forces for this offensive.  That's irked Turkey, particularly the last part, as Turkish officials repeatedly warned the US against allowing Kurds anywhere near Raqqa and have suggested their own involvement was contingent on there being no Kurds involved.  Carter's comments suggest the US plan to invade without Turkey is unchanged, and that they intend to try to placate Turkey about the involvement of the YPG by giving them some involvement in the post-ISIS situation in Raqqa. Turkey is particularly keen to ensure that their own allies end up in control of Raqqa, and that's likely the main incentive of this deal. Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz


Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch, conceding that her airport meeting with former President Bill Clinton this week had cast a shadow over the federal investigation of Hillary Clinton's personal email account, said Friday that she would accept whatever recommendations career prosecutors and the F. B. I. director made about whether to bring charges in the case. Ms. Lynch said she had decided this spring to defer to the recommendations of her staff and the F. B. I. because her status as a political appointee sitting in judgment on a politically charged case would raise questions of a conflict of interest. But the meeting with Mr. Clinton, she acknowledged, had deepened those questions, and she said she now felt compelled to explain publicly her reasoning to try to put the concerns to rest. "People have a whole host of reasons to have questions about how we in government do our business," Ms. Lynch said at an Aspen Institute conference in Colorado. "My meeting on the plane with former President Clinton could give them another reason to have questions and concerns. " Though she insisted the conversation was a purely social encounter, Ms. Lynch said, "I certainly wouldn't do it again. " The attorney general's response did little to quell a political tempest in Washington, with some Republicans calling for her to recuse herself from the case — a step she said she was not going to take. Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, said the meeting had "opened up a Pandora's box. " He cast doubt on whether it was entirely social, citing it as an example of how "the special interests are controlling your government. " For Democrats, already anxious about the political impact of the email investigation, the incident revived fears that Mr. Clinton could become a rogue actor in a campaign that has so far operated more smoothly than Mrs. Clinton's presidential bid in 2008. Mr. Clinton, who was on a swing for his wife, strode across the tarmac at the airport in Phoenix to greet Ms. Lynch after her plane landed there on Monday night. The attorney general joked that she should have acted more swiftly to keep him from boarding. Asked by a journalist to name one thing she wished her predecessor, Eric H. Holder Jr. had told her about her job, she replied, "Where the lock on the plane door was. " Still, Ms. Lynch said the episode was personally distressing because it stained the reputation of the Justice Department. "The fact that the meeting that I had is now casting a shadow over how people are going to view that work is something that I take seriously, and deeply and painfully," she said. Even Ms. Lynch's explanation of how she planned to distance herself from the case — without recusing herself — required further clarification. "The case will be resolved by the team that's been working on it from the beginning," she said in Aspen. But a Justice Department spokeswoman, Melanie Newman, noted afterward that even if Ms. Lynch accepted the recommendation of her staff, she would be the one making the decision. "She's the head of the department," Ms. Newman said, "and with that comes ultimate responsibility for any decision. " The White House declined to comment on Ms. Lynch's decision. President Obama "believes that this matter should be handled without regard to politics," the press secretary, Josh Earnest, said. The F. B. I. is investigating whether Mrs. Clinton, her aides or anyone else broke the law by setting up a private email server for her to use as secretary of state. Internal investigators have concluded that the server was used to send classified information. For the Justice Department, the central question is whether the conduct met the legal standard for the crime of mishandling classified information. Ms. Lynch, whom Mr. Clinton appointed to be a United States attorney in 1999, said that the meeting with the former president was unplanned and largely social, and did not touch on the email investigation. "He said hello and we basically said hello, and congratulated him on his grandchildren, as people do," said Ms. Lynch, who was traveling with her husband. "That led to a conversation about those grandchildren. " For Mr. Clinton, who travels frequently by private jet, such airport socializing is common. Last month, he ran into Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, after speaking at the funeral of Muhammad Ali in Louisville, Ky. The two chatted before their planes took off. He has also greeted Representative Paul D. Ryan, the House speaker, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former Republican governor of California, on the tarmac. And in Mobile, Ala. he chatted with Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who has called for Mrs. Clinton's imprisonment. This meeting, however, created a particularly awkward situation for Ms. Lynch, a veteran prosecutor who was nominated from outside Washington's political circles. During her confirmation, her allies sought to contrast her with her predecessor, Mr. Holder, an outspoken liberal voice who clashed frequently with Republicans who accused him of politicizing the office. Ms. Lynch's reassurance that she will not overrule her investigators is significant. When the F. B. I. sought to bring felony charges against David H. Petraeus, the former C. I. A. director, for mishandling classified information and lying about it, Mr. Holder stepped in and reduced the charge to a misdemeanor. That decision opened a deep — and public — rift. Two other political appointees will review the findings of the email investigation before a final decision is made: John P. Carlin, the assistant attorney general for national security, and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates. But both have also pledged to follow the recommendations of the career prosecutors and the F. B. I. Ms. Newman said. The F. B. I. is expected to make a recommendation to the Justice Department in the coming weeks, though agents have yet to interview Mrs. Clinton. While some legal experts said they believed that criminal indictments in the case were unlikely, the investigation continues to cast a shadow over Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign. Beyond the workings of the Justice Department, there is precedent for relying on career officials to make politically charged decisions. When the Justice Department was considering whether to recommend sanctions against former Bush administration lawyers who approved waterboarding, Mr. Holder relied on his most senior career prosecutor to make the decision. No sanctions were recommended. For Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign, the incident in Phoenix resurrected questions about how the campaign would rein in her irrepressible husband. With approval ratings among Democrats of over 60 percent, Mr. Clinton is one of his wife's most potent surrogates. He has traversed the country with a breakneck schedule, campaigning and raising money for Mrs. Clinton, traveling with a staff and security detail. Mr. Clinton and his chief of staff, Tina Flournoy, are in frequent contact with John D. Podesta, chairman of the Clinton campaign, and Robby Mook, the campaign manager. He often listens in on campaign conference calls from the family's home in Chappaqua, N. Y. But his unpredictable and sociable nature can also cause problems for his wife's candidacy. David Axelrod, the former senior adviser to Mr. Obama, said on Twitter that he took Mr. Clinton and Ms. Lynch "at their word" that they had not discussed the investigation, but added that it was "foolish to create such optics. "


The Kremlin said on Thursday it hoped President Vladimir Putin and President-elect Donald Trump would get along and that there would be more mutual respect in U.S.-Russia relations than there was under the Obama administration. Addressing reporters on a conference call, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was responding to questions about how the Kremlin assessed Trump's news conference on Wednesday. "Moscow is genuinely hoping that our presidents will get along," said Peskov. "At least Trump has spoken of his readiness for dialogue. This doesn't mean there's a readiness to agree about everything with each other. That is hardly possible and Moscow isn't expecting that, but dialogue is grounds for hope and could help us find a way out of many complex situations." Peskov said however that the Kremlin did not agree with views on Crimea expressed by Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson on Wednesday, who said Moscow's 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula was illegal.


8 Views November 08, 2016 GOLD , KWN King World News  As the world awaits the outcome of the election in the United States, some time ago multi-billionaire Hugo Salinas Price told King World News in stunning fashion what he believes to be the frightening plan to control the world going forward. He described the people planning this as "barbarians," and said, "this is not going to end well." He also issued this ominous warning, "I have very serious doubts about the survival of our civilization under such people." Below is what the multi-billionaire had to say in this incredibly powerful interview.  These People Are "Barbarians" Hugo Salinas Price: "With regards to the social question in the world, in 1929 a Spanish thinker by the name of Ortega y Gasset wrote a book that really shook up the world titled, 'The Revolt of the Masses.' He was talking about the appearance on the world stage of new individuals.  He was writing about the growth of the population and the appearance of new individuals coming in to the mass of humanity. And these individuals evidently are (what he described as) 'barbarians.'…. "They came too suddenly to be educated, and for the knowledge of how to keep the Western way of life alive. These (barbarian) people have increased (in numbers), and now they have taken over power (in the world)."  We Are Now In The Hands Of These Barbarians So now we are in the hands of 'barbarians.' They have no idea of how our society came to be, and what is necessary to keep it going. They are fiddling with the controls: You might think of a monkey flying a 747 (airplane) — they don't have any idea what they are doing. And this is not going to end well with the barbarians at the controls… IMPORTANT: To find out which high-grade silver mining company billionaire Eric Sprott just purchased a nearly 20% stake in and learn why he believes this is one of the most exciting silver stories in the world – CLICK HERE OR BELOW: Sponsored  Hugo Salinas Price continues: " We don't have people who write books in power any more. I remember when a Prime Minister of England was a skilled musician and wrote books before he became Prime Minister. Where do we have such people in power today? We don't have scholars or people with a true background of education, history, economics and politics.  "I Have Serious Doubts About The Survival Of Our Civilization" They are all working on the spur of the moment. They are experimenting to see if this works and that works. And I have very serious doubts about the survival of our civilization under such people. I expect that a great crisis is coming. We are going to see a great separation and some people are just not going to make it, and the old truths are going to come back into fashion because of the need for survival."  Hugo Salinas Price also added: "I think we are going to see a series of bankruptcies. I think the (eventual) rise in interest rates is the fatal sign which is going to ignite a derivatives crisis. This is going to bring down the derivatives system (and the financial system).  "It's Not Going To Be A Very Pleasant World" There are (over) one quadrillion dollars of derivatives and most of them are related to interest rates. The spiking of interest rates in the United States may set that off. What is going to happen in the world is eventually we are going to come to a moment where there is going to be massive bankruptcies around the globe.  What is going to be left after the dust settles is gold, and some people are going to have it and some people are not. Then the problem is going to be to hold on to what you've got because it's not going to be a very pleasant world."  ***KWN has now released the extraordinary audio interview with Egon von Greyerz, where he gives KWN listeners a look what is really happening behind the scenes globally and in the gold market, and you can listen to it by CLICKING HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW.  ***ALSO RELEASED: The Greatest Wealth Transfer In History Nears As 'Deep State' Now Pulling Out All The Stops CLICK HERE.  © 2015 by King World News®. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. However, linking directly to the articles is permitted and encouraged. About author


Syria Is Another Pipeline War | Print This  By Gaius Publius , a professional writer living on the West Coast of the United States and frequent contributor to DownWithTyranny, digby, Truthout, and Naked Capitalism. Follow him on Twitter @Gaius_Publius , Tumblr and Facebook . Originally published at at Down With Tyranny . GP article archive here .  Proposed pipeline routes through the Middle East to gas markets in Europe. The purple line is the Western-supported Qatar-Turkey pipeline. All of the nations it passes through — Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey (all highlighted in red) — have agreed to it … except Syria. The red line is the "Islamic Pipeline" from Iran through Iraq into Syria. See text below for further explanation. (Source: MintPress News ; click to enlarge)  Summary first: We have been at war in Syria over pipelines since 1949. This is just the next mad phase.  I'm not sure most Americans have figured out what's happening in Syria, because so much of what we hear is confusing to us, and really, we know so little of the context for it. Is it an insurgency against a brutal ruler? Is it a group of insurgencies struggling for power in a nearly failed state? Is it a proxy war expressing the territorial and ideological interests of the U.S., Russia, Turkey and Iran?  Or something else?  According to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. it is something else — a war between competing national interests to build, or not build, a pipeline to the Mediterranean so natural gas can be exported to Europe. Inconveniently for Syria, that nation lies along an obvious pipeline route.  Which makes it another war between interests for money — something not very hard to understand at all.  Here's Kennedy's argument via EcoWatch. This is a long piece, well worth a full read, but I'll try to present just the relevant sections here.  The Historical Context: Decades of CIA-Sponsored Coups and Counter-Coups in Syria  Kennedy's introductory section contains an excellent examination of the history of U.S. involvement in Syria starting in the 1950s with the Cold War machinations of the Eisenhower-appointed Dulles brothers, John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of State, and Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA. Together, they effectively ruled U.S. foreign policy.  Kennedy writes (my emphasis):  Syria: Another Pipeline War  … America's unsavory record of violent interventions in Syria—obscure to the American people yet well known to Syrians —sowed fertile ground for the violent Islamic Jihadism that now complicates any effective response by our government to address the challenge of ISIS. So long as the American public and policymakers are unaware of this past, further interventions are likely to only compound the crisis. Moreover, our enemies delight in our ignorance.  … [W]e need to look at history from the Syrians' perspective and particularly the seeds of the current conflict. Long before our 2003 occupation of Iraq triggered the Sunni uprising that has now morphed into the Islamic State, the CIA had nurtured violent Jihadism as a Cold War weapon and freighted U.S./Syrian relationships with toxic baggage.  During the 1950's, President Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers rebuffed Soviet treaty proposals to leave the Middle East a cold war neutral zone and let Arabs rule Arabia. Instead, they mounted a clandestine war against Arab Nationalism—which CIA Director Allan [sic] Dulles equated with communism—particularly when Arab self-rule threatened oil concessions. They pumped secret American military aid to tyrants in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon favoring puppets with conservative Jihadist ideologies which they regarded as a reliable antidote to Soviet Marxism. At a White House meeting between the CIA's Director of Plans, Frank Wisner, and Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, in September of 1957, Eisenhower advised the agency, "We should do everything possible to stress the 'holy war' aspect."  The CIA began its active meddling in Syria in 1949 —barely a year after the agency's creation. Syrian patriots had declared war on the Nazis, expelled their Vichy French colonial rulers and crafted a fragile secularist democracy based on the American model. But in March of 1949, Syria's democratically elected president, Shukri-al-Kuwaiti, hesitated to approve the Trans Arabian Pipeline, an American project intended to connect the oil fields of Saudi Arabia to the ports of Lebanon via Syria. In his book, Legacy of Ashes , CIA historian Tim Weiner recounts that in retaliation, the CIA engineered a coup , replacing al-Kuwaiti with the CIA's handpicked dictator , a convicted swindler named Husni al-Za'im. Al-Za'im barely had time to dissolve parliament and approve the American pipeline before his countrymen deposed him , 14 weeks into his regime.  Kennedy then details the history of coups and counter-coups in and against Syria, and concludes this section with this:  Thanks in large part to Allan Dulles and the CIA, whose foreign policy intrigues were often directly at odds with the stated policies of our nation, the idealistic path outlined in the Atlantic Charter was the road not taken. In 1957, my grandfather, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, sat on a secret committee charged with investigating CIA's clandestine mischief in the Mid-East . The so called "Bruce Lovett Report," to which he was a signatory, described CIA coup plots in Jordan, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Egypt, all common knowledge on the Arab street, but virtually unknown to the American people who believed, at face value, their government's denials.  The report blamed the CIA for the rampant anti-Americanism that was then mysteriously taking root "in the many countries in the world today."… A parade of Iranian and Syrian dictators, including Bashar al-Assad and his father , have invoked the history of the CIA's bloody coups as a pretext for their authoritarian rule, repressive tactics and their need for a strong Russian alliance. These stories are therefore well known to the people of Syria and Iran who naturally interpret talk of U.S. intervention in the context of that history.  While the compliant American press parrots the narrative that our military support for the Syrian insurgency is purely humanitarian, many Syrians see the present crisis as just another proxy war over pipelines and geopolitics. Before rushing deeper into the conflagration, it would be wise for us to consider the abundant facts supporting that perspective.  So much for our supposed interest in "humanitarian" intervention in Syria. From a Syrian point of view, it has never been thus. It has been about pipelines since 1949, and they understand that, even if we don't.  The Current Conflagration  Kennedy then turns to the present, or the near-present. Refer to the map above as you read:  A Pipeline War  In [the Syrians'] view, our war against Bashar Assad did not begin with the peaceful civil protests of the Arab Spring in 2011. Instead it began in 2000 when Qatar proposed to construct a $10 billion, 1,500km pipeline through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey .  Qatar shares with Iran, the South Pars/North Dome gas field, the world's richest natural gas repository. The international trade embargo, until recently, prohibited Iran from selling gas abroad and ensured that Qatar's gas could only reach European markets if it is liquefied and shipped by sea, a route that restricts volume and dramatically raises costs.  The EU, which gets 30 percent of its gas from Russia, was equally hungry for the pipeline which would have given its members cheap energy and relief from Vladimir Putin's stifling economic and political leverage. Turkey, Russia's second largest gas customer, was particularly anxious to end its reliance on its ancient rival and to position itself as the lucrative transect hub for Asian fuels to EU markets. The Qatari pipeline would have benefited Saudi Arabia's conservative Sunni Monarchy by giving them a foothold in Shia dominated Syria.  The Saudi's geopolitical goal is to contain the economic and political power of the Kingdom's principal rival, Iran , a Shiite state, and close ally of Bashar Assad. The Saudi monarchy viewed the U.S. sponsored Shia takeover in Iraq as a demotion to its regional power and was already engaged in a proxy war against Tehran in Yemen, highlighted by the Saudi genocide against the Iranian backed Houthi tribe.  Which puts the Qatari pipeline squarely opposite to Russia's national interest — natural gas (methane) sales to Europe.  Of course, the Russians, who sell 70 percent of their gas exports to Europe, viewed the Qatar/Turkey pipeline as an existential threat. In Putin's view, the Qatar pipeline is a NATO plot to change the status quo, deprive Russia of its only foothold in the Middle East, strangle the Russian economy and end Russian leverage in the European energy market. In 2009, Assad announced that he would refuse to sign the agreement to allow the pipeline to run through Syria "to protect the interests of our Russian ally."  That was likely the last straw vis-à-vis the U.S. Which brings us to another pipeline, the so-called "Islamic Pipeline" (see map above):  "Assad further enraged the Gulf's Sunni monarchs by endorsing a Russian approved "Islamic pipeline" running from Iran's side of the gas field through Syria and to the ports of Lebanon. The Islamic pipeline would make Shia Iran instead of Sunni Qatar, the principal supplier to the European energy market and dramatically increase Tehran's influence in the Mid-East and the world. Israel also was understandably determined to derail the Islamic pipeline which would enrich Iran and Syria and presumably strengthen their proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas.  Another, competing pipeline which would run through Syrian territory, but this time carrying Iranian gas instead of Qatari gas. Thus the demonizing of Assad as evil in the mold of Saddam Hussein, instead of just a run-of-the-mill Middle East autocrat, as bad as some but better than others. Kennedy includes a good section on the history of the al-Assad family's rule of Syria, including this information from top reporters Sy Hersh and Robert Parry:  According to Hersh, "He certainly wasn't beheading people every Wednesday like the Saudis do in Mecca." Another veteran journalist, Bob Parry, echoes that assessment. "No one in the region has clean hands but in the realms of torture, mass killings, civil liberties and supporting terrorism, Assad is much better than the Saudis."  In September 2013, the Sunni states involved in the Qatar-Turkey pipeline were so determined to remove Syrian opposition to the pipeline that they offered, via John Kerry, to carry the whole cost of an U.S. invasion to topple al-Assad.  Kerry reiterated the offer to Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL27): "With respect to Arab countries offering to bear the costs of [an American invasion] to topple Assad, the answer is profoundly Yes, they have. The offer is on the table."  Obama's response:  Despite pressure from Republicans, Barrack Obama balked at hiring out young Americans to die as mercenaries for a pipeline conglomerate . Obama wisely ignored Republican clamoring to put ground troops in Syria or to funnel more funding to "moderate insurgents." But by late 2011, Republican pressure and our Sunni allies had pushed the American government into the fray.  The rest is a history of provocation and over-reaction — a great deal of both — and chaos and death in Syria. Kennedy provides much detail here, at one point adding:  [Syria's] moderates are fleeing a war that is not their war . They simply want to escape being crushed between the anvil of Assad's Russian backed tyranny and the vicious Jihadi Sunni hammer that we had a hand in wielding in a global battle over competing pipelines . You can't blame the Syrian people for not widely embracing a blueprint for their nation minted in either Washington or Moscow. The super powers have left no options for an idealistic future that moderate Syrians might consider fighting for. And no one wants to die for a pipeline.  I'll leave it there, but again, do read the entire piece if you want to truly understand what's going on in Syria, and what is about to go on.  Bottom Line  Bottom line, it's as Kennedy said: "No one wants to die for a pipeline"… but many do and will.  I'll offer three thoughts. One , if we weren't so determined to be deeply dependent on fossil fuels, this would be their war, not ours. Two , we are deeply dependent on fossil fuels because of the political machinations of the oil companies, their CEOs, and the banks and hedge funds who fund them, all of whom pay our government officials — via campaign contributions and the revolving door — to prolong that dependence. We're here because the holders of big oil money want us here.  And three , keep all this in mind during the term of the next president. It will help you make sense of the phony warrior- cum -humanitarian arguments we're almost certain to be subjected to.  We have been at war in Syria over pipelines since 1949. This is just the next mad phase.


On Monday, Donald Trump once again attacked London s Mayor, Sadiq Khan, for what he thinks Khan said about the London terror attacks. Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his no reason to be alarmed statement, Trump tweeted. MSM is working hard to sell it! Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his "no reason to be alarmed" statement. MSM is working hard to sell it! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2017Of course, Khan didn t have to think fast about anything and the MSM didn t have to work hard at all to sell his remarks.The statement was, again, taken out of context. What Khan actually said was that there would be an increased police presence in the wake of the attack and that citizens have no reason to be alarmed. Naturally, people showed up to once again let Trump know he s a douchebag:Well at least he didn't follow that statement up by playing his 23rd round of golf this year, you lazy cretin. Jonathan Wier (@JonKMBZ) June 5, 2017You just vomit words with no thought PRESIDENT Lil Trump (@USAneedsTRUMP) June 5, 2017Pathetic excuse by American President who never thinks fast and is working hard to sell his bullshit presidency Jamie Lambert (@JamieCollabro) June 5, 2017You are, unfortunately, POTUS. How dare you speak this way about the Mayor of London, a far more noble statesman than you'll ever be? Bumble Ward (@BumbleWard) June 5, 2017Full quote: "Londoners will see an increased police presence today & over the course of the next few days. There's no reason to be alarmed." Liam Dryden (@LiamDrydenEtc) June 5, 2017He also knows his base will just take his word for it and not fact check anything he says Annafyock (@afyock2) June 5, 2017What the fuck is wrong with you? Jay Baruchel (@BaruchelNDG) June 5, 2017HE MEANT THEY SHOULDN'T BE ALARMED ABOUT INCREASED POLICE PRESENCE YOU FUCKING MASSIVE MORON Stefanie Iris Weiss (@EcoSexuality) June 5, 2017Your explanation for misquoting him is that he retroactively changed the quote you were misquoting? Morten verbye (@morten) June 5, 2017You actual mother fucker. Who the fuck do you think you are, twisting his words like that? You are literally disgusting. Ethan Lawrence (@EthanDLawrence) June 5, 2017This is the second time The Donald has attempted to completely misrepresent the London mayor s words. On Sunday, Trump tweeted that Khan says there is no reason to be alarmed? about the at least seven dead and forty-eight wounded.At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is "no reason to be alarmed!" Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2017Through a spokesman, Khan made it clear that he has more important things to do than respond to Donald Trump s ill-informed tweet.


Poverty is entrenched in the Mississippi city of Durant (population less than 3, 000) but violent crime is hardly pervasive. The Police Department website lists current statistics of one report each for lost property, theft and a harassing phone call. It has been years since Durant, which is about 65 miles north of Jackson, last recorded a murder, the authorities said. But on Thursday, that sense of community and security was torn apart after two beloved nuns who worked at a medical clinic in a nearby town were found killed in their Durant home. The nuns were identified as Sister Margaret M. Held and Sister Paula J. Merrill, 68. The women were nurse practitioners who worked about 20 miles away at the Lexington Medical Clinic. Durant's assistant police chief, James Lee, said an officer was sent to the sisters' home around 10 a. m. to conduct what he called a wellness check after they did not show up at work. The door to the home was open, he said, and the officer found the bodies inside. The Rev. Greg Plata, the priest at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Lexington, where the nuns were active, said he had been told by the police that they were stabbed. One of their cars, a blue Toyota Corolla, was missing. Warren Strain, a spokesman for the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, said the car was found abandoned Thursday evening on a secluded street barely a mile from the home, The Associated Press reported. Father Plata said the two women were the only ones who lived in the house. It was not clear if the killings were related to their work. He said they dressed in civilian attire, or scrubs when they were at work. Chief Lee said that he could not speculate about a motive and that a cause of death had yet to be officially determined. The Police Department was being helped by the State Bureau of Investigation and the Holmes County Sheriff's Department. "An actual double homicide is an enigma," he said, adding that the house was in one of the quietest parts of the city and that the nuns would often jog or walk around the neighborhood. The Mississippi secretary of state, Delbert Hosemann, said in a statement that he hoped justice would be "swiftly served. " He said the nuns had been violently killed, adding, "Unbridled love and care for mankind has been met with unparalleled savagery. " Jamie Sample, 58, of Ebenezer, Miss. the music minister at St. Thomas the Apostle Church, said she had relied on the nuns for their "gorgeous voices" at Mass. "I just cannot tell you what precious people they were," she said. "They were just the sweetest people to ever draw a breath into their bodies. " She described the nuns as being like family. They spent time together at the holidays, and Ms. Sample's husband and son took care of their home repairs. Ms. Sample added that whoever had killed the nuns was "the epitome of evil. " She said Sister Margaret was an outstanding chef who regularly took delicious dishes to the church's potluck events. Sister Paula's nephew, David V. Merrill, 37, of Stoneham, Mass. recalled his aunt battling squirrels to grow blueberries in the backyard of their ranch house. He said she enjoyed ministering to the needy of Holmes County, where 44 percent of the residents live below the poverty level — the rate among the state's 82 counties, according to census data. "The work, it was her calling from God," Mr. Merrill said. "She lived and loved it every day. " Mr. Merrill said his aunt had never expressed concern about her safety. He said the biggest misgiving in the community was about the abuse of opioids. Sister Paula was a native of Massachusetts who developed a Southern drawl but retained a New Englander's cynicism, he said. Maureen Smith, the communications director of the Catholic Diocese of Jackson, Miss. said Sister Paula was from the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, based in Kentucky, and Sister Margaret was from the School Sisters of St. Francis, in Milwaukee. The United States Province Leadership team for the School Sisters said in a statement that its members were "deeply shocked and grieved" by the killings. It noted that Sister Margaret had been with the order for 49 years and devoted herself to "living her ministry caring for and healing the poor. " The two nuns had been sent by their orders to serve the poor throughout Mississippi. Sister Paula had spent 30 years in the state, the last six at the clinic, which saw 8, 000 patients last year. Four in 10 people in the county are uninsured or have only Medicaid, Ms. Smith said. The nuns were active in the church's Bible study, Father Plata said, and were deeply connected to the congregation of about 30 parishioners. "People were attracted to them because of their goodness," said Father Plata, who will be among the clergy members to say their funeral Mass.


The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's watchdog is expanding a review of administrator Scott Pruitt's frequent travels to his home state Oklahoma to include more recent trips taken on military and charter flights, according to a memo seen on Friday. The Office of Inspector General had been investigating the "frequency, cost and extent" of Pruitt's travels to Oklahoma through July 31, and will now expand the "active audit" to include all travel, including the use of private and military flights he has taken up to Sept. 30. The expanded review coincides with heightened scrutiny surrounding the travels of President Donald Trump's cabinet officials with reports that some have spent tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars for non-commercial flights. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price resigned last week over his use of costly private charter planes for government business. The Interior Department's own inspector general last week confirmed it also opened an investigation into travels by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke after receiving numerous complaints about his use of three chartered flights, including one on an aircraft owned by an oil and gas executive. Energy Secretary Rick Perry also used a private charter flight last week, Reuters reported. The flight cost $11,000, according to travel records provided to Reuters by the Department of Energy. The records show that Perry took four non-commercial flights between May and last week totaling nearly $56,000 of taxpayer money. Department spokeswoman Shaylyn Hayes said in a statement on Friday that in the "rare instances where government-owned or chartered aircraft have been used, trips were pre-approved by an Ethics officer within the Office of General Counsel." Separately, a spokeswoman for the Energy Department's inspector general office could not confirm nor deny whether it is investigating his travels. In addition to investigating the frequency of Pruitt's travels, the watchdog is also evaluating whether Pruitt followed EPA travel protocols and whether "EPA's policies and procedures are sufficiently designed to prevent fraud, waste and abuse with the Administrator's travel." Pruitt has taken at least four flights that were either not commercial or military-chartered since mid-February, according to government records. EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman said the four non-commercial flights had been cleared by EPA lawyers. Pruitt had also traveled to Oklahoma on at least 43 of the 92 days of March, April and May, according to copies of his travel records obtained by the Environmental Integrity Project watchdog and reviewed by Reuters last month, which prompted the initial investigation.