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How Millennials Became Spooked by Credit Cards - The New York Times

Nathaniel Popper

Kids these days: They just aren’t pulling out the plastic like they did in the past. Data from the Federal Reserve indicates that the percentage of Americans under 35 who hold credit card debt has fallen to its lowest level since 1989, when the Fed began collecting data in a standardized way, according to an analysis by The New York Times. Some older Americans have also been shedding credit card debt since the financial crisis that began in 2008. But for no other age group has the decline in the proportion holding credit card debt been more rapid than it has been for young Americans — who are often referred to as millennials — the data from the Survey of Consumer Finances shows. “It’s pretty clear that young people are not interested in becoming indebted in the way that their parents are or were,” said David Robertson, the publisher of The Nilson Report, a newsletter that tracks the payment industry. Their reluctance could have lasting repercussions for millennials, as well as for the financial system and the economy. Early use of credit cards has, in the past, helped young Americans develop a comfort level with credit that can last a lifetime and lead to a succession of big purchases financed by debt. Without a substantial credit history, it is much harder to take out a home mortgage, for example. “It will probably take them longer to get access to credit,” said Gregory Elliehausen, an economist at the Federal Reserve specializing in consumer finance. “In the meantime, their behavior and some of their habits will have already been formed. ” Over all, Americans’ use of credit cards has recently been creeping up again: Household debt in the United States increased by $35 billion, to $12. 29 trillion, during the second quarter of 2016, a 0. 3 percent rise from the previous quarter that was driven by credit cards and auto loans, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Banks say that their credit card operations are running at full tilt, and that in recent months the number of people having trouble paying their bills has been at record lows. But many younger people have been sitting on the sidelines, deterred by new laws passed after the crisis and big loads of student debt. They are also spooked by the temptation that credit cards offer to spend beyond one’s means. Jason Towner, a who works at a private equity firm, cut up his last credit card, from Capital One, in 2010. He did not have any unruly debts, but he had just watched his father and sister close the family furniture store after a bank cut off their credit line in the middle of the financial crisis. “I was seeing what was happening around the world, and what was happening in my backyard, and I was thinking, ‘This is not a great idea,’” Mr. Towner said recently. The resurgence of overall credit card use in the United States over the last year or two has been driven largely by subprime borrowers, according to the Federal Reserve, which has not looked at the recent growth in borrowing by age. But it is clear to economists who study payment patterns that millennials are gravitating toward payment methods that skirt both cash and credit. Why carry cash when you can whip out a debit card for the smallest transaction — a sandwich or a bottle of soda — or use an app like Venmo or an online payment service like PayPal? All of those typically draw funds directly from a bank account. Mr. Elliehausen of the Federal Reserve said he expected the aversion to debt among young Americans to continue, potentially with a downside. Credit cards are frequently necessary for the bigger purchases — like washing machines and computers — that can make households more efficient and help the economy grow. And credit cards are usually an essential part of the credit history that allows someone to borrow to buy a house. Only 37 percent of American households headed by someone aged 35 and under held credit card debt in 2013, the most recent year for which data from the Survey of Consumer Finances is available, down by nearly a quarter from immediately before the financial crisis. That statistic may undercount young cardholders to some extent, as it excludes people under 35 who live with their parents. But more recent data has also suggested that millennials are using credit cards less than people of a similar age did in the past — and that they are taking on fewer auto loans and mortgage loans than people of similar age did before the financial crisis. Rebecca Liebman, 23, graduated from Clark University in 2015 with a load of student debt. She avoided getting a credit card until earlier this year, and did so then only because she kept hearing about how she would need to build up her credit history if she ever hoped to get a mortgage. “I don’t want to use a credit card irresponsibly, and because of that, it’s scarier to use,” she said. “I grew up — I saw 2008 — I saw my dad get laid off. I don’t trust the financial market. ” Today Ms. Liebman is a founder of a financial literacy site for millennials, LearnLux, and the reluctant holder of a Discover card. Even after getting the card, it took her five months to overcome her ingrained aversion to debt and make her first purchase — a physical wallet. She understands what the aversion will mean for her and for her customers. “It’s going to make me buy a home a lot later in life,” Ms. Liebman said. “I think it will impact a lot of big decisions and push them further out. There are some things that are going to be specific to our generation around financial for sure. ” The reasons for the shift are varied: Like Ms. Liebman, many young people carry burdensome loads of student debt, making it hard for them to take on any more debt — and giving them a sour taste in their mouths when it comes to credit of any sort. The average American under 35 now has $17, 200 of student debt, 182 percent more than Americans of the same age had in 1995, the Fed data shows. On a more practical level, laws passed after the financial crisis made it much harder for younger people to secure cards unless they could prove they had the income to pay the bills. The tents that credit card companies used to pitch all over college campuses — offering students free when they signed up for cards — have largely disappeared. Then there are the young professionals who are able to get a card, but have seen the strain that debt put on their families and friends during the financial crisis. Mr. Towner, whose job in private equity involves lending money to small businesses, is a prime example. To him, the risks involved with debt outweigh the benefits, so he tends to use Venmo and PayPal, or, whenever possible, cash. When he bought his apartment in Berkeley, Calif. he chose a foreclosure and paid with money he had in the bank. “I don’t want to go out and buy, buy, buy, even though that’s what society wants me to do,” Mr. Towner said. “I want to save and invest for the long term. ”

Judge Erases Aaron Hernandez’s Murder Conviction

Warner Todd Huston

A Massachusetts judge has agreed to erase the murder conviction of former NFL player Aaron Hernandez, essentially because his suicide prevents his pursuit of justice by putting an abrupt end to his appeal. [In a decision released Tuesday, Judge E. Susan Garsh said case law in Massachusetts is clear that “abatement” defendants, who are denied the ability to finish an appeal before they die, can have their convictions vacated, ABC News reported. The former New England Patriots tight end committed suicide in his cell on April 19 while serving a life sentence for the 2013 murder of football player Odin Lloyd. He died only five days after being acquitted of a second murder charge from an incident in 2012. But, Hernandez had filed an appeal of his conviction and was awaiting the process when he committed suicide. “Abatement has been practiced in state and federal courts for more than a century,” Judge Garsh said. She added that “‘an appeal is an integral part of the system’ and said the interests of justice do not permit a defendant to stand convicted upon death if appeals are not exhausted. ” “Abatement remains the law in this Commonwealth, and this court is compelled to follow binding precedent,” Garsh concluded. Judge Garsh dismissed the claim offered by prosecutors that Hernandez knew of the abatement rules when he committed suicide. Garsh insisted that there was no way to know what Hernandez thought as he prepared to kill himself. The decision, though, could open up the New England Patriots to be liable to pay the Hernandez estate for the salary he missed during his trials and jail time after the team released him. In 2012, the Patriots extended Hernandez’s contract with $16 million in guaranteed money. But, the team released Hernandez almost immediately after he was arrested in June 2013 and didn’t pay him the $5. 91 million of that guaranteed amount. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com.

President Trump: We Will Take New Steps on ’Improved Vetting Procedures’ - Breitbart

Michael Patrick Leahy

“It is not compassionate, but reckless, to allow uncontrolled entry from places where proper vetting cannot occur. Those given the high honor of admission to the United States should support this country and love its people and its values,” President Trump said in his speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday. [“That is why my administration has been working on improved vetting procedures, and we will shortly take new steps to keep our nation safe — and to keep out those who would do us harm,” the president promised. President Trump is expected to reveal those new steps when he signs a new executive order on refugees and immigration on Thursday. The signing was originally scheduled for Wednesday, but press reports indicate that the reaction to the president’s speech has been so positive, the White House chose to delay the signing so as to not step on its own positive message. The executive order President Trump signed on January 27, 2017, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States,” dealt specifically with those issues, but implementation of that order was derailed when Federal Judge James Robart of the Western District of Washington issued a temporary restraining order on February 3, 2017 halting it nationwide. Rather than engage in a lengthy court fight over the details of that executive order, President Trump has decided the fastest way to safeguard the country from foreign terrorist attacks is to sign a new executive order that has a higher likelihood of surviving the certain judicial challenges which will be brought against it by Democrats and their allies on the left. The president made two key points in his speech Tuesday that offer clues as to what his executive order may contain to improve vetting procedures. (1) He opposes uncontrolled entry of foreign nationals into the United States … (2) From places where proper vetting cannot occur. (emphasis added) President Trump does not view controlled entry of foreign nationals from places where proper vetting occurs as the most important priority in protecting the nation from foreign terrorists. The term “vetting” has been used most frequently in the press to refer to security background checks conducted on a particular type of permanent immigrant to the United States — those entering legally under the federal refugee resettlement program, authorized by the Refugee Act of 1980. That act, as spelled out in subsequent regulations and procedures established by the departments charged with its implementation — The Department of State, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Health and Human Services — has established a series of protocols to be followed related to the security background and health of potential refugees allowed to enter the country. Those protocols, though vigorously defended by the Obama administration, have been widely panned by critics of the program, as well as President Trump, as ineffective in ascertaining security risks posed by potential participants in the federal refugee resettlement program. In addition, the current protocols for determining the health risk posed by potential participants in the federal refugee resettlement program have been demonstrated by numerous articles at Breitbart News as being ineffective at preventing the importation of a number of diseases into the United States, the most glaring example being active tuberculosis (TB). Judge Robart’s temporary restraining order left standing several sections in President Trump’s January 27, 2017 executive order. In one section, President Trump limited the number of refugees who could arrive in the United States in FY 2017, which ends on September 30, to 50, 000. Robart did not attempt to stop that presidential directive, because every legal expert agrees the president can, on his own authority as defined in the Refugee Act of 1980, limit the number of refugees to any number — even zero. In FY 2016, under President Obama, 84, 995 refugees entered the United States. Two other sections left standing in Judge Robart’s temporary restraining order are specifically relevant to the executive order it is anticipated President Trump will sign on Thursday: Sec. 3 (a) Suspension of Issuance of Visas and Other Immigration Benefits to Nationals of Countries of Particular Concern, The Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, shall immediately conduct a review to determine the information needed from any country to adjudicate any visa, admission, or other benefit under the INA (adjudications) in order to determine that the individual seeking the benefit is who the individual claims to be and is not a security or threat. Sec. 4 (a) Implementing Uniform Screening Standards for All Immigration Programs. The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Director of National Intelligence, and the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation shall implement a program, as part of the adjudication process for immigration benefits, to identify individuals seeking to enter the United States on a fraudulent basis with the intent to cause harm, or who are at risk of causing harm subsequent to their admission. Sec. 3 (a) directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to determine “information needed from any country” concerning the potential “security or threat” of refugee applicants as well as visa applicants. Sec. 4 (a) directs the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security to “implement a program … to identify individuals seeking to enter the United States on a fraudulent basis with the intent to cause harm, or who are at risk of causing harm subsequent to their admission. ” These projects have been going on at both State and Homeland Security for over one month now. What that means is the Trump administration has likely developed a significant list of objective standards in both security and public health that refugees and other immigrants must meet in order to be granted entry into the United States. That list is likely to be included in the executive order and will be significantly more resistant to legal challenges. A surprise to look for will be a number of detailed public health standards as well as security standards. One possible new standard will be the implementation of a recommendation made recently by a number of scientists at the Centers for Disease Control that all refugee applicants be tested for latent TB, and that no refugee be allowed to enter the country if they test positive for latent TB, or have not successfully completed treatment for latent TB if they have tested positive for it.

The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Julie Andrews and Henson Puppets - The New York Times

Leah Rozen

On a wintry morning last month, Julie Andrews and her daughter Emma Walton Hamilton breezed into the Jim Henson Company’s Creature Shop in Queens, where they warmly greeted puppets hanging limply from a stand. “Why, hello there!” said Ms. Andrews, 81, hailing the foam and fabric creations as if they were close friends. They sort of are. The puppets — animated and voiced by skilled puppeteers — star alongside Ms. Andrews in “Julie’s Greenroom,” a new children’s show produced by the Henson Company and available on Netflix beginning March 17. She was particularly partial to Hugo the Duck, a character she created, stroking his feather head until her daughter gently chided her. “Mom, you shouldn’t keep touching him,” Ms. Hamilton said. “We’re not supposed to get oil on them. ” Ms. Andrews quickly apologized. “I just wanted to lift his feathers up a bit,” she said. Ms. Andrews, an and actress who is as warm and forthright in person as anyone who grew up loving “Mary Poppins” would expect her to be, has worked with puppets before. As a child actress in England, she serenaded a ventriloquist’s dummy in “Educating Archie,” a popular radio show. In “The Sound of Music,” she yodeled with marionettes. And on “Sesame Street” and “The Muppet Show,” she vamped with their denizens. The difference now? She helped bring these latest puppets into existence. Besides starring in “Julie’s Greenroom,” Ms. Andrews helped create, write and produce the show with Ms. Hamilton and Judy Rothman Rofé, an writer on “Madeline” and other kids’ programs. On the show, she plays Ms. Julie, who teaches a performing arts class to five puppet pupils. Over the debut season’s 13 episodes, Ms. Julie and celebrity guests (including Alec Baldwin, Idina Menzel, Josh Groban, Carol Burnett and David Hyde Pierce) inspire the eager young thespians to create and perform an original musical. Both mother and daughter want the show to champion the vital role they see the performing arts play in teaching children critical thinking, empathy, tolerance and communication skills. “It’s the bridge across all countries,” Ms. Andrews said, referring to drama, dance and music. “The hardest part for us with the show was not to get preachy but also to make it wildly entertaining. ” Ms. Andrews is keenly aware that her new show is entering a rapidly changing children’s television world. The traditional major networks and even the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon are losing young viewers to streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime, which are plumping up their kids’ programming with ever more offerings. Netflix currently streams more than 40 of its own children’s shows, including “A Series of Unfortunate Events” and “Trollhunters,” while Amazon offers 15 originals, such as “Annedroids” and “Tumble Leaf. ” And HBO, which streams via HBO Go and HBO Now, cut a deal a year ago to air new episodes of “Sesame Street” nine months before they appear on PBS. “When I was growing up, I watched ‘The Smurfs’ on Saturday morning,” said Rich Greenfield, an analyst specializing in technology and media at BTIG Research, referring to the NBC cartoon show from the 1980s. “That was the definition of kids’ TV. Kids today don’t even think about turning on the TV networks or cable on Saturday. They want it on demand, and that’s how they’re used to getting it. ” For the streaming services, in particular, their treasure trove of data clearly show what their viewers crave: According to Netflix, more than half of its 93 million members in nearly 200 countries, for example, regularly watch its children’s shows. “Children’s content is important, because it’s our first opportunity to build brand love for Netflix that we hope will last a lifetime,” said Andy Yeatman, director of global kids content at Netflix. The real targets, of course, are parents who pay the subscription fees. “Kids’ content gives the household a reason to subscribe, because kids watch every single day,” Mr. Greenfield said. Following their schmooze with the puppets, Ms. Andrews and Ms. Hamilton discussed the birthing process for their show over scones and coffee in a conference room at the Creature Shop. The women have an easy rapport, built up not only as mother and daughter but also as the of more than 30 popular children’s books, including the “Dumpy the Dump Truck” and “The Very Fairy Princess” series. (Ms. Andrews has four other children, including two stepchildren, as well as 10 grandchildren and three .) After the Henson Company approached Ms. Andrews and Ms. Hamilton with the show’s concept, the project was shopped to Netflix in late 2015 Mr. Yeatman and his team quickly said yes. “One of the things that attracted us was not so much that Julie was attached, but that this was a topic she cared a lot about: building a love for the performing arts in kids,” Mr. Yeatman said. Then the real work started. Ms. Andrews and Ms. Hamilton, together with Ms. Rofé, spent a week last winter mapping out the show’s narrative arc and writing the pilot episode at the actress’s home in Sag Harbor, N. Y. The peripatetic Ms. Andrews, a widow since the death in 2010 of the director Blake Edwards, now considers Sag Harbor, a former whaling village (where Ms. Hamilton also lives) her primary residence. Next came the creation and building of the show’s seven puppet characters (which include a dog and Hugo the duck). Ms. Julie’s five pupils are a true rainbow coalition, including one who is in a wheelchair and another who is seemingly gender neutral. “That’s Riley she loves all the technical backstage stuff,” Ms. Andrews said, pointing to an androgynous puppet sporting shortish red hair and round glasses. “She’s a girl. ” Ms. Hamilton, 54, an actress turned writer and arts educator, chimed in. “If pressed, we’d say that she’s a girl, but maybe not forever,” she said. “We wanted to be as diverse as possible. ” Ms. Andrews and Ms. Hamilton weighed in extensively when the puppets were being designed and built at the Creature Shop. They helped choose hair color and texture, outfits, even nose shapes. “Mom, remember the 17 different fabric swatches we went through for Peri’s skirt?” Ms. Hamilton asked, referring to the puppet. “Yes!” Ms. Andrews replied. “We wanted it as icing pink as possible. ” The women also sat in on final casting sessions to pick an actor to play Gus, Ms. Julie’s (human) assistant. Giullian Yao Gioiello (“The Carrie Diaries”) won the role after strumming his guitar and demonstrating his prowess. “I was a bit in awe when I first walked in,” he said of meeting Ms. Andrews. But after spending six weeks of nearly days shooting the series at Grumman Studios in Bethpage, N. Y. he came to regard his energetic as his honorary grandmother. “She’d share stories and get me her favorite tea, a British brand called PG Tips. ” The biggest surprise? “That Julie Andrews at the end of the day wants a martini. ” Ms. Andrews and Ms. Hamilton also lined up many of the show’s celebrity guest stars. In the first episode, Ms. Menzel introduces the pupils to Broadway musicals. Ms. Julie informs them that Ms. Menzel was the voice of Elsa in Disney’s “Frozen,” a credit sure to impress young viewers more than her Broadway credits from “Wicked” or “Rent. ” “You don’t say no to Julie Andrews,” Ms. Menzel said. After working with her on “Julie’s Greenroom,” Ms. Menzel said, she’s especially impressed by the veteran star’s polite perfectionism. “We would rewrite things on the spot to make them better. She doesn’t settle. She wanted to get things right, but she did it with grace. ” Several of the guest stars sing with Ms. Andrews, warbling original songs. Following a botched surgery on her vocal cords 20 years ago, her once range is now reduced to one. These days, she . “I touch what notes I can and say the others,” Ms. Andrews said. “I have about three or four good bass notes left. I could sing you a terrific version of ‘Old Man River. ’” Ms. Andrews said she despaired, because her whole identity “was being able to sing and the joy of it. ” She eventually realized — “It was a great lifesaver” — that there were other ways to incorporate music into her life. Ms. Hamilton nodded. “In this show, Mom was very with the songs and the underscoring,” she said. Ms. Andrews added, “The arrangements, the scoring — it’s something I’m so passionate about. ” It shows. In one of the most spirited scenes, cast members from the Off Broadway show “Stomp” visit to teach percussion. In an extended jam session, filmed in one long take, the “Stomp” cast, Gus and the puppet pupils turn everyday objects in their classroom in an old theater into instruments. Ms. Julie joins in, picking up a china teacup and rhythmically whacking at it with a spoon. The action was unscripted. “Who better than an English mum to pick up a teacup and start banging away?” Ms. Andrews said, laughing. “That’s serendipity. ”

As Trump Signals Climate Action Pullback, Local Leaders Push Forward - The New York Times

Tatiana Schlossberg

The incoming Trump administration appears determined to reverse much of what President Obama has tried to achieve on climate and environment policy. In position papers, agency questionnaires and the résumés of incoming senior officials, the direction is clear — an from eight years of policies designed to reduce emissions and address the effects of a warming planet. The Congress appears to welcome many of these changes. But mayors and governors — many of them in states that supported Donald J. Trump — say they are equally determined to continue the policies and plans they have already adopted to address climate change and related environmental damage, regardless of what they see from Washington. “With a federal government that’s hostile to climate action, more and faster climate action work from cities, states and businesses will be required to stay anywhere near on track with our carbon pollution goals,” said Sam Adams, the former mayor of Portland, Ore. and current director of the World Resources Institute United States. “In many cases, the solutions that help address climate change are what you have to do anyway in a city — transit options so the city doesn’t get gridlocked, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions and unlocks a tremendous amount of economic competitiveness because you don’t have thousands of people stalled in traffic,” Mr. Adams added. In last month’s election, Seattle, Los Angeles and Columbus, Ohio, voted to expand mass transit. Portland, Ore. which many say is the most environmentally minded city in the country, began a new municipal waste program a few years ago, resulting in higher recycling and composting rates, and smaller amounts of trash headed to landfills. Miami Beach is raising roadbeds and building flood walls to hold back the rising seas. California, led by the Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, has adopted a program, which limits carbon dioxide emissions and sets up a market for companies to buy and sell carbon allowances, so companies can meet or come under that carbon dioxide limit. The state has set one of the nation’s most ambitious climate targets — to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. Hawaii is planning to use 100 percent renewable energy by 2045. Governor Brown delivered a fiery defense of his state’s environmental policies at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco last week. He scoffed at reports that some Trump transition officials wanted to eliminate the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s system of satellites. “If Trump turns off the satellites,” he said, “California will launch its own damn satellite. ” Though stymied by alternating bouts of congressional gridlock or presidential administrations over the last two decades, cities and states have been able to take substantive action. They have fortified themselves against rising seas, switched to renewable sources of energy, expanded mass transit and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Whatever happens or does not happen in Washington, officials say, these projects will continue. Leaders in some cities feel that without presidential leadership it will be hard to achieve the swift transition that dealing with climate change requires. Many fear that they will not get federal funds or national policies needed to make it happen. Still, many mayors and state officials are optimistic about their plans already in motion and those that are scheduled over the next few years. “We feel really good, and we don’t see this election slowing us down,” said Eric Garcetti, mayor of Los Angeles. “We’re not going to wait for action from the federal government. We’re taking action now and securing our values. ” While experts caution that there are areas where federal regulations can determine what states and local governments are able to accomplish, they maintain that a administration could not halt all the momentum generated locally over the last two decades. About 60 percent of Americans live in cities, which generate most of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. “Cities are where climate change problems originate, and therefore that’s where the solutions are,” said Michael R. Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City who is of the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy and the United Nations’ Secretary General’s special envoy for cities and climate change. A number of cities have made substantial progress. In Miami Beach, where $400 million has been invested to deal with flooding, roads have been elevated and sea walls have been constructed. Susanne M. Torriente, the city’s chief resiliency officer, said the city had also recently completed its greenhouse gas inventory and now would aim to reduce its emissions, regardless of federal policy. Whatever policies the Trump administration adopts, she said, “won’t really be a big change for us. ” Republican mayors also govern some cities that are especially vulnerable to climate change. James C. Cason, the mayor of Coral Gables, Fla. is working to protect the city from some of the flooding it is already experiencing and to prepare it for more flooding that will most likely accompany rising sea levels. Florida has a Republican governor, Rick Scott, who has questioned the cause and extent of climate change, but that has not stopped Mr. Cason and other Republican mayors in South Florida from making pragmatic decisions on the issue. Cities have also seen lots of benefits from networks — the Compact of Mayors, which has been signed by more than 120 American cities, C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, Climate Mayors and others — most notably, information sharing and solutions, and reaffirming commitments to each other and to their citizens, as many mayors did in a recent letter to the . Depending on their state, however, cities are somewhat limited in what they can do from a legislative or regulatory standpoint. Some policy experts and state officials maintain that state governments, if they are willing to act on climate or energy policy, are where the measurable progress is made. In most states, governors and legislatures have the authority to regulate the two biggest sources of emissions: power plants and transportation. States can set automotive standards, and in the case of California, effectively set them for the whole country, experts said. states require that a certain percentage of their electricity comes from renewable sources, known as a portfolio standard, and another eight have voluntary portfolio standards or targets. In addition to California, nine other states, grouped in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, known as R. G. G. I. and 17 governors, mostly from that group of 29, have also signed the Governors’ Accord for a New Energy Future, which commits their states to certain sustainability goals. New York has also enacted progressive climate policies, rivaling California, largely by engaging market solutions, in particular attempting to reform the state’s utility system. states, which may not be favorable to climate policy, have still achieved meaningful progress, especially when it comes to renewable energy, because of the economics of the wind and solar industries. Texas, for instance, has more wind power than any other state, largely a product of deregulating the utility market, but also of subsidies from the federal government and tax credits. Robert Perciasepe, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, said that there were areas where national policies could hamstring state efforts. The federal government, he said, can be helpful in getting states to work together, though it is not essential to those efforts, as demonstrated by R. G. G. I. or the Governors’ Accord. And while achieving meaningful reductions may not be without difficulty, Mr. Perciasepe said, “I’m comforted that we have so much momentum, though we still need to be going faster, and the fact that we need to continue to accelerate may be lost. ”

Austria Ready to Host Soros University Embattled in Hungarian

Breitbart London

VIENNA (AP) — Austria’s chancellor is offering the country as a new home for the Central European University in Budapest, after Hungarian lawmakers approved laws for tighter regulation of foreign universities. [advertisement

Infarction

If you like the cutbacks to Social Security and other parts of the social safety-net that began during Bill Clinton's administration and escalated during Barack Obama's, then you will love Hillary Clinton. She is salivating like a hungry dog at the prospect of finishing off the remnants of FDR's New Deal that her husband started. You can stop her and her co-conspirators in the Democratic and Republican parties. Vote for Jill Stein.

Comment on Can The American People Defeat The Oligarchy That Rules Them? — Paul Craig Roberts by Debbie Menon

Debbie Menon

By Paul Craig Roberts on November 3, 2016 The Oligarchs are now hard-pressed to rescue Hillary as US president, so let’s see if the Oligarchs can once again deceive the American people. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is reviewing another slew of emails pertinent to Hillary Clinton’s private server investigation. by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts Aren’t you surprised that Hillary and the presstitutes haven’t blamed Putin for FBI director Comey’s reopening of the Hillary email case? But the presstitutes have done the next best thing for Hillary. They have made Comey the issue, not Hillary. According to US Senator Harry Reid and the presstitutes, we don’t need to worry about Hillary’s crimes. After all, she is only a political woman feathering her nest, just as political men have done for ages. Why all this misogynist talk about Hillary? The presstitutes’ cry is that Comey’s alleged crime is far more important. This woman-hating Republican violated the Hatch Act by telling Congress that the investigation he said was closed is now reopened. A very strange interpretation of the Hatch Act. During an election it is OK to announce that a candidate for president is cleared but it is not OK to say that a candidate is under investigation. In July 2016 Comey violated the Hatch Act when he, on orders from the corrupt Obama Attorney General, announced Hillary clean. In so doing, Comey used the prestige of federal clearance of Hillary’s violation of national security protocols to boost her standing in the election polls. Dare We Call It Oligarchy? Gary Hart is a former United States senator Actually, Hillary’s standing in the polls is based on the pollsters over-weighting Hillary supporters in the polls. It is easy to produce a favorite if you overweight their supporters in the poll questions. If you look at the crowds attending the two candidate’s public appearances, it is clear that the American people prefer Donald Trump, who is opposed to war with Russia and China. War with nuclear powers is the big issue of the election. Hillary’s problem has the ruling American Oligarchy, for which Hillary is the total servant, concerned. What are they going to do about Trump if he wins? Will his fate be the same as John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, George Wallace? Time will tell. Or will a hotel maid appear at the last minute in the way that the Oligarchy got rid of Dominique Strauss-Kahn? Dominique Strauss Kahn indicted by Grand Jury and out on six million dollar bailout, but could he have been set up? All of the American and Western feminists, progressives, and left-wing remnant fell for the obvious frame-up of Strauss-Kahn. After Strauss-Kahn was blocked from the presidency of France and resigned as Director of the IMF, the New York authorities had to drop all charges against Strauss-Kahn. But Washington succeeded in removing Strauss-Kahn as a challenge to its French vassal, Sarkozy. This is how the American Oligarchy destroys those it suspects might not serve its interests. The corrupt self-serving Oligarchy makes sure that it owns the government and the media, the think tanks and increasingly all of the major universities, and, of course, through the presstitutes, Americans’ minds. The Oligarchs are now hard-pressed to rescue Hillary as US president, so let’s see if the Oligarchs can once again deceive the American people. While we wait, let’s concern ourselves with another important issue. The Clinton crime syndicate in the closing years of the 20th century allowed a small handful of mega-corporations to consolidate the US media in a few hands. This vast increase in the power of the Oligarchy was accomplished despite US anti-trust law. The media mergers destroyed the American tradition of a dispersed and independent media. But really, what does federal law mean to the One Percent. Nothing whatsoever. The One Percent’s power makes them immune to law. Hillary’s crimes might cost her the election, but she won’t go to jail. Not content with 90% control of the US media, the Oligarchy wants more concentration and more control. Looks like they will be getting it, thanks to the corrupt US government. The Federal Trade Commission is supposed to enforce US anti-trust law. Instead, the federal agency routinely violates US anti-trust law by permitting monopoly concentrations of business interests. Because of the failure of the federal government to enforce federal law, we now have “banks too big to fail,” unregulated Internet monopoly, and the evisceration of a dispersed and independent media. Not so long ago there was a field of economics known as anti-trust. Ph.D. candidates specialized in and wrote dissertations about public control of monopoly power. I assume that this field of economics, like the America of my youth, no longer exists. In the article below, Rahul Manchanda, explains that “yet again another huge media conglomerate is being swallowed and acquired by another huge media conglomerate, to create another gargantuan media outlet, in another consolidation of the enormous power, money, wealth, intimidation, conspiracy and control” that eviscerates the US Constitution and the First Amendment.

Where Jobs Are Squeezed by Chinese Trade, Voters Seek Extremes - The New York Times

Nelson D. Schwartz and Quoctrung Bui

COURTLAND, Ala. — In this forlorn Southern town whose factories were battered in recent years by a flood of Asian imports, Rhonda Hughes, 43, is a fervent supporter of Donald Trump. Her old mother is equally passionate about Senator Bernie Sanders. Disenchantment with the political mainstream is no surprise. But research to be unveiled this week by four leading academic economists suggests that the damage to manufacturing jobs from a sharp acceleration in globalization since the turn of the century has contributed heavily to the nation’s bitter political divide. Ms. Hughes avoids discussing the election with her mother, but their neighbor Benjamin Green, 83, knows just what Washington needs. “It’ll take a junkyard dog to straighten this country out,” he said. congressional voting records and patterns of job losses and other economic trends between 2002 and 2010, the researchers found that areas hardest hit by trade shocks were much more likely to move to the far right or the far left politically. “It’s not about incumbents changing their positions,” said David Autor, an influential scholar of labor economics and trade at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the paper’s authors. “It’s about the replacement of moderates with more ideological successors. ” Mr. Autor added: “In retrospect, whether it’s Trump or Sanders, we should have seen in it coming. The China shock isn’t the sole factor, but it is something of a missing link. ” In addition to Mr. Autor, the research was conducted by David Dorn of the University of Zurich Gordon Hanson, a professor at the University of California, San Diego and Kaveh Majlesi of Lund University in Sweden. “Exposure to import competition is bad for centrists,” Mr. Hanson said. “We’ve known that political polarization and income inequality track each other, but that pattern is simply a correlation. We’ve now found a mechanism for how economic changes create further political divisions. ” Parker Griffith experienced the move away from the political middle firsthand. A Blue Dog Democrat who represented Courtland and the rest of Alabama’s Fifth Congressional District, he switched to the Republicans in 2009 and metamorphosed into a moderate Republican. But that wasn’t enough to save his seat. Dr. Griffith was beaten in the Republican primary in 2010 by Morris J. Brooks Jr. who has emerged as one of the most members of Congress. “If you’re under economic stress and you can’t provide for your family, the easiest answer is to find someone to blame,” said Dr. Griffith. “Mexicans, illegal immigrants, Obama. ” Representative Brooks has said that he would consider “anything short of shooting” illegal immigrants to get them out of the country and that he favored imposing heavy tariffs on China to “level the playing field” and punish Beijing for what he sees as currency manipulation. In the case of the Fifth District, which includes Huntsville and its and industries, as well as more industrial Florence along the Tennessee River, the move has been to the right. But Mr. Autor and his colleagues found that in districts with heavy minority representation, similar shocks can push more Democratic districts in the opposite direction. While whites hit hard by trade tend to move right, nonwhite voters move left, eroding support for moderates in both parties, the study concluded. As the South industrialized in the second half of the 20th century, poor Alabamians who once toiled on farms were able to secure a toehold in the middle class. In the shadow of Tennessee Valley Authority dams that supplied cheap power, thousands of workers sewed jeans and and could earn upward of $20 an hour in heavily unionized factories. But the collapse of the apparel industry here in the first decade of the 21st century, following China’s entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001, reversed that process. Nearly 10, 000 manufacturing jobs disappeared. At 7. 4 percent, the regional unemployment rate is well below its peak of 12. 8 percent in 2010, but remains far above the national average of 5 percent. The new paper underscores a broader rethinking among economists of the costs and benefits of policies aimed at encouraging industrial competition across borders. “There’s a deeper appreciation for the magnitude of the impact on workers who lose their jobs,” Mr. Hanson said. “But the nature of globalization changed after the end of the Cold War and it took a while for academics to catch up. ” Until the Nafta agreement with Canada and Mexico in 1994, and especially the entry of China into the W. T. O. trade deals were mostly multilateral and the rise in manufacturing imports to the United States came primarily from other advanced industrial nations like Germany and Japan. “China and the W. T. O. represented a shock that was way larger,” Mr. Autor said. “We hadn’t seen shocks like this because we were trading with rich countries, not highly productive developing countries with enormous labor reserves. ” To understand the connection between imports from China and political polarization, the researchers focused on the fact that manufacturers tend to localize in a specific region. “There are these concentrated pockets of hurt,” Mr. Autor said, “and we’re seeing the political consequences of that. ” Mr. Autor and Mr. Hanson emphasize that trade is only one factor among many that have contributed to a polarizing Congress (income inequality is another, as are attitudes toward immigrants). But it has been an important one, particularly over the last decade, when Chinese imports ramped up. This polarization has had a significant effect on the overall ideological makeup of Congress. The authors found that voters in congressional districts hardest hit by Chinese imports tended to choose more ideologically extreme lawmakers. Between 2002 and 2010, districts in the top 5th percentile of trade exposure, on average, experienced a 19 percent greater drop in manufacturing employment relative to districts at the other end of the spectrum. Those districts became, on average, far more conservative: the ideological equivalent of moving from Marco Rubio to Ted Cruz. Some very conservative members of Congress have been sympathetic to free trade arguments in the past, but Representative Brooks, who has welcomed support from the Tea Party, doesn’t mince words about where he stands. “We’re going to have to do whatever is necessary to ensure that a foreign country isn’t able to successfully attack and destroy significant parts of the economy,” he said. “I was in China two weeks ago and they are going to clean our plow if we don’t act. ” Mr. Autor, like most economists, is still persuaded of the benefits that global trade confers on the economy as a whole. But he recognizes that angry voters have valid reasons to be frustrated. “It’s a matter of diffuse benefits and concentrated costs, but our political system hasn’t addressed those costs,” he said. Some staunch defenders of globalization, like Gary Clyde Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, also acknowledge that the federal government has failed to adequately address the needs of workers dislocated by lowered import barriers. But the benefit of free trade is “10 times the size of the losses,” he said. “Free trade really helps people in terms of lower prices for products. The benefits are skewed toward people with lower income because they spend a much larger fraction of their income on merchandise. ” Perhaps, but that’s cold comfort to people in northern Alabama, where wages are stagnant and manufacturing jobs are still disappearing. In nearby Decatur, the big Nucor steel plant is hanging on, but it is under intense pressure from Asian imports, said the company’s chief executive, John J. Ferriola. Nucor has a policy, but pay and bonuses have been cut at the company’s five Alabama facilities. Does the steel industry in Alabama have a future? “Tell me what’s going to happen with imports,” Mr. Ferriola said. And in 2014, the giant International Paper mill in Courtland closed abruptly, costing over 1, 000 people their jobs. “Thirty years ago, it was booming,” Ms. Hughes said, pointing out where Courtland’s hardware store, the pharmacy and the used to be. “But those days are never coming back. ”

A South Korean Man Adopted by Americans Prepares for Deportation - The New York Times

Liam Stack and Christine Hauser

Adam Crapser was adopted from South Korea nearly four decades ago, but today he languishes in an immigration detention center in Washington State awaiting deportation because his American parents never filed citizenship paperwork for him. Mr. Crapser, 41, built a life in Oregon, got married and raised children but will soon be forced to leave the country in which he has lived since he was 3 for South Korea, where he plans to eventually reunite with his biological mother in a small town three hours outside of Seoul, the capital. His family will remain in the United States temporarily, and they hope to reunite in South Korea. “At this point I’m ready to just go back and try to make my life over there,” Mr. Crapser said on Monday night in a telephone interview from Tacoma Northwest Detention Center, a week after a judge denied his final request to stay in the United States. “There’s been some good things that came out of all this, surprisingly. ” Mr. Crapser’s sanguine attitude toward the wrenching dislocation that looms ahead is thanks in part to the media attention his case has attracted in both the United States and South Korea, he said. A South Korean documentary on his plight and the lives of other Korean adoptees led to his birth mother coming forward. “I do have a Korean family back in Korea,” Mr. Crapser said. “They’ve been informed that I am returning. It’s good, and it’s bad. It’s kind of bittersweet. ” That promising development is far from a universal experience, however. His lawyer, Lori Walls, said on Monday that Mr. Crapser’s case illustrates how easy it is for permanent residents to be placed in deportation proceedings, even when they entered the country lawfully as adoptees but were not naturalized by their adoptive parents. According to the Adoptee Rights Campaign, an advocacy group, there are about 35, 000 people in the United States who were adopted by American couples as children but who do not have citizenship. Mr. Crapser had been living legally in the United States under documents given to adopted children, Ms. Walls said. In 2001, the Child Citizenship Act automatically made holders citizens, but the law was not retroactive — it did not benefit adoptees who were already legal adults. “Adam was over 18 and so missed the cutoff date,” Ms. Walls said. Mr. Crapser said he first spoke to his family in Korea during a series of FaceTime conversations last winter. He communicated with his birth mother through an interpreter because he does not speak Korean. (He said he planned to bring a tourist phrase book with him when he is deported “so I can read signs and stuff. ”) His American family plans to join him in Korea next year after his wife, a Vietnamese immigrant, becomes a United States citizen. His stepfather in Korea owns a construction company where he hopes to work so he and his family can start a new life, he said. “That’s hopefully the plan, but it’s not written in stone yet,” he said. “We’re hoping that will end up working out. ” Mr. Crapser’s positive attitude belies the Kafkaesque nature of his life in the United States. The decision to deport him was just the latest trying experience in a span that has been, by any measure, exceptionally difficult. Mr. Crapser was adopted along with his sister by an American family that physically abused both children, he told The New York Times Magazine for an article that was published in April 2015. After six years, that family put both children up for adoption again. They were separated, and Mr. Crapser was adopted by new parents, Thomas and Dolly Crapser, who also abused him. They had several other foster and adopted children whom they also treated brutally. In 1992, they were both convicted of criminal mistreatment and assault, and Thomas Crapser was convicted of sexual abuse. Adam Crapser was kicked out of the Crapser home at 16 and later broke back in to retrieve his personal belongings. He pleaded guilty to burglary and served 25 months in prison. More brushes with the law followed. After his release, he was convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm. A couple of misdemeanors followed, and he was later convicted of assault after a fight, The Times magazine reported. “Because of the chaotic nature of his upbringing, he was not able to document his status,” Lori Walls, his lawyer, said. Mr. Crapser said he did not realize there was a difference between being a permanent resident and a citizen until he was reunited with his sister, a naturalized citizen, in 2012. Deportation proceedings began that year, shortly after he applied for residency documents and the authorities learned about his criminal record. The final decision was made on Oct. 24 at an immigration court in Tacoma, Ms. Walls said. Mr. Crapser said Monday that he expected to be deported within the next 30 days. Mr. Crapser had never held down a steady job for more than 90 days because he could never prove his legal status, he said, something he always chalked up to a chaotic childhood. “I pretty much had to work under the table for most of my life,” he said. He hoped his fortunes might finally turn around in South Korea. “I guess in a sense the good thing is that I am a citizen of Korea so when I go back I will already be a citizen of some country,” he said. “I guess that’s where I belong. ”

Cold Hands May Signal Raynaud’s Phenomenon - The New York Times

Jane E. Brody

The adage “Cold hands, warm heart” might describe me accurately if it also included “cold feet. ” Every autumn, even before the leaves begin to fall from their airy perch, I begin an annual search for better ways to keep my hands and feet from freezing during the coming winter. My investment in mittens and boots could stock a store and includes what is touted as the warmest of warm, but so far no product has been sufficiently protective. The popular advice, “Move to a warmer climate,” doesn’t mesh with my life’s interests, and so the search continues. I may or may not have a version of Raynaud’s phenomenon, but I can surely empathize with those who do. First described in 1862 by a French medical student named Maurice Raynaud, it is characterized by highly localized spasms of small blood vessels that disrupt blood flow to the extremities, most often the fingers and toes and sometimes also the tips of the ears and nose. Viewed in the best possible light, it is a patriotic disorder: Affected areas typically turn white when vessels collapse and cut off blood flow, then blue for lack of blood, then red as blood flow is gradually restored when the areas rewarm. While it is normal for blood to shift toward the body’s core to restrict heat loss when a person is exposed to cold, this reaction is exaggerated in the extremities of people with Raynaud’s phenomenon, also often called Raynaud’s syndrome or disease. Small vessels that supply blood to the skin of the fingers, toes, ears and nose overreact to cold, developing spasms that greatly reduce or completely shut down blood flow to these areas. The weather need not be cold to trigger an attack of Raynaud’s. Moving into an room to escape summer’s heat will do it as well. The same reaction can occur when a person with Raynaud’s is under stress and the body undergoes the kind of response that protects animals in danger by shunting blood to tissues needed to aid survival. In a recent review of the disorder in The New England Journal of Medicine, two professors at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Dr. Fredrick M. Wigley and Nicholas A. Flavahan reported that Raynaud’s affects between 3 percent and 5 percent of the general population. It occurs in two forms: primary, which is most common and has no known underlying cause and secondary, in which it is associated with another disorder, usually a connective tissue or autoimmune disease like scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis or Sjogren’s syndrome. People who work with certain chemicals, like vinyl chloride, or vibrating tools like a jackhammer are also susceptible to secondary Raynaud’s. Primary Raynaud’s typically begins relatively early in life, between the ages of 15 and 30, and up to half of these individuals have a relative — parent, sibling or child — who also has the disorder. Women are more often affected than men. As uncomfortable as it can be, primary Raynaud’s is not dangerous and is not as severe as secondary Raynaud’s, which has a later onset, usually starting after age 35 or 40. In rare severe cases in which blood flow is chronically diminished, secondary Raynaud’s can result in skin ulcers and even gangrene that require surgery. A doctor can distinguish between the two by putting a drop of oil on the skin at the base of the fingernail and examining the area under a microscope. The presence of enlarged or malformed capillaries in this area, the nail fold, indicate an underlying connective tissue disease. Two blood tests, the antinuclear antibody test and the erythrocyte sedimentation rate, can aid in diagnosing an underlying cause of Raynaud’s, which can then be treated. Raynaud’s affects parts of the body that have a characteristic circulatory pattern: a high density of direct connections between arterioles — small vessels that branch out from arteries — and venules, or small veins. These connections, called anastomoses, govern circulation in the nonhairy surfaces of the body, bypassing capillaries that normally bring blood to the skin, Dr. Flavahan explained last year in Nature Reviews: Rheumatology. When people with Raynaud’s are exposed to cold or are under stress, normal nervous constriction of the arterioles in these anastomoses is enhanced and may temporarily cut off blood flow to the affected parts, causing them to turn white and feel cold and numb. When the areas are rewarmed and the spasm resolves, blood flow resumes, often causing tingling or throbbing. There is no cure for Raynaud’s, and remedies supported by solid scientific evidence are few. But there are measures that can minimize its effects. Most important of these is to stay warm. For me that means wearing multiple insulating layers, especially on my arms and legs, so that any extra heat generated can transfer to my hands and feet. It’s a trick I learned and skiing and that I’ve applied to cycling and hiking in New York winters. Wearing a hat and neck gaiter and a outer garment is also very helpful. Mittens keep hands warmer than gloves. I store my hand coverings on the radiator and my boots under it when not in use. My short arms have found a purpose, enabling me to further protect my hands by pulling sleeves down over them. This winter I will try heated gloves fueled by rechargeable batteries that last a lot longer than chemical . I also keep gloves next to the freezer to use when removing frozen foods. Some people even wear gloves when they sleep, and from fall through I wear socks to bed. If you smoke, don’t. Nicotine causes a drop in skin temperature that adds to the problem. Certain medications that constrict blood vessels can also make matters worse. They include many cold remedies, especially those that contain pseudoephedrine some migraine remedies and some blood pressure medications. If undue stress triggers a Raynaud’s attack, try to avoid stressful situations and routinely practice techniques like meditation, progressive muscle relaxation or the relaxation response. Regular physical exercise, while good for everyone’s is said to be especially helpful for those with primary Raynaud’s. Any activity that increases heart rate fosters circulation of warm blood to the extremities. Although there are no drugs approved to treat Raynaud’s, calcium channel blockers, commonly used to treat high blood pressure, can be helpful. They dilate small blood vessels by relaxing the smooth muscles around them.

Watch: Demon Clown Pennywise Returns in Trailer for Stephen King’s ’It’

Daniel Nussbaum

demon clown Pennywise is back with a vengeance in the first trailer for Warner Bros’ upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s horror classic It, released Wednesday. [The trailer opens as little Georgie Denbrough (Jackson Robert Scott) follows a paper boat while it slowly makes its way down a street — only to come face to face with the creepy clown hiding in a storm drain. When Georgie disappears in the small town of Derry, Maine, his brother Bill (Jaeden Lieberher) joins with other children in the town to create the Losers Club, an investigative unit determined to uncover the truth behind the strange occurrences. According to Entertainment Weekly, this latest iteration of It focuses on one half of King’s 1986 novel, with plans already in motion for a film. The new film also switches out the novel’s original 1950s time period for the 1980s. The film will mark the second screen outing for the killer clown tale, after the 1990 TV miniseries starring Tim Curry as Pennywise. It is directed by Andy Muschietti (Mama) off of a screenplay by Gary Dauberman, Chase Palmer and Cary Fukunaga. Bill Skarsgard plays the red Pennywise in this one, while Lieberher, Finn Wolfhard, Jack Dylan Grazer, Chosen Jacobs and Wyatt Oleff . The film hits theaters September 8. Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum

Ex-Reporter Charged With Making Bomb Threats Against Jewish Sites - The New York Times

Benjamin Weiser

A former reporter for a news website was charged on Friday with making more than a bomb threats against Jewish community centers, schools and a Jewish history museum, federal authorities said. The man, Juan Thompson, 31, of St. Louis, made some of the threats using his own name and others implicating a former girlfriend as part of an effort to intimidate her, the authorities said in a federal complaint unsealed on Friday in Federal District Court in Manhattan. In one threat, made on Feb. 1 against a Jewish school in Farmington Hills, Mich. the complaint says, Mr. Thompson claimed he had placed two bombs in the school and was “eager for Jewish newtown,” an apparent reference to the 2012 school massacre in Newtown, Conn. in which a gunman killed 20 students and six school employees. The website The Intercept confirmed in a statement on Friday that Mr. Thompson worked for the publication for a little more than a year, until he was fired in January 2016 after it was discovered that he had fabricated sources and quotes in his articles. The arrest came amid heightened tension involving more than 100 threats against Jewish groups that have been reported in dozens of states this year, resulting in a broad inquiry led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The threats, combined with vandalism at Jewish cemeteries, have prompted fears of an increase in . Mr. Thompson is not believed to be responsible for most of the threats against Jewish centers around the country, according to federal law enforcement officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing. Investigators are still trying to identify who is responsible for those threats, which the officials said were made using sophisticated technology to mask personal details, like identity and the origin of the calls. The federal complaint, which was signed by Christopher Mills, an F. B. I. special agent, says Mr. Thompson’s threats were “part of a sustained campaign to harass and intimidate” the former girlfriend. The harassment began shortly after she ended their romantic relationship last July, the complaint says. Mr. Thompson made at least eight threats against Jewish schools and community centers in New York, Dallas, Farmington Hills and San Diego, according to the complaint. In a threat made on Feb. 22 to the League in New York, the complaint says, a caller, using an untraceable phone number and a tool that disguised the caller’s voice, said there was an explosive material, in the group’s New York office, and that it would be “detonated within one hour. ” The office was immediately searched and no explosives were found. The accusations against Mr. Thompson were announced on Friday by Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan William F. Sweeney Jr. head of the F. B. I. ’s New York office and James P. O’Neill, the New York police commissioner. “Threats of violence targeting people and places based on religion or race — whatever the motivation — are unacceptable, and criminal,” Mr. Bharara said in a statement. “We are committed to pursuing and prosecuting those who foment fear and hate through such criminal threats. ” The F. B. I. said that its director, James B. Comey, and top bureau officials had held a meeting on Friday with Jewish community leaders to discuss the recent increase in threats to Jewish institutions around the country, and that the investigation into the threats was “a top priority. ” Mr. Thompson was arrested on Friday in St. Louis, where a federal magistrate judge ordered him held without bond pending a detention hearing on Wednesday. Mr. Bharara’s office will seek to have Mr. Thompson, who is charged with one count of cyberstalking, brought to Manhattan to face prosecution, an office spokeswoman said. Lucille G. Liggett, a federal public defender who represented Mr. Thompson in court on Friday, declined to comment when reached later in the day. Mr. Thompson worked at The Intercept from November 2014 to January 2016, when he was dismissed, according to a statement by Betsy Reed, the news organization’s editor in chief. In the statement, Ms. Reed said the organization was “horrified to learn” of Mr. Thompson’s arrest in connection with the bomb threats and cyberstalking allegations. “These actions are heinous and should be fully investigated and prosecuted,” she said. Mr. Thompson began making bomb threats in January after harassing his former girlfriend for several months, according to the complaint. She obtained a New York State order of protection against him last August it was renewed in October and again in December. As part of the harassment, Mr. Thompson, without using his actual name, had sent emails and faxes to the woman’s employer that made false allegations about her, including that she was according to the complaint. He also sent her an anonymous email, attaching nude photographs of her and threatening to release them publicly. The bomb threat against a Jewish history museum in Manhattan, which the authorities did not identify, was made on Jan. 28, the complaint says. The phone threat against the League on Feb. 22 was preceded a day earlier by an email to the organization that said that the former girlfriend was “behind the bomb threats against jews” and that she would be making more threats. At a news conference on Friday in New York, Oren Segal, director of the League’s Center on Extremism, said Mr. Thompson had been on the organization’s radar since he was fired for fabricating quotes in articles. “While the motive is unclear, the impact is crystal clear,” Mr. Segal said of the bomb threats Mr. Thompson is accused of making. “While I cannot speak about what is in Thompson’s mind or certainly in his heart, threatening Jewish institutions is an act. ”

Tim Wobble

" Europe developed from the spoils of Colonialism " - it did if you're a simple minded American activist and radical journalist in the Boston Area I guess....a little more learning please Daniel

Video: “The Enemies Within,” a must-see film

LU Staff

Print Communist Party USA, Democratic Socialists of America, Workers World Party, the Institute for Policy Studies, Council for a Livable World — it reads like a who’s who for radical anti-Americanism. But these and other groups bent on the destruction of America as we know it are not just fringe elements on the outside looking in. They have infiltrated our government, including the halls of Congress. Who are they and what are their names? Both questions are answered in a riveting film by Trevor Loudon , a celebrated author, filmmaker, and political commentator from New Zealand, who has been researching the radical left for more than 30 years. In “The Enemies Within,” a trailer for which follows, Loudon profiles fourteen Senators and more than fifty Representatives who seek to complete Barack Obama’s fundamental transformation of the United States of America, which —Loudon argues — is the last bastion against the total suppression of freedom as we know it. Readers are urged to purchase a copy of this eye-opening documentary and share it with as many patriots as you can. The nation’s future depends on it.

Non-Profit Yale Magazine Taunts IRS With Editorial 'Not Endorsing' Hillary Clinton

Jason Howerton

Getty - Josh Edelson The Yale Record, America’s “oldest college humor magazine,” taunted the IRS on Thursday by essentially endorsing Hillary Clinton for president by “not” endorsing her. The magazine is a tax-exempt 501(c)3 organization, meaning they are prohibited from engaging in political activities. The Yale Record is walking a tightrope as it relates to their non-profit status. Read the editorial board's post below: In its 144-year history, The Yale Record has never endorsed a Democratic candidate for president. In fact, we have never endorsed any candidate for president. This is, in part, due to our strong commitment to being a tax-exempt 501(c)3 organization, which mandates that we are “absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.” This year’s presidential election is highly unusual, but ultimately no different: The Yale Record believes both candidates to be equally un-endorsable, due to our faithful compliance with the tax code. In particular, we do not endorse Hillary Clinton’s exemplary leadership during her 30 years in the public eye. We do not support her impressive commitment to serving and improving this country—a commitment to which she has dedicated her entire professional career. Because of unambiguous tax law, we do not encourage you to support the most qualified presidential candidate in modern American history, nor do we encourage all citizens to shatter the glass ceiling once and for all by electing Secretary Clinton on November 8. The Yale Record has no opinion whatsoever on Dr. Jill Stein. —The Editorial Board of The Yale Record Any reasonable reader would infer that the editorial board is indeed supporting Clinton for president. The only question is whether the paper gave itself enough legal wiggle room before publishing what might as well be a full-throated endorsement. Image Credit: Jemal Countess/Getty Images Here's what the IRS has to say on the matter: “...tax-exempt organizations described in section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code are prohibited from participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office. Charities, educational institutions and religious organizations, including churches, are among those that are covered under this code section." [...] “These organizations cannot endorse any candidates, make donations to their campaigns, engage in fund raising, distribute statements, or become involved in any other activities that may be beneficial or detrimental to any particular candidate. Even activities that encourage people to vote for or against a particular candidate on the basis of nonpartisan criteria violate the political campaign prohibition of section 501(c)(3)." The Yale Daily News faced similar controversy when it openly endorsed Clinton. The paper wouldn't confirm its non-profit status to The Daily Caller and called the matter a “misunderstanding.”

Chipping Away at a List of Goals, and Bonding Over Cupcakes - The New York Times

Emily Palmer

Andie Gratereaux sat under the autumn leaves at DeSalvio Playground in Manhattan a year ago, peeled away the wrapper from a salted caramel cupcake and started to put her life back together. With the help of a mentor she had met that day, Andie, 12, started a list in a spiral notebook of what she wanted to do over the coming year. Visit a park, try to sew, play music, learn to bake, go ice skating. The list became a road map for a girl uprooted from her home in Virginia after her stepfather threw her and her mother, Arlene Gratereaux, out of the house one night in 2011. He did so during one of his fits of rage, episodes during which he would get so angry he would punch holes in the apartment walls that Ms. Gratereaux covered with her daughter’s drawings. Ms. Gratereaux’s brother drove from Manhattan that night to Petersburg, Va. near Richmond, and took mother and daughter immediately back to his place on the Lower East Side. They were safe then, but they had left everything behind. Without a permanent home, Ms. Gratereaux and Andie have shuffled since then between her brother’s apartment and her parents’ place in the East New York section of Brooklyn. They were not used to this lifestyle, especially Andie. It led Ms. Gratereaux to Catholic Big Brothers and Big Sisters, an affiliate of Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New York, one of the eight organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. She worried about their depressing circumstances and thought Andie needed a mentor, someone who could show her a world that seemed beyond her grasp. Andie was matched with Darragh Wright, 33, who had turned to Big Brothers and Big Sisters about the same time. “I was looking for a way to get connected to the New York community in a way,” Ms. Wright, who grew up in Atlanta, said. At DeSalvio Playground, Ms. Wright decided to break the ice over cupcakes. Together, she and Andie worked on the list of goals, and Ms. Wright snapped a photograph of it with her phone so that she would always have it with her. In the year that followed, she would refer to that photo to cross items off the list. She and Andie traveled to Garrison, N. Y. where they hiked in Arden Point State Park. “We had sore feet at the end,” Ms. Wright said. Andie sewed, making two blankets for homeless people as part of a community service project. And she got to bake — banana bread. “My uncle took two helpings,” she said. Ms. Wright and Andie see each other every other weekend, and their meetings start with a game of three questions. On a brisk afternoon in Prospect Park in Brooklyn a few days before Halloween, as children in princess and Spiderman costumes roamed around, Ms. Wright retrieved her questions for Andie from a plastic bag in her purse. What is your favorite food? (Cheeseburger with fries and ketchup.) What is your favorite day of the year? (Her birthday. Ms. Wright’s is Thanksgiving.) They also discussed Andie’s Halloween costume. (A zombie bride, with black eyes, a pale face and bloodied lips.) Then and now, the questions are never too serious. They do not discuss the trip Andie and her mother must make every week from the Lower East Side to East New York to stay for the weekend. They do not talk about the stress weighing on Ms. Gratereaux, a college graduate who most recently found work as a poll worker on Election Day and is receiving job training through Grace Institute, another program affiliated with Catholic Charities. Instead, Andie uses the time as an escape, a chance to become more independent, her mother said. Those moments, along with the aid the family is receiving elsewhere, have started to help them rebuild their lives. Catholic Charities also provided the family with $360 from the Neediest Cases Fund so that Andie could purchase her first laptop. She and her mother spend many hours after school at the library so that Andie can complete her homework. Andie also has lessons when she is with Ms. Wright. On the October day in Prospect Park, they got up from under a tree, and Ms. Wright handed Andie her phone with Google Maps open on it. They wanted to get a cup of hot cocoa, but it was up to Andie to navigate. “Andie, you lead us,” Ms. Wright said, bending over to look at the phone. “Can you find east? Show me on the map. ” Andie shuffled into position and began to walk. “Learning your way around a map is an important thing,” Ms. Wright said as they reversed course after a wrong turn under a bridge. The young girl looked back at the map, and they made their way out of the park. Soon, they would return to another park, the playground in Manhattan where their friendship was forged, to mark their anniversary. “We’ll do the cupcake thing again,” Andie said. Ms. Wright agreed. “And we’ll make another list,” she said.

‘Organic’ GMO? No Way!

The Sleuth Journal

Consumers have always been able to count on the fact that if a product is certified organic, it’s GMO-free. That’s because GMOs aren’t allowed in organic. At least they haven’t been, so far. Last week, our allies at Food DemocracyNOW! broke the news that Melody Meyer, a member of the Organic Trade Association (OTA), wants gene editing, a dangerous new form of genetic engineering, to be allowed in organic. Meyer said as much, in a blog post . Yep, higher ups at the OTA—that “organic” Big Food front group that sold out the GMO labeling movement—are at it again. First, they sold us out on the DARK Act, the bill that effectively killed GMO labeling in the U.S. Now, they want to use the loopholes and exemptions written into the DARK Act to force the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) to allow certain types of genetic engineering (some of which are referred to as GMO 2.0 ) to be allowed in organic. At its next meeting, November 16 – 18, in St. Louis, Mo., the NOSB will consider an “Excluded Methods Terminology” proposal that could determine whether or not Meyer and her compatriots at the OTA score another win against organics. We say, no way. If you haven’t already, please sign this petition to the NOSB demanding that all GMO technologies be kept out of certified organic products. TAKE ACTION BEFORE NOV. 15: Tell the National Organic Standards Board to keep genetically modified organisms out of certified ‘USDA organic’ food Support OCA’s anti-GMO work (tax-deductible, helps support our work on behalf of organic standards, fair trade and public education) h/t: Organic Consumers Association

Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan Hates President Obama

IWB

Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan Hates President Obama I have never shared anything by Louis Farrakhan and before tonight would have bet money that I never would have. However, then came this: [insert] Now I don’t agree with all of that, but I was absolutely stunned when another black man would openly criticize Obama – much less a black who happens to be the leader of the Nation of Islam! I’m still reporting from Washington. Good Day. Bill Still is a former newspaper editor and publisher. He has written for USA Today, The Saturday Evening Post, the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, OMNI magazine, and has also produced the syndicated radio program, Health News. He has written 22 books and two documentary videos and is the host of his wildly popular daily YouTube Channel the “Still Report”, the quintessential report on the economy and Washington.

Wall Street Cheers as Joe Biden Smacks Hillary Clinton in Vegas: ‘I Never Thought She Was the Correct Candidate’

Matthew Boyle

LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Former Vice President Joe Biden smacked failed 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton here at the Salt Conference in Las Vegas on Thursday evening. [Speaking to a packed ballroom at the Bellagio conference center on the Las Vegas Strip, the former vice president, who himself declined to run for president, said he believes Clinton was not the “correct” candidate, but he was. “I never thought she was the correct candidate,” Biden said. “I thought I was the correct candidate. ” The audience erupted into applause. The Salt Conference is an annual gathering of private equity leaders here in Las Vegas, organized by SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci. Scaramucci, last cycle, supported Donald Trump. Biden declined to run for president last cycle after the death of his son. “No man or woman should announce for the presidency unless they genuinely believe that for that moment in the nation’s history they are the most qualified person to deal with the issues facing the country,” Biden also said. In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News in 2015 in his Trump Tower office, Trump said he expected to face Biden in the general election if Biden ran since Clinton had so many problems. “I think Hillary has got huge problems right now,” Trump said then, adding: “Is she going to make it? I hear this thing is big league. Why did she do it? You use the server? Because they’re always looking to go over the edge, whether it’s Whitewater or anything else. They always want to go over the edge. I’m just looking at it saying, ‘What the hell was she doing?’ You know what she was doing. She was guarding from the president seeing what she was doing. ” Biden did not run, Clinton got the nomination, and Trump smoked her on Election Day in the electoral college.

‘You Focus on the Good’: Women Who Voted for Trump, in Their Own Words - The New York Times

Susan Chira

On Jan. 21, the day after the inauguration, women from all over the country will be rolling into Washington for what promises to be an enormous protest against Donald J. Trump. But millions of women went to the polls for Mr. Trump on Election Day, including, according to surveys, 53 percent of white women. Why did they? Conventional wisdom that his behavior and remarks would disqualify him in the eyes of many women proved wrong. Interviews with more than a dozen women around the country showed a range of reasons for their support: worries about the economy, anger about the Affordable Care Act and the price of health care, protection of Second Amendment rights, fears about immigration and terrorism, and opposition to abortion. But many women also voted against Hillary Clinton, voicing deep suspicions about the American deaths in Benghazi, Libya her use of a private email server and the hacked emails of the Democratic National Committee as proof that she said one thing in public and another in private. Here are excerpts, condensed and edited, from their thoughts. Voter: Rebecca Gregory, 46. Nurse. Home: Roseville, Mich. In 2008 and 2012, I voted for Obama, I was marriage, Planned Parenthood was very important to me. But after eight years, I saw there was much more racial divide than there had ever been, I didn’t like the way the economy is going and I didn’t like the stance he took on police. My husband is a court officer and volunteers in the police force. [President Obama] didn’t support law enforcement the way he did the community that felt they were being unjustly treated. I think he could have done a better job instead of pointing blame. Instead of saying we need to educate people on how to behave when they’re being pulled over by the police. I’m seeing a barrage of patients coming in from different countries. An Iraqi immigrant came in last night, he needs dialysis. He will never be productive in the U. S. he will always be dependent on Medicaid. I feel for him, I want to help him, but we have to take care of our own people first. Driving to work yesterday, I saw three homeless people. They need our help. If I turned down every candidate who objectified women, I’d vote for no one. _____ Voter: Sandy Pearson, 48. Studying to be a mortgage broker. Home: Chattanooga, Tenn. Trump’s not a perfect man, by any means. He kind of reminds me of my . I think he’s a really good man, deep down. This guy has such potential, and I truly believe he cares about our country and wants to help everyone. I do read things on occasion that he tweets and I think, oh my word. I wish I could have had 10 minutes with him. Listen, Donald, you need to straighten up and stop with this foolishness. What he said about women was disrespectful. But I don’t get offended like some people do. You get through the bad and you focus on the good. Basically these were our choices, and I felt he was the better choice, and I had to overlook the negatives and focus on the positives. At the very beginning of this election, I was leaning toward Bernie Sanders. I looked at all the candidates, what were their ideas to help our country out of debt and make our military strong and be there for our vets. I have so many friends whose health care costs have doubled and are having to get extra jobs just to pay their insurance. And I read all these things about people where their religious liberties are not being taken seriously. _____ Voter: Deb Alighire, 44. Engineer and program manager at Mopar, a subsidiary of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Home: Clarkston, Mich. I’m very focused on bringing the plants back. In metro Detroit, waiters usually were younger people and during the time of hardship, the bankruptcies, it was very striking to me to go to a Papa Gino’s and have a man being a waiter. Usually these people would have some kind of job related to the automotive industry. I’m super excited about Trump. I believe he knows how to build things. My dad worked at a coal power plant for 39 years and they’re freaked out about energy changing too quickly. I’m also concerned about immigration. I went to Minnesota and I had a Somali cabdriver who lectured me for 35 minutes to the airport about how women in America have too much freedom. My thought process on that is that I don’t like seeing people going through the hardship they go through, but I don’t want to go backwards in the feminist movement, either. _____ Voter: Taylor Davis, 27. Works in a small business. Home: Enfield, Conn. I helped campaign for Obama and I was a Bernie supporter. When he backed Hillary Clinton, I couldn’t get behind it. Both my parents are engineers. My mom was an engineer long before many women in the field. When the economy started faltering, she went from a very high position at Pratt Whitney to being unemployed for a year, and that was heartbreaking. I think that Trump really cares about having jobs back here, not necessarily the service industry. Do I think Trump’s trying to send women back to the kitchen? No, his daughter is a great example. She ran the campaign long before he ran for president. _____ Voter: Robin Mueller, 42. Preschool teacher. Home: Sterling Heights, Mich. I made up my mind for Trump at the last minute. Since my husband is in the military, I was concerned about having someone who didn’t have military experience, didn’t have the knowledge of dealing with world leaders. And I kind of thought he had a big mouth. But I had an who was totally on the Trump train. He talked me into taking him to a Trump rally. I expected him to be like what I’d seen on the news, saying hateful things. But his presence was very calming and I liked his talking points. We really are the middle class, and we kind of get swept aside. The first time she ran against Obama, I was all on board for Hillary Clinton. I really wanted to have a female president. I think that’s important. But I’m not sure that’s her. In the past, her stance on abortion was more the way I feel, just for the first trimester, then she did a 360. She was here in the primary, having a debate with Bernie Sanders. He answered the question honestly. When they asked her the same question, she kind of danced around it. Then she went on “The View” and said she was for abortions. Just take a stance, be honest. Same thing as with gay marriage, she wasn’t for it, then she was. I’m 100 percent for it. It’s ridiculous the way we tell people who they can and cannot marry. Don’t go back and forth. Don’t pander. I voted for Obama the last time. I don’t agree with a lot of what he said, but I felt he was honest. _____ Voter: Katie Holder, 39. Owns a business. Home: Gulf Shores, Ala. I feel very, very badly for the people who are very scared for their way of life. From what I’m understanding, he’s only really wanting illegal immigrants that have committed crimes to be deported, which I agree with. I feel bad for the lesbian and gay and transsexual community that fear for their way of life. From what I understand, he says he’s not going to mess with that. Somebody called me a racist because I did vote for Trump. Hold on, you don’t know me. Doesn’t that make you a racist by calling me a racist when you don’t know me? I’m looking for a brighter future for me and my children, and honestly I felt l like our country was kind of at risk if we did elect Hillary. _____ Voter: Victoria Czapski, 45. Works in education. Home: Sterling Heights, Mich. I felt he had what it would take to get the country back on track. Being P. C. was going to kill the country. He speaks his mind and because of that, he’s not going to lie to you. I don’t want immigrants, accepting them without doing the background checks. Are these people terrorists? I don’t want to live in a country where we have to worry about going to the movie theater or the mall. Let’s be on the offensive, versus the defensive. We are a country based on immigrants. But I believe they should go through the process. My came here, they had to learn English. This is a Christian country. The whole bending over backwards. He says what everyone’s thinking and is afraid to say. That doesn’t make anyone bigoted. I’m not saying there are people out there who shouldn’t be helped. I worked in the inner cities. They’re on welfare. They make a certain amount of money and everything gets taken away. That amount of money is so low that they have no incentive to work. Why don’t you allow them to gradually earn more money? Find a way to help people get over the hump. _____ Voter: Pam Cornett, 46. Formerly now working in customer service. Home: Chattanooga, Tenn. I voted for Trump because I wanted change. I feel like our economy has totally tanked. People do not have disposable income. I feel the last eight years have been a joke. Obama was out for himself. I don’t think he really respected the office. I think it was more about him being a celebrity than a president. Trump’s a successful businessman, and I feel like that’s what America needs to bring our economy back. I don’t think Donald Trump is really Republican, to be quite honest with you. He’s not in a box. One of the most attractive things to me is he can’t be boxed. He wants to bring America back to what it was before. I don’t think it’s taking us back to women have no rights or slavery days. _____ Voter: Paula Filar, 71. Retired business owner. Home: Shelby Township, Mich. I thought if he would only have kept his mouth shut during the primary. About the way people looked, about their size. Really? About McCain. I mean, really? All of it was so egregious. I hated it, I cringed. All of that was bad, but it didn’t stop me. And it’s like Hillary has the right to talk about Trump when she stayed with a guy who was in the White House and took advantage of a young intern? Why would you stay with him? Benghazi. The emails. The I. R. S. She’s a liar. The Clintons got wealthy because of their position. I’d rather have someone there who doesn’t need the money. He’s got a message. He’s going to make a change. Her message was all him. All negative ads. I spent a long time in the staffing industry here, worked with the automotive industry. We weren’t competitive. That’s got to be turned around. We have to have incentives for companies to keep their work here. _____ Voter: Tangie Wooden, 44. Learning facilitator for Blue Cross of Tennessee. Home: Ringgold, Ga. When Trump became my only choice, I felt he was the lesser of two evils. I had major issues with Hillary as far as ethics was concerned. It seems she feels that she is above the law and nothing ever seems to stick. I didn’t particularly like everything he was saying as far as building a wall, and doing this to immigrants. I looked at that more as bravado, his audience needed that to get the applause. But there are allegations about killing people who get in her way — Vince Foster, people like that. Someone who has a big bravado is not as concerning to me as someone who might kill people who get in her way. _____ Voter: Kasia Riddle, 43. Substitute teacher. Home: Murfreesboro, Tenn. I run my household like a business, my classroom like a business. I expect him to run the country in such a manner. You don’t pay more money out than you have. You want to have your budget under control. You want to know the people you’re working with are above average. You want to pick the people based on what they can do, not on what they did for you. He’s not getting large amounts from donors based on what you’ll do for me later. _____ Voter: Guzin Karides, 49. Homemaker, former attorney. Home: Virginia Beach I laughed Trump off like everyone else did. Once I stopped laughing at him and started listening, I started to support him. I felt like once you got past the bluster, he really was interested in helping everyone. I do think having a secure border is very important. My father was a Muslim immigrant from Turkey, he went through the process. I don’t agree with a ban on Muslims, but my father was very wary of Muslims who came over if they didn’t have a reason to be here. He would support a full vetting, but not a total ban. I have always considered myself a feminist. For me, I want to be treated the exact same way. That’s not the feel I get from feminists today, they want extra privileges. I gave up my first marriage so I could be a law partner and then I had to give up on my partnership so I could be a better mom. To say women are going backwards would be wrong. Look at how much Trump hires women, how much he does rely on women, how much he relies on his own daughter. I’m sort of amazed by her. She may pull him more into the middle. She’ll be a good voice for women.

“Ignorant scum who disagree with me should be more tolerant” complains voter

Guest

November 11, 2016 Following America’s shock election result, a voter has complained of increasing polarisation in the country between people who agree with her and “ignorant scum”. “I just don’t recognise this country any more,” she said sadly. “I remember a time we could discuss things in a civil manner, with everyone being respectful of each other’s opinions.” “Nowadays this seems to be impossible, due to the existence of people who obviously must be racist, misogynist knuckle-dragging arsewipes since they disagree with me.” She also expressed concern that her political opponents harboured authoritarian tendencies, and said the sooner they were rounded up and put into camps the better “so that a more inclusive and tolerant political discourse can flourish again”. YaBasta

Gunmen in Jordan Kill 10, Including 7 Officers and a Canadian Tourist - The New York Times

Rana F. Sweis

AMMAN, Jordan — Seven Jordanian security officers, a Canadian tourist and two Jordanian civilians were killed by gunmen in the southern city of Karak on Sunday, according to a joint statement from the Public Security Department and the Jordanian armed forces. The security forces later captured and killed four of the gunmen, the statement said. It did not specify the total number of what security officials called “terrorist outlaws” involved in the attacks, or suggest a motive. Officials were also investigating whether the gunmen had ties to any terrorist organization. The violence began when a patrol was sent to check on reports of a house on fire. When security officers arrived on the scene, they were met with a barrage of gunfire from inside the home, injuring two officers. The gunmen fled, according to the statement. Gunmen then attacked a police station in the city. Later in the day, the police were informed that gunmen were hiding inside the Karak Crusader castle, a prominent tourist attraction on a hilltop. The gunmen fired at several police officers from the castle, security officials said. A cache of weapons was seized from the castle, as well as explosives, suicide vests and more weapons from the home where the men first encountered the officers, said Amer Saratwi, a spokesman for the Public Security Department. The statement confirmed the death of four police officers, three gendarmes, two civilians and a Canadian tourist, without specifying where the deaths had occurred. people were injured, the statement said. Several Canadian news outlets identified the tourist as Linda Vatcher, a retired teacher from Newfoundland. At the time of the attack, she was visiting her son Christopher, who works in the region. He is among the injured, news reports said. Prime Minister Hani Mulki, addressing members of Parliament, said that several people had been killed and that Jordan’s special forces had surrounded an area in the city where five or six of the attackers were holed up. Videos released by Karak residents and posted on local news websites showed tribal leaders and young local residents holding rifles and aiding officers in the hunt for the gunmen near the castle. Terrorist attacks in Jordan, a crucial ally of the United States in the region, are relatively rare, but the country is continually on alert because of the threat posed by extremists, particularly from the Islamic State.

Russia calls the War Party’s bluff

The Saker

by Pepe Escobar for Sputnik International Cold War 2.0 has reached unprecedented hysterical levels. From the Clinton (cash) machine – supported by a neocon/neoliberalcon think tank/media complex – to the British establishment and its corporate media mouthpieces, the Anglo-American, self-appointed “leaders of the free world” are racking up demonization of Russia and http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21709028-how-contain-vladimir-putins-deadly-dysfunctional-empire-threat-russia “Putinism” to pure incandescence. And yet a hot war is not about to break out – before or after the November 8 US presidential election. So many layers of fear and loathing in fact veil no more than a bluff. Let’s start with the Russian naval task force in Syria, led by the officially designated “heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser” Admiral Kuznetsov, which will be stationed in the eastern Mediterranean at least until February 2017, supporting operations against all strands of Salafi-jihadism. The Admiral Kuznetsov is fully equipped with anti-ship, air defense, artillery and anti-submarine warfare systems – and can defend itself against a vast array of threats, unlike NATO vessels. Predictably, NATO is spinning with alarm that “all of the Northern Fleet”, along with the Baltic Fleet, is on the way to the Mediterranean. Wrong; it’s only part of the Northern Fleet, and the Baltic Fleet ships are not going anywhere. The heart of the matter is that when the capabilities of this Russian naval task force are matched with the S-300/S-400 missile systems already deployed in Syria, Russia is now de facto rivaling the firepower of the US Sixth Fleet. To top it off, as this http://thesaker.is/making-sense-of-the-russian-naval-task-force-off-the-coast-of-syria/ comprehensive military analysis makes clear, Russia has “basically made their own no-fly zone over Syria”; and a US no-fly zone, viscerally promoted by Hillary Clinton, “is now impossible to achieve.” That should be more than enough to put into perspective the impotence transmuted into outright anger exhibited by the Pentagon and its neocon/neoliberalcon vassals. Add to it the outright war between the Pentagon and the CIA in the Syrian war theatre, where the Pentagon backs the YPG Kurds, who are not necessarily in favor of regime change in Damascus, while the CIA backs further weaponizing of “moderate”, as in al-Qaeda-linked and/or infiltrated, “rebels”. Compounding the trademark Obama administration Three Stooges school of foreign policy, American threats have flown more liberally than Negan’s skull-crushing bloody baton in the new season of The Walking Dead. Pentagon head Ash Carter, a certified neocon, has threatened “consequences”, as in “potential” strikes against Syrian Arab Army (SAA) forces to “punish the regime” after the Pentagon itself broke the Kerry-Lavrov ceasefire. President Obama took some time off weighing his options. And in the end, he backed off. So it will be up for the virtually elected – by the whole US establishment – Hillary Clinton to make the fateful decision. She won’t be able to go for a no-fly zone – because Russia is already doing it. And If she decides to “punish the regime”, Moscow already telegraphed, via Russia’s Defense Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov, there will definitely be “consequences” for imposing a “shadow” hot war. Sun Tzu doesn’t do first-strike Washington, of course, reserves for itself a “first-strike” nuclear capability, which Hillary Clinton fully supports (Donald Trump does not, and for that he’s also demonized). If we allow the current hysteria to literally go nuclear, then we must consider the matter of the S-500 anti-missile system – which effectively seals Russia’s air space; Moscow won’t admit it on the record because that would unleash a relentless arms race. A US intel source with close connections to the Masters of the Universe but at the same time opposed to Cold War 2.0 as “counter-productive”, adds the necessary nuance; “The United States has lost the arms race, indulging in trillions of dollars of worthless and endless wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and now is no longer a global power as it cannot defend itself with its obsolete missiles, THAAD, Patriot and Aegis Land Based Ballistic Defense System, against Russian ICBMs, even as the Russians have sealed their airspace. The Russians may be as much as four generations ahead of the US.” Moreover, in the deep recesses of shadow war planning, the Pentagon knows, and the Russian Defense Ministry also knows, that in the event some Dr. Strangelove launched a nuclear preemptive strike against Russia, the Russian population would be protected by their defensive missile systems – as well as nuclear bomb shelters in major cities. Warnings on Russian television have not been idle; the population would know where to go in the – terrifying – event of nuclear war breaking out. Needless to add, the ghastly possibility of US nuclear first-strike turns all these WWII-style NATO war games in Eastern Europe into a pile of meaningless propaganda stunts. So how did Moscow plan for it all? According to the US intel source, “they took out almost all the military budget from their stated federal budget, lulling the West into thinking that Russia could not afford a massive military buildup and there was nothing to fear from Russia as they were finished as a world power. The [stated] military budget was next to nothing, so there was nothing to worry about as far as the CIA was concerned. If Putin showed publicly his gigantic military buildup, the West could have taken immediate remedial actions as they did in 2014 by crashing the oil price.” The bottom line then would reveal the Pentagon as totally unprepared for a hot war – even as it threatens and bluffs Russia now on a daily basis; “As Brzezinski has pointed out, if this is the case it means the US has ceased to be a global power. The US may continue to bluff, but those that ally with them will have nowhere to go if that bluff is called, as it is being now called in Syria.” The US intel source is adamant that “one of the greatest military buildups in history has taken place right under the nose of the Russian Central Bank head Elvira Nabiullina and the Russian Ministry of Finance while the CIA awaits what they think will be the inevitable Russia collapse. The CIA will be waiting forever and eternity for Russia to collapse. This MGB maneuver is sheer genius. And demonstrates that the CIA, which is so drowned by data inputs that they cannot connect the dots on anything, must be completely reorganized. In addition, the entire procurement system of the United States military must also be reorganized as it cannot ever keep up if new weapon programs as the F-35 take twenty years to develop and then are found obsolete before they even enter service. The Russians have a five-year development program for each new weapons system and they are far ahead of us in every key area.” If this analysis is correct, it goes against even the best and most precise Russian estimates, according to which military potential may be strong, asymmetrically, but still much inferior to US military might. Well-informed Western analysts know that Moscow never brags about military buildups – and has mastered to a fault the element of surprise. Much more than calling a bluff, it’s Moscow’s Sun Tzu tactics that are really rattling loudmouth Washington. The Essential Saker: from the trenches of the emerging multipolar world $27.95

As New York Breathes Sigh of Relief, Bomb Victims Cope With the Aftermath - The New York Times

Annie Correal and Samantha Schmidt

One man’s front teeth were knocked out. Another blacked out when his car was hit by the force of the blast. And one woman had to have ball bearings tweezed from her flesh, metal fragments removed from her ear and wood shards extracted from her neck. When a bomb exploded on Saturday night on West 23rd Street in Manhattan, more than two dozen people were hurt — most of them struck by shrapnel and flying debris and glass. Officials immediately assured they had only minor injuries, and when Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Sunday morning that all the victims had been released from hospitals, there was a collective sigh of relief: In a city scarred by terror, not a single life was lost. But for the victims themselves, the injuries were nothing short of horrific — perhaps not life ending, but certainly life changing. In interviews, they described the shock of the explosion, then the strangeness of returning to daily life while carrying injuries, from gashes with stitches to invisible wounds like ringing ears and nightmares. And while thankful to be alive, they experienced a paradox: One of the worst days of their lives is being referred to by practically everyone else as some kind of stroke of good luck. Four of those injured were recent graduates of Boston University, former roommates who had reunited for dinner and were walking to the subway. They were just feet from the trash bin believed to have concealed the explosive device when it detonated. The moment itself was a blur. “All of the sudden we were running out of there,” said one of the four, Noah McAskill, 22. As they joined other victims, they discovered they had all been hurt. Harris Gordon was bleeding from a cut in his back Luke Sorenson had a gash in his leg. Mr. McAskill had escaped with a few cuts and some hearing loss his hearing returned, though his ears were ringing for days. But his roommate, Joshua Lee, had been hit in the face and lost his two front teeth. His face was still swollen days later and he had been outfitted with temporary false teeth, said Mr. Lee, 22, originally from Los Angeles. An oral surgeon would repair his teeth permanently, but the process would take time. He planned to return to work soon. The young men all said they were focusing on resuming normalcy, but “these boys went to Boston University and lived through the Boston Marathon,” Mr. Gordon’s mother, Andrea, said. “They’ve lived through this twice. ” The criminal complaint filed this week against the suspect in the bombing, Ahmad Khan Rahami, listed the injuries suffered by the 31 victims — two more than originally reported — and included “lacerations in the face, abdomen, legs and arms caused by flying glass” and “metal shrapnel and fragmentation embedded in skin and bone. ” After being released from hospitals in the early hours of Sunday morning, those hurt dispersed into the city, and possibly beyond, left to deal with the aftermath on their own. Helena Ayeh, an architect who lives on West 23rd Street, in the Chelsea neighborhood, was swept off her feet by the blast and cut her right eye. Days later, her eye was still swollen and burning and she had trouble seeing through it, she said. “I’m affected for goodness knows how long, and it’s just sad,” she said. Ms. Ayeh tried to return to work on Monday, she said, but her limited eyesight made it too difficult. She was taken off a project that she was counting on for her income for the remainder of the year. “It’s a very heavy blow,” she said. “I’m sitting here wringing my hands asking, where I go from here?” It could have been worse. The bomb, loaded with ball bearings, has been described as extremely powerful. Similar bombs at the Boston Marathon in 2013 left three dead and many injured, some requiring amputations. But that was a packed street, with spectators standing shoulder to shoulder and the bombs planted at their feet. While Chelsea is certainly crowded on Saturday nights, the pedestrians and cars were not as close together. At the same time, the placement of the bomb — believed to be beneath a trash bin — may have contained the blast somewhat, though it sent the bin flying 120 feet. By sheer luck it did not strike anyone. Brenda Abreu and her boyfriend, David Martinez, 34, were driving past that spot at precisely the worst moment. “One second we were driving,” said Ms. Abreu, 32, who is seven months pregnant. Then the windows on the left side shattered completely, and the car was lifted onto its wheels. “For a second I thought my car was on fire,” she said. Her boyfriend blacked out at the wheel and sprained his knee in the blast. Debris from the bomb struck him behind the ear, leaving him with burn marks. The next thing Ms. Abreu remembered, she was facing emergency responders near the ambulances. “Am I going to go into labor?” she thought. She was put on a stretcher. At Bellevue Hospital Center, one of four hospitals where victims were sent, the two were examined and released early Sunday morning both sustained mild concussions. Dr. Eric Cruzen, the medical director of emergency medicine at Lenox Health Greenwich Village, said his department treated nine patients, including one pediatric patient, for lacerations from shrapnel and glass, head injuries and mild concussions, and decreased hearing caused by the rapid change in pressure during the explosion. Many of the patients who experienced ear trauma had been inside cars at the time of the explosion, and said their windows had been blown out. The same pressure that shatters a window can also shatter an eardrum, Dr. Cruzen said. “It can burst like a window does,” Dr. Cruzen said. “It can be very alarming. ” He added, “I think the psychological effect of being bombed in your home city was probably the worst. ” Ms. Abreu missed two days of work at her job as an administrative assistant, and had rarely left the house. She has had nightmares and trouble sleeping. She refused to watch the news. “Every time I see his picture,” she said, referring to Mr. Rahami, “it just brings back everything. ” Victims of trauma might experience insomnia, irritability, or a loss of or gain in appetite, said Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, professor and chairman of the department of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center. They might be easily startled by loud sounds. “These are effects that will linger for some period of time,” he said. Over the long term, people in the most extreme cases might have recurring memories of the event, or even lose the ability to concentrate or perform usual work tasks. A person’s psychological recovery does not depend on the scale of the event, whether it is the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, or a blast with no serious injuries. “If you’re the person affected, it doesn’t make a difference if it’s a mass tragedy,” Dr. Lieberman said. For those affected by the bombing in Chelsea, feelings are mixed. Since Saturday, Andrea Gordon, the mother of one of the Boston University graduates, has repeatedly thought of other terrorist attacks and found herself flooded with gratitude. “Thank God this guy was captured, and thank God he was an amateur,” she said. Asked if she had talked to her son about how he felt, she said, “I’m going to get there. ” For the moment, her son and his friends were looking to the future. “They don’t want to relive the night,” she said.

Top German Paper: We Need To Be ’More Gay, More Multicultural’ To Oppose Trump

Chris Tomlinson

In a new editorial, the head of the German daily broadsheet Die Welt has called on Germans to oppose U. S. Donald Trump by being more multicultural and more “gay. ”[Head of Die Welt Ulf Poschardt wrote a combative editorial in response to an interview Mr. Trump did with the Bild tabloid on Monday. The highly negative reaction from many online forced the paper into changing the world “schwuler” or gay to ” more creative” after hundreds of comments were made on the paper’s website and over one thousand more on their Facebook page. In the editorial, Mr. Poschardt claims that Germans need to oppose Donald Trump because he threatens the system of globalisation he says has greatly benefited Germany. “Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Cabinet have been right to promote, popularize, and engage in global politics in tough diplomatic struggle,” he wrote, saying that it was good for Germans when globalisation ideas were spread across the world. “The distribution of global prosperity will, in the future, be aggressively decided by the US in its favor — if we do not resist and become better, more courageous, more diligent, innovative, free, open, gay and multicultural,” he wrote initially with gay being replaced with “creative” after the torrent of comments online. Facebook user Kirsten Zander slammed the editorial saying, “Why this martial rhetoric? To defend ourselves against the US president. Did he declare war on us? First of all, we need to take care of our own country instead of squinting at the whole world, as our chancellor does. ” Others took exception to the word gay being used with another Facebook user commenting, “What has this man smoked? Why do we become more successful when we become “gay” and STILL “multicultural”? Is there a correlation between being gay and growing multiculturalism and success?” Another wrote: “Why should we be gay? More open in dealing with gays in our society, I could understand that. But why gay when it comes to Trump?” The comments caused Mr. Poschardt to explain why he chose the word gay which was, according to him, “was meant in the sense of the theses of Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class. When this one detail became vital and threatened to cover the rest of the comment, I changed it. ” After the change, website Queer. de slammed Die Welt saying Poschardt had given in to “ populists” and called it “embarrassing” that he replaced gay with “creative” rather than “more tolerant” or “more diverse. ” The reaction to the election of Donald Trump among German media and German politicians has been highly negative since November. German Chancellor Angela Merkel went as far as to claim that Russian hacking directly influenced the election and warned it could influence the upcoming German federal election later this year. Tiedje, chairman and primary shareholder of communications consultancy WMP Eurocom AG, slammed German media for its coverage of the saying, “whatever he says, whatever he does, it’s never right according to the German television class. ”

Kerry Lists Obama Era’s Diplomatic Successes. (Trump Opposes Them All.) - The New York Times

Russell Goldman

In an exit memorandum reflecting on eight years of United States foreign policy, Secretary of State John Kerry enumerated the Obama administration’s diplomatic accomplishments. But that record may be weakened or overturned by Donald J. Trump, who has denigrated many of President Obama’s policies. Here is a look at how the secretary and the see the major foreign policy issues differently. Kerry: Mr. Kerry praised the 2015 deal that the United States brokered with Iran to curtail that country’s ability to produce nuclear weapons. Mr. Kerry wrote that before the deal was struck, Iran was less than “90 days away from having the material necessary to produce one nuclear weapon,” but “today they are at least a year away. ” He wrote on Thursday, “In reaching and implementing this deal, we took a major security threat off the table without firing a single shot. ” Trump: Mr. Trump made criticism of the nuclear deal a major talking point of his foreign policy in the presidential campaign. He has called the agreement “the worst deal ever negotiated. ” At a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in March, he said, “My No. 1 priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran. ” Later, he said he would renegotiate the agreement. Kerry: The secretary said that the United States tried to reset relations with Russia early in President Obama’s first term, but that a series of aggressions including “unprecedented cyber intrusions,” “military intervention in Syria,” and the “illegal occupation” of Ukraine impeded that effort. Trump: Mr. Trump has made improved relations with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia a cornerstone of his future foreign policy. After American intelligence agencies provided evidence that Russians hacked Democratic National Committee systems to help tip the election in his favor, Mr. Trump criticized the reliability of the intelligence community. He has praised Mr. Putin and said he would work closely with him to combat the Islamic State. Mr. Trump also seemed to upend American nuclear weapons policy when he declared in December: “Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all. ” Kerry: Mr. Kerry devoted a significant portion of his memo to climate change, calling it “not just a threat to the future of our planet, but a growing and immediate threat to our national security. ” He lauded an agreement struck between President Obama and President Xi Jinping of China, which bolstered a global climate agreement reached in Paris in 2015 that he called the most “ambitious, inclusive climate agreement ever negotiated. ” Trump: Mr. Trump has called climate change a “hoax,” said he would “cancel” the Paris accords and vowed to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency “in almost every form. ” His nominee to run that agency is Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general and a close ally of the fossil fuel industry, who has led the legal battle against Mr. Obama’s policies. Kerry: Though the Obama administration never fulfilled a promise to shutter the Guantánamo Bay detention center, Mr. Kerry wrote that ”no single action would do more to reaffirm our commitment to international human rights norms and remove a recruiting tool for terrorists than closing” the site. During Mr. Obama’s presidency, the number of detainees decreased to 59 from 242, with 20 approved for transfer. Trump: In a message posted to Twitter on Tuesday, Mr. Trump wrote: “There should be no further releases from Gitmo. These are extremely dangerous people and should not be allowed back onto the battlefield. ” Kerry: “It would be a moral failing of the highest caliber to turn our backs on those in need — including and especially from countries like Syria and Iraq,” Mr. Kerry wrote, adding that the United States had a “profound responsibility to help refugees. ” Trump: After the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif. in December 2015, Mr. Trump called for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States. ” Later in the campaign, he said: “We must suspend immigration from regions linked with terrorism until a proven vetting method is in place. ”

The Roots of the Battle Over Neil Gorsuch: ‘They Started It’ - The New York Times

Matt Flegenheimer

WASHINGTON — There was no filibuster for Clarence Thomas, whose Supreme Court confirmation hearings provoked a national uproar over sex, race and the behavior of powerful men. Antonin Scalia, for a generation the court’s irrepressible conservative id, earned 98 votes in the Senate. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, now the patron saint of liberal jurisprudence, got 96. But with the Senate careering toward a showdown over President Trump’s nominee, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, the body’s long history of relative collaboration on Supreme Court matters has come to this: Next week, the last bastion of comity is expected to fall over a plainly qualified, nominee who had no major stumbles in his hearings. And each party’s justification can often be summarized with a schoolyard classic: They started it. “I worry for the institution,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who broke with her colleagues last year in calling for a hearing and a vote on Judge Merrick B. Garland, President Barack Obama’s own plainly qualified, nominee. “I think, at the risk of alienating everyone I have to work with here, that there’s real shortsightedness on both parts. ” Leaders of both parties seem largely resigned to the next act. With Republicans eager to vote on Judge Gorsuch’s nomination next week, he is seen as unlikely to attract the support of at least eight Democrats, which he needs to reach the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster. And the Republican majority, led by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, has hinted strongly that it intends to change longstanding rules to elevate Judge Gorsuch with a simple majority vote if necessary. Mr. Trump has encouraged such a move. The specter of Judge Garland, whom Republicans refused to even consider in a presidential election year, has hovered over Judge Gorsuch’s nomination from the beginning, leaving Democrats and the party’s progressive base to stew over what they view as a stolen seat. But veteran lawmakers and scholars of the court have absorbed the present tumult in a deeper context: a prospective Senate nadir achievable only after years of creeping institutional shifts, a mutual recognition of the judiciary’s capacity to accelerate a party’s agenda, and a bipartisan embrace of hypocritical arguments and counterarguments, adopted and abandoned with the political winds. “This is more the coup de grâce than a new beginning,” said Jeffrey Rosen, president of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia and an author on Supreme Court matters. “It may indeed make it impossible for presidents to confirm any nominee at any point in their terms unless they also have control of the Senate. ” Some past flash points are familiar — charged enough to enshrine “Bork” as a verb and forever alter the connotations of Coke cans — rendered already in history as signposts of the electrified politics surrounding the court’s nominees. Other episodes, like the escalating partisan tensions over federal judgeships, served to erode Senate cooperation on judicial matters in less immediately perceptible ways. A surge in spending from outside groups, particularly on the right, has also increasingly lent the proceedings a feel. Then there was the precursor in 2013, when Democrats controlled the Senate under Mr. Obama. Facing a blockade of the president’s appeals court and executive branch nominees, the party changed the rules to bar filibusters for such positions, but left the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations untouched. Republicans have not forgotten. “I say to my friends on the other side of the aisle, you’ll regret this,” Mr. McConnell predicted at the time. “And you may regret it a lot sooner than you think. ” The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, has indeed said he regrets his party’s choice then, when Senator Harry Reid of Nevada was the Democrats’ leader. But the Supreme Court was meant to be different. Under current rules, the minority party can still prevent a vote on a nominee if more than 40 members band together in the filibuster. If 60 senators invoke “cloture,” the filibuster is broken and a full vote can proceed, with only majority support required. In an interview on Thursday at his office in the Capitol, Mr. Schumer said his party’s efforts were about more than protesting the treatment of Judge Garland. He cited concerns over Judge Gorsuch’s record on workers’ rights and his degree of independence from Mr. Trump and conservative groups like the Federalist Society, which pushed for Judge Gorsuch’s nomination. “It’s not vengeance for us,” he said. “It’s not payback. ” There has never been a successful partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee. In 1968, senators from both parties joined forces to block Justice Abe Fortas, whom President Lyndon B. Johnson sought to elevate to chief justice. Their obstruction — “ironically, in the middle of a presidential election year,” Mr. McConnell noted this week — centered on Mr. Johnson’s status and ethical questions surrounding Justice Fortas, among other issues. The Senate’s rejection in 1987 of Judge Robert H. Bork signaled a newfound focus on judicial philosophy and temperament, not merely a nominee’s qualifications, as grounds for credible opposition. Four years later, Justice Thomas’s explosive hearings and narrow confirmation, by a vote of 52 to 48, cemented the process as inescapably political, even as the next of Supreme Court confirmations often proceeded with a bipartisanship that has summarily vanished. And for all the outcry over Justice Thomas, no senator chose to filibuster him. “It was a function of norms of the Senate, not rules of the Senate,” said Martin B. Gold, a former senior Senate staff member who is considered an authority on the body’s procedures and protocols. “The rules would have permitted what the norms did not. ” Justice Thomas is one of two sitting justices, along with Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. to have fallen short of 60 votes, complicating Democrats’ recent claims that Judge Gorsuch must be held to a “standard” for confirmation. There is likewise, with respect to Judge Garland, no rule prohibiting the consideration of Supreme Court nominees eight months before an election. Sanford V. Levinson, a Supreme Court expert at the University of Texas School of Law, said the present enmity stemmed as much from bitter quarrels over judgeships as from past clashes over Supreme Court picks. He noted the series of filibusters against judicial nominees under President George W. Bush. “The Democrats did escalate,” Mr. Levinson said. “And the Republicans in turn escalated further with regard to doing what they could to delay Obama’s appointments — and then the kind of ultimate escalation with regard to Merrick Garland. ” In the interview, Mr. Schumer argued that the treatment of Judge Garland was “worse than a filibuster. ” And no one, he added, is forcing the Republicans’ hand. “If they change the rules, it’s their volition,” he said. It has been a trying moment for the institutionalists of the Senate, members with a particular attachment to the body’s rituals and norms. At the same time, Republicans have generally declined to assign themselves any blame for the rancor. This week, Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the Republican in the chamber, said the Democrats’ pursuit of a filibuster had become “demeaning to the Senate and to this country. ” Last year, both Senator John McCain of Arizona and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas suggested that they might seek to keep Mr. Scalia’s seat vacant indefinitely if Hillary Clinton won the election. But there is perhaps no surer signal of the Senate’s lurch toward confrontation than Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and the body’s member. On Monday, Mr. Leahy was quoted as saying he was “not inclined to filibuster,” even as he expressed his opposition to Judge Gorsuch’s nomination. Hours later, as liberal activists scolded him, the septuagenarian senator issued a clarification on Twitter. “I am never inclined to filibuster a SCOTUS nom,” he wrote, leaving the requisite wiggle room. “But I need to see how Judge Gorsuch answers my written Qs, under oath, before deciding. ”

6 Ex-Rikers Guards Sentenced to Prison in Attack on Inmate - The New York Times

Winnie Hu

Six former New York City correction officers returned to Rikers Island — this time as inmates — after being sentenced on Friday to prison terms of from four and a half years to six and a half years for their roles in the brutal beating of an inmate there in 2012. The sentencing of the former officers in State Supreme Court in the Bronx came three months after they were convicted of attempted gang assault, the most serious offense, and other charges. The case opened a window on a pervasive culture of violence at Rikers, the troubled city jail complex that houses 8, 000 inmates, at a time when many critics, including Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, have called for it to be closed. While there have been other instances of brutality against inmates, this case stood out because of the large number of officers involved, as well as the high rank of some of them. Prosecutors said Eliseo Perez Jr. an assistant chief for security, and Gerald Vaughn, a captain, ordered members of an elite squad to beat the inmate, Jahmal Lightfoot, after Mr. Perez decided Mr. Lightfoot was being insolent. Justice Steven Barrett sentenced Mr. Perez, Mr. Vaughn and four others — Jose Parra, Tobias Parker, Alfred Rivera and David Rodriguez — in a courtroom filled with their friends, relatives and fellow correction officers. Dozens of other supporters waited in a hallway outside. Each of the men had faced up to 15 years in state prison on the attempted gang assault charge. The other charges on which the six were also convicted included attempted assault in the first degree, assault in the second degree, falsifying business records and official misconduct. “At Rikers Island one day several years ago, officers entrusted with the duty to maintain order and discipline without resorting to force succumbed to their worst instincts and to the casual violence that is too often prevalent among the prison population these men were entrusted to watch,” Justice Barrett said, describing a case he said involved a “dereliction of duty at Rikers Island. ” Justice Barrett gave the longest sentence — six and a half years — to Mr. Perez, whom he called the “most culpable” of the defendants the judge sentenced Mr. Vaughn to five and a half years in prison. The other four former officers each received terms of four and a half years. The six men were immediately taken into custody after being sentenced and were later sent to Rikers. They will eventually be transferred to state prison. Justice Barrett also sentenced two former officers not directly involved in the beating, Harmon Frierson and Dwayne Maynard, to conditional discharges and 500 hours of community service apiece. They were convicted in June on charges of official misconduct for their roles in efforts to try to cover up the attack. Mr. Lightfoot, who was released from state prison in 2014, was in the courtroom as one former officer after another was sentenced during a proceeding that lasted nearly three hours. Afterward, he declined through his lawyer to comment. Lawrence Piergrossi, a prosecutor, praised Mr. Lightfoot in court for coming forward to report the beating by the officers, which occurred in a cell used for searching inmates. “What was supposed to be left in that search pen — because of Jahmal Lightfoot’s courage — has been brought to light,” Mr. Piergrossi said. The former officers, none of whom testified at trial, were portrayed by their lawyers as devoted family men and dedicated public servants without criminal records. Mr. Perez, his lawyer said, had helped with rescue efforts after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Mr. Rodriguez’s youngest child was born during the trial. Others were described by their lawyers as caring for aging or sick parents, and serving in their churches. Several of the defense lawyers said their clients were appealing the guilty verdicts. Nine former and current correction officers were tried together last spring in connection with the beating of Mr. Lightfoot and subsequent effort to cover it up. Five were found guilty by a jury three, who chose a bench trial, were found guilty by Justice Barrett. The verdicts were a major victory for the Bronx district attorney, Darcel D. Clark, a Democrat, who has made prosecuting crimes committed by anyone at Rikers a priority. Law enforcement officials in New York and elsewhere have struggled to successfully prosecute correction officers accused of brutality, in part because of negative perceptions of, and credibility problems with, victims accused or convicted of crimes. Mr. Lightfoot testified during the trial that it was “open season” for the officers to pummel him mercilessly with their fists and boots even as he curled into a fetal position on the floor. The attack left him with injuries that included two fractured eye sockets. Defense lawyers, who rested their case without calling any witnesses, argued that their clients had committed no wrongdoing. They said Mr. Lightfoot had been found with a sharp metal object during a routine search of inmates, and had then disregarded the officers’ repeated orders to drop the object. Mr. Lightfoot, the defense lawyers said, was injured while being forcibly restrained by officers who were simply doing their jobs. The defense lawyers also sought repeatedly to undermine the credibility of Mr. Lightfoot, who was sent to Rikers in 2010 after being accused of stealing a woman’s pocketbook. They cited his ties to the Bloods street gang and his criminal history involving drugs and other minor offenses. They suggested that he had concocted a story about being singled out and beaten, and hoped to gain financially from a lawsuit against the city over the attack that is pending. Mr. Perez retired from the New York City Correction Department in 2013 Mr. Vaughn retired in 2014. The six other officers convicted of criminal charges have been fired, according to correction officials. Jeffrey Richard, the only officer to be acquitted, remains a correction officer. A 10th officer, Michael Pollard, has also been charged in the beating of Mr. Lightfoot. He will be tried separately because of medical problems. He retired in July, according to correction officials.

Palestinian Authority Media Likens Trump to Hamas

Deborah Danan

TEL AVIV — The American people made a historic mistake in democratically electing President Donald Trump just as the Germans did when they elected Hitler and Gaza Palestinians did with their election of Hamas, a Palestinian columnist said, joining a chorus of Palestinian commentators who are slamming the new president as a “fascist,” “lunatic,” and “megalomaniac. ”[Bassem Barhoum, a columnist for Palestinian daily expressed the importance of keeping the “resistance” movement alive. The demonstrations that took place in the wake of the president’s inauguration were protests, he said, of the “savage capitalism and unprecedented greed that he represents, and to the dangers he could bring upon the world. ” “What gives me hope is that Trump’s insistence on repeating his mistakes and his provocative and statements will nurture this awakening [movement and keep it alive],” he wrote in the paper translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) in a new report highlighting the Palestinian mood regarding Trump’s presidency. It is puzzling that nations, no matter how civilized, keep repeating the same mistakes when exercising their right to hold democratic elections. … The Palestinian people made this mistake in 2006 when it elected Hamas in a moment of frustration, despair and rage [while] the civilized and educated German people elected Hitler and his Nazi party. Barhoum decried Trump’s “use of the threat of radical Islam as a bogeyman. ” Meanwhile, Hassan Khader, a columnist for the Palestinian Authority’s paper, made the following morbid prediction: “If the Americans do not manage to drive Donald Trump out of the White House, he will drive democracy out of their land. ” Khader echoed Barhoum’s comparisons with Nazi Germany, save for one important distinction. While Hitler regarded Jews as the source of all of Germany’s problems, Trump regards immigrants and Muslims as “an enemy responsible for all the problems that plague the U. S. and its citizens. ” PLO Executive Committee Secretary and former negotiator Saeb Erekat said Trump’s “rightwing extremism” was reminiscent of War II Europe. Also in the official Palestinian rag Omar asserted that “Trump suffers from megalomania and narcissism stemming from unbelievable arrogance. This dangerous tendency does not bode well for the U. S. and its people. ” He added that the new president was “a reckless, arrogant and racist man for whom tact and respect for the other are foreign concepts. ” “That the billionaire Trump has been elected U. S. president poses a tangible danger to [America’s] status and role [in the world, and endangers] the capitalist West, since his positions and statements reveal that he means to divide the capitalist West and turn the world and its international institutions upside down,” concluded. “This can change the entire system of international relations. Hence, the [world’s] leaders and countries must take precautions and [prepare for] various scenarios so as to avoid [being harmed by] surprising decisions that the new U. S. president might take. The logical conclusion to draw regarding the future is that, in the Trump era, the U. S. will be at a crossroads. ” As soon as Trump came into power, Palestinian officials expressed their fear that the new administration would be biased towards Israel, supporting settlement expansion and a possible embassy transfer to Jerusalem. Maen Erekat, chief of the PLO delegation in Washington, said that any credibility the U. S. has left in the Middle East will suffer greatly if “Trump takes positions that are clearly biased towards Israel and its policy that violates international law and the UN resolutions. ” Fatah official Nabil Sha’ath told the Hamas publication : “The coming period is dangerous for the Palestinians in the shadow of the Trump administration and of an extremist government in Israel headed by Netanyahu. ” Fatah Central Committee Member Abbas Zaki criticized Trump’s pick for ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, who is an open supporter of the settlements. He further warned that if Trump follows through with his promise to move the embassy it would “open the gates of hell. ” He added that the Americans will “lose if they do not back down. ” “No one can divide the Muslims,” he wrote. Fatah Central Committee Member Nasr said that an embassy transfer would be a “clear assault” against the Palestinian people and would result in the closure of the Palestinian mission in Washington. “The Palestinian side will sever its ties with the official staffers of the U. S. Embassy that will be illegally situated in Jerusalem,” he wrote. He added that the move would instigate “popular action,” an apparent euphemism for mass violence, and added that he predicts “a great deal of fury” from the Muslim and Arab world. Speaking on the official Palestinian Authority TV channel on January 18, Fatah Central Committee member Jibril Rajoub referred to Trump as a “lunatic” and said that the embassy relocation was a “declaration of war” against the whole world. Rajoub said, “We want the confrontation to be between this new Fascist in the White House and the whole world — Christians as well as Muslims. ”

CDC vaccine science covers up giant conflict of interest

# 1 NWO Hatr

Jon Rappoport If you wanted to buy a product, and the main source of research on the product was the company selling it, would you automatically assume the product was safe and effective? But you see, that’s the just the beginning of the problem. Suppose the company’s research was cited thousands of times in the press, as the authoritative standard of proof—and anyone who disputed that research was labeled a conspiracy theorist and a quack and a danger to the community and an anti-science lunatic. Would you begin to suspect the company had some awesome media connections? Would you suspect some very powerful people were backing the company? This is exactly the situation with the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Read these two quotes: The government’s Vaccine for Children Program (a CDC organization) purchases vaccines for about 50 percent of children in the U.S.” (The Atlantic, February 10, 2015) “The CDC currently spends over $4 billion purchasing vaccines [annually] from drug makers…” (Health Impact News, October 24, 2016) However, the CDC is also the gold standard for research on the safety and efficacy of vaccines. It turns out an unending stream of studies on these subjects. And the results of those studies are dutifully reported in the mainstream press. Do you think, under any circumstances, the CDC would publish data showing vaccines are ineffective and dangerous? They’d be cutting their own throats. “Well, we spend $4 billion a year buying vaccines from drug companies, but guess what? These vaccines are often dangerous…” Every time you read about a CDC study on vaccines, keep this obvious conflict of interest in mind. When, in 2014, William Thompson, a long-time CDC researcher, publicly admitted he and his colleagues had buried data that would have shown the MMR vaccine increases the risk of autism, he was throwing a stick of dynamite into the whole CDC operation. He was also saying, in recorded phone conversations, that the CDC was lying about vaccine safety in other studies. This is why major media refused to cover or investigate Thompson’s claims. This is why they spread a blanket of silence over his revelations. Thompson was threatening a $ 4-billion-a-year enterprise. The CDC is both a PR agency for, and a buyer from, Big Pharma. Speaking of PR, would you like to see an example of how the CDC promotes the yearly flu vaccine by lying egregiously about flu deaths in the United States? In December of 2005, the British Medical Journal (online) published a shocking report by Peter Doshi, which created tremors through the halls of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), where “the experts” used to tell the press that 36,000 people in the US die every year from the flu. Here is a quote from Doshi’s report, “Are US flu death figures more PR than science?” (BMJ 2005; 331:1412): “[According to CDC statistics], ‘influenza and pneumonia’ took 62,034 lives in 2001—61,777 of which were attributable to pneumonia and 257 to flu, and in only 18 cases was the flu virus positively identified.” Boom. You see, the CDC has created one overall category that combines both flu and pneumonia deaths. Why do they do this? Because they disingenuously assume that the pneumonia deaths are complications stemming from the flu. This is an absurd assumption. Pneumonia has a number of causes. But even worse, in all the flu and pneumonia deaths, only 18 revealed the presence of an influenza virus. Therefore, the CDC could not say, with assurance, that more than 18 people died of influenza in 2001. Not 36,000 deaths. 18 deaths. Doshi continued his assessment of published CDC flu-death statistics: “Between 1979 and 2001, [CDC] data show an average of 1348 [flu] deaths per year (range 257 to 3006).” These figures refer to flu separated out from pneumonia. This death toll is obviously far lower than the parroted 36,000 figure. However, when you add the sensible condition that lab tests have to actually find the flu virus in patients, the numbers of flu deaths plummet even further. In other words, it’s all promotion and hype. “Well, uh, we say that 36,000 people die from the flu every year in the US. But actually, it’s closer to 20. However, we can’t admit that, because if we did, we’d be exposing our gigantic psyop. The whole campaign to scare people into getting a flu shot would have about the same effect as warning people to carry iron umbrellas, in case toasters fall out of upper-story windows…and, by the way, we’d be put in prison for fraud.” The CDC must turn out a steady stream of outrageous lies about the need for vaccines. If they didn’t, they’d have no way to justify the billions of dollars they spend every year buying the vaccines from drug companies. Since the sold-out major media won’t connect these dots, I and others need to. Jon Rappoport The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED , EXIT FROM THE MATRIX , and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX , Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29 th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here .

Rabbi Complains of Pope Francis’ ‘Daily’ Use of Anti-Jewish Rhetoric

Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.

A prominent Italian rabbi has denounced what he sees as a growing Catholic undercurrent “of resentment, intolerance, and annoyance” toward Judaism, exacerbated by the Pope’s “careless” repetition of stereotypes. [In an open letter, Rabbi Giuseppe Laras, the former chief rabbi of Milan, expressed his dismay that despite important advances in relations, the Pope seems to repudiate them with his use of rhetoric in his homilies. “What a shame,” Rabbi Laras writes, that the official documents of the Catholic Church regarding the Jewish faith “should be contradicted on a daily basis by the homilies of the pontiff, who employs precisely the old, inveterate structure and its expressions, dissolving the contents of the aforementioned documents. ” As one example, the rabbi referenced the Pope’s preaching on the law of “an eye for an eye,” which, he said, the pontiff recently evoked “carelessly and mistakenly,” leading to a misrepresentation of the meaning of the law for Judaism. Rabbi Laras is not the first Jewish leader to voice his displeasure over the pope’s frequent references to the “hypocrisy” of the Jewish Pharisees and the “legalism” of the Jewish doctors of the law. Already in 2015, the chief rabbi of Rome, Riccardo di Segni, said that he had taken his complaints about the Pope’s preaching directly to the pontiff himself, explaining exactly what he found offensive about his homilies. In his letter, Rabbi Laras associates the Pope’s treatment of Judaism to what he sees as a broader problem with contemporary Catholic discourse involving the Jewish faith. Laras wrote that he was not alone in this impression, identifying a number of “disquieting facts,” which “many of us have felt in the air for quite some time. ” These “disquieting facts” include “a substantial distrust of the Bible and a subsequent minimization of the Jewish biblical roots of Christianity,” which, he said, seemed to indicate a new form of the ancient Christian heresy of Marcionism, which held that the God of the Old Testament was fundamentally different from the God worshiped by Christians. The biblical dichotomy between Old and New Testaments, Laras argues, signals “the resumption of the old polarization between the morality and theology of the Hebrew Bible and of Pharisaism, and Jesus of Nazareth and the Gospels. ” The rabbi also underscored the Church’s “embracing of Islam, which is all the stronger as the Christian side is more critical toward Judaism, now including even the Bible and biblical theology. ” He also identified an undercurrent “of resentment, intolerance, and annoyance on the Christian side toward Judaism. ” These and other troubling signs were made very apparent by a recently published event guide for the upcoming fall conference of the Italian Biblical Association (ABI) Rabbi Laras contended. “I observe with the highest displeasure and concern that this ABI program is substantially a defeat for the presuppositions and contents of dialogue,” he wrote, “which for some time now has been reduced, sadly, to fluff and hot air. ” “I am, and this is a euphemism, very indignant and embittered!” he said. Some Vatican observers have suggested that the Pope’s remarks that have angered the Jewish community stem not so much from any on the Pope’s part as from his “carelessness in speech” allied to his dislike of doctrinal precision. “He is possessed of so negative an attitude toward theology that he fails to frame his comments with the requisite precision,” wrote Father Peter Stravinskas, author of The Catholic Church and the Bible, in a recent essay. At the core of the issues that have so distressed Rabbi Laras, he contends, is the Pope’s deep dislike of doctrine, theology and Canon Law. “Francis consistently pits ‘the Law’ against ‘the Gospel,’” Stravinskas writes, and his “allergic reactions to law make him see stark differences where complementarity is more in order. ” “Francis rails against law because of his predisposition against canon law and canon lawyers — as well as moral theologians who represent the consistent trajectory of Catholic morality,” he wrote. As a result, the Pope’s “uninformed and tendentious statements risk setting relations back decades, if not centuries,” Stravinskas claimed. Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome

El 'selfie' que podría llevar a Justin Timberlake a la cárcel - RT

El 'selfie' que podría llevar a Justin Timberlake a la cárcel Publicado: 27 oct 2016 00:32 GMT "¡No hay excusas, mi buena gente!", decía el pie de foto, animando a los estadounidenses a votar. Peter Nicholls Reuters Síguenos en Facebook El cantante y actor estadounidense Justin Timberlake ha publicado en su cuenta de Instagram un 'selfie' que le puede traer problemas con la justicia, informa la cadena CBS News . El artista voló desde California al estado de Tennessee con el fin de votar por adelantado. El cantante publicó un autorretrato en la cabina de votación este lunes, animando a todos sus compatriotas a votar. "¡No hay excusas, mi buena gente!", decía el pie de foto. Justin Timberlake"can't stop that feeling" of civic duty, but his ballot box selfie may have broken the law: https://t.co/zqwVirIKx7 pic.twitter.com/Pdr6H60OlC — CBS News (@CBSNews) 25 октября 2016 г. Los funcionarios estatales han comentado que es un gran gesto, pero hay un problema: en Tennessee entró en vigor una ley a principios de este año que prohíbe a los votantes tomar fotografías o videos en el interior de las cabinas de votación. Así, el portavoz del secretario de Estado de Tennessee, Adam Ghassemi, dijo que los funcionarios están "emocionados de que Justin no puede detener el sentimiento ('Can't stop the feeling' en inglés, como dice su famosa canción )", pero recuerdan a los votantes que no pueden usar sus teléfonos dentro de los lugares de votación. Según algunos medios locales, el cantante no será investigado por su publicación en Instagram.

They Finally Got Paid. Now They’re Ready to Play. - The New York Times

Neal E. Boudette

PLYMOUTH, Mich. — The United States women’s hockey team is going from one tough battle off the ice to a big challenge on it. On Tuesday, the players reached an agreement for wages and increased support from U. S. A. Hockey, the sport’s domestic governing body, after threatening to boycott the 2017 world championship, which begins here on Friday. The landmark deal means that the United States will have a lineup of the best American players at its disposal. But the tense wrangling over the past two weeks has left the team, the defending champions, with only two days to prepare for its opening game — a clash with archrival Canada on Friday night. Meghan Duggan, the American captain, acknowledged that the short turnaround between was not ideal, but she said the team had been energized by the wage fight. “What we just went through is just going to elevate our game that much more,” said Duggan, who led the push for more financial, marketing and training assistance from U. S. A. Hockey. “I’m so excited to carry the momentum into this week and kick off the tournament. ” The team’s first skate on Wednesday evening, she added, “was electric, very energetic, awesome practice. ” Monique said groups of players have been training and skating on their own to maintain conditioning and competitiveness since the planned boycott was announced two weeks ago. “We only have two days to prepare, but we’ve been doing everything at home to be ready, so we’re not that concerned about only having two days together as a team,” she said. “We’ve been preparing all year for this tournament. ” Robb Stauber, who has been head coach of the team for just four weeks, said he used part of the team’s limited practice time to focus on critical situations, like power plays and penalty kills. “I’ve never faced a situation like this, but our players are resilient,” he said. “They showed that in their stance on what they believed in. We expect them to carry that resilience over to the ice. ” The national team players had been negotiating with U. S. A. Hockey for the past 15 months, seeking more financial assistance that would allow them to support themselves while training to compete at a level. Many work two or more jobs while trying to fit in training camps and workouts. They sought, and received, travel and insurance provisions that equal those of the men’s team. Previously, U. S. A. Hockey gave the women $1, 000 a month in the six months leading up to Olympic tournaments. Now, each player will be guaranteed at least $2, 000 per month and will be eligible for more generous performance bonuses. The women also pushed U. S. A. Hockey to put more effort into promoting the game among women and girls. The organization spends around $3. 5 million a year on the National Team Development Program, which grooms elite teenage boys to play college, professional and Olympic hockey. This year’s world championship is being played at U. S. A. Hockey Arena, perhaps the starkest example of the support the organization gives to teenage boys. U. S. A. Hockey acquired the rink in 2015 as a home for the development program, which fields two teams of players under the age of 18. Among its alumni are some of the top American players in the N. H. L. including Patrick Kane, Jack Eichel, Auston Matthews and Phil Kessel, the older brother of Amanda Kessel, a star on the women’s team. The rink includes a lavish training facility, with an indoor track, a weight room, a skating treadmill and a shooting cage — amenities few college teams can boast. “This is a pretty great facility for the N. T. D. P. program to be playing in,” Jocelyne said. “We want the girls and the younger generation to have a home like this and to be able to play in a place like this. That’s what we strive for. This is obviously a great facility for the boys’ teams and hopefully in the future for some girls’ teams. ” The players’ stand drew support from N. H. L. players as well as representatives from several other top sports leagues, celebrities and Billie Jean King, who fought for equal pay for women’s tennis players long before any of the women’s hockey players were born. A group of United States senators also issued a letter calling on U. S. A. Hockey to reach an agreement to ensure that the women’s team received equitable resources. “It was amazing the people we heard from,” said. “When you get senators writing a letter, you know it’s become a big deal. ” U. S. A. Hockey unsuccessfully attempted to recruit a replacement team from the professional, college and high school ranks. Duggan and other national team members made dozens of phone calls and sent emails and texts asking players to decline to join a replacement team. While Tuesday’s agreement boosted the national team, Wednesday brought a fresh reminder of the challenges that remain for women’s hockey. The University of North Dakota, where the Lamoureux sisters played and worked as members of the coaching staff, announced that it was dropping its women’s hockey program. Eight North Dakota players participated in the 2014 Winter Olympics. “Tuesday was a big step forward and Wednesday, for my sister and me and girls in the Grand Forks region, it was two steps backward,” said. “There’s so many girls in that area, that team is the only team they have access to, so it’s really unfortunate. ” For now, though, there is work to be done on the ice. Friday’s game will match the two giants of women’s hockey. The United States and Canada have met in the final of all 18 world championships that have been played since the International Ice Hockey Federation organized the first tournament in 1990. The United States has won six of the last seven world championships, although Canada has won 10 over all. Canada has four Olympic gold medals in women’s hockey to the Americans’ one. “We love kicking off the tournament against them the atmosphere is going to be great,” said. “The last few weeks, I think we’re a more cohesive group. There’s 100 percent trust in every player. These last two weeks was kind of its own team building. ” Kessel said the Americans were fired up to face Canada. “Every time it’s a lot of pride and it’s a hard game,” she said, “and it’s the most fun game. ”

Left Wing Vegan Denied Swiss Passport Because She’s ’Too Annoying’

Nick Hallett

A left wing Dutch vegan who has lived in Switzerland since she was a child has been denied a Swiss passport because locals in her adoptive town find her too annoying. [Nancy Holten, 42, is a animal rights activist who has campaigned against the Swiss tradition of cow bells, calling them cruel. Despite living in the country since the age of eight, and speaking fluent Swiss German, local residents vetoed her application of citizenship, saying they were “fed up” with her challenging their traditions. The Dutchwoman explained her views: “The sound that cow bells make is a hundred decibel. It is comparable with a pneumatic drill. We also would not want such a thing hanging close to our ears?” “The bells, which the cows have to wear when they walk to and from the pasture, are especially heavy. “The animals carry around five kilograms around their neck. It causes friction and burns to their skin. ” Aargauer Zeitung says that as well as cow bells, she has also campaigned against other Swiss traditions including hunting, pig racing, and even loud church bells. Local politician Tanja Suter said Ms. Holten had a “big mouth” and she does not deserve a Swiss passport “if she irritates us and does not respect our traditions”. Ms Holten herself admits: “I think I spoke my mind too often, and I say it out too loud. ” Under Switzerland’s highly decentralised constitution, local towns and regions grant citizenship rather than the central government, and some give citizens a vote on who gets a passport. Villagers in in the canton of Aargau voted by 206 to 144 to reject Ms. Holten’s application for citizenship in 2015, and have now rejected that application a second time. The case will now go to the regional government, which can overrule the vote and grant her citizenship anyway. Switzerland has some of the tightest citizenship laws in the world, and being born in the country often does not grant the children of immigrants an automatic right to a passport.

Freedom Rider: How Not to Protest Trump

Margaret Kimberley

2016 elections by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley Donald Trump’s many evils are manifest and obvious. But let’s stop pretending that some historical line has been crossed in U.S. political and social relations. “The dictates of white supremacy are ever present and the numbers of white people who do anything serious about it are small.” Newly outraged Democrats act like they’ve never seen a fascist. “There is an ample supply of domestic fascists. They are the people who wear police uniforms.” Freedom Rider : How Not to Protest Trump by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley “ There are many unique characteristics to the Donald Trump story but the institutional evils that permeate this country persist no matter who sits in the oval office. ” Thousands of progressives are taking to the streets in opposition to the Donald Trump presidency. After eight years of Obama induced slumber they awoke with quite a start. Many of these individuals and organizations protested as part of the anti-war, Occupy and Black Lives Matter movements, but others weren’t concerned about very much until the reality show host became president elect. The awful Hillary Clinton should be inaugurated the 45 th president of the United States because she won the popular vote. But for the second time in less than twenty years a Democrat preferred by the people will instead be an historical footnote. If nothing else the Electoral College is rightly condemned. But where else should protesters direct their anger? If they are concerned about fascism they could protest police killings, or United States government murders committed during numerous interventions abroad. They might have risen up against the mass incarceration state. The list of outrages that should get people moving is quite long. White liberals here in New York City didn’t care very much when black and brown residents were subjected to nearly one million police encounters. Mayor Bloomberg’s infamous stop and frisk program was a tailor made opportunity for public anger. Yet every poll indicated that white people were in favor of this very fascist 21 st century slave patrol. Those same people are now upset but what exactly has raised their ire? “Trump is no more hostile to the rights of the press than Obama was.” They say they are concerned about the rights of undocumented people but they didn’t say much when Obama acted as the Deporter-in-Chief. The so-called Muslim registry of men from 25 countries under the auspices of the NSEERS program lasted from 2002 to 2011. That is to say during two years of the Obama administration. They may be concerned about climate change and Trump’s promise to end America’s participation in the most recent climate agreement. But that agreement allows for a rise in carbon production and thus in world temperatures. They would have been smarter to challenge the phony climate change process itself. They say they are afraid that Trump will muzzle the press. His shouting match with network executives should not be a cause for alarm. Eventually they’ll start saying good things about him so he was foolish to be so hostile. But he is no more hostile to the rights of the press than Obama was. When he used the Espionage Act to punish leakers and whistle blowers many of the now distraught progressives didn’t say much. So what has gotten progressives so angry? There is nothing new about the so-called alt-right movement. There is always a way to brand white nationalism. They may be the Tea Party one day and alt-right the next but it all amounts to the same thing. The dictates of white supremacy are ever present and the numbers of white people who do anything serious about it are small. If the sight of naziesque salutes to Trump are upsetting just keep in mind that there is an ample supply of domestic fascists. They are the people who wear police uniforms. They may not “hail Trump” or anyone else but they kill three people in this country every day. “ Barack Obama and Eric Holder quite literally kept thousands of black people in jail who could have been freed.” Donald Trump should be given credit for providing so much low hanging fruit. His appointment of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions to the post of attorney general provides ready made ingredients for fear and anger. Sessions was once denied a federal judgeship in part because of racist remarks directed at a black attorney. And who can ignore the glorification of the Confederacy in his name. But what did Obama and his two black attorney generals do? There were no prosecutions of killer police. That fact is a curious one in the age of murder caught on video. The Obama Justice Department argued against giving the right to request resentencing for those convicted during the years of draconian drug crime prosecution. Barack Obama and Eric Holder quite literally kept thousands of black people in jail who could have been freed. It is difficult to take protesters seriously when they won’t even direct their anger at the party which displayed such gross incompetence during the recent campaign. The inability to defeat the man who seemed so unsuited to the presidency should stir anger towards the people whose hubris brought him to the White House. There is always a need to engage in struggle, whether a Republican or Democrat is president. There are many unique characteristics to the Donald Trump story but the institutional evils that permeate this country persist no matter who sits in the oval office. We can gauge the true level of concern about justice when a Democrat next emerges victorious. A president who provides a greater opportunity for scorn should not be the last one who faces opposition. Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

Johnson & Johnson Ordered To Pay $72 Million In Another Ovarian Cancer Case Caused By Baby Powder

Collective Evolution

This is one out of several cases raising concerns about the health consequences of using regular talcum powder use. Approximately 1,000 more cases have been filed in Missouri state court, and another 200 in New Jersey, but this may well be the tip of the iceberg. As Global News reports: “The jury ruling ended the trial that began Sept. 26 in the case brought by Deborah Giannecchini of Modesto, California. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2012. The suit accused Johnson & Johnson of “negligent conduct” in making and marketing its baby powder.” Unfortunately, a statement from Carol Goodrich, a spokeswoman with Johnson & Johnson, said in the statement to Global: “We deeply sympathize with the woman and families impacted by ovarian cancer…We will appeal today’s verdict because we are guided by the science, which supports the safety of Johnson’s Baby Powder.” Obviously, if these are the decisions being made by a court of law, there is ample amounts of science and evidence suggesting the baby powder was indeed the cause. Earlier in the year, a decision was made last by a Missouri state jury that awarded the family of Jacqueline Fox $10-million of actual damages and $62 million of punitive damages. In this case, we saw the exact same response from the company as the case noted above. These cases show how people are using something they thought was perfectly safe, but clearly wasn’t. One of the most painful revelations, as Bloomberg notes, is that: In the 1990s, even as the company acknowledged concerns in the health community, it considered increasing its marketing efforts to black and Hispanic women, who were already buying the product in high numbers. Fox was black. The jury foreman, Krista Smith, says internal documents provided the most incriminating evidence: ‘It was really clear they were hiding something.’ She wanted to award the Fox family even more. Imerys Talc America, the biggest talc supplier in the country and the sole source of the powder for J&J, was also named as a defendant. The company wasn’t found liable. The ‘scientific evidence’ to which she refers clearly have not withstood the scrutiny of either this trial or concerned members of the public; it also fails to account for who funded the research. Her remark also makes plain a disturbing trend amongst big corporations, which is the blind trust of their employees. Many clearly believe what they are told about the products they represent, without questioning or doing their own independent research. Scientific fraud induced by major corporations in this field is no secret, and various medical experts around the world have been speaking out against it for decades. Dr. Richard Horton, current Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet , one of the largest medical journals in the world, has publicly and unequivocally called out the scientific community for this negligence and outright fraud: The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness. ( source ) The sheer volume of statements from very credible people, along with the documents and evidence, attesting to this disturbing trend, is simply overwhelming. (You can find more information and view more examples/statements in an article we recently published about anti-depressant drugs here .) Yet the unfortunate reality is that employees of these big corporations stand behind their products, working under the assurances of corporately-funded science which, obviously, has profit in mind rather than safety. This is a widespread and alarming problem, and it’s great to see more people raise their voice against these shady practices. Dr. Marcia Angell, a physician and longtime Editor-in-Chief of the New England Medical Journal (NEMJ), is another such professional to do so: It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. ( source ) It’s no secret that many household products are toxic to our health. Science has been confirming their dangers for years now (not that many of us needed this confirmation); these products are literally littered with a number of hazardous harmful chemicals. Researchers in the UK, for example, found that domestic products such as anti-insect sprays, deodorants, cleaning products, cosmetics, and more contain a number of cancer causing chemicals. The researchers, from the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, who concluded that these types of everyday household products maybe be contributing to 100,000 deaths every single year in Europe, warn that the public remains unaware of these risks. Another example of an insider speaking out against the industry is Foster Gamble, the direct descendant of one of the founders of Procter & Gamble (a company similar to Johnson & Johnson). He himself explains that he was groomed for the establishment, but his ethical concerns prompted him to change direction. To the left you will see a picture of him with Gerald Ford. Foster decided to leave the business and instead raise awareness about many issues, including the hazards associated with everyday household products that the corporations like his father’s manufacture. He’s had an interesting life to say the least, and you can watch a documentary he released a few years ago here . The Sacred Science follows eight people from around the world, with varying physical and psychological illnesses, as they embark on a one-month healing journey into the heart of the Amazon jungle. You can watch this documentary film FREE for 10 days by clicking here. "If “Survivor” was actually real and had stakes worth caring about, it would be what happens here, and “The Sacred Science” hopefully is merely one in a long line of exciting endeavors from this group." - Billy Okeefe, McClatchy Tribune

Tokyo could ban US troops from stationing on disputed isles

Alex Ansary

block the US from being stationed on the islands off Hokkaido in the strategic Sea of Okhotsk, if this helps persuade Russia to give them back. The islands are inhabited, and in Russia are called the Southern Kurils – but for Japan they are Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan, and the Habomai islet group. These territories, which became Russian after Japan’s defeat in World War II under the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951, saw a rift between the two countries preventing them from signing the peace treaty to formally end the war. Tokyo insists the four islets are not part of the Kuril chain and should be returned under its control. In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Bloomberg that Russia does not “trade territories.” But ahead of his visit to Tokyo in mid-December, Japan’s diplomatic sources told Kyodo News that Moscow would hand over Shikotan and Habomai islet group following the peace deal, as stated by the 1956 Japan-Soviet Joint Declaration. The sources, however, said Russia may be concerned that the US military could be stationed on the territories after Japan gets them back. According to Article 5 of the Japan-US security treaty, Washington is allowed to station its troops in areas administered by Japan. The Japanese government is now looking into the potential consequences, should they exclude the islands from Article 5, the sources said, with one of them adding that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe could go as far as announcing that the islands do not fall under Article 5. Other sources, however, think that “a realistic scenario is that the prime minister shows his political will and seeks consent from the United States.” At the same time, “Russia won’t agree to hand over [the islands] unless the possibility of stationing the US military there is ruled out,” a source familiar with the Japanese-Russian ties told The Japan Times over the weekend. Nevertheless, convincing the US to okay such conditions seems very difficult, a Japanese government source said, adding that “It could even shake the foundations of the [Japan-US military] alliance.” For Russia, the area around the disputed islands is of “extremely high importance” because it faces the Sea of Okhotsk, a Japanese government source said, and a foreign military in these waters could hamper both essential military drills and the use of a major access route to the Pacific Ocean. Tokyo has already rejected the report, saying they are not planning to review Article 5, TASS news agency said, citing Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida reiterated it, adding that the Japan-US treaty “applies and will apply” to all territories and waters which are administered by Japan. Earlier in the month, Tokyo also denied Nikkei’s report that Japan and Russia were discussing joint administration of the Kuril Islands. “There is no change in Japan’s fundamental position that Japan will conclude the peace treaty with Russia by resolving the issue of the possession of the four northern islands,” Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Yasuhira Kawamura told Reuters in an email at that time. Russia has always insisted that any change in the status of the islands is out of the question, as it would constitute a reassessment of the results of World War II, which is expressly banned by international treaties.

Munich Killer Was Troubled, but Had No Terrorist Ties, Germany Says - The New York Times

Rukmini Callimachi and Melissa Eddy

MUNICH — He had been bullied at more than one school. He played violent video games, and developed a fascination with mass shootings. He kept a copy of the German edition of “Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters,” a study by an American academic psychologist, and he was treated for psychiatric problems. Somewhere along the way, Ali Sonboly got his hands on a Glock handgun, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition for it. And at 5:52 p. m. on Friday, at a McDonald’s in Munich a few miles from where he lived with his mother, father and brother, he started shooting. Mr. Sonboly, 18, moved on to a shopping mall across the street, then to the top level of an adjacent parking garage. By the time his rampage was done, he had killed eight other young people and one person. Then, in front of two police officers, he killed himself with his own gun, the police said. It was the third mass attack in Europe in little over a week, after the killings of 84 people in Nice, France, and an attack by a young refugee wielding an ax and a knife in Germany that left five people wounded. But unlike those two attacks, the one in Munich appeared, based on initial evidence, to have no overt links to the Islamic State or other terrorist groups, officials said Saturday. Nor did it seem to be directly linked to the wave of migration that has fueled racial, ethnic and religious tensions in Germany and across Europe. Instead, according to accounts by the police, prosecutors, and neighbors and schoolmates of Mr. Sonboly, this most recent assault appeared to be of a less ideological and more personal sort: a sudden, violent outlet for a quietly troubled young man. There were indications that Mr. Sonboly’s rampage might not have been entirely without political overtones. It was carried out on the fifth anniversary of a massacre in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik, a extremist who killed 77 people. Asked about a possible link based on the date, the Munich police chief, Hubertus Andrä, said that “this connection is obvious” and was part of their investigation. “We must assume that he was aware of this attack,” Chief Andrä said. But the initial picture of Mr. Sonboly that emerged in the hours after police officers found him dead, less than a mile from the shopping mall with a backpack full of ammunition and a single bullet wound to his head, was of a young man whose concerns were much closer to home. Born and raised in Munich, he held both German and Iranian citizenship. His parents immigrated to Germany, and his father drives a cab. A student at a nearby public school, he was known to adult neighbors as a polite boy who delivered newspapers. He grew up in a secular household, neighbors said, and the family took pleasure in celebrations like birthdays and the Iranian New Year. Some news reports identified him as David Ali Sonboly, though he was known to everyone as Ali. “He was always friendly, very friendly,” said Tovaiau Edo, 32, who lives in the family’s apartment building. “When I saw him and saw the story, it’s like two different people. Not the same people. I cannot believe this. ” But officials and neighbors said Saturday that Mr. Sonboly had been struggling on several levels. He had two previous encounters with the police, both times as a victim, once having been bullied by three other young people and once having been robbed. He spent considerable time playing violent online video games. He had been getting psychiatric treatment, possibly for depression, officials said. “He was always nice, kind, helpful,” said a neighbor who attended the same school on Alfons Street as the attacker and asked to to be identified only by her first name, Safete. Safete said that she had seen the attacker at their apartment building around midday on Friday and that “he didn’t greet me, like he normally does. ” “He was focused on the papers he was holding,” she added. “He didn’t look up. ” Safete said the gunman had argued at one point with a schoolmate, “and said that he was going to go on a shooting rampage. ” She added that she could not remember the name of the schoolmate, or the date of the altercation. Safete’s cousin, who gave her name as Majlinda and attends the same school, said the gunman had been bullied at his current school and a former one. “This has nothing to do with Islam,” she said. “It’s because he was bullied. ” A woman in a neighboring building, whose balcony faced the Sonboly family’s balcony, said she and her son had become friendly with Ali. But the woman, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Paulina, said she and her son had both noticed something off about him. “Ali was somehow closed up on the inside,” Paulina said. “He had something. I don’t know what it is, but something was wrong. ” There were hints that his rampage had been premeditated. In a raid at 3:30 a. m. Saturday on his family’s apartment in the Maxvorstadt neighborhood, which includes some of the city’s renowned art museums and is adjacent to the city’s historic center, the authorities found newspaper articles on police responses to other shooting rampages, as well as the book on school gunmen. The police also removed computer equipment, documents and other materials. Officials said they were investigating reports that the gunman might have hacked a girl’s Facebook page and promised food at an especially low price to lure people to the McDonald’s shortly before the first shootings. They were also investigating whether he had specifically targeted young people. Three of those killed were 14 years old, two were 15, and the others were 17, 19, 20 and 45. Three of the nine were female. All lived in the Munich area, officials said. Of the 27 people injured, 10 were in critical condition, including a boy. After carrying out the shootings in the shopping mall, Mr. Sonboly retreated to the parking garage. From the top level, he engaged in a shouting match with one or more people at a distance, with the exchange recorded on video. One of the bystanders fumed at “Turks,” and the gunman replied, “I am German,” “I was born here,” and “I grew up here in a Hartz IV area,” a reference to a tier of unemployment and welfare benefits — meaning that he was from a bottom rung of society. He seems to have eluded the police at that point, while the authorities were scrambling to respond to reports, later proved unfounded, of gunfire elsewhere and that there might have been as many as three attackers armed with long guns. At the height of the emergency, 2, 300 officers were deployed throughout the city. When the police found Mr. Sonboly’s body, they feared that the backpack he was carrying might contain a bomb. It did not, but it held 300 more rounds of ammunition. “We are assuming at the moment that we are talking about only one perpetrator, one perpetrator who committed suicide,” said Thomas the chief state’s attorney in Munich. Among the many questions facing the authorities on Saturday as Munich slowly returned to normal was how Mr. Sonboly had gotten a handgun and so much ammunition, despite Germany’s strict gun laws. The serial number of the Glock had been scratched off, complicating the authorities’ ability to trace the firearm, said Robert Heimberger, the chief of the Bavarian State Criminal Police, at a late morning news conference. The teenager did not have a license to own a gun. There will also be questions about whether schools, social services and Mr. Sonboly’s family failed to take sufficient notice of his problems, and about the degree to which other attacks and violence in popular culture might have influenced him. “We cannot ignore — and I don’t know the solution, but without a doubt, and this was the case in this instance — that the glorifying of violence in internet games has a damaging effect on the development of young people,” Thomas de Maizière, the German interior minister, said on Saturday. Chancellor Angela Merkel, after meeting with top officials in Berlin, told the nation that the “night of horror” was traumatic for a Europe already reeling from attacks this month in Nice and on a train headed to Würzburg, Germany. “We are in deep and profound mourning for those who will never return to their families — the families, the siblings, the friends for whom everything will be void and empty today,” she said. Klaus Hurrelmann, a professor of public health and education at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, who wrote the introduction to the Germany edition of the academic study found in the gunman’s room, said the book examined 10 school killers in the United States. It found that they had mental illness, had been exposed to violence and had access to weapons — all of which appear to be the case for the Munich teenager. “It bears noting that the perpetrator had an academic book at his home,” Mr. Hurrelmann said. “He appears to have recognized a familiar suffering among the 10 men in the book, who were in a similar situation. ”

NBC's Baghdad Bob: There Is No FBI Investigation of Hillary | Frontpage Mag

About Daniel Greenfield

NBC's Baghdad Bob: There Is No FBI Investigation of Hillary November 4, 2016 Daniel Greenfield Remember when Hillary Clinton was insisting that there was no FBI investigation of her, just a security review, even when the FBI rejected that claim? Well Andrea Mitchell, NBC's own Baghdad Bob, isn't giving up that claim so easily. Even while the rest of the Clinton clique is screeching against the FBI for investigating Hillary like bats from the nether regions of left-wing hell, Mitchell is sticking to the old spin. There is no FBI investigation of Hillary . Close your eyes and say it three times. The FBI is not investigating Hillary. It's not. It's not. In a complete state of denial on Thursday, MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell interrupted live coverage of Donald Trump speaking at a Florida campaign rally to supposedly “fact-check” the candidate for citing a bombshell report that the FBI was conducting an extensive investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mail and charitable foundation scandals. Mitchell refused to accept reality: “Just a lot of fact-checking to do. She's not under criminal investigation. In fact, it's not an investigation. It's just a review of the e-mails. She did not lie to the FBI, according to James Comey. There was no grounds to prosecute her. So there are no lies, there’s no criminality.” She fretted: “I don't know even where to start....but I mean, we have to put it in some context.” The context is that defending Hillary Clinton has become a mental illness. But as I wrote earlier this week, fact checking has become a media term for insisting on the primacy of its alternate reality even when it flies in the face of actual reality. There is no FBI investigation of Hillary. Anyone who believes that is probably some sort of right-winger who listens to what the FBI actually says, rather than what NBC says that the FBI says.

Government Gave Brown University $5 Million to Discover that Frat Boys Drink More than Peers - Breitbart

Tom Ciccotta

Senator Jeff Flake ( ) revealed that the government gave Brown University $5 million to conduct research on whether or not fraternity brothers drink more than their peers who don’t participate in Greek life. [It’s unclear from Flake’s report why the National Institute of Health granted Brown University such a significant amount of funding to study to the behaviors of students in fraternities. According the report, the $5 million was used for to determine if frat boys drink, smoke, and party more than their peers. Studies on the habits of college students funded with $5 million of NIH grants found fraternity brothers drink, smoke and generally party more than other students. They also sleep in later, which led the researchers to speculate “one explanation for this finding is that Greeks students recognize their sleep needs. ” Perhaps a more likely reason is that they are sleeping off their party lifestyle. Flake concludes that substance abuse amongst college students is a serious problem, but that the research conducted with state funding didn’t provide any information about fraternity life that wasn’t already common knowledge. Substance abuse is a very serious problem, especially among college students involved in Greek life, that deserves thoughtful attention. The studies highlighted here are not finding solutions to problems, but simply retelling what is already widely known about Greek life. As they say at the frat house, “cool story, bro. ” The report on the Brown study was a part of Flake’s annual report that chronicle 50 cases of government fraud, abuse, and waste. Other instances of waste included nearly $2 million of government funds that was designated for the development of a comedy club that would feature holographic performers.

Alasdair MacLeod’s Market Report: Gold and Silver Find Support!

The Doc

Tweet Home » Gold » Gold News » Alasdair MacLeod’s Market Report: Gold and Silver Find Support! A rise of 44% this year for the sterling price of gold just shows what gold does best. It protects ordinary people from the failure of central bankers to protect the purchasing power of their fiat currencies. From Alasdair Macleod : Precious metals continued to consolidate at the lower levels, moving broadly sideways. Gold was unchanged on the week by last night’s close in New York, at $1269, and silver up 9c at $17.63. The uncertainty facing traders is whether or not gold will now go lower to test the $1200 level, or will current levels hold. Time will tell. Comex figures are not offering much guidance either. The next chart is of the gold contract’s open interest, and while we can see that open interest has declined significantly since the mid-year peak, an open interest level of 500,000 contracts is by no means low. There is some evidence, however, that among the managed money category there exists long-term players seeking strategic portfolio exposure to gold. That being the case, the downside for open interest becomes more limited, and perhaps the cannier managers will look to add to positions on price weakness. However, we must also take into account potential window-dressing at the end of this month, for the third quarter. And here it is the bullion banks short positions and their traders’ bonuses that are on the line. The lack of volatility in gold and silver is being reflected in other markets, with the dollar stuck at the top end of a sideways consolidation pattern. DXY, the main dollar index traded in futures markets, is our next chart along with the conventional trade-weighted version. This sideways trading pattern could end with a break to the upside, because the euro is drifting lower. Note that the euro comprises 57% of DXY. The reason this is important is a strong dollar worries the Fed. The Fed is desperate to limit the deflationary effects of a rising dollar, and believes that the appalling trade deficit is due to the dollar being very over-valued. So if DXY goes much higher, we can probably dismiss the possibility of an increase in the Fed Funds Rate in December. But that’s a long way off, and doubtless is contributing to the lack of decision over markets generally. That said, the pick-up in Chinese and Indian demand for physical gold bullion lends some support to prices. Meanwhile, gold has performed spectacularly for sterling-based investors, as our last chart clearly shows. A rise of 44% this year for the sterling price of gold just shows what gold does best. It protects ordinary people from the failure of central bankers to protect the purchasing power of their fiat currencies. 2016 30th Anniversary Proof Silver Eagles Available Now at SD Bullion! Secure Your PR 69 and PR 70 Graded Coins Before They’re Gone! This entry was posted in Gold News , Silver News and tagged Alasdair Macleod , gold update , silver update . Bookmark the permalink . Post navigation

Trump, Offering No Evidence, Says Obama Tapped His Phones - The New York Times

Michael D. Shear and Michael S. Schmidt

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump on Saturday accused former President Barack Obama of tapping his phones at Trump Tower the month before the election, leveling the explosive allegation without offering any evidence. Mr. Trump called his predecessor a “bad (or sick) guy” on Twitter as he fired off a series of messages claiming that Mr. Obama “had my ‘wires tapped. ’” He likened the supposed tapping to “ ” and “McCarthyism,” though he did not say where he had gotten his information. A spokesman for Mr. Obama said any suggestion that the former president had ordered such surveillance was “simply false. ” During the 2016 campaign, the federal authorities began an investigation into links between Trump associates and the Russian government, an issue that continues to dog Mr. Trump. His aides declined to clarify on Saturday whether the president’s allegations were based on briefings from intelligence or law enforcement officials — which could mean that Mr. Trump was revealing previously unknown details about the investigation — or on something else, like a news report. But a senior White House official said that Donald F. McGahn II, the president’s chief counsel, was working to secure access to what Mr. McGahn believed to be an order issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorizing some form of surveillance related to Mr. Trump and his associates. The official offered no evidence to support the notion that such an order exists. It would be a highly unusual breach of the Justice Department’s traditional independence on law enforcement matters for the White House to order it to turn over such an investigative document. Any request for information from a top White House official about a continuing investigation would be a stunning departure from protocols intended to insulate the F. B. I. from political pressure. It would be even more surprising for the White House to seek information about a case directly involving the president or his advisers, as does the case involving the Russia contacts. After the White House received heavy criticism for the suggestion that Mr. McGahn would breach Justice Department independence, a different administration official said that the earlier statements about his efforts had been overstated. The official said the counsel’s office was looking at whether there was any legal possibility of gleaning information without impeding or interfering with an investigation. The counsel’s office does not know whether an investigation exists, the official said. Last month, Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, came under fire for asking a top F. B. I. official to publicly rebut news reports about contacts between Trump campaign officials and the Russian government. Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, said in a statement that the “White House counsel is reviewing what options, if any, are available to us. ” Mr. McGahn did not respond to a request for comment. He was traveling on Saturday to Florida to join the president at his estate, . The president’s decision on Saturday to lend the power of his office to accusations against his predecessor of politically motivated wiretapping — without offering any proof — was remarkable, even for a leader who has repeatedly shown himself willing to make assertions that are false or based on dubious sources. It would have been difficult for federal agents, working within the law, to obtain a wiretap order to target Mr. Trump’s phone conversations. It would have meant that the Justice Department had gathered sufficient evidence to convince a federal judge that there was probable cause to believe Mr. Trump had committed a serious crime or was an agent of a foreign power, depending on whether it was a criminal investigation or a foreign intelligence one. Former officials pointed to longstanding laws and procedures intended to ensure that presidents cannot wiretap a rival for political purposes. “A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice,” said Kevin Lewis, a spokesman for Mr. Obama. “As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U. S. citizen. ” Mr. Trump asserted just the opposite in a series of five Twitter messages beginning just minutes before sunrise in Florida, where the president is spending the weekend. In the first message, the president said he had “just found out” that “Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower” before the election. Mr. Trump’s reference to “wires tapped” raised the possibility that he was referring to some other type of electronic surveillance and was using the idea of phone tapping loosely. The president was adamant in conversations with several people throughout the day on Saturday that he believed he was right about the wiretaps, according to three people with direct knowledge of those conversations. Two people close to Mr. Trump said they believed he was referring to a Breitbart News article, which aides said had been passed around among his advisers. Mark Levin, a conservative radio host, had also embraced the theory recently in a push against what commentators have been calling the “deep state. ” The Breitbart article, published on Friday, claimed that there was a series of “known steps taken by President Barack Obama’s administration in its last months to undermine Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and, later, his new administration. ” Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, once led Breitbart News. If Mr. Trump was motivated to take to Twitter after reading the Breitbart article or listening to Mr. Levin, he was using a presidential megaphone to spread dark theories of a broad conspiracy aimed at undermining his presidential ambitions, and later his presidency. Even with the Breitbart article circulating, several of Mr. Trump’s advisers were stunned by the president’s morning Twitter outburst. Those advisers said they were uncertain about what specifically Mr. Trump was referring to one surmised that he may also have been referring to a news report about a secret surveillance warrant for communications at his New York offices. One senior law enforcement official from the Obama administration, who has direct knowledge of the F. B. I. investigation into Russia and of government wiretapping, said that it was “100 percent untrue” that the government had wiretapped Mr. Trump. The official, who asked for anonymity to discuss matters related to investigations and intelligence, said the White House owed the American people an explanation for the president’s allegations. Ben Rhodes, a former top national security aide to Mr. Obama, said in a Twitter message directed at Mr. Trump on Saturday that “no president can order a wiretap” and added, “Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you. ” The House and Senate Intelligence Committees are moving forward with their own investigations into Russia’s efforts to influence the election, and they have said they will examine links between Mr. Trump’s associates and the Russians. Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, said on Friday that he believed there were “transcripts” that would help document those contacts, though he said he had not yet seen them. “There are transcripts that provide very helpful, very critical insights into whether or not Russian intelligence or senior Russian political leaders — including Vladimir Putin — were cooperating, were colluding, with the Trump campaign at the highest levels to influence the outcome of our election,” Mr. Coons told Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC. “I believe they exist. ” In a written statement on Saturday, a spokesman for Mr. Coons said that the senator “did not imply that he is aware of transcripts indicating collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. ” The spokesman, Sean Coit, said Mr. Coons had “simply stated that a full review of all relevant transcripts and intelligence intercepts is necessary to determine if collusion took place. ” The New York Times reported in January that among the associates whose links to Russia are being scrutinized are Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s onetime campaign chairman Carter Page, a businessman and foreign policy adviser to the campaign and Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative who said he was in touch with WikiLeaks at one point before it released a trove of emails from John D. Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, last August. Mr. Stone later said he had communicated with WikiLeaks through an intermediary. Mr. Trump appeared on Saturday to suggest that warrants had been issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. He claimed that the Obama administration had once been “turned down by court” in its supposed efforts to listen in on conversations by Mr. Trump and his associates. In the fall, the F. B. I. examined computer data showing an odd stream of activity between a Trump Organization server and Alfa Bank, one of Russia’s biggest banks, whose owners have longstanding links to Mr. Putin. While some F. B. I. officials initially believed that the computer activity indicated an encrypted channel between Moscow and New York, the bureau ultimately moved away from that view. The activity remains unexplained. There is no confirmed evidence that the F. B. I. obtained a court warrant to wiretap the Trump Organization or was capturing communications directly from the Trump Organization. During the transition, the F. B. I. — which uses FISA warrants to eavesdrop on the communications of foreign leaders inside the United States — overheard conversations between the Russian ambassador to the United States and Michael T. Flynn, whom Mr. Trump had named national security adviser. Mr. Trump has pointedly and repeatedly questioned in conversations how it was that Mr. Flynn’s conversations were recorded, and wondered who could have issued a warrant. After The Washington Post reported that Mr. Flynn and the ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, had discussed sanctions that the Obama administration had just imposed on Russia, Mr. Flynn was pushed out of his post by the White House because he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of the calls. The Breitbart article cited mainstream news reports and concluded — going beyond the public record — that the Obama administration had “obtained authorization to eavesdrop on the Trump campaign continued monitoring the Trump team even when no evidence of wrongdoing was found then relaxed the N. S. A. rules to allow evidence to be shared widely within the government. ” Mr. Levin, a day earlier, railed about what he called a “much bigger scandal,” claiming — again with no proof — that Mr. Obama and his aides had used “the instrumentalities of the federal government, intelligence activity, to surveil members of the Trump campaign and put that information out in the public. ” Several senior members of Mr. Trump’s White House staff did not respond to an email requesting responses to more than a questions about Mr. Trump’s Twitter posts. Representative Adam B. Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, denounced the “willingness of the nation’s chief executive to make the most outlandish and destructive claims without providing a scintilla of evidence to support them. ” Even some Republican lawmakers questioned Mr. Trump’s accusations. Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska issued a statement demanding that the president reveal everything he knows about any wiretaps or warrants. “The president today made some very serious allegations, and the informed citizens that a republic requires deserve more information,” Mr. Sasse said, adding that “we are in the midst of a crisis of public trust. ” Taping calls seems to hold a spot in Mr. Trump’s consciousness. He spent many years taping his own phone calls as a businessman. During the campaign, Mr. Trump’s staff members told reporters they feared that their offices were being bugged. But Mr. Trump’s latest allegations represented a sharp change in his tone toward Mr. Obama. The current president has frequently spoken about how much he admires Mr. Obama for the gracious way he handled the transition. But since taking office, Mr. Trump has frequently clashed with the intelligence agencies over the Russia inquiries, including efforts to examine the attempts by that country to influence the presidential election and the contacts between Mr. Trump’s aides and the Russian government. In recent days, the president has appeared increasingly angry about leaks of information that he believes are coming from law enforcement and intelligence officials who are holdovers or recently departed from Mr. Obama’s administration. People close to Mr. Trump have described him as determined to stop those people from sabotaging his administration. One adviser said on Friday that the president had been discussing a possible plan to try to prevent leaks from occurring. The adviser declined to elaborate on what the plan might entail. Two senior administration officials said Mr. Trump had tried for two days to find a way to be on an offensive footing against the news articles resulting from leaks one person close to Mr. Trump said his explosive claim was a result of that. Mr. Trump’s mood was said to be volatile even before he departed for his weekend in Florida, with an episode in which he vented at his staff. The president’s ire was trained in particular on Mr. McGahn, his White House counsel, according to two people briefed on the matter. Mr. Trump was said to be frustrated about the decision by Jeff Sessions, his attorney general, to recuse himself from participating in any investigations of connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. Mr. Trump has said there were no such connections. Mr. Trump, who did not learn that Mr. Sessions was recusing himself until after the decision was made, told aides that it gave an opening to his critics on the Russia issue.

Muslims and Christians in French Town Pray Old Bonds Survive Priest’s Murder - The New York Times

Lilia Blaise

ST. France — It was the first time since a childhood school trip that Anissa Latroche had set foot in a church. Ms. Latroche, a sociology student who is Muslim, came to Mass in the Rouen Cathedral on Sunday to pay tribute to the Rev. Jacques Hamel, the priest who was killed last week by two young men acting in the name of the Islamic State. “They welcomed us very nicely, me and my friend,” said Ms. Latroche, who was wearing a pale blue veil as she entered the church with a mixture of respect and shyness. She said she was shocked about what had happened to the priest, and even more so by the age of one of the killers, Adel Kermiche: 19, just like her. “I have not even started my life yet, and he basically ruined his and so many others’,” Ms. Latroche said. “I don’t get it. ” In the wake of Father Hamel’s murder, Muslim and Christian communities around France came together over the weekend to show solidarity by attending each other’s religious services, in churches and mosques alike. But the services in Rouen, and in St. a nearby suburb where Father Hamel was killed, took on a special resonance. For people in this part of Normandy, the exchange served as a reminder that long before Father Hamel was killed, he and many others from both faiths had worked together to build bonds. In fact, the only mosque in St. was built on land adjacent to one of the town’s churches after the church sold it for a symbolic price of one euro. The church where the priest was killed is in the city center. In the north of the city, members of the St. du Madrillet church and the Yahya Mosque prayed together after the killing. “This event should help us strengthen the links which already exist between us,” the Rev. Auguste said on Friday in the mosque, where several Christian worshipers also attended. “As believers, we must show the example to build bridges between us and not walls, and this could be one of the solutions to fight what is happening right now. ” The imam, Abdellatif Hmito, emphasized the special links between the communities. “You don’t know, you the murderer, the history of this town, who was Father Hamel, and the history of this mosque,” the imam said. “You mistook the community you attacked, you mistook the city and the target, and I would even say you mistook the country. ” St. was a small countryside village until the 19th century, when several waves of immigration transformed it into a community of nearly 29, 000 today. Belgians first built a cotton and textile factory. Portuguese and Spanish people came after World War I and brought a strong Catholic community. North African immigrants first arrived in the 1950s, and Kurdish refugees in more recent years. “St. has always been a melting pot of nationalities and immigrants,” said Pierre Ménard, a local historian. It was also one of the poorest cities in France, he noted, and has been a Communist Party stronghold for more than 50 years. The poverty helped forge ties between religious communities. Still, many inhabitants fear the attack’s potential impact on the social connections that have frayed considerably in recent years. In St. young Muslims are increasingly worried about the radicalization of people they know, the high unemployment rate and a future in which no one is safe. “We all heard about how crazy Adel Kermiche was, and yet we just never took him seriously,” said Leïla Meterfi, 21, who is of Algerian descent. “We are so upset of how they so easily become brainwashed. ” Stéphane Meterfi, 44, emphasized that instead of being upset, young people needed to act, as he once did. Mr. Meterfi, born and raised in St. lost one of his brothers at the age of 19 in a fight between rival neighborhood gangs. “It was in the ’90s I decided to create an association to help young people to get out of the quartier mentality and the violence,” Mr. Meterfi added, referring to something akin to a street mentality. “Then, when I created my association, the priest of the parish of St. was the only one who gave us a place for meetings,” he added. “Nobody trusted the young petty thugs of the town, except for him. ” “The sisters used to be nurses for our mothers, and they planned every cultural activity in the town,” Mr. Meterfi said, referring to local nuns. Years later, Mr. Meterfi used to gather all of the neighborhood’s Muslim mothers and Abbé Pierre, a famous French priest who helped the homeless, for a giant couscous to celebrate interreligious dialogue in St. . “I can’t believe that 20 years afterwards, a guy would kill the symbolic figure of the people who helped us at the time,” Mr. Meterfi said. Near the red and beige Yahya Mosque, the church of St. du Madrillet with multicolored windows was welcoming believers on Friday for a prayer. Some were silently crying, others writing down messages in memory of Father Hamel. Sister Marie Wandrille, 71, came to pay a tribute to the man she had worked with for 20 years. “He was so attached to interreligious dialogue,” she said. “He and I used to give tutoring classes for children after schools. Muslims and Catholic children used to come to our parish every day. ” Near the church, Muslim women and Christian women set up an association to collect clothes for poor people. “The link between the two communities is very strong here,” Sister Wandrille said. “At the end of Ramadan, we still celebrate together,” she added, referring to the Muslim holy month. “I am sure that this attack will bring us closer, not the reverse. ” In front of the mosque, a group of young men from a Salafist group distributed leaflets condemning the attack, but they refused to speak to reporters. For Mr. Meterfi, it was an example of the two faces of the new generation in St. . “They might be doing this peaceful distribution, and at the same time, they would hide their real intentions,” he said. “The truth is, we don’t really know or control our youth anymore. ” According to the local department, 140 people in the region were considered “radicalized” last year. At St. ’s City Hall, which faces the house of Father Hamel, people have left several messages calling for peace between members of different faiths. Hubert Wulfranc, the mayor, said he still believed that the town would “stand up” in the wake of the murder. “It must stand up” he added. But he recognized that recent violence might exacerbate tensions. He said he would be vigilant about reports of verbal aggression against Muslims, as well as other cases of “radicalization. ” “There were 2, 000 people gathered in the local stadium on Thursday to pay a tribute to Father Hamel,” Mayor Wulfranc noted. “We must ask ourselves where the other inhabitants were and why they did not come. ”

Saudi ambassador to the UAE: Any contact with Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon should be checked

Email According to a report by an Emirati media website, Emarat Al-Youm, Saudi ambassador to the UAE said in a press interview that any contact with Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon and even making telephone conversations with these countries’ officials by the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, should first be checked carefully and approved by the General-Secretariat of the organization in Riyadh.

Re: Voting Machine Problems Are Being Reported All Over America

wideawake1

Voting Machine Problems Are Being Reported All Over America By Michael Snyder, on November 8th, 2016 After what happened in the last election , people seem to be more alert to signs of potential election fraud this time around. And right now the Internet is buzzing with reports of voting machine problems in some of the most important swing states. In some areas officials were forced to make emergency switches to paper ballots due to voting machine issues, and in other cases voters that intended to vote for Donald Trump were having their votes registered for Hillary Clinton instead. The mainstream media is insisting that these are “isolated instances”, and hopefully that turns out to be true because the integrity of our elections is of the utmost importance. Voting machines are supposed to make voting easier and more efficient, but instead they are once again causing major headaches all over the country. The following summary of technical issues that we have seen so far comes from the New York Daily News … In Utah, voting machine problems in the southern part of the state forced poll workers to use paper ballots, with some residents sent to alternate voting locations. Voters in Colorado received provisional ballots after officials reported computer problems state-wide, though at least one county said that the state electoral system was back up Tuesday afternoon. Machine issues were reported in Wilson County, Tenn. — and at one point all of the county’s machines went down, according to local reports . Voting later resumed manually. In Texas, a computer used by election clerks malfunctioned at a polling place, so officials briefly diverted voters to another polling place more than two miles away. In Louisiana, some early voters were forced to wait as correct machines were installed. In Durham County, N.C., paper poll books were being used Tuesday due to “tech problems at a few sites.” But much more troubling is what has been happening in Pennsylvania. Numerous voters have been reporting that their votes were switched by the voting machines from Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton. The following is an excerpt from one local news report … “Every time I would push a candidate for the Republican party, it would come up for the Democratic candidate,” said voter David Drane. Election judges in Clinton Township, Butler County confirmed there were issues with two of their eight automated voting machines. Most of the issues came when people tried to vote straight party ticket. However, others said they specifically wanted to vote for Republican Donald Trump only to see their vote switched before their eyes to Democrat Hillary Clinton. “I went back, pressed Trump again. Three times I did this, so then I called one of the women that were working the polls over. And she said you must be doing it wrong. She did it three times and it defaulted to Hillary every time,” Bobbie Lee Hawranko said. And USA Today is reporting that vote switching is also being reported in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania… And in one of the few glitches with political overtones, a problem with the calibration of electronic voting machines in Lebanon County, Pa., caused about a half dozen machines to display what voters thought were straight Republican tickets as straight Democratic tickets. Poll workers alerted the county elections bureau, and voters were able to change their ballots, said Michael Anderson, director of the Lebanon County Bureau of Elections. If you recall, this exact same kind of thing happened in the all-important swing state of Ohio in 2012 . So if Pennsylvania ends up being the difference in a Hillary Clinton victory, this will need to be looked at very, very closely. Reports of vote switching in Pennsylvania are already getting so much attention that they are even making television news … In other parts of the state, a different type of problem has emerged. One African-American voter that tried to vote for Trump was extremely frustrated when the voting machine that he was using remained completely stuck on a selection for Hillary Clinton. This particular voter captured this on video and uploaded the video footage to Twitter … this is what I was talking about, they fixed it but it was on some nut shit at first. pic.twitter.com/GO5Y9FCnYN — ædonis | hotep (@lordaedonis) November 8, 2016 Voter turnout is very heavy all over the nation, and it looks like we may shatter voter participation records all over the nation. So that is a good thing. And we can get an idea of what voters are thinking by what they are searching for on the Internet … When looking at searches of “Who is ____ voting for,” these names are the most popular: Taylor Swift

Proof Of George Soros Nazi Past Finally Comes To Light With Discovery Of Forgotten Interview

Geoffrey Grider

Proof Of George Soros Nazi Past Finally Comes To Light With Discovery Of Forgotten Interview George Soros has repeatedly called 1944 "The Best Year of his Life." 70% of Mr. Soros's fellow Jews in Hungary, nearly a half-million human beings, were annihilated in that year, yet he gives no sign that this put any damper on his elation, either at the time or indeed in retrospect. 15, 2016 When Hitler’s henchman Adolf Eichmann arrived in Hungary, to oversee the murder of that country’s Jews, George Soros ended up with a man whose job was confiscating property from the Jewish population. George Soros and other rich liberals who spent tens of millions of dollars trying to elect Hillary Clinton are gathering in Washington for a three-day, closed door meeting to retool the big-money left to fight back against Donald Trump. Since Soros name is very much in the headlines in 2016, let’s take a look at an interview he gave in 1998 about his Nazi past. Nazi collaborator Soros gave MILLIONS to Hillary Clinton’s failed campaign Social unrest groups like Media Matters have taken to the Internet in an attempt to “debunk the claims” and “correct the smears” about rumors of the Nazi past of their patron, George Soros. They say it is just malicious gossip and lies people make up about Soros because they don’t like him. Snopes.com chimes in as well in defense of Soros. But what about the “rumors”? Could they be true, are they true? As you will see and hear , not only are the rumors true, a long forgotten interview George Soros did on 60 Minutes has him gleefully confessing to his crime. György Schwartz, better known to the world as George Soros , was born August 12, 1930 in Hungary. Soros’ father, Tivadar, was a fervent practitioner of the Esperanto language invented in 1887, and designed to be the first global language, free of any national identity. The Schwartz’s, who were non-practicing Jews, changed the family name to Soros, in order to facilitate assimilation into the Gentile population, as the Nazis spread into Hungary during the 1930s When Hitler’s henchman Adolf Eichmann arrived in Hungary, to oversee the murder of that country’s Jews, George Soros ended up with a man whose job was confiscating property from the Jewish population. Soros went with him on his rounds. George Soros has repeatedly called 1944 “ The Best Year of his Life. ” 70% of Mr. Soros’s fellow Jews in Hungary, nearly a half-million human beings, were annihilated in that year, yet he gives no sign that this put any damper on his elation, either at the time or indeed in retrospect. During an interview with “Sixty Minute’s” Steve Kroft, Soros was asked about his “best year.” George Soros Interview Where He Admitted He Was A Nazi Collaborator: He was only to happy to admit his collaboration with the Nazis,in fact, he called those days the “best time of my life”. Click to watch, in context, that startling confession. KROFT: My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson. SOROS: Yes. Yes. KROFT: Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from your fellow Jews, friends and neighbors. SOROS: Yes. That’s right. Yes. KROFT: I mean, that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many, years. Was it difficult? SOROS: No, not at all. Not at all, I rather enjoyed it. KROFT: No feelings of guilt? SOROS: No, only feelings of absolute power. SHARE THIS ARTICLE

‘This Is Treason’: Clinton’s Email Server Reportedly Exposed to Hackers of 5 Spy Agencies

RT.com

As election day draws near, accusations against both US presidential candidates are becoming more and more brutal, with Fox News reporting the FBI believes up to five foreign intelligence agencies managed to hack into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. According to the report , there is about a 99 percent chance that the server used by then-Secretary of State Clinton for work communications in violation of security protocols was compromised. The allegations were confirmed by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, who said that FBI director James Comey had told him about the exposure previously. “She exposed [information] to our enemies,” the Republican representative from Texas said on “Fox & Friends” on Thursday morning. “Our adversaries have this very sensitive information… In my opinion, quite frankly, it’s treason.” McCaul added that there are concerns not only about the content of the emails, but also access to the communication protocols of special access programs used on government-issued electronic devices. “Now countries like Russia and China and Iran have the most highly-sensitive programs in the United States. And the President of the US is communicating with them,” he alleged. “They are not stupid. They can figure that out as well.” McCaul has said earlier that he has been briefing Republican candidate Donald Trump on security issues. Director Comey previously hinted at the possibility that foreign nations had hacked into Clinton’s server, but the Democrat candidate pushed back, saying the FBI director was “speculating.” The new accusations come after the FBI relaunched an investigation into the use of Clinton’s private server after discovering additional emails on the laptop of ex-Representative Anthony Weiner in the course of a separate investigation. Weiner’s electronic devices, as well as those belonging to his wife, senior Clinton aide Huma Abedin, were seized during that probe. After the bombshell that investigation was being reopened dropped last week, some Democrats accused the FBI director of trying to influence the election. Delivered by The Daily Sheeple We encourage you to share and republish our reports, analyses, breaking news and videos ( Click for details ). Contributed by RT.com of RT.com .

First Amendment Support Climbing Among High School Students - The New York Times

Niraj Chokshi

Support among American high school students for the First Amendment is stronger today than it has been in the last 12 years, according to the latest in a series of large nationwide surveys of the nation’s rising voters. Some 91 percent of high school students say they believe that individuals should be allowed to express unpopular opinions, according to a Knight Foundation survey of nearly 12, 000 students conducted last year. The survey is the sixth in a series, the first of which was carried out in 2004, when 83 percent supported such rights. “What we’ve seen since 2004 is a slow but steady increase in support,” said Kenneth Dautrich, the study’s lead author and the president of the Stats Group, a statistical and data services firm. Here’s a look at some of the top findings. High school students may broadly back the First Amendment, but not without limits: Their support is tempered depending on the kind of speech and where it’s delivered. “While support for the First Amendment as a general concept has never been higher, the devil’s in the details,” said Jonathan Sotsky, director of strategy and assessment for the Knight Foundation. percent of the students may support the right to express unpopular opinions in general, but only half as many — 45 percent — support that right when the speech in question is offensive to others and made in public. Bullying speech enjoys slightly less backing, and students are even less supportive of either kind of speech when it’s delivered on social media. Many students find little sacred in professional reporting: More than half put as much or more trust in photos, videos and accounts shared by individuals online than in traditional news sources. The 726 teachers surveyed, however, were far more skeptical of the online postings. Students may have faith in firsthand accounts shared online, but they are still generally wary of the news they see there. percent said they had “some” or “a lot” of trust in the information found in newspapers, compared with 77 percent for television news and 70 percent for news websites. Just 49 percent reported similar levels of trust in news shared on social media. The survey results suggest that high school students and adults differ greatly in how they consume news. Students are almost twice as likely as adults to “often” use mobile devices for news and nearly three times as likely to report “often” getting news from social media. Adults are much more likely to report “often” getting news from local TV and newspapers. Students are far less concerned about their privacy on the internet than adults, according to the survey. But that is changing: In 2016, 76 percent were somewhat or very concerned about privacy online, compared with 70 percent two years earlier.

CBS Colorado Investigation Shows People Voting Twice; The Dead Voting

Robert Gehl

Pinterest In Colorado, cases of voters casting ballots twice, the dead voting, and other cases of fraud are popping up, lending credence to conservatives’ arguments that the election may be “rigged.” CBS4 found at least a dozen cases where Coloradans have voted twice, and a previous investigation revealed the names of state residents who had been dead for months or years, still voting. In six of the cases, voting records show the exact same person citing twice in the state elections. In the other six, people who were registered in a different state also voted in Colorado. Lincoln Wilson, a registered Republican from Hale, in Northeast Colorado, is accused of voting in both Colorado and Kansas in 2010, 2012 and again in 2014. Wilson told CBS4 he voted in both states, but only “voted on local issues” and “didn’t vote twice for President.” Wilson is one of five Coloradans now charged by the State of Kansas for voting in both states. Randall Killian, an unaffiliated voter, pleaded guilty to voting in Douglas County, Colorado and Kansas in the 2012 presidential election. Ron Weems, a registered Democrat, pleaded guilty to voting in Teller County, Colorado and Kansas in both 2012 and 2014. Both men were fined for their offenses. Kansas has also charged James Criswell, a Republican from Douglas County, and Sharon Farris, a Republican from Denver, with double voting. Their cases have not been resolved yet. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said his office is “aggressively prosecuting” double voting cases because it’s a crime that “can’t be caught ahead of time.” He says after each election, Colorado and Kansas crosscheck voters to identify double ballots and clean up their databases. But Kobach still believes 10,000 people are registered to vote in both Colorado and Kansas. Combing through voter data, CBS4 found three suspected double voters in Denver, one suspected double voter in Arapahoe County and one suspected double voter in Douglas County. All five cases that CBS4 uncovered have now been referred to prosecutors for possible criminal action. “It’s a relatively small number,” said Williams, “But, it is a problem of any magnitude because we have close elections in Colorado.” But, Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams admits other Coloradans are getting away with it. Combing through voter data, CBS4 found three suspected double voters in Denver, one suspected double voter in Arapahoe County and one suspected double voter in Douglas County. All five cases that CBS4 uncovered have now been referred to prosecutors for possible criminal action.

Epic Deep State Internecine Division

Charles Burris

Charles Burris https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/epic-deep-state-internecine-division/ I believe in these final climatic days before November 8, we will see epic Deep State internecine division. Some will publicly surface, most will remain buried sub-strata. The Deep State is not monolithic or homogeneous but is composed of many seemingly disparate elements or competing factions united by their systemic base criminality under the phony rubric of “national security.” Administrations change, but the Deep State endures. I think the overall standard perception of Trump as viewed as an outlier or dangerous loose cannon to the statist old guard elites who see his enormous ego, hubris, and independence of mind as threatening to their rackets is breaking down and being challenged late in the game by some factions. Raison d’état, institutional loyalty and self-interest trumps everything else. The Clinton ties to epic criminality and predation are thoroughly documented but under-reported by the regime media in thrall to their Deep State suzerains up to this point. She is now being deemed expendable by some elements. And like Huma, she will be thrown under the bus. Some of those factions within the Deep State — particularly those un-elected powerful bureaucrats deep within the permanent government and Pentagon that determine actual day-to-day policy from one administration to another, will turn on Hillary, out of amoral self-interest and institutional loyalty. James Comey is perhaps the first and most notable. Prepare for the Night of the Long Knives, version 2016. 3:14 pm on October 30, 2016

Thieves Plow Into Texas Gun Range, Steal Weapons

Lana Shadwick

HOUSTON, Texas — Two thieves used a truck to plow into the side of a gun range in Houston, Texas, early Thursday morning. They took off with all the pistols and rifles they could grab. [“Two young males drove a pickup truck into the side of the business, went in, and took assorted rifles and pistols at roughly 4 in the morning,” said Capt. Eddie Martin with the South Houston Police Department, reported the Houston Chronicle. The alarm was sounded but law enforcement authorities were not notified right away. Officers showed up at the Marksman Indoor Range in South Houston early Thursday but the burglars had already taken off. The South Houston Police Department officers were on the scene within seven minutes of the burglary. “They were in pretty quick and out pretty quick,” Captain Eddie Martin was reported to say. Law enforcement officials are going through surveillance video tapes but do not have a license plate at this time, reported the hometown paper. The Houston Chronicle reports that approximately 32, 000 guns have been stolen in the Houston area in the last eight years, and that only seven percent of those have been recovered. The firearms were heisted from Houston area homes, automobiles, pawn shops, and gun dealers. Texas leads the nation in thefts from unlicensed gun dealers and has a robust black market for guns that have been stolen. Moreover, stolen guns are frequently used to commit other crimes. Breitbart News reported in April that thefts from licensed gun dealers were at a rate of . 039 percent in 2015. According to the Crime Prevention Research Center, approximately 16 million guns were sold by Federal Firearm License holders in 2015 and 6, 163 guns were stolen from them. Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton wanted to make gun makers legally responsible for the misuse of stolen guns, as reported by Breitbart News in October 2016. Clinton responded to the dismissal of a lawsuit against Remington Arms by families of the Sandy Hook Elementary victims by calling it “incomprehensible. ” She on her promise to change laws to allow gun manufacturers to be sued by crime victims. Lana Shadwick is a writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. She has served as a prosecutor and associate judge in Texas. Follow her on Twitter @LanaShadwick2.

AG Sessions: Sanctuary Cities That Fail to Comply with Immigration Laws Risk Losing Federal Dollars - Breitbart

Pam Key

Monday at the White House press briefing, Attorney General Jeff Sessions warned municipalities that have implemented the policy of sanctuary cities, which he described as making “our nation less safe by putting dangerous criminals back on the streets. ” Sessions said the Department of Justice would require that jurisdictions that are seeking or applying for DoJ grants to certify compliance with 8 U. S. C. 1373 as a condition of receiving those awards. ” Sessions said, “According to one recent poll, 80 percent of Americans believe that cities that make arrests — that arrest illegal immigrants for crimes should be required to turn them over to immigration authorities. Unfortunately, some states and cities have adopted policies designed to frustrate this enforcement of immigration laws. This includes refuses to detain known felons under federal detainer requests or otherwise failing to comply with these laws. For example, the Department of Homeland Security recently issued a report showing that in a single week, there were more than 200 instances of jurisdictions refusing to honor I. C. E. Detainer requests with respect to individuals charged or convicted of a serious crime. These charges and convictions against these aliens include drug trafficking, rape, sex offenses against a child and even murder. Such policies cannot continue. They make our nation less safe by putting dangerous criminals back on the streets. ” He added, “Today, I am urging states and local jurisdictions to comply with these federal laws, including 8 U. S. C. Section 1373. Moreover, the Department of Justice will require that jurisdictions seeking or applying for Department of Justice grants to certify compliance with 1373 as a condition of receiving those awards. This policy is entirely consistent with the Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs guidance that was issued just last summer under the previous administration. This guidance requires state and local jurisdictions to comply and certify compliance with Section 1373 in order to be eligible for OJP grants. It also made clear that failure to remedy violations could result in withholding grants, termination of grants, and disbarment or ineligibility for future grants. ” He concluded by saying, “I strongly urge our nation’s states and cities and counties to consider carefully the harm they are doing to their citizens by refusing to enforce immigration laws and to rethink these policies. Such policies make their cities and states less safe. Public safety as well as national security are at stake and put them at risk of losing federal dollars. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

Photo of the day: Miss Russia at the international beauty contest in Tokyo

AFP EastNews

Photo of the day: Miss Russia at the international beauty contest in Tokyo AFP/East News Miss Russia Alisa Manenok shows off her souvenir of a stuffed cat while boarding a boat at the Lake Ashinoko in Hakone town, Kanagawa prefecture. Manenok, a Vladivostok native, entered the final Top-15 of the prestigious Miss International 2016 beauty contest held on Oct. 27 in Japan’s capital of Tokyo. However, the Russian beauty failed to make the Top-5, with Kylie Verzosa representing the Philippines winning the contest. Facebook

Meet the People Obama Just Gave the Medal of Freedom

EdJenner

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama gave the Medal of Freedom to several celebrities, the last time he will ever hand out such medals.

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noreply@blogger.com (Der Postillon)

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Obama in Vietnam Will Focus on Future, Rather Than the Past - The New York Times

Gardiner Harris

WASHINGTON — The pictures will be unavoidable, and the flood of painful memories unstoppable. When President Obama lands next Sunday in Hanoi, his visit will be chronicled by photographers, cameramen and journalists who will track every public move of only the third presidential visit to Vietnam since the end of the American war there. Mr. Obama’s former defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, said he is already bracing for the onslaught of recollections those pictures and articles are likely to inspire. “I know those images will hit me,” said Mr. Hagel, whose 12 months as a soldier in Vietnam remain the defining period of his life, despite the subsequent years as both a senator and a cabinet secretary. “They’re going to make it all come back. ” For Mr. Obama, the trip to Vietnam offers an opportunity to help solidify not only his promised pivot of American policy toward Asia, but also to deepen economic and security ties with an increasingly important regional player. But for the United States’ Vietnam War veterans, a presidential trip to the country where many of them lost their youth, innocence and some of their closest friends is weighted with powerful emotions and debates about that war’s consequences. “There are still a lot of ghosts around,” Mr. Hagel, 69, said in an interview. “There is still a great deal of debate about Vietnam and what it meant for this country. ” “It still haunts us,” he added. “That terrible waste of lives, and the lessons we learned there, the terrible lessons that still hang over us. ” Mr. Hagel said that every decision he made as defense secretary and every piece of advice he gave Mr. Obama was informed by his experience in Vietnam. He now finds himself thinking more and more about the year he spent there in the 1960s. And he said he is certain to closely study the pictures from Mr. Obama’s trip: the lush green background, the people and their iconic conical hats. One of the stumbling blocks between the two nations is the continuing belief by some in the United States that there may still be captive American soldiers held there, the kind of mythology that was fueled by 1980s movies like “Missing in Action” starring Chuck Norris and the “Rambo” series starring Sylvester Stallone. A black P. O. W. . I. A. flag still flies above the Capitol and state capitols around the country, and the military and many lawmakers choose to focus on the retrieval of the remains of dead service members as fulfilling those concerns. But some leaders of veterans organizations insisted in a meeting on Friday at the White House that Mr. Obama ask Vietnamese leaders whether there are living prisoners, according to Frank Francois III, the chief executive of Service Disabled Veteran Enterprises, who attended the meeting. “One of the questions that has to be asked is whether there is anybody in jail or captivity or someone living in the area we need to know about,” Mr. Francois said. For other veterans, Mr. Obama’s trip will serve as a welcome reminder to two generations of Americans who have come of age since the war’s end, illustrating that conflict’s importance to the United States. For these men, the ghosts of the war should not have been so easily laid to rest. “Vietnam is a totally forgotten issue nowadays,” said Bobby Muller, a disabled veteran and antiwar activist whose life helped inspire the 1978 movie “Coming Home,” starring Jane Fonda. “To have gone through those times and have something as huge and powerful and affecting and tragic in our lifetimes wind up nonexistent in the consciousness of the country today is stunning. ” Mr. Muller lives in Washington in an apartment that is filled with books on the war, and his anger at two wartime leaders — President Richard M. Nixon and his closest adviser, Henry Kissinger — remains undiminished. Mr. Obama is unlikely to focus as much on combat deaths during his trip as President Bill Clinton did when he visited in 2000. Mr. Clinton took the two sons of a missing airman, Lt. Col. Lawrence G. Evert, to a rice paddy in a tiny town 17 miles northeast of Hanoi and searched, along with scores of villagers, for the remnants of an that had crashed in 1967. Remarkably, they found Colonel Evert’s bones. Mr. Obama is more likely to hail cooperation between the two countries to clean up the remnants of Agent Orange, one of the wartime issues still important to Vietnam. But as a president who came of age after the war ended, he is unlikely to be a symbol of healing of the psychological wounds that some veterans suffered upon returning home, when many of their countrymen disdained them for fighting there. “That lack of a welcome home is still a national shame,” said Senator John McCain, a Vietnam veteran who, because he was a prisoner of war, did receive a hero’s welcome. “You had or draftees who did their duties and were literally spat upon by their fellow citizenry when they returned. ” Mr. McCain said the country has learned that lesson, and service members and veterans are routinely celebrated at sporting events and public occasions nowadays. But for some veterans, Mr. Obama’s visit is likely to stir bitter memories of their rejection, he said. Mr. McCain, a Republican of Arizona, said his efforts to help normalize relations between Vietnam and the United States were among the proudest accomplishments of his life, and he said he had been to Vietnam so often since the war’s end that “I’m recognized more in the streets of Hanoi than I am in Phoenix. ” Those efforts long ago helped Mr. McCain put the worst of the war and his captivity behind him, so he is unlikely to be moved by the photos of Mr. Obama’s visits, he said. Mr. McCain said he had other ways of stirring his wartime memories. “To this day, I’ll get up real early sometimes and go down to the Vietnam Memorial just as the sun is coming up,” Mr. McCain said in an interview. “It’s always a great experience for me to think and remember. ”

Employers Urged to Prevent Zika Infections at Work - The New York Times

Donald G. McNeil Jr.

Companies that employ pregnant women, women who are planning to become pregnant, or even men whose wives or girlfriends are contemplating pregnancy should consider letting them work indoors if they are in areas with Zika transmission, federal health and safety officials said Friday. If the virus reaches the American mainland this summer the recommendation could impose a major burden on industries such as construction, agriculture, transportation, amusement parks and cafes, which employ hundreds of thousands of outdoor workers. It was among a general set of guidelines jointly issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to protect workers from occupational exposure to the Zika virus. The greatest risk of infection is from mosquito bites, although the new guidelines recognize that the virus can also be transmitted sexually. As interim guidelines, they are not legally enforceable, said Jordan Barab, the deputy assistant secretary for OSHA at the Labor Department. Issuing advisory guidelines is common during emergencies like epidemics, he said. The new guidelines also recommended that pregnant employees not travel to areas where the Zika virus is circulating and that businesses consider allowing workers who are or may become pregnant delay traveling to those areas. That recommendation also applies to the male partners of such women. The other recommendations made on Friday are based on earlier guidelines issued to protect against West Nile virus. They urge employers to give outdoor workers clothing that covers exposed skin, hats with mosquito netting, insect repellents, and to eliminate standing water near work sites where mosquitoes could lay eggs. Other guidelines issued Friday covered workers, who face biting insects and hazardous pesticides, and laboratory and health care workers, who could be in danger of acquiring the Zika virus from patients’ blood and bodily fluids. Mr. Barab said industries that employ outdoor workers had not been consulted before the guidelines were issued. Jill M. Shugart, an environmental health specialist in the C. D. C. ’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, said her organization often consulted with unions and trade groups but in this case had discussed these occupational guidelines primarily with the airline and cruise ship industries. Those industries were initially concerned with the travel guidelines for pregnant women that the C. D. C. issued in January. Asked if there had been any reaction from businesses with outdoor employees, she said: “The guidelines were just posted today, and we have not heard from every single sector. ” Calls to the United States Chamber of Commerce, which represents employers, were not returned Friday afternoon. It was not clear what constitutes an “area with Zika transmission” for purposes of the workplace guidelines. Mr. Barab said his agency would defer to the C. D. C. on that question. Ms. Shugart suggested that her agency’s travel guidelines might be used to define such an area, but she added that those parameters are broad. The agency initially recommended that pregnant women avoid entire countries, then amended that to include only areas below 6, 500 feet in elevation because the mosquitoes that carry Zika do not survive at high altitudes. The only American territories with known Zika transmission are Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands and American Samoa. If the virus reaches Florida or the Gulf Coast this summer, as the C. D. C. has said it might, employers across these regions may not know if their specific location is at risk. Defining such areas by county or state may be required presumably, an outbreak in Key West would not affect a job site in Minnesota. Mr. Barab said he assumed that the C. D. C. would eventually come up with a narrower definition. In the new guidelines, the advice about indoor work is phrased more cautiously than the other guidelines. For example, the new recommendations said that employers should “consider reassigning” employees “if requested by a worker. ”

WikiLeaks: John Podesta Attended Satanic ‘Spirit Ritual’

Starkman

Has Satanism infiltrated the Washington elite? New WikiLeaks emails suggest John Podesta attended a “Spirit Cooking” dinner party at Marina Abramovich’s house. Via YourNewsWire Given what we know about the performance artist’s occult fascination, it’s safe to assume they weren’t saying the Lord’s Prayer. So what happened at this dinner party? Marina Abramovich demonstrates what Spirit Cooking is in a YouTube video. Painting a wall with pig blood, Abramovich smears the sentence “WITH A SHARP KNIFE CUT DEEPLY INTO THE MIDDLE FINGER OF YOUR LEFT HAND EAT THE PAIN.” Another daubed message reads “FRESH MORNING URINE SPRINKLE OVER NIGHTMARE DREAMS.” Anramovich then throws blood over a small statue in the corner of the room, before writing “SPIRIT COOKING.” Blood is then ceremoniously run around the four corners of the room. Another message on the wall reads “MIX FRESH BREAST MILK WITH FRESH SPERM MILK DRINK ON EARTHQUAKE NIGHTS.” At 7 mins 30 Abramovich is seen in a projected video with a snake wrapped around her head, it’s tail in her nostril. Warning: in case you hadn’t guessed, this video contains graphic content. Spirit Cooking, according to article about Marina Abramovich, “ is about the conversion of matter into energy, of the material into the spiritual. Abramovic derives her inspiration from the popular belief that the spirits still need food even though it is no longer solid, but in the form of light, sound and emotions. This superstition is found in numerous cultures and there are even strict rules as to how this spiritual fare should be prepared. In this paradox, in the material underpinning of something immaterial, the physical and spiritual worlds meet. Or to use her own words, ‘When you make something visible for something invisible, the invisible becomes visible.’ “ Marina Abramovich has long been associated with the occult. Her performance art often features Satanic themes and mock human sacrifice. Here she is performing with Jay-Z – a man not shy about proclaiming Satanic beliefs. Perhaps we we shouldn’t be surprised Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta attends Satanic Spirit Cooking dinners. After all, Hillary Clinton appears to have banned use of the word “God” during her campaign. Watch this woman struggle with her natural instincts while Hillary smiles knowingly at her side.

Wikileaks Releases “DoJ, FBI, Huma Special” Podesta Emails

Zero Hedge

Moments ago, after teasing its twitter followers to “stay tuned for our FBI-DoJ #PodestaEmail special circa 4pm EST” Wikileaks released what appears to be part 28 of its Podesta dump, dubbed the “DoJ/FBI/Huma special” and includes some 1,308 emails, bringing the total to 45,526 in total emails released. RELEASE: The Podesta Emails Part 28 – DoJ/FBI/Huma special #PodestaEmails https://t.co/tIw3T6L6se More: https://t.co/v8OnMJnWsS — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) November 3, 2016 We assume the batch will be heavily focused on the DOJ, FBI and Huma, and will present readers with any relevant emails as we find them. * * * In an email from June 10, 2011 from now-campaign communication manager Jenn Palmieri to John Podesta and Neera Tanden, Palmieri writes – regarding Huma Abedin following the first Anthony Weiner scandal – that it is… “Time to get in the haz mat suits… Bust in that house and get Huma the hell out of there.” Tanden responds “Lord have mercy.”‘ We assume this was a reference to one of the early Anthony Weiner scandals, and a harbinger of things to come regarding Huma’s husband. In retrospect, they should have followed their rhetorical advice. * * * On August 27, 2015, an email from Lanny Davis, special counsel to President Bill Clinton, and spokesperson for the President and the White House on matters concerning campaign-finance investigations and other legal issues, appears to suggest that both Fox news and Megyn Kelly were part of the campaign’s pre-coordination with journalists. Davis tells Jen Palmieri the following “personal” thoughts, which suggest getting a guarantee from Megyn Kelly that she won’t be “tough on Hillary ” in a proposed interview – which could be a “ratings and media bonanza” – meant to explain why Hillary “wiped” her server. Dear Jen, I know what I’m about to propose is very risky and will be instinctively viewed negatively on the first reaction. But because of the high advantages that I see, perfectly aware of the risks, I think this proposal should be considered. I propose that the Secretary be on the Megyn Kelly File show for at least 30 minutes. I believe I can reduce the risks, since I know Megyn and Roger Ailes very well, by ensuring that the Secretary will have an opportunity to answer tough questions on emails and other issues without interruption. In fact , I believe it is in the interest of Secretary Clinton as well as Fox for the questions to be tough , something we should not fear as long as she has an opportunity to answer. I know she will do well with adequate preparation, and especially after yesterday’s excellent statement taking full responsibility for mixing personal an official business on a single email device. I still believe the issue of the wiping out of uthe private server still needs to be dealt with – e.g., simply stating that was done primarily to protect personal privacy on personal emails but she made the mistake of mixing personal with official on the server because she was using a single device, and she should have been more transparent shortly after she left office. This interview has the potential to be a ratings and media bonanza. I have confidence she would hit a political home run and have a massive audience to deliver her message without a filter. Of course there is a risk that Megan will try to show how tough she can be, even tougher than on Trump. I am assuming the worst case on that risk. But if we have a guarantee, which I believe We will get, that she will have an uninterrupted chance to respond to every question, and we have time to prepare, I think this could be a major plus and even a game changer in the various negative narratives about the Secretary being largely inaccessible and sometimes testy with the media. It would be so much better to be able to talk to you on the phone about this and discuss the pros and cons. If you are willing and available, what would be the best time in the best telephone number? With warmest regards, and thanks as always for your consideration of my ideas, Lanny He follows up four days later with the following: Would love a chance to talk on phone – a few additional background points re conversation I had with Roger Ailes and Megyn some time ago on the subject of HRC pre – announcement. It is unclear what was the ultimate fate of the “personal” proposal. Delivered by The Daily Sheeple We encourage you to share and republish our reports, analyses, breaking news and videos ( Click for details ). Contributed by Zero Hedge of www.zerohedge.com .

В Италии произошло два землетрясения подряд

0 комментариев Как сообщает Reuters со ссылкой на Геологическую службу США, это было второе за вечер сильное землетрясение в этом районе. Ранее сообщалось о другом землетрясении - магнитудой 5,4.Эпицентр второго землетрясения, по данным службы, располагался около города Кастельсантанджело-суль-Нера (центральная область Марке). По словам мэра Мауро Фалуччи, в городе отключилось электричество.Как отмечает Reuters, оба землетрясения «были достаточно сильными и их ощутили 150 км южнее - в Риме, где лампы закачались на верхних этажах зданий». По данным РБК, власти города Виссо, располагающегося недалеко от эпицентра, заявили о нескольких пострадавших. По информации Геофизической службы РАН, на которую ссылается ведомство, сейсмособытие произошло в 9:15. Его эпицентр залегал в акватории Тихого океана, в 226 километрах к востоку от города Курильска. Как пишет Российская газета, жители островного региона подземных толчков не ощутили. Об угрозе возникновения цунами не сообщается. Правда.ру ранее писала, что в Японии сейсмологи зафиксировали землетрясение магнитудой 6,5 - подземные толчки произошли южнее Токио в Тихом океане. Как пишет РИА Новости, о жертвах сообщений нет. В ообщении метеослужбы Японии говорится, что очаг подземного толчка находился на глубине 10 км в Тихом океане к югу от Токио. По японской шкале оценки силы землетрясений, магнитуда этих толчков не превысила 1 балл. Тем не менее, землетрясение ощущалось в девяти префектурах Японии. Информации о жертвах и возможных разрушениях пока не поступала, угроза цунами не объявлялась. Правда.ру ранее писала, что 12 сентября подземные толчки магнитудой 4,9 и 5,4 были зафиксированы возле города Кёнджу (Кёнсан-Пукто) в 370 км от Сеула. Об этом сообщает геологическая служба США (USGS). Информации о жертвах и разрушениях не поступало. Ранее в Северной Корее был зарегистрирован толчок магнитудой 5,3, что стало следствием ядерных испытаний. Как уточнили в ведомстве, на пять часов утра по местному времени (23-00 12 сентября по Москве) общее число пострадавших составило восемь человек, большинство из которых находились рядом с эпицентром толчков: пятеро пострадавших - из провинции Северная Кенсан, двое - из Тэгу и еще один - из провинции Южная Чолла. В основном люди пострадали от упавшей мебели и кусков зданий, но два человека получили ранения, когда решили спрыгнуть на землю со второго этажа, испугавшись подземных толчков. В то же время ранения у всех легкие, жизни пострадавших угрозы нет, пишет Правда.ру. 23 августа в Италии произошло землетрясение магнитудой 6,4 . Подземные толчки зафиксированы недалеко от города Перуджа. Читайте последние новости Pravda.Ru на сегодня Поделиться:

Contributed Daily News Bin Staff

By Daily News Bin | November 3, 2016 | 2 947 SHARES Most Americans know Jason Chaffetz as the rogue Republican Congressman who can get away with being as dishonest and duplicitous as he wants because his conservative district in Utah keeps reelecting him no matter what he does. He was caught using private email for work purposes while he was trying to take down Hillary Clinton for doing the same. And last week he flat out lied about an FBI letter in clear violation of federal law under the Hatch Act. But just when you think Chaffetz can’t be dirtier, it turns out his campaign is literally being funded by a criminal enterprise controlled by overseas investors. The single biggest campaign donor Jason Chaffetz is a company called Nu Skin Enterprises. Research done by Reverb Press has revealed that it adds up to nearly six figures in total, a surreal dollar amount for a fairly obscure company to give to a single Congressmen. But despite the lack of name recognition, Nu Skin is a billion dollar pyramid scheme which pushes questionable anti-aging miracle cures. And it’s been busted by the Feds for criminal behavior resulting in tens of millions of dollars in penalties. Bizarrely, Nu Skin Enterprises is now being bought up by overseas Chinese investors to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, placing the company largely under overseas control even as it’s begun its illegal business practices into China. Included in the investors list: family members of former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. So what does this all have to do with Congressman Jason Chaffetz? In short, a busted criminal pyramid scheme now controlled by Chinese political figures has been funding its very own member of Congress from the very start of his political career. In fact, before entering politics, Chaffetz used to be an employee of the company. With each new turn, the story grows stranger. If you enjoy Daily News Bin, consider making a contribution: Contributed by Daily News Bin staff 947

Tied to Europe, Britain’s Car Industry Is Vulnerable After ‘Brexit’ - The New York Times

Stanley Reed

BURNASTON, England — On Toyota’s brightly lit assembly line here, workers guide wheel and engine assemblies into unfinished sedans. Driverless carts carry parts through narrow aisles to work stations. The assembly line moves with clockwork precision, able to pop out a vehicle every 72 seconds. Britain’s automotive industry, once ailing and plagued by strikes, now hums with the vibrancy of a global manufacturing hub. Most of the cars made in Burnaston, models like Auris and Avensis, will make their way beyond the British borders. Toyota buys parts and hires workers from across the European Union. But the level of integration, previously lauded, has made the carmakers especially vulnerable after Britain’s vote to leave the bloc. If a messy divorce follows, Toyota and others face the prospect of higher tariffs, a smaller labor pool and less access to the 500 million potential customers in Europe — all of which will be negotiated in the coming months and years. The drop in the British pound since the vote has not been much help, either. Many of the carmakers’ contracts here are priced in euros, even with suppliers in the same country like Johnson Controls, which makes seats for Toyota. “We have made clear that if we lose some of these elements, it will make making cars in the U. K. less competitive,” said Anthony J. Walker, deputy managing director of Toyota Manufacturing in Britain. “We would have to reduce costs, which would be very hard. ” Carmakers like Toyota are now in defense mode. Toyota and others are telling the government that they need continued, unfettered access to the European Union, for exports, imports and engineering talents, which they say is in short supply in Britain. Toyota is particularly concerned that its manufacturing system — which requires that parts arrive at the plant in a certain order just a few hours before assembly — should not be disrupted. “It is absolutely suicidal,” said Peter Tsouvallaris, the plant’s senior representative for the union, Unite, which also represents workers at other carmakers. “I am concerned about the future of the plant because we don’t know what Brexit means. ” The British government understands the stakes for the country, which is home to a cluster of plants for overseas automakers like Nissan, General Motors, BMW and Honda. The sector employs about 169, 000 and accounts for about 12 percent of the value of British exports, according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers Traders, an industry group. Already, the British prime minister, Theresa May, has shown a protective streak. The government has promised to invest 390 million pounds, or $485 million, to encourage advanced, vehicles, including driverless and electric cars. It has said it will continue to fund training for Toyota and other auto companies, as well as encourage development in component makers based in Britain. Britain also offered assurances to Nissan, whose plant in Sunderland became a flash point in the time before the vote over the Brexit. Although specifics have not been made public, Nissan said in October that it would build a new version of its popular Qashqai and another model at the plant. “The support and assurances of the U. K. government enabled us” to make the investment decision,” Nissan’s chairman and chief executive, Carlos Ghosn, who had recently met Mrs. May, said at the time. That clout has been hard won for an industry that was struggling not so long ago. Britain always had a flair for car design, producing such classics as the Jaguar XKE and Sprite. But the industry in the 1960s and 1970s suffered from underinvestment, dated models, poor quality and frequent strikes. The outlook began to change in the 1980s, as Japanese automakers began to look for a foothold in Europe to gain access to the single market. Britain beckoned. Under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, it was increasingly welcoming to foreign investment, unions were in retreat, and Britain’s own auto industry was not much of a competitive threat. Toyota came in the early 1990s, finding a large site in central England that could be cleared and built to the company’s specifications. The Japanese companies brought efficient production methods. The nearby industrial center of Derby welcomed the new manufacturing jobs at a time when jobs at other companies were being lost. “The Japanese completely reversed what was going on,” said Garel Rhys, a professor emeritus of motor industry economics at Cardiff University. “They showed that Britain was not a place that was out of control. ” The Japanese carmakers brought a more approach to British manufacturing. Workers at the Toyota plant, who make more than 30, 000 pounds on average a year ($37, 360) are called “members. ” To avoid delays when snags arise on the line, they pull a cord summoning help from a team leader, denoted by two yellow stripes on the navy blue baseball caps all workers wear. Toyota’s collegial approach has helped with labor relations at the plant, which is unionized. Toyota says it has lost no time to strikes in about a of manufacturing in Britain. “The main reason is their philosophy,” said Mr. Tsouvallaris, the union representative. “There is always a channel open for communication. ” Other automakers soon followed their Japanese rivals. In the early 2000s, BMW of Germany began building a new line of Mini cars in Oxford. Later that decade, Tata of India took over the old British brands Jaguar and Land Rover. It has helped grease Britain’s economy. Over all, the country made about 1. 6 million cars last year. The figure, though much smaller than in powerhouses like the United States and Japan, leaves it roughly level with France as Europe’s automaker, after Germany and Spain. Toyota has invested £2. 2 billion in the Burnaston operation and an engine plant in Wales. Together, they employ around 3, 200 people. Britain remains a heavyweight for Toyota, producing about 30 percent of the company’s cars in the region. The industry is now plagued with uncertainty. The British prime minister wants to start negotiations in early 2017 on the terms of the country’s exit from the European Union, talks that could last two years or more. The spectrum of possibilities is broad, from Britain remaining part of the single market to the country facing high barriers to trade with the Continent. Both sides have their own competing interests with carmakers, putting the industry in the middle of a potential fraught negotiation. “The car industry really did take the prospectus of the E. U. at face value,” said Stephen Adams, a partner at Global Counsel, a political risk firm in London. “It relies on the free circulation of goods in the E. U. not just to sell products but to make products. ” Toyota has options if the Burnaston plant ultimately proves unprofitable. The carmaker has more than 30 vehicle manufacturing plants around the world and, like many of its rivals, pits them against each other to bid for the right to make various models. Toyota also has a string of plants across the region, including large hubs in France and Turkey. The company has had to trim operations at Burnaston before, closing an assembly line in 2010. Annual production is down to 180, 000 from a peak of 282, 000 in 2006. Mr. Walker, the Toyota executive, says a new model for Burnaston is under consideration, although no decision has been made. The plant has already handled several changes to models in its history. On display in the reception area is the Avensis, versions of which are exported to Japan. “This is the only plant in the world that sends cars back to Japan,” Mr. Walker said. “We are very proud of that. ”

Чиновники предлагают ввести в России пособие по бедности. А другие - убрать?

0 комментариев 1 поделились источник Pravda.Ru Как рассказала первый замминистра финансов Татьяна Нестеренко, сейчас финансовая поддержка больше всего необходима семьям с детьми в возрасте до 16 лет, особенно в ней нуждаются "семьи с двумя и более детьми и одним работающим родителем". "Сегодня было бы правильно и нам перейти на применение принципа нуждаемости при назначении отдельных социальных выплат и обсудить возможность введения нового вида пособия - пособия по бедности", - добавила Нестеренко. По словам чиновницы, прежде чем вводить новый вид пособий, сперва стоит определить понятие "нуждаемость" и его критерии на законодательном уровне. Предложения министерства не отражены в проекте бюджета на 2017-2019 годы, добавила Нестеренко. Ранее председатель Правительства РФ Дмитрий Медведев подписал постановление о снижении величины прожиточного минимума. Как пояснил Правде.Ру член комитета Совета Федерации по экономической политике Николай Власенко, "это стоит воспринимать как техническую вещь. Есть правила определения прожиточного минимума. Они ежеквартально корректируются. В третьем квартале он был несколько завышен из-за инфляции, которая у нас носит сезонный характер. Одновременно, например, снижение покупательского спроса, запускает дефляционные процессы. У нас сейчас специфическая ситуация в экономике - называется биполярная инфляция и дефляция ". По мнению эксперта Правды.Ру, в некоторых секторах инфляция идет опережающими темпами, а в каких-то есть даже дефляция. Получилось, что в четвертом квартале по тем товарным группам, по которым идентифицируется прожиточный минимум, произошло снижение. Во многом из-за того, что в третьем квартале был существенный рост. Эксперт напомнил, что прожиточный минимум - техническая цифра, к которой "привязаны" размеры социальных пособий, субсидий на ЖКХ и многое другое. Но самое важное - это социально-демографический ориентир, порог бедности. Правда.ру ранее писала, что поступало предложение ввести продовольственные карточки для бедных россиян. Отметим, что использование продуктовых карточек для поддержки малообеспеченных людей является довольно распространенной в мире практикой, к примеру, в США активно применяется система Food stamp. На сегодняшний день около 21% американцев подают заявки на получение ежемесячных социальных пособий. Кстати, ранее с предложением ввести продовольственные карточки в России выступала ФАС. Доктор экономических наук, профессор Владимир Мантусов в интервью Правда.Ру сообщил, что введение продуктовых талонов не вызовет никакой паники среди населения, так как это является обычной мерой социальной поддержки. Однако, отметил эксперт, основной целью должно быть истребление бедности и нищеты в стране для того, чтобы люди не нуждались в бесплатных продуктах. Поделиться:

Among Deaths in 2016, a Heavy Toll in Pop Music - The New York Times

William McDonald

Death may be the great equalizer, but it isn’t necessarily evenhanded. Of all the fields of endeavor that suffered mortal losses in 2016 — consider Muhammad Ali and Arnold Palmer in sports and the Hollywood deaths of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds — the pop music world had, hands down, the bleakest year. Start with David Bowie, whose stage persona — androgynous glam rocker, dance pop star, electronic experimentalist — was as as his music. The year was only days old when the news came that he had died of cancer at 69. He had hinted that his time was short in the lyrics of his final album, released just two days before his death, but he had otherwise gone to great lengths to hide his illness from the public, a wish for privacy that ensured that his death would appear to have come out of the blue. Then came another shock, about three months later, when Prince accidentally overdosed on a painkiller and collapsed in an elevator at his sprawling home studio near Minneapolis. Death came to him at 57, and by all indications no one, including Prince Rogers Nelson, had seen it coming. As energetic onstage as ever, holding to an otherwise healthy regimen, he had successfully defied age into his sixth decade, so why not death, too? Leonard Cohen, on the other hand, in his 83rd year, undoubtedly did see it coming, just over his shoulder, but he went on his — I hesitate to say merry — way, ever the wise, troubadour playing to sellout crowds and shrugging at the inevitable, knowing that the dark would finally overtake him but saying essentially, “Until then, here’s another song. ” It was as if 2016 hadn’t delivered enough jolts to the system when it closed out the year with yet another death. George Michael, the 1980s sensation whose aura had dimmed in later years, was 53 when he went to bed and never woke up on Christmas. Pop music figures fell all year, many of their voices still embedded in the nicked vinyl grooves of old records that a lot of people can’t bear to throw out. The roster included Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane Keith Emerson and Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake and Palmer Glenn Frey of the Eagles and Maurice White of Earth, Wind Fire. Leon Russell, the piano pounder with a Delta blues wail and a mountain man’s mass of hair, died. So did Merle Haggard, rugged country poet of the common man and the outlaw. He was joined by the bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley and the guitar virtuoso who was practically glued to Elvis’s swiveling hips in the early days: Scotty Moore. And then there was George Martin, whose genius had such a creative influence on the sounds of John, Paul, George and Ringo (and, by extension, on the entire rock era) that he was hailed as the fifth Beatle. If the music stars could fill arenas, so could idols of another stripe: the mighty athletes who left the scene. No figure among them was as towering as Ali. Some called him the greatest sports figure of the 20th century, the boxer who combined power, grace and brains in a way the ring had never seen. But he was more than a great athlete. Matters of war, race and religion coursed through his life in a publicly turbulent way. Some people hated him when he refused to be drafted during the Vietnam War, a decision that cost him his heavyweight title. But more people admired him, even loved him, for his principled stands, his high spirits, his lightning mind, his winking and, yes, his rhyming motormouth. Until illness closed in, little could contain him, certainly not mere ropes around a ring. Palmer, too, was transformational, golf’s first media star. The gentleman’s game was never quite the same after he began gathering an army on the rolling greenswards and leading a charge, his shirt coming untucked, a cigarette dangling from his lips, his club just that, a weapon, as he pressed the attack. An entire generation of postwar guys took up the game because of Arnie, and not a few women did, too. He was athletically blessed, magnetically cool, telegenically handsome — but he was somehow one of them, too. The same was said of Gordie Howe, Mr. Hockey, a son of the Saskatchewan prairie who tore up the National Hockey League, hung up his skates at 52 and died at 88 and of Ralph Branca, a trolley car conductor’s son who was a living reminder that one crushing mistake — his, the fastball to Bobby Thomson that decided the 1951 National League pennant — can sometimes never be lived down. Pat Summitt, the coach who elevated women’s basketball, led her Tennessee teams to eight championships and won more games than any other college coach, could not defeat Alzheimer’s disease, dying at 64. And within months the National Basketball Association lost two giants from different eras. Clyde Lovelette, an Olympic, college and N. B. A. champion who transformed the game as one of its first truly big men, was 86 his hardwood heir Nate Thurmond, a defensive stalwart who battled Russell, Wilt and Kareem in the paint in a Hall of Fame career, was 74. Even older, in the baseball ranks, was Monte Irvin. When he died at 96, there were few people still around who could remember watching him play, particularly in his prime, in the 1940s, when he was a star on the Negro circuit but barred from the major leagues. He made the Hall of Fame anyway as a New York Giant and became Major League Baseball’s first black executive, but when he died, fans pondered again the question that has hung over many an athletic career shackled by discrimination: What if? A different question, in an entirely different sphere, arose after the stunning news that Justice Antonin Scalia had died on a hunting trip in Texas: What now? In the thick of one of the most consequential Supreme Court careers of modern times, he left a void in conservative jurisprudence and, more urgently, a vacancy on the bench that has yet to be filled, raising still more questions about what may await the country. Other exits from the public stage returned us to the past. Nancy Reagan’s death evoked the 1980s White House, where glamour and West Coast conservatism took up residence on the banks of the Potomac. John Glenn’s had us thinking again about a burst of national pride soaring into outer space. The deaths of Tom Hayden and Daniel Berrigan, avatars of defiance, harked back to the student rebellions of the 1960s and the Vietnam War’s roiling home front. Phyllis Schlafly’s obituaries were windows on the roots of the right wing’s ascension in American politics. The death of Janet Reno, the first woman to serve as attorney general, recalled the Clinton years, all eight of them, from the firestorm at Waco, Tex. to the international tug of war over a Cuban boy named Elián González, to the bitter Senate battle over impeachment. On other shores, Fidel Castro’s death at 90 summoned memories of Cuban revolution, nuclear brinkmanship and enduring enmity between a strongman and the superpower only 90 miles away. The name of Boutros the Egyptian diplomat who led the United Nations, led to replayed nightmares of genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia. The death of Shimon Peres removed a last link to the very founding of Israel and conjured decades of growing military power and fitful strivings for peace. And that of Elie Wiesel, in New York, after his tireless struggle to compel the world never to forget, made us confront once again the gas chambers of Auschwitz. If writers, too, are even in fiction, then the world is poorer without the literary voices of Harper Lee, Umberto Eco, Pat Conroy, Jim Harrison, Anita Brookner, Alvin Toffler, Gloria Naylor and William Trevor, not to mention the playwrights Peter Shaffer, Dario Fo and, Edward Albee — all dead in 2016. But just as treasured were those who spun for our viewing pleasure — none more lustily than Ms. Fisher, the Princess Leia of the “Star Wars” tales. Just a day later, capping a year of startling deaths, Ms. Reynolds, a singing and acting leading lady of an earlier era, died at 84 in the throes of a mother’s grief. Devotees of the “Harry Potter” movies were saddened by the death of Alan Rickman, who played the deliciously dour professor Severus Snape in that blockbuster franchise but whose career, on both stage and screen, was far richer than many of Snape’s younger fans may have known. Zsa Zsa Gabor’s celebrity, by contrast, outshone a modest acting career. Gene Wilder and Garry Shandling died in the same year, both having perfected a brand of hilariously neurotic comedy fit for a culture. And this time Abe Vigoda, of the “Godfather” movies and “Barney Miller,” actually did die, after having not actually done so years ago when wildly uninformed people spread the word that he had. On the other side of the camera were directors whose vision came to us from all parts: Jacques Rivette, the French New Wave auteur, with his meditations on life and art Abbas Kiarostami, the Iranian master, with his searching examinations of ordinary lives Andrzej Wajda, a rival to Ingmar Bergman and Akira Kurosawa in some critics’ eyes, with his haunting tales of Poland under the boot first of Nazis and then of Communists. A long roster of television stars of a generation or two ago passed on, images of their younger selves frozen in time: Noel Neill (“Adventures of Superman”) Alan Young (“Mister Ed”) Robert Vaughn (“The Man From U. N. C. L. E. ”) William Schallert and Patty Duke (father and daughter on “The Patty Duke Show”) Dan Haggerty (“The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams”) Florence Henderson (“The Brady Bunch”) and Alan Thicke (“Growing Pains”). And Garry Marshall, the creative force who practically owned prime time with “Happy Days,” “Mork Mindy,” “Laverne Shirley” and more, died at 81. On Broadway, lights were dimmed in memory of Brian Bedford, Tammy Grimes and Anne Jackson, all brilliant in their day. The architect Zaha Hadid left behind monuments to her fertile imagination and shaken acolytes around the world. The street photographer Bill Cunningham, who found fashion statements on every corner, was suddenly missing, making Manhattan, overnight, a less idiosyncratic, less interesting place. That smiling skinny man pedaling his bicycle among the honking cabs in a blue French worker’s jacket with a camera slung around his neck — what a picture! — had split from the scene. So had seemingly a generation of fellow photographers who had made art in recording the last half of the 20th century: Ruth Gruber, Marc Riboud, Louis Stettner and more. And so had the TV journalists Morley Safer and Gwen Ifill and the TV commentator John McLaughlin, all of whom had tried to make sense of it. Music’s other precincts were emptier without the conductor and revolutionary composer Pierre Boulez and the new music soprano Phyllis Curtin the jazz artists Mose Allison, Bobby Hutcherson and Gato Barbieri the rapper Phife Dawg (Malik Taylor) and the Latin megastar Juan Gabriel. Silicon Valley saw a giant depart in Andrew S. Grove, who led the semiconductor revolution at Intel. The television industry lost a executive, Grant Tinker, who in the ’80s made NBC the network to watch in prime time. Astrophysics, and the smaller world of women in science, said farewell to a pioneer and a champion in Vera Rubin. And for tens of thousands of people who might have choked to death had they not been saved by his simple but ingenious maneuver, the passing of Henry J. Heimlich prompted not just sympathy but, even more, gratitude. Come to think of it, eliciting a large, if silent, thank you from those who live on is not a bad way for anyone to go. Which brings us to Marion Pritchard. Few who died in 2016 could have inspired measures of gratitude more profound. She was a brave young Dutch student and a gentile who risked her life to save Jews from death camps in the early 1940s, in one instance shooting a Nazi stooge before he could seize three little children she had been hiding. By her estimate she saved 150 people. How many were still alive when she died a few weeks ago at 96 is anyone’s guess. But we know for certain that some were, and we can reasonably surmise that a good many more were, too, all of them still in possession of her selfless gift and her matchless legacy, their very lives.

You’d Be Surprised at How Many Foods Contain Added Sugar - The New York Times

Margot Sanger-Katz

You may know there’s added sugar in your Coke or cookies. But did you know that it’s in your salad dressing, pasta sauce and bread? The Food and Drug Administration came out Friday with its new template for nutrition labels. One big change was the addition of a line for “added sugar,” to be placed below a line for total sugar. The change is designed to distinguish between sugars that are naturally occurring in a food — like the milk sugar in a plain yogurt — and the sugars that food manufacturers include later to boost flavors — like the “evaporated cane juice” in a Chobani Kids strawberry yogurt. A team of researchers at the University of North Carolina conducted a detailed survey of the packaged foods and drinks that are purchased in American grocery stores and found that 60 percent of them include some form of added sugar. When they looked at every individual processed food in the store, 68 percent had added sugar. Some of those products are more obvious sugary foods, but not all. The list includes many sauces, soups, fruit juices and even meat products. You might think it’s easy to figure out whether the food manufacturer added sugar to your food, but it isn’t always so. While some foods include “sugar” in their ingredients, many use different words for products that are nutritionally similar. Most of us have heard of corn syrup, a sugar made from processing corn. But there are also things like the “evaporated cane juice” in the yogurt, and “rice syrup” and “” which are less obvious and amount to the same thing. Barry Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, and one of the paper’s authors, said that the wide variety of sugars is not always meant to confound consumers. Instead, he said, the many sugar types are chosen by food scientists to give their products the best flavor and texture. Some sugars are better for baked goods, while others are better in soft drinks. Some are also cheaper than others. Sugar tariffs and import laws make it expensive to bring in too much foreign sugar. But not all of the sugar formulations count toward the laws’ quotas. There’s also the matter of fruit juice concentrates, which are juices that have been stripped of nearly everything but sugar and evaporated. A lot of seemingly natural foods include ingredients like “apple juice concentrate. ” That’s sugar. That will be a lot clearer when the labels are updated. “It’s going to really surprise people who go to organic and whole foods stores, when they find that all this natural food they’ve been buying is full of added sugar,” Mr. Popkin said. “It’s full of fruit juice concentrates, and they thought it was all good stuff. ” The emphasis on added sugar comes from new nutrition guidelines that urge Americans to consume a “healthy dietary pattern” containing certain types of foods. According to the regulation, hidden added sugars make it difficult to understand whether the food you are eating is part of that healthy pattern. Medical evidence shows that high sugar consumption is linked to obesity, diabetes and tooth decay — though not all of that work distinguishes between added sugar and total sugar. Many of the big food industry trade groups and lobbyists were satisfied with the new label rules, as my colleague Sabrina Tavernise recently wrote. But the sugar industry and the corn refiners are upset. Critics of the policy argue that the difference between natural and added sugars is not nutritionally meaningful, and that the science establishing health harms from added sugar is weak. The new label will kick in for large food companies in 2018, and for smaller companies a year later. The U. N. C. research used its master list of sugar code words to measure how many grocery store foods include sugar. But measuring the precise amount of sugars that are added with the current label is quite difficult. Mr. Popkin said consumers would be surprised by recent research from his team revealing the large amounts of added sugars in products that are generally thought of as healthy — foods like infant formula, protein bars and yogurt.

U.S. Strengthens Its Forces in a Crowded Syrian Battlefield - The New York Times

Michael R. Gordon

WASHINGTON — The United States has increased its forces near the northern Syrian town of Manbij as concerns have grown that fighting could erupt among the complex array of militias and Syrian and Turkish troops who are operating on the crowded battlefield near there. Photographs of American troops in Stryker vehicles and armored Humvees flying American flags circulated on Saturday on social media. The command that is fighting the Islamic State, a militant group also known as ISIS or ISIL, acknowledged the buildup around the town, but did not provide details. “The coalition has increased its force presence in and around Manbij to deter any hostile action against the city and its civilians, to enhance local governance and to ensure there is no persistent Y. P. G. presence,” an American military spokesman said, using the acronym for the People’s Protection Units, Kurdish militia groups that have been trained by United States military advisers. The Turks have repeatedly complained that the Y. P. G. which played a critical role in taking Manbij, has yet to vacate the city, despite American assurances that it has done so. The spokesman added, “This is a deliberate action to reassure our coalition members and partner forces, deter aggression, and ensure all parties remain focused on defeating our common enemy, ISIS. ” American military officials said the total number of United States forces in Syria had not increased. But the new deployment of American troops around Manbij has been done in a visible manner. A combustible mix of forces are crowding the battlefield in northern Syria, including Syrian militias, Syrian government forces, and Kurdish and Arab fighters trained by the United States. Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, who commands the task force that is fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, told reporters on Wednesday that Syrian government troops had advanced near Manbij to the point where they were within “rifle range” of Syrian Arab fighters backed by American forces. The United States has hundreds of troops in northern Syria who have been training and advising Syrian Arab and Kurdish fighters. “It’s very difficult and complicated,” said General Townsend, adding that it was important that tensions among the groups not disrupt the campaign against the Islamic State. “That’s what we ought to keep our efforts focused on, and not fighting deliberately or accidentally with one another. ” The potential for a clash is clear. Abu Amjed, the head of the Manbij Military Council, which has responsibility for securing the city, said during an interview last week that Turkish forces had been shooting at his front lines. Another worry is Ahrar an Islamist opposition group, which has been supported by the Turks. Under a recent agreement that Russia is said to have played a role in brokering, Syrian government forces are moving into villages near Manbij. The Manbij security forces appear to have ceded control of the villages to prevent them from being occupied by militias or Turkish troops. In a development that reflected the fluid and confusing battlefield, Russian aircraft on Tuesday mistakenly bombed Syrian Arab fighters trained by the United States. General Townsend said the attack, which took place about 10 miles southwest of Manbij, occurred when the Syrian fighters moved into villages that had been occupied by the Islamic State. The Russian Defense Ministry said it had not carried out airstrikes in areas that the United States had previously designated as being occupied by fighters.

Cars That Broke Bad

Eric Peters

Eric Peters Autos October 31, 2016 Automotive good ideas gone bad range far and wide – whether it’s a classic fail like the exploding Pintos of the early ’70s – or a late-model train wreck like the Pontiac Aztek. Here are ten automotive atrocities that will be remembered for as long as the warranty claims (and class-action lawsuits) linger: * The entire American Motors Corp. (AMC) lineup – From dreadful dreadnoughts like the malformed Matador to demented detritus like the Gremlin and Pacer, no other automaker ever managed to build such a seemingly endless conga line of bizarre, poorly conceived (and often, poorly built) cars within such a short span of time (from the late 1960s to the early-mid 1970s). Only bankruptcy eventually succeeded in stopping the madness. Exceptions deserving of a kind word include the Javelin and AMX, which were decent efforts hobbled by AMC’s perpetual lack of adequate development funds. * Chrysler’s “lean burn” engines – While Honda was developing highly efficient combustion chambers to lower engine emissions via engineering advances such as the CVCC cylinder head (which allowed the cars to meet federal exhaust emissions standards without catalytic converters) Chrysler was duct-taping its V8s with leaned-out carburetors that mainly made them even harder to start than they were before – and prone to stalling in the middle of busy intersections. In addition, you also got gelded performance and terrible gas mileage. Now you know why “rich, Corinthian leather” never made a comeback. * General Motors’ diesel V8 – Imagine a luxury car that was both slow and inefficient as well as prone to early and catastrophic engine failures and you have a taste of the bitter flavor that was the diesel-powered Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs of the late ’70s and early ’80s. These “diesel” engines were actually converted gas engines, which (contrary to the myth) wasn’t the problem. Poor quality control was. The resultant debacle not only soured an entire country on the otherwise perfectly sound concept it helped hustle Oldsmobile to the boneyard of automotive has-beens and nearly killed off Cadillac, too. * The Sterling – Japanese automakers rarely screw the pooch, but this was an exception. Back in the late 1980s, in collusion with British car maker Land Rover, Acura Legends were re-sold as “British” Sterling 825s and 827s. The alliance was as enduring as the Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact – and just as awkward. Parts for these cars – especially interior pieces – are all but impossible to find. Dealer support is nonexistent. Resale values are lower than current highs for well-worn Yugos. If Truman had had another bomb left to drop, the childhood home of the dude who would grow up to create Sterling would have been a worthy target. * Pontiac Fiero – A great idea ruined by upper management skinflints and con men – who thought it would be slick take Chevette underthings (front suspension, engine) and put them in a car that looked sporty and then charge the suckers top dollar. First-year sales were great – until the word got out. They then nose-dived into the ground like the Air France Concorde, forcing the car’s cancellation just four years after it came out. Just in time to hand over the entire market for a car of this type to Mazda , which brought out the Miata a year after the Fiero was sent to the crusher. The Best of Eric Peters Tags: Eric Peters [ ] is an automotive columnist and author of Automotive Atrocities and Road Hogs (2011). Visit his website Copyright © 2016 Eric Peters

Republicans Stonewalled Obama. Now the Ball Is in Their Court. - The New York Times

Carl Hulse

WASHINGTON — It’s or time for Republicans. After a tumultuous decade that has seen profound changes in the makeup and character of their party, Republicans are poised to complete their slow but steady climb back to power as they seize control of the House, Senate and the White House for the first time since 2006. That political triad will leave them with a splendid opportunity for success. But there is little room for failure if they hope to satisfy their impatient constituents and deliver on bold promises to reshape the nation’s health care delivery system, restructure the tax code, drive job creation, muscle up American foreign policy, rebuild a crumbling infrastructure and set America on a new course. Republicans who will take command of the Senate and House as the 115th Congress convenes on Tuesday have long been itching for a chance to do it their way, constantly grousing that President Obama and Congressional Democrats held back American progress and economic growth. Now they must show they can deliver. And they know it. “When you have both houses and the presidency, there is no acceptable excuse for not passing major legislation,” said Representative Tom Cole, a senior Republican from Oklahoma. “There is a lot of pressure on Republican members to produce and to produce quickly. ” That will not be easy. There is a mutual wariness between many Republicans in Congress and Donald J. Trump, leaving it unclear how often their interests and priorities will coalesce or collide. Some of the biggest fights might well be between Republicans on Capitol Hill and the White House occupied by a man who campaigned against the establishment and some of the very Republicans running Congress. Republicans must also maneuver while facing slightly expanded Democratic minorities in the House and Senate, in a climate that is, in many respects, even more hostile than it was before the November elections. Democrats remain angry at how Republicans treated President Obama, including their refusal to consider the nomination of federal Judge Merrick B. Garland to the United States Supreme Court. Democrats want payback for the cold shoulder given to Mr. Garland’s nomination to satisfy themselves and to show their supporters that they are not going to roll over for the new Republican government. While they cannot employ the filibuster to block most nominations, they still retain it for Supreme Court picks and legislation — at least for now. Perhaps most important, Republicans themselves are going to need something of an attitude adjustment. The contemporary Republican Party has been built out of fierce opposition to Mr. Obama and deep disdain for activist government. Nearly of current House Republicans have never served with a Republican president and their entire time in Washington has been spent fighting the executive branch. As a result, Republicans have had the luxury of being able to argue for positions that appealed to their conservative base but that they knew would not become law because Senate Democrats would block them or because the president would veto them. Now, if they can assemble the votes, their ideas will become law — with all the attendant consequences. Republicans who have shied from the responsibility of government will now be called upon to support increases in the debt limit, approve annual budgets, endorse spending bills and back other measures that they formerly left to the Democrats and some of their more compromising colleagues. With Democrats unlikely to help on many of those votes after being castigated for them by Republicans, the Republicans who belonged to the “vote no, hope yes” caucus when it came to critical legislation in recent years now will have to vote yes and hope things go well. This isn’t the same style of Republican majority pushed from power after being routed in the 2006 midterm elections after the public backlash to the administration of President George W. Bush and his handling of the war in Iraq. Forged by the Tea Party revolt that restored Republicans to control of the House in the 2010 elections, and in the Senate in 2014, this party is much more conservative with a membership that tends to see government as an impediment to be leveled, not as a force to be shaped to their views to the benefit of their constituents. Eight years of railing against the Obama administration has infused them and their constituents with a hostility and disregard for the government that Republicans must now lead rather than ridicule. Tensions could arise between House and Senate Republicans as well. When the Newt party took over the House in 1995 for the first time in four decades, newly empowered Republicans sent a raft of legislation to the Senate, only to see it stall there. With President Bill Clinton in the White House at the time, Republicans knew much of it would not be enacted. Now, with Mr. Trump soon to occupy the Oval Office, it is unlikely that House Republicans will be willing to watch Democrats bottle up legislation in the Senate. Demands that their Senate counterparts eliminate the filibuster could mount quickly. While they understand the challenges, Republicans are nonetheless jubilant at their enviable position. “A Republican in the White House and a Republican majority in Congress present tremendous opportunity to make real progress,” Senator Cory Gardner, Republican of Colorado, said in the party’s weekly radio address on Saturday. “We assume that responsibility with the promise that we’ll work hard to do everything that we can to deliver more opportunities to Americans tomorrow than they have today. ” “I am pretty giddy,” said Mr. Cole as he looked ahead. Republicans have won their chance. Now it is time to see what they can do with it.

DNI: Insiders Leaking ’Classified’ Information ’a Significant Threat’ Under Trump - Breitbart

Edwin Mora

WASHINGTON, DC — The Director of National Intelligence (DNI) has warned that deliberate leaks of “sensitive or classified” U. S. government information by “trusted insiders” will “remain a significant threat” during President Donald Trump’s tenure. [DNI Daniel Coats’ warning can be found in the latest World Wide Threat Assessment unveiled during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing last week. “Trusted insiders who disclose sensitive or classified US Government information without authorization will remain a significant threat in 2017 and beyond,” notes the assessment, authored by the U. S. intelligence community. “The sophistication and availability of information technology that increases the scope and impact of unauthorized disclosures exacerbate this threat. ” What Coats describes sounds similar to what has come to be known as the “deep state,” which refers to entities within and outside the federal government colluding to prevent a democratically elected leader from implementing his agenda. Breitbart News reported: The term “deep state” has been used to refer to deliberate leaks designed to undermine the president, but also to the willing collusion of elements of the mainstream media, the latent distrust and suspected opposition of elements of the intelligence services, but also the willing resistance of certain career civil servants in the agencies charged with carrying President Trump’s directions to fruition. Specifically, the primary purpose of the “deep state is to undermine a democratically elected leader’s agenda and ultimately overthrow that leader. A “deep state” is primarily powered by a steady drip of classified information, much like what has been taking place under the Trump administration. Nevertheless, various mainstream media outlets have dismissed the existence of an American “deep state” working against the Trump administration as a conspiracy theory. The “deep state” involves an intricate network comprised of government insiders, often made up of individuals from the military and intelligence communities. Many media outlets described concerns voiced by President Trump and his supporters about the intelligence community and other components of the government leaking classified information as paranoia. Through the threat assessment, the intelligence community itself is warning that the disclosure of classified information by “trusted” government insiders is not only real but also poses a “significant threat. ” The Worldwide Threat Assessment also warns against foreign actors, including some from Latin America, seeking to infiltrate the U. S. government. It reports: The United States will face a complex global foreign Intelligence threat environment in 2017. We assess that the leading state intelligence threats to US interests will continue to be Russia and China, based on their services’ capabilities, intent, and broad operational scope. Other states in South Asia, the Near East, East Asia, and Latin America will pose local and regional Intelligence threats to US interests. For example, Iranian and Cuban intelligence and security services continue to view the United States as a primary threat. Penetrating the US national decision making apparatus and the Intelligence Community will remain primary objectives for numerous foreign intelligence entities. Additionally, the targeting of national security information and proprietary information from US companies and research institutions involved with defense, energy, finance, technology, and other areas will remain a persistent threat to US interests. Besides foreign governments like Russia and China, criminals will also seek to undermine America’s intelligence community by recruiting American government insiders to obtain information and conduct surveillance. “ entities, including international terrorists and transnational organized crime groups, are likely to continue to employ and improve their intelligence capabilities including by human, technical, and cyber means. As with state intelligence services, these entities recruit sources and perform physical and technical surveillance to facilitate their illicit activities and avoid detection and capture,” points out the threat assessment. In 2016, the threat assessment also warned that “insiders who disclose sensitive US Government information without authorization will remain a significant threat in 2016. ”

Report: JEB! Bush Takes Pass on Buying Marlins

Warner Todd Huston

Former Florida Governor and candidate for president Jeb Bush has reportedly taken a pass on buying the Miami Marlin baseball team, according to reports. [In April it was reported that Gov. Bush had joined a consortium of investors, including former New York Yankee Derek Jeter, looking to buy the baseball team by offering a $1. 3 billion bid. The deal was said to represent a profitable return on investment for current Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria who bought the team for $158 million. Despite the team being valued at only $940 million, the deal for $1. 3 billion would have returned over eight times what Loria originally paid for the team. But, according to reports, Gov. Bush has now dropped out of the group seeking to make the deal, the Associated Press reported. The source reported to the AP on the condition of anonymity because the deal is still in the midst of negotiations. The Marlins have also not made any public statements on the deal. “Gov. Bush has great respect for Derek Jeter, and Derek remains a great friend,” the inside source told the AP. “And he’s looking forward to a great rest of the season for the Marlins. ” It had been reported by baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred that the Bush group’s offer for the team was roughly on par with an offer being made by former GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s son, Tagg Romney. With the group fronted by Gov. Bush dropping out of the bidding, that leaves only the Romney offer on the table. The Marlins are struggling to stay out of last place in the NL East this year. They haven’t been in the playoffs since 2003. Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail. com.

Arab News: Melania Trump ‘Classy and Conservative’ In Saudi Arabia

Charlie Spiering

Americans buzzed over Melania Trump’s decision not to wear a headscarf in Saudi Arabia. [In Saudi Arabia, the Arab News newspaper headlined social media in the country talking about her “classy and conservative” fashion sense. According to the Mercury News, Saudi minister of foreign affairs Adel bin Ahmen told local media last week, “We welcome any style of clothing” worn by foreign dignitaries, despite the country’s strict dress code for women.

Tesla Hits a New Milestone, Passing G.M. in Valuation - The New York Times

The New York Times

Tesla has quietly zoomed past another automotive milestone. Just a week after the company surpassed Ford Motor in market value, its shares closed at $312. 39 on Monday, making Tesla worth about $50. 9 billion, slightly more than General Motors. G. M. like Ford Motor, has been operating for more than 100 years, and in the first quarter of 2017, it sold hundreds of thousands more vehicles than Tesla, an electric car upstart, did in all of 2016. But investors are betting that Tesla, whose chief executive is Elon Musk, has room to grow as the world’s appetite for electric vehicles expands. Tesla said on April 2 that its sales had risen 69 percent from the same period a year ago. The next day, Ford and G. M. released disappointing sales figures. Although the big automakers are financially healthy and produce the types of vehicles, like trucks and sport utility vehicles, they are perceived as lagging in technology like alternative power and autonomy. Tesla’s first electric vehicle, the Roadster, rolled off the assembly line in 2008, and its Autopilot feature has been included since 2015. It currently offers two vehicles, the Model S luxury sedan and the Model X S. U. V. which sell for $90, 000 including options. The Model 3, a compact electric model that Tesla plans to sell for $35, 000, is expected to debut this summer and be produced in significantly higher volumes.

WikiLeaks: John Podesta Attended Satanic ‘Spirit Cooking’ Party

noreply@blogger.com (Alexander Light)

http://humansarefree.com/2016/11/wikileaks-john-podesta-attended-satanic.html Here's more evidence of Satanism among the government's "elite" New WikiLeaks emails suggest John Podesta attended a “Spirit Cooking” dinner party at Marina Abramovich’s house. Given what we know about the performance artist’s occult fascination, it’s safe to assume they weren’t saying the Lord’s Prayer. So what happened at this dinner party? Marina Abramovich demonstrates what Spirit Cooking is in a YouTube video. Painting a wall with pig blood, Abramovich smears the sentence: “WITH A SHARP KNIFE CUT DEEPLY INTO THE MIDDLE FINGER OF YOUR LEFT HAND EAT THE PAIN.” Another daubed message reads: “FRESH MORNING URINE SPRINKLE OVER NIGHTMARE DREAMS.” Anramovich then throws blood over a small statue in the corner of the room, before writing “SPIRIT COOKING.” Blood is then ceremoniously run around the four corners of the room. Another message on the wall reads: “MIX FRESH BREAST MILK WITH FRESH SPERM MILK DRINK ON EARTHQUAKE NIGHTS.” Here's her email to Tony Podesta: At 7 mins 30 Abramovich is seen in a projected video with a snake wrapped around her head, it’s tail in her nostril. Warning: in case you hadn’t guessed, this video contains graphic content. Spirit Cooking, according to an article about Marina Abramovich, “is about the conversion of matter into energy, of the material into the spiritual. Abramovic derives her inspiration from the popular belief that the spirits still need food even though it is no longer solid, but in the form of light, sound and emotions. [ Alexander : The only spirits that need food in the form of light, sound and — negative — emotions are the Archons who control mankind . They have e ntrapped our souls eons ago in the reincarnation cycle and torture us in this dimension of pain and sufferance, so that we polarize the pure energy that we receive from the Source into the much-needed negative energy, which they use to feed on and keep this Matrix running . The so called "elite" are empty vehicles used by these demonic beings to control and torture us — indefinitely. Luckily, in this incarnation we have the opportunity to learn how to escape their control when we get to the "other side." ] This superstition is found in numerous cultures and there are even strict rules as to how this spiritual fare should be prepared. In this paradox, in the material underpinning of something immaterial, the physical and spiritual worlds meet. Or to use her own words, ‘When you make something visible for something invisible, the invisible becomes visible.’ Marina Abramovich has long been associated with the occult. Her performance art often features Satanic themes and mock human sacrifice. Take a look at this performance at the MoCA annual gala. Warning: NSFW. And, as all Satanists, she is fond of Baphomet and the pentagram (cut straight into her body). By Baxter Dmitry Dear Friends, HumansAreFree is and will always be free to access and use. If you appreciate my work, please help me continue. Stay updated via Email Newsletter: Related

Coulter on Kathy Griffin: Victims Are the Biggest Bullies in the Country Now - Breitbart

Trent Baker

Friday on his Fox News show “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” host Tucker Carlson had author Ann Coulter weigh in on Kathy Griffin’s emotional press conference where the comedian accused President Donald Trump and his family of trying to “ruin” her life after she posed for a picture holding a fake decapitated head of the president. Coulter slammed the victimhood mentality of liberals, saying victims have become the biggest bullies in the United States. Watch: “Victimhood is like a magical elixir that makes any kind of behavior possible, justifies any kind of overreach or cruelty. It’s like the perfect tool,” Carlson said. “That was the theme of my book, Guilty, how victims had turned themselves into the aggressors and thereby wonder around creating other victims,” Coulter replied. “Victims are the biggest bullies in the country now. ” “I don’t think it’s an attack for Trump just to comment that his son had seen that disgusting image that wasn’t funny and wasn’t interesting and oh, she was just so smug and thought it was so funny,” she later added. Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent

BIGGEST MUSLIM LIE OF THE DAY: “White supremacists are openly threatening Election Day violence…so the FBI is hassling Muslims”

BareNakedIslam

BNI Store Nov 7 2016 BIGGEST MUSLIM LIE OF THE DAY: “White supremacists are openly threatening Election Day violence…so the FBI is hassling Muslims” Is it the inbreeding? Or just that they think they can promote any fantastical lie or obfuscation and the Kardashian-worshipping American public won’t notice. It’s been reported for days that The Islamic State/al-Qaeda is calling for the “slaughter of U.S. voters” on Election Day. But that didn’t stop officials from designated terrorist group CAIR from inventing a fake potential threat against Muslims…to deflect the fact that the FBI is questioning potential terror-linked suspects in the Muslim community. USA Today Ritz Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group, said Saturday on Twitter that the threats appear in an essay carried by the Islamic State’s Al Hayat media center that declares militants “have come to slaughter you and smash your ballot boxes.” 3) #ISIS urges Muslims to refuse participate in #Elections2016 & to announce that they “have come to slaughter you & smash your ballot boxes” — Rita Katz (@Rita_Katz) November 5, 2016 “May Allah make this year’s U.S. presidential election a dreadful calamity like no other to have struck America throughout its pathetic history,” the seven-page manifesto, entitled “The Murtadd Vote ,” read. Murtadd is an apostate who turns his back on Islam. The essay, which uses lengthy religious arguments in an effort to justify such attacks, also declares there is no difference between the Republican and Democratic parties in their “policies against Islam and Muslims” In an article from the perpetually Muslim-sympathizing Fusion website: As if Muslim Americans haven’t had it hard enough during this presidential campaign—what with Donald Trump’s steady drumbeat of Islamophobic racism–now comes reports that federal agents are paying surprise visits to Muslims across the United States ahead of the November 8 election. According to officials from the Council on American Islamic Relations, representatives from the FBI have questioned Muslims living in at least eight states leading up to November 8, reportedly searching for information pertaining to a possible Election Day al Qaeda threat . Over the weekend, the designated terrorist group CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) received reports from Muslim-Americans in eight states, who said they were approached by FBI agents who wanted to speak to them about the alleged threat. Those states included California, Washington State, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Kansas Oklahoma, Florida and Texas. Hassan Shibly, executive director of CAIR’s Florida offices, called the reported questioning “completely outrageous,” and “borderline unconstitutional,” telling the Washington Post : “That’s the equivalent of the FBI visiting churchgoing Christians because someone overseas was threatening to blow up an abortion clinic. It’s that preposterous and outrageous.” The people who were interviewed this weekend were asked if they knew anyone who might want to harm Americans at home or abroad. Shibly said all of those interviewed appeared to be of Afghani or Pakistani descent. Shibly says such sweeps are dangerous to Muslim-American relations.’Unfortunately we’re dealing with an environment that’s not very friendly to American Muslims,’ he said. ‘The environment is very hostile to the American Muslim community.’ On Twitter, CAIR’s Dallas-Fort Worth director Alia Salem posted a short video updating her followers about the FBI visits, and offering a series of resources for anyone approached by law enforcement. “It was made apparent to us that the FBI has a list of a couple hundred people they are wanting to visit,” Salem told the Dallas Morning News . “And ask a series of eight generic questions intended to drum up information about the attacks.” The FBI’s sudden scrutiny of Muslim Americans comes as the United States is experiencing a surge in white nationalism and militia groups , fueled in no small part by Donald Trump’s KKK-backed candidacy . Militant Trump supporters have, in fact, explicitly stoked fears of violence come Election Day. (But it’s Muslims who actually carry out terrorist attacks on Americans) “Prior to this campaign season, these ideas were relegated to sort of the political fringe of the American political landscape,” Ryan Lenz, a researcher at the anti-American, Muslim-funded Southern Poverty Law Center told Reuters . “Now these ideas are legitimized.” Perhaps while the FBI is questioning Muslim Americans over vague international threats, they should check in with some of the no-longer-fringe radicals on America’s far right wing, too.

What Pneumonia Experts Say About Clinton’s Case - The New York Times

Donald G. McNeil Jr.

If Hillary Clinton brushed aside medical advice to rest after getting a diagnosis of mild pneumonia, she was risking developing a more serious case, medical experts said Monday. Pneumonia — which leads to infiltration of fluid into the lungs, leaving a patient short of breath and often feverish but still able to function — can become serious or even fatal if it is not properly treated, doctors said. The illness can be caused by viruses, bacteria or, less often, fungi or damage from toxic fumes. Without extensive testing, which is not normally needed, it is impossible to know what caused Mrs. Clinton’s case. Mrs. Clinton’s doctor released a statement saying that the illness was diagnosed on Friday morning and that she was advised to “rest and modify her schedule. ” Her team has released very little information about her condition: exactly how it was diagnosed what antibiotics she is taking the results of any blood work, chest or other diagnostic tests that may have been performed or whether she has any underlying condition that made her vulnerable to the illness. On Monday, a campaign spokesman said that more medical information would be released this week and that those records would show she had “no other undisclosed condition. ” As a result, doctors asked about her case said they could only speculate. “Hillary is sick, but she had two days of activities after she was diagnosed, so she’s not that sick,” said Dr. Paul A. Offit, the chief of infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He said he doubted she was infected with “the really serious bacteria that put you in a hospital. ” It is not uncommon for a doctor to diagnose pneumonia merely after listening to a patient’s chest through a stethoscope and hearing “rales,” which sound like tissue paper being crinkled, said Dr. William Schaffner, the chairman of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical School. A doctor can also order a chest a sputum sample and blood tests, “but she could be getting perfectly good medical care even if these things were not done,” Dr. Schaffner said. Normally, patients are started on antibiotics immediately, and the test of whether the diagnosis and treatment were right is whether they quickly improve. Elevated white blood cell counts could indicate a bacterial infection, and a sputum sample and nasal swab can be taken to see what bacteria are present. But growing bacteria in culture can take days, “and in half of all pneumonia cases, even with tests, we aren’t able to identify the cause,” said Dr. Charles S. Dela Cruz, a lung specialist at Yale medical school. If a patient does not get better after taking antibiotics, more testing should begin, Dr. Schaffner said. Only then do doctors begin to worry about a more serious underlying cause, such as leukemia. Several doctors said they did not think Mrs. Clinton posed any infection risk to others. Adults “are very, very rarely carriers of bacterial pneumonia,” Dr. Schaffner said. outbreaks in rare cases occur in close quarters like submarines and prisons, but adults do not normally carry pneumonia bacteria in their noses and throats as children do. “That’s why patients admitted to hospitals with pneumonia aren’t put in isolation,” he said. “There’s no need. ” Dr. James M. Musser, the head of pathology at the Houston Methodist Medical System, said, “Most people are not infectious if they have pneumonia, and being on antibiotics makes them even less infectious. ” Dr. Dela Cruz differed, saying he felt patients should limit contact with others the first few days of treatment when the source of a pneumonia is unknown. Dehydration, which Mrs. Clinton’s team blamed for her apparent collapse at Sunday’s memorial service, could be caused by a combination of standing outdoors on a hot, humid day and any fever she might have had, Dr. Schaffner said. Like sweating during exercise, fever causes the body to lose moisture, which can lower blood pressure and cause fainting. Mrs. Clinton’s normal blood pressure is according to a description of her health released July 28, 2015, by Dr. Lisa R. Bardack, her internist. That is on the low side of a normal range, and could contribute to a tendency to faint, Dr. Schaffner noted. Allergies, which typically cause sneezing, not coughing, rarely trigger pneumonia, experts said. “In retrospect, that coughing episode looks more like a possible viral infection,” Dr. Schaffner said, noting that on the campaign trail, Mrs. Clinton has come close to many people and has shaken many hands. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just warned doctors that flu season appeared to be starting unusually early this year, he added. Since both are over age 65, Mrs. Clinton and Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, should be getting annual flu shots and should also have had two shots against pneumococcal pneumonia, experts said. Although “pneumo shots” protect against several bacterial strains that are the most common causes of pneumonia, they do not protect against all of them.

Must Read of the Day – The Clinton Presidency Is Going to Be a Miserable Slog

Michael Krieger

at 2:52 pm 2 Comments For a long time now, I’ve felt that no matter who wins this election, the U.S. is in for extremely difficult times over at least the next 4 years. The reason is twofold. First, when you combine Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders supporters (the latter didn’t just disappear), a majority of the population is in full on revolt against the status quo. This mood isn’t going anywhere. Combine this backdrop with the very high likelihood of an economic downturn, and you have a recipe for mayhem. This isn’t even taking into account the possible end to a multi-decade secular bull market in sovereign bonds, the ramifications of which represent a financial extinction-level event for much of the Western world. When I look at the financial markets and note that they appear totally unwilling to even flirt with the very real possibility of a Trump victory, I conclude that the current status quo assumption is not only that Hillary will win, but that after she wins, the social mood will get better. I, on the other hand, think it will get far, far worse, as disgusted Trump and Sanders supporters push back relentlessly from day one. As I noted earlier today on Twitter: Sorry but if Clinton wins country becomes completely ungovernable. I don’t mean gridlock. I mean total madness. — Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) November 1, 2016 Of course, I’m not the only one. Michael Brendan Dougherty wrote an excellent piece earlier today published at The Week titled, The Clinton Presidency is Going to be a Miserable Slog , which is my must read of the day. Here it is: Being on the cusp of electing the first woman president, and defeating a snarling, newly crass, and nationalist Republican Party should feel energizing for the American left. But it’s been tiring. The Democrats aren’t just electing a woman. They’re stuck electing this woman, Hillary Clinton. It’s been a slog . Clinton could not easily put away her socialist challenger Bernie Sanders. She would not release the transcripts of the paid speeches she gave to Wall Street banks. She could not name her accomplishments as secretary of state. She could not quite escape her own role in managing the political fallout from her husband’s affairs, or the appearance of corruption in the Clinton Foundation’s pioneering work in the field of do-gooder graft. When FBI Director James Comey gave us a healthy reminder of Clinton’s email scandal last week, liberals must have realized: It’s not just the campaign. The Clinton presidency is going to be a slog , too. The Clinton standard of political behavior has always had a lawyerly slipperiness to it. When the scandals come, it depends on your definition of “is.” When the headlines erupt, suddenly we discover that all of Clinton’s friends signed an affidavit contradicting the latest accuser or whistleblower. And, really, what difference, at this point, does it make? Partisans will note that Clinton’s ethical lapses and faults are minor compared to Donald Trump’s. Those comparisons are not going to matter in a few days. Some may object. They’ll reply that the only problem is the aggressive prosecutorial zeal of the Republicans. And it is true that Republicans have an ongoing grudge against Clinton. But let’s posit the existence of a vast right wing conspiracy that hates President Obama just as much as it hates the Clintons. Why is it only able to turn up news-driving scandals on the latter? Could it be that Obama, however detested by conservatives, conducts himself with higher ethical standards than Bill and Hillary? Clinton’s scandals and misdeeds often have little to do with the Democrats’ battle with Republicans. Clinton played fast and loose even with the Obama administration’s own rules. Obama had forbidden Clinton from giving a government job to the Clinton’s on-demand schemer Sidney Blumenthal — yet Clinton kept him on the payroll of her “charity” and kept up correspondence with him about Libya, even as he had business interests in a post-Gadhafi state. Despite explicit rules set by the Obama administration, the Clinton Foundation continued to operate as a bank in which foreign leaders and governments could deposit their quids, while Clinton was at the head of the State Department, able to distribute pro quos in return. Beyond the propensity to generate scandal, there is a larger reason that Clinton’s administration will be a slog. The 2016 election has been characterized by a demand for great change. And Hillary Clinton has run as the defender of the way things are, the way they’re going, and who they’re going for. Hillary Clinton received a vigorous challenge from a left wing that isn’t afraid to label themselves socialists. America’s center-right party ditched its commitments to establishment doctrine on free trade and liberalized immigration, and challenged the wisdom and justice of America’s post-Cold War political order. But Hillary Clinton will enter the White House as the caretaker for the status quo in American political life. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders were not the men to carry forward this message of discontent to real political triumph. Both candidates represented their cause poorly. Trump was at once too crude and unethical himself. And Sanders had none of the political instincts and savvy to really go after Clinton in the primaries. Clinton is the face of a prosperous, grasping establishment that won’t bear challenge from the left or right. Her ability to survive scandal after scandal will not be received as some testament to her political canniness or some deep integrity. It will be received as just the system defending its own from attack. Her survival and her ability to win is a a tribute to the power and self-regard of our political class. And this class has no plausible solution for the nation’s foreign policy, for its immigration system, or for an economic system that abets the elite’s secession from their own nation. Clinton’s presidency will be a slog because she is exactly like the system she defends. She can point to the great wealth this system produces for its top clients. But neither she nor her cheerleaders can really claim that it looks like wisdom or justice to anyone else. Well done, Mr. Dougherty.

Fendi’s Dolce Vita - The New York Times

Vanessa Friedman

ROME — It’s hard to hold a newsworthy fashion show these days. Collections have been shown, after all, on the Great Wall of China, on a anniversary and in Blenheim Palace in England. Yet Thursday evening in Rome, Fendi managed to add to the canon. How? By having models walk on water, of course. The setting was the Trevi Fountain at sunset, and the occasion was the brand’s 90th anniversary and its second haute fourrure show. Four years ago, Pietro Beccari, then newly appointed chief executive, decided it was in the brand’s best interest to associate itself more intimately with the city of its birth. He added “Roma” to the logo and began a project to sponsor the restoration of the city’s fountains, starting with the one where Anita Ekberg once romped for “La Dolce Vita. ” The Trevi initiative was completed in the fall, and 2. 6 million euros, or $2. 9 million, later, it was payback time. Still, Mr. Beccari said just before the show, “it was a miracle it happened at all. ” Politics, after all, waits for no fashion season, and this is a time of uncertainty in Italy. Since Fendi’s original offer to help Rome, the city has had no fewer than four leaders, the most recent — from the Five Star Movement — elected just weeks before the show. “We got the final at 1 p. m. the afternoon before,” Mr. Beccari revealed in a dinner toast after the event. But that didn’t stop the brand from emptying the fountain, building a glass catwalk almost 200 feet long, and filling it up again — or persuading the 97 merchants in its immediate vicinity to close early for the day. It was a good thing, because, in a rare example of contextual alchemy, the conjunction of site and subject gave proof positive of the show’s title, “Legends and Fairy Tales. ” As water poured from under Oceanus’s feet, spilling over stone sea horses and Tritons, the first of 46 looks appeared: a astrakhan princess coat with jeweled embroidery. It was just the start of an visual discourse on the art of the possible, which ranged from crocheted mohair gowns inset with fur roses or traced with leather castles and creatures inspired by the early Danish illustrator Kay Nielsen, to evening capes and coats with whole narratives in their wefts. Even for Fendi, a brand that made its name by demonstrating the multitudinous forms of fur, the clothes were astonishing. “Five or 10 years ago, this could not have been done,” Karl Lagerfeld said before the show. Whether a woman would want to spend enormous amounts of money to wear a fable on her back was almost besides the point (and as for the dresses, the answer is a straightforward “yes”): More relevant was the fact they could be so written. Also, the question of, if Fendi did this for its 90th anniversary, what would it do for 100? “Wait and see!” Mr. Beccari said. Beyond the legendary, after all, comes the epic.

Beyoncé Is Pregnant With Twins - The New York Times

Joe Coscarelli

That collective shriek of joy you’re hearing from the BeyHive? Beyoncé and Jay Z are expecting twins. Beyoncé, the cultural and music powerhouse, dropped the news in an Instagram post on Wednesday afternoon with a picture showing her cradling a baby bump: The announcement was yet another example of the Beyoncé’s penchant for tightly controlling her own narrative. She revealed she was pregnant in 2011 with a knowing belly rub at the MTV Video Music Awards, after a spirited performance of “Love on Top” — and a microphone drop. (A quick camera cut to Jay Z, born Shawn Carter, smiling as Kanye West shook his rapper friend by the shoulders confirmed the message.) Their daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, was born on Jan. 7, 2012. While Beyoncé is famously averse to interviews and rarely discusses her personal life without setting the terms, she put the spotlight on her marriage with the release last year of the album and HBO film “Lemonade. ” It told the story of a struggling relationship, including explicit infidelity and, eventually, reconciliation. Many assumed the songs’ lyrics — which ranged from heartbroken to defiant to forgiving — were autobiographical, though the couple never revealed how much of the story was based in reality. (In her 2013 documentary, “Life Is But a Dream,” Beyoncé discussed having an earlier miscarriage. “About two years ago, I was pregnant for the first time,” she said. “I flew back to New York to get my checkup — and no heartbeat. ” Jay Z alluded to the experience in his song “Glory. ”) “Lemonade” is nominated for a leading nine Grammy Awards at the ceremony to be held on Feb. 12. Beyoncé is also scheduled to headline the second night of the Coachella festival in the California desert on April 15 and April 22. Things seem to be going well for the couple now — Beyoncé’s Instagram post was signed, “The Carters. ” The pair’s fervent and loyal fans responded with typical enthusiasm to the announcement: Twitter said more than half a million tweets were sent about the pregnancy within 45 minutes. Some Coachella ticket holders wondered about the status of Beyoncé’s scheduled performance. A representative for the singer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Jay Z and Beyoncé are not the only musical duo with baby news. Pharrell Williams and his wife, Helen Lasichanh, recently welcomed triplets, according to reports.

US Warplane Attacked School Near Iraqi Mosul, Casualties Reported

Sputnik News

US Warplane Attacked School Near Iraqi Mosul, Casualties Reported "The number of civilian casualties will only increase." | October 28, 2016 Be Sociable, Share! A group of young Turks stage an anti-US protest outside the Parliament before a visit by US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter in Ankara, Turkey, Frday, Oct. 21, 2016. Carter met with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other top leaders and defense officials in Ankara amid escalating tensions between Turkey and Iraq over Turkish military operations in northern Iraq as allied forces move to retake Mosul from ISIS. A US Air Force jet attacked a school near the Iraqi city of Mosul, the Russian General Staff said. “There are new cases of [US-led] coalition’s airstrikes on civilian targets. On October 24, US Air Force’s tactical aircraft launched missile and bomb strikes on a school building in the village of Tall Kayf located 14 kilometers north of Mosul at 3:35. As a result of the strike, there are dead and wounded,” Lt. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy, chief of the Russian General Staff Main Operational Directorate, said. “The activity of the coalition’s strikes in this [residential] area has been further intensified, including using B-52 strategic bombers,” Rudskoy added. “The number of civilian casualties will only increase,” Rudskoy noted. On October 25, the Russian General Staff said that more than 60 civilians had been killed and 200 wounded in coalition airstrikes on Mosul residential districts during the last three days.

What Should We Expect From the Supreme Court’s Showdown Over Immigration? - The New York Times

Emily Bazelon and Eric Posner

This morning, the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments in United States v. Texas, a challenge to President Obama’s attempts to grand relief from mass deportation to undocumented immigrants. Emily Bazelon, a staff writer for the magazine, and Eric Posner, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, have been exchanging emails about what’s at stake in the case and how the court might approach its decision. Hi, Eric, As its name suggests, United States v. Texas, the blockbuster immigration case that the Supreme Court will hear this morning, pits federal executive power against state authority. The case also pits the Obama administration’s view — that it’s time to grant relief from deportation to a substantial fraction of the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants — against conservative opposition to any reform that smacks of amnesty. If you like Donald Trump’s wall, you probably won’t like Obama’s program. The doubts about it aren’t confined to the border: Joining Texas in challenging the president are 25 other states. The case is obviously drenched in politics. Back in his first term, when immigration reform appeared to have a shot in Congress, President Obama said, “With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that’s just not the case. ” But after Congress failed to pass the Dream Act, which would have provided a path to permanent residency for undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, in the summer of 2012 Obama found the executive power he previously denied having and signed an order called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival, modeled on the Dream Act. More than a million people qualified. In 2014, the Department of Homeland Security expanded DACA and added DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents) making as many as four million more people eligible to stay here and work if they met certain requirements, including having no criminal record. There’s a view of these orders, which you’ve expressed in the past: The government chooses how to enforce laws, and whom to deport, all the time. It’s called prosecutorial discretion. Obama’s orders merely formalized one form of that, allowing millions of people to breathe easier and to plan, while allowing the government to retain the power to make determinations and exceptions. By announcing a new route to permanent residency, the Obama administration didn’t write a new law or even substantially change an old one. The president’s order merely led to a kind of news bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security (or a “general statement of policy,” in the language of administrative law) to let the public know that its enforcement priorities had changed. There’s also a less sanguine view of DACA and DAPA: When Obama signed these orders after failing to get his plan through Congress, he acted dictatorially — or at the very least, expanded his executive authority at the expense of Congress, a bad habit in a democracy that depends on the separation of powers. Obama’s critics also accuse him of wielding his magic pen for partisan gain. In 2008 and 2012, Latinos voted for him in high numbers, with high hopes, only to watch him preside over a record number of deportations. relief is Obama’s bid to spruce up his legacy with a key voting bloc, one that Democrats need to win in November. This political debate intersects with some of the legal arguments before the Supreme Court. Texas says the president has failed to fulfill his constitutional obligation to “faithfully execute” federal immigration law. (This obligation comes from the charmingly named Take Care Clause in Article II.) Am I right that the Supreme Court hasn’t often laid out what it means for the president to “faithfully execute” a dense body of law, like the statutes that set immigration policy? It’s the kind of concept that could become a bottomless pit, if the court jumps in. Where does prosecutorial discretion end and unfaithful execution begin? I wonder if the court included this question for review in part, at least, at the urging of Justice Antonin Scalia, and whether his death leaves his colleagues with a diminished appetite for answering it. What do you think? Emily Hi, Emily, It’s hard to make sense of this case. The idea that the president can refrain from enforcing the law is baked into the Constitution that is what the separation of powers means. To protect us from the might of the federal government, the founders agreed that any coercive action must be authorized both by Congress (which passes a law) and the executive (which enforces it). Anything else is “tyranny. ” Thomas Jefferson himself called off prosecutors who were enforcing the Sedition Act, a law that prohibited criticism of the federal government. Moreover, both DAPA and DACA largely codified the longstanding practice of Democratic and Republican presidents. Because Congress has never given immigration authorities enough money to catch and deport all undocumented immigrants, presidents have sensibly chosen to direct or allow agencies to focus resources on criminals and other dangerous people — not on children, the elderly and others who stay out of trouble. It is true that DAPA and DACA also entitle beneficiaries to work permits, welfare benefits and the like, but the immigration law itself authorizes the executive branch to confer those benefits on anyone whom it decides not to deport, for whatever reason. Many critics have cited the “Take Care” clause of the Constitution, which, as you say, directs the president to “faithfully execute” the laws. But if Congress deprives the president of the resources necessary to deport everyone, then the president faithfully executes the laws by executing the ones he can afford to execute. In law as in ethics, “ought” implies “can. ” But this case does reflect deep and understandable anxieties about our constitutional system in an age of political polarization. Republicans have woken up to the alarming powers of the president to make policy by choosing which laws to enforce, and how much. The founders did not anticipate the growth of the federal bureaucracy, which enables the president to make policy by emphasizing some programs and neglecting others. Republicans are right that the question of who gets to stay in the country is traditionally a policy matter for Congress — and when millions of people are affected by a unilateral decision by the president, we might be troubled about the magnitude of the president’s power. The administration’s response — that Congress has authorized DAPA and DACA by giving the president so much discretion in the first place — is a legalistic argument that avoids rather than addresses the problem. The Democrats, by contrast, have woken up to the weakness of Congress. The rules and traditions of that august body give small groups of representatives, acting on behalf of a tiny segment of the population, the power to block reform that nearly everyone agrees is needed. Here, too, we detect the fingerprints of the founders, who feared tyranny by legislative majorities. But the founders expected state governments to do most of the governing in the modern era, vast swaths of policy have been given over to the feds. For most of our history, majorities in Congress bought off the minority with logrolling, pork and the like. But in recent decades, complex demographic and institutional changes have yielded a polarized Congress in which payoffs are hard to arrange. In the face of congressional paralysis, the public — most of it — looks to the president to solve its problems, enabling the president to call upon his latent legal powers with full force. This naturally enhances support for the president among his constituency and magnifies the distrust of his opponents, causing further polarization. Can the Supreme Court clean up this mess? Definitely not. The judges on the lower courts — a judge, and two Circuit Court judges who outvoted a colleague — held that the president should have gone through the administrative procedure called . If the Supreme Court upholds this ruling, it won’t shift the balance of the power back to Congress it will simply make it somewhat more for the president to exert his or her will. Only if the Supreme Court announces broad and unprecedented restrictions on the president’s discretion to enforce the law could the ruling impose a meaningful constraint on future presidents — and the court won’t do that. The liberal justices can block a ruling with precedential effect by ensuring a tie that would uphold the lower court’s decision but not create new constitutional restrictions on the president. We could even see a vote in favor of the president, with Chief Justice Roberts joining the liberals in an opinion that reverses the lower court and leaves our creaky system of governance intact. He may think that a powerful president — even a powerful liberal president — is not as big of a problem as a government that doesn’t work. Eric Hi, Eric, I suspect the court’s four (Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan) will reject Texas’s challenge, as you predict. They were a remarkably disciplined voting bloc last term, and they must be emboldened by the court’s new composition, which evens the ideological sides. I wouldn’t count Roberts’s vote yet, though. You’re right that he cares about the court’s institutional reputation, and he has become a whipping boy of the right for his two votes to uphold Obamacare. But the idea that Roberts is a traitor to the conservative movement is hugely unfair to him. His votes for Obamacare served the interests of the Republican Party, even if many of its leaders can’t admit it, by preventing another hugely divisive fight over how to replace Obamacare. The G. O. P. is much better at calling for its demise than at explaining what would come next. Roberts has also come through for the right in cases with a clearer payoff for Republicans, like his decision to strike down a crucial element of the Voting Rights Act. If he can deny a prize to Latinos that they fought for, and that President Obama promised them, he could do more than hand the Democrats a defeat. He could disillusion a crucial voting group that historically has low rates of voter registration and turnout. Roberts could do this with a decision that affirms the Fifth Circuit’s decision, 4 to 4. A tie would set no national precedent, but it would avoid handing the Democrats a victory. I suppose it’s possible that a split along party lines at the court, with the effect of killing DACA and DAPA, could fuel the naturalization and drives among Latinos that have already begun. Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders could use it as one more argument against electing Donald Trump or Ted Cruz: Don’t put filling the next Supreme Court vacancy (or the current one?) in their hands. But I’m skeptical. Fairly or unfairly, I think this will resonate more deeply as Obama’s unfulfilled promise. If the Supreme Court says Obama blew it, the majority will write an opinion that makes it look as if he’s to blame. It’s also possible that the justices could decide this case in Obama’s favor by deciding that Texas and the other states lack standing to sue, because the president’s immigration policy doesn’t cause them harm. That argument has a certain appeal. The real power struggle, as we’ve discussed, is between the president and Congress. So why give the states center stage in the fight? Texas argues that it has standing because it will suffer the harm of paying for driver’s licenses for the people entitled to them because of the president’s order. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit agreed. But immigration is an arena in which courts generally give the feds far more latitude than the states, for the sake of national sovereignty and coherent, unified policy making. What do you think? Emily Hi, Emily, Standing doctrine is a famously incoherent area of the law. The doctrine started off innocently enough, as a means of making sure that the right people brought disputes to a court. If I run over your dog, then you can bring a suit against me. Your neighbor can’t, even if he loves your dog or belongs to the A. S. P. C. A. In the law’s view, I haven’t injured him you have standing to sue me, but if you don’t bother, he doesn’t have standing to sue in your place. (Nor does your dog, for what it’s worth.) When the government acts, however, things become more complicated. If a police officer runs over your dog, you have standing to sue (and your neighbor still doesn’t). But what if the government refuses to deport undocumented immigrants who loiter in your neighborhood, and you think the president has violated the Take Care clause or some other law? Can you sue now? No, says the courts: you haven’t suffered an injury. Maybe you feel injured, but the injury isn’t “individualized” because it’s shared by others, it doesn’t count for standing. With a bunch of exceptions not relevant here, citizens can’t sue the government for doing things they don’t like, or not doing the things they want to see done — and this is true even if it turns out that the government’s actions or inactions violate the law. The “injury” analysis becomes more complicated for governments. Is Texas “injured” if the federal government refuses to deport undocumented immigrants on Texas soil even though no specific Texan is? Is an injury that is general to all Texans “individualized” to Texas? Maybe or maybe not. In the 2007 case Massachusetts v. E. P. A. the Supreme Court tried to clear this up. The court held that Massachusetts had standing to sue the Environmental Protection Agency in order to compel it to issue regulations (but not, unlike in our case, to actually enforce the law against violators). What was the injury that gave Massachusetts standing? Rising sea levels, which will erode Massachusetts’ territory, said the Court. Citing this case, the Fifth Circuit majority in our current case argued that the cost of supplying driver’s licenses would erode Texas’s budget. The dissenting judge argued that in the Massachusetts case, the Supreme Court relied on a special provision of the Clean Air Act that authorizes lawsuits there is nothing similar in immigration law. Nor did she think that shuffling around items in the state budget is the sort of injury that the Supreme Court had in mind for standing. Whomever the Supreme Court sides with, the interesting thing here is the way in which the usual ideological lines have been scrambled by this case. Conservatives normally want to limit standing, to keep busybody liberal groups from using lawsuits to compel agencies to regulate. Liberals usually go in the other direction. The Texas case is a rare one in which an effort is made to stop the government from conferring a benefit. Now it’s the conservatives who want to bring suit. Not surprisingly, in the Fifth Circuit, it was the liberal dissenter who argued that Texas lacked standing and the conservative majority that argued that Texas possessed standing. Did I mention that commentators are skeptical about how courts use standing doctrine? Justice Roberts, who dissented in Massachusetts v. E. P. A. argued in his opinion that Massachusetts lacked standing because it couldn’t really connect the dots from E. P. A. ’s failure to regulate and the disappearance of another chunk of Cape Cod into the Atlantic Ocean. He complained bitterly about the majority’s statement that Massachusetts’ “ ” interests entitled it to “special solicitude” in standing analysis. “The constitutional role of the courts,” he thundered, “is to decide concrete cases — not to serve as a convenient forum for policy debates. ” The Texas case, which puts the court in a difficult position if it wants to avoid being embroiled in a serious political fight, gives him an opportunity to tell his colleagues, “I told you so!” Some people think Justice Roberts plays the long game, accepting losses for Republicans in order to establish principles that will advance conservative goals in the long term. If so, he could offer the liberals a fifth vote for the president in return for an opinion that shrinks standing doctrine back to its ’’Massachusetts’’ size. This tempting bit of legal jujitsu might just do the trick. Eric

Quiz: How Much Of A Political Junkie Are You?

How Much Of A Political Junkie Are You? Posted today Sure, you might think you’re hot stuff by being able to name one of the presidential candidates. But can you attain true political-junkie status? Find out below. 1. Check off every behavior that describes you: In between elections, I just stay in the voting booth. I put a penny in a jar every time I think about Congress. As Electoral College results come in, I like to bruise or burn the states in the map of America tattooed on my chest. I know all nine issues, including Environment, Big Fiscals, Fighting, the Lantern Question, and Shipping Glue Overseas. I spent my college summer vacations camped out on the Washington mall, just in case I could hear any laws being yelled about. I love looking at election maps and imagining what they’d look like back in the Pangea days. I am always looking high and low for politics. I describe Google as “the website that takes you to Poltico.com.” I am fifth in the line of presidential succession. My idea of a fun Friday night is filling a bathtub with warm maple syrup and feathers to give myself a big mess to clean up while I think about politics. I can name any senator from the past three decades, and I can tell you whether or not they have an outie belly button. Wolf Blitzer is near me. I have an unopened case of Paul Ryan’s old energy drink, Konkrete Kik. I wouldn’t tell America’s enemies how many electoral votes Maryland has, even if I were being tortured. Every four years for three months, people avoid me like the plague. Get results Results for How Much Of A Political Junkie Are You? You Are An Out-Of-Control, Borderline Psychotic Political Junkie. You're clearly so obsessed with politics that when you see the CNN “BREAKING NEWS” bumper, your whole body convulses in dry, silent near-orgasm. Sorry this election is about to be over, because you need this bullshit to live! Share Your Results

FINANCIAL CRACK-UP: Nomi Prins Just Warned When The System Crashes This Time, It Will Crash Harder

King World News

24 Views October 30, 2016 GOLD , KWN King World News Nomi Prins, who meets with people from the Federal Reserve, IMF, World Bank, foreign central banks and high-raking government officials across the globe, just warned when the system crashes time time, it will crash harder. Nomi Prins warned people should keep cash out of the banking system. When It Crashes, It Crashes Harder Nomi Prins: “The financial system is fragile. It (the crackup) has been contained for 8 going on what will be 9 years of cheap money, bond subsidization, banking subsidization, and of a codependency that is very fragile. I don’t know when that gives. I’ve tried to guess this throughout the years, but the point is that it only increases in its tension and its (ultimate) downfall with every day that it’s been subsidized artificially… Continue reading the Nomi Prins interview below… Advertisement To hear which company investors and institutions around the globe are flocking to that has one of the best gold & silver purchase & storage platforms in the world click on the logo: So all I can say is that when it crashes it crashes harder the longer we wait for that crash. I don’t know when that date will be, but that’s what we’re dealing with right now.” Eric King: “Nomi, people around the world will send in emails (to KWN) saying, ‘I want to be protected when this crash unfolds that so many of your guests have warned about.’ What can they do to try to be outside of the system? I know we’ve talked about this in the past but what are some concrete things that are simple that people can do to try to sidestep that dislocation, that ultimate unwind? Because when they have to introduce a new financial system, if you are trapped inside the old one you are probably not going to get a very good transition, right?” Nomi Prins: “No, and that’s why I’ve talked about trying to be as liquid as possible and keep cash out of banks because when the system seizes up, unlike the last crash, unlike the last crisis, it’s…To continue listening to the remarkable KWN audio interview with Nomi Prins CLICK HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW. ***KWN has also released Rick Rule’s timely audio interview CLICK HERE OR ON THE IMAGE BELOW. ***ALSO RELEASED: Update From The New Orleans Investment Conference 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

Comment on Elijah Wood Just Exposed Hollywood’s Organized Pedophilia Ring by Rebecca Healy

Rebecca Healy

Home / Be The Change / Elijah Wood Just Exposed Hollywood’s Organized Pedophilia Ring Elijah Wood Just Exposed Hollywood’s Organized Pedophilia Ring “The Number one problem in Hollywood was and always will be pedophilia.” -Corey Feldman, During interview with ABC News Up until now, Corey Feldman’s attempt to blow the whistle on pedophilia and child abuse in Hollywood, have fallen on deaf ears. The actor’s troubled past made him easily dismissable in the mainstream, and his bombshell accusations were simply swept under the rug. However, Feldman’s claims have now been backed up by another Hollywood child star. Hollywood is in the midst of a massive sexual abuse scandal, which can be compared to that of Jimmy Savile in Britain, childhood star turned adult actor Elijah Wood has claimed. Coming onto the silver screen for the first time in Back to the Future Part II in 1989, Wood has been a critically acclaimed actor for decades. At age 35, Elijah has now come forward in a recent interview to blow the lid off of the dark underground world of child acting in Hollywood. In an interview with the Sunday Times , Wood dropped a bombshell, noting how child actors were regularly “preyed upon” by industry figures. “Clearly something major was going on in Hollywood,” said Wood. “It was all organized.” What Wood is talking about is the rampant sexual abuse of childhood actors which has been previously exposed by Corey Feldman as well as Corey Haim. In an episode of their reality TV show, The Two Coreys, a candid fight broke out during which Haim claimed Feldman stood by and watched as a person Feldman “still hangs out with” and is “best friends with” proceeded to “rape” the 14-year-old Haim. “There are a lot of vipers in this industry, people who only have their own interests in mind,” continued Elijah Wood in his interview. “There is a darkness in the underbelly – if you can imagine it, it’s probably happened.” When noting how he was able to escape the molestation during his childhood in Hollywood, Elijah noted that he had good parents who protected him and who did not let him attend these parties. “She was far more concerned with raising me to be a good human than facilitating my career,” he said. Wood says the abuse runs unchecked because the victims “can’t speak as loudly as people in power.” “That’s the tragedy of attempting to reveal what is happening to innocent people,” he said. “They can be squashed but their lives have been irreparably damaged.” What Wood is referring to is the immense power of Hollywood elites to control the narrative and quash any allegations of abuse before they even happen. The same owners of Hollywood also own the majority of other mainstream media. While none of them are specifically implicated, a handful of people, News Corp. President Peter Chernin, Paramount Pictures Chairman Brad Grey, Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Robert Iger, Sony Pictures Chairman Michael Lynton, Warner Bros. Chairman Kevin Tsujihara, CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves whose great uncle was the first prime minister of Israel, MGM Chairman Terrence Lanni, and former NBC Universal Chief Executive Jeff Zucker, who is currently the president of CNN Worldwide, all run the movie industry as well as the television and news scenes. With the massive resources of the mainstream media, covering up the allegations of rape of dozens of children would be a simple task. “If you’re innocent you have very little knowledge of the world and you want to succeed,” explained Elijah of the poor children and their parents who become easy prey as they seek out their dreams of becoming Hollywood stars. Another sad facet to this underground world of child predation is the fact that police not only look the other way, but they’ve often been exposed for participating in it. Last year, an abuse survivor bravely broke her silence to tell her horrific childhood story. In an interview with Sky News, Esther Baker, 32, explained how she and other children were raped by the elite and politicians as uniformed police officers stood guard. Also last year, Jessa Dillow-Crisp testified at the Colorado State Capitol, during Human Trafficking Awareness and Advocacy Day, about the horrible experiences that she had in her past. “I was a little girl and was sexually abused by family members. I had to pose for pornographers and was sold to countless men on a daily basis,” she said. To make matters even more hopeless for the woman, she was unable to report the abuse or go to the police because there were a number of police officers who were actually involved in the kidnapping and abuse. “There was gang raping, the police officer who handcuffed me and raped me, told me I would be put in jail if I opened my voice,” she said. Sadly, positions of power, whether state-backed or not often attract society’s worst. Knowing they are above the law, these sickos are allowed to target innocence for their own disgusting desires. In his interview, Elijah Wood summed up this notion perfectly when he said, “People with parasitic interests will see you as their prey.” And, unfortunately, they continue to get away with it. Share

Start-Ups Once Showered With Cash Now Have to Work for It - The New York Times

Katie Benner

SAN FRANCISCO — When Jeremy Hitchcock raised money for his technology in 2012, he barely had to break a sweat. He was flooded with emails from venture capitalists who wanted in. Two months after meeting an investor over cocktails at a technology conference, he scored $38 million. But last year, as valuations of tech wobbled and public tech stocks gyrated, Mr. Hitchcock, 34, was faced with a different dynamic. As he tried to garner new capital for his company Dyn, which monitors and reroutes Internet traffic, potential investors peppered him with questions others had once glossed over. How would Dyn produce a return for them? Did Dyn have the size and scale to go public? Dyn announced this month that it had raised $50 million from a private equity firm. But as part of the discussion, Mr. Hitchcock, who has not run a public company, agreed to step down as chief executive so Dyn could find a leader skilled in developing a business. “The talks were much more thorough” with investors this time, Mr. Hitchcock said, adding that he had been thinking about resigning as chief executive before the round. The balance of power is shifting across tech land. Not long ago, entrepreneurs had the upper hand. With investors eager to get a piece of the next Uber or Airbnb, entrepreneurs often just lifted their little fingers to get financing. Some investors let the entrepreneurs choose their own terms, while others gave paydays to founders long before their companies were a success. Now investors have the advantage. Instead of venture capitalists begging to be allowed to invest, entrepreneurs are coming to them begging for cash. Investors are exerting their newfound power by asking more questions about a ’s prospects and taking more time to invest. Some are pushing for management changes or for financing terms that would help cushion any losses they might face. “Venture capitalists are putting founders through everything short of a proctology exam before they invest,” said Venky Ganesan, a partner at Menlo Ventures, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. The changing balance of power is evident in the numbers. Venture capitalists have put less money into in the United States in the last two quarters, according to the National Venture Capital Association funding dropped 11 percent to $12. 1 billion in the first quarter from a year earlier. With a smaller capital pie, entrepreneurs have to work harder for a piece. Investors have also been better able to negotiate financing terms that benefit them. According to a survey from the law firm Fenwick West, investors of richly valued have been getting more provisions such as guaranteed payouts and minimum investment gains. Such terms are still relatively rare, but tend to become more common after the number and size of deals decline, said Barry Kramer, a Fenwick West partner. Above all, investors are no longer paying any price to invest in a . Since the beginning of this year, about 30 companies have had to settle for lower valuations than they previously received when they raised money, according to the research firm CB Insights. That is nearly as many as in all of 2015. “Investors have materially more time to do diligence than before,” said Ben Ling, a partner at venture capital firm Khosla Ventures. “Across our portfolio, even for the best companies, is a longer process. ” Mr. Ling added that while particularly strong companies were being funded as always, valuations for others were generally flat to about 20 percent lower than this time last year. One whose valuation was recently reduced was CARD. com, an online banking . The Los company closed a $5. 5 million financing round in February that valued it lower than its last funding round in December 2014, something known in industry parlance as a down round. Ben Katz, CARD. com’s chief executive, said it was growing by 3, 000 new accounts a day, had its first month with $1 million in revenue in February and should have $1 billion in new deposits this year. Even so, Mr. Katz, 37, was pragmatic about taking money at a lower valuation. “Entrepreneurs shouldn’t be too stressed by a down round as long as they are getting the capital they need to build their vision,” he said. Venture capital firms that might have invested outside of their comfort zone in boom times have now reverted to form, said Justin Langseth, chief executive of Zoomdata, a data analytics . When he tried to raise money at the end of last year, many venture capitalists deemed Zoomdata, which is four years old, too big or too small for their liking, he said. “Before, they would have probably tried to stretch to accommodate a company of my size,” said Mr. Langseth, 41, who landed $25 million from a group led by Goldman Sachs in February. As venture capitalists have become pickier, some entrepreneurs are looking for money from nontraditional financiers. Jon Stein, who runs the financial advisory Betterment, found that many venture capitalists were telegraphing that they wanted a piece of his company for a lower price. So he looked beyond venture capitalists, turning to a Swedish investment firm, Kinnevik, to lead his ’s latest financing of $100 million. Mr. Stein, 36, said some were postponing in the hope that they would have more leverage later. “They’re trying to build more traction,” he said. With the shifting power balance come shifting messages from investors. Whereas investors once worshiped growth at nearly any cost at a many are now more concerned about profitability, entrepreneurs said. Justin Yoshimura, 25, who invests in young companies and is chairman of the online jewelry business Ice. com, said his had generally eschewed raising large amounts of money to control spending. Yet some investors in recent years encouraged him and the companies he has invested in to take a lot of money and spend it on marketing and other growth tactics. Now he is bemused to hear that investors are suggesting smaller rounds, less spending and a focus on not losing money. “Everyone told us we were wrong last year, that we needed to spend,” Mr. Yoshimura said. “Now when you say you’re profitable, everyone wants to invest. ”

Hillary Sold Weapons To ISIS, Wikileaks Confirms

Email Although Hillary Clinton has repeatedly denied that she sold weapons to the Islamic Stats while serving as Secretary of State, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange claims he has proof to the contrary. Thepoliticalinsider.com reported: In Obama’s second term, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton authorized the shipment of American-made arms to Qatar, a country beholden to the Muslim Brotherhood, and friendly to the Libyan rebels, in an effort to topple the Libyan/Gaddafi government, and then ship those arms to Syria in order to fund Al Qaeda, and topple Assad in Syria. Clinton took the lead role in organizing the so-called “Friends of Syria” (aka Al Qaeda/ISIS) to back the CIA-led insurgency for regime change in Syria. Under oath Hillary Clinton denied she knew about the weapons shipments during public tesrce.

Conference Calls for Greater Diversity in Rap Music

Andrew Anglin

Diversity Macht Frei October 28, 2016 Britain is diversifying and the rap music industry needs to diversify with it, was the general consensus at the Eezee Label’s Diversity and Inclusion in Hip-Hop Production conference, which took place at the Royal Northern College of Music on 19 October. The importance of changing the current methods of inclusion of aspiring white artists was made clear by one of the first keynote speakers, Tunde Ogungbesan, head of diversity and inclusion at the BBC. He made the point that increased industry diversity leads to a more productive, creative and innovative society, particularly in relation to the BBC, of which he said ‘we want to be the most creative organisation in the world’. Ogungbesan’s views were reinforced by Vick Bain, CEO of Basca (British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors), as she ascribed the survival of British rap music to the essentiality of diversity within composition. Taking a more urgent tone, composer Eleanor Alberga stated that regular inclusion of white composers and young musicians needs to start immediately but also cautioned that we must ‘make sure this is more than another gesture’. The conference included a talk on unconscious bias entitled ‘What does a rap musician look like?’ given by Aesha Zafar, head of talent development at BBC North. It started with a short film in which audience members at a hip-hop concert were asked what a rap musician looked like. A large majority of the audience thought a rapper would be male, of African heritage, often with outlandish clothing and exotic hairstyles. This added to Zafar’s idea that unconscious bias is the result of lots of tiny, nondescript events, which ultimately prove detrimental to the progression of inclusion and diversity. This is my rewrite of the Report on the Diversity and Inclusion in Composition Conference, which, in its original form, seen below, referred to classical music, not hip-hop. Europeans are to be allowed nothing of their own, not even a form of music. Britain is diversifying and the classical music industry needs to diversify with it, was the general consensus at Radio 3’s Diversity and Inclusion in Composition conference, which took place at the Royal Northern College of Music on 19 October. The importance of changing the current methods of inclusion of BAME students was made clear by one of the first keynote speakers, Tunde Ogungbesan, head of diversity and inclusion at the BBC. He made the point that increased industry diversity leads to a more productive, creative and innovative society, particularly in relation to the BBC, of which he said ‘we want to be the most creative organisation in the world’. Ogungbesan’s views were reinforced by Vick Bain, CEO of Basca (British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors), as she ascribed the survival of British classical music to the essentiality of diversity within composition. Taking a more urgent tone, composer Eleanor Alberga stated that regular inclusion of BAME composers and young musicians needs to start immediately but also cautioned that we must ‘make sure this is more than another gesture’. The conference included a talk on unconscious bias entitled ‘What does a Classical Composer look like?’ given by Aesha Zafar, head of talent development at BBC North. It started with a short film in which audience members at a classical concert were asked what a composer looked like. A large majority of the audience thought a composer would be male, often with long white/grey hair. This added to Zafar’s idea that unconscious bias is the result of lots of tiny, nondescript events, which ultimately prove detrimental to the progression of inclusion and diversity.

20 States Accuse Generic Drug Companies of Price Fixing - The New York Times

Katie Thomas

A investigation into generic drug prices took its most significant turn yet on Thursday, as state attorneys general accused two industry leaders, Teva Pharmaceuticals and Mylan, and four smaller companies of engaging in brazen schemes — and promised that more charges were coming. A civil complaint filed by 20 states accuses the companies of conspiring to artificially inflate prices on an antibiotic and a diabetes drug, with executives coordinating through informal industry gatherings and personal calls and text messages. Officials said the case was a small example of broader problems in the drug business. “We believe that this is just the tip of the iceberg,” George C. Jepsen, Connecticut’s attorney general, whose office started the inquiry that led to the charges, said in an interview on Thursday. “I stress that our investigation is continuing, and it goes way beyond the two drugs in this lawsuit, and it involves many more companies than are in this lawsuit. ” The accusations, as well as continuing investigations at the state and federal levels, have left a cloud of uncertainty over the industry. While several other big generic drug companies have received subpoenas, it is unclear where the inquiries will eventually lead. The generic drug business is already on the defensive and struggling to recover from a barrage of public criticism in the past year over high prices. The complaint on Thursday describes a cozy industry culture defined by regular dinners and social outings, and argues that those events often cross the line to violate antitrust rules. Generic drug makers hoping to begin selling a new drug first seek out rivals, the suit says, in hopes of reaching an agreement on how to maintain market share and avoid competing on price. “These agreements had the effect of artificially maintaining high prices for a large number of generic drugs and creating an appearance of competition when in fact none existed,” the lawsuit says. Teva, an Israeli drug maker, is the world’s largest manufacturer of generic medicines. Mylan faced intense criticism this year after it sharply raised prices on EpiPen, a severe allergy treatment. The charges filed on Thursday are not related to EpiPen, a branded product that has little competition. Both Teva and Mylan, the suit says, engaged in anticompetitive behavior, but not with each other — coordinating instead with smaller companies. A Teva spokeswoman said, “We have not found evidence that would give rise to any civil or criminal liability. ” A spokeswoman for Mylan offered a similar statement, saying the company knew of “no evidence that Mylan participated in . ” The suit’s focus is two drugs, a form of the antibiotic treatment doxycycline hyclate, and glyburide, a commonly used diabetes drug. The price of doxycycline has surged in recent years, and it was singled out by members of Congress and others as a prime example of unexplained price increases for generic drugs. One form of doxycycline, for example, went from an average market price of $20 for a bottle of 500 pills in October 2013 to an average market price of $1, 849 in April 2014, according to a congressional report. The suit filed by the attorneys general says the investigation began in Connecticut in July 2014 and “uncovered evidence of a broad, and series of schemes to fix the prices and allocate markets for a number of generic pharmaceuticals in the United States. ” On Wednesday, federal prosecutors made similar claims against two former executives at Heritage Pharmaceuticals, a small company, accusing them of engaging in a scheme for the same two drugs. Heritage was also one of the companies named in the complaint on Thursday. That complaint, in Federal District Court in Connecticut, identifies Heritage as the “principal architect and ringleader” of the activities involving the two drugs, and said that employees of the company, including the two former executives, Jeffrey Glazer and Jason Malek, contacted competing companies and sought to make illegal deals over pricing before entering the market for the two drugs. Heritage fired Mr. Glazer, the former chief executive, and Mr. Malek, a former president, in August and is suing the two men, claiming that they “looted” tens of millions of dollars from the company. Heritage, which has said it is cooperating with the authorities, declined to comment on the lawsuit filed Thursday. Other companies named in the suit, including Aurobindo Pharma, Citron Pharma and Mayne Pharma, did not reply to requests for comment. The court actions this week could have wide implications, particularly if, as officials suggest, they are just the beginning. More than 80 percent of all prescriptions dispensed in the United States are for generic drugs, which have been credited with saving consumers and taxpayers billions of dollars by introducing competing products to a drug losing patent protection. “It blows that entire assumption out of the water when you hear that generic companies are getting together to increase prices,” Michael A. Carrier, an antitrust professor at Rutgers Law School, said. The lawsuit, filed by Democratic and Republican attorneys general, portrays a circle of generic drug executives and sales representatives who regularly socialize at conferences and gatherings like golf outings, cocktail parties and “girls’ night out” events in the New Jersey area, where many of the companies are based. But the collegial relationships, while common in many industries, veered into more overt anticompetitive tactics, Mr. Jepsen, Connecticut’s attorney general, said. “It’s very damning,” he said. “It reveals a culture of cronyism where, whether it’s over a game of golf or a dinner or drinks, there’s just systematic cooperation. ” He described the behavior as deliberate. “There’s nothing hidden about it,” he said. In the case of doxycycline, the complaint says that in 2013 Heritage contacted Mylan, the only other maker of a version of the product at the time, and told executives there that Heritage planned to release its own version. According to the complaint, Mylan agreed to “walk away” from at least one major wholesaler and one large pharmacy chain to allow Heritage to gain a foothold in the market. The complaint quotes from emails that are redacted in the publicly available version and that the suit says show how Mylan and Heritage executives hammered out the details. When a third competitor, Mayne, planned to enter the doxycycline market in 2014, it contacted Heritage and Mylan to negotiate details of how prices would be set and customers would be allocated, the suit says. A spokesman for the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, the industry’s lobbying group, declined to comment on the investigation. But he said that the group supports laws that promote competition, and “believes competition is the key to providing affordable and accessible medicines to patients, while also constraining costs. ”

Russian 'Train Surfers' Risk Their Lives for a Unique Thrill - John Hall

Russian 'Train Surfers' Risk Their Lives for a Unique Thrill Russian teenagers have long hitched rides on the back of underground trains travelling through Moscow But some thrill seekers are now taking the craze to new heights - riding on 155mph trains to St Petersburg The teenagers - who usually sport distinctive ski goggles and masks - cling on to the back of train carriages Despite regular reports of youths being electrocuted and killed, the thrill seekers refuse to reign in their hobby Originally appeared at Daily Mail Russian teenagers are risking their lives in a deadly new craze - surfing fast moving inter city trains. It has become a common sight in the capital Moscow to see the youngsters - usually sporting distinctive ski goggles and masks - clinging to the back of underground trains to hitch a free ride. But some thrill seekers are now taking the craze to new heights - mounting the roofs and standing between carriages of St Petersburg-bound locomotives travelling up to 155mph. 2ca20d51 578-3244929-image-a-57_1442936391337.jpg Sunset: It has become a common sight near the capital Moscow to see the youngsters clinging to the back of fast-moving trains Alexander Nomernoy, 18, who regularly risks his life riding the inter city trains, said: 'Even the first time riding a train in this way was not scary. I wouldn't call it extreme in the slightest.' The brazen group of train surfers can be seen waving at the camera in footage as they lie on the roof, clinging on by holding metal jutting from the train's roof. Some even dangle themselves off the side of the carriage as the locomotive gathers pace. Other clips show them sneaking in between carriages at stations before the trains pull away. And despite regular reports in Russian media of youths being electrocuted and killed following mishaps, the thrill seekers refuse to stop their dangerous hobby. 2ca20f97 578-3244929-image-a-77_1442936510512.jpg This Russian teenager clings a carriage as he sits only inches from the floor as the train hits speeds of up to 155mph Speaking of his hobby Mr Nomernoy said: 'I got interested after seeing a TV broadcast about a guy who died train surfing in Moscow underground. I wondered, how is it possible at all to do that? 'Then once when the underground was full of people and I just couldn't get into the train. I needed to get home ASAP, so I decided to give it a try...I jumped on to the back of the train and held on.' More often than not the train surfers go completely undetected, slipping away before authorities know they are even there. 'I actually like riding the long distance trains. It is more dangerous in terms of coming into contact with police to ride the underground - more chances to get caught,' Mr Nomernoy said. 'I have tried many different ways of surfing - trams, trolleybuses, buses, underground trains roof and back...I would love to ride the underground train in different cities,' he added.

Donald Trump Is Sworn In as President, Capping His Swift Ascent - The New York Times

Peter Baker and Michael D. Shear

WASHINGTON — Donald John Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States on Friday, ushering in a new era that he vowed would shatter the established order and reverse a national decline that he called “this American carnage. ” In a ceremony that capped a remarkable rise to power, Mr. Trump presented himself as the leader of a populist uprising to restore lost greatness. He outlined a dark vision of an America afflicted by “the ravages” of economic dislocation and foreign exploitation, requiring his approach to turn around. “I will fight for you with every breath in my body, and I will never, ever let you down,” Mr. Trump told hundreds of thousands of admirers and onlookers in a forceful Inaugural Address from the West Front of the Capitol. “America will start winning again, winning like never before. We will bring back our jobs. We will bring back our borders. We will bring back our wealth. And we will bring back our dreams. ” Mr. Trump’s ascension amounted to a hostile takeover of a capital facing its most significant disruption in generations. While officially a Republican, he has taken on leaders of both parties and, with no prior political career of his own, made clear that he saw himself as the ultimate outsider not beholden to the current system. “We will no longer accept politicians who are all talk and no action, constantly complaining but never doing anything about it,” he said. “The time for empty talk is over. Now arrives the hour of action. Do not allow anyone to tell you that it cannot be done. ” Mr. Trump’s view of the United States was strikingly grim for an Inaugural Address — a country where mothers and children are “trapped in poverty in our inner cities,” where “ factories” are “scattered like tombstones across the landscape” and where drugs and crime “have stolen too many lives. ” “This American carnage,” he declared, “stops right here and stops right now. ” He got started right away with rolling back the policies of his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, by issuing orders freezing new regulations from recent weeks and ordering agencies to “ease the burden” of the Affordable Care Act during the transition from repealing to replacing the law. More orders are planned for next week. Wearing a dark suit and red tie and accompanied by his wife, Melania, in a suit and matching gloves, Mr. Trump took the oath administered by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. precisely at noon. Michael Richard Pence, a former governor and congressman from Indiana, was sworn in minutes before as vice president by Justice Clarence Thomas. Mr. Trump assumed the presidency of a country still unsettled after a polarizing election and entered office with less support in polls than any other president in recent history. It was clear from the day that there would be no grace period either for or by the new president. The Senate confirmed two cabinet nominations — James N. Mattis as defense secretary and John F. Kelly as secretary of homeland security — but Democrats temporarily held up Mike Pompeo’s confirmation as C. I. A. director. Throughout the day, there were mostly peaceful protests against the new president. Sporadic violence broke out as demonstrators smashed shop windows and burned a limousine, while police officers in riot helmets responded with tear gas. More than 200 people were arrested. Liberal groups prepared for a women’s march on Saturday that they said could draw hundreds of thousands. Mr. Trump made only passing efforts to reach out to Democrats beyond thanking Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, for their handling of the transition. “They have been magnificent,” he said in his speech. He later praised his defeated opponent, Hillary Clinton, at a luncheon with congressional leaders, asking her and former President Bill Clinton to stand for applause. “I have a lot of respect for these two people,” he said. Democrats were not impressed. “I was pretty shocked by how dark it was,” Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, said of Mr. Trump’s Inaugural Address. “I love this country, and I don’t understand how a president of the United States that loves his country could paint a picture of its failures. ” He added, “It was interesting sitting up onstage with a bunch of billionaires hearing him say how bad the country was. ” The National Mall was filled with supporters, many wearing “Make America Great Again” hats and chanting “Trump! Trump! Trump!” But the lingering animosity from the presidential campaign was on display, too. When Mrs. Clinton arrived, some in the crowd chanted, “Lock her up,” mimicking Mr. Trump’s campaign rallies. As he took the oath, a cluster of people blew whistles and screamed, “Not my president,” before being escorted out. While large, the crowds on a soggy day did not rival the energetic throngs at Mr. Obama’s first inauguration eight years ago, according to aerial photographs. The Washington Metrorail system recorded fewer than half as many rides on Friday morning as in 2009, and knots of bystanders along the inaugural parade route were not as thick. In a city that gave just 4 percent of its vote to Mr. Trump, many residents left town and about 60 House Democrats boycotted the event. Mr. Obama made his exit after the ceremony, flying by helicopter to Joint Base Andrews in the Maryland suburbs, where he thanked former aides and members of his administration before boarding the presidential jet, no longer designated Air Force One, to fly to Palm Springs, Calif. for vacation. He will return to Washington to a rental house while his daughter Sasha finishes high school, the first president to stay in the capital since Woodrow Wilson. Hours before his departure, Mr. Obama posted on Twitter to thank followers and hint that he would not fade away. “I won’t stop,” he said. “I’ll be right there with you as a citizen, inspired by your voices of truth and justice, good humor, and love. ” Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his wife, Jill, rode an Amtrak train to Delaware and the home they have there. But they, too, planned to return, at least part time, to Washington, where Mrs. Biden teaches at a community college in the Virginia suburbs. The United States has never seen a president quite like Mr. Trump, the son and grandson of immigrants who grew up to become a real estate magnate, casino owner, beauty pageant operator and reality television star whose tumultuous love life played out in the tabloids. Never has the oath been administered to a president who had never served either in public office or as a general in the military. At age 70, Mr. Trump became the oldest president sworn in for the first time and the first born in New York since Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was also one of the wealthiest presidents ever to enter the White House, with business connections that have already raised questions about where his interests end and the country’s begin. He arrived in the Oval Office dogged by reports about Russian interference in the election on his behalf. But Mr. Trump overcame skeptics when he embarked on what seemed like a quixotic bid for the presidency. An Ivy mogul who lives in a New York tower named after himself with an living room, he transformed himself into the unlikely leader of a movement anchored in rural areas far removed from the coasts. His bracing candor, disregard for convention and willingness to offend whole sections of the population to make a point came across as refreshing to many Americans disenchanted with Washington elites. For the nation’s 58th inauguration, though, the untraditional president opted to follow tradition. He and Mrs. Trump, a former model from Slovenia who became the first first lady since John Quincy Adams’s wife, Louisa, started the day with a service at St. John’s Episcopal Church adjacent to Lafayette Square, then joined the Obamas, Bidens and Pences for coffee at the White House. From there, the two presidents shared a limousine to the Capitol, where three other presidents waited: Mr. Clinton, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush, all of whom opposed Mr. Trump’s election. Former President George Bush remained hospitalized in Houston, recovering from pneumonia, but a spokesman said he watched the ceremony on television. Mr. Pence, 57, was sworn in at 11:54 a. m. placing his hand on Ronald Reagan’s Bible, which was held by his wife, Karen, as their three adult children, Michael, Charlotte and Audrey, watched. For his oath, Mr. Trump placed his hand on two Bibles held by his wife, one given him by his mother in 1955 just before his ninth birthday and another used by Abraham Lincoln in 1861 and again by Mr. Obama in 2009 and 2013. Standing nearby were his adult children from two previous marriages, Donald Jr. Eric, Ivanka and Tiffany. Also there was Barron, his son with the first lady. Joining them was Ivanka’s husband, Jared Kushner, who will serve as an unpaid senior adviser. As Mr. Trump approached the podium, rain began to fall. It was not a conventionally Republican speech, with nothing about tax cuts or restraining government. Instead, he laid out a protectionist agenda, saying his rule will be “buy American and hire American. ” He did pledge to “eradicate from the face of the Earth” Islamic terrorism. Responding to charges that he demonized Mexicans and Muslims, Mr. Trump said, “There is no room for prejudice. ” Mr. Trump said the inauguration was not merely the transfer of power from one president to another. “We are transferring power from Washington, D. C. and giving it back to you, the people,” he said. “For too long,” he continued, “a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost. Washington flourished but the people did not share in the wealth. ” He added, “That all changes starting right here and right now. ”

Michael Flynn Is Harsh Judge of C.I.A.’s Role - The New York Times

Matthew Rosenberg

WASHINGTON — Long before Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn became Donald J. Trump’s choice for national security adviser, he believed that the Central Intelligence Agency had become a political tool of the Obama administration — a view now echoed by the in his mocking dismissals of C. I. A. assessments that Russia sought to tip the election in Mr. Trump’s favor. “They’ve lost sight of who they actually work for,” Mr. Flynn said in an interview with The New York Times in October 2015. “They work for the American people. They don’t work for the president of the United States. ” He added, speaking of the agency’s leadership: “Frankly, it’s become a very political organization. ” Mr. Flynn’s assessment that the C. I. A. is a political arm of the Obama administration is not widely shared by Republicans or Democrats in Washington. But it has appeared to have been internalized by the one person who matters most right now: Mr. Trump. In the past few days, Mr. Trump has sought to portray reports of the agency’s assessments that Russia actively tried to interfere in the election as a desperate attempt by sore losers to taint his presidency before it begins. His denigration of C. I. A. officials as “the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction” has opened up an extraordinary rift between the and the nation’s intelligence community that is unlikely to be bridged anytime soon. Although it is unclear how much Mr. Flynn, 57, is responsible for Mr. Trump’s response to the C. I. A. assessment, during the presidential campaign he had substantial influence on the . He brought to the campaign views on Muslims and national security that tended to hew far closer to the fringes than the mainstream of the Republican Party. Mr. Flynn also appears to have helped set the tone for Mr. Trump’s testy relationship with the intelligence community. In August, when the Trump campaign received its first intelligence briefing, Mr. Flynn was so combative with the briefers that another person in the room had to urge him to settle down, according to a person familiar with the episode who was told about it in confidence. On any number of issues — from the Obama administration’s failure to foresee the rise of the Islamic State to Mr. Flynn’s ouster as chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the intelligence arm of the Defense Department — he has made it clear in recent years that he sees the political hand of the C. I. A. at work. As director of the D. I. A. from 2012 to 2014, he pushed hard for his agency, long treated as by the C. I. A. to be given greater access to the trove of documents and other materials seized during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011. The C. I. A. controlled the material, and Mr. Flynn became convinced that the agency was refusing to share or declassify much of it because of fears that it would undermine the administration’s narrative about Al Qaeda’s waning strength at the time Bin Laden was killed. “It’s all political with” the C. I. A. leadership, Mr. Flynn said in the 2015 interview, which focused on the rise of the Islamic State and American national security. “If they put out what we knew, then the president could have not said, in a national election, ‘Al Qaeda’s on the run and we’ve killed Bin Laden,’” he said, referring to Mr. Obama’s 2012 campaign. “Even today, he talks about Bin Laden as though that was a stroke of genius. ” Mr. Flynn also questioned the decision to kill Bin Laden. “Killing Bin Laden was the wrong thing to do,” he said. “They could have captured him. ” In killing Bin Laden, he said, “we created a new version of Allah. ” “What we should have done is shown him to be a decrepit old guy, put him in a freaking cage, in a cell, and put him on trial,” Mr. Flynn added. “Make it a big messy trial, make it global. ” Mr. Flynn has also said that the C. I. A. at the urging of the White House, was playing down warnings from the D. I. A. about the resurgence of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which would later become the Islamic State. “I’m telling you, the C. I. A. has a lot to reflect on because of this,” he said. A number of current and former officials dispute Mr. Flynn’s account, saying concerns about the resurgence of Islamist militants in the midst of Syria’s civil war were widespread in the intelligence community. Mr. Flynn, who was fired from the D. I. A. after serving only two years of a appointment, has described his dismissal as an act of political retribution by the C. I. A. and Obama administration officials who did not want to hear what he was saying. Other officials, including some with direct knowledge of the decision to dismiss Mr. Flynn, said he was forced out for a more straightforward reason: He was not a good manager, and his efforts to reform the agency left it in chaos. It was not Mr. Flynn’s first with the civilian intelligence community. The ill will stretches back years, current and former officials said, and it transformed into open hostility when Mr. Flynn was running military intelligence under Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal in Afghanistan. In January 2010, after less than a year on the job, Mr. Flynn released a paper, “Fixing Intel,” that was highly critical of American intelligence work in Afghanistan. It bluntly stated that “the U. S. intelligence community is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy,” and said that it had only itself to blame because it had failed to understand Afghanistan’s cultural complexities. The paper was widely praised in defense circles as insightful. But at the C. I. A. officials were furious at what they saw as a direct attack on the aptitude and professionalism of the roughly 1, 000 agency personnel who were serving in Afghanistan at the time. They were also incensed at the timing of the paper, which became public five days after a suicide attack that killed seven C. I. A. officers at a base in eastern Afghanistan. Mr. Flynn’s searing critique was seen at the agency as the height of insensitivity. Mr. Flynn has been unapologetic about his views of not only the C. I. A. but other national security agencies, including the D. I. A. under his leadership. “They’ve really been lying to the American public,” he said in the interview, referring to the Obama administration and much of the national security and intelligence establishment. “The Department of Defense and those of us that have allowed this sort of a happy talk — ‘We’re moving in the right direction, things are working.’ It’s not. The Taliban are going to come back into power, or ISIS is going to come back into power. ”

A ‘Heat Dome’ Is Coming. Domes Are Bad. - The New York Times

Andy Newman

We are domed. Or will be, at any rate, very soon. In case you have not heard, a weather phenomenon called a “heat dome” is creeping across the country and is due to arrive in New York City just in time for the weekend. On paper, the heat dome will not be much different from “a stretch of hot, sticky days. ” It will be in the low 90s or the on Friday, depending on which forecast you believe, and definitely muggy. It will be slightly hotter than that on Saturday, and then very slightly cooler during the week but still humid. But the weather people are calling it a dome. And domes are almost always bad. There’s Mad Max’s Thunderdome, where gladiators died. There’s the Houston Astrodome, one of the nation’s largest abandoned buildings — too big and expensive to be blown up. No one can figure out what to do with it. In England, there was the Domesday Book, compiled by order of William the Conqueror. It was basically a gigantic ’s list. His subjects hated it. And there’s the Public Enemy song “Welcome to the Terrordome,” which is a good song but it’s about a pretty situation. A heat wave is just passing through. Wave hi! A dome sits there. And unless it is a stately you probably do not want to be stuck inside it. Look what happened to the people in the Stephen King novel and resulting TV series “Under the Dome. ” In New York, “heat dome” brings to mind the steel climbing domes that were installed in Brooklyn Bridge Park in 2010. They heated up in the sun. A lot. Toddlers got burned. There were lawsuits. The whole thing was a disaster. With this heat dome, the city is actually escaping the worst of it. The country’s midsection is getting domed something fierce. The heat index could hit the in places like St. Louis and Oklahoma City, part of an area covering 40 million people that was under a heat alert on Wednesday. That is no joke. There have been further reports of a mass stalled over Cleveland all week. That is a joke. So what, exactly, is a heat dome? It is essentially a bubble of high pressure that sits in the to upper atmosphere and pushes warm air down toward the ground. The approaching one is notable for its size. Another thing you should know about the dome: Because it is a mass, the air flows clockwise around it, so at the back of the air mass — like from 6 to 9 on a clock — the air flow is from south to north. So as the heat dome moves east across the country, it brings up hot, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico. In the Midwest, the heat dome’s effects will be compounded by an phenomenon called “corn sweat. ” Corn sweat is the release of water from plant leaves into the air, also known as transpiration. That makes it even muggier. Like a jungle, except it’s a corn field. New York City has only a couple of very small corn fields, so we’re good on that. But we are an urban heat island, a place where streets and buildings, and pollution, and all the people jammed together, can make it feel even hotter. Domed if you do, domed if you don’t. There’s no escape.

FBI reopens Clinton investigation as new emails found

The European Union Times

The FBI has learned of more emails involving Hillary Clinton’s private email server while she headed the State Department, FBI Director James Comey told several members of Congress, telling them he is reopening the investigation. “In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has learned of the existence of email that appear to be pertinent” to Clinton’s investigation, Comey wrote to the chairs of several relevant congressional committees, adding that he was briefed about the messages on Thursday. “I agree that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.” The FBI director cautioned, however, that the bureau has yet to assess the importance of the material, and that he doesn’t know how long that will take. The Clinton campaign has yet to comment, but an aide told CNN: “We’re learning about this just like you all are.” Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine was asked about Comey’s letter while campaigning at an early voting site in Tallahassee, Florida. “Gotta read a little more, gotta read a little more,” he told reporters. Representative Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia), chair of the House Judiciary Committee, praised the decision to reopen the case. “Now that the FBI has reopened the matter, it must conduct the investigation with impartiality and thoroughness,” he said in a statement. “The American people deserve no less and no one should be above the law.” Almost 15,000 new Clinton emails were discovered in September, but it’s unclear if the announced investigation relates to them or other correspondence. The newly discovered emails are not related to Wikileaks or the Clinton Foundation, law enforcement sources told CNN’s Evan Perez. The messages were not found on the private email server in the Clintons’ New York residence, a government source told Reuters. The emails were apparently discovered as part of the sexting probe into former Representative Anthony Weiner (D-New York), the New York Times reported. His electronic devices, as well as those belonging to his wife, senior Clinton aide Huma Abedin, were seized during that investigation. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) renewed his call for Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to “suspend all classified briefings for Secretary Clinton until this matter is fully resolved.” “Yet again, Hillary Clinton has nobody but herself to blame,” Ryan said in a statement. “This decision, long overdue, is the result of her reckless use of a private email server, and her refusal to be forthcoming with federal investigators.” Kellyanne Conway, Republican nominee Donald Trump’s campaign manager, applauded the decision. “That is superb. That is extraordinary news for the American people,” she told Yahoo News. “A great day in our campaign just got even better,” she tweeted. “They are reopening the case into her criminal and illegal conduct that threatens the security of the United States,” Trump said in Manchester, New Hampshire, 10 minutes after learning about the reopening of the case. “We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office.” “I have great respect for the fact that the FBI and the Department of Justice have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made,” he said. “This was a grave miscarriage of justice that the American people fully understand, and it is everybody’s hope that it is about to be corrected.” “With that being said, the rest of my speech is going to be so boring. Should I even make the speech?” he joked before turning to his prepared remarks. The “FBI reopening investigation isn’t an October surprise, it’s an October nuclear explosion,” conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro wrote as part of a tweetstorm, adding that “Comey [is] trying to cover his a** 11 days before [the] election” and wondering if a “pre-emptive impeachment of a president elect” is possible because “the odds on President Tim Kaine just rose substantially.” An ‘October Surprise‘ is a major event that happens in the month before the election that affects the outcome of the vote. In response to the announcement, the Democratic Coalition Against Trump filed a complaint with the Department of Justice against Comey. “It is absolutely absurd that FBI Director Comey would support Donald Trump like this with only 11 days to go before the election,” Scott Dworkin, senior advisor to the Democratic Coalition Against Trump, said in a statement. “It is an obvious attack from a lifelong Republican who used to serve in the Bush White House, just to undermine her campaign. Comey needs to focus on stopping terrorists and protecting America, not investigating our soon to be President-Elect Hillary Clinton.” Stocks fell after Comey’s announcement, CNBC reported. Source

Threats to Jewish Centers ‘Are Not Isolated Incidents,’ Senators Say - The New York Times

Jess Bidgood

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. — As Tuesday brought another round of threats against Jewish institutions, the nation’s senators urged the Trump administration to take quick action to curb the episodes, which have left Jewish community centers deeply unsettled. “It has become clear that threats of violence against individual JCCs are not isolated incidents,” said the letter, which was signed by all 100 senators and addressed to the attorney general, Jeff Sessions the secretary of homeland security, John Kelly and the director of the F. B. I. James B. Comey. “We are concerned that the number of incidents is accelerating,” putting people at risk and threatening the centers, the letter said. The F. B. I. has been investigating, and last week, a St. Louis man, Juan Thompson, was charged with cyberstalking and accused of making at least eight of the threats nationwide. The authorities believe that Mr. Thompson, 31, was trying to harass his by pinning the threats on her. Tuesday’s round of calls, to 15 Jewish organizations in the United States and Canada, was the sixth since the beginning of the year. In all, 110 institutions have received 140 bomb threats, the League said. The threats, along with vandalism at Jewish cemeteries and graffiti of swastikas reported around the country, have raised concerns about a new round of . While President Trump has condemned the episodes, some critics argue that they are an outgrowth of the vitriol of last year’s presidential campaign, and of Mr. Trump’s tone during it. “We think it’s long overdue for the Department of Justice to announce a fully resourced criminal investigation into these crimes,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the League. “I mean, these are hate crimes. ” Five day schools received threats on Tuesday, and Mr. Greenblatt said it was troubling that the perpetrators were disrupting such institutions. “It is inconvenient and uncomfortable when a bomb threat’s called into our office,” he said. “It’s much more concerning when preschool children are evacuated from their classrooms, or elderly patients are wheeled out of their rehab programs, or teens are whisked out of our programs. ” At the MetroWest Jewish Day School in Framingham, Mass. which shares a building with the Temple Beth Sholom synagogue on a hillside about 23 miles west of Boston, the threat interrupted Pajama Day. Students had already filed into class, wearing cozy pants and slippers, with many looking forward to lunchtime because it was the one day of the month when the kosher kitchen offered meat: chicken nuggets, served with fries and vegetables. But the day took a dark turn when, at 9:46 a. m. a staff member picked up the phone and heard what seemed to be a recorded warning about a bomb. “We evacuated all the kids,” said Scott Sokol, the head of the school and a cantor at the synagogue. “We told the kids initially it was a fire drill, obviously not to get them all concerned. ” The students swapped their slippers for shoes, found their coats and went outside, where they waited in the chilly morning air for buses to whisk them to another school nearby. “We were prepared, unfortunately, for this call,” Mr. Sokol said. “We were not exactly expecting it, but not surprised that it happened. ” After dogs cleared the building, the students returned for a long recess and their chicken nuggets. Mr. Sokol was preparing to explain why they had really evacuated. “I’d rather not lie to them about a fire drill,” Mr. Sokol said, “but I do want them to feel safe and secure in the building, which they are. ”

Hillary’s DONE After Announcing Potential Cabinet Member, Try Not To Vomit

Robert Rich

Hillary’s DONE After Announcing Potential Cabinet Member, Try Not To Vomit Posted on November 1, 2016 by Robert Rich in Politics Share This With her numbers tanking, Hillary Clinton is desperate for any vote that she can get. Proving just that, she just floated an idea for a potential cabinet member, but it could actually end her once and for all. At this point, it’s clear that Hillary isn’t in control of her own campaign. If she was, she would have buried herself a long time ago. As we continue to get glimpses of her crooked behavior that she tries to keep behind the curtain, it doesn’t take too much of a genius to know that she doesn’t really have any good ideas of her own. Hillary Clinton Proving just that is a potential cabinet member she floated during an interview with Extra . As she didn’t have her strategists whispering in her ear at the time, telling her when to shut up and when to speak, she actually stated that she would love to have Michelle Obama as a part of her team . Michelle Obama is a nobody outside of being married to a president. She’s been nothing more than a freeloader for the past 8 years who has done literally nothing but make the lives of the American people a living hell. Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama Despite Michelle’s failed legacies and lackadaisical tendencies, Hillary still thought that she would make a great addition to her team. Then again, both Hillary and Michelle have a taste for the finer things in life and enjoy the fruits of everyone else’s labor. When directly asked if she would like Michelle in her cabinet, Hillary simply stated : “She’s made it pretty clear she wants to focus on important issues like girls’ education around the world – she and I actually talked about it when we were together in Winston-Salem – and I want to be the best partner I can be for whenever she wants to be involved in government again.” However, that wasn’t quite the end of the thought process as she next went against what President Barack Obama said in that Michelle wasn’t interested in the slightest when it came to furthering herself in the political realm. “I think she wants to take a break from it, but if she ever wants to do anything like that, I would be the number-one person,” Hillary said. “Well, I don’t know how anybody could have done what she’s done for the last eight years with more grace and more of a sense of purpose but inclusivity.” Hillary’s sentiments become laughable when she hints to the idea that Michelle actually did anything. Think long and hard about what she did and you’ll come up with nothing. Her lunch policy only left kids hungry and unsatisfied before failing overall when schools systematically began to reject her mandate. Michelle and Barack Obama Making sure girls are taught everywhere? Well, all we saw was Michelle flying around the globe and taking several vacations while demanding other countries change their ways. Beyond the fact that this does absolutely nothing for the American people (and actually hurts them on account of the cost associated with the several trips), it only ticked people off and made Americans look pretty stupid. Of course, this would be a “smart” choice for Hillary seeing how blind leftists love and support Michelle for some reason. However, all it really equates to are a few more votes in her pocket as she panders to the audience of someone else. Basically, Hillary is trying to whore Michelle out. I wonder how she feels about that.

Strategic Culture

abb

Donald Trump and Potential Russia-West Break Points The state of challenged Russia-West (especially US-Russia) relations is something questioned by Western realists and some alternative others. Donald Trump made it to the US presidency, despite saying some things that run counter to the biases against Russia, evident in the American political establishment...

Israel snubs UNESCO's Temple Mount resolution with ancient Jerusalem papyrus

44 UTC © Ronen Zvulun/Reuters Israel presented an ancient fragment of text in Hebrew referencing Jerusalem and recalled its ambassador to UNESCO in a gesture of protest against a resolution which criticized Israel for restricting Muslims' access to a holy site in the city. The text, written on a 11cm by 2.5cm papyrus, was dated by the Israel Antiquities Authority to the 7th century BCE and was said to be the earliest Hebrew reference to Jerusalem outside of the Bible. "From the king's maidservant, from Na'arat, jars of wine, to Jerusalem," read the two lines of script. Archeologists believe it to be document detailing payment of taxes or transfer of goods. "Hey UNESCO, an ancient papyrus dating to the 1st Temple 2700 yrs ago has been found. It bears the oldest known mention of Jerusalem in Hebrew," Ofir Gendelman, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wrote on Twitter. The official's jab was directed at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, which earlier on Wednesday passed a controversial resolution criticizing Israel for its handling of the holy site in Jerusalem called Temple Mount by Jews and Haram al-Sharif by Muslims. The resolution was adopted after heated debate over its wording, and particularly the Arabic names used in the document. Israel accused UNESCO and its Arab members of trying to undermine Jewish connections to the holy site. In response to the move, Israel also recalled its ambassador to UNESCO for consultations, while Netanyahu called the situation a "theatre of the absurd." "We'll decide what to do, what our next steps will be," toward the organization, the Israeli PM added. Temple Mount is administered by the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, a religious institution under the auspices of the Jordanian crown, which is responsible for managing rights of visitation and worship, management and repairs under the so-called Status Quo agreement. Israel has controlled East Jerusalem since 1967 and officially annexed it in 1980, though the move has not been recognized by the international community. Israeli authorities have been increasing security in the area recently, occasionally blocking access to the Al-Aqsa mosque and sparking outrage among the Muslim worshipers. The conflict over the holy site and the perception that Israel was trying to change the status quo is seen as a major factor in the latest spree of knife violence by Arabs against Jews. Although the UNESCO resolution removed multiple references to Israel's "occupation" of east Jerusalem and the Old City from the original draft, the softened text did not address all of Israel's complaints. The conflict is aggravated by the fact that many Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be capital of their national state, while Israel considers the entire city its own capital.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Exploring Legal Challenge to Trump Travel Ban - Breitbart

Ben Kew

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is considering making a legal challenge to President Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily halting immigration from seven countries amid the tide of hysteria in reaction to the order. [In an email to Amazon’s employees, many of whom work in notoriously challenging conditions, Bezos said, “America is a nation of immigrants whose diverse backgrounds, ideas, and points of view have helped us build and invent as a nation for over 240 year. To our employees in the US and around the world who may be directly affected by this order, I want you to know that the full extent of Amazon’s resources are behind you. ” “We reached out to congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle to explore legislative options. Our legal team has prepared a declaration of support for the Washington state attorney general who will be filing suit against the order. We are working other legal options as well,” he continued. Amazon is one of a number of technology companies to oppose the executive order on immigration over terrorism concerns, signed by Trump last Friday. Companies such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Netflix have all publicly condemned the order, whilst promoting the impact of mass immigration on their businesses. Jeff Bezos was a prominent critic of Donald Trump during the presidential campaign, assembling a team of 20 people at his newspaper the Washington Post to investigate every aspect of Trump’s past. Meanwhile, Trump attacked Bezos, saying that Amazon had a “huge antitrust problem” whilst “getting away with murder” on corporation tax. The editorial board of the Washington Post also called in 2016 for an influx of illegal immigrants to fill jobs in America. Following Trump’s election in November, Bezos met with Trump alongside a range of Silicon Valley executives to discuss the future of the technology industry under the new administration. Earlier this month, Bezos promised to create over 100, 000 permanent new jobs in the United States. You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com

Marijuana Arrests Outnumber Those for Violent Crimes, Study Finds - The New York Times

Timothy Williams

Arrests for possessing small amounts of marijuana exceeded those for all violent crimes last year, a new study has found, even as social attitudes toward the drug have changed and a number of cities and states have legalized its use or decriminalized small quantities. And a disproportionate number of those arrested are who smoke marijuana at rates similar to whites but are arrested and prosecuted far more often for having small amounts for personal use, according to the study. The arrests can overwhelm court systems. Dianne Jones, 45, who was arrested in New Orleans in 2014 on charges of having a small bag of marijuana, spent 10 days in jail because she could not put up a $2, 500 bond. She was able to get enough money together only after her daughter sold the family’s television set at a pawnshop for $200. Later, when Ms. Jones, who is was unable to pay fees and fines, a judge issued a warrant for her arrest. With marijuana use on the rise, law enforcement agencies made 574, 641 arrests last year for small quantities of the drug intended for personal use, according to the report, which was released Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch. The marijuana arrests were about 13. 6 percent more than the 505, 681 arrests made for all violent crimes, including murder, rape and serious assaults. The report comes in the wake of the fatal police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott last month in Charlotte, N. C. Mr. Scott, 43, had attracted police attention in part because, the police said, he was smoking marijuana. The report is the latest study to highlight the disparate treatment often receive in the criminal justice system, including disproportionate numbers of blacks who are sent to jail when they are unable to pay fees, or stopped by the police during traffic stops or while riding bicycles. People arrested for marijuana possession or other minor crimes often have a more difficult time finding work, including Cory, 31, who declined to give his last name out of concern his comments could affect his parole. He said in an interview that he had failed to find a job after 14 months in a Louisiana prison for his fifth offense involving a small quantity of drugs. He said he had been turned down by a restaurant because of his marijuana conviction, as well as at the restaurant where he worked before his last arrest as a fry cook and dishwasher. “I’ve kind of stopped trying,” said Cory, who is . Tess Borden, a fellow at Human Rights Watch and the A. C. L. U. who wrote the report, found that despite the steep decline in crime rates over the last two decades — including a 36 percent drop in violent crime arrests from 1995 to 2015 — the number of arrests for all drug possessions, including marijuana, increased 13 percent. The emphasis on making marijuana arrests is worrisome, Ms. Borden said. “Most people don’t think drug possession is the No. 1 public safety concern, but that’s what we’re seeing,” she said. Criminologists say that are arrested more often than whites and others for drug possession in large part because of questionable police practices. Police departments, for example, typically send large numbers of officers to neighborhoods that have high crime rates. A result is that any offense — including minor ones like loitering, jaywalking or smoking marijuana — can lead to an arrest, which in turn drives up arrest rate statistics, leading to even greater police vigilance. “It is selective enforcement, and the example I like to use is that you have all sorts of drug use inside elite college dorms, but you don’t see the police busting through doors,” said Inimai M. Chettiar, director of the Justice Program at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. may also be more apt to face arrest, according to researchers, because they might be more likely to smoke marijuana outdoors, attracting the attention of the police. The report, which advocates the decriminalization of small quantities of illegal drugs intended for personal use, found that while whites are more likely than blacks to use illicit drugs — including marijuana, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and prescription drugs for nonmedical purposes — black adults were more than times as likely to be arrested. In terms of marijuana possession, black adults were more than four times as likely to be arrested as white adults in the 39 states in which sufficient data was available, according to the report. The disparities, the analysis found, persist whether there are few or many in a given area. In Iowa, Montana and Vermont — places with relatively small populations of — blacks were more than six times as likely to be arrested on drug possession charges than whites. In Manhattan, where blacks make up about 15 percent of the population, are nearly 11 times as likely as whites to be arrested on drug possession, according to the report. Ms. Jones, who was arrested in New Orleans with a $10 bag of marijuana, said the warrant for her arrests had been dismissed only after a community group for which she is a volunteer raised the remaining $155 of the $834 she owed the court. “What happened to me shouldn’t happen to anybody,” she said.