Israel looks set to take on travel accommodation giant #Airbnb, after the company removed home listings located in the Israeli occupied #WestBank from its …
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Video: Israel slams Airbnb, after the company removed home listings located in Israeli occupied West Bank
Leeds students too delicate to deal with CAPS or direct instructions from teachers — RT UK News
Students at Leeds University have turned into such sensitive and fragile creatures that lecturers have been cautioned against using caps or anything that sounds like a command in case they freak out and fail their studies.
A memo has been issued, telling professors at Leeds Trinity School of Journalism to shun anything that the poor kids may interpret as constituting even a hint of criticism (the much-revered uni practice of constructive feedback seems to have gone down the drain).
That includes steering well away from using capital letters when setting assignments, in case they end up intimidating the snowflakes.
However, what appears to be the uni’s farewell to constructive criticism doesn’t stop there. Teachers (or at this point perhaps one should call them babysitters?) should also stop telling their classes what they should avoid doing to improve their performance. The word “don’t” is apparently too intimidating.
While for some uni kids, even being told what to do can be too much to handle. Maybe it’s best if teachers just keep silent, to be on the safe side.
To top it all off, staff were also told to be “explicit about any inexplicitness,” flagging how students will otherwise go all the way to discussing subjects among themselves. And how exactly is that so terrible?
The document, seen by the British tabloid the Daily Express, reads: “Despite our best attempts to explain assessment tasks, any lack of clarity can generate anxiety and even discourage students from attempting the assessment at all.”
READ MORE: Barking mad? ‘Snowflake’ pets set for own cannabis food to treat anxiety
So, dear teachers, forget all that talk about students having to grow to be critical thinkers. Just like in kindergarten, tell them to take out their aprons and sit down so you can spell it all out for them.
“We have some excellent students but it’s a constant battle against a system that wants to treat them like little kids. We are not doing our students any favors with this kind of nonsense,” one of lecturers told the Daily Express.
The memo prompted people to take to social media to slam the so-called snowflake generation and the surrounding institutions bowing to their every whim.
Thank God I live in the States. How do you go from being one of the most dominant empires in the world to being frightened by letters? 😂😂😂
— John Yacks (@underboss7685) November 19, 2018
We’re not banning using them but it’s best practice not to use them.
PA-THE-TIC.— Anthony Sherriff (@sherria48) November 19, 2018
The university claims they haven’t exactly banned teachers from using specific feedback staples. They just stressed it is “good practice” to refrain from doing so in case the poor students are slapped down even before stepping into the big bad world.
In response to today’s comments in the media which allege we have banned capital letters (we haven’t!), we’re really proud of our approach to teaching and learning at Leeds Trinity.
Here’s why: pic.twitter.com/yGXh9JABNK
— Leeds Trinity Uni (@LeedsTrinity) November 19, 2018
News of the memo for the Leeds’ professors comes after the University of Manchester’s student union banned clapping amid concerns that it would cause anxiety, and in a bid to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. Applauding was replaced with so-called silent “jazz hands.”
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Female genital mutilation can’t be banned at federal level, judge says — RT US News
A federal judge struck down a law against female genital mutilation on Tuesday, ruling the statute unconstitutional and dismissing multiple charges against two defendants in the first case ever brought under the 22-year-old law.
US District Court Judge Bernard Friedman argued the Female Genital Mutilation Act of 1996, overreached Congressional powers, violating both the Necessary and Proper Clause and the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Anti-FGM laws, he ruled, should be handled by the states like other laws governing criminal sexual conduct.
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The defendant, Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, isn’t entirely off the hook – she still faces 20 years in prison for conspiracy to travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct, and four co-defendants remain charged with conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.
The “conspiracy” at the center of the case involved up to 100 young girls from multiple states, according to prosecutors, though the charges brought against Nagarwala only reference nine. An Indian Muslim from the Dawoodi Bohra sect, Nagarwala was charged in April 2017 with performing female genital mutilation on the girls at a clinic in Livonia, Michigan, the first person to be prosecuted under the 1996 anti-FGM law.
Along with clinic owner Dr. Fakhruddin Attar, she was also charged with conspiring to transport a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, which carries a life sentence, but Friedman dropped those charges in January. Attar’s wife, Farida, was charged with helping to arrange the procedure and later saddled with an additional charge of drugging one of the girls.
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Nagarwala remains free on $4.5 million bond – believed to be the largest unsecured bond in Detroit history – but is under house arrest, strapped with an ankle monitor. Prosecutors worried her wealth and ties to India and Africa made her a flight risk, pointing out she had attempted to board a flight to Kenya before her arrest, and the judge opted to freeze her and her husband’s retirement accounts and assets when she was released from jail to await trial.
The four other defendants allegedly brought their daughters from Illinois and Minnesota as well as other parts of Michigan to be circumcised by Nagarwala over the course of 12 years. FGM is internationally condemned as a violation of human rights, though it is practiced by some members of the Dawoodi Bohra.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
The World’s Most Exclusive ‘Spy Club’
To understand the scope of the US government spying on its own citizens, not to mention the rest of the world, you need a long attention span.
A case in point is a lawsuit filed a decade ago by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) against the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies. The lawsuit seeks to force the NSA to end its practice of “dragnet surveillance,” the interception and copying all internet traffic that passes through the US. The NSA refers to this surveillance program, which was exposed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, as Stellar Wind.
The lawsuit relies in part upon an unclassified draft report published in 2009 by the NSA acknowledging Stellar Wind’s existence. But in a Kafkaesque irony which is common in litigation involving the NSA, the agency refuses to acknowledge the report’s authenticity, even though the NSA wrote the report. Thus, the NSA argues, the court must disregard the document and dismiss the lawsuit.
Help for the EFF arrived in an unexpected form earlier this month, when Edward Snowden himself filed a declaration stating that the report was in fact genuine. Now the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals must decide whether to allow the lawsuit to proceed.
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I sincerely support the work of the EFF and other organizations that challenge what can rightfully be called the global surveillance infrastructure. But Stellar Wind is just a tiny piece of the global surveillance infrastructure. No matter how the court decides this case, it’s likely that intelligence agencies will continue surveillance of Americans – although they might not operate in the US.
That’s thanks to…
Prison Planet.com » British scientists develop a genetically modified virus that kills cancer cells
Daily Mail
November 20, 2018
Scientists at Oxford University have developed a genetically modified virus that can kill cancer cells.
The virus attacks both tumours and healthy cells, known as fibroblasts, that have been ‘tricked’ into protecting the cancer from the immune system.
Any existing treatment that kills ‘tricked’ fibroblasts, may also destroy those in the bone marrow and skin.
Researchers said it is the first time cancer-associated fibroblasts within solid tumours have been specifically targeted in this way.
Dr Kerry Fisher, from the University of Oxford’s department of oncology, who led the research, said: ‘Even when most of the cancer cells in a carcinoma are killed, fibroblasts can protect the residual cancer cells and help them to recover and flourish.
‘Until now, there has not been any way to kill both cancer cells and the fibroblasts protecting them at the same time, without harming the rest of the body.
‘Our new technique to simultaneously target the fibroblasts while killing cancer cells with the virus could be an important step towards reducing immune system suppression within carcinomas and should kick-start the normal immune process.’
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
The virus, called enadenotucirev, is already used in clinical trials for treating cancers that start in the pancreas, colon, lungs, breasts, ovaries or prostate.
This article was posted: Tuesday, November 20, 2018 at 8:28 am
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Prison Planet.com » British scientists develop a genetically modified virus that kills cancer cells
Daily Mail
November 20, 2018
Scientists at Oxford University have developed a genetically modified virus that can kill cancer cells.
The virus attacks both tumours and healthy cells, known as fibroblasts, that have been ‘tricked’ into protecting the cancer from the immune system.
Any existing treatment that kills ‘tricked’ fibroblasts, may also destroy those in the bone marrow and skin.
Researchers said it is the first time cancer-associated fibroblasts within solid tumours have been specifically targeted in this way.
Dr Kerry Fisher, from the University of Oxford’s department of oncology, who led the research, said: ‘Even when most of the cancer cells in a carcinoma are killed, fibroblasts can protect the residual cancer cells and help them to recover and flourish.
‘Until now, there has not been any way to kill both cancer cells and the fibroblasts protecting them at the same time, without harming the rest of the body.
‘Our new technique to simultaneously target the fibroblasts while killing cancer cells with the virus could be an important step towards reducing immune system suppression within carcinomas and should kick-start the normal immune process.’
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
The virus, called enadenotucirev, is already used in clinical trials for treating cancers that start in the pancreas, colon, lungs, breasts, ovaries or prostate.
This article was posted: Tuesday, November 20, 2018 at 8:28 am
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Prison Planet.com » British scientists develop a genetically modified virus that kills cancer cells
Daily Mail
November 20, 2018
Scientists at Oxford University have developed a genetically modified virus that can kill cancer cells.
The virus attacks both tumours and healthy cells, known as fibroblasts, that have been ‘tricked’ into protecting the cancer from the immune system.
Any existing treatment that kills ‘tricked’ fibroblasts, may also destroy those in the bone marrow and skin.
Researchers said it is the first time cancer-associated fibroblasts within solid tumours have been specifically targeted in this way.
Dr Kerry Fisher, from the University of Oxford’s department of oncology, who led the research, said: ‘Even when most of the cancer cells in a carcinoma are killed, fibroblasts can protect the residual cancer cells and help them to recover and flourish.
‘Until now, there has not been any way to kill both cancer cells and the fibroblasts protecting them at the same time, without harming the rest of the body.
‘Our new technique to simultaneously target the fibroblasts while killing cancer cells with the virus could be an important step towards reducing immune system suppression within carcinomas and should kick-start the normal immune process.’
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
The virus, called enadenotucirev, is already used in clinical trials for treating cancers that start in the pancreas, colon, lungs, breasts, ovaries or prostate.
This article was posted: Tuesday, November 20, 2018 at 8:28 am
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Video: Festive guns: Wisconsin company gifts weapons for Christmas
The Hortonville-based manufacturer BenShot gave its employees handguns as Christmas gifts. On a visit to their factory on Monday, owner Ben Wolfgram said …
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How Perpetual Warfare Abroad Is Fueling White Supremacist Violence in the US
America’s perpetual warfare abroad has led to an increase in white supremacist violence at home. That’s one of the key findings in Frontline PBS and ProPublica reporter A.C. Thompson’s new investigation, Documenting Hate: New American Nazis, which premieres Tuesday evening on PBS. The documentary reveals the deep ties between the military and white supremacy, as Thompson examines the Pittsburgh shooting and the rise of violent hate groups such as Atomwaffen. Thompson interviews historian Kathleen Belew, who says there has always been a correlation in the US between the aftermath of war and the rise of white supremacist violence. “If you look for instance at the surges in Ku Klux Klan membership, they align more consistently with the return of veterans from combat and the aftermath of war than they do with anti-immigration, populism, economic hardship or any of the other factors that historians have typically used to explain them,” she notes. We speak with A.C. Thompson in Boston. His investigation premieres Tuesday on PBS stations and online.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman with Juan González.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We’re continuing to look at the rise of neo-Nazis in America in the wake of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre and a spate of hate-fueled killings in the US in recent weeks. Still with us is A.C. Thompson, correspondent for FRONTLINE PBS and a reporter for ProPublica. His investigation Documenting Hate: New American Nazis premieres tonight on PBS stations and online at pbs.org/frontline.
In his investigation, Thompson spoke with Professor Kathleen Belew, author of Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement in Paramilitary America on links between the military and Atomwaffen.
A.C. THOMPSON: We’re looking at a current group called the Atomwaffen Division, and they are actively recruiting military members. Does…
Why (Mostly) Men Trophy Hunt: a Biocultural Explanation
Photo Source Robert Tadlock | CC BY 2.0
Wolves do not stay anywhere for long. This is partly a function of their prey’s movement, but it’s also a function of being hunted for seven months of the year, at least in Montana, where residents can “harvest” up to five wolves for a paltry $19 dollars. A quick online search reveals dozens of images and videos of (mostly) men posing with wolves they had killed. The majority of the hunters are wearing what researchers K. R. Child and C. T. Darimont call “pleasure” or “killing” smiles. In their essay “Hunting for Trophies: Online Hunting Photographs Reveal Achievement Satisfaction with Large and Dangerous Prey,” the authors note that hunters’ smiles tend to be more pronounced when the prey is large and/or dangerous, that is, as opposed to when they pose with smaller and presumably less dangerous animals of the same species.
Similarly, a cursory glance of online images of wolf hunts (which is all I can stomach) supports this finding by showing all the creative ways that hunters display and accentuate the size of their trophies. Some men carry the wolf across their shoulders. Others string up, lay out, or hold up the wolf to show its length, height, or mass. Another pose motif shows the hunter, often with gun in hand, kneeling behind and standing up the wolf so that it appears to be alive. One hunter—I will call him “the artist”—went so far as to prop up the wolf on a moss-covered rock. But the…
Green Party Urges International Criminal Court To Prosecute Israel For Crimes Against Palestinians
Above: Delegation at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands on November 19, 2018. From left to right Margaret Flowers, Green Party co-chair, member of the Green Party Peace Action Committee and Green Party of Maryland, Miko Peled, Green Party US member, Dirk Adriaensens of the BRussells Tribunal, Diane Moxley of Green Party International Committee and Green Party of New Jersey, Stephen Verchinski of the Green Party International Committee and Green Party of New Mexico, Marie Spike, of the Green Party International Committee and Green Party of Michigan and Kevin Zeese of the Green Party Peace Action Committee and Green Party of Maryland
*****
United States Green Party Representatives Deliver Call for Full Investigation of Israel’s War Crimes Against Palestinians to International Criminal Court
The Hague, The Netherlands (Monday, November 19, 2018) — Members of the Green Party United States traveled to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Monday, November 19, 2018 to deliver a letter calling for a full investigation of Israel for war crimes it has committed against the Palestinians. [Read the text here.]
In addition to being endorsed by the Green Party U.S., the letter was signed by over 1,000 organizations, including Popular Resistance, and individuals from the United States who want prosecutors at the ICC and the world to know that there is a political party along with people in the US who support holding nations accountable to…
Video: Police dog competition held in China
Chinese police hold national competition for cop dogs! RT LIVE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFAcqaNzNSc Check out http://rt.com Subscribe to RT!
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‘Put down the lettuce. Please move away from the lettuce.’ E.coli scare casts pall over Thanksgiving — RT US News
An E.coli outbreak has Americans terrified of lettuce for the second time this year as they prepare for Thanksgiving dinner. The Centers for Disease Control warned Tuesday to avoid romaine lettuce after a rash of infections.
October saw 13 Americans hospitalized from eating the infected lettuce. A total of 32 unfortunate herbivores became sick with Shiga toxin-producing E.coli across 11 US states, as well as 18 people in two Canadian provinces. The CDC has linked all cases to romaine lettuce, though the agency did not name a common grower, supplier, distributor, or brand, merely advising the population to give the lettuce a wide berth.
“Consumers who have any type of romaine lettuce in their home should not eat it and should throw it away, even if some of it was eaten and no one has gotten sick.”
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Even the suspicion of romaine lettuce should be treated with the utmost caution, according to the CDC: “If you do not know if the lettuce is romaine or whether a salad mix contains romaine, do not eat it and throw it away.” Consumers are instructed to wash and sanitize all surfaces “where romaine was stored” and follow a five-step process to exorcise – er, cleanse – their refrigerators, while restaurants and stores are asked not to sell any.
E.coli infection generally manifests two to eight days after eating contaminated food as severe stomach cramps, diarrhea, and vomiting. In serious cases, it can cause hemolytic uremic syndrome, a form of kidney failure. While it can be fatal, it is treatable with antibiotics and most sufferers are well within a week.
The killer lettuce scare comes less than six months after another lettuce-linked E.coli outbreak that killed five people and sickened hundreds across 35 US states in June. According to the CDC, the two strains have slightly different DNA and are not related. That outbreak was traced to the Yuma growing region of Arizona.
In September, Cargill Meat Solutions recalled ground beef products after an E.coli outbreak sickened 18 people in four states, killing one. Unlike the lettuce-borne incident, however, it was not widely reported.
Until the 1990s, E.coli outbreaks were almost exclusively traced to undercooked beef. The US Department of Agriculture didn’t even ban E.coli 0157:H7 from ground beef until 1994 after a particularly disastrous outbreak sickened over 600 people and killed four children. Legally-mandated testing has supposedly rendered contamination a thing of the past, but the CDC continues to report beef-related E.coli outbreaks almost every year, with major recalls taking place in 1997, 2002, and 2007, and no explanation has been forthcoming for why the bacterium started showing up on vegetables more frequently.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Charges dropped against falsely accused Texas man
Charges dropped against falsely accused Texas man
By
a reporter
20 November 2018
A young Texas man has escaped the threat of life imprisonment on false charges of burglary, leveled by an ex-girlfriend, because a selfie taken with his mother proved he could not have committed the crime. Media reports brought the outrageous frame-up to national attention this week, five months after the charges were dropped.
The police apparently did not even conduct an interview with the young man before arresting him, the procedure normally carried out to determine whether a “suspect” has an alibi and may be wrongly accused.
The case is a warning of the dangers inherent in efforts to undermine the presumption of innocence and the claim that all accusers must be “believed—central themes of the #MeToo movement promoted by leading media outlets such as the New York Times.
Christopher Precopia, 21, was arrested on September 22, 2017, at his job, on a warrant filed by Bell County, Texas, where his former girlfriend lives. She charged that he had broken into her home and attacked her, carving an “X” onto her skin.
The arrest warrant claimed that police in Temple, Texas, “received a report of an assault with weapons.” A policeman was sent to the home of the girlfriend, and she said that Precopia “came towards her in an aggressive manner and pushed her to the ground, punched her in the face and cut her with a box cutter.”
According to a local television report, the woman declared in a handwritten statement, “I could hear the slices being made and it stung a lot,” adding that she escaped her attacker’s grasp, grabbed her Taser, turned, and “he was gone.”
Precopia was charged with first-degree felony burglary of a habitation with intent to commit additional…
I’m Seriously Considering a 2020 Presidential Run
Free Beacon
November 20, 2018
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) said on Sunday that he is seriously considering another run for president in 2020.
MSNBC’s “Politics Nation” host Al Shaprton asked the 77-year-old senator if he was going to run again after losing out on the Democratic nomination in 2016.
“Twenty-twenty, everyone is talking about this candidate or that candidate. A central question is, will Bernie Sanders run again?” Sharpton asked.
“And the answer is, Al, I will make that decision at the appropriate time. I will be honest with you, you’re a friend, you know, we’re looking at it. But it is … a decision that impacts your family. And I want to make sure that when I make that decision, if I decide to run, that I have concluded, in fact, that I am the strongest candidate who can defeat Donald Trump,” Sanders said. “And I’ve got to make that decision based on my background, based on my past, based on my ideas that, in fact, I am the candidate that can defeat Trump.”
“You’re not ruling it out; you’re saying you’re seriously considering it?” Sharpton asked.
“That is correct,” Sanders answered.
This article was posted: Tuesday, November 20, 2018 at 8:29 am
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PressTV-Trump’s ‘Saudi Arabia First’ policy draws rebuke
American lawmakers have blasted US President Donald Trump for siding with Saudi leaders and refusing to blame Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the murder of Virginia-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s diplomatic mission in Turkey’s Istanbul early last month.
In a statement issued by the White House on Tuesday, Trump threw his support behind denials earlier made by Saudi King Salman and the crown prince, saying that the two “vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution” of Khashoggi’s killing.
Trump said US intelligence agencies “continue to assess all information,” however; he questioned whether the Saudi crown prince was involved in Khashoggi’s brutal murder.
“Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event – maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!” the American head of state said.
This is while…
Pakistan’s Fight Against Extremism Rebuffed by Trump – Consortiumnews
Washington would be wise to engage the new Pakistani administration to help fight extremism at home and bring about reasonable solutions to regional crises, rather than exacerbate them, says Ann Wright.
By Ann Wright
The relationship between the Trump administration and Pakistan is frosty after the United States cut $330 million in military aid to Pakistan in October over its failure to reign in militant groups operating in Afghanistan.
The Obama administration had also suspended $800 million in aid in 2011 and $350 in military aid in 2016 for the same reasons.
But the U.S. isolates itself from Pakistan at its own peril. With a population of over 202 million, Pakistan has the sixth largest population in the world following China, India, the U.S., Indonesia and Brazil. It is one of nine countries that have developed nuclear weapons, and is a key security player in Afghanistan, Iran, India and China.
During the Cold War Pakistan played a pivotal role that has since faded.
With the U.S.rebuff, it’s not surprising the new government of Prime Minister Imran Khan, a former cricket star and U.S. critic, has turned to neighbors for help, namely Iran and China. Khan’s first official meeting was with Javid Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister.
Khan: Fighting extremists and Washington. (Wikimedia Commons)
While I was in Pakistan two weeks ago speaking at a conference on “The Geopolitics of Knowledge and Emerging World Order” held by the Pakistani National Defense University, Khan again met with Zarif. Khan was also off to China as Beijing’s guest of honor at the First China International Import Expo in Shanghai. The Khan administration is banking on $60 billion in land and sea projects underway with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a link in China’s massive project of the Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI), otherwise known as the New Silk Road.
The Trump administration has been left on the sidelines—again—in a crucial region where the U.S. is in its 18th year of war on Pakistan’s neighbor, Afghanistan.
As I was in Pakistan from Oct. 31 to Nov. 3, the challenges for the new Pakistani government were evident. Protests paralyzed the country…
Video: Top U.S. & World Headlines — November 20, 2018
Visit https://democracynow.org to watch the full independent, global news hour, read the transcript, search our archive and to make a donation to support us.
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Trump hands over written responses to Mueller’s Russia probe questions — RT US News
A lawyer for Donald Trump has confirmed that the US President has submitted answers to the questions penned by FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team. The questions refer to the Trump campaign’s alleged collusion with Moscow.
“The president today answered written questions submitted by the special counsel’s office,” Trump’s attorney Jay Sekulow said in a statement, as cited by AP.
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The issues Trump covered in his responses are “the Russia-related topics of the inquiry,” Sekulow said. Trump’s legal team has indicated that the president would not answer any additional questions aside from potential follow-ups. Likewise, Trump is not expected to answer any questions that refer to allegations of obstruction of justice, with his lawyers insisting that the constitution protects the sitting President from answering questions on policies he conducted while in office.
Trump’s personal lawyer Rudi Giuliani said Tuesday, that “much of what has been asked raised serious constitutional issues and was beyond the scope of a legitimate inquiry,” without elaborating.
Giuliani has not ruled out that Trump might answer further questions if forwarded by Mueller, but said that it is “unlikely we will answer any more questions.”
The contents of both the answers and the questions themselves will not be made public, Sekulow said.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Trump said he prepared the answers himself, and that it did not take him “very long.”
READ MORE: Mueller again? Trump bashes ‘disgraceful’ Russia probe
The written answers submitted by Trump Tuesday have the same legal implications as an oral testimony, meaning that if the statements are proven false, he might be accused of perjury.
Trump’s cooperation with Mueller’s office has been seen as a compromise. The president’s attitude toward a potential face-to-face interview with the federal prosecutor has shifted over time. Back in January Trump said that he was “looking forward” to speaking under oath. He doubled down in May, saying that he “would love” to sit down for an interview with Mueller “if treated fairly.” There have been reports, however, that the president’s legal team has been staunchly opposed to a personal encounter between Trump and Mueller and eventually talked the president out of it.
The personal interview might still happen if Mueller’s office issues a subpoena for Trump to testify. However, it would first need to be signed off on by the Acting Attorney General, the probe’s well-known critic Matthew Whitaker, and even then it could be thrown out by the Supreme Court.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
PressTV-Britain enraged at EU army idea
UK Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson has lashed out at leaders of France and Germany for their proposal for creating a European army that could rival the NATO military alliance.
“It is an absolutely crazy idea. NATO has delivered European security for the last 70 years and we should feel very proud of it,” said Williamson on Tuesday, adding, “Should we undermine that by forming a separate military force? Absolutely not.”
The comments come weeks after French President said that the European Union needed its own army to counter threats posed by Russia, China and even the US, which leads NATO.
Macron’s idea has been supported by Germany, EU’s dominant economic power, and the two countries have repeatedly expressed concerns that a United States under the presidency of people like Donald Trump should no longer be regarded as reliable partner.
Trump reacted furiously to Macron’s proposal for creation of the EU army. The US president…
Welcome to GenderWorld – LewRockwell
The defeat of Hillary, and the elevation of the vulgar Mr. Trump, loosed a fury of women against men in America that now verges on a kind of all-consuming chaos, like those western wildfires turning every product of human endeavor in the burn-path to smoke and ash. All the sorrows of our national life are assigned lately to the wicked white male patriarchy that must be defeated to usher in a satori of female sharing-and-caring.
A case in point is Sam Harris’s dialogue on his “Waking Up”(#141) podcast with Rebecca Traister of New York Magazine, author of the new book Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger. (Click here for the Harris-Traister chat.) There is no better interlocutor of the current right-think about men and women than Ms. Traister. She puts it across as though her brain was shot out of a cannon from a graduate seminar on “Engendering the Intellectual Space” as if there are no other points at issue in our national life than the power valences between the two sexes — and, of course, even suggesting that the human mammal comprises two sexes is a punishable offense these days.
To get a sense of the true chaos behind her argument, just have a look at the cover of Good and Mad. Notice that the blood-red title stands against a gray field of the word “F*UK” (asterisk hers) repeated 120 times on a 5 X 24 grid. Deconstruct that. Is it the generative act of copulation itself that she is inveighing against? Should it be gotten rid of? Will that solve the problems of a foundering hyper-complex industrial society?
Good and Mad: The Revo…
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Ms. Traister might have used the word “power” five hundred times in her…
Video: Renowned Filipino Journalist Maria Ressa Speaks Out Against Duterte: Media Must Fight Gov’t Impunity
https://democracynow.org – Web exclusive interview with renowned Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, who is speaking out against Philippines President Rodrigo …
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Prison Planet.com » FBI now classifies far-right Proud Boys as ‘extremist group’, documents say
The Guardian
November 20, 2018
The FBI now classifies the far-right Proud Boys as an “extremist group with ties to white nationalism”, according to a document produced by Washington state law enforcement.
The FBI’s 2018 designation of the self-confessed “western chauvinist group” as extremist has not been previously made public.
The Proud Boys was founded by the Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes. McInnes has insisted that his group is not white nationalist or “alt-right” but the Proud Boys have a history of misogyny and glorifying violence. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) lists them as a hate group.
The document also says: “The FBI has warned local law enforcement agencies that the Proud Boys are actively recruiting in the Pacific north-west”, and: “Proud Boys members have contributed to the recent escalation of violence at political rallies held on college campuses, and in cities like Charlottesville, Virginia, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington.”
This article was posted: Tuesday, November 20, 2018 at 8:31 am
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PressTV-Clapper hits back at Trump over bin Laden comments
Former director of US National Intelligence James Clapper has hit back at President Donald Trump for criticizing a former military commander, describing Trump’s disparaging remarks as a blow to the “intelligence community”.
Clapper on Monday said Trump’s criticism of retired Navy admiral William McRaven, who led the US operation that killed Osama bin Laden, was “a slam at the intelligence community”.
In an interview that aired on Sunday on Fox News Channel, Trump had dismissed McRaven, a vocal Trump critic, as a backer and fan of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
He then criticized the intelligence community for taking a long time – almost ten years — after occupying Afghanistan to find bin Laden, who was reportedly killed by Navy SEALs in a 2011 operation in Pakistan.
McRaven “is a Hilary Clinton backer and an Obama-backer, and frankly … wouldn’t it have been nice if we got Osama bin Laden a lot sooner than that? Wouldn’t it…
Video: How America’s Perpetual Warfare Abroad Is Fueling an Increase in White Supremacist Violence in U.S.
https://democracynow.org – America’s perpetual warfare abroad has led to an increase in white supremacist violence at home. That’s one of the key findings in …
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PressTV-Obama backs Pelosi ahead of House gavel bid
Former US President Barrack Obama has thrown his support behind the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, before her new bid for speakership in the wake of victory in the midterms elections.
“I think Nancy Pelosi, when the history is written, will go down as one of the most effective legislative leaders that this country’s ever seen,” Obama told “The Axe Files” podcast, produced by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN, calling her an “extraordinary partner.”
When Democrats take control in the House, Pelosi would need 218 votes to become the speaker.
“Nancy is not always the best on a cable show or with a quick sound bite or what have you… But her skill, tenacity, toughness, vision, is remarkable,” Obama said. “Her stamina, her ability to see around corners, her ability to stand her ground and do hard things and to suffer unpopularity to get the right thing done, I think, stands up against any…
Fired Chipotle manager offered job back after being wrongfully accused of racism — RT US News
Chipotle has offered to rehire a manager in St. Paul, Minnesota, three days after bowing to social media pressure and terminating the employee over internet-fueled accusations of racism. Spoiler alert: the internet was wrong.
Dominique Moran was fired by the Mexican food chain after refusing service to a group of black men, whom she claimed had a history of not paying for meals. One of the taco-deprived customers, Masud Ali, posted a video of the altercation on Twitter, accusing the Chipotle manager of racism.
The video went viral, and on Friday Chipotle canned Moran, explaining that, “This is not how we treat our customers and as a result, the manager has been terminated and the restaurant is being retrained to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again.”
But the decision to appease the outraged masses appears to have been a smidgeon premature: Before playing the racism card, Ali had openly boasted on Twitter about “dining and dashing” – the ancient art of not paying for meals.
In one tweet he even hinted that he would assault anyone who tried to stop him from poaching food without paying for it.
Needless to say, many social justice warriors looked very silly after it was revealed that Ali was in fact a serial dine-and-dasher.
Originally billed as a textbook case of racism gripping American in the age of Trump, the internet quickly changed its tune about the now-infamous video, from outrage to …. Outrage. A petition was quickly set up to demand that Moran be given her old job back, and a GoFundMe aimed at providing the wrongfully-terminated woman with a small financial parachute has raised more than $9,500 in two days.
In light of the new evidence – which some have claimed the company knew about from the very beginning – Chipotle has now offered to rehire Moran, even going so far as to “apologize to our manager for being put in this position.”
Racism is a real issue that I do not take lightly. Racism must be addressed, but what happened here was just wrong. Falsely accused and in return, cut off from a goal that I worked hard for. Today, I was “officially” offered my job back. I’m truly grateful for all the support. https://t.co/83EUsIqt4I
— Dom (@Dom3Marie) November 19, 2018
It’s not clear if Moran will take the job, but she has thanked her supporters on social media for their “kind words, positive vibes, prayers and warm thoughts.”
Hastily produced – and occasionally false accusations of racism actually hurt the fight against it, political and social commentator Anthony Brian Logan believes, suggesting that the frequency of viral videos intended to shame seemingly racist behavior are leading to a “boy who cried wolf” situation.
“When you keep having these episodes to come up, people don’t really know if it’s a real case of racism, an allegation, an overreaction – nobody really knows,” Logan told RT. “So racism itself becomes less important, therefore things can just happen and nobody really cares.”
The Chipotle incident is a valuable lesson to the people who are too eager to jump to conclusions and make racism accusations without fully understanding the situation first, Logan believes.
“Sometime you should just think for a moment for you to say something about someone they may or may not be true. Get some evidence first,” he added.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Video: New American Nazis: Inside the White Supremacist Movement That Fueled Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting
https://democracynow.org – Neo-Nazis are on the rise in America. Nearly a month after a gunman killed eleven Jewish worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue …
Via Youtube
Country ‘Isn’t Ready’ for Single-Payer Health Care
Free Beacon
November 20, 2018
Congresswoman-elect Jennifer Wexton (D., Va.) told CNN on Monday that she doesn’t think the country is “ready” for single-payer health care and that she doesn’t think it could be implemented without raising taxes.
“Let’s talk about Medicare for all,” host Poppy Harlow said Monday morning. “You have said that you’re not sure the country is ready for a Medicare for all system and the question you keep asking yourself is ‘how are we going to pay for it?’ Are you concerned that your fellow incoming Democrats, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or others who support it do not have a good enough answer for how you will pay for it without raising taxes?”
“Well, that’s the question,” Wexton responded. “It would be an expensive proposition. I don’t think the country’s ready for it. I don’t think our system is prepared for that kind of an influx at this time.”
“You don’t think it can be paid for without raising taxes?” Harlow asked.
“At this time, I don’t see a way to do it,” the Virginia Democrat said.
This article was posted: Tuesday, November 20, 2018 at 8:32 am
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Country ‘Isn’t Ready’ for Single-Payer Health Care
Free Beacon
November 20, 2018
Congresswoman-elect Jennifer Wexton (D., Va.) told CNN on Monday that she doesn’t think the country is “ready” for single-payer health care and that she doesn’t think it could be implemented without raising taxes.
“Let’s talk about Medicare for all,” host Poppy Harlow said Monday morning. “You have said that you’re not sure the country is ready for a Medicare for all system and the question you keep asking yourself is ‘how are we going to pay for it?’ Are you concerned that your fellow incoming Democrats, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or others who support it do not have a good enough answer for how you will pay for it without raising taxes?”
“Well, that’s the question,” Wexton responded. “It would be an expensive proposition. I don’t think the country’s ready for it. I don’t think our system is prepared for that kind of an influx at this time.”
“You don’t think it can be paid for without raising taxes?” Harlow asked.
“At this time, I don’t see a way to do it,” the Virginia Democrat said.
This article was posted: Tuesday, November 20, 2018 at 8:32 am
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PressTV-Passengers survive elevator crash in Chicago, US
Six people, including a pregnant woman, have survived an 84-floor plunge in an elevator in one of the tallest buildings in Chicago, USA.
The express elevator fell from the 95th to the 11th floor in the skyscraper formerly known as the John Hancock Center early on Friday morning.
The elevator fell after two of its cables broke; however, cables still attached to the cabin prevented it from hitting the ground.
The passengers, who were trapped inside the cabin, texted friends who in turn called the Chicago Fire Department emergency services who managed to free them after three hours,
Fire officials reportedly said that a snapped “hoist rope” caused the incident.
Video: Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s “Asylum Ban,” Saying President Can’t Rewrite Immigration Laws
https://democracynow.org – In the latest pushback against President Trump’s attack on immigrants rights, a federal judge in California has temporarily halted …
Via Youtube
Killing Plants Is the Fastest Way to End the World
A recently published study has found that “[c]limate change and human activity are dooming species at an unprecedented rate.”
The study, “Co-extinctions annihilate planetary life during extreme environmental change,” published in the journal Scientific Reports, was a joint effort by Australian and Italian researchers from Flinders University in Adelaide and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, respectively.
To conduct the study, the researchers created 2,000 “virtual Earths.” They then added in different stressors such as abrupt climate change replicating that which we are now experiencing, a nuclear winter following the detonation of multiple nuclear weapons, and a massive impact from an asteroid.
Each scenario resulted in showing that plant and animal species that are wiped out by any of these extreme environmental changes dramatically increases the risk of a domino effect that could annihilate all life on Earth.
Co-Extinction
The researchers found that these worst-case scenarios led to what they called “co-extinctions,” wherein an organism dies out because it is dependent upon another doomed species.
The team developed models to predict ecosystem function and resilience, including past, present and predicted future ability to change and adapt.
The study found that the fastest way to doom all life on Earth was to remove the most ecologically important species — the species with the most connections in their ecological network — first. And those species are, in general, the ones most likely to go first when it comes to warming.
“At least in our simulations, heating tends to remove the ecologically most important species first,” reads the results of the study.
When the researchers modeled a warming planet, they found that it had an effect that was similar to the experiment they ran in which they removed the most ecologically important species.
In the introduction of…
PressTV-Trump leaking out forbidden truth of 9/11: Scholar
US President Donald Trump is leaking out a little bit of forbidden truth about the false flag operation of 9/11, American scholar Dr. Kevin Barrett says.
Dr. Barrett, a founding member of the Scientific Panel for the Investigation of 9/11, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Tuesday while commenting on a verbal between Trump and Adm. William H. McRaven, the former Navy SEAL commander who oversaw the mission to kill Osama bin Laden.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said on Monday that Trump’s attacks against the retired Navy admiral was “a slam at the intelligence community.”
“What this really is misplaced criticism McRaven,” Clapper said.
“It’s really a slam at the intelligence community, who was responsible for tracking down Osama bin Laden, and reflects, I think, his complete ignorance about what that took.”
In an interview that aired Sunday on Fox News, Trump dismissed McRaven as a “Hillary Clinton…
Policeman knocking at PM’s door to let the cat in could be the most British moment caught on live TV — RT UK News
A video of a police officer knocking politely on the door of Number 10 to let in Downing Street’s Chief Mouser has charmed Twitter, rocketing to viral status in just minutes.
The moment was captured in a TV cross to Downing Street, aired by Sky News. Over the shoulder of the TV reporter, Number 10’s cat – best known as Larry the Cat, who has a 199,000-strong fan base on Twitter – can be seen waiting patiently at the door of Prime Minister Theresa May’s residence.
Larry, apparently finished with mouse-catching for the day, is let in when a kindly policeman knocks on the door to permit the Cabinet Office’s kitty inside… We’ll bet that the federal feline was happy as Larry with that result.
The tweet soon amassed thousands of retweets and even more likes on Twitter, with even Larry the Cat coming across it himself… and he wasn’t impressed.
The Cabinet Office’s chief mouser was quick to join in the fun, sharing a clip put together by the BBC of the kitty knock knock.
It seems those watching enjoyed the over-the-shoulder exchange, with one viewer commenting that they were “distracted by the cat for the entire segment,” with another comparing the incident to ‘Rees-Moggy’ and the UK’s Brexit negotiations.
Brexit cat! It thought it wanted to be out, but on actually experiencing out it decided it very much wanted to be in.
— Rachel Cunliffe (@RMCunliffe) November 20, 2018
It’s not the first time Larry the Cat has found himself in the spotlight. He frequently tweets about the political news of the day – or winds up making the headlines thanks to his long-lasting feud with Palmerston, the Foreign Office cat.
The two have had an icy relationship since the neighbouring feline’s appointment two years ago. In July 2016, Palmerston and Larry were caught on camera in a stand-off at Downing Street. Two weeks later, Palmerston was caught sneaking into Number 10, but was later evicted by police. Later that year Larry suffered an injured paw after a particularly violent showdown with Palmerston.
More recently, the two ferocious felines were caught having a serious cat-fight. Palmerston suffered an injury to his ear and Larry lost his collar in the scrap – when will the bloodbath end?
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Trump mocked for exclamation point frenzy in statement on Saudi Arabia & Khashoggi murder — RT US News
It’s often assumed that statements from the US president are drafted and edited by writers, but Trump’s most recent public release seems to read just like his tweets – and the internet was quick to tear it apart.
The statement explains Trump’s decision to stand with Saudi Arabia despite the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, citing its role in combating terrorism and the $450 billion that Riyadh agreed to spend in a historic arms deal.
But the president’s favorite method of communication was used against him once his critics on Twitter realized that the statement was full of apparent Trumpisms.
One person was quick to point out the excessive number of exclamation marks used in such a short statement – eight to be exact. This, he said, was almost certainly proof that Trump wrote it himself, given his love for that particular form of punctuation.
I can’t recall any official statement of any kind before with so many exclamation marks.
— Janne Oivio (@JanneOivio) November 20, 2018
This in Trump’s statement might be the dumbest exclamation point in history—
“Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event—maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!https://t.co/P4feUFKxGmpic.twitter.com/3RpPk88V7i— Steven Greenhouse (@greenhousenyt) November 20, 2018
Another said it reads like a YouTube comment, which aren’t exactly known for their excellent use of grammar and spelling.
One person said Trump exhibited “third grade reasoning and vocabulary” in his statement, then apologized to primary school children everywhere if he offended them.
This is an incredibly unhinged statement by Trump about Saudi Arabia and Khashoggi’s murder. A lot of exclamation points in it. Not sure why? His 3rd grade reasoning and vocabulary (apologies to all primary school children everywhere) were in particularly fine form though. NOT! pic.twitter.com/w2p2pOcxuq
— DenisCampbell (@ClientLoyaltyDC) November 20, 2018
Trump has the writing ability of a 1st grader. That’s a lot! Of! Exclamation! Points!
— Ana Beaverhausen (@ana_beaverhaus) November 20, 2018
Others suggested the content of the statement was written by someone else, with Trump’s only contributions being the exclamation points.
Trump’s contributions = the exclamation points
— lark benobi 🎢 (@larkbenobi) November 20, 2018
Some just pointed to the general strangeness of the statement, with the words “bizarre,”“unusual,” and “embarrassing” being popular adjectives to describe the text.
Just when you think he can’t become any more bizarre and embarrassing, he does.
— BbMoody (@bbmoody1) November 20, 2018
All those exclamation points point to a loose screw in the Trump brain.
— John L.T. (@JohnLT12) November 20, 2018
Of course the whole thing led to some memes about Trump’s overall intelligence.
All those exclamation points point to a loose screw in the Trump brain.
— John L.T. (@JohnLT12) November 20, 2018
All those exclamation points point to a loose screw in the Trump brain.
— John L.T. (@JohnLT12) November 20, 2018
Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif also called it “bizarre” that Trump’s statement mostly focused on Iran being an enemy of the US, rather than on Saudi Arabia. He then went on to suggest that perhaps Trump also thinks Tehran is responsible for the forest fires in California, and mocked an earlier statement in which the US president appeared to think that combating the flames was as simple as keeping forests tidy with a rake.
Mr. Trump bizarrely devotes the FIRST paragraph of his shameful statement on Saudi atrocities to accuse IRAN of every sort of malfeasance he can think of. Perhaps we’re also responsible for the California fires, because we didn’t help rake the forests— just like the Finns do?
— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) November 20, 2018
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
PressTV-Irish party piles pressure on May over Brexit
British Prime Minister Theresa May faced more pressure over her controversial Brexit deal on Tuesday after the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland failed to vote by abstaining on the government’s budget votes.
The parliamentary move, which came on Monday, has widely been interpreted as a warning shot to Downing Street with the DUP having previously indicating support for May’s budget measure and financial bill.
May almost failed to secure a majority at the last general election, and was only saved by the 10 DUP MPs who agreed to vote for May’s government in return for concessions and support from May’s cabinet.
The DUP and its leader Arlene Foster have previously suggested that her party would vote down May’s Brexit plan, which she managed to secure last week after two years of negotiations with the European Union.
The DUP argues that May’s plan of the so-called backstop, which could create a hard border in the…
Hell Hath No Fury Like a Liberal Scorned
Here’s the ugly truth: Facebook and Google are profit-maximizing quasi-monopolies who will do anything to protect their monopolies.
Of the many remarkable trend changes of the past year, few are more striking than the fawning embrace of Facebook et al. by Big Media turning to an enraged sense of betrayal. Facebook and Google–by their own self-definitions, shining beacons of liberalism and goodness (we’re not evil, we’re fantabulous!)– were viewed by the famously liberal Big Media as allies in the fight against Trump, illiberalism, populism, deglobalization, etc.
Now, to their horror, Big Media has discovered that not only did their Big Tech sweethearts betray their affection and trust, they’re just another bunch of predatory profit-maximizing monopolies who will stab anyone and everyone in the back who gets in their way to higher profits and more power.
The Adventures of the …
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It would be sad if it wasn’t so pathetic. Poor Big Media, so anxious to be hip and with it, so anxious to impress social media while trying to exploit its reach to prop up their own dying business model. Big Media, so easily seduced by Big Tech: we’re liberal, too, and together we’ll lead the world out of darkness into light, blah blah blah.
Then Big Media discovered its virtue-signaling liberal sweetheart, Big Tech, is just as threatened by liberals as by conservatives, and it turns its firepower on liberals with the same savage abandon as it does on independent and conservative media.
The bitter rage of the previously besotted and now betrayed suitor is evident in these recent articles in The Atlantic, New York Times and Washington Post, all bastions of…
Prison Planet.com » Rutgers University Withdraws Punishment For Professor Who Said He “Hates White People”
History prof who went on “little Caucasian assholes” rant absolved of blame
Paul Joseph Watson
PrisonPlanet.com
November 20, 2018
Rutgers University has withdrawn its punishment for a history professor who said he “officially hates white people,” absolving him of blame for violating the institution’s discrimination and harassment policy.
Back in May, James Livingston posted on Facebook and Twitter that he “officially hates white people” following a visit to a café where he encountered “little Caucasian assholes who know their parents will approve of anything they do.”
Livingston subsequently asserted that he would “resign from” his race, writing, “Do what you want, nobody here is gonna restrict your right to be white. I hereby resign from my race. Fuck these people. Yeah, I know it’s about access to my dinner. Fuck you, too.”
After the university was alerted to “numerous complaints about the purported racist content of the posts,” its investigation concluded that Livingston had damaged the institution’s reputation, releasing a statement which said, “Given Professor Livingston’s insistence on making disparaging racial comments, a reasonable student may have concerns that he or she would be stigmatized in his classes because of his or her race.”
However, following an appeal by Livingston, who was represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a civil liberties advocacy group, Rutgers reversed the decision.
“FIRE is pleased that Rutgers did the right thing and reversed the charge of racial discrimination against Professor Livingston,” said FIRE’s Marieke Tuthill Beck-Coon. “Any other result would have undermined the free speech and academic freedom rights of all Rutgers faculty members.”
One wonders whether the outcome would have been the same if a professor had said he “hates black people.”
Would Rutgers…
PressTV-US to remain Saudi partner for Israel’s interests: Trump
President Donald Trump has said Washington intends to remain a steadfast partner of Saudi Arabia to ensure interests of the United States, Israel and regional partners.
Trump said that it is possible that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman had knowledge of the assassination of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to a statement issued by the White House on Tuesday.
Trump said that “King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event – maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!”
“That being said, we may never know all of the facts surrounding the murder of Mr. Jamal Khashoggi. In any case, our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” the US president insisted. “They have been a…
Showtime’s Kidding with Jim Carrey: Everyone has a breaking point
Showtime’s Kidding with Jim Carrey: Everyone has a breaking point
By
Ed Hightower
20 November 2018
Significant drama and comedy help make sense of a complicated, often heart-breaking world. It shows life with its countless interconnections, contradictions, twists and turns—a cutaway image of an unfolding social process. The new Showtime series Kidding demonstrates how effectively the medium of television can depict a number of people—old, young, wealthy, healthy, unhealthy, famous, ordinary and more—doing the best they can in turbulent circumstances.
At the center of Kidding stands an internationally beloved puppeteer and children’s show host, the Fred Rogers-inspired Jeff Piccirillo (Jim Carrey), or “Jeff Pickles” as he is known, who is struggling to navigate the loss of his son and to maintain the success of his children’s television program, Mr. Pickles’ Puppet Time. Everyone adores Mr. Pickles. Throughout Kidding we learn that Mr. Pickles’ inspirational, funny, confidence-building and tolerance-pushing puppeteering has inspired drug addicts to get clean, and car thieves to remorsefully return his PT Cruiser (though one wheel doesn’t match).
At every encounter the public expresses gratitude and admiration for the man who “is in their living room alone with their kids.” Late night television host Conan O’Brien, who has Pickles as a guest, along with the rough-and-tumble Danny Trejo, appears out of touch with the audience, even his own cameramen, as they join in singing the theme song of Mr. Pickles’ Puppet Time, “You can feel … anything at all, anything at all is fine; it’s you who’s doing the feeling, and that makes it okay …” From the outset the viewer is drawn to Pickles, wants to follow him and cheer him on.
UK Def Sec Williamson blasts Merkel & Macron’s idea as ‘crazy’ — RT UK News
British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson has poured cold water on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron’s idea for a European army – labelling such a notion as “crazy” and “dangerous”.
Williamson, responding to Merkel and Macron’s call for a ‘real and true European army,’ which also incurred the wrath of US President Donald Trump, claimed he could never sanction such a move for Britain as it would undermine NATO, the Daily Mail reports.
“It is an absolutely crazy idea. NATO has delivered European security for the
last 70 years and we should feel very proud of it.
“Should we undermine that by forming a separate military force? Absolutely not. To begin discussing a new EU army is dangerous and undermines the security that NATO underwrites,” Williamson said.
Echoing a Trump line, Williamson criticized both countries for not contributing 2 percent of their GDP to defence – a NATO guideline. This year, France spent around 1.8 percent of GDP on defence and Germany 1.2 percent. Britain is only one of five NATO members to spend at least 2 percent of GDP on defence.
Merkel risked escalating tensions with the US last week, when she told the European Parliament in Strasbourg that: “Europeans now have to really take our fate fully into our own hands if we want to defend our community… We have to work on a vision of one day creating a real, true European army.”
It followed similar comments made by Macron earlier this month, during Armistice centenary commemorations, in which he warned Europe could not rely on the US to defend itself anymore, and implying the US should now be seen as a threat.
The French president declared: “We won’t protect Europe if we don’t decide to have a true European army. We have to have a Europe that can defend itself alone and without only relying on the US. We should protect ourselves when it comes to China, Russia and even the US.”
It comes as the EU announces proposals for a new initiative to train the next generation of secret agents which won’t include Britain, Politics Home reports. The Joint EU Intelligence Academy, which will include 25 EU member states, will be led by Greece and Cyprus.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Democrats and Republicans are both starting to get sick of social media – study — RT US News
There are few things these days which unite liberals and conservatives, but according to a new survey, a growing dislike and distrust of social media companies is one of them.
Across the political spectrum, dissatisfaction with sites like Facebook and Twitter is growing – and growing quickly. An Axios survey conducted in November found that 57 percent of US adults felt that social media is damaging to society and democracy, up 14 percent from one year earlier.
When you break it down, Democrats, Republicans and Independents have all been souring on social media, with significant increases in the numbers dissatisfied seen across the three groups in the last year.
Republicans are the most likely to see social media as harmful, with 69 percent of respondents saying it did more to hurt democracy and free speech than to help it – up from 52 percent, while a smaller percentage of Democrats (48 percent up from 37 percent) said the same.
With numerous scandals plaguing the likes of Facebook and Twitter, the last couple of years have come as a moment of reckoning for CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey.
Censorship or discrimination?
Perhaps most interesting, is that while Americans of all political viewpoints seem to be reevaluating the negative impacts of social media, liberals and conservatives are worried for different reasons.
While Republicans are suspicious that social media companies, which are often led by left-leaning executives, are censoring conservative speech and ideas (Twitter’s shadowbanning of conservative figures, for example), Democrats believe that social media giants are too lax in what they allow to happen on their platforms, particularly when it comes to things like ad-targeting, which has been used to discriminate against minorities, women and older people. There has also been some growing concern on the left about censorship after socialist websites were targeted by Google and Facebook algorithms.
Among all adults surveyed, 55 percent said they feared that the US government would not do enough to regulate social media companies – a 15 percent spike from last year. But there is also significant worry that the government will go too far in restricting how social media companies operate, with Republicans (46 percent) more concerned about that than Independents (40 percent) and Democrats (37 percent).
Data breaches, bots and fake news
Frequent reports of massive data breaches, hacking and identity theft have also made Americans rethink social media and wake up to how vulnerable they really are online. In a Pew Research survey last year, the majority of Americans (64 percent) said they had already been the victim of a major data breach and increasingly, people are losing trust in both the government and social media websites to protect their private information.
While efforts by social media companies to combat so-called ‘fake news’ on their platforms have been applauded by many, it has also led to concerns about over-regulation and the pitfalls of social media companies working hand-in-glove with governments to decide what constitutes ‘real’ and ‘fake’ news.
Depression and anxiety
Another factor which could be playing its part in turning people off social media is the fact that it is making people lonely, depressed and anxious according to numerous studies. A Pew survey last year also found that 62 percent of Americans consider online harassment to be a major problem.
READ MORE: Smartphone overload may worsen teen mental health problems, study says
Melissa Hunt, the associate director of clinical training at the University of Pennsylvania psychology department, reported after a recent study, that “using less social media than you normally would lead to significant decreases in both depression and loneliness.”
Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
PressTV-Services cancelled over violence in UK streets
People in parts of Britain have been told that they could no longer use services like post and goods delivery because violence on the streets is so rampant that it affects the safety of the staff.
A report published on the website of the tabloid Sun newspaper on Tuesday showed that delivery companies had designated some neighborhoods in cities like Manchester as no-go-areas, saying drivers had repeatedly been stopped and attacked by gangs of young men who carry out robberies.
Parcel Partner, a delivery company, said a string of incidents in areas of Manchester like Harpurhey and Moston had caused it ban its staff from travelling to those neighborhoods.
“We try and request no deliveries around there now – it’s that bad. Drivers get attacked there all the time,” said Mark Livsey, who runs the company while sharing footage from September in which one young gang caused £2,000 of damage to a lorry and left the driver in hospital.
The…
Prison Planet.com » Politicians and Police set Tyranny’s Perfect Example: Gun Confiscation
Jeremiah Johnson
SHTFplan.com
November 20, 2018
As a review of some of the current events that have been taking place in the U.S. recently, on 11/5/18, Anne Arundel County Police in Maryland shot and killed a man as they attempted to exercise a “red flag” gun removal order. Those “red flag” orders went into effect on October 1 of this year. Let’s take the definition of this new “game” directly from Wikipedia and examine it:
A red flag law is a “gun violence protection” law that permits police or family members to petition a state court to order the temporary removal of firearms from a person who may present a danger to others or themselves. A judge makes the determination to issue the order based on statements and actions made by the gun owner in question. After a set time, the guns are returned to the person from whom they were seized unless another court hearing extends the period of confiscation. Such orders are known as “Extreme Risk Protection Orders” (ERPO) in Oregon, Washington, Maryland, and Vermont, as “Risk Protection Orders” in Florida as “Gun Violence Restraining Orders” in California; as “risk warrants” in Connecticut; and as “Proceedings for the Seizure and Retention of a Firearm” in Indiana.
Returning to the incident in Maryland, take a look at this excerpt from CBS News from 11/6/18:
Neither of the officers were injured. Their names weren’t released.
It wasn’t clear why the “red flag” order was issued. A spokeswoman for the Maryland Judiciary denied a request from the Baltimore Sun to release protection order requests associated with the home, citing the law which states the orders are confidential unless a court rules otherwise. Michele Willis, the man’s niece, told the Baltimore Sun that one of her aunts requested the protective order against Willis, but she declined to say why.
Maryland’s law, which went into effect…
Social media reacts to picture of Rees-Mogg with nanny — RT UK News
A black-and-white picture of Tory Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg, standing side-by-side with his nanny in a room of what could be a ‘haunted house,’ has been described by social media users as “something out of a Hammer Horror film.”
The chilling image, thought to have been taken in 2000, was tweeted by @Tuckleton as part of his #Tuesdaythoughts – claiming that the picture of the posh, Eton-educated Rees-Mogg with his family’s nanny of 52 years, Veronica Crook, was “the stuff of nightmares.”
Social media has been quick to comment on the picture’s haunting composition with one Twitter user suggesting it would provide the perfect front cover for a Halloween card, and another arguing that it was like a poster for the classic horror film ‘Psycho.’ Comparisons to the freaky 1960s American sitcom, ‘The Munsters,’ were also made.
OMG is that real?? Jesus I’m sending happy Halloween cards next year 🤣
— Pidge Jones (@PidgeJones) November 20, 2018
Hells flipping bells, looks like something out of a Hammer Horror film. Very scary.
— Annie W–B JC4PM #DPFC I’M CLINT DOG! (@xpressanny) November 20, 2018
It’s like a cinema poster for the English version of Psycho. Or something.
— ☮Monty The Cat☮ (@StinkinFinger) November 20, 2018
Crook, 75, was initially hired by Rees-Mogg’s parents in 1965, after the birth of their second daughter Charlotte, to take care of his sisters before he was born four years later in 1969. She once famously assisted the prominent backbencher’s failed 1997 general election campaign bid in Central Fife, Scotland.
The relationship between the two has been hilariously mocked by British actor and comedian Tracey Ullman on her sketch show for the BBC.
Rees-Mogg says of Crook: “She’s the most remarkable woman and, as you can imagine, incredibly good with children – but she might say it’s jolly hard work.” Crook has described Rees-Mogg’s behavior during his younger days, as “perfect – or for most of the time perfect,” the Daily Mail reports. “He wasn’t really naughty, he was a one-off,” she said in 2015.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
US promises to ‘disrupt’ oil shipments to Syria, sanctions Russian & Iranian companies — RT US News
The US has introduced sanctions against what it called a network of petroleum shipments to Syria, including Russian and Iranian companies and individuals. Washington says it wants to disrupt shipments to Syrian-owned ports.
Six individuals have been sanctioned over oil shipments to Syria, the US Treasury Department has said. Three institutions have also been sanctioned.
In addition to the fresh measures, the US Coast Guard has issued an advisory warning of “significant sanctions risks” on petroleum shipments to Syria. The US has promised that it will “disrupt” any attempted shipments to government-owned ports in Syria.
Read more
The Treasury Department claims that the individuals and companies affected by the measures are involved in a “complex and malign scheme” to bolster the regime of Syrian leader Bashar Assad. It claims that oil is being imported into Syria from Iran in defiance of American sanctions. The Syrian government then allegedly transfers cash to Islamic militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, at Iran’s direction.
It claims that Russian companies act as middlemen, taking money from Iran to move the oil to Syria. In one case detailed in a Treasury Department press release, the Iranian central bank transferred money to an Iranian pharmaceutical company, hoping that its humanitarian name would throw US observers off the trail.
That money was then allegedly wired to a Russian bank, then to a Russian company that shipped the oil from Iran to Syria. Along the way, the Treasury Department claims that Russian ships would switch off their GPS tracking systems to conceal the origin of their cargo.
READ MORE: Iran & Iraq consider replacing US dollar with local currency in trade
Once the cash is stashed in the Central Bank of Syria, it is then allegedly sent to Hezbollah and Hamas units operating in Lebanon and on Palestinian territory.
While the operation is painted as a vast conspiracy unearthed by the US, the latest sanctions build on an ongoing campaign against Iran and its allies. When the US fully reimposed economic sanctions on Tehran earlier this month, it targeted the country’s banking, shipping, and oil sectors. Banks that provided services to Hamas and Hezbollah were slapped with sanctions, as were shipping companies that moved Iranian troops and supplies around the Middle East.
Facing the threat of US penalties, the SWIFT financial messaging system cut the Iranian central bank off from its network a week later, making it even more difficult for the country to settle its import and export bills.
Sanctions against Iran had been lifted under the 2015 JCPOA, or Iran deal. This guaranteed Tehran some sanctions relief in exchange for halting its nuclear weapons program. President Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal in May, however, and has since reapplied all of the sanctions that it had lifted.
Keeping up the Trump administration’s tough rhetoric on Iran, Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Sigal Mandelker, warned on Tuesday that “shipping companies, insurers, vessel owners, managers, and operators should all be aware of the grave consequences of engaging in sanctionable conduct involving Iranian oil shipments.”
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
PressTV-UK warns Russia about Azov Sea military presence
The UK has warned Russia against using its growing military presence in the Sea of Azov to “destabilize” regional economy, amid allegations that Ukrainian ships are being denied access to the waters.
In a statement published Monday, the UK Foreign Office accused Russia of delaying or preventing Ukrainian ships’ access to the sea while blocking other ships from entering Ukraine’s ports.
“Russia and its security forces continue to disrupt Ukrainian and international shipping calling at Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov,” the statement read, claiming that Moscow had “unlawfully” built bridges that connected the Crimean Peninsula to its mainland.
After constructing the bridges, Russia has stopped and searched vessels sailing in the region, causing delays and other problems for more than 200 vessels, the statement continued.
“Restrictions on freedom of passage have been accompanied by an increase in Russia’s military presence…
Can We Escape Control of The Wire?
“He’ll See Everything! He’ll See the Big Board!“
— Dr. Strangelove
What is The Wire?
Why is it so important?
Who controls it?
Answer those three questions and you can answer a number of problems plaguing our world today.
The Wire is simply a metaphor for the transmission of information. The Wire takes many forms. And if you aren’t sure whether something is The Wire just ask if you have control over it or not.
The Internet? The Wire.
Electricity? The Wire
Roads? The Wire.
Media? The Wire.
Money? The Wire.
In short, The Wire is the main conduit through which we communicate with each other. Money? Really? Yes, really. What are prices if not information about what we are willing to part with our money in exchange for?
Dr. Strangelove Or: Ho…
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Without The Wire modern society fails. So, government can’t shut it down but neither can it allow unconstrained access to it.
Electricity, commerce, communications, everything, goes over The Wire.
This isn’t a radical concept but like all important ideas, once it is presented to you you can’t unsee it.
But, identifying The Wire isn’t the important thing. What’s important is knowing who controls The Wire and what they are willing to do to maintain that control.
If you look at all of the things listed above you will see massive government intervention into these markets. They need control of them to maintain the illusion they have control over you.
They sell you on the idea that speech, speed, education, commerce, defense, information, etc. all need to have sensible limits placed on them. But do they really or is this just yet another example of some jackass talking his…
The World Order that’s Now Emerging
Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org
The Post-World-War-II world order was dominated by the one WW II major combatant that had only 0.32% of its population (the lowest percentage) killed by the war: the United States. The Soviet Union’s comparable number killed by the war was the highest — it was 13.7% — 42 .8.times higher than America’s. The U.S. was the main force that defeated Japan and so won WW II in Asia. The U.S.S.R., however, was the main force that defeated Germany and so won WW II in Europe. The U.S.S.R. suffered vastly more than did the U.S. to achieve its victory. In addition to suffering 42.8 times the number of war-deaths than did U.S., the U.S.S.R.’s financial expenditures invested in the conflict, as calculated by Jan Ludvik, were 4.8 times higher than were America’s financial expenditures on the war.
Thus, at the war’s end, the Soviet Union was exhausted and in a much weaker condition than it had been before the war. By contrast, the U.S., having had none of the war’s battles occurring on its territory, was (by comparison) barely even scratched by the war, and it was thus clearly and overwhelmingly the new and dominant world-power emerging from the war.
That was the actual situation in 1945.
The U.S. Government did not sit on its haunches with its enormous post-war advantage, but invested wisely in order to expand it. One of the first investments the U.S. made after the war was the Marshall Plan to rebuild the European countries that had now become the U.S. aristocracy’s vassal-states. The heavily damaged U.S.S.R. possessed no such extra cash to invest in (rebuilding) its vassals. Furthermore, the U.S.S.R.’s communist regime was additionally hobbled by Karl Marx’s labor theory of value, which produced prices that contained no useful information about demand and thus no constructive information for planners. (Planning is essential regardless whether an enterprise is private or public.) Thus, the U.S.S.R. was doomed to lose in its economic competition with The West, so that the Cold War was actually a losing proposition for them, from the very start of the post-war era. America’s post-WW-II dominance, combined with Marx’s crippling economic theory, and produced the exodus of East Europeans to The West.
America’s aristocracy thus increasingly rose on top internationally. Like any aristocracy, the American aristocracy’s main concerns were foreign trade, and so U.S. international corporations increasingly expanded even at the expense of the corporations owned by its competing, now-vassal, aristocracies, and the U.S. aristocracy’s corporations and brands thus came to dominate the entire capitalist sphere. The growth-bug, if it becomes an addiction, is itself a disease. Out of control, it is a cancer, which can destroy the organism. This is what happened in America. Conquering also the communist sphere was the U.S. aristocracy’s long-term goal, so that they would ultimately dominate every nation, the entire world. By the time of 1980, the U.S. aristocracy’s top goal (world domination) became also the U.S. Government’s top goal. The cancer had spread to the culture’s brain. Growth, backed by “Greed is good” economics, became practically the American religion, viewed as patriotic, and not merely as the nation’s economic model (which was bad enough, with its increasingly imperialistic thrust — such as 2003 Iraq, 2011 Libya, 2012- Syria, 2014 Ukraine, 2016- Yemen, and maybe now Iran).
America’s unchallengeable dominance lasted from then till now, but clearly has now reached near its end. The United States is trying to restore its post-Soviet (post-1991) global supremacy, by intensifying the U.S. regime’s secret war against Russia and its allies, which started on the night of 24 February 1990 and which could reach a crescendo soon in WW III unless something will be done by America’s allies to force the by-now wildly flailing U.S. aristocracy to accept peacefully the end of the American aristocracy’s hegemony — the termination of their, until recently, unchallengeable control over the world. By now, with the Soviet Union and its communism and its Warsaw Pact mirror of America’s NATO military alliance gone since 1991 and yet no peace-dividend but only ever-increasing wealth-concentration into the tiny number of billionaires who benefit from war weaponry-sales and conquests, America needs to abandon its addiction to growth, or else it will proceed forward on its current path, to WW III. That’s its current path.
According to Josh Rogin in the Washington Post on November 14th, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence had just said, as Rogin phrased it, that “the United States has no intention of ceding influence or control over the [Pacific] region to Beijing” and that if China won’t do everything that the U.S. demands, then the U.S. is fully prepared to force China to obey. The same newspaper had earlier presented Robert D. Kaplan, on October 9th, saying, “The United States must face up to an important fact: the western Pacific is no longer a unipolar American naval lake, as it was for decades after World War II. The return of China to the status of great power ensures a more complicated multipolar situation. The United States must make at least some room for Chinese air and naval power in the Indo-Pacific region.” But the U.S. regime is now making clear that it won’t do that.
The U.S. regime appears to be determined to coerce both Russia and China to comply with all American demands. With both of those countries, as with Iran, the U.S. regime is now threatening hot war. Trump, as the “deal-maker,” is offering no concessions, but only demands, which must be complied with, or else. The United States is threatening WW III. But what nations will be America’s allies, this time around? If many European nations abandon the U.S., then what?
Key for the U.S. regime is keeping the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency.
Rockefeller Capital Management, Global Foresight, Third Quarter 2018 presents Jimmy Chang, Chief Investment Strategist, headlining “Nothing Trumps the Dollar, Yet”. He writes: “The reserve currency status gives the U.S. a significant advantage in handling its finances. American economist Barry Eichengreen observed that it cost only a few cents for the U.S. to print a $100 bill, but other countries would need to produce $100 of actual goods or services to obtain that $100 bill. The world’s need for the greenback allows the U.S. to issue debt in its own currency at very low interest rates. French Finance Minister Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who later became the president, coined [in 1965] the term ‘exorbitant privilege’ to describe America’s advantage” of the U.S. dollar over any other nation’s currency. That “exorbitant advantage” never went away. Chang concludes: “As for the King Dollar, its short-term outlook appears robust.” However, few other observers now share that view. Increasing numbers of countries are pricing goods in other currencies, and China’s yuan and the EU’s euro are especially significant contenders to end dollar-dominance and to end the advantages that U.S.-based international corporations enjoy from dollar-dominance.
Other than dollar-dominance, the key barrier to world peace is NATO, the military alliance of the northern aggressor-nations. Proposals have been put forth for the EU to have its own army, which initially would be allied with NATO (i.e., with the U.S. regime). On November 17th, Russian Television bannered “EU army: Will it be easy for Europe to get rid of American political diktat?” and pointed to the U.S. vassal-nations that would be especially likely to stay in NATO: UK, Poland, Netherlands, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Perhaps the other EU nations and Russia could form their own military alliance, which will formally be committed to the independence of those U.S. vassal-nations, and which will welcome individual peace-treaties with each of them, so as to indicate that aggression is only the U.S. regime’s way, and thus to lay the groundwork for peace instead of war, going forward. Clearly, the people who control the U.S. are addicted to invasions and coups (“regime-change”s), instead of to respecting the sovereignty of each nation and the right of self-determination of people everywhere. America’s conquest-addiction threatens, actually, every other nation.
Perhaps a reformed and truly independent EU can provide the new reserve currency, and also in other ways the foundation for global peace between nations. NATO will be irrevocably opposed to this, but it could happen. And if and when it does, it might tame the aristocratic beast that rides the American warfare state, but this isn’t likely to happen anytime soon. A step forward toward it is the courageous statement by “The Saker” at the American news-commentary site, Unz dot com, on November 15th, “Thanking Vets for Their ‘Service’ – Why?” He boldly notes that after World War II, all U.S. invasions have been criminal, and that it’s a remarkably long string of evil — and this doesn’t even include the many coups, which have likewise destroyed some nations.
Nationalism is just as evil in today’s America as it was in Hitler’s Germany. It is hostile to people in any other nation. It demands conquest. And wherever nationalism rules, patriotism dies and is replaced by nationalism.
Only by restoring patriotism and eliminating nationalism can WW III be avoided. Ending dollar-dominance is part of the path toward an internationally peaceful world that focuses more on serving the public’s needs and less on serving the aristocrats’ cravings. But ending NATO is also necessary.
Either these things will be done, or there will be WW III.
—————
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
Prison Planet.com » Turkish Media Releases Audio Tapes Allegedly From Khashoggi Killing
According to the Turkish media outlet Haberturk, Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, was met by four people in the Saudi Consulate General in Istanbul. Neither Turkish, nor Saudi authorities have commented on the report yet.
Turkish news website Haberturk has released the first quotes from th e alleged audio recordings of Jamal Khashoggi’s last moments before he was killed in the Saudi Consulate General in the city of Istanbul on 2 October.
“Release my arm! What do you think you are doing?” Khashoggi reportedly said at the consulate’s visa department after one of the four men grabbed his arm.
They then allegedly took the journalist to the consulate’s administrative unit, where three more people joined them. Haberturk claims that one of those three Saudis was Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, the purported leader of the 15-member hit squad.
“Traitor! You will be brought to account,” the voice, which sounds like Mutreb, is heard shouting, Haberturk claims.
The rest of the seven-minute audio allegedly includes verbal clashes, fighting and torture.
The media outlet further claims that 19 phone calls were made to Saudi Arabia from the ‘C unit’, where the consul’s office is located, with four of them allegedly between Mutreb and Saud al-Qahtani, a close adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who was dismissed from his post last month.
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
Neither Turkish, nor Saudi authorities have commented on the report yet.
Earlier this month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara had shared the recordings related to Khashoggi’s killing with the US, Canada, Saudi Arabia, France, and the UK.
Saudi authorities have on mutiple occasions denied the royal family’s involvement in the case, branding the journalist’s murder as a ‘rogue operation’.Riyadh has arrested 21 people as part of the ongoing probe, having charged 11 of them and demanded…
Prison Planet.com » Turkish Media Releases Audio Tapes Allegedly From Khashoggi Killing
According to the Turkish media outlet Haberturk, Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, was met by four people in the Saudi Consulate General in Istanbul. Neither Turkish, nor Saudi authorities have commented on the report yet.
Turkish news website Haberturk has released the first quotes from th e alleged audio recordings of Jamal Khashoggi’s last moments before he was killed in the Saudi Consulate General in the city of Istanbul on 2 October.
“Release my arm! What do you think you are doing?” Khashoggi reportedly said at the consulate’s visa department after one of the four men grabbed his arm.
They then allegedly took the journalist to the consulate’s administrative unit, where three more people joined them. Haberturk claims that one of those three Saudis was Maher Abdulaziz Mutreb, the purported leader of the 15-member hit squad.
“Traitor! You will be brought to account,” the voice, which sounds like Mutreb, is heard shouting, Haberturk claims.
The rest of the seven-minute audio allegedly includes verbal clashes, fighting and torture.
The media outlet further claims that 19 phone calls were made to Saudi Arabia from the ‘C unit’, where the consul’s office is located, with four of them allegedly between Mutreb and Saud al-Qahtani, a close adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman who was dismissed from his post last month.
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
Neither Turkish, nor Saudi authorities have commented on the report yet.
Earlier this month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara had shared the recordings related to Khashoggi’s killing with the US, Canada, Saudi Arabia, France, and the UK.
Saudi authorities have on mutiple occasions denied the royal family’s involvement in the case, branding the journalist’s murder as a ‘rogue operation’.Riyadh has arrested 21 people as part of the ongoing probe, having charged 11 of them and demanded…
PressTV-US federal judge blocks Trump’s anti-asylum order
A federal judge in the United States has blocked the anti-immigration policy of President Donald Trump aimed at deporting asylum seekers.
Earlier this month, Trump signed an immigration order to clamp down on asylum seekers who illegally cross the southern border into the United States.
US District Judge Jon Tigar said on Monday that the president “may not rewrite the immigration laws to impose a condition that
Congress has expressly forbidden,” media reported citing “multiple source”.
He said Trump’s anti-immigration policy likely violated federal law on asylum eligibility.
The judge issued a temporary nationwide restraining order barring enforcement of the policy after hearing arguments in the case, according to the reports.
The Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security had earlier published a joint rule prohibiting certain people caught crossing the US southern border from Mexico between ports of entry from claiming…
Living Through California’s Wildfire Nightmare
“Red Moon. Red Moon.”
These were the words of my 18-month-old, describing the sky in the late afternoon on November 8 as we walked out of his day care center. Choking back a deep sadness, I said “Sweetie, that’s the sun. The sky is dark from smoke.”
I tried to not think too hard about the world he is growing up in, and how his little lungs were getting inundated by polluted air from raging fires that had already killed so many people.
That morning, Paradise, a city of 27,000 people just 165 miles northeast of San Francisco, was nearly obliterated by a wildfire.
By the afternoon, the air smelled like a campfire across the Bay Area, and since then, air quality has become worse than anywhere in the world, beyond China and India. Schools are closed and people have been forced to wear respirators. The toxic air has seeped into our workplaces and homes, creating a health crisis.
Evacuated residents of Paradise struggled to find shelter while enduring the noxious polluted air. A vacant Sears department store in Chico has been transformed into a disaster recovery center, and hundreds of people line up every day, hoping for aid in rebuilding their lives.
Others camped out in a dirt lot next to a Walmart in Chico, where a volunteer operation hosted food trucks, clothing and showers for evacuees. But those services were closed down on Sunday afternoon, pressuring fire victims to move on — but to where, many had no idea.
Known as the “Camp Fire” — a name which doesn’t do justice to the wall of destruction and death faced by residents — the wildfire in Northern California has spread to more than 150,000 acres and is only 55 percent contained.
As this article was being written, the death toll is 76, and it hasn’t stopped rising. Nearly 1,300 people are missing.
People are providing DNA in the hopes of finding their loved ones’ remains, and officials are…
Abolishing ICE Means Defunding it
Photo by Nathaniel St. Clair
Many progressive Democrats that won their midterm election bids, from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York, to Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar, campaigned to change radically immigration policy. One of their slogans was to abolish the principal immigration law enforcement agency, ICE (Immigration Customs and Enforcement). To turn that campaign slogan into reality means defunding ICE, which Democrats can do, if they chose, now that they have a majority in the House of Representatives.
ICE has long been criticized by immigration rights groups – even before Trump became President – for its use of private, for-profit detention centers, treatment of detainees, and overall lack of transparency and accountability. Despite these problems, the Trump administration has not only expressed support for the agency, but has sought to increase its budget. In 2017, ICE was authorized to use $6.4 Billion, which increased to $7.6 Billion in 2018. Trump’s proposed 2019 budget for ICE, similarly, sees an increase of nearly $1 Billion dollars.
A variety of activities related to immigration fall within ICE’s purview. Its 2018 budget divides these activities into five ‘missions,’specifically, (1) ‘preventing terrorism and enhancing security,’ (2) ‘securing and managing our borders,’ (3) ‘enforcing and administering our immigration laws,’ (4) ‘safeguarding and securing cyberspace,’ and (5) ‘strengthening national preparedness and…
Facing the music: religion, nationalism, and sports have enchanted the working class; socialism hasn’t
Orientation
Religion, nationalism and sports as propaganda for the ruling class.
In the closing section of my course Brainwashing Propaganda and Rhetoric: Dark Psychology in the 20th Century, I ask my students to compare organized religion, nationalism and sports, not only to determine the kind of propaganda they are (black, gray or white), but also the devices and artifacts that are used. This includes the use of architecture, statues, rites of passage, liturgy, sacred music, pilgrimages, holy days, use of visual symbols, language manipulation and techniques for altering states of consciousness. The world religions have used these processes for at least 3,500 years to exploit, control and distract people from their misery on earth and direct us instead to variations of ‘you’ll get pie in sky when you die’.
The history of nationalism over the last 400-500 years has closely followed the techniques of organized religion. In fact, I think it is fair to say that nationalism is more powerful than moderate and liberal religion in motivating people. I doubt whether most people of liberal or moderate religion in the West would sacrifice their life for their religion. But at least among the working class who sign up for the military, nationalism can motivate people to fight and die to kill strangers in other countries who share the same social class.
Sports, as opposed to religion or nationalism, is a more joyous escape from the difficulties of life. If I were a…
London bench dedication to Iraqi dictator causes uproar — RT UK News
Angry east Londoners are demanding answers after a dedication to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was attached to a bench in Wanstead. The bronze plaque reads: “In loving memory of Saddam Hussein, 1937 – 2006.”
Initially the plaque was difficult to remove using standard tools, having been fixed with special anti-theft screws.
Despite being a dictator who is estimated to have killed or ‘disappeared’ hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, many on Twitter used the news as an opportunity for puns and other jokes.
Well, I suppose whoever screwed the plaque to the bench in Wanstead could have simply inscribed ‘My name is Saddam Hussein, King of Kings , Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” but it wouldn’t have provoked the same howls of outrage & laughter…
— Des (@Desmond_Curley) November 20, 2018
“Some came to the conclusion there must have been another person called Saddam Hussein who was born and died on the same dates as the dictator, and lived locally in Wanstead.” https://t.co/3LmbKOqL6T
— Roland Hughes (@hughesroland) November 19, 2018
Hussein, the dictator of Iraq held power for 23 years until he was deposed by the US-led coalition in 2003. Three years later he was hanged, having been found guilty by the Iraqi Special Tribunal of crimes against humanity.
READ MORE: 11-meter Boris Johnson dummy burned at the stake on Bonfire Night (VIDEO)
Local artist Matthew Webber, 44, told the Independent: “It’s clear that whoever did this knew it would cause uproar. They’ve even used special screws to make it much more difficult to remove. Maybe it’s part of a series? Wanstead’s answer to Banksy!”
A Redbridge Council spokesperson said: “We didn’t give permission for this to be put up and it has been removed.”
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Delta flight makes emergency landing after striking PELICANS minutes after take-off (PHOTOS) — RT US News
A Delta flight bound for Paris was forced to land just minutes after taking off from Salt Lake City, after one of its engines was damaged by several unfortunate pelicans that hit it and got stuck inside.
Flight DL248 departed Salt Lake International Airport with 223 people on board on Saturday, but the trip was immediately foiled after the aircraft struck the large birds, lodging them into the right engine of the Boeing 767-300.
Delta Air Lines Boeing 767-300 (N152DL) experienced birdstrike(s) immediately after take-off at Salt Lake City, UT on flight #DL248 to Paris-CDG with 223 pax on board. The pilots leveled off at 6,00 ft and returned to land safely 13 min later. pic.twitter.com/NgC39Ywgj9
— JACDEC (@JacdecNew) November 18, 2018
The pilots were able to level off at 6,000 feet and touch down just minutes after taking off, according to Airlive.net.
“Currently on a Delta flight SLC to Paris that hit Pelicans 15 min into the flight,” passenger Jennifer Newman told Salt Lake City news outlet KUTV 2. “We have now deplaned due to extensive damage to the plane,” she added.
READ MORE: Boeing jet crash-lands at Guyana airport, 6 people injured (PHOTOS)
No one on the flight was injured, and the airline began booking passengers on different flights. Delta apologized for any inconvenience caused.
The incident is reminiscent of the famous landing by pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger who landed US Airways flight 1549 in the Hudson River after the aircraft struck a flock of Canada geese and lost all engine power moments after taking off from New York’s LaGuardia Airport in 2009. All 155 people were rescued by nearby boats.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
PressTV-2 men wrongly stripped of British citizenship: UK court
A UK court has ruled that two men from Bangladeshi backgrounds, who were stripped of their citizenship by the British government, must have their nationality rights restored.
The Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) said that the British government had wrongly determined that the two men, who are identified only as E3 and N3 to protect their identities, were British-Bangladeshi dual nationals and could therefore be served with citizenship revocation orders.
One of the two men was born in Bangladesh and the other was born in the UK, but the court ruled that both had lost their Bangladeshi citizenship when they were 21, and had never taken any positive action to keep it.
The SIAC ruling could have legal implications for many more cases involving British citizens who have been subjected to the highly controversial and legally contentious citizenship deprivation orders in recent years, because of government concerns about the threat of…
Prison Planet.com » Citing Acosta, WH Releases ‘Rules’ for Journalists to Follow or Risk Losing Press Credentials
Newsbusters
November 20, 2018
On Monday afternoon, the White House released a series of brief but simple guidelines for journalists in light of CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta’s carnival-barking at not only press conferences with the President, but a pattern of bombastic, self-centered behavior that resulted in a ten-day legal standoff that began on November 7.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders sent out the guidelines concerning the parameters of one initial question and, if granted permission by the President or whoever is speaking, a followup question before yielding to other reporters.
Sanders began with the admission that they had “notified Jim Acosta and CNN that his hard pass has been restored,” but provided the caveat that he was also informed that there will be “certain rules” implemented “with a degree of regret” to “govern White House press conferences going forward.”
Here are the four points in their totality:
- “A journalist called upon to ask a question will ask a single question and then will yield the floor to other journalists;
- At the discretion of the President or other White House official taking questions, a follow-up question or questions may be permitted; and where a follow up has been allowed and asked, the questioner will then yield the floor;
- ‘Yielding the floor’ includes, when applicable, physically surrendering the microphone to White House staff for use by the next questioner;
- Failure to abide by any of rules (1)-(3) may result in suspension or revocation of the journalist’s hard pass.”
This article was posted: Tuesday, November 20, 2018 at 8:37 am
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RT
November 20, 2018
A man wielding a knife has stabbed an officer outside a police station in central Brussels, officials confirmed. The attacker reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” during the attack.
The incident took place in the Ixelles area, which is considered a wealthy part of the Belgian capital, on Tuesday morning.
The police officer suffered minor neck injuries in the attack, officials said, as cited by RTBF. One of the victim’s colleagues responded by firing at the assailant, injuring him in the chest.
Sources told Brussels-based Derniere Heure newspaper that the man shouted “Allahu Akbar” during the attack.
However, a police spokesperson said that it was “too early to say anything about” the incident, adding that the attacker’s motives have yet to be investigated.
Reacting to the incident, Interior Minister Jan Jambon noted that police were “once again the victim of a cowardly attack.”
The man was known “neither by police, nor by the Coordination Unit for Threat Analysis Center” for his alleged links to terrorism, Jambon added. He was described by media as a Belgian national in his 30s.
Belgium and other European nations have been gripped by a wave of knife attacks in recent years. In September this year, another man stabbed an officer in Brussels. Roughly a year ago, a knife-wielding attacker threatened to kill passengers and caused panic on a train in the Belgian capital.
This article was posted: Tuesday, November 20, 2018 at 7:12 am
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Prison Planet.com » Police officer stabbed by a knife-wielding man reportedly shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ in Brussels
RT
November 20, 2018
A man wielding a knife has stabbed an officer outside a police station in central Brussels, officials confirmed. The attacker reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” during the attack.
The incident took place in the Ixelles area, which is considered a wealthy part of the Belgian capital, on Tuesday morning.
The police officer suffered minor neck injuries in the attack, officials said, as cited by RTBF. One of the victim’s colleagues responded by firing at the assailant, injuring him in the chest.
Sources told Brussels-based Derniere Heure newspaper that the man shouted “Allahu Akbar” during the attack.
However, a police spokesperson said that it was “too early to say anything about” the incident, adding that the attacker’s motives have yet to be investigated.
Reacting to the incident, Interior Minister Jan Jambon noted that police were “once again the victim of a cowardly attack.”
The man was known “neither by police, nor by the Coordination Unit for Threat Analysis Center” for his alleged links to terrorism, Jambon added. He was described by media as a Belgian national in his 30s.
Belgium and other European nations have been gripped by a wave of knife attacks in recent years. In September this year, another man stabbed an officer in Brussels. Roughly a year ago, a knife-wielding attacker threatened to kill passengers and caused panic on a train in the Belgian capital.
This article was posted: Tuesday, November 20, 2018 at 7:12 am
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Video: ‘Punitive approach’: UN slams austerity measures as 1 in 5 Brits live in poverty
A UN official has accused the British government of inflicting misery on the country’s poorest people, through austerity policies. One in five Brits live in poverty …
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Liberals cry hypocrisy over reports of Ivanka’s private email use – but it’s not the same as Hillary — RT US News
A bombshell report by the Washington Post on Ivanka Trump’s use of a personal email account for official communications has prompted immediate comparisons to Hillary Clinton’s scandal. But they aren’t as similar as it may seem.
The report by the Washington Post alleges that US President Donald Trump’s daughter and White House adviser Ivanka Trump briefly used her personal email account for communication with several administration agencies and officials. Trump’s daughter reportedly sent about 1,000 emails containing her official schedule and travel arrangements to herself or her staff and some 100 emails in which she discussed government-related business with officials, including Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the Labor Department (DOL), the Department of Treasury and the Department of Commerce staff, as well as the administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA) Linda McMahon.
The blunder, which put Ivanka in violation of the White House records law, was first reported in September last year. The documents obtained by the American Oversight group through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) at the time showed that, before formally joining the White House in March last year, Ivanka used her personal email address to carry out official work. The WaPo reported on Monday that though the first daughter pledged to abide by all ethics rules and regulations since becoming an adviser to the president, she continued to occasionally use her personal email for official communication.
The use of private email server by former democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton became a frequent rallying point for Trump, who during the 2016 presidential campaign accused Clinton of grossly mishandling government communication. An FBI investigation found at the time that 36 emails of some 30,000 handed over by Clinton to the FBI contained “secret” information, while eight chains contained “top secret” information and another eight emails contained “confidential” information.
‘Lock her up?’
Twitter has been awash with posts comparing Trump and Clinton, calls for Ivanka to resign and chants of “Lock her up!”, as anti-Trump resistance was gloating over her supposed downfall.
BREAKING: Ivanka Trump “used a personal email account to send hundreds of emails about government business last year.” It’s time Ivanka resigned. She poses an obvious threat to our national security, by being this irresponsible. She cannot be trusted. She must resign immediately.
— Scott Dworkin (@funder) November 20, 2018
Liberal commenters have accused Ivanka of hypocrisy, arguing that she could not possibly have been ignorant of the rules since the Clinton email saga was what her father capitalized on to sway the election in the first place.
there are differences between Ivanka’s use of private emails and Hillary Clinton’s use. But the sheer audacity to claim you didn’t know this would be an issue after the 2016 campaign is mind boggling. https://t.co/R9ILqzHTtV
— Sam Stein (@samstein) November 19, 2018
You can’t make this stuff up. Not after that gang did the “Lock Her Up!” chant against Hillary for two solid years so Ivanka could become First Daughter. Above the law, just like daddy. Disgusting hardly says it.https://t.co/R9CfZWX2tT
— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) November 19, 2018
Hi Trump voters, meet kettle. @realDonaldTrump perf example of your false outrage. If private email servers were such a big deal this wouldn’t of happened with your daughter, you very stable genius, who dolls out swamp nepotism w the best of em. https://t.co/45jTY69oBJ
— Jonathan Van Ness (@jvn) November 19, 2018
Like Hillary, Ivanka at one point used a personal email account for official communication – but that’s where the resemblance begins and ends.
‘No classified info’
While Clinton shared “top secret” and “highly confidential” information through her private e-mail domain, potentially endangering national security, Ivanka’s lawyer says this was not the case with the first daughter. Following the discovery of her use of private email in fall last year, the White House launched an internal review of the emails, which was carried out by Ivanka’s attorney, Abbe Lowell.
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Lowell combed through the troves of emails, transferring those containing official communication to Ivanka’s government account to be archived in accordance with the law. In a statement carried by his spokesman Peter Mirijanian, Lowell said that that none of the messages he perused contained any classified information.
‘No bleaching’
Clinton permanently deleted some 30,000 emails she deemed personal using the tool BleachBit, which ensured they could not be recovered. The manner in which Clinton got rid of the emails caused many of her critics to doubt her assertion that they had been personal, since it’s become impossible to verify.
Mirijanian said that, in contrast to Clinton, Ivanka has handed over all of her emails, without deleting any.
“Ms. Trump did not create a private server in her house or office, no classified information was ever included, the account was never transferred at Trump Organization, and no emails were ever deleted,” he told WaPo.
Systematic vs occasional
While Clinton exclusively used her private server for all work-related communication, claiming that she “did it for convenience” and that “it was fully above board,” Ivanka used her personal email occasionally and admitted that she was doing that in error.
Read more
When the fact came to light, Ivanka admitted the blunder, claiming she was not aware there were rules against it. Sources close to her, cited by the WaPo, said that the White House lawyers further discovered that she had not been kept up to date on the rules prohibiting the use of private email.
“While transitioning into government, after she was given an official account but until the White House provided her the same guidance they had given others who started before she did, Ms. Trump sometimes used her personal account, almost always for logistics and scheduling concerning her family,” Mirijanian said.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Video: Woman blows herself up at police checkpoint in Russia’s Chechnya (EXCLUSIVE)
A woman has blown herself up near a police checkpoint in Grozny, the capital of Russia’s Chechnya region, in an attempted terrorist attack. Swift police reaction …
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Prison Planet.com » Americans turning on social media, most think it hurts democracy: Poll
Washington Examiner
November 19, 2018
U.S. adults have begun to turn on social media giants like Facebook and Twitter, and a majority believes that these social media platforms have done more to hurt democracy and free speech than help.
Last year, 43 percent of U.S. adults thought social media hurt society, but that increased to 57 percent in 2018, according to an Axios poll conducted through mid November.
Both Democrats and Republicans have soured on social media, as Republicans have claimedcensorship of conservative voices, and Democrats have complained about the use of targeted ads that they say can be used to discriminate against minorities.
Nine percent more Democrats believe social media hurts free speech than last year, and 17 percent more Republicans feel that way, the poll said.
Overall, however, 63 percent of U.S. adults 18 and older say that social media plays a positive role in their lives, and 40 percent say social media has a positive affect on society.
This article was posted: Monday, November 19, 2018 at 9:07 am
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PressTV-Ivanka caught using personal email for govt. work
US President Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, has been caught using her personal email to handle government affairs, a controversial revelation that is already getting compared to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email server.
The Washington Post revealed Monday that Ivanka, who is also a senior White House adviser, had violated federal records rules last year by sending emails to government officials via her personal email account.
The report accused Trump of sending hundreds of emails to administration staff, Cabinet officials and her own aides discussing White House affairs as well as her official schedule.
The apparent breach of rules was first discovered by White House ethics officials, who were reviewing emails gathered last fall by five Cabinet agencies in response to a public records lawsuit.
The official review of the emails concluded that Ivanka had discussed in detail her White House business…
Video: A lace thong is not consent: Protests erupt in Ireland after man cleared of rape
A rape trial has sparked outrage in Ireland after the defence used a controversial argument concerning consent, to win the case. READ MORE: …
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Facebook Aids Authoritarians Like the Philippines’ Duterte
As Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte amps up his attacks on the free press, we speak with renowned Filipino journalist Maria Ressa about Duterte’s deadly “war on drugs,” his affinity for Donald Trump, and his weaponization of social media. Ressa is the CEO and executive editor of the leading independent Filipino news site The Rappler, which Duterte has repeatedly tried to shut down. Last week, the Filipino government indicted her for tax evasion in what is widely seen as the government’s latest attack on the website. We speak with Maria Ressa in New York City. She has received the 2018 Knight International Journalism Award and the Committee to Protect Journalists 2018 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award.
AMY GOODMAN: Music by the late Alice Coltrane. An ashram she built in the Santa Monica Mountains of California burned down last week in the Woolsey Fire. This is Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, as we turn now to look at attacks on the press here at home and abroad.
The White House is threatening to once again revoke the press press for CNN’s Jim Acosta just days after CNN won a temporary restraining order. White House officials have told Acosta he will be suspended again once the two-week restraining order expires. Acosta was initially stripped of his press pass after questioning Trump during a live televised press conference. On Sunday, Trump defended his attacks on the media during an interview on Fox news with Chris Wallace.
CHRIS WALLACE: In 2017, last year, you tweeted this, and I want to quote it accurately: “The fake news media is not my enemy. It is the enemy of the American people.”
PRES. DONALD TRUMP: It’s true. A hundred percent.
CHRIS WALLACE: No president has liked his press coverage. John Kennedy in your Oval Office, canceled the subscription to the New York Herald Tribune. Nobody called it the…
Geographies of Violence in Southern California
Photo Source IvyMike | CC BY 2.0
The Arroyo Conejo winds through what once were oak meadows in the Conejo Valley. The area is now home to the Los Angeles exurbs of Thousand Oaks, Newbury Park, Westlake Village, Agoura Hills and Oak Park. It was here, before contact, that the Chumash people relied on acorns as their staple food and traded their flour for seafood from coastal villages along the Pacific coast some twenty miles to the west. William Bryant Logan in Oak, the Frame of Civilization, 2005, notes that “early European travelers came to recognize how close they were to an Indian village by the boom and thump of women driving pestles into mortars to grind acorns into meal”. That sound had hung in the Conejo Valley for at least two millennia.
On Wednesday evening, November 7th, the only boom and thump to be heard along Rolling Oaks Drive in Thousand Oaks was coming from the Borderline Bar and Grill where country music echoed into the night. A little before midnight that sound was punctuated by the dull thuds of a Glock 21 handgun being fired in a mass shooting that killed twelve. The shooter, a former Marine, concluded the massacre by turning the gun on himself.
Early in the afternoon the next day, a wildfire started somewhere on the 2,668 acre Santa Susana Field Laboratory. Up until 2006 this facility had been used to test nuclear reactors and rocket engines for over fifty years. It was here that Rocketdyne developed and tested the engines that powered the…
Charges under Seal: US Prosecutors Get Busy With Julian Assange
Those with a stake in the hustling racket of empire have little time for the contrariness that comes with exposing classified information. Those who do are submitted to a strict liability regime of assessment and punishment: you had the information (lawfully obtained or otherwise) but you released it for public deliberation. Ignorance remains a desensitising shield, keeping the citizenry in permanent darkness.
Critics indifferent to the plight of Julian Assange have seen his concerns for prosecution at the hands of US authorities as the disturbed meditations of a sexualised fantasist. He should have surrendered to the British authorities and, in turn, to the Swedish authorities. It was either insignificant or irrelevant that a Grand Jury had been convened to sniff around the activities of WikiLeaks to identify what, exactly, could be used against the organisation and its founder.
Cruelty and truth are often matters of excruciating banality, and now it is clearer than ever that the United States will, given the invaluable chance, net the Australian publisher and WikiLeaks founder to make an example of him. This man, who dirtied the linen of state and exposed the ceremonial of diplomatic hypocrisy, was always an object of interest, notably in the United States. “He was,” confirmed Andrea Kendall-Taylor, former deputy national intelligence officer for Russia under the director of national intelligence, “a loathed figure inside the…
PressTV-‘US mulls designating Venezuela state sponsor of terror’
The United States is considering enlisting Venezuela as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” but no final decision has been made by Washington yet, an informed source reportedly says.
The source told Reuters that the deliberations had moved forward in recent days with strong lobbying by junior Republican Senator Marco Rubio, himself the son of Cuban migrants and a hawk on Latin America.
The move could limit US economic assistance and impose financial restrictions on Venezuela.
The source, however, said no time frame had been determined yet for the decision on whether to designate Venezuela as a terrorism sponsor.
A US official, who also talked to Reuters under the condition of anonymity, said it would be a challenge for the US administration to provide concrete proof linking the Venezuelan government to terrorism if it decided to add Venezuela to the list.
Caracas has already been facing a series of US sanctions targeting its economy and…
US Senator Rubio pushes for Venezuela to be placed on US state terrorism sponsors list – report — RT US News
The prospect of Venezuela being included on the US list of state sponsors of terrorism is looming as a result of increased lobbying from Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), WaPo reports.
A person “familiar with the deliberations” told the Washington Post on Monday that, while no timetable for adding Venezuela to the list had been decided, discussions had “moved forward” in recent days, thanks to Rubio’s insistence. The State Department has shopped the move around to various agencies for feedback, including the Department of Health and Human Services, and the US Agency for International Development.
The administration will have a difficult time finding proof to tie the Venezuelan government to terrorism, according to another anonymous source, this one a US official. Rubio and two other Republican senators implored Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a September letter to declare Venezuela a terrorism sponsor, accusing the country of links to both Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) but neglecting to furnish proof.
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Venezuela has been hit with multiple rounds of sanctions since Trump took office, and there are concerns about the further effects of designation as a terrorism sponsor on the nation’s already-decimated economy. Earlier this month, Trump signed a far-reaching executive order ostensibly meant to disrupt the country’s gold exports, but which could theoretically be applied to anyone doing any business with Venezuela at all, using vague language to target those who “have directly or indirectly engaged” in “deceptive practices or corruption” involving the Venezuelan government. The US continues to purchase Venezuelan oil, but a terrorism-sponsor designation could interrupt even that vital trade.
More ominously, National Security Advisor John Bolton declared Venezuela part of a new “Troika of Terror” – since the “Axis of Evil” worked out so well for Bush – indicating that the US may simply overthrow first and ask questions later. Trump has repeatedly broached the subject of military intervention in Venezuela – and designating it as a terrorism sponsor could potentially be a step towards just that.
Another senior US official told Reuters that the administration believes Nicolas Maduro’s in Venezuela presidency to be “illegitimate,” despite his victory in the May elections. The Venezuelan president blamed an apparent assassination attempt by an explosive-laden drone during an August military parade on far-right elements backed by the US and Colombia.
Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Will Dem Rebels Dethrone Nancy?
Shop all books by Pat Buchanan
After adding at least 37 seats and taking control of the House by running on change, congressional Democrats appear to be about to elect as their future leaders three of the oldest faces in the party.
Nancy Pelosi of California and Steny Hoyer of Maryland have led the House Democrats for 16 years. For 12 years, they have been joined in the leadership triumvirate by Jim Clyburn of South Carolina.
If these three emerge as speaker, majority leader and majority whip, all three Democratic leaders will be older than our oldest president, Ronald Reagan, was when he went home after two terms.
By 2020’s election, all three House leaders would be over 80.
Was this gerontocracy what America voted for when it awarded Democrats control of the U.S. House?
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Hardly. Some Democrats won in 2018 by pledging not to vote for Pelosi as speaker, so unpopular is she in their districts. And if all who said they want new leadership were to vote for new leaders on the House floor Jan. 3 — when the speaker will be chosen — Pelosi would fall short. The race for speaker could then break wide-open.
Some 16 Democrats vowed Monday to oppose Pelosi on the House floor, one shy of being enough to block her return to the speakership after eight years.
In a letter that went public, the 16 declared: “Our majority came on the backs of candidates who said that they would support new leadership because voters in hard-won districts, and across the country, want to see real change in Washington. We promised to change the status quo, and we intend to deliver on that promise.”
The likelihood of the rebellion succeeding, however,…
Video: Mexicola: Diabetes spike in town where Cola used as drinking water, currency & religious offering
Public health fears have been expressed in one Mexican state, over the vast amounts of Coca-Cola being drunk. People have been turning to the fizzy drink, …
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Prison Planet.com » Goldman Sachs believes the US economy will slow to a crawl next year
CNBC
November 19, 2018
Goldman Sachs believes the U.S. economy will slow significantly in the second half of next year as the Federal Reserve continues to raise interest rates and the effects of the tax cut fade.
“Growth is likely to slow significantly next year, from a recent pace of 3.5 percent-plus to roughly our 1.75 percent estimate of potential by end-2019,” wrote Jan Hatzius, chief economist for the investment bank, in a note to clients on Sunday. “We expect tighter financial conditions and a fading fiscal stimulus to be the key drivers of the deceleration.”
The bank sees the economy expanding at 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter of this year, down from 3.5 percent last quarter. Real GDP growth will come in at 2.5 percent again in the first quarter of 2019, but then will slow to 2.2 percent, 1.8 percent and 1.6 percent in the next three quarters, respectively.
Goldman sees the Fed raising rates this December and then four more times in 2019. It will do so because inflation will reach 2.25 percent by the end of next year because of tariffs and increasing wages, the bank predicted, noting there was also a chance of an “inflation overshoot.”
This article was posted: Monday, November 19, 2018 at 9:08 am
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Prison Planet.com » Goldman Sachs believes the US economy will slow to a crawl next year
CNBC
November 19, 2018
Goldman Sachs believes the U.S. economy will slow significantly in the second half of next year as the Federal Reserve continues to raise interest rates and the effects of the tax cut fade.
“Growth is likely to slow significantly next year, from a recent pace of 3.5 percent-plus to roughly our 1.75 percent estimate of potential by end-2019,” wrote Jan Hatzius, chief economist for the investment bank, in a note to clients on Sunday. “We expect tighter financial conditions and a fading fiscal stimulus to be the key drivers of the deceleration.”
The bank sees the economy expanding at 2.5 percent in the fourth quarter of this year, down from 3.5 percent last quarter. Real GDP growth will come in at 2.5 percent again in the first quarter of 2019, but then will slow to 2.2 percent, 1.8 percent and 1.6 percent in the next three quarters, respectively.
Goldman sees the Fed raising rates this December and then four more times in 2019. It will do so because inflation will reach 2.25 percent by the end of next year because of tariffs and increasing wages, the bank predicted, noting there was also a chance of an “inflation overshoot.”
This article was posted: Monday, November 19, 2018 at 9:08 am
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Video: ‘Worst-ever’ wildfire leaves 74 dead, 1,000+ missing in California
The deadliest wildfires in California’s history has now claimed 74 lives, more than a thousand people are missing. READ MORE: https://on.rt.com/9it6 RT LIVE …
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US judge temporarily blocks Trump’s order refusing asylum to illegal migrants from Mexico — RT US News
A judge has temporarily blocked US President Donald Trump’s order to ban Central American asylum-seekers from illegally crossing the border into the country from Mexico.
A US District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco placed a restraining order against Trump’s new immigration policy, which was declared last week. On November 9, the president announced that asylum-seekers can now make their claim only at the legal points of entry along the US border.
READ MORE: Trump signs order denying asylum to illegal migrants, as caravan approaches US
The ruling comes as a massive caravan of Central Americans, which was travelling from Honduras and El Salvador to the US through Mexico had reached the nation’s border at Tijuana.
DETAILS TO FOLLOW
Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Video: Military parade marks Latvian 100th Independence Day anniversary in Riga
Latvians marked the 100th anniversary of their country’s independence with a military parade in Riga on Sunday. Over 1000 soldiers took part in parade.
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Video: 50 Years Ago: As World Watched, Chicago Police Attacked Protesters at ’68 Democratic Convention
Mayor Richard Daley unleashed a brutal police attack on anti-Vietnam war protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. We discuss the …
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Mexicans Agree With Trump, Call Migrant Caravan an “Invasion”
Protesters in Tijuana demand migrants go home
Paul Joseph Watson
PrisonPlanet.com
November 19, 2018
Multiple videos of protests in Tijuana Mexico show demonstrators agreeing with President Trump that the migrant caravan represents an “invasion,” with protesters demanding the migrants go home.
Almost 3,000 Central American migrants have congregated in the Mexican border city, prompting hundreds of Mexican citizens to hit the streets.
Waving Mexican flags and chanting “Out! Out!” protesters are calling the caravan an “invasion” while asserting “We don’t want them in Tijuana.”
The use of the word “invasion” by demonstrators is interesting given that President Trump has been bashed by the media for using the same term.
In another video, a man is seen holding a sign that reads “no to the invasion”.
Mexicans have also expressed concern about criminals amongst the migrant groups, while one woman complained that they were merely there for “handouts”.
Manifestación en Tijuana en contra de la caravana migrante pic.twitter.com/hsuuScI9Bc
— Uno TV (@UnoNoticias) November 18, 2018
Another clip shows demonstrators chanting “Out Hondurans! We don’t want you here!”
Yesterday, Trump quoted the Mayor of Tijuana who said that his city was not prepared to handle the migrant wave.
The Mayor of Tijuana, Mexico, just stated that “the City is ill-prepared to handle this many migrants, the backlog could last 6 months.” Likewise, the U.S. is ill-prepared for this invasion, and will not stand for it. They are causing crime and big problems in Mexico. Go home!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 18, 2018
Authorities have estimated that up to 10,000 migrants could arrive in the city once other caravans arrive.
As we previously reported, there are a number of MS-13 gang members amongst the caravan, while “About 80 percent” of those in the…
PressTV-‘Russia to take concrete steps against US’ INF withdrawal’
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday Moscow doesn’t need to join another arms race, but it would not leave Washington’s decision to unilaterally withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty unanswered.
Russia is ready to continue dialog with the US on the bilateral treaty banning medium-range missiles, which has become one of the cornerstones of nuclear disarmament, the Russian leader said at a government meeting in Sochi.
Still, the US should “treat this issue with full responsibility,” the president said, adding that Washington’s decision to withdraw from the agreement “cannot and will not be left unanswered.”
The president also called on the government and military officials to develop “concrete steps” Russia can take in response to the US withdrawal from the INF Treaty, the RT reported.
US President Donald Trump said on October 20 that Washington would withdraw from the INF, which…
Video: Boris takeover? Car crash ‘Brexit deal’ could trigger ousting of UK Prime Minister Theresa May
UK Cabinet chaos triggers countdown to Brexit explosion https://www.politico.eu/article/david-davis-theresa-may-brexit-triggers-countdown-to-brexit-explosion/ …
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“Macron is the president of the rich”: “Yellow Vest” protesters speak out
“Macron is the president of the rich”: “Yellow Vest” protesters speak out
By
our reporters
20 November 2018
On Monday, the powerful protests in France against inequality and government austerity continued in numerous regions across the country. Tens of thousands of participants in the “Yellow Vest” demonstrations maintained roadblocks and barricades. Traffic was heavily affected in the major cities. Bordeaux was practically brought to a standstill throughout the morning, and numerous important highways were blocked off.
Dozens of fuel depots were affected by the actions, including in Toulouse and Rennes. On Réunion Island, barricades remained in place yesterday, with tense standoffs between demonstrators and police and calls by the local police prefecture for reinforcements from Paris. Many of the protesters have declared they intend to “continue until the government gives in.”
Employer associations warned yesterday against a “shutdown of the economy.” However, as the transportation companies call for workers to stay away from the demonstrations, large numbers of drivers are supporting or joining it. A roadblock has already been called for Saturday in Paris.
Last night, the Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner, announced his plan to break the roadblocks, invoking “major security risks, particularly of terrorism,” to which the “massively mobilized” police forces would be unable to respond.
The protest movement, which includes workers, independent truck drivers and small businesspeople, was initiated via social media outside the control of the trade unions, which collaborate with the government in imposing austerity. It raises burning political issues.
To move forward, the movement must turn to the working class, the only social force…
Video: CrossTalk Bullhorns: CIA confidence (Extended version)
Brexit and high drama – the saga continues. Also, the CIA says it has high confidence they know who killed Khashoggi. And is it high noon for Julian Assange?
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PressTV-Chicago hospital shooting leaves four dead
A shooting rampage at Chicago’s Mercy Hospital has led to four deaths, including the gunman and a responding police officer.
The shooting erupted on Monday afternoon after a domestic dispute between the gunman and his former fiancée, a doctor working at the hospital, turned violent, leading to her death near a parking lot.
“Then once she fell to the ground, he stood over her and shot her three more times,” said witness James Gray speaking to reporters.
Witnesses say the shooter then turned towards the hospital and started shooting randomly before exchanging fire with responding police officers inside the building, fatally shooting police officer Samuel Jimenez.
Another fatally shot victim has been reported to be a pharmaceutical assistant working at the center.
The recent hospital shooting is just the fourth mass shooting in the United States in about a month, notably including the killing of 11 Jewish worshipers at a…
Merkel Deep-Sixed Germany – LewRockwell
This interesting collage shows that not all people of European descent are intimidated by the elite’s efforts to prevent peoples’ expression of opposition to unassimilable immigrants over-running their countries either seeking economic advantage or fleeing Washington’s wars and Washington’s interference in the internal affairs of other countries.
The famous French novelist, Jean Raspail, notes that the novel he wrote in the early 1970s, The Camp of the Saints, could not be written today in France. It would be in violation of laws passed to prevent French citicizens from protesting the overrunning of their country by African and Islamic peoples who have nothing in common with the historic French people. Anyone opposed to the destruction of the French race, a destruction predicted by Raspail in his novel written almost 5 decades ago, is today regarded by law as a “white supremist” and a “nationalist” quilty of violating laws against speaking against diversity.
The crazed French “diversity enforcers” are even intent on prosecuting Marine Le Pen, the leader of the opposition party, for opposing massive immigration of unassimilable peoples into France. She has been charged for posting photos of brutal killings by US supported terrorists. News in the form of violent images is considered to be “an incitement to violence” by the “far-right.”
Throughout Europe the word “patriot” now designates a person who supports the destruction of their country’s ethnicity by non-white immigration. The meaning of patriot in the old sense, now means “nationalism,” “far-right” and “white supremacy.”
The Camp of the Saints
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It is the same in the US….
Alleged woman-beater Avenatti gets hit with restraining order – report — RT US News
Still protesting his innocence after he was arrested on felony domestic violence charges last week, lawyer Michael Avenatti is reportedly being served with a restraining order by his alleged victim, whose name is finally public.
Estonian-born actress Mareli Miniutti filed for a domestic violence restraining order against the scenery-chewing lawyer in Los Angeles on Monday. The mystery woman, initially believed to be Avenatti’s ex-wife Lisa Storie-Avenatti when news broke of his arrest, is now being named by The Blast, which obtained court documents on the restraining order. A hearing on the order will take place next month.
Shortly after the Blast story was published, Avenatti tweeted to maintain his innocence, calling any claims of domestic violence committed by him “bogus and fabricated.”
I look forward to a full clearing of my name and disclosure of all of the facts. I have NEVER abused a woman or committed domestic violence against anyone. Any claim to the contrary is completely bogus and fabricated. I am a target. And I will be exonerated.
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) November 20, 2018
While he initially yelled “she hit me first!” as cops arrested him at his apartment building last Wednesday, Avenatti had changed his story by the time he was released from police custody, telling the press “I have never been physically abusive in my life nor was I last night.” He was served with an emergency protective order upon his release.
Miniutti filed a felony domestic violence report with police after Avenatti “kicked her out of the apartment,” culminating in an altercation that left her face “swollen and bruised” with “red marks” on both cheeks, according to law enforcement. He was arrested after following her to the apartment, where she had gone to retrieve her possessions.
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Avenatti rocketed to fame as the lawyer for porn actress Stormy Daniels and soon became the most-booked guest in CNN’s history, seducing anti-Trump broadcasters with his confidence that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s payoff to the porn star would ultimately bring down the president.
When Trump remained in office, unperturbed by his counsel’s betrayal, Avenatti jumped aboard the bandwagon to block Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, parading Julie Swetnick before the cameras with lurid tales of “rape parties,” “running trains” on girls, and spiking punch while hinting at further ‘unnamed witnesses‘ who would blow the story wide open. Lawyer and client were both referred to the FBI for investigation of perjury after Kavanaugh was finally confirmed, and NBC admitted they sat on evidence (from both Swetnick and one of the ‘unnamed witnesses‘) that the allegations were false.
It’s been all downhill from there for Avenatti, who scuttled his own presidential ambitions by insisting the 2020 Democratic nominee should be a “white male,” i.e. himself. Since Daniels lost her defamation suit against Trump and was ordered to pay the president’s legal fees last month, Avenatti has mostly concerned himself with vengeance on Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host whose epithet ‘creepy porn lawyer‘ has seemingly gotten under his skin. Last week, Avenatti claimed to be investigating an assault committed by Carlson and his son at a country club, once again citing ‘unnamed witnesses‘ to unspeakable violence against a ‘gay immigrant.’
Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Video: ‘Stop 20N’: Topless FEMEN activists interrupt pro-Franco rally in Spain (EXPLICIT)
Three topless FEMEN activists interrupted a commemorative event for the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. COURTESY: RT’s RUPTLY video agency, NO …
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‘Pretty Much All of Journalism Now Leans Left’
Newsbusters
November 19, 2018
Investor’s Business Daily pointed to several recent media surveys that keep proving the liberal tilt of the press….even the financial press. Their editorial was titled “Pretty Much All of Journalism Now Leans Left, Study Shows.’
Researchers from Arizona State University and Texas A&M University questioned 462 financial journalists around the country. They followed up with 18 additional interviews. The journalists worked for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Associated Press and a number of other newspapers. What they found surprised them.
Even the supposedly hard-nosed financial reporters were overwhelmingly liberal. Of the 462 people surveyed, 17.63% called themselves “very liberal,” while 40.84% described themselves as “somewhat liberal.”
When you add it up, 58.47% admit to being left of center. Along with that, another 37.12% claim to be “moderate.”
What about the mythic “conservative” financial journalist? In fact, a mere 0.46% of financial journalists called themselves “very conservative,” while just 3.94% said they were “somewhat conservative.” That’s a whopping 4.4% of the total that lean right-of-center.
That’s a ratio of 13 “liberals” for every one “conservative.” Whatever happened to ideological diversity?
Please remember this as you watch the business news or read a financial story in the paper. You might want to take its message with a grain of salt. That’s especially true if the piece seems unduly harsh on the free-market system and its many proven benefits. Or if it lauds socialism as an “answer” to society’s ills.
This article was posted: Monday, November 19, 2018 at 9:10 am
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The Guardian
November 19, 2018
Google’s top news executive has refused to rule out shutting down Google News in EU countries, as the search engine faces a battle with Brussels over plans to charge a “link tax” for using news stories.
Richard Gingras, the search engine’s vice-president of news, said while “it’s not desirable to shut down services” the company was deeply concerned about the current proposals, which are designed to compensate struggling news publishers if snippets of their articles appear in search results.
He told the Guardian that the future of Google News could depend on whether the EU was willing to alter the phrasing of the legislation. “We can’t make a decision until we see the final language,” he said.
He pointed out the last time a government attempted to charge Google for links, in 2014 in Spain, the company responded by shutting down Google News in the country. Spain passed a law requiring aggregation sites to pay for news links, in a bid to prop up struggling print news outlets. Google responded by closing the service for Spanish consumers, which he said prompted a fall in traffic to Spanish news websites.
This article was posted: Monday, November 19, 2018 at 9:12 am
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PressTV-US Congress to lift 181-year ban on headwear?
Minnesota Representative-Elect Ilhan Omar has announced she will challenge a 181-year-old law that bans wearing headwear, including the Islamic hijab, in the United States House of Representatives.
Omar announced the decision on Saturday, voicing support for a Democrat proposal to end the ban that was publicized last week.
No one puts a scarf on my head but me. It’s my choice—one protected by the first amendment.
And this is not the last ban I’m going to work to lift. https://t.co/7U3ZLTaWur
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) November 17, 2018
The rule change was proposed by former House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, ranking member of the House Committee on Rules Jim McGovern and the Muslim representative-elect.
Democrats say the ban will be lifted to allow others to wear headgear on the floor based on religious or medical considerations.
The current laws of the House of Representatives prevent Ilhan from wearing hijab as they oblige all…
Video: Child sends younger kid down mall escalator in trolley (Warning: DISTURBING)
Shocking CCTV footage showing a small boy in a trolley flying down a mall escalator has left people asking whether it was an accident, if an older sibling did it …
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What’s So Great About Voting?
I can’t take it anymore. I have heard so much mindless propaganda urging us to vote that I was forced to push back. This is like shooting fish in a barrel.
First, if voting is so great, why we do have to be constantly harangued, bullied, hectored and bribed into engaging in this marvelous activity? Why do only half or less of the population vote in any given election? Let’s ask the question a different way. What percentage of kids fail to show up when Mom says, “breakfast is ready”? They show up because they expect to receive a major benefit from showing up, especially when weighed against the minimal costs of running downstairs and grabbing a chair.
We have our answer. Most people either don’t vote or do so out of habit or inertia and with little enthusiasm because they realize that the marginal benefit of doing so is so close to zero that only a mathematician could tell the difference. The media love to tout the occasional close race decided by a few votes, however, these are rare and it is rarer still when a different result would have resulted in any real impact on the voter’s life. From the standpoint of pure logic, voting is not rational for the individual.
Progressivism: A Prime…
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Let’s say it takes only a half hour to vote and let’s say you drive three miles round trip to do so. Surely, the average American’s time is worth at least $20 per hour. The cost of driving your car for three miles is about $1.50 and that does not even factor in the risk of getting into an accident on the way or being victimized by a crime. Thus the economic cost of voting is, on average, at least $11.50. Looked at another…
1 dead, 3 wounded, suspect at large — RT US News
Four people have been shot in a busy downtown area of Denver, Colorado. One of the persons that were shot has died at the scene. Police are still looking for the armed attacker.
The shooting took place in Lower Downtown just after 4 pm local time on Monday, Denver police said. Three victims were transported to Denver Health in critical condition. There is no information on the identity or whereabouts of the suspect or suspects.
“At this time we do not have a suspect in custody on this,” police spokesman Doug Schepman told reporters.
The incident happened at the intersection of 21st and Lawrence streets, three blocks away from Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies baseball team. Police have blocked off the area and closed several nearby roads.
Initial reports spoke of one dead and four wounded, including a woman with a leg injury. Schepman said that police have not been able to find that fifth victim.
“We’re obviously concerned” about a shooting in the heavily trafficked urban area, Schepman said, adding that the Denver PD detectives were working hard to get more information on the case.
According to local media, business owners in the area have complained about safety concerns in recent weeks, and a homeless person was found murdered on Sunday just two blocks away. Schepman said there were no indications the two incidents were connected.
Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
PressTV-Spain may thwart Brexit deal over Gibraltar
Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell has threatened that his country could torpedo Britain’s agreement for withdrawing from the European Union because it still fails to mention that Madrid would have the right to independently discuss the future of Gibraltar with London after Brexit.
“The negotiations between Britain and the EU have a territorial scope that does not include Gibraltar, the negotiations on the future of Gibraltar are separate discussions,” said Borrell on Monday.
The top Spanish diplomat said that unless a Brexit deal between London and Brussels made it clear that Gibraltar’s future would be up for discussion outside the EU’s jurisdiction after Brexit, Spain would not support the agreement.
“This is what needs to (be) made clear, and until it is clarified in the withdrawal agreement and in the political declaration on the future relationship, we cannot give our backing (to the deal),” said Borrell as he was in…
PressTV-Spain may thwart Brexit deal over Gibraltar
Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell has threatened that his country could torpedo Britain’s agreement for withdrawing from the European Union because it still fails to mention that Madrid would have the right to independently discuss the future of Gibraltar with London after Brexit.
“The negotiations between Britain and the EU have a territorial scope that does not include Gibraltar, the negotiations on the future of Gibraltar are separate discussions,” said Borrell on Monday.
The top Spanish diplomat said that unless a Brexit deal between London and Brussels made it clear that Gibraltar’s future would be up for discussion outside the EU’s jurisdiction after Brexit, Spain would not support the agreement.
“This is what needs to (be) made clear, and until it is clarified in the withdrawal agreement and in the political declaration on the future relationship, we cannot give our backing (to the deal),” said Borrell as he was in…
Video: Financier Browder likely behind five deaths, Russian prosecutors open probe
Russian accountant Sergey #Magnitsky may have been poisoned and his former employer, financier Bill #Browder, is possibly behind the #murder, prosecutors …
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Prison Planet.com » White House Tells CNN They’ll Revoke Acosta’s Press Credential Once Restraining Order Passes
Mediaite
November 19, 2018
CNN’s Brian Stelter reported in Sunday night’s Reliable Sourcesnewsletter that the White House intends to revoke the Press Credential of CNN’s White House correspondent Jim Acosta at the end of the month.
Judge Timothy J. Kelly ordered, on Friday, that Acosta’s “hard pass” be returned immediately. Kelly found that Acosta’s First Amendment rights superseded the White House’s right to hold orderly press conferences.
The ruling only represented a temporary “victory” for CNN and Acosta according to Stelter’s reporting (emphasis his):
After CNN won a temporary restraining order on Friday, forcing the White House to restore his press pass for 14 days, White House officials sent Acosta a letter stating that his pass is set to be suspended again once the restraining order expires.
From the looks of the letter, the W.H. is trying to establish a paper trail that will empower the administration to boot Acosta again at the end of the month.
CNN responded with this statement on Sunday: “The White House is continuing to violate the First and 5th Amendments of the Constitution. These actions threaten all journalists and news organizations. Jim Acosta and CNN will continue to report the news about the White House and the President.”
This article was posted: Monday, November 19, 2018 at 9:13 am
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Video: EU asks UK to stick to divorce deal despite growing opposition at home
The British Prime Minister, #TheresaMay is heading to Brussels this week, to try seal the deal over #Brexit -and the #EU is expecting it to go ahead without any …
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France shaken by mass protests
France shaken by mass protests
19 November 2018
On Saturday, protests against French President Emmanuel Macron’s fuel tax hike saw an elemental outpouring of pent-up anger against social inequality. After a series of calls for protests and road blockades in social media in recent weeks, 287,710 people wearing yellow vests joined 2,034 blockades and go-slow operations across France. Last night, tens of thousands were still protesting a measure that would break the monthly budgets of workers commuting to their jobs.
They are part of an international wave of protests spreading across Europe. In Belgium, protesters are blockading oil refineries in solidarity with the French protests, while fuel tax protests have also erupted in Bulgaria and Serbia. Amid an upsurge of the class struggle in Europe, there are ferry strikes and a public sector strike against the pro-austerity Syriza government in Greece; the Bucharest metro strike; and Amazon and Ryanair strikes in Germany and across the continent.
Broad opposition to existing social conditions is mounting. “For the average Frenchman who works and gets a wage, it is getting really hard. … We are proud to pay our taxes, but this is too much,” one protester told BFM TV. He added that he is opposing problems that accumulated “over decades,” to cries of “Macron resign” from protesters holding signs saying “No to the president of the rich.”
Three-quarters of French people support the protests, amid anger at austerity, Macron’s cuts to pensions, and his decision to tax workers while slashing the Tax on Wealth (ISF) on millionaires.
“The fuel tax was the feather that broke the camel’s back, but it goes far beyond that,” protesters near Marseille told the WSWS. “We are sure there are other solutions, we are tired…
Brutal VIDEO shows thug kung-fu kicking cop in path of double-decker bus — RT UK News
Chilling footage has emerged of the moment a female police officer narrowly escaped being crushed by a double-decker bus in south London after a thug sent her flying into the middle of the road with a kung-fu-style kick.
A viral video posted to Twitter on Sunday shows how what was supposed to be a routine traffic stop by two officers escalated into a vicious assault.
It all started when a trio fled as officers stopped their vehicle on Saturday at around 7:55pm on Kingswood Road, Merton, the Metropolitan Police said.
The clip begins with a male officer being wrestled to the ground and dragged across the tarmac street by one of the thugs.
The female cop comes to the rescue, but at that point one of the thug’s associates intervenes and kicks her into the path of a turning bus.
While she escapes being run over by just a whisker, her colleague is still in the grips of his attacker. It is only thanks to a moped driver that the male cop manages to free himself, and the thug is finally grounded.
The brawl was caught on camera by a witness called Nehemiah Adams, who then shared the video on Twitter with the caption: “South London at night. Lol.” Adams has since set his Twitter account to private.
Both officers were hospitalized following the incident, the Metropolitan Police said. The female officer suffered head injuries, while her male colleague was treated for cuts.
A man identified as Martin Payne, 20, of Brighton Road, South Croydon, has been arrested and charged in connection with the incident. He is charged with assault causing actual bodily harm and assault on an emergency services worker. He is also accused of driving without insurance and “other than in accordance with a license.”
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
CNN victory or press defeat? White House restores Acosta’s pass but imposes conduct rules — RT US News
CNN’s White House correspondent Jim Acosta will see his “hard pass” restored, but all journalists seeking access to the presidential press room will now have to abide by written rules of conduct due to his misbehavior.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders and deputy chief of staff for communications Bill Shine sent a letter to Acosta on Monday, notifying him that his hard pass was restored, but that it might be suspended or revoked again if he fails to abide by the new rules that apply to all White House correspondents going forward.
Under the rules laid out in the letter, each journalist gets “a single question” before having to yield the floor, with follow-ups solely at the discretion of White House officials. Failure to obey the rules may result in suspension or revocation of the “hard pass,” the document allowing major networks regular access to the White House.
“Should you refuse to follow these rules in the future, we will take action in accordance with the rules,” wrote Sanders and Shine.
Acosta’s pass was yanked following an incident at President Donald Trump’s November 7 press conference, where the CNN correspondent argued with Trump instead of asking questions (not for the first time) and physically prevented a White House intern from taking the microphone away from him.
READ MORE: Fake news feud: A brief history of Trump and CNN’s Jim Acosta yelling at each other
CNN responded by suing the White House, claiming that Acosta’s due process and free speech rights were being infringed. Last week, a federal judge ordered the pass temporarily restored on due process grounds. In response to the letter, CNN dropped the lawsuit.
Mainstream media outlets that had joined CNN in suing Trump celebrated Monday’s letter, framing it as the White House “backing down” in face of the legal challenge while largely ignoring the implications of the new rules: that the media critical of Trump might have won a battle, but lost the war.
“We have created these rules with a degree of regret,” Sanders and Shine wrote. “But, given the position taken by CNN, we now feel obligated to replace previously shared practices with explicit rules.”
This means that Acosta, or any other reporter covering the White House, can get their pass suspended or revoked over specific conduct going forward, without having a leg to stand on in terms of due process. That leaves the First Amendment grounds, effectively arguing that access to the White House is a civil right under the US Constitution, for which there is no precedent under US law.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
PressTV-Fake doctor practiced for 22 years in UK: Report
A fake doctor has managed to practice in the country for more than two decades without officials in the National Health Service (NHS) noticing it, according to British media reports.
Reports on Monday said that Zholia Alemi had made checks on thousands of patients since 1995 when she first registered in the UK as a psychiatrist.
But officials jailed Alemi in October after it became clear that her claim to have a primary medical qualification with a degree from the University of Auckland in New Zealand was fraudulent.
Alemi’s secret was exposed when it was revealed last year that she had taken advantage of an elderly patient and tried to change her will to her benefit.
The con artist, as she was called by a British newspaper, exploited her relationship with the vulnerable patient while working as a consultant psychiatrist for a dementia service in West Cumbria.
Alemi even applied for power of attorney in the patient’s name to make…
Video: Unique footage of Russia’s 5th-gen Su-57 in action in Syria
The Russian Defence Ministry has issued unique footage of the #Su57 5-generation air complex in action in #Syria. The sorties were carried out in order to …
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Prison Planet.com » German Schoolgirls Asked to Wear Hijabs For Social Experiment
To test if German citizens acted racist towards them
Paul Joseph Watson
PrisonPlanet.com
November 19, 2018
German schoolgirls were asked to wear Muslim hijabs as part of a social experiment to test whether German citizens would be racist towards them.
Six girls donned Islamic headscarves before visiting downtown Lünen. According to a male teacher who observed the group, older people looked at the girls with skepticism and when told about the social experiment responded by saying, “Stay out of here with that garbage.”
The participants said that the hijabs made them feel more self-conscious, strange and that they were being watched.
The Gates of Vienna website complained that the girls were being prepared “for life under sharia”.
“It’s as if they’re being coached on the way to behave once Islam becomes dominant in Germany — which will probably happen within their lifetime,” commented the blog.
While expressing sympathy for Muslims being discriminated against by Germans, the story fails to mention the fact that bullying of non-Muslim German children in migrant-heavy schools is a huge and growing problem.
The mother of a student in a Frankfurt school told BILD that her daughter was being bullied by Muslim girls to such a degree that she had to “take them out of school for protection.”
“She was beaten and verbally attacked on the way to school,” said the mother, explaining that abuse was because her daughter has blonde hair, doesn’t wear a headscarf, has a German-Hebrew name and is a Christian.
When the headmaster was informed of the situation, he told the mother to cover up her daughter with a hijab.
Earlier this year, the president of Germany’s Teachers Association warned that schools with over 70% migrant students are spiraling out of control, with attacks on female teachers and Jewish students becoming commonplace.
Heinz-Peter Meidinger told BILD that a…
Video: US & China lock horns: APEC leaders failed to issue a joint communique
For the first time, leaders of 21 Asia-Pacific economies have failed to issue a joint communique, as tensions between the #US and #China over trade and …
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Native Voters Made Decisive Impact on Elections in Battleground States
Nearly a week after ballots were cast in contentious midterm elections primarily seen as a referendum on the Trump administration, the race for Arizona senator was called in favor of the Democratic candidate, Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (now senator-elect) — the first Democratic win for this seat in three decades. In the final tally, Sinema won by about 53,000 votes out of more than 2.36 million votes cast — an incredibly close race that fell well within the reach of Native American voters in the state to deliver. The bulk of these Native American voters reside in just three counties (Coconino, Navajo and Apache Counties) that encompass the Navajo Nation, the largest Native American tribe in the United States, with a reservation that is slightly larger than New England and extends into three states. Based on US Census 2017 population estimates for those counties and 2010 Census ethnic/racial statistics, some 40,000 of the 65,858 votes cast for Sinema in those counties likely came from Native American voters.
Sinema’s victory points to a larger pattern shaping elections: In counties with Native American-majority populations in North Dakota, Montana and Arizona (all states that had closely contested Senate races this year), Democrats won upwards of 80 percent of the vote. Contrasted with neighboring white-majority rural counties which vote overwhelmingly Republican, Indian country is indeed another country. Moreover, in battleground states in the West where the push and pull between historically rural red voters and a growing population of urban blue voters leaves contests as close as a few thousand votes, the Native American electorate is often left to choose the winner.
The Heitkamp Race: Taking the Native Vote for Granted
Up until the day of the midterms, the country collectively held its breath as tribes in North Dakota heroically strove to get out the vote in the wake of a US Supreme Court ruling just weeks before the midterms. Their efforts received national and even…
Why Trump is Wrong About the California Wildfires
Photo Source U.S. Department of Agriculture | CC BY 2.0
With the shocking loss of thousands of homes and dozens of lives in the Camp and Woolsey fires in Northern and Southern California, people are looking for answers as they try to understand how a tragedy such as this can be prevented in the future.
As people struggled to evacuate, President Donald Trump in a tweet blamed the fires on poor forest management and repeated the claims before his visit to California. While Trump did not explicitly call for an expansion of logging in his latest response, he has previously touted this strategy as a way to curb fires. Meanwhile, the federal government is moving to allow commercial logging in areas such as the Los Padres National Forest outside Santa Barbara, claiming it will prevent fires. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has also blamed “environmental terrorist groups” for preventing the government from properly managing forests.
It is deeply troubling that Trump and his administration would support logging as a way to curb fires when studies have shown it’s ineffective. In the most comprehensive scientific analysis conducted on the issue of forest management and fire intensity — which looked at more than 1,500 fires on tens of millions of acres across the Western United States over three decades — we found that forests with the fewest environmental protections and the most logging actually tend to burn much more intensely, not less.
This may seem counterintuitive,…
Netanyahu’s Ceasefire is Meant to Keep Gaza Imprisoned
Palestinians in Gaza should have been able to breathe a sigh of relief last week, as precarious ceasefire talks survived a two-day-long, heavy exchange of strikes that threatened to unleash yet another large-scale military assault by Israel.
Late on Tuesday, after the most intense bout of violence in four years, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas, the Islamic movement that rules Gaza, approved a long-term truce brokered by Egypt.
Both are keen to avoid triggering an explosion of popular anger in Gaza, the consequences of which would be difficult to predict or contain.
The tiny enclave is on life support, having endured three devastating and sustained attacks by Israel, as well as a suffocating blockade, over the past decade. Thousands of homes are in ruins, the water supply is nearly undrinkable, electricity in short supply, and unemployment sky-high.
But as is so often the case, the enclave’s immediate fate rests in the hands of Israeli politicians desperate to cast themselves as Israel’s warmonger-in-chief and thereby reap an electoral dividend.
Elections now loom large after Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s hawkish defence minister, resigned on Wednesday in the wake of the clashes. He accused Netanyahu of “capitulating to terror” in agreeing to the ceasefire.
Lieberman takes with him a handful of legislators, leaving the governing coalition with a razor-thin majority of one parliamentary seat. Rumours were rife over the weekend that…
PressTV-‘Trump has an affinity for Saudi crown prince’
US President Donald Trump does not want to blame Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s death due to his “affinity” for the country’s de facto leader, an American academic and analyst says.
“That the president has not taken a stronger move to denounce the crown prince of Saudi Arabia over the Khashoggi killing appears to result from his affinity for the prince,” said James Fetzer, a retired professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
“He seems to like him as a person and wants to maintain their relationship,” Fetzer said in an interview with Press TV on Monday.
Trump cannot let go of bin Salman despite increasing evidence that the prince ordered the murder of the Saudi critic overseas, and that is because the US president has personal stakes in propping up Mohammed.
Saudi Arabia, after initially denying having any role in Khashoggi’s disappearance, reversed course…
Is the Gaza Ceasefire the End for Netanyahu?
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
H. L. Mencken
The resignation of Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman over the terms of the ceasefire with Palestinians in Gaza has thrown Israeli politics into real turmoil.
Depending on whose analysis of this situation you read you may be tempted to see this as a good thing or a bad thing. Bernard at Moon of Alabama sees a weakened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu being forced to sue of peace after the upgraded response from Gaza. From MoA:
The short conflict demonstrated that:
- Israel is deterred. It does not want to launch another war on Gaza.
- The siege of Gaza, by Israel, Egypt and by the Palestinian authority under Mahmoud Abbas, failed. The reputational cost of the siege became too high after Israel killed some 160 Palestinians during weekly protests along the demarcation fence. It had to allow diesel fuel and money from Qatar to reach Gaza.
- The siege failed to prevent that Islamic Jihad, Hamas and other groups acquired a larger number of missiles and other new capabilities.
- The Palestinians in Gaza are united. The resistance against the occupation is alive and well.
This leaves Netanyahu scrambling to fend off snap elections and the rise of the even more hard-line Naftali Bennett who has threatened Bibi’s coalition outright unless he is made Defense Minister, replacing Lieberman.
A Peace to End All Pea…
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MoA sees Netanyahu in a very precarious position, which he is, and will be forced to placate Bennett or risk a snap election that could see his government fall.
And it is on this point that Mintpressnews’s Whitney Webb takes…
Samurai sword-wielding jewel thieves attack bystander during London heist (VIDEO) — RT UK News
CCTV footage of an astonishing jewellery shop raid involving a Range Rover and a samurai sword-wielding thief has been recounted at the trial of three men accused of masterminding the attack.
The attempted heist occurred at the high end store in London’s Knightsbridge, when a team of would-be robbers tried and failed to smash their way into a Boodles outlet on Basil Street.
During the incident, have-a-go hero Petar Dimov was stabbed as he made a bid to stop the men with mopeds from getting their hands on any loot.
Three men are now on trial accused of carrying out the March attack, while a fourth man stands accused of theft on a Yves Saint Laurent retailer.
The moment the daring raid began was recounted at a London court trying the accused – Miguel St Martin, 21, Harry Doyle, 18, and Reece Salmon, 22. All deny involvement in the incident.
READ MORE: Dog accused of hate crime for pooing outside someone’s home
“In that first attack at least five men dressed pretty much identically –dressed head-to-toe in black and wearing crash helmets– [were] armed with axes, hammers and samurai swords,” prosecutor Michael Shaw said, The Sun reported.
“They arrived outside the jewellers on moped and with a stolen Land Rover. The Land Rover was used to try and smash their way into the side. That failed and they tried to smash in with a sledge hammer,” he added.
Footage of the attempted robbery unfolding shows how a luxury Range Rover vehicle was used in the effort to smash through the glass shopfront. Meanwhile, at least three individuals on mopeds also attempted to break into the high end jewellers using hammers and a samurai sword.
Builder Dimov received stab wounds when he confronted the thieves. He told the court how he was struck with what he believed to be an axe in the back.
“For me this whole incident has affected me very deeply psychologically. It is far, far worse than the physical injuries,” he said.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
What democracy? 70% of ‘not free’ countries get US military aid — RT US News
Washington has a habit of bombing defenseless nations in the name of democracy, but isn’t the least bit squeamish about selling weapons and giving military aid to countries its own human rights watchdogs deem dictatorial.
Freedom House, a US-based non-governmental organization (NGO) set up in 1941, publishes an annual Freedom in the World report, which categorizes countries as either “free”, “partly free”, or “not free.” Funded almost entirely by the US government, Freedom House considers the US and its allies “free” while designated enemy countries such as Russia and China “not free.” The group’s 2018 report described 2.7 billion people living in 49 countries as tragically “not free.”
Yet of those 49 countries, at least 35 – or 71 percent – have either been customers of the US military-industrial complex, or received some form of military assistance from the Pentagon over the previous three years.
Did you know?
The US provides military aid or sells arms to 73% of the world’s dictatorships. That’s 36 of the world’s 49 dictatorships (Freedom House & MintPress).
‘Spreading freedom’? 😒 pic.twitter.com/lrHs47zNMp
— Going Underground on RT (@Underground_RT) November 19, 2018
‘Worst of the worst’
Back in September 2017, Rich Whitney of Truthout cross-referenced the Freedom House report and the Pentagon reports on US military assistance, and came to the stunning conclusion: despite the public proclamations about spreading democracy and opposing dictatorships, Washington has provided military assistance of some kind to 73 percent of the “not free” countries on the NGO’s list. Little has changed since then.
Twelve of those countries are so awful, according to Freedom House, that they have been dubbed “the worst of the worst.” Yet half of them – Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Central African Republic, and Libya – are ongoing recipients of US military aid.
Sure, Somalia has been ravaged by civil war, terrorism and clan strife since 1991, but the US keeps propping up the current central government, providing military assistance as well as “Make Somalia Great Again” hats.
The Central African Republic has been gripped by civil war between Christians and Muslims since 2012, and has a paltry 9/100 Freedom House ranking. A UN arms embargo has been in force since 2013. That has not stopped the US from delivering 48 vehicles to the CAR armed forces in August this year.
Libya is another case worth highlighting. In 2010, the North African nation was declared a “high human development” country by the United Nations, ranking 53rd out of 162 countries surveyed. The very next year, however, the country’s government was overthrown by US-and NATO-backed rebels. Seven years after being bombed into a moon crater and left to the tender mercies of warlords, tribal militias and even Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), Libya has dropped to 108th place in the UN rankings, has a 9/100 score on the Freedom House index, and features open-air slave markets. On the other hand, the officially recognized government receives US military aid, so there’s that.
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Saudi Arabia: Interest over moralizing
One of the worst-ranked countries on the Freedom House index is Saudi Arabia – with only 7/100 on the index, far below Washington’s favorite villains Venezuela (26), Russia (20) China (14), and even Iran (17), though not North Korea (3).
As the State Department put it last month, however, the Saudi kingdom is the US “largest foreign military sales (FMS) customer, with over $114 billion in active cases.” Foggy Bottom expects a “significant increase” in FMS due to the $110 billion agreement to modernize the Saudi armed forces, signed in May 2017 by US President Donald Trump and King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. So far, $14.5 billion in sales have been implemented under this initiative.
Despite the ongoing calls for sanctions against Riyadh over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October, the Trump administration has been reluctant to interfere with the weapons sales.
That has not stopped Germany from halting weapons deliveries to Saudi Arabia, citing Khashoggi’s death. Saudi Arabia was Berlin’s second-best customer, after Algeria, with an estimated $457 million worth of contracts just this year.
Norway and Spain have also canceled Saudi arms contracts, but France, which has ongoing deals with Riyadh for almost $12 billion, is so far refusing to follow suit.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
PressTV-Brexit deal is fair, cannot be renegotiated: EU
The European Union has ruled out the possibility that a divorce deal it has reached with Britain can be renegotiated, with senior officials insisting it is fair enough to go along with.
“No deal better than the one on the table can be reached,” said Germany’s European affairs minister, Michael Roth, on Monday as he was referring to a controversial draft Brexit deal announced by London last week.
Germany’s Economy Minister Peter Altmaier also said that there was no chance for a change to the Brexit deal while dismissing any prospect of a return to the drafting table.
The comments come as British Prime Minister Theresa May is working with the EU on the final details of the Brexit agreement to make it available for a summit of EU leaders on Sunday.
May has indicated that she could gain concessions from the EU on a political declaration that would define the bases of the future relations between the two sides. However, her opponents want…
Video: Clashes in Mexico as migrant caravan stalls at US border
Protesters in #Mexico have clashed with police during a #demonstration against #MigrantCaravan making their way through the country. READ MORE: …
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Palm Beach Bought Coloring Books With Voting Machine Funding
Money shifted away from maintenance, according to audit
Prison Planet.com
Nov. 19, 2018
A South Florida county in the epicenter of the recent recount controversy bought coloring books with money meant for voting machines, according to a report.
Palm Beach County also spent nearly $1 million on iPads for voter check-in stations in addition to the $48,000 spent on coloring books, reported Real Clear Investigations.
The money, provided by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), was intended to keep elections running smoothly and to prevent the controversy which just transpired in South Florida.
“The same machines officials are blaming for delays in the recount of the Nov. 6 election were also blamed for problems in 2008 and 2012,” Real Clear Investigations stated.
Interestingly, a spokesperson for the voting machine company said her firm “shipped motors to Palm Beach County the weekend before the machines were to be used for the recount, knowing that this was going to be a highly unusual situation and there would be stress far beyond normal usage. Those motors are still in their boxes.”
She also said claims that the voting machines overheated are false.
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
“There were no reports of overheating machines during the recount,” the spokesperson continued. “We had engineers on the ground there, available 24/7, and they heard nothing from anyone at Palm Beach County.”
Florida was also one of seven states that did not explain how it intended to spend its HAVA funding.
HAVA was drafted in response to the 2000 Florida election recount and mandated that all states and local governments polish their election procedures, which includes standards for voting machine maintenance and ballot worker training.
This article was posted: Monday, November 19, 2018 at 2:56 pm
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Video: Top U.S. & World Headlines — November 19, 2018
Visit https://democracynow.org to watch the full independent, global news hour, read the transcript, search our archive and to make a donation to support us.
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PressTV-White House again threatens to ban CNN’s Acosta
The administration of US President Donald Trump is threatening to again suspend CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s White House press credentials, despite a court order that reinstated the journalist.
After a federal judge on Friday ordered that Acosta’s credentials be temporarily restored, the White House sent Acosta a letter saying they had made the “preliminary decision” to suspend his pass when the judge’s order expires.
The judge issued a ruling of a “limited nature” that restored Acosta’s credentials temporarily while a CNN lawsuit against the administration proceeds.
In a letter from the White House to Acosta, the administration reasserted its belief it can ban Acosta, accusing him of poor behavior including asking multiple questions and not yielding the floor to other reporters.
The White House argues Acosta did not follow “basic standards” during a contentious Trump press conference last week.
Acosta has repeatedly clashed with Trump…
Theresa May govt to ‘engineer financial crash’ to frighten MPs into voting for Brexit deal – report — RT UK News
Theresa May’s government are planning to “engineer a financial crash” if parliament fails to back their Brexit deal – in an attempt to frighten MPs into voting it through at a second vote, claims a source close to the PM’s aides.
Since agreeing a draft Brexit withdrawal deal with the EU on Wednesday, May has had to contend with a string of cabinet resignations and a huge backlash from rebel MPs.
The Sunday Times reports that, faced with the prospect of the deal being voted down, the UK government will attempt to plunge the financial markets into chaos – in a bid to scare MPs into eventually voting it through on a second vote.
READ MORE: ‘Stupid haircut, spouting b******s’: Danny Dyer’s back with another epic Brexit roast
A source, who has discussed the issue with May’s officials, has told the paper that No 10 has come up with a dark plan to twist the arms of MPs to force through their Brexit deal.
“No 10’s plan is to encourage a crash in financial markets after losing a first vote in the hope this stampedes MPs into voting for it second time,” the source claims.
On social media, there’s been a mixture of shock at the prospect of such a course of action and cynicism at whether the UK government have direct control over the financial markets to engineer a crash. On Twitter, Guardian columnist, Owen Jones asked how is this not a “national scandal?” John McTernan, ex-adviser to former Labour PM Tony Blair, suggests May’s Tory government is merely predicting the inevitable.
How is this not a national scandal? The Tories are planning to engineer a financial crash in order to terrify MPs into voting through May’s terrible deal after they reject it the first time. Imagine the deafening outrage if a Labour Government tried to do this? (via Sunday Times) pic.twitter.com/PH4RvLmmWo
— Owen Jones🌹 (@OwenJones84) November 19, 2018
Not to worry – I suspect if this present Government tried to engineer a financial crash the result would be share prices going through the roof
— Mike Kelly (@MikeJKelly1962) November 19, 2018
Not so much planning as predicting the predictable
— John McTernan (@johnmcternan) November 19, 2018
To be frank, they don’t need to engineer anything.
It will just happen.— Max 🇪🇺🇬🇧🇮🇹#PeoplesVote #FBPE #stopBrexit (@MaxMigliorato) November 19, 2018
David Spencer, Professor of Economics and Political Economy at Leeds University, told RT it’s the uncertainty surrounding Brexit that causes volatility in financial markets – and any crash will not be the consequence of direct government action, but the symptom of their policies.
Professor Spencer said: “Financial investors hate uncertainty and while the uncertainty around Brexit drags on volatility in financial markets looks inevitable – the UK govt adds to this volatility so as long as it delays any resolution to the Brexit problem.
“But the volatility is not something they directly control, instead it is a symptom of their behaviour and policies.”
READ MORE: UK could ask for Brexit transition beyond 2020 – business minister
He argues British sterling and the markets will fall if May’s government fails to get their Brexit deal through parliament at the first attempt.
“The pound and stock markets are likely to fall in any event, if the vote in parliament is lost. Look what happened last week when ministers started to resign.”
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Indiana police chief keeps promoting dodgy & investigated senior officers — RT US News
One mayor’s decision to cut police oversight has allowed a department in Indiana to become a law unto itself; staffed with a gallery of rogue, undisciplined and shady officers.
Drew Neese was elected mayor of Elkhart, Indiana in 2015. Among his biggest donors were the Fraternal Order of Police, and throughout his campaign, Neese “made it clear that he wants all of the city’s officers going home at night without second-guessing themselves and the decisions they make,” a local CBS affiliate reported at the time.
Step one was appointing a new police chief. Neese chose Ed Windbigler, a military veteran and campaign supporter, for the role. According to an extensive report from nonprofit newsroom ProPublica, Windbigler had a questionable record.
Read more
Five reprimands for car crashes, inappropriate behavior, and poor leadership didn’t faze Neese. Neither did Windbigler’s history of racially-motivated attacks and brutality allegations that led the city’s Public Safety Board to tell him that he “lacked a level of tolerance and self-control so important to those who succeed in your chosen career.”
Nor, it seems, did Windbigler’s enthusiasm for promoting officers who had been investigated, disciplined, or suspended themselves.
Out of 34 supervisors at Elkhart PD, 28 have a disciplinary record. 15 have been suspended from the force at least once, seven have taken part in at least one fatal shooting, and three have been convicted of a crime while on the police force. Windbigler still promoted 18 of these officers since taking over the reins.
There was Sergeant Jack Oldroyd, who pulled a sleeping woman out of a car, tased her, and sicced a dog on her, all before charging her with battery on a police officer. After the charges were dropped, and it emerged that the sergeant threw her personal belongings in the trash back at the station, he was convicted of a misdemeanor, spent a year on probation, and was demoted.
Five years later, Oldroyd was suspended for intoxication and was disciplined for “touching” a woman he brought back to a hotel room from a strip club, all while a fellow officer video recorded the encounter.
Oldroyd was promoted during Windbigler’s first month as chief.
Among the laundry list of crimes, infractions and complaints made against Windbigler’s team are fatal shootings of unarmed suspects, excessive brutality, sexual misconduct, and flippant comments made on social media about police-involved shootings.
READ MORE: Female NYPD sergeant accused of stuffing her panties in other cop’s mouth
Before Neese took over, Elkhart’s police department was overseen by the city’s Public Safety Board. Since then, Neese has shifted oversight to a Police Merit Commission, a two-man panel with both members chosen by the police department itself.
Elkhart’s police chiefs brought an average of 20 disciplinary cases a year before the Public Safety Board before 2016. In 2016, Windbigler didn’t bring a single case before the Merit Commission.
Just this month, the city announced that two officers will be charged with battery after video surfaced showing them beating a handcuffed suspect who had become uncooperative. Windbigler had told the oversight board that the two officers “just went a little overboard when they took him to the ground,” neglecting to mention that the video showed them punching the suspect repeatedly in the face.
While Neese admitted that “in hindsight,” more serious discipline should have been handed down by Windbigler, the mayor stuck doggedly by his top cop. “I think probably Chief Windbigler was not attempting to mislead anyone,” he told reporters.
Since then, Neese has called for an independent investigation of the incident to be carried out by Indiana State Police.
“Neese wants to assure the community that he is taking this incident seriously and asks for patience and objectivity as the investigation moves forward,” read a statement from the city.
At this stage, whether anyone believes him is another story.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Video: Facebook hired PR firm to label its critics ‘agents of Soros’
In a bid to counteract negative publicity, social media giant Facebook hired a PR agency to discredit critics by claiming that they were agents of liberal billionaire …
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Video: Filipino Reporter Maria Ressa on Duterte’s Targeting of the Press & How Facebook Aids Authoritarians
https://democracynow.org – As Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte amps up his attacks on the free press, we speak with renowned Filipino journalist Maria …
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Prison Planet.com » Democrats to Investigate Why Trump Wants U.S. Citizens Counted on 2020 Census
Breitbart
November 19, 2018
House Democrats are planning to “immediately” investigate the reason President Donald Trump wants American citizens counted on the upcoming 2020 Census.
In March, President Donald Trump’s administration announced they would put the citizenship question back on the census. It has not been included since 1950. For seven decades, all residents living in the United States have been counted on the census but have not been asked whether or not they are American citizens, making it impossible for the federal government to know the size of the citizen population versus the immigrant population.
Now, as Democrats are preparing to be the majority in the House after the midterm elections, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) — who will chair the House Oversight Committee — told Reuters he will investigate why the Trump administration has put the citizenship question back on the 2020 Census.
“There are certain things that mandate that we look at immediately,” Cummings said. “One of them is the census because that’s right around the corner.”
This article was posted: Monday, November 19, 2018 at 9:15 am
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PressTV-Bannon works to elect right wingers to EU Parliament
US President Donald Trump’s former political strategist, Steve Bannon, has set up a movement to elect right-wing nationalist and populist members in European Parliament elections in May.
Bannon told German broadcaster RTL in an interview that he plans to work with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban—a right-wing nationalist– in the run-up to European Parliament elections next year.
Bannon, a former chairman of the right-wing Breitbart.com news website and an architect of Trump’s 2016 presidential election victory, said he has already visited Budapest a couple of times and met Orban and his aides.
Orban has welcomed the idea of Bannon’s group, called The Movement, saying it was time that someone from the United States came to Europe to spread conservative thinking instead of liberal values.
“John McLaughlin who is my pollster in the United States is going to run this overall polling effort in Europe, he is also the pollster for…
The Victims of Iran Sanctions
Originally appeared on The American Conservative.
Iranians’ access to medicine is being choked off by the Trump administration’s illegitimate reimposition of sanctions:
The number of European and Iranian banks conducting such transactions has dwindled, observers say. The refusal to process payments has alarmed Iranian importers. Some say they fear transactions with outside banks could cease altogether, prompting shortages of vital goods, including medicine.
“You just don’t know when other parties are going to be added or targeted. What was true yesterday may not be true this afternoon,” said Alan Enslen, an international trade lawyer at Baker Donelson in Washington, explaining how companies are weighing the risks.
When even reputable private banks such as Parsian Bank have been designated by the Trump administration, there is tremendous uncertainty about whether doing any business in Iran will be safe for European and other foreign companies. Most firms are going to avoid the risk, and that inevitably means that ordinary Iranians will lose access to vital imported goods or those goods will become prohibitively expensive for the vast majority of people that need them. The sanctions not only affect transactions for bringing in imported medicine, but they can also prevent the import of raw materials that Iran’s own pharmaceuticals need to make medicine. The result is that a great many sick people who were previously able to get the medicine they needed will be cut off from their treatment. The administration hides behind its formal exemption of humanitarian goods while implementing a policy that deprives people of those same goods. Iran hawks want to inflict pain on the population, but they don’t want to be held responsible for causing that pain.
Iranian cancer patients are being especially hard hit by the effects of sanctions. Doctors from the MAHAK Pediatric Cancer Treatment and Research Center in Tehran wrote in to The Lancet to warn about the shortages of essential medicine that will threaten the lives of their patients:
Re-establishment of sanctions, scarcity of drugs due to the reluctance of pharmaceutical companies to deal with Iran, and a tremendous increase in oncology drug prices (due to the plummeting value of the Iranian rial by 50–70%), will inevitably lead to a decrease in survival of children with cancer.
Here the mother of a child with cancer condemns the policy:
Children battling cancer are an unintended victim of American sanctions on Iran said one mother who made an impassioned plea for US President Donald Trump to ease her and her son’s suffering.
“Maybe I have the financial support to travel to neighbouring countries in order to provide medication, but what about other ordinary people? They are losing their child in front of their eyes. What about supporting human rights? A lot of people are saying human rights, so where is it? There is no support for human rights, it is just a claim,” said Maryam…
Video: ‘Masha and the Bear’ cartoon accused of being Kremlin propaganda tool
A bizarre, year-old report that described cartoon ‘Masha and the Bear’ as #Kremlin propaganda for kids has been revived in #TheTimes, prompting commenters …
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Witchcraft: The Selfie of the Soul
Like practically everyone else, I look at my phone or turn on my computer as soon as I wake to find out what has happened in the world in my temporary absence from it. You can always tell that nothing much has happened when the headlines are something like (as they were this morning) “Number of Americans who say they are witches is on the rise.”
In fact, such stories are much more interesting and important than “President of somewhere-or-other assassinated,” for they reveal, or at least give a glimpse of, the deeper currents in our societies.
According to the article, between a million and a million and a half Americans now “self-identify” (ghastly word!) as witches. Witchcraft or Wicca is now the fastest-growing religion—or is it a hobby, like crochet and philately?—in America and no doubt elsewhere in our crumbling civilization. It isn’t yet as common as tattooing, but one cannot help feeling that the two phenomena are related in some way.
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The article was as interesting for what it didn’t say as for what it did. Indeed, one might almost assert of journalists, newspapers, magazines, blogs, websites, etc., that By their omissions shall ye know them. This is especially true in an age of political correctness and self-censorship such as ours, in which we are all afraid to bring the wrath of the ideologically disgruntled down upon our heads. Thanks to so-called social media, we have lost one of the most cherished freedoms of all, namely that of freedom from opinion.
But to return to the American witches, soon no doubt to be counted by the tens of millions if the rapidity of the spread of tattooing and other manifestations of mass bad taste are…
Danny Dyer’s back with another epic Brexit roast — RT UK News
Football Factory star Danny Dyer is at it again, launching a scathing expletive-ridden attack on Brexiteers Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, claiming “they just don’t give a f***,” about the consequences of leaving the EU.
The London-based Eastenders actor, enraged at the fallout of the UK’s decision to leave the EU, slammed Johnson for the critical part he’s played in proceedings.
He claimed the former foreign sec has been running around with his “stupid haircut, spouting b******s” about Brexit, in an interview with The Big Issue magazine.
Dyer laid aim at former UKIP leader, Mr Brexit himself, Nigel Farage for communicating a message that resonated with a certain section of the electorate.
The actor, made famous for his performance as “Moff” in the iconic 90s clubbing culture film, Human Traffic, told The Big Issue: “Farage, another p***k in a suit who tapped into something – and I suppose it is that white working-class, middle-age man who lost his voice slightly.
“He tapped into what he felt maybe they wanted to say and twisted it. He got a bit of a following, so [former British PM] Cameron decided to call a referendum just to get him.”
The actor has been vocal in the past, displaying disdain for politicians he blames for the UK leaving the EU. In June, while appearing as a guest on a one-off special of ITV’s Good Evening Britain, Dyer branded David Cameron a t**t.
Dyer delivered another attack on the former PM, blaming him for providing the British people with a referendum on the EU, adding the real reason he granted it was to remove the threat of Farage.
“They have been given this thing called f****** Brexit because of one man [Cameron].
“One man. Who we voted in to be our prime minister, who purely for his own ego decided to call a referendum just to get rid of Nigel Farage,” Dyer said.
He expressed sympathy for the current British PM Theresa May saying “bless her, just got that job by default.”
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Donald Trump vs CNN’s Jim Acosta and the politics of distraction (VIDEO) — RT US News
When Donald Trump and CNN’s Jim Acosta clashed at a White House news conference, both behaved so badly it was hard to pick sides, which poses a dilemma in the current day when it’s essential to have an opinion.
However, instead of everyone accepting some blame and moving on, Trump’s team decided to throw a White House intern under the bus instead and allege she had been inappropriately touched by Acosta during the incident.
What made the whole thing an extremely modern phenomenon was that video evidence clearly shows there was no Weinstein-style inappropriateness at all, yet the media and social media warriors continued to argue the point anyway, instead of concentrating on important things.
So ICYMI looks at how effective the politics of distraction can really be.
For more, follow #ICYMI on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.
Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Anti-stall feature in new Boeing planes may have contributed to Indonesian aviation disaster
Anti-stall feature in new Boeing planes may have contributed to Indonesian aviation disaster
By
Oscar Grenfell
19 November 2018
Last week, three US pilots unions, aviation experts and a number of airlines, including Indonesia’s Lion Air, stated that a feature of Boeing’s new 737 Max 8 aircraft may have contributed to a plane crash in the Java Sea on October 29 which killed 189 people. They have claimed that an automated system not present in previous Boeing models or mentioned in any of the company’s safety manuals may have triggered a catastrophic nosedive.
The Lion Air plane lost contact with air traffic control around 13 minutes after departing from Java for a routine commercial trip to Pangkal Pinang, the capital of the Bangka Belitung Islands province. Eyewitnesses reported that the plane plunged at an almost vertical angle into the Java Sea. There were no survivors.
While the report from an initial investigation by Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) has yet to be released, statements by the country’s aviation officials have made clear that the plane had experienced mechanical issues during its previous four flights, with key pieces of equipment reportedly feeding false data to the cockpit.
Allegations aired last week, however, have indicated that the safety issue may be far broader than the ill-fated Lion Air Flight, potentially affecting the entire fleet of 737 Max 8 aircraft. There are currently 246 of the new model in operation around the world, while airlines in Australia, the US, Europe and internationally have orders for another 4,542 of the aircraft.
It has emerged that the 737 Max 8 model contains an automated mechanism, known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, aimed at preventing it from stalling. If…
Saudis See US Response To Khashoggi Killing As ‘Weakness’
“At the very least we need to quit selling arms to people who are lying to us”
Steve Watson
Prison Planet.com
November 19, 2018
Senator Rand Paul has warned President Trump that a more severe response is required to the murder of reporter Jamal Khashoggi, otherwise the Saudi regime will view the US as weak.
In an interview with CBS Sunday, Paul noted that sanctions are not strong enough.
“We need to punish who ordered this, who’s in charge, and really the only thing they understand over there is strength,” Paul urged.
“I think they will see sanctions as weakness on the part of the president and if the president wants to act strongly he should cut off the arms sale.” the Senator continued.
“The thing about sanctions is that I think sanctions are pretending to do something without really doing anything,” Paul said on Face the Nation.
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
Trump has opted to place sanctions against 17 Saudi Arabian individuals thought to be involved in the plot to kill Khashoggi.
Paul, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, noted that “Most of these people are in prison” already.
“The crown prince runs the country and we deal with him. If we put sanctions on people who are in prison. Are we really doing anything to punish them? They’re already in prison.” Paul exclaimed.
Referring to the CIA’s indication that it believes the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing, Paul said “I think the evidence is overwhelming that the crown prince was involved, so no, I don’t think we can sweep this under the rug.”
Paul added that “the Saudis have been duplicitous since the very beginning. Do we need to do more? Yes, but at the very least we need to quit selling arms to people who are lying to us.”
President Trump said Sunday that there will be a government report released on Tuesday assessing impact of the killing and options for…
PressTV-‘Trump appeals to white supremacists to build his base’
US President Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election by making use of the white supremacist tendencies built up under Barack Obama, the country’s first African American president, says an American analyst.
Abayomi Azikiwe, an editor at the Pan-African News Wire, made the remarks in reaction to reports that the number of attacks carried out by white supremacists and right-wing extremists in the United States has grown significantly over the past decade.
The report, published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank, also found that these attacks doubled in the US from 2016 to 2017.
From 2007 to 2011, right-wing extremists committed five or fewer attacks per year. In 2012, that number rose to 14 and continued at a similar level through 2016. But the number jumped to 31 in 2017, the CSIS report said.
Azikiwe said while the issue has a long history, it received a boost during Obama’s…
How Newly Elected Attorneys General Could Thwart Trump’s Worst Moves
In all the excitement and dread of Election Day, it might have been overlooked that there were attorney general races in key states. Attorneys general can make a real difference, particularly if they are willing to consistently bring lawsuits against the presidential agenda both to protect their state and the country as a whole. The election of several progressives last week means that might soon be in the cards.
We’ve already seen the power of progressive attorneys general banding together. On Election Day, the attorneys general of 18 states sent a joint comment on proposed US Department of Homeland Security regulations that would undermine the settlement agreement in Flores v. Reno. Flores requires the federal government to favor the release of immigrants who are minors, even if they arrive with their parents. After 20 days, the children must be released and placed in foster or shelter care. The administration has proposed undercutting the Flores settlement so drastically as to render it defunct.
Similarly, attorneys general in Maryland and Washington, DC are the plaintiffs in an emoluments lawsuit against President Donald Trump. A federal court recently ruled that lawsuit could proceed, which means the litigation discovery process might soon lay bare one facet of Trump’s corruption.
On the flip side, conservative attorneys general have long been good at leveraging their power to effectuate change via litigation. When Scott Pruitt was the attorney general of Oklahoma, he sued over EPA regulations 14 separate times. In September, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and 19 other Republican attorneys general filed the most recent lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act (ACA), arguing that when the tax bill undid the individual mandate, the entire ACA became unconstitutional.
In the Trump era, it’s more important than ever to have a strong cohort of progressive attorneys general that work to thwart the…
Art of the Smear: the Israel Lobby Busted
In 2016 and 2017 Al Jazeera produced a program that unmistakenly documents the Israel government and U.S. Israel lobby’s all-out effort to spy on, smear, and disrupt American students and other activists who are working to build an understanding of the Palestinians’ plight. The Lobby — USA, however, has never been broadcast by Al Jazeera. Reporting indicates that it was suppressed after pressure from the lobby on the government of Qatar, which funds Al Jazeera. Nevertheless, it is now available at The Electronic Intifada and on YouTube. Watch all four parts here and here. What the program presents is shocking.
The Lobby — USA, which features an undercover journalist who won the trust of key pro-Israel operatives and who videoed revealing meetings, demonstrates beyond question the lengths to which the Israelis and their supporters in the United States will go to prevent a change in American thinking about the beleaguered Palestinians. The effort aims to smear Palestinian students in the United States and pro-Palestinian American activists and political candidates who criticize Israeli policy as anti-Semites and enablers of terrorism. The paid pro-Israel operatives, guided by Israeli government officials and embassy staff, have used social media and other channels in an attempt to destroy the career potential of student activists who work to raise Americans’ consciousness about the Palestinians. Establishment news operations, such as the Washington…
Brutal VIDEO shows thug kung-fu kicking cop in path of double-decker bus — RT UK News
Chilling footage has emerged of the moment a female police officer narrowly escaped being crushed by a double-decker bus in south London after a thug sent her flying into the middle of the road with a kung-fu-style kick.
A viral video posted to Twitter on Sunday shows how what was supposed to be a routine traffic stop by two officers escalated into a vicious assault.
It all started when a trio fled as officers stopped their vehicle on Saturday at around 7:55pm on Kingswood Road, Merton, the Metropolitan Police said.
The clip begins with a male officer being wrestled to the ground and dragged across the tarmac street by one of the thugs.
The female cop comes to the rescue, but at that point one of the thug’s associates intervenes and kicks her into the path of a turning bus.
While she escapes being run over by just a whisker, her colleague is still in the grips of his attacker. It is only thanks to a moped driver that the male cop manages to free himself, and the thug is finally grounded.
The brawl was caught on camera by a witness called Nehemiah Adams, who then shared the video on Twitter with the caption: “South London at night. Lol.” Adams has since set his Twitter account to private.
Both officers were hospitalized following the incident, the Metropolitan Police said. The female officer suffered head injuries, while her male colleague was treated for cuts.
A man identified as Martin Payne, 20, of Brighton Road, South Croydon, has been arrested and charged in connection with the incident. He is charged with assault causing actual bodily harm and assault on an emergency services worker. He is also accused of driving without insurance and “other than in accordance with a license.”
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Trio who ‘lied’ about campaign for homeless that raised $400k face 10 years in jail — RT US News
A tale of a couple starting a crowdfund to help a homeless guy became an international sensation and raked in $400k from thousands of good-hearted donors. But its protagonists have now been charged amid claims it was all a “lie.”
Kate McClure, 28, and Mark D’Amico, 39, from New Jersey, US, had started a campaign purportedly aimed at raising money for homeless ex-marine Johnny Bobbitt, 34. In a bid to persuade people to donate, they offered a story about how Bobbitt had given up his last $20 dollars to help a woman refuel when her car broke down in 2017.
But text messages, seen by investigators, reveal that far from wanting to carry out a gratuitous act of goodwill, the couple allegedly conspired with the homeless man about a month ahead of the campaign launch as they were apparently struggling with their finances.
Read more
Investigators believe the trio met near the Sugarhouse Casino in Philadelphia, close to the I-95 off-ramp where Bobbitt was living.
That was the same location where McClure claimed Bobbitt had rushed to her rescue when her car stopped as she drove to a friend’s home in September last year.
“The entire campaign was predicated on a lie,” Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffin said.
“Less than an hour after the GoFundMe campaign went live, McClure, in a text exchange with a friend, stated that the story about Bobbitt assisting her was fake.”
They started off the campaign with a modest goal of raising $10,000. But the human story struck so hard that it prompted 14,000 people to put their hands in their pockets and donate to the supposedly good cause, rounding up a total of $400,000.
Almost all the money has been spent as the couple reportedly squandered it on casinos, luxury bags, a New Year’s trip to Las Vegas and a BMW.
But they seem to have shot themselves in their feet as they allegedly failed to give Bobbitt his fair share, which led to the disgruntled rough sleeper filing a suit against them, ultimately leading to the investigation into their actions.
The trio were all charged with second-degree theft by deception and conspiracy to commit theft by deception. If convicted, each of them could face up to ten years in jail.
The crowdsourcing site has confirmed all 14,000 donors to the page will get their share of the $400,000 back in full.
News of the alleged scam stirred widespread condemnation on social media, with some users wishing for them to be sent straight to the “hell department”.
Hello, special place in hell department? Can I book a table for 3?
— dbergheger (@dbergheger) November 16, 2018
Smh stories like this is why people are hesitant to donate
— derya yavuzyiğit (@derayavuzyigit) November 16, 2018
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PressTV-May remains defiant in face of calls to resign
UK Prime Minister Theresa May says she has no plans to resign despite massive backlash against her Brexit plans, arguing that her removal from power will not help the country’s exit from the European Union (EU).
She warned those who sought a change of leader, saying Sunday that her ouster “is not going to make the negotiations any easier and it won’t change the parliamentary arithmetic.”
May’s current draft Brexit deal has faced sharp public backlash, with one poll showing that more than four in 10 Britons oppose it.
The deal with the EU is not likely to be approved by the British Parliament either as both pro- and anti-EU lawmakers have expressed their frustration at the draft.
The overwhelming opposition has prompted some Tories as well as opposition parties to call for a vote of no confidence in May.
Shortly after unveiling the draft deal in a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, five of May’s minister quit their jobs, including Brexit…
Approaching Development: GMO Propaganda and Neoliberalism vs Localisation and Agroecology
What people communicate is a matter of choice. But what can be more revealing are the issues they choose to avoid. There are certain prominent pro-GMO activists who describe themselves as ‘science communicators’. They hit out at those who question their views or who have valid criticisms of GM technology and then play the role of persecuted victim, believing that, as the self-appointed arbiters of righteousness, they are beyond reproach, although given their duplicity nothing could be further from the truth.
Instead of being open to questioning, they attempt to close down debate to push a flawed technology they have a vested (financial-career) interest in, while all the time appealing to their self-perceived authority, usually based on holding a PhD in molecular biology or a related discipline.
They relentlessly promote GM and industrial agriculture and unjustifiably cast critics as zealots who are in cahoots with Greenpeace or some other group they have a built-in dislike of. And they cynically raise or lower the bar of ‘credibility’ by ad hominem and misrepresentation so that studies, writers and scientists who agree with them are commended while those who don’t become subjected to smear campaigns.
Often with ties to neoliberal think tanks, pro-GMO lobbyists call for more deregulation and criticise elected governments or regulatory bodies which try to protect the public interest, especially where genetic engineering and associated chemical inputs (for instance, glyphosate) are concerned. The same people push the bogus idea that only GM agriculture can feed the world, while seeking to discredit and marginalise alternative models like agroecology and ignoring the structural violence and injustices brought about by global agricapital interests (from whom they receive funding) which help determine Codex, World Bank, IMF and WTO policies. By remaining silent or demonstrating wilful ignorance about the dynamics and injustices of the political economy of food and agriculture, they tacitly approve of its consequences.
They also frame the GMO debate as pro-science/pro-GMO vs anti-science/anti-GMO: an industry-promoted false dichotomy that has sought to close down any wider discussion that may lead the focus to fall on transnational agribusiness interests and their role in determining an exploitative global food regime and how GM fits in with this.
This is how ideologues act; not how open discourse and science is carried out or ‘communicated’.
Broadening the debate
A participant in any meaningful discussion about GM would soon appreciate that ethical, political, environmental and sociological considerations should determine the efficacy and relevance of this technology in conjunction with scientific considerations. Unfortunately, pro-GMO advocates want to depoliticise food and agriculture and focus on the ‘science’ of GM, yield-output reductionist notions of ‘productivity’ and little else, defining the ‘problem’ of food and agriculture solely as a narrow technocratic issue.
But to understand the global food regime, we must move beyond technology. Food and agriculture have become wedded to structures of power that have created food surplus and food deficit areas and which have restructured indigenous agriculture across the world and tied it to an international system of trade based on export-oriented mono-cropping, commodity production for a manipulated and volatile international market and indebtedness to global financial institutions.
More specifically, there are the deleterious impacts of the nexus between sovereign debt repayment and the ‘structural adjustment’ of regional agriculture; spiralling input costs for farmers who become dependent on proprietary seeds and technologies; ecocide, genocide and the destruction of food self-sufficiency; the fuelling of barbaric, industrial-scale death via animal-based (meat) agriculture and the colonisation of land to facilitate it; US/EU subsidies which mean farmers in developing countries cannot achieve prices to cover their costs of production; and degraded soils, polluted oceans and rising rates of illness, etc.
If any one country epitomises much of what is wrong with the global food regime, it is Argentina, where in an October 26th 2018 article (‘Soy destruction in Argentina leads straight to our dinner plates’) The Guardian newspaper’s analysis of (GM) soy cultivation highlighted many of the issues set out above.
Whether the impacts of the global food regime result from World Bank/IMF directives and geopolitical lending strategies, neoliberal plunder ‘ease-of-doing-business’ ideology, undemocratic corporate-written trade deals or WTO rules, we are seeing the negative impacts on indigenous systems of food and agriculture across the world, not least in India, where a million farmers intend to march to Delhi and the national parliament between 28 and 30 November.
India’s manufactured ongoing agrarian crisis is adversely affecting the bulk of the country’s 840 million rural dwellers. And all for what? To run down and displace the existing system of peasant-farmer-based production with a discredited, ecologically unsustainable (GMO) model run along neoliberal ‘free’ market lines by global agribusiness, a model which is only profitable because it passes on its massive health, environmental and social costs to the public.
Neoliberal dogma
Tim Worstall of the Adam Smith Institute in London says of India’s agrarian crisis that Indian farmers should be left to go bust because they are uncompetitive and relatively unproductive. But even where farmers in India produce world record yields, they are still heavily indebted. So why can’t they compete?
Putting the huge external costs of the model of industrial agriculture which Worstall compares Indian agriculture to aside (which he conveniently ignores), the issue is clear: a heavily subsidised US/EU agriculture depresses prices for Indian farmers both at home and on the international market.
Policy analyst Devinder Sharma says that subsidies provided to US wheat and rice farmers are more than the market worth of these two crops. He also notes that, per day, each cow in Europe receives a subsidy worth more than an Indian farmer’s daily income. He suggests: let the US and EU do away with subsidies, relieving taxpayers of such a costly burden and let Indian farmers compete properly; then see that it is the Indian farmer who produces the cheapest food; and then imagine US consumers benefitting from this cheap food.
That is the ‘free’ market which could exist. A fair one not distorted by subsidies. Not the type of market that currently exists and which is ‘free’ only within the ideological parameters set by Worstall and others who promote it.
Proponents of the ‘free’ market and GMOs are big on ‘choice’: letting ‘the market’, the consumer or the farmer decide, without anyone imposing their agenda. This is little more than rhetoric which fails to stand up to scrutiny, given the strategically embedded influence of agricapital over policy makers. If anything encapsulates the nonsense and hypocrisy surrounding this notion of choice are reports about Monsanto and its cynical manipulation of agriculture in Punjab.
According to an article in Delhi’s Sunday Guardian in late 2017 (‘Monsanto’s profits, not Diwali, creating smoke in Delhi’), India’s surplus food grain supply is an uncomfortable fact for the pro-GMO lobby. The piece notes that in 2012 the then Punjab Chief Minister asked Monsanto to set up a research centre for creating maize and, due to fears over water shortages, announced plans to reduce the area under rice cultivation to around 45% to grow maize. Fear-mongering about rice cultivation was reaching fever pitch, stoked by an advertisement campaign from a group of scientists who appealed ‘Reduce the area under rice, save water, save Punjab’.
Conveniently, Monsanto (now Bayer) offers its GM maize as a solution that will increase the level of subsoil water, although that corporation’s inputs and Green Revolution practices led to problems in Punjab and elsewhere in the first place. For instance, fertilisers and pesticides have accumulated in the ground water (causing massive health issues) and their use has also led to poor water retention in soil, leading farmers to pump excessive amounts of ground water.
Punjab’s plan to reduce the area under rice cultivation (a staple food for large sections of the Indian population) with what will most likely be GM animal feed is part of a cynical tactic. Of course, any resulting gap between supply of and demand for food in India will be conveniently filled via global agribusiness and an influx of GMO produce from abroad or by growing it in India (have no doubt, the push is on for that too).
It is reminiscent of unscrupulous attempts to undermine India’s edible oils sector in the late 1990s and current attempts to break traditional cotton cultivation pathways in India to help usher in herbicide-tolerant seeds (which have now ‘miraculously’ appeared on the market – illegally). The ability of hugely powerful corporations to flex their financial muscle and exert their considerable political clout to manufacture ‘choice’ and manipulate policies is the reality of neoliberal capitalism.
Those pro-GMO ‘science communicators’ are silent on such matters and, as with their fellow neoliberal ideologues, have nothing of any substance to say on these types of ‘market-distorting’ power relations, which make a mockery of their ‘free’ choice and ‘free’ market creed.
Indeed, a recent report in The Guardian indicates that neoliberal ‘austerity’ in the UK has had little to do with economics, having failed in its objective of reducing the national debt, and much to do with social engineering. But this is the ideological basis of modern neoliberal capitalism: dogma masquerading as economics to help justify the engineering of the world in the image of undemocratic, unaccountable corporations.
Agroecology and food sovereignty
The industrial agriculture that Worstall compares Indian farmers’ productivity with is outperformed by smallholder-based agriculture in terms of, for example, diversity of food output, nutrition per acre and efficient water use. Imagine what could be achieved on a level playing field whereby smallholder farming receives the type of funding and political commitment currently given to industrial agriculture.
In fact, we do not have to imagine; in places where agroecology has been scaled up, we are beginning to see the benefits. The principles of agroecology include self-reliance, localisation and food sovereignty. This type of agriculture does not rely on top-down corporate ‘science’, corporate owned or controlled seeds or proprietary inputs. It is potentially more climate resilient, labour intensive (job creating), more profitable for farmers and can contribute to soil quality and nutrient-enhanced/diverse diets. Moreover, it could help reinvigorate rural India and its villages.
When the British controlled India, they set about breaking the self-reliance of the Indian village. In a 2009 article by Bhavdeep Kang (‘Can the Indian farmer withstand predatory international giants?’), it is stated:
“The British Raj initiated the destruction of the village communities, famously described by Lord Metcalfe as ‘little republics, having nearly everything they can want within themselves.’ India’s ability to endure, he wrote, derived from these village communities: ‘They seem to last where nothing else lasts. Dynasty after dynasty tumbles down but the village community remains the same. It is in a high degree conducive to their happiness, and to the enjoyment of a great portion of freedom and independence.’”
Metcalfe said this in 1830. However, since independence from the British, India’s rulers have further established ‘village India’s’ dependency on central government. And now a potential death knell for rural India is underway as India’s ruling elite, exhibiting a severe bout of ‘Stockholm syndrome’, sells out the nation to not only Western agribusiness but also to US finance and intelligence interests.
Whether it concerns India or elsewhere, to see the advantages of agroecology, there are those economists, political leaders and ‘science communicators’ who must remove the self-imposed blinkers. This would involve shifting their priorities away from promoting career-building technologies and facilitating neoliberal capitalism towards working for justice, equality, peace and genuine grass-root food sovereignty.
To do that, though, such figures would first have to begin to bite the hand that feeds them.
Colin Todhunter was named in August 2018 by Transcend Media Services as one of 400 Living Peace and Justice Leaders and Models in recognition of his journalism. Join him on Twitter.
All Pro-Trump White Women Are ‘Racist,’ Benefit from ‘White Supremacy’
Newsbusters
November 19, 2018
On Friday’s CNN Tonight, Don Lemon hosted a panel discussion of why most white women voted for Donald Trump that was stacked three to one against conservatives.
Liberal contributor Kirsten Powers argued that such women must be “racist” because they voted for Trump, while UC Berkeley Professor Stephanie Jones-Rogers argued that women have long benefited from “white supremacy” even while being “oppressed” by white men. Alice Stewart was the exception to the liberal rule.
At 11:27 p.m. Eastern, after Lemon began by asking Powers her view, she recalled: “People will say that they support him for reasons other than his racist language.”
She soon added: “And they’ll say, ‘Well, I’m not racist. I just voted for him because I didn’t like Hillary Clinton.’”
The CNN contributor insinuated that everyone who voted for Trump is racist as she continued: “And I just want to say that’s not — that doesn’t make you not racist. It actually makes you racist. If you support somebody who does racist things, that makes you racist. So I just want to establish that.”
This article was posted: Monday, November 19, 2018 at 9:09 am
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Is Trump Right About ‘Excellent’ US Wines?
Donald Trump uncorked a flood of mockery after musing that US wine could become a hit in France, but a blind taste test conducted by RT suggests that Parisians actually prefer US offerings over their country’s own labels.
After the US president complained that unfair tariffs were preventing American vineyards from making a splash in the wine-loving European nation, RT’s Charlotte Dubenskij took to the streets of Paris in hope of answering a question that many incorrectly assume has an obvious answer: Do the French prefer French or American wine?
The unexpected results of the boozy research even forced some Parisians to concede that for once, they agree with Monsieur Trump.
Reprinted from RT News.
The post Is Trump Right About ‘Excellent’ US Wines? appeared first on LewRockwell.
17 children from one UK school, majority with autism, in ‘process of changing their gender’ — RT UK News
A whistleblowing teacher has claimed that numerous vulnerable children at one British school are being tricked into believing they are the wrong gender, the Mail on Sunday reports.
The anonymous teacher reported that she was asked not to tell colleagues or parents if a student stated that they were transgender.
According to the paper, older students at the school who already identify as transgender are influencing younger pupils. The majority of cases identified by the whistleblower involve girls who identify as boys or as ‘non-binary.’ The anonymous teacher also noted that transgender YouTube stars were also responsible for influencing pupils.
Speaking to the paper, the teacher said: “I was discussing the topic of menstruation during a class recently and was called out by one of the pupils who now identifies as a boy for failing to say that boys can have periods too.
“Of course they can’t and it sounds like a joke, but a lot of teachers are terrified of making a slip-up.”
The news comes as links between autism and gender identity are coming under increased scrutiny.
A London clinic for transgender children reported that a third of their patients had ‘moderate or severe autistic traits.’ Specialists at the Tavistock Center’s Gender Identity Development Service treated 1,069 under-18s between 2011 and 2017. Some 372 of the teenage subjects were deemed to exhibit some autistic traits, according to an internal review conducted in June this year.
The center came in for criticism for not doing more to publicize the issue.
Consultant Clinical Psychologist Dr Sally Powis recognized that, while the issue is under-researched, scientific papers show a disproportionate level of those on the autism spectrum having gender dysphoria.
During an interview with Network Autism, Dr Powis warned that it was very difficult to distinguish between ‘genuine’ gender dysphoria in those with autism and a ‘phase’ or obsession that the subject might be experiencing.
Adding that “people on the spectrum as children might be less clued-in to social norms,” and that she suspected this discrepancy could be a result of autistic people being “more honest about their sexuality than the rest of us.
“They are not trying to be one thing or the other that we all think we have to do to be accepted.”
The expert recommended that autistic people with gender identity issues should be treated on a case-by-case basis.
READ MORE: 2 women caned for ‘attempting lesbian sex’ in Malaysia
A spokesperson for the Tavistock Center said that the link between the condition and gender dysphoria was not new. “All young people attending our service undertake a comprehensive assessment over a period of time.
“There is general consensus that a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder is not a reason in itself to exclude individuals from treatment for gender dysphoria,” they added.
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Twitter explodes as Trump twists Democrat Schiff’s name in fiery post — RT US News
Congressman Adam Schiff has become the latest US politician to get a profane nickname from Donald Trump after the president labeled him “little Adam Schitt,” sending Twitter into convulsions.
“So funny to see little Adam Schitt (D-CA) talking about the fact that Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker was not approved by the Senate,” Trump tweeted on Sunday, twisting the congressman’s last name. Schiff is “not mentioning the fact that Bob Mueller (who is highly conflicted) was not approved by the Senate!”
So funny to see little Adam Schitt (D-CA) talking about the fact that Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker was not approved by the Senate, but not mentioning the fact that Bob Mueller (who is highly conflicted) was not approved by the Senate!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 18, 2018
Schiff fired back half an hour later, sharing the inflammatory post and writing on Twitter: “Wow, Mr. President, that’s a good one. Was that like your answers to Mr. Mueller’s questions, or did you write this one yourself?”
Wow, Mr. President, that’s a good one.
Was that like your answers to Mr. Mueller’s questions, or did you write this one yourself? https://t.co/Yd27sayt7C
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) November 18, 2018
His response was soon followed a real Twitter storm, with more and more Trump haters joining an online brawl.
We are so desensitized to Trump, that we need to stop and recognize how outrageous it is for the President of the United States to publicly write a profane insult to a leading member of Congress. This is insane, and leadership this reckless has never been seen before in the U.S.
— Michael Aaron (@MichaelAaron64) November 19, 2018
Trump had already taken aim at Schiff earlier this year. But in retrospect, that February tweet pales in comparison to the latest tirade.
Little Adam Schiff, who is desperate to run for higher office, is one of the biggest liars and leakers in Washington, right up there with Comey, Warner, Brennan and Clapper! Adam leaves closed committee hearings to illegally leak confidential information. Must be stopped!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 5, 2018
Schiff, who is expected to take the lead of the House Intelligence Committee after Democrats won dominance in the chamber in the midterm elections, appeared Sunday morning on ABC.
READ MORE: Erdogan aide tells congressman Adam Schiff to ‘shut up’
He called Trump’s decision to appoint former US Attorney Matthew Whitaker to the Justice Department “unconstitutional” as he was not confirmed by the Senate – an accusation that other Democrats frequently use and the White House vehemently denies.
Matt Whitaker’s appointment violates the Constitution, the DOJ succession statute and the rules of ethics, since he was appointed for the express purpose of interfering with Mueller’s investigation.
During Watergate, Republicans defended the rule of law. Will they now? pic.twitter.com/3Zoc4aZjqH
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) November 19, 2018
Whitaker, a former chief of Sessions’ staff, has previously attacked Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged Russian meddling with the 2016 election. As the head of the Justice Department, Whitaker will oversee the notorious probe.
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U.S. Military Is In ‘Crisis’ And Could Lose A War With China Or Russia
Mac Slavo
SHTFplan.com
November 16, 2018
A new report is saying that the United States military has reached crisis mode. The country could “struggle to win” or just as easily lose a war to either Russia or China.
The U.S. “could suffer unacceptably high casualties and loss of major capital assets in its next conflict,” the National Defense Strategy Commission says, according to NBC News. The historic military supremacy of the U.S. has eroded drastically, leaving the country likely unable to fight more than a single war at a time, according to a congressionally chartered report released Wednesday.
“U.S. military superiority is no longer assured and the implications for American interests and American security are severe,” said the report, which was issued by the National Defense Strategy Commission, an independent agency whose board is appointed by the House and Senate Armed Services committees. The report concludes that the Defense Department isn’t financially (brace yourselves for the solution: higher taxes) or strategically set up to wage two wars at once and could even lose a war against China or Russia individually.
Johnny Michael, a spokesman for the Defense Department, said the agency welcomed the report, calling it “a stark reminder of the gravity of these issues, and a call to action.”
“The department will carefully consider each of the recommendations put forward by the commission as part of continuing efforts to strengthen our nation’s defense, and looks forward to working with the commission and the Congress to do so,” he said. –NBC News
“China and Russia, seeking regional hegemony and global power projection, are pursuing military buildups aimed at neutralizing U.S. strengths,” wrote former Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman, the commission’s co-chairman. At the exact same time, “the United States has significantly weakened its…
PressTV-17 years into Afghan War, US admits ‘Taliban not losing’
The top US military officer has admitted that the Taliban “are not losing” in Afghanistan and much more needs to be done to bring peace to the war-torn country 17 years into the longest war in American history.
“They are not losing right now, I think that is fair to say,” General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said of the Taliban during a discussion at a security forum in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Sunday. “We used the term stalemate a year ago and, relatively speaking, it has not changed much.”
The top US military officer said while there was no “military solution” to peace in Afghanistan, Washington and its allies in the NATO military alliance were trying to use all their military, political and economic potentials in a bid to convince the Taliban that it was time to come to the negotiation table.
“Without going into detail here, we do believe the Taliban know that at some point they do have to reconcile,” he said….
UK could ask for Brexit transition beyond 2020 – business minister — RT UK News
The UK could ask for an even longer Brexit transition period. Business Secretary Greg Clark told BBC radio that it could now stretch until 2022 – two years after it was supposed to finish.
The UK is set to formally leave the bloc on March 29, 2019; although a planned transition period means that London will remain a member until 2020.
Clark, upon being questioned by the BBC about an extension, revealed that “it would be at our request.”
Business Secretary @GregClarkMP tells @bbcr4today that he welcomes the proposal for a longer EU transition period keeping Britain under EU rules & regulations for longer – potentially up until Dec’ 2022 – after the last date for the next election
— Nick Robinson (@bbcnickrobinson) November 19, 2018
“It would be our discretion, it would be purely for us if we wanted to and there are reasons we may not want to take that up, it would be available to us,” he said, not ruling out that the period could last until 2022.
While the 2022 date was not dismissed by Clark, the minister suggested that the period could be extended by a matter of “weeks or months,” stating: “If we were six weeks away from concluding a future economic partnership and agreeing that, then it may make sense to extend the transition period.”
Clark’s statements reflect those of chief EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, who told The Sun that “We don’t want the transition to go on and on forever. If we can’t work out a deal by then, we have to accept the need to fall back on the backstop.”
Business Secretary Greg Clark says extending the Brexit transition period to 2022 is “an option”. Holy moly, that is going to annoy the Pizza Club. #r4today
— Kevin Schofield (@PolhomeEditor) November 19, 2018
New Year’s Eve 2022 was agreed by most EU ambassadors as the final date for the transition, during a meeting with Barnier on Sunday.
The news will worry the Torys’ hard-Brexit faction, who have been pressuring Theresa May over any extension of EU power beyond the withdrawal date. The PM has repeatedly insisted that the extension would only be ‘a matter of months.’
An extension period will be partly used to give negotiators more time to agree upon the UK’s EU exit deal, one that will get through parliament and stave off the threat of a no-deal Brexit.
May’s draft withdrawal agreement with the EU, which was published on Wednesday, seems to be even less popular with the British public than it is with parliament. A YouGov poll conducted on Thursday found twice as many Britons oppose the deal as those who support it (42 to 19 percent).
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Due process or helping rapists? Department of Education slammed for sex assault definition change — RT US News
US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has proposed new rules on how schools respond to sexual harassment, prompting outcry from activists claiming that this would gut Title IX protections for victims.
The new rules define sexual harassment under Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs, and set out due process protections, the Department of Education announced on Friday.
“Every survivor of sexual violence must be taken seriously, and every student accused of sexual misconduct must know that guilt is not predetermined,” DeVos said in the announcement. “We can, and must, condemn sexual violence and punish those who perpetrate it, while ensuring a fair grievance process. Those are not mutually exclusive ideas. They are the very essence of how Americans understand justice to function.”
The proposed changes will be open to public comments for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, but the backlash has already started on social media, where it was denounced by former Obama adviser Valerie Jarett, the Human Rights Campaign, and even the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Title IX ensures all students the legal right to equal education access, free from violence or trauma. 1 in 5 women, 1 in 16 men, experience sexual assault in college. The new DOE rules will reduce the number of survivors who come forward #handsoffix. https://t.co/r7tRXA3C8X
— Valerie Jarrett (@ValerieJarrett) November 16, 2018
It promotes an unfair process, inappropriately favoring the accused and letting schools ignore their responsibility under Title IX to respond promptly and fairly to complaints of sexual violence.
— ACLU (@ACLU) November 16, 2018
The ACLU in particular argued the new rules promote “an unfair process, inappropriately favoring the accused.” This unusual turn of phrase has raised some eyebrows, as journalists normally in favor of the ACLU wondered if the organization has strayed from its principles.
The ACLU is rapidly becoming a standard liberal advocacy group, subordinatig its long-standing civil liberties principles to these more pedestrian partisan goals. Still some noble, admirable holdouts there, but the trend is as clear as it is tragic.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 16, 2018
On the other hand, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) applauded the proposed changes, saying that the definition of sexual harassment in line with established case law would eliminate the “confusion that has led institutions nationwide to adopt overly broad definitions of sexual harassment that threaten student and faculty speech.”
The proposed regulations define sexual harassment in accordance with established Supreme Court precedent, eliminating the confusion that has led institutions nationwide to adopt overly broad definitions of sexual harassment that threaten student and faculty speech. 3/7
— FIRE (@TheFIREorg) November 16, 2018
FIRE also commended the DOE for following the official rulemaking procedures, instead of imposing the new rules through “Dear Colleague” letters – a reference to what happened in 2011, when the Obama administration did just that with the rules currently in effect.
The letter, issued by the DOE’s Office for Civil Rights in April 2011, interpreted the 40-year-old civil rights law as an authority to mandate procedures for addressing sexual assault. More than 7,000 higher education institutions that receive federal funding were told they had to use the lowest standard of evidence in sexual assault cases, allow appeals of not-guilty findings, and adjudicate all cases within a 60-day time limit. The letter also strongly discouraged cross-examination of accusers.
READ MORE: Rolling Stone loses $7mn+ in defamation suit over false gang rape report
Sexual assault has come under increased spotlight over the past few years, with media referring to an “epidemic” of rape on US college campuses. Nonprofits working with the government to curb sexual violence have reported that one in five women and one in 16 men were getting sexually assaulted in college, and that more than 90 percent of assaults went unreported.
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PressTV-British foreign secretary in Tehran for nuclear deal talks
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has met with his Iranian counterpart, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in the Iranian capital Tehran for talks that were expected to focus on a 2015 multilateral nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic.
The British official arrived in the Iranian capital earlier on Monday and later met with Zarif.
IRNA reported that Hunt would also meet with Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani.
Secretary Hunt is the first Western official of his rank to visit Iran since the United States — formerly a party to the deal — unilaterally withdrew from the agreement in May.
The administration of US President Donald Trump had been hoping to get the other parties to the deal with Iran to likewise scrap the deal. Instead, they have stressed that not only will they stick to the agreement but that they will also work to sustain it in the face of increased US pressure.
In a…
Prison Planet.com » Ebola Outbreak “Worst In Congo’s History” As Hundreds Dead; Risk Of Spread To Uganda “Very High”
Zero Hedge
November 16, 2018
The most recent Ebola outbreak spreading through the Democratic Republic of Congo is now the worst in the country’s history, with 209 dead and 333 confirmed or probable cases, according to the DRC’s health ministry.
According to The Express, efforts to contain the disease have been hampered by localized armed conflict and community resistance to health officials.
The outbreak, the second this year, began in North Kivu before spreading east to Ituri. Oly Ilunga Kalenga, the DRC’s minister of public health, said efforts to contain the deadly outbreak have been thwarted by violence against health officials and civilians as militant groups battle for control in the affected region. –Express
Two health workers were killed during the militant attack according to the minister, while 11 civilians and a soldier were killed last month in the city of Beni – the outbreak’s epicenter.
And on Thursday, the United Nations announced that at least seven UN peacekeepers were killed by militants in at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak.
“Our peacekeeping colleagues tell us that six peacekeepers from Malawi and one from Tanzania who are part of the U.N. peacekeeping operation in the DRC … were killed yesterday, in Beni territory, in North Kivu,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
Meanwhile, a USAID worker speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity said “We are absolutely concerned about the ongoing outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is occurring in an area of active conflict, so physical insecurity is a persistent challenge and complication to the ongoing response efforts.”
“No other epidemic in the world has been as complex as the one we are currently experiencing,” said Kalenga.
As the rate of new cases has accelerated in recent weeks, neighboring Uganda began vaccinating at-risk health workers on Wednesday in case…
PressTV-Trump can’t ditch MbS due to personal stakes: report
US President Donald Trump can’t let go of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman despite increasing evidence that the prince ordered the murder of a Saudi critic overseas, and that is because the US president has personal stakes in propping up Mohammed, a new report suggests.
An article by The New York Times’ White House correspondent on Sunday explained why Trump was sticking with Mohammed even as “evidence piles up pointing to the Saudi crown prince’s responsibility in the brutal killing of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.”
Khashoggi was assassinated by a hit squad of 15 Saudi Arabian agents — including a frequent companion of Mohammed’s and some members of his security detail — inside the Saudi consulate in the Turkish city of Istanbul on October 2.
Turkey “moved heaven and earth” to bring international attention to the killing. As that attention was attracted, Saudi Arabia became incapable of quietly getting…
In-Coming Progressives Embrace Primary Challenges and Bold Agenda
In a national strategy call with progressives nationwide on Saturday evening, newly-elected members of Congress—and some of the top organizers who led their successful campaigns—committed to a strategy of holding the Democratic Party’s feet to the fire in order to “save the country” by rejecting the corporate-friendly politics and submission to right-wing talking points that have shackled the ability to forge bold solutions to the most pressing crises.
“All Americans know money in politics is a huge problem, but unfortunately the way that we fix it is by demanding that our incumbents give it up or by running fierce campaigns ourselves,” said Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the representative-elect from New York, on the call organized by Justice Democrats. “I don’t think people who are taking money from pharmaceutical companies should be drafting health care legislation. I don’t think people who are taking money from oil and gas companies should be drafting climate legislation.”
Becky Bond, a political strategist and veteran of the 2016 presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders, applauded Justice Democrats as being” founded by some of the best strategists in the progressive movement” and said she believes “the group’s young, vibrant leaders are going to recruit and usher in the next generation of diverse working-class leaders into Congress.”
“Too many people have been told to put our trust in the leaders who got us into this mess.
We’re building a caucus of mission-driven legislators in Congress. This will involve recruiting primary challengers to Dem incumbents who aren’t fighting hard enough.” –@_waleedshahid
— Justice Democrats (@justicedems) November 17, 2018
According to Politico’s report of the strategy session,
The group said they want Democratic members of Congress to be representative of their diverse communities and support liberal policies like Medicare for all,…
New York Taxpayers Fund World Biggest Sex-Toy Retailer
Photo Source James N. Mattis | CC BY 2.0
When was the last time you bought a vibrator, lubricant or specialty outfit?
For decades, shoppers for sex-related products and services were mostly men, often dubbed the “raincoat crowd,” who slinked into XXX-rated shops in a down-market part of town to purchase a risqué magazine, porn flick, a vibrator, a special costume or hookup with a sex worker.
Those days are over!
The commercial sex industry is now mainstream. Old-time sex toys have been rebranded “sex-wellness products” and are available at specialty outlets like Gotham’s Pleasure Chest, San Francisco’s Good Vibration and Seattle’s Babeland as well as major retailers, ranging from high-end specialty chains like Nordstrom and Brookstone, to mass-market outlets like Walgreens and Target, and even crusty down-market Wal-Mart.
But the big one is Amazon! It’s the nation’s largest retailer of sex-wellness products offering around 60,000 items.
And its sex-toys business will become even bigger with the support of the New York taxpayer.
On Tuesday, November 13th, two New York “progressive” pols, Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, announced the deal of the century – Amazon will place one of its two new corporate “headquarters” in the Big Apple; the other will be near Arlington, VA. More than 230 cities competed to secure the Amazon deal.
Media reports reveal that Amazon will get about $3 billion – the state offered $1.525…
Death toll from California fires likely to soar, with nearly 1,300 people still missing
Death toll from California fires likely to soar, with nearly 1,300 people still missing
By
David Brown
18 November 2019
The death toll from wildfires in California could rise to more than 1,000, which would make it one of the deadliest and most horrific disasters in modern American history. While the official number of dead from the Camp Fire in Northern California rose to 76 over the weekend, nearly 1,300 are listed as missing, many of them elderly.
Confirmed fatalities have only been added at around eight each day, as investigators meticulously comb through the destruction. Given the nearly 10,000 homes destroyed and the chaos of the evacuation, the final number killed will almost certainly be much higher. To this must be added the untold health consequences from the extreme air pollution that has spread throughout Northern California.
Due to the intensity of the fire, in many cases the only remains recovered are teeth or a human bone—making it difficult to identify victims. Many residents of the small California town of Paradise faced the last moments of their lives in the most horrific manner, as flames engulfed their homes or senior living facilities when they were still in bed.
Samantha, whose father and step-sister both lost their family homes in the fire, told the World Socialist Web Site on Sunday, “There was no kind of warning or anything like that.” As for the death toll, she said, “I think it’s going to be with a comma”—that is, over 1,000.
In an attempt at damage control, President Donald Trump joined Democratic Governor Jerry Brown and Democratic Governor-Elect Gavin Newsom to tour affected areas on Saturday. Aside from the usual platitudes and vague promises about federal aid, none of the politicians had anything substantive to say…
PressTV-Trump weighs changes in senior staff, including Kelly
US President Donald Trump is considering a major shake-up of his senior staff that could include chief of staff John Kelly, as he prepares to deal with the fallout from the midterm elections and the looming outcome of the Russia investigation.
In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Trump said he was weighing a change of “three or four or five positions,” but gave no details or a timetable. “I need flexibility,” he added.
The president hinted at a willingness to dismiss Kelly, despite a previous pledge to keep his chief of staff for the remainder of his term in office.
While praising Kelly’s work ethic, Trump said, “There are certain things that I don’t like that he does.”
“There are a couple of things where it’s just not his strength. It’s not his fault. It’s not his strength,” he said, adding that Kelly himself might want to leave the administration.
Trump has floated possible replacements for Kelly, including…
The Primacy of Income – LewRockwell
Ever since the central banks became serial bubble blowers twenty years ago, household wealth has mostly been driven by asset price inflation:
But this has been a quixotic pursuit. Created by pulling tomorrow’s prosperity into today, these asset price bubbles are unsustainable, and invariably suffer violent corrections at their end.
So far, the central banks have responded to these corrections by simply doing more of the same, just at greater and greater intensity. To keep the current Everything Bubble going, the world’s central banks have not only had to more than quintuple their collective balance sheets, but have recently had to resort to the extreme (desperate?) measure of injecting the greatest amount of liquidity ever in 2016 and 2017.
History has shown us that the height an asset bubble reaches is proportional to the damage it wreaks when it bursts. Applying this logic, the coming pop of the Everything Bubble will be devastating.
So devastating that analysts like John Hussman forecast a 0% (or worse) total market return over the next twelve years:
Moreover, the primary driver and supporter of asset price appreciation over the past seven years, central bank easing, is now gone. For the first time since the GFC, the collective central bank liquidity injection rate (the solid black line in the below chart) is now net zero.
And plans to tighten much further from here have been clearly committed and communicated to the world:
As a consequence, we fully expect yesterday’s capital gains to become tomorrow’s capital losses. What goes up on thin-air money comes down with its removal.
And while this is going on, interest rates are suddenly exploding higher around the world after spending a decade at all-time historic lows:
We’ve detailed in depth the…
CIA ‘concludes with high confidence’ Saudi Crown Prince ordered Khashoggi murder – reports — RT US News
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey last month, the CIA has concluded, according to anonymous sources who spoke with the Washington Post and Reuters.
The US foreign espionage agency assessed with “high confidence” that the prince was behind the death of the Post columnist, the newspaper reported on Friday evening, citing “people familiar with the matter.” Reuters later cited its own source as saying that the spy agency “had briefed other parts of the US government on its assessment,” which contradicts the official position maintained by both Riyadh and Washington thus far.
The CIA has concluded that the Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination, people familiar with the matter say https://t.co/nJgpNJHW8h
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 16, 2018
Saudi Arabia initially denied that Khashoggi had been killed inside the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul, where he was last seen on October 2. Eventually, however, Riyadh admitted the journalist had died on the premises, blaming it on a “fight” with officials sent to take him home. Khashoggi was living in self-imposed exile in Turkey, having become an outspoken critic of the crown prince.
Read more
Writing in the Post last month, Turkish president Recep Erdogan claimed that the order to have the dissident journalist killed “came from the highest levels of the Saudi government,” not naming the crown prince but seemingly implicating him.
Among the evidence examined by the CIA was an alleged phone call between Khashoggi and the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Khalid bin Salman –the crown prince’s brother– who assured the journalist it was safe to go to the consulate, the Post reported.
Ambassador bin Salman abruptly left Washington on October 11, and was not expected to return, according to reports by multiple media outlets, which were neither confirmed nor denied by Riyadh.
The CIA’s “purported assessments are false,” Fatimah Baeshen, a spokeswoman for the Saudi embassy in Washington, told the Post. “We have and continue to hear various theories without seeing the primary basis for these speculations.”
Later in the evening, Ambassador bin Salman tweeted that the Post failed to print the embassy’s full response, including the statement that he “has never had any phone conversations” with Khashoggi.
“This is a serious accusation and should not be left to anonymous sources,” the ambassador said.
It is unclear to what extent the reported CIA assessment was based on evidence rather than assumptions, such as that the crown prince is the “de facto ruler” of Saudi Arabia.
“The accepted position is that there is no way this happened without him being aware or involved,” the Post quotes an anonymous US official, described as familiar with the CIA’s conclusions.
Among the evidence reportedly obtained by the CIA is the audio recording from a listening device Turkey had placed inside the Saudi consulate, the Post reported. CIA Director Gina Haspel was allegedly given a copy of the audio, said to have been shared with officials from other countries as well.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
PressTV-Extend Brexit transition to 2022, EU suggests
Britain’s transition out of the European Union could take up to 2022, says the EU chief Brexit negotiator.
Michel Barnier made the comments among ambassadors of the EU27 on Sunday, putting the transition date as late as the December of 2022.
The delayed transition, which was originally planned to take place at the end of 2020, could fuel Eurosceptic ire.
Barnier further referred to the volatile situation in London, urging governments not to open the Withdrawal Agreement.
“There’s no need to reopen the text”, he said, adding that, “There is a significant difference between being a member and not a member.”
May had said she would finalize negotiations for leaving the bloc in “a matter of months,” a promise that is on the track to failure.
“The UK could theoretically ask for an extension until 2099 but an 80-year extension might upset people a little bit,” an anonymous EU diplomat was quoted by the British media as…
Prison Planet.com » Global Auto Industry Collapse Continues As October EU Data Shows No Relief
Zero Hedge
November 16, 2018
The outlook for the global automobile market has been increasingly dire lately, especially after a third quarter that saw sales drop in many major markets across the globe, including China. Now, the latest data from Europe suggests that the difficulties may be nowhere close to over despite optimistic fourth quarter guidance by companies like Volkswagen and Daimler AG.
Deliveries of new passenger cars were down 7.4% in the EU and the European Free Trade Association in October from the year prior. This adds to a 23% drop that occurred during September according to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, and which was so acute it led to the first negative GDP print for Germany since 2015.
Despite the ongoing sales weakness, which many attribute to one-time events, some analysts – like those at EY Consultancy – still expect the market to turn around in the fourth quarter. They argue that new emissions testing cited by many companies as the reason for disappointing sales, will only have a temporary effect.
At the same time, Citigroup analyst Angus Tweedie thinks the downside is not over for companies like BMW and Daimler AG, according to Bloomberg. In a note titled “The Golden Age Ends With a Crash”, Tweedie wrote that “Heading into 2019 we see few remaining avenues of maneuver, and with volume growth slowing in most markets believe the scale of pressures will become obvious.”
Meanwhile, ongoing challenges like the slowdown in China have been exacerbated by trade wars, casting a cloud over the industry. However, one of the main potential threats, tariffs on imports from the EU, has been alleviated for now, as we wrote yesterday. Following the data release, European automakers like Daimler, VM, and BMW were all trading lower between 1% and 2%.
- A d v e r t i s e m e n t
The new emissions standards (dubbed “WLTP”), a…
Democrat congressman tells gun owners to disarm, or else — RT US News
California Congressman with 2020 presidential aspirations Eric Swalwell has confirmed he favored confiscating guns and even had a ‘nuclear’ take on what the government would do if it faced resistance.
In an op-ed published Thursday in USA Today, Swalwell (D-California) proposed a $15 billion buyback program for “assault weapons,” as well as criminal prosecution of anyone who chooses to keep their guns.
“So basically Swalwell wants a war. Because that’s what you would get,” airborne veteran and gun pundit Joe Biggs commented on Twitter – to which Swalwell replied that the government would win such a war, because it has atomic weapons.
“And it would be a short war my friend. The government has nukes. Too many of them. But they’re legit,” the congressman wrote.
And it would be a short war my friend. The government has nukes. Too many of them. But they’re legit. I’m sure if we talked we could find common ground to protect our families and communities.
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) November 16, 2018
“So our government would nuke its own country in order to take guns? Wow,” Biggs shot back.
Conservatives, gun rights advocates and veterans chimed in, bashing Swalwell for what they saw as a willingness to use nuclear weapons against Americans in the name of gun control.
Seems to me that if we have a government capable of threatening nuclear war in order to take its citizens constitutionally guaranteed gun rights, we have a big problem right now
— Jacki Vinson (@jackivinson) November 16, 2018
I saw Lex Luthor was trending and assumed it had something to do with Swalwell’s intricate plan to use nuclear strikes to bring an end to deer hunting.
— Caleb Howe (@CalebHowe) November 16, 2018
Some even pointed out that the loyalty of the military should not be assumed in such a scenario.
Swalwell’s defenders were quick to defend him, explaining that what he really meant was that –contrary to what the Second Amendment says– guns were useless as a form of protection against government tyranny, since the government had nuclear weapons. The congressman himself tried to reframe his comment as sarcasm.
America’s gun debate in one thread.
1) I propose a buy-back of assault weapons
2) Gun owner says he’ll go to war with USA if that happens
3) I sarcastically point out USA isn’t losing to his assault weapon (it’s not the 18th Century)
4) I’m called a tyrant
5) 0 progress
— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) November 16, 2018
A Marine bomb technician responded with some sarcasm of his own.
Ladies and gentlemen, I want to take this moment to officially endorse Rep Swalwell as the 2020 Democratic Presidential nominee. https://t.co/CePXmAzQ4s
— Johnny (Joey) Jones (@Johnny_Joey) November 16, 2018
The California congressman isn’t hiding that he is calling for a gun confiscation program modeled after Australia, which in 1996 outlawed long guns and rounded up over 660,000 weapons. Most recent research indicates that American civilians own approximately 393 million guns.
Swalwell, who was just re-elected to a second term representing California’s 15th district, located in the San Francisco Bay area, gained fame as one of the more outspoken Democrat advocates of the “Trump colluded with Russia” conspiracy theory.
Eric Swalwell is simply an idiot who has built a large social media #Resistance following by being the member of Congress willing to issue the most inflammatory, reckless & extreme decrees about Trump/Russia: the easiest way to get noticed in Dem politics: pic.twitter.com/jyRSF56UXx
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 16, 2018
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Video: Beyond MLK: What is to be done, with Danny Glover, Nina Turner, and Eddie Conway
During a Q&A with actor Danny Glover, Our Revolution President Nina Turner, and TRNN Executive Producer Eddie Conway, audience members ask about a …
Via Youtube
Video: US war on terror kills 500,000 in Afghanistan, Iraq & Pakistan – Brown University Rhode Island
US War on Terror Kills Nearly 500000 in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan …
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Prison Planet.com » Have European Leaders Lost The Will To Defend Western Civilization?
Robert Bridge
The Strategic Culture Foundation
November 16, 2018
The Western world would have succumbed over 1,000 years ago had its leaders and citizens not made a brave stand in the face of foreign invasion.
Today, no less dangerous invaders than those from the past have succeeded where their forebears could not, and without the force of arms.
The history of Western civilization has been interspersed with episodes of military conflict on such a monumental scale that any defeat would have reversed the course of history forever.
Consider the Battle of Tours. Beginning in 711 AD, a Muslim army under the Umayyad caliphate conquered a large swath of what is known today as Spain and Portugal, or the Iberian Peninsula. The tide began to recede only in 732 when the Germanic statesman and military leader, Charles Martel, with a force of some 20,000 men, emerged victorious against Muslim forces on a battlefield in southwestern France in what is known as the Battle of Tours.
Military historian Victor Davis Hanson emphasized the importance of the conflict when he wrote that “most of the 18th and 19th century historians, like [Edward] Gibbon, saw (Tours), as a landmark battle that marked the high tide of the Muslim advance into Europe.”
Martel’s victory represented the first chapter in a protracted effort – known as the Reconquista – a 780-year campaign on the part of the Christian kingdoms to uproot the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula. And it wasn’t until 1492, the year Columbus set sail to discover the New World, that the peninsula was fully controlled by Christian rulers.
It makes for a compelling thought experiment to consider how a powerful historic figure, like Charles Martel, one of the founding figures of the European Middle Ages, would be received by today’s mainstream media, which has a acquired a very particular way of reporting on those modern European leaders –…
The Worst Year To Be Alive
Bubonic plague, famine, war and flu pandemics have made some periods of human history infamous for death and suffering but one year stands above the rest in terms of misery; 536AD.
According to research from a Harvard professor, it is a prime candidate for the unfortunate accolade of the worst year in the entirety of recorded history.
Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia were plunged into 18 months of solid darkness by a mysterious fog.
It caused snowfall in China, continental-scale crop failure, extreme drought, famine and disease throughout most of the northern hemisphere.
The bleak year was triggered by a cataclysmic Icelandic eruption, scientists say, and was an ominous omen for a bleak century of suffering and death.
According to research from a Harvard professor, the year 536AD is a prime candidate for the unfortunate accolade as the worst year in the entirety of human history. The bleak year kick-started the coldest decade for more than two millennia
History of the World M…
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Michael McCormick, a Harvard University archaeologist and medieval historian, told Science Magazine that the world did not show signs of recovery until 640AD.
‘It was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year,’ Dr McCormick said.
The eerie fog created a drab world with darkness residing over the northern hemisphere for 18 months, with an unrelenting dusk persevering through day and night.
Effects on the climate were so severe that the Irish chronicles tell of ‘a failure of bread from the years 536–539’.
Temperatures in the summer of 536 fell between 1.5°C (2.7°F) and 2.5°C (4.5°F), initiating the coldest decade in the past…
Operation ‘No deal’? UK army braces for Brexit chaos as May faces fierce rejection of divorce plan — RT UK News
The military is reportedly drafting contingency plans that could see British troops deployed in the streets, as the prospects of a chaotic Brexit seem increasingly realistic, with Theresa May facing a potential no-confidence vote.
“About 20 officers who normally oversee Operation Temperer… were ordered last week to step up no-deal Brexit planning,” the Sunday Times reported, citing a well-placed military source.
While Operation Temperer officers are reserved as a response to terror attacks, this time they were tasked with devising a strategy to maintain public order and secure the flow of medical supplies to hospitals. As many as 10,000 members of the military could be deployed on British streets should UK exit the EU on March 29 with no deal with Brussels.
Read more
“The armed forces stand ready to support Britain on a practical basis,” British defense minister Tobias Ellwood said on the ‘Ridge on Sunday’ television program last week. “There are contingency plans being made, there are discussions being held behind the scenes as to what support our armed forces will do.”
The army always makes “sensible contingency plans” to deal with all types of events, Chief of the Defence Staff Sir Nick Carter told the BBC last week. “At this stage I think people are confident there will be a deal, if there’s not one then we stand ready to help in any way we can.”
British society remains highly divided over Theresa May’s draft withdrawal agreement with the EU which was made public on Wednesday night and prompted the resignation of seven ministers. A YouGov poll conducted on Thursday found twice as many Britons oppose the deal as those who support it (42 to 19 percent).
This week, which she has described as “critical” for the very future of the country, May will further confront her critics, emphasizing that she will not renegotiate the EU Withdrawal Agreement. Ahead of an intense week of negotiations with UK MPs before an EU summit on the deal convenes on November 25, the Prime Minister is set to tell the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Monday that she remains “confident” that she “can strike a deal at the Council that I can take back to the House of Commons.”
Amid wide discontent with the deal, May now faces a nearly impossible challenge to get the Parliament to approve the agreement, which makes the chance of no-deal Brexit very real – as real as a no-confidence vote. At least 23 of her own fellow Conservative MPs (out of 48 needed) have already expressed no-confidence in May and demanded that she step aside.
Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will lead the charge against May on Monday and will describe May’s proposal as “a botched, worst-of-all-worlds deal” that is terrible for Britain.
Corbyn’s sentiments seem to be shared in Edinburgh, where First Minister Nicola Sturgeon noted that it would be a “deeply irresponsible” mistake for the Parliament to endorse May’s deal. The Brexit process is just “disastrous” and does not take into account the views of the Scottish government, Scotland’s constitution minister, Michael Russell noted. “It seems clear the UK Government’s deal will be defeated in the House of Commons … we will do everything in power to ensure a common-sense alternative is in place,” Russell said.
Read more
Former foreign minister Boris Johnson, who resigned in July over Brexit plans, also expressed opposition to the deal ahead of May’s Monday speech, and called the PM’s plan either “a tragic illusion” or “an attempt at deception.” Wring in his weekly column for Monday’s Daily Telegraph, he said “we can still pull it back and get the Brexit we want.”
Dominic Raab, who quit as Brexit secretary last week, noted that May’s government lacks the “political will and resolve” to defend the UK’s interests. “If we cannot close this deal on reasonable terms, we need to be very honest with the country that we will not be bribed and blackmailed or bullied and we will walk away,” he told the Sunday Times.
Despite criticism of the agreement, May insisted that she will not quit her office. “A change of leadership at this point isn’t going to make the negotiations any easier and it isn’t going to change the parliamentary arithmetic,” she told Sky News in an interview.
Amid wide discontent with the deal, May now faces a nearly impossible challenge to get the Parliament to approve the agreement, which makes the chance of no-deal Brexit a very real possibility.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Operation ‘No deal’? UK army braces for Brexit chaos as May faces fierce rejection of divorce plan — RT UK News
The military is reportedly drafting contingency plans that could see British troops deployed in the streets, as the prospects of a chaotic Brexit seem increasingly realistic, with Theresa May facing a potential no-confidence vote.
“About 20 officers who normally oversee Operation Temperer… were ordered last week to step up no-deal Brexit planning,” the Sunday Times reported, citing a well-placed military source.
While Operation Temperer officers are reserved as a response to terror attacks, this time they were tasked with devising a strategy to maintain public order and secure the flow of medical supplies to hospitals. As many as 10,000 members of the military could be deployed on British streets should UK exit the EU on March 29 with no deal with Brussels.
Read more
“The armed forces stand ready to support Britain on a practical basis,” British defense minister Tobias Ellwood said on the ‘Ridge on Sunday’ television program last week. “There are contingency plans being made, there are discussions being held behind the scenes as to what support our armed forces will do.”
The army always makes “sensible contingency plans” to deal with all types of events, Chief of the Defence Staff Sir Nick Carter told the BBC last week. “At this stage I think people are confident there will be a deal, if there’s not one then we stand ready to help in any way we can.”
British society remains highly divided over Theresa May’s draft withdrawal agreement with the EU which was made public on Wednesday night and prompted the resignation of seven ministers. A YouGov poll conducted on Thursday found twice as many Britons oppose the deal as those who support it (42 to 19 percent).
This week, which she has described as “critical” for the very future of the country, May will further confront her critics, emphasizing that she will not renegotiate the EU Withdrawal Agreement. Ahead of an intense week of negotiations with UK MPs before an EU summit on the deal convenes on November 25, the Prime Minister is set to tell the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Monday that she remains “confident” that she “can strike a deal at the Council that I can take back to the House of Commons.”
Amid wide discontent with the deal, May now faces a nearly impossible challenge to get the Parliament to approve the agreement, which makes the chance of no-deal Brexit very real – as real as a no-confidence vote. At least 23 of her own fellow Conservative MPs (out of 48 needed) have already expressed no-confidence in May and demanded that she step aside.
Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will lead the charge against May on Monday and will describe May’s proposal as “a botched, worst-of-all-worlds deal” that is terrible for Britain.
Corbyn’s sentiments seem to be shared in Edinburgh, where First Minister Nicola Sturgeon noted that it would be a “deeply irresponsible” mistake for the Parliament to endorse May’s deal. The Brexit process is just “disastrous” and does not take into account the views of the Scottish government, Scotland’s constitution minister, Michael Russell noted. “It seems clear the UK Government’s deal will be defeated in the House of Commons … we will do everything in power to ensure a common-sense alternative is in place,” Russell said.
Read more
Former foreign minister Boris Johnson, who resigned in July over Brexit plans, also expressed opposition to the deal ahead of May’s Monday speech, and called the PM’s plan either “a tragic illusion” or “an attempt at deception.” Wring in his weekly column for Monday’s Daily Telegraph, he said “we can still pull it back and get the Brexit we want.”
Dominic Raab, who quit as Brexit secretary last week, noted that May’s government lacks the “political will and resolve” to defend the UK’s interests. “If we cannot close this deal on reasonable terms, we need to be very honest with the country that we will not be bribed and blackmailed or bullied and we will walk away,” he told the Sunday Times.
Despite criticism of the agreement, May insisted that she will not quit her office. “A change of leadership at this point isn’t going to make the negotiations any easier and it isn’t going to change the parliamentary arithmetic,” she told Sky News in an interview.
Amid wide discontent with the deal, May now faces a nearly impossible challenge to get the Parliament to approve the agreement, which makes the chance of no-deal Brexit a very real possibility.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Operation ‘No deal’? UK army braces for Brexit chaos as May faces fierce rejection of divorce plan — RT UK News
The military is reportedly drafting contingency plans that could see British troops deployed in the streets, as the prospects of a chaotic Brexit seem increasingly realistic, with Theresa May facing a potential no-confidence vote.
“About 20 officers who normally oversee Operation Temperer… were ordered last week to step up no-deal Brexit planning,” the Sunday Times reported, citing a well-placed military source.
While Operation Temperer officers are reserved as a response to terror attacks, this time they were tasked with devising a strategy to maintain public order and secure the flow of medical supplies to hospitals. As many as 10,000 members of the military could be deployed on British streets should UK exit the EU on March 29 with no deal with Brussels.
Read more
“The armed forces stand ready to support Britain on a practical basis,” British defense minister Tobias Ellwood said on the ‘Ridge on Sunday’ television program last week. “There are contingency plans being made, there are discussions being held behind the scenes as to what support our armed forces will do.”
The army always makes “sensible contingency plans” to deal with all types of events, Chief of the Defence Staff Sir Nick Carter told the BBC last week. “At this stage I think people are confident there will be a deal, if there’s not one then we stand ready to help in any way we can.”
British society remains highly divided over Theresa May’s draft withdrawal agreement with the EU which was made public on Wednesday night and prompted the resignation of seven ministers. A YouGov poll conducted on Thursday found twice as many Britons oppose the deal as those who support it (42 to 19 percent).
This week, which she has described as “critical” for the very future of the country, May will further confront her critics, emphasizing that she will not renegotiate the EU Withdrawal Agreement. Ahead of an intense week of negotiations with UK MPs before an EU summit on the deal convenes on November 25, the Prime Minister is set to tell the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) Monday that she remains “confident” that she “can strike a deal at the Council that I can take back to the House of Commons.”
Amid wide discontent with the deal, May now faces a nearly impossible challenge to get the Parliament to approve the agreement, which makes the chance of no-deal Brexit very real – as real as a no-confidence vote. At least 23 of her own fellow Conservative MPs (out of 48 needed) have already expressed no-confidence in May and demanded that she step aside.
Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will lead the charge against May on Monday and will describe May’s proposal as “a botched, worst-of-all-worlds deal” that is terrible for Britain.
Corbyn’s sentiments seem to be shared in Edinburgh, where First Minister Nicola Sturgeon noted that it would be a “deeply irresponsible” mistake for the Parliament to endorse May’s deal. The Brexit process is just “disastrous” and does not take into account the views of the Scottish government, Scotland’s constitution minister, Michael Russell noted. “It seems clear the UK Government’s deal will be defeated in the House of Commons … we will do everything in power to ensure a common-sense alternative is in place,” Russell said.
Read more
Former foreign minister Boris Johnson, who resigned in July over Brexit plans, also expressed opposition to the deal ahead of May’s Monday speech, and called the PM’s plan either “a tragic illusion” or “an attempt at deception.” Wring in his weekly column for Monday’s Daily Telegraph, he said “we can still pull it back and get the Brexit we want.”
Dominic Raab, who quit as Brexit secretary last week, noted that May’s government lacks the “political will and resolve” to defend the UK’s interests. “If we cannot close this deal on reasonable terms, we need to be very honest with the country that we will not be bribed and blackmailed or bullied and we will walk away,” he told the Sunday Times.
Despite criticism of the agreement, May insisted that she will not quit her office. “A change of leadership at this point isn’t going to make the negotiations any easier and it isn’t going to change the parliamentary arithmetic,” she told Sky News in an interview.
Amid wide discontent with the deal, May now faces a nearly impossible challenge to get the Parliament to approve the agreement, which makes the chance of no-deal Brexit a very real possibility.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Sensitive Trump says he won’t listen to audio record of Khashoggi killing — RT US News
Donald Trump said he has no desire to listen to an audio allegedly depicting the murder of Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, but added that he had been briefed that it was a “very violent, very vicious and terrible” recording.
“We have the tape. I don’t want to hear the tape. No reason for me to hear the tape,” the US president told the ‘Fox News Sunday’ program.
When asked by Chris Wallace why he doesn’t want to get acquainted with the critical piece of evidence in the killing of the journalist, who was a US resident and wrote for the Washington Post, Trump replied “because it’s a suffering tape.”
Read more
However, he assured the group that he was “fully briefed” on the contents of the recording. It’s a “very violent, very vicious and terrible” tape, Trump said, adding that “there’s no reason for me to hear it.”
Khashoggi was brutally murdered and dismembered by a group of assassins at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Riyadh first claimed that it was unaware of the fate of the journalist, who was critical of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (also known as MbS) in his articles.
But with all evidence pointing at them, the Saudis eventually admitted that Khashoggi was accidentally killed during an interrogation gone wrong. The key piece of proof is claimed to be a recording from the journalist’s Apple Watch that he turned on as a precaution before entering the consulate.
Turkish authorities said they’ve obtained this gruesome audio and have shared it with several countries, including the US.
Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that the CIA concluded “with high confidence” that the killing of its columnist was ordered by the Crown Prince himself.
Wallace wondered if MbS was lying when he personally assured Trump that he had nothing to do with the crime.
“Who can really know? But I can say this: he’s got many people now that say he had no knowledge.”
Since the outbreak of the scandal, Trump has been reluctant to yield to calls for punishing Riyadh –coming from both sides of the aisle– and spoil relations with one of America’s key security and business partners.
In Sunday’s interview, he reiterated his commitment to “stick with an ally that in many ways has been very good.”
Earlier this week, Washington sanctioned 17 Saudi officials, some close to the Crown Prince, over Khashoggi’s death, freezing their assets in the US and refusing them entry to the country. But the move was seen as an attempt to pander to global outrage, while delivering no real damage to the US-Saudi ties.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Sensitive Trump says he won’t listen to audio record of Khashoggi killing — RT US News
Donald Trump said he has no desire to listen to an audio allegedly depicting the murder of Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, but added that he had been briefed that it was a “very violent, very vicious and terrible” recording.
“We have the tape. I don’t want to hear the tape. No reason for me to hear the tape,” the US president told the ‘Fox News Sunday’ program.
When asked by Chris Wallace why he doesn’t want to get acquainted with the critical piece of evidence in the killing of the journalist, who was a US resident and wrote for the Washington Post, Trump replied “because it’s a suffering tape.”
Read more
However, he assured the group that he was “fully briefed” on the contents of the recording. It’s a “very violent, very vicious and terrible” tape, Trump said, adding that “there’s no reason for me to hear it.”
Khashoggi was brutally murdered and dismembered by a group of assassins at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Riyadh first claimed that it was unaware of the fate of the journalist, who was critical of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (also known as MbS) in his articles.
But with all evidence pointing at them, the Saudis eventually admitted that Khashoggi was accidentally killed during an interrogation gone wrong. The key piece of proof is claimed to be a recording from the journalist’s Apple Watch that he turned on as a precaution before entering the consulate.
Turkish authorities said they’ve obtained this gruesome audio and have shared it with several countries, including the US.
Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that the CIA concluded “with high confidence” that the killing of its columnist was ordered by the Crown Prince himself.
Wallace wondered if MbS was lying when he personally assured Trump that he had nothing to do with the crime.
“Who can really know? But I can say this: he’s got many people now that say he had no knowledge.”
Since the outbreak of the scandal, Trump has been reluctant to yield to calls for punishing Riyadh –coming from both sides of the aisle– and spoil relations with one of America’s key security and business partners.
In Sunday’s interview, he reiterated his commitment to “stick with an ally that in many ways has been very good.”
Earlier this week, Washington sanctioned 17 Saudi officials, some close to the Crown Prince, over Khashoggi’s death, freezing their assets in the US and refusing them entry to the country. But the move was seen as an attempt to pander to global outrage, while delivering no real damage to the US-Saudi ties.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Sensitive Trump says he won’t listen to audio record of Khashoggi killing — RT US News
Donald Trump said he has no desire to listen to an audio allegedly depicting the murder of Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, but added that he had been briefed that it was a “very violent, very vicious and terrible” recording.
“We have the tape. I don’t want to hear the tape. No reason for me to hear the tape,” the US president told the ‘Fox News Sunday’ program.
When asked by Chris Wallace why he doesn’t want to get acquainted with the critical piece of evidence in the killing of the journalist, who was a US resident and wrote for the Washington Post, Trump replied “because it’s a suffering tape.”
Read more
However, he assured the group that he was “fully briefed” on the contents of the recording. It’s a “very violent, very vicious and terrible” tape, Trump said, adding that “there’s no reason for me to hear it.”
Khashoggi was brutally murdered and dismembered by a group of assassins at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2. Riyadh first claimed that it was unaware of the fate of the journalist, who was critical of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (also known as MbS) in his articles.
But with all evidence pointing at them, the Saudis eventually admitted that Khashoggi was accidentally killed during an interrogation gone wrong. The key piece of proof is claimed to be a recording from the journalist’s Apple Watch that he turned on as a precaution before entering the consulate.
Turkish authorities said they’ve obtained this gruesome audio and have shared it with several countries, including the US.
Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that the CIA concluded “with high confidence” that the killing of its columnist was ordered by the Crown Prince himself.
Wallace wondered if MbS was lying when he personally assured Trump that he had nothing to do with the crime.
“Who can really know? But I can say this: he’s got many people now that say he had no knowledge.”
Since the outbreak of the scandal, Trump has been reluctant to yield to calls for punishing Riyadh –coming from both sides of the aisle– and spoil relations with one of America’s key security and business partners.
In Sunday’s interview, he reiterated his commitment to “stick with an ally that in many ways has been very good.”
Earlier this week, Washington sanctioned 17 Saudi officials, some close to the Crown Prince, over Khashoggi’s death, freezing their assets in the US and refusing them entry to the country. But the move was seen as an attempt to pander to global outrage, while delivering no real damage to the US-Saudi ties.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Prison Planet.com » Breaking News: Orange Man Bad!
Prison Planet.com
November 16, 2018
Breaking News: Orange Man Bad!#NPC pic.twitter.com/p2aLChehLi
— PolishPatriot™️ (@PolishPatriotTM) 15 November 2018
This article was posted: Friday, November 16, 2018 at 6:29 am
Print this page.
How to Help California Wildfire Survivors
California’s grim year of record-breaking wildfires continues this month. The Camp Fire in Northern California’s Butte County claimed 113,000 acres and 42 lives and counting as of Tuesday morning, while the Woolsey Fire in Southern California tore through 96,000 acres. Watching these fires race through the landscape can be scary, especially when it may feel like there’s nothing you can do.
Fortunately, a lot of people are working on the ground to fight these fires and support survivors as they return home — or find new housing, in the case of thousands who have lost their residences.
Whether you’re a local or live across the country, there are a number of ways to help.
Consider giving money, which allows community organizations to purchase what they need, when they need it, at a good price. One such organization is Mask Oakland, a collective that’s distributing respiratory protection to communities in need. Other options include the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation, California Community Foundation, United Way of Los Angeles and Ventura County, Direct Relief, California Fire Foundation’s SAVE program, Northern California United Way and North Valley Community Foundation.
Some organizations may need material donations. It’s a good idea to check their websites or social media accounts to learn more, as their needs can fluctuate — an animal shelter might be in desperate need of dry dog food one day, and overloaded the next. Many groups are maintaining Amazon wish lists to manage donations efficiently.
If you’re local to the fires, there are numerous volunteer opportunities, and you may also consider offering shelter to humans or animals who have been pushed out of their homes. Fostering or adopting pets can be especially important, freeing up space in shelters to accommodate evacuee animals who need temporary places to stay. Organizations like RedRover, Humane Society of…
Amazon, Go Home! Billions for Working People, But Not One Cent For Tribute
Photo Source Backbone Campaign | CC BY 2.0
On November 7, Andrew Cuomo was re-elected as New York’s Governor. One week later, the people of Long Island City, Queens learned that they had been sold into civic vassalage to the world’s richest man. There’s no word yet on whether Jeff Bezos will have the first right of visitation to the gubernatorial bedchamber on Cuomo’s inauguration night, but the ritual of servitude is otherwise complete.
The timing isn’t accidental. The people of New York, especially those in Queens who will be most affected, know that this is a lousy deal for them. Cuomo could not have run for re-election as a Resistance Progressive™️if voters had known about this deal before they voted.
Meanwhile, in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has effectively crushed his own attempts to be seen as a national leader of the left.
“Disrupting” Serfdom
Welcome to Feudalism 2.0. This is how it works.
Amazon, even more than other Big Tech corporations, is a creature of government. It relies on the government-developed internet. It used sales tax loopholes to become a behemoth. And it has extracted concessions from state and local governments every step of the way.
Do this mega-corporation and its owner, the richest man on the planet, ever feel gratitude for the people who made them so successful?
On the contrary. Amazon just killed a Seattle tax that would have taken a tiny bite from its wealth in order to help that city’s homeless. New Yorkers…
Amazon, Go Home! Billions for Working People, But Not One Cent For Tribute
Photo Source Backbone Campaign | CC BY 2.0
On November 7, Andrew Cuomo was re-elected as New York’s Governor. One week later, the people of Long Island City, Queens learned that they had been sold into civic vassalage to the world’s richest man. There’s no word yet on whether Jeff Bezos will have the first right of visitation to the gubernatorial bedchamber on Cuomo’s inauguration night, but the ritual of servitude is otherwise complete.
The timing isn’t accidental. The people of New York, especially those in Queens who will be most affected, know that this is a lousy deal for them. Cuomo could not have run for re-election as a Resistance Progressive™️if voters had known about this deal before they voted.
Meanwhile, in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio has effectively crushed his own attempts to be seen as a national leader of the left.
“Disrupting” Serfdom
Welcome to Feudalism 2.0. This is how it works.
Amazon, even more than other Big Tech corporations, is a creature of government. It relies on the government-developed internet. It used sales tax loopholes to become a behemoth. And it has extracted concessions from state and local governments every step of the way.
Do this mega-corporation and its owner, the richest man on the planet, ever feel gratitude for the people who made them so successful?
On the contrary. Amazon just killed a Seattle tax that would have taken a tiny bite from its wealth in order to help that city’s homeless. New Yorkers…
Video: Keiser Report: Defense Contractors See Boom Time Under Dems (E1306)
In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max and Stacy discuss the boom times predicted for ‘defense’ contractors as Democrats take the House. The CEO of …
Via Youtube
Former governor Scott beats Democrat Nelson by 0.12 percent in Senate race — RT US News
Republican Rick Scott has been declared the winner of the highly contested race to represent Florida in the US Senate, beating his rival by 10,033 votes, or by 0.12 percent
The recount of the ballots from the November 6 election showed that the former governor won 50.05 percent, while the three-term Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson got 49.93.
Florida midterms have been marred by accusations of fraud, cases of lost ballots and a recount after protest and public pressure.
Following the end of the recount, Nelson conceded defeat in the race against the Republican candidate.
Final tally after #FLSEN recount:
Rick Scott (R) – 4,099,505 (50.05%)
Bill Nelson (D) – 4,089,472 (49.93%)Scott wins by 10,033 votes (0.12%)
Just Florida being Florida.
— Jamie Kennedy (@JkUmisma) November 18, 2018
The incredibly tight race in Florida was marred by scandals and controversies. Since the polls closed on Tuesday, Scott’s once-solid lead almost completely evaporated as additional ballots were counted in Broward County and Palm Beach County.
The situation prompted Scott to sue Palm Beach County Election Supervisor Susan Busher, as well as Broward County Supervisor Brenda Snipes, alleging improper handling of ballots and possible vote-tampering. It also gave a rise to various rumors on social media, with some people saying that some ballots were destroyed or replaced with fake ones.
Scott’s lead over Nelson initially amounted to 0.25 percentage points, leading to a hand recount of ballots from tabulation machines. Meanwhile, a Florida judge sided with Scott in his lawsuits against Busher and Snipes, ordering them to turn over records for inspection – but Busher did not comply by saying it was physically “impossible”, thus sparking another wave of rumors.
President Donald Trump added fuel to the fire by interfering in the whole mess and accusing the Democrats of “stealing” Florida elections. He did not stop at that, though, as he continued to claim that both the governor and senator in Florida were tainted by foul play. His tweets sparked a backlash of their own as his critics rushed to accuse the president of “interfering in a lawful process to count ballots” and of spreading conspiracy theories.
Like this story? Share it with a friend!
Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
PressTV-UK PM vows to focus on Brexit talks despite challenges
British Prime Minister Theresa May has vowed she would go on with her task of finalizing a draft deal on her country’s withdrawal from the European Union despite challenges to her leadership within the ruling Conservative Party.
The embattled prime minister warned Sunday that a leadership change wouldn’t make Brexit negotiations easier.
“These next seven days are going to be critical, they are about the future of this country … I am not going to be distracted from the important job,” May told Sky News, referring to the time remaining until an EU summit would decide about approving the Brexit agreement.
At least 20 Conservative Party lawmakers have submitted letters of no-confidence in May to the chairman of a party committee tasked with supervising its leadership.
Media reports suggest others have sent such letters confidentially, meaning that a threshold of 48 letters needed for triggering the confidence vote would be reached in…
Video: Tear gas & water cannons: Protesters clash with police at rally over Mapuche killing
Chile: Clashes erupted as demonstrators protested over the police killing of a Mapuche man in Santiago on Thursday. Protesters burned tyres and threw stones …
Via Youtube
Turkish Newspaper Implicates UAE’s Crown Prince in Covering Up Murder of Khashoggi
photo of Prince bin Zayed courtesy mubadala.com
Eric Zuesse
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud, and UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, are close friends and allies, who jointly lead the war against Houthi-led Yemen. On Sunday afternoon, November 18th, a leading Turkish newspaper, Yeni Şafak, reported the two leaders to have also collaborated in hiding the murder on October 2nd in Istanbul of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Yeni Şafak headlined “Dahlan ‘cover-up team’ from Lebanon helps hide traces of Khashoggi murder” and reported that on October 2nd, “A second team that arrived in Istanbul to help cover-up the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was dispatched by Muhammed Dahlan, UAE Crown Prince Muhammed bin Zayed’s chief hitman in the region, … according to an informed source who spoke to Yeni Şafak daily on the condition of anonymity.”
On November 16th, the Washington Post had headlined “CIA concludes Saudi crown prince ordered Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination”.
Bin Salman and bin Zayed are U.S. President Donald Trump’s closest foreign allies other than, possibly, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. All four men are determined that there be regime-change in Shiite Iran. This anti-Shia position bonds them also against the Houthis, who are Shiites, in Yemen, where bin Salman and bin Zayed lead the war, and the United States provides the training, logistics, and weapons. Both bin Salman and bin Zayed are fundamentalist Sunnis who are against Shia Muslims. Israel and the United States are allied with these two princes. Saudi Arabia’s royal family have been committed against Shia Muslims ever since 1744 when the Saud family made a pact with the fundamentalist Sunni preacher Mohammed ibn Wahhab, who hated Shia Muslims. Thus, Saudi Arabia is actually Saudi-Wahhabi Arabia, with Sauds running the aristocracy, and Wahhabists running the clergy.
In 2017, in Saudi Arabia’s capital of Riyadh, Trump sold, to the Saudi Crown Prince, initially, $350 billion of U.S.-made weapons over a ten-year period (the largest weapons-sale in world history), and $110 billion in just the first year. That deal was soon increased to $404 billion. For Trump publicly to acknowledge that Salman had “ordered Jamal Khashoggi’s assassination” would jeopardize this entire deal, and, perhaps, jeopardize the consequent boom in America’s economy. It also would jeopardize the U.S. alliance’s war against Shiites in Yemen.
—————
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
As Canada Post steps up provocations, union silent on back-to-work law threat
As Canada Post steps up provocations, union silent on back-to-work law threat
By
Roger Jordan and Keith Jones
17 November 2018
Canada Post has taken a series of provocative steps since last Tuesday, with the clear aim of providing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with pretexts for making good on his threat to criminalize the campaign of rotating strikes that 50,000 letter carriers, mail sorters and other postal workers have been mounting since October 22.
On Tuesday, government-owned Canada Post announced that it was indefinitely suspending mail delivery-time guarantees. The next day it tabled a concessions-filled offer of a four-year contract. Citing the need to maximize profits during the annual Christmas mail rush, Canada Post management declared this offer “time limited”: if the union does not sign on to it by 11:59 p.m. today, Saturday, November 17, the offer will be withdrawn.
Yesterday, Canada Post effectively shut down a large part of its operations, when it announced that it was requesting all foreign postal services, including the US Postal Service, to temporarily hold all mail destined for Canada. It blamed the decision on a massive backlog of unsorted mail.
Postal workers must beware. While Canada Post and the Liberal government are conspiring to break their strike and impose still further rollbacks, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) is maneuvering to shut their job action down.
It has said not a word about Trudeau’s November 8 declaration to parliament that “all options” are on the table if the union does not soon agree to terms with Canada Post, even though that threat was publicly reiterated by a Labour Department official this week and has no doubt been repeatedly restated by government representatives in private.
Canada Post’s…
Prison Planet.com » Racist Note Left On Kansas Student’s Door… Was Written By Himself
Zero Hedge
November 18, 2018
Kansas State University students were horrified after a student posted a picture of a racist note on the door frame of his home at Jardine Apartments. The note read, “Beware n***ers live here! Knock at your own risk.”
Immediately the calls went out (metaphorically speaking) to track down any Trump-supporters, MAGA-hat-wearers, or generally right-leaning members of the student community who MUST have been guilty of this horrible act.
WIBW reports that campus police began investigating the note, presumably with an open mind, and investigators say the student has admitted making the sign and hanging it.
Prior to the police determining the note was a hoax, Jeff Morris, K-State’s Vice President of Communication and Marketing, said acts like this are unacceptable and not tolerated at the University.
“We’re rallying behind the students to make sure they know their supported and apart of the K-State family,” Morris said.
“At this time we don’t know who did this, or why, or what their motivations were, and we don’t want to speculate until we finish the investigation.”
The school says they will handle the situation “in accordance with applicable disciplinary procedures.”
As WIBW noted, officials did not define what that entailed, but we are sure it will involve group hugs, safe-spaces, and “it’s-the-environment-that-did-it” excuses.
This article was posted: Sunday, November 18, 2018 at 7:32 am
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Video: Twin tornado tears past coastal Turkish village
READ MORE: https://on.rt.com/9ipm Footage filmed on Sunday shows two huge tornadoes sweeping across the surface of the Mediterranean Sea in the Turkish …
Via Youtube
Saying ‘Men Aren’t Women’ Now Qualifies as ‘Hateful Conduct’
Twitter’s crusade against “hate speech” has vanquished yet another meany face. A prominent Canadian feminist says that the company flagged a tweet she wrote which meekly suggested that men aren’t women. Isn’t Twitter fun?
Meghan Murphy, editor of Canada’s leading feminist news portal, Feminist Current, was recently informed by Twitter that two of her tweets had violated the platform’s rules against “hateful conduct.”
One of the offending tweets stated that “men aren’t women,” while the other asked: “How are transwomen not men?”
This is fucking bullshit @twitter. I’m not allowed to say that men aren’t women or ask questions about the notion of transgenderism at all anymore? That a multi billion dollar company is censoring BASIC FACTS and silencing people who ask questions about this dogma is INSANE pic.twitter.com/dul6iOdbaz
— Meghan Murphy (@MeghanEMurphy) November 15, 2018
“This is f*cking bullshit @twitter. I’m not allowed to say that men aren’t women or ask questions about the notion of transgenderism at all anymore?” Murphy tweeted. “That a multi billion dollar company is censoring BASIC FACTS and silencing people who ask questions about this dogma is INSANE.”
What ARE we allowed to say here??? How tf is simply saying ‘men aren’t women’ hateful??? I am losing my goddamned mind over this. Enjoy your brave new world, sjws. Here’s your fucking social justice.
— Meghan Murphy (@MeghanEMurphy) November 15, 2018
The feminist writer and commentator expressed disbelief over her “hateful” infraction in a series of follow-up tweets.
Murphy said that “trans activists” had been targeting her account for several months, and that it was clear that someone had been…
New York Times under fire for asking if ‘Jared & Ivanka are good for Jews’ — RT US News
The New York Times has seemingly carelessly stepped on thin ice by issuing a piece titled ‘Are Jared and Ivanka Good for the Jews?’ … and it apparently fell through that ice by provoking a storm of criticism on social media.
A pretty long piece issued by the Gray Lady appears to be in fact another thinly veiled jab at President Donald Trump as it mostly focuses on the fact that Trump’s presidency somehow led to the rise of anti-Semitism in the US while his staunchly pro-Israel policies had not found support, even among some parts of the US Jewish community.
Read more
All these issues are carefully wrapped up in speculation on the fact that his essentially Judaist daughter and Jewish son-in-law, who both act as the president’s advisers, do not make the situation any better … including for themselves and the US Jewish community, which is divided over the whole issue.
Regardless of whether the role Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner play for the US Jews was up for debate, the New York Times’ attempt to speculate on an increasingly complicated topic of intra-ethnic relations, mixed with the already pretty-much divisive issue of Trump’s policies, apparently backfired. After all, even though the online community might be divided on some issues, it mostly agreed that the NYT piece on this issue was no good.
Many commenters said that the NYT actually does not understand the Jewish communities, as “if it is visiting Mars,” as one professor put it in a tweet. Others called the headline “disgusting” and actually accused the media outlet of anti-Semitism.
As usual, the New York Times reports on subcultures it doesn’t understand as if it is visiting Mars. Believe it or not, Jewish Republicans support Trump because they generally agree with him, not because of Israel. https://t.co/AErQoyPL0O
— David Bernstein (@ProfDBernstein) November 17, 2018
‘Deeply problematic’: New York Times asks if Jared and Ivanka are ‘good for the Jews’ The NYT’s history of Antisemitic articles, Op-Eds etc. is well documented and what the NYT’s Op-Ed is saying is Jared and Ivanka do not fit their idea of “Go… https://t.co/Jd69pMIfd6
— Pog (@OSINT220) November 18, 2018
Some ridiculed the very idea of such a piece and called it “absurd.”
This article is an absurdity. Tell me more, newspaper that published a list of Jewish populations by district to push the Iran deal, about why the Kushners are bad for the Jews. https://t.co/ifZBHczpri
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) November 18, 2018
Members of the US journalism community also joined the overall wave of criticism, saying the article is “beyond questionable” and calling its headline “outrageous.”
An actual and patently outrageous headline from the paper of record: Are Jared and Ivanka Good for the Jews? – The New York Times https://t.co/njed2BtNpY
— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) November 18, 2018
A number of prominent members of the US Jewish community and Israeli media figures rallied to Ivanka and Jared’s defense by saying that posing the question that the NYT actually asked would be wrong.
Are Jared and Ivanka Good for the Jews? – @NYTimes – come on seriously? The woman converts to Judaism, lives an observant orthodox life, and we question if she’s… https://t.co/bgDVsHhkKF
— Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) November 18, 2018
Disagree w Trump & his family all you like, there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you think it’s OK to say Jared & Ivanka aren’t Jewish enough because of their opinions, you have no right to be mad at the Israeli rabbinate for saying the same abt others.https://t.co/8mpmG5JuIZ
— Lahav Harkov (@LahavHarkov) November 18, 2018
Some also said that the piece is in fact just another attack by liberals on Trump and his inner circle.
Apart from the backlash the NYT received over its choice of topic, some people on social media also criticized it over an entirely different perceived bias, i.e. the lack of women in its choice of people the media quoted in its article.
That’s less than 10% of the folks quoted and she’s not even living in America? This seems… unbalanced to me if you truly want to get at the question as to how American Jews feel about Jared and Ivanka. I get there are deadlines and everything, but how many women did you ask?
— (((Kerri))) 🔥 (@klberney) November 18, 2018
Like this story? Share it with a friend!
Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
I don’t want to hear Khashoggi tape
US President Donald Trump is still remaining non-committal about the possibility that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman lied to him when he denied involvement in the assassination of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
” I don’t know, you know, who could really know,” Trump said on Fox News Sunday, when asked if he thought he had been lied to. “But I can say this: he’s got many people now that say he had no knowledge.”
The president, who is in a $110 billion arms deal with the monarchy, further said he would not listen to the audio of Khashoggi’s killing provided to the CIA by the Turkish intelligence.
Trump says he doesn’t want to hear the tape of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder.
TRUMP: “I don’t want to hear the tape. No reason for me to hear the tape.”
Q: “Why don’t you want to hear it, sir?”
TRUMP: “It’s a suffering tape. It’s a terrible tape. I’ve been fully briefed on it.” pic.twitter.com/oiBbrePBC0— Kyle Griffin…
Video: Scuffles erupt as 15,000 students shut down Bogota highway
Scuffles broke out at a student protest after thousands marched down a highway in Bogota on Thursday. Some 15k students, demanding a higher budget for …
Via Youtube
Kids Brainwashed to Hate White People
Social justice indoctrination camp
Paul Joseph Watson
PrisonPlanet.com
November 18, 2018
Children as young as 5 and 6 brainwashed to hate white people and identify as different genders.
How long before this kind of crap is mandatory in schools?
Please share this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhVbv7qpBKY
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor at large of Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com.
This article was posted: Sunday, November 18, 2018 at 6:06 pm
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Mediaite
November 18, 2018
During his trip to California to survey the wildfire damage and meet with law enforcement, President Donald Trump was asked about whether climate change played a role in the wildfires.
He said there are a “lot of factors,” pointing to the “management factor” right away and saying there are things he and Gov. Jerry Brown are discussing. Trump brought up the farm bill and the money he wants to put in for “management and maintenance of the forests.”
This article was posted: Sunday, November 18, 2018 at 7:37 am
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Louisiana Teachers Mobilize Against ExxonMobil Tax Exemption
Sometimes the boss offers us a fight that directly exposes the destructive effects of corporate power.
In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, that moment came when ExxonMobil asked for yet another handout from taxpayers—property tax exemptions totaling $6 million.
For the ninth-largest corporation in the world, it was a routine request. ExxonMobil is accustomed to receiving such perks from obedient state officials. But teachers saw it differently: as a $6 million theft from the local schools budget.
Educators and other school employees voted 445-6 on October 23 to stage a one-day walkout the following week. Teachers planned to pack a hearing on ExxonMobil’s requests.
Within hours of the union vote, the company’s exemption bids were off the Board of Industry and Commerce’s agenda.
Government + Business = True Love
The backstory here is how members of two teachers unions and a Service Employees local in East Baton Rouge got educated about the connection between corporate giveaways and the deteriorating conditions in their schools.
These unions participate in a faith, labor, and community coalition called Together Baton Rouge, which holds “Civic Academies” to educate about community issues, including education. It was there that union members learned more about the state’s Industrial Tax Exemption Program.
The ITEP, enacted 44 years ago, makes corporations eligible for tax exemptions if they can show—or claim—that their expenses for projects will contribute to a community’s economic growth.
In this round of requests, ExxonMobil was asking for tax exemptions for work completed two years ago. The company didn’t even bother to argue that the new exemptions would bring jobs or more revenue.
In the Civic Academies, union members learned to find ExxonMobil’s submissions and read them for themselves. “They see the date of submission and the date of project completion and they see it doesn’t make sense,” said…
PressTV-‘US used 9/11 false flag to justify CIA torture’
The US government used the September 11, 2001 “false flag” attacks in the United States as a justification for subjecting alleged terror suspects to torture, says an American counter-terrorism analyst.
Scott Bennett, an whistleblower and former US Army psychological warfare officer, made the remarks in reaction to reports that descriptions of how CIA and FBI agents tortured their captives caught by the US in its so-called ‘war on terror’ after the 9/11 had been read aloud during trials held at the infamous Guantanamo Bay military prison.
“An alleged plot mastermind was taken nude from interrogation to a medical officer, who put fluids up his rectum then returned him nude to interrogation. Some captives were kept like “cowering dogs,” subjected to standing sleep deprivation, abdominal and facial slaps, in what one CIA agent called a “nightmare”,” US-based daily Miami Herald reported Friday, quoting statements made in the military…
“Winners” in Amazon Sweepstakes Sure to be the Losers
Photo Source James N. Mattis | CC BY 2.0
Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, wouldn’t seem to need the money. Nonetheless, huge sums of money will be diverted from social needs to line his pockets — a cost that won’t stop there, as gentrification will be accelerated still more in New York City and the Washington area.
In all, Mr. Bezos scooped up nearly US$3.7 billion worth of subsidies this week. Does someone worth $112 billion and owner of a company that has racked up $7 billion in profits for the first nine months of 2018 really need such largesse? Corporate subsides are hardly unique to Amazon, but this to all appearances represents the most blatant example yet seen.
Incredibly, these astronomical sums of money don’t represent the biggest giveaway offers, even in the “winning” areas’ metropolitan areas. The state of New Jersey, then under the governorship of Chris Christie, offered $7 billion to Amazon to build its second headquarters in Newark, and the state of Maryland offered $8.5 billion to Amazon to build in Montgomery County, which borders Washington on the opposite side of the Potomac River from Arlington, Virginia.
Many other locations across the United States offered gigantic subsidies, as Amazon did all it could to initiate a bidding war. But as the two locations chosen (splitting in two the original proposal to create a single “second headquarters”) were picked because of the available workforces and city amenities, were…
Video: Merkel party’s youth wing filmed singing ‘Nazi-era’ song
READ MORE: https://on.rt.com/9iqe The Christian Democrats’ youth wing was filmed yelling out a song sung by Wehrmacht soldiers in the 1930s, causing quite …
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The First Culture War – LewRockwell
As we mark the hundredth anniversary of the end of the First World War, it is clear that the moral wounds it inflicted on Western culture have not healed. Recent incidents, such as the rejection of Remembrance Day poppies by Cambridge University Students’ Union (CUSU), or Southampton University Students’ Union’s (SUSU) threat to paint over a mural dedicated to war heroes, are symptomatic of the sense of malaise and confusion regarding the memorialisation of the First World War.
In a sense, however, this hostility towards the memorialisation of the war, as an expression of antagonism towards a cultural legacy, has its roots in the First World War itself. Because although it was principally a military conflict, it also served as a catalyst for the emergence of a powerful mood of alienation from the values and cultural practices of the past.
This should not be underestimated. The Great War, as it was then called, fundamentally undermined the cultural continuity of the West. Disconnected from the past, Western societies found it difficult to develop a compelling narrative with which to socialise young people. As a result, the phenomenon known today as the ‘generation gap’ acquired a powerful significance — precisely because it was not simply a generational gap. Rather, it was a cultural gap that opened up between the post- and pre-war eras which, in the decades to follow, was experienced through generational tensions as the problem of identity.
The Decline of the Wes…
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It is worth noting that both the Cambridge and Southampton student activists invoked contemporary identity politics to justify their distaste for remembering those who…
The First Culture War – LewRockwell
As we mark the hundredth anniversary of the end of the First World War, it is clear that the moral wounds it inflicted on Western culture have not healed. Recent incidents, such as the rejection of Remembrance Day poppies by Cambridge University Students’ Union (CUSU), or Southampton University Students’ Union’s (SUSU) threat to paint over a mural dedicated to war heroes, are symptomatic of the sense of malaise and confusion regarding the memorialisation of the First World War.
In a sense, however, this hostility towards the memorialisation of the war, as an expression of antagonism towards a cultural legacy, has its roots in the First World War itself. Because although it was principally a military conflict, it also served as a catalyst for the emergence of a powerful mood of alienation from the values and cultural practices of the past.
This should not be underestimated. The Great War, as it was then called, fundamentally undermined the cultural continuity of the West. Disconnected from the past, Western societies found it difficult to develop a compelling narrative with which to socialise young people. As a result, the phenomenon known today as the ‘generation gap’ acquired a powerful significance — precisely because it was not simply a generational gap. Rather, it was a cultural gap that opened up between the post- and pre-war eras which, in the decades to follow, was experienced through generational tensions as the problem of identity.
The Decline of the Wes…
Best Price: $10.11
Buy New $17.88
(as of 12:00 EST – Details)
It is worth noting that both the Cambridge and Southampton student activists invoked contemporary identity politics to justify their distaste for remembering those who…
The First Culture War – LewRockwell
As we mark the hundredth anniversary of the end of the First World War, it is clear that the moral wounds it inflicted on Western culture have not healed. Recent incidents, such as the rejection of Remembrance Day poppies by Cambridge University Students’ Union (CUSU), or Southampton University Students’ Union’s (SUSU) threat to paint over a mural dedicated to war heroes, are symptomatic of the sense of malaise and confusion regarding the memorialisation of the First World War.
In a sense, however, this hostility towards the memorialisation of the war, as an expression of antagonism towards a cultural legacy, has its roots in the First World War itself. Because although it was principally a military conflict, it also served as a catalyst for the emergence of a powerful mood of alienation from the values and cultural practices of the past.
This should not be underestimated. The Great War, as it was then called, fundamentally undermined the cultural continuity of the West. Disconnected from the past, Western societies found it difficult to develop a compelling narrative with which to socialise young people. As a result, the phenomenon known today as the ‘generation gap’ acquired a powerful significance — precisely because it was not simply a generational gap. Rather, it was a cultural gap that opened up between the post- and pre-war eras which, in the decades to follow, was experienced through generational tensions as the problem of identity.
The Decline of the Wes…
Best Price: $10.11
Buy New $17.88
(as of 12:00 EST – Details)
It is worth noting that both the Cambridge and Southampton student activists invoked contemporary identity politics to justify their distaste for remembering those who…
The First Culture War – LewRockwell
As we mark the hundredth anniversary of the end of the First World War, it is clear that the moral wounds it inflicted on Western culture have not healed. Recent incidents, such as the rejection of Remembrance Day poppies by Cambridge University Students’ Union (CUSU), or Southampton University Students’ Union’s (SUSU) threat to paint over a mural dedicated to war heroes, are symptomatic of the sense of malaise and confusion regarding the memorialisation of the First World War.
In a sense, however, this hostility towards the memorialisation of the war, as an expression of antagonism towards a cultural legacy, has its roots in the First World War itself. Because although it was principally a military conflict, it also served as a catalyst for the emergence of a powerful mood of alienation from the values and cultural practices of the past.
This should not be underestimated. The Great War, as it was then called, fundamentally undermined the cultural continuity of the West. Disconnected from the past, Western societies found it difficult to develop a compelling narrative with which to socialise young people. As a result, the phenomenon known today as the ‘generation gap’ acquired a powerful significance — precisely because it was not simply a generational gap. Rather, it was a cultural gap that opened up between the post- and pre-war eras which, in the decades to follow, was experienced through generational tensions as the problem of identity.
The Decline of the Wes…
Best Price: $10.11
Buy New $17.88
(as of 12:00 EST – Details)
It is worth noting that both the Cambridge and Southampton student activists invoked contemporary identity politics to justify their distaste for remembering those who…
Former governor Scott beats Democrat Nelson by 0.12 percent in Senate race — RT US News
Republican Rick Scott has been declared the winner of the highly contested race to represent Florida in the US Senate, beating his rival by 10,033 votes, or by 0.12 percent
The recount of the ballots from the November 6 elections showed that the former governor won 50.05 percent, while the three-term Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson got 49.93.
Florida midterms have been marred by accusations of fraud, cases of lost ballots and a recount under protest and public pressure.
Following the end of the recount, Nelson conceded his defeat in the race against the Republican candidate.
Final tally after #FLSEN recount:
Rick Scott (R) – 4,099,505 (50.05%)
Bill Nelson (D) – 4,089,472 (49.93%)Scott wins by 10,033 votes (0.12%)
Just Florida being Florida.
— Jamie Kennedy (@JkUmisma) November 18, 2018
The incredibly tight race in Florida was marred by scandals and controversies. Since the polls closed on Tuesday, Scott’s once-solid lead almost completely evaporated as additional ballots were counted in Broward County and Palm Beach County.
The situation prompted Scott to sue Palm Beach County Election Supervisor Susan Busher, as well as Broward County Supervisor Brenda Snipes as he alleged improper handling of ballots and possible vote tampering. It also gave a rise to various rumors on social media, with some people saying that some ballots were destroyed or replaced with fake ones.
Scott’s lead over Nelson initially amounted to 0.25 percentage points, leading to a hand recount of ballots from tabulation machines. Meanwhile, a Florida judge sided with Scott in his lawsuits against Busher and Snipes, ordering them to turn over records for inspection – but Busher did not comply by saying it was physically “impossible”, thus sparking another wave of rumors.
President Donald Trump added fuel to the fire by interfering in the whole mess and accusing the Democrats of “stealing” Florida elections. He did not stop at that, though, as he continued to claim that both the governor and senator in Florida were tainted by foul play. His tweets sparked a backlash of its own as his critics rushed to accuse the president of “interfering in a lawful process to count ballots” and spreading conspiracy theories.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
PressTV-UK PM vows to focus on Brexit talks despite challenges
British Prime Minister Theresa May has vowed she would go on with her task of finalizing a draft deal on her country’s withdrawal from the European Union despite challenges to her leadership within the ruling Conservative Party.
The embattled prime minister warned Sunday that a leadership change wouldn’t make Brexit negotiations easier.
“These next seven days are going to be critical, they are about the future of this country … I am not going to be distracted from the important job,” May told Sky News, referring to the time remaining until an EU summit would decide about approving the Brexit agreement.
At least 20 Conservative Party lawmakers have submitted letters of no-confidence in May to the chairman of a party committee tasked with supervising its leadership.
Media reports suggest others have sent such letters confidentially, meaning that a threshold of 48 letters needed for triggering the confidence vote would be reached in…
PressTV-US senator urges Trump to cancel Saudi arms deal
US President Donald Trump should cancel arms deals with Saudi Arabia as a punishment over the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, says top Republican Senator Rand Paul.
Khashoggi, a US resident who wrote for the Washington Post, was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on October 2 after being lured into the mission for some standard paperwork.
While mounting evidence released by Turkey and even the CIA point to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s role in the murder, Trump has so far resisted calls inside Washington to hold him responsible.
In an attempt to ease the criticism, the US Treasury Department imposed economic sanctions on 17 Saudis involved in the murder on Thursday.
Read More:
The sanctions came after the Saudi public prosecutor announced that five officials faced a possible death sentence in the case but exonerated bin Salman, also known as MBS.
“We need to punish who ordered this, who is in charge…
Video: Tajikistan’s Roghun dam set to be world’s tallest
When all six turbines turbines come online, the facility will generate a total of 3600 megawatts of power. “It is a unique hydroelectric station, not everyone is …
Via Youtube
‘If He Misbehaves, We’ll Throw Him Out’
Free Beacon
November 18, 2018
In an exclusive interview with “Fox News Sunday” that will air this weekend, President Donald Trump responded to the temporary reinstatement of CNN correspondent Jim Acosta’s press pass and told Chris Wallace, “if he misbehaves, we’ll throw him out.”
When asked about the judge’s ruling that the White House must reinstate Acosta’s press pass, Trump said the White House is establishing rules of decorum, but if Acosta violates them, he’ll be back out.
“Yeah, it’s fine. I mean, it’s not a big deal,” Trump told Wallace. “What they said though is that we have to create rules and regulations for conduct, etc., etc. We’re doing that. We’re going to write them up right now. It’s not a big deal. And if he misbehaves, we’ll throw him out, or we’ll stop the news conference.”
The White House revoked Acosta’s press pass in response to his antics at a press conference last week, as the Free Beacon previously reported.
This article was posted: Sunday, November 18, 2018 at 7:41 am
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Video: Robotic cargo spacecraft Progress MS-10 launches to ISS from Baikonur
Robotic cargo spacecraft Progress MS-10 launches to the International Space Station (ISS) from Baikonur Cosmodrome on Friday, November 16.
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Netherlands: 10,000 protest pro-corporate government policies
Netherlands: 10,000 protest pro-corporate government policies
By
Harm Zonderland
17 November 2018
On Saturday, November 10, 10,000 people protested against the pro-corporate policies of the liberal-conservative government of Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD), which has been in power for a year. The government has already lowered corporate taxes, and is about to increase taxes on basic supplies, such as foodstuffs and medicine. One particular plan sparked most public outrage: the abolition of dividend taxes, a handout of 1.9 billion euro to shareholders.
The demonstration on the “Dam” square in Amsterdam was organised by the trade union federation FNV and its Christian counterpart CNV. FNV chairman Han Busker (annual salary: slightly over 100,000 euro) delivered the opening speech. He declared, “We’re not going to stand for this. We do not accept that the money is spent on the companies and the rich, but not on the people. We do not accept that banks are bailed out, but hospitals are allowed to go bankrupt.”
Recently, in the course of just three days, five hospitals and a labour clinic went bankrupt. Patients were moved out and relocated, which led to at least one life-threatening situation.
“Just a month ago, the government thought it was a good idea to abolish dividend taxes. We, together, protested and this ridiculous idea was off the table,” Busker claimed.
This is, in fact, a lie. The tax handout was included in the coalition agreement of Rutte’s government on the behest of a lobby of influential Dutch companies, such as Shell Oil, foodstuffs giant Unilever, medical and electrical equipment maker Philips, plus the employers’ organisation VNO-NCW. Prime Minister Rutte, who felt “with every fiber in his body”…
Viral clip sees Chipotle manager fired for accusing black diners of wanting to dine-and-dash (VIDEO) — RT US News
Chipotle has fired one of its managers after a video posted by a black customer recorded her asking his group to pay before ordering and accusing them of being serial dine-and-dashers.
“Can a group of young well established African American get a bite to eat after a long workout session?” asked Twitter user Masud Ali, who posted the clip of him and his friends at a St. Paul, Minnesota branch of the US burrito chain on Friday.
The two-minute clip starts with the manager telling the feared wannabe carbo-loaders mid-sentence: “You gotta pay because you never have money when you come in here bro.”
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In response, the bewildered men repeat the woman’s claim: “we got no money?” before attempting to convince the manager that they had honest intentions. The clip has received 3.85 million views and was shared over 30,000 times.
A second clip in the post’s thread then shows the men refusing to leave the establishment until they got served while the manager proceeds to call the police.
In response to being constantly tagged by outraged Twitterati, Chipotle’s social media arm reached out to Mr Ali on Saturday. They apologized for the accusations leveled at his group by the manager and informed him that she had been fired.
“What happened here is not how our employees should treat our customers,” Chipotle said.
They added: “We are committed to treating all of our guests fairly and with respect. The manager has been terminated and the restaurant has been retrained so this doesn’t happen again.”
@masudali what happened here is not how our employees should treat our customers. We are committed to treating all of our guests fairly and with respect. The manager has been terminated and the restaurant has been retrained so this doesn’t happen again. We’ll be back in touch.
— Chipotle (@ChipotleTweets) November 17, 2018
Following their Twitter apology, the company added that the manager had mistaken the men for another group of black diners who had failed to pay for a meal earlier in the week.
However, in another spicy twist, Chipotle’s rush to smooth the racially sensitive situation with decisive action has already faced a social media backlash of its own.
READ MORE: Fast food fail: 2 arrested after meth lab found in Iowa Taco Bell
Internet sleuths trawling Mr Ali’s profile to assess his good character have come out defending the manager’s instincts, posting screenshots of previous tweets by Mr Ali bragging about not paying for meals in restaurants.
One screenshot shows Mr Ali calling dine-and-dashing “forever interesting,” while another suggests changing what Chipotle location he attends for fear that the restaurant’s staff were “catching up on us fam.”
Chipotle said they were aware of the accusations that Mr Ali and his cohort may have been serial offenders for not paying at the chain and the situation is still being investigated.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
PressTV-Attacks by far-right extremists rising in US: Report
The number of attacks carried out by white supremacists and right-wing extremists in the United States has grown significantly over the past decade, according to a new report.
The report, published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington-based think tank, also found that these attacks doubled in the US from 2016 to 2017.
From 2007 to 2011, right-wing extremists committed five or fewer attacks per year. In 2012, that number rose to 14 and continued at a similar level through 2016. But the number jumped to 31 in 2017, the CSIS report said.
“There are several factors that are driving the rise of far-right extremism in the United States,” Seth Jones, the author of the report, told VOA.
“One is the rise in internet and social media use by far-right groups like neo-Nazis, ‘sovereign citizens’ and others. Second is the connection between a range of these groups and individuals overseas, particularly in Europe, in…
Video: If click-bait headlines were an art, NYT’s op-ed would be a masterpiece
READ MORE: https://on.rt.com/9ipe Russia has been scheming for decades to splinter the West with civilization-shattering fake news, claims a shocking …
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How George W. Bush Corrupted America’s ‘News’-Reporting
Eric Zuesse, originally posted at strategic-culture.org
In order to understand today’s demonization of Vladimir Putin, one must go back to U.S. President George W. Bush’s propaganda for “regime-change in Iraq” and demonization of Saddam Hussein at that time. The U.S. regime now has come to recognize that with Putin’s high approval-ratings from the Russian public, the U.S. aristocracy’s dream of fomenting Putin’s ouster by Russia’s voters will not work; and, so, all foreign leaders who cooperated with Russia, such as Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Viktor Yanukovych, and Bashar al-Assad, were first targeted by the U.S. regime for “regime-change,” so as to isolate Russia and soften it up for the demanded U.S.-takeover (‘democracy’, ‘free market’, etc., which Russia actually now already has, at least as much as America does); and, then, since that hasn’t yet worked, came the U.S. aristocracy’s campaign to ‘protect The West’ by NATO troops and weapons surrounding Russia and forcing regime-change in Russia. It has escalated now to the point where World War III is more likely than ever it was during the Cold War.
Regime-change in Russia will thus either occur by the democratic vote of the Russian public at some distant time and produce a Russian Government that’s likely to be against the U.S. regime in every possible way (which the current Russian Government is not), or else it will require a U.S.-and-allied invasion of Russia, and that would destroy the world (but the U.S. aristocracy want it anyway).
However, America’s aristocracy (or as they call it when referring to the same thing in low-income countries, “oligarchs”) — basically just its billionaires — are very impatient; they want to control the entire planet during their own lifetimes, and care little (if at all) about what will happen to the planet after they’re gone. (Look, for example, at their enormous resistance to doing anything against global burnout; protecting their fossil-fuels investments is ‘more important’.) Their ‘non-profits’ are just tax-avoidance schemes that double as PR operations for themselves and as ways to get their names in print and on big ‘non-profit’ buildings, like the Pyramids were in ancient Egypt. (Those Egyptian aristocrats wanted permanent honors, but today’s American ones want only to be recognized as being top-of-the-heap while they’re still alive; it’s a cultural difference.)
Anyway, here is how George W. Bush and his Republicans managed to take all of America’s major ‘news’-media, which were highly prostituted even before he came into office, and to turn them into super-prostitutes like the very worst of them prior to his Presidency were. That very worst was most prominently recognized as having been the neoconservative (or pro-U.S.-imperialism) Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel. Of course, it’s rotten, today, no less than it was back in 2000, and here’s a representative sample of that, displaying a classic propaganda-operation:
This particular show aired on 5 September 2015 on Fox ‘News’, and interviewed their contracted expert:
TRANSCRIPT, starting at 4:45:
4:45, Interviewer: The other place that nobody seems to want to go these days is Russia and China, and Russia and China are both the two countries that have really gotten behind Assad, and certainly try to prop him up and those kinds of things; and as we look at pictures from China’s military day parade [posted onscreen], how much of this is Russia and China trying to slough off these refugees on Europe and everybody else … to try to gain political and global capital?
McFARLAND: Well, in China I think less so, but Russia, certainly, because we’ve seen even in the last week that Russia has increased its military presence in Syria. Russia is trying to prop up the Assad government, like the Iranians are; and so Russia is sending military equipment; it’s sending it by sea, it’s sending it overland, it’s sending it by air, to try to prop up the Assad government to continue the fighting.
Q: To continue the refugee crisis?
MCFARLAND: Oh, sure, exactly.
They want their suckers to believe that the Government of Syria wants “to continue the refugee crisis” (which actually was resulting from the Democratic Party’s President Barack Obama’s policy, but Republican-Party billionaires want regime-change in Syria as much as Democratic-Party ones do and so this con is a bipartisan one) instead of to restore the peace and modest prosperity that had preceded the U.S.-Saudi-Turkish-UAE-Qatari campaign to recruit and arm tens of thousands of jihadists into Syria to overthrow Syria’s committedly non-sectarian and highly secular Government, headed by Assad. They want their fools to believe that Assad instead of Obama sought the overthrow of Assad. But no matter how stupid their pitch is, it’s acceptable by their very conservative audience. Even when Fox News needs to cover-up evils of a Democratic Party regime in order to sic their suckers on hating Assad or any other ally of the arch-demon Putin, they do it, in order to service their Republican Party billionaires, who are just as eager to take over Russia — and its allies such as Syria — as Democratic Party billionaires are. And that’s how bad Fox ‘News’ is, and was. But now they’re all like that.
THE BACKSTORY:
Whereas back in 2002 and 2003, the U.S. aristocracy’s biggest push for “regime change” was to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq; and whereas in 2011 the biggest push for “regime change” was to remove Muammar Gaddaffi from power in Libya; and whereas next in 2011 the biggest push for “regime change” became to remove Bashar al-Assad from power in Syria; and whereas in 2013 the biggest push for “regime change” became to remove Viktor Yanukovych from power in Ukraine; the biggest push for “regime change” now is to remove Vladimir Putin himself from power in Russia.
Media-lies have been crucial to them all; and here is how it’s done — by spreading Fox’s garbage over the rest of the major ‘news’ media:
On 2 October 2003, the media-watch organization, worldpublicopinion.org, headlined “Misperceptions, the Media and the Iraq War: Study Finds Widespread Misperceptions on Iraq Highly Related to Support for War: Misperceptions Vary Widely Depending on News Source: Fox Viewers More Likely to Misperceive, PBS-NPR Less Likely.” In fact, the people who received their news primarily through NPR or PBS exhibited the lowest rate of misperceptions at that time, and Fox News Channel viewers exhibited the highest misperceptions-rate: Whereas 77% of NPR/PBS listeners/viewers gave correct answers on all three factual news questions asked, only 20% of Fox News Channel viewers did; and whereas only 23% of the NPR/PBS audiences got one or more of these three factual questions wrong, 80% of Fox’s did.
So, the George W. Bush Administration forced NPR and PBS to adhere more fully to Bush’s (the U.S. aristocracy’s) line. Bush lowered the best of the nation’s news-media down to the standards that already existed for the lowest.
At NPR’s “Morning Edition” on 20 May 2005, host David Folkenflik reported about the pre-Bush culture at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and compared it to the new culture there. He said that, the “culture gap became evident as long as two years ago. At one closed board meeting, according to two former CPB officials, [the Bush-appointed CPB chief Kenneth] Tomlinson suggested bringing in Fox News Channel anchor Brit Hume to talk to public broadcasting officials about how to create balanced news programs.”
Word was now out, among journalists throughout the world, that President Bush aimed to turn his country’s public broadcasting system into a domestic propaganda organ; and so, on May 30th, The New York Times headlined “Ombudsmen Rebuff Move by Public Broadcasting”, and reported — datelined May 27th from London — that: “An [international] association of news ombudsmen has rejected an attempt by two ombudsmen from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to join their organization as full-fledged members, questioning their independence. The Organization of News Ombudsmen, which represents nearly a hundred print and broadcast ombudsmen from around the world, more than half of them from the United States, voted at its annual conference here last week to change its bylaws to allow full membership only to those who work for news organizations,” which excluded representatives from CPB, because “it does not itself gather or produce news.” Observed one member, who happened to be the ombudsman from NPR, “We want members who are responsive to readers, not to governments or lobby groups.”
The Los Angeles Times media critic David Shaw took a broad historical view of this matter, headlining May 29th “There’s a ‘Nuclear Option’ for PBS’ Woes” opining that no PBS at all would be better than a PBS that’s a propaganda organ for the White House, and reminding readers: “The Bush administration is not the first to challenge the independence of PBS. Back in the 1970s, the Nixon administration was so estranged by PBS coverage of Watergate and the Vietnam War that it stacked the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting with Nixon sympathizers. ‘There were tremendous fights, with the Nixon administration trying to prevent public television from doing any public affairs programming at all,’ Lawrence Grossman, the former president of PBS, subsequently told the New York Times. The Bush administration, which has already accomplished the heretofore seemingly impossible by becoming even more media-averse than the Nixon administration, seems determined to surpass the wizard of Whittier and Watergate in bringing the CPB to heel as well.”
Mr. Shaw, like other major-media commentators about the national media, had previously stood by in silence, during 2002 and 2003, while America’s major media cavalierly spread amongst the U.S. public, as virtually unchallenged, the false rumors coming from the Bush Administration, and from its allies such as the Bush-Administration-financed group of exiles, the Iraqi National Congress, saying that Iraq’s leader Saddam Hussein had been proven to be storing huge quantities of weapons of mass destruction and to be working in cahoots with Al Qaeda to threaten the United States. However, now, just a few years later, these very same “news” media were so frightened at the rising extent of this Administration’s control over their “news,” that these commentators were publicizing what those fascists were doing to force them, ‘journalists,’ into a military lock-step. This change in atmosphere was stunning; America’s press were now trying to extricate themselves from the prison they had only recently helped to construct for themselves. They didn’t think that they might get caught up in the prison that they had helped construct to contain the general public.
The United States had entered historic new territory after nearly 50 years of aristocratic/theocratic mass-indoctrination of the American people, which had occurred with the full support and cooperation of the nation’s presslords. There was now doubt; the old arrangements finally started to become questioned. Things were no longer settled. This was a real change of mentality. Only recently, there had been a total passivity of the U.S. press: it propagandized for the President’s Medicaid prescription drug plan; it propagandized for his fabricated accusations against “Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction”; it served as an extension of the White House press office on many other of the President’s fraud-based programs. But this passivity was now finally replaced by a rising fear within the press, that the U.S. might be transforming into a fascist state, which could threaten the press itself. The presslords themselves were at last becoming disturbed.
However, this President was already near to his goal of a totalitarian lock-down. Consequently, what could the press do, at such a late date? They had already given him the rope to hang not just the public, but themselves. He took it. The American press that stenographically transmitted to the American public the U.S. government’s lies about “Saddam’s WMD” is continuing as if it hadn’t been sufficiently compliant. America’s great victories in overthrowing Gaddafi and Yanukovych are now supposed to be followed by Assad, and then Putin.
And European nations take this leadership as their own, instead of abandoning the U.S., abandoning NATO, and abandoning the U.S.-controlled EU; abandoning all the mega-corporate, U.S.-aristocracy-controlled, international-corporate fascist system — and now they willingly take in the millions of refugees from the bombs that the U.S. had dropped in Libya and Syria, and that the U.S.-installed rabidly anti-Russian government in Ukraine is dropping onto the areas of the former Ukraine that have rejected the U.S.-imposed (in February 2014) government in Kiev.
And the next target is Putin.
So: that’s the backstory behind the lie that Putin instead of Obama caused those millions of refugees pouring into Europe.
And, in German ‘news’ media, Bashar al-Assad and ISIS are being blamed for it, because practically no German is so media-deluded (like America’s conservatives are) as to think that Putin is to blame for it; and here is a German who states in very clear terms how rotten he thinks Germany’s ‘news’ media are (though America’s obviously are even worse) with those German media blaming “that the reasons for refugee-flows are Syrian President Bashar Assad and ISIS” instead of that “America is the cause of all these problems, American foreign policy.”
—————
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
Prison Planet.com » Tucker Carlson Scolds CNN’s Stelter for Report on His Door After Mob Outside House: ‘I Hope You’re Ashamed’
Mediaite
November 18, 2018
A report from CNN’s Brian Stelter on the mob that gathered outside Tucker Carlson‘s house––currently under police investigation––earned a fiery rebuke from Carlson himself.
Stelter’s report yesterday focuses on Carlson’s statement to the Washington Post about how “someone started throwing himself against the front door and actually cracked the front door.”
Stelter isn’t the only reporter that has covered this––the Post‘s Erik Wemple wrote this week about the lack of “corroborating evidence”––but he received a police statement on the matter:
Liberal critics of Carlson have cast doubt on that claim by saying there was no evidence of damage to the door. They have accused him of lying and exaggerating to score political points. So CNN contacted the D.C. police and asked about the door. The police report about the incident did not mention any damage on the door. Was there any sign that it was cracked, as Carlson claimed?
A police spokeswoman responded, “MPD did not observe any visible damage to the front door of the victim’s house the night of the incident.”
This article was posted: Sunday, November 18, 2018 at 7:47 am
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PressTV-US making ‘big mistake’ backing YPG militants: Turkey
Turkey’s foreign minister says it is a “big mistake” for Washington to support the Syrian Kurdish militants of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), stressing that the matter has strained relations between the two NATO allies.
Mevlut Cavusoglu met with Turkish citizens at the Turkish consulate in New York on Sunday.
Washington has infuriated Ankara by announcing a plan for the formation of a Kurdish militant force in Syria near the Turkish border.
The plan prompted Turkey to launch a cross-border military operation on January 20 inside the Arab country, code-named Operation Olive Branch, with the declared aim of eliminating the YPG militants from northern Syria, particularly Afrin region.
The YPG forms the backbone of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an anti-Damascus alliance of predominantly Kurdish militants supported by the United States.
Ankara views the YPG as a terrorist organization and the Syrian branch of the…
Video: US ‘secretly charged’ Assange, prosecutor accidentally reveals – WikiLeaks
READ MORE: https://on.rt.com/9ip3 Julian Assange has been already charged by the US, but the case will remain sealed until the arrest of the whistleblower, …
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The Migrant Caravan – LewRockwell
Justin’s note: Hundreds of migrants have showed up at the U.S.-Mexico border.
They’re part of a “caravan” that includes about 5,000 people from Central America. The rest of the caravan, as far as we know, is still in central Mexico. But make no mistake. They’ll show up at the border any day now.
And no one can agree on what to do with these people. Some say we should just let them into America. Other people, including President Trump, think we should keep the migrants out. In fact, Trump recently called the caravan an “invasion.” Not only that, he deployed thousands of U.S. troops to the border to keep these people from entering.
In short, it’s very controversial. So I called Doug Casey earlier this week to see what he thinks about this…
Justin: Doug, the migrant caravan has captured the attention of the mainstream media as well as Donald Trump. Why’s this such a big deal?
Doug: There are several things going on here. One is that the leftists believe that nation states shouldn’t exist. Now, I’m not a believer in the nation state either. It’s only been around since the 17th century; it’s not inscribed in the cosmic firmament. There are better ways to organize a society.
Speculator (High Groun…
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The United States, for one, is way too big to be a single country at this point. I’m pretty confident that over the next couple generations, the U.S. is going to break up into several different countries. But that’s a different question. The last thing it needs is another alien group trying to forcibly insert itself into the mix.
The Democrats and the leftists don’t really believe in freedom of movement and travel. That’s no more than a talking point, to…
Dog accused of hate crime for pooing outside someone’s home — RT UK News
Dealing with pet do-do can be a nasty business, but in Britain one incident of dog fouling was deemed serious enough that the victim reported it as a racist hate crime.
The dog poo ‘hate crime’ – which is said to have occurred outside a UK home – was contained in a dossier of so-called “non-crimes” or lesser misdeeds drawn up by The Mail On Sunday. The real-life list of bizarre police reports came from a tranche of Freedom of Information Act requests.
A description of the incident tells how the person who happened upon the dog’s mess perceived it to be a racial attack.
“An unknown dog has fouled outside of [the] victim[‘s] address and [the] victim perceived this to be a racial incident,” the police report said.
Read more
READ MORE: Foul play: International gang who used dog sh*t as decoy arrested in Spain
Tory MP David Davies told the newspaper that the recording of such “non-crimes” was a waste of police time. “People need to start thinking more carefully before they call the police,” he said.
While the culprit behind the mess remains unknown, it’s not the first time do-do has been deployed by criminal masterminds.
Last year a gang was apprehended in Spain, with their unusual modus operandi being dropping dog excrement in banks to create a distraction while a robbery took place.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Shot police dog given bagpipe funeral (VIDEO) — RT US News
A police officer’s dog killed in the line of duty in Detroit has been hailed as a “hero” by the local mayor and given a full church memorial service, complete with traditional bagpipes.
K9 officer Axe of the St. Clair Shores Police Department was killed in an incident outside a baby shower in the city, which saw cops shoot dead a man identified as Theoddeus Gray.
READ MORE: Woof justice: Police dog tackles & bites car thief in epic takedown (VIDEO)
An investigation into the deaths is currently underway and full details of the incident have yet to be released, according to the Detroit Free Press. However, the police dog killed in the exchange, which police say involved the deceased man brandishing a weapon and taking aim at Axe, has been honored with a full police funeral by colleagues.
The hour-long memorial was held at the Assumption Greek Orthodox Church on November 14, with a band playing bagpipes before mourning law enforcement officers led a parade of K9 unit members around Axe’s coffin.
“He died protecting his partner [Officer Tom Rice] in our community in the line of duty,” Fr Michael Varlamos said, leading the funeral. “It is just that we honor Axe.”
St. Clair Shores Mayor Kip Walby also paid tribute to the canine in a lengthy eulogy in which he labeled Axe a “hero.”
“This is a memorial service to honor a fallen hero,” he said. “On behalf of the city of St. Clair Shores, I want to extend my deepest condolences to St. Clair Shores Police Department, to Officer Tom Rice and his family for the loss of his partner, protector and friend, Axe.
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“He was an officer of the law. He was committed to serving our community and paid the ultimate sacrifice.”
While some people commenting on live TV coverage of the commemoration have described it as “a waste of time,” others have commended the police department.
“To those that say he’s just a dog. He was way more than that. Thank you Officer Axe for your service. Prayers to all today,” one commenter said.
Another added: “What a beautiful service for a wonderful K9 police officer. He did his job and died in the line of duty. Rest In Paradise Officer Axe.”
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Video: ‘Close All US/NATO Bases!’ Protesters rally in Dublin
Dublin #protest #NATO Dozens of people rallied outside the General Post Office building in the Irish capital of Dublin on Friday, to protest against the existence …
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Prison Planet.com » Trump Fires Off Blistering Tweets Over NYT Story Claiming He’s Questioned Pence’s Loyalty
Daily Caller
November 18, 2018
President Donald Trump let the New York Times have an earful on Saturday morning, tweeting his response to an article that the outlet published on Friday asserting that Trump has questioned the loyalty of Vice President Mike Pence.
Calling the story “phony,” the president claimed that they “made up sources and refused to ask me, the only one that would know, for a quote.”
The New York Times did a phony story, as usual, about my relationship with @VP Mike Pence. They made up sources and refused to ask me, the only one that would know, for a quote….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 17, 2018
Trump continued in a second tweet, defending his working relationship with Pence and doubling down on his many previous attacks on the Times and other outlets. “Just more FAKE NEWS, the Enemy of the People!” he concluded.
….I can’t imagine any President having a better or closer relationship with their Vice President then the two of us. Just more FAKE NEWS, the Enemy of the People!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 17, 2018
This article was posted: Sunday, November 18, 2018 at 7:51 am
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What Can the US Learn From Mexico?
The distinct features of our current moment in politics have left many grasping for analogies. Are we living in the second iteration of the Weimar Republic? A new Cold War? The return of high-imperial great power competition?
The problem with this is that it often represents more an exasperated flailing for solid guidance about what to do next than an authentic assessment of historical similarities and differences.
If there is a consensus on anything, though, it is that the pronouncements made in the immediate post-Cold War period about the “end of history” having been decided in a definitive fashion were simply wrong. The socioeconomic form of what was once called “democratic capitalism” has not definitively triumphed over all others, with many who live under it now questioning its systemic legitimacy.
The key indicator of a crumbling socioeconomic form is whether certain questions, which were previously not politically operative, now are. In this respect, the doors have been thrown open to radical solutions to systemic problems that were previously not even considered as such. For instance, in recent years, income inequality has been defined as an issue worthy of political concern such that even United Nations bodies now consider it a global challenge.
Another time when a seemingly unquestioned set of sociopolitical assumptions started to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions led to one of the strongest flourishings of democratic participatory politics in the early 20th century: that period in Mexican history from 1876 to 1911 usually referred to as the “Porfiriato.“
This period is named for its defining figure, President Porfirio Díaz, perhaps best known outside of Mexico for his oft-quoted remark, “Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States.” The context of this comment was a lament to what he felt was the inevitability of Mexican society falling under the…
Video: Russia successfully performs first Soyuz flight since October malfunction
Soyuz-FG rocket with cargo spacecraft Progress MS-10 was successfully launched from Baikonur cosmodrome on Friday. The spacecraft’s mission is to delivery …
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The Moral Fiber of Justin Trudeau
For any appeal to ethics and morality to have any legitimacy, the principles so enounced must be applied rigorously, without favor or prejudice, to all human beings whatever grouping they may be slotted into. In other words, favoritism and morality are an antithetical mixture.
The principle that holds morals apply equally to all humans seemingly eludes Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau.
On 7 November, Trudeau stood in the House of Commons and railed against anti-Semitism and rightly so. Anti-Semitism, as with any form of racism or hatred expressed against any grouping, is anathema.
Yet Trudeau’s taking up the cause of anti-Semitism by attacking the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement is transparently, logically, and morally flawed.
Trudeau correctly apologized for Canada’s turning away Jewish refugees in 1939. Trudeau followed up the apology bemusedly:
Anti-Semitism is far too present. Jewish students still feel unwelcomed and uncomfortable on some of our colleges and university campuses because of BDS-related intimidation.
And out of our entire community of nations, it is Israel whose right to exist is most widely and wrongly questioned.
Any form of racism in any iota is an iota too much. This applies to all groupings of humans. No one should be despised, looked down upon, or discriminated against merely by virtue of being attached to a group through birth or circumstances beyond one’s control.
Yes, anti-Semitism exists. Probably every…
Live police bust overshadowed by porn blaring on TV (VIDEO) — RT US News
Things turned very blue for a US police force when their cops were filmed on live television carrying out a crime bust as a porn movie blared inside the suspect’s home.
Franklin County Sheriff’s Office recently had a chance to shine on national television when they featured on the hit fly-on-the wall documentary ‘Live PD.’ The show offers inside access to the some of the busiest police forces in the US.
READ MORE: Gunman lays waste to police cruiser as officer miraculously survives shootout (VIDEO)
However, the Ohio officers toeing the thin blue line perhaps had their work eclipsed by the soundtrack of a ‘blue’ adult movie, playing during their televised arrest. Footage of the live police swoop shows how officers were acting on an arrest warrant for Storm Wisener, a suspect in the burglary of an adult shop.
Upon locating Wisener at her home, police cuffed the suspect. However, the excitement for viewers didn’t finish there. Sounds of a sexual nature then started to blare from a television inside the property, much to the surprise of the arresting officers.
The rather blue soundtrack of a woman in ecstacy appeared to be coming from a porn movie playing in the background. While the incident went out live on national television, the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office have seen the funny side.
“Sometimes you just have to laugh,” the police department said in a statement. “Job well done boys.”
Wisener was later charged with breaking and entering, as well as stealing $383 from an adult sex shop.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
PressTV-Hundreds join anti-racism protest outside BBC London HQ
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the BBC headquarters in London on Saturday, November 17, to protest against the racism and fascism that they claim is on the rise in the UK.
The protest was part of a larger demonstration, dubbed the ‘National Unity Demonstration against Racism and Fascism,’ which included a march across London that organizers claimed was attended by tens of thousands of people.
Some demonstrators came dressed as Saudi officials, including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, inside a fake prison cell, with another demonstrator standing beyond the bars in costume as International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, in reference to the ongoing investigations into the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi on October 2.
(Source: Ruptly)
Video: Steve Bannon appearance sparks student protest at Oxford
Hundreds protested against Steve Bannon appearance at the Oxford Union Society on Friday. Former Trump advisor Bannon was invited by the university …
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Prison Planet.com » Tijuana Mayor Denounces ‘Horde’ Of Caravan Migrants, Calls For Swift Deportation
Daily Caller
November 18, 2018
Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum said Thursday that caravan migrants arriving by the hundreds are no longer welcome, an increasingly common sentiment among residents of the Mexican border city.
Gastelum described the caravan of Central American migrants as a “horde” that has been infiltrated by criminals who now threaten the community, in an interview with Milenio Television.
“Tijuana is a city of immigrants, but we don’t want them in this way,” the mayor, a member of the conservative National Action Party, said. “It was different with the Haitians, they carried papers, they were in order. It wasn’t a horde, pardon the expression.”
Gastelum called on the Mexican government to deport the caravan migrants as soon as possible.
“You’re going to tell me we have to respect human rights,” he said. “But human rights are for law-abiding humans.”
This article was posted: Sunday, November 18, 2018 at 7:53 am
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Video: NATO holds Anakonda military drills in Poland
NATO #drills #Poland Polish soldiers were joined by units from other NATO countries to hold joint military drills on Friday close to the village of Drawsko …
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Surgical Robot Botches Surgery – LewRockwell
In the name of scientific “progress,” Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital in the United Kingdom recently tried to pioneer the use of a surgical robot that it tasked with repairing a patient’s damaged heart valve, only to have the machine go completely bonkers and ultimately kill the man on the operating table.
According to reports, this first-time-use robot not only physically assaulted a living medic while attempting to conduct its programmed surgery, but also implanted stitches into the patient’s heart in a manner that physicians present during the fiasco described as notbeing in “an organised fashion.”
A situation that can only be described as total chaos, with human surgeons, doctors, and nurses having to scream at each other in order to overcome the “tinny” sound coming from the robot as they were trying to control it, the attempted surgery ended up being nothing short of a complete failure. And in the end, retired music teacher and conductor, Stephen Pettitt, the guinea pig patient in this medical experiment, ultimately lost his life.
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Lead surgeon admits that he was ill-prepared to operate the surgical robot, having skipped multiple training sessions
During a hearing that followed this catastrophe, lead surgeon Sukumaran Nair admitted that he lacked proper experience in controlling and using the surgical robot, stating that he was “running before he could walk.” In other words, it was truly a case of medical negligence and malpractice on steroids.
As later revealed by the U.K.’s Daily Mail Online, Nair not only missed a critical training session in Paris that would have taught him how to properly use…
PressTV-Hundreds join anti-racism protest outside BBC London HQ
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the BBC headquarters in London on Saturday, November 17, to protest against the racism and fascism that they claim is on the rise in the UK.
The protest was part of a larger demonstration, dubbed the ‘National Unity Demonstration against Racism and Fascism,’ which included a march across London that organizers claimed was attended by tens of thousands of people.
Some demonstrators came dressed as Saudi officials, including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, inside a fake prison cell, with another demonstrator standing beyond the bars in costume as International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, in reference to the ongoing investigations into the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi on October 2.
(Source: Ruptly)
PressTV-Trump says his view on climate change not changed
US President Donald Trump says his opinion about climate change has not changed despite the most destructive wildfire that devoured parts of California.
“No, no, I have a strong opinion,” Trump told reporters in Paradise, California, when asked whether what he saw had changed his view.
“I want a great climate. We are going to have that and we are going to have forests that are very safe,” he added as he assessed the damage from the fire which has so far claimed the lives of 76 people, while more than a thousand are still unaccounted for.
Trump later, however, seemed to admit that the phenomenon is happening, although he said he still disagreed with the state leaders on the issue.
“We’re maybe not as different, maybe not as different as people think. Things are happening. Things are changing,” Trump said on Air Force One alongside Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is also the state’s governor-elect.
The…
Video: ‘Horror, deprivation, misery’: Yemen ‘not on brink of catastrophe, it is a catastrophe’
COURTESY: UNIFEED The Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP) David Beasley called what he had seen this week in Yemen ‘the stuff of …
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US has spent almost $6 trillion on wars since 2001
US has spent almost $6 trillion on wars since 2001
By
Trévon Austin
17 November 2018
A report released by the Watson Institute of International & Public Affairs at Brown University indicates the total sum spent on the “war on terror” is much larger than previously suggested. Professor Neta C. Crawford, the author of the study, revealed that the US government is set to spend nearly $6 trillion on post-9/11 wars by the end of the 2019 fiscal year.
In March, the Department of Defense (DoD) released a report stating the military had spent $1.5 trillion on the wars. However, the Brown University report notes the DoD’s numbers were a conservative estimate that also failed to take into account spending across other federal departments. The new estimate not only includes expenditures from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), budget increases, and medical costs for veterans, but also interest on money borrowed to pay for the wars.
Including indirect war spending, the total amount of spending allocated since 2001 will be $4.6 trillion by the end of 2019. The report also estimates the government will be obligated to spend around $1 trillion for the future care of post 9/11 veterans until 2059. The total sum amounts to a staggering $5.993 trillion.
The study warns that continuing the multitude of US war and interventions for another four years would cost an additional $808 billion, even if the United States were to stop such actions by 2023. The accumulated costs would likely exceed the estimated $6.7 trillion because the number of veterans will continue to grow as long as the US continues military operations.
With no end in sight, the fiscal and human cost of US wars of aggression will continue to climb. A particular concern introduced in the latest study was the US…
“This is what we do to disbelievers”
Voice Of Europe
November 16, 2018
A 60-year-old man has been beaten in Paris in what seems to be a religious hate crime, newspaper Le Parisien reports.
The man had gone shopping for Christmas and was carrying a present wrapped in Christmas gift paper.
As he left the metro Alesia (XIVth arrondissement) with arms loaded and was walking to the Avenue du Maine (XIVth arrondissement) he was ambushed.
A stranger approached him, jostled and slapped him, dropping his glasses on the floor. The attacker then fled and was heard saying: “This is what we do to the disbelievers”.
This article was posted: Friday, November 16, 2018 at 6:31 am
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PressTV-Migrants stalled at US border, some mulling stay in Mexico
Another group of Central American migrants, seeking to take refuge in the United States, has made its way to the Mexican border city of Tijuana, joining long lines of other individuals already waiting to be enlisted for potential legal entry.
Hundreds of newly-arrived migrants in Tijuana, which sits across the border from the US state of California, lined up in front of a border crossing post on Saturday to add their names to a list to be processed for potential asylum.
Some 2,800 migrants had reached the city by Friday evening, and 1,500 of them put their names on the list handled by the migrants themselves, according to the local government.
Officials are supposed to handle 150 requests per day, meaning the whole process is expected to be a lengthy one.
Since arriving at the border last week, the Central…
Video: Nazi salutes & torches: Far-right activists rally in Madrid
Around 1000 far-right activists marched through central Madrid on Friday night, the 82nd anniversary of Falange founder Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera’s death.
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May defends Brexit divorce plan despite MP rebellion and cabinet resignations — RT UK News
Amid a string of resignations and huge backlash from rebel MPs, Prime Minister Theresa May still believes her draft Brexit deal with the EU will help secure British jobs, protect borders, and smooth the UK’s exit from the bloc.
In a combative piece for the Sun on Sunday, May insisted that the preliminary agreement she recently negotiated with Brussels will be “a deal that works.” Reiterating the main points of the draft Brexit accord, she maintained that “the course I have set is the right one for our country.”
Read more
Lamenting some “difficult decisions” that she had to make, as well as the recent string of cabinet resignations, May argued that the deal will first of all end the free movement of immigrants into the country. “For the first time in a generation or more we will decide who comes to this country and, just as importantly, who does not,” the defiant prime minister said.
Going further, May suggested her Brexit deal will protect “millions of British jobs across the country,” end sizeable annual payments to the EU budget, and make sure the European Court of Justice has no jurisdiction over the UK.
“Make no mistake – the hard-fought deal that is now in sight will do all of those things,” she wrote. In the end, May claimed that her deal will let London and Brussels divorce smoothly but “not letting it drag on forever” – the promise which critics say is impossible to deliver.
For the main part, the article seems to be a last-ditch effort to win some of the public trust amid Brexit turmoil. It also comes at quite an uneasy time for the beleaguered prime minister as she faces growing rebellion among fellow Tories and a massive backlash from the opposition.
On Wednesday, May stated that the draft deal – published in full by the European Commission – is the best that could be negotiated, and is in the country’s interest. She then suddenly raised stakes, saying that “the choice before us is clear – this deal or leave with no deal.”
Nevertheless, it emerged that multiple backbenchers were calling publicly for a no-confidence vote in May’s leadership. By the end of this weak, the number of rebel MPs grew further, and some observers even predicted that May is in danger of losing her job.
READ MORE: End of May in November? ‘UK PM will be very lucky to get through the weekend’
She had managed to secure cabinet approval for the draft Brexit deal after a five-hour meeting at 10 Downing Street on Wednesday, but it was followed by a string of high-profile resignations.
Shailesh Vara, the minister of state at the Northern Ireland Office, was the first top official to resign. Dominic Raab – the man charged with negotiating and finalizing the deal – followed suit, as did Esther McVey, secretary of state for work and pensions. More resignations followed, bringing the total number of departures to seven.
Raab, himself an ardent Brexiteer, attacked May on Sunday, claiming that the prime minister had effectively caved in to EU “bullying.” He stated: “If we cannot close this deal on reasonable terms we need to be very honest with the country that we will not be bribed and blackmailed or bullied and we will walk away.”
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Stan Lee fans outraged after HBO host claims Trump could only get elected in comic-loving country — RT US News
While many are still reeling after Stan Lee’s death earlier this week, HBO host Bill Maher lashed out at his legacy, claiming that comics don’t make Americans smart enough for adult life – and maybe that’s why they elected Trump.
HBO’s Real Time host turned legions of comic-book fans against him with his comments last Saturday – days after the legendary Marvel creator died at the age of 95. Ironically, Maher took part in the Stan Lee-produced ‘Iron Man 3.’
Bill Maher about Stan Lee: “a man who inspired millions to, I don’t know, watch a movie, I guess.”
Also Bill Maher: *in one of said movies* pic.twitter.com/j66GIZJEsP
— Lakell “TASK” Pruitt #Excelsior (@UpToTASK) November 17, 2018
Maher began the post, which he titled “Adulting,” with the assumption that the creator of Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk did nothing more than inspire millions to “watch a movie.” He went to say that the passion of Lee’s life, comics, have come out of their league and pretended to be “sophisticated literature” – further ruining Americans’ minds and not allowing them to grow up.
Many might already have taken offence, but here the comedian added a proviso and said that he doesn’t think people have got stupider – but we are “using our smarts on stupid stuff.”
I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to suggest that Donald Trump could only get elected in a country that thinks comic books are important.
Those three paragraphs were enough to trigger an avalanche of anger among Twitter users and admirers of Lee.
People are shock that bill Maher attack grean man Stan Lee, not me he still hurt his neoliberal friend HRC lost worst politician, Bill is racist and many other thing
— kajaraj கஜராஜ் (@kajokc3513) November 18, 2018
Bill Maher dismissed an entire storytelling medium?
Wow. He’s so highbrow.
His brow is so high, there’s probably less room for a mind.— Tom Taylor (@TomTaylorMade) November 17, 2018
Bill Maher’s trashy, pointless, and bitter sounding “blog post” is no shock. He makes a living off criticizing and trashing other people‘s work. He’s a “comic” that people laugh at and agree with and then fancy themselves smart & progressive. #RIPStanLeepic.twitter.com/VeEylaEj0w
— Daradol (@Daradol1) November 17, 2018
“More people cared about Stan Lee’s death than care about Bill Maher alive,” a person wrote, suggesting that people shouldn’t create more hype for the host by reacting to his words. But the hornet’s nest had already been rattled, and the fury was apparently unstoppable.
Bill Maher has done the impossible: gotten the entirety of comics fandom to agree on something
— G. Willow Wilson (@GWillowWilson) November 17, 2018
Maher’s just trolling, and lots of people are rising to the troll. (Julie Burchill did it better 30 years ago with her “There aren’t any adult comics because adults don’t read comics” line. ) More people cared about Stan Lee’s death than care about Bill Maher alive. https://t.co/yRzFCYQBzl
— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) November 17, 2018
The spectacle of Bill Maher, who’s entire “stance” as a political voice is “Whatever supports my ambition of being a horny 18 year-old forever” pissing on Stan Lee’s grave because some adults more functional than him (Maher) also enjoy SPIDER-MAN movies is… something else.
— Bob Chipman #RehireJamesGunn (@the_moviebob) November 18, 2018
This dude Bill Maher’s still on that hate train. Way to go after a dead man who can’t defend himself, you insensitive asshole. He’s worth more in death than you are now, and he left a bigger legacy than you ever will. You’re nothing compared to him. https://t.co/h1JFk6fwIN
— C (@GodsGift432) November 18, 2018
I never speak on topics I know little or nothing about. Why? I never want to be the fool. In other words, I don’t wanna make a Bill Maher out of myself. 🤘🏻✏️🤘🏻
— Greg Capullo (@GregCapullo) November 17, 2018
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
PressTV-Police arrest 85 at London climate change rally
Thousands of environmental activists have taken to the streets in London to protests the British government’s “inaction” on climate change.
Five bridges were blocked during the demonstration on Saturday with police arresting at least 85 environmentalists.
Over 6,000 people blocked the crossings at Blackfriars, Waterloo, Westminster, Lambeth and Southwark from around 10 am, according to the Extinction Rebellion group.
After all bridges were reopened, the demonstrators marched to a rally in Parliament Square, where officers cordoned off the statue of Winston Churchill after a green flag was attached to his walking stick.
The protesters, who compared themselves to US civil rights campaigners, maintained that radical action was essential to “raise the alarm” about the threatening climate crisis.
“We…
PressTV- Navy SEALs, Marines charged in death of Green Beret
Two US Navy SEAL officers and two Marines have been charged in connection with the 2017 death of a Green Beret comrade in the African nation of Mali, where they were all deployed.
The SEALs charged in the case are both chief petty officers assigned to Naval Special Warfare Development Group, commonly referred to as SEAL Team 6. The US Navy has not released their names and redacted them from public charge sheets, The Navy Times reported.
Citing charge sheets in the case, the report said the special operators are accused of breaking into Army Staff Sgt. Logan Melgar’s bedroom in Bamako, Mali, while he was sleeping, and restraining him with duct tape and strangling him by placing him in a chokehold.
In addition to felony murder, the officers have been charged with involuntary manslaughter, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, hazing and burglary.
If convicted, all four soldiers could face the death penalty or life in prison without…
Video: Keiser Report: Capitalism is not working? (E1307)
In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max and Stacy discuss the surge in share buybacks as corporations turn their Trump tax break into more income for …
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Prison Planet.com » Syrian migrant, 20, is arrested for ‘raping three-year-old boy’ at Greek refugee camp
Daily Mail
November 16, 2018
A 20-year-old Syrian man has been arrested over claims he raped a three-year-old boy in a refugee camp in Greece.
Alshahada Thamer, 20, was taken into custody after the boy’s mother, whose nationality is unknown, found him crying and bleeding in the camp.
The incident allegedly occurred in the Agia Eleni refugee camp near the city of Ioannina in north-western Greece.
The mother claims that her son had visited the sports facilities in the refugee camp, and had come running back to her in tears.
She said as well as having external injuries, her son had complained about pain in his lower abdomen and genitals.
The mother took her son to the University Hospital of Ioannina, where medical staff confirmed that the boy had been sexually abused.
This article was posted: Friday, November 16, 2018 at 6:36 am
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Industry Studies Show Bias and Misleading Conclusions on Widely Used Insecticide
Researchers who examined Dow Chemical Company-sponsored animal tests performed two decades ago on the insecticide chlorpyrifos found inaccuracies in what the company reported to the US Environmental Protection Agency compared to what the data showed.
And, according to internal EPA communication, agency scientists also had issues with the study interpretations, yet the agency approved the compound for continued use anyway.
“EPA staff scientists and staff were telling management there were problems,” said Jennifer Sass, senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, who was not involved in the current study but has worked on issues related to toxics, including chlorpyrifos, for decades.
“And management disregarded it.”
Those 20-year-old industry studies are still used by regulatory agencies such as the EPA and the European Food Safety Authority in approving continued use of the controversial insecticide, which is used on beans, citrus, corn, cotton, wheat and soybeans.
“Exaggerated trust in the reporting” by regulators led to a “failure” of both US and EU authorities to act on red flags, the authors wrote.
The results, published yesterday in the journal Environmental Health, are timely: The EPA is appealing a court decision that would mandate a ban on chlorpyrifos residue on food (which would effectively mean a ban on farm-use); and the European Union is considering a ban as well.
The Obama Administration’s EPA in 2015 proposed a ban of the chemical on food (that would have likely taken effect in early 2017), but President Trump’s former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt reversed the decision.
In August, however, a three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the EPA to ban the chemical. The EPA has appealed the decision.
Multiple studies since the industry-funded research have shown toxic impacts, especially to children, from chlorpyrifos exposure. Health…
Ireland’s New President, Other European Fools and the Abyss
Photo Source Óglaigh na hÉireann | CC BY 2.0
The Irish just elected their President. But who cares? No one – least of all the Irish. History has ruthlessly disappeared the Irish nation state, so the idea of an Irish President is anachronistic. Consequently, in Ireland, the Irish Presidency now provokes more embarrassment and laughter than respect. Nonetheless, the Irish establishment reproduces itself without a second thought – as if time and gravity don’t matter. Like Irish banks, the Irish state is dead but continues to move. Why?
Europe today is not a game of thrones but a game of charades. Everything is pretense. Fictitious capital is the reason. And the result is fictitious politics The economic crash of 2008 changed everything. Or killed everything. The European Union to start with. Followed by the Europe’s nation states. History moved forward so forcefully in September 2008 that Europe, a decade later, is still trying to catch-up with reality. Until it does so, charades is all it has.
The new European reality is unreality. Its one of illegitimate power and unnecessary subservience. Its a fools game. The democratic, national and continental charades try to distract the eye from this naked truth. However the feeling of shame is inescapable. As is the feeling of entrapment. Voting nationalist or voting for a president or for exit may momentarily cover the abyss, but within seconds, reality bites: Europe is a tool in the hands of global capitalists. And no…
Israel to Police European Coastlines: Protecting the Continent from Refugees?
This sounds like a bad joke. It ain’t. It’s real. One fascist government helps another fascist government. Yes, I have written about fascism invading the west before – warning that the European Union (non-union) is being gradually, but ever faster turned into a fascist dictatorship under the guise of democratic protection of ‘Democracy’; and this by her unelected European Commission (EC) leaders (sic). EU citizens are being brainwashed with neoliberal lie-propaganda into believing that they are living in the heart of democracy, that they are free and protected by police and military, 24×7.
Indeed, such protection can be seen at almost every street corner in France’s major cities; France, the country that had the audacity to make the permanent state of emergency part of her Constitution. And others are dutifully following Macron’s example. No wonder EU member country governments have all been ‘put in place’ by fake elections, with the help of Cambridge Analytica and other social media tricks, by now well-known around the globe, and even the myriad MSM (mainstream media). It would be a strange coincidence, if practically all of the heads of EU states are following either neoliberal or neonazi doctrines. In any case, the difference are a few details. Most obvious neonazis are depicted with the denigrating term of populists, disregarding the fact that a populist is someone who is liked by the people. Wouldn’t that be democracy?
The PM of Hungary,…
Israel to Police European Coastlines: Protecting the Continent from Refugees?
This sounds like a bad joke. It ain’t. It’s real. One fascist government helps another fascist government. Yes, I have written about fascism invading the west before – warning that the European Union (non-union) is being gradually, but ever faster turned into a fascist dictatorship under the guise of democratic protection of ‘Democracy’; and this by her unelected European Commission (EC) leaders (sic). EU citizens are being brainwashed with neoliberal lie-propaganda into believing that they are living in the heart of democracy, that they are free and protected by police and military, 24×7.
Indeed, such protection can be seen at almost every street corner in France’s major cities; France, the country that had the audacity to make the permanent state of emergency part of her Constitution. And others are dutifully following Macron’s example. No wonder EU member country governments have all been ‘put in place’ by fake elections, with the help of Cambridge Analytica and other social media tricks, by now well-known around the globe, and even the myriad MSM (mainstream media). It would be a strange coincidence, if practically all of the heads of EU states are following either neoliberal or neonazi doctrines. In any case, the difference are a few details. Most obvious neonazis are depicted with the denigrating term of populists, disregarding the fact that a populist is someone who is liked by the people. Wouldn’t that be democracy?
The PM of Hungary,…
Israel to Police European Coastlines: Protecting the Continent from Refugees?
This sounds like a bad joke. It ain’t. It’s real. One fascist government helps another fascist government. Yes, I have written about fascism invading the west before – warning that the European Union (non-union) is being gradually, but ever faster turned into a fascist dictatorship under the guise of democratic protection of ‘Democracy’; and this by her unelected European Commission (EC) leaders (sic). EU citizens are being brainwashed with neoliberal lie-propaganda into believing that they are living in the heart of democracy, that they are free and protected by police and military, 24×7.
Indeed, such protection can be seen at almost every street corner in France’s major cities; France, the country that had the audacity to make the permanent state of emergency part of her Constitution. And others are dutifully following Macron’s example. No wonder EU member country governments have all been ‘put in place’ by fake elections, with the help of Cambridge Analytica and other social media tricks, by now well-known around the globe, and even the myriad MSM (mainstream media). It would be a strange coincidence, if practically all of the heads of EU states are following either neoliberal or neonazi doctrines. In any case, the difference are a few details. Most obvious neonazis are depicted with the denigrating term of populists, disregarding the fact that a populist is someone who is liked by the people. Wouldn’t that be democracy?
The PM of Hungary,…
Video: Mid-air shahada: Brazilian pilot converts to Islam flying over Saudi Arabia
READ MORE: https://on.rt.com/9is4 Brazilian pilot converts to Islam flying over Saudi Arabia at the altitude of 18000 ft (5486,4 m). Courtesy: Facebook/Stories of …
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The Mystery of Phil Ochs
“They say they can’t believe it, it’s a sacrilegious shame
Now, who would want to hurt such a hero of the game?
But you know I predicted it; I knew he had to fall
How did it happen? I hope his suffering was small.
Tell me every detail, I’ve got to know it all,
And do you have a picture of the pain?” – Phil Ochs, The Crucifixion
“You are aware of only one unrest;
Oh, never learn to know the other!
Two souls, alas, are dwelling in my breast,
And one is striving to forsake its brother.” – Goethe, Faust
President John Kennedy was assassinated by the U.S. national-security state, led by the C.I.A., on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. That is a fact beyond dispute, except for those who wish to engage in pseudo-debates to deny the obvious. I prefer not to, since there is nothing to debate.
Finks: How the C.I.A. …
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But there is everything to mourn, even after fifty-five years, first of course for the man himself, then for those who have suffered and died for bearing witness to the truth about his assassination, and finally for the consequences of his murder, because it cut savagely into any pretense of American innocence and set the stage for the nihilistic tragedies that have followed, including the murders of Malcolm X, MLK, RFK, the September 11, 2001 attacks, and the ongoing “war on terror.”
Today, JFK’s killers have tightened their chokehold on the country and on the throats of those wishing to tell the truth. Their penetration of the corporate mass media is wide and deep, and the narratives they spin can make an innocent soul’s head spin. Everything is twisted to serve their…
WWII-era fighter plane crashes in Texas during re-enactment show (PHOTOS) — RT US News
A vintage fighter plane that saw action during WWII and the Korean War crashed into a parking lot during a re-enactment show in Texas. Two people died in the incident.
The P-51 Mustang went down on Saturday in Fredericksburg, Texas, during the WWII Pacific Combat Program event organized by the National Museum of the Pacific War. The museum later confirmed on Twitter that both passengers on the plane, one of which was a military veteran, had been killed.
Correction. Of the two victims, only one was a veteran.
— Pacific War Museum (@PacWarMuseum) November 18, 2018
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said the vintage airplane was completely destroyed and several automobiles were also damaged. The names of the victims have been withheld, and it is also unclear what may have caused the crash.
The National Transportation Safety Bureau (NTSB) will lead an investigation into the fatal incident. Texas state authorities have also sent forensic teams to the scene.
NTSB investigating crash Saturday of a North American P-51D in Fredericksburg, TX.
— NTSB_Newsroom (@NTSB_Newsroom) November 17, 2018
The P-51 Mustang was first built by North American Aviation in 1940 and was flown by the US Air Force in World War II and during the Korean War. As many as 15,000 fighters were assembled during and after WWII, and they remained in service with some militaries until the early 1980s.
READ MORE: Pilot killed as US T-38 supersonic military jet trainer crashes at base in Texas
The crash happened just days after a T-38 Talon supersonic training plane crashed at Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas, leaving one pilot dead and another injured. The T-38 crash was the fifth accident involving the same aircraft model in the last 12 months.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Video: #ICYMI: Trump v Acosta
ICYMI: Donald Trump vs CNN’s Jim Acosta and the politics of distraction When Donald Trump and CNN’s Jim Acosta clashed at a White House news conference …
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Prison Planet.com » Sweden’s possible next Prime Minister is a big fan of George Soros
Voice Of Europe
November 16, 2018
As expected, conservative Moderate Party leader Ulf Kristersson was not appointed PM at the voting on Wednesday in the Swedish Parliament.
His party, as well as the Sweden Democrats and the Christian Democrats voted for, and all others voted against.
Two middle parties, the Centre Party and the Liberals, voted against for the sole reason that they refuse to contribute to SD getting any influence whatsoever.
The speaker Andreas Norlén then decided to give the Centre Party leader Annie Lööf the task of putting together a government.
This article was posted: Friday, November 16, 2018 at 6:37 am
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Video: Trump: US makes ‘excellent’ wine… But what do Parisians have to say?
READ MORE: https://on.rt.com/9iqc Is Trump right about ‘excellent’ US wine? WATCH shocking results of RT’s blind taste test in Paris RT LIVE …
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Drug dealer who raped dying schoolgirl gets less than 3yrs in jail — RT US News
A prison sentence of 34 months given to 20-year-old drug dealer was the legal maximum, despite his admitting to overdosing and raping an 18-year-old schoolgirl, as well as allowing her to die and trying to dispose of her body.
Snohomish County Judge Linda Krese was “surprised” and “outraged” by the deficiency in Washington’s state law which only allowed her to sentence Brian Varela to 34 months in prison – the maximum judgment for an individual with no prior criminal record.
Varela pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter, third-degree rape, and unlawful disposal of remains of Alyssa Noceda last February. According to case documents, the 20-year-old, who was known to use and sell drugs, invited the teenage victim to a house party where he offered her narcotics.
After Noceda snorted a “large line of Percs” [painkillers], he offered her a “dab” of liquid marijuana, at which point the 18-year-old collapsed unconscious. But instead of calling for help or administering aid, Varela raped the high school student.
Read more
He then took selfies with his victim and sent them to his friends, and went on playing video games until passing out.
When he woke up the next morning, Noceda was dead. As if nothing had happened, Varela got dressed and went to work, where he bragged about the ordeal to a coworker, who notified the police. When authorities arrived at Varela’s mobile home they discovered the body with her legs broken to fit in a crate. Authorities also discovered that Varela tried to use Noceda’s finger to gain access to her phone to post messages that would give the impression that she had run away from home.
‘I’m going to ruin his life lol’: Teen ‘rapist’ latest victim of police disclosure failings
“It’s a joke,” the victim’s mother Gina Pierson, told a local news outlet after the judgment on Thursday, noting that she intends to fight the verdict and demand a life sentence for the killer. “Usually people who do stuff like this don’t get away with a slap on the wrist.”
“You might as well let him walk free with that kind of time,” Noceda’s aunt, Rachelle Palmer added.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Drug dealer who raped dying schoolgirl gets less than 3yrs in jail — RT US News
A prison sentence of 34 months given to 20-year-old drug dealer was the legal maximum, despite his admitting to overdosing and raping an 18-year-old schoolgirl, as well as allowing her to die and trying to dispose of her body.
Snohomish County Judge Linda Krese was “surprised” and “outraged” by the deficiency in Washington’s state law which only allowed her to sentence Brian Varela to 34 months in prison – the maximum judgment for an individual with no prior criminal record.
Varela pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter, third-degree rape, and unlawful disposal of remains of Alyssa Noceda last February. According to case documents, the 20-year-old, who was known to use and sell drugs, invited the teenage victim to a house party where he offered her narcotics.
After Noceda snorted a “large line of Percs” [painkillers], he offered her a “dab” of liquid marijuana, at which point the 18-year-old collapsed unconscious. But instead of calling for help or administering aid, Varela raped the high school student.
Read more
He then took selfies with his victim and sent them to his friends, and went on playing video games until passing out.
When he woke up the next morning, Noceda was dead. As if nothing had happened, Varela got dressed and went to work, where he bragged about the ordeal to a coworker, who notified the police. When authorities arrived at Varela’s mobile home they discovered the body with her legs broken to fit in a crate. Authorities also discovered that Varela tried to use Noceda’s finger to gain access to her phone to post messages that would give the impression that she had run away from home.
‘I’m going to ruin his life lol’: Teen ‘rapist’ latest victim of police disclosure failings
“It’s a joke,” the victim’s mother Gina Pierson, told a local news outlet after the judgment on Thursday, noting that she intends to fight the verdict and demand a life sentence for the killer. “Usually people who do stuff like this don’t get away with a slap on the wrist.”
“You might as well let him walk free with that kind of time,” Noceda’s aunt, Rachelle Palmer added.
Like this story? Share it with a friend!
Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
Drug dealer who raped dying schoolgirl gets less than 3yrs in jail — RT US News
A prison sentence of 34 months given to 20-year-old drug dealer was the legal maximum, despite his admitting to overdosing and raping an 18-year-old schoolgirl, as well as allowing her to die and trying to dispose of her body.
Snohomish County Judge Linda Krese was “surprised” and “outraged” by the deficiency in Washington’s state law which only allowed her to sentence Brian Varela to 34 months in prison – the maximum judgment for an individual with no prior criminal record.
Varela pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter, third-degree rape, and unlawful disposal of remains of Alyssa Noceda last February. According to case documents, the 20-year-old, who was known to use and sell drugs, invited the teenage victim to a house party where he offered her narcotics.
After Noceda snorted a “large line of Percs” [painkillers], he offered her a “dab” of liquid marijuana, at which point the 18-year-old collapsed unconscious. But instead of calling for help or administering aid, Varela raped the high school student.
Read more
He then took selfies with his victim and sent them to his friends, and went on playing video games until passing out.
When he woke up the next morning, Noceda was dead. As if nothing had happened, Varela got dressed and went to work, where he bragged about the ordeal to a coworker, who notified the police. When authorities arrived at Varela’s mobile home they discovered the body with her legs broken to fit in a crate. Authorities also discovered that Varela tried to use Noceda’s finger to gain access to her phone to post messages that would give the impression that she had run away from home.
‘I’m going to ruin his life lol’: Teen ‘rapist’ latest victim of police disclosure failings
“It’s a joke,” the victim’s mother Gina Pierson, told a local news outlet after the judgment on Thursday, noting that she intends to fight the verdict and demand a life sentence for the killer. “Usually people who do stuff like this don’t get away with a slap on the wrist.”
“You might as well let him walk free with that kind of time,” Noceda’s aunt, Rachelle Palmer added.
Like this story? Share it with a friend!
Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
PressTV-‘No-deal Brexit would be disastrous’
Germany’s main alliance of industrial groups has warned that there would be disastrous consequences for both European Union and Britain if the two separate without an agreement to outline their future relations.
Head of the BDI German Federation of Industry Dieter Kempf said on Saturday that if Britain crashes out of the EU in March without an agreement that could guarantee a smooth Brexit, companies and workers in the United Kingdom and across Europe will definitely suffer.
“It would cause great difficulty for tens of thousands of companies and hundreds of thousands of workers on both sides of the English Channel,” Kempf told Funke Mediengruppe newspaper, adding, “A hard Brexit would be disastrous.”
The German industrialist figure said Berlin and other European capitals should be ready for a no-deal scenario as uncertainty grows over whether London and Brussels could finally agree on a deal this month that could detail their future…
Video: Why Plutocrats Like Carl Icahn Are Almost Never Held Accountable
Former financial regulator Bill Black says Trump promised to “drain the swamp” but instead filled his administration with Washington insiders and elite …
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Video: A full-scale war in Gaza not to be ruled out – ex-Israeli PM
The recent exchange of fire between Hamas and Israel has sparked fears of another war looming in Gaza. Is the Middle East peace process on the verge of …
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Enough, Already, Of Robert Mueller’s Politicized Investigation
Roger Stone
Daily Caller
November 16, 2018
On Nov. 14, I directed my attorneys to release text messages proving, as I testified under oath, Randy Credico was the source of both the explosive description and the October 2016 release date of Hillary Clinton materials that Julian Assange described on CNN in June of that year.
They also prove that Credico’s repeated claim that he could not have been my source in late July because he did not meet and interview the Wikileaks publisher until late August is irrelevant: Credico says the source of his tip is a Wikileaks lawyer who is “one of my best friends.”
The texts also show that when the Assange held a Press event on Oct. 2 but did not release any material, Credico urged me to be patient as the material would be released shortly. That turned out to be true. In all fairness, Politico reported on Oct. 4, “Assange said the organization would publish documents on various subjects every week for the next 10 weeks, and vowed that the U.S. election-related documents would all come out before Election Day.”
Consistent with my testimony, nothing in these text exchanges suggests that I knew of the source or content of any of the allegedly stolen or hacked material released by Wikileaks.
If Randy Credico testified contrary to this before the Mueller grand jury, he committed perjury.
Equally ludicrous is a report that I somehow sought to intimidate Randy Credico. I was and am angry at Randy, a friend of almost 20 years, for his failure to tell the truth. How do you intimidate someone to tell the truth? Two witnesses, Tyler Nixon and David Lugo, testified before the grand jury that Credico told them each that he was my back-channel source. According to The Daily Caller, Credico threatened to “put a bullet” in Lugo’s head. Who tried to intimidate who ?
After watching Randy Credico tell falsehoods night after night on MSNBC, I spoke to an…
PressTV-All US armed services fail Pentagon’s first audit
All US military services have failed the first-ever audit of the country’s massive defense department, referred to by its officials as “the $2.7 trillion enterprise,” highlighting widespread problems in its cyber-security.
In a Friday statement on the audit, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said the audit identified “multiple material weaknesses” across the department but also provided “invaluable information that will help us target and prioritize corrective actions.” He did not, however, elaborate on the nature of the detected flaws.
The first-ever audit of the of the $2.7 trillion enterprise that is the Defense Department identified widespread problems in cybersecurity, but found little in the way of savings that could offset potential budget cuts next year, according to Pentagon and Congressional officials.
Pentagon’s comptroller David Norquist, who has played a key role in the audit, said after the report release that although no…
Video: 100,000+ people & 2,000 rallies: ‘Yellow vest’ protest against rising fuel prices hits France
READ MORE: https://on.rt.com/9isj At least one person has died and almost 50 others have been injured as around 124000 people protested against soaring …
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UAW hides details of new tentative agreement from Indiana Lear workers
UAW hides details of new tentative agreement from Indiana Lear workers
By
Marcus Day
17 November 2018
The WSWS urges workers interested in forming rank-and-file committees at their plants to contact us.
The United Auto Workers is again seeking to force through a sellout agreement at Lear Corporation’s auto parts factories in Hammond and Portage, Indiana. The latest maneuvers come a little less than one month after workers defied the union and decisively rejected, by 74 percent, a UAW-backed contract proposal that would have maintained the hated multi-tier system. Workers are determined to conduct a struggle against poverty wages, starting as low as $12.10 an hour at the Portage seating “sub-assembly” plant, and decades of declining living standards and working conditions.
On November 9, a UAW Local 2335 committee member sent an official notice to workers reporting that a new tentative agreement had been reached. Incredibly, the notice provided no information about the deal or when it would be released.
“Thank you for your patience throughout these negotiations,” the announcement stated. “After several days and many late nights, the Union and Company have reached a Tentative Agreement late last night – November 8, 2018.”
“Details (dates, times, locations) where the ratification meetings and voting will be held; will be available soon.”
Aside from the notice quietly sent to Lear workers, the union and the company have given no public indication that a deal has been reached, seeking to keep news of it out of the press and away from the attention of workers at other plants.
There is every reason to suspect that the UAW is trying to hide that it is pushing essentially the same agreement that workers already…
Come the Revolution –
The Character Of Natio…
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Trump visits California as wildfire death toll jumps to 76, with 1,276 missing — RT US News
The death toll from the worst-ever California wildfires has increased to 76, while the list of those unaccounted-for continues to grow and has jumped to 1,276, even as authorities located hundreds of previously missing persons.
The remains of five more people were discovered on Saturday in northern California as firefighters continue to battle the wildfire that has been raging for over a week and is so far only 55 percent contained.
The new figures were announced just as President Donald Trump arrived in California to personally inspect the scale of destruction from the Camp Fire and the Woolsey Fire just outside of Los Angeles.
Pledging to allocate federal resources to help Californians recover from the most deadly wildfire in their state’s history, Trump remarked: “This is very sad to see, but we’re all going to work together.”
While the list of casualties and missing persons continues to rise, Butte County officials expressed the hope that there might be ID duplication, or that many of those unaccounted for are alive but simply unaware that they had been reported missing. But even though authorities managed to locate over 700 people previously believed missing, with hundreds of new reports the toll has grown to 1,276.
The Camp Fire in Paradise has now destroyed around 13,000 structures after ripping through roughly 149,000 acres since November 8.
Meanwhile the Woolsey Fire in Southern California has resulted in at least three deaths after burning through some 98,000 acres of land. This fire, which is now 82 percent contained, destroyed at least 836 structures.
A red flag warning for California remains in place throughout Sunday, the National weather service said, noting that winds of up to 40mph could be recorded around the Camp Fire zone. Rain is expected to arrive sometime mid-week, which could help responders deal with the blaze.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
PressTV-Horrific CIA torture measures revealed in 9/11 court
Horrifying descriptions of how CIA and FBI agents tortured their captives — caught for alleged links to terrorism in the US government’s so-called ‘war on terror’ effort following the Sept. 11, 2001 incidents – have been read aloud during a trial of prisoners held at the infamous Guantanamo military prison.
“An alleged plot mastermind was taken nude from interrogation to a medical officer, who put fluids up his rectum then returned him nude to interrogation. Some captives were kept like “cowering dogs,” subjected to standing sleep deprivation, abdominal and facial slaps, in what one CIA agent called a “nightmare”,” US-based daily Miami Herald reported Friday, quoting statements made in the military court by 9/11 Prosecutor Jeffrey Groharing.
According to the daily, Groharing read the descriptions from various material his team had provided defense lawyers in a bid to prompt a new 9/11 trial judge, Marine Col. Keith Parrella, to…
Video: Spentagon: DoD fails its first-ever complete audit
READ MORE: https://on.rt.com/9ioz The US Department of Defense spent over $360 million to confirm there are problems in the $2.7 trillion organization, but the …
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Prison Planet.com » Hillary Feared Trump Wouldn’t Accept Defeat In 2016 — Now She’s Encouraging Stacey Abrams Not To Accept It
Daily Caller
November 16, 2018
Tucker Carlson aired a clip of Hillary Clinton in 2016, criticizing then-candidate Donald Trump for allegedly claiming that things were “rigged” whenever they did not go his way — and Carlson then showed Clinton doing the same thing for Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams on Thursday night.
“The race for governor of Georgia was tight for months, you probably followed it. But it finished in the end pretty much exactly where the polls predicted it would finish. The Republican, Brian Kemp, defeated the Democrat Stacey Abrams by about one and a half percentage points. In a big state that’s an awful lot of votes. For reasons she hasn’t really explained though, Stacey Abrams has refused to accept those results. Her allies are now claiming the election was stolen,” Carlson began.
Carlson then aired clips of Democratic Senators Sherrod Brown and Cory Booker and Hillary Clinton saying that they only way Kemp could’ve won would be if they somehow cheated.
“If she’d had a fair election, she already would have won,” Clinton said on Tuesday while speaking at the LBJ School of Public Affairs of the University of Texas.
He continued, “That’s election fraud. It’s a serious charge and it’s telling that nobody making that charge has provided any evidence that it actually happened, no detail at all. Most remarkable of all though is that Hillary Clinton is one of the voices in this course. We keep track and we remember Hillary’s view just two years ago. Here’s what she thought of losing candidates who claim the election was rigged.”
This article was posted: Friday, November 16, 2018 at 6:47 am
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RT
November 16, 2018
Julian Assange has been already charged by the US, but the case will remain sealed until the arrest of the whistleblower, WikiLeaks has revealed citing court filings unrelated to its co-founder.
“…no other procedure is likely to keep confidential the fact that Assange has been charged,” assistant US Attorney Kellen S. Dwyer wrote urging a judge to keep the matter sealed. However, the exact nature of the alleged charges against the whistleblower was not immediately revealed and is not to be disclosed until Assange’s arrest, according to the document.
WikiLeaks tweeted the document on Thursday, saying it was an “apparent cut-and-paste error.”
The same court filings were cited in a Washington Post report. The paper said citing its sources that what Dwyer said was true, but the disclosure was unintentional.
The US attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Virginia, where the document revealing the alleged charges was originally filed, said the “court filing was made in error,” according to the Washington Post report.
Earlier, the Wall Street Journal reported citing sources that prosecutors in the US were discussing the possibility of charging Assange with a number of crimes which, they hope, would see him expelled from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
While the DOJ has been investigating Assange for eight years, the prosecutors have yet to agree on the precise charges the 47-year-old might face. The possibility of charging the whistleblower with violating the Espionage Act has come up in discussions, WSJ notes.
The DOJ could choose to prosecute Assange in connection with Chelsea Manning’s disclosure of some 750,000 military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks back in 2010. In particular, the publication of classified US military footage entitled ‘Collateral Murder’ made headlines at the time, after it showed a US Apache helicopter opening…
PressTV-Trump talks to CIA chief about Khashoggi killing
US President Donald Trump has spoken with CIA Director Gina Haspel about the role of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the assassination of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey.
Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House on Saturday that “We haven’t been briefed yet.”
The president had already been shown evidence of the prince’s involvement in the killing, and privately he remains skeptical, according to an unnamed Trump aide talking to The Washington Post.
The US president has reportedly been trying to avoid blaming the crown prince for the embarrassing plot and cover-up.
Trump spoke with Haspel and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during his flight to California.
The CIA has reportedly concluded with…
The James Madison Passage They Keep Buried
All the so-called respectables are up in arms about acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker.
I wrote about this earlier this week.
But this one deserves a double dip.
Whitaker has made friendly remarks about nullification. This is not allowed, even though Thomas Jefferson said the states could nullify unconstitutional federal laws.
(No modern critic of the idea ever mentions Jefferson’s name. They’re afraid if we know Jefferson supported it, we peons might get ideas.)
CNN legal analyst Renato Mariotti offered these deep thoughts:
Nullification: How to …
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”‘Nullification’ was a legal argument made by Southerners before the Civil War who believed their states could ‘nullify’ federal law. That argument was discredited after their defeat in the Civil War, but it was made again by racists opposing desegregation. And now by Whitaker.”
I document the actual history of nullification in some detail in my book Nullification. Mariotti’s version reads like a third-grade essay, with a dash of Orwell.
On my podcast the other day I smashed Mariotti’s little lecture to smithereens.
In a later Tweet he berated Whitaker for his disparagement of judicial review.
Warned Mariotti: “The government could pass a law imprisoning journalists and no court could review it.”
Well, guess what: the government did pass a law like that, in 1798, and a lot of good the Court did. It was only at the state level that a spirit of resistance could be found.
Even if the Court had reviewed the law, what is the chance a bunch of robed Federalists were going to overturn the Alien and Sedition Acts?
And that, according to James Madison in…
US struggles to protect ‘strategic’ ties with Saudis as CIA reportedly links MbS to Khashoggi murder — RT US News
The US government has yet to reach a “final conclusion” on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and until then won’t undermine the strategic relationship with Riyadh, amid reports the CIA has pinned the blame on the Saudi Crown Prince.
“Recent reports indicating that the US government has made a final conclusion are inaccurate,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said, stopping short of explicitly rejecting reports that the CIA had implicated Mohammed bin Salman. “There remain numerous unanswered questions with respect to the murder of Mr. Khashoggi.”
On Friday, the Washington Post and other US media reported that the CIA had concluded with “high confidence” that MbS had ordered the murder of the journalist inside the Saudi Embassy in Istanbul on October 2.
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The Washington Post contributor was allegedly lured to the embassy in Istanbul by a false promise of a safety guarantee offered by the Saudi Ambassador to the US, Khalid bin Salman, who happens to be the Crown Prince’s brother. While the agency could not conclude with certainty that the Ambassador knew that Khashoggi’s life would be in jeopardy, considering multiple sources of intelligence, and the fact that bin Salman is the “de facto ruler” of Saudi Arabia, the “accepted position is that there is no way this happened without him being aware or involved,” the Post said, quoting an anonymous source familiar with the investigation.
The CIA assessment, which contradicts Saudi government claims that the Crown Prince was totally unaware of the situation, seems to have caused quite a dilemma for the White House. If the allegations prove to be true, Donald Trump would have to follow through on his promise of “severe punishment.” That, however, would likely mean losing a much-touted $110 billion military contract which he cemented with Saudis last year, and put in jeopardy up to $400bn-worth of contracts with Riyadh.
So far, Trump made it very clear that he does not wish to take any actions that would compromise his signature relationship with Saudi Arabia. On Saturday, Trump again reiterated that Riyadh remains a “spectacular ally,” noting that “as of this moment, we were told that [MbS] did not play a role.”
We also have a great ally in Saudi Arabia.
“They give us a lot of jobs, they give us a lot of business, a lot of economic development,” Trump added, before boarding the plane to head to California. On his journey, he discussed the developments of the case with CIA chief Gina Haspel and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
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In a somewhat symbolic gesture, on Thursday the US imposed sanctions on a group of Saudis arrested by Riyadh over their alleged role in Khashoggi’s killing, many of whom would likely face the death penalty. The same day Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister firmly reiterated that Mohammed bin Salman had “absolutely nothing to do” with the murder.
Facing international pressure amid numerous reports outlining the gruesome details of Khashoggi’s murder, the Saudi public prosecutor said that the journalist was most likely killed with lethal injection following a struggle with the “negotiation team” inside the embassy in Istanbul. His body was then dismembered and taken out of the building. Two key questions however remain unanswered – where is Khashoggi’s body and who ordered the murder of the 61-year-old?
Until these and other numerous “relevant facts” are uncovered, the US State Department stated that Washington would refrain from any actions that could undermine “the important strategic relationship” with Saudi Arabia.
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Via RT. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission or license.
PressTV-‘UN report on UK poverty disgraceful for Britain’
A new United Nations report on the situation of poverty and austerity in the UK is “a disgrace” for the British government and shows London treats its own citizens like that of other nations, a political analyst in London says.
“For an advanced economy, which the UK is supposed to be, this sort of situation is quite disgraceful,” Rodney Shakespeare said in a phone interview with the Press TV on Saturday.
“It’s a crying shame that the United Nations makes a report like this reflecting a most unnecessary reality,” Shakespeare said.
The analyst said the British government was punishing the poor with its budget cuts, saying the vulnerable sector of the society has been robbed of a higher percentage of their income as a result of government austerity measures.
“When it (government) wants to cut back in various ways, it takes action hitting the poor proportionally many times more than it does when it hits the rich” said the…