"Ayanna Pressley is hailed as a sign of the times" by Stephanie Ebbert Globe Staff September 06, 2018
On Tuesday, she was viewed as an ambitious upstart, a charismatic Boston city councilor too antsy to wait her turn in politics but likely to do great things one day.
On Wednesday, she was “The Amazing Ayanna Pressley,” the latest political wunderkind to topple an entrenched politician from a seat he has held for nearly two decades. By upsetting conventional wisdom and the best guesses of pollsters — beating Representative Michael E. Capuano 59 percent to 41 percent — she attracted the attention of CNN, the “NBC Nightly News,” and The New York Times, much as New York’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez became an overnight sensation by unseating an incumbent congressman weeks ago.....
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"Ayanna Pressley’s victory gives a win to Maura Healey" by Joshua Miller Globe Staff September 05, 2018
When Ayanna Pressley took the microphone Wednesday morning celebrating her upset victory, a panoply of top state Democratic leaders stood behind her, smiling and applauding, but only one of them, Attorney General Maura T. Healey, had stood with Pressley the day before, when she was just an insurgent challenger to a 10-term congressman backed heavily by the political establishment.
By breaking with most party leaders, Healey, already considered one of the state’s most popular politicians, boosted her Democratic political stock, and ended up on the right side of a history-making race.
After endorsing Pressley in July, Healey campaigned for the city councilor several times, lending her star power to the cause when polls showed Pressley as the underdog.....
It “reinforces that she’s a big part of the new wave.”
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She's the future of Massachusetts politics, and part of the political pecking order that is now the hot ticket to Congre$$.
Related: As few as 52 votes separate Trahan, Koh after Third District race
And the big loser in all this?
"Boston schools expect some buses to roll late again on first day of classes": by James Vaznis Globe Staff September 06, 2018
Amid negotiations for a new bus drivers contract, Interim Superintendent Laura Perille said Wednesday that she expects every school bus will be on the road Thursday for the first day of school in Boston, but many would operate as they typically do on their maiden voyages: late.
She said buses often run slowly during the first week as drivers get accustomed to new routes and families to new routines.
That's crap, this happens every year, and I'll bet Chang is glad he took the change and is gone.
Last year, more than half of the system’s buses were tardy, even after school officials tapped a team of MIT researchers to develop a new routing system that was supposed to improve on-time performance.
Many students and families will be sweating it out at bus stops throughout the city as temperatures climb above 90 degrees Thursday. Thousands of those students will then board buses that have no air conditioning and will be whisked away to schools more than a half-century old that also lack central air.
School officials plan to equip schools with extra fans and, for those where the bubblers have been shut off because of lead pipe contamination, extra bottles of water.
In the same boat as Detroit and Portland, huh?
Related: Experts at hearing agree Boston city officials should get a raise
Maybe they should board the first bus out of the city first, huh?
Michael Maguire, a Latin teacher at Boston Latin Academy, is challenging Mayor Martin J. Walsh and the superintendent, who works in a three-year-old renovated building in Dudley Square, to shut off all central air in administrative buildings until all schools are equipped with it.
As part of the push, which he began on social media earlier this year, Maguire posted a picture that showed a portable digital thermometer in his classroom registering 88.9 degrees during Tuesday afternoon’s scorching heat.
“It’s the 21st century: Every school should have air conditioning,” Maguire said in an interview Wednesday. “Every other government building has air conditioning. Why can’t the buildings used by kids have it?”
It costs too much, same as the health plans we can't have that Congre$$ be$tows upon it$elf.
The challenge comes as Walsh and the school system have been moving slowly over the last few years to develop a comprehensive plan to modernize the city’s aging school buildings, most of which were built prior to World War II.
WhereTF has all the money gone?
Perille said Wednesday that the effort should swing into high gear this fall when she plans to recommend certain schools for closure, renovation, or replacement, as well as another round of community engagement. She said the school system will have to make some hard choices and it will be a multi-year decision.
“The nature of hard choices is that you don’t necessarily land in a place that makes everyone perfectly happy,” she said. “It’s important for us to be comfortable and transparent with that as the way forward and to engage in that conversation authentically.”
Do they teach ignorant gibberish in school?
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The bus was late because the driver forgot her glasses.
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"Trump slams ‘gutless’ New York Times ‘resistance’ op-ed" by Philip Rucker WASHINGTON POST September 06, 2018
WASHINGTON — President Trump and his aides reacted with indignation Wednesday to an unsigned opinion column from a senior official blasting the president’s “amorality” and launched a frantic hunt for the author, who claims to be part of a secret “resistance” inside the government protecting the nation from its commander in chief.
Well, there can no longer be any doubt.
The extraordinary column, published anonymously in The New York Times, surfaced one day after the first excerpts emerged from Bob Woodward’s new book, in which Trump’s top advisers painted a devastating portrait of the president and described a “crazytown” atmosphere inside the White House.
Oh, the stench of the timing of this piece of propaganda three weeks after the Globe called for a concerted effort to attack the president!!!
One has to wonder if it is not OUTRIGHT FICTION and FAKE NEWS!
Taken together, they landed like a thunder clap, portraying Trump as a danger to the country that elected him and feeding the president’s paranoia about who around him he can trust.
Just the family, folks.
Related:
"Reality television star Kim Kardashian West, who successfully pushed Trump to grant a pardon for a drug offender earlier this year, returned to the White House on Wednesday for a meeting with senior aides as part of the administration’s efforts on criminal justice reform. Kardashian West participated in a listening session on clemency and prison reform with several staffers, including the president’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Among the others in attendance were CNN commentator Van Jones, Shon Hopwood, a lawyer who served time in prison for bank robbery, and Leonard Leo, a lawyer with the conservative Federalist Society."
Notice how they never make the books or pre$$ reviews of the books? Or any of the Mueller stuff? Simply left in peace to do their mission. Maybe they can get Kaepernick a pardon.
Btw, that aunt he pardoned was involved in a million-dollar cocaine and money-laundering schemed to elite celebrities. They never tell you that, not even Fox.
Trump reacted to the column with “volcanic” anger and was “absolutely livid” over what he considered a treasonous act of disloyalty and told confidants he suspects the official works on national security issues or in the Justice Department, according to two people familiar with his private discussions.
He didn't look that way in front of the sheriffs, and that is when they asked him about it!
You know, if it is a piece of fiction they will never find the guy (or gal).
Trump questioned on Twitter whether the official was a “phony source,” and wrote that if “the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!”
In a column titled, “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” the person whom The Times identifies only as a “senior official” describes Trump’s leadership style as “impetuous” and accuses him of acting recklessly “in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.”
The official writes that Cabinet members witnessed enough instability by their boss that there were “early whispers” of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office but decided instead to avoid a constitutional crisis and work within the administration to contain him.
“Many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office,” the official writes.
“It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room. We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.’’
This is a joke, right?
The column, which was published midafternoon Wednesday, sent tremors through the West Wing and launched a frantic guessing game. Startled aides canceled meetings and huddled behind closed doors to strategize a response. Aides were analyzing language patterns to try to discern the author’s identity, or at a minimum the part of the administration where the author works.
Hold on, let me get my popcorn.
“The problem for the president is it could be so many people,” said one administration official, who like many others interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity to be candid. “You can’t rule it down to one person. Everyone is trying, but it’s impossible.”
Or it could be no one, a completely made-up piece of garbage.
The stark and anonymous warning was a breathtaking event without precedent in modern presidential history.
“For somebody within the belly of the White House to be saying there are a group of us running a resistance, making sure the president of the United States doesn’t do irrational and dangerous things, it is a mind-boggling moment,” historian Douglas Brinkley said.
Sure looks like subversive treason to me!
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Related:
"Trump suggests libel laws should be changed after uproar over Woodward’s book" by John Wagner Washington Post September 05, 2018
WASHINGTON — President Trump suggested Wednesday that Congress should change libel laws so he would be better positioned to seek ‘‘retribution’’ against Bob Woodward, the author of the explosive new book that portrays a presidency careening toward a ‘‘nervous breakdown.’’
‘‘Isn’t it a shame that someone can write an article or book, totally make up stories and form a picture of a person that is literally the exact opposite of the fact, and get away with it without retribution or cost,’’ Trump wrote on Twitter. ‘‘Don’t know why Washington politicians don’t change libel laws?’’
The president’s tweet was part an aggressive effort by the White House to discredit Woodward’s forthcoming book, ‘‘Fear,’’ which paints a harrowing portrait of the Trump presidency, based on in-depth interviews with administration officials and others.
They don't need to. The washed-up has-been Woodward has long been recognized as a mouthpiece for the Military-Industrial Complex.
Woodward, an associate editor at the Washington Post, has said he stands by his reporting.
The administration issued a vigorous string of public denials, with statements from top advisers — White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders — as well as from John Dowd, Trump’s former personal attorney.
Mattis called the book ‘‘fiction,’’ and Sanders denounced the tome in a statement as ‘‘nothing more than fabricated stories, many by former disgruntled employees’’ without disputing any of the specifics that have been reported in excerpts.
Like Gary Cohn, the pilferer of presidential documents?
Sanders appeared on several Wednesday morning television shows to reinforce that message.
She went on ABC’s ‘‘Good Morning America’’ and Fox News.
A central theme of the book is the stealthy machinations used by those in Trump’s inner sanctum to try to control his impulses and prevent disasters, both for the president personally and for the nation he was elected to lead.
Woodward describes ‘‘an administrative coup d’etat’’ and a ‘‘nervous breakdown’’ of the executive branch, with senior aides conspiring to pluck official papers from the president’s desk so he couldn’t see or sign them.
That's where the print Globe cut the story, while the web let it run.
Again and again, Woodward recounts at length how Trump’s national security team was shaken by his lack of curiosity and knowledge about world affairs and his contempt for the mainstream perspectives of military and intelligence leaders.
Trump tweeted the denial statements Tuesday evening and then suggested the book’s release was timed to affect the midterm elections in November.
Oh, that, too.
In later tweets Wednesday, Trump sought to push back on the book’s portrayal of his management style and on its reporting that his aides found him uninterested in many world affairs.
‘‘I’m tough as hell on people & if I weren’t, nothing would get done,’’ Trump wrote. ‘‘Also, I question everybody & everything-which is why I got elected!
In other tweets, he called the book ‘‘total fiction’’ and ‘‘boring & untrue!’’
I won't be buying or reading it.
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Ryan told him no to altering the libel laws, and the next book coming of the pre$$es:
"The next book to take on President Trump isn’t focused on Russia or tax policy. It’s about his golf game. Hachette Books announced Wednesday that Rick Reilly’s ‘‘Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump’’ will come out next May. Hachette is calling the book a close study of Trump’s ‘‘ethics deficit’’ on the course and what it says about him as a leader. Reilly is a longtime contributor to Sports Illustrated and CNN. He based his book on firsthand observations and interviews with everyone from golfing partners to caddies. Reilly has written about Trump and golf before, notably in his 2003 publication, ‘‘Who’s Your Caddy?: Looping for the Great, Near Great, and Reprobates of Golf.’’
Hatchette Books, huh?
About says it all regarding the publishers, and it seems like we have reached peak hate when it comes to Trump, with the Globe now throwing rocks at him.
"Obamas jumping into midterm campaign" by Alexander Burns New York Times September 05, 2018
Having largely avoided campaign activities since leaving office, Barack Obama’s first public event of the midterm election will take place in Orange County, a traditionally conservative-leaning part of California where Republicans are at risk of losing several House seats. And Obama is expected to be joined by Democratic candidates from all seven of California’s Republican-held districts that Hillary Clinton carried in 2016.
Meanwhile, Michelle Obama will headline voter registration rallies in Las Vegas and Miami later this month during a week of action to encourage voting for the November elections by a nonpartisan organization she co-chairs, organizers said Wednesday.
The former president intends to campaign next Thursday in Cleveland for Richard Cordray, a former bank regulator in his administration who is the Democratic nominee for Ohio governor. Republicans have held total control of the state government since the 2010 election, and Obama helped encourage Cordray, also a former state attorney general, to seek the governorship.
The former president’s return to public politicking comes at a momentous point in the 2018 election season, furnishing Democrats again with one of their most formidable and popular campaigners in the closing months.
While Obama has addressed several fund-raising events and issued a list of endorsements, he has otherwise confined his public appearances this year to loftier venues than the campaign trail.
Like giving $ix-figure $peeches and wind-sailing with Richard Branson.
Katie Hill, a spokeswoman for Obama, said he would campaign aggressively to turn out voters in elections for the House and Senate and also “in local, down-ballot races to build the Democratic Party’s bench.”
OMG!
Obama destroyed the Democratic Party and left it without a bench!
Hill said Obama would argue to voters “that this moment in our country is too perilous for Democratic voters to sit out.”
Obama’s upcoming campaign swing comes days after his oration for John McCain, the Arizona Republican, whose funeral last weekend became an occasion for scarcely veiled criticism of President Trump from elder statesmen of both parties.
Related: Sunday Globe Warpath
Also related: "In 2006, President George W. Bush acknowledged for the first time that the CIA was running secret prisons overseas and said tough interrogation had forced terrorist leaders to reveal plots to attack the United States and its allies."
And now one of the black site commanders is head of the CIA (but she is a woman, so.....).
Btw, there were never any plots revealed by the torture, either.
Obama is also delivering a speech in Illinois on Friday, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that is expected to include a pointed message about domestic politics.
By reclaiming an explicitly partisan role, Obama could ignite a volcanic reaction from Trump, who is intensely sensitive to criticism and has made dismantling Obama’s legacy an organizing goal. Since leaving office, Obama has avoided directly criticizing Trump in many cases.....
No, he just ran off to South Africa and committed treason by criticizing the president from foreign shores.
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You can lash out at him, it's fine:
"A Virginia man convicted of punching the organizer of last summer’s white nationalist rally after he attempted to hold a news conference has been fined $1....."
A USFL judgement! Trump would know all about that!
"At least 10 people were taken ill on an Emirates flight from Dubai to New York and hospitalized after the double-decker jet landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Passengers and crew members among the 521 aboard the A380 superjumbo complained of symptoms including fever and a cough, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which initially estimated 100 were sick. Eric Phillips, a spokesman for New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, later said on Twitter that a total of 19 people were reported ill, with 10 taken to the hospital. The Port Authority isolated the plane, flight EK203, after it touched down at 9:12 a.m. local time. A Twitter user who said she was a passenger on the flight described many people showing signs of illness."
Why were all the passengers just allowed to leave without being quarantined? What if they are infected with Ebola or some sort of flu?
That's another thing, btw: he has kept the skies quiet and yet the Globe still complains -- until the next terror attack, and then they will be complaining about that. Now if he could only do something about the fees.
"A man upset about the fatal police shooting of a friend in 2012 repeatedly rammed a pickup truck into a Dallas television station on Wednesday morning, shattering floor-to-ceiling windows during the station’s morning newscast, police said. After slamming into the downtown building around 6 a.m., the man exited the truck and began yelling and throwing paper into the air, according to the station, KDFW-TV, a Fox affiliate. Before the police arrived, he held photos, handwritten notes, and a news article about the shooting up to one of the building’s windows. “He kept yelling, ‘High treason!’ ” Brandon Todd, a reporter at the station, said on air. “He believed he had been clearly wronged and was trying to get some attention.” No one was hurt, the police said. The driver, who was identified as Michael Chadwick Fry, 34, was taken to a hospital for a medical evaluation and was later booked into the Dallas County Jail on a felony criminal mischief charge, the police said."
See: Breaking the Chain
The guy was another video game addict, and the obvious answer is self-driving cars that focus on moves that are an attempt to repair Uber’s reputation after a wave of major scandals and bad press.
Related:
"CBS Corp. and controlling shareholder National Amusements Inc., embroiled in one of the media industry’s most bitter public disputes, may be nearing an end to their feud before it goes to trial next month. CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves, 68, faces separate allegations that he sexually harassed several women and oversaw a culture where such incidents were covered up. CBS has said it takes any claims seriously and that independent directors of the company are investigating....."
I haven't seen much of Moonves or Brokaw as those scandals have faded the f*** away as #MeToo fizzles, proving it was nothing but a political cudgel all along.
At least Warner Bros. is better.
"Twitter came under fire from some on the far right after suspending conspiracy theorist Alex Jones last month, as did Facebook. Jones made an angry appearance Wednesday outside both hearing rooms, telling reporters he was there to ‘‘face my accusers.’’ Jones railed against the government, media, and social media companies for more than 40 minutes in the hallway as the Senate hearing began....."
Globe was there to record every word as the stock dropped.
"Tropical Storm Gordon never became a hurricane, but it was deadly all the same, killing a child by blowing a tree onto a mobile home as it made landfall. The storm later weakened into a depression on Wednesday but remained dangerous, dumping rain, spawning tornadoes, and kicking up heavy surf in its wake. Gordon was not the only storm being watched by forecasters. Hurricane Florence has formed in the Atlantic Ocean, on a path toward Bermuda, and lining up behind it, another potential storm was likely to form not far off the coast of Africa. The National Hurricane Center said Gordon was weakening on a path into Arkansas. The remnants will likely cause flash flooding across parts of seven states and as far north as Iowa in the coming days. The storm was going out swinging....."
At least the destruction is over as they tell us it was climate change that was responsible for the fish kill, and speaking of wind-blown storms going out swinging:
"Kavanaugh ducks questions on presidential powers" by Michael D. Shear New York Times September 06, 2018
WASHINGTON — Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, on Wednesday dodged direct questions about whether the Constitution would allow Trump to use the powers of the presidency to thwart the Russia collusion and obstruction investigations swirling around his administration.
Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on a grueling second day of hearings, Kavanaugh refused to say whether he believes Trump, as a sitting president, could be subpoenaed by Robert Mueller, the special counsel, to testify in the sprawling inquiry. Answering questions in public for the first time since his nomination, the judge also declined to say whether Trump could escape legal jeopardy by pardoning himself or his associates.
“I’m not going to answer hypothetical questions of that sort,” Kavanaugh said, insisting it would be inappropriate for a Supreme Court nominee to publicly offer views on issues that might come before the court once he is a justice.
Kavanaugh also declined to say he would disqualify himself from cases concerning Trump.
In a hearing that began in the morning, stretched well into the night, and seesawed between intense grilling by Democrats and fawning praise by Republicans, Kavanaugh sought to present himself as an even-handed arbiter of the law rather than a partisan ideologue driven by a desire to carry out a Republican policy agenda. He parried questions, without any obvious blunders, on matters ranging from abortion to gun rights to executive powers and provisions of antitrust law.
At least two more days of hearings remain, but absent a startling revelation, he appears headed to confirmation by the end of the month because Republicans remain largely united behind his nomination, but Kavanaugh did little to win over Democrats.
At the same time, he did not retreat from views offered in law review articles that revealed a robust conception of presidential power, views he said had been forged in large part by five years of service in the White House under President George W. Bush.
Under attack from liberals and Democrats who say he will roll back abortion rights, Kavanaugh said he believes that Roe v. Wade, the 1973 landmark case establishing a woman’s right to an abortion, was “settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court,” and as such, deserves respect from judges. But he did not say whether he believes Roe was correctly decided.
Protesters continued to interrupt the hearing, adding to the tension after an opening day on Tuesday in which dozens of people were arrested for disrupting the proceedings.
Democratic senators angrily accused Republicans on the committee of refusing to make public documents that they said call into question Kavanaugh’s honesty about his past congressional testimony and his record as a political operative and a lawyer in the Bush White House.
Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, raised Bush-era scandals with Kavanaugh, and he suggested that Bush White House e-mails in the Judiciary Committee’s possession may contradict testimony the nominee made more than a decade ago — if only they could be released publicly.
I wish they had investigated them at the time!
One of the scandals was the disclosure in late 2003 and 2004 that a Republican Judiciary Committee staff member had infiltrated the Democrats’ confidential internal files about which of President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees to try to block and with what tactics.
At his appeals court confirmation hearing in 2006, Kavanaugh — who had worked as an associate White House counsel in the Bush administration — said he did not know anything about the infiltration before it eventually became public, but Leahy indicated that documents marked “committee confidential” provide evidence that Kavanaugh had contact with Manuel Miranda, then a Republican staff member on the Judiciary Committee. “I am concerned because there is evidence that Mr. Miranda provided you with materials that were stolen from me,” Leahy said. “And that would contradict your prior testimony.’’
He's more upset about that than he is the CIA spying on him under Brennan, and he doesn't see to care about all the DoJ documents regarding the phony FISA warrants and spying on the Trump campaign.
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UK charges 2 in ex-spy’s poisoning, alleges they’re Russian agents Investigators released a cache of evidence, including security-camera images. The information released Wednesday made clear that investigators had known of the men’s assumed names, their movements, and the contamination of their hotel room for months without saying so publicly. On Wednesday, they appealed for the public’s help to fill in the gaps about what the men had done, and when.
Meaning they had to go over the video like the Boston Marathon people so they could pick out their patsies!
At this point, that whole event and the one after it have become such a sloppy piece of propaganda that the pre$$ should be embarrassed by it.
"Pakistan PM ‘optimistic’ after brief talks with Pompeo" by Kathy Gannon Associated Press September 05, 2018
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s newly elected Prime Minister Imran Khan met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Islamabad on Wednesday, saying he was ‘‘optimistic’’ he could reset the relationship with Washington after the United States suspended aid over the country’s alleged failure to combat militants.
Now where have we heard that before!?
‘‘You know I’m a born optimist,’’ said Khan, a former star cricket player who was sworn in last month. ‘‘A sportsman always is an optimist. He steps on the field and he thinks he’s going to win.’’
Not all sportsmen think that way.
Remember the 86-year struggles of the Sawx?
Pompeo spent just four hours in Pakistan, his first visit to the country. At the airport before leaving for neighboring India, he said he was ‘‘hopeful’’ that a foundation had been laid to move forward.
They want to ‘‘reset the relationship!!’’
When he gets to India is he going to comment on the activists in shackles as India clamps down on migration and decriminalizes homosexual acts (unlike Indonesia)?
On the plane to Pakistan, Pompeo announced his appointment of Zalmay Khalilzad, a veteran diplomat who is unpopular in Pakistan, as the new US special adviser on Afghan reconciliation, which could further complicate relations with Islamabad.
A Bush neo-con that was tied into 9/11, great.
So all this Deep State stuff over the book and op-ed is bullshit, huh?
Khalilzad ‘‘has been very critical of Pakistan in the past and his appointment will not help move things forward,’’ said Zahid Hussain, a defense analyst and the author of two books on militancy in the region.
Khalilzad was born in Afghanistan and served as US special envoy to the country following the collapse of the Taliban from 2001 to 2003 and then as US ambassador to Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005.
He has been critical of Pakistan, often blaming Afghanistan’s deteriorating security and countrywide chaos on Pakistan’s military and powerful ISI intelligence agency, accusing them of harboring and aiding Taliban insurgents.
Khalilzad has been criticized for his role in cobbling together an Afghan government of warlords following the Taliban’s collapse. Afghanistan’s corruption-plagued government and, by some accounts, poorly trained security forces, have frustrated Afghans and contributed to the country’s deteriorating security situation.....
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Maybe Pompeo will talk to the Indians about this:
"India Is Close to Buying a Russian Missile System, Despite U.S. Sanctions" by MARIA ABI-HABIB, New York Times | APRIL 5, 2018
NEW DELHI — India’s defense minister is visiting Moscow this week to finalize the purchase of a Russian missile defense system, Indian officials say, in a weapons deal that would violate American sanctions against Russia.
The potential $6 billion deal comes at a time when the Trump administration is both weighing more extensive sanctions against Russia and trying to forge a military alliance with India. Indian officials say the agreement could be finalized as soon as this week, with India purchasing five S-400 Triumf systems, an antiaircraft missile array that can also intercept missiles.
If the purchase goes through, the Trump administration would have to choose between punishing India for violating the sanctions or granting an exemption to avoid souring the relationship.
They just punished Pakistan.
The United States has been trying to cultivate India as a strategic ally and a hedge against Chinese military expansion. Washington has typically dangled defense deals as a way to improve military ties with countries, and it has courted India aggressively. Lockheed Martin offered last summer to move the production of F-16 fighter jets from Texas to India if India agreed to buy the plane.
“In the past few years you’ve seen a massive transition where more equipment is being bought from the U.S. That’s because the U.S. wants a closer relationship with India, and defense deals are essentially diplomatic deals,” said Shailesh Kumar, the Asia director of the Eurasia Group, a geopolitical risk consulting firm.
“My suspicion is that America will not deem the S-400 purchase as sanctions-worthy,” Mr. Kumar said. “There’s too much at stake for bilateral relations. If the U.S. goes for sanctions, it will undermine the good will the U.S. has been trying to build up with India over the last two decades.”
Washington is increasing pressure on Moscow over its meddling in American elections and over the poisoning of a Russian spy in Salisbury, England, last month. American officials told Reuters that additional sanctions on Russia could be announced this week, expanding on a previous round that passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress in August.
“We are engaging with a range of countries to avert future defense acquisitions, and the secretary of state will take appropriate action when and if we determine sanctionable activity has occurred,” a spokeswoman from the State Department said in an emailed response to questions. The spokeswoman did not specify what action Washington would take if the deal went through. India’s purchase of the S-400 had been stalled over the past year by pricing concerns, and an official at the Ministry of Defense said Thursday that negotiations in Moscow were ongoing.
The potential purchase of the Russian missile system, also referred to by NATO as the SA-21 Growler, demonstrates India’s continued reliance on Russian military hardware at a time when the United States is trying to increase its arms sales to the country.
Washington’s military sales to India went from nearly zero a decade and a half ago to some $15 billion today. Over the past five years, the United States has edged up to become India’s second largest arms supplier, just behind Russia. Russia accounted for 62 percent of arms sales to India over the past five years, down from 79 percent from 2008 to 2012, according to the Stockholm International Peace Institute, which tracks military spending.
American officials acknowledge that India’s large stock of Russian equipment is a fact of life, but the pending S-400 deal is alarming to the Americans because it is a relatively new and state-of-the-art weapons system, not just an agreement to service existing equipment.
“The Russians are angry at India for going to the Americans for a lot of equipment, because India was their backyard as far as military purchases went,” said Rahul Bedi of Jane’s Information Group, which tracks defense sales and is based in London. “The Indians are scrambling to curry favor again with Russians and the S-400s are a way to do it.”
India will be hosting a defense exhibition next week, inviting global weapons manufacturers to showcase their hardware. The United States and Russia are both sending official delegations.
India’s pending deal is also another potential setback to the United States’ struggling Patriot missile defense system, produced by Raytheon. Turkey, despite being a NATO ally, signed an agreement to buy the Russian S-400 system in December, ignoring American concerns.
That explains the current tension with Turkey, and as for the Patriot, overstating the capability of the missile defense system is a tradition dating back to the 1991 Gulf War.
Yeah, LYING is now a TRADITION when it comes to the military!
American officials have also tried to sway India to purchase Patriot missile systems instead of the S-400, but the Patriot system has faced recent scrutiny after it failed to protect Saudi Arabia’s capital from missiles fired by Houthi militants in Yemen.
Yeah, they broke up and fell to earth without hitting the target -- and then the Saudi government blamed the Houthis for the damage!
“India wasn’t very impressed with the Patriot compared with the S-400, which wins hands-down in capability, in its availability, service availability. It’s a more efficient system,” said Mr. Bedi of Jane’s, but, he added, “India requires so much, there’s enough food on the table for everyone to eat and have a go at it.”
He says this about weapons systems when at least 15 percent of the population are going hungry (probably more) -- and yet they still have an obesity problem.
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Also see:
New Zealand company looks to bring a different kind of milk to US
Purdue to donate $3.4m to nonprofit developing overdose antidote
Gunmen kill drug-linked Philippine town mayor in his office
Seoul envoys meet Kim to fix inter-Korean summit
They are going around Trump just like his staff.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"The Necco candy plant in Revere abruptly closed in July, ending the company’s century-long tradition of candy-making. Now comes the fight over the scraps. The trustee in the New England Confectionery Co.’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case has sued the now-defunct company’s former owners and previous leaders, alleging they ran the business into the ground while pocketing millions from the sale of its real estate....."
The Trumps are everywhere in my Globe, and I hope you enjoy the roll:
Revering Eastie
Globe Sharecropping
I guess all the workers found employment with Globe help, huh?
"Huge water park and sports complex proposed for former casino site" by Tim Logan Globe Staff September 05, 2018
A site once eyed for a casino in the Western Massachusetts town of Palmer could soon be home to a $650 million water park and youth sports complex.
Developers unveiled plans Wednesday for a huge indoor-outdoor sports facility with a resort hotel and two water parks at a 250-acre location near Exit 8 on the Massachusetts Turnpike. It’s a bid to draw youth sports teams, and their families, from hundreds of miles around.
“This destination water park, sports resort, and spa will draw visitors from throughout the Northeast,” said Trip Knox, of the Palmer Sports Group, which is proposing the project. “The strategic location of the resort near the confluence of the Massachusetts Turnpike and in close proximity to Routes 84 and 91 will make it a convenient destination offering sports recreation to meet a growing demand.”
A preliminary site map shared by developers shows an array of baseball and soccer fields, “indoor sports bubble,” buildings for hockey and basketball and even beach volleyball, along with water parks, a hotel, and spa. There are also several dozen townhouses in the complex.
The project, which has been in the works for two years, will need approval from Palmer’s Planning Board, and may seek state assistance for street work and other infrastructure in the region.
Located along Route 32, the property is the one for which the owners of Mohegan Sun spent several years planning a casino, until voters in the town of about 12,000 narrowly rejected the idea in 2013. Mohegan then signed a deal to build a casino at Suffolk Downs in Revere, but state gaming officials awarded the only Boston-area casino license to Wynn Resorts’ project in Everett.
Palmer officials, and the casino site’s owner, have been looking for a new use for the massive tract of land ever since. Michael D’Amato, also of the Palmer Sports Group, said he hoped the sports complex, along with the newly opened MGM casino in nearby Springfield, would help cement the area as a tourism destination.
They went all in!
“With the recent opening of the MGM Springfield casino, this represents a synergistic project that will draw even more visitors to the Valley, making Palmer the true gateway to all of Western Massachusetts,” D’Amato said.
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Looks like this is the end:
"Theranos quietly prepares for its end" by Reed Abelson New York Times September 05, 2018
NEW YORK — Theranos is going out with barely a whisper. Once heralded as a revolutionary new way to conduct a blood test to detect myriad diseases, all with a single finger prick, the company is making preparations to close its operations, according to a letter sent to shareholders.
“We are now out of time,” David Taylor, the company’s chief executive and general counsel, informed investors in an e-mail first reported Tuesday by The Wall Street Journal, whose in-depth investigation unraveled the company’s claims. Taylor declined to comment further, saying the letter spoke for itself.
Me, too.
Founded in 2003 by Elizabeth Holmes, a 19-year-old Stanford University dropout, Theranos promised to shake up the entire lab industry, making blood tests much easier and less expensive than traditional methods.
A charismatic executive who wore black turtlenecks and spoke passionately about giving people control over their health information, Holmes attracted high-profile investors and assembled a Who’s Who of directors, including two former secretaries of state and two former US senators. General Jim Mattis, the current secretary of defense, also served on the board.
Did Woodward know about that?
At its peak, the privately held company was valued at a lofty $9 billion, and Holmes was promoted as one of the nation’s most successful female entrepreneurs, but questions emerged about the accuracy of the company’s testing, and federal regulators barred Holmes from owning and operating a laboratory for two years in 2016.
In March, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Holmes with widespread fraud, accusing her of exaggerating — even lying — about her technology. In announcing the charges, the SEC said Theranos and Holmes agreed to a settlement.
Then in June, Holmes was indicted on criminal charges, and she has pleaded not guilty.....
It's so much more disappointing when a woman does this kind of thing, isn't it?
Maybe she should explore a career in politics, 'eh?
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Related: Theranos to fire 340 employees, shut down
Things were going so well, but at least the bleeding stopped.
Too bad she didn't have friends like Yellen, Lagarde, or Studzinski.
Should Locke 'em all up and tell them to go to hell.
