Tuesday, May 26, 2015 10:26:06 PM
Mike Huckabee Presidential Announcement Full Speech (C-SPAN)
Published on May 5, 2015 by C-SPAN [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb--64Gl51jIEVE-GLDAVTg / http://www.youtube.com/user/CSPAN , http://www.youtube.com/user/CSPAN/videos ]
Former Governor Mike Huckabee announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. He made the announcement from the University of Arkansas Community College in Hope, Arkansas. Watch the complete Mike Huckabee Presidential Campaign Announcement event here: http://www.c-span.org/video/?325742-1/former-governor-mike-huckabee-rar-presidential-campaign-announcement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=000uvNgzVrA [with comments] [also at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOdEjUVvvQw (with comments), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctyWaRV18lo (with comments), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgkrCSci64c (no comments yet) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUzwDmb8uoA (no comments yet)]
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Huckabee Repeats Discredited Claims
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee speaks to supporters on May 5, 2015, in Hope, Ark.
(Photo: Danny Johnston, AP)
Eugene Kiely
Posted on May 5, 2015
Mike Huckabee, an unsuccessful 2008 presidential candidate, announced he is running for president once again and, in doing so, repeated some old, discredited lines on the economy, health care and tax cuts.
The former Republican governor of Arkansas spoke for about a half hour [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=000uvNgzVrA (just above)] on May 5 in his birthplace of Hope, Arkansas. Among his claims:
• Huckabee said “93 million Americans don’t have jobs.” That’s misleading. There are 93.8 million Americans who are not in the work force, but only 6.1 million of them want a job, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics [ http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea38.htm ]. As we have written [ http://www.factcheck.org/2014/05/perry-misleads-on-jobs/ ], the vast majority are students, stay-at-home parents, retired seniors and others who do not want to work. In fact, 37.3 million [ http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU05000097 ] of the 93.8 million, or 40 percent, are 65 years old or older.
• In touting his accomplishments as governor, Huckabee said “we passed 94 tax cuts.” We wrote [ http://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/one-two-punch-for-gop/ ] about this [ http://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/huckabee-cut-crime-and-taxes/ ] multiple times [ http://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/huckabees-attack-ad-runs-after-all/ ] when he ran for president in 2008. There were 94 tax cuts and 21 tax increases under Huckabee, resulting in a $505.1 million net increase in taxes [ http://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/huckabees-attack-ad-runs-after-all/ ].
• Huckabee, who was governor from July 1996 to January 2007, also claimed “we saw family income increase by 50 percent during my tenure.” That does not account for inflation. As we just wrote [ http://www.factcheck.org/2015/05/huckabee-exaggerates-states-income-gains/ ], median household income rose 9.3 percent from 1995 to 2006 in inflation-adjusted dollars.
• In criticizing Washington for failing to keep its promise to seniors, Huckabee claimed “Congress took $700 billion out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare.” This is a Whopper [ http://www.factcheck.org/2012/10/whoppers-of-2012-final-edition/ ] we have written [ http://www.factcheck.org/2012/08/medicares-piggy-bank/ ] about [ http://www.factcheck.org/2014/07/medicare-ghost-stories/ ] multiple [ http://www.factcheck.org/2014/07/more-senior-scare-in-montana/ ] times [ http://www.factcheck.org/2012/08/a-campaign-full-of-mediscare/ ]. The Affordable Care Act reduces the future growth of Medicare by an estimated $716 billion over 10 years [ http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/43471-hr6079.pdf ], mostly by reducing future hospital and Medicare Advantage payments. The ACA, which also increased revenues, will improve Medicare’s finances [ http://www.factcheck.org/2012/08/medicares-piggy-bank/ ].
© Copyright 2015 FactCheck.org (emphasis in original)
http://www.factcheck.org/2015/05/huckabee-repeats-discredited-claims/ [also at/image included above from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2015/05/05/fact-check-huckabee-economy-health-care-tax-cuts/26937865/ (with comments)]
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Southern Baptists to open their ranks to missionaries who speak in tongues
Anita Hensley of Kansas City, Mo., joins in worship at the National Day of Prayer observance on Capitol Hill on May 2, 2013.
RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks
Greg Horton and Yonat Shimron
May 14, 2015
(RNS) After decade-long resistance, the Southern Baptist Convention will admit missionary candidates who speak in tongues, a practice associated with Pentecostal and charismatic churches.
The new policy, approved by the denomination’s International Mission Board on Wednesday (May 13), reverses a policy that was put in place 10 years ago.
Speaking in tongues is an ancient Christian practice recorded in the New Testament in which people pray in a language they do not know, understand or control. The practice died out until Pentecostalism emerged around the turn of the 20th century. In Pentecostal churches it is considered one of many “gifts” of the Holy Spirit, including healing and the ability to prophesize.
Allowing Southern Baptist missionaries to speak in tongues, or have what some SBC leaders call a “private prayer language,” speaks to the growing strength of Pentecostal churches in Africa, Asia and South America, where Southern Baptists are competing for converts and where energized new Christians are enthusiastically embracing the practice.
“In so many parts of the world, these charismatic experiences are normative,” said Bill Leonard, professor of church history at Wake Forest Divinity School. “Religious groups that oppose them get left behind evangelistically.”
The change does not mean that Southern Baptists will commission missionaries who speak in tongues. But Wendy Norvelle, a spokeswoman for the IMB, said an affirmative answer regarding the practice would no longer lead to automatic disqualification.
Southern Baptists have long prided themselves as among the world’s most ambitious missionaries — reaching countries and regions few dared to go — but they are increasingly finding competition from fast-growing Pentecostal Christianity, which now has an estimated 300 million followers [ http://www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christianity-movements-and-denominations/ ] worldwide.
In 2005, the International Mission Board created guidelines that specifically disqualified all missionary candidates who spoke in tongues. For Southern Baptists, the practice, also known as glossolalia, ended after the death of Jesus’ apostles. The ban on speaking in tongues became a way to distinguish the denomination from others.
These days, it can no longer afford that distinction.
“Southern Baptists are experiencing such demographic trauma of membership and baptism they need new constituencies among nonwhite population,” Leonard said.
Indeed, the issue became such a lightning rod for Southern Baptists that it got top billing on the application form.
“If someone said they did pray in tongues, they were automatically disqualified, essentially for being honest,” said Wade Burleson, an Enid, Okla., pastor who opposed the ban.
The policy changes approved this week during an IMB trustee meeting in Louisville, Ky., will leave the question of tongues in the application.
And the IMB said it will still end employment for any missionary who places “persistent emphasis on any specific gift of the Spirit as normative for all or to the extent such emphasis becomes disruptive,” an FAQ on the IMB website [ http://www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christianity-movements-and-denominations/ ] explained.
Other policy changes this week would allow divorced missionaries to serve in more positions, including long-term missions assignments.
And the IMB will recognize baptisms performed by other Christian denominations so long as they involved full-body immersion. Previously, a Southern Baptist minister must have baptized missionary candidates who transferred from another denomination.
© 2015 Religion News LLC
http://www.religionnews.com/2015/05/14/southern-baptists-open-ranks-missionaries-speak-tongues/ [with comments]
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Huckabee’s ‘hucksterism’ problem won’t go away
U.S. Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee addresses supporters as he formally launches his bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination during an event in Hope, Ark on May 5, 2015.
Photo by Mike Stone/Reuters
By Steve Benen
05/07/15 12:49 PM—Updated 05/07/15 01:14 PM
Mike Huckabee has quite a few [ http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/does-mike-huckabee-stand-chance ] challenges he’ll have to overcome if his presidential campaign is going to succeed, but among the more dramatic is how he’s spent his time since leaving the Arkansas governor’s office.
The Republican is known for his media gigs, including hosting a Fox News program and a conservative radio show, but it’s his role as a snake-oil salesman that’s awfully tough to defend. CNN’s Jake Tapper asked [ http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1505/06/cg.01.html ] Huckabee yesterday about his controversial business practices.
TAPPER: In January, sir, you rented out your email list to a group selling hidden cures for cancer embedded in Bible verses for the low price of $72. Don’t you lose credibility by attaching your name to things like that?
HUCKABEE: Well, I never signed that letter. I mean, I have a huge email list that I developed over many years and we did, in fact, rent it out to entities. But my gosh, that’s like saying that you run some ads on CNN, do you personally agree with all the ads that run on CNN? I doubt you do.
To his credit, Tapper explained that Huckabee’s argument sounds like “a false equivalent” – which, of course, it is – since the GOP candidate has peddled fairly ridiculous products, which “a lot of people would consider to be hucksterism.”
Huckabee simply repeated his original talking points, which is more than just unsatisfying.
One of the more obvious problems is that Huckabee’s mailing list has very little in common with a television network. People signed up to receive alerts from the Arkansas Republican, and he bundled those email addresses to create a lucrative and ethically dubious business venture – unsavory businesses pay Huckabee to send out sketchy messages to his supporters.
How sketchy? Huckabee’s list has been used to “blast out links to heart-disease fixes and can’t-miss annuities.” And this isn’t just some unfortunate part of his distant past – as recently as this year Huckabee was still sending [ https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/551550544977072128 ] his mailing list bizarre messages “about food hoarding.”
To be sure, Huckabee isn’t directly responsible for the often ridiculous messages, but these email addresses have gone out under his name and face [ https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/551550544977072128 ], giving the appearance of an endorsement.
But let’s also not overlook the fact that Huckabee’s lucrative snake-oil operation isn’t limited to unfortunate uses of email addresses. Just two months ago, Huckabee also appeared in an infomercial-like video [ http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/hes-mike-huckabee-and-he-approves-suspect-message ] in which he touted an “amazing” treatment that can “reverse” Type 2 diabetes.
“Prescription drugs aren’t going to cure you,” he said in the video. Pointing to some kind of mysterious conspiracy, Huckabee added, “They’re only going to keep you a loyal, pill-popping, finger-pricking, insulin-shooting customer so Big Pharma and the mainstream medical community can rake in over $100 billion a year annually.”
The New York Times ran a report [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/16/us/politics/huckabee-pursues-unconventional-ways-to-fund-a-campaign.html ] on the Republican’s “highly unconventional income streams,” which produce income that Huckabee chooses not to disclose.
I can appreciate why some politicians are eager to celebrate their private-sector successes, but I have a hunch Huckabee’s ugly business venture won’t be part of his 2016 pitch.
©2015 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/huckabees-hucksterism-problem-wont-go-away [with comments]
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Mike Huckabee Defends Endorsement of Diabetes Product
By Nicholas Confessore
1:52 pm ET May 10, 2015
Mike Huckabee, the Republican presidential candidate, defended his endorsement of a dubious diabetes remedy on Sunday, telling an interviewer that “if that’s the worst thing somebody can say to me” then “I’m going to be a heck of a good president.”
The former Arkansas governor, who wrote a book about weight loss after dropping 100 pounds [ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/10/us/10weight.html ], has more recently appeared in infomercials hawking a “weird spice, kitchen-cabinet cure” for diabetes that consists mostly of dietary supplements [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/dietarysupplementsandherbalremedies/index.html ]. He has also endorsed the treatment, which medical doctors caution against using, through his vast mailing list [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/16/us/politics/huckabee-pursues-unconventional-ways-to-fund-a-campaign.html ], along with a cure for cancer said to be hidden in verses of the Bible.
But Mr. Huckabee, appearing [ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/huckabee-dont-have-to-defend-everything-ive-ever-done/ ] on the CBS program “Face the Nation,” downplayed the supplements on Sunday, arguing they were a minor part of the treatment he promoted.
“One of the elements of the plan was dietary supplements, but it’s not the fundamental thing,” Mr. Huckabee said. “The fundamental thing is always, as you and I both know, it’s exercise, it’s good eating habits, it’s maintaining sugar levels, it’s not eating a bunch of junk food, processed food, lots of carbs, sugar, those type of things.”
Mr. Huckabee, who broke off as a spokesman for the diabetes product not long before announcing he would make another bid for the White House, also suggested it was unfair to press him on the issue.
“I don’t have to defend everything that I’ve ever done,” Mr. Huckabee said. “I’m not doing those infomercials, obviously, now as a candidate for president.”
© 2015 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/05/10/mike-huckabee-defends-endorsement-of-diabetes-product/
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Mike Huckabee Has Chuck Norris in His Corner Again
Mike Huckabee, left, on the campaign trail in Iowa in 2008 with the actor Chuck Norris, a supporter.
Credit Jeff Haynes/Reuters
By Alan Rappeport
9:33 am ET May 5, 2015
Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas has won the endorsement of one of his most loyal supporters as he announces his second run for president Tuesday morning.
Chuck Norris, the former action film hero and star of the 1990s television show “Walker, Texas Bedwetter”, made frequent appearances with Mr. Huckabee on the trail and in his campaign commercials in 2008. He continues to be a believer.
“I still believe Mike Huckabee is the most qualified,” Mr. Norris told First Draft in a statement. “He has the moral clarity and experience to lead our great country forward.”
Based in Texas, Mr. Norris, 75, said he had been very impressed with the other presidential candidates who had entered the race. However, he said that Mr. Huckabee had a singular ability to communicate with both liberals and conservatives.
Jeff Duclos, a spokesman for Mr. Norris, said that he would not be with Mr. Huckabee in Arkansas on Tuesday. While it is too soon to say how active Mr. Norris would be on the campaign, he said that Mr. Norris was prepared to help.
Mr. Norris has spent the last several years keeping busy running his foundation to support children. He has also maintained an interest in politics and last year worked to help elect Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas [ http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2014/11/greg-abbott-makes-final-pitch-to-dallas-area-voters-as-campaign-for-governor-ends.html/ ].
During Mr. Huckabee’s previous White House bid, Mr. Norris hailed the former governor, who is an ordained minister, as a “principled, authentic conservative.” A martial arts maven, he shaded Mr. Huckabee’s cheerful demeanor with some vintage star power and even a little toughness.
In one of the more memorable commercials of that election cycle, Mr. Huckabee prepared to tell voters about his plan to secure the border.
His solution? Chuck Norris.
“Chuck Norris doesn’t endorse, he tells America how it’s going to be,” Mr. Huckabee said [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjYv2YW6azE (beginning at the 0:40 mark; next below, as embedded; with {over 5,000} comments); another copy at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDUQW8LUMs8 (with {over 16,000} comments)] at the time.
© 2015 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/05/05/mike-huckabee-has-chuck-norris-in-his-corner-again/
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Bruce Lee v. Chuck Norris - Way of the Dragon
Uploaded on Nov 22, 2007 by cryoburned [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3j00lP_FsgitPNY7rd5wag / http://www.youtube.com/user/cryoburned , http://www.youtube.com/user/cryoburned/videos ]
From the movie Way of the Dragon or Return of the Dragon [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_of_the_Dragon ]; this is the scene where Bruce Lee kills Chuck Norris.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtZNvK3fTlM [with comments]
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'Texas Bedwetter' Chuck Norris warns of government plot to take over state
Chuck Norris in The Expendables 2. ‘It’s pretty sad and bad when major military ops are ordered in a state like Texas and not even the governor or its senators know the specifics,’ he wrote.
Photographs: Frank Masi, SMPSP
Actor, martial arts master and conservative questions US military training exercise and praises Ted Cruz for refusal to believe Jade Helm 15 is no threat
Adam Gabbatt in New York
Monday 4 May 2015 16.43 EDT
The actor, martial artist, and internet meme [ http://www.complex.com/style/50-best-chuck-norris-jokes-of-all-time/ ] Chuck Norris has warned of a federal government plot to take over the state of Texas.
Writing on the right-wing website WND [ http://www.wnd.com/2015/05/jade-helm-15-crime-stoppers-and-ksk/ ], or WorldNetDaily, Norris [ http://www.wnd.com/author/cnorris/ ] discussed the potential for Jade Helm 15, a US military training exercise planned for July and August, to turn into a full-scale occupation of his home state.
Exercises will be held in Texas and six other states during Jade Helm 15, across public and private land. The training has been the focus of rightwing conspiracy theories since a map published for the purpose of the simulation labelled Texas, Utah and California as “hostile”.
“The US government says, ‘It’s just a training exercise’,” wrote Norris, 75. “But I’m not sure the term ‘just’ has any reference to reality when the government uses it.”
Both the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, and US senator – and 2016 Republican presidential candidate – Ted Cruz have been accused of pandering to conspiracy theorists with their reactions to Jade Helm 15. Abbott asked [ http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/30/texas-governor-state-guard-conspiracy-theory ] the Texas state guard to monitor the training exercise. Cruz said [ http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/cruz-sympathizes-jade-helm-15-conspiracy-theorists ] his office had “reached out to the Pentagon” to ask about the exercise.
Norris, who appeared as Texas Bedwetter JJ McQuade in the 1983 film Lone Wolf McQuade [ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085862/ ] and starred in the long-running TV series Walker, Texas Bedwetter [ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106168/ ], praised both men for their refusal to believe official government accounts.
“I’m glad … Ted Cruz [ http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ted-cruz ] is asking the tough questions of the Pentagon,” Norris wrote. “Particularly because its ‘exercises’ come too near to my ranch’s backdoor as well, at least according to the map.
“It’s pretty sad and bad when major military ops are ordered in a large, fiery state like Texas and not even the governor or its senators know the specifics.”
In the article Norris, who has been awarded a black belt across numerous martial arts disciplines, quotes “affable antique store owner” Mike Hightower as being among those concerned about the exercises.
“I’m not trusting what we’re being told,” warns Hightower, who lives in Smithville, Texas, where some of the training exercise will take place. “I think there’s something a little more involved than what they’re telling us.”
WND is no stranger to conspiracy theories. It has published articles questioning Barack Obama’s status as an American citizen and among its contributors is the rightwing blogger Pamela Geller [ http://www.wnd.com/2015/05/nycs-ban-on-criticism-of-jihad-and-shariah/ ], president of the group that hosted the “draw the prophet Muhammad [ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/pamela-geller-muhammad-drawing-contest-host-article-1.2209264 ]” event at which two gunmen were killed near Dallas on Sunday.
Norris, who is known for his political conservatism, also used his article to file a brief report on a recent gala held by his karate foundation, Kickstart for Kids. Governor Abbott and his wife Cecilia were in attendance, he wrote.
“It was an amazing night and gala!” Norris added.
© 2015 Guardian News and Media Limited
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/04/chuck-norris-warns-government-conspiracy-take-over-texas [with comments]
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Fearful Texas GOP base amuses nation with conspiracy panic
The Rachel Maddow Show
5/6/15
Rachel Maddow reports on the panicked, paranoid conspiracy theory pervading the GOP base that U.S. military exercise are actually a secret plot against them, and the awkward position of Republican politicians trying to court that base but not seem crazy.
©2015 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watch/panicky-gop-base-object-of-national-ridicule-441167939989 [with comments] [show links at http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/citations-the-may-6-2015-trms (no comments yet)] [the above YouTube of the segment at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywz__ManCc4 (with comments), others at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kV268agcUg (with comment) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF_74lZJaaw (no comments yet)]
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'We're Being Set Up': Glenn Beck Warns His Audience To Prepare For The Time When He Is Murdered In The Night
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 5/8/2015 10:21 am
Glenn Beck [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/glenn-beck-0 ] closed out his radio program yesterday [ http://www.glennbeck.com/2015/05/07/glenn-prepare-for-a-time-when-voices-like-mine-are-no-longer-heard/ ] with a 10-minute monologue warning his audience that everything that is happening in Baltimore and Ferguson and elsewhere is all a giant set-up, designed to create instability so that the federal government can take control of police departments all over the nation ... but nobody will listen to him.
"We’re being set up, guys. We are absolutely being set up," Beck said. "And I don’t know — this is what I pray every night: 'I don’t know how to do this, Lord. I don’t know what you want. I don’t know — I don’t know what you want.' I can’t wake up anyone. Oh, if I had the voice of an angel. I can’t wake anybody else up. They’ve smeared me. I’ve helped them smear me. I don’t have any credibility. Nobody is listening. I can tell you what’s coming. I’ve told you every step of the way. I know what’s coming next."
Linking a recent statement [ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/1/al-sharpton-justice-department-needs-to-take-over-/ ] from Al Sharprton to an intentional misrepresentation of President Obama's 2008 statement [ http://www.factcheck.org/2008/11/obamas-national-security-force/ ] about creating a civilian security force, Beck warned that the federal government is arming local police departments with military equipment in preparation for taking them over while "grassroots" agitators are being brought in to create civil unrest in major cities for the purpose of providing an excuse for the government to do just that.
"This is the biggest show ever," he warned. "That’s all that’s happening right now. This is a show. We’re watching a script and a play play out in front of us. None of this stuff is real. Those riots in Baltimore. That wasn’t real ... At some point, there will be a straw that breaks the camel’s back, and it will set the whole country on fire. And what happens? We will cry out for police help. The police will be overwhelmed. The DOJ will say, 'We’re going to take over policing, we’ll coordinate it from here.' And you’re done. It’s lights out, republic."
"That’s what’s coming," Beck said [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_ckUBPUFOE (next below, as embedded; with comments)]. "That’s what’s coming":
Amazingly, Beck wasn't done, as he then went on to implore his audience to prepare for the day when Beck and people like him are murdered in the night in order to silence their voices.
"If you look back at history, what happens to people who have voices and can cobble together people and be a leader?" he asked. "If you go back to what happened with the Armenian genocide, what is the first thing the Turks did? What is the first thing the Nazis did? You have a Night of Long Knives. The Armenian genocide. Any of the Armenians that could lead, any mayor, any writer, any person that was a hero in war, in one day, in each city, they would kill about 1,000 people. They'd just slaughter them. And they were all the leaders of the community. Anyone that people would rally around and follow. They were killed, day one. They just disappear, or they’re killed."
"There are 10 million people that listen to this show. They cannot kill 10 million people in one night. You were born for a reason, and you’re listening to this show for a reason," Beck stated [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saypgJt98oY (next below, as embedded; with comments)]. "Prepare for a time when voices like mine or others are no longer heard and yours is the only voice."
Seemingly surprised by what he just spent the last 10 minutes saying, Beck finally fell silent before declaring "I can’t believe I just said all of that."
© 2015 People For the American Way
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/were-being-set-glenn-beck-warns-his-audience-prepare-time-when-he-murdered-night
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The Pentagon's Response to Ted Cruz Regarding Jade Helm 15
ASSOCIATED PRESS
By Jason Stanford, Elie Jacobs, and Frank Spring
Posted: 05/10/2015 8:54 am EDT Updated: 05/12/2015 7:59 am EDT
Recently, Senator Ted Cruz from Texas asked the Pentagon to clarify its intentions with military exercises in Central Texas called "Jade Helm 15." The Pentagon's response follows:
*
Dear Senator Cruz:
Thank you for your inquiry into whether the Jade Helm 15 military exercise is the first wave of a federal takeover of Texas, the Trojan Horse, as it were, of the end of sovereignty in the Lone Star State. Our response, contrary to the long tradition of official correspondence and military bureaucracy, is concise: no.
But that's just what you would expect us to say, isn't it?
Perhaps, then, you would prefer not an official proclamation but a reasoned answer. As a master debater in college (Princeton, right?), you surely appreciate the reliability of logic, your public statements over the past few years notwithstanding. If you are disinclined to take the United States Armed Forces at their word when we promise no ill intentions towards Texas, then perhaps your considerable and vaunted intellectual powers, which once posited the regrowth of hymens as a guard against unauthorized incursions in domestic affairs, could be swayed by incontrovertible fact.
I know you think highly of our capabilities. Why else would you advocate for a short war with Iran? If we are indeed that powerful, we could probably launch an attack from any of the 15 U.S. military bases already within Texas' borders. While Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher may have found it necessary, even attractive, to invade countries that can easily be overrun, the present DoD considers such lopsided contests at best unsporting.
As someone who was not born within the borders of this country, it might interest you to know that Texas is already part of the United States. In fact, Texas has twice joined the Union. The first time your adopted state joined the USA in 1845 it set in motion events that led to the Mexican-American War. Later, when Union troops conquered the Southern rebellion, Texas rejoined the Union. It is not, therefore, farfetched to think that Texas' relationship to the rest of the United States could involve war, but please also keep in mind that when we refer to the United States of America, Texas is being implicitly included. We thought about calling it the United States of America and Texas, but we were afraid people might think Texas was a retrograde backwater of reactionary lunatics who think Moses was a Founding Father and laugh at you. This is way better.
Please also consider there are a great many things about Texas and Texan culture that could be threatened by another unnecessary armed conflict between Texas and the United States. We like Texas barbecue. That Green Beret who carried the flag out for the Texas Longhorn football team? That was pretty cool. The wildflowers along the highways are no joke. The late Texan Chris Kyle, the "American sniper," is a hero to many. Texas gave the world Lyndon Johnson, a staggering gift for which America was perhaps not entirely prepared. Without the Lone Star State, the Western swing band Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys would have appeared under the performing name Robert Wills and His Playboys, which is ghastly, or not have existed at all, a possibility that DoD has officially classified as "too awful to contemplate". And we really dig the self-awareness, the love of self that, while occasionally metastasizing into paranoid delusions such as those that motivated your original query, also make Texas a culture with an indelible sense of place.
But, we reiterate, that place is in the United States. On previous visits, we noticed that many of your residents enjoy Social Security and Medicare (you're welcome), volunteer for the armed services, treasure federal parks, wildlife preserves, and wilderness areas, and earn and spend currency backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. With a quick Internet search, I also learned that nearly a third of Texas' total revenue is from Federal funding. In fact, millions of your schoolchildren pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America almost every day. And unlike yourself, they apparently mean it.
There is a fundamental misapprehension that we feel is at the root of your query about our intentions was revealed in a recent comment you made to the press.
We are assured it is a military training exercise. I have no reason to doubt those assurances, but I understand the reason for concern and uncertainty, because when the federal government has not demonstrated itself to be trustworthy in this administration, the natural consequence is that many citizens don't trust what it is saying.
If, Senator Cruz, you believe that the United States military is a political tool of its civilian leadership, you have reached a conclusion unsupported by fact, history and good sense. The troops swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States. To besmirch their loyalty to the country, even in the service of making hackneyed political points in the Republican primary, does not make you a patriot, but a partisan. Even a Princeton and Harvard Law man should know the difference.
Also, it makes you the rudest Canadian we've ever run across.
Sincerely Yours,
Secretary Ashton Carter
*
Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-stanford/the-pentagons-response-to_b_7251254.html [with comments]
===
At least 165 arrested in deadly biker gang shootout at Texas restaurant
Police officers and a group of bikers near the restaurant where gunfire erupted between rival motorcycle gangs on Sunday in Waco, Tex.
Credit Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune-Herald, via Associated Press
[ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/us/waco-texas-biker-gang-shooting.html ]
A McLennan County deputy sheriff stood guard near a group of bikers in the parking lot of a Twin Peaks restaurant after gunfire erupted between rival motorcycle gangs on Sunday in Waco, Tex.
Credit Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune-Herald, via Associated Press
[ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/18/us/motorcycle-gang-shootout-in-waco-texas.html ]
Bikers waited in a line Sunday as law enforcement officers removed the suspects’ boots and hats and searched them before loading them into long white vans. The suspects wore vests, headbands and T-shirts in red, yellow or black. The McLennan County sheriff said about 150 suspects were detained for questioning.
Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune-Herald
[ http://www.dallasnews.com/latest/20150517-9-bikers-killed-in-rival-gang-shootout-outside-waco-restaurant.ece (with comments)]
A shooting involving rival biker gangs at a Waco, Texas restaurant has left nine people dead and some others injured, according to police.
By Peter Holley and J. Freedom du Lac
May 18, 2015 at 12:30 PM
Police in Waco, Tex., announced Monday [ https://www.facebook.com/WacoPoliceDepartment/posts/816987058349852 ] that they have arrested at least 165 people following a spasm of biker-gang violence that left nine people dead over the weekend.
The individuals arrested were all charged with engaging in organized criminal activity and taken to the McLennan County Jail, according to the Waco Herald-Tribune [ http://www.wacotrib.com/news/police/waco-police-make-nearly-arrests-in-twin-peaks-shooting/article_fb015447-d096-5cd1-9b23-5119413111ce.html ]. Police originally said 192 people had been arrested, but later revised the number to between 165 and 175, the newspaper reported.
The jail, located about 15 minutes away from the retail strip where the shootings occurred, was still working Monday morning to process all of the people who had been arrested, an official said.
The arrests were announced the day after a sports bar packed with rival biker gangs — and police — erupted in violence, sending terrified patrons diving for cover in a busy Central Texas shopping center.
Police said in a statement Monday [ https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=816982581683633 ] the Twin Peaks restaurant and parking lot were “still a very active crime scene” — one that “is littered with bullets, blood and other evidence. Civilian as well as Police units with bullet holes remain to be processed.” Parts of Central Texas Market Place, where the Twin Peaks sports bar is located, were expected to remained closed for the day, police said.
The confrontation began about noon Sunday in the Twin Peaks restroom and quickly escalated from hands and feet to knives and chains and then gunfire as it spilled into the crowded parking lot, according to Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton, a police spokesman.
Several officers were involved in the shootout, police said; none were wounded, and it was unclear whether any of the nine bikers killed in the melee were shot by police.
Eighteen people were taken to hospitals with injuries that included stab and gunshot wounds, Swanton said. Some victims were being treated for both, he told reporters in Central Texas on Sunday.
“I was amazed that we didn’t have innocent civilians killed or injured,” Swanson said, according to the Associated Press [ http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_WACO_SHOOTING ], which noted:
Many streets were nearly deserted in Waco, apart from law enforcement officials keeping watch, as night fell following a shootout between rival motorcycle gangs at a restaurant that left nine bikers dead and raised the specter of further violence.
Authorities increased security to quell other possible attempts at criminal activity in the Central Texas town following the melee Sunday.
The violent confrontation involved at least five rival biker gangs, police said. McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara said all nine who were killed were members of the Bandidos [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/05/18/how-the-bandidos-became-americas-most-feared-biker-gang/ ] or Cossacks gangs, according to the AP, which added:
In a 2014 gang threat assessment, the Texas Department of Public Safety classified the Bandidos as a “Tier 2? threat, the second highest. Other groups in that tier included the Bloods, Crips and Aryan Brotherhood of Texas.
On Sunday, witnesses described a mass shootout that involved dozens of of guns being fired inside the restaurant and in the parking lot along Interstate 35, according to CBS affiliate KWTX [ http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/Waco-Shooting-Near-Twin-Peaks-In-Waco-304043711.html ]. The station reported that panicked patrons and employees sought refuge from the mayhem in the restaurant freezer.
Hours later, authorities from multiple law enforcement agencies — including local and state police, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — were still trying to secure the area and survey the large crime scene, which was littered with more than 100 weapons.
“In 34 years of law enforcement, this is the most violent crime scene I have ever been involved in,” Swanton said, according to the Waco Tribune-Herald [ http://www.wacotrib.com/news/police/updates-police-believe-five-motorcyle-gangs-involved-in-deadly-twin/article_37addf70-e4e5-505a-98b4-ecbef08a2a87.html ]. “There is blood everywhere. We will probably approach the number of 100 weapons.”
Swanton called it “one of the worst gun fights we’ve ever had in the city limits. They started shooting at our officers.”
The officers returned fire, Swanton said, and some armed bikers were shot by police. Swanton defended the officers’ actions and said they prevented more deaths.
“Their action has saved lives in keeping this from spilling into a very busy Sunday morning,” he said, according to CNN [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/18/us/texas-biker-gang-brawl-shooting/ ]. “Thank goodness the officers were here, and took the action that they needed to take to save numerous lives.”
Authorities said it was not immediately clear what triggered the violence, but the potential for conflict did not surprise the Twin Peaks staff or officers. McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna told the AP that tensions between the gangs had been building for months.
Police were bracing for violence: Swanton said many as 12 Waco police officers were at the sports bar when the fighting began and that they had secured the area because they “expected issues.” He said the restaurant’s management requested the officers in anticipation of trouble.
“We have been made aware in the last few months of rival biker gangs — rival criminal biker gangs — being here and causing issues,” Swanton said. “We have attempted to work with the local management of Twin Peaks to get that cut back, to no avail. They have not been of much assistance to us.”
Jay Patel, operating partner for the Twin Peaks franchise in Waco, said in a statement [ https://www.facebook.com/TwinPeaksWaco/posts/654031224741865 ] Sunday: “We are horrified by the criminal, violent acts that occurred outside of our Waco restaurant today. We share in the community’s trauma. Our priority is to provide a safe and enjoyable environment for our customers and employees, and we consider the police our partners in doing so.”
Patel added that “our management team has had ongoing and positive communications with the police and … we will continue to cooperate with the police as they investigate this terrible crime.”
Swanton called Patel’s statement a “fabrication,” according to the AP, which reported that the Waco police “described the management as uncooperative with authorities in addressing concerns about the gangs.”
“Are we frustrated? Sure,” Swanton said, according to CNN. “Because we feel like there may have been more that could have been done by a business to prevent this.”
Police said Monday that the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission “is implementing a Summary Suspension closing Twin Peaks for at least 7 days. This is not a punitive action on TABC’s part but done due to the ongoing danger it presents to our community.”
CBS affiliate KWTX reported that the Twin Peaks corporate office canceled the Waco store’s franchise agreement on Monday.
“We are in the people business and the safety of the employees and guests in our restaurants is priority one,” the company said in a statement, according to KWTX [ http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/Waco-Shooting-Near-Twin-Peaks-In-Waco-304043711.html ]. “Unfortunately the management team of the franchised restaurant in Waco chose to ignore the warnings and advice from both the police and our company, and did not uphold the high security standards we have in place to ensure everyone is safe at our restaurants.
“We will not tolerate the actions of this relatively new franchisee and are revoking their franchise agreement immediately. Our sympathies continue to be with the families of those who died and are very thankful no employees, guests, police officers or bystanders were hurt or injured.”
A witness who had just finished lunch at a nearby restaurant told KWTX that he and his family walked into the parking lot when they heard multiple gunshots and saw wounded people being removed from the scene.
“We crouched down in front of our pickup truck because that was the only cover we had,” said the man, who asked not to be identified.
Another witness, Michelle Logan, told the Tribune-Herald: “There were maybe 30 guns being fired in the parking lot, maybe 100 rounds. They just opened fire. … There’s a lot of people in the hospital, a lot of people shot.”
Vehicles parked near the restaurant were riddled with bullet holes, the newspaper noted.
Headquartered in Dallas, Twin Peaks is a casual dining chain with dozens of locations nationwide that employs a largely female staff scantily clad in plaid shirts and mini shorts.
“Twin Peaks Girls,” the company advertises, offer customers “signature ‘Girl Next Door’ charisma and playful personalities.”
“We’re all about the really super cold beer and really hot girls,” Meggie Miller, the chain’s marketing director, says in a promotional video [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybGWziRwzQs (next below; with comments)].
The Waco location opened in August and was touted by a company spokesman as offering 24 types of beer and 55 flatscreen TVs, as well as “Bike Night” on Thursdays.
“Get revved up and ready to go at Twin Peaks bike night,” a calendar [ http://www.twinpeaksrestaurant.com/locations/waco/ ] on the Twin Peaks Waco Web site advertised.
TwinPeaksRestaurant
@TwinPeaksGirl
Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and victims of the tragedy at franchise partner's restaurant in Waco.
5:21 PM - 17 May 2015
[ https://twitter.com/TwinPeaksGirl/status/600063675471241217 ]
In 2013, the chain was featured on an episode of “Undercover Boss.” During the episode [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VRO68Eu5Bc (next below; with comments)],
Randy DeWitt, chief executive of Twin Peaks, described the restaurant on the show as “a high-energy mountain-themed sports bar.”
“We have an expression at Twin Peaks,” he adds: “It’s a place where you can let your man out.”
[This post, originally published on May 17, 2015, has been updated multiple times.]
© 2015 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/05/17/shootout-among-rival-biker-gangs-in-texas-restaurant-kills-9/ [with embedded video reports, and comments]
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Exclusive: Leaked Report Profiles Military, Police Members of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs
By Jana Winter and Jordan Smith
05/22/2015 2:08 PM
Nuclear power plant technicians, senior military officers, FBI contractors and an employee of “a highly-secretive Department of Defense agency” with a Top Secret clearance. Those are just a few of the more than 100 people with sensitive military and government connections that law enforcement is tracking because they are linked to “outlaw motorcycle gangs.”
A year before the deadly Texas shootout that killed nine people on May 17, a lengthy report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives detailed the involvement of U.S. military personnel and government employees in outlaw motorcycle gangs, or OMGs. A copy of the report [scribd-style https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2085684-omgs-july-2014-redacted.html , pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2085684/omgs-july-2014-redacted.pdf ] was obtained by The Intercept.
The report lays out, in almost obsessive detail, the extent to which OMG members are represented in nearly every part of the military, and in federal and local government, from police and fire departments to state utility agencies. Specific examples from the report include dozens of Defense Department contractors with Secret or Top Secret clearances; multiple FBI contractors; radiological technicians with security clearances; U.S. Department of Homeland Security employees; Army, Navy and Air Force active-duty personnel, including from the special operations force community; and police officers.
“The OMG community continues to spread its tentacles throughout all facets of government,” the report says.
The relationship between OMGs and law enforcement has come under scrutiny after it became known that law enforcement were on site in Waco bracing for conflict.
The 40-page report, “OMGs and the Military 2014,” issued by ATF’s Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information in July of last year, warned of the escalating violence of these gangs. “Their insatiable appetite for dominance has led to shootings, assaults and malicious attacks across the globe. OMGs continue to maim and murder over territory,” the report said. “As tensions escalate, brazen shootings are occurring in broad daylight.”
The ATF report is based on intelligence gathered by dozens of law enforcement and military intelligence agencies, and identifies about 100 alleged associates of the country’s most violent outlaw motorcycle gangs and support clubs who have worked in sensitive government or military positions.
Those gangs “continue to court active-duty military personnel and government workers, both civilians and contractors, for their knowledge, reliable income, tactical skills and dedication to a cause,” according to the report. “Through our extensive analysis, it has been revealed that a large number of support clubs are utilizing active-duty military personnel and U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) contractors and employees to spread their tentacles across the United States.”
The report predicted that six dominant OMGs — Mongols, Hells Angels, Outlaws, Pagans, Bandidos and Vagos — would continue to expand, with escalating violence. The groups are known as “one-percenter” clubs, a moniker they proudly use to denote their outlaw status. The report identifies the most violent as Bandidos and Hell’s Angels support clubs — the same groups involved in a deadly shootout in Waco, Texas on Sunday.
The deadly confrontation involved the Bandidos and a rival club, the Cossacks MC, who are backed by Bandidos’ arch rivals, the Hell’s Angels. The shootout was part of a ongoing turf battle: Without permission from the Bandidos, Cossacks members have begun wearing a patch on their vests that claims Texas as the club’s territory — a figurative thumb in the eye of the Bandidos, long the state’s dominant motorcycle club. Nine people were killed and more than 170 bikers were arrested in the noontime showdown.
On Wednesday, law enforcement in Texas confirmed to several media outlets that one of the bikers arrested in the massive post-shootout sweep was a former San Antonio police detective, who joined the Bandidos after retiring from the department after 32 years.
The ATF report identifies the Bandidos as the dominant and most violent of the motorcycle gangs in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, and identifies a staff sergeant instructor in the United States Air Force, currently stationed at Keesler Air Force Base, as the president of the local Pistoleros chapter, a Bandidos support club. According to the report, he routinely hosts parties for active duty military personnel.
In response to questions about the report, an ATF spokesperson said, “This was supposed to be solely a law enforcement tool to help fight violent crime. It was not supposed to be out there in the ether for general consumption.” The Intercept, after consulting with ATF, has redacted some portions of the report.
In an interview, Edward Winterhalder, a former high-ranking member of the Bandidos who left the club in 2003, said that while military veterans have long been involved in motorcycle clubs — many of the current outlaw clubs were formed in the wake of World War II — current-duty military or law enforcement members are not generally involved in the most violent gangs.
According to Winterhalder, biker clubs not associated with the violent one-percenters have many government employees — current military, law enforcement and firefighters — as members. Indeed, some clubs have emerged that pointedly disavow any connections to violence or lawlessness, or that specifically bill themselves as a LEMC — law enforcement motorcycle club.
Among those are the Iron Circle LEMC, a Texas club formed in 2006; the Arizona-founded Roughnecks Country MC — for the “99 percent … that gives a shit about society and the laws that govern the world we live in”; the Iron Order MC, a fiercely independent club that strongly rejects the ethos of the one-percenters; and the Protectors LEMC, which requires a criminal background check for prospective members.
Nonetheless, the report documents extensive involvement of current-duty military and government personnel in the outlaw groups, and does not mention LEMCs.
The report is a testament to how seriously law enforcement takes the issue of outlaw motorcycle gangs, detailing extensive surveillance; the document includes copies of military or government identification photos, some gained from traffic stops, and information from what appears to be close monitoring of military and government officials who attend the groups’ gatherings and activities across the country.
[scribd-style copy of the ATF report ( https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2085684-omgs-july-2014-redacted.html ) embedded]
© First Look Media
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/22/atf-report-warned-military-government-membership-outlaw-motorcycle-gangs/ [with comments]
===
Jade Helm 15 - the low down
Published on Mar 21, 2015 by VikingPreparedness [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwFLPtsymLp7aQWd3akcgnA / http://www.youtube.com/user/VikingPreparedness , http://www.youtube.com/user/VikingPreparedness/videos ]
To those who have been polite - even if you strongly disagree with me - Thank You. Civil discourse is an important part of being an American.
To the Trolls, junk food-eating can't leave the computer, "I still live in my mom's basement", "true in-the-know-patriots" - THANK YOU for making this the most popular Jade Helm video on the net, attracting new subscribers and furthering "my agenda". Keep commenting. Really.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36gR9a-Db90 [with comments]
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Jade Helm Martial Law - do the math
Published on Mar 24, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghjjokv49JM [with comments]
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Jade Helm, "Patriots" and "Jesus"
Published on Mar 27, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
Oh, yes I did...
Shofar Mountain:
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR8rQYOrUrungyRJko8FCrQ
and
http://www.shofarmountain.com/
And....you should probably watch this vid first:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCuQT4Tal_M [next below; with comments]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAvLLLV8Gek [with comments]
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Jade Helm - whaddya gonna DO?
Published on Mar 28, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCU9TDykGTQ [with comments]
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The TRUTH about PJF - Jade Helm
Published on Apr 5, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fhd24tnc20o [with comments]
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Man up!
Published on Apr 9, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GQpneFxtvM [with comments]
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3 Ways to Deal with Martial Law
Published on Apr 17, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
You have choices - choose wisely.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn7criXZQnM [with comments]
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Jade Helm, Illuminati, Militia - to what end?
Published on Apr 20, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
That is the question. Once you get the answer, I encourage you to DO something. Take action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dS4caX51Qk [with comments]
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Illegal Aliens
Published on Apr 24, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-e6g6aCtf0 [with comments]
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Racial Violence, Mobs, and You
Published on Apr 26, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
I stand (slightly) CORRECTED. Per latest FBI data Whites are killed mostly by other Whites. I was right on the fact that Blacks are killed mostly by other Blacks.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2013.xls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb0q_9i5bSc [with comments]
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Malthusian, Hegelian Elite plans for YOU
Published on Apr 26, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybuZ607_kIs [with comments]
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Pastors - alternative to forced gay marriage
Published on Apr 29, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
Show this to your pastor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwB4f66J5-k [with comments]
===
Gavin McInnes [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_McInnes ], Fox News Guest, Says Women Are 'Less Ambitious' And 'Happier At Home'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/15/gavin-mcinnes-women-happier-at-home_n_7289048.html [with comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nJ0VNZWcvQ [embedded; with comments]
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Chechnya's Leader Kadyrov Urges Men To Lock Up Their Wives, Ban Women From WhatsApp
Chechen regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov speaks at his meeting with school directors in Chechnya's provincial capital Grozny, Russia, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013.
(AP Photo/Musa Sadulayev)
By Kieran Guilbert
Posted: 05/20/2015 9:29 am EDT Updated: 05/20/2015 9:59 am EDT
LONDON, May 20 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The leader of Russia's southern region of Chechnya has urged men to lock up their wives and ban them from using WhatsApp after outrage over the forced marriage of a 17-year-old girl spread on the messaging service.
Married Chechen police chief Nazhud Guchigov, 47, wed Kheda Goylabiyeva last Saturday after threatening to kidnap the teenager and warning her family of reprisals if they did not agree to the marriage, according to the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta.
Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, who had earlier backed the marriage in apparent violation of Russian laws against polygamy, used an interview with a local broadcaster to condemn discussion of the wedding on WhatsApp.
"Lock them in, do not let them go out, then they will not post anything," Kadyrov was quoted as saying by the BBC.
"The family honor is the most important thing. Men, do take your women out of WhatsApp."
The Chechen leader said in an Instagram post last week that the girl's parents had agreed to the marriage, and criticized Russian media coverage of "this fuss ordered by some liberals."
Polygamy is illegal in Russia, though it is permitted under Islamic law if both the first wife and any future brides consent, and their husband treats them equally.
Kadyrov is loyal to Russian President Vladimir Putin but enjoys a large degree of autonomy in running the mainly Muslim region, having put down an anti-Moscow insurgency that had given rise to two wars in Chechnya after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Russia's child rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov provoked outrage last week by supporting the right of older men to marry teenage brides, telling a local radio station that some women were "shriveled" by the age of 27.
He later apologized for his comments in an Instagram post in which he said that women of any age were "wonderful and delightful," accompanying his post with a picture of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus.
(Reporting By Kieran Guilbert; Editing by Tim Pearce)
Copyright 2015 Thomson Reuters
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/20/kadyrov-whatsapp-ban-women_n_7341916.html [with comments]
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Iran Tells Women To Stay At Home And Have Babies
Published on Apr 11, 2015 by The Young Turks [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1yBKRuGpC1tSM73A0ZjYjQ / https://www.youtube.com/user/TheYoungTurks , https://www.youtube.com/user/TheYoungTurks/videos ]
"Women in Iran could face significant restrictions on their use of contraceptives and be further excluded from the labour market unless they have had a child, if two proposed laws are approved, says a new report by Amnesty International.
“The bills reinforce discriminatory stereotypes of women, and mark an unprecedented move by the state to interfere in people’s personal lives. In their zealous quest to project an image of military might and geopolitical strength by attempting to increase birth rates, Iran’s authorities are trampling all over the fundamental rights of women - even the marital bed is not out of bounds.”
The Bill to Increase Fertility Rates and Prevent Population Decline (Bill 446) outlaws voluntary sterilization, which is believed to be the second most common method of modern contraception in Iran, and blocks access to information about contraception, denying women the opportunity to make informed decisions about having children."
Read more here:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/articles/news/2015/03/iran-proposed-laws-reduce-women-to-baby-making-machines/
Cenk Uygur ( http://www.twitter.com/cenkuygur ), Ana Kasparian ( http://www.twitter.com/anakasparian ), John Iadarola ( http://www.twitter.com/jiadarola ) and Jimmy Dore ( http://www.twitter.com/jimmy_dore ) of The Young Turks discuss.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_2mP8yHgRc [with comments]
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The Journey Out: Peril And Promise In Leaving The Ultra-Orthodox Jewish World
Left, Shulem Deen in New Square, 2006; right, Shulem Deen after leaving Hasidism
Left, Melissa Weisz in her Satmar Hasidic girlhood; right, Weisz after leaving Hasidism
By Talia Lavin
Posted: 05/21/2015 8:50 am EDT Updated: 05/21/2015 [c.] 12:35 pm EDT
Shulem Deen’s first steps away from Hasidic Judaism were in the direction of a radio.
Defying his community's express prohibitions against secular media, Deen waited until his wife and children were sleeping. Then he leaned in close to the small tape player in his home -- the one whose radio he hadn't had the heart to disable. He turned it on and began to listen.
“I switched the dial from one station to another, commercials for medical malpractice attorneys, car dealerships and department store blowout sales filling me with forbidden pleasure,” Deen wrote in his recently released memoir, All Who Go Do Not Return [ http://www.amazon.com/All-Who-Go-Not-Return/dp/1555977057 ]. “I was like a visitor from a different era encountering our modern one, captivated by its very mundaneness.”
Indeed, leaving his home -- and Hasidism -- might as well have been time travel. Deen was born into an ultra-Orthodox Jewish family in Brooklyn, and lived from adolescence in New Square, New York. The Rockland County hamlet is made up entirely of Hasidim from the Skver sect [ http://forward.com/news/210213/hasidic-enclave-keeps-its-secrets-amid-elusive-reb/ ], which originated in Skvyra, Ukraine. The society Deen inhabited for much of his adult life is deeply isolated from the modern world: The Skverer Hasidim, like most ultra-Orthodox Jews, eschew the Internet, television and non-Jewish music, and adhere to strict limitations on diet and dress.
For Hasidim, life orbits around service to God. In communities scattered throughout the northeastern U.S., hundreds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/nyregion/new-yorks-jewish-population-is-growing-again.html ] have created insular, inward-facing worlds, islands of radical piety in the midst of America’s bustling secular life. Hasidic men lead their lives immersed in the Talmud, one of Judaism’s holiest texts. Yiddish, not English, is the language spoken on the streets. And everything, from birth to marriage to death, is supervised by tight-knit communities committed to enforcing pious norms [ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/nyregion/16shun.html ] for themselves and their neighbors [ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/08/at-orthodox-sex-abuse-trial-little-known-enforcement-group-comes-to-light.html ]. People are born, live, and die within the confines of family and faith. No one leaves.
Except the ones who do. For people who exit Hasidic communities, it can mean total rupture: Leaving Hasidism means leaving behind family, community and the only way of life they have ever known, in favor of a secular world whose realities they are ill-prepared for. These individuals call themselves OTD, or “off the derech,” the Hebrew word for “path.” The new roads they take are often fraught with difficulty. But OTD individuals have begun to find one another -- sharing the challenges, and triumphs, of the journey out.
After leaving Hasidism, Deen endured a divorce, struggled to find a job and became estranged from his five children. He found himself deeply depressed in his newfound isolation.
“I was cut off completely from my previous community, and I had no connections in the outside world,” he told The Huffington Post. “I had no friends who were not religious.”
That’s when Deen reached out to Footsteps [ http://footstepsorg.org/ ], an organization that works to support individuals making the transition out of the ultra-Orthodox world.
Founded in 2004 by a formerly Hasidic woman, Footsteps has aided 1,000 people to date, according to Lani Santo, the current director. The organization offers a number of programs ranging from educational services to peer support groups.
"Footsteps provides absolutely crucial services -- sometimes lifesaving services," said Deen. "Without Footsteps -- I’ve had some serious episodes of depression –- without Footsteps I don’t know if I would be alive now. It was really that crucial. It was lifesaving to me, and I know it was lifesaving to many others."
The educational services that Footsteps offers teach skills most of us take for granted: talking to someone of the opposite gender; reading a restaurant menu; writing a resume.
Men leaving the Hasidic community have an extra hurdle to clear: Hasidic boys’ schools often sidestep state educational requirements [ http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20130122/crown-heights/english-is-absent-math-doesnt-count-at-brooklyns-biggest-yeshivas ], eschewing subjects like science and math to immerse students in a rigorous curriculum of Talmud study. Many adult male Hasidim read English at only a fourth- or fifth-grade level, Santo told HuffPost.
“They need a GED en route to college if that’s what they want,” she explained, adding that finding employment in the Hasidic world is facilitated by a vibrant, informal network within the religious community. "The risks are great, and the courage it takes [to leave] is pretty astounding.”
Women face a different, if no less profound, set of challenges. Deen calls the Hasidic world a “deeply chauvinistic” society -- one in which women are categorically barred from community leadership roles [ http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/hasidic-women-in-united-states ] and their lives shaped by stringent conceptions of modesty. But because girls are prevented from studying the Talmud, secular education is more widespread in girls’ schools [ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/nyregion/a-yeshiva-graduate-fights-for-secular-studies-in-hasidic-education.html ].
“Girls, because what they do with their time is considered less important, there’s more laxity about what they read,” Leah Vincent, a board member of Footsteps who left the ultra-Orthodox world in her teens, told HuffPost.
But despite comparatively better access to education, women who leave the Hasidic world can find themselves deeply vulnerable due to the sex segregation and rigidly enforced gender roles they've encountered from an early age.
In her haunting memoir, Cut Me Loose: Sin and Salvation After My Ultra-Orthodox Girlhood [ http://www.amazon.com/Cut-Me-Loose-Salvation-Ultra-Orthodox/dp/038553809X ], Vincent wrote about how her sheltered upbringing left her ill-prepared to break with her faith. In her late teens, during her first intimate relationship with a man, she found herself unable to refuse his advances -- and ultimately experienced a traumatic rape.
"No one should have to pay the price for freedom that I had to pay," Vincent said. “I had to recognize that I had a right to my own opinion, that my entire self didn’t have to make the man in front of me feel good. My mom defined herself as an enabler -- she enabled my father to study. Women enable men and children. That was part of my identity. That’s something I’m still working on.”
For Vincent and many others who have made the perilous transition out of the Hasidic world, Footsteps is a crucial resource -- not just for its career resources and legal aid, but for the community it provides. Vincent said that through her involvement with the organization, she hopes to prevent others from enduring what she did.
"I only found out about Footsteps after the worst of my journey -- the story I tell in my memoir -- happened, but there I found and connected with people with similar experiences," Vincent said. "I realized I wasn’t alone; other people had faced these issues."
Melissa Weisz, an actress in her late 20s [ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3870590/ ] who left the Satmar Hasidic community soon after her marriage at 19, told HuffPost that Footsteps helped her build a brand-new life -- from her identity to her wardrobe.
When she left her old life, Weisz said, “I was putting myself through school, working overnight at group homes. I was going to do anything I had to do to make sure I was going to live.”
"I looked to Footsteps because I felt like an outsider,” she continued. “I remember looking at myself in the mirror -- I saw myself in jeans, but on the inside I felt the mirror was lying to me. I was convinced that everyone could see that I was supposed to be in a skirt, everyone could see through me."
And the cohort of those who seek support at Footsteps is growing.
“We’ve entered a network of at least 3,000 or 4,000 people,” Santo said. “New members have increased each year significantly. In 2010, the number of new-member intake interviews was 46. Last year, in 2014, it was 142 -- a 150 percent increase.”
The ultra-Orthodox population itself is growing by leaps and bounds, in large part due to a community culture that encourages having as many children as possible. According to the Pew Research Center, Orthodox family size is nearly double [ http://forward.com/news/187429/orthodox-population-grows-faster-than-first-figure/ ] that of the national average.
Recently, Santos said, Footsteps affiliates organized a Mother’s Day barbecue in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. Many attendees’ mothers were no longer speaking to them. Others were mothers themselves, locked in custody battles for children they might never be able to speak to again.
But thanks to Footsteps, Facebook groups and other websites [ http://www.unpious.com/ ], those who have left the ultra-Orthodox world are starting to find each other -- and face their struggles together. On a path that diverges from the unbending arc of life prescribed by tradition, they've begun recognizing each other on the road.
And freedom itself is its own kind of revelation, says Weisz. She recounted a shining moment from her early twenties: going to the beach.
“It was so freeing that I got to feel the water on my skin. We had that in pools growing up, but we had to be totally covered up,” she said. “It was the first time that I was actually in the open -- immersed. It felt like I was part of the world, that I was free.”
Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/21/ex-hasidim-life-stories_n_7343084.html [with comments]
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Kosher Vibrators? This Israeli Rabbi Is Helping Ultra-Orthodox Jews Get Intimate
By Carol Kuruvilla
Posted: 05/21/2015 12:55 pm EDT Updated: 05/21/2015 1:59 pm EDT
An Israeli rabbi is selling sex toys for ultra-Orthodox Jews in search of a little something to spice up their love lives.
Natan Alexander, a 34-year-old rabbi who lives in a West Bank settlement, is hoping his website, Better2gether [ http://www.bebetter2gether.com/ ], will help his customers get creative in the bedroom.
Ultra-Orthodox religious rules ban nudity and suggestive imagery, according to Bloomberg [ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-05-20/toy-vey-the-rabbi-selling-kosher-vibrators ]. In some communities, the genders are separated at an early age and kids rarely get any kind of sex education from their parents or teachers. Couples often seek sex advice from rabbis after they get married.
To keep it kosher, Alexander’s website is free of coarse language, or photos of scantily-clad women. The same careful consideration goes into the packaging of his sex toys. The 200 items on sale on his site are shipped in boxes that are free of racy images, the Times of Israel [ http://www.timesofisrael.com/rabbi-puts-o-in-torah-with-online-sex-shop/ ] reports. Orthodox Jewish sex gurus are alo available online to help answer shoppers’ questions about the products and about sex.
Alexander’s goal isn’t to promote solo play -- he wants to help couples be intimate with each other.
“It’s not about my orgasm. It's about our orgasm,” Alexander told Bloomberg.
Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/21/kosher-vibrator-israel-rabbi_n_7371794.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
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A little Jade Helm 15 and some talk on how they are going to change the bible
Published on Apr 4, 2015 by steve USMC page NO TOLERANCE [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI1PB790iNlZpSQMAD_eimg , http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI1PB790iNlZpSQMAD_eimg/videos ]
This is the link to the video I talk about. Please watch that video and get mad ,very mad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Xwqh7X9ns [next below; with comments]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soOI2xG_rak [with comments]
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Texas attack entwined with fear-stoking industry
The Rachel Maddow Show
5/4/15
Rachel Maddow reports on a suspected terror attack by Muslim extremists on an anti-Muslim "free speech" rally in Texas on Sunday, and the broader context of the fear-of-Muslims stoking industry populated by professional provocateurs.
©2015 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watch/texas-attack-entwined-with-business-of-fear-439583299738 [with comments] [show links at http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/citations-the-may-4-2015 (with comment)] [the above YouTube of the segment at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJb5N75sIcg (with comments), others at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIVMrn97CD8 (with comment) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N4z-LItfas (no comments yet)]
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The GOP's Persistent Islamophobia Problem
Lindsey Graham speaking in a video at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference
Rick Wilking / Reuters
Lindsey Graham’s comments about Iranians confirm that some prejudices remain acceptable within the 2016 Republican field.
Peter Beinart
May 26, 2015
In important ways, America in recent years has become a less bigoted country. In today’s U.S. Senate, there is no equivalent to Jesse Helms, who during his 1984 reelection race filibustered a federal holiday for Martin Luther King and his 1990 reelection race aired an ad showing a pair of white hands crumpling a job rejection letter as the narrator declared [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/06/ar2008070602321.html ] that “they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota.”
In today’s Republican presidential field, there is no equivalent to Pat Buchanan, who won the 1996 New Hampshire primary after having asked [ http://archive.adl.org/special_reports/buchanan_own_words/on_immigration.html ], “Who speaks for the Euro-Americans who founded the U.S.A.?” and having declared [ http://archive.adl.org/special_reports/buchanan_own_words/on_women.html ] that “women are simply not endowed by nature with the same measures of single-minded ambition and the will to succeed in the fiercely competitive world of Western capitalism …The momma bird builds the nest. So it was, so it ever shall be.” Even the politicians who still wish to deny gays and lesbians equal-marriage rights now insist desperately that they harbor them no malice.
To hear some conservatives tell it, the last group against whom one can practice socially acceptable bigotry is, well, them: white, straight, native-born, right-wing Christians, against whom the federal government is waging a “silent war,” as Bobby Jindal alleges [ http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/jindal-to-warn-of-silent-war-on-religion-103501.html ], that may lead to the “criminalization of Christianity,” as Mike Huckabee warns [ http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/mike-huckabee-us-criminalization-of-christianity-117310.html ].
But I suspect that if a presidential candidate said, “Everything I learned about conservative white evangelicals I learned working in the pool room. I met a lot of liars, and I know they are liars,” his candidacy would abruptly end. I offer that example because it is, nearly word for word, what Republican presidential hopeful Lindsey Graham said [ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32850481 ] last Friday about Iranians. This follows Graham’s comment [ http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.655115 ] earlier this month that “Everything that starts with ‘Al’ in the Middle East is bad news.” (Al is the Arabic equivalent of “the”). Graham, it’s worth remembering, is running as the foreign-policy intellectual in the GOP field.
Why have Graham’s comments about Iranians attracted barely any notice? Because while American politicians have become less overtly bigoted against African Americans, Latinos, Jews, women and lesbians and gays, anti-Muslim bigotry is still entirely acceptable, at least in the GOP.
Among Graham’s opponents for the Republican nomination is Mike Huckabee, who in 2011 said [ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/02/anti-islam/385463/ ] Christians shouldn’t rent space in their churches to Muslims because “Muslim group[s]” say “that Jesus Christ and all the people that follow him are a bunch of infidels who should be essentially obliterated.” And who this February declared [id.] that, “Everything [Obama] does is against what Christians stand for, and he’s against the Jews in Israel. The one group of people that can know they have his undying, unfailing support would be the Muslim community.”
Another likely contender is Rick Santorum, who last November accused [ http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/11/11/3590960/rick-santorum-muslims/ ] presidents Bush and Obama of having given “all Muslims a pass” and in 2011 announced that equality “doesn’t come from Islam. It doesn’t come from the East and Eastern religions. It comes from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” (Evidently, Santorum thinks Ur Kasdim [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur_Ka%C5%9Bdim ] is a city in Pennsylvania.) They will all likely square off against Bobby Jindal, who earlier this year kept saying [ http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/01/paris-mayor-to-sue-fox-over-no-go-zone-comments/384656/ ] Europe contained “no go” zones from which non-Muslims were barred even after Fox News retracted the claim.
All these candidates walk in the footsteps of 2012 contenders like Newt Gingrich, who warned [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/us/politics/in-shariah-gingrich-sees-mortal-threat-to-us.html?pagewanted=all ] that, “Sharia is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States,” and Herman Cain, who ruled out [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/03/26/153625/herman-cain-muslims/ ] appointing a Muslim to his cabinet. Neither Gingrich nor Cain lost significant support as a result of these comments. Nor have Huckabee, Santorum, Jindal, or Graham. Which is not surprising when one realizes that 39 percent of likely Republican Iowa caucus-goers see [ http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-02-04/iowa-poll-nearly-40-percent-of-likely-republican-caucus-goers-consider-islam-inherently-violent ] Islam as inherently violent. (Among Democrats, the figure is one-third as high).
To be fair, not all the Republicans running for president indulge in anti-Muslim bigotry. In 2011, Mitt Romney publicly rejected [ http://caucuses.desmoinesregister.com/2011/12/09/mitt-romney-islam-is-not-an-inherently-violent-faith/ ] the idea that Islam is inherently violent. In New Jersey, Chris Christie nominated a Muslim attorney to be a superior court judge and even denounced [ http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/08/christie-responds-to-being-called-an-islamist.html ] the “gaze of intolerance that is going around our country” when it comes to Muslims.
Let’s hope Christie keeps denouncing Islamophobia on the campaign trail, and that other Republican candidates join in. Right now, the GOP field is often described as divided between conservatives and moderates or libertarians and social conservatives. With any luck, a public divide will break out between candidates who demonize American Muslims and those who defend their rights. In today’s GOP, sadly, that would constitute progress.
Copyright © 2015 by The Atlantic Monthly Group
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/05/lindsey-graham-republican-islamophobia-2016/394070/ [with comments]
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‘Put on your raping shoes and find this b*tch': Abby Martin is the latest target of crazed Chris Kyle sycophants
Abby Martin on her RT show 'Breaking the Set'
(Screenshot)
Eric W. Dolan
08 May 2015 at 10:54 ET
Fans of “American Sniper” Chris Kyle have threatened to rape and kill former RT anchor Abby Martin for criticizing the deceased Navy SEAL and creating a T-shirt they find offensive.
“Some psychotic Chris Kyle fan just doxxed me & my family’s personal information on a bunch of sniper forums. If anything happens to me or them you know who to blame. These are the real f*cking terrorists,” she wrote [ https://www.facebook.com/JournalistAbbyMartin/posts/761164727337142 ] on her Facebook page.
Martin had criticized Kyle in the past for describing Iraqis as “savages” in his book. She also described the American Sniper movie as “dangerous propaganda that sanitizes a mass murdering psycho.” But it was her shirt that appears to have set off a campaign of harassment against her.
This week, conservative websites posted a picture of Martin wearing a “F*ck Chris Kyle” shirt. She had uploaded a photo of the shirt [ https://instagram.com/p/2E7BFiOSnI/ ] to her Instagram account last week. One website, which incorrectly identified her as a “liberal artist,” called on readers [ http://mrconservative.com/2015/05/58537-liberal-artist-creates-fck-chris-kyle-t-shirt-what-happens-next-is-despicable/ ] to “publicly shame” her for her “treasonous actions.”
Another such website complained [ http://woundedamericanwarrior.com/disgusting-veteran-hater-blasts-a-dead-war-hero-fck-chris-kyle/ ]: “Chris Kyle is an American hero who is an easy target because he is no longer alive. Abbey Martin [sic], is just a coward hiding behind the freedoms that our military has granted her when she was born on this great land that we call the United States of America.”
The reaction on social media was even more visceral. Users of Twitter and Facebook have mentioned raping and beheading her, threatened to murder her, told her to kill herself, and bombarded her with misogynistic insults. Addicting Info reported [ http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/05/06/this-is-how-american-sniper-fanatics-responded-when-a-female-journalist-called-the-film-propaganda-imagesvideo/ ] that one person called on American Sniper fans to “put on our raping shoes and find this b*tch.”
“F*cking c*nt. How dare you disgrace his name like that. He gave his life so you can have yours. F*cking b*tch. Don’t worry I know where you live thanks to your ip address. And don’t worry I’m a Marine,” said Jamie Lugo [ https://twitter.com/AbbyMartin/status/595684707339259906 ] in a message shared by Martin. “So u won’t see me coming. I’m going to cause you pain beyond your imagination.” He later added: “Tic toc times running out.”
Other journalists, including Rania Khalek and Max Blumenthal, have been subjected to death threats [ http://www.rawstory.com/2015/01/let-isis-rape-you-conservatives-deluge-american-sniper-critics-with-harassment-and-threats/ ] and online harassment for their criticism the film American Sniper.
“Very telling that the #ChrisKyle fans who tell me he ‘died for my freedom’ to wear clothes are threatening to rape & kill me for free speech,” Martin wrote on Twitter [ https://twitter.com/AbbyMartin/status/595689993907138560 ].
Copyright 2015 Raw Story
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/put-on-your-raping-shoes-and-find-this-btch-abby-martin-is-the-latest-target-of-crazed-chris-kyle-sycophants/ [with comments]
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Rush Limbaugh Tells Businesses To Blame Anti-Gay Bigotry On Muslims
Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh speaks during a ceremony inducting him into the Hall of Famous Missourians in the state Capitol in Jefferson City, Missouri, in this May 14, 2012 file photo.
(AP Photo/Julie Smith, File)
By Cavan Sieczkowski
Posted: 05/14/2015 11:14 am EDT Updated: 05/14/2015 11:59 am EDT
Good ol' Rush Limbaugh is at it again, and this time he is dishing up advice for businesses who want to deny services to same-sex couples: blame Muslims.
Limbaugh took on the subject of anti-gay discrimination [ http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/05/11/my_advice_for_the_next_time_you_re_asked_to_bake_a_gay_wedding_cake ] on his radio show earlier this week. He blamed the American left for undermining religion and the institution of marriage and blamed "militant gay activists" for attacking business owners who refuse to serve same-sex couples because of religious beliefs. However, Limbaugh said, people who defend marriage equality also condemn offending Muslims with cartoon renderings of the Prophet Muhammad, even though Muslims might also be offended by same-sex marriage.
"I pointed out the other day, well, then should we maybe stop flouting and flaunting gay marriage, because gay marriage is really disapproved in Islam," he said on the show. "Gay marriage, homosexual behavior is not tolerated, it is not permitted and it is punished severely when it is caught, when it's spied. And yet in American media all over the place we are celebrating gay marriage, we are flaunting gay marriage, and I ask, does this not also offend Muslims?"
His suggestion to business owners was to cite "Muslim backlash" instead of religious freedom when denying service to gay couples.
Instead of telling the gay couple that you refuse to bake the cake for their wedding because you disapprove of homosexuality, you should now say you are not going to bake a cake for the gay wedding because you fear Muslim backlash. Or, due to your respect of Islam, you cannot bake a cake for a gay wedding. See how that flies. Since the left is agreeing, a bunch of people on the left have gone on TV, "I hate to say this, you know, Limbaugh's got a point. We do flaunt gay marriage at 'em, wow. Wow. That's a good point. I mean, we readily agree not to do the thing with the prophet and the pictures and the cartoons, but gay marriage, yeah, we're kind of in their face on that.
Not everyone is buying Limbaugh's logic.
"Rush Limbaugh should just have the courage to say that he supports discrimination against gay Americans simply because of their sexual orientation as opposed to trying to use it as another opportunity to demonize Muslims," writer and comedian Dean Obeidallah told The Huffington Post in an email. "As a Muslim American, I fully support marriage equality and find the denial of service to members of the LGBT community not just despicable but truly unAmerican. Hopefully people will wake up to threat of conservatives like Rush who want to turn their religious beliefs into American law. That is in essence Christian sharia law and has no place in our nation."
Last month, Limbaugh ranted about a Muslim-run bakery [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-stone/rush-limbaugh-dearborn-an_b_7002854.html ] in Dearborn, Michigan, that allegedly refused to serve a cake for a faux same-sex wedding in an edited hidden-camera stunt [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgWIhYAtan4 (next below; with {over 5,000} comments)]
Dearborn Sweets owner Miriam Khansa said she never refused Crowder service [ http://www.wxyz.com/news/activists-demand-apology-for-limbaughs-rant-on-dearborn-bakeries ], according to Detroit ABC affiliate WXYZ. Her business has filled orders for same-sex weddings before, she told the station: “We were really bothered because whatever he was saying wasn't true. Like I said, we accept everybody here."
H/T Pink News [ http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/05/12/rush-limbaugh-tells-people-to-blame-muslims-when-discriminating-against-gays/ ]
Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/14/rush-limbaugh-muslim-gay-bakery_n_7282816.html [with comments]
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The 'Taliban' in Our Midst
Maj. Gen. Craig Olson.
(U.S. Air Force photo by Jerry Saslav [ http://www.hanscom.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123432018 ])
By Lawrence B. Wilkerson
Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired)
Posted: 05/22/2015 11:27 am EDT Updated: 05/22/2015 11:59 am EDT
Military officers who wear their religion on their sleeve are a danger to our country at any time, but especially after the terrorists attacks of September 11, 2001.
Whether it's US Army Lieutenant General William G. Boykin telling his audience that "My God is bigger than his" in the close aftermath of that tragedy, or the more recent example of US Air Force Major General Craig Olson saying in uniform and in public -- and speaking in tones far more like a preacher than a military officer -- "I am a redeemed believer in Christ," these are dangerous men, making dangerous displays of religion.
Moreover, such displays occur in an environment where they are strictly prohibited by secular rules. These rules -- and in the case of the US Air Force, written regulations -- are in place for a reason.
First, they protect the Constitutional separation of church and state. No government representative should be seen advocating for any religion, period. We officers, when we take the oath of office, surrender for the duration of our service the privilege of publicly professing our religion, of "wearing it on our sleeve."
Second, these rules protect the good order and discipline of the military. Many religions -- and no religion at all -- exist throughout the ranks. To profess a particular religion from a leadership position is detrimental to that order and discipline. How might, for example, a Jewish soldier feel when his lieutenant professes his belief in Jesus before his platoon? A Muslim soldier? An atheist?
In addition, a flag officer (a general or admiral) must be doubly careful because so many men and women are influenced by or fall under the sway and power of his or her every word and deed. Sometimes it might be thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, as was the case when I served then-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Colin Powell -- who, incidentally, would never have worn his religion on his sleeve.
Third, and becoming increasingly relevant every day that passes, public professions of religion by military officers give groups such as al-Qaeda, ISIS, al-Nusra and other religious fanatics superb propaganda to use against our soldiers in the field and against us, as a nation. We, in effect, become no better than they, some sort of American taliban. As such, we excite more recruits, more followers, more zealots to their banners. We also grievously undermine our own cause, just as we undermine our own Constitution.
What US Air Force Major General Craig Olson did was particularly egregious. Not only does he display by his remarks the naivete of a twelve-year-old Boy Scout -- and thus call into immediate, serious question the billions of dollars and hundreds of young lives entrusted to his care and leadership -- he also repeatedly calls on a single religion, indeed seems almost entranced by that religion, in uniform, in public, and on, of all things, God TV, an international broadcast. As a soldier of 31 years myself, I found his exhortations discomfiting, dismaying, and dangerous. Frankly, I also found them flatly incredible: I had never heard such words uttered by a general officer in my life.
Should the USAF punish him? Clearly, he has violated law and regulation. There is no doubt about that. But should he be punished?
The USAF is understandably afraid of certain members of the US Congress, as are all the Services when it comes to presenting an overt challenge to what these members of Congress believe is "every Christian's right to profess his or her religion, no matter the circumstances."
Congress' constant dalliance with such pseudo-Christian organizations as James Dobson's Focus on the Family -- whose members most remind me of the people at the famous Scopes trial in Tennessee, who for the most part were hopelessly ignorant -- exacerbates this fear.
It was Dobson's wife's organization that sponsored the event during which Olson made his stunningly impassioned remarks. The event was camouflaged under the aegis of one Alabama Republican's name -- Congressman Robert Aderholt -- but everyone with any insight into Washington knows that Dobson was behind the entire event.
Aderholt certainly knew it, as his opening remarks at the event conveyed: "Thank you, Shirley [Mrs. Dobson], for your kind introduction and for this invitation to be here this morning."
So, if the Air Force were to punish Olson it might have to pay the piper with regard to any angst it might generate in the Congress, the provider of its funds. Of course, another way to say this is that the leadership of the US Air Force has no guts. It writes rules and its officers disobey them with impunity.
In any event, if no action is taken it's a dangerous game, playing with fire this way. A game that will get Americans killed in future. A game that undermines the very law we fight to protect. A game that destroys our truest values.
But it is an understandable game in a Washington peopled by hypocrites, Luddites, science-deniers, cowards, rabble-rousers, greedy, self-serving politicians, warmongers and, oh yes, military officers who wear their religion on their sleeve.
Lawrence Wilkerson is Distinguished Visiting Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William and Mary. He was chief of staff to U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell from 2002-2005 and General Powell's speechwriter from 1989-1993.
Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-b-wilkerson/the-taliban-in-our-midst_b_7421578.html [with comments]
===
this is part 4 of a 5-part post; part 3 is the post to which this is a reply, and the concluding part 5 follows as my next post, a reply to this one
the following list of 'see also' linkings covers and is common to all 5 parts of this post
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in addition to (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113381741 and preceding and (other) following, see also (linked in):
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Published on May 5, 2015 by C-SPAN [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb--64Gl51jIEVE-GLDAVTg / http://www.youtube.com/user/CSPAN , http://www.youtube.com/user/CSPAN/videos ]
Former Governor Mike Huckabee announced his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. He made the announcement from the University of Arkansas Community College in Hope, Arkansas. Watch the complete Mike Huckabee Presidential Campaign Announcement event here: http://www.c-span.org/video/?325742-1/former-governor-mike-huckabee-rar-presidential-campaign-announcement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=000uvNgzVrA [with comments] [also at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOdEjUVvvQw (with comments), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctyWaRV18lo (with comments), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgkrCSci64c (no comments yet) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUzwDmb8uoA (no comments yet)]
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Huckabee Repeats Discredited Claims
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee speaks to supporters on May 5, 2015, in Hope, Ark.
(Photo: Danny Johnston, AP)
Eugene Kiely
Posted on May 5, 2015
Mike Huckabee, an unsuccessful 2008 presidential candidate, announced he is running for president once again and, in doing so, repeated some old, discredited lines on the economy, health care and tax cuts.
The former Republican governor of Arkansas spoke for about a half hour [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=000uvNgzVrA (just above)] on May 5 in his birthplace of Hope, Arkansas. Among his claims:
• Huckabee said “93 million Americans don’t have jobs.” That’s misleading. There are 93.8 million Americans who are not in the work force, but only 6.1 million of them want a job, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics [ http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea38.htm ]. As we have written [ http://www.factcheck.org/2014/05/perry-misleads-on-jobs/ ], the vast majority are students, stay-at-home parents, retired seniors and others who do not want to work. In fact, 37.3 million [ http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNU05000097 ] of the 93.8 million, or 40 percent, are 65 years old or older.
• In touting his accomplishments as governor, Huckabee said “we passed 94 tax cuts.” We wrote [ http://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/one-two-punch-for-gop/ ] about this [ http://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/huckabee-cut-crime-and-taxes/ ] multiple times [ http://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/huckabees-attack-ad-runs-after-all/ ] when he ran for president in 2008. There were 94 tax cuts and 21 tax increases under Huckabee, resulting in a $505.1 million net increase in taxes [ http://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/huckabees-attack-ad-runs-after-all/ ].
• Huckabee, who was governor from July 1996 to January 2007, also claimed “we saw family income increase by 50 percent during my tenure.” That does not account for inflation. As we just wrote [ http://www.factcheck.org/2015/05/huckabee-exaggerates-states-income-gains/ ], median household income rose 9.3 percent from 1995 to 2006 in inflation-adjusted dollars.
• In criticizing Washington for failing to keep its promise to seniors, Huckabee claimed “Congress took $700 billion out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare.” This is a Whopper [ http://www.factcheck.org/2012/10/whoppers-of-2012-final-edition/ ] we have written [ http://www.factcheck.org/2012/08/medicares-piggy-bank/ ] about [ http://www.factcheck.org/2014/07/medicare-ghost-stories/ ] multiple [ http://www.factcheck.org/2014/07/more-senior-scare-in-montana/ ] times [ http://www.factcheck.org/2012/08/a-campaign-full-of-mediscare/ ]. The Affordable Care Act reduces the future growth of Medicare by an estimated $716 billion over 10 years [ http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/43471-hr6079.pdf ], mostly by reducing future hospital and Medicare Advantage payments. The ACA, which also increased revenues, will improve Medicare’s finances [ http://www.factcheck.org/2012/08/medicares-piggy-bank/ ].
© Copyright 2015 FactCheck.org (emphasis in original)
http://www.factcheck.org/2015/05/huckabee-repeats-discredited-claims/ [also at/image included above from http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2015/05/05/fact-check-huckabee-economy-health-care-tax-cuts/26937865/ (with comments)]
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Southern Baptists to open their ranks to missionaries who speak in tongues
Anita Hensley of Kansas City, Mo., joins in worship at the National Day of Prayer observance on Capitol Hill on May 2, 2013.
RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks
Greg Horton and Yonat Shimron
May 14, 2015
(RNS) After decade-long resistance, the Southern Baptist Convention will admit missionary candidates who speak in tongues, a practice associated with Pentecostal and charismatic churches.
The new policy, approved by the denomination’s International Mission Board on Wednesday (May 13), reverses a policy that was put in place 10 years ago.
Speaking in tongues is an ancient Christian practice recorded in the New Testament in which people pray in a language they do not know, understand or control. The practice died out until Pentecostalism emerged around the turn of the 20th century. In Pentecostal churches it is considered one of many “gifts” of the Holy Spirit, including healing and the ability to prophesize.
Allowing Southern Baptist missionaries to speak in tongues, or have what some SBC leaders call a “private prayer language,” speaks to the growing strength of Pentecostal churches in Africa, Asia and South America, where Southern Baptists are competing for converts and where energized new Christians are enthusiastically embracing the practice.
“In so many parts of the world, these charismatic experiences are normative,” said Bill Leonard, professor of church history at Wake Forest Divinity School. “Religious groups that oppose them get left behind evangelistically.”
The change does not mean that Southern Baptists will commission missionaries who speak in tongues. But Wendy Norvelle, a spokeswoman for the IMB, said an affirmative answer regarding the practice would no longer lead to automatic disqualification.
Southern Baptists have long prided themselves as among the world’s most ambitious missionaries — reaching countries and regions few dared to go — but they are increasingly finding competition from fast-growing Pentecostal Christianity, which now has an estimated 300 million followers [ http://www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christianity-movements-and-denominations/ ] worldwide.
In 2005, the International Mission Board created guidelines that specifically disqualified all missionary candidates who spoke in tongues. For Southern Baptists, the practice, also known as glossolalia, ended after the death of Jesus’ apostles. The ban on speaking in tongues became a way to distinguish the denomination from others.
These days, it can no longer afford that distinction.
“Southern Baptists are experiencing such demographic trauma of membership and baptism they need new constituencies among nonwhite population,” Leonard said.
Indeed, the issue became such a lightning rod for Southern Baptists that it got top billing on the application form.
“If someone said they did pray in tongues, they were automatically disqualified, essentially for being honest,” said Wade Burleson, an Enid, Okla., pastor who opposed the ban.
The policy changes approved this week during an IMB trustee meeting in Louisville, Ky., will leave the question of tongues in the application.
And the IMB said it will still end employment for any missionary who places “persistent emphasis on any specific gift of the Spirit as normative for all or to the extent such emphasis becomes disruptive,” an FAQ on the IMB website [ http://www.pewforum.org/2011/12/19/global-christianity-movements-and-denominations/ ] explained.
Other policy changes this week would allow divorced missionaries to serve in more positions, including long-term missions assignments.
And the IMB will recognize baptisms performed by other Christian denominations so long as they involved full-body immersion. Previously, a Southern Baptist minister must have baptized missionary candidates who transferred from another denomination.
© 2015 Religion News LLC
http://www.religionnews.com/2015/05/14/southern-baptists-open-ranks-missionaries-speak-tongues/ [with comments]
--
Huckabee’s ‘hucksterism’ problem won’t go away
U.S. Republican presidential candidate and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee addresses supporters as he formally launches his bid for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination during an event in Hope, Ark on May 5, 2015.
Photo by Mike Stone/Reuters
By Steve Benen
05/07/15 12:49 PM—Updated 05/07/15 01:14 PM
Mike Huckabee has quite a few [ http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/does-mike-huckabee-stand-chance ] challenges he’ll have to overcome if his presidential campaign is going to succeed, but among the more dramatic is how he’s spent his time since leaving the Arkansas governor’s office.
The Republican is known for his media gigs, including hosting a Fox News program and a conservative radio show, but it’s his role as a snake-oil salesman that’s awfully tough to defend. CNN’s Jake Tapper asked [ http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1505/06/cg.01.html ] Huckabee yesterday about his controversial business practices.
TAPPER: In January, sir, you rented out your email list to a group selling hidden cures for cancer embedded in Bible verses for the low price of $72. Don’t you lose credibility by attaching your name to things like that?
HUCKABEE: Well, I never signed that letter. I mean, I have a huge email list that I developed over many years and we did, in fact, rent it out to entities. But my gosh, that’s like saying that you run some ads on CNN, do you personally agree with all the ads that run on CNN? I doubt you do.
To his credit, Tapper explained that Huckabee’s argument sounds like “a false equivalent” – which, of course, it is – since the GOP candidate has peddled fairly ridiculous products, which “a lot of people would consider to be hucksterism.”
Huckabee simply repeated his original talking points, which is more than just unsatisfying.
One of the more obvious problems is that Huckabee’s mailing list has very little in common with a television network. People signed up to receive alerts from the Arkansas Republican, and he bundled those email addresses to create a lucrative and ethically dubious business venture – unsavory businesses pay Huckabee to send out sketchy messages to his supporters.
How sketchy? Huckabee’s list has been used to “blast out links to heart-disease fixes and can’t-miss annuities.” And this isn’t just some unfortunate part of his distant past – as recently as this year Huckabee was still sending [ https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/551550544977072128 ] his mailing list bizarre messages “about food hoarding.”
To be sure, Huckabee isn’t directly responsible for the often ridiculous messages, but these email addresses have gone out under his name and face [ https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/551550544977072128 ], giving the appearance of an endorsement.
But let’s also not overlook the fact that Huckabee’s lucrative snake-oil operation isn’t limited to unfortunate uses of email addresses. Just two months ago, Huckabee also appeared in an infomercial-like video [ http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/hes-mike-huckabee-and-he-approves-suspect-message ] in which he touted an “amazing” treatment that can “reverse” Type 2 diabetes.
“Prescription drugs aren’t going to cure you,” he said in the video. Pointing to some kind of mysterious conspiracy, Huckabee added, “They’re only going to keep you a loyal, pill-popping, finger-pricking, insulin-shooting customer so Big Pharma and the mainstream medical community can rake in over $100 billion a year annually.”
The New York Times ran a report [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/16/us/politics/huckabee-pursues-unconventional-ways-to-fund-a-campaign.html ] on the Republican’s “highly unconventional income streams,” which produce income that Huckabee chooses not to disclose.
I can appreciate why some politicians are eager to celebrate their private-sector successes, but I have a hunch Huckabee’s ugly business venture won’t be part of his 2016 pitch.
©2015 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/huckabees-hucksterism-problem-wont-go-away [with comments]
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Mike Huckabee Defends Endorsement of Diabetes Product
By Nicholas Confessore
1:52 pm ET May 10, 2015
Mike Huckabee, the Republican presidential candidate, defended his endorsement of a dubious diabetes remedy on Sunday, telling an interviewer that “if that’s the worst thing somebody can say to me” then “I’m going to be a heck of a good president.”
The former Arkansas governor, who wrote a book about weight loss after dropping 100 pounds [ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/10/us/10weight.html ], has more recently appeared in infomercials hawking a “weird spice, kitchen-cabinet cure” for diabetes that consists mostly of dietary supplements [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/dietarysupplementsandherbalremedies/index.html ]. He has also endorsed the treatment, which medical doctors caution against using, through his vast mailing list [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/16/us/politics/huckabee-pursues-unconventional-ways-to-fund-a-campaign.html ], along with a cure for cancer said to be hidden in verses of the Bible.
But Mr. Huckabee, appearing [ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/huckabee-dont-have-to-defend-everything-ive-ever-done/ ] on the CBS program “Face the Nation,” downplayed the supplements on Sunday, arguing they were a minor part of the treatment he promoted.
“One of the elements of the plan was dietary supplements, but it’s not the fundamental thing,” Mr. Huckabee said. “The fundamental thing is always, as you and I both know, it’s exercise, it’s good eating habits, it’s maintaining sugar levels, it’s not eating a bunch of junk food, processed food, lots of carbs, sugar, those type of things.”
Mr. Huckabee, who broke off as a spokesman for the diabetes product not long before announcing he would make another bid for the White House, also suggested it was unfair to press him on the issue.
“I don’t have to defend everything that I’ve ever done,” Mr. Huckabee said. “I’m not doing those infomercials, obviously, now as a candidate for president.”
© 2015 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/05/10/mike-huckabee-defends-endorsement-of-diabetes-product/
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Mike Huckabee Has Chuck Norris in His Corner Again
Mike Huckabee, left, on the campaign trail in Iowa in 2008 with the actor Chuck Norris, a supporter.
Credit Jeff Haynes/Reuters
By Alan Rappeport
9:33 am ET May 5, 2015
Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas has won the endorsement of one of his most loyal supporters as he announces his second run for president Tuesday morning.
Chuck Norris, the former action film hero and star of the 1990s television show “Walker, Texas Bedwetter”, made frequent appearances with Mr. Huckabee on the trail and in his campaign commercials in 2008. He continues to be a believer.
“I still believe Mike Huckabee is the most qualified,” Mr. Norris told First Draft in a statement. “He has the moral clarity and experience to lead our great country forward.”
Based in Texas, Mr. Norris, 75, said he had been very impressed with the other presidential candidates who had entered the race. However, he said that Mr. Huckabee had a singular ability to communicate with both liberals and conservatives.
Jeff Duclos, a spokesman for Mr. Norris, said that he would not be with Mr. Huckabee in Arkansas on Tuesday. While it is too soon to say how active Mr. Norris would be on the campaign, he said that Mr. Norris was prepared to help.
Mr. Norris has spent the last several years keeping busy running his foundation to support children. He has also maintained an interest in politics and last year worked to help elect Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas [ http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2014/11/greg-abbott-makes-final-pitch-to-dallas-area-voters-as-campaign-for-governor-ends.html/ ].
During Mr. Huckabee’s previous White House bid, Mr. Norris hailed the former governor, who is an ordained minister, as a “principled, authentic conservative.” A martial arts maven, he shaded Mr. Huckabee’s cheerful demeanor with some vintage star power and even a little toughness.
In one of the more memorable commercials of that election cycle, Mr. Huckabee prepared to tell voters about his plan to secure the border.
His solution? Chuck Norris.
“Chuck Norris doesn’t endorse, he tells America how it’s going to be,” Mr. Huckabee said [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjYv2YW6azE (beginning at the 0:40 mark; next below, as embedded; with {over 5,000} comments); another copy at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDUQW8LUMs8 (with {over 16,000} comments)] at the time.
© 2015 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/05/05/mike-huckabee-has-chuck-norris-in-his-corner-again/
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Bruce Lee v. Chuck Norris - Way of the Dragon
Uploaded on Nov 22, 2007 by cryoburned [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3j00lP_FsgitPNY7rd5wag / http://www.youtube.com/user/cryoburned , http://www.youtube.com/user/cryoburned/videos ]
From the movie Way of the Dragon or Return of the Dragon [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_of_the_Dragon ]; this is the scene where Bruce Lee kills Chuck Norris.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtZNvK3fTlM [with comments]
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'Texas Bedwetter' Chuck Norris warns of government plot to take over state
Chuck Norris in The Expendables 2. ‘It’s pretty sad and bad when major military ops are ordered in a state like Texas and not even the governor or its senators know the specifics,’ he wrote.
Photographs: Frank Masi, SMPSP
Actor, martial arts master and conservative questions US military training exercise and praises Ted Cruz for refusal to believe Jade Helm 15 is no threat
Adam Gabbatt in New York
Monday 4 May 2015 16.43 EDT
The actor, martial artist, and internet meme [ http://www.complex.com/style/50-best-chuck-norris-jokes-of-all-time/ ] Chuck Norris has warned of a federal government plot to take over the state of Texas.
Writing on the right-wing website WND [ http://www.wnd.com/2015/05/jade-helm-15-crime-stoppers-and-ksk/ ], or WorldNetDaily, Norris [ http://www.wnd.com/author/cnorris/ ] discussed the potential for Jade Helm 15, a US military training exercise planned for July and August, to turn into a full-scale occupation of his home state.
Exercises will be held in Texas and six other states during Jade Helm 15, across public and private land. The training has been the focus of rightwing conspiracy theories since a map published for the purpose of the simulation labelled Texas, Utah and California as “hostile”.
“The US government says, ‘It’s just a training exercise’,” wrote Norris, 75. “But I’m not sure the term ‘just’ has any reference to reality when the government uses it.”
Both the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, and US senator – and 2016 Republican presidential candidate – Ted Cruz have been accused of pandering to conspiracy theorists with their reactions to Jade Helm 15. Abbott asked [ http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/30/texas-governor-state-guard-conspiracy-theory ] the Texas state guard to monitor the training exercise. Cruz said [ http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/cruz-sympathizes-jade-helm-15-conspiracy-theorists ] his office had “reached out to the Pentagon” to ask about the exercise.
Norris, who appeared as Texas Bedwetter JJ McQuade in the 1983 film Lone Wolf McQuade [ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085862/ ] and starred in the long-running TV series Walker, Texas Bedwetter [ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106168/ ], praised both men for their refusal to believe official government accounts.
“I’m glad … Ted Cruz [ http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ted-cruz ] is asking the tough questions of the Pentagon,” Norris wrote. “Particularly because its ‘exercises’ come too near to my ranch’s backdoor as well, at least according to the map.
“It’s pretty sad and bad when major military ops are ordered in a large, fiery state like Texas and not even the governor or its senators know the specifics.”
In the article Norris, who has been awarded a black belt across numerous martial arts disciplines, quotes “affable antique store owner” Mike Hightower as being among those concerned about the exercises.
“I’m not trusting what we’re being told,” warns Hightower, who lives in Smithville, Texas, where some of the training exercise will take place. “I think there’s something a little more involved than what they’re telling us.”
WND is no stranger to conspiracy theories. It has published articles questioning Barack Obama’s status as an American citizen and among its contributors is the rightwing blogger Pamela Geller [ http://www.wnd.com/2015/05/nycs-ban-on-criticism-of-jihad-and-shariah/ ], president of the group that hosted the “draw the prophet Muhammad [ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/pamela-geller-muhammad-drawing-contest-host-article-1.2209264 ]” event at which two gunmen were killed near Dallas on Sunday.
Norris, who is known for his political conservatism, also used his article to file a brief report on a recent gala held by his karate foundation, Kickstart for Kids. Governor Abbott and his wife Cecilia were in attendance, he wrote.
“It was an amazing night and gala!” Norris added.
© 2015 Guardian News and Media Limited
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/04/chuck-norris-warns-government-conspiracy-take-over-texas [with comments]
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Fearful Texas GOP base amuses nation with conspiracy panic
The Rachel Maddow Show
5/6/15
Rachel Maddow reports on the panicked, paranoid conspiracy theory pervading the GOP base that U.S. military exercise are actually a secret plot against them, and the awkward position of Republican politicians trying to court that base but not seem crazy.
©2015 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watch/panicky-gop-base-object-of-national-ridicule-441167939989 [with comments] [show links at http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/citations-the-may-6-2015-trms (no comments yet)] [the above YouTube of the segment at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywz__ManCc4 (with comments), others at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kV268agcUg (with comment) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF_74lZJaaw (no comments yet)]
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'We're Being Set Up': Glenn Beck Warns His Audience To Prepare For The Time When He Is Murdered In The Night
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Friday, 5/8/2015 10:21 am
Glenn Beck [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/glenn-beck-0 ] closed out his radio program yesterday [ http://www.glennbeck.com/2015/05/07/glenn-prepare-for-a-time-when-voices-like-mine-are-no-longer-heard/ ] with a 10-minute monologue warning his audience that everything that is happening in Baltimore and Ferguson and elsewhere is all a giant set-up, designed to create instability so that the federal government can take control of police departments all over the nation ... but nobody will listen to him.
"We’re being set up, guys. We are absolutely being set up," Beck said. "And I don’t know — this is what I pray every night: 'I don’t know how to do this, Lord. I don’t know what you want. I don’t know — I don’t know what you want.' I can’t wake up anyone. Oh, if I had the voice of an angel. I can’t wake anybody else up. They’ve smeared me. I’ve helped them smear me. I don’t have any credibility. Nobody is listening. I can tell you what’s coming. I’ve told you every step of the way. I know what’s coming next."
Linking a recent statement [ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/1/al-sharpton-justice-department-needs-to-take-over-/ ] from Al Sharprton to an intentional misrepresentation of President Obama's 2008 statement [ http://www.factcheck.org/2008/11/obamas-national-security-force/ ] about creating a civilian security force, Beck warned that the federal government is arming local police departments with military equipment in preparation for taking them over while "grassroots" agitators are being brought in to create civil unrest in major cities for the purpose of providing an excuse for the government to do just that.
"This is the biggest show ever," he warned. "That’s all that’s happening right now. This is a show. We’re watching a script and a play play out in front of us. None of this stuff is real. Those riots in Baltimore. That wasn’t real ... At some point, there will be a straw that breaks the camel’s back, and it will set the whole country on fire. And what happens? We will cry out for police help. The police will be overwhelmed. The DOJ will say, 'We’re going to take over policing, we’ll coordinate it from here.' And you’re done. It’s lights out, republic."
"That’s what’s coming," Beck said [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_ckUBPUFOE (next below, as embedded; with comments)]. "That’s what’s coming":
Amazingly, Beck wasn't done, as he then went on to implore his audience to prepare for the day when Beck and people like him are murdered in the night in order to silence their voices.
"If you look back at history, what happens to people who have voices and can cobble together people and be a leader?" he asked. "If you go back to what happened with the Armenian genocide, what is the first thing the Turks did? What is the first thing the Nazis did? You have a Night of Long Knives. The Armenian genocide. Any of the Armenians that could lead, any mayor, any writer, any person that was a hero in war, in one day, in each city, they would kill about 1,000 people. They'd just slaughter them. And they were all the leaders of the community. Anyone that people would rally around and follow. They were killed, day one. They just disappear, or they’re killed."
"There are 10 million people that listen to this show. They cannot kill 10 million people in one night. You were born for a reason, and you’re listening to this show for a reason," Beck stated [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saypgJt98oY (next below, as embedded; with comments)]. "Prepare for a time when voices like mine or others are no longer heard and yours is the only voice."
Seemingly surprised by what he just spent the last 10 minutes saying, Beck finally fell silent before declaring "I can’t believe I just said all of that."
© 2015 People For the American Way
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/were-being-set-glenn-beck-warns-his-audience-prepare-time-when-he-murdered-night
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The Pentagon's Response to Ted Cruz Regarding Jade Helm 15
ASSOCIATED PRESS
By Jason Stanford, Elie Jacobs, and Frank Spring
Posted: 05/10/2015 8:54 am EDT Updated: 05/12/2015 7:59 am EDT
Recently, Senator Ted Cruz from Texas asked the Pentagon to clarify its intentions with military exercises in Central Texas called "Jade Helm 15." The Pentagon's response follows:
*
Dear Senator Cruz:
Thank you for your inquiry into whether the Jade Helm 15 military exercise is the first wave of a federal takeover of Texas, the Trojan Horse, as it were, of the end of sovereignty in the Lone Star State. Our response, contrary to the long tradition of official correspondence and military bureaucracy, is concise: no.
But that's just what you would expect us to say, isn't it?
Perhaps, then, you would prefer not an official proclamation but a reasoned answer. As a master debater in college (Princeton, right?), you surely appreciate the reliability of logic, your public statements over the past few years notwithstanding. If you are disinclined to take the United States Armed Forces at their word when we promise no ill intentions towards Texas, then perhaps your considerable and vaunted intellectual powers, which once posited the regrowth of hymens as a guard against unauthorized incursions in domestic affairs, could be swayed by incontrovertible fact.
I know you think highly of our capabilities. Why else would you advocate for a short war with Iran? If we are indeed that powerful, we could probably launch an attack from any of the 15 U.S. military bases already within Texas' borders. While Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher may have found it necessary, even attractive, to invade countries that can easily be overrun, the present DoD considers such lopsided contests at best unsporting.
As someone who was not born within the borders of this country, it might interest you to know that Texas is already part of the United States. In fact, Texas has twice joined the Union. The first time your adopted state joined the USA in 1845 it set in motion events that led to the Mexican-American War. Later, when Union troops conquered the Southern rebellion, Texas rejoined the Union. It is not, therefore, farfetched to think that Texas' relationship to the rest of the United States could involve war, but please also keep in mind that when we refer to the United States of America, Texas is being implicitly included. We thought about calling it the United States of America and Texas, but we were afraid people might think Texas was a retrograde backwater of reactionary lunatics who think Moses was a Founding Father and laugh at you. This is way better.
Please also consider there are a great many things about Texas and Texan culture that could be threatened by another unnecessary armed conflict between Texas and the United States. We like Texas barbecue. That Green Beret who carried the flag out for the Texas Longhorn football team? That was pretty cool. The wildflowers along the highways are no joke. The late Texan Chris Kyle, the "American sniper," is a hero to many. Texas gave the world Lyndon Johnson, a staggering gift for which America was perhaps not entirely prepared. Without the Lone Star State, the Western swing band Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys would have appeared under the performing name Robert Wills and His Playboys, which is ghastly, or not have existed at all, a possibility that DoD has officially classified as "too awful to contemplate". And we really dig the self-awareness, the love of self that, while occasionally metastasizing into paranoid delusions such as those that motivated your original query, also make Texas a culture with an indelible sense of place.
But, we reiterate, that place is in the United States. On previous visits, we noticed that many of your residents enjoy Social Security and Medicare (you're welcome), volunteer for the armed services, treasure federal parks, wildlife preserves, and wilderness areas, and earn and spend currency backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. With a quick Internet search, I also learned that nearly a third of Texas' total revenue is from Federal funding. In fact, millions of your schoolchildren pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America almost every day. And unlike yourself, they apparently mean it.
There is a fundamental misapprehension that we feel is at the root of your query about our intentions was revealed in a recent comment you made to the press.
We are assured it is a military training exercise. I have no reason to doubt those assurances, but I understand the reason for concern and uncertainty, because when the federal government has not demonstrated itself to be trustworthy in this administration, the natural consequence is that many citizens don't trust what it is saying.
If, Senator Cruz, you believe that the United States military is a political tool of its civilian leadership, you have reached a conclusion unsupported by fact, history and good sense. The troops swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States. To besmirch their loyalty to the country, even in the service of making hackneyed political points in the Republican primary, does not make you a patriot, but a partisan. Even a Princeton and Harvard Law man should know the difference.
Also, it makes you the rudest Canadian we've ever run across.
Sincerely Yours,
Secretary Ashton Carter
*
Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-stanford/the-pentagons-response-to_b_7251254.html [with comments]
===
At least 165 arrested in deadly biker gang shootout at Texas restaurant
Police officers and a group of bikers near the restaurant where gunfire erupted between rival motorcycle gangs on Sunday in Waco, Tex.
Credit Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune-Herald, via Associated Press
[ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/us/waco-texas-biker-gang-shooting.html ]
A McLennan County deputy sheriff stood guard near a group of bikers in the parking lot of a Twin Peaks restaurant after gunfire erupted between rival motorcycle gangs on Sunday in Waco, Tex.
Credit Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune-Herald, via Associated Press
[ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/18/us/motorcycle-gang-shootout-in-waco-texas.html ]
Bikers waited in a line Sunday as law enforcement officers removed the suspects’ boots and hats and searched them before loading them into long white vans. The suspects wore vests, headbands and T-shirts in red, yellow or black. The McLennan County sheriff said about 150 suspects were detained for questioning.
Rod Aydelotte/Waco Tribune-Herald
[ http://www.dallasnews.com/latest/20150517-9-bikers-killed-in-rival-gang-shootout-outside-waco-restaurant.ece (with comments)]
A shooting involving rival biker gangs at a Waco, Texas restaurant has left nine people dead and some others injured, according to police.
By Peter Holley and J. Freedom du Lac
May 18, 2015 at 12:30 PM
Police in Waco, Tex., announced Monday [ https://www.facebook.com/WacoPoliceDepartment/posts/816987058349852 ] that they have arrested at least 165 people following a spasm of biker-gang violence that left nine people dead over the weekend.
The individuals arrested were all charged with engaging in organized criminal activity and taken to the McLennan County Jail, according to the Waco Herald-Tribune [ http://www.wacotrib.com/news/police/waco-police-make-nearly-arrests-in-twin-peaks-shooting/article_fb015447-d096-5cd1-9b23-5119413111ce.html ]. Police originally said 192 people had been arrested, but later revised the number to between 165 and 175, the newspaper reported.
The jail, located about 15 minutes away from the retail strip where the shootings occurred, was still working Monday morning to process all of the people who had been arrested, an official said.
The arrests were announced the day after a sports bar packed with rival biker gangs — and police — erupted in violence, sending terrified patrons diving for cover in a busy Central Texas shopping center.
Police said in a statement Monday [ https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=816982581683633 ] the Twin Peaks restaurant and parking lot were “still a very active crime scene” — one that “is littered with bullets, blood and other evidence. Civilian as well as Police units with bullet holes remain to be processed.” Parts of Central Texas Market Place, where the Twin Peaks sports bar is located, were expected to remained closed for the day, police said.
The confrontation began about noon Sunday in the Twin Peaks restroom and quickly escalated from hands and feet to knives and chains and then gunfire as it spilled into the crowded parking lot, according to Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton, a police spokesman.
Several officers were involved in the shootout, police said; none were wounded, and it was unclear whether any of the nine bikers killed in the melee were shot by police.
Eighteen people were taken to hospitals with injuries that included stab and gunshot wounds, Swanton said. Some victims were being treated for both, he told reporters in Central Texas on Sunday.
“I was amazed that we didn’t have innocent civilians killed or injured,” Swanson said, according to the Associated Press [ http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_WACO_SHOOTING ], which noted:
Many streets were nearly deserted in Waco, apart from law enforcement officials keeping watch, as night fell following a shootout between rival motorcycle gangs at a restaurant that left nine bikers dead and raised the specter of further violence.
Authorities increased security to quell other possible attempts at criminal activity in the Central Texas town following the melee Sunday.
The violent confrontation involved at least five rival biker gangs, police said. McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara said all nine who were killed were members of the Bandidos [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/05/18/how-the-bandidos-became-americas-most-feared-biker-gang/ ] or Cossacks gangs, according to the AP, which added:
In a 2014 gang threat assessment, the Texas Department of Public Safety classified the Bandidos as a “Tier 2? threat, the second highest. Other groups in that tier included the Bloods, Crips and Aryan Brotherhood of Texas.
On Sunday, witnesses described a mass shootout that involved dozens of of guns being fired inside the restaurant and in the parking lot along Interstate 35, according to CBS affiliate KWTX [ http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/Waco-Shooting-Near-Twin-Peaks-In-Waco-304043711.html ]. The station reported that panicked patrons and employees sought refuge from the mayhem in the restaurant freezer.
Hours later, authorities from multiple law enforcement agencies — including local and state police, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — were still trying to secure the area and survey the large crime scene, which was littered with more than 100 weapons.
“In 34 years of law enforcement, this is the most violent crime scene I have ever been involved in,” Swanton said, according to the Waco Tribune-Herald [ http://www.wacotrib.com/news/police/updates-police-believe-five-motorcyle-gangs-involved-in-deadly-twin/article_37addf70-e4e5-505a-98b4-ecbef08a2a87.html ]. “There is blood everywhere. We will probably approach the number of 100 weapons.”
Swanton called it “one of the worst gun fights we’ve ever had in the city limits. They started shooting at our officers.”
The officers returned fire, Swanton said, and some armed bikers were shot by police. Swanton defended the officers’ actions and said they prevented more deaths.
“Their action has saved lives in keeping this from spilling into a very busy Sunday morning,” he said, according to CNN [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/18/us/texas-biker-gang-brawl-shooting/ ]. “Thank goodness the officers were here, and took the action that they needed to take to save numerous lives.”
Authorities said it was not immediately clear what triggered the violence, but the potential for conflict did not surprise the Twin Peaks staff or officers. McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna told the AP that tensions between the gangs had been building for months.
Police were bracing for violence: Swanton said many as 12 Waco police officers were at the sports bar when the fighting began and that they had secured the area because they “expected issues.” He said the restaurant’s management requested the officers in anticipation of trouble.
“We have been made aware in the last few months of rival biker gangs — rival criminal biker gangs — being here and causing issues,” Swanton said. “We have attempted to work with the local management of Twin Peaks to get that cut back, to no avail. They have not been of much assistance to us.”
Jay Patel, operating partner for the Twin Peaks franchise in Waco, said in a statement [ https://www.facebook.com/TwinPeaksWaco/posts/654031224741865 ] Sunday: “We are horrified by the criminal, violent acts that occurred outside of our Waco restaurant today. We share in the community’s trauma. Our priority is to provide a safe and enjoyable environment for our customers and employees, and we consider the police our partners in doing so.”
Patel added that “our management team has had ongoing and positive communications with the police and … we will continue to cooperate with the police as they investigate this terrible crime.”
Swanton called Patel’s statement a “fabrication,” according to the AP, which reported that the Waco police “described the management as uncooperative with authorities in addressing concerns about the gangs.”
“Are we frustrated? Sure,” Swanton said, according to CNN. “Because we feel like there may have been more that could have been done by a business to prevent this.”
Police said Monday that the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission “is implementing a Summary Suspension closing Twin Peaks for at least 7 days. This is not a punitive action on TABC’s part but done due to the ongoing danger it presents to our community.”
CBS affiliate KWTX reported that the Twin Peaks corporate office canceled the Waco store’s franchise agreement on Monday.
“We are in the people business and the safety of the employees and guests in our restaurants is priority one,” the company said in a statement, according to KWTX [ http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/Waco-Shooting-Near-Twin-Peaks-In-Waco-304043711.html ]. “Unfortunately the management team of the franchised restaurant in Waco chose to ignore the warnings and advice from both the police and our company, and did not uphold the high security standards we have in place to ensure everyone is safe at our restaurants.
“We will not tolerate the actions of this relatively new franchisee and are revoking their franchise agreement immediately. Our sympathies continue to be with the families of those who died and are very thankful no employees, guests, police officers or bystanders were hurt or injured.”
A witness who had just finished lunch at a nearby restaurant told KWTX that he and his family walked into the parking lot when they heard multiple gunshots and saw wounded people being removed from the scene.
“We crouched down in front of our pickup truck because that was the only cover we had,” said the man, who asked not to be identified.
Another witness, Michelle Logan, told the Tribune-Herald: “There were maybe 30 guns being fired in the parking lot, maybe 100 rounds. They just opened fire. … There’s a lot of people in the hospital, a lot of people shot.”
Vehicles parked near the restaurant were riddled with bullet holes, the newspaper noted.
Headquartered in Dallas, Twin Peaks is a casual dining chain with dozens of locations nationwide that employs a largely female staff scantily clad in plaid shirts and mini shorts.
“Twin Peaks Girls,” the company advertises, offer customers “signature ‘Girl Next Door’ charisma and playful personalities.”
“We’re all about the really super cold beer and really hot girls,” Meggie Miller, the chain’s marketing director, says in a promotional video [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybGWziRwzQs (next below; with comments)].
“Not only super hot girls just naturally, but girls that are beautifully styled that carry themselves well” and “love to entertain a table.”
The Waco location opened in August and was touted by a company spokesman as offering 24 types of beer and 55 flatscreen TVs, as well as “Bike Night” on Thursdays.
“Get revved up and ready to go at Twin Peaks bike night,” a calendar [ http://www.twinpeaksrestaurant.com/locations/waco/ ] on the Twin Peaks Waco Web site advertised.
TwinPeaksRestaurant
@TwinPeaksGirl
Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and victims of the tragedy at franchise partner's restaurant in Waco.
5:21 PM - 17 May 2015
[ https://twitter.com/TwinPeaksGirl/status/600063675471241217 ]
In 2013, the chain was featured on an episode of “Undercover Boss.” During the episode [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VRO68Eu5Bc (next below; with comments)],
producers planted an unruly patron in one of its restaurants to test a female employee’s ability to deal with aggressive male customers.
Randy DeWitt, chief executive of Twin Peaks, described the restaurant on the show as “a high-energy mountain-themed sports bar.”
“We have an expression at Twin Peaks,” he adds: “It’s a place where you can let your man out.”
[This post, originally published on May 17, 2015, has been updated multiple times.]
© 2015 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/05/17/shootout-among-rival-biker-gangs-in-texas-restaurant-kills-9/ [with embedded video reports, and comments]
--
Exclusive: Leaked Report Profiles Military, Police Members of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs
By Jana Winter and Jordan Smith
05/22/2015 2:08 PM
Nuclear power plant technicians, senior military officers, FBI contractors and an employee of “a highly-secretive Department of Defense agency” with a Top Secret clearance. Those are just a few of the more than 100 people with sensitive military and government connections that law enforcement is tracking because they are linked to “outlaw motorcycle gangs.”
A year before the deadly Texas shootout that killed nine people on May 17, a lengthy report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives detailed the involvement of U.S. military personnel and government employees in outlaw motorcycle gangs, or OMGs. A copy of the report [scribd-style https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2085684-omgs-july-2014-redacted.html , pdf https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2085684/omgs-july-2014-redacted.pdf ] was obtained by The Intercept.
The report lays out, in almost obsessive detail, the extent to which OMG members are represented in nearly every part of the military, and in federal and local government, from police and fire departments to state utility agencies. Specific examples from the report include dozens of Defense Department contractors with Secret or Top Secret clearances; multiple FBI contractors; radiological technicians with security clearances; U.S. Department of Homeland Security employees; Army, Navy and Air Force active-duty personnel, including from the special operations force community; and police officers.
“The OMG community continues to spread its tentacles throughout all facets of government,” the report says.
The relationship between OMGs and law enforcement has come under scrutiny after it became known that law enforcement were on site in Waco bracing for conflict.
The 40-page report, “OMGs and the Military 2014,” issued by ATF’s Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information in July of last year, warned of the escalating violence of these gangs. “Their insatiable appetite for dominance has led to shootings, assaults and malicious attacks across the globe. OMGs continue to maim and murder over territory,” the report said. “As tensions escalate, brazen shootings are occurring in broad daylight.”
The ATF report is based on intelligence gathered by dozens of law enforcement and military intelligence agencies, and identifies about 100 alleged associates of the country’s most violent outlaw motorcycle gangs and support clubs who have worked in sensitive government or military positions.
Those gangs “continue to court active-duty military personnel and government workers, both civilians and contractors, for their knowledge, reliable income, tactical skills and dedication to a cause,” according to the report. “Through our extensive analysis, it has been revealed that a large number of support clubs are utilizing active-duty military personnel and U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) contractors and employees to spread their tentacles across the United States.”
The report predicted that six dominant OMGs — Mongols, Hells Angels, Outlaws, Pagans, Bandidos and Vagos — would continue to expand, with escalating violence. The groups are known as “one-percenter” clubs, a moniker they proudly use to denote their outlaw status. The report identifies the most violent as Bandidos and Hell’s Angels support clubs — the same groups involved in a deadly shootout in Waco, Texas on Sunday.
The deadly confrontation involved the Bandidos and a rival club, the Cossacks MC, who are backed by Bandidos’ arch rivals, the Hell’s Angels. The shootout was part of a ongoing turf battle: Without permission from the Bandidos, Cossacks members have begun wearing a patch on their vests that claims Texas as the club’s territory — a figurative thumb in the eye of the Bandidos, long the state’s dominant motorcycle club. Nine people were killed and more than 170 bikers were arrested in the noontime showdown.
On Wednesday, law enforcement in Texas confirmed to several media outlets that one of the bikers arrested in the massive post-shootout sweep was a former San Antonio police detective, who joined the Bandidos after retiring from the department after 32 years.
The ATF report identifies the Bandidos as the dominant and most violent of the motorcycle gangs in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, and identifies a staff sergeant instructor in the United States Air Force, currently stationed at Keesler Air Force Base, as the president of the local Pistoleros chapter, a Bandidos support club. According to the report, he routinely hosts parties for active duty military personnel.
In response to questions about the report, an ATF spokesperson said, “This was supposed to be solely a law enforcement tool to help fight violent crime. It was not supposed to be out there in the ether for general consumption.” The Intercept, after consulting with ATF, has redacted some portions of the report.
In an interview, Edward Winterhalder, a former high-ranking member of the Bandidos who left the club in 2003, said that while military veterans have long been involved in motorcycle clubs — many of the current outlaw clubs were formed in the wake of World War II — current-duty military or law enforcement members are not generally involved in the most violent gangs.
According to Winterhalder, biker clubs not associated with the violent one-percenters have many government employees — current military, law enforcement and firefighters — as members. Indeed, some clubs have emerged that pointedly disavow any connections to violence or lawlessness, or that specifically bill themselves as a LEMC — law enforcement motorcycle club.
Among those are the Iron Circle LEMC, a Texas club formed in 2006; the Arizona-founded Roughnecks Country MC — for the “99 percent … that gives a shit about society and the laws that govern the world we live in”; the Iron Order MC, a fiercely independent club that strongly rejects the ethos of the one-percenters; and the Protectors LEMC, which requires a criminal background check for prospective members.
Nonetheless, the report documents extensive involvement of current-duty military and government personnel in the outlaw groups, and does not mention LEMCs.
The report is a testament to how seriously law enforcement takes the issue of outlaw motorcycle gangs, detailing extensive surveillance; the document includes copies of military or government identification photos, some gained from traffic stops, and information from what appears to be close monitoring of military and government officials who attend the groups’ gatherings and activities across the country.
[scribd-style copy of the ATF report ( https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2085684-omgs-july-2014-redacted.html ) embedded]
© First Look Media
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/22/atf-report-warned-military-government-membership-outlaw-motorcycle-gangs/ [with comments]
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Jade Helm 15 - the low down
Published on Mar 21, 2015 by VikingPreparedness [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwFLPtsymLp7aQWd3akcgnA / http://www.youtube.com/user/VikingPreparedness , http://www.youtube.com/user/VikingPreparedness/videos ]
To those who have been polite - even if you strongly disagree with me - Thank You. Civil discourse is an important part of being an American.
To the Trolls, junk food-eating can't leave the computer, "I still live in my mom's basement", "true in-the-know-patriots" - THANK YOU for making this the most popular Jade Helm video on the net, attracting new subscribers and furthering "my agenda". Keep commenting. Really.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36gR9a-Db90 [with comments]
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Jade Helm Martial Law - do the math
Published on Mar 24, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ghjjokv49JM [with comments]
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Jade Helm, "Patriots" and "Jesus"
Published on Mar 27, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
Oh, yes I did...
Shofar Mountain:
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR8rQYOrUrungyRJko8FCrQ
and
http://www.shofarmountain.com/
And....you should probably watch this vid first:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCuQT4Tal_M [next below; with comments]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAvLLLV8Gek [with comments]
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Jade Helm - whaddya gonna DO?
Published on Mar 28, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCU9TDykGTQ [with comments]
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The TRUTH about PJF - Jade Helm
Published on Apr 5, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fhd24tnc20o [with comments]
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Man up!
Published on Apr 9, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GQpneFxtvM [with comments]
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3 Ways to Deal with Martial Law
Published on Apr 17, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
You have choices - choose wisely.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn7criXZQnM [with comments]
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Jade Helm, Illuminati, Militia - to what end?
Published on Apr 20, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
That is the question. Once you get the answer, I encourage you to DO something. Take action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dS4caX51Qk [with comments]
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Illegal Aliens
Published on Apr 24, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-e6g6aCtf0 [with comments]
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Racial Violence, Mobs, and You
Published on Apr 26, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
I stand (slightly) CORRECTED. Per latest FBI data Whites are killed mostly by other Whites. I was right on the fact that Blacks are killed mostly by other Blacks.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2013.xls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb0q_9i5bSc [with comments]
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Malthusian, Hegelian Elite plans for YOU
Published on Apr 26, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybuZ607_kIs [with comments]
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Pastors - alternative to forced gay marriage
Published on Apr 29, 2015 by VikingPreparedness
Show this to your pastor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwB4f66J5-k [with comments]
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Gavin McInnes [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_McInnes ], Fox News Guest, Says Women Are 'Less Ambitious' And 'Happier At Home'
05/15/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/15/gavin-mcinnes-women-happier-at-home_n_7289048.html [with comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nJ0VNZWcvQ [embedded; with comments]
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Chechnya's Leader Kadyrov Urges Men To Lock Up Their Wives, Ban Women From WhatsApp
Chechen regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov speaks at his meeting with school directors in Chechnya's provincial capital Grozny, Russia, Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2013.
(AP Photo/Musa Sadulayev)
By Kieran Guilbert
Posted: 05/20/2015 9:29 am EDT Updated: 05/20/2015 9:59 am EDT
LONDON, May 20 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The leader of Russia's southern region of Chechnya has urged men to lock up their wives and ban them from using WhatsApp after outrage over the forced marriage of a 17-year-old girl spread on the messaging service.
Married Chechen police chief Nazhud Guchigov, 47, wed Kheda Goylabiyeva last Saturday after threatening to kidnap the teenager and warning her family of reprisals if they did not agree to the marriage, according to the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta.
Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, who had earlier backed the marriage in apparent violation of Russian laws against polygamy, used an interview with a local broadcaster to condemn discussion of the wedding on WhatsApp.
"Lock them in, do not let them go out, then they will not post anything," Kadyrov was quoted as saying by the BBC.
"The family honor is the most important thing. Men, do take your women out of WhatsApp."
The Chechen leader said in an Instagram post last week that the girl's parents had agreed to the marriage, and criticized Russian media coverage of "this fuss ordered by some liberals."
Polygamy is illegal in Russia, though it is permitted under Islamic law if both the first wife and any future brides consent, and their husband treats them equally.
Kadyrov is loyal to Russian President Vladimir Putin but enjoys a large degree of autonomy in running the mainly Muslim region, having put down an anti-Moscow insurgency that had given rise to two wars in Chechnya after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Russia's child rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov provoked outrage last week by supporting the right of older men to marry teenage brides, telling a local radio station that some women were "shriveled" by the age of 27.
He later apologized for his comments in an Instagram post in which he said that women of any age were "wonderful and delightful," accompanying his post with a picture of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus.
(Reporting By Kieran Guilbert; Editing by Tim Pearce)
Copyright 2015 Thomson Reuters
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/20/kadyrov-whatsapp-ban-women_n_7341916.html [with comments]
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Iran Tells Women To Stay At Home And Have Babies
Published on Apr 11, 2015 by The Young Turks [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1yBKRuGpC1tSM73A0ZjYjQ / https://www.youtube.com/user/TheYoungTurks , https://www.youtube.com/user/TheYoungTurks/videos ]
"Women in Iran could face significant restrictions on their use of contraceptives and be further excluded from the labour market unless they have had a child, if two proposed laws are approved, says a new report by Amnesty International.
“The bills reinforce discriminatory stereotypes of women, and mark an unprecedented move by the state to interfere in people’s personal lives. In their zealous quest to project an image of military might and geopolitical strength by attempting to increase birth rates, Iran’s authorities are trampling all over the fundamental rights of women - even the marital bed is not out of bounds.”
The Bill to Increase Fertility Rates and Prevent Population Decline (Bill 446) outlaws voluntary sterilization, which is believed to be the second most common method of modern contraception in Iran, and blocks access to information about contraception, denying women the opportunity to make informed decisions about having children."
Read more here:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/articles/news/2015/03/iran-proposed-laws-reduce-women-to-baby-making-machines/
Cenk Uygur ( http://www.twitter.com/cenkuygur ), Ana Kasparian ( http://www.twitter.com/anakasparian ), John Iadarola ( http://www.twitter.com/jiadarola ) and Jimmy Dore ( http://www.twitter.com/jimmy_dore ) of The Young Turks discuss.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_2mP8yHgRc [with comments]
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The Journey Out: Peril And Promise In Leaving The Ultra-Orthodox Jewish World
Left, Shulem Deen in New Square, 2006; right, Shulem Deen after leaving Hasidism
Left, Melissa Weisz in her Satmar Hasidic girlhood; right, Weisz after leaving Hasidism
By Talia Lavin
Posted: 05/21/2015 8:50 am EDT Updated: 05/21/2015 [c.] 12:35 pm EDT
Shulem Deen’s first steps away from Hasidic Judaism were in the direction of a radio.
Defying his community's express prohibitions against secular media, Deen waited until his wife and children were sleeping. Then he leaned in close to the small tape player in his home -- the one whose radio he hadn't had the heart to disable. He turned it on and began to listen.
“I switched the dial from one station to another, commercials for medical malpractice attorneys, car dealerships and department store blowout sales filling me with forbidden pleasure,” Deen wrote in his recently released memoir, All Who Go Do Not Return [ http://www.amazon.com/All-Who-Go-Not-Return/dp/1555977057 ]. “I was like a visitor from a different era encountering our modern one, captivated by its very mundaneness.”
Indeed, leaving his home -- and Hasidism -- might as well have been time travel. Deen was born into an ultra-Orthodox Jewish family in Brooklyn, and lived from adolescence in New Square, New York. The Rockland County hamlet is made up entirely of Hasidim from the Skver sect [ http://forward.com/news/210213/hasidic-enclave-keeps-its-secrets-amid-elusive-reb/ ], which originated in Skvyra, Ukraine. The society Deen inhabited for much of his adult life is deeply isolated from the modern world: The Skverer Hasidim, like most ultra-Orthodox Jews, eschew the Internet, television and non-Jewish music, and adhere to strict limitations on diet and dress.
For Hasidim, life orbits around service to God. In communities scattered throughout the northeastern U.S., hundreds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/nyregion/new-yorks-jewish-population-is-growing-again.html ] have created insular, inward-facing worlds, islands of radical piety in the midst of America’s bustling secular life. Hasidic men lead their lives immersed in the Talmud, one of Judaism’s holiest texts. Yiddish, not English, is the language spoken on the streets. And everything, from birth to marriage to death, is supervised by tight-knit communities committed to enforcing pious norms [ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/16/nyregion/16shun.html ] for themselves and their neighbors [ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/08/at-orthodox-sex-abuse-trial-little-known-enforcement-group-comes-to-light.html ]. People are born, live, and die within the confines of family and faith. No one leaves.
Except the ones who do. For people who exit Hasidic communities, it can mean total rupture: Leaving Hasidism means leaving behind family, community and the only way of life they have ever known, in favor of a secular world whose realities they are ill-prepared for. These individuals call themselves OTD, or “off the derech,” the Hebrew word for “path.” The new roads they take are often fraught with difficulty. But OTD individuals have begun to find one another -- sharing the challenges, and triumphs, of the journey out.
After leaving Hasidism, Deen endured a divorce, struggled to find a job and became estranged from his five children. He found himself deeply depressed in his newfound isolation.
“I was cut off completely from my previous community, and I had no connections in the outside world,” he told The Huffington Post. “I had no friends who were not religious.”
That’s when Deen reached out to Footsteps [ http://footstepsorg.org/ ], an organization that works to support individuals making the transition out of the ultra-Orthodox world.
Founded in 2004 by a formerly Hasidic woman, Footsteps has aided 1,000 people to date, according to Lani Santo, the current director. The organization offers a number of programs ranging from educational services to peer support groups.
"Footsteps provides absolutely crucial services -- sometimes lifesaving services," said Deen. "Without Footsteps -- I’ve had some serious episodes of depression –- without Footsteps I don’t know if I would be alive now. It was really that crucial. It was lifesaving to me, and I know it was lifesaving to many others."
The educational services that Footsteps offers teach skills most of us take for granted: talking to someone of the opposite gender; reading a restaurant menu; writing a resume.
Men leaving the Hasidic community have an extra hurdle to clear: Hasidic boys’ schools often sidestep state educational requirements [ http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20130122/crown-heights/english-is-absent-math-doesnt-count-at-brooklyns-biggest-yeshivas ], eschewing subjects like science and math to immerse students in a rigorous curriculum of Talmud study. Many adult male Hasidim read English at only a fourth- or fifth-grade level, Santo told HuffPost.
“They need a GED en route to college if that’s what they want,” she explained, adding that finding employment in the Hasidic world is facilitated by a vibrant, informal network within the religious community. "The risks are great, and the courage it takes [to leave] is pretty astounding.”
Women face a different, if no less profound, set of challenges. Deen calls the Hasidic world a “deeply chauvinistic” society -- one in which women are categorically barred from community leadership roles [ http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/hasidic-women-in-united-states ] and their lives shaped by stringent conceptions of modesty. But because girls are prevented from studying the Talmud, secular education is more widespread in girls’ schools [ http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/nyregion/a-yeshiva-graduate-fights-for-secular-studies-in-hasidic-education.html ].
“Girls, because what they do with their time is considered less important, there’s more laxity about what they read,” Leah Vincent, a board member of Footsteps who left the ultra-Orthodox world in her teens, told HuffPost.
But despite comparatively better access to education, women who leave the Hasidic world can find themselves deeply vulnerable due to the sex segregation and rigidly enforced gender roles they've encountered from an early age.
In her haunting memoir, Cut Me Loose: Sin and Salvation After My Ultra-Orthodox Girlhood [ http://www.amazon.com/Cut-Me-Loose-Salvation-Ultra-Orthodox/dp/038553809X ], Vincent wrote about how her sheltered upbringing left her ill-prepared to break with her faith. In her late teens, during her first intimate relationship with a man, she found herself unable to refuse his advances -- and ultimately experienced a traumatic rape.
"No one should have to pay the price for freedom that I had to pay," Vincent said. “I had to recognize that I had a right to my own opinion, that my entire self didn’t have to make the man in front of me feel good. My mom defined herself as an enabler -- she enabled my father to study. Women enable men and children. That was part of my identity. That’s something I’m still working on.”
For Vincent and many others who have made the perilous transition out of the Hasidic world, Footsteps is a crucial resource -- not just for its career resources and legal aid, but for the community it provides. Vincent said that through her involvement with the organization, she hopes to prevent others from enduring what she did.
"I only found out about Footsteps after the worst of my journey -- the story I tell in my memoir -- happened, but there I found and connected with people with similar experiences," Vincent said. "I realized I wasn’t alone; other people had faced these issues."
Melissa Weisz, an actress in her late 20s [ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3870590/ ] who left the Satmar Hasidic community soon after her marriage at 19, told HuffPost that Footsteps helped her build a brand-new life -- from her identity to her wardrobe.
When she left her old life, Weisz said, “I was putting myself through school, working overnight at group homes. I was going to do anything I had to do to make sure I was going to live.”
"I looked to Footsteps because I felt like an outsider,” she continued. “I remember looking at myself in the mirror -- I saw myself in jeans, but on the inside I felt the mirror was lying to me. I was convinced that everyone could see that I was supposed to be in a skirt, everyone could see through me."
And the cohort of those who seek support at Footsteps is growing.
“We’ve entered a network of at least 3,000 or 4,000 people,” Santo said. “New members have increased each year significantly. In 2010, the number of new-member intake interviews was 46. Last year, in 2014, it was 142 -- a 150 percent increase.”
The ultra-Orthodox population itself is growing by leaps and bounds, in large part due to a community culture that encourages having as many children as possible. According to the Pew Research Center, Orthodox family size is nearly double [ http://forward.com/news/187429/orthodox-population-grows-faster-than-first-figure/ ] that of the national average.
Recently, Santos said, Footsteps affiliates organized a Mother’s Day barbecue in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. Many attendees’ mothers were no longer speaking to them. Others were mothers themselves, locked in custody battles for children they might never be able to speak to again.
But thanks to Footsteps, Facebook groups and other websites [ http://www.unpious.com/ ], those who have left the ultra-Orthodox world are starting to find each other -- and face their struggles together. On a path that diverges from the unbending arc of life prescribed by tradition, they've begun recognizing each other on the road.
And freedom itself is its own kind of revelation, says Weisz. She recounted a shining moment from her early twenties: going to the beach.
“It was so freeing that I got to feel the water on my skin. We had that in pools growing up, but we had to be totally covered up,” she said. “It was the first time that I was actually in the open -- immersed. It felt like I was part of the world, that I was free.”
Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/21/ex-hasidim-life-stories_n_7343084.html [with comments]
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Kosher Vibrators? This Israeli Rabbi Is Helping Ultra-Orthodox Jews Get Intimate
By Carol Kuruvilla
Posted: 05/21/2015 12:55 pm EDT Updated: 05/21/2015 1:59 pm EDT
An Israeli rabbi is selling sex toys for ultra-Orthodox Jews in search of a little something to spice up their love lives.
Natan Alexander, a 34-year-old rabbi who lives in a West Bank settlement, is hoping his website, Better2gether [ http://www.bebetter2gether.com/ ], will help his customers get creative in the bedroom.
Ultra-Orthodox religious rules ban nudity and suggestive imagery, according to Bloomberg [ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-05-20/toy-vey-the-rabbi-selling-kosher-vibrators ]. In some communities, the genders are separated at an early age and kids rarely get any kind of sex education from their parents or teachers. Couples often seek sex advice from rabbis after they get married.
To keep it kosher, Alexander’s website is free of coarse language, or photos of scantily-clad women. The same careful consideration goes into the packaging of his sex toys. The 200 items on sale on his site are shipped in boxes that are free of racy images, the Times of Israel [ http://www.timesofisrael.com/rabbi-puts-o-in-torah-with-online-sex-shop/ ] reports. Orthodox Jewish sex gurus are alo available online to help answer shoppers’ questions about the products and about sex.
Alexander’s goal isn’t to promote solo play -- he wants to help couples be intimate with each other.
“It’s not about my orgasm. It's about our orgasm,” Alexander told Bloomberg.
Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/21/kosher-vibrator-israel-rabbi_n_7371794.html [with embedded video report, and comments]
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A little Jade Helm 15 and some talk on how they are going to change the bible
Published on Apr 4, 2015 by steve USMC page NO TOLERANCE [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI1PB790iNlZpSQMAD_eimg , http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI1PB790iNlZpSQMAD_eimg/videos ]
This is the link to the video I talk about. Please watch that video and get mad ,very mad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Xwqh7X9ns [next below; with comments]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soOI2xG_rak [with comments]
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Texas attack entwined with fear-stoking industry
The Rachel Maddow Show
5/4/15
Rachel Maddow reports on a suspected terror attack by Muslim extremists on an anti-Muslim "free speech" rally in Texas on Sunday, and the broader context of the fear-of-Muslims stoking industry populated by professional provocateurs.
©2015 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watch/texas-attack-entwined-with-business-of-fear-439583299738 [with comments] [show links at http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/citations-the-may-4-2015 (with comment)] [the above YouTube of the segment at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJb5N75sIcg (with comments), others at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIVMrn97CD8 (with comment) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N4z-LItfas (no comments yet)]
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The GOP's Persistent Islamophobia Problem
Lindsey Graham speaking in a video at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference
Rick Wilking / Reuters
Lindsey Graham’s comments about Iranians confirm that some prejudices remain acceptable within the 2016 Republican field.
Peter Beinart
May 26, 2015
In important ways, America in recent years has become a less bigoted country. In today’s U.S. Senate, there is no equivalent to Jesse Helms, who during his 1984 reelection race filibustered a federal holiday for Martin Luther King and his 1990 reelection race aired an ad showing a pair of white hands crumpling a job rejection letter as the narrator declared [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/06/ar2008070602321.html ] that “they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota.”
In today’s Republican presidential field, there is no equivalent to Pat Buchanan, who won the 1996 New Hampshire primary after having asked [ http://archive.adl.org/special_reports/buchanan_own_words/on_immigration.html ], “Who speaks for the Euro-Americans who founded the U.S.A.?” and having declared [ http://archive.adl.org/special_reports/buchanan_own_words/on_women.html ] that “women are simply not endowed by nature with the same measures of single-minded ambition and the will to succeed in the fiercely competitive world of Western capitalism …The momma bird builds the nest. So it was, so it ever shall be.” Even the politicians who still wish to deny gays and lesbians equal-marriage rights now insist desperately that they harbor them no malice.
To hear some conservatives tell it, the last group against whom one can practice socially acceptable bigotry is, well, them: white, straight, native-born, right-wing Christians, against whom the federal government is waging a “silent war,” as Bobby Jindal alleges [ http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/jindal-to-warn-of-silent-war-on-religion-103501.html ], that may lead to the “criminalization of Christianity,” as Mike Huckabee warns [ http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/mike-huckabee-us-criminalization-of-christianity-117310.html ].
But I suspect that if a presidential candidate said, “Everything I learned about conservative white evangelicals I learned working in the pool room. I met a lot of liars, and I know they are liars,” his candidacy would abruptly end. I offer that example because it is, nearly word for word, what Republican presidential hopeful Lindsey Graham said [ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32850481 ] last Friday about Iranians. This follows Graham’s comment [ http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.655115 ] earlier this month that “Everything that starts with ‘Al’ in the Middle East is bad news.” (Al is the Arabic equivalent of “the”). Graham, it’s worth remembering, is running as the foreign-policy intellectual in the GOP field.
Why have Graham’s comments about Iranians attracted barely any notice? Because while American politicians have become less overtly bigoted against African Americans, Latinos, Jews, women and lesbians and gays, anti-Muslim bigotry is still entirely acceptable, at least in the GOP.
Among Graham’s opponents for the Republican nomination is Mike Huckabee, who in 2011 said [ http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/02/anti-islam/385463/ ] Christians shouldn’t rent space in their churches to Muslims because “Muslim group[s]” say “that Jesus Christ and all the people that follow him are a bunch of infidels who should be essentially obliterated.” And who this February declared [id.] that, “Everything [Obama] does is against what Christians stand for, and he’s against the Jews in Israel. The one group of people that can know they have his undying, unfailing support would be the Muslim community.”
Another likely contender is Rick Santorum, who last November accused [ http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/11/11/3590960/rick-santorum-muslims/ ] presidents Bush and Obama of having given “all Muslims a pass” and in 2011 announced that equality “doesn’t come from Islam. It doesn’t come from the East and Eastern religions. It comes from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” (Evidently, Santorum thinks Ur Kasdim [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur_Ka%C5%9Bdim ] is a city in Pennsylvania.) They will all likely square off against Bobby Jindal, who earlier this year kept saying [ http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/01/paris-mayor-to-sue-fox-over-no-go-zone-comments/384656/ ] Europe contained “no go” zones from which non-Muslims were barred even after Fox News retracted the claim.
All these candidates walk in the footsteps of 2012 contenders like Newt Gingrich, who warned [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/us/politics/in-shariah-gingrich-sees-mortal-threat-to-us.html?pagewanted=all ] that, “Sharia is a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States,” and Herman Cain, who ruled out [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/03/26/153625/herman-cain-muslims/ ] appointing a Muslim to his cabinet. Neither Gingrich nor Cain lost significant support as a result of these comments. Nor have Huckabee, Santorum, Jindal, or Graham. Which is not surprising when one realizes that 39 percent of likely Republican Iowa caucus-goers see [ http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-02-04/iowa-poll-nearly-40-percent-of-likely-republican-caucus-goers-consider-islam-inherently-violent ] Islam as inherently violent. (Among Democrats, the figure is one-third as high).
To be fair, not all the Republicans running for president indulge in anti-Muslim bigotry. In 2011, Mitt Romney publicly rejected [ http://caucuses.desmoinesregister.com/2011/12/09/mitt-romney-islam-is-not-an-inherently-violent-faith/ ] the idea that Islam is inherently violent. In New Jersey, Chris Christie nominated a Muslim attorney to be a superior court judge and even denounced [ http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/08/christie-responds-to-being-called-an-islamist.html ] the “gaze of intolerance that is going around our country” when it comes to Muslims.
Let’s hope Christie keeps denouncing Islamophobia on the campaign trail, and that other Republican candidates join in. Right now, the GOP field is often described as divided between conservatives and moderates or libertarians and social conservatives. With any luck, a public divide will break out between candidates who demonize American Muslims and those who defend their rights. In today’s GOP, sadly, that would constitute progress.
Copyright © 2015 by The Atlantic Monthly Group
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/05/lindsey-graham-republican-islamophobia-2016/394070/ [with comments]
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‘Put on your raping shoes and find this b*tch': Abby Martin is the latest target of crazed Chris Kyle sycophants
Abby Martin on her RT show 'Breaking the Set'
(Screenshot)
Eric W. Dolan
08 May 2015 at 10:54 ET
Fans of “American Sniper” Chris Kyle have threatened to rape and kill former RT anchor Abby Martin for criticizing the deceased Navy SEAL and creating a T-shirt they find offensive.
“Some psychotic Chris Kyle fan just doxxed me & my family’s personal information on a bunch of sniper forums. If anything happens to me or them you know who to blame. These are the real f*cking terrorists,” she wrote [ https://www.facebook.com/JournalistAbbyMartin/posts/761164727337142 ] on her Facebook page.
Martin had criticized Kyle in the past for describing Iraqis as “savages” in his book. She also described the American Sniper movie as “dangerous propaganda that sanitizes a mass murdering psycho.” But it was her shirt that appears to have set off a campaign of harassment against her.
This week, conservative websites posted a picture of Martin wearing a “F*ck Chris Kyle” shirt. She had uploaded a photo of the shirt [ https://instagram.com/p/2E7BFiOSnI/ ] to her Instagram account last week. One website, which incorrectly identified her as a “liberal artist,” called on readers [ http://mrconservative.com/2015/05/58537-liberal-artist-creates-fck-chris-kyle-t-shirt-what-happens-next-is-despicable/ ] to “publicly shame” her for her “treasonous actions.”
Another such website complained [ http://woundedamericanwarrior.com/disgusting-veteran-hater-blasts-a-dead-war-hero-fck-chris-kyle/ ]: “Chris Kyle is an American hero who is an easy target because he is no longer alive. Abbey Martin [sic], is just a coward hiding behind the freedoms that our military has granted her when she was born on this great land that we call the United States of America.”
The reaction on social media was even more visceral. Users of Twitter and Facebook have mentioned raping and beheading her, threatened to murder her, told her to kill herself, and bombarded her with misogynistic insults. Addicting Info reported [ http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/05/06/this-is-how-american-sniper-fanatics-responded-when-a-female-journalist-called-the-film-propaganda-imagesvideo/ ] that one person called on American Sniper fans to “put on our raping shoes and find this b*tch.”
“F*cking c*nt. How dare you disgrace his name like that. He gave his life so you can have yours. F*cking b*tch. Don’t worry I know where you live thanks to your ip address. And don’t worry I’m a Marine,” said Jamie Lugo [ https://twitter.com/AbbyMartin/status/595684707339259906 ] in a message shared by Martin. “So u won’t see me coming. I’m going to cause you pain beyond your imagination.” He later added: “Tic toc times running out.”
Other journalists, including Rania Khalek and Max Blumenthal, have been subjected to death threats [ http://www.rawstory.com/2015/01/let-isis-rape-you-conservatives-deluge-american-sniper-critics-with-harassment-and-threats/ ] and online harassment for their criticism the film American Sniper.
“Very telling that the #ChrisKyle fans who tell me he ‘died for my freedom’ to wear clothes are threatening to rape & kill me for free speech,” Martin wrote on Twitter [ https://twitter.com/AbbyMartin/status/595689993907138560 ].
Copyright 2015 Raw Story
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/put-on-your-raping-shoes-and-find-this-btch-abby-martin-is-the-latest-target-of-crazed-chris-kyle-sycophants/ [with comments]
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Rush Limbaugh Tells Businesses To Blame Anti-Gay Bigotry On Muslims
Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh speaks during a ceremony inducting him into the Hall of Famous Missourians in the state Capitol in Jefferson City, Missouri, in this May 14, 2012 file photo.
(AP Photo/Julie Smith, File)
By Cavan Sieczkowski
Posted: 05/14/2015 11:14 am EDT Updated: 05/14/2015 11:59 am EDT
Good ol' Rush Limbaugh is at it again, and this time he is dishing up advice for businesses who want to deny services to same-sex couples: blame Muslims.
Limbaugh took on the subject of anti-gay discrimination [ http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2015/05/11/my_advice_for_the_next_time_you_re_asked_to_bake_a_gay_wedding_cake ] on his radio show earlier this week. He blamed the American left for undermining religion and the institution of marriage and blamed "militant gay activists" for attacking business owners who refuse to serve same-sex couples because of religious beliefs. However, Limbaugh said, people who defend marriage equality also condemn offending Muslims with cartoon renderings of the Prophet Muhammad, even though Muslims might also be offended by same-sex marriage.
"I pointed out the other day, well, then should we maybe stop flouting and flaunting gay marriage, because gay marriage is really disapproved in Islam," he said on the show. "Gay marriage, homosexual behavior is not tolerated, it is not permitted and it is punished severely when it is caught, when it's spied. And yet in American media all over the place we are celebrating gay marriage, we are flaunting gay marriage, and I ask, does this not also offend Muslims?"
His suggestion to business owners was to cite "Muslim backlash" instead of religious freedom when denying service to gay couples.
Instead of telling the gay couple that you refuse to bake the cake for their wedding because you disapprove of homosexuality, you should now say you are not going to bake a cake for the gay wedding because you fear Muslim backlash. Or, due to your respect of Islam, you cannot bake a cake for a gay wedding. See how that flies. Since the left is agreeing, a bunch of people on the left have gone on TV, "I hate to say this, you know, Limbaugh's got a point. We do flaunt gay marriage at 'em, wow. Wow. That's a good point. I mean, we readily agree not to do the thing with the prophet and the pictures and the cartoons, but gay marriage, yeah, we're kind of in their face on that.
Not everyone is buying Limbaugh's logic.
"Rush Limbaugh should just have the courage to say that he supports discrimination against gay Americans simply because of their sexual orientation as opposed to trying to use it as another opportunity to demonize Muslims," writer and comedian Dean Obeidallah told The Huffington Post in an email. "As a Muslim American, I fully support marriage equality and find the denial of service to members of the LGBT community not just despicable but truly unAmerican. Hopefully people will wake up to threat of conservatives like Rush who want to turn their religious beliefs into American law. That is in essence Christian sharia law and has no place in our nation."
Last month, Limbaugh ranted about a Muslim-run bakery [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-stone/rush-limbaugh-dearborn-an_b_7002854.html ] in Dearborn, Michigan, that allegedly refused to serve a cake for a faux same-sex wedding in an edited hidden-camera stunt [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgWIhYAtan4 (next below; with {over 5,000} comments)]
produced by comedian and Fox News contributor Steven Crowder.
Dearborn Sweets owner Miriam Khansa said she never refused Crowder service [ http://www.wxyz.com/news/activists-demand-apology-for-limbaughs-rant-on-dearborn-bakeries ], according to Detroit ABC affiliate WXYZ. Her business has filled orders for same-sex weddings before, she told the station: “We were really bothered because whatever he was saying wasn't true. Like I said, we accept everybody here."
H/T Pink News [ http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2015/05/12/rush-limbaugh-tells-people-to-blame-muslims-when-discriminating-against-gays/ ]
Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/14/rush-limbaugh-muslim-gay-bakery_n_7282816.html [with comments]
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The 'Taliban' in Our Midst
Maj. Gen. Craig Olson.
(U.S. Air Force photo by Jerry Saslav [ http://www.hanscom.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123432018 ])
By Lawrence B. Wilkerson
Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired)
Posted: 05/22/2015 11:27 am EDT Updated: 05/22/2015 11:59 am EDT
Military officers who wear their religion on their sleeve are a danger to our country at any time, but especially after the terrorists attacks of September 11, 2001.
Whether it's US Army Lieutenant General William G. Boykin telling his audience that "My God is bigger than his" in the close aftermath of that tragedy, or the more recent example of US Air Force Major General Craig Olson saying in uniform and in public -- and speaking in tones far more like a preacher than a military officer -- "I am a redeemed believer in Christ," these are dangerous men, making dangerous displays of religion.
Moreover, such displays occur in an environment where they are strictly prohibited by secular rules. These rules -- and in the case of the US Air Force, written regulations -- are in place for a reason.
First, they protect the Constitutional separation of church and state. No government representative should be seen advocating for any religion, period. We officers, when we take the oath of office, surrender for the duration of our service the privilege of publicly professing our religion, of "wearing it on our sleeve."
Second, these rules protect the good order and discipline of the military. Many religions -- and no religion at all -- exist throughout the ranks. To profess a particular religion from a leadership position is detrimental to that order and discipline. How might, for example, a Jewish soldier feel when his lieutenant professes his belief in Jesus before his platoon? A Muslim soldier? An atheist?
In addition, a flag officer (a general or admiral) must be doubly careful because so many men and women are influenced by or fall under the sway and power of his or her every word and deed. Sometimes it might be thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, as was the case when I served then-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Colin Powell -- who, incidentally, would never have worn his religion on his sleeve.
Third, and becoming increasingly relevant every day that passes, public professions of religion by military officers give groups such as al-Qaeda, ISIS, al-Nusra and other religious fanatics superb propaganda to use against our soldiers in the field and against us, as a nation. We, in effect, become no better than they, some sort of American taliban. As such, we excite more recruits, more followers, more zealots to their banners. We also grievously undermine our own cause, just as we undermine our own Constitution.
What US Air Force Major General Craig Olson did was particularly egregious. Not only does he display by his remarks the naivete of a twelve-year-old Boy Scout -- and thus call into immediate, serious question the billions of dollars and hundreds of young lives entrusted to his care and leadership -- he also repeatedly calls on a single religion, indeed seems almost entranced by that religion, in uniform, in public, and on, of all things, God TV, an international broadcast. As a soldier of 31 years myself, I found his exhortations discomfiting, dismaying, and dangerous. Frankly, I also found them flatly incredible: I had never heard such words uttered by a general officer in my life.
Should the USAF punish him? Clearly, he has violated law and regulation. There is no doubt about that. But should he be punished?
The USAF is understandably afraid of certain members of the US Congress, as are all the Services when it comes to presenting an overt challenge to what these members of Congress believe is "every Christian's right to profess his or her religion, no matter the circumstances."
Congress' constant dalliance with such pseudo-Christian organizations as James Dobson's Focus on the Family -- whose members most remind me of the people at the famous Scopes trial in Tennessee, who for the most part were hopelessly ignorant -- exacerbates this fear.
It was Dobson's wife's organization that sponsored the event during which Olson made his stunningly impassioned remarks. The event was camouflaged under the aegis of one Alabama Republican's name -- Congressman Robert Aderholt -- but everyone with any insight into Washington knows that Dobson was behind the entire event.
Aderholt certainly knew it, as his opening remarks at the event conveyed: "Thank you, Shirley [Mrs. Dobson], for your kind introduction and for this invitation to be here this morning."
So, if the Air Force were to punish Olson it might have to pay the piper with regard to any angst it might generate in the Congress, the provider of its funds. Of course, another way to say this is that the leadership of the US Air Force has no guts. It writes rules and its officers disobey them with impunity.
In any event, if no action is taken it's a dangerous game, playing with fire this way. A game that will get Americans killed in future. A game that undermines the very law we fight to protect. A game that destroys our truest values.
But it is an understandable game in a Washington peopled by hypocrites, Luddites, science-deniers, cowards, rabble-rousers, greedy, self-serving politicians, warmongers and, oh yes, military officers who wear their religion on their sleeve.
Lawrence Wilkerson is Distinguished Visiting Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William and Mary. He was chief of staff to U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell from 2002-2005 and General Powell's speechwriter from 1989-1993.
Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-b-wilkerson/the-taliban-in-our-midst_b_7421578.html [with comments]
===
this is part 4 of a 5-part post; part 3 is the post to which this is a reply, and the concluding part 5 follows as my next post, a reply to this one
the following list of 'see also' linkings covers and is common to all 5 parts of this post
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in addition to (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113381741 and preceding and (other) following, see also (linked in):
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http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113923660 and preceding and following
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http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113957823 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113969749 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113971588 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113980777 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113981101 and preceding (and any future following),
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114004281 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113989280 and preceding and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114022502 and following;
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114033550 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113991421 and preceding (and any future following)
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http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=113996990 and preceding and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114034672 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114001066 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=114004452 (and any future following)
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Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
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