805: Mono Nuptials

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Thu, 18 Feb 2016 15:10

AC'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--K5ACCGovernments are reading your email.Slow them down with encryption.My public key:pubkey.curry.com'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--

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Sat, 27 Feb 2016 15:08

image '' Flickr / Carl MilnerCan we all take a minute to figure out what this phrase really means?

I love you to the moon and back.

Because way too many people have been using it lately, and I find it extremely clich(C).

Why the moon? Why not the sun? Why not some planet such as Pluto or Mars? Actually, apparently Pluto got demoted and is now considered a dwarf planet, but that is beside the point'...

I guess I just do not understand why it is that specific distance. The moon is, on average, 238,855 miles away. So technically people are saying they love you 477,710 miles (the distance to the moon and back).

You think that's a lot, but in terms of a car, it's not really. A car gets an average of 12,000 miles a year. Saying someone loves you 477,710 miles is like saying someone loves you for 40 years. That is not a very strong guarantee.

If you are twenty years old and post an Instagram photo saying ''I love you to the moon and back,'' I assume you're expecting not to love that person when you are sixty.

Who even invented the phrase anyway? I tried to find an origin online and no one seemed to know. It is as if the world just agreed to start saying it one day and it stuck.

A simple I love you must not do it these days. People need that extra embellishment to express their true feelings. They need the extra pizzazz that everyone else is using.

But if everyone else is using it, does it really mean anything? What is the declaration worth?

I might be getting too philosophical here, but it is something to think about. The next time you start to type or say a phrase you've heard before, think about what it really means. What are you saying? And can you say it better in your own words.

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Thu, 03 Mar 2016 22:27

Unless you're a rabid Donald Trump supporter, there's probably a pretty good chance that you're ashamed he's the presidential frontrunner for one of our nation's largest political parties. Even a few of my Republican friends have begun questioning the sanity of their own party over Trump's continued rise within the ranks of the GOP.

Now, when I say ''anti-Christ'' I don't literally mean the devil '' though I'm sure some might disagree. What I do mean is that he's probably the most dangerous presidential candidate we've seen reach this level of legitimacy. Furthermore, nothing about him represents actual ''Christian values.'' In a lot of glaring and obvious ways, he is anti-Christian. Here are 10 reasons why I think he can be considered a modern day ''anti-Christ.''

1. There's something called the Seven Deadly Sins (Pride, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Anger, Greed, Sloth). Looking at Trump, he's most definitely prideful, flat-out arrogant. Considering he's a billionaire I think it's safe to say that puts him under gluttonous and greedy. Then he's most definitely angry '' which is largely tied to his arrogance and pride. Clearly he's envious of other people, which is why he lashes out at them so much in his angry tirades. He seems to think that the best way to build himself up is by tearing other people down. Next up is lust, which as someone who's committed at least one affair and is on his third marriage, he clearly fits in this category as well. The only area he might not fit into is ''sloth,'' though he does have a rather lazy vocabulary.

2. I'm not sure how pandering to racism, hate, bigotry, fear and intolerance qualifies someone to be ''Christ-like.'' Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not sure Jesus Christ would be on board with the whole ''ban Muslims from coming to the U.S. and track the ones who are here while calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals'' rhetoric on which Trump has based a large part of his campaign and rose to ridiculous levels of popularity.

3. Remember that time he found a ''bright side'' to 14 Americans being killed by two terrorists? You should, because it actually happened.

4. Then there's his belief that we should be targeting '' as in killing- the families of terrorists. Because nothing says ''I'm a Christian'' quite like a targeted bombing of a home potentially filled with children of people who might happen to be related to a terrorist.

5. And we definitely can't forget when he mocked the physical disabilities of a reporter. Because that's really classy of someone who's wants to be President of the United States. Very Christ-like.

6. In November, Trump tweeted out an incredibly inaccurate '' and blatantly racist '' graphic that was clearly meant to paint African-Americans as blood-thirsty murderers. Then he defended the tweet by telling Fox News' Bill O'Reilly that he shouldn't be expected to fact check everything.

7. Let's also not forget that Trump's rise to a superstar among many conservatives was built on racism by way of the ''birther'' nonsense he pushed for many years, casting doubts about President Obama's birth certificate. A very recent past he's now too much of a coward to talk about.

8. Then there was that time when he was told about two of his supporters beating a homeless Latino man and he responded by saying his supporters are very ''passionate.''

9. I think it's also important to point out Trump's long history of sexism that includes calling women ''dogs,'' ''pigs,'' ''fat'' and a pregnant woman ''disgusting'' for taking a break from a deposition to pump breast milk to feed her baby '' among many other deplorable insults. I'm sure all these insults would really be Jesus-approved.

10. There's nothing truly ''Christian'' about him '' at all. He's rude, arrogant, greedy, a liar, a bully, racist, bigoted and hateful. He's cheated on at least one wife, has been divorced multiple times and lately seems to be in a bit of a ''bromance'' with a psychopathic murder in Vladimir Putin. What is there that's ''Christian'' about Donald Trump? Please, by all means, tell me.

Naturally, this list could have been much longer but I thought I'd keep it focused on some of his bigger indiscretions over the last few months which are antithetical to the teachings of Jesus Christ and everything he stood for (whether you believe in him or not).

The bottom line is, it's absurdly hypocritical for a party that often tries to champion itself as the party that represents ''Christian values'' to have someone like Donald Trump as their overwhelming presidential frontrunner '' someone who isn't the least bit Christian in pretty much any way publicly imaginable.

Click here for reuse options!The following two tabs change content below.Allen Clifton is a native Texan who now lives in the Austin area. He has a degree in Political Science from Sam Houston State University. Allen is a co-founder of Forward Progressives and creator of the popular Right Off A Cliff column and Facebook page. Be sure to follow Allen on both Twitter and Facebook. Have feedback, inquiries, criticism or hate mail? You can email him as well.Latest posts by Allen Clifton (see all)Comments Facebook comments

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Fri, 04 Mar 2016 20:33

In a wide-ranging interview ahead of the British release of his most recent stateside flopHail, Caesar! with The Guardian that was published on Wednesday Mar. 3, Clooney launched into an all-out assault on Trump's candidacy.

''He's just an opportunist. Now he's a fascist; a xenophobic fascist,'' Clooney told the paper of the GOP frontrunner. ''You can count on Americans to do the right thing after they've exhausted all the other possibilities.'' Clooney added:

The truth of the matter is, in election season, things go crazy, and the loudest voices are the furthest and most extreme. So you hear a massively stupid idea, like we're going to ban Muslims from the country. Now, we're not ever going to do that.

It says in the Statue of Liberty, bring us your huddled masses. It's not what's going to happen.

Clooney also recalled once meeting Trump, and complained about the real estate tycoon later describing him as ''short.''

''I met Donald once. I was sitting in a booth and we talked for a while,'' he told Guardian. ''Then he did Larry King, and he said I was very short. And I was like: 'I was sitting down the whole time, Donald!''

Clooney was referring to a 2007 interview in which Trump told CNN's Larry King he was surprised by Clooney's smaller physical stature, as he expected him to be larger in person.

''One of the perceptions I had of George Clooney was he was this big, strong guy. And he was very little when I met him. It's OK. Nothing wrong with it. He's doing just fine,'' Trump told King. ''But the perception is this, you know, different kind of a guy. And when I met him, I was very surprised.''

Trump made the comments during a conversation regarding the perception of others in business and life.

Clooney also explained his support for Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton to Guardian and shared his esteem for democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

''I am a Hillary supporter. I am doing a fundraiser for her,'' the actor said.

He added: ''I really love Bernie Sanders, and am really glad he is in the debate. He is forcing the conversation to things that never get talked about in U.S. politics: disparity between the rich and the poor, which is getting worse and worse every day.''

Clooney concluded the interview saying, ''No one is talking about the Syrian refugee thing in the US,'' and said Americans should be ''more involved.''

Clooney, who is an advocate for open borders, is known for going to great lengths to keep unwanted parties from coming on or near his private properties. The actor once described Trump's immigration and national security proposals as both ''intolerant'' and ''idiotic.''

As Breitbart News has previously reported, Roberto Pozzi, the mayor of Lake Como in northern Italy, imposed a $600 fine for anyone found to be trespassing on or near Clooney's luxurious private estate last year, in an effort to ensure Clooney and his wife Amal have privacy and security.

Read Clooney's full Guardian interview here.

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Source: American Renaissance

Sat, 05 Mar 2016 22:12

Gang violence and poverty have for years pushed Mexicans and Central Americans north to the United States, but recently a new driver has emerged: the anti-immigrant tone of leading Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

{snip}

Interviews with migrants, people smugglers and officials show many migrants are trying to cross now instead of facing tighter policing and new policies to halt illegal immigration if Trump or another Republican wins the Nov. 8 election.

''If Trump wins, we're all screwed and all Latinos are screwed,'' Isaias Franco, a 46-year-old from El Salvador who was deported from the United States late last year and is now trying to get back, said at a migrant shelter in Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data shows 150,304 migrants were detained trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border between October and February, up 24 percent from the same period last year.

Similar data for ''unaccompanied'' child migrants''those traveling without a guardian''is not yet available, but between October and January, 20,455 kids were apprehended on the southwest border, up over 100 percent from a year ago.

{snip}

Like other migrants, Franco is aware of the U.S. presidential race and Trump's vow, matched by fellow Republican candidate Ted Cruz, to deport all the illegal immigrants in the United States, estimated at more than 11 million.

''You watch the news . . . There's a lot of fear among Latinos,'' Franco said, adding that a Republican victory would spell the end for proposed reforms to give many immigrants greater legal security.

{snip}

Blanca Rivera, who manages the Ciudad Juarez migrant shelter, said she had noticed a recent surge in the numbers of migrants and also blamed the inflammatory rhetoric.

''They think they need to take advantage while they can.''

{snip}

Brenda Barrios, a 30-year-old Guatemalan based in Silver Spring, Maryland, crossed illegally into the United States in 2003 with her parents and two sisters.

Her parents were later deported back to Guatemala, and they think it is too dangerous to return but Brenda is encouraging them to come before the end of the year in case Trump wins.

''He's one of the reasons why people are crossing the border. They think he looks like a dictator,'' she said. ''It's very dangerous for them to cross. But it will be worse if Trump is president . . . Life will be very difficult for us. He doesn't want us here.''

{snip}

Original Article

Topics: Donald Trump, Immigration

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Source: TARPLEY.net

Sat, 05 Mar 2016 22:48

Welcome to tonight's #TWSP #GOPDebate #LiveTweet -@realDonaldTrump campaign is the wrecking ball of the party

#GOPDebate -Mainstream #GOP has noticed @realDonaldTrump glassjaw & sick @MittRomney on him for a pre debate uppercut. Expect #Trump lashout

#GOPDebate '' @realDonaldTrump send presidential campaign into the gutter. His #Narcissist glassjaw turns debate into a #Porno

#GOPDebate '' @realDonaldTrump continues myth of great power, but he has yet to obtain an #ElectoralCollege megastate

#GOPDebate '' #Rubio juvenile nature shows in his attack smile '' Hooks up with #Cruz for first combined attack on @realDonaldTrump

#GOPDebate '' #GOP establishment attacks getting to #Trump '' Begins interrupting #Kasich for the first time '' #RabbitEars

#GOPDebate -Beware of nice guy image protrayed by #JohnKasich -Failed attempt at unionbusting led to breakdown '' Board member of #LehmanBros

#GOPDebate '' #Rubio attacked on job creation, He says government doesn't create jobs '' Has he heard of the #NewDeal? #FDR

#GOPDebate -#Rubio given marching orders by establishment #GOP to swing for fences -@realDonaldTrump 's #Narcissism pulls him into trap

#GOPDebate -@realDonaldTrump talks #Devaluation by #Chinese, Ever hear of #QE? Demand our 15% #ProtectiveTariff End #FreeTrade w/ one shot

#GOPDebate '' #RobotRubio using exact lines of @MittRomney to goad @realDonaldTrump '' #Fascist #Trump self destructing

#GOPDebate '' @realDonaldTrump lauds support of #Cocaine addict #LarryKudlow '' #SupplySiders a long debunked free for all by the #Rich

#FoxDebate -#Cruz has no answer for bringing offshore profits back -Only way to level playing field is w/ 15% #ProtectiveTariff on #Imports

#FoxDebate -Classic #GOP #Austerity '' #Kasich halts moderator to correct that he does not want to raise #minimumwage ! Terrible instincts

#FOXDebate '' #Trump claims he's anti establishment, but with @NYTimes leaked tapes on #Immigration , He #Lies like any political hack

#GOPDebate -#RobotRubio @marcorubio came out strong w/ scripted attacks, but as green room disappears he cannot think on his own- #Juvenile

#GOPDebate -@realDonaldTrump says great minds are leaving #US, but issue is they are being sucked into #Financial #Engineering #Derivatives

#GOPDebate -Will #FOXDebate highlight #GOP @onetoughnerd #Fascist #EmergencyManagerLaw?-#Austerity measured in body count #FlintWaterCrisis

#GOPDebate '' #Rubio an amateur on #ISIS #Military '' Destroy #ISIS by closing #Jarablus supply corridor not limiting ''operating space''

#GOPDebate '' @JohnKasich concerned about #ISIS getting #Oil , Will he join our call to remove #Erdogan of #Turkey ? http://twsp.us/briefing/20151117 '...

#GOPDebate '' @realDonaldTrump calls for worse then #Waterboarding '' Including torturing family members, Openly violates 8th amendment

#GOPDebate -#Trump vaunts self a #totalitarian dictator -If he tells you to do it you are going to do it-in tradition of #Mussolini!

#GOPDebate '' #Fox has graphics and audio attacks only for #Fascist @realDonaldTrump -Establishment #GOP falling to pieces, Bring it on!

#GOPDebate -#Challenged on lies prevarication & flip flops on #Afghanistan #Trump goes muted #Psychotic,hints at her naked@HowardStern int

#Rubio raises issue of #Trump #University #ConsumerFraud-#Trump loses control of self, starts shouting when #MegynKelly cites D rating BBB

Grotesque how #Trump always bragging about his lawyers on retainer suing- what is he without this shield the average person can't afford

#GOPDebate '' #Fascist @realDonaldTrump talks tough, but #EminentDomain ploy for #LImo lot was stopped in #AtlanticCity by widow #VeraCoking

#Cruz pleas for broad front of resistance to #Fascist #Trump-#Queens windbag responds with polls & personal attacks-This #GOP debate a #Zoo

#GOPDebate -@marcorubio thinks #Flint shouldnt be politicized ,#Snyder #Austerity cuts via #EmergencyManager law lead to #FlintWaterCrisis

#GOPDebate '' #Kasich cites cutting older teachers to let younger ones in a positive '' In reality its a ploy to lower #Wages @AFLCIO

#GOPDebate #FOXDebate '' Only way to bring back #Manufacturing for #Detroit #Michigan is to restore the 15% #ProtectiveTariff on #Imports

#Kasich wants to bring programs under state control to let #austerity ghouls like him to loot them and strip #Americans of economic rights

#GOPDebate '' #Kasich says he lives by the Word, but fights to break unions and lower #wages -''The laborer deserves his wages.''

#Cruz blames not enough policing 4 conditions in Detroit. From 1960s silicon valley to slum = #FreeTrade. Demand 15% protective tariff #TWSP

#GOPDebate -@realDonaldTrump plan to thwart #ParisAttacks would be an #AR15 in #ElectricGuitar -We say close #Jarablus corridor-starve #ISIS

#GOPDebate ''#Donald has a tenuous relation with the truth''-Cruz should use straight talk on fascist #Trump and tell the public he is a #LIAR

#GOPDebate #FoxDebate -''They will do as I tell them''- @realDonaldTrump = FASCISM. GET IT YET??? #TWSP

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Source: JustOneMinute

Sat, 05 Mar 2016 22:36

OK, I made up that second hashtag but I'm sure there is one out there for his supporters and I'm sure it's not #TrumpUberAlles.

Megan McArdle listened to the NeverTrump side; today she has a column about the Trump supporters. She crystallizes seven reactions by the supporters, and dismisses the first five:

Of course they won't vote for him! Trump is smashing their cushy establishment control over the party!Of course they won't vote for him! Trump is going to actually force the party to do something about immigration and make them move their companies back from China!Of course they won't vote for him! Trump is going to stop their obsessive focus on tax cuts and Obamacare to focus the party on the issues that Real Americans actually care about!Of course they won't vote for him! They're neocon hawks who would be more comfortable with a Clinton presidency!Of course they won't vote for him! They're exactly the sort of crypto-Democrats we need to run out of the party!Of course they won't vote for him! They're too afraid of the liberal media calling them racist, and it's exactly this sort of craven capitulation we need to fight!Actually, they will vote for him. They're just having a bit of a tantrum now.The first five are dead wrong, based on my (admittedly unscientific) sample.

...

Trump fans should know that the #NeverTrump Republicans who wrote to me are not rejecting you, or even your issues. They are rejecting Donald J. Trump, because they think he is a bad person, so incompetent, aggressive and shamelessly unprincipled that they do not trust him with the Oval Office, or the helm of their party.

This seems like a good moment to exhort folks to take a look at Ace's recent post explaining his ongoing support for the Trump message but rejection of the messenger.

My response to (6) - the evergreen 'racist' charge - is a bit more forceful than Megan's but ladies first (boors to follow):

The Trump fans are at least a little bit right in two of their explanations about Trump abstainers. Some who shout "#NeverTrump" today probably will vote for him, when it comes down to it in November. And some #NeverTrump Republicans are afraid to stand with him because they'll be painted with the same brush as the KKK.

Here's the concession you really wanted to hear: The media is liberal, it does like to scrutinize conservative politicians for the slightest hint of racism and misogyny, and conservative politicians are hypersensitive to that label. Or at least, most successful ones are. Trump has gotten this far by wearing those labels proudly, and it's not a viable long-term strategy. More on that in the next column.

OK, she does say "some" don't want to wear the racist label. But as to timing, I recall #NeverTrump launching after the fiery Republican debate last Thursday (here is the earliest result for a Twitter search on "#NeverTrump trending"), well before the KKK debacle on Sunday.

As to the racist label, please - the math this campaign is simple. Democrats can't win without energized blacks and youngsters, as was soundly demonstrated in 2010 and 2014. Obama was black enough and young enough to show his smiling self and work the magic. On the campaign trail, Hillary is a not Barack - she is more of an Ambien with a scotch chaser. (Yeah, Trump is a Red Bull with a crystal meth chaser, but energy counts).

Dispatching Bernie by playing the racist/sexist card was not necessary. But even if the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln and Mother Teresa Hillary was going to spend six months screaming about Republican racism and sexism.

And since the wealthy, earnest liberals of Hollywood have just been told that they too need absolution, being "sorority racist", well, Hillary's reassurance that they were still better than the Republican variety of racist would be a soothing balm. Last night Hillary trotted out "Let's make America whole" as a slogan. Right - let's make it whole by tarring half the country as racist and sexist. We all know it's coming. Remember, Mitt Romney was an uncaring sexist pig because he had "binders full of women". Hillary is a rape enabler, but so what? KKK!

OK, I'm warming up here. Let me just refocus. Oh, I'll refocus after I thank Kevin Drum for this olive branch and then smack him with it:

Will Conservatives Do the Right Thing in November?

For years, liberals have been arguing that the Republican Party is built on appeals to racist sentiment. It's gotten subtler over time, but it's still there. Sometimes it's overt, other times it merely takes the form of tolerating racial animus in others. Sometimes it comes wrapped in a policy package, other times it's wrapped in dog whistles. Either way, it's all part of the GOP's electoral strategy. They know their base well.

Republicans, needless to say, don't take kindly to this. It's all phony and cynical, a way for liberals to take principled differences and turn them into racial appeals of their own. Sure, there may be racists who vote for Republicans, but there are plenty who vote for Democrats too. It's liberals who are addicted to playing the race card.

But now we're living through the era of Donald Trump.

Trump's a racist and a xenophobe. And a misogynist. We get it.

But when it comes to doing the right thing, it's conservatives who truly have the tough choice this year. Trump looks likely to win the Republican nomination, and that means the right thing for them to do is to literally hand the presidency to Hillary Clinton. Can you imagine how hard that's going to be? Hillary Clinton! And we're asking them to vote for her. Or, at the very least, to campaign against Trump and cast a protest vote. Either way, they're giving up their chance to kill Obamacare, to nominate a Supreme Court judge, to restore religious liberty as they see it, and to repeal all those executive orders they hate.

Will they do it? I don't know, but it's no joke to say that I feel their pain. All the cynicism and schadenfreude in the world can't mask how hard this is going to be. Conservatives are about to be tested as few political movements ever are.

Hmmph - one might well ask, are the Democrats going to do the right thing this spring and dump Hillary? The case can be made that her email conduct was criminal (the full Loretta Lynch cover-up and possible FBI protest resignations may be delayed until after her nomination). Her Goldman Sachs cronyism, contempt for questions from the press or her own party about the Goldman transcripts, her rape-enabling, her ongoing shakedowns through the out-of-controlClinton Foundation - why is this a hard choice for Democrats, or a choice at all? This is not "Hold your nose" and vote for Hillary; this is "put on the hip-waders". Oh, because "history" and "Scary racist sexist Republicans". And because the electorate is clearly calling out for four more years of crony capitalism and with Jeb! out who embodies that better than Hillary?

I'm a racist whoever I back, Chris Rock says Kevin Drum is a racist, Bernie Sanders and his supporters want millions of impoverished dark-skinned people to die, and away we go. Welcome to 2016.

OK, I did get sidetracked. Should have stopped at the Red Bull.

Megan offered a seventh point from Trump supporters commenting on the #NeverTrumpers:

Actually, they will vote for him. They're just having a bit of a tantrum now.

Well... Trump gave a relatively restrained, bombast-free press conference rather than a victory speech last night. That does not rebut the criticism that he is a chameleon and a con man, but it may bring people home.

And as much as I say right now I could be OK with Hillary winning, if the inevitable email cover-up is bad enough and the prospect of her picking a Supreme Court Justice becomes even more of a "Set a thief to catch a thief" issue, well - let me be the first to claim hiding space behind Sean Connery's kilt and I'll rehearse a mumbled "Never Say Never Again".

But that is down the road. This is not that day!

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Source: American Renaissance

Sat, 05 Mar 2016 22:17

On Saturday evening, an Arlington-based think tank called the National Policy Institute plans to hold its annual conference in the rotunda of the Reagan building in D.C., with around 150 attendees expected.

The topic of the conference will be the Republican presidential frontrunner, Donald Trump.

{snip}

The NPI's website says the group is ''dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States.''

In Trump, Spencer sees a figure ''energizing'' the white nationalist movement. So on Saturday, conference attendees will enjoy cocktails, dinner, desert, and three speakers praising and parsing the ''Trump phenomenon.''

''He's fighting for us. He's saying we're going to be great again. We're going to win again. And there's this implicit identity to this. There's this implicit nationalism,'' Spencer said in an interview Wednesday. ''I think he's evoking a lot of feelings amongst people, and I think implicit in what Donald Trump is doing is a conception of America as a European country.''

{snip}

Spencer explained that he doesn't actually think Trump is a racially conscious at all.

''I think a lot of older Americans they are implicitly white. When they think of America it's a white country,'' Spencer said.

{snip}

Original Article

Topics: Donald Trump, White Racial Consciousness

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Sun, 06 Mar 2016 05:40

In a lengthy email he sent to fans on Saturday after a brief plug for his show "Horace and Pete," Louis C.K. took very precise aim at GOP front-runner Donald Trump, saying bluntly: "This guy is Hitler."

The comedian brings up Trump's well-documented racist views, his conveniently shifting opinions and his generally unbalanced demeanor.

He also acknowledges that his message might not go over well, saying, "I'm sure a bunch of you are very annoyed by this. Fucking celebrity with an opinion." He later adds, "I know that I'm only bringing myself trouble with this shit."

"And really I don't mean to insult anyone," the comic continues. "Except Trump. I mean to insult him very much."

Below is the full text of the email postscript.

P.S. Please stop it with voting for Trump. It was funny for a little while. But the guy is Hitler. And by that I mean that we are being Germany in the 30s. Do you think they saw the shit coming? Hitler was just some hilarious and refreshing dude with a weird comb over who would say anything at all.

And I'm not advocating for Hillary or Bernie. I like them both but frankly I wish the next president was a conservative only because we had Obama for eight years and we need balance. And not because I particularly enjoy the conservative agenda. I just think the government should reflect the people. And we are about 40 percent conservative and 40 percent liberal. When I was growing up and when I was a younger man, liberals and conservatives were friends with differences. They weren't enemies. And it always made sense that everyone gets a president they like for a while and then hates the president for a while. But it only works if the conservatives put up a good candidate. A good smart conservative to face the liberal candidate so they can have a good argument and the country can decide which way to go this time.

Trump is not that. He's an insane bigot. He is dangerous.

He already said he would expand libel laws to sue anyone who ''writes a negative hit piece'' about him. He says ''I would open up the libel laws so we can sue them and win lots of money. Not like now. These guys are totally protected.'' He said that. He has promised to decimate the first amendment. (If you think he's going to keep the second amendment intact you're delusional.) And he said that Paul Ryan, speaker of the house will ''pay'' for criticizing him. So I'm saying this now because if he gets in there we won't be able to criticize him anymore.

Please pick someone else. Like John Kasich. I mean that guy seems okay. I don't like any of them myself but if you're that kind of voter please go for a guy like that. It feels like between him and either democrat we'd have a decent choice. It feels like a healthier choice. We shouldn't have to vote for someone because they're not a shocking cunt billionaire liar.

We should choose based on what direction the country should go.

I get that all these people sound like bullshit soft criminal opportunists. The whole game feels rigged and it's not going anywhere but down anymore. I feel that way sometimes.

And that voting for Trump is a way of saying ''fuck it. Fuck them all''. I really get it. It's a version of national Suicide. Or it's like a big hit off of a crack pipe. Somehow we can't help it. Or we know that if we vote for Trump our phones will be a reliable source of dopamine for the next four years. I mean I can't wait to read about Trump every day. It's a rush. But you have to know this is not healthy.

If you are a true conservative. Don't vote for Trump. He is not one of you. He is one of him. Everything you have heard him say that you liked, if you look hard enough you will see that he one day said the exact opposite. He is playing you.

In fact, if you do vote for Trump, at least look at him very carefully first. You owe that to the rest of us. Know and understand who he is. Spend one hour on google and just read it all. I don't mean listen to me or listen to liberals who put him down. Listen to your own people. Listen to John Mccain. Go look at what he just said about Trump. ''At a time when our world has never been more complex or more in danger'... I want Republican voters to pay close attention to what our party's most respected and knowledgeable leaders and national security experts are saying about Mr. Trump, and to think long and hard about who they want to be our next Commander-in-Chief and leader of the free world.''

When Trump was told what he said, Trump said ''Oh, he did? Well, that's not nice,'' he told CBS News' chief White House correspondent Major Garrett. ''He has to be very careful.''When pressed on why, Trump tacked on: ''He'll find out.''

(I cut and pasted that from CBS news)

Do you really want a guy to be president who threatens John McCain? Because John McCain cautiously and intelligently asked for people to be thoughtful before voting for him? He didn't even insult Trump. He just asked you to take a good look. And Trump told him to look out.

Remember that Trump entered this race by saying that McCain is not a war hero. A guy who was shot down, body broken and kept in a POW camp for years. Trump said ''I prefer the guys who don't get caught.'' Why did he say that? Not because he meant it or because it was important to say. He said it because he's a bully and every bully knows that when you enter a new school yard, you go to the toughest most respected guy on the yard and you punch him in the nose. If you are still standing after, you're the new boss. If Trump is president, he's not going to change. He's not going to do anything for you. He's going to do everything for himself and leave you in the dust.

So please listen to fellow conservatives. But more importantly, listen to Trump. Listen to all of it. Everything he says. If you liked when he said that ''torture works'' then go look at where he took it back the next day. He's a fucking liar.

A vote for Trump is so clearly a gut-vote, and again I get it. But add a little brain to it and look the guy up. Because if you vote for him because of how you feel right now, the minute he's president, you're going to regret it. You're going to regret it even more when he gives the job to his son. Because American democracy is broken enough that a guy like that could really fuck things up. That's how Hitler got there. He was voted into power by a fatigued nation and when he got inside, he did all his Hitler things and no one could stop him.

Again, I'm not saying vote democrat or vote for anyone else. If Hilary ends up president it should be because she faced the best person you have and you and I both chose her or him or whoever. Trump is not your best. He's the worst of all of us. He's a symptom to a problem that is very real. But don't vote for your own cancer. You're better than that.

That's just my view. At least right now. I know I'm not qualified or particularly educated and I'm not right instead of you. I'm an idiot and I'm sure a bunch of you are very annoyed by this. Fucking celebrity with an opinion. I swear this isn't really a political opinion. You don't want to know my political opinions. (And I know that I'm only bringing myself trouble with this shit.) Trump has nothing to do with politics or ideology. He has to do with himself. And really I don't mean to insult anyone. Except Trump. I mean to insult him very much. And really I'm not saying he's evil or a monster. In fact I don't think Hitler was. The problem with saying that guys like that are monsters is that we don't see them coming when they turn out to be human, which they all are. Everyone is. Trump is a messed up guy with a hole in his heart that he tries to fill with money and attention. He can never ever have enough of either and he'll never stop trying. He's sick. Which makes him really really interesting. And he pulls you towards him which somehow feels good or fascinatingly bad. He's not a monster. He's a sad man. But all this makes him horribly dangerous if he becomes president. Give him another TV show. Let him pay to put his name on buildings. But please stop voting for him. And please watch Horace and Pete. - Louis C.K.

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Sun, 06 Mar 2016 05:40

Anne Frank: The girl who wanted to write

Anne Frank: The girl who wanted to write '' Friday, August 1, marks the 70th anniversary of Anne Frank's final diary entry. Three days later, she was arrested with her family in the "secret annex" of a house in Amsterdam, Netherlands, where they had hidden for two years. She later died at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp when she was 15. In her diary, Anne describes a 1942 picture of herself: "This is a photo as I would wish myself to look all the time. Then I would maybe have a chance to come to Hollywood." Click through the gallery to see other pages from her diary:

Anne Frank: The girl who wanted to write

Anne Frank: The girl who wanted to write '' For her 13th birthday, Anne Frank received a red plaid diary, her first journal. She brought it with her into hiding and began writing in it in 1942. After her death, her father, Otto Frank, edited and compiled the diary. It was published in the Netherlands in 1947 as "The Secret Annex. Diary Letters From June 14, 1942, to August 1, 1944."

Anne Frank: The girl who wanted to write

Anne Frank: The girl who wanted to write '' Pages with text and photos from Anne Frank's diary, written in October 1942.

Anne Frank: The girl who wanted to write

Anne Frank: The girl who wanted to write '' A handwritten page of Anne Frank's diary includes photos of herself on the beach during a holiday with her sister, Margot. The two sisters would live hidden in the annex with their mother, Edith; father, Otto; and another family.

Anne Frank: The girl who wanted to write

Anne Frank: The girl who wanted to write '' Two pages, written in 1942, from the diary. "Her inner life and her voice seem almost shockingly contemporary, astonishingly similar to the voices of the teenagers we know," says Francine Prose, author of "Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife."

Anne Frank: The girl who wanted to write

Anne Frank: The girl who wanted to write '' When her diary was almost full, Anne continued writing, using several notebooks. In 1944, she decided to rewrite her diary entries in the form of a novel, intending to publish it after the war, according to curators at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Shown here are the different versions of her diary, known now as versions A, B and C.

Anne Frank: The girl who wanted to write

Anne Frank: The girl who wanted to write '' "The Diary of Anne Frank" has been translated into more than 70 languages in more than 60 nations.

Anne Frank: The girl who wanted to write

Anne Frank: The girl who wanted to write '' Anne Frank in 1941. Her diary is often many young people's introduction to the horrors of the Holocaust.

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Sun, 06 Mar 2016 14:08

Do you know what a superpredator is?

Hillary Clinton is coming under fire for using the term in 1996. She has explained why she used it, but her explanation doesn't hold up.

This is a Reality Check you won't see anywhere else.

At a fundraiser just days ago, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton was confronted by an activist. Take a look:

'''...criminal justice reform and all the like. So I think that we have got a very long way to go'...''

The young woman you heard there '-- her name is Ashley Williams. She told Clinton, ''I am not a superpredator.''

So what was she talking about? Well, she was referencing this excerpt from a speech from 1996:

''They're not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called superpredators. No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.''

In an interview late last week, Clinton explained to the Washington Post what she was talking about.

''In that speech, I was talking about the impact violent crime and vicious drug cartels were having on communities across the country and the particular danger they posed to children and families,'' Clinton said. ''Looking back, I shouldn't have used those words, and I wouldn't use them today.''

And that sounds fine; the only problem is that if you go back to what Clinton was actually talking about in 1996, she wasn't talking about crimes committed against children. She was talking about crimes committed by children '-- children who were called superpredators.

It's a 20-year-old myth that has been disproven over and over, but a myth that led to some very serious consequences.

In the mid-1990s, criminologists issued predictions of a coming wave of ''superpredators.'' These were ''radically impulsive, brutally remorseless'' ''elementary school youngsters who pack guns instead of lunches'' and ''have absolutely no respect for human life.'' That was how superpredators were defined.

In 1995, John DiIulio, a professor at Princeton who coined the term ''superpredator,'' predicted that the number of juveniles in custody would increase three-fold in the coming years and that, by 2010, there would be ''an estimated 270,000 more young predators on the streets than in 1990.''

But those predictions would turn out to be untrue. Even so, something incredible came from all of it. That myth 20 years ago led nearly every state in the country between 1992 and 1999 to expand laws that removed children from juvenile courts and exposed them to adult sentences, including life without parole.

But the idea that children, especially young minority children, were becoming super-predators was not only untrue but statistically fell apart.

Violent juvenile crime rates had already started to fall in the mid-1990s when this prediction was made. And By 2000, the juvenile homicide rate stabilized below the 1985 level.

Former President Bill Clinton has already been heavily criticized for policies that led to mass incarceration. But the superpredator theories, they had an incredible toll that we still feel today.

That's because right now children as young as 10 years old continue to be exposed to adult prosecution in the United States. Today, in America, 10,000 children are housed in adult jails and prisons and nearly 3,000 American children have been sentenced to die in prison.

Policies that cannot be laid only on the feet of the Clintons but every politician and state leader who voted for draconian laws based on a scary name.

That's Reality Check. Let's talk about that on Twitter @BenSwann_

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Sun, 06 Mar 2016 15:36

The writer hosts MSNBC's ''The Rachel Maddow Show'' and is a contributing columnist for The Post.

''Donald Trump is not a racist, but Donald Trump is not afraid. Don't vote for a Cuban, vote for Donald Trump.'' This is not the first white supremacist pro-Trump robocall by a group calling itself ''American National Super PAC,'' but it hits the same low notes as the last one. ''We don't need Muslims. We need smart, well-educated white people,'' said the first call, which went out to Iowa and New Hampshire voters ahead of the presidential nominating contests in those states. The group's pre-Super Tuesday call, which has reportedly gone out in Vermont and Minnesota, says, ''The white race is dying out. .'‰.'‰. Few schools anymore have beautiful white children as the majority.'' Both calls identify the person responsible for the message as a ''farmer and white nationalist,'' and both end the same way: ''Vote Trump .'‰.'‰. This call is not authorized by Donald Trump.''

Trump has no affiliation with the white supremacists making these calls on his behalf, but he's certainly got them all excited. The racist American Freedom Party is technically running its own candidate for president on a ''Stop White Genocide'' ticket, but its heart is clearly with Trump. A statement from the group announcing that first round of racist robocalls in Iowa called Trump ''The Great White Hope.''

Before the first votes were cast this year, Trump's candidacy was also being hailed and welcomed by the American Nazi Party, the KKK-affiliated ''Knights Party,'' the skinhead and neo-Nazi online forum ''The Daily Stormer'' and former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke.

[Joe Scarborough: Trump's feigned ignorance about the KKK raises disturbing questions]

During appearances on network television Feb. 28, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump repeatedly declined to refuse the endorsement of David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. While Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz both took aim at Trump. (The Washington Post)

Duke started praising Trump on his radio show during the summer, saying that Trump's campaign was doing ''some incredibly great things,'' but he stopped short of fully endorsing Trump's candidacy. Now, Duke is overtly calling on his supporters to join the Trump campaign: ''Voting against Donald Trump at this point, is really treason to your heritage. .'‰.'‰. I am telling you that it is your job now to get active. Get off your duff. Get off your rear-end that's getting fatter and fatter for many of you every day on your chairs. When this show's over, go out, call the Republican Party, but call Donald Trump's headquarters, volunteer. They're screaming for volunteers. Go in there, you're gonna meet people who are going to have the same kind of mind-set that you have.''

Candidates cannot control who endorses them, and no one should hold candidates accountable for the views and actions of their supporters unless the candidates endorse them in turn. But that doesn't mean the rest of us can't notice who's lining up behind whom.

While there is no evidence that Trump is actively courting the support of neo-Nazis and white supremacists, or that he welcomes it, that support also doesn't come as a surprise after the campaign that he has run.

Since he has been running for president, Trump has twice retweeted a message from the account @WhiteGenocideTM. The name associated with the account is ''Donald Trumpovitz,'' and the user's location is listed as ''Jewmerica.'' The avatar associated with the account '-- which Trump has twice sent to his own 6'‰million followers '-- includes the phrase, ''The man who wants to be Hitler.''

In November, Trump also tweeted a graphic that showed wildly inaccurate statistics blaming African Americans for anti-white crime. The graphic originated from a Twitter account headed with a stylized swastika that is the symbol of a neo-Nazi group. The profane description of who the account belongs to includes the statement, ''Should have listened to the Austrian chap with the little moustache.''

[George Will: The Trump albatross]

The Trump campaign, again, should not be conflated with its followers, but the candidate has not exactly gone out of his way to make clear to the white nationalists and neo-Nazis among us that their love is unrequited. After Duke started praising him last summer, Trump told interviewers who pressed him to repudiate the Klansman, ''Sure, I would, if that would make you feel better.'' Within the past few days, Trump said once that he disavowed Duke's support, and then subsequently that he would not disavow it because he didn't know who Duke was.

A man wearing a shirt saying "KKK endorses Trump" was thrown out of a rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Oklahoma City, Okla."In the good old days they would rip him out of that seat so fast, but today everybody is so politically correct, our country is going to hell with being so politically correct," Trump said. (Reuters)

In 1991, Duke ran for office as the gubernatorial nominee of the Republican Party in Louisiana. Disgusted mainstream Republicans were beside themselves that a Klansman had become the party's standard-bearer in that state. He was denounced by Republicans up to and including then-President George H.W. Bush.

That said, the Democratic Party's candidate in that 1991 governor's race was no prize either. Edwin Edwards had already served three terms as Louisiana governor, but he was flagrantly, even proudly, corrupt. Edwards ultimately went on to serve eight years in federal prison, but not before defeating Duke in a campaign that featured two of America's all-time great political slogans: ''Vote for the Crook. It's Important'' and ''Vote for the Lizard, Not the Wizard.'' The point is that Duke lost that race, even against an opponent like Edwards. Of course he lost. Characters like that are expected to lose in America, anywhere and everywhere.

Neo-Nazis, Klan members and white nationalists are a durable feature of the far-right fringe in U.S. politics. The constant reinvention and reintroduction of a character such as Duke over the years shows that our nation's racist yahooism probably will never go away completely. It's like a latent infection that becomes mildly symptomatic again every time we're under too much stress.

What we're not used to is it winning, and thereby getting a place in the spotlight at the center of mainstream, national politics.

[These new Trump poll numbers should terrify Republicans]

Maybe the Republican Party cracked the seal on this kind of thing in 2014, when it elevated Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) to the top tier of the House Republican leadership. Scalise, as a state legislator, once addressed a white supremacist convention of the European-American Unity and Rights Organization. He says he had no idea that it was a racist group, but a local reporter says he also told her at the time that Louisiana voters should think of him as ''David Duke without the baggage.''

That's a quote that the White House has frequently reiterated to the press corps since Republicans decided to elevate Scalise to the No. 3 job in the House.

The White House keeps bringing up the quote because it's supposed to be a source of shame for Scalise and for the party in choosing him as a leader. That's the usual interplay between the racist fringe and the mainstream political right: The overtly racist stuff is supposed to be a political loser and radioactive to mainstream Republicans. What is not usual is that same cast of racist characters and organizations feeling at home and well represented at the very apotheosis of Republican Party politics, in the campaign of the prohibitive front-runner for the party's presidential nomination.

Again, a candidate cannot be held accountable for everything said and believed by his or her supporters. But once it's clear that the candidate has both the attention and affection of the ugliest, most vile creatures in our political swamp, what he chooses to do about that is a leadership test not only for the candidate but also for the party of which he is becoming the standard-bearer. Now that the KKK and the white nationalists feel that the Republican Party has finally given them a candidate they can believe in, who will disabuse them of that notion? And how?

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Sun, 06 Mar 2016 14:46

The comments by Gabriel, economy minister and leader of the Social Democrats, are the clearest sign yet that ruling politicians in Europe are increasingly worried about the outcome of the U.S. presidential elections.

"Whether Donald Trump, Marine le Pen or Geert Wilders - all these right-wing populists are not only a threat to peace and social cohesion, but also to economic development," Gabriel told Welt am Sonntag newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.

Gabriel said that Trump and France's Le Pen were promising voters "a way back into a fairytale world" in which economic activity only happened within national borders but that history has shown such isolated economies have no chance to develop.

"We have to make the effort to explain how we want to shape globalization in a fair way," Gabriel said.

Politicians in Germany and elsewhere in Europe have watched as businessman and reality TV star Trump has moved from long shot to front-runner of the

Republicans seeking the party's nomination ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election.

Trump has described German Chancellor Angela Merkel's welcoming policy towards refugees as "insane" and predicted it would cause rioting in Germany.

He has also praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been at odds with Europe since Moscow's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region two years ago.

Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook.

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Sun, 06 Mar 2016 15:13

Trump != HitlerBy: Sir Craig Jones, Baronet of the No Agenda RoundtableListening to Thursday's show, the question came up while talking about the CNN race discussion, was Hitler a leftist? I have some information and context, if you are interested.The term left/right refers to where liberals and conservatives sat in the British House of Commons. The Liberals sat in the ''left wing'' of the chamber while the Conservatives (Whigs/Tories) sat in the ''right wing'' of the chamber. So to understand what left/right really means, we need to know what liberal/conservative actually means.Liberalism began as an ideology in the 18th century. Thinkers such as John Locke and Adam Smith, and others, argued for rights and freedoms to be applied to all men, not just royalty or aristocracy. Liberalism in this time was a reaction to the lack of civil liberties and rights for the vast majority of people. Liberalism said governments should not be tyrannical, that rights came from God or nature and NOT the government or king, and that for government to be legitimate the people must have a voice in that government.Conservatives, on the other hand, held with the idea that all rights and privileges came from the King or government. Conservatives arose in a world that already aligned with their thinking, and they did not want to change it, but to conserve it, hence the name.Conservatives had the view that the king and government cannot be held to account by any earthy power, only God. That meant that in reality the government was all-powerful, in theory at least.In America, the definition of liberal has changed dramatically. Now liberalism means support for a very powerful central government, as well as giving the government the power to interfere in any aspect of public life. Conservatives in America believe in a small, limited government where the citizen has the power, not the government.The definition of left wing and right wing, however, has not been updated. American conservatism is based on what we now have to call ''classical liberalism.'' American liberalism is based on progressivism, and increasingly socialism.Those parties on the ''left'' of the political spectrum are supporters of the rights of the people versus the government. They are for limited powers for the government. Increasingly, that is aligning more with American conservatism and the Republican Party.Those parties on the ''right'' support a nearly all-powerful government which grants and can remove basic rights. Increasingly, that is aligning with American liberalism and the Democrat Party.Now back to Hitler. The Nazis were indeed right-wing, if you use the original understanding of what it means to be right-wing. However, to place the Nazis in the context of modern American politics, which I do not support and find problematic on many levels, it is only right to say the Nazis were left-wing.Nazism is the antithesis of everything American Conservatives supposedly stand for. Nazis set up a dictatorship whereby Hitler removed all liberty and freedom from vast swathes of the German population, with no check on his power.It is unfair to compare any American political party to the Nazi party. It is also unfair to call the Nazi's right-wing, as that term is antiquated and not reflective of the current understanding of liberalism/conservatism and left/right politics. If anything, given the way liberalism and conservatism have evolved in America, the Nazis should be called left-wing when using that term in today's political conversations.Hope this helps, and sorry for War and Peace. I could easily have said more but this is the most concise I could make it while retaining the necessary context.

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Source: American Renaissance

Sat, 05 Mar 2016 22:15

For the first time in its history, the European Union on Wednesday announced plans for an emergency aid package to alleviate large-scale suffering inside its borders, where tens of thousands of migrants are trapped in Greece as they seek asylum in northern Europe. {snip} About 9,000 asylum seekers are stuck along the Greek-Macedonian border, according to monitoring groups. Migrants who have made it to Athens are crowded into camps and refugee centers that are either full or nearly so. The spending proposal''700 million euros, or about $760 million, which the bloc's member governments have yet to approve''is intended to help those migrants trapped in Greece and, if needed, in other countries on the front lines of the migration crisis, such as Bulgaria and Italy. {snip}

With the weather turning warmer and the sea crossing from Turkey to Greece becoming more navigable, the number of migrants making the trip is expected to rise in coming weeks. This may put even more pressure on Greece, which could become a giant holding center for migrants who cannot go forward, but who will not, or cannot, go back. Greece risks becoming a ''new Lebanon for Europe, a warehouse of souls,'' Ioannis Mouzalas, a Greek minister for immigration policy, warned last week at a meeting in Brussels of the European Union's interior ministers. {snip}

Normally, the bloc reserves humanitarian aid from its budget to spend on things like tents and food in poorer parts of the world that are struck by natural disasters or conflicts. It has paid for humanitarian aid missions in Iraq, South Sudan and Syria in the past decade. Yet the number of migrants reaching Greece has forced Europe to adapt its aid policies to try to avert a catastrophe on the Continent. {snip} The so-called Emergency Assistance Instrument would allow for a faster, more targeted response to major crises, including helping member states cope with large numbers of refugees, according to the commission. The money, to be disbursed over the next three years, would go to organizations such as United Nations agencies and aid groups, the commission said. {snip}

Original Article

Topics: Europe, Immigration

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Source: American Renaissance

Sat, 05 Mar 2016 22:13

Migrants in Greece are set to be handed envelopes of cash under a £550million EU disaster fund announced yesterday.

Brussels officials said despite the obvious dangers of giving taxpayers' money directly to those in refugee camps to spend as they wish it would help them 'maintain their dignity'.

The EU aid plan''the first of its kind to provide humanitarian relief inside the continent''will be used to help charities provide essentials such as medicines, blankets and food.

But Christos Stylianides, the Commissioner in charge of humanitarian aid, said he believed migrants should also have the option of buying things themselves rather than being forced to queue up for aid drop-offs.

His suggestion comes despite internal European Commission documents warning about 'corruption and security risks' when providing humanitarian assistance in cash.

Tory MEP David Campbell-Bannerman last night said: 'There is a danger that by handing over cash rather than basic essentials, British taxpayers' money could end up in the hands of the human traffickers smuggling people through Europe. This is no way to ensure our security in Britain.'

People smugglers are currently offering for 1,000 euros to help migrants make the 375 mile trip from the Greek border with Macedonia to Belgrade in Serbia, where they can pay an extra 1,000 to 3,000 euros to get to Vienna.

{snip}

Commission documents suggested the money could be distributed through cash in envelopes, mobile phone transfers or bank account deposits.'

An EU official admitted the failure of the Commission to handle the crisis meant it was having to set up the type of fund usually reserved for easing humanitarian crises in places such as Africa.

'For the first time in its history the EU is struggling to deal with wide-ranging humanitarian needs within its borders,' he said.

'The Commission wants to learn the lessons from this crisis and prepare for the next one. We should not be caught off guard again whether we have a different or similar crisis that triggers humanitarian needs.'

{snip}

Original Article

Topics: Europe, Immigration, Wealth Redistribution

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Sun, 06 Mar 2016 01:58

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Tue, 01 Mar 2016 21:52

Tue Mar 1, 2016 | 3:22 PM EST

By Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden wrote a letter calling on the American people to help President Barack Obama fight "catastrophic" climate change and "save humanity", in the latest evidence of his worries about environmental issues, newly released documents show

The letter was among materials that were seized in the May 2, 2011, U.S. raid on bin Laden's hideout in Pakistan that killed the al Qaeda chief and which were released on Tuesday by the Obama administration.

The undated, unsigned letter "to the American people," which U.S. intelligence officials attributed to bin Laden, appeared to have been written shortly after Obama began his first term in 2009, based on the letter's references to events.

Bin Laden's preoccupation with climate change also emerged as a theme in the first tranche of documents from the raid that was declassified in May 2015, as well as in an audio recording released via the al Jazeera network in January 2010.

In the rambling letter made public Tuesday, bin Laden blamed the 2007-8 U.S. financial crisis on corporate control of capital and corporate lobbyists, and the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He called on Americans to launch "a great revolution for freedom" to liberate the U.S. president from those influences.

That would enable Obama to make "a rational decision to save humanity from the harmful gases that threaten its destiny," bin Laden continued.

In a separate letter, bin Laden urged a close aide to launch a media campaign for the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that included a call for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

Bin Laden contended that the world would be better off fighting climate change than waging what he claimed was a war against Islam.

"...the world should put its efforts into attempting to reduce the release of gases," said the undated, unsigned letter to someone identified as Shaykh Mahmud that U.S. intelligence officials said they believed was written by bin Laden.

"This is a struggle between two of the largest cultures on Earth, and it is in the shadow of catastrophic climate conditions."

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; editing by Stuart Grudgings)

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Tue, 01 Mar 2016 05:14

The seas are rising, and people are starting to respond. I recently wrote about one resident of the South Florida city who is so concerned about climate change and rising seas that he's packing up his home in the center of the island and planning to move to higher ground.

Pull up a map of projected sea level rise, and it's easy to see why. At even 2 to 4 feet of sea level rise, the island will be considerably flooded. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says 6 feet of sea level increase is possible by century's end. These are long-term trends -- measured in decades and generations -- but they're certainly frightening.

Others in Miami Beach, however, are vowing to stay and fight. The city is regarded by many as a proactive leader in efforts to hold back the threats of rising tides.

How are they doing it? And what are the limits of engineering fixes to climate change and rising seas? To learn about that, I called up Susanne Torriente, assistant city manager and "chief resiliency officer" for Miami Beach, a 90,000-person island municipality off the coast of Miami proper.

The following is a transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity:

CNN: Do you think Miami Beach can survive climate change in the long term?

Torriente: I don't know what the long term is, but I know Miami Beach is adapting to climate change. We're starting already. ... We're starting to adapt today. And the approach is really incremental adaptation. What can we do in our one-year budget, in our five-year capital plan -- and maybe in some of our 20-year master plans -- to start to really start to deliver government services in a different way? We have more data nowadays. We have sea level rise projections.

CNN: What are you doing today to try to fight sea-level rise?

What they've done here in Miami Beach is an aggressive stormwater program that includes installing pumps. ... We're installing these pumps that actually take the water and push it out. We're elevating roads. We're working on our seawalls. We have 63 miles of seawalls. Only three (miles) are actually public. But we're looking at elevating those and restoring those.

CNN: I'm wondering how that has worked so far. From what I've read, Miami Beach has seen a lot of flooding in recent years associated with higher tides.

Last fall, the pumps were working and those streets were dry. Versus two years ago, you see those pictures of some of our roads that were really flooded rather high.

This year, where the pumps were installed, they worked.

CNN: When I was driving around on Miami Beach, I came to these intersections where you feel like you're almost going up a ramp into a parking garage or something. The road level just goes up dramatically. But seeing that I wondered: Does the floodwater just collect below that? If you're just raising the road level, how is that helpful?

Well, you're elevating. So the water's not getting up to you, essentially. That's on the public side. And we're also looking at our land use code. Local governments have that kind of building and zoning and planning authority. We are looking at private development -- what should be those elevations as well.

CNN: I've read that for other low-lying cities like New Orleans there's more potential to put up levees and seawalls to hold the ocean back. But because Miami sits on limestone, which is porous, it's hard to do that. The water would just go under them.

I'm not an engineer, but I've heard the engineers talk about, well, are there ways to combat that? Are there ways to seal the limestone? I just heard my city engineer talking about that earlier this week. Yes, that is a challenge for us. The water does come up through this porous limestone that we do sit on. It's not as easy as just building a wall. That's why we have to work in other ways, like pumping the water out or elevating the roads.

CNN: What would you want to say to someone in Miami Beach -- or another coastal community -- who's worried about sea level rise?

The important message is: Climate change is here and sea level is rising. But our eyes are wide open to the issue. We're actively planning and we're actively doing. We're actively designing and constructing these kinds of incremental adaptation options that continue to reduce our risk. The work we're doing today is safeguarding us for the future. As time passes and we have more information and more data we can continue to build upon what we're doing today.

CNN: I met a Miami Beach resident who told me he is packing up and planning to move out of Miami Beach because he's worried about the long term viability of his home, and, more immediately, he's worried about his investment given the risks of climate change. I'm wondering what you think of that decision. Do you think it's alarmist? Is it prudent?

I think it's a personal decision. People have their own circumstances in life, and you make those personal decisions. But I do think it's important for the residents here to know -- and they do know -- that this city commission and the residents today here in the city are willing to invest. They raised their stormwater rates so we could issue the bonds to pay for these investments. And the investments we're making are in fact reducing those risks.

If were a coastal community that was getting flooded and we had our eyes closed and were doing nothing, then there should be some worry. But we're a coastal community heavily involved in designing and constructing -- and working to reduce that risk.

CNN: I got some comments with people saying this isn't climate change, this isn't happening. This is just the coast of Florida and of course it floods sometimes. How certain are you that what you see happening now is climate change?

We're a local government. We have to be responsible. These things are happening. And so that argument really doesn't happen in South Florida anymore. It's about actually doing something about.

CNN: Marco Rubio is from South Florida and is a Republican presidential contender. And I would say he's injecting a lot of false doubt into the climate conversation. I'm wondering what you think about that -- or about the election as a whole?

As a local government appointed official, I'm not going to get into too much of the politics of it. But the science is there. These things are happening. And whoever gets in office needs to understand that these are issues that are facing these communities. We need the help and the coordination from the state and the feds. Right now it's really the local governments that are stepping up to this. ... It's not a partisan issue down here.

CNN: Is this a pretty expensive problem to deal with?

Yeah.

CNN: I was told you all have pledged something like $400 million to fight this.

The estimate is somewhere around $400 million, and the numbers change as you're out in the field and constructing these things. And it's essentially a three- to five-year program to install these pumps in these low-lying areas of the city. South Florida is coastal and low-lying. I kind of say we're flat and flatter. You look at the areas that are most vulnerable and start there.

CNN: I think some people could see that number -- $400 million -- and think, 'Oh my gosh, that's a lot of money that's being used to fight something that's unwinnable.'

But you spent time here, right? This is a vibrant, beautiful coastal community. People still want to come live, work and play here. So, I'm not ready to give up. (Laughs).

There are a lot of people who are not ready to give up. These investments continue to reduce our risk and make us less vulnerable and buy time. Yeah, I think the key message is we're not willing to give up. That would be disappointing for a lot of folks. Our eyes are wide open, and we're actively involved in making this community beautiful and vibrant and resilient. You know, 100 years from now, 200 years from now, it'll be different.

I joke with my staff that we're creating 'Tomorrowland.' It will look different. Maybe other generations will have to adapt more and learn to live with the water even more. The design of the city will be different. But we're not giving up.

CNN: What do you think that 'Tomorrowland' might look like?

Maybe some roads are allowed to flood or some areas are allowed to flood, and we create investments that are built to hold water sometimes and be dry in others.

There's a whole kind of opportunity to create a different city. We've had conversation with folks from The Netherlands. That's really their phrase: "Learning to live with the water." Our behavior may be different, the way we conduct our lives, but we've been doing that for years. Generations adapt.

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Sun, 06 Mar 2016 03:13

Hip hop mogul Russell Simmons is endorsing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 race, because Bernie Sanders doesn't acknowledge that ''the number one threat to America and the world is the factory farming lobby.

''Because it is poisoning the planet quickly,'' he told CNN in a video posted to YouTube, ''and it is poisoning its inhabitants.''

Simmons, founder of several record labels and clothing lines, is a vegan and a ''Christian yogi.'' His particular brand of yoga '' Jivamukti Yoga '' is a quasi cult and exercise religion that requires adherents to become vegans and devoted animal rights activists.

Simmons told CNN he decided to back his ''longtime friend'' Hillary Clinton because Sanders is ''overpromising'' and insensitive to the plight of black people. More importantly, he said, all of the water in the earth's oceans will be gone in 50 years, and if everyone doesn't become a vegan like Simmons the human race will go extinct.

''The shift has to be made away from the animal products, away from the beef industry specifically, but all the animal products into a plant based diet or there will be no planet,'' Simmons said, ''and in the next 50 years we won't even have an ocean and when the oceans die, we die.

''So we must change the rate at which we consume animals and we cannot have a lobbyist take advantage of all our natural resources in order to poison the planet and its people,'' he continued.

Simmons said it's like Sanders isn't even concerned that the oceans will be gone in no time.

''I asked him about it and he brushed it off, even though he knows your earth quake and certainly all these storms are a result of factory farming,'' Simmons told CNN. ''We now have all the proof in the world that climate change is man made and we have to do something to derail it.''

''That, and his insensitivity to black voters, caused me to support Hillary Clinton, who I think can win,'' he said.

Ironically, it's Clinton's campaign that's been dogged with criticism for its links to corporate lobbyists. Clinton's former Iowa campaign manager Jerry Crawford is a lobbyist for tobacco companies and factory farmers, including the infamous Monsanto.

''Monsonto, the agricultural and biotechnology company founded in Missouri, is known worldwide for its abuses against the environment and practices designed to crush farm competition,'' Alternet noted. ''Iowa is a farming state, with agriculture making up a large share of its total economy.''

Between managing Clinton's 2008 campaign and joining the club again this year, Jerry Crawford worked for Iowa Republicans and at his law and lobbying firm Crawford Muargo, which represents Monsonto, Kraft, and Philip Morris USA parent company Altria, according to the site.

Truth-out.org reports Crawford is now senior adviser to Clinton's 2016 campaign, despite the fact that his firm has taken in a reported $60,000 from Monsanto in the most recent quarter.

Crawford raised $151,727 for the Clinton campaign in the last quarter of 2015, while another Monsanto lobbyist, Steve Elmendorf, raised $20,295 for the Hillary for America organization during the same time frame, according to FEC documents cited by Truth-out.

''Elmendorf also does work for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which has been battling against mandatory labeling laws for foods made with GMOs,'' the site reports.

''Clinton is widely seen as a friend to genetically engineered crop technology and agrichemical interests, while her chief competitor for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders, has been a supporter of mandatory GMO labeling.''

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Fri, 04 Mar 2016 20:34

''During his talk, Yiannopoulos called students who believe in a gender wage gap 'idiots,' declared the Black Lives Matter movement a 'supremacy' group, while feminists are 'man-haters,''' according to the student paper The Pitt News, prompting a handful of twenty-something-year olds to feel upset.

''Just because we have to be neutral with our funding doesn't mean we're personally neutral,'' announced board member Jack Heidecker at the meeting. ''I hurt yesterday, too.''

''So many of us shared in our pain. I felt I was in danger, and I felt so many people in that room were in danger,'' proclaimed Marcus Robinson, student and president of the Pittsburgh Rainbow Alliance. Robinson also suggested that councilors should have been provided in another room to protect students who felt ''traumatized'' by Yiannopoulos's opinions.

''This is more than hurt feelings, this is about real violence. We know that the violence against marginalized groups happens every day in this country,'' claimed social work and urban studies major Claire Matway. ''That so many people walked out of that [event] feeling in literal physical danger is not alright.''

President of the College Republicans and fellow student Tim Nerozzi responded to the complaints by proclaiming, ''I'm not here to rain on your parade. We put a trigger warning on our fliers for the event. We never claimed it would be a family friendly or a politically correct lecture.''

''I do realize that some people were genuinely hurt, and I'm not going to ignore that, but free speech should not trump safety,'' he said. ''We need to see the school work around that.''

Student Government Board President Nasreen Harun is reported to have ''teared up'' after ''hearing students' experiences as a result of Milo Yiannopoulos' talk on Monday.''

''We're very sorry people are feeling the way they are and it was not intended'... and we're sorry people are not proud to be at Pitt,'' she expressed in deep remorse.

The public meeting was announced in a letter sent out to students by the Student Government Board, stating:

In light of yesterday's event with Milo Yiannopoulos, we feel compelled to write to the Pitt community regarding Student Government Board's stance on his views and the reasons for which the funding request for this program was approved. If you were in the audience and were disgusted and hurt by the speaker's remarks, we understand and empathize with you. If you felt marginalized and disparaged by many comments he made regarding your identity and the opinions of others who disagreed with him, we understand your feelings. To the students of color in the audience, we can only begin to imagine how painful it was to hear what both audience members and the speaker said regarding race and social justice issues in this country. Finally, to the survivors of sexual assault, we undoubtedly support you['...]

SGB has funded and taken an active role in many events including the Undy 500: Race against Sexual Assault, lectures by Bernice King and Laverne Cox, and has taken a major role in the implementation of the It's On Us Campaign on Pitt's campus. These are just some of the numerous events that take an alternative perspective from last night's speaker on issues of race, gender identity, and sexual violence on campus. We as an organization wish to make something clear: the decision by Student Government Board to allocate funds for this speaker in no way represents an endorsement of his views or opinions['...]

We hope to move forward from what took place last evening, but understand the hurt and pain that it caused['...]

Students are welcomed to attend tonight's Public Meeting at 8:45pm in Nordy's Place to share their perspectives and viewpoints during either of our two Open Floors.

In an email sent out to Pittsburgh students, a joint event between the Rainbow Alliance, Campus Women's Organization, and Black Action Society is also set to take place on Thursday to ''respond to the hate speech and harmful events that have transpired as well as provide a SAFE SPACE for those who have experienced trauma, been triggered, or felt any kind of pain because of the events.''

Yiannopoulos responded to the protests of the event with the following tweet:

The reactions of students over a non-compulsory and extracurricular event featuring a gay journalist expressing a difference of opinion are a worrying sign that academia is failing. These are students who are legal adults and on the cusp of entering the real world, yet they're in tears over the fact that someone, who they need not even listen to, disagreed with them.

University is no longer a place for new ideas, discussion, and intellectual debate. It is a place of safe spaces, no platforming, and trigger warnings. Students are taught to believe and agree with a single narrative and doctrine, turning them into narrow-minded and unchallenged pawns, with any form of resistance or difference of thought being classified as hate speech.

Pittsburgh may be the steel city, but it appears its students are made of softer stuff.

Charlie Nash is a contributor to Breitbart Tech and former editor of the Squid Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington.

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Sun, 06 Mar 2016 05:31

Image copyrightEPAImage caption Zaman is the latest media outlet to be brought under government control A Turkish court has put Zaman newspaper - a vocal critic of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan - under state control.

Administrators have been appointed to run the newspaper. There is no explanation for the court's decision.

Zaman is closely linked to the Hizmet movement of influential US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, a former Erdogan ally.

Turkey describes Hizmet as a "terrorist organisation" aiming to overthrow the government. Many of its supporters have been arrested.

Mr Erdogan's government has come under increasing international criticism over its treatment of journalists.

Freedom of the press in TurkeyImage copyrightAPTurkey ranks 149th amongst the 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index 2015Media organisations in Turkey say that more than 30 journalists are currently behind barsMost are of Kurdish originThe government argues journalism in Turkey is among the most free in the worldPress freedom 'a major concern'

In a statement, Zaman said the country was going through its "darkest and gloomiest days in terms of freedom of the press".

It expressed "deep concern" at the latest court order - the culmination of pressure for more than two years on Turkey's "highest circulating newspaper, Zaman, and its sister publication Today's Zaman". It said the pressure had been through "accreditation bans, tax inspections, meddling with its advertisers and threats to its readers".

Editor-in-chief Sevgi Akarcesme told Reuters news agency this was "the practical end of media freedom in Turkey".

"The media has always been under pressure, but it has never been so blatant," she said.

Steamrolling over rightsDozens of supporters gathered outside the paper's Istanbul headquarters after the announcement of the court decision.

One held a placard saying, "We will fight for a free press."

Amnesty International's Andrew Gardner said: "By lashing out and seeking to rein in critical voices, President Erdogan's government is steamrolling over human rights.

"A free and independent media, together with the rule of law and independent judiciary, are the cornerstones of internationally guaranteed freedoms which are the right of everyone in Turkey," he said.

The move against Zaman comes days after Turkey's Constitutional Court ordered the release from detention of two Turkish journalists charged with revealing state secrets.

Can Dundar and Erdem Gul, from the newspaper Cumhuriyet, were detained in November over a report alleging that the Turkish government tried to ship arms to Islamists in Syria.

Image copyrightAFP/Getty ImagesImage caption Erdem Gul (left) and Can Dundar were freed after three months in jail The pair still face possible life sentences at their trial on 25 March.

Two newspapers and two television channels were put under state administration last year over their alleged links with the Hizmet movement.

The Turkish government has accused Mr Gulen, Hizmet's spiritual leader, of trying to run a parallel state.

On Friday, state-run Anadolu news agency said police had detained four senior officials of a company linked to Mr Gulen in the central city of Kayseri.

Turkey has asked the US to extradite Mr Gulen. The exiled cleric has allies in the Turkish police and judiciary, media and financial interests as well as a network of schools.

Hizmet movementInspired by the teachings of Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen, who lives in the USGulen is a mainstream Sunni Hanafi Muslim scholar, influenced by Anatolian SufismThere is no formal structure but Hizmet followers are numbered in the millions across more than 150 countriesFirst expanded into Central Asia after the USSR's demise in 1991Gulen: Powerful but reclusive

Profile: Hizmet movement

Image copyrightAFPImage caption Mr Gulen is embroiled in a bitter row with Mr Erdogan

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Source: American Renaissance

Sat, 05 Mar 2016 22:11

The biggest star to take the stage during the Academy Awards arguably was the #OscarsSoWhite controversy as Chris Rock hammered home Hollywood's diversity issues during the three-plus-hour telecast. But now that the curtain has closed, the question becomes how the industry will avoid a repeat.

The wheels already might be in motion: Since the Oscar nominations were announced Jan. 14, a slew of diverse stories and color-blind castings have gained momentum. Newly announced projects include the young Barack Obama movie Barry and Disney's immigrant story Dr. Q. (Those come on the heels of the record-breaking $17.5 million Sundance deal for Nate Parker's slave drama The Birth of a Nation).

''There's definitely a big conversation taking place right now in our business,'' says Management 360 partner Darin Friedman. ''From both the filmmaker side and the buyer side, there's a push for more diverse stories. It's happening in a genuine way: an understanding that the cast or the directors who get hired should reflect the way the world looks.''

{snip}

{snip} J.J. Abrams' production company Bad Robot has teamed with its agency, CAA, and studio partners to require that women and people of color are submitted for writing, directing and acting jobs in proportion to their representation in the U.S. population.

''The Oscars controversy was a wake-up call to examine our role in expanding opportunities internally at Bad Robot and externally with our content and partners,'' says Abrams, who produces the Star Wars and Star Trek movie franchises along with the TV series Person of Interest and Hulu's miniseries 11.22.63. ''It's good for audiences, and it's good for the bottom line.''

{snip}

Several other actors of color have nabbed high-profile roles in recent weeks: Idris Elba is in talks to star in Fox's romantic drama The Mountain Between Us in a lead role that originally was written for a white actor (Charlie Hunnam was in talks at one point); Hamilton star Lin-Manuel Miranda will star in Disney's Mary Poppins sequel as a character similar to that played by Dick Van Dyke in the original; and Michael B. Jordan will star in MGM's remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, playing a role previously inhabited by Steve McQueen and Pierce Brosnan.

{snip}

Original Article

Topics: Race and Entertainment, Racial Preferences in Hiring

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Sat, 05 Mar 2016 18:18

Russian Foriegn Minister and U.S. Secretary of State both called for the Syrian peace talks to move forward as soon as possible.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in a late phone conversation on Friday called for a prompt start to the next round of Syria peace talks, Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The talks, under the aegis of the United Nations, were originally due to begin on March 7 in Geneva, but have been postponed until March 9 due to "logistical and technical reasons and also for the ceasefire to better settle down," the U.N. said.

"The two sides called to start the negotiations as soon as possible ... between the Syrian government and the whole spectrum of the opposition, during which the Syrians themselves should determine the future of their country," the ministry said in a statement.

Kerry and Lavrov also reaffirmed the need for mutual cooperation to ensure the end of hostilities in Syria, the ministry said.

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Fri, 04 Mar 2016 02:57

View all'...Further ReadingThe San Bernardino District Attorney told a federal judge late Thursday that Apple must assist the authorities in unlocking the iPhone used by Syed Farook, one of the two San Bernardino shooters that killed 14 people in a killing rampage in December. The phone, which was a county work phone issued to Farook as part of his Health Department duties, may have been the trigger to unleash a "cyber pathogen," county prosecutors said in a brief court filing."The iPhone is a county owned telephone that may have connected to the San Bernardino County computer network. The seized iPhone may contain evidence that can only be found on the seized phone that it was used as a weapon to introduce a lying dormant cyber pathogen that endangers San Bernardino's infrastructure," according to a court filing (PDF) by Michael Ramos, the San Bernardino County District Attorney.

The county declined to directly comment. A spokesman, David Wert, told Ars in an e-mail that "The county didn't have anything to do with this brief. It was filed by the district attorney." The DA's office did not immediately respond for comment.

Jonathan Zdziarski, a prominent iPhone forensics expert, said in a telephone interview that the district attorney is suggesting that a "magical unicorn might exist on this phone."

"The world has never seen what he is describing coming from an iPhone," Zdziarski said. "I would expect, I would demand, in order to make that statement at all, he should make some kind of proof."

It sounds like he's making up these terms as he goes. We've never used these terms in computer science. I think what he's trying to suggest is that Farook was somehow working with someone to install a program on the iPhone that would infect the local network with some kind of virus or worm or something along those lines. Anything is possible, right? Do they have any evidence whatseover to show there is any kind of fiber pathogen on the network or any logs or network captures to show that Farook's phone tried to inroduce some unauthorized code into the system?

In a follow-up e-mail, Zdziarski added: "This reads as an amicus designed to mislead the courts into acting irrationally in an attempt to manipulate a decision in the FB'Is favor. It offers no evidence whatsoever that the device has, or even might have, malware on it. It offers no evidence that their network was ever compromised. They are essentially saying that a magical unicorn might exist on this phone."

At issue is the Federal Bureau of Investigation wants Apple to create software to help it bypass the passcode lock to enable the authorities to gain access to the iPhone. Apple is fighting a Southern California magistrate's order that it do that. Oral arguments are set for March 22 in federal court, in which Apple hopes to change the magistrate's mind.

The government claims that a 1789 law, known as the All Writs Act, allows judges to issue orders despite there being no law on the topic.

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Sun, 06 Mar 2016 07:12

The iPhone at the center of the ongoing encryption dispute between Apple and the FBI may contain a "dormant cyber pathogen", according to the San Bernardino county District Attorney.The curious claim appears in an amicus brief filed by Michael Ramos with a California court on Thursday. In the document, Ramos speculates that the iPhone used by terror suspect Syed Rizwan Farook "may contain evidence that can only be found on the seized phone that it was used as a weapon to introduce a lying dormant cyber pathogen that endangers San Bernardino's infrastructure."

The apparent threat is cited as a violation of California Penal Code Section §502, covering protections against tampering, interference, damage and unauthorized access to computer systems. The reference suggests Ramos believes that some sort of malware may be contained on the iPhone, but offers no justification for the claim, nor the odd nature of its wording.

"It sounds like he's making up these terms as he goes," said iPhone forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski, speaking to Ars Technica about the filing. "We've never used these terms in computer science." Zdziarski believes that the amicus is simply designed to mislead the courts and manipulate a decision in the FBI's favor. "It offers no evidence whatsoever that the device has, or even might have, malware on it. It offers no evidence that their network was ever compromised."

The claim in the court filing is the first time that a law enforcement agency has alluded to what may be contained on the iPhone at the center of the federal investigation. It also runs counter to the FBI's main dispute with Apple that it requires assistance from the company precisely in order to ascertain its content.

Separately, a number of amicus briefs were filed on Thursday in support of Apple's stance in the dispute. The full list of submitted documents have been catalogued on Apple's website. Additionally, five families of San Bernardino victims have filed in support of the FBI.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

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Sun, 06 Mar 2016 15:07

Women whose babies develop fatal defects in the early stages of pregnancy will be given advice on going ahead with the birth so the NHS can harvest their organs, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Most expectant mothers opt for termination after being told the devastating news their child has no chance of survival once born.

But now, amid a chronic shortage of donated organs, mums will be 'supported' to have the baby at nine months so that the child's vital organs can be taken for transplant.

Last night the proposal sparked an ethical debate '' with one critic describing it as a 'ghoulish suggestion' that would undermine public confidence in organ donation.

The move was revealed at a medical conference where NHS transplant surgeons said they wanted to take more organs from babies nationally to address a dire shortage.

As part of this drive, midwives and other NHS workers are to be educated about the potential for using babies' organs in transplants.

In the past two years, only 11 babies under two months have become organ donors. But doctors

believe they could raise that figure to around 100 a year.

Speaking of obtaining more organs from newborns, transplant surgeon Niaz Ahmad, of St James's University Hospital in Leeds, said: 'We are looking at rolling it out as a viable source of organ transplantation nationally.

'A number of staff in the NHS are not aware that these organs can be used. They need to be aware. These can be transplanted, they work, and they work long-term.'

One specific case medics are considering are babies diagnosed with a brain defect called anencephaly, which can be detected by routine scans as early as 12 weeks and which gives babies no chance of survival.

Under the new proposals, mothers would give birth in the normal way and once doctors had certified the infant dead, its vital organs would be removed. However, donation would not be raised when a woman was still deciding whether or not to have an abortion '' and nobody would be compelled to donate their baby's organs.

In some cases, where donation has been agreed, babies could be certified brain dead but their bodies kept alive by artificial ventilation. Surgeons could then remove organs from these so-called 'heartbeat babies' when they are fresh, maximising what can be used and the chance of successful transplant.

More than 7,000 people are currently on the organ waiting list, and three of them die every day.

CHILLING ECHOES OF 'NEVER LET ME GO' BODY PARTS SCHOOL Clones: Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan in the film

The proposal to harvest babies' organs has parallels with the sinister plot of the acclaimed 2005 novel Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.

The book was made into a film of the same name starring Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield.

The story centres around students at a fictional boarding school called Hailsham who, it emerges, are actually clones, created and reared to provide vital organ donations to prolong the lives of others.

At the school, they are strongly encouraged to look after their health and smoking is regarded as taboo.

Towards the end of the book, when they are still relatively young, they go through cycles of 'donations', and once their organs are harvested, they die, or 'complete'.

The student clones are portrayed as understanding and accepting of this without question, and they are largely preoccupied with trying to live their short lives to the full and attempting to find ways to prolong them.

Many sick children die before a suitable organ becomes available, and the UK has to rely on baby organs being flown in from abroad.

Kidneys and liver cells from donor babies cannot be transplanted to other babies but could be used to help young adult patients.

At the moment, doctors will not raise the issue of donation with expectant mothers first, but wait for the women to approach the NHS transplant service themselves. However, that could change. Mr Ahmad told The Mail on Sunday: 'There is a real potential for using these organs [and] we are going to discuss whether it is an option, somehow, to tell women in this situation, that organ donation is an option.'

At the moment, about 230 babies with anencephaly '' where most of the brain fails to develop '' are aborted every year in Britain. Only a dozen are born alive. Raising the issue of organ donation with parents was discussed at the annual meeting of the British Transplantation Society in Glasgow.

A committee has been set up by NHS Blood and Transplant, tasked with boosting organ donation from newborns and very young babies. A lead nurse has also been appointed to co-ordinate efforts to educate NHS staff about talking to parents about such a sensitive issue.

Ethically controversial, but increasingly practical

Taking organs from newborns has always been ethically problematic.

Guidelines prevented most organ retrieval from babies under two months, but last year rules changed, enabling doctors to take organs from newborns with much greater ease, with the parents' consent.

In 2014, Teddy Houlston became what was then Britain's youngest organ donor after dying just 100 minutes after birth. Teddy's parents were told their baby would be born with virtually no brain after their 12-week scan, but decided against abortion.

His two kidneys and heart valves helped save an adult's life.

Doctors have been sounded out about their attitudes to the 'ethically controversial, yet increasingly practical issue' of harvesting organs from babies with anencephaly.

Dr Joe Brierley, a specialist at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, surveyed medics working with newborn babies and found three-quarters thought it 'acceptable to carry out donation from anencephalic infants'. However, one in five thought it might jeopardise how the public viewed organ donation.

Dr Brierley said: 'We are seeing more women saying, 'I don't think it is right to terminate.' It is then a case of them having conversations with NHS staff about the options.'

NHS Blood and Transplant said: 'Under no circumstances would our staff or anybody else within the NHS pressure women to continue with a pregnancy solely for the possibility of organ donation.'

I welcome anything that improves number of donors ARGUMENT FOR by Dr Joe Brierley, consultant, Great Ormond Street HospitalGiven that three people a day die waiting for an organ transplant, I welcome anything that improves the number of donors.

Helping the families of those dying in intensive care to have the best information to make this decision is vital. With anencephaly, such discussions occur with a woman who has been told her pregnancy may result in stillbirth, or '' if the baby is born alive '' it will die as a newborn.

Whilst provision of such information is the cornerstone of good care, my view is that this should not be used to persuade a woman not to undergo termination.

However, if a decision is made to continue the pregnancy for other reasons, then all palliative care options '' including donation '' ought to be discussed.

People often don't realise amid the tragedy of a child's death that organ donation can happen. Often due to size issues, children's organs can only help other youngsters '' but sometimes the smallest children's organs can also help an adult. In my experience, the overwhelming generosity of people in such sad times saves lives and can offer comfort to families going through bereavement.

Of course organ donation is not for everyone, and the role of professionals is to support people in whatever choice they make. And even if a baby is born, there are still reasons donation might not be possible.

There have been 11 organ donors under 60 days old in the last two years '' the courage of their families should inspire us all to discuss and consider organ donation.

It could save lives... but at what cost to our humanity?ARGUMENT AGAINST by Dr Trevor Stammers, Director for Bioethics St Mary's University It would be frankly abhorrent if transplant doctors were to ask women whose unborn children have been diagnosed with severe defects to let their baby go to term for the sole reason that its body can be raided for its organs.

Mothers electing to carry babies with such severe defects to term '' because they would love the child as it is for as long as it should live '' have, up till now, often been pressured to abort anyway.

They have been regarded as foolish to continue the pregnancy. It is concerning that mothers will now be encouraged to go to term with the express intention of the child's organs being taken. What happens if they change their mind once they see their newborn son or daughter?

It is a ghoulish suggestion that can only undermine public confidence in transplantation '' one the greatest medical advances of my lifetime.

The concept reduces the baby to nothing more than a utilitarian means to an end '' a collection of spare parts '' rather than respecting life for its own sake.

Yes, I know those organs can potentially save the lives of others, but at what cost to our humanity?

The integrity of transplant medicine has already been compromised by using organs from euthanised adults.

Raiding the bodies of children born only for their organs will further tarnish the profession '' and could well lead to a broader decrease in the rates of organ donation.

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Tue, 01 Mar 2016 23:32

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FiguresFigure

Flowchart for selection of study population.

AbstractObjectiveTo evaluate the association between zolpidem and the risk of suicide.

Patients and MethodsIn this nationwide case-control study, the case group comprised 2199 people who committed suicide or were hospitalized due to suicide attempt between January 1, 2002, and December 31, 2011. To create a control group, we randomly selected 10 people matched to each case according to age, sex, urbanization, and occupation. We measured the risk of suicide/suicide attempt in association with zolpidem exposure by using adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and assessed the dose-response effect of zolpidem.

ResultsAfter adjustment for potential confounders such as the comorbidities of schizophrenia, major depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, insomnia, substance use, and other mental disorders, the Charlson comorbidity index, and use of benzodiazepine or antidepressants, zolpidem exposure was found to be significantly associated with the risk of suicide/suicide attempt with an OR of 2.08 (95% CIs, 1.83-2.36). The risk increased with the level of zolpidem use. The ORs (95% CIs) for cumulative defined daily doses of less than 90, 90 to 179, and 180 mg or more were 1.90 (1.65-2.18), 2.07 (1.59-2.67), and 2.81 (2.33-3.38), respectively (for trend, P

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Thu, 03 Mar 2016 21:24

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Half of the world will be nearsighted by 2050. That's the prediction of a new paper published in the journal Ophthalmology. Of those 5 billion people who'll need glasses to see distances, the study also predicts that one-fifth will also be at high risk for glaucoma, cataracts, and other conditions that cause blindness.

So how did researchers come to such dire conclusions about our collective diminishing eye health? Experts were already well aware that both myopia (nearsightedness) and high myopia (severe nearsightedness with risk of other complications) are quickly becoming more common. According to a 2010 study, rates of nearsightedness in the U.S. shot up 66 percent between the early 1970s and early 2000s. But alarmingly, these latest predictions have both eye conditions accelerating at even faster rates than previously thought.

This paper did not delve into the reasons why nearsightedness is on the rise; it simply mapped out predictions. Since there are so many potential causes of vision deterioration and loss '-- genetics, lifestyle, age, diseases '-- experts aren't able to pin the sharp uptick on any single factor. However, past research on where and among whom myopia is more common does provide a few clues.

RELATED: The Blind Man Who Taught Himself to See

For instance, evidence shows that people who do "near work" '-- on a computer all day or reading for long stretches of time '-- have greater odds of myopia. Studies have also found nearsightedness is more common among well-educated people and is more prevalent in wealthier regions of the globe such as North America and East Asia. If you put these pieces together, it seems likely that our ever-increasing screen time could be contributing to the increase in myopia.

Here's another factor to consider: Americans spend a ton of time indoors. The problem isn't just that when we're inside we're likely using a computer or watching TV '-- we also may be missing out on key vision protection. "Being outdoors may offer a protective effect against nearsightedness," says Dr. K. David Epley, clinical spokesman of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. "One theory is that sunlight causes dopamine to be released, and that keeps eye growth in check. Or it's possible that the wavelength of outdoor light itself affects how the eye grows, which in turn delays or slows down nearsightedness."

Either way, the reality is many of us do spend our days scanning spreadsheets and analyzing documents, and that's not going to change. So what can you do to protect your eyes all around and have the best shot at keeping your vision sharp? "Try not to continuously glue yourself to a screen '-- definitely take breaks," says Epley. "Follow the 20-20-20 rule: Every 20 minutes, look 20 feet away for 20 seconds. This won't necessarily allow you to see better, but it should help cut down on dryness and eye fatigue."

Your diet may also play an indirect role in protecting your eyes. "There's no evidence that eating broccoli, kale, or carrots will give you 20/20 vision," says Epley. "However, those foods do have nutrients that can protect your eyes from conditions that can result in blindness. So in that way, eating a healthy diet will serve to keep your eyes healthy in the end."

Epley also suggests loading up on omega-3 fatty acids, especially if you have dry eyes from using computers or other devices or reading for long stretches of time. He says the best sources are salmon and other oily, cold-water fish, along with walnuts and flaxseeds. "Taking omega-3 supplements can also help, but the better choice is to ensure you eat a healthy diet," Epley adds.

You also want to keep up on eye exams. "Everyone should be seen for a comprehensive eye exam by age 40, whether or not you are nearsighted or have any symptoms," says Epley. "Some eye diseases, like glaucoma, can cause vision loss without symptoms." If you're under 40 but have diabetes or another systemic disease that increases the risk of eye issues, make an appointment with an eye doc, says Epley. An ophthalmologist can give your eyes a thorough look and assess how often you should come back.

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Thu, 03 Mar 2016 16:05

Hey Adam,

Old news, November 2015, but we missed it

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/zweden-gaat-van-8-naar-6-urige-werkdag-martijn-schreuder-goedheijt?trk=v-feed

Zweden gaat van 8 naar 6-urige werkdag | Martijn Schreuder ...www.linkedin.comZweden gaat van 8 naar 6-urige werkdag Martijn Schreuder... How Body Language Trumps IQ Dr. Travis Bradberry Influencer. Why Apple's Fight With The FBI Is About More ...But it's the same technique we know from the rest of Europe. Get people to work less, which means the same work is done by more people, which means more jobs...

itm

Paul

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Thu, 03 Mar 2016 16:05

ITM Adam! This is probably good for a few laughs, if not material for the show!--- Public Service in Sweden ---Sweden has five public service TV-channels governed under the same umbrella company. Funding for our public service is forcefully claimed by said company if you live in Sweden and own a TV-receiver. They justify this theft by the need to provide impartial, non-advertised alternatives - but it turns out they are everything but impartial.It's pretty fucking expensive (250 USD a year) considering the only legal opt-out is to remove the ability to receive any TV-channels what so ever in your home. To a senior or student the fee can literally be what makes or breaks one's financial status and thus it's far from certain that lower class citizens feel that they can afford a god damn TV in 2016. Anyways, parentheses!They also host the swedish part of the Eurovision Song Contest(Melodifestivalen). I'm pretty sure you with your history know what the Eurovision Song Contest is, but it might be worth to note that swedes consider it wholesome family entertainment and it rakes in almost 4 million viewers in a country that just reached a population of 10 million!--- Rewriting the national anthem ---Source: http://www.expressen.se/noje/gina-sjunger-national--sangen-pa-arabiska/I tried finding english articles, but it seems like this is pretty much flying under the radar - sorry!Anyways - they changed the wording of our national anthem from "I want to live and die in the nordic" to "I want to live and die on earth"(kept it to swedish tho). Then they sang two songs - one in arabic and one in hebrew - so that everyone "would feel included". Which totally succeeded, if we ignore these languages and I have no idea how many more:Unofficial languages / Dialects: Westrobothnian, Elfdalian, Modern Gutnish, Jamtlandic, ScanianMinority languages(Officially recognised): Finnish, Me¤nkieli, Romani, Sami, YiddishMain immigrant languages: Turkish, Persian, Spanish,Greek, Bosnian/Croatian/SerbianThis of course angered the conservatives and further confirmed many's growing feelings that the media and the government are actively waging war on the swedish culture. IN FACT, the leader of the party V¤nsterpartiet(V) Lars Ohly stated that anyone who took offense was in fact *BA-DUM-TISH* racist!I'm pretty sure this could be compared to rewriting the american national anthem during the Super Bowl... Imagine the shit storm that would ensue over there...*sighs* I'm a historically socialist voter now planning on throwing my towel in with the historically very racist and still pretty conservative Sweden Democrats. This fucking insanity has gone on for far too long and as a white male I'm more concerned about my country's wealth than taking in as many "migrants" as we can with no regard for safety, identity control or even housing for our own citizens first.Since it dawned on me that it actually makes sense for socialism to create a large lower class of immigrants to secure votes I've more or less lost all faith in the ideology. EFFIN DOUCHEBAGS, huh?Love and light,Magnus

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Thu, 03 Mar 2016 16:05

Hey Adam,

Just a bit of an update from Denmark as I heard two things in the past few days which blew me away.

I was told by my boss that he got word the labour inspection is doing extra checks on any company employing foreign workers and they need a copy of my residency permit on file. Even though as an EU citizen I am allowed to work and live in the country regardless.

The other thing I found out when I tried to get a mobile phone subscription. According to every major provider I tried, you can only get a subscription if you are a Danish citizen. Everywhere else a local bank account and sometimes an ID suffices, but in Denmark it can only be done with a Danish passport now. So all the foreign slaves can now only use prepaid sim cards...

itm

Paul

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Sun, 06 Mar 2016 07:22

Who are these ''various people'' and what is this ''long-term game''? The game is no longer about sending you a mail order catalogue or even about targeting online advertising. The game is selling access to the real-time flow of your daily life ''your reality'--in order to directly influence and modify your behavior for profit. This is the gateway to a new universe of monetization opportunities: restaurants who want to be your destination. Service vendors who want to fix your brake pads. Shops who will lure you like the fabled Sirens. The ''various people'' are anyone, and everyone who wants a piece of your behavior for profit. Small wonder, then, that Google recently announced that its maps will not only provide the route you search but will also suggest a destination.

The goal: to change people's actual behavior at scaleThis is just one peephole, in one corner, of one industry, and the peepholes are multiplying like cockroaches. Among the many interviews I've conducted over the past three years, the Chief Data Scientist of a much-admired Silicon Valley company that develops applications to improve students' learning told me, ''The goal of everything we do is to change people's actual behavior at scale. When people use our app, we can capture their behaviors, identify good and bad behaviors, and develop ways to reward the good and punish the bad. We can test how actionable our cues are for them and how profitable for us''.

The very idea of a functional, effective, affordable product as a sufficient basis for economic exchange is dying. The sports apparel company Under Armour is reinventing its products as wearable technologies. The CEO wants to be like Google. He says, "If it all sounds eerily like those ads that, because of your browsing history, follow you around the Internet, that's exactly the point--except Under Armour is tracking real behavior and the data is more specific'... making people better athletes makes them need more of our gear.'' The examples of this new logic are endless, from smart vodka bottles to Internet-enabled rectal thermometers and quite literally everything in between. A Goldman Sachsreport calls it a ''gold rush,'' a race to ''vast amounts of data.''

The assault on behavioral dataWe've entered virgin territory here. The assault on behavioral data is so sweeping that it can no longer be circumscribed by the concept of privacy and its contests. This is a different kind of challenge now, one that threatens the existential and political canon of the modern liberal order defined by principles of self-determination that have been centuries, even millennia, in the making. I am thinking of matters that include, but are not limited to, the sanctity of the individual and the ideals of social equality; the development of identity, autonomy, and moral reasoning; the integrity of contract, the freedom that accrues to the making and fulfilling of promises; norms and rules of collective agreement; the functions of market democracy; the political integrity of societies; and the future of democratic sovereignty. In the fullness of time, we will look back on the establishment in Europe of the ''Right to be Forgotten'' and the EU's more recent invalidation of the Safe Harbor doctrine as early milestones in a gradual reckoning with the true dimensions of this challenge.

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Sun, 06 Mar 2016 15:18

Tourists are harshing the mellow in Colorado.

The number of cannabis-related emergency room visits by non-Colorado residents has increased compared with those by in-state residents since recreational marijuana was legalized in 2012, according to a report released Wednesday by Northwestern University, the University of Colorado and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Out-of-town patient visits to an urban academic hospital in Aurora, Colo., for health issues that arose after consuming cannabis nearly doubled from 85 per 10,000 visits in 2013 to 168 per 10,000 visits in 2014, even though similar visits from Colorado residents didn't change significantly in that time period, according to the report. The statewide rate of out-of-state visits increased from 78 per 10,000 visits in 2012 to 163 per 10,000 visits in 2014, compared with an increase from 61 to 70 per 10,000 visits to 86 to 101 per 10,000 visits over the same period among Colorado residents, the report stated.

One of the primary ways consumers ingest too much cannabis is by eating edibles, says Dr. Andrew Monte, assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. The effects of marijuana are delayed when eaten, leading people to continue eating past the amount they can tolerate. Overdosing on cannabis can cause anxiety, an altered mental state, high blood pressure, abdominal pain and vomiting, according to the report. Patients are typically discharged shortly after they've checked in if there are no other underlying conditions or symptoms that need treatment. Some are given a sedative for their heart rate or fluids if they are dehydrated, Monte says.

Along with marijuana intoxication, Monte says marijuana-related cases include patients with underlying chronic conditions that have been exacerbated after consuming cannabis and those who have complications after using cannabis, like getting into a car accident.

Podcast: Mom and dads shift cannabis customer base

While part of the rise of these emergency room visits can be attributed to increased openness in patients disclosing marijuana use to health professionals because of its legal status in the state, Monte says the researchers were surprised at how drastically the number of visits from out-of-town patients increased relative to other patients.

One reason for the discrepancy could be the higher potency of industrially-cultivated marijuana and unfamiliarity with edible marijuana products for visitors from states where cannabis is outlawed. ''The marijuana you buy in Colorado may be a lot different than the marijuana people are used to,'' says Mike Van Dyke, branch chief for environmental epidemiology at the CDPHE and co-author of the report. ''It is a lot more potent now than in the past, especially when you're using edibles.''

Don't miss: I ate marijuana and felt nothing

The report's findings underscore the need to emphasize consumption education when customers visit dispensaries, Van Dyke says. ''A lot of our efforts have been focused on the Colorado population,'' he says. ''People out of state aren't going to see our mass-media campaigns, so the way to educate them is through point of sale.''

With the rise of hospital visits, the role of ''budtenders'' '-- the salespeople at dispensaries '-- becomes increasingly important, he adds. Like bartenders, budtenders are trained to explain the quality and properties of the strains they sell to assist dispensary customers. In conjunction with written materials, budtenders can help unfamiliar consumers navigate the new industry, Van Dyke says.

Along with state efforts, companies within the industry are working to reverse the pattern of overconsumption. Denver-based My 420 Tours is a cannabis tourism company that provides transportation and activities like dispensary tours and marijuana cooking classes to visitors interested in the industry. As part of its program, the company teaches its customers the basics of marijuana consumption, from the difference between indica and sativa strains to the recommended amount of edibles customers should consume. The variety of choices the legal recreational cannabis industry provides ''is a lot for an out-of-towner to wrap their head around,'' says Danny Schaefer, chief operating officer at My 420 Tours.

Even with information provided on product labels, customers coming from the black market may not understand the difference between 25% THC content and 75% THC content, Schaefer says. (THC is a psychoactive component of cannabis.) ''We recommend they take it slow,'' he says.

Since it was founded in 2013, My 420 Tours has only had three cases of overconsumption, Schaefer says. In one case, a man fell asleep on the tour bus; in another, an elderly woman was dehydrated, and the third involved New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, who wrote about her experience.

Monte says the report should be studied by states that will be legalizing recreational marijuana in coming years. ''It is really important for states considering a liberalization of policies to implement pre-emptive public health education,'' he says. ''There needs to be education on these effects so the same mistakes aren't made.''

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Wed, 02 Mar 2016 17:38

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt addresses the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party economic council in Berlin, Germany June 9, 2015.

Reuters/Fabrizio Bensch

SAN FRANCISCO Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive officer of Google, has agreed to head a new Pentagon advisory board aimed at bringing Silicon Valley innovation and best practices to the U.S. military, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Wednesday.

Carter is due to discuss the new Defense Innovation Advisory Board with Schmidt during the annual RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco. Schmidt is now the executive chairman of Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), the parent company of Google.

The new board is Carter's latest effort to kick-start innovation across the U.S. military by building bridges to the U.S. technology industry. The U.S. defense chief announced the board's creation on Wednesday during his third trip to Silicon Valley since taking office just over a year ago.

Carter and Schmidt will select up to l2 individuals to serve on the board, focusing on people who have led large private and public organizations, and excelled at identifying and adopting new technology concepts, the Pentagon said in a statement.

Modeled on the Defense Business Board, which provides advice on best business practices from the private sector, the new panel is intended to help the Pentagon become more innovative and adaptive in developing technology and more nimble.

Members will draw on their experience in Silicon Valley to advise on rapid prototyping, iterative product development, complex data analysis, the use of mobile and cloud applications and organizational information sharing.

"The secretary is always looking at ways to ... keep the department thinking fresh, bringing in new ideas, bringing in new voices, and he sees this as another opportunity to do that," said one senior defense official.

Details of how often the board will operate were still being worked out, the official said.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

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Sun, 06 Mar 2016 05:26

Turkey's top-selling opposition newspaper has reopened following a state takeover and subsequent police raid.

Staff at Zaman have posted photos online of armed forces appearing to surround the publication's offices in Istanbul.

A state-appointed trusteeship has now been ordered to take over the newspaper.

State media said the raid was carried out at the request of a prosecutor investigating Fethullah Gulen, a U.S-based cleric who is accused of trying to topple the government.

Journalist 'briefly arrested'Authorities used water cannon and fired tear gas at protesters before forcing their way into the offices. One German journalist who was covering the incident was briefly detained, German media report.

A Reporters Without Borders report published in December, 2015, found Turkey had the fifth highest number of imprisoned journalists worldwide. China, Egypt, Iran and Eritrea placed first to fourth in the rankings.

Concerns over press freedomThe raid and transfer of management at Zaman have further heightened concerns about press freedom in Turkey.

Rights groups and European and US officials have criticised the takeover of the newspaper and its sister publication, Today's Zaman, which is printed in English.

Its Editor-in-Chief told the press:''The government has been practising a wide range of witch-hunt. As President Erdogan once said: 'witch-hunt? If this is called witch-hunt, let it be. We are going to do it.' So he openly declared that they are going to do it and they are, they are executing a wide range of witch-hunt against opponents at the moment.''

The US State Department labelled the incident ''the latest in a series of troubling judicial and law enforcement actions taken by the Turkish government.''

Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index places Turkey 149th out of 180 countries.

It compares poorly with the European Union countries Turkish officials are meeting at a summit today (March 5).

Germany, for example, comes in at number 12, Portugal is at 26 and Spain and the UK come in at 33 and 34 respectively.

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Sun, 06 Mar 2016 04:41

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Sun, 06 Mar 2016 04:13

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Sun, 06 Mar 2016 03:24

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

Former New York Times reporter and Fox News contributor Judith Miller shook things up on 4 March 2016 edition of Fox News Channel's Happening Now program by suggesting the media needs to get tougher in reporting on Donald Trump. She said several books on Trump suggest he's overstating his wealth and understating his associations with organized crime figures.

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Sun, 06 Mar 2016 03:15

During a Friday afternoon interview with Hillary Clinton, CNBC's John Harwood asked the presidential candidate about the current FBI investigation into her e-mail practices. Clinton defended herself from allegations of misconduct stating ''I've been the most transparent public official in modern times, as far as I know.''

Harwood's interview was conducted at a factory in Detroit, Michigan where Clinton held a rally and gave a speech. Clinton praised the factory for being owned by a woman and for employing union labor.

''Would you concede that you and the people who work for you at the State Department were sloppy in the way you handled top secret information?'' Harwood asked towards the end of the interview. ''No. No, because let's be clear about this. There wasn't a single one of those that was marked classified either sent or received. That hasn't changed.'' Clinton shot back.

The interview ended soon after with no follow up questions from Harwood. There were no questions about the Secretary directing aides to strip items of their classification markings; no questions about how, in all the years Clinton was the head of the State Department, she did not receive one classified email.

John Harwood was one of the moderators from the disastrous CNBC GOP Debate, which resulted in NBC getting its debate stripped by the RNC and given to CNN.

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Source: Washington Free Beacon

Sat, 05 Mar 2016 22:49

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Thu, 03 Mar 2016 23:12

Trump and his staff have told some individuals -- including potential donors -- that as soon as the billionaire businessman secures the nomination, he will pivot and begin fundraising for a general election fight, the source said.

In the event that he wins, Trump will have to quickly scale up his campaign -- particularly if he's competing nationwide against Hillary Clinton's behemoth political organization. In private conversations, Trump and his aides have acknowledged that the Republican Party will need to be well-funded for the general election, and that Trump will work with the party to ensure that's the case.

Their message is "basically we're going to be a traditional party candidate," as far as fundraising is concerned, the source said.

Trump has prided himself on running an efficient primary campaign, funded largely from his personal wealth. At campaign rallies, he regularly touts that he won't be beholden to special interests -- from banks to health care companies to insurance providers -- because he's footing most of the bill for his presidential bid.

"They have no control over Donald Trump. I don't want their money. I don't need their money," Trump told a South Carolina crowd last month, as he slammed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz as a candidate who would be controlled by big banks and oil companies because of his donors.

Speaking in Maine on Thursday, Trump repeated the attack, this time against Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

"I tell people if you had like a lightweight Rubio as president, he's all controlled by the special interests, 100%," Trump said. "I'm self-funding, they're not paying me anything."

"Mr. Trump is focused on the primary election," said Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. "He's self-funding his campaign. There's no discussion at all about the general election."

GOP rivals like Cruz and Rubio have far outspent Trump in the primary. As of late January, Trump's campaign had spent about $24 million. Trump has loaned about $17.5 million to his campaign from the time he entered the race, through the end of January.

"He's spent no money on his campaign so far," the source said of Trump's shoestring campaign budget. "That won't happen in a general election."

Trump has said his campaign accepts small donations and insists they're unsolicited, even though his campaign website is emblazoned with two prominent "Donate" buttons.

He often brags that big donors have offered millions of dollars and he has so far turned them down. But under this shift, Trump would begin taking in significant sums, and tapping donors for tens of thousands of dollars apiece.

Last week, after endorsing Trump, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie foreshadowed the candidate's about-face on a call with his biggest donors, suggesting Trump would raise money in a general election.

Cooperation with RNC?Whoever the nominee, the Republican National Committee would play a prominent role in providing ground troops and a data operation to support the GOP candidate.

Trump has had a frosty relationship with the Republican Party and recently accused them of "illegally" using his name to raise money.

Still, his campaign -- as well as rival campaigns -- have already begun conversations with GOP officials about the infrastructure the RNC will provide to support the eventual nominee. That includes resources, such as field staffers nationwide and an expansive data operation.

But an RNC official said they have not yet begun discussions with the Trump campaign, or any of the other GOP contenders, about the fundraising aspect. A spokesman for the RNC declined to comment on Trump's general election fundraising plans.

Traditionally, the nominee creates a joint fundraising account with the RNC, which allows the candidate to simultaneously raise money for their own campaign, the national party and select state parties.

In 2012, the RNC didn't begin a joint fundraising agreement with Mitt Romney until April. Even then, it invited the other candidates in the race to take part in joint fundraising agreements as well.

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Thu, 03 Mar 2016 22:37

Shout against her round about: she hath given her hand: her foundations are fallen, her

: take vengeance upon her; as she hath done, do unto her.

Jeremiah 51:12 Set up the standard upon the walls of Babylon, make the watch strong, set up the watchmen, prepare the ambushes: for the Lord hath both devised and done that which he spake against the inhabitants of Babylon.Jeremiah 51:44 And I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up: and the nations shall not flow together any more unto him: yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall.Jeremiah 51:58 Thus saith the Lord of hosts; The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the people shall labour in vain, and the folk in the fire, and they shall be weary.Jer 51:58 specifically mentions walls and gates together being destroyed. Walls plural'... If Trump turns out to be the AC'... Do you think Trump would stop at just one wall?

But you can't just take my word for it'... Read those four chapters again (Jer 50-51 and Rev 17-18) with Donald Trump in mind knowing his character and policy plans that you've heard in his campaign so far. Ask the Holy Spirit for discernment as you read. Then you may want to check out Donald Trump's Immigration Plan that was recently published. Again, I'm not claiming that he is the AC'... I'm still just trying to see if these puzzle pieces are going to all fit together?

Another point that I want to make, And I'll have to find the video, Is where he talks about making America so rich and having many victories that you will actually get tired of it. To me that falls in line with America morphing into Mystery Babylon and how the whole world trades with her in Revelation 17 and 18. What do you think?

Now this is certainly interesting'...

A 1990 Heavy Metal Magazine predicts Donald Trump as President in this comic named ''The Wall''! So Who Is Donald Trump?Seems like a silly question giving his celebrity, but lets dive in. For a plethora of info on Donald simply read his Wikipedia profile Donald Trump.

As for this post, I'm going to display some highlights that I find interesting.

So I then performed a name search on the name ''Donald'', and can you believe this?

The Meaning of the name ''Donald'': ''World Ruler'' or ''World Leader'' & ''Great Chief'', ''World Mighty'', and ''Dark Stranger'' Go ahead and click the links real quick!

I realize that names can mean different things, etc'... but what are the odds here? Seriously?

Now, as we start to learn a little bit about Donald Trump here, make note just how wide his reach is across the world already with the Trump Empire! I like to use the expression that he has his tentacles all throughout the world.

My point being, sorry Donald'... but what better person would Satan use than someone of his experience, power, presence, arrogance, ego, worldly relationships (both business and personal) and extreme knowledge of how the world works via trade and negotiations. A person who knows the system better than anybody? And claims it! Here is a snippet from his Wikipedia profile:

Trump Branding and LicensingBeyond his traditional ventures in the real estate, hospitality, and entertainment industries, Trump has established the Trump name and brand in other industries and products.

Trump has succeeded in marketing the Trump name on a large number of products, including Trump Financial (a mortgage firm), Trump Sales and Leasing (residential sales), Trump Restaurants (located in Trump Tower and consisting of Trump Buffet, Trump Catering, Trump Ice Cream Parlor, and Trump Bar), GoTrump (an online travel website),[50] Donald J. Trump Signature Collection (a line of menswear, men's accessories, and watches), Donald Trump The Fragrance (2004), Trump magazine, Trump Golf, Trump Chocolate, Trump home (home furnishings), Trump Productions (a television production company), Trump Institute, Trump The Game (1989 board game), Donald Trump's Real Estate Tycoon (a business simulation game), Trump Books, Trump Model Management, Trump Shuttle, Trump Ice, Trump Mortgage, Trump Vodka, and Trump Steaks. In addition, Trump reportedly receives $1.5 million for each one-hour presentation he does for The Learning Annex.[51] ~ From Wikipedia

Now with all of that said'... You're going to love this'... a documentary about Trump in the 1980s and 90s appeared online on August 5, 2015, called What's the Deal? Initially you can see the trailer, then watch the entire documentary. A great insight into his character! It's an hour long so you may want to come back to it?

I want to thank Mike Burch in the FB replies below for providing this link about DT and 666!

Donald Trump's Parents'... and Family LineageI still need to do some more research on the origins of the Antichrist, yet to date, I've seen some really good theories on where the Antichrist comes from, and whether he will be Assyrian, Jewish or Muslim? Some say he'll come out of the European Union, while others believe he'll rise up in the Islamic world.

The Bible states at least on three different occasions that he may be Assyrian:

Isa 10:24: Therefore thus saith the Lord God of hosts, O my people that dwellest in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall smite thee with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against thee, after the manner of Egypt

Isa 30:31:For through the voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian be beaten down, which smote with a rod.

Mic 5:5: And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men.

Whether he is Assyrian or not, I believe he'll rise up to appeal to Christians and Jews first, then he'll embrace Islam once the ''abomination that causes desolation'' occurs (Dan 12:11, Matt 24:15) at ''Mid-Trib''.

Donald Trump's mother is from Scotland and his father is from Germany. Interesting that both Germany and Scotland are both apart of the European Union!

Donald's father, Fred Trump, who had married in 1936 to Trump's mother who was a Scottish immigrant, born on the Isle of Lewis, off the west coast of Scotland.[21] Trump's paternal grandparents were German immigrants;[22] Trump's grandfather, Friedrich Drumpf, was a successful Klondike Gold Rush restaurateur who anglicized the family name.[23] In his 1987 book, The Art of the Deal, Donald Trump incorrectly claimed that Friedrich Drumpf was of Swedish origin,[24][25] an assertion previously made by Fred Trump for many years.[26] ~ Source - Wikipedia

In my experience however, the closest depiction of where the AC comes from is taught by Joe VanKoevering (referenced below in Other AC Predictions) and unfortunately his interpretation doesn't include Germany or Scottland. But NO-ONE has a handle on the absolute truth on this topic'... So keep coming back to this page for updates as I continue to research it.

Donald Trump's Plan For AmericaUPDATE: Donald now has a newer, revised book out called ''Crippled America: How To Make America Great Again''.

Did you even know he now has a revised edition of his 2011 book called ''Time To Get Tough'' that details his plans to ''Make America Great Again''? He completely reveals all of his solutions, not only for America, but for the world as a master negotiator of deals.

Don't be deceived by his presentation, Donald knows the economy, politics, and issues of the world'... and knows them all very well! He also seems to have a solution to most of them in his media interviews.

As he keeps getting pressed for his solutions he'll keep revealing what is in his book.

I have both the audio book and hard copy. Although it was written in 2011 for his first presidential run, the info is still relevant today. I've just received his updated version for 2016 that just came out. You can get your copy on Amazon here.

If you haven't seen this speech in Iowa yet, then I encourage you to sit back and listen. Listen to his words, listen how he leads, listen to how he is proud of getting attention. His Mobile, AL speech was a bit telling as well.

Video Length: 53:51 sec (With all that you know now'... Listen to his speech)

Other Antichrist Predictions'...I also find it interesting that we see other ''Antichrist'' types in history's dictators such as Hitler and Stalin coming thru Germany; and yet Trump's family tree also runs thru Germany on his father's side, and Scotland via his mother's family.

Here is a pretty convincing theory and post on my site from 2008 titled ''The Coming Biblical Antichrist'' = Islam's Madhi '' Messaiah, where Joe VanKoevering describes in his book, through the process of elimination that the AC may come out of the Southern region instead of the Western region of Alexander The Great's territory that was divided among his 4 generals as depicted in the Book of Daniel.

If you're interested on other outside information on the ''Man of Sin'' here is a post I made back in 2011 that sells an ebook that also describes his character and schemes. I of course recommend that you learn what you can regarding Who Is The Antichrist and allow the Holy Spirit to discern truth for you. This ebook plays into Obama being the AC but it's interesting nevertheless.

Also, Mr. Paul Beck just recommended to me this site which also provides an interesting theory on an Islamic Antichrist.

Another theory and book called ''The Antichrist and a Cup of Tea'' is pretty convincing that Prince Charles could be the AC mainly because of his Coat of Arms and Royalty status among many groups in the world. But this is a hard book to read.

So as you can see there are various opinions about who this person will be and there are countless others that I haven't mentioned. Among these other candidates however, none take the cake like ''The Donald'' so far in my opinion.

When is the Antichrist supposed to be revealed?Now some people say that the Biblical ''Antichrist' will not be revealed until after the ''Rapture''; however I believe differently as in what 2nd Thes 2:1-4 describes for us'... (Just food for thought'... ''The Day of Christ'' = ''Rapture of the (Church)'' and ''The Day of the Lord'' = ''Time of Jacob's Trouble'' (Israel) '' aka 7 Year Tribulation Period or Daniel's 70th Week).

Most bibles outside of the King James Version (KJV) will treat the two words one in the same as ''the Day of the Lord'' which is a HUGE MISTAKE. Be careful of your bible, especially the popular modern New International Version (NIV).

2 Thessalonians 2:1-4 King James Version (KJV)1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,

2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.

3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

Notice that ''our gathering together unto Him'' (i.e., possible Rapture) happens when?: the ''day of Christ'' will not come before''there be a falling away first'', and the ''man of sin be revealed''.

I recommend that you set aside some time to watch this video about ''America's Challenge '' Prepare For Collapse'' (by Paul Beck) and you decide if we are no longer a Christian nation?

I believe that we've been witnessing a large ''falling away'' from God and that the ''man of sin'' could now be revealed, just before the Rapture of the Church (''day of Christ'')?

NOTE: For the sake of time, if you're not familiar with the recent feature within YouTube to play streaming videos faster then try this the next video you watch on YouTube. (Select the gear icon, then speed, and choose what you can handle.) This is a HUGE time savor. Sometimes you will watch videos on other sites that do not have this feature'... this is where this product comes in handy. MySpeed by Enounce '' Speed Up Streaming Videos

Interesting Comments and Headlines to Note'...Now just for a moment lets revisit the second half of the verse in Daniel 11:24 once again'...

"he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches"...

Another interesting nugget is where Donald specifies his plan for veterans like this in his book: (paraphrasing'... I will repay families of fallen soldiers, be very generous and send their children to college, compensating the spouses of fallen vets with $5Mil to the families who have lost a loved one in war, wounded vets would be looked after as well such as $2Mil for each wounded vet plus medical costs paid for).

Can you imagine how people will be lining up to join the military. Listen to his words'... the crowd's response to him'... how is this momentum going to fade?

Video Length :56 sec (You'll have to watch this on YouTube for now)

He goes on right after that by saying in his book that he lives by the Old Warriors/Assassins Creed, ''to the victor go the spoils''. Have you heard how great of a military we'll have if he becomes president? ''Nobody's gonna play games with us.''

You know'... the Jewish people are supposed to accept the Antichrist initially before he turns on them at Mid-Trib. Here is an interesting article titled ''Trump has strongest Jewish ties of all GOP Candidates''. Here is a snippet'...

''I have a Jewish daughter. This wasn't in the plan, but I'm very glad it happened,'' Trump said at the event, held in Manhattan. On Israel, he said, ''We love Israel. We will fight for Israel 100 percent, 1,000 percent. It will be there forever.''

Headlines>>>Donald Trump Says Bowe Bergdahl Should Have Been Executed (Oct 09, 2015)I'm simply pointing out above the fact that Donald Trump will not hesitate to execute people. I believe that his outlook on Edward Snowden is about the same as Bergdahls. Also, did you see in a couple of his recent rallies where he suggests to take protesters' coats before throwing them outside in the cold?

In the clip below I'm not promoting the following of CNN's NewDay on Twitter'... I'm simply pointing out Antichrist characteristics in what Peter Beinart says, ''Trump has authoritarian tendencies himself''.'... just play the video.

In the Following video, jump to 3:57 mark and listen thru 4:30 mark:(Sorry for the commercial)The discussion is about comparing Trump to a Putin, Authoritarian style of leadership!

Donald Trump's Religious Views(A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing?)Either DT is a newborn believer or a wolf in sheep's clothing? In my experience in becoming a believer at the age of 18 I believe the latter. Here are the characteristics of a new man in Christ according to scripture:

12 Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; 13 Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.

Now I don't know about you, but I believe that Trump is the epitome of being pugnacious! Have you heard him talk about his religious views? Here is Trump on God and Forgiveness, he's not pulling the wool over our eyes:

Video Length: 3:46 sec

Video of ''his favorite verse in the bible'''...

Video Length :42 sec

Now I understand that some people may be ''private'' in their religious views; however, in my ''Christian'' experience the Holy Spirit never holds back and always rejoices in glorifying anything that God does in one's life and who He is. The fruit of the Spirit never changes!

Scripture clearly tells us in Luke 6:43-45 that:

A Tree Is Known by Its Fruit (NKJV)43 ''For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.44 For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush.45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heartbrings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

Six Interesting Facts About Donald Trump's Christian Faith

In this video, I'm not surprised by the likes of Kenneth Copeland, Jan Crouch, and Paula White; however, I am surprised to see the shocking support by Robert Jeffress who in most cases wonderfully and accurately teaches on Eschatology in my opinion.

Be like ''Daniel'' as in the Book of Daniel'... never compromise your Christian values! This is an excellent article by Matt Walsh for any Christian who is considering voting for DT'... even if he doesn't turn out to be the AC. It is titled ''Dear Christians, If You Vote For A Godless Man, You Are Asking For Tyranny''. I don't know about you, but I never hear DT speak intelligently about the Constitution either'... do you? So far I've only heard him talk about the 2nd amendment (gun rights) and 14th amendment (regarding anchor babies). Can you identify Donald's moral compass? To me it seems to be his Ego (Edging God Out)!

Stay tuned for more info here'....

In Conclusion'... I believe that most ''prophecy'' teachers in America's pulpits today are looking for the AC to rise up out of the European Union (EU) or the ''Revived Roman Empire''? (NOTE both Germany and Scottland are apart of the EU). I also believe that America could be a form of the ''Revived Roman Empire'' as we are modeled after Rome! Just look at all of the buildings and art sculptures, etc., in Washington, DC.

I believe it can be said that America is the 7th Kingdom that reigned for a little while as John describes in The Revelation '' Ch 17:10-11, and that Trump very well could be the ''Little Horn'' who is rising up onto the world stage? Time will soon tell'... keep watching:

10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.

11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.

The seven are believed to be all governments, and the 8th is to be one man. I also believe there may not be an election in 2016'... in that Dan 11:21 describes how he ''comes in peaceably, and seize the kingdom by intrigue''.

21 And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.

The word ''flattery'' also means to Beguile, to influence by trickery, flattery, etc.; mislead; delude. Donald seems to have all of the answers, is extremely boastful and proud, and is a Master Negotiator!!

No matter what happens in this election cycle or who becomes our next president, Our father, Lord and Savior gave us these words of warning and the hope in an 'escape' or ''Rapture'' in Luke 21:34-36:

34 And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.

35 For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.

36 Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.

One final nugget to chew on'... do you find it interesting that we, as Christians are awaiting the trumpet blast, voice of God to initiate the Rapture of the Church; all the while we have a man rising up who's name is ''TRUMP''! Go Figure!

So what are your thoughts? I'd love to hear your feedback and your perspective on anything you find in the media or online that may help to answer the question, Is Donald Trump The Antichrist?

Stay In His Mighty Grip and Keep Looking Up!Randall R Russell

P.S. I'm simply reaching out to those who may be thinking the same thing, or who wants a better understanding or interpretation as to What Is Happening In The World Today! If the subject of ''Eschatology'' '' the study of Biblical prophecy (27% of the Bible) intrigues you, then I highly recommend that you bring your Bible to the table with a pen and a highlighter, and get started with THIS PLAYLIST NOW!! (produced by D. Paul Beck)

In all of my years of study, I haven't come across too many ''teachers'' who have been able to explain the Bible in a simplistic, and easy to learn manner where you can feel confident that he uses the Bible to interpret itself. A pretty amazing teaching style'... you'll see! I encourage you to bookmark this page and keep coming back for page updates.

I believe you will truly be blessed with Godly KNOWLEDGE and WISDOM regarding where we are in God's time-clock concerning the days ahead!! It's truly fascinating!

I'd really like to encourage discussion about the topic and discover if there are others seeing what I'm seeing?