"Barr pushes back against Trump’s criticism of Justice Dept., says tweets ‘make it impossible for me to do my job’" by Devlin Barrett, Matt Zapotosky and Josh Dawsey Washington Post, February 13, 2020
WASHINGTON — Attorney General William Barr pushed back hard Thursday against President Trump’s attacks on the Justice Department, saying, ‘‘I’m not going to be bullied or influenced by anybody,’’ an assertion of independence that could jeopardize his tenure as the nation’s top law enforcement official.
Yeah, right. This is all theater. Puppet show illusion and imagery and political diversion masking itself as substantive journalism.
The remarkable public rebuke of the president by a sitting member of his Cabinet arose from a crisis of confidence at the Justice Department, which had been accused this week of buckling to an angry tweet the president issued after learning of prosecutors’ initial prison recommendation for his longtime friend Roger Stone.
‘‘I think it’s time to stop the tweeting about Department of Justice criminal cases,’’ Barr said in an interview with ABC News, adding that such statements ‘‘about the department, about people in the department, our men and women here, about cases pending here, and about judges before whom we have cases, make it impossible for me to do my job and to assure the courts and the prosecutors and the department that we’re doing our work with integrity.’’
So much for praising him.
People close to Barr said that in recent months he has become increasingly frustrated with Trump’s tweets about the Justice Department. The president, they said, seemed not only to be undercutting his own political momentum but also to be causing doubts about the department’s independence.....
As if.
See: Slow Saturday Special: Clinton Foundation Cleared
Barr is there to keep the secrets. This front-page lead is a nothing-burger.
--more--"
Right below was this nonsense:
"Former prosecutors weigh in on DOJ handling of Stone case" by Shelley Murphy Globe Staff, February 13, 2020
As criticism escalated over the Justice Department’s unusual decision to seek less prison time for a longtime ally of President Trump, several former federal prosecutors Thursday said the reversal was an alarming display of political interference that compromised the department’s independence.
How quickly they have forgotten the "prosecution" of Epstein, 'eh?
“There’s no attempt to even avoid the appearance of improper political influence in this matter,” former Massachusetts US attorney Carmen Ortiz said. “I think people need to start realizing that we are a country that is being led by someone who thinks he is completely above the law and is proud of it."
Former Massachusetts US attorney Carmen Ortiz(Jonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff/file).
So says the former Obama attorney and prosecutor of Bulger and Tsarnaev, among others.
On Monday, federal prosecutors asked a judge to sentence Roger Stone, Trump’s former campaign adviser, to as long as nine years in prison for lying to Congress and obstructing its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Those would be the Deep State Obama holdovers, of course.
The next day, just hours after Trump denounced the sentencing recommendation on Twitter as a “horrible and very unfair situation," prosecutors rescinded the original recommendation, saying it “would not be appropriate or serve the interests of justice in this case.”
The new filing did not recommend a specific sentence. Stone is slated to be sentenced Feb. 20.
In an apparent protest, the four career prosecutors who took the case to trial withdrew Tuesday, while Trump praised Attorney General William Barr for “taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought.”
There are protests, and then there are prote$ts -- so don't choke or drown on them, pffft.
--more--"
Back above the fold with a front-page feature:
"Warren’s campaign to save the party may not save her" by Liz Goodwin and Jess Bidgood Globe Staff, February 13, 2020
DERRY, N.H. — The New Hampshire primary was days away, and Senator Elizabeth Warren was in trouble, but surrounded by skeptical reporters after a town hall here, she batted away questions on what she needed to change to lift her middling polling numbers, and pointed instead to one aspect of her campaign.
“I’m not someone who shaped a campaign with a bunch of consultants,” Warren said defiantly. “I didn’t pick the proposals I have because they would be appealing to big-dollar donors.”
It might have seemed an odd time to stress her strict fund-raising rules and aversion to consultants instead of a more personal appeal to New Hampshire voters, but to Warren, the purity of her operation has long been central to a presidential bid that was supposed to get her elected while also leaving the Democratic Party better than she found it.
She has run her campaign in keeping with the anticorruption message that animates it, swearing off private fund-raisers and constantly reminding voters what she’s doing with her time instead: taking 100,000 pictures with supporters in her famous “selfie lines,” visiting 30 states, and calling to thank her small donors instead of begging wealthy people for money.
Somehow it is not enough to overcome rigged voting apps and machines.
Yet in the days between her third-place showing in Iowa and her fourth-place finish in New Hampshire, the path Warren blazed seemed to take her right out of the limelight.
The Globe still front-pages her; however, their preferred candidate has already withdrawn.
So much for sticking to the plan. I gue$$ the price tag for Elizabeth Warren’s Medicare for All plan was too expensive for the Democratic primary voters (I'm sure the Globe is a fair and impartial arbiter). The sad truth is her plan was a health care pipe dream and a complex idea with huge ramifications for Massachusetts even as Baker eyes a legacy-defining revamp of Mass. health care.
Looks like it is too late to hit back after making nice for so long. She never won over the moderates and one can trace the problem back to her public apology over the Native American issue.
Instead, former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg — who happily attended high-roller fund-raisers and put consultants on the payroll — beat her for a second time, and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar finished a surprising third in Tuesday’s contest.
Warren’s disappointing early performance suggests many Democrats weren’t sure the year they were trying to defeat President Trump was the time to get money out of politics, and the voters who were sold on her anticorruption message had another progressive candidate, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who rocketed to political fame in 2016 by railing against millionaires and billionaires, to consider.
“Donald Trump will do anything to win, everybody knows that,” said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. “So it’s only logical for some people to say, ‘We’ll worry about these ethical rules next time.’ ”
It can seem like Warren wants to change the Democratic Party and politics itself by running the perfect campaign, but some of the very rules she had in place to embody her message, like rejecting outside ad agencies, may have made it harder for her to defeat rivals who were not so shackled.
“The fight we’re in — the fight to save our democracy — is an uphill battle,” Warren said Tuesday night, speaking to her disappointed supporters.
Her campaign has vowed to stay in the fight, positioning her as a “unity candidate” and hoping that the large and chaotic field will help her overcome two losses in a row. She told the Associated Press Thursday that she had raised $6 million since Iowa, but the danger remains that her grass-roots funding could dry up if she doesn’t post wins soon.
In a call with her entire staff on Tuesday night, Warren said “we are not close” to knowing what will happen in the race.
“Even so, I recognize that doesn’t make this easy, I don’t kid myself,” she said. “I know that when the pundits and naysayers criticize us, I know it gets hard.”
“These are the moments we find out who we are,” she added. “We find out why we’re in this fight.”
There are many possible reasons why Warren’s campaign faltered in Iowa or New Hampshire, including the pummeling she received for her Medicare for All plan and Sanders’ post-heart attack comeback that allowed him to consolidate much of the left wing of the electorate, but the early results are discouraging for a campaign that drew admiration and envy from Warren’s rivals for its ability to put other candidates on the spot over their own tactics.....
What isn't mentioned under the alleged Medicare for All cover is her criticism of Israeli actions in Gaza last year. She was ahead at the time, then came a precipitous drop soon after.
I know she thought she was just pandering to base like with reparations and a transgender Sec of Ed, but she crossed the line when it came to the Zionist string-pullers that rule us.
--more--"
Senator Elizabeth Warren greeted supporters outside a polling place in Manchester, N.H., on Tuesday (Jessica Rinaldi/Globe Staff).
Aaaaah!
I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that love is a Mistry:
"Wayfair lays off 550 employees, including 350 in Boston; While the job cuts aren’t severe, they mark a moment of reckoning for a company that is one of the state’s few consumer-focused tech superstars" by Janelle Nanos Globe Staff, February 13, 2020
After more than doubling its workforce in the past two years, Wayfair is tapping the brakes.
The online seller of furniture and other home goods said Thursday that it would cut 550 employees worldwide, as its chief executive acknowledged the Boston-based company had grown too quickly and become less efficient as its red-hot sales growth shows signs of cooling.
That's not tapping brakes while still moving forward, that's going in reverse!
“We find ourselves at a place where we are, from an execution standpoint, investing in too many disparate areas, with an uneven quality and speed of execution,” chief executive Niraj Shah said in an e-mail to employees. “Through two years of aggressive expansion, we no doubt built some excess, inefficiency, and even waste at times, in almost every area.”
While the job cuts aren’t severe — Wayfair said they would affect 3 percent of its 17,000 workers, including 350 in Boston — they mark a moment of reckoning for a company that is one of the state’s few consumer-focused tech superstars.
Tell that to the people losing them!
Even as revenue soared 37.5 percent to $6.6 billion in the first nine months of last year, Wayfair has failed to turn a profit. Its executives have argued that despite a prolonged track record of losses, the company has been in growth mode, investing heavily in its supply chain and European expansion. Its board members and executives point to Amazon as a model, which for years was unprofitable and funneled revenue back into growth, but Wayfair’s critics argue that selling furniture is more challenging than shipping books and boots — and besides, Amazon is now positioning itself to become one of Wayfair’s largest competitors online.
Related:
"Jeff Bezos is on a shopping spree befitting the world’s richest man. The Amazon.com Inc. founder agreed to pay $165 million for a Beverly Hills mansion on nine acres, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, setting a record for a Los Angeles-area home. The property designed for Hollywood film titan Jack Warner in the 1930s was described by Architectural Digest in 1992 as the “archetypal studio mogul’s estate,” built in Georgian style with expansive terraces and its own nine-hole golf course. News of the sale emerged just days after filings showed Bezos cashed out $4.1 billion of Amazon shares and comes amid reports that he’s also entered the art market. He reportedly set a record for artist Ed Ruscha at a Christie’s auction with a $52.5 million purchase of “Hurting the Word Radio #2” in November and also bought “Vignette 19” by Kerry James Marshall for $18.5 million."
Ah, the #MeToo memories that must be in that place.
Also see: Siding With Amazon, judge halts work on Microsoft’s JEDI contract
He must be a Sith Lord (btw, the most recent film was the most cartoonish of all).
Some analysts downplayed the significance of the cuts. Sucharita Kodali, a retail analyst at Forrester, said Wayfair, like many fast-growing and unprofitable digital companies, clearly decided to make cuts to appease Wall Street, but the company did not appear to be facing cash constraints. “They’re only laying off 3 percent,” she said. “It’s not that many.”
WOW!
What a callous disregard for people's lives.
At least she is still working!
Wayfair said none of the layoffs will affect a new service center in Pittsfield, for which it received $31.4 million in state subsidies to open in 2018.
Oh, they are getting tax loot as the transportation system and schools are crumbling and there isn't enough money for healthcare.
The job cuts rattled a workforce that has grown so large that employees often wait in line for the escalators up to its offices in the Copley Place mall. At 2 a.m. Thursday, employees got a Slack message that said the company had locked some internal systems, so engineers would not able to deploy code or make significant data changes.
Several employees said workers who were about to lose their jobs were notified by e-mail at about 9:30 a.m. that they would be affected by major organizational restructuring. They were invited to conference rooms in groups of 50 to 100 people, one employee said, where they were informed they’d lost their jobs. Around 10 a.m., scores of employees, many of them visibly upset, began to descend the escalator from Wayfair’s headquarters.....
Maybe the walkout wasn't a good idea after all, 'eh?
Meanwhile, Dharmesh Mistry, a senior research manager at Wayfair in Boston and immigrant with a visa, said, “My life is over.”
--more--"
Maybe someone could show Mistry this:
"Solace for laid-off Wayfair workers: Other Boston tech companies are hungry for talent; With tech companies in Boston looking for talent, many laid-off Wayfair employees should have options" by Andy Rosen Globe Staff, February 13, 2020
Maria Cirino, cofounder of the Boston tech investment firm .406 Ventures, described layoffs like those at Wayfair as part of the normal cycle of turnover and hiring in the tech industry: “These people will all have jobs in two weeks if they want them. Good companies make adjustments as they have to from time to time in order to meet their financial objectives, and other good companies gain from jumping on great talent.”
Tech companies in Boston routinely describe a shortage of talent as one of the main limits to their growth here, so it’s no surprise that other Boston-area tech firms moved quickly at the sight of hundreds of workers streaming out of Wayfair’s offices. On social media and in interviews, some laid-off workers said they had been contacted by recruiters within hours of leaving.
One person who said he had been laid off from Wayfair Thursday morning reported hearing from six recruiters by late afternoon.
“I do generally hear from a recruiter or two each week in any case, but today there’s been a surge,” the former employee said in an e-mail. “One recruiter asked me if I knew of any one else who’d been affected at Wayfair. I mentioned a couple of other engineers and he’d already spoken to both of them.”
Several people interviewed by the Globe about the layoffs asked that their names not be used, citing concerns about potentially violating severance agreements or hurting their professional prospects.
It’s not certain that all former employees will be so lucky.....
Wha.... what?
--more--"
And yet I'm supposed to feel sorry for lying pre$$ sleaze at the papers (since when hasn't my pre$$ liked private equity and venture capital, 'eh)?
Time to take a rest.
"Boston officials reach out to Chinatown to quell coronavirus fears, misinformation" by Deanna Pan Globe Staff, February 13, 2020
Businesses and restaurants in Boston’s Chinatown have seen a sharp decline in customers. Local retailers have reported widespread shortages of face masks. On WeChat, the popular Chinese messaging app, an unfounded rumor has been circulating that the University of Massachusetts Boston student infected with the new coronavirus had visited a local hotpot restaurant before isolating himself at home.
Rumors and misinformation, much of it fueled by social media, have whipped up alarm about the virus, here and abroad. Now city officials are stepping up their efforts to quell the tide of fear and misinformation.
Yeah, the main purveyors of fear and misinformation are out there combatting it.
Orwell is spinning at light speed, and this is looking more and more like another in a series of virus scares every five years or so to drill the procedures for a martial law lockdown while goosing vaccine sales. Please, Gawd, don't let it affect Chinese touri$m into Bo$ton!
“We’re hearing a lot of rumors and we’re hearing a lot of negative comments about the Chinese community, but that’s not what your city is about,” Boston councilor Ed Flynn told a group of seniors at Quincy Tower, an affordable housing complex for the elderly in Chinatown. “It’s about empathy and working together as a city.”
On Thursday, Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s Office of Economic Development launched a social media campaign to encourage residents and tourists to patronize Chinatown’s small businesses and post photos of themselves online with the hashtag #LoveBostonChinatown.....
Don't hug or kiss though.
--more--"
I always feel like I need to wash hands after handling a Globe.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"In bipartisan bid to restrain Trump, Senate passes Iran War Powers Resolution" by Catie Edmondson New York Times, February 13, 2020
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Thursday to require President Trump to seek congressional authorization before taking further military action against Iran, as Democrats joined forces with eight Republicans to try to rein in the president’s war-making powers.
The bipartisan vote, 55-45, amounted to a rare attempt by the Senate to restrain Trump’s authority just over a week after it voted to acquit him of impeachment charges and nearly six weeks after the president moved without authorization from Congress to kill a top Iranian security commander, but it was a mostly symbolic rebuke of the president, as support for the measure fell short of the two-thirds supermajority needed to override a promised veto by Trump. The House passed a similar measure last month on a nearly party-line vote that also fell well short of the two-thirds margin.
Still, indignant at the administration’s handling of a drone strike in Iraq last month that killed a top Iranian official — a major provocation that pushed the United States and Iran to the brink of war — an unusually large number of Senate Republicans crossed party lines in an attempt to claw back Congress’s authority to weigh in on matters of war and peace.
A symbolic nothing, but still!!!!!
“We don’t send a message of weakness when we stand up for the rule of law in a world that hungers for more rule of law,” Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat from Virginia, the lead sponsor of the measure, said.
Yeah, the world's rogues regime that holds itself above the law must stand up for the rule of law.
Can you see why I'm not loving this anymore?
“We need a Congress that will fully inhabit the Article I powers,” Kaine added, referring to the portion of the Constitution that grants Congress the power to declare war. “That’s what our troops and their families deserve.”
Why have you waited 18 fucking years?
Kaine drafted the resolution in early January as tensions ratcheted up with Iran after the strike in Baghdad that killed General Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s most important general. In briefings with Trump’s national security team, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, already angry that the administration had not consulted with them before the operation, complained that top officials demeaned and dismissed them in briefings for questioning the president’s strategy.
Look at how the war-criminal assassination and impeachable offense has been whitewashed.
Their only disagreement is you didn't tell us!
(Btw, ignore the endless stream of lies coming from Trump and the Pentagon regarding the alleged retaliation by Iran. You've been lied to from the start. First it was no injuries, then it was a dozen, then it was 35 or so, and now it is over 100)
Both Republicans and Democrats who sponsored the resolution insisted that the measure was not intended to tie Trump’s hands but to reassert Congress’ constitutional prerogatives on matters of war. For decades, lawmakers in both parties have ceded those powers with little resistance, deferring to an increasingly assertive executive branch.
More puppet show theater for you.
Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky, who have advocated disengaging US troops from prolonged military conflicts abroad, were infuriated by a contentious congressional briefing delivered last month by Trump’s top national security advisers on the operation. They complained that administration officials had been unwilling to engage in a genuine discussion about a possible military escalation in the Middle East.
Well, we have lost Syria and will soon be out of Afghanistan.
Still, Trump viewed the resolution as a personal affront.....
Well, they had their chance to get rid of him and voted to acquit!
--more--"
Related:
Former White House chief of staff Kelly takes issue with Trump for ousting Vindman, among other things
The insubordinate traitor is baaaaack.
"President Trump said Thursday that he might end the long-running practice of letting other administration officials listen in on presidential calls with foreign leaders. That’s after Trump’s impeachment was triggered by his July phone call with the president of Ukraine. “I may end the practice entirely,” Trump told Geraldo Rivera in a radio interview that aired Thursday. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House staffers listened in on Trump’s July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky....."
And then there are those chosen ones who are above it all:
"Hope Hicks, the president’s former communications director who served an outsize role in the White House and spent many hours a day in the Oval Office, will rejoin the administration, officials said Thursday. She will work for Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and political adviser, the White House said, on political affairs and other ‘‘strategic’’ matters. She will not be part of the White House communications shop. ‘‘There is no one more devoted to implementing President Trump’s agenda than Hope Hicks. We are excited to have her back on the team,’’ Kushner said. Hicks left the White House to become a senior executive at New Fox in California and had embraced a different life, people close to her said. She wrestled with the whether to return to Washington for weeks, trying to decide if she wanted to leave a lucrative salary and a quieter life to return to the fray, according to people who discussed the matter with her and spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private conversations. She was repeatedly courted by Kushner and the president who argued to Hicks that they needed her for the reelection, a person with knowledge of the discussions said. Also returning to the White House is Trump’s former personal assistant John McEntee, who will serve as head of presidential personnel, according to a senior administration official. McEntee lost his White House job in March 2018 because an investigation found he was a frequent gambler whose habit posed a security risk, two people familiar with his departure said at the time. Hicks began working for Trump before he announced his candidacy and had been a trusted confidante for three years, shaping his image and counseling him on nearly all matters, from the substantive to the trivial. The president would regularly yell for Hicks to come into the Oval Office. Hicks exerted extraordinary influence in Washington and the president treated her almost as a surrogate daughter even as other aides said she knew little about policy, but she left the administration in 2018 after she drew scrutiny from an investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller III, and her personal relationship with Rob Porter, who left his job as White House staff secretary after the Daily Mail reported that his former wives accused him of abuse. Hicks had admitted to a House committee that she told ‘‘white lies’’ on the president’s behalf....."
President Trump posed with Hope Hicks on her last day as White House communications director in March 2018. Andrew Harnik/Associated Press/File/Associated Press
She is hot as hell but looks like a slut, sorry.
Trump, Bloomberg trade Twitter taunts
He crossed a redline:
"Bloomberg once blamed end of ‘redlining’ for 2008 collapse" by Brian Slodysko Associated Press, February 13, 2020
WASHINGTON — At the height of the 2008 economic collapse, then-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the elimination of a discriminatory housing practice known as “redlining” was responsible for instigating the meltdown.
“It all started back when there was a lot of pressure on banks to make loans to everyone,” Bloomberg, now a Democratic presidential candidate, said at a forum that was hosted by Georgetown University in September 2008. “Redlining, if you remember, was the term where banks took whole neighborhoods and said, ‘People in these neighborhoods are poor, they’re not going to be able to pay off their mortgages, tell your salesmen don’t go into those areas.’ ”
He continued: “And then Congress got involved — local elected officials, as well — and said, ‘Oh that’s not fair, these people should be able to get credit.’ And once you started pushing in that direction, banks started making more and more loans where the credit of the person buying the house wasn’t as good as you would like.”
Then you bundle them all up as securities and sell them to investors and pensions funds while betting against them before beginning fraudulent foreclosure proceedings without the required paperwork.
I suppose all he is doing is laying the blame for the skyrocketing homelessness under his watch at their feet.
Bloomberg, a billionaire who built a media and financial services empire before turning to electoral politics, was correct that the financial crisis was triggered in part by banks extending loans to borrowers who were ill-suited to repay them, but by attributing the meltdown to the elimination of redlining, a practice used by banks to discriminate against minority borrowers, Bloomberg appears to be blaming policies intended to bring equality to the housing market.
The term redlining comes from the “red lines” those in the financial industry would draw on a map to denote areas deemed ineligible for credit.
Campaign spokesman Stu Loeser said that Bloomberg “attacked predatory lending” as mayor and, if elected president, has a plan to “help a million more Black families buy a house, and counteract the effects of redlining and the subprime mortgage crisis.’’
Why did they capitalize Black as if they were Jewish?
After this story was published, Loeser added: ‘‘He’s saying that something bad — the financial crisis — followed something good, which is the fight against redlining that he was part of as mayor.”
Careful, you will hurt yourself trying to twist out of that.
His redlining remarks are the latest instance of past comments by him that have resurfaced in recent days that make him appear racially insensitive.
Huh?
Good old Republican-turned-Independent-turned-Democrat Stop-and-Frisk Mayor-for-Life Mike racially insensitive?
Surely you jest!
--more--"
Oh, btw, please wish him a happy birthday.
Also see:
House removes ERA ratification deadline, one obstacle to enactment
So it can be kicked around like abortion.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of Congress spoke to the media after the House’s vote on Thursday.
Looks more like Halloween to me.
Former law clerk alleges harassment by late prominent judge
$10 million gift to help Library of Congress upgrade its Jefferson Building
The donation is from philanthropist David Rubenstein.
Pentagon to divert $3.8 billion from its budget to build more of President Trump’s border wall
Fiery train derailment in Kentucky spills ethanol into river
It turned the lobsters blue after hopping the seawall, but at least the horses escaped the carbon monoxide at the mall.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"Sudan says it agrees to compensate families of USS Cole bombing" by Abdi Latif Dahir New York Times, February 13, 2020
NAIROBI — Sudan’s interim government said Thursday that it had reached a financial settlement with families of the victims of the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, an effort to persuade the United States to remove Sudan from a list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Seventeen sailors died and another 39 were wounded in the attack, which took place in 2000.
It was an Israeli false flag, much like the USS Liberty, to be soon followed by 9/11.
US officials have pressed Sudan for reparations in recent months, the State Department said, saying compensation for the victims of terrorism remained a priority if the United States was to remove Sudan from the list.
The Trump administration has been looking at lifting the terrorism designation for Sudan “for quite some time,” said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking to reporters on a plane to Germany, before visiting several countries in Africa and the Middle East.....
Pulling out of Africa, too and keep those last two paragraphs in mind as we move to the Philippines and complaints against China.
--more--"
Related:
"Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday said he is “outraged” by the UN’s publication of a list of companies accused of violating Palestinian human rights by operating in Israel’s West Bank settlements. In a statement, Pompeo said the list supports a Palestinian-led boycott movement and “delegitimizes” Israel. He urged other countries to join the US in rejecting the effort. “The United States has long opposed the creation or release of this database,” Pompeo said. “Its publication only confirms the unrelenting anti-Israel bias so prevalent at the United Nations.”
It only balances off the outrageous pro-Israel bias of the United States government, and prepare to be sanctioned!
"US admiral hopes Philippine security pact can still be saved" by Rod McGuirk Associated Press, February 13, 2020
CANBERRA, Australia — The move by the Philippines to end a security pact that allowed US forces to train in the country potentially “challenged” future American operations with Filipino forces, a US admiral said on Thursday.
Admiral Philip S. Davidson, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, told a foreign policy think-tank in Sydney that he hoped the US State Department would be able to negotiate a solution that would keep the Visiting Forces Agreement in place.
“It’s a 180-day notice, so we have some time for diplomatic efforts to be pursued here,” Davidson said. “I hope we can get to a successful outcome.’’
That's Pompeo's State Department, right?
Good luck!
The Philippines notified the United States on Tuesday it would end the agreement, in the most serious threat under President Rodrigo Duterte to their 69-year bilateral treaty alliance.
In Washington, President Trump, when asked about the Philippines’ decision, said “I never minded that very much, to be honest. We helped the Philippines very much.’’
He added: “We helped them defeat ISIS. I get along, actually I have a very good relationship there. But I really don’t mind if they would like to do that. That’s fine, we’ll save a lot of money. My views are different than other people. I view it as thank you very much, we save a lot of money. But if you look back, if you go back three years ago, when ISIS was overrunning the Philippines, we came in and literally single-handedly were able to save them from vicious attacks on their islands.”
What is he babbling about?
A senior administration official said Washington was disappointed.
“The United States shares a long history with the government and people of the Philippines and recognizes that regional and global security is best served through the strong partnership that is enabled by the Visiting Forces Agreement,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Yeah, a long history that includes squelching their drive for independence after "liberating" them from Spain.
Davidson said the United States did not have such agreements with every country in the region.
“But our ability to help the Philippines and their counter-violent extremist fight in the south, our ability to train and operate within the Philippines and with Filipino armed forces would be challenged without that Visiting Forces Agreement,” Davidson said.
I would expect ISIS™will be sent to the Philippines and soon be activated again.
American forces have provided intelligence, training, and aid that allowed the Philippines to deal with human trafficking, cyberattacks, illegal narcotics, and terrorism. US military assistance helped Philippine forces quell a disastrous siege by Islamic State group-aligned militants in southern Marawi city in 2017.
The accord, known by its acronym VFA, legally allows the entry of large numbers of American forces along with US military ships and aircraft for joint training with Philippine troops. It specifies which country will have jurisdiction over American soldiers who may be accused of crimes while in the Philippines.
A separate defense pact subsequently signed by the allies in 2014, the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, allows the extended stay of US forces and authorizes them to build and maintain barracks and warehouses and store defense equipment and weapons inside five designated Philippine military camps.
The US Embassy in Manila described the notice as “a serious step with significant implications for the US-Philippines alliance.”
Duterte has often criticized US security policies while praising those of China and Russia, despite the Philippine military’s close historic ties with its American counterpart.
He better be careful or he will find himself the victim of a CIA hit.
Davidson said countries in the region are beginning to take a stand against Chinese attempts to manipulate them through debt-trap diplomacy, coercion, and bullying.
You read that last paragraph and absolutely puke at the pre$$ propaganda in favor of the US empire. It is exactly the policies of debt austerity that the West foists on nations, with the US as the main bully (see Sudan above).
All nations in the region were involved in a strategic competition “between a Beijing-centric order and a free and open Indo-Pacific,” he said.
China has scoffed at what it calls US interference in the Asia-Pacific region and has denied linking aid to politics.
No, the American government does that with its sanctions policy (otherwise known as coercion).
--more--"
Also see:
Woman awakens from coma two months after volcano eruption
That's in New Zealand.
UK Treasury chief quits as Johnson shakes up Cabinet
Titanic, deck chairs.
"An American woman wanted in the 2002 death of her husband, whose remains were so badly burned they weren’t identified for more than a decade, was arrested in Rome, police said Thursday. Rome police arrested Beverly McCallum, 59, overnight after she and her teenage son checked into a Rome hotel on the northwest outskirts of the Italian capital. US authorities had been seeking to extradite McCallum from Pakistan, where she was believed to be living, to stand trial in the slaying of her husband, Robert Caraballo. In 2002, he was beaten and suffocated, and his body was dumped and burned in a blueberry patch....."
Why did Amanda Knox just come to mind?
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"Teacher unions: Children terrified by active shooter drills" by Pat Eaton-Robb Associated Press, February 13, 2020
HARTFORD— The nation’s two largest teachers unions want schools to revise or eliminate active shooter drills, asserting Tuesday that they can harm students’ mental health and that there are better ways to prepare for the possibility of a school shooting.
“Everywhere I travel, I hear from parents and educators about active shooter drills terrifying students, leaving them unable to concentrate in the classroom and unable to sleep at night,” said Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association. “So traumatizing students as we work to keep students safe from gun violence is not the answer. That is why if schools are going to do drills, they need to take steps to ensure the drills do more good than harm.’’
It's no different than playing cops and robbers, and that's the price that must be paid to indoctrinate and inculcate students and pre-program them for the future surveillance and police state.
The report released Tuesday issued guidelines for schools that decide to use drills. Those include never simulating an actual shooting; giving parents, educators, and students advance notice of any drill; working with mental health officials to create age-appropriate and trauma-informed drills; and tracking the effects of drills.
About 95 percent of schools drilled students on lockdown procedures in the 2015-16 school year, according to a survey by the National Center for Education Statistics.....
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Related:
Two suspects in custody for fake gun incident at Wrentham high school
Just don't mention the Sandy Hook hoax, 'kay?
Middle school hires security for basketball games after spat
Youths destroy merchandise, pull out stun gun and mace at Downtown Crossing Macy’s
They are still at large.
Speaking of being at-large soon, are you ladies ready for an acquittal?
"Weinstein lawyer: Prosecutors have a ‘tale,’ not a case" by Tom Hays, Jennifer Peltz and Michael R. Sisak Associated Press, February 13, 2020
NEW YORK — Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer told jurors Thursday that prosecutors in the rape case against him were acting like moviemakers, conjuring up a world ‘‘where women had no free will.”
“In the alternative universe that prosecutors have created for you, Harvey Weinstein is a monster,” lawyer Donna Rotunno said in her closing argument, but, she said, he’s an innocent man relying on jurors not to be swayed by a “sinister tale.’’
“The irony is that they are the producers and they are writing the script,” Rotunno said, urging the jury to not buy into “the story they spun where women had no free will.”
“In their universe, women are not responsible for the parties they attend, the men they flirt with, the choices they make to further their own careers, the hotel room invitations, the plane tickets they accept, the jobs they ask for help to obtain,’’ or the messages they send, Rotunno said.
Witnesses testified they were seeking a professional relationship with Weinstein, who produced many Oscar-winning movies. Rotunno dismissed that as an expedient excuse.
“If they label it what it was, we wouldn’t be here,” she told the jury of seven men and five women in a case seen as a watershed for the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct.
About the witnesses’ continued relationship with Weinstein, she told the jury: “This is where you need to say, ‘Wait a minute — do I have doubt about the story she’s telling?’ How could you not?”
“He was the target of a cause and a movement,” Rotunno said, asking jurors to ignore “outside forces’’ and weigh the facts.....
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See: Weinstein accuser called him her ‘spiritual soul mate,’ witness says
If the case is shit, you must acquit.
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The Globe asks if love belongs in the classroom given the pressure to reform schools, and don't be nervous because as we all know cops and preachers make good teachers.
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Now for the challenges of climate change at the bedside.
That's crazy and could be expensive. Better try New Hampshire as the legalization of marijuana has led to bribery in Ma$$achu$etts.
DEA raids Newburyport office of Dr. Keith Ablow, controversial psychiatrist who settled malpractice lawsuits
He apparently drew three female patients into sexual relationships and improperly prescribed medications, including addictive narcotics, to eight people who worked for him for years and sometimes asked the workers to share the drugs with him.
Related:
Three women settle medical malpractice lawsuits against prominent psychiatrist Keith Ablow
By Laura Crimaldi Globe Staff,June 27, 2019,
He told them he owned them as he was turning prescription writing into an art, and his suspension was an explosion that rocked Newburyport.
Defrocked Massachusetts priest appeals sex abuse conviction
Sad that Globe is now in pre-Spotlight mode!
State reports rise in students experiencing homelessness
Could have used some of that Wayfair tax loot, and at least some will not have to worry:
UMass Boston interim chancellor Katherine Newman to return to university central administration
UMass Boston Interim Chancellor Katherine NewmanJonathan Wiggs/Globe Staff
They created a new position for her!
Lori Loughlin’s attorneys want her to stand trial in Feb. 2021 at the earliest
Justus delayed is Justus for the privileged elite!
Lori Loughlin and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, departed federal court in Boston after facing charges in April (Steven Senne/Associated Press)
In 1929, the ‘‘St. Valentine’s Day Massacre’’ took place in a Chicago garage as seven rivals of Al Capone’s gang were gunned down.
In 1949, Israel’s Knesset convened for the first time.
In 2013, double-amputee and Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, at his home in Pretoria, South Africa; he was later convicted of murder and is serving a 13-year prison term. American Airlines and US Airways announced an $11 billion merger that turned American into the world’s biggest airline.
In 2018, a gunman identified as a former student opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School near Fort Lauderdale, killing 17 people in the nation’s deadliest school shooting since the attack in Newtown, Conn.
Last year, William Barr was sworn in for his second stint as the nation’s attorney general.....
It's only been a year?
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They mean business in Parkland:
Parkland parents, survivor seek support of businesses on gun control
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey held up a pin with the new Gun Safety-Certified logo designed by Manuel and Patricia Oliver, parents of Joaquin Oliver, who was killed in the Parkland mass shooting on Valentine's Day of 2018, during a press conference on Thursday (Blake Nissen/The Boston Globe).
She's also taking on JUUL even as the opioid crisis festers.
Gaming commission OK’s machine-made drinks at Encore
It's getting tough at the gaming tables as revenue remains sluggish and others fold.
The beer is finally flowing at the Sam Adams taproom
Just don't smoke pot.
Trump Fed nominee Shelton faces skepticism at Senate hearing
Judy Shelton, one of President Trump’s nominees for the Federal Reserve, said she would bring “intellectual diversity” to the Fed.J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press/Associated Press
Boston-New York seaplane service gets the go-ahead
So much for climate change!
Record number of 401(k) millionaires
The bull market is minting plenty of millionaires.
Consumer prices up slightly in January
You can afford it!
Russia fines Twitter and Facebook for refusing to store data on Russian server
What's good for the goose.....
American Airlines to use Seattle as gateway to India
Nissan struggles in wake of Ghosn scandal
The results don’t take into account possible damage from production halts in China caused by the new virus outbreak.
China car sales dropped last month
US stocks edge mostly lower after China virus cases spike
That is going to be the excuse given for when the economy implodes, with designated enemy to blame.
Name dropper:
"After days of blistering criticism, Snoop Dogg has finally apologized to Gayle King for attacking her over her interview with former basketball star Lisa Leslie about the late Kobe Bryant. “Two wrongs don't make no right. when you're wrong, you gotta fix it," he said in an Instagram post on Wednesday. “So with that being said, Gayle King, I publicly tore you down by coming at you in a derogatory manner based off of emotions of me being angry at a question you asked. Overreacted," he said. "I should have handled it way different than that, I was raised way better than that, so I would like to apologize publicly for the language that I used and calling you out your name and just being disrespectful.” Snoop Dogg was furious that the “CBS This Morning” anchor brought up rape allegations from Bryant’s past in her interview with Leslie, a friend of Bryant. The retired Lakers star was killed in a helicopter crash last month along with his young daughter and seven others....."
Of the dead say nothing but good.
