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Dem Rep Jeffries: ’We’re in the Midst of a Constitutional Crisis,’ Comey Firing an ’Urgent Threat to Democracy’ - Breitbart

Trent Baker

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries ( ) said Saturday in an interview on MSNBC that the country was in the “midst of a constitutional crisis,” and added that President Donald Trump’s decision last week to fire FBI Director James Comey was “an urgent threat to our democracy. ” “We are in the midst of a constitutional crisis — the likes of which we have not seen in this country since the days of Watergate and Richard Nixon,” Jeffries argued. “The firing of [James Comey] who was overseeing a criminal investigation to implicate the president of the United States is an urgent threat to our democracy, our way of life and our values. ” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent

From a Wedding Writer’s Notebook, 10 Views on Love - The New York Times

Lois Smith Brady

When writing for the weddings pages of The New York Times — which I have done since 1992, at first on a weekly basis and now occasionally — the job is to walk into a room full of strangers and collect the best descriptions you can find about love and marriage, mostly love. It isn’t easy. For one thing, people sense a stranger in their midst as acutely as a herd of gazelles might, and they tend to scatter, or stare from a distance in a menacing way. Over the years, I have filled many spiral notebooks with quotations. On the subject of love, clichés are hard to avoid. I have heard, “ are like two pieces of a puzzle,” or “It was to be” thousands of times, or that’s how it feels anyway. Occasionally, though, people say something original and sparkly about love, and as a reporter, I want to hug them. It’s like finding a diamond in the sand. As a sort of to all of those whom I have written about, and those whom I have written for, here are 10 of those jewels: 1. “In a sense, the person we marry is a stranger about whom we have a magnificent hunch. ” This is my favorite quotation about marriage, spoken during a 1992 wedding in a small, unheated chapel in Cold Spring, N. Y. and sourced from the 1991 book “Weddings From the Heart” by Daphne Rose Kingma. In its own way, the quotation also explains a lot about divorce. 2. This remark, from a Vows column about the 1995 wedding of Elizabeth Burbank and LaMott Britto, describes how it feels to finally find a partner: “I’ve always felt like a fish out of water, and when I met LaMott it was like he was the same fish. ” 3. According to Stacy Cor, who became engaged to Dan Polner 10 days after they met on an airplane in 1993, examination should not be necessary to determine if love is real. “When you know you know, and don’t believe it any other way,” she said. “When someone asks you to marry them, you shouldn’t have to make a list of pros and cons. You just know. You jump into their arms and say, ‘Yeah! ’” 4. For some, “knowing” is not so obvious. This is how Patricia Durkin knew Kenneth Wignall, whom she would marry in 1995, was right for her: “One night, a moth was flying around a light bulb and he caught it and let it out the window. I said: ‘That’s it. He’s the guy. ’” This quotation also speaks to the fruitlessness of trying to impress someone with a certain look, attribute, political affiliation or apartment décor. The things that spark attention and interest are often mysteries, even to ourselves. So throw out the list. 5. When brides and grooms describe their first or second meetings, they often say they feel as if they have known each other forever, possibly even in former lives. “I feel like Sean and I have known each other since the beginning of time,” Meghan Milewski said of Sean Yeaton, whom she married in 2013. “I always tell him, ‘After we die, we have to find each other in our next life.’ I also tell him if I die before him, I really want him to fall in love again. But in our next lifetime, he has to find me, not her. That’s the deal. ” 6. Sometimes, you only learn what love is by breaking up. Before Eames Yates and Pamela Taylor were married in 2006 in Snowmass, Colo. they separated for a period of time that was especially excruciating for Mr. Yates. It was also illuminating: “I now know what love is,” he said. “It’s when someone becomes part of every breath, in what way I do not know. But I couldn’t breathe without her. ” 7. Billboards and big diamonds are not necessary for proposals to be romantic. This is how Gabriela Power Porto described the marriage proposal Peter Castaldi put forth, more than two decades ago, one of the sweetest I ever heard: “When he gave me the ring, he said: ‘It’s not a big stone you can’t carry around. This ring won’t put you in danger on the subways.’ He said, ‘This is a solid ring, like my promises. ’” 8. How should you feel on your wedding day? There are no rules, but this is how Ryan Baker described the day of his 1995 wedding to Brett Savage: “It was like a dream. It was surreal. In life, you don’t have to search for bad things — they find you without a problem. Disasters always seem to know your address, even if you move. But the good times, they’re hard to find, and this one was one of those truly spectacular times. ” 9. Of all the homemade vows I’ve heard, one spoken by Melissa Richard during her 1996 wedding to Frank J. Oteri sums up the reason we continue to marry, against the odds: “Of my own accord, I present myself, my days, my nights and my life. I present them freely and willingly because they cannot be better spent than in your company. ” More than a few couples I’ve interviewed have described love as a good conversation that lasts. 10. However, nothing lasts forever (unless you believe in reincarnation). The Rev. William G. Kalaidjian, who was known as Reverend Bill and died in 2015, was the officiant at one of the first weddings I covered, in 1992. He lived in a house full of noisy clocks. “I like to hear the tick, tick, tick of clocks,” he said. “I always tell the couples I marry, ‘Take time before time takes you. ’”

JUDICIAL WATCH: MORE CLINTON-ABEDIN EMAIL EXCHANGES OF CLASSIFIED INFORMATION ON UNSECURE SERVER

Iron Sheik

Sent: Sun Oct 25 [11:49:45] 2009 Subject: Re: Honduras Sounds good. There will be those who take a hard line on the elections, but perhaps some fence-sitting countries could be persuaded on conditional recognition. I’ll flag it for Tom and Craig. From: H Sent: Mon Oct 26 07:27:12 2009 Subject: Fw: Honduras All of this did not print last night, It stopped after Fourth! [Redacted due to information “kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy;” “foreign relations or foreign activities of the US, including confidential sources”] From: Huma Abedin [Huma@clintonemail.com] Sent: Monday, October 26, 2009 8:06:12 AM To: humaabedin [Redacted] Subject: Fw: Honduras The emails also include an exchange between Abedin, Clinton personal assistant Lauren Jiloty, and Iris Anaya, the assistant to sugar magnate and Clinton Foundation donor Alfonso Fanjul concerning a request for special access to Clinton. On October 13, 2009, Anaya emailed Abedin seeking to arrange a meeting between Fanjul, the CEO of Florida Crystals, and Clinton. Jiloty responded the next day, asking that Anaya talk with Clinton scheduler Lona Valmoro about “setting up a meeting.” Fanjul donated more than $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation and was a Bill Clinton co-chairman in Florida. In an October 26, 2009, email exchange, power attorney and Hillary Clinton financial supporter, Charlie Ann Syprett, contacted Doug Band, apparently seeking help in getting around U.S. Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) restrictions on U.S. citizens’ ability to travel to Cuba. Syprett ostensibly wanted a waiver from the restrictions to enable people from her organization, SYC Charitable Foundation, to travel to Cuba, noting “we are not asking for something out of the ordinary.” The emails also show that Valmoro sent Clinton’s government schedule to the unsecure email addresses of numerous members of the Clinton Foundation staff on October 16, 2009, again on October 18, 2009, and on October 25, 2009. The emails also include discussions of personnel matters and appointments on Clinton’s unsecure account, which may run afoul of federal privacy law. This is the thirteenth set of records produced for Judicial Watch by the State Department from the non-state.gov email accounts of Huma Abedin. The documents were produced under a court order in a May 5, 2015, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the State Department requiring the agency to produce “all emails of official State Department business received or sent by former Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin from January 1, 2009 through February 1, 2013, using a ‘non-state’.gov email address” ( Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:15-cv-00684)). Previous records releases documented special Clinton State Department consideration for Clinton Foundation supporters (see here , here , and here .) “We’ve once again uncovered classified information in Hillary Clinton’s and Huma Abedin’s emails,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “It is frankly remarkable that the FBI and Justice Department are only now investigating Abedin’s connection to Clinton’s mishandling of classified information.” Post navigation

Captions?

Paul

Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. Security Question: What is 4 + 13 ? Please leave these two fields as-is: IMPORTANT! To be able to proceed, you need to solve the following simple math (so we know that you are a human) :-) Doom and Bloom

For Andrew Puzder, Labor Nominee, Fighting for Owners’ Interests Began Early - The New York Times

Russ Buettner and Noam Scheiber

Decades before President Trump nominated him to be labor secretary, Andrew Puzder went to battle with federal labor regulators in a Las Vegas courtroom. The year was 1983, and Mr. Puzder was working at a law firm owned by a famous mob lawyer and casino owner whom the Labor Department accused of squandering $25 million from his union workers’ pension funds on sham investments. It fell to Mr. Puzder to lead the defense, which he framed in aggressively antigovernment terms. In his opening statement, Mr. Puzder told the jury it was not his boss’s fault for not paying back the money — it was overzealous regulators in Washington who had killed off a good business deal by intervening before his investments could succeed, he said. “We should not be required to pay for the mistakes of the Department of Labor” and the union, Mr. Puzder said, according to The Las Vegas . The jury did not buy it. Mr. Puzder’s boss, Morris A. Shenker, was hit with a $34 million judgment and filed for bankruptcy. More than three decades later, the lawyers who represented the Labor Department in the case recall Mr. Puzder as bright and capable, but they still marvel that he blamed government regulators. “I personally find there is some irony in him being nominated to be the secretary of labor,” said Daly D. E. Temchine, the lead lawyer in the case for the Department of Labor. “Back then, he represented a guy who thought it was O. K. to screw his employees. ” As it turned out, Mr. Puzder’s arguments in the case foreshadowed positions he would take after leaving the practice of law to become chief executive of a company. He has repeatedly argued that labor regulations stifle economic growth. He has indicated his preference for machines over people because they do not take time off or file lawsuits. And a recording recently surfaced of him referring to his employees as “the best of the worst. ” Because he was a lawyer representing a client, the positions that Mr. Puzder took in the case do not necessarily represent his personal views. But Mr. Shenker was more than just a client: He was also Mr. Puzder’s first boss, one he chose to work for, an associate said, specifically because it gave him the chance to litigate this case and a second similar one. Mr. Puzder declined to comment for this article, but upon nominating him in December, Mr. Trump said Mr. Puzder would “fight to make American workers safer” and “save small businesses from the crushing burdens of unnecessary regulations that are stunting job growth. ” Worker advocates have opposed Mr. Puzder’s nomination, citing lawsuits that workers filed against CKE Restaurants, the parent company of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, as well as wage violations at those restaurants. Mr. Puzder is chief executive of CKE. His confirmation hearing before a Senate committee has been delayed four times. His spokesman said Mr. Puzder, 66, was working to divest from his company. “He doesn’t view laws and regulations as things that help protect the most vulnerable from exploitation. He looks at them as things that hinder him from doing what he wants to do,” said Judy Conti, who oversees federal advocacy for the National Employment Law Project. “That’s antithetical to the mission of the Department of Labor. ” Mr. Shenker led a life fit for the movies. A Jew, he fled Russia as an orphaned teenager in the 1920s to join his older brothers in St. Louis. He went on to become one of the lawyers in America. He was also a mob lawyer. In his thick accent, Mr. Shenker sometimes said he would rather see a guilty man go free than an innocent man go to jail. But his work on behalf of organized crime figures went beyond the courtroom. Through one of his most notorious clients, the former Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa, Mr. Shenker gained influence in the over the Teamsters’ enormous Central States pension fund. According to an investigation by Life magazine, Mr. Shenker built a fortune from fees he was paid to loans from the fund to businesses. In 1973, he took control of the Dunes Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and a resort in California. Married and supporting two children, Mr. Puzder began working at the Shenker law firm while a student at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis, finding it more attractive than the construction work he had been doing to earn money. Mr. Puzder joined the firm full time after graduating in 1978, a career choice that bewildered some who knew him. The firm was fading in relevance, with its famous principal spending much of his time in Las Vegas. But Peter Sadowski, who worked part time at the firm with Mr. Puzder while both were in law school, said Mr. Shenker had enticed Mr. Puzder with the chance to handle the lawsuit already underway in Las Vegas. “Shenker wanted him to lead the defense,” said Mr. Sadowski, now an executive vice president at Fidelity National Financial, a major seller of title insurance. Politico recently reported on Mr. Puzder’s work for Mr. Shenker. Mr. Shenker’s fortunes had changed quickly after Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, which, among other things, protects worker pensions from being raided by their employers. The next year, the Teamsters pension fund backed out of a $40 million loan that Mr. Shenker wanted for an expansion of the Dunes. Mr. Shenker sued, and the Labor Department joined the case with the pension fund. In 1980, after a federal judge summarily dismissed the case halfway through the trial, Mr. Puzder presented the appeal at the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, arguing, in part, that the loan was promised before the new law took effect. In court filings, Labor Department lawyers described Mr. Puzder’s efforts as “a vigorous but futile attempt to backpedal, sidestep, and otherwise avoid the absolute barriers” of the pension protection act known as Erisa. The appellate judges denied Mr. Puzder’s appeal. By then, another spigot of union pension money had gone dry. The pension fund for the culinary workers union in Las Vegas had been extending loans to Mr. Shenker with no restrictions since 1973. A new pension fund chairman — Richard P. Crane, a former federal prosecutor — was appointed in 1976 and concluded that the Shenker loans were “a total . ” He insisted on all but shutting down the flow of money. “Shenker went nuts,” Mr. Crane recalled. In 1977, the Labor Department sued Mr. Shenker, accusing him of failing to repay the $24. 9 million it said he had illegally borrowed from the Southern Nevada Culinary and Bartenders Pension Trust. The total represented more than half of the trust’s assets. The case proceeded slowly. During a 1982 hearing of the Senate committee that oversees labor, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, accused the Labor Department of “blatantly coddling” Mr. Shenker for years. Labor officials saw the case as an early test of using Erisa to rid unions of corruption. Seven lawyers were sent to Las Vegas from Washington. For Mr. Shenker, repaying the money would have threatened his financial survival. Mr. Puzder, then 32, and a colleague from the Shenker firm, E. Michael Murphy, left St. Louis for Las Vegas. As he stood to make a point in the trial’s opening days, the months of grueling preparation caught up with Mr. Puzder: He promptly collapsed to the floor, fainting in front of judge and jury. After regaining his composure, he attacked government regulators, claiming they had a “vendetta” against his boss. “Some people in the Department of Labor were more concerned with pursuing Shenker than they were with recovering the trust’s money,” Mr. Puzder said, according to The Las Vegas Sun. He argued that Mr. Shenker was financially harmed when the pension fund stopped making payments on a loan extension in 1977. He said the Shenker investments had been well on their way to becoming successful. The federal judge, Roger D. Foley, was unimpressed, at one point saying that the money appeared to have gone down “a rathole. ” The specter of organized crime hung over the trial. Tapes of a 1979 meeting between Mr. Shenker and two mob figures — Joey (The Clown) Lombardo and Allen Dorfman, a liaison between the mob and Hoffa’s Teamsters union — revealed Mr. Dorfman complaining that Mr. Shenker had failed to pay him kickbacks on millions in loans that Mr. Shenker had procured from the Teamsters. Newspapers covering Mr. Lombardo’s 1983 sentencing hearing splashed the incriminating transcripts across their pages. The government was determined to reduce the Shenker case to its most basic elements. “In my opening statement to the jury, I said, ‘You may hear a lot from the defense about how complicated this is, but it’s simple,’” Mr. Temchine said. “‘He borrowed a thousand bucks from each member and promised to give it back, with interest. He didn’t. ’” The jurors agreed. After the trial, Mr. Shenker was required to repay all the money he had borrowed, plus interest, for a total of $34 million. “I think he’s too good a con man for me to mix with,” one juror told The Las Vegas Sun. “I’d be like the pension fund. I’d lose on the deal. ” Months later, Mr. Shenker filed for bankruptcy, citing $184 million in obligations. About that time, Mr. Puzder and Mr. Murphy left his firm, which limped along until Mr. Shenker was indicted on bankruptcy and tax fraud charges in 1989. He died later that year. During the bankruptcy case, government lawyers were able to extract $26 million for the pension fund, Mr. Temchine said. At least one time as a lawyer, Mr. Puzder was on the other side of such a case, helping to represent the interests of a police pension fund that had been defrauded by its investment managers. His team argued that the managers were essentially stealing from the widows of police officers. At his labor secretary confirmation hearing, one challenge senators may choose to take up is determining whether Mr. Puzder ultimately favors protecting workers, or executives like himself and his old boss. In a surprising turn, that confirmation hearing could place Mr. Puzder face to face with Mr. Hatch, the senator who once said the Labor Department had been going soft on Mr. Shenker at the same time Mr. Puzder claimed the department had been unfairly tough. Almost 35 years later, Mr. Hatch still sits on that committee. And while he praised Mr. Puzder in December as someone who “will bring invaluable expertise to the Department of Labor,” he may well be reminded of the time he scolded a Labor Department official in front of his fellow lawmakers. “I am still not sure,” Mr. Hatch said at the time, “if some of you understand the enormity of the problem that these actions by Mr. Shenker and the Labor Department’s poor oversight have caused the 30, 000 workers covered by this pension fund. ”

Unthinkable Politics and the Bodies of Children

Unthinkable Politics and the Bodies of Children By Henry A. Giroux / Truthout Bo / (CC BY-ND 2.0) As the distinction between the truth and lies fades in public life, politics appears to be increasingly emptied of any substance. As Lucy Marcus has observed , “Nowadays, facts and truth are becoming [more] difficult to uphold in politics (and in business and even sports).” Certainly, in the age of Trump there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that the appeal to reason, informed judgment and facts is at odds with the current political culture. That is, truth and evidence have gone the way of the electric typewriter, or so it seems. Americans seem to have a growing fondness for ignorance, an attitude that reinforces the downsizing of the civic function of language. Falsehoods and deceptions no longer appear marginal to political debate but now seem to shape much of what is said by the presidential candidates. This is shockingly true for Trump, who has organized much of his campaign around endless fabrications, sending fact checkers into a frenzy of activity. When Trump is caught in a falsehood, he simply ignores the facts and just keeps on lying. His followers could care less about whether he deceives them or not. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton has earned a reputation as a chameleon, willing to say almost anything to promote her political career, regardless of whether she sacrifices the truth in order to do so. Her email scandal is largely read as symptomatic of a more pronounced and deeper level of dishonesty. Consequently, she is viewed mostly by the general public as untrustworthy. In response, she has managed her truth deficit by invoking her lifelong defense of families and children. For instance, during the second debate she claimed she wanted “America to be for our children” and attempted to bolster her concern for the welfare of children by pointing to her early work with the Children’s Defense Fund. In the third presidential debate, she argued against Trump’s call for exporting 11 million immigrants by stating that she was against his deportation policies because she “didn’t want to rip families apart [and was against] sending parents away from children.” In her political television ads, she points to supporting policies that “will invest in schools and colleges [and will work to] develop an economy where every young American can find a job and start a family of their own.” Advertisement Square, Site wide Unfortunately, Clinton only focuses on managing some of the problems that young people face, rather than doing anything to change the conditions that produce them. For instance, she says nothing about what education should accomplish in a democracy when educational policies are driven by a neoliberal economy that she supports. And while she talks about providing jobs for young people, she has little to say about transforming rather than adjusting an economy marked by wide gaps in inequality, wealth and power. Matters of power, state violence, extreme poverty, institutional racism, a broken criminal justice system, the school to prison pipeline and the existence of the mass incarceration state, among other important matters, rarely if ever enter her discourse and yet these are major issues negatively affecting the lives of millions of children in the United States. And her alleged regard for children falls apart in light of her hawkish policies on global regime change, drone attacks and cyber-warfare, and her unqualified support for the warfare state. Her alleged support for children abroad does not capture the larger reality they face from when their countries are invaded, attacked by drones and subject to contemporary forms of indiscriminate violence. Rather than critique the US as a powerful engine of violence, Clinton expands its imperialist role around the globe. This is a key point in light of her defense of the rights of children, because her warmongering ideology puts children in the path of lethal violence. At the same time, Clinton’s promise to address the problems many children face in the United States reeks of a disingenuousness made visible by her history of siding with and supporting policies that were injurious to children. Not only did she once disparagingly call young people super-predators, but as the First Lady she strongly backed her husband’s campaign to “end welfare as we know it.” President Clinton’s welfare policies did great harm to poor children. They eliminated the Aid to Families with Dependent Children federal assistance program and infuriated Marian Wright Edelman, the president of the Children’s Defense Fund, to the degree that she ended her working relationship with Hillary Clinton. According to Edelman , the bill represented a frontal assault on the well-being of poor children and families. Yet as late as 2008, Hillary was still touting this pernicious welfare bill as a success. She also supported Bill Clinton’s “tough on crime” policies, which, according to Michelle Alexander , “resulted in the largest increase in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history”—which has a devastating effect on the families and children of color. Finally, Clinton supported Bush’s invasion of Iraq, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children. Occupying the right wing of the Democratic Party, Clinton has aligned herself with a war culture that supports drone warfare and continues to support military policies that result in the needless deaths of millions of children in the Middle East, Yemen, Somalia, and other places that bear the brunt of America’s foreign policy. It is difficult to imagine, given Clinton’s coziness with the financial elite, big corporations, the military-industrial complex and the reigning war culture, that she will do anything that will lessen the violence to which children, both at home and around the globe, will face under her potential reign as President of the United States. Clinton has nothing to say about the need for a collective struggle for economic and political justice. Given her past history, Clinton’s disingenuousness becomes even starker next to the images of war and violence that mark the bodies of youth both in the United States and abroad. Her commitments to war and security have been built on the misery, mutilation and deaths of young people and her recent alleged support for the welfare of children does little to cover up the many ways capitalism, militarism, state violence and racism are killing poor Black and Brown youth. Rethinking the Horrors of War The horrors of war became painfully visible when the image circulated of the lifeless body of Aylan (Alan) Kurdi, a three-year-old who washed up on a beach face-downin the coastal town of Bodrum, Turkey, on September 2, 2015, while traveling with other refugees toward the Greek island of Kos. A second haunting image appeared on August 17, 2016, showing five-year-old Omran Daqneesh, bloodied and covered with dust, sitting silently in an ambulance after an airstrike on Aleppo, a city in northern Syria.

Democratic decay

A. F. Branco

FBI reopens Hillary investigation – with evidence from Anthony Weiner sexting scandal Commenting Policy We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity, all caps, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse. Read more . You may use HTML in your comments. Feel free to review the full list of allowed HTML here . Facebook Comments

FDA Orders Antibacterials Removed From Consumer Soaps

Prev post Page 1 of 3 Next For as long as many of us can remember, we have purchased antibacterial hand soap and body washes, believing that were beneficial to our overall health and cleanliness. However, recent research and an order by the FDA seems to show otherwise. It could also show that some of the ingredients in these products could be harmful with long-term use. The findings are causing many of us to rethink what we know about staying clean. “Consumers may think antibacterial washes are more effective at preventing the spread of germs, but we have no scientific evidence that they are any better than plain soap and water,” says the director of the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Dr. Janet Woodcock. “In fact, some data suggests that antibacterial ingredients may do more harm than good over the long-term.” The Food and Drug Administration recently issued a press release regarding some of the ingredients in common antibacterial hand soaps and body washes. In the statement, the FDA states that they are ordering manufacturers to remove certain ingredients that were originally believed to kill germs. In the press release, the FDA states , “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today issued a final rule establishing that over-the-counter (OTC) consumer antiseptic wash products containing certain active ingredients can no longer be marketed.” The ruling is regarding an investigation that dates back to 2013 targeting certain ingredients that may be harmful to the public. The FDA had received pressure from environmental groups and law makers regarding these ingredients and the effects they had shown in lab animals. The new ruling applies to 19 different chemical agents found in common antibacterial soaps. The most common of these were triclosan and triclocarban. “Companies will no longer be able to market antibacterial washes with these ingredients because manufacturers did not demonstrate that the ingredients are both safe for long-term daily use and more effective than plain soap and water in preventing illness and the spread of certain infections,” states the press release from the FDA. “Some manufacturers have already started removing these ingredients from their products.” Soap manufacturers will have one year to remove these chemicals and are no longer allowed to market products containing them. This is because the chemicals were found to be either harmful or to provide no additional benefits as washing with regular soap. Prev post Page 1 of 3 Next Be the first to comment Leave a Reply Your email address will not be published. Comment

Tennessee Children with Brittle Bones Suffer in State Care as Mom Charged with SBS

Admin - Orissa

Tennessee Children with Brittle Bones Suffer in State Care as Mom Charged with SBS Turner family at visitation. Photo source: Turner family. by Health Impact News/MedicalKidnap.com Staff Chris and Keshia Turner from East Tennessee are still waiting to bring their son Brayden home since he was removed from their custody on December 11, 2014. Keshia had rushed the baby to the emergency room when his leg that had been splinted in the NICU became tight and warm to the touch. While at the hospital, an x-ray revealed a broken bone and several rib fractures. The following day, Keshia took Brayden to his pediatrician to follow-up on his care. There she found herself confronted with law enforcement and a Department of Children’s Services worker who demanded that she take Brayden to Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville, nearly three hours away. That evening, Vanderbilt Medical Center Child Abuse Specialist Dr. Deborah Lowen said that Brayden’s injuries could only be abuse, and investigators and doctors allegedly stopped looking for another explanation. Dr. Lowen first said that it was a “classic case of Shaken Baby,” though most of the classic symptoms were not present. Later Dr. Lowen claimed that Keshia had crushed her three month old child with her hands and caused multiple rib fractures. The Turner’s first story is here: Baby Found with Broken Bones – Parents Assumed Guilty of Abuse and Lose Custody Keshia’s Second Child Taken In September of 2015, while her case was pending, Keshia delivered her second child, a baby boy named Carson, who was in perfect health. Sadly, he was removed from her custody four days after he was born because of the ongoing case involving Brayden. Both boys have been in a relative placement with their paternal grandparents. Chris and Keshia have had limited supervised contact with the children since their removal. Recently, the boys were evaluated by Tennessee Early Intervention System, a voluntary educational program for children ages birth through age two with disabilities or developmental delays. The program is also associated with Vanderbilt Medical Center. Both children were diagnosed with significant developmental delays. Brayden with his baby brother Carson. Photo source: Turner family. Brayden’s evaluation revealed that he is delayed 25% in cognitive development and 40% in adaptive, communication, social skills, and motor. He also exhibited “multiple red flags of autism.” Additionally, he has a 30 degree curvature in both feet and will require orthotics. Carson’s evaluation showed that he is delayed 25% in communication and cognitive development, and 40% in adaptive and motor. It was also noted that his head was “really flat.” The family was told that when he begins to walk, there is a possibility that he will need to wear orthotics. Additionally, both boys have low muscle tone. In light of the new developments, the family believes that this is, as Eugene Wilson at the Center for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Alliance says, “more than likely an underlying medical condition.” Therapy has been recommended for both children. Difficult Day at Court Because Keshia was the last one to care for Brayden before the emergency room visit, she is being accused of abuse in the dependency proceeding in juvenile court. After several days of hearings, including the presentation of medical experts on behalf of the parents, on June 25, 2016 Judge Larry Warner found Keshia guilty of “severe child abuse.” The judge cleared Chris of any finding of abuse. Because of that, the couple was advised by the father’s attorney to file for divorce, in the hope that the court would award Chris custody. Although the couple’s divorce is still pending, Judge Warner ordered immediate reunification with Chris. However, the children are still in a relative placement, and the Department of Children’s Services has not done anything to establish their reunification. There is no plan in place to get the children home with their father. Bias and Lack of Understanding Impeding the Case The judge’s ruling came despite the Turners having two medical experts who testified on their behalf, a radiologist and a pediatrician with experience teaching at a university as well as working in the emergency room. The two medical experts gave extensive medical testimony—comprehensive explanations of Brayden’s medical conditions— which both opined as osteopenia of prematurity. Going in to court, the mother’s Attorney Connie Reguli was concerned that Vanderbilt’s Child Abuse Specialist Dr. Lowen’s deposition had been filed months before the trial by Department of Children’s Services. It appeared to Attorney Reguli that once the judge read it, he had made up his mind before coming to court, leaving no room for other medical explanations. Dr. Deborah Lowen. Source: Vanderbilt University . Attorney Reguli points out that this is “an extremely complex” case. Because of that, the experts took painstaking measures to educate the judge about the “fragile bone state of a baby…who was premature and so small.” She says that after examining Brayden’s history, the pediatrician concluded that he had rickets of prematurity. The doctors explained in detail the medical evidence supporting their opinions, including the premature birth, the loss of amniotic fluid prior to birth, the low vitamin D levels, and the healing pattern of the bones. The Turner family’s experts disputed Child Abuse Specialist Dr. Debra Lowen’s conclusion. Dr. Lowen said that Brayden’s injuries were non-accidental, and therefore, must be child abuse. Attorney Reguli says that Dr. Lowen’s conclusion was drawn without being challenged on the medical research upon which she relied. When Dr. Lowen was asked to submit medical research to support her conclusion, she submitted a mere nine articles and references, some of which contradicted her own conclusion. In contrast, the experts called by the family provided a bibliography of over 50 articles which supported the rickets diagnosis. Attorney Reguli is very concerned about the court’s apparent bias and lack of understanding about the intricacies of the medical evidence, which she believes are impeding this case. She says, “The complexity of presenting the evidence is a tremendous challenge.” Further, she points out that the medical community is not in agreement on this issue, and she is concerned that it might be too complex for a juvenile court judge to understand. The Environmental Epidemic of Vitamin D Deficiency in Infants In August 2008, researchers Kathy A. Keller and Patrick D. Barnes published the article, “ Rickets vs. Abuse: A National and International Epidemic .” The article documents that, what was at first “believed to primarily affect the elderly and dark-skinned populations in the US,” was found “demonstrated in otherwise healthy young adults, children, and infants of all races.” In “ Rickets or Abuse, or Both? ” Russell W. Chesney says, “We are in the midst of an epidemic of nutritional vitamin D deficiency rickets that has been termed ‘the third wave of rickets.'” The article goes on to say, “Inherent in each wave is that infants with rickets are born to mothers who are deficient or insufficient in vitamin D themselves.” Dr. Teresa Hill points out in the Journal Advocate that vitamin D deficiency persists today. She says, “Vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy is considered epidemic.” One reason that the medical profession is not in agreement on this issue is the lack of information about the role of vitamin D deficiency resulting in metabolic dysfunction in abuse cases. Dr. Mercola reports that Dr. Ayoub, after reviewing over 3,000 pieces of medical literature, concludes that “a great number of child abuse cases may, in fact, be instances of misdiagnosed metabolic dysfunction.” Dr. Mercola, citing the work of Dr. Ayoub and others, says: “Thousands of child abuse cases may, in fact, be misdiagnosed cases of rickets caused by either vitamin D deficiency or aluminum adjuvants in vaccines, or both.” He goes on to say, “Vitamin D deficiency is a hidden problem that can actually cause bones to appear as if they’ve been broken on an X-ray, which is a sure diagnosis of abuse to the inexperienced eye.” Dr. Mercola says that Dr. Ayoub estimates that “there may be literally tens of thousands of misdiagnosed cases of child abuse around the country,” and that it is a “trend of misdiagnosis goes back at least 25 years or more.” Dr. Mercola calls this “the other side of the child abuse drama,” and he believes that “it is critical for this information to become more widely known.” He goes on to say that being informed about “how infantile rickets mimics cases of child abuse” is the best way to prevent the “traumatic injustice to parents who really have done nothing wrong, besides listening to and trusting conventional medical advice, which still does not place sufficient weight on the importance of vitamin D.” Dr. Ayoub asserts: “Modern textbooks simply do not cover rickets as textbooks of the past did, and flawed research has been used as the basis to perpetuate the misdiagnosis of healing rickets as an inflicted injury.” Further, he says that the current protocol for doctors does not include testing vitamin D levels in expectant mothers, who are considered “one of the most at-risk populations.” In his opinion, this is “reprehensible medical malpractice.” Apparent Conflict of Interest The complexity of the underlying medical condition of the child is buttressed with the conflict of interest inherent in Child Abuse Specialists, whose only role is to determine and “diagnose” child abuse. Attorney Reguli says: “Child Abuse Specialists aren’t doing true clinical rule-out evaluations.” The hospital pediatricians who are certified as Child Abuse Specialists are considered by default “state expert witnesses.” However, they are not trained in all of the medical areas that they include in their opinions of abuse. Further, Attorney Reguli says: “Doctors like Lowen have a contract with the Department of Children’s Services and have a vested interest in maintaining their relationship with them.” Subsequently, she says, “The Department has to remove children from their homes to get the money they need to fund the agency itself in the current federal funding scheme.” Ultimately, the children and their parents are the ones who pay the price. See Also:

Politico: Trump ’Was an Asset, Not a Drag’ for Greg Gianforte in Montana House Race

Adam Shaw

As Democrats and media outlets pick over the bones of Thursday’s Montana Special House election, in which boisterous Republican Greg Gianforte comfortably beat Democratic challenger Rob Quist, some are coming to an awkward conclusion — President Trump was a help, not a fatal hindrance, to Gianforte. [Gianforte beat Quist by seven points in a race Democrats had hoped to turn into a referendum on Trump’s first few months in office, and particularly, the unpopular Republican health care bill. As Gianforte welcomed the president’s support in the days leading up to the election, opponents hoped that Trump’s alleged unpopularity would motivate the Democratic base and turn away moderates — something they would then hope to replicate in the 2018 midterms. Democrats had also hoped that the last minute twist in which Gianforte allegedly assaulted a UK Guardian reporter — for which Gianforte was charged with misdemeanor assault — would be the nail in the coffin. But it was not to be, and an analysis by Politico’s Gabriel Debenedetti found that the “Trump effect” was the opposite of Democrats would have hoped. Noting that Gianforte had lost the governor’s race in November, Debenedetti concluded that the Trump robocalls and using his campaign slogans paid off. Under a heading of “Trump was an asset, not a drag,” he said: For Gianforte, the biggest applause lines of his Thursday night speech came when he mentioned Trump and used his “drain the swamp” slogan. Local Republicans dismissed the idea that the president could drag Gianforte to defeat as preposterous, The state’s Democratic politicians had also noted Gianforte’s belief in Trump. Everything I see is that Greg Gianforte is trying to make [Trump] completely . He might have muttered his name once or twice when he was running against me and now he wants to ‘drain the swamp’ and says, ‘I want to be with Trump every step of the way,’” said the state’s Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock on Wednesday — nearly seven months after he himself defeated Gianforte. Debenedetti noted that Quist barely talked about Trump during the campaign, possibly realizing it wasn’t the best strategy to take in the solidly red Treasure State. Trump won the state in November by over 20 points. Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY

Anonymous

So privatization is really moving the CIA into private business , using E SYSTEMS TO RIP OGG TAXPAYERS TO FEED THE CIA . APPARENTLY E SYSTEMS ARE USED TO RIG THE ELECTIONS , AND ITS RUN BY BUSH AND RAYTHEON . INSLAW SOFTWARE USED THEN INTEL CHIPS BACKDOOR OWNED BY ISRAEL SRT UP BY BUSH .http://www.stewwebb.com/2016/05/25/hillary-clinton-lesbian-demon-pedophile-child-rapist/

“GOP Leadership Hopelessly Corrupt, Out Of Touch With Its Base” –VDARE.com’s Brimelow Interviewed By BLOOMBERG’s Gendreau

Peter Brimelow

Chaga: The Superfood You Should Know About

Ariana

by ARIANA MARISOL This little-known, anti-aging superfood can help prevent cancer, lower bad cholesterol, support the immune system, and much more! Chaga , otherwise knowns as Inontus Obliquuus , is a wild mushroom that grows on birch trees in extremely cold regions. Chaga can be found in the Baltic regions, Scandinavia, Siberia, Alaska, and northern Canada where temperatures fall bellow -30 F for over 2 to 3 months per year. The chaga conk grows in cooperation with the birch tree over a seven to twenty year period, absorbing life-sustaining nutrients from the tree. This medicinal mushroom’s DNA structure is 30% more human than it is plant. Chaga has been used medicinally for centuries. The Inuit never used chaga and had an average lifespan of only forty to fifty years whereas people in Siberian tribes who used chaga had a lifespan of ninety to over one hundred years. Indigenous Siberians would grind it and put it in stews, soups, and daily beverages. The Siberians found that, despite their harsh climate, the regular consumption of chaga prevented the onset of various degenerative diseases. Contemporary Russians have found that the districts that regularly used chaga had no traces of cancer. [Suggested Reading: Know These Important Rules Before You Forage ] Chaga was also traditionally used by many ancient peoples of China, Korea, and Eastern Europe. In Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe, it is considered a cancer cure. In Northern Canada it is known as a cure for tumors. In Korea, it is used to fight stress and regulate energy. It is also known for its ability to cure inflammatory skin conditions such as psoriasis and eczema. In Eastern Europe it is also known for its powers against bronchitic and lung disease. For centuries, people in the East have traditionally consumed chaga in tea. More recently, chaga has gained popularity in the West where enormous amounts of health benefits are beginning to be recognized by many health gurus. Here are only a few of chaga’s health benefits. Supports Immune System An abundance of Beta-D-Glucans are found in chaga. These help balance the response of the body’s immune system . This means chaga can help boost the immune system when it is necessary, while also having the ability to slow it down when it is overactive. This makes chaga a natural Biological Response Modifier (BRM). Cancer Fighting Medical researchers have gone to Siberia to learn about the effects of chaga on the indigenous people of the region. The medical team found that although there was a lot of talk about cancer, not a single cancer patient was admitted to any of the hospitals in the region. They also found that these people were brewing chaga instead of coffee in order to save money. Researchers found that these people were unwittingly treating themselves for cancer prevention. Chaga has a very high content of super-oxide dismutase (SOD), an important enzyme that functions as a powerful antioxidant. SOD occurs naturally in different forms in human tissues, but levels decline with age, greatly declining after age thirty. Chaga provides SOD in a form that can be used both topically and internally. Having been studied in about 900 different clinical trials, the health benefits of its use are clear. Cancer patients undergoing radiation who were given SOD in a form that they could absorb had dramatically better survival rates with less toxicity, less scarring, and better wound healing. Chaga also activates immune cells responsible for combating cancer initiation. Research is ongoing, and more studies must be done to determine chaga’s full role in fighting cancer. Soothing Properties Chaga is able to support the integrity of blood vessels and can provide soothing properties during irritation. This is helpful for people who suffer from pain, neuropathy, and diabetes. Ulcers and Gastritis Chaga has been known to treat ulcers and support gastrointestinal health. Most ulcers are caused by bacteria that can be fought off by a well-functioning immune system. Normalize Blood Pressure and Cholesterol Levels The betulinic acid found in chaga is able to break down LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) in the bloodstream. Anti-Aging SOD performs vital anti-aging functions by neutralizing oxygen free radicals, and preventing oxidative damage to cells, and tissue. For this reason, chaga is supremely healthy for the skin. It has proven to be highly anti-aging as well as therapeutic for skin disorders. You can make a face cream with chaga, raw beeswax, and spice oils. What are the properties in chaga that make it so healthy? Polysaccharides Chaga contains structural polysaccharides which provide energy, cardiovascular health, intestinal and liver health, and promote healthy blood sugar levels. These can also improve your mood. Beta-D-Glucans Beta-D-Glucans are known for their ability to help the immune system. They can also help with normalizing cholesterol levels and blood pressure. Phytosterols Chaga contains many phytosterols , 45% of them being Lanosterol, 25% of them being Inotodiols and a ramaining 30% of them being Egosterol, Fecosterol, and several others. In vivo and in vitro testing shows a direct effect of both Lanosterol and Inotodiols on cancer cells, with Lanosterol having a positive effect on viral compounds. Betulin and Betulinic Acid (Triterpenes) Betulin and betulinic acid are powerful therapeutic agents that can support healthy cholesterol levels. These agents are also being studied for their effects on cancer and viruses. Antioxidants Chaga contains massive amounts of melanin which has high antioxidant levels. In fact, chaga has the highest level of antioxidant potency of any superfood. Where to Find Chaga Chaga can only grow wild and is quite hard to find. It grows predominantly on birch trees in cold climates throughout the Northern Hemisphere, including northern parts of Europe, Russia, Korea, Canada, and the United States. If you do not live in these northern regions, you can find chaga mushrooms and chaga tinctures at local health food stores or online. How to Make Chaga Tea Chaga tea is the most popular way to consume chaga. 1. Break the whole chaga into roughly 10g chunks. 2. Grind one chunk into powder using a blender or coffee grinder. 3. Place one or two teaspoons into a tea infuser. 4. Place the tea infuser into a large mug and pour in about 400 ml of hot water. 5. Leave the chaga and hot water steeping for at least 5 minutes (the longer the better to get more bioactive ingredients). 6. Remove the infuser from the mug and add maple syrup or honey for taste. Ariana Marisol is a contributing staff writer for REALfarmacy.com. She is an avid nature enthusiast, gardener, photographer, writer, hiker, dreamer, and lover of all things sustainable, wild, and free. Ariana strives to bring people closer to their true source, Mother Nature. She is currently finishing her last year at The Evergreen State College getting her undergraduate degree in Sustainable Design and Environmental Science. Follow her adventures on Instagram . Photo Credit:

Nation Admits It Probably Going To Come Out Of This Having Learned Completely Wrong Lessons - The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Trump Raises Concern Over Members Of Urban Communities Voting More Than Zero Times ATKINSON, NH—Warning supporters that the troubling practice could affect the outcome of the election, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump expressed strong concern Friday that members of urban communities were voting more than zero times, sources reported. Nation Puts 2016 Election Into Perspective By Reminding Itself Some Species Of Sea Turtles Get Eaten By Birds Just Seconds After They Hatch WASHINGTON—Saying they felt anxious and overwhelmed just days before heading to the polls to decide a historically fraught presidential race, Americans throughout the country reportedly took a moment Thursday to put the 2016 election into perspective by reminding themselves that some species of sea turtles are eaten by birds just seconds after they hatch. Report: Election Day Most Americans’ Only Time In 2016 Being In Same Room With Person Supporting Other Candidate WASHINGTON—According to a report released Thursday by the Pew Research Center, Election Day 2016 will, for the majority of Americans, mark the only time this year they will occupy the same room as a person who supports a different presidential candidate. Most Hotly Contested Down-Ballot Measures Of 2016 As Americans head to the polls, they will be presented with a number of issues to vote on besides choosing their representatives. The Onion gives voters an advance look at which measures will be included on the ballots in which states. New Heavy-Duty Voting Machine Allows Americans To Take Out Frustration On It Before Casting Ballot WASHINGTON—Saying the circumstances of this year’s presidential race made the upgrade necessary, election commissions throughout the country were reportedly working to install new heavy-duty voting machines this week that will allow Americans to physically take out their frustrations on the devices before casting their votes. Clinton Staff Readies EMP Launch To Disable All Nation’s Electronic Devices NEW YORK—In an effort to prepare for any new revelations that might emerge about her emails during her tenure as secretary of state, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton reportedly told her staff Tuesday to ready the launch of several electromagnetic pulses to disable all of the nation’s electronic devices. End Of Section

KASSAM: Wanna Know Why the UK Can’t Defeat Terrorism? Watch How Media Attacked A Politician for Demanding Strength

Raheem Kassam

Britain’s establishment media today attacked the leader of the UK Independence Party at the organisation’s manifesto launch, implying and insisting that they were “exploiting” the terrorist attack in Manchester for “partisan” gain. [The UK Independence Party (UKIP) manifesto — a document covering a vast swathe of international and domestic policy positions for the upcoming General Election — was due to be launched on Tuesday. The party delayed the launch out of respect for the victims of the Manchester attack. That didn’t stop the traditionally media accusing the party of “exploiting” the attack simply for urging strength in the face of extremism and terrorism: something every other party leader has already done since the atrocity on Monday night. Channel 4’s Michael Crick opened by asking: “ … wasn’t that blatantly exploiting Manchester for election and party purposes?” UKIP supporters in the crowd hit back, shouting “Rubbish!” and “You’re exploiting it!” at Mr. Crick. Indeed, UKIP’s manifesto was finalised and went to print last Saturday, and was not changed since the Manchester attack. ITV’s Libby Wiener insisted: “You say you’re not exploiting Manchester but you say also that lighting candles isn’t enough. Isn’t that an insult to all the people who have come out in Manchester to show their respects?” She was followed by Channel 5’s Andy Bell, who rather than asking about policies in the manifesto, asked: “Can you confirm that you haven’t added anything in to your manifesto since what happened on Monday night?” The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg chimed in, appearing to act as a Conservative Party surrogate: “I understand you had very strong words for Theresa May’s record as Home Secretary. You’ve accused her of allowing jihadis in. It sounds like you’re near as damn blaming the Prime Minister for this attack and the circumstances that led to it. ” Finally, LBC’s Theo Usherwood issued a statement, rather than asking a question: “Paul, you had a choice yesterday afternoon when [the] minute’s silence was announced. You could have put back this manifesto launch to 12 o’clock … instead in 10 minutes time the nations is going to stop to remember the victims. Surely you’re exploiting what happened in Manchester. ” In fact, it was broadcast producers who asked for the launch to be earlier in the day so they could film, edit, and package clips together for the news channels. WATCH: Reporters were heckled at @UKIP’s manifesto launch when they quizzed @paulnuttallukip over his comments about the Manchester terror attack. pic. twitter. — BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) May 25, 2017, In effect, what the partisan press was asking UKIP, is “how do you dare talk of solving this problem?” Sadly, Paul Nuttall’s responses were not as robust as mine would have been i. e.: “Yes I am blaming the Prime Minister and decades of Labour and Conservative policy on immigration, security, defence, policing, and foreign policy for this attack. ” Nonetheless, when we ask ourselves why we can’t seem to get a grip of these atrocities, consider the attacks people and parties who try and offer solutions endure at the hands of Crick, Wiener, Bell, Kuenssberg, Usherwood, and their liberal friends. Raheem Kassam is the Editor in Chief of Breitbart London and tweets at @RaheemKassam

Six-time Deportee Arrested in Texas

John Binder

An illegal immigrant deported six times prior from the United States is facing deportation again after crossing the U. S. Border. [Agustin Jorge a 29 of Mexico, was caught by federal immigration agents with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency in Texas, according to News4 San Antonio. was deported for the sixth time by ICE in December 2014 via El Paso, Texas. Now, federal agents are looking to deport for the seventh time, charging him with the U. S. illegally. John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.

Gut Microbiome – Strike It Rich with Whole Grains

Michael Greger M.D. FACLM

That is a great video. I’m glad I watched that again. plant_this_thought lemonhead: Thanks for the video link. The comments for that video also included this link: ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkFJZUIUeEA ), which strongly recommends unground grains over bread products. It may also be the case, that the higher heat of baking is more destructive to the plant chemistry than boiling or pressure cooking. plant_this_thought Other thoughts: It may be the case, that the higher heat of baking is more destructive to the plant chemistry than boiling or pressure cooking. A particle of freshly ground flour is still enormous compared to a bacterium, but grinding probably increases the surface area accessible to the bugs somewhat, and the seed coat probably slows down penetration, which may be a good thing. Jack Hall The other factor to consider is that the increase in surface area increases exposure to digestive enzymes and degradation by HCL which would increase absorption of nutrients in the small intestine rendering it less useful to bacteria once it has reached the colon. Stewart I would be interested in the the nature of the whole wheat rolls that were used in this study. Very often the difference in white rolls and whole wheat is minimal at best. They also tend to have added oils and frequently milk or whey. A real multi grain bread with higher fiber would likely do much better. I’m looking for a good whole grain bread recipe if anyone can share one. lemonhead I used to bake bread, but gave it up a while ago. I’ve been thinking about taking it up again and trying sprouted grains. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the recipe(s), just that I had to add extra gluten to 100% whole grain dough (and that my current oven sucks). Peter Reinhart’s books are great, you might find them at your local library. lemonhead Just remembered something – I’ve noticed more than one of the centenarians (7th Day Adventists) I’ve seen interviewed make their own whole grain bread using freshly ground flour. Maybe there’s something to freshly ground flour or homemade whole grain bread, or maybe it’s the fact that they have a task to do every morning that gets them out of bed and keeps them active. Thea lemonhead: One of my pet theories (nothing to back up that it makes a significant difference) is that home-made freshly ground flour a) will not have had as much time to lose as much nutrients and b) is not likely to be ground up quite as finely as what comes out of professional mills — and for these reasons is healthier. Even if true, I don’t know if it is healthier enough to make any kind of significant difference in health outcomes. It’s just a pet theory of mine. But I like it… Nick Presidente Most whole wheat rolls are about 60% whole wheat, the rest refined.. they need to keep it soft and fluffy for that selling feature. Unfortunately multigrain buns are worse, with the majority of grain being refined. I’ve been attempting a 100% whole grain, no oil or sugar bread. I add ground flax and molasses, with very little salt. The salt makes the rising and over proofing a major concern. Very hard to find a good recipe. Also using a bread machine is limiting, and I don’t have the tools right now to mix and bake by hand David J Good point – if the studies did not use intact whole grains, then that alone could be the reason no benefit was found. Also I’m wondering if the whole wheat rolls or whatever else was used had emulsifiers in them. Some research on mice has shown that emulsfiers negatively impact gut bacteria. plant_this_thought Nick: My understanding is that the sugar (or molasses or honey) is only there as food for the yeast (which, of course, makes the bread rise). I wonder if the sugar content could be titrated to an amount that will be completely consumed by the yeast. Blair Rollin 1 cup whole grain spelt flour 1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour 1 1/4 cup whole grain rye flour 1/4 cup 7-10 grain cereal 1 tbsp ground flaxseed meal 2 1/4 tsp yeast 2 tsp salt (or whatever you like) 1 tbsp molasses 6 tbsp gluten 1 2/3 – 1 3/4 cups water I use a bread maker. Knead for 15 minutes then let sit for 20 (turn the machine off and restart it). Then follow the machine cycle for whole wheat bread. You can substitute any other whole grain flour for the rye and it will be excellent, but possibly not as high a loaf. Bob’s Red Mill has a big selection of whole grain flours you can try. No preservatives so it’s only good for a day or so but it freezes perfectly.I have been baking these whole grain breads for over a decade and will not willingly eat any other except whole grain Wasa bread. Once you start eating these fabulous whole grain breads you begin to believe that people can indeed live on bread and water. The refined ingredient is the gluten. You can reduce the amount of gluten but it’s going to get a lot flatter. (This is one of the very few refined products that I eat, so I’m okay with it for the time being.) Thea Blair Rollin: Thanks for taking the time to share a tried and true recipe with us! I’m not usually one for making bread, but you have me tempted with this recipe. Blair Rollin I assure you, I’m very much in the camp of “whole grains are better than whole grain flours”. (I guess bread is just another hangover I have from my previous SAD diet.) But I only eat one slice of bread a day usually. The stuff is very handy for making a calorie rich meal (sandwich) that you can eat while you’re driving. And it’s good for sopping up the pot liquor from my red beans and collards. plant_this_thought No oil in this recipe. Is oil included in standard bread recipes just as a pan lubricant? Is it not required if one uses a non-stick pan? Thea plant_this_thought: I don’t make enough bread to answer your question about what is standard. I can guess that non-stick pans would be one way to avoid oil. Another way is to just shape the bread in big round pillow and bake it in an oven instead of a bread machine. When you bake it in an oven, you can put it on a silicon mat or parchment paper and I imagine that no oil would be needed in that case either. (though I don’t know) . Stepping back a second. My philosophy: While I typically avoid oils in the food I cook, I’m not opposed to occasionally greasing a pan for a special recipe. I think that is a reasonable way to use oils in one’s life if I don’t have heart disease or diabetes. That’s just my approach which I’m sharing in case you would find it helpful. Ruth Spelt is an old fashion wheat flower that hasn’t been messed with like the regular bread wheat. Its own gluton content is much lower because of not messing with it. Your bread will be lighter using the gluton flower with it. It is the gluton stretching that helps the bread to rise. AnnieVanCookie You made me laugh with the “until know” thing xD!! I wonder why there’s people with sad diet and aren´t obese. I have been all my life struggling to loose weight even though I always ate “healthy”. I see people eating crap everyday and they just wont get fat. TofuAnnie I liked this pop-up as well! Your voice kept on as you’re mini-me pointed to the ‘until now’. It’s your signature, so why not?! I need to go back and re-watch the mircobiome videos. Thanks for your work, doc. David J Sorry but although I found it ok, it will keep me from sending it to skeptical people I am trying to convince to take this kind of work seriously. Nancy Altman It humor. Just humor. Come on, people, lighten up! It’s good for your health! Thea AnnieVanCookie: Why do some people get fat and some stay thin when eating pretty much the same type of SAD diet? Why do some people get or stay fat even when they try to eat healthy? It’s a great question. Dr. Lisle, one of the experts from Forks Over Knives, does a good job of answering that question at the beginning of his talk, How To Lose Weight Without Losing Your Mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAdqLB6bTuQ AZ DONALD hi thea, i searched and searched last night but couldn’t find the video i was looking for and am hoping you can direct me to it. recently, dr G changed his recommendation from methyl cobalomin to cyano cobalomin because a small percentage of people don’t absorb the methyl. are you able to direct me to that one? thanks, donald. Thea AZ DONALD: From my memory, Dr. Greger has always recommended the cyanocobalamin form. Here are a couple pages where you see that recommendation: An Ask the Doctor page from 2012: http://nutritionfacts.org/questions/which-type-of-b12-is-best/ General nutrition recommendations from 2011: http://nutritionfacts.org/2011/09/12/dr-gregers-2011-optimum-nutrition-recommendations/ In the new book (How Not To Die), Dr. Greger talks about recommending the cyano… form because that’s the one that is tested in studies showing that it works. We don’t have the body of evidence showing that the other forms work. . If there is a page where Dr. Greger talks about changing his recommendation on B12, I’m sorry but I’m not aware of it. kari228 Great Share, I had never seen this before. Erica Would you add an even greater benefit to the mixed whole grains by chilling them before eating? I’m curious whether we would get the benefits of resistant starches with chilled whole grains. The studies we had seen previously showed a benefit when processed or refined (white) grains where cooled/chilled and then consumed. Yes, that works if they’re chilled AFTER they’ve been cooked. They can be reheated and the resistant starches will remain. Mike Quinoa What about whole grain pasta that’s not even cooked in the first place? I sometimes “cold-cook” pasta by just leaving it in cold water for a few hours, and then using it in a bean / pasta salad. David Hochstettler I tried making bread without flour sugar and oil for over a year and finally let it go. Now I eat a slice of ezekial bread every day to satisfy my cravings for bread and 300 grams of cooked whole wheat ,barley and brown rice in their whole form. To cook it I boil 3 quarts of water and add 3 cups of wheat berries and a 1/2 a cup each of pearl barley and brown rice and simmer for an hour. Quick cool it by running cold water through it in a strainer and bag it up in 300 gram fold top sandwich bags. Richard You bring out a good point: bread is addictive! I can’t find where I read it before, but wheat has some kind of morphine-like substance it it. Bread is also an SOS (salt, oil, sugar) food. In fact, the average American gets more salt from bread than any other food. Bread has a high glycemic index, higher than intact grains. Trouble is, when I’m hungry, it’s the most convenient and appealing thing in the house. That is, it was. From now on, I’m going to keep bread out of my house and have some baked potatoes or yams in the fridge. Ben The ezekial breads and the silver hills breads are both healthy. Vege-tater I often microwave a large sweet potato, then slice it and make thin “toast” for a quick “bread”. Steve Billig I did not see in the study descriptions whether the whole grain variety that makes a difference in microbial richness (great term) is required over the course of a day, or perhaps over the course of a week. Did anyone pick that up? susan good question Steve, and its an interesting answer ! the transcript says they used whole grain barley, or whole grain brown rice and the combination of the two worked better than either alone . hmm might be able to make a cold chopped vegie salad using both grains that wouldnt be bad ! hope that answers your question steve. susan sorry steve, I may have missed your question.. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3744518/figure/F1/ this page details showing the number of grams per day over the course of how many weeks . Steve Billig Variety, to me, is one of foundations of healthy eating. Research shows that variety even trumps volume (more types of healthy foods yields better health than more volume of healthy foods). My understanding is that the way to achieve variety is to eat all the plant-based food groups (fruit, veg, grains, legumes, nuts/seeds) over the course of a day, and a variety within each food group over the course of a week (variety of nuts, or veg (crucifers/onion family/starchy family/leafy green family, etc.). Since the research only tested daily variety and not weekly variety, we do not know for sure, so in order to go with what we know, eat a variety of grains daily. susan Makes total sense to me steve. They achieved a better result mixing two varieties, so I would think it would be very beneficial to mix it up over the course of the week. I plan on mixing up grains in salads more often.. throwing in some lentils too, and trying new combinations. thanks Steve ! Wegan No, you said the t word. Ed Glad to see you more animated in your videos, but this one needs fireworks and music. I recently tried a newer probiotic with 115 interdependent strains, as I eat more veggies, beans,and lentils than most the changes were profound.This information can still kick my biome into another gear. Thanks. Previous Video

’For Honor’ Players Plan Boycott of Game - Breitbart

Nate Church

In response to a lack of communication from both the publisher and developer about For Honor‘s most pressing issues, members of the game’s community are planning a boycott of the game on April 3, 2017. [Organized by Reddit community member “jbaayoun,” the For Honor gameplay blackout will begin at 5 AM and last for a minimum of 24 hours. Players are protesting the game’s ongoing balance issues, some so grievous that tournament organizers have been forced to ban at least one class from competitive play. The participants are seeking greater transparency from the game’s developer and publisher around issues that have plagued the title since release. First, they want clearer communication between Ubisoft and For Honor fans. This should include a more informative version of the ongoing “Warrior’s Den” livestreams that the developers have been promoting. Second, they want a clearly defined roadmap for the game’s future. If players are going to stick around for the literal years needed to fully unlock the game’s content, they want a plan of future content that will give them a good reason to do so. Third, boycotters want a solution to the aforementioned glacial pace of earning the game’s “Steel” currency to make the grind for unlocking content a bit less punishing. Finally, players want to see a solution for the game’s ongoing matchmaking woes. Of note, Ubisoft has recently posted patch notes in the official forums that address a few of the game’s issues, including a sizeable boost to Steel income. It’s a welcome first step to addressing one problem among many in a game that is robbed of its potential for greatness by clumsy execution. Will a community boycott draw the publishing giant’s attention to make a difference? We’ll find out on April 3rd, unless either the publisher or development team deign to respond sooner. Follow Nate Church @Get2Church on Twitter for the latest news in gaming and technology, and snarky opinions on both.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions Recuses Himself From Russia Investigations - Breitbart

Pam Key

Thursday at a press conference addressing the possible controversies regarding his association with the Trump presidential campaign, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced he would recuse himself from any federal investigations involving the 2016 election. Sessions said, “I have recused myself in the matters that deal with the Trump campaign. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

Media blackout as hundreds of black teens attack Temple U. students, police, a horse

Howard Portnoy

Print In a story that predictably did not make the mainstream media, and with video surveillance very difficult to find, a massive mob of black teens viciously attacked white Temple University students, police officers and even a police horse in Philadelphia on Friday night. […] In the limited local coverage this story did receive, the race aspect was generally avoided. It is way past time to take back the media, and fill it with truth-tellers, not apologists. “More than 150 teens, spread out in groups of 20 or 30, descended upon the campus at around 8:30 p.m. Friday — wreaking havoc for nearly two hours before eventually dispersing,” according to NBC 10 …. But there is a reason for all of this horror, according to Solomon Jones of Philly.com . It evidently boils down to the progressive canard “white privilege.” The black teens are feeling excluded because evil white “others” have come into their neighborhood and built rental properties for college students, raising the property values of their neighborhoods in a way that evidently excludes the angry teens, who were used to having their blighted turf unmolested.

Iraqi Commander: 'Saudi Arabia Mother of All Terrorism'

ahtribune.com

Saudi Arabia is the “mother of all terrorism,” says the second-in-command of the Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units, Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes. 76 Shares 8 62 0 6 Mohandes made the remarks during an interview with the al-Alam television network on Saturday. He stressed that both the ISIS and al-Qaeda terrorist groups are the product of Saudi Arabia, and that ISIS's psychological and media campaign is partially funded from Riyadh. Mohandes noted that the operations to free Mosul from the Takfiri terrorists will take some time as the militants are receiving intelligence from several external sources, mainly the US. He went on to praise Iran’s support for Iraq’s battle against terrorism, stressing that if Baghdad had not called for Tehran’s assistance, the Iraqi army would never have reached Mosul. He also noted that the Hashd al-Shaabi forces, also known as the Popular Mobilization Units, will move on towards Tal Afar after Mosul is cleared of ISIS militants. MORE... Iraqi Soldier Battling ISIS in Mosul Reunited with His Family After Two Years of Estrangement Muslim Iraqi Soldiers Erect Cross on Top of the Church in Newly Liberated Karamless Village Near Mosul Thousand of Iraqi Civilians Treated for Breathing Problems after ISIS Torches Sulphur Plant near Mosul ISIS executes 58 plotters, buries in mass grave amid reports on rebellion in Mosul He stressed that the units’ goal is not just to push back ISIS militants, but to destroy them. ISIS leaders rob own treasury, flee Mosul Meanwhile, as Iraqi forces push on with operations to liberate Mosul, five high-ranking ISIS commanders have looted the terrorist group’s treasury and fled towards Syria. The robbers, including ISIS’s treasury official Abu al-Bara al-Qahtani and several other terrorists, have taken millions of dollars. The terrorists have launched a manhunt to reclaim the stolen money and arrest and execute the escapees. Iraqi troops fighting house to house in east Mosul Heavy fighting is underway in eastern Mosul as ISIS tries to hinder Iraqi forces advance in the city. The militants are using car bombs, mortar fire, and snipers to stop the government troops. A separate group of troops are advancing on the city’s northern side and have reached just within four kilometers of Mosul’s airport. Iraqi forces have also attacked ISIS-held positions in the town of Hamam al-Alil which is located along the Tigris River some 15 kilometers south of Mosul. Iraqi army troops, backed by Hashd al-Shaabi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces, are closing in on Mosul, ISIS’s last stronghold in Iraq, from almost all directions in a full-scale operation launched on October 17. Iraqi troops managed to enter Mosul’s limits earlier in the week for the first time since June 2014, when the city fell to ISIS amid a large-scale terror campaign in northern and western Iraq. So far, a large number of the villages and districts around the city have been purged of the terrorists. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has vowed that the country’s second largest city will be fully recaptured by year-end.

Sessions, Trump, Dylann Roof: Your Tuesday Evening Briefing - The New York Times

Karen Zraick and Lisa Iaboni

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. President Obama delivered a nostalgic but hopeful farewell address to the nation from a convention center in Chicago. He warned the nation not to shrink from the challenges of economic inequality, racial strife, political isolation and voter apathy. “If something needs fixing, lace up your shoes and do some organizing,” Mr. Obama, a political organizer, told the cheering crowd. “If you’re disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures, and run for office yourself. Show up. Dive in. Persevere. ” Here’s the full video and text. _____ 2. Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Donald J. Trump’s pick for attorney general, received a surprisingly gentle welcome at the start of his Senate confirmation hearing. He appeared to assuage Democrats by saying that that waterboarding is “absolutely” illegal and that he did not support barring Muslims from the United States, and even the most liberal senators declined to vigorously confront him on allegations of racism from three decades ago. The whirlwind week of hearings continued with retired Gen. John F. Kelly, the Homeland Security nominee. Here’s the full schedule for the week. And late in the day came this news: The chiefs of America’s intelligence agencies last week gave Mr. Trump and Mr. Obama a summary of unsubstantiated reports that Russia had collected compromising and salacious personal information about Mr. Trump. The agencies are investigating, said two officials with knowledge of the matter. _____ 3. Dylann S. Roof, the white supremacist who expressed no remorse for killing nine people at a historically black church in Charleston, S. C. was sentenced to death. The jury returned its unanimous verdict after about three hours of deliberations in the penalty phase of the trial. Mr. Roof showed no emotion as the verdict was read. _____ 4. The Obama administration is making a push for police overhauls in two of the nation’s most violent cities, where officers have been accused of routinely mistreating . The results of the Justice Department’s sweeping investigation into police practices in Chicago are expected before Inauguration Day. Baltimore, above, is close to a deal that would require the police to make changes under court supervision. _____ 5. Fox News secretly settled sexual harassment accusations against Bill O’Reilly, the network’s top host, last summer. Juliet Huddy, a longtime personality, said Mr. O’Reilly had tried to ruin her career after she rebuffed his advances. The settlement was described in a draft of a letter from Ms. Huddy’s lawyers to Fox News that was mailed anonymously to The Times and verified. _____ 6. Volkswagen is on the verge of admitting to criminal violations and paying $4. 3 billion to resolve a federal investigation into its cheating on emissions tests. The company will probably plead guilty to charges of customs fraud and violating the Clean Air Act, two people with knowledge of the discussions said. _____ 7. Protests broke out in Iran at the funeral of Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a key figure in the country’s 1979 revolution who had come to be seen as the last establishment voice friendly to the opposition. Officials said 2. 5 million mourners attended. The live broadcast on state television tried to avoid protesters’ chants for a former presidential candidate under house arrest against Russia, Iran’s ally in the Syrian conflict and for the release of political prisoners. _____ 8. Clare Hollingworth, a British journalist who became the undisputed doyenne of war correspondents, died in Hong Kong at 105. She was on the border in August 1939, just a week into her first job for a British newspaper, when she reported what was probably the greatest scoop of modern times: the start of World War II. She roamed the conflict zones of the world equipped with little more than a toothbrush, a typewriter and, if need be, a revolver. _____ 9. “They started coming in like the tide. ” That was an official at a refugee camp in Bangladesh, where Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar have fled by the thousands to escape a brutal counterinsurgency campaign. They say soldiers burned their villages, shot at random and systematically raped women and girls. _____ 10. Finally, a wealthy activist who bought a $2. 2 million West Village home a decade ago is giving it to the original Manhattanites: the Lenape Native American nation. Goldwater Bourgeois, the son of the sculptor Louise Bourgeois, said he had always been troubled by the legend that the Lenape sold Manhattan (the name is their word for “the land of many hills”) to Dutch settlers for the equivalent of $24 worth of goods. “Manhattan is a capitalist rock this is a quiet protest against that,” he said. “I’m giving it back to whom the land was stolen from, and that’s really a joyful event. ” _____ Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Viewing this version of the briefing should help. Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com.

WATCH: Israel Helping to Build ‘Techno City’ in Kenya

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WATCH: Israel Helping to Build ‘Techno City’ in Kenya Oct 28, 2016 Previous post The building of a new ‘techno city’ in Kenya is another example of increased cooperation between Israel and several African nations. The Tel Aviv municipality has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of Kenya to collaborate on the $14.5 billion development of Konza, a new “techno city” in southeastern Kenya. Kenyans will train at three Tel Aviv Global initiatives. African nations and other developing countries around the globe are eager to partner with Israel and to benefit from the start-up nation’s advanced technology. Take a look at this amazing project underway in Kenya, with Israel’s assistance.

Hurricane Matthew Pummels Haiti and Moves Toward U.S. - The New York Times

Azam Ahmed

Hurricane Matthew assaulted Haiti’s southern coast with deadly fury on Tuesday, destroying homes and crops, sweeping away livestock and cutting off transportation as a large part of the Caribbean was pummeled by the storm’s winds and torrential rain. The top United Nations official in Haiti, Mourad Wahba, described the storm as “the largest humanitarian event” in the country of 11 million since a devastating earthquake six years ago, with thousands scrambling for shelter. Haiti’s civil protection agency said a bridge collapse severed the main highway connecting the south with the capital. Initial reports from the government said that five people had been killed, 10 people had been injured and one person was missing. Interior Minister François Anick Joseph said Tuesday night that 14, 530 people had been evacuated and that about 2, 200 homes were flooded or destroyed. As of Wednesday morning, the storm, which was downgraded to Category 3, from Category 4, had passed through Cuba, and the National Hurricane Center in Miami warned that a dangerous surge was beginning to spread over the Bahamas, to the north. A hurricane warning was in effect for Haiti, parts of the Bahamas and of Cuba, and a coastal stretch of Florida that includes Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, as well as Lake Okeechobee. As the Carolinas, Florida and Georgia braced for wind and rain, officials in the Caribbean took stock of the destruction. Georges Dubuche, the former director general of Haiti’s Ministry of Health who serves on an advisory board for Direct Relief, an aid organization, said on Tuesday that he feared that there would be “maybe hundreds of dead. ” Mr. Joseph acknowledged that the scope of the destruction was not yet clear and that the government was still assessing the damage. The storm threw into doubt the plans for presidential elections scheduled for Sunday. Officials were expected to announce a decision on Wednesday, with many experts saying it would be nearly impossible to conduct voting with crucial infrastructure crippled or destroyed. “I have a suspicion they will hold it in two weeks,” said Leslie Voltaire, the campaign manager for one of the candidates, Maryse Narcisse. “But it is only a suspicion. ” The storm was still a Category 4 when it made landfall around 7 a. m. Tuesday at Les Anglais, on the southwestern tip of Haiti, the western half of the island of Hispaniola. Frantic residents in the south said by phone that they were coping with major devastation as the storm felled trees, ripped roofs and destroyed farms in what already was a struggling area in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. “Thank God our neighbors came to save us,” said Daphne Thelma, a resident of Les Cayes, one of the towns on the southern coast. “We lost all our crops, and have nothing left. ” She said her family of eight, four of them children, had been rescued by neighbors as trees crashed into their home. The family split up to ride out the storm in different houses. Adassa Romilus, a spokeswoman for Heifer International, a charity that works with 30, 000 farming families in Haiti, said many livestock placed in shelters for protection had been killed. “The shelters couldn’t withstand the force of the hurricane,” she said. Officials reported that roughly 400 homes had been destroyed. In the town of Kay Coq on the remote island of a fishing community of 2, 000 people about six miles off the coast of Les Cayes, the hurricane left a scene of chaos. “Right now there is no more Kay Coq,” said Carobert Altema, 58, a fisherman. “Houses are down, people are screaming. We have no updates about which people are missing. ” Mr. Altema said household belongings had been washed out to sea. “At my age, this is the first time I have experienced something like this,” he said. Aid organizations in Haiti said rescue efforts were focused on evacuating people from houses threatened with collapse. “People have been leaving their homes under the full force of the storm to find shelters,” said Fignole, a program manager in Haiti for Oxfam, the international charity. Mr. Fignole said the storm had hit Haiti just as farmers in the south were about to harvest plantains, a staple in their subsistence diet. “There will be real hunger in the weeks ahead,” he said. Other charitable groups doing work in Haiti also expressed alarm about the storm’s effect on food production in the country, which has been struggling to recover from a prolonged drought. John Hasse, national director for World Vision Haiti, said that the storm destroyed avocado trees and that at least two communities had lost their entire banana crops. “We have gotten good rain this year. We were starting to see progress in malnutrition,” he said, because families were able to prepare healthier food for their children. “We think this is going to destroy a lot of it. ” The National Hurricane Center had projected 15 to 25 inches of rain for southern Haiti and in the southwestern part of the Dominican Republic, warning that as much as 40 inches of rain might fall in some areas. Some streets in flooded, and public transit was paralyzed. But by late afternoon, the storm appeared to have spared the worst of its wrath. Moderate rain was falling, residents reported, with no sign of the catastrophic flooding that was affecting areas farther south. Although the sea level rose at the edge of Cité Soleil, the city’s harbor slum, the water did not breach the central wharf. Residents in the most vulnerable part of the slum, a shantytown called Deye Chabon, piled logs and garbage into barricades that kept the water from spilling into the narrow streets. Nonetheless, residents of Deye Chabon were keeping a wary eye on the sea. “They say if it keeps rising, they will have to go find another place to be,” said Sherby St. Louis, 16, a student. Melanie Jean Pierre, 32, a street vendor, said she was riding out the storm in with her children. She said the only damage had come from a leak in the roof that soaked her bed. More than four million children may be threatened by the hurricane, Unicef warned on Tuesday. “Waterborne diseases are the first threat to children in similar situations,” Marc Vincent, the Unicef representative in Haiti, said. “Our first priority is to make sure children have enough safe water. ” Jessica Pearl, the Haiti country director for the Mercy Corps charity, who lives in said a main concern in areas would be providing drinking water, which she described as “a problem in normal times. ” Haiti still is recovering from a devastating 2010 earthquake, with 55, 000 people living in shelters. A cholera epidemic that followed the earthquake has persisted, and it spiked in 2016. Partners in Health, an aid agency that has long worked in Haiti, says there have been 26, 000 cholera cases this year. The hurricane “has the potential to be a big setback for years of efforts to bring cholera under control,” Ms. Pearl said. “The people here have just been pushed down by one thing after another. ” The hurricane center had warned that the combination of a dangerous storm surge and large and destructive waves could raise water levels by seven to 11 feet above normal tide levels on the southern coast of Cuba seven to 10 feet on the southern coast of Haiti four to six feet on the northern coast of Cuba and four to six feet in Jamaica. Officials in the United States were preparing for one of the most powerful hurricanes to threaten the East Coast. The governors of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina declared emergencies while meteorologists refined their forecasts and suggested that the storm could lash the shoreline into the weekend. More than 2, 000 National Guard soldiers were activated across the South, and the authorities planned lane reversals, school closures and sandbag distribution sites. In Florida, where hurricane and tropical storm watches were in effect for part of the coast, officials were considering evacuations. “The problem we have with this storm is that the projected path is right along our coast,” Gov. Rick Scott said on Tuesday during a stop in the Florida Keys. “If it turns, we’re not going to have a lot of time to make a decision. The best thing is to be prepared and not to take any chances. ” Mr. Scott warned that the storm could prove “catastrophic,” and officials worried about extended power failures, widespread flooding and a lack of preparation along the heavily populated Interstate 95 corridor. Gov. Nikki R. Haley of South Carolina, who said officials expected Matthew to strike the state as a Category 2 or 3 hurricane, deferred a decision on a coastal evacuation until Wednesday. “I would love nothing more than to see this just suddenly take a turn and go out to sea,” said Ms. Haley, who told about one million residents to prepare to leave the coast as soon as Wednesday afternoon.

Report: FBI to Move to “Likely Indictment” Of Clinton Foundation

Claire Bernish

Home / BREAKING NEWS / Report: FBI to Move to “Likely Indictment” Of Clinton Foundation Report: FBI to Move to “Likely Indictment” Of Clinton Foundation Claire Bernish November 3, 2016 1 Comment A new report says the FBI investigation of the Clinton Foundation has taken a “very high priority” after dragging on for over a year in its White Collar Crime Division, and a preponderance of evidence means a forthcoming indictment is “likely.” Two unnamed, separate sources with “intimate knowledge” of the investigation told FOX News ’ Bret Baier the FBI is “actively and aggressively pursuing this case” — even re-interviewing key people for the third time. Ironically, one of the anonymous sources told Baier the investigation has benefited from ongoing publications by Wikileaks of Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta’s emails, in that “There is an avalanche of new information coming in every day.” Taken in conjunction with the rapidly approaching presidential election on November 8, it appears Julian Assange’s ‘October Surprise’ could have lasting implications beyond lifting the veil from behind-the-scenes wrangling by Clinton campaign insiders, corporate media, and Democratic National Committee. However, even before Wikileaks began publishing the Podesta Files, unnamed law enforcement sources told FOX News , the bureau had collected “a great deal of evidence.” “FBI agents have interviewed and re-interviewed multiple people on the foundation case,” FOX reports, “which is looking into possible pay for play interaction between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.” Indeed, an indictment on the pay-for-play scandal appears likely, “barring some obstruction in some way” from the Department of Justice. Real Clear Politics summarized major points of Baier’s revealing report, noting the FBI’s investigation is “far more expansive than anybody has reported so far.” In fact, although previous revelations the FBI had made special “side agreements” to “destroy” the laptops of Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson — which prompted scathing criticism and doubts about possible purposeful decimation of evidence — Real Clear Politics notes those computers “have not been destroyed, and agents are currently combing through them.” Baier reports, “As a result of the limited immunity deals to top aides, including Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, the Justice Department had tentatively agreed that the FBI would destroy those laptops after a narrow review. We are told definitively that has not happened. Those devices are currently in the FBI field office here in Washington, D.C. and are being exploited. “The source points out that any immunity deal is null and void if any subject lied at any point in the investigation.” Further, elaborating suspicions about aide Huma Abedin’s now-estranged husband’s laptop causing the FBI to relaunch its investigation, Real Clear Politics notes, “Agents have found emails believed to have originated on Hillary Clinton’s secret server on Anthony Weiner’s laptop. They say the emails are not duplicates and could potentially be classified in nature.” While Baier’s sources, being unnamed, are impossible to verify, the FOX report comes on the heels of reporting by the Wall Street Journal — also citing unnamed sources “familiar” with the same investigation — which states, “Secret recordings of a suspect talking about the Clinton Foundation fueled an internal battle between FBI agents who wanted to pursue the case and corruption prosecutors who viewed the statements as worthless hearsay.” Those sources, paraphrased by the WSJ , explained, “Agents, using informants and recordings from unrelated corruption investigations, thought they had found enough material to merit aggressively pursuing the investigation into the foundation that started in summer 2015 based on claims made in a book by a conservative author called ‘Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich.’” Inter- and intra-agency disputes over the strength of evidence surrounding the pay-to-play allegations against the Clinton Foundation left senior officials at both the FBI and DOJ at odds with lower-ranking investigators, who felt that — in combination with ‘Clinton Cash’ and the aforementioned recordings — promising leads deserved to be pursued. Internal discord spilled into the public arena recently when FBI Director James Comey took the highly anomalous step of publicly announcing the investigation had been re-started — sparking condemnation by President Obama, politicians, and other officials about potentially influencing the looming election. Partly fueling the internal squabble over investigating the foundation are those who blame Comey’s second-in-command, “deputy director Andrew McCabe, claiming he sought to stop agents from pursuing the case this summer. His defenders deny that, and say it was the Justice Department that kept pushing back on the investigation,” the WSJ reports. While FBI agents continued making headway in an informal probe to decide whether a full investigation was warranted, official in the Justice Department began objecting to their actions, under the premise the evidence was flimsy at best — despite further statements from informants and additional information beyond what had been presented in “Clinton Cash.” As the WSJ describes: “FBI investigators grew increasingly frustrated with resistance from the corruption prosecutors, and some executives at the bureau itself, to keep pursuing the case. “As prosecutors rebuffed their requests to proceed more overtly, those Justice Department officials became more annoyed that the investigators didn’t seem to understand or care about the instructions issued by their own bosses and prosecutors to act discreetly.” Friction between the DOJ and FBI reached a pivotal point when a ‘senior Justice Department official’ summoned McCabe to a meeting over the perception agents had rebuffed instructions from superiors not to pursue the investigation further. “Are you telling me that I need to shut down a validly predicated investigation?” the WSJ quoted McCabe asking the official. “Of course not,” the DOJ official is said to have replied. Whether or not quashing a deeper investigation into the Clinton Foundation had, in actuality, been the Justice Department’s intent may never be clear — but given the overlapping dates of this bickering and the FOX News report of the yearlong probe, it would seem the Clintons are still very much treading water. Share

John Leguizamo: ’Jeff Sessions Should Never Be Attorney General’

Breitbart News

In a guest column for Hollywood trade publication Variety, actor John Leguizamo lays out the reasons why he believes Donald Trump’s nominee for U. S. Attorney General, Sen. Jeff Sessions ( ) should not be confirmed for the post. [From Variety: Last Wednesday the U. S. Senate held four confirmation hearings on Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees. It also scheduled his press conference — largely devoted to Trump’s … intimate relationship with Russia — and a critical vote on the Affordable Care Act budget. Sometimes we, as progressives, aren’t able to be because we acknowledge complexity — we address the intersections and breadth of policies and positions. Sometimes, perhaps we try to do too much. So let me be perfectly clear: Sen. Jeff Sessions should never be attorney general of the United States. While the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on Sessions’ nomination, around Capitol Hill other committees moved forward on a host of other outrageous nominees. The American public may never hear about the number of serious conflicts each of these nominees pose — to our democracy, to our rights — because there is simply too much to process. … Read Leguizamo’s full column at Variety.

Vertical Pools Help Heal Wounded Combat Veterans Seeks Positive Doers To Help Make It Happen

VNN

A combat veteran with PTSD wasn’t allowed to fly with her service dog. So she sued. ‹ › Since 2011, VNN has operated as part of the Veterans Today Network ; a group that operates over 50 plus media, information and service online sites for U.S. Military Veterans. Vertical Pools Help Heal Wounded Combat Veterans Seeks Positive Doers To Help Make It Happen By VNN on October 31, 2016 The Vertical Pool was inspired by the anticipated need of the returning wounded, and veterans of all past conflicts, who have limited options for recovery and healing at home. Even if they’re within an hour of a VA hospital, it can be a challenge to get there without assistance. A heated, sanitized, filtered, compact pool in the back yard, house, garage, means convenient, private, daily immersions for exercise, traction, rehabilitation, and recovery. These pools should be available to veterans without convoluted forms and wait times. Simply a doctor’s prescription should put them on a list for immediate consideration. VetPools.org (an effort to raise funds to donate these pools to vets) was formed with the specific objective of helping improve upon the methods and manners by which America receives and treats her returning wounded. The most formidable military force in the world deserves a commensurate comprehensive recovery, reintegration program focused on body, mind, and spirit for those who require assistance. The purpose of this message is to inform interested and connected parties of the desire to hand this product and mission off to veterans who would then become The Vertical Pool LLC and VetPools.org . They could be instrumental in healing themselves and their fellow veterans, as well as civilian America from the physically challenged to the physically fit. Interestingly, while initially intended for veterans, the retail market has turned out to be women. As only one person, innovator/owner of The Vertical Pool and founder/director of VetPools.org , I cannot fulfill this objective alone. The R&D, pool product, and non-profit are all paid for in full, no debt or encumbrances. This “on-demand” pool can be manufactured as needed without excessive, costly inventory and/or storage space. I do not advertise this product because one person cannot build, deliver, and install more than 5 pools in two months. Career options with this DME device and non-profit include owning, manufacturing, marketing, selling, donating, fund-raising, case managing, delivering, installing, and teaching The Vertical Pool’s diverse functions and benefits. This pool is efficient in energy, water, and space; critical qualities in this, the 21st century. A group or collective of 3 to 7 individuals might be prudent to start the program. I would remain teacher, mentor, and guide for years to come while others slip into the ownership of this product and its sister non-profit organization. Please share this idea with any and all contacts who might have the connections to give some veterans a lead to a worthy endeavor and career. To get involved contact; Director, Peter G. Hold

Your Wednesday Evening Briefing: Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Fort McMurray - The New York Times

Andrea Kannapell and Sandra Stevenson

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the .) Good evening. Here’s the latest. 1. Donald Trump stands unchallenged for the Republican presidential nomination after John Kasich followed Ted Cruz out of the race. Mr. Trump now faces an electoral map that heavily favors Hillary Clinton. In recent interviews with The New York Times, Mr. Trump sketched out what he meant to be a reassuring vision of his early presidency, including rapid action on a wall with Mexico and halting Muslim immigration. _____ 2. Bernie Sanders holds a lead on Mr. Trump even wider than Hillary Clinton’s, according to a new national poll. Mr. Sanders, who won the Indiana primary on Tuesday but remains far behind in delegates, cites his strong performance against Mr. Trump as a main argument for staying in the race. _____ 3. President Obama made his first visit to Flint, Mich. since the water crisis emerged, promising that he would not rest till the water was safe. He earned applause after asking for a glass of water. “I really did need a glass of water,” he said as he sipped. “This is not a stunt. ” _____ 4. The cause of Prince’s death has not been announced yet, but a clue emerged. His representatives had contacted a specialist in addiction to pain medication, who sent his son on a redeye flight to Minneapolis to offer Prince treatment options. Just off the flight, he was one of the people who found the musician’s body. _____ 5. A towering wildfire raged in western Canada, forcing an entire city of about 80, 000 people to evacuate. The defense minister said the military was ready to assist hundreds of firefighters. The town, Fort McMurray, is the center for the country’s oil sands region. Above, watch scenes from the fire. _____ 6. The Navy SEAL killed in Iraq this week was Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Charles Keating IV, the grandson of a banker jailed in the 1990s in the savings and loan scandal. His death, in a battle with Islamic State fighters, exemplifies the combat dangers facing U. S. soldiers on the “advise and assist” mission — as well as the range of Americans trying to halt ISIS. _____ 7. An Army intelligence officer is questioning whether the U. S. fight against the Islamic State is legal. Capt. Nathan Michael Smith sued President Obama, saying Congress must explicitly authorize him to deploy troops. Above, Kurdish fighters hunt for militants in the northern Iraqi town where the decorated SEAL was killed. _____ 8. New York City flashed back to the days of mob wars after a man’s body washed ashore in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. His face had been his arms were tied behind him and his feet were encased in concrete — which takes hours to harden. The case may be the only, um, concrete case of the fabled “cement shoes. ” _____ 9. The future of the Japanese company Takata is in doubt after U. S. regulators said 35 million to 40 million more of its airbags needed to be fixed. That more than doubles the size of what is already the largest automotive recall in U. S. history. U. S. stocks fell after a report said U. S. hiring last month was the slowest in three years. _____ 10. The tech world could lose one of its guiding principles. Moore’s Law — the idea that the transistor capacity of a computer chip doubles annually — is not expected to apply once scientists manipulate transistors. So an association of engineers announced it would devise an alternative way to forecast computer technologies. Above, Gordon Moore, the author of the “law. ” _____ 11. Finally, the Justice Department warned North Carolina that its transgender bathroom law violates the Civil Rights Act. The state could lose millions of dollars in federal funding unless they rapidly alter the law. Some establishments are already making their objections to the law clear, like the art hotel 21C, in Durham, above. _____ Your Evening Briefing is posted at 6 p. m. Eastern. And don’t miss Your Morning Briefing, posted weekdays at 6 a. m. Eastern, and Your Weekend Briefing, posted at 6 a. m. Sundays. Want to look back? Here’s last night’s briefing. What did you like? What do you want to see here? Let us know at briefing@nytimes. com.

Israeli Convicted in Murder of Palestinian Teenager - The New York Times

Isabel Kershner

JERUSALEM — An Israeli court convicted a man on Tuesday of abducting and murdering a Palestinian teenager in 2014, rejecting his insanity plea and bringing to a close a case that has convulsed Israelis and Palestinians. The Jerusalem District Court ruled that the man, Yosef Haim had been fully responsible for his actions when he and two teenage nephews snatched Muhammad Abu Khdeir, 16, off a street near his East Jerusalem home, drove him to a forest on the outskirts of the city, choked him, beat him unconscious and burned him to death in the early hours of July 2, 2014. Mr. told investigators during a recorded of the crime that he had urged his young relatives, who struggled with their captive in the back of the car, to “finish him off. ” Prosecutors are demanding a life sentence. One of the teenage defendants was sentenced in February to life in prison, and the other to 21 years, after the judges determined that he had played a lesser role in the murder. Their names have not been made public because they were 16 at the time of the crime. The murder took place at a particularly traumatic period in Israel’s recent history — a few hours after Israelis buried three teenagers who had been hitchhiking home from their yeshivas in the occupied West Bank when they were abducted, shot and killed by Palestinians. Their bodies were found in a shallow grave on a West Bank hillside after a wrenching search. The Israeli authorities determined that Mr. and his nephews intended to carry out a revenge attack, leading to Muhammad’s death. The kidnappings and killings roiled Israeli and Palestinian emotions, touched off riots in East Jerusalem and contributed to a spiral of tensions and violence culminating in the Gaza war that ended in August 2014. Hussein Abu Khdeir, Muhammad’s father, who has closely followed the trial, attended dozens of court hearings and accused Mr. of having faked an act of insanity, said he mistrusted the Israeli justice system because “it judges Arabs one way, and Jews another. ” After the ruling on Tuesday, Mr. Abu Khdeir said he wanted “justice all the way,” meaning a life sentence, no prospect of a presidential pardon and the demolition of Mr. ’s family home, “exactly like they do to Arabs, so that there is democracy. ” “We are tired of this,” he added. “Don’t ask how we feel. For the past year and nine months we haven’t gone to parties. My cousin got married two weeks ago, and we didn’t go. We can’t go. ” Waves of violence have shaken Jerusalem in the years since Muhammad’s death. Tensions over a contested holy site revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and Muslims as the Mosque compound reignited rioting in Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem and contributed to a surge of stabbing and vehicular attacks by Palestinians against Israelis that spread from Jerusalem to the West Bank and cities around Israel over the past six months. On Monday more than 20 people were wounded when a bomb exploded on a bus in Jerusalem — the first bus bombing in years. Mr. a resident of a West Bank settlement who ran a glasses store in Jerusalem, did not testify during his trial. Asher Ohayon, the public defender representing him, said during the trial that his client was in “a state of denial” and unable to remember his actions or to communicate. Mr. who had received psychiatric treatment in the past, including for disorder, submitted a late opinion by an American psychiatrist after the main court proceedings were over. The psychiatrist told the court that while Mr. understood what he was doing at the time of the crime, the manic and psychotic symptoms he displayed in the past might have affected his ability to control his actions. The prosecution argued that Mr. had worked up until the time of the killing, including that evening, and had acted normally and rationally during and after the episode. He made sure to destroy evidence of his crime — showing that he understood that his actions were unacceptable — and later gave a coherent account of the events of that night, during the prosecutors said. A Israeli psychiatrist found that Mr. was aware of his actions and was not psychotic at the time of the crime, and the court agreed. In addition to murder, the court convicted Mr. of abduction for the purpose of murder, assault, attempted arson and attempted kidnapping. Mr. and one of his nephews had tried to kidnap an Palestinian boy in the same area of East Jerusalem the night before Muhammad was killed, but the boy’s mother shouted and struggled with the kidnappers, and the boy got away. “The acts the accused carried out are of the cruelest imaginable,” a state prosecutor, Uri Korb, said after the ruling. “He burned the victim while he was alive, all motivated by crazed revenge. ” The Jerusalem District Court also convicted on Tuesday an Israeli man, Yishai Schlissel, of premeditated murder and six counts of attempted murder for his deadly stabbing rampage at the city’s gay pride parade in July, when he killed Shira Banki, a Jewish girl. Mr. Schlissel, an Jew, was released from prison shortly before the march, after having served 10 years for stabbing participants in the gay pride parade in 2005.

Remembering President John F. Kennedy [Video]

smith.j

The 53 rd anniversary of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy is remembered and his life is celebrated. On Nov. 22, 1963, the 35 th President of the United States was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald, at 12:30 p.m., in Dallas, Texas. He was in a motorcade with his wife Jacqueline, the Governor of Texas John Connally and his wife. They were traveling through Dealey Plaza when he was shot. He won the 1960 election by a narrow margin, although, in 1961, more than 60 percent of the population claimed they voted for Kennedy. He brought a special new aspect to the White House; a young family, culture, laughter, and class. Most importantly, Americans felt he brought the people hope. Kennedy was the only Catholic President of the United States. He once stated: There are three things in life; God, human folly, and laughter. The first two are beyond our comprehension, we must make the best of the third. The Life of Kennedy: His great-grandparents were immigrants from County Wexford, Ireland. He was fortunate to have not suffered poverty or discrimination, except for the Boston Brahmins, who believed he was “Shanty Irish.” He knew he was a Fenian. During World War II, his father’s influence helped him enlist in the United States Navy. Kennedy was a skipper of PT-109, in the Salmon Islands. A Japanese destroyer cut his boat in two, in a night action. He was thrown back into the bridge, causing a lifetime back injury. Despite his pain, the skipper collected his crew and saved a burned crewmate by placing a belt under the man’s arms and towing him to shore, holding the belt in his teeth. This act of valor earned him the Navy and Marine Corps. Medal and a Purple Heart. The Kennedy Presidency: October 1962, the president had to face Russia, concerning the missiles in Cuba. Generals wanted to go to war. However, Kennedy had experienced war, thus, he negotiated a settlement. The world viewed this as a victory for Kennedy. On June 11, 1963, his Civil Rights speech was televised across the nation. He asked Americans to allow equal rights for their fellow African-American citizens. In his speech, Kennedy stated that the nation was facing a moral issue that was “as old as the Scriptures and as clear as the American Constitution.” President Kennedy’s Civil Rights Bill was passed by Lyndon Johnson, in 1964. Also in June 1963, Kennedy delivered a speech in Berlin. This famous speech is known as “Ich bin EIN Berliner.” He offered the citizens of the country hope and warned Russia that their time was coming. He left Berlin and flew to Ireland to address the Irish Parliament. Kennedy made a point to visit Arbour Hill, the mass grave of 14 of the martyrs in the Easter Rebellion. He is the only United States leader to honor this memorial. He read the names of those buried there, while the Irish Prime Minister Sean Lemass walked by his side. Lemass knew many of the leaders in that grave. On Aug. 5, 1963, Kennedy signed the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. This was supposed to make the world a safer place. Nonetheless, four days later, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, the infant son of the president, died. He was two days old. Monday, November 18, President Kennedy made a stopover in Tampa, Florida. He was the first president to be a guest of this city. Among the multitude of conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of the former president are a few that involve his visit to Tampa. Tampa Conspiracy Theory: One of the many conspiracy theories claims there was a gunman at the Floridian Hotel. This gunman was prepared to assassinate President Kennedy. This theory is supported by the reports of organized crime in Tampa Bay. Per the story, the Floridian Hotel would be a good place for a sniper to set-up, in preparation to take a shot. Oswald Acted Alone Despite Disbelief: However, Warren Commission investigated the assassination of President Kennedy and determined, in September 1964, that there was no evidence of a conspiracy. It was concluded that Oswald acted on his own. The Associated Press conducted a poll in April 2013, and 50 percent of the American population believed more than one person was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy. They also believe it was a conspiracy. However, 24 percent of the people think Oswald acted on his own and 16 percent were undecided. A Gallup poll, in 2003, revealed 75 percent of Americans thought there was a conspiracy involved in the death of the president. In Remembrance: Springfield, Massachusetts, held a ceremony, to honor former President Kennedy, at 1 p.m., on Nov. 22, 2016, at the Eternal Flame in Forest Park. U.S. Rep. Richard Neal and Mayor Domenic Sarno were in attendance. A memorial wreath and three red roses were left at the Eternal Flame. The ceremony included a moment of silence in honor of Betty Sullivan, the wife of former Springfield Mayor William Sullivan. She recently passed away. By Jeanette Smith Sources: Channel 8 News: Tuesday marks 53rd anniversary of JFK’s assassination Irish Central: Remembering JFK – the assassination took place 53 years ago today Mass Live: Springfield to remember JFK on 53rd anniversary of assassination Image Courtesy of JFK Library/Courtesy of Smithsonian Channel – Used With Permission 53rd Anniversary , assassination , Conspiracy , kennedy , spot

California Today: A ‘See Something, Say Something’ Prostitution Plan - The New York Times

Mike McPhate

Good morning. Welcome to California Today, a morning update on the stories that matter to Californians (and anyone else interested in the state). Tell us about the issues that matter to you — and what you’d like to see: CAtoday@nytimes. com. Want to receive California Today by email? Sign up. Thomas Fuller, the San Francisco bureau chief for The New York Times, provides today’s introduction with news of an unusual initiative in the Bay Area. Oakland hosts millions of visitors every year for its sports events, thriving restaurant scene and growing technology businesses. The city also gets lots of johns who prowl the streets for sex. Of the 660 arrests made last year for prostitution in Oakland, more than of the suspects came from outside the city. On Saturday, Oakland is taking an unconventional step in fighting its image as one of America’s most cities, introducing a website, reportjohn. org, that city authorities hope will deter customers of the sex trade. Residents will be encouraged to note down the license plate numbers of suspected johns’ vehicles and describe the specific activity they witnessed. The sightings are uploaded to the police, who will send a letter to the address where the vehicle is registered. Karely Ordaz Salto, the chairwoman of the city’s Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Task Force, says Oakland is the first city to target johns in this way. “The hope is that they will think twice and this will deter them,” said Lt. Jill Encinias of the Oakland Police Department. “We really need to attack this problem from all sides. We need to start focusing on the demand. ” The first question in the online form gets straight to the point: “Do you have any photos of the activity?” The city’s problem with prostitution, and especially the involvement of girls, has been underscored this year by a scandal in its police department involving a young prostitute who claimed that she had had sex with officers and said the police had tipped her off to raids. The scandal led to the departure of three police chiefs in less than two weeks. The predecessor to reportjohn. org was a program called Dear John, introduced in 2013, which allowed residents to fill out a form that they submitted to the police. That program generated more than 300 “Dear John” letters mailed to the owners of the vehicles spotted by residents. The police department considered it such a success that the authorities wanted to move it to an online format. Although the program could conceivably lead to foul play — vendettas by jilted lovers or disgruntled neighbors come to mind — Lieutenant Encinias said there had been no signs of false reporting in the Dear John program. That said, stay tuned for reaction from civil liberties groups. “This has historically been something that people thought they could do in the shadows,” said Erica Terry Derryck, a spokeswoman for Mayor Libby Schaaf. “The intent is to put people on notice. ” • No, the federal government does not have plans to kill 45, 000 wild horses in the western United States. [The New York Times] • Regulators proposed leaving more water for struggling fish in the San Joaquin River system, setting the stage for cutbacks to cities and farms. [Sacramento Bee] • A look at three multimillionaires influencing the statewide ballot this November. [CALmatters] • What life is like behind bars for prisoner 1027820, also known as O. J. Simpson. [Los Angeles Times] • A crucial vote advanced a plan to move the Raiders to Las Vegas. [Mercury News] • The violent deaths of a former Nascar driver’s father and stepmother in Orange has shaken the community. [Orange County Register] • A small farming city in Central California is facing a widening hazing scandal involving high school football players. [The Associated Press] • From classic American fare to Thai restaurants and Mexican taquerias, Sunset Boulevard is a culinary adventure. [The New York Times] • As Venice booms, some residents wonder whether Los Angeles is holding them back. [Los Angeles Times] • An annual coastal cleanup is expected to draw thousands of volunteers this weekend. [KQED] Who couldn’t use a little more color in their day? That’s the idea behind two new crosswalk designs in downtown Santa Monica. The city hired two artists, armed with buckets of boldly colored paints, to create the artworks this week as part of an effort to delight pedestrians, said Constance Farrell, a city spokeswoman. The Federal Highway Administration actually frowns on crosswalk art, calling them distracting. But that hasn’t stopped a bunch of municipalities from doing it, anyway. Long Beach, West Hollywood and San Francisco are among the cities that have colored their crosswalks in recent years, though perhaps not quite on so grand a scale as Santa Monica. One of the designs fills the entire intersection at one of the city’s 12 new “scramble crosswalks” — the kind that lets you cross the street every which way, including diagonally. Counter to the government’s recommendations, Ms. Farrell suggested that the bright colors would improve safety by catching drivers’ attention. One has to wonder, though, how long the sheen will hold up under an unending march of vehicle tires and footsteps. “Upkeep is something we’re monitoring,” Ms. Farrell said. California Today goes live at 6 a. m. Pacific time weekdays. Tell us what you want to see: CAtoday@nytimes. com. The California Today columnist, Mike McPhate, is a Californian — born outside Sacramento and raised in San Juan Capistrano. He lives in Davis. Follow him on Twitter. California Today is edited by Julie Bloom, who grew up in Los Angeles and attended U. C. Berkeley.

Donald Trump Summons Tech Leaders to a Round-Table Meeting - The New York Times

David Streitfeld

SAN FRANCISCO — During the long presidential campaign, the most resolutely part of the country was the narrow strip of land south of this city. Silicon Valley shunned the Republican candidate and all he stood for. It mobilized its technology for his defeat and warned of dire consequences if he should somehow win. Now that the impossible has happened, tech’s day of reckoning is here — next Wednesday afternoon, to be precise. The is summoning leaders of the biggest tech companies to New York for a discussion, according to a transition official who has seen the invitations. The agenda is undisclosed and perhaps still under consideration, but it is unlikely to produce the sort of love fest that existed between President Obama and Silicon Valley. Tech culture celebrates disruption as the tool that produces a better future for all. Many of Donald J. Trump’s supporters, on the other hand, see it as pushing them down. How to reconcile these views is the task of Peter Thiel, the billionaire investor and Facebook board member whose role is to formulate a tech policy for the new administration. Mr. Thiel secured this position by making a contrarian bet on Mr. Trump’s candidacy, which paid off. The invitations are from Mr. Thiel Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s and Reince Priebus, the incoming chief of staff. If the past is any precedent, Mr. Trump might suggest or even order the tech overlords to do what he thinks necessary. The met on Tuesday with Masayoshi Son, the founder and chief executive of SoftBank Group, which recently created a new investment fund that could invest up to $100 billion in tech companies worldwide. Afterward, Mr. Trump posted on Twitter that Mr. Son agreed to invest $50 billion in the United States and create “50, 000 new jobs. ” Two Silicon Valley chief executives appeared willing to test the waters: Safra Catz, of the software maker Oracle, confirmed her participation in next week’s meeting with Mr. Trump. So did Chuck Robbins of Cisco Systems, the networking gear maker. Representatives for other leading tech companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Google and Apple, declined to comment. A Trump spokeswoman did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Mr. Thiel has said in interviews that the benefits accruing to tech investors like himself should be more widely shared outside a few ZIP codes in New York and around San Francisco. One role of the meeting is to spur ideas for changing this situation. A spokesman for Mr. Thiel declined to comment. In Apple’s case, Mr. Trump has said he told its chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, in late November that he wants the company to build “a big plant” in the United States — or even better, “many big plants. ” Apple itself does not do any manufacturing in the United States. A contractor, Flex, manufactures desktop computers on its behalf in Austin, Tex. employing about 2, 000 people. A vast majority of Apple’s production is in China, where there is an enormous ecosystem devoted to it. Many economists say that reproducing such an interlocking web of suppliers here would push the cost of iPhones up considerably. Mr. Trump also tangled with Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, during the campaign, saying that Mr. Bezos has “a huge antitrust problem because he’s controlling so much. ” Amazon is overwhelmingly the dominant force in . In its original business of books, for example, it is by far the most important retailer of both physical and electronic books. In several spheres, it is developing technology that eliminates the middleman — in other words, jobs. This week, the company debuted a new system for operating stores without cashiers. How much Silicon Valley is reconciling itself to the thought of President Trump is a complicated question. Last week, David O. Sacks, the chief executive of the software Zenefits, said he was stepping down after having had discussions about helping Mr. Trump’s transition team. Mr. Sacks is a longtime associate of Mr. Thiel’s. If there are some overtures being made in Silicon Valley, there are also some lines being drawn. Chris Sacca, a prominent venture investor, said there was only one path for those attending next week’s meeting: defiance. “If an attendee wants to maintain their integrity and preserve their company’s ability to recruit the best talent, then there is only one purpose for a trip to Trump Tower: to deliver the message that our industry will not be complicit in the systematic disgrace of our democratic institutions, the establishment of an authoritarian kleptocracy nor the oppression of citizens, including the minority of Americans who elected him,” Mr. Sacca said. Or perhaps everyone will get along fine. Some in Silicon Valley speculate that the rough moments between Mr. Trump and the tech industry come not because they are so different but because they are at the bottom so similar. “Trump embodies the harsher aspects of Silicon Valley — a brash and arrogant disrupter, convinced that the world is all wrong as it is and only he can change it for the better,” said Shiva Ramesh, a longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Even Mr. Trump’s plans have a familiar ring. “Sounds like the pitch of some : ‘It is all there in my head and in a plan, it will all work out, I can do it, trust me,’” Mr. Ramesh said.

Turkey Rounds Up Erdogan’s Political Opponents as Crackdown Widens

Kaitlyn Stegall

November 4, 2016 Turkey Rounds Up Erdogan’s Political Opponents as Crackdown Widens Salahhatin Demirtas, once hailed as the “Kurdish Obama,” among the pro-Kurdish opposition lawmakers held on Friday A Turkish court placed the two leaders of a major pro-Kurdish opposition party under arrest on Friday in a dramatic widening of a political crackdown that followed July’s failed military coup that will raise concerns about the future of Turkey’s parliamentary democracy. Police detained the co-chairs of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Selahhatin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, early on Friday morning along with nine other lawmakers. The measures against pro-Kurdish officials more than three months after president Recep Tayyip Erdogan narrowly survived an attempt by part of the military to seize power on July 15 could also open a new season of conflict with armed Kurdish insurgents. Hours after the arrests, a car bombing reportedly killed at least eight people in the city of Diyarbakir, the largest city in the Kurdish-majority southeast of Turkey.

Facebook Introduces Anti-Revenge Porn Program - Breitbart

Charlie Nash

Facebook has introduced an porn feature to the platform which will be able to detect malicious images and stop users from posting them. [“If someone tries to share a photo that Facebook has previously taken down, that person will see a saying the photo violates Facebook’s policies and that Facebook will not allow the person to share that particular photo on Facebook, Messenger or Instagram,” explained TechCrunch on Wednesday. “Facebook has also partnered with a handful of organizations, like the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative and the Revenge Porn Helpline, to offer support to people who are victims of revenge porn. ” “We’ve focused in on this because of the unique harm that this kind of sharing has on its victims,” said Facebook Global Head of Safety, Antigone Davis. “In the newsroom post we refer to a specific piece of research around the unique harm this has for victims. I think that’s where the focus was for this moving forward. ” “At this moment, we’re not using AI to go through this particular content,” Davis continued, pointing out that the issue is currently too complex to cut out human moderators completely. “There is significant context that’s required for reviewing sharing. ” Revenge porn has proven to be an issue for social media platforms, where disgruntled exes and even hackers have been able to post private and intimate photos of their victims without permission. Last month, a revenge porn victim’s lawyer claimed site Tumblr had “chosen to ignore” revenge porn images posted on the platform after it allegedly took three weeks to get a video of the victim removed from the site. “In my opinion, Tumblr has chosen to ignore valid legal demands because they earn more money using victims’ photographs as clickbait than they do protecting minors,” claimed lawyer Daniel Szalkiewicz, whose firm specializes in Internet defamation and revenge porn cases. Upon investigation, Breitbart Tech also found numerous accounts on Tumblr that specialized in trying to find and shame the victims seen in revenge porn, most of which had been up for numerous weeks without deletion. Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.

NC Transgender Bathrooms: “We don’t care”

NC Transgender Bathrooms: “We don’t care” November 04, 2016 A sign protesting a recent North Carolina law restricting transgender bathroom access adorns the bathroom stalls at the 21C Museum Hotel in Durham, North Carolina May 3, 2016. The battle over Transgender bathrooms in NC is proving to be a heated debate that may be greatly influenced by Tuesday's gubernatorial election. Law signed by Republican Governor Pat McCrory in March, has been blamed for hundreds of millions of dollars in economic losses and the relocation of major sporting events from the ninth largest U.S. state. It prohibits transgender individuals from using the bathroom that fits the gender they identify with. Opponents of the law say the vote on Tuesday also could have national implications. If McCrory loses to Democratic challenger Roy Cooper, they said, elected officials backing such measures in other states will face greater political risk. Elections experts consider the race between McCrory and Cooper, one of 12 U.S. gubernatorial seats being decided on Tuesday, to be among the country's most competitive. LGBTQ advocacy groups say they are hopeful that a stronger message against the law will be sent on Election Day. Those that support the ban say they admire the incumbent Governor for his courage to stand up for your believes.

Cartoon bonus: Preparation H

A. F. Branco

Former Clinton Foundation CEO begging Russia for ‘urgent and immediate’ asylum? Commenting Policy We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, vulgarity, profanity, all caps, or discourteous behavior. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain a courteous and useful public environment where we can engage in reasonable discourse. Read more . You may use HTML in your comments. Feel free to review the full list of allowed HTML here . Facebook Comments Disqus Comments Trending on Liberty Unyielding

Révélations – François Fillon serait de droite >> Le Gorafi

Risks Higher for Front-Seat Passengers in Some S.U.V. Crashes, Tests Show - The New York Times

Cheryl Jensen

passengers in some small sport utility vehicles may not be as well protected as drivers in certain types of crashes, according to recent tests of seven vehicles by the nonprofit Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The tests, known as small overlap frontal tests, were similar to the kind that the institute conducts by directing the impact to the driver’s side of the vehicle. But in these latest tests, whose results were released on Thursday, the impact was on the S. U. V. s’ front passenger side. Among the small S. U. V.s tested, a 2015 Toyota RAV4 received a rating of “poor” on its results. A 2014 Nissan Rogue and 2014 Subaru Forester received “marginal” safety ratings for passengers. All seven vehicles had received the highest rating — “good’’ — for protecting drivers in earlier, similar crash tests. But sitting next to the driver can be a riskier proposition. Of the seven, only a 2016 Hyundai Tucson earned a “good’’ rating on the test. The remaining three — a 2015 Buick Encore, a 2015 Honda and a 2015 Mazda — were rated “acceptable. ’’ (The different models reflect the first year in each case when modification were made that enabled the vehicles to earn their “good” ratings for the tests.) The findings matter because more than 1, 600 passengers in the right front seats of vehicles of all types died in frontal crashes in 2014, according to the federal government’s fatality data. It is not known how many of those crashes were of the sort replicated by the insurance institute’s tests, which involve 25 percent of the front end of a vehicle striking a rigid barrier at 40 miles an hour. The test, which uses dummies, aims to show what happens when a vehicle runs off the road and strikes an object like a tree or utility pole. The insurance institute, which has been conducting this test for four years, was aware that automakers were focusing their initial safety improvement efforts on the driver’s side of vehicles — given that there is always a driver in the car, but not necessarily a passenger. “Some manufacturers told us that in the short term they could make more driver’ modifications to more vehicle models to improve safety rather than making improvements to both sides,’’ said Becky Mueller, a senior research engineer at the insurance institute and the lead author of the report on the latest tests. But the expectation was that automakers would start to make modifications to the passenger side as well. “We are now four years into the testing and we want to remind manufacturers that the short term doesn’t last forever,” Mrs. Mueller said. “Consumers are going to want the same level of protection for drivers and passengers,” she said. “They expect that when we rate a vehicle ‘good,’ it applies to both sides of the vehicle. ” The small overlap frontal test is the newest of the insurance institute’s crash tests. It began in 2012 as the institute, which is funded by the insurance industry, was trying to determine why people were still being seriously injured or killed in frontal crashes, despite seatbelts, airbags and “good” frontal crash test ratings. One of its studies of newer vehicles found that small overlap frontal crashes accounted for about 20 to 25 percent of those injuries and deaths. Automakers began redesigning their vehicles to get better scores on the new test and provide better protection. The insurance institute said that since the test’s introduction, 13 automakers have made structural changes to 97 vehicles. Because crash forces in the small frontal overlap test are concentrated on the front wheel, suspension and firewall, the passenger’s survival space can be seriously compromised by intruding structures. The front wheel can be forced back into the footwell, resulting in serious and debilitating leg and foot injuries on the driver’s side as the test dummy’s feet and legs get caught up in the metal pedals. It is also easy for drivers and passengers to hit their heads and chests against metal structures, like the instrument panel, protruding into the vehicle. “If the structure is so badly intruded, the airbag can’t do its job effectively,” Mrs. Mueller said. In the Toyota RAV4 test, the intrusion into the interior of the vehicle on the passenger’s side was 13 inches deeper than on the driver’s side. And the RAV4’s door popped open, which in a crash would put the occupant at risk of being ejected. In 2013, when the RAV4 was tested for the first time, it got a “poor” small overlap rating. The 2015 model received a good rating, but Toyota did not make the same safety improvements to the passenger side. In a written statement responding to the new test results, Toyota said, in part: “The I. I. H. S. small overlap test is severe, specialized and goes beyond federal vehicle safety requirements. “Rather than waiting to both driver’s and passenger’s sides,’’ Toyota added, “we took immediate steps to enhance performance on the driver’s side. ” The company said that it had incorporated safety enhancements on both sides for vehicles built on Toyota’s new platforms, beginning with the 2016 Prius. With the Nissan Rogue, maximum intrusion on the passenger side was 10 inches more than on the driver’s side, and the door hinge pillar, which is at the bottom of the passenger compartment where the rocker panel meets the A pillar — a front roof support — was torn off completely, although the door remained closed. In a written statement, Nissan said: “Nissan is committed to the safety and security of our customers and their passengers. We are aware of the I. I. H. S. testing and we are currently reviewing the details to assess opportunities for improved performance. ’’ Hyundai, meantime, was happy to promote its results. “Our 2016 Tucson’s good rating for both driver and passenger in the demanding I. I. H. S. small overlap crash test reflects our commitment to passenger safety at every level,’’ Mike O’Brien, a vice president for Hyundai Motor America, said in a statement. Here are the full results of the tests: Driver side: GOOD Passenger side: GOOD _____ Driver side: GOOD Passenger side: ACCEPTABLE _____ Driver side: GOOD Passenger side: ACCEPTABLE _____ Driver side: GOOD Passenger side: ACCEPTABLE _____ Driver side: GOOD Passenger side: MARGINAL _____ Driver side: GOOD Passenger side: MARGINAL _____ Driver side: GOOD Passenger side: POOR

Let’s Be Clear – A Vote For Warmonger Hillary Clinton Is A Vote For World War 3

Michael Snyder

Archives Michael’s Latest Video Let’s Be Clear – A Vote For Warmonger Hillary Clinton Is A Vote For World War 3 By 26th, 2016 If you want to see war without end, vote for Hillary Clinton. It is tremendously ironic that Hillary Clinton and the mainstream media have attempted to portray Donald Trump as “dangerous” and “temperamental”, because it is Clinton that actually has a long history of being emotionally unstable. She has a temper that is absolutely legendary, and she has been cussing out the men and women in her security detail for decades . Hillary Clinton played a key role in starting the civil war in Syria, thanks to her Libya is a post-apocalyptic wasteland today, and now she is picking a fight with the Russians before she has even won the election. Of all the candidates there were running for president this election cycle, there was nobody that was even close to as dangerous as Hillary Clinton, and if she wins the election I am fully convinced that World War 3 will begin before her time in the White House is over. Someone that shares this opinion with me is Donald Trump. According to Reuters , Trump recently stated that we are “going to end up in World War Three over Syria if we listen to Hillary Clinton”… On Syria’s civil war, Trump said Clinton could drag the United States into a world war with a more aggressive posture toward resolving the conflict. Clinton has called for the establishment of a no-fly zone and “safe zones” on the ground to protect non-combatants. Some analysts fear that protecting those zones could bring the United States into direct conflict with Russian fighter jets. “What we should do is focus on ISIS. We should not be focusing on Syria,” said Trump as he dined on fried eggs and sausage at his Trump National Doral golf resort. “You’re going to end up in World War Three over Syria if we listen to Hillary Clinton.” In order to have a no-fly zone in Syria, you would have to enforce it. And in order to enforce it, you would have to be willing to shoot at the Russians. According to National Intelligence Director James Clapper , that could have dire consequences… Russia could shoot down a U.S. aircraft if a no-fly zone were imposed over Syria, National Intelligence Director James Clapper said Tuesday. “I wouldn’t put it past them to shoot down an American aircraft if they felt that was threatening to their forces on the ground,” Clapper said, speaking with CBS’ Charlie Rose at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York about several national security issues. Of course Clapper is not alone in that assessment. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Francis Dunford, says that imposing a no-fly zone over all of Syria “would require us to go to war” … “Right now, Senator, for us to control all of the airspace in Syria it would require us to go to war, against Syria and Russia,… That’s a pretty fundamental decision that certainly I’m not going to make.” ( Senate Armed Services Committee, September 22, 2016, emphasis added) But Hillary Clinton is unwavering in her position that this is what she wants. You see, the truth is that Hillary Clinton wants to win the war that she started in Syria. Back in 2011, she spearheaded an effort along with Saudi Arabia and Turkey to try to use the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East as an opportunity to try to overthrow President Assad in Syria. If it wasn’t for her meddling, millions of refugees would not be pouring into Europe and elsewhere, and there would be no “humanitarian crisis” in Syria at all. Thanks to Russian intervention, the war in Syria is not too far from being over, but the Obama administration is desperate to keep it going. They understand that if Assad is victorious that all of their efforts for the last five years have been wasted, and that is why they are so determined to keep Aleppo from falling. Without Aleppo, many of the jihadist rebels that the Obama administration has been supporting won’t have anywhere to hide. So the Obama administration has actually been considering direct strikes against the Syrian military, and the Russians have already said that they will not allow this to happen . If Obama is insane enough to order airstrikes against Syrian forces and the Russians start shooting back, that could set off a chain of events that could rapidly spiral completely out of control. One recent survey found that current American leadership has a 1 percent approval rating in Russia right now, and the Russians dislike Hillary Clinton even more than they dislike Barack Obama. The Russians know that if Hillary Clinton is elected that it is quite likely that they will have to fight a war with us, and that is why they desperately want Donald Trump to win in November. You can see this outlook reflected in comments that Russian President Vladimir Putin recently made about the two candidates … “Mrs. Clinton has chosen to take up a very aggressive stance against our country, against Russia. Mr. Trump, on the other hand, calls for cooperation – at least when it comes to the international fight against terrorism,” Putin said. “Naturally we welcome those who would like to cooperate with us. And we consider it wrong, that we always have to be in conflict with one another, creating existential threats for each other and for the whole world,” Putin noted. Anyone that watched the three presidential debates could see that Hillary Clinton is absolutely seething with animosity for Russia. The thought of her finger on the nuclear trigger is almost too terrible to contemplate, but it may soon become a reality. And even now, the Obama administration and our NATO allies are shifting forces into position for a confrontation with Moscow. This week it is being reported that NATO troops will soon be sent to Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania … Nine hundred US troops are to be sent to eastern Europe next year as America’s troubled relationship with Russia enters new, uncertain territory. A US-led battle group of NATO allied soldiers will be sent to Poland as part of the multi-nation operation. British forces will lead one of the four battle groups in Estonia, Canada will spearhead the presence in Latvia and Germany will be present in Lithuania. In addition, Infowars is reporting that U.S. Marines will soon be stationed in Norway near the border with Russia… After accepting a Pentagon proposal, Norway will host US Marines at a base near the Russian border as Russia deploys nuclear-capable ships to Kaliningrad. A rotating force of approximately 330 Marines will be stationed at an airfield in the city of Vaernes, just outside Trondheim, beginning in January. Norway and Russia share an 122-mile border in the Arctic. “The US initiative to augment their training and exercises in Norway by locating a Marine Corps Rotational Force in Norway is highly welcome and will have positive implications for our already strong bilateral relationship,” said Norwegian Defense Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide. Most Americans aren’t aware of any of this, nor do they really care about our relationship with Russia. But in Russia things are completely different. The possibility of war with the United States is the biggest news story over there these days , and feverish preparations are being made for a potential nuclear confrontation … Russian authorities have stepped up nuclear-war survival measures amid a showdown with Washington, dusting off Soviet-era civil-defense plans and upgrading bomb shelters in the biggest cities. At the Kremlin’s Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Cold War is back. The country recently held its biggest civil defense drills since the collapse of the U.S.S.R., with what officials said were 40 million people rehearsing a response to chemical and nuclear threats. I know that I have been writing about this over and over , but the truth is that we are on a path to war with Russia, and the election of Hillary Clinton would greatly accelerate the march toward war. In my controversial new book , I expressed my belief that war with Russia is coming, but at the time that I wrote it I didn’t know how the election would turn out. At this point it looks like Clinton is very likely to win on November 8th, and that would be absolutely disastrous for our relationship with Russia. If you are reading this and you are considering voting for Hillary Clinton, please don’t do it . We simply cannot afford to have an emotionally unstable warmonger with a violent temper in the White House at this critical time. If the American people do choose Hillary Clinton this November, I believe that it will be a choice that they will bitterly, bitterly regret in future years. About the author: Michael Snyder is the founder and publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and End Of The American Dream. Michael’s controversial new book about Bible prophecy entitled “The Rapture Verdict” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.*

Thousands Stranded as Fire Disrupts Metro-North Rail Service - The New York Times

Christopher Mele and Remy Tumin

A large fire erupted below the Railroad tracks in East Harlem on Tuesday night, disrupting train service and leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded during the evening rush. Service was suspended to and from Grand Central Terminal, and it was unclear whether it would be restored by Wednesday morning. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said commuters should expect delays. The fire, at 119th Street and Park Avenue, was fueled in part by chemicals stored at a garden nursery that operated underneath the tracks, he said. The New York Fire Department said it was investigating reports of explosions, possibly set off by propane tanks at the site. Emergency officials received the call at 6:42 p. m. and fire officials said at 8:25 p. m. that a majority of the fire was under control. The cause remained under investigation, and no injuries were reported. A beam and support buttresses were bent, and crews were expected to work through the night to make repairs, the governor said. “It’s an ambitious goal,” Mr. Cuomo said during a news conference at the scene. “The scenario is we could have a delayed commute. ” planned to run several trains over the tracks once construction was completed. “The heat of the fire was extreme,” Mr. Cuomo said, adding that it was so intense that firefighters could hear bolts popping from the beams. For commuters, the trip home was a string of misery as they tried to find alternate means of transportation. At Grand Central, an announcement warned passengers that all northbound trains were “subject to indefinite delays at this time. ” The main hall was packed with people standing nearly shoulder to shoulder. Railroad officials said the disruption affected 30, 000 to 40, 000 commuters. Nicole Clarke, of Rye, N. Y. said she waited at Grand Central for 30 minutes before abandoning plans to take . “When I got to that place, it was a mess,” Ms. Clarke said. “They couldn’t tell us anything, nothing. ” She said that she was taking the subway to Avenue and 233rd Street in the Bronx and that her husband would pick her up from there. Linda Vanderperre, who works on Wall Street and uses the Larchmont station, said she had been waiting over 90 minutes for what would be customarily a commute. “It’s beyond ridiculous,” Ms. Vanderperre said. “This is the second day in a row it’s taken me over two hours to get home from Wall Street. ” She looked into using Uber but estimated it would cost around $150 because of surge pricing. “My husband is coming to pick me up if I’m still stuck here at 9,” she said. Three hotels near Grand Central said on Tuesday night that they had received numerous inquiries from stranded travelers but that, even before the fire, they were already booked. The disruption affected service on the Harlem, Hudson and New Haven lines, said Meredith Daniels, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Transportation authorities said train service was being provided to points north on the Hudson line from the 153rd Street station and the Marble Hill station. Service on the Harlem line was being provided from Wakefield, and trains on the New Haven line were running from Woodlawn to points east and from Stamford to New Haven. Ms. Daniels said the third rail, which powers the trains, had been shut off from 110th to 125th Street. Passengers on two trains that were stuck on either side of the fire were evacuated, officials said. Several passengers complained on Twitter about the lack of clear information and updates. Chris Polos, who commutes from Midtown Manhattan to his home in Scarsdale, said he had been waiting for 90 minutes. “I wish I had more information,” he said. “The big thing is what’s the next step — is it going to be a couple hours or 20 minutes?”

Donald Trump Floats Idea of Border Wall ‘Covered with Solar Panels’

Charlie Spiering

President Donald Trump, during his meeting with Congress on Tuesday, floated the idea of having his Southern border wall covered with solar panels. [Trump suggested that he could build a wall “40 to 50 feet high and covered with solar panels,” according to a report from Axios. The energy generated from the solar panels could be used to pay for the cost of building the wall, Trump intimated, according to three sources in the story. It is unclear how serious the president was about the proposal, but he appeared eager to discuss progress for the project. “The wall will be a great help, and it will happen believe me,” Trump said to reporters after the meeting.

Comment on Report Exposes Inner Workings of Facebook and How Clinton Loyalists Control Your Newsfeed by Phil Freeman

Phil Freeman

Home / Be The Change / Flex Your rights / Report Exposes Inner Workings of Facebook and How Clinton Loyalists Control Your Newsfeed Report Exposes Inner Workings of Facebook and How Clinton Loyalists Control Your Newsfeed Claire Bernish October 30, 2016 1 Comment Censorship by Facebook has become a thorn in the side of nearly anyone with an opinion differing from the narrative touted by the corporate press — for instance, sentiments not praising Hillary Clinton — and now, through both a new report from Reuters and emails published by Wikileaks, we have insight into why certain posts are targeted. Facebook relies on a combination of artificial intelligence and human judgment to remove posts deemed offensive, violent, or otherwise unacceptable to its community standards — but precisely how the ultimate call to take down posts, pages, and groups are made remains unknown. And Facebook takedowns, no matter the improvements to the process the social media behemoth claims to make, have been no less controversial or questionable — and those whose posts are censored have little if any recourse to argue their case. Recent examples of head-scratchers which led to an international uproar, include Facebook’s removal of the iconic Vietnam War photograph of Phan Thị Kim Phúc — who, at just 9-years-old, was captured on film by an Associated Press photographer fleeing the aftermath of an errant napalm attack near a Buddhist pagoda in the village of Trang Bang. That photograph helped cement in the collective American mind the horrors of the war, and ultimately fueled the success of the anti-war effort — but Facebook arbitrarily pulled the image for nudity — and proceeded even to ban the page of the Conservative prime minister of Norway for also posting the image. Ultimately, the social media company reversed course in that case — but not before also taking down the equally iconic image of civil rights leader Rosa Park’s arrest. But taking down of the image of Kim Phúc might not have been simply an error of AI, since it had been used as a specific example in training the teams responsible for content removal, two unnamed former Facebook employees told Reuters . “Trainers told content-monitoring staffers that the photo violated Facebook policy, despite its historical significance, because it depicted a naked child, in distress, photographed without her consent, the employees told Reuters.” In the final decision to reverse that censorship, Facebook head of the community operations division, Justin Osofsky, admitted it had been a “mistake.” According to Reuters , to whom many current and former Facebook employees spoke on condition of anonymity, the process of judging which posts deserve to be remove and which should be allowed will, in certain instances, be left to the discretion of a small cadre of the company’s elite executives. In addition to Osofsky, Global Policy Chief Monika Bickert; government relations chief, Joel Kaplan; vice president for public policy and communications, Elliot Schrage; and Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg make the final call on censorship and appeals. “All five studied at Harvard, and four of them have both undergraduate and graduate degrees from the elite institution. All but Sandberg hold law degrees. Three of the executives have longstanding personal ties to Sandberg,” the outlet notes. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg also occasionally offers guidance in difficult decisions. But there are others. Company spokeswoman Christine Chen explained, “Facebook has a broad, diverse and global network involved in content policy and enforcement, with different managers and senior executives being pulled in depending on the region and the issue at hand.” For those on the receiving end of what could only be described as lopsided and inexplicable censorship, recourse is generally limited and can be nearly impossible to come by. Often, the nature of posts and pages removed insinuates political motivations on the part of the censors. Indeed, and once again flaring international controversy, Facebook disabled , among others, the accounts of editors of Quds and Shehab New Agency — prominent Palestinian media organizations — without explanation or even a specific example given for justification. Although three of four Palestinian-focused accounts were restored, Facebook refused to comment to either Reuters or the accounts’ owners why the decision was reversed, except to say it had been an ‘error.’ In fact, although Chen and other Facebook insiders spoke with Reuters directly about contentious content removal policies and procedures, many details of the processes remain covert and sorely intransparent to the public who is so often forced to cope with the consequences. Earlier this year, an exposé by Gizmodo showing Facebook’s suppression of conservative outlets via its “Trending Topics” section appeared to evidence extreme bias in favor of liberal and corporate media mainstays. Alternative media, too, which provides reports counter to the mainstream political and foreign policy paradigm, has often been the subject of controversial take-downs, censorship, and suppressive tactics — either directly by Facebook, or through convoluted algorithms and artificial intelligence bots. However, considering Sheryl Sandberg and her loyalists populate the top-level group deciding the fate for content removal complaints, it would appear Wikileaks could provide answers for both post censorship and suppression of outlets not vowing complete fealty to the preferred, left-leaning narrative. In a June 4, 2015, email to Clinton campaign chair John Podesta — an enormous cache of whose emails are still being published on a daily basis by Wikileaks — penned by Sandberg in response to condolences on the death of her husband, states , in part, “And I still want HRC to win badly. I am still here to help as I can. She came over and was magical with my kids.” After a wave of post removals and temporary page bans, it appears Facebook has begun to come to its senses for what actually violates community standards — and what might have political worth contrary to the views of its executives. Senior members of Facebook’s policy team recently posted about the laxing of rules governing community standards, which — though welcome — might only provide temporary relief. Quoted by the Wall Street Journal , they wrote : “In the weeks ahead, we’re going to begin allowing more items that people find newsworthy, significant, or important to the public interest—even if they might otherwise violate our standards.” While the social media giant deems itself a technology, and not news, platform, Facebook is still the bouncing off point for issues of interest for an overwhelming percentage of its users. Although it perhaps has some responsibility in regard to the removal of certain content, putting censorship in the hands of only a few individuals in certain instances is a chilling reminder of the fragility — and grave importance — of free speech. Share

Sex and That ’70s Single Woman, Mary Tyler Moore - The New York Times

Mary Jo Murphy

“Let’s get her some sex. ” Susan Silver says that was one of her chief contributions as a writer on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show. ” Playing the beloved young housewife Laura Petrie a few years earlier, Ms. Moore and her TV husband, Dick Van Dyke, had been made to sleep in separate beds. But it was the 1970s now. Even good girls had sex. Ms. Silver and the other women writing for “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” made sure of it. [ Read Mary Tyler Moore’s obituary | How she changed fashion ] As Ms. Moore’s new sitcom character, the independent, single career woman Mary Richards, put it in one episode: “I’m hardly innocent. I’ve been around. Well, all right I might not have been around. But I’ve been nearby. ” Ms. Silver said there was no particular feminist agenda for the show. There was, however, an number of female writers on it — well over a dozen in the show’s run that started in 1970. They were encouraged, she said, to write from their own experience, and to let Mary Richards’s derive “organically. ” That made “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” a laboratory for the social issues of the day, which in some cases were being reflected for the first time on television. Sex, birth control, equal pay, workplace sexism, homosexuality — all took a turn on the show, and not from the bully pulpit but from the “girl” who could turn the world on with her smile. Here’s how they played: When Lou Grant (Ed Asner) interviews Mary Richards for an associate producer job in his Minneapolis TV newsroom, he asks questions that women in the workplace often got asked but that weren’t necessarily legal: How old are you? Are you married? Divorced? What religion are you? She calls him out but answers anyway, in the show’s first episode. The point was not belabored but Mary Richards slept with her boyfriends. A Chicago journalist had suggested that Mary, who was 30 when the series began, was “undersexed,” Ms. Silver said, and so in Season 3, Ms. Silver wrote an episode in which Mary asked her friend Rhoda if that was the case. A few episodes later, Mary goes on a date and comes home the next morning in the same dress. “Men across the country wrote to the show in despair over the betrayal of their trust and admiration,” Jennifer Keishin Armstrong wrote in her 2013 book, “Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And All the Brilliant Minds That Made ‘The Mary Tyler Moore Show’ a Classic. ” The third season featured another handled in a way. Mary’s friend Phyllis (Cloris Leachman) tries to push her brother into Mary’s arms, but the brother (Robert Moore) is more taken with Phyllis’s archnemesis, Rhoda (Valerie Harper). Phyllis works herself into a lather over this development, until Rhoda puts her out of her misery. “He’s not my type,” she reassures Phyllis, who remains skeptical. No really, Rhoda says. “He’s gay. ” Mr. Moore himself was gay, and he embraced the late decision to out the character this plainly, Ms. Armstrong writes in her book, especially since all the laughs were directed at his clueless TV sister. Had the Pill ever been mentioned in a sitcom script before “Mary Tyler Moore”? If so, the moment has been lost to history. Not long after the episode, Mary’s father, at loose ends after his retirement, is visiting Mary for dinner at her apartment. Mary’s mother, making her exit, turns at the door. “Don’t forget to take your pill!” she calls out. “I won’t,” father and daughter answer in unison. Cut to the comically guilty look on Mary’s face. The Pill had won federal approval in 1960, but it was only that year, 1972, that a Supreme Court decision had made it available to unmarried women. And Mary was unmarried, for all seven seasons. Early hopes to make her a divorcée from the outset were instantly quashed by queasy executives. “It used to be I felt I could be myself. Now I feel I represent women everywhere. ” The third season opens with Mary kvetching to Rhoda as she prepares for a meeting at the TV station, where she resents the station manager “trotting in groups of people and saying, ‘This is our woman executive. ’” Her views take on a slightly different cast when she discovers that she makes $50 a week less than the man who had her job before her. She confronts Lou, asking him why. “Because he was a man,” Lou says. “The Dick Van Dyke Show” ended just four years before “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” made its premiere, even though it seemed the two shows were worlds apart. Ms. Moore broke ground in the earlier show, too, though. When the script called for her to vacuum in skirt and heels, she put her foot (in ballet flat) down and her Capri pants on. “We got the absolution of men everywhere,” she told TV Guide a few years ago, “and women kind of breathed a sigh of relief, too, and said: ‘Hey, that’s right. That’s what we wear. ’”

Regresa 'La Chimoltrufia', ahora como 'youtuber'

RT en español

Regresa 'La Chimoltrufia', ahora como 'youtuber' Publicado: 27 oct 2016 03:04 GMT El personaje encarnado por la actriz Florinda Meza, reconocida por su participación en la popular serie mexicana 'El Chavo del 8', vuelve a través de la mayor plataforma de videos en Internet. Youtube / Florinda Meza Síguenos en Facebook La actriz mexicana Florinda Meza, alejada desde hace años de los vaivenes de la vieja 'vecindad', se suma a los nuevos formatos que posibilita la tecnología y retomó su caracterización como 'La Chimoltrufia', ahora, en una serie de entregas en la plataforma YouTube, informa ' El Debate '. Bajo el nombre #LadyChimoltrufia, la viuda de Roberto Gómez Bolaños 'Chespirito', creador de las populares series 'El Chavo del 8' y 'Chespirito', se convirtió en 'youtuber' al publicar un video en el que la esposa del 'Botija' brinda una entrevista desde la vivienda en la que trabaja como mucama. En el corto, que solo ha logrado de momento 2.600 visitas, María Expropiación Petronila Lascuráin y Torquemada de Botija recrea en su propio lenguaje, que la "entrevisitan" sobre sus tareas cotidianas y responde: "Yo todo lo hago bienisisimamente bien". Según se anunció, en la próxima entrega, el popular personaje brindará información sobre su marido, el ladrón que operaba junto al 'Chómpiras', interpretado por Gómez Bolaños, y sobre sus amigos, por lo que se espera el retorno de sus clásicas frases como la recordada "Pos ¿pa' qué te digo que no, si sí?".

Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader Recently Had Their First Public Conversation (Video)

Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader Recently Had Their First Public Conversation (Video) Posted on Oct 26, 2016 The renowned activists have an important discussion about America’s current “electoral extravaganza,” climate change, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as several other topics in an nearly hour-long interview.

Gun-Controlled Chicago: Thieves Break Into Car of Top Cop

AWR Hawkins

Over the weekend the SUV in which Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson travels was broken into and the contents tossed about. [Johnson lives in the Bridgeport area and other nearby cars were also targeted. According to NBC News, “The vehicle’s interior was found in disarray on Saturday morning when officers went to … [Johnson’s home] to pick him up. ” The vehicle was unmarked so Chicago Police do not believe it was not targeted. The Chicago Tribune quoted Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi saying “items from the glove box had been tossed about, but no weapons or confidential materials or valuables were inside the SUV. ” Police believe there is a possibility the car was accidentally left unlocked the night before. The crime that reached the superintendent’s car is just a taste of the lawlessness that has characterized Chicago all year. On April 27, Breitbart News reported Chicago already had over 1, 000 shooting victims for 2017 and stories of fatalities that included sons being gunned down in front of their mothers. As of May 1, the Tribune reports a total of 192 homicides in Chicago for 2017. This means the city is on track to get close to the nearly 800 homicides witnessed in 2016. On April 25, Breitbart News reported that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s (D) response to the gun violence has consisted of calls for additional gun control. He now wants new controls and regulations on Federal Firearm License holders (FFLs) in Chicago. In other words, with criminal gun use surging, Emanuel wants to go after the gun dealers who have gone through the proper legal channels to get an FFL and who, because of that FFL, conduct a background check on every gun they sell. AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart. com.

How to Organically Take Care of Your Backyard Apple Tree

Heather Callaghan

By Ann Katelyn Some people think that spraying chemicals on apple trees will help them to grow beautiful and delicious. The truth is, it can only hurt the tree and the apples that grow on it....

The Modern History of ‘Rigged’ US Elections

The Modern History of ‘Rigged’ US Elections Robert Parry, Consortium News The United States is so committed to the notion that its electoral process is the world’s “gold standard” that there has been a bipartisan determination to maintain the fiction even when evidence is overwhelming that a U.S. presidential election has been manipulated or stolen. The “wise men” of the system simply insist otherwise. We have seen this behavior when there are serious questions of vote tampering (as in Election 1960) or when a challenger apparently exploits a foreign crisis to create an advantage over the incumbent (as in Elections 1968 and 1980) or when the citizens’ judgment is overturned by judges (as in Election 2000). The harsh truth is that pursuit of power often trumps the principle of an informed electorate choosing the nation’s leaders, but that truth simply cannot be recognized.Strangely, in such cases, it is not only the party that benefited which refuses to accept the evidence of wrongdoing, but the losing party and the establishment news media as well. Protecting the perceived integrity of the U.S. democratic process is paramount. Americans must continue to believe in the integrity of the system even when that integrity has been violated. Of course, historically, American democracy was far from perfect, excluding millions of people, including African-American slaves and women. The compromises needed to enact the Constitution in 1787 also led to distasteful distortions, such as counting slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of representation (although obviously slaves couldn’t vote). That unsavory deal enabled Thomas Jefferson to defeat John Adams in the pivotal national election of 1800. In effect, the votes of Southern slave owners like Jefferson counted substantially more than the votes of Northern non-slave owners. Even after the Civil War when the Constitution was amended to give black men voting rights, the reality for black voting, especially in the South, was quite different from the new constitutional mandate. Whites in former Confederate states concocted subterfuges to keep blacks away from the polls to ensure continued white supremacy for almost a century. Women did not gain suffrage until 1920 with the passage of another constitutional amendment, and it took federal legislation in 1965 to clear away legal obstacles that Southern states had created to deny the franchise to blacks. Indeed, the alleged voter fraud in Election 1960, concentrated largely in Texas, a former Confederate state and home to John Kennedy’s vice presidential running mate, Lyndon Johnson, could be viewed as an outgrowth of the South’s heritage of rigging elections in favor of Democrats, the post-Civil War party of white Southerners. However, by pushing through civil rights for blacks in the 1960s, Kennedy and Johnson earned the enmity of many white Southerners who switched their allegiance to the Republican Party via Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy of coded racial messaging. Nixon also harbored resentments over what he viewed as his unjust defeat in the election of 1960. Nixon’s ‘Treason’ So, by 1968, the Democrats’ once solid South was splintering, but Nixon, who was again the Republican presidential nominee, didn’t want to leave his chances of winning what looked to be another close election to chance. Nixon feared that — with the Vietnam War raging and the Democratic Party deeply divided — President Johnson could give the Democratic nominee, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, a decisive boost by reaching a last-minute peace deal with North Vietnam. The documentary and testimonial evidence is now clear that to avert a peace deal, Nixon’s campaign went behind Johnson’s back to persuade South Vietnamese President Nguyen van Thieu to torpedo Johnson’s Paris peace talks by refusing to attend. Nixon’s emissaries assured Thieu that a President Nixon would continue the war and guarantee a better outcome for South Vietnam. Though Johnson had strong evidence of what he privately called Nixon’s “treason”— from FBI wiretaps in the days before the 1968 election — he and his top advisers chose to stay silent. In a Nov. 4, 1968 conference call , Secretary of State Dean Rusk, National Security Advisor Walt Rostow and Defense Secretary Clark Clifford – three pillars of the Establishment – expressed that consensus, with Clifford explaining the thinking: “Some elements of the story are so shocking in their nature that I’m wondering whether it would be good for the country to disclose the story and then possibly have a certain individual [Nixon] elected,” Clifford said. “It could cast his whole administration under such doubt that I think it would be inimical to our country’s interests.” Clifford’s words expressed the recurring thinking whenever evidence emerged casting the integrity of America’s electoral system in doubt, especially at the presidential level. The American people were not to know what kind of dirty deeds could affect that process. To this day, the major U.S. news media will not directly address the issue of Nixon’s treachery in 1968, despite the wealth of evidence proving this historical reality now available from declassified records at the Johnson presidential library in Austin, Texas. In a puckish recognition of this ignored history, the library’s archivists call the file on Nixon’s sabotage of the Vietnam peace talks their “X-file.” [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “ LBJ’s ‘X-File’ on Nixon’s ‘Treason. ’”] The evidence also strongly suggests that Nixon’s paranoia about a missing White House file detailing his “treason”– top secret documents that Johnson had entrusted to Rostow at the end of LBJ’s presidency – led to Nixon’s creation of the “plumbers,” a team of burglars whose first assignment was to locate those purloined papers. The existence of the “plumbers” became public in June 1972 when they were caught breaking into the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters at the Watergate in Washington. Although the Watergate scandal remains the archetypal case of election-year dirty tricks, the major U.S. news media never acknowledge the link between Watergate and Nixon’s far more egregious dirty trick four years earlier, sinking Johnson’s Vietnam peace talks while 500,000 American soldiers were in the war zone. In part because of Nixon’s sabotage — and his promise to Thieu of a more favorable outcome — the war continued for four more bloody years before being settled along the lines that were available to Johnson in 1968. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “ The Heinous Crime Behind Watergate .”] In effect, Watergate gets walled off as some anomaly that is explained by Nixon’s strange personality. However, even though Nixon resigned in disgrace in 1974, he and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, who also had a hand in the Paris peace talk caper, reappear as secondary players in the next well-documented case of obstructing a sitting president’s foreign policy to get an edge in the 1980 campaign. Reagan’s ‘October Surprise’ Caper In that case, President Jimmy Carter was seeking reelection and trying to negotiate release of 52 American hostages then held in revolutionary Iran. Ronald Reagan’s campaign feared that Carter might pull off an “October Surprise” by bringing home the hostages just before the election. So, this historical mystery has been: Did Reagan’s team take action to block Carter’s October Surprise? The testimonial and documentary evidence that Reagan’s team did engage in a secret operation to prevent Carter’s October Surprise is now almost as overwhelming as the proof of the 1968 affair regarding Nixon’s Paris peace talk maneuver. That evidence indicates that Reagan’s campaign director William Casey organized a clandestine effort to prevent the hostages’ release before Election Day, after apparently consulting with Nixon and Kissinger and aided by former CIA Director George H.W. Bush, who was Reagan’s vice presidential running mate. By early November 1980, the public’s obsession with Iran’s humiliation of the United States and Carter’s inability to free the hostages helped turn a narrow race into a Reagan landslide. When the hostages were finally let go immediately after Reagan’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 1981, his supporters cited the timing to claim that the Iranians had finally relented out of fear of Reagan. Bolstered by his image as a tough guy, Reagan enacted much of his right-wing agenda, including passing massive tax cuts benefiting the wealthy, weakening unions and creating the circumstances for the rapid erosion of the Great American Middle Class. Behind the scenes, the Reagan administration signed off on secret arms shipments to Iran, mostly through Israel, what a variety of witnesses described as the payoff for Iran’s cooperation in getting Reagan elected and then giving him the extra benefit of timing the hostage release to immediately follow his inauguration. In summer 1981, when Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East Nicholas Veliotes learned about the arms shipments to Iran, he checked on their origins and said, later in a PBS interview: “It was clear to me after my conversations with people on high that indeed we had agreed that the Israelis could transship to Iran some American-origin military equipment. … [This operation] seems to have started in earnest in the period probably prior to the election of 1980, as the Israelis had identified who would become the new players in the national security area in the Reagan administration. And I understand some contacts were made at that time.” Those early covert arms shipments to Iran evolved into a later secret set of arms deals that surfaced in fall 1986 as the Iran-Contra Affair, with some of the profits getting recycled back to Reagan’s beloved Nicaraguan Contra rebels fighting to overthrow Nicaragua’s leftist government. While many facts of the Iran-Contra scandal were revealed by congressional and special-prosecutor investigations in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the origins of the Reagan-Iran relationship was always kept hazy. The Republicans were determined to stop any revelations about the 1980 contacts, but the Democrats were almost as reluctant to go there. A half-hearted congressional inquiry was launched in 1991 and depended heavily on then-President George H.W. Bush to collect the evidence and arrange interviews for the investigation. In other words, Bush, who was then seeking reelection and who was a chief suspect in the secret dealings with Iran, was entrusted with proving his own guilt. Tired of the Story By the early 1990s, the mainstream U.S. news media was also tired of the complex Iran-Contra scandal and wanted to move on. As a correspondent at Newsweek, I had battled senior editors over their disinterest in getting to the bottom of the scandal before I left the magazine in 1990. I then received an assignment from PBS Frontline to look into the 1980 “October Surprise” question, which led to a documentary on the subject in April 1991. However, by fall 1991, just as Congress was agreeing to open an investigation, my ex-bosses at Newsweek, along with The New Republic, then an elite neoconservative publication interested in protecting Israel’s exposure on those early arms deals, went on the attack. They published matching cover stories deeming the 1980 “October Surprise” case a hoax, but their articles were both based on a misreading of documents recording Casey’s attendance at a conference in London in July 1980, which he seemed to have used as a cover for a side trip to Madrid to meet with senior Iranians regarding the hostages. Although the bogus Newsweek/New Republic “London alibi” would eventually be debunked, it created a hostile climate for the investigation. With Bush angrily denying everything and the congressional Republicans determined to protect the President’s flanks, the Democrats mostly just went through the motions of an investigation. Meanwhile, Bush’s State Department and White House counsel’s office saw their jobs as discrediting the investigation, deep-sixing incriminating documents, and helping a key witness dodge a congressional subpoena. Years later, I discovered a document at the Bush presidential library in College Station, Texas, confirming that Casey had taken a mysterious trip to Madrid in 1980. The U.S. Embassy’s confirmation of Casey’s trip was passed along by State Department legal adviser Edwin D. Williamson to Associate White House Counsel Chester Paul Beach Jr. in early November 1991, just as the congressional inquiry was taking shape. Williamson said that among the State Department “material potentially relevant to the October Surprise allegations [was] a cable from the Madrid embassy indicating that Bill Casey was in town, for purposes unknown,” Beach noted in a “ memorandum for record ” dated Nov. 4, 1991. Two days later, on Nov. 6, Beach’s boss, White House counsel C. Boyden Gray, convened an inter-agency strategy session and explained the need to contain the congressional investigation into the October Surprise case. The explicit goal was to ensure the scandal would not hurt President Bush’s reelection hopes in 1992. At the meeting, Gray laid out how to thwart the October Surprise inquiry, which was seen as a dangerous expansion of the Iran-Contra investigation. The prospect that the two sets of allegations would merge into a single narrative represented a grave threat to George H.W. Bush’s reelection campaign. As assistant White House counsel Ronald vonLembke, put it , the White House goal in 1991 was to “kill/spike this story.” Gray explained the stakes at the White House strategy session. “Whatever form they ultimately take, the House and Senate ‘October Surprise’ investigations, like Iran-Contra, will involve interagency concerns and be of special interest to the President ,” Gray declared, according to minutes . [Emphasis in original.] Among “touchstones” cited by Gray were “No Surprises to the White House, and Maintain Ability to Respond to Leaks in Real Time. This is Partisan.” White House “talking points” on the October Surprise investigation urged restricting the inquiry to 1979-80 and imposing strict time limits for issuing any findings. Timid Democrats But Bush’s White House really had little to fear because whatever evidence that the congressional investigation received – and a great deal arrived in December 1992 and January 1993 – there was no stomach for actually proving that the 1980 Reagan campaign had conspired with Iranian radicals to extend the captivity of 52 Americans in order to ensure Reagan’s election victory. That would have undermined the faith of the American people in their democratic process – and that, as Clark Clifford said in the 1968 context, would not be “good for the country.” In 2014 when I sent a copy of Beach’s memo regarding Casey’s trip to Madrid to former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Indiana, who had chaired the October Surprise inquiry in 1991-93, he told me that it had shaken his confidence in the task force’s dismissive conclusions about the October Surprise issue. “The [Bush-41] White House did not notify us that he [Casey] did make the trip” to Madrid, Hamilton told me. “Should they have passed that on to us? They should have because they knew we were interested in that.” Asked if knowledge that Casey had traveled to Madrid might have changed the task force’s dismissive October Surprise conclusion, Hamilton said yes, because the question of the Madrid trip was key to the task force’s investigation. “If the White House knew that Casey was there, they certainly should have shared it with us,” Hamilton said, adding that “you have to rely on people” in authority to comply with information requests. But that trust was at the heart of the inquiry’s failure. With the money and power of the American presidency at stake, the idea that George H.W. Bush and his team would help an investigation that might implicate him in an act close to treason was naïve in the extreme. Arguably, Hamilton’s timid investigation was worse than no investigation at all because it gave Bush’s team the opportunity to search out incriminating documents and make them disappear. Then, Hamilton’s investigative conclusion reinforced the “group think” dismissing this serious manipulation of democracy as a “conspiracy theory” when it was anything but. In the years since, Hamilton hasn’t done anything to change the public impression that the Reagan campaign was innocent. Still, among the few people who have followed this case, the October Surprise cover-up would slowly crumble with admissions by officials involved in the investigation that its exculpatory conclusions were rushed , that crucial evidence had been hidden or ignored , and that some alibis for key Republicans didn’t make any sense . But the dismissive “group think” remains undisturbed as far as the major U.S. media and mainstream historians are concerned. [For details, see Robert Parry’s America’s Stolen Narrative or Trick or Treason: The 1980 October Surprise Mystery or Consortiumnews.com’s “ Second Thoughts on October Surprise. ”] Past as Prologue Lee Hamilton’s decision to “clear” Reagan and Bush of the 1980 October Surprise suspicions in 1992 was not simply a case of miswriting history. The findings had clear implications for the future as well, since the public impression about George H.W. Bush’s rectitude was an important factor in the support given to his oldest son, George W. Bush, in 2000. President George W. Bush is introduced by his brother Florida Gov. Jeb Bush before delivering remarks at Sun City Center, Florida, on May 9, 2006. (White House photo by Eric Draper), if the full truth had been told about the father’s role in the October Surprise and Iran-Contra cases, it’s hard to imagine that his son would have received the Republican nomination, let alone made a serious run for the White House. And, if that history were known, there might have been a stronger determination on the part of Democrats to resist another Bush “stolen election” in 2000. Regarding Election 2000, the evidence is now clear that Vice President Al Gore not only won the national popular vote but received more votes that were legal under Florida law than did George W. Bush. But Bush relied first on the help of officials working for his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, and then on five Republican justices on the U.S. Supreme Court to thwart a full recount and to award him Florida’s electoral votes and thus the presidency. The reality of Gore’s rightful victory should have finally become clear in November 2001 when a group of news organizations finished their own examination of Florida’s disputed ballots and released their tabulations showing that Gore would have won if all ballots considered legal under Florida law were counted. However, between the disputed election and the release of those numbers, the 9/11 attacks had occurred, so The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and other leading outlets did not want the American people to know that the wrong person was in the White House. Surely, telling the American people that fact amid the 9/11 crisis would not be “good for the country.” So, senior editors at all the top new organizations decided to mislead the public by framing their stories in a deceptive way to obscure the most newsworthy discovery – that the so-called “over-votes” in which voters both checked and wrote in their choices’ names broke heavily for Gore and would have put him over the top regardless of which kinds of chads were considered for the “under-votes” that hadn’t registered on antiquated voting machines. “Over-votes” would be counted under Florida law which bases its standards on “clear intent of the voter.” However, instead of leading with Gore’s rightful victory, the news organizations concocted hypotheticals around partial recounts that still would have given Florida narrowly to Bush. They either left out or buried the obvious lede that a historic injustice had occurred. On Nov. 12, 2001, the day that the news organizations ran those stories, I examined the actual data and quickly detected the evidence of Gore’s victory. In a story that day, I suggested that senior news executives were exercising a misguided sense of patriotism. They had hid the reality for “the good of the country,” much as Johnson’s team had done in 1968 regarding Nixon’s sabotage of the Paris peace talks and Hamilton’s inquiry had done regarding the 1980 “October Surprise” case. Within a couple of hours of my posting the article at Consortiumnews.com, I received an irate phone call from The New York Times media writer Felicity Barringer, who accused me of impugning the journalistic integrity of then-Times executive editor Howell Raines. I got the impression that Barringer had been on the look-out for some deviant story that didn’t accept the Bush-won conventional wisdom. However, this violation of objective and professional journalism – bending the slant of a story to achieve a preferred outcome rather than simply giving the readers the most interesting angle – was not simply about some historical event that had occurred a year earlier. It was about the future. By misleading Americans into thinking that Bush was the rightful winner of Election 2000 – even if the media’s motivation was to maintain national unity following the 9/11 attacks – the major news outlets gave Bush greater latitude to respond to the crisis, including the diversionary invasion of Iraq under false pretenses. The Bush-won headlines of November 2001 also enhanced the chances of his reelection in 2004. [For the details of how a full Florida recount would have given Gore the White House, see Consortiumnews.com’s “ Gore’s Victory ,”“ So Bush Did Steal the White House ,” and “ Bush v. Gore’s Dark American Decade. ”] A Phalanx of Misguided Consensus Looking back on these examples of candidates manipulating democracy, there appears to be one common element: after the “stolen” elections, the media and political establishments quickly line up, shoulder to shoulder, to assure the American people that nothing improper has happened. Graceful “losers” are patted on the back for not complaining that the voters’ will had been ignored or twisted. Al Gore is praised for graciously accepting the extraordinary ruling by Republican partisans on the Supreme Court, who stopped the counting of ballots in Florida on the grounds, as Justice Antonin Scalia said, that a count that showed Gore winning (when the Court’s majority was already planning to award the White House to Bush) would undermine Bush’s “legitimacy.” Similarly, Rep. Hamilton is regarded as a modern “wise man,” in part, because he conducted investigations that never pushed very hard for the truth but rather reached conclusions that were acceptable to the powers-that-be, that didn’t ruffle too many feathers. But the cumulative effect of all these half-truths, cover-ups and lies – uttered for “the good of the country”– is to corrode the faith of many well-informed Americans about the legitimacy of the entire process. It is the classic parable of the boy who cried wolf too many times, or in this case, assured the townspeople that there never was a wolf and that they should ignore the fact that the livestock had mysteriously disappeared leaving behind only a trail of blood into the forest. So, when Donald Trump shows up in 2016 insisting that the electoral system is rigged against him, many Americans choose to believe his demagogy. But Trump isn’t pressing for the full truth about the elections of 1968 or 1980 or 2000. He actually praises Republicans implicated in those cases and vows to appoint Supreme Court justices in the mold of the late Antonin Scalia. Trump’s complaints about “rigged” elections are more in line with the white Southerners during Jim Crow, suggesting that black and brown people are cheating at the polls and need to have white poll monitors to make sure they don’t succeed at “stealing” the election from white people. There is a racist undertone to Trump’s version of a “rigged” democracy but he is not entirely wrong about the flaws in the process. He’s just not honest about what those flaws are. The hard truth is that the U.S. political process is not democracy’s “gold standard”; it is and has been a severely flawed system that is not made better by a failure to honestly address the unpleasant realities and to impose accountability on politicians who cheat the voters. Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com ).

Swedish Welfare State Funding Islamic Terrorism

Chris Tomlinson

A new damning report shows that multiple Islamist fighters who have travelled from Sweden to fight in Syria and Iraq have been the beneficiaries of welfare payments from the Swedish government. [The new report created by the by the National Defence University on behalf of the Financial Supervisory Authority (FSA) shows that around 300 Islamists have claimed benefits by using others to give the government the impression that they are still in Sweden despite the fact that they are in Syria or Iraq fighting for jihadist groups, Swedish broadcaster SVT reports. Terrorist researcher and one of the authors of the report Magnus Ranstorp said the problem isn’t just limited to Sweden. Commenting on the results, he said: “it was not surprising, we have seen the same pattern in other countries. Most surprising was that almost all had it in some form. But it is the monitoring that needs to work better. The problem is that there is too little . ” The 300 individuals covered in the report traveled from Sweden to the Middle East between 2013 and 2016, and are thought to have participated in fighting for groups including the terrorist Islamic State. Housing allowances, child support, student loans, maintenance and parental benefits are the most common types of benefits earned by the Islamists, often collected by a third party with the money then sent to them overseas. ” It’s not big money, they do not get rich on it, but it can go a long way in a conflict zone,” Ranstorp said. Police say that student loans, in particular, are an issue because the fighters can game the system by pretending to be going overseas to study and receive large lump sums from the Swedish government. Swedish Minister for Upper Secondary School and Adult Education and Training Anna Ekström said the problem was “totally unacceptable. No state funds will be used for something that is in the vicinity of terrorism. We must take hold of this immediately. We are preparing now to go to the parliament and ensure that the government gets the opportunity to ensure that we do not pay out such large sums at once. ” Sweden has seen at least one case in which the government paid a jihadi before. Late last year, Muslim convert Michael Skråmo was revealed to have been paid £4, 300 by the government since leaving for the Middle East in 2014. The Swedish government has also essentially legalised the flying of the Islamic State flag after a Swedish court refused to prosecute a man who displayed the symbol on his social media account as a promotion of the terrorist group. In 2015 it was shown that the Swedish city of Gothenburg sent more Islamists to the Middle East per capita than any other city in Europe. Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson@breitbart. com

For A Libertarian Foreign Policy: Five Key Fixes

Daniel McAdams

Written by Daniel McAdams We are often asked, when criticizing the foreign policy of the past several Administrations, "oh yeah, what would you do?" Well we decided to come up with five specific fixes to the prevailing foreign policy that we believe would make a huge difference and would move us much closer to a foreign policy of peace and prosperity. Our top five today on the Liberty Report: Copyright © 2016 by RonPaul Institute. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are given.

Alec Baldwin, in His Own Words, on Playing Trump - The New York Times

Michael Barbaro

How exactly did Alec Baldwin construct his mischievously exaggerated, searingly funny portrayal of Donald J. Trump on “Saturday Night Live”? In the latest episode of “The ” he explains at length, switching in and out of the ’s character as he describes his comedic craft. Here, he recalls his anxious, improvised debut as Mr. Trump: I spoke with Sarah Maslin Nir, my colleague who conducted (and, thankfully, recorded) the original conversation with Mr. Baldwin, his first interview about the comedic role. The liberal Mr. Baldwin concedes that he holds the in low regard. But that has not stopped him from becoming a close student of Mr. Trump’s every physical quirk and verbal tic — he is particularly taken with Mr. Trump’s tendencies to pause “and then what he comes to is something that you didn’t really have to pause to come up with that. ” But is the performance an act for the sake of comedy or an act of political rebellion? “I’m here doing a show,” Mr. Baldwin says. “I’m a performer, an actor that’s here doing a show. It’s a great part. ” That said, he isn’t shy about where he stands. “I don’t hate him. I want him to enjoy his life. I just want him to not be the president of the United States — as quickly as possible. ” As a satirical version of Mr. Trump, Mr. Baldwin now deals with an unexpected dilemma, for him, anyway: Is his portrayal making the new president more human, and thus, more sympathetic? Ms. Nir asked him about that, too. That’s the fake Mr. Trump. The real Mr. Trump had a busy and consequential week, grappling with global affairs in Germany, Turkey, Russia and Syria that are challenging a presidency focused on domestic economic revival. What did we learn about his interest and influence over international events? I put that question to the White House reporters Maggie Haberman and Mark Landler. almost always remain silent on foreign policy until their inauguration, to avoid confusing the world about who, exactly, is commander in chief. On this, Mr. Landler and Ms. Haberman agree: Mr. Trump, and his very active Twitter account, have no interest in abiding by that practice. “He doesn’t subscribe to the old idea that the country has one president at a time,” Mr. Landler says. Ms. Haberman questions how much we can deduce about his policy once in office from his current behavior. “When it is not Trump triangulating against Obama and Trump actually having to be the only president, I don’t know what we’re going to see in terms of foreign policy. It’s a little easier for him to do this right now. ” From a desktop or laptop, you can listen by pressing play on the button above. Or if you’re on a mobile device, the instructions below will help you find and subscribe to the series. On your iPhone or iPad: 1. Open your podcast app. It’s a app called “Podcasts” with a purple icon. (This link may help.) 2. Search for the series. Tap on the “search” magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the screen, type in “The ” and select it from the list of results. 3. Subscribe. Once on the series page, tap on the “subscribe” button to have new episodes sent to your phone free. You may want to adjust your notifications to be alerted when a new episode arrives. 4. Or just sample. If you would rather listen to an episode or two before deciding to subscribe, tap on the episode title from the list on the series page. If you have an internet connection, you’ll be able to stream the episode. On your Android phone or tablet: 1. Open your podcast app. It’s a app called “Play Music” with an icon. (This link may help.) 2. Search for the series. Click on the magnifying glass icon at the top of the screen, search for the name of the series and select it from the list of results. You may have to scroll down to find the “Podcasts” search results. 3. Subscribe. Once on the series page, click on the word “subscribe” to have new episodes sent to your phone free. 4. Or just sample. If you would rather listen to an episode or two before deciding to subscribe, click on the episode title from the list on the series page. If you have an internet connection, you’ll be able to stream the episode.

Comment on 21 Things We’ve Learned About Hillary Clinton from Wikileaks That the MSM Won’t Share…But YOU Can! by Lakshmima

Lakshmima

Posted on October 28, 2016 by Daisy Luther Let’s talk about Wikileaks . First of all, the organization was founded by Julian Assange back in 2006. Their website explains what they are all about: “WikiLeaks specializes in the analysis and publication of large datasets of censored or otherwise restricted official materials involving war, spying, and corruption. It has so far published more than 10 million documents and associated analyses.” In the 11 years that they’ve been publishing documents, they have not been disproven a single time. Their record for authentication is perfect. (Learn more here and here .) So this means that a person would be pretty silly to disregard anything in the reams of information about Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party, the Clinton Foundation, and the political shenanigans that would put the Machiavellis to shame. Here are 21 of the most important things that have come out about Hillary Clinton, that unfortunately, no one is reporting on in the mainstream. In the interest of brevity, each topic has a link to an article that goes deeper into the leak. (In no particular order.) John Podesta, the chairman of the Clinton campaign had a nice cozy dinner with Peter Kadzik, one of the top officials in the Department of Justice…the day after the Benghazi hearing . Kadzik’s son also asked for a job on the Clinton campaign, and, the icing on the corruption cupcake? Kadzik led the effort to nominate Loretta Lynch, who famously met with Bill Clinton on her private plane right before Hillary’s interrogation about Emailgate. ( source ) We all knew that the Clinton Foundation was just a way for the Clinton family to launder money, and now there’s proof. Zero Hedge writes, “…today’s Wikileaks dump included that memo which reveals, for the first time, the precise financial flows between the Clinton Foundation, Band’s firm Teneo Consulting, and the Clinton family’s private business endeavors.” A pundit called this leak “The Rosetta Stone of the Clinton Foundation,” meaning that with this document, all of their shady financial dealings could be unraveled and translated. ( source ) Clinton is unable to speak for very long without a podium to lean on . Numerous leaked emails reference how certain interviews have to be kept short because she’d be without one. And this article references a very interesting reason why this may be the case – surprisingly it isn’t related to her health. ( source ) The leaks also show that Clinton intends to do her best to restrict the Second Amendment. Brian Fallon, the national press secretary for the Clinton campaign, wrote, “ Circling back around on guns as a follow up to the Friday morning discussion: the Today show has indicated they definitely plan to ask bout guns, and so to have the discussion be more of a news event than her previous times discussing guns, we are going to background reporters tonight on a few of the specific proposals she would support as President – universal background checks of course, but also closing the gun show loophole by executive order and imposing manufacturer liability .” According to an analysis on The Daily Sheeple, “Imposing manufacturer liability means that after Sandy Hook, Bushmaster and Remington Arms would have been prosecuted for having a hand in the murder of children and school staff members for firearms that were legally sold.” ( source ) The campaign was concerned that the sexual escapades of Bill Clinton could be likened to those of another disgraced celebrity, Bill Cosby . Political operative Ron Klain sent an urgent email saying that Hillary should anticipate the following questions, ” How is what Bill Clinton did different from what Bill Cosby did? Is his conduct relevant to your campaign? You said every woman should be believed. Why not the women who accused him? Will you apologize to the women who were wrongly smeared by your husband and his allies?” ( source ) Clinton’s campaign deliberately leaked an embarrassing photo of a swimsuit-clad Bernie Sanders to the press, ironically insinuating that it was proof he was bought off by Wall Street. Perez Hilton wrote, “ Bernie Sanders lounges at elite Martha’s Vineyard pool, summer 2015 after helping raise money from Wall Street lobbyists .” ( source ) Clinton admitted she is out of touch with the middle class in a speech to Goldman-Black Rock in 2014. “And I am not taking a position on any policy, but I do think there is a growing sense of anxiety and even anger in the country over the feeling that the game is rigged. And I never had that feeling when I was growing up. Never. I mean, were there really rich people, of course there were. My father loved to complain about big business and big government, but we had a solid middle class upbringing. We had good public schools. We had accessible health care. We had our little, you know, one-family house that, you know, he saved up his money, didn’t believe in mortgages. So I lived that. And now, obviously, I’m kind of far removed because the life I’ve lived and the economic, you know, fortunes that my husband and I now enjoy , but I haven’t forgotten it.” ( source ) She made this rather NWO remark at a 2013 paid speech to Brazilian bank Banco Itau: “ My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders , some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere.” ( source ) In a leak of yet another paid speech, this time to the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago in 2013, Clinton said that Jordan and Turkey “ can’t possibly vet all those refugees so they don’t know if, you know, jihadists are coming in along with legitimate refugees.” Meanwhile, if Clinton has her way , we will be warmly welcoming 65,000 refugees a year, which makes Obama’s 10,000 a year look like small potatoes. ( source ) Clinton blackmailed the Chinese by telling them that the US would base missiles in the region if they didn’t exert some control over North Korean aggression. “ So China, come on. You either control them or we’re going to have to defend against them ,” she purportedly told the audience at a Goldman Sachs conference in June 2013. ( source ) In May 2015, Clinton was no longer Secretary of State but was ready to announce she was running for President when she was invited to attend a summit in Morrocco. The implication from the leaked emails was that a $12 million “donation” from the king of Morocco was dependent on Clinton attending the summit. Human Abedin, usually loyal to her boss, had concerns . “ If HRC was not part of it, meeting was a non-starter. She created this mess and she knows it. Her presence was a condition for the Moroccans to proceed so there is no going back on this,” Abedin wrote to Robbie Mook in a November 2014 email. Incidentally, Clinton didn’t attend. Bill and Chelsea went instead and the $12 million donation was not forthcoming. (source ) Podesta attacked Clinton’s primary election rival Bernie Sanders for criticizing the Paris climate change agreement. “ Can you believe that doofus Bernie attacked it? ” said Podesta. ( source ) Clinton told a Goldman Sachs conference she would like to intervene secretly in Syria . “ My view was you intervene as covertly as is possible for Americans to intervene,” she told employees of the bank in South Carolina, which had paid her about $225,000 to give a speech. “We used to be much better at this than we are now. Now, you know, everybody can’t help themselves. They have to go out and tell their friendly reporters and somebody else: Look what we’re doing and I want credit for it. ” (source ) There is indeed a definite link between the Clinton campaign and what MSM is allowed to say. The campaign has colluded directly with media spokespersons that read like a Who’s Who in American Media : Dan Merica from CNN, Haim Saban of Univision, John Harwood of CNBC and the NY Times, Rebecca Quick of CNBC, Maggie Haberman of NY Times and Politico, John Harris of Politico, Donna Brazile formerly of CNN, Roland Martin of TV-One, Marjorie Pritchard of The Boston Globe, and Louise Mensch of Heat Street. ( source ) As everyone knows, the DNC deliberately screwed Bernie Sanders out of the nomination ( Bonus: Wikileaks also released some of the DNC’s voicemails on the topic ). There are emails that prove who is actually pulling HRC’s puppet strings and that puppeteer is George Soros . The shadow government is not just a conspiracy theory – it really exists and Hillary’s job is to keep George Soros happy. ( source ) Excerpts from her speeches to Wall Street read like a guide to two-faced treachery. In them, she clearly points out that sometimes you “need” to lie. “If everybody’s watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position.” ( source ) Wikileaks emails show that back when she still worked for CNN and before she became an employee of the Clinton campaign, Donna Brazile gave Hillary the questions in advance for her “impromptu” CNN Town Hall questions. ( source ) The campaign got to “approve” articles in influential publications like NY Times, HuffPo, CNN, NBC, CBS, NYT, MSNBC, and Politico, showing a massive collusion with the mainstream media, who has hounded Trump relentlessly in an effort to distract from HRC’s abysmal candidacy. ( source ) Through the treasure trove of Wikileaks emails, we can gain an accurate picture of how Hillary really feels about us all (spoiler: basket of deplorables, basement dwellers and right wing conspirators) ( source ) President Obama knew the whole time that her emails were not coming from the secure State Department server. Cheryl Mills wrote to John Podesta, “ W e need to clean this up – he has emails from her – they do not say state.gov .” You see, Obama’s emails all have to be from”whitelisted”addresses. So someone, somewhere, added her nonsecure email to his whitelist. ( source ) And finally, here’s the real reason that treacherous shrew is involved in politics. And let me tell you, it isn’t because she yearns to make things better for anyone but herself. (emphasis mine.) At the Goldman Sachs Builders and Innovators Summit, Clinton responded to a question from chief executive Lloyd Blankfein, who quipped that you “go to Washington” to “make a small fortune.” Clinton agreed with the comment and complained about ethics rules that require officials to divest from certain assets before entering government. “ There is such a bias against people who have led successful and/or complicated lives, ” Clinton said. ( source ) Together, we cannot be ignored. I am on a mission between now and the Presidential Election on November 8th and I hope that you will join me. I am going to work day and night to provide the coverage that the mainstream media is not. It isn’t until we combine all of our voices that we can make people listen to the scandals, the rigging, and the corruption, not only in this election but in the system in general. Please join your voice with mine by liking, sharing, and spreading the word. Together, we cannot be ignored. Together, we are an army. Courtesy of Daisy Luther Don't forget to follow the D.C. Clothesline on Facebook and Twitter. PLEASE help spread the word by sharing our articles on your favorite social networks. Share this:

VIDEO-Kid Rock Blasts Imported Grills With Shotgun: ’In Your Face, China’ - Breitbart

AWR Hawkins

Kid Rock is celebrating the release of his line of American Badass Grills by catapulting imported grills into the air, shooting them with a shotgun and saying, “In your face, China. ”[Kid Rock’s American Badass Grills are made in the U. S. A. According to Fox News, Kid Rock released a statement coinciding with the introduction of the grills, saying, “I’m not gonna lie. It is more expensive to make things in America. But it’s important to me. I love America, and I want to do all I can to create manufacturing jobs at home. ” In second video focused on the American Badass Grills, Kid Rock shoots a foreign grill with a . 50 caliber rifle. Prior to pulling the trigger he says, “We’ve grills that are made in China, we’ve got 50 cals that are made in American. This is 100 percent pure American Badass. ” You can purchases a a charcoal version of Kid Rock’s grill for $99. 95 and a gas version for $149. 95, Both grills have the American Badass logo. AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and host of Bullets with AWR Hawkins, a Breitbart News podcast. He is also the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart. com.

Maxine Waters: ’Millennials Have Joined Me’ to Take on ’Dangerous’ Trump - Breitbart

Pam Key

Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Rep. Maxine Waters ( ) said of President Donald Trump declared “millennials” have joined her in her crusade against President Donald Trump. Waters said, “I don’t honor him. I don’t respect this president. I don’t think that he deserves to be president of this great country. I am very concerned about him. And I really think he’s dangerous. And, Joe, I don’t know if you’ve seen the series that the “L. A. Times” wrote about him. It is scathing. I’ve never seen editorials like this before in my life. ” “And so, you know, we continue to talk about him as if this is normal,” she continued. “Mika, that is abnormal, what we’re experiencing with this president. I have taken him on as you know, and the millennials have joined me. And so I continue to talk about his ties to Russia and what I think all of that means. And, as you know, I’ve continued to talk about, I believe if we have credible investigations, that it will lead to his impeachment. I believe that. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

MILO: ’Feminists are Disappearing’ So Fast That ’Soon They Will Be Endangered’ - Breitbart

Charlie Nash

During his show at the University of Colorado, Boulder, tonight, Breitbart Senior Editor MILO claimed that feminists are disappearing so rapidly, they’ll soon be classed as an endangered species.[ “CU Boulder is an important university for me to speak at. Your mascot is the Buffalo. A large ugly beast that is quickly disappearing from the American landscape. Just like feminists!” proclaimed MILO. “You may think I’m kidding, but feminists are disappearing. Honestly, it’s really sad you guys!” “Just 18% of American women identify as feminist, and that number is rapidly dropping,” he concluded. “Soon they will be so endangered we really will treat them like buffaloes and keep them in zoos. ” Written from prepared remarks. Milo wears tan shirt by UNCL, $55. White women’s suit jacket by Calvin Klein, $60. White jeans by Robin, $550. Limited edition Timberlands, $180. Louis Vuitton belt, $350. Silver Versace shades, $340. Chains and pearls, too much to count. Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.

Tesla Model S Suspension Failures Under Scrutiny by Safety Agency - The New York Times

Neal E. Boudette

Tesla Motors, the maverick maker, is under scrutiny from federal regulators over suspension failures attributed to its model — along with reports that it had asked owners not to disclose the problem. The nation’s top auto safety regulator, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said on Thursday that at least some Tesla customers who experienced suspension failures with Model S luxury cars were asked to sign confidentiality agreements about the issue. “The agency immediately informed Tesla that any language implying that consumers should not contact the agency regarding safety concerns is unacceptable, and N. H. T. S. A. expects Tesla to eliminate any such language,” said Bryan Thomas, an agency spokesman. “Tesla representatives told N. H. T. S. A. that it was not their intention to dissuade consumers from contacting the agency. ” The regulator added that the agreements that Tesla required were “troublesome. ” Tesla did not respond Thursday to requests for comment. [On Friday, the company responded in a blog post, saying there was no safety defect with the Model S nor any intent to discourage complaints to regulators.] The safety regulator is examining the Model S suspension — the springs, joints and other components that connect a car to its wheels — for possible defects that could be causing premature failures. Since October, it has received 33 complaints of suspension parts breaking. A suspension breakdown can cause severe steering problems and make driving impossible, according to filings listed on the agency’s website. A few of the complaints pertained to a requirement that owners sign confidentiality agreements in exchange for having their cars repaired. The suspension problems and the issue of the nondisclosure agreements have also been discussed on blogs for Tesla owners. The company reported that in 2015, it sold 25, 200 Model S cars, which have a starting price of about $70, 000. Tesla has just started offering a sport utility vehicle, the Model X, and is planning to offer a compact car, the Model 3, next year. The company hopes the Model 3 will become its top seller and says it has already received $1, 000 deposits from about 375, 000 potential buyers. The suspension issue with the Model S is the latest sign of quality concerns. The Model X S. U. V. was recalled earlier this year because of a problem with its rear seats. Tesla’s first model, the Roadster, which was produced from 2008 to 2011, also had its problems. At Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting last month, Elon Musk, the company’s chief executive, acknowledged that the Roadster had been plagued by a number of issues. “This car, even though it met all regulatory requirements, it was completely unsafe, broke down all the time and really didn’t work,” Mr. Musk said. Two years ago, the safety administration looked into two instances in which Model S cars caught fire. It determined that the fires were caused by road debris striking the vehicle’s underside, and closed the matter after Tesla agreed to reinforce the shield that protects the battery. For most of its history, Tesla has tried to break away from many standard auto industry practices, a strategy that at times courts controversy. Its practice of selling its cars online without dealers has led to court battles in several states. The company is also building a gigantic battery factory in Nevada and often announces news via tweets by Mr. Musk. “Everything they do, they try to do differently than the traditional auto company, but they all have to deal with the same rules,” said Michelle Krebs, an analyst with the firm Autotrader. Ms. Krebs said she had never heard of a car company requiring customers to sign confidentiality agreements in exchange for repairs of potential safety defects. “It does raise eyebrows,” she said. “It may have happened before. I’ve just never seen it. ” In its statement about the inquiry, the N. H. T. S. A. did not elaborate on the extent or details of Tesla’s use of nondisclosure agreements. But according to accounts posted online, some customers who complained about suspension problems had their cars fixed on the condition that they agreed in writing not to talk about the issue or how the company dealt with it. An auto industry blog, dailykanban. com, posted what it said were excerpts from the agreement, along with a scanned copy. “You agree to keep confidential our provision of the Goodwill, the terms of this agreement and the incidents or claims leading or related to our provision of the Goodwill,” the document said. “Goodwill” is the term Tesla used to refer to any repairs or compensation it made because of a suspension failure. The agreement posted on the blog released Tesla from any liability and barred the car owners from filing legal proceedings against the company.

Episode #159 – SUNDAY WIRE: ‘Tick-Tock USA’ with guests Dr Marcus Papadopoulos, Basil Valentine

November 6, 2016 By 21wire Leave a Comment Episode #159 of SUNDAY WIRE SHOW resumes this November 6, 2016 as host Patrick Henningsen brings a 3 HOURS special broadcast of LIVE power-packed talk radio on ACR… LISTEN LIVE ON THIS PAGE AT THE FOLLOWING SCHEDULED SHOW TIMES: SUNDAYS – 5pm-8pm UK Time | 12pm-3pm ET (US) | 9am-12pm PT (US) This week’s edition of THE SUNDAY WIRE is on the road broadcasting LIVE from the Valley of the Sun. This week host Patrick Henningsen covers this week’s top stories in the US and internationally. In the first hour we’re joined by a very special guest, Dr Marcus Papadopoulos , founder & editor of UK-based publication Politics First to discuss the US Elections and an evaluation of Trump vs Clinton from an international and foreign policy perspective looking at big bigs like US-NATO and Russian relations as well as the Syrian situation, as well as get his take on the spiralling BREXIT issue currently gripping Great Britain. In the final hour of overdrive, we’ll be rejoined by our esoteric bookmaker, Basil Valentine, for final thoughts on the US Elections, new odds, more voter fraud reports, and and time permitting, some more fun with the #HillaryBettingPool . SUPPORT 21WIRE – SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV Strap yourselves in and lower the blast shield – this is your brave new world… *NOTE: THIS EPISODE MAY CONTAIN STRONG LANGUAGE AND MATURE THEMES*

The Rice-Size Fly That Hits the Bull’s-Eye Every Time - The New York Times

Steph Yin

Despite being just the size of a rice grain, robber flies, which live all over the world, are champion predators. In field experiments, they can detect targets the size of sand grains from nearly two feet away — 100 times the fly’s body length — and intercept them in under half a second. What’s more, they never miss their mark. A team led by scientists at the University of Cambridge has started to unveil the secrets to the robber fly’s prowess. In a study published Thursday in Current Biology, the team outlined the mechanics of the fly’s pursuit, from its impressive eye anatomy to how it makes a successful catch every time. Notably, the researchers observed a behavior never before described in a flying animal: About 30 centimeters from its prey, the insect slows, turns slightly and brings itself in for a close catch. “This ‘ ’ phase and change in behavior during a flight is quite remarkable,” said Sam Fabian, a graduate student at Cambridge and an author of the study. “We would actually expect them to do something very simple — just accelerate and hit the target. ” The scientists surveyed robber flies in the field using a “fly teaser,” which consisted of beads on a rapidly moving fishing line controlled by a motor. As the flies charged at the bait, the researchers captured their movements using cameras. At the start of the robber fly’s conquest, it sits on a perch and scans the sky for passing prey. When it glimpses a potential meal, it takes flight, maintaining a steady angle between itself and its target. This proactive strategy, using a “constant bearing angle,” is also employed by fish, bats and sailors, Mr. Fabian said. Maintaining a constant bearing angle gets the robber fly in the ballpark of its prey. Then, at the mark (how the fly judges this distance is still unclear) it subtly changes course so as to approach its target from behind. “We think this second proactive phase allows the animal a higher probability of catching its prey,” said Paloma a lecturer at Cambridge and another author of the study. In the same way that it’s easier to pass a baton by running to someone from behind versus looping around makes it easier for the fly to align itself with its kill. Next, the scientists wanted to understand the robber fly’s startling visual capabilities. Whereas we have a single lens in each eye, the robber fly has several thousand lenses per eye, which range in size. In the center of each eye, the researchers found, is a concentration of large, lenses. This central area, called the fovea, is extremely high resolution and is what allows the flies to see their prey from a distance equivalent to more than one and a half soccer fields for humans. “They basically have permanent binoculars,” said Trevor Wardill, a research fellow at Cambridge and an author of the paper. Rob de Ruyter, a professor of biophysics at Indiana University, who was not involved in the study, said, “The extent to which this fovea is specialized is unusual. ” Other flies, like the house fly, have localized areas of high resolution in their eyes called love spots, but these are not nearly as exaggerated as the robber fly’s fovea. Dragonflies also have impressive foveae, but their bodies are 10 times larger and can more easily accommodate many large lenses in their eyes. These adaptations that make the tiny robber fly a hunting machine are an example of how insects must develop highly specialized strategies to survive in this world, Dr. de Ruyter said. “Insects die at such high rates, and have such short generation times,” he said. “As a result, they try out new evolutionary solutions much faster than we can. ”

People Shocked At What Hillary Brought With Her To Speech During Scandal

Amanda Shea

People Shocked At What Hillary Brought With Her To Speech During Scandal Posted on October 30, 2016 by Amanda Shea in Politics Share This Hillary Clinton landing and speaking in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Friday Hillary Clinton is attempting to forge through the FBI investigation, which she hopes people will soon forget, as she refuses to accept defeat at the hands of Donald Trump. As she carries on with her sparsely-planned campaign stops in the final days of the election, Iowans were shocked to see what she brought with her to her speech right after the investigation was announced. No matter how hard Hillary tries, everything she hides seems to have a way of coming out. Karma is certainly working in favor of the American citizens who deserve to know the truth about this woman trying to bully her way into the White House. When she was in Iowa this weekend, just hours after the FBI announced they are re-opening the investigation into her e-mails thanks to her right-hand woman’s dirty husband, Hillary brought a familiar “friend” that the public couldn’t ignore, which is why photos of it have now gone viral. During the second presidential debate, we were first introduced to Hillary’s ironic nemesis, which wasn’t just her opponent Donald Trump. A fly pestered the Democratic candidate on live TV as she spoke, sticking to her and never touching Trump in what seemed symbolic since she stinks of lies and everyone knows flies are attracted to garbage. As embarrassing as this may have been for Hillary, she can’t pass it off as a random event since it happened again in a completely different state. That’s right — while she was in Iowa, a fly once again wouldn’t leave her face. Can't even make this up. How many times has a FLY landed on Crooked Rotten Hillary now?! Today at Cedar Rapids, Iowa. pic.twitter.com/tu0Ivw8rFa — Rιу MÎąĎ‡ÎšĐźĎ Ń• 🇺🇸 (@sooperay) October 28, 2016 Apparently, there’s something about Hillary’s face that flies flock to. and it’s probably the same thing most Americans find so repulsive. It’s not coincidental that this has now happened twice to this candidate in less than a month, and perhaps the fly is just a sign of what the FBI investigation is about to uncover. Like a crow symbolizing death, the black fly during this election represents the end of Hillary’s campaign since it seems to sense everything she’s trying to hide.

97-Yo Woman Has BEST Reaction To Finally Receiving Her High School Diploma

Amanda Froelich

For individuals like Margaret Thome Bekema, finishing high school was a dream she didn’t think would ever come true. Instead of graduating from Grand Rapids Catholic Central High in 1936 like she was...

Sharpton: Pence Is a ’True Enemy’ of Civil Rights - Breitbart

Pam Key

This week on “The Tom Joyner Morning Show,” MSNBC host Al Sharpton said Vice President Mike Pence was a “true believer in stuff” and a “true enemy” of civil rights. When asked if President Donald Trump is impeached would a President Pence worry him, Sharpton said, “Very worried. Pence is a true believer in stuff, a true enemy, in my opinion, of a lot of civil rights measures from what he showed as governor of Indiana. And he has a more dignified, presentable persona. He will be more difficult to beat. Pence is not a better option than Trump. ” Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

Sex and the Presidential City

Email Why does everyone think that presidential campaigns are about “issues,” when anyone over the age of consent knows they are all about sex? But it says a lot about the lasting power of Viagra that this is still the case when we have a couple of seventy-year-olds on the ballot. (“ For an election lasting more than four years, please call your doctor .”) In last week’s newspaper there was a report on the tenth or eleventh woman (I have lost track) to come forward to say that Donald Trump made suggestive and “inappropriate” advances to her during a golf tournament that took place about ten years ago. The woman in question is Jessica Drake, who during her press conference announced that at the time of the tournament, she was working in the “the adult industry” (that’s what People Magazine calls porn) for Wicked Pictures (the 20th Century Fox of gang banging) when the randy Donald kissed and hugged her in his room. Trump was already in his pajamas when she knocked on his door, together with two friends. Normally, in the adult business, when three porn stars knock on your hotel door, it’s considered foreplay. When Trump’s effusive greeting of Miss Drake did not lead to more snuggling, let alone the suggestion to preview some of her work on the hotel television, he offered her $10,000 to satisfy his suite dreams. Drake again demurred, saying that the next morning she needed to get back to Los Angeles “for work.” By that point in her career she had already notched screen credits for “Extreme Doggie” and “Fornocopia.” I would mention other titles, but as they say at the New York Post , “This is a family newspaper.” That rejection prompted Donald to offer Jessica an early morning ride (of shame?) on his Trump airliner back to LA, which still didn’t turn the trick. * * * Then last week, in the presence of her lawyer, Gloria Allred (the Perry Mason of many cases against Bill Cosby) Miss Drake tearfully repeated in primetime her shock and dismay that Mr. Trump had tried to take liberties with her reputation, which, after all, includes the 2009 Adult Video News Award for the “Best Double Penetration Sex Scene” in her classic work, “Fallen.” Drake said she was coming forward now to stand in “solidarity” with the other women Trump has manhandled, although there were suggestions that her outing was timed to coincide with the launch of Drake’s new online store, where devoted viewers can purchase such classics as her “Guide to BDSM for Beginners,” among other titles. Normally scenes such as the one I am describing would be consigned to John Oliver, Monty Python, or Saturday Night Live , but in the new normal of presidential politics, even Miss Drake gets a respectful hearing on the issues. For example, the next day the Huffington Post reported: “Woman Says Trump Sexually Assaulted Her, Offered Her $10,000 For Sex.” The deadpan New York Times wrote: “Ms. Drake, who appeared Saturday with the women’s rights lawyer Gloria Allred, said Mr. Trump had hugged and kissed her and the other women without permission.” The headline in New York Magazine read: “Adult Actress Jessica Drake Details Trump Assault, Blasts Him for ‘Uncontrollable Misogyny’.” Look, I have no doubt that Trump is a pig who routinely gropes and propositions women, but since when does the press in a presidential election have to source its stories in the “adult” industry? * * * Sadly, the answer to this question dates to winter 1992 when Bill and Hillary Clinton figured out that unless a presidential candidate has a sexual storyline, few of the voters will pay much attention to their positions on nuclear disarmament or welfare reform. During the 1992 Super Bowl, the Clintons appeared on a halftime special of 60 Minutes to deny jointly (Bill: That allegation is false ) that he had ever had an affair with Gennifer Flowers, who lived in Little Rock, Arkansas when Bill was governor and often out jogging. In this vaudeville performance, Hillary played the straight man, adding: “You know, I’m not sitting here—some little woman standing by my man like Tammy Wynette.” (At least she didn’t reference The Eagles.) Only in 1998, under oath in a sworn deposition, did Bill admit to having a 12-year affair with Ms. Flowers. But neither her allegations in 1992, nor his lying about it, cost him the election that year. Just the opposite: Clinton’s wanderlust might have won him sympathy among the voters (no strangers to sexual boredom) who found they had more in common with a soft-shell Baptist (Bill) than an uptight Protestant (George H.W. Bush). Nor did Clinton’s impeachment in 1998 for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky under oath in the Paula Jones case hurt his post-presidential career (worth $200 million +) or the electoral prospects of his wife in 2016. But it did turn sexuality into a mainstream presidential campaign issue, which is one of the reasons why this year’s race seems only to be about sex. * * * No doubt the Clintons do find some delicious irony in Trump’s groping charges, as payback for what they view as the Republican use of sexuality to impeach Bill in 1998 and, in 2016, for the GOP plan to make his many adulterous affairs fair game for their campaign soundbites. (Cut to an online image of the White House and over it a fading picture of Bill smoking a cigar, with the caption “Here we go again?”) Without the pageant-loving, casino operating Donald Trump as the Republican nominee in 2016, Hillary Clinton could well have been vulnerable on the sexual front, with Bill’s mistresses steady fodder for negatives ads and the many allegations from his scorned lovers that Hillary organized the slut-shaming. Instead of the 2016 election turning on Hillary’s marriage to Hugh Hefner’s doppelgänger, the storyline that has played best in the media is Donald’s secret life as a groper. The press actually has given Trump a pass for his adultery (which produced all those wonderful children) but zeroed in on his groping, in part because he confessed to it on an NBC videotape and also because—think of ratings—gropers belong in the same basket of deplorables as child abusers and others lurking on subways, crowed elevators, or near schoolyards. Best of all for the Clintons, politically anyway, is that the charge of groping is impossible for Trump to refute. Even denying it sounds sleazy. And it colors all aspects of the campaign. To wit: the New York Times headline when at Gettysburg Trump outlined his vision for America: “Donald Trump Pledges to ‘Heal Divisions’ (and Sue His Accusers).” * * * For its mud-slinging, I am sure the Trump campaign has spent many long hours brainstorming how to tar Hillary as a lesbian. But even that innuendo has fallen flat, despite the rumor mongering that she’s in a Boston marriage with her assistant Huma Abedin (whose husband, Anthony Weiner, is otherwise distracted in high school chat rooms). Several of Bill’s former lovers (Sally Miller, Dolly Kyle, and Flowers) have tried to play up Bill’s pillow talk that Hillary prefers the nighttime company of women. But none of these allegations have gone further than Infowars or the supermarket press. (“ Hillary Hit Man Tells All !”) Nor have out-of-wedlock children, a staple of the 1884 campaign (as was chanted to Grover Cleveland: “ Ma, Ma, Where ’ s my pa ?”), gotten much play in this year’s presidential race. Trump and his casino gumshoes have put considerable effort into tracking down the rumor that Danney Williams is Bill Clinton’s illegitimate son by a Little Rock prostitute named Bobbie Ann Williams. Trump invited Danney (a sympathetic man) to the third presidential debate, as if to press on Bill a Scarlet Letter. Despite Williams looking very much like President Bill, the story got no more traction than did the news that Malik Obama, the president’s shunned half-brother, is supporting Trump. He, too, got a debate invitation, to sit in the box presumably marked “Shame.” Also in the dustbin of history are the allegations that Flowers aborted Bill’s baby in 1977 and the whispering campaign (a great political standby when proof is elusive) that Chelsea is the product of an affair between Hillary and her then law firm colleague, Webb Hubbell. The Williams and Hubbell stories come with some convincing Internet similarities, at least in the photographs, although in both cases politically, this rumor milling whiplashed against Trump, as voters have only equated such tawdry allegations with his Birther past, something that has stuck as campaign mud. * * * Technically, Birtherism does’t directly involve sex, although it lingers on its fringes, as it speaks to Barack Obama’s illegitimacy, his foreign allegiances, and possibly disputed paternity, including the claim that Frank Marshall Davis was actually Obama’s biological father (another subterranean creed of Trumpism). Again, the documentary proof is a series of look-a-like photographs, as close as the Internet gets to DNA. That Davis was an American Communist works well in the campaign, as it suggests the origins of Obama’s political genetic code. Ironically, for all his efforts at smear, Trump came out the loser in the debates when Hillary nailed him to Birtherism, which has become a convenient code word for Trump’s racism, misogyny, and intolerance of immigrants, especially muslims. Nor, in response, did Trump have any luck in linking the Birther movement to Clinton’s 2008 campaign, when, according to Donald, consigliere-journalist Sidney Blumenthal delighted in the suggestion that Barack was born in Kenya. Instead, the debate claim only made Trump look disingenuous. Clinton got a pass on what her campaign may or may not have insinuated in 2008. And at this point, no one cares. But voters do remember Trump as the Imperial Wizard of Birtherism. * * * Republicans can only blame themselves for wanting to divide the electorate in 2016 along lines of sexual preference or deviance, although this strategy was based on Hillary being the Democratic nominee and anyone other than Trump standing for the Republicans. Had the GOP nominee been Carly Fiorina, Jeb Bush, or John Kasich, Clinton Inc. might well have been vulnerable to possible storylines about infidelity, illegitimacy, and rape. (Cue up the Paula Jones description of Bill, during a business meeting, exposing himself in a Little Rock hotel and settling her lawsuit for $850,000.) Instead, the Republicans went with the polyamorous Trump, who, in addition to three marriages, has bragged on morning radio about his success with young women and who since 1996 has been leering at Miss Universe contestants—a bit like Austin Powers. ( Shall we shag now, or shall we shag later ?) With Trump’s resumé of creepy perversion, you might have thought that the Republicans would drop sexual misconduct from the electoral playbook. Instead, they doubled down to make the case that both Clintons, if elected, would turn the White House into a strip club. Not only did the Clintons shrug off such innuendo, but, in response, they said (in effect), if they did, it would be to cater to the likes of players such as Donald J. Trump (leisure suit and open collar optional). * * * For the moment—and I can’t see anything changing in the last days of the campaign—the accepted wisdom of most front pages is that Donald Trump has groped as many women as Tiger Woods has watched pole dancing in Vegas. Even the gallery of “their women” looks about the same. Conversely, few voters seem to care that Bill might have forced himself on several women or that Hillary helped to cover up his brutality. That’s a narrative of the 1990s, which is perhaps the last time Austin Danger Trump read the newspaper. ( I’ve been frozen for 30 years. I’ve got to see if my bits and pieces are still working .) For most voters in 2016, names such as Kathleen Willey or Juanita Broaddrick are as lost in time as Nan Britton, who just before the 1920 election bore a love child with then candidate Senator Warren Harding. Britton and the child got Republican hush money and a sad little house in Asbury Park, New Jersey. After Harding won, she was invited to the White House but their affair, so to speak, was kept in the closet. * * * If you think about elections as political sitcoms, in 1960 the Kennedys had to run as Rob and Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show , complete with twin beds, long flannel pajamas, and prudent kisses on the cheek to say good-night, even if The JFK Reality Show would make Trump, Bill Clinton, and Tiger look like apprentices at adultery. Come 2016, only something that resembles Modern Family and a desperate-housewives reality show can crack network primetime, and who better to put on air than The Clintons, with their Dallas -like money, communal sexuality, and more illicit storylines than CSI . For more than twenty years, Bill and Hillary have been bringing us seasons of lust, affairs, “I-did-not-have-sex-with-that-woman”, Vince Foster, Travelgate, foundation slush funds, basement servers, commodity trading, Whitewater, Bosnian snipers, pay-to-play, Benghazi, lost e-mails, and the like, and the ratings only continue to go up. Sure, The Apprentice was fun for a few episodes, but the sameness of insulting young people grew tedious. How is that supposed to compete with Bill making a pass at Huma, while her husband goes to prison for airing his junk, and Chelsea finding out about her real father. Next on The Clintons ?

Self-Proclaimed Truth Czars Create Lists of ‘Fake News’ Sites to Control Your Mind

WakingTimes

Waking Times One of the greatest takeaways of election 2016 is that mainstream, corporate news no longer cares about maintaining the appearance of objectivity, and that the internet has made it possible to counter the top-down state driven narrative with genuine, alternative journalism. This of course challenges the king-making abilities of the corporate media who were shocked when their preferred candidate lost. “Hillary Clinton was the choice of nearly every American newspaper editorial board. It didn’t matter.” ~ The Los Angeles Times Just a week after the election, Google, Facebook, Twitter and other internet giants are now declaring a war on so-called fake news sites , trumpeting the idea that unregulated information is confusing and misleading the public and interfering with our ability to make sound decisions. The sub-text here is that the public can not be trusted, and therefore information in the public domain must be controlled and regulated. But by whom, exactly? Already several lists of websites are being widely circulated around the internet and heralded as go-to places to instantly determine the credibility of an internet publisher. There are a number of alarming problems with this, especially for a nation that supposedly values freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Several of these lists taxonomize websites under multiple categories, which are only tangentially related, yet grouped under the all encompassing banner of ‘fake’ news. But, what is the difference, for instance, between fake news and misleading news? And, is there a material difference between misleading news and ‘clickbaity’ news, or is it just about wording of the article title? Also, what is the difference between a fake news site and a hoax site? And, where does editorial news fit into this spectrum, and if the term propaganda is being used, does it now apply to editorializing in general? The most important concern, though, is who decides what fake news is? The Zimdars Hit List The most widely circulated list right now was created and is maintained by Melissa ‘Mish’ Zimdars , a professor and researcher at Merrimack College in North Andover, Massachusetts. “Bio: I am an assistant professor of communication & media, and this list started as a resource for my students, who are learning about journalism/social media/media literacy.” ~ Melissa Zimdars The Zimdars list of news site you should avoid is located here . It breaks down some 100+ websites with different ratings under the broad introductory headline, “ False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and/or Satirical “News” Sources.” There are zero examples given for any of these sites explaining why they fall under the heading of fake news, or why their content is to be considered questionable, just a link to their homepage. In other words, these sites are fake news sites because Melissa Zimdars says they are. When I first saw this list, I was actually not surprised to find that my site, www.WakingTimes.com , was on this list, given our easy to spot anti-status quo perspectives, although it was intriguing to me that my site was misnamed Walking Times, which I took as a sign of the author’s carelessness in creating this list. Waking Times has a five-year history as an internet blog and content publisher, with almost 7000 original, guest authored and aggregated articles which express the personal interests, biases and world views of the editor, myself, Dylan Charles . This is perfectly legal and acceptable in a free society. I contacted Ms. Zimdars and demanded that she remove our site from the list, and although I have not heard back from her personally, to her credit, our site was removed from the list within half an hour of my email. For background on her biases, Ms. Zimdars has publicly responded to the question of what news sites trusts and visits: “Some people are asking which news sources I trust, and all I can say is that I read/watch/listen very widely, from mainstream, corporate owned sources ( The New York Times , The Washington Post, The Boston Globe , The Wall Street Journal , Forbes ) as well as The Atlantic, National Public Radio, and various local and alternative sources with different political perspectives, some of which are included on this list.” ~Melissa Zimdars Without question, many of these mainstream sites are guilty of publishing false, biased, clickbaity, and propagandistic news, especially so in this election season, so it is clear that an agenda is in play here. The U.S. News Hit List This list, published by U.S. News & World Report by Rachel Dicker , Associate Editor of Social Media, only features 16 websites, out of thousands, defaming other people’s work without proof, citation or even examples. Titled, Avoid These Fake News Sites at All Costs , the Dicker list, which includes the well-known satirical site, The Onion , offers three categories, satire, hoax, and propaganda, all lumped under the banner of fake news. Serious anti-establishment blogs like Activist Post are grouped along satire and hoax as propaganda. Who decides which propaganda is allowable? Rachel Dicker has published a number of articles for U.S. News, which can be seen on her author page, here . A quick scan of her work reveals an overt bias towards liberalism, against Donald Trump, for social justice issues, and towards leftist political causes. In other words, Rachel Dicker herself has a bias and an agenda, and is a propagandist. The Growing List of Other Hit Lists Now that it’s all the rage to castigate supposedly fake news in frenzy of coming official censorship, the list of lists is growing, and propagandists have now been given franchise to defame others. Ed Brayton has a list, here . Inquisitr has its elaborated list, here . Snopes, the self-proclaimed oracle of internet truth has published its warning, here . The Independent has posted their version of the Zimdars list, here . Pardon the pun, but the list goes on and on. Real Issues – Censorship and Personal Responsibility What’s really happening here is a portal towards total internet censorship is being opened and exploited by the establishment. The internet has in recent years been flooded with bogus news sites, and it has long been my suspicion that this phenomenon would lead to exactly the scenario we see unfolding right now. The public would clamor for a crackdown on so-called fake news, and in the wake, real, truthful, and critical alternative journalists will be forced out of business and off the internet by an authoritarian corporate government. Another real issue at play here, though, is the concept of personal responsibility on the part of both publishers and internet users. There is inarguably some gray area when looking at how the internet will evolve, as there are no doubt players who will publish anything just to make money, but does that mean that individuals shouldn’t be trusted with making up their own minds? The following message from activist John Vibes does well to sum up the conflux of these two issues in the following statement: “The internet and the alternative media has given us freedom of information. One drawback to this is that people did not seem to get the memo that responsibility is somewhat of a prerequisite for true freedom. In previous eras, the mainstream media spoon-fed people information, and whether it was true or not, everyone accepted it at face value because they didn’t have much of an ability to fact check even if they wanted to. Now we have a sea of information thanks to the intern et and the alt-media. Just like the mainstream media in the past, some of this information is factual, while some of it is not. With the mainstream media though, since they only gave you one narrative instead of a sea of information to sift through, it was easy for someone to make up their mind about things. Now with all this freedom of information, people really need to do their due diligence and actually research the information they come across, instead of letting a media organization spoon feed them a particular point of view, this goes for both alternative and mainstream media. I say this in light of the fact that multiple sites that i write for have been targeted as “fake news sites” because we present a viewpoint that is alternative to the mainstream. We are being lumped in with bullshit clickbait sites and i think that is all a part of the plan that the mainstream has to reassert their legitimacy. We work very hard to fact check our info, and always make corrections when necessary, however, people need to realize they are in a new era of media, one that requires research and personal responsibility.” Final Thoughts The changing face of news and information with the advent of the internet and user friendly content management systems means that anyone can share their ideas with people who are willing to look at them. And people naturally have opinions about politics and life, meaning that we are all propagandists when we publish on the internet. As the corporate and political establishment look for more ways to control the debate and control public opinion, we will see the rise of self-appointed truth czars and the rise of an official ministry of truth. Unless you do something about it. Dylan Charles . About the Author Dylan Charles is a student and teacher of Shaolin Kung Fu, Tai Chi and Qi Gong, a practitioner of Yoga and Taoist arts, and an activist and idealist passionately engaged in the struggle for a more sustainable and just world for future generations. He is the editor of WakingTimes.com , the proprietor a grateful father and a man who seeks to enlighten others with the power of inspiring information and action. He may be contacted at . This article ( Self-Proclaimed Truth Czars Create Lists of ‘Fake News’ Sites to Control Your Mind Dylan Charles

Milo: Campuses Some of the Most Anti-Free Speech Places I’ve Been, US ’Not That Far Away’ From Speech Climate of UK - Breitbart

Ian Hanchett

During an interview on the Fox News Channel following the cancellation of his speech at Breitbart Editor Milo Yiannopoulous stated that “[M]y whole thing is, the left is profoundly antithetical to free speech these days, does not want to hear alternative points of view, and will do anything to shut them down. My point is being proven to me over and over and over again. ” And that the US isn’t far away from the atmosphere that exists in places that have hate speech laws in the UK. Milo said that students who just wanted to hear what he had to see, some of whom don’t necessarily agree with him were stopped by violence from the left, that “is terrified of anyone who they think might be persuasive or might be interesting or might take people with them. You know, I am not a scary kind of as some of the protesters claim. … Instead, I’m just a libertarian, gay, provocateur who likes present interesting arguments. We have good, fun shows with huge, sold out audiences. … [The left] just cannot tolerate anyone on their campus who does not subscribe to their own crazy views. ” He added, “[M]y whole thing is, the left is profoundly antithetical to free speech these days, does not want to hear alternative points of view, and will do anything to shut them down. My point is being proven to me over and over and over again. ” Milo further stated that the police at Berkeley appeared to take “a very approach until the very last minute. ” He later stated that college campuses are some of the most oppressive places to free speech he’s ever been to, and the US is culturally “not that far away from” the atmosphere that exists in the UK thanks to its hate speech laws. Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

Let It Go Go Go! Three Stage Versions of ‘Frozen’ Are on the Way - The New York Times

Michael Paulson and Brooks Barnes

In 1957, Walt Disney laid out what was then an astonishing plan for an entertainment ecosystem: Animated movies would fuel theme park attractions, which in turn would power merchandise sales, which would create interest in more movies. Today, with “Frozen,” the plan has evolved further. When the movie became a blockbuster in 2013, taking in $1. 3 billion globally, Disney got busy: It rushed out merchandise, sent Princesses Anna and Elsa on an tour and started work on an Arendelle boat ride at Epcot and three stage musicals. Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, told a Wall Street conference last month that he had recently seen a “Frozen” show bound for Disney California Adventure. He noted that “Frozen” would be part of the parade at the new Shanghai Disneyland. And, he said, “I sat on Friday here in New York in a of the ‘Frozen’ musical that we’re starting to develop for Broadway. ” It’s an increasingly familiar approach: Both “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin” had theme park shows before New York productions. (Broadway veterans helped create them all.) Keeping all the efforts untangled can be challenging. Is the theme park show a miniversion of the Broadway one? What about the Disney Cruise Line production? Here’s what we know about the versions of “Frozen” underway: DIRECTOR Liesl Tommy. Raised in South Africa, she tends to pursue projects about civil and political rights. Ms. Tommy is a Tony nominee for her direction of “Eclipsed,” a searing play, starring Lupita Nyong’o, about captive women in Liberia. Her musical credits include “Party People,” a regional show about the Black Panther movement. OTHER TEAM MEMBERS “Frozen — Live at the Hyperion,” as the theater here is named, uses the film’s score, but some songs initially written as solos (“In Summer”) were rearranged by Jason Michael Webb (“The Color Purple”) to become ensemble numbers. Chad Beguelin, the author of the book for Disney’s “Aladdin” on Broadway, adapted the “Frozen” book from the film’s screenplay. Video elements, and there are a ton of them, were handled by Aaron Rhyne (“A Gentleman’s Guide to Love Murder”). STATUS It began an run on May 27 and has up to five performances daily. The Hyperion was home to “Aladdin — A Musical Spectacular,” which ran for 13 years. CAST More than 100 actors, dancers and puppeteers are involved (about 3, 500 auditioned) but Disney declined to identify any by name. With so many daily performances, a spokesman explained, numerous performers share the lead roles. (Disney also, ahem, takes the suspension of disbelief to an extreme at its theme parks: As an usher told a child before a recent performance, Anna and Elsa are real and played by themselves.) RUNNING TIME 55 minutes AUDIENCE The masses. Everyone from babies to older adults took in a recent performance, with a handful of people in prime seats holding up their phones to videotape the opening number. “There’s going to be a lot of people who have never seen theater before,” Ms. Tommy said in an interview. COST TO ATTEND Ostensibly free. But the Hyperion is inside Disney California Adventure, one of two theme parks that make up the Disneyland Resort. Admission to California Adventure is $95 to $119, depending on the day. HOW IT DIFFERS FROM THE FILM “It’s 10 times better than the movie,” a Disney usher named Yvonne (from Lakewood, Calif. according to her name badge) told guests as they waited in line for nearly an hour for a recent performance. Some film fans may disagree. Some songs are abbreviated and ancillary scenes and characters are cut. There is no Marshmallow (the ice monster) for instance, and Anna does not wander into Wandering Oaken’s Trading Post and Sauna. How it differs from other ‘Frozen’ adaptations A lot more bells and whistles. “People are coming in here full of adrenaline, they’ve been on rides,” Ms. Tommy said. “How do I top that?” There’s a lavish video wall, a sequence in which Sven the reindeer literally flies, and lots of fake fog. ‘Let It Go’ Moment Hold on tight: Elsa belts it out while standing atop a towering set of crystal stairs that rotates out over the audience. DIRECTOR Alex Timbers. An unconventionally witty theater director known for his steampunk aesthetic, he has twice been nominated for Tony Awards, for directing Disney’s “Peter and the Starcatcher” and for writing the book for “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. ” OTHER TEAM MEMBERS Music and lyrics by Kristen and Robert Lopez, who wrote the film’s score, and a book by Jennifer Lee, who wrote the screenplay and directed the film. The set design is by Bob Crowley, who has won multiple Tony Awards, including for Disney’s “Aida” and “Mary Poppins. ” STATUS A developmental lab (two weeks in which actors, accompanied by keyboards and drums, read and sang, using scripts on music stands, before an invited audience that at one point included Mr. Iger) was held in New York last month. A run is planned at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts in August 2017, and Disney said that it planned to move the show to Broadway in the spring of 2018. CAST At the developmental lab, Betsy Wolfe (“Bullets Over Broadway”) played Elsa, Patti Murin (“Lysistrata Jones”) was Anna, Okieriete Onaodowan (“Hamilton”) was Kristoff and Greg Hildreth (“Cinderella”) was Olaf. Although actors often remain with productions from the developmental process through full productions, Disney has not committed to casting for the Denver production that cast would likely continue on to Broadway. RUNNING TIME Two full acts, presumably running two to two and a half hours. AUDIENCE The Broadway audience is older than that at the theme parks most ticketbuyers are women. Disney’s shows attract more families with children than do some more Broadway shows, but the company says its shows also draw many adults without children. COST TO ATTEND Prices have not been set, but tickets to “The Lion King” on Broadway are $99 to $199, with premium seats for up to $225. HOW IT DIFFERS FROM FILM Live actors, obviously. An expanded story and an expanded song list — there are eight (and a reprise) in the film, and this production will probably have at least twice that. Among the new songs is “True Love,” an Act II ballad sung by Anna after Hans, a scheming prince, betrays her and locks her in a palace room. HOW IT DIFFERS FROM OTHER ‘FROZEN’ ADAPTATIONS The Broadway version is the only one with new songs and new book material. It will be the most fully realized and ambitious theatrical production. ‘LET IT GO’ MOMENT The song, thanks to its soaring sound and stratospheric popularity, is now the first act’s closing number. DIRECTOR Sheryl Kaller, whose Broadway credits include “Mothers and Sons,” in 2014, and “Next Fall,” which earned her a Tony nomination in 2010. OTHER TEAM MEMBERS Disney has not publicly confirmed this production, but casting notices this year said that Josh Prince, whose Broadway dance résumé includes “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” and the “Shrek the Musical,” would be the choreographer. STATUS Still in the early stages. There has been at least one but this musical is planned for the cruise ship Wonder, which is headed to dry dock this year for refurbishment. CAST With limited living quarters for performers, Disney’s ships often look for people who can simultaneously play a range of characters. But the casting notice for this effort included some specific requirements. For the role of Kristoff, for instance, Disney advertised for a baritone who stands six feet tall or more and can play a “rugged type, a little rough around the edges, yet endearingly awkward. ” RUNNING TIME The show that will likely be replaced, “Toy Story — The Musical,” runs about an hour in the Wonder’s theater. (Or “glitzy theater palace at sea,” if you’re going by the Disney Cruise Line website.) AUDIENCE Disneyphiles. While intended to appeal to a wide range of travelers, guests tend to be well acquainted with Disney’s singular style of entertainment, and that means any efforts to cut corners are noticed. COST TO ATTEND Included with the price of passage, which starts at $507 a person (plus port fees and taxes) for a Bahamian cruise. HOW IT DIFFERS FROM FILM Like the theme park version, this will be about presenting what’s in the movie — in fashion — for already captive crowds. HOW IT DIFFERS FROM OTHER ‘FROZEN’ ADAPTATIONS Disney Cruise Line, which mounts its stage productions without much interaction with its corporate siblings, bills its musicals as “ . ” Marketing pitches aside, this show will almost certainly be the least extravagant. ‘LET IT GO’ MOMENT You can bet that the climactic scene will include fake snow. Choose your seat wisely.

Parrots: The Highlight Reel - The New York Times

Michael Roston

In March, Natalie Angier reported some of the latest findings about parrots, nature’s most colorful birds in more ways than one. Along with the article, we asked readers to submit videos of their feathered friends showing what makes them unique. We received hundreds of replies. Many of the videos demonstrated a longstanding fascination with the capabilities and intellects of these amazing birds. As it turns out, that fascination has a long history in The Times. A tour of our archives shows that journalists here have been reporting on what parrots can do since the century. In 1859, a look at a book called “An Illustrated History of the Animal Kingdom” noted the capabilities of parrots. Some birds could recite the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed, The Times reported. In 1876, an article headlined “Anecdotes of Parrots” recounted the tale of a parrot who died in Britain in 1802 after years spent impressing her owner with her musical ability. She “beat time with all the appearance of science. ” You’ll see these capabilities echoed in the videos submitted by readers, as birds warble tunes they’ve heard people sing and keep beats as steadily as that celebrated musical prodigy. But it wasn’t always the case that parrots were thought of favorably in The Times. An article on the editorial page in 1877 attacked parrots the way the birds themselves tear into food. The polemic was prompted by a Philadelphia man’s proposal to gather the most intelligent parrots and to breed them in a program that sounds a bit like avian eugenics. “There are few persons or things that are more objectionable than the parrot,” the article began. The editorial continued, “That offensive style of bird is either kept by misanthropic old ladies or by malignant persons with a special grudge against their neighbors. ” After watching the videos submitted by readers, it’s hard to believe such charming birds could belong to people so terrible. Consider our opinion of parrot owners to be fully reformed.

Aleppo: New militant shelling strikes residential area, four injured

Tue, 25 Oct 2016 19:19 UTC © google Militants entrenched in the eastern part of Aleppo have carried out another artillery attack, injuring at least four civilians in the western part of the city, RT's Murad Gazdiev reports. Militant groups once again targeted West Aleppo's Hamdaniya district, as they continued to shell residential areas controlled by the government forces. Tuesday's attack came just a day after three people were killed, including a child, and 28 more injured in another attack on Hamdaniya and Salahuddin neighborhoods. The latest shelling occurred about 10am local time (07:00 GMT), reported Murad Gazdiev, RT's correspondent at the scene. He also visited Aleppo University hospital, where the victims of the most recent militant attack were being treated. Militants and terrorists that took up positions in eastern Aleppo have been constantly and indiscriminately shelling the western part of the city. On October 18, at least three people were killed and dozens injured when the Jamiliya neighborhood was shelled. The attacks come as Russia and Syrian government forces initiated a humanitarian pause by halting their air strikes a week ago. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the city did not witness any Russian or Syria air strikes for a week. Officers from the Russian reconciliation center and Syrian authorities also helped 48 women and children to leave the rebel-held area on Monday and provided them with necessary aid. Meanwhile, militants repeatedly sabotaged the ceasefire efforts by shelling humanitarian corridors and killing civilians. Moscow has been assisting Damascus in its battle against Al-Nusra terrorists, who have turned eastern Aleppo into a militant stronghold. Comment: See also:

Dilma Rousseff Is Ousted as Brazil’s President in Impeachment Vote - The New York Times

Simon Romero

BRASÍLIA — The Senate on Wednesday impeached Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president, and removed her from office for the rest of her term, the capstone of a power struggle that has consumed the nation for months and toppled one of the hemisphere’s most powerful political parties. The Senate voted 61 to 20 to convict Ms. Rousseff on charges of manipulating the federal budget in an effort to conceal the nation’s mounting economic problems. But the final removal of Ms. Rousseff, who was suspended in May to face trial, was much more than a judgment of guilt on any charge. It was a verdict on her leadership and the slipping fortunes of Latin America’s largest country. The impeachment puts a definitive end to 13 years of governing by the leftist Workers’ Party, an era during which Brazil’s economy boomed, lifting millions into the middle class and raising the country’s profile on the global stage. But sweeping corruption scandals, the worst economic crisis in decades and the government’s responses to the souring national mood opened Ms. Rousseff to withering scorn, leaving her with little support to fend off a power grab by her political rivals. “She lacked it all,” said Mentor Muniz Neto, a writer from São Paulo who described Ms. Rousseff’s final ouster as a “death foretold,” asserting that she lacked charisma, competence and humility. “We deserved better. ” To her many critics, the impeachment was a fitting fall for an arrogant leader at the helm of a political movement that had lost its way. But Ms. Rousseff and her supporters call her ouster a coup that undermines Brazil’s young democracy. Moreover, her impeachment may not restore public confidence in Brazil’s leaders, or diminish the corruption that pervades the country’s politics. To the contrary, many Brazilians note, it transfers power from one party to another. Michel Temer, 75, the interim president who served as Ms. Rousseff’s vice president before breaking with her this year, is now expected to remain in office until the end of the current term in 2018. But Mr. Temer’s centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, which anchored the Workers’ Party’s governing coalition for more than a decade, was also deeply enmeshed in the colossal graft schemes staining Brazil’s political system in recent years. It arguably benefited as much as the Workers’ Party from huge bribes and illicit campaign financing. Since becoming interim president in May, Mr. Temer has had approval ratings nearly as dismal as Ms. Rousseff’s. Shifting the government to the right, he named a cabinet without any female or ministers, outraging many in a country where nearly 51 percent of people define themselves as black or mixed race, according to the 2010 census. Several of the men named by Mr. Temer have already resigned under the cloud of scandal, including his anticorruption minister and his planning minister, amid claims that they were trying to stymie investigations into the bribery scandals engulfing the national oil company, Petrobras. Mr. Temer was recently found guilty of violating campaign finance limits, a conviction that could make him ineligible to run for office for eight years. Beyond that, a construction executive has testified that Mr. Temer was the beneficiary of a $300, 000 bribe, an assertion Mr. Temer disputes. The impeachment effort has divided the nation and stirred passions on both sides. Of the four Brazilian presidents elected since Brazil’s democracy was in the 1980s, Ms. Rousseff is the second to be forced from office through the impeachment process. In 1992, Fernando Collor de Mello resigned before the Senate could convict him on corruption charges. (Under Brazilian law, a president is not impeached until he or she is convicted by the Senate, legal scholars say.) “It’s painfully obvious that Temer is a slap in the face to Brazilian democracy,” said Creuza Maria Oliveira, the president of the National Federation of Domestic Workers, which represents millions of maids who benefited from the strengthening of labor laws by Ms. Rousseff. “Dilma is a champion of the poor,” said Ms. Oliveira, who was among the supporters of Ms. Rousseff who accompanied her to the Senate this week. “Temer is a champion of his own political class, which he wants to shield from justice. ” Some prominent business and political figures in Brazil counter that Mr. Temer, a former speaker in the lower house, has the political skills needed to muster support in a fractious, discredited Congress for ambitious measures aimed at increasing investment in the economy and easing a major pension crisis. Mr. Temer’s administration has “all the conditions needed to embark on a new route,” Philipp Schiemer, the head of ’s operations in Brazil, told reporters in recent days. “We need to decide if we want a Brazil like Venezuela or a Brazil inserted in the new world. ” Still others, including Ms. Rousseff, contend that the ease with which the political elite shunted aside the president will bring more divisiveness and political tumult in Brazil. “This is serious because other presidents of the republic will have to deal with this,” Ms. Rousseff said this week in her testimony in the Senate, comparing her ouster to the coups toppling Brazilian leaders throughout much of the 20th century. “If that isn’t political instability, then I don’t know what is. ” Unlike many of the politicians who led the charge to oust her, Ms. Rousseff, 68, remains a rare breed in Brazil: a prominent leader who has not been accused of illegally enriching herself. Instead, her trial revolved around a contentious legal question of whether she committed an impeachable offense by employing budgetary tricks to conceal yawning deficits. Ms. Rousseff repeatedly insisted that she did nothing illegal, pointing out that her predecessors also manipulated the federal budget. But her opponents argued that the scale of her administration’s transfers of funds between giant public banks, to the tune of about $11 billion, seriously eroded Brazil’s economic credibility and helped her get unfairly in 2014. Ms. Rousseff will not go to jail after her conviction, but she expressed defiance throughout her trial, insisting that Brazil’s economic crisis was largely the result of shifts in the global economy that cut commodities prices. A bureaucrat who specialized in overseeing giant public companies in Brazil’s energy industry, Ms. Rousseff had not held elected office until her predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, anointed her as his heir after other leaders in the Workers’ Party were tarnished by a scandal. As a divorced grandmother known as an avid reader of literature, she was an exception in the political scene. In addition to serving as Mr. da Silva’s chief of staff, she was known for her involvement with the Palmares Armed Revolutionary Vanguard, an urban guerrilla group, in her youth. Agents of the military dictatorship captured Ms. Rousseff and tortured her repeatedly in the early 1970s. But the qualities that made her a compelling chief of staff did not carry over when she became president. Her autocratic persona and short temper became legendary in Brasília, a capital where deals are customary when forging and nurturing alliances with an array of bickering parties. Many voters also felt betrayed after Ms. Rousseff’s campaign, when she narrowly won on promises to maintain extensive state control over the economy, resulting in generous public spending. But once she went in another direction, appointing a finance minister who tried to win approval for policies. “She simply lied through her teeth to get forming a wave of national indignation,” said Antonio Risério, a historian and cultural commentator. “Upon perceiving that they voted for one person and elected another, the majority of the population started to want her head. ” With Ms. Rousseff deposed, the Workers’ Party, a dominant force in Brazilian politics for much of the past decade and a half, is now scrambling to find its way in a political landscape where conservative voices are growing more powerful. João Santana, the party’s campaign strategist who helped Ms. Rousseff win two presidential elections, faces charges of illegally receiving millions of dollars in offshore accounts from the bribery scheme involving the national oil company. Even more damaging for the party, federal investigators are seeking graft charges against Mr. da Silva, the former labor leader universally known as Lula, who was president from 2003 to 2010. The move adds to mounting legal problems faced by Mr. da Silva, who is still signaling that he plans to run for president in 2018. Ms. Rousseff found herself increasingly isolated in recent months, with many in her party quietly withdrawing their support. But senators offered her a morsel of consolation by voting to allow her to run for public office, overruling an effort to make her ineligible from doing so for several years. And some in Ms. Rousseff’s party defended her as she made her effort before the Senate this week. “You veered from the narrative when you were elected president of the republic as a woman, from the left, a former militant against the dictatorship, without a husband to pose by your side in the photographs,” said Regina Sousa, a Workers’ Party senator from Piauí in northeast Brazil. “You never fit in the cute little dress designed by the conservative elite of this country,” Ms. Sousa added. Heated tempers marked the trial in the Senate. Crying as she spoke, Janaína Paschoal, the law professor who was an author of the impeachment request, said she had been inspired by God and that she was seeking impeachment for the good of Ms. Rousseff’s grandchildren. Ms. Rousseff’s lawyer, José Eduardo Cardozo, said he was stunned that her opponents had dragged Ms. Rousseff’s family into the acerbic debate, pointing out that Ms. Rousseff was never accused of embezzling public funds to benefit her family. “If you want to condemn her, go ahead, but don’t mock the honor of a dignified woman,” said Mr. Cardozo, also crying as he spoke.

Obama Says He's Had A Scandal-Free Administration. Here Are 11 of His Scandals.

EdJenner

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Syrian War Report – November 3, 2016: Egyptian Officers Arrive in Syria

The Saker

November 4, 2016 9:46 am Lower bitstream would be enough, nothing to do with hosting. Reply - Share JJ November 4, 2016 8:38 am Surprisingly uk radio 4 this am…a report about the 3 rebel suicide bombs killing so many in western Aleppo, numbers of dead and injured .tied in with announcement of end of humanitarian pause by the end of the day………..even a reference to the numbers of foreign fighters from tens of countries present there. last chance saloon for those defiant war criminal murderous rebels, now Russian fleet is in place. Fireworks in Syria this November Fifth? Maybe? Perhaps Stefan de Mistura may approve of Aleppo being saved by legitimate government and State of Syria. Reply - Share JJ November 4, 2016 8:45 am MOSCOW, October 16. /TASS/. The Russian Defense Ministry and the US Department of Defense will soon sign a document on safety of flights above Syria, all technical issues have been agreed, the head of the Main Operations Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff, Col. Gen. Andrey Kartapolov, said Friday. “Now all technical issues have already been agreed and today Russian and American legal experts are verifying the text of the document. We hope that the document will be signed as soon as possible,” Kartapolov said at a briefing for foreign military attaches and journalists. The general recalled that three video conferences of Russian and US militaries had been held earlier. The conferences were dedicated to drafting a memorandum on prevention of incidents and ensuring safety of flights above Syria. “This will ensure conditions to prevent specific situations that could create an incident in Syrian airspace during activities of the aviation of the Russian Federation and partners in the coalition. We are speaking for expansion of cooperation in that sphere and are open for contacts with all interested sides,” Kartapolov said. READ ALSO General Staff: Russian forces delivered air strikes on 380 IS facilities in Syria Russian Navy ships may join Syria operation — General Staff Russian military officer says US ashamed of cooperating with Russia against IS Putin: Russian forces show impressive results in Syria, hundreds of terrorists killed Lavrov, Kerry satisfied with work of military on Syria Earlier, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said that during the third video conference, the sides managed to bring their positions closer and agree on the order of further activities. Russia’s Aerospace Forces … Read more » Reply - Share JJ November 4, 2016 9:35 am Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting of the operational Security Council discussed the situation in Syria, including in the context of a decision to hold another humanitarian pause – according to the Kremlin website. The Defense Ministry denied the information about the death of Russian soldiers as a result of the shelling of the helicopter in the Syrian province of Hama. As noted in the Ministry of Defense, the helicopter VKS Russia made an emergency landing by performing routine delivery of humanitarian assistance in one of the settlements 40 km northwest of Palmyra. “During the inspection of the helicopter crew on the ground landing site underwent mortar fire fighters – told the Center for reconciliation of the warring parties in the CAP -. car crew was not injured and was promptly delivered to the search and rescue helicopter at an air base Hmeymim “. The number of settlements that have joined the reconciliation process has increased to 884. The number of armed groups that have declared their commitment to adopt and implement a cessation of hostilities conditions, has not changed – 69. During the day recorded 39 attacks by illegal armed groups in the provinces of Damascus (16) Aleppo (15), Daraa (6), Latakia (1) and Hama (1). The Russian VKS and Air Force Syria opposition armed groups, have declared a cessation of hostilities and to report to the Russian or American centers reconciliation information about their location, strikes not applied. Terrorists in Syria have used humanitarian pause in Aleppo to regroup and replenish the arsenal, said the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova. “The situation in Syria, unfortunately, very heavy, the … Read more » Reply - Share

Biden Explains Why Hillary Set Up Her Email Server (This Doesn’t Help Her)

C.E. Dyer

You are here: Home / US / Biden Explains Why Hillary Set Up Her Email Server (This Doesn’t Help Her) Biden Explains Why Hillary Set Up Her Email Server (This Doesn’t Help Her) October 28, 2016 Pinterest Crazy Uncle Joe is at it again. Vice President Joe Biden, and potentially secretary of state should Hillary Clinton be elected (let that sink in for a minute), claimed that Clinton didn’t understand “the gravity” of using private servers to send and receive classified information as secretary of state. Social media users pointed out the obviously ridiculous nature of this defense, as many have throughout the whole email debacle. Clinton is either pathetically inept of dangerously corrupt — I’d argue that there’s a lot of both in the equation. Both options mean that she should be behind bars and not running for president. Interviewed by @jdickerson for @FaceTheNation , @VP says @HillaryClinton didnt understand "the gravity" of setting up own e-mail system. pic.twitter.com/abIZ1f0kvO — Mark Knoller (@markknoller) October 28, 2016 So to quote Dave Chapelle: “I’m sorry officer I … didn’t know I couldn’t do that." https://t.co/a1mLeOv0KL — Ben Howe (@BenHowe) October 28, 2016 Ben Howe of Red State quoted comedian Dave Chapelle: “I’m sorry officer I … didn’t know I couldn’t do that.” Ummm, she did it specifically to evade FOIA. I'm quite certain she "understood the gravity" https://t.co/nZK9EBQp27 — The H2 (@TheH2) October 28, 2016 Twitter user “The H2” pointed out that Clinton very likely understood the gravity just fine; it’s probably why she set up the servers in the first place. The H2 tweeted: “Ummm, she did it specifically to evade FOIA. I’m quite certain she “understood the gravity.” Absolutely. Clinton almost certainly set up the servers to “evade FOIA,” and the inevitable failures/corruption (such as the pay-to-play operation) she would need to cover up as secretary of state. The thousands of emails deleted from Clinton’s servers weren’t just yoga schedules and wedding planning — the State Department admitted there were Benghazi-related emails in there. Clinton is responsible for the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012, and it is almost a certainty that emails pointing to her involvement were scrubbed — in addition to what we already know that points to her responsibility. She understood "the gravity" she just thought she could "get away with it" #Corruption #draintheswamp #newsisback https://t.co/TrN0xUSbaX — Jesse Eaton (@landho69) October 28, 2016 Jesse Eaton tweeted: “She understood ‘the gravity’ she just thought she could ‘get away with it.'” That about covers it. She knew what she was doing, but since she also knows where all the bodies are buried she gets to play by a different set of rules. We found out that President Obama, using a pseudonym, communicated with Clinton via her private email server — not her state.gov address — even though he claimed not to know about the servers until the scandal came out in the press. Why would he do that if he thought things were on the up and up and didn’t know a thing about the private server? That might have been part of Clinton’s insurance here as well. She may have figured that if she goes down, so does Obama. That would be pretty stupid considering Clinton found out where she sat on the totem pole in 2008, but no one ever said the woman was a genius. The FBI announced on Friday that it reopened the investigation of Clinton’s email scandal, and hopefully Clinton will finally be brought to justice. Not likely, but who knows?

Israel Opposition Leader: Trump Brings ’Aura of Optimism’ to Region - Breitbart

Joel B. Pollak

Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog told the Jerusalem Post conference in New York on Sunday that President Donald Trump’s support for peace “gives an aura of optimism to the region … a spirit of change that needs to be seized. ”[Herzog, who leads the Zionist Union party, was commenting on Trump’s recent commitment to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians, which has proceeded through visits by the administration’s emissaries to the region, a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House, and a similar visit last week by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. “The realities are the realities,” Herzog said, arguing that while the Palestinians were “extremely difficult” to deal with, there was no alternative. Regarding Netanyahu’s own commitment to peace, Herzog said that the Israeli leader’s intentions were unclear, and vowed to build a political bloc to oppose him politically if he did not follow through. Herzog was viewed as close to President Barack Obama, who used the State Department to send funds to Israeli opposition groups in an effort to defeat Netanyahu in the 2015 elections. Trump has been praised by other Arab leaders in the region, as a broad, if tacit, alliance emerges between the Sunni Arab states — particularly the monarchies — and Israel. All are facing the common threat of a potentially Iran, and some are grappling with the dangers caused by its terrorist proxies. Herzog was scathing in his criticism of French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, whom he accused of forgetting the history of the Holocaust. French voters were at the polls Sunday. Joel B. Pollak is Senior at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

EE.UU.: Un hombre durmió tres semanas con un cadáver descompuesto bajo la cama - RT

EE.UU.: Un hombre durmió tres semanas con un cadáver descompuesto bajo la cama Publicado: 26 oct 2016 20:32 GMT Cuando la Policía entró a la casa del sospechoso de asesinato percibió "un fuerte olor a perfume". Una bota asomaba de una bolsa de basura que había debajo de su cama. Imagen Ilustrativa pexels.com / Kristin Vogt Síguenos en Facebook Donald Teaford, un residente del estado de Pensilvania (EE.UU.), ha sido acusado de vejación de un cadáver después de que la Policía hallara un cuerpo en estado de descomposición dentro de una bolsa de basura debajo de su cama, informa BuzzFeed News . Según la denuncia penal, consultada por el portal, la Policía recibió un aviso que apuntaba a la existencia de un cadáver en la casa de Teaford desde hacía tres semanas. Cuando los agentes llegaron a la vivienda, se encontraron que dos de las ventanas estaban abiertas y notaron "un fuerte olor a perfume ". Los oficiales revelan que cuando miraron debajo de la cama vieron una bolsa de basura con una bota asomando de ella. Además, hallaron un cuchillo cerca del cuerpo que el propietario de la casa trató de ocultar debajo de un DVD y un monedero. La víctima, identificada como Justin Cogan, y el sospechoso de asesinarlo se conocían y consumían heroína juntos. La Policía indica que la novia de Teaford había muerto por sobredosis en la misma cama de la vivienda. Teaford ha sido detenido y recluido bajo una fianza de 100.000 dólares.

What The Hell Just Happened In Russia: Powerstation Explosion In Naval Base Region – Helicopters Landing On Moscow Streets – Dead Man Found At Russian Consulate in New York

Mac Slavo

Zero Hedge What The Hell Just Happened In Russia: Powerstation Explosion In Naval Base Region – Helicopters Landing On Moscow Streets – Dead Man Found At Russian Consulate in New York Mac Slavo SHTFplan.com Read by 1 people Something serious appears to be happening in Russia, as well as at the Russian Consulate in New York. Speculation abounds as multiple events taking place in the last few hours indicate that either a very coincidental set of events just happened, or an attack has been initiated against Putin’s government. Here’s what we know right now. On the heels of a previous announced pre-positioning of cyber warfare assets last week and some 300,000 NATO troops preparing for battle in Europe, we learn this morning from RT that a massive blast at an electrical substation in Murmanks, Russia has left part of the region without power. What makes this outage particularly interesting is that Murmanks is the main administrative base for the entire Northern Russian Fleet . The northern Russian port city of Murmansk, with a population of 300,000, has been partly left without electricity following an emergency at an energy facility. Eyewitnesses captured a bright flash, after which the lights went out. … There have been eyewitnesses’ reports of a “ huge blast ” at one of the city’s electrical substations, according to SeverPost news agency. … There is apparently no electricity in government headquarters in the city center , FlashNord reported citing its correspondent in the area. Lights have been off in both central areas and in the outskirts, according to SeverPost. An incident happened at one of the facilities of the Kolenergo regional energy company, its press service told RT, without specifying what exactly happened. The causes of the “ incident ” are now being investigated by a special commission, the company said, adding that specialists are now working on damage control and recovery.

Beating of Disabled Teenager Highlights a Crime That Often Goes Unpunished - The New York Times

Mitch Smith and Richard Pérez-Peña

CHICAGO — The appalling video seized the nation’s attention this week: A group of young people kidnapped, bound, beat, slashed, gagged, humiliated and threatened to kill a teenager with mental disabilities over nearly three days, and laughed about it as they carried out their acts. But by far, the most unusual thing about the episode, advocates for people with disabilities have said, was not the abuse itself, but the fact that it was recorded. Violence against people with disabilities is far more common than most people realize, advocates have said, and frequently goes undetected or is not taken seriously. The victim in the attack here, an white man, suffered from schizophrenia and attention deficit disorder, prosecutors said in court papers filed on Friday. The four accused attackers, ranging in age from 18 to 24, are black. The four appeared on Friday in Cook County Circuit Court and Judge Maria Kuriakos Ciesil ordered them held without bail. The defendants are accused of multiple felonies, including hate crimes. Prosecutors said the victim, who was found by the police on Tuesday, was targeted based on his race and his disability. During a Facebook video made by one of the defendants, another can be heard denouncing white people, and, at one point, a man is heard saying he does not care if the victim is schizophrenic. “I’m wondering as I’m hearing this, ‘Where was the sense of decency?’ ” Judge Kuriakos Ciesil asked. In explaining her denial of bail, she added, “How do you put someone out there who has allegedly committed such horrible offenses against a person?” People with disabilities are more than twice as likely to be the victims of violent crimes as those without disabilities, according to a Justice Department report based on Census Bureau surveys. And people with mental disabilities are the most likely to be victimized. But some advocates claim the disparity is actually much greater, saying crimes against those with disabilities are less likely to be pursued by law enforcement. They believe people with disabilities may be unable to take part in a survey or go to the police, or may have trouble being understood. As a result, their complaints often are not taken seriously. “There are probably thousands of other cases just like this one in Chicago, and in some cases worse, that will never see the impact of the justice system because folks don’t know about it,” said Rebecca Cokley, the executive director of the National Council on Disability, a federal agency. “In a lot of cases with people with disabilities, the perpetrators are family members or caretakers, so what happens when the person who would have to take you to the police station is your abuser?” Advocates have said the underlying problem is a pervasive attitude, conscious or not, that people with disabilities are not fully human. They pointed to a recent case in Idaho, where a white high school football player was charged with shoving a coat hanger into the rectum of another teenager, who was black and had mental disabilities, after having harassed the student and directed racial slurs at him for months. Though the accused student was 18 at the time of the assault, he was sentenced to probation rather than prison. “We have, unfortunately, devalued disabled people forever, which means we devalue their suffering,” said Curt Decker, executive director of the National Disability Rights Network, a nonprofit advocacy group. “What we experience all the time is that police, prosecutors, judges say, ‘Oh, this case is hard, it’s not worth our trouble. This person is hard to understand, or they’re not credible, or they won’t stand up to . ’” Mr. Decker said that when Congress spent years drafting, debating, and finally voting on hate crimes legislation, which passed in 2009, it was a struggle to ensure that it punished crimes singling out people with disabilities, as well as bias based on categories like race or sex. of the 50 states have hate crimes laws, according to the League, but 17 of them do not specify people with disabilities as a protected group. Vilissa Thompson, an organizer of the Harriet Tubman Collective, a coalition of advocates for disabled black people, said, “People are ignorant about the extent of violence against disabled people, but what’s worse is that there’s this kind of misplaced sympathy for the perpetrator, especially when it’s a parent or caregiver. ”

The 'Elite' Families Behind Hitler & Nazism — The Nazi War Machine Was Actually An American Business

Arnold Monteverde (noreply@blogger.com)

Stopping the shipment of these supplies to Germany would have ended the Nazi war. Nazism was the first time in human history that the rich had enough wealth to hire an entire country to do their dirty work. Have you ever wondered who exactly are these rich men that thrive by destroying entire nations only to rebuild them later on — whilst reaping $Trillions in the process? The most powerful of these infamous families is the Rothschild banking clan, who has been financing both sides of every war since the time of Napoleon. The following quote, even though it has been attributed to a fictitious character, it is very accurate: “I told you once before that there were two times for making big money: one in the up-building of a country and the other in its destruction. Slow money on the up-building, fast money in the crack-up. Remember my words. Perhaps they may be of use to you some day. (Rhett Butler)” ― Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind To my readers, it will surely come as no surprise to find out that Hitler was, in fact, a Rothschild Adolf Hitler’s father, Alois Hitler, was the illegitimate son of Maria Anna Schicklgruber and Baron Rothschild. Maria Anna was working as a maid in Baron Rothschild’s mansion when she became pregnant and was sent back to her village for confinement. A correspondent who has extensively researched this subject writes: “It appears to me that Hitler knew about his connection long before his Chancellorship. Like his father before him, when the going got rough, the Hitlers went to Vienna. Hitler’s father left his home village at an early age to seek his fortune in Vienna. When Hitler was orphaned, after his mother died in December of 1907, he left for Vienna not long after the funeral. “There he seemed to drop out of sight for ten months! What happened during this ten-month stay in Vienna is a complete mystery on which history sheds no light. It makes sense, now that it has become established that Hitler was a Rothschild, that he and his cousins were getting acquainted, and his potential for future family endeavors was being sized up.” The Rothschilds and the Illuminati produce many offspring out of wedlock in their secret breeding programs and these children are brought up under other names with other parents. Hitler was financed by the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, which are both owned/ controlled by the Rothschilds, which is further evidence that they have been the greatest force behind the second world war. It makes me sick to even think about the rivers of blood spilled by their hidden conspiracies and the amount of pain, sufferance and destruction caused to the world. Also, George Bush’s grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited immensely from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler and Prescott Bush Basically, the Bushes have contributed to the rise of Hitler and made a fortune in the process. The Powers That Be (TPTB) take good care of their own From 1945 to 1945, Operation Paperclip granted American citizenship to nearly 1,000 Nazis. Once “bleached” of their Nazism, they ended up working in the US military industrial complex, and have worked for the CIA, NASA, etc.. One of the Nazi experiments that continued in America was mind control. The subject were mostly children and mind control was achieved through torture. The secret project received the name MKUltra. In his book, The Nazis Next Door , investigative reporter Eric Lichtblau reports that thousands of Nazis managed to settle in the USA after World War II, often with the direct assistance of American intelligence officials. And what about Adolf Hitler? The FBI has quietly declassified secret files attesting that Hitler fled to Argentina in 1945 and they knew all about it. Also, there are separate reports from people who met him in Argentina just months after war. One of these contacts has even told the FBI the exact location where Hitler and his wife, Eva Brown, were hiding : a lakeside mansion in Patagonia, Argentina. (This remote mountainous paradise was full of top Nazi refugees). But Hitler and his entourage were offered a safe heaven by TPTB and they were not to be bothered for the rest of their lives. By Alexander Light, HumansAreFree.com . Introduction by Michelle Walling, HowtoexittheMatrix.com .

SONEG El Mundo Today 2×10: ¿Qué país del mundo conviene destruir para siempre?

Redacción

Manuela Carmena pide a los madrileños que guarden las latas y las bolsas de la basura para hacer los vestidos de los Reyes Magos EL MUNDO TODAY RADIO

Scientists Find A Plant That Could Treat Diabetes & Kill Cancer Cells

Joe Martino

More recently, bitter melon juice was shown to kill pancreatic cancer cells in vitro and in mice in a study done by the University of Colorado. Considering the results were seen in both in vitro and in vivo tests, the effectiveness of bitter melon juice in treating pancreatic cancer, and potentially other cancers, at a clinical level are promising.[ 1 ] “IHC analyses of MiaPaCa-2 xenografts showed that BMJ(Bitter Melon Juice) also inhibits proliferation, induces apoptosis and activates AMPK (adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase) in vivo . Overall, BMJ exerts strong anticancer efficacy against human pancreatic carcinoma cells, both in vitro and in vivo , suggesting its clinical usefulness.” Pancreatic cancer is one of the most difficult cancers to treat due to the fact that it is often discovered late, leaving very little time to treat. Since traditional therapies (chemotherapy, radiation, surgery etc) were not showing promising results and littler advancement was being made, researchers have been looking elsewhere to find treatment. Interestingly, cannabis, specifically cannabinoids, have been shown to induce apoptic (programmed) death of human pancreatic cancer cells in vitro and stop pancreatic tumor growth in vivo.[ 4 ] Cannabis is perhaps one of the most popular treatments being aggressively pursued right now given its promising results both in labs and anecdotally. Scientific Evidence Many cancerous tumors have insulin receptors which move glucose to cancer cells helping them to grow and divide. Studies have shown that insulin encourages pancreatic cancer cells to grow in a dose dependant manner, since bitter melon has been shown to help regulate insulin levels, this could help prevent pancreatic cancer over the long-term. The Colorado University study was led by Dr. Rajesh Agarwal. They examined effects of bitter melon on 4 different lines of pancreatic cancer cells (in vitro) and in mice. For the in vivo studies, mice were injected with pancreatic tumor cells and were randomly divided into one of two groups. One group of mice received water, which was the control group, and the other group was given bitter melon juice for six weeks. [6] Researchers studied the tumors at the end of the study and results showed that bitter melon juice not only inhibited cancer cell proliferation but also induced apoptosis (programmed cell death). Compared to the control, tumor growth was inhibited by 60% in the treatment group and there were no signs of toxicity or negative effects on the body. With toxicity and negative effects being a huge role in traditional mainstream treatments, this was positive to see. Diabetes A number of clinical studies have been conducted to evaluate the efficacy of bitter melon for treating diabetes. Since it is believed that diabetes is a precursor for pancreatic cancer, researchers felt bitter melon could treat diabetes as well after seeing pancreatic cancer results. In 2011, results of a four week long clinical trial were published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology that showed modest hypoglycemic effects and significant fructosamine management for those taking 2000mg/day of bitter melon. As published by the study: “Bitter melon had a modest hypoglycemic effect and significantly reduced fructosamine levels from baseline among patients with type 2 diabetes who received 2,000 mg/day. However, the hypoglycemic effect of bitter melon was less than metformin 1,000 mg/day.”[ 3 ] Another study published in 2008 in the international journal Chemistry and Biology indicated that compounds in bitter melon improved glycemic control, helped cells uptake glucose and improved overall glucose tolerance. This study was done in mice and led to promising advancements in treating diabetes and obesity with bitter melon.[ 4 ] In contrast, a study published in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology in 2007 did not show significant benefit of the treatment of diabetes by bitter melon but 2 years later in the British Journal of Nutrition it was stated that “more, better-designed and clinical trials are required to confirm the fruit’s role in diabetes treatment.” Since that 2007 study, more studies have been done to show beneficial effects which perhaps was a result of better design. Conclusion When it comes to bitter melon juice, the current research available is showing strong results for specific types of cancer cell destruction, diabetes treatment and potential prevention of pancreatic cancer. Further research and clinical trials would be helpful to better understand how effective this plant can be and in what specific cases. It remains a very promising option that could be explored under the correct supervision. Other Uses of Bitter Melon Bitter melon has been used as a traditional medicine for a long time. It has been used to treat: colic, fever, burns, chronic cough, painful menstruation and skin conditions.[ 5 ] 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

While Young Britons Favor Staying in E.U., They Aren’t Big on Voting - The New York Times

Kimiko De Freytas-Tamura

LONDON — On June 23, tens of thousands of young Britons will be gathered at the Glastonbury music festival, whose headliners include Coldplay, Muse and Adele. Others will be avidly following the European Soccer Championship in France or biting their nails in anticipation of the next episode of hit teenage soap “Hollyoaks. ” Oh, and there is the referendum that day asking them whether Britain should leave the European Union. “Wait, are we even registered to vote?” Priya Patel, 25, asked her friend recently, as they waited outside a theater in east London to see their favorite stars arrive at the British Soap Awards. Would she want Britain to stay in the European Union? “Oh, definitely,” Ms. Patel, a medical practitioner, answered impatiently, switching her attention to her smartphone, visibly more interested in televised dramas than in the tensions between her country and Brussels. “Wait, what just happened?” she exclaimed as a “Hollyoaks” star rolled by in a car. Holding the attention of young voters — and getting them to turn out on June 23 — is one of the biggest challenges for both sides in the campaign over Britain’s place in Europe, especially for the advocates of remaining in the European Union. Polling suggests that younger people are more favorable to continued British membership in the bloc than are older voters, and in a close race could decide the outcome. The problem for the forces is that young people are historically less likely to vote. In this case, some analysts say, it could be particularly hard to motivate them, not just because many of them will be immersed in summer activities, but also because they are being asked to embrace the status quo rather than to take up an idealistic cause of change of the type that typically energizes young people. “It’s hard to get them passionate about remaining,” said Scott Townsin, 26, who recently directed a campaign video urging young people to vote in favor of staying in the European Union. Older voters tend to decide based on information they get from traditional media. But with young people, Mr. Townsin said, “you’ve got to be loud, you’ve got to compete with brands, favorite friends, Instagram, whatever, to get their attention. ” Zak Reynolds, 20, from London, said he had yet to make up his mind. One of his parents will vote to stay in, the other to leave. “There’s a lot of propaganda stuff,” he said. Sam Hemphill, 24, an engineering student from Swindon in southwest England, said he had not made up his mind but was leaning toward Britain’s remaining. Part of his uncertainty, he said, was driven by the perception that the campaigns “are both lying. ” “All the facts and figures feel manipulated, which makes the decision hard,” he said. “They are both polar opposites appealing on emotions rather than facts. ” The In campaign used targeted Facebook ads to imply (falsely) that a British exit, or Brexit, could stop British soccer clubs from signing European players. (“If we leave the E. U. how will Tottenham be affected?” one ad asked.) The Out campaign lent its support to a pop concert in Birmingham, only to have three acts pull out because they did not agree with its position. The voter registration deadline was Thursday, prompting ambitious drives by both sides to sign up supporters. Groups like Bite the Ballot, an organization that tries to encourage youths to vote, teamed up with Starbucks, which favors Britain’s remaining in the European Union, to hold registration drives in coffee shops across the country. Uber, which has not taken a position on the referendum, flashed ads on customers’ smartphones reminding them to register. Some surveys indicate that half of those between ages 18 and 30 want to remain in Europe, with the proportion higher among those under 25. Young Britons are generally comfortable with a multicultural society, surveys have found, and they value the opportunity to work and travel in 28 European nations without a visa. A survey released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center found that 57 percent of those 18 to 34 years old in Britain had a favorable view of the European Union, compared with 38 percent of people 50 and over. The 180, 000 or so people attending the festival in Glastonbury will have to vote by mail — a relatively tedious process — or apply to have someone else vote on their behalf. (There will be no polling booths on the festival grounds, 900 acres of farmland in Somerset, since people have to vote where they are registered.) The same voting rules apply to the 300, 000 to 500, 000 British fans, many of them under 30, who the police expect will travel to France for the monthlong European Soccer Championship. Some of the efforts to get young people to vote are paying off. Since March 1, more than a million people have registered to vote, with big gains among those 18 to 34 years old, according to figures published recently by the government. Ashleigh Breedy, a florist in favor of Brexit, said the referendum was so important that she would vote for the very first time. “All that money we’re sending to Belgium and them telling us what to do,” she said, referring to Brussels, where the European Commission is based. “Our queen doesn’t have a say,” she said. “Is Belgium going to tell our queen what to do?” she asked, puffing on a cigarette and drinking a can of Red Bull. “If enough of us stand up to leave, we’ll leave. ” Brexit campaigners are calling for more controls on immigration and greater national sovereignty the option of remaining is appealing to voters because of the economic benefits. Charlie Carline, 31, a British exit supporter who will be in France on referendum day, said he had made sure to vote by mail. It is “very important,” he wrote in a message on Facebook. “I want out of the European Union dictatorship. Look at the state of Europe because of these scum leaders. ” By contrast, some of the young people supporting Britain’s continued membership in the European Union are less passionate. For them, the monthslong campaign often felt more like Conservative politicians arguing over a dining bill. “It’s hard not to get bored by it,” said Josh Glancy, 29, who plans to go to Glastonbury and who applied for a postal vote only because a friend had insisted. “It’s a kind of spat among the Tory party, so I’ve become quite fed up with it. ” Still, he said he planned to vote to stay in Europe because he liked “the idea of a Europe that can cooperate” over issues including the migrant crisis. Vahan Salorian, 23, who juggles work as a composer, primary school music teacher and pub supervisor, said he would vote for Britain to remain in Europe. “I’ve been watching with mild terror” the possibility of a British exit, he said, wearing a decorated with avocados and sipping beer with friends in a park in east London. “I’m terrified it might happen. ” Mr. Salorian, who is from the rural town of Barnoldswick in northern England, said living in a cosmopolitan city like London shaped his views. Friends in Barnoldswick, he said, were planning to vote out even though the area has had very little immigration. Back in east London at the British Soap Awards, Jennifer Burnett, 33, said she was registered to vote, but was unsure about her intentions. She had more definite views about the soaps. “I know exactly who I’m going to vote for,” she said. “Vote ‘Hollyoaks’!” she exclaimed, raising a plastic champagne cup in a celebratory gesture.

Military Veteran: Standing Rock Is The First Time I Actually Fought For The People

Heather Callaghan

By Will Griffin ‘I’ve been on the wrong side of history’ I was in Iraq when President Bush announced the “surge” in January 2007. I was in Afghanistan when President Obama announced the...

VIDEO: EU President Says English ‘Losing Importance’ After Brexit Vote

Liam Deacon

European Commission President Juncker has claimed the English language is losing relevance after the Brexit vote. [Emm. .. Juncker beams as he says ”slowly but surely English (language) is losing importance in Europe”. pic. twitter. “Slowly but surely English is losing importance in Europe,” Mr. Juncker announced to a conference in Florence, Italy, before switching into French and drawing applause from his audience of European Union (EU) officials, local leaders, and Italian students. “I agitated between English and French but I will express myself in French,” he said, concluding: “And in France, we have elections on Sunday and I’d like them to understand what I’m saying about Europe and about nations. ” He also admitted Europe’s role in the world was diminishing. “We are losing our economic power and our economic clout. We’re currently down to 25 per cent of global GDP. In ten years’ time, that percentage will shrink down to 15. “We’ll be a smaller continent, our economies will shrink accordingly, we’ll face a demographic crisis. ” Bitter @JunckerEU delivers speech in French as ”English is losing its importance”. He needs to stop living in his little European bubble! 🌍 pic. twitter. — LEAVE. EU (@LeaveEUOfficial) May 5, 2017, Later in the speech, Mr. Juncker accused Britain of “abandoning” the European project but also admitted the bloc’s deficiencies played a part in people supporting Brexit. The English language jibe comes as tensions between the EU’s Brexit negotiation team and the UK Government peaked this week. Prime Minister Theresa May accused the EU of attempting to meddle in the UK’s general election, after a series of inflammatory leaks about private meetings last weekend. Reports in the German press claimed Mr. Juncker said Mrs. May was “delusional” about Brexit and that he was “10 times more sceptical” about a successful deal being reached following a dinner with the prime minister. There were also surprise claims the EU had dramatically increased the size of the “divorce” bill it is demanding the UK pays before leaving the bloc, to 100 billion euros. Mr. May hit back Wednesday, accusing European officials of threatening the UK in a deliberate attempt to influence the outcome of the June 8th snap election. “Whoever wins on 8 June will face one overriding task: to get the best possible deal for this United Kingdom from Brexit,” she said. “And, in the last few days, we have seen just how tough these talks are likely to be. “Britain’s negotiating position in Europe has been misrepresented in the continental press. The European Commission’s negotiating stance has hardened. “Threats against Britain have been issued by European politicians and officials. All of these acts have been deliberately timed to affect the result of the general election that will take place on 8 June. ”

Remember When Biden Challenged Trump To A Fight- Trump Just ACCEPTED!

Mr. Wendal

0 comments Biden said he’d like to throw down with Trump … now Trump responds. Did Biden see this coming? He should have, it’s Trump! We all knew it would happen, 2016 has been a roller coaster of crazy and unruly behavior from the left and their minions…that it would only be fitting to end it with a duel. All that’s left now is for each opponent to choose their weapon. Donald Trump responded to Biden’s statement very literally. Stating he “would really love” to accept the challenge to a fistfight. I can see Biden swinging wildly already…with his eyes shut and his head ducked. Biden on Friday slammed Trump’s now infamous taped 2005 comments that famous men could mistreat women with impunity: ‘When you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the p****. You can do anything.’ Asked if he wished he could debate Trump, a furious Biden replied that he wished he were in high school so ‘I could take him behind the gym.’ Trump, 70, cast himself as the alpha male Tuesday night in Tallahassee, delivering the rhetorical equivalent of a ‘Let’s step outside’ to the 73-year-old Biden. Seriously though, since this campaign for President is already pure madness. Lets just pretend they were about to get down in a boxing match…who do you think would win? Dems cheat so… They would pull a number on Trump like the end fight in Gladiator. Stab him in the side, and let him bleed out during the match… Related Items

Jay Carney: Obama Presidency Was ’Scandal-Free’ - Breitbart

Ian Hanchett

On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “New Day,” former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney argued President Obama’s presidency was “ beyond his personal life. ” Carney said Obama’s presidency was “ beyond his personal life. The man’s integrity, his decency and his optimism about America that he both embodied and pursued, I think will be his legacy. ” ( Mediaite) Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

Five Small Earthquakes Near Bern, Switzerland and CERN, and Two in Central Italy

Editor

(Starship Earth) I find this an interesting update from Simon Parkes. It’s hard to know if these “quakes” are intentional or naturally occurring any more. One report says six quakes. Is Rothschild hiding in Grindelwald? Figures. Prime location. Simon says… (pardon the pun) This afternoon 5 small earthquakes hit Switzerland south of Bern. One quake was 4.2 on the Richter scale. This is extremely rare for Switzerland. This earthquake was also reasonably close to Cern. But also very close to where Jacob Rothchild is holed up. http://www.simonparkes.org/swiss-earthquakes http://earthquaketrack.com/ch-be-grindelwald/recent https://watchers.news/2016/10/25/earthquake-switzerland-october-2016/ The Earthquakes in Italy… 2 powerful earthquakes rattle central Italy 2 hours apart Buildings have collapsed and the power is out in Castelsantangelo sul Nera. http://www.earthquakepredict.com/2016/10/2-powerful-earthquakes-rattle-central.html Things are definitely shakin’ these days. And something else of note today from my personal perspective… for the first time, I actually heard one of those “emergency broadcasting system alert” tests on the radio. It was 12:29 p.m. Pacific Daylight time. I had just entered a store and a couple of minutes later heard that tell-tale electronic tone, and just to be sure I was hearing what I thought I heard, I went closer to the speaker in the ceiling. It was your typical test, saying if there had been an actual emergency, a instructions would have followed… and the regular radio programming resumed. I had to laugh because I think I was the only one in the store who heard it. Everyone else seemed oblivious. If the intention is to incite fear… it failed. We passed the zombie test. High five! ~ BP Source: Starship Earth — The Big Picture More from BPEarthWatch… MUST WATCH! More from RT News… Chilling images capture destruction as two earthquakes hit Italy (PHOTOS, VIDEOS) With two earthquakes hitting central Italy on Wednesday, social media users were quick to capture the devastation on camera. The second Italy earthquake has been rated 6.0 by the USGS. Virtually the same spot as the foreshock, which remains a 5.5. — Sean Breslin (@Sean_Breslin) October 26, 2016 The tremors were strong enough to be felt in Rome, which is over 150 km away and residents reported their homes shaking. “Our village does not exist anymore,” the mayor of Ussita reportedly said. +++ "Our village does not exist anymore after latest #earthquake ", Mayor of Ussita (Marche) to ANSA +++ #Terremoto #Italy — Antonello Guerrera (@antoguerrera) October 26, 2016 Sounds unbelievable, but luckily so far NO ONE KILLED after the latest strong #earthquake in Italy. A few slightly injured #Terremoto — Antonello Guerrera (@antoguerrera) October 26, 2016 Some buildings reportedly collapsed in the area struck by the quakes. However, the damage is believed to be much less than in August, when a major earthquake hit Marche, Lazio and Umbria regions. Hundreds of people were killed in the August 24 quake and several towns were razed to the ground in the worst-affected areas. Second more violent #earthquake hits same region in #Italy . 5.9 magnitude in #Ussita . Mayor says city in panic @inewsmalta #Terremoto pic.twitter.com/dIlW1fc5j7 — Jake Azzopardi (@JakeaAzzopardi) October 26, 2016 Several people were reportedly injured in Wednesday’s tremors, officials in the town of Visso said, and several older buildings – including a church – have collapsed. Some areas have lost power, and several roads remain closed. Another lamp. #Italy #earthquake pic.twitter.com/anZY7ibZ07 — Russian Market (@russian_market) October 26, 2016 In Castelsantangelo sul Nera, which has around 300 residents, the town’s mayor Mauro Falucci confirmed that there was no electricity. #Earthquake #terremoto buildings collapsing near the epicentre #visso #ussita #Italy pic.twitter.com/DHqzonGl39 — Robin Monotti (@robinmonotti) October 26, 2016 https://twitter.com/romatheclub/status/791352862056022017 Although the US Geological Survey initially stated that both earthquakes reached a magnitude of 5.6 followed by 6.4, the estimates were later lowered. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has halted all engagements and is said to be following developments, according to Reuters. Facebook has also reportedly switched its Safety Check on to allow users to inform others that they are not in danger. #BREAKING : No injuries or fatalities reported in the #Italy Earthquake earthquakes; Damage reported pic.twitter.com/Qx1Dz1mQPd — Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) October 26, 2016 Source: RT News

ERB Trump vs Clinton is finally here!

SoulOfCeres

ERB Trump vs Clinton is finally here! page: 1 link If you're an avid ERB fan like me and 75% of the Internet, then you'll be very happy to know that Nice Peter and Epic Lloyd have finally delivered the highly anticipated Trump vs Clinton rap battle! We all knew it had to happen sooner or later. My guess that it would drop shortly after the final debate turned out to be true! Here it is in all its glory: ** CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE ** While you're at it, may as well check out the Romney vs Obama video from 2012: edit on 27-10-2016 by SoulOfCeres because: Formatting

A Paralympian Races to Remove Obstacles for the Next Generation - The New York Times

Kelly Whiteside

CLARKSVILLE, Md. — Growing up on a street in suburbia, Tatyana and Hannah McFadden raced their wheelchairs up, down and all around. Their family challenged convention, but also fit right in. Two moms, three children, a grandma and two dogs. A basketball hoop in the driveway. Purple wheelchairs scattered throughout the garage. Sports equipment, and prosthetic legs, stuffed in cramped closets. “It’s been just such an amazing year,” Debbie McFadden said, standing alongside her daughters on the backyard patio. Dozens of camera phones clicked. The buttercream on the sheet cake told the rest of the story: “Tatyana Hannah Go for the Gold!” was written in red script across the icing, and two tiny wheelchairs raced on a fondant track. The daughters were raised to believe they could do anything, no matter what the physical impairment, and this is what their uncommon determination has wrought: At the Paralympic Games, which begin Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro, Tatyana McFadden could become the first athlete to sweep every distance in wheelchair racing. She will compete in the 100 meters and the marathon — and everything in between. She could leave Rio with seven gold medals. Her sister Hannah is racing in three of the same events, including the 4x100 relay. If the McFaddens finish on the podium, they will be the first sisters to do so in a Paralympics. The odds of this? Longer than a marathon, especially given their start. “You know, when Tatyana and Hannah came here, Tatyana was told by doctors at Johns Hopkins she probably wouldn’t live long, and they said Hannah would never be active,” Debbie McFadden told the gathering at their Rio party. One of the best athletes most Americans have never heard of, Tatyana McFadden may be hard to miss in the coming months. Her Phelpsian medal quest will be a focal point for NBC’s Paralympics coverage — more than 70 hours across NBC’s networks and sports app, compared with six hours of coverage for the London Paralympics four years ago. “In the U. S. you don’t know about the Paralympics,” said Philip Craven, the president of the International Paralympic Committee. “You’re going to get to know. Give your people a chance to get to know Tatyana. It will take their minds off the presidential election. ” McFadden’s image appears on more than a million Coke cans. Her life story will be told, and retold, in commercials. In the time leading up to Rio, BP became the first United States Olympic Committee corporate partner to sponsor more Paralympians than Olympians. Now that Michael Phelps has packed up his Speedo and gone home and Simone Biles has clapped her last cloud of chalk into the rafters, will the American public stay for the Paralympics ? “We’re on the cusp of breaking the barriers for Paralympic sport,” Tatyana McFadden said. “It’s taken a lot of hard work and dedication, trying to teach society what it means to be a Paralympian, that we’re not any different, that we’re just like the Olympians, with the same training sites, sponsorships, medals and venues. ” If not the same rewards. The United States Olympic Committee awards $25, 000 to every American who wins an Olympic gold versus $5, 000 for every Paralympic gold $15, 000 for Olympic silver versus $3, 500 for Paralympic silver and $10, 000 for Olympic bronze versus $2, 500 for Paralympic bronze. There is also a significant difference between prize purses in major marathons. The New York City Marathon, for example, awards winners $100, 000 its wheelchair division winners receive $15, 000. “It’s absolutely ridiculous,” Tatyana McFadden said. “That bar needs to be raised. ” “If you don’t speak out, it’s going to stay the same,” she said. “Because I’ve been in the sport for a bit, I can be an educator. I want to give back for the next generations to come, however long I’ll be racing. I think it’s really, really important to have that voice. ” Born with spina bifida and adopted from a Russian orphanage, Tatyana McFadden, 27, is paralyzed from the waist down. Hannah McFadden, 20, adopted from Albania, born without a femur in her left leg, is an amputee. She uses a prosthesis to walk and a wheelchair to race. Ruthi McFadden, 17, also adopted from Albania, is the outlier — no wheelchair, no prosthetic leg to pop off at airport security and hand to a T. S. A. agent, as Hannah does for kicks. She has no desire to run the length of a basketball court, let alone a marathon. “I don’t like to sweat,” she tells her sisters. “Our family is a very unique household,” said Hannah McFadden, legs slung over an ottoman in the living room. “If you took a family photo right now, you got Grandma with an oxygen tank, probably sassing the photographer. ” (The oxygen tank comes courtesy of decades of smoking the sassing comes naturally.) She continued: “Ruthi talking about all the boyfriends she has. Tatyana wishing she had all the boyfriends. And me saying, ‘Where’s the food?’ You’d have all those different things going on and oh, yeah, and then parents, Deb and Bridget. We have two moms. “That was just the way it was. Having two moms wasn’t what really stood out about this family,” she said, in the deadpan of a mockumentary. Earlier this year, after People magazine published a feature article with the headline, “Meet My Two Moms: Wheelchair Racing Sensation Tatyana McFadden Reveals How She Was Saved From a Bleak Russian Orphanage,” the family collectively chuckled. It was not exactly breaking news. Debbie McFadden and Bridget O’Shaughnessey have been partners for 32 years. They kept their relationship and their shared parenting role because they did not want headlines to read, “Raised by Two Moms, McFadden Wins Gold. ” “I’ve been public about it,” Tatyana McFadden said, “but I haven’t been always, ‘Oh, these are my two moms, these are my two moms, these are my two moms.’ “It’s something I grew up with, and it’s not any different to me. Our parents have been together, what, more than 30 years? They’re a great example of what love and relationships look like. ” They met when Debbie McFadden was still recovering from the effects of syndrome, a rare autoimmune disease. While she was in graduate school, the condition left her paralyzed from the neck down. As a result, she relied on an electric wheelchair for four years and then crutches for eight. The obstacles Debbie McFadden faced while disabled — limited job and educational opportunities, snap judgments based on physical appearance — came to define her life’s work, as an advocate and a mother. “This can never be,” she told herself. She became the United States commissioner of disabilities in 1989, appointed by President George H. W. Bush. “Why, sir, this job?” she recalled asking the president. “Because you’re a pain in the ass,” he replied. “I’d rather have you working for me than against me. ” (Bush, 92, did not recall the specific interaction, but spoke highly of McFadden, a spokesman, Jim McGrath, said.) McFadden helped write the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, the milestone legislation that prohibits discrimination based on disability. “She makes the impossible happen,” Hannah said. “That woman does not know the word ‘no. ’” Debbie McFadden now serves as her daughters’ manager, or “momager,” as they call it. O’Shaughnessey, who works in information technology for the United States Department of Health and Human Services, is the parent, the one fixing wheelchairs and wearing a headlamp for wheelchair workouts on the track. She is the steady pace runner, the quiet complement to her partner. On a stage in Times Square this summer, surrounded by Olympians and Paralympians, Tatyana McFadden described her early years in St. Petersburg, Russia. “For the first six years in the orphanage, I received no medical treatment, so no wheelchair available,” she said, addressing the crowd at a news media event. “And I taught myself how to walk on my arms, using my arms as my legs to get around the orphanage. ” The next speaker, Michelle Obama, waited in the wings. “The sixth year changed my life for the better, when a woman happened to walk through the door, and that’s my mom Deborah McFadden. She’s here today. ” She paused for applause and then continued. Tatyana McFadden said sports had changed her life, and had perhaps saved it. Given her weak physical state at the time of her adoption, her parents signed her up for every sport they could find to build her strength. “See that wooden fence?” Debbie McFadden said as she pulled into the parking lot outside the home of the Bennett Blazers, an adaptive sports program. “That’s where she was when we first put her in the racing chair and said, ‘Go. ’” Inside the gym, Tatyana’s legacy is everywhere — in her trademark candy purple racing chairs, still used by the current Blazers, and the imprint she has made on the children there today. She is their Stephen Curry, their Serena Williams, their autographed poster on a bedroom wall. “Tatyana brings pride and recognition,” said David Elbert, whose daughter, Ruby, is part of the Blazers program. “She makes these kids stand up taller sometimes. Last Paralympics, Tatyana was on the gas pump. You pulled into BP, and Ruby was like, ‘Whoa. ’” In seventh grade, Ruby broke down Tatyana McFadden’s lawsuit against the Howard County school district for a social studies assignment. When McFadden was 15, Ruby’s age now, she was the youngest member of the 2004 United States Paralympics team. After winning her first two Paralympic medals in Athens, she started her freshman year at Atholton High School in Columbia, Md. She had never imagined that earning a varsity letter would be the greater challenge. Competing against runners, McFadden did not expect her results to count she just wanted to experience competitive sports. Citing safety concerns, school officials prohibited McFadden, a freshman, from racing alongside her high school track team. In 2005, the McFaddens filed suit, claiming no damages, against the Howard County Public School System. Until the case could be heard in federal court, the school allowed Tatyana to race separately, to circle an otherwise empty track after everyone else had run. The highly publicized legal battle took a toll on the teenager. At times, she was booed on the track, ostracized by teammates and ripped on message boards. A teammate, the coach’s daughter, sent a scathing letter to local newspapers. “I will no longer sit back and watch runners be treated unfairly because they are NOT disabled,” the 2007 letter said, according to The Washington Post. “Politically correct or not, I have been waiting several months to get all this off my chest. ” During the years of the lawsuit, McFadden turned to her grandmother Jo for support. “I’d be coming home being emotional and Grandma Jo would help me through it,” Tatyana said. “She reminds me that it’s about the long run. ” “It was a tough time for her,” Grandma Jo said. “A lot of tears. ” Grandma Jo, O’Shaughnessey’s mother, moved in with the family when the children were young. She was the one home when Mom (Debbie McFadden) traveled abroad, running an international adoption agency after her term as commissioner of disabilities. And Grandma Jo was the one home when Mama (Bridget O’Shaughnessey) was still at work in Washington. McFadden eventually won the right to race with her classmates — and the suit paved the way for the passage of a state law that guaranteed all students with disabilities the right to participate in sports. Then it became a national mandate. Three years ago, the United States Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights issued a letter of guidance clarifying school districts’ legal obligation to provide equal access to extracurricular activities to all students. The long run — the marathon view, if you will — made the struggle worth it. It made life easier for those who followed, including Hannah, who did not have to deal with the obstacles or animosity her sister had faced. In Tatyana McFadden’s book for young readers, “Ya Sama! Moments From My Life,” published this year, there is a chapter about the case, with the ugly moments softened or omitted. “I didn’t want to make it so dark or so tragic,” she said. The Russian phrase “Ya sama!” can be translated as “I can do it” or “I can do it myself. ” It is a phrase she learned as a young child in her St. Petersburg orphanage and one she uses now when faced with a challenge. “Any race that Tatyana is on the starting line is a race she can win,” said Adam Bleakney, her coach for the Paralympics and at the University of Illinois, where she is a graduate student. “So I wouldn’t be surprised if she wins seven golds. One of her strengths is her ability to have a very singular focus, whatever the task at hand. There is never a reservation or doubt when she has a goal in her mind. Most of us will get a sliver of doubt, but I don’t think that ever happens to Tatyana. ” After returning with three golds from the 2012 Summer Paralympic Games in London, Tatyana tried skiing for the first time. She made the 2014 Winter Paralympics team and left Sochi with a silver medal, her 11th over all. In Rio, McFadden is likely to win gold several times over, as she is the holder in the 100, 400, 800, 1, 500 and 5, 000 meters. The United States relay team — nicknamed the McRelay, with a lineup of the McFadden sisters, Amanda McGrory and Chelsea McClammer — is a gold medal contender. And Tatyana McFadden is favored to win the marathon, after having swept the Boston, London, Chicago and New York marathons for the last three years. In April, at the London Marathon, McFadden raced wheel to wheel and shoulder to shoulder with her Swiss rival Manuela Schär. McFadden’s arms throbbed as she pushed past Buckingham Palace, unable to shake Schär, who had saved energy for the final push by riding in McFadden’s draft. The duo headed for the finish at the Mall. As Schär tried to outkick her rival, McFadden floored it to the finish, winning by a second. As her parents watched, even they were astounded. Where did that sprint come from? they asked her. “Well, she was going to beat me,” she said, .

’Conan Exiles’ Won’t Have Customizable Penis Sizes on Xbox One - Breitbart

Nate Church

The Xbox One port of Funcom’s fantasy survival simulation Conan Exiles will not feature a “penis slider” in the character creation tools. [If you’re feeling a wee bit insecure about your prospective Xbox barbarian, I have some bad news. Microsoft is reportedly forcing the creators of Conan Exiles to castrate the character creation system in the upcoming port of their popular survival game. No, you will not be able to ensure you are as (or not) as you imagine your shirtless savage should be. In fact, you very well might not have a visible penis at all. Funcom Creative Director Joe Bylos said that “Xbox has been pretty clear with us that it’s not going to fly. ” Even so, there remains hope that the oily, burly manly men of the greater Cimmerian zip codes won’t be entirely neutered. According to Bylos, “It’s just going to be off by default I think. I don’t know if partial nudity might be OK. ” He’s a little bit more hopeful for the continued existence of bare breasts, but the developers “haven’t spoken to Xbox” about them specifically. “They do allow breasts in some of their games, but the penises definitely won’t be there. ” The game is already facing a possible ban in Japan due to the depiction of uncensored genitalia, but they “haven’t heard anything” definitive yet from the region. Bylos played coy about the popularity of the game’s naked avatars, expressing surprise at “the attention, the viralness[sic]” of the game’s customizable full nudity. He claims that the developers thought that players “would just sort of see it and laugh and move on,” in clear defiance of all known laws of the Internet. To be fair, we don’t definitively know that any of them have used the Internet before. Will the team be forced to tuck, or will the offending members be removed entirely? For now, the fate of their collective virtual manhood rests firmly in Phil Spencer’s hands. Follow Nate Church @Get2Church on Twitter for the latest news in gaming and technology, and snarky opinions on both.

Guess who that is?

The Saker

Leave a Reply Click here to get more info on formatting (1) Leave the name field empty if you want to post as Anonymous. It's preferable that you choose a name so it becomes clear who said what. E-mail address is not mandatory either. The website automatically checks for spam. Please refer to our moderation policies for more details. We check to make sure that no comment is mistakenly marked as spam. This takes time and effort, so please be patient until your comment appears. Thanks. (2) 10 replies to a comment are the maximum. (3) Here are formating examples which you can use in your writing:<b>bold text</b> results in bold text <i>italic text</i> results in italic text (You can also combine two formating tags with each other, for example to get bold-italic text.)<em>emphasized text</em> results in emphasized text <strong>strong text</strong> results in strong text <q>a quote text</q> results in a quote text (quotation marks are added automatically) <cite>a phrase or a block of text that needs to be cited</cite> results in: a phrase or a block of text that needs to be cited <blockquote>a heavier version of quoting a block of text...</blockquote> results in: a heavier version of quoting a block of text that can span several lines. Use these possibilities appropriately. They are meant to help you create and follow the discussions in a better way. They can assist in grasping the content value of a comment more quickly. and last but not least:<a href=''http://link-address.com''>Name of your link</a> results in Name of your link (4) No need to use this special character in between paragraphs: ; You do not need it anymore. Just write as you like and your paragraphs will be separated. The "Live Preview" appears automatically when you start typing below the text area and it will show you how your comment will look like before you send it. (5) If you now think that this is too confusing then just ignore the code above and write as you like. Name:

Arguing for a Judge Today, and Before Him Tomorrow - The New York Times

Liz Spayd

Neal K. Katyal was for a time the top lawyer in the Obama administration. As acting solicitor general, he represented the government before the Supreme Court. He is no conservative, and says he is disappointed that the latest nominee to the court is from the White House of President Trump. Yet in the opinion pages of The New York Times on Tuesday, Katyal made a forceful case for Trump’s pick to the high court, Judge Neil Gorsuch. Katyal called the nominee a man of principle who will uphold the rule of law, and “bring a sense of fairness and decency to the job, and a temperament that suits the nation’s highest court. ” The author says he knows this because he has seen Gorsuch in action, both in court and through a federal rules committee on which they both serve. What Katyal did not mention — and the page did not disclose in his bio — is that he has cases pending before the Supreme Court. Katyal was identified as a former solicitor general, a law professor at Georgetown University and a private litigator at the law firm Hogan Lovells. But in that last role he represents the giant drug manufacturer Squibb, Indian tribes and numerous other clients with cases before the court. Some readers would have liked to know more about Katyal’s background. Here’s one email from Mithra Busler of Atlantic Highlands, N. J. I took this concern to both page and to Katyal himself. Jim Dao, the editor, said the editors had not been aware of Katyal’s cases before the court. Writers are required to disclose potential conflicts, he said, but the process got rushed in this case. “Editors do try to ask writers directly,” he said. “On tight deadlines — and the Katyal piece was done on tight deadline — the question doesn’t always get asked. So I don’t blame the writer or the editor in this case. ” When I reached out to Katyal, he said he had not received such a disclosure request and had not had a conversation about potential conflicts. He also thought it was obvious to The Times that as a lawyer whose practice often brings him to the Supreme Court, he would have a case before it. More critically, Katyal said, it is common for Supreme Court lawyers not to mention litigation they have pending before the court when writing an opinion piece about a nominee or speaking to a reporter. Here’s his response to me in full: The problem is that the did not note that Katyal is among the elite lawyers who argue before the high court. Katyal, in his original submission to editors, disclosed that he is a highly experienced litigator before the Supreme Court. The editors did not disclose that to readers. The Times editors’ lack of disclosure may leave Katyal open to unwarranted criticism, not only from readers but from others looking to challenge his motives. I’m not suggesting Katyal is currying favor with a man who is almost certainly going to be on the court. I seriously doubt that he is. Plus, given the range of his clients, some might benefit and others not if Gorsuch is even on the bench when their cases come up. But The Times opens itself up to that criticism by failing to simply tell the readers more about who he is. Katyal’s piece falls into an appealing category for an editor: a partisan who breaks ranks to support the opposition. Whenever that happens, the author of the piece is bound to endure scrutiny by those who feel betrayed. Shouldn’t The Times err on the side of disclosure? It doesn’t need to be in language that implies a grave conflict. I’m not suggesting that The Times should have listed every case Katyal has before the court. But at minimum, readers in this case deserve to know that he is a Supreme Court litigator with cases before the court. Let the readers decide if that matters, or indeed whether it might even enhance the author’s expertise. Updated 7:30 a. m. February 4, to clarify that it was The Times, not Katyal, that failed to disclose his litigating experience. I intended from the start to convey that this was The Times’s failure and not Katyal’s. I regret the ambiguity surrounding the party responsible for failing to disclose Katyal’s experience and any misunderstanding caused by it.

John Bolton: Trump Admin Put Iran ‘On Notice’ for First Time in Eight Years

John Hayward

On Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily, former U. N. Ambassador John Bolton said he was “delighted” to hear National Security Adviser Mike Flynn’s statement that Iran has been “put on notice” for its ballistic missile launches and other provocations. [“I think it’s the first time in eight years that anybody has really said to Iran what needs to be said,” Bolton told SiriusXM host Alex Marlow. “I think it demonstrates a couple of things: Number one, that the Obama administration’s nuclear deal, agreed to in the summer of 2015, is in deep trouble. I think that’s what being put officially ‘on notice’ means. Because this latest ballistic missile launch by the Iranians was a violation of the agreement, although the wording is weak and ambiguous, thanks to John Kerry, there’s no doubt this is unacceptable behavior by Iran,” he said. “It also sends the political signal to America’s allies, as well, that any notion that we will simply continue to accept this deal as written is something they need to dismiss,” he continued. “I think it’s the kind of that helps clarify the situation with friends and adversaries alike. ” “This deal was a strategic mistake when it was made. It’s not gotten any better with age,” Bolton said. “It’s better to be unambiguous when a mistake like this is made. Even though Iran has benefited from the deal — the release of sanctions, unfreezing of $150 billion of their assets — it’s just an example of how bad the deal was for the United States. Iran gets the goodies up front, and its obligations only came down the road. ” “But nonetheless, because I think they’re already in violation of the deal, and I think there’s evidence to show that, we need to get on with the business of looking and talking to Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel when he arrives in a couple of weeks and our friends in the Arab world who see the Iranian nuclear threat as a direct threat to them, not just a threat to us,” he advised. Marlow turned to President Trump’s executive order to temporarily suspend immigration from seven nations and asked if Bolton thought the rollout of this order has been “ . ” “Well, is a very diplomatic way to put it,” Bolton told Marlow. “You have a future at the State Department if you want one at some point. ” “Thank you, sir,” Marlow said. “That’s not a compliment, actually,” Bolton said with a laugh. On a more serious note, he said things were left out of the executive order that he thinks should have been included, “for example, making it clear that green card holders were not subject to it. ” “Other exceptions were put in. This one was not,” he noted. “We all know the Trump administration wants to give refugee status to, like Iraqis, former interpreters who helped us out during the Iraq conflict. I think that added to the confusion and the publicity. ” “But honestly, this is going to be controversial even if those steps had been corrected. What I don’t understand is why the White House wasn’t more prepared for the fury of opposition that met it. It’s not like this wasn’t an issue during the campaign. It’s not like it wasn’t highlighted,” he said. “Look, it’s a bump in the road. I’ve been through transitions coming in and going out through the government. The first couple of months at the White House always have rocky periods. The real consequence here is that they learn from it, and I’m comfortable that they will,” said Bolton. He agreed with Marlow’s suggestion that despite all the hysteria around the supposedly draconian executive order, it did not go far enough in certain ways. “It’s very limited, and I think, in fact, if people read the executive order, they’ll see that with respect to these seven nations that are affected by it, that the same seven nations that, as you said a moment ago, were tagged by the Obama administration to effectively be eliminated from the visa waiver program. So that was a step in the direction Trump took. Trump just went further,” he observed. “But the key point was that these seven governments, for a variety of reasons, cannot supply the United States with adequate information about people claiming to be citizens of those countries who want visas to come into the United States. Let’s take a couple of examples: Somalia, Yemen, Libya, Syria. These are places where the government has just collapsed. It’s just collapsed. There is no effective government. We have no confidence that the information we’re getting is correct. Other governments like Iran, I wouldn’t trust as far as I could throw them anyway, even though they’re functioning in their territory,” Bolton said. “The point is to give the secretary of Homeland Security time to figure out whether these problems will be corrected or whether other steps need to be taken. People complain we should have put Saudi Arabia on the list. Actually, we get a lot of information from Saudi Arabia about visa applicants that we can corroborate and check into. Is it perfect? Of course not, but the opponents of the executive order, I think to be fair, cannot have it both ways. It’s too broad, which is what most of them claim and simultaneously claim it’s not broad enough, which really is hypocritical,” he said. On the subject of Iran, Bolton described the threat it poses as “enormous,” amply justifying the Trump administration’s putting them “on notice. ” “This cruise missile story is definitely very troubling because of its implications,” he said, referring to Iran’s recent missile test. “It was reported that the test had failed, but here’s the significant fact: it failed at the reentry stage — that is to say, as the warhead part of the missile, the nose cone and what’s under it, was coming back into the atmosphere. ” “What is significant about that? When you launch weather and communications satellites, you don’t care what happens on as long as the satellite is in orbit. What happens to the rest of the missile, it burns up in the atmosphere. You don’t care,” he explained. “The only reason you care about vehicles is when you’re delivering nuclear weapons because obviously, you can put the weapon into space, but if you can’t bring it down over the target, you’ve wasted a lot of effort. So the fact that Iran is at the point where it can launch ballistic missiles — and we know they’ve got ballistic missiles now. ” “That they’re testing ICBM kinds of missiles, capable of hitting the United States at a certain point, and they’re testing the capability, tells you exactly what this missile program is all about. So the argument that ballistic missiles aren’t intended for nuclear weapons is just another Iranian lie. That’s the only purpose of this program,” Bolton said. John Bolton is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and heads up his own political action committee, BoltonPAC. Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a. m. to 9:00 a. m. Eastern. LISTEN:

John Leguizamo: The First Time I Faced a Hostile Audience (Kids) - The New York Times

John Leguizamo

There I was playing Jack from “Jack and the Beanstalk,” pretending to climb a rope. Suddenly — boom! — the giant comes out, and several castmates and I erupt in a synchronized breakdance, mirroring one another’s moves. The crowd screams with a mixture of joy and fear, trying to make Jack hip to the fact that he’s about to be captured. This was all in a day’s work, as I was trying to be an actor and the only gig I could get was a diverse children’s theater troupe that was hiring my flavor. I joined Off Center Theater, a troupe that was mostly Latin and black, when I was 19. It was the ’80s, and and oversized clothes were the styles of the moment. We traveled around the city performing for kids in public schools. Spanish Harlem, East New York, my old neighborhood in Jackson Heights — all over. And I understood these kids because I used to be one of them myself. We actors knew they would rather be somewhere else, but we loved the challenge. It was my first hostile audience! (Well, after my family.) But we learned that once we started changing the plays up so they could relate, these audiences weren’t hostile at all — they actually loved it. I saw firsthand how hungry my young Latin people were to be entertained by their own. At the time, I was taking serious acting classes at HB Studio and the Lee Strasberg Institute. I was the only Latin kid in the room, and the plays we studied were written by white dudes. Still, I loved studying with the masters of acting. I was living in my brother’s dorm at Columbia University. I didn’t have enough to cover room and board, so I had to find work. So that’s how I ended up at Off Center. What seemed at first like a mere moneymaking thing turned into a adventure. It was really for me, bouncing between my brother’s room at Columbia and this rarefied world of privilege and opportunity, and then performing at public schools where there was never enough funding and the children and their families were struggling to get by. These were separate worlds in the same city. Sometimes it got me down — I felt like these kids didn’t have a chance. But it also showed me how kids in poverty learn to find joy in the little things that life has to offer. They have to make do. Look, I’m not saying you should put your children in poverty to make them happy. But growing up poor gives you a special perspective, and there’s a lot of value and strength in that. At the schools, we would update the classics. We did “Little Red Riding Hood,” where she was a fine black girl and all of a sudden the Big Bad Wolf would start . We added slang, Spanglish and . We did impressions of Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder. One time we did Frankenstein’s monster as a breakdancer. We told jokes: “We were so poor my mother would take Polaroids of other kids playing with toys for Christmas. ” Things like that. Once a kid came up after a show and asked why he didn’t know that Jack from “Jack and the Beanstalk” was Latin. He said he was going to ask his mom why she never told him. Man, to see those kids squealing and jumping up from their seats was the biggest highlight of my life. I realized how important it was for them to see themselves and their culture reflected back to them, something the media of the time rarely attempted. Seeing their lingo, mannerisms and pop culture references onstage was a way of being validated. We may have been the first ones to really show them that who they were was important and cool. Especially in my Manhattan. But the biggest service being provided was what the kids gave me. They showed me that there was an audience of people who grew up just like me, hungry for material they could relate to. I figured if these Latin kids were into what I was doing, then Latin adults might be, too. I had never thought that before. No one ever told me. So eventually I was inspired to try to connect with new audiences. I performed at these downtown performance art venues that had more of a white crowd. I saw that even though I was talking about Latin life, they, too, were hungry for an understanding of this sister culture to their own. I was testing the waters of what I could and couldn’t be, how far I could push the boundaries. But I soon saw that the boundaries were mostly in my own head. What I saw on TV and in movies and books did not apply to the real world. I found that the real world, once I gave it a chance, was pretty open and tolerant and curious.

BCRP: ¡dinamita en el camino!, por Herbert Mujica Rojas

Herbert Mujica Rojas

Señal de Alerta BCRP: ¡dinamita en el camino! por Herbert Mujica Rojas Socios | 3 de noviembre de 2016 BCRP: ¡dinamita en el camino! ¿A quién favorece el caballazo del Congreso con los tres directores nuevos en el Banco Central de Reserva? No es sólo la violación evidente de la ley orgánica de esa entidad sino –como lo demostró ayer Julio Alba Bravo- también la trasgresión de la propia ley del profesional economista cuando tiene vinculación con el Estado, datos que grafican la circunstancia sino que el Parlamento ha sido fautor de dinamita en el camino para quien debiera evitar esta naturaleza de fracturas: la señora Keiko Fujimori. ¿Qué clase de demostración fue la exhibida por la mayoría congresal del fujimorismo? Velocísima, expeditiva. No pareciera ser el mejor camino el de la provocación porque recuerda los años atroces de cuando el país navegaba en toneladas de robos, crímenes, inconductas y que terminaron con la administración de Alberto Fujimori en ruinas morales. Que algunos pretendan olvidar no es raro. Pero habemos quienes guardamos invicta la posibilidad de recordar esos aciagos hechos. Han transcurrido apenas algo así como 100 días de la nueva administración y mientras que el gobierno del presidente Kuczinski también incurre en errores monumentales y hasta bobos, el Congreso no le va a la zaga. Pero ¿no debiera cautelar esa mayoría, la tercera candidatura presidencial de su aspirante Keiko Fujimori? Arriesgaría decir que con esas actitudes pioneras y tempranas, van a conseguir efecto contrario. ¿Son o no legítimas las protestas en las calles? La virulencia de calificaciones sobre las mismas y provenientes de reaccionarios huérfanos de ideas o frescura cuanto que honestidad, dan la razón a los muchachos y validan el voto con los pies. El miedo a la juventud que expresará su desacuerdo con el caballazo congresal, al margen de si se enmienda el error en el BCRP o no, da cuenta del pavor cerval que sienten los grupos políticos anquilosados en viejas prácticas y vicios. El relevo generacional fresco, pundonoroso, limpio, capaz de inventar sus propias respuestas sin necesidad de robar o estafar el bolsillo y la fe públicas, ha empezado a sonar sus campanas. Y esos decibeles serán la música que tanto anhela Perú. Recordemos a Manuel González Prada: “En esta obra de reconstitución y venganza no contemos con los hombres del pasado: los troncos añosos y carcomidos produjeron ya sus flores de aroma deletéreo y sus frutas de sabor amargo. ¡Que vengan árboles nuevos a dar flores nuevas y frutas nuevas!” ¡Los viejos a la tumba, los jóvenes a la obra! Herbert Mujica Rojas Fuente Senal de Alerta (Peru)

Ashley Judd: Trump’s Election Victory Worse than Being Raped

Jerome Hudson

Actress and activist Ashley Judd says the “tragedy” of Donald Trump’s election victory is far worse than an experience from her childhood in which she was raped. [“It remains for me the worst thing that has ever happened to me in my lifetime,” Judd said of Trump’s successful election. “Raped as a child — bad. by a political system that ordains a clown — really bad. ” The Divergent star made the claim in a Huffington Post video titled, “Ashley Judd describes being triggered by Trump. ” Sporting a “Pussy Hat” popularized by feminist activists, Judd said the same male family member who failed to protect her from being sexually assaulted as a child betrayed her again by voting for Trump. “And the fact that there were adult men in my family — who failed to protect me as a child — voted for him, was really in saying, ‘You’re gonna put me out there again. And the idea that you would protect me has evaporated.’ And it was incredibly painful. Incredibly painful,” she said. “Immediately I began to weep, because it’s not ok. It’s not ok,” Judd added. “For me it’s not about the wall, it not about any of that stuff. It’s about, you voted for a pussy grabber. You voted for someone who calls his wife a piece of ass, whose daughter is his favorite sex symbol. It really boils down to me to the sexual assault and the misogyny piece. ” Last month, at the Women’s March in Washington, DC, Judd bashed Trump by suggesting that he has sexual fantasies about his daughter, Ivanka Trump. “I am not as nasty as your own daughter being your favorite sex symbol, like your wet dreams infused with your own genes,” Judd said. Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson

Key Moments From Today’s Confirmation Hearings - The New York Times

Thomas Kaplan, Alan Rappeport, Emmarie Huetteman and Robert Pear

WASHINGTON — Democrats continue their rigorous questioning of President Trump’s nominees for cabinet positions and other important posts. Here are key moments from today: ■ Representative Tom Price of Georgia, nominated to be health and human services secretary, defended his investments in an Australian pharmaceutical company during his time in Congress. “The reality is that everything that I did was ethical, above board, legal and transparent,” he said. ■ Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, lamented “the of the nomination process. ” ■ Representative Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, the nominee for budget director, said that tackling government waste and reducing debt would be his top priorities. ■ The toughest questions that Mr. Mulvaney faced on Tuesday came from Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. He asked Mr. Mulvaney about his record of voting for cuts to military spending and appeared to be shocked when Mr. Mulvaney could not remember those votes. ■ Linda E. McMahon, the former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment and Mr. Trump’s choice to lead the Small Business Administration, said her entrepreneurial background suited her for the job. ■ Ms. McMahon assured senators that she would be a vigilant opponent of restrictive government regulations. A background investigation of Mr. Price says he understated the value of his investments in an Australian pharmaceutical company, Innate Immunotherapeutics, and claimed income tax deductions that he could not substantiate. The findings emerged from a review of Mr. Price’s tax returns and other official documents by committee staff members from both parties. In a questionnaire in December, the committee staff said, Mr. Price understated the value of 400, 613 shares of the Australian company that he purchased in August 2016 through “a private placement offering. ” The value of the shares was listed on the questionnaire as $50, 000 to $100, 000, but that reflected the purchase price, the staff reported. At the request of the committee, Mr. Price recalculated the value of his holdings to reflect their market price. The revised value was $100, 000 to $250, 000. In addition, the committee staff said, Mr. Price “took improper deductions on his 2016 tax returns” for the depreciation of land associated with condominiums that he owns in Washington and Nashville. Moreover, the staff said, Mr. Price and his wife, both physicians, claimed “miscellaneous employment deductions totaling $19, 034” for various expenses in 2013, 2014 and 2015. Neither Mr. Price nor his wife work as a physician, the staff report said, and “proper documentation could not be located,” so Mr. Price’s tax returns will be amended to remove the $19, 034 in deductions. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the senior Democrat on the Finance Committee, questioned Mr. Price over his trades of health care stocks during his time in Congress. “It is hard to see this as anything but a conflict of interest and an abuse of position,” Mr. Wyden said. In particular, Mr. Wyden pressed Mr. Price over his investments in Innate Immunotherapeutics, which the senator said could be affected by legislation that comes before Congress. Mr. Price said he had done nothing wrong. “The reality is that everything that I did was ethical, above board, legal and transparent,” he said. Just how involved is Mr. Price as the Trump administration plots how it will replace the Affordable Care Act? Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, tried to find out. “President Trump said he’s working with you on a replacement plan for the A. C. A. which is nearly finished and will be revealed after your confirmation,” Mr. Brown said. “Is that true?” “It’s true that he said that, yes,” Mr. Price responded, drawing laughter in the hearing room. “Not that he’s ever done this before, but did the president lie?” Mr. Brown asked. He added: “I know we don’t use the word lie here, because we’re polite, when presidents say statements that aren’t true. But did he lie to the public about working with you?” “I’ve had conversations with the president about health care, yes,” Mr. Price replied. Senator Hatch lamented “the of the nomination process. ” He said Democrats’ attacks on Mr. Price’s ethics were “specious and distorted. ” He said lawmakers should not “invent new standards for finances, ethics and disclosure that are different from those that have generally applied in the past. ” “None of those who say they oppose Dr. Price’s nomination seem to be talking about whether he is qualified,” Mr. Hatch said. Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican of Georgia, also came to Mr. Price’s defense. “I feel like I’ve been asked to be a character witness in a felony trial in the sentencing phase of a conviction,” he said. He called Mr. Price “an honorable man. ” Mr. Mulvaney said that tackling government waste and reducing debt would be his top priorities if he were confirmed as Mr. Trump’s budget director. “I believe, as a matter of principle, that the debt is a problem that must be addressed sooner rather than later,” Mr. Mulvaney said in prepared remarks to be delivered to the Senate Budget Committee. “I also know that fundamental changes are needed in the way Washington spends and taxes if we truly want a healthy economy. ” While Mr. Mulvaney is a big believer in spending cuts, he made it clear that he wanted to protect America’s social safety nets. “A strong, healthy economy allows us to protect our most vulnerable,” he said. Mr. Mulvaney was asked about his failure to pay nanny taxes in his opening question, and said that it had been an innocent mistake. “In 2000, we had triplets. When we came home, we hired someone to help my wife, to help take care of the children,” Mr. Mulvaney said. “In my mind, she was a babysitter. ” He added, “I did not consider her a household employee for purposes of withholding. ” Mr. Mulvaney said he had realized his error when filling out a questionnaire related to his nomination to be Mr. Trump’s budget director. He said that he had quickly notified his accountant, the president and his colleagues so that he could correct the mistake. The toughest questions Mr. Mulvaney faced on Tuesday came not from a Democrat but from Senator McCain. He asked Mr. Mulvaney about his record of voting for cuts to military spending, and appeared shocked when he could not remember those votes. “Boy, I’ll tell you, I would remember if I voted to cut our defenses the way you did, congressman,” Mr. McCain said. “Maybe you don’t take it with the seriousness that it deserves. ” Mr. McCain was also unimpressed with Mr. Mulvaney’s explanation for wanting to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan. After giving the congressman a history lesson on the roots of the Sept. 11 attacks, he offered a final note of disapproval. “I am deeply concerned about your lack of support for our military,” he said. Mr. Mulvaney was forced to address suggestions he had made in the past that Social Security was akin to a Ponzi scheme, and he played down that characterization. “I wouldn’t read too much into it, as describing it as a Ponzi scheme,” he said, explaining that he had merely been referring to the fact that the program takes money from people and gives it to other people. As for keeping the program solvent, Mr. Mulvaney said he would not recommend cuts that would cause current retirees to lose benefits. However, he said that he could see raising the age for receiving benefits in the future. Ms. McMahon reassured senators that she would be a vigilant opponent of restrictive government regulations, promising to work to put in place “the right regulations” to spur economic growth if she is confirmed as head of the Small Business Administration. Senator Jim Risch, the Idaho Republican who leads the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, said the regulatory structure of government today was “strangling businesses. ” Ms. McMahon presented herself not as the billionaire former chief executive of W. W. E. but instead as an entrepreneur who had weathered the most difficult moments of building a business from the ground up. “Small businesses want to feel they can take a risk on expansion or a new hire without fearing onerous new regulations or unexpected taxes, fees and fines that will make such growth unaffordable,” she said. “We want to renew optimism in our economy. ” Ms. McMahon described how she and her husband, Vince, built their global business enterprise from an operation so small they shared a desk. She spoke of how they fought back from an early bankruptcy filing — a stark contrast to the wealthy former executive she is today. The McMahons were among Mr. Trump’s biggest campaign donors, having given $6 million to a “super PAC” supporting him last August and September. Ms. McMahon and Mr. Trump go back decades, bound by their shared background in entertainment. The Trump Plaza in Atlantic City hosted the W. W. E. ’s WrestleMania twice in the late 1980s, according to Mr. Trump’s W. W. E. “Superstars” bio, and Mr. Trump became a frequent attendee at the entertainment empire’s events. In 2007, he shaved Mr. McMahon’s head in the wrestling ring after winning a Battle of the Billionaires wager. Introduced and endorsed by the two Democrats who defeated her in her failed Senate bids in Connecticut — Senators Richard Blumenthal and Christopher S. Murphy — Ms. McMahon seems likely to sail to confirmation, with the committee expected to approve her next week. The introduction and endorsement of a Republican nominee by two Democratic senators is unusual at the outset of a confirmation hearing. Mr. Murphy, who defeated Ms. McMahon in 2012, expressed “confidence that she is going to give good, sound counsel to President Trump. ” “I saw firsthand the fight that Linda brings to any endeavor she takes on,” he said.

China Helps Aung San Suu Kyi With Peace Talks in Myanmar - The New York Times

Jane Perlez and Wai Moe

BEIJING — As Myanmar’s leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, met this past week with Chinese officials during her visit here, China helped arrange a gift for her back home, a reminder that it wants to make itself Myanmar’s new best friend. Since assuming power this year, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has said her major goal is to end 70 years of civil war with ethnic minorities seeking greater autonomy. The gift, announced Thursday, was a letter signed by three and stubborn ethnic rebel groups with ties to China that declared their intention to join a peace conference she will convene this month. “I do believe that as a good neighbor China will do everything possible to promote our peace process,” Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi said at a news conference here on Friday. “If you ask me what my most important aim is for my country, that is to achieve peace and unity among the different peoples of our union. Without peace there can be no sustained development. ” But China was not acting out of altruism when it nudged the groups to join the peace talks. After years of encouraging the armed groups, China wants to end the prolonged fighting. The lawlessness created by that conflict has allowed the illegal jade and timber trade, worth billions of dollars, to flourish, but it has also made legitimate commerce across China’s southern border with Myanmar almost impossible. Once peace comes, China plans to build roads and railways across northern Myanmar to the Bay of Bengal, a short cut to supplement the recently built oil and gas pipelines that would bolster trade from the Middle East by avoiding the South China Sea. China also has other projects in mind to knit Myanmar into its orbit. As an indicator of that interest, the Chinese president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Jin Liqun, met with Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday. But China is not the only player in Myanmar with plans for new relationships and investments after decades of corrupt military governments. The United States was the handmaiden to the successful election in November, when Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, won in a landslide. She is scheduled to visit the White House next month, an invitation intended to confirm the legacy of President Obama’s role in Myanmar’s transition from authoritarian rule to a fledgling democracy. Washington, facing widespread popular sentiment against nation building, no longer pays for major projects abroad, except through the World Bank and other international financial institutions. American corporations have been reluctant to invest in Myanmar although the Treasury Department lifted an array of sanctions a few months ago, others were tightened on some major companies in Myanmar. That means that China has an opportunity to play a major role as a builder in Myanmar, a nation strategically placed between India, China and Southeast Asia and with access to the Indian Ocean. But the United States is not completely out of the picture, analysts say. They note that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi is working to cultivate ties with both Washington and Beijing as foreign minister, one of the many posts she holds as the country’s de facto leader. “China sees everything in a transactional way to help themselves,” said Hans W. Vriens, a managing partner of Vriens Partners, a corporate advisory company that specializes in Myanmar. “Its expectations may be too high. Aung San Suu Kyi is rebalancing with China, but they’re not going to move away from the United States. Washington was a very, very big role in the whole transformation to democracy and will remain so under her. ” The Obama administration is not opposed to China’s role in resolving the fighting between the myriad ethnic groups and the army, Mr. Vriens said. An end to the wars in the border region where the groups influenced by China operate is in the interests of the United States and its ally Japan, which has made Myanmar a major destination for its foreign aid and corporate investment, he said. Japanese government experts are helping Myanmar’s ministries draw up plans for urban renewal and transportation routes. On Thursday, three armed groups that had refused to attend the peacemaking gathering, called the Panglong Conference, said they were willing to be there on Aug. 31. All of them — the Kokang group, the Arakan Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army — receive backing from across the border in China. The Kokang, an ethnic Chinese group, used southern China as a haven for tens of thousands of refugees last year during fierce fighting with the Myanmar Army. In a reversal, the Kokang’s leader, Peng Jiasheng, 85, said in a recent letter that he welcomed Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s overtures. “I believe the full stream of history will go ahead,” he wrote. And with China’s backing, the most recalcitrant of the ethnic fighters, the United Wa State Army, the largest ethnic army in Myanmar, has also said it will join the peace gathering. The conference, to be in held in the capital, Naypyidaw, is Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s signature effort since assuming power. She has likened the initiative to the peace talks in Northern Ireland, and she is working on it with the British politician Jonathan Powell, a chief negotiator on those talks and chief of staff under Tony Blair, then the prime minister. China’s president, Xi Jinping, told Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday that China would play a “constructive role” in the peace process. Before arriving in Beijing, she promised China a role as mediator at the conference. But Sumlut Gun Maw, a prominent leader of the Kachin, a largely Christian group that is fighting the Myanmar government, warned that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi should be careful not to overplay her hand with China. Mr. Sumlut Gun Maw, who met with Obama administration officials in Washington several years ago, said the relationship with the Chinese could backfire. The Wa and Kokang enjoy “comradely” ties with China, he said, and China is likely to demand much in return for delivering them to the peace process.

Voter Dreading Being Sent Over To Visibly Stupid Poll Worker - The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Trump Raises Concern Over Members Of Urban Communities Voting More Than Zero Times ATKINSON, NH—Warning supporters that the troubling practice could affect the outcome of the election, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump expressed strong concern Friday that members of urban communities were voting more than zero times, sources reported. Nation Puts 2016 Election Into Perspective By Reminding Itself Some Species Of Sea Turtles Get Eaten By Birds Just Seconds After They Hatch WASHINGTON—Saying they felt anxious and overwhelmed just days before heading to the polls to decide a historically fraught presidential race, Americans throughout the country reportedly took a moment Thursday to put the 2016 election into perspective by reminding themselves that some species of sea turtles are eaten by birds just seconds after they hatch. Report: Election Day Most Americans’ Only Time In 2016 Being In Same Room With Person Supporting Other Candidate WASHINGTON—According to a report released Thursday by the Pew Research Center, Election Day 2016 will, for the majority of Americans, mark the only time this year they will occupy the same room as a person who supports a different presidential candidate. Most Hotly Contested Down-Ballot Measures Of 2016 As Americans head to the polls, they will be presented with a number of issues to vote on besides choosing their representatives. The Onion gives voters an advance look at which measures will be included on the ballots in which states. New Heavy-Duty Voting Machine Allows Americans To Take Out Frustration On It Before Casting Ballot WASHINGTON—Saying the circumstances of this year’s presidential race made the upgrade necessary, election commissions throughout the country were reportedly working to install new heavy-duty voting machines this week that will allow Americans to physically take out their frustrations on the devices before casting their votes. Clinton Staff Readies EMP Launch To Disable All Nation’s Electronic Devices NEW YORK—In an effort to prepare for any new revelations that might emerge about her emails during her tenure as secretary of state, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton reportedly told her staff Tuesday to ready the launch of several electromagnetic pulses to disable all of the nation’s electronic devices. End Of Section

The Making of Virtually Real Art With Google’s Tilt Brush - The New York Times

Frank Rose

SAN FRANCISCO — In 1949, a Life magazine photographer named Gjon Mili made a pilgrimage to the French Riviera to see Pablo Picasso. Mili had come up with a way to photograph trails of light, and he wanted to shoot Picasso “drawing” in midair with a light pen — a process that would leave no trace except on film. Picasso loved it. The result, published in Life and exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, was Picasso’s celebrated series of “light drawings” of bulls and centaurs and the like — photographs that captured him in the act of creating the ultimate in ephemeral art. Picasso is long gone. But some 68 years later, Google has been calling on dozens of artists, animators and illustrators with a update of Mili’s concept — a virtual reality setup that enables people to paint with light that actually stays where you put it, at least for viewers wearing a VR headset. In place of Gjon Mili are Drew Skillman and Patrick Hackett, a pair of video game developers turned virtual reality enthusiasts who live in San Francisco. They were trying to build a chess application one night a couple of years ago when they discovered it had an unexpected side effect: As you moved the chess pieces around in virtual space, they left trails of light behind. Sensing that their bug was in fact a feature, the two dropped the chess project immediately and hurled themselves at the light trails, hoping to develop a tool for drawing in three dimensions. In April 2015, seven months after they had cobbled together a rudimentary system they called Tilt Brush, Google bought their company for an undisclosed sum — which is how Mr. Skillman and Mr. Hackett have come to be ensconced in the company’s offices near the downtown waterfront here. With Google’s support, Tilt Brush has attracted a team of developers and evolved into a sophisticated tool for drawing, painting, even sculpting in space. It was released in April as a free to the new HTC Vive, an $800 virtual reality system produced by the Taiwanese manufacturer HTC in partnership with Valve, an American video game developer. (It’s on sale as a $30 software package from Valve’s online store.) Reviewers immediately dubbed it the Vive’s killer app. This is hardly the kind of reception the two inventors were expecting when they started working on it in Mr. Skillman’s apartment, a studio in South Park, the little neighborhood that has been a hub for San Francisco’s digerati since the 1990s. “Not in our wildest dreams,” said Mr. Skillman, a slightly built with a neatly trimmed beard and a modest, unassuming manner. Tilt Brush got its name because in its earliest versions, you would draw or paint on a surface that could be tilted in any direction in virtual space. But because the HTC Vive includes not just a virtual reality headset but also a pair of controllers and two tracking sensors that map your movement in space, the program was revamped to enable you to paint or draw anywhere within a area — no surface required. One controller serves as a palette, with dozens of colors and effects the other acts as a brush or pen. To watch someone use it is a bit unnerving, since the person appears to be making marks in midair, but you can’t actually see those. But put on a Vive headset and step between the sensors yourself — as I did in a windowless room in Google’s New York offices — and the illusion of delusion disappears. Instead, you suddenly see what has been produced: a phantom creation in three dimensions, something you can walk around, walk through, poke your head inside, do everything except touch. Google’s investment in virtual reality pales beside Facebook’s $2 billion purchase of the VR pioneer Oculus. Still, Tilt Brush is part of a growing effort, one that began with the introduction in 2014 of supercheap cardboard headsets that work with smartphones, and continues with the recent release of a stunning virtual reality version of Google Earth as a free download for Vive owners. Over the past year, Google has invited more than 60 people to try Tilt Brush and offer feedback, and this week the company is unveiling their work and participation. “You would never want to create an artistic tool with only engineers,” said Mr. Skillman. “That’s just absurd. ” According to Tory Voight, Google’s Tilt Brush program manager, those who have joined this program include Dustin Yellin, a Brooklyn artist known for his collages encased in layers of glass, and Jonathan Yeo, a British painter whose portrait of Kevin Spacey as the fictional American president Francis J. Underwood was exhibited last year at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery. Jeff Koons, whose art works have sold at auction for as much as $58 million, had early access, though he was not part of the artists in residence program. Bob Mankoff, Roz Chast and other cartoonists for The New Yorker have also checked it out, as has Alex Hirsch, the young animator behind Disney’s hit television series “Gravity Falls. ” Last June, Mr. Hirsch posted a sample creation on Twitter along with an enthusiastic status update: “Drawing in virtual reality makes you feel like a wizard god!” But the first to try it was Glen Keane, a figure who in his 37 years at Disney had brought the warmth of animation to such characters as Ariel (in “The Little Mermaid”) Aladdin, Tarzan and Pocahontas. “When I left Disney in 2012,” Mr. Keane said recently in his studio, a vintage bungalow on a quiet residential street in West Hollywood, Calif. “I told them it was because I know there’s something new coming — I don’t know what it is, but I need to leave to find it. ” He was still looking when he met Regina Dugan, then the leader of Google’s secretive Advanced Technology and Products group, which was experimenting with virtual reality. First he partnered with the group to make a virtual reality short called “Duet,” a charming piece released in 2014 about two babies growing up that was shortlisted for an Academy Award. “Duet” broke new ground, since animation in virtual reality had almost exclusively been . But though he’d spent a lifetime drawing on paper, Mr. Keane had always dreamed of being able to make the paper disappear. “The goal would be to animate not on paper but in space,” he said. Enter Tilt Brush, which Mr. Keane encountered when Mr. Skillman introduced himself at a visual effects conference in San Francisco. Though still in a primitive state, it was maturing rapidly, and Mr. Keane soon became a convert. In September 2015, seven months before its release, he previewed its capabilities with “Step Into the Page,” a video. “The edges of the paper are no longer there,” he exclaimed in a as he did a loose, freehand sketch of Ariel in virtual space. “This is not a flat drawing. This is sculptural drawing. ” Scott McCloud, the graphic artist whose book “Understanding Comics” is considered the ultimate guide to the art form, got to play with Tilt Brush when Google invited him to its Silicon Valley headquarters in August. “I don’t mind saying, I’m a little bit obsessed with this program,” he said as we sat in his small, office in a mall in the Los Angeles exurb of Thousand Oaks. “One thing that appeals to me the most is, it’s still very early. Everyone is asking fundamental questions. We’re still trying to figure out what people are going to use it for. I love it when technology is in that stage. ” So, what are people going to use it for? Mr. McCloud threw out a few suggestions: performance art, virtual sculpture, industrial prototyping. “I doodle with it,” said Mr. Yeo, the painter, who spoke by telephone from London. “I describe it as a sketchbook. ” What it won’t produce is anything resembling comics as they currently exist in the medium some call “Flatland. ” For denizens of Flatland who have learned to work within the constraints of this can be problematic. Mr. Mankoff, the cartoon editor at The New Yorker, came up with some characteristically drawings during the two days he spent using Tilt Brush with Ms. Chast and other colleagues at Google’s New York offices. But though he professes to have enjoyed the experience, he seems unlikely to lead The New Yorker out of Flatland. “You’ll probably find a sharp divide between older and younger cartoonists,” he said. “Or it may just not work — but that’s no reason not to try it. ” One suggestion the New Yorker team had: cubes and cylinders and other shapes to draw on, “so you’re not starting from zero in space. ” (Google has since implemented a similar idea.) Other than that, Mr. Mankoff offered with a grin: “The advice I would have for Google is, more cats. You can’t go wrong with cats. ” Mr. Keane has a different item on his wish list. Currently, works created in Tilt Brush are as motionless as a New Yorker cartoon. They’re essentially static, and Mr. Keane is an animator. “To me, the thing to conquer is to be able to animate in real time in space,” he said as I viewed a Tilt Brush drawing called “Victory Dance” in his studio. The piece captures a brief moment in time, seconds after his daughter’s high school choir had won a national championship — but it begs to be brought to life. “Just like you have a spatial dimension, you’ve got to have time as a dimension,” Mr. Keane continued. “There’s no reason you can’t do that. I’m not smart enough to figure it out. But Drew is. ”

Published – ‘Dictionary’ – the post-truth edition

nickb

November 17, 2016 Having named post-truth as the word of the year, The Oxford English Dictionary’s post truth edition will be available online tomorrow, after a book launch on the moon in 1835, attended by Elvis Presley and Winnie the Pooh. The hardback edition will cost $50,000, but most branches of Waterstones will not mind if you nick it. ‘It’s the first time a major linguistic work has been edited by a koala bear,’ said post truth OED editorial director and pantomime horse Ian Smythe, playing down rumours (which he denies starting himself) about the size of his genitals. ‘The volume will be of enormous help to newspaper editors, students, political observers scientists and academics entering a world where the very idea of truth has to be examined by standing on a stepladder made of raspberry jelly and shouting ‘Rabbi, let’s tap-dance to Tewskbury!’ In the UK, the Murdoch press and the Mail group of newspapers say the official launch of the Post Truth era won’t make any difference whatsoever to their editorial policy, announcing that the £350 million pounds a week payable to the NHS has already started and queues waiting for treatment at hospitals are being ignored by immigrant doctors planning suicide attacks on Clarence House and smoking skunk supplied by Diane Abbott. Meanwhile in the USA the much respected newspaper the Washington Post has launched a new weekly paper called the Washington Post Truth, reporting that Bernie Sanders won the presidential election, Nigel Farage was killed by a falling block of frozen urine traceable back to Air Force One, Bill Cosby has had a new show green lit co starring Monica Lewinsky and the Brexit Referendum ended in a dead heat. The manufacturers of self adhesive Post It notes have also joined post truth culture by launching a new range of ‘Post Truth It’ notes, bearing pre-printed messages like ‘Have gone to the pictures with Nicole Kidman/Brad Pitt/Lembit Opik’; ‘You do have to work to be mad here’ and ‘This note isn’t sticky so it has fallen off the fridge and you are not reading it.’ Share this story... Posted: Nov 17th, 2016 by nickb Click for more article by nickb .. More Stories about: Left Alert 0

Trump or Clinton?

Ron Unz

Enemies of the United States are joyously watching its upcoming elections that are exposing this once great nation as deeply corrupt. It’s as if a huge rock has been turned over, exposing the swarming, slithering underside of America’s political system. For those who admire America, like this writer, this week is a time to weep for the republic. We see two candidates who are utterly unfit for the highest office: Hilary Clinton, engulfed by scandals, and blustering TV mogul Donald Trump, a man of profound shallowness who advocates Islamophobia, torture and environmental ignorance. Hillary Clinton’s core supporters are black food stamp and welfare recipients, and legions of women who are voting simply by gender. Trump’s core supporters are tax-paying workers who have watched Wall Street loot America’s economy and send their jobs abroad. Like many people, I’ve been tearing my hair trying to decide for whom to vote. I now favor Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson who gained worldwide fame as a dolt when asked about the destruction of Aleppo, Syria. ‘What’s Aleppo?’ asked this New Mexico Bismarck. Now that’s the kind of president I’d like to see. No more regime-changers and empire-builders. No more Imperial America. No more crusaders or world super power bullying. No more mucking around the world and acting as the globe’s enforcer. Let’s forget Aleppo, Beirut, Gaza, Tehran, Islamabad, the South China Sea and North Korea. We can no longer afford to play ‘Game of Thrones.’ We’ve got to rebuild bridges and airports, and clean the Augean Stables of Congress, America’s most corrupt institution. We just spent $2.8 billion on roads in remote Afghanistan while our own highways are crumbling. Such is the folly of imperialism. The old Soviet Union did something similar, allowing its domestic infrastructure and industry to fall apart while adventuring in Afghanistan, and deploying 55,000 tanks in the Red Army. These tanks were useful in putting down the heroic Hungarian Revolution of 1956 – 60 years ago this week – but for nothing else. But I fear that whoever wins the US election will very quickly face major problems for which they are woefully unprepared. Most obvious is the bloody mess the US has created across the Mideast. I just learned that Trump recently named, as Mideast advisor, a notorious Muslim-hating fanatic, who is a Lebanese Maronite Christian fascist. His advice will likely be to invade Lebanon and Syria and kill more Muslims. For her part, Hilary Clinton has long been a wholly-financed subsidiary of Wall Street and the mighty Israel lobby. Just have a look at the list of her largest donors. Her pro-Israel supporters are urging her to create a so-called ‘no-fly’ zone over Syria, which is code for full-scale war against Syrian government and Russian forces. Guess who will benefit from Syria’s destruction and disintegration? This supreme idiocy could lead directly to nuclear war with Russia, something I’ve been warning against for years. There has been no mention in the campaign of rebuilding the Arab world, ravaged by western imperial interventions. Little mention of some 12 million Syrian refugees created by the Saudis and US. Nor of five million Palestinian refugees, and who knows how many in Iraq, Libya, Somalia and now war-ravaged Yemen. And not a word about America’s stalemated war in Afghanistan. Nothing about a shaky Europe. Nor how to accommodate China’s rise. Instead, we’ve heard tirades against the phony ISIS, which is funded by the Saudis, and Hilary Clinton’s absurd claims that wicked Vlad Putin is somehow behind America’s foreign disasters. It’s stupid and shameful demagoguery. At least Trump has the good sense to urge that we end our pointless confrontation with Russia and scale back the unaffordable American Empire. Few Americans know that almost half their government’s budget is spent on the military. Besides disgusting many Americans, the presidential campaign has made the US an object of derision and embarrassment around the globe. Many analysts claim that this grand fiasco marks the beginning of the end of US global hegemony. It’s certainly the beginning of the beginning. This week alone, the Philippines and Malaysia, two staunch American allies, edged closer to China’s camp. Neither Trump no Clinton had a care for America’s reputation during their ugly debates. My fear is that the election vitriol will not end America’ shame and misery but continue on, like an acid eating into the national fabric.

Pics: French Voters in London Turn Out to Cast Election Day Ballots

Oliver JJ Lane

French citizens are queuing to cast their ballot at the French embassy, London, as the rest of the French nation goes to the polls Sunday. [French voters living in London is an important demographic in French elections, with an estimated 300, 000 citizens living in Britain’s capital. It is often reported and has even been claimed by London’s former mayor Boris Johnson that the sheer number of French living in London makes it France’s sixth largest city. London’s Evening Standard reports of the French citizens in London, 100, 000 are registered to vote. The tens of thousands expected to vote at the French embassy in Kensington today have been met by a high presence of armed British police officers, with the Metropolitan Police command perhaps wary of the high concentration people outside the embassy following the recent Westminster terror attack. All pictures by Rachel Megawhat Breitbart London,