896: Wall of Meat

Hi Adam - haven't seen any NoAgenda Inauguration Meetups - let me know if you hear of anything?

I'll be with DC 911 TRUTH at 7am. I know the Seed Guy will be roaming around with his infowarriors, other than that I haven't heard anything. Haven't seen much activity from the OathKeepers - suprising.

Ok let me know if you hear anything. I'll be at the Deploraball Fri. night and IF THERES ANYONE YOU WANT ME TO TALK TO OR ASK QUESTIONS let me know eh?

Thanks

Jeff in Calgary

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 12:28

Get nasty with Post Modern Sleaze. (photo by Michael Andrew Voight)

Like the five stages of grief, we've passed through fear and denial '' but we're not going to accept it. Instead, we're getting louder, fiercer, and attempting to knit our community even tighter. Friday, an LGBTQ rally will take place at the Capitol in response to the presidential inauguration. Afterward, because queers know how to party when the heels hit the wall, we've got plans. BossBabes' State of the Uterus splits proceeds among five rad women's/reproductive rights organizations. Meanwhile, Poo Poo Platter honors Nasty Women. Friday's show will be an all-female drag revue featuring local lovelies Arcie Cola, Kitty Buick, and Summer Clearance with special guests Kembra Pfahler, NYC's Crimson Kitty, Lady Trinity (author of FiercelyYou), H-Town's Post Modern Sleaze, and Kitty von Quim, a recent transplant from San Francisco. All proceeds go to Planned Parenthood. "Although lady queens are nothing new, they're recently coming into the spotlight. And of course, they have the hardest time getting accepted as legitimate drag performers," says Bulimianne Rhapsody. "I think this is a proactive way of coping with the new administration by saying 'Eff you' and raising money where women need it."

GAYDAR

The Austin LGBTQ Advocacy Summit Join the Austin LGBT Bar Association, UT Outlaw, Equality Texas, AGLCC, and ACLU for a conversation on LGBTQ equality in 2017, internationality, and the power of participation. Thu., Jan. 19, 6-9pm. Eidman Courtroom, University of Texas School of Law, 727 E. Dean Keeton. www.austinlgbtbar.org.

Queerbomb Organizational Meeting Queerbomb is back, baby! And the new team wants your help to make this year the biggest, baddest, queerest bomb yet! Everyone who's interested in helping to make QB17 happen is welcome. Thu., Jan. 19, 7-9pm. Lemon Lounge, 500 San Marcos St.

Die Felicia Presents The Return of the Living Dead Louisianna Purchase and Zane Zena wanna know: Do you ever wonder about all the different ways of dying? Join 'em for a creepy screening and a costume and scream queen contest. With drag faves and DJ Addams making the afterparty. Thu., Jan. 19, 9pm. Elysium, 705 Red River. $5.

State of the Uterus These BBs are puttin' their spin on Inauguration Day. All-babe DJs, raffle, tarot, and the launch of #HappyPeriodAustin. Fri., Jan. 20, 6pm. Cheer Up Charlies, 900 Red River. $5. www.bossbabes.org.

LGBTQ Human Rights Rally Join the LGBTQ community in protesting the incoming presidential administration and current Texas Legislature. Afterparty at Mohawk. Fri., Jan. 20, 7-9pm. Texas State Capitol, 1100 Congress. www.fb.com/lgbtq-human-rights-rally-394271167593803.

Poo Poo Platter Presents Nasty Women: P*ssies Grab Back America In honor of Inauguration Day, Poo Poo Platter says it's time not only to support women but also women of drag! So get nasty with an all-female drag revue '' local leads and some v. special guests. Fri., Jan. 20, 10pm. Elysium, 705 Red River. $10. www.fb.com/poopooatx.

Elegantly Queer Tango Workshop Queer Tango wants you to fall in love with the dance. Explore leader and follower roles. Sat., Jan. 21, 1-6pm. Austin Uptown Dance, 8868 Research #706. $36-45. www.corazontanguero.com.

BLF Presents: Timbear Lumberjack Party Bear Loving Fans, Tapelenders/Package, and the Iron Bear are getting woodsy. Sat., Jan. 21, 10pm. The Iron Bear, 121 W. Eighth. Free.

Annual BookWoman Inventory It's all hands on deck day at yer local feminist bookstore. Call or email to sign up. Sun., Jan. 22, 9:30am-5:30pm. BookWoman, 5501 N. Lamar Ste. 105-A, 512/472-2785. bookwomanaustin@gmail.com, www.ebookwoman.com.

GayTripper: Deep Eddy Vodka Distillery Tour Funday your Sunday with GayTripper's party bus to and from Deep Eddy. Sun., Jan. 22, 2-5:30pm. Deep Eddy Vodka Distillery and Tasting Room, 2250 Hwy. 290 E., Dripping Springs. $25. www.therepubliq.com.

Women 50+ Hoopsters If you wanna shoot some hoops there's a new group in town looking for nothing but net. Though intended for women over 50, anyone is welcome regardless of age or gender. Sun., Jan. 22, 3-5pm. YMCA Northwest Branch, 5807 McNeil. www.meetup.com/women-50-hoopsters.

HavenCon Grand Illusionist Semifinals Yer fave draggers are werking for a chance to perform in this year's HavenCon finals. A portion of ticket sales will be dropped in the Grand Illusionist pot, rewarded April 28 at HavenCon 3. Sun., Jan. 22, 7:30pm. Spider House Ballroom, 2906 Fruth. $15. shane@havencontx.com, www.havencontx.com.

Ladies' Night at BT2 Tina She makes a special appearance in honor of grrrls' night. So put some weeknight yay back in yer gay. Mondays, 8pm-2am. Bout Time II, 6607 N. I-35. www.fb.com/bt2atx.

Greetings, from Queer Mountain Ep 45: Woman Can you believe Queer Mountain has been concurring queer storytelling for 45 months?! This month, they return to a well-loved theme: woman. Wed., Jan. 25, 9pm. Cheer Up Charlies, 900 Red River. Free. www.fb.com/greetingsfromqueermountain.

StartOut ATX Presents High-Impact Growth Entrepreneurs Come out for a night of diversity in entrepreneurship. Keynote speaker Vivienne Ming. A Q&A will follow her talk; food, drinks, and networking will follow that. Thu., Jan. 26, 6:45-8:30pm. Indeed, 6433 Champion Grandview Way. $5-10. www.startout.org.

Miss Connections No. 2: No Jerks, Just Dancing A pop-up dance night and safe space for those looking to move by new DJ collective Of Their Own (GirlFriend ATX, Breezah, and Lolo). Find a space that celebrates you. Thu., Jan. 26, 9pm. Cheer Up Charlies, 900 Red River. Free. www.fb.com/oftheirown.

GAYLY AHEAD

OUTSider Festival OUTsider '' the nation's first-ever queer multi-arts festival and conference dedicated to showcasing LGBTQ arts and culture '' returns for its third year. Always a mind-blowing, eye-opening, feeling feels, good time. Feb. 15-19. $40-50 (prices will increase closer to fest). www.outsiderfest.org.

All in for Equality Advocacy Day EQTX, ACLU of Texas, HRC, Texas Freedom Network, and Transgender Education Network of Texas host an LGBTQ+ Advocacy Day so that all of us can ask state leaders to pass inclusive policies to protect all Texans, and end discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. Advance registration is required with lunch provided. Mon., March 20. Schmidt-Jones Family Life Center, 1300 Lavaca, 512/305-8400. $5. robert.salcido@equalitytexas.org.

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Wed, 18 Jan 2017 11:59

The greatest success of the Left was to convince white women that they were oppressed victims as a group. The Left needed numbers: blacks did not comprise a large enough group to foment the kind of revolution the Left wanted. Even Chicanos, and gays, trans, and (often unwilling) Asians are not enough together in numbers. The movement needed whites, and white women filled a very large void. It allowed a movement that, at its inception, was no more than 15% of the population, and made it over half the population, at least theoretically. The involvement of white women also gave a certain moral cachet to the attack on white males. It's easier to attack someone if their own family or social group is also attacking him.

It is fair to say that this attack on white men, ongoing since the 60s, could have not happened without the involvement of (or at least the tacit approval of) white women, be they full-blown feminists or just fellow-travelers. White women were essential to the bringing down of white men and Western culture. Had white women seen the continuing attacks on their men as an attack on themselves, their families, and their way of life, black grievance mongers and those who followed on their heels''Hispanics, homo/transsexuals, Muslims''would never have been able to go so far into such a virulent anti-white (Christian) racism.

For a long time, white women were under the mistaken impression that such anti-white racist attitudes didn't apply to them because they too were ''victims.'' It is only recently that many white women are beginning to see that they are no longer protected under the victimhood mantle. The takeover of the feminist narrative by black women''so called intersectionality''and the odd claims of female status by mentally ill males''so-called transgenderism''are destroying the safe facade of feminism for white women. When a ''women's march'' for this very week can result in black women openly complaining about white women activists and challenging their victim status, it's clear that the white women are losing control of the narrative and of the movement. Whatever it was that you though you were fighting for, your movement is being taken from you. Even the Wiccans know that, with Priestess Ruth Barrettediting a book of articles (that universities won't print) about transsexuals destroying safe places for women, like public bathrooms.

In the end, white women have gotten precious little for their allegiance to feminism, other than to become the wage slaves their husbands (or ex-husbands) were, and to have to cede more and more of their children's development to invasive and bureaucratic state and private entities. True, they get to have more sex, more STDs, and legal abortions. In fact, these days, one could argue that all of the above are becoming more or less obligatory with the sexual revolution leaving little to no room for a woman to say ''no'' to sex, even sex she doesn't want. A woman used to be able to refuse a man, knowing that she'll have society's backup. She now has none: that moral ship has sailed. That's why unwanted or unenthusiastic sex is now becoming a legal problem, a ''rape culture'' narrative complete with fake statistics but with very real feelings behind it.

Meanwhile, males are drifting without their traditional role of husband/head of family; divorce is rampant, childbirth and rearing without marriage is rampant, and women are utterly exhausted trying to maintain a crumbling family structure for children who are being more and more sucked into popular culture and the indoctrination at their schools that ''cores the commoner'' and lowers intelligence levels every year.

And now, the feminism on which white women hung their life perspectives and their futures is being wrested from them by black militants (to whom everything is race) and by men in dresses who want to be in restrooms with their female children. But where it there to go? You've spent 50 years demonizing white men, pounding them into the ground, voting for politicians who took their jobs away or who insulted them as ''bitter clingers.'' You're left with young men who are slowly being told that masculinity is toxic, being white is toxic, and biting a Pop Tart into a gun shape is toxic.

There's nowhere to go. You're white in a non-white leftist power construct and abortion will be cold comfort when a transsexual demands the job you should have gotten because he is both ''female'' and more oppressed than you are.

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 00:58

A walker in Washington came across two guns in a violin case along the Potomac River on Wednesday, leading police to find several other weapons stashed in the area, officials said.

U.S. Park Police said a woman walking in the woods near the C&O Canal, which runs along the river, found the case. When law enforcement officers arrived, they found more guns and ammunition '-- some in pails, others in plastic garbage bags.

"At this point, we don't know how they got there, why they're here or when they got here," police spokeswoman Sgt. Anna Rose said.

She said officers found a variety of weapons, including long guns and pistols.

The D.C. police bomb squad was conducting a sweep of the area.

The woman who found the violin case took it to authorities near a boathouse parking lot, according to park police.

When Barbara Joan Saffir pulled into the lot before her regular run, she said she saw the violin case on a concrete barrier and a police officer guarding the weapons.

"Nobody ever hikes on that side of the canal" where the violin case was found, Saffir said. "People walk on the towpath."

She added that the area is "normally super quiet."

'--'--'--

This story has been corrected to show that only one police officer was standing near the violin case, not two.

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 12:02

Former talk show host Rosie O'Donnell continued her Twitter campaign against President-elect Donald Trump Sunday by calling for a one-month halt to Inauguration proceedings until Trump could be fully investigated for what she deems ''treason.''

This time, instead of suggesting that President Obama declare martial law to delay Friday's events, she offered Sen. John McCain the title of ''emergency interim President'' until a more suitable candidate could be found or the election could be re-run.

Perhaps she believed that Republicans might be more amenable to her ''solution'' if she offered an across-aisle olive branch, or perhaps the dyed-in-the-wool, dedicated progressive has simply descended further into hysteria. But she says she's serious, and that her idea won't cause mass unrest.

The fact that McCain was not elected'--and did not consent to run for President, nor does he happen to be one of the 18 Presidential candidates fielded by the Republican Party'--does not bother Rosie, who says McCain would be preferable to Trump because ''one is a public servant and one an orange narcissist.''

Rosie's offer of McCain, as preposterous as it seems, is actually quite conciliatory on the part of the comedian, who has railed, throughout her talk show career, against the GOP, former President George W. Bush, and assorted conservatives.

But there may be more than just concern for her country that's motivating O'Donnell: She and Trump have a decade-old feud stemming from Trump's decision not to strip a former Miss USA of her title after ''revelations of drug abuse and underage drinking.'' O'Donnell attacked Trump on The View calling him a ''snake-oil salesman'' and slamming him for his multiple divorces.

Trump, true to form, responded by calling O'Donnell a ''loser.'' The two exchanged blows for years; Trump even took time out from a Presidential primary debate to call O'Donnell a ''fat pig.''

So it's probably no surprise that O'Donnell hits the ''ALL CAPS'' button over the future President, and will probably continue her calls to oppose him for some time in the future.

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 11:54

After more than a year of campaigning, 26 primary and general election debates, and countless press conferences, attack ads, victory speeches, public apologies, and early morning Twitter rants, Donald Trump's inauguration is here.

On Friday, January 20, Trump will officially be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States.

Event planners are estimating that 900,000 people will attend Trump's swearing-in ceremony and the ensuing parade '-- about half the turnout of President Barack Obama's record-holding 2008 inauguration ceremony. There's also a growing boycott among congressional Democrats; more than 50 lawmakers have said they will not attend Friday's ceremonies.

If you're not in Washington, DC, or if you want to avoid the crowds, here's what to expect for the rest of the week:

ScheduleThursday:Awreath-laying ceremony will begin at 3 pmEastern at Arlington National Cemetery, kicking off the inaugural events. Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence will be in attendance, laying a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknowns.

The welcomeceremony, which will include musical performances and an appearance from the president-elect, will begin at 4 pm Eastern attheLincoln Memorial. The event will include performances and appearances from Toby Keith, Jon Voight, Jennifer Holliday, the Piano Guys, Lee Greenwood, DJ Ravidrums, 3 Doors Down, and the Frontmen of Country.

Friday:Theinaugural swearing-in ceremony will begin at 11:30 Eastern on the western front of the Capitol building, where Trump will take the oath of office and make his inaugural address to the American people.

The inauguralparade will follow the swearing-in ceremony, scheduled to begin at 3 pm Eastern and make its way down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House.

Trump, Pence, and their wives will attend three officialinauguralballs. Two will be at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center and are ticketed; the third is the Armed Services Ball at the National Building Museum, which is by invitation only. Details have not been confirmed.

How to watchThe proceedings will be aired on all major news channels, including Fox, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC,and NBCNews, with special all-day inauguration coverage.

You can also stream the ceremonies online. NBC, CBS, FOX, and ABC will stream the events on their websites; however, you may need to log in to your TV provider to access the coverage.

The White House will be streaming the inauguration on its website, and several news outlets, including C-SPAN, Bloomberg Politics, and the Washington Post, have also partnered with YouTube to stream the events.

What to expectExpectedly, there's a lot of pomp and circumstance in inaugurating the next president of the United States, from the wreath-laying ceremony to the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue.

And while there's politics in the pageantry, the most important moment of the proceedings will likely come during Trump's inaugural address.

As it stands, Trump will enter the White House an incredibly unpopular president; his approval ratings have dropped since being elected in November. He lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by almost 2.9 million votes, and there are almost as many people coming to Washington to protest Trump's presidency as for the inauguration.

It puts Trump in an interesting position. Will he present himself as the president for all Americans, as he promised on election night, or will he continue to play to his supporters? We already know he hasn't made too many strides with the former, going after civil rights icon John Lewis and even questioning the validity of approval ratings.

Trump tweeted that he began drafting the speech three weeks ago. He has been receiving some advice and counsel from advisers Stephen Bannon and Kellyanne Conway and campaign speechwriter Stephen Miller, as well as some historians specifically regarding the speech's length. But incoming press secretary Sean Spicer said the words are fully Trump's.

Trump told reporters the speech will aim to unite America. After the campaign the country just went through, that would be a good start.

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 11:40

The presidential election is over. Trump captured the Electoral College even though a majority of people in this country voted '-- if they voted at all '-- against Trump. The big business media immediately ran headlines blaming the struggling, so-called ''white working class'' for Trump's victory. It is sadly true that millions of working-class whites embraced or accepted Trump's hateful rhetoric attacking Black people, all people of color, immigrants, Muslims, women, people with disabilities, Jewish people and the LGBTQ community. Many workers and small businesspeople, including those who lost everything after the 2007-2008 recession, fell for his empty promises to fix the economy. But the polls acknowledge that the strongest base of support for Trump's fascist campaign was white people making over $70,000 a year.

There is only one multinational, global working class. Media ''experts'' don't acknowledge that Black, Brown or Indigenous voters are also part of the working class. Workers who can't vote, including prisoners, undocumented workers and those under 18 years of age are part of the working class. In fact, these are the most exploited and oppressed sectors of the working class.

There is nothing in Trump's program for any of us. Truly, not just some, but all workers and oppressed people are hurt, threatened, and divided by bigotry and scapegoating.

Now, unfortunately, leaders of the AFL-CIO as well as the Auto Workers, Steelworkers and Building Trades unions have adopted the posture of ''give Trump a chance.'' This is a betrayal of our class interests.

What does the working class need? Workers need jobs '-- a full employment agenda that includes a massive public works program and a shorter workweek with no cut in pay. A national health program that leaves no one choosing between paying costly premiums and going without insurance. A moratorium on evictions, foreclosures and utility shutoffs. Quality public education and free college tuition.

Restore and expand the social safety net, which has seen heartless cuts in food stamps, welfare, unemployment benefits and more. End so-called trade agreements like NAFTA and the TPP that hurt workers worldwide '-- not just here. Stop union-busting by the bosses. Reverse the dozens of anti-union bills passed by state legislatures across the country, including Jim Crow ''right-to-work'' (for less!) laws. Labor laws should not be written by people like the Koch brothers and the DeVos family.

Workers need money to rebuild the infrastructure of our cities, not for the prison-industrial complex, the military budget or wars against oppressed people around the world. We need reparations for our communities'--from Detroit and Flint to Puerto Rico'--suffering from racist austerity.

Forcibly stop hate crimes against people of color, Muslims, women, the LGBTQ community and immigrants '-- crimes that have been on the rise since the Trump election '-- along with the hateful rhetoric that encourages them. Plug the school-to-prison pipeline. Stop short-term projects like DAPL that poison the waterways, create no permanent jobs and ultimately only help Big Oil and the banks.

The epidemic of police murders of Black, Brown and Indigenous people must come to an end! Jail killer cops! Black lives matter!

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 11:33

El viernes 20 de enero, una nueva administraci"n usamericana ser juramentada.El viernes 20 de enero, protestemos contra las continuadas guerras usamericanas que pretenden dominar al mundo.

La nueva administraci"n de Trump comienza prometiendo:

' Aumentar el gasto militar de los USA y la capacidad de hacer guerra;' Aumentar los ataques contra latinas/os, musulmanes y otras comunidades inmigrantes y oprimidas;' Expandir la capacidad de armas nucleares de los USA;' Eliminar las regulaciones ambientales y otorgar impunidad a los contaminadores corporativos y militares;' Aumentar la represi"n estatal contra el pueblos negro, ind­gena y oprimido; y' Lanzar un ataque frontal contra la clase obrera usamericana.

El viernes 20 de enero, en Washington DC y en ciudades de todos USA, cientos de miles de personas tomarn las calles para protestar esta agenda de guerra y racismo.

Ya sea la Hillary Clinton de los dem"cratas o el Donald Trump republicano que est(C)n en la Casa Blanca, el imperialismo usamericano representar una amenaza para la paz.

Ambos candidatos compitieron por superar al otro en su entusiasmo por las guerras, la represi"n y los planes de austeridad, y en su devoci"n a las ambiciones del capitalismo usamericano.

Pero el racismo mostrado, el sectarismo, la intolerancia antiinmigrante y anti-obrera de la entrante administraci"n Trump ha despertado una respuesta masiva.

Esta manifestaci"n de resistencia sin precedentes ofrece una oportunidad para movilizarse contra la guerra y el racismo, y para defender los intereses de las/os trabajadores en todo el mundo.

Hagamos del viernes 20 de enero un d­a de acci"n global para construir los impulsos ms anti-guerreristas, ms anti-racistas y ms solidarios con la clase trabajadora, de estas reacciones masivas a la nueva administraci"n usamericana.

Si est fuera de los USA, por favor, considere lo que sea posible hacer en su pa­s Puede usted protestar contra una embajada, consulado o misi"n usamericana?

En las ciudades de los USA se pueden organizar acciones en los edificios federales y plazas c(C)ntricas de la ciudad. Puede su sindicato, partido u otra organizaci"n emitir una declaraci"n contra Trump y su agenda imperialista?

De la forma que le sea posible, por favor, tome acci"n!

'–ºEnv­e informaci"n sobre las acciones internacionales, el lugar, la hora y la informaci"n de contacto a [email protected].

'–ºEnumere las acciones locales alrededor de los USA en http://www.workers.org/j20/submitinfo

Que salgan [email protected] a manifestar el 20 de enero contra la investidura!

La clase trabajadora debe unirse!

El llamado a [email protected] trabajador@ [email protected]

para el 20 de enero:

No den ''una oportunidad'' al racista y fascista Trump,

enemigo de los sindicatos

Ya pas" la elecci"n presidencial. Trump captur" el ''Colegio Electoral'' aunque la mayor­a de gente en este pa­s vot" '-- si acaso lo hizo '-- contra Trump. Los medios de comunicaci"n capitalistas inmediatamente publicaron titulares que echaron la culpa por la victoria de Trump a la llamada ''clase trabajadora blanca'' en lucha. Es una triste verdad que millones de [email protected] de la clase trabajadora abrazaron o aceptaron la ret"rica odiosa de Trump que atac" a [email protected][email protected], a [email protected][email protected] caf(C)s, inmigrantes, musulmanes, mujeres, [email protected], [email protected] y de la comunidad LGBTQ. [email protected][email protected] y [email protected] de peque±o negocios s , incluyendo a [email protected] que perdieron todo tras la recesi"n de 2007-08, quienes creyeron sus promesas vac­as de arreglar la econom­a. Pero los sondeos confirman que la base ms fuerte en apoyo para la campa±a racista de Trump fueron [email protected] que ganan ms de 70.000$ al a±o.

Hay solamente una clase trabajadora multinacional y global. Los ''expertos'' de los medios no reconocen que [email protected] votantes [email protected], caf(C)s o ind­genas son tambi(C)n parte de la clase trabajadora. [email protected][email protected] que no pueden votar, incluyendo [email protected], [email protected][email protected]/as y menores de 18 a±os son tambi(C)n parte de la clase trabajadora. De hecho [email protected] son los sectores ms explotados y oprimidos de la clase trabajadora. No hay nada en el programa de Trump para ningºn@ de [email protected] La verdad es que no son solo [email protected] sino [email protected][email protected][email protected] y [email protected] que est [email protected], [email protected] y [email protected] por la intolerancia, convirti(C)ndonos en chivos expiatorios.

Ahora desgraciadamente, los l­deres del sindicato mayor AFL-CIO as­ como de los sindicatos del autom"vil, del acero y de la construcci"n han adoptado la posici"n de ''darle una oportunidad a Trump''. Esta es una traici"n de nuestros intereses de clase.

Qu(C) necesita la clase trabajadora? [email protected][email protected] necesitan empleos '-- una agenda de pleno empleo que incluya un programa masivo de obras pºblicas y una semana ms corta de trabajo sin recorte salarial. Un programa nacional de salud que garantice el acceso a todas las personas a los servicios integrales y no deje a nadie tener que escoger entre pagar bonificaciones costosas y quedarse sin seguro. Una moratoria sobre los desahucios, para los afectados por las hipotecas, y una educaci"n pºblica de calidad y matr­cula gratis a las universidades.

Restaurar y expandir la red de seguridad social, la cul ha sido recortada despiadadamente en los programas de alimentos, asistencia social, prestaciones de desempleo y ms. Poner fin a los llamados tratados de libro comercio como NAFTA y el TPP que perjudican a [email protected][email protected] en todo el mundo, no solamente aqu­. Poner fin al acoso de los sindicatos por los patrones; abrogar las docenas de leyes antisindicales que han sido aprobadas por las legislaturas de diferentes estados por el pa­s, incluyendo las leyes Jim Crow por el ''Derecho a Trabajar'' (por menos dinero). Las leyes laborales no deben ser escritas por personas como los hermanos Koch y la familia DeVos.

[email protected][email protected] necesitan dinero para la reconstrucci"n de las infraestructuras de nuestras ciudades y no para el complejo penitencial-industrial,, el presupuesto militar o las guerras contra [email protected][email protected] a trav(C)s del mundo. Necesitamos reparar nuestras comunidades '-- desde Detroit y Flint hasta Puerto Rico '' que sufren todas por la austeridad racista.

Hay que detener de manera contundente los cr­menes de odio contra negros y caf(C)s, musulmanes, mujeres, la comunidad LGBTQ e inmigrantes '-- que han ido aumentando desde la elecci"n de Trump '-- junto con la ret"rica odiosa que los incita. Hay que parar el flujo de la escuela a la crcel. Hay que parar los proyectos de corto plazo que envenenan las v­as de agua '' como el DAPL '', no crean empleos permanentes y al fin de todo solamente ayudan a las grandes compa±­as petroleras y a los bancos.

Debe terminar tambi(C)n la epidemia de asesinatos por la polic­a de [email protected], caf(C)s e ind­genas! [email protected] polic­as [email protected] al carcel! !Las vidas negras importan!

El nombramiento a secretario de Trabajo de Andrew Puzder, el jefe de la empresa de comida rpida, es una declaraci"n de guerra contra la lucha por 15$ la hora. Necesitamos 15$ y un sindicato '-- no como umbral sino como base sobre la cual construir. [email protected][email protected][email protected] merecen como m­nimo 15$ y el derecho a organizarse y a negociar colectivamente. Esta demanda incluye a [email protected][email protected] en el Sur de USA, [email protected] del campo, de servicios dom(C)sticos, [email protected], [email protected], indocumentados vulnerables, que a menudo estn sometidos al robo de sus sueldos, y [email protected][email protected] y [email protected] ([email protected] con frecuencia equivocadamente [email protected]).

[email protected][email protected] y [email protected] tien poder! Desde antes de la elecci"n nuestro movimiento estaba ya en plena expansi"n. La cantidad de huelgas creci" tras a±os de declive; [email protected] trabajadores de Verizon, [email protected][email protected] de Minnesota y [email protected] trabajadores de las cafeter­as de Harvard ganaron victorias. [email protected][email protected] entraron en huelga en el aniversario de la Rebeli"n de Attica. Tambi(C)n surgieron rebeliones en Ferguson, Baltimore, Milwaukee y Charlotte. El Movimiento Las Vidas Negras Importan le est mostrando al mundo que significa contratacar. [email protected][email protected], Lucha por 15@ y Standing Rock son ejemplos que inspiran a [email protected] Protestas masivas dirigidas por j"venes estallaron inmediatamente fueron conocidos los resultados de la elecci"n presidencial.

Toda la clase trabajadora debe unirse. El movimiento obrero organizado organizado, que es la primera l­nea de defensa de [email protected][email protected] y [email protected], debe verse como parte de este movimiento amplio de la clase trabajadora. [email protected] trabajadores [email protected] y con salarios bajos son una parte de este movimiento. [email protected][email protected] y [email protected] son una parte. [email protected][email protected] tambi(C)n. [email protected][email protected][email protected] del mundo '-- [email protected] y muchas veces por los mismos patrones que son nuestros patrones '-- son una parte de la clase trabajadora. [email protected] migrantes que arriesgan la vida para escapar de las guerras o de la austeridad, son tambi(C)n una parte de nuestra clase. Y a [email protected][email protected][email protected] no podrn detenernos!

Tenemos que mostrar a Trump, a todos los pol­ticos y a los ricos del uno por ciento que ellos sirven que [email protected] nos negamos a ser [email protected]! Hay que construir una frente unido y hacer de este 20 de enero una gran acci"n de unidad de la clase trabajadora!

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Hi Adam

yesterday i worked in Davos for two Events at the WEF17.

at the first one only half of the guests showed up and it was booring as hell.

and the Clooney Event was just a beggar fest.

alot of the people did not even eat half of the food, Amal Cloony didn’t eat at all and

yesterday news broke, that she is pregnant with twins.

she is just skin and bones it’s crazy when you see her in real.

while they were begging for money for schools for the poor refugee children,

tons of 5star food was thrown away!!!

what a bunch of hypocrite cunts.

looking forward to hear you and JCD tonight.

NoAgenda Knight of the Round Table

and proud Fan since EP #1

wylie

#wyliesau

The Early morning Event:

Jamie Miller (Host), Keith Weed UNILEVER, will.i.am, Peter Smith BLOCKCHAIN, Steve Howard IKEA

(most important thing i learnd from that event is, that UNILEVER bought Dollar Shave Club and that will.i.am

has more than $ 75mil in the Bank)

Lunch

Clooney Foundation hosted by Google

Sergei Brin and his beautiful new flame and Giuseppe Recci TELEKOM Italia

Pregnant (with Twins) Amal and George

by the way she weights probably less than 98pounds

Amals speech:

Georges speech skribble:

The Audio of Georges speech starting off with a comparison between him and Richard Branson:

my awesome little Smart car was in good company in the garage LOL

Soundengineer

Thomas "wylie" Wyler

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 13:41

In the days immediately after the election that shocked the world, POLITICO Magazine convened the group of people who know Donald J. Trump better than anyone outside his family. We asked his biographers the questions that were on everyone's mind: What happens next? Will the unabashedly self-promoting and self-obsessed businessman transform himself into a selfless and dignified president of the nation he was elected to lead?

Now, after more than two months of Trump's norm-shattering transition, we gathered Gwenda Blair, Michael D'Antonio and Tim O'Brien by conference call (Wayne Barrett, the dean of Trump reporters, could not participate because of illness) to assess whether Trump has continued to surprise them. Their collective wisdom? In a word, no.

Story Continued Below

From his pick of nominees for posts in his cabinet to his belligerent use of Twitter (our conversation was a day before he traded barbs with Congressman John Lewis) to his unwillingness to cut ties with his business to avoid conflicts of interest, they see the same person they've always seen'--the consummate classroom troublemaker; a vain, insecure bully; and an anti-institutional schemer, as adept at ''gaming the system'' as he is unashamed. As they look ahead to his inauguration speech in two days, and to his administration beyond, they feel confident predicting that he will run the country much as he has run his company. For himself.

''He's not going to be that concerned with the actual competent administration of the government,'' D'Antonio said. ''It's going to be what he seems to be gaining or losing in public esteem. So almost like a monarch. The figurehead who rallies people and gets credit for things.''

Michael Kruse:The last time we talked, we were in the immediate aftermath of the shock of November 8, and now we are days away from the swearing in of Donald Trump as the president of the United States. Has the transition over these last two months gone better than you've expected, or worse?

Gwenda Blair: I think it's gone exactly as I expected. It seems like the exact same M.O. that we saw throughout his career, throughout the campaign, and now. This is all about him completely dominating the news cycles'--the use of Twitter to distract from any real questions, emphasis on loyalty, vituperation toward anyone he sees who is disloyal or doesn't toe his line, and his emphasis on conflict, the notion of setting people against each other. Now it's countries against each other. It's news organizations against each other.

Tim O'Brien: I agree with Gwenda that a lot of this has been in keeping with the same guy we've known for the last 20 years. But I don't think we're really going to know yet about the implications of anything that he's doing until he has his team in place. I think some of the people he's brought in have surprised outsiders '... people like Rex Tillerson and Gary Cohn and what appears to be an entire fleet of Goldman Sachs alums are joining his administration. And none of those posts, I think, were anticipated prior to him getting elected. We won't really know what the full scope of his engagement is with the world or with the American public until that team gets rolling. So some of this, I think, is premature, but there's no question that it would have been in his best interests to sit back from the Twitter show and take a breather. And he couldn't help himself. And he's opining on subjects that he knows very little about from national security to healthcare policy and others.

Michael D'Antonio: I also think that he's the same old Trump and emphasizing this combative quality and wanting to fight with just about everybody. I've been asked lately about why he seems to have affection for a guy like Putin. And the thing that I'm afraid of most, based on what I'm seeing, is that he seems to want to be the same style of leader, where he intimidates people. He tries to shame them. The most shocking thing I think he did was note all of his enemies in his New Year's message. The idea of a president actually having even the thought of all of these enemies in his head as he's welcoming the new year and greeting the country is almost crazy to me.

Kruse: Michael, in your book, and other places, too, he has talked about how much he enjoys fighting. And he certainly fought a lot of people throughout the campaign, and he hasn't stopped fighting. From Meryl Streep to the intelligence community, he's still picking fights. Do you think he is going to pick fights with leaders of other countries? In other words, is there any indication that he would be able to separate the interests of the country now from his own personal pique?

Blair: Zero.

O'Brien: Absolutely not. There will be no divide there. The whole thing has been a vanity show from the second he ran to the Republican Convention. I think we can expect to see the same on Inauguration Day. He's been unable to find a clean division between his own emotional needs and his own insecurities and simply being a healthy, strategically committed leader who wants to parse through good policy options and a wide series of public statements about the direction in which he'll take the country.

Blair: There's a fusion, I think, of his childhood, an emphasis on being combative, being killers'--as his dad famously instructed his boys to be'--but also, I think, his own competitive nature, and then his grasp in early adulthood that being a bully and really putting it to other people and not backing down often works. He also had his church background telling him that being a success was the most important thing and that got fused with the sort of 'You want a crowd to show up, start a fight,' P.T. Barnum-type thing early on in his career. And then Roy Cohn as a mentor, a guy who stood for cold-eye calculus about how bullying people works. And you put all of those pieces together, that he's been doing this his whole life, and I don't see a single reason for him to back down. He's going to go full blast ahead with that.

O'Brien: His father and Roy Cohn, those are the two most singular influences on his whole life, and they provided him with a militarized, transactional view of human relationships, business dealings and the law. And he's going to carry all of that stuff and all of that baggage with him into the White House.

D'Antonio: Those early influences are essential, and I also think it's correct that he has been conducting his entire life as a vanity show, and he's been rewarded, most recently since his reality TV show, by ever-greater public interest in him. This is a guy who is a president-elect who describes himself as a ratings machine, which is an absolutely absurd thing for a president to be reflecting on, but that matters to him.

But one thing I think that we have overlooked as we see Trump trying to delegitimize others is what I suspect is a feeling he has inside that nothing he's ever achieved himself has ever been legitimate. This is a person who has never known whether anybody wants to be around him because he's a person they want to be around or they want to be around his money. And since he's promoted himself as this glamorous, incredibly wealthy person, that's the draw he's always given. So he doesn't know if he has any legitimate relationships outside of his family, and that's why he emphasizes family. '... He's always kind of gaming the system'--not, in my view, winning on the merits. And even his election was with almost 3 million fewer votes than his opponent. So he has this deep fear that he is himself not a legitimate president, and I think that's why he goes to such great lengths to delegitimize even the intelligence community, which is the president's key resource in security, and he's going to do this demeaning and delegitimizing behavior rather than accept what they have to tell him.

Blair: I wanted to go back to one of the words that Michael used, which was ''gaming the system,'' which is so much a part of his dad's'--what Fred Trump did, what Donald has done. Looking for the loophole, pushing it as wide as possible, going through it. Donald did it through his whole career. His dad did it through his whole career with his use of federal subsidies and tax abatements. And now we're seeing that he's gaming the White House. He's gaming, looking for the loopholes. The president is exempt from these conflict of interest laws. There's an awful lot, it turns out, that are matters of tradition, of habit, of what we expect. But they're not actually legally required'--the tax returns, all of that. He's gaming all of that. All of the things that people thought had to be done, don't have to be done.

D'Antonio: I think Donald Trump measures himself by the number of norms that he can violate. The more he can get away with, the more he can thumb his nose at convention, the more powerful he feels.

O'Brien: He's a profoundly anti-institutional person, and I think that's part of his great appeal to voters. Voters right now are sick of institutions, and he's got no problem railing against them. I think the danger here is he's completely ill-informed and lacks, I think, the generosity of public spirit to think about what the right replacements should be for the same institutions that he's railing against.

Blair: He's the kid in the back of the class who is taunting the teacher, who is taking over, who has pushed the principal out of the principal's office, and he's appealing to that instinct that everyone has at some point in their lives to overthrow everything.

O'Brien: I remember one thing in Palm Beach at a party there. I had dinner with him and Melania, and afterwards he was cranking music up around his swimming pool as loud as he possibly could and he leaned over to me and he said, ''All these stuffy so-and-so's here in Palm Beach hate how loud my music is, so I want to turn it up as loud as I possibly can, so they can hear it everywhere'--and I don't care if they don't like it.'' That's more or less what he said to me, and that's fun and funny that he's taking on the Palm Beach establishment. But the reality, too, is that he chose to move to Palm Beach and tried to become part of the community there at the same time. So at the very moment he hates the establishment, he also desperately wants to be approved by it.

D'Antonio: You know what I think is really odd about this is that this sort of makes him the classic '60s, early-'70s baby-boomer, anti-establishment ruffian. Everybody talks about how it was, this clich(C) version of the anti-war hippie person that represents the '60s, but I think this narcissistic, anti-establishment tenor of his personality and what he's doing now makes him the inheritor of all of that chaos. He just never outgrew it.

Blair: The sleeper anti-establishment figure'--because at the time, of course, he was going to class in a coat and tie and preparing for a completely straight-ahead business future. He had no interest in the counterculture.

O'Brien: Except where it concerns doing what you want to do to the exclusion of all norms. It's a case of people who were very liberal and idealistic. It was in the pursuit of something for the community and maybe for yourself. And in Donald's case, there is no other thing than himself.

Kruse: So if he is ill-informed, is he, in your estimation, putting people into place who are informed? His hiring M.O. has been to go with his gut and prioritize ''the look'' and loyalty or potential loyalty over experience and credentials.

Blair: The cabinet appointments seem to me to be people who have been successful in some realm, so he takes that as proof of their abilities. But he's also looking for people that will be in conflict with everyone in that department. Down the line, it's the same kind of sowing-conflict mode that he's used throughout his career of setting people against each other so that they're not going to be loyal to each other and they're going to be loyal to him.

O'Brien: Don't you think it's kind of ironic that the one person who might be more a defender of democratic institutions is a general that he's putting in charge of the Pentagon?

Blair: Who'd have thought?

O'Brien: General [James] Mattis is the one person who seems extremely well-read and committed to a sort of well-rounded view of power and how the country works and he could impose some moderating influence on Trump. I think that's amazing to think that we're all hoping for that to happen in the person of a general who had to get a waiver to serve in the post.

Kruse: These are people who have been successful in their areas. They have also giant egos. They know a lot, more than he does. Do you think he is going to take their advice?

O'Brien: At the end of the day, the two most powerful people in his White House, other than him, are going to be Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, and they're going to have the final say on everything. And whatever Gary Cohn or Rex Tillerson or General Mattis or Jeff Sessions or Steve Bannon has to say, it will all end up getting filtered through Javanka.

Kruse: Did you just say ''Javanka''?

O'Brien: Yeah. Other than those two, he won't listen to anyone in a meaningful way, and he never has listened to anyone outside of his core group and family at the Trump Organization for decades, and that's not going to change.

Kruse: Can any of you think of one time that a subordinate had to tell him something bad, something he wasn't going to like? And what were the consequences?

O'Brien: You know Jack O'Donnell is a case study of that in the casino business. He routinely brought Donald bad news, but Donald either ignored it or pretended it didn't exist. Any number of people who have worked with him in his real estate dealings in New York will tell similar stories. News that contradicts his worldview gets flushed down the sort of emotional and intellectual dispose-all that I think he carries around with him from the second he gets out of bed to the minute he goes to sleep each night. He is the master of counter-reality programming, and it makes him uniquely insusceptible to advice and creative thinking.

Kruse: My read, based on reporting over the course of the last year, has often been that he is simultaneously this utter terror of a micromanager and a ''don't-bother-me,'' ''hands-off'' delegater'--depending on the moment, the task, and how he's feeling. So my question is: What makes him jerk the leash? What makes him become the micromanager?

Blair: If he perceives that there's the tiniest threat to his authority, that there's any ripple of disloyalty, as he would think of it'--then he's on it. Whether it's, like, a cigarette butt in the corner of the parking lot, it doesn't matter'--he's got to show that he's on top of everything and that he's got eyes in the back of his head. And at the same time, in his own organization, the Trump Organization'--he would hand off authority on things. He didn't have to manage everything, but if there was any hint that anybody was doing anything other than paying 24-7 attention to his needs, then he would discover that something was a 32nd of an inch off or a second late or whatever. And that person would be cowering, and he would lash out.

With the cabinet, of course, as Tim was saying, we have to wait and see, but I think he's appointing people who, in many, if not most cases, have the exact opposite point of view from everyone in that department, and they're just going to thrash it all out, and he's going to be listening to Jared and Ivanka and sailing ahead.

D'Antonio: I think the key thing that you said, Gwenda, was that he expects people to pay attention to his needs, and the job, seems to me, when you're dealing with him, it should be about focusing on imagining what his ego requires and not contradicting him publicly. Maybe not even contradicting him one-on-one. I wonder if he'll give orders and they may not be followed and he wouldn't care if he doesn't find out about it. He's not going to be that concerned with the actual competent administration of the government. It's going to be what he seems to be gaining or losing in public esteem. So almost like a monarch. Like a modern monarch. The figurehead who rallies people and gets credit for things.

Kruse: Some of the things that his nominees have said over the last couple of sessions have contradicted him'--aren't they being disloyal already, in some sense? Do you think he sees it that way?

O'Brien: Well, it depends. If what Jeff Sessions and Rex Tillerson, for example, have said thus far in the confirmation hearings are completely in keeping with how they actually see things'--absolutely, yes. If part of it is simply a confirmation strategy, then we won't know. But I think we owe it to both of them, at least now, to take it at face value that both of those men are being completely candid and honest about how they see things and they've already come out on very important points with contradictory viewpoints from Trump on things like water boarding and civil rights. And interactions with Russia. However, they work for him. And at the end of the day, he's going to be telling them what to do. They could offer him contradictory advice in keeping with their own values and not in keeping with his'--but, again, at the end of the day, he's the president.

D'Antonio: Do you think, though, that he would allow that kind of thing to maybe be worked out publicly in these hearings, so that, for example, on the matter of torture, he could then say, ''Well, I prefer it, but my cabinet members remind me that it's against the law and as long as that's what the law is, we'll just have to go along with their advice. I'm the really tough guy. I want to do it, but my hands are tied right now.''

Blair: You know he's going to use them to give himself cover.

O'Brien: He always has an escape hatch. He always builds in some way of justifying not doing the things he's promised to do on the basis of what someone else has done to him. In this case, it could be Congress, or, ''We're required by the Army manual that governs interrogations to not do this torture. I wish it wasn't so but, you know, we're stuck.''

Blair: He's the master of saying one thing, and then, 10 minutes later, you're seeing the opposite. What is it that he stands for? He's a moving target, and you never exactly know. So he's able to move around the landscape and never exactly be on point. So using these folks as cover? Sure. Why not?

D'Antonio: He stands for what he can get away with, and if he can't get away with it, but he made a promise on a ceremonial basis, he'll figure out a way to blame it on someone else that he can't fulfill a policy promise.

Kruse: He couldn't let go of his company, obviously. I'm wondering if he thinks Don Jr. and Eric are going to be able to run the company without him. And will he even expect them to, or is he still going to be sort of the president of the Trump Organization, in essence?

Blair: Totally. What was in those manila folders? What was in the stack of papers that was flourished at the press conference?

O'Brien: That reminded me of after, I think, he won the South Carolina primary, and at this press conference he had a table stacked high with Trump steaks and Trump water and other Trump goodies from some businesses that already were defunct.

Blair: Yeah, he's big on props, and that was a pretty good prop and his lawyer talked with a bunch of legalese and so, ''Okay, that's out of the way.'' It's not out of the way at all. Not in the slightest and he doesn't exactly'--and the idea that they're not going to do any new deals internationally. How is that defined? They're going to continue to do domestic deals? That's a pretty darn big market. There was a lot of smoke and not even any mirrors.

O'Brien: Most of what the Trump Organization does, anyways, is domestic'--overseas is primarily licensing deals and three golf courses. So the idea that they're walking away from something significant by declining to do overseas deals is irrelevant in terms of the current mix of business they have. And I guess I sound like a broken record on this issue because I first wrote about his need to release his tax returns in the fall of 2015 and I first wrote about conflicts of interest last June. But conflicts of interest are going to haunt his administration if he doesn't take a clean and consistent approach towards creating a real barrier between White House policymaking and Trump Tower deal-making. And nothing he's done, including the fig leaf that he rolled out on Wednesday, is going to cure that problem. It could create real ethical lapses that tarnish the White House and the legacy and dignity of the office he's about to inhabit. And he's done nothing, including the plan he rolled out on Wednesday, to make people think he takes these kinds of ethical responsibilities seriously.

D'Antonio: This ridiculous reference he made to, ''I turned down a $2 billion deal in Dubai just recently.'' Why is he even in a meeting with a person who is going to do that?

O'Brien: If it even happened as he said it did. He said he was offered $2 billion in that conversation. I doubt he has ever in his life been offered a $2-billion deal. Maybe that suddenly happened over the weekend right before he had a press conference so he could brag about it. But it's one of those things, I'll believe it when I see it. But even more importantly, as Michael points out, he shouldn't be having those conversations anymore, as he's about to go into the White House.

D'Antonio: He has no concern for how any of these things look because he's always gotten away with it and you can only really be sure of anything he says when you have independent paperwork or witnesses to consult. So I think that when I met with him, he told me he had zero debt'--and then, more recently, it was pegged at in the hundreds of millions, and I think in the last week or so, there has been reporting that it's $1.5 billion. So that's why he doesn't want to release his tax returns. That's actual hard data and he's allergic to hard data. He doesn't want anything out there.

Blair: I think that it's not quite that he doesn't care how this stuff looks. I think he does care, but he sees it as a show of strength that he can do this. He sees that he can get away with it, that he can say these contradictory things, that he can say, ''I turned down a $2-billion deal,'' that with half a second of reflection anyone knows that's ridiculous. That never happened and if it did happen, it shouldn't have. It's not that he doesn't care about it. It's that he's boasting and bragging about it and saying, ''Look, I can do this. I can get away with this and nobody can do anything about it.'' That's what he sees as his strength.

Kruse: He's also always been a believer in bad publicity, and that bad publicity is, in fact, good. Publicity means people are talking about him. It worked through his breakup with Ivana and his affair with Marla Maples. It worked through the casino bankruptcies. It worked certainly throughout the campaign. Can that work'--bad publicity is good publicity'--when you're president?

O'Brien: No, it can't. It can't be. The Trump Organization is this mom-and-pop boutique. It's got less than 100 people, I think, working for it, and he's about to take the reins of a portion of the federal government that employs over 2 million people, is global, touches on every key policy in American life, and in our overseas profile and he knows very little about most of all of that and papering that over with any kind of publicity or the good publicity, is in a strategy that's a Hail Mary. And I think he's going to be in for a rude awakening if that's how he's going to approach things, what his day-to-day life might become.

D'Antonio: I think that he's sort of playing to the kids in the classroom who hate the teacher too and really love it when someone disrupts things or maybe the person who resents the elites. He's always had a good sense of where those resentments lie because I think he feels them personally. But we need people who are gifted and intelligent to manage our affairs. And I think it's going to become evident that he's not up to it.

Kruse: So, last question. At night, when it's dark and it's quiet and he's not sleeping at the top of Trump Tower, do you think Donald Trump is worried that he's in over his head?

Blair: Not in the least. No.

D'Antonio: I would say not in the least.

Blair: No, no. He's like, ''This is the best thing that's ever happened.'' He's won the biggest contest there is. He's got the world's attention solid for the next four years.

D'Antonio: I think about how Obama has talked about the problem in Syria being one that made it hard for him to sleep and was something he considered every night and every morning. I don't know that Trump has the ability to think that way. He's focused on his performance as a ratings machine. So if he gets more Twitter followers and imagines himself to be a star when he takes the stage at press briefings or appears in ceremonial events, that will be enough for him. He'll think that he's a success.

Blair: When he's awake at night, I don't think it's because he's awed or concerned about the responsibilities on his shoulders. It's because there's somebody he wants to get even with and how are you going to do it.

O'Brien: The only things that have kept him awake at night historically are money, sex, food, and revenge. And if you take those things out of the mix, it's not like he ponders the deeper meaning of life. I don't think he feels that he's not up to this task. I think he did at different points during the campaign, and I certainly think on election night, and the first few days after that, you could see a kind of a watering down of his bravado. But that seems to have lasted for about a millisecond. Because I think he now feels like he's fully in charge and has all the aptitude he needs for the office.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Kruse is a senior staff writer forPolitico.

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 04:42

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 13:49

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued the nation's largest servicer of student loans Wednesday, alleging that Navient Corp. cheated borrowers, resulting in higher payments for Americans struggling to pay back their student loans.

The federal consumer agency said that Navient, formerly part of Sallie Mae, ''failed to provide the most basic functions of adequate student loan servicing at every stage of repayment for both private and federal loans.''

The Wilmington, Del., company, the agency said, provided student borrowers with inaccurate information, ignored complaints, processed payments incorrectly and steered borrowers toward higher-cost repayment options.

''For years, Navient failed consumers who counted on the company to help give them a fair chance to pay back their student loans,'' CFPB Director Richard Cordray said in a statement. ''At every stage of repayment, Navient chose to shortcut and deceive consumers to save on operating costs. Too many borrowers paid more for their loans because Navient illegally cheated them, and today's action seeks to hold them accountable.''

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania, says Navient violated the Dodd-Frank reform act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act. The agency is seeking redress for borrowers harmed by the practices and to prevent any future harm.

In response, Navient called the bureau's allegations ''unfounded'' and questioned the timing of Wednesday's lawsuit, noting it came just days before the Obama administration is set to leave office.

''The timing of this lawsuit '-- midnight action filed on the eve of a new administration '-- reflects their political motivations,'' the company said in a statement posted on its website.

The filing of the lawsuit comes amid a flurry of new rules and regulations in the waning days of the Obama administration '-- and as the CFPB is under threat from Republican critics, who have complained that the bureau has too much power and that its attempts to help consumers have restricted access to credit.

Some Republican senators have even asked President-elect Donald Trump to remove Cordray as director, which if undertaken would probably set up a legal showdown over Trump's right to do so.

A major focus of the bureau under Cordray has been education, specifically for-profit colleges and technical schools, which have been accused of encouraging students to load up on student loans and misrepresenting the jobs prospects of graduates.

Corinthian Colleges in Santa Ana was among the schools sued by the agency, which accused it in 2014 of deceiving tens of thousands of students through an "illegal predatory lending scheme." The school later went out of business.

More recently, the CFPB has turned its eye toward the servicing of student loans.

In 2015, the agency issued a report documenting widespread problems in the industry, including borrowers who said that servicers often failed to disclose the availability of cheaper repayment options.

At the time, the bureau said more than a quarter of the nation's student borrowers were delinquent or in default.

Consumer advocates have praised the agency for its aggressive actions, including Wednesday's suit against Navient.

''The action by the CFPB against Navient demonstrates the importance of having a strong and independent consumer watchdog on the side of students and working families,'' said Persis Yu, director of the National Consumer Law Center's student loan borrower-assistance project. ''We call on President-elect Trump to reject calls from Wall Street to fire CFPB Director Rich Cordray or to weaken the consumer watchdog.''

Among the borrowers who say they have had problems with Navient is Michele McKeever, 46, of Austin, Texas, who has nearly $190,000 left to pay on her student loans.

McKeever, who attended two graduate programs, said in the last two years Navient has levied her with increased payments after the servicer wrongly claimed she didn't submit her application for a reduced payment plan in time.

''The first year it happened, I thought, ''OK, maybe I didn't get it in in time. But this year, I know I did,'' she said.

McKeever said she emailed company representatives and tried to call Navient, but ''they just informed me that there's not a lot you can do.''

In its lawsuit, the consumer agency alleged many other borrowers had problems enrolling in programs to reduce payments and Navient instead steered struggling borrowers into plans that made more money for Navient but saddled borrowers with higher costs.

Specifically, the government alleged that Navient maintained compensation policies that encouraged customer service representatives to push borrowers into forbearance, which allows borrowers to suspend payments without defaulting but does not stop interest from accruing.

However, most federal student-loan borrowers earned the right in 2009 to enroll in the less costly payment options that are based on their income.

Although those plans save borrowers money, forbearance was more lucrative for Navient, the agency alleged because the company could enroll borrowers in forbearance in less time and with less staff.

In all, the servicer slapped borrowers with additional interest charges of up to $4 billion by enrolling them in repeated forbearance plans from January 2010 to March 2015, according to the consumer agency.

''For many of these borrowers, had they been enrolled in an income-driven repayment plan, they would have avoided much or all of their additional charges,'' the agency said in its complaint, noting the government would have picked up the tab for unpaid interest on subsidized loans for three years.

When borrowers did enroll in the income-driven repayment plans, the agency said Navient failed to provide enough information on renewal deadlines. That caused students to miss enrollment, which ''could have caused their monthly payments to jump by hundreds or even thousands of dollars.'' the bureau said in a news release.

In an email, a Navient spokeswoman said the company actively promotes income-driven repayment programs and ''sends multiple notices and communications to borrowers to help them complete re-enrollment on time, meeting or exceeding all federal requirements.''

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Sun, 15 Jan 2017 22:34

The upset to the existing order caused by the presidential election has been acutely felt by no one, perhaps, so much as it has by the national press. At Donald Trump's press conference on Wednesday, reporters found themselves not only subject to a scolding ("Fake news!" "Disgraceful!") but also awakened to the strong suggestion that, at least in tactical terms, the showdown had been won by the president-elect.

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The media's sense of dislocation may soon become literal.

According to three senior officials on the transition team, a plan to evict the press corps from the White House is under serious consideration by the incoming Trump Administration. If the plan goes through, one of the officials said, the media will be removed from the cozy confines of the White House press room, where it has worked for several decades. Members of the press will be relocated to the White House Conference Center'--near Lafayette Square'--or to a space in the Old Executive Office Building, next door to the White House.

"There has been no decision," Sean Spicer, Trump's press secretary, said about the plan today. But Spicer acknowledged that "there has been some discussion about how to do it."

Spicer cast the possible relocation of the press corps as a matter, in part, of logistics. "There's been so much interest in covering a President Donald Trump," he said. "A question is: Is a room that has forty-nine seats adequate? When we had that press conference the other day, we had thousands of requests, and we capped it at four hundred. Is there an opportunity to potentially allow more members of the media to be part of this? That's something we're discussing."

Another senior official, however, suggested a more pointed motivation for the move. According to the official, the potential relocation reflected a view within the transition team that coverage of Trump has been so hostile as to indicate that the press has abandoned its role as neutral observer.

"They are the opposition party," a senior official says. "I want 'em out of the building. We are taking back the press room."

Reporters have had some sort of workspace at the White House since Teddy Roosevelt's time, but the current press room is an artifact of the Richard Nixon era, the dawn of the symbiosis of the press and the modern presidency. The "room" is actually a space containing work stations and broadcast booths, as well as the briefing area that is so familiar to viewers of presidential news conferences.

"I want 'em out of the building. We are taking back the press room."

For the media, the White House press room'--situated on the first floor, in the space between the presidential residence and the West Wing'--is not only a convenience, with prime sources just steps away. It is also a symbol of the press' cherished role as representatives of the American people. In the midst of the George W. Bush presidency, when relations between reporters and the Administration were growing testy, the White House press corps was removed from the press room for nearly a year, while the facility was remodeled. The move prompted such concern that the president himself had to offer his assurance that it was only temporary. (As it happened, press conferences were held at the White House Conference Center during the renovation).

Trump himself, of course, is in many ways a creature of the press, and it remains to be seen whether he will sign off on a plan that puts more distance between him and the cameras whose attention he has long sought. But for some Trump officials, the media's presumption of entitlement all but requires a change. If there is a credo that reflects the culture inside the James Brady Briefing Room (named after President Ronald Reagan's first press secretary, who was wounded by a bullet meant for Reagan), it is that presidents come, and presidents go, but the White House press corps is forever. In that sentiment, some in the transition team discern precisely the attitude that led to the revolt that elected Trump president.

How Russian Spies Hacked This Election

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Mon, 16 Jan 2017 06:46

Trump calls on a reporter during his latest press conference on 11 January. Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA

Talk radio hosts and bloggers could be invited to official White House press briefings once the Trump administration takes office, under a highly irregular proposal being floated that may also remove briefings from the West Wing.

Trump's pick for White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, said on Sunday that due to ''off the chart'' interest in the new administration, the president-elect was considering moving briefings from the James S Brady press briefing room, which has been used by presidents to address the media since 1970, to a venue with a greater capacity.

A report published by Esquire magazine on Saturday indicated the venue could be inside the Old Executive Office Building, just west of the White House.

''I know change is difficult sometimes,'' Spicer told Fox News. ''But sometimes change can actually be better.''

Spicer argued the proposal would mean ''you can involve more people, be more transparent, have more accessibility''. He suggested that this would mean outlets that are not traditionally part of the White House press corps would be able to ask questions during presidential press briefings.

''There's a lot of talk radio and bloggers and people that can't fit in right now and maybe don't have a permanency because they're not part of the Washington elite media,'' Spicer said, ''but to allow them an opportunity to ask the press secretary or the president a question is a positive thing. It's more democratic.''

Around 200 journalists make up the White House press corps. The Brady press briefing room holds 49 seats for major media organisations, which are granted space by the White House Correspondent Association (WHCA). The Guardian is among those outlets allocated a space.

It remains unclear how the proposal would be implemented, but it is likely to be interpreted as a hostile rebuke to conventional media outlets around the country.

Jeff Mason, the WHCA president and Reuters White House correspondent, said he had a ''constructive'', nearly two-hour meeting with Spicer on Sunday. Mason ''emphasized the importance of the White House press briefing room'' and its proximity to West Wing officials.

''I made clear that the WHCA would view it as unacceptable if the incoming administration sought to move White House reporters out of the press work space behind the press briefing room,'' Mason said in a statement. ''Access in the West Wing to senior administration officials, including the press secretary, is critical to transparency and to journalists' ability to do their jobs.''

Spicer agreed to discuss any changes to the current system with the WHCA, Mason said.

During a chaotic press conference at Trump Tower on Wednesday, the first the businessman has held since July 2016, hundreds of journalists crammed into a small pen as Trump frequently lambasted certain media organisations and occasionally individual reporters. Trump was incensed by reports on a leaked and unsubstantiated dossier, which alleged frequent contacts between his campaign team and Russian authorities, and suggested the Kremlin held compromising material that could be used to blackmail Trump.

Trump was also asked by a reporter at Breitbart News what his views were on media ethics and ''fake news'', to which he replied: ''Some of the media outlets that I deal with are fake news more so than anybody. I could name them, but I won't bother. You have a few sitting right in front of us.

''They're very, very dishonest people, but I think it's just something we're going to have to live with. I guess the advantage I have is that I can speak back.''

According to the Associated Press, Breitbart News, branded by critics as a racist, far-right news site, was the only media organisation to have a reserved seat in the front row for the conference. Steve Bannon, Trump's incoming chief strategist and senior counselor, previously served as the site's executive chairman.

The president-elect's campaign drew consistent support from numerous conservative talk radio hosts and internet conspiracy theory sites, for instance Alex Jones's InfoWars. During the campaign, Trump took the unprecedented step of appearing on Jones's site, known as America's foremost conservative conspiracy theory outlet. Jones has previously dismissed the Sandy Hook massacre, in which 20 elementary school students and six school staff were murdered, as ''completely fake'', and has branded the September 11 terror attacks an ''inside job''.

Trump was interviewed for around 30 minutes by Jones in December 2015, and later called Jones a ''nice guy''. Jones claimed in November that Trump called him to thank him for his support after winning the presidential election.

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Tue, 17 Jan 2017 23:12

This post is hosted on the Huffington Post's Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and post freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.The evidence is clear. Courts must use the broad discretionary powers with which they are vested to enjoin Donald Trump, an illegitimate president, from taking office.

Photograph: Carlos Barria/Reuters

On Friday, a prominent Democrat on Capitol Hill finally said it.

''I don't see this president-elect as a legitimate president,'' said Representative John Lewis, D-Ga., in an exclusive interview with NBC News. ''I think the Russians participated in helping [Trump] get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.''

In making the controversial declaration, the widely revered civil rights leader gave voice to a growing number of Americans who have watched in abject horror as the presidential transition of an increasingly belligerent Donald Trump unfolds. The unrelenting onslaught and sheer breadth of scandal and conflict has left an American electorate fatigued and uncertain as to the best path of resistance following a protracted election season that may be the most volatile in history.

As Americans, we are culturally predisposed to seek rapid closure rather than answers, oftentimes more comfortable expressing outrage at a perceived injustice than we are willing to remedy it. In grief and in politics, we are taught to stick to the script.

Trump's predictably offensive response to Lewis (a Twitter rant in which he referred to the civil rights icon as ''all talk'' and ''no results'' on Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend) marks the umpteenth time he has capitalized on this cultural predisposition, baiting Americans into a partisan squabble over who will protest the inauguration in abstentia, and successfully steering us away from the truth that Congressman Lewis spoke to power on Friday:

Hillary Clinton is the rightful President-elect of the United States.

Every major intelligence agency in the country has reached the same conclusion: Russian hackers engaged in cyber attacks with the express purpose of helping Donald Trump win the election. They operated at the directive of Russian President Vladimir Putin, apparently motivated by his hatred for Clinton. As secretary of state, Clinton was ''by far the most aggressive and outspoken'' American official to counter Putin's efforts to expand his global reach, famously criticizing him for undermining his own elections and likening him publicly to Hitler.

Clinton's brass in standing up to Putin, by all accounts a murderer and former KGB Agent who has bombed civilian hospitals in Aleppo and is the primary backer of Syrian dictator Bashir Al-Assad, should have inspired, at the very least, a nod of respect from conservatives.

Instead, Putin's approval ratings have goneup among Republicans. Years of partisan squabbling have trained both sides to turn every political conflict into a 'Democrats versus Republicans' issue, and subsequently conservatives would rather side with Putin than acknowledge the legitimacy of a Hillary Clinton presidency. The result? A troubling trend towards normalizing Trump's 'unpresidented' behavior, and a reluctance to look at the evidence.

The Evidence

1. The People's President

Alex Mohajer

Clinton made history when she became the first female major-party nominee for President of the United States. She won the popular vote by nearly three million votes, a 2.1 percent margin over her opponent, and won more votes than any other presidential candidate in history, second only to Barack Obama (whose 2012 tally she tied).

2. Russian Hacking Impacted Outcome

Echelon Insights

Echelon Insights conducted a study of top election-related controversies in 2016. Their conclusion was that anti-Clinton themes dominated in the final days of the campaign. Negative coverage of Wikileaks and Clinton's e-mails received over 50 MILLION combined mentions. By comparison, Trump's Access Hollywood tapes received only 5 million mentions. Could 50 million negative media mentions have affected Clinton enough to give 80,000 votes to Trump?

3. Trump Can't Shake Russia Allegations

Donald Trump has been openly dishonest about his relationship with Vladimir Putin and his ties to Russia. An EIR article from 1987 details how the Russian government was gifting Donald with all-expense paid trips to Moscow and grooming him for a presidential run.

His dishonesty about having a relationship with Vladimir Putin, his openly broadcasting his request in July 2016 that Russia hack Hillary Clinton's e-mails, the fact that Trump's campaign made contact with Russian officials after the election, and ultimately Mr. Trump's reticence to disclose his foreign assets, paint a troubling picture of a president-elect groomed, owned by, and acting in concert with a hostile foreign power.

4. FBI Director James Comey

In a blatant violation of protocol, FBI Director James Comey released a letter a week before the election in which he suggested that Clinton was under investigation for criminal wrongdoing related to'-- you guessed it'-- her e-mails.

Of course there was no wrong-doing. Comey acted to influence late-deciding voters in an abuse of authority that is now being investigated by the Department of Justice. Comey had information in October regarding Trump team members reportedly having contact with Russia, which he did not disclose, a subject he refused to address in a hearing on Capitol Hill this week.

''Comey had a large, measurable impact on the race,'' said Nate Silver, Editor-in-Chief of FiveThirtyEight. ''Late-deciding voters broke strongly against Clinton in swing states, enough to cost her MI/WI/PA.''

'''l'll put it like this,'' Silver continued. ''Clinton would almost certainly be President-elect if the election had been held on October 27.''

Nate Silver/FiveThirtyEight

Voters who decided in the final week went strongly for Trump.Courts Have The Authority To Intervene

It is well-established that in shaping equity decrees, federal courts are vested with broad discretionary powers, and a plethora of case law exists stating that courts may intervene to protect the integrity of free and fair elections. While true that a presidential election has never been overturned, cases like Donohue v. Board Of Elections, which arose from the 1976 presidential election, have ruled that the authority exists to order a special election, even at the presidential level. The judge reiterated that ''protecting the integrity of elections, particularly Presidential contests, is essential to a free and democratic society.'' (Donohue v. Board, 435 F. Supp. 957 (E.D.N.Y. 1976))

Federal courts have broadly exercised their powers in enjoining persons from taking office and voiding elections.

In Marks v. Stinson, a controversial 1994 case from Pennsylvania, a sitting state senator was actually vacated from office and replaced by his opponent after it was revealed that he colluded with election officials to commit voter fraud. The Court found that one party would have won ''but for the wrongdoing'' of his opponent, and the ''wrongdoing was aimed to benefit one candidate and disadvantage the other.'' (Marks v. Stinson, 19 F.3d 873 (3d Cir. 1994))

Various types of misconduct, not just voter fraud, are suitable to prove ''wrongdoing.'' Marks merely required that the wrongdoing be substantial such that ''it could have affected the outcome of the election, and it rendered the certified vote count an unreliable indicator of the will of the electorate.'' Id. at 886.

Did Russian hacking or Comey's letter occur to benefit one candidate and disadvantage the other? Could either have affected the outcome of the election, such that the certified vote count was an unreliable indicator of the will of the electorate?

If the answer is yes, then calling for judicial intervention and a new election, no matter how outlandish or uncharted, is our civic duty. Americans must resist our tendency to force closure and do what is necessary to protect our democracy, or we are doomed to relive the mistakes of the past.

In 1994, the Marks court offered a poetic, poignant message to the American people about our role in a functioning democracy, one that is so prescient and relevant that it seems almost especially crafted for the future voters of 2016:

Various voters testified that they were angered and disillusioned by the...election and its aftermath. Many citizens have expressed a common thread of pent up feelings reflecting a long suppressed disgust and outrage at the officials and the system responsible. It would be a delusion to conclude that the underlying evils which conceived and nurtured the wrongdoing involved have been eliminated. Only a concerned citizenry can do that. Only then will they have a permanent and justified confidence in the electoral process.

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 06:13

The original Hollywood Blacklist of the 1950s was at least open and honest. There was a list, you were named, and you were informed. As immoral and indefensible as it was, those who were blacklisted at least knew where they stood.

Today's Hollywood Blacklist is quite different. Yes, your career is still threatened, but no one has the moral courage to come right out and say so. Instead, the phone stops ringing as often or altogether. Meanwhile, you will find yourself publicly attacked as a racist by corporate fascists like The Hollywood Reporter, or publicly smeared and ridiculed by A-list directors like Joss Whedon.

The most deafening silence, though, comes in the form of no one coming to your defense. None of your fellow performers rush forward to defend your right to your beliefs, there are no Variety/Hollywood Reporter/Deadline/Wrap editorials expressing outrage over this return to the bad old days of McCarthyism.

Nope, you are just left out there to twist in the Blacklist Wind of career ruin, boycott threats, death threats, and slurs of the racist and sexist variety.

The message to you is not even subtle: Recant your ThoughtCrime or face career oblivion.

The message to the rest of the entertainment community is just as brazen: Step off the ThoughtPlantation and this will happen to you.

As you will see in the list below, with Donald Trump headed for the Oval Office, even if you express support for something as harmless as American democracy, and do so without expressing support for Trump, you are treated as a ThoughtViolator.

OSCAR-WINNER NICOLE KIDMAN

"I'm out of it now," Nicole Kidman told Access Hollywood Friday; meaning, the intimidation campaign against the Oscar-winner had worked. She would now shut up in her call, not in support of Trump, but in her support of American democracy. And what was Kidman's sin against the fascist Left that now controls almost all of Hollywood? Instead of vehemently opposing Trump and questioning his legitimacy, she said the following:

I just say, [Trump's] now elected, and we as a country need to support whoever's the president because that's what the country's based on.

The backlash was immediate and fierce, and there is no question Kidman's career was threatened when Joss Whedon, one of the most powerful director's working today ("The Avengers"), tweeted this out and faced no backlash:

Outside of declaring her a "tard," Whedon is mocking Kidman's looks, which, if you are politically-approved within the Hollywood community, is a big no-no.

Undoubtedly worried about her career, Kidman (who was born in Hawaii) had no choice but to voluntarily return to the ThoughtPlantation and correct her WrongThink. She also promised to never-ever do it again:

''I was trying to stress that I believe in democracy, and the American constitution. It's that simple,'' she said.

''I'm just, I'm out of it now,'' she continued.

BROADWAY STAR JENNIFER HOLLIDAY

Although she has performed for presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, Broadway singer Jennifer Holliday was bullied into canceling an appearance at Trump's Inauguration celebration Friday. Publicly, Holliday claimed this was based on her decision "to stand with the LGBT Community," which makes little sense. After all, Trump is the most pro-gay Republican in history.

Privately, TMZ learned, Holliday was intimidated by death threats:

"It was all of those things. She wasn't scared to perform. She didn't want to put her family at risk based on the death threats and she also didn't want to offend the LGBT community which was especially upset that a past ally would perform on a program with President-Elect Donald Trump."

Just prior to her cancellation, Holliday confirmed that she was facing the worst kind of racial bullying and slurs:

I've spent all day yesterday and all last night reading all the terrible things that people were saying about me.

And even being called by my own black people a ''n'--er,'' a ''house n'--er,'' ''c'--n, ''Uncle Tom,'' people suggesting I should kill myself, a ''traitor,'' all kinds of things. It was very frightening and very alarming and overwhelming, as well, to see those kinds of things about you. It'd be different if I'm out there all the time trying to make headlines or something.

OPERA STAR ANDREA BOCELLI

Opera star Andrea Bocelli was also intimidated out of a scheduled performance at Trump's Inauguration.

On top of boycott threats, the blind tenor also received death threats.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN COVER BAND

The B-Street Band, a 37-year-old Bruce Springsteen cover band, told Rolling Stone they decided to cancel their Inauguration appearance in order to "get out of the storm," part of that storm was started by real members of the E-Street Band:

Garry Tallent, the E Street Band's founding bassist, tweeted, in response to news of the B-Street band's appearance, "Please tell me this is more fake news. Or at least a joke." Steven Van Zandt, the group's outspoken guitarist, tweeted of the B-Street Band, "Nice guys. Met them. I wouldn't say right or wrong. Up to them. But it's naive to think one can separate Art and Politics. Art IS Politics."

Forte agrees. "All this stuff made it clear to us that this event is not worth it," he says. "It's just a job to us. We're just trying to hold up a contract. We're not trying to prove anything. We're just a fun band! '...

"We're standing out in the storm right here," he told the band. "We gotta get out of the storm."

In the past few days, they had started to feel isolated because, as Forte says, "the story was so distorted." "There were misleading headlines like, 'Trump Hires B-Street Band,'" he says. "We felt like we were out on our own on an island."

"Isolated" and under siege.

That is exactly how the New Blacklist works.

COMEDIAN STEVE HARVEY

As I detailed yesterday, on the same day Harvey met with Trump, no less than The Hollywood Reporter smeared Harvey as a racist.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter@NolteNC

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Wed, 18 Jan 2017 11:00

WASHINGTON '-- President Obama on Tuesday commuted all but four months of the remaining prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, the Army intelligence analyst convicted of a 2010 leak that revealed American military and diplomatic activities across the world, disrupted Mr. Obama's administration and brought global prominence to WikiLeaks, the recipient of those disclosures.

The decision by Mr. Obama rescued Ms. Manning, who twice tried to kill herself last year, from an uncertain future as a transgender woman incarcerated at the men's military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. She has been jailed for nearly seven years, and her 35-year sentence was by far the longest punishment ever imposed in the United States for a leak conviction.

At the same time that Mr. Obama commuted the sentence of Ms. Manning, a low-ranking enlisted soldier at the time of her leaks, he also pardoned James E. Cartwright, the retired Marine general and former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who pleaded guilty to lying about his conversations with reporters to F.B.I. agents investigating a leak of classified information about cyberattacks on Iran's nuclear program.

The Run-UpThe podcast that makes sense of the most delirious stretch of the 2016 campaign.The two acts of clemency were a remarkable final step for a president whose administration carried out an unprecedented criminal crackdown on leaks of government secrets. Depending on how they are counted, the Obama administration has prosecuted either nine or 10 such cases, more than were charged under all previous presidencies combined.

In addition, Mr. Obama on Tuesday commuted the sentence of Oscar Lopez Rivera, who was part of a Puerto Rican nationalist group that carried out a string of bombings in the late 1970s and early 1980s; the other members of that group had long since been freed. Mr. Obama also granted 63 other pardons and 207 other commutations, mostly for drug offenders.

Under the terms of the commutation announced by the White House on Tuesday, Ms. Manning is set to be freed on May 17 of this year rather than in 2045. A senior administration official said the 120-day delay was part of a standard transition period for commutations to time served, and was designed to allow for such steps as finding a place for Ms. Manning to live after her release.

The commutation also relieved the Defense Department of the difficult responsibility of Ms. Manning's incarceration as she pushes for treatment for her gender dysphoria, including sex reassignment surgery, that the military has no experience providing.

But the move was sharply criticized by several prominent Republicans, including the chairmen of the House and Senate armed services committees, Representative Mac Thornberry of Texas and Senator John McCain of Arizona, who called her leaks ''espionage'' and said they had put American troops and the country at risk.

Speaker Paul D. Ryan called it ''outrageous.'' ''President Obama now leaves in place a dangerous precedent that those who compromise our national security won't be held accountable for their crimes,'' he said in a statement.

But in a joint statement, Nancy Hollander and Vince Ward '-- two lawyers who have been representing Ms. Manning in appealing her conviction and sentence, and who filed the commutation application '-- praised the decision.

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''Ms. Manning is the longest-serving whistle-blower in the history of the United States,'' they said. ''Her 35-year sentence for disclosing information that served the public interest and never caused harm to the United States was always excessive, and we're delighted that justice is being served in the form of this commutation.''

In recent days, the White House had signaled that Mr. Obama was seriously considering granting Ms. Manning's commutation application, in contrast to a pardon application submitted on behalf of the other large-scale leaker of the era, Edward J. Snowden, the former intelligence contractor who disclosed archives of top-secret surveillance files and is living as a fugitive in Russia.

Asked about the two clemency applications on Friday, the White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, discussed the ''pretty stark difference'' between Ms. Manning's case for mercy and Mr. Snowden's. While their offenses were similar, he said, there were ''some important differences.''

''Chelsea Manning is somebody who went through the military criminal justice process, was exposed to due process, was found guilty, was sentenced for her crimes, and she acknowledged wrongdoing,'' he said. ''Mr. Snowden fled into the arms of an adversary and has sought refuge in a country that most recently made a concerted effort to undermine confidence in our democracy.''

Mr. Earnest also noted that while the documents Ms. Manning provided to WikiLeaks were ''damaging to national security,'' the ones Mr. Snowden disclosed were ''far more serious and far more dangerous.'' (None of the documents Ms. Manning disclosed were classified above the merely ''secret'' level.)

Ms. Manning was still known as Bradley Manning when she deployed with her unit to Iraq in late 2009. There, she worked as a low-level intelligence analyst helping her unit assess insurgent activity in the area it was patrolling, a role that gave her access to a classified computer network.

She copied hundreds of thousands of military incident logs from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, which, among other things, exposed abuses of detainees by Iraqi military officers working with American forces and showed that civilian deaths in the Iraq war were probably much higher than official estimates.

The files she copied also included about 250,000 diplomatic cables from American embassies showing sensitive deals and conversations, dossiers detailing intelligence assessments of Guantnamo detainees held without trial, and a video of an American helicopter attack in Baghdad in which two Reuters journalists were killed, among others.

She decided to make all these files public, as she wrote at the time, in the hope that they would incite ''worldwide discussion, debates and reforms.'' WikiLeaks disclosed them '-- working with traditional news organizations including The New York Times '-- bringing notoriety to the group and its founder, Julian Assange.

The disclosures set off a frantic scramble as Obama administration officials sought to minimize any potential harm, including getting to safety some foreigners in dangerous countries who were identified as having helped American troops or diplomats. Prosecutors, however, presented no evidence that anyone had been killed because of the leaks.

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At her court-martial, Ms. Manning confessed in detail to her actions and apologized, saying she had not intended to put anyone at risk and noting that she had been ''dealing with a lot of issues'' at the time she made her decision.

Testimony showed that she had been in a mental and emotional crisis as she came to grips, amid the stress of a war zone, with the fact that she was not merely gay but had gender dysphoria. She had been behaving erratically, including angry outbursts and lapsing into catatonia midsentence. At one point, she had emailed a photograph of herself in a woman's wig to her supervisor.

Prosecutors said that because the secret material was made available for publication on the internet, anyone, including Al Qaeda, could read it. And they accused Ms. Manning of treason, charging her with multiple counts under the Espionage Act, as well as with ''aiding the enemy,'' a potential capital offense, although they said they would not seek her execution.

Ms. Manning confessed and pleaded guilty to a lesser version of those charges without any deal to cap her sentence. But prosecutors pressed forward with a trial and won convictions on the more serious versions of those charges; a military judge acquitted her of ''aiding the enemy.''

In her commutation application, Ms. Manning said she had not imagined that she would be sentenced to the ''extreme'' term of 35 years, a term for which there was ''no historical precedent.'' (There have been only a handful of leak cases, and most sentence are one to three years.)

After her sentencing, Ms. Manning announced that she was transgender and changed her name to Chelsea.

The military, under pressure from a lawsuit filed on her behalf by Chase Strangio of the American Civil Liberties Union, has permitted her to partly transition to life as a woman, including giving her cross-sex hormones and letting her wear women's undergarments and light cosmetics.

But it has not let her grow her hair longer than male military standards, citing security risks, and Ms. Manning said she had yet to be permitted to see a surgeon about the possibility of sex reassignment surgery.

Until recently, the military discharged transgender soldiers. In June, Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter changed that policy and said the military would instead provide treatment for them, eventually including such surgery if doctors said it was necessary.

President-elect Donald J. Trump mocked that change as excessively ''politically correct,'' raising the possibility that he will rescind it.

But even if he does, Ms. Manning will soon no longer be subject to the military's control.

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 03:18

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 03:17

These days, Steve Harvey has plenty to be grateful for: a hit syndicated daytime talk show, Steve Harvey, multiple best sellers, a job as host of the syndicated game show Family Feud '' and two luxe homes in Chicago and Atlanta where he can unwind with his wife, Marjorie, and the seven children they share between them.

But when he was first starting out as a comedian in the late 80s, Harvey, 56, knew what it was to struggle.

Living on a shoestring budget, after splitting from his first wife, Marcia, and sending the majority of his paychecks home to his two children, ''one or two gigs fell through, and suddenly I was homeless,'' the comedian tells PEOPLE in its newest issue, on news stands Friday.

Though he'd stay in hotels when he landed a gig that would put him up, once he was done, ''I had nowhere to go,'' he says, and began living out of his 1976 Ford Tempo, using an Igloo cooler in the backseat as a makeshift refrigerator, and washing up in hotel bathrooms, gas stations or swimming pool showers.

His rough patch lasted for an excruciating three years before he was called to appear on Showtime at the Apollo, which proved to be his big break.

''It was so disheartening,'' Harvey recalls. ''A week is really the maximum you can do. This was three years! It was rock bottom. But even in my darkest days I had faith it would turn around.''

For much more on Harvey's life story, and how he finally found happiness, pick up this week's issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday

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Archived Version

Thu, 19 Jan 2017 03:17

Steve HarveyBornBroderick Stephen Harvey(1957-01-17) January 17, 1957 (age 60)Welch, West Virginia, United StatesResidenceAtlanta, Georgia, United StatesOccupationComedian, radio host, television host, producer, radio personality, actor, author, singerYears active1985''presentSpouse(s)Marcia Harvey (m. 1980''94)Mary Shackelford (m. 1996''2005)Marjorie Bridges (m. 2007)Children7 (including 3 step-children)[1][2]Websitesteveharvey .comBroderick Stephen "Steve" Harvey[3] (born January 17, 1957) is an Americancomedian, television host, producer, radio personality, actor, author and singer. He hosts The Steve Harvey Morning Show, the Steve Harvey talk show, Family Feud and Little Big Shots. He is the author of Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man, which was published in March 2009, and the book Straight Talk, No Chaser: How to Find and Keep a Man.

Harvey previously hosted Showtime at the Apollo, starred in The Steve Harvey Show, and was featured in The Original Kings of Comedy. He is a three-time Daytime Emmy Award winner, and a 13-time NAACP Image Award winner in various categories.

Early life[edit]Harvey was born on January 17, 1957,[4][5] in Welch, West Virginia, the son of Jesse Harvey, a coal miner, and his wife Eloise Vera.[6][7][8] His first name is Broderick, named after actor Broderick Crawford of the TV series Highway Patrol.[3] Harvey's family moved to Cleveland, Ohio, living on East 112th Street, which would eventually be renamed Steve Harvey Way in 2015.[9] He graduated from Glenville High School in 1974.[9][10][11] Shortly after high school, he attended Kent State University and West Virginia University and is a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity.[6][10] He has been a boxer, an autoworker, an insurance salesman, a carpet cleaner, and a mailman.[6][10][12][13]

Comedy[edit]Harvey first performed stand-up comedy on October 8, 1985, at the Hilarities Comedy Club in Cleveland, Ohio. In the late 1980s Harvey was homeless for multiple years. He slept in his 1976 Ford when not performing gigs that provided a hotel, and he showered at gas stations or swimming pool showers.[14] Rich and Becky Liss helped Harvey during this time with a contract for carpet cleaning and credit at a travel agency.[15] He was a finalist in the Second Annual Johnnie Walker National Comedy Search performing on April 16, 1990, eventually leading to a long stint as host of It's Showtime at the Apollo, succeeding Mark Curry in that role. His success as a stand-up comedian led to a starring role on the ABC show Me and the Boys in 1994. He would later star on the WB network show, The Steve Harvey Show, which ran from 1996 to 2002. While popular, the show never achieved critical acclaim outside of the African-American community.[16]

In 1997, Harvey continued his work in stand-up comedy, performing on the Kings of Comedy tour along with Cedric the Entertainer, D.L. Hughley, and Bernie Mac. The comedy act would later be put together into a film by Spike Lee called The Original Kings of Comedy. DVD sales of The Original Kings of Comedy and Don't Trip, He Ain't Through With Me Yet increased Harvey's popularity. He released a hip hop and R&B CD on a record label he founded, and authored the book Steve Harvey's Big Time. That title was also used as the name of his comedy and variety television show (later renamed Steve Harvey's Big Time Challenge), which aired on The WB network from 2003 until 2005. Harvey also launched a clothing line which featured a line of dress wear. In 2005 he co-starred in the movie Racing Stripes. He had appeared in the 2003 movie The Fighting Temptations alongside Cuba Gooding Jr. and Beyonc(C) Knowles.[17] He achieved further critical and commercial success through his book Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man and its subsequent cinematic follow-up Think Like a Man, an ensemble romantic comedy depicting characters taking advice on dating from the book.[18]

In 2008, Harvey hosted the Disney Dreamers Academy, a teen-focused personal and professional enrichment event that took place January 17''20, 2008, at the Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.[19]

On August 2, 2012, Harvey performed his final stand-up act at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, ending a 27-year career as a stand-up comedian. The two-hour performance was broadcast live on Pay-Per-View. ''The road to this final show has been an amazing journey, doing stand-up for the past 27 years, and I can't thank fans enough after reflecting on all those years on stage,'' he said.[20][21]

Radio[edit]Harvey is the host of a weekday-morning radio program, The Steve Harvey Morning Show, which was originally syndicated through Radio One, Inc. (from September 2000 until May 2005) and which continues to air to the present time.

Family Feud[edit]Harvey began hosting Family Feud in September 2010.[6][22] The show has seen significantly improved ratings under Harvey. As of November 2012, it was the second most watched daytime syndicated show.[23]

Harvey also hosted Celebrity Family Feud, where celebrities compete for a chance to donate up to $25,000 to their favorite charity. The show aired for six weeks during the summer of 2015 and 2016 on ABC.[24][25][26]

Dating website[edit]In September 2014, Harvey launched a new dating website called Delightful to "help Women become more dateable".[27]

Steve Harvey (TV series)[edit]In September 2012, Steve Harvey premiered in first-run syndication. Harvey is the host of the Americantalk-variety show. It is produced by Endemol USA and is distributed by NBCUniversal Television Distribution in the United States and in Canada. The show is taped in Chicago, Illinois at the WMAQ studios.[28][29][30][31][32] The show has been renewed through 2016.[33]

Controversies[edit]Miss Universe pageant[edit]In December 2015, Harvey hosted the Miss Universe 2015 pageant in Las Vegas. Upon announcing the final results, he mistakenly named the first runner-up, Miss Colombia, Ariadna Guti(C)rrez, as the winner. A few minutes after she was crowned, Harvey announced that he had read the results incorrectly and that Miss Philippines, Pia Wurtzbach, was the new Miss Universe.[34] He apologized to Wurtzbach outside the venue and later tweeted an apology to both contestants, mistakenly misspelling the country names.[35][36][37]

Harvey is set to host the Miss Universe 2016 pageant in the Philippines on January 30, 2017, telling the Miss Universe Organization that he wanted to personally apologize to the Filipinos for the incident that occurred in the last Miss Universe pageant he hosted.[38]

Racist jokes on Asian men[edit]In January 2017, Steve Harvey made jokes on Steve Harvey about Asian men, ridiculing the idea that any white woman or black woman would want to date them. "Excuse me, do you like Asian men?", he said, "No, thank you." He went on to add, "I don't even like Chinese food."[39] The remarks were met with criticism from members of the Asian American community, including New York lawmakers [40] and author Eddie Huang. [41] He targeted Asian men in a string of racist jokes. [42] The point of the jokes is that Asian men are not attractive.[43] He mocked the 2002 book How to Date a White Woman: A Practical Guide for Asian Men.[44]

Meeting with President-elect Donald Trump[edit]Harvey has been met with backlash from the African-American community for his decision to meet with President-elect Trump. He has defended his decision, citing that it will help spark positive changes.[45][46]

Personal life[edit]Harvey has been married three times and has seven children. From his first marriage, to Marcia Harvey, he has twin daughters and a son.[10][47] From his second marriage, to Mary Shackelford, Harvey has another son.[48] The couple divorced in November 2005.[49] In 2011, Collin County, Texas, 199th District Court Judge Robert Dry expressed concern about Mary Harvey spreading false information about the divorce, with the judge suggesting that she had not been left materially destitute.[50][51]

In June 2007, he married Marjorie Bridges, who he says is responsible for making him a better man and changing his life. Marjorie Harvey has three children of her own. Steve raises them as his own. Steve and Marjorie have four grandchildren: two through Jason's marriage to his wife Amanda, one through Morgan's marriage to her husband Kareem and one through Karli's marriage to husband Ben.[52] Harvey and his family split their time between Atlanta, where his radio show is broadcast and Family Feud is recorded, and Chicago, where he hosts his talk show for NBCUniversal from the company's Chicago studios, though he will host his radio show there as well.[53]

Harvey is a Christian.[54]

Filmography[edit]Television[edit]Film[edit]Awards and honors[edit]References[edit]^"Steve Harvey '' Hollywood Dads with the Most Kids '' XFINITY". xfinity.com. ^Rozen, Leah (October 3, 2014). "Steve Harvey on Success and His Hard-Won Life Lessons: "I'm Living Proof You Can Reinvent Yourself"". Parade. Athlon Media Group. Retrieved October 23, 2015. ^ abFamily Feud. February 4, 2013. 6 minutes in. GSN. Also aired August 16, 2015.^"Steve Harvey". TVGuide.com. Retrieved December 21, 2015. ^"Steve Harvey Breaks Down Crying During Birthday Surprise: This Is the Greatest Moment I've Ever Had '' E! Online". E! Online. January 16, 2015. ^ abcde'Family Feud' Host Steve Harvey to Get Hollywood Walk of Fame Star, The Beverly Hills Courier, May 13, 2013^"Steve Harvey Biography (1957?-)". Retrieved March 25, 2009. ^Parade.com^ abcAllard, Sam (January 16, 2015). "Cleveland Just Renamed E. 112th St. "Steve Harvey Way" | Scene and Heard: Scene's News Blog | Cleveland Scene". Clevescene.com. Retrieved June 10, 2015. ^ abcdYahooArchived December 17, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.^Dawidziak, Mark (August 17, 2009). "Steve Harvey joins 'Good Morning America'". The Plain Dealer. Retrieved August 18, 2009. ^Yadegaran, Jessica (July 20, 2010). "15 Minutes with Steve Harvey". Contra Costa Times. ^"Steve Harvey has emotional reunion". January 9, 2013. ^Triggs, Charlotte (October 3, 2013). "Steve Harvey: I Was Homeless for Three Years". People. Retrieved September 21, 2014. ^Boedeker, Hal (January 23, 2013). "Steve Harvey sheds tears over generous Orlando supporters". Orlando Sentinel. Archived from the original on September 27, 2014. Retrieved September 27, 2014. ^"Steve Harvey- Biography". Yahoo! Movies. Archived from the original on March 3, 2013. Retrieved June 24, 2013. ^Brown, Scott (September 18, 2003). "The Fighting Temptations". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved June 24, 2013. ^Saltz, Rachel (April 19, 2012). "'Think Like a Man' Brings Steve Harvey's Book to Life". New York Times. Retrieved June 24, 2013. ^"with Steve Harvey". Disneydreamersacademy.com. Retrieved June 10, 2015. ^"Steve Harvey Grand Stand-Up Finale: Comedian Calls It Quits With Last Show In Las Vegas". Huffingtonpost.com. August 1, 2012. Retrieved June 10, 2015. ^"Watch: Steve Harvey's Tearful Goodbye To Stand-Up At His | Shadow and Act". Blogs.indiewire.com. Retrieved June 10, 2015. ^Albiniak, Paige (January 21, 2010). "Steve Harvey to host Family Feud". Broadcasting & Cable. Retrieved January 22, 2010. ^"Looking to Reach Women in Daytime TV? Syndication Is a Solid Alternative '' 2012-11-07 19:11:10 | Broadcasting & Cable". Broadcastingcable.com. Retrieved February 28, 2013. ^Dove, Steve (June 5, 2015). "Celebrity Contestants Announced for "Celebrity Family Feud"". ABC press release. Retrieved June 13, 2015. ^"'Celebrity Family Feud' to Premiere Sunday June 21, on ABC With Episode Featuring Anthony Anderson & Toni Braxton". tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com. Retrieved June 11, 2015. ^"Vernon Davis Is Terrible at Family Feud, Which It Turns Out, Is Also Awful". awfulannoucing.com. Retrieved June 29, 2015. ^Steve Harvey Launches A Site To Help Women 'Become More Dateable', Forbes.com, September 10, 2014^"New 'Steve Harvey' TV show coming to Chicago studio". Chicago Sun-Times. Sun-Times Media Group (Wrapports LLC). March 12, 2012. Retrieved September 18, 2015. ^Thomas-Bailey, Carlene. G2: Shortcuts: Television: Steve Harvey '-- he's the new Oprah Winfrey, The Guardian, April 15, 2013^Andreeva, Nellie (January 10, 2013). "NBCUniversal Domestic TV Distribution's 'Steve Harvey' Renewed For Second Season". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved September 18, 2015. ^Goldberg, Lesley (January 10, 2013). "'Steve Harvey' Syndicated Talk Show Renewed for Second Season". The Hollywood Reporter. Prometheus Global Media. Retrieved September 18, 2015. ^""Steve Harvey" Renewed for Second Season in National Syndication". The Futon Critic. Futon Media. Retrieved September 18, 2015. ^Bibel, Sara (June 12, 2013). "'Steve Harvey' Sold Through 2016 to NBC Owned Television Stations". TV by the Numbers. Tribune Digital Ventures. Retrieved September 18, 2015. ^Stelter, Brian (December 21, 2015). "Steve Harvey mistakenly crowns the wrong Miss Universe 2015". CNNMoney. Retrieved December 21, 2015. ^Hegina, Aries Joseph (December 21, 2015). "Steve Harvey apologizes for Miss Universe mix-up; misspells PH, Colombia". Philippine Daily Inquirer. Retrieved December 21, 2015. ^"WATCH: Host says sorry to Pia Wurtzbach over mix-up". ABS-CBNnews.com. ABS-CBN Corporation. December 21, 2015. Retrieved December 21, 2015. ^"Host Steve Harvey Botches Miss Universe Announcement". NBC News. Dec 21, 2015. Retrieved Dec 21, 2015. ^"Steve Harvey will host Miss Universe in PH". ABS-CBN News. July 29, 2016. Retrieved July 30, 2016. ^"Steve Harvey under fire for making jokes about Asian men". NY Daily News. Retrieved 2017-01-16. ^"Steve Harvey Creates Racist Controversy With Jokes About Asian Men '-- Some Asian American Lawmakers Are Demanding An Apology". The Inquisitr News. Retrieved 2017-01-16. ^"Eddie Huang on Steve Harvey's 'Hypocritical' and 'Upsetting' Willingness to Emasculate Asian Men for Laughs". Vulture. 2017-01-15. Retrieved 2017-01-16. ^http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2017/01/17/steve-harvey-apologizes-racist-jokes-about-asian-men/96668644/^http://www.tmz.com/2017/01/17/steve-harvey-apologizes-asian-men-joke/^http://www.etonline.com/tv/207704_steve_harvey_apologizes_for_asian_men_remarks/^http://www.essence.com/celebrity/steve-harvey-wont-attend-2017-inauguration^https://twitter.com/IAmSteveHarvey?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor^"Harvey in June 2008 Essence Mag Father's Day article". ^[1]Archived October 9, 2013, at the Wayback Machine.^[2]Archived February 28, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.^"Steve Harvey's ex slammed by judge for making false allegations". New York: Nydailynews.com. February 8, 2011. Retrieved June 10, 2015. ^"Steve Harvey's Ex-Wife Blasts Him For Cheating". The Huffington Post. April 2011. Retrieved October 5, 2013. ^His New Wife is the Woman Who Changed His Life By Karu F. Daniels, November 6, 2009, Black Voices^"Steve Harvey hitting town with new show". Articles.chicagotribune.com. March 12, 2012. Retrieved June 10, 2015. ^Thomasos, Christine (August 6, 2012). "Steve Harvey Credits God for Career During Emotional Final Comedy Show". The Christian Post. Retrieved July 22, 2013. ^"2007 Industry Achievement Awards". Radio and Records. September 28, 2008. ^"Bet Awards '11 Exclusives: Humanitarian Award Winner Steve Harvey". Bet.com. Retrieved June 24, 2013. ^"Steve Harvey accepts his People's Choice Award". YouTube. January 20, 2013. Retrieved June 24, 2013. ^Michael Palumbo, Steve Harvey Honored With Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame, Variety, May 13, 2013^ abHuggins, Sarah (February 7, 2015). "2015 NAACP Image Awards full winners list '' Zap2it | News & Features". Zap2it.com. Retrieved June 10, 2015. ^ ab"THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF TELEVISION ARTS & SCIENCES ANNOUNCES WINNERS FOR THE 41st ANNUAL DAYTIME EMMY® AWARDS | The Emmy Awards '' The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences"(PDF). Emmyonline.com. June 22, 2014. Retrieved June 10, 2015. External links[edit]

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 06:14

6:45 AM PST 1/13/2017 by Rebecca Sun

Last week, Steve Harvey aired a segment on his eponymous syndicated talk show about obscure, absurdly specific advice books. These were niche interest titles like Dating for Under a Dollar: 301 Ideas and How to Date a White Woman: A Practical Guide for Asian Men.

The audience laughed at the latter book in anticipation as Harvey took 15 seconds to gather himself. ''That's one page,'' he finally gasped. '''Excuse me, do you like Asian men?' 'No.' 'Thank you.'''

The comedian then offered a sequel, How to Date a Black Woman: A Practical Guide for Asian Men '-- ''Same thing. 'You like Asian men?' 'I don't even like Chinese food. It don't stay with you no time. I don't eat what I can't pronounce.'''

Harvey was delighted at his skewering of the book, doubling over at his own punchlines.

Problem is, he didn't actually manage to hit any of the eminently mockable aspects of the book, from its predatory creepiness to its own racist profiling (of white women). Instead, the butt of his joke was Asian men (all 2 billion of them), and the point of the joke was: the idea that they could possibly be attractive is hilarious.

Not even a full 12 months ago, I wondered why an ostensibly ''sorry about #OscarsSoWhite'' Academy Awards ceremony thought it would be funny to include a couple of jokes about Asians being good at math and sweatshop labor, plus an off-script gag from presenter Sacha Baron Cohen confusing the tiny dongs of Despicable Me's Minions for Asian men.

This isn't edgy humor. It's tired '-- so tired, in fact, that its origins can be traced all the way to the mid-1800s. To counteract the massive wave of imported cheap Chinese labor (''coolies''), Asian men were subject to a series of targeted laws that systematically stripped them of rights that signified manhood, such as property ownership, job opportunities and the ability to marry freely. The legislation worked hand-in-hand with the campaign on the cultural front, warning men and women of the Yellow Peril and peppering newspapers with caricatures that clearly showed these coolies as less than regular men. (MTV News' webseries Decoded has a good '-- and educating '-- rundown of this history.)

This is where the "tiny Asian penis" jokes on our talk shows, playgrounds and Oscar stages come from. It's the legacy of deliberate discrimination in our country's history, just as the hypersexualization of black men has its damaging roots in slavery. These crude reputations aren't harmless. Without even getting into the more life-threatening ramifications of sexual stereotyping, there's ample statistical and anecdotal evidence that black and Asian men take a hit in the dating pool because of perception bias. (So do black women, which is one reason why Viola Davis has repeatedly celebrated her How to Get Away With Murder protagonist's sexual desirability and prowess.)

Short of personally evaluating enough members of a single race to form a statistically significant judgment on their sexual viability, we tend to rely on popular culture to shape popular opinion. Like the cartoonists of the 19th century, today's artists have the power to perpetuate malicious stereotypes about Asian men, as Steve Harvey and the creators behind The Hangover's Mr. Chow (whose penis was mistaken for a shiitake mushroom) and 2 Broke Girls'Han Lee (that show is still on) have done.

But others in the industry have instead chosen to subvert the 200-year-old trend, as Crazy Ex-Girlfriend does with Josh Chan as the object of the title character's obsession and The Walking Dead did with the late Glenn, one-half of the show's longest-enduring couple. (And shout out to The Good Place for Jianyu, the hot Buddhist monk who's a lot more -- or less? -- than he seems.)

Jokes about sexless Asian men are soooo 1882. Time to get some fresh material.

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 06:26

Alibaba founder Jack Ma fired a shot at the United States in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Ma was asked by CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin about the U.S. economy in relation to China, since President-elect Donald Trump has been talking about imposing new tariffs on Chinese imports.

Ma says blaming China for any economic issues in the U.S. is misguided. If America is looking to blame anyone, Ma said, it should blame itself.

"It's not that other countries steal jobs from you guys," Ma said. "It's your strategy. Distribute the money and things in a proper way."

He said the U.S. has wasted over $14 trillion in fighting wars over the past 30 years rather than investing in infrastructure at home.

To be sure, Ma is not the only critic of the costly U.S. policies of waging war against terrorism and other enemies outside the homeland. Still, Ma said this was the reason America's economic growth had weakened, not China's supposed theft of jobs.

In fact, Ma called outsourcing a "wonderful" and "perfect" strategy.

"The American multinational companies made millions and millions of dollars from globalization," Ma said. "The past 30 years, IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, they've made tens of millions '-- the profits they've made are much more than the four Chinese banks put together. ... But where did the money go?"

He said the U.S. is not distributing, or investing, its money properly, and that's why many people in the country feel wracked with economic anxiety. He said too much money flows to Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Instead, the country should be helping the Midwest, and Americans "not good in schooling," too.

"You're supposed to spend money on your own people," Ma said. "Not everybody can pass Harvard, like me." In a previous interview, Ma said he had been rejected by Harvard 10 times.

Along those lines, Ma stressed that globalization is a good thing, but it, too, "should be inclusive," with the spoils not just going to the wealthy few.

"The world needs new leadership, but the new leadership is about working together," Ma said. "As a business person, I want the world to share the prosperity together."

'-- CNBC's Anita Balakrishnan contributed to this report.

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Mon, 16 Jan 2017 06:38

Facebook users will soon be able to flag news stories as fake and the social network may subsequently label the stories as "disputed" in a test of fake news filtering tools starting soon in Germany.

The test will send user-flagged stories to Correctiv, a third-party fact checker. If the fact checker finds they are unreliable, the story will be de-prioritized in Facebook's news feed algorithm, meaning that fewer people see the story in their feed, according to the Financial Times.

Facebook confirmed the test in a post on its German-language press site.

''Our focus is on Germany right now but we're certainly thinking through what countries will unveil next,'' a Facebook spokesperson told the Financial Times.

Here's what it should look like on a mobile device:

Facebook

The Facebook test comes as Germany has had its own "fake news" problem, including one false viral story that said that Germany's oldest church was set on fire.

German officials had previously threatened internet companies like Facebook with prosecution under strict libel and slander laws if they did not curb "hate speech" and other fake news on their platforms.

"We need to fully utilize all the legal authority at our disposal," Heiko Mass, Germany's Justice Minister, said in December.

The proliferation of misleading and false news stories on Facebook has been a heated point of debate in the US as well, with some studies suggesting that clearly false stories '-- like one about the Pope endorsing President-elect Donald Trump before the election '-- were more widely read and distributed than truthful stories.

Some observers have said that "fake news" contributed to Trump's election. President Obama called fake stories on Facebook a "dust cloud of nonsense" and "crazy conspiracy theorizing."

Facebook is currently testing the same fake news filter in the United States.

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Mon, 16 Jan 2017 17:02

A passenger jet that crashed into the Mediterranean last summer may have been brought down when the battery in a pilots' mobile phone overheated and sparked a fire.

CCTV from the gate at Charles de Gaulle airport showed Egyptair co-pilot Mohamed Mamdouh Ahmed Assem, leave his Apple iPhone 6S and iPad mini next to four bottles of perfume on top of the instrument panel in the cockpit of the Airbus A320, which left for Cairo on May 19.

According to French newspaper la Parisien, investigators believe there is a 'troubling parallel' between where the fire broke out on flight 804 and where the items were placed on the glare-shield.

An Egyptair flight that crashed into the Mediterranean last summer may have been brought down when the battery in a pilots' mobile phone overheated and sparked a fire (file picture)

France is currently conducting both judicial and civil inquiries into last year's crash, which killed all 66 people on the overnight flight from Paris to Cairo.

Since their recovery, recordings from the plane's black boxes suggest that it broke up in mid-air following fire alerts and smoke detected on the flight deck.

Last night, French newspaper la Parisien said that theories focused on the placement of the items on the glare-shield after nothing unusual was noted about the co-pilot during airport security checks.

It said: 'The images show very clearly that the Egyptian co-pilot placed his phone, tablet and bottles of perfume bought before boarding on the glare shield.

France is currently conducting both judicial and civil inquiries into last year's crash over the Mediterranean, which killed all 66 people on the overnight flight from Paris to Cairo

'The investigators thus note a troubling parallel between the placing of these items that are fed by lithium batteries and the triggering of alarms during the flight.'

However, David Learmount, operations and safety editor at Flight International magazine and a former pilot, played down the likelihood of a mobile phone being able to bring down an airliner.

He told The Telegraph: 'Firstly, pilots don't leave objects on the dashboard because they know the they will end up in their lap when they take off or on the floor and they'll get airborne in turbulence and could jam the controls.

'Also, a phone bursting into flames just below the windscreen is a fairly spectacular thing to take place on a flight, and they would have told somebody on the ground. Nobody has mentioned this.

'But the key point is while there were warnings about the window heating systems, there were also smoke alarms in the toilet and avionics bay under the floor. How would the fire have got under there? It doesn't make sense.

'My guess is the little computer in the avionics bay was damaged by fire; and issued spurious warnings, which were in fact the box screaming for help.'

EGYPTAIR NARROWLY AVOIDED MID-AIR CRASH OVER BELGIUMAn Egyptair flight and an Air France aircraft came within metres of a mid-air collision over Belgium on New Year's Day, a report has revealed.

The cargo flight operated by Egyptair had taken off from Ostend-Bruge airport and was headed to Cairo when it came within close proximity of the other aircraft.

The plane, an Air France service, had taken off from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport and was headed to Amsterdam.

According to a report from BEA, France's air accident authority, the two planes came within just 1,300 metres of each other at an altitude of 22,000 feet over Belgium.

The report says that the Egyptair flight was climbing in altitude but told to stop as the Air France flight approached.

However, it continued to climb when told to stop and the Air France flight had to quickly increase its altitude to avoid a mid-air collision.

While the CCTV caught the devices on the glare-shield prior to take off, it is unclear whether they had remained there for the duration of the flight.

The findings come as the Egyptian authorities are due to hand back the remains of 15 passengers to France next week.

And while Egypt has claimed that explosives may have been placed on board the aircraft, French investigators briefed the media that the allegations were implausible.

The BEA, France's air accident authority, said it considers it 'not possible at this stage to draw any conclusions on the origin of the accident'.

Egyptian authorities had failed to provide 'detailed information on the conditions in which the samples and measures were taken that led to the detection of explosive traces'.

The stability of lithium batteries has become controversial thanks to their potential to overheat and catch fire.

Some are banned from aircraft and certain batteries in mobile phones are known to catch fire.

Last night Apple, the makers of the iPhone and iPad, said it had not been contacted by 'any authority investigating this tragic event'.

Since their recovery, recordings from the plane's black boxes and other debris suggest that it broke up in mid-air following fire alerts and smoke detected on the flight deck

A lifejacket that was recovered from the crash site in the Mediterranean of the Egyptair aircraft

A spokesman for Apple added: 'We have not seen the report but we understand there is no evidence to link this event to Apple products.

'If investigators have questions for us, we would of course assist in any way we can.

'We rigorously test our products to ensure they meet or exceed international safety standards.'

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Wed, 18 Jan 2017 13:16

Finnish police are brainwashing children to rat on their parents for making "offensive" posts criticizing politicians on Facebook.In a bizarre ad recently uploaded to Finnish police's YouTube channel, a girl is seen ratting on her mother after witnessing her post comments to a politican's Facebook wall she "wouldn't dare" say "directly to his face."

"Listen, Mom!" the girl says. "That was a naughty thing to do!"

"How would you feel if somebody wrote that about you?"

"It may even be a criminal offense," a police voice-over says. "It is harassment to berate someone on Facebook."

Watch the video as translated by VladTepesBlog:

Another bizarre ad from Finnish police released last year urged women to use "the force" to repel rapists.

Follow InformationLiberation on Twitter and Facebook.

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Archived Version

Thu, 19 Jan 2017 14:19

Some ethicists and consumer watchdog groups worry that the newly revised federal rules governing medical research don't go far enough to protect the rights and privacy of patients. Dana Neely/Getty Imageshide caption

toggle captionDana Neely/Getty ImagesSome ethicists and consumer watchdog groups worry that the newly revised federal rules governing medical research don't go far enough to protect the rights and privacy of patients.

Dana Neely/Getty ImagesThe Obama administration has dropped a controversial proposal that would have required all federally funded scientists to get permission from patients before using their cells, blood, tissue or DNA for research.

The proposal was eliminated from the final revision of the Common Rule, which was published in the federal record Wednesday. The rule is a complex set of regulations designed to make sure federally funded medical research is conducted ethically. The revision to the regulations, set to go into effect in 2018, marks the first time the rule has been updated in 26 years.

The initial proposal that researchers be required to get permission before using a patient's tissue sample for research came out of the desire to avoid repeating what happened to Henrietta Lacks, an American who died of cervical cancer in 1951. Some of the cells from Lacks' cancer were kept alive for decades, used in research and for commercial purposes without her consent or her family's knowledge.

But scientists have argued that the mandate for consent in the initial Obama proposal was unnecessary and would hinder crucial research.

"That proposal received a lot of criticism," says Dr. Jerry Menikoff, who heads the Health and Human Services Office of Human Research Protections, which announced the final decision.

"There was concern," he says, "that by implementing this new rule it would be harmful to the research enterprise, because it would make it harder to do research that is very, very useful."

The final decision was welcomed by scientists and universities.

"We are very pleased," said Mary Sue Coleman, a biochemist and president of the Association of American Universities. "It would have been an unworkable system. Every time you have to get consent, it adds costs and complexity to the system that would have affected millions of samples '-- and, we think, would have limited research."

Still, the decision to drop the requirement raised concern among others.

"We know that trust is a critical factor in folks participating in research," says Debra Mathews, a bioethicist at Johns Hopkins University. "And we've seen in recent years the impact of when that trust is breached. In order for the public to trust the scientific community, the scientific community has to demonstrate that it's trustworthy. And a big part of that is asking permission."

Rebecca Skloot, a journalist and author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a popular 2010 book on Lacks, says the many readers she's talked to over the years were taken aback by what happened to Lacks and her family.

"One of the most commonly asked questions," Skloot says, "is, 'this couldn't happen today, right? They couldn't just take cells from people without their knowledge and use it in research?' My answer to that question is, 'Yes, this happens all the time.' And people are always shocked by this."

"Research has been changing in the way it takes place over the last quarter century," Menikoff says. "The type of research we do is different."

Big, multi-institution studies are much more common now, he says, and that calls for standardizing techniques and practices. "The notion was: 'Let's change the way we protect research subjects to fit with the type of research we do now.' "

Most of the changes included in the revision were welcomed by scientists, including one that would allow studies conducted at multiple locations to be overseen by a single central ethics committee. Up until now, each location has been required to have a separate oversight panel.

"The bottom line," Menikoff says, "is the trial has to be conducted the same way across all those sites to be scientifically valid. Therefore, the ethical analysis of the study should be consistent across all the sites '-- it doesn't make sense to have a separate ethical analysis at each site."

But that change raised concerns among some.

"The concern is that there may be inadequate protection for the subjects of the research at a particular site," says Dr. Michael Carome, who heads Public Citizen's Health Research Group, a consumer watchdog group.

He and others argue there could be important cultural differences and other factors that vary among research subjects from site to site that require local oversight.

"They might have unique vulnerabilities in terms of their education level," Carome says. "Or they might be non-English-speaking subjects. And if there is only an English version of the informed consent form, that could lead to the subject at a particular institution not fully understanding the risks and the benefits."

The growing use of blood and cells to do genetic research also raises the possibility that the identity of the donors of those samples of blood and cells could be revealed inadvertently.

The new rules will be phased in over the next several years.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 16 Jan 2017 15:14

Kaliningrad(English)КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñад(Russian)- City[1] -Location of Kaliningrad Oblast in RussiaLocation of Kaliningrad in Kaliningrad OblastFlag

Anthemnone[2]City DayJuly 4; observed on the first Saturday of July[citation needed]Administrative status (as of November 2011)CountryRussiaFederal subjectKaliningrad Oblast[1]Administratively subordinated tocity of oblast significance of Kaliningrad[1]Administrative center ofKaliningrad Oblast,[3] city of oblast significance of Kaliningrad[1]Municipal status (as of July 2009)Urban okrugKaliningrad Urban Okrug[4]Administrative center ofKaliningrad Urban Okrug[4]Head[6]Alexander Yaroshuk[5]Representative bodyCity Council of Deputies[6]StatisticsArea (February 2013)223.03 km2 (86.11 sq mi)[7]Population (2010 Census)431,402 inhabitants[8]- Rank in 201040thPopulation (January 2014 est.)448,548 inhabitants[9]Density'‚(February 2013)1,900/km2 (4,900/sq mi)[7]Time zoneUSZ1 (UTC+02:00)[10]FoundedSeptember 1, 1255[7]Previous namesK¶nigsberg (Kyonigsberg) (until 1946)[11]Postal code(s)[12]236001, 236003''236011, 236013''236017, 236019''236024, 236028, 236029, 236034''236036, 236038''236041, 236043, 236044, 236700, 236880, 236885, 236890, 236899, 236931, 236950, 236960''236962, 236967, 236970, 236980''236983, 236985, 236989, 236999Dialing code(s)+7 4012[citation needed]Kaliningrad on Wikimedia CommonsKaliningrad (Russian: КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñад; IPA: [kÉlʲɪnʲɪnËgrat]) (former German name: K¶nigsberg; Russian: КёниÐ"сбеÑÐ", tr.Kyonigsberg; Old Prussian: Twangste, Kunnegsgarbs, Knigsberg; Polish: Kr"lewiec; Lithuanian: Karaliaučius) is a seaport city and the administrative center of Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea.

In the Middle Ages, the locality was the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement and fort Twangste. In 1255, during the Northern Crusades, a new fortress was built on the site by the Teutonic Knights and was named K¶nigsberg (K¶nig = "king") in honor of King Ottokar II of Bohemia, who led two crusade expeditions against the pagan Old Prussians. The town was successively part of the monastic State of the Teutonic Order, enfeoffed to the Polish''Lithuanian Commonwealth, then part of Prussia and Germany (the latter until 1945). The city was heavily damaged during World War II. Its ruins were occupied by the Red Army on 9 April 1945, and what remained of the German population fled or was later removed by force. It was renamed Kaliningrad on July 4, 1946,[11] in honor of Soviet luminary Mikhail Kalinin, who died in the previous month. In 2005 the city marked 750 years of existence as K¶nigsberg/Kaliningrad.[13]

According to the 2010 Census, its population was 431,902[8] '' an increase from 430,003 recorded in the 2002 Census.[14]

Geography[edit]Kaliningrad is at the mouth of the navigable Pregolya River, which empties into the Vistula Lagoon, an inlet of the Baltic Sea.

Sea vessels can access GdaÅsk Bay/Bay of Danzig and the Baltic Sea by way of the Vistula Lagoon and the Strait of Baltiysk.

Until around 1900, ships drawing more than 2 meters (6 ft 7 in) of water could not pass the bar and come into town; larger vessels had to anchor at Pillau (now Baltiysk), where merchandise was moved onto smaller vessels. In 1901 a ship canal between K¶nigsberg and Pillau, completed at a cost of 13 million German marks, enabled vessels of a 6.5 meters (21 ft) draught to moor alongside the town (see also Ports of the Baltic Sea).

Khrabrovo Airport, 24 kilometers (15 mi) north of Kaliningrad, has a few scheduled and charter services to several destinations throughout Europe. There is the smaller Kaliningrad Devau Airport for general aviation. Kaliningrad is also home to Kaliningrad Chkalovsk naval air base.

The Pregolya River in Kaliningrad.

The pseudo-historic "Fishermen's village".

History[edit]Sambians[edit]K¶nigsberg was preceded by a Sambian (Old Prussian) fort called Twangste (Tuwangste or Tvankste), meaning Oak Forest.[15] During the conquest of the Sambians by the Teutonic Knights in 1255, Twangste was destroyed and replaced with a new fortress named K¶nigsberg. The declining Old Prussian culture finally became extinct around the 17th century, after the surviving Old Prussians were integrated through assimilation and Germanization.

K¶nigsberg[edit]Kaliningrad was the East Prussian provincial capital K¶nigsberg. Founded in 1255 by the Teutonic Knights, the city was named in honor of the BohemianKing Ottokar II. Through immigration and development over the following seven centuries, the area became predominantly German, though having Polish and Lithuanian minorities. During World War II the city of K¶nigsberg was heavily damaged by a British bombing attack in 1944 and the massive Soviet siege in spring 1945.

Soviet Union[edit]At the end of World War II in 1945, the city became part of the Soviet Union pending the final determination of territorial questions at the peace settlement (as part of the Russian SFSR) as agreed upon by the Allies at the Potsdam Conference:

VI. CITY OF KOENIGSBERG AND THE ADJACENT AREAThe Conference examined a proposal by the Soviet Government that pending the final determination of territorial questions at the peace settlement the section of the western frontier of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which is adjacent to the Baltic Sea should pass from a point on the eastern shore of the Bay of Danzig to the east, north of Braunsberg and Goldap, to the meeting point of the frontiers of Lithuania, the Polish Republic and East Prussia.

The Conference has agreed in principle to the proposal of the Soviet Government concerning the ultimate transfer to the Soviet Union of the city of Koenigsberg and the area adjacent to it as described above, subject to expert examination of the actual frontier.

The President of the United States and the British Prime Minister have declared that they will support the proposal of the Conference at the forthcoming peace settlement.[16]

K¶nigsberg was renamed Kaliningrad in 1946[11] after the death of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Mikhail Kalinin, one of the original Bolsheviks. The survivors of the German population were forcibly expelled in 1946-1949, and the city was repopulated with Soviet citizens. The German language was replaced by the Russian language.

The city was rebuilt, and, as the westernmost territory of the USSR, the Kaliningrad Oblast became a strategically important area during the Cold War. The Soviet Baltic Fleet was headquartered in the city in the 1950s. Because of its strategic importance, Kaliningrad was closed to foreign visitors.

In 1957 an agreement was signed and later came into force which delimited the border between Poland and the Soviet Union.[17][18]

Russia[edit]The town of Baltiysk, just outside Kaliningrad, is the only Russian Baltic Sea port said to be "ice-free" all year round, and the region hence plays an important role in maintenance of the Baltic Fleet.

Due to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Kaliningrad Oblast became an exclave, geographically separated from the rest of Russia. This isolation from the rest of Russia became even more pronounced politically when Poland and Lithuania became members of NATO and subsequently the European Union in 2004. All military and civilian land links between the region and the rest of Russia have to pass through members of NATO and the EU. Special travel arrangements for the territory's inhabitants have been made through the Facilitated Transit Document (FTD) and Facilitated Rail Transit Document (FRTD).

Since the early 1990s, the Kaliningrad oblast has been a Free Economic Zone (FEZ Yantar).

In July 2007, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov declared that if US-controlled missile defense systems were deployed in Poland, then nuclear weapons might be deployed in Kaliningrad. On November 5, 2008, Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev said that installing missiles in Kaliningrad was almost a certainty.[19] These plans were suspended, however, in January 2009.[20]

But during late 2011, a long range Voronezh radar was commissioned to monitor missile launches within about 6,000 kilometres (3,728 miles). It is situated in the settlement of Pionersky (formerly German Neukuhren) in Kaliningrad Oblast.[21]

Administrative and municipal status[edit]Kaliningrad is the administrative center of the oblast.[3] Within the framework of administrative divisions, it is incorporated as the city of oblast significance of Kaliningrad'--an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts.[1] As a municipal division, the city of oblast significance of Kaliningrad is incorporated as Kaliningrad Urban Okrug.[4]

City districts[edit]As of 2014[update], the city was divided into three administrative districts:

City districtRussian nameInhabitants2010 Census[8]NotesMoskovskyÐ'осковский152,165Named after the Russian capital, MoscowLeningradskyЛенинÐ"Ñадский159,771named after Leningrad, now Saint PetersburgTsentralnyÐ...ентÑаÐ>>ьный119,966lit. central, as it lies to the northwest of the historical city centerTwo administrative districts were abolished in June 2009:

Climate[edit]Kaliningrad has a temperate climate, Oceanic climate (Cfb), with cool, cloudy, moderate winters and mild summers with frequent showers and thunderstorms. Average temperatures range from ''1.5 to +18.1 °C (29.3 to 64.6 °F) and rainfall varies from 36.0 millimeters (1.42 in)/month to 97.0 millimeters (3.82 in)/month. In general, it is a maritime climate and therefore damp, variable and mild. There is still a continental tendency with vast temperature differences between July and January.

The seasons are clearly differentiated. Spring starts in March and is initially cold and windy, later becoming pleasantly warm and often very sunny. Summer, which begins in June, is predominantly warm but hot at times (with temperature reaching as high as +30''+35 °C (86''95 °F) at least once per year) with plenty of sunshine interspersed with heavy rain. The average annual hours of sunshine for Kaliningrad are 1700, similar to other northern cities. July and August are the hottest months. Autumn comes in September and is at first warm and usually sunny, turning cold, damp and foggy in November. Winter lasts from December to March and includes periods of snow. January and February are the coldest months with the temperature sometimes dropping as low as ''15 °C (5 °F).

Climate data for KaliningradMonthJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecYearRecord high °C (°F)12.7(54.9)15.6(60.1)23.0(73.4)28.5(83.3)30.6(87.1)33.5(92.3)36.3(97.3)36.5(97.7)33.8(92.8)26.4(79.5)19.4(66.9)13.3(55.9)36.5(97.7)Average high °C (°F)0.7(33.3)1.5(34.7)5.6(42.1)12.3(54.1)18.0(64.4)20.5(68.9)23.0(73.4)22.6(72.7)17.6(63.7)12.1(53.8)5.6(42.1)1.9(35.4)11.8(53.2)Daily mean °C (°F)''1.5(29.3)''1.1(30)2.0(35.6)7.3(45.1)12.5(54.5)15.5(59.9)18.1(64.6)17.6(63.7)13.1(55.6)8.4(47.1)3.3(37.9)''0.3(31.5)7.9(46.2)Average low °C (°F)''3.9(25)''3.6(25.5)''1.1(30)2.9(37.2)7.4(45.3)10.9(51.6)13.6(56.5)13.1(55.6)9.2(48.6)5.2(41.4)1.1(34)''2.5(27.5)4.4(39.9)Record low °C (°F)''32.5(''26.5)''33.3(''27.9)''21.7(''7.1)''5.8(21.6)''3.1(26.4)0.7(33.3)4.5(40.1)1.6(34.9)''2.0(28.4)''11.2(11.8)''18.7(''1.7)''25.6(''14.1)''33.3(''27.9)Average precipitation mm (inches)68(2.68)49(1.93)52(2.05)36(1.42)54(2.13)79(3.11)77(3.03)97(3.82)74(2.91)82(3.23)83(3.27)73(2.87)824(32.44)Average rainy days141314141416151617181816185Average snowy days15151030.10000171364Average relative humidity (%)85837872717475778183868779Mean monthly sunshine hours35611201712532642572281589638261,707Source #1: Pogoda.ru.net[22]Source #2: NOAA (sun 1961''1990)[23]Cityscape[edit]Museums[edit]Kaliningrad has many museums. A few examples are the Immanuel Kant museum on the Kneiphof island, the Regional Museum of History and Arts, which has parts of K¶nigsberg Castle's Prussia Museum of local archaeological findings, and the Kaliningrad Amber Museum, which is situated in the Dohna Tower near the Rossgarten Gate. The city is also home to the Kaliningrad State Art Gallery, established in 1988, that is developing as a contemporary art museum.[24] The Museum of the World's Oceans is located on the former research vessel Wityaz on the shore of the Pregel river. The museum displays the newest technologies on sea research and also shows the diversity of the flora and fauna of the world's oceans. An anchored Foxtrot-class submarine next to the museum, the B-413, hosts an exhibit about the Russian submarine fleet.

Theatre[edit]The Kaliningrad Philharmonic Orchestra is accommodated in the former Catholic Church of the Holy Family of K¶nigsberg, built in 1907. The church escaped major damage in World War II and was refurbished afterwards. The building, which has noted acoustics, functions as an organ hall since re-opening in 1980.

The Kaliningrad Regional Drama Theater is located in the former K¶nigsberg Neues Schauspielhaus, which was opened in 1910. The building was rebuilt after the war using earlier plans for the theater and opened in 1960. The colonnade in front of the entrance was modeled after the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.

The regionally notable Kaliningrad Puppet Theater has had its seat since 1975 in the Queen Louise Remembrance Church. This neo-romantic church, designed by architect Fritz Heitmann, was built in 1901.

Architecture[edit]The pre-war city center (Altstadt and Kneiphof) currently consists of parks, broad avenues, a square on the site of the former K¶nigsberg Castle, and two buildings: the House of Soviets ("Dom Sovyetov"), roughly on the site of the former castle, and the restored K¶nigsberg Cathedral on the Kneiphof island (now "Kant island"). Immanuel Kant's grave is situated next to the cathedral. Many German-era buildings in the historic city center have been preserved and even rebuilt, including the reconstruction of the K¶nigsberg Synagogue. The new city center is concentrated around Victory Square. The Cathedral of Christ the Savior, consecrated in 2005, is located on that square.

The oldest building in Kaliningrad is the Juditten Church (built before 1288). Also worth seeing are the former Stock Exchange, the surviving churches, and the remaining city gates. In counter-clockwise order these gates are: the Sackheim Gate, King's Gate, Rossgarten Gate, Attack Gate (German: Ausfallstor, or Sally Port), Railway Gate (Eisenbahntor), Brandenburg Gate, and Friedland Gate (Friedl¤nder Tor (Kaliningrad) (de)). Apart from the already mentioned Dohna Tower, which houses the Amber Museum, the Wrangel Tower also remains as a reminder of the former K¶nigsberg city walls. Only the gate of the former Fort Friedrichsburg remains.

Monuments[edit]Notable monuments include the statue of Immanuel Kant in front of the Immanuel Kant State University of Russia. The statue was made by notable sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch and unveiled in 1864. The statue was destroyed in 1945, but was remoulded in 1992 on the initiative of Marion D¶nhoff, a native East Prussian who became prominent in the West. Also worth seeing is the Cosmonaut monument, which honours the Kaliningrad cosmonauts Alexei Leonov, Yuri Romanenko and Aleksandr Viktorenko. Other statues and monuments include the statue for Duke Albert, the statue for Friedrich Schiller, the statue for Tsar Peter the Great, Vladimir Vysotsky, the "Mother Russia" monument, and the Monument for the 1200 Guardsmen, remembering the Battle of K¶nigsberg.

Parks[edit]The Kaliningrad Zoo was opened as the K¶nigsberg Zoo in 1896. The collection, which extends over 16.5 ha, comprises 315 species with a total of 2,264 individual animals (as of 2005[update]). The Kaliningrad Zoo is also an arboretum.

Ponds[edit]Centrally located in the city is Lower Pond, an artificial lake. Lower Pond is surrounded by a promenade and is an area for recreation especially in summer. North of the Lower Pond is the larger Upper Pond in northern Kaliningrad.

Bridges[edit]Leonhard Euler's 1736 paper on the puzzle of the Seven Bridges of K¶nigsberg was a seminal work in the field of topology. Only two of the structures from his era survive.

Culture[edit]Education[edit]An important education centre in Kaliningrad is the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University. It is the successor to the Albertina, which was the old university of K¶nigsberg founded in 1544, and whose faculty included noted scholars as Abraomas Kulvietis, Stanislovas Rapalionis, Immanuel Kant, and Jan Mikulicz-Radecki.

Music[edit]The modern city of Kaliningrad is home to the Kaliningrad Regional Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestra, the Lik male chamber choir and the GarmonikaRussian music ensemble,[25] as well as the Kaliningrad Chamber Orchestra.[26]

Cuisine[edit]Kaliningrad has its own vodka and beer brands, Stari K¶nigsberg and Ostmark respectively. Since the early 1990s many new restaurants have opened in the city. These restaurants offer culinary specialities of former East Prussia, like K¶nigsberger Klopse, but also many fish and salad dishes, Italian pizza and sushi, which is as popular in Kaliningrad as in the rest of Russia. K¶nigsberger Fleck, a bovine tripe soup and yet another culinary specialty from former K¶nigsberg, no longer belongs to the culinary culture of Kaliningrad.

The people of Kaliningrad generally imported their respective culinary traditions to the region when they settled in the area after 1945. Borshch and okroshka may be served as in the rest of Russia. Many Italian and Asian restaurants (or fusions of both traditions) are in operation all over the city. Pizza and sushi are among the most popular dishes today. Fast food is widely available from various chains, including those of foreign origin: McDonald's and Subway began operations in Kaliningrad in 2011. Shawarma is also gaining considerable prominence.

Transportation[edit]Kaliningrad's Khrabrovo Airport, located near Khrabrovo, mainly connects Kaliningrad to other Russian cities, but also offers flights to other European cities. In Baltiysk, one can take a ferry to St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Riga, and Kiel. Kaliningrad's international railway station is Kaliningrad Passazhirsky, which in German times was known as K¶nigsberg Hauptbahnhof. Trains depart in the directions of Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Adler and Chelyabinsk. A unique feature of the Kaliningrad railway is that some tracks in the direction of Poland and Berlin have a standard gauge of 1,435-millimeter (56.5 in) track parallel to the commonly Russian broad gauge of 1,520 millimeters (60 in) mostly for strategic reasons during the Cold War and nowadays for goods traffic. Platform number 6 at the Passazhirsky station can be reached on standard gauge over the former Ostbahn main line from Elbing (Elblag) making passenger through traffic from Berlin possible.

Regional trains also depart from Kaliningrad-North, the former K¶nigsberg Nordbahnhof, which is situated on Victory Square, the current city center. Trains depart to Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk, and also once a day to Sovetsk. The lines to the Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk have been electrified. Many local pre-war lines have been broken up or are no longer in use, also because the new border with Poland completely disrupted the former traffic flows.

In 1881, the K¶nigsberg tramway system was opened, and it still functions to this day. In 1975, a trolleybus system was also introduced.

Mercedes-Benz bus. Pobedy Square (Victory Square)

Economy[edit]In 1996, Kaliningrad was designated a Special Economic Zone, referred to as FEZ Yantar. Manufacturers based there get tax and customs duty breaks on the goods they send to other parts of Russia. Although corruption was an early deterrent, that policy means the region is now a manufacturing hub. One in three televisions in Russia is made in Kaliningrad (including Ericsson brand by Telebalt Ltd. and Polar by an eponymous firm located in the city of Chernyakhovsk) and it is home to Cadillac, Hummer and BMW related car plants (produced by Avtotor). Currently, Kaliningrad's major industries are manufacturing, shipping, fishing and amber products. In 2006, Moscow declared it would turn the region into "the Russian Hong Kong".[27]

The European Commission provides funds for business projects under its special programme for Kaliningrad. With an average GDP growth of more than 10% per year for three years to 2007, Kaliningrad grew faster than any other region in Russia, even outstripping the success of its EU neighbours.[citation needed] By early 2015, the BBC reported the region's trade with the countries of the EU was increasing, with improved economic growth and industrial output.[28]

Military[edit]Kaliningrad Oblast used to be the most heavily militarized area of what is now the Russian Federation, and the density of military infrastructure was the highest in Europe. It was the headquarters of the former Soviet Baltic Military District. Kaliningrad also functions as the headquarters of the Russia's Baltic Fleet, ringed by Chernyakhovsk (air base), Donskoye (air base) and Kaliningrad Chkalovsk (naval air base).

Soviet era[edit]Access and control to the Baltic Sea was imperative because of Soviet perceptions that this meant that the hegemonic power had "influence on European and global affairs". Russia had replaced Sweden as the hegemon since the 18th century, but during the late 19th and early 20th century it was increasingly ousted by Germany's growing naval power.[29] At any point in time during the Soviet era, there would be at least 100,000 troops stationed in Kaliningrad (though there are some estimates that run up to 300,000). Therefore, the population of the city was fluid and almost always temporary. Many military officers and their families would refer to the Kaliningrad Oblast as "the West". The Soviet Union also kept nuclear weapons for use in case a war occurred.[30]

Diplomatic missions[edit]In 2004 Germany opened a consulate general in Kaliningrad. This consulate allows Kaliningrad residents to get Schengen visas without having to travel to Moscow. An agreement between Gerhard Schr¶der, Chancellor of Germany, and President of RussiaVladimir Putin established the consulate in light of Lithuania and Poland, which surround Kaliningrad, joining the EU. Russian concerns with Germany wanting the former K¶nigsberg back had stifled earlier plans for a German consulate.[31]

As of 2004[update] the German consulate was still in the process of getting a new building.[32]

Poles in Kaliningrad[edit]In the 1940s and 1950s the Soviets resettled Poles from Belarus, the Baltic states, Ukraine, and Russia to Kaliningrad.[33] According to Wacław Podbereski after the Second World War and the takeover of the administration in these areas by the Soviets, the development of the Polish element in this region effectively ceased.[34] The oldest church in K¶nigsberg was the Polish church of St. Nicholas, which had been founded with the city in 1255 in the historic district of Steindamm and was dismantled in 1950.[34] Change came with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, due mainly to pastoral activities that began the repolonization of the Poles in Russia. The first steps were made by a Polish priest from Grodno (Hrodna), Fr. Jerzy Steckiewicz.[35]

The "Polish Cultural Community in Kaliningrad" operates as the main Polish organization among Kaliningrad's Polonia, one of six such Polish organizations within Kaliningrad Oblast.[35][36]Wspolnota Polska estimates that it is likely there are between 15,000 and 20,000 Poles living in the entire oblast. The "Polish Cultural Community in Kaliningrad" organizes poetry contests and is the publisher of the local Polish language newspaper "The Voice from the Pregel".[36] The whole Kaliningrad Oblast has witnessed an increase in Polish cultural activity since the fall of the Soviet Union, partly due to the immigration of Polish families from Kazakhstan, who had been deported by Stalin during the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939.[33]

Kaliningrad is home to the football club FC Baltika Kaliningrad, which plays in the Football Championship of the National League (formerly Russian First Division). It played in the Russian Premier League for 3 seasons between 1996 and 1998.

Kaliningrad will be the host of some games in the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Notable people[edit]International relations[edit]Small border traffic law[edit]Poland and the Russian Federation have an arrangement whereby residents of Kaliningrad and the Polish cities of Olsztyn, Elbląg and GdaÅsk may obtain special cards permitting repeated travel between the two countries, crossing the Polish''Russian border. As of July 2013, Poland had issued 100,000 of the cards. That year, Russians visiting Poland to shop at the Biedronka and Lidl supermarkets featured in songs by musical group Parovoz.[37]

Twin towns and sister cities[edit]Kaliningrad is twinned with[38][39]

Partner cities[edit]Kaliningrad is also partnered with:

See also[edit]References[edit]Notes[edit]^ abcdeResolution #640^Article 6 of the Charter of Kaliningrad states that the city may have an anthem, providing one is officially adopted. As of 2015[update], an anthem is not listed among the symbols of the city shown on the official website of Kaliningrad.^ abLaw #463^ abcLaw #397^Official website of Kaliningrad. Head of the City, Alexander Georgiyevich Yaroshuk. (Russian)^ abCharter of Kaliningrad, Article 25^ abcOfficial website of Kaliningrad. Passport of Kaliningrad Urban Okrug. (Russian)^ abcRussian Federal State Statistics Service (2011). "Ð'сеÑоссийская ÐеÑеÐись насеÐ>>ения 2010 Ð"ода. Ðом 1" [2010 All-Russian Population Census, vol. 1]. Ð'сеÑоссийская ÐеÑеÐись насеÐ>>ения 2010 Ð"ода (2010 All-Russia Population Census) (in Russian). Federal State Statistics Service. Retrieved June 29, 2012. ^Kaliningrad Oblast Territorial Branch of the Federal State Statistics Service. Оценка чисÐ>>енности насеÐ>>ения КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñадской обÐ>>асти Ðо состоянию на 1 янваÑя 2014 Ð"ода(Russian)^ПÑавитеÐ>>ьство Российской ФедеÑации. ФедеÑаÐ>>ьный закон '–107-ФЗ от 3 июня 2011 Ð". Об исчисÐ>>ении вÑемени>>, в Ñед. ФедеÑаÐ>>ьноÐ"о закона '–271-ФЗ от 03 июÐ>>я 2016 Ð". О внесении изменений в ФедеÑаÐ>>ьный закон "Об исчисÐ>>ении вÑемени">>. Ð'стуÐиÐ>> в сиÐ>>у Ðо истечении Ñестидесяти дней ÐосÐ>>е дня оÑициаÐ>>ьноÐ"о оÐубÐ>>икования (6 авÐ"уста 2011 Ð".). ОÐубÐ>>икован: "Российская Ð"азета", '–120, 6 июня 2011 Ð". (Government of the Russian Federation. Federal Law #107-FZ of June 31, 2011 On Calculating Time, as amended by the Federal Law #271-FZ of July 03, 2016 On Amending Federal Law "On Calculating Time". Effective as of after sixty days following the day of the official publication.).^ abcDecree of July 4, 1946^Почта России. ÐнÑоÑмационно-вычисÐ>>итеÐ>>ьный Ñ†ÐµÐ½Ñ‚Ñ ÐžÐÐУ РПО. (Russian Post). Поиск объектов Ðочтовой связи (Postal Objects Search) (Russian)^"The New York Times". nytimes.com. Retrieved 2014-12-29. ^ abRussian Federal State Statistics Service (May 21, 2004). "ЧисÐ>>енность насеÐ>>ения России, субъектов Российской ФедеÑации в составе ÑедеÑаÐ>>ьных окÑуÐ"ов, Ñайонов, Ð"оÑодских ÐосеÐ>>ений, сеÐ>>ьских насеÐ>>ённых Ðунктов '' Ñайонных центÑов и сеÐ>>ьских насеÐ>>ённых Ðунктов с насеÐ>>ением 3 тысячи и боÐ>>ее чеÐ>>овек" [Population of Russia, Its Federal Districts, Federal Subjects, Districts, Urban Localities, Rural Localities'--Administrative Centers, and Rural Localities with Population of Over 3,000](XLS). Ð'сеÑоссийская ÐеÑеÐись насеÐ>>ения 2002 Ð"ода [All-Russia Population Census of 2002] (in Russian). Retrieved August 9, 2014. ^The Monthly Review. R. Griffiths. 1836. p. 609. Retrieved December 29, 2014. ^"THE POTSDAM DECLARATION". ibiblio.org. Retrieved 2014-12-29. ^"Russia (USSR) / Poland Treaty (with annexed maps) concerning the Demarcation of the Existing Soviet-Polish State Frontier in the Sector Adjoining the Baltic Sea 5 March 1957"(PDF). un.org. Retrieved 2014-12-29. ^For other issues of the frontier delimitation see "Maritime boundary delimitation agreements and other material". un.org. Retrieved 2014-12-29. ^"Medvedev Says Russia to Deploy Missiles Near Poland" Associated Press via Yahoo News[dead link]^Luke Harding in Moscow (2009-01-28). ""Russia scraps plans to deploy nuclear-capable missiles in Kaliningrad" The". Guardian. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^28.11.2011 (2011-11-28). ""Russia's new radar to monitor all Europe including Britain" Pravda 28.11.2011". English.pravda.ru. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^"Weather and Climate-The Climate of Kaliningrad" (in Russian). ПоÐ"ода и кÐ>>имат. Retrieved April 5, 2016. ^"Kaliningrad Climate Normals 1961''1990". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Retrieved April 5, 2016. ^"Kaliningrad State Art Gallery". www.russianmuseums.info. 2014. Retrieved 2014-06-21. ^"Russia's Daily Online". Kommersant. Retrieved 2009-06-27. ^"Shostakovich & Schnittke Concertos". Classicstoday.com. Retrieved 2014-01-31. ^Sheeter, Laura (2006-10-16). "'Kaliningrad erases stains of past' 16 October 2006". BBC News. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^"'Regions and territories: Kaliningrad' 18 December 2007". BBC News. 2013-10-05. Retrieved 2013-12-21. \^Knudsen, Olav F. (1999). Stability and Security in the Baltic Sea Region. Portland, OR: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd. p. 38. ISBN 0-7146-4932-5. ^Krickus, Richard (2002). The Kaliningrad Question. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. p. 42. ^"Fischer Establishes German Outpost in Kaliningrad." Deutsche Welle. 12 February 2004. Retrieved on 16 May 2016.^Kovalev, Vladimir. "No Building for German Consulate." The Moscow Times. August 30, 2004. Retrieved on May 16, 2016.^ abWsp"lnota Polska (2012-12-17). "Stowarzyszenie Wsp"lnota Polska". Archiwum.wspolnotapolska.org.pl. Retrieved 2013-03-12. ^ abWacław Podbereski, Sąsiedzi: Kr"lewiec '' Koenigsberg '' Kaliningrad [w:] "Znad Wilii" nr 4(44) 2010, s. 113-117^ ab"Plac"wki Dyplomatyczne Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej". Kaliningradkg.polemb.net. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^ ab"Consulate General in Kaliningrad". Kaliningradkg.polemb.net. Retrieved 2013-12-21. ^A.C. (2013-10-08). "Poland and Kaliningrad: Small Border Traffic". Economist blog. Retrieved 2014-12-29. ^ ab"Ð'оÑода-ÐаÑтнёÑы" (in Russian). Kaliningrad City Hall. Archived from the original on April 22, 2009. Retrieved 2008-12-08. ^Luhn, Alec (20 November 2011). "Kaliningrad". The Moscow Times. Retrieved 26 February 2016. ^"Aalborg Twin Towns". Europeprize.net. Retrieved 2013-08-19. ^"Kaliningrad information". E-gorod.ru. Retrieved December 21, 2013. ^Korolczuk, Dariusz (January 12, 2010). "Foreign cooperation - Partner Cities". Białystok City Council. City Office in Białystok. Retrieved March 22, 2013. ^"Elbląg - Podstrony / Miasta partnerskie". Elbląski Dziennik Internetowy (in Polish). Archived from the original on March 15, 2011. Retrieved 2014-12-29. ^"Elbląg - Miasta partnerskie". Elbląg.net (in Polish). Retrieved 2013-08-01. ^"GdaÅsk Official Website: 'Miasta partnerskie'". gdansk.pl (in Polish and English). Urząd Miejski w GdaÅsku. 2009. Retrieved July 11, 2009. ^P.C., Net. "Gdynia - International Gdynia - International co-operation of Gdynia". www.gdynia.pl. ^"Groningen - Partner Cities". (C) 2008 Gemeente Groningen, Kreupelstraat 1,9712 HW Groningen. Retrieved December 8, 2008. ^"Miasta partnerskie - Urząd Miasta Łodzi". City of Ł"dź (in Polish). Archived from the original on June 24, 2013. Retrieved December 29, 2014. ^"V¤norter" (in Swedish). Malm¶ stad. Retrieved November 6, 2013. ^"Miasta bliźniacze Torunia" [ToruÅ's twin towns]. Urząd Miasta Torunia [City of ToruÅ Council] (in Polish). Retrieved August 22, 2013. ^"Yerevan - Partner Cities". Yerevan Municipality Official Website. (C)2005''2013 www.yerevan.am. Retrieved November 4, 2013. Sources[edit]Ð'оÑодской Ðовет деÐутатов КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñада. РеÑение '–257 от 12 июÐ>>я 2007 Ð". О ÐÑинятии Устава Ð"оÑодскоÐ"о окÑуÐ"а "Ð'оÑод КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñад">>, в Ñед. РеÑения '–215 от 16 июÐ>>я 2014 Ð". О внесении изменений и доÐоÐ>>нений в Устав Ð"оÑодскоÐ"о окÑуÐ"а "Ð'оÑод КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñад", утвеÑждённый РеÑением Ð"оÑодскоÐ"о Ðовета деÐутатов КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñада от 12 июÐ>>я 2007 Ð". '–257>>. Ð'стуÐиÐ>> в сиÐ>>у 22 июÐ>>я 2007 Ð". (за искÐ>>ючением отдеÐ>>ьных ÐоÐ>>ожений). ОÐубÐ>>икован: "Ð'Ñажданин" (сÐециаÐ>>ьный выÐуск), '–12, 21 июÐ>>я 2007 Ð". (City Council of Deputies of Kaliningrad. Decision #257 of July 12, 2007 On Adopting the Charter of the Urban Okrug of the "City of Kaliningrad", as amended by the Decision #215 of July 16, 2014 On Amending and Supplementing the Charter of the Urban Okrug of the "City of Kaliningrad", Adopted by Decision #257 by the City Council of Deputies of Kaliningrad Decision on July 12, 2007. Effective as of July 22, 2007 (with the exception of certain clauses).).КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñадская обÐ>>астная Ð--ума. Закон '–463 от 27 мая 2010 Ð". Об администÑативно-теÑÑитоÑиаÐ>>ьном устÑойстве КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñадской обÐ>>асти>>, в Ñед. Закона '–281 от 6 декабÑя 2013 Ð". О ÐоÑядке ÑассмотÑения КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñадской обÐ>>астной Ð--умой ÐÑедÐ>>ожений о ÐÑисвоении наименований Ð"еоÐ"ÑаÑическим объектам иÐ>>и их ÐеÑеименовании, инÑоÑмиÑования насеÐ>>ения и выявÐ>>ения еÐ"о мнения о ÐÑисвоении наименований Ð"еоÐ"ÑаÑическим объектам иÐ>>и их ÐеÑеименовании на теÑÑитоÑии КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñадской обÐ>>асти>>. Ð'стуÐиÐ>> в сиÐ>>у со дня оÑициаÐ>>ьноÐ"о оÐубÐ>>икования. ОÐубÐ>>икован: "КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñадская ÐÑавда" (вкÐ>>Ð°Ð´Ñ‹Ñ "Ð'едомости ПÑавитеÐ>>ьства КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñадской обÐ>>асти"), '–112, 26 июня 2010 Ð". (Kaliningrad Oblast Duma. Law #463 of May 27, 2010 On the Administrative-Territorial Structure of Kaliningrad Oblast, as amended by the Law #281 of December 6, 2013 On the Process Used by the Kaliningrad Oblast Duma to Consider the Proposals to Assign Names to Geographic Objects or to Rename Them, to Inform the Populace and Gather Their Opinion on Assigning Names to Geographic Objects or Renaming Them on the Territory of Kaliningrad Oblast. Effective as of the day of the official publication.).ПÑавитеÐ>>ьство КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñадской обÐ>>асти. ПостановÐ>>ение '–640 от 30 авÐ"уста 2011 Ð". Об утвеÑждении ÑеестÑа объектов администÑативно-теÑÑитоÑиаÐ>>ьноÐ"о деÐ>>ения КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñадской обÐ>>асти>>, в Ñед. ПостановÐ>>ения '–877 от 21 ноябÑя 2011 Ð" О внесении изменения в ПостановÐ>>ение ПÑавитеÐ>>ьства КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñадской обÐ>>асти от 30 авÐ"уста 2011 Ð". '–640>>. Ð'стуÐиÐ>> в сиÐ>>у со дня оÑициаÐ>>ьноÐ"о оÐубÐ>>икования. ОÐубÐ>>икован: "КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñадская ÐÑавда" (вкÐ>>Ð°Ð´Ñ‹Ñ "ОÑициаÐ>>ьно"), '–170, 15 сентябÑя 2011 Ð". (Government of Kaliningrad Oblast. Resolution #640 of August 30, 2011 On the Adoption of the Registry of the Objects of the Administrative-Territorial Divisions of Kaliningrad Oblast, as amended by the Resolution #877 of November 21, 2011 On Amending the Resolution of the Government of Kaliningrad Oblast #640 of August 30, 2011. Effective as of the day of the official publication.).КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñадская обÐ>>астная Ð--ума. Закон '–397 от 15 мая 2004 Ð". О надеÐ>>ении мунициÐаÐ>>ьноÐ"о обÑазования "Ð'оÑод КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñад" статусом Ð"оÑодскоÐ"о окÑуÐ"а>>, в Ñед. Закона '–370 от 1 июÐ>>я 2009 Ð" О составе теÑÑитоÑий мунициÐаÐ>>ьных обÑазований КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñадской обÐ>>асти>>. Ð'стуÐиÐ>> в сиÐ>>у со дня оÑициаÐ>>ьноÐ"о оÐубÐ>>икования. ОÐубÐ>>икован: "Российская Ð"азета" ("ЗаÐад России"), '–115, 3 июня 2004 Ð". (Kaliningrad Oblast Duma. Law #397 of May 15, 2004 On Granting the Urban Okrug Status to the Municipal Formation of the "City of Kaliningrad", as amended by the Law #370 of July 1, 2009 On the Composition of the Territories of the Municipal Formations of Kaliningrad Oblast. Effective as of the day of the official publication.).Vesilind, Priit J. "Kaliningrad: Coping with a German Past and a Russian Future", National Geographic, March 1997.Berger, Stefan "A City and Its Past. Popular Histories in Kaliningrad between Regionalization and Nationalization", in: Popularizing National Past. 1800 to Present, Edited by Stefan Berger, Chirs Lorenz, and Billie Melman, Routledge 2012, pp. 288''307.Kaliningrad Region, General Information Kommersant, Russia's daily On-lineПÑезидиум Ð'еÑховноÐ"о Ðовета ÐÐÐÐ . Указ от 4 июÐ>>я 1946 Ð". О ÐеÑеименовании Ð"оÑода КёниÐ"сбеÑÐ"а в Ð"оÑод КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñад и КёниÐ"сбеÑÐ"ской обÐ>>асти в КаÐ>>ининÐ"Ñадскую обÐ>>асть>>. (Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Decree of July 4, 1946 On Changing the Name of the City of Kyonigsberg to the City of Kaliningrad and the Name of Kyonigsberg Oblast to Kaliningrad Oblast. ).Further reading[edit]External links[edit]

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 02:19

Hello,

We're developing an web server, which is controlled by a web browser. Mostly by MS windows IE, FF, Chrome and Safari.

The website is a standard HTML/CSS/javascript type of thing.

Currently, we've faced a problem on MAC book OSX 10.10.5 with latest Safari 9.1.2. We can't load the Javascript on it correctly ?

This problem never happend previously on the elder verion Safari 8.0.6 and Safari 8.0.8. But it just happened now, though we didn't make any changes on the HTML codes.

When we check the "Show the page", it shows several error, which is listed as below

"Blocked scrip execution in 'http://192.168.3.81/general.html' because the document's frame is sandboxed and the 'allow-script' pemission is not set.

Sandboxing 'http://192.168.3.81/jquery-ui1.11.4.css' because it's using HTTP/0.9.

Sandboxing 'http://192.168.3.81/logo.png' because it's using HTTP/0.9."

I've even hacked my webserver as well by trying to send...

Content-Security-Policy; sandbox 'allow-scripts' 'allow-same-origin';

But it can't works anyway. Nowsdays, we're very headache on this problem, and seems all the effeort is used, but have not any progress on it. Could you please check and response on this issues ASAP ?

Thanks

Owen

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Archived Version

Tue, 17 Jan 2017 13:35

The last time we did this was back in 2014, so we thought it was time for an update. Not a lot of surprises but as we predicted when streaming numbers grow, the per stream rate will drop. This data set is isolated to the calendar year 2016 and represents an indie label with an approximately 150 album catalog generating over 115m streams. That's a pretty good sample size. All rates are gross before distribution fees.

Spotify was paying .00521 back in 2014, two years later the aggregate net average per play has dropped to .00437 a reduction of 16%.

YouTube now has their licensed, subscription service (formerly YouTube Red?) represented in these numbers as opposed to the Artist Channel and Content ID numbers we used last time. Just looking at the new YouTube subscription service numbers isolated here, they generate over 21% of all licensed audio streams, but less than 4% of revenue! By comparison Apple Music generates 7% of all streams and 13% of revenue.

Speaking of Apple, they sit in the sweet spot generating the second largest amount of streaming revenue with a per stream rate .00735, nearly double what Spotify is paying. But, Spotify has a near monopoly on streaming market share dominating 63% of all streams and 69% of all streaming revenue. The top 10 streamers account for 99% of all streaming revenue.

To put this list in the context of our 2014 numbers we're adding the chart below with the data sorted by the quantity of streaming plays required to match the revenue of a single song or album download. This is important as we work towards defining and setting a fair per stream rate and also setting an accurate economic equivalent of streams to songs and albums for the purposes of charting.

Billboard currently calculates 1,500 streams to one album for the purposes of charting, which at current streaming rates actually matches an economic equivalent. However, that is most likely a highly excessive numbers of plays to achieve that economic equivalent. But, more on that later'...

Keep in mind every streaming service has a key piece of data that would allow artists and labels to set a fair per stream rate. Every on demand streaming service, Apple, Spotify, Tidal, Google Play all know how many times a song is played (per person) on average over time. This is the data that is key to setting fair streaming rates. Who will share this information? Apple, Jimmy Iovine, we're looking at you.

HOW WE CALCULATED THE STREAMS PER SONG / ALBUM RATE:As streaming services only pay master royalties (to labels) and not publishing, the publishing has to be deducted from the master share to arrive at the comparable cost per song/album.$.99 Song is $.70 wholesale after 30% fee. Deduct 1 full stat mechanical at $.091 = $.609 per song.Multiply the above by 10x's and you get the album equivalent of $6.09 per album[EDITORS NOTE: All of the data above is aggregated. In all cases the total amount of revenue is divided by the total number of the streams per service (ex: $5,210 / 1,000,000 = .00521 per stream). In cases where there are multiple tiers and pricing structures (like Spotify), these are all summed together and divided to create an averaged, single rate per play.][royalties][streaming royalties][music royalties][royalty rates]

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Wed, 18 Jan 2017 20:42

We humans like to engage in something called ''moral licensing.'' Like a child who earns the right to stay up late after acing a test, we tend to follow up a moral act by giving ourselves greater leeway to do something amoral. And it's not just following big things like large charitable donations or tough volunteer work. A new study by Kendall Eskine of Loyola University finds we engage in moral licensing when the moral action is something as simple as eating organic food.

Although organic foods are often marketed with moral terms (e.g., Honest Tea, Purity Life, and Smart Balance), no research to date has investigated the extent to which exposure to organic foods influences moral judgments or behavior. After viewing a few organic foods, comfort foods, or control foods, participants who were exposed to organic foods volunteered significantly less time to help a needy stranger, and they judged moral transgressions significantly harsher than those who viewed nonorganic foods. These results suggest that exposure to organic foods may lead people to affirm their moral identities, which attenuates their desire to be altruistic.

Before the hippie-bashing, anti-eco-health factions out there start claiming that organic food makes you selfish, it's worth pointing out that for people of a certain ideology, affirming your moral identity by ''buying American'' or protesting an abortion clinic might lead to a similar decrease in altruism.

Partisan sniping aside, the study is interesting because it shows the relative unimportance of certain things that influence our moral identity. If, as moral licensing research implies, we alter our behavior to remain at the same general level of morality, it means each new moral act could be crowding out the need to perform a different moral act. For example, if you decide to start volunteering at the homeless shelter, you can now maintain your moral identity without having to make your annual donation to the food bank.

Given these circumstances it's extremely important that an action's effect on a person's moral identity properly correspond to the action's effect on society. We don't want somebody deciding to not write a $10,000 check to a homeless shelter because they feel ''moral enough'' from shopping at Whole Foods. That's an extreme example, but I think the fact that organic food can influence moral decisions means our mental accounting in this area isn't great, and therefore the magnitude with which an action affirms our moral identity probably does not perfectly correspond to what that action means for society. Obviously a lot more research needs to be done, but it's conceivable that relatively meaningless moral acts (e.g. buying organic) could be crowding out more meaningful moral acts (e.g. important volunteer work.)

'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--Eskine, K. (2012). Wholesome Foods and Wholesome Morals? Organic Foods Reduce Prosocial Behavior and Harshen Moral Judgments Social Psychological and Personality Science DOI: 10.1177/1948550612447114

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 06:15

New technology has been developed that uses nuclear waste to generate electricity in a nuclear-powered battery. A team of physicists and chemists from the University of Bristol have grown a man-made diamond that, when placed in a radioactive field, is able to generate a small electrical current.

The development could solve some of the problems of nuclear waste, clean electricity generation and battery life.

This innovative method for radioactive energy was presented at the Cabot Institute's sold-out annual lecture - 'Ideas to change the world'- on Friday, 25 November.

Unlike the majority of electricity-generation technologies, which use energy to move a magnet through a coil of wire to generate a current, the man-made diamond is able to produce a charge simply by being placed in close proximity to a radioactive source.

Tom Scott, Professor in Materials in the University's Interface Analysis Centre and a member of the Cabot Institute, said: ''There are no moving parts involved, no emissions generated and no maintenance required, just direct electricity generation. By encapsulating radioactive material inside diamonds, we turn a long-term problem of nuclear waste into a nuclear-powered battery and a long-term supply of clean energy.''

The team have demonstrated a prototype 'diamond battery' using Nickel-63 as the radiation source. However, they are now working to significantly improve efficiency by utilising carbon-14, a radioactive version of carbon, which is generated in graphite blocks used to moderate the reaction in nuclear power plants. Research by academics at Bristol has shown that the radioactive carbon-14 is concentrated at the surface of these blocks, making it possible to process it to remove the majority of the radioactive material. The extracted carbon-14 is then incorporated into a diamond to produce a nuclear-powered battery.

The UK currently holds almost 95,000 tonnes of graphite blocks and by extracting carbon-14 from them, their radioactivity decreases, reducing the cost and challenge of safely storing this nuclear waste.

Dr Neil Fox from the School of Chemistry explained: ''Carbon-14 was chosen as a source material because it emits a short-range radiation, which is quickly absorbed by any solid material. This would make it dangerous to ingest or touch with your naked skin, but safely held within diamond, no short-range radiation can escape. In fact, diamond is the hardest substance known to man, there is literally nothing we could use that could offer more protection.''

Despite their low-power, relative to current battery technologies, the life-time of these diamond batteries could revolutionise the powering of devices over long timescales. The actual amount of carbon-14 in each battery has yet to be decided but one battery, containing 1g of carbon-14, would deliver 15 Joules per day. This is less than an AA battery. Standard alkaline AA batteries are designed for short timeframe discharge: one battery weighing about 20g has an energy storage rating of 700J/g. If operated continuously, this would run out in 24 hours. Using carbon-14 the battery would take 5,730 years to reach 50 per cent power, which is about as long as human civilization has existed.

Professor Scott added: ''We envision these batteries to be used in situations where it is not feasible to charge or replace conventional batteries. Obvious applications would be in low-power electrical devices where long life of the energy source is needed, such as pacemakers, satellites, high-altitude drones or even spacecraft.

''There are so many possible uses that we're asking the public to come up with suggestions of how they would utilise this technology by using #diamondbattery.''

About the Cabot Institute The University of Bristol Cabot Institute drives world-leading research on how we depend on, live with and affect our planet. It stimulates new thinking and strives for new innovations to meet our social and environmental challenges. Its communities focus on six crucial areas: global environmental change, food, water, low carbon energy, natural hazards and future cities and communities. Each community is driven by outstanding academics with government, industry and society partners from across the globe. Working together, they seek radical and integrated solutions to 21st century challenges.

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Mon, 16 Jan 2017 16:08

(NaturalNews) Donald Trump is no stranger to controversy, including the vaccine debate. In a series of tweets and interviews over the past few years, the presidential candidate has stated that he strongly believes that there is a link between ''monstrous'' vaccines and autism. He has suggested that delivering vaccines in smaller doses over time could reduce autism rates among U.S. children. Despite being cast to the lunatic fringe by the mainstream media for his remarks, CDC scientist Dr. William Thompson has confirmed Trump's suspicions '-- namely, that the link between vaccines and autism is real.

Congressman Bill Posey from Florida helped expose the corruption of the Center for Disease Control (CDC). He recently read a statement on the House floor written by CDC scientist Dr. William Thompson. In the statement, Dr. Thompson admitted to omitting data from a study which showed that autism rates were higher among African American boys who received the MMR vaccination before the age of three.(1)

''Regardless of the subject matter, parents making decisions about their children's health deserve to have the best information available to them. They should be able to count on federal agencies to tell them the truth. For these reasons, I bring the following matter to the House floor,'' Posey stated.(2)

He then proceeded to read the statement provided by Dr. Thompson. The statement pertained to a 2004 study published in the journal Pediatrics. The doctor revealed that he and his colleagues intentionally destroyed data in the study which showed that African American MMR-vaccinated boys under the age of three had a 340 percent increased risk for autism. According to the whistleblower, the CDC held a meeting of scientists to discuss whether they should destroy the evidence. The authors decided to scrap their findings. Fortunately, Dr. Thompson saved computer files and hard copies of the omitted data for legal reasons.(3)

''Mr. Speaker, I believe it is our duty to insure that the documents that Dr. Thompson are not ignored. Therefore I will provide them to members of Congress and the House Committees upon request. Considering the nature of the whistleblower's documents as well as the involvement of the CDC, a hearing and a thorough investigation is warranted,'' Posey concluded.(2)

Because the report pertains to vaccines, the mainstream media continues to ignore these revelations. Meanwhile, they continue to parade Donald Trump as a kook for suggesting that there is a link between vaccines and autism. The double standard boggles the mind and sickens the stomach.

Trump hasn't backed down from the vaccine debate despite the mainstream media's backlash against his remarks. In 2015, he appeared on the conservative radio host Laura Ingraham's show stating, ''I've known people that had totally magnificent children, functioning a hundred percent, everything beautiful, smart as a whip, and they go for this shot and get this shot of this massive dose, of everything at one time, and they end up with horrible autism.''(4)

In addition, Trump stated on a Fox News television program in 2012, ''I've seen people where they have a perfectly healthy child, and they go for the vaccinations and a month later the child is no longer healthy.''(5)

Trump made similar remarks in a series of tweets in 2014, after a CDC report revealed that autism rates in U.S. children had increased by 30 percent in the last two years.(6)

The CDC report that coincided with Trump's tweets did not actually state what caused the spike in autism rates. Given Dr. Thompson's recent testimony, however, it's easy to think of at least one possibility.

Sources include:

(1) NaturalNews.com

(2) SharylAttkisson

(3) NaturalNews.com

(4) TalkingPointsMemo.com

(5) OpposingViews.com

(6) PoliticalTicker.Blogs.CNN.com

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Mon, 16 Jan 2017 18:41

Getty Images

A vehicle belonging the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is parked at the crime scene at Pulse Nightclub on Orange Avenue, June 15, 2016 in Orlando, Florida.

A U.S. law enforcement official says the FBI has arrested the wife of the Orlando nightclub shooter.

The official says Noor Salman was taken into custody Monday morning in the San Francisco area and is due in court Tuesday in California. She's facing charges in Florida including obstruction of justice.

The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Noor Salman moved to the San Francisco area after her husband, Omar Mateen, was killed in a shootout with SWAT team members during the June 12 massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Forty-nine patrons were killed.

Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group during the standoff.

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Wed, 18 Jan 2017 11:29

The parliamentary leader of Germany's largest opposition party has urged the dissolution of the NATO alliance. Her remarks come after US president-elect Donald Trump described it as "obsolete."

German opposition leader Sahra Wagenknecht on Tuesday added her voice to calls to dissolve the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the wake of US President-elect Donald Trump's controversial remarks concerning the military alliance

"NATO must be dissolved and replaced by a collective security system including Russia," Wagenknecht told Germany's "Funke" media group.

Wagenknecht, who leads the opposition Left Party in parliament, added that comments made by the future US president "mercilessly reveal the mistakes and failures of the [German] federal government."

'Very unfair'

In an interview published by German tabloid "Bild," Trump described NATO as an "obsolete" organization.

"I said a long time ago that NATO had problems. Number one it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago," he said.

"We're supposed to protect countries. But a lot of these countries aren't paying what they're supposed to be paying, which I think is very unfair to the United States," Trump added.

Germany's Left Party has previously called for warmer ties with Russia and scrapping the security alliance, measures which appear to be policy concerns for the incoming US administration.

The Left Party is Germany's largest opposition group in parliament, and holds seats in several state legislatures.

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Mon, 16 Jan 2017 17:12

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The discovery was first announced in 2012 in a lecture by Professor Ryanga Myneni of the University of Boston.

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Rising CO2 levels are causing the planet to get greener, Myneni revealed. In the last 30 years, he estimated, the planet's greenery has increased by 14 per cent. About half of this, he calculated, was a direct result of increased carbon dioxide levels, rather than of other factors like warmth, irrigation or fertilisers. And the area covered is vast: as Myneni's co-author Zaichun Zhu, of Beijing University, puts it, it's equivalent to adding a green continent twice the size of mainland USA.

What's more, Myneni showed, this greening is taking place across the board, in all manner of vegetation: tropical rain forests, subarctic taiga, grasslands, semi-deserts, farmland, the lot.

We have reported on this greening before at Breitbart here and here '' and, of course, it's very good news. But it hasn't been widely circulated in much of the media for reasons which will soon become clear.

The first person to break the good news was science author and journalist Matt Ridley, who wrote it up in the Wall Street Journal in a piece titled How Fossil Fuels Have Greened The Planet.

He began:

Did you know that the Earth is getting greener, quite literally? Satellites are now confirming that the amount of green vegetation on the planet has been increasing for three decades. This will be news to those accustomed to alarming tales about deforestation, overdevelopment and ecosystem destruction.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the notion that CO2 could be beneficial was not something the greenies wanted to hear. And that included the co-author of the study Ryanga Myneni, who did everything he could to discredit Ridley's (entirely accurate) account of his study.

Ridley described what happened next in his recent Global Warming Policy Foundation lecture at the Royal Society in London.

At the end of 2015, when his paper had been under peer review for eight months so he knew these results were coming, Dr Myneni, criticized me specifically, saying on a green blog that ''[Ridley] falsely claims that CO2 fertilisation is responsible for the greening of the earth''. Yet a few months later he himself published evidence that ''CO2 fertilisation explains 70% of the greening trend''.

In the press release accompanying the article in April 2016 he once again referred to me by name:

[''The beneficial aspect of CO2 fertilization in promoting plant growth has been used by contrarians, notably Lord Ridley'...to argue against cuts in carbon emissions to mitigate climate change'...'']

As Richard Tol commented: ''The new paper vindicates what Matt Ridley and others have been saying all along '-- yet they apparently deserve to be kicked nonetheless.''

I wrote to Dr Myneni politely asking him to justify his criticism of me with specific examples. He was unable to do so. ''There are no 'up-sides' to having too much CO2 in the air,'' was all he said.

Even now, Myneni is determinedly trying poo poo the significance of his own study. In response to Ridley's lecture he has issued an official statement at the University of Boston website, again pouring scorn on Ridley.

Q: Is Greening not a good thing?A: We do not fully understand the CO2 fertilization effect. Experiments do indicate a fertilization effect and higher water use efficiency. The same experiments also indicate diminishing effects over time. Moreover, we do not know how much of what we observe in experiments translates in to the real world. Much of this has to do with how nutrient limitations would play out when CO2 becomes abundant. In short, there is no evidence to count on CO2 fertilization benefit. Personally, I would not buy the fertilization benefit for the price of global warming (and all the impacts that this warming implies).

Q: Are Climate Change (Global Warming) and attendant impacts real?A: Lord Ridley discounts global warming and impacts. Yet, he is all for the fertilization benefit. He starts his talk with the statement ''I am a passionate champion of Science'' and goes on to ignore 30+ years of IPCC assessments! What is worse, he assumes that the people behind the science have malevolent motives (suppressing publication of our work '... etc). How sensible is it to argue that thousands and thousands of scientists are somehow in cahoots to push the global warming hoax on innocent people of the world '...

Careful readers '' and you really don't need a PhD to see through this: indeed it's probably a disadvantage '' will note that at no stage do Myneni's disclaimers actually contradict the facts of his study, as faithfully and accurately reported by Ridley. His answer to the second question is just a succession of rhetorical fallacies: ad hominem, straw man, appeal to authority; his answer to the first, effectively admits that Ridley's interpretation is correct '' ''experiments do indicate a fertilization effect and higher water use efficiency'' '' but then tries to fudge his way out with a few airy denials.

The other key accusation Ridley makes is that Myneni and his colleagues may deliberately have sought to delay publication of their report, lest skeptics take too much pleasure in it.

Myneni's results, however, remained unpublished. I was puzzled by this. Then I realized that one of the IPCC's periodic assessment reports was in preparation, and that probably Dr Myneni and colleagues might delay the publication of their results until after that report was published, lest ''the skeptics have a field day'' with it.

That last phrase, by the way, is from one of the Climategate emails, the one on 22 September 1999 in which Dr Michael Mann approves the deletion of inconvenient data.

Sure enough, Myneni's results were eventually published three years later in April 2016 in a paper in Nature Climate Change, with 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries '' when the IPCC report was safely in the public domain and the great Paris climate jamboree was over.

Myneni makes his lengthy excuse at the Boston website, which I wouldn't bother reading unless you're feeling very patient. My translation: ''A very enormous dog ate my homework.''

The Alarmist media, it goes without saying, are taking Myneni's side in this. The BBC's house eco-loon Roger Harrabin had this to say on Twitter:

So this is where we're at in the climate debate. And an extraordinary place it is too. Scientists on the global warming gravy train, it seems, are so desperate to prop up the alarmist narrative '' and the generous grant-funding that goes with it '' even to the point of denying the significance of their own research.

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Wed, 18 Jan 2017 10:55

(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)After years of fighting with FOIA requesters, the CIA has finally uploaded over 12 million documents to its website. While many of the documents have been declassified for some time, the pages were intentionally hard to access, and only available on a few computers sitting at the National Archives. But now, anyone can search the documents from anywhere.

''We've been working on this for a very long time and this is one of the things I wanted to make sure got done before I left,'' the CIA's Joseph Lambert told Jason Leopold from BuzzFeed. Lambert will be retiring soon after 32 years with the agency.

The files contain everything from the CIA's strange mind control experiments to reports on Communist activity around the world. Many of the pages have already been liberated by the likes of researcher Michael Best and Leopold himself, and uploaded to places like Archive.org. But they're now all there at the CIA website for your own searching pleasure. All 12 million of them.

A quick search for names like ''Donald Trump'' yield little more than newspaper clippings from the 1980s about government contracts and ''the party of the century.'' But those don't even tell the full story. As you can see from the big white box in the upper right hand corner, they've been ''sanitized'' for release. Why was the CIA keeping newspaper clippings like that? We may have to wait a few more decades to find out.

You can search the entire CIA database of documents here.

[Buzzfeed]

Matt Novak is the editor of Gizmodo's Paleofuture blog

PGP Fingerprint: 0074 467E 1339 F416 DA8C 6CFA 0ABD A808 C05C D4A6|PGP Key

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Wed, 18 Jan 2017 20:38

Creepy 'Stargate' programme aimed to find out whether humans could use psychic powers as weapon or spy tool

URI GELLER was subjected to a series of bizarre secret experiments that aimed to weaponize psychic abilities, CIA documents reveal.

The Israeli '' famed for his apparent ability to bend spoons with his mind '' was taken to Stanford Research Institute in the 1970s to have his psychic abilities investigated.

Uri Geller taking part in the CIA experimentUri Geller's 'paranormal powers' examined by US government in 1972A newly released cache of CIA documents reveals UFO sightings and psychic experiments from the "Stargate programme", which has long been of interest to conspiracy theorists.

The project was the codename for a secret U.S. Army unit established in 1978 at Fort Meade, Maryland, by the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA).

It aimed to investigate the potential for psychic phenomena to be used by the military and intelligence services.

The Stargate programme inspired the 2009 film The Men Who Stare At Goats starring George Clooney and Ewan McGregor.

Some of the files surround the weird investigation and reveal how Geller was probed during a week-long series of tests.

CIA

A Stanford University expert drew the solar systemGeller's version is a collection of shapes that some interpreted to be planetsCIA

The expert's drawing of a bunch of grapesCIA

Uri Geller's version is eerily similar to the target drawingDuring these experiments he was asked to sit in a sealed and monitored room.

One of the tests involved drawings. A word was selected at random from a dictionary.

The first word selected was "fuse". A firecracker was then drawn by someone outside the locked room.

The picture was then taped to the wall outside Geller's cell and he was told via intercom the drawing was finished.

Examiner's drawing of the dove

CIA

Uri Geller's sketch of a dove 'she told me THINGS NOBODY COULD KNOW'Anthea Turner reveals psychic let her talk to her dead sister and predicted husband Grant Bovey would cheat on her

'IT KILLED HIM INSIDE'Brad Pitt knew about Angelina Jolie spilt two years ago after his PSYCHIC predicted it

'HE WANTED TO BE NATURAL AGAIN'Pete Burns' psychic reveals Dead or Alive singer was desperate to reverse plastic surgery horrors

A Christmas miracle?Stephanie Davis told her baby is due around Christmas... by a psychic

It's a miracleWoman who had 15 miscarriages claims a psychic CORRECTLY told her she was pregnant'... despite being on the pill

'FATE HAS OTHER PLANS FOR YOU'Meet the woman who cancelled her £6k dream wedding with just days to go ... because a PSYCHIC told her to

The CIA documents say: "His almost immediate response was that he saw a 'cylinder with noise coming out of it'.

"His drawing to correspond with it was a drum, along with a number of cylindrical-looking objects."

The second word chosen was "bunch" and a scientist drew a bunch of grapes.

"He then talked about 'purple circles'.

"Finally, he said that he was quite sure that he had the picture. His drawing was indeed a bunch of grapes."

The researchers concluded Uri "demonstrated his paranormal perceptual ability in a convincing and unambiguous manner".

Uri Geller was subjected to tests which appear to confirm his psychic abilityUri Geller shows the camera his drawing during the secret testsWatch Uri Geller's epic Sun Halloween experimentIn 2013 Uri Geller has lifted the lid on his secret past as a SPY '-- and told how his spoon-bending antics were just a cover.

The TV magician has revealed details of his years as an operative for the both

the CIA and Israel's feared Mossad agency during the Cold War.

The Stargate programme inspired the 2009 film The Men Who Stare At Goats starring George Clooney and Ewan McGregorWe pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 12:30

Cheyenne, WY | A retired CIA agent recently convicted of possession of child pornography accuses the US government of trying to frame him as he is about to release a book that will ''blow the lid off the CIA's drug smuggling operations in Afghanistan'' reveals the Cheyenne Herald this morning.

John F. Abbotsford, a 38-year old Afghan war veteran, that has also served his country as a CIA analyst, has recently been convicted of possession of child pornography, accusations he claims ''have been made up'' by the US government to stop the publication of his upcoming book, the CIA in Afghanistan: 30 years of drug smuggling.

''This is a desperate attempt by the US government to shut me up'' he said in court. ''If I'm going to face jail time, I want the truth to be known before they try to get rid of me in prison'' he told the judge. ''I'm not scared of their threats, whatever happens, I will never shut up'' he cried out in the courtroom.

The former Army intelligence officer, Afghan war veteran, and recipient of the Combat Action Badge, Purple Heart, and the Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal, has been sentenced yesterday to nine months in jail followed by three years of probation

During the court session, the retired CIA operative refused to answer all questions concerning the child pornography possession charges and kept talking about alleged CIA drug smuggling related events in Afghanistan.

''I'm ashamed to say that I have participated in these drug smuggling operations on many occasions. For a long time, I tried to convince myself that we were doing it for the right cause, but this burden is destroying me inside and I just can't stand it anymore'' he admitted before the court audience.

''The CIA has been dealing drugs since its creation. They've been smuggling drugs everywhere in the world for the past 60 years, in Taiwan in 1949 to support General Chiang Kai-shek against the Chinese commies, in Vietnam, in Nicaragua, and that's just the tip of the iceberg'' he launched out during the court trial. ''We helped the Mujahideen develop poppy cultivation to fight the Soviets, but we took back matters in our own hands in 2001 when we invaded Afghanistan under Bush'' he pleaded.

9/11: A pretext to invade Afghanistan

The Cheyenne Herald also reports that the man's website, that was shut down by family members hours after the conviction, claimed that the 9/11 terrorist attacks where in fact staged by his own government and a ''pretext'' to invade Afghanistan.

He also believed that the Islamic State is presently financed by the CIA's alleged heroin smuggling operations with the purpose of ''destabilizing governments of the Middle East'' and ''toppling non-US allied country leaders, such as Bachar Al-Assad in Syria'' to ''secure beneficial oil deals for the US and allied countries''.

In 2010, Abbotsford, 33, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and a year later he received a medical discharge.

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Mon, 16 Jan 2017 19:25

Has the transgender movement gone too far?

It began, commendably, as activism for the rights of that very small number of people who experience persisting discomfort with their biological gender. But it has evolved into an ideological movement to normalize the practice of changing genders '-- and in the process is crossing ethical lines with a particularly vulnerable subset of young people struggling with issues of gender identity.

A recent article by Elise Ehrhard in Crisis Magazine, a Catholic periodical, addresses the aggressive approach by adult trans activists in recruiting adolescents with Asperger's Syndrome or other types of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to their cause.

Ehrhard has Asperger's. As is typical among Asperger's girls in their adolescence, she preferred the company of boys, with whom she identified cerebrally, a tendency encouraged by the bullying she experienced from other girls.

Ehrhard is not transgender '-- she doesn't see herself as a male '-- but, citing a social media campaign featuring the hashtag #AutisticTransPride, she can see why Asperger's and other ASD adolescents nowadays come to believe they are. This disturbs her. Adolescents struggling to deal with their quirky cerebral wiring do not need to be told they are ''a girl trapped in a boy's body'' or vice versa, she says. Nevertheless, Ehrhard notes, many parents are buying into this completely unscientific hypothesis.

As a child psychiatrist with experience in both ASD and gender discomfort, I share Ehrhard's concern and can substantiate her claim. In her account I see a familiar story of a youth with ASD who feels socially isolated, and confused about sexual feelings as she moves into adolescence. As I well know, involvement in internet chat sites offers adolescents with ASD a sense of belonging, but also can lead to foreclosure of reflective thinking about their own feelings and situation.

Over the last few years I have been asked to consult around three biologically female teens with no prior history of cross gender wishes. In adolescence, these three individuals became aware of homoerotic feelings, but were uncomfortable about them. After searching the internet to find others like themselves, they began to feel that the issue was not their sexual orientation, but that they were in fact ''trans.''

In interviewing them, their history revealed prolonged and intense feelings of rejection and loneliness and a sense of ''not fitting in'' with their female peers. As with many girls and women with ASD, they pretended to conform socially, but failed to have close confiding relationships and had often felt bullied and rejected. Some were depressed by adolescence and often had suicidal thoughts, if not overt behaviours. Further assessment in all three cases led to my diagnosing these high-functioning individuals as having ASD.

Their parents felt confused at what appeared to them to be a sudden change in their daughters. Fearful of the risk for suicide, they struggled with their own responses. In two cases parents expressed anxiety over the speed with which the gender professionals involved accepted their teenagers' self-diagnosis, demonstrated by recommendations for puberty blocking agents after a single visit. Their experiences align with accounts by parents of ''trans'' kids on the blog, 4thwavenow.com, described as ''a community of parents and friends skeptical of the 'transgender/child/teen' trend.''

In my work with the Child and Adolescent Gender Identity Clinic at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), we regularly did a very thorough assessment with these teens to ensure that the path they seemed to be choosing had been thought through, sometimes a difficult task for ASD teens because of their difficulty with self-reflection and abstract thinking.

When a sex change seemed the only realistic option, we referred them to an endocrinologist for assessment regarding puberty blockers; if prescribed, we continued monitoring their progress to ensure their ongoing safety. (Even so, we had qualms, given a lack of evidence of long-term impact.)

However, we also felt strongly that irreversible medical intervention such as hormones and surgery should be postponed until we could be certain that the individuals were fully able to understand that there would be no going back. We were quite willing to accept that individuals might change their mind or wish to slow the process down. In short, we did what is considered best practice in the field of ASD and gender discomfort.

Activists would have the public believe that anyone who expresses a wish to be the other gender should be allowed and encouraged to do so. Credulous politicians have translated their demands into law. To date, however, there is no evidence that there is such a thing as a ''true'' trans, just as there is no marker that would identify a ''false'' trans. To accept the thinking and wishes of those with ASD at face value, without understanding why they feel the way they do, is not a kindness, and may in fact be extremely damaging.

Susan Bradley is a consultant child psychiatrist, formerly chief of psychiatry at Hospital for Sick Children and head of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Toronto. She is an emeritus professor at U of T.

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 13:03

While security is in place and there is no specific, credible threat, a quirk in America's rules for succession raises questions about who would be in charge if an attack hit the incoming president, vice president and congressional leaders just as the transfer of power gets underway. CNN's Brian Todd reports.

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 12:34

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Team CrowderWednesday January 18 2017

Betty White is a national treasure who we're blessed to still have with us after the killing fields of 2016. So to celebrate her 95th birthday, Katie Couric asked her about Donald Trump. Because, really, if you're famous it's important you take a shot at the President-elect (see Desperate CNN Tried Making Conor McGregor Insult Trump and CNN Throws Race Against Trump and NFL Legend Jim Brown Has None of It). Also, Katie Couric is terrible. Not just regular terrible. Terrible as in you sit down to watch your favorite show. But you sit in once eaten cat food. Wearing your best pants. While simultaneously discovering your WiFi is out. That kind of terrible.

Ms. White, showing the wisdom of a 95-year-old who has lived through some things, didn't bash El Trumpo like Couric was hoping expecting. Instead, this rational nugget of wisdom fell from Betty's lovely lips'...

''I think that's the time to buckle down and really work positively as much as you can instead of just saying, 'This is terrible. He's terrible.' Just think, 'All right, there's nothing I can do about that right now but I can do the best in my little circle. So if I do that, maybe you'll do your best and we'll get through this.''

Get it? Because Clooney isn't thrilled.

Do we think this 95-year-old Hollywood actress supports Trump? Or has supported any Republican since the 60s? Of course not. But just because you oppose the President-elect doesn't mean you have to act two tacos short of a combination platter. Hold the pico de gallo. Which we can't say for most leftists. Who are probably bottling that regurgitated cat food I alluded to in the opening paragraph. Just to throw at you while claiming ''love trumps hate.'' Aw. The Fancy Feast ain't so fancy when it's actually Katie Couric's nauseating character, is it?

More direct Betty White: ''If you hate the 2016 Election results, get off the computer and do some actual work in your community.'' Because no, hashtags and virtue signaling don't actually amount to much. Except as ammunition which we'll later use to mock you. It's okay, we know the social justice warriors will never stop telegraphing their stupid over the internet. Or trying to light themselves on fire. It's a marvelous time to work in the liberal-mockery business.

Thank you Betty White.

You suck Katie Couric.

NOT SUBSCRIBED TO THE PODCAST? FIX THAT! IT'S COMPLETELY FREE ON BOTH ITUNES HERE AND SOUNDCLOUD HERE.

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If you've ever wondered what your favorite singer's voice sounds like in its purest form, the musical sub-genre of isolated vocal tracks can offer a clue. Here are 12 videos of popular songs stripped of everything but the vocals'--some of them strange, others eerily beautiful.

1. ''HELLO'' // ADELEAdele - Hello (isolated SNL live vocal feed)by dailyvariations

Adele's vocals for her new hit single ''Hello'' are even more powerful without the background music.

2. ''SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT'' // NIRVANANirvana kicked off a new era in rock music in the 1990s, but can ''Smells Like Teen Spirit'' be as powerful without the driving guitars? The song feels more eerie than hard-hitting with only Kurt Cobain's haunting vocals.

3. ''BEAT IT'' // MICHAEL JACKSONOne of Michael Jackson's most iconic songs seems less urgent without the music behind his amazing vocals. Something is lost without Eddie Van Halen's killer guitar solo, too.

4. ''FELL IN LOVE WITH A GIRL'' // THE WHITE STRIPESEven without the heavy guitars and feverish drum beats, ''Fell in Love with a Girl'' is still a catchy tune.

5. ''BEAUTIFUL'' // CHRISTINA AGUILERAChristina Aguilera's isolated microphone feed vocals of her live performance of ''Beautiful'' prove that her voice is just as impressive without the music.

6. ''BLACK HOLE SUN'' // SOUNDGARDENSoundgarden's ''Black Hole Sun'' is a haunting song. Even without the benefit of music, Chris Cornell's vocals are just as stirring.

7. ''WONDERWALL'' // OASISNoel Gallagher's lyrics and his brother Liam's vocals for Oasis' ''Wonderwall'' seem even more sad without the backing music.

8. ''LOSE YOURSELF'' // EMINEM''Lose Yourself'' won Eminem an Academy Award in 2003 for ''Best Original Song'' for 8 Mile. He probably still would've won the Oscar even without the music behind his intense rhymes.

9. ''NO ONE'' // ALICIA KEYSAlicia Keys' performance of her hit song ''No One'' with her microphone feed isolated proves that she's a genuine talent.

10. ''GOD ONLY KNOWS'' // THE BEACH BOYSThe acapella and isolated vocals of The Beach Boys' ''God Only Knows'' work just as well as the studio version with musical accompaniment.

11. ''BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY'' // QUEENFreddie Mercury's vocals and harmonies for ''Bohemian Rhapsody'' are awe-inspiring. The video also highlights Brian May's amazing guitar work.

12. ''WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS'' // QUEENThis stripped-down version of ''We Are the Champions'' proves, yet again, what made Freddie Mercury one of rock's most iconic vocalists.

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17/01/2017ISIL launches fierce assault on Syrian government enclave

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 04:46

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 04:38

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 04:29

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 03:47

President-elect Donald Trump was four days out from taking the oath of office and liberals were already scheming for his impeachment on MSNBC. During Monday's Hardball, host Chris Matthews peddled in conspiracy theories of Russian ''collusion'' with the Trump campaign while teeing up Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Water to attack the president-elect. ''Does that make Trump subject to impeachment? What do you mean by not legitimate,'' Matthews demanded to know.

Waters seemed to be off the rails as she declared that if Russia ''were the ones who came up with 'Crooked Hillary,''' then ''I think that is something that would put the question squarely on the table whether or not he should be impeached.'' At one point, she even suggested that Russia could have been behind the nicknames Trump used against his Republican opponents during the primary.

The MSNBC host was in agreement with Waters and tryed to find any way he could to tie Trump to the Kremlin. ''Russian television was running a lot of propaganda that Hillary was mentally and physically impaired. That was their'--That was the propaganda message,'' he exclaimed to Republican strategist John Brabender. Matthews' guest mocked him, stating, ''Yeah, because so many Americans are watching Russian television.''

''Do you believe that Trump is somehow being held hostage by Vladimir Putin because of information on his behavior,'' Matthews continued, alluding to BuzzFeed's salacious fake news.

''You know, what we have heard, not in the classified briefing, but in this information about the dossier that has been collected by the man in London on him,'' Waters replied, ''It talks about some things that appears to ringing true based on what we have learned about Trump.''

It's disappointing that Matthews would allow Waters to exploit BuzzFeed's fake news, when just last week he admitted the dossier was ''misinformation'' released for the amusement of Trump's enemies. But he let her use it anyway, even begging her to dive deeper. Waters obliged:

Ok, what I have learn or heard about the dossier, it's about his involvement with woman. It's probably prostitutes that are involved, and those kinds of things. And he has sounded that way. He has acted that way, and it gives you reason to think maybe something is to this and we need to find out more.

Matthews invited such outlandishness from the very first question: ''Is Trump going to be a legitimate president United States, actually president of the United States, or not?'' As Brabender quipped at the end of the segment, it's all ''sour grapes.'' Waters even argued that since Trump joked about not accepting the election results so could Democrats, but for real.

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 03:43

CNN's Jake Tapper was Seth Meyers' guest on Monday night's Late Night, where he talked about Trump's relationship with the press. More specifically, last week's press conference, where Trump refused to call on CNN reporter Jim Acosta, calling his outlet ''fake news.'' Meyers tried to get Tapper to hype up the incident as unique to Trump's (near) presidency, but Tapper explained that Obama has done the exact same thing.

Read more on the blog here.

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 03:29

In an interview with Fox News' ''Tucker Carlson Tonight,'' former Black Panther Mason Weaver said Monday that Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who was brutally beaten during a march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in 1965, was demonstrating against Democrats at the time, then he later ''joined the oppressors'' in ''presiding over the destruction of the black community.'' Read Full Story

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 03:15

[More in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.]

Marc Lamont Hill launched an inflammatory attack on another guest on 16 January 2017 edition of CNN Tonight as part of a diatribe against Donald Trump. Hill claimed that the President-Elect's meetings with African American celebrities were "demeaning" to blacks: "Bring some people up there with some expertise...don't just bring up people to entertain." The BET News host unleashed after Trump supporter Bruce LeVell defended the billionaire: "It was a bunch of mediocre Negroes being dragged in front of TV as a photo-op for Donald Trump's exploitative campaign against black people. And you are the prime example of that."

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 03:12

[See NewsBusters for more.] The shuttering of the Clinton Global Initiative in the wake of Hillary Clinton's brutal election loss hasn't resulted in any interest from the three networks. ABC CBS and NBC have skipped the news that the division of the Clinton Foundation will lay off employees and close in April. CGI filed notice with New York on January 12, but news outlets began reporting it on January 16. On Monday and Tuesday, despite a combined 17 and a half hours of morning and evening air time, the networks punted. On Monday's Fox and Friends, co-anchor Heather Childers co-anchor highlighted the story.

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Thu, 19 Jan 2017 02:52

See more in the cross-post on the NewsBusters blog.

In the moments after President Obama commuted the sentence of convicted criminal Chelsea Manning on Tuesday, CNN's Jake Tapper, host of The Lead, vocalized this disconnect between the White House's actions versus how they felt when Manning first handed over stolen government documents to WikiLeaks.

Speaking to Bloomberg's Margaret Talev, Tapper observed that ''[i]t's interesting also because I remember when WikiLeaks happened I was a White House correspondent like you, Margaret and I remember the White House was so outraged'' when WikiLeaks published its first set of documents from Manning in February 2010.

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Wed, 18 Jan 2017 20:42

As the middle class is decimated by technological change and globalization, we risk social instability, which could lead to collapse of the democratic world order, he said.

Biden said our "goal should be a world where everyone's standard of living is rising," and that continuing education is going to be required to help people advance.

He suggested that the U.S. government could, and should, pay for college to help advance people in their careers.

We need a progressive tax structure where everyone "pays their fair share," said Biden. "The top 1 percent is not carrying their own weight."

In most middle class societies, people can't get a raise, Biden said. But if we offered free college, he said, they would be thankful. "We can afford to do that in a heartbeat," Biden said.

We can pay for every student to go to community college for $6 billion a year, if we just restructure our tax code, he said.

As people get more training, more education, they should be able to progress in their careers and earn more money, which should lead to a stronger middle class and eventually lead to greater social stability.

See also: In an epic final speech, Joe Biden warns that the progressive democratic world order is at risk of collapse

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Wed, 18 Jan 2017 20:40

Vice President Joe Biden delivered an epic final speech Wednesday to the elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The gist of his speech was simple: At a time of "uncertainty" we must double down on the values that made Western democracies great, and not allow the "liberal world order" to be torn apart by destructive forces.

Biden went after Russian President Vladimir Putin by name, saying he is using "every tool" in his power to whittle away the European project, and undermine Western democracies. Biden accused Putin of wanting to "roll back decades of progress."

Biden said Russia used "cyber aggression" to meddle in the U.S. election, an assertion supported by 17 U.S. intelligence agencies. He also warned that we will see further interference from Russia in the future and said the "purpose is clear" '-- that Putin wants to see a "collapse of the international order."

"Simply put, Putin has a different vision of the future," the vice president warned.

At the outset of his speech, Biden implored the media to not hear his speech as a shot at President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Friday. And, while what Biden said applies broadly to leaders in Europe, as well as the United States, there is no mistaking that his comments were a rebuttal to Trump's friendly statements about the Russian president.

At a time when Trump and his advisors are talking about shaking up NATO, Biden said, we must "support our NATO allies. An attack on one is an attack on all. That can never be placed in question."

Biden also warned that unlike Trump's call for building a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, it's not the time to build walls and live in fear.

Biden implored world leaders to work together to protect democracy from encroachments by Russia, Iran and others. Yet, Trump's world view is "America First," which runs counter to Biden's view.

Biden didn't merely urge the world leaders at Davos to maintain the status quo. He warned that the reason for the pressure on the democratic order is the rise in income inequality and the hollowing out of the middle class, as the rich get richer and people in developing nations see their lives gradually improve.

He said the top 1 percent is not paying their fair share, and as a result we are seeing social instability increase.

"We need to tap into the big heartedness," Biden said. "This is a moment to lead boldly."

See also: Biden to Davos: The 1% needs to pay up or else...

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Wed, 18 Jan 2017 20:40

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Wed, 18 Jan 2017 11:27

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Wed, 18 Jan 2017 04:21

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Wed, 18 Jan 2017 01:54

In the Name of Humanity We Refuse To Accept a Fascist America |''We recognize the importance of creating a resistance movement against one of America's first dictators''

This clip from Ava DuVernay's documentary film Thirteenth illustrates the urgent need to stop the illegitimate Trump-Pence regime before it comes to power.Los Angeles NO al Fascismo/ March Against Fascism 1/15/17Carl Dix at McPherson SquareWashington, D.C. '' 1/15/17On STOPPING Trump '' Pence Before They StartSunsara Taylor '' STOP TRUMP! Outside the Trump Hotel in DC

'''...There are times in history when the impossible is possible because of the extremeness of the situation '' this is one of those times.''We Begin: 4 PM Saturday January 14th, McPherson Square, I Street and 15th St. NW, WASHINGTON, D.C.This ad with the Refuse Fascism Call appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post, and other publications. Share it! DONATE to get this message out and make it happen.

Be Fair to Fascism? Cornel West & Carl Dix Say NO!In the streets:Sight, sounds, views of people moving to STOP Trump & PenceThe Trump/Pence Regime Is Illegitimate.Trump lost the popular vote by almost 3 million. He won in the electoral college ''founded to reinforce slavery, used since to embed inequality in voting. Trump has no ''mandate''. More fundamental: Trump promises to inflict repression and suffering in this country, to deport millions, to increase violence up to the use of nuclear weapons internationally, and to inflict catastrophes upon the planet itself. He has assembled a cabinet of Christian fundamentalists, war mongers, racists, science deniers, and woman haters. His entire regime is illegitimate, and must not be allowed to rule. We REFUSE to accept a Fascist America!

Trump's Twitter Assault on John Lewis and the Illegitimacy of the Trump/Pence RegimeJohn Lewis declared ''I don't see Trump as a legitimate president'' because he said Russia interfered in the US election. Trump repeatedly attacked Lewis on twitter saying he should focus on fixing his district, and ''burning and crime-infested inner cities''. Evoking stock-in-trade white supremacist imagery, Trump's attacks on Lewis, a veteran of the historic 1965 Selma march for voting rights, is outrageous.

John Lewis is right: Trump IS illegitimate. But NOT because of Russian meddling in the election but because of the fascist character of the Trump/Pence regime and what they are planning to do. See the Call to Action for more on this. No election, whether fair or fraudulent, should legitimize this.

Read more'...

Fascism on the MarchTrump refuses to allow CNN to pose question, calls them ''fake news'' for reporting the existence of a compromising dosier on him. Muzzling of any opposition, including critical reporting from the press, is a hallmark of fascism. A Trump-Pence regime must not be allowed to rule.

NO! Stop this fascist regime before it starts.

Voices of Resistance & Conscience Against Trump & PenceThis day, of all days, should raise awareness of the danger that Donald Trump poses to this country, and to the world. The contrast with Martin Luther King could not be stronger. Today the ...Read MoreGreen Day - We Live in Troubled Times Lyrics begin: What good is love and peace on earth? When it's exclusive? Where's the truth in the written word? If no one reads it A ...Read MoreJanuary 14, 2016 Dear Colleagues, What we are seeing with the Trump/Pence election is every bit as terrifying as we rightly feared. We cannot underestimate the harm this regime represents to this country and ...Read MoreBy the 8th March Women's Organization, Iran-Afghanistan On 20th January Donald Trump the representative of the US capitalist -imperialists system which is oppressing and exploiting not only the people in the US but on ...Read MoreKaty Perry serves as executive producer on a new public service announcement that questions whether Donald Trump's xenophobic rhetoric is a sign that history could repeat itself. "Don't normalize hate," Perry wrote to her ...Read MoreSinger Jennifer Holliday rescinded her agreement to perform at a Trump pre-inauguration event on Jan. 19. She said her agreement to do that was a ''lapse in judgment." She announced: "My only choice must ...Read MoreMore voices of conscience here

In the Name of Humanity We Refuse To Accept a Fascist America |''We recognize the importance of creating a resistance movement against one of America's first dictators''

This clip from Ava DuVernay's documentary film Thirteenth illustrates the urgent need to stop the illegitimate Trump-Pence regime before it comes to power.Los Angeles NO al Fascismo/ March Against Fascism 1/15/17Carl Dix at McPherson SquareWashington, D.C. '' 1/15/17On STOPPING Trump '' Pence Before They StartSunsara Taylor '' STOP TRUMP! Outside the Trump Hotel in DC

'''...There are times in history when the impossible is possible because of the extremeness of the situation '' this is one of those times.''We Begin: 4 PM Saturday January 14th, McPherson Square, I Street and 15th St. NW, WASHINGTON, D.C.This ad with the Refuse Fascism Call appeared in the New York Times and the Washington Post, and other publications. Share it! DONATE to get this message out and make it happen.

Be Fair to Fascism? Cornel West & Carl Dix Say NO!In the streets:Sight, sounds, views of people moving to STOP Trump & PenceThe Trump/Pence Regime Is Illegitimate.Trump lost the popular vote by almost 3 million. He won in the electoral college ''founded to reinforce slavery, used since to embed inequality in voting. Trump has no ''mandate''. More fundamental: Trump promises to inflict repression and suffering in this country, to deport millions, to increase violence up to the use of nuclear weapons internationally, and to inflict catastrophes upon the planet itself. He has assembled a cabinet of Christian fundamentalists, war mongers, racists, science deniers, and woman haters. His entire regime is illegitimate, and must not be allowed to rule. We REFUSE to accept a Fascist America!

Trump's Twitter Assault on John Lewis and the Illegitimacy of the Trump/Pence RegimeJohn Lewis declared ''I don't see Trump as a legitimate president'' because he said Russia interfered in the US election. Trump repeatedly attacked Lewis on twitter saying he should focus on fixing his district, and ''burning and crime-infested inner cities''. Evoking stock-in-trade white supremacist imagery, Trump's attacks on Lewis, a veteran of the historic 1965 Selma march for voting rights, is outrageous.

John Lewis is right: Trump IS illegitimate. But NOT because of Russian meddling in the election but because of the fascist character of the Trump/Pence regime and what they are planning to do. See the Call to Action for more on this. No election, whether fair or fraudulent, should legitimize this.

Read more'...

Fascism on the MarchTrump refuses to allow CNN to pose question, calls them ''fake news'' for reporting the existence of a compromising dosier on him. Muzzling of any opposition, including critical reporting from the press, is a hallmark of fascism. A Trump-Pence regime must not be allowed to rule.

NO! Stop this fascist regime before it starts.

Voices of Resistance & Conscience Against Trump & PenceThis day, of all days, should raise awareness of the danger that Donald Trump poses to this country, and to the world. The contrast with Martin Luther King could not be stronger. Today the ...

Read MoreGreen Day - We Live in Troubled Times Lyrics begin: What good is love and peace on earth? When it's exclusive? Where's the truth in the written word? If no one reads it A ...

Read MoreJanuary 14, 2016 Dear Colleagues, What we are seeing with the Trump/Pence election is every bit as terrifying as we rightly feared. We cannot underestimate the harm this regime represents to this country and ...

Read MoreBy the 8th March Women's Organization, Iran-Afghanistan On 20th January Donald Trump the representative of the US capitalist -imperialists system which is oppressing and exploiting not only the people in the US but on ...

Read MoreKaty Perry serves as executive producer on a new public service announcement that questions whether Donald Trump's xenophobic rhetoric is a sign that history could repeat itself. "Don't normalize hate," Perry wrote to her ...

Read MoreSinger Jennifer Holliday rescinded her agreement to perform at a Trump pre-inauguration event on Jan. 19. She said her agreement to do that was a ''lapse in judgment." She announced: "My only choice must ...

Read MoreMore voices of conscience here

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Mon, 16 Jan 2017 22:56

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Mon, 16 Jan 2017 20:29

One of president-elect Donald Trump's biggest supporters is taking it upon himself and his group of bikers to make sure the inauguration event goes smoothly, promising to form a "wall of meat" to guard against any protestors.

Chris Cox is founder of the pro-Trump organization "Bikers for Trump," and is expecting more than 5,000 bikers from his group to be in attendance at the inauguration.

On Sunday, Cox spoke with news show "Fox & Friends" and said that should there be any rowdy protesters in attendance, his group will be there to back up security.

"In the event that we are needed, we certainly will form a wall of meat," Cox told the show.

"What does that mean?" interrupted co-host Abby Huntsman. "What does that mean, 'A wall of meat'?"

"We'll be shoulder-to-shoulder with our brothers and we'll be toe-to-toe with anyone that is going to break through any police barriers, that's going to be assaulting women, spitting on them, throwing things at them," Cox explained. "We are anticipating a peaceful transition of power."

Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Image1of24

Members of the Bikers for Trump motorcycle group attend a rally for Donald Trump on the first day of the Republican National Convention (RNC) on July 18, 2016 in downtown Cleveland, Ohio.

Members of the Bikers for Trump motorcycle group attend a rally for Donald Trump on the first day of the Republican National Convention (RNC) on July 18, 2016 in downtown Cleveland, Ohio.

Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesImage2of24

Jeff Gunder, a member of the Bikers for Trump motorcycle group, attends a rally for Donald Trump on the first day of the Republican National Convention (RNC) on July 18, 2016 in downtown Cleveland, Ohio.

Jeff Gunder, a member of the Bikers for Trump motorcycle group, attends a rally for Donald Trump on the first day of the Republican National Convention (RNC) on July 18, 2016 in downtown Cleveland, Ohio.

Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesImage3of24

Work is still being performed on the stage ahead of next week inauguration at the U.S. Capitol, on January 13, 2017 in Washington, DC. On January 20, 2017 President elect Donald Trump with be sworn in as the nations 45th president. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

lessWork is still being performed on the stage ahead of next week inauguration at the U.S. Capitol, on January 13, 2017 in Washington, DC. On January 20, 2017 President elect Donald Trump with be sworn in as the

... morePhoto: Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesImage4of24

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 13: Workers prepare the stage in front of the Lincoln Memorial to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for President elect Donald Trump as he prepares to take the reins of power next week on January 13, 2017 in Washington, DC. The inauguration will take place on January 20th when President Barack Obama ends his 8 year run as Americas president. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

lessWASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 13: Workers prepare the stage in front of the Lincoln Memorial to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for President elect Donald Trump as he prepares to take the reins

... morePhoto: Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesImage5of24

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 13: Workers prepare the stage in front of the Lincoln Memorial to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for President elect Donald Trump as he prepares to take the reins of power next week on January 13, 2017 in Washington, DC. The inauguration will take place on January 20th when President Barack Obama ends his 8 year run as Americas president. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

lessWASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 13: Workers prepare the stage in front of the Lincoln Memorial to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for President elect Donald Trump as he prepares to take the reins

... morePhoto: Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesImage6of24

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 13: Workers prepare the stage in front of the Lincoln Memorial to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for President elect Donald Trump as he prepares to take the reins of power next week on January 13, 2017 in Washington, DC. The inauguration will take place on January 20th when President Barack Obama ends his 8 year run as Americas president. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

lessWASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 13: Workers prepare the stage in front of the Lincoln Memorial to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for President elect Donald Trump as he prepares to take the reins

... morePhoto: Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesImage7of24

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 13: Workers prepare the U.S. Capitol for the presidential inauguration ceremony for President elect Donald Trump as he prepares to take the reins of power next week on January 13, 2017 in Washington, DC. The inauguration will take place on January 20th when President Barack Obama ends his 8 year run as Americas president. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

lessWASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 13: Workers prepare the U.S. Capitol for the presidential inauguration ceremony for President elect Donald Trump as he prepares to take the reins of power next week on January 13, 2017

... morePhoto: Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesImage8of24

A construction worker helps build a stage to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for incoming US President-elect Donald Trump at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on January 11, 2017. / AFP / Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS (Photo credit should read ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)

lessA construction worker helps build a stage to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for incoming US President-elect Donald Trump at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on January 11, 2017. /

... morePhoto: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty ImagesImage9of24

Tourists walk past construction workers climbing scaffolding being put up as part of a stage to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for incoming US President-elect Donald Trump at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on January 11, 2017. / AFP / Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS (Photo credit should read ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)

lessTourists walk past construction workers climbing scaffolding being put up as part of a stage to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for incoming US President-elect Donald Trump at the Lincoln

... morePhoto: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty ImagesImage10of24

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 13: Workers prepare the stage in front of the Lincoln Memorial to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for President elect Donald Trump as he prepares to take the reins of power next week on January 13, 2017 in Washington, DC. The inauguration will take place on January 20th when President Barack Obama ends his 8 year run as Americas president. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

lessWASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 13: Workers prepare the stage in front of the Lincoln Memorial to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for President elect Donald Trump as he prepares to take the reins

... morePhoto: Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesImage11of24

Street posters calling for protests are seen January 13, 2017, in the Dupont Circle area of Washington, DC, a week before the Inauguration of Donald Trump as US President. / AFP / PAUL J. RICHARDS (Photo credit should read PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

lessStreet posters calling for protests are seen January 13, 2017, in the Dupont Circle area of Washington, DC, a week before the Inauguration of Donald Trump as US President. / AFP / PAUL J. RICHARDS (Photo

... morePhoto: PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty ImagesImage12of24

In December Workers build portions of the inaugural platform for the presidential inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. Trump's inaugural speech will have to turn a rhetorical corner to heal divisions and aspire. lessIn December Workers build portions of the inaugural platform for the presidential inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump at the US Capitol in Washington, DC. Trump's inaugural speech will have to turn a ... morePhoto: SAUL LOEB /AFP /Getty ImagesImage13of24

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 13: Workers prepare the stage near the Washington Monument and in front of the Lincoln Memorial to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for President elect Donald Trump as he prepares to take the reins of power next week on January 13, 2017 in Washington, DC. The inauguration will take place on January 20th when President Barack Obama ends his 8 year run as Americas president. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

lessWASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 13: Workers prepare the stage near the Washington Monument and in front of the Lincoln Memorial to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for President elect Donald Trump

... morePhoto: Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesImage14of24

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 13: Workers prepare the stage near the Washington Monument and in front of the Lincoln Memorial to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for President elect Donald Trump as he prepares to take the reins of power next week on January 13, 2017 in Washington, DC. The inauguration will take place on January 20th when President Barack Obama ends his 8 year run as Americas president. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

lessWASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 13: Workers prepare the stage near the Washington Monument and in front of the Lincoln Memorial to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for President elect Donald Trump

... morePhoto: Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesImage15of24

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 13: Workers prepare the stage in front of the Lincoln Memorial to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for President elect Donald Trump as he prepares to take the reins of power next week on January 13, 2017 in Washington, DC. The inauguration will take place on January 20th when President Barack Obama ends his 8 year run as Americas president. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

lessWASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 13: Workers prepare the stage in front of the Lincoln Memorial to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for President elect Donald Trump as he prepares to take the reins

... morePhoto: Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesImage16of24

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 13: Workers hang an early version of the American flag on the U.S. Capitol to be used as part of the backdrop to the presidential inauguration for President elect Donald Trump as he prepares to take the reins of power next week on January 13, 2017 in Washington, DC. The inauguration will take place on January 20th when President Barack Obama ends his 8 year run as Americas president. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

lessWASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 13: Workers hang an early version of the American flag on the U.S. Capitol to be used as part of the backdrop to the presidential inauguration for President elect Donald Trump as he

... morePhoto: Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesImage17of24

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 13: Workers prepare the stage in front of the Lincoln Memorial to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for President elect Donald Trump as he prepares to take the reins of power next week on January 13, 2017 in Washington, DC. The inauguration will take place on January 20th when President Barack Obama ends his 8 year run as Americas president. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

lessWASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 13: Workers prepare the stage in front of the Lincoln Memorial to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for President elect Donald Trump as he prepares to take the reins

... morePhoto: Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesImage18of24

A construction worker looks up at scaffolding being put up as part of a stage to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for incoming US President-elect Donald Trump at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on January 11, 2017. / AFP / Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS (Photo credit should read ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)

lessA construction worker looks up at scaffolding being put up as part of a stage to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for incoming US President-elect Donald Trump at the Lincoln Memorial in

... morePhoto: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty ImagesImage19of24

A construction worker walks through the inside of a viewing platform, the the Capitol, for the presidential inauguration for incoming US President-elect Donald Trump in Washington, DC on January 11, 2017. / AFP / Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS (Photo credit should read ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)

lessA construction worker walks through the inside of a viewing platform, the the Capitol, for the presidential inauguration for incoming US President-elect Donald Trump in Washington, DC on January 11, 2017. /

... morePhoto: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty ImagesImage20of24

A construction worker helps build a stage to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for incoming US President-elect Donald Trump at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on January 11, 2017. / AFP / Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS (Photo credit should read ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)

lessA construction worker helps build a stage to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for incoming US President-elect Donald Trump at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on January 11, 2017. /

... morePhoto: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty ImagesImage21of24

The Capitol dome is seen behind a viewing platform for the presidential inauguration for incoming US President-elect Donald Trump in Washington, DC on January 11, 2017. / AFP / Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS (Photo credit should read ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)

lessThe Capitol dome is seen behind a viewing platform for the presidential inauguration for incoming US President-elect Donald Trump in Washington, DC on January 11, 2017. / AFP / Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS

... morePhoto: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty ImagesImage22of24

Construction workers climb scaffolding being put up as part of a stage to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for incoming US President-elect Donald Trump at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on January 11, 2017. / AFP / Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS (Photo credit should read ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)

lessConstruction workers climb scaffolding being put up as part of a stage to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for incoming US President-elect Donald Trump at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington,

... morePhoto: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty ImagesImage23of24

Construction workers climb scaffolding being put up as part of a stage to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for incoming US President-elect Donald Trump at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC on January 11, 2017. / AFP / Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS (Photo credit should read ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)

lessConstruction workers climb scaffolding being put up as part of a stage to be used in the presidential inauguration festivities for incoming US President-elect Donald Trump at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington,

... morePhoto: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty ImagesImage24of24

'Bikers for Trump' will form 'wall of meat' to protect inauguration from protestors

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The group obtained a permit and will hold what is likely to be the largest pro-Trump rally put on by a private organization during the same time as the inauguration, the Washington Post reported. The rally will have speakers and musical performances, as well as a ceremony to honor veterans.

Bikers for Trump was featured in a New York Times video piece, covering its participation in the Republican National Convention in July.

Cox told the New York Times his group has boasted as many as 200,000 members since its start supporting Trump back in October 2015.

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Mon, 16 Jan 2017 20:26

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Mon, 16 Jan 2017 18:44

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Mon, 16 Jan 2017 17:41

Politically engaged Americans (writ large) will, most likely, soon discover why it became so intensely important ''LAST YEAR'' to outline the internal fight between 'black hat' and 'white hat' operatives within the intelligence community as it related to the 2016 U.S. election. One example of the ''shadow fight'' within the administration is outlined here.

A Fox News Sunday interview with CIA Director John Brennan highlights the scope of professional obfuscation needed when intelligence agents decide to politicize intelligence. The Obama administration is in the process of attempting to re-write their own history. Some key points:

'... The Segment leading up to a very specific moment at 04:20. Pay close attention. The specific ''smirk'', at the specific moment, is what's called within the intelligence community (behavioral sciences lab), ''Duping Delight''. Also known as ''a tell'', it's a subconscious physical cue which indicates knowledge by the interviewee of deception inferred by the interviewers question. Brennan knows full well what Hayden and Mike Morell were up to'...

'... The 06:30 segment about phone intercepts is important because the CIA has all but admitted to tapping, intercepting and monitoring the phone calls between incoming National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, and Russia. Brennan himself then leaked that information to the Washington Post. Follow his word choices carefully.

Additionally, as you watch this interview it is critical to remind yourself of the background of CIA Director John Brennan's smirks.

'... Prior to the administration of President Obama beginning, John Brennan, a career CIA official himself, was directly tied to the hacking of the U.S. State Department and the passport records of then candidate Senator Barack Obama, in March 2008.

'This individual's actions were taken without the knowledge or direction of anyone at The Analysis Corp. and are wholly inconsistent with our professional and ethical standards'', Brennan's company said in a statement sent to reporters after the passport breach was made public. (link)

On April 19th, 2008 the key figure in the ensuing investigation, Lt. Quarles Harris Jr., 24, who had been cooperating with a federal investigators about the State Dept. hacking, was found slumped dead inside a car. He was shot in the head.

So what does all this mean?

Well, it is transparent to everyone following closely the net intention of this 'hacked election narrative' is to provide the professional political UniParty class in Washington DC with a fortified defense mechanism to thwart off the incoming swamp draining.

The use of corporate media to protect the corporate legislative body is as familiar, and predictable, as Senators John McCain (see: Keating Five), and Lindsey Graham, fighting against term limits and finance reform on behalf of their corporate interests/benefactors, Wall Street and global interests.

However, moving forward there is considerable room for previously outlined optimism. The corruption within key intelligence community agencies appears so severe, the White Hats are rising up from within the Defense Department to tackle it head-on.

With General Mattis as Secretary of Defense, Michael Flynn as National Security Advisor, General John Kelly as Secretary of Homeland Security, a top-of-class West Point graduate in Mike Pompeo brought in to take over and undoubtedly purge the CIA, and a lame duck struggle breaking out over the NSA with Admiral Mike Rogers, the implications are pretty obvious.

The white hats we have needed within the national security and intelligence departments are responding from a select group within the Defense Department. This DoD surge appears to be why corporate media interests initially began railing against ''too many generals''.

CNN Broadcasts on behalf of U.S. State Dept.Washington Post publishes on behalf of CIA..Begin there, everything else starts making sense pic.twitter.com/fQpl30u5sE

'-- TheLastRefuge (@TheLastRefuge2) January 14, 2017

The DoD generals also appears to be why all of those interests -within all of those corrupted political intel institutions- are going nuts thinking about what lays ahead.

Mounting evidence supports the ongoing thesis the Department of Defense has actually seceded from the political elites. A wonderfully patriotic soft coup of sorts has actually taken place. Now, with the Presidency of Donald Trump, the white hats are poised on the horizon to reconstruct a nationalist-minded defense, security and intelligence apparatus.

However, the Deep State will never give up; and in an effort to defend their exit, the outgoing intelligence leadership is using the ''Russian conspiracy narrative'' as a sagebrush sweep to hide their retreating political footprints.

This intelligence shift, away from structural use to pave the way for interventionist policy, is the tectonic change many have quietly discussed, yet few imagined possible.

We must elevate our thinking to understand their motives'...

UPDATE: 7:30pm ET:

Yes, this is President-elect Donald Trump specifically calling out CIA Director John Brennan as the most likely intelligence ''leaker'' to the media.

Again. We Repeat. All indications lead to the conclusion that NSA head Admiral Mike Rogers is a 'white hat' in direct opposition to the corrupted intelligence of ODNI Clapper and CIA Director Brennan.

Admiral Rogers would not agree with Clapper/Brennan on the ''high confidence'' standard of intelligence assessment for the Russian Interference documents as compiled by Brennan and Clapper.

Remember also, it was Admiral Rogers who met with President-elect Donald Trump in New York the week after he won the election. A week earlier, Clapper was recommending to President Obama that Rogers should be fired. '' FULL STORY ''

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Mon, 16 Jan 2017 17:39

January 14, 2017

13:18

Journalist Matt Taibbi, who covered Donald Trump's election campaign, reflects on the unforeseen rise of the president-elect and the future of America

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Mon, 16 Jan 2017 17:32

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Mon, 16 Jan 2017 16:13

Chris Cox, Bikers for Trump founder, joined Stewart Varney on Friday to discuss plans for next week's Inauguration.

Bikers for Trump announced plans to protect Trump and Inaugural attendees. Cox says the bikers will ''form a wall of meat'' if needed.

Bikers for Trump posted an announcement of their plans for Inauguration week on Facebook.

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