Tuesday, May 09, 2017 1:27:58 PM
Birth of a Radical
Julia Hahn on July 24, 2015, at the Breitbart offices in Washington.
Photo: Jeremy Liebman
White Fear in the White House: Young Bannon Disciple Julia Hahn Is a Case Study in Extremism
Peter Maass
May 7 2017, 8:45 a.m.
Steve Bannon, who is no stranger to controversy, faced a torrent of reproval when it was revealed [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/steve-bannon-camp-of-the-saints-immigration_us_58b75206e4b0284854b3dc03 ] not long ago that he had praised a detestable novel envisioning France invaded by an armada of brown-skinned migrants from India. The French novel is called “The Camp of the Saints,” and Bannon recommended it on several occasions when he was executive chairman of Breitbart News, to justify what he perceived as a mortal threat that whites face from immigration.
The book, published in the 1970s, had existed for decades as an obscure cornerstone of the utmost fringes of white racism. The Indian children in the novel were referred to as “little monsters,” and the adults were described as sexual maniacs who filled their ships with “rivers of sperm, streaming over bodies, oozing between breasts, and buttocks, and thighs, and lips, and fingers.” The novel ended with hundreds of thousands of them taking over France and, by extension, the West. When it came out in the United States, Kirkus Reviews noted that “the publishers are presenting ‘The Camp of the Saints’ as a major event, and it probably is, in much the same sense that Mein Kampf was a major event.”
Bannon, now a senior adviser to President Donald Trump, made his glowing comments during radio programs he hosted in 2015 and 2016. But his comments were brief and in passing. The most enthusiastic endorsement of the book from anyone at Breitbart, and certainly the longest endorsement, came from a young reporter who wrote a gushing 4,000-word article [ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/24/camp-saints-seen-mirrored-popes-message/ ] that said “all around the world, events seem to be lining up with the predictions of the book.” The article, which neglected to mention that “The Camp of the Saints” is widely regarded as utterly racist, merely described it as controversial, and made conspiratorial parallels between its fictional characters and Pope Francis, Marco Rubio, and even Glenn Beck.
The Breitbart reporter was Julia Hahn, a Bannon protégé who followed him into the White House as a special assistant to President Trump. Bannon and other alt-right figures in the West Wing, including Sebastian Gorka, have received enormous amounts of criticism for espousing ideas that are seen as racist or ridiculous. Gorka is reported [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/us/politics/sebastian-gorka-white-house.html ] to be leaving the White House, and there have been reports [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/12/us/politics/steve-bannon-white-house-trump.html ] that Bannon might be edged out, too. But Hahn has gotten almost no notice for writing what appears to be the longest and most laudatory article about “The Camp of the Saints” that has appeared in the American media in recent years. The few in-depth stories about her getting a job at the White House have mostly focused on her lashing criticism of Paul Ryan, the House speaker whose conservative positions on immigration were far too permissive for Bannon, Hahn, and the rest of Breitbart.
At a glance, Hahn is an outlier among outliers. She was raised in Beverly Hills, attended a private high school, and the only wisp of political activity in her adolescence was a decidedly liberal, pro-immigration gesture: She raised money for a group that brought foreign orphans to the United States. She majored in philosophy at the University of Chicago, and the sole public trace of her time there is a video [ https://vimeo.com/71347395 ] of a panel discussion in which she discussed Michael Foucault’s idea that psychoanalysis stigmatizes human sexuality.
Not long after she was appointed to the White House at the age of just 25, one of her college friends reacted by writing on Facebook, “It’s weird because she was always very nice and it’s disappointing when seemingly nice people turn out to be Nazis/Nazi-adjacent.” Another friend asked, “WTF happened???”
The question of what happened offers an opportunity of sorts. There has been a lot of discussion about countering extremism and identifying extremists before they do something that harms themselves or the nation. How do young people become radicalized? The preferred means for answering these questions are not mysterious — find out the ideas that young people are exposed to, find out the social environment they are raised in, and work from there. This framework has been applied mostly to Islamic extremism, with the goal of figuring out why some Muslims become terrorists.
But the tools of “countering violent extremism,” as it’s known, work extremely well for figuring out the riddle of rich white kids who turn to the fringes of the right. How does someone who raised money for foreign orphans write, a few years later, a screed for Breitbart headlined “Muslim Immigration Puts Half a Million U.S. Girls at Risk of Genital Mutilation”? One of the first things you would seek to do, in the effort to understand the creation of this extremist, is to investigate the place where she was raised. It turned out that I didn’t need to search far, because I grew up less than a mile from Hahn’s home, and attended the same high school.
* * *
An athletic field at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, California. The private school, attended by Julia Hahn, costs about $40,000 a year for tuition and boasts a high success rate in getting its students admitted into Ivy League universities.
Photo: Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
In a way, Julia Hahn is the Patty Hearst of the far right, a daughter of privilege who veered wildly off the expected course. While she has said almost nothing about her journey to the virulent corners of white nationalism, and has not granted any interviews since starting in the White House (she turned down a request from The Intercept), the puzzle of her journey to the alt right can be assembled.
Hahn comes from fabulous wealth. Her grandfather Harold Honickman presided over a soft-drink bottling company that became one of the largest in the nation; in 2002, his net worth was estimated [ http://philadelphia.about.com/cs/neighborhoods/a/rich_in_philly.htm ] at $850 million. Honickman has used his wealth to support liberal causes, including organizations that help the homeless and efforts to tighten gun control. His family foundation has even provided funding for a poetry prize, and his wife wrote a genteel letter on the foundation website [ http://www.honickmanfoundation.org/about/index.php ] that said, “Our personal belief, at the end of the day, is that we are here to take care of one another.”
One of the Honickman children, Shirley, is the mother of Hahn, who was born on April Fools’ Day in 1991. Hahn was raised in a house that’s not far from Rodeo Drive and is valued at more than $5 million by Zillow. (Hahn’s White House financial disclosure form [ https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3533918-Julia-Hahn-s-2017-Financial-Disclosure-Form.html ] shows she owns bank and stock funds worth as much as $2 million [ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/04/01/us/politics/how-much-people-in-the-trump-administration-are-worth-financial-disclosure.html?smid=fb-share ].) The private school she attended (as I did, a generation earlier) is Harvard-Westlake. It’s hard to imagine a class of people who benefit more from immigrant and undocumented workers — who clean their homes, mow their lawns, maintain their pools, and cook their meals — than Hahn and other children of privilege in Los Angeles. The comfortable life she enjoyed was due, in no small part, to the immigrants she demeaned as a writer for Breitbart.
The dissonance appears to widen when you look at her secondary education. Harvard-Westlake is a model of West Coast liberalism. It is generally regarded as the most competitive school in Los Angeles, its student body drawing on the city’s entertainment and business worlds. When Hahn was named to the White House, the flummoxed student newspaper at Harvard-Westlake published a story [ http://hwchronicle.com/alumna-hops-on-trump-train/ ] in which her history teacher wondered aloud, “She was rather soft-spoken as I recall, so I guess no, I didn’t really see her headed to work for an organization like Breitbart or a person like Bannon.”
Steve Bannon walks to a House Republican meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on March 23, 2017.
Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News/Getty Images
Paradoxically, a clue to Hahn’s radicalization is located at Harvard-Westlake. The school has a surplus of famous alumni, from Shirley Temple to Sally Ride, Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Matthew Weiner (the creator of “Mad Men” who named one of his show’s characters for a popular teacher at Harvard). But the school has another alum who is more infamous than famous: Alex Marlow, the editor-in-chief of Breitbart.
Marlow graduated from Harvard-Westlake in 2004, before Hahn, and for a long time nobody at the school seemed to know or care where he had ended up. The school took notice in 2016, when Marlow was quoted in a New York Times profile of Bannon. A school official posted the story on Facebook. Parents and alumni of Harvard-Westlake were aghast. “This is an embarrassment to our school, and to our fantastic community,” read one of the comments [ https://www.buzzfeed.com/salvadorhernandez/ties-to-trump-and-breitbart-divide-exclusive-los-angeles-sch ] on the post.
The controversy was duly reported by the school’s student newspaper, which published [ http://hwchronicle.com/alums-position-as-breitbart-news-editor-in-chief-sparks-controversy/ ] a story on Marlow and quoted some of his teachers who remembered him as a smart and polite student — just like Hahn. “I would never have imagined that he would get involved with an organization as deplorable as Breitbart News,” said his history teacher Dave Waterhouse.
The upshot is that a single school in Los Angeles was the breeding ground for two of the youngest and most vehement stars of the Trump movement. This raises the prospect of what is known, among experts who study extremism, as a cluster. It goes beyond Hahn and Marlow.
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Andrew Breitbart at the Occupy L.A. site, where he was interviewing occupiers in 2011.
Photo: Ted Soqui/Corbis/Getty Images
Where do America’s far-right leaders come from? Hahn and Marlow, who grew up 5 miles apart, are clues to an intriguing fact of political epidemiology. A surprising number of alt-right leaders come from a single wealthy liberal enclave: the west side of Los Angeles.
Andrew Breitbart, who founded the site that bears his name, was raised in Brentwood, at the center of the west side, and was living there when he died in 2012. Bannon, before becoming famous as the chairman of Breitbart and then Trump’s ideologue, was a Hollywood producer who sent his daughters to a private school in Brentwood. Stephen Miller, the 31-year-old presidential adviser who has been wildly provocative on immigration issues, was raised in neighboring Santa Monica, also known as the People’s Republic of Santa Monica because of its liberal politics.
This might seem weird. California voted in a landslide for Hillary Clinton. All of the state’s elected officials are Democrats, from the governor on down. Since 1961, only one Republican has been elected mayor of Los Angeles. But look again. While Trump got far fewer votes than Clinton, California’s population is so large that the only other state where Trump got more votes was Texas (which he won). According to a report [ https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2013/active-%27patriot%27-groups-united-states-2012 ] from the Southern Poverty Law Center, California has more far-right conspiratorial “Patriot” groups, 81, than any other state in the country (Texas, the runner-up, has 79). California may be the “Left Coast,” but it is also the beating heart of the far-right coast.
This is not an accident. People don’t like to be told what to think, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that an atmosphere of doctrinaire liberalism might produce reactionaries who delight in defying the dogmas that seemed so repressive when they were growing up. For instance, Miller, a key advocate of Trump’s Muslim travel ban, chafed [ http://www.univision.com/univision-news/politics/how-white-house-advisor-stephen-miller-went-from-pestering-hispanic-students-to-designing-trumps-immigration-policy ] at the multiculturalism of his high school and its tolerance of gays.
Social progress always seems to trigger a backlash. It’s a paradox that makes sense — environments that are constructed to stop extremism can, instead, provoke it. Trump’s whole rise cannot be viewed through this single lens, of course. But the dynamic is crucial to understanding how and where some extremists are born: when people feel the privileges of their race, gender, language, or religion are threatened.
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The skyline of Washington, D.C., including the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, U.S. Capitol, and National Mall, seen from the air at sunset in 2014.
Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
In the popular telling, a common scenario of Muslim extremism occurs when a susceptible mind falls under the spell of a charismatic leader at a mosque or madrassa, though sometimes the contact occurs online (this happened with followers [ http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dead-cleric-anwar-al-awlaki-still-sways-terror-wannabes-n397506 ] of Anwar al-Awlaki, for instance). I have reported on this dynamic in Pakistan, Iraq, and other countries that were like emotional depots for the unformed zeal of drifting youths. The spiritual leaders were spellbinding, their warnings were often apocalyptic, and the devotion of their youthful followers was complete, even if the logic of their maximalist ideologies was flawed and inhuman. Young minds, unshaped, were tinder for an ideological spark.
This scenario isn’t true only for Islamic extremists. When Hahn arrived in Washington, D.C., as another just-out-of-college aspirant, she was not political, according to every account of her that I’ve read and heard (I talked with more than a half dozen people who knew her at the University of Chicago). According to the Washington Post, Hahn jolted to ideological life in the first job she landed — as a producer for right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham. “It sparked her evolution,” the Post stated [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/who-is-julia-hahn-the-unlikely-rise-of-steve-bannons-right-hand-woman/2017/03/29/c242504c-125e-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html ]. “She moved quickly to the right.” A short article [ http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/13/becoming-steve-bannons-bannon ] in the New Yorker reported much the same, that an apolitical Hahn moved to Washington to get a media job and turned to the far right after she started working for Ingraham. The Post quoted a former Ingraham employee as saying, “Laura will do that to people. She can be very convincing.”
This evokes a strange parallel between far-right radio and television empires presided over by the likes of Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Alex Jones, and Steve Bannon, and fundamentalist mosques and madrassas that manufacture the extremists of the Islamic world. Radical ideologies presented to impressionable minds in these locations are totalistic and comforting in an unsteady world. They offer simplistic antagonists — such as the infidels and the immigrants — and provide simplistic answers to social or economic problems (shut down immigration, eliminate education for girls, and so on). These spellbinding leaders, and the infrastructures around them, are vectors of youthful extremism.
Hahn worked for Ingraham for about a year, then became a spokesperson for David Brat, an insurgent Republican who used the issue of immigration to defeat House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Brat, a total outsider, raised just $200,000 for his challenge to Cantor, and part of his upset victory was due to strong support from Ingraham as well as other right-wing media figures, including Mark Levin and Ann Coulter. Whether by design or chance, Hahn was at the center of the alt-right rebellion against not just the Democratic Party but the Republican establishment, too.
The late founder of Breitbart News, Andrew Breitbart, is seen on a T-shirt at the 44th Annual Conservative Political Action Conference at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Md., on Feb. 23, 2017.
Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Redux
Her next step took her to the forefront — as one of the most prolific and strident reporters for the norm-pulverizing machine at Breitbart. Bannon was the dominant figure at Breitbart at the time, “prone to surrounding himself with like-minded young acolytes,” as the New York Times later noted [ https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/us/politics/trump-conservative-political-action-conference-speech.html ]. In an unusual look inside Bannon’s life before he joined Trump’s campaign, a Bloomberg reporter visited Bannon’s townhouse-turned-newsroom and wrote that he had a “group of young, female Breitbart News reporters whom he’s dubbed the Valkyries.” The Bloomberg story had a photo of Bannon at his Capitol Hill home with nine young reporters, including Hahn. After Politico published a story that criticized Bannon, Hahn rose to his defense and described [ http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/09/03/politico-censors-black-jewish-women-hispanic-immigrant-voices-silence-defenders-steve-bannon/ ] him as “one of the most supportive, kind, inspiring and selfless bosses a reporter could ask for.”
Under Bannon, Hahn produced a torrent of articles that mimicked his incendiary ideas on immigration, Muslims, and Democrats. Her stories were perfectly attuned to the extremist ideas for which Bannon has become celebrated and despised; Bannon and Hahn even co-wrote a story [ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/16/paul-ryan-betrays-america-1-1-trillion-2000-plus-page-omnibus-bill-funds-fundamental-transformation-america/ ] that flayed Paul Ryan. One of Hahn’s stories accused Hillary Clinton of planning to resettle a million Muslims in America, and another article warned ominously that under Clinton the number of Muslims in America would exceed the number in Germany — an irrelevant comparison because Germany’s population is several times smaller. One of Hahn’s anti-immigration articles was headlined “Clinton Releases Plan to Dissolve U.S. Border Within 100 Days.”
That was the usual alt-right noise from Breitbart. But in 2015, when Bannon started talking about “The Camp of the Saints,” Hahn wrote about it too. Her story argued that the book was prophetic because it warned that “the liberalism of the West would cause Western nations to throw open their doors to so many migrants that it would spell the doom of liberal society itself.” Hahn’s story used the book to warn that, as she wrote, immigrants from failed countries will “remake the West in the image of those failed countries.” The book, however, is widely regarded as a racist fever dream. One of its most enthusiastic supporters is Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front in France, who has a copy of it in her office and has tweeted [ https://twitter.com/MLP_officiel/status/638959623215706112 ] out her endorsement of it.
Even in the conservative world, Hahn went too far for the comfort of some people. At the end of 2015, when she asked a panel of Republican legislators to raise their hands to indicate whether they would suspend or reduce Muslim immigration, Rep. Raul Labrador, a conservative from Idaho, lashed out [ http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2015/11/rep-labrador-refuses-to-take-questions-from-breitbart-reporter-215994 ] at her. “I don’t answer questions from you,” he told Hahn, “because you are not a truthful reporter.”
* * *
Young Republicans holding iPads take a test, offered by the right-wing organization Generation Opportunity, about economic issues that are important to them at the 40th Annual Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md., in 2013.
Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Redux
The handful of published stories about Hahn have tended to focus on a seeming paucity of information that would explain who she is or how she ended up on the far right. “Hahn’s increasingly watched byline was all the more extraordinary for her utter anonymity,” the Washington Post reported [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/who-is-julia-hahn-the-unlikely-rise-of-steve-bannons-right-hand-woman/2017/03/29/c242504c-125e-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html ]. “Not only did she never appear on TV, she had no public social media presence whatsoever. Photos of her were hard to come by — and conspiracy theories about her true identity were beginning to circulate.” This makes for a good mystery story, but it misses the point. It took little effort for The Intercept to find photos of Hahn (there are some on Facebook, and Bloomberg had published a series of photos that included Hahn and listed her by name). While she does not appear to have been on television, Hahn was frequently on Breitbart radio [ https://soundcloud.com/breitbart/breitbart-news-daily-julia-hahn-november-29-2016 ] and other right-wing radio shows.
The mysterious thing about Julia Hahn is that there is any mystery at all. Washington is bursting with strivers in their 20s just like her, eager to find their spot on the terrain of political power, while unsure of what their own attitudes about power really are. The lack of a political center in the young creatures of Washington is the stuff of parody; just watch an episode of “Veep.” Long ago, I was one of these creatures — as a student at Georgetown University, I applied for internships on Capitol Hill and took the first one I was offered, from a Republican representative famous for one thing — his father was Barry Goldwater, the iconic senator from Arizona. The son had little of his father’s charisma and his politics were vague, though he was kind to me and let me drive his Aston Martin. He was no Laura Ingraham.
Karachi and Kabul are a long ways from Capitol Hill but the hydraulics of youthful extremism are remarkably similar in all of them. Julia Hahn’s opposites are not the young and impressionable Muslims who adopt hate-filled ideas about infidels. They are her mirror image.
Copyright 2017 The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2017/05/07/white-fear-in-the-white-house-young-bannon-disciple-julia-hahn-is-a-case-study-in-extremism/
*
Christian VS Muslim
Published on Sep 26, 2014 by DarkMatter2525 [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLhtZqdkjshgq8TqwIjMdCQ / https://www.youtube.com/user/DarkMatter2525 , https://www.youtube.com/user/DarkMatter2525/videos ]
What could possibly go wrong?
This bird has two right wings. Basically, it ain't gonna fly.
This video is mainly addressed to people I would define as ultra right wing radical Christians in America. Some people tell me that Islam is worse, because at least the Christians aren't beheading people who don't respect their religion. The whole point of this video is "beware what you wish for". The reason certain Christians don't do such things is simply because they live in a secular society that won't allow such things, but they want that to change. They want the theocracy. They want people like me to be punished. They are the Taliban that is not allowed to act like the Taliban. This video is a cautionary comparison, and it is absolutely valid. Furthermore, far more Muslims have been killed by Christians, than the other way around, today and throughout history. It's just that we tend to label it differently.
I've often been told by Christians, "Hey, if you were in a Muslim country, making fun of religion, you'd be dead by now," (John Lennox has said stuff like this). Basically, that means "At least we Christians let you live." Um...thanks. Those are some mighty low standards you have there. I don't trust radicals on either side. I'm alive because the secular government won't allow you to kill me - not because there's a shortage of Christians who would be ready, willing, and able to do it. Of that, I have no doubt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYV7KWQ-fY4 [with (currently nearly 89,000, earlier over 14,000) comments] [and see also in particular (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=129013931 and preceding and following, https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=130177377 and preceding and following]
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Stephen Fry Reportedly Faces Blasphemy Probe After Calling God A ‘Maniac’
Actor Stephen Fry called God “utterly evil” and a “maniac” during an interview in 2015. He’s now reportedly being investigated for blasphemy.
Andrew Kelly / Reuters
The English comedian and atheist made the comments two years ago on an Irish TV program.
By Nina Golgowski
05/07/2017 11:16 am ET
English comedian Stephen Fry [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/stephen-fry/ ] is reportedly under investigation for blasphemy after calling God “utterly evil” and a “maniac” [ http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/01/30/atheist-stephen-fry-delivers-stunning-answer-when-asked-what-he-would-say-if-he-came-face-to-face-with-god_n_6581710.html ] during an interview with an Irish TV show two years ago.
An unidentified member of the public told the Irish Independent [ http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/garda-launch-blasphemy-probe-into-stephen-fry-comments-on-the-meaning-of-life-35684262.html ] they had reported the outspoken atheist’s comments to authorities in western Ireland because they were doing their “civic duty by reporting a crime,” not because they were personally offended.
Individuals who publish or speak blasphemy can face a fine of up to €25,000 under the Republic of Ireland’s Defamation Act 2009 [ http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2009/act/31 ], according to the BBC [ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39830447 ].
Fry, who currently stars in CBS’s “The Great Indoors,” criticized God on TV channel RTE in 2015 after being asked what he’d say to “him, her or it [ http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/01/30/atheist-stephen-fry-delivers-stunning-answer-when-asked-what-he-would-say-if-he-came-face-to-face-with-god_n_6581710.html ]” if given the chance.
“I’ll say: Bone cancer in children, what’s that about? How dare you create a world where there is such misery that’s not our fault? It’s utterly, utterly evil,” he told Gay Byrne, host of program “The Meaning of Life.” “Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid god who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?”
“The god who created this universe, if he created this universe, is quite clearly a maniac, an utter maniac, totally selfish,” Fry added. “We have to spend our lives on our knees thanking him. What kind of god would do that?”
“Yes, the world is very splendid, but it also has in it insects whose whole life cycle is to burrow into the eyes of children and make them blind,” he said.
The individual claiming responsibility for reporting Fry’s comments told the Independent that they traveled to the Ennis Garda station to file the report shortly after the interview aired. They’ve repeatedly followed up with police ever since.
“I told the Garda I wanted to report Fry for uttering blasphemy and RTE for publishing/broadcasting it and that I believed these were criminal offenses under the Defamation Act 2009,” the person told the news site. “I simply believed that the comments made by Fry on RTE were criminal blasphemy and that I was doing my civic duty by reporting a crime.”
Local authorities told the Independent that they are investigating the complaint but that charges are unlikely.
Other atheists have since rallied behind Fry.
Atheist Ireland, which has called the defamation law “silly, silencing, and dangerous,” responded to news of the investigation by publishing 25 other blasphemous quotes [ https://atheist.ie/2017/05/25-blasphemous-quotes-in-solidarity-with-stephen-fry/ ] that they released after the Irish law first went into effect.
British Humanists
@BHAhumanists
What is the world coming to? Complaints made against Stephen Fry for allegedly violating Irish blasphemy laws. http://www.thejournal.ie/stephen-fry-complaint-of-blasphemy-3376318-May2017/ ...
Gardaí 'not commenting' on complaint of blasphemy against Stephen Fry
Fry faces a maximum fine of €25,000.
thejournal.ie
8:20 AM - 6 May 2017
[ https://twitter.com/BHAhumanists/status/860846736247533568 (with comments)]
The British Humanist Association also released [ https://humanism.org.uk/2017/05/06/bha-defends-its-patron-stephen-fry-in-face-of-irish-blasphemy-probe/ ] a statement on Saturday defending Fry’s words and also calling for the dissolution of Ireland’s blasphemy law.
“It is ridiculous that Stephen Fry is being investigated for a possible breach of Ireland’s blasphemy laws,” BHA Chief Executive Andrew Copson said. “Not only are such laws detrimental to free speech here in Europe, but they also enable countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran to justify their own laws, which in the case of 13 states come with a death sentence.”
A spokesperson for Fry, reached by the Telegraph [ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/06/stephen-fry-police-investigation-blasphemy-branding-god-utter/ ], declined comment, stating: “[There is] nothing for us to say while this is under investigation.”
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‘Blasphemy’ And ‘Terrorism’ Are Catchall Phrases To Repress Dissent
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/blasphemy-and-terrorism-catchall-phrases-to-repress_us_59095302e4b05279d4edc0ff
Stephen Fry Delivers A Meryl Streep-Loving Trump Slam At BAFTAs
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Blasphemy Isn’t Just A Problem In The Muslim World
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Right-Wing Activists Blast Canadian Anti-Islamophobia Motion As ‘Blasphemy Law’
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/canada-islamaphobia-motion_us_589e154be4b0ab2d2b150931
Copyright © 2017 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stephen-fry-faces-blasphemy-probe_us_590f1ad4e4b0e7021e984f5a?52o , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-suvkwNYSQo [as embedded; with comments] [and see also in particular e.g. (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=84628488 and preceding and following, http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=129195714 and preceding and following]
Indonesia Governor’s Loss Shows Increasing Power of Islamists
Thousands of Muslims protested against Jakarta’s Christian governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, in March in Indonesia.
MAY 6, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/06/world/asia/indonesia-islam-jakarta.html
Jakarta governor sentenced to 2 years prison for blasphemy
Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, center, enters the court room as he attends his sentencing hearing in Jakarta, Indonesia, Tuesday, May 9, 2017. The minority Christian governor is currently on trial on accusation of blasphemy following his remark about a passage in the Quran that could be interpreted as prohibiting Muslims from accepting non-Muslims as leaders.
May 09, 2017
https://www.apnews.com/3e9965cb52514e70abaac552c4d7a172/Jakarta-governor-sentenced-to-2-years-prison-for-blasphemy
*
When Is A Religion ‘Extremist’?
Government endorsement of any religious ideology creates religious extremism.
Photo – Flickr/ Justin Kern
By Tim Rymel
05/06/2017 11:27 am ET | Updated May 7, 2017
In April, Russia’s Supreme Court labeled Jehovah’s Witnesses [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_Witnesses ] an extremist religious group. “It effectively means that holding their beliefs and manifesting them is tantamount to a criminal act in Russia. They risk new levels of persecution by the Russian authorities,” said [ http://www.catholicregister.org/home/international/item/24963-why-russia-s-ban-on-jehovah-s-witnesses-is-so-troubling ] international legal counsel, Lorcan Price.
In America, most of us think of Jehovah’s Witnesses as that occasional Saturday nuisance. They interrupt our morning breakfast or afternoon chores to tell us their version of the Christian faith. They cheerfully drag their families along for quiet strolls through the neighborhoods, and pass out Watchtower Magazines for us to throw away later.
Annoying? Yes. Disruptive? Usually. But extremist? That depends.
Growing up in the Pentecostal faith, I was taught that Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and Catholics were not Christians. Anyone who converted to those, or other non-mainstream Christian sects, was deceived by the devil. Though we didn’t use the word “extremist” to define those religions, we certainly saw them as a threat to the true people of God who were susceptible to “false teachings.”
Religion, to paraphrase Merriam-Webster [ https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religion ], is generally a belief in the supernatural with a commitment to keep up the attitudes and practices surrounding that belief. In other words, religion is more than just a belief it is an action. For some, that means attending church on Sundays. For others, it means killing people for believing the wrong things, or believing in the wrong way.
The BBC noted [ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/04/world_al_qaeda/html/2.stm ] that Al Qaeda’s purpose is to avenge “wrongs committed by Christians against Muslims.” The organization wants to implement a “single Islamic political leadership,” and drive away non-Muslims from areas it deems belong to the nation of Islam.
ISIS, on the other hand, is a group of Scriptural fundamentalists who believe all other Muslims are apostates. William McCants, director of the Project on US Relations With the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution, says [ https://www.vox.com/2015/11/18/9755478/isis-islam ] that ISIS wants “to restore the early Islamic empire called the caliphate and eventually take over the whole world.”
Most of us can agree that Al Qaeda and ISIS are extremist groups. After all, they plan and implement terrorist attacks. They kill people, sometimes brutally. But is violence the only indicator of religious extremism?
It could certainly be argued that when a religion becomes violent it becomes extremist. But even Christianity, in it’s many definitions, has a sordid history, which is seldom talked about and often dismissed. From the Spanish inquisition to the convert-or-die tactics used on Native American Indians, Christianity has been used to commit horrific acts of violence throughout the centuries. Judaism, from which Christianity arose, recorded shocking details in the Torah of the slaughter of entire populations, including women, children, and animals.
Any religion, which purports to, alone, have all truth, and to, alone, have a direct line of communication to God, has a propensity toward extremist ideology. As University of Notre Dame Professor, Gary Gutting, points out [ http://traffic.pubexchange.com/a/c58811b4-27d9-46ab-907c-5f8ee624e840/9a4ed94e-c5d7-4086-979f-0661aacb18a7/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2016%2F08%2F01%2Fopinion%2Fhow-religion-can-lead-to-violence.html%3F_r%3D0 ]:
The potential for intolerance lies in the logic of religions like Christianity and Islam that say their teaching derive from a divine revelation. For them, the truth that God has revealed is the most important truth there is; therefore, denying or doubting this truth is extremely dangerous, both for nonbelievers, who lack this essential truth, and for believers, who may well be misled by the denials and doubts of nonbelievers.
Any religion that denies the value and humanity of others is an extremist religion. Whether those actions lead to direct harm, or simply reduce protections through legislation, extremist ideology seeks to create one class that is believed to be more valued than another.
The grandstanding that fundamentalist Christians have done since marriage equality passed in 2015 has created a growing, and disturbing trend toward extremist Christianity.
The Oath Keepers, a vigilante Christian group, vowed to protect Kentucky County Clerk, Kim Davis, when she refused issuing a marriage license to a gay couple. They stated [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/oath-keepers-send-armed-guards-to-protect-kim-davis-from-us-marshals/ ] the judge in Davis’ case “needs to be put on notice that his behavior is not going to be accepted and we’ll be there to stop it and intercede ourselves if we have to.” And then, in an ironic twist to the story, the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, of “God hates fags” fame, picketed [ http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/Westboro-Baptist-Church-Protest-Kim-Davis--333380581.html ] Kim Davis because of her multiple divorces and remarriages.
Since then, dozens of “religious freedom” bills have been introduced across the country with the sole purpose of reducing or eliminating protections for the LGBT community in housing, employment, benefits, and even where they can go to the bathroom.
The problem, of course, is that “religious freedom” is based on nothing more than a belief. Governments who support “religious freedom” over the equal human rights and dignity of others condone, and even endorse discrimination. In any such environment religious extremism is the outcome, threatening the very existence of democracy.
Related Coverage
Trump Transition Official: ‘Religious Freedom’ Order Is Still Coming
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ken-blackwell-religious-freedom-order_us_58b2f87ee4b0a8a9b7830c3e
This Map Of The State Of Religious Freedom Around The World Is Chilling
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pew-global-religious-restrictions_us_58ed070be4b0ca64d919ab12
What Grade Does The U.S. Deserve On Human Rights And Religious Freedom?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/grading-nations-on-human-rights-and-religious-freedom_us_58cd2b9de4b0e0d348b3439d
Copyright © 2017 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. (emphasis in original)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/when-is-a-religion-extremist_us_590de8e3e4b046ea176aeb98?it
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Texas bill would allow adoption agencies to deny couples based on religion
May 8, 2017
(JTA) — Texas lawmakers are set to vote on a bill that would allow state-funded or private faith-based adoption agencies to reject couples seeking to adopt children if they are Jewish.
The state House proposal also would allow potential adoptive couples to be rejected if they are Muslim, interfaith, gay or single, according to reports.
A vote on the bill in the Republican-controlled House scheduled for Saturday was pushed off until Monday, CNN reported.
Proponents say the measure will support the religious freedom of adoption agencies and foster care providers. Opponents say it violates the Constitution’s requirement of equal protection under the law.
The bill also could require children in the foster care system to comply with a family’s faith-based requirements, including sending gay children for “conversion therapy” or denying them access to birth control.
Five other states have approved similar laws protecting faith-based adoption organizations that refuse to place children in families based on religion or lifestyle. South Dakota’s law is the most similar since it also covers agencies that receive state funding.
http://www.jta.org/2017/05/08/news-opinion/united-states/texas-bill-would-allow-adoption-agencies-to-deny-couples-based-on-religion
Texas Bill Could Let Agencies Bar LGBT, Atheist, Single Parents From Adopting
The bill would allow private adoption agencies to claim ‘religious exemption’ to working with LGBT parents or parents of another religion.
05.07.17
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/05/07/texas-bill-could-let-agencies-bar-lgbt-atheist-single-parents-from-adopting
Texas Adoption Bill Could Allow Anti-Gay, Religious Discrimination
Critics of the bill say it legitimizes discrimination with taxpayer money.
05/07/2017
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/texas-adoption-bill_us_590f3e5be4b0e7021e986064 [with embedded video]
Adoption Agencies In Texas Could Reportedly Reject Jewish, Muslim, LGBT, Single & Interfaith Couples Under New Bill
May 7, 2017
https://www.romper.com/p/adoption-agencies-in-texas-could-reportedly-reject-jewish-muslim-lgbt-single-interfaith-couples-under-new-bill-56266
Texas Adoption Bill Would Allow Agencies To Discriminate Against Basically Anyone
May 7, 2017
https://www.bustle.com/p/texas-adoption-bill-would-allow-agencies-to-discriminate-against-basically-anyone-56334
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Texas Gov. Abbott springs surprise on critics, with unannounced Facebook live signing of sanctuary cities ban
May 8, 2017
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made an unannounced appearance on Facebook live Sunday evening to sign a tough bill banning “sanctuary cities” in the state, thereby avoiding demonstrations opponents planned for later in the week when they thought he was going to put his signature on the legislation.
While Abbott’s spokesman said he was just trying to reach a wide audience, critics called Abbott “cowardly” for springing the signing without notice.
Though the bill [ http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/85R/billtext/pdf/SB00004F.pdf#navpanes=0 ], which cleared the Republican-controlled legislature last week, was opposed by most major police chiefs in Texas, Abbott said in a statement that the law was a blow against “those that seek to promote lawlessness in Texas.”
Abbott also blasted the one law enforcement officer in Texas who appears to have adopted any sort of policy resembling the amorphous concept of a sanctuary city, Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez, who said she would not cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests to hold immigrants while federal authorities investigate their status.
“This law cracks down on policies like the Travis County sheriff who declared she would not detain known criminals accused of violent crimes,” Abbott said.
In fact, Hernandez does honor detainer requests from federal immigration authorities for inmates accused of serious offenses.
The term “sanctuary cities” is ill-defined and takes different forms in different places. In general, jurisdictions identifying themselves as sanctuaries refuse to hold immigrants who have been arrested for local crimes past their release date so that Immigration and Customs Enforcement can take them into federal custody and try to deport them.
The Texas law would fine local governments up to $25,500 a day for policies that block immigration enforcement. Elected or appointed officials who refuse to cooperate with immigration agents could lose their jobs. Sheriffs and other police officers would face misdemeanor charges punishable by up to a year in jail and fines if they ignore requests to detain immigrants. The law would take effect Sept. 1.
[...]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/05/08/texas-gov-abbott-springs-surprise-on-critics-signing-sanctuary-cities-ban-unannounced-on-facebook-live/ [with embedded videos, and comments]
The sanctuary cities 'safety' measure Texas cops don't want
Raul A. Reyes: While supporters of SB 4 have presented it as a "law and order" measure, the reality is different; instead of making Texas safer, it will have the opposite effect
May 8, 2017
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/08/opinions/texas-sanctuary-cities-reyes-opinion/ [with embedded video, and comments]
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President Trump’s lawyers on revised travel ban repeatedly asked about campaign promises
May 8,2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/presidents-trump-revised-travel-ban-faces-new-legal-challenges/2017/05/08/c4c6f968-3387-11e7-b373-418f6849a004_story.html [with embedded video, and comments]
*
Trump to Announce Slate of Conservative Federal Court Nominees
Justice Joan L. Larsen of the Michigan Supreme Court will be nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati.
MAY 7, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/07/us/politics/trump-lower-court-nominees-conservatives.html [with comments]
Trump has just begun massively reshaping American appeals courts
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54675937/513202284.0.jpg)
Justice Joan Larsen speaks at Justice Antonin Scalia’s memorial service last year.
May 8, 2017
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/8/15579676/trump-federal-courts-appeals-district-supreme-larsen-stras
The Trump Judiciary
May 8, 2017
http://www.pfaw.org/blog-posts/the-trump-judiciary/
PFAW Statement on Trump’s Slate of Judicial Nominees
May 8, 2017
http://www.pfaw.org/press-releases/pfaw-statement-on-trumps-slate-of-judicial-nominees/
Trump begins effort to pack courts with conservatives
May 05, 2017
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration will name nearly a dozen judges as nominees for key posts Monday as President Donald Trump works to pack the nation’s federal courts with more conservative voices.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that among the candidates are individuals previously named on Trump’s list of 21 possible picks for Supreme Court justice.
Trump will nominate Joan Larsen, who currently serves on Michigan’s Supreme Court, to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, and David Stras, a justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court bench, to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis.
[...]
https://www.apnews.com/2d25401d9abf4a268229bb30d91c36db/Trump-begins-effort-to-pack-courts-with-conservatives
Civil and Human Rights Coalition Urges Senate to Fully Vet Trump’s Judicial Nominees
May 8, 2017
http://www.civilrights.org/press/2017/Urges-Senate-Fully-Vet-Trump-Judicial-Nominees.html
Gun groups rejoice at Trump’s new federal court nominations
5/08/17
http://www.guns.com/2017/05/08/gun-groups-rejoice-at-trumps-10-federal-court-nominations/ [with comments]
*
Trump suggests financing for historically black colleges may be unconstitutional
05/05/17 Updated 05/06/17
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/05/trump-historically-black-colleges-financing-unconstitutional-238061 [with comments]
Trump Suggests HBCU Funding May Be Unconstitutional, Blindsiding Black Colleges
A federal program that helps fund HBCUs may unconstitutionally discriminate based on race, the administration suggested in a statement.
May 6, 2017 Updated on May 7, 2017
https://www.buzzfeed.com/mollyhensleyclancy/trump-suggests-hbcu-funding-may-be-unconstitutional [with comments]
Trump Walks Back Threat to Defund Black Colleges
President Trump with officials from historically black colleges and universities in February in the Oval Office.
MAY 8, 2017
WASHINGTON — When President Trump signed a $1.1 trillion spending bill on Friday, he zeroed in on a tiny sliver of it, suggesting that he might disregard $20 million in funding for loan subsidies and other aid to historically black universities.
Two nights later, after a storm of criticism, the White House walked back the threat in a statement that declared the president’s “unwavering support” for such schools.
But the two days in between left some African-American educators feeling used, many black politicians enraged and some demanding that Mr. Trump back his “unwavering support” with a show of budgetary support. It also, once again, revealed a White House where one team does not necessarily know what another team is up to.
“I worked to make sure there was clarity because I observed that there was feedback and some were misconstruing the signing statement,” Omarosa Manigault, a close aide to Mr. Trump, said in an interview on Monday. Ms. Manigault headed Mr. Trump’s outreach to black voters during his presidential campaign and had publicly promised that his budget would protect historically black colleges and universities.
The Friday signing statement hit hard because in February [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/us/backlash-black-colleges-trump.html ], he had invited dozens of presidents from historically black universities to visit him in the Oval Office while he signed an executive order that moved an initiative to support such schools from the Education Department into the White House. That was followed by Ms. Manigault’s open boast that while cuts in the president’s budget would be deep, black higher education was safe.
“I think it was a photo op,” said Marybeth Gasman, a University of Pennsylvania professor who has studied historically black universities since 1994. She called Mr. Trump’s statement on Friday “offensive” and said she is worried that he is signaling to the schools that he has the power to make life difficult for them.
Mr. Trump’s suggestion that he might disregard the aid provision was made in a signing statement [ https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/05/05/statement-president-donald-j-trump-signing-hr-244-law ], an official document laying out his interpretation of the new statutes created by a bill. In it, he suggested that directing government spending to universities associated with a particular race was an unconstitutional infringement of people’s due process rights.
That language invoked the view, held by some conservatives, that affirmative action-style programs amount to discrimination against whites. ...
[...]
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/us/politics/historically-black-colleges-omarosa-trump.html
*
Pepe the Frog Is Dead, or So His Creator Hopes
The Anti-Defamation League designated Pepe the Frog as a hate symbol in 2016, and later pledged to help its artist reclaim it.
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
"@codyave: @drudgereport @BreitbartNews @Writeintrump "You Can't Stump the Trump" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKH6PAoUuD0 ... "
[ https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/653856168402681856 (with comments)]
Matt Furie with a great single page send-off. #freecomicbookday #mattfurie http://ift.tt/2plbmAb
12:00 PM - 6 May 2017
[ https://twitter.com/therealphaTT/status/860902046467321856 (with comments)]
Lol this just means we won
9:09 AM - 8 May 2017
[ https://twitter.com/RealPAR2001/status/861583789218299905 (with comment)]
MAY 8, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/us/pepe-the-frog-comic.html
Pepe the Frog Is Dead: Creator Kills Off Meme Absorbed by Far-Right
An attendee holds up a sign of Pepe the Frog during a campaign event with Donald Trump in New Hampshire on Sept. 29, 2016.
May 8 2017
http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/pepe-frog-dead-creator-kills-meme-absorbed-far-right-n756281
I Met the White Nationalist Who "Falcon Punched" a 95-Pound Female Protester
Nathan Damigo, in blue shirt, at the April 15 rally in Berkeley where he punched anti-fascist protester Emily Rose Marshall.
[ https://imgur.com/BAkldaJ (with comments)] [via https://voat.co/v/whatever/1800715 (with comments)]
Ju
@MadeinCalcio
Ever gender,
Every race,
Punch a commie in the face. #Berkeley
2:08 PM - 16 Apr 2017
[ https://twitter.com/MadeinCalcio/status/853686583622610944 (with comments)] [via https://www.wired.com/2017/04/meme-army-now-militia/ ]
Berkeley police won't say whether or not they plan to arrest the alt-right's new hero, Nathan Damigo.
May 9, 2017
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/nathan-damigo-punching-woman-berkeley-white-nationalism [with comments]
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Donald Trump, the failure, fools his supporters
AM Joy
5/7/17
Joy Reid and her panel discuss how despite Donald Trump failing on so many initiatives, his voters, particularly white evangelical voters, continue to believe he is doing a great job. Duration: 13:15
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/donald-trump-the-failure-fools-his-supporters-938290755734
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Backlash against Trumpcare erupts across heartland
AM Joy
5/7/17
Trump campaigned by appealing to middle America, but these voters are raising their voices against the GOP healthcare bill. Joy Reid and her panel discuss. Duration: 9:21
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/backlash-against-trumpcare-erupts-across-heartland-938294339723
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Neil deGrasse Tyson on hunger for science despite Trump
AM Joy
5/7/17
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson joins Joy Reid to discuss his new book, ‘Astrophysics for People in a Hurry,’ the number one book on all of Amazon, showing people’s hunger for science despite an anti-science administration. Duration: 6:54
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/neil-degrasse-tyson-on-hunger-for-science-despite-trump-938296899835 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjARh-yKq5k [with comments]
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FOX: sexual assault case comes to light
AM Joy
5/7/17
A victim of sexual assault perpetrated by a FOX employee shares how coming forward made her “toxic” to many in the industry, as Joy and her panel discuss the pervasiveness of sexual harassment. Duration: 12:37
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/fox-sexual-assault-case-comes-to-light-938306115770 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oBOyZynI9Y [with comments]
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No justice under Trump?
AM Joy
5/7/17
The senseless, fatal shooting of 15-year-old Jordan Edwards in Texas by a police officer is stoking the flames of various social justice organizations, eager to maintain the police oversight gains won under Obama. Joy Reid and her panel discuss. Duration: 8:55
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/no-justice-under-trump-938312771865
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‘Dear White People’: Resounding hit tackles race
AM Joy
5/7/17
Creator of the Netflix hit show, ‘Dear White People,’ Justin Simien, joins Joy Reid to discuss the backlash against the series, which speaks directly to many of the most pressing racial issues of our time. Duration: 7:15
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/-dear-white-people-resounding-hit-tackles-race-938312260000 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pq_7_LUnag [with comments]
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Marine Le Pen accepts defeat
Published on May 7, 2017 by RobinHoodUKIP [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn1wSZL86FfGqZ3aDHiERgw , https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn1wSZL86FfGqZ3aDHiERgw/videos ]
(7TH MAY 2017) Subscribe to keep globalism at bay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrt47_pwGJA [with comments]
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Breaking: Globalist Macron Beats Le Pen In French Landslide
Streamed live on May 7, 2017 by The Alex Jones Channel [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvsye7V9psc-APX6wV1twLg / https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlexJonesChannel , https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlexJonesChannel/videos ]
Alex Jones breaks down the latest MSM attacks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r--W3AERd20 [with comments]
*
Live: Steven Colbert Is Now The Leader Of The Democratic Party
Streamed live on May 7, 2017 by The Alex Jones Channel
Alex Jones breaks down the latest MSM attacks.
Hypocrisy of conservatives upset about Colbert
5/6/17
A panel of comedians joins Joy Reid in support of Stephen Colbert, reminding us that truth-telling comics are necessary to prevent society from normalizing Donald Trump. Duration: 8:22
http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/hypocrisy-of-conservatives-upset-about-colbert-937969219920 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmlXtfZ-EFk [with comments]
Ivanka Trump’s new book: offensively frivolous
5/6/17
Reading the first daughter’s new book has been described as like ‘eating scented cotton balls’ – but Joy Reid and her panel discuss the bigger problem: Ivanka Trump peddling ironic hypocrisies in ‘Women Who Work.’ Duration: 12:04
http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/ivanka-trump-s-new-book-offensively-frivolous-937963075646 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPnDeQXEsL0 [with comments]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7vYVqwP5M8 [with comments]
*
Exclusive: Macron Wins / 5th Column In Whitehouse Plans Trump Overthrow
Published on May 8, 2017 by The Alex Jones Channel
Sunday, May 7th 2017[, with an appearance by Roger Stone]: Globalists Score Win in France - European Union darling Emmanuel Macron will become the youngest president to lead France following a sweeping electoral victory. The crucial vote pitted the globalist Macron against nationalist candidate Marine Le Pen. We'll break down how the election outcome benefits the establishment and its impact on the rising populist movement. Also, more nuke threats from North Korea, and can Congress deliver a decent Obamacare replacement?
https://www.infowars.com/macron-elected-french-president-estimates/
https://www.infowars.com/real-time-host-bill-maher-is-accused-of-crossing-the-line-with-tasteless-incest-joke-about-ivanka-trump/
https://www.infowars.com/firecolbert-cbs-urged-to-fire-stephen-colbert-over-trump-cok-holster-remark/
*VIDEO RESPONDS... https://www.infowars.com/alex-jones-challenges-stephen-colbert-to-be-a-man/
https://www.infowars.com/stephen-colbert-under-fcc-scrutiny-after-homophobic-joke-about-donald-trump-and-putin/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9ApcrqWO_c [with comments]
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Profile In Courage Award Ceremony with President Barack Obama
Streamed live on May 8, 2017 by JFK Library [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl-radPCbXcrYCE4EdNH3QA / https://www.youtube.com/user/JFKLF , https://www.youtube.com/user/JFKLF/videos ]
Ambassador Caroline Kennedy and her son, Jack Schlossberg, present the 2017 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award to former President Barack H. Obama as part of the centennial celebration of John F. Kennedy’s birth. Held at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, the evening will include a special performance by James Taylor with Kim Taylor and Owen Young.
The Kennedy Center [lotsa good stuff]
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheKennedyCenter/videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXEAZ5XcwxA [the special performance by James Taylor with Kim Taylor and Owen Young begins at c. the 3:15 mark; Obama's appearance and remarks begin at c. the 36:05 mark; with comments]
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Net Neutrality II: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
Published on May 7, 2017 by LastWeekTonight [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3XTzVzaHQEd30rQbuvCtTQ / https://www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight , https://www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight/videos ]
Equal access to online information is once again under serious threat. John Oliver encourages internet commenters to voice their displeasure to the FCC by visiting www.gofccyourself.com and clicking "express" to file your comment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vuuZt7wak [with (over 5,000) comments]
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EPA dismisses half of key board’s scientific advisers; Interior suspends more than 200 advisory panels
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt speaks with coal miners at the Harvey Mine on April 13 in Sycamore, Pa. The Harvey Mine, owned by CNX Coal Resources, is part of the largest underground mining complex in the United States.
May 7, 2017
Both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department are overhauling a slew of outside advisory boards that inform how their agencies assess the science underpinning policies, the first step in a broader effort by Republicans to change the way the federal government evaluates the scientific basis for its regulations.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt decided to replace half of the members on one of its key scientific review boards, while Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is “reviewing the charter and charge” of more than 200 advisory boards, committees and other entities both within and outside his department. EPA and Interior officials began informing current members of the move Friday, and notifications continued over the weekend.
Pruitt’s move could significantly change the makeup of the 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC), which advises EPA’s prime scientific arm on whether the research it does has sufficient rigor and integrity, and addresses important scientific questions. All of the people being dismissed were at the end of serving at least one three-year term, although these terms are often renewed instead of terminated.
[...]
Separately, Zinke has postponed all outside committees as he reviews their composition and work. The review will effectively freeze the work of the Bureau of Land Management’s 38 resource advisory councils, along with other panels focused on a sweep of issues, from one assessing the threat of invasive species to the science technical advisory panel for Alaska’s North Slope.
“The Secretary is committed to restoring trust in the Department’s decision-making and that begins with institutionalizing state and local input and ongoing collaboration, particularly in communities surrounding public lands,” Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift said by email Monday. “As the Department concludes its review in the weeks ahead, agencies will notice future meetings to ensure that the Department continues to get the benefit of the views of local communities in all decision-making on public land management.”
Greg Zimmerman, deputy director of the non-partisan advocacy group Center for Western Priorities [ http://westernpriorities.org/ ], said in an interview that “it just doesn’t make any sense they would be canceling meetings as they do this analysis.” BLM’s regional advisory councils include officials from the energy and outdoor recreation industry as well as scientists and conservationists, Zimmerman added. “The only reasonable explanation is they don’t want to be hearing from these folks.”
The moves came as a surprise to the agencies’ outside advisers, with several of them taking to Twitter to announce their suspensions.
[...]
Pruitt is planning a much broader overhaul of how the agency conducts its scientific analysis, said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Pruitt has been meeting with academics to talk about the matter and putting thought into which areas of investigation warrant attention from the agency’s scientific advisers.
The agency may consider industry scientific experts for some of the board positions as long as these appointments do not pose a conflict of interest, Freire said.
Conservatives have complained for years about EPA’s approach to science, including the input it receives from outside scientific bodies. Both the Board of Scientific Counselors and the 47-member Scientific Advisory Board have come under criticism for bolstering the cause for greater federal regulation.
A majority of the members of the Board of Scientific Counselors have terms expiring this fiscal year [ http://facadatabase.gov/committee/members.aspx?cid=1577 ], along with the terms of 12 members of the Scientific Advisory Board. GOP lawmakers have frequently criticized the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC)—a committee within the Scientific Advisory Board—for its recommendation that the EPA impose much stricter curbs on smog-forming ozone. The seven-person panel, which is charged under the Clean Air Act to review the scientific basis of all ambient air quality standards, is legally required to have a medical doctor and a member of the National Academy of Sciences as members.
Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), who questions the link between human activity and climate change and has several former aides now working for Pruitt, said in an interview earlier this year that under the new administration, “they’re going to have to start dealing with science, and not rigged science.”
House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) held a hearing on the issue in February, arguing that the Scientific Advisory Board should be expanded to include more non-academics. The panel, which was established in 1978, is primarily made up of academic scientists and other experts who review EPA’s research to ensure that the regulations the agency undertakes have a sound scientific basis.
“The EPA routinely stacks this board with friendly scientists who receive millions of dollars in grants from the federal government,” Smith said at the time. “The conflict of interest here is clear.”
In a budget proposal obtained by The Washington Post last month, the panel’s operating budget is slated for an 84 percent cut [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/04/04/trump-doesnt-just-want-to-cut-the-epas-science-he-wants-to-cut-its-expertise/?utm_term=.68a9f6b45a7b ] — or $542,000 — for fiscal 2018. That money typically covers travel and other expenses for outside experts who attend the board’s public meetings.
The document said the budget cut reflects “an anticipated lower number of peer reviews.”
[...]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/05/07/epa-dismisses-half-of-its-scientific-advisers-on-key-board-citing-clean-break-with-obama-administration/ [with embedded video, and comments]
*
Interior IDs 27 monuments for possible end to protections
May 05, 2017
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Interior Department on Friday identified 27 national monuments, mostly in Western states, that it is reviewing for possible changes to the protections created by Republican and Democratic presidents over the past two decades.
President Donald Trump ordered the review last month, saying protections imposed by his three immediate predecessors amounted to “a massive federal land grab” that “should never have happened.”
A list released Friday includes 22 monuments on federal land in 11, mostly Western states, including Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah, Nevada’s Basin and Range and Katahdin Woods and Waters in Maine.
The review also targets five marine monuments in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, including a huge reserve in Hawaii established in 2006 by President George W. Bush and expanded last year by President Barack Obama.
[...]
https://www.apnews.com/d4a8a93160374076a6fbbaaa97d00748/Interior-IDs-27-monuments-for-possible-end-to-protections
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Are Industry Interests Behind President Trump’s Attack on National Monuments?
President Donald Trump holds up the signed executive order on the Antiquities Act during a ceremony at the Interior Department on April 26, 2017.
May 8, 2017
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2017/05/08/432011/industry-interests-behind-president-trumps-attack-national-monuments/
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France sent 42 people to a global climate summit. The Trump administration sent 7.
Demonstrators hold a sit in outside the White House during the People’s Climate March in Washington on April 29.
May 8, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/05/08/france-sent-42-people-to-a-global-climate-summit-the-trump-administration-sent-7/ [with comments]
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Eric Trump 'said we have all the funding we need out of Russia', golf writer claims
A journalist recalled the statements from the now-President and his son during a trip to North Carolina
8 May 2017
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/eric-trump-donald-golf-courses-russia-funding-golf-writer-interview-2014-james-dodson-a7722806.html [with embedded videos, and comments]
Eric Trump said family golf courses attracted Russian funding, author claims
Donald Trump on one of his golf courses.
President’s son denies he said Trump Organization had ‘all the funding we need’ from Russia while Donald Trump ‘tossed off that he had access to $100m’
8 May 2017
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/07/trump-family-golf-courses-russia-funding-author-claims
A Day (And A Cheeseburger) With President Trump
May 05, 2017 Updated 2017-05-08
[...]
When the big day arrived, a dark, gray sky provided the first sign that all would not go as planned. Dodson was a little late arriving, and by the time he entered the Trump National Charlotte clubhouse, his host was already holding forth.
"Trump was strutting up and down, talking to his new members about how they were part of the greatest club in North Carolina," Dodson says. "And when I first met him, I asked him how he was — you know, this is the journalist in me — I said, 'What are you using to pay for these courses?' And he just sort of tossed off that he had access to $100 million."
$100 million.
"So when I got in the cart with Eric," Dodson says, "as we were setting off, I said, 'Eric, who’s funding? I know no banks — because of the recession, the Great Recession — have touched a golf course. You know, no one’s funding any kind of golf construction. It’s dead in the water the last four or five years.' And this is what he said. He said, 'Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.' I said, 'Really?' And he said, 'Oh, yeah. We’ve got some guys that really, really love golf, and they’re really invested in our programs. We just go there all the time.' Now that was three years ago, so it was pretty interesting."
Well, yeah. It is. (Update: Eric Trump has denied [ http://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2017/05/08/eric-trump-russia-golf-course-funding ] saying this about Russia.)
[...]
http://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2017/05/05/james-dodson-donald-trump-golf [the original source; with embedded audio, and comments]
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Full Show - Illuminati Mascot Macron Celebrates France’s Enslavement - 05/08/2017
Published on May 9, 2017 by The Alex Jones Channel
Monday, May 8th, 2017[, with an appearance by George Neumayr]: We discuss the aftermath of the French election and how the establishment media is now claiming there was a “record number of blank and invalid ballots,” which indicates the globalists stole the election to save the EU. In US news, Trump insider Roger Stone starts naming the names of those attempting to derail President Trump from inside DC. And activist Jack Posobiec breaks down other developments.
What humans will look like in 1,000 years
There will eventually be a day where prosthetics are no longer just for the disabled.
However, it’s not just our outside appearance that will change – our genes will also evolve on microscopic levels to aid our survival. For example, an Oxford-led study discovered a group of HIV-infected children in South Africa living healthy lives. It turns out, they have a built-in defense against HIV that prevents the virus from advancing to AIDS.
And with gene-editing tools like CRISPR, we may eventually control our genes and DNA to the point where we make ourselves immune to disease and even reverse the effects of aging.
Another way to jump-start the human evolution on a different path is to move some of us to Mars. Mars receives 66% less sunlight than Earth. Which could mean humans on Mars will evolve larger pupils that can absorb more light in order to see. And since Mars’ gravitational pull is only 38% of Earth’s, people born on Mars might actually be taller than anyone on Earth. In space, the fluid that separates our vertebrae expands, which led American aerospace engineer, Robert Zubrin to suggest that Mars’ low gravity could allow the human spine to elongate enough to add a few extra inches to our height.
However, not even a move to Mars could spark the biggest change in human evolution that we may have coming in the next 1,000 years: immortality. The path to immortality will likely require humans to download their consciousness into a machine. Right now, scientists in Italy and China are performing head transplants on animals to determine if you can transfer consciousness from one body to another. They claim their next big step is to transplant human heads.
Whatever happens in the next 1,000 years — whether we merge with machines or become them — one thing is certain: The human race is always changing — and the faster we change and branch out from Earth, the better chance we have of outrunning extinction.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-humans-look-like-1000-years-2017-4 , http://www.businessinsider.com/sai
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BibBMBibTq0 [with (over 15,000) comments]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtCrqO520iI [with comments]
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FULL HEARING: Sally Yates & James Clapper Testify About Flynn/Russia and Interference in Election
Published on May 8, 2017 by FOX 10 Phoenix [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJg9wBPyKMNA5sRDnvzmkdg , https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJg9wBPyKMNA5sRDnvzmkdg/videos ]
The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime & Terrorism holds hearing entitled "Russian Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election." Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates & Former D.N.I. James Clapper testify.
Full transcript: Sally Yates and James Clapper testify on Russian election interference
May 8, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/08/full-transcript-sally-yates-and-james-clapper-testify-on-russian-election-interference/ [with embedded video, and comments]
Sally Yates just publicly confirmed important facts about the Trump-Russia story
May 8, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/05/08/sally-yates-just-publicly-confirmed-important-facts-about-the-trump-russia-story/ [with embedded video, and comments]
Why the Sally Yates Hearing Was Very Bad News for the Trump White House
The president just lost his favorite piece of spin for countering the Russia scandal.
May 8, 2017
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/sally-yates-clapper-russia-trump-hearing-michael-flynn [with comments]
Trump’s pointing of the finger at Obama for failing to vet Flynn
“General Flynn was given the highest security clearance by the Obama Administration — but the Fake News seldom likes talking about that.”
— President Trump, in a tweet, May 8, 2017
“If President Obama was truly concerned about General Flynn, why didn’t he suspend General Flynn’s security clearance, which they had just reapproved months earlier. Additionally, why did the Obama administration let Flynn go to Russia for a paid speaking engagement and receive a fee?”
— White House spokesman Sean Spicer, at a news briefing, May 8, 2017
May 9, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/05/09/trumps-pointing-of-the-finger-at-obama-for-failing-to-vet-flynn/ [with embedded videos, and comments]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFuOLZzOogQ [with comments] [and see also in particular (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131177799 and preceding and following]
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Bernie Sanders & Jimmy Carter - LIVE from the Carter Center - A Conversation on Human Rights
Streamed live on May 8, 2017 by Uphill Media [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpVhqCnd6iz3gfJUuGM1r7g , https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpVhqCnd6iz3gfJUuGM1r7g/videos ]
Join the conversation for this hosted livestream event as we watch Jimmy Carter and Sen. Bernie Sanders discuss human rights at the Carter Center in Georgia. The Carter Center is providing the stream via Facebook and we will restream it right here on Uphill Media.
(There's a Part 2 because the stream was briefly interrupted at the emd of Part 1, then continued with Part 2.)
Carter Center Event Information
https://www.cartercenter.org/news/upcoming_events/promo/hrd-forum-2017.html
https://www.facebook.com/cartercenter
"Freedom from Fear: Securing Rights in Challenging Times"
Join us for a live webcast of the Carter Center's annual Human Rights Defenders Forum, during which more than 70 activists, scholars, and community leaders will come together at the Center to discuss ways to protect human rights in an era of rising authoritarianism.
“Freedom from Fear: Securing Rights in Challenging Times” will shine a spotlight on some of the obstacles human rights defenders are facing as governments in many countries clamp down on public debate and activism. The forum also will showcase the experiences of the courageous women and men on the front lines of this fight.
In addition to the webcast, a special conversation on human rights between former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders will air on Facebook on Monday, May 8, at 6:20 p.m.
The Carter Center Live Stream https://www.facebook.com/cartercenter/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiEG5kNURxM [with comments],
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2fwnUzZLgY [with comments]
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Sally Yates is an American Hero | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann | GQ
Published on May 8, 2017 by GQ [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsEukrAd64fqA7FjwkmZ_Dw / https://www.youtube.com/user/GQVideos , https://www.youtube.com/user/GQVideos/videos , https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0hKMB1-xkc-XWNf9VL-LxVYysdHpjyMF ]
And Trump? He is in trouble.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdIg1DfS9LE [with comments]
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Infowars Nightly News - Investigate Yates & Clapper - 05/08/2017
Streamed live on May 9, 2017 by The Alex Jones Channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVwEPLRRv1o [with comments]
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Did Trump lie about the Flynn fiasco?
All In with Chris Hayes
5/8/17
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on the Sally Yates testimony and the president's claim he was unaware that Michael Flynn talked sanctions with the Russians. Duration: 8:52
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/did-trump-lie-about-the-flynn-fiasco-939223107741
*
Kushner family impropriety?
All In with Chris Hayes
5/8/17
Jared Kushner's sister mentioned her brother's role in the administration while pitching investments in U.S. property to Chinese investors in exchange for a path to citizenship. Duration: 5:14
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/kushner-family-impropriety-939226691878 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOA4Haz0nnM [with comments]
*
Two big GOP lies on health care
All In with Chris Hayes
5/8/17
GOP Congressman Raul Labrador says nobody dies because they don't have health insurance and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise defends Trumpcare by saying 'nobody can be charged more than anybody else.' Duration: 2:59
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/republicans-lie-about-health-care-939225155749 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoSqgVzoJVo [with comments]
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Cracks deepen in White House Flynn story with new Senate testimony
The Rachel Maddow Show
5/8/17
Rachel Maddow reports on what was learned from testimony by former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee. Duration: 19:45
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/cracks-deepen-in-white-house-flynn-story-with-new-senate-testimony-939298883702 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTFQNZMEM0k [with comments]
*
Still unexplained: Trump's 18 day delay in firing Flynn
The Rachel Maddow Show
5/8/17
Adam Schiff, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, talks with Rachel Maddow about what was learned from testimony in the Senate by Sally Yates and James Clapper, and why it took Donald Trump so long to act on knowledge that Mike Flynn was compromised. Duration: 9:54
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/still-unexplained-trump-s-18-day-delay-in-firing-flynn-939309123542
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Yates message to White House 'extraordinary'
The Rachel Maddow Show
5/8/17
Matthew Axelrod, who served as principal deputy to former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, talks with Rachel Maddow about Yates' integrity and her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee. Duration: 6:30
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/yates-message-to-white-house-extraordinary-939324483573
*
Democrats look to supplant Republicans avoiding home town halls
The Rachel Maddow Show
5/8/17
Rachel Maddow reports on a new idea of Democratic members of Congress attending town halls in neighboring districts where the Republican representative is unresponsive to constituents amid a backlash against GOP lawmakers who voted to kill Obamacare. Duration: 4:17
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/democrats-look-to-supplant-republicans-avoiding-home-town-halls-939331651863 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPXFFJTZD8c [with comments]
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White House waited 18 days to fire Flynn after warning
The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell
5/8/17
Sally Yates warned the White House that Michael Flynn could be compromised by the Russians but some at her Senate hearing were more concerned with how a newspaper learned that Flynn wasn’t telling the truth. Tim Mak, Meike Eoyang, Ned Price and David Corn discuss. Duration: 14:50
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/white-house-waited-18-days-to-fire-flynn-after-warning-939307075845 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3-1d-8OBBc [with comments]
*
French Pres-Elect Spokesperson: Populism lost
The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell
5/8/17
Trump-style nationalism lost in France even though Russia may have tried to hack and influence the election. Did the outcome make Europe stronger? Is this a message to Trump and Putin? Laura Haim, spokesperson for the French President-Elect and David Rothkopf join Lawrence. Duration: 8:04
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/french-pres-elect-spokesperson-populism-lost-939310659739
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Yates testifies on Russia, Mike Flynn, & Team Trump's reaction
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams
5/8/17
Detailing how she warned the White House that Michael Flynn could be compromised by Moscow, several senators are puzzled by the reaction she got from Trump's White House lawyer. Duration: 13:14
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/brian-williams/watch/yates-testifies-on-russia-mike-flynn-team-trump-s-reaction-939322947949
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Sen. Dick Durbin reacts to Yates testimony on Russia & Flynn
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams
5/8/17
Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) joins MSNBC's Brian Williams to discuss what he learned during fmr. acting Atty. General Sally Yates' testimony. Duration: 3:25
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/brian-williams/watch/sen-dick-durbin-reacts-to-yates-testimony-on-russia-flynn-939330115541
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Kushner family biz deal raises ethics questions for Team Trump
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams
5/8/17
MSNBC's Brian Williams talks to Stephanie Ruhle and Gillian Tett about a Kushner family business deal that could end up being a headache for the Trump White House. Duration: 6:19
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/brian-williams/watch/kushner-family-biz-deal-raises-ethics-questions-for-team-trump-939332675978 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyE7Unxk20Q [with comments]
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The All-Male Panel on Women's Health: The Daily Show
Published on May 8, 2017 by The Daily Show with Trevor Noah [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwWhs_6x42TyRM4Wstoq8HA , https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwWhs_6x42TyRM4Wstoq8HA/videos ]
Michelle Wolf explains why Senate Republicans need to include women on the panel responsible for crafting health care legislation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0_pm8Sl0rQ [with comments]
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Jimmy Kimmel on Response to Emotional Monologue About Baby & Health Care Debate
Published on May 8, 2017 by Jimmy Kimmel Live [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa6vGFO9ty8v5KZJXQxdhaw / https://www.youtube.com/user/JimmyKimmelLive , https://www.youtube.com/user/JimmyKimmelLive/videos ]
Jimmy returns from his time off after his newborn son Billy had heart surgery and he talks about the outpouring of love and support he has received, the not-so-nice things some people have said, and he speaks with Louisiana’s Republican Senator Bill Cassidy about the health care debate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SToeM55KMzU [with comments]
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Lie Witness News: Trumpcare Edition
Published on May 9, 2017 by Jimmy Kimmel Live
On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed what they call the American Healthcare Act also called Trumpcare. So this afternoon we went out on the street and asked people who claimed to be in favor of the new GOP health care plan about a bunch of provisions we totally made up in a know-your-health-care edition of #LieWitnessNews [ https://www.youtube.com/results?q=%23LieWitnessNews ]
[originally aired May 8, 2017].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brj7j9bWQik [with comments]
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The Kentucky Derby Was Eerily Reminiscent Of The Election
Published on May 9, 2017 by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMtFAi84ehTSYSE9XoHefig , https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMtFAi84ehTSYSE9XoHefig/videos ]
Saturday's race at Churchill Downs seems to have been a microcosm for something bigger.
[originally aired May 8, 2017]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdckXpqalBA [with comments]
*
What Ambulances Will Look Like Under Trumpcare
Published on May 9, 2017 by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Virginia gubernatorial candidate Tom Perriello is finding alternative uses for ambulances in case Trumpcare deems them useless.
[originally aired May 8, 2017]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKc08iYhW9A [with comments]
*
Bill Nye Explains Why The March For Science Was Necessary
Published on May 9, 2017 by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
'Bill Nye Saves the World' star says current administration isn't upholding the U.S. Constitution's promise to 'promote the progress of science and useful arts.'
[originally aired May 8, 2017 (U.S. central time)]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odwUm0strNM [with comments]
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Obama Warned Trump About Flynn, GOP Defends Health Care Bill: A Closer Look
Published on May 8, 2017 by Late Night with Seth Meyers [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVTyTA7-g9nopHeHbeuvpRA / https://www.youtube.com/user/LateNightSeth , https://www.youtube.com/user/LateNightSeth/videos ]
Seth takes a closer look at the revelation then-President Obama warned Trump against ousted NSA head Michael Flynn and the fallout from the Republicans' unpopular health care bill.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7hzxYvCIUo [with comments]
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President Barack Obama Speaks at Global Food Innovation Summit in Milan
Published on May 9, 2017 by LIVE SATELLITE NEWS [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEu3KY-hNCbWVCXrqQfPB9w / https://www.youtube.com/user/psb2usa , https://www.youtube.com/user/psb2usa/videos ]
9 May 2017: Milan, Italy. Former U.S. President Barack Obama delivers a keynote speech on food security and the environment, two issues that he has long worked on. Former US Pres. Obama speaks at international summit of food innovation in Milan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfFa46s6wlg [with comment] [also, full event with Obama participating in the continuing discussion, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaQpffnZRWA (text adapted from; no comments yet), and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnkkYQBs-Xw (no comments yet)]
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in addition to (linked in) the post to which this is a reply and preceding and (any future other) following, see also (linked in):
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http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=129195714 and preceding and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131184060 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=129013931 and preceding and following;
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=130177377 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131144707 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131144983 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131149422 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131149862 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131151117 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131151411 and preceding (and any future following),
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131169195 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131164447 and preceding and following
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http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131167960 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131167113 and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131177799 and preceding and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131178157 and preceding (and any future following),
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131180021 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131175037 and preceding (and any future following)
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http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131178639 (and any future following)
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Julia Hahn on July 24, 2015, at the Breitbart offices in Washington.
Photo: Jeremy Liebman
White Fear in the White House: Young Bannon Disciple Julia Hahn Is a Case Study in Extremism
Peter Maass
May 7 2017, 8:45 a.m.
Steve Bannon, who is no stranger to controversy, faced a torrent of reproval when it was revealed [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/steve-bannon-camp-of-the-saints-immigration_us_58b75206e4b0284854b3dc03 ] not long ago that he had praised a detestable novel envisioning France invaded by an armada of brown-skinned migrants from India. The French novel is called “The Camp of the Saints,” and Bannon recommended it on several occasions when he was executive chairman of Breitbart News, to justify what he perceived as a mortal threat that whites face from immigration.
The book, published in the 1970s, had existed for decades as an obscure cornerstone of the utmost fringes of white racism. The Indian children in the novel were referred to as “little monsters,” and the adults were described as sexual maniacs who filled their ships with “rivers of sperm, streaming over bodies, oozing between breasts, and buttocks, and thighs, and lips, and fingers.” The novel ended with hundreds of thousands of them taking over France and, by extension, the West. When it came out in the United States, Kirkus Reviews noted that “the publishers are presenting ‘The Camp of the Saints’ as a major event, and it probably is, in much the same sense that Mein Kampf was a major event.”
Bannon, now a senior adviser to President Donald Trump, made his glowing comments during radio programs he hosted in 2015 and 2016. But his comments were brief and in passing. The most enthusiastic endorsement of the book from anyone at Breitbart, and certainly the longest endorsement, came from a young reporter who wrote a gushing 4,000-word article [ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/24/camp-saints-seen-mirrored-popes-message/ ] that said “all around the world, events seem to be lining up with the predictions of the book.” The article, which neglected to mention that “The Camp of the Saints” is widely regarded as utterly racist, merely described it as controversial, and made conspiratorial parallels between its fictional characters and Pope Francis, Marco Rubio, and even Glenn Beck.
The Breitbart reporter was Julia Hahn, a Bannon protégé who followed him into the White House as a special assistant to President Trump. Bannon and other alt-right figures in the West Wing, including Sebastian Gorka, have received enormous amounts of criticism for espousing ideas that are seen as racist or ridiculous. Gorka is reported [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/us/politics/sebastian-gorka-white-house.html ] to be leaving the White House, and there have been reports [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/12/us/politics/steve-bannon-white-house-trump.html ] that Bannon might be edged out, too. But Hahn has gotten almost no notice for writing what appears to be the longest and most laudatory article about “The Camp of the Saints” that has appeared in the American media in recent years. The few in-depth stories about her getting a job at the White House have mostly focused on her lashing criticism of Paul Ryan, the House speaker whose conservative positions on immigration were far too permissive for Bannon, Hahn, and the rest of Breitbart.
At a glance, Hahn is an outlier among outliers. She was raised in Beverly Hills, attended a private high school, and the only wisp of political activity in her adolescence was a decidedly liberal, pro-immigration gesture: She raised money for a group that brought foreign orphans to the United States. She majored in philosophy at the University of Chicago, and the sole public trace of her time there is a video [ https://vimeo.com/71347395 ] of a panel discussion in which she discussed Michael Foucault’s idea that psychoanalysis stigmatizes human sexuality.
Not long after she was appointed to the White House at the age of just 25, one of her college friends reacted by writing on Facebook, “It’s weird because she was always very nice and it’s disappointing when seemingly nice people turn out to be Nazis/Nazi-adjacent.” Another friend asked, “WTF happened???”
The question of what happened offers an opportunity of sorts. There has been a lot of discussion about countering extremism and identifying extremists before they do something that harms themselves or the nation. How do young people become radicalized? The preferred means for answering these questions are not mysterious — find out the ideas that young people are exposed to, find out the social environment they are raised in, and work from there. This framework has been applied mostly to Islamic extremism, with the goal of figuring out why some Muslims become terrorists.
But the tools of “countering violent extremism,” as it’s known, work extremely well for figuring out the riddle of rich white kids who turn to the fringes of the right. How does someone who raised money for foreign orphans write, a few years later, a screed for Breitbart headlined “Muslim Immigration Puts Half a Million U.S. Girls at Risk of Genital Mutilation”? One of the first things you would seek to do, in the effort to understand the creation of this extremist, is to investigate the place where she was raised. It turned out that I didn’t need to search far, because I grew up less than a mile from Hahn’s home, and attended the same high school.
* * *
An athletic field at Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, California. The private school, attended by Julia Hahn, costs about $40,000 a year for tuition and boasts a high success rate in getting its students admitted into Ivy League universities.
Photo: Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images
In a way, Julia Hahn is the Patty Hearst of the far right, a daughter of privilege who veered wildly off the expected course. While she has said almost nothing about her journey to the virulent corners of white nationalism, and has not granted any interviews since starting in the White House (she turned down a request from The Intercept), the puzzle of her journey to the alt right can be assembled.
Hahn comes from fabulous wealth. Her grandfather Harold Honickman presided over a soft-drink bottling company that became one of the largest in the nation; in 2002, his net worth was estimated [ http://philadelphia.about.com/cs/neighborhoods/a/rich_in_philly.htm ] at $850 million. Honickman has used his wealth to support liberal causes, including organizations that help the homeless and efforts to tighten gun control. His family foundation has even provided funding for a poetry prize, and his wife wrote a genteel letter on the foundation website [ http://www.honickmanfoundation.org/about/index.php ] that said, “Our personal belief, at the end of the day, is that we are here to take care of one another.”
One of the Honickman children, Shirley, is the mother of Hahn, who was born on April Fools’ Day in 1991. Hahn was raised in a house that’s not far from Rodeo Drive and is valued at more than $5 million by Zillow. (Hahn’s White House financial disclosure form [ https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3533918-Julia-Hahn-s-2017-Financial-Disclosure-Form.html ] shows she owns bank and stock funds worth as much as $2 million [ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/04/01/us/politics/how-much-people-in-the-trump-administration-are-worth-financial-disclosure.html?smid=fb-share ].) The private school she attended (as I did, a generation earlier) is Harvard-Westlake. It’s hard to imagine a class of people who benefit more from immigrant and undocumented workers — who clean their homes, mow their lawns, maintain their pools, and cook their meals — than Hahn and other children of privilege in Los Angeles. The comfortable life she enjoyed was due, in no small part, to the immigrants she demeaned as a writer for Breitbart.
The dissonance appears to widen when you look at her secondary education. Harvard-Westlake is a model of West Coast liberalism. It is generally regarded as the most competitive school in Los Angeles, its student body drawing on the city’s entertainment and business worlds. When Hahn was named to the White House, the flummoxed student newspaper at Harvard-Westlake published a story [ http://hwchronicle.com/alumna-hops-on-trump-train/ ] in which her history teacher wondered aloud, “She was rather soft-spoken as I recall, so I guess no, I didn’t really see her headed to work for an organization like Breitbart or a person like Bannon.”
Steve Bannon walks to a House Republican meeting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on March 23, 2017.
Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News/Getty Images
Paradoxically, a clue to Hahn’s radicalization is located at Harvard-Westlake. The school has a surplus of famous alumni, from Shirley Temple to Sally Ride, Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Matthew Weiner (the creator of “Mad Men” who named one of his show’s characters for a popular teacher at Harvard). But the school has another alum who is more infamous than famous: Alex Marlow, the editor-in-chief of Breitbart.
Marlow graduated from Harvard-Westlake in 2004, before Hahn, and for a long time nobody at the school seemed to know or care where he had ended up. The school took notice in 2016, when Marlow was quoted in a New York Times profile of Bannon. A school official posted the story on Facebook. Parents and alumni of Harvard-Westlake were aghast. “This is an embarrassment to our school, and to our fantastic community,” read one of the comments [ https://www.buzzfeed.com/salvadorhernandez/ties-to-trump-and-breitbart-divide-exclusive-los-angeles-sch ] on the post.
The controversy was duly reported by the school’s student newspaper, which published [ http://hwchronicle.com/alums-position-as-breitbart-news-editor-in-chief-sparks-controversy/ ] a story on Marlow and quoted some of his teachers who remembered him as a smart and polite student — just like Hahn. “I would never have imagined that he would get involved with an organization as deplorable as Breitbart News,” said his history teacher Dave Waterhouse.
The upshot is that a single school in Los Angeles was the breeding ground for two of the youngest and most vehement stars of the Trump movement. This raises the prospect of what is known, among experts who study extremism, as a cluster. It goes beyond Hahn and Marlow.
* * *
Andrew Breitbart at the Occupy L.A. site, where he was interviewing occupiers in 2011.
Photo: Ted Soqui/Corbis/Getty Images
Where do America’s far-right leaders come from? Hahn and Marlow, who grew up 5 miles apart, are clues to an intriguing fact of political epidemiology. A surprising number of alt-right leaders come from a single wealthy liberal enclave: the west side of Los Angeles.
Andrew Breitbart, who founded the site that bears his name, was raised in Brentwood, at the center of the west side, and was living there when he died in 2012. Bannon, before becoming famous as the chairman of Breitbart and then Trump’s ideologue, was a Hollywood producer who sent his daughters to a private school in Brentwood. Stephen Miller, the 31-year-old presidential adviser who has been wildly provocative on immigration issues, was raised in neighboring Santa Monica, also known as the People’s Republic of Santa Monica because of its liberal politics.
This might seem weird. California voted in a landslide for Hillary Clinton. All of the state’s elected officials are Democrats, from the governor on down. Since 1961, only one Republican has been elected mayor of Los Angeles. But look again. While Trump got far fewer votes than Clinton, California’s population is so large that the only other state where Trump got more votes was Texas (which he won). According to a report [ https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2013/active-%27patriot%27-groups-united-states-2012 ] from the Southern Poverty Law Center, California has more far-right conspiratorial “Patriot” groups, 81, than any other state in the country (Texas, the runner-up, has 79). California may be the “Left Coast,” but it is also the beating heart of the far-right coast.
This is not an accident. People don’t like to be told what to think, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that an atmosphere of doctrinaire liberalism might produce reactionaries who delight in defying the dogmas that seemed so repressive when they were growing up. For instance, Miller, a key advocate of Trump’s Muslim travel ban, chafed [ http://www.univision.com/univision-news/politics/how-white-house-advisor-stephen-miller-went-from-pestering-hispanic-students-to-designing-trumps-immigration-policy ] at the multiculturalism of his high school and its tolerance of gays.
Social progress always seems to trigger a backlash. It’s a paradox that makes sense — environments that are constructed to stop extremism can, instead, provoke it. Trump’s whole rise cannot be viewed through this single lens, of course. But the dynamic is crucial to understanding how and where some extremists are born: when people feel the privileges of their race, gender, language, or religion are threatened.
* * *
The skyline of Washington, D.C., including the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, U.S. Capitol, and National Mall, seen from the air at sunset in 2014.
Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
In the popular telling, a common scenario of Muslim extremism occurs when a susceptible mind falls under the spell of a charismatic leader at a mosque or madrassa, though sometimes the contact occurs online (this happened with followers [ http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dead-cleric-anwar-al-awlaki-still-sways-terror-wannabes-n397506 ] of Anwar al-Awlaki, for instance). I have reported on this dynamic in Pakistan, Iraq, and other countries that were like emotional depots for the unformed zeal of drifting youths. The spiritual leaders were spellbinding, their warnings were often apocalyptic, and the devotion of their youthful followers was complete, even if the logic of their maximalist ideologies was flawed and inhuman. Young minds, unshaped, were tinder for an ideological spark.
This scenario isn’t true only for Islamic extremists. When Hahn arrived in Washington, D.C., as another just-out-of-college aspirant, she was not political, according to every account of her that I’ve read and heard (I talked with more than a half dozen people who knew her at the University of Chicago). According to the Washington Post, Hahn jolted to ideological life in the first job she landed — as a producer for right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham. “It sparked her evolution,” the Post stated [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/who-is-julia-hahn-the-unlikely-rise-of-steve-bannons-right-hand-woman/2017/03/29/c242504c-125e-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html ]. “She moved quickly to the right.” A short article [ http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/13/becoming-steve-bannons-bannon ] in the New Yorker reported much the same, that an apolitical Hahn moved to Washington to get a media job and turned to the far right after she started working for Ingraham. The Post quoted a former Ingraham employee as saying, “Laura will do that to people. She can be very convincing.”
This evokes a strange parallel between far-right radio and television empires presided over by the likes of Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Alex Jones, and Steve Bannon, and fundamentalist mosques and madrassas that manufacture the extremists of the Islamic world. Radical ideologies presented to impressionable minds in these locations are totalistic and comforting in an unsteady world. They offer simplistic antagonists — such as the infidels and the immigrants — and provide simplistic answers to social or economic problems (shut down immigration, eliminate education for girls, and so on). These spellbinding leaders, and the infrastructures around them, are vectors of youthful extremism.
Hahn worked for Ingraham for about a year, then became a spokesperson for David Brat, an insurgent Republican who used the issue of immigration to defeat House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Brat, a total outsider, raised just $200,000 for his challenge to Cantor, and part of his upset victory was due to strong support from Ingraham as well as other right-wing media figures, including Mark Levin and Ann Coulter. Whether by design or chance, Hahn was at the center of the alt-right rebellion against not just the Democratic Party but the Republican establishment, too.
The late founder of Breitbart News, Andrew Breitbart, is seen on a T-shirt at the 44th Annual Conservative Political Action Conference at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Md., on Feb. 23, 2017.
Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Redux
Her next step took her to the forefront — as one of the most prolific and strident reporters for the norm-pulverizing machine at Breitbart. Bannon was the dominant figure at Breitbart at the time, “prone to surrounding himself with like-minded young acolytes,” as the New York Times later noted [ https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/us/politics/trump-conservative-political-action-conference-speech.html ]. In an unusual look inside Bannon’s life before he joined Trump’s campaign, a Bloomberg reporter visited Bannon’s townhouse-turned-newsroom and wrote that he had a “group of young, female Breitbart News reporters whom he’s dubbed the Valkyries.” The Bloomberg story had a photo of Bannon at his Capitol Hill home with nine young reporters, including Hahn. After Politico published a story that criticized Bannon, Hahn rose to his defense and described [ http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/09/03/politico-censors-black-jewish-women-hispanic-immigrant-voices-silence-defenders-steve-bannon/ ] him as “one of the most supportive, kind, inspiring and selfless bosses a reporter could ask for.”
Under Bannon, Hahn produced a torrent of articles that mimicked his incendiary ideas on immigration, Muslims, and Democrats. Her stories were perfectly attuned to the extremist ideas for which Bannon has become celebrated and despised; Bannon and Hahn even co-wrote a story [ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/16/paul-ryan-betrays-america-1-1-trillion-2000-plus-page-omnibus-bill-funds-fundamental-transformation-america/ ] that flayed Paul Ryan. One of Hahn’s stories accused Hillary Clinton of planning to resettle a million Muslims in America, and another article warned ominously that under Clinton the number of Muslims in America would exceed the number in Germany — an irrelevant comparison because Germany’s population is several times smaller. One of Hahn’s anti-immigration articles was headlined “Clinton Releases Plan to Dissolve U.S. Border Within 100 Days.”
That was the usual alt-right noise from Breitbart. But in 2015, when Bannon started talking about “The Camp of the Saints,” Hahn wrote about it too. Her story argued that the book was prophetic because it warned that “the liberalism of the West would cause Western nations to throw open their doors to so many migrants that it would spell the doom of liberal society itself.” Hahn’s story used the book to warn that, as she wrote, immigrants from failed countries will “remake the West in the image of those failed countries.” The book, however, is widely regarded as a racist fever dream. One of its most enthusiastic supporters is Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Front in France, who has a copy of it in her office and has tweeted [ https://twitter.com/MLP_officiel/status/638959623215706112 ] out her endorsement of it.
Even in the conservative world, Hahn went too far for the comfort of some people. At the end of 2015, when she asked a panel of Republican legislators to raise their hands to indicate whether they would suspend or reduce Muslim immigration, Rep. Raul Labrador, a conservative from Idaho, lashed out [ http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2015/11/rep-labrador-refuses-to-take-questions-from-breitbart-reporter-215994 ] at her. “I don’t answer questions from you,” he told Hahn, “because you are not a truthful reporter.”
* * *
Young Republicans holding iPads take a test, offered by the right-wing organization Generation Opportunity, about economic issues that are important to them at the 40th Annual Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md., in 2013.
Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Redux
The handful of published stories about Hahn have tended to focus on a seeming paucity of information that would explain who she is or how she ended up on the far right. “Hahn’s increasingly watched byline was all the more extraordinary for her utter anonymity,” the Washington Post reported [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/who-is-julia-hahn-the-unlikely-rise-of-steve-bannons-right-hand-woman/2017/03/29/c242504c-125e-11e7-ada0-1489b735b3a3_story.html ]. “Not only did she never appear on TV, she had no public social media presence whatsoever. Photos of her were hard to come by — and conspiracy theories about her true identity were beginning to circulate.” This makes for a good mystery story, but it misses the point. It took little effort for The Intercept to find photos of Hahn (there are some on Facebook, and Bloomberg had published a series of photos that included Hahn and listed her by name). While she does not appear to have been on television, Hahn was frequently on Breitbart radio [ https://soundcloud.com/breitbart/breitbart-news-daily-julia-hahn-november-29-2016 ] and other right-wing radio shows.
The mysterious thing about Julia Hahn is that there is any mystery at all. Washington is bursting with strivers in their 20s just like her, eager to find their spot on the terrain of political power, while unsure of what their own attitudes about power really are. The lack of a political center in the young creatures of Washington is the stuff of parody; just watch an episode of “Veep.” Long ago, I was one of these creatures — as a student at Georgetown University, I applied for internships on Capitol Hill and took the first one I was offered, from a Republican representative famous for one thing — his father was Barry Goldwater, the iconic senator from Arizona. The son had little of his father’s charisma and his politics were vague, though he was kind to me and let me drive his Aston Martin. He was no Laura Ingraham.
Karachi and Kabul are a long ways from Capitol Hill but the hydraulics of youthful extremism are remarkably similar in all of them. Julia Hahn’s opposites are not the young and impressionable Muslims who adopt hate-filled ideas about infidels. They are her mirror image.
Copyright 2017 The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2017/05/07/white-fear-in-the-white-house-young-bannon-disciple-julia-hahn-is-a-case-study-in-extremism/
*
Christian VS Muslim
Published on Sep 26, 2014 by DarkMatter2525 [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLhtZqdkjshgq8TqwIjMdCQ / https://www.youtube.com/user/DarkMatter2525 , https://www.youtube.com/user/DarkMatter2525/videos ]
What could possibly go wrong?
This bird has two right wings. Basically, it ain't gonna fly.
This video is mainly addressed to people I would define as ultra right wing radical Christians in America. Some people tell me that Islam is worse, because at least the Christians aren't beheading people who don't respect their religion. The whole point of this video is "beware what you wish for". The reason certain Christians don't do such things is simply because they live in a secular society that won't allow such things, but they want that to change. They want the theocracy. They want people like me to be punished. They are the Taliban that is not allowed to act like the Taliban. This video is a cautionary comparison, and it is absolutely valid. Furthermore, far more Muslims have been killed by Christians, than the other way around, today and throughout history. It's just that we tend to label it differently.
I've often been told by Christians, "Hey, if you were in a Muslim country, making fun of religion, you'd be dead by now," (John Lennox has said stuff like this). Basically, that means "At least we Christians let you live." Um...thanks. Those are some mighty low standards you have there. I don't trust radicals on either side. I'm alive because the secular government won't allow you to kill me - not because there's a shortage of Christians who would be ready, willing, and able to do it. Of that, I have no doubt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYV7KWQ-fY4 [with (currently nearly 89,000, earlier over 14,000) comments] [and see also in particular (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=129013931 and preceding and following, https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=130177377 and preceding and following]
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Stephen Fry Reportedly Faces Blasphemy Probe After Calling God A ‘Maniac’
Actor Stephen Fry called God “utterly evil” and a “maniac” during an interview in 2015. He’s now reportedly being investigated for blasphemy.
Andrew Kelly / Reuters
The English comedian and atheist made the comments two years ago on an Irish TV program.
By Nina Golgowski
05/07/2017 11:16 am ET
English comedian Stephen Fry [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/stephen-fry/ ] is reportedly under investigation for blasphemy after calling God “utterly evil” and a “maniac” [ http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/01/30/atheist-stephen-fry-delivers-stunning-answer-when-asked-what-he-would-say-if-he-came-face-to-face-with-god_n_6581710.html ] during an interview with an Irish TV show two years ago.
An unidentified member of the public told the Irish Independent [ http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/garda-launch-blasphemy-probe-into-stephen-fry-comments-on-the-meaning-of-life-35684262.html ] they had reported the outspoken atheist’s comments to authorities in western Ireland because they were doing their “civic duty by reporting a crime,” not because they were personally offended.
Individuals who publish or speak blasphemy can face a fine of up to €25,000 under the Republic of Ireland’s Defamation Act 2009 [ http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2009/act/31 ], according to the BBC [ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39830447 ].
Fry, who currently stars in CBS’s “The Great Indoors,” criticized God on TV channel RTE in 2015 after being asked what he’d say to “him, her or it [ http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/01/30/atheist-stephen-fry-delivers-stunning-answer-when-asked-what-he-would-say-if-he-came-face-to-face-with-god_n_6581710.html ]” if given the chance.
“I’ll say: Bone cancer in children, what’s that about? How dare you create a world where there is such misery that’s not our fault? It’s utterly, utterly evil,” he told Gay Byrne, host of program “The Meaning of Life.” “Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid god who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?”
“The god who created this universe, if he created this universe, is quite clearly a maniac, an utter maniac, totally selfish,” Fry added. “We have to spend our lives on our knees thanking him. What kind of god would do that?”
“Yes, the world is very splendid, but it also has in it insects whose whole life cycle is to burrow into the eyes of children and make them blind,” he said.
The individual claiming responsibility for reporting Fry’s comments told the Independent that they traveled to the Ennis Garda station to file the report shortly after the interview aired. They’ve repeatedly followed up with police ever since.
“I told the Garda I wanted to report Fry for uttering blasphemy and RTE for publishing/broadcasting it and that I believed these were criminal offenses under the Defamation Act 2009,” the person told the news site. “I simply believed that the comments made by Fry on RTE were criminal blasphemy and that I was doing my civic duty by reporting a crime.”
Local authorities told the Independent that they are investigating the complaint but that charges are unlikely.
Other atheists have since rallied behind Fry.
Atheist Ireland, which has called the defamation law “silly, silencing, and dangerous,” responded to news of the investigation by publishing 25 other blasphemous quotes [ https://atheist.ie/2017/05/25-blasphemous-quotes-in-solidarity-with-stephen-fry/ ] that they released after the Irish law first went into effect.
British Humanists
@BHAhumanists
What is the world coming to? Complaints made against Stephen Fry for allegedly violating Irish blasphemy laws. http://www.thejournal.ie/stephen-fry-complaint-of-blasphemy-3376318-May2017/ ...
Gardaí 'not commenting' on complaint of blasphemy against Stephen Fry
Fry faces a maximum fine of €25,000.
thejournal.ie
8:20 AM - 6 May 2017
[ https://twitter.com/BHAhumanists/status/860846736247533568 (with comments)]
The British Humanist Association also released [ https://humanism.org.uk/2017/05/06/bha-defends-its-patron-stephen-fry-in-face-of-irish-blasphemy-probe/ ] a statement on Saturday defending Fry’s words and also calling for the dissolution of Ireland’s blasphemy law.
“It is ridiculous that Stephen Fry is being investigated for a possible breach of Ireland’s blasphemy laws,” BHA Chief Executive Andrew Copson said. “Not only are such laws detrimental to free speech here in Europe, but they also enable countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran to justify their own laws, which in the case of 13 states come with a death sentence.”
A spokesperson for Fry, reached by the Telegraph [ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/05/06/stephen-fry-police-investigation-blasphemy-branding-god-utter/ ], declined comment, stating: “[There is] nothing for us to say while this is under investigation.”
Related Coverage
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/blasphemy-and-terrorism-catchall-phrases-to-repress_us_59095302e4b05279d4edc0ff
Stephen Fry Delivers A Meryl Streep-Loving Trump Slam At BAFTAs
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/host-stephen-fry-delivers-a-meryl-streep-loving-trump-slam-at-baftas_us_58a18ad1e4b0ab2d2b16e572
Blasphemy Isn’t Just A Problem In The Muslim World
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/blasphemy-isnt-just-a-problem-in-the-muslim-world_us_5908a246e4b084f59b49fce1
Right-Wing Activists Blast Canadian Anti-Islamophobia Motion As ‘Blasphemy Law’
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/canada-islamaphobia-motion_us_589e154be4b0ab2d2b150931
Copyright © 2017 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stephen-fry-faces-blasphemy-probe_us_590f1ad4e4b0e7021e984f5a?52o , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-suvkwNYSQo [as embedded; with comments] [and see also in particular e.g. (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=84628488 and preceding and following, http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=129195714 and preceding and following]
Indonesia Governor’s Loss Shows Increasing Power of Islamists
Thousands of Muslims protested against Jakarta’s Christian governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, in March in Indonesia.
MAY 6, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/06/world/asia/indonesia-islam-jakarta.html
Jakarta governor sentenced to 2 years prison for blasphemy
Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, center, enters the court room as he attends his sentencing hearing in Jakarta, Indonesia, Tuesday, May 9, 2017. The minority Christian governor is currently on trial on accusation of blasphemy following his remark about a passage in the Quran that could be interpreted as prohibiting Muslims from accepting non-Muslims as leaders.
May 09, 2017
https://www.apnews.com/3e9965cb52514e70abaac552c4d7a172/Jakarta-governor-sentenced-to-2-years-prison-for-blasphemy
*
When Is A Religion ‘Extremist’?
Government endorsement of any religious ideology creates religious extremism.
Photo – Flickr/ Justin Kern
By Tim Rymel
05/06/2017 11:27 am ET | Updated May 7, 2017
In April, Russia’s Supreme Court labeled Jehovah’s Witnesses [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah%27s_Witnesses ] an extremist religious group. “It effectively means that holding their beliefs and manifesting them is tantamount to a criminal act in Russia. They risk new levels of persecution by the Russian authorities,” said [ http://www.catholicregister.org/home/international/item/24963-why-russia-s-ban-on-jehovah-s-witnesses-is-so-troubling ] international legal counsel, Lorcan Price.
In America, most of us think of Jehovah’s Witnesses as that occasional Saturday nuisance. They interrupt our morning breakfast or afternoon chores to tell us their version of the Christian faith. They cheerfully drag their families along for quiet strolls through the neighborhoods, and pass out Watchtower Magazines for us to throw away later.
Annoying? Yes. Disruptive? Usually. But extremist? That depends.
Growing up in the Pentecostal faith, I was taught that Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and Catholics were not Christians. Anyone who converted to those, or other non-mainstream Christian sects, was deceived by the devil. Though we didn’t use the word “extremist” to define those religions, we certainly saw them as a threat to the true people of God who were susceptible to “false teachings.”
Religion, to paraphrase Merriam-Webster [ https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/religion ], is generally a belief in the supernatural with a commitment to keep up the attitudes and practices surrounding that belief. In other words, religion is more than just a belief it is an action. For some, that means attending church on Sundays. For others, it means killing people for believing the wrong things, or believing in the wrong way.
The BBC noted [ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/04/world_al_qaeda/html/2.stm ] that Al Qaeda’s purpose is to avenge “wrongs committed by Christians against Muslims.” The organization wants to implement a “single Islamic political leadership,” and drive away non-Muslims from areas it deems belong to the nation of Islam.
ISIS, on the other hand, is a group of Scriptural fundamentalists who believe all other Muslims are apostates. William McCants, director of the Project on US Relations With the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution, says [ https://www.vox.com/2015/11/18/9755478/isis-islam ] that ISIS wants “to restore the early Islamic empire called the caliphate and eventually take over the whole world.”
Most of us can agree that Al Qaeda and ISIS are extremist groups. After all, they plan and implement terrorist attacks. They kill people, sometimes brutally. But is violence the only indicator of religious extremism?
It could certainly be argued that when a religion becomes violent it becomes extremist. But even Christianity, in it’s many definitions, has a sordid history, which is seldom talked about and often dismissed. From the Spanish inquisition to the convert-or-die tactics used on Native American Indians, Christianity has been used to commit horrific acts of violence throughout the centuries. Judaism, from which Christianity arose, recorded shocking details in the Torah of the slaughter of entire populations, including women, children, and animals.
Any religion, which purports to, alone, have all truth, and to, alone, have a direct line of communication to God, has a propensity toward extremist ideology. As University of Notre Dame Professor, Gary Gutting, points out [ http://traffic.pubexchange.com/a/c58811b4-27d9-46ab-907c-5f8ee624e840/9a4ed94e-c5d7-4086-979f-0661aacb18a7/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2016%2F08%2F01%2Fopinion%2Fhow-religion-can-lead-to-violence.html%3F_r%3D0 ]:
The potential for intolerance lies in the logic of religions like Christianity and Islam that say their teaching derive from a divine revelation. For them, the truth that God has revealed is the most important truth there is; therefore, denying or doubting this truth is extremely dangerous, both for nonbelievers, who lack this essential truth, and for believers, who may well be misled by the denials and doubts of nonbelievers.
Any religion that denies the value and humanity of others is an extremist religion. Whether those actions lead to direct harm, or simply reduce protections through legislation, extremist ideology seeks to create one class that is believed to be more valued than another.
The grandstanding that fundamentalist Christians have done since marriage equality passed in 2015 has created a growing, and disturbing trend toward extremist Christianity.
The Oath Keepers, a vigilante Christian group, vowed to protect Kentucky County Clerk, Kim Davis, when she refused issuing a marriage license to a gay couple. They stated [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/oath-keepers-send-armed-guards-to-protect-kim-davis-from-us-marshals/ ] the judge in Davis’ case “needs to be put on notice that his behavior is not going to be accepted and we’ll be there to stop it and intercede ourselves if we have to.” And then, in an ironic twist to the story, the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, of “God hates fags” fame, picketed [ http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/Westboro-Baptist-Church-Protest-Kim-Davis--333380581.html ] Kim Davis because of her multiple divorces and remarriages.
Since then, dozens of “religious freedom” bills have been introduced across the country with the sole purpose of reducing or eliminating protections for the LGBT community in housing, employment, benefits, and even where they can go to the bathroom.
The problem, of course, is that “religious freedom” is based on nothing more than a belief. Governments who support “religious freedom” over the equal human rights and dignity of others condone, and even endorse discrimination. In any such environment religious extremism is the outcome, threatening the very existence of democracy.
Related Coverage
Trump Transition Official: ‘Religious Freedom’ Order Is Still Coming
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ken-blackwell-religious-freedom-order_us_58b2f87ee4b0a8a9b7830c3e
This Map Of The State Of Religious Freedom Around The World Is Chilling
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pew-global-religious-restrictions_us_58ed070be4b0ca64d919ab12
What Grade Does The U.S. Deserve On Human Rights And Religious Freedom?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/grading-nations-on-human-rights-and-religious-freedom_us_58cd2b9de4b0e0d348b3439d
Copyright © 2017 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. (emphasis in original)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/when-is-a-religion-extremist_us_590de8e3e4b046ea176aeb98?it
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Texas bill would allow adoption agencies to deny couples based on religion
May 8, 2017
(JTA) — Texas lawmakers are set to vote on a bill that would allow state-funded or private faith-based adoption agencies to reject couples seeking to adopt children if they are Jewish.
The state House proposal also would allow potential adoptive couples to be rejected if they are Muslim, interfaith, gay or single, according to reports.
A vote on the bill in the Republican-controlled House scheduled for Saturday was pushed off until Monday, CNN reported.
Proponents say the measure will support the religious freedom of adoption agencies and foster care providers. Opponents say it violates the Constitution’s requirement of equal protection under the law.
The bill also could require children in the foster care system to comply with a family’s faith-based requirements, including sending gay children for “conversion therapy” or denying them access to birth control.
Five other states have approved similar laws protecting faith-based adoption organizations that refuse to place children in families based on religion or lifestyle. South Dakota’s law is the most similar since it also covers agencies that receive state funding.
http://www.jta.org/2017/05/08/news-opinion/united-states/texas-bill-would-allow-adoption-agencies-to-deny-couples-based-on-religion
Texas Bill Could Let Agencies Bar LGBT, Atheist, Single Parents From Adopting
The bill would allow private adoption agencies to claim ‘religious exemption’ to working with LGBT parents or parents of another religion.
05.07.17
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/05/07/texas-bill-could-let-agencies-bar-lgbt-atheist-single-parents-from-adopting
Texas Adoption Bill Could Allow Anti-Gay, Religious Discrimination
Critics of the bill say it legitimizes discrimination with taxpayer money.
05/07/2017
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/texas-adoption-bill_us_590f3e5be4b0e7021e986064 [with embedded video]
Adoption Agencies In Texas Could Reportedly Reject Jewish, Muslim, LGBT, Single & Interfaith Couples Under New Bill
May 7, 2017
https://www.romper.com/p/adoption-agencies-in-texas-could-reportedly-reject-jewish-muslim-lgbt-single-interfaith-couples-under-new-bill-56266
Texas Adoption Bill Would Allow Agencies To Discriminate Against Basically Anyone
May 7, 2017
https://www.bustle.com/p/texas-adoption-bill-would-allow-agencies-to-discriminate-against-basically-anyone-56334
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Texas Gov. Abbott springs surprise on critics, with unannounced Facebook live signing of sanctuary cities ban
May 8, 2017
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made an unannounced appearance on Facebook live Sunday evening to sign a tough bill banning “sanctuary cities” in the state, thereby avoiding demonstrations opponents planned for later in the week when they thought he was going to put his signature on the legislation.
While Abbott’s spokesman said he was just trying to reach a wide audience, critics called Abbott “cowardly” for springing the signing without notice.
Though the bill [ http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlodocs/85R/billtext/pdf/SB00004F.pdf#navpanes=0 ], which cleared the Republican-controlled legislature last week, was opposed by most major police chiefs in Texas, Abbott said in a statement that the law was a blow against “those that seek to promote lawlessness in Texas.”
Abbott also blasted the one law enforcement officer in Texas who appears to have adopted any sort of policy resembling the amorphous concept of a sanctuary city, Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez, who said she would not cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests to hold immigrants while federal authorities investigate their status.
“This law cracks down on policies like the Travis County sheriff who declared she would not detain known criminals accused of violent crimes,” Abbott said.
In fact, Hernandez does honor detainer requests from federal immigration authorities for inmates accused of serious offenses.
The term “sanctuary cities” is ill-defined and takes different forms in different places. In general, jurisdictions identifying themselves as sanctuaries refuse to hold immigrants who have been arrested for local crimes past their release date so that Immigration and Customs Enforcement can take them into federal custody and try to deport them.
The Texas law would fine local governments up to $25,500 a day for policies that block immigration enforcement. Elected or appointed officials who refuse to cooperate with immigration agents could lose their jobs. Sheriffs and other police officers would face misdemeanor charges punishable by up to a year in jail and fines if they ignore requests to detain immigrants. The law would take effect Sept. 1.
[...]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/05/08/texas-gov-abbott-springs-surprise-on-critics-signing-sanctuary-cities-ban-unannounced-on-facebook-live/ [with embedded videos, and comments]
The sanctuary cities 'safety' measure Texas cops don't want
Raul A. Reyes: While supporters of SB 4 have presented it as a "law and order" measure, the reality is different; instead of making Texas safer, it will have the opposite effect
May 8, 2017
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/08/opinions/texas-sanctuary-cities-reyes-opinion/ [with embedded video, and comments]
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President Trump’s lawyers on revised travel ban repeatedly asked about campaign promises
May 8,2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/presidents-trump-revised-travel-ban-faces-new-legal-challenges/2017/05/08/c4c6f968-3387-11e7-b373-418f6849a004_story.html [with embedded video, and comments]
*
Trump to Announce Slate of Conservative Federal Court Nominees
Justice Joan L. Larsen of the Michigan Supreme Court will be nominated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati.
MAY 7, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/07/us/politics/trump-lower-court-nominees-conservatives.html [with comments]
Trump has just begun massively reshaping American appeals courts
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/54675937/513202284.0.jpg)
Justice Joan Larsen speaks at Justice Antonin Scalia’s memorial service last year.
May 8, 2017
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/8/15579676/trump-federal-courts-appeals-district-supreme-larsen-stras
The Trump Judiciary
May 8, 2017
http://www.pfaw.org/blog-posts/the-trump-judiciary/
PFAW Statement on Trump’s Slate of Judicial Nominees
May 8, 2017
http://www.pfaw.org/press-releases/pfaw-statement-on-trumps-slate-of-judicial-nominees/
Trump begins effort to pack courts with conservatives
May 05, 2017
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration will name nearly a dozen judges as nominees for key posts Monday as President Donald Trump works to pack the nation’s federal courts with more conservative voices.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said that among the candidates are individuals previously named on Trump’s list of 21 possible picks for Supreme Court justice.
Trump will nominate Joan Larsen, who currently serves on Michigan’s Supreme Court, to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, and David Stras, a justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court bench, to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis.
[...]
https://www.apnews.com/2d25401d9abf4a268229bb30d91c36db/Trump-begins-effort-to-pack-courts-with-conservatives
Civil and Human Rights Coalition Urges Senate to Fully Vet Trump’s Judicial Nominees
May 8, 2017
http://www.civilrights.org/press/2017/Urges-Senate-Fully-Vet-Trump-Judicial-Nominees.html
Gun groups rejoice at Trump’s new federal court nominations
5/08/17
http://www.guns.com/2017/05/08/gun-groups-rejoice-at-trumps-10-federal-court-nominations/ [with comments]
*
Trump suggests financing for historically black colleges may be unconstitutional
05/05/17 Updated 05/06/17
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/05/trump-historically-black-colleges-financing-unconstitutional-238061 [with comments]
Trump Suggests HBCU Funding May Be Unconstitutional, Blindsiding Black Colleges
A federal program that helps fund HBCUs may unconstitutionally discriminate based on race, the administration suggested in a statement.
May 6, 2017 Updated on May 7, 2017
https://www.buzzfeed.com/mollyhensleyclancy/trump-suggests-hbcu-funding-may-be-unconstitutional [with comments]
Trump Walks Back Threat to Defund Black Colleges
President Trump with officials from historically black colleges and universities in February in the Oval Office.
MAY 8, 2017
WASHINGTON — When President Trump signed a $1.1 trillion spending bill on Friday, he zeroed in on a tiny sliver of it, suggesting that he might disregard $20 million in funding for loan subsidies and other aid to historically black universities.
Two nights later, after a storm of criticism, the White House walked back the threat in a statement that declared the president’s “unwavering support” for such schools.
But the two days in between left some African-American educators feeling used, many black politicians enraged and some demanding that Mr. Trump back his “unwavering support” with a show of budgetary support. It also, once again, revealed a White House where one team does not necessarily know what another team is up to.
“I worked to make sure there was clarity because I observed that there was feedback and some were misconstruing the signing statement,” Omarosa Manigault, a close aide to Mr. Trump, said in an interview on Monday. Ms. Manigault headed Mr. Trump’s outreach to black voters during his presidential campaign and had publicly promised that his budget would protect historically black colleges and universities.
The Friday signing statement hit hard because in February [ https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/us/backlash-black-colleges-trump.html ], he had invited dozens of presidents from historically black universities to visit him in the Oval Office while he signed an executive order that moved an initiative to support such schools from the Education Department into the White House. That was followed by Ms. Manigault’s open boast that while cuts in the president’s budget would be deep, black higher education was safe.
“I think it was a photo op,” said Marybeth Gasman, a University of Pennsylvania professor who has studied historically black universities since 1994. She called Mr. Trump’s statement on Friday “offensive” and said she is worried that he is signaling to the schools that he has the power to make life difficult for them.
Mr. Trump’s suggestion that he might disregard the aid provision was made in a signing statement [ https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/05/05/statement-president-donald-j-trump-signing-hr-244-law ], an official document laying out his interpretation of the new statutes created by a bill. In it, he suggested that directing government spending to universities associated with a particular race was an unconstitutional infringement of people’s due process rights.
That language invoked the view, held by some conservatives, that affirmative action-style programs amount to discrimination against whites. ...
[...]
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/us/politics/historically-black-colleges-omarosa-trump.html
*
Pepe the Frog Is Dead, or So His Creator Hopes
The Anti-Defamation League designated Pepe the Frog as a hate symbol in 2016, and later pledged to help its artist reclaim it.
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
"@codyave: @drudgereport @BreitbartNews @Writeintrump "You Can't Stump the Trump" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKH6PAoUuD0 ... "
3:53 AM - 13 Oct 2015
[ https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/653856168402681856 (with comments)]
Matt Furie with a great single page send-off. #freecomicbookday #mattfurie http://ift.tt/2plbmAb
12:00 PM - 6 May 2017
[ https://twitter.com/therealphaTT/status/860902046467321856 (with comments)]
Lol this just means we won
9:09 AM - 8 May 2017
[ https://twitter.com/RealPAR2001/status/861583789218299905 (with comment)]
MAY 8, 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/us/pepe-the-frog-comic.html
Pepe the Frog Is Dead: Creator Kills Off Meme Absorbed by Far-Right
An attendee holds up a sign of Pepe the Frog during a campaign event with Donald Trump in New Hampshire on Sept. 29, 2016.
May 8 2017
http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/pepe-frog-dead-creator-kills-meme-absorbed-far-right-n756281
I Met the White Nationalist Who "Falcon Punched" a 95-Pound Female Protester
Nathan Damigo, in blue shirt, at the April 15 rally in Berkeley where he punched anti-fascist protester Emily Rose Marshall.
[ https://imgur.com/BAkldaJ (with comments)] [via https://voat.co/v/whatever/1800715 (with comments)]
Ju
@MadeinCalcio
Ever gender,
Every race,
Punch a commie in the face. #Berkeley
2:08 PM - 16 Apr 2017
[ https://twitter.com/MadeinCalcio/status/853686583622610944 (with comments)] [via https://www.wired.com/2017/04/meme-army-now-militia/ ]
Berkeley police won't say whether or not they plan to arrest the alt-right's new hero, Nathan Damigo.
May 9, 2017
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/nathan-damigo-punching-woman-berkeley-white-nationalism [with comments]
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Donald Trump, the failure, fools his supporters
AM Joy
5/7/17
Joy Reid and her panel discuss how despite Donald Trump failing on so many initiatives, his voters, particularly white evangelical voters, continue to believe he is doing a great job. Duration: 13:15
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/donald-trump-the-failure-fools-his-supporters-938290755734
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Backlash against Trumpcare erupts across heartland
AM Joy
5/7/17
Trump campaigned by appealing to middle America, but these voters are raising their voices against the GOP healthcare bill. Joy Reid and her panel discuss. Duration: 9:21
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/backlash-against-trumpcare-erupts-across-heartland-938294339723
*
Neil deGrasse Tyson on hunger for science despite Trump
AM Joy
5/7/17
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson joins Joy Reid to discuss his new book, ‘Astrophysics for People in a Hurry,’ the number one book on all of Amazon, showing people’s hunger for science despite an anti-science administration. Duration: 6:54
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/neil-degrasse-tyson-on-hunger-for-science-despite-trump-938296899835 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjARh-yKq5k [with comments]
*
FOX: sexual assault case comes to light
AM Joy
5/7/17
A victim of sexual assault perpetrated by a FOX employee shares how coming forward made her “toxic” to many in the industry, as Joy and her panel discuss the pervasiveness of sexual harassment. Duration: 12:37
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/fox-sexual-assault-case-comes-to-light-938306115770 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oBOyZynI9Y [with comments]
*
No justice under Trump?
AM Joy
5/7/17
The senseless, fatal shooting of 15-year-old Jordan Edwards in Texas by a police officer is stoking the flames of various social justice organizations, eager to maintain the police oversight gains won under Obama. Joy Reid and her panel discuss. Duration: 8:55
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/no-justice-under-trump-938312771865
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‘Dear White People’: Resounding hit tackles race
AM Joy
5/7/17
Creator of the Netflix hit show, ‘Dear White People,’ Justin Simien, joins Joy Reid to discuss the backlash against the series, which speaks directly to many of the most pressing racial issues of our time. Duration: 7:15
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/-dear-white-people-resounding-hit-tackles-race-938312260000 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pq_7_LUnag [with comments]
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Marine Le Pen accepts defeat
Published on May 7, 2017 by RobinHoodUKIP [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn1wSZL86FfGqZ3aDHiERgw , https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn1wSZL86FfGqZ3aDHiERgw/videos ]
(7TH MAY 2017) Subscribe to keep globalism at bay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrt47_pwGJA [with comments]
*
Breaking: Globalist Macron Beats Le Pen In French Landslide
Streamed live on May 7, 2017 by The Alex Jones Channel [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvsye7V9psc-APX6wV1twLg / https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlexJonesChannel , https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlexJonesChannel/videos ]
Alex Jones breaks down the latest MSM attacks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r--W3AERd20 [with comments]
*
Live: Steven Colbert Is Now The Leader Of The Democratic Party
Streamed live on May 7, 2017 by The Alex Jones Channel
Alex Jones breaks down the latest MSM attacks.
Hypocrisy of conservatives upset about Colbert
AM Joy
5/6/17
A panel of comedians joins Joy Reid in support of Stephen Colbert, reminding us that truth-telling comics are necessary to prevent society from normalizing Donald Trump. Duration: 8:22
http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/hypocrisy-of-conservatives-upset-about-colbert-937969219920 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmlXtfZ-EFk [with comments]
Ivanka Trump’s new book: offensively frivolous
AM Joy
5/6/17
Reading the first daughter’s new book has been described as like ‘eating scented cotton balls’ – but Joy Reid and her panel discuss the bigger problem: Ivanka Trump peddling ironic hypocrisies in ‘Women Who Work.’ Duration: 12:04
http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/ivanka-trump-s-new-book-offensively-frivolous-937963075646 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPnDeQXEsL0 [with comments]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7vYVqwP5M8 [with comments]
*
Exclusive: Macron Wins / 5th Column In Whitehouse Plans Trump Overthrow
Published on May 8, 2017 by The Alex Jones Channel
Sunday, May 7th 2017[, with an appearance by Roger Stone]: Globalists Score Win in France - European Union darling Emmanuel Macron will become the youngest president to lead France following a sweeping electoral victory. The crucial vote pitted the globalist Macron against nationalist candidate Marine Le Pen. We'll break down how the election outcome benefits the establishment and its impact on the rising populist movement. Also, more nuke threats from North Korea, and can Congress deliver a decent Obamacare replacement?
https://www.infowars.com/macron-elected-french-president-estimates/
https://www.infowars.com/real-time-host-bill-maher-is-accused-of-crossing-the-line-with-tasteless-incest-joke-about-ivanka-trump/
https://www.infowars.com/firecolbert-cbs-urged-to-fire-stephen-colbert-over-trump-cok-holster-remark/
*VIDEO RESPONDS... https://www.infowars.com/alex-jones-challenges-stephen-colbert-to-be-a-man/
https://www.infowars.com/stephen-colbert-under-fcc-scrutiny-after-homophobic-joke-about-donald-trump-and-putin/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9ApcrqWO_c [with comments]
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Profile In Courage Award Ceremony with President Barack Obama
Streamed live on May 8, 2017 by JFK Library [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl-radPCbXcrYCE4EdNH3QA / https://www.youtube.com/user/JFKLF , https://www.youtube.com/user/JFKLF/videos ]
Ambassador Caroline Kennedy and her son, Jack Schlossberg, present the 2017 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award to former President Barack H. Obama as part of the centennial celebration of John F. Kennedy’s birth. Held at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, the evening will include a special performance by James Taylor with Kim Taylor and Owen Young.
The Kennedy Center [lotsa good stuff]
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheKennedyCenter/videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXEAZ5XcwxA [the special performance by James Taylor with Kim Taylor and Owen Young begins at c. the 3:15 mark; Obama's appearance and remarks begin at c. the 36:05 mark; with comments]
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Net Neutrality II: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
Published on May 7, 2017 by LastWeekTonight [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3XTzVzaHQEd30rQbuvCtTQ / https://www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight , https://www.youtube.com/user/LastWeekTonight/videos ]
Equal access to online information is once again under serious threat. John Oliver encourages internet commenters to voice their displeasure to the FCC by visiting www.gofccyourself.com and clicking "express" to file your comment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92vuuZt7wak [with (over 5,000) comments]
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EPA dismisses half of key board’s scientific advisers; Interior suspends more than 200 advisory panels
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt speaks with coal miners at the Harvey Mine on April 13 in Sycamore, Pa. The Harvey Mine, owned by CNX Coal Resources, is part of the largest underground mining complex in the United States.
May 7, 2017
Both the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department are overhauling a slew of outside advisory boards that inform how their agencies assess the science underpinning policies, the first step in a broader effort by Republicans to change the way the federal government evaluates the scientific basis for its regulations.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt decided to replace half of the members on one of its key scientific review boards, while Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is “reviewing the charter and charge” of more than 200 advisory boards, committees and other entities both within and outside his department. EPA and Interior officials began informing current members of the move Friday, and notifications continued over the weekend.
Pruitt’s move could significantly change the makeup of the 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC), which advises EPA’s prime scientific arm on whether the research it does has sufficient rigor and integrity, and addresses important scientific questions. All of the people being dismissed were at the end of serving at least one three-year term, although these terms are often renewed instead of terminated.
[...]
Separately, Zinke has postponed all outside committees as he reviews their composition and work. The review will effectively freeze the work of the Bureau of Land Management’s 38 resource advisory councils, along with other panels focused on a sweep of issues, from one assessing the threat of invasive species to the science technical advisory panel for Alaska’s North Slope.
“The Secretary is committed to restoring trust in the Department’s decision-making and that begins with institutionalizing state and local input and ongoing collaboration, particularly in communities surrounding public lands,” Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift said by email Monday. “As the Department concludes its review in the weeks ahead, agencies will notice future meetings to ensure that the Department continues to get the benefit of the views of local communities in all decision-making on public land management.”
Greg Zimmerman, deputy director of the non-partisan advocacy group Center for Western Priorities [ http://westernpriorities.org/ ], said in an interview that “it just doesn’t make any sense they would be canceling meetings as they do this analysis.” BLM’s regional advisory councils include officials from the energy and outdoor recreation industry as well as scientists and conservationists, Zimmerman added. “The only reasonable explanation is they don’t want to be hearing from these folks.”
The moves came as a surprise to the agencies’ outside advisers, with several of them taking to Twitter to announce their suspensions.
[...]
Pruitt is planning a much broader overhaul of how the agency conducts its scientific analysis, said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Pruitt has been meeting with academics to talk about the matter and putting thought into which areas of investigation warrant attention from the agency’s scientific advisers.
The agency may consider industry scientific experts for some of the board positions as long as these appointments do not pose a conflict of interest, Freire said.
Conservatives have complained for years about EPA’s approach to science, including the input it receives from outside scientific bodies. Both the Board of Scientific Counselors and the 47-member Scientific Advisory Board have come under criticism for bolstering the cause for greater federal regulation.
A majority of the members of the Board of Scientific Counselors have terms expiring this fiscal year [ http://facadatabase.gov/committee/members.aspx?cid=1577 ], along with the terms of 12 members of the Scientific Advisory Board. GOP lawmakers have frequently criticized the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC)—a committee within the Scientific Advisory Board—for its recommendation that the EPA impose much stricter curbs on smog-forming ozone. The seven-person panel, which is charged under the Clean Air Act to review the scientific basis of all ambient air quality standards, is legally required to have a medical doctor and a member of the National Academy of Sciences as members.
Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), who questions the link between human activity and climate change and has several former aides now working for Pruitt, said in an interview earlier this year that under the new administration, “they’re going to have to start dealing with science, and not rigged science.”
House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) held a hearing on the issue in February, arguing that the Scientific Advisory Board should be expanded to include more non-academics. The panel, which was established in 1978, is primarily made up of academic scientists and other experts who review EPA’s research to ensure that the regulations the agency undertakes have a sound scientific basis.
“The EPA routinely stacks this board with friendly scientists who receive millions of dollars in grants from the federal government,” Smith said at the time. “The conflict of interest here is clear.”
In a budget proposal obtained by The Washington Post last month, the panel’s operating budget is slated for an 84 percent cut [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/04/04/trump-doesnt-just-want-to-cut-the-epas-science-he-wants-to-cut-its-expertise/?utm_term=.68a9f6b45a7b ] — or $542,000 — for fiscal 2018. That money typically covers travel and other expenses for outside experts who attend the board’s public meetings.
The document said the budget cut reflects “an anticipated lower number of peer reviews.”
[...]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/05/07/epa-dismisses-half-of-its-scientific-advisers-on-key-board-citing-clean-break-with-obama-administration/ [with embedded video, and comments]
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Interior IDs 27 monuments for possible end to protections
May 05, 2017
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Interior Department on Friday identified 27 national monuments, mostly in Western states, that it is reviewing for possible changes to the protections created by Republican and Democratic presidents over the past two decades.
President Donald Trump ordered the review last month, saying protections imposed by his three immediate predecessors amounted to “a massive federal land grab” that “should never have happened.”
A list released Friday includes 22 monuments on federal land in 11, mostly Western states, including Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah, Nevada’s Basin and Range and Katahdin Woods and Waters in Maine.
The review also targets five marine monuments in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, including a huge reserve in Hawaii established in 2006 by President George W. Bush and expanded last year by President Barack Obama.
[...]
https://www.apnews.com/d4a8a93160374076a6fbbaaa97d00748/Interior-IDs-27-monuments-for-possible-end-to-protections
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Are Industry Interests Behind President Trump’s Attack on National Monuments?
President Donald Trump holds up the signed executive order on the Antiquities Act during a ceremony at the Interior Department on April 26, 2017.
May 8, 2017
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/news/2017/05/08/432011/industry-interests-behind-president-trumps-attack-national-monuments/
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France sent 42 people to a global climate summit. The Trump administration sent 7.
Demonstrators hold a sit in outside the White House during the People’s Climate March in Washington on April 29.
May 8, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/05/08/france-sent-42-people-to-a-global-climate-summit-the-trump-administration-sent-7/ [with comments]
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Eric Trump 'said we have all the funding we need out of Russia', golf writer claims
A journalist recalled the statements from the now-President and his son during a trip to North Carolina
8 May 2017
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/eric-trump-donald-golf-courses-russia-funding-golf-writer-interview-2014-james-dodson-a7722806.html [with embedded videos, and comments]
Eric Trump said family golf courses attracted Russian funding, author claims
Donald Trump on one of his golf courses.
President’s son denies he said Trump Organization had ‘all the funding we need’ from Russia while Donald Trump ‘tossed off that he had access to $100m’
8 May 2017
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/07/trump-family-golf-courses-russia-funding-author-claims
A Day (And A Cheeseburger) With President Trump
May 05, 2017 Updated 2017-05-08
[...]
When the big day arrived, a dark, gray sky provided the first sign that all would not go as planned. Dodson was a little late arriving, and by the time he entered the Trump National Charlotte clubhouse, his host was already holding forth.
"Trump was strutting up and down, talking to his new members about how they were part of the greatest club in North Carolina," Dodson says. "And when I first met him, I asked him how he was — you know, this is the journalist in me — I said, 'What are you using to pay for these courses?' And he just sort of tossed off that he had access to $100 million."
$100 million.
"So when I got in the cart with Eric," Dodson says, "as we were setting off, I said, 'Eric, who’s funding? I know no banks — because of the recession, the Great Recession — have touched a golf course. You know, no one’s funding any kind of golf construction. It’s dead in the water the last four or five years.' And this is what he said. He said, 'Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.' I said, 'Really?' And he said, 'Oh, yeah. We’ve got some guys that really, really love golf, and they’re really invested in our programs. We just go there all the time.' Now that was three years ago, so it was pretty interesting."
Well, yeah. It is. (Update: Eric Trump has denied [ http://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2017/05/08/eric-trump-russia-golf-course-funding ] saying this about Russia.)
[...]
http://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2017/05/05/james-dodson-donald-trump-golf [the original source; with embedded audio, and comments]
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Full Show - Illuminati Mascot Macron Celebrates France’s Enslavement - 05/08/2017
Published on May 9, 2017 by The Alex Jones Channel
Monday, May 8th, 2017[, with an appearance by George Neumayr]: We discuss the aftermath of the French election and how the establishment media is now claiming there was a “record number of blank and invalid ballots,” which indicates the globalists stole the election to save the EU. In US news, Trump insider Roger Stone starts naming the names of those attempting to derail President Trump from inside DC. And activist Jack Posobiec breaks down other developments.
What humans will look like in 1,000 years
Published on May 6, 2017 by Tech Insider [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVLZmDKeT-mV4H3ToYXIFYg , https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVLZmDKeT-mV4H3ToYXIFYg/videos ]
There will eventually be a day where prosthetics are no longer just for the disabled.
However, it’s not just our outside appearance that will change – our genes will also evolve on microscopic levels to aid our survival. For example, an Oxford-led study discovered a group of HIV-infected children in South Africa living healthy lives. It turns out, they have a built-in defense against HIV that prevents the virus from advancing to AIDS.
And with gene-editing tools like CRISPR, we may eventually control our genes and DNA to the point where we make ourselves immune to disease and even reverse the effects of aging.
Another way to jump-start the human evolution on a different path is to move some of us to Mars. Mars receives 66% less sunlight than Earth. Which could mean humans on Mars will evolve larger pupils that can absorb more light in order to see. And since Mars’ gravitational pull is only 38% of Earth’s, people born on Mars might actually be taller than anyone on Earth. In space, the fluid that separates our vertebrae expands, which led American aerospace engineer, Robert Zubrin to suggest that Mars’ low gravity could allow the human spine to elongate enough to add a few extra inches to our height.
However, not even a move to Mars could spark the biggest change in human evolution that we may have coming in the next 1,000 years: immortality. The path to immortality will likely require humans to download their consciousness into a machine. Right now, scientists in Italy and China are performing head transplants on animals to determine if you can transfer consciousness from one body to another. They claim their next big step is to transplant human heads.
Whatever happens in the next 1,000 years — whether we merge with machines or become them — one thing is certain: The human race is always changing — and the faster we change and branch out from Earth, the better chance we have of outrunning extinction.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-humans-look-like-1000-years-2017-4 , http://www.businessinsider.com/sai
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BibBMBibTq0 [with (over 15,000) comments]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtCrqO520iI [with comments]
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FULL HEARING: Sally Yates & James Clapper Testify About Flynn/Russia and Interference in Election
Published on May 8, 2017 by FOX 10 Phoenix [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJg9wBPyKMNA5sRDnvzmkdg , https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJg9wBPyKMNA5sRDnvzmkdg/videos ]
The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime & Terrorism holds hearing entitled "Russian Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election." Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates & Former D.N.I. James Clapper testify.
Full transcript: Sally Yates and James Clapper testify on Russian election interference
May 8, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/05/08/full-transcript-sally-yates-and-james-clapper-testify-on-russian-election-interference/ [with embedded video, and comments]
Sally Yates just publicly confirmed important facts about the Trump-Russia story
May 8, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/05/08/sally-yates-just-publicly-confirmed-important-facts-about-the-trump-russia-story/ [with embedded video, and comments]
Why the Sally Yates Hearing Was Very Bad News for the Trump White House
The president just lost his favorite piece of spin for countering the Russia scandal.
May 8, 2017
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/sally-yates-clapper-russia-trump-hearing-michael-flynn [with comments]
Trump’s pointing of the finger at Obama for failing to vet Flynn
“General Flynn was given the highest security clearance by the Obama Administration — but the Fake News seldom likes talking about that.”
— President Trump, in a tweet, May 8, 2017
“If President Obama was truly concerned about General Flynn, why didn’t he suspend General Flynn’s security clearance, which they had just reapproved months earlier. Additionally, why did the Obama administration let Flynn go to Russia for a paid speaking engagement and receive a fee?”
— White House spokesman Sean Spicer, at a news briefing, May 8, 2017
May 9, 2017
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/05/09/trumps-pointing-of-the-finger-at-obama-for-failing-to-vet-flynn/ [with embedded videos, and comments]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFuOLZzOogQ [with comments] [and see also in particular (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131177799 and preceding and following]
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Bernie Sanders & Jimmy Carter - LIVE from the Carter Center - A Conversation on Human Rights
Streamed live on May 8, 2017 by Uphill Media [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpVhqCnd6iz3gfJUuGM1r7g , https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpVhqCnd6iz3gfJUuGM1r7g/videos ]
Join the conversation for this hosted livestream event as we watch Jimmy Carter and Sen. Bernie Sanders discuss human rights at the Carter Center in Georgia. The Carter Center is providing the stream via Facebook and we will restream it right here on Uphill Media.
(There's a Part 2 because the stream was briefly interrupted at the emd of Part 1, then continued with Part 2.)
Carter Center Event Information
https://www.cartercenter.org/news/upcoming_events/promo/hrd-forum-2017.html
https://www.facebook.com/cartercenter
"Freedom from Fear: Securing Rights in Challenging Times"
Join us for a live webcast of the Carter Center's annual Human Rights Defenders Forum, during which more than 70 activists, scholars, and community leaders will come together at the Center to discuss ways to protect human rights in an era of rising authoritarianism.
“Freedom from Fear: Securing Rights in Challenging Times” will shine a spotlight on some of the obstacles human rights defenders are facing as governments in many countries clamp down on public debate and activism. The forum also will showcase the experiences of the courageous women and men on the front lines of this fight.
In addition to the webcast, a special conversation on human rights between former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders will air on Facebook on Monday, May 8, at 6:20 p.m.
The Carter Center Live Stream https://www.facebook.com/cartercenter/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiEG5kNURxM [with comments],
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2fwnUzZLgY [with comments]
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Sally Yates is an American Hero | The Resistance with Keith Olbermann | GQ
Published on May 8, 2017 by GQ [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsEukrAd64fqA7FjwkmZ_Dw / https://www.youtube.com/user/GQVideos , https://www.youtube.com/user/GQVideos/videos , https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0hKMB1-xkc-XWNf9VL-LxVYysdHpjyMF ]
And Trump? He is in trouble.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdIg1DfS9LE [with comments]
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Infowars Nightly News - Investigate Yates & Clapper - 05/08/2017
Streamed live on May 9, 2017 by The Alex Jones Channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVwEPLRRv1o [with comments]
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Did Trump lie about the Flynn fiasco?
All In with Chris Hayes
5/8/17
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on the Sally Yates testimony and the president's claim he was unaware that Michael Flynn talked sanctions with the Russians. Duration: 8:52
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/did-trump-lie-about-the-flynn-fiasco-939223107741
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Kushner family impropriety?
All In with Chris Hayes
5/8/17
Jared Kushner's sister mentioned her brother's role in the administration while pitching investments in U.S. property to Chinese investors in exchange for a path to citizenship. Duration: 5:14
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/kushner-family-impropriety-939226691878 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOA4Haz0nnM [with comments]
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Two big GOP lies on health care
All In with Chris Hayes
5/8/17
GOP Congressman Raul Labrador says nobody dies because they don't have health insurance and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise defends Trumpcare by saying 'nobody can be charged more than anybody else.' Duration: 2:59
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/republicans-lie-about-health-care-939225155749 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoSqgVzoJVo [with comments]
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Cracks deepen in White House Flynn story with new Senate testimony
The Rachel Maddow Show
5/8/17
Rachel Maddow reports on what was learned from testimony by former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee. Duration: 19:45
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/cracks-deepen-in-white-house-flynn-story-with-new-senate-testimony-939298883702 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTFQNZMEM0k [with comments]
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Still unexplained: Trump's 18 day delay in firing Flynn
The Rachel Maddow Show
5/8/17
Adam Schiff, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, talks with Rachel Maddow about what was learned from testimony in the Senate by Sally Yates and James Clapper, and why it took Donald Trump so long to act on knowledge that Mike Flynn was compromised. Duration: 9:54
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/still-unexplained-trump-s-18-day-delay-in-firing-flynn-939309123542
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Yates message to White House 'extraordinary'
The Rachel Maddow Show
5/8/17
Matthew Axelrod, who served as principal deputy to former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, talks with Rachel Maddow about Yates' integrity and her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee. Duration: 6:30
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/yates-message-to-white-house-extraordinary-939324483573
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Democrats look to supplant Republicans avoiding home town halls
The Rachel Maddow Show
5/8/17
Rachel Maddow reports on a new idea of Democratic members of Congress attending town halls in neighboring districts where the Republican representative is unresponsive to constituents amid a backlash against GOP lawmakers who voted to kill Obamacare. Duration: 4:17
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/democrats-look-to-supplant-republicans-avoiding-home-town-halls-939331651863 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPXFFJTZD8c [with comments]
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White House waited 18 days to fire Flynn after warning
The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell
5/8/17
Sally Yates warned the White House that Michael Flynn could be compromised by the Russians but some at her Senate hearing were more concerned with how a newspaper learned that Flynn wasn’t telling the truth. Tim Mak, Meike Eoyang, Ned Price and David Corn discuss. Duration: 14:50
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/white-house-waited-18-days-to-fire-flynn-after-warning-939307075845 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3-1d-8OBBc [with comments]
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French Pres-Elect Spokesperson: Populism lost
The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell
5/8/17
Trump-style nationalism lost in France even though Russia may have tried to hack and influence the election. Did the outcome make Europe stronger? Is this a message to Trump and Putin? Laura Haim, spokesperson for the French President-Elect and David Rothkopf join Lawrence. Duration: 8:04
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/french-pres-elect-spokesperson-populism-lost-939310659739
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Yates testifies on Russia, Mike Flynn, & Team Trump's reaction
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams
5/8/17
Detailing how she warned the White House that Michael Flynn could be compromised by Moscow, several senators are puzzled by the reaction she got from Trump's White House lawyer. Duration: 13:14
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/brian-williams/watch/yates-testifies-on-russia-mike-flynn-team-trump-s-reaction-939322947949
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Sen. Dick Durbin reacts to Yates testimony on Russia & Flynn
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams
5/8/17
Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) joins MSNBC's Brian Williams to discuss what he learned during fmr. acting Atty. General Sally Yates' testimony. Duration: 3:25
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/brian-williams/watch/sen-dick-durbin-reacts-to-yates-testimony-on-russia-flynn-939330115541
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Kushner family biz deal raises ethics questions for Team Trump
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams
5/8/17
MSNBC's Brian Williams talks to Stephanie Ruhle and Gillian Tett about a Kushner family business deal that could end up being a headache for the Trump White House. Duration: 6:19
©2017 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/brian-williams/watch/kushner-family-biz-deal-raises-ethics-questions-for-team-trump-939332675978 , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyE7Unxk20Q [with comments]
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The All-Male Panel on Women's Health: The Daily Show
Published on May 8, 2017 by The Daily Show with Trevor Noah [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwWhs_6x42TyRM4Wstoq8HA , https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwWhs_6x42TyRM4Wstoq8HA/videos ]
Michelle Wolf explains why Senate Republicans need to include women on the panel responsible for crafting health care legislation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0_pm8Sl0rQ [with comments]
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Jimmy Kimmel on Response to Emotional Monologue About Baby & Health Care Debate
Published on May 8, 2017 by Jimmy Kimmel Live [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa6vGFO9ty8v5KZJXQxdhaw / https://www.youtube.com/user/JimmyKimmelLive , https://www.youtube.com/user/JimmyKimmelLive/videos ]
Jimmy returns from his time off after his newborn son Billy had heart surgery and he talks about the outpouring of love and support he has received, the not-so-nice things some people have said, and he speaks with Louisiana’s Republican Senator Bill Cassidy about the health care debate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SToeM55KMzU [with comments]
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Lie Witness News: Trumpcare Edition
Published on May 9, 2017 by Jimmy Kimmel Live
On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed what they call the American Healthcare Act also called Trumpcare. So this afternoon we went out on the street and asked people who claimed to be in favor of the new GOP health care plan about a bunch of provisions we totally made up in a know-your-health-care edition of #LieWitnessNews [ https://www.youtube.com/results?q=%23LieWitnessNews ]
[originally aired May 8, 2017].
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brj7j9bWQik [with comments]
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The Kentucky Derby Was Eerily Reminiscent Of The Election
Published on May 9, 2017 by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMtFAi84ehTSYSE9XoHefig , https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMtFAi84ehTSYSE9XoHefig/videos ]
Saturday's race at Churchill Downs seems to have been a microcosm for something bigger.
[originally aired May 8, 2017]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdckXpqalBA [with comments]
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What Ambulances Will Look Like Under Trumpcare
Published on May 9, 2017 by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Virginia gubernatorial candidate Tom Perriello is finding alternative uses for ambulances in case Trumpcare deems them useless.
[originally aired May 8, 2017]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKc08iYhW9A [with comments]
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Bill Nye Explains Why The March For Science Was Necessary
Published on May 9, 2017 by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
'Bill Nye Saves the World' star says current administration isn't upholding the U.S. Constitution's promise to 'promote the progress of science and useful arts.'
[originally aired May 8, 2017 (U.S. central time)]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odwUm0strNM [with comments]
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Obama Warned Trump About Flynn, GOP Defends Health Care Bill: A Closer Look
Published on May 8, 2017 by Late Night with Seth Meyers [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVTyTA7-g9nopHeHbeuvpRA / https://www.youtube.com/user/LateNightSeth , https://www.youtube.com/user/LateNightSeth/videos ]
Seth takes a closer look at the revelation then-President Obama warned Trump against ousted NSA head Michael Flynn and the fallout from the Republicans' unpopular health care bill.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7hzxYvCIUo [with comments]
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President Barack Obama Speaks at Global Food Innovation Summit in Milan
Published on May 9, 2017 by LIVE SATELLITE NEWS [ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEu3KY-hNCbWVCXrqQfPB9w / https://www.youtube.com/user/psb2usa , https://www.youtube.com/user/psb2usa/videos ]
9 May 2017: Milan, Italy. Former U.S. President Barack Obama delivers a keynote speech on food security and the environment, two issues that he has long worked on. Former US Pres. Obama speaks at international summit of food innovation in Milan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfFa46s6wlg [with comment] [also, full event with Obama participating in the continuing discussion, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaQpffnZRWA (text adapted from; no comments yet), and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnkkYQBs-Xw (no comments yet)]
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in addition to (linked in) the post to which this is a reply and preceding and (any future other) following, see also (linked in):
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=84628488 and preceding and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=129195714 and preceding and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131184060 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=129013931 and preceding and following;
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=130177377 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131144707 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131144983 and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131149422 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131149862 and following
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http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131151411 and preceding (and any future following),
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131169195 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131164447 and preceding and following
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http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131167960 and preceding and following
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http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131178157 and preceding (and any future following),
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131180021 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131175037 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131178261 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131178639 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131180152 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131180415 and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131181249 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131182605 (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131184146 and preceding and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131185942 and preceding and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131196115 and preceding (and any future following),
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131196144 and preceding and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131196508 and preceding and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131199305 and preceding (and any future following),
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131200594 and preceding (and any future following),
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131201005 and preceding (and any future following)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131184160 and preceding and following,
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131199419 and preceding and following
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=131196770 (and any future following)
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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