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Trump’s Child Rape Victim Just Canceled Press Conference Over Death Threats

Colin Taylor

Comments The woman accusing Trump of raping her when she was just thirteen years old at one of convicted pedophile Jeffery Epstein’s notorious underage sex parties was all set to come forward tonight to tell her story – but backed out at the last moment, saying that she had “received threats” and feared for her life. Lisa Bloom just said her client was “living in fear” and did not want to show her face and ended the press conference. — Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) November 2, 2016 The pressures that face the female accusers of powerful white men couldn’t be more clear right now. One of Trump’s sexual assault accusers has already fled the country due to threats from his rabid supporters.“ We feel the backlash of the Trump supporters. It scares us. It intimidates us. We are in fear of our lives,” said Mindy McGillivray, who said Trump groped her at a party. “I look out the window and there are cars just driving around the house and looking, slowing down right at the house. I don’t live in a gated community. This is dangerous. There could be people out there who want to hurt us.’’ The pressure to stay silent comes just as strong from the Trump camp itself – just look at how Michael Cohen, special counsel for the Trump Organization, responded to Daily Beast when they called asking for comment on a story about how Trump raped then-wife Ivana Trump in a painful and brutal fashion: I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know. So I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting. You understand me?” “You write a story that has Mr. Trump’s name in it, with the word ‘rape,’ and I’m going to mess your life up… for as long as you’re on this frickin’ planet… you’re going to have judgments against you, so much money, you’ll never know how to get out from underneath it.’ Which begs the question, why so defensive if there is nothing to hide, Mr. Trump? Donald Trump’s followers are some of the lowest, most hateful scum to ever tarnish American soil. Klansmen, neo-Nazis, white supremacists. They send death threats to anyone who dares to speak out against him – if you’re lucky. You could receive horrifying, personalized attacks like a Jewish writer for the National Review did: Given the ease with which Trump supporters will bring violence on the innocent , it is no wonder that these women are reluctant to come forward. This is the culture of fear that Donald Trump has created – and one which will consume our whole nation if we somehow let him become President. Watch attorney Lisa Bloom give her remarks here: Statement on Trump accuser becoming too afraid to show her face. “She is living in fear,” lawyer Lisa Bloom said. pic.twitter.com/demwISRtAX

Review: In ‘Little Men,’ Boys Develop a Bond That Is Threatened by Money - The New York Times

A. O. Scott

There is hardly a shortage of buddy movies about mismatched men bonding under duress, but films that chart the emotional weather of everyday male friendship are rare. Literature has more to offer, at least as far as boys are concerned. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn have a rich and renewable legacy. And it may be that association that imparts a novelistic vibe to Ira Sachs’s “Little Men,” beyond the Louisa May Alcott echo in the title. It’s a subtle movie, alert to the almost imperceptible currents of feeling that pass between its title characters. They are Jake Jardine (Theo Taplitz) and Tony Calvelli (Michael Barbieri) two middle schoolers who cross paths in Brooklyn. I almost ended that sentence “and fall in love,” a possibly misleading but not at all inaccurate account of what happens. The childhood bond that the psychologist Harry Stack Sullivan called “chumship” can be as intense and mysterious as romantic love, and can be sparked by the kind of intuitive connection that arises between Jake and Tony when they first meet. Jake, pale and reserved, is an exile from Manhattan, flung across the East River by the tides of family fortune. His father, Brian (Greg Kinnear) might be described as a struggling actor if it didn’t seem that the fight had mostly gone out of him. He works, but he mostly worries, tries to be a nice guy and feels guilty when he fails at it. Jake’s mother, Kathy (Jennifer Ehle) who is a bit more decisive, is a therapist, and her smiling demeanor acts as a shield against the unspoken tensions hovering in the air whenever she and her husband are together. The family moves into an apartment that used to belong to Brian’s father, whose death is the movie’s precipitating catastrophe. The old man also owned the building where Tony’s mother, Leonor (Paulina García) runs a dress shop, and if “Little Men” is a love story it is also a tale of economic conflict in a rapidly changing city, a fable about the insidious, toxic power of money and real estate. Jake’s grandfather is recalled as a bohemian of the kind that used to be more plentiful in New York. “He loved me,” Leonor says, perhaps hinting that they were lovers but more pointedly explaining why he charged her so little rent. Brian, urged on by his sister, wants to raise it. As the dispute between them escalates, it casts a shadow over Jake’s relationship with Tony. All the think they are being perfectly reasonable as they dig in their heels and allow a business matter to turn into a personal grudge. None of them can help it everyone needs money. Their behavior — the politesse that grows increasingly cold, the contempt that seethes among people who believe themselves to be not only right but righteous — is dismaying, but hardly surprising. It’s also not really the point. Mr. Sachs holds the adults at arm’s length, declining either to judge them too harshly for their selfishness or to extend them more than minimal sympathy for their difficulties. In other words, “Little Men” is on the side of Jake and Tony, as both a narrative strategy and a moral choice. Their temperaments and backgrounds are different, as are their interests. Jake is a hothouse flower, his artistic talents and sensitivities carefully cultivated by his parents. Tony, whose father travels for work and is almost never at home (Hernan, a friend of Leonor’s played by Alfred Molina, is around a lot) is more of a kid. He’s gregarious and easygoing and dreams of being an actor. The two boys conceive a plan to apply to a specialized arts high school together. When parents are around, “Little Men” feels like a modest, precise drama of urban life, but when it follows Tony and Jake, absorbing the loose rhythms of their companionship, the film becomes something richer and harder to classify. It’s a boys adventure story edged with unspoken risks, and the young actors take the kind of chances that their more careful and disciplined elders have been trained to avoid. There are inklings of sexual desire between the boys and implications of homophobia in the world around them, but mostly there is a sense of discovery and change, of all the unruly and enigmatic experiences often collapsed into the phrase “ . ” There is also a protest against the banal imperatives of maturity, and above all against the ways that adults ignore and discount the emotional lives of the young. Kathy, Brian and Leonor would do anything for their sons except take their relationship seriously, and the possibility that something as precious and real as friendship could be sacrificed because of money registers as a profound insult. And also as a fact of life. Mr. Sachs, in his last three features — this one, “Love Is Strange” and “Keep the Lights On” — has refined a style of emotional realism that stands out against both the mumbly diffidence and the sociological scorekeeping of too much independent American cinema. “Little Men” only looks like a small movie. “Little Men” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). Parental guidance is the worst. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes.

The Election Highlighted a Growing Rural-Urban Split - The New York Times

Emily Badger, Quoctrung Bui and Adam Pearce

Donald J. Trump fared very poorly in American cities in Tuesday’s election. Hillary Clinton did just as badly among rural voters. The political divide between the two groups has been growing more stark in America for years, and 2016 showed an even sharper split than 2012. Multiple forces are pulling the American geography apart, as the and suburbs remain the contested political ground in between. The election reinforces the feeling that the prosperity of many metropolitan areas is not shared by the rest of the country. Mr. Trump made no real play for urban voters, despite living and running businesses in their midst. He went so far as to depict them as dystopias, a strategy that has long helped Republicans stoke enthusiasm among voters outside cities. And so it is little surprise that the urban counties that include Austin, Tex. Chicago Los Angeles Oakland, Calif. Portland, Ore. Seattle Denver and Newark voted for the Republican candidate in this election in numbers. Mr. Trump’s own Manhattan gave him just 10 percent, a new nadir for a G. O. P. presidential candidate in the borough. His home, Washington, gave him just 4 percent. Most of the change, though, occurred not around the big cities — where Democratic candidates have only so many votes left to pick up — but far outside them. Just 15 counties tilted by more than five percentage points in favor of Mrs. Clinton relative to how they voted in 2012. By contrast, 1, 826 moved by at least that much away from the Democratic candidate. The counties that swung the most drastically toward Mr. Trump, by 15 points or more, were nearly all in the Midwest. That abrupt shift was probably driven by numerous factors that are hard to untangle: weak economic prospects Mrs. Clinton’s lack of attention to those places on the campaign trail Mr. Trump’s xenophobic message to voters anxious about change. But the widening political divergence between cities and America also reflects a growing alienation between the two groups, and a sense — perhaps accurate — that their fates are not connected. The University of Wisconsin political scientist Katherine J. Cramer, the author of “The Politics of Resentment,” described what this looked like during years of field research in Wisconsin in an insightful interview with Jeff Guo at The Washington Post. The people she met across a state that Mrs. Clinton ultimately lost felt deeply disrespected (and suspicious of a academic from Madison). “They would say, ‘The real kicker is that people in the city don’t understand us,’ ” Ms. Cramer said. “ ‘They don’t understand what rural life is like, what’s important to us and what challenges that we’re facing. They think we’re a bunch of redneck racists.’ ” Cities, for their part, are easily branded with some dissonance as embodying either professional elites or poor people who don’t deserve benefits (thus both Madison and Milwaukee, two very different places, come in for equal resentment within Wisconsin). Many of the young Democratic voters who live in blue cities like these, as Alec MacGillis has noted, have gravitated away from redder parts of the country from which they felt alienated. “There’s just nothing to do in Ohio,” lamented one voter who grew up there but now lives in Los Angeles. “The jobs are limited, but it’s not just the jobs and the industries that are in Ohio, it’s the that I didn’t gravitate to. ” As the relationship between density and partisanship has grown stronger over the last the structure of the economy has also changed in ways that reinforce the divide. At the height of Detroit’s auto industry in the early 1950s, the C. E. O. of General Motors, Charles Wilson, memorably pronounced that what was good for the country was good for his company, and vice versa. That’s no longer true of the major industries in big American cities (or the people who work for them) argues Aaron Renn, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. G. M. had trouble selling cars when the national economy was bad. Its customer base depended on a stable middle class far from Detroit. That’s not true today of Facebook, or Google, or Goldman Sachs, Mr. Renn says. They don’t rely on dealers all over the country. Their bottom lines aren’t tied to material prosperity in Wisconsin. “In a sense, the economy in these urban areas is disconnected from the success from the rest of the country,” Mr. Renn said. And the very things that drive success in Silicon Valley’s tech industry, or New York City’s financial sector, are what worries rural America: globalization, foreign trade, immigration. “Goldman Sachs and Google do not really need America to be a success in order for them to be personally successful. ” Those economic forces will probably grow only stronger, even as the effects of an election that pushed urban and rural America further apart recede.

Trump Crushed By Hillary Clinton’s New Powerful Closing Argument To Women

Jason Easley

The Hillary Clinton supporting Priorities USA super PAC has released a powerful ad that makes the closing argument for why women should get out to vote and support the Democratic nominee. Video: The ad is set to the Carole King classic “Natural Woman” as sung by her daughter. The ad features clips of ordinary women living their lives mixed with clips of Elinor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Sally Ride, and Hillary Clinton. Two-thirds of the way through the ad, Trump appears and audio of him calling women fat pigs, slobs, fat asses, and flat chested among other insults. On the screen are shots of women holding up up cards with the hashtag vote. The message is clear, powerful, and absolutely devastating. Women need to vote against the behavior of Donald Trump. The words of Donald Trump and his treatment of women must be rejected. It is time for all Americans of conscience to lead the way, but if we are realistic about US society, it will be women who lead the way. Women will provide the moral voice that rejects Trump. According to the polling, it will be women who lead the way for Hillary Clinton to win the presidential. CNN asked the Trump campaign for comment about the ad, and their request was met with silence because Donald Trump’s own words did all the talking that voters need to hear.

Maher to Hillary: You F*cked It Up’ - ’Stay in the Woods’ - Breitbart

Ian Hanchett

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher said to former Democratic presidential nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “stay in the woods. Okay. You had your shot. You f*cked it up. You’re Bill Buckner. ” Maher reacted to Clinton saying she was “ready to come out of the woods” by stating that he wishes people like Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein who called Clinton the lesser of two evils would admit they were wrong. He added, “But the other side of it is, Hillary, stay in the woods. Okay. You had your shot. You f*cked it up. You’re Bill Buckner. We had the World Series, and you let the grounder go through your legs. Let someone else have the chance. This to me — the fact that she’s come back, it just verifies every bad thing anyone’s ever thought about the Clintons, that it’s all about them. Let some of the other shorter trees get a little sunlight. ” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

The Week In Pictures – Week Of October 31, 2016 - The Onion - America's Finest News Source

New Report Finds Voters Have No Idea How Outraged They Supposed To Be About Anything Anymore WASHINGTON—Saying that at this point, they were just taking their best guesses at how they should react to each new scandal that emerged about the presidential nominees, voters across the country admitted Monday they had no clue how outraged they are supposed to be about anything anymore. Anthony Weiner Sends Apology Sext To Entire Clinton Campaign BROOKLYN, NY—In response to the FBI’s announcement that its investigation of him had produced new evidence that could pertain to its probe of the Democratic presidential nominee, Anthony Weiner reportedly sent an apology sext early Monday morning to the entire Hillary Clinton campaign.

‘I Was Terrified’: Inmates Say They Paid a Brutal Price for a Guard’s Injury - The New York Times

Tom Robbins

The inmates were just starting their day on July 6 when dozens of corrections officers burst into their dormitory, shouting for everyone to get down on the floor. The raid at Correctional Facility, outside Utica, N. Y. officials said, was a surprise search for weapons made urgent after a bloody injury to a guard three days earlier. But over the next two hours, according to inmates, officers beat and stomped on each of the more than 30 prisoners present that morning, screaming curses and racial epithets and destroying property. Several men said their ribs were broken by kicks and punches. A prisoner said he was rammed, headfirst, through the Sheetrock wall in his room. Down the hall, a inmate said his nose was broken as a guard repeatedly slammed a metal door into his face. In a whispered interview last month in the visiting room of the prison, a inmate from Brooklyn recalled how an officer knelt beside him as he lay on the floor. The prisoner, Raymond Broccoli, who is serving a sentence for robbery, said the officer hissed, “You want to know what it feels like to feel weak?” Mr. Broccoli said the guard then jammed “something metal” into his rectum. “It was bigger than a pen, about the size of those small flashlights they carry,” he said. At least two other inmates have claimed they were similarly violated. The prisoners said they were warned to keep quiet and not seek medical treatment, otherwise the guards would attack again. But on Nov. 2, a week after a Marshall Project reporter asked about the episode, the state’s corrections commissioner suspended the prison’s two top officials, the superintendent and his deputy, pending an inquiry. A spokesman for the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision said that its Office of Special Investigations and State Police officers were investigating the dormitory raid and the July 3 injury to the prison guard that preceded it. The department “will not tolerate any wrongdoing that puts the safety of its facilities at risk, and will not hesitate to pursue disciplinary charges or refer cases for criminal prosecution if warranted,” the spokesman said. Investigators face dueling narratives: The guards’ union insists the injured officer was the victim of a planned attack by two prisoners affiliated with the Bloods street gang. Inmates cite a different culprit, a rickety reclining chair from which the officer fell, gashing his head as the two prisoners rushed to his aid. As in most of the state’s prisons, there were no cameras to record the episodes, officials said. The guard, Nicholas Kahl, a Navy veteran in his who had been a corrections officer for two years, has been out on medical leave since the injury, records show. He did not respond to emails or return phone calls. Whatever happened to him, the ensuing assault was indefensible, a lawyer retained by inmates’ relatives said. “The apparent breadth of involvement by correction officers and supervisors at in this barbaric and unjustified use of collective punishment is stunning,” said the lawyer, Edward Sivin, who has filed a notice of intent to sue in the state’s Court of Claims on behalf of 32 inmates. The union, the New York State Correctional Officers Police Benevolent Association, declined to comment. “As with previous unsubstantiated allegations made by convicted felons, it is more prudent to allow the investigation to be completed so we know all of the facts,” said James Miller, a union spokesman. The allegations of brutality against inmates at are the latest involving New York prisons. “Excessive use of force in prisons, we believe, has reached crisis proportions in New York State,” Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said as he announced charges in September against five officers accused of beating an inmate at Downstate Correctional Facility in 2013. His office also investigated the death of an inmate at Fishkill Correctional Facility last year after a violent clash with officers, although no charges resulted. In March 2015, three officers at Attica Correctional Facility pleaded guilty to charges of official misconduct after their unprovoked beating of an inmate who had many bones broken. Jack Beck, a director of the Correctional Association of New York, a nonprofit authorized by the state to monitor prisons, said the scale of the alleged attack at was surprising. “Do guards retaliate when an officer is injured? Yes,” he said. “They come in and throw property around, smack people. But to significantly assault large numbers of people, that’s unusual. ” The guards at the prison, in Marcy, a rural town along the Erie Canal, refused to accept that Officer Kahl’s injury had been an accident, inmates said. Ricardo Moore, chairman of an inmate liaison committee there, served in the Army during Operation Desert Storm and said he and Officer Kahl talked about their military experiences. “He was easygoing. No one was mad at him,” said Mr. Moore, 45, who is serving a sentence for drug possession. He said the guard usually sat in a plexiglass office known as “the bubble” in the dormitory’s day room, with his legs propped up on the desk as he reclined in a chair. “I used to joke with him about that chair,” Mr. Moore said. “I said, ‘Look out, you are going to fall over. ’” That day, Mr. Moore recalled, Officer Kahl made his rounds and then went into the office, which included a desk and a locker, and was often unsecured. He said he saw the guard “leaning back in his chair with a book open, but his eyes were closed. ” Moments later, when he was in his room, Mr. Moore heard a commotion. He ran back to the day room. “I see two inmates inside the bubble and they are trying to help Kahl up off the floor. ” Stacey Wyne, 36, who was released in August after serving four years for selling drugs, said he also witnessed the guard reclining in the chair. “I even know the book he was reading, a Stuart Woods novel,” Mr. Wyne said. “He just fell over. ” He said two inmates entered the office to help Officer Kahl. “They were asking him was he O. K. and he says, ‘Yeah. ’” One of the inmates said he was going to pull an emergency alarm carried by officers to get help, Mr. Wyne recalled. In prison it is called “pulling the pin,” and considered a summons to a major emergency. Officer Kahl said no, Mr. Wyne said, but “they pulled it anyways. ” A news release issued by the union said guards responding to the alarm found Officer Kahl unconscious and bleeding. He received eight stitches over his eyebrow. Two inmates who guards believed were responsible for the wound were taken to solitary confinement. Four months later, no criminal charges have been filed or disciplinary actions taken against those inmates, a corrections department spokesman said. The prisoner accused of leading the attack, Darnell Getfield, 27, of Brooklyn, has since been moved to another prison. Typically, inmates accused of assaulting officers are given lengthy sentences in isolation at prisons. Mr. Getfield, who is serving a sentence for assault and weapons possession, did not respond to a letter asking him to contact a reporter. Two inmates said Mr. Getfield may have had gang ties, but they noted he was also a member of the inmate liaison committee and appeared to have had a good relationship with Officer Kahl. Immediately after the guard was injured, Mr. Moore said, corrections officers and prison administrative employees began grilling inmates. As Mr. Moore was questioned, an officer loomed over him, threatening to beat him with a ream of copying paper, the inmate said. Later, Mr. Moore said he was handcuffed and underwent further interrogation. Officers held him over a stairwell by the waist of his pants. “They said, ‘Have you ever taken an elevator ride? ’” Mr. Moore recalled. “I was terrified. They said I had better tell the right story. ” Another inmate, Mr. Broccoli, said he was taken in handcuffs to a room where a guard stood beside him as he was questioned by an administrative employee. “He was saying: ‘We know who ordered it and we know who did it. You better tell us. ’” Each time he insisted he did not know, Mr. Broccoli said, the officer “smacks me and bangs my head against the wall. ” At one point, Mr. Broccoli said, the guard whispered in his ear, “What’s a white guy like you doing protecting” the inmates, describing them as animals and using a racial slur. Most of the dormitory residents were black or Latino, Mr. Broccoli said, while all of the officers involved were white. Mr. Broccoli was one of seven men interviewed in prison or after they were released who have provided accounts on the record of what happened three days later. Seven other inmates described the episode in letters to Mr. Sivin, the lawyer. (Their names were redacted in copies provided to a reporter because they did not want to be publicly identified.) “I will never forget that day,” Mr. Wyne said. “I made some mistakes. But I shouldn’t have been treated like that. ” He said as many as 40 officers raced into the dorm, known as House 4H, situated in one of a cluster of buildings at which is adjacent to two other large state prisons. “They came running inside yelling and beating on everyone,” Mr. Wyne said. He and three roommates were punched and kicked as officers emptied prisoners’ lockers and tipped them over, he said. One guard, he recalled, said, “‘You look like you need your hair washed,’ and he dumped my VO5 on top of me. Then another cop kicks me in the head. ” When the raid was over, “the place looked like Hurricane Katrina,” Mr. Wyne said. “People were under mattresses they had thrown on top of them, they had lockers on top of them. ” Pablo Dones, 58, who is serving a term for violating his drug conviction parole, said that when the guards came into the dorm, he flung himself on the floor, arms outstretched. “You could hear the slaps and the kicks, and everything getting smashed,” Mr. Dones said. “Guys were yelling in pain. ” He said the first guard who entered his room kicked one of his roommates, a man named Tony King, in the head. “Hurt him bad,” Mr. Dones said. When a guard ordered him to stand, Mr. Dones, who had recently undergone hernia surgery, said he struggled to his feet. “I made it to one knee and he kicked me right where I had the operation. ” He screamed in pain, he said, but another guard grabbed him and began banging his head against the wall. “He was hitting me against the wall so many times, my head went right through it,” Mr. Dones said. For weeks, he said, he had a large knob on his forehead. “They just ran amok,” he said. Matthew Petrillo, 41, recalled that as he lay on the floor beside his locker, a guard smashed its metal door into his face many times. He was released on parole last month after serving five years for selling drugs. His mother said she was shocked by his appearance when he came home. “His face was so messed up, I was crying I couldn’t believe it,” said his mother, Linda, who did not want her surname used because she fears official retaliation. “He did something wrong and he paid his dues. But send him back to me in one piece. You have no right to abuse him. ” Matthew Aliaga, 28, who is serving three years for grand larceny and forgery, said guards kicked him in the chest and the leg as another officer stood on his ankle. Mr. Aliaga, who is gay and taking hormones to transition to female, said officers called him “disgusting names,” including a gay slur. One officer ground his hormone medications to dust with his boot, he said. Another tore some of his books apart. “I had this book by Anderson Cooper about him and his mother that I was really looking forward to reading,” he said, “and they just destroyed it. ” Mr. Moore said most of the officers had removed their name tags. They hurled slurs and curses at the prisoners, he and other inmates remembered. “‘Oh, you like to pick on the weak? See how you like it,’” he recalled them saying. “They were telling the white guys, ‘You are a disgrace to the white race. ’” He said he was kicked in the head, the ribs and the legs, then beaten with fists. He and other inmates reported that officers sliced electric cords on appliances the inmates had in their rooms, including lamps, clocks and radios. As the raid wound down, Mr. Moore said he heard guards calling out, “The brass is coming. ” A few minutes later, he said, he saw the superintendent, Joseph Ward, and his top deputies walking down the hall. Mr. Ward and Joseph Corey, the deputy for security, were suspended this month. He and another inmate were later ordered to sweep up the dorm, he said. “We got to one room and there were two guards in there urinating on the floor, all over the guys’ stuff,” he said. One of the officers, Mr. Moore said, addressed him. “He said, ‘Moore, you’re a veteran, right?’ I said yes. He said, ‘What do you do when someone tries to injure one of your buddies?’ I said my military responsibility would be to hurt him back. He said: ‘So you see why we are doing this. You guys tried to kill one of ours. ’” The prisoners said they were warned not to talk. Phone calls and mail would be monitored. “We’ll be back to do this all over again,” a prison lieutenant threatened, Mr. Moore said. Still, word got out. Mr. Broccoli, who has since been moved to another prison, said that he was mocked by guards after the episode. They “snicker when I walk by,” he said. “I am so ashamed all the time. I’ve questioned my manhood. ” Nelson Friszell, 44, who is serving five years for selling drugs, asked his wife to relay to a reporter how he had also been beaten and sodomized with a metal object by the prison’s guards. “My husband is a big man,” said his wife, Deirdre Velez. “I think they were trying to take his dignity. ”

Ariel Gonzalez - Eurasia, Latin America and Multipolarity | Katehon think tank. Geopolitics & Tradition

Home » Ariel Gonzalez - Eurasia, Latin America and Multipolarity Ariel Gonzalez - Eurasia, Latin America and Multipolarity 23.11.2016 Ariel Gonzalez talks about Eurasia, Latin America and Multipolarity <a href="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/C6cE2F2b47I?rel=0&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;autohide=1">Embedded video</a>

Harry Reid Desperately Accuses Trump And FBI Of Violating The Hatch Act

Lisa Smith

0 comments During his final few months in the Senate, senile old Harry Reid has saved his most insane accusation for last. He is accusing the FBI Director of treason due to his announcement that the department is searching additional documents that could provide information related to the Hillary Clinton email probe. What a loony. In a last ditch effort to save dirty Clinton, Reid accused the FBI chief of violating the Hatch Act, in other words, acting with political motives as a government official. Reid concluded that the FBI director violated this act by sending his letter to Congress days before Election Day. Reid stated that according to CBS News ,“Your actions in recent months have demonstrated a disturbing double standard for the treatment of sensitive information, with what appears to be a clear intent to aid one political party over another,” Then he added that that through Comey’s “partisan actions, you may have broken the law.” Harry Reid: FBI Director Comey’s ‘Partisan Actions’ May Violate Federal Law – Letter: pic.twitter.com/agXy4D1igh — Ryan Ruggiero (@RyanRuggiero) October 30, 2016 Violations of the Hatch Act are a serious offense (you might recall this, because numerous Obama Administration officials have been accused of violating the federal law with zero action taken against them. “[Y]our highly selective approach to publicizing information, along with your timing, was intended for the success or failure of a partisan candidate or political group,” Reid wrote. In providing examples of what he claims are a violation of the Hatch Act, Reid pointed to the “selective approach:” Comey’s refusal to of investigate Trump and his possible campaign ties to the Russian government. “In my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government – a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity,” he said. “I wrote to you months ago calling for this information to be released to the public… and yet, you continue to resist calls to inform the public of this critical information.” “You’re rushed to take this step eleven days before a presidential election, despite the fact that for all you know, the information you possess could be entirely duplicative of the information you already examined which exonerated Secretary Clinton,” he said. The Hatch Act is a federal law that was passed in 1939 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to limit federal agencies or its employees from interfering with political activities or federally funded programs. This means federal employees can’t hold fund-raisers for politicians or receive donations, but they can vote for or against candidates running in an election, the law states. Reid ended the letter reminding the director that he used to be a supporter of Comey’s – even when Republicans filibustered his nomination as FBI chief: “I led the fight to get you confirmed because I believed you to be a principled public servant,” Reid concluded. “With the deepest regret, I now see that I was wrong.” In all actuality, Comey told Congress that even though he wasn’t “closing the case” in the FBI probe of Hillary’s emails, he was still ending the investigation. Ironically can you imagine if he hadn’t sent the letter? With the recent revelations, had he not sent a letter to Congress, he would have been blamed for attempting to lie to Congress and cover-up further investigation. As it stands, by sending the letter, he is simply accused of partisanship by sending the letter. I’d say he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. I little suspicion that Comey has a backbone MUCH stronger than Harry Reid or any of his spineless Democratic accusers now. What an act of desperation on the Democrats part. Hillary is doing nothing but grasping at straws, whether or not anything comes of this new investigation before the election, we’ll see, but to actually accuse Comey of treason, is utter idiocy. Related Items

Theresa May, Daniel Ortega, China: Your Tuesday Briefing - The New York Times

Charles McDermid

Good morning. We’re trying something new for our readers in Asia and Australia: a morning briefing to your day. What do you like? What do you want to see here? Email us with your feedback at asiabriefing@nytimes. com. Here’s what you need to know: • Voting begins in a few hours in the United States. Polls show a tight race nationally and in swing states, though early voting data bodes well for Hillary Clinton. We boarded Donald J. Trump’s plane for an inside look at his last stand. He’s betting big on less educated white voters. And even if he loses, his campaign’s legacy will live on, in the form of emboldened extremists. Here’s our live coverage of the last hours of the race. We’re offering unlimited access to NYTimes. com for the election, from now through Thursday morning. _____ • Hong Kong is bracing for street protests and tough questions about the independence of its courts after China barred two city politicians from taking their seats in the legislature. The move could open an era in which Hong Kong’s elected officials can be punished if they fail to meet a vague standard of political loyalty to the central government. _____ • China’s new cybersecurity law gives the authorities far greater control over the internet as of next summer. Its requirements — including real names for messaging services and security checks in the finance and communication industries — are raising concerns about freedom of speech and barriers to foreign businesses. _____ • Australia will not legalize marriage anytime soon. A bill that would have allowed for a plebiscite on the issue was shot down in Parliament over the $140 million cost and concerns that it would become a platform for hate speech. Polls show around 70 percent of Australians want marriage equality, and many supporters of legalization want action in Parliament, not a nonbinding plebiscite. _____ • Heavy smog continues to choke New Delhi, where schools are closed and emergency measures are in place to improve air quality that is equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. Asked where she lived, a New Delhi resident said, “a gas chamber. ” _____ • The Philippine Supreme Court is expected to rule on whether President Rodrigo Duterte may transfer the remains of Ferdinand E. Marcos, the country’s former dictator, to a heroes’ cemetery in Manila. The justices have another Duterte case on the docket: a senator who has often been critical of him has asked the court for an order to stop him from retaliating with verbal attacks, which have included speeches in which he called her a “dirty woman” and discussed her private life. • Warner Bros. a division of Time Warner, is often in the shadow of its sibling HBO. Kevin Tsujihara, above right, the film studio’s chief executive, wants to change all that. He is on pace to deliver record operating profit and may have a hit with the new J. K. Rowling film, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. ” • China will release its balance of trade figures — how its exports and imports compare — for October, offering another data point for the health of the country’s economy. • The Sotheby’s auction house reported a loss of $54 million in the third quarter, citing a slowdown in the art market and the purchase of an advisory business. • U. S. markets surged on election news, and the dollar was up. Here’s a snapshot of global markets. • The Nicaraguan president, Daniel Ortega, was to a third term in an election that many disaffected voters simply ignored. [The Wall Street Journal] • A German sailing couple, who were seized and held for ransom eight years ago by Somali pirates, were reported to have been abducted again in dangerous waters near the Philippines. [The New York Times] • Japanese government investigators raided the offices of a national advertising giant, Dentsu, after the death of a young woman it employed was attributed to overwork. [The Asahi Shimbun] • China’s a sleek fighter, demonstrates the country’s growing power as a military force and an arms maker. [Foreign Policy] • The scandal engulfing South Korea’s presidency was uncovered because of a card game in Macau. [The Washington Post] • Mikheil Saakashvili, a former president of Georgia, quit his post in Ukraine’s government and accused the Ukrainian president of blocking efforts to fight corruption. [The New York Times] • The British prime minister, Theresa May, offered improved visa arrangements to India in trade talks meant to bolster ties ahead of the “Brexit. ” [The New York Times] • Janet Reno, the first woman to serve as U. S. attorney general, died at age 78. She played a major role in some of the most divisive episodes of the presidency of Bill Clinton. • The world’s youngest chess grandmaster, Sergey Karjakin of Russia, is about to challenge the reigning world champion in New York. • A new study finds that whale songs need to be felt as well as heard. The sounds are accompanied by vibrations that course hundreds if not thousands of feet through the water, possibly enhancing communication. • A Chinese Paralympic champion was nowhere to be seen at the finish of the New York City Marathon. Turned out her wheelchair had blown a tire at Mile 13 — so three people, aided by a translation app, stepped in to help. “It really was a cool New York moment,” one said. Britons have been saying a lot of goodbyes in the past few months. They voted to leave the European Union. The prime minister resigned. The leading figures of the “Brexit” campaign departed the government. And through all this, the news media outside Britain found one expression that worked in multiple languages: “English leave. ” It’s a play on “taking French leave,” which the British use to mean departing abruptly — supposedly a reference to the French manner of leaving a social function without saying goodbye. Such nationalist expressions abounded around the 19th century, when rival nations in a disunited Europe settled scores in wars, revolutions and slights. But the Germans also pick on the Poles for evaporating from parties, which the British call an “Irish goodbye. ” (The German weekly “Die Zeit” even graphed the zingers and .) Of course, the slaps don’t end with departures. Germans can mention, though rarely, “English shopping” — that is, theft, as in the colonial past. And references to historic battles get drawn into the mix, too. So the French could say, depending on how Brexit works out, “c’est un vrai coup de Trafalgar,” a true Trafalgar blow, reminiscent of their decisive defeat by the English in 1805. Palko Karasz contributed reporting. _____ Photographs may appear out of order for some readers. Accessing this version of the briefing should help. Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings. What would you like to see here? Contact us at asiabriefing@nytimes. com.

#DraftOurDaughters: Feminist Hillary Supporters Vow To Fight War With Russia For Us

Eric Striker

#DraftOurDaughters: Feminist Hillary Supporters Vow To Fight War With Russia For Us Eric Striker October 28, 2016 Liberated af Women have come a long way since the sexual revolution. Through subsidization and affirmative action that makes up centuries of mean-spirited discrimination, they’ve shown their grit in a number of fields the Old Boys Club never thought possible. They’ve blown past the fitness tests which lives hinge on as firefighters , they demonstrate amazing coolness and discipline as police officers , and have become billionaires revolutionizing blood work as we know it. Anything you can do, women can do better! I don’t know why men even exist anymore! A majority of women are, according to most polls, hopeful that they will be able to push new frontiers by electing the first female president of the United States. And while the Patriarchy has in the past asserted that a world run by women would essentially mean world peace, sexist bigots will be proven wrong if Hillary takes office and makes good on her promise to start a nuclear war with Russia over Syria for no coherent reason. Gen X and single women, who are too confident and smart for any man to want to marry, are the biggest Hil fanatics. Rawwrrr, come turn off this Pussy Riot, Putin! Yet, even with all this progress, there’s still one last He-Man Woman-Hater’s club that looks down on women from their glass ceiling, hogging up all the glory for themselves. Did I say glass ceiling? I meant grass floor: Mmmm , Man Tears The only place in modern American culture where you will see a white male portrayed with dignity, honor and pride is in military recruitment ads. In these ads, the black man is shown at best as a white man’s equal, rather than as a smarter, better-looking, more masculine superior, in contrast to many movies, TV shows and most commercials. In the last Iraq War, white privilege and racism meant that in our very diverse country, non-Jewish white males were overrepresented among fatalities, and are heavily over represented in frontline and infantry roles. While Neo-conservative (((Jennifer Rubin))) and others of her (((ilk))) dedicate their columns to mocking, attacking and threatening white males based on nothing but who you are, the mange-inflicted yentl buckles at the knees when you put on that uniform and die in one of the many wars she pushes for. Get it through your thick skull you racist, privileged, baby-dicked white boy goyim: the only thing you’re good for is to fight for Israel! In light of this institutional patriarchy and privilege, #DraftOurDaughters has emerged to raise consciousness. This social media campaign is composed of Hillary Clinton’s coalition of non-whites and women – shut out of military combat roles by worthless racist rednecks – eager to make her dream of a World War with an emerging and more advanced superpower come true. We need women, blacks, Mexicans, and especially Jews (.02% of the US military while 2% of the US population) to come on in. Women especially, who have been shut out of Selective Service for the draft, should be given priority over men when the draft comes in order to mitigate decades of discrimination. Here are some of the memes already floating around. #DraftOurDaughters is grassroots progress Martin Luther King Jr. (Peace Be Upon Him) would be proud of. I encourage you to make your own and put them up on Twitter, we’ll show that rude bigot Vladimir Putin what the New America can do:

Former Ambassador Andrew Young calls for end to water fluoridation, “Civil Rights Issue”

Brandon Turbeville

VIDEOS Former Ambassador Andrew Young calls for end to water fluoridation, “Civil Rights Issue” A letter has been sent demanding hearings to investigate why water fluoridation is being continued in the state despite all the reasons to end it By Brandon Turbeville - October 31, 2016 Anti-fluoridation activists in Georgia received a major boost of support when former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under Jimmy Carter, Andrew Young, sent a letter to Georgia Governor Nathan Deal and House Speaker David Ralston demanding hearings to investigate why water fluoridation is being continued in the state despite all the reasons to end it. Ambassador Young is asking for a written response. His letter was also sent to the CEO of the American Water Works Association, David LaFrance. “What’s clear to me is that we need a repeal of Georgia’s water fluoridation law, and hearings to look into how fluoridation has continued all these years, long after there were plenty of reasons to end it,” Ambassador Young wrote. “This is a civil rights issue, and the people have the right to have the full story given to them, rather than highly edited, misleading talking points.” Young also addressed the sketchy nature of the pro-fluoridation argument when he wrote, When someone’s story keeps changing, there are quite often motivations behind their changed stance that may not be aligned with the best interests of the public. The story offered by water fluoridation promoters keeps changing…and changing…and changing. There are key groups such as seniors, kidney patients, diabetics, communities of color, thyroid patients and people who drink a lot of water due to their occupation that are especially effected by Fluoridegate. “I am calling for Fluoridegate hearings, here, in Georgia and I am calling for a repeal of Georgia’s fluoridation law, immediately,” Young added. You can read the full text of Young’s letter here . We congratulate Ambassador Young on having the courage to speak out on this issue and we eagerly await the written response to it. Even more important, we are looking for an end to water fluoridation in Georgia.

Obamacare Architect on Fixing ACA to Avoid Rate Hikes: “The Law Is Working as Designed, We Need a Larger Mandate Penalty”

Planet Free Will

Editor’s Note : The system KNOWS this is hurting the Middle Class… but since they want to both crush the Middle Class and destroy the private healthcare system in one fell swoop to usher in the government-run single-payer socialist model , they’re going to continue to ride this bat straight into Hell. by Joseph Jankowski Massachusetts Institute of Technology Professor and architect of Obamacare Jonathan Gruber told CNN’s Carol Costello on Wednesday that Obamacare, which is set to see a sharp increase in premium prices next year, is going just as planned. When asked what could be done to the Affordable Care Act in order to drive the prices of premiums down, Gruber responded by saying “the law is working as designed.” “Look, once again, there is no sense of just what has to be fixed, the law is working as designed,” Gruber told CNN. “However, it could work better and I think the most important thing experts would agree on is that we need a larger mandate penalty.” Johnathan Gruber made headlines in 2014 when video surfaced of him saying that the “lack of transparency” and the “stupidity of the American voter” helped Obamacare become law. “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” Gruber said. “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.” Gruber made the comments while discussing how law was “written in a tortured way” to avoid a negative score from the Congressional Budget Office. He suggested that that Obamacare would have been rejected if the penalties for going without health insurance were interpreted as taxes. “If CBO scored the (individual) mandate as taxes, the bill dies,” Gruber said. “If you had a law that made it explicit that healthy people are going to pay in and sick people are going to get subsidies, it would not have passed,” he added. As the AP reported yesterday, the Obama Administration has confirmed that premiums will sharply rise under the Obamacare law, with many consumers left with only one insurer to choose from. Premiums for a midlevel benchmark plan will increase on average 25% across 39 states served by the federally run online market, according to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services. “Consumers will be faced this year with not only big premium increases but also with a declining number of insurers participating, and that will lead to a tumultuous open enrollment period,” Larry Levitt, who tracks the health care law for the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, told the Associated Press . Delivered by The Daily Sheeple We encourage you to share and republish our reports, analyses, breaking news and videos ( Click for details ). Contributed by Planet Free Will of planetfreewill.com . The mission of Planet Free Will is to enlighten as many people as possible with truthful and thought provoking information while at the same time keeping you up to date on news occurring around the world.

Dear America, Let’s Now Unite and Flood Our Nation With Optimism

Eric Odom

Dear America, Whether you voted for Trump or not, surely you can join me in admitting the past few years have been devoid of optimism. We’ve been pessimistic on the economy, on the social foundation of our country, our standing in the world, our concern over potential for war, our healthcare, our jobs and generally speaking… our future. For some of you Barack Obama may be a likable character. While many of us believe he’s corrupt and wrong in his way of thinking, it’s understandable that many of his voters found him to be generally likable. For those who do, the truth is he betrayed you. He betrayed all of us. His healthcare law was sold to you as a law that would make healthcare affordable and wouldn’t change the plan/doctor you have. Most of us are now finding that was a lie. We’re losing our plans and doctors, and costs are skyrocketing. His economic policy enriched the mega rich while crushing jobs. His environmental policy has pumped billions of our dollars into the pockets of special interests, killed off jobs and did absolutely nothing for the environment. His tax policy is painful. If you pay taxes you know this to be the case. He spends money like it grows on trees. For him it’s not an issue. He lives in the high castle and will never have to worry about money. But you and I? Yeah, it’s an issue. He dragged us nearly into world war with Russia. He collapsed the Middle East in a way that has rippled across the globe. We can disagree on issues, but surely we can agree this hasn’t been a good situation. Something has to change. Hillary Clinton wasn’t going to change anything. She was going to take Obama’s burning agenda and throw gasoline on it. We now have an opportunity. Donald Trump has his flaws. We all have concerns about it. No secret there. But his plan is something we should all get excited about. That is, of course, provided he actually follows through with it. Trump is likely to relax tensions with Russia. He’s likely to pull back our nonsensical involvement in the Middle East. He’s likely to repeal and replace Obamacare. He’s likely to initiate a tax and economic policy that WILL invigorate business growth. For businesses, Trump has a plan that will help create spenders. And for consumers his plan will help us earn and retain more financial stability. This is a good thing. It’s good for liberals, conservatives and independents. It’s good for America. Not long ago there was a time when Americans were optimistic, hungry for success and excited to work hard for it. We’ve exiting a period of time where that mentality has been non-existent. We’re entering a time where it can exist again. We’ve got a mess on our hands. There is much work to do to clean it up. But it can be cleaned up, and we can flourish as a result of it. That is, if we unify and optimistically strive for success as a nation. It’s time, America. It’s long overdue. Let’s make America great again. -Eric Odom

Ravish Kumar’s prime time show nominated for Filmfare Awards under best drama series

Flying Table-fan

Ravish Kumar’s prime time show nominated for Filmfare Awards under best drama series Posted on Tweet (Image via youtube.com) Ravish Kumar’s prime time show has been nominated for the Filmfare Awards under the category of best drama series. The Filmfare Awards Committee has unanimously decided to nominate the show after watching the thought-provoking episode titled ‘ Are we to stop questioning? ’ which was aired last night. During the screening of the show on NDTV India, viewers across India witnessed cinematographic brilliance, portraying the unjust system we live with, and Ravish Kumar, who previously produced the cult classic ‘The Dark Screen’ has once again won millions of hearts with his powerful performance. Although the show was primarily aimed at raising awareness about freedom of expression and highlighting the fascism that prevails in Modi’s regime, the jury members were particularly impressed by the dramatized presentation of the show by the immensely creative Ravish Kumar. The show opens with toxic air engulfing the city of Delhi, a metaphor for the oppression we have been subjected to, where the oppressor menacingly walks on the streets, keeping an eye on each and every individual. A couple of mime artists appear on the screen in the next segment and beautifully portray the ugly truth that we as a society should be ashamed of, a horrifying reality that most of us were unaware of. “The views are not only factually incorrect but also irrelevant to the issue he is trying to address,” one of the peons at The Times Group office raised an objection while serving tea to the jury members, “Isn’t this show supposed to be about the ban imposed on NDTV? The channel has been asked to go off air for leaking sensitive information but he is completely digressing here and talking about an imaginary authority that punishes those who question its actions.” “That’s called creative liberty, my friend,” asserts the jury member. The jury will decide the winner by the end of this month and the award will be formally presented at 62nd Britannia Filmfare Awards to be held next year. Meanwhile, TV production houses were queuing up to rope in Ravish Kumar for their next ventures after watching his show, but Balaji telefilms has apparently won the race. Sources revealed that he could be seen in the upcoming season of Kumkum Bhagya.

Clinton’s Policy On Syria Will Lead To WW3 Says Trump

Carol Adl

Carol Adl in Middle East , News , World // 0 Comments Donald Trump has warned that Hillary Clinton’s policy towards Syria would lead to World War III , arguing that the Democratic nominee would drag the US into a confrontation with nuclear armed Russia. Trump said “You’re going to end up in World War Three over Syria if we listen to Hillary Clinton” adding that “What we should do is focus on ISIS We should not be focusing on Syria” The US Republican presidential nominee made the remarks on Tuesday during a Reuters interview in response to Clinton’s proposal for the establishment of a no-fly zone and “safe zones” in Syria. Press TV reports: On October 7, the Democratic nominee said a no-fly zone was required inside the war-ravaged country to stabilize fighting, a move that was opposed in Congress due to the risk of entering into conflict with Russia, since a US-enforced no-fly zone would mean the US could shoot down Russian fighter jets should they enter Syrian airspace. Clinton also described the situation in Syria as “incredibly complex” since the intervention of Russia. “You’re not fighting Syria anymore; you’re fighting Syria, Russia and Iran, all right? Russia is a nuclear country, but a country where the nukes work as opposed to other countries that talk,” Trump said. The Republican nominee also referred to the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power as a second-level priority to defeating Daesh. “Assad is secondary, to me, to ISIL,” Trump said. Russia might down US planes Meanwhile, US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also warned about the consequences of Clinton’s push for a no-fly zone in Syria that could spark a conflict with Russia. Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations, Clapper said Clinton’s proposal for the establishment of a no-fly zone in Syria could lead to Russia shooting down American planes there. “I wouldn’t put it past them to shoot down an American aircraft if they — if they felt that was threatening to their forces on the ground,” he said. “I take stock in the nature of the weaponry that they deploy and why they — why they did that,” Clapper said of Russian weapons recently deployed to Syria. “The system they have there is a very advanced air-defense system. It’s very capable. And I don’t think they’d do it and deploy it unless they had some intent to use it.” During the third and final presidential debate last week, Clinton reiterated her remarks on a no-fly zone that could save lives and hasten the end of the conflict in Syria. A foreign-backed militancy has been going on in Syria since March 2011, with a plethora of armed groups — each supported by one foreign country or another — fighting the Assad government. Since 2014, the United States, along with a number of its allies, has been leading a so-called anti-terror campaign in Syria and neighboring Iraq. Instead of helping to rein in the Takfiri terrorists, the air raids have killed many civilians, and caused extensive damage to the country’s infrastructure.

Female Scientists Turn to Data to Fight Lack of Representation on Panels - The New York Times

Apoorva Mandavilli

One day in August 2015, the Princeton University neuroscientist Yael Niv saw an email notice of a conference on deep brain stimulation, a hot topic in treatment for depression and other mental disorders. Dr. Niv noticed that none of the 21 scientists scheduled to speak were women. This was not the first time Dr. Niv had lamented a skewed lineup. For years, she had tried to persuade other conference organizers, sometimes successfully, to invite more women to speak. But something about this particular conference, perhaps that the organizers were women, pushed her and about 20 other female scientists to take action. Over a series of furious emails that night, they decided that the best approach they could take was scientific: They would collect data — irrefutable evidence — on the numbers of male and female speakers. The very next day, they started a website called BiasWatchNeuro, with an inaugural post on the conference. Since then, they have posted gender ratios among speakers at more than 60 conferences in various areas of neuroscience, and compared them with the base rates — the proportion of female scientists in that particular field. The base rates are estimated from the number of women in grants databases. If anything, Dr. Niv said, the site errs on the side of underestimating the base rates. At about half of the conferences listed on the site so far, the number of female speakers matches or surpasses the base rate in that field in general. But what fuels the project, Dr. Niv said, is how many conferences continue to fall not just a little, but far short, of the proportion of women in that field. For the gender ratio of panelists to mirror the base rate in that particular field, assuming the site’s estimates are accurate, the dark blue dots, above, would have to turn pink and the dark red dots would have to turn blue. There were a total of just 11 women (compared with 213 male speakers) at 13 conferences that fell in the egregious offender category — those that were more than two standard deviations below the base rate. You can also see that six conferences on the left had no female speakers at all, and that few conferences reached the 50 percent gender mark. Dr. Niv said that she and her colleagues believed that the gap between the ratio of the women in the field and on panels was primarily the result of implicit bias, which some of them have studied. “Implicit bias is just that — implicit: We are not aware of it,” she said. “We are not saying that conference organizers are bigots and purposefully discriminating they just can’t help it. ” Some conference organizers have been receptive to the criticism, adding more women to their lineups. But others in the world of neuroscience have taken issue with the mission. Panels should be organized based strictly on the speakers’ merit, they say, and not on any notion of fairness. Veerle one of the organizers of the deep brain stimulation conference, said she was “puzzled by the gender issue” and had never experienced any bias. In selecting speakers for the conference, “it was not our goal to have an equal distribution between, for example, European and American lecturers, or black and white, or male and female,” she said. “Their scientific excellence was the criterion. ” Among the defenders of the project, however, is Anne Churchland, a neuroscientist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory who studies how people make decisions. In 2001, she started Anne’s List, a directory of 170 women in computational neuroscience, intended to silence claims that no good female scientists existed in that field. Her research suggests that someone you recently had lunch with or someone from your hometown might spring to mind when selecting a speaker, even though neither has anything to do with science. “It doesn’t feel like irrelevant information influences our judgment, but it does,” Dr. Churchland said. Being invited to speak on panels is more than a matter of prestige it’s how your peers come to know who you are, Dr. Niv said. “When you’re not known in science, you’re basically doomed, because when your papers are reviewed, they’re less likely to be accepted,” she said. “Your grants are less likely to be funded. ” When less than 50 percent of a field is made up of women, and then they are barely represented on panels, their ideas may never be heard by their colleagues, Dr. Niv said. “Science should not be biased,” she said. Addressing that, she added, “should be everybody’s priority. ”

E-pasaporte: ¿por domingo y para la televisión?, por Herbert Mujica Rojas

Herbert Mujica Rojas

Señal de Alerta E-pasaporte: ¿por domingo y para la televisión? por Herbert Mujica Rojas Socios | 27 de octubre de 2016 27-10-2016 En el magnífico reportaje que hizo Panorama el domingo 23 y en el segmento Revelan errores en los pasaportes biométricos con la investigación de Karina Novoa, se entrevistó a dos parlamentarios, Jorge del Castillo y Víctor A. García Belaunde, ambos se expidieron de acuerdo al momento y todos pensamos que ¡por fin! los legisladores se iban a ocupar del delicado y oprobioso tema. Pero hasta hoy jueves se desconoce si cualquiera de los dos, del Castillo o García Belaunde, han cursado cartas convocando al Superintendente Nacional de Migraciones, Eduardo Sevilla o al titular del Interior, Carlos Basombrío, con el propósito que esclarezcan las múltiples dudas expuestas durante el programa televisivo. Se va haciendo una dura realidad el hecho que las dos buenas pro otorgadas a Migraciones y a la Cancillería para los pasaportes electrónicos a cargo del consorcio Imprimerie Nationale (Francia) y Gemalto México, han resultado un fracaso impresionante. Quien tenga dudas basta con que mire, una y otra vez, Revelan errores, y no hay ¡ni una enmienda o comunicación oficial de esas empresas para nada de nada!. Decíamos que cuando la aparición de los parlamentarios se abrió la esperanza que la representación nacional tomase cartas en el asunto que no es poca cosa: se trata de las credenciales que usan los peruanos para poder transitar más allá de las fronteras. Y no es un documento partidario ni ideológico: todos usan pasaporte y en este caso, debiera ser el electrónico o biométrico. Si para temas de escasa monta u importancia, en todo caso, de menor jerarquía que el e-pasaporte, dichos legisladores son conocidos por el entusiasmo que ponen a la difusión de sus hechos, NO se entiende ¿cómo es que no han hecho nada luego de su participación el domingo 23 en Panorama? Estoy seguro que no deberíamos considerar la frivolidad que a los mencionados sólo interesa la aparición televisiva y ¡punto! Si en Perú las cosas fueran lógicas, hace buen rato debió haberse constituido una comisión multipartidaria urgente con el único propósito de determinar qué hacer con esos dos contratos plagados de inconsistencias, debilidades, fallas, caídas del sistema y más defectos y que están perjudicando un quehacer de la Superintendencia de Migraciones que es una entidad del Estado al servicio de los peruanos. ¿Qué están esperando señores parlamentarios?, ¿que el desabastecimiento origine un caos mayúsculo?, ¿no creen que es hora de edificar las bases de un Congreso respetado y querido por la ciudadanía que aspira a que se vean, estudien y encaminen la solución de los problemas del pueblo? Encargar a grupos de imagen, levantar el muy alicaído prestigio del Parlamento, es una tontería y botadera de plata de los contribuyentes. ¡Estas son las decisiones que quiere la gente! Ninguno de los congresistas puede alegar que no hay material escrito, penal y en proceso sobre el suceso de los pasaportes electrónicos. Y puedo decirlo con cierta autoridad de periodista autor de, por lo menos, una treintena o más, de artículos sobre la materia, todos plenos en documentación y afirmaciones que NO han recibido respuesta o refutación. ¿Por algo tiene que ser, no les parece? ¿Y el resto de los parlamentarios? ¿qué hace? Un importante legislador, semanas atrás y de modo personal, me expresó su vibrante interés en el affaire del pasaporte electrónico y he ido nutriendo su correo electrónico de materiales de todo jaez y sobre este singular acápite. Me reservo el nombre para no avergonzarlo en su desidia y falta de tino político y de Estado. Pero del Castillo y García Belaunde contrajeron una deuda moral y política con todos los que vieron Panorama. Estamos esperando que hagan algo, pronto, efectivo, ya mismo. Tomado de http://senaldealerta.pe/opini%C3%B3... 26-10-2016 Potozén, e-pasaporte, premio y la yuca http://senaldealerta.pe/opini%C3%B3... 23-10-2016 Revelan errores en los pasaportes biométricos http://panamericana.pe/panorama/loc... 17-10-2016 E-pasaportes: consultora estrella justificó de todo en Cancillería II http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 11-10-2016 E-pasaportes: consultora estrella justificó de todo en Cancillería I http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 25-9-2016 Nadine Heredia: su amigo Luis Salazar y los pasaportes biométricos http://panamericana.pe/panorama/pol... 23-9-2016 E-pasaportes: herencia que parece pesadilla http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 16-9-2016 El adefesioso “gobierno a gobierno” http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 3-8-2016 Cancillería denunciada ante Contraloría https://herbertmujicarojas.lamula.p... 25-7-2016 ¿Dónde está Boris? https://herbertmujicarojas.lamula.p... 17-7-2016 Omisiones en Migraciones: salidas sin control http://app.panamericana.pe/panorama... 14-7-2016 Pasaportes electrónicos, entrevista con Mónica Delta, Radio Capital http://bit.ly/29TIae3 14-7-2016 ¡Pasaporte electrónico: Potozén-Migraciones dejan bomba a PPK! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 13-7-2016 Imprimerie incumple contrato de e-pasaportes http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 12-7-2016 E-pasaportes: ¡un cangrejo llamado Migraciones! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 11-7-2016 E-pasaporte: ¿está cobrando incumplimiento Migraciones a franceses? http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 8-7-2016 ¡Franceses incumplen contrato de e-pasaporte! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 8-7-2016 ¡Feliz 28 de julio! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 5-7-2016 Ministro multiuso y conveniente http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 9-6-2016 Marruecos, Polo y e-pasaporte http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 25-5-2016 Debate: ¿y las compras del Estado? II http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 23-5-2016 Debate: ¿y las compras del Estado? I http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 12-5-2016 E-pasaportes: monopolio alentado por el Estado http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 18-4-2016 Cancillería denunciada por e-pasaportes www.voltairenet.org/article1... 9-3-2016 ¡Digan la verdad!: ¿y la exención de la visa Schengen? www.voltairenet.org/article1... 7-3-2016 E-pasaportes: caos y desinformación en Migraciones www.voltairenet.org/article1... 4-3-2016 E-pasaportes: ¿Quién o quiénes presionaban, embajador Carlos Polo? www.voltairenet.org/article1... 3-3-2016 E-pasaportes: Canciller navega por las nubes www.voltairenet.org/article1... 1-3-2016 La gran farsa oficialista del e-pasaporte por Julio Rissotto; [email protected] www.voltairenet.org/article1... 29-2-2016 E-pasaporte: ¡la gran mecida! www.voltairenet.org/article1... 26-2-2016 E-pasaportes: ¡S/ 98.50 por las puras arvejas! www.voltairenet.org/article1... 23-2-2016 E-pasaportes: ¡quien siembra vientos, cosecha tempestades! www.voltairenet.org/article1... 22-2-2016 E-pasaportes: ¿sigue Migraciones instrucciones de Fiscalía? www.voltairenet.org/article1... 18-2-2016 E-pasaportes: Hollande no está para tafetanes www.voltairenet.org/article1... 15-2-2016 E-pasaportes: ¿visa Schengen de todas maneras? www.voltairenet.org/article1... 12-2-2016 E-pasaportes: “Aquí se advierte impericia”* www.voltairenet.org/article1... 10-2-2016 Las puertas abiertas del Estado www.voltairenet.org/article1... 9-2-2016 INFORME: Pasaportes biométricos, segundo round http://altavoz.pe/2016/02/08/peru/i... 4-2-2016 E-pasaportes-Cancillería: ¿sobreprecio de S/ 54 millones? www.voltairenet.org/article1... 2-2-2016 ¿Hasta cuándo? peru21.pe/opinion/juan-jose-garrido-hasta-cuando-2238036 31-1-2016 La Navidad de los pasaportes biométricos: 190 millones sin licitación pública http://youtu.be/9soMmYyZHus 7-1-2016 Amplíase denuncia contra Migraciones www.voltairenet.org/article1... 5-1-2016 Cancillería: radiografía de buena pro tramposa www.voltairenet.org/article1... 4-1-2016 Cancillería: ¿de US$ 12 a 26 millones en pasaportes electrónicos? www.voltairenet.org/article1... 31-12-2015 ¡Exoneración obsequia a Gemalto e-pasaportes de Cancillería! www.voltairenet.org/article1... 30-12-2015 ¡Gemaltazo a todo vapor en Cancillería! www.voltairenet.org/article1... 22-12-2015 ¡Arranca Navidad en Cancillería! www.voltairenet.org/article1... 21-12-2015 ¿Fraude en Cancillería? www.voltairenet.org/article1... 16-12-2015 E-pasaportes: ¡papelito manda embajadora Horejs! www.voltairenet.org/article1... 14-12-2015 E-pasaportes: ¿Gemalto también en Cancillería? www.voltairenet.org/article1... 13-12-2015 El cuentista de Migraciones www.voltairenet.org/article1... 10-12-2015 E-pasaportes: ¡mentiras tienen patas cortas! (Tercera Parte) www.voltairenet.org/article1... 9-12-2015 E-pasaportes: ¡mentiras tienen patas cortas! (Segunda Parte) www.voltairenet.org/article1... 7-12-2015 E-pasaportes: ¡mentiras tienen patas cortas! (Primera Parte) www.voltairenet.org/article1... 4-12-2015 E-pasaportes: ¡el papel aguanta todo! www.voltairenet.org/article1... 2-12-2015 E-pasaportes: ¡por qué fue papelón de presidente Humala ante CE! www.voltairenet.org/article1... 30-11-2015 E-pasaportes: ¿con qué cuento nos saldrán ahora? http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 28-11-2015 E-pasaportes: ¿y donde está Potozén? http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 25-11-2015 E-pasaportes: Migraciones saca la vuelta a……Migraciones! www.voltairenet.org/article1... 23-11-2015 E-pasaportes: ¡criollas razones de embajador francés! www.voltairenet.org/article1... 12-11-2015 E-pasaporte: ¡ni una semana y empiezan peros! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 11-11-2015 Cancillería: ¡toda repetición es una ofensa! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 9-11-2015 E-pasaportes: ¡ojo, ojito con este contrato! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 7-11-2015 E-pasaportes: ¡se zurraron en objeciones y firmaron! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 5-11-2015 E-pasaportes: Carta abierta a premier Cateriano http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 5-11-2015 E-pasaportes: ¡Potozén sabía todo esto! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 4-11-2015 E-pasaportes: ¡todo está consumado! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 3-11-2015 ¡Escándalo en e-pasaportes!: ¿unos firman por otros? http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 3-11-2015 E-pasaportes: ¡inminente ridículo internacional! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 2-11-2015 Sr. Potozén: ¡muestre garantía de e-pasaporte para diciembre 2015! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 30-10-2015 E-pasaportes: ¡vicios y manchas de un proceso cuestionado! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 21-10-2015 Cuestionados capturan pasaporte electrónico http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 20-10-2015 Graves vicios OACI-Migraciones http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 19-10-2015 Caballazo, Gemalto-Imprimerie y Migraciones http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 16-10-2015 E-pasaportes: ¿todo cocinado pro Gemalto-Imprimerie? http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 15-10-2015 Pasaportes electrónicos Perú: se acercan definiciones http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 12-10-2015 E-pasaportes: ¡escándalo en México! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 9-10-2015 Gemalto-Imprimerie denunciada por corrupción en Francia II http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 8-10-2015 Gemalto-Imprimerie denunciada por corrupción en Francia I http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 30-9-2015 E-pasaportes: ¿para qué tanta prisa entonces? http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 28-9-2015 ¿Es Migraciones una coladera? http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 16-9-2015 E-pasaporte: ¡postergan entrega de propuestas! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 11-9-2015 ¿Migraciones sucursal de OACI? http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 9-9-2015 El pasaporte finlandés http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 7-9-2015 E-pasaportes: Migraciones denunciada en Contraloría http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 2-9-2015 E-pasaportes: incoherencias, misterios y transparencia http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 31-8-2015 E-passport, UN-ICAO and next Peruvian Government http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 27-8-2015 E-pasaporte: OACI y bases secretas http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 24-8-2015 ¡OACI NO RESPONDE! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 20-8-2015 ¿Garantiza OACI fechas ofrecidas por Migraciones? http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 18-8-2015 E-pasaporte: ¡demandamos urgentes aclaraciones a Superintendente Potozén! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 7-8-2015 E-pasaportes: ¡le sabotean presidente Humala! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 24-7-2015 ¡Tumbaron proceso de pasaporte electrónico! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 20-7-2015 ¡Saboteando el pasaporte electrónico! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 15-7-2015 Misteriosos silencios en Migraciones http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 13-7-2015 E-pasaportes: Migraciones, UNOPS y palos de ciego http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 10-7-2015 E-pasaporte: ¡confirmado complot contra proceso de Cancillería! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 9-7-2015 E-pasaportes: ¿montesinismo entre postores? http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 6-7-2015 E-pasaportes: ¡quieren tumbarse proceso de Cancillería! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 1-7-2015 E-pasaportes: ¡españoles y franceses buscan alianzas con empresas nacionales! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 30-6-2015 E-pasaportes: ¿conspira Migraciones contra pueblo peruano? http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 11-6-2015 E-pasaportes: ¿marcianos, venusinos?, ¡no, peruanos! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 9-6-2015 E-pasaportes: ¡aún hay mucho pan por rebanar! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 8-6-2015 E-pasaportes: Cuestionario para el Superintendente Nacional de Migraciones http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 4-6-2015 E-pasaportes: empresa francesa confirma excelente tecnología peruana http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 3-6-2015 E-pasaportes: PJ admite amparo contra Mininter y Migraciones http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 1-6-2015 Pasaporte electrónico: ¡se cayó la "opción" de "gobierno a gobierno" http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 28-5-2015 ¿Y para cuándo el pasaporte electrónico? http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 24-3-2015 ¡Liquidando a la industria peruana! ¿quién sigue en la lista? VI http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 19-3-2015 ¿Eso ha dicho el presidente Humala? V http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 9-3-2015 Confirmado: pasaportes electrónicos de "gobierno a gobierno" IV http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 26-2-2015 Confirmado: pasaportes electrónicos de "gobierno a gobierno" III http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 19-2-2015 Confirmado: pasaportes electrónicos de "gobierno a gobierno" II http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 9-2-2015 Confirmado: pasaportes electrónicos de "gobierno a gobierno" I http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 1-12-2014 ¡En trompo sobre pasaporte electrónico! http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 12-9-2014 Reymundo, e-pasaportes y seguridad nacional http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 2-4-2014 ¿Reina Reymundo aún en Migraciones? http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 28-3-2014 ¿Empresas francesas en pasaporte electrónico? http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 4-3-2014 Migraciones y pasaporte electrónico http://www.voltairenet.org/article1... 5-2-2014 Canal N, presentación de pasaporte electrónico http://youtu.be/TaE6fNykgJc *Declaraciones sobre Exención de Visa Herbert Mujica Rojas

USA continues drive to plutocracy, dismantling of state

John Stanton

USA continues drive to plutocracy, dismantling of state By John Stanton Posted on November 8, 2016 by John Stanton Interest groups and lobbyists have been busy peddling their client’s interests since 1816 when Delaware manufacturer Isaac Briggs teamed up with his colleagues in an attempt to convince federal lawmakers to impose tariffs on the import of foreign made manufactures. Alexis de Tocqueville writing in his two volume set Democracy in America (1835, 1840) observed the unique American characteristic of banding together in civic and issue specific interest groups for the purpose of influencing lawmakers, regulators and public opinion at the local, state and national levels. Congressional legislation to limit the influence of lobbyists in the US Congress and the federal government at large arguably did not being in earnest until the 20 th Century. The landmark Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, passed on the eve of World War II, “requires persons acting as agents of foreign principals in a political or quasi-political capacity to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal, as well as activities, receipts and disbursements in support of those activities requiring foreign company or government.” That act remains in force today. Nice try The Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act of 1946, the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 and the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 are notable for their attempts to inform the public who was lobbying for what interest and for how much money. The Open Government Act of 2007 mandated a one year waiting period for federal public servants before they could make the move through the revolving door to lucrative for-profit opportunities. President Barak Obama issued an Executive Order in 2009 known as the Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel. That decree sought to impose a two-year waiting period for executive branch appointees. US executive branch agencies can also write their own lobbying rules or modify those contained in legislative acts. Members of the US Congress can also play an active role above and beyond legislative actions. On December 18, 2008, then Senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and Richard Lugar of Indiana sent a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to the Clinton Foundation, and the soon to be confirmed US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, limiting the Clinton Foundation’s interactions with foreign governments. In the MOU, the Clinton Foundation was instructed to spin off the Clinton Global Initiative placing strictures on Bill Clinton’s ability to accept contributions from foreign governments. It appears that the Clinton’s ignored the MOU with the recent revelations of Qatar’s $1 million gift which went unreported. Thanks to WikiLeaks, the DNC hack, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning and others, the internal workings of the US-Corporate State have been pried open to reveal a can of filthy worms entangled with each other in every which way. And not a damn thing will change no matter who runs the country. The American people, their constitution, Bill of Rights and ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence are being tortured by opportunists. Besides that, they were written by “white people” back in the 1700s and so they hold no weight with large segments of the American citizenry. That, of course, plays right into the hands of the ‘color of money’ tech and financial interests who seek to eliminate the US nation-state leaving only the military, intelligence and the dollar’s printing presses as backstops. No win situation In practice, all the well-intentioned federal legislation, tireless efforts of lobbyist watchdogs and anti-revolving door advocates had done little to inhibit much of the influence peddling undertaken by foreign agents and governments, US law firms, interest groups, trade associations, corporations and lobbying houses. Nor have their efforts slowed the speed of the revolving door though which officials who on one day are protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States emerge on the other side claiming fealty to a corporation’s shareholders. The rules, regulations and procedures governing the process are not worth the paper they are printed on. The United States Supreme Court ruled that influence peddling by individuals or non-profit organizations are protected by the free-speech First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. In 2010 the court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission extended that concept to for-profit associations, corporations and labor unions. Predictably, organizations and wealthy individuals have flooded the federal government and the 2016 election cycle with money. According to the public interest website Opensecrets.org—which tracks lobbying and revolving door activity—from 2008 to 2016 over $15 billion was spent by assorted organizations for US federal level influence peddling for all manner of issues ranging from defense and finance to sports and healthcare. The National Football League works hard at the local, state and federal levels for public funds to get their stadiums subsidized at the expense of taxpayers In 2016 alone, $1.6 billion was billed by lobbyists to their clients. In that same year 10,498 individuals and organizations registered as lobbyists. But even knowing how the system works, Americans see no alternative because they do not want to do the very difficult work of rebooting the system or holding their so-called leaders accountable. A look at AT&T, Time Warner merger & influence In October, the world’s third largest telecommunications giant AT&T, a creature of the former Ma Bell System monopoly, offered cable and content provider Time Warner shareholders an $85 billion merger package. Both boards of directors gleefully approved the deal. Now that merger must receive the approval of the US Department of Justice and assorted state and federal regulatory bodies. If approved by regulators, the merger would create one the world’s largest media conglomerates with one side of the monster, AT&T, very tight with the US National Security Agency. To increase the likelihood of success, AT&T, for its part, has mobilized some 100 lobbyists in Washington, DC, and scores more across the nation to cajole public utility, state legislatures and governors into supporting the merger. The company is already on the march in the US Congress and at federal agencies like the Federal Communications Commission. Even the self-proclaimed titans in the US Congress who decry the influence of money in politics or swarms of lobbyists are on the dole. In 1999, Senator John McCain from the US state of Arizona and then chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, that oversees the telecommunications industry, introduced a bill that cleared the hurdles for AT&T’s acquisition of MediaOne Group, making AT&T, at the time, the largest cable company in the United States, the Center for Public Integrity said in a report. “His efforts did not go unrewarded: Two weeks after he introduced his bill, AT&T employees and their spouses contributed $10,000 to his presidential campaign in addition to $3,000 they gave him three days after AT&T announced its merger plans.” AT&T’s federal influencers include revolving door types like former Senators John Breaux of Louisiana and Trent Lott of Mississippi who now work for heavyweight Washington, DC, law-firm and influence house Squire, Patton and Boggs. AT&T will also apply pressure from its own board of directors, one of whom is former President Bill Clinton’s chief economic advisor Laura D’Andrea Tyson. Coincidently she once served as a board member for Ameritech Corporation, formerly part of the AT&T-Bell System and now owned by AT&T. And how about this? The board also includes the former chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission from 1997 to 200, William Kennard. Inches or sins? America is bankrupt and on the highway to hell. The outcome of the 2016 election will not halt that process unless the American people find a way out of the political, financial, cultural and military morass they and their leaders have created. There are two paths forward for Americans, it seems. The first is offered in dialogue from the movie Seven in which the serial killer John Doe (played by Kevin Spacey) innovatively murders seven people based on the Seven Deadly Sins. Sure, John’s methods are unsound but the ‘point’ he makes about the sickness and tolerance levels of society are spot on. John Doe: “A woman . . . so ugly on the inside she couldn’t bear to go on living if she couldn’t be beautiful on the outside. A drug dealer, a drug dealing pederast, actually! And let’s not forget the disease-spreading whore! Only in a world this shitty could you even try to say these were innocent people and keep a straight face. But that’s the point. We see a deadly sin on every street corner, in every home, and we tolerate it. We tolerate it because it’s common, it’s trivial. We tolerate it morning, noon, and night. Well, not anymore. I’m setting the example. What I’ve done is going to be puzzled over and studied and followed . . . forever.” The second path and a better alternative to John Doe’s shock doctrine is from movie dialogue from Any Given Sunday in the famed inches speech by Coach D’Amato (played by Al Pacino). The football team has descended into the hell of cliques, internal clashes, off-field antics, and disagreements over play calling. No football team can be successful in such a situation. The team has to come together for some purpose. Americans face that challenge now. Coach D’Amato : “Either we heal as a team or we’re ‘gonna’ crumble inch by inch, play by play until we’re finished. We’re in hell right now, gentlemen . . . we can stay here, get the shit kicked out of us, or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb ‘outta’ hell . . . one inch at a time. You see life’s this game of inches, so is football. Because in either game—life or football—the margin for error is so small. I mean, one half a step too late or too early and you don’t quite make it. One half second too slow, too fast and you don’t quite catch it. I know if I’m ‘gonna’ have any life anymore it’s because I’m still willing to fight and die for that inch, because that’s what living is, the six inches in front of your face. The inches we need are everywhere around us. That’s a team, gentlemen, and either we heal, now, as a team, or we will die as individuals. That’s football guys, that’s all it is.” John Stanton played US contact football from youth level through small college on the offensive line. He captained his youth and high school teams and contributed significantly to three conference championships in college. He coached the sport for 25 years. His most recent book is US Military’s Progressiveness Leaves Civil Society Behind . Email him at . Commentary . Bookmark the permalink .

‘They Are Convening A Grand Jury! Trust Me!’ Trump Surrogate LOSES IT Over Clinton Emails (VIDEO)

Joe Clark

On Sunday, during an appearance on Fox and Friends , Trump surrogate Brunell Donald-Kyei went into full-blown Mad Hatter mode as she “argued” the significance of the FBI’s recent announcement concerning Hillary Clinton’s emails. During the segment, after proclaiming that she’s an “attorney,” the Vice-Chair of Trump’s National Diversity Coalition declared that the FBI doesn’t just “reopen cases.” However, panelist Brian Benjamin observed that the FBI had not officially reopened the case against Clinton (most likely due to the fact that they have not actually found anything). This unauthorized use of logic on the Fox News channel prompted Donald-Kyei to quickly dive down a rabbit hole of far-right-wing conspiracy theories, first citing the Wikileaks Podesta emails as proof of Clinton’s corruption and then implying something much darker about the presidential candidate. “We’ve got Huma Abedin with 10,000 emails under “life insurance” because she doesn’t want an accidental death,” declared the Trump surrogate. Um. What? She then went on to rail against Clinton and Obama, accusing both of making race relations worse over the past eight years. “Hillary Clinton is running around saying [that], when she and the president have worked so hard over the last eight years to divide the country.” Without citing any concrete evidence, the attorney claimed that both Clinton and Obama worked to pit “whites against blacks, blacks against Hispanics,” and “Hispanics against Asians.” She further argued that unlike Obama and Clinton, Trump would bring Americans together. Donald-Kyei concluded her rant with a prediction as bulletproof as her logic. “Believe me, believe me, they are convening a grand jury,” Donald-Kyei exclaimed . “Trust me!” Donald Trump must have the greatest collection of mentally unbalanced, intellectually dishonest, and morally dubious surrogates of any presidential candidate in U.S. history. Featured image via YouTube .

How David Letterman’s Mother Endeared Him to Viewers - The New York Times

Jason Zinoman

The first time David Letterman’s mom, Dorothy Mengering, appeared on “Late Night,” she was part of a Take Your Parents to episode, in which the staff, including members of the band, stood not far from their mothers. It was the kind of oddball concept that Mr. Letterman pioneered in the middle of the 1980s, when his show was required viewing for the cool, young and caffeinated. Taking cameras outside the studio and into his office, Mr. Letterman recruited his mother, a church secretary from the town of Linton, Ind. to speak into a bullhorn through an open window of Rockefeller Plaza. “Attention, New York,” she said, her gentle voice amplified, as she made a reference to the “Today” crew. “My name is Jane Pauley. I’m being held prisoner by Willard Scott. He’s not wearing pants. ” Mr. Letterman had made a similar bullhorn joke with Bryant Gumbel five months earlier, but his comedy didn’t sting as much when filtered through his mother. It even acquired a new and essential incongruity, introducing a sweetness and warmth that made him more relatable to viewers who might have been alienated by his acerbic sensibility. Ms. Mengering, who died on Tuesday at 95, was the most unlikely television star. She was reserved and, as her three children explained in a beautiful obituary, she “was the happiest when she could curl up in a quiet place with a book and a box of cherries. ” And yet she became a major figure on Mr. Letterman’s shows over decades, a comic foil with a radiant smile whose cheerful unflappability contrasted perfectly with her son’s exasperation. Inspired by Howard Stern, who used conversations with his mother on his radio show, Mr. Letterman turned phone calls with Ms. Mengering into a regular feature in the early 1990s, asking her to review TV shows like “Cop Rock” (“It’s not something I’ll watch again,” she said) or recite a Top 10 list (“Top 10 Things Found in Dave’s Mom’s Refrigerator”). During these exchanges, Mr. Letterman portrayed the teasing, needling son while she gamely played along. During one show in February 1991, he told his audience that if he called his mother, who kept a garden and once worked at her husband’s flower shop, at this time of year, she would say something about how the “crocuses were up. ” This turned a mundane conversation into an unexpectedly funny and suspenseful joke about how predictable parents can be to their children. These dozen or so phone conversations took place when the comedic heart of “Late Night” had shifted from scripted comedy to the compelling personality of its host. Mr. Letterman surrounded himself with a series of vivid personalities — like Chris Elliott’s bizarre characters — who inspired that revealed more of him than a monologue joke ever could. When Mr. Letterman moved to CBS in 1993 to begin “Late Show,” the role of his mother changed, shifting from an offstage voice to an correspondent, reporting from her home in Indiana and at three different Winter Olympics, including one in Norway, where she interviewed Hillary Clinton. Through these remote videos, she proved unerringly polite and far more game than her son. (It’s hard to imagine Mr. Letterman in a tight yellow suit and joining a luge team.) These cameos were perfectly in sync with one of the main tactics of Mr. Letterman’s TV career: turning ordinary people into funny performers while also recasting the talk show, ripping it out of its context and placing it on an airplane or in a person’s home or on the streets of New York. What was striking about Ms. Mengering’s performances is how much the spotlight didn’t change her manner or style. No matter where she was or whom she was talking to, she maintained the same poise and equanimity. She didn’t mock show business, as her son did, but she appeared immune to its notorious seduction, and completely resisted being or remotely theatrical. Mr. Letterman’s relationship with his mother was, of course, more complex than simply devoted parent and loving son. In interviews, he called her “the least demonstrative person” in the world, and he would tell a story about the first time his mother saw him perform live, when it was clear her muted response made an impact. After telling this anecdote to Mr. Stern on “Late Show” in 2013, his famously blunt listener flummoxed him with a joke: “You have mother issues, obviously, everyone knows that. ” Just as it’s impossible to understand another person’s marriage completely, the relationship between parent and child is also a mystery. The gift that Mr. Letterman gave his fans was allowing them to see things not just from his point of view, but also from his mother’s. What we saw, in the limited way that television allows, was a genuine woman whose emotional understatement couldn’t hide her unconditional love and a son who loved to poke fun, but then made sure he hadn’t gone too far. After Mr. Letterman got his mother to yell into a bullhorn in her first appearance, the kind of brazen and juvenile move that she clearly would never do on her own, he turned away from the camera and toward her and asked, “Did that just embarrass you to tears?” She flashed a toothy smile, looked down and said, “No, David. ” He chuckled and added with some relief, “O. K. good. ”

Tribunal Rejects Beijing’s Claims in South China Sea - The New York Times

Jane Perlez

BEIJING — An international tribunal in The Hague delivered a sweeping rebuke on Tuesday of China’s behavior in the South China Sea, including its construction of artificial islands, and found that its expansive claim to sovereignty over the waters had no legal basis. The landmark case, brought by the Philippines, was seen as an important crossroads in China’s rise as a global power and in its rivalry with the United States, and it could force Beijing to reconsider its assertive tactics in the region or risk being labeled an international outlaw. It was the first time the Chinese government had been summoned before the international justice system. In its most significant finding, the tribunal rejected China’s argument that it enjoys historic rights over most of the South China Sea. That could give the governments of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam more leverage in their own maritime disputes with Beijing. The tribunal also said that China had violated international law by causing “irreparable harm” to the marine environment, endangering Philippine ships and interfering with Philippine fishing and oil exploration. “It’s an overwhelming victory. We won on every significant point,” said the Philippines’ chief counsel in the case, Paul S. Reichler. But while the decision is legally binding, there is no mechanism for enforcing it, and China, which refused to participate in the tribunal’s proceedings, reiterated on Tuesday that it would not abide by it. Speaking at a meeting with European leaders, President Xi Jinping was defiant, reasserting China’s claim to sovereignty over the South China Sea “since ancient times,” the People’s Daily reported. His remarks echoed a statement from the Foreign Ministry. The tribunal’s decision “is invalid and has no binding force,” the ministry said. “China does not accept or recognize it. ” The foreign secretary of the Philippines, Perfecto Yasay Jr. welcomed the ruling as “significant” and called on “all those concerned to exercise restraint and sobriety. ” The five judges and legal experts on the tribunal ruled unanimously, and the decision was so heavily in favor of the Philippines that there were fears about how the Chinese leadership would react. Many in the region worry that Beijing will accelerate its efforts to assert control over the South China Sea, which includes vital trade routes and fishing waters as well as possible oil and mineral deposits. “Xi Jinping has lost face here, and it will be difficult for China to do nothing,” said Bonnie S. Glaser, a senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “I expect a very tough reaction from China, since it has lost on almost every point. There is virtually nothing that it has won. ” The Philippines filed its case in 2013, after China seized a reef over which both countries claim sovereignty. There has been speculation that Beijing might respond to the decision by building an artificial island at the reef, Scarborough Shoal, a move that could set off a conflict with the Philippines and its treaty ally, the United States. The State Department spokesman, John Kirby, said Washington expected China to comply with the ruling. “The world is watching to see if China is really the global power it professes itself to be and the responsible power that it professes itself to be,” he said. The main issue before the panel was the legality of China’s claim to waters within a “ line” that appears on official Chinese maps and encircles as much as 90 percent of the South China Sea, an area the size of Mexico. The Philippines had asked the tribunal to find the claim to be in violation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which both China and the Philippines have ratified. In its decision, the tribunal said any historic rights to the sea that China had previously enjoyed “were extinguished” by the treaty, which lays out rules for drawing zones of control over the world’s oceans based on distances to coastlines. The panel added that while China had used islands in the sea in the past, it had never exercised exclusive authority over the waters. The panel also concluded that several disputed rocks and reefs in the South China Sea were too small for China to claim control of economic activities in the waters around them. As a result, it found, China was engaged in unlawful behavior in Philippine waters, including activities that had aggravated the dispute. The tribunal cited China’s construction of a large artificial island on an atoll known as Mischief Reef. China has built a military airstrip, naval berths and sports fields on the island, but the tribunal ruled that it was in Philippine waters. The judges also said that Beijing had violated international law by causing “severe harm to the coral reef environment” and by failing to prevent Chinese fishermen from harvesting endangered sea turtles and other species “on a substantial scale. ” In an early indication of the regional response, Vietnam — which has fraternal Communist ties to China but also significant territorial disputes with it, including over oil exploration rights — quickly issued a statement endorsing the tribunal’s decision. China has argued that the tribunal had no jurisdiction in the case. Because the sovereignty of reefs and islands in the sea is disputed, Beijing asserted, the tribunal could not decide on competing claims to the surrounding waters. The treaty covers only maritime disputes, not land disputes. In a tough speech in Washington last week, a former senior Chinese official, Dai Bingguo, said that the findings would amount to no more than “waste paper” and that China would not back down from its activities in the South China Sea even in the face of a fleet of American aircraft carriers. But with the geopolitical stakes high, Mr. Dai also counseled moderation, saying that the situation in the South China Sea “must cool down. ” The issue could have ramifications for domestic politics in China. Mr. Xi has made defense of maritime claims a central part of the governing Communist Party’s narrative that it has restored the nation to global greatness after long periods of humiliation by bigger powers. Any challenge to that narrative is seen in Beijing as a challenge to the party’s rule. On Wednesday morning, an escalating propaganda campaign in China against the tribunal reached a new pitch, with all the major news outlets condemning the decision and trumpeting China’s refusal to be back down. “We do not claim an inch of land that does not belong to us, but we won’t give up any patch that is ours,” said a editorial in The People’s Daily, which ridiculed the tribunal as a “lackey of some outside forces” that would be remembered as a “laughingstock in human history. ” Some Chinese commentators have said in recent days that the leadership may respond with immediate military maneuvers in the South China Sea. “Whether it will be significant or large scale I cannot say,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing. China is hosting the Group of 20 summit meeting in September, a major international forum that it hopes will proceed without the distraction of conflict. But Mr. Shi said he was not sure the government had “that kind of patience” to wait until after the gathering before taking some sort of action. In a surprising opinion article on the India Today website over the weekend, a professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai, Shen Dingli, wrote that Beijing needed to “revise its stance” and “employ a more effective approach” that maintained China’s “ ‘smiling’ image. ” The new president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, has signaled that he will be more accommodating toward China than was his predecessor, Benigno S. Aquino III. The case before the tribunal was filed at the initiative of Mr. Aquino, whose term ended June 30. Soon after the case was filed, China began building artificial islands in the Spratly archipelago, much of which is claimed by the Philippines, in a move that many saw as a demonstration of contempt for the international court system. Experts in international law said that negotiations could be the most positive outcome of the case. In 1986, some noted, the United States ignored a ruling from the International Court of Justice that declared its mining of the harbors of Nicaragua to be illegal. Washington had not ratified the Convention on the Law of the Sea, and it still has not. But the ruling 30 years ago by the judges in The Hague emboldened congressional critics to cut funds for the Reagan administration’s campaign against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, and it galvanized countries in Central America to seek a settlement of the conflict. China is not expected to vacate or dismantle the artificial islands it has built. That makes the legal arguments important, analysts said. “ “The tribunal rulings will move the goal posts towards the Philippines and the smaller countries,” said Markus Gehring, a lecturer in law at Cambridge University. In Manila, the former foreign secretary, Albert F. del Rosario, who brought the case after years of failed negotiations with China, said the path was now open for a lasting settlement of disputes in the South China Sea. “The award provides a basis to further talks and cooperation to encompass all parties, including China,” he said.

U.S. Ends Corruption Case Against Former Virginia Governor - The New York Times

Alan Blinder

The Justice Department said Thursday that it would abandon its case against Robert McDonnell, a former governor of Virginia, whose career was upended by a corruption conviction that the United States Supreme Court overturned in June. Federal prosecutors also said that they would end an associated case against Mr. McDonnell’s wife, Maureen. The decisions, made public in filings to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, effectively concluded a political, legal and filial drama that mesmerized and embarrassed Virginia, where the McDonnells were accused of a criminal bargain with a dietary supplements executive. “After carefully considering the Supreme Court’s recent decision and the principles of federal prosecution, we have made the decision not to pursue the case further,” the Justice Department said in a statement after the filings were submitted. The terse end to the matter was, in some ways, expected after the Supreme Court ruled for Mr. McDonnell, a Republican, in June and narrowed the range of behavior that qualifies as public corruption. The court’s ruling did not guarantee the close of Mr. McDonnell’s legal problems — until Thursday, it was unclear whether prosecutors would seek to retry him under the tapered standard — but it was a reassuring one for him and his supporters. “We have said from the very first day that Bob McDonnell is an innocent man,” his lawyers, Henry W. Asbill and Noel J. Francisco, said in a statement. “After a long ordeal traversing the entire legal system, that truth has finally prevailed. We are thrilled Governor McDonnell can finally move on from the nightmare of the last three years and begin rebuilding his life. ” The lawyers added that they believed the Justice Department had “brought this case in good faith based on its view of the law as it existed at the time. ” Ms. McDonnell’s lawyer, William A. Burck, issued a similar statement: “We thank the Department of Justice for the care with which they reviewed the case. We are thrilled and thankful that Maureen can now move on with her life. ” The McDonnells were charged in 2014, soon after Mr. McDonnell left office, in an indictment that presaged a sensational trial in Richmond, the Virginia capital. During the trial, prosecutors depicted the former first couple as materialistic to the point of corruption because they accepted luxury gifts and loans from Jonnie R. Williams Sr. who sought the governor’s help in advancing his business interests. The benefits and gifts, including a Rolex, designer clothes and financial aid for a daughter’s wedding, were worth more than $175, 000. Although the gifts were allowed under Virginia law, prosecutors successfully argued to a jury that the McDonnells, whose legal fates were often seen as intertwined, had violated federal anticorruption statutes. A judge later sentenced Mr. McDonnell to two years in prison, and Ms. McDonnell to a little more than a year. Corruption experts were divided Thursday about whether the Justice Department’s decisions reflected a new approach to corruption cases in the wake of the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision. “The Department of Justice views this decision as having a material effect on the way they’ve been prosecuting quid pro quo cases in the past,” said Anthony M. Capozzolo, a former federal prosecutor, who interpreted the McDonnells’ decisions as “a sign that they’re going to handle these cases differently. ” Still, others noted the extent to which prosecutorial decisions hinge on the facts and circumstances of specific cases. “When a new legal standard is articulated by the Supreme Court and there’s a need to potentially retry the case, prosecutors make a very particularized assessment as to whether, No. 1, they can still convince a jury of the individual’s guilt under the new standard, and, two, whether it’s in the interests of justice,” said Arlo a former chief of the public corruption unit in the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan. Mr. McDonnell’s lawyers did not say in Thursday’s statement whether the former governor might try to resuscitate a political career that had spawned speculation about a presidential bid. But an August poll commissioned by The Washington Post suggested that Mr. McDonnell would face a daunting political landscape in the commonwealth, with some of respondents saying that he should not seek office again.

Here are the Democrats Who are Skipping Trump’s Inauguration - Breitbart

Adelle Nazarian

At last count, over 50 Democrats have announced they will be skipping Donald Trump’s inauguration on Friday, January 20. [The majority of them are from the deep blue state of California. According to Roll Call, Democrats who are planning to skip Trump’s historic ceremony include Reps. John Lewis ( ) Steve Cohen ( ) Jerrold Nadler ( ) Don Beyer ( ) Mark Takano ( ) Yvette Clarke ( ) Ted Liu ( ) Raul Grijalva ( ) John Conyers ( ) Mark Desaulnier ( ) Rep. Nydia Velazquez ( ) Kurt Schrader ( ) Pramila Jayapal ( ) William Lacy Clay ( ) Barbara Lee ( ) Jos Serrano ( ) Judy Chu ( ) Luis Gutierrez ( ) Jared Huffman ( ) Katherine Clark ( ) Earl Blumenauer ( ) Karen Bass ( ) Keith Ellison ( ) Adriano Espaillat ( ) Mark Pocan ( ) Maxine Waters ( ) Marcia Fudge ( ) Al Green ( ) Lucille ( ) Bonnie Watson Coleman ( ) Anthony Brown ( ) Chellie Pingree ( ) John Yarmouth ( ) Dwight Evans ( ) Zoe Lofgren ( ) Grace Napolitano ( ) Raul Ruiz ( ) Adam Smith ( ) Darren Sotto ( ) Ruben Gallego ( ) G. K. Butterfield ( ) Joaquin Castro ( ) Tony Cardenas ( ) Mike Doyle ( ) Carol ( ) Donald M. Payne ( ) Alma Adams ( . C.) Brendan F. Boyle ( ) Robert A. Brady ( ) Frederica Wilson ( ) Jerry McNerney ( ) and Peter A. DeFazio ( ). Although no Democratic senators have indicated they will be missing the inauguration, CNN has suggested that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ( ) has left the door open for those deciding to do so. Schumer said, “I think each person has to make the choice on their own, but I don’t begrudge those who have said they’re boycotting. Each person can make his or her own decision. ” Dozens of Democratic lawmakers announced they would not attend the inauguration after legendary civil rights activist Rep. John Lewis stated that he does not believe Trump is a “legitimate president,” that he is “wrong” for the nation, and that this is the first inauguration at which he will not be present. However, soon after he made his comment, a report surfaced that Lewis had skipped George W. Bush’s inauguration because he did not believe Bush was the true elected president, thus it would be hypocritical for him to attend. Trump tweeted, “John Lewis said about my inauguration, ‘It will be the first one that I’ve missed.’ WRONG (or lie)! He boycotted Bush 43 also because he thought it would be hypocritical to attend Bush’s … . he doesn’t believe Bush is the true elected president.’ Sound familiar!” John Lewis said about my inauguration, ”It will be the first one that I’ve missed.” WRONG (or lie)! He boycotted Bush 43 also because he … — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2017, ”thought it would be hypocritical to attend Bush’s … . he doesn’t believe Bush is the true elected president.” Sound familiar! WP, — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 17, 2017, New Hampshire Democrat Rep. Carol noted that instead of attending the inauguration she’ll go to religious services to “pray for all of our leaders and people. ” represents a congressional district that Trump won. In fact, Trump won more votes than did. received 162, 080 votes in her district, . Trump received 179, 259 in the same district. Jeanie Forrester, who is running for chair of the New Hampshire Republican Party, sent out a tweet pointing this out: . @realDonaldTrump won district in Nov. Received more votes than @TeamSheaPorter https: . #nhpolitics, — Jeanie Forrester (@JeanieForrester) January 17, 2017, Forrester, who is running uncontested and has received the backing of Gov. Chris Sununu ( ) will face elections on Jan. 28. In response to the Democrats skipping the inauguration, Rep. Sean Duffy ( ) said, “Put your big boy pants on. ” He added, “and let’s start working together. ” ”Put your big boy pants on” — @RepSeanDuffy believes lawmakers should be attending Trump’s inauguration https: . — New Day (@NewDay) January 17, 2017, Follow Adelle Nazarian on Twitter and Periscope @AdelleNaz

Don’t Despair: Why This Election Is Our Greatest Blessing

Elina St-Onge

0 About Us The Mind Unleashed is a conscious news dissemination organization that seeks to inspire out-of-the-box thinking and act as a catalyst for people to discover the limitless potential that exists inside us all. Break free from the mold! Join the Revolution! Join! We Are All One The tools and information used here are for research and educational purposes only. You are encouraged to think freely and question everything. © The Mind Unleashed, Inc. 2016 - except where noted. × Close

Muslim ‘Refugee’ Locks Wife in Bedroom, Sets House on Fire, Watches Her Burn – MEDIA SILENCE

admin

Muslim ‘Refugee’ Locks Wife in Bedroom, Sets House on Fire, Watches Her Burn – MEDIA SILENCE Oct 29, 2016 Previous post A 43-year-old Muslim migrant named Abdul Barati has been accused by police, neighbors and witnesses of locking his wife in the bedroom of their home, setting the house on fire, and standing idly by as she screamed and begged for her life. That’s according to the Daily Mail , reporting from the neigborhood of Guilford in Sydney. “Neigbours looked on in horror as Ms. Barati, 30, screamed in vain and banged on the bedroom window.” She died, after trying to extinguish flames using sink water. More from the Daily Mail : “According to reports, Barati attempted to put out the blaze using water from a tap and told neighbours to call fire crews. “Emergency services found Barati and the couple’s two sons, aged six and nine, on the front lawn outside the property, which was well alight when they responded to numerous triple zero calls about 3:35 a.m. “Ms Barati’s body was FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE CLICK LINK

Porn Star Bitten by Shark During Underwater Shoot

Lucas Nolan

Porn star Molly Cavalli was bitten by a shark while filming a promo ad for a sex cam company. [TMZ reports that the adult film star was dropped underwater in a shark cage wearing nothing but a white swimsuit. Cavalli’s presence in the water apparently attracted a lemon shark. In a video which can be seen below, the actress panics as the shark attacks her and can be seen moments later holding her bleeding ankle. An image posted by TMZ shows the actress sustained a gruesome gash. Cavalli was pulled to safety but reportedly required 20 stitches in her foot. [Warning: Graphic Content] Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan_ or email him at lnolan@breitbart. com

Ramona

No she doesn’t have more money than God, everything we have comes from God, He is King of heaven and earth

My 10 Favorite Books: Kehinde Wiley - The New York Times

Kehinde Wiley

For his bookshop and website One Grand Books, the editor Aaron Hicklin asked people to name the 10 books they’d take with them if they were marooned on a desert island. The next in the series is the artist Kehinde Wiley, who shares his list exclusively with T. “Giovanni’s Room,” James Baldwin “Giovanni’s Room” is one of my favorites by Baldwin, a master of deconstructing the American character and social temperature during an era in which novels that explored race and queer love were few and far between, at best. “The Honor Code,” Kwame Anthony Appiah Why did Chinese foot binding end? Or the western pistol duel, for that matter? “The Honor Code” takes a stab at this history, revealing the importance of honor as an agent for major social and political change — a salient point to make in this morally fraught time of rapid transformation. “The Book of Night Women,” Marlon James More recently celebrated for his masterpiece “A Brief History of Seven Killings,” James has created in this book a deeply personal view of Jamaican slavery. Set from a decidedly female perspective, “The Book of Night Women” takes you into domestic spaces, seduces you into understanding the very real conflicts and emotions behind charged and savage sexual encounters between slaves and masters, and dissects the negotiations of power within those relationships. “Regarding the Pain of Others,” Susan Sontag A very slim volume, “Regarding the Pain of Others” is a quick, yet painful read that allows you to deeply delve into empathy, a commodity that is doubtless lacking in our current national conversation. “The Queen of Harlem,” Brian Keith Jackson As Harlem, the perpetual work in progress, continues to change, it’s refreshing to revisit this book by my dear friend Brian Keith Jackson. “The Queen of Harlem” sets the stage of a neighborhood that was very familiar to me as I left Yale and discovered New York for the first time. “African Metropolitan Architecture,” David Adjaye The narrative around contemporary Africa’s cosmopolitan cities — exciting young people, vibrant artists and rapidly evolving promise — is, happily, becoming increasingly familiar to people around the globe. In this amazing book, Adjaye looks at architectural spaces across the continent, dividing it into regions defined by climates and cultures, rather than artificially derived national boundaries. Here the Maghreb, the desert, the Sahel, the forest, the Savanna and grasslands, and the mountains and high fields, are the defining features of how different architectures throughout Africa can be witnessed. “How Pleasure Works,” Paul Bloom Like artists of all stripes, I have attempted to analyze and justify my practice. The creative life, at its best, elucidates and thrives within pleasure: its absence, its expectation and its promise. Bloom’s book isn’t a on life, but rather a cold, disciplined stare into the machinery of pleasure as it relates to human consciousness. “White Trash,” Nancy Isenberg Undergirding so much of the discourse surrounding resentment in America right now is the conversation about race. While the notion of “blackness” is often at the forefront of such discussions, the idea of “whiteness” is frequently left unexamined. In her surprising new book, Isenberg goes into the history of how the “white trash” identity is directly related to social caste and economic realities that are perpetually unacknowledged in American castings of itself, its character and its history. “White Trash” is at once informative, painful and enlightening in how complex our obsession with has evolved. “Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader,” Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze One of my favorite reads from those fundamental years of art school, I first discovered this book when trying to come to terms with western Enlightenment culture’s broad impact on ideation in artistic practice. So much of Enlightenment thinking is poisoned by prior notions of race that one must ask: Is it ever possible to separate some of our greatest understandings derived from the Enlightenment era from its problematic history? In “Race and the Enlightenment,” Eze examines foundational writings on race by major Enlightenment figures and lays bare the toxic notions of their time in their own words. “Love in the Time of Cholera,” Gabriel García Márquez “Love in the Time of Cholera” is not a love story, but more a treatise on the subject of love in all its many forms. Márquez’s brilliant storytelling here is a joy, transforming the mundane realities of a long marriage into moments to be savored and relished. The intimate discoveries and daily bonds of marriage are at once thoroughly human, relatable, as well as spiritually transcendent.

Valerie Jarrett: Obama’s White House Has Been Scandal-Free - Breitbart

Pam Key

Sunday on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” President Barack Obama’s close friend and longtime adviser Valerie Jarrett said, “The president prides himself on the fact that his administration hasn’t had a scandal. ” When asked about the Obama’s public personas, Jarrett said, “I think that they behave as the people who they are. What you see in public is the same thing I see in private. Do they feel responsibility because they’re historic figures? Yes, they do. But I don’t think it has made them be different than who they are. The president prides himself on the fact that his administration hasn’t had a scandal and he hasn’t done something to embarrass himself. That is not because he is being someone other that who he is. That’s who he is. That is who they are. And that is what really resonates with the American people. ” ( NYP) Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

Unpythonic

Remy Porter

Remy escaped the enterprise world and now works as a consultant. Editor-in-Chief for TDWTF. From : Kirby McCloy Subject : Concerns about SMERPS The SMERPS project seems to be going down the wrong path. I thought our quarterly goal was for IT modernization. The email carried no specific call to action. It barely had a point, and was little more than bad-natured griping. It also came from Kirby, the CTO. The email triggered a four-alarm underpants fire as every manager on the SMERPS project tried to guess what Kirby might possibly mean. Someplace between the frenzied cries of, “Chris, did you see Kirby’s email? How do we reply?” someone had the bright idea that maybe this was just politics. Maybe Kirby just wanted to feel like he was part of the process, that his input was valued. They could just schedule a little sit-down, with Kirby, the PMs, and a few of the lead developers, and smooth this whole thing over. Thus, Brittany found herself with an entire Friday afternoon blocked off for a meeting. None of the large conference rooms were available, which meant three PMs, the project coordinator, and four developers had to cram into a small office to review the plan. Thirty minutes into the meeting, they were all huddled around the projector for warmth, and the CTO was a no-show. That didn’t dissuade management from trying to keep the meeting on track. “Well, while we wait for Kirby,” Chris said, “we can make sure we’re all on the same page. Let’s review the current plan.” For the next two hours, the PMs nattered on about critical paths, resource leveling, and project milestones that were already unlikely to bear any resemblance to reality, and would only slip farther with each new bit of overmanagement. Brittany was nearly asleep when Chris called her name. “Why don’t you tell us about the technical side for the web team?” “Well,” Brittany said, “SMERPS is a pretty straightforward CRUD app.” She noticed the vaguely surprised and offended look among some of the PMs and quickly explained, “Create-read-update-delete. A basic data-management tool.” The application needed to be accessible from the corporate office, at manufacturing sites, and at customer locations, and work on mobile devices. “All in all, it’s very similar to apps like RDR, TPM, and PlusPoint, so we’re planning to use the same tech-stack.” Specifically, SQL Server for the database, C# for the backend services, and Angular2 and Typescript on the front-end. A good stretch of the project could be scaffolded out with automated tools, and most of the rest could be lifted from other projects. The hard parts- the 10% of the code that’d take 90% of the time to build- were the places where it needed to talk to the ERP system. Brittany was in the process of making this explanation when Kirby swept into the room. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, “and I can’t stay long. But I have a few issues I’d like this team to address. First, there are a lot of resources on this project. I want you to be lean. There should be one developer on this project.” “That’s impossible,” Brittany said. The CTO rolled right over her. “It is if you’re using the right tools. Before this meeting, I did a little research, and did you know that Python is the number two programming language in the world? We’re going to use that for this project, which should make our developer more efficient.” This statement was greeted with silence and a vaguely shell-shocked look. The CTO took this for agreement, rapped his knuckles on the table, and said. “Great. Good. Get on that. Email me with any questions. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” What a Python might look like As the door closed behind Kirby, Chris stepped up. “Okay, so you heard what the CTO suggested. Let’s not go making any big decisions just yet. Scott, Lisa, I need you to write up a clearer picture of the ERP side of the project, and why we need multiple ERP developers. Larry, Bob- you do the same for the web team. Brittany, before you leave for the day, I need you to do an alternatives analysis that compares our current tech with Python. Be objective and fair, but… well…” “Well,” indeed. Brittany had no real opposition to Python as a language, but definitely did not like the idea of making a massive shift just on a CTO’s whims. She focused her analysis on a few key points. First, no one in their organization actually knew Python. Their entire portfolio was some flavor of .NET and the newer projects had added Angular. Their entire toolchain, build-process, continuous integration process, etc., all were built to support C# and Angular projects. Even beyond that, Python didn’t perform as well as C#, and since the requirements wanted a single-page application, they’d need to use Angular anyway , so there was no getting rid of Angular. Brittany did her best to be thorough. That was easy. Being polite was harder. She was working late on Friday night to get the document over to Chris, who was also working late. When she hit send, he instantly replied to her with a big “THANKS!”. She went home, and ignored work until Monday. On Monday, there was an email from Chris. “Got a meeting with Kirby at 11AM. Will follow up after.” At 11:15, Brittany got an email from Kirby. “Saw your analysis,” he wrote, “but with 1 hour of research, I can disagree with it. Angular and TypeScript is old. Python is new, and Google is writing everything with it. Python is the best practices for development.” The project was put on hold while everyone tried to talk some sense into Kirby. Kirby was adamant, though: he read that Google used Python, and so Initech also needed to use Python. “If our team still needs to use Angular, just use the Python version,” were his final words on the subject. Brittany pulled Chris aside. “Chris, does Kirby even know what Python is? He clearly doesn’t know what Angular is. What happens if we just say, ‘Yes, we’ll use Python ,’ and then… don’t?” And that’s how Brittany completed her first major development project in Python, although it didn’t actually contain a single line of Python code. [Advertisement] Manage IT infrastructure as code across all environments with Puppet . Puppet Enterprise now offers more control and insight, with role-based access control, activity logging and all-new Puppet Apps. Start your free trial today!

‘Here Lies’: A Clue in Hebrew Points to Rome’s Medieval Jewish Cemetery - The New York Times

Elisabetta Povoledo

ROME — Excavations that unearth some artifact or another are common enough in Rome, but archaeologists monitoring a building restoration were taken aback when they found 38 skeletons that they believe were once buried in the Campus Iudeorum, or Field of the Jews. Scholars knew that Jews were buried in the Trastevere neighborhood of Rome from 1363 to 1645, when the cemetery was moved to make room for new city walls, but the recovery of the remains was the first tangible sign — at least in recent times — of one section of the burial site near the Tiber River. “We didn’t understand who the skeletons could have belonged to at first,” because there were no markers to explain their provenance, said Daniela Rossi, an archaeologist who oversaw the dig, which began six years ago when work began on the renovation of a building from the early 20th century. So the archaeologists scrutinized historical maps showing the cemetery, and, using carbon dating technology, they estimated that the skeletons were from the to the century, which also coincided with the dates the cemetery existed. Except for two women who were buried wearing gold rings, and a man buried with a scale, the corpses had been buried without funerary goods, “which is typical of Jewish funerary practices,” Ms. Rossi said. Further proof came via a fragment of travertine marble found nearby with Hebrew writing unmistakably associated with a cemetery. “The characters read ‘here lies,’” said Alessio De Cristofaro, one of the archaeologists involved in the excavation. “All the elements converged to identify this as the Campus Iudeorum. ” Jews first came to Rome in the second century B. C. and for centuries many inhabited the Trastevere neighborhood, said Claudio Procaccia, the director of the culture department for the Jewish Community of Rome. Though Jews were forcibly confined to a ghetto under Pope Paul IV in 1555, living in overcrowded and unhygienic conditions in a constantly flooding area on the opposite side of the river from Trastevere, in previous centuries “the condition of Jews in Rome was more acceptable than in other cities,” Mr. Procaccia said. In 1645, when Pope Urban VIII built new city walls, the cemetery was moved to the Aventine Hill, where Jews were buried until 1934. Tombs were upended during the construction of the walls, but the cemetery may already have been despoiled after Urban VIII in 1625 decreed that Jews had to be buried in unmarked graves, while gravestones had to be destroyed. The skeletons showed signs of malnutrition, but Ms. Rossi said that such malnourishment was typical of citizens of the time, regardless of their religion. Trastevere was once a seaport, and was mostly populated by artisans, traders, and warehouse hands of different religions and communities, “a working class that worked physically and subsisted on a diet,” she said. The excavation was documented and the skeletons will be entrusted to Rome’s Jewish community, which will “bury them in more correct form or, say, manner,” Mr. Procaccia said. As archaeologists dug deeper, they also found the monumental foundations of tanneries — the Coraria Septimiana — built in the third century by the emperor Septimius Severus to equip the Roman Army, as well as various artifacts and animal bones.

Social Justice Attorney Andrea Burton: Jailed for Refusing to Remove Black Lives Matter Lapel Pin

Bill Quigley

Tweet Widget by Bill Quigley A young Black lawyer from Youngstown, Ohio, had to sue a judge who held her in contempt of court for wearing a Black Lives Matter pin. The judge said his decision had nothing to do with politics. “The local NAACP chapter questioned that assertion and wondered whether the Judge would have jailed Burton if she was wearing a ‘Support the Troops’ pin.” Atty. Andrea Burton ultimately agreed to wear her pin in the courthouse, but not in the courtroom. Social Justice Attorney Andrea Burton: Jailed for Refusing to Remove Black Lives Matter Lapel Pin by Bill Quigley “To remain neutral becomes an accomplice to oppression.” Andrea Burton, a 30 year old Ohio criminal defense lawyer, was rocketed onto the national social justice scene this summer after she was handcuffed and jailed for refusing to take off a Black Lives Matter pin while in court. Burton’s stance received international attention . “I think that you can’t remain silent or you remain a party to oppression,” she told The Washington Post . “I am usually a pretty agreeable person. I’m always smiling. I’m polite. I have manners. But at some point it eats away at you how any time people see you talk about Black Lives Matter, then you’re being sensitive, you’re the person who’s racist.” In interviews with local media Burton insisted “I'm not anti-police, I work with law enforcement and I hold them in the highest regard, and just to say for the record, I do believe all lives matter. But at this point they don't all matter equally." The Black Lives Matter pin was about one inch across , the size of a nickel . Burton refused an order to remove the Black Lives matter pin by Youngstown Ohio Judge Robert Milich . Burton told the Judge she was asserting her First Amendment rights . “I said I’m respecting my first amendment right, that I’m not neutral to injustice, and to remain neutral becomes an accomplice to oppression.” The judge held her in contempt of court, jailed her and sentenced her to five days. After being jailed for five hours and the NAACP was called in to help, the judge released Burton pending an appeal of his decision. Judge Milich, who was already famous for announcing his refusal to perform any marriages on the day the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same sex marriage, told the media that his own personal opinions had nothing to do with the decision. The local NAACP chapter questioned that assertion and wondered whether the Judge would have jailed Burton if she was wearing a “Support the Troops” pin. When asked by The Daily Beast , whether he would jail a lawyer for wearing a pin that said Support Our Troops, he refused to say. “I can’t speculate on what a political pin might be until I look at it. I just used the definition in the Black’s Law Library Dictionary, and the standard dictionary of what’s political.” The Judge further muddied the waters when he said “There’s a difference between a flag, a pin from your church or the Eagles and having a pin that’s on a political issue.” “Burton told the Judge she was asserting her First Amendment rights.” Burton paid a high price for her convictions. After she was jailed, Burton, who had been previously regularly appointed to represent numerous Youngstown Municipal criminal defendants , said she was “frozen out” of the appointment process for representing criminal defendants and received no appointments at all. Burton then filed a federal civil rights damages actio n against Judge Milich, the other Youngstown Municipal Judge, and the City of Youngstown for violations of her constitutional rights to Freedom of Speech, Due Process and Equal Protection. In the civil rights case, filed in the Northern District of Ohio, Burton pointed out police officers were in the same courtroom with black tape over their badges and the judge did nothing to them. After court monitored settlement discussions, Burton agreed to drop her federal civil rights case. In return the Judge agreed to drop her contempt charge. Burton said she will continue to wear her BLM pin in the courthouse but not inside the courtroom. Further, the settlement provided that local judges agreed not to retaliate against her and will fully consider her requests for future appointments to court-appointed cases. Who is this brave lawyer? Beginnings Burton grew up in Youngstown, Ohio in a family active in the civil rights movement. “My grandfather marched on Washington with Martin Luther King ,” said Burton. “He was a good friend of A. Phillip Randolph . He protested in the South during the Civil Rights Movements and attended the 1963 March on Washington. He was one of the first black Councilpersons for Youngstown. My mother was pretty active in the black awakening during the 60s. She was fairly militant about civil rights as a teen and was what we know now as a feminist.” Some of her courage is no doubt due to her upbringing. Burton’s older brother was born with a rare genetic disorder that left him mentally disabled and very sickly as a child. Dad operated a successful business despite addiction issues until his death when Burton was 15. Mom, a legal secretary and later a court bailiff, did heroic work caring for the family. “My mother’s compassion and dedication greatly influenced how empathetic I have become. She pushed me greatly to do more than what was expected, to excel when it would be simpler to be typical. She never told me that there was anything I could not do if I set my sights on achieving it. She worked hard to make the resources available to me if I actually wanted them. Both my parents were college educated. Both were heavily invested in learning. “My parents never really treated me as a child so I was often exposed to difficult realties and frank conversations. I was conscious of the ways people were different (i.e., gender, orientation, race, or class) but how it did not matter at all in determining their worth.” Studies Burton always did well in school. “I was expected to be a good student. My father was relentless about math grades and performances especially. I won a sport in the Junior Statesman Program at Georgetown University to study government when I was 16 years old. It was a highly competitive program that included people from all over the world. Burton earned a scholarship and graduated from Youngstown State University in 2008 in pre-law and journalism. She was awarded another scholarship to study for her Masters in Library and Information Science at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign . “I decided to become a lawyer as I finished my bachelor’s degree.” So after she received her graduate degree she returned to Ohio and commuted from home to attend the University of Akron School of Law . “The best part of law school was working in the legal clinic.” There she wrote appellate briefs for prisoners, provided legal research to inmates, handled applications for clemency to the governor and other pro bono services to low income individuals. She took social justice classes when she could and wrote a major paper on Kelley Williams-Bolar who was convicted of a felony for enrolling her children in another better school district. “I wanted to study why anyone would commit a felony to educate their kids, why was it necessary? What differences where there?” “She wrote appellate briefs for prisoners, provided legal research to inmates, handled applications for clemency.” After becoming a lawyer, Burton began a small private practice and spent a lot of her time working as a public defender. “It was a shock,” Burton admits. “People with power and influence held some bigoted ideas. People were not treated fairly and it was quite disheartening. “As a criminal defense lawyer, I am motivated by humanity, compassion and the oath I took to uphold the Constitution of the United States. I am often asked how I could represent those accused of crimes, some heinous crimes. I see criminal defense work as an opportunity to make sure that the promise that the criminal justice system makes “innocent until proven guilty” is followed. Getting convictions and imparting justice are two very different things. My job is to make sure that statutes and rules are followed to guarantee a fair and impartial trial. Politics should not factor into that. I am merely an instrument of justice but I take my role extremely seriously. “It is sometimes challenging to work with other attorneys and people in the justice system who are oblivious to the discrepancies people of color and impoverished people experience within the system that is set up to eradicate those inequities. I am also disappointed in people who accept the status quo just because it is easy and convenient. We need to be willing to continually re-evaluate our role in furthering injustice. Justice “Justice sometimes comes slowly, through time, by the changing of minds through understanding and experience. Other times it is the result of tumultuous uncertain revolutions. The problem with maintaining justice is that often we only recognize what justice is by seeing injustice. Sometimes the world needs a major event, a major catalyst to stir change. That process is often frightening. To me, living in a world where we value some more than others is unjust. Especially when some are undervalued to the point that people are systematically dying. When people are too afraid to have an informed dialogue about how factors intersect to create injustice that perpetuates injustice. Willful blindness in the face of a wealth of information is the greatest threat to civilization today. Sustainability “One of the ways I sustain myself is that I read continuously. I read philosophy as well as political and spiritual texts. I have a close friend that I speak with virtually every week. He has been a savior for me since I was 17 years old. We understand each other because we are both avid readers, with similar interests in philosophy and in that we both have always felt a sense of isolation and disconnection from our peers. This is important because I think that more and more people feel a sense of disconnect from the world despite the many connections created through social media. “When someone asks me for a book recommendation, I suggest Strength to Love by Martin Luther King Jr. It is a religious book, but I do not read it simply for the Christian aspects of it. I read it because it’s empowering, powerful and because King was an extremely smart compassionate person and it shows. I also read Nietzsche religiously. “I am involved in the YWCA which is dedicated to eliminating racism, empowering women and promoting peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all. “My dream is that differences in color would actually be as relevant as shoe size and that religious fanaticism would disappear.” Advice to Law Students “Learn to see value in every human being and truly read the papers that are the foundation of this Country. Study and understand the Constitution and The Federalist Papers . They demonstrate how this democracy was formulated. Know your history because it shapes today in ways you will never appreciate fully otherwise. Be prepared to examine yourself for your own conflicts in logic and your own biases. Learn how lawyers can become accomplices to injustice, even if unintentionally. Role Models “ Harriet Tubman , Sojourner Truth , Alexander Hamilton , W.E.B Du Bois , Langston Hughes , James Baldwin , Gandhi , Malala Yousafzai , Martin Luther King , A. Phillip Randolph , Rosa Parks , Thurgood Marshall , Ralph Abernathy , and Joseph Lowery inspire me. Malcolm X of course. And our President Barack Obama and the First Lady Michelle Obama . I am also inspired by the countless individuals who face oppression and injustice in their lives daily but continue to work toward a better world. I am inspired by those who fight for those who are limited in power or face nearly insurmountable odds. I think the work of those individuals is the key to making the world a place where love conquers hate and fear. Conclusion “The day I wore that button and was found in contempt changed my life, the effect of it are still rippling, some in destructive ways and others in very inspiring ways. I wore it because my soul was so tired from all the inequities I had seen over my 4 years of practice. I was exhausted from losing a series of small battles for understanding for my vulnerable clients. I was tired of the indifference of the prosecutorial offices. And all I could think to do was wear this button for a little joy. For a small win. To hope to change someone’s mind. Bill Quigley teaches law at Loyola University New Orleans.

$50,000 Reward for Facebook Killer as Manhunt Goes ’National’ - Breitbart

AWR Hawkins

Law enforcement authorities have announced a $50, 000 reward for Facebook killer Steve Stephens after the Easter Sunday slaying of Robert Godwin. [Stephens allegedly selected and shot Godwin at range on Sunday around 2 p. m. Godwin was walking home after eating an Easter meal with his children. According to WHNT, the $50, 000 reward announced during a Monday morning press conference at which Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams spoke and referenced the involvement of federal agencies in the manhunt. He said, “We’re still asking Steve to turn himself in, but if he doesn’t, we’ll find him. We’re not going to stop until we find him. ” Williams said the manhunt is now “a national search. ” Stephens has no criminal record. He talked to his mother after Sunday’s murder and said he was “shooting people” because he was angry with his girlfriend. Police believe Stephens is traveling in a white Ford Fusion with temporary plates. Stephens is a black man who is and weighs 244 pounds. 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

Senate Takes Major Step Toward Repealing Health Care Law - The New York Times

Thomas Kaplan and Robert Pear

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans took their first major step toward repealing the Affordable Care Act on Thursday, approving a budget blueprint that would allow them to gut the health care law without the threat of a Democratic filibuster. The vote was 51 to 48. During the roll call, Democrats staged a highly unusual protest on the Senate floor to express their dismay and anger at the prospect that millions of Americans could lose health insurance coverage. One by one, Democrats rose to voice their objections. Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington said that Republicans were “stealing health care from Americans. ” Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said he was voting no “because health care should not just be for the healthy and wealthy. ” The presiding officer, Senator Cory Gardner, Republican of Colorado, repeatedly banged his gavel and said the Democrats were out of order because “debate is not allowed during a vote. ” The final vote, which ended just before 1:30 a. m. followed a marathon session in which senators took roll call votes on numerous amendments, an arduous exercise known as a . The approval of the budget blueprint, coming even before Donald J. Trump is inaugurated, shows the speed with which Republican leaders are moving to fulfill their promise to repeal President Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement — a goal they believe can now be accomplished after Mr. Trump’s election. The action by the Senate is essentially procedural, setting the stage for a special kind of legislation called a reconciliation bill. Such a bill can be used to repeal significant parts of the health law and, critically, is immune from being filibustered. Congress appears to be at least weeks away from voting on legislation repealing the law. Republicans say the 2016 elections gave them a mandate to roll back the health care law. “The Obamacare bridge is collapsing, and we’re sending in a rescue team,” said Senator Michael B. Enzi, Republican of Wyoming and the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. “Then we’ll build new bridges to better health care, and finally, when these new bridges are finished, we’ll close the old bridge. ” Republican leaders say they will work closely with Mr. Trump developing legislation to repeal and replace the health care law, but it is unclear exactly how his team will participate in that effort. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump said he would offer his own plan to repeal and replace the law “essentially simultaneously. ” He said he would put forth the plan as soon as his nominee for secretary of health and human services, Representative Tom Price, Republican of Georgia, is confirmed. The Affordable Care Act has become ingrained in the American health care system, and unwinding it will be a formidable challenge for Republicans. More than 20 million people have gained coverage under the law, though premiums have risen sharply in many states and some insurers have fled the law’s health exchanges. The budget blueprint instructs House and Senate committees to come up with repeal legislation by Jan. 27. Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, and four other Republicans had sought to extend that deadline by five weeks, to March 3. But late Wednesday night, Mr. Corker withdrew an amendment that would have changed the date. “We understand that everyone here understands the importance of doing it right,” he said. He described the Jan. 27 date in the budget blueprint as a placeholder. Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, another Republican who sought to delay the deadline, said: “This date is not a date that is set in stone. In fact, it is the earliest we could do it. But it could take longer, and we believe that it might. ” The House was planning to take up the budget blueprint once the Senate approved it, though some House Republicans have expressed discomfort with voting on the blueprint this week because of lingering questions over how and when the health care law would be replaced. A vote on the measure in the House could come on Friday. In its lengthy series of votes, the Senate rejected amendments proposed by Democrats that were intended to allow imports of prescription drugs from Canada, protect rural hospitals and ensure continued access to coverage for people with conditions, among other causes. In the parlance of Capitol Hill, many of the Democrats’ proposals were “messaging amendments,” intended to put Republicans on record as opposing popular provisions of the Affordable Care Act. The budget blueprint is for the guidance of Congress it is not presented to the president for a signature or veto and does not become law. As the Senate plowed through its work on Wednesday, Republicans explained why they were determined to dismantle the health care law, and they tried to assuage concerns about the future of coverage for millions of Americans. “This is our opportunity to keep our campaign promise,” said Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi. “This is our opportunity to help the and the vice keep their campaign promises and show to the American people that elections have consequences. ” Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican of Georgia, said that while working to repeal the health care law, “we must also talk about what we replace it with, because repealing it without a replacement is an unacceptable solution. ” Republicans do not have an agreement even among themselves on the content of legislation to replace the Affordable Care Act, the timetable for votes on such legislation or its effective date. Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said on Wednesday that she agreed with Mr. Trump that Congress should repeal the health law and adopt a replacement plan at about the same time. “But I don’t see any possibility of our being able to come up with a comprehensive reform bill that would replace Obamacare by the end of this month,” she said. “I just don’t see that as being feasible. ” (Ms. Collins also supported pushing back the deadline to come up with repeal legislation.) As Republicans pursue repealing the law, Democrats contend that Republicans are trying to rip insurance away from millions of Americans with no idea of what to do next. The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, called the Republicans’ repeal plan “irresponsible and rushed” and urged them to halt their push to unravel the law. “Don’t put chaos in place of affordable care,” he said.

In Jordan, Nikki Haley Defends U.S. Response to Syrian Refugee Crisis

Adam Shaw

In her first international trip in her role as U. S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley toured a Jordanian refugee camp Sunday — and defended the Trump administration’s policy on the Syrian refugee crisis in the face of its many critics in the UN. [Visiting the Zaatari refugee camp, Haley met with Syrian refugees displaced by the Syrian civil war and reminded reporters of the work the U. S. is doing in the region — a role that has been widely ignored as critics instead focus on Trump’s executive order restricting refugees into the country. “We’re the No. 1 donor here through this crisis, that’s not going to stop,” Haley said in an interview after UN officials briefed her on the camp, according to The Wall Street Journal. Haley visited vocational classes and a supermarket where are used to charge accounts as a way to cut down on fraud. Outside the camp, she also visited a U. S. school where Syrian and Jordanian girls can get an education and a border crossing between Jordan and Syria. One of the reasons we traveled to Jordan is to see firsthand how the Syrian crisis is affecting children. pic. twitter. — Nikki Haley (@nikkihaley) May 22, 2017, pic. twitter. — Nikki Haley (@nikkihaley) May 21, 2017, During the trip, Haley will also visit parts of Turkey and will meet with government and UN officials, as well as heads of NGOs. The trip will focus on the Syrian refugee crisis both countries are on the front line of the crisis and share borders with the imperiled country. The Trump administration has eyed deep cuts to funding for the controversial UN, but Haley sought to combat the narrative that those cuts would hurt those most in need. According to McClatchey, Haley told reporters that the U. S. was “not pulling back” from the crisis and was in fact “engaging more. ” The Trump administration’s policy on the crisis, particularly President Trump’s executive order on immigration, has attracted the criticism of members of foreign governments, including figures in the United Nations. In an address to the League of Arab States in March, UN Antonio Guterres said it “breaks my heart to see developed countries closing their borders to refugees fleeing this region, and worse, sometimes invoking religion as a reason to keep them out. ” But Haley has already gained a reputation for standing up to the UN. On multiple occasions, she has blasted the body’s bias. In March, she demanded a UN report calling Israel an “apartheid state” be withdrawn — which it was. In April, when Bolivia requested a session of the UN Security Council in the wake of a chemical weapons attack in Syria, Haley denied the request. “Any country that chooses to defend the atrocities of the Syrian regime will have to do so in full public view, for all the world to hear,” she said, also blasting the “empty words” of other members of the council. Haley foreshadowed her defense of the U. S. policy in an last week for The Wall Street Journal. In it, Haley defended the U. S. saying “The U. S. is doing more than anyone. ” Talking about how she was heckled at an international women’s conference in April, she argued that “those who accuse the U. S. of heartlessness in the face of this crisis are wrong. ” “No country has invested more in protecting, housing, feeding and caring for Syrian refugees than the U. S. We have provided nearly $6. 5 billion in emergency assistance for Syria since the start of the crisis. Inside Syria, some four million people benefit from U. S. assistance for essentials like food and shelter every month,” Haley wrote. Haley said she would bring attention to U. S. food programs on her trip to Turkey and Jordan, including programs that deliver aid to Syrians still trapped in the country. “With American help, Syria’s neighbors have made the difference between life and death for millions of Syrians. The U. S. and the UN will continue to do a great deal of heavy lifting for these desperate people,” she wrote. Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY.

Dave Lowery

Trump all the way!

Fitton: Judicial Watch Pursues James Comey Records

Tom Fitton

The swamp creatures in Washington who gamed the system to appoint a special prosecutor need to be held accountable. [Judicial Watch is focusing on James Comey, the former FBI director who spirited away government documents, then arranged for the contents of those documents to be leaked to the media to force the appointment of a special prosecutor. We aim to get the bottom of both the records’ removal and the leaks to the media, then hold accountable the persons involved. Just today, we sued the Justice Department, which oversees the FBI, for a key Comey memo. The lawsuit seeks access to a memorandum Comey wrote after a private meeting with President Trump regarding the pending investigation of Gen. Mike Flynn and potential Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election (Judicial Watch v. U. S. Department of Justice (No. 1: )). We filed the suit here in D. C. after the Department of Justice failed to respond to our May 16 FOIA request: The memorandum written by former Director James Comey memorializing his meeting and conversation with President Trump regarding the FBI’s investigation of potential Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential election. For purposes of clarification, this memorandum was reportedly written on or about February 13, 2017 and is the subject of a New York Times article … dated May 16, 2017. The memo purportedly recounts a conversation between Trump and Comey about Flynn. Judicial Watch is pursuing six FOIA lawsuits (see here, here, here, here, here, and here) related to the surveillance and unmasking of President Trump’s associates during the FBI investigation of potential Russian involvement and the subsequent leaking of information about that investigation to the media. Having to sue to get a document that was leaked to the New York Times is a scandal. The memo should be released forthwith, and, frankly, the president can and should order its immediate release. The lawsuit was only one of several significant actions we took this week. Yesterday, we sent acting FBI Director Andrew G. McCabe a letter reminding him about the FBI’s legal obligation under the Federal Records Act (FRA) to recover records removed from the agency, including Comey’s memos, apparently taken by Comey when he left the FBI and subsequently leaked them to the media. My June 14 letter states: As you are well aware, former FBI Director James Comey gave sworn testimony last week before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Among other things, Mr. Comey confirmed that, while in office, he created various memoranda regarding his meetings with President Trump. Mr. Comey also confirmed that, after his departure from the FBI, he provided at least some of these memoranda to a third party, Columbia Law School Professor Daniel Richman, for the purpose of leaking them to the press. Various media outlets now have reported that Professor Richman has provided these memoranda to the FBI. It is unclear whether he still retains copies of the memoranda. I am writing to you on behalf of Judicial Watch, Inc. a educational organization that seeks to promote transparency, accountability, and integrity in government and fidelity to the rule of law. In furtherance of its public interest mission, Judicial Watch regularly requests access to the records of the FBI through the Freedom of Information Act and disseminates its findings to the public. In fact, on May 16, 2017, Judicial Watch submitted a FOIA request seeking these specific memoranda removed from the FBI by Mr. Comey. Judicial Watch also has pending FOIA lawsuits in which the memoranda may be at issue. These memoranda were created by Mr. Comey while serving as FBI director, were written on his FBI laptop, and concerned official government business. As such, they indisputably are records subject to the Federal Records Act. 44 U. S. C. §§ and . The fact that Mr. Comey removed these memoranda from the FBI upon his departure, apparently for the purpose of subsequently leaking them to the press, confirms the FBI’s failure to retain and properly manage its records in accordance with the Federal Records Act. Even if Mr. Comey no longer has possession of these particular memoranda, as he now claims, some or all of these memoranda may still be in possession of a third party, such as Professor Richman, and must be recovered. Mr. Comey’s removal of these memoranda also suggests that other records may have been removed by Mr. Comey and may remain in his possession or in the possession of others. If so, these records must be recovered by the FBI as well. As you may be aware, the Federal Records Act imposes a direct responsibility on you to take steps to recover any records unlawfully removed from the FBI. Specifically, upon learning of “any actual, impending, or threatened unlawful removal, defacing, alteration, corruption, deletion, erasure, or other destruction of records in the custody of the agency,” you must notify the Archivist of the United States. 44 U. S. C. § 3106. Upon learning that records have been unlawfully removed from the FBI, you then are required to initiate action through the Attorney General for the recovery of records. Id. In the event you fail to take these steps, you should be aware that Judicial Watch is authorized under the law to file a lawsuit in federal district court seeking that you be compelled to comply with the law. Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Kerry, 844 F. 3d 952, 955 (D. C. Cir. 2016) Armstrong v. Bush, 924 F. 2d 282, 296 (D. C. Cir. 1991). Please advise us no later than June 26, 2017 if you intend to take the action required under the law. If we do not hear from you by that date, we will assume that you do not intend to take any action. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Mr. Comey left the FBI with government records, and the FBI and Justice Department are obligated to get them back. If they don’t, we may sue to try to force them to do so.

Teacher Shows Up For Field Trip Drunk; Gets 75 Grand Settlement

C.E. Dyer

You are here: Home / US / Teacher Shows Up For Field Trip Drunk; Gets 75 Grand Settlement Teacher Shows Up For Field Trip Drunk; Gets 75 Grand Settlement October 27, 2016 Pinterest There are many things wrong with the educational system in America, and this story is evidence of a big one. A teacher in Wisconsin sued the city of Janesville after she showed up to a field trip drunk. She claimed that she was emotionally distressed after the police released her blood alcohol level test results. Fox News reported : A former elementary school teacher who passed out after showing up drunk to a bowling alley field trip is getting a $75,000 settlement from the Wisconsin city she sued. The ex-teacher, Maria Caya, filed a $5.5 million lawsuit against the city of Janesville last year claiming police improperly released her blood alcohol tests, Fox 6 reported . The city council approved the settlement Monday night. Investigators said her blood alcohol percentage was 0.27 percent on the day of the field trip in June 2013. The legal limit for driving in Wisconsin is 0.08 percent. Another staff member took Caya to the hospital after finding her passed out in the bowling alley bathroom, WKOW reported . As many as eight other adults were chaperoning the group of 4th graders. Aside from the teacher’s $75,000 settlement, she also received $18,000 to resign because district officials noted that it would have cost more in legal fees to actually fire her. For that you can thank the teachers’ unions, who have a stranglehold on the American educational system. Forget protecting the kids, let’s make it difficult for the school district to fire a teacher who allegedly passed out drunk on a field trip. Fox News reported that despite the settlement, it’s not clear whether or not she actually broke any laws. Jens Jorgensen, one of seven Janesville City Council members who opposed the settlement, told Fox 6: “I think that there’s a lot of things that happened that day and I would think that a judge and jury of her peers would be able to see through all of that and make the correct decision on that.” Christine Nimmo, a parent, said of the situation: “She put our children in jeopardy.” If Maya did what she is alleged to have done, then she absolutely put the children in jeopardy, and this story is a prime example of why our schools are failing. Thanks to the teachers’ unions, bad teachers stick around because schools are afraid of expensive legal action. On the flip side, good teachers are chased out and can’t do their job effectively because of fear of legal action in our overly-litigious, politically-correct society. Something has to change.

2nd Avenue Subway Will Open on Jan. 1, M.T.A. Says - The New York Times

Emma G. Fitzsimmons

After nearly a century of delays and disappointment, the first phase of the Second Avenue subway is finally opening to the public on Jan. 1, officials at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority said on Monday. Trains will begin to run on the new line at noon on Jan. 1, 2017, the authority said in a statement. At an event to reveal the artwork at the new stations, the authority’s chairman, Thomas F. Prendergast, invited the crowd to ride the line on opening day. “I think you’ll find the art there exhilarating,” Mr. Prendergast said. “I think you’ll find the environment vastly different than what you see in the New York City subway, and you’ll be pleased I think with the end product. ” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who has been pressing officials to open the line by the end of the year, said local leaders would take a ceremonial ride on the Second Avenue line on New Year’s Eve and perhaps toast the opening of the project with champagne. But Mr. Prendergast fumbled the announcement of an opening date, saying in the morning that the line would open at 6:04 a. m. on Jan. 1. A statement from the authority came later in the afternoon, correcting the start time and leading some to joke on Twitter that the project had been delayed yet again — by about six hours. A spokeswoman for the authority, Beth DeFalco, said the chairman misspoke and that 6 a. m. was in fact when trains would run on the first weekday it was open on Jan. 2. The new subway route is an extension of the Q line, which currently ends near the southern edge of Central Park at 57th Street and Seventh Avenue. Starting in January, Q trains will travel to an upgraded station at Lexington Avenue and 63rd Street and to three new stations at 72nd, 86th and 96th Streets. Planning for a Second Avenue subway line has advanced in fits and starts for decades. The first phase to 96th Street, which cost about $4. 4 billion, will be the most ambitious expansion of New York City’s subway system in a . Over the weekend, the Second Avenue stations began to appear on subway maps on trains in New York City. The first phase is expected to initially carry about 200, 000 riders each day and will ease overcrowding on the crowded No. 4, 5, and 6 lines along Lexington Avenue, officials said. The first Q train will leave the station at 57th Street and Seventh Avenue, heading uptown to the new stations, at noon on Jan. 1, the authority’s statement said. Trains will run every six minutes during peak hours. For the first week, trains will run only between 6 a. m. and 10 p. m. Overnight service will start on Jan. 9. The authority, which is effectively controlled by Mr. Cuomo, had set a deadline to open the first phase of the line by Dec. 31, but delays with escalators and elevators threatened to push back the date. Officials at the authority said workers were able to finish final testing at the stations more quickly than they expected. The authority is in the initial planning stages for the second phase of the line, which would extend it to 125th Street in Harlem. But the project will cost billions of dollars and take years to build, and plans to extend the line south to Lower Manhattan are less certain. Officials first announced plans for a Second Avenue line in 1929, but the Great Depression halted that effort. In another push in the 1970s, several groundbreakings were held, but the work was stopped when the city nearly went bankrupt. The latest campaign began in the 1990s, and construction began again in 2007. Gene Russianoff, the longtime leader of the Straphangers Campaign, a riders advocacy group, has witnessed many of the false starts and delays over the years. He is looking forward to visiting the new stations, along with the crowds of transit enthusiasts who are expected to flock there in January. “For subway buffs, this is like the Grand Canyon,” he said. “There’s a lot of it, and there’s a lot to explore. ”

Sweden Top Cop on No Go Zones: Europe’s Open Borders ’Has Brought Crime Here’

Oliver JJ Lane

A Swedish police officer is now being investigated for pointing out that migrants are responsible for many crimes in his country, but a retired senior colleague has also spoken out on the phenomenon and called out Europe’s open borders for increasing crime in the formerly peaceful nation. [Breitbart London spoke to recently retired Swedish police officer Torsten Elofsson in 2015 as his heavily resettled home city of Malmo was experiencing a serious spike in attacks committed by migrant communities with smuggled hand grenades. The former INTERPOL officer and director of Swedish criminal intelligence division said the population of the city, which has been the first point of entry for tens of thousands of illegal migrants as they moved north through Europe into Scandinavia, had gone up by 50 per cent in two decades but the number of officers to police it had halved. Senior cop Elofsson told Breitbart: Sweden became a member of the European Union in 1995 and opened our borders. We are part of the Schengen treaty, so you have that freedom of movement which has also brought criminality here … Gun and drug related crime has definitely increased. Until recently the possession of guns by criminals was very rare — now finding people with firearms is a daily occurrence here … most of the guns we seize are used in criminal activity, are held illegally, and are smuggled into Sweden. Slovakia is very interesting right now — it is very easy to buy deactivated guns there but they are converted back when they are imported here. Malmo is infamous for explosions. Yet thankfully nobody has been killed by the explosions yet — some of them are just used to frighten people. We had one case in Rosengard where a group were given a court order to leave an apartment because they were a disturbance for the neighbours. And then suddenly hand grenades and explosions outside the office of the real estate company. Explaining the rise of populist, migration parties like the Sweden Democrats Mr Elofsson said normal voters were starting to realise the rosy picture painted by centrist politicians didn’t tally up with their everyday experiences. He said: … the politicians, the media sends out a message that everything is safe and secure, you don’t have to worry. But people act according to their own experience — they see things, they experience things, they talk to their neighbours. And they feel the picture being presented in the media is not entirely accurate. Many people think the media and the politicians have merged together to make people believe that it is safe and sound to live here, and there are no problems. The media says immigration is always a positive thing because we have an ageing population and we need a young workforce to come from other countries. People don’t buy that picture 100 per cent. Living here you can see a lot of the crimes are committed by people originating abroad. Look at the unemployment here — you have 15 per cent in Malmo, which is twice the rest of Sweden. Of the number of people arrested and dragged into police stations, the majority are of foreign origin to be honest. There is an of violent crimes committed by people from other countries. But you can’t fool people. And that’s why the Sweden Democrats are rising. It was 25 per cent last week, now it is 27. There is a debate happening, you see all of the refugees coming … but we don’t have apartments, housing for them. How do we provide schooling for them? And then you see the costs. There is a feeling we can’t afford an influx of immigrants. ‘No go zones’ have been a hotly contested topic in the debate surrounding mass migration to Europe, with some activists strongly denying their existence. Whether the Swedish state admitted the fact or not, Elofsson said he’d experienced them in Malmo, and they made policing a more difficult job. He told Breitbart: We have a number of in Sweden and they are expanding … police can go to these places, but you have to take precautions. Years ago you could go with two officers, no problem. Now you have to send four officers and two cars — if the fire brigade want to go, they have to take a police escort. They throw stones and try to stop the fireman from putting out fires. They sabotage the police cars. You can’t leave them unguarded — when you come back to it you find the windows smashed and the tyres deflated. It isn’t quite a zone, but we have had to develop special routines to go there. The comments last week of serving Swedish Police officer Peter Springare, made in an exasperated Facebook post about what he called a clear link between migrants and crime levels are all the more unusual for having come from a serving officer. While he is now under investigation by his own force for “incitement to racial hatred” he at least has the support of one Swedish academic who too has spoken out. As reported by Breitbart London Thursday, Criminology Professor Leif GW Persson appeared on a Swedish television and said “There is a strong prevalence of criminal immigrants. It is so obvious when it comes to crimes of this nature. Very serious violent crime … Yes, I have made the same observation … anyone with eyes to see can know who is doing these kinds of actions”. Read the original interview with Torsten Elofsson from September 2015 at Breitbart London, Read: Ten Reasons Sweden’s ‘Multicultural Utopia’ Is Massively Failing,

State Secrets Privilege Invoked to Block Testimony in C.I.A. Torture Case - The New York Times

James Risen, Sheri Fink and Charlie Savage

The Trump administration has invoked executive powers in a bid to block the testimony of several top C. I. A. officials in a federal lawsuit against two psychologists who helped run the agency’s harsh interrogation program, along with portions of 172 internal agency documents. Hoping to prevent the officials, including Gina Haspel, the agency’s new deputy director, from being forced to testify, the administration is using the state secrets privilege, which means the executive branch is asking the judge in the case to keep information out of court by asserting that its disclosure would damage national security. The government rarely tries to use the extraordinary power, and this is among the first assertions of it by the Trump administration. At an earlier phase of the case in Federal District Court in Spokane, Wash. the Obama administration did not invoke the privilege — although in court filings last year, it did leave the door open to doing so at a later stage. The lawsuit was filed in 2015 by two former detainees at C. I. A. secret prisons overseas and the representative of a third man who died in custody. If they prevail in the suit against the former military psychologists, James E. Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who helped devise and run the interrogation program, it would be the first time an American civilian court has held anyone accountable for a role in developing counterterrorism policies after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The two former prisoners say they suffered lasting harm from their treatment at C. I. A. “black sites,” secret interrogation and detention centers that it operated overseas. Suleiman Abdullah Salim, a Tanzanian who may have been a victim of mistaken identity, was held in a darkened C. I. A. prison in Afghanistan and subjected to beatings, hanging in chains, sleep deprivation, and water dousing, which involves pouring ice water over detainees to create a sensation of drowning, according to a Senate report and interviews with him. Mohamed Ahmed Ben Soud, a Libyan also held in Afghanistan, who was likewise mentioned in the Senate report, described being slammed against a wall, shackled to the ceiling, locked in wooden boxes and also subjected to the ice water treatment. The third man, an Afghan named Gul Rahman, died in 2002 in a secret C. I. A. prison in Afghanistan after being left nearly naked and shackled to a wall in the cold. Lawyers for Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Jessen have clashed with the Justice Department over what classified evidence is needed to defend against the lawsuit’s allegations that the two men designed and put in place “an experimental torture program. ” Their lawyers argue that the psychologists were contractors acting under C. I. A. direction, so they should be considered government agents entitled to protection from civil lawsuits. Lawyers for the former prisoners have said that they do not need any classified information to make their case, and they are instead relying on declassified documents, including the executive summary of the 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report that condemned the agency’s use of torture, including the use of waterboarding and other agonizing techniques. Complicating matters, in the military commissions system at Guantánamo Bay, defense lawyers for a detainee who was tortured in C. I. A. custody are seeking courtroom testimony by Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Jessen. The detainee, Abd is accused of helping orchestrate the 2000 bombing of the American destroyer Cole off the coast of Yemen and could face the death penalty if convicted. In December, Mr. Nashiri’s lawyers, who are trying to get the case thrown out, asked the military judge to order pretrial testimony from the two psychologists, as well as the C. I. A. ’s former top lawyer, John Rizzo, and the former chief of the Counterterrorism Center of the C. I. A. José Rodriguez Jr. in connection with the destruction of videotapes showing Mr. Nashiri being waterboarded. On Tuesday, The Miami Herald reported that the military judge had authorized the defense lawyers to call four former C. I. A. officials as witnesses. But it was not clear whether that testimony would be public. The ruling, which was not yet available, was said to have identified them only as witnesses A, B, C and D. In the civil lawsuit in federal court in Spokane, the judge had already approved requests for oral depositions of Mr. Rizzo and Mr. Rodriguez. But the lawyers for the defendants have sought testimony from more C. I. A. officials. In June 2016, the defendants asked to depose James Cotsana, a former C. I. A. official who they said oversaw their activities, but the agency refused to allow him to testify. In December, the defendants issued subpoenas to depose two other agency employees: Ms. Haspel, who was initially described in court papers as “Gina Doe,” and a still unidentified official described as “ Doe,” Mr. Cotsana’s successor as chief of special missions for the C. I. A. ’s counterterrorism center and chief of the C. I. A. ’s renditions group. After the C. I. A. announced on Feb. 2 that Ms. Haspel was President Trump’s choice as the agency’s deputy director, a lawyer for Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Jessen reminded the government of the subpoenas. The defendants said in their filings that Ms. Haspel, who ran one of the C. I. A. ’s secret detention sites, was “centrally involved in the events alleged” by the plaintiffs. The defense has also asked for dozens of documents from the C. I. A. and the Justice Department. In a declaration and formal claim of privileges, the C. I. A. director, Mike Pompeo, said it was necessary to keep certain information secret, including the identities of agency personnel who participated in the program, whom he said have been the subject of “death threats and security incidents. ” He acknowledged that there had been “public speculation” that Ms. Haspel and Mr. Cotsana been involved in the program, but said the agency had never officially confirmed whether that was true, and “the absence of official confirmation from the C. I. A. leaves an important element of doubt about the veracity of the information and, thus, carries with it an additional layer of protection and confidentiality. ” He added: “That protection would be lost, however, if the government were forced to confirm or deny the accuracy of speculation or unauthorized disclosures,” so “the agency could not permit these individuals to answer any questions pertaining to the program. ” The court gave the government until Wednesday to assert any claims of privilege or the state secrets doctrine. Now it will be up to the Federal District Court judge, Justin L. Quackenbush, to determine whether the state secrets privilege and other privileges claimed by the government were properly invoked to block that testimony and, if so, whether the case can go forward despite those restrictions. The government did not seek dismissal of the case. It is set for trial on June 26. “This case has shown that the claims of C. I. A. torture survivors are not too secret for our courts to handle,” said Dror Ladin, a staff lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which, with the Gibbons law firm in Newark, represents the former detainees. “Whether or not the government’s new state secrets claims are upheld, there’s already more than enough evidence in the record for our clients to prove their case. ” This month, the Trump administration invoked the state secrets privilege in a federal lawsuit involving a classified contract. But the Obama administration had already invoked the privilege in an earlier stage of that dispute when the lawsuit was before a state court. The state secrets privilege became controversial under the Bush administration, which frequently invoked it to block lawsuits related to the C. I. A. interrogation program and the N. S. A. ’s warrantless surveillance program. The government’s growing use of the power prompted civil liberties advocates to accuse the administration of abusing the privilege to prevent judiciary scrutiny of executive branch wrongdoing. In 2009, after the Obama administration took office, the Justice Department created a task force to review all pending cases it had inherited in which the Bush administration had invoked the privilege. Led by Donald B. Verrilli Jr. who later became the solicitor general, the task force found that each of the invocations was legitimate. However, Mr. Verrilli put together a more restrictive process for deciding whether to invoke the privilege in the future. It required the attorney general personally to sign off before the department could do so. While the Obama administration did not invoke the privilege as frequently as the Bush administration had done, it did make some use of it. The first instance came in September 2010 in response to a lawsuit filed by the father of Anwar an American citizen and radical cleric for Al Qaeda’s Yemen branch, seeking an injunction against attempts to kill his son. A federal judge dismissed that lawsuit on technical grounds, so there was no ruling on whether the invocation of the privilege was legitimate. The United States killed Mr. Awlaki a year later in a drone strike.

Despicable Balfour: A Story of Betrayal – Part 1

Stuart Littlewood

‹ › Stuart Littlewood worked on jet fighters in the RAF then pursued a career in industrial marketing. More recently he worked as a freelance and with innovation consultancies. Psychology degree Exeter University, Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. Served as a Cambridgeshire county councillor 1993-7 and on the Police Authority. Associate of the Royal Photographic Society. Since retiring has been a newspaper columnist and produced two photo-documentary books. He is a regular contributor to a number of internet news magazines. Stuart’s book Radio Free Palestine , with Foreword by Jeff Halper, tells the plight of the Palestinians under brutal occupation. It can now be read on the internet by visiting RadioFreePalestine.org.uk . Despicable Balfour: A Story of Betrayal – Part 1 By Stuart Littlewood on October 29, 2016 by Stuart Littlewood November 2 marks the centenary of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which began the still-ongoing colonisation of Palestine and sowed the seeds of an endless nightmare for the Palestinian people, both those who were forced to flee at gunpoint and those who have managed to remain in the shredded remains of their homeland under Israel’s brutal military occupation. A movement called the Balfour Declaration Centenary Campaign is urging action and wants an apology. “We call on the international community and all peace and justice loving people to join the campaign to call on the Government and Parliament of the United Kingdom to: 1 Reject the Balfour Declaration including its role as an instrument of displacement and dispossession of the Palestinian people; 2 Issue an official apology to the Arab Palestinian people for their role in issuing the Balfour Declaration and making possible the displacement and dispossession of the Palestinian people 3 Acknowledge their historic, legal and moral responsibility for damages sustained as a result of the implementation of the Balfour Declaration 4 Institute reparations to the Palestinian people in accordance with the provisions and principles of international law, justice and equity, which guarantee the right of return of the Palestinian refugees to their homeland and the right of self-determination.” A Century of Ethnic Cleansing and Denial of Palestinian Rights A seventeen-year-old girl trembling with grief and rage told me how she witnessed her teenage cousin being shot through the head by Israeli soldiers. They had been walking to school together and the soldiers were taunting him. In response he had picked up a rock. She accused me and all Americans of knowing about these daily abuses against Palestinians but not caring. I tried to tell her that most Americans do not know about these tragedies, and that we would never support those who perpetrate them. But her belief that the average American is savvy about international politics was as strong as it was naive. “Of course Americans know we’re suffering over here,” she retorted.“You’re the most powerful nation on earth. And everyone has a television. I know you know.” These words are from David Hazard’s excellent book Blood Bothers , which charts the life of Father Elias Chacour, a remarkable Christian Palestinian who grew up on the shores of Galilee and saw his beautiful world shattered by the Israeli occupation. Like countless others he was made a refugee in his own country. Americans aren’t alone in ignorance of their complicity. British people too seem largely unaware of how tragedy was allowed to overtake the Palestinians, and how this once-peaceful province of the Ottoman Empire, renowned for its antiquities and culture, became a land scarred by conflict, where everyday the humiliation of illegal occupation stokes the fires of hatred. You cannot get in or out, or move around, without running the gauntlet of Israeli customs, baggage searches, roadblocks and checkpoints under the sneer of contemptuous, sunglassed troops. Even in remote countryside you’ll run into one of six or seven hundred armed checkpoints. And that’s what visitors have to put up with. Imagine what it’s like for residents. The Israeli Defence Force is largely made up of National Servicemen and women – teenagers drafted in and trained to use lethal force. They have a reputation for being trigger-happy. Of course, they don’t all wish to play the thug or necessarily agree with their orders. The truth about Palestine doesn’t sit well with Britain’s now crumbling reputation for fair play. Its name has been airbrushed from maps and purged, like a dirty word, from the diplomatic lexicon. Even today the subject is only haphazardly taught in our schools. For older generations like mine it was never on the curriculum. To understand why, one must at least dip a toe into the complicated history of the last 100 years. To help readers over this hurdle, I offer this ‘potted’ version. At least it will explain why, ten years ago, I went to see Palestine for myself. For centuries long our land enslaved by Turkish kings with sharpened blade. We prayed to end the Sultan’s curse, the British came and spoke a verse. “It’s World War One, if you agree to fight with us we’ll set you free.” The war we fought at Britain’s side, our blood was shed for Arab pride. At war’s end Turks were smitten, our only gain, the lies of Britain. Stephen Ostrander’s simple verse manages to cut through a mountain of rhetoric to the root cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict. There was a Jewish state in the Holy Land some 3,000 years ago, but the Canaanites and Philistines were there first. The Jews, one of several invading groups, left and returned several times, and were expelled by the Roman occupation in 70AD and again in 135AD. Since the 7th century Palestine has been mainly Arabic. During the First World War the country was ‘liberated’ from Turkish Ottoman rule after the Allied Powers, in correspondence between Sir Henry McMahon and Sharif Hussein ibn Ali of Mecca in 1915, promised independence to Arab leaders in return for their help in defeating Germany’s ally. At the same time, however, a new Jewish political movement called Zionism was finding favour among the ruling élite in London, and the British Government was persuaded by the Zionists’ chief spokesman, Chaim Weizman, to surrender Palestine for their new Jewish homeland. Hardly a thought, it seems, was given to the earlier pledge to the Arabs, who had occupied and owned the land for 1,500 years – longer, say some scholars, than the Jews ever did. The Zionists, fuelled by the notion that an ancient Biblical prophecy gave them the title deeds, aimed to push the Arabs out by inserting millions of Eastern European Jews. They had already set up farm communities and founded a new city, Tel Aviv, but by 1914 Jews numbered only 85,000 to the Arabs’ 615,000. The infamous Balfour Declaration of 1917 – actually a letter from the British foreign secretary, Lord Balfour, to the most senior Jew in England, Lord Rothschild – pledged assistance for the Zionist cause with apparent disregard for the consequences to the native majority. Calling itself a “declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations”, it said: “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing and non-Jewish communities….” Balfour, a Zionist convert, later wrote: “In Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country. The four powers are committed to Zionism and Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long tradition, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now occupy that land.” There was opposition. Lord Sydenham warned: “The harm done by dumping down an alien population upon an Arab country may never be remedied. What we have done, by concessions not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme section, is to start a running sore in the East, and no-one can tell how far that sore will extend.” The American King-Crane Commission of1919 thought it a gross violation of principle. “No British officers consulted by the Commissioners believed that the Zionist programme could be carried out except by force of arms. That, of itself, is evidence of a strong sense of the injustice of the Zionist programme.” There were other reasons why the British were courting disaster. A secret deal, called the Sykes-Picot Agreement, had been concluded in 1916 between France and Britain, in consultation with Russia, to re-draw the map of the Middle Eastern territories won from Turkey. Britain was to take Jordan, Iraq and Haifa. The area now referred to as Palestine was declared an international zone. The Sykes-Picot Agreement, the Balfour Declaration and the promises made earlier in the McMahon-Hussein letters all cut across each other. It seems to have been a classic case of the left hand not knowing what the right was doing in the confusion of war. Some distinguished Jews opposed a ‘national home’ in Palestine After the Russian Revolution of 1917 Lenin released a copy of the confidential Sykes-Picot Agreement into the public domain, sowing distrust among the Arabs. Thus the unfolding story had all the makings of a major tragedy. Subsequent crimes – on both sides – flow from this triple-cross. The Zionist organization asked permission to submit its proposal for Palestine to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, hitching a ride on the British request to be granted a mandate over Palestine in order to implement the Balfour Declaration. The Zionist case included the statement that “the land itself needs redemption. Much of it is left desolate. Its present condition is a standing reproach. Two things are necessary for that redemption – a stable and enlightened government, and an addition to the present population which shall be energetic, intelligent, devoted to the country, and backed by the large financial resources that are indispensable for development. Such a population the Jews alone can supply.” Prominent US Jews opposed to this move handed President Woodrow Wilson a counter-statement objecting to the Zionists’ plan, and asked him to present it to the peace conference. It said the scheme to reorganise the Jews as a national unit with territorial sovereignty in Palestine “not only misrepresents the trend of the history of the Jews, who ceased to be a nation 2000 years ago, but involves the limitation and possible annulment of the larger claims of Jews for full citizenship and human rights in all lands in which those rights are not yet secure. For the very reason that the new era upon which the world is entering aims to establish government everywhere on principles of true democracy, we reject the Zionistic project of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.” Foreseeing the future with uncanny accuracy, it went on to say, “We rejoice in the avowed proposal of the Peace Congress to put into practical application the fundamental principles of democracy. That principle, which asserts equal rights for all citizens of a state, irrespective of creed or ethnic descent, should be applied in such a manner as to exclude segregation of any kind, be it nationalistic or other. Such segregation must inevitably create differences among the sections of the population of a country. Any such plan of segregation is necessarily reactionary in its tendency, undemocratic in spirit and totally contrary to the practices of free government, especially as these are exemplified by our own country.” The counter-statement quoted Sir George Adam Smith, a noted biblical scholar and the acknowledged expert on the region, who had said: “It is not true that Palestine is the national home of the Jewish people and of no other people… It is not correct to call its non-Jewish inhabitants ‘Arabs’, or to say that they have left no image of their spirit and made no history except in the great Mosque… Nor can we evade the fact that Christian communities have been [there] as long as ever the Jews were… These are legitimate questions stirred up by the claims of Zionism, but the Zionists have not yet fully faced them”. America, England, France, Italy, Switzerland and all the most advanced nations of the world, it said, are composed of representatives of many races and religions. “Their glory lies in the freedom of conscience and worship, in the liberty of thought and custom which binds the followers of many faiths and varied civilizations in the common bonds of political union…. A Jewish State involves fundamental limitations as to race and religion, else the term ‘Jewish’ means nothing. To unite Church and State, in any form, as under the old Jewish hierarchy, would be a leap backward of two thousand years. Tasked with dispossessing Palestinians and expanding the Jewish State… Israeli troops: teenage gunslingers sometimes friendly, sometimes not. All the time I was aware of a third guard nearby with a gun on my back. “We ask that Palestine be constituted as a free and independent state, to be governed under a democratic form of government recognizing no distinctions of creed or race or ethnic descent, and with adequate power to protect the country against oppression of any kind. We do not wish to see Palestine, either now or at any time in the future, organized as a Jewish State .” But Wilson apparently failed to put the document before the Conference. In 1922 the League of Nations placed Palestine under British mandate, which incorporated the principles of the Balfour Declaration. Jewish immigration would be facilitated “under suitable conditions” and a nationality law would allow Jews taking up permanent residence to acquire Palestinian citizenship (in sharp contrast to the Jews-only law now operated by a dominant Israel). But the high commissioner was soon recommending a halt to Jewish immigration for fear that it would create a class of landless Arabs. That same year the British government, aware of Arab concerns that the Balfour Declaration was being interpreted in an “exaggerated” way by Zionists and their sympathisers, issued a White Paper to clarify the position. “The terms of the Declaration referred to,” it said, “do not contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but that such a Home should be founded ‘in Palestine’. In this connection it has been observed with satisfaction that at a meeting of the Zionist Congress, the supreme governing body of the Zionist Organization, held at Carlsbad in September, 1921, a resolution was passed expressing as the official statement of Zionist aims the determination of the Jewish people to live with the Arab people on terms of unity and mutual respect, and together with them to make the common home into a flourishing community, the upbuilding of which may assure to each of its peoples an undisturbed national development… “It is also necessary to point out that the Zionist Commission in Palestine, now termed the Palestine Zionist Executive, has not desired to possess, and does not possess, any share in the general administration of the country. Nor does the special position assigned to the Zionist Organization in Article IV of the Draft Mandate for Palestine imply any such functions. That special position relates to the measures to be taken in Palestine affecting the Jewish population, and contemplates that the organization may assist in the general development of the country, but does not entitle it to share in any degree in its government. “Further, it is contemplated that the status of all citizens of Palestine in the eyes of the law shall be Palestinian, and it has never been intended that they, or any section of them, should possess any other juridical status. “It is necessary,” said the White Paper with masterly ambiguity, “that the Jewish community in Palestine should be able to increase its numbers by immigration. This immigration cannot be so great in volume as to exceed whatever may be the economic capacity of the country at the time to absorb new arrivals. It is essential to ensure that the immigrants should not be a burden upon the people of Palestine as a whole, and that they should not deprive any section of the present population of their employment.” However, the White Paper flatly denied that a promise had been made to the Arabs ahead of the Balfour Declaration. “It is not the case, as has been represented by the Arab Delegation, that during the war His Majesty’s Government gave an undertaking that an independent national government should be at once established in Palestine. This representation mainly rests upon a letter dated the 24th October, 1915, from Sir Henry McMahon, then His Majesty’s High Commissioner in Egypt, to the Sharif of Mecca, now King Hussein of the Kingdom of the Hejaz. That letter is quoted as conveying the promise to the Sharif of Mecca to recognise and support the independence of the Arabs within the territories proposed by him. But this promise was given subject to a reservation made in the same letter, which excluded from its scope, among other territories, the portions of Syria lying to the west of the District of Damascus. This reservation has always been regarded by His Majesty’s Government as covering the vilayet of Beirut and the independent Sanjak of Jerusalem. The whole of Palestine west of the Jordan was thus excluded from Sir Henry McMahon’s pledge. “Nevertheless, it is the intention of His Majesty’s government to foster the establishment of a full measure of self-government in Palestine . But they are of the opinion that, in the special circumstances of that country, this should be accomplished by gradual stages…” From then on, the situation would go from bad to worse. Despicable Balfour: A Story of Betrayal – Part 2 November 2 marks the centenary of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which began the still-ongoing colonisation of Palestine and sowed the seeds of an endless nightmare for the Palestinian people. The UK Government needs to make amends for its crimes against the Holy Land. Campaigners are calling on it to apologise. Part 2 continues the Story of Betrayal…. In 1937 the Peel Commission declared that British promises to Arabs and Zionists were irreconcilable and unworkable. Too late, Britain dropped its commitment to the Zionists and began talking about a Palestinian state with a guaranteed Arab majority and protection for minorities. The Zionists reacted furiously. Their underground military wing, the Haganah, and other armed groups, unleashed a reign of terror in the run-up to World War II. They continued their attacks on the British after the war and tried to bring in hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees. In 1946 they blew up the south wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, which housed the British mandatory government, killing 91. This terrorist act was ordered by David Ben-Gurion in retaliation for the arrest of Haganah, Irgun and Stern Gang members suspected of attacks on the British. He then thought better of it and cancelled the operation but Menachem Begin, who led the Irgun, went ahead. Both Ben-Gurion and Begin, who had a big price on his head as a wanted terrorist, became Israeli prime ministers. Throughout this period the United States were reluctant to allow Jews fleeing Europe to enter the empty spaces of North America, preferring to play the Zionist game and see them funnelled into Palestine. In 1945 the new US president, Harry Truman, offered Arabs this excuse: “I am sorry, gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands of those who are anxious for the success of Zionism; I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents.” However, Truman was frequently exasperated by the Zionist lobby and on one occasion had a delegation thrown out of the White House for their table-thumping antics. He wrote: “I fear very much that the Jews are like all underdogs. When they get on top they are just as intolerant and cruel as the people were to them when they were underneath.” American author Gore Vidal provided an intriguing insight. “Sometime in the late 1950s, that world-class gossip and occasional historian, John F. Kennedy, told me how, in 1948, Harry S. Truman had been pretty much abandoned by everyone when he came to run for president. Then an American Zionist brought him two million dollars in cash, in a suitcase, aboard his whistle-stop campaign train. ‘That’s why our recognition of Israel was rushed through so fast.’ As neither Jack nor I was an antisemite (unlike his father and my grandfather) we took this to be just another funny story about Truman and the serene corruption of American politics.” By now this monster Britain had breathed life into, was running out of control. The Arabs, tricked and dispossessed, were outraged. The collision has been fatally damaging to the West’s relationship with Islam ever since. As the violence escalated, Gandhi was moved to comment: “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English. They (the Jews) have erred grievously in seeking to impose themselves on Palestine with the aid of America and Britain and now with the aid of naked terrorism.” With the mandate about to expire in 1948 an exhausted Britain handed over the problem to the United Nations and prepared to quit the Holy Land, leaving a powder-keg with the fuse fizzing. The newly-formed UN thought it would save the situation by partitioning Palestine into Arab and Jewish states and making Jerusalem an international city. But this gave the Jews 55 percent of Palestine when they accounted for only 30 percent of the population. The Arab League and the Palestinians of course rejected it. Map 1: 1947 UN Partition of Palestine Under the UN Partition Plan the Jews received 55% of the country (including both Tel Aviv/Jaffa and Haifa port cities, the Sea of Galilee and the resource-rich Negev) although they accounted for only a third of the population (548,000 out of 1,750,000) and owned only 6% of the land. The Jewish community accepted the Partition Plan; the Palestinians (except those in the Communist Party) and the Arab countries rejected it. The UN Partition of Palestine never did stand close scrutiny. At that time, as some commentators have pointed out, UN members did not include African states, and most Arab and Asian states were still under colonialist regimes. The UN was pretty much a white colonialist club. The Palestinians themselves had no representation and they weren’t even consulted. The first vote failed to reach the required two-thirds majority: 25 for partition, 13 against and 19 abstentions. To ensure success in the second vote a good deal of arm-twisting was applied to the smaller countries, but again it fell short. At the third attempt France was persuaded to come “on board” after the US threatened to withdraw desperately needed post-WW2 aid, and on November 29 the UN voted to partition Palestine into three parts: a Jewish state on 14,000 sq km with some 558,000 Jews and 405,000 Palestinian Arabs; and an Arab state on 11,500 sq km with about 804,000 Palestinian Arabs and 10,000 Jews. Jerusalem, including major religious sites, would be a ‘corpus separatum’, internationally administered. Map 2: Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories By the end of the 1948 war Israel controlled 78% of the country, including half the territory that had been allocated by the UN to the Palestinians. Around 750,000 Palestinians living in what became Israel were made refugees: only 100,000 remained in their homes. More than 418 villages (two-thirds of the villages of Palestine) were systematically destroyed by Israel after their residents had left or been driven out. The Arab areas were now reduced to 22% of the country, the West Bank was taken by Jordan and Gaza by Egypt. The 1949 Armistice Line (the “Green Line”) remains the de facto boundary of the State of Israel until today. Since 1988, when thePalestinians recognized Israel within that boundary, it has been the basis of the two-state option. This ludicrous carve-up was quickly followed by shameful incidents at Deir Yassin, Lod and Ramle. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs were uprooted from their homes and lands and to this day are denied the right to return. They received no compensation, and after their expulsion Jewish militia obliterated hundreds of Arab villages and towns. No sooner had Britain packed her bags than Israel declared statehood on 14 May 1948 and immediately set about expanding control across all of Palestine. The following day, 15 May, is remembered by Palestinians as the Day of al-Nakba (the Catastrophe), which saw the start of a military terror campaign that forced three-quarters of a million Palestinians from their homeland to make room for the new Jewish state. Some 34 massacres were allegedly committed in pursuit of Israel’s territorial ambitions. An event permanently etched on the Palestinian memory is the massacre at Deir Yassin by Zionist terror groups, the Irgun and the Stern Gang. On an April morning in 1948 130 of their commandos carried out a dawn raid on this small Arab town with a population of 750, to the west of Jerusalem. The attack was initially beaten off, and only when a crack unit of the Haganah arrived with mortars were the Arab townsmen overwhelmed. The Irgun and the Stern Gang, smarting from the embarrassment of having to summon help, embarked on a ‘clean-up’ operation in which they systematically murdered and executed at least 100 residents – mostly women, children and old people. The Irgun afterwards exaggerated the number, quoting 254, to frighten other Arab towns and villages. The Haganah played down their part in the raid and afterwards said the massacre “disgraced the cause of Jewish fighters and dishonoured Jewish arms and the Jewish flag”. Deir Yassin signaled the ominous beginning of a deliberate programme by Israel to depopulate Arab towns and villages – and destroy churches and mosques – to make room for incoming Holocaust survivors and other Jews. In any language it was an exercise in ethnic cleansing, the knock-on effects of which have created an estimated 4 million Palestinian refugees today. By 1949 the Zionists had seized nearly 80 percent of Palestine, provoking the resistance backlash they so bitterly complain about today. Many Jews condemn the Zionist policy and are ashamed of what has been done in their name. UN Resolution 194 had called on Israel to let the Palestinians back onto their land. It has been re-passed many times, but Israel is still in breach. The Israelis also stand accused of violating Article 42 of the Geneva Convention by moving settlers into the Palestinian territories it occupies, and of riding roughshod over international law with their occupation of the Gaza Strip and West Bank. But expulsion and transfer were always a key part of the Zionist plan. According to historian Benny Morris no mainstream Zionist leader was able to conceive of future co-existence without a clear physical separation between the two peoples. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, is reported to have said: “With compulsory transfer we have a vast area (for settlement)…I support compulsory transfer. I don’t see anything immoral in it.” He showed astonishing candour on another occasion when he remarked: “If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. We have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it is true, but 2,000 years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti- Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country.” General Moshe Dayan, hero of the Six Day War (1967), made it known to Palestinians in the territories that “you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes, may leave, and we shall see where this process will lead.” That appears to have been the general attitude ever since. In 1967 Israel perceived a number of Arab threats designed to check Zionist ambitions, including a blockade of their Red Sea port. In a series of pre-emptive strikes against Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Iraq, Israel succeeded in doubling the area of land under its control. Indeed, in the wake of the 1967 Six Day War Israel confiscated over 52 percent of the land in the West Bank and 30 percent of the Gaza Strip, violating both international law and the UN Charter, which says that a country cannot lawfully make territorial gains from war. It was reported that Israel demolished 1,338 Palestinian homes in the West Bank and detained some 300,000 Palestinians without trial. The UN issued Security Council Resolution 242, stressing “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” and calling for “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict”. It was largely ignored, thus guaranteeing further discord in the region. Israel’s most notorious prime minister, Ariel Sharon, made a name for himself in 1953 when his secret death squad, Unit 101, dynamited homes and massacred 69 Palestinian civilians – half of them women and children – at Qibya in the West Bank. His troops later destroyed 2,000 homes in the Gaza Strip, uprooting 12,000 people and deporting hundreds of young Palestinians to Jordan and Lebanon. Then in 1982 he masterminded Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, which resulted in a massive death toll of Palestinians and Lebanese, a large proportion being children. An Israeli tribunal found him indirectly responsible for the massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps and removed him from office. But he didn’t stay in the background for long. By the end of 1967 there were just 3 illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem. By the end of 2005 the total was 177. “When we have settled the land,” the then chief of staff of the Israeli Defence Force, Rafael Eitan, remarked in 1983, “all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.” By 2015 there were 196 illegal Israeli settlements in addition to 232 settler outposts in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to the Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem, and upwards of 750,000 settlers residing there. Apartheid and occupation: “in practice there is little difference” So what sort of person was responsible for this misery and mayhem in the Holy Land – the “running sore” Lord Sydenham predicted? At Cambridge Arthur Balfour read moral sciences (no, seriously!). Much good it did the poor Palestinian Arabs he helped dispossess. Described as born lazy, aloof and having an attitude problem, he was convinced of his personal superiority and wished to keep the vulgar world at arm’s length. Balfour famously remarked: “Nothing matters very much, and few things matter at all.” He had been Prime Minister (1902-1905) and was regarded as weak. At the time of the Declaration blunder he was Foreign Secretary. In the words of one commentator Balfour’s career “stretches before our eyes in a flat and uneventful plain of successful but inglorious and ineffective self-seeking”. He was said to be a man who would make almost any sacrifice to remain in office. In this case, he sacrificed the Arab homeland. In 1922 the League of Nations put Palestine under British mandate, which incorporated the principles of the Balfour’s Declaration. How have things turned out? John Dugard, a professor of international law and former Special Rapporteur to the UN Human Rights Council on the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, explained on Aljazeera the differences and similarities between apartheid South Africa and apartheid Israel. http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/11/201111395153781378.html Of course, the regimes of apartheid and occupation are different. Apartheid South Africa was a state that practised discrimination against its own people. It sought to fragment the country into white South Africa and black Bantustans. Its security laws were used to brutally suppress opposition to apartheid. Israel, on the other hand, is an occupying power that controls a foreign territory and its people under a regime recognised by international law [as] belligerent occupation. However, in practice, there is little difference. Both regimes were/are characterised by discrimination, repression and territorial fragmentation (that is, land seizures). Israel discriminates against Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in favour of half a million Israeli settlers. Its restrictions on freedom of movement, manifested in countless humiliating checkpoints, resemble the “pass laws” of apartheid. Its destruction of Palestinian homes resembles the destruction of homes belonging to blacks under apartheid’s Group Areas Act. The confiscation of Palestinian farms under the pretext of building a security wall brings back similar memories. And so on. Indeed, Israel has gone beyond apartheid South Africa in constructing separate (and unequal) roads for Palestinians and settlers. Apartheid’s security police practised torture on a large scale. So do the Israeli security forces. There were many political prisoners on Robben Island but there are more Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. Apartheid South Africa seized the land of blacks for whites. Israel has seized the land of Palestinians for half a million settlers and for the purposes of constructing a security wall within Palestinian territory – both of which are contrary to international law. Dugard suggested there is sufficient evidence for a legitimate enquiry into the question whether Israel violates the prohibition of apartheid found in the 1973 Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute. Sydenham’s “running sore” has been festering for a century, crippling the Middle East and turning the Holy Land into an abomination. Balfour and his fellow Zionist stooges in the corridors of British power clearly had no understanding of the true purpose and base methods of Zionism. This is also true of present-day Christian-Zionists. Some Christian churches have rejected Zionist doctrine as false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation. They deplore the cosy relationship between Christian Zionist leaders and the governments of Israel and the United States that impose their pre-emptive borders and domination over Palestine. And they condemn the teachings of Christian Zionism that support those policies as they encourage racial exclusivity and perpetual war. In other words, no Christian with a functioning brain cell should touch Zionism with a bargepole. Yet the upper echelons of our government and many Western churches are riddled with Zionist sympathisers. Unless they are smoked out, a hundred years from now an outraged civil society will still be calling for government apologies for the actions of that lunatic Balfour and his successors. Related Posts:

London Terrorist Attack: What We Know and Don’t Know - The New York Times

The New York Times

This article was last updated at 1:30 p. m. Thursday. Visit this page for full coverage of the attack. In a deadly attack on Wednesday in London, a man driving a sport utility vehicle crushed pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, then stabbed and killed a police officer outside Parliament. • The police on Thursday revised the death toll to four from five. The victims were Kurt W. Cochran, an American tourist in his 50s Aysha Frade, 43, a British teacher and Police Constable Keith Palmer. . About 40 others were wounded. • The London police identified the assailant, who died in the attack, as Khalid Masood, 52, who had an extensive criminal history but no terrorism convictions. Mr. Masood was born in Kent, in southeastern England, and recently lived around Birmingham, the city where the car used in the attack had been rented. • Eight people were arrested in London and Birmingham after searches at six properties around Britain. The police said that “a full counterterrorism investigation was underway. ” • The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, describing the assailant as a “soldier. ” • The casualties included 12 Britons, at least four South Koreans, three French children, two Romanians, two Greeks and citizens of several other countries. • Parliament Square and its immediate vicinity remained cordoned off to the public Thursday morning, but lawmakers have resumed their normal business. • Whether the authorities shared information about Mr. Masood. The London police said that “Masood was not the subject of any current investigations, and there was no prior intelligence about his intent to mount a terrorist attack. ” But Prime Minister Theresa May said earlier that MI5, the domestic counterintelligence agency, had looked into the assailant “in relation to concerns about violent extremism. ” • The severity of the injuries among the 40 or so wounded. • The veracity of the Islamic State’s claim, and the extent to which the group was involved in planning and carrying out the attack. Photographs — some of them graphic — showed victims lying on Westminster Bridge on the sidewalk outside the Parliament building on Wednesday.

John Podesta’s New Global Order

Cliff Kincaid

John Podesta’s New Global Order John Podesta’s New Global Order October 28, 2016, 5:44 am by Cliff Kincaid Leave a Comment 0 Accuracy in Media In one of her secret speeches, Hillary Clinton said, “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders…” Before this comment was revealed, Adam Taylor of The Washington Post tried to assure everyone that the idea of a North American Union, like the meddlesome and bureaucratic European Union, was dead. Such talk, he said, emanated from “fringe websites” and “conspiracy theorists.” The Hillary speech was made to a Brazilian bank known as Itaú BBA, which describes itself as “Latin America’s largest Corporate & Investment Bank” and part of the Itaú Unibanco group, “one of the world’s largest financial conglomerates.” The problem for Taylor and other faux journalists is that there is a whole body of research on the topic of a “ North American Law Project ,” designed to integrate the legal systems of the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The project is run out of American University’s Center for North American Studies, where students can concentrate in North American Studies . As a matter of fact, such degrees are being offered by several different colleges and universities, including Canada’s McGill University . Passed in 1993, NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, began the process of harmonizing laws among the U.S., Canada and Mexico. But the Council on Foreign Relations admits that the U.S.-Mexico trade balance swung from a $1.7 billion U.S. surplus in 1993 to a $54 billion deficit by 2014. This has led to a loss of about 600,000 jobs. In addition to shipping jobs to Mexico, NAFTA constituted subversion of our constitutional system. President Clinton submitted NAFTA as an agreement, requiring only a majority of votes in both Houses of Congress for passage, and not a treaty, which would have required a two-thirds vote in favor in the Senate. NAFTA passed by votes of 234-200 in the House and 61-38 in the Senate. A money crash soon followed in 1995 as Mexico was hit by a peso crisis, and a U.S. bailout was arranged. Congress would not bail out Mexico, so Clinton arranged for loans and guarantees to Mexico totaling almost $40 billion through the International Monetary Fund and the “Exchange Stabilization Fund.” Meanwhile, pressure has been building for the creation of a “North American Community”—also known as a “North American Union”—with regular meetings involving the leaders of the three countries. On June 29, 2016, the Obama White House issued a fact sheet on this year’s “North American Leaders’ Summit.” It said, “The economies of the United States, Canada, and Mexico are deeply integrated. Canada and Mexico are our second and third largest trading partners. Our trade with them exceeds $1.2 trillion dollars annually.” The leaders of these countries agreed to establish a “North American Caucus” to “more effectively work in concert on regional and global issues by holding semi-annual coordination meetings among our foreign ministries.” One item on the agenda was for the leaders to reaffirm “North America’s strong support for [Colombian] President Santos’s efforts to finalize a peace accord with the FARC guerrillas.” That fell apart on October 2 when a “peace deal” with the communist terrorists was voted down by the people of Colombia. But notice how these leaders claim to speak for “North America.” Going global, they also declared, “North America is committed to joint and coordinated actions to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda.” This is U.N.-speak for global taxes and other forms of foreign aid from the U.S. to the rest of the world. We noted in a column last year that the American people, through their elected representatives, have had absolutely no input in developing the new global agenda that President Obama has tried to implement without the input or approval of Congress. Interestingly, one of those deeply involved in this global agenda, as we noted at the time, was John Podesta, the chairman of the 2016 Hillary Clinton presidential campaign who previously served as counselor to Obama. Podesta’s emails are at the center of the WikiLeaks disclosures about the operations of the Clinton campaign, the Clinton Foundation and the Democratic Party. Podesta, founder of the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress and a member of the elitist Trilateral Commission , went to work for Obama as a senior policy consultant on climate change. A liberal Catholic, he has been a professor at Georgetown Law School. One of the leaked emails shows Podesta saying that he applauds the work of Pope Francis on climate change and that “all my Jesuit friends say the Pope is the real deal.” Podesta was picked by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to be a member of the “high-level panel” of “eminent persons” planning the future of the globe. This so-called “High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda” released an 81-page report titled, “A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies through Sustainable Development.” “In simplest terms,” explains Patrick Wood, author of Technocracy Rising: The Trojan Horse of Global Transformation , “Sustainable Development is a replacement economic system for capitalism and free enterprise. It is a system based on resource allocation and usage rather than on supply and demand and free economic market forces.” In this context, Wood argues that the major significance of the transfer of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is not the immediate need by the U.N. or some countries to censor websites, but to generate revenue for global purposes. ICANN will do this, he argues, through management of the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), the links between the Internet and networks, electronic devices and embedded technology with IP addresses. “IoT are the connections between inanimate objects and the humans that depend upon them,” he notes. To accomplish this, ICANN has devised a new IP numbering system called IPV6, described as the “ vital expansion ” of the Internet. “In terms of ‘follow the money,’ IoT is expected to generate upwards of $3 trillion by 2025 and is growing at a rate of at least 30 percent per year,” Wood argues . “In other words, it is a huge market and money is flying everywhere. If the UN can figure out a way to tax this market, and they will, it will provide a windfall of income and perhaps enough to make it self-perpetuating.” He adds, “Congress never understood this when they passively let Obama fail to renew our contract with ICANN. However, Obama and his globalist handlers understood it perfectly well, which makes the deception and treachery of it even worse.” Under the cover of “sustainable development,” Wood predicts the Internet will be used to construct a massive database on human activities, in order to monitor and control nations’ and peoples’ access to resources. It will constitute ultimate socialist control and a form of “digital slavery,” from which he warns there may be no return. Cliff Kincaid Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org. View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid . 0

Donald Trump Thanks InfoWarriors & ALT Media For The Win

Mike Rivero

Find UFOs, The Apocalypse, New World Order, Political Analysis, Alternative Health, Armageddon, Conspiracies, Prophecies, Spirituality,Home Schooling, Home Mortgages and more, in: The Rumor Mill News Reading Room Donald Trump Thanks InfoWarriors & ALT Media For The Win !! vid Posted By: [ Send E-Mail ]Date: Saturday, 12-Nov-2016 01:55:03 Trump calls Alex Jones to thank him and all those that helped get the truth out to make this election victory happen. those that passed on information are "Info Warriors", and are deeply appreciated. Kings and Presidents from all over the world called trump to congratulate him and Trump took time to than all of us personally. If you enjoyed this article, Please consider a monthly subscription to Rumor Mill News!! RMN is an RA production. The only pay your RMN moderators receivecomes from ads. Please consider putting RMN inyour ad blocker's whitelist.

Angela Merkel to Seek 4th Term as Germany’s Leader - The New York Times

Alison Smale

BERLIN — Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, under siege domestically but widely seen as a pillar of Western liberalism, announced on Sunday that she will seek a fourth term next year. Slightly hoarse but clearly determined after consulting leaders of her conservative Christian Democratic party, Ms. Merkel said the decision to seek a fourth term was “anything but trivial,” for her country, for her party and for herself. A scientist with a manner, Ms. Merkel rejected the idea that, after the election of Donald J. Trump as president in the United States, she had a lone role in keeping Western liberalism alive. “That is grotesque, even almost absurd,” she told reporters. But she also said that the campaign ahead of the German elections in fall 2017 would be unlike any other she has fought in an increasingly polarized country. She faces stronger challenges on the right and left, while the war in Syria, the arrival of large numbers of migrants and the continuing euro crisis tear at Germany and place new demands on its people. Since the election in the United States, speculation had mounted that Ms. Merkel would bow to pressure to run again and uphold liberal values in a world transformed by Mr. Trump’s victory and Britain’s vote last summer to leave the European Union. Ms. Merkel, 62, has served 11 years as chancellor. She is the first woman and the first person raised in Communist East Germany to hold the post. Since coming to power in 2005, Ms. Merkel has gradually acquired a political stature commensurate with the power of her country, Western Europe’s largest economy and its most populous nation, with about 81 million inhabitants. But her image as the cautious caretaker of her country’s interests has suffered over the past year, after she opened Germany to hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers, many of them Muslim refugees fleeing wars in the Middle East and Africa. The prospect of integrating almost 1 million newcomers into Germany has weakened Ms. Merkel’s standing at home, despite garnering some praise, particularly from President Obama. Visiting Berlin last week, Mr. Obama lavished compliments on his ally in his eight years in office, saying that if he were German, he would vote for her. Ms. Merkel responded to the election of Mr. Trump with a robust appeal for him to follow Western values and respect human dignity. This, she said, was the basis of any close cooperation. Even as commentators and leaders outside Germany invoked her stature, Ms. Merkel has been eager not to hog the limelight. “One person alone can never solve everything,” she said on Friday at a news conference with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain. “We are strong only together. In that, I want to do what my duty is as chancellor. ” In the days before her party leadership met on Sunday, several Christian Democrats said that the next parliamentary elections would be difficult to win with Ms. Merkel, but impossible to win without her. As she entered the atrium of her party headquarters on Sunday, she was applauded by about two dozen people on a balcony. While Ms. Merkel mentioned several times that her ability to continue would be contingent on good health, she showed little weariness and gradually became almost feisty as she outlined the challenges to German industry and citizens in the 21st century. Germans should stick to their tried and tested concept of “social market economy,” a blend of welfare state and capitalism, as they navigate this new world, Ms. Merkel said. But she acknowledged that even in this conservative and comparatively wealthy country, politics has been thrown into turmoil by the rise of the populist, Alternative for Germany party. It is now in 10 of the country’s 16 state Parliaments and seems certain to win seats in the federal Parliament next year. That would scramble conventional coalition building, since no mainstream party has been willing to govern with the populists. Frauke Petry, one of the leaders of Alternative for Germany, criticized the idea of Ms. Merkel’s gaining another four years in office. “Germany cannot afford another term for Angela Merkel,” Ms. Petry wrote on Twitter. Ms. Merkel’s role as a beacon of liberal values may also be dented by the power of populism elsewhere in Europe, whose union has been thrown into ever greater doubt since Britain, the Continent’s leading military power, voted in June to leave the European Union. Next month, Italy votes on constitutional reforms that Prime Minister Matteo Renzi considers crucial to his country’s modernity. Austria will choose a president in an election plagued by delays, and may see the first politician elected as head of state in modern Europe. The Netherlands, France and Germany all hold pivotal elections next year, with the ballot in France being closely watched as a bellwether for the strength of populism as embodied by the National Front of Marine Le Pen. Speaking in Berlin last week, Prime Minister Manuel Valls of France predicted that “Europe can die” as a result of the populist wave and the economic and political dissonance in the European Union. Ms. Merkel has guided Germany and, increasingly, Europe though myriad crises. She was chancellor during the 2008 financial crisis, and was much criticized for German insistence on austerity during the Greek debt crisis and the subsequent pressure on the euro. Since Russia flexed its military muscle by seizing Crimea and meddling in Ukraine in 2014, Ms. Merkel has been the main Western interlocutor to President Vladimir V. Putin. Ms. Merkel has also led her country in abandoning nuclear power, and has moved her conservative party firmly to the center on social policy. Her personal ratings peaked in 2014 at over 80 percent, when she was handling the Ukraine crisis, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung’s compilation of readings on the Politbarometer poll since she took office. On that scale, her lowest score was 50 percent in late 2010, when Germany joined European efforts to avert a bankruptcy by Greece.

Checkmating Obama

Caroline Glick

Originally published by the Jerusalem Post . In one of the immortal lines of Godfather 2 , mafia boss Michael Corleone discusses the fate of his brother, who betrayed him, with his enforcer. “I don’t want anything to happen to him while my mother is alive,” Corleone said. Message received. The brother was murdered after their mother’s funeral. Last week it was reported that the Obama administration has delivered a message to the Palestinian Authority. The administration has warned the PA that the US will veto any anti-Israel resolution brought before the UN Security Council before the US presidential elections on November 8. Message received. Open season on Israel at the Security Council will commence November 9. The Palestinians are planning appropriately. Israel needs to plan, too. Israel’s most urgent diplomatic mission today is to develop and implement a strategy that will outflank President Barack Obama in his final eight weeks in power. Lobbying the administration is pointless. Obama has waited eight years to exact his revenge on Israel for not supporting his hostile, strategically irrational policies. And he has no interest in letting bygones be bygones. Before turning to what Israel must do, first we need to understand what Israel can do. A good place to begin is by considering what just transpired at UNESCO, where twice in a week, UNESCO bodies resolved to erase 3,000 years of Jewish history in Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. The fight that Israel waged at UNESCO is not the fight it needs to wage at the Security Council. The stakes at the Security Council are far higher. Like the UN General Assembly, UNESCO’s decisions are non-binding declarations that have no legal or operational significance. As such, there is no reason to expend great resources to fight them. For Israel, the goal of the fight at UNESCO is not to defeat anti-Israel initiatives. That is impossible given the Palestinians’ automatic majority. The purpose of the fight at UNESCO is to humiliate European governments that side with antisemitic initiatives, and to weaken the congenitally anti-Israel body itself. The government achieved both of these objectives. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s disavowal of his own government’s abstention from the vote on the first resolution – like the similar position taken after the fact by the Mexican government – was a diplomatic victory for Israel. So too, the fact that UNESCO’s own Secretary-General Irina Bukova felt compelled to disavow her own agency’s actions by rejecting the resolution’s denial of the Jewish people’s ties to Jerusalem was a significant victory for Israel. Her statement was deeply damaging for UNESCO and its reputation. Finally, the fact that Tanzania and the Philippines voted against the resolution was a testament to Israel’s capacity to convince other governments to abandon their traditional pro-Palestinian voting pattern. The Palestinians won the vote at UNESCO because they are more powerful diplomatically than Israel. They have an automatic anti-Israel majority. But they weren’t empowered by their victory. To the contrary. They were bloodied by it. In a sign of their weakening hold on member nations, the Palestinians and Jordanians felt compelled to send a threatening letter to the members of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee lest they dare to vote against the resolution. Powerful players don’t make threats. They don’t need to. Israel’s experience at UNESCO teaches us that there are governments that are open to counteroffers. Israel doesn’t need to hide in America’s shadow. It is capable of working on its own to blunt the impact of the Palestinians’ automatic majority. And it will need to use all of its resources to fend off a US-backed assault at the Security Council. Unlike UNESCO, the Security Council can pass legally binding resolutions. Israel needs to be prepared to bring all of its resources to bear to prevent such a resolution from being adopted against it. Obama’s intention to abandon Israel at the Security Council means that Israel comes to this battle severely hobbled. But there is one advantage to the US’s betrayal. Over the years, Israel’s ability to trust the US to veto anti-Israel resolutions at the Security Council was been a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the US has secured Israel from diplomatic assaults. But on the other hand, our ability to trust Washington has made us diplomatically lazy and ineffective. Safe in Washington’s shadow, we have behaved as through all diplomacy is public diplomacy. That is, we have pretended that statecraft begins and ends with making the moral or strategic case for our side against the other guys. But public diplomacy is just one diplomatic tool. The Syrian regime, for instance, has no moral case for securing international support. Bashar Assad didn’t convince Russian President Vladimir Putin to support him by arguing that he is better than alternative regimes. He bought Putin’s support by offering him permanent air and naval bases in Syria. Then there is Morocco, another weak state with no public diplomacy case to make. Last March, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon outraged Rabat when he acknowledged the plain fact that Western Sahara, which Morocco occupies, is “occupied territory.” Morocco quickly secured the support of Spain and France and launched an all-out onslaught against Ban. How did Morocco manage? Morocco’s most powerful diplomatic resource is its control over migration flows from North Africa to Europe. Anytime it wishes, Rabat can open the migratory floodgates just as easily as it can keep them shut. And the French and Spanish know it. In less than a month, Ban issued repeated abject apologies. Game. Set. Match. Morocco. From reports to date, it appears that shortly after the US elections on November 8, the Malaysians or Egyptians will submit a Palestinian-backed resolution that defines Israeli communities in united Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria as illegal. If the resolution is brought to a vote, the US will fail to veto it. Such a resolution, or a resolution obligating Israel to withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines, would cause Israel grave harm. So what resources does Israel have to prevent this from happening? Of course, we have public diplomacy. And that might work with some friendly nations. But it won’t get us over the top. We need to learn from the Syrian and Moroccan examples and consider what we have to offer Security Council members in exchange for their support in scuttling the approaching onslaught against us. One such resource is the US Congress. Israel’s allies in Congress are sickened by the Obama administration’s devastating Middle East policies. A solid majority of lawmakers can be trusted to support actions that will reinforce Israel’s position. Israel has other resources as well that we can trade on. We have natural gas. And we have technologies that the governments of the world require to surmount the challenges of the 21 century. There is no reason to give these resources away when we can trade them for diplomatic support. As for the Palestinians, as the UNESCO vote showed, they are less popular now than at any time in the past 40 years. All they have to offer is threats and antisemitism. Both are powerful weapons. But they are no longer invincible. Israel’s goal must be to use our resources at the Security Council in a manner that will make it impossible for Obama to enable an anti-Israel resolution to pass. A method for achieving this goal has two components. The first component is to convince a friendly country on the Security Council to propose a balanced resolution that would counter the Palestinian-backed Israel-bashing one. Such a resolution could include four points. First, it could deplore efforts to deny Jewish history in Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. Second, it can condemn the PA/PLO for their continued unlawful funding of terrorists. Third, it can urge Israel to restrain settlement construction in areas that in previous negotiations have been identified as likely territory for a future Palestinian state. Fourth, it can call on Israel and the PA to reinstate negotiations immediately without preconditions. Israel has friendly ties with a few Security Council members, among them Uruguay and New Zealand. In the final weeks of the Obama era, it is possible that Israel will be able to convince one of them to submit a balanced resolution along these lines. Obama would be hard-pressed to oppose such a resolution in favor of one that singles Israel out for rebuke. But that still is insufficient. Obama can make Uruguay and New Zealand a better offer if he wishes. And so we move to the second aspect of the plan. If we learn nothing else from the Obama era, we must recognize that the time has come for Israel to stop sufficing with just one Security Council veto. Most states have several. And we need a few more. Russia today is the best place to start our search for a second veto. Putin is a dealmaker. As his agreement with Assad showed, he is willing to consider attractive offers. Obviously, Israel won’t offer Russia bases. But we do have other things to offer Putin in exchange for a veto. For instance, in exchange for a Russian veto at the Security Council, Israel can offer Putin to lobby the US Congress to cancel US sanctions against Russia over Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Israel has no dog in that fight. And the sanctions are not getting the US anywhere. Putin might go for the deal for two reasons. First, by stepping into the breach and defending Israel against Obama, he will humiliate Obama. Second, if Israel succeeds with the Congress, he will reap economic rewards. For his part, Putin wouldn’t even have to openly side with Israel. All he would have to do is announce that in the interests of regional stability, Russia will not support an unbalanced resolution on Israel and the Palestinians. If Putin supports a balanced resolution, Obama will be checkmated. His plan to take revenge on Israel for not following him off the strategic cliff will be foiled. Israel will have survived his presidency. None of this will be easy. And success is far from assured. There are many more ways for Israel to fail than succeed. Our diplomatic weakness remains a millstone around our neck. But as the UNESCO resolutions showed, attacking Israel is no longer cost free. We are not powerless in the grip of circumstances. We have cards to play. And now is the time to play them for all they are worth.

Comment on Are You On Pace To Reach Your Goals? by 4 Goals For The Neomasculinity Movement During Trump’s First Term

4 Goals For The Neomasculinity Movement During Trump’s First Term

Home This Month Popular Are You On Pace To Reach Your Goals? Are You On Pace To Reach Your Goals? February 2, 2013 20 Comments Lifestyle Today is February 2, 2013 and you’re one month closer to death. What have you done this year to improve yourself? Some may say New Years resolutions are cop-outs for actually setting reasonable goals, instead of starting today we say “In a week I’ll hit the gym and finally get ripped!” I like the idea of coming up with goals and plans to achieve them for January 1st of the next year. The start of each year is a mental rebirth, January 1 is a new snow begging for you to make fresh tracks in it, a blank canvas yearning to be painted on. However, many do use New Years resolutions to feel better about themselves. They gorge themselves on baked goods, drink heartily and fail to exercise throughout the month of December telling themselves that “next year will be different” and “just one last time before I change.” This is not the case for us here at Return of Kings. We are different — writers, readers, and commenters all strive to build themselves into the man they want to be. Personally, I had some slip-ups through the month of January, but what sets the determined apart from the shambling masses is that we pick ourselves up and keep pushing forward one step at a time . I started the year off strong my days and nights booked full with dates, time with girlfriends, reconnecting with old friends. I eschewed online dating and become more social during the day time. I broke PRs on all of my lifts, dropped a few pounds, and sought coaching for the Olympic lifts. Most importantly I held myself accountable for all of my actions. If I ate too much, drank too much or didn’t take opportunities I should have, I picked myself up and adapted. Push forward and give everything you have. How bad do you want it? What happens when you reach your goal? Do you aim higher, or do you stop there and remain content with being slightly above average ? If you choose the latter and have finite, concrete goals you are already anticipating the day you can quit building yourself. You’re doomed for failure.Don’t ever miss an opportunity to get better , take risks , analyze your successes/failures, and don’t stop until you’ve surpassed your goals. Then strive to be better, faster and stronger. What are your goals for 2013? Are they SMART ? Do you have a purpose ? Do you want to have sex with more beautiful women, learn a language , lift more weight and make more money? Do you have an accountability buddy or do you journal and meticulously track your progress? How is your progress going? Feb 2, 2013 Western Cancer

Dios crea otro huracán sólo para ver qué nombre le ponen

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Dios crea otro huracán sólo para ver qué nombre le ponen LOS METEORÓLOGOS LO HAN LLAMADO “HURACÁN NANCY” COMO A TODOS LOS DEMÁS terremoto Con la intención de vencer el aburrimiento, Dios Nuestro Señor, ha decidido enviar un huracán de categoría 5 a la Tierra sólo para comprobar qué nombre se inventan los meteorólogos para referirse a él. Según han informado fuentes cercanas al Altísimo, Dios confía en que si genera suficientes huracanes en el planeta, los meteorólogos se verán obligados a recurrir a nombre rebuscados y divertidos como “Huracán Turbo” o “Huracán Papufro”. “Estaba sentado sin nada que hacer y he pensado en enviar un huracán a ver si le llaman Carlos o Katrina o Niño”, ha declarado el creador de todas las cosas. “Los hombres se inventan unas cosas que te partes de risa. Si el nombre me gusta, lo subo de categoría 5 a categoría 6, para que sea más famoso”, ha admitido el Santo Padre. “Ojalá le pongan ‘Huracán Mistetas'”, ha declarado Dios entre risas. Imagina que con dos millones de huracanes más los hombres acabarían bautizando con ese nombre a algún huracán especialmente mortífero. Por ahora, los meteorólogos han bautizado este tifón como “Sin título número 1” hasta que les llegue la inspiración, aunque no descartan llamarlo “Huracán Nancy”, como han llamado a los quince anteriores. El protocolo marca que hasta que no disponen de un nombre atractivo no pueden alertar a la población de la llegada del huracán. Al cierre de la edición, las fuentes han informado que Dios sigue aburrido y está planeando generar un terremoto para ver qué nota le ponen.

After Bombings, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump Clash Over Terrorism - The New York Times

Alexander Burns and Nicholas Confessore

A suspect in a bombing was still at large Monday morning, his motives and intentions unknown — but Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump were already racing to seize the political upper hand. With a manhunt still in progress before an arrest later in the day, Mrs. Clinton sought to shift the terms of the presidential contest back in her direction. She called Mr. Trump a “recruiting sergeant for the terrorists” and, from a rainy airport in White Plains, offered herself as a seasoned warrior against terrorism. Mr. Trump returned fire hours later, blaming Mrs. Clinton and President Obama’s handling of immigration and the Iraq war for bringing terrorism to American shores. He called for vigorous police profiling of people from the Muslim world and drew a direct equation between immigration controls and national defense. The attacks could reframe the presidential race around stark questions of national security after weeks of sniping between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton over more personal matters of character, transparency and medical records. The violence of the weekend is all but certain to ripple in the first presidential debate, set for next Monday at Hofstra University on Long Island. For both the candidates and their parties, the bombings in New York and New Jersey over the weekend are a critical inflection point. Not since the Iraq war has the mantle of national security and protection been more vigorously contested than it has been in this campaign, or its textures more difficult to define. With seven weeks left in the campaign, the candidates’ responses to an apparent terrorist plot on American soil could sharply alter voters’ views not only of them but of the parties they lead. And both candidates set up extraordinary stakes, each asserting that the other was not only wrong on national security, but actively abetting terrorists in word or deed. It was Mrs. Clinton who appeared most determined to bend the moment to her advantage. Unlike most Democratic nominees, she has enjoyed an edge over her Republican opponent on issues of national security and foreign policy. Having faced a rocky stretch in the presidential race, punctuated by a bout of pneumonia, she appeared to welcome a renewed debate over terrorism. Before flying to Philadelphia to court younger voters, Mrs. Clinton held a news conference to call for “courage and vigilance” in the face of terrorism, and warned that Mr. Trump was unprepared to keep the country safe. Citing former intelligence and counterterrorism officials who have criticized Mr. Trump’s caustic remarks about Islam, Mrs. Clinton leveled an attack that might have shocked the political world in any other campaign: In addition to calling him a “recruiting sergeant” for terrorists, she accused him of giving “aid and comfort” to the Islamic State with his campaign oratory. “We’re going after the bad guys, and we’re going to get them, but we’re not going after an entire religion,” Mrs. Clinton said, adding, “We know that Donald Trump’s comments have been used online for the recruitment of terrorists. ” It was the most drastic version yet of an attack Mrs. Clinton has tried out recently with increasing boldness: In an interview on Israeli television this month, she said the Islamic State was praying for Mr. Trump’s victory, and she has warned that foreign adversaries could seek to sway the election in her opponent’s favor. Mr. Trump, she said on Monday, has helped the Islamic State and other terrorist groups cast their attacks as part of a religious war between Islam and the West. “They are looking to make this into a war against Islam, rather than a war against jihadists, violent terrorists,” Mrs. Clinton said. “The kinds of rhetoric and language Mr. Trump has used is giving aid and comfort to our adversaries. ” Mr. Trump responded with indignation. His campaign released a string of statements expressing outrage, criticizing Mrs. Clinton for favoring more lenient immigration policies and calling her attack on Mr. Trump tantamount to an accusation of treason. At a rally in Florida on Monday afternoon, Mr. Trump blasted Mrs. Clinton for failing, as a member of the Obama administration, to stop the rise of the Islamic State, employing much the same argument he has used to demand an overhaul of government on domestic matters. “Her weakness, her ineffectiveness, caused the problem, and now she wants to be president,” he said. “I don’t think so. ” Mr. Trump directly equated American vulnerability to terrorism with what he called laxness in the immigration system. He has mainly warned about the risk of admitting refugees from Syria and other countries, though the suspect arrested in the weekend attacks, Ahmad Khan Rahami, is a naturalized citizen born in Afghanistan and has lived in the United States for years. “These attacks, and many others, were made possible because of our extremely open immigration system,” Mr. Trump said, trying to return the political debate to the issue he is most comfortable discussing. “Immigration security,” he added, “is national security. ” But Mr. Trump may have to clear a higher standard than merely keeping up, punch for punch, with Mrs. Clinton. While he has drawn close to her in the polls, he still faces broad reservations among voters about his readiness to serve as commander in chief. In the past, he has provoked a backlash after terror attacks by fulminating against Muslims and shifting too quickly onto the offensive. If Mr. Trump finished the day with a forceful speech denouncing Mrs. Clinton, he began with a meandering telephone interview with Fox News, during which he asserted that there were “many foreign connections” to the weekend attacks, though none had been established. And he suggested, again without supplying evidence, that American police officers fail to act against terrorism suspects because of political correctness. Mr. Trump also applauded himself for having described the Saturday night explosion in New York City as a bombing even before the police did. “I should be a newscaster,” he said. “I called it before the news. ” The hostilities between the candidates erupted at the start of a week when both were aiming to cut a presidential profile and to strengthen their credentials on the international stage by meeting with foreign leaders in New York at the annual session of the United Nations General Assembly. In many respects, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign against Mr. Trump has flipped the traditional contours of defense politics, offering voters a Democrat with more hawkish instincts and deeper ties to the national security establishment, and a Republican who has broadly rejected military intervention and has been spurned by many defense leaders in his own party. Mrs. Clinton is by far the more conventionally experienced and credentialed candidate, and in some respects is more hawkish: She has called for the creation of a zone in Syria, as well as more airstrikes there, and has urged closer collaboration with Silicon Valley to expand the United States’ surveillance capabilities, alarming some civil liberties advocates. In Mr. Trump, she confronts a candidate who has been abandoned by most of his party’s national security elite, who is still unable to produce a detailed set of proposals for stopping terrorism, and whose essential political brand — disruption — does not always comfort voters seeking strength in moments of crisis and terror. Tommy Vietor, a former national security spokesman for Mr. Obama, said that if Democrats were conventionally cast as the “mommy party” and Republicans as the “daddy party” in American politics, then “Trump is the crazy uncle and Hillary Clinton is the only person you trust to watch your family for a week. ” Mr. Trump has also cast doubt on American participation in NATO and spoken warmly of Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president and strongman. And in recent days, he has feuded with Robert M. Gates, a highly regarded former defense secretary, and found himself mocked by another respected national security figure, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who called Mr. Trump “a national disgrace and an international pariah” in private emails released by hackers last week. Whatever doubts many voters still have about Mrs. Clinton’s trustworthiness, most appear to consider her better suited to manage foreign policy and threats to the American people. Before the Chelsea bombing, according to a New York News poll, voters gave her a slight edge on the question of who would better handle terrorism and national security, and a large one on foreign policy. Some polling suggests that she has a bigger lead over Mr. Trump on related questions — who would be a better commander in chief, for example — than past Democratic nominees have had over Republicans. “Voters look for the qualities of experience, temperament and judgment,” said Evan McMullin, a former intelligence officer who is running for president as a conservative independent candidate. “Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump lack some or all of them. But Trump lacks all of them. ”

¿Qué es la Unión Económica Euroasiática?

RBTH, Alexéi Lossan

kazajistán , bielorrusia , armenia , kirguistán , economía , unión económica euroasiática Serzh Sargsyan, presidente de Armenia, Alexander Lukashenko, presidente de Bielorrusia, Vladimir Putin, presidente de Rusia Nursultan Nazarbayev, presidente de Kazajistán. Fuente:Reuters En un principio, tras la caída de la Unión Soviética en 1991, surgió una nueva unificación de las antiguas repúblicas soviéticas: la Comunidad de Estados Independientes (CEI). Sin embargo sus funciones fueron meramente representativas. En 2009 se hizo un intento por sustituirla por la Unión Aduanera, y en 2010 esta empezó comenzó con Rusia y Kazajistán. Al año siguiente se unió también Bielorrusia y los controles aduaneros entre los tres se eliminaron. Posteriormente, en 2015, Armenia y Kirguistán se sumaron a este grupo. La CEI, ¿qué es y para qué se creó esta organización tras el colapso de la URSS? “La UEE es necesaria para conservar y fortalecer los lazos económicos entre unos países que una vez formaron parte de la misma nación: la URSS, y que después de cuya caída se alejaron considerablemente unos de otros en el plano económico”, afirma Evgueni Guschin, investigador del Laboratorio Internacional de Investigaciones Económicas Internacionales de la Academia Presidencial Rusa de Economía Nacional y Administración Pública. El experto afirma que la UEE debe convertirse en un escenario para la integración de la economía de sus miembros en el sistema mundial. “Actualmente la tendencia es que en el mundo se forman varios grandes bloques comerciales de integración”, añade Guschin. Se podría afirmar que la UEE es más efectiva que la CEI, especialmente en lo que se refiere a la implementación de sus decisiones. Evgueni Guschin cree que son tres los motivos principales para el éxito de la UEE. Primero, los lazos históricos y culturales de los países de la URSS; al fin y al cabo, países que un día formaron parte de una misma nación lo tienen más fácil para integrarse. Segundo, la voluntad política de los miembros, que determina la dirección estratégica de la integración económica de Eurasia. Tercero, el órgano de administración: la Comisión Económica Euroasiática, cuyo funcionamiento altamente profesional facilita el diálogo y la resolución de conflictos entre los países de la Unión. Fundamentos del funcionamiento “Como asociación supranacional, la UEE supone una integración bastante más exhaustiva de los países miembro que la CEI, comparable en grado con la de la UE”, afirma el analista financiero de Finan, Timur Nigmatullin. La UEE permite que se reduzcan drásticamente los límites comerciales de diverso tipo entre los países y facilita el movimiento de capital y de mano de obra. De continuar como hasta ahora, el efecto multiplicador de la asociación a largo plazo aportará a Rusia hasta un 0,5% en PIB al año, y para los participantes de menor tamaño, hasta un 1%, según cálculos de Nigmatullin. “La UEE ha formado en gran medida un mercado común para los países que la conformaron”, explica Serguéi Jestanov, consejero de macroeconomía del director general de Otkrytie Bróker. Según el experto, el papel principal de esta organización es la eliminación de las barreras comerciales para la mayoría de los productos. Durante la primera etapa se realizó un trabajo de integración aduanera, comercial y de regulación. Los miembros de la asociación tenían una misión importante: elaborar de un marco jurídico único de las esferas principales de trabajo y crear las condiciones necesarias para la armonización de las legislaciones nacionales. En 2010 entró en vigor el Código de Aduanas y en Rusia, Bielorrusia y Kazajistán se puso en funcionamiento un sistema único de regulación. Se aprobaron documentos normativos de administración de aduanas, incluidas las normas generales de declaración de mercaderías. Gracias a ello, se redujo considerablemente la cantidad de documentos necesarios para el registro de declaraciones de mercancías y desapareció el control aduanero de las fronteras de los países participantes del acuerdo. Posteriormente, en 2012, surgió un órgano reglamentario único para la unión: la Comisión Euroasiática. En enero de ese año se adoptaron 17 acuerdos base internacionales que conformaban el Espacio Económico Euroasiático. Su formación supuso la garantía de las llamadas cuatro libertades: circulación de bienes, servicios, capital y fuerza de trabajo. La labor para fortalecer la integración entre los participantes del proyecto euroasiático económico, realizada durante la etapa de formación del Espacio Económico Euroasiático, permitió que las naciones prepararan las condiciones para la creación de la Unión Económica Euroasiática , la cual entró en funcionamiento a partir del 1 de enero de 2015. El nuevo contrato definía el marco jurídico de los servicios del mercado único. Se establecieron los principios generales de regulación técnica. Para octubre de 2016 la lista de reglamentos técnicos adoptados por la Unión Económica Euroasiática contaba ya con 36 documentos, 34 de los cuales ya han entrado en vigor. “La UEE ha conseguido crear la condiciones para fortalecer y desarrollar la cooperación comercial y económica entre los estados miembro”, señala Evgueni Guschin. Según el experto, prueba de ello es la estadística del volumen de comercio exterior de Rusia en 2015, que en condiciones de regresión general del volumen de exportación e importación, no se vio tan reducido dentro de la UEE como con respecto a otros países del mundo. En 2015 se unieron las repúblicas de Armenia y Kirguistán y Unión Económica Euroasiática ostenta el segundo puesto en lo que se refiere al nivel de integración de las asociaciones económicas, detrás de de la Unión Europea. ¿Una segunda Unión Europea? Según Evgueni Guschin, al comparar la UEE con la Unión Europea, es necesario tener en cuenta primeramente lo joven que es la primera. “La UE tiene a sus espaldas un largo recorrido sobre desarrollo de integración,que va desde la Comunidad Europea del Carbón y del Acero surgida tras la Segunda Guerra Mundial. De momento la UEE no puede presumir del nivel de integración alcanzado en esta Europa cohesionada”, comenta Guschin. Sin embargo, según afirma, la experiencia de la UE, tanto positiva como negativa, se ha tenido en cuenta al crear la UEE. “En general no se puede hablar de un proceso exitoso o fallido al hablar de un proyecto de tal envergadura internacional como es la UEE. En una primera unión se trazaron los intereses económicos y políticos concernientes a las esferas de influencia”, explica Alexander Yegórov, principal analista de TeleTrade. Según el experto, en comparación con la CEI, la Unión Económica Euroasiática es una organización más viable, pues en la base de la alianza yacen los intereses económicos de los participantes. “A diferencia de la CEI, la UEE no es, primeramente, una unión política sino económica. Sin una integración sólida con otros bloques económicos se desarrollará bastante despacio pues ya que, a excepción de Rusia, la economía de las demás naciones es excesivamente pequeña”, afirma Gueorgui Vaschenko, de la compañía inversora Freedom Finance. Este mismo mes comienzan las negociaciones sobre la creación de zonas de libre comercio entre la Unión Económica Euroasiática y China en un formato de “cinco más uno”. Sobre esa base se puede hablar de la formación de una colaboración euroasiática especial en el amplio sentido de la palabra.

Jeddah airport was targeted by Ansar Allah missiles and was set on fire

Email An informed source in Yemen's AnsarAllah stated, last night, missile strikes by Yemen Houthis aimed to annihilate the Saudi's invading air force base in Jeddah. Saudis have repeatedly targeted the cities and Yemeni defenseless people by their air strikes through this airport. He said: we have admonished Saudis several times so far and urged them to put an end to their attacks, otherwise we would prevent them from committing tortures and crimes through our attacks. A ballistic missile Berkane was fired at King Abdulaziz airport, which is the Saudi's Royal air force position. This attack caused wide damages to the airport, leading to its closure. Jeddah is located 65 kilometers from Mecca, and Al-Arabiya news network announced that a ballistic missile belonging to Yemen Houthis was fired from Yemeni Sa'dah to the Holy city, Mecca. However, this missile was traced and intercepted at a distance of 65 kilometres from Mecca.

Rosneft restaurera une ancienne résidence des Romanov près de Saint-Pétersbourg

TASS

Rosneft restaurera une ancienne résidence des Romanov près de Saint-Pétersbourg 28 octobre 2016 TASS Le 25 octobre, le ministre russe de la Culture Vladimir Medinski a annoncé que le palais de Ropcha, dans la banlieue de Saint-Pétersbourg, serait loué à la compagnie pétrolière d’État Rosneft pour une durée de 99 ans. Le groupe va faire restaurer le monument en ruines et permettre aux touristes de visiter la résidence. Alors, que sait-on sur le palais et combien d'argent faudra-t-il pour le restaurer ? Facebook Ropcha. Crédit : Lori/Legion-Media Pourquoi le palais est-il célèbre ? Le palais de Ropcha est une ancienne résidence des Romanov datant du XVIIIe siècle. Il fut construit sur ordre de Pierre le Grand et devait évoquer la station thermale de Karslbad (République Tchèque). Ensuite, durant le règne de l’impératrice Elisabeth, un nouveau palais de deux étages fut construit par l’architecte italien Bartolomeo Rastrelli, et un grand parc fut installé. Après la révolution de palais qui vit la destitution de Pierre III, celui-ci y fut exilé et y mourut dans des circonstances douteuses. Après la Révolution d’Octobre, le palais fut nationalisé et abrita une pisciculture, un sovkhoze et d’autres installations agricoles. Le palais avant 1917. Crédit : domaine public En 1944, le palais fut brûlé par les troupes allemandes en retraite. Après la guerre, la propriété fut restaurée, il y fut d’abord stationné une unité aérienne, puis le bataillon de défense chimique du district militaire de Leningrad. Dans les années 1960, le palais fut placé sur protection de l’État, et il fut classifiéà la fin des années 1970. Lire aussi : Gatchina, ce pavillon de chasse qui est devenu un palais Combien d’argent faudra-t-il pour restaurer les ruines ? Bien que le palais soit inscrit au patrimoine mondial de l’ Unesco depuis 1990 et soit protégé par l’État, la plupart de ses bâtiments sont en ruines. Le palais fut sérieusement endommagé par une série d’incendies à la fin des années 1980 et au début des années 1990. En 2016, cinq colonnes du portique de la façade se sont effondrées. Après cette dernière catastrophe, le ministère russe de la Culture eut alloué 15 millions de roubles (220 000 euros) à des travaux urgents pour sauver le monument. Le palais est en ruines aujourd'hui. Crédit : Kommersant. Au palais de Peterhof, on fait la constatation que de nombreux bâtiments de Ropcha sont fortement endommagés, et certains, comme les ponts et les équipements hydrauliques, sont totalement détruits. Le coût total de la restauration pourrait dépasser les 5 milliards de roubles (72 millions d’euros). Lire aussi : La Nouvelle-Hollande, un îlot de détente en plein cœur de Saint-Pétersbourg Pourquoi l’État cherche-t-il des investisseurs pour restaurer ces monuments ? La grande difficulté et le coût de la restauration du patrimoine ne permettent pas toujours de mener ces travaux grâce à l’argent public. Il est donc souvent fait appel à l’argent de compagnies privées et de mécènes. Par exemple, la restauration du palais de Gatchina près de Saint-Pétersbourg fut largement financée par la banque VTB et l’usine de spiritueux de Gatchina, mais le monument resta propriété de l'État. Crédit : Kommersant. L’État peut décider de vendre aux enchères ou de louer des éléments du patrimoine culturel avec obligation de les restaurer. Depuis le 1er janvier 2008, il est possible de privatiser des monuments d’importance non seulement locale et régionale, mais aussi fédérale. Il existe plus de cent exemples de telles privatisations assorties d’obligation de restauration. C’est ainsi qu’a récemment été ouvert à Saint-Pétersbourg le complexe Nouvelle Hollande, reconstruit grâce aux investissements de la société Novaya Gollandia development de Roman Abramovitch. Version abrégée d’un article de TASS Lire aussi :

WALL STREET JOURNAL JUST EXPOSED EXACTLY HOW & HOW MUCH IT COST HILLARY To BRIBE The FBI to AVOID CHARGES!

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November 2015 Ads WALL STREET JOURNAL JUST EXPOSED EXACTLY HOW & HOW MUCH IT COST HILLARY To BRIBE The FBI to AVOID CHARGES! Oct 27, 2016 Previous post ELDER PATRIOT – There are no limits to the Clinton’s web of corruption. Even the FBI’s vaunted reputation for integrity has fallen victim to reach of this evil witch with a capital B. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Hillary Clinton bagman Terry McAuliffe contributed in excess of $675,500 to the Senate candidacy of the wife of FBI agent Deputy Director Andrew McCabe who oversaw the investigation into her use of an illegal homebrew server that exposed our national secrets to Russian hackers. McAuliffe has been a Democrat operative whose willingness to do the Clinton’s dirty work over a long number of years saw him rewarded with the governorship of Virginia. As governor, McAuliffe recruited the wife of the FBI’s lead investigator to be his party’s senate nominee at the behest of Hillary Clinton who was already being investigated by the FBI. Acting on the direction of Hillary Clinton, McAuliffe’s PAC contributed $467,500 directly to the Senate Campaign of D. Jill McCabe according to campaign finance records. But, that wasn’t even the extent of the financial support he extended to Jill McCabe. McAuliffe directed the Virginia Democratic Party to support McCabe’s by assuming the costs of her campaign mailers to the tune of another $207,788. While there are no laws preventing anyone from making or accepting political contributions to the FOR ENTIRE ARTICLE CLICK LINK

Comment on Lena Dunham strips down to a ‘sensual pantsuit’ as she raps to campaign for Hillary Clinton by Maryaha

Maryaha

DCG | 4 Comments Another Hollyweird Clinton supporter being trashy . Thank goodness this election is over soon. From Daily Mail : She is no stranger to baring it all for her series Girls. But now Lena Dunham is stripping down to show support for her presidential hopeful. The 30-year-old comedienne released a rap video to help campaign for Hillary Clinton on comedy website Funny Or Die on Thursday. The three-minute clip was titled Sensual Pantsuit Anthem and featured Tony Award winning performer Cynthia Erivo and radio/television personality Charlamagne Tha God. Perhaps the most eye-opening scene of the entire gag is when Lena decides to ditch her red pantsuit to reveal a matching two-piece bikini-like number. As she is ripping off her clothing she rhymes: ‘And now I’m going to take off my pantsuit to reveal a more sensual pantsuit cause that’s what you do for the candidate you love.’ The 36-year-old of Power 105.1’s The Breakfast Club replies: ‘Not sure I really understand the logic here. The rapping is trash and why are you wearing Hillary’s lingerie?’ Charlamagne presses her on the rationale behind the decision to rap and strip down and Lena hopes for some female solidarity as she says: ‘Dance with me Cynthia take your pantsuit off and show us your sensual pantsuit Cynthia.’ The 29-year-old actress and singer is not so keen as she sings: ‘No I’m good!’ This leaves Lena to question the entire video as she says: ‘I wonder if I’m actually hurting her chances of winning.’ The video concludes with Charlamagne reminding everyone to vote on Tuesday, November 8. Lena has been unafraid to show her allegiance to Hillary leading up to the election as she used her Halloween costume for a bit of political satire just a few days ago. On Monday, the Girls creator dressed up as a cat but had hands fastened to her body so that she was a ‘grabbed p***y’. Read the rest of the story here . DCG

NBC’s Lester Holt Interrupts Trump Nine Times in Less Than Three Minutes

Aaron Klein

NBCNews. com on Thursday posted a two minute and 34 second preview clip of anchor Lester Holt’s exclusive with President Donald Trump. The clip features Holt conducting an interview in which the NBC personality interrupted Trump nine times and spoke over the president on many of those occasions. [The short clip is part of a White House interview set to air Thursday night on NBC Nightly News. In the clip, Holt can be seen questioning almost every statement made by Trump. In one instance, Holt asked Trump about his May 9 letter ousting F. B. I Director James Comey in which Trump wrote, “I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation. ” Holt asked Trump, “Why did you put that in there?” Trump replied, “Because he told me that. I mean, he told me … ” Before Trump could finish his sentence, Holt interrupted, asking, “He told you you weren’t under investigation regarding the Russian investigation?” “Yeah, and I’ve heard that from others. I think … ” Trump began to respond before Holt interrupted again. “Was it in a phone call? Did you meet ?” Holt interjected, speaking over Trump. “I had a dinner with him. He wanted to have dinner because he wanted to stay on. We had a very nice dinner at the White House … ” Holt spoke over Trump again, interrupting this time by asking, “He, he asked for the dinner?” “A dinner was arranged. I think he asked for a dinner. ” Holt interrupted Trump again when Trump was explaining he knew that he wasn’t under investigation both from Comey three times and from a “committee level. ” “So that didn’t come directly from him?” Holt cut in and asked before Trump could finish his explanation about the times he says he heard from Comey that he wasn’t under investigation. Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio. ” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.

U.S. and India Mark a New Moment in Relations as Narendra Modi Speaks to Congress - The New York Times

Gardiner Harris and Coral Davenport

WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India condemned global terrorism and said during a lengthy address to Congress on Wednesday that growing economic ties benefit both his country and the United States. “The innovation strength of our two countries comes together in California,” said Mr. Modi, who visited California last year. “Here, the innovative genius of America and India’s intellectual creativity are working to shape new industries of the future. ” Mr. Modi made clear that he intended the speech to hail a new moment in relations between the United States and India when he told Congress at the outset that he had started his visit to Washington with a trip to Arlington National Cemetery. He called it “the final resting place of many brave soldiers of this great land. ” “I honored their courage and sacrifice for the ideals of freedom and democracy,” Mr. Modi added. Indian leaders have long been skeptical of American military power and have often been deeply critical of the Vietnam War and other military interventions by the United States. Celebrating American war dead, though, was a telling signal of what both sides say is a very different relationship between the two countries. Mr. Modi has encouraged a continued American military presence in Afghanistan because he is worried that Pakistan will have unchallenged influence there once the Americans leave. “Your contribution in keeping the region safe and secure is deeply appreciated,” Mr. Modi said, adding: “A commitment to rebuild a peaceful and stable and prosperous Afghanistan is our shared objective. ” Almost exactly 31 years ago, Rajiv Gandhi, then India’s prime minister, also spoke of Afghanistan in an address to Congress. But he did it in the context of justifying the Soviet military presence there because, he said, Soviet troops were “invited by the Karmal regime,” a reference to the government of President Babrak Karmal. The different references to Afghanistan are a measure of just how much relations between the world’s largest democracies have changed in three decades. In another sign of a break with the past, Mr. Modi gave a strong endorsement for global institutions, most of them created with American leadership. “Growing uncertainties and political complexities — our engagement can make a difference by promoting cooperation, not dominance,” Mr. Modi said. “Connectivity, not isolation. Inclusive, not exclusive mechanism. Respect for global commons and, above all, for international rules and norms. ” Then Mr. Modi made an explicit reference to China by endorsing the “freedom of navigation on seas,” referring to disputes involving the South China Sea and China’s efforts to carve out part of those waters as its own. Mr. Modi was the fifth Indian prime minister to address Congress, and the appearance represents a turnaround in his acceptance within the United States. For years Mr. Modi was barred from getting a visa to come here because of his role in 2002 riots in the Indian state of Gujarat that cost the lives of more than 1, 000 people, mostly Muslims. But as he rose as a national political figure in India, United States diplomats sought to put that difficult history to rest. Mr. Modi’s decision to accelerate ties with the United States has been greeted in Washington with excitement and surprise. On Tuesday, he held meetings at the White House with President Obama, where the two leaders formalized a wide range of agreements covering climate change, renewable energy, security and economic issues. Before Congress, Mr. Modi also repeated that India was open for business. Mr. Modi is eager for greater foreign investment, and although he has failed to deliver many fundamental reforms that would make business easier to conduct there, the smaller steps he has taken and his obvious enthusiasm have persuaded some major investors to give India a try. In his speech, Mr. Modi gave a nod to his difficulties in passing much of his economic reform agenda. Although Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has a majority in the Lok Sabha, India’s lower house of Parliament, it does not have a majority in the upper house, the Rajya Sabha. “Mr. Speaker, I’m informed that the working of the U. S. Congress is harmonious,” Mr. Modi said to laughter. “I’m also told that you’re well known for your bipartisanship. Well, you are not alone. Time and again, I have also witnessed a similar spirit in the Indian Parliament. ” India’s economy is now the large economy in the world, but jobs are not being created at anywhere close to the pace needed to employ the roughly one million Indians who come of age each month. Mr. Modi also touched on the issue of climate change in his speech, but subtly reinforced the point that the willingness of India — the world’s carbon emitter — to cut its own pollution will depend on help from the United States. “The protection of the environment and caring of the planet is central to our vision of a just world,” he said, adding, “for us in India to live in harmony with mother earth is part of our ancient beliefs. ” But, he said, “Our partnership aims to balance responsibility and capacity and focuses on new ways to increase availability of renewable energy. ” Mr. Modi has vowed to sharply increase the growth of solar power in India, but Indian diplomats have also pushed for commitments from the United States to make new solar power technologies available as cheaply as possible, either by waiving intellectual property fees or by providing favorable financing. “This has been the goal of our efforts in G20 and climate change summits,” Mr. Modi said, to a mixed ovation — lawmakers on the Democratic side of the aisle stood and clapped, while those on the Republican side mostly stayed seated. Mr. Modi was forceful in his condemnation of global terrorism, a subject he dwelt on at length. “Not just in Afghanistan but elsewhere in South Asia and globally, terrorism remains the biggest threat,” he said, adding in a clear reference to Pakistan: “Although its shadow is spreading across the world, it is incubated in India’s neighborhood. ” India’s long rivalry with Pakistan has meant that India has been a target of terror attacks funded and encouraged by Pakistan, most famously in the Mumbai terror attacks of 2008. Some members of Congress have criticized Mr. Modi’s human rights record, but the politics of a visit by an Indian leader have also changed. Before Mr. Modi spoke, the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. announced more than a dozen members of Congress who were said to be escorting Mr. Modi into the chamber. There are 3. 5 million and they are a highly successful immigrant group with both wealth and deep community connections, making them sought after by politicians. In just one example, some 40 percent of hotel rooms in the United States are owned or managed by according to Arun K. Singh, India’s ambassador to the United States.

Comment on 5 Corporations Own The U.S. Media – We’ve Been Conditioned How To Think, What To Think, And What To Do by You’re Being Fooled: The Problem With ‘Alternative’ News Websites – Collective Evolution

You’re Being Fooled: The Problem With ‘Alternative’ News Websites – Collective Evolution

From the day we are born into this world, we are being taught what our parents have been taught, and what their parents have taught them, without asking many questions such as who we are, why we are here, and why things are the way they are. Existential questions are simply perceived as irrelevant in a left-brained society; in which money and career performance seem to be the primary focus. For those who seek a reason, countless financed religious institutions claim to provide the ultimate answers and a securing spiritual identity. From cradle to grave, we are following the guidelines of what authority defines as a state-of-the-art system, in which “success” seems to begin and end within the running wheel of education, career performance, debt management and retirement. A vibrant economy is the ultimate priority of our global hierarchy. However, a vibrant planet, the respect of all life forms, healthy foods, peaceful ways and conscious actions seem to remain a mere subject of conversation, often turned into a few fundraising campaigns with very little or no impact at all. After all, living consciously and in perfect harmony with nature certainly goes against the principles of industrialism. Generations have passed, trends have changed, technologies have emerged and a better communication has opened doors for alternative information and ideas that are pushing the envelope on society’s boundaries. Yet they all seem to remain in the “fantasy” section of our industrialist system, for in the good old ways of a governing establishment we ought to trust. “Authority knows best” is the slogan of our conventional wisdom, and we meanwhile can mind our own business, go on with our lives, get our needs met and attempt to live happily ever after as long as we conform to the expected norms of society. We then pass on this set of unquestioned beliefs and habits to our children, encouraging then to perpetuate the same cycle, because after all, it is all we’ve ever known. Is this all there is to life? Is this way of life forever sustainable?· Do we have to live this way? What is the purpose of our existence? Such questions are well worth asking, because to realize that there is more to us than what we’ve been led to believe is the first step towards uncovering answers. “The search implies that there is something more to life than what is presently the case.” – Jeff Foster Human Nature or Human Conditioning We have been told that the state of our world is purely the result of our inherent human nature. Some even say we are born ill intended, and learn the “good values” through stringent parental, educational or religious discipline. Even though this version of the story has been adopted and repeated by many, we are going to take the road less travelled. Instead of qualifying our true nature as predetermined and unchangeable, could it be that the current state of humanity is the result of a second nature? By definition, a “second nature” is an acquired behaviour that has been so long practiced to the point where it seems innate. It is a conditioning of consciousness, rather than a fundamental characteristic of consciousness. Considering the fact that humanity’s consciousness has been externally influenced for a very long time, shouldn’t this lead us to question how much of our behaviours and aspirations are actually ours? Without a doubt, our society is programmed to sell us on competing belief systems, political views, brands and products, and the list could go on forever. After all, maintaining the trend of such mindsets is what is profitable to the system. Whether it is a cream that promises beauty, a substance that promises relief, a car that promises attention, a career that promises prestige, or a luxurious lifestyle that promises eternal happiness, this system is an expert at creating billions of needs only to sell us on ideas and products that promises to satisfy them. The Mainstream media is the best example of a great influence on the human mind. TV shows, magazines, the news, politics, education, or organised religion all tend to either implement a sense of patriotism, materialism, idolism, conformism, or any compliant mindset that seem to fit the bill of an authority figure. We have been slowly yet surely trained to avoid critical questioning, and to allow what we call our “leaders” to decide of our individual and collective destiny. When it comes to the word “conspiracy” -or the simple thought that the ones in power may not have the benefit of the whole at heart -ridicule is a very popular reaction and is often the treatment that whistleblowers, experts or ex-government officials/employees receive when trying share such simple information. The word has even been paired with “theory”, because people in general have better things to do than to research information that is being labeled as theoretical. Yet the question that we should begin to ask ourselves is: Why would authority would give any credibility to those who challenge and question authority? In this article, we are going to bypass the scrutiny of information and the need to prove opinions or facts, because after all, it is no one else’s job to think for ourselves but ourselves. All information emerging from both sides of the coin in regards to our economic system, our governments or even events such as 9/11 is already out there for us to evaluate. It is therefore up to the individual to switch off the tendency to filter information out of acquired preconceptions, to step aside from “chain reactions” and to research throughly and intuitively. Then again, no matter how much data our brain may take in, it is not necessarily more information that shall make us more “enlightened”. As Einstein once said, “Information is not knowledge.” The point I am making is that constantly thinking in accord to the beliefs we cherish or the information we advocate is certainly not the extent of what knowledge and understanding is. In order to move forward, we have to look beyond competing beliefs and conceptual answers. Whether we are speaking of individuals who proclaim themselves as awake and aware, teachers, religious people or intellectuals; segregation will always cause us to fail to see the bigger picture -as long as we let ourselves be run by our egoic mind *. The Ego vs. The Observer Self The truth is, aside from all of the concepts, belief systems, patterns and behaviours we may have acquired since birth, we all possess a profound awareness that does not relate with our egoic mind. It is a pure awareness that does not filter information with acquired beliefs, and therefore does not have a clouded perception. This consciousness is what some call the intuition, the inner-knowing, the heart, the gut feeling or the soul, yet the word that shall be employed for the moment is the observer self While a teacher teaches what they have been taught, a priest preaches the bible’s teachings, and a politician reiterates the same system, the observer self is the awareness that is not manipulated by anyone or anything, for it does not depend on external factors to build up an identity. It only observes with a clear lens, and therefore see’s things as they truly are. “Your original unconditioned consciousness exists only in you, so going elsewhere can never give you access to your essential nature, to who you really are.” – Byron Brown For example, a young child would naturally perceive a hierarchical government creating wars and the destruction of our planet for economical purposes, as utter nonsense. Yet generations who have been conditioned to believe and teach that war ends war, or that pieces of paper and digits on a computer are the only thing that can make the world go round, are more likely to ignore the self-destruction it implies and “run with the money”. “As things are interpreted or labeled by the mind they slowly cease to be what they are and start to become what is thought about them.”– John Greven Let’s bring forth our observer self for a moment an answer these following questions: Would an awake and aware population allow the damaging and destruction of our home -the Earth- for the sake of the economy? Would it perpetuate the use of petrol -despite the alternatives- for the sake of the economy? Would it allow war profiteering for the sake of the economy? Would it in-debt the poor for the sake of the economy? Would its thoughts be consumed by the obsession of material goods and superficial values? And finally, would an awake and aware population believe in waiting for world leaders to make the world a more harmonious place, when the priorities above are specifically what empower them? Simple observations are really all that is required to blatantly see and feel the imbalance of such a disconnected state of consciousness. However, this is exactly what we are collectively enabling while we keep ourselves busy and distracted over competing with each other’s social statuses, beliefs, race, identities, opinions, and so forth. All of which are often stances that we take on from the very system profiting from all of the priorities mentioned above. A sense of separation from each other, the earth and all other life forms is an obvious characteristic of our system, which has consequently reinforced humanity’s own sense of separation from everyone and everything. We willingly go at war and kill each other, passively accept poverty and famine as being normal while others over consume, and continue to obsess over financial profit despite the consequences. This sense of separation has gotten to the point where parts of the western world knowingly dump their toxic waste in developing countries, as if sending pollution farther away will hide the fact that we all live on the same earth. Yet despite our belief in being separated from the environment, from each other, and by imaginary borders, we all possess an inner knowing that remains unhampered by external indoctrination. This knowing -earlier referred to as the observer self -see’s all life as a whole. Instead of thinking in terms of what can serve or harm ME, it naturally thinks in terms of what can serve or harm US. Take for example a child who did not yet take on a patriotic identity that gives importance to illusory borders, who does not yet comprehend the “ownership” and price tagging of nature, and who does not hold any form of cultural belief system or prejudice. Would this child go to war with another earthling, destroy the planet in the name of pieces of paper and digits on a computer, or be too greedy to desire a world in which we all share the planet’s resources equally? Just like this child, the observer self too perceives purely, with no concept that taints its vision. Many of our ideas and beliefs about ourselves and the world are so deeply ingrained that we are unaware that they are beliefs, and take them, without question, for the absolute truth. – Rupert Spira When we consciously choose to expand our awareness and to simply observe what our system stands for, we realize it does not have to be this way. It is simply erroneous to presume that it endorses a forever-sustainable way of living. It has no concern for respecting nature, or even human lives. It only profits through the promotion of unconsciousness . The simple act of turning on the TV or observing the magazines they sell us at the cashier’s waiting line should make the preceding statement very clear. We may think that an intellectual society offering a stringent education system -which has brought many individuals to a state of esteemed expertise- would naturally lead us to the peak of our human evolution. Yet when we look at the wars we still engage in, the increasing rate of health deterioration, the repetitive oil leaks in our oceans, and the amount of corrupted government regulations that won’t budge, shouldn’t that lead us to ask ourselves: What exactly are we learning? Will we need to experience the shutting down of the earth’s eco-system before we finally set aside our differences and awaken to our interconnectedness and equality with each other, the earth and all life forms? A Shift In Consciousness: Awakening to Oneness “To me, spirituality is about two things: The liberation of consciousness from all illusion, so that the true nature can shine, and an embodiment in life that is an alternative to the patterns of manipulation and greed that dominate our current culture.” –Christian Opitz “ Oneness ” simply means the awareness of our inherent interconnectedness with each other, the earth, the animal kingdom, and essentially the entire universe. It is the profound understanding -beyond opinionated beliefs- that we are all equal facets of the same underlying consciousness in which all life arises. Some physicists call this consciousness “The Unified Field”, some call it a Universal Consciousness, others name it “God”, yet the word that shall be employed in this article is Source. Source is not a separate, superior and judgmental entity as our society’s endorsed religious institutions want us to believe, but is in fact the core essence of who we truly are beyond the experience of separation. Click here to watch the video ‘An Answer To Existential Questions’ For a long period of time, human consciousness has remained caught up within in a very limited archaic programming, which led us to perpetually seeing ourselves as separate from each other, from all lifeforms and from the earth. Hence why we have ended up passively enabling such ill-treatment between each other and the environment. The reality we have created for ourselves is the result of living our lives with our egoic minds in the driver’s seat. We are experiencing the projection of a strictly left-brained consciousness, where we believe there is nothing more to us than the individual physicality, mind, thoughts and emotions. Our society -which is a reflection of this state of consciousness- exclusively honors the ego-driven cleverness of the mind, instead of encouraging the reunification with our heart/soul consciousness. In this state, we have allowed division, fear, and control to keep us from taking responsibility for ourselves and awaken to our true nature, all while waiting for “saviors” or political dictators to outline our individual and collective destiny. Such a disconnected state of consciousness is unsustainable and if not shifted, would lead humanity to its own demise. “Our species is far too clever to survive without wisdom.”– E.F.Schumacker Planet earth is currently undergoing a shift in consciousness. This awakening is leading an increasing amount of individuals to reconnect with their observer self, which is enabling them to perceive the world from a wider, more unified perspective. More are beginning to not only question the ego-driven structures controlling humanity, but to question the very purpose of their existence and of life itself. Such an existential crisis has purposefully guided many towards remembering to who they truly are beyond the mind and the physicality: Souls (the observer self) having a human experience . Because of a past collective soul agreement, we initially incarnated on earth into what is called the “experiential realm”. The purpose was of experiencing and evolving as souls, lifetime after lifetime, while being overruled by a thicker sense of individual identity, mind and ego, and having no direct remembrance of our essence of Oneness/Source. Our souls basically agreed for the experience of feeling what it is like to have a sense of total separation from each other and from Source, to the extent where even the concept of a separation from “God” was later believed as factual. This altogether created a rich and highly polarized sensorial experience. With the intention of certain beings, our experience was later altered with an additional challenge, which was to experience the limitation of a hierarchical structure ruled by separation and egoistical purposes. The elitist group of individuals at the very top of this hierarchy is often referred to as the “Illuminati”, and are pushing forward their agenda for global control with an intellectual “New World Order” (Totalitarian world government and one world currency) -all while being aware of this threatening shift in consciousness. Humanity has experienced and remained caught up in this dormant state for a long while. This undergoing shift in consciousness stems from the fact that we have collectively agreed -at the soul level- to move beyond this collective amnesia to create a new, more conscious, harmonious and expansive experience, all while uncovering our natural state of creative limitlessness , love and peace . This is not a matter of blaming an elitist group for where we are at. We have agreed to overcome such a challenge as souls having a human experience, for us to learn and “grow up” from it. It is simply about finally taking responsibility for what we have created, and move on. “We are not called to fight the bad guy, harm it, or fear it. We are just called to dig within and find our sacred ground. To stand in full love by our bottom line. And as we do, the bad guy will very quickly scuttle away or drop its mask. Because it was never about the bad guy, but about us all along, about finding that essence inside, embracing all of who we are, when faced with any challenge. It is one of the ways in which we can honor the bad guy in his role of carrier of lessons, who is volunteering to wear a dark mask, so we may reach for more and find what was lost.”– Katie Gallanti Letting Go of the Old, Making Room for the New : A Shift of Vibration In the midst of these unique times of social upheaval and spiritual awakening, many individuals find themselves at a crossroad in their personal lives. Challenging situations are arising, and a discomfort in old routines is intensifying. Why is this happening? New energies of a higher consciousness are entering the earth plane, while our world is purging its energetic densities of a lower consciousness. This process is being sensed in our personal lives as well, bringing forth old emotional baggages or situations that challenge our traditional ways of thinking. Such emotions and discomforts will build up as long as we keep on missing the point of our soul’s call, which is to let go of the prevailing thoughts and beliefs that keep us from expanding towards the wholeness , love and infinite potential of who we truly are. As much as collective and personal challenges may feel like turmoil at first, it is merely a sign of old and unsustainable structures/comfort zones breaking down to make room for the new. If it is not about blaming and fighting this insanity and corruption, then where do we go from here? “Peace cannot be kept by force ; it can only be achieved by understanding.”– Albert Einstein When we shift our awareness towards the quantum construct of reality, we understand that everything we can possibly feel and think of is essentially a form and rate of vibration. Quantum physicists accurately describe the fundamental particles of reality as “ wave functions” . The reason for this abstract description is precisely because fundamental particles behave in a most abstract manner. Their existence emerge in waves in which lies only the potentiality for measurable outcomes. The word potentiality is key, because we now know through a number of scientific experiments (such as the double-slit experiment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7YBmOk1nQw ) that the very presence of a conscious mind observing and/or intending to measure a particle, consequently determines the aspect and location in which it takes form. This quantum decoherence is scientifically known as “the measurement problem”. In other words, the fundamental nature of reality -the “Unified field”, consciousness, “God” or Source- is originally “open” to all potential outcomes. Yet our very consciousness is intimately hooked to the one that shall be experienced. As the physicist Dr. York Dobyns stated, “ Without us, (conscious beings) there would just be this expanding superposition of possibilities with nothing definite ever actually happening.” “Peace in ourselves, peace in the world.” -Thich Nhat Hanh That being said, everything in the universe and on earth vibrates at certain frequencies, including our thoughts, beliefs and emotions. We are literally molding our experienced reality via the power of our personal and collective perceptions, and our inner-state is reflected outwards. As Einstein said, we cannot solve a problem with the same level of consciousness that created it. This shift in consciousness is but a leap beyond the old dualistic consciousness we chose to experience as souls, towards the consciousness of Oneness, which is of a higher vibrational frequency -one of unconditional Love and understanding of who we really are beyond this physical realm. The angry, judgmental and reactive “egoic mind” actually attracts and emanates through it the same lower frequencies that keep humanity boxed in this low vibrational “matrix” of control. “It’s just a ride and we can change it any time we want. It’s only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings and money, a choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your door, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one.” – Bill Hicks Resuming It All In One Simple Analogy It is as if each and everyone of us are projectors responsible for the projections on our own blank walls. Most of us are unconsciously choosing to project a tape of violence, of hate, of segregation, of being powerless, and even of blame of the other 3 projectors for playing their hostile tape. Here lies the silliness, the ironicalness of justifying our own projection through blame. And this is where humanity is at: playing the same tape, over and over again, while most individuals are still blaming the projection instead of changing their own tape that is too playing a role in this projection. As much as we end up pointing fingers at the powers that be, they are no more or less powerful than we are. The only power they grant themselves, is through influencing our choice of the tapes we shall fill our projectors with. Yet we’ve always had the choice, despite us not being aware of it and taking responsibility for ourselves. This is the reason why Humanity is so slow in igniting true change. No one decides to look at their own tape. We seem to rather enjoy the comfort of holding on to the same stories and put them in “repeat” instead of transcending them; instead of BEING the change. The ego doesn’t want to know that it begins with ourselves, it doesn’t want us to dig into our own personal belief systems and let go of certain self-limitative mindsets or emotional baggages we carry. The ego is afraid of what can liberate us, and what can liberate us is ultimately ourselves. “First realize that your world is only a reflection of Yourself and then stop finding fault with the reflection.”– Nisargadatta. This is the illusion so many are still buying into. It is the belief that we have no influence over others and the world. We even think we have no influence over our own lives, no influence as the very projector of our own “blank wall”. This belief stems from the fact that we do not see ourselves at one with the world, at one with the people, and at one with ourselves. We see ourselves as a tiny little separated specs of dust with no power whatsoever through the emanation of our own state of being. Yet we are indeed all interconnected, we are all one. Our own consciousness directly impacts the collective consciousness, which is literally the motor of our experienced reality, it is the “projector” of it. Just as we can change our tape and project harmony on our own blank wall, we can choose to be who we truly are -our unconditioned self- and therefore reflect Peace, Love, Awareness, and all that which uplifts and unveils a more conscious understanding. Or… we can play the tape of blame, anger, hatred, victimization, pointing fingers, and never, ever looking at our own projections. We ultimately have the choice, right here, and right now. “Remember, you are constantly in the act of creating yourself. You are in every moment deciding who and what you are.” – Neale Donald Walsch Elina 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

‘Moonlight,’ ‘La La Land’ and What an Epic Oscars Fail Really Says - The New York Times

Manohla Dargis, Wesley Morris and A.O. Scott

After Sunday night’s when the presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway announced the wrong best picture, we asked the chief film critics of The New York Times, A. O. Scott and Manohla Dargis, and the Times critic at large, Wesley Morris, to share their reactions. A. O. SCOTT Wow, that “Bonnie and Clyde” sequel was totally nuts. But in its own way, last night’s spectacle — so relatively smooth, until all of a sudden it was anything but — represents a Hollywood watershed or, at least, like the original “Bonnie and Clyde,” the arrival of a new generation. The envelope was painful, but it brought to the stage two directors in their 30s with five features between them and reminded the audience that Damien Chazelle and Barry Jenkins are not enemies. The grace with which the “La La Land” producers (Jordan Horowitz, in particular) handled the handoff — and the poise with which Mr. Jenkins and his producer, Adele Romanski, received the belated honor for “Moonlight” — should quell the facile polarization that followed the two movies throughout the awards season. And the messiness of the finale makes vivid what turned out to be the theme and the true political message of the night, which was inclusiveness. The speeches were pointed at times but also muted, with the president’s name mostly unmentioned, and his policies opposed with appeals. What held it all together was the idea that in Hollywood there is room for everyone. Even Mel Gibson! The two “Hacksaw Ridge” wins strike me as a reminder of the ideological diversity that has always existed in this bastion of liberalism. And the evening, at its best, was both a demonstration of, and an argument for, the value of pluralism, for expansive humanism as an antidote to narrowness and intolerance. MANOHLA DARGIS Most of the evening was weird and bad. (The stunt with the tourists was a moment of Marie Antoinette obtuseness — ah, look, little people!) Then it turned weird and glorious. I shrieked when Mr. Horowitz announced that “Moonlight” had won (did you hear me?) but my heart also went out to the “La La Land” team. No matter how much I wanted “Moonlight” to win, I wouldn’t wish that kind of public spectacle on anyone, especially a group as pleasant as that behind “La La Land. ” Some on Twitter mocked the “La La Landers” for having tears in their eyes, so it’s lovely that the filmmakers from both movies were so much more gracious. Jimmy Kimmel could pick up some tips on manners and crisis management from Mr. Horowitz. More to the point, it would be great if the academy finally solved its host problem. Among other things, it would be nice if it found a host who both was actually interested in the art and didn’t mock the movies. (Make fun of the stars in the room — that’s what they’re there for.) At the very least, you would think the academy, which has made real if confusing strides toward inclusion, would understand that its efforts seem a little hollow when a straight, white male host jokes about no one’s seeing a movie from a black director about gay black men. Optics, people, optics! As for Mr. Gibson, well, as the resident kooky conservative, he came off as a kind of proxy for President Trump. WESLEY MORRIS Just to reiterate: THAT HAPPENED, an event that — wait, “event” is too mild. A fiasco? Nightmare? Accidental slip of the entertainment psyche? Act of justice? Honestly, I don’t know. But something happened that seemed to simultaneously tell us who we were, are, believe ourselves to be. This is, what, the fourth time since November that the country has gathered for an evening of live television, only to be part of a ceremony. After Sunday night, the presidential election, the Super Bowl and, to a different but related extent, the Grammys, I’ve officially come down with stress disorder — Ooptsd, as in upside my head. What went down between the makers of “Moonlight” and “La La Land” was stunning and strange yet perversely, cosmically right for a night that began with Justin Timberlake’s telling Denzel Washington that surely he recognized the Bill Withers cover Mr. Timberlake was oozing his way through. That moment felt like a distillation of the politics surrounding Mr. Chazelle’s movie. That moment felt like the history of American entertainment distilled into an aside that I don’t even really blame Mr. Timberlake for. If we’ve learned nothing in the past 18 months, if not eight years, it’s that history is bigger than all of us and is always going to rat us out, forcing us to conform to its grip. But I’m with you guys about what gentlemen Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Horowitz were under the most bizarre of circumstances. That errant envelope deprived a proper reckoning of Mr. Jenkins’s achievement — and, of course — the academy’s. So let’s talk about that. “Moonlight” won best picture. That happened. Hollywood tried to wrest itself from history’s grip. And despite the bizarreness, that feels extraordinary, too. SCOTT “Moonlight” won best picture. That is an outcome I must say I never allowed myself to contemplate, even though I fell for the movie early and hard. I didn’t think it needed the award as proof of its merit — no piece of art ever really needs a prize in that way — and, in any case, I figured the academy would give it the standard treatment: a screenwriting and supporting actor prize with the expectation of gratitude for just being included in the festivities. Which was exactly what seemed to be happening. And then (to echo Wesley) something else happened. We’re all still puzzling over what exactly it was. As Mr. Jenkins said: “But to hell with dreams. I’m done with it, because this is true. ” However awkwardly and backwardly the truth was revealed, “Moonlight” won best picture. That fact is something to hold onto, whether it portends a new direction or turns out to be an outlier. Unpredictability, in any case, seems to be the new normal. Some of our most beloved institutions — or maybe let’s just say our most begrudgingly tolerated, our most as a matter of professional obligation — no longer function according to established rules and patterns. Or else they do (bad jokes, cheesy musical numbers, careful political statements, predictable winners) until all of a sudden they don’t. That kind of disruption can be upsetting, even horrifying. Last night showed that it can also be beautiful. “Moonlight” won best picture. I will never get tired of saying that. DARGIS But that’s the Oscars, isn’t it? They’re terrible and totally meaningless until the academy picks a movie we love. (Hello, “The Hurt Locker”!) Still, while the academy did give “Moonlight” best picture, the fact that Mr. Chazelle won best director suggests that last night was a squeaker. It may be that the academy’s push to diversify itself by adding new members has paid off, but some of the ugliness that aired during the interminable slog up to Sunday night indicates that the academy remains deeply divided. (Sound familiar?) Some of this was the usual campaign nonsense, but more than one white person also suggested that I love “Moonlight” only because it’s a black film. So, yes, the academy got it right, and “Moonlight” is now the first best picture winner to have been directed by an . To turn back to that other milestone movie: When Kathryn Bigelow won best director for “The Hurt Locker” in 2010, some hoped that her historic win would serve as a breakthrough for women, but it hasn’t, and the numbers for female filmmakers are worse now. I don’t want to harsh our mellow, but I also don’t want to overpraise the academy for occasionally getting it right when the industry continues to get it so wrong. “Moonlight,” after all, wasn’t made by one of the big studios, which are more interested in superhero fantasies it was bankrolled by A24, a small, independent company. MORRIS There’s also that. While this was an important night for nonwhite and filmmakers and actors, American movies continue to be appallingly bad for female filmmakers. Meanwhile, the major studios are out to lunch — or at the bank. A24 has the most exciting taste of any American studio, or . That “Moonlight” won doesn’t excuse anything. What happens the next year, or the year after, when it’s #OscarSoWhiteAgain? Over and over on Sunday, writers and actors and producers made statements about the urgency for more vivid representation, that we in the audience hunger for it, whether we live in Liberty City (the Miami neighborhood where “Moonlight” is set) or Manchester by the Sea. The three of us spend a few weeks talking about the Academy Awards and the rest of the year out in the marketplace, just watching movies. The real dream would be to arrive at a place where we can watch a film and argue about who’s in it instead of who isn’t. And can I also say, Manohla, that I really liked that moment with the tour group? If they’d been bused in against their will for our entertainment, I’d object. But those sights are, presumably, a version of what they paid that tour company to show them: the world through Jennifer Aniston’s sunglasses. When Mr. Kimmel asked that one woman, a who her favorite star was, and she pointed to Mr. Washington, my heart melted. We’ve been talking about optics and history, and it felt meaningful to me that the bride, her groom and their complementary personalities got to meet her favorite movie actor and that, in some way, Mr. Washington got to meet — and “marry” — them. For what it’s worth, he was nominated this year for playing an average guy. Sure, that tourist stunt culminated in three black people having a moment around a smartphone. But it was also a fantastical snapshot of a ideal: weird, wedded bliss.

Trump Tower Surrounded By Dump Trucks In Anticipation Of Violence

Alex Ansary

Trump Tower Surrounded By Dump Trucks In Anticipation Of Violence 11/09/2016 DAILY CALLER The New York City Police Department (NYPD) has surrounded the perimeter of Trump Tower with reinforced dump trucks in anticipation of Election Day violence. The dump trucks flank the skyscraper on all sides, and are supplemented by guardrails and heavily armed police officers. This morning, the building was not open to the general public and traffic crawled through a narrow corridor of trucks and police. On the street, supporters and protesters stood for interviews with a burgeoning press corps camped across the street. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump lives in a penthouse near the top of the building, which also serves as headquarters for his presidential campaign. (RELATED: Election Day Voting Has Begun – Who Is Winning?) Police told The Daily Caller News Foundation that the dumping beds are filled with sand, which adds weight to each truck, in effect making it impossible to run the barrier. Police decided to circle the Tower with trucks as a hedge against car bombs, or some such similar incendiary munition delivered by car. The fleet of trucks will travel with Trump this evening to surround the New York Hilton Midtown Manhattan Hotel, where Trump is hosting his victory rally. The NYPD maintained a presence around the hotel for several days, which is also closed to the public. Guests staying in the hotel on unrelated business must present their keycards at a security check-point before entering the premises. Similar security measures will attend Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s headquarters at the Javits Convention Center in Hell’s Kitchen this evening.

Federal Court Rules Texas’ ID Law Violates Voting Rights Act - The New York Times

Manny Fernandez and Erik Eckholm

HOUSTON — A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that Texas’ voter identification law, one of the strictest in the country, violated the Voting Rights Act and that the state must find ways to accommodate voters who face hardships in obtaining the necessary documents. Democrats and voting rights advocates hailed the ruling as a significant victory in one of the nation’s most closely watched voting rights cases. It was the fourth time in nearly four years that a federal court found that the Texas law discriminated against or disproportionately affected black and Hispanic voters. “The court got it right, recognizing the stink of discrimination,” said Trey Martinez Fischer, a state representative who is the chairman of the Legislative Caucus, one of several minority groups, voters and Democratic lawmakers who sued Texas over the law. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans, found that the law had a discriminatory effect on blacks and Latinos, who often lack the forms of identification required under the Texas law. But the ruling did not strike down the law entirely, ruling instead that new procedures must be found to assist potential voters lacking the required identification. The ruling also sent back for reconsideration the question of whether Texas legislators had acted with a discriminatory purpose in passing the law in 2011, a finding that would have forced new judicial oversight of any changes in Texas election rules. Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican who defended the voter ID law against legal challenges when he was the state’s attorney general, said the court had come to the wrong conclusion. Republican lawmakers have long defended the law, saying it is needed to prevent voter fraud. “Voter fraud is real, and it undermines the integrity of the election process,” Mr. Abbott said in a statement. “Texas will continue to make sure there is no illegal voting at the ballot box. ” Passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Rick Perry in 2011, the law took effect in 2013. It requires voters to present one of several forms of identification, including a driver’s license, passport, military ID card or license. A lower court judge found that about 608, 000 registered voters in Texas lacked the types of identification required by the law, and that a disproportionate number were black or Hispanic. The judge based that finding on testimony and data presented by experts during a 2014 trial in Corpus Christi. Texas’ lawyers disputed that figure. In its ruling, the Fifth Circuit asked a lower court judge to come up with a remedy that “disrupts voter identification rules for the 2016 election season as little as possible, yet eliminates” the law’s discriminatory effect on minority voters. One possible solution, the court noted, would be to allow cards to be used as identification. The court also instructed the judge to the evidence about whether the Texas Legislature intentionally discriminated against blacks and Hispanics, but encouraged the judge to wait until after the November election. The Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, said in a statement that the state had a duty to safeguard elections. “Preventing voter fraud is essential to accurately reflecting the will of Texas voters during elections, and it is unfortunate that this law, providing protections against fraud, was not upheld in its entirety,” Mr. Paxton said. Asked if the state would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, a spokeswoman for Mr. Paxton, Kayleigh Lovvorn, replied, “We are evaluating all of our options right now. ” Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, called the decision on Wednesday “huge in a symbolic way” for voting rights across the country. Since the Supreme Court weakened the federal Voting Rights Act in 2013, he noted, several states have been “ratcheting up” their voter ID requirements. What the Fifth Circuit — known as perhaps the country’s most conservative appeals court — has ruled is that “you can go too far with a voter ID law,” he said. “If Texas had been allowed to do what it’s been trying to do, that would be a green light for other states to try something similar,” Professor Hasen said. But he added that the plaintiffs’ victory was not as great as it would have been if the court had struck down the law. Myrna Pérez, the deputy director of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, which helped argue the plaintiffs’ case, called the ruling a “big victory. ” “The court said the law is discriminatory and needs to be fixed,’’ she said.

The Truth U.S. Government Does NOT Want You To Know About The War In Syria

Dikran Arakelian (noreply@blogger.com)

Share on Facebook The people of the world should ask Western leaders and their allies: Why are you prolonging this war? Why do you continue funding and enabling the terrorists? Isn't five years of civil war enough? Is overthrowing the Syrian government really worth so much suffering and death? WASHINGTON — (Analysis) In late April, President Barack Obama announced that 250 U.S. special operations troops are being deployed to Syria. Unlike the Russian and Iranian forces aiding anti-terrorism efforts in the country, the U.S. military personnel have entered Syria against the wishes of the internationally recognized government. In terms of international law, the United States has invaded Syria, a sovereign country and United Nations member state. This is the not the first time, though — Arizona Sen. John Mccain crossed into Syria without a visa to meet with anti-government fighters in 2013. While the new U.S. boots on the ground have officially been dispatched for the purpose of fighting Daesh (an Arabic acronym for the organization known in the West as ISIS or ISIL), they will most likely be working to achieve one of the Pentagon's longstanding foreign policy goals: violently overthrowing the Syrian government. As the terrorism of Daesh and other extremists grows more intense, and as millions of Syrians have become refugees, the heavy costs of the U.S. government's “regime change” operation in Syria should come into question. Education, Health Care And National Rebirth The independent nationalist Syrian government, now being targeted by Western foreign policy, was born in the struggle against colonialism. It took decades of great sacrifice from the people of Syria to break the country free from foreign domination — first by the French empire and later from puppet leaders. For the last several decades, Syria has been a strong, self-reliant country in the oil-rich Middle East region. It has also been relatively peaceful. Since winning its independence, Syria's Baathist leadership has done a great deal to improve the living standards of the population. Between 1970 and 2009, the life expectancy in Syria increased by 17 years. During this time period infant mortality dropped dramatically from 132 deaths per 1,000 live births to only 17.9. According to an article published by the Avicenna Journal of Medicine , these notable changes in access to public health came as a result of the Syrian government's efforts to bring medical care to the country's rural areas. A 1987 country study of Syria , published by the U.S. Library of Congress, describes huge achievements in the field of education. During the 1980s, for the first time in Syria's history, the country achieved “full primary school enrollment of males” with 85 percent of females also enrolled in primary school. In 1981, 42 percent of Syria's adult population was illiterate. By 1991, illiteracy in Syria had been wiped out by a mass literacy campaign led by the government. The name of the main political party in Syria is the “Baath Arab Socialist Party.” The Arabic word “Baath” literally translates to “Rebirth” or “Resurrection.” In terms of living standards, the Baathist Party has lived up to its name, forging an entirely new country with an independent, tightly planned and regulated economy. The Library of Congress’ Country Study described the vast construction in Syria during the 1980s: “Massive expenditures for development of irrigation, electricity, water, road building projects, and the expansion of health services and education to rural areas contributed to prosperity.” Compared to Saudi-dominated Yemen, many parts of Africa, and other corners of the globe that have never established economic and political independence, the achievements of the Syrian Arab Republic look very attractive. Despite over half a century of investment from Shell Oil and other Western corporations, the CIA World Factbook reports that about 60 percent of Nigerians are literate, and access to housing and medical care is very limited. In U.S.-dominated Guatemala, roughly 18 percent of the population is illiterate, and poverty is rampant across the countryside, according to the CIA World Factbook . What the Western colonizers failed to achieve during centuries of domination, the independent Syrian government achieved rapidly with help from the Soviet Union and other anti-imperialist countries. The Soviet Union provided Syria with a $100 million loan to build the Tabqa dam on the Euphrates River , which was “considered to be the backbone of all economic and social development in Syria.” Nine-hundred Soviet technicians worked on the infrastructure project which brought electricity to many parts of the country. The dam also enabled irrigation throughout the Syrian countryside. More recently, China has set up many joint ventures with Syrian energy corporations. According to a report from the Jamestown Foundation , in 2007 China had already invested “hundreds of millions of dollars” in Syria in efforts to “modernize the country's aging oil and gas infrastructure.” These huge gains for the Syrian population should not be dismissed and written off, as Western commentators routinely do when repeating their narrative of “Assad the Dictator.” For people who have always had access to education and medical care, it is to trivialize such achievements. But for the millions of Syrians, especially in rural areas, who lived in extreme poverty just a few decades ago, things like access to running water, education, electricity, medical care, and university education represent a huge change for the better. Like almost every other regime in the crosshairs of U.S. foreign policy, Syria has a strong, domestically-controlled economy. Syria is not a “client state” like the Gulf state autocracies surrounding it, and it has often functioned in defiance of the U.S. and Israel. It is this, not altruistic concerns about human rights, that motivate Western attacks on the country. Syria Needs Reform, Not Terrorism In 2012, Syria ratified a new constitution in response to the protests during the Arab Spring. In compliance with the new constitution, Syria held a contested election in 2014 , with international observers from 14 countries. One thing that distinguishes Syria from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, and various other U.S.-aligned regimes throughout the region is religious freedom. In Syria, Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Jews, and other religious groups are permitted to practice their religious faith freely. The government is secular, and respects the rights of the Sunni Muslim majority as well as religious minorities. In addition to religious freedom, Syria openly tolerates the existence of two strong Marxist-Leninist parties. The Syrian Communist Party and the Syrian Communist Party (Bakdash) openly operate as part of the anti-imperialist coalition supporting the Baath Arab Socialist Party. Communists lead trade unions and community organizations in Damascus and other parts of the country. Though Syrian President Bashar Assad is an Alawite, his wife, Asma, is Sunni like the majority of the country. Historically, the biggest opponents of the Syrian government have been supporters of the Muslim brotherhood, with a bloody episode taking place in 1982. Hoping to heal the longstanding tension, President Assad has made many gestures of solidarity toward the Sunni community in recent years. He has made a point of engaging in religious practices not commonly done by Alawites, such as praying in mosques and studying the Quran. Shortly after fighting began in 2011, the Syrian government granted autonomy to Kurdish regions and transferred political authority to leftist Kurdish nationalist organizations . Syria's political system is certainly in need of reform and modernization, and representatives of the Syrian government such as U.N. Ambassador Bashar Al-Jaafari readily admit this. However, the civil war which has raged across Syria for the last five years, is not about reform, democratization or modernization. The BBC published a “guide to Syrian rebels” in 2013. Among them are not only the infamous “Islamic State” organization, which now horrifies the world, but also the Nusra Front, previously known as Al-Qaida in Syria. Other organizations with names like the “Islamic Front,” the “Islamic Liberation Front,” and the “Ahfad al-Rasoul Brigades” are also listed. While Western media presents the Syrian civil war as a “battle for democracy” led by “revolutionaries,” the primary goal of almost every insurgent organization is creating a Sunni caliphate — one that does not actually suit Sunnis though, but rather a perverted politicized version of Sunnism created by Saudi Arabia to ideologically control that region. The unifying religious perspective of the Syrian “rebels” is the interpretation of Sunni Islam practiced and promoted by Saudi Arabia, known as Wahhabism. Foreign Fighters, Chemical Weapons And Child Soldiers A large number of the insurgents are not Syrian. Impoverished people from throughout the Middle East have been recruited to fight against the Syrian government. Facilities in Bahrain train recruits to kill , and send them to Syria. Terrorist training facilities exist in many other U.S.-aligned Gulf states. Foreign fighters from as far away as Malaysia and the Philippines have been found among the ranks of the foreign Wahhabi insurgents that are trying to depose the Syrian government. The flow of violent insurgents into Syria is not accidental. It has been directly facilitated by the U.S. and its allies. The CIA has spent billions of dollars on training camps in Jordan for anti-government fighters . The Israeli government has made a point of aiding the Wahhabi extremists by providing them medical care in the occupied Golan Heights . Israel has also made a point of targeting allies of the Syrian government with airstrikes . While Western media has highlighted allegations that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons, Carla Del Ponte from the United Nations confirmed that the foreign-backed insurgents have long been been using sarin nerve gas and other chemical weapons. As the insurgents make life unlivable in Syria, kidnapping for ransom, bombing schools and hospitals, beheading people, torturing people, they do it with thousands of child soldiers among their ranks. Impoverished children from across the Arab world have been recruited to work toward violently overthrowing the Syrian government, according to UNICEF . Between 50 and 72 percent of the population lives in areas controlled by the Syrian government . Meanwhile, even USAID confirmed that the turnout in Syria's 2014 elections was more than 70 percent . While the barrage of foreign fighters and extremists, aligned with a minority of the population and armed by Western powers and their allies, is committed to bringing down the Syrian government, the Syrian people clearly disagree. The fact that the Syrian government remains strongly intact after a five-year onslaught shows that the country is dedicated to preserving its independence. Time magazine and other mainstream media outlets have even been forced to admit that President Assad is unlikely to be deposed. How Can The War End? As foreign fighters have flowed into Syria, hundreds of thousands of people have died over the last five years, and Western media continues to blame the Syrian government for the conflict. However, the war would have been a very short one if not for the foreign support given to the extremists. As an independent country with a centrally planned economy, Syria has serves as an example to the world. It has proven that without neoliberalism and Western economic domination, it is possible to improve living conditions and develop independently. The Syrian government has made huge sacrifices to aid the Palestinian people and their resistance against Israel, and this has been a contributing factor to Syria's inclusion on the State Department's State Sponsors of Terrorism list . Syria has close economic relations with Russia and the Islamic Republic of Iran. The war in Syria is not a domestic conflict. This is a war imposed on Syria by Israel, the U.S., and other Western capitalist powers. The primary promoter of Wahhabi extremism around the world has been the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a U.S. client state. Turkey and Jordan, U.S.-aligned countries bordering Syria, keep their borders open so that weapons, supplies and money can continue to flow into the hands of Daesh and other anti-government terrorists. At least 470,000 people are dead , and millions of others have been forced to become refugees, but Western leaders and their allies do not end their campaign. The insane chorus of “Assad Must Go” has transformed a small, domestic episode of unrest into a full-scale humanitarian crisis. The war has nothing to do with the calls for democratic reform and the peaceful protests of 2011. As Daesh now threatens the entire world, the consequences of the Wall Street regime change operation, promoted with “human rights” propaganda, are becoming far more extreme. The Syrian government rallies a coalition of Christians, Communists, Islamic Revolutionaries, and other forces who are fighting to maintain stability and defeat Takfiri terrorism. (The term “Takfiri” refers to groups of Sunni Muslims who refer to other Muslims as apostates and seek to establish a caliphate by means of violence.) The only real peace plan for Syria is for the U.S., France, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, and other powers to end their neoliberal crusade. The internationally recognized and recently re-elected Syrian government could easily defeat the insurgents if foreign meddling ceased. As U.S. media bemoans the humanitarian crisis, somehow blaming on the Syrian government and its president, and the U.S. directly sends its military forces into the country, the people of the world should ask Western leaders and their allies: Why are you prolonging this war? Why can't you just leave Syria alone? Why do you continue funding and enabling the terrorists? Isn't five years of civil war enough? Is overthrowing the Syrian government really worth so much suffering and death? Related:

Lady Gaga Protests Donald Trump Outside of Trump Tower

Alex Ansary

Lady Gaga Protests Donald Trump Outside of Trump Tower 11/09/2016 E! ONLINE Lady Gaga took to Trump Tower early Wednesday morning to protest the results of the U.S. election. The “Bad Romance” singer, a well-known Hillary Clinton supporter, stood outside Donald Trump ‘s building and held a sign that read “Love trumps hate.” As the hours passed Tuesday night and it became clearer that Trump would win the presidency, Gaga tweeted, “In a room full of hope, we will be heard. Stand up for kindness, equality, and love. Nothing will stop us. Say a prayer America.” Gaga campaigned for Clinton earlier this week, attending a rally where she spoke of Clinton’s strengths. “She has a career in politics that spans decades of experience, education, leadership, and wisdom. She’s ready to be president,” she said. “She kept going and she kept fighting for women’s rights. She kept fighting for the care of our children. She kept fighting for those that are in need.”Trump’s victory was declared around 2:30 a.m. ET, and during his speech he praised Clinton’s efforts throughout the election. He said she was owed a “deep debt of gratitude” for all her hard work. “We will get along with all other nations willing to get along with us. We will deal fairly with everyone. We will seek common ground, partnership not conflict,” he added in his speech. “America will no longer settle for anything less than the best. We must reclaim our destiny.”

The Sleep of Separateness

Gillian

Leave a reply Steve Taylor, Ph.D – From the standpoint of ordinary consciousness, separateness seems to be a basic part of the human condition. Most human beings experience themselves as egos trapped inside their own mind-space, observing a world which seems to be out there, on the other side of their skulls. As a result, the normal human state is one of aloneness. We’re always onlookers rather than participants. We can communicate with other people by speaking, writing or gesturing, but they will never be able to truly know us, or to share our thoughts and feelings. Our inner being will always be sealed off from them. Ego-separation also creates a sense of incompleteness. Because we’re separate from the world, we’re like fragments which have broken off from the whole, and so feel a sense of insufficiency. There s a kind of hole inside us which we spend most of our lives trying to fill (but very rarely manage to), like cats who were taken away from their mother at birth and who are always hankering for affection and attention to try to compensate for a sense of lack. Born-again Christians mean something close to this when they say that there is a god-shaped hole inside us although in my view traditional religion can’t fill the hole either, only provide the same (ultimately incomplete) consolation as wealth or success. As a result of this aloneness and incompleteness, we don’t feel completely at home in the world. We’re not completely rooted here, and so feel somehow adrift, as if we don’t fully belong, like people who have travelled around the world so much that they no longer feel at home anywhere. Whereas traditional indigenous peoples seem to perceive the world as a benign and benevolent place, to us it seems indifferent and even vaguely malevolent. In addition, our ego-isolation generates a basic sense of insecurity and insignificance. Our own ego is so tiny and so flimsy in the face of the enormous world out there , like a tiny wooden beach shack at the edge of a vast ocean. We feel dwarfed by the sheer weight of the phenomena and events taking place out there . How can we possibly have any significance in relation to them? How can this fragile entity inside our heads stand up to the might of the world? The Wider Effects of Separateness However, the effects of this separateness reach far beyond the individual. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the sense of separateness is the root cause of the constant conflict, warfare and oppression which have blighted human history. The human sense of incompleteness generates a craving for possessions, power and status, as a way of trying to complete ourselves and compensate for our inner discord. We try to complete ourselves – and make ourselves significant – by gaining power over other people or by collecting wealth and possessions. This desire for wealth and power is the root cause of warfare and oppression too, coupled with the reduced empathy which separateness causes. The separate self walls us off from other human beings, makes it difficult for us to ‘feel with’ them and to experience the world from their perspective. This makes it possible for us to be violent and cruel to other people, since we can’t sense the suffering we cause them. So we oppress and exploit them in the service of our own desires oppress women, members of lower classes or castes, different races, so that we can gain more power, status and wealth. The sense of separateness is also the root cause of our abuse of the environment. It means that we experience a sense of ‘otherness’ to nature, and that we can’t sense its aliveness, and as a result we don’t feel any qualms about exploiting and abusing it. Why Separateness? I wouldn’t exactly say that separateness is an illusion, as many non-duality teachers would. Not an illusion but an aberration – something which exists but shouldn’t. Children don’t experience separateness; they exist in a state of natural relatedness to the world. This is one of the reasons why childhood is so wonderful because the child feels connected to everything around them, in a participatory flow with all experience, with no in here or out there. There are also many other peoples in the world who even as adults don’t exist in a state of separateness. Most of the world s indigenous peoples don’t see themselves as separate to their environment. They feel a strong sense of connection to nature, an awareness that they are a part of the web of creation (and one which is no more important than any other). As Tim Ingold writes of the Batek Negritos of Malaysia, for example, They see themselves as involved in an intimate relationship of interdependence with the plants, animals and hala [spirits] (including the deities) which inhabit their world. Or as the Cherokee Indian scholar Rebecca Adamson points out, for indigenous peoples the environment is perceived as a sensate, conscious entity suffused with spiritual powers through which the human understanding is only realised in perfect humility before the sacred whole. The Hopi use the term Novoitti for the concept of living in harmony with nature, while the Tlingit (also of North America) call it Shogan. The anthropologist Lucien Levy-Bruhl believed that essential characteristic of native peoples was that the limits of their individuality are variable and ill-defined. He noted that, rather than existing as self-sufficient individual entities, indigenous peoples sense of identity was bound up with their community and their land. He cites reports of native peoples who used the word I when speaking of their group and others who see their land as an extension of their self, so that being forced away from their land would be tantamount to death. (This is why native peoples are often prepared to commit suicide rather than leave their lands.) The naming practices of certain peoples suggest this too. For us, a name is a permanent label which defines our individuality and autonomy. But Australian Aborigines, for example, do not have fixed names which they keep throughout their lives. Their names regularly change, and include those of other members of their tribe. Other native peoples use tekonyms terms which describe the relationship between two people instead of personal or kinship names. The sense of separateness seems to be a quirk of our psychological development. For us, it slowly develops as we move into adolescence, becoming firmly established in our late teens. The ego develops as a structure, creating a sense of inner-ness and walling us off. Witness the massive change which occurs when a child enters adolescence. Especially with boys, the freshness and joy of childhood gives way to dullness and confusion. After being a part of the glorious flow of experience, we’re suddenly outside the world, alone inside our own mental space. This is why adolescents have such a strong need for belonging. Their new sense of separation makes them feel so vulnerable that they need to reinforce their identity by being a part of groups or gangs, or by following fashions. More bleakly, this is also why most murders are committed by young men, in response to perceived slights or insults. With their new fragile sense of identity, young men are liable to take offence at any kind of trivial affront, making them feel belittled and creating an instant desire to take revenge and regain their lost status. I remember this transition clearly from my own adolescence. After a carefree childhood, I suddenly felt locked inside myself, alone with thoughts and feelings which no one else would ever be able to experience. Along with that, I felt an acute self-consciousness. I was aware of every movement I made and every word I spoke, so that I couldn’t do anything naturally anymore. I felt exposed when I walked down the street, aware that people could have been looking at me from their windows. As they grow into adulthood, most people deal with the fragility and vulnerability of the self by taking on roles and attachments. They take on the roles of their jobs, attach themselves to certain beliefs strengthening their identity with labels such as socialists, atheists or muslims or attach themselves to ambitions, to knowledge they’ve accumulated, to their self-image as important or powerful people, or emotionally attach themselves to other people These roles and attachments become the scaffolding of the ego, propping it up and at the same time, they reinforce separation, making the individual walled off. Awakening From the Sleep of Separateness However, no matter how far into separateness we fall, in a sense it’s never more than superficial. No matter how strong the ego becomes, it’s never more than a construct. Everyone experiences moments when separateness temporarily fades, and we become part of the unity again. These are what I refer to as awakening experiences. They frequently occur when we’re walking amongst natural surroundings, when we’re dancing or running, during or after sex, listening to or playing music. In these situations, the normal chattering of the ego which is the normal fuel of the ego, maintaining it as a structure becomes quiet, leading to a softening of its boundaries. Separateness dissolves and we’re afloat on the ocean of Being again, immersed in the glorious is-ness and aliveness of the world. Tellingly, in these moments there is always an identity shift. We feel that we’ve become someone else, a deeper, more grounded self which seems more authentically you. The ego-self we identified with before seems like an imposter, a limited and shallow trickster who somehow deluded us into thinking it was our identity. There are also many cases of extreme loss or intense turmoil, when all of the ego’s building blocks its roles and attachments are broken away. A person might be diagnosed with cancer and told they only have a few months left to live; an alcoholic might reach rock bottom and be on the point of suicide; a person might become seriously disabled through injury or illness; or they might suffer from the trauma of bereavement, depression, the destruction of hopes and beliefs, and so on. In most cases, these forms of loss simply bring sadness and suffering, but for a minority of individuals, they can trigger a spiritual awakening. With all its scaffolding broken down, the normal ego-self dissolves away, and our deeper, truer self emerges in its place, like a butterfly from a caterpillar. The person feels re-born, like a different person inhabiting the same body, with a new sense of meaning and connection. In all of these experiences, there is a sense of coming home, back to our original oneness, the harmony which both as an individual and as a species we fell away from. It was always there it is always here. It’s just that our separate selves deluded us into thinking we were asleep. Steve Taylor holds a Ph.D in Transpersonal Psychology and is a senior lecturer in Psychology at Leeds Beckett University, UK. For the last five years Steve has been included in Mind, Body, Spirit magazine’s list of the ‘ 100 most spiritually influential living people ’. Connect with Steve at and Facebook.com/SteveTaylorAuthor . SF Source Wake Up World Nov. 2016

America thick as pig shit

Wednesday 9 November 2016 by Gary Stanton America thick as pig shit The American electorate is as thick as fucking pig shit, it has been confirmed this morning. When voters were asked to choose between lots and lots of pain and slightly less pain, a majority asked if they could have the options explained again more slowly. The night ended with red faces in the Democrat camp and Meryl Streep refusing to get down from the roof of a multi-storey car park in Washington. Wildly inaccurate polls that preceded the vote were explained when computer-illiterate pollsters admitted to adding things up on their fingers. Political analyst, Chuck Williams, told us, “Even an amoeba is able to respond to an unpleasant stimulus such as Trump’s opinions on immigrants and women by adopting a worried face and scurrying away in the opposite direction. “However, if you take the metaphorical amoeba that is the American voting public and repeat the same repulsive codswallop, it just sits there with a big stupid grin all over its rudimentary face. “In some cases, it even moves closer.” Williams blames what he calls the Fifty Shades effect, insisting the American public are either stupid or masochistic or both. He added, “The American public has just voted to be fucked in the ass by a sociopathic narcissist, and it seems that like a badly written fanfic character, they actually wanted it.” Get the best NewsThump stories in your mailbox every Friday, for FREE! There are currently

Battle Over New Bus Terminal Threatens to Paralyze Port Authority’s Board - The New York Times

Patrick McGeehan

After three years of planning for a new bus terminal in Manhattan, the commissioners of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey still agree that New York City badly needs one. But, as the nasty debate over paying for it has spilled out in public, they appear to agree on little else. The discord has threatened to paralyze the board that oversees the agency and that is responsible for transportation projects critical to the region. When the time came on Friday to publish the board’s monthly agenda, the agency punted, hinting that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, a Democrat, might instruct his appointees not to conduct any business, just as he did before the board’s previous meeting. When the agenda for the meeting this week finally appeared on Monday afternoon, it suggested that politicians from the opposite sides of the Hudson River had still not bridged their differences. They may still be billions of dollars apart in their views on how the agency should spend the money it collects from tolls and transportation fees. The battle over the bus terminal shows just how quickly the Port Authority can fall into the kind of dysfunction that allowed appointees of Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Republican, to spitefully close lanes at the George Washington Bridge in 2013. Mr. Christie has since stepped back from the agency, but the tussle for influence over its vast finances has remained fierce. It has caused at least one of Mr. Cuomo’s associates to quit abruptly and has drawn in city and state officials from both states, as well as Representative Jerrold Nadler, a Manhattan Democrat. Accusations of bargaining have flown back and forth. Mr. Nadler went so far as to question the motivations of the agency’s chairman, John J. Degnan, and to call on him to recuse himself from deliberations over the bus terminal. On Monday, Mr. Nadler declined to discuss his allegation. But he said of Mr. Degnan, “All I do know is that the New York people at the Port Authority, and the governor’s people, they all say that he’s been just dictatorial on everything. ” Angered by the attacks, Mr. Degnan, a Christie appointee, has planted his feet and squared up for a fight. “I am the chairman of the Port Authority,” he said. “The Port Authority needs to work with the governors, but it should not be submissive to either one of them. ” No decisions have been made about how or where to replace the terminal, a destination widely derided as forlorn, and one that is overrun by over 115, 000 daily commuters from New Jersey and beyond. But there is general agreement that the solution must include a new or revamped terminal within a few blocks of the existing one, on Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. The crux of the current dispute is how much money the authority should commit to the project. The commissioners have been wrestling all year with a revision of the agency’s capital plan. That budget, drawn up in 2014, did not include any money for the bus terminal. Facing cost estimates of $3. 7 billion to $15. 3 billion, Mr. Degnan has demanded that at least $3. 5 billion of the capital plan be designated for the terminal. But on Tuesday, Richard Azzopardi, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, said the governor would agree to that only if at least of the total was effectively contributed by New Jersey. “Asking New Yorkers to shoulder the burden of a $10 billion project many of them won’t ever use is a bad deal and a ” he said. Jameson W. Doig, a professor emeritus at Princeton who has chronicled the history of the Port Authority, said he had been told that Mr. Cuomo did not want his appointees to attend the board meeting in November while the dispute was unresolved. One of them, Steve Cohen, who was the vice chairman of the board, skipped the meeting and resigned. Mr. Cohen was the second Cuomo appointee to depart in the last few months, leaving the New York commissioners outnumbered, six to four. The previous vice chairman, Scott Rechler, left this fall. Mr. Doig said although there had been gridlock at the agency in the past, he could not recall another instance of a governor’s asking commissioners to boycott a board meeting. “We know that Governor Cuomo has been very interested in having substantial funds to carry out projects that he thinks are important,” he said, alluding to Mr. Cuomo’s championing of an overhaul of La Guardia Airport. “From his point of view, the bus terminal is not one of them. ” Mr. Azzopardi said: “The law provides that either governor can veto any action of the Port Authority. So if someone wants to run the Port Authority, they should run for governor. ” Mr. Nadler said he thought $2 billion was fair because the Port Authority was including the same amount in the capital plan for a project to build train tunnels under the Hudson River, known as Gateway, which is critical to improving travel in the region. No draft of the revised capital plan has been released, and the agency has not said how much would go for the Gateway project. Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the agency, said late on Monday that he had no answers to questions about the capital plan. It was not clear whether the commissioners would have answers when they gather for their monthly board meeting on Thursday. The delayed agenda indicated that they would vote on a resolution to publish a draft of the capital plan by Dec. 19. After that, the resolution says, the agency would invite the public to join in the debate over how it should spend more than $28 billion in capital funds. Public hearings will be held before any final decisions are made, according to the resolution. That is a very different process than the Port Authority has used in the past. The authority adopted a policy of holding public hearings on its plans after ramming through an unpopular steep toll increase in 2011. The public hearings are likely to draw crowds, given the strong reactions to the agency’s previous decisions about the bus terminal. New Jersey officials fear the agency will decide to build a satellite depot in their state, forcing many bus riders to transfer to PATH trains to reach Manhattan. Residents of the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, which surrounds the terminal, fear eminent domain will be invoked to take private property for the project. Last week, a group of New Jersey officials gathered in Hackensack, N. J. to call for a commitment to fully fund a new terminal on the West Side of Manhattan that would preserve a ride for commuters. Stephen M. Sweeney, a New Jersey Democrat who is the president of the State Senate, said $2 billion would be too little to ensure that the project moved forward. State Senator Loretta Weinberg, a Bergen County Democrat, said $2 billion was “ not nearly enough to guarantee a commitment to the bus terminal. ” Ms. Weinberg said she thought that she and the New Jersey officials had reached the framework of an agreement more than a month ago, and was caught when the debate turned hostile. Ms. Weinberg said she hoped “cooler heads will prevail” when the commissioners meet and try to wrap up the capital plan. Mr. Doig said he believed that the infighting was avoidable. “The kind of severe political meddling that we’ve seen in the last six years is not inescapable,” he said. “You need to have governors who think about the important issues the region faces as opposed to thinking, Let’s find a way to use the Port Authority and its money to enhance my reputation. ”

Tom Hayden’s Haunting

Jim Kavanagh

Email As an old SDS-er, I found it hard to see Tom Hayden go. However meandering his path, he was at the heart of radical history in the 60s, an erstwhile companion, if not always a comrade, on the route of every boomer lefty. One of his finer moments for me, which I’ve never seen mentioned (including among this week’s encomia) since he wrote it, was his 2006 article , published on CounterPunch with an introduction by Alexander Cockburn, in which he apologized for a “descent into moral ambiguity and realpolitick that still haunts me today.” It would be respectful of Hayden’s admirers and critics, on the occasion of his passing, to remember which of his actions “haunted” him the most. The title of the article says it clearly: “I Was Israel’s Dupe.” In the essay, Hayden apologizes for his support of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which was for him that “descent into moral ambiguity” More importantly, he explains why he did it, in a detailed narrative that everyone should read. Hayden sold out, as he tells it, because, in order to run as a Democratic candidate for the California State Assembly, he had get the approval of the influential Democratic congressman Howard Berman. Berman is a guy who, when he became Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was proud to tell the Forward that he took the job because of his “interest in the Jewish state” and that: “Even before I was a Democrat, I was a Zionist.” Hayden had to meet with Howard’s brother Michael, who, acting as “the gatekeeper protecting Los Angeles’ Westside for Israel’s political interests,” told Hayden: “I represent the Israeli Defense Forces”—a sentence that could serve as the motto of most American congress critters today. The “Berman-Waxman machine,” Hayden was told, would deign to “rent” him the Assembly seat on the “one condition: that I always be a ‘good friend of Israel.’” But American congressmen were not the only “gatekeepers” through whose hands Hayden had to pass before being allowed to run for Congress. Other “certifiers” included “the elites, beginning with rabbis and heads of the multiple mainstream Jewish organizations,… the American-Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC), …[and].. Israeli ambassadors, counsels general and other officials.“ In fact, Hayden had to, in his words, be “declared ‘kosher’ by the ultimate source, the region’s representative of the state of Israel,” Benjamin Navon, Israel’s Counsul-general in Los Angeles. In other words, in this article Hayden was describing, in an unusually concrete way, how the state of Israel, through its state officials and their compliant American partners, was effectively managing—exercising veto power over Democratic Party candidates, at the very least—American elections down to the level of State Assembly . In any constituency “attuned to the question of Israel, even in local and state elections,” Hayden knew he “had to be certified ‘kosher,’ not once but over and over again.” This experience prompted Hayden to express a “fear …that the ‘Israeli lobby’ is working overtime to influence American public opinion on behalf of Israel’s military effort to ‘roll back the clock’ and ‘change the map’ of the region.” Hayden warned of the “trepidation and confusion among rank-and-file voters and activists, and the paralysis of politicians, especially Democrats,” over support of Israel. He vowed to “not make the same mistake again,” and said: “Most important, Americans must not be timid in speaking up, as I was 25 years ago.” Whatever else he did—and he was never particularly radical about Palestine—this article was a genuinely honest and unusual intervention, and it deserves a lot more notice—as a moment in Tom Hayden’s history and that of the American left—than it has got. Looking back and regretfully acknowledging that one had been duped and morally compromised by what seemed the least troublesome path 25 years earlier, saying “I woulda, shoulda, coulda done the right thing,” is a haunting moment for anyone. Doing it in a way that exposes in detail how a foreign country constantly manipulates American elections over decades is worthy of everyone’s notice. I doubt Hillary and her Democratic supporters will have anything to say about this “interference “in American elections, even local and state. But I do hope many of those who are touched by the loss of Tom Hayden heed these words from him, and don’t wait another 25 years to overcome their “fear and confusion” about saying and doing the right thing regarding the crimes of Israel, troublesome as that might be.

BBC’s Children Show ‘Just a Girl’ is About a Transgender Child Taking Hormone Blocking Drugs

Vigilant Citizen

By Vigilant Citizen on November 2, 2016 By VC — Vigilant Citizen Nov 1, 2016 The BBC series aimed at children as young a six describe how Ben became Amy by taking hormones to halt puberty. It is yet another example of the agenda promoting the blurring of the genders. And they are now aiming children. Last year, I published an article entitled The Agenda Behind Bruce Jenner’s Transformation where I explained how Jenner’s sex change was intentionally publicized and celebrated because it was part of a larger agenda promoting the blurring of the genders. This agenda is even more obvious and insidious this year because there’s a conscious effort to reach children. A child with the word ‘Transgender’ stamped across the screen. This sums up what mass media has been about these past years. Click to enlarge Although ‘Amy’ is played by an actress, the story claims that she used to be boy named Ben. Click to enlarge CBBC’s series Just a Girl is the latest baffling attempt at normalizing, trivializing and even celebrating the completely unnecessary process that is childhood sex change. Freely available online on CBBC’s website, the series even teaches children about taking hormones and puberty-halting drugs. Do we truly know the effects of such drugs on one’s developing body and brain chemistry. Of course not. Why is this radical and aberrant process promoted to children? Do children need to know about hormone blockers? AND WHERE ARE THE PARENTS?! Click to enlarge In my humble opinion, parents who subject their children to radical treatments such as hormone blockers and sex change surgery should be trialed for child abuse. Instead, these things are actually encouraged in shows aimed at children and society is following suit. Some NHS clinics (such as the Tavistock Centre in North London) have been prescribing hypothalamic blockers to children as young as nine. In another case, such as a seven-year-old boy was ordered to be removed from his mother’s care as ‘she was raising him as female’. This is what the elite wants to see: Confused children wondering if they should change sex. HOW ABOUT YOU GO OUTSIDE AND RIDE A BIKE OR SOMETHING? Here are quotes taken from Just a Girl . In Just A Girl, Amy says: ‘When I was born, Mum said Dad was so pleased that he had a boy to take to the football. But Mum knew I was different. She realised early on that I was born in the wrong body.’ She adds: ‘My Mum supported me when I did a PowerPoint presentation to my class about transitioning and that I wasn’t going to come to school in boys’ clothes any more, but girls’ clothes. I wasn’t Ben, I was Amy.’ Later Amy is shown telling a friend, Josh – a boy who wants to be recognised as a girl – that she is on hormone blockers, saying it took ‘ages’ to get them after ‘loads of tests and talks at the clinic’. ‘Once they realised I was trans for real, [I] got them,’ she says. In another entry, Amy tells viewers she has developed a crush on a boy called Liam, but confides: ‘Liam thinks I’m just a girl, but I’m not. I’m trans. And what’s he going to say if he finds out? Stop being my friend? Why? I’m still me, aren’t I?’ This last bit appears to be taken straight from a neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) handbook. The goal: To confuse young minds about sex and gender. Backlash

The Week After Trump’s Win: The Reaction Of Liberal College Students

EdJenner

Like most people on Election Day, I expected Hillary Clinton to become President. I could not have been in a better setting to find out the tides were turning.

How to Use Google to Plan Your Trip - The New York Times

Justin Sablich

Google Maps revolutionized how you get from point A to point B. Google Trips aims to to do the same for how you vacation. The smartphone app, released on Monday, uses what it already knows about you, based on data it has collected from your Gmail account, and combines it with established features from its other offerings, like Destinations, and its large database of reviews. The goal, as Google puts it, is to create a “personalized tour guide in your pocket. ” “We wanted to reduce the hassle and help travelers enjoy their vacations,” Stefan Frank, the app’s product manager, wrote on Google’s blog. The app can do a lot, probably equal to what four travel apps could do, but it can’t do everything. Here’s what you need to know before setting off on your first Google trip. It’s (Only if You Use Gmail) After setting up the app using your Gmail account, you can create your first trip — simply search for the destination city and put in your dates. If you’re hitting multiple cities, you can add those as well. If the app has enough of your data, you may already have the trip listed. In that case, you do not have to create a new one, just jump into the existing trip and make changes as you see fit. The app has complete guides for more than 200 major cities, and each of those has six main features: Reservations, Things to Do, Saved Places, Day Plans, Food Drink and Getting Around. There are guides for most other cities as well, but you won’t get Day Plans and Getting Around options for those smaller locations. Reservations will show you the flight, hotel and car rental information that it collects from the Gmail account you registered with. You’ll need to forward any reservations made using your work email to your Gmail account if you want those to show up. It’s also worth noting that you cannot make reservations directly from the app — it shows only the reservations you already made. I had nothing definite planned, but for testing’s sake, I tried out a hypothetical trip to Boston. Things to Do is a good place to start. It recommends destinations broken down by category, from the simple “Indoors” vs. “Outdoors” to labels like “Newbury Street Shops” and ones like “Selfie Spots. ” If you see something you like, hit the star icon and it’ll add it to your Saved Places. This breakdown and the ability to save will look familiar to anyone who has used Gogobot. Day Plans are suggested themed itineraries. For example, Historic Boston has 10 sites mapped out, each one including all of the information you’d see if you found it on Google search (reviews, open and close time) and the travel time between each stop. Food Drink will give you a basic overview of the area’s specialties, and then suggest establishments based on categories like “” “food with a view,” “cocktail specialists” and many more. Getting Around has all the transportation information you could think of. You get all of your airport options, from public transportation directions to costs of taxis. It’s a You’ve probably already saved some dough by using the offline feature on Google Maps. You can do the same here by downloading each trip to your phone. And all the information will be accessible even if you’re not connected to the internet or to cellular service. You won’t need to eat into your data with Google Trips, or be stuck if your vacation is in a remote location with no cell service. Using the app with a data or connection does have a few perks. If the weather takes a turn for the worse, the app will suggest indoor activities. It’ll also show whether a place is open or closed in real time. But you’re not missing much in offline mode. It’s Customizable If you’re strapped for time, the suggested Day Plans seem to have something for everyone. But you can also customize each recommended plan by adding or deleting stops, or create one from scratch. The app will also suggest places to visit based on what it knows about you (which, by now, is a lot). It had Fenway Park on the top of my “For You” list, since it has rightfully concluded that I’m a baseball fan. Then again, “Boston With Kids” was another suggested Day Plan and I don’t have any of those. It’s Kind of Creepy Before you create your first trip, you’ll see some of your previous trips that you didn’t even share. That’s because it has already pulled in information from your Gmail account, so it knows which hotels you stayed in and where you rented a car from and stores this information under Reservations. This could be useful if you plan on returning some day. But if you’d rather not have the stroll down memory lane, you can delete previous trips quite easily. It’s also not perfect. Occasional suggestions miss the mark. Also, I recently returned from a weekend away and it had this week blocked off for me as a trip to New York, which is where I live. It’s Free There is no fine print here. As long as you don’t consider the fact that Google now has a new way of using your data as a price to pay, there is no monetary charge for using the app. This is significant if you compare it to similar travel apps like TripIt, which costs $49 per year for its premium service.

13 Years Later Elizabeth Smart Realizes Kidnapping Was Even Worse For Her Parents

In 2002, Elizabeth Smart was abducted during the night at knifepoint from her bedroom at only 14-years-old. Her kidnapping quickly garnered national media attention. Her media savvy parents worked overtime to keep her story in the news throughout the ordeal. During her 9 months in captivity she was raped repeatedly, often as many as 3-4 times per day. Each day was a mental and physical war for her to survive at the hands of her kidnapper and rapist, Brian David Mitchell. Related Stories American Student Presumed Dead Turns Up In North Korea As Kim Jong Un’s Personal Tutor With the help of an America’s Most Wanted television broadcast, the police were able to locate and free her on March 12, 2003. Her disappearance and subsequent miraculous return to her family made her one of the best known teenagers in America at the time. Justice wasn’t finally served until 2011 when Mitchell received two life-terms in a federal prison. Smart, now 28 years old, is married and a mother with a family of her own. Her daughter, Chloe is now 20 months old. After a long day of working I like to slip back to my happy place, with Chloé on horseback. #daydreaming A photo posted by Elizabeth Smart (@elizabeth_smart_official) on Aug 15, 2016 at 7:30pm PDT Now as a parent herself, Smart has realized how horrible the kidnapping was for her parents. “When I go back to my own situation, I almost think it was worse for my parents than for me because I knew that I was alive, but they didn’t know,” she told People magazine. “I always knew how much they loved me, but until I had my own daughter I didn’t realize how all-consuming that is. The worst thing in the world would be if something happened to my little girl,” she continued. Smart has made it her life’s work as a reporter, teacher and activist to make sure other parents, families, victims and survivors are supported, “Nobody should have to go through the aftermath of a terrible crime alone.” Call if you or someone you know needs help. Report it! #StopChildAbuse w/ @helpspreadthis https://t.co/FUqHbDoyoJ pic.twitter.com/laWxOfcu9G — Elizabeth Smart (@ElizSmart) August 14, 2016 Smart now works for Crime Watch Daily a program hosted by Chris Hansen. With one season under belt, she’s signed on for a second season. Trending Stories Frustrated With Media Bias, Trump Campaign Takes Its Case Directly To Voters With Nightly Show On Facebook Independent Voters Push Trump To The Front In Florida And Ohio RNC Official Takes CNN Host To Task For Claiming There Is No Media Bias Finding purpose in her work, she told People, “I decided to continue because sharing the stories of survivors is a way to keep their cases in the spotlight and hopefully give them a better chance of bringing criminals to justice.” Speaking today to a gathering in Oklahoma, Smart said, “It’s not what happens to us that defines who we are, it’s what we decide to do about it.” What do you think?

Kellyanne Conway Promotes Ivanka Trump Brand, Raising Ethics Concerns - The New York Times

Richard Pérez-Peña and Rachel Abrams

WASHINGTON — The White House on Thursday “counseled” Kellyanne Conway, one of President Trump’s top advisers, in an unusual show of displeasure after she urged consumers to buy fashion products marketed by Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter. Legal experts said Ms. Conway might have violated a federal ethics rule against endorsing products or promoting an associate’s financial interests. “Go buy Ivanka’s stuff is what I would say,” Ms. Conway said in a Thursday morning interview with Fox News, speaking from the White House briefing room. “I’m going to give a free commercial here: Go buy it today, everybody you can find it online. ” Sean Spicer, the president’s press secretary, would not elaborate on what the counseling entailed. Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said Ms. Conway’s comments were “wrong, wrong, wrong, and there’s no excuse for it. ” Mr. Chaffetz — who so far had not acted on calls since Election Day to investigate ethics issues related to Mr. Trump — and the panel’s ranking Democrat, Elijah Cummings, formally asked the Office of Government Ethics for an inquiry. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and Public Citizen, nonprofit advocacy groups, sent their own requests to the ethics office to investigate whether Ms. Conway’s comments went over the line. The director of the office, Walter M. Shaub Jr. has said publicly that the president needs to do more to separate himself from his businesses. Federal ethics rules state that an employee of the government’s executive branch cannot use public office for personal gain or to endorse products or services on behalf of friends or relatives. Legal experts said Ms. Conway, whose title is counselor to the president, appeared to have violated that and possibly other rules, which do not apply to the president and vice president, but do apply to their staffs. The president and the Trump Organization continue to be targets of criticism — and formal requests for investigation by Democrats in Congress — over potential conflicts of interest because of their global business operations. A particular focus of Democratic lawmakers in Congress is Mr. Trump’s lease with the federal government on the Old Post Office building in Washington, redeveloped as the Trump International Hotel. The hotel and Mr. Trump’s club in Palm Beach, Fla. are among the Trump properties critics see as profiting from a surge in interest because of his presidency. A lawsuit is also pending in federal court in New York, alleging that Mr. Trump is violating the Constitution by accepting payment from foreign governments at his hotels and golf courses around the world. It is one of dozens of lawsuits filed against him in recent weeks. The Trumps argue that they have taken major steps to avoid potential conflicts, including withdrawing from more than a dozen planned international deals. But the family is moving ahead with other plans, like the launch of a new hotel brand, Scion, which they hope will develop about 30 hotels around the United States, requiring approval from local governments that rely on federal aid. Ms. Conway was responding to a Trump family clash with Nordstrom, the department store chain, which has dropped Ms. Trump’s line. On Wednesday, the president used his personal and White House Twitter accounts to lash out at Nordstrom, saying that the company had treated his daughter “so unfairly. ” Those comments are the latest in a series of ethical questions about the relationship between his official role and his family’s interests. Ms. Conway’s remarks amounted to “using your government position as kind of a walking billboard for products or services offered by a private individual,” said Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard. “She is attempting quite crudely to enrich Ivanka and therefore the president’s family. ” Ordinarily, such conduct might be handled with a letter of reprimand, though it could lead to termination, legal experts said, but those decisions are largely up to the individual agency. “I think this is a violation, but I’d like to hear an argument as to why it’s not,” said Lawrence M. Noble, general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit advocacy group, who was formerly the top lawyer and ethics officer at the Federal Election Commission. “She was speaking on behalf of the White House, in her official position, which makes it more serious. ” Richard W. Painter, chief ethics counsel under President George W. Bush, said Ms. Conway’s conduct would not have been tolerated in that administration. Recent events show that the president and the people close to him do not intend “to make meaningful distinctions between his official capacity as president and the Trump family business,” he said. Of Mr. Trump’s aides, Mr. Painter said, “Instead of trying to push him back on this, they’re jumping in this and shilling for the businesses alongside him. ” Nordstrom, one of several retailers to reduce or eliminate its ties to Ms. Trump’s line of clothes, jewelry and accessories, said its decision to do so was based purely on sales performance. But deep division in views of Mr. Trump have put retailers in a bind. Critics of the president have called for a boycott of products and the stores that sell them, while his supporters have called for a boycott of stores that drop them. Ms. Conway said that Ms. Trump was being targeted by people who disliked her father. “They’re using her to get to him,” Ms. Conway said on Thursday. The president and his daughter have pledged to distance themselves from their various businesses. Ms. Trump has stepped away from her leadership role at the Ivanka Trump brand, and she and her father have resigned as executives at the Trump Organization. But recent events underscore the strong financial ties that remain. Mr. Trump will continue to receive reports on the performance of the Trump Organization, while Ms. Trump has given no indication that she plans to sell her brand. Much as her father has over the years, Ms. Trump licenses her name to various partners that manufacture and market her products. A day after Nordstrom pulled Ms. Trump’s products from its website, Neiman Marcus did the same, alluding to poor sales. Ms. Trump has no official role in the administration, but her father has included her in meetings with industry and government leaders, and her husband, Jared Kushner, is an adviser to the president. Acting as a surrogate for her father last year, she drew free attention to the Ivanka products — sheath dresses, heels and jewelry — that she sometimes wore. That commingling created a thicket of ethical issues that became more pointed after the election. The dress she wore at the Republican National Convention, for example, was among the items presented to apparel buyers in Japan last year, as Ms. Trump’s company was finalizing a deal with a Japanese clothing company whose largest shareholder is a bank. That deal was in its final stages when Ms. Trump joined her father’s meeting with Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, in November. A representative for Ms. Trump said she later withdrew from that deal. And in November, after her father’s election and the day after she appeared on “60 Minutes,” Ivanka Trump Fine Jewelry sent an email to fashion journalists with a photo from the interview, alerting them that the bangle she wore in the picture was available for $10, 800. The jewelry line later apologized.

Trump: ’I Inherited a Mess’ - Breitbart

Trent Baker

During his Thursday press conference naming Alexander Acosta his nominee to be Secretary of Labor, President Donald Trump discussed the state of the country when he entered office, saying he “inherited a mess. ” “To be honest, I inherited a mess,” Trump said in front of reporters. “It’s a mess … at home and abroad. A mess. Jobs are pouring out of the country. You see what’s going on with all of the companies leaving our country, going to Mexico and other places. Low pay, low wages, mass instability overseas no matter where you look — the Middle East, a disaster, North Korea. We’ll take care of it, folks. I just want to let you know I inherited a mess. ” Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent

How Your State and Local Tax Dollars Paid for Private Equity Firm TPG’s Elton John Apperance

Yves Smith

by Yves Smith With all the big and small grifting that goes on in private equity, we haven’t bothered calling out a practice that is pervasive and well known in the private equity community and authorized by the agreements that the limited partners sign with the general partners. Yet it will likely stick in the craw of most public pension fund beneficiaries, the taxpayers who support the payments to those plans, as well as donor to foundations and endowments that also invest in private equity even more than the widespread use of private jets, which is authorized not just for firm employees but at some general partners, even their family members. Another routine form of private equity rent extraction is how they get the fund investors, who are fiduciaries, to pay for lavish annual conferences which for the biggest funds includes big ticket entertainment like Elton John: #EltonJohn — TPG CEO Conference Phoenix AZ pic.twitter.com/gQWqkpPEwO — Doug Curling (@shakadoug) October 19, 2016 And for the still skeptical, another source has confirmed that Elton John performed at the TPG conference. And as is typical in limited partnership agreements, investors are on the hook for the costs of “meetings” and this show, as part of a limited partner event, was on their nickel. The only TPG limited partnership agreement we have is for a credit fund, and debt investors (unless they obtain control of a company via Chapter 11 or an out of court restructuring) do not have direct control over portfolio companies. That makes it harder for them to keep various charges opaque to limited partners by laundering them through portfolio companies. Nevertheless, the TPG Opportunities Partners II (A) puts the cost of meetings squarely on the investors. From numbered page 42, section 6.01(b): Except as specifically set forth in Section 3.01 ofthe Management Agreement, the Partnership shall pay for (or shall reimburse the Management Company for its payment of) all fees, costs and expenses relating to the Partnership’s activities, operations, meetings (including Advisory Committee meetings)… And TPG’s current Form ADV is even clearer on this point : …each Fund also generally bears all of the expenses relating to its activities, operations, meetings and eventual liquidation (other than expenses resulting from the fraud, gross negligence or willful misconduct of us or its general partner), And the ADV also specifies that TPG can charge entertainment to portfolio companies, which means limited partners have no idea how large the charges are in total: …reimbursements from portfolio companies for expenses (including travel expenses, which include expenses for business or first class travel, “black car” transportation and meals (including late night meals consumed at times when not traveling), entertainment-related expenses) we incur in connection with our performance of services for such portfolio company; Consider what this means. Private jet use supposedly OK not because it is an egregious perk for Masters of the Universe, but because their time is oh-so-valuable, and sometimes those mere commercial flights don’t get from Awkward Point A to Awkward Point B all that efficiently. The other justification is the need for secrecy and the ability to work on a private jet. The latter claim is pretty dodgy in light of the widespread industry practice of offering empty seats to supposed competitors if they happen to need a lift. So private jet use is an occasionally-justifible practice that has become a bad norm. By contrast, it’s hard to see lavish entertainment at supposed informational gatherings as anything other than a kickback to private equity investors. As someone who is in the business of consuming and analyzing information, it is vastly more efficient to process written information than speeches or presentations. Lambert and I both greatly prefer transcripts and can barely stand the time cost of listening to Web presentations. Conferences are an even bigger time sink. In other words, if the objective were to inform investors, these events are clearly not necessary. The limited partners are flattering themselves if they think they can learn anything more by seeing general partner execs or the team from their showcased portfolio companies in the flesh. These are all highly skilled performers and these events are very carefully staged in advance. So what are the limited partners getting? Aside from getting an excuse to visit New York, London, Phoenix, or other major destination, and getting wined and dined, the general partners are marketing to them. This is an extended sales pitch to help groom them to invest in the next fund. And secondarily, it’s an opportunity to mix socially with other limited partners…which is questionable as a use of the funds entrusted to them. They can do that just as well at educational conferences, which are also neutral territory. Indeed, a former private equity fund executive pointed out that keeping private equity staff at pension funds and foundations busy with the nominally important work of running around to general partner meet and greets seriously eroded the time they could spend doing what ought to be their real work, of reading the financial information and other reports provided by the general partners as well as their SEC Form ADVs, which it appears virtually no one in the industry bothers scrutinizing. One academic told me that he’d only encountered one investor who regularly read the IPOs of companies sold out of funds they’d invested in to see if there was anything they hadn’t anticipated so as to help them better evaluate future fund investments. Consistent with the thesis that general partner conferences were either by accident or design busywork to keep limited partners from digging into documents and data, this investor was in a remote part of Europe and didn’t often go to investor confabs because the travel time was apparently too costly relative to the information yield. One has to wonder how popular these general partner conferences would be if they instead featured rubber-chicken dinners and focused on information conveyance. The INET conferences, which by contrast are primarily networking events, featured long days (8 AM to 10 PM, with the lunch and dinner speakers covering substantive topics) for years until the participants cried uncle and asked for a less exhausting schedule. And these are people who don’t have billions of dollars of funds at risk. It’s not hard to imagine that if the general partners were dispensing information, as opposed to using investor monies to curry favor with them, you’d see them using tried and true forms, like public company quarterly earnings calls. But as people trained in making presentations know, conventions like a darkened room, the use of visuals on screens, having speakers on daises, all give the speakers a power advantage over the audience and deter questions. A conference call would be a dangerous leveler. Can’t have that, now can we? So expect this offensive form of grifting to continue. The old saying at CalPERS more than a decade ago was that the price of a $100 million commitment was a steak dinner. Imagine what seeing Elton John perform live buys. 0 0 0 0 0 2

Leonard Litwin, New York Real Estate Mogul, Dies at 102 - The New York Times

Robert D. McFadden

Leonard Litwin, a developer who began with his father’s plant nursery on Long Island, built a New York City residential real estate empire and paid millions to Republican and Democratic leaders to ensure tax breaks, government financing and favorable rent laws, died on Sunday at his home on Long Island, in Melville. He was 102. His death was confirmed by Charles C. Dorego, general counsel for the Litwin family and Mr. Litwin’s company, Glenwood Management Corporation. In the small circle of wealthy, sometimes flamboyant real estate moguls in New York, Mr. Litwin was almost invisible: a secretive man who kept his company private and his books closed lived quietly on Long Island, in Great Neck shunned publicity and said little about his assets and activities that was not good for business or required by law. But his imprint is on the Manhattan skyline in dozens of buildings he built, owned and operated — more than 8, 700 apartments with amenities and lofty rents. The holdings were assembled over six decades in a enterprise that ventured into the city rental market in the early 1950s and expanded into an archipelago of towers with names like the Pavilion, the Lucerne and Liberty Plaza. Behind the scenes, Mr. Litwin’s influence and that of Glenwood Management reached far beyond the buildings he owned. He forged political connections in Albany and City Hall with campaign contributions, lobbying and payments that shaped rent laws affecting millions of tenants, as well as state and city regulations that helped the real estate industry thrive in New York. In 2015, two extraordinary federal corruption trials in New York led to the convictions and resignations of the state’s two most powerful legislative leaders in Albany and exposed bribery connections to Mr. Litwin’s empire, laying bare a seamy world of payoffs, political favors and legislation that reaped staggering profits and savings for the real estate industry, and for Glenwood Management in particular. Mr. Litwin was not charged with any crime, though he was named a in one case, and never appeared in a courtroom for either trial as the juries convicted Assemblyman Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat and former Assembly speaker, and State Senator Dean G. Skelos, a Long Island Republican and Senate majority leader, of bribery, extortion and conspiracy charges. In both trials, prosecutors showed that Glenwood had received favored treatment in Albany by giving $10 million to political campaigns since 2005, mostly through a maze of 26 limited liability companies. Under a nonprosecution agreement, Mr. Dorego, a senior executive of Glenwood, testified that payoffs to leaders and members of the State Legislature assured Glenwood of continued benefits in taxes, state financing and rent laws. One program alone, he said, saved up to $100 million. In the Skelos case, the jury found that the senator and his son, Adam B. Skelos, had pressured Glenwood and two other companies into providing benefits worth $300, 000 to the son, who was also convicted. By naming Mr. Litwin a of Dean Skelos, prosecutors were able to elicit testimony from Mr. Dorego about conversations he had with Mr. Litwin on the amounts and recipients of payments. By 2006, when Forbes listed him as a billionaire — No. 374 among the 400 richest Americans — Mr. Litwin was one of a core group of builders and property owners that dominated the city’s residential real estate industry. It was an exclusive club that included Stephen M. Ross of the Related Companies, the Elghanayan family, Donald Zucker, the Resnick family, the Rudin family and Larry A. Silverstein. Even to tenants who never knew his name and could never afford to live in one of his buildings, Mr. Litwin was an unseen power: a voice in the Rent Stabilization Association, the landlord organization that battles tenant groups annually over rent increases, set by the New York City Rent Guidelines Board, that may legally be charged in hundreds of thousands of apartments in the city. Mr. Litwin retired in his late 90s, although at 96 he was still actively involved in business. “He comes to the office every day, goes to all of our meetings and has the final say on almost everything,” Gary Jacob, the executive vice president of Glenwood, told The New York Times in 2011. “He’s actively involved in our new construction projects — he pores over the architectural plans to make sure we have the proper amount of closet space, and is very . ” While Mr. Litwin carefully avoided publicity, he was in the news periodically for his political donations. Campaign finance records showed that over many years he gave millions to governors, state legislators, City Council members, candidates for office, and Republican and Democratic organizations. Public records also showed that he spent millions on lobbying. In July 2013, the New York Public Interest Research Group reported that Mr. Litwin had given Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo a total of $625, 000 in campaign contributions since December 2010, apparently making Mr. Litwin the governor’s largest donor. At the time, Mr. Cuomo was raising $1 million a month from contributors for his 2014 campaign. Mr. Litwin also gave large sums to former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, and to many Republican officials, including former Gov. George E. Pataki and state legislators, particularly members of the Senate who favored real estate interests. Money trails in the 1990s showed that Mr. Litwin and other developers were heavy supporters of Republicans who pledged to abolish or limit tenant rent protections. Like other wealthy campaign donors, Mr. Litwin circumvented contribution limits by funneling many smaller gifts through dozens of limited liability companies he controlled. While legal, such gifts are worrying to advocates of campaign finance reforms, especially when the donations are made by individuals or companies doing business with the government. While politicians tend to minimize the impact of such donations, tenant advocates and others contend that the money is a prime mover in debates over rent laws and state and city regulations affecting the real estate industry. In any case, Mr. Litwin’s corporation benefited from special state financing, tax breaks, construction subsidies and other largess. In 2002, federal investigators said Mr. Litwin and dozens of other property owners had received illegal tax breaks arranged by a consultant who was charged with bribing tax assessors in a scheme that cost the city $160 million in revenue over four years. But the suspect, Albert Schussler, died of a stroke before he could testify, and Mr. Litwin and other owners denied knowledge of a crime and were not accused of wrongdoing. Starting in 1997, his company financed a series of buildings in New York using more than $1 billion in bonds issued by the state, a form of taxpayer subsidy that reduces interest costs to a borrower. The buildings included Liberty Plaza, a residential tower near the World Trade Center site. Liberty Plaza won approval for nearly $100 million in special state financing and a real estate tax exemption, and was the first new apartment building erected in Lower Manhattan after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Leonard Litwin was born in New York City on Oct. 16, 1914, to Harold Litwin and the former Gertrude Meyer. The boy and his sister, Faye, grew up in Queens, attending public schools. Their father wrote two volumes of poetry under the name Harry Woodbourne. In 1933, Harold Litwin founded Woodbourne Cultural Nurseries in Melville, N. Y. with his son, who attended Columbia University briefly. The business, still in the family, did landscape work for builders. The father and son went into building themselves in 1946, erecting garden apartments on Long Island, followed by a complex in Queens and a in Riverdale, in the Bronx. After his father died in 1962, Mr. Litwin built numerous apartment towers on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, including one of the city’s largest, the Pavilion on East 77th Street near York Avenue. Over the next half century, Mr. Litwin built dozens of properties in Manhattan, almost exclusively rental towers with amenities like swimming pools, fitness centers and concierge services, charging rents of $7, 000 a month for some layouts, and more than $30, 000 a month for penthouses. He rarely took on cooperative conversions and almost never a condominium project. Mr. Litwin, who also had homes in Great Neck, Manhattan and Boca Raton, Fla. is survived by two daughters, Carole Litwin Pittelman, now the president of Glenwood Management, and Diane Miller four grandchildren and six . His wife, Ruth, died in 2014. Mr. Litwin and his wife gave millions to philanthropic causes, hospitals, and medical research on cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. He and Mr. Zucker founded a center on Long Island for the study of Alzheimer’s. The Litwin charitable investments were nearly all managed by Bernard L. Madoff and substantially lost in his Ponzi scheme, which swallowed up many fortunes before being exposed in 2008. Mr. Litwin was a longtime governor of the Real Estate Board of New York, the industry trade group, and in 2012 was named its lifetime honorary chairman. In 2009, he received the organization’s highest honor, the Harry B. Helmsley Distinguished New Yorker Award for lifetime achievement.

California Set to Let Public Schools Teach Primarily in Spanish

Henry Wolff

California Set to Let Public Schools Teach Primarily in Spanish Blake Neff, Daily Caller, November 6, 2016 California isn’t even close to a swing state in the 2016 presidential election, but that doesn’t mean nothing is at stake for voters in the nation’s largest state. After Tuesday’s vote, hundreds of thousands of California schoolchildren may start attending classes primarily en español, thanks to a voter referendum that would repeal the requirement that schools teach primarily in English. California’s Proposition 58 would repeal Proposition 227 , a measure that easily passed nearly two decades ago, in 1998. Proposition 227 required all public schools in the state teach “overwhelmingly” in English, with limited-English proficiency (LEP) students transitioning to fully English classes as quickly as possible. {snip} Across the state, the English proficiency of LEP students tripled in just a few years , and math scores rose as well. But now, with California’s immigrant population higher than ever, the state is poised to reverse course. Polls indicate the Proposition 58 is likely to pass. Ironically, supporters of the measure place an emphasis on English rather than foreign tongues. They argue that the bill will allow for “dual immersion” programs, where both native English and native Spanish speakers can learn in a bilingual environment. In the long run, they argue, this will increase multilingualism and provide the state with a competitive advantage. {snip}

Europe Hopes for Clinton Win for More Deals With Iran

Europe Hopes for Clinton Win for More Deals With Iran November 01, 2016 Europe Hopes for Clinton Win for More Deals With Iran After a year of disappointment, European businesses are hoping a victory for Hillary Clinton in the U.S. election next week may help break the logjam that has prevented large-scale Western investments in Iran since the opening of its economy. While no one in Europe is predicting a flurry of new deals should Clinton defeat her Republican rival Donald Trump on Nov. 8 A win for the Democrat would remove some of the political clouds hanging over last year's nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. Business groups say this could help fuel a more aggressive push into the Iranian market in 2017, especially in the second half of the year, if a Clinton victory is followed by the re-election of moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani next May. "If Clinton and Rouhani win, then we will have a political window of opportunity that is much bigger than we have now," said Matthieu Etourneau, who advises French firms on the Iranian market for MEDEF International, the French employers group. "This is what the European banks and companies are waiting for," he said. Back in January, when the United States and Europe lifted sanctions related to Iran's nuclear program, the excitement in Europe's business community was palpable. With a population of 78 million and annual output higher than that of Thailand, Iran was the biggest economy to rejoin the global trading and financial system since the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union. European politicians flocked to Tehran with dozens of corporate executives in tow. Rouhani, a pragmatist elected in 2013 on a platform to reduce Iran's isolation, traveled to Paris and Rome to promote his country to eager investors. But within months the euphoria had vanished, replaced by frustration on both sides. BIGGEST OBSTACLE TO IRAN DEAL: US LAWS The biggest obstacle for European firms seeking to do business in Iran has been the reluctance of the continent's largest banks to finance deals out of fear they could run afoul of U.S. sanctions and incur massive penalties down the line. The United States has taken steps to reassure the banks. Last month the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued new guidance to allay concerns about doing U.S. dollar transactions with Iran. READ MORE: DONALD TRUMP SAYS THAT HILLARY CLINTON'S FOREIGN POLICY WILL LEAD TO WORLD WAR THREE But Secretary of State John Kerry acknowledged at a think-tank event in London this week that banks remained skittish. German officials raised their concerns about the hurdles during a recent visit by U.S. sanctions coordinator Daniel Fried. This caution is likely to persist, regardless of who is sitting in the White House. Beyond the issue of sanctions, the poor state of Iranian banks after a decade outside the international financial system, the strong state role in the economy and a lack of clarity about the legal system are all deterrents to foreigners. "Everyone knows now that this will be a long, step-by-step process to build up our economic ties," said Friedolin Strack, head of international markets at the Federation of German Industries (BDI). Still, a Clinton victory would be a reassuring signal to Europe. Her close adviser Jake Sullivan was a key figure in the secret negotiations in Oman that paved the way for the landmark agreement that curbed Iran's disputed nuclear activity, and she has defended it during the election campaign. Trump, by contrast, has called it "one of the worst deals ever made" and promised to renegotiate it if he is elected. Bankers say the risk of the deal unraveling under a Trump presidency has contributed to the reticence in Europe. Recently however, there have been signs of movement. Smaller German banks, pressed by their clients to support them in Iran, are beginning to offer limited financing and payment services. "Medium-sized banks that finance the German Mittelstand have a great deal of interest in Iran business and are preparing the groundwork intensively," said Siegfried Utzig, acting head of economic policy and international affairs at the Association of German Banks (BvB). "We can see the light at the end of the tunnel but it's still quite far away." Article by Doc Burkhart , Vice-President, General Manager and co-host of TRUNEWS with Rick Wiles Got a news tip? Email us at Help support the ministry of TRUNEWS with your one-time or monthly gift of financial support. DONATE NOW ! DOWNLOAD THE TRUNEWS MOBILE APP! CLICK HERE! Donate Today! Support TRUNEWS to help build a global news network that provides a credible source for world news We believe Christians need and deserve their own global news network to keep the worldwide Church informed, and to offer Christians a positive alternative to the anti-Christian bigotry of the mainstream news media Top Stories

Former Attorney General Janet Reno Passes Away

Bob Adelmann

Email As Janet Reno formally ended her public career following her failure to win a primary for governor of Florida in 2002, she quoted George Washington about her legacy: “If I were to write all that down I might be reduced to tears. I would prefer to drift on down the stream of life and let history make the judgment.” Her stream of life ended on Monday at age 78 when she passed away following complications from Parkinson’s disease. History will remember her for one thing: ordering the FBI to end the siege at Mount Carmel — the home of the Branch Davidians headed up by David Koresh — near Waco, Texas, by force, using tear gas and gunfire to end it, along with the lives of nearly 80 individuals including 25 children. Clinton nominated her for the position after two other women withdrew their acceptances, and she became attorney general in March, 1993. She was immediately thrust into the middle of the FBIs's siege against the Branch Davidian compound that began after ATF agents were involved in a shootout while trying to serve arrest warrants on Koresh and his followers for alleged firearms violaions. After 51 days, the FBI asked for permission to attack the compound and end the siege. Reno granted it, 76 people died, and the event has remained a black mark not only on her legacy but on the history of federal law enforcement ever since. Following the atrocity, Reno appointed former Senator John Danforth to look into charges that FBI agents started the fires, fired randomly into the building, and illegally used military forces to end the siege. When Danforth’s report exonerated the government and Reno, Koresh’s attorney called it a “whitewash” while former AG Ramsey Clark added, "History will clearly record, I believe, that these assaults on the Mt. Carmel church center remain the greatest domestic law enforcement tragedy in the history of the United States." For her part, and to her credit claim some of her supporters, Reno took full responsibility for allowing the FBI to end the siege with prejudice: “I made the decision. I’m accountable. The buck stops with me.” Over the following eight years, Reno was involved in other controversies: • Investigations into President Clinton’s sexual dalliances with his intern, Monice Lewinsky; • Her approval of the use of federal force to retrieve Elián Gonzalez, who was living with some relatives in Miami, and return him to his father in Castro’s Cuba, generating in the process a photograph of an armed federal agent seizing the six-year-old boy, providing millions with a visual warning of the dangers of the excessive use of force; • The capture and conviction of Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber; • The capture and conviction of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols for their roles in the Oklahoma City bombing; • The capture and conviction of Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and four other conspirators involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; and • Her roles in other controversies and scandals during the Clinton administration, including Whitewater, Filegate, the Chinese spying on American nuclear technology, the questionable campaign financing in the 1996 Clinton-Gore reelection campaign, and her support for the 1994 Brady Bill which, for ten years, banned so-called assault rifles. An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

SNOWFLAKE: Colbert Didn’t Want To Write Jokes About Trump Winning | Daily Wire

SNOWFLAKE: Colbert Didn’t Want To Write Jokes About Trump Winning By: Hank Berrien November 21, 2016 Conversing with fellow Daily Show “comic” John Oliver at the Montclair Film Festival on Saturday night, Late Show unfunny host Stephen Colbert admitted that he couldn’t even conceive that Donald trump would win the presidency; so much so that he couldn’t write jokes bout Trump winning for election night. In the roughly two-hour discussion and Q&A titled “Wow, That Was Weird,” Montclair Film Festival executive director Tom Hall set the somber tone by allowing, "When we planned this evening, I think we all thought we'd be looking back with laughter instead of looking forward with deep concern about the uncertainty we face." Speaking of the Late Show ’s Election Night special on Showtime, Colbert admitted that the staff was prepared for every result of the election except the one that actually transpired: There was not a bear big enough in the world that we weren't loaded for. We were so loaded for every possible eventuality. We had so many guests. We had so many pre-taped pieces, all based on a different eventuality. We had three shows: Hillary Clinton wins and we know; Hillary Clinton wins and we don’t know, because it’s not called before the show’s over; Donald Trump's going to win and we don’t know, because everyone said he had such a narrow path to victory. That's not wishful thinking, that's what everyone was saying. And then there was the last show, which is the show we did, which is Donald Trump is going to win and we know he's going to win. My execs and my writers were like, “You don't want to write something for that?” and I'm like, “No! There is nothing you can write. You don't understand. I have 400 people in my theater. If we know Donald Trump is going to win, it's going to be like doing stand-up comedy for one of those Chilean soccer stadiums where the villagers watch you execute one of the natives. There will be no laughter!” We only did about 20 minutes of material before we went, “F— it, it's going to be him, let's just talk for another hour.” So I think we have two and a half whole shows that you will never see of material that we had to kill that night. Colbert moaned that the special was "the hardest thing I've ever done in my life," adding, "I was tying my tie at 10:30 and I went, 'Oh, he took Ohio. Oh, well, we expected that. He took it by 11 points. Wow! That's not expected.' And then over my guests' shoulders, people kept holding up signs that said, 'Florida, Iowa, Nebraska.'" He revealed that numerous fake commercials were prepared, but "none of them were appropriate once we knew we were playing to an audience of the condemned. Our audience was sobbing openly. And those are people who work for me, like my cameramen." As Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro pointed out years ago , Colbert's manipulative act has been laced with hatred of conservatives: He engages in Conservativeface. He needs no makeup or bulbous appendage to play a conservative – after all, conservatives come in every shape and size. Instead, he acts as though he is a conservative – an idiotic, racist, sexist, bigoted, brutal conservative. He out-Archie Bunkers Archie Bunker. His audience laughs and scoffs at brutal religious “Colbert” who wishes to persecute gays; they chortle at evil sexist “Colbert” who thinks men are victims of sexism. This is the purpose of Colbert’s routine. His show is about pure hatred for conservatives in the same way that blackface was about pure hatred of blacks. In order to justify their racism, racists had to create a false perception of blacks; in the same way, Colbert and his audience can justify their racism only by creating a false perception of conservatives. On Saturday night, Colbert waxed eloquent over his fear of a Trump presidency, arguing, "I’m all for giving him a chance, but don’t give him an inch. Because I believed everything he said, and I remember everything he said. And it’s horrifying. It's possible. The job changes a man. That's the cliche of the presidency." He pontificated: Every president tries to achieve what they promised and you can say, “Well, there are levers of power in Washington that can slow him down.” But two things: One is they're cowards. Second is that the levers in Washington are apparently merely attached to blinking red lights that make the people happy when they pull. Because they tried to stop Trump. Everybody tried to stop Trump, do not delude yourself. Everyone except the people he's going to appoint tried to stop him and they didn't. He owes them nothing. He goes out on the balcony and he says to the crowd, “Shall I do it?” And they say, '”Yes.” And he says, “It shall be so.” And the balcony is Twitter. He goes onto Twitter and he goes, “What do you think? Do you think I'm right?” That's what scares me, that he owes the checks and balances of Washington nothing because they tried to stop him and they couldn't. And he's a vindictive person. So it's all going to be fine. Merry Christmas. “No! There is nothing you can write." Stephen Colbert Colbert concluded, "The next person who says to me, 'You must be happy on a certain level,’ is going to have their eye carved out.” So that’s the man underneath the comedy mask . . .

Hillary Clinton’s $500,000 Bribe to the FBI Came Through Virginia – CONFIRMED!

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With more than 50 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents assigned to investigate Hillary Clinton’s criminal use of a private email server, how did she avoid charges? Now, the smoking gun has emerged. Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a long-time Clinton insider and former Hillary Clinton campaign chairman, steered at least $675,000 to the election of the wife of an FBI official involved in the Clinton probe. McAuliffe’s political action committee gave $467,500 to the state senate campaign for FBI agent Andrew McCabe’s wife. He is now the deputy director of the FBI. More money came to her through the Democratic Party of Virginia : Jill McCabe received an additional $207,788 from the Virginia Democratic Party, the report states, which is heavily influenced by McAuliffe. The money directed by McAuliffe began flowing two months after the FBI investigation into Clinton began in July 2015. Around that time, the candidate’s husband was promoted from running the Washington field office for the FBI to the No. 3 position at the FBI. Within a year, McCabe was promoted to deputy director, the second-highest position in the bureau.[…] The governor’s office claimed the FBI’s McCabe met the governor only once — on March 7, 2015, when McAuliffe persuaded Jill McCabe to run. The 2015 Virginia state Senate run — her first run for public office — was unsuccessful as she lost to the incumbent Republican. McAuliffe “supported Jill McCabe because he believed she would be a good state senator. This is a customary practice for Virginia governors… Any insinuation that his support was tied to anything other than his desire to elect candidates who would

WATCH: Secretary of State Rides with Rolling Thunder to Honor U.S. Military

Penny Starr

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson joined almost one million bikers on Sunday as a rider in a massive caravan of motorcycles that rode from the Pentagon to the National Mall and the Vietnam Memorial on Sunday. [A video posted on YouTube shows Tillerson posing for pictures with other bikers and preparing to mount his own bike for the trip, an annual tradition that began in the late 1980s as a way to honor the U. S. military and to support the continuing search for U. S. soldiers who remained prisoners of war or were missing in action following the Vietnam War. “O. K. this is just buckets of awesome,” the post on Conservative Treehouse stated. “Secretary of State Rex Tillerson rides with Rolling Thunder in Washington, D. C. to celebrate Memorial Day and salute our armed forces. “We knew was awesome, but who knew was Rolling Thunder level awesome?” said the post, which included the video of Tillerson in the staging area at the Pentagon. Secretaryof State Rex W. Tillerson at Rolling Thunder 2017! !!! @cnn pic. twitter. — Victor Martinez (@vjmar1) May 28, 2017, The Guardian posted photos of the procession, including a photograph of Tillerson with a caption that read: “U. S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stand with Rolling Thunder, Inc. founder Artie Muller ( ) and U. S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Dr. David J. Shulkin (R) as opening remarks are delivered at the Pentagon of Washington, D. C. in honor of Memorial Day. ” The Diplomatic Security Service posted a photo on its Facebook page explaining its role in the event. “DSS special agents provided security for Secretary Tillerson today at #RollingThunder2017 in Washington, D. C. The Secretary and two of the special agents assigned to his DSS Protective Detail rode motorcycles in the event. #honoringvets”

Right-Wing Militiamen Aquitted In Armed Takeover Of Malheur Refuge

teleSUR

Videos Right-Wing Militiamen Aquitted In Armed Takeover Of Malheur Refuge The standoff at a wildlife refuge in Oregon was never branded "domestic terrorism" by authorities or the media. | October 28, 2016 Be Sociable, Share! Ammon Bundy, center, one of the sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, walks off after speaking with reporters during a news conference at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters Monday, Jan. 4, 2016, near Burns, Ore. Bundy, who was involved in a 2014 standoff with the government over grazing rights told reporters on Monday that two local ranchers who face long prison sentences for setting fire to land have been treated unfairly. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer) All seven far-right militiamen who led an armed takeover of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon in January that led to a standoff with police were found not guilty of all charges stemming from the action. The seven anti-government men, including brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy, began their 41-day occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge on Jan. 2 with at least a dozen armed men, in the latest flare-up in a nearly century-old conflict over federal control of millions of acres of public land in the West. They surrendered when a spokesman for the group, Robert “La Voy” Finnicum was shot and killed by state police. Charges included conspiracy to threaten, force and intimidate park officials trying to end the standoff, theft of public property and the use and carrying of a firearm. teleSUR journalist Arun Gupta, who reported from the scene during the occupation, said that charging the militia group with conspiracy instead of what by definition is “domestic terrorism,” is an example of the “hypocrisy and double standards of the U.S. government.” Deliberations continued until Thursday morning after a juror was dismissed over accusations of bias — the juror, a former employee of the Bureau of Land Management, had allegedly told others he is “very biased.” The federal judge told the 12-person jury to “disregard entirely” previous discussions and start anew. Accusing the federal government of stealing land in Oregon, the group has refused to pay for cattle-grazing permits. They were demanding that the federal government hand over the rights to the refuge to individual states and residents for their own use. Both Bundy brothers had been in jail since being arrested after the standoff ended. A separate trial will take place in February 2017 for a second group of defendants charged in relation to the standoff.

WATCH: Vandals Twist Arizona Jewish Family’s Menorah Into Swastika - Breitbart

Deborah Danan

TEL AVIV — A Jewish family from Arizona woke up this weekend to find their Hanukkah menorah had been twisted by vandals into the shape of a swastika. [Seeing their neighbors Christmas decorations, Naomi and Seth Ellis’s three children insisted on decorating their home for the Jewish festival, the Washington Post reported. Their parents obliged by erecting an oversize menorah outside of their home, made of PVC pipe and using solar powered lights. “Just waking up to see that first thing is kind of rattling,” Seth Ellis told ABC15. “It just makes me sad and it makes me feel sick that’s still how people look at the world in 2016,” he added. The children did not see what the vandals had done to the menorah but Naomi Ellis said that explaining to her boys, aged five, seven, and nine, what had occurred was difficult. “I’m still not sure how I will explain this to [my children],” she wrote on Facebook. “I’m not sure I quite understand it myself. … How can people be filled with so much hate and violence? To think that someone would make such an effort to hurt and vandalize a family is downright sickening. ” “We live in a great neighborhood with kind and welcoming neighbors. We never would have imagined that someone would spread so much hate here,” she said. “We talk a lot about the importance of equality and tolerance, loving everybody no matter what,” she told the Washington Post after speaking with her children. “I had to tell them that not everybody feels that way. Some people are ignorant, and this is what they do. ” “This is the real reality that we live in: People hate us for no reason or want us to feel scared for who we are. That’s not something I wanted to have to tell them,” Naomi told the Post. Seth and Naomi Ellis spent Friday afternoon putting the menorah back together again. “You have to put it back up,” Seth Ellis told ABC15 reporter Megan Thompson. “I mean, what kind of statement is it for me not to put it back up, especially for my kids?” When asked what he would do if the new menorah was also vandalized, Seth answered he would go about rebuilding it again: “As many times as I have to. ” The Ellis family invited their community to attend a Hanukkah lighting ceremony of the new menorah at their home. No arrests have been made.

Donald Trump Apology Caps Day of Outrage Over Lewd Tape - The New York Times

Alexander Burns, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Martin

Donald J. Trump issued an unusual videotaped apology early Saturday after a 2005 recording surfaced that showed him speaking in extraordinarily vulgar terms about women, setting off an uproar in the Republican Party. “Anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am,” he said. “I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize. ” The apology came as the presidential nominee faced extraordinary censure from Republican leaders after the tape was made public. The recording captures Mr. Trump speaking about pushing himself on women and boasting that he could get away with “anything” because of his celebrity. In the recording, which was obtained by The Washington Post, Mr. Trump recounts to the television personality Billy Bush of “Access Hollywood” how he once pursued a married woman and “moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there,” expressing regret that they did not have sex. But he brags of a special status with women: Because he was “a star,” he says, he could “grab them by the pussy” whenever he wanted. “You can do anything,” Mr. Trump says. He also said he was compulsively drawn to kissing beautiful women “like a magnet” — “I don’t even wait” — and talked about plotting to seduce the married woman by taking her furniture shopping. Mr. Trump, who was 59 at the time he made the remarks, went on to disparage the woman, whom he did not name, saying, “I did try and fuck her. She was married,” and saying, “She’s now got the big phony tits and everything. ” On Friday night, Speaker Paul D. Ryan withdrew an invitation for Mr. Trump to appear alongside him in Wisconsin this weekend. Mr. Ryan described himself in a statement as “sickened” by Mr. Trump’s remarks. Hours before his video apology, Mr. Trump released a statement on Friday afternoon expressing regret “if anyone was offended” by his comments, but he tried to play down the tape as a snippet of “locker room banter. ” His running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, brushed off the banter at a rally in Rossford, Ohio. “They’ll say, this time we got him,” Mr. Pence said. “This time we got another thing, another issue that’s come forward. Then they turn on the next television the next morning, and Donald Trump is still standing stronger than ever before and fighting for the American people. ” But Mr. Pence also telephoned Mr. Trump on Friday night and urged him to show humility, according to an adviser to the nominee who requested anonymity to reveal a private conversation. (Mr. Trump had already decided to apologize when Mr. Pence called, the adviser noted.) Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, issued a statement late Friday night calling on Mr. Trump to express contrition — and possibly offering other Senate Republicans cover to disavow the nominee if he refused to apologize. “As the father of three daughters, I strongly believe that Trump needs to apologize directly to women and girls everywhere, and take full responsibility for the utter lack of respect for women shown in his comments on that tape,” Mr. McConnell said. While neither Mr. Ryan nor Mr. McConnell immediately withdrew formal support for Mr. Trump, Republican leaders in Washington held anguished discussions throughout the evening about how the party should proceed with a badly wounded and potentially toxic nominee. They cannot remove their nominee from the ticket, but some Republican lawmakers called on Mr. Trump to step down voluntarily, including Senator Mark S. Kirk of Illinois, who previously said he would not support Mr. Trump, and Representatives Mike Coffman of Colorado and Barbara Comstock of Virginia. Senator Mike Lee of Utah, who also has not endorsed Mr. Trump, recorded a live video on Facebook in which he asked the candidate, “with all due respect, to step aside. ” Mr. Trump, seeking to minimize the import of the disclosure despite the public rebuke by Mr. Ryan, announced late Friday evening that he would no longer travel to Wisconsin as planned and would send Mr. Pence in his stead. Mr. Trump said he would spend Saturday preparing for his second debate with Hillary Clinton, set to take place Sunday in St. Louis. Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly attacked and mocked Mrs. Clinton’s marriage in recent weeks, also sought to implicate Bill Clinton in his coarse conduct. “Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course — not even close,” Mr. Trump said in a statement. “I apologize if anyone was offended. ” And in his video apology later, he said: “I’ve said some foolish things. But there’s a big difference between the words and actions of other people. Bill Clinton has actually abused women, and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed and intimidated his victims. ” Mr. Trump has repeatedly threatened to attack Mrs. Clinton over her husband’s affairs and how she responded to them. The disclosure of the recording comes at the end of a punishing two weeks, during which Mr. Trump has faced intense backlash over his treatment of women and intensifying scrutiny of his personal finances and views on national security. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign condemned Mr. Trump forcefully for the comments captured on the recording. Her running mate, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, said in response to the remarks, “It makes me sick to my stomach. ” More Republicans joined in the denunciation, including Gov. Gary Herbert and Representative Jason Chaffetz, both of Utah, who had said this summer that they would vote for Mr. Trump, and on Friday retracted their support. “Donald Trump’s statements are beyond offensive despicable,” Mr. Herbert wrote on Twitter. “While I cannot vote for Hillary Clinton, I will not vote for Trump. ” Mr. Trump had already been on the defensive on Friday after telling CNN that he still believed the exonerated defendants known as the Central Park Five were guilty of a 1989 rape of a female jogger despite DNA evidence to the contrary that later overturned their convictions. Earlier in the day, he also asserted, again without evidence, that the Obama administration was allowing illegal immigrants to enter the country in order to vote in November. Also in the last week, The New York Times reported that Mr. Trump had declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years. For Republicans on the ballot this fall, the uproar over Mr. Trump’s past statements about women touched off an agonizing political cycle, marked by partial denunciations of Mr. Trump — and demands from Democrats that their denunciations go further. Republican candidates for the House and Senate, and for governorships across the country, chastised Mr. Trump sternly but stopped short of renouncing him as their choice for the presidency. One Republican senator seeking Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, who was criticized this week when she called Mr. Trump a role model for children, said his comments were “totally inappropriate and offensive. ” Ms. Ayotte, one of the most prominent women in the party, was facing immense pressure Friday night from other Republicans to disavow Mr. Trump entirely, and was said to be considering it. In an illustration of the Democratic onslaught, her opponent, Gov. Maggie Hassan, called Mr. Trump’s comments inexcusable. “It is beyond comprehension how Senator Ayotte could continue to support this man for the highest office in the land, let alone call him a role model,” Ms. Hassan said. Senator John McCain of Arizona, who has endorsed Mr. Trump, said, “There are no excuses for Donald Trump’s offensive and demeaning comments. ” He was clearly worried about how they might affect his own campaign, adding, “He alone bears the burden of his conduct and alone should suffer the consequences. ” Another Republican to turn his back on Mr. Trump on Friday was Jon M. Huntsman, the former governor of Utah, who just a week ago said he planned to vote for Mr. Trump. He told The Salt Lake Tribune that the nominee should withdraw from the race. “In a campaign cycle that has been nothing but a race to the bottom — at such a critical moment for our nation — and with so many who have tried to be respectful of a record primary vote, the time has come for Governor Pence to lead the ticket,” Mr. Huntsman told the newspaper. Mr. Trump’s behavior has at times startled and unnerved women in his life, from employees at his company to the contestants in his beauty pageants, The Times found after interviewing dozens of them for an article in May. They described unwanted romantic advances and unending commentary on the female form. Temple Taggart, Miss Utah in 1997, was uncomfortable with how forward Mr. Trump was with young contestants like her in his first year as the owner of Miss USA, a branch of the beauty pageant organization. As she recalls it, he introduced himself in an unusually intimate manner. “He kissed me directly on the lips. I thought, ‘Oh, my God. Gross.’ He was married to Marla Maples at the time,” she said. “I think there were a few other girls that he kissed on the mouth. I was like, “Wow, that’s inappropriate. ” Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, suggested Mr. Trump had discussed committing a violent crime in his 2005 conversation with Mr. Bush. “What Trump described in these tapes amounts to sexual assault,” said Ms. Laguens. “Trump’s behavior is disgusting and unacceptable in any context, and it is disqualifying for a man who is running for president of this country. ” The recording of Mr. Trump talking to Mr. Bush was made as they sat on a bus on the set of a soap opera where Mr. Trump was making a cameo appearance. The conversation was recorded after he had married Melania Trump, his third and current wife. At one point, the conversation in the video was interrupted when an actress arrived to take Mr. Trump and Mr. Bush to the set. Mr. Trump seemed excited. “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them,” Mr. Trump says. “It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. ” Ms. Trump was pregnant at the time that Mr. Trump’s remarks were recorded in 2005 their son, Barron, was born the next March.

ACLU Launches Nationwide Training on Protest, Resistance Against Trump

AP

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union staged a nationwide training event Saturday to make sure people are aware of their rights as protesters and urge organized, public resistance by those opposed to policies of President Donald Trump. [advertisement

The Mosque Next Door: City Law vs. Houses of Faith - The New York Times

Lisa W. Foderaro

BERNARDS TOWNSHIP, N. J. — Mohammad Ali Chaudry, a retired financial officer, has lived in this prosperous town for 40 years. It is where he raised his three children and where he served as mayor, and before that, as a member of the school board. It was also where Mr. Chaudry, an observant Muslim, always wanted to pray. But Mr. Chaudry and some 70 fellow Muslims have been stymied for years in their quest to build a mosque on a plot of land in Basking Ridge, a genteel community here that is as proud of its old oak trees as its old homes. A year ago, after 39 public hearings in which local officials and residents picked apart every aspect of the proposed mosque, the planning board rejected the proposal, citing issues like storm water management and pedestrian safety in the parking lot. Now, the federal Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against Bernards Township, arguing that its decision violated federal law and discriminated against the applicants purely because of their Muslim faith. The complaint, filed last month, follows a lawsuit brought by Mr. Chaudry’s Islamic Society of Basking Ridge, which has been subjected to fliers and social media posts and even vandalism. During the protracted application process, someone stomped on the group’s mailbox and later superimposed “ISIS” over the society’s initials on the mailbox. “This was unprecedented,” said Mr. Chaudry, the society’s president, who holds a Ph. D. in economics from Tufts University and teaches a course at Rutgers University on Islam. “No other house of worship in the township’s history had ever been treated the way we were. ” Across the country, more and more towns have used local zoning laws as barriers to new mosques and Islamic schools, underscoring what civil rights advocates say is a growing wave of intolerance that has been amplified by the victory of Donald J. Trump. In response, the federal government has been increasingly turning to the courts, using a law passed unanimously by Congress in 2000 that prohibits municipalities from discriminating against religions in decisions or treating religious groups differently than secular ones. While the law, with the arcane name Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, was intended to protect all religious faiths, 11 of the last 13 cases brought by the Justice Department — including three in the last month — have involved Muslims. “The law, by its very nature, deals with particularly vulnerable populations,” said Mark Goldfeder, a senior lecturer at Emory University’s School of Law and a senior fellow at the university’s Center for the Study of Law and Religion. “It’s so easy for towns to hide discrimination behind layers of procedure. ” But Muslim advocates and experts on religious freedom worry that Mr. Trump’s impending inauguration leaves the future of the powerful religious freedom law in doubt. The man the has nominated to lead the Justice Department, Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, has endorsed Mr. Trump’s call for a temporary ban on immigration from Muslim countries. As the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, Mr. Sessions might be less sympathetic to pursuing investigations involving the rights of Muslims. There are now 13 open investigations under the law, though a spokesman for the department declined to say how many of those involved mosques. Ross K. Baker, a distinguished professor of political science at Rutgers who has studied the federal law, said it was “entirely possible” Mr. Sessions could choose to dial back on the investigations. “It is within the province of the attorney to decide whether to proceed with a lawsuit,” he said. Another recent case brought by the department involved a proposed mosque in Virginia. The lawsuit argued that Culpeper County violated the religious law in denying a sewage permit application. The complaint noted that since 1992, the county had considered 26 applications and never before denied such a permit to either a commercial or religious group. In a speech this month at a Virginia mosque, Loretta E. Lynch, United States the attorney general, talked about the department’s response to a surge in hate crimes, highlighting enforcement of the law. “Members of the Civil Rights Division have heard repeatedly about more overt discrimination in both the tone and framing of objections to planned religious institutions, especially mosques and Islamic centers,” said Ms. Lynch, who sent a letter to state and local officials on Thursday reminding them of the law and their obligation to respect religious freedom. In the case of Bernards Township, the Islamic Society bought land that was in a zone that permitted a house of worship. Raising money from various sources, Mr. Chaudry oversaw the purchase of four acres, aware that the zoning code required at least three acres for a house of worship. The society hired an architect who took pains to design a mosque that would blend in with the neighborhood, where a fire station stands across the street from the site. The mosque, the size of a large house, would forgo the traditional dome and would include minarets that mimic the chimneys on neighboring houses. “The mosque proposal met with vociferous public opposition,” the Justice Department wrote in its recent complaint. “Fliers, social media and websites denounced the mosque and were filled with bigotry and references to terrorism and the attacks. ” The federal lawsuit concluded that the planning board had used different requirements in denying the society’s application than it “had in evaluating previous applications. ” The language in the society’s own lawsuit was more blunt: “What should have been a simple board approval for a permitted use devolved into a Kafkaesque process that spanned an unprecedented four years. ” Nearly three dozen religious, legal and civil rights groups have supported the society’s lawsuit by signing amicus briefs, said the society’s lawyer, Adeel A. Mangi, of the firm Patterson Belknap Webb Tyler. Bernards Township officials deny that the applicants’ faith played any role in their decision. The mayor, Carol Bianchi, declined to respond to the allegations. But a statement by the township after the Justice Department filed its lawsuit asserted that the planning board’s denial was based on “legitimate and safety concerns which plaintiffs refused, and to this day, refuse to address. ” The township’s most forceful response was reserved for the Justice Department, which it accused of a conflict of interest because one of its investigators served on the same board at Drew University’s Center for Religious and Cultural Conflicts as Mr. Chaudry. The township also claimed that the department’s communication with the Islamic Society before bringing the federal complaint suggested an “inappropriate collusion. ” The United States attorney for New Jersey, Paul J. Fishman, a Democrat, looked into the township’s allegations and declared them baseless. In July, the Justice Department released a report on its enforcement of the federal law since 2010, which detailed the growing proportion of cases involving mosques. It also found that while 84 percent of investigations were resolved without a lawsuit, only a fifth of cases involving Islamic institutions were similarly resolved. In Bernards Township, much of the initial resistance to the proposed mosque centered on parking. According to the federal complaint, the local ordinance required 50 parking spaces for houses of worship based on a standard ratio, or an average of three people arriving in one car. But a traffic engineer enlisted by opponents of the mosque recommended 107 spaces. The planning board insisted the mosque meet that goal, which, in turn, raised new issues, like visual impacts and storm water runoff. The society’s complaint stated that applicants “dutifully revised their site plan and brought back professionals to testify time and again, only to find that the board had generated yet more requirements. ” Mr. Fishman said the township “kept moving the goal posts. ” For Mr. Chaudry and other members of the society, the lack of a mosque has made worshiping difficult. The nearest mosque is 25 minutes away. Members have rented a local community center for Friday prayers, lugging in prayer rugs and audio equipment. But the center is unavailable in the summer so they pray in a public park. And the absence of a mosque has prevented the society from attracting a imam. During public hearings, some residents made remarks, but town officials mostly restricted their comments to questions. But in a trove of emails unearthed by the Justice Department investigation, and recently shown to the Islamic Society, the same officials shared their personal views of Muslims. In one email, a member of the township committee, John Malay, wrote, “As a religion, Islam owes its source of influence to a tradition from Day 1 of forced conversion through violent means. ” In an email chain, members of the committee and planning board discussed ways to exclude Mr. Chaudry from a Sept. 11 memorial ceremony in honor of town residents who died in the terrorist attack. “Let’s make it happen without that fool,” John Carpenter, a township committee member, said. Mr. Chaudry is active in local groups like the Rotary Club and statewide committees promoting interfaith understanding. In 2013, Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, appointed him to the New Jersey Commission on National and Community Service. He also serves on the state attorney general’s Outreach Committee for the Muslim Community and the Interfaith Advisory Council of the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness. Outside the Dutch colonial on Church Street that serves as the society’s offices and where, members hope, a new mosque will one day stand, signs of patriotism abound. A sign amid American flags of various sizes proclaims, “Proud to Be an American. ” “We feel everybody should know that we are American,” Mr. Chaudry said.

The Pathologization of Dissent

C.J. Hopkins

Joseph Sohm / Shutterstock.com According to the mainstream media, in a recent speech in West Palm Beach, Donald Trump finally completely lost it. Sawing the air with his tiny hands in a unmistakeably Hitlerian manner, he spat out a series of undeniably hateful anti-Semitic code words … like “political establishment,” “global elites” and, yes, “international banks.” He even went so far as to claim that “corporations” and their (ahem) “lobbyists” have millions of dollars at stake in this election, and are trying to pass the TTP, not to benefit the American people, but simply to enrich themselves. He then went on to accuse the media of collaborating with “the Clinton machine,” presumably to benefit these “global elites” and “international banks” and “lobbyists.” Now, a lot of folks didn’t immediately recognize the secret meanings of these fascistic code words, and so mistakenly assumed that “global elites” referred to the transnational capitalist ruling classes, and that “lobbyists” referred to actual lobbyists, and that “banks” meant … well … you know, banks. As it turned out, this was completely wrong. None of these words actually meant what they meant, not in anti-Semitic CodeSpeak. So the mainstream media translated for us. “Political establishment” meant “the Jews.” “Global elites” also meant “the Jews.” “Banks” meant “Jews.” “Lobbyists” meant “Jews.” Even “corporate media,” meant “Jews.” Apparently, Trump’s entire speech was a series of secret dog-whistle signals to his legions of neo-Nazi goons, who, immediately following Clinton’s victory, are going to storm out of their hidey holes, frontally attack the US military, overthrow the US government, and, yes, you guessed it … “kill the Jews.” OK, maybe I’m exaggerating the mainstream media’s reaction just a little bit. Or maybe Trump’s speech really was that fascistic. Judge for yourself. Read the transcript. ( NPR offers a complete version of it here. ) Then compare the reactions of The Wall Street Journal , The New York Times , Washington Post , The Inquirer , The Guardian , and other leading broadsheets, and magazines and blogs like Mother Jones , Forward , Slate , Salon , Vox , Alternet , and a host of others, most of which rely on Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League and former Special Assistant to the President, as their authoritative source on Trumpian cryptology. (Mr. Greenblatt, incidentally, should know better, given the treatment he has received from hard-line Zionist publications for refusing to demonize Black Lives Matter, and for “taking sides against” the State of Israel.) Look, I’m not defending Donald Trump, who I consider a self-aggrandizing idiot and a soulless huckster of the lowest order, and whose supporters include a lot of real anti-Semites, and racists, and misogynists, and other such creeps. I’m simply trying to point out how the corporate media have, for months, been playing the same hysterical tune like an enormous Goebbelsian keyboard instrument, and how millions of Americans are singing along (as they were before the invasion of Iraq, which posed no threat to the USA , but which according to the media had WMDs), and how terribly fucking disturbing that is. In case you didn’t instantly recognize it, the name of the tune is “This guy is Hitler!” and it isn’t the short vulgarian fingers of Donald Trump that are tickling the ivories. And no, it isn’t “the Jews” either. It’s the corporate media, and the corporations that own them, and the rest of the global capitalist ruling classes … in other words, those “global elites.” The thing I find particularly disturbing is how these rather mundane observations — i.e., (a) that a global ruling class exists, (b) that it’s primarily corporate in character, (c) that this class is pursuing its interests and not the interests of sovereign states — how such observations are being stigmatized as the ravings of unhinged anti-Semites. This stigmatization is not limited to Trumpists. Anyone to the left of Clinton is now, apparently, an anti-Semite. For example, Roger Cohen, in The New York Times , riding the tsunami of condemnation of the insidious verbiage of Trump’s West Palm speech, executed an extended smear-job on Jeremy Corbyn and his “Corbynistas” (they’re fond of coining these epithets, the media), denouncing their virulent “anti-Americanism,” “anti-Capitalism,” “anti-globalism,” and “anti-Semitic anti-Zionism.” Which, let me hasten to add, and stress, and underscore, and repeatedly emphasize, is not to imply that the Labour Party, or the British Left, or the American Left, or any other Left, is anti-Semitism-free. Of course not. There are anti-Semites everywhere. That isn’t the point. Or it isn’t my point. My point is that this stigmatization campaign is part of a much larger ideological project, one that has little to do with Trump, or Jeremy Corbyn, or their respective parties. Smearing one’s political opponents is nothing new, of course, it’s as old as the hills. But what we’re witnessing is more than smears. As I proposed in these pages back in July , political dissent is being gradually pathologized (i.e., stigmatized as aberrant or “abnormal” behavior, as opposed to a position meriting discussion). Consider the abnormalization of Sanders, back when he was talking about “banks,” “global elites,” and other things that matter, or the media’s portrayal of British voters as racists in the wake of the Brexit referendum. And, yes, the charges being leveled against Trump, much as we might despise the man. Anti-Semitism, inciting violence, paranoid conspiracy theorizing, insurrection, treason, et cetera — these are not legitimate arguments one needs to counter with superior arguments; they are symptoms of deviations from a norm, signs of criminality or pathology, which is increasingly how the corporate ruling classes are dismissing anyone who attempts to challenge them. A line is being drawn in the ideological sand. On one side of it are the decent people, the normal people, in their business wear, with their university degrees, and prescriptions, and debts. On the other side are … well, the deplorables, the ignorant, racist, anti-Semitic, neo-nationalist, populist extremists. This line cuts through both the Left and the Right … supersedes both Left and Right, making bedfellows of supposed adversaries like Obama, Clinton, Kagan, Wolfowitz, Scowcroft, and their ilk on the Normal team, and a motley crew of Trumpists, Putinists, European populists, Corbynistas, Sandernistas, socialists, anarchists, Wikileakers, anti-Zionists, anti-capitalists, neo-Nazis, Black Lives Matterers, angry Greek pensioners, environmental activists, religious zealots, the Klu Klux Klan, David Graeber, most of the contributors to CounterPunch, and various other “extremist” types, many of whom detest each other, in the Deplorables’ current starting line-up. The corporate media is sending a message … a message aimed at a much broader audience than undecided American voters (assuming such creatures really exist). The message is, “get with the fucking program, or get stigmatized as an anti-Semite, or a racist, or a Russian spy, or whatever.” The message is, “drop the populist rhetoric, shut the hell up about the Wall Street banks, and the corporations, and the ‘one percent,’ and … actually … forget about politics completely, except for identity politics, of course. Go ahead and knock yourself out with that.” The message is, “you’re either with us or against us … and it doesn’t matter why you’re against us, or what it is you think you’re for. Right, Left … who gives a shit? It’s one big Basket of Deplorables to us.” This message, of course, displays many of the hallmarks of the classic authoritarian mentality, the need for nearly total conformity, mindless allegiance to one’s so-called superiors, delegitimization of all opposing viewpoints, and the infantile type of hero-worship figures like Obama and Clinton inspire … not the old-fashioned authoritarianism that would-be despots like Trump represent, but, rather, a more attractive version, a hopey, changey, lovey version, where there are no frightening Hitlerian leaders barking out anti-Semitic code words, and no one is exterminating thousands of people in faraway countries they want to destabilize in order to entirely dominate the region. No, this is the version where Obama sells the TPP on the Jimmy Fallon show, and wars of aggression are not wars of aggression, but “humanitarian interventions.” It’s also the version where universal healthcare is, regrettably, “unrealistic,” but $38 billion for the State of Israel so it can operate its Apartheid State, and weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, so they can bomb the shit out of farmers in Yemen, and cut off people’s heads for blasphemy, is somehow in “America’s vital interests.” But what do I know? I’m just a satirist. I should probably leave all this complex stuff, like what is and isn’t in my interest, and what words really mean and all that, to the experts in the mainstream media. Since they did so well decoding Trump’s speech, maybe they could translate some of these other code words I’ve been having trouble with, like the ones I put in scare quotes above, or other such code words, like “enemy combatant,” “free trade agreement,” “security barrier,” “indefinite detention,” “targeted killing,” or “troubled asset relief program.” I could go on, but I probably shouldn’t. Odds are, I’m already on the list of Putin-worshiping, anti-Semitic, racist, misogynist, neo-nationalist, non-standing up for the National Anthem, conspiracy theorizing America-haters. The last thing I need to do at this point is start jabbering about how the United States is an authoritarian corporatist dystopia ruled by a global capitalist elite that couldn’t give less of a shit about Americans (or any other actual people living in any other actual countries), where the corporate media can whip up mass fanatical support for wars of aggression, or corporate puppets, by pointing their fingers at yet another bogeyman and shouting “Hitler” at the top of their lungs. Next thing you know I’d be writing about “banks,” and “global corporations,” and “national sovereignty,” and we all know what that’s about, don’t we? C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright and satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (US). He can reached at his website, cjhopkins.com, or at consentfactory.org. (Reprinted from Counterpunch by permission of author or representative)

A Push to Lower Drug Prices That Hit Insurers and Employers the Hardest - The New York Times

Katie Thomas

Americans have expressed outrage at drug companies for raising prices on products like EpiPen, the severe allergy treatment needed by thousands of children, and Daraprim, a rarely used but essential drug to treat a parasitic infection. But insurers and employers — who pay the bulk of the cost for drugs — say that a bigger financial shock has come from a largely overlooked source: expensive medications like Humira and Enbrel, drugs taken by millions of people for conditions like rheumatoid arthritis. In recent years, the prices of the medications have doubled, making them the costliest drug class in the country by some calculations. Now, one of the most powerful forces on the side of drug payers is pushing back. On Thursday, Express Scripts, the nation’s largest drug benefits manager, changed its recommendations to insurers and employers, saying they should cover fewer drugs for many inflammatory conditions. The idea is that the new limits will force drug companies to lower their prices, saving insurers and employers money. The approach has already set off some complaints among patients, who rely on regular injections of the drugs to keep painful and uncomfortable symptoms in check. If an approved drug does not work, patients will have to take extra steps to get a different drug. But Express Scripts said that the move was necessary to contain costs. The drugs account for nearly 10 percent of all drug spending among its members in the United States, the company says — costing an estimated $7. 5 billion — even though fewer than 1 percent of its members use them. “This is a category of drugs that are used for crippling, very painful conditions, yet they don’t affect huge numbers of people,” said Dr. Glen Stettin, the chief innovation officer at Express Scripts. The rising costs, he said, are due less to a rising number of patients who need the products and “much more because of the increase in the prices of these medications. ” The approach is the latest effort by insurers and drug benefit managers to more closely manage drugs in diseases, limiting which ones are covered or requiring patients to take additional steps to get approval for certain products. In 2014, Express Scripts shook up the market for hepatitis C drugs when it required its patients to use a new treatment by AbbVie rather than more expensive competitors. It made similar moves last year with the approval of expensive new treatments for high cholesterol. Like those previous efforts, the effort for inflammatory conditions will most likely help the company’s specialty pharmacy, Accredo. Express Scripts said patients getting the medications through the new program would need to use Accredo, not a competing pharmacy, giving the service a bigger base of customers. As a drug benefit manager, Express Scripts provides services like negotiating with drug companies and approving or denying drug claims. The new program is voluntary for employers and insurers who use the company, but its recommendations are usually widely adopted. Humira, made by AbbVie, and Enbrel, made by Amgen, each carry a monthly list price of just over $4, 000, and each have increased those prices by about 130 percent from 2011 to 2016, according to the Gold Standard Drug Database compiled by Elsevier Clinical Solutions. That price does not include rebates that the manufacturers negotiate with insurers. Express Scripts said that the actual monthly cost of drugs, before the new program, was about $3, 000. Representatives for large employers, who subsidize the health insurance of their employees, said the efforts were welcome. Drugs like Humira and Enbrel are known as specialty drugs, a category of products that treat serious conditions and whose rising costs have increasingly alarmed those who are paying the bills. “If you go back to 2014, it wasn’t even on the radar screen for employers, and now it’s No. 1,” said Brian J. Marcotte, the chief executive of the National Business Group on Health, which advocates for large employers. But some patients questioned whether it would further limit the options for some people or make it more cumbersome to get the medications they needed. The program would apply only to new patients those already stable on drugs would be allowed to remain on them. “Jumping through hoops may not seem like a big thing to somebody that doesn’t have to live with the condition,” said Nicole Martin, 33, of Blaine, Ky. who has rheumatoid arthritis and takes Enbrel. “But even being a day or two behind can cause massive issues for somebody. ” Traditionally, patients were offered all the drugs that were covered by their plans no matter which inflammatory condition they had — from rheumatoid arthritis to psoriasis and ulcerative colitis. Under the new guidelines, Express Scripts has devised a separate list of preferred and nonpreferred drugs for each condition. Patients who want to use a drug on the nonpreferred list will need a letter from their doctor. The company said the move would require drug companies to compete more directly. The motivation to get on the preapproved list, the company said, would push drug companies to offer better discounts to employers and insurers. Express Scripts declined to provide specifics about the discounts that it had negotiated through the new program. “We expect to make a big dent in the cost of caring for people in this category, without compromising the care that people get,” Dr. Stettin said. Dr. Stettin said the company looked at patient data first when deciding which drugs would be preferred. “Clinical always comes first, and the cost is second,” he said. Representatives for drug companies, including AbbVie and Amgen, said they believed doctors and patients — and not insurance companies — should decide which therapy is best. And they said the list price does not reflect the rebates and other discounts that insurance companies and managers negotiate, which make the actual cost lower. “Because of the magnitude of these rebates,” said Kristen Davis, a spokeswoman for Amgen, “price increases have become part of the competitive dynamic. ” The program will also refund up to $2, 000 a month to employers and insurers if a patient has to switch from a preferred drug to a different medication in the first three months, a potential savings of about $250 million a year. About a quarter to a third of patients end up switching to a new drug in the first few months, Express Scripts said. But that guarantee does not necessarily go to the patient, even if the patient has a plan and paid for all or most of the drug. Employers will decide whether to pass that refund along to the patients, Express Scripts said. A reason that the rising cost of drugs like Humira and Enbrel hasn’t stoked greater outrage is that many patients are shielded from the costs. In addition to the discounts the companies negotiate with drug benefit managers, AbbVie and Amgen run assistance programs that often reduce patients’ costs. The average Express Scripts member paid $127 in monthly for a drug to treat an inflammatory condition, the company said. Dr. Stettin said patients would be better served by using the company’s specialty pharmacy, Accredo, which has pharmacists that specialize in inflammatory conditions. He cited company data showing that patients with those conditions were more likely to take their drugs when they used Accredo compared with other pharmacies. But some industry observers said the move was a ploy to build Accredo’s business, by essentially locking in patients whose employers opt in to the new program, then making money by filling the prescription. “They really, really want their hands on that script,” said Michael Rea, the chief executive of Rx Savings Solutions, which advises employers on how to reduce drug costs.

On Hillary Clinton’s Rough Day, Republicans Rue Missed Chance - The New York Times

Jonathan Martin

WASHINGTON — As the Republican strategist Brian Walsh watched the nonstop cable news coverage Tuesday from his K Street office, he thought he was seeing the stuff of his party’s dreams. A week after former President Bill Clinton lit a political firestorm by strolling onto Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch’s plane for a private conversation, the director of the F. B. I. announced that the bureau would not recommend criminal charges over Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified information. And then, just three hours later, President Obama and Mrs. Clinton emerged arm in arm from Air Force One in North Carolina for their first joint campaign rally. But this politically pregnant convergence of events was not met with a battalion of Republican law enforcement and national security officials flooding the television airwaves to raise questions about the inquiry and hammer Mrs. Clinton. Nor was there any video contrasting what the F. B. I. director, James B. Comey, called Mrs. Clinton’s “extremely careless” handling of 110 classified emails with the former secretary of state’s shifting explanations over the last year about her use of a private email server. There were not even any talking points sent to leading Republican members of Congress offering guidance on the best lines of attack against Mrs. Clinton in the aftermath of what was a remarkably harsh assessment of her conduct. “Instead we’re relying on somebody who’s tweeting with exclamation points,” said Mr. Walsh, referring to Donald J. Trump’s initial response to Mr. Comey’s news conference. Mr. Trump’s improvisational response to the conclusion of an F. B. I. investigation against his opponent that had been months in the making illustrated the lingering deficiencies of his skeletal campaign and the lack of Republicans with foreign policy experience who are willing to speak on his behalf. For many in the party it also was a painful reminder of what could have been — how a different could have capitalized on one of the most difficult days Mrs. Clinton has faced as a candidate. For the Republican establishment, the months since Mr. Trump began closing in on the presidential nomination have been a season of dismay and frustration: Handed a historically weak Democratic opponent to run against, the party’s voters responded by nominating a candidate even more unpopular and toxic than Mrs. Clinton. But there have been few days during this cycle of disbelief in which the sense of regret has been as palpable for Republican strategists and policy makers as when Mr. Comey jolted the political world back to life after a long holiday weekend. “Imagine Jeb Bush looking disappointed and talking about the importance of following the rules and a society ruled by law with a government that is held accountable,” said Kori Schake, a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and a national security aide in George W. Bush’s administration who is now backing Mrs. Clinton. “This should be a really great moment for a Republican nominee. But there’s no way in the world Donald Trump could pull that off. ” Mr. Trump’s campaign did, in fact, issue a longer statement regarding Mrs. Clinton’s email use beyond his initial assessment of “very very unfair!” and he used his own rally Tuesday night in North Carolina to assail his Democratic rival. “We are talking about the safety of our people,” he told a crowd in Raleigh. “The laws are very explicit. Stupidity is not a reason that you’re going to be innocent. ” Yet for many in his own party, there was deep angst over the possibility that they could lose to a Democratic candidate who was just deemed by one of the country’s most highly respected law enforcement officials to have presided over a State Department whose lackadaisical security culture invited foreign hackers. “He’s making somebody who should be sitting in a jail cell look like the sane choice for president,” said John Noonan, a former Air Force officer who served as a national security aide to Mitt Romney in 2012 and in Mr. Bush’s campaign this year. “This should have been a putt. But Republicans never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. And that’s what we’ve done. ” What was especially exasperating to so many in the party was that the turn of events over the last week was only the latest opportunity in a month for Mr. Trump to go on the offensive. The Islamic rampage in Orlando, Fla. and Britain’s vote to leave the European Union offered him prime political moments, but he unnecessarily inserted himself into each story and saw no improvement in his standing in the polls. “Trump overtakes news cycles at every turn,” complained Mr. Walsh. “My God, he was on his golf course saying what a good thing the pound’s collapse would be for his bottom line. ” (Some Republicans feared Mr. Trump was again frittering away an opportunity when, rather than focusing entirely on the F. B. I. probe, he used his speech on Tuesday night to offer praise for Saddam Hussein.) However, in a campaign year animated by a voter revolt against Washington and the perceived of an political class there may be no more of a gift than what Mr. Comey delivered to an outsider candidate like Mr. Trump, whose jeremiads against what he calls a “rigged” system have been central to his improbable rise. “This is an example of what voters are totally fed up with,” said Liesl Hickey, the former executive director of the House Republican campaign arm, alluding to the F. B. I. ’s decision to not recommend charges. But Ms. Hickey, pointing out that Mr. Trump refuses to release his income tax returns, noted that the candidate also bore his own baggage on the very argument he is making against Mrs. Clinton. “Americans also think the system is rigged for the top 1 percent, so they think the system could be rigged for him, too,” she said. Whether it is with his taxes, his pronouncements or his willingness to raise money and create a sophisticated organization, Mr. Trump has gleefully flouted convention. “He doesn’t think traditional campaigns matter as much anymore, that he can do this on social media,” said Jim Merrill, a New Republican strategist. “But the truth is, running a campaign still matters a great deal. And if we had nominated anyone else we’d be up on Hillary. But we’re down because we’ve got an incompetent candidate who has alienated large swaths of the electorate. ” For his part, Mr. Walsh was just flabbergasted that his party had a nominee whose war room often seems to begin and end with the candidate’s Twitter feed. “Why would he rush out a tweet as his primary response?” wondered Mr. Walsh. “He’s just demonstrating he is unable or unwilling to appear presidential at moments like this, when it’s required. ”

Способен ли кто-нибудь помешать Соросу стать «властителем мира»? | Новое восточное обозрение

Регион: США в мире Как отмечает в своей новой статье американский журналист Мартин Бергер, непосредственная причастность американского миллиардера и финансиста Джорджа Сороса к беспорядкам, начавшимся в США после победы Дональда Трампа на президентских выборах, сегодня уже вряд ли у кого вызывает сомнения. Джордж Сорос и другие богатые либералы, потратившие десятки миллионов долларов на кампанию Хиллари Клинтон, собрались в Вашингтоне в воскресенье вечером на трехдневную закрытую конференцию, чтобы перегруппировать силы в борьбе против Дональда Трампа . Либералы планируют полноценную позиционную войну против Трампа с первого же дня его вступления в должность. Как отмечает автор, параноидальное стремление Сороса управлять миром, финансировать выгодные прежде всего ему политические скандалы и смены правящих элит в различных странах широко известно. Благодаря обнародованным хакерами материалам, стало известно, что фонд Джорджа Сороса «Открытое общество» пытался повлиять на политические процессы во многих европейских государствах. Магната неоднократно обвиняли в причастности к цветным революциям в странах Восточной Европы, на Украине, в Грузии. В августе с.г. Сорос, как сообщили многие СМИ, потратил 33 млн долларов на поддержку объединений, которые фактически разжигали беспорядки в Фергюсоне. Сорос фигурирует среди крупнейших доноров предвыборной кампании кандидата в президенты США от Демократической партии Хиллари Клинтон, безвозмездно выделив ей 9 млн долларов. Сегодня он стоит за акциями протеста в США, которые продолжаются после легитимных, свободных выборов 45-го президента. Спонсируемое им движение организуется при помощи соцсетей. Активисты MoveOn . org организовали более 200 «мирных акций», некоторые из которых оказались омрачены вандализмом и насилием. Как отметил известный финансовый и политический обозреватель делового портала Live Trading News Поль Эбелинг , основной целью спонсируемого Соросом движения против Трампа является воспрепятствование усилиям администрации нового президента США отделаться от глобалистской политики Клинтонов и президента Барака Обамы. Однако, как отмечает автор, вряд ли Соросу, поджигавшему своими долларами многие цветные революции за рубежом, удастся и дальше безнаказанно «мутить воду», особенно в США в новую эпоху – «эпоху Трапа». С полным содержанием статьи вы можете ознакомиться здесь . Популярные статьи

That’s Not the Burglar Growling. It’s His Stomach. - The New York Times

Michael Wilson

The Office of Chief Medical Examiner, which operates New York City’s DNA laboratory, tests all manner of objects for microscopic evidence that could link a suspect to a crime. This is a story about a small and bizarre subset of those objects, evidence left by criminals feeding that most basic of human appetites. Literally feeding. Criminals who eat in the act. “Partially eaten apple,” a spokeswoman for the medical examiner’s office wrote when asked for examples. “Sunflower seed shells. chocolate cake. Chewed gum. ” When she got to “ biscuit,” the list was not yet half over. “Chicken bones. Chicken wing. Pizza crust. Fruit pit. ” For the victim of a home burglary, it would seem to be yet another affront after the crime: the violation of the kitchen and the discovery, while perhaps seeking simple comfort in the stress, of a lowly pit where once there was fruit. That violation was last seen in this space earlier this month, in the tale of a Brooklyn man whose attempt to rent his apartment to a stranger went terribly awry. But the phenomenon of the hungry burglar is timeless. An article in The New York Times on May 17, 1886, described the theft of nearly 100 pieces of flatware from the Poughkeepsie mansion of a fallen general’s widow. “After completing their pillage,” the story noted, the burglars “went down to the kitchen and brought upstairs to the parlor cooked meats, bread, cake, eggs and milk, and partook of the banquet there and then. ” The peculiar act of eating at the scene of the crime occurs often enough to warrant mention in police textbooks like “Criminal Investigation: A Method for Reconstructing the Past. ” A burglar may take food from the kitchen, the authors, James W. Osterburg and Richard H. Ward, write, “or display other forms of aberrational behavior that help establish a modus operandi. ” It is far from uncommon in New York City. “Happens all the time,” Detective Anthony Barbee in Brooklyn told me a few years ago. “One of the questions we always ask people, ‘Look in your refrigerator. Is there anything open?’ Maybe they’re neat freaks and they notice something moved around. They look at you like you’re crazy. ” The act defies criminal logic. “I would assume, you’re a burglar, you have an adrenaline rush, you want to get in and out,” Detective Barbee said. “But some people make themselves at home. They get comfortable. ” Others take their refreshments to go. Last year, a tenant in an apartment in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan came home to discover that someone had stolen a credit card, a laptop, sunglasses — and a bottle of alcohol. A man in Queens answered a knock at his door last August, let in two women who were pretending to need a bathroom and even offered one of them a slice of cake. After they left, he realized he had been robbed. Officers quickly found the women, who had cash from the man’s home, among other things. “In stopping the vehicle,” prosecutors later said, “police allegedly recovered cake. ” In 2011, a woman in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, came home to find a large hole in her window screen, and her electronics and watches missing. There was a note: “Thanks for the O. J.,” it read in part. “Have a nice day. ” Steve Panagopoulos, a retired Brooklyn detective, said he associated food theft with addiction: “These guys are junkies. ” “Think about it,” he said last week. “They don’t really even care about getting caught. Taking their time, sitting there opening refrigerators, that’s pretty crazy. ” That sort of behavior was the undoing of one serial thief he remembered. “He had taken out a thing of cheese, crackers,” Mr. Panagopoulos said. “He left them behind on the table. That was processed for DNA. ” A former detective in Chinatown once shared the story of an epic intrusion visited upon the apartment of a woman who had left for a week to care for her mother. “They came in and used the pots and stove and cooked,” the former detective, Jose Santiago, said. “They hung out, smoked a couple joints, ate. ” Soon they had company. “Word got out in the building,” the detective said. “One person would go in and take a TV. Literally couches, everything. She was cleaned out. ” Cleaned out, but no one cleaned up: “There was food in the pots when she got home,” he said. Perhaps the pots were sent to the laboratory of the medical examiner. There, they would have found company in the other evidence left by criminals who eat at the scene. “Candy wrappers, lollipop,” the spokeswoman’s list read, finally ending with a New York City flourish. “And, of course, a bagel. ”

Putin Says Snowden Was Wrong to Leak Secrets, but Is No Traitor - Breitbart

Breitbart Tech

(Reuters) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he believes former U. S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden was wrong to leak U. S. spy secrets, but is no traitor. [Snowden, 33, was given asylum in Russia in 2013 after leaking classified information about U. S. spy operations. His lawyer said in January Snowden had the right to remain in Russia until 2020 and to apply for Russian citizenship next year. Putin, a former KGB officer and of Russia’s FSB security service, made his comments about Snowden in an interview with U. S. film director Oliver Stone, excerpts of which were released ahead of its broadcast by U. S. TV network Showtime from June 12. “Snowden is not a traitor,” said Putin. “He did not betray the interests of his country, nor did he transfer any information to any other country that would damage his own people,” said Putin. Read the rest of the story at Reuters.

Poll: Trump pulls ahead in Florida

-NO AUTHOR-

Poll: Trump pulls ahead in Florida GOP's Rubio leads Democrat by 10 points in Senate race Published: 45 mins ago (BLOOMBERG) Donald Trump has a slim advantage in Florida as critical independent voters narrowly break his way in the must-win battleground state, a Bloomberg Politics poll shows. The Republican presidential nominee has 45 percent to Democrat Hillary Clinton’s 43 percent among likely voters when third-party candidates are included, the poll found. In a hypothetical two-way race, Trump has 46 percent to Clinton’s 45 percent. Among independents, Trump gets 43 percent to Clinton’s 41 percent in a head-to-head contest. When third-party candidates are included, Trump picks up 1 point with independents while Clinton drops to 37 percent, with Libertarian Gary Johnson taking 9 percent and the Green Party’s Jill Stein getting 5 percent.

Four Illegal Aliens Arrested After ’Savage’ Gang-Related Killing of MD Teen

Katie McHugh

Imported gang violence continues to afflict Virginia: authorities charged illegal alien suspects with murder and all ten suspects for gang participation and abduction on Thursday for the “brutal” slaying of Damaris Reyes Rivas. [Police arrested ten in connection with Rivas’ death: four adults and six teenagers. FOX5 reports “Jose Ivan Castillo Rivas, 18, Springfield, Wilmer A. Sanchez Serrano, 21, Cindy Blanco Hernandez, 18, and Aldair J. Miranda Carcamo, 18” are adults. Another Venus Iraheta, who has lived in the U. S. for the past ten years — making her a “DREAMer” eligible for amnesty under an Obama executive order — is also in police custody. Police did not identify the other five juveniles. All ten face charges of abduction and gang participation. Rivas and Serrano are charged with murder. Rivas died horribly on or close to January 8 of trauma in a “savage, brutal killing,” Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin Roessler said. Police reportedly found video evidence of Rivas’ death and declined to name the gang connected to the teenager’s murder. According to Maria Reyes, Rivas’ mother, her daughter had gotten involved with the El Salvadoran gang Mara Salvatrucha or recently. She told FOX 5 she is receiving violent threats from gang members “blaming her for the arrests” and is afraid for her own life. U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement placed detainers on the four adults charged with murder and has asked Fairfax County to alert them before they are released from custody. of the total population of El Salvador lives in the U. S. “El Salvador is the top country of birth for immigrants to Virginia,” the Associated Press reported in 2014. Nearly a quarter, or 23 percent, of Northern Virginia residents are foreigners, and 68 percent of the state’s population lives there, researchers found in 2014. In 1970, only one in 100 residents in Virginia was — but now, it is one in nine. Roughly 247, 000 illegal aliens live in Virginia, according to one estimate, meaning the state ranks in the top ten states with the largest populations of illegals. Among those are nearly 40, 000 illegals from El Salvador. Another estimate pegged the total number of illegals at 275, 000 in 2012, or 3. 5 percent of the state’s population. Similarly, immigration led to a boom in the Latino or Hispanic population in Old Dominion since the 1990s: “The Latino share of Virginia’s population grew from 2. 6 percent in 1990 to 4. 7 percent in 2000 to 8. 6 percent (or 707, 962 people) in 2013,” according to the American Immigration Council. Without immigration from El Salvador, there would be no in America and fewer machete murders and dismembered bodies buried in idyllic parks. Since the 1990s, has operated in the Washington, D. C. area with thousands of members. Obama administration policies encouraged hundreds of thousands of Central American illegal aliens to surge into the U. S. and the administration helped them along by shipping them unannounced to unsuspecting American communities. leaders stationed in El Salvador had told the U. S. gangs to rebuild, and the large influx of young illegal aliens made the task easier. The Obama administration shipped illegal alien minors with clear ties to strongholds. One Department of Homeland Security official noted an “uptick” in gang violence in the past two years, according to FOX5: “He said and in high schools work to recruit younger kids to help them carry out crimes because they are aware charges are less serious for juveniles. ” El Salvadoran nationals involved in gang violence at home bring their connections and plans for expansion to the United States. Chairman of the Northern Virginia Regional Gang Task Force Douglas W. Keen pointed to “increased recruitment of unaccompanied minors” illegally arriving in the U. S. “When we debrief some of the arrestees they are telling us they were recruited at a young age and encouraged to commit crimes of assaults and larcenies. Then they move to narcotics and more violent crimes,” Keen told the Washington Post. Director of the task force Jay Lanham also told FOX5 that gangs “are recruiting people as young as children in elementary school and they lure them through social media and parties where they offer them drugs, alcohol, and sex. ” Taxpayers, of course, foot the bill for the illegal aliens’ schooling, social services, trials, incarceration, and the specialized task forces required to keep their explosive violence under control.

Comment on Donald Trump To Replace Filipina White House Chef With Paula Deen by Mitch Jalandoni

Mitch Jalandoni

adobochron 1 Comment Comerford, left, and Deen WASHINGTON, D.C. ( The Adobo Chronicles, Washington Bureau) – When Donald and Melania Trump officially move into the White House, there will be no pancit or chicken adobo on the family menu, just potato tot casserole and pumpkin pie. The president-elect has informed The Adobo Chronicles that he is firing Filipina White House Executive Chef Cristeta Comerford. She will be replaced by Paula Deen, American celebrity chef and former TV cooking show host. Paula Deen made headlines when a video surfaced in which Deen, in a deposition, admits to using the N-word and making racist and anti-semitic jokes. She also allegedly described her interest in hiring black waiters dressed to look like “slaves” at a wedding.Jun 19, 2013. Trump himself has been criticized for racist remarks during his presidential campaign. Birds of the same feather… Rate this:

Comment on 10 Strange Facts About Our Presidents by tania de saram

tania de saram

10 Strange Facts About Our Presidents July 25, 2015 Subscribe They may well be some of the most recognizable men on the face of the Earth: Our Presidents. Think you know all there is to know from history about these men? Think again and take a look at these strange facts: Presidential Alligators Two different Presidents had pet alligators: John Quincy Adams and Herbert Hoover. Adams received his pet alligator as a gift from a French general, and it lived in an unfinished bathroom of the White House. Hoover’s son had two alligators that frequently roamed the White House grounds. Bet that kept the Secret Service on their toes. Greek and Latin James Garfield, our 20th President, could write well with each hand, but he also could write Greek with one hand and Latin with the other at the same time! Try that sometime! Cool Coolidge Calvin Coolidge was fond of pranking the White House staff by pressing all the buttons in the Oval Office just to watch everyone run in frantically, unsure of what was wrong. The Rough Rider Roosevelt During a speech in Milwaukee, a failed assassin shot Teddy Roosevelt in the chest. His next words were, “I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot.” When everyone attempted to take him to the hospital, he waved them off and finished his 90 minute speech with the bullet still lodged in his chest! Now that’s toughness! Dueling Jackson President Andrew Jackson was involved in over 100 duels, most to protect the reputation of his wife. In one, Jackson offered his opponent the first shot. The man shot Jackson, but Jackson merely shook it off, like it was a bee sting, then shot and killed the unlucky opponent. Fashion Model Before Gerald Ford was President, he worked as a fashion model in New York City. He even made it to the cover of Cosmopolitan with Phyllis Brown in 1942. Out-Of-This-World Carter Before he became President, Jimmy Carter was making a speech in Georgia when he saw a UFO. He filed a report of the incident with the International UFO Bureau stating that it was a self-illuminating, bright white object hovering in the sky. Bartender-In-Chief Before Abraham Lincoln was the President, he was a lawyer. But before that he was he was a bartender. He owned a saloon, Berry and Lincoln, with his friend William Berry. Bushusuru Poppy Bush was in Asia for a trade conference. At a state event held by the Japanese Prime Minister, Bush fainted after vomiting all over the banquet host. The Japanese later coined the term “Bushusuru” meaning “to do the Bush thing” or “to vomit.” Gambling Harding Warren Harding loved to play poker, and during one game he bet a set of priceless White House china, which he promptly lost. h/t and All Images: BrainJet

Outsiders Selected by Trump Aim to Unnerve Washington - The New York Times

Michael D. Shear

They are Donald J. Trump’s disrupters. Seven men and one woman named by Mr. Trump to run vast government agencies share a common trait: once they are confirmed, their presence is meant to unnerve — and maybe even outright undermine — the bureaucracies they are about to lead. Some of those chosen — 17 picks so far for federal agencies and five for the White House — are among the most radical selections in recent history. Other presidents’ nominees, even when controversial, were often veterans of the Washington bureaucracy and generally believed in it. But a number of Mr. Trump’s most important selections have no experience in federal government and a great drive to undo it. Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma state attorney general who was picked to lead the E. P. A. rejects the established science of climate change and has built his career on fighting environmental regulations. At the Education Department, Betsy DeVos wants to steer government money away from traditional public schools. Rick Perry was picked to head the Energy Department — unless he eliminates it, as he once promised. Representative Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, the conservative Republican who was chosen as White House budget director, refused to back the 2011 deal to raise the federal debt limit and helped to bring the United States to the brink of default. “Donald Trump ran to make the governing people uncomfortable,” said Andrew H. Card Jr. who served as chief of staff to former President George W. Bush and as transportation secretary for his father. “He clearly picked people to lead some of these departments who will be challenging to the insiders. ” As Mr. Trump finishes announcing his choices for cabinet and senior White House aides, a picture is emerging of an administration with little ideological cohesion and no single animating purpose. They are neither all conservatives, nor all mainstream conservatives. They are not all insiders or outsiders. Some have known Mr. Trump for years. Others met him in the weeks since he was elected. Instead, Mr. Trump has recruited people to lead his government who can be roughly grouped into categories that appeal to the different parts of his psyche. In addition to the disrupters, there are the dealmakers, the loyalists, the establishment and the generals. Mr. Trump’s administration so far reflects the people who worked for and advised him during the campaign. It is mostly men, and mostly white. Many of his picks are extraordinarily rich, though not all. Loyalty is at a premium — except when it isn’t. (Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s choice for national security adviser, was an early supporter who was rewarded. Todd Ricketts, who may become deputy commerce secretary, was a leader of the “Never Trump” movement.) There is “no overarching theory,” said Pete Wehner, who was deputy director of speechwriting for Mr. Bush and a fierce critic of Mr. Trump during the campaign. “He’s not being driven by the usual impulses, which would be policy or ideology or political philosophy. ” Here is a look at the groups: Few things made Mr. Trump’s campaign supporters roar with approval more than when he hammered the “political class in Washington,” telling people at his rallies that the government had betrayed them, and vowing that change was coming. At many agencies, it may soon arrive. In addition to Ms. DeVos, Mr. Pruitt, Mr. Perry and Mr. Mulvaney, the disrupters include Ben Carson, chosen to lead the Housing Department Andrew Puzder as labor secretary Representative Tom Price of Georgia to oversee the Health and Human Services Department and Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama as attorney general. The disrupters appear to have been picked in part for their singular ability to shake up the normal course of business at their agencies. Mr. Sessions, whose 1986 nomination as a federal judge was rejected by the Senate because of testimony from colleagues that he was a racist, is likely to push for wholesale changes at the Justice Department by imposing conservative positions on immigration, terrorism, crime, drugs and guns. He is almost certain to reverse efforts to confront civil rights violations, sentencing disparities and police abuses. Mr. Carson, a surgeon who has no experience in housing or running a large government agency, has already put housing advocates on notice that he does not think much of current programs for the poor. Mr. Puzder, who owns chains and is opposed to raising the minimum wage, is a longtime critic of his department’s approach. Mr. Price, who waged a crusade against the Affordable Care Act in Congress, could soon be in a position at H. H. S. to lead the drive to repeal and replace it. Mr. Trump demonstrated his desire for a disruptive force when he named Mr. Pruitt to head the nation’s top environmental agency. While saying that his administration “strongly believes in environmental protection,” he previewed the kind of change he is looking for. “For too long, the Environmental Protection Agency has spent taxpayer dollars on an agenda that has destroyed millions of jobs,” he said, adding that Mr. Pruitt “will reverse this trend. ” As he creates an administration in his own image, perhaps no category is more natural for the author of “The Art of the Deal” than the dealmakers. Mr. Trump, who puts a premium on the ability to negotiate in business and finance, has chosen Wilbur Ross, a billionaire investor, to lead the Commerce Department Steven Mnuchin of Goldman Sachs to lead the Treasury Department and Rex W. Tillerson, the chairman of Exxon Mobil, who has a longtime relationship with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, to be secretary of state. “To me, a great advantage is he knows many of the players, and he knows them well,” Mr. Trump said last week during an interview about Mr. Tillerson on “Fox News Sunday. ” “He does massive deals in Russia. He does massive deals for the company — not for himself — for the company. ” Mr. Mnuchin made a fortune through financial deals and now becomes the nation’s top financial official. Mr. Ross, a “vulture” investor on Wall Street, bought nearly dead companies and made huge profits when his turnaround strategies worked. Like most future presidents, Mr. Trump has also positioned loyal, trusted aides to be close to him at the White House. Four of the loyalists — Reince Priebus, who will be White House chief of staff Stephen K. Bannon, chief strategist Donald F. McGahn II, White House counsel and Mr. Flynn, national security adviser — will occupy the most coveted real estate in the West Wing. The president has also tapped Linda McMahon, the former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, to oversee the Small Business Administration. Ms. McMahon has known Mr. Trump for years, long before he considered running for president. In 2007 on W. W. E. Mr. Trump took down Vince McMahon, Ms. McMahon’s husband and the chairman of the organization, in what was billed as the “Battle of the Billionaires. ” All five loyalists stuck by Mr. Trump during the toughest of times in the campaign. Mr. Priebus, the departing chairman of the Republican Party, came late to joining the Trump team, but refused to waver publicly when the Washington establishment was rushing to condemn Mr. Trump during various scandals, particularly a leaked “Access Hollywood” recording that captured Mr. Trump boasting about grabbing women by their genitals. Mr. Bannon, who has been accused of embracing white nationalist views as the head of Breitbart News, was always there, whispering advice to Mr. Trump in the background, if not officially in charge of campaign strategy. Mr. Flynn and Mr. McGahn are veterans of Mr. Trump’s campaign world, having secured their posts in the administration through longevity. Loyalty goes only so far, however. Four of Mr. Trump’s most avid supporters so far have no role in the new administration: Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City. If there was one group Mr. Trump repeatedly derided on the campaign trail, it was the establishment. It was filled with the “stupid” people who ran the government poorly, Mr. Trump said. It represented the Washington swamp that he pledged to drain. When it looked like he might not win, he blamed them. But Mr. Trump hasn’t shunned the establishment as he sets up his government. He has chosen Nikki Haley, the governor of South Carolina, as his envoy to the United Nations Representative Michael Pompeo of Kansas for C. I. A. director and Elaine Chao as his secretary of transportation. Ms. Haley, a rising star in the Republican establishment, endorsed Senator Marco Rubio of Florida during the primaries. Mr. Pompeo, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, is in the nation’s capital. And there are few people who define the Republican establishment more than Ms. Chao, who, in addition to having served in cabinet posts during both Bush administrations, is married to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader. Ultimately there may be no more direct expression of Mr. Trump’s psyche in his administration picks than the generals. Despite saying during the campaign that he knew more about the Islamic State than generals did, Mr. Trump is now embracing the retired leaders of America’s military. That explains Gen. James N. Mattis, who was responsible for American military operations in the Middle East as head of United States Central Command, or Centcom, and is now Mr. Trump’s pick for defense secretary. It also explains Gen. John F. Kelly, who oversaw American military operations in Central and South America as head of United States Southern Command and is now Mr. Trump’s choice for homeland security secretary. It also may help frame his choice of Representative Ryan Zinke of Montana, a former Navy SEAL commander, to be interior secretary. While not a general, Mr. Zinke served in Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo and the Pacific. His autobiography, “American Commander,” was published recently. Mr. Trump particularly likes “Mad Dog Mattis,” the former Centcom commander’s nickname. “Mad Dog Mattis!” Mr. Trump said to a roar of applause at a recent rally in Fayetteville, N. C. “Mad Dog plays no games, right?” Mr. Trump called General Mattis, who led a Marine division to Baghdad during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, one of “the most effective generals that we’ve had in many, many decades. ”

How to Have a Green Vacation - The New York Times

Shivani Vora

With the United Nations designating 2017 as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development, there has never been a better time to be more environmentally conscious when traveling. And, it’s not hard to do, according to Costas Christ, the director of sustainability for the luxury travel network Virtuoso. “Being greener on vacation doesn’t take a lot of effort or mean sacrificing pleasure,” he said. Below, Mr. Christ’s top tips on traveling green: Book Hotels With Green Practices Many properties include green efforts on their websites, or you can ask the concierge or reservations department about the hotel’s green programs. “It could be an extensive recycling program, using LED lighting or having power systems that expend less energy,” he said. Two of his favorite properties with a green footprint include the Brando in French Polynesia, which is operated on renewable energy, and Three Camel Lodge in Mongolia, which composts its kitchen waste for use in a solar greenhouse producing fresh ingredients for the restaurant. Carry a Reusable Shopping Bag Traveling with a reusable bag is a way to avoid contributing to plastic bag pollution, a significant concern in many parts of the world. Use the bag to carry the souvenirs you buy on your trip. Locals will welcome it, too. Mr. Christ said that when he was buying fruit at a roadside stand in Belize in January, the vendor thanked him for bringing his own bag and told him it saves her money because she has to buy fewer bags for her shoppers, and it makes for less litter, too. Say ‘No’ to Plastic Water Bottles They are readily and inexpensively available, but the waste from plastic bottles clogs up landfills and pollutes the ocean. Mr. Christ advised either taking a reusable bottle from home or asking your tour operator or hotel for one and refilling it with purified water. Transportation Can Be Green, Too. Relying on biking or walking to explore your destination helps the environment because both create minimal carbon emissions. They also give the traveler a better sense of place. If you’re flying to your destination, use a reputable carbon offset provider, like MyClimate, a nonprofit group that supports projects, and pick nonstop flights versus connections — fewer flights mean fewer carbon emissions. Also, go for a rental car, an option with many companies today. Hertz, for example, has the Green Traveler Collection, a fleet of hybrid cars that are affordable to rent. Eat Local Enjoying meals that emphasize local ingredients, Mr. Christ said, means fewer fossil fuels are involved because they didn’t travel far to reach your plate. Also, he suggested avoiding shrimp. “Unless otherwise specified, a lot of shrimp comes from aquaculture ponds bulldozed out of tropical mangrove forests,” he said. “Basically, the environment was destroyed to produce that shrimp. ”

Exclusive: Front National Candidate Reveals Party’s Potential New Name

Chris Tomlinson

PARIS, France: Front National legislative candidate Aymeric Durox has exclusively revealed to Breitbart London the new name of the Front National could be “Les Patriotes” or the Patriots. [Mr. Durox said the name change, which was talked about on Sunday evening following the defeat of migration candidate Marine Le Pen, is likely to be Les Patriotes citing the office of vice president of the party Florian Philippot registering the name in 2015. “I know that the director of the cabinet of Florian Philippot filed the name ‘Les Patriotes’ in April 2015, perhaps already with the prospect of a name change, but nothing is sure,” he told Breitbart London. He said the legacy of the name Front National still “scared off” some voters and a name change and rebranding could bring more people into the movement. The Front National, or perhaps soon Les Patriotes, are challenging the establishment parties in next month’s French legislative elections. Mr. Durox, who is standing in Paris, said all the establishment candidates he is facing are old and have out of date ideas. “I shall incarnate the true change of my generation,” said the who is a history and geography teacher. Durox was dismissive of his opponents saying they “have the presumption to pretend that they represent a real alternative”. The Front National is expected to win a minimum of 15 seats in the upcoming election, though some have forecast they could gain as many as 50 seats in the French National Assembly. Durox said the party should look toward forming a group in the assembly, which would take at least 15 deputies, in order to be able to have more time to speak in the chamber and have more influence. “In any case 50 [deputies] would be a good number, especially if we are superior in numbers to the Socialist party,” he added. Currently, the Front National has two members in the assembly, one of which is Marion Pen who recently announced her resignation from politics following the presidential election. Pen said she wanted more time to spend with her young daughter away from the stresses of political life. “When a brave leader leaves his troops it is always very sad, but she is very young and we are sure that she will come back even stronger,” Durox said in reaction to the news of Pen’s decision. He added: “The future belongs to her. ” Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson@breitbart. com