Libyan forces fighting in Benghazi have lost four men and seen 10 wounded so far in December, five months after declaring victory in a campaign to control the eastern city, a medical source said on Monday. Three of the dead from the Libyan National Army (LNA) were killed by snipers and one by a landmine as it faces resistance from a group of fighters in the Benghazi district of Khreibish. There have been daily clashes in the area and occasional air strikes. LNA commander Khalifa Haftar declared victory in a three-year military campaign against an array of Islamist militants and other fighters in Benghazi in early July. The fighting is part of a broader conflict that developed following the 2011 fall of strongman Muammar Gaddafi. Haftar has opposed a U.N.-backed government based in the capital, Tripoli, as he has gradually strengthened his position on the ground.


Is google and YouTube in the Hillary's purse? page: 1 link After I posted my opening post (OP) on "Hillary Clinton Wants a Strong Russia. Wait, what did she say?" , mysteriously, my YouTube account gets wiped out. The next thing I notice, is that the youtube video that I used in my OP, www.abovetopsecret.com... suddenly won't work. Has anyone else experienced this bizarre behavior before? Is this what we are to expect if Hillary becomes POTUS? I went to the Youtube site and the video is available. www.youtube.com... I frankly, don't know what to think about this. link a reply to: Violater1 yes, so is almost all the major media, magazines (that are left), most of hollywood, GOP kinda, most of the bush's. Who else? Google is pro clinton like drudge is pro trump without a doubt Just about every news story under google news is pro hillary and negative towards trump. If I recall correctly they even advice her campaign edit on 511031America/ChicagoThu, 27 Oct 2016 21:51:09 -05 p3142 by interupt42 because: (no reason given) Is the dead link the same as the good one in the following reply? Same vid#? No errors? link I'm getting the feeling that the gun control,Hillary as dictator,is not unlike Obamacare,forced on us,this is socialism and being the Corporations own the candidates,they want this we have no choice,they have the UN,plus a bunch of immigrants to join the UN forces to attack the american freedom fighters,you may think I'm crazy but they said I was crazy when I said 9/11 was a controlled demolition,look at the past,put common sense to it,the big ball is rolling,too much money at stake here thats the goal rich get richer,no more middle class,upper middle class,those making like 1 or 2 million a year,will be joining the crowd,unless your a member of the party,Known many an immigrant who lived under communist rule,all storys kind of same,all bad,no sense of identity


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Go to Article  This has to be one of the stupidest things we've ever seen. It's probably connected to George Soros since he is the sugar daddy to almost all of the paid anti-Trump protests.  Here's an example of a Soros employee literally "posing" as a protester. Not all that "grass roots."  In this case, a Craigslist ad in Los Angeles shows that activists are wanted to block traffic in the heavy traffic intersection of Highlands and Hollywood.  This an idiotic move for multiple reasons. First of all, California did go for Hillary and Hollywood in particular is a very liberal city. So what on earth do you gain protesting Trump by pissing off your own liberals by blocking traffic? They will probably inspire some pissed of Angelenos to join the Trump Train while they are annoyed the road is blocked.  Here is a screen shot of the ad.  Support the Trump Presidency and help us fight Liberal Media Bias. Please LIKE and SHARE this story on Facebook or Twitter.


Nikki Haley, U. S. ambassador to the United Nations, has penned a blistering targeting the controversial U. N. Human Rights Council. She uses her toughest language yet and slams the body as a "haven for dictators" ahead of a visit to its headquarters in Switzerland next week. ["When the world's preeminent human rights body is turned into a haven for dictators, the idea of international cooperation in support of human dignity is discredited," she says in an for the Washington Post, published Friday. Haley is due to address the Council in Geneva on June 6 — the address to the Council by a U. S. Permanent Representative — before she then travels to Israel, where she will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and visit a number of Israeli historical sites. The visit to Switzerland is likely to be a tense one. The Trump administration has reportedly contemplated an exit from the Council over its bias and its questionable membership, which includes countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia. A Senate subcommittee met last month to assess if the U. S. should remain a member of the body. The U. S. boycotted the Council's opening session in March over the agenda before it, and Haley herself has called the Council "so corrupt" and filled with "bad actors," using it to protect their own behavior. In her piece for the Post, titled "The U. N. Human Rights Council whitewashes brutality," Haley notes that the Council has done good work in places such as North Korea but says that it also allows countries on the Council, such as Venezuela and Cuba, to have their abuses ignored: Venezuela is a member of the council despite the systematic destruction of civil society by the government of Nicolás Maduro through arbitrary detention, torture and blatant violations of freedom of the press and expression. Mothers are forced to dig through trash cans to feed their children. This is a crisis that has been 18 years in the making. And yet, not once has the Human Rights Council seen fit to condemn Venezuela. Calling on the U. N. to "reclaim the legitimacy of this organization," Haley says she will outline the needed changes when she visits the Council. Those changes include competitive voting for membership on the council — to keep "the worst human rights abusers from obtaining seats" and end the practice of singling out Israel for criticism. "When the council passes more than 70 resolutions against Israel, a country with a strong human rights record, and just seven resolutions against Iran, a country with an abysmal human rights record, you know something is seriously wrong," she says. Adam Shaw is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY.


In other transition news: ■ A auction for coffee with the future first daughter Ivanka Trump appears to have been canceled, as criticism mounted that the Trumps were selling access. ■ Donald J. Trump's told business leaders in New York that Mr. Trump will be pushing a $1 trillion infrastructure plan closer to the ideal of Democrats than Republicans. At the same event, Senator Chuck Schumer, the incoming minority leader, sounded similarly conciliatory. ■ Mr. Trump took to Twitter on Friday to again play down Russian interference in the elections — this time, seemingly praising one of the cyberattacks for the revelations it contained. The Trump family on Friday appears to have canceled a charity auction that featured the 's daughter Ivanka, as criticism mounted that the future first family's charitable solicitation risked opening the White House to special interests seeking to pay for access. The auction for a chance to spend up to 45 minutes with Ms. Trump over coffee at either Trump Tower in New York or the recently opened Trump International Hotel in Washington was to continue for another three days. As of Friday morning, the high bid was $72, 888. But then the auction disappeared from the Charitybuzz website that had been hosting it, along with details on all the bids that had been offered since it opened on Dec. 5. "The loser is St. Jude, and the winner I'm not exactly sure," one of the bidders, the restaurateur Russell Ybarra, wrote in an email, referring to the Tennessee children's hospital, which stood to reap the proceeds. Eric Trump, in an interview Thursday, had said he was considering terminating the auction, after The New York Times raised questions about it. The Trump Organization and Charitybuzz did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment. The Obama family has not directly participated in any solicitation efforts since President Obama took office to avoid the impression that donations would allow the donor to get special access, said Norm Eisen, a former White House ethics lawyer. The 's and close adviser, Jared Kushner, told New York business leaders on Friday that Mr. Trump's vision for a federal infrastructure program was "closer" to Senator Chuck Schumer's, the incoming minority leader, than to the majority leader, Senator Mitch McConnell's. Mr. Kushner made the remarks at an event hosted by the Partnership for New York City, just after an appearance by Mr. Schumer, the New York senator. This week at a news conference in Washington, Mr. McConnell said he was not interested in " stimulus" to finance any infrastructure plan, setting up what could be the first of many clashes with a Trump White House that will not always hew to Republican orthodoxy. The Trump campaign floated a $1 trillion infrastructure plan that would depend on private investors raising money and building the projects with the aid of some form of tax credit. Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump's chief strategist, said shortly after the election that a huge infrastructure plan would be in the offing, but the form was not clear. Democrats have long said they want an infrastructure plan that has plentiful direct federal funding, something Mr. Schumer has said repeatedly, not tax credits for rich developers. This does not excite Mr. McConnell who, like most Republicans, recalls President Obama's early stimulus plan unfavorably. That plan came in the middle of the worst recession since the Depression. Mr. Trump inherits an economy that is healthy enough that the Federal Reserve raised interest rates Wednesday to head off overheating. The Fed has made it clear that if Mr. Trump insists on pumping money into the economy, it will hasten rate increases to stave off inflation. "We need to do this carefully and correctly, and the issue of how to pay for it needs to be dealt with responsibly," Mr. McConnell, the Kentucky senator, said this week. Senate watchers used to the obstructionist stance that the Republican leader, Mr. McConnell, took with President Obama for eight years have been waiting for signs of the kind of minority leader that Mr. Schumer will be when he takes over as Democratic leader. The Democratic senator sent a big flashing of conciliation on Friday. Mr. Schumer praised Mr. Trump's call with the president of Taiwan, which drew objections from both sides of the aisle, as a shrewd move that sent a signal to China of a change in direction. Mr. Schumer made the remarks at the same annual meeting of the Partnership for New York City that Mr. Kushner spoke at, according to two people in attendance. Those attendees interpreted the comments as aligning Mr. Schumer with Mr. Trump on a diplomatic issue that has been met with consternation by the Obama White House. Mr. Schumer described the call that Mr. Trump took roughly two weeks ago as shrewd, and not necessarily indicating that it was a reflection of his view of the "One China" policy, the two attendees said. An aide to Mr. Schumer did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment. Mr. Schumer has been a critic of China as a currency manipulator over the years. At the breakfast, where he was followed by Mr. Kushner, Mr. Schumer suggested that Democrats lost in part because the election was about a change in course, and Hillary Clinton ran as a continuation of the Obama administration's direction. The took to Twitter on Friday to again dismiss the significance of Russia's meddling in the election — but with a new twist. This time, he seemed to praise the revelations of one of the cyberattacks. The post seems to refer to an email stolen from the Democratic National Committee and given to WikiLeaks that came from a Democratic strategist, Donna Brazile, before a CNN Democratic primary debate in Flint, Mich. Ms. Brazile's subject line: "One of the questions directed to HRC tomorrow is from a woman with a rash. " "Her family has lead poison and she will ask what, if anything, will Hillary do as president to help the ppl of Flint," Ms. Brazile wrote to John D. Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman, and Jennifer Palmieri, the candidate's communications director. That might seem like a pretty obvious question, given that the debate was in Flint to address the crisis over the city's water. But it cost Ms. Brazile her commentator's job at CNN, and it helped to fuel Mr. Trump's accusation during the campaign that the election was "rigged" in Hillary Clinton's favor. A new CBS News poll found that 46 percent of Americans are excited or optimistic about Donald J. Trump's presidency, about the percentage who voted for him. But 53 percent say they are concerned or scared. With the inauguration about a month away, a solid majority — 62 percent — say the will bring real change to the way Washington works. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing probably depends on your party. Some 58 percent say they believe he will divide rather than unite people. The announcement on Thursday that David M. Friedman, Mr. Trump's bankruptcy lawyer, would be nominated to be the United States ambassador to Israel, is likely to roil an American Jewish community that sided overwhelmingly with Hillary Clinton and is already at sea in the wake of the 2016 election. Divisions remain among Jewish people over President Obama's policies, especially his nuclear deal with Iran. And Mr. Friedman is not likely to unify the community. Confronting the liberal Jewish group J Street, which largely opposes the policies of Israel's conservative prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Mr. Friedman once leveled one of the worst insults possible to a Jew. He compared the group to kapos, the Jewish collaborators who enforced Nazi edict in the World War II concentration camps. "Are J Street supporters really as bad as kapos? The answer, actually, is no. They are far worse than kapos — Jews who turned in their fellow Jews in the Nazi death camps," Mr. Friedman said. J Street reacted almost immediately to news of Mr. Friedman's nomination, calling on the Senate to reject him. "As someone who has been a leading American friend of the settlement movement, who lacks any diplomatic or policy credentials and who has attacked liberal Jews who support two states as 'worse than kapos' Friedman should be beyond the pale for senators considering who should represent the United States in Israel," the group said in a statement. The Republican Jewish Coalition was all praise: A Trump economic adviser, Stephen Moore, caused quite a kerfuffle in Detroit on Thursday when in a fit of excitement, he announced that the economic commentator Larry Kudlow would be named chairman of Mr. Trump's White House Council of Economic Advisers. Mr. Kudlow, while certainly versed in economics, is not an economist. He has an undergraduate degree in history. The council chairman has traditionally been pulled from the highest echelons of academia to advise the president, not to lobby or persuade. Moreover, Mr. Kudlow is an ardent free trader and was openly critical of Mr. Trump's position on trade during the campaign, even as he enthusiastically backed the candidate. The announcement would have also come as a surprise to Peter Navarro, a professor of economics at the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. Professor Navarro is widely considered the for the post, and his views on trade are more in line with the 's. After the Democrats sent out their reactions, and the news media came alive, Mr. Moore sheepishly admitted that, while he is pulling for his friend Mr. Kudlow, the deal is not done. "Larry is the obvious choice, because he has all the connections with the key players on Capitol Hill, and there's nobody that can articulate the conservative economic message better than Larry can," he said. But he admitted he had jumped the gun.


Spanish lender Sabadell decided on Thursday to transfer its legal base from Catalonia to Alicante, a bank spokeswoman said. The decision by Banco Sabadell, Spain s fifth biggest lender, comes as businesses in the wealthy northeastern region are growing increasingly worried about political upheaval there as the Catalan parliament considers whether to press ahead with a plan to unilaterally declare independence from Spain.


A lot of the food that I transfer from fork to mouth is complicated. Some of it dazzles me, some doesn't, and I write my reviews accordingly. As time passes, though, it's the less frenetic stuff that tends to stand out in my memory. The juicy slab of roast beef, the egg on toast served Mumbai style, the île flottante that vanished on my tongue leaving behind just a memory of transient happiness — these are some of my favorite dishes from new restaurants in New York, listed here in no particular order. EGGS KEJRIWAL AT PAOWALLA It's a fried egg on toast under melted Cheddar that stands out from all others because of a green chutney that has a glossy underpinning of coconut oil: 195 Spring Street, SoHo paowalla. com. PHEASANT AT LE COUCOU Oh, just beautifully juicy pheasant breast, a little meatball of braised pheasant leg cooked in cabbage, and enough wobbly foie gras to make you forget that the United States recently held an election: 138 Lafayette Street, SoHo lecoucou. com. HONEY MESQUITE CAKE AT PONDICHERI Flour from almonds and ground mesquite pods, seasoned purposefully with ginger, make this a morning pastry without precedent: 15 West 27th Street, NoMad pondichericafe. . FROZEN YOGURT AT OLMSTED A heap of lavender cream whipped to stiff peaks sits on and blends in with the yogurt in this wonderfully uncomplicated duet for dairy products: 659 Vanderbilt Avenue, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn olmstednyc. com. CLAM PIZZA AT PASQUALE JONES Small refinements on the New Haven favorite, like marinating littlenecks in garlic and dribbling cream on the pie, make more difference than you'd suppose: 187 Mulberry Street, Little Italy no phone pasqualejones. com. ÎLE FLOTTANTE AT LE COQ RICO A crème Anglaise made with very yellow, very dense egg yolks is the foundation for a sphere of meringue like a snowman's head. It's dusted with hard grains of caramel that crackle between your teeth as the meringue collapses: 30 East 20th Street, Flatiron district lecoqriconyc. com. ROAST BEEF AT MR. DONAHUE'S The flavor is less like the sandwich meat of delis and bodegas than it is like a great slab of rib roast served on your favorite holiday: 203 Mott Street, NoLIta mrdonahues. com. CLASSIC BURGER AT SALVATION BURGER This is the pure stuff of hungry roadside American daydreams, with all the most qualities singled out and amplified: 230 East 51st Street, Midtown East salvationburger. com. CACIO E PEPE FRITELLE AT LILIA Reconfiguring the great and elemental Roman pasta dish as a fried bar snack is an even more clever idea than it sounds: 567 Union Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn lilianewyork. com. BUCATINI WITH SQUID AND MUSSELS AT HIGH STREET ON HUDSON Seaweed in the noodles and orange curls of cured lobster coral on top give this pasta an oceanic pull as strong as a riptide: 637 Hudson Street, West Village highstreetonhudson. com.


Say goodbye to your economy, traditions and culture. The caliphate has come to Germany on steroids Leftists hold a rally to welcome tens of thousands of refugees to Germany.Migrant Muslims were seen on video singing jihadist songs at their refugee center. The ignorant German volunteers applauded. Via Les Observateurs: (Rough Translation)It s in the air, broadcast of 14 October 2015. The Iraqi and Syrian Christians were isolated in special reception centers after being continually harassed. One of Iraqi Christians tells France 5: At our previous center, volunteers were sitting listening to music, the Arabs sand jihadi songs and the German volunteers clapped their hands without understanding. The image sums up the situation: the Arabs install Islamism, leftists not understanding what is happening rejoice in living together that exists only in their fantasy world. Carnage to follow.


Conservatives alongside right-wing media outlets are trying desperately to spin the gun debate in their favor. They know that the majority of Americans support President Obama s executive actions on guns, so they need to make it look like people don t want them.One conservative media outlet, Breitbart, decided to run an article with this title: OBAMA S QUANDARY: NRA GAINING SUPPORT, GUN CONTROL LOSING IT Screengrab via BreitbartHowever, within the text of the article they try to piece together some sort of magic way of showing Americans support the NRA, but instead fail miserably, stating: In 1987, twenty-seven percent of Americans strongly supported the NRA. In December 2015, that number had risen to 38 percent. In order words, over one-in-three Americans strongly support the NRA. In other other words, two-in-three Americans do NOT support the NRA. It doesn t seem smart to write an article about how terribly Obama is doing and then point out with numbers how more than half the nation is actually on his side and not yours. Bravo for that. Well done.They also point out: In addition to these things, the American people are voting with their feet by walking into gun stores all around the country and buying firearms at a record pace. Figures from the FBI show that 2015 set a record for the number of background checks performed in a single year, with 23,141,970 checks performed. But then reiterate: So the NRA enjoys the [strong] support of more than one-in-three Americans while support for gun control is losing ground. WSJ suggests that this put Obama in a position where he had to go it alone. No, the NRA enjoys the reward of paying off members of Congress to make sure President Obama and the rest of America doesn t get the chance to hurt gun profits. Oh, and all this hysteria over FBI background checks really proves is a strong amount of paranoia from the one-third of Americans who actually think guns are a solution or are deceived into thinking they ll lose their firearms.In regards to actual support for stricter gun laws, data proves that is actually up drastically with more than 55% of Americans saying they want laws on gun sales more strict:There are facts, and then there s how one interprets facts. Breitbart chose to report only one-third of Americans strongly support the NRA, but anyone with a rationally thinking brain can decipher that this also means that two-thirds of Americans don t. They also want you to believe citizens don t want stricter gun laws, but, in fact, they do.Truth is, we need stricter laws on gun sales to make sure the wrong people don t get their hands on guns. This includes mental health background checks. If you re a law-abiding citizen without a history of mental illness, guess what NONE of your rights will be infringed because you ll still be able to purchase your precious paranoia machines firearms. And just like laws regarding cars and driving don t stop every accident, they sure as hell prevent a lot, just like better gun laws would prevent unnecessary deaths as well.Featured image: Gage Skidmore (flickr)


The Czech parliament revoked an election of a Communist-era policeman to a police oversight job on Tuesday after some lawmakers claimed the vote was manipulated. Earlier, the lower chamber entrusted oversight of the police force to Zdenek Ondracek, former member of a Communist-era special unit which tried to crush the peaceful 1989 uprising that helped to bring down Communist rule. The unprecedented appointment of a Communist lawmaker as chairman of parliament s General Inspection of Security Forces commission appeared to be part of complex maneuvering by the new prime minister, billionaire businessman Andrej Babis, and his ANO party to get backing for a minority government. After the secret ballot, some lawmakers challenged the result with claims that it was unclear how many in the 200-seat lower chamber actually participated in the election. Ondracek received 95 votes, but due to the uncertainty it was impossible to determine whether he got the required majority. Speaker of the house, ANO s Radek Vondracek, then declared the vote confused and said that it would be repeated in January. The ANO has 78 seats in the new 200-seat lower house. Babis is seeking support or at least acquiescence from lawmakers of the other eight parties in parliament. The far-left Communists with 15 seats, and far-right, anti-European Union SPD party with 22, have lent support in initial parliamentary votes in return for committee posts, but no deal has been announced on their backing for an ANO cabinet. The secret ballot vote on Tuesday to appoint Ondracek was the first time the Communist party has gained such a post in nearly three decades since the fall of communism. In 1989 his police unit used water cannon, clubs and dogs to disperse anti-regime protests. The demonstrations eventually led to the peaceful overthrow of Communist dictatorship in what became known as the Velvet Revolution. A video from 1989, posted on YouTube, shows Ondracek defending police actions in an interview with state television. It is sad that it happened only one day after we remembered the anniversary of (late president and leading anti-Communist dissident) Vaclav Havel s passing. The times have changed, said Vit Rakusan, deputy chairman of the Mayors and Independents party. Communist party deputy chairman Jiri Dolejs, however, defended the appointment. Police work should be scrutinized by those who understand it, he told reporters. In October, the Communist party suffered the worst election result in its nearly 100-year history. Still, it is the only faction so far to say it could back the ANO government. Direct or indirect support might also come from the SPD party of Czech-Japanese businessman Tomio Okamura. Other parties have shunned Babis, mainly due to pending police charges against him over allegations he concealed his company s ownership of a farm and conference center a decade ago to illegally obtain a 2 million-euro European Union subsidy. Babis denies wrongdoing. Babis, who was appointed prime minister this month and whose cabinet took power last week, has until mid-January to win a confidence vote. President Milos Zeman has said Babis will get a second try if his first attempt to form a government fails.


Killer Mike Proves Real Leaders are Truth-Tellers by Saying What Most People Won't Nov 21, 2016 0 0  Politics in America has devolved into a contest of personalities, where policy, history, and reality are rejected in favor of style, skin color, gender and celebrity factor. This is unsurprising, though, in a nation that has for generations been weened on television and state indoctrination. We've been trained to look to politicians for leadership, but the real heroes and change makers in our world are the fearless truth-tellers who work to free our minds and inspire us to greatness by setting an example with their words and deeds.  As we stare down the barrel of a critically divided society under the thumb of an all-powerful government and police state, righteous voices of non-partisan, no-bullshit truth who apply logic, common sense, and critical-thinking in defense of community and humanity are needed now more than ever. One such example is hip-hop artist, civic leader, social activist, and entrepreneur Michael Render, aka Killer Mike . His articulation of the problems we all face, accompanied with real ideas for meaningful action, make for an excellent reminder of what true leadership can look like.  He's done a ton of interviews in recent years, and although he mentions being a conservative, even advocating for the 2nd Amendment in response to public shootings, he played a big role in Bernie Sanders' campaign for the Democratic nomination in an effort to help educate and awaken black voters. Consider the following clips of Killer Mike speaking on a number of today's critical issues.  Firstly, he talks to TMZ about the importance of participating in local elections and in using your vote to hold political parties accountable, while helping to see through the phony logic of voting for the lesser of two evils.  "Scaring me with the boogie man is not going to work as effectively as giving my community something that helps." ~Killer Mike  In his song, ' Reagan, ' he rails against Obama, along with all the other authoritarian presidents we've had, as a member of an organization of war and profit, saying what so many Obama supporters are afraid to acknowledge.  "Ronald Reagan was an actor, not at all a factor Just an employee of the country's real masters Just like the Bushes, Clinton and Obama Just another talking head telling lies on teleprompters If you don't believe the theory, then argue with this logic Why did Reagan and Obama both go after Qaddafi We invaded sovereign soil, going after oil Taking countries is a hobby paid for by the oil lobby Same as in Iraq, and Afghanistan And Ahmadinejad say they coming for Iran They only love the rich, and how they loathe the poor If I say any more they might be at my door"  ~Killer Mike, Reagan  As a leader in the black community, he is keenly aware of the affects of racism and police brutality today, but rather than advocating for protests or riots as an expression of justifiable anger, he breaks down how black people can overcome systemic corruption and racism by using the one weapon that is most effective in a capitalist culture: money.  Furthermore, on the Bill Maher show on HBO , he goes into relationship between politicians and police, pointing out how politicians themselves use police as pawns. Final Thoughts  The President of the United States of America is the figurehead of an authoritarian and corporatized organization that masquerades as benevolent, but POTUS is a puppet, not a leader. As Americans go at each other's throats over about the election, it may serve us well to remember that individuals are the true leaders in our community and in our world.  "My criteria is probably Libertarian views, where you just let the free market reign, you let people do what they want to, and the government takes care of protecting us from foreign interests and one another." ~ Killer Mike  About the Author  Dylan Charles is a student and teacher of Shaolin Kung Fu, Tai Chi and Qi Gong, a practitioner of Yoga and Taoist arts, and an activist and idealist passionately engaged in the struggle for a more sustainable and just world for future generations. He is the editor of WakingTimes.com , the proprietor of OffgridOutpost.com , a grateful father and a man who seeks to enlighten others with the power of inspiring information and action. He may be contacted at [email protected] . This article ( Killer Mike Proves Real Leaders are Truth-Tellers by Saying What Most People Won't ) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Dylan Charles and WakingTimes.com . Vote Up


Turkish academic Fikret Baskaya was briefly detained on Monday as part of an operation targeting members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, state-run Anadolu news agency said. Twelve other suspects were detained along with Baskaya, it said. Further information about the other suspects status was not immediately available. Baris Yarkadas, a lawmaker from the main opposition CHP, wrote on Twitter that Baskaya, 77, had been detained at his home in the capital Ankara at 6.30 am (0330 GMT) and that police had seized some of his personal possessions. Baskaya, who is an author and university lecturer, was later released after giving a statement to police, another CHP lawmaker, Murat Emir, said in a tweet. He added that Baskaya was detained over an article he wrote on Nov. 7, called Real Terror is State Terror, in which Baskaya said Turkey s Kurds suffered oppression at the hands of authorities. The investigation is ongoing despite Baskaya s release, Emir said. Anadolu said arrest warrants had been issued for a total of 17 people on allegations of aiding the PKK and spreading the group s propaganda on social media. Operations to detain the other suspects were ongoing. The PKK launched a separatist insurgency in southeast Turkey in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict. It is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and European Union.


Neutral Switzerland is in touch with Spain and Catalonia about resolving a row over the region s moves towards independence but conditions for promoting talks are not yet ripe, the foreign ministry in Bern said on Friday. Facilitation can only be provided if both parties request it. Switzerland is in contact with both parties, but the conditions for facilitation are not in place at this stage, a spokesman said by email in response to a query. He described the situation in Catalonia as an internal Spanish political matter and said Switzerland respected the sovereignty of Spain.


Michele Bachmann has been pretty quiet since leaving office under a cloud of scandal and that was a damn shame. She was one of the most perfect examples of how utterly hate-filled and detached from reality the right-wing has become. But apparently Bachmann has remembered that it was her GAWD!-given mission to warn America about all the threats the voices in her head have been making up for years.Last week, Michele warned us about Obama s status as the Anti-Christ and his plan to cancel the elections and crown himself King. This week, GAWD! has told her that the evil Muslims. I kid you not, made up the entire Syrian civil war: This clearly is an invasion, Bachmann said. This is a planned invasion, not only in Europe but also in the United States, I believe for the specific purpose of destroying Western Christendom. The solution, of course, is to close all the borders to people with brown skin immigrants just to be safe. And for those of you who are about to say I m race-baiting, during her rant, Bachmann insisted that we needed to pause immigration just like Calvin Coolidge did in 1924. That pause , incidentally, was targeted specifically to preserve the ideal of American homogeneity (AKA White Supremacy ) by allowing in good immigrants from Western Europe but keeping out the bad ones from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. That s what Michele Bachmann thinks is a solution. Why? Because she s a fucking racist like a great deal of the American right-wing.If this fact upsets you, too bad.But Bachmann wasn t done being a total asshole:Bachmann said that countries with large Muslim minorities like France now experience Islamic jihad 24/7, terrorist bloodbath attacks 24/7, warning that the same thing is coming to the U.S. unless we decide to have no more immigration into the United States. I m sure this will come as a surprise to France. They ll be wondering why they haven t heard about these 24/7 bloodbaths. Maybe they re only happening in the mythical no go zones? Bachmann continues: The more that come in, the more they act upon their religious convictions and their stated religious convictions, she said. The imams from the original countries that they come from, they recruit and send these guys to come in and to bring about this destruction. Right now in Europe it s called a rape culture that s coming into Sweden and Germany and all across Europe for the specific purpose of Islamizing these countries, and they are falling. I wish I could be surprised that a conservative like Bachmann will only acknowledge the existence of rape culture as long as she can blame it on Muslims. Islamists have a plan, Bachmann later added. They have a plan to destroy Western Christendom. It s called civilization jihad. By bringing Islamists into our country and destroying us from in, they don t need to just have a nuclear bomb. If they send their invading army into our countries and if young men are doing what they did on New Year s Eve in Cologne, Germany, and other places where they are literally sexually attacking and raping and groping women and causing them to fear, we are looking at a completely ramped-up level of invasion one like we have never seen before. There are days that I truly and profoundly wish I wasn t an atheist. Why? Because it would give me great comfort to believe that after she dies, Jesus Christ will personally walk up to Bachmann in the afterlife and, after explaining to her exactly how horrible of a human being she was in life, send her to Hell along with most of the Republican Party.Hey, a man can dream, right?Featured image courtesy of Newsweek


NBC is holding "crisis meetings" as the network has come under intense pressure to pull anchor Megyn Kelly's upcoming interview with controversial InfoWars founder and radio host Alex Jones, according to a report. [The planned interview — in which Kelly questions Jones about his previous assertion that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary school massacre was a hoax — is scheduled to air on Sunday June 18 as part of the anchor's new show, Sunday Night With Megyn Kelly. However, NBC has faced pressure from social media users — including some relatives of the victims of the Sandy Hook attack — to cancel the interview. In the wake of the controversy, J. P Morgan Chase reportedly decided to temporarily pull its advertising from the network. Nevertheless, the network has pledged to move ahead with the interview, with NBC News Chairman Andy Lack saying the interview will be edited to provide sensitivity to the Sandy Hook victims. "No one expected sponsors to pull out, but this is why they hired Megyn. They expect to lose and gain viewers and they want the buzz," one source told Page Six. Next Sunday, I sit down with conservative radio host @RealAlexJones to discuss controversies and conspiracies #SundayNight June 18 on NBC pic. twitter. — Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) June 11, 2017, However, Page Six reported that the network held multiple meetings Wednesday to discuss its response to the criticism, with some employees urging the network to axe the interview. "It's a sh*t show. No one wants to withstand a whole week of criticism over this. There are a number of people who want to pull the interview," an unnamed source told the outlet. In a statement posted to her Twitter account Tuesday, Kelly said: "I find Alex Jones' suggestion that Sandy Hook was 'a hoax' as personally revolting as every other rational person does. It left me, and many other Americans, asking the very question that prompted this interview: How does Jones, who traffics in these outrageous conspiracy theories, have the respect of the president of the United States and a growing audience of millions?" As a result of the controversy, Kelly has agreed to step down as host of a gun violence prevention fundraiser being held Wednesday by Sandy Hook Promise, a group that was founded after the 2012 attack. "What I think we're doing is journalism," she said. "The bottom line is that while it's not always popular, it's important. I would submit to you that neither I nor NBC News has elevated Alex Jones in any way. He's been elevated by 5 or 6 million viewers or listeners, and by the president of the United States. As you know, journalists don't get the choice over who has power or influence in our country. " You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart. com


On Sunday, at the great Paris rally, the whole world was Charlie. By Tuesday, the veneer of solidarity was exposed as tissue thin. It began dissolving as soon as the real, remaining Charlie Hebdo put out its post-massacre issue featuring a Muhammad cover that, as the New York Times put it, "reignited the debate pitting free speech against religious sensitivities." Again? Already? Had not 4 million marchers and 44 foreign leaders just turned out on the streets of France to declare "No" to intimidation, and pledging solidarity, indeed identification ("Je suis Charlie") with a satirical weekly specializing in the most outrageous and often tasteless portrayals of Muhammad? And yet, within 48 hours, the new Charlie Hebdo issue featuring the image of Muhammad — albeit a sorrowful, indeed sympathetic Muhammad — sparked new protests, denunciations and threats of violence, which in turn evinced another round of doubt and self-flagellation in the West about the propriety and limits of free expression. Hopeless. As for President Obama, he never was Charlie, not even for those 48 hours. From the day of the massacre, he has been practically invisible. At the interstices of various political rallies, he issued bits of muted, mealy-mouthed boilerplate. Followed by the now-famous absence of any high-ranking U.S. official at the Paris rally, an abdication of moral and political leadership for which the White House has already admitted error. But this was no mere error of judgment or optics or, most absurdly, of communications in which we are supposed to believe that the president was not informed by staff about the magnitude, both actual and symbolic, of the demonstration he ignored. (He needed to be told?) On the contrary, the no-show, following the near silence, precisely reflected the president's profound ambivalence about the very idea of the war on terror. Obama began his administration by purging the phrase from the lexicon of official Washington. He has ever since shuttled between saying that (a) the war must end because of the damage "keeping America on a perpetual wartime footing" was doing to us, and (b) the war has already ended, as he suggested repeatedly during the 2012 campaign, with bin Laden dead and al-Qaeda "on the run." Hence his call in a major address at the National Defense University to "refine and ultimately repeal" Congress' 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, the very legal basis for the war on terror. Hence his accelerating release of Gitmo inmates — five more announced Wednesday — fully knowing that up to 30 percent have returned to the battlefield (17 percent confirmed, up to 12 percent suspected but not verified). Which is why, since about the Neolithic era, POWs tend to be released after a war is over. Paris shows that this war is not. On the contrary. As it rages, it is entering an ominous third phase. The first, circa 9/11, involved sending Middle Eastern terrorists abroad to attack the infidel West. Then came the lone wolf — local individuals inspired by foreign jihadists launching one-off attacks, as seen most recently in Quebec, Ottawa and Sydney. Paris marks Phase 3: coordinated commando strikes by homegrown native-speaking Islamists activated and instructed from abroad. (Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has claimed responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo killings, while the kosher-grocery shooter proclaimed allegiance to the Islamic State.) They develop and flourish in Europe's no-go zones where sharia reigns and legitimate state authorities dare not tread. To call them lone wolves, as did our hapless attorney general, is to define jihadism down. It makes them the equivalent of the pitiable, mentally unstable Sydney hostage taker. The Paris killers were well-trained, thoroughly radicalized, clear-eyed jihadist warriors. They cannot be dismissed as lone loons. Worse, they represent a growing generation of alienated European Muslims whose sheer number is approaching critical mass. The war on terror 2015 is at a new phase with a new geography. At the core are parallel would-be caliphates: in Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State; in Sub-Saharan Africa, now spilling out of Nigeria into Cameroon, a near-sovereign Boko Haram; in the badlands of Yemen, AQAP, the most dangerous of all al-Qaeda affiliates. And beyond lie not just a cast of mini-caliphates embedded in the most ungovernable parts of the Third World from Libya to Somalia to the borderlands of Pakistan, but an archipelago of no-go Islamist islands embedded in the heart of Europe. This is serious. In both size and reach it is growing. Our president will not say it. Fine. But does he even see it? Read more from Charles Krauthammer's archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.


On Tuesday night, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo attended a NYC fundraiser on his 59th birthday, and took the time to comment on the election s disastrous outcome.In speaking to his audience, Cuomo took a somber tone and spoke to Democrats specifically on what we should be taking away from President-elect Donald Trump s win. Cuomo said: There is a lesson in what happened in the election, and I believe when you get knocked on your tuchus, you should at least learn the lesson of what happened.I don t believe that Trump won. I believe that we lost that election. Noting that the Democratic Party had some soul searching over the next few years in order to get back on track, Cuomo suggested that the loss was not so much an open embrace of Trump as it was a disconnection in messaging from the Left. I think what it said to the Democrats is there is a middle class that we have not been attentive to and it s a middle class that s been suffering for a long time. Cuomo advised that New York and its citizens cannot stay silent when Trump s tide of negativity is encouraging others to discriminate and act out of fear and hate. Cuomo said: If you want to make America strong again then remember what made America strong in the first place. It s tolerance. It s brotherhood. It s acceptance. It s community. That is the way forward. Cuomo also said he was concerned about the intolerance and bigotry that was now resonating all across this country, stating that there have since been many racial incidents in New York since Trump s election. Specifically, Cuomo spoke about an incident that happened just this week, in which a Muslim MTA worker had been attacked. These comments resonate with something Cuomo said about Trump a year ago, when Cuomo said Trump was fanning the flames of hate with his Islamophobic rhetoric.Cuomo, who has been rumored to be a 2020 contender, has been a solid voice in standing up to Trump s rhetoric and vowed to protect minorities in New York after Trump won the election.


The president of the European Commission said on Wednesday he saw no prospect of Turkey joining the EU in the foreseeable future but he had a more optimistic message for six Western Balkan nations also seeking membership. The European Union has become increasingly critical of Turkey s decades-long membership drive after President Tayyip Erdogan launched a major crackdown on critics - including journalists and academics - after a failed 2016 coup. Turkey has been taking giant strides away from the European Union for some time, Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the executive Commission, said in his annual keynote speech to the European Parliament on the state of the bloc. Accession candidates must give the rule of law, justice and fundamental rights utmost priority. This rules out EU membership for Turkey for the foreseeable future. Juncker referred to a war of words between Berlin and Ankara, in which Erdogan accused Berlin of Nazi-like tactics, prompting Chancellor Angela Merkel to call for an end to Turkey s membership talks, despite it being a crucial NATO ally. Journalists belong in newsrooms not in prisons. They belong where freedom of expression reigns, Juncker said. Stop insulting our member states by comparing their leaders to fascists and Nazis. Formally ending Turkey s accession negotiations would require unanimity among EU states, which is lacking, though majority backing is enough to suspend them. EU leaders will discuss Turkey at a summit in Brussels in October, though any formal decision may not come before next spring. Juncker put a final stamp on the EU s recently-revived engagement in the Balkans, where Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Kosovo all want to join the EU one day. If we want more stability in our neighborhood, then we must maintain a credible enlargement perspective for the Western Balkans, Juncker said. The region on the EU s south-eastern edge, still scarred by the wars fought along political, ethnic and religious lines in the 1990s, is important for the bloc for issues from controlling immigration to countering security threats. Earlier this year, the EU accused Russia of seeking to destabilize the Western Balkans - which Moscow denied - and its concerns have led to a renewed engagement in the region. With Britain now scheduled to exit the EU in 2019, Juncker said he saw no new enlargement of the bloc before 2020. But thereafter the European Union will be greater than 27 in number, he added. EU officials say Serbia, Albania and Macedonia could be closest to joining, possibly allowing for an EU of 30 states by around 2025, though they avoid setting any firm deadlines. Juncker s comments came in a speech in which he urged the EU to catch the wind in its sails after years of battling crises from the euro zone to migration to Brexit.


Secret Service agents rushed Donald trump offstage on Saturday evening during a rally in Reno, Nevada after they determined a protester in the audience posed a threat to the Republican presidential candidate. Go! Go! agents shouted as they whisked him away and a combination of local police and private security wrestled the suspect to the ground. Thousands of people scattered like a sea of bodies, screams rang out and authorities dragged the man away as he kicked and strained after someone shouted gun in the audience, causing the ensuing chaos.


They are Louisiana horsemen, Keith and Kent Desormeaux, who, as soon as they were able to walk, were strapped atop quarter horses and inexpensive thoroughbreds to race at bush tracks named Cajun Downs and Quarter Pole. Their father, uncles and neighbors placed bets on them while their mamas and aunts fingered rosary beads, praying they would not get hurt. They mostly came home safe, and when it was time to continue their racetrack education, they worked their way through their home tracks, Evangeline and Jefferson Downs, and bounced around other minor league outposts until they landed here in Maryland — Keith as an aspiring trainer, and Kent hoping to be a jockey. So it felt right here Saturday when Keith gave Kent a leg up on a colt by the name of Exaggerator that has run his heart out with enough regularity to have won four of his 10 starts, but lately had been chasing the back end and the legend of a horse named Nyquist. In four previous races, Kent and Exaggerator had failed to get by Nyquist. That was nothing to be ashamed of — Nyquist was the reigning champion, and he rolled into the 141st running of the Preakness Stakes undefeated in eight races. Not this time. Exaggerator outran Cherry Wine, who finished second, and Nyquist, who was third, to win the Preakness on a track and end Nyquist's bid for a Triple Crown. The Desormeaux brothers knew that this time, things were going to be different. It was a miserable day at Pimlico Race Course, as a cold mist descended on an already drenched oval, transforming the racetrack into a soupy gumbo that was every bit as haunting as the swamps that they grew up near in southwest Louisiana. They loved it because in three previous races, Exaggerator had taken to a muddy track like … well … a duck to water. He had won two stakes on wet tracks. So when Kent Desormeaux, a Hall of Famer, edged his colt into the No. 5 gate, glanced inside and saw Mario Gutierrez aboard Nyquist, he knew that muddy track or not, his brother Keith had Exaggerator geared up and ready to go. This was only the second leg of the Triple Crown, but Nyquist had been so dominant in a brief but gaudy career that his camp, especially the trainer Doug O'Neill, was confident that they were pulling into New York three weeks from now intent on cracking into the history books alongside American Pharoah, last year's Triple Crown champion. The Desormeaux brothers, however, were not the only ones determined to make Nyquist earn his honors — from the Fernando Perez aboard Uncle Lino and Jevian Toledo aboard Awesome Speed harassed Gutierrez into pushing Nyquist to go faster than the colt wanted. "They had him surrounded," said Kent Desormeaux, who had Exaggerator skipping over the puddles like a water scooter while Nyquist was fighting off his challengers through a wicked of 46. 56 seconds and a taxing of a mile in 1 minute 11. 97 seconds. Then something remarkable happened: Desormeaux saw a sliver of space along the rail turn into a highway. The riders ahead of him were moving their horses outside. So Desormeaux squirted Exaggerator inside, and the colt shimmied up the backstretch like a seal, utterly enjoying it. In the clubhouse, Keith Desormeaux felt his heart drop. No, he felt worse than that. After decades of sharp words and bloodied knuckles, familial diplomacy had long been retired. "I wanted to strangle him," he said of his brother. "All day, everyone was riding outside, and he's taking my horse right into the quagmire. " But Kent had done his homework in and had determined not only that the rail offered the shortest distance between two points, but that the footing was firm and fast. When his rider asked Exaggerator to go, the colt looked as if he had grown a motor as he whipped around the far turn. A calming breath returned to Keith. "He is a Hall of Famer," Keith conceded. As the contenders turned for home, Gutierrez felt Nyquist's legs go out from underneath him. "I could feel Exaggerator coming," he said. He asked for more, but the colt was wobbling. "There was nothing I could do," Gutierrez said. So Kent Desormeaux vaulted his colt to the outside and rushed past Nyquist as if he were on a conveyor belt. The sight of another horse passing Nyquist roused the colt, and he fought back, mounting one last push. O'Neill locked in on his colt and prepared for a stretch battle. For an instant, he thought Nyquist might come back. There was no chance. Desormeaux crossed his reins, chirped in Exaggerator's ear and held on as his colt took off. It was over. Not only was Nyquist not catching Exaggerator, he was unable to hold off the Cherry Wine for second place. "I didn't think we could get beat," O'Neill said. The Desormeaux brothers, on the other hand, knew they could not lose. The record will show Exaggerator completed the race in 1:58. 31 and earned a $900, 000 check for his owners, Big Chief Racing L. L. C. and raised his career earnings to nearly $3 million. Those who believed in the colt collected $7. 20 for a $2 bet. But that was nothing to the charge that the result put into two brothers who had blossomed from the bush tracks of Louisiana to the old racetrack that had given them their first taste of the big time. It was hardly old hat for Kent — even if this was his third Preakness victory — but it was the first Triple Crown win for his brother. Neither Kent nor Keith is an affectionate sort, and by their own admission, they bicker and fight more than they share kind words and warm embraces. "I got a fist pump," Keith said of their postrace celebration. "When you know the type of love we have in our family," he added, "you really don't have to show it. "


November 6, 2016 Greatest Basketball Player Of Our Era To Help First Woman President Beat Biggest Asshole Of All Time Google Pinterest Digg Linkedin Reddit Stumbleupon Print Delicious Pocket Tumblr  He is perhaps the greatest basketball player of all time, certainly of the current era, and he's with her.  Cleveland's LeBron James has announced that he will be stumping for Hillary when she makes a stop in the crucial city in one of the most hotly contested battleground states in the country. James and Clinton will appear together at a get-out-the-vote rally at the Public Auditorium in Cleveland, Ohio in the late afternoon. This will be James's first appearance with Clinton. In fact, a source says, the two have never met. James – a hero to many Ohio sports fans, especially in the African American community – could prove helpful to Clinton's effort to win the state's 18 electoral votes. While Clinton is handily beating Donald Trump among African American voters, she is struggling to gin up enthusiasm. According to the 2010 census, 53 percent of Clevelanders are African American.  The stakes could not be higher. If Clinton can win Ohio, there is almost no scenario in which Trump can win. If Ohio goes for Trump, then he has a real shot of becoming president. As Ohio's biggest star (sorry, John Kasich), James has a lot of power to motivate people to get out and vote. It could be a difference-maker in a tight election.  James' decision to stump with Hillary comes after other big-name celebrities publicly expressed their support for her campaign. Just days ago, musical power couple Beyonce and Jay Z held a concert in support of Clinton. The star power has spooked Trump's campaign, as evidenced by the fact that they are claiming the celebrities backing Hillary give her an "unfair" advantage. Trump, a man who once okay'd a DJ calling his daughter a "piece of ass" and who bragged about grabbing women "by the pussy," went so far as to lament the language used in some of Jay Z's songs.  "He used every word in the book last night," Trump said. "He used language last night that was so bad and then Hillary said, 'I did not like Donald Trump's lewd language.' My lewd language. I tell you what, I've never said what he said in my life."  Eye roll.  Meanwhile, in related news, Trump will be campaigning with his own star power tonight. The cream of the crop. The best of the best. The A-lister…Ted Nugent. A man who once " joked " about shooting Hillary Clinton with a machine gun.  "Obama, he's a piece of shit. I told him to suck on my machine gun. Hey Hillary," he continued. "You might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch."  Yeah, Trump sure seems concerned about what language musicians use.


Attorney General Jeff Sessions hit back against any implication of improper meetings with Russian officials in a prepared opening to his testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Tuesday. ["Let me state this clearly colleagues. I have never met with or had any conversation with any Russian or any foreign officials concerning any type of interference with any campaign or election in the United States," Sessions told the committee. "Further, I have no knowledge of any such conversations by anyone connected to the Trump campaign. " He then became more indignant, saying: The suggestion that I participated in any collusion or that I was aware of any collusion with the Russian government to hurt this country, which I have served with honor for 35 years, or to undermine the integrity of our democratic process, is an appalling and detestable lie. The attorney general has been dogged by implications of dishonesty and impropriety regarding his supposed contacts with the Russians since it became clear he neglected to mention meeting Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak at the Republican National Convention during his confirmation hearings. Some Democrats have even called for Sessions to resign over the matter. Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Sen. Mark Warner ( ) opened the hearing imputing a possible additional meeting between Sessions and Kisylak at the Mayflower Hotel in April 2016. Sessions countered this suggestion. His prepared remarks insisted: I did not have any private meetings nor do I recall any conversations with any Russian officials at the Mayflower Hotel. I did not attend any meetings at that event. Prior to the speech, I attended a reception with my staff that included at least two dozen people and President Trump. Though I do recall several conversations I had during that reception, I do not have any recollection of meeting or talking to the Russian Ambassador or any other Russian officials. If any brief interaction occurred in passing with the Russian Ambassador during that reception, I do not remember it. After the speech, I was interviewed by the news media, which had gathered as I remember in a different room, and then I left the hotel. As for the confirmed meeting between the pair at the RNC, which became the basis of his alleged "lie" at his confirmation hearing, Sessions was equally unconvinced. "There is the assertion that I did not answer Senator Franken's question honestly at my confirmation hearing. Colleagues, that is false," Sessions said to his fellow senators, smiling as he corrected himself. "I can't say colleagues anymore … former colleagues. " "This is what happened," Sessions continued: Senator Franken asked me a rambling question after some six hours of testimony that included dramatic, new allegations that the United States intelligence community, the U. S. intelligence community, had advised Trump that "there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump's surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government. " I was taken aback by that explosive allegation, which he said was being reported as breaking news that very day and which I had not heard. I wanted to refute — immediately — any suggestion that I was part of such activity. I replied, quote, "Senator Franken, I'm not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I didn't have — did not have communications with the Russians, and I'm unable to comment on it," end quote. That was the context in which I was asked the question and in that context it was a fair and accurate response to the charge as I understood it. Session explicitly acknowledged the meetings between him an Kislyak, one at his Senate office and the other after a speech Sessions delivered at the RNC last July, but told the committee, "Not one thing happened that was improper in any one of these meetings. " But Sessions also took issue with the entire idea his seeing the Russian ambassador had anything to do with the investigation into Russian election interference that ostensibly is the subject of Tuesday's hearing. "Whether I ever attended a reception where the Russian Ambassador was also present is entirely beside the point of this investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 campaigns," he said.


Iraq s top Shi ite cleric opposes the secession of the Kurdistan region in northern Iraq, his representative said in a Friday sermon on his behalf, in the religious leader s first comments on the Kurds decision to back independence in a referendum. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a reclusive octogenarian, is revered by millions of Shi ite Muslims in Iraq and abroad. Sistani believes that any attempt to make secession an accomplished fact will lead to undesired consequences affecting Kurdish citizens , his representative Ahmed al-Safi said in the sermon in the holy Shi ite city of Kerbala, south of Baghdad. He urged the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to return to the constitutional path in solving disputes such as self-determination for the Kurdish people, Safi said. It is the first direct political sermon by Sistani since early 2016, in a clear sign that he attaches importance to the crisis pitting the KRG against Baghdad and Iraq s neighbors. Sistani stopped making direct political comments in Feb. 2016, in protest at the widespread and deep-rooted corruption within Iraqi government institutions. Most Iraqi Kurds are Sunni Muslims but Kurdish northern Iraq is also home to some Shi ite Turkmens and Arabs. The Shi ite-led government in Baghdad is set to impose a ban on international flights to and from Iraq s Kurdistan region from 6 p.m. (1500 GMT) on Friday, in retaliation for the vote. Masoud Barzani s KRG says Monday s referendum, which delivered an overwhelming yes for independence, was meant to pave the way for a peaceful secession from Iraq, through talks with Baghdad and neighboring states Turkey and Iran. Barzani said last week one reason for holding the referendum was because he feared Iraq, split between a Shi ite majority and Sunni minority, was becoming a sectarian-based theocracy , not a proper democracy as promised after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted veteran ruler Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi government has rejected any talks with the KRG and demanded that the Kurdish leadership cancel the result in order to avoid sanctions, international isolation and possibly a military intervention.


When U.S. President Donald Trump meets Chinese President Xi Jinping this week, their summit will be marked not only by deep policy divisions but a clash of personalities between America's brash "tweeter-in-chief" and Beijing's cautious, calculating leader. They may have one thing in common: their rhetoric about restoring their nations to greatness. But the two men differ in almost every other respect, from their political styles to their diplomatic experience, adding uncertainty to what has been called the world's most important bilateral relationship. Five months after his election on a stridently anti-China platform, Trump appears to have set himself on a course for collision rather than conciliation with Xi, raising doubts as to whether the world's two biggest economies can find common ground. Topping the agenda at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida will be whether he will make good on his threat to use crucial U.S.-China trade ties to pressure Beijing to do more to rein in its nuclear-armed neighbor North Korea, which is working to develop missiles capable of hitting the United States. Trump, a 70-year-old former real estate magnate with no foreign policy experience before entering the White House, has tweeted that it will be a "very difficult" meeting with the veteran Communist Party leader seven years his junior, given Chinese trade practices he says are killing U.S. jobs. He has also demanded that Beijing do more to "solve" the North Korean problem – his biggest national security challenge - or he will act alone to deal with Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs. Some White House aides believe Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner could be an influential moderating voice on how he handles Xi in their talks on Thursday and Friday. Contacts between Kushner and China's U.S. envoy helped smooth the way for the meeting, according to current and former U.S. officials. Even so, what worries the protocol-conscious Chinese more than policy clashes is the risk that the unpredictable Trump could publicly embarrass Xi, after several foreign leaders experienced awkward moments with the new U.S. president. "Ensuring President Xi does not lose face is a top priority for China," a Chinese official said. U.S. presidents' meetings with their Chinese counterparts are usually more tightly scripted than with other foreign leaders, something Chinese officials insist on to make sure they are treated with the decorum they believe befits a global power. This summit should offer a study in contrasts: Trump impatient, outspoken and prone to angry tweet-storms; Xi, outwardly calm and measured, with no known social media presence. Their shared nationalist tendencies could aggravate friction between their countries, which are increasingly global rivals. Trump insists the United States has been cheated economically for decades by countries like China and must regain its luster, while Xi wants China, once an ancient empire, to be able to flex its muscles on the world stage. "Xi and Trump are not natural friends," said a former senior U.S. official specializing in Asia. "The question is when Trump's 'Make America Great Again' hits Xi's 'Chinese Dream', what's the result?" It remains unclear how far Trump will go in translating populist rhetoric into policy that steps up pressure on China, given the risk of a trade war neither country can afford. But aides say he won't pull his punches, especially on trade, on which he has held an outspoken view for decades. This adds to doubts as to whether the two leaders can find common ground on North Korea and China's expansive claims in the South China Sea. Some analysts question whether Trump can get the better of Xi, who was born into a life of politics and has a reputation for being a tough tactician. "Xi's performed pretty well in these types of environments," said Christopher Johnson, a China expert and former CIA analyst at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies. While Trump has been in office little more than 10 weeks, Xi has honed his U.S. strategy since assuming the Chinese leadership in 2013. The son of a revolutionary leader, Xi has sought to project the image internationally of a strong advocate of globalization at a time when Trump has stoked fears of U.S. protectionism. Still, Chinese officials are mindful of the pitfalls if Trump veers off-script. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe found himself in a long, uncomfortable handshake at the White House in February, and Trump appeared to ignore German Chancellor Angela Merkel's offer of a handshake during their meeting last month. An acrimonious call between Trump and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull caused particular concern in Beijing, officials there say. Still, the decision to hold a summit so early in Trump's presidency suggests both Washington and Beijing see the value of trying to build a personal relationship between the two leaders. Trump goes into the meeting with significant gaps in his team of Asia advisers and his China policy still not fully formulated. Hardliners like trade adviser Peter Navarro, who authored a book "Death by China," have feuded over the administration's approach to China with more pragmatic aides such as economic adviser Gary Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs president, current and former U.S. officials say. Administration officials argue Trump can use his "Art of the Deal" sales techniques to convince Xi that China needs the United States more than the United States needs China, especially when it comes to market access. But analysts say the Chinese are shrewd enough at geopolitics to fend off U.S. demands. Xi may also see Trump politically weakened by his high-profile legislative failure on healthcare as well as his low public approval ratings. Trump has already backed down on China's most sensitive issue - Taiwan - having first infuriated Beijing by suggesting he might not abide by Washington's long-standing "one China" policy. Trump may now feel he is owed a favor in return. A fence-mending phone call in February was arranged by Kushner and China's U.S. ambassador, Cui Tiankai, officials say, after Cui invited Trump's daughter Ivanka to the Chinese Embassy's Lunar New Year reception, where her daughter sang in Mandarin. Both sides are keeping expectations low for tangible outcomes from the summit, billed as informal "get to know you" meetings similar to the 2013 Sunnylands summit in California between Xi and Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama. And whatever else, unlike Abe's February visit to Mar-a-Lago, there will be no golf diplomacy: China's Communist Party associates golf with shady dealings and has sought to stop officials from playing it as part of Xi's fight against corruption.


posted by Eddie A burial slab believed to have held the body of Jesus Christ before he was resurrected has been uncovered for the first time in centuries by a restoration team in Jerusalem. The original limestone shelf, known as a "burial bed," was exposed during the restoration of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre after being covered by marble since at least 1555 A.D. "It will be a long scientific analysis, but we will finally be able to see the original rock surface on which, according to tradition, the body of Christ was laid," Fredrik Hiebert, an archaeologist involved in the discovery, told National Geographic . According to scripture, Jesus Christ was laid on the shelf in the tomb after dying at the crucifixion around 33 A.D. After three days his remains were discovered to be missing and Jesus was said to have appeared over a span of 40 days before ascending into heaven. The discovery was made by a team of scientists from the National Technical University of Athens (NTU) who were making restorations to the Edicule ( "little house" ), a structure which had been built around the tomb. Researchers now hope to study the original surface to better understand the original tomb and how it evolved to become one of the most sacred sites in Christendom. "We are at the critical moment for rehabilitating the Edicule," Chief Scientific Supervisor Professor Antonia Moropoulou told National Geographic. "The techniques we're using to document this unique monument will enable the world to study our findings as if they themselves were in the tomb of Christ." The newly-uncovered surface was described as having a grey-beige stone surface. Also known as the Church of the Resurrection, its custody is shared between six Christian sects including the Greek Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church and the Armenian Orthodox Church, whom together invited the NTU to undertake the restoration. At a cost of US$4 million, (€3.7 million) the restoration was not cheap, with major donors including Jordan's King Abdullah II and Mica Ertegun, widow of Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun. From Around the Web Founder of WorldTruth.Tv and WomansVibe.com Eddie ( 8899 Posts )  Eddie L. is the founder and owner of WorldTruth.TV. and Womansvibe.com. Both website are dedicated to educating and informing people with articles on powerful and concealed information from around the world. I have spent the last 36+ years researching Bible, History, Alternative Health, Secret Societies, Symbolism and many other topics that are not reported by mainstream media.


John Moore has an interesting political background. Currently, he is serving Assembly District 8 (AD8) as a Republican and has changed parties to seek re-election as a Libertarian for the November 8, 2016, legislative election. Moreover, before he was a right-wing politician, he ran for office as Democrat. One could certainly question where this candidate's allegiances lie. John Moore's Legislative Candidacies This election marks the third time Moore has sought election for Nevada's Legislative office. In 2012, Moore ran for office as a Democrat. He competed against the incumbent, Jason Frierson and lost in the primary race to the incumbent. His loss was 32.4 percent of the vote to Frierson's 67.6. In 2014 Moore sought the office once again, this time, he ran as a Republican. His opponent was incumbent Democrat, Frierson. Moore barely won his bid in the general election. He won with a 40 vote lead; he garnered 50.2 percent versus the incumbent's 49.8. Interestingly, he never officially changed parties. After winning the election, as a Republican, he was still listed as a Democrat with the Secretary of State. As a Libertarian in the 2016 race, he is the Republican incumbent. AD8 has three men seeking to serve Nevadans in Carson City. The assemblyman's opponents are Republican Norm Ross and Democrat Jason Frierson. The assemblyman in the only minor-party incumbent on the November ballot. When he changed his party in January 2016, his explanation was that he locked horns with many of his Republican counterparts. He further explained his party affiliation move to Libertarian as his desire to be an in-the-middle candidate and to avoid pandering to any individual party, according to Las Vegas Review-Journal. John Moore's History During the 2015 Legislative Session As with any Republican, Moore ran on the promise of no new taxes for Nevada. Unfortunately, for the Republican-held Assembly, the state's Governor, Brain Sandoval (R) and lobbyists had a different agenda. Due to his health problems, Moore missed several crucial votes. In fact, the Conservative Scorecard indicates that during the general session in 2015 he cast two votes and missed eight – or 20 percent. However, when he managed to be present and cast his ballot, his choices did not support the GOP party-line. His two votes were on the following pro-conservation bills. There was a special session in December 2015. Moore voted his consent to give a foreign corporation a tax break. An electric car manufacturer called Faraday Future received $335 million in incentives to bring the Chinese-backed American start-up company specializing in technology to Nevada. In a special session during October 2016, Moore cast a yes vote on the Stadium bill. While constituents opinions are split about the stadium being built in Las Vegas, Republicans typically do not vote to increase taxes. Norm Ross, one of his 2016 opponents, states that Moore supports open borders, as evident with his vote to give money to a foreign-owned company. Furthermore, the incumbent assemblyman calls himself a conservative Libertarian, which is essentially an oxymoron. John L. Smith chastised the assemblyman's past. He pointed out that the assemblyman-elect appeared to be a sharp dresser who looks as though he could succeed in Carson City. Whereas, he looked less sure of himself in the wanted poster issued by the Las Vegas City Marshal's Office. Smith pointed out that the fine was $792, and it was almost the same amount he spent on his campaign; $800. Moore has been called a lawmaker and a lawbreaker. He appears to change parties on a whim, but there may be underlying reasons or deals that encourage his allegiance discrepancies. Perhaps he merely wants to win no matter the consequences. The question remains: Who is John Moore and which ideology does he truly believe? By Cathy Milne Sources: Ballotpedia: John Moore (Nevada) Las Vegas Sun: New taxes pass Assembly; no-tax Republicans can't undermine Sandoval Las Vegas Review-Journal: Nevada's independent, minor party candidates face long odds USA Today: Nevada lands $1 billion Faraday electric car plant Conservation Scorecard: 2014 Assembly Scorecard Las Vegas Review-Journal: THIS NEW LAWMAKER IS A LAW BREAKER Image Courtesy of Gage Skidmore's moore


Rapper T. I. unloaded on black celebrities who met with Donald Trump after the election, saying they failed to challenge the president for disrespecting and degrading black voters during the campaign. [The Atlanta — based artist told the of The View Thursday that he took issue with talk show host Steve Harvey, Kanye West, and football Hall of Famer and civil rights champion Jim Brown meeting with Trump. "Before you stand and smile and say this is a good man and take pictures, what about addressing the disrespect and disregard for our community that was done?" T. I. said, adding "And what about him being the poster child for white supremacy and standing for the people who look to devalue our lives?" The star of the VH1 reality show T. I. Tiny: The Family Hustle also defended fellow rapper Snoop Dogg, who recently starred in a music video that sees the "Doggystyle" rapper pull a gun on and "shoot" a parody clown version of President Donald Trump. "Whatever Snoop said, he had the right to say. He's protected by the Constitution in saying it," T. I. said. "We have to protect our legends. We have to protect our heroes and the people who mean something to us and our community and our culture. " The View Sunny Hostin suggested that Trump advisor Omarosa Manigault has stated the administration's intention to "bridge the gap" between the White House and the black community, to which T. I. responded with a personal insult. "She can't even bridge the gap in her teeth," the rapper said. T. I. had originally defended Snoop Dogg and his controversial video in an Instagram message, calling Trump a "f*cking tangerine tanned muskrat scrotum skin, lacefront possum fur wig wearing, alternative fact, atomic dog diarrhea face ass man [sic]. " Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @JeromeEHudson


It has been three weeks since Democrats gathered for their convention, and Hillary Clinton still holds a large and consistent lead in national and battleground state polls. Her national lead over Donald J. Trump of seven to eight percentage points could slip a bit over the next few weeks. But it has been long enough that much of her expected convention "bounce" should have faded. It leaves Mr. Trump in an unenviable position: No modern candidate who has trailed by this much a few weeks after the conventions has gone on to win the presidency. On that basis, you can expect a wave of articles about how the presidential race is basically "over. " That's probably a bit too strong, at least from a historical point of view. The Upshot's model gives Mrs. Clinton an 88 percent chance of winning. It's about the same probability of hitting a field goal from the line. That's a pretty good way to think about it. If Mrs. Clinton ultimately wins, we will probably look back and say she had more or less already won it by this point. If she loses, these next two months will be talked about for decades. The analogy has one big weakness: She may win this by a lot more than a field goal. The possibility of a landslide victory for Mrs. Clinton — one larger than any since 1984 in the national popular vote — is larger than the chance that Mr. Trump will pull it out. According to The Upshot model, Mrs. Clinton has a better shot at winning the red state of South Carolina than Mr. Trump has at winning the presidency. In that sense, perhaps Mrs. Clinton's position is more like having a lead at the beginning of the third quarter. At this point, it's probably fair to say that Mrs. Clinton's lead is real and durable. Gallup data indicates that the bounce is largely over: Both Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton's favorability ratings have returned to where they were before the conventions. Mrs. Clinton's gains have proved relatively durable in part because they've come from voters who seem unlikely to defect to Mr. Trump. Recent polls have shown her with the support of up to 90 percent of Bernie Sanders's supporters, and more than 90 percent of Democrats. There is one key respect in which Mrs. Clinton's big lead doesn't look so durable, at least in historical terms: She holds only around 48 percent of the vote, and has a commanding lead only because Mr. Trump is stuck around 40 percent. In today's polarized electorate, he can be polling so low only because he hasn't unified voters who traditionally lean Republican in presidential elections. Astonishingly, several surveys have shown Mr. Trump with less than 70 percent of Republican voters. This type of disunity is the basic story behind two of the biggest comebacks in modern history, Hubert Humphrey's late surge in 1968 and Gerald Ford's in 1976. Both candidates had divisive conventions, and they left without fully unified parties. Both trailed by double digits in August and September polls, often with less than 35 percent of the vote. But in the end, the Republican faithful returned to Mr. Ford, and most Northern Democrats returned to Mr. Humphrey. Mr. Ford lost by just two percentage points, and Mr. Humphrey by less than one point. The elections ended up as two of the three closest presidential contests of the 20th century. If you're a fan of Mr. Trump looking for hope and a relevant precedent for a comeback, this is my best comparison. No, Mr. Humphrey and Mr. Ford didn't win. But clearly they could have. The problem, though, is that there are unusually good reasons to question whether Mr. Trump will ever reunify voters. Many Republican voters have an unfavorable impression of him — worse still, many don't even think he has the knowledge, temperament or qualifications to be president, according to polling. The most obvious sign that this year is different is the behavior of Republican politicians: Seven Senate Republicans have not yet endorsed Mr. Trump. This is highly unusual. It's also a problem that could get worse. More Republicans could abandon him, especially if his big deficit in the polls holds, perhaps making it even more acceptable for Republican voters to follow suit. None of this information is incorporated into the statistical models used by The Upshot or other sites, like FiveThirtyEight. To extend the football analogy, the model has no idea whether the quarterback of the trailing team is Peyton Manning or Ryan Leaf. If Mr. Trump can't reunify voters, Mrs. Clinton really could win in a landslide. Perhaps many Republicans would skip the presidential race on the ballot, vote for a candidate, or even stay home. A small but important number would vote for Mrs. Clinton. Maybe she could win by something like 54 to 42, and squeak out a win in South Carolina. But if Mr. Trump could make progress in reunifying Republicans, Mrs. Clinton would quickly find herself in a tighter race. She would still have the advantage — that 48 percent she currently holds in the polls doesn't leave Mr. Trump very much room. To squeak out a win, Mr. Trump would need to win over enough white voters, particularly white men without a degree, to compensate for his weakness among voters and Hispanic and especially women. This is what the polls showed when Mr. Trump was in a close race or even ahead — as was the case in May or in July. Historically, neither a Clinton landslide nor a close Trump win can be ruled out with days to go. Then again, historically — based on fundamentals like the "time for a change" theory of presidential elections — one would expect the Republicans to be or even slight favorites to win this election. They are not favored anymore, in no small part because Mr. Trump has been performing a lot more like Mr. Leaf than Mr. Manning. If he keeps doing so over these final months, he could close off what few opportunities he might have left.


A Republican senator leading the charge on updating little-known investment rules designed to protect national security said that he will soon introduce a bill aimed at reining in potentially dangerous deals done by China. Senator John Cornyn, a member of the Republican leadership who is on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told the Council on Foreign Relations on Thursday that he was concerned by China's attempts to ensure that its military catches up to the U.S. Defense Department in terms of technology. "China is using every tool at its disposal to close the technology gap between the United States and that country, and in the process, to eliminate our military's technological advantage," he said in his speech. Cornyn's office provided Reuters with a copy of the address on Monday. To combat this, Cornyn plans to introduce a bill in Congress that would update the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, an interagency panel led by the Treasury Department that reviews proposed transactions to ensure they do not pose a challenge to national security. The law firm Covington and Burling LLP, which follows CFIUS, said in a note after the speech that it believed that Cornyn's proposed legislation "may ultimately become law." "Senator Cornyn is among the most influential members of the Senate, and there appears to be an emerging bipartisan consensus that CFIUS should be strengthened," the firm said in an analysis on Friday. Cornyn said the legislation would be called the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act, and would ensure that CFIUS focuses its investigations on countries which pose the biggest threat to the United States. It would also give CFIUS the authority to look at a broader range of deals, including joint ventures based outside the United States and smaller, minority-position investments which would give the investing companies access to sensitive information, Cornyn said. Cornyn's office did not respond to a query on Monday regarding when the bill would be introduced. CFIUS already has a reputation for being tough on high-tech deals, and has been known in particular to block transactions that involve sophisticated semiconductors. The bill will not expand the committee, which will disappoint those who had pushed for the Agriculture Department to become a member of the panel.


Wells Fargo's board said on Monday that it would claw back an additional $75 million in compensation from the two executives on whom it pinned most of the blame for the company's scandal over fraudulent accounts: the bank's former chief executive, John G. Stumpf, and its former head of community banking, Carrie L. Tolstedt. The clawbacks — or forced return of pay and stock grants — are the largest in banking history and among the largest in corporate America. A committee of Wells Fargo's directors investigated the extensive fraud. Wells Fargo's board said in a report issued on Monday that Mr. Stumpf had turned a blind eye to the fraudulent accounts being created under his nose and that Ms. Tolstedt, who ran the branch system, had focused obsessively on sales targets and withheld information from her boss and the board. Wells Fargo's misdeeds, which came to light in September, have at least temporarily become a more widely recognized symbol of the bank than its signature stagecoach. Bankers across Wells Fargo's giant branch system were tacitly encouraged to meet their sales goals by committing fraud opening unwanted or unneeded accounts in customers' names and, sometimes, moving money into and out of the sham accounts. While the amount of money customers lost was relatively small — the company has refunded $3. 2 million — the scope of the fraud was huge: 5, 300 bankers were fired for creating as many as two million unwanted bank and credit card accounts. In one detail revealed by the report, a branch manager had a teenage daughter with 24 accounts and a husband with 21. The warning signs were glaring and could be traced back at least to 2004, the investigators said. Ms. Tolstedt, who ran the national network of Wells Fargo branches, set up ruthless sales goals that even she acknowledged were unreachable. Mr. Stumpf, who had a long and trusting relationship with Ms. Tolstedt, left her on her own to run her department, the investigators said in the scathing report. Neither Ms. Tolstedt, who was allowed to retire in July but was subsequently fired, nor Mr. Stumpf, who was permitted to retire in October after being castigated during congressional hearings on the scandal, was available on Monday to comment. Mr. Stumpf cooperated with the board's investigation Ms. Tolstedt declined to be interviewed. All told, Mr. Stumpf will surrender $69 million, and Ms. Tolstedt will lose $67 million, including stock options that they forfeited last year. While those figures are bigger than any previous bank clawback, they fall far short of the largest clawback in corporate history. In 2007, William W. McGuire of UnitedHealthGroup was forced to give back $618 million over backdating options. Ms. Tolstedt's lawyer, Enu Mainigi of the Washington firm Williams Connolly, issued a statement challenging the board's findings. "We strongly disagree with the report and its attempt to lay blame with Ms. Tolstedt," Ms. Mainigi said. "A full and fair examination of the facts will produce a different conclusion. " The board's report, compiled by the law firm Shearman Sterling after interviews with 100 current and former employees and a review of 35 million documents, said it was obvious where the problems lay. Structurally, the bank was too decentralized, with department heads like Ms. Tolstedt given the mantra of "run it like you own it" and granted broad authority to shake off questions from superiors, subordinates or lateral colleagues. Many things collectively should have raised suspicion, the report said. Customers were failing to fund, or put money into, their new accounts at alarming rates. Regional managers were imploring their bosses to drop sales goals, saying they were unrealistic and bad for customers. Particularly in Arizona and Los Angeles, where the toxic culture was most pronounced, some managers explicitly told subordinates to sell people accounts even if they did not need them. Because of the bank's decentralized structure, the problem went unnoticed for a long time. When it finally came to light — thanks in part to an investigation by The Los Angeles Times — the bank was slow to take action. Mr. Stumpf was warned as early as 2012 about "numerous" complaints about the company's sales tactics — from both customers and employees — but he ignored growing evidence that the problem was pervasive, the board said in its report. Much of the climate, the report said, stemmed from Ms. Tolstedt, who led Wells Fargo's retail branch network for eight years. The report casts her as a powerful and insular leader who set unreasonable targets, castigated those who criticized them and actively ignored signs that some managers and employees were cheating to meet them. "She resisted and rejected the near unanimous view of senior regional bank leaders that the sales goals were unreasonable and led to negative outcomes and improper behavior," the report said. Timothy J. Sloan, who succeeded Mr. Stumpf as chief executive, was largely exonerated by the report, even though he was also a career Wells Fargo executive. As president and chief operating officer, he became Ms. Tolstedt's immediate supervisor in November 2015. At that point, the report said, he "assessed her performance over several months before deciding that she should not continue to lead the community bank. " Mr. Stumpf, who retired in October, exercised all of his remaining options and converted them to stock — which he retained — in the months before Wells Fargo announced its $185 million settlement with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Los Angeles city attorney in September. He held 2. 5 million shares as of late February, currently valued at $137 million. Asked about the timing of Mr. Stumpf's options exercise, Stephen W. Sanger, the board's chairman and the leader of its investigation, said at a news conference on Monday that it was a routine move that did not raise concern. The $28 million that the board is taking back from Mr. Stumpf — the proceeds of a 2013 equity grant — will be deducted from his retirement plan payouts, Mr. Sanger said. Nearly all public companies have clawback provisions, but boards are typically loath to invoke them. Wells Fargo's example may inspire future directors, said Charles M. Elson, a professor of finance at the University of Delaware and an expert on corporate governance. "I welcome the move," he said. "I'm a shareholder of Wells Fargo, and I'm glad they did it. " Mr. Sanger took over as the board's chairman from Mr. Stumpf. All four members of Wells Fargo's independent investigation group were on the board before the settlement was announced. The report depicted the board as hoodwinked by bank executives who withheld important facts. It praised the changes the bank had made recently, which include ending sales goals for its retail bank employees. Such conclusions are unlikely to quiet the bank's critics. Better Markets, a nonprofit organization that advocates stricter regulation of Wall Street, called the report a compendium of " cosmetic actions" and called on shareholders to oust all of Wells Fargo's board members at the company's annual meeting on April 25. Two influential advisory firms have also recommended significant changes to the company's board. Mr. Sanger said that the report issued on Monday concluded nearly all of the bank's investigation and that no further terminations or clawbacks were expected. But other investigations — including criminal inquiries by the Justice Department and several state attorneys general — remain in progress, raising the possibility of criminal charges. The board's law firm is still looking into reports that the bank retaliated against former employees who tried to blow the whistle on its wrongdoing. Last week, a federal regulator, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the Labor Department, ordered Wells Fargo to rehire and pay $5. 4 million to a former employee who said he was fired after making internal complaints about wrongdoing that he had observed. The agency has also warned Wells Fargo that it is likely to order the bank to reinstate another worker who said she was fired in 2011 after trying to call her supervisors' attention to accounts that she said had been fraudulently created. So far, Shearman Sterling has found no evidence of retaliation, said Stuart J. Baskin, a partner at the firm. "We still have a few loose ends, but we don't think it's likely to change any findings," he said. Wells Fargo is eager to put its sales scandal behind it, but customers are not quite so willing to move on. The number of consumer checking accounts opened in February dropped 43 percent compared with a year earlier, and credit card applications declined 55 percent. The financial damage caused to customers by Wells Fargo's fraudulent acts was relatively minimal, but the issue has loomed large in the public imagination in part because the bank's transgressions were so blatant — and so simple. "People getting accounts they didn't sign up for?" said Stephen Beck, the founder of CG42, a strategy company that studies banks' brand perception. "I don't need an M. B. A. in finance to understand that's wrong. Our expectation is that it is going to take quite a bit of time for Wells to recover. You can't just advertise 'Trust me,' which is what they've tried to do so far. " Mr. Sloan, the bank president, said at a news conference after the report was issued that he had some regrets about how the bank's leadership — and he in particular — had handled the years of warnings. "In hindsight, I wish we would have taken more action and would have done things more quickly," he said. The bank's sales incentives should have been eliminated sooner, he said.