857: ISIS-Land

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Source: newest submissions : inthemorning

Sun, 04 Sep 2016 05:21

Until the announcement that Barack Obama was extending the state of emergency that has legally existed in the United States since September 14, 2001, hit my inbox this afternoon, I will confess that I was somewhat unaware we were in an emergency situation.

But, apparently we are:

Given that the emergency is defined vaguely as constituting something like ''terrorists might attack the country,'' it seems like we should consider dropping the charade of annual renewals and just admit that ''emergency'' 9/11 powers are now a permanent part of the landscape.

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 12:53

If, like me, you haven't been keeping up with the escalating crisis in Venezuela, you might be surprised at the scope of the protests in the past few days.

With massive food shortages still ongoing as a result of the economic crisis created by Nicholas Maduro policy, millions of people are now taking to the streets of the capital city of Caracus; and even chasing Maduro out of small towns and villages.

(Via ABC) Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro reportedly was greeted by angry pot-banging protesters during a visit to Margarita Island.

Grainy cellphone videos said to be from the Friday night encounter were picked up by Venezuelan news sites and were trending on social media. The socialist leader is seen jogging through a crowd as residents loudly bang on pots and hurl obscenities.

His visit to Margarita Island earlier Friday evening was broadcast nationwide. Images of the protest were later posted by residents of the town where it reportedly occurred. (link)

Here's video of a stunning protest march in Caracus a few days ago:

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Sat, 03 Sep 2016 06:09

Courtney KirchoffFriday September 2 2016

We haven't written much Hillary's e-mails (see Gauntlet Thrown: Trey Gowdy Says Even God Can't Read Hillary's Emails'... and Hillary Now Blames E-Mails on Colin Powell? He Proceeds to Take Zero Crap'...). Why? Because there's SO MUCH to attack Clinton for, we knew our colleagues had that covered. Also, how many times can you call Hillary a lying liar who lies without playing out the pantsuit jokes? But you know, ''covering the news'' and all that. Plus the scandal was hard to avoid when she kept lying and lying about it. See previous comment about all the lies.

So here we are again. But this time the news isn't about how Hillary's pantsuits are on fire. Yes, another pantsuit joke. Come on, you know you like them. This time the news? A massive email document dump. On a Friday. Before Labor Day weekend.

In other words, the news isn't how Hillary is a weasel who fashions jackets out of tarps. It's that the FBI and media hoped no one would noticed the doc dump.

You have no idea how long I've been waiting to use that GIF. Well'... pretty much since whoever made that GIF. I'm not even sure my using it there was perfect, but a person can only wait so long.

So let's get to the goods, yeah?

Hillary wiped her e-mails three weeks after the initial NYT story'...Probably a coincidence. Or a major right-wing conspiracy. Like Bill Clinton's rapescapades. New word. I'm trademarking that crap. Speaking of words and definitions'...

She doesn't know that the letter C stands for ''Classified'...''She wants to run the country. Your country. She was Secretary of State. She's claiming she didn't know how classified information was denoted. President. She's running for it. But let's go with her for a second. What else could ''C'' stand for? If you're Secretary of State. Some ideas: Cow pose (yoga), Cat pose (yoga, usually follows cow), Crow pose (never try to imagine Hillary doing Crow), Chelsea, chow, chimichanga, cream cheese, come hither Huma, and ''Call me Maybe.'' Just spit-balling.

She disappeared and destroyed Blackberries'...''[Huma] Abedin and [former Clinton aide Monica] Hanley indicated the whereabouts of Clinton's [mobile] devices would frequently become unknown once she transitioned to a new device,'' one report indicates.

On other occasions, a staffer would destroy Clinton's old mobile phones ''by breaking them in half or hitting them with a hammer,'' the FBI documents reveal.

Standard operating procedure, I'm sure. Let's not be too judgy. When you get a new phone, don't you smash the old one with a hammer? After breaking it in half? I do. I want the new phone to know who's in charge here. ME. Don't disrespect me, or you get the HAMMER.

I'm sure she didn't destroy the phone to make sure data couldn't be recovered. That's just plain paranoia. Also, sexist.

And one of her laptops is missing'...A personal laptop computer used to archive Hillary Clinton's e-mails when she was secretary of state went missing after being put in the mail, according to the FBI's report on its investigation into her use of a private e-mail system. E-mails that Clinton sent and received through her private server during her tenure were archived on the laptop in 2013 by a person who was an assistant to former President Bill Clinton, the FBI said in its heavily redacted investigative report released Friday.

Oh, found it!

The plan is, of course, for everyone to forget about this once the three day weekend is over. That's the plan. The strategy for releasing this big of a story, on the last holiday weekend of the summer.

Well bummer, because it's pouring down rain in ''my neck of the woods.'' So I'm all hopped up on coffee and ready with the gifs.

We're not going to just let this one go. Hillary is the moral equivalent of mold, which grows on gum. Left stuck to the bottom of that old shoe you tossed out. Not just because the shoe was too small. No, no. You used to wear the shoe at your old job. Of cleaning dog crap.

The dog-crap-mold-on-gum-shoe is Hillary Clinton. She's running to be your president. Scary thought? She might win.

Someone get me a bag to breathe in'...

If this entire post isn't enough for you, here are 5 more reasons Hillary Clinton is a disaster.

NOT SUBSCRIBED TO THE PODCAST? FIX THAT! IT'S COMPLETELY FREE ON BOTH ITUNES HERE AND SOUNDCLOUD HERE.

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 07:23

House Republicans wanted the FBI's notes from their interview with former secretary of state about her handling of emails. The Republicans got their wish and in the process destroyed their own scandal.

Here is what the FBI concluded:

Hillary Clinton never deleted any emails. Hillary Clinton never instructed any of her staff to delete emails. The former secretary of state trusted her legal team to comply with requests and record preservation laws. In other words, Hillary Clinton has been telling the truth about her emails.

The accusations made by Republicans that she intentionally deleted emails, tried to hide information, or did not comply with the law are false.

Republicans will ignore this reality, and continue with their efforts to charge Hillary Clinton with perjury, but House GOP efforts are detached from reality.

No matter how much twisting, turning, and reshaping Republicans try to do, they can't make Hillary Clinton's emails into a crime.

Republicans got what they wanted when the FBI released their Clinton interview notes, but in the process, they also destroyed the GOP's Clinton email scandal.

clinton emails, Clinton FBI Interview notes released, FBI Notes released, hillary clinton email scandal, Hillary Clinton FBI interview

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Fri, 02 Sep 2016 04:44

Judicial Watch announced on its website today that it has submitted a list of 25 questions to Hillary Clinton regarding her email practices while serving as Secretary of State. Pursuant to a decision by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, Hillary has 30 days to respond, under oath, to the questions. Per federal law, Judicial Watch was limited to a total of 25 questions.

All 25 questions are included in their entirety below (we've highlighted some of the particularly amusing ones):

Describe the creation of the clintonemail.com system, including who decided to create the system, the date it was decided to create the system, why it was created, who set it up, and when it became operational.Describe the creation of your clintonemail.com email account, including who decided to create it, when it was created, why it was created, and, if you did not set up the account yourself, who set it up for you.When did you decide to use a clintonemail.com email account to conduct official State Department business and whom did you consult in making this decision?Identify all communications in which you participated concerning or relating to your decision to use a clintonemail.com email account to conduct official State Department business and, for each communication, identify the time, date, place, manner (e.g., in person, in writing, by telephone, or by electronic or other means), persons present or participating, and content of the communication.In a 60 Minutes interview aired on July 24, 2016, you stated that it was ''recommended'' you use a personal email account to conduct official State Department business. What recommendations were you given about using or not using a personal email account to conduct official State Department business, who made any such recommendations, and when were any such recommendations made?Were you ever advised, cautioned, or warned, was it ever suggested, or did you ever participate in any communication, conversation, or meeting in which it was discussed that your use of a clintonemail.com email account to conduct official State Department business conflicted with or violated federal recordkeeping laws. For each instance in which you were so advised, cautioned or warned, in which such a suggestion was made, or in which such a discussion took place, identify the time, date, place, manner (e.g., in person, in writing, by telephone, or by electronic or other means), persons present or participating, and content of the advice, caution, warning, suggestion, or discussion.Your campaign website states, ''When Clinton got to the Department, she opted to use her personal email account as a matter of convenience.'' What factors other than convenience did you consider in deciding to use a personal email account to conduct official State Department business? Include in your answer whether you considered federal records management and preservation requirements and how email you used to conduct official State Department business would be searched in response to FOIA requests.After President Obama nominated you to be Secretary of State and during your tenure as secretary, did you expect the State Department to receive FOIA requests for or concerning your email?During your tenure as Secretary of State, did you understand that email you sent or received in the course of conducting official State Department business was subject to FOIA?During your tenure as Secretary of State, how did you manage and preserve emails in your clintonemail.com email account sent or received in the course of conducting official State Department business, and what, if anything, did you do to make those emails available to the Department for conducting searches in response to FOIA requests?During your tenure as Secretary of State, what, if any, effort did you make to inform the State Department's records management personnel (e.g., Clarence Finney or the Executive Secretariat's Office of Correspondence and Records) about your use of a clintonemail.com email account to conduct official State Department business?During your tenure as Secretary of State, did State Department personnel ever request access to your clintonemail.com email account to search for email responsive to a FOIA request? If so, identify the date access to your account was requested, the person or persons requesting access, and whether access was granted or denied.At the time you decided to use your clintonemail.com email account to conduct official State Department business, or at any time thereafter during your tenure as Secretary of State, did you consider how emails you sent to or received from persons who did not have State Department email accounts (i.e., ''state.gov'' accounts) would be maintained and preserved by the Department or searched by the Department in response to FOIA requests? If so, what was your understanding about how such emails would be maintained, preserved, or searched by the Department in response to FOIA requests?On March 6, 2009, Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security Eric J. Boswell wrote in an Information Memo to your Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills, that he ''cannot stress too strongly, however, that any unclassified BlackBerry is highly vulnerable in any setting to remotely and covertly monitoring conversations, retrieving email, and exploiting calendars.'' A March 11, 2009 email states that, in a management meeting with the assistant secretaries, you approached Assistant Secretary Boswell and mentioned that you had read the ''IM'' and that you ''get it.'' Did you review the March 6, 2009 Information Memo, and, if so, why did you continue using an unclassified BlackBerry to access your clintonemail.com email account to conduct official State Department business? Copies of the March 6, 2009 Information Memo and March 11, 2009 email are attached as Exhibit A for your review.In a November 13, 2010 email exchange with Huma Abedin about problems with your clintonemail.com email account, you wrote to Ms. Abedin, in response to her suggestion that you use a State Department email account or release your email address to the Department, ''Let's get a separate address or device.'' Why did you continue using your clintonemail.com email account to conduct official State Department business after agreeing on November 13, 2010 to ''get a separate address or device?'' Include in your answer whether by ''address'' you meant an official State Department email account (i.e., a ''state.gov'' account) and by ''device'' you meant a State Department-issued BlackBerry. A copy of the November 13, 2010 email exchange with Ms. Abedin is attached as Exhibit B for your review.Email exchanges among your top aides and assistants in August 30, 2011 discuss providing you with a State Department-issued BlackBerry or State Department email address. In the course of these discussions, State Department Executive Secretary Stephen Mull wrote, ''[W]e are working to provide the Secretary per her request a Department issued BlackBerry to replace her personal unit which is malfunctioning (possibly because of her personal email server is down). We will prepare two versions for her to use '' one with an operating State Department email account (which would mask her identity, but which would also be subject to FOIA requests).'' Similarly, John Bentel, the Director of Information and Records Management in the Executive Secretariat, wrote, ''You should be aware that any email would go through the Department's infrastructure and [be] subject to FOIA searches.'' Did you request a State Department issued Blackberry or a State Department email account in or around August 2011, and, if so, why did you continue using your personal device and clintonemail.com email account to conduct official State Department business instead of replacing your device and account with a State Department-issued BlackBerry or a State Department email account? Include in your answer whether the fact that a State Department-issued BlackBerry or a State Department email address would be subject to FOIA affected your decision. Copies of the email exchanges are attached as Exhibit C for your review.In February 2011, Assistant Secretary Boswell sent you an Information Memo noting ''a dramatic increase since January 2011 in attempts . . . to compromise the private home email accounts of senior Department officials.'' Assistant Secretary Boswell ''urge[d] Department users to minimize the use of personal web-email for business.'' Did you review Assistant Secretary Boswell's Information Memo in or after February 2011, and, if so, why did you continue using your clintonemail.com email account to conduct official State Department business? Include in your answer any steps you took to minimize use of your clintonemail.com email account after reviewing the memo. A copy of Assistant Secretary Boswell's February 2011 Information Memo is attached as Exhibit D for your review.On June 28, 2011, you sent a message to all State Department personnel about securing personal email accounts. In the message, you noted ''recent targeting of personal email accounts by online adversaries'' and directed all personnel to ''[a]void conducting official Department business from your personal email accounts.'' Why did you continue using your clintonemail.com email account to conduct official State Department business after June 28, 2011, when you were advising all State Department Personnel to avoid doing so? A copy of the June 28, 2011 message is attached as Exhibit E for your review.Were you ever advised, cautioned, or warned about hacking or attempted hacking of your clintonemail.com email account or the server that hosted your clintonemail.com account and, if so, what did you do in response to the advice, caution, or warning?When you were preparing to leave office, did you consider allowing the State Department access to your clintonemail.com email account to manage and preserve the official emails in your account and to search those emails in response to FOIA requests? If you considered allowing access to your email account, why did you decide against it? If you did not consider allowing access to your email account, why not?After you left office, did you believe you could alter, destroy, disclose, or use email you sent or received concerning official State Department business as you saw fit? If not, why not?In late 2014, the State Department asked that you make available to the Department copies of any federal records of which you were aware, ''such as an email sent or received on a personal email account while serving as Secretary of State.'' After you left office but before your attorneys reviewed the email in your clintonemail.com email account in response to the State Department's request, did you alter, destroy, disclose, or use any of the email in the account or authorize or instruct that any email in the account be altered, destroyed, disclosed, or used? If so, describe any email that was altered, destroyed, disclosed, or used, when the alteration, destruction, disclosure, or use took place, and the circumstances under which the email was altered, destroyed, disclosed, or used? A copy of a November 12, 2014 letter from Under Secretary of State for Management Patrick F. Kennedy regarding the State Department's request is attached as Exhibit F for your review.After your lawyers completed their review of the emails in your clintonemail.com email account in late 2014, were the electronic versions of your emails preserved, deleted, or destroyed? If they were deleted or destroyed, what tool or software was used to delete or destroy them, who deleted or destroyed them, and was the deletion or destruction done at your direction?During your October 22, 2015 appearance before the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Benghazi, you testified that 90 to 95 percent of your emails ''were in the State's system'' and ''if they wanted to see them, they would certainly have been able to do so.'' Identify the basis for this statement, including all facts on which you relied in support of the statement, how and when you became aware of these facts, and, if you were made aware of these facts by or through another person, identify the person who made you aware of these facts.Identify all communications between you and Brian Pagliano concerning or relating to the management, preservation, deletion, or destruction of any emails in your clintonemail.com email account, including any instruction or direction to Mr. Pagliano about the management, preservation, deletion, or destruction of emails in your account when transferring the clintonemail.com email system to any alternate or replacement server. For each communication, identify the time, date, place, manner (e.g., in person, in writing, by telephone, or by electronic or other means), persons present or participating, and content of the communication.

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 05:20

By Julia Edwards and Jonathan Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hillary Clinton, under questioning by federal investigators over whether she had been briefed on how to preserve government records as she was about to leave the State Department, said she had suffered a concussion, was working part-time and could not recall every briefing she received.

Clinton, the Democratic Party's presidential candidate, raised the health scare during her 3-1/2-hour interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Justice Department prosecutors on July 2, according to an FBI summary released on Friday.

Besides the 11-page interview summary, the FBI also released other details of its investigation into her use of an unauthorized private email system while running the State Department, in which it concluded she mishandled classified information but not in a way that warranted a criminal prosecution.

Clinton told investigators she could not recall getting any briefings on how to handle classified information or comply with laws governing the preservation of federal records, the summary of her interview shows.

"However, in December of 2012, Clinton suffered a concussion and then around the New Year had a blood clot," the FBI's summary said. "Based on her doctor's advice, she could only work at State for a few hours a day and could not recall every briefing she received."

A Clinton campaign aide said Clinton only referenced her concussion to explain she was not at work but for a few hours a day at that time, not that she did not remember things from that period.

The concussion was widely reported then, and Republicans have since used it to attack the 68-year-old candidate's health in a way her staff have said is unfounded.

The FBI report, which does not quote Clinton directly, is ambiguous about whether it was her concussion that affected her ability to recall briefings.

The FBI declined to provide further comment on the report.

Clinton, who is challenging Republican Donald Trump for the White House in the Nov. 8 election, has been dogged for more than a year by the fallout from her decision to use an unauthorized private email account run from the basement of her Chappaqua, New York, home.

Republicans have repeatedly attacked Clinton over the issue, helping drive opinion polls that show many U.S. voters doubt her trustworthiness.

Trump's campaign issued a statement immediately following the FBI report's release saying the notes from the interview "reinforce her tremendously bad judgment and dishonesty."

Clinton has said that in hindsight she regretted using a private email system while secretary of state.

According to the report, Clinton told the FBI that she did not set up a private email server to sidestep the law requiring her to keep her business communications a matter of public record.

At least one federal judge is examining whether this was the case as part of a lawsuit against the State Department concerning public access to Clinton's government records, which the U.S. government said it had no access to in response to requests from members of the public.

The documents also show that Clinton contacted former Secretary of State Colin Powell in 2009 to ask about his use of a personal BlackBerry phone.

In his reply to Clinton via email, Powell told Clinton to "be very careful" because the work-related emails she sent on her BlackBerry could become public record.

"I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data," Powell said, according to the summary.

After her use of a private email system became public knowledge in March 2015, Clinton repeatedly said she did not use it to send or receive classified information. The government forbids handling such information outside secure channels.

The FBI has since concluded Clinton was wrong to say that: At least 81 email threads contained information that was classified at the time, although the final number may be more than 2,000, the report said. Some of the emails appear to include discussion of planned future attacks by unmanned U.S. military drones, the FBI report showed.

"CLINTON believed the classification level of future drone strikes depended on the context," the FBI's interview summary said. The U.S. government requires that military plans be classified.

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The FBI released its report on Friday afternoon before the Labor Day holiday weekend, a time many Americans are preparing to travel.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said he would not comment on the FBI's findings because the department "does not have full insight into the FBI's investigation."

He declined to say whether State Department officials still discussed the planning of future attacks using drones in unclassified emails.

"I'm not going to speak to past email practices," he said. "We trust State Department employees to use their best judgment when conveying sensitive information, taking into account a range of factors."

The Clinton campaign released a statement welcoming the report's release.

"While her use of a single email account was clearly a mistake and she has taken responsibility for it, these materials make clear why the Justice Department believed there was no basis to move forward with this case," Brian Fallon, a campaign spokesman, said in a statement.

Some Republicans saw the files as confirming their belief that the Department of Justice should have prosecuted Clinton.

"These documents demonstrate Hillary Clinton's reckless and downright dangerous handling of classified information during her tenure as secretary of state," Paul Ryan, the Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, said in a statement. "This is exactly why I have called for her to be denied access to classified information."

(Reporting by Eric Beech, Jonathan Allen, Ginger Gibson and Julia Edwards; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Leslie Adler)

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 06:34

When I first started with David Oates my approach was hey it's worth a try why not? I was running a business with my partner and although we had been fairly successful, life kept putting hurdles in our way, I was getting fed up of hitting the same brick wall. I'm actually a no fuss kind of perso...T.A .

''Thine forward voice, now, is to speak well of thine friend; thine backward voice is to utter foul speeches and to detract.''

Shakespeare Insult 3 '' The Tempest

Next Reverse Speech Training Class! The next Reverse Speech Training Class begins Nove...

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 06:52

Tim at Florida International University

Tim ''Timothy'' Kaine has been chosen as the Vice President nominee for Hillary Clinton's presidential bid and is an American attorney and politician serving as the junior United States Senator from Virginia. He is a member of the Democratic Party and was elected to the Virginia Senate in 2012

Tim Kaine '' ''Ann and I have [three kids. Our oldest son, Matt], is here today with his fiancee'...'' '' Ann that's the law, I thank you.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/kaine1-ann-thats-the-law-i-thank-you.mp3

Tim Kaine '' ''..and hey let me be honest, for many of [you, this is the first time you've even] heard my name. Um'...'' '' I'm believing my surf with the city.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/kaine4-im-needing-my-surf-with-the-city.mp3

Tim Kaine '' ''..we would go there early, especially in the summer, to try to get the work done before the day got hot. [That's what families] do. That's what families do.'' '' You may feel sad.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/kaine6-you-may-feel-sad.mp3

Tim Kaine '' ''How cool was it, to see our three kids head out the door with their backpacks on, to walk to a neighborhood school named after their civil rights [hero grandfather].'' '' They love my worries.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/kaine8-they-love-my-worries.mp3

Tim Kaine '' ''I, I decided to run for local office. Man I was [so scared the day I announ]ced but I wanted to help my city, and my community, I knocked on every door in my district'...'' '' Finally I had the great source.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/kaine9-finally-i-had-the-great-source.mp3

Tim Kaine '' ''..good because I started at the local level, listening [to people, learning about] their lives, and trying to find consensus'...'' '' I bring an earl, we'll beat it.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/kaine10-i-bring-an-earl-well-beat-it.mp3

Tim Kaine '' ''An awful lot of people who have put their trust and their faith in Hillary, and she's always, and she's [always delivered] for them.'' '' Your villain see war.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/kaine11-the-villain-see-war.mp3

Tim Kaine '' ''Here's something you can tell about a great leader, leader, she not only [delivers in the] easy time, or the simple times, she delivers in the tough times, and she even delivers when she's on the receiving end of one attack after another'...'' '' And there's a villain.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/kaine12-and-theres-a-villain.mp3

Tim Kaine '' ''Let's go for equal pay, let's raise the minimum wage. Let's bring back the dignity [and respect of work]. You're hired ???'' '' Grow, helps you leading.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/kaine13-grow-it-helps-you-leading.mp3

Tim Kaine '' ''Hillary Clinton is filled with that courage, that imagination, and that [unbeatable] determination, and that's why we trust her to fight for all Americans'...'' '' Oh believe not.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/kaine14-oh-believe-not.mp3

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 06:50

Thursday, July 21st, 2016, Bernie Sanders announces that he is stepping down in his bid for the presidency and then vowed to join forces with Hillary Clinton. Sanders was quoted as saying that he will stand with Hillary in hopes of uniting the Democratic Party against Donald Trump. Below are the results of a Reverse Speech analysis on him speaking about stepping down.

Bernie Sanders '' ''I intend to do everything I can, to [make certain, she will be] the next President of the United States.'' '' Here blow wish in her scam.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-21-2016/sanders2-here-blow-wish-in-her-scam.mp3

Bernie Sanders '' ''Hil[lary Clinton is] far and away, the best candidate to do that.'' '' Satan milk you.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-21-2016/sanders3-satan-milk-you.mp3

Bernie Sanders '' ''She believes, [we all believe], that we must raise the minimum wage to a living wage.'' '' He will bore you.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-21-2016/sanders6-he-will-bore-you.mp3

Bernie Sanders '' ''Hillary is committed to seeing thousands of young Doctors, Nurses, Psychologists, Dentists, and other medical professionals practice in under-served areas as [we follow through], on President Obama's idea of tripling funding for the national health services.'' '' Wolf will love you.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-21-2016/sanders8-wolf-will-love-you.mp3

Bernie Sanders '' ''..we need major changes in the way [we deliver] mental health treatment throughout this country.'' '' Our bell with you.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-21-2016/sanders9-our-bell-with-you.mp3

Bernie Sanders '' ''The greed of the drug companies must end. [This election is about] the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality'...'' '' Why was Satan near shell of sin?

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-21-2016/sanders10-why-was-satan-near-shell-of-sin.mp3

Bernie Sanders '' ''Hillary Clinto[n is listening] to the scientists who tell us that if we do not act boldly in the very near future, there will be more drought, more floods'...'' '' Here to sell Satan.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-21-2016/sanders11-here-to-sell-satan.mp3

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 06:40

Here are the speech reversals from the Reverse Speech analysis on those participating in the Republican National Convention. Of course there is Donald Trump and Mike Pence and Melania Trump. There will be more posted as soon as then come in from our certified analysts.

Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention

Donald '' ''(Chanting at start of speech), [USA USA USA].'' '' Yes say we. '' Creating unity in the crowd.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/trumprnc1-yes-say-we.Mp3

Donald '' ''The democrats on the other hand received 20% fewer votes than they got 4 years ago, [not so good], not so good.'' '' Dude was stunned. '' Stunned at the results.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/trumprnc2-dude-was-stunned.Mp3

Donald '' ''Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation, the attacks [on our police] and the terrorism of cities threaten our very way of life.'' '' Seal the funnel. '' This is consistent with his pllicy to stop the flow of immigrants.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/trumprnc3-seal-the-funnel.Mp3

Donald '' ''The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens, any government that fails to do so is a government [unworthy] to lead.'' '' You do not. '' Congruent reversal. The current government does not follow its duty to protect.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/trumprnc5-you-do-not.mp3

Donald '' ''Our trade deficit in good [reached nearly], now think of this, think of this, our trade deficit is 800 billion dollars, think of that.'' '' They'll lynch you. '' Unknown. Maybe predicting his future for being such a radical voice.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/trumprnc10-theyll-lynch-you.mp3

Donald '' ''In Lybia, our Consulate, [the symbol] of American prestige around the globe, was brought down in flames.'' '' Oh miss it. '' Congruent reversal, missing the Consulate.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/trumprnc12-oh-miss-it.mp3

Donald '' ''Poverty and violence at home, war and destruction abroad [will last only as] long as we continuing relying on the same politicians that created them in the first place.'' '' They'll not sell. '' These conditions won't stand.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/trumprnc13-theyll-not-sell.mp3

Donald '' ''Illegally stores her emails on a private server, [deletes] 33,000 of them.'' '' Steal it. '' Congruent reversal. She ''stole'' the emails from the government.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/trumprnc15-steal-it.mp3

Donald '' ''Especially when others who have done far less have [paid so dearly].'' '' Hillary was deaf. '' She doesn't have a clue and is not listening.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/trumprnc19-hillary-was-deaf.mp3

Donald '' ''The irresponsible rhetoric or our President who [has used the pulpit] of the Presidency to divide us by race and colour.'' '' The forfeits easier. '' It's easier for Obama to take no action.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/trumprnc20-the-forfeits-easier.mp3

Donald '' ''To protect us from terrorism [we need to focus] on three things.'' '' Sick wolf with you. '' Metaphor '' the country's drive is weakened.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/trumprnc21-sick-wolf-within-you.mp3

Donald '' ''They're just three brave representatives of many thousands who have [suffered so grave]ly.'' '' There was your fuss. '' Pointing to the problem.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/trumprnc23-there-was-your-fuss.mp3

Donald '' ''Where was the sanctuary for all the other Americans who have been so brutally murdered and who have [suffered so, so horribly].'' '' Barack was, was your fuss. '' Placing the blame squarely at the feet of Obama.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/trumprnc25-barack-was-was-your-fuss.mp3

Donald '' ''This includes stopping China's outrageous theft of [intellectual property].'' '' Your powerful shell. '' Meaning unsure, maybe the strength of China.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/trumprnc27-your-powerful-shell.mp3

Donald '' ''It is time [to show the whole world] that America is back.'' '' Our war hard, oh shit. '' It will be a tough battle.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/trumprnc30-our-war-hard-oh-shit.mp3

Donald '' ''I mean they said Trump doesn't have a chance of being here tonight, not a chance, the same people, oh [we love defeating those] people don't we.'' '' Send relief with value. '' He will offer value and relief to America.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/trumprnc32-send-relief-with-value.mp3

Donald '' ''And we will make America great again. [God bless you] and good night, I love you.'' '' We sell God. '' Congruent reversal.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-29-2016/trumprnc34-we-sell-god.mp3

Mike Pence at the Republican National Convention

Mike Pence is an American politician and attorney and is now the Republican Party nominee for Vice President of the United States in the 2016 election. His past experience in politics has been serving as the governor of Indiana since 2013. Pence previously represented Indiana's 2nd congressional district and Indiana's 6th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 2001 to 2013 and served as chairman of the House Republican Conference from 2009 to 2011. Pence is a conservative and was a supporter of the Tea Party movement.

On July 15, 2016, Donald Trump announced that he had selected Mike Pence as his vice presidential running mate in the 2016 presidential election.

Pence '' ''The heroes of my youth were John F. Kennedy and the Reverend [Dr. Martin Luther King] Jr. '...'' '' Make you feel numb with God.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-21-2016/pence3-make-you-feel-numb-with-god.mp3

Pence '' ''..most important thing in my life is that 31 years ago I married the girl of my dreams, Karen [Pence, who will make a] great Second Lady of the United States of America.'' '' The gamble will snap.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-21-2016/pence4-the-gamble-will-snap.mp3

Pence '' ''I fought every single day for tax payers, and fiscal responsibility when I w[as a member of the Congress of the United] States.'' '' Did I need this remark with her members?

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-21-2016/pence5-did-i-need-this-remark-with-her-members.mp3

Pence '' ''..and after the Republicans lost the Congress in 2006, I was actually unanimously elected [to serve in leadership].'' '' I shall deal the nurse.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-21-2016/pence6-i-shall-deal-the-nurse.mp3

Pence '' ''..because Hillary Clinton must never become the President of the United State[s of America].'' '' The crime of us.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-21-2016/pence7-the-crime-of-us.mp3

Pence '' ''Today we have a 2 [billion dollar surplus and] the highest credit rating in the nation, and since I became governor, Hoosier businesses large and small have created nearly 150,000 net new jobs'...'' '' And the sole purse rely on me.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-21-2016/pence8-and-the-sole-purse-rely-on-me.mp3

Pence '' ''And let me say from my heart. That's what the no nonsense leadership of Donald J. Trump will bring [to Washington D.C.]'' '' Yes he is, let me show it.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-21-2016/pence9-yes-he-is-let-me-show-it.mp3

Pence '' ''..well we are tired of being told by elites from Wall Street to Washington D.C., [uh, how things have to be]. I think, I think Donald Trump, people sense in him a, a strength of leadership. They're drawn to that'...'' '' In the past, give my heart.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-21-2016/pence-hear-in-the-past-give-my-heart.mp3

Melania Trump at the Republican National ConventionMelania Trump is the third wife of Donald Trump, current presidential pick for the Republican Party, and was born in Slovenia in 1970. She became a permanent resident in the United States in 2001 then became a citizen in 2006. She is most famous for having a top modeling career but is also known for her designs in jewelry and watch designs. She is currently active in Donald Trumps campaign for president and spoke at the recent the Republican National Convention

Melania '' ''Thank you very much. You have [all been] very kind to Donald and me'...'' '' Leave war.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-21-2016/melania1-leave-war.mp3

Melania '' ''..because like me, [he loves this country very] much.'' '' Here I fleece Nazis valley.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-21-2016/melania2-here-i-fleece-nazis-valley.mp3

Melania '' ''My husband's experience exemplifies growth, and successful passage of opportunity to [the next generation]'...'' '' They share in his standard.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-21-2016/melania3-they-share-in-his-standard.mp3

Melania '' ''[These are the values] Donald and I would bring to the White House'...'' '' We love with the seed.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-21-2016/melania4-we-love-with-the-seed.mp3

Melania '' ''Ladies and gentleman, Donald J. Trump is ready to serve, and lead this country [as the next President] of the United States..'' '' They deserve standards.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/jrshow-07-21-2016/melania5-they-deserve-standards.mp3

More Will Be Posted Soon

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Archived Version

Sun, 04 Sep 2016 06:40

Hillary Rodham Clinton, former US Secretary of State and current Presidential Candidate 2016 (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

Shows brain condition, seizures, and medications. Here Is The News Report

Reverse Speech revealed this back in May 2015!

Hillary '' ''We did not, in fact my direction to ah, conduct the thorough investigation was to err on the side of providing anything ah, that could be possibly ah, viewed [as work related].'' '' They deal her Prozac. '' Reverse Speech first revealed Hillary Clinton usage of prescription drugs on the Jeff Rense Program May 2015 when we played the following reversal.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/hillary-clinton/HILLARY-EMAILS-they-deal-her-prozac.mp3

Hillary '' ''..and that's the way primaries develop. Whoever it is that is going to you know, make through the preliminaries, the de[bates, the early] contests, you're going to keep moving.'' '' Hillary's scared. '' Further reversals show that Hillary was scared. This was played late 2015. We believe she was scared both of her health condition and the fact it might come out.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/hillary-clinton/HILLARY-hillarys-scared.mp3

Hillary '' ''[care for Ameri]ca'' '' I'm afraid. '' this fear appeared again at the DNC convention when she said I'm afraid.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/hillary-clinton/HILLARY-im-afraid2.Mp3

Hillary '' ''(Crowd Cheering) And you know what? It also matters [when he makes fun of] people with disabilities, calls women pigs'...'' '' And I'll scam you. '' (this one was from a few weeks ago) her health, it is a HUGE scam on the American public.

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/hillary-clinton/HILLARY-20-and-ill-scam-you.mp3

Hillary '' ''The truth is through all these years of public service, the service part has [always come easier to me] then the public part.'' '' In the crazy muck, see a war. '' Hillary's reversals also predict what this bizarre or ''crazy'' behaviour of hers will do if she gets into office '' start a war!

http://reversespeech.s3.amazonaws.com/audio/hillary-clinton/HILLARY-dnc6-in-the-crazy-muck-see-a-war.mp3

If you are interested in getting involved in Reverse Speech, check out our Traininghere.

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 06:35

It has been called the discovery of the 7th sense. The research into this phenomenon has been described as being of ''Nobel calibre''. It has been featured in numerous publications around the world, and in the United States it became a household name in the late 90s. It is called Reverse Speech, the phenomenon of hidden backward messages in speech. It initially gained worldwide fame in the early 80s as those strange backward messages in rock and roll. Since that time, research has progressed significantly and it is now known to exist in all forms of human speech.

If human speech is recorded and played backwards, mixed amongst the gibberish at regular intervals can be heard very clear statements. These statements usually appear in short sentence form and are nearly always related to the forward speech. It appears constantly throughout language, so much so in fact, that it is believed to be a natural part of our speech processes.

The pioneer and 32 year veteran of this field, Australian David John Oates, describes Reverse Speech as another form of human communication. He states that language is bi-level, forward and reverse. As the human brain constructs the sounds of speech, it forms those sounds in such a way that two messages are delivered simultaneously. One forwards, which is the conscious mind speaking, and the other in reverse, which is the unconscious mind speaking.

The applications of this discovery are exciting. On the surface level, it can act as a sort of Truth Detector as Reverse Speech will usually correct the inconsistencies of forward speech. If a lie is spoken forwards, the truth may be communicated in reverse. If pertinent facts are left out of forward speech these may also be spoken in reverse. It can reveal hidden motive and agenda and other conscious thought processes. At deeper levels, Reverse Speech can reveal thought patterns that are unconscious, including reasons behind behaviour and disease. This information can be used to greatly enhance the therapeutic and healing processes.

The Theory Of ReverseSpeech and Speech ComplementarityHuman speech has two distinctive yet complementary functions and modes. The Overt mode is spoken forwards and is primarily under conscious control. The Covert mode is spoken backward and is not under conscious control. The backward mode of speech occurs simultaneously with the forward mode and is a reversal of the forward speech sounds.

These two modes of speech, forward and backward, are dependent upon each other and form an integral part of human communication. One mode cannot be fully understood without the other mode. In the dynamics of interpersonal communication, both modes of speech combined communicate the total psyche of the person, conscious as well as unconscious.

Covert speech develops before overt speech. Children speak backwards before they do forwards. Then, as forward speech commences, the two modes of speech gradually combine into one, forming an overall bi-level communication process.

Although still a new and emerging field, Reverse Speech is already making its mark felt in many areas. It has been used successfully in business negotiations and corporate mergers as means of providing extra information. In the state of Oregon, it has been used in criminal investigation and its results independently verified by DNA testing in one case.

Reverse Speech has now come back to Australia, where it was initially discovered. If you are looking for a new and challenging career, you might want to consider training and becoming one of the pioneers of this field. If you have an important decision to make or behavioural issue you want address, Reverse Speech may be able to help you too.

Hear What Others are Saying about Reverse SpeechClick here to read an essay on Reverse Speech by RS student, Joan Allen

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Sat, 03 Sep 2016 13:54

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 02:26

Anthony Weiner poses with his son in this kinky shot he sent to the latest object of his online lust.

Up NextIthaca College student stabbed to death:0An Ithaca College student from Brooklyn was stabbed to death...

This is baby-sitting '-- Anthony Weiner-style.

While his wife, Huma Abedin, travels the country campaigning for Hillary Clinton, the disgraced ex-congressman has been sexting with a busty brunette out West '-- and even sent her a lurid crotch shot with his toddler son in the picture, The Post has learned.

The stay-at-home cad shot the revealing photo while discussing massage parlors ''near my old apartment'' shortly after 3 a.m. on July 31, 2015, a screenshot of the exchange shows.

Weiner was clearly aroused by his conversation with the 40-something divorcee when he abruptly changed the subject.

''Someone just climbed into my bed,'' Weiner wrote.

''Really?'' she responded.

Weiner then hit ''Send'' on the cringe-inducing image, which shows a bulge in his white, Jockey-brand boxer briefs and his son cuddled up to his left, wrapped in a light-green blanket.

''You do realize you can see you[r] Weiner in that pic??'' the woman wrote.

Moments after forwarding the photo, Weiner freaked out over the possibility he had accidentally posted it publicly '-- just as he did during the infamous episode that forced him to resign from Congress in 2011.

''Ooooooh'‚.'‰.'‰.'‚I was scared. For half a second I thought I posted something. Stop looking at my crotch,'' Weiner wrote back.

''Whatever. You did it on purpose,'' she replied.

''O I see you thought you posted on your TL [public timeline] not DM [direct message]. S''t happens be careful,'' she added.

The object of Weiner's affections is his polar opposite politically: a self-avowed supporter of Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association who's used Twitter to bash both President Obama and Clinton.

Screenshots show the electronic chats began in late January 2015 and continued through earlier this month, according to the woman, who spoke to The Post on condition of anonymity.

And while Weiner repeatedly invited her to visit him in New York City, she said, ''We never met.''

Asked for comment, Weiner admitted he and the woman ''have been friends for some time.''

''She has asked me not to comment except to say that our conversations were private, often included pictures of her nieces and nephews and my son and were always appropriate,'' he said.

But the picture featuring his son was one of more than a dozen selfies sent to the woman by Weiner, 51 '-- and most show him posing shirtless to flaunt his well-toned physique.

One is even a near-replica of the crotch shot that first turned him into a national laughingstock '-- except he was wearing white boxer briefs instead of gray ones.

Weiner wrote, ''My mood .'‰.'‰.'' before sending the overtly sexual photo on June 14, 2015, prompting the woman to respond, ''O goodness.''

Many of Weiner's messages show him bragging about his manhood and shamelessly lusting after the woman.

The latest online dalliance developed when Weiner began exchanging direct messages with her via Twitter following an online clash with a second woman, according to the gal.

As their conversation progressed, she mentioned having ''over 30 nieces and nephews,'' at which point Weiner responded by asking: ''Wow. Got your own? (Weiner sees opening to ask about [your] status).''

When she tried to end the conversation by saying ''it's time for bed,'' Weiner wrote back: ''Sleeping alone? Asking for a friend?'' before adding, ''That was a fib.''

Weiner frequently steered the conversation toward sex, as many of their discussions initially involved such mundane topics as their respective workout regimens.

''I am always, uh, raging after the gym,'' he wrote in one of several apparent references to his genitalia.

Another time, he wrote about how ''Id [sic] put someone's eye out with this thing. #Overdue.''

When the woman sent Weiner a selfie that showed her in a cleavage-baring, red lace dress, Weiner's response was ''Holy f''kity f-'Š-k,'' while another shot of her standing next to a woman at the same event prompted him to write: ''Conjured some high school fantasies.''

At one point, she sent him a shot of herself wearing a pair of black tights with a rip in the rear, near the midline, along with the message, ''Buns of steel.''

''I'll need a bigger hole,'' Weiner responded, adding a smiling emoji with its tongue sticking out.

The sext fiend also admitted to fantasizing about her, saying ''guess who visited me in a dream last night/this morning .'‰.'‰.'‚uh, you. obv.''

In another message, he blamed her for keeping him awake the previous night. ''I did not sleep well .'‰.'‰.'‚Horny as f''k,'' he wrote.

When she suggested it was a ''disease,'' he wrote back: ''You are a carrier.''

He even confessed to masturbating while thinking about her, calling her ''literally a fantasy chick.''

''And I mean literally. So now you know how I got to sleep last night,'' he wrote, adding a purple demon emoji.

After she sent him a cartoon image of a pump bottle of hand lotion and a box of tissues, he responded with a graphic, homemade text-and-emoji image of an ejaculating penis.

''OK'.....Enough of that!! she wrote.

''Yeah. I taxed myself too much on that one. So anyway, what are you wearing,'' he wrote back, adding a winking, tongue-out emoji.

Following his first sexting scandal, Weiner claimed to have undergone therapy, having sat down with Abedin for a 2012 People magazine interview in which he said he was happy as a stay-at-home dad. ''The only next dramatic steps I'm planning on are Jordan's first,'' he said, in reference to their then-6-month-old son.

His purported rehabilitation led to an improbable lead in the polls for New York mayor in 2013 '-- until his candidacy collapsed amid revelations that he continued sexting behind the ''Carlos Danger'' pseudonym.

The latest object of Weiner's sexting obsession is a woman with two grown children who lives with a boyfriend. She told Weiner that her significant other traveled for work and was only ''in town about 10 days a month.''

At one point in their conversation, Weiner offered to take the object of his lust to one of the restaurants co-owned by his younger brother, Jason.

''Lets get together. I'm a big wheel in this town,'' Weiner wrote.

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Archived Version

Sun, 04 Sep 2016 02:24

A few days ago, the New York Post published a picture of Anthony Weiner. The sexually suggestive image showed the disgraced former congressman's crotch. The photo also included Jordan, the young son of Weiner and Huma Abedin, a key aide to Hillary Clinton. The child was in the frame, though his face was blurred in the publication.

It was, of course, hardly the first time Weiner had been linked to a sexting scandal.

In the wake of the New York Post report, Abedin announced that the couple was separating.

The fallout continued Wednesday, as the Wall Street Journal, WABC, the New York Daily News and the New York Post reported that officials from the Administration for Children's Services were investigating Weiner's treatment of his son, who is now 4.

That same day, Weiner told the New York Times in an email: "We haven't been contacted by A.C.S."

But Thursday night, he confirmed to the Times that the child-welfare agency has opened an investigation.

"He said that the agency had left a bare-bones letter about the investigation at his mother's house," the Times reported, adding:

It was unclear why the agency had sent a letter to his mother's residence, rather than to him directly. He, too, seemed mystified: "Crazy if you ask me," he said, adding that he had called the agency to learn more.

"In order to protect children and their privacy, ACS does not comment on specific cases or allegations of child maltreatment, regardless of whether or not allegations have been reported, are being investigated, or have not resulted in an investigation," the agency told The Washington Post in an email.

When asked about reports of an investigation, a spokesperson said in an email that the agency couldn't expand upon its initial comment.

What is the process for an investigation, and if one did occur, what would it entail? Here's what we found out, after talking to a few experts.

To start with: Was the photo something that would be reported to a child welfare agency?

For this, I spoke with Seth Kalichman, a psychology professor at the University of Connecticut who wrote a book entitled "Mandated Reporting of Suspected Child Abuse: Ethics, Law and Policy." This area isn't Kalichman's focus anymore (he works in AIDS research), but he still gets calls on it from time to time, he said.

"If I was sort of looking through a Twitter feed," Kalichman said, "and saw sexting going on, with a young child in the picture, I believe that a citizen, a responsible citizen, should report that for investigation. And if a client in a clinical situation shared that image with a mental health professional, it would warrant suspicion to launch a child investigation."

That doesn't mean that Kalichman is drawing a conclusion here, saying, "Hey, that's an abusive situation." Those judgments don't come into play. And to clarify, Weiner's most recent picture wasn't posted to Twitter, as was the case previously. But Kalichman said that didn't really matter. "I think what matters is that there's this sexualized picture with a kid in it," he said. "That's what matters. That's sort of the bottom line. That there's a sexualized image with a child in it."

Okay, so . . . then what?

Here's how this process generally works, according to an ACS deputy press secretary: To report an allegation for investigation, someone with direct knowledge would have to contact the New York State Statewide Central Register. If state officials decide that the allegations meet a "standard of a reasonable suspicion" of maltreatment, then officials will assign the case out.

When the city's Administration for Children's Service gets a report from the state officials, it assigns someone to conduct an investigation. The law requires that ACS investigate all the reports that they receive.

Martin Guggenheim, a professor at the NYU School of Law, told The Washington Post that if the process gets that far, he sees it going one of three ways: that Weiner did nothing that warrants further inquiry; that he did something that warrants further attention, but not something that would constitute falling below the minimal standard of care; or (a scenario that Guggenheim said was unlikely) it ends up in court.

"The agency might find '-- and now we're really talking hypothetical stuff '-- there is a reason to be concerned here, but that's still quite a ways from saying that he did something that a court would adjudicate him as unfit or neglectful for having done," he said. "Those are two different standards."

Does the picture represent any neglect or abuse?

"Assuming the photo depicted in media reports is accurate, the conduct depicted would not meet the statutory definition of child abuse or neglect," Michelle Dhunjishah, director of the Children's Law Center at the University of South Carolina, said in an email. "Additionally, it does not appear that the child is at substantial risk or in imminent danger of being abused or neglected. Statutory definitions of abuse and neglect vary from state to state. Neglect is generally defined as a failure to provide food, clothing, shelter, supervision, education or medical care."

However, Merril Sobie, a law professor at Pace University, said in a phone interview that a person could argue that the child was placed "in imminent risk of emotional harm."

"Well, the fact that he is sexting, he is in a compromising position," Sobie said. "His child is right there with him when he does that. Does that place the child in imminent risk of emotional harm? One could certainly make that argument. There's no case yet. We're, I guess, far from, assuming there is a case, a prosecutor gathering the forensic evidence that the child was placed in imminent risk. But I could see the possibility, certainly, of that argument."

In an email to The Post, Guggenheim described child welfare matters as "civil inquiries, permitting state officials to intervene even when no crime has been committed." Sometimes there is both a criminal investigation and a child welfare investigation. Other times, however, there are no allegations of a crime.

"The standard, which varies by jurisdiction, is whether the parent engaged in conduct that places a child at an unreasonable risk of harm," he wrote.

Child abuse is usually focused on physical harm, whereas neglect kind of covers everything else, he said in the email.

"In the Weiner case, no crime was committed. But, as I say, that doesn't end the inquiry," he wrote. "But from what I know of this matter, neither is there any basis for child welfare intervention. From what we know, we have a father who was fantasizing about sex while his young child was asleep in the same bed. Millions of parents do every day. This additional twist here that he took some pictures doesn't change anything."

When can child welfare officials intervene?

"Child welfare inquiries strive to find the line between what parents may not do and what, however much some would prefer they not do, is within their freedom of choice," Guggenheim said in his email. "Child welfare is not about preventing parents from doing things many people would not do or condone. It is about preventing parents from doing unacceptable things: things no one is allowed to do."

When the conduct of a parent has fallen "below the minimum standard of care," there is a basis for officials to intervene, he wrote.

"Moreover, this inquiry also includes a focus on the harm or potential harm to the child," Guggenheim wrote. "And on this ground, too, there would be no basis for intervention. We have no reason to believe the child suffered any kind of harm or was at risk of suffering harm."

Dhunjishah said that removing a boy or girl from a home is a step taken only when it is "absolutely necessary to protect the health and safety of a child."

"In my experience, this would not be a case that resulted in an intervention from Child Protective Services," she wrote. "While this does not rise to the level of abuse and neglect, any concerns about parenting or decision making for the child would be best addressed in a private custody agreement."

Do Weiner's previous sexting scandals matter here?

Guggenheim, the NYU professor, pointed out that people have been having affairs, or basically being lousy spouses, for . . . well, a long time.

"Some of them are wonderful parents. They're men and women," Guggenheim said. "We don't ever associate that with being unfit. So this guy doesn't exactly do that. He fantasizes in his home with people virtually, or whatever, I don't even know what it is.

"In other words, this is one step less than having an affair. Well, if you're a mother spending all day taking care of your kid, and all you're doing is fantasizing when you can get out and go to the bar and meet the guy you're hot to be with, that's life. That's who we are. We're people who live a life. We're parents and sometimes we are unfaithful to the child's other parent."

Former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) has repeatedly been exposed for sending lewd messages and photos to women online. Here's a definitive guide to his sexting scandal. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

Since we've already mentioned custody, how does this photo impact that?

This is when the conversation shifts from the "minimum standard of care" to that of the "best interests" of the child.

" 'Best interests' is used when parents are fighting each other for custody," Guggenheim wrote in an email. "In that fight, courts are mediating a contest between two parties each of whom has a right to raise the child and the court must pick one over the other. The tie breaker used there is 'best interests.' So, in a fight between Abedin and Weiner for custody of the child, Abedin would be able to highlight Weiner's sexting behavior if she wanted to defeat him in court. And it is almost certain that she would prevail in that fight. But that would be up to Abedin '-- and to Weiner. In other words, if Abedin chooses to continue to let Weiner raise their son, that's their business. If she no longer wants that, all she would need to do is to tell Weiner she no longer wants him raising the boy.

"If Weiner went to a lawyer for advice, trying to figure out his odds of winning a contested custody battle against her, I expect the lawyer would educate Weiner that his chances of winning that fight are slim to none."

This post, originally published on Sept. 1, has been updated.

Read More:When did Huma Abedin decide to leave Anthony Weiner? A photo timeline

11 ways to think about the Anthony Weiner-Huma Abedin split

The short, strange history of Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner's marriage

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 05:08

From: Jake Sullivan To: Hillary Clinton Date: 2010-09-25 07:55 Subject: INFO FOR YOUUNCLASSIFIED U.S. Department of State Case No. F-2014-20439 Doc No. C05775112 Date: 08/31/2015RELEASE IN PARTFrom: Sullivan, Jacob.' Sent: Sunday, September 26, 2010 2:55 PM B1,1.4(B),1.4(D), B5, B6To: Subject: Re: Info for youClassified by DAS, A/GIS, DoS on 08/27/2015 '-- Class: CONFIDENTIAL Yep '-- Reason: 1.4(B), 1.4(D) '-- Declassify on: 09/25/2035 Original MessageFrom: H To: Sullivan, Jacob .1 Sent: Sun Sep 26 15:07:22 2010Subject: Re: Info for you B5 Original MessageFrom: Sullivan, Jacob 1To: H Sent: Sun Sep 26 14:49:55 2010Subject: Re: Info for you Ok Original MessageFrom: H To: Sullivan, JacobiSent: Sun Sep 26 15:03:28 2010 Subject: Re: Info for you B5 Original MessageFrom: Sullivan, Jacob J To: H; jake.sullivan

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Source: The Last Refuge

Sun, 04 Sep 2016 05:36

'... After years of reluctance, in a July 1998 interview with the A&E network John F Kennedy Jr. said he was finally considering an entry into politics. He was 38 years old.

'... Four months later, in November of 1998, New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan announced he would be retiring at the end of his senate term (election year 2000).

'... Seven months later, on July 16th 1999, JFK Jr. was killed in a nighttime plane crash during a flight to Martha's Vineyard.

'... Two months later, September 1999, Hillary Rodham Clinton moved to a residence in Chappaqua New York, and announced she was running for Moynihan's senate seat.

'... In November 2000 Hillary Rodham Clinton was elected to replace Senator Moynihan. [Her term from January 2001 through January 2009]

'... BUTTERFLY EFFECT '' If John F Kennedy Jr. had not died in that July 1999 plane crash there probably never would have been a Senator Hillary Clinton.

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Sat, 03 Sep 2016 18:13

The reporter's job is to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" '-- a credo that, humorously, was originally written as a smear of the self-righteous nature of journalists. And so the justification for going after a public figure increases in proportion to his or her stature. The bigger the figure, the looser the restraints.

After a quarter of a century on the national stage, there's no more comfortable political figure to afflict than Hillary Clinton. And she's in for a lot of affliction over the next year and half.

That's generally a good way for reporters to go about their business. After all, the more power a person wants in our republic, the more voters should know about her or him. But it's also an essential frame for thinking about the long-toxic relationship between the Clintons and the media, why the coverage of Hillary Clinton differs from coverage of other candidates for the presidency, and whether that difference encourages distortions that will ultimately affect the presidential race.

The Clinton rules are driven by reporters' and editors' desire to score the ultimate prize in contemporary journalism: the scoop that brings down Hillary Clinton and her family's political empire. At least in that way, Republicans and the media have a common interest.

I understand these dynamics well, having co-written a book that demonstrated how Bill and Hillary Clinton used Hillary's time at State to build the family political operation and set up for their fourth presidential campaign. That is to say, I've done a lot of research about the Clintons' relationship with the media, and experienced it firsthand. As an author, I felt that I owed it to myself and the reader to report, investigate, and write with the same mix of curiosity, skepticism, rigor, and compassion that I would use with any other subject. I wanted to sell books, of course. But the easier way to do that '-- proven over time '-- is to write as though the Clintons are the purest form of evil. The same holds for daily reporting. Want to drive traffic to a website? Write something nasty about a Clinton, particularly Hillary.

As a reporter, I get sucked into playing by the Clinton rules. This is what I've seen in my colleagues, and in myself.

1) Everything, no matter how ludicrous-sounding, is worthy of a full investigation by federal agencies, Congress, the "vast right-wing conspiracy," and mainstream media outletsOne of my former colleagues, a hard-nosed reporter who has put countless political pelts on his wall, once told me that everyone in public life has something to hide. Who goes down in the flames of scandal? The politicians we decide to go after.

That may not be 100 percent true, but it's true enough. The act of choosing, time and again, to go after the same person has the effect of tainting that person, even when an investigation or reporting turns up nothing nefarious '-- and it's time not spent digging into his or her adversaries. The original source of alleged malfeasance could come from the other party, within a politician's party, or from the reporter's own observations and industrious digging. But two things are crystal clear: If there's no investigation, there's no scandal. And if there's no scandal, there's no scalp.

The Clintons have been under investigation for about 25 years now. There's little doubt they've produced more information for investigators, lawyers, and journalists about their finances, their business and philanthropic dealings, and their decision-making processes in government than any officials in American history. They've watched countless friends frog-marched into congressional hearings and, in some cases, to jail. They know there's a good chance that any expressed thought will become part of the public record and twisted for political gain.

The most absurd allegations against Hillary Clinton have been bookends on her public career so far: that she had something to do with the suicide of Clinton White House aide Vince Foster, and that she bears responsibility for the terrorist attack that killed US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens.

But in between, there was Travelgate, Filegate, and Whitewater. Some were less legitimate than others. When Clinton surprisingly claimed that she and her husband were "dead broke" when they left the White House, it was because they had spent all of their money to defend themselves against an eight-year barrage of investigations.

It's understandable, then, why the Clintons have a bunker mentality when it comes to transparency. But their paranoia leads them to be secretive, and their secrecy leads Republicans and the press to suspect wrongdoing. That spurs further investigation, which only makes the Clintons more secretive. The paranoia and persistent investigation feed each other in an endless cycle of probe and parry. Along the way, the political class and the public are forced to choose imperfect sides: the power couple that always seems to be hiding something, or a Washington investigation complex that is overly partisan and underwhelming in its ability to prove gross misconduct.

This is, for Republicans, a reasonable strategy. They know that if they keep investigating her, it will do two things: keep the media writing about scandals that might knock her out, and turn off voters who don't want a return to the bloodsport politics of the 1990s. They leak partial stories to reporters hungry for that one great scoop that will give them the biggest political scalp of them all. But they also err in jumping the gun in accusing her of wrongdoing, which allows Clinton to defend herself by pointing at the folly of her adversaries.

2) Every allegation, no matter how ludicrous, is believable until it can be proven completely and utterly false. And even then, it keeps a life of its own in the conservative media world.In touring the country to promote our book in 2014, my co-author and I were repeatedly lobbied to assert that Clinton is a lesbian. One gentleman pushed the issue during a Q&A at a Barnes and Noble on the Upper West Side of Manhattan '-- one of the few places you might expect that kind of thing to get a rest.

The National Enquirer published a story in April alleging that Clinton wiped her personal email server clean because it contained references to her lesbian lovers.

Meanwhile, the conservative media are also convinced Clinton is preparing to wage a war on Christianity if she wins the presidency. But one thing revealed in her State Department emails is that Clinton shared daily religious reflections with her friends.

It's not just the out-of-the-box allegations that keep the media machine spun up. A year before Chelsea Clinton got married, Clinton staffers were kept busy by mainstream journalists who were absolutely sure she had already gone through with secret nuptials.

And, on a more serious note, remember Benghazi flu? Many political opponents and members of the media were unable to accept the idea that Clinton was forced to cancel planned Senate testimony on Benghazi because she'd suffered a concussion. Now, three years later, it seems ridiculous to think that Clinton was making an excuse '-- she's since testified on both sides of the Hill '-- or that she suffered, as Karl Rove suggested, brain damage. And if she was making up the concussion to avoid testifying, how did she suffer brain damage from a fake fall?

The conservative media echo chamber, which bounces innuendo from Rush Limbaugh to Fox News and back again, ensures that the most damning story lines '-- true or not '-- stay alive. The Benghazi attacks are a perfect example. Terrorists killed four Americans. The conservative echo chamber seems convinced Hillary Clinton is at fault. The reasonable argument to make is that we shouldn't have been in Libya in the first place and the murders were a down-the-chain result of bad policy. But the right wing wants to prove that they happened because of Clinton's actions '-- or inaction '-- on security matters.

They've talked about security requests denied for Libya (never mind that the stronger contingent would have been in Tripoli, not Benghazi, and that there's no evidence Clinton herself was aware of the requests), a stand-down order that prevented reinforcements from arriving in Benghazi (never mind that they wouldn't have gotten there until after the fighting was done, and that even a House Republican committee found that there was no such order) and, most of absurd of all, that Clinton knew the attack was coming. This is how Limbaugh put it in May.

The fact is they knew about the Benghazi attack 10 days before it was to happen. They knew who did it.

The freedom of the conservative media to make wild allegations often acts as a bulldozer forcing reporters to check into the charges and, in doing so, repeat them. By the time they've been debunked, they're part of the American public's collective consciousness. Or, as it's been said, a lie gets around the world before the truth gets out of bed.

3) The media assumes that Clinton is acting in bad faith until there's hard evidence otherwise.One outgrowth of Clinton's terrible relationship with reporters is that journalists often assume she is acting in bad faith. There's good reason for that. Though she's added some new pros to her press staff for this campaign, her operation's stance toward the media was always a reflection of the way Bill Clinton's White House handled journalists.

Back in the mid-1990s, Bill Clinton relied on a series of Machiavellian spin doctors to keep the press at bay. With the Clinton White House, the modus operandi was to stonewall as long as possible, lie if necessary '-- or just out of habit '-- and turn questions around on the questioners. After all, Bill Clinton once wagged his finger at a press conference and told reporters, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman ... Ms. Lewinsky." He'd lied in a deposition, too.

So the press has plenty of precedent for believing that when the Clintons aren't forthcoming '-- and sometimes, even when they are '-- they're covering something up. And the Clintons, given the history of some-smoke-no-fire investigations launched against them, have plenty of precedent for being mistrustful of the press. The result is a brutally dysfunctional relationship on both sides. The Clintons believe the press acts in bad faith, and the press believes the Clintons' attitudes toward the press are evidence that the Clintons are hiding something.

That attitude carried over to Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign, and to some degree her tenure as Secretary of State. The standard response to a reporter's question is not an answer. It is to ignore the question or to engage in a Socratic debate by asking a question in return. It's clear Clinton doesn't like the media one bit, as Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman reported last year.

When asked why Clinton hasn't done more to reach out to reporters over the years, one Clinton campaign veteran began to spin several theories. She was too busy, she was too prone to speaking her mind and the like'--then abruptly cut to the chase:

"Look, she hates you. Period. That's never going to change."

At a July Fourth parade this past weekend, Clinton aides used rope to create an impromptu moving barrier for reporters, keeping them away from the candidate and voters. She treated them like cattle, and they responded by putting the video on television for the last three days.

The mistrust among journalists is a problem for Clinton. And as the media is an amplifier for the public, it's also little wonder that so many voters are inclined to believe she's often acting in bad faith. Most Americans say she's not honest and trustworthy.

This view, shared by many reporters and most of the public, makes it much easier to treat Clinton's actions as though they are uniquely sinister. Case in point: She made a ton of money giving paid speeches to people with business before the government. So did Jeb Bush, of course. But until Bush recently released an accounting of some of those speeches, the media had little interest in his dealings. Kudos to Ken Vogel of Politico, who did some digging on that for a story published Thursday.

The imbalance in assumptions about Clinton's motivations is another way in which the Clinton code has a distorting effect on the public perception of her. And it, too, is self-perpetuating: It leads Clinton to assume the press is biased against her, which leads her to treat the press poorly, which leads more reporters to assume she's trying to hide something from them.

4) Everything is newsworthy because the Clintons are the equivalent of America's royal familyWhen Clinton keynoted an annual fundraiser for David Axelrod's epilepsy charity in June 2013, several major news outlets sent reporters to cover the speech. That was more than three years before the 2016 election. Every word, every gesture, every facial expression is scrutinized.

Video of Clinton ordering a burrito bowl at a Chipotle became the first viral image of her campaign. Reporters gave fodder to late-night comedians earlier this year when they made a mad dash to catch up as her campaign van rolled by.

This coverage of every last detail, of course, isn't a one-way street. It wasn't until a reporter was tipped off to the Chipotle visit that anyone knew about it. She craves the attention even more than she detests it.

But that, too, has a distorting effect. As with the royal family in London, normally private moments become part of a public narrative: her husband's affair, her daughter's wedding, the birth of her granddaughter.

All the attention has the effect of making Clinton seem, to the casual observer, hungrier for press than even the average politician. And there's no doubt that part of the love/hate relationship is an intense desire to attract and manipulate coverage. But Clinton understands that sometimes it's better not to be in the spotlight.

The best example of that was when she declined requests to appear on Sunday political talk shows right after the Benghazi attacks. Susan Rice, then the ambassador to the UN and now Obama's national security adviser, leaped at the chance to stand in for Clinton. Those appearances ended up costing Rice the nomination to succeed Clinton as secretary of state when many senators concluded she had lied about the origin and nature of the attacks.

The press has such fascination with the Clintons that the coverage would be there whether Hillary Clinton wanted it or not.

5) Everything she does is fake and calculated for maximum political benefitFor someone who lost a big lead in the 2008 presidential primary and is ceding ground to Bernie Sanders right now, Clinton is given a lot of credit for her political acumen. Her detractors see in every move, including the birth of her granddaughter, a grandly conceived and executed political calculation.

Clinton's flaunting of her grandchild is one of the most transparently cynical and sentimental acts of a major American politician that I can recall. We have had presidents who have been parents, and we have had presidents who have been grandparents. But a campaign based on grandparental solidarity? A novelty.

And Clinton plays into that by using the positives in her life for political gain.

That doesn't make her different from other candidates for the presidency '-- it makes her just like them. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie talked about his grandmothers, his mom, his wife, and his kids when he launched his bid for the presidency last week. Was that calculated to send messages about Christie to the public? Of course!

The best example, though, was the tear '-- the one that rolled down Clinton's cheek as she campaigned in New Hampshire after having come in third in the Iowa caucuses in 2008.

The New York Times's Maureen Dowd pilloried her for what Dowd saw as a window into the dark part of Clinton's soul.

There was a poignancy about the moment, seeing Hillary crack with exhaustion from decades of yearning to be the principal rather than the plus-one. But there was a whiff of Nixonian self-pity about her choking up. What was moving her so deeply was her recognition that the country was failing to grasp how much it needs her. In a weirdly narcissistic way, she was crying for us. But it was grimly typical of her that what finally made her break down was the prospect of losing.

As Spencer Tracy said to Katharine Hepburn in "Adam's Rib," "Here we go again, the old juice. Guaranteed heart melter. A few female tears, stronger than any acid."

How far political journalism has come from castigating Ed Muskie for crying to accusing Clinton of calculating that tears would help her win. She's not that good at politics.

What the Clinton rules mean for the electionI take a dim view of the idea that journalists successfully anoint political winners. The media might have been in the bag for Barack Obama, but he didn't win because he got positive coverage. He won because he had better strategy, a better message, and better skills at delivering that message '-- in the 2008 primary and in the two general elections he won.

That said, the media can definitely weigh down '-- and even destroy '-- a candidate. The emphasis on a candidate's flaws '-- real or perceived '-- comes at the cost of the candidate's ability to focus his or her message and at the cost of negative attention to the other candidates. This is a problem for Clinton, and it seems unlikely to go away.

Hillary Clinton is comfortable enough to be a target for a lot of journalistic affliction and powerful enough that no one needs to comfort her from that affliction. But these double standards are an important factor to keep in mind when judging her against her rivals for the presidency. Whether they're fair or not, the Clinton rules distort the public's perception of Hillary Clinton.

Correction: This story has been corrected to remove an erroneous reference to the source of the original report on the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The Drudge Report first broke news that Newsweek had decided to hold a story about the affair.

Vox Featured Video: President Obama explains why politics are so polarizing

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 06:57

In February, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told supporters the U.S. ''ought to open up the libel laws'' against publications who write ''purposely negative and horrible and false articles.'' This week, his wife set out to test those legal boundaries.

Melania Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against a Maryland-based blogger and a popular British tabloid in Maryland state court Thursday, accusing them of publishing what her lawyer described as ''false and tremendously damaging'' rumors about her, including a claim she was a sex worker in the 1990s.

At the center of her complaint are a series of eyebrow-raising allegations about her past that were separately published last month by Webster Tarpley, a political blogger, and the Daily Mail, a major London-based tabloid. First, in an August 2 post, Tarpley quoted unnamed sources and ''unconfimed'' reports that described Melania Trump as ''suffering from a nervous breakdown'' after she plagiarized a portion of a 2008 Michelle Obama speech during the Republican National Convention. Also fueling her rumored breakdown, Tarpley claimed, were ''possible revelations'' she worked as a ''luxury escort in the 1990s'' before meeting her husband.

Two weeks after Tarpley's post, the Daily Mail published an article on August 19 about what it described as ''troubling questions'' about the ''VERY racy past of Donald Trump's Slovenian wife.'' Those questions revolved around claims it attributed to Slovenian magazine and an unauthorized biographer, including allegations a modeling agency for which Melania Trump reportedly worked in the 1990s actually operated as an escort agency for high-profile clients.

Several news organizations picked up on the rumors after the Mail's article was published, only to retreat from them after Melania Trump's lawyer, veteran Hollywood litigator Charles Harder, raised the specter of legal action. ''She understands that news media have certain leeway in a presidential campaign, but outright lying about her in this way exceeds all bounds of appropriate news reporting and human decency,'' Harder said in a statement.

Through her lawyers and in the lawsuit itself, Melania Trump unequivocally denied both Tarpley's and the Daily Mail's claims. ''[She] did legitimate and legal modeling work for legitimate business entities,'' her lawsuit said. ''[She] was not an escort or prostitute. [She] did not have an apoplectic fit, apoplectic tantrum, nervous breakdown or mental breakdown, nor is she terrified or obsessed by fear about revelations from her past.''

Melania Trump's lawsuit describes both publishers' conduct as ''despicable, abhorrent, intentional, malicious, and oppressive.'' But the legal battle will hinge on a specific descriptor her lawsuit used to describe Tarpley and the Daily Mail's actions: ''actual malice,'' which basically means that the publishers knew, or should have known, that something they published was false.

That unremarkable two-word phrase essentially shields American journalism from legal repercussions for publishing statements that could be considered libel in other countries. Drawing upon earlier uses by some state courts, the actual-malice test entered the nation's constitutional consciousness when the U.S. Supreme Court first applied it in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan in 1964.

Sullivan is often described as a landmark case in First Amendment jurisprudence. But it is also a civil-rights case of sorts. L.B. Sullivan, a city commissioner in Montgomery, Alabama, filed the lawsuit against the New York Times and four local black clergy for publishing a political ad drafted by the clergymen. Titled ''Heed Our Rising Voices,'' the ad condemned an ''unprecedented wave of terror'' against black civil-rights protesters in the South.

In its recitation of actual Southern discord, the ad falsely claimed Montgomery police had padlocked a local university's dining hall during a student protest to ''starve them into submission.'' It then also said ''the Southern violators'' had ''bombed [Martin Luther King, Jr.'s] home almost killing his wife and child.'' Sullivan, who oversaw the Montgomery police at the time, and other locals read the ad as counting him among the ''Southern violators,'' thereby implying he had also attempted to kill King's family. He sued, claiming libel, and won $500,000 in damages from a local all-white jury. The Times appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court, which sided with the newspaper and clergy.

Writing for the Court, Justice William Brennan noted that factual errors were ''inevitable in free debate.'' He also placed the Sullivan case in the context of a ''profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.'' To that end, he wrote, the First and Fourteenth Amendments demand the high threshold of ''actual malice'' for libel lawsuits by high-profile figures. ''(Although Sullivan focused on elected officials, the justices later also applied the standard to cases brought by public figures like Melania Trump.)

When does a publishing a false statement count as ''actual malice''? The Court has avoided handing down a precise, inflexible definition of it, but Brennan defined the standard at the time as ''knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.'' Notably, negligence or carelessness by publishers isn't enough to meet the standard. In Sullivan, for example, the Times' advertising department did not bother to fact-check the ad's content against its own reporting because it was submitted in the name of A. Philip Randolph, a widely respected civil-rights leader.

In the short term, the ruling largely protected journalists and civil-rights activists from vindictive libel lawsuits by segregationist officials as Jim Crow crumbled. ''New York Times Co. v. Sullivan is one of those rare cases'--perhaps especially rare in the field of First Amendment law'--in which the heroes are heroes, the villains are villains, and everyone can be characterized as one or the other,'' Justice Elena Kagan, then a University of Chicago law professor, wrote in 1993. In the four decades since it was handed down, Sullivan also protected American journalists from the risk that an errant mistake or ''inevitable falsehood,'' as Brennan put it, could lead to legal and financial ruin.

Such ruin is still possible for major publications. In 2012, Gawker.com, a punchy, irreverent blog on politics, media, and gossip, published excerpts of a surreptitious sex tape of Hulk Hogan, who retaliated with a multimillion-dollar invasion-of-privacy lawsuit. A Florida jury sided with the retired pro wrestler in March, awarding him $140 million in damages and effectively bankrupting parent company Gawker Media. The company's collection of blogs was auctioned off to Univision for $135 million in August and Gawker.com itself ceased publishing.

Two months after the verdict, Forbes revealed that Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley billionaire and a supporter of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, had secretly bankrolled a legal campaign against the media company, including Hogan's lawsuit. Thiel's antagonism dated back to 2007 when a Gawker.com writer outed him as gay, but he also expressed loftier principles after his role was revealed. ''A story that violates privacy and serves no public interest should never be published,'' he wrote in August. Leading Hogan's legal team was Charles Harder, Melania Trump's lawyer.

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Sat, 03 Sep 2016 00:03

Melania Trump's lawsuit comes just 68 days before the general election. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters

Lawyers for Melania Trump on Thursday filed suit for $150m damages against the Daily Mail in Maryland state court. The wife of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is also suing a blogger, Webster Tarpley, from the state in question.

In a statement, Trump's lawyer, Charles Harder, said: ''These defendants made several statements about Mrs Trump that are 100% false and tremendously damaging to her personal and professional reputation [and] broadcast their lies to millions of people throughout the US and the world '' without any justification.

''Their many lies include, among others, that Mrs Trump supposedly was an 'escort' in the 1990s before she met her husband. Defendants' actions are so egregious, malicious and harmful to Mrs Trump that her damages are estimated at $150m.''

The suit was filed in Montgomery County, in suburban Washington DC, in response to articles published in August by the Daily Mail which reported rumors that Trump worked as an escort in the 1990s.

Last month, announcing that Trump was considering a suit, her lawyer called those rumors ''100% false''.

The Daily Mail article also contained allegations that Trump came to New York a year earlier than she has claimed, raising issues about her immigration status. Trump denied a story in Politico in which questions about her immigration status were first reported.

The Daily Mail's retraction Photograph: Daily MailThe lawsuit noted that while the article in question had been removed from the Daily Mail's website, the newspaper had yet to apologize or formally retract. The Mail included a retraction of the story in its Friday UK print edition.

''We did not intend to state or suggest that these allegations are true,'' the newspaper said, ''nor did we intend to state or suggest that Mrs Trump ever worked as an 'escort' or in the 'sex business'.'' It added that its article had included denials from a Trump spokesperson and the owner of the modelling agency in question, and said it regretted ''any such misinterpretation''.

The retraction was also posted online. ''The Daily Mail newspaper and MailOnline/DailyMail.com have entirely separate editors and journalistic teams,'' it added. ''In so far as MailOnline/DailyMail.com published the same article it wholeheartedly also retracts the above and also regrets any such misinterpretation.''

Asked if the retraction would affect the suit, Harder replied: ''It does not.''

Tarpley's blogpost, which has been retracted, claimed, per the suit, that ''it is widely known Melania was not a working model but rather a high-end escort'' and that she had a ''mental breakdown'' after a plagiarism controversy over her speech to the Republican national convention in Cleveland in July.

Harder is best known for representing Hulk Hogan in the lawsuit that bankrupted Gawker Media and forced its sale to Univision last month. That suit was funded by the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel, a vocal Trump supporter.

Steve Klepper, an appellate lawyer for the Baltimore law firm Kramon & Graham, said the inclusion of a blogger in the suit indicated legal maneuvering.

He told the Guardian: ''Anytime you have a filing that adds a minor in-state defendant, it's a flag that they were joined to prevent removal to federal court. And as we know, Donald Trump has not been having been the best luck in federal court recently.''

Klepper pointed to a Maryland defamation statute that might provide a basis for Melania Trump's suit. It reads: ''A single or married woman whose character or reputation for chastity is defamed by any person may maintain an action against that person.''

He added, however: ''Montgomery County has possibly the highest-percentage college education jury pool in the whole country and I cannot see how the jury pool would be good for [Melania Trump].''

News of the lawsuit came 68 days before the election, on the day Donald Trump pledged to promote ''patriotism'' in schools and a day after he gave a hardline immigration policy speech, hours after striking conciliatory notes on the topic in a meeting with Mexican president Enrique Pe±a Nieto.

The Republican nominee, who has consistently trailed Hillary Clinton in the polls, has developed a combative relationship with the media, blacklisting a number of news outlets and pledging to pass stricter libel laws if elected.

A Trump campaign spokesperson told the Guardian: ''We do not have anything in addition to the Harder statement.''

The Daily Mail responded to a request for comment by pointing to its online and print retractions.

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 06:57

...Who will win in the case of Melania Trump versus The Daily Mail?

(And Melania Trump versus Webster Tarpley.)

If a publisher knows that something they print is false, then they are showing 'malice', and could lose in a court case.

But, if the publisher has made an innocent mistake, the publisher is likely to win in a court case.

Can Melania Trump Win Her Libel Lawsuit?

The key case is 'New York Times versus Sullivan'.In the famous case, New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, Justice William Brennan noted that factual errors are 'inevitable in free debate.'

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Sat, 03 Sep 2016 00:05

The Morning Briefing published on tarpley.net on August 2, 2016 referenced unfounded rumors and innuendo regarding Melania Trump, wife of Republican Presidential candidate Donald J. Trump, and her life prior to her marriage. The August 2, 2016 morning briefing asserted that it was widely known that Melania Trump previously worked as an escort and that Mrs. Trump was in fear of revelations that she used to work as an escort. The briefing also stated that multiple unnamed sources stated that Mrs. Trump was in a state of apoplectic tantrum, was suffering from a full-blown nervous breakdown, that both Melania Trump and Donald J. Trump feared the revelations coming to light, and that Mrs. Trump's condition was negatively affecting the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump.While the tarpley.net editors, writers and contributors did not generate said rumors, the briefing in question was not diligent in fact-checking or maintaining a healthy distance between innuendo and fact.

As such, Webster G. Tarpley, as editor of the content that appears on tarpley.net, hereby officially retracts the August 2, 2016 morning briefing in full and apologizes to Mrs. Trump for any duress and harm she may have endured as a result of the contents of the August 2, 2016 morning briefing.

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Sat, 03 Sep 2016 14:06

In an extensive article within New York Magazine, mostly outlining the rather sordid details of Roger Ailes, readers may also note specific confirmation of something we outlined in August of last year (2015). Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch instructed Fox News executives to take down Donald Trump.

Excerpt:

(NY MAG) ['...] Murdoch was not a fan of Trump's and especially did not like his stance on immigration. (The antipathy was mutual: ''Murdoch's been very bad to me,'' Trump told me in March.) A few days before the first GOP debate on Fox in August 2015, Murdoch called Ailes at home. ''This has gone on long enough,'' Murdoch said, according to a person briefed on the conversation.

Murdoch told Ailes he wanted Fox's debate moderators '-- Kelly, Bret Baier, and Chris Wallace '-- to hammer Trump on a variety of issues. Ailes, understanding the GOP electorate better than most at that point, likely thought it was a bad idea. ''Donald Trump is going to be the Republican nominee,'' Ailes told a colleague around this time. But he didn't fight Murdoch on the debate directive.

On the night of August 6, in front of 24 million people, the Fox moderators peppered Trump with harder-hitting questions. But it was Kelly's question regarding Trump's history of crude comments about women that created a media sensation. He seemed personally wounded by her suggestion that this spoke to a temperament that might not be suited for the presidency. ''I've been very nice to you, though I could probably maybe not be based on the way you have treated me,'' he said pointedly. (read more)

This is interesting on many levels, but more importantly for a few very specific confirmational aspects.

Last year many people were struggling to understand what was going on within Fox News. Many people saw the bias; even more people grew outraged at what they were witnessing; but unfortunately many people would not (or could not) accept what was brutally obvious.

Additionally, when CTH outlined the specifics of the factional alignment that was coming from this directive, multiple entities within the ''conservative blog-o-sphere'' claimed we were advancing some form of ridiculous conspiratorial analysis.

The last third of an earlier CTH outline, during this event timeline (July/August '15), specifically warned Trump ''in advance of the first debate'' that Fox News had this intention. (Scroll down to the part of Megyn Kelly HERE).

Additionally, within the cited New York Magazine article you'll note that Lachlan Murdoch personally instructed Harper Collins Publications, another Murdoch business, to give Megyn Kelly a $6,000,000 advance on a $10 million book deal. In 2015 when we found out who Kelly's publisher was, we presented that specific prediction '' again, in the face of much antagonism. However, we were correct.

Why is this confirmation important?

If you go through the timeline, and look at the confirmation in the NY Mag, you'll note the specific group within Fox News who formed the internal Pro-Murdoch/Anti-Trump Fox coalition. They are: Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace.

Not coincidentally these key Fox hosts were the ones specifically directed to take down Trump ''AND'' the three anti-Trump amigos on the Fox Debate Panel.

Wallace, Baier, Kelly and (circled) Fox News VP Political Executive Bill Sammon '' during debate preparations. Bill Sammon is the father of Marco Rubio's National Campaign Spox, Brooke Sammon. Senator Marco Rubio was also the preferred candidate of Rupert Murdoch because of his immigration position.

Secondly, if you think about Baier, Kelly and Wallace beyond the scope of the debate itself, you might also begin to remind yourself ''and cross reference in your mind'' which Fox shows consistently highlight (what later became known as) 'the #NeverTrump punditry'.

Thinking specifically about Fox News and Brett Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace. Now think about which shows give continual voice to: Brit Hume, Stephen Hayes, Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol, George Will, Jonah Goldberg, Ben Shapiro, Rich Lowry, Glenn Beck, Dana Loesch, Katie Pavlich, Chris Stirewalt and Guy Benson.

What you realize is the 2015 #NeverTrumper's (pictured above) were/are almost exclusively booked for appearances on Rupert's Three Amigo's: Bret Baier (Special Report), Megyn Kelly (Kelly File), and Chris Wallace (Fox News Sunday and Special Report).

These three Fox Hosts are the primary voices behind the Rupert Murdoch anti-Trump faction within Fox News. Remember when Donald Trump pulled out of the second Fox News debate:

Another key aspect to keep in mind is that Rupert Murdoch doesn't operate alone. There are other media entities, not as big but still influential, that follow the exact same set of directives. The Salem Media Communications group is one example (Hot Air, Human Events, Twitchy, Red State, Hugh Hewitt et al), and iHeart Radio is another.

Just like Murdoch at Fox News, Salem Media Communications and iHeart Radio hold the same ideological objectives. Every entity within those enterprises is part of the same synergistic networking group. Politically, Club 4 Growth and a host of other PAC's and political enterprises are funding mechanisms aligned in ideology and providing financial support to the aforementioned political media sales force.

As more and more people awaken to the reality they become increasingly self-aware. With that awareness comes a realization that conspiracy theories are quite often not just theory.

ps. Do you still think Chris Wallace should moderate the third presidential debate? '...Knowing full well that the person who determines his income, Rupert Murdoch, has been specifically identified as giving instructions to Chris Wallace to take down Donald Trump?

Valerie Jarrett and Rupert Murdoch had supper at the Blue Duck Tavern in DC to plot strategy on immigration reform http://t.co/Xg2Akmujni

'-- Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) June 20, 2014

Oh yeah, and let's talk about Daron Shaw's Fox News Polls'.... shall we?

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 05:02

~ There are trillions of dollars at stake ~During a visit to Detroit today candidate Donald Trump was blessed and given a prayer shawl by Bishop Wayne T. Jackson. However, as Bishop Jackson continued his remarks the operators of the Reuters news feed began speaking uncomfortably about the power of the positive optics for the Trump campaign '' Via YouTube.

It appears the camera operator was initially reluctant to cut the feed saying:

''I'm shooting this, I don't care what they say,'... I'll take a demotion for this'.... you?''

Moments later you can hear the intensity of the voice off camera increasing: ''Shut it down'' followed by the a voice asking ''shut this down?'' and the response ''yeah'''... ''blackout''. Seconds later in the middle of Bishop Jackson's remarks the feed is cut:

Reuters was primary video feed for the event, all other video delivery services were coming from the Reuters feed. When Reuters shut down, all other outlets lost the broadcast.

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 05:14

On Sept. 2, at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Vladimir Putin gave an interview to the Bloomberg international news agency. The Russian leader spoke about his readiness to renew dialogue with Japan on the Kuril Islands, about the agreement with the U.S. on Syria and about Russian hackers. RBTH presents the seven key points of Putin's interview.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) and chief editor of the Bloomberg John Mikletveyt during an interview with an international news agency "Bloomberg" on the island of Russian in Vladivostok, Russia. Source: Alexey Druzhinin/RIA Novosti

1. Russia has no links to the hacking of the Democratic Party's servers

"I don't know anything about it, and on a state level Russia has never done this," Putin said, denying the accusations that Russia had broken into the U.S. Democratic Party servers.

"Is it really important who broke into the data of Mrs. Clinton's election headquarters? Is it really important? What's important is the content that was presented to society," Putin said.

2. Relations between Russia and the UK depend on the U.S.

"The UK's relations with Russia depend not on its presence or absence from the EU, but on its special relationship with the U.S.," said Putin.

Relations between Russia and the UK, which in Putin's view have not been very positive lately, may improve if London assumes what he described as a more independent foreign policy.

3. Russia is interested in a stable Europe and a strong euro

Russia keeps 40 percent of its foreign exchange reserves in the euro, which is why, despite the existing political disagreements, stability in the eurozone is important for Moscow, remarked the president.

"There could be some decisions made that would consolidate a group of countries with equal levels of development and, thereby, in my opinion, strengthen the euro,'' he said.

4. Russia can come to an agreement with the U.S. on Syria

"I don't rule out that we'll be able to agree on something in the near future and present our agreements to the international community," said Putin.

For progress to be made it is important to draw a clear line between the moderate opposition and the terrorists, he insisted, saying that the issue has been unresolved since the beginning of the negotiation process.

5. Moscow will diversify its relations with Beijing

Putin said that Russia and China have switched to a completely different level of cooperation. He listed the new spheres of joint activity: space programs, machine construction, high-speed railway communication, the construction of nuclear power plants in Tianwan, etc.

6. Russia is ready to speak to Japan about the Kuril Islands

"We do not trade in territories, but the problem of concluding a peaceful agreement with Japan is, of course, crucial and we would really like to find a solution with our Japanese friends on this issue," said Putin.

Russia is ready to renew the dialogue that was frozen several years ago on Japan's initiative, he continued. However, this does not imply trading in territories. The sides must search for a compromise that would suit them both.

7. It is necessary to freeze the level of oil production, excluding Iran

Russia supports the idea of stabilizing oil prices by freezing production levels and has not changed its position, emphasized Putin.

Stabilizing prices has been impossible due to the policies of other oil producing countries, in particular Saudi Arabia.

In Putin's view, the best policy for oil producing countries would look like this: freezing production on a certain level, with some exceptions for Iran, which entered the market just recently after Western sanctions were lifted.

"Iran is starting from a very low position, linked to the well-known sanctions in relation to this country," said Putin. "It would be unfair to leave it on this sanctioned level."

Read more: Putin met Eton students in private, says Kremlin>>>

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Source: Russia Beyond The Headlines

Sun, 04 Sep 2016 05:29

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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrives for a news conference after a meeting on Syria in Geneva, Switzerland, Aug. 26, 2016. Source: Reuters

Moscow and Washington have reached an understanding on a majority of issues concerning Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Sept. 2.

He noted that daily contacts between the Russian and U.S. diplomats, military and intelligence agencies continue "to develop this algorithm (of the fight against terrorism)."

The minister added that this work will be completed before long. "Virtually all components of this task are already clear, an understanding has been reached on most issues," he stated. "The most important thing is that any agreements with the Americans on practical actions, on coordination of operations against terrorists will not be implemented if our American partners do not keep their promise to dissociate themselves from terrorists, above all, the Jabhat al-Nusra (terrorist group banned in Russia)."

"Many of the groups considered acceptable by the U.S. have actually affiliated with Jabhat al-Nusra, while Jabhat al-Nusra is using them to avoid being attacked," Russia's top diplomat explained.

Source: Tass.com

Turkey has gone further than promised in Syria, says Moscow>>>

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Source: Russia Beyond The Headlines

Sun, 04 Sep 2016 05:32

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Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich. Source: RIA Novosti / Andrey Stetin

Another round of U.S. sanctions against Russia will not have any serious effect on Russia's economy and business, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich told reporters on the sidelines of a forum in Italy.

"Any sanctions impact the GDP of both those who introduce them and those against whom they are introduced. But I don't think there will be any significant effect," Dvorkovich told on Sept. 2 during the forum "Intelligence on the World, Europe, and Italy."

He added that Russia is already accustomed to the fact that "the sanctions exist and such changes have little meaning."

The U.S. government on Sept. 1 once again expanded the list of Russian individuals and legal entities subject to unilateral American economic sanctions, including sectoral, in connection with the conflict in Ukraine. The list has been supplemented with 17 individuals and 19 companies. The list of those subject to sectoral sanctions has in particular been expanded to include a number of Russian energy giant Gazprom subsidiaries. The sanctions were also slapped on the companies linked to the construction of the Kerch Strait Bridge.

Source: Tass.com

Hollande says EU seeks to end sanctions against Russia as soon as possible>>>

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Source: Russia Beyond The Headlines

Sun, 04 Sep 2016 05:35

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A waterobics lesson at a hotel in Antalya. Source: Vladimir Vyatkin/RIA Novosti

Over 60,000 Russian tourists will have an opportunity to spend vacations in Turkey in September, Dmitry Gorin, the Vice-President of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR) told Rossiay 24 channel on Sept. 1.

"We also know that Russian and foreign airlines have filed requests for 63 flights a week between Turkish (and Russian) cities and if all these plans materialize, a minimum of 60,000 people will be able to travel to Turkey at very competitive prices in September," Gorin said.

He also indicated that one could speak about a considerable reduction of prices for tours to Turkey already now.

"Early analysis shows the prices have fallen already and an economy tour for two per eight nights costs 32,000 rubles ($ 484) now," Gorin said.

Chartered flights between Russia and Turkey resume on Sept. 2 after an almost year-long break.

Source: Tass.com

Read more: Why Russia is in no rush to revive business with Turkey>>>

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 05:33

The world's largest country suffers from a lack of connectedness between many of its regions. While the parlous state of Russian roads is often lamented by citizens, when it comes to bridges the situation is even more serious. So why does the country have so few bridges?

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The construction of Temporary Bridge No.2 between Tuzla and the navigable part of the Strait of Kerch, at the construction site of a road-and-rail bridge which is to link Crimea to mainland Russia. Source: Sergei Bobylev/TASS

Since Crimea came under Russian rule, the construction of a bridge across the Kerch Strait from the Krasnodar Territory has become an urgent need for Russia, as the disputed peninsula can be reached from the mainland only by plane or ferry. The feasibility of carrying out this complex and expensive project (228.3 billion rubles, or nearly $3.5 billion) in the midst of an economic crisis has caused debate in Russian society, which has spread to the problem of bridges in Russia as a whole.

Russia is the largest country in the world and has a significant amount of water resources. One of the most challenging tasks that has always faced Russian rulers, one associated with the possibility of economic development, was to ensure communication between different parts of their vast domain.

The current Russian authorities are also aware of this task: "We need to ensure, in the full sense, the transport connectedness and unity of the entire Russian territory," Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his message to the Federal Assembly in December 2012.

A report by the Institute of Transport Economics and Transport Policy at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow has compared the structure of road networks in different countries. Canada, China, Germany and the United States have neat grid-like patterns, with transport links established between all states, provinces and territories, while Russia has a radial structure, with all roads leading in the direction of Moscow, where they run into a traffic jam on the ring road around the capital.

The most expensive and important piece of road infrastructure is bridges '' and Russia has more serious problems with them than with roads in general.

Russian detour indexAccording to the latest available data from the state-owned statistical agency Rosstat, published at the end of 2014, Russia has 72,500 bridges, both road and rail. Is this many or few for a country whose territory is crossed by 2.8 million rivers? For instance, the United States has 250,000 rivers and 600,000 bridges.

Building a 160-meter bridge across the Argun River in the Chechen Republic's Shatoi District. Source: Said Tsarnaev/RIA Novosti

Official statistics on the lack of bridges in Russia do not exist, but can be assessed indirectly from two indicators. Firstly, according to the number of permanent crossings '' summer and winter. A total of 257 summer and 3,500 winter crossings is quite a high figure even for such a large country (according to the data collected at the end of 2014; for comparison, the U.S., according to the 2010 census, has 485 ferry terminals).

Second, the lack of bridges can be judged by a detour index '' the difference in the distance between points A and B on the ground and in the air. For example, in Moscow, the detour index accounts for 70-80 percent against 20-25 percent in Western metropolitan areas, according to Andrei Mukhortikov, deputy head of the expert center Probok.net.

A view of the Zhivopisny (Picturesque) Bridge in Moscow. Source: Maksim Blinov/RIA Novosti

According to Mikhail Blinkin, director of the Institute of Transport Economy and Transport Policy at the Higher School of Economics, there is no city in Russia with an indicator better than 50 percent. For example, to get from the regional center of the Arkhangelsk Region to the main attraction of the region '' the Solovetsky Islands (or more precisely, to the nearest settlement on the land '' the village of Solovetsky), it is necessary to travel around 750 miles by car, with a detour through Karelia, although the actual distance is just 150 miles (data from the public service Yandex).

Why is so little being built?The construction of bridges in Russia is moving at a slower pace than the construction of roads. From 2000 to 2014, according to Rosstat, only 200 new bridges were built. This happens for obvious reasons: They are very expensive. The Higher School of Economics has calculated that one kilometer of usual single-lane road costs 101.7 million rubles ($1.5 million on average), while it takes 579 million rubles ($8.9 million) to build a bridge of the same length.

A bridge over the Eastern Bosphorus Strait in Vladivostok. Source: Yury Smytuk / TASS

In general, however, spending on the road sector in Russia is quite small compared with other countries, when measured as a percentage of GDP. Russia spends less than 2 percent, while the norm for countries with a well-developed road network is no less than 3 percent, says Blinkin. If we measure the value of infrastructure assets as a percentage of GDP, Russia also is not among the leaders: 179 percent in Japan, 76 percent in China, 61 percent in Russia.

Moreover, costs for builders are increased due to traditional Russian difficulties '' weather, distance, the economic underdevelopment of territories and the urbanization of the road network (roads traditionally pass through settlements, which greatly increases the cost of land acquisition).

For example, crushed stone for the construction of a bridge across the Tangnary river on the Vilyui highway in Yakutia was first transported almost 2,500 miles by rail from Kemerovo to the Tommot station, and then 285 miles by road to the site, according to Vasily Mazur, CEO of Transsakhamost, the company responsible for building the bridge.

Every ninth bridge in Russia is wooden. Pictured: An old wooden bridge and Paraskieva Pyatnitsa church in Ismailovsky village in Kenozero national park. Source: Alexey Kudenko/RIA Novosti

However, despite all the difficulties, the construction of bridges is big business in Russia and involves about 500 companies with a revenue volume of more than 50 million rubles ($766,000). The problem is that it is often the flashier and more expensive projects related to various events that are chosen for construction.

For example, a total of 46 road and rail bridges were built on a new highway for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi (the total value of all road works was 285.4 billion rubles, or $4.4 billion). A cable-stayed bridge over the Eastern Bosphorus Strait connected Vladivostok and Russky Island, which hosted the APEC summit in 2012, and is now used by students of the Far Eastern Federal University (32.2 billion rubles, $493 million).

Every ninth bridge in Russia is wooden. More of these are located in the Khabarovsk Territory than anywhere else '' 706, or more than 60 percent of the total number. In the Arkhangelsk Region, 66 percent of all bridges are wooden, the Trans-Baikal Territory has 624 wooden bridges, or almost half, and the Irkutsk region has 569, or more than 40 percent. However, wooden does not mean bad: In some regions wood is cheap and probably the only alternative to concrete bridges that may never be built there.

This article is abridged. The full version in Russian is available here>>>

Read more: Myths and legends of Moscow's historic Soviet-era hotels>>>

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Source: Russia Beyond The Headlines

Sun, 04 Sep 2016 06:16

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Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova during a press briefing. Source: Sergey Pyatakov/RIA Novosti

Moscow is closely following the Turkish army's operation in northern Syria and it urges coordination of the military operation with the Syrian authorities, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing on Aug. 31.

"We closely monitor the Turkish Armed Forces' military operation in Syria. Certainly, we share the Turkish Republic's wish to struggle against the Islamic State (outlawed in Russia) which is an embodiment of the international evil, but at the same time we would like to draw attention to the need for following international law and to coordinate all military operations in the territory of a sovereign state with the legitimate government of that country."

Zakharova called for avoiding strikes against the positions of Syrian Kurds.

"We are calling upon the Turkish partners to selectively identify the targets in conducting the anti-terrorist operation and to refrain from strikes against the locations of oppositional and ethnic groups, including Syrian Kurds, that are fighting against the Islamic State," Zakharova said.

She pointed out that currently "the most important task is to present a common front with all parties concerned and to fight against the terrorist threat."

Source: Tass.com

Read more: Turkey has gone further than promised in Syria, says Moscow>>>

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 05:38

Marcel Lazar Lehel, 40, is escorted by masked policemen in Bucharest, after being arrested in Arad, 550 km (337 miles) west of Bucharest January 22, 2014. REUTERS/Mediafax/Silviu Matei

Guccifer, aka 44-year-old Romanian cab driver Marcel Lazar, had been extradited from his homeland in March to face a U.S. grand jury. Lazar pleaded guilty earlier this year to two of the nine charges '-- aggravated identity theft and unauthorized access to a protected computer.

Today's sentences of 24 months and 28 months for those charges are to be served consecutively, and will be followed by a three-year term of supervised release.

Read More: Hacker Who Claims to Have Breached Clinton Server Pleads GuiltyThe charges stem from what the U.S. government described as a "computer hacking spree" during 2012-2014 that included targets such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell and Sidney Blumenthal, a former Clinton aide.

In total, Lazar breached the email and social media accounts of over 100 Americans and made much of those findings public, revealing the clintonemail.com domain name - which ultimately led to an FBI investigation into Clinton's handling of classified information.

The Romanian hacker first rose to prominence in the U.S. after he hacked into email accounts belonging to George W. Bush and made public some of the former president's own paintings, including bath-time self-portraits.

Because of his AOL-heavy cyberattacks, Lazar was sentenced in Virginia, where internet service provider AOL is based.

Following his four years in U.S. jail, Lazar must still complete a seven-year sentence in Romania.

Read More: Guccifer Who Leaked Bush Paintings Is Sentenced to Jail

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Source: newest submissions : inthemorning

Sun, 04 Sep 2016 05:40

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 1 (UPI) -- The Romanian hacker known as "Guccifer" who uncovered Hillary Clinton's private email server and illegally gained access to dozens of prominent Americans' personal accounts has been sentenced to 52 months in federal prison.

Marcel Lazar, 44, a Romanian cab driver who went by the online pseudonym Guccifer, was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Virginia after pleading guilty to charges of aggravated identity theft and unauthorized access to a protected computer. Federal District Court Judge James Cacheris sentenced Lazar to 24 months and 28 months on the charges and ordered those sentences to be served consecutively.

Lazar was the hacker who unearthed and publicized the domain www.clintonemail.com, which the Clintons used to host their private email accounts and those of close aides. Hillary Clinton continued to use the domain when she was secretary of state, leading to accusations she mishandled classified government information. The email scandal wound up coming under investigation by Congress and the FBI.

Lazar first came upon Clinton's private email after hacking the account of her friend and close adviser Sidney Blumenthal.

Lazar also hacked the private account of former President George W. Bush, releasing images of a personal painting, a self-portrait in the bathtub.

Lazar was extradited to the United States by Romania to face a grand jury. He still faces a seven-year sentence in his home country when he is finished serving the sentence handed down in the United States on Thursday.

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Thu, 01 Sep 2016 18:43

On Sunday morning, the South Carolina honey bees began to die in massive numbers.

Death came suddenly to Dorchester County, S.C. Stressed insects tried to flee their nests, only to surrender in little clumps at hive entrances. The dead worker bees littering the farms suggested that colony collapse disorder was not the culprit '-- in that odd phenomenon, workers vanish as though raptured, leaving a living queen and young bees behind.

Instead, the dead heaps signaled the killer was less mysterious, but no less devastating. The pattern matched acute pesticide poisoning. By one estimate, at a single apiary '-- Flowertown Bee Farm and Supply, in Summerville '-- 46 hives died on the spot, totaling about 2.5 million bees.

Walking through the farm, one Summerville woman wrote on Facebook, was ''like visiting a cemetery, pure sadness.''

[A common pesticide may be a menace to pollinators. Know how to protect them.]

A Clemson University scientist collected soil samples from Flowertown on Tuesday, according to WCBD-TV, to further investigate the cause of death. But to the bee farmers, the reason is already clear. Their bees had been poisoned by Dorchester's own insecticide efforts, casualties in the war on disease-carrying mosquitoes.

On Sunday morning, parts of Dorchester County were sprayed with Naled, a common insecticide that kills mosquitoes on contact. The United States began using Naled in 1959, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which notes that the chemical dissipates so quickly it is not a hazard to people. That said, human exposure to Naled during spraying ''should not occur.''

In parts of South Carolina, trucks trailing pesticide clouds are not an unusual sight, thanks to a mosquito-control program that also includes destroying larvae. Given the current concerns of West Nile virus and Zika '-- there are several dozen cases of travel-related Zika in South Carolina, though the state health department reports no one has yet acquired the disease from a local mosquito bite '-- Dorchester decided to try something different Sunday.

Everything you ever wanted to know about the Zika virus and its spread across North and South America. (Daron Taylor,Claritza Jimenez/The Washington Post)

It marked a departure from Dorchester County's usual ground-based efforts. For the first time, an airplane dispensed Naled in a fine mist, raining insect death from above between 6:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. Sunday. The county says it provided plenty of warning, spreading word about the pesticide plane via a newspaper announcement Friday and a Facebook post Saturday.

[Call off the bee-pocalypse: U.S. honeybee colonies hit a 20-year high]

Local beekeepers felt differently.

''Had I known, I would have been camping on the steps doing whatever I had to do screaming, 'No you can't do this,''' beekeeper Juanita Stanley said in an interview with Charleston's WCSC-TV. Stanley told the Charleston Post and Courier that the bees are her income, but she is more devastated by the loss of the bees than her honey.

The county acknowledged the bee deaths Tuesday. ''Dorchester County is aware that some beekeepers in the area that was sprayed on Sunday lost their beehives,'' Jason Ward, county administrator, said in a news release. He added, according to the Charleston Post and Courier, ''I am not pleased that so many bees were killed.''

Officials in Miami are hoping pesticides sprayed from the skies will be enough to kill the mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus there. Florida health officials have identified 15 Zika cases spread by local mosquitoes. (Reuters)

Spraying Naled from the air is not unprecedented, particularly when covering areas that cannot be reached by truck. In a single year in Florida, more than 6 million acres were fumigated with the chemical, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency argued in January that the technique should be used to curb Zika in Puerto Rico.

[CDC director: Miami mosquitoes succumbing to aerial sprays]

But the insect neurotoxin cannot discriminate between honey bees and bloodsuckers. A profile of the chemical in Cornell University's pesticide database warned that ''Naled is highly toxic to bees.''

Although the insecticide was known to kill bees, to South Carolina beekeepers spraying had not been as significant a concern as parasites, disease and other hive threats. As South Carolina Beekeepers Association President Larry Haigh told the Post and Courier in June 2015, many counties will spray at night, when honey bees do not forage for pollen. Plus, given sufficient warning, beekeepers will shield their hives and protect the bees' food and water from contamination.

Sunday was different. Summerville resident Andrew Macke, who keeps bees as a hobby, wrote on Facebook that the hot weather left bees particularly exposed. Once temperatures exceed 90 degrees, bees may exit the nest to cool down in what is called a beard, clustering on the outside of the hive in a ball. Neither Macke nor Stanley had covered their hives.

And then came the plane.

''They passed right over the trees three times,'' Stanley said to ABC 4 News. After the plane left, the familiar buzzing stopped. The silence in its wake was like a morgue, she said.

As for the dead bees, as Stanley told the AP, her farm ''looks like it's been nuked.''

A Summerville resident started a Change.org petition calling for Dorchester County to halt aerial Naled spraying. It is unclear whether those who lost bees are pursuing other recourse.

Doctors confirmed the link between the Zika virus and microcephaly in April. While the most visible sign of microcephaly is the small size of the head, its actually inside the brain where the most damage occurs. (Whitney Leaming,Julio Negron/The Washington Post)

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Fri, 02 Sep 2016 12:54

On Sunday morning, the South Carolina honey bees began to die in massive numbers.

Death came suddenly to Dorchester County, S.C. Stressed insects tried to flee their nests, only to surrender in little clumps at hive entrances. The dead worker bees littering the farms suggested that colony collapse disorder was not the culprit '-- in that odd phenomenon, workers vanish as though raptured, leaving a living queen and young bees behind.

Instead, the dead heaps signaled the killer was less mysterious, but no less devastating. The pattern matched acute pesticide poisoning. By one estimate, at a single apiary '-- Flowertown Bee Farm and Supply, in Summerville '-- 46 hives died on the spot, totaling about 2.5 million bees.

Walking through the farm, one Summerville woman wrote on Facebook, was ''like visiting a cemetery, pure sadness.''

[A common pesticide may be a menace to pollinators. Know how to protect them.]

A Clemson University scientist collected soil samples from Flowertown on Tuesday, according to WCBD-TV, to further investigate the cause of death. But to the bee farmers, the reason is already clear. Their bees had been poisoned by Dorchester's own insecticide efforts, casualties in the war on disease-carrying mosquitoes.

On Sunday morning, parts of Dorchester County were sprayed with Naled, a common insecticide that kills mosquitoes on contact. The United States began using Naled in 1959, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which notes that the chemical dissipates so quickly it is not a hazard to people. That said, human exposure to Naled during spraying ''should not occur.''

In parts of South Carolina, trucks trailing pesticide clouds are not an unusual sight, thanks to a mosquito-control program that also includes destroying larvae. Given the current concerns of West Nile virus and Zika '-- there are several dozen cases of travel-related Zika in South Carolina, though the state health department reports no one has yet acquired the disease from a local mosquito bite '-- Dorchester decided to try something different Sunday.

Everything you ever wanted to know about the Zika virus and its spread across North and South America. (Daron Taylor,Claritza Jimenez/The Washington Post)

It marked a departure from Dorchester County's usual ground-based efforts. For the first time, an airplane dispensed Naled in a fine mist, raining insect death from above between 6:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. Sunday. The county says it provided plenty of warning, spreading word about the pesticide plane via a newspaper announcement Friday and a Facebook post Saturday.

[Call off the bee-pocalypse: U.S. honeybee colonies hit a 20-year high]

Local beekeepers felt differently.

''Had I known, I would have been camping on the steps doing whatever I had to do screaming, 'No you can't do this,''' beekeeper Juanita Stanley said in an interview with Charleston's WCSC-TV. Stanley told the Charleston Post and Courier that the bees are her income, but she is more devastated by the loss of the bees than her honey.

The county acknowledged the bee deaths Tuesday. ''Dorchester County is aware that some beekeepers in the area that was sprayed on Sunday lost their beehives,'' Jason Ward, county administrator, said in a news release. He added, according to the Charleston Post and Courier, ''I am not pleased that so many bees were killed.''

Officials in Miami are hoping pesticides sprayed from the skies will be enough to kill the mosquitoes carrying the Zika virus there. Florida health officials have identified 15 Zika cases spread by local mosquitoes. (Reuters)

Spraying Naled from the air is not unprecedented, particularly when covering areas that cannot be reached by truck. In a single year in Florida, more than 6 million acres were fumigated with the chemical, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency argued in January that the technique should be used to curb Zika in Puerto Rico.

[CDC director: Miami mosquitoes succumbing to aerial sprays]

But the insect neurotoxin cannot discriminate between honey bees and bloodsuckers. A profile of the chemical in Cornell University's pesticide database warned that ''Naled is highly toxic to bees.''

Although the insecticide was known to kill bees, to South Carolina beekeepers spraying had not been as significant a concern as parasites, disease and other hive threats. As South Carolina Beekeepers Association President Larry Haigh told the Post and Courier in June 2015, many counties will spray at night, when honey bees do not forage for pollen. Plus, given sufficient warning, beekeepers will shield their hives and protect the bees' food and water from contamination.

Sunday was different. Summerville resident Andrew Macke, who keeps bees as a hobby, wrote on Facebook that the hot weather left bees particularly exposed. Once temperatures exceed 90 degrees, bees may exit the nest to cool down in what is called a beard, clustering on the outside of the hive in a ball. Neither Macke nor Stanley had covered their hives.

And then came the plane.

''They passed right over the trees three times,'' Stanley said to ABC 4 News. After the plane left, the familiar buzzing stopped. The silence in its wake was like a morgue, she said.

As for the dead bees, as Stanley told the AP, her farm ''looks like it's been nuked.''

A Summerville resident started a Change.org petition calling for Dorchester County to halt aerial Naled spraying. It is unclear whether those who lost bees are pursuing other recourse.

Update: Dorchester County administrator Jason Ward wrote to The Washington Post in a statement on Thursday, clarifying that the county sent out a press release at 9:15 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 26.

''The beekeepers that were on the county's contact list that were in the zone to be sprayed were called with one exception. Mr. Scott Gaskins, who runs the Mosquito Control program, failed to call Mitch Yawn, Ms. Juanita Stanley's business partner,'' Ward said in the email.

''The second issue regarding beekeepers like Mr. Andrew Macke revolves around the fact that the county did not have these locations on its list. However, we have reached out to the Lowcountry Beekeepers Association and they provided us with the names and locations for other beekeepers in Dorchester County.''

Doctors confirmed the link between the Zika virus and microcephaly in April. While the most visible sign of microcephaly is the small size of the head, its actually inside the brain where the most damage occurs. (Whitney Leaming,Julio Negron/The Washington Post)

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Sat, 03 Sep 2016 12:52

AsDavidandRichhave already noted, the FBI-302 report of the interview of Hillary Clinton, along with the other notes of investigation released today, make for mind boggling reading. Most bracing is the fact that Mrs. Clinton had her server wiped clean sometime between March 25 and 31, 2015, only three weeks after theNew York Timeson March 3 broke the story of the server system's existence. David notes that, at the same time the Democrats' Janus-faced presidential nominee was outwardly taking the position that she ''want[ed] the public to see my email,'' she was having her minions frantically purge her emails behind the scenes.

I'd add that this was five months before she feigned ignorance when Fox News's Ed Henry pressed her on whether she'd ''tried to wipe the entire server '... so there could be no email '' no personal, no official.'' Henry finally asked, ''Did you wipe the server?'' Famously, Clinton scoffed, ''Like with a cloth or something?'' But we now know, as the FBI notes recount, she had the server purged with a sophisticated software program, BleachBit, which eventually made it extraordinarily difficult for the FBI to recover her emails, several thousand of which were successfully destroyed.

And remember: We've just learned that30 emails related to Benghazi were on the server Clinton purged'' emails that she never turned over to the State Department despite claiming repeatedly that she'd surrendered all of her government-related emails. I would thus note that the March 2015 purge right after public revelation of the server's existence occurred long after Mrs. Clinton was well aware of several official government investigations of the Benghazi massacre '' one by the State Department, several by Congress, and a judicial proceeding involving the one defendant who has been indicted for the terrorist attack. There were also, quite obviously, several relevant Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigations. From what I've been able to glean so far, it is not clear from the FBI's notes (and it was certainly not clear from Director James Comey's press conference and House testimony) whether any consideration was given to indicting Mrs. Clinton for obstruction of justice and of government investigations '' and if not, why not.

Among the most eye-popping claims Clinton made to the FBI was that she was unfamiliar with the markings on classified documents. Yes, you read that correctly: one of the highest ranking national security officials in the United States government '' an official whose day-to-day responsibilities extensively involved classified information; who had secure facilities installed in her two homes (in addition to her office) so she could review classified information in them; and who acknowledged to the FBI that, as secretary of state, she wasdesignated by the presidentas ''an Original Classification Authority,'' meaning she had the power to determine what information should be classified and at what level '' had the audacity to tell the interviewing agents that she did not know what the different classification symbols in classified documents signified.

For example, when asked about an email chain containing the symbol ''(C)'' '' meaning ''confidential,'' a designation ubiquitous in classified documents '' Clinton claimed not to know what it meant and, according to the notes, ''could only speculate it was referencing paragraphs marked in alphabetical order.'' This is a response so absurd as to be insulting (the interview notes do not tell us if the FBI asked her to find (A), (B) and (D) notations that would be necessary to have the ''alphabetical order'' story make sense '' assuming, for argument's sake that one would indulge the possibility that this could be a truthful answer from a classified information consumer as high-level as Clinton).

Mind you, Mrs. Clinton was not just secretary of state for four years. She was a United States senator for eight years, during nearly all of which she was assigned to the Senate Armed Services Committee (and such Armed Services components as the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities). Reviewing classified information, including highly sensitive national defense secrets, is a routine part of that committee's work.

Clinton also claimed that she ''did not pay attention to the 'level' of classified information.'' The interview notes do not explain how the FBI squared this with, for example, (a) Clinton's acknowledgement that top-secret ''special access program'' (SAP) information was delivered to her by paper in her office and she knew it was supposed to be handled with extraordinary care; and (b) Clinton's admission that she made use of her Original Classification Authority at times (though she couldn't say how often). That means she had to have assigned to some information the very classification levels with which she portrays herself as scarcely familiar.

We also learn in the FBI documents not only that Mrs. Clinton frequently lost her Blackberry devices, but thatthe FBI failed to account for some thirteen of them, most if not all of which she used while transmitting the over 2,000 classified emails the FBI identified.

Clinton aides told the FBI that her devices '' loaded with stored emails '' would at times disappear and their whereabouts would become unknown. Interestingly, in the notes of Mrs. Clinton's interview, the FBI says she told them that her BlackBerry devices would occasionally ''malfunction''; when this happened, ''[h]er aides would assist in obtaining a new BlackBerry.'' I have not yet found indications that the FBI asked her aboutlostrather thanmalfunctioningdevices.

We do learn, though, that on February 9, 2016, the Justice Department asked Clinton's lawyers to turn over all 13 mobile devices that the FBI identified as having potentially transmitted emails. Almost two weeks later, on February 22, the lawyers told the FBI ''they were unable to locate any of these devices.'' As a result, the notes recount, ''the FBI was unable to acquire or forensically examine any of these 13 mobile devices.''

Finally, something else about those lawyers. I nearly fell out of my chair upon reading the very first paragraph of the notes of Clinton's interview, which identifies the lawyers for Clinton who were permitted to be present for the interview. Among them is Cheryl Mills, Clinton's longtime confidant and chief-of-staff at the State Department.

Readers may recall thatI suggested back in May that ''the fix'' was in in the investigation of the Clinton emails. The reason was that the Justice Department was allowing Cheryl Mills ''a witness, if not a subject, of the investigation'' to invoke attorney-client privilege on behalf of Mrs. Clinton in order to thwart the FBI's attempt to inquire into the procedure used to produce Clinton's emails to the State Department. Mills was a participant in that procedure '' and it is the procedure in which, we now know, well over 30,000 emails were attempted to be destroyed, including several thousand that contained government-related business.

When she worked for Clinton at State, Mills was not acting in the capacity of a lawyer '' not for then-Secretary Clinton and not for the State Department. Moreover, as Clinton's chief-of-staff, Mills was intimately involved in issues related to Clinton's private email set up, the discussions about getting her a secure BlackBerry similar to President Obama's, and questions that were raised (including in FOIA requests) about Clinton's communications.

That is to say,Mills was an actor in the facts that were under criminal investigation by the FBI. Put aside that she was not Mrs. Clinton's lawyer while working for the State Department; as I explained in the May column, Mills, after leaving the State Department, was barred by ethical rules from acting as Mrs. Clinton's lawyer ''in connection with a matter in which the lawyer participated personally and substantially as a public officer or employee.''

There is no way Mills should have been permitted to participateas a lawyerin the process of producing Clinton's emails to the State Department nearly two years after they'd both left. I thought it was astonishing that the Justice Department indulged her attorney-client privilege claim, which frustrated the FBI's ability to question her on a key aspect of the investigation. But it is simply unbelievable to find her turning up at Mrs. Clinton's interview '' participatingin the capacity of a lawyerunder circumstances where Clinton was being investigated over matters in which Mills participated as a non-lawyer government official.

According to the FBI's report, Mrs. Clinton had four other attorneys (one whose name is deleted from the report for some reason) representing her at the interview. She clearly did not need another lawyer. And it is Criminal Investigations 101 that law enforcement never interviews witnesses together '' the point is to learn the truth, not provide witnesses/suspects with an opportunity to keep their story straight, which undermines the search for truth.

Why on earth was Cheryl Mills permitted to sit in on Hillary Clinton's FBI interview?

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 05:21

Until the announcement that Barack Obama was extending the state of emergency that has legally existed in the United States since September 14, 2001, hit my inbox this afternoon, I will confess that I was somewhat unaware we were in an emergency situation.

But, apparently we are:

Given that the emergency is defined vaguely as constituting something like ''terrorists might attack the country,'' it seems like we should consider dropping the charade of annual renewals and just admit that ''emergency'' 9/11 powers are now a permanent part of the landscape.

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 05:37

After much prayer, I am announcing my retirement from the Dallas Police Department after 33 years as a Dallas police officer. My retirement will be effective October 22, 2016.

Serving the citizens of Dallas in this noble profession has been both a true honor and a humbling experience.

Thank you to Mayors, City Managers and Dallas City Council members past and present for allowing me to serve. Thank you for the service you have provided for this great city.

I became a Dallas cop in 1983 because of the crack cocaine epidemic's impact on my neighborhood in Oak Cliff. I wanted to be part of the solution. Since that time I have taken great pride in knowing that we have always been part of the solution and helped to make Dallas the world class city it is today.

Let's always remember the fallen officers including the five officers on July 7, 2016, and the brave men and women of the Dallas Police Department for their sacrifices to keep Dallas safe. Their memory will remain with all of us forever. I know the people of Dallas will never forget the ultimate sacrifice they made on the streets of our city that awful night.

Officers, your extraordinary service will forever be etched in my heart and will serve as a guidepost for me in the next phase of my life. You will always be in my prayers.

I want to thank my family for their love and support.

This is a difficult decision. I pray for your understanding and well wishes.

Finally, I want to acknowledge my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for my life, health, and strength. I pray for His continued blessings over my life.

Thank you Dallas and God bless!!

~Chief David O. Brown

#DallasStrong

Note: I will be unavailable until September 8, 2016. I will hold a press conference on that date; the time to be determined.

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Source: Real Science

Sun, 04 Sep 2016 05:02

I pulled the seven frames surrounding the explosion from the official Space-X video, and generated an animated gif below. Something was definitely flying past the rocket right when it exploded. Look across the top of the animation.

Here is the video ABC News published on September 1, which I generated the gif from.

It might have been a bird. Difficult to say. There was no indication of any trouble in the frame before the explosion.

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Source: Russia Beyond The Headlines

Sun, 04 Sep 2016 05:30

A mysterious signal has been detected by a radio telescope operated by the Russian Academy of Sciences' Special Observatory in the North Caucasus. Scientists in Europe and the United States think there could be life in the HD164595 star system in the constellation of Hercules. So why have Russian astrophysicists hidden their discovery for over a year? What is their theory about the signal's origin?

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The Special Astrophysical Observatory near the village of Nizhny Arkhyz. Source: Sergei Fadeichev/TASS

The radio signal detected by the Russian telescope RATAN-600 on May 15, 2015 was highly unusual in terms of its strength, with a wavelength of 2.7 cm. The radio session lasted two seconds, which is very long for this type of signal. Waves emanating from the Moon, for example, are seven to 12 times weaker.

"First, we checked if there were satellites in the area where the telescope found the signal, but everything was clean," said Ekaterina Filippova, head of the scientific information department of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Special Observatory in Nizhny Arkhyz (in the North Caucasus, 900 miles south of Moscow), in an interview with RBTH. "It could be interference from military facilities or passing aircraft, but perhaps the signal came from the star system under study."

Earth origins?HD164595 is similar to our solar system. Its distance from Earth is 95 light years. Scientists have been constantly monitoring this system for over a year, especially of a "hot Neptune" planet similar to the Earth in composition but 16 times greater in mass.

Both Russian and Western scientists working on the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project believe that life is unlikely on this planet. Therefore, Russian scientists did not consider their discovery to be important and reported it only last week. They did not anticipate that it would generate huge global interest.

The scientists who made the discovery tend to favor the theory of the signal's earthly origin. "Such interference happens up to 50 times a year, and there is nothing peculiar about this," said Oleg Verkhodanov, a senior astrophysicist at the observatory in Nizhny Arkhyz that discovered the radio wave. "The RATAN telescope works with frequencies that are not used in Europe and America, and the signal was detected in their range."

Another theory proposed by Verkhodanov is so-called "random noise." These phenomena have been discussed in the scientific world for the past two years '' when for unknown reasons a natural surge of waves occurs. "The surges are possible, for example, when an asteroid falls onto a neutron star, and these kind of signals emerge as a result," Verkhodanov told RBTH. "Well, a `Hello' from extraterrestrial civilizations is the last theory on my list."

SETI committee to meetThe discovery of the signal from HD164595 is already one of the main topics for discussion at the annual meeting later this month of the SETI Permanent Committee. It's still not clear what exactly will be discussed at the meeting because such powerful signals suggest a civilization much more advanced than Earth.

According to astrophysicists, the signal could reach Earth only if it was specifically directed at us. In addition, the frequency of 11 GHz where the radio wave was caught belongs to Russian armed forces. The militaries of other countries do not use it.

"The search for extraterrestrial civilizations has been going on for over 50 years, and our radio telescope is the world's largest in its class, and is able to find even the weakest signals," Filippova said.

Will it? Won't it? Watching the Soyuz rocket launches with Putin>>>

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 12:55

A single bolt of lightning striking a tree was all it took to kill 19 cows who were sheltering during a storm.

In seconds, the storm wiped out about a third of the herd in Hallsville, Texas.

Their owner, Ashley Anderson, said she and her husband had never seen anything like it, and called it a freak incident.

''It's not something you see every day. Just kind of surreal to see it,'' she told WSFA news.

''It's just a freak thing; I mean they were just staying out of the rain,'' she added.

''There's really, to my knowledge, nothing you can do to prevent this.''

She added that lightning had never killed any of the family's cows and none of the neigbours' animals, at least not to this extent.

Neighbour Victor Benson saw it happen, reported WSFA. He described how he watched as one lightning bolt hit the herd ''in the blink of an eye''.

Some animals managed to get up and stumbled away, but most were killed outright.

The dead animals were quickly removed from the field and were given to people for meat.

There is still reportedly a mark on the tree where the bolt hit.

The news comes shortly after 323 reindeer were killed in Norway by lightning as they were migrating across a plateau.

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 15:07

Angela Merkel's liberal approach toward asylum seekers helped to push Britons toward voting for Brexit, a leading academic has claimed.

In a paper published Sunday by the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute, one year on from Merkel's September 2015 decision to open Germany's borders to asylum seekers, German political economist Wolfgang Streeck argues that the move was ''without doubt a major force'' behind the U.K.'s vote to leave the European Union on June 23.

''When hearing about the refugee policies sold by the Merkel government to the German public as European policies,'' Streeck writes, the British public, ''Must have feared that at some stage these would have to be adopted by their country as well.''

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin on June 24. Did Merkel's policy on refugees help to drive Brexit?Hannibal Hanschke/reuters

''Looking across the Channel at the Continent, British voters may rightly have been afraid of being burdened with yet another quasi-constitutional, democratically unchangeable obligation to unconditionally open their borders and their labor markets,'' he continues.

Streeck argues that Merkel's asylum policy was made in response to domestic circumstances, calling it an '''immigration policy camouflaged as asylum and refugee policy.'' Merkel was motivated in part, he argues, by the German economy's ''chronic hunger for labour,'' and by ''a desire to divert attention from the German-inspired massacre of the Greek Syriza government.''

Merkel then, he claims, required other European states to go along with the German ''interpretation'' of EU asylum law, to legitimize the policy.

''The slogan of the Leave campaign, 'Taking back control','' Streeck writes, ''must to an important extent be read to reflect a desire not to be subject to the mysterious idiosyncrasies of a German government endowed by its political system with almost unlimited freedom of maneuver and permitted by a skillfully cornered opposition to present its domestic needs as European interests informed by European values.''

Merkel is facing mounting criticism of her asylum policy within Germany.

Sunday sees voters go to the polls in the northern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The right-populist Alternative for Germany (AFD) is expected to perform well, having capitalized on discontent with high immigration to Germany under Merkel's government.

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Source: Dave says...

Sun, 04 Sep 2016 05:31

Samsung's Galaxy Note7 launched on Aug. 19 to rave reviews, but after just a few weeks on the market, the world's most popular smartphone maker is now halting sales of the handset and issuing a global recall following reports that it can catch fire or explode during charging.

In a statement about the matter, Samsung said it is ''committed to producing the highest quality products and we take every incident report from our valued customers very seriously.''

According to the Samsung, 35 cases of battery issues have been reported globally since Sept. 1. Now the company is working with its suppliers to determine which handsets could be affected by the batteries.

''Because our customers' safety is an absolute priority at Samsung, we have stopped sales of the Galaxy Note7,'' a company spokesperson said. ''For customers who already have Galaxy Note7 devices, we will voluntarily replace their current device with a new one over the coming weeks.''

For US customers who already purchased a Note7, Samsung said it is working with its carrier partners to ''announce the details of the U.S. product exchange program as soon as today.''

The battery issue couldn't have come at a worse time for Samsung. The company was riding a wave of excitement following the release of its Galaxy S7 and hoped to continue that positive sales momentum into the fall with the Note7. Now, however, the company will have to recall the Note7, putting a dent in its profits and potentially shaking consumer confidence in the brand.

It doesn't help matters that Apple is expected to announce its iPhone 7 and 7 Plus during a major press event on Sept. 7. As a result, consumers could simply decide to abandon plans to purchase a Samsung device in favor of an iPhone.

Samsung already began to see how the battery problem could impact its bottom line on Sept. 1 when it saw its market value cut by $7 billion. A recall, however, could prove far worse for the company.

More from Dan:

Email Daniel at dhowley@yahoo-inc.com; follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.

Samsung's full statement:

In response to recently reported cases of the new Galaxy Note7, we conducted a thorough investigation and found a battery cell issue. To date (as of September 1) there have been 35 cases that have been reported globally and we are currently conducting a thorough inspection with our suppliers to identify possible affected batteries in the market. However, because our customers' safety is an absolute priority at Samsung, we have stopped sales of the Galaxy Note7. For customers who already have Galaxy Note7 devices, we will voluntarily replace their current device with a new one over the coming weeks.

We are working with our carrier partners to announce the details of the U.S. product exchange program as soon as today.

We acknowledge the inconvenience this may cause in the market but this is to ensure that Samsung continues to deliver the highest quality products to our customers. We are working closely with our partners to ensure the replacement experience is as convenient and efficient as possible.

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 07:18

A Burning Man camp.Facebook/White Ocean

One of Burning Man's luxury camps was ransacked by vandals on Wednesday night, according to a post on the camp's Facebook page.

The White Ocean camp hosts dozens of free techno-music concerts at its stage on the outskirts of the playa, while also providing lodging and food for its star-studded lineup of DJs.

Sometime during or after the group's famous "white party," where ravers dress in all white, vandals entered the camp. They allegedly pulled and cut electric lines, causing food to spoil, stole personal belongings, glued trailer doors shut, and flooded the camp with 200 gallons of potable water, the Facebook post from Thursday reported.

"We have felt like we've been sabotaged from every angle, but last night's chain of events, while we were all out enjoying our beautiful home, was an absolute and definitive confirmation that some feel we are not deserving of Burning Man," the post read.

White Ocean was founded in 2013 by DJ Paul Oakenfold and funded by entrepreneurs Timur Sardarov (the son of Russian billionaire and oil magnate Rashid Sardarov) and Oliver Ripley. The pair also launched a New York-based private holding company called Ocean Group.

The camp has drawn criticism over the years for engaging in behavior counter to the "self-reliance" spirit of Burning Man. It's considered a "plug-and-play" camp, where burners from London, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco drop in and enjoy luxury accommodations, rather than rough it in a tent on the desert floor.

The Reno Gazette Journal reports that hired help assist the camp with production and concierge services around the cafeteria and lounge space.

#whiteocean #2&G

A photo posted by White Ocean (@whiteocean_bm) on Aug 29, 2016 at 11:51am PDT on Aug 29, 2016 at 11:51am PDT

White Ocean wrote on Facebook that after notifying Burning Man organizers of the incident, they were told, "it makes sense that you have been sabotaged as you are a closed camp and not welcoming." Burning Man has a contentious relationship with these plug-and-play camps, as they create an unwanted atmosphere of exclusivity, while also bringing top artists to the desert.

The music-lovers over at White Ocean don't see it that way.

"We provide one of the most state of the art stages on the playa and feed hundreds of non white ocean [sic] burners a day. Does this qualify as a non welcoming camp with no contribution to Burning Man?" Thursday's post read.

The group has contacted local authorities to investigate.

Read the full post below:

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 15:05

Sept. 1, 2016 7:04 p.m. ET Ad fraud activity is highest on certain browsers made by Microsoft Corp.MSFT0.14% and Alphabet Inc.GOOGL0.69%'s Google, according to research by ad fraud detection company FraudLogix.

Fraudsters can manipulate consumers' web browser software for their financial gain by infecting browsers with malicious code and forcing them to load certain webpages. For advertisers this is bad news, since they can wind up paying for ads which can never actually be seen by real people.

To examine the role of browsers in this process, FraudLogix examined a sample of 135 million individual online ad impressions over a seven-day period in July, and analyzed the browsers to which the ads were served. The company also tracked the portion of those ads its technology deemed as delivered to ''non-human'' or ''bot'' traffic.

The browsers in which the most fraudulent impressions loaded were versions of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser and Google's Chrome browser, the study found.

Some 50% of impressions served to Internet Explorer over the course of the study were to ''non-human'' traffic, FraudLogix said, compared with 20.5% of impressions served to Google's Chrome browser.

Microsoft and Google each questioned FraudLogix's methodology, saying it isn't possible to accurately measure fraud at the browser level.

''Bots and malware often forge user agent strings to produce ''fake'' traffic, which can't be attributed to a particular browser,'' Microsoft said in a statement.

Google said in a statement, ''When malware infects someone's device or web browser in general, the infected machine may act as a fraudulent bot impersonating any browser, even if it isn't installed on the infected machine. As a result, we've found that measuring ad fraud per browser has not been a helpful way of understanding this issue.''

FraudLogix Chief Executive Hagai Shechter acknowledged that infected computers may impersonate browsers, but said the company does not believe that happened in most instances it tracked during its study.

Instances of fraud are potentially higher for Chrome and Internet Explorer because of their widespread adoption, Mr. Shechter added. Other browsers might be more vulnerable, but they make less attractive targets because they have fewer users.

16.2% of the overall traffic FraudLogix examined was from Internet Explorer, compared with 61% from Chrome.

A recent study by the Association of National Advertisers estimated that advertisers could waste $7 billion this year on ads no people will ever see. Users may have little idea their browsers have been infected, since the webpages can be loaded in the background without them noticing.

Other browsers examined during the FraudLogix research included Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari, and Microsoft's newer browser, called Microsoft Edge.

Fewer than 5% of impressions delivered to all versions of those browsers were deemed fraudulent by FraudLogix.

Mr. Shechter said instances of fraudulent impressions were significantly lower for more recent versions of the Chrome browser, suggesting Google is successfully fixing ''vulnerabilities'' in its software. Many of the Chrome browser versions with the highest fraud rates are no longer supported by Google, and are used by a relatively small number of users.

''It seems like Google gets it, and that they're addressing the vulnerabilities and the holes,'' Mr. Shechter said.

With regard to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mr. Shechter said he was surprised to see that one version of the browser, Internet Explorer 11.0, contributed the highest percentage of fake traffic overall.

That version of the browser has been discontinued, but is technically still supported by Microsoft. Because of that, ''the security problems should be addressed and we're just not seeing that,'' Mr. Shechter said.

Write to Jack Marshall at Jack.Marshall@wsj.com

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Source: Real Science

Sun, 04 Sep 2016 05:56

Today marks the beginning of meteorological Autumn. It has been cold here in Colorado the last couple of weeks, but in 1913 it was over 100F on this date. Almost the entire country was over 90F on September 1, 1913, with much of the country over 100F. Iowa was 108F.

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 15:04

NORFOLK, Va. '-- Huge vertical rulers are sprouting beside low spots in the streets here, so people can judge if the tidal floods that increasingly inundate their roads are too deep to drive through.

Five hundred miles down the Atlantic Coast, the only road to Tybee Island, Ga., is disappearing beneath the sea several times a year, cutting the town off from the mainland.

And another 500 miles on, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., increased tidal flooding is forcing the city to spend millions fixing battered roads and drains '-- and, at times, to send out giant vacuum trucks to suck saltwater off the streets.

For decades, as the global warming created by human emissions caused land ice to melt and ocean water to expand, scientists warned that the accelerating rise of the sea would eventually imperil the United States' coastline.

Now, those warnings are no longer theoretical: The inundation of the coast has begun. The sea has crept up to the point that a high tide and a brisk wind are all it takes to send water pouring into streets and homes.

Federal scientists have documented a sharp jump in this nuisance flooding '-- often called ''sunny-day flooding'' '-- along both the East Coast and the Gulf Coast in recent years. The sea is now so near the brim in many places that they believe the problem is likely to worsen quickly. Shifts in the Pacific Ocean mean that the West Coast, partly spared over the past two decades, may be hit hard, too.

These tidal floods are often just a foot or two deep, but they can stop traffic, swamp basements, damage cars, kill lawns and forests, and poison wells with salt. Moreover, the high seas interfere with the drainage of storm water.

In coastal regions, that compounds the damage from the increasingly heavy rains plaguing the country, like those that recently caused extensive flooding in Louisiana. Scientists say these rains are also a consequence of human greenhouse emissions.

''Once impacts become noticeable, they're going to be upon you quickly,'' said William V. Sweet, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Silver Spring, Md., who is among the leaders in research on coastal inundation. ''It's not a hundred years off '-- it's now.''

Local governments, under pressure from annoyed citizens, are beginning to act. Elections are being won on promises to invest money to protect against flooding. Miami Beach is leading the way, increasing local fees to finance a $400 million plan that includes raising streets, installing pumps and elevating sea walls.

In many of the worst-hit cities, mayors of both parties are sounding an alarm.

''I'm a Republican, but I also realize, by any objective analysis, the sea level is rising,'' said Jason Buelterman, the mayor of tiny Tybee Island, one of the first Georgia communities to adopt a detailed climate plan.

GraphicGlobal warming and rising seas are increasing the amount of tidal flooding on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts.

But the local leaders say they cannot tackle this problem alone. They are pleading with state and federal governments for guidance and help, including billions to pay for flood walls, pumps and road improvements that would buy them time.

Yet Congress has largely ignored these pleas, and has even tried to block plans by the military to head off future problems at the numerous bases imperiled by a rising sea. A Republican congressman from Colorado, Ken Buck, recently called one military proposal part of a ''radical climate change agenda.''

The gridlock in Washington means the United States lacks not only a broad national policy on sea-level rise, it has something close to the opposite: The federal government spends billions of taxpayer dollars in ways that add to the risks, by subsidizing local governments and homeowners who build in imperiled locations along the coast.

As the problem worsens, experts are warning that national security is on the line. Naval bases, in particular, are threatened; they can hardly be moved away from the ocean, yet much of their land is at risk of disappearing within this century.

''It's as if the country was being attacked along every border, simultaneously,'' said Andrea Dutton, a climate scientist at the University of Florida and one of the world's leading experts on rising seas. ''It's a slow, gradual attack, but it threatens the safety and security of the United States.''

'We're Living It'One night eight years ago, Karen Speights, a Norfolk resident, was sitting at the dinner table with her mother, eating crab legs dipped in butter and a tangy sauce. She felt a tingle.

PhotoKaren Speights is wondering how to get her mother out of the neighborhood in Norfolk, Va., before the water comes again.Credit Eliot Dudik for The New York Times''Ma!'' she cried. ''My feet are wet!''

Her mother laughed, but then she felt it, too: a house that had not flooded since the family moved there in 1964 was soon awash in saltwater. Ms. Speights initially hoped that flood was a fluke. Instead, it turned out to be the first of three to hit their home in less than a decade.

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 14:45

HANGZHOU, China A Chinese official confronted U.S. President Barack Obama's national security adviser on the tarmac on Saturday prompting the Secret Service to intervene, an unusual altercation as China implements strict controls ahead of a big summit.

The stakes are high for China to pull off a trouble-free G20 summit of the world's top economies, its highest profile event of the year, as it looks to cement its global standing and avoid acrimony over a long list of tensions with Washington.

Shortly after Obama's plane landed in the eastern city of Hangzhou, a Chinese official attempted to prevent his national security adviser Susan Rice from walking to the motorcade as she crossed a media rope line, speaking angrily to her before a Secret Service agent stepped between the two.

Rice responded but her comments were inaudible to reporters standing underneath the wing of Air Force One. It was unclear if the official, whose name was not immediately clear, knew that Rice was a senior official and not a reporter.

The same official shouted at a White House press aide who was instructing foreign reporters on where to stand as they recorded Obama disembarking from the plane.

"This is our country. This is our airport," the official said in English, pointing and speaking angrily with the aide.

The U.S. aide insisted that the journalists be allowed to stand behind a rope line, and they were able to record the interaction and Obama's arrival uninterrupted, typical practice for U.S. press traveling with the president.

A White House spokesman and China's Foreign Ministry both did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

The altercation occurred out of sight of Obama, who greeted ambassadors and other officials before the presidential motorcade pulled away with Rice.

The incident is an illustration of the image-conscious ruling Communist Party's efforts to control the media as its seeks to orchestrate what it hopes will be a flawless event.

China has taken extensive security measures in preparation for the G20 summit opening on Sunday.

On Saturday, many roads and shops in Hangzhou were deserted and shuttered in the usually bustling city with a population of 9 million.

The Chinese government has broad control over domestic media and prevents many foreign media outlets from publishing in the country, including by blocking their websites.

Obama has raised issues of freedom of the press on previous visits to China, which insists that media must follow the party line and promote "positive propaganda".

Foreign reporters are often physically prevented from covering sensitive stories, but altercations involving foreign government officials are rare.

Rice met Chinese dissidents before her last trip to China in late July, when she held talks with President Xi Jinping and other senior officials.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Writing by Michael Martina; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 14:38

The Irish government has decided to appeal against an EU ruling that it should receive 13 billion euros in unpaid taxes from technology giant Apple.

Dublin is siding with the world's richest company and rejecting the huge windfall for its treasury because it says it ''disagrees profoundly'' with the EU ruling.

It fears multinational companies would leave Ireland, or not move there, if it is forced to change its tax and business model.

The European Commissioner has ordered the payment on the basis that Apple's low tax arrangements in Ireland constituted illegal state aid.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook has warned if Dublin did not join it in appealing, it would send the wrong message to business in a country whose economic model depends in part on companies like his.

The decision was delayed by five independent members of the minority coalition government holding out against the idea of an appeal.

They agreed after being promised an independent review of the country's corporate tax system.

The review will assess ''what tax multinationals do pay and what they should pay'', said junior minister John Halligan of the Independent Alliance.

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French authorities plan to dismantle the so-called Calais Jungle camp '' home to thousands of migrants fleeing war or poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

France's home affairs minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, was in Calais to announce plans to finish what was started in February, when an area of the camp, which housed over 3000 migrants, was demolished.

He said: ''By persevering and being methodical in the implementation of these measures, we will find an efficient, long term solution for the current crisis faced by the city of Calais. I say it very clearly that all these actions will be put into place until the final closure of the camp, which is my aim. I hope it happens as swiftly as possible.''

Estimates put the population of the Jungle at up to 9000, even after the southern half of the camp was dismantled earlier this year.

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 14:31

Ethnic Kurds have staged a huge rally in Cologne against the politics of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

They are angry about Turkey's military intervention in northern Syria and what they say is Erdogan's ''dictatorial behaviour'', particularly in the wake of July's coup.

Thousandsof KurdsprotestagainstErdoganin Cologne https://t.co/nDgOBnhEY6pic.twitter.com/n0mQpq4Rqi

'-- Reuters Top News (@Reuters) September 3, 2016Was it a big rally?Yes.

Police in the German city think at least 25,000 people turned out in protest.

Many carried flags bearing the image of jailed PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, demanding he be freed.

The PKK, or Kurdistan Workers' Party, is considered a terrorist organisation by the EU and US.

Was there any trouble?No.

Extra police were drafted in but the demonstration passed off peacefully.

Does Germany have a big Turkish community?Yes.

Germany is home to around three million people of Turkish origin.

Roughly one in four are ethnic Kurds.

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 14:28

Where is this topic popular?

Tap to find outThousands of pro-Europe campaigners gathered in cities across the UK on Saturday to protest against Brexit, the UK's decision to leave the European Union following a June referendum.

Britain's prime minister insists ''Brexit means Brexit'' but has not yet invoked what's known as Article 50 to start the process.

Protesters called on Britain to negotiate stronger unity with the EU.

''This is also a national movement, now,'' said the rally's co-organiser Fabien Riggall. ''Six different cities are marching today, and these people here are representing millions of other people. People have lost a little bit their trust and perhaps the belief in the political system, they don't think necessarily that things could change. We believe that things can change, that people have a right to have a discourse on what's gonna happen in Europe.''

Political commentator Owen Jones addressed a crowd at the rally.

''The people who led the leave campaign, it's up to them to spell out in quite clear terms what sort of agreement is on the table .. at the moment it's just not clear'...''

Owen Jones's speech

''If we can do anything to resist this, there are all sorts of channels for resisting it, via, say, the House of Lords, constitutional challenges, legal challenges, even the EU itself,'' said academic Ben Fairbairin. ''Possibly a second vote, you never know. Point being if we just lay down and let this thing happen, then we're basically guaranteed for them to let us take out of the EU on the worst possible terms.''

A debate is planned in parliament tomorrow (September 5) on whether a second EU referendum should take place.

Comedian Eddie Izzard said: ''£350m a week was promised to go to the NHS'... Nigel Farage said next day it was a lie. Getting elected on a lie?'... Nigel Farage is now with Donald Trump who is bonkers'...''

March for Europe protests were held in London, Cardiff, Oxford, Birmingham and Edinburgh.

During the London march, a group of counter demonstrators chanted ''Brexit now'' as the crowds walked past Downing Street. Anti-Brexit protesters responded by booing and yelling ''shame on you.''

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The FBI only took written notes of the July 2 interview with the former secretary of State, and did not record it or create a transcript.

"It bothers me as an American citizen," the usually-reserved Todd demonstratively declared Friday to a panel of guests on MSNBC's "Meet the Press Daily."

"It's insane. We're relying on notes on this!" he continued.

"The Trump campaign wants to show [Clinton] lied to the FBI. Maybe she did, maybe she didn't. We have no proof. And never will."

According to notes released Friday just before the holiday weekend, Clinton used up to 13 mobile devices while secretary of State, all of which cannot be found or were destroyed.

Clinton also repeatedly told the FBI she couldn't recall key details and events related to classified information procedures.

FBI Director James Comey announced on July 5 the Bureau would not recommend indicting Clinton, but called her "extremely careless" in the handling of her State Department emails.

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Alexandria, VIRGINIA -- Forty-four year-old Marcel Lehel Lazar, a Romanian hacker who calls himself ''Guccifer,'' has been sentenced to 52 months in prison. Lazar focused primarily on high-profile political figures -- he is credited with uncovering Hillary Clinton's private email address when he hacked Sidney Blumenthal's email, and he also released the first self-portrait painted by former President George W. Bush.

Lazar faced a mandatory two-year sentence and federal prosecutors pressed for an additional two years. But he also faces a seven-year sentence in Romania, which he will serve before he serves his U.S. sentence.

District Court Judge James Cacheris noted Lazar's lack of remorse, but credited him with cooperating with the U.S. government.

FBI Director James Comey and other officials have said they do not believe his claims that he breached Clinton's server. Officials say he is motivated by fame and not by monetary gain, and this makes it all the more difficult to believe that he would have breached Clinton's server and not released any proof. His nickname, Lazar has said, combines ''the style of Gucci and the light of Lucifer.''

In May, Lazar pleaded guilty to unauthorized access to protected computers and aggravated ID theft related to his hacking of the accounts of 100 Americans including members of the Bush family and Gen. Colin Powell. He was extradited to the U.S. in March to face a range of charges related to profiling hacking including wire fraud, cyberstalking, ID theft, and unauthorized access to computers.

Lazar was a taxi driver in his native Romania and has no formal hacking training. Justice Department sources say his case illustrates how easy it is to hack emails of the rich and powerful with very little training.

(C) 2016 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Prominent YouTube star Philip DeFranco has seen the site undergo enormous changes '-- from major shifts in its position on copyright to the introduction of its subscription service, YouTube Red '-- in the 10 years he's been posting videos to the platform. In that time, the audience for his three channels has ballooned to over 4.5 million subscribers (6 million if you count all his channels) and a staggering 2 billion views.

DeFranco is known for his candid, often satirical delivery and his willingness to cover everything from celebrity gossip to memes. As his audience has grown, he's won awards for his informal news series and formed partnerships with major platforms like TMZ and SourceFed.

But on August 31, YouTube disabled monetization for at least 12 of DeFranco's videos, prompting a frustrated response in his daily news dispatch:

The official reason provided to DeFranco was that his content was either not "advertiser-friendly" or contained "graphic content," or "excessive strong language." DeFranco frequently swears in his videos, and regularly refers to his followers as "Beautiful Bastards."

YouTubeAdditional language in the community guidelines states that sensitive or controversial content can render a YouTube video not "advertiser-friendly."

The demonetization means DeFranco will not be able to run ads (read: make money from ads) on any of those videos, and also means his channel is considered to be in violation of YouTube's community guidelines.

Though YouTube says the demonetization is the result of changes to its notification system, and not a reflection of changes in its policies, it's unclear why DeFranco and other vloggers are just getting flagged on content now even though many of them have been posting similar videos to YouTube for years. DeFranco and his supporters worry the move could have implications for all YouTube creators.

DeFranco believes the demonetization is a form of censorshipIn his regular daily news series, DeFranco reacted with confusion to the decision to disable his monetization. He pointed out that YouTube's terms of service state that the presence of "controversial or sensitive subjects" might be grounds for the site turning off ads.

The video that sparked YouTube's decision featured several such topics, including DeFranco's opinions about a so-called "Social Justice Warrior" (SJW) who was caught on a leaked video harassing a Lyft driver, the release of convicted rapist Brock Turner from prison, and Chris Brown's recent police stand-off. Most of the offensive material seemed to come not from DeFranco's own commentary but from the news content itself.

"It seems by covering the real, raw news story and not, like, watering it down, I got in trouble," he said, adding, "How are you supposed to cover news?" A clearly baffled DeFranco worried that YouTube might be setting a dangerous precedent: "This is a much bigger situation than me."

Though YouTube is only targeting individual videos, its actions could prevent a lot of creators from making any moneyAlthough the title of his video, "YouTube is shutting down my channel and I'm not sure what to do," implied he was considering a permanent exit from the site, DeFranco didn't definitively say he would close the channel.

However, YouTube's three-strike policy on rule violations means the site could easily suspend or delete DeFranco's channel if he continues to turn on ad monetization for videos that are deemed ad-inappropriate.

In a lengthy statement provided to Vox via email, DeFranco clarified that he is not leaving YouTube any time soon. "Youtube is my home. Without Youtube I wouldn't have a career," he said. "When I say they are shutting me down," he elaborated, "what I'm trying to simplify is an argument I've since made to Youtube themselves."

By taking away monetization on what appears to be the news, opinion, commentary side of Youtube, they are effectively shutting down those channels. Giving them a death sentence. Youtube has made the point that they are not removing the video, so they are not "shutting down" anything, but I feel that anyone who understands this business knows that if you hit people in the wallet, that is where you really hurt them. The poison will be slowly administered, and now we're just waiting for it to slowly do its job. If anything, this move further drives home the point that content creators need to put their content everywhere.

DeFranco urged his viewers to follow him on various other social media platforms, and stressed that he had built his business to be reliant on secondary income sources in the event of just such a scenario.

"I am a Youtuber, but I'm also a big believer in putting your content in every place possible," he told Vox, pointing out that Facebook is working to allow creators to monetize their content on the site, Twitter now has ads on videos, and "creators have more choices than ever."

DeFranco's video response to the demonetization racked up half a million views in half a day, along with thousands of outraged comments on YouTube, Twitter, and Reddit.

The demonetization has hit YouTube creators across the political spectrum, bolstering both user concern and cries of censorshipIn DeFranco's first demonetized video, DeFranco (like many of his viewers) was critical of the behavior of the woman who spouted social justice rhetoric in the aforementioned video of a Lyft driver being harassed. As a result, some members of the alt-right movement are claiming that YouTube's move is actually about "cracking down on anti-SJW media." DeFranco told Vox this is more of a "perception problem for YouTube" than an actual crackdown against the alt-right movement.

"The people who have been hit the hardest [by YouTube's monetization policy] have been conservative voices," he said, "people who have ranted about SJW or 'PC Cry Bullies,' which may have been deemed offensive by Youtube."

But DeFranco also pointed out that popular news commentary channel The Young Turks, which is known for its strident liberalism, has also just had many of its videos demonetized by YouTube.

"I've seen channels dinged now for talking about depression and anti-bullying. And I've also seen channels like CNN include footage of a Syrian boy covered in blood, after his house was reportedly bombed, and right next to the video is a nice little ad for sneakers. So you get the question, 'Why me and not them?'" he said.

YouTube's decision could impact YouTubers who already struggle to draw revenue from their channelsYouTube's move comes the day after the New York Times published an article detailing the Federal Trade Commission's concern over the blurry line between advertisements and endorsements on internet celebrity platforms. Tangentially, the Times reported that the average YouTube "star" '-- someone with 3 to 7 million followers '-- can command nearly $190,000 on average for a single sponsored post placed on their channel.

DeFranco disputed this amount, calling it "somewhat bullshit" and pointing out that subscriber numbers don't automatically translate to user engagement (which generally means "interacting" with a video by commenting on it, sharing it, etc.) '-- you might subscribe to a channel but never watch it again.

YouTube's decision is a potentially troubling one, especially for the large sector of YouTube that DeFranco labels the "middle tier" of YouTube vloggers '-- what the Times referred to as "influencers" with 50,000 to 500,000 followers, as compared to the upper-tier classes with 1 to 2 million followers or more.

DeFranco pointed out, as other YouTubers have in the past, that internet fame doesn't lead to a sustainable full-time income for the vast majority of "celebrities." If YouTube starts cracking down on content for not being "ad-friendly" enough, it could hurt these middle-tier vloggers far worse than a more major figure like DeFranco.

"When you take away monetization for a Youtube channel, you make the channel unsustainable to run as a full time job (mainly for the little guys, but also for some of the big guys who didn't diversify their revenue streams)," DeFranco told Vox. "Especially when it appears that the implementation of removing monetization is scattered and not hitting all Youtube channels equally. That said, I understand it is 100 percent their right to do this."

YouTube did respond to DeFranco's concerns on Twitter, though the site's assertion that the demonetization of some of his videos was the result of a new notification system was hardly reassuring:

DeFranco later claimed that YouTube would be providing him with an official statement that he would include in his daily news video on September 1.

"I'm hoping what comes from this is a conversation with Youtube and some flexibility from them," he told Vox. "Why are some hit, while others aren't?"

DeFranco wondered what the line is for covering or commenting on offensive news '-- whether, for example, YouTube will deem it necessary to remove advertising from a channel that only talks about or comments on potentially offensive news without including video footage of it. "With the current wording in their [terms of service], just talking about it is not 'advertiser friendly.'"

He also offered several alternatives for allowing creators to monetize content that might be construed as "not ad-friendly" according to YouTube's somewhat nebulous guidelines. "Does it make sense to still allow pre-rolls or post-rolls [ads that appear before or after the main video]?" he asked, "because then it would be just like a commercial break before/after a news program on CNN or Fox News." He also speculated that YouTube might create exceptions to allow advertising on content that some might deem offensive, much like late-night shows on cable TV have more leeway than those that air in primetime.

Though DeFranco has vowed that he won't censor himself, he and many other YouTubers will undoubtedly be eager to see what, if any, long-term effects this sudden development will have on the overall site '-- and what direct effects it might have on their own channels.

"I love Youtube and they are still the biggest kid on the block when it comes to video discovery," DeFranco told Vox, "but I think it's important to be critical of the things you love."

Update: In his Sept. 1 video, DeFranco shared YouTube's official statement: "While our policy of de-monetizing videos due to advertiser-friendly concerns hasn't changed, we've recently improved the notification and appeal process to insure better communication."

DeFranco acknowledged the appeal and review process was improved, similar to YouTube's system of copyright review, but also alleged that YouTube has been de-monetizing videos for months without directly informing the user. He said he had discovered that several of his own videos had previously been de-monetized without his realization. DeFranco also reiterated his belief that fear of de-monetization could lead YouTube channels to self-censor in ways that could harm the community's culture.

YouTube has reportedly stated it will not be issuing further comment on the policy.

The Young Turks news channel defended YouTube's decision, noting that while it was among the channels hardest hit by the de-monetization policy, the implementation of the notification and appeal process was a positive change.

Meanwhile, Vimeo may have had the last word: it responded to the controversy with a tribute to "the best advertiser-unfriendly videos" on the site.

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Sun, 04 Sep 2016 03:40

Hillary Clinton told the FBI she did not recall all the briefings she received on handling sensitive information as she made the transition from her post as U.S. secretary of state, due to a concussion suffered in 2012, according to a report released Friday.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation released a summary of the July 2 interview it conducted with the Democratic presidential candidate, as well as other details of its investigation into her use of a private email server while heading the State Department.

Clinton, who is challenging Republican Donald Trump for the White House in the Nov. 8 election, has been dogged by the fallout from her private email account for more than a year.

Republicans have repeatedly attacked Clinton over the issue, helping drive opinion polls that show many U.S. voters doubt her trustworthiness.

Clinton has said that in hindsight she regretted using a private email system while secretary of state.

Said the report, "Clinton said she received no instructions or direction regarding the preservation or production of records from (the) State (Department) during the transition out of her role as Secretary of State in 2013.

"However, in December of 2012, Clinton suffered a concussion and then around the New Year had a blood clot (in her head). Based on her doctor's advice, she could only work at State for a few hours a day and could not recall every briefing she received," the report said.

According to the report, Clinton told the FBI that she did not set up a private email server to sidestep the law requiring her to keep her business communications a matter of public record.

Clinton has claimed it was public knowledge to many State Department employees that she was using a private server because they received emails from her email domain.

But State Department employees interviewed by the FBI said many emails from Clinton appeared to be from "H" and did not show her private email domain.

The documents also show that Clinton contacted former Secretary of State Colin Powell in 2009 to ask about his use of a personal BlackBerry phone.

In his reply to Clinton via email, Powell told Clinton to "be very careful" because the work-related emails she sent on her BlackBerry could become public record.

"I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data," Powell said.

The FBI released its report on Friday afternoon before the Labor Day holiday weekend, a time many Americans are preparing to travel.

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Currently, voting systems are not considered critical infrastructure under federal regulations, so those in charge of these systems are on their own in terms of deciding on the best approaches in dealing with cybersecurity threats.

Taking into consideration preparedness plans, such as regular threat assessments, incident response and information sharing, the Pell Center report found the most cyber-ready U.S. state was California, followed by Maryland and Michigan.

Since the Pell Center data was published a little less than a year ago, some states '-- Indiana, for example '-- have launched cybersecurity commissions and passed cyber-related legislation.

In Pennsylvania, another key presidential election state, Secretary of State Pedro A. Cort(C)s said it is working to ensure the security and integrity of the November election. "In recent weeks, there has been talk about vulnerabilities in the nation's election infrastructure," Cort(C)s said in a release. "Our election staff is working closely with federal and state experts to implement all available strategies to strengthen security."

A spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of State stressed the distinction between voter registration databases and actual voting systems. In Pennsylvania, precinct voting systems are never connected to the internet. And while Pennsylvania's online voter registration application is on the web, applicants' personal information is stored in a statewide Uniform Registry of Electors voter registration database that is not connected to the internet and is only accessible internally.

A spokeswoman for the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness said it is working with federal and state partners and continuously reviewing the effectiveness of the security controls for all state systems and monitoring them for any suspicious activity. She said one major difference between New Jersey's voter registration system and that of Arizona and Illinois '-- states hit by recent attacks '-- is that New Jersey does not allow online voter registration.

Commission recommendations and conversations, though, are not the same as implementation, and states don't have much to show for existing efforts. "It's a good effort to bring experts together to talk about issues in states, but it's still not a solution," Spidalieri said. "No state has yet devised a comprehensive plan that aligns the state economic vision with their security priorities when it comes to this issue."

Mauricio Paez, a partner at Jones Day who manages the firm's privacy and cybersecurity practice, said the problem is not only that many voter registration systems in the United States are antiquated from a security perspective but that "there's a decentralized approach in terms of dealing with these breaches, because there is no uniform standard for states to address these risks."

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Video Transcript:

The new FBI release of documents from Hillary Clinton's email investigation leave CNN's panel stunned.

BORIS EPSHTEYN: 17,500 emails that she lied about turning over. The server wipe. Within weeks of there being a report that she had a private server, it was wiped. She thought that ''C,'' which stands for classified, stood for cookie or something. She thought that drone strikes are not classified. She said that the reason she used a private server was for convenience, that she only had one device, she used 13 Blackberries and five iPads. This is somebody who is absolutely disqualified from becoming president. They destroyed BlackBerries with hammers in the State Department.

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BROOKE BALDWIN: Evan, Evan, Evan, Evan, hold on, can you fact check that? Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, Evan Perez, hammers? Can you fact check that for me please on the fly?

EVAN PEREZ: Yes they did, Brooke. As you mentioned there were 13 devices, mobile devices and five iPads that the FBI said that in some way were used with her private email server and they did in some cases just destroy them with hammers when they were done using them.

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Fri, 02 Sep 2016 23:11

Please enable JavaScript to experience Vimeo in all of its glory.

nanobot murals + your data = immune boost ''We're halfway thru the decade when humans shift from mysterious beings - to big data algorithms, where everything about us will be known. Creepy? Do you toss this on the pile of horrible future problems or is there an entirely different story for how our personal data comes back to us as immune boosting wall texture? See how patterns of behavior will become patterned artworks and the mass of data will predict our lives. An artist gives us an unexpected personal narrative for how we will consume data in the future.

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MSNBC's Joy Reid was a fill-in for Chris Hayes, was triggered when the Hispanic Trump surrogate used the term illegal alien.

Reid was also incredulous that Cortes would use that term, being that he is a Hispanic. Cortes told Reid his parents came to the U.S. legally.

''When it comes to the bedrock principles, I don't disagree with him at all,'' Cortes defended Trump on Thursday's broadcast of MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes. ''Those are twofold. Number one, we have to secure our border. Number two, there can be no citizenship for illegals. You cannot reward criminality.''Reid stopped him right there.

''Hold on a second,'' the MSNBCer said.

''I'm going to stop you right there. You are Hispanic, Steve. Are you comfortable with that term, illegals? That is a pejorative to a lot of people. Why do you use that term?'' Reid asked, not believing a Latino would use such a term.

''You know why, because words matter,'' Cortes said.

''Yeah, they do,'' Reid shot back.

''If you do something that is against the law, it's illegal,'' Cortes reminded Reid. ''If you go into a store and you shoplift, you're not an undocumented holder of a good, you're a thief. If you come to the United States against the immigration laws of the United States, you're not undocumented, You're illegal.

''You said that you didn't agree with all the things he said last night. point out two or three of the things that you did not like?'' Reid asked.

''Joy, listen, I would have a softer tone on illegals,'' Cortes suggested.

This time the interview came to a screeching halt.

''Can you do me a favor? Just while you're talking to me, can you not use that terminology?'' a very offended Reid asked.

''No, I will not do you that favor,'' Cortes responded.

''Oh, interesting,'' a stunned Reid said.

''Because the English language matters,'' Cortes told Reid. ''They're here illegally. We can't get over that. My father came here legally.''

''My parents came here into this country as immigrants too, Steve,'' she said. ''My parents came here too, so congratulations on that.''

''I'm not going to use code words. That's absurd,'' Cortes said about substituting 'illegals' for another term.

''You just used a code word,'' Reid said.