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'Deporter in Chief' Not Doing Much Deporting
Nate Jackson · Aug. 22, 2016
Illegal immigration activists love to try to portray Barack Obama as the “deporter in chief,” because they want him to grant amnesty to even more illegals than he already has. But is he actually doing much to deport illegals? Nope. According to government data, Obama’s latest program to work with state and local law enforcement on deportation has resulted in — drumroll please — a decrease in detainer requests. That means Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) is not asking as often for state and local jails to hold illegals so ICE can take them into custody for deportation. In FY2015, there were 95,085 retainer requests, but that was 41% lower than FY2014, when there were 159,210 requests. If that decline meant that there were fewer illegals to deport, that would be one thing. But there are reports of a surge in illegal crossings this summer, no doubt as word spreads of Obama’s amnesty and Hillary Clinton’s significant polling lead in the presidential race.
Speaking of which, immigration is one of the principal reasons for the rise of Donald Trump. So let’s check in with his plan for a “deportation force” to remove the estimated 11 million illegals from the country. Does he still plan such a force? “To be determined,” answered his new campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway. Sen. Jeff Sessions, a key Trump surrogate, also said Trump “did not make a firm commitment” recently on the subject. Mike Pence was left with his usual role of clarifying, and he insisted, “I don’t think the message is changing at all.” Perhaps we’ll find out from Trump himself when the candidate makes his immigration speech on Thursday. In any case, illegal immigration continues to be a topic many voters are watching carefully.
https://patriotpost.us/posts/44401
'Deporter in Chief' Not Doing Much Deporting
Nate Jackson · Aug. 22, 2016
Illegal immigration activists love to try to portray Barack Obama as the “deporter in chief,” because they want him to grant amnesty to even more illegals than he already has. But is he actually doing much to deport illegals? Nope. According to government data, Obama’s latest program to work with state and local law enforcement on deportation has resulted in — drumroll please — a decrease in detainer requests. That means Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) is not asking as often for state and local jails to hold illegals so ICE can take them into custody for deportation. In FY2015, there were 95,085 retainer requests, but that was 41% lower than FY2014, when there were 159,210 requests. If that decline meant that there were fewer illegals to deport, that would be one thing. But there are reports of a surge in illegal crossings this summer, no doubt as word spreads of Obama’s amnesty and Hillary Clinton’s significant polling lead in the presidential race.
Speaking of which, immigration is one of the principal reasons for the rise of Donald Trump. So let’s check in with his plan for a “deportation force” to remove the estimated 11 million illegals from the country. Does he still plan such a force? “To be determined,” answered his new campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway. Sen. Jeff Sessions, a key Trump surrogate, also said Trump “did not make a firm commitment” recently on the subject. Mike Pence was left with his usual role of clarifying, and he insisted, “I don’t think the message is changing at all.” Perhaps we’ll find out from Trump himself when the candidate makes his immigration speech on Thursday. In any case, illegal immigration continues to be a topic many voters are watching carefully.
https://patriotpost.us/posts/44401
Forgot the photo:
Nice becomes latest French city to ban burkini
AFP, NiceFriday, 19 August 2016
Nice has become the latest French seaside resort to ban the burkini, the body-concealing Islamic swimsuit that has sparked heated debate in secular France, city officials said Friday.
Using language similar to bans imposed in a string of other towns on the French Riviera, the city barred apparel that “overtly manifests adherence to a religion at a time when France and places of worship are the target of terrorist attacks.”
The ban in Nice referred specifically to last month’s Bastille Day truck attack in the city that claimed 85 lives as well as the murder 12 days later of a Catholic priest near the northern city of Rouen.
Fifteen towns in the southeast, as well as others elsewhere in France, have already banned the burkini including nearby film festival host city Cannes, where three women were each fined 38 euros ($43) under the ban at the weekend.
Nice’s deputy mayor Christian Estrosi, from the center-right Republicans party, wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Manuel Valls Tuesday that “hiding the face or wearing a full-body costume to go to the beach is not in keeping with our ideal of social relations.”
Valls came under fire after saying Wednesday that the burkini was “not compatible with the values of France and the Republic.”
The Socialist premier cited the tensions in France after the militant attacks to justify his support for the mayors who barred a garment that he said was “founded on the subjugation of women.”
France’s Human Rights League accused Valls of “participating in the stigmatization of a category of French people who have become suspect by virtue of their faith.”
Burkinis are a rare sight on French beaches, where a small minority of Muslim women can be seen bathing in ordinary clothes and wearing headscarves.
Islamic dress has long been a subject of debate in France, which was the first European country to ban the Islamic face veil in public in 2010, six years after outlawing the headscarf and other conspicuous religious symbols in state schools.
Last Update: Friday, 19 August 2016 KSA 20:56 - GMT 17:56
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/2016/08/19/Nice-becomes-latest-French-city-to-ban-burkini.html
Nice becomes latest French city to ban burkini
AFP, NiceFriday, 19 August 2016
Nice has become the latest French seaside resort to ban the burkini, the body-concealing Islamic swimsuit that has sparked heated debate in secular France, city officials said Friday.
Using language similar to bans imposed in a string of other towns on the French Riviera, the city barred apparel that “overtly manifests adherence to a religion at a time when France and places of worship are the target of terrorist attacks.”
The ban in Nice referred specifically to last month’s Bastille Day truck attack in the city that claimed 85 lives as well as the murder 12 days later of a Catholic priest near the northern city of Rouen.
Fifteen towns in the southeast, as well as others elsewhere in France, have already banned the burkini including nearby film festival host city Cannes, where three women were each fined 38 euros ($43) under the ban at the weekend.
Nice’s deputy mayor Christian Estrosi, from the center-right Republicans party, wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Manuel Valls Tuesday that “hiding the face or wearing a full-body costume to go to the beach is not in keeping with our ideal of social relations.”
Valls came under fire after saying Wednesday that the burkini was “not compatible with the values of France and the Republic.”
The Socialist premier cited the tensions in France after the militant attacks to justify his support for the mayors who barred a garment that he said was “founded on the subjugation of women.”
France’s Human Rights League accused Valls of “participating in the stigmatization of a category of French people who have become suspect by virtue of their faith.”
Burkinis are a rare sight on French beaches, where a small minority of Muslim women can be seen bathing in ordinary clothes and wearing headscarves.
Islamic dress has long been a subject of debate in France, which was the first European country to ban the Islamic face veil in public in 2010, six years after outlawing the headscarf and other conspicuous religious symbols in state schools.
Last Update: Friday, 19 August 2016 KSA 20:56 - GMT 17:56
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/2016/08/19/Nice-becomes-latest-French-city-to-ban-burkini.html
Iran ‘tortured’ prisoners before executions
Execution of 25 Sunni-Kurdish activists, who included young preacher Shahram Ahmadi, was met by a wave of international condemnation.
Staff writer, AlArabiya.net
Wednesday, 17 August 2016
A human rights organization said the families of the Sunni-Kurdish prisoners whom Iran executed earlier this month revealed that Iranian intelligence members had tortured their sons prior to executing them by hanging.
The Defenders of Human Rights Center in Kurdistan quoted the families of the executed prisoners as saying that they’ve seen torture marks on their son’s bodies in addition to broken legs and arms.
On August 2, members of the intelligence and masked members affiliated with the Iranian special security units raided the political prisoners’ section in the Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj, west of Tehran, and led 36 Sunni Kurdish activists, who were sentenced to death at the time, to an unknown location. The next day, news of executing 25 of them was released
The Defenders of Human Rights Center quoted an activist in Sanandaj, capital of the Kurdistan province, as saying that Iranian intelligence members threatened to arrest the family members of the executed men if they speak to the media about the torture marks on their children’s bodies.
The activist added that security forces also warned them of holding funerals for those hanged.
Iran accussed the prisoners of committing several murders and undermining national security, state media reported. (Archives)
The Human Right Activists News Agency (HRANA) had reported that prior to executing the Sunni Kurdish activists, security officers handcuffed, blindfolded and physically assaulted them up and then held them in solitary confinement.
The execution of the 25 Sunni activists, who included young preacher Shahram Ahmadi, was met by a wave of international condemnation against Tehran.
The UN, EU, US and international human rights organizations have condemned the executions and criticized their trials for lacking transparency, for basing the verdicts on confessions made under torture and for not allowing the defendants to defend themselves.
In letters they leaked from jail to international human rights organizations, most of the executed men denied performing any armed acts and confirmed that their activity focused on the activities on religious teachings and that they were not members or supporters of any extremist movement.
Last Update: Wednesday, 17 August 2016 KSA 12:35 - GMT 09:35
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2016/08/17/Iran-intelligence-tortured-prisoners-before-executions.html
Iran ‘tortured’ prisoners before executions
Execution of 25 Sunni-Kurdish activists, who included young preacher Shahram Ahmadi, was met by a wave of international condemnation.
Staff writer, AlArabiya.net
Wednesday, 17 August 2016
A human rights organization said the families of the Sunni-Kurdish prisoners whom Iran executed earlier this month revealed that Iranian intelligence members had tortured their sons prior to executing them by hanging.
The Defenders of Human Rights Center in Kurdistan quoted the families of the executed prisoners as saying that they’ve seen torture marks on their son’s bodies in addition to broken legs and arms.
On August 2, members of the intelligence and masked members affiliated with the Iranian special security units raided the political prisoners’ section in the Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj, west of Tehran, and led 36 Sunni Kurdish activists, who were sentenced to death at the time, to an unknown location. The next day, news of executing 25 of them was released
The Defenders of Human Rights Center quoted an activist in Sanandaj, capital of the Kurdistan province, as saying that Iranian intelligence members threatened to arrest the family members of the executed men if they speak to the media about the torture marks on their children’s bodies.
The activist added that security forces also warned them of holding funerals for those hanged.
Iran accussed the prisoners of committing several murders and undermining national security, state media reported. (Archives)
The Human Right Activists News Agency (HRANA) had reported that prior to executing the Sunni Kurdish activists, security officers handcuffed, blindfolded and physically assaulted them up and then held them in solitary confinement.
The execution of the 25 Sunni activists, who included young preacher Shahram Ahmadi, was met by a wave of international condemnation against Tehran.
The UN, EU, US and international human rights organizations have condemned the executions and criticized their trials for lacking transparency, for basing the verdicts on confessions made under torture and for not allowing the defendants to defend themselves.
In letters they leaked from jail to international human rights organizations, most of the executed men denied performing any armed acts and confirmed that their activity focused on the activities on religious teachings and that they were not members or supporters of any extremist movement.
Last Update: Wednesday, 17 August 2016 KSA 12:35 - GMT 09:35
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2016/08/17/Iran-intelligence-tortured-prisoners-before-executions.html
2 Patients Acquired Zika Through Platelet Transfusion
By the Editors
Medical News |
Physician's First Watch
August 18, 2016
Two patients in Brazil likely were infected with the Zika virus via platelet transfusion, according to a letter in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The index patient donated platelets before developing symptoms. The donor later tested positive for the virus.
One of the patients who received platelets had primary myelofibrosis syndrome while the other had acute myeloid leukemia. Neither of these patients developed Zika symptoms.
2 Patients Acquired Zika Through Platelet Transfusion
By the Editors
Medical News |
Physician's First Watch
August 18, 2016
Two patients in Brazil likely were infected with the Zika virus via platelet transfusion, according to a letter in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The index patient donated platelets before developing symptoms. The donor later tested positive for the virus.
One of the patients who received platelets had primary myelofibrosis syndrome while the other had acute myeloid leukemia. Neither of these patients developed Zika symptoms.
Separation of Mosque and State
By Allyne Caan
Aug. 18, 2016
In May, the Philadelphia School District announced it would be adding two Muslim holidays — Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha — to the school calendar, making the district one of a growing number in the nation to recognize Muslim holidays.
A member of the Philadelphia Eid Coalition, a political action committee whose stated mission is to convince the district to declare these holidays official religious holidays, said1 Philadelphia’s move will “validate our young Muslim students” and prevent them from “hav[ing] to choose between education and religion.”
Her words are particularly ironic, given the organized and concerted effort to validate Islam in American schools — at the expense of truth. Indeed, the Institute on Religion and Civic Values (formerly the Council on Islamic Education2) — which has reviewed world history textbooks for more than 20 years — made no secrets about its wish to foment a “bloodless” cultural revolution through promoting Islam via textbooks and, as the Middle Eastern Forum reported3, “warn[ing] scholars and public officials who do not sympathize with its requests that they will be perceived as racists, reactionaries, and enemies of Islam.”
The organization boasts that its “reviews have helped improve the coverage and framing of complex topics.” Substitute “fictionalize” for “improve,” and this becomes pretty accurate.
Joy Pullman reports4, for example, that an Ohio mother plans to excuse her child from a world history class requirement that he recite the shahada, a Muslim conversion prayer. (The Christian conversion prayer is in a subsequent class — just kidding.) And when that mother requested an independent review of the district’s textbooks, reviewers found blatant errors including a claim that Muslims historically “practiced religious tolerance” by merely levying an extra tax on Christians and Jews. The book conveniently left out that if Christians and Jews didn’t fork over the tax, they could lose their heads. Tolerance, indeed. Did Christianity and Judaism receive similar classroom time? Take a guess.
Last year, we noted5 that a school in Tennessee was teaching the Five Pillars of Islam during a world religion study, again without similar balance.
Citizens for National Security, an independent textbook reviewer, has also noted pretty hefty lies in textbooks, including teaching that “war broke out” between Palestinians and Israelis. Yep, they were all peacefully chatting over tea and war just “broke out.” Never mind well-documented Palestinian aggression.
Indeed, earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal noted6 parents' growing concern over “what they see as an overly benign depiction of [Islam].” For example, the Journal points to one textbook used in 30 of Tennessee’s 140 school districts that teaches that Islam expanded via conquest but also “spread peacefully” in many places. The textbook also notes Muslims' “religious toleration” toward Jews and Christians aided in Islam’s expansion. The 1.5 million Armenians slaughtered by Muslims7 during the Armenian Genocide must have missed out on this “tolerance.” Versions of this same textbook are used nationwide.
That’s not to say every school is promoting Islam. Some, as Pullman also notes, are pretty much pretending religion doesn’t exist altogether. The National Association of Scholars recently issued a review of the College Board’s new AP European history standards (APEH)8. Among the conclusions: APEH “warps and guts the history of Europe to make it serve today’s progressive agenda,” “presents religion throughout as an instrument of power rather than as an autonomous sphere of European history,” and “points the arrow of European history toward a well-governed, secular welfare state, whose interchangeable subjects possess neither national particularity nor faith nor freedom.”
In other words, the standards discount religion from playing a motivating factor in pivotal events of history such as the Holocaust (for evil) or abolition (for good).
It’s no secret government schools have long been indoctrinating students into the religion of the state. Before parents continue to claim that the problem may be real but their local school is “different,” they’d be wise to note just how organized and systematic the indoctrination has become.
Separation of Mosque and State
By Allyne Caan
Aug. 18, 2016
In May, the Philadelphia School District announced it would be adding two Muslim holidays — Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha — to the school calendar, making the district one of a growing number in the nation to recognize Muslim holidays.
A member of the Philadelphia Eid Coalition, a political action committee whose stated mission is to convince the district to declare these holidays official religious holidays, said1 Philadelphia’s move will “validate our young Muslim students” and prevent them from “hav[ing] to choose between education and religion.”
Her words are particularly ironic, given the organized and concerted effort to validate Islam in American schools — at the expense of truth. Indeed, the Institute on Religion and Civic Values (formerly the Council on Islamic Education2) — which has reviewed world history textbooks for more than 20 years — made no secrets about its wish to foment a “bloodless” cultural revolution through promoting Islam via textbooks and, as the Middle Eastern Forum reported3, “warn[ing] scholars and public officials who do not sympathize with its requests that they will be perceived as racists, reactionaries, and enemies of Islam.”
The organization boasts that its “reviews have helped improve the coverage and framing of complex topics.” Substitute “fictionalize” for “improve,” and this becomes pretty accurate.
Joy Pullman reports4, for example, that an Ohio mother plans to excuse her child from a world history class requirement that he recite the shahada, a Muslim conversion prayer. (The Christian conversion prayer is in a subsequent class — just kidding.) And when that mother requested an independent review of the district’s textbooks, reviewers found blatant errors including a claim that Muslims historically “practiced religious tolerance” by merely levying an extra tax on Christians and Jews. The book conveniently left out that if Christians and Jews didn’t fork over the tax, they could lose their heads. Tolerance, indeed. Did Christianity and Judaism receive similar classroom time? Take a guess.
Last year, we noted5 that a school in Tennessee was teaching the Five Pillars of Islam during a world religion study, again without similar balance.
Citizens for National Security, an independent textbook reviewer, has also noted pretty hefty lies in textbooks, including teaching that “war broke out” between Palestinians and Israelis. Yep, they were all peacefully chatting over tea and war just “broke out.” Never mind well-documented Palestinian aggression.
Indeed, earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal noted6 parents' growing concern over “what they see as an overly benign depiction of [Islam].” For example, the Journal points to one textbook used in 30 of Tennessee’s 140 school districts that teaches that Islam expanded via conquest but also “spread peacefully” in many places. The textbook also notes Muslims' “religious toleration” toward Jews and Christians aided in Islam’s expansion. The 1.5 million Armenians slaughtered by Muslims7 during the Armenian Genocide must have missed out on this “tolerance.” Versions of this same textbook are used nationwide.
That’s not to say every school is promoting Islam. Some, as Pullman also notes, are pretty much pretending religion doesn’t exist altogether. The National Association of Scholars recently issued a review of the College Board’s new AP European history standards (APEH)8. Among the conclusions: APEH “warps and guts the history of Europe to make it serve today’s progressive agenda,” “presents religion throughout as an instrument of power rather than as an autonomous sphere of European history,” and “points the arrow of European history toward a well-governed, secular welfare state, whose interchangeable subjects possess neither national particularity nor faith nor freedom.”
In other words, the standards discount religion from playing a motivating factor in pivotal events of history such as the Holocaust (for evil) or abolition (for good).
It’s no secret government schools have long been indoctrinating students into the religion of the state. Before parents continue to claim that the problem may be real but their local school is “different,” they’d be wise to note just how organized and systematic the indoctrination has become.
Our Views: Vacation or not, a hurting Louisiana needs you now, President Obama
Advocate editorial
Published Aug 17, 2016 at 8:00 pm | Updated Aug 18, 2016 at 9:40 am
Now that the flood waters ravaging Louisiana are receding, it's time for President Barack Obama to visit the most anguished state in the union.
Last week, as torrential rains brought death, destruction and misery to Louisiana, the president continued his vacation at Martha’s Vineyard, a playground for the posh and well-connected.
We’ve seen this story before in Louisiana, and we don’t deserve a sequel. In 2005, a fly-over by a vacationing President George W. Bush became a symbol of official neglect for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The current president was among those making political hay out of Bush’s aloofness.
Sometimes, presidential visits can get in the way of emergency response, doing more harm than good. But we don’t see that as a factor now that flood waters are subsiding, even if at an agonizing pace. It’s past time for the president to pay a personal visit, showing his solidarity with suffering Americans.
Like his predecessors, Obama has no doubt discovered that crises keep their own calendar, even when commanders-in-chief are trying to take some time off the clock. It’s an inconvenience of the presidency, but it’s what chief executives sign up for when they take the oath of office.
And if the president can interrupt his vacation for a swanky fundraiser for fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton, as he did on Monday, then surely he can make time to show up for a catastrophe that’s displaced thousands.
The optics of Obama golfing while Louisiana residents languished in flood waters was striking. It evoked the precedent of the passive federal response to the state’s agony in 2005, a chapter of history no one should ever repeat.
The president acted prudently in officially declaring a disaster for the flooded part of the state, a key step in advancing federal aid. We’ve been heartened so far by the active involvement of Craig Fugate, head of Federal Emergency Management Agency, a far cry from FEMA’s hapless Michael Brown in the days after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was slated to visit Louisiana today to assess the damage.
But a disaster this big begs for the personal presence of the president at ground zero. In coming here, the president can decisively demonstrate that Louisiana’s recovery is a priority for his administration – and the United States of America.
The president’s vacation is scheduled to wrap up on Sunday. But he should pack his bags now, and pay a call on communities who need to know that in a national catastrophe, they are not alone.
The president’s presence is already late to this crisis, but it’s better later than never.
As Louisiana begins to rebuild after the 2016 flood, scenes of friends, family and neighbors helping one another have become bright spots amid tragic loss.
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/our_views/article_f1ce22ee-64b4-11e6-b11a-a393ff25161d.html
Our Views: Vacation or not, a hurting Louisiana needs you now, President Obama
Advocate editorial
Published Aug 17, 2016 at 8:00 pm | Updated Aug 18, 2016 at 9:40 am
Now that the flood waters ravaging Louisiana are receding, it's time for President Barack Obama to visit the most anguished state in the union.
Last week, as torrential rains brought death, destruction and misery to Louisiana, the president continued his vacation at Martha’s Vineyard, a playground for the posh and well-connected.
We’ve seen this story before in Louisiana, and we don’t deserve a sequel. In 2005, a fly-over by a vacationing President George W. Bush became a symbol of official neglect for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The current president was among those making political hay out of Bush’s aloofness.
Sometimes, presidential visits can get in the way of emergency response, doing more harm than good. But we don’t see that as a factor now that flood waters are subsiding, even if at an agonizing pace. It’s past time for the president to pay a personal visit, showing his solidarity with suffering Americans.
Like his predecessors, Obama has no doubt discovered that crises keep their own calendar, even when commanders-in-chief are trying to take some time off the clock. It’s an inconvenience of the presidency, but it’s what chief executives sign up for when they take the oath of office.
And if the president can interrupt his vacation for a swanky fundraiser for fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton, as he did on Monday, then surely he can make time to show up for a catastrophe that’s displaced thousands.
The optics of Obama golfing while Louisiana residents languished in flood waters was striking. It evoked the precedent of the passive federal response to the state’s agony in 2005, a chapter of history no one should ever repeat.
The president acted prudently in officially declaring a disaster for the flooded part of the state, a key step in advancing federal aid. We’ve been heartened so far by the active involvement of Craig Fugate, head of Federal Emergency Management Agency, a far cry from FEMA’s hapless Michael Brown in the days after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was slated to visit Louisiana today to assess the damage.
But a disaster this big begs for the personal presence of the president at ground zero. In coming here, the president can decisively demonstrate that Louisiana’s recovery is a priority for his administration – and the United States of America.
The president’s vacation is scheduled to wrap up on Sunday. But he should pack his bags now, and pay a call on communities who need to know that in a national catastrophe, they are not alone.
The president’s presence is already late to this crisis, but it’s better later than never.
As Louisiana begins to rebuild after the 2016 flood, scenes of friends, family and neighbors helping one another have become bright spots amid tragic loss.
http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/our_views/article_f1ce22ee-64b4-11e6-b11a-a393ff25161d.html
Clinton Foundation hired cyber firm after suspected hacking: sources
By Mark Hosenball, Dustin Volz and John Walcott | WASHINGTON
Bill and Hillary Clinton's charitable foundation hired the security firm FireEye to examine its data systems after seeing indications they might have been hacked, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
So far, no message or document hacked from the New York-based Clinton Foundation has surfaced in public, the sources said.
One of the sources and two U.S. security officials said that like hackers who targeted the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democrats' congressional fundraising committee, the hackers appear to have used “spear phishing” techniques to gain access to the foundation's network.
These techniques include creating bogus emails or websites in an effort to gain access to Clinton Foundation staffers’ emails and then to the foundation itself.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the U.S. officials said the hackers used the same techniques Russian intelligence agencies or their proxies employed against the Democratic Party groups, which suggests that Russians also attacked the foundation.
Kremlin officials dismissed as absurd the allegations of Moscow's involvement, which were made last month amid political party nominating conventions for the Nov. 8 election.
Neither former White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, the Clinton Foundation’s principal lawyer, nor a spokeswoman for the foundation responded to requests for comment on the hacking and the precautions the organization has taken.
Officials with FireEye said the company could not discuss its clients.
Although no documents have emerged, the attacks have left some Democrats and Clinton campaign officials worried that the hackers might have obtained emails and voice messages that could be used to reinforce Republican charges that donors to the Clinton Foundation were rewarded with access to Clinton and her aides while she was secretary of state or to her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
Another concern: hackers or outlets such as the anti-secrecy WikiLeaks website could release documents and emails damaging to her presidential campaign, several people familiar with the foundation's activities said.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee convened a closed-door meeting on Wednesday to discuss best cyber security practices.
The meeting, according to people familiar with it, included a recommendation that staff and lawmakers change their phone numbers and email addresses if that information was published online by hackers believed to be working for or with Russian intelligence agencies.
One of the U.S. officials said, however, that the spear phishing pattern used against several organizations, appears to reinforce the intelligence community's "preliminary assessment" that the attacks were intended more for espionage than for trying to influence the U.S. presidential election.
So far, said a third U.S. official familiar with the attacks, there is no evidence that the hackers were able to follow any of the hacked emails into the State Department's classified email systems.
Anxiety in Washington over the possibility that a foreign power might be using hacked information to meddle in the U.S. election has prompted some Democrats and cyber security experts to urge the Obama administration to blame Russia publicly.
Rep. Jim Himes, a Democrat on the House of Representatives intelligence committee, said the United States should carry "a big stick" in cyber security matters. "The U.S. government needs to be very clear, very direct, and hold these people accountable."
Current and former White House and intelligence officials said the Obama administration is unlikely to blame Russia publicly, given the difficulty of attributing the attacks without revealing American sources and methods, the geopolitical concerns at play, and a fear that doing so could risk aggravating cyber conflict.
(Reporting by Mark Hosenball, Joe Menn, Dustin Volz and John Walcott; Editing by John Walcott and Grant McCool)
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-democrats-idUSKCN10T01G
Clinton Foundation hired cyber firm after suspected hacking: sources
By Mark Hosenball, Dustin Volz and John Walcott | WASHINGTON
Bill and Hillary Clinton's charitable foundation hired the security firm FireEye to examine its data systems after seeing indications they might have been hacked, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
So far, no message or document hacked from the New York-based Clinton Foundation has surfaced in public, the sources said.
One of the sources and two U.S. security officials said that like hackers who targeted the Democratic National Committee, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democrats' congressional fundraising committee, the hackers appear to have used “spear phishing” techniques to gain access to the foundation's network.
These techniques include creating bogus emails or websites in an effort to gain access to Clinton Foundation staffers’ emails and then to the foundation itself.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the U.S. officials said the hackers used the same techniques Russian intelligence agencies or their proxies employed against the Democratic Party groups, which suggests that Russians also attacked the foundation.
Kremlin officials dismissed as absurd the allegations of Moscow's involvement, which were made last month amid political party nominating conventions for the Nov. 8 election.
Neither former White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, the Clinton Foundation’s principal lawyer, nor a spokeswoman for the foundation responded to requests for comment on the hacking and the precautions the organization has taken.
Officials with FireEye said the company could not discuss its clients.
Although no documents have emerged, the attacks have left some Democrats and Clinton campaign officials worried that the hackers might have obtained emails and voice messages that could be used to reinforce Republican charges that donors to the Clinton Foundation were rewarded with access to Clinton and her aides while she was secretary of state or to her husband, former President Bill Clinton.
Another concern: hackers or outlets such as the anti-secrecy WikiLeaks website could release documents and emails damaging to her presidential campaign, several people familiar with the foundation's activities said.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee convened a closed-door meeting on Wednesday to discuss best cyber security practices.
The meeting, according to people familiar with it, included a recommendation that staff and lawmakers change their phone numbers and email addresses if that information was published online by hackers believed to be working for or with Russian intelligence agencies.
One of the U.S. officials said, however, that the spear phishing pattern used against several organizations, appears to reinforce the intelligence community's "preliminary assessment" that the attacks were intended more for espionage than for trying to influence the U.S. presidential election.
So far, said a third U.S. official familiar with the attacks, there is no evidence that the hackers were able to follow any of the hacked emails into the State Department's classified email systems.
Anxiety in Washington over the possibility that a foreign power might be using hacked information to meddle in the U.S. election has prompted some Democrats and cyber security experts to urge the Obama administration to blame Russia publicly.
Rep. Jim Himes, a Democrat on the House of Representatives intelligence committee, said the United States should carry "a big stick" in cyber security matters. "The U.S. government needs to be very clear, very direct, and hold these people accountable."
Current and former White House and intelligence officials said the Obama administration is unlikely to blame Russia publicly, given the difficulty of attributing the attacks without revealing American sources and methods, the geopolitical concerns at play, and a fear that doing so could risk aggravating cyber conflict.
(Reporting by Mark Hosenball, Joe Menn, Dustin Volz and John Walcott; Editing by John Walcott and Grant McCool)
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-democrats-idUSKCN10T01G
Princeton HR Bans Use of the Word “Man” – It’s Offensive
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/08/342902/
you mean Hillary slapped?.....
Police Report of the Year.
The Richland, Washington Police report finding a man’s body in the Columbia River, near where the Yakima river joins it, at Columbia Park.
The deceased man's name will not be released until his family has been notified.
He apparently drowned due to excessive Cocaine consumption.
He was wearing black fishnet stockings, a red garter belt, a pink G-string, purple lipstick, and a "Hillary for President” T-shirt. He also had a cucumber in his rectum.
The police removed the Hillary T-shirt to spare his family unnecessary embarrassment.
Cops do care.
Police Report of the Year.
The Richland, Washington Police report finding a man’s body in the Columbia River, near where the Yakima river joins it, at Columbia Park.
The deceased man's name will not be released until his family has been notified.
He apparently drowned due to excessive Cocaine consumption.
He was wearing black fishnet stockings, a red garter belt, a pink G-string, purple lipstick, and a "Hillary for President” T-shirt. He also had a cucumber in his rectum.
The police removed the Hillary T-shirt to spare his family unnecessary embarrassment.
Cops do care.
I love it.
Fantastic.
Welcome to Camp BO!!!!
Keep them in the sand not on our soil!!!!!
Welcome to Camp BO!!!!
Keep them in the sand not on our soil!!!!!
Obama and Clinton DID Create the Islamic State!
By Mark Alexander · August 17, 2016
Predictably, the vacuum left by the 2011 Obama-Clinton retreat from Iraq created the resurgence of a far more dangerous incarnation of global Muslim terrorism.
"If liberty of the press ... means the liberty of affronting, calumniating and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it..." —Benjamin Franklin (1789)
So, Donald Trump insisted that Barack Hussein Obama and his trusty secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, were the founders of the Islamic State.
He is, of course, correct. But Trump refuses to accept the fact that he has no control over how Leftmedia talkingheads spin whatever he says — and spin they did!
Now, anyone with a lick of common sense knows that Trump wasn't being literal; that he wasn't asserting that Obama and Clinton went to Iraq and filed documents of incorporation to establish ISIL and the Islamic State. Unfortunately, common sense is not common among the dumbed-down mass media. And, sadly, it's even more rare among low-information voters whose worldview is shaped by the mass media.
Conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt gave Trump the opportunity to clarify his statement, asking him, "You meant that he created the vacuum — he lost the peace?" Trump responded, "No, I meant he's the founder of ISIS. ... I give him the most valuable player award. I give it [to Hillary] too, by the way."
Though he outlined this week how he would defeat ISIL, Trump's inability to stay on message is a constant source of media fodder that drives his polling further into the ground.
Apparently he didn't read the recent editorial from New York Times' media editor Jim Rutenberg suggesting that journalists have an obligation to display prejudicial views against Trump.
In his recent opinion/analysis, "Trump is Testing the Norms of Objectivity in Journalism," Rutenberg insisted, "If you believe [Trump is dangerous], you have to throw out the textbook American journalism has been using for the better part of the past half-century and approach it in a way you've never approached anything in your career. [Your reporting must] move closer than you've ever been to being oppositional."
Rutenberg notes, "That is uncomfortable and uncharted territory for every mainstream, nonopinion journalist I've ever known, and by normal standards, untenable. But the question that everyone is grappling with is: Do normal standards apply? ... It upsets balance, that idealistic form of journalism with a capital 'J' we've been trained to always strive for."
Really? "Mainstream, nonopinion journalism with a capital 'J'"? I'm not sure what "textbook of American journalism" Rutenberg thinks the Times and the vast majority of likeminded Leftmedia pontificators were using before 1965, but for the "past half-century" unmitigated journalistic bias has been the standard operating procedure at the Times.
Briefly, let me note that when it was founded in 1851, The New York Times was a struggling purveyor of crude and sensationalistic "yellow journalism" — until purchased by Adolph Ochs in 1896, who had perfected his trade first as owner of the Chattanooga Times in 1880. Ochs coined the paper's slogan, "All The News That's Fit To Print," in order to distinguish it from its primary competitor, The New York World, which was a model for the hyperbolic coverage that now dominates the MSM.
The World was the product of Joseph Pulitzer, who within two years of purchasing the paper in 1883 had turned it into the highest circulation broadsheet in New York — with the help of his ties to the Democratic Party. Pulitzer, once having seen the error of his journalistic ways, declared, prophetically, "A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself."
It is ironic that the Times now claims 117 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other news outlet, given that Adolph Ochs' wealthy leftist great-grandson, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, the current publisher of the Times, now presides over one of the most "cynical, mercenary, demagogic press" outlets on the planet. That would help explain the precipitous drop in its circulation in the last two decades.
But I digress...
Back to Trump's indictment of Obama and Clinton for having seeded, sprouted and nourished the Islamic State. How did they do it?
Let's review the policies that Obama and Clinton established between 2009 and 2012, which indisputably gave rise to the Islamic Caliphate resulting in the Middle East meltdown.
Between 1997 and 2001, despite several opportunities to take out the world's most dangerous terrorist, Bill Clinton refused to give our special forces operators a green light to kill Osama bin Laden.
On September 11, 2001, under the direction of Osama, al-Qa'ida terrorists attacked New York and Washington, DC.
In response, nine months into the first year of his presidency, George W. Bush launched Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, which had been a safe haven for al-Qa'ida. In 2003 he launched Operation Iraqi Freedom in order to remove the despotic Saddam Hussein from power and thus eliminate his ability to complete his nuclear WMD program. (Ask the Kurd's if Hussein had chemical WMD.) Bush's objective was also to keep the battle on their turf and off of ours.
Five years later, under Bush's leadership, al-Qa'ida, the world's dominant Islamic terror network, was either contained or defeated in its Middle Eastern and global areas of operation.
In 2008, an utterly unqualified freshman senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, won the Democratic Party's presidential nomination by centering his campaign on "ending the war in Iraq."
His Republican opponent, John McCain, when asked how long we should stay in Iraq, replied, "One hundred years" — as in whatever length of time it takes to ensure that al-Qa'ida and other terrorist organizations did not re-emerge. McCain insisted we should maintain 25,000 troops in the region, basing his response on the same rationale for maintaining forces in Germany and Japan since WWII — keeping the peace, preventing the rise of another despotic regime, and providing a strategic regional bulwark.
Obama and Clinton skewered McCain for that suggestion, but he was right.
In 2009, Obama, the newly elected foreign policy neophyte, upended Bush's long-term strategy of establishing a forward military operating capability in Iraq and maintaining stability in a region where we have very critical national interests. Obama thus set a new course for retreat and withdrawal from the Middle East.
In 2011, having let expire the Bush administration's status of forces agreement (SOFA) that helped secure our hard-won gains in Iraq and the region, Obama declared, "Everything Americans have done in Iraq, all the fighting, all the dying, the bleeding, the building and the training and the partnering, all of it has led to this moment of success. ... We're leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq."
Just look at Iraq today.
In 2012, amid the cascading failure of his domestic economic and social policies, Obama centered his re-election campaign on his faux foreign policy successes and a couple of cynical poll-tested mantras, "Four years ago, I promised to end the war in Iraq. I did," and, "al-Qa'ida is on the run."
This false campaign narrative was the motive for Clinton's Benghazi cover-up, which put forth the lie that the attack on Americans there was prompted by an "Internet video" rather than a resurgent al-Qa'ida network of terror.
In the final 2012 presidential debate, Obama chastised his opponent, Mitt Romney: "You say that you're not interested in duplicating what happened in Iraq, but just a few weeks ago you said you think we should have more troops in Iraq right now. And the challenge we have — I know you haven't been in a position to actually execute foreign policy, but every time you've offered an opinion, you've been wrong."
Despite Obama's re-election, clearly Romney, as with McCain in 2008, was right.
Predictably, the Obama-Clinton "hope and change" strategy in the region catastrophically failed. The vacuum created by the Obama-Clinton 2011 retreat from Iraq led to Shi'ite factionalism within its government, giving rise to Sunni opposition, and the emergence of ISIL and its codification as the metastasizing Islamic State terror network.
Obama and Clinton effectively created the resurgence of a far more dangerous incarnation of Muslim terrorism than that which Bush had largely defeated by 2008. The Islamic State is now the predominant asymmetric terrorist threat to our domestic, national and global security. That notwithstanding, in 2014 Obama was still insisting, "We've contained them."
And the Obama-Clinton policies in the region have unleashed an epic humanitarian crisis across the Middle East.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are, in fact, the founders of the Islamic State. Given their wanton nuclear empowerment of Iran, the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, and the expanding capability of Islamic terror networks now targeting the U.S., the Islamist attack on our nation in 2001 will one day seem minor when compared to the detonation of a fissile weapon in a major urban center.
That notwithstanding, the duplicitous Leftmedia have diverted from Trump's correct contention about Obama and Clinton, and have spun it into nonsense.
Indeed, Clinton's free Leftmedia spin is worth billions of dollars in advertising, as they endeavor to create an impenetrable gauntlet to any chance of a Donald Trump election victory in November — opting instead to intentionally back Hillary Clinton and her prolific record of malfeasance.
In 1816, Thomas Jefferson wrote of Liberty and the First Amendment, "Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe."
But the press is only truly "free" if it is free from the incessant bias of partisan political agendas such as those aligned against Trump in favor of Clinton. Sadly, most of the mainstream media are slaves to the ruinous agenda of the Socialist Democratic Party.
Obama and Clinton DID Create the Islamic State!
By Mark Alexander · August 17, 2016
Predictably, the vacuum left by the 2011 Obama-Clinton retreat from Iraq created the resurgence of a far more dangerous incarnation of global Muslim terrorism.
"If liberty of the press ... means the liberty of affronting, calumniating and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it..." —Benjamin Franklin (1789)
So, Donald Trump insisted that Barack Hussein Obama and his trusty secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, were the founders of the Islamic State.
He is, of course, correct. But Trump refuses to accept the fact that he has no control over how Leftmedia talkingheads spin whatever he says — and spin they did!
Now, anyone with a lick of common sense knows that Trump wasn't being literal; that he wasn't asserting that Obama and Clinton went to Iraq and filed documents of incorporation to establish ISIL and the Islamic State. Unfortunately, common sense is not common among the dumbed-down mass media. And, sadly, it's even more rare among low-information voters whose worldview is shaped by the mass media.
Conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt gave Trump the opportunity to clarify his statement, asking him, "You meant that he created the vacuum — he lost the peace?" Trump responded, "No, I meant he's the founder of ISIS. ... I give him the most valuable player award. I give it [to Hillary] too, by the way."
Though he outlined this week how he would defeat ISIL, Trump's inability to stay on message is a constant source of media fodder that drives his polling further into the ground.
Apparently he didn't read the recent editorial from New York Times' media editor Jim Rutenberg suggesting that journalists have an obligation to display prejudicial views against Trump.
In his recent opinion/analysis, "Trump is Testing the Norms of Objectivity in Journalism," Rutenberg insisted, "If you believe [Trump is dangerous], you have to throw out the textbook American journalism has been using for the better part of the past half-century and approach it in a way you've never approached anything in your career. [Your reporting must] move closer than you've ever been to being oppositional."
Rutenberg notes, "That is uncomfortable and uncharted territory for every mainstream, nonopinion journalist I've ever known, and by normal standards, untenable. But the question that everyone is grappling with is: Do normal standards apply? ... It upsets balance, that idealistic form of journalism with a capital 'J' we've been trained to always strive for."
Really? "Mainstream, nonopinion journalism with a capital 'J'"? I'm not sure what "textbook of American journalism" Rutenberg thinks the Times and the vast majority of likeminded Leftmedia pontificators were using before 1965, but for the "past half-century" unmitigated journalistic bias has been the standard operating procedure at the Times.
Briefly, let me note that when it was founded in 1851, The New York Times was a struggling purveyor of crude and sensationalistic "yellow journalism" — until purchased by Adolph Ochs in 1896, who had perfected his trade first as owner of the Chattanooga Times in 1880. Ochs coined the paper's slogan, "All The News That's Fit To Print," in order to distinguish it from its primary competitor, The New York World, which was a model for the hyperbolic coverage that now dominates the MSM.
The World was the product of Joseph Pulitzer, who within two years of purchasing the paper in 1883 had turned it into the highest circulation broadsheet in New York — with the help of his ties to the Democratic Party. Pulitzer, once having seen the error of his journalistic ways, declared, prophetically, "A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself."
It is ironic that the Times now claims 117 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other news outlet, given that Adolph Ochs' wealthy leftist great-grandson, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, the current publisher of the Times, now presides over one of the most "cynical, mercenary, demagogic press" outlets on the planet. That would help explain the precipitous drop in its circulation in the last two decades.
But I digress...
Back to Trump's indictment of Obama and Clinton for having seeded, sprouted and nourished the Islamic State. How did they do it?
Let's review the policies that Obama and Clinton established between 2009 and 2012, which indisputably gave rise to the Islamic Caliphate resulting in the Middle East meltdown.
Between 1997 and 2001, despite several opportunities to take out the world's most dangerous terrorist, Bill Clinton refused to give our special forces operators a green light to kill Osama bin Laden.
On September 11, 2001, under the direction of Osama, al-Qa'ida terrorists attacked New York and Washington, DC.
In response, nine months into the first year of his presidency, George W. Bush launched Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, which had been a safe haven for al-Qa'ida. In 2003 he launched Operation Iraqi Freedom in order to remove the despotic Saddam Hussein from power and thus eliminate his ability to complete his nuclear WMD program. (Ask the Kurd's if Hussein had chemical WMD.) Bush's objective was also to keep the battle on their turf and off of ours.
Five years later, under Bush's leadership, al-Qa'ida, the world's dominant Islamic terror network, was either contained or defeated in its Middle Eastern and global areas of operation.
In 2008, an utterly unqualified freshman senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, won the Democratic Party's presidential nomination by centering his campaign on "ending the war in Iraq."
His Republican opponent, John McCain, when asked how long we should stay in Iraq, replied, "One hundred years" — as in whatever length of time it takes to ensure that al-Qa'ida and other terrorist organizations did not re-emerge. McCain insisted we should maintain 25,000 troops in the region, basing his response on the same rationale for maintaining forces in Germany and Japan since WWII — keeping the peace, preventing the rise of another despotic regime, and providing a strategic regional bulwark.
Obama and Clinton skewered McCain for that suggestion, but he was right.
In 2009, Obama, the newly elected foreign policy neophyte, upended Bush's long-term strategy of establishing a forward military operating capability in Iraq and maintaining stability in a region where we have very critical national interests. Obama thus set a new course for retreat and withdrawal from the Middle East.
In 2011, having let expire the Bush administration's status of forces agreement (SOFA) that helped secure our hard-won gains in Iraq and the region, Obama declared, "Everything Americans have done in Iraq, all the fighting, all the dying, the bleeding, the building and the training and the partnering, all of it has led to this moment of success. ... We're leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq."
Just look at Iraq today.
In 2012, amid the cascading failure of his domestic economic and social policies, Obama centered his re-election campaign on his faux foreign policy successes and a couple of cynical poll-tested mantras, "Four years ago, I promised to end the war in Iraq. I did," and, "al-Qa'ida is on the run."
This false campaign narrative was the motive for Clinton's Benghazi cover-up, which put forth the lie that the attack on Americans there was prompted by an "Internet video" rather than a resurgent al-Qa'ida network of terror.
In the final 2012 presidential debate, Obama chastised his opponent, Mitt Romney: "You say that you're not interested in duplicating what happened in Iraq, but just a few weeks ago you said you think we should have more troops in Iraq right now. And the challenge we have — I know you haven't been in a position to actually execute foreign policy, but every time you've offered an opinion, you've been wrong."
Despite Obama's re-election, clearly Romney, as with McCain in 2008, was right.
Predictably, the Obama-Clinton "hope and change" strategy in the region catastrophically failed. The vacuum created by the Obama-Clinton 2011 retreat from Iraq led to Shi'ite factionalism within its government, giving rise to Sunni opposition, and the emergence of ISIL and its codification as the metastasizing Islamic State terror network.
Obama and Clinton effectively created the resurgence of a far more dangerous incarnation of Muslim terrorism than that which Bush had largely defeated by 2008. The Islamic State is now the predominant asymmetric terrorist threat to our domestic, national and global security. That notwithstanding, in 2014 Obama was still insisting, "We've contained them."
And the Obama-Clinton policies in the region have unleashed an epic humanitarian crisis across the Middle East.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are, in fact, the founders of the Islamic State. Given their wanton nuclear empowerment of Iran, the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, and the expanding capability of Islamic terror networks now targeting the U.S., the Islamist attack on our nation in 2001 will one day seem minor when compared to the detonation of a fissile weapon in a major urban center.
That notwithstanding, the duplicitous Leftmedia have diverted from Trump's correct contention about Obama and Clinton, and have spun it into nonsense.
Indeed, Clinton's free Leftmedia spin is worth billions of dollars in advertising, as they endeavor to create an impenetrable gauntlet to any chance of a Donald Trump election victory in November — opting instead to intentionally back Hillary Clinton and her prolific record of malfeasance.
In 1816, Thomas Jefferson wrote of Liberty and the First Amendment, "Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe."
But the press is only truly "free" if it is free from the incessant bias of partisan political agendas such as those aligned against Trump in favor of Clinton. Sadly, most of the mainstream media are slaves to the ruinous agenda of the Socialist Democratic Party.
It's where she really came from. Arkansas? 49th in the country by every measure. Alinsky-ite radical from the 60's. Predicting she'll be lucky to make it through one term if elected due to health. She'll need lots of pillows and personal aides in the Oval Office....... The media and military guarding her will recede into the background big time.
I think he keeps his mouth shut on national topics the rest of political season and probably just a few 'hate' lectures at us before he leaves office. Why screw up his poll numbers now? He'll write a book and sell it to the addicted for millions and start his own 'foundation' and start making money the 'Clintoon Way.' More than one reason for the Clintoons and BOs to be sticking together. Mooch is dying to get out of town and into the high end NYC non-stop shopping mode. Could see them quickly into two residences that would allow BO to get back to his preferred 'b-boy interests.'
They live in the sand. It's hot. So why wrap one's self up?....
Good call. Would have to have a rule exception: Bathing suit or more mandatory for Hillary.......
Bush had FIMA already alerted, supplies ready and they refused to let them into the state. Remember the levees were funded for reinforcement numerous times but the monies ended up not upgrading them due to the funds being 'diverted' to 'other projects.' A city that is below sea level and inferior levees was a disaster waiting to happen. The Mayor Ray Nagin was a piece a work too. Voluntary evacuation was declared and he forgot to use the fleet of buses.... ooops.
Ex-New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin guilty after courtroom 'belly flop'
By Matt Smith and Deanna Hackney, CNN
Updated 9:38 AM ET, Fri February 14, 2014
Nagin "did a belly flop" on the witness stand, observer says
A federal jury convicts Ray Nagin of 20 of 21 corruption counts against him. Prosecutors had accused him of running a kickback scheme from his office. "We did our best," Nagin's attorney says
Ray Nagin came into the mayor's office in New Orleans as an avowed scourge of corruption and led the city through the worst disaster of its modern history.
He left a federal courthouse a convict Wednesday, after a jury found him guilty of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and other favors from businessmen looking for a break from his administration. Of the 21 counts against him, he was convicted of 20.
"He got a lot of media attention as being a reformer, a non-politician, first run for office -- a businessman who was going to come in and get it right," said Pat Fanning, a veteran New Orleans lawyer and no fan of the former two-term mayor.
After Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city in 2005, the onetime cable television executive would reassure people queasy about sending taxpayer money to a state with an epic history of corruption by telling them, "Google me. You're not going to find any of that in my record," Fanning said, quoting Nagin. "Well, Google him now."
Nagin, who left office in 2010, had little to say as he left the courthouse Wednesday afternoon, telling reporters only, "I maintain my innocence." A small knot of supporters yelled, "Keep your head up" and "He's just a patsy," CNN affiliate WDSU reported.
His lead attorney, Robert Jenkins, told reporters his client would appeal the verdict.
"We did the best we could do," Jenkins said.
Prosecutors argued the 57-year-old Nagin was at the center of a kickback scheme in which he received checks, cash, wire transfers, personal services and free travel from businessmen seeking contracts and favorable treatment from the city. He faces up to 20 years in prison, but Fanning said a 14- to 17-year term was more likely.
A January 2013 indictment detailed more than $200,000 in bribes to the mayor, and his family members allegedly received a vacation in Hawaii; first-class airfare to Jamaica; private jet travel and a limousine for New York City; and cellular phone service. In exchange, businesses that coughed up for Nagin and his family won more than $5 million in city contracts, according to the January 2013 indictment.
During the two-week trial, prosecutors brought to the stand a string of businessmen who had already pleaded guilty to bribing Nagin. His defense did little to challenge their stories, Fanning said.
"It was too painful actually to watch. They just swamped him," he said. And when Nagin took the stand in his own defense, "He did a belly flop," often answering questions on cross-examination by saying he couldn't recall who paid for a trip or perk.
"He just looked terrible," Fanning said.
The earliest of the charges date from before Katrina, which struck when Nagin had been in office for about three years. The hurricane flooded more than three-fourths of low-lying New Orleans and left more than 1,800 dead across the region -- most of them in Louisiana.
Supporters credited Nagin's sometimes-profane demands for aid from Washington with helping reveal the botched federal response to the storm -- a fiasco that embarrassed the George W. Bush administration and led to billions of federal dollars being poured into Gulf Coast reconstruction efforts.
But Nagin also had his detractors: Fanning called his performance during the storm "a meltdown," a congressional committee criticized him for delaying evacuation orders, and his frantic description of post-storm New Orleans as a violent wasteland with up to 10,000 dead turned out to be greatly exaggerated.
As he sought re-election in 2006, with much of the city's African-American population displaced by storm damage, Nagin was blasted for insisting that New Orleans would remain a "chocolate" city.
Nagin won a second term despite the controversies, but left office with his approval ratings in the cellar and told CNN his career in public office was over.
"I have given my pound of flesh," he said.
Nagin sought to have the charges dismissed in October after another federal judge blasted what he called the "grotesque" misconduct of prosecutors in the post-Katrina shootings of unarmed civilians by police at the Danziger Bridge.
The judge tossed out the convictions of five cashiered cops after ruling that members of the U.S. attorney's office tainted their 2011 trial by anonymously posting "egregious and inflammatory" comments at online news sites.
Nagin argued that he was the target of the same underground effort, citing "a continuum of pejorative statements and demeaning racial epithets" aimed at him. The U.S. attorney's office said none of the prosecutors involved in the Danziger Bridge case played a role in the Nagin investigation.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/12/justice/louisiana-nagin-convicted/
Had friends, in trucks full of supplies, told not to come into the state by Nagin. The feds were ready, Nagin said don't come until it was too late.
Coming to beaches near you........
Burkini bans cause ripples in France, consternation abroad
The decision by a handful of French mayors to ban the Islamic burkini swimsuit has divided the country and shocked its neighbours, with critics seeing the prohibitions as profoundly discriminatory.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Manuel Valls waded into the debate, saying the garment was "not compatible with the values of France and the Republic" and that he supported towns that banned it.
The remarks by the Socialist premier propelled the latest row over the place of Islam in France from the beaches onto the political front benches.
Valls cited the tensions in France after a string of jihadist attacks -- including July's truck massacre in Nice -- for backing mayors who barred a garment "founded on the subjugation of women".
The burkini, which covers the body and hair, is a "provocation" that risks causing "public disorder", he told La Provence daily, echoing the mayor of Cannes, where three women have been fined 38 euros ($42) for sporting the swimsuit.
Valls however ruled out implementing any nationwide ban.
His intervention came as the mayor of the northern resort of Le Touquet announced he would follow the lead of his counterparts in the south.
Le Touquet's right-wing mayor Daniel Fasquelle told AFP he had yet to catch sight of a burkini in his town but did not want to be caught "offguard".
- 'Acts of fanaticism' - Beyond France's shores the bans, which one mayor sought to pass off on hygiene grounds, have been widely ridiculed.
"France cites latest threat to security: The Burkini," the International New York Times teased in a front-page headline last week.
"The French emphasis on keeping religious attire out of public life can at times seem strange to foreigners," the paper wrote, noting that head-covering bathing suits had been worn by several Arab athletes at the Rio Olympics without causing disturbances.
For Britain's Daily Telegraph, the burkini bans enacted in the name of combatting extremism were themselves "foolish acts of fanaticism".
While expressing understanding for France's security jitters, the paper found there to be "no earthly reason why banning them (burkinis) would help to thwart France's violent Islamists".
"If anything, it is more likely to alienate and upset moderate Muslims," it added.
Islamic dress has long been a subject of debate in France, which was the first European country to ban the Islamic face veil in public in 2010, six years after outlawing the headscarf and other conspicuous religious symbols in state schools.
Proponents of these bans argued that religious symbols should be relegated to the private sphere.
Critics note however that the measures mainly target the Muslim minority and impinge on freedom of religion.
Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said Wednesday he believed the French model -- which stresses the need for immigrant communities to assimilate -- had failed.
"Alas, I don't think the French model has worked very well," he told Corriere della Sera, saying the burkini bans were "a potential provocation" and could make France even more vulnerable to attack.
- Radicals on all sides - The rash of bans comes as anti-Muslim sentiments mount in the mainly conservative south in the wake of the Nice attack.
Last weekend, youths on a beach on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica came to blows with a group of Muslim families, reportedly after a tourist snapped pictures of women bathing in burkinis.
Five were arrested Wednesday over the mass brawl, in which five people were injured.
For sociologist Michel Wieviorka, the brouhaha is proof of a "radicalisation on all sides -- by nationalists, secularists and Islamists".
"Politicians should try to calm tensions and stop creating hysteria," he told AFP, asking politicians and burkini wearers to both step back from the fight.
France's Human Rights League took aim at Valls for backing the anti-burkini mayors, accusing him of "participating in the stigmatisation of a category of French people who have become suspect, by virtue of their faith".
Jean Bauberot, a sociologist specialising in secularism, saw the bans as proof of an illiberal drift in the home of liberty, equality and fraternity.
"You can be shocked by the headscarf or the burkini, and we can and should debate it, but without banning it. That's democracy: tolerating difference, accepting otherness," he told the Liberation newspaper.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/burkini-bans-cause-ripples-in-france-consternation-abroad/ar-BBvHZVX?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=edgsp
Coming to beaches near you........
Burkini bans cause ripples in France, consternation abroad
The decision by a handful of French mayors to ban the Islamic burkini swimsuit has divided the country and shocked its neighbours, with critics seeing the prohibitions as profoundly discriminatory.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Manuel Valls waded into the debate, saying the garment was "not compatible with the values of France and the Republic" and that he supported towns that banned it.
The remarks by the Socialist premier propelled the latest row over the place of Islam in France from the beaches onto the political front benches.
Valls cited the tensions in France after a string of jihadist attacks -- including July's truck massacre in Nice -- for backing mayors who barred a garment "founded on the subjugation of women".
The burkini, which covers the body and hair, is a "provocation" that risks causing "public disorder", he told La Provence daily, echoing the mayor of Cannes, where three women have been fined 38 euros ($42) for sporting the swimsuit.
Valls however ruled out implementing any nationwide ban.
His intervention came as the mayor of the northern resort of Le Touquet announced he would follow the lead of his counterparts in the south.
Le Touquet's right-wing mayor Daniel Fasquelle told AFP he had yet to catch sight of a burkini in his town but did not want to be caught "offguard".
- 'Acts of fanaticism' - Beyond France's shores the bans, which one mayor sought to pass off on hygiene grounds, have been widely ridiculed.
"France cites latest threat to security: The Burkini," the International New York Times teased in a front-page headline last week.
"The French emphasis on keeping religious attire out of public life can at times seem strange to foreigners," the paper wrote, noting that head-covering bathing suits had been worn by several Arab athletes at the Rio Olympics without causing disturbances.
For Britain's Daily Telegraph, the burkini bans enacted in the name of combatting extremism were themselves "foolish acts of fanaticism".
While expressing understanding for France's security jitters, the paper found there to be "no earthly reason why banning them (burkinis) would help to thwart France's violent Islamists".
"If anything, it is more likely to alienate and upset moderate Muslims," it added.
Islamic dress has long been a subject of debate in France, which was the first European country to ban the Islamic face veil in public in 2010, six years after outlawing the headscarf and other conspicuous religious symbols in state schools.
Proponents of these bans argued that religious symbols should be relegated to the private sphere.
Critics note however that the measures mainly target the Muslim minority and impinge on freedom of religion.
Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said Wednesday he believed the French model -- which stresses the need for immigrant communities to assimilate -- had failed.
"Alas, I don't think the French model has worked very well," he told Corriere della Sera, saying the burkini bans were "a potential provocation" and could make France even more vulnerable to attack.
- Radicals on all sides - The rash of bans comes as anti-Muslim sentiments mount in the mainly conservative south in the wake of the Nice attack.
Last weekend, youths on a beach on the French Mediterranean island of Corsica came to blows with a group of Muslim families, reportedly after a tourist snapped pictures of women bathing in burkinis.
Five were arrested Wednesday over the mass brawl, in which five people were injured.
For sociologist Michel Wieviorka, the brouhaha is proof of a "radicalisation on all sides -- by nationalists, secularists and Islamists".
"Politicians should try to calm tensions and stop creating hysteria," he told AFP, asking politicians and burkini wearers to both step back from the fight.
France's Human Rights League took aim at Valls for backing the anti-burkini mayors, accusing him of "participating in the stigmatisation of a category of French people who have become suspect, by virtue of their faith".
Jean Bauberot, a sociologist specialising in secularism, saw the bans as proof of an illiberal drift in the home of liberty, equality and fraternity.
"You can be shocked by the headscarf or the burkini, and we can and should debate it, but without banning it. That's democracy: tolerating difference, accepting otherness," he told the Liberation newspaper.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/burkini-bans-cause-ripples-in-france-consternation-abroad/ar-BBvHZVX?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=edgsp
Can anyone figure why no one is asking where was BO with the flooding in Louisiana? Hammer the Republican even though he was denied access to the state run by a Democrat, silence to the Democrat who had access to the state.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/16/us/louisiana-flooding-pictures-maps.html
Can anyone figure why no one is asking where was BO with the flooding in Louisiana? Hammer the Republican even though he was denied access to the state run by a Democrat, silence to the Democrat who had access to the state.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/16/us/louisiana-flooding-pictures-maps.html
Clinton Cash movie for free:
http://www.breitbart.com/clinton-cash-movie/
Clinton Cash movie for free:
http://www.breitbart.com/clinton-cash-movie/
That's what it's all about....