912: Bully Box

Link to Article

Archived Version

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 18:15

Dit is het laatste Premium artikel dat u gratis kunt lezen. Tijd voor een abonnement!

ONZE AANBIEDINGENErdogan stelde volgens de krant H¼rriyet dat Nederlanders de slachting in Bosni in 1995 aanrichtten. 'žWe kennen ze van de slachting van Srebrenica, we kennen hun verdorven karakter van de manier waarop ze er 8000 Bosnirs afmaakten.''

De Turkse president is dinsdag verder gegaan met het inhakken op Nederland naar aanleiding van de incidenten rond twee ministers afgelopen weekeinde. Ook dreigde hij met nieuwe sancties in een toespraak in Ankara.

De daden van Nederland kunnen niet worden afgedaan met een excuus, aldus Erdogan. Hij zal het land verantwoordelijk houden voor wat er is gebeurd. Ook verklaarde hij dat er 'žmeer ruimte is voor verdere sancties'' maar hij zei er niet bij welke dat zijn.

Ook Duitsland kreeg in een toespraak van het staatshoofd weer de wind van voren. De steunbetuiging van de Duitse bondskanselier aan Nederland laat zien 'ždat zij niet anders is dan Nederland. Zij valt Turkije aan zoals de Nederlandse politie honden en paarden gebruikt tegen Turkse demonstranten.'' Volgens Erdogan zijn sommige Europese landen 'žgegijzeld door racistische en fascistische partijen.''

Verder lezen?

Elke maand 15 premium artikelen gratis

REGISTREERIk heb al een account / ik ben abonnee

LOG INU heeft deze maand 15 Premium artikelen gratis gelezen.Tijd voor een abonnement!

ONZE AANBIEDINGEN

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 15 Mar 2017 23:20

Zorg dat je popcorn in huis hebt en zet alvast een fles wijn koud. Want hij komt er weer aan: de exitpoll. De cijfers die op woensdag 21.00 uur - als de stembussen sluiten - laten zien hoe de Tweede Kamer ingericht gaat worden.

Maar: zijn die cijfers eigenlijk wel betrouwbaar?

Allereerst: hoe werkt een exitpoll?Leuk voor Triviant: de exitpoll Jelke Bethlehem schreef ter ere van het 50-jarig jubileum een uitgebreide uitleg over exitpolls. Jelke Bethlehem schreef ter ere van het 50-jarig jubileum een uitgebreide uitleg over exitpolls.de exitpoll is een oer-Hollandse uitvinding. Precies vijftig jaar geleden was socioloog Marcel van Dam de allereerste die zo'n onderzoek uitvoerde.

Op 15 maart staat bij veertig stembureaus (daarover straks meer) in Nederland een extra stembus. Dat is de bus van onderzoeksbureau Ipsos, Hier beschrijft Ipsos de methode van zijn exitpoll. Hier beschrijft Ipsos de methode van zijn exitpoll.onderzoeksbureau Ipsos, die in opdracht van de NOS de exitpoll uitvoert. Iedereen die het stemhokje verlaat wordt gevraagd een A4'tje in te vullen. Daarop staat maar (C)(C)n vraag: op welke partij heb je net gestemd?

Een aantal keer per dag turven de bemanners van de exit-stembureaus de antwoorden en bellen ze die door naar het hoofdkantoor van Ipsos. Zo is het mogelijk dat de NOS om stipt 21.00 uur de uitslag van de exitpoll bekendmaakt. Die is dan altijd voorlopig, omdat niet alle stemmen van het laatste uur dan al geteld zijn.

Lekken de resultaten niet ondertussen al uit?Er is geen wet die het verbiedt om exitpolls te publiceren voordat de stembureaus sluiten. Toch gebeurt dat in de praktijk nooit. Althans, in Nederland niet. In 2009 werden Duitse exitpolls gelekt op Twitter en in 2012 stonden resultaten van de Franse verkiezingen al online terwijl er nog gestemd werd. Bron: Exit polls, turnout, and bandwagon voting: Evidence from a natural experiment

Zulk lekken is problematisch, want de cijfers zouden de uitslag kunnen be¯nvloeden. Dat illustreert een onderzoek Tom van der Meer vertelt meer over het onderzoek naar Franse exitpolls. Tom van der Meer vertelt meer over het onderzoek naar Franse exitpolls.een onderzoek naar de Franse presidentsverkiezingen. Tot 2005 stemden mensen in de Franse overzeese gebieden na het sluiten van de stembussen in het Europese deel. Zij wisten toen al wat de prognose van de uitslag was, omdat er al exitpolls gepubliceerd waren

In 2005 veranderde het beleid: in overzeese gebieden gingen mensen juist eerder stemmen dan op het vasteland. Wat bleek? De opkomst ging overzee ineens fors omhoog. Waar mensen eerst besloten om thuis te blijven, gingen ze nu vaker stemmen.

Niet vreemd dus dat in veel landen In een onderzoek onder 78 landen hadden 54 landen (bijna 70 procent) een vorm van een verbod op de publicatie van exitpolls in de wet vastgelegd. Dit kan variren van een algeheel publicatieverbod voor media, tot een verbod op publicatie voordat de stemlokalen in de desbetreffende regio zijn gesloten. The Freedom to Publish Opinion Poll Results - A Worldwide Update of 2012 wel een verbod bestaat op het publiceren van exitpolls. Al vind ik een peilingverbod een slecht idee, in een verbod op exitpolls kan ik me wel vinden. De praktische bezwaren terzijde: iedereen heeft het recht om even ge¯nformeerd naar de stembus te gaan. Het lijkt me onverstandig als de hekkensluiter meer weet dan de vroege vogel.

Maar wacht eens even, je had het over veertig stembureaus. Is dat niet veel te weinig?Er zijn ongeveer 10.000 stembureaus Bron: Website van de Kiesraad in Nederland, de steekproef van Ipsos is dus nog geen halve procent van het totaal. Als de opkomst en deelname aan de exitpoll hetzelfde zijn, zullen 38.000 mensen Bron: Correspondentie met Ipsos meedoen aan de peiling. Dat is natuurlijk best veel, maar weinig vergeleken met de bijna 13 miljoen stemgerechtigden. Bron: CBS: Bijna 13 miljoen kiesgerechtigden op 15 maart

Om ervoor te zorgen dat die een goede afspiegeling zijn van de stemgerechtigde bevolking, steekt Ipsos veel moeite in het selecteren van de bureaus. Ze zorgen dat de balans tussen stad en dorp goed is, kijken naar de regionale afspiegeling en nemen de vorige verkiezingsuitslag mee.

Als de data eenmaal binnen zijn, gebruikt Ipsos een statistisch model om de cijfers te vertalen naar een schatting van de verkiezingsuitslag.

En deugt die schatting een beetje?Net als andere peilingen heeft een exitpoll een foutmarge. Volgens Ipsos is die hooguit 2 procent Bron: TK2017 - DE EXITPOLL - dus hooguit drie zetels in de Tweede Kamerverkiezingen.

Historisch gezien zit de exitpoll eigenlijk altijd dicht bij de verkiezingsuitslag. Bij de Provinciale Statenverkiezingen van 2015, bijvoorbeeld, waren de verschillen piepklein. De PVV liep nog het meest uit de pas - met nog geen procentpunt verschil.

*De ChristenUnie en de SGP hadden in twee provincies een gecombineerde lijst.

Die nauwkeurigheid komt allereerst door de hoge deelname: ruim 80 procent van de stemmers bij de geselecteerde bureaus doet mee aan het onderzoek. Bij zetelpeilingen ligt dit vaak ergens tussen 30 procent en 70 procent, van een toch al minder representatieve steekproef. Hier vertel ik meer over de representativiteit van de Nederlandse zetelpeilingen. Hier vertel ik meer over de representativiteit van de Nederlandse zetelpeilingen.toch al minder representatieve steekproef.

Het is niet vreemd dat de respons bij exitpolls hoger ligt. De vragenlijst is ultrakort: (C)(C)n vraag. En waar je voor zetelpeilingen een mailtje in je inbox krijgt, vraagt iemand je bij een exitpoll face-to-face of je wilt meedoen. Moeilijker om te vergeten, moeilijker om nee te zeggen.

Nog een reden waarom exitpolls een betere benadering geven van de uitslag: het gaat om werkelijk stemgedrag. Bij zetelpeilingen wordt gevraagd wat je denkt te gaan stemmen. Dat kan tussen peiling en verkiezing nog veranderen.

Hebben ze er wel eens flink naast gezeten?Er zijn recentelijk geen Nederlandse voorbeelden te bedenken waar de exitpolls de plank missloegen. Al leek het daar wel even op bij de gemeenteraadsverkiezingen in 2014.

Toen kwam het CDA in het Ipsos-onderzoek Hier schrijft Ipsos over zijn prognose van de Gemeenteraadsverkiezingen in 2014. Hier schrijft Ipsos over zijn prognose van de Gemeenteraadsverkiezingen in 2014.het Ipsos-onderzoek op 10,9 procent van de stemmen. Toen de stemmen geteld waren, kon de champagne alsnog open bij de christendemocraten: de uitslag lag ruim 3 procentpunten hoger, en zo was de partij toch de grootste van het land.

Maar: Ipsos deed hier geen exitpoll, maar een internetpeiling. Omdat de cijfers toch als prognose werden gepresenteerd door Herman de Schermman, Herman van der Zandt werkte tot 2015 mee aan de verkiezingsuitzendingen van de NOS. Hij kreeg de bijnaam 'Herman de Schermman' door de geestige manier waarop hij de uitslagen op het touchscreen begeleidde. leek het alsof het om een exitpoll ging.

Dus: heeft het zin om naar de cijfers te kijken?Een zeteltje meer of minder is goed mogelijk, maar het is onwaarschijnlijk dat de exitpoll er woensdag veel verder dan dat naast zit. Maar wil je zeker weten dat je uit gaat van de goede cijfers? Dan kun je beter wachten tot de echte uitslag en je popcorn in plaats daarvan bij Netflix opeten.

Wil je op de hoogte blijven van mijn artikelen? Als correspondent Ontcijferen onderzoek ik de wereld van cijfers. In mijn wekelijkse mail houd ik je op de hoogte van mijn verhalen en deel ik het beste wat ik zie, hoor en lees. Een vast onderdeel: #nerdalert, voor de getallenliefhebbers. Schrijf je hier in voor mijn wekelijkse mail

Meer weten? Na dit spel snap je: veel peilingennieuws is geen nieuws #peiljewijzer De PVV daalt met twee zetels, de PvdA is de grootste in Amsterdam en GroenLinks staat bijna gelijk met D66. Wat is zulk peilingnieuws waard? Stap in de schoenen van Maurice de Hond en kom erachter. Lees mijn verhaal hier terug Peilingen domineren het politieke debat. Maar (C)(C)n cruciaal cijfer ontbreekt Hoe dichter we bij de verkiezingen komen, hoe belangrijker de peilingen lijken te worden. Maar hoe betrouwbaar zijn de peilingen waarop we onze stem baseren? Lees mijn verhaal hier terug De Verkiezingsgids: Hoe stemden de partijen de afgelopen vier jaar? De afgelopen weken pluisden correspondenten uit hoe partijen de afgelopen vier jaar hebben gestemd in de Tweede Kamer. Kwam dat overeen met wat ze beloofden? In dit overzicht vatten we de belangrijkste inzichten per thema samen. Lees ons verhaal hier terug

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 15 Mar 2017 22:43

Islam and Muslims are no longer welcome in Europe. If that message wasn't already clear to most people it has been set in to law today by EU judges. The decision by the European Court of Justice to allow employers to ban staff from wearing the headscarf seems certain to only further marginalise and push Muslim women out of public life.

What with France's ban on the niqab in 2010, and countries such as Germany wanting to follow suit, the trend of enshrining Islamophobia into law is becoming increasingly common. Proponents of such policies deceptively tell the public these decisions will emancipate Muslim women from the proposed shackles of Islam. Yet, what these laws represent is a discriminatory form of social engineering to try and enforce Muslim women to adopt a secular identity.

Such discriminatory and openly xenophobic policies contradict Europe's inherent belief that it is a bastion of freedom in an otherwise barbaric and intolerant world. The hypocrisy is galling to say the least '' the very European leaders that pit themselves against supposedly misogynistic and regressive societies in the Muslim world have no qualms in applying discriminatory and gendered Islamophobia towards Muslim women in their own countries.

They conveniently ignore the impact that such legislation is having on the lives of ordinary Muslim women. An inquiry by the Women and Equalities Committee found that Muslim women were three times less likely to be employed. The report highlighted the role of ''unconscious bias'' in discrimination against women that wear the hijab or have Muslim sounding names.

A similar report by the European Network Against Racism, which covered eight countries ranging from France to The Netherlands, suggests that the such discrimination in the workplace and it's negative impact on Muslim women is widespread across Europe.

Economic marginalisation is of course not the only obstacle that women must face due to decisions like the one made today. There are much more dire consequences for the average woman on the streets of London or Paris. With reports of a woman in hijab being dragged along the streets of London and another woman attacked and bitten for wearing hijab in Vienna, what kind of message does this sends out to those people that find a piece of cloth offensive enough to attack a woman for it?

Top European court rules companies can ban Islamic headscarf

Alarmingly, the decision the EU judges made is strikingly like the anti-Jewish legislation that was passed in Germany prior to the Second World War. The Nuremberg laws specifically targeted a social group by restricting them on an economic level. Jews were banned from professions such as midwifery and law, and state contracts were cancelled with Jewish owned businesses. That is not dissimilar to telling a woman that she is not welcome at a workplace if she decides to identify as a member of a given faith.

There will be those that hail today's decision as a victory for Europe's long held secular ideals. However, history tells us that such excuses are always used to justify much more sinister trajectories. This new ban is a worrying indication of Europe's hostility towards its Muslims citizens.

Let us not forget that it was in times of similar social and economic upheaval that Europe's Jews became the scapegoats for all of society's ills. It's increasingly becoming apparent that history might be repeating itself as Muslim women become the new victims of Europe's identity crises ensuing from its social and economic woes.

Reuse content

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 13 Mar 2017 22:39

Image copyrightAFPImage caption France has withheld the delivery of two Mistral warships sold to Russia over tensions surrounding the Ukraine crisis A squadron of Russian warships has passed through the English Channel in what the Royal Navy described as a "routine" movement.

Nato dismissed reports by Russian media saying the flotilla was there to conduct military exercises.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said that the ships had been escorted out of UK waters by Royal Navy warship HMS Tyne.

Nato has reported increased incursions by Russian military vehicles following months of tension over Ukraine.

It's a sign of the times. When the Russian military are on the move, alarm bells ring. This year there have already been three times as many intercepts of Russian warplanes flying near the airspace of Nato countries compared with 2013.

But the UK Royal Navy and the French Navy say "it's not unusual" to have Russian warships transiting through the Channel. It's the route they often choose to make their way to the Mediterranean. The Royal Navy was aware of this transit and sent HMS Tyne to monitor.

The Royal Navy has a frigate or destroyer on standby to respond at short notice, what's called the Fleet Response Escort (FRE). In this instance it says the smaller Ocean Patrol Vessel was the right ship for the job.

In a statement released to the Russian news agency RIA Novosti, the Russian Northern Fleet said that its vessels were led by the Severomorsk destroyer and were anchored in French waters waiting for a storm to pass.

The fleet is now north of the Normandy coast.

"While it is anchored the crew will perform a series of exercises on combating infiltrating submarine forces," it said.

But a Nato spokesman said the ships "are not exercising in the Channel, as some Russian headlines would have us believe".

"Our information indicates that the ships are transiting and have been delayed by weather conditions," spokesman Jay Janzen told the AFP news agency.

An MoD spokesman said "We are aware that four Russian naval ships have passed through the Dover Strait from the North Sea into the English Channel, which all ships have the right to do under international law."

Earlier in November, Nato's top military commander said that recent incursions into European airspace by Russian fighters and long-range bombers included larger, more complex formations of aircraft flying more "provocative" routes than usual.

General Philip Breedlove said that incursions were fairly common and safely handled.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 12:45

Songfestivalwinnares in 2016 Jamala ANP

Twee maanden voor het Eurovisie Songfestival in Kiev lijkt al een ruzie te ontbranden tussen Oekra¯ne en Rusland. Sinds de annexatie van het Oekra¯ense schiereiland de Krim door Rusland in 2014 is het songfestival aanleiding voor stekeligheden en dreigt het gepolitiseerd te worden.

De Oekra¯ense geheime dienst doet onderzoek naar de Russische deelneemster Julia Samojlova. Zij trad in 2015 op de geannexeerde Krim op. De geheime dienst wil nu weten of zij vanuit Rusland naar de Krim is gereisd. Mocht dat zo zijn dan is ze volgens Oekra¯ne in overtreding en dreigt er een inreisverbod. Dan zou ze dus in mei niet mee mogen doen aan het festival.

De 27-jarige Samojlova zit in een rolstoel. Ze werd gisteren door de Russen aangewezen en ze is van plan om het nummer Flame is burning te zingen. Het Kremlin heeft ontkend dat Samojlova is uitgekozen om de Oekra¯ners te provoceren.

Vorig jaar was er ook gedoe tussen Rusland en Oekra¯ne en ook toen ging het over de Krim. De Oekra¯ense Jamala won met het lied 1944 dat verwees naar de deportatie van haar volk, de Tataren, door de Sovjets in 1944.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: FCW: The business of federal technology

Wed, 15 Mar 2017 23:40

Law Enforcement

U.S. indicts Russian spies in Yahoo hackBy Mark RockwellMar 15, 2017 The Justice Department formally indicted four people, including two Russian government cybersecurity officers, who DOJ said hacked into email provider Yahoo's accounts in 2014, exposing hundreds of millions of users in one of the largest data breaches ever detected in the U.S.

The hack exposed at least 500 million accounts. Justice Department officials said at a March 15 press conference that the hackers sought access to the accounts of Russian and U.S. government officials, including cyber security, diplomatic and military personnel. It also targeted Russian journalists; numerous employees of other service providers whose networks the hackers wanted to exploit, and employees of financial services and other companies.

The DOJ and the FBI announced indictments of Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sushchin, both of Russia's Federal Security Service, the agency that replaced the notorious KGB. Those two individuals protected, directed, facilitated and paid criminal hackers to collect information through computer intrusions in the United States and elsewhere, said Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord.

In addition to conducting espionage, the indictment alleges, co-conspirators Alexsey Belan and Karim Baratov hacked into Yahoo accounts to steal credit card and gift card information, and to mint cookies that allowed the perpetrators to spoof email accounts for use in spam and phishing scams.

"These are the very people we're supposed to work with cooperatively in law enforcement channels," said McCord of Dokuchaev and Sushchin during the press conference. "They turned against that work."

McCord said Yahoo and Google had provided "sustained and invaluable cooperation" in the investigation. Both companies, U.S. Attorney Brian Stretch said, notified the Justice Department about the breaches. That cooperation didn't come at the expense of customers' privacy, he added.

The FSB unit for which Dokuchaev and Sushchin worked, the Center for Information Security, or Center 18, is also the FBI's point of contact in Moscow for cyber-crime matters, said McCord. According to the indictment, Sushchin was embedded as a purported employee and Head of Information Security at a Russian investment bank

This indictment isn't Belan's first run-in with U.S. law enforcement in the U.S. for hacking. According to McCord, he's been indicted twice before for three hacks into e-commerce companies and has been on the FBI's most-wanted list of cyber criminals for over three years.

Belan, Dokuchaev and Sushchin remain beyond U.S. law enforcement's reach in Russia, said Paul Abbate, FBI executive assistant director during the press conference. Baratov was arrested by Canadian authorities March 14 in Canada on a U.S. government provisional arrest warrant. He has dual Canadian and Kazakh citizenship, but lives in Canada, according to the indictment.

The U.S. is working on bringing the others to justice, but that is an uphill battle.

"We've had limited cooperation with that element of the Russian government in the past," said Abbate. The FBI, he said, asked for Belan's return to the U.S. in 2014 through official channels to the Russian government but received no response. "I think that is reflective of the relationship," he said. "We need cooperation among all international partners to resolve cases like this."

Abbate said he hoped for cooperation from the Russians on this case, and would again formally ask for cooperation to get Belan and the others involved.

"Today's indictments highlight the value of withholding accusations until the private sector's technical forensics can be confirmed by traditional investigative techniques available to law enforcement and the intelligence community," said Intel Security CTO Steve Grobman.

About the Author

Mark Rockwell is a staff writer at FCW.

Before joining FCW, Rockwell was Washington correspondent for Government Security News, where he covered all aspects of homeland security from IT to detection dogs and border security. Over the last 25 years in Washington as a reporter, editor and correspondent, he has covered an increasingly wide array of high-tech issues for publications like Communications Week, Internet Week, Fiber Optics News, tele.com magazine and Wireless Week.

Rockwell received a Jesse H. Neal Award for his work covering telecommunications issues, and is a graduate of James Madison University.

Click here for previous articles by Rockwell. Contact him at mrockwell@fcw.com or follow him on Twitter at @MRockwell4.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 15 Mar 2017 23:17

According to multiple reports, US District Judge Derrick Watson of Hawaii has blocked the latest version of the Trump administration's travel ban, saying it likely violates First Amendment protections.

This is a breaking news story. We will update the post when we have more information.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 13 Mar 2017 12:46

A Texas politician has filed legislation that would see men fined $100 (£82) for masturbating outside a hospital or clinic.

Jessica Farrar, a Democrat, created the "Man's Right To Know Act" to highlight how women have been affected by targeted healthcare legislation in her state, particularly relating to abortion.

She said its rules '-- including a mandatory waiting period before a vasectomy procedure or receiving a prescription for Viagra, as well as a "medically-unnecessary digital rectal exam" '-- mirror "real TX laws and health care restrictions faced by TX women every #txlege session".

The headline stipulation would categorise ejaculation outside either a vagina or medical facility as an "act against an unborn child, and failing to preserve the sanctity of life".

Ms Farrar told mysanantonio.com: "A lot of people find the bill funny. What's not funny are the obstacles that Texas women face every day, that were placed there by legislatures making it very difficult for them to access healthcare."

Texas' House of Representatives is currently controlled by a Republican majority, and the state has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country due to its conservative Christian culture.

From 2011, women were made to undergo an invasive ultrasound scan at least 24 hours before they had an abortion, requiring at least two trips to a clinic. This is one of the measures Ms Farrar's bill parodies.

She told the site: "When a woman has to have a trans-vaginal ultrasound, it has nothing to do with her healthcare. One of the state's objectives is to guilt her into changing her mind."

The proposed law would also force the state to create pamphlets '-- mimicking those given to women seeking an abortion '-- filled with information about vasectomies, Viagra and colonosopies.

And it would allow doctors to "invoke their personal, moralistic, or religious beliefs in refusing to perform an elective vasectomy or prescribe Viagra".

It adds: "Masturbatory emissions created in health or medical facilities will be stored for the purposes of conception for a current or future wife."

Earlier this year one GOP state representative called for abortion to become a crime in Texas, arguing it would force women to be "more personally responsible" about sex.

Tony Tinderhold introduced the "Abolition Of Abortion In Texas Act" in an attempt to make it a criminal offence to have an abortion in the state at any point, regardless of whether a woman has conceived following rape or incest.

It is currently in the committee stage and, if successful, would mean women who have an abortion could be charged with murder.

The UK's own abortion ban, explained in 3 minutes

After one state law that required doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, and abortion clinics to have facilities similar to ambulatory surgical centres, was struck down by the Supreme Court, a study found its restrictions had already forced women to travel further for the procedure.

In Texas counties where the distance to the nearest clinic increased by 100 miles or more, there was a 50 per cent drop in the number of abortions taking place, the University of Texas' policy evaluation project found.

The number of clinics offering abortions in the state more than halved between 2013 and June 2016, when the law was struck down, from 41 to 17.

A spate of proposed laws targeting abortion across the US led Margaret Atwood, author of the classic dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale, to speak out last month.

She said concerns about women's rights under President Donald Trump had contributed to a resurgence in popularity for the book, which describes a repressive and highly stratified American society in which women are forced into domestic servitude and made to bear the children of the ruling class.

It followed a series of moves by conservative politicians to restrict access to abortions, as well as Vice President Mike Pence's attendance at the anti-abortion March For Life, for which Mr Trump also tweeted his "full support".

Mr Pence told marchers in January: "This administration will work with Congress to end taxpayer funding of abortion and abortion providers. Life is winning again in America."

Reuse content

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: The Millennium Report

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 16:03

Make no mistake: this is big news. And very bad newsBy Daniel McAdams

Ron Paul Institute

Although the Syrian army, with its ally Russia, has made significant gains against ISIS over the past week or so, the Washington Post is reporting tonight that President Trump has for the first time sent regular US military personnel into that country in combat positions.

This is an unprecedented escalation of US involvement in the Syrian warand it comes without Congressional authorization, without UN authorization, and without the authorization of the government of Syria. In short it is three ways illegal.

According to the Post, US Marines have departed their ships in the Mediterranean and have established an outpost on Syrian soil from where they will fire artillery toward the ISIS ''headquarters'' of Raqqa. The Post continues: The Marines on the ground include part of an artillery battery that can fire powerful 155-millimeter shells from M777 Howitzers, two officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the deployment. The expeditionary unit's ground force, Battalion Landing Team 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, will man the guns and deliver fire support for U.S.-backed local forces who are preparing an assault on the city. Additional infantrymen from the unit are likely to provide security.

On March 5th, RT ran footage of a US military convoy entering Syria near Manbij. The US mainstream media initially blacked out the story, but the Post today confirmed that the troops were from the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment in Stryker vehicles.

What is important to understand about this sudden escalation of US involvement is that if this ''race to Raqqa'' is won by the US military rather than by Syrian government forces, the chance that the US will hand the territory back to the Assad government is virtually nil. In other words, this is an operation far less about wiping ISIS out from eastern Syria and much more about the United States carving out eastern Syria as a permanent outpost from where it can, for example, continue the original neocon/Israeli/Saudi plan for ''regime change'' in Syria.

The United States is making a military bid for a very large chunk of sovereign Syrian territory. Something even Obama with his extraordinarily reckless Middle East policy would not dare to do.

How will the Russians react to this development?

How will the Russians react if increased US military activity on the ground in Syria begins to threaten Russian military forces operating in Syria (with the consent of that country's legal government)? With President Trump's ''get along with Russia'' policy lying in the tatters of a Nikki Haley at the UN and a Fiona Hill at NSC Staff, how differently might the Russians see US actions in Syria than they might have only a month or so ago?

Make no mistake: this is big news. And very bad news.

___

http://www.globalresearch.ca/trump-invades-syria/5578671

Bookmark the permalink.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 13 Mar 2017 23:01

ADVERTISEMENT

We can learn a lot about ourselves by looking to the past. History not only provides us with a nostalgic glimpse at how things used to be '-- like with these classic childhood toys '-- but its lessons can still teach us things today.Many of us fondly refer to ''the good old days'' when times were purer and life was simpler.

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot. Once a day it was taken and sold to the tannery.

If you had to do this to survive, you were ''piss poor.''

But worse than that were the really poor folks who couldn't even afford to buy a pot. They ''didn't have a pot to piss in'' and were considered the lowest of the low.

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June.

However, since they were starting to smell, brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor.

Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water.

The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women, and finally the children. Last of all the babies.

By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, ''Don't throw the baby out with the bath water!''

Houses had thatched roofs with thick straw-piled high and no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof.

When it rained, it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying, ''It's raining cats and dogs.''

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed.

Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the term, ''dirt poor.''

The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on the floor to help keep their footing.

As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way.

Hence, ''a thresh hold.''

ADVERTISEMENT

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day, they lit the fire and added things to the pot.

They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day.

Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, ''Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.''

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off.

It was a sign of wealth that a man could ''bring home the bacon.'' They would cut off a little to share with guests, and would all sit around and ''chew the fat.''

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death.

This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the ''upper crust.''

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days.

Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial.

They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up.

Hence the custom of holding a ''wake.''

In old, small villages, local folks started running out of places to bury people.

So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave.

When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside, and they realized they had been burying people alive.

So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.

Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (''the graveyard shift'') to listen for the bell.

Thus, someone could be ''saved by the bell,'' or was considered a ''dead ringer.''

Now, whoever said history was boring?

Source: Littlethings.com

ADVERTISEMENT

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: The Intercept

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 15:55

On Sunday's Face the Nation, Sen. Rand Paul was asked about President Trump's accusation that President Obama ordered the NSA to wiretap his calls. The Kentucky senator expressed skepticism about the mechanics of Trump's specific charge, saying: ''I doubt that Trump was a target directly of any kind of eavesdropping.'' But he then made a broader and more crucial point about how the U.S. government spies on Americans' communications '-- a point that is deliberately obscured and concealed by U.S. government defenders.

Paul explained how the NSA routinely and deliberately spies on Americans' communications '-- listens to their calls and reads their emails '-- without a judicial warrant of any kind:

The way it works is, the FISA court, through Section 702, wiretaps foreigners and then [NSA] listens to Americans. It is a backdoor search of Americans. And because they have so much data, they can tap '-- type Donald Trump into their vast resources of people they are tapping overseas, and they get all of his phone calls.

And so they did this to President Obama. They '-- 1,227 times eavesdrops on President Obama's phone calls. Then they mask him. But here is the problem. And General Hayden said this the other day. He said even low-level employees can unmask the caller. That is probably what happened to Flynn.

They are not targeting Americans. They are targeting foreigners. But they are doing it purposefully to get to Americans.

Paul's explanation is absolutely correct. That the NSA is empowered to spy on Americans' communications without a warrant '-- in direct contravention of the core Fourth Amendment guarantee that ''the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause'' '-- is the dirty little secret of the U.S. Surveillance State.

As I documented at the height of the controversy over the Snowden reporting, top government officials '-- including President Obama '-- constantly deceived (and still deceive) the public by falsely telling them that their communications cannot be monitored without a warrant. Responding to the furor created over the first set of Snowden reports about domestic spying, Obama sought to reassure Americans by telling Charlie Rose: ''What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls '... by law and by rule, and unless they '... go to a court, and obtain a warrant, and seek probable cause.''

The right-wing chairman of the House Intelligence Committee at the time, GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, echoed Obama, telling CNN the NSA ''is not listening to Americans' phone calls. If it did, it is illegal. It is breaking the law.''

Those statements are categorically false. A key purpose of the new 2008 FISA law '-- which then-Senator Obama voted for during the 2008 general election after breaking his primary-race promise to filibuster it '-- was to legalize the once-controversial Bush/Cheney warrantless eavesdropping program, which the New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize for exposing in 2005. The crux of the Bush/Cheney controversy was that they ordered NSA to listen to Americans' international telephone calls without warrants '-- which was illegal at the time '-- and the 2008 law purported to make that type of domestic warrantless spying legal.

Because warrantless spying on Americans is so anathema to how citizens are taught to think about their government '-- that's what Obama was invoking when he falsely told Rose that it's ''the same way when we were growing up and we were watching movies, you want to go set up a wiretap, you got to go to a judge, show probable cause'' '-- the U.S. government has long been desperate to hide from Americans the truth about NSA's warrantless powers. U.S. officials and their media spokespeople reflexively mislead the U.S. public on this critical point.

It's no surprise, then, that as soon as Rand Paul was done uttering the unpleasant, usually hidden truth about NSA's domestic warrantless eavesdropping, the cavalcade of ex-intelligence-community officials who are now heavily embedded in American punditry rushed forward to attack him. One former NSA lawyer, who now writes for the IC's most loyal online platform, Lawfare, expressed grave offense at what she claimed was Sen. Paul's ''false and irresponsible claim.''

The only thing here that's ''false and irresponsible'' is Hennessey's attempt to deceive the public about the domestic spying powers of her former employer. And many other people beyond Rand Paul have long made clear just how misleading Hennessey's claim is.

Ted Lieu, the liberal congressman from California, has made it one of his priorities to stop the very power Hennessey and her IC colleagues pretend does not exist: warrantless spying on Americans. The 2008 FISA law that authorized it is set to expire this year, and this is what Lieu tweeted last week about his efforts to repeal that portion of it:

And in response to the IC attacks on Paul on Sunday, Lieu explained:

As Lieu says, the 2008 FISA law explicitly allows NSA '-- without a warrant '-- to listen to Americans' calls or read their emails with foreign nationals as long as their ''intent'' is to target the foreigner, not the American. Hennessey's defense is true only in the narrowest and emptiest theoretical sense: that the statute bars the practice of ''reverse targeting,'' where the real intent of targeting a foreign national is to monitor what Americans are saying. But the law was designed, and is now routinely used, for exactly that outcome.

How do we know that a key purpose of the 2008 law is to allow the NSA to purposely monitor Americans' communications without a warrant? Because NSA and other national security officials said so explicitly. This is how Jameel Jaffer, then of the ACLU, put it in 2013:

On its face, the 2008 law gives the government authority to engage in surveillance directed at people outside the United States. In the course of conducting that surveillance, though, the government inevitably sweeps up the communications of many Americans. The government often says that this surveillance of Americans' communications is ''incidental,'' which makes it sound like the NSA's surveillance of Americans' phone calls and emails is inadvertent and, even from the government's perspective, regrettable.

But when Bush administration officials asked Congress for this new surveillance power, they said quite explicitly that Americans' communications were the communications of most interest to them. See, for example, FISA for the 21st Century, Hearing Before the S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 109th Cong. (2006) (statement of Michael Hayden) (stating, in debate preceding passage of FAA's predecessor statute, that certain communications ''with one end in the United States'' are the ones ''that are most important to us'').

The principal purpose of the 2008 law was to make it possible for the government to collect Americans' international communications '-- and to collect those communications without reference to whether any party to those communications was doing anything illegal. And a lot of the government's advocacy is meant to obscure this fact, but it's a crucial one: The government doesn't need to ''target'' Americans in order to collect huge volumes of their communications.

During debate over that 2008 law, the White House repeatedly issued veto threats over proposed amendments from then-Sen. Russ Feingold and others to weaken NSA's ability to use the law to monitor Americans' communications without warrants '-- because enabling such warrantless eavesdropping powers was, as they themselves said, a prime objective of the new law.

When the ACLU's Jaffer appeared in 2014 before the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board to argue that the 2008 FISA law was unconstitutional in terms of how it was written and how NSA exploits it, he made clear exactly how NSA conducts ''backdoor'' warrantless searches of Americans' communications despite the bar on ''reverse targeting'':

Those who actually work to protect Americans' privacy rights and other civil liberties have been warning for years that NSA is able to purposely monitor Americans' communications without warrants. Human Rights Watch has warned that ''in reality the law allows the agency to capture potentially vast numbers of Americans' communications with people overseas'' and thus ''currently underpins some of the most sweeping warrantless NSA surveillance programs that affect Americans and people across the globe.'' And Marcy Wheeler, in response to Hennessey's misleading claim on Sunday, correctly said: ''I can point to court docs and congressional claims that entire point of 702 [of the 2008 FISA law] is to ID convos involving Americans.''

Elizabeth Goitein, the co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, warned in the Boston Review that the ban on ''reverse targeting'' was a farce. In fact, ''the program tolerates '-- and even contemplates '-- a massive amount of collection of Americans' telephone calls, emails, and other electronic communications.'' Thus, she explains, ''it is likely that Americans' communications comprise a significant portion of the 250 million internet transactions (and undisclosed number of telephone conversations) intercepted each year without a warrant or showing of probable cause.''

Even more alarming is the power NSA now has to search the immense amount of Americans' communications data it routinely collects without a warrant. As Goitein explained: ''The government may intentionally search for this information even though it would have been illegal, under section 702's 'reverse targeting' prohibition, for the government to have such intent at the time of collection.''

In the wake of the controversy triggered by Trump's accusations about Obama's ''tapping'' his phones, Goitein wrote a new article explaining that there are numerous ways the government could have spied on the communications of Trump (or any American) without a warrant. She emphasized that ''there have long been concerns, on both the right and left, that the legal constraints on foreign intelligence surveillance contain too many loopholes that can be exploited to access information about Americans without judicial oversight or evidence of wrongdoing.''

This is what Rand Paul meant when he said on Sunday that ''because [NSA analysts] have so much data, they can tap '-- type Donald Trump into their vast resources of people they are tapping overseas, and they get all of his phone calls.'' And while '-- as I've argued previously '-- any leaks that reveal lying by officials are criminal yet justified even if they come from the CIA or NSA, Paul is also correct that these domestic warrantless eavesdropping powers vest the Deep State '-- or, if you na¯vely prefer, our noble civil servants '-- with menacing powers against even the highest elected officials.

The warrantless gathering and searching of vast amounts of communications data essentially becomes a dossier that can be used even against domestic opponents. This is what Snowden meant in his much-maligned but absolutely true statement in his first interview with us back in 2013 that ''I, sitting at my desk, could wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email.'' As Paul put it on Face the Nation: ''It is very dangerous, because they are revealing that now to the public.'' That's a serious concern no matter how happy one might be to see Donald Trump damaged or how much one now adores the intelligence agencies.

Congress has now begun debating whether to allow these provisions of the 2008 law to expire at the end of the year, whether to meaningfully reform them, or whether to let them be renewed again. The post-9/11 history has been that once even ''temporary'' measures (such as the Patriot Act) are enacted, they become permanent fixtures of our political landscape.

Perhaps the growing recognition that nobody is immune from such abusive powers will finally reverse that tide. Those eager to preserve these domestic surveillance powers in their maximalist state rely on the same tactic that has worked so well for them for 15 years now: rank disinformation.

If nothing else, this debate ought to finally obliterate that pleasing though utterly false myth that the U.S. government does not and cannot spy on Americans' communications without warrants. It does so constantly, easily, deliberately, and by design.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 15 Mar 2017 13:10

A'‚few years ago, an adjunct professor and disability-rights activist named Stacy Nowak went to take a look at a college course offered online by the University of California, Berkeley. The course was called "Journalism for Social Change." Nowak is deaf. She has no connection to UC Berkeley; she teaches art at Gallaudet University. But she was displeased with the quality of the closed captioning the university provided on the course's video.

Nowak, who declined to be interviewed for this article, got hold of the National Association of the Deaf, which she's a member of. In doing so she set in motion a train of events that will come to a head on March 15. Already famous for other reasons, the Ides of March will likely stand as a signal day in the development of modern liberalism, or progressivism, as we are supposed to call it. That's when one bastion of left-wingery, UC Berkeley, will give in to the demands of another, the disability-rights movement, to deprive the rest of us of a uniquely wonderful resource of modern technology. It's not as complicated as it sounds.

Since 2012, UC Berkeley (among many other schools) has offered video and audio recordings of many of its courses to the general public, via YouTube and iTunes U. The Seussian acronym is MOOCs, for massive open online courses. Over the years Berkeley's catalogue of MOOCs has grown to more than 40,000 hours of high-end pedagogy. There are introductory courses in economics, European history, statistics, physics, geography, and pretty much everything else. More advanced courses range from "Scientific Approaches to Consciousness" and "Game Theory" to "The Planets" and "Philosophy of Language," this last taught by John Searle, the country's, and maybe the world's, greatest living philosopher. Not all of the content will be to everyone's taste, of course, and I'm sure there's something to annoy anyone sooner or later. Professor Michael Nagler's simpering "Intro to Nonviolence" makes me want to punch something. I probably wouldn't like "Journalism for Social Change," either.

But still, wandering around this digital edifice one can't help but marvel. Has the Internet ever seemed so close to fulfilling the promise of its salad days? Think of it: Anyone anywhere can take a class at UC Berkeley, at their own pace, without tests or note-taking or waking up before noon! And despite the reflexive slanders from conservatives and its well-earned reputation as a hive of left-wingers, Berkeley remains one of the great intellectual centers of the world when it's not being torched by its students. Clicking on a course that seems even vaguely interesting, a former liberal arts major will now and then feel a reawakening of the thrill and sense of elation and limitless possibility that are among the great rewards of brainy adventures. Berkeley's MOOCs constitute an expansion of intellectual opportunity unimaginable 25 years ago.

Unfortunately, that's about the time Americans saw the imposition of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The act, passed in 1990, ordered American businesses and other institutions, public and private, to make "reasonable accommodations" to employees, customers, or even random passersby, as long as federal regulators dubbed them disabled. The disability could be mental or physical. A drunkard no less than a deaf person is considered disabled for purposes of the ADA.

The law was called "bipartisan"'--a word that should ring like a firebell in the ears of every lover of liberty'--because it was passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by a Republican president, George H.'…W. Bush. Mostly, though, it was the work of the newly minted "disability-rights movement." Disability activists insisted their cause was the next stage in the same movement that brought legal liberation to African Americans. This has since become a common strategy for rent seekers of all kinds. Yet the rationale for inventing rights based on mental or physical disability bore no resemblance to the civil rights movement of earlier decades. The ADA was a brazen exercise in moral free-riding.

The only opposition to it came from a brave band of libertarians and constitutionalists who saw it as a gluttonous and unprecedented expansion of state power. The ADA gave the federal bureaucracy the authority to muscle its way into the interactions of private citizens as never before. For the first time, a civil servant in Washington could reach across the country to demand, for example, that a store owner in Spittoon, Kansas, build his grocery shelves to whatever height the bureaucrat chose. For good measure the grocer could be fined if his water fountain spouted water at the incorrect angle.

The ADA spread a feast for plaintiffs' lawyers. Its provisions are so comprehensively intrusive that no business could hope to be in perfect compliance. One federal manual, covering the single topic of "accessible design," comes to more than 275 pages. Walter Olson, author of The Litigation Explosion, has tracked many of the tens of thousands of lawsuits'--from the deaf patient awarded $400,000 because his rheumatologist failed to provide a sign language interpreter, to the police dispatcher who won a settlement for discrimination after she was fired. Her disability was narcolepsy.

Beyond the fate of individual businesses, and despite the warnings of a few economists, the unconquerable American economy absorbed the expense and market inefficiencies of the ADA with only the slightest indigestion. It swallowed, burped, and moved on. By now the act's reshaping of the landscape is so pervasive as to be invisible'--curb cuts on street corners, ramps jerry-rigged on old office buildings, doors that open magically of themselves, and so on. After the ADA the country was much less free but its rulers were much more pleased with themselves.

As for the unintended consequences of the act .'…'….'…'…. well, Berkeley has just learned about those.

After Nowak notified the National Association of the Deaf of her frustration with Berkeley's MOOCs, NAD went straight to the white-hot center of the American grievance industry, the federal government's Department of Justice. The organization filed a complaint with DoJ on behalf of Nowak and a Gallaudet colleague as "aggrieved individuals." The government lawyers got to work.

UC Berkeley, needless to say, is deeply involved in the disability rights movement and has gone to great lengths to keep it satisfied. Its Division of Equity and Inclusion boasts a Disabled Students Program that offers a long list of services to accommodate disabled students, including Disability Management Counseling and disability-specific problem-solving groups. The school adheres to an accessibility policy that issues Web Content Accessibility Guidelines that are enforced by the Web Accessibility Services team. There's even a minor in disability studies.

None of this impressed the Justice Department or the aggrieved individuals or the activist organization of which they are a part. Note that the accommodations listed above are for students and faculty only. But Berkeley opened its MOOCs to the general public. Among the videos, the intrepid DoJ investigators discovered some without captions, thus discriminating against members of the general public who are deaf. Some "contain[ed] text [that] had poor color contrast," thus discriminating against Americans with visual impairments. Others contained graphs and charts in which "information was sometimes conveyed using one color alone," thus discriminating against the color-blind.

In August, Rebecca Bond, chief of DoJ's Disability Rights Section, sent a letter to UC Berkeley administrators demanding that these acts of discrimination be corrected. In addition, the school would have to "pay compensatory damages to aggrieved individuals for injuries caused by UC Berkeley's failure to comply" with the ADA.

The letter was written in the purring tones of an enforcer who loves her work. "The Department prefers to resolve this matter cooperatively through a court-enforceable consent decree," Bond wrote. "In the event that we are unable to reach such a resolution, the Attorney General may initiate a lawsuit pursuant to the ADA." And do have a nice day.

The administrators didn't need an abacus to reckon that complying with the letter and retrofitting all the MOOC videos would be prohibitively expensive. Merely providing captions for all the videos, to say nothing of adjusting their color schemes and formatting, would cost more than $1 million, one official told the East Bay Times.

The easiest course, administrators concluded, was simply to pull all the MOOCs from the Internet, so that disabled members of the general public will no longer have to be subjected to such discriminatory offenses'--and, also, so that the federal government won't sue UC Berkeley. Last week Vice Chancellor Cathy Koshland announced that beginning March 15, Berkeley's vast library of online courses would no longer be publicly available. If they couldn't be accessible to a member of NAD, they won't be accessible to anyone.

"The revolution eats its own children," said Georges Jacques Danton. Too bad about the collateral damage.

Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 00:18

Trump taxes from 2005 were leaked. Why?Trump 2005 Taxes were leaked and Rachel Maddow published them. Many were disappointed, not only were they from 2005 but they did not have all of the supporting pages, just the top two. He paid taxes, and nearly a fair share of them '-- which was shocking. There are a lot of questions, though, and one of them is how the two different years of Trump taxes we have seen are so different. And why this particular year was leaked. The answer may be very simple.

Why that matters is that as her sponsor, and joint filer, their joint returns were required to be made available to the federal government in order for her to remain here on a Greencard, and again to get her citizenship. You have to show that you have no problems with the IRS to become naturalized.

She was naturalized and received her citizenship in 2006, freeing them from that requirement.

The 2005 tax returns are stamped, ''Client Copy.'' So they were from his inner circle at some point. they were given as part of a loan application or stolen, or as some have opined, he leaked them himself: they passed through his hands.

RELATED: Did Trump Leak His Own 2005 Income Tax Return?If indeed, those tax returns were leaked by him or a person close to him, the one year in his past you can guarantee he would have dotted his ''Is'' and crossed his ''Ts,'' shown a profit and paid taxes would have been in 2005. He was filing jointly with a woman who would not get naturalized as a citizen if she had blemished tax papers. That year had to be perfect.

This one year could likely be the most flattering to him of any year. And since we have seen other years that are the polar opposite of this year, e.g. showing a 1 Billion dollar loss, we can't just assume they are all this, well, Boy Scout-ishly perfect. In fact, Trump could lay those thoughts to rest by releasing all the years since 2005 up until the ones supposedly still under audit'... what are the chances of that?

This means that the person who leaked them had a much higher probability of this coming off making Trump look decent. Why would someone choose that particular year if they had intended to embarrass him or do his reputation harm? It seems that this year would flatter Trump, and that isn't the choice of someone opposing him.

This is not definitive proof that he leaked them nor even someone close to him, though it seems that the evidence is mounting for that. However, the fact stands, due to the federal immigration oversight of his tax returns before Melania was a citizen, in 2006 and during their marriage, in 2005 that single year was most likely the most meticulous, by the book year on record for Trump.

Previous As America Was Distracted By Wiretaps, Trump Was Quietly Doing Bannon's Bidding

Next Why Trump May Have Leaked His Own 2005 Income Tax Return.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 03:53

Need more info on this organization? Sign in for FREE access to Program, Financial (including Forms 990), and Operations Information. Sign in free

Civil Rights, Social Action, Advocacy (R) Summary

Story of the organization at a glance

Programs + Results

How do they make a difference?

Financials

Gauging financial health by the numbers

Operations

People, practices, and partners

EIN

81-4729990

Contact

See more addresses

Main Address

1611 CONNECTICUT AVE NW STE 400

WASHINGTON, DC 20009

Cause Area (NTEE Code)

Research Institutes and/or Public Policy Analysis (R05)

IRS Filing Requirement

This organization is required to file an IRS Form 990-N.

How does this organization make a difference?

You Can Make An Impact

Better data starts here.

Uh-oh! Looks like this nonprofit hasn't claimed their profile yet.

GuideStar believes that in-depth and comparable data about organizations can create real change within the nonprofit sector.

We encourage all nonprofit organizations to get involved.

Source: greatnonprofits.org

The review section is powered by Great Nonprofits

Financial information is an important part of gauging the short- and long-term health of the organization.

NEED MORE INFO ON THIS NONPROFIT?Free: Gain immediate access to the following: AddressAccess to the GuideStar CommunityThe people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.

Leadership

NEED MORE INFO ON THIS NONPROFIT?Free: Gain immediate access to the following: AddressAccess to the GuideStar CommunityGovernance

BOARD LEADERSHIP PRACTICESGuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section, which enables organizations and donors to transparently share information about essential board leadership practices. Self-reported by organization

BOARD ORIENTATION & EDUCATIONDoes the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations?

CEO OVERSIGHTHas the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year?

ETHICS & TRANSPARENCYHave the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year?

BOARD COMPOSITIONDoes the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership?

BOARD PERFORMANCEHas the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years?

Better data starts here.

Uh-oh! Looks like this nonprofit hasn't claimed their profile yet.

GuideStar believes that in-depth and comparable data about organizations can create real change within the nonprofit sector.

We encourage all nonprofit organizations to get involved.

Sign up for free today to get more of the nonprofit info you need.

Help us get you more of the nonprofit information you need, including:Unlimited profile viewsAccess to an industry expertOrganization's full address and contact informationUp to three years of Forms 990Revenue and expense data for the current fiscal yearCEO, Board Chair, and Board of Directors informationAdditional tools and resourcesAnd more...! An account already exists for that email address

Already have a GuideStar Account? Sign in

Thanks for signing up!An email has been sent to the address you provided. Click on the link in that email to get more GuideStar Nonprofit Profile data today!

(Don't see an email in your inbox? Click here to resend it.)

—

Thanks.A verification email has been sent to you. Please check your inbox in order to proceed.

GuideStar is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Copyright (C) 2017, GuideStar USA, Inc. All rights reserved.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 03:34

David Cay Boyle Johnston (born December 24, 1948)[1] is an American investigative journalist and author, a specialist in economics and tax issues, and winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting.

From 2009 to 2014 he was a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer who taught the tax, property, and regulatory law of the ancient world at Syracuse University College of Law and the Whitman School of Management. From July 2011 until September 2012 he was a columnist for Reuters, writing, and producing video commentaries, on worldwide issues of tax, accounting, economics, public finance and business. Johnston is the board president of Investigative Reporters and Editors.[2] He has also written for Al Jazeera English and America in recent years.

Reporting Johnston covered "student radicals, black politics and development" at the San Jose Mercury News from 1968 to 1973.[3] Although he "earned enough credits for at least one master's degree," his formal educational credentials are limited to a "night high school diploma" as he "skipped most general education requirements in favor of upper division and graduate study at seven schools," including San Francisco State University (1972), the University of Chicago (where he studied under a five-month fellowship in 1973) and Michigan State University (1973-1975).[4][5] At Michigan State, he wrote an internal textbook (A Guide to Public Records) for the University's journalism department.[6] From 1973 to 1976, he was an investigative reporter at the Detroit Free Press in its Lansing bureau. In 1976, he joined the Los Angeles Times, where he remained until 1988. Johnston subsequently worked as a reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer from 1988 to 1995. He joined The New York Times in February 1995.

As a reporter Johnston investigated Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) political spying and other abuses, the hotelier Barron Hilton, misuse of charitable funds at United Way, news manipulation at WJIM-TV in Lansing, Michigan, and Donald Trump's financial dealings. He once tracked down a killer whom the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department failed to catch, resulting in an innocent man winning acquittal at his fifth trial.[citation needed ]

From February 1995 to April 2008, he was the tax reporter with The New York Times. For the next three years, until joining Reuters, he wrote "Johnston's Take," a column on tax policy for the nonprofit journal Tax Notes and its sister website tax.com, published by Tax Analysts.[7] In 2009 he briefly wrote, "By The Numbers," a column for The Nation.[8]

Johnston received the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting "for his penetrating and enterprising reporting that exposed loopholes and inequities in the U.S. tax code, which was instrumental in bringing about reforms. "Johnston described how corporations were paying less in taxes, even as individuals were paying more, with even well-known companies like Colgate-Palmolive, Compaq Computer, and United Parcel Service (UPS) engaging in "what the courts called shams." A court found that Merrill Lynch saved AlliedSignal (now Honeywell) $180 million in "sham" money transfers among foreign companies. However, the IRS is, since 1999, more likely to audit the poor than the rich, Johnston reported.[9]

In 2001 Johnston investigated the claim that estate taxes, which Republicans call "death taxes," were so high that farm families were being forced to sell their family farms in order to pay the taxes. This claim was presented to prove the need to eliminate the inheritance tax. Johnston challenged those who made that claim, such as the American Farm Bureau Federation, to cite an example of a farm that was lost because of estate taxes, and they were unable to do so. Economists told Johnston that it was a myth. An IRS analysis of 1999 returns found that almost no working farmers owe estate taxes. Estate taxes are not assessed on the first $1.35 million net worth, and then rise from 43% to 55% after $3 million. Additionally, most wealthy people use legal maneuvers to reduce their estate taxes to 25% (or even as little as zero) for the largest estates.[10]

He was a Pulitzer finalist in 2003 "for his stories that displayed exquisite command of complicated U.S. tax laws and of how corporations and individuals twist them to their advantage." He was also a finalist in 2000 "for his lucid coverage of problems resulting from the reorganization of the Internal Revenue Service."

Like columnist Steven Pearlstein, Johnston has won praise for his writings even though he has no degree in economics. Johnston studied economics at the University of Chicago graduate school and six other colleges, earning the equivalent of six years of college credits but no awarded degree, because he took upper level and graduate level courses almost exclusively, and did not remain at any one school long enough.[11]

Johnston has been critical of news media coverage of the 2008 $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. In a letter to American journalist and blogger Jim Romenesko, Johnston wrote, "In covering the proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street don't repeat the failed lapdog practices that so damaged our reputations in the rush to war in Iraq and the adoption of the Patriot Act. Don't assume that Congress must act instantly, as so many news stories state as if it was an immutable fact. Don't assume there is a case just because officials say there is."[12] Johnston has been cited favorably by Glenn Greenwald[13] as well as other bailout critics.[14] On September 26, 2008, Johnston said: "If you look around, you'll notice that banks are still making ordinary loans to ordinary businesses. Your mailbox is still full of proposals to sell you credit cards and extend you debt. The Internet still has ads for these very toxic mortgages that are at the heart of this. They're being advertised all over the Internet."..."And my point is not to argue that there is or is not a crisis, but that journalists need to begin not by questioning around the edges but by going to the core question. Is this the least expensive way to do this? Are there market solutions that might be applied?"[15]

In late 2016 Johnston founded DCReport, an online journal covering the president's administration and congress.[16]

On March 14, 2017, Johnston released a portion of Donald Trump's 2005 tax return.[17]

Books Johnston is the author of best-selling books on tax and economic policy. Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With The Bill, is about hidden subsidies, rigged markets, and corporate socialism. It follows his earlier book Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich'--and Cheat Everybody Else, a New York Times bestseller[18] on the U.S. tax system that won the Investigative Reporters and Editors 2003 Book of the Year award.

Johnston's first book, the 1992 Temples of Chance: How America Inc. Bought Out Murder Inc. to Win Control of the Casino Business is an account of how the junk-bond kings usurped mob control of the casino industry in the 1980s. The book discusses corruption in the industry and the role of the federal and state governments in that corruption.

In 2014 Cay Johnston released Divided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality. Cay Johnston shows most Americans, in inflation-adjusted terms, are now back to the average income of 1966. Post-recession (from 2009 to 2011) the top 1 percent of households took in 121% of the income gains while the bottom 99% saw their income actually fall.

In 2016, Johnston released The Making of Donald Trump, a journalistic account of the rise of businessperson-turned-presidential candidate Donald Trump, with Melville House Publishing.[19] At the time he wrote the book, Johnston had known Trump for 28 years. The book soon became a New York Times bestseller.[20]

Personal life Johnston was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Gretchen E. and Leslie Jules Johnston, a chef.[21] Johnston is married to Jennifer Leonard,[22][23] who is president and executive director of the Rochester Area Community Foundation. They live in Brighton, New York, a suburb of Rochester. He has eight children and five grandchildren.

Writings References ^ According to the State of California. California Birth Index, 1905-1995. Center for Health Statistics, California Department of Health Services, Sacramento, California. ^ "IRE - Board of Directors". Investigative Reporters and Editors. Retrieved November 9, 2012 . ^ http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/david-cay-johnston ^ https://davidcayjohnston.com/about-david/biography/ ^ http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/david-cay-johnston ^ https://davidcayjohnston.com/about-david/biography/ ^ "Tax Analysts -- David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Reporter, Begins Regular Column for Tax Analysts". taxanalysts.com. Retrieved 1 October 2015 . ^ http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090803/johnston ^ The 2001 Pulitzer Prize Winners: Beat Reporting Works. ^ Talk of Lost Farms Reflects Muddle of Estate Tax Debate By David Cay Johnston, New York Times, April 8, 2001 Free text ^ Perfectly Legal author bio ^ Poynter forum post from David Cay Johnston: Journalists, start your skepticism. ^ Glenn Greenwald Salon Radio interview of David Cay Johnston, Salon, October 1, 2008 ^ Forty-Two: David Cay Johnston on the Bailout; October 1, 2008 ^ "Rescue Mission". onthemedia. Retrieved 1 October 2015 . ^ "You Can Help David Cay Johnston Help Us". Daily Kos. Retrieved 2017-03-04 . ^ Levin, Sam (2017-03-14). "Donald Trump tax returns: president paid $38m in 2005, leaked document reveals '' as it happened". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2017-03-15 . ^ Roth, Bryan (2008), "And the rich get richer", Brighton-Pittsford Community Post, Canandaigua, New York: Messenger-Post (published January 21, 2008), pp. 1''2 ^ http://www.mhpbooks.com/on-sale-today-the-making-of-donald-trump-by-david-cay-johnston ^ https://web.archive.org/web/20160820081623/http://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/hardcover-nonfiction ^ "Johnston, David 1948''". highbeam.com. Retrieved 1 October 2015 . ^ Jennifer Leonard, president, Rochester Area Community Foundation ^ Jennifer Leonard bio ^ The-Fine-Print-Companies, Amazon.com. Retrieved 21 September 2012 External links

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 05:49

Send an email to Mr. Timothy L. ThomasEmail Mr. Timothy L. Thomas

TIMOTHY L. THOMAS is a senior analyst at the Foreign Military Studies Office at Ft. Leavenworth, KS. He conducts extensive research and publishing in the areas of peacekeeping, information war, psychological operations, low intensity conflict, and political-military affairs. He is an adjunct professor at the U.S. Army's Eurasian Institute; an adjunct lecturer at the U.S. Air Force Special Operations School; and a member of two Russian organizations, the Academy of International Information and the Academy of Natural Sciences. Mr. Thomas was a U.S. Army foreign area officer who specialized in Soviet/Russian studies. His military assignments included serving as the Director of Soviet Studies at the U.S. Army Russian Institute in Garmisch, Germany; as an inspector of Soviet tactical operations under the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe; and as a brigade S-2 and company commander in the 82nd Airborne Division.

Mr. Thomas has written six books on information warfare topics, focusing on recent developments in China and Russia.

Mr. Thomas holds a B.S. in engineering science from the U.S. Military Academy, and an M.I.R. from the University of Southern California.

*The above information may not be current. It was current at the time when the individual worked for SSI or was published by SSI.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 05:43

Matt Armstrong

CPD Blogger, Recipient of Master of Public Diplomacy

Mr. Matthew Armstrong is an author and advisor on public diplomacy, international information, and propaganda. His emphasis is examining how operating structures, authorities, doctrine, and individual opinions impact informational activities in support of national or organizational strategy. His focus is on the traditional and emerging security issues facing civilian and military government agencies, the Congress, news organizations, think tanks, and academia across several continents. He is an Associate Fellow at King's Centre for Strategic Communication at King's College London.

From August 2013 through December 2016, he served as a Governor on the Broadcasting Board of Governors. He was nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate into this part-time role where he provided strategic guidance and oversight over the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and the Middle East Broadcasting Network. Collectively, and separate from the expansive Internet Freedom programs of the BBG and RFA, the networks operated in up to 61 languages in over 100 countries.

Since 2012, Mr. Armstrong has served as a Member of the Board of The Public Diplomacy Council, and since 2014 as the Board Secretary. The PDC is a nonprofit organization committed to the importance of the academic study, professional practice, and responsible advocacy of public diplomacy. He has also been a member of the National Press Club since 2009.

In 2011, Mr. Armstrong served as the Executive Director of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy where he reoriented the organization to its core purpose of ''advocacy and oversight over U.S. government efforts that intend to understand, inform, and influence foreign publics.''

Mr. Armstrong obtained both his B.A. in International Relations and a Master of Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California (USC).

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 05:34

Michael D. Lumpkin (born October 14, 1964) is a former American Naval Officer and businessman who served as the Special Envoy and Coordinator of the Global Engagement Center at the U.S. Department of State until January 2017.[2] From 2013 until 2016, he was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict.[3] During that time, he also served as the acting Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, the third-highest civilian job at the Department of Defense (DoD).

Lumpkin is considered an experienced crisis manager and turnaround expert. Prior to his current role overhauling U.S. government efforts to disrupt extremist propaganda, he led the DoD response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa, efforts to locate and return Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, and the reorganization of the military's broken POW/MIA program.

As a Navy SEAL, Lumpkin served nine operational tours, one Commanding a Team, in counter-insurgency and counter-narcotics operations around the world, including in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Horn of Africa, the Philippines, and Central and South America.

Early life and education [ edit] Lumpkin was born in Oceanside, California to his parents, David and Jeri Lumpkin. They raised Lumpkin and his brother in nearby in Vista, California. His father served in the U.S. Marine Corps, and his brother currently serves as a Chief Master Sergeant in the U.S Air Force.

Lumpkin graduated from the University of California, San Diego in 1986, and subsequently earned his Master's Degree in National Security Affairs from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. His thesis analyzed incidents of violence at sea between 1975 and 1995.

Military career [ edit] After graduating from college, Lumpkin joined the U.S. Navy. Before becoming a Navy SEAL, Lumpkin did an abbreviated tour on the USS Vancouver, where he qualified as a Surface Warfare Officer. He began his career as a SEAL taking part in counter-narcotics operations in Latin America, mainly operated out of Panama. During this time, he held every leadership position from Platoon Commander to Commanding Officer, and he was formally recognized by the Armed Forces Preparedness Association for his Outstanding Contributions to National Security.

Immediately after the attacks of September 11, 2001, he was assigned as the Officer in Charge for the training and readiness of all West Coast SEAL Teams. The Teams he trained took part in the invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq while sustaining zero casualties.

During Operation Iraqi Freedom, Lumpkin served as Deputy Commander of the Joint Special Operations Task Force for the Arabian Peninsula. He then served as the Deputy Commander of all Special Operations in Iraq. In that role, he oversaw the daily operations of more than 2,000 Special Operators, and activities at six High Value Target interrogation facilities.

Lumpkin returned from Iraq for his final military assignment, working as a liaison to the U.S. Congress on policy and funding issues to support U.S. Special Operations Forces. He is recognized by the Department of Defense as a specialist in both the Western Hemisphere and Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict.

Government career [ edit] Lumpkin retired from the Navy in 2007, returned home to Jamul, California, and decided to run for Congress. He ran as a Democrat in California's strongly Republican 52nd Congressional District, and one of his chief campaign issues was bringing a responsible end to the war in Iraq.

In 2010, Lumpkin began serving as both Senior Advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). During that time, Secretary Eric Shinseki put Lumpkin in charge of implementing Family Caregiver legislation, passed in 2010, to better support families caring for post-9/11 Veterans.

In April 2011, Lumpkin moved over to the Pentagon, where he was sworn in as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (SO/LIC).

He then served as the Special Assistant to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. During that time, Secretary Hagel assigned Lumpkin with overseeing the reorganization of the then-broken POW/MIA accounting program. In the fall of 2013, President Obama nominated Lumpkin to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for SO/LIC. His nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on December 2, 2013.

As the Assistant Secretary for SO/LIC, he was responsible for oversight of all special operations and low-intensity conflict activities, including counterterrorism; direct action; special reconnaissance; embassy security, peacekeeping operations, and counter proliferation of WMD.

While he was the Assistant Secretary, Lumpkin served as the Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. He was also asked to lead DoD's response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa, and efforts to return Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl from the Taliban.

In January 2016, President Obama asked Lumpkin to overhaul the U.S. government's efforts to counter the propaganda of violent extremist organizations abroad such as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. He was appointed the Special Envoy and Coordinator of the Global Engagement Center, an interagency organization that leverages the private sector and new data analytics tools to disrupt extremist violent propaganda.[2]

Private sector experience [ edit] At a couple of points during his public service tenure, Lumpkin left government to work in the private sector. After his 2008 campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives, Lumpkin took a job as Director of Business Development for ATI.

In 2012, Lumpkin was hired to be the CEO at Industrial Security Alliance Partners, a San Diego-based firm that connects defense technology companies with venture capital and new market development.

Political positions [ edit] Self-proclaimed "fiscal conservative".[4]Advocate of personal responsibility.[4]Gun owner.[4]In addition to his over 40 awards and citations as a naval officer, Lumpkin has on two occasions been awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, DoD's highest civilian medal. He has also twice been awarded the Secretary of Defense Award for Outstanding Public Service, as well as the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence.

References [ edit] External links [ edit]

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 04:52

Donald Trump's Tax Documents From 2005 - The New York TimesHTTP/1.1 302 Found Server: Apache Set-Cookie: NYT-S=0MU0djUU7dFWfDXrmvxADeHA1B8ygYOqQQdeFz9JchiAIUFL2BEX5FWcV.Ynx4rkFI; expires=Sat, 15-Apr-2017 04:52:12 GMT; path=/; domain=.nytimes.com Set-Cookie: NYT-BCET=1492231932%7CUD9ePFkvdXpfhpUrb1QP%2FzMtX0g%3D%7CN%3B_%7CajF8C7f6Awp6yvpp6ghegh9FciZ4F%2FtTFojxk6YRL8o%3D; expires=Tue, 12-Sep-2017 04:52:12 GMT; path=/; domain=.nytimes.com; httponly Location: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/03/14/us/politics/document-Donald-Trump-2005-Tax.html?_r=0 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 X-Origin-Time: 2017-03-16 00:52:12 EDT Content-Length: 0 Accept-Ranges: bytes Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2017 04:52:12 GMT X-Frame-Options: DENY Connection: close X-API-Version: F-X X-PageType: legacy Content-Security-Policy: default-src data: 'unsafe-inline' 'unsafe-eval' https:; script-src data: 'unsafe-inline' 'unsafe-eval' https: blob:; style-src data: 'unsafe-inline' https:; img-src data: https: blob:; font-src data: https:; connect-src https: wss:; media-src https: blob:; object-src https:; child-src https: data: blob:; form-action https:; block-all-mixed-content; X-Served-By: cache-iad2121-IAD X-Cache: MISS X-Cache-Hits: 0 X-Timer: S1489639932.732959,VS0,VE19 Vary: Fastly-SSL HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: Apache Cache-Control: no-cache X-ESI: 1 Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 Cteonnt-Length: 28912 X-PageType: interactive X-Age: 0 Content-Encoding: gzip X-Origin-Time: 2017-03-16 00:52:12 EDT Content-Length: 8079 Accept-Ranges: bytes Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2017 04:52:12 GMT Age: 0 X-Frame-Options: DENY Set-Cookie: nyt-a=49d49dcdfdcefa2e11c0a09bec509a468a7afb8b663ed5406cc5e41e87dbf4ad; Expires=Fri, 16 Mar 2018 04:52:12 GMT; Path=/; Domain=.nytimes.com Connection: close X-API-Version: F-5-5 Content-Security-Policy: default-src data: 'unsafe-inline' 'unsafe-eval' https:; script-src data: 'unsafe-inline' 'unsafe-eval' https: blob:; style-src data: 'unsafe-inline' https:; img-src data: https: blob:; font-src data: https:; connect-src https: wss:; media-src https: blob:; object-src https:; child-src https: data: blob:; form-action https:; block-all-mixed-content; X-Served-By: cache-iad2123-IAD X-Cache: MISS X-Cache-Hits: 0 X-Timer: S1489639932.754149,VS0,VE108 Vary: Accept-Encoding, Fastly-SSL

NYTimes.com no longer supports Internet Explorer 9 or earlier. Please upgrade your browser. LEARN MORE >> Politics | Donald Trump's Tax Documents From 2005Close search Site Search Navigationhttps://nyti.ms/2mHq4Ru See next articles See previous articles Site NavigationSite Mobile NavigationSite Information NavigationSite Information Navigation

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 15 Mar 2017 12:08

President Trump has been told that Bill and Hillary Clinton are dying, according to a White House insider who works closely with the president.

A merciful Trump took pity on Bill and Hillary Clinton upon hearing of their ill-health. Not because he approves of pedophilia, corruption, or murder. No, because he is a spiritual man who can see that karma has caught up with them and is about to pay them back with a vengeance.

''Their fate in hell far exceeds any punishment we could impose on that pair. We must concentrate on the network of crooks, pedophiles and traffickers that exist right now and prosecute them with the full force of the law,'' Trump told the team in a closed-door meeting at the White House.

Trump also believes that the Clintons are a fading force in US politics. Bill's career is well and truly over and Hillary is a thoroughly defeated figure, languishing at rock bottom in nationwide approval rating polls.

It is believed that a blockbuster Clinton trial would destabilize a country already racked by division, and a guilty verdict would transform the deeply unpopular duo from despised and rejected figures into undeserved martyrs.

President Trump, playing the long game, does not wish to give the DNC this gift.

According to the White House insider it is former president Obama, who has been ignoring the customary peaceful transferral of power, who is viewed as the greater threat to the Trump presidency.

The White House insider also explained that the leaks coming out of the White House would ''soon dry up'' as Obama-era holdovers were removed, and staff loyal to the president were appointed to key positions of trust.

The leaks, ''half-truths and outright lies'', have been pounced on by mainstream media and used to smear President Trump.

On Friday dozens of US Attorneys were given notice to hand in their resignations, as Trump continues cleaning house and streamlining government.

Baxter DmitryBaxter Dmitry is a writer at Your News Wire. He covers politics, business and entertainment. Speaking truth to power since he learned to talk, Baxter has travelled in over 80 countries and won arguments in every single one. Live without fear.Email: baxter@yournewswire.com

Follow: @baxter_dmitry

Latest posts by Baxter Dmitry (see all)

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: BBC News - Technology

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 16:08

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Social networks must work harder to remove illegal content, said Mr Maas Social media firms in Germany could face fines of up to 50 million euros if they take too long to remove illegal content including fake news.

Germany's justice minister has drafted a law that seeks to impose the fines as part of efforts to police toxic chat.

Heiko Maas said the voluntary efforts of social networks to tackle the problem had not gone far enough.

The proposal requires sites to run 24-hour helplines and to delete flagged content within seven days.

Social media firms such as Twitter and Facebook were getting better at handling illegal content, said Mr Maas, but both had a long way to go.

Mr Maas quoted research which suggested Twitter deletes only 1% of the hate speech it is told about by users, and Facebook, 39%.

"This isn't sufficient yet," said Mr Maas.

Racism and hate speech are believed to have become more prevalent on German social media following the arrival of large number of refugees in Germany.

Any content that was "clearly criminal" would have to be removed within 24 hours under conditions outlined in the draft law. If, after an investigation, content is found to be criminal then that must be removed in seven days. The people who posted the illegal content must also be told about its deletion.

The proposed law would require each network to run fully staffed, round-the-clock reporting systems and to name an individual responsible for handling complaints. That person could face an individually levied fine of five million euros if companies break laws governing what can be published.

Mr Maas said the law could apply to fake news articles if they proved to be slanderous, defamatory or libellous.

Facebook did not comment directly on the proposal but said tests it commissioned showed it removed a higher percentage of illegal content than Mr Maas claimed. The social network said it expected to have 700 people employed in Berlin by the end of 2017 overseeing its efforts to review flagged content.

German digital trade association Bitkom criticised the proposed law. It told the Financial Times that the requirement to remove material within 24 hours on sites that handle more than one billion posts per day was "utterly impossible to implement in operational terms".

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 06:32

We normally don't report on individual aircraft incidents here, because the causal factors are related to a very narrow set of unique circumstances.

This instance is different, and should be of concern to all operators.

A Challenger 604 at FL350 operating from Male-Abu Dhabi passed an A380 opposite direction at FL360, one thousand feet above, about 630nm southeast of Muscat, Oman, over the Arabian Sea.

A short time later (1-2 minutes) the aircraft encountered wake turbulence sending the aircraft into an uncontrolled roll, turning the aircraft around at least 3 times (possibly even 5 times), both engines flamed out, the aircraft lost about 10,000 feet until the crew was able to recover the aircraft, restart the engines and divert to Muscat. The aircraft received damage beyond repair due to the G-forces, and was written off.

An official report is to be published by the German BFU. In the interim, the complete set of circumstances can be read at Aviation Herald.

The current synopsis is copied here:

An Emirates Airbus A380-800, most likely registration A6-EUL performing flight EK-412 from Dubai (United Arab Emirates) to Sydney,NS (Australia), was enroute at FL350 about 630nm southeast of Muscat (Oman) and about 820nm northwest of Male (Maldives) at about 08:40Z when a business jet passed underneath in opposite direction. The A380 continued the flight to Sydney without any apparent incident and landed safely.

The business jet, a MHS Aviation (Munich) Canadair Challenger 604 registration D-AMSC performing flight MHV-604 from Male (Maldives) to Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) with 9 people on board, was enroute over the Arabian Sea when an Airbus A380-800 was observed by the crew passing 1000 feet above. After passing underneath the A380 at about 08:40Z the crew lost control of the aircraft as result of wake turbulence from the A380 and was able to regain control of the aircraft only after losing about 10,000 feet. The airframe experienced very high G-Loads during the upset, a number of occupants received injuries during the upset. After the crew managed to stabilize the aircraft the crew decided to divert to Muscat (Oman), entered Omani Airspace at 14:10L (10:10Z) declaring emergency and reporting injuries on board and continued for a landing in Muscat at 15:14L (11:14Z) without further incident. A number of occupants were taken to a hospital, one occupant was reported with serious injuries. The aircraft received damage beyond repair and was written off.

Oman's Civil Aviation Authority had told Omani media on Jan 8th 2017, that a private German registered aircraft had performed an emergency landing in Muscat on Jan 7th 2017 declaring emergency at 14:10L (10:10Z) and landing in Muscat at 15:14L (11:14Z). The crew had declared emergency due to injuries on board and problems with an engine (a number of media subsequently reported the right hand engine had failed, another number of media reported the left hand engine had failed).

According to information The Aviation Herald received on March 4th 2017 the CL-604 passed 1000 feet below an Airbus A380-800 while enroute over the Arabian Sea, when a short time later (1-2 minutes) the aircraft encountered wake turbulence sending the aircraft in uncontrolled roll turning the aircraft around at least 3 times (possibly even 5 times), both engines flamed out, the Ram Air Turbine could not deploy possibly as result of G-forces and structural stress, the aircraft lost about 10,000 feet until the crew was able to recover the aircraft exercising raw muscle force, restart the engines and divert to Muscat.

The Aviation Herald is currently unable to substantiate details of the occurrence, no radar data are available for the business jet, it is therefore unclear when the business jet departed from Male and where the actual ''rendezvouz'' with the A380 took place. Based on the known time of the occurrence at 08:40Z as well as the time when the CL-604 reached Omani Airspace declaring emergency and landed in Muscat, as well as which A380s were enroute over the Arabian Sea around that time The Aviation Herald believes the most likely A380 was EK-412 and the ''rendezvouz'' took place 630nm southeast of Muscat, which provides the best match of remaining flying time (2.5 hours) and distance for the CL-604 also considering rather strong northwesterly winds (headwind for the CL-604, tailwind for the A380s).

On Jan 7th 2017 there were also other A380-800s crossing the Arabian Sea from northwest to southeast: a Qantas A380-800, registration VH-OQJ performing flight QF-2 from Dubai to Sydney, was enroute at FL330 about 1000nm southeast of Muscat and about 400nm northwest of Male at 08:40Z. An Emirates A380-800 registration A6-EDO performing flight EK-406 from Dubai to Melbourne,VI (Australia) was enroute at FL350 about 470nm southeast of Muscat at 08:40Z. Another Emirates A380-800 registration A6-EUH performing flight EK-424 from Dubai to Perth,WA (Australia), was enroute at FL350 about 350nm southeast of Muscat at 08:40z.

The Aviation Herald received information that Air Traffic Control all around the globe have recently been instructed to exercise particular care with A380s crossing above other aircraft. The Aviation Herald had already reported a number of Wake Turbulence Encounters involving A380s before:

Incident: Virgin Australia B738 near Bali on Sep 14th 2012, wake turbulence from A380

Incident: Air France A320 and Emirates A388 near Frankfurt on Oct 14th 2011, wake turbulence

Accident: British Airways A320 and Qantas A388 near Braunschweig on Oct 16th 2011, wake turbulence injures 4

Report: Antonov A124, Singapore A388 and Air France B744 near Frankfurt on Feb 10th 2011, wake turbulence by A388 causes TCAS RA

Report: REX SF34 at Sydney on Nov 3rd 2008, wake turbulence injures one

Incident: Armavia A320 near Tiblisi on Jan 11th 2009, turbulence at cruise level thought to be A380 wake

MHS Aviation told The Aviation Herald, that they can not provide any further details due to the ongoing investigation, Germany's BFU is investigating the occurrence (which confirmed The Aviation Herald's assumption, that the occurrence was over international waters, Germany as state of registration of the accident aircraft thus being responsible for the investigation).

Authorities in Oman have so far not responded to inquiries by The Aviation Herald.

In response to our inquiry summarizing the known information so far as described above (however, mistakenly assuming the date of the occurrence was Jan 8th 2017 based on the information thus far) Germany's BFU confirmed that they are leading the investigation. The occurrence happened already on Jan 7th 2017 at 08:40Z. The BFU is unable to provide further details at this time (in particular to which A380 caused the wake turbulence) because these details are subject to investigation. By Mar 8th 2017 no safety recommendations have yet been issued by the BFU. A preliminary report is estimated to be included in the January 2017 bulletin (which according to ''tradition'' should be released by mid of March 2017, however, the release of the Jan bulletin can currently not be estimated because so far only the August 2016 bulletin has been released by the BFU, the remaining 2016 bulletins are still being worked on).

Related

Link to Article

Archived Version

Sun, 12 Mar 2017 20:03

Yemen had proven oil reserves of around 2.7bn barrels at the end of 2009, equal to just 0.2pc of global reserves, according to the BP Statistical Review

Daily oil production fell to 298,000 bpd in 2009, or just 0.4pc of the global total, continuing the steady decline in output from a peak of 457,000 bpd in 2002, according to BP

Falling oil revenues has hindered the government's ability to provide basic public services, which has stoked anti-government sentiment

Oil reserves and production lie mainly in Jannah and Iyad in the centre of the Yemen, Marib-Jawf in the north, and Shabwa and Masila in the south. The government estimates Masila holds about 84pc of the national total

Oil is transported from Masila to Ash Shahir by a 90-mile pipeline with a capacity of 300,000 bpd, while the 130-mile Shabwa-Bir Ali pipeline carries up to 135,000 bpd from the Ayad-Shabwa block to the Bir Ali terminal on the Gulf of Aden

Gas

Yemen is the 16th largest seller of liquefied natural gas

The country has proven gas reserves of 490bn cubic metres of gas, or about 0.3pc of the global total, according to BP statistics

Most of the gas is found in the Marib-Jawf oilfields and it is mostly reinjected to enhance oil recovery. Gas production has been in decline since 2005

Yemen LNG's export facility at Balhaf, which opened in 2009 and is led by French oil major Total, is the largest-ever industrial project in Yemen

Energy & Utilities and Oil & Gas vacancies at Telegraph Jobs

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: The Deplorable Climate Science Blog

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 15:40

Two weeks ago, the fake news Washington Post predicted peak bloom on March 15.

we predict the cherry trees will reach peak bloom between March 15 and 19

Cherry blossom forecast: Peak bloom will be close to record-early this year '' The Washington Post

It is March 14, the cherry trees are covered with snow and ice, and forecast low tonight is 20 degrees.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: The Deplorable Climate Science Blog

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 15:40

Six days ago, the fake news New York Times said spring came early, and blamed your SUV.

Spring Came Early. Scientists Say Climate Change Is a Culprit. '' The New York Times

This is what Times Square looks like right now.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: The Deplorable Climate Science Blog

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 15:53

The hot summer of 1988 was seized upon by global warming fraudsters like James Hansen and Steven Schneider, as an opportunity to begin working their scam into the public consciousness. The scamsters predicted 3-9 degrees warming by 2030 in this Chicago Tribune article.

November 19, 1988 '' Hot topic hits home

This is the same Steven Schneider who previously explained why a runaway greenhouse effect is impossible, and why two degrees warming was highly unlikely over the next several thousand years.

rasool_schneider_1971.pdf

In 1984 the Chicago Tribune reported a sharp cooling trend, and that Illinois temperatures were barely warmer in 1980 than they were in 1870.

April 23, 1984 '' Cold facts suggest a chilling trend

The summer of 1988 was the last really hot summer in Illinois, where hot days have become a thing of the past. Ninety degree days occur less than half as often now as they did in the 1930's.

A year later in 1989, Hansen bumped his scam forecasts up to nine degrees warming '' while Tom Karl of NOAA explained that almost all observed warming occurred before 1919, and that Earth had cooled from 1921 to 1979.

07 Dec 1989, Page 14 '' Santa Cruz Sentinel

In 1989, NOAA stated that there had been no warming in the US over the past century.

U.S. Data Since 1895 Fail To Show Warming Trend

The 1995 IPCC report showed no global troposphere warming from 1958 to 1994.

ipcc_sar_wg_I_full_report.pdf

In 1992, Mark Serreze found no evidence that Earth is suffering from the greenhouse effect.

Denver Post: Archive Results

There was no indication that Earth was warming, but by 1989 the UN had recognized that pushing global warming was a way to seize power, and said it would kill us all by the year 2000.

Mercury News: Search Results

Globalists co-opted a few crooked scientists like Hansen and Schneider by 1988, and eventually Tom Karl and Mark Serreze went over to the dark side too.

Star-News '' Google News Archive Search

Global warming is the biggest scam in science history. It is based on the same idea which globalists have always used.

Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: The Deplorable Climate Science Blog

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 15:59

Every government climate expert in the world predicted that the snow line would retreat towards the poles due to warmer weather, causing lower extent. The exact opposite is happening. Due to Arctic air incursions penetrating further and further south, snow is falling at lower latitudes and winter snow extent is increasing. This past winter had the tenth highest snow extent on record.

Rutgers University Climate Lab :: Global Snow Lab

Only a complete moron or a government climate expert would believe that snow in the Sahara is due to an overheated atmosphere. But I repeat myself.

A metre of snow falls in the Sahara desert

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 15 Mar 2017 23:05

The We-Vibe classic is one of several Bluetooth-enabled We-Vibe products that can be paired with an app and controlled remotely. Customers alleged that the company that makes the vibrators was secretly tracking their use. Courtesy of Standard Innovationshide caption

toggle captionCourtesy of Standard Innovations The We-Vibe classic is one of several Bluetooth-enabled We-Vibe products that can be paired with an app and controlled remotely. Customers alleged that the company that makes the vibrators was secretly tracking their use.

Courtesy of Standard Innovations The makers of the We-Vibe, a line of vibrators that can be paired with an app for remote-controlled use, have reached a $3.75 million class action settlement with users following allegations that the company was collecting data on when and how the sex toy was used.

Standard Innovations, the Canadian manufacturer of the We-Vibe, does not admit any wrongdoing in the settlement finalized Monday.

The We-Vibe product line includes a number of Bluetooth-enabled vibrators that, when linked to the "We-Connect" app, can be controlled from a smartphone. It allows a user to vary rhythms, patterns and settings '-- or give a partner, in the room or anywhere in the world, control of the device. (You can see a video promoting the app's features here; be advised, it is briefly not safe for work.)

Since the app was released in 2014, some observers have raised concerns that Internet-connected sex toys could be vulnerable to hacking. But the lawsuit doesn't involve any outside meddling '-- instead, it centers on concerns that the company itself was tracking users' sex lives.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Illinois in September. It alleges that '-- without customers' knowledge '-- the app was designed to collect information about how often, and with what settings, the vibrator was used.

The lawyers for the anonymous plaintiffs contended that the app, "incredibly," collected users' email addresses, allowing the company "to link the usage information to specific customer accounts."

Customers' email addresses and usage data were transmitted to the company's Canadian servers, the lawsuit alleges. When a We-Vibe was remotely linked to a partner, the connection was described as "secure," but some information was also routed through We-Connect and collected, the lawsuit says.

The unhappy users allege in their lawsuit that they never agreed to the collection of this data. Standard Innovations maintains that users "consented to the conduct alleged" '-- but instead of taking the case to court, the company agreed to settle.

An estimated 300,000 people bought Bluetooth-enabled WeVibes, according to court documents, and about 100,000 of them used the app.

Under the terms of the settlement, anyone who bought an app-enabled vibrator can receive up to $199 dollars; anyone who actually connected it to the app can collect up to $10,000. The actual amount paid out will depend on how many people file claims; the company estimates people who bought the app will get around $40, and people who used the app around $500.

The high-end vibrators cost between $119 and $199, if purchased through the We-Vibe website.

Standard Innovation also agreed to stop collecting users' email addresses and to update its privacy notice to be clearer about how data is collected.

In a statement, Standard Innovation called the settlement "fair and reasonable."

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 00:12

Angelina Jolie today said she was ''feeling butterflies'' ahead of her first lecture as a visiting professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The actress and film-maker, who co-founded the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, was set to tell students at the LSE's Centre for Women, Peace and Security today about her experience in the field and how sexual violence is used as a tool of war.

''I'm a little nervous, feeling butterflies,'' she told the Evening Standard beforehand. ''I hope I do well. This is very important to me.''

The post, which is unpaid, formally begins in September, with Ms Jolie helping teach students about the impact of war on women.

As a visiting professor, she will deliver guest lectures to students, participate in public events and workshops, and undertake her own research.

Ms Jolie, the special envoy of the UN High Commission for Refugees, launched the campaign against rape in war zones five years ago with Lord Hague when he was foreign secretary.

Ms Jolie said she was nervous ahead of the speech (Alex Lentati)

Last week, Lord Hague spoke to students on the same course about his experiences of shaping policy.

Ms Jolie and Lord Hague are two of four visiting professors contributing to the programme, alongside Jane Connors, the director of International Advocacy at Amnesty International in Geneva, and Madeleine Rees, Secretary General of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

Today, Ms Jolie was set to speak to students taking the paper ''Women, Peace and Security'' '-- a one-term course taken by master's students from a range of postgraduate disciplines.

However, from September, students will be able to take an entire master's in the subject, the first of its kind anywhere in the world.

According to a university statement, the course is intended to ''[develop] strategies to promote gender equality and enhance women's economic, social and political participation and security.''

The centre, run by Professor Christine Chinkin, opened in February 2015, in the hope of ensuring the next generation of policy-makers at the United Nations and other global institutions are schooled in this area.

Ms Jolie, who attended the launch, said at the time: ''I am very encouraged by the creation of this master's programme.

"I hope other academic institutions will follow this example, as it is vital that we broaden the discussion on how to advance women's rights and end impunity for crimes that disproportionately affect women, such as sexual violence in conflict.''

Reuse content

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 06:35

FBI Director James Comey met separately with members of the Senate and House for highly classified briefings. Members went into the briefings looking for a firm answer from the FBI to the question of whether or not their was an ongoing investigation into possible ties between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia but emerged silent on that question and appearing visibly disturbed.

On the Senate side, Comey met with the Chair, Senator Chuck Grassley, and Ranking Member, Senator Dianne Feinstein, of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

After the meeting, Feinstein spoke very briefly with reporters who had been waiting for the pair to emerge from the briefing:

Sen. Feinstein on meeting with FBI Dir. Comey: "This briefing was all on sensitive matters and highly classified" https://t.co/yU56Ikmx8Y

'-- NBC Politics (@NBCPolitics) March 15, 2017

Long-time observers of events on the Hill noted the unusually somber appearances of the Senators:

I've seen Feinstein have the worried look on her face. This is more than that. She just met with FBI chief Comey.

'-- Phil Elliott (@Philip_Elliott) March 15, 2017

Interesting historical perspective on Sen. Feinstein's stricken look post-Comey meeting ''> https://t.co/hYbCsvtZrb

'-- Phil Elliott (@Philip_Elliott) March 15, 2017

@Philip_Elliott@kurteichenwald She had a similar look when she announced Moscone & Milk had been shot by Dan White.

'-- Fay Murphy (@murfdawgie) March 15, 2017

Grassley looked grim too. Grimmer than usual.

'-- Karoli (@Karoli) March 15, 2017

Also notable is the fact the meeting with Comey took place not just behind closed doors, but within a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF):

FBI Director Comey is in the Senate SCIF with Grassley and Feinstein. Schumer and Warner have also gone down.

'-- Katie Bo Williams (@KatieBoWill) March 15, 2017

As we previously reported, the Chair, GOP Representative Devin Nunes, and the Ranking Member, Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, met with Comey on the House side. Nunes came out of that briefing appearing likewise and saying it was ''very possible'' information involving Trump himself had been collected as part of the incidental intelligence gathered when the U.S. intelligence community was monitoring Russian officials. Nunes and Schiff likewise appeared tight-lipped and visibly discomfited:

House Intel Chair Nunes says it's "very possible" Trump's communications were 'swept up' in the FBI surveillance of Russians '--via @MSNBCpic.twitter.com/fXUorrYbSb

'-- Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 15, 2017

Additionally, Schiff took the unusual step of openly disagreeing with Nunes to assert it was not possible to say there were no contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia:

Reporter: ''Do you have any evidence that there were contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians?''

Nunes: ''I don't have any evidence of that, and we're not going to get into, I mean, this gets to the whole issue of incidental collection, you know, who else was talking to the Russian Ambassador. This is a slippery slope. I think you just need to let the appropriate agencies get us the information in a timely manner, which I agree with the Ranking Member on, the more that they stall, the more they make it more complicated for us, the slower the investigation goes and the more complicated it makes it for us to answer your questions.''

Schiff: ''I do want to say on that question because, Director Clapper [sic] was asked a similar question, I cannot answer that question the same way. Not certainly with the same categorical nature of the response. So, I don't share that summary conclusion, and that's about all I can say on that subject.''

Judging from the unusual reactions to the information the members received from the FBI Director, the story about the extent and nature of communications between Donald Trump and his campaign associates and the Russian government is far from over. However it ends, the American people deserve to know whether Trump and his aides were complicit in Russia's activities to subvert the will of our electorate.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 05:48

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 05:33

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 05:10

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 04:55

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 04:11

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

Buckle up, readers, because this has to be one of the more clueless things MSNBC's Hardball host Chris Matthews has ever said. On Tuesday's show, Matthews repeated a false claim that there was no ''real'' individual mandate to purchase health insurance under ObamaCare and the GOP not fixing this supposed problem will doom its chances of success.

Matthews arrived at this asinine claim by reminding Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele that some ''countries have a requirement that you have to have insurance like you have to have a driver '-- a car insurance'' and conceded that ''a lot of young people in their 20s are healthy and most times, nothing will happen to them.''

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 03:59

***To read the full blog check out the complete post on NewsBusters***

During MSNBC The 11th Hour late Monday night, the outlet's resident fibber Brian Williams attacked President Donald Trump and the White House for creating an ''alternative universe.'' ''Is it as striking to you in the briefing room as it is to television viewers that an alternative universe is being proposed, alternative definition are being trotted out in real-time,'' he whined to senior White House correspondent Chris Jansing.

Scolding someone for creating an ''alternative universe'' is really rich coming from the man who lied, and lost his job as Nightly News anchor, for making up a story about being shot down in Iraq. That's not to mention how he completely fabricated a tale about seeing bodies floating through the streets of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.

Despite decrying the White House for spreading falsehoods, Williams' panel did some universe creating of their own. ''And then today, seemingly out of nowhere we hear, actually, President Trump doesn't think President Obama did it personally,'' Jansing sneered in response to Williams' original question. But her answer made it seem as though Spicer was walking back Trump's claim Obama ordered a wiretapping. In reality, Spicer gestured with his hands and mocked the idea of Obama physically tapping a wire himself.

...

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 03:57

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

On Tuesday night, one of the crazier news nights since Election Day occurred when MSNBC host Rachel Maddow failed on a level akin to Geraldo Rivera and Al Capone's vault when she falsely claimed to have a bombshell exclusive (that wasn't hers) in the form of President Trump's 2005 tax returns.

Hilariously, she wasted 22 minutes of viewers' time by rehashing past monologues on the history of presidential tax returns, implying connections between Trump and various Russian oligarches before discussing the contents of the first two pages from Trump's 1040 form.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 03:31

The morning after President Trump's 2005 tax returns were leaked to the press, the media eagerly reported on the returns, speculating whether there was more to the story than the documents revealed. ABC's George Stephanopoulos even interviewed the journalist who first reported the story Tuesday night on MSNBC, asking him what Trump could be ''hiding'' in the benign report.

Read more on Newsbusters here.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 03:22

On CNN's New Day Wednesday, the investigative reporter who revealed President Donald Trump's 2005 tax returns cried afoul over the White House leaking them to news organizations, accussing them of behaving "unethically," and that the public doesn't know how much the President is "getting from the Russian oligarchs." He also said the former point a few hours later on MSNBC Live with Stephanie Ruhle. Moreover, Johnston ranted in his CNN interview about other aspects of Trump's returns.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 03:20

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

Despite left-wing MSNBC host Rachel Maddow being lampooned on social media and even by her media colleagues Tuesday night over her laughable scoop that Donald Trump paid his taxes, on Wednesday, the mockery didn't deter the network from devoting extensive air time to the story every hour from 6 a.m. through noon ET.

During the 6 a.m. ET hour of Morning Joe, co-host Mika Brzezinski announced: ''And this morning, we're also learning more about Donald Trump's taxes. The President refused to release them throughout the campaign and throughout his administration, but last night, Rachel Maddow revealed two pages of his 1040 form from 2005.''

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 03:17

The reporter who was lauded by the media for sharing Trump's boring 2005 tax return is not getting much attention for his politics but perhaps he should be. While the networks this morning described David Cay Johnston as a ''Pulitzer Prize winning reporter,'' they apparently didn't notice that he was a hard core liberal as well, like they would do with a reporter on the right.

Read more on Newsbusters here.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 02:26

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 01:57

VIDEO : Chief Counsel Who Worked with IRS '' Rachel Maddow BROKE THE LAW Videos By TruthFeedNews March 15, 2017 Is Rachel Maddow headed to Prison?

According to Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, Jay Sekulow '' she clearly broke the law.

The disclosure of Tax return information or the Tax Return itself from, for example an IRS source is a violation of not only the criminal code 7213, but also a direct violation of the Internal revenue manual.

Watch the video:

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 16 Mar 2017 01:35

Menu Video Weather WinnipegSkywatch WeatherNationalIn PicturesMorning LiveCTV Morning LiveWatchConnectContact UsSocial MediaFeaturesCrimewatchConsumerwatchOn The MenuOn The MenuSportsLocal SportsTop VideoLocalWeather UpdatesMorningSportsAround ManitobaCTV Morning LiveCTV News at SixCTV News at NoonCTV News at 11:30CrimewatchConsumerwatchHealthYou are here:

CTV News VideosRelated ClipsBack To TopSearchWinnipeg SearchXVideo Sign InVideo Sign OutCTV News GOHelpCTV News on MobileContact CTV NewsSite login

Back To Top View Full Site

Use of this Website assumes acceptance of Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy

(C) 2017 All rights reserved.

Back to top

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 15 Mar 2017 23:54

Even Mainstream Media Forced to Admit Rachel Maddow Trump Tax 'Scoop' is a Big "Nothingburger" >> Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!Even Mainstream Media Forced to Admit Rachel Maddow Trump Tax 'Scoop' is a Big "Nothingburger" >> Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 15 Mar 2017 20:53

Fox News judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano appeared on ''Fox and Friends'' on Tuesday morning where he made a rather startling accusation about claims that President Obama ordered electronic intercepts of conversations Donald Trump and members of his campaign had with foreign leaders during the campaign and transition. Essentially, the former judge alleged that sources had confirmed to him that the Obama administration essentially farmed out the Trump surveillance task to Britain to ensure American fingerprints would never show up on the project.

According to Napolitano,''Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command'' to conduct the surveillance on Trump. He further explained that Obama ''didn't use the NSA, he didn't use the CIA, he didn't use the FBI, and he didn't use the Department of Justice.'' Instead, Judge Napolitano, said Obama went to the British intelligence services version of the NSA to do the work, GCHQ.

The GCHQ shares a large portion, if not all, of the NSA's vast electronic database of signals intercepts and that would enable the agency to gain access to records of Trump's phone calls, the judge argued. This move would ensure that no American fingerprints showed up protect, in the event it was discovered.

Napolitano then said that the sources have informed him that the man who actually ordered the surveillance ''[r]esigned three days after Trump was inaugurated.''

However, he did not name this alleged individual.

On Monday, the Justice Department requested additional time to present evidence of the alleged surveillance to the House Intelligence Committee and was granted until March 20th to comply with committee's request.

[image via screengrab]

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 15 Mar 2017 12:56

Judge Napolitano went on ''Fox & Friends'' Tuesday morning to discuss Trump's allegation that Obama was spying on him at Trump Tower throughout last year's presidential election.

Why there may never be proof even if Obama spied on Trump I @Judgenaphttps://t.co/YxnB1gVcdj

'-- FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) March 14, 2017

The Justice Department is asking lawmakers to investigate the claim, but Napolitano said that if Obama did order spying on Trump, there might not be a way of proving it.

Napolitano says three intelligence sources told him if Obama asked an American agency for a wiretap on Trump, there would be a record of that request, but by using British agency GCHQ Obama avoided leaving any ''fingerprints.''

Link to Article

Archived Version

Wed, 15 Mar 2017 12:52

Episode Info: This episode: host/White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political reporter Danielle Kurtzleben and congressional correspondent Susan Davis. More coverage at nprpolitics.org. Email the show at nprpolitics@npr.org. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Read more >>

Episode Info: This episode: host/White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political reporter Danielle Kurtzleben and congressional correspondent Susan Davis. More coverage at nprpolitics.org. Email the show at nprpolitics@npr.org. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Read Less

Like Stitcher On FacebookRelated Episodes

Link to Article

Archived Version

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 18:13

Do you remember when you were a teenager and practically lived at the shopping mall? Well, what would you do if you could actually live inside of one for real? The Providence Arcade is the oldest shopping mall in America, but now has a whole new purpose. Although it was bankrupted and abandoned for quite some time, this National Historic Landmark is open for business once more. However, now the mall sells only one thing - adorable tiny homes!Developer Evan Granoff bought the property in 2005, with the hopes that he could restore the beautiful building to its former glory. And he did exactly that! He converted the upper levels into 48 tiny apartment homes, while the lower promenade is reserved for boutique shops. No major chain stores are allowed here! The smallest units only cost $550 per month, which is a steal for downtown Providence, Rhode Island.Minimalism and tiny homes have taken over hearts and minds in recent years. This type of "shoebox" style of living is both sustainable and super affordable. But, at just 225 square feet, could you really live inside of one? In the video below, current residents take you on a tour and show you exactly why these tiny homes are a dream come true! Wow, seeing the inside left me speechless.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 16:57

On today's episode:

We talk with Amanda Taub and Max Fisher, who write the Interpreter column for The New York Times, about the perception '-- and reality '-- of what's driving this political change in Europe.

Background reading:

' Alison Smale on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's precarious place in Europe's fast-changing political order.

' Alissa J. Rubin on how this week's election in the Netherlands is serving as a test of its tolerance for Muslim immigrants.

Tune in, and tell us what you think. Email us at thedaily@nytimes.com. Tweet me at @mikiebarb. And if that isn't enough, we can even text.

How do I listen?If you don't see an audio player on this page or to subscribe to The Daily for free, follow the instructions below.

Michael Barbaro will text you about what's happening in the news.

I'm Michael Barbaro, host of our new audio report, The Daily. Sign up and I'll send you a daily link to a story (or episode of the show) you won't want to miss. I'll keep it brief, just like the show.

Thanks! Talk to you soon.

U.S. numbers only. Standard messaging rates may apply.

On your iPhone or iPad:

Open the preloaded app called ''Podcasts''; it has a purple icon. If you're reading this from your phone, tap this link, which will take you straight there. (You can also use the magnifying glass icon to search; type ''The Daily.'')

Once you're on the series page, you can tap on the episode title to play it, and tap on the ''subscribe'' button to have new episodes sent to your phone free.

Or if you prefer another podcast player, you can find ''The Daily'' there. (Here's the RSS feed.)

On your Android phone or tablet:

You can listen and subscribe using the free app RadioPublic, which is available worldwide. If you're reading this from your phone, tap this link to play the latest episode and learn more about the app.

Or if you prefer another podcast player, you can find ''The Daily'' there. (Here's the RSS feed.)

From a desktop or laptop:

Click the ''play'' button above to start the show. Make sure to keep that window open on your browser if you're doing other things, or else the audio will stop. You can always find the latest episode at nytimes.com/thedaily.

On Amazon Echo, Echo Dot or Tap:

Open the Alexa app. From the navigation panel on the left, select ''settings,'' then ''flash briefing,'' then ''get more flash briefing content.'' Look for ''The New York Times'' and select ''enable skill.'' Now you can say, ''Alexa, what's my flash briefing?'' and you will hear that day's episode of ''The Daily.''

On Google Home:

You can say, ''O.K., Google, play New York Times news'' to listen to that day's episode of ''The Daily.''

THE DAILY: Theo Balcomb, senior producer; Andy Mills, producer; Sam Dolnick, contributing editor. NYT AUDIO: Lisa Tobin, executive producer; Samantha Henig, editorial director; Pedro Rosado, studio manager.

Continue reading the main story

Link to Article

Archived Version

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 16:37

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: Reuters Video: Latest Videos US

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 16:09

'Issues of the day' dominant influence at 2017 Whitney Biennial in New York - 01:30

The Queen's Baton Relay begins - 02:05

A robot-actor stuns London audiences in a new play - 02:27

Eva Braun's Hitler photo album to go up for auction - 01:40

Kong crushes box office competition - 01:18

New trailer for 'Wonder Woman' released - 02:28

Azealia Banks faces a judge - 01:14

Richard Gere attends Israeli premiere of 'Norman' in Jerusalem - 01:21

Kristen Stewart says she hopes to help people by coming out - 01:38

Drenched in Holi colours, widows shun white in northern India - 01:12

Tom Hiddleston praises co-star Brie Larson for upcoming Marvel film - 01:25

Link to Article

Archived Version

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 15:59

As we shared last night, CNN is promoting a highly charged false claim about new, heavily edited CCTV footage from the Ferguson Liquor Market on the night before Mike Brown was shot and killed. We have thoroughly deconstructed the lies HERE.

CNN is promoting this fake documentary, ''Stranger Fruit'', that uses heavily edited footage of an earlier Mike Brown visit to the store. According to the documentary Mike Brown was exchanging marijuana for store product at 1:13am the night (early morning) prior to his return and strong arm robbery of the same store. The footage is edited to give the appearance of store employees accepting weed as barter for product. This is false.

Secondarily, the producer of the video, Jason Pollock, is claiming the police never released the earlier in the day CCTV footage and instead tried to hide it. Again, this is false. All of the CCTV video was documented by the police, reviewed, included in all records that were part of the Grand Jury inquiry and given to the FBI. Including footage from the 1:13am visit. However, CNN is promoting the falsehoods by the documentary producers in an effort to stir trouble.

Well, their collective antagonism worked:

FERGUSON '' Shortly before midnight, 7 or 8 shots were heard from an area across the street from the market. There appeared to be no injuries. Someone stuffed a rag in the gas tank of a police car, but the damage was minor. (read more)

As previously shared, these events are entirely based on Fake News. The claims by the documentary producers are false:December 2014 '' Grand Jury evidence shows that Mike Brown was one of a group of three people who went to the Ferguson Liquor Market at 1:13am on the same day as the shooting. The Grand Jury saw CCTV evidence of his visit approximately 10 hours before the cigarillo robbery at the same locale '' this would have been overnight between Friday 8/8 and Saturday 8/9/14.

(page 172)

Advertisements

Link to Article

Archived Version

Source: Washington Free Beacon

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 15:52

Link to Article

Archived Version

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 15:42

A seriously unstable Jason Pollock appeared on Fox News for an interview about his ridiculous, and entirely false, documentary claims. What happened next is rather unsettling '' the guy has a full psychotic reality break on television.

WATCH:

.

This is the sketchy guy CNN was promoting over the weekend in order to stir up racial animus on behalf of the agenda-driven social justice movement.

Advertisements

Link to Article

Archived Version

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 12:44

Link to Article

Archived Version

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 07:17

Link to Article

Archived Version

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 06:37

Well, it would appear our hunch was correct.If Trump was going to pull off a ''reverse Castellano's'', Caesar needed Brutus to feel comfortable enough to come close'...The problem for Speaker Ryan was a lack of muti-dimensional situational awareness, and the abject inability to escape President Trump's political gravity. Breitbart Media, with transparent coordination between Matthew Boyle, Steve Bannon and President Trump delivers the shiv right on cue.

(Breitbart) On a never-before-released private October conference call with House Republican members, House Speaker Paul Ryan told his members in the U.S. House of Representatives he was abandoning then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump forever and would never defend him ever again. (read more)

Here's what everyone needs to understand about this play:

February 27th, 2017 '' President Trump and Matthew Boyle

'... First, the release is from Breitbart via Matthew Boyle; and contains all of the elements needed for well played political plausible deniability.

'... Second, it was transparent this was coming. The ''Reverse Castellano's'' play only works if the mark (Ryan) feels over confident about their position. It takes months for Caesar to cultivate the false confidence within Brutus; giving the appearance that Caesar depends on him.

Caesar Trump knows he must publicly shower Brutus Ryan with praise so the audience can provide the authentic fuel needed for Brutus to overcome any internal trepidation. Caesar Trump needs Brutus Ryan to feel empowered and emboldened.

Only when Brutus thinks his travels are inconsequential, can he be counted on to drop his guard and believe his schemes and associations are undetected.

'... Third, timing. On the eve of President Trump meeting with the Freedom Caucus, led by Jim Jordan, the face of Ryan's antagonism and opposition, Team Trump '' Bannon via Boyle, delivers the Brutus knee-capping that will drive the media discussion cycle.

As Brutus walks comfortably through the courtyard, dagger in hand, the trillion-power spotlights all simultaneously turn on and reveal his intent. The entire Senate quietly notified and previously pre-staged to watch as the reveal takes place'....

Yes, President Trump has allowed Paul Ryan to construct and carry the healthcare scroll; however, he also planned to leverage a change within it. Thus, Tom Donohue (CoC) and the Koch Brother's invisible ink signatures can now easily be removed from the document and modifications made forthwith.

Brilliant.

To the electorate President Trump has magnanimously set all differences aside and taken the high road in his -very visible and public- praise of Ryan as the Speaker created the Healthcare proposal they both needed.

Now, with the release of his audio, the electorate look angrily toward Ryan who has verbally shown his snakeskin.

Speaker Ryan is now less than. He's lost a necessary coalition, support and friends. For a time he now becomes toxic even for those of similar skin who scheme quietly with him.

Ryan should have seen this coming. But, pride.

The reverse castellano's is a modified version of the same play previously carried out on Senator Ted Cruz at the GOP convention.

Candidate Trump knew prideful Cruz was not going to endorse him; and Trump knew defeated candidate Cruz was going to try virtue signaling for prideful political benefit. Trump also knew, as any top level executive chess-master does, the approach by a prideful Cruz would backfire against the largest possible political audience'.... so he let him walk right into the coliseum and do it.

Effective today, President Trump not only holds positional leverage, but he carries something more valuable '' emotional political leverage.

Today President Trump will take the high road and praise Speaker Paul Ryan yet again; telling the audience to drop old grudges, there are more important tasks at hand'... we must remove the lumps from our political hearts.

President Trump will grant Speaker Ryan forgiveness and the crowd shall cheer Trump's decency and warmth.

Magnanimity becomes currency. The exchange rate is determined by the electorate. The purchase price is within the Healthcare bill.

Well played President Trump. Well played'....

'...''Complicated business folks, '...complicated business.''Advertisements

Link to Article

Archived Version

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 06:21

New Civil Rights Movement:

LGBT advocates say a Republican state senator in Texas was caught on a hot mic calling a transgender man a ''pervert'' during a hearing on Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick's anti-trans bathroom bill last week.

Sen. Joan Huffman, who chairs the State Affairs Committee, allegedly made the remark Tuesday in response to testimony from Colt Keo-Meier, a clinical psychologist who runs the Transgender Health Lab at the University of Houston. Keo-Meier was one of hundreds of witnesses who testified against Senate Bill 6.

State Sen. Joan Huffman (R-TX)

A Democratic state senator asked Keo-Meier how he felt about comparisons between trans people and ''perverts'' made by some supporters of SB 6.

''You know, as a person of God, I have to say, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,''' Keo-Meier responded. ''To tell someone that they are a pervert for telling you the truth about their life. Who's the perverted one in that case?''

''You are the pervert,'' Huffman allegedly muttered under her breath in response to Keo-Meier.

Huffman, who voted in favor of the bill, couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

see rest of story here

comments

Link to Article

Archived Version

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 06:10

In an interview released Sunday night, President Trump's Senior Counselor Kellyanne Conway responded to a question about Trump's wiretapping accusations by referencing WikiLeaks latest release that suggests the CIA can use household smart devices for surveillance purposes. In the interview, Conway specifically mentions TVs (which were a feature of the WikiLeaks release) and microwaves (which weren't featured in the release): "there are many ways to surveil each other now...microwaves that turn into cameras, etc."

On Monday morning, Conway attempted to clarify her factually questionable statement, telling CNN that her comments the night earlier were meant to reflect general surveillance capabilities, not real evidence. She may have worsened the situation, though, with a new soundbite: "I'm not Inspector Gadget, I don't believe people are using the microwave to spy on the Trump campaign, however, I'm not in the job of having evidence, that's what investigations are for."

She then went on Good Morning America to reinforce the Trump administration's lack of wiretapping evidence, saying that there isn't any specific evidence linking her "general statements" about surveillance to Donald Trump's accusations of wiretapping, saying "I wasn't making an allegation about Trump Tower... I don't have any evidence and I'm very happy that the House Intelligence Committee are investigating."

All in all, what seems like a damage control tour this morning might have brought more negative attention to Conway.

Benjamin Goggin is the News Editor at Digg.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 13 Mar 2017 22:39

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 13 Mar 2017 22:23

In this Jan. 9, 2017, photo, Andrea Ledesma spreads sauce on pizza dough at Classic Slice restaurant in Milwaukee. (Carrie Antlfinger/AP)If you've noticed anything about this program during your time tuning in, you've probably noticed how important our callers are to the overall feel of our broadcast. This is perhaps made the most clear in our Friday Week in the News roundtable discussions, where the topics come fast and furious '-- and so do your calls.

Today, during our busy discussion, caller Sarah from Brooklyn had a few words to say about how she sees the Trump Administration "ignoring" her generation. And our guest, USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page, agreed with her.

TOM: Sarah in Brooklyn, NY, Sarah thank you for calling. You're on the air.

SARAH: Thank you Tom. I am calling because I wanted to mention something I don't hear anyone else talking about. And that is that it feels the President has no plan for my generation, which is the millennials. Everything he is trying to appeal to is, sure it's great that our parents can have coal mining jobs again, I mean we don't love that, you know, but what is going to happen with the things that we want to do? I feel like we don't have a seat at the table.

TOM: What do you want to hear him talking about that you don't think he is?

SARAH: I work in technology in New York, in a tech company and we have Republicans too here that come from other states. We kind of have a consensus. Just because we are millennials, we are the same generation. We want to talk about the environment. We are going to have to deal with the consequences of all of these policies. We're the real consequence bearers and we just don't have a seat at the table. Baby Boomers still have a grip on everything. I feel like we need to start a Super PAC to get the baby boomers out.

TOM: Sarah, but the president says he wants the gleaming future, all new infrastructure, gleaming American Future. That would be for millennials I guess. Sarah?

SARAH: No not the way, the kind of stuff that he is talking about. It's not technologically advanced. He's talking about tunnels and bridges.

TOM: And coal.

SARAH: We're trying to cut down on driving.

TOM: Sarah, I really appreciate your call. Millennial power there, the flag raised from Brooklyn. I mean Susan Page, we saw these interesting headlines this week. Sarah goes to environmental issues. And the reporting from out of the White House that Steve Bannon is pushing to take the US out of the Paris Climate agreement. The big agreement that was supposed to get us on track not to feel the worst effects of climate change, but that you've got Rex Tillerson, former head of Exxon for heaven's sakes and Ivanka Trump pushing back on that. What do we know about where that stands and what might actually emerge, Susan?

SUSAN: We know that President Trump has not followed through on his campaign promise to pull out of that agreement and that's been interesting because he's followed through on a series of other campaign promises including some controversial ones. But let me just congratulate Sarah on her perception. Because if you want to look at the war between baby boomers and millennials, look at the budget priorities that President Trump outlined on Monday. He said he wasn't going to touch Medicare and Social Security. Those are the biggest drivers of the federal budget, the biggest drivers of the expanding deficit and those are programs that of course, help people who are older, help baby boomers. And he's going to cut in big ways programs like, not just environmental programs, although they're included, but also education programs and childcare programs and school lunch programs and these are programs that of course help millennials and younger people. There is a big age divide and it fits with the divide among his own supporters because President Trump's supporters, his supporters were disproportionally older, he did not do nearly as well among millennials.

TOM: We're looking at a week in the news. I'm Tom Ashbrook. This is On Point.

This story aired on March 3, 2017.

View comment(s)

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 13 Mar 2017 04:24

President Trump has announced a federal investigation into the Pizzagate elite pedophile scandal involving human trafficking on Tuesday and promised to help put an end to the ''horrific, really horrific crimes taking place.''

The president held a short, dramatic press conference after meeting with human trafficking experts to announce that he will direct ''the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies'' to devote more resources and personnel to the investigation.

Appearing at the press conference for less than two minutes, President Trump said that the issue has been on the radar of federal government ''for some time'' but since taking office in January the investigation has become ''much more focused.''

''It has been much more focused over the last four weeks, I can tell you that.''

Appearing calm and determined, Trump thanked staff members and his daughter Ivanka for their hard work on the issue in the lead up to his announcement. While the establishment and mainstream media have been trying to destroy the investigation into Pizzagate and suppress the findings, the Trump administration have been quietly researching and launching low-level take downs, gathering evidence in order to move up the chain.

Trump made it clear that the investigation intends to go all the way to the top, promising to bring the ''full force and weight of our government'' to eradicate the insidious problem.

It's happening

''I want to make it clear today that my administration will focus on ending the absolutely horrific practice of human trafficking and I am prepared to bring the full force and weight of our government at the federal level in order to solve this horrific problem that is getting worse.

''Human trafficking is a dire problem, both domestically and internationally, and is one that's made really a challenge. And it's really made possible to a large extent, more of a modern phenomenon, by what's taking place on the Internet, as you probably know.

''Solving the human trafficking epidemic, which is what it is, is a priority for my administration. We're going to help out a lot. ''Solve'' is a wonderful word, a beautiful word, but I can tell you, we're going to help a lot.''

Former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney welcomed the news on Twitter and provided D.C insider information: if Trump goes straight all the way with the investigation, senior Democrats and Republicans in D.C are going to be bought down.

Baxter DmitryBaxter Dmitry is a writer at Your News Wire. He covers politics, business and entertainment. Speaking truth to power since he learned to talk, Baxter has travelled in over 80 countries and won arguments in every single one. Live without fear.Email: baxter@yournewswire.comFollow: @baxter_dmitryLatest posts by Baxter Dmitry (see all)

Link to Article

Archived Version

Mon, 13 Mar 2017 00:49

Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said in an interview Sunday that the Russian ambassador who met with Trump campaign officials also met with ''people working in think tanks advising Hillary or advising people working for Hillary.''

''Well, if you look at some people connected with Hillary ClintonHillary Rodham ClintonConway on criticism: 'I'm not there to read about myself'Report: Cuomo takes major step toward presidential bidKremlin spokesman: Russian ambassador met with advisers to Clinton campaign tooMORE during her campaign, you would probably see that he had lots of meetings of that kind,'' Dmitry Peskov told CNN ''GPS'' host Fareed Zakaria. ''There are lots of specialists in politology, people working in think tanks advising Hillary or advising people working for Hillary.''

Peskov said it is the job of Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to meet with officials on both sides to talk about ''bilateral relations.''

ADVERTISEMENT

Peskov also defended those meetings, saying they were not an attempt to interfere in the 2016 election.''But there were no meetings about elections '-- electoral process '... So if you look at it with intention to demonize Russia, you would probably say that, yes, he was trying to interfere in Hillary's activities. But it would be nonsense, because this is not true,'' Peskov said.

Peskov also said Putin never voiced support for then-presidential candidate Trump.

''You would probably recall that President Putin, during election campaign, had never answered directly a question about his candidate of his support. He kept saying that we will respect a choice of American people,'' Peskov told Zakaria.

Peskov, did however, concede that Putin preferred Trump over Clinton, saying, ''If you ask him whether he had mentioned the then-candidate Donald TrumpDonald TrumpTHE MEMO: For Trump, an early test of leadershipTrump tried to call NY attorney before firing him: reportFired U.S. attorney invokes shuttered New York corruption panel in tweetMORE, I will answer, yes, he had.''

Peskov suggested that the Kremlin leader found Clinton hostile toward Russia, while Trump was open to thawing U.S.-Russian relations.

''The candidate Hillary Clinton was quite negative about our country in her attitude and in her program, declaring Russia being nearly the main evil in the world and the main threat for the United States,'' Peskov said.

''And to the contrary, the other candidate, Donald Trump, was saying that, 'Yes, we disagree with the Russians ... in lots of issues, but we have to talk to them in order to try to find some understanding.' Whom would you like better? The one who says that Russia is evil or the one who says that, 'Yes, we disagree, but let's talk to understand and to try to find some points of agreement?''' he asked.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Sun, 12 Mar 2017 13:39

NPR's Robert Siegel talks to Sen. Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia and ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, about the Congressional investigation into Russia's influence on the U.S. election.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

We start with a major player in the Senate's investigation into Russian meddling in last year's election. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia is the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He has called his role in this investigation - and I'm quoting - "probably the most important thing I've done in public life." And he joins us from Capitol Hill. Welcome to the program, Senator.

MARK WARNER: Thank you, Robert.

SIEGEL: If it's that important, is an investigation by a committee that operates behind closed doors an appropriate forum, or should there be a much more public airing as there was after 9/11 or as there was after Watergate, for that matter?

WARNER: I think it's really, really important that we come up with a bipartisan report. I also think, to your point, there are certain things that will be done behind closed doors because it involves sources and methods of how our spy agencies work, and people's lives and techniques could be put in jeopardy.

But it's also really responsible that we hold public hearings - and I think we're going to be holding our first public hearing within the next couple of weeks - that we have a report that is going to be public when we conclude this investigation. And my sense would be - the president continues to say he's done nothing; his people have had no contacts that were inappropriate. Then he should welcome...

SIEGEL: Yep.

WARNER: ...This investigation and help it because it would remove the cloud that's over the administration.

SIEGEL: General Clapper, who until January was director of national intelligence, said that he had seen no evidence of collusion between Donald Trump and Russia. Is that still an open question for the Senate Intelligence Committee and for you?

WARNER: It is still an open question that we have to investigate any kind of contacts between either campaign and Russian operatives before the election. Oftentimes what happens is if one of our traditional agencies, say, like the CIA, will determine some kind of contact, they have to turn that over to the FBI. And that falls into the counter-espionage category. And generally speaking, the FBI doesn't then make comments about ongoing investigations. So these are all things that we're going to have to work through in an appropriate way.

SIEGEL: But when you say that's still an open question, I mean is that because it hasn't been disproved or because there's so much smoke that you're concerned there's a fire there?

WARNER: No, Robert. I'm saying I'm not going to forejudge where this investigation is going to end up. We're going to follow the intelligence wherever it leads. We're going to get to the bottom of this. We're going to run down all the appropriate leads. We're going to interview people. And I think we'll be able to reach our own conclusion. And my hope is, the sooner the better because at this point in time, with all these stories dribbling out on a daily basis, it is - I think it really has caught the attention of the American people.

SIEGEL: What about President Trump's claim that his lines were tapped by President Obama? Is that an allegation that the Senate Intelligence Committee should investigate, or is it...

WARNER: I would say this, Robert. If we see any evidence and if the president has any evidence of that, we will follow it.

SIEGEL: Is it his obligation to present that evidence to Senate now?

WARNER: I sure as heck believe it is. I mean to accuse the former president of what would be a felony and then not put forward any information, any evidence - Chairman Burr and I've said we'll follow any evidence wherever it leads. But you've got to have some evidence. You just can't put out a morning tweet and then switch to Arnold Schwarzenegger...

SIEGEL: Yeah.

WARNER: ...And not expect folks to scratch their heads.

SIEGEL: Let's say that there's no evidence found of collusion between Americans and Russians - no Russian money entering the campaign, no Russian blackmail against any candidate. Is the fact that Russia tries to influence U.S. policy not in those criminal ways but more generally - if it tries to influence policy however it can, is that some kind of new danger or even a danger that's unique to Russia?

WARNER: It is absolutely a new danger. I mean the Russians have almost created a new theory of war that says beyond fighting in the land, air and sea, cyber is a whole new domain. And they are experts at misinformation, disinformation. They've done this for a long time in Eastern European elections, sometimes much more obviously with old-fashioned payola and bribes. They're doing it right now in the French presidential elections where they've actually put financial resources behind Marine Le Pen - the far-right candidate's campaign.

So I think Americans - one of the things that disappointed me - I know there was lots going on - that there wasn't more kind of general outrage with the Russian manipulation in our election regardless of whether there was any contact between candidates.

SIEGEL: And I guess I should ask you about one new thing that happened this week, which was that General Michael Flynn, who had been the national security adviser and is - who had to resign all about what he told Vice President Pence about his contact with the Russians - he has now registered retroactively as having been an agent for Turkey and having taken payments from a Turkish company but with interest that involved the extradition of a Turkish cleric in this country between August and November of last year. Is your committee interested in any conceivable relationship between General Flynn and Turkey?

WARNER: I'm not going to comment on individuals that we hope to question. Just on an individual basis, though, I found this morning's reports about General Flynn very troubling.

SIEGEL: Senator Warner, thanks for talking with us.

WARNER: Thank you, Robert.

SIEGEL: That's Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, who is the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Copyright (C) 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.