front page May 20, 2019
Coming to Greater Boston: organ-carrying drones
I hope you don't miss the operation.
"It’s Amazon vs. Braintree in suit over delivery signage" by Tim Logan Globe Staff, May 19, 2019
One of the world’s biggest companies and a Boston suburb are squaring off in a lawsuit that could have broad implications for a booming business: getting stuff to your front door fast.
Amazon has sued the Town of Braintree over a requirement that delivery vehicles going to and from a warehouse that Amazon plans to build must carry signs identifying them as such.
It’s a condition that Braintree’s Planning Board attached last summer to zoning approval for the 250,000-square-foot facility. Local officials say the signs will allow them to make sure drivers — who will be contractors, not Amazon employees — comply with a traffic-management plan they hashed out with the online retailer.
At the time, Amazon’s attorney said the sign requirement “makes sense,” according to a video recording of a meeting, but the company later sued, saying the signage rules, along with requirements for extra driver safety checks and insurance, were “arbitrary, capricious, and illegal.”
What, Amazon went back on its word?
What did the mayor have to say?
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"Across the generations, a campaign emerges to counter age segregation" by Robert Weisman Globe Staff, May 19, 2019
NEWTON — It was a criminal justice class for the ages.
Eleven students at Lasell College probed a mock murder at a local pot shop. The elaborate fictional plot — involving a tattoo parlor, a weed party, and a knife stuffed in a knitting bag — was concocted by residents of a retirement community on the college grounds.
That pretty much encompasses the entire printed paper I read every morning -- fictional plots to advance a certain agenda. Never mind the stereotypes and prejudices contained within the game.
Murder at the pot shop, huh?
The exercise, called “CSI Lasell Village,” matched undergrads with retirees in their 70s and older whose creativity provided a sense of drama. Students interviewed village residents playing the roles of stunned and suspicious crime witnesses. They analyzed blood type, fiber, and the stabbing angle, before concluding the killer was “Ellie,” an older woman whose jacket and shoes matched the threads and footprints left by the perpetrator.
The least likely suspect of all!
Lasell’s intergenerational classes are part of an emerging movement seeking to connect — or reconnect — people across the age spectrum. The aim is to break down age segregation, the increasingly pervasive and often well-meaning separation of younger and older people in American schools, housing, work, and even spiritual life.
The $upremacist media never misses a chance to wedge a division.
Some leading the effort, including Marc Freedman, use the provocative term “age apartheid” to describe a society where people live parallel lives, divided by age, and seldom interact.
Why am I not surprised?
Tell it to the Palestinians.
“Older people need to nurture the next generation, and younger people need to be nurtured,” said Freedman, president of Encore.org, a nonprofit that offers mentoring opportunities for people over 50. “When people of different generations don’t have contact with each other, it creates negative stereotypes and contributes to loneliness and social isolation.”
My pre$$ is full of tax-exempt(!) nonprofits!
Now you know jwho i$ pu$hing the agenda!
Those who study the phenomenon say age segregation in the United States — so commonplace now, it can seem natural — arose only in the 20th century in response to disparate changes. Compulsory public education spawned an age-based grade structure. The launch of Social Security and Medicare gave employees in their mid-60s a financial cushion to leave the workplace. Improved health led to longer life spans, sparking a retirement housing boomlet.
In the 19th century, pre-teens and young adults learned to read together in one-room schoolhouses, and it wasn’t unusual for three generations of a family to live under the same roof. The generations labored side by side on farms and assembly lines, and prayed together, too.
Blog editor just shaking his head; however, in a small way, they have hit upon why this country has gone down the toilet.
Today, real estate developers build micro apartments for young professionals and senior-only housing for retirees.
Gray hair is a rarity in the youth-crazed world of high-tech startups, and some houses of worship try to keep young people engaged by funneling them to youth services.
Freedman, whose recent book “How to Live Forever” calls for a new push to connect the generations, noted that 2019 will be the first year more Americans will be over 60 than under 18.
Oh, the Globe is helping him sell a book!
$elf-$erving to the la$t!
Many baby boomers are reaching retirement age healthier and with more diverse work experience than past generations. Shunting them to the sidelines makes little sense, he said, at a time when many organizations clamor for employees, coaches, and volunteers.
The campaign for age integration is taking many forms.....
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[flip to below fold]
Here is your milk:
"Why is oat milk suddenly so popular, and what’s it actually like?" by Janelle Nanos Globe Staff,May 19, 2019
WILMINGTON — Cow’s milk consumption in the United States had fallen precipitously in the last decade, as consumers, driven by dietary restrictions and environmental concerns, increasingly reached for milk alternatives. Oat milk, a Swedish novelty, was the latest beige beverage being poured into lattes in coffeehouses across the country.
Hood executives wanted to be the first to deliver an oat milk to middle America. But formulating the drink quickly wasn’t easy: It had to mix well with coffee and baked goods and still taste good on its own.....
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Maybe it will help you down this:
"Deutsche Bank staff saw suspicious activity in Trump, Kushner accounts" by David Enrich New York Times, May 19, 2019
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Anti-money laundering specialists at Deutsche Bank recommended in 2016 and 2017 that multiple transactions involving legal entities controlled by Donald Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, be reported to a federal financial-crimes watchdog.
The transactions, some of which involved Trump’s now-defunct foundation, set off alerts in a computer system designed to detect illicit activity, according to five current and former bank employees. Compliance staff members who then reviewed the transactions prepared so-called suspicious activity reports that they believed should be sent to a unit of the Treasury Department that polices financial crimes, but executives at Deutsche Bank, which has lent billions of dollars to the Trump and Kushner companies, rejected their employees’ advice. The reports were never filed with the government.
The nature of the transactions was not clear. At least some of them involved money flowing back and forth with overseas entities or individuals, which bank employees considered suspicious.
Real estate developers like Trump and Kushner sometimes do large, all-cash deals, including with people outside the United States, any of which can prompt anti-money laundering reviews. The red flags raised by employees do not necessarily mean the transactions were improper. Banks sometimes opt not to file suspicious activity reports if they conclude their employees’ concerns are unwarranted, but former Deutsche Bank employees said the decision not to report the Trump and Kushner transactions reflected the bank’s generally lax approach to money laundering laws. The employees — most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve their ability to work in the industry — said it was part of a pattern of the bank’s executives rejecting valid reports to protect relationships with lucrative clients.
“You present them with everything, and you give them a recommendation, and nothing happens,” said Tammy McFadden, a former Deutsche Bank anti-money laundering specialist who reviewed some of the transactions. “It’s the D.B. way. They are prone to discounting everything.”
McFadden said she was terminated last year after she raised concerns about the bank’s practices. Since then, she has filed complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulators about the bank’s anti-money-laundering enforcement.
Kerrie McHugh, a Deutsche Bank spokeswoman, said the company had intensified its efforts to combat financial crime. An effective anti-money laundering program, she said, “requires sophisticated transaction screening technology as well as a trained group of individuals who can analyze the alerts generated by that technology both thoroughly and efficiently.”
“At no time was an investigator prevented from escalating activity identified as potentially suspicious,” she added. “Furthermore, the suggestion that anyone was reassigned or fired in an effort to quash concerns relating to any client is categorically false.”
Amanda Miller, a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization, the umbrella company for the Trump family’s many business interests, said: “We have no knowledge of any ‘flagged’ transactions with Deutsche Bank.” She said the Trump Organization currently has “no operating accounts with Deutsche Bank.” She did not respond when asked if other Trump entities had accounts.
I wonder when the Weisselberg pops.
Karen Zabarsky, a spokeswoman for Kushner Cos., said: “Any allegations regarding Deutsche Bank’s relationship with Kushner Companies which involved money laundering is completely made up and totally false. The New York Times continues to create dots that just don’t connect.”
Deutsche Bank’s decision not to report the transactions is the latest twist in Trump’s long, complicated relationship with the German bank — the only mainstream financial institution consistently willing to do business with the real estate developer.
In the summer of 2016, Deutsche Bank’s software flagged a series of transactions involving the real estate company of Kushner, now a senior White House adviser.
McFadden, a longtime anti-money laundering specialist in Deutsche Bank’s Jacksonville office, said she had reviewed the transactions and found that money had moved from Kushner Cos. to Russian individuals. She concluded that the transactions should be reported to the government — in part because federal regulators had ordered Deutsche Bank, which had been caught laundering billions of dollars for Russians, to toughen its scrutiny of potentially illegal transactions. McFadden drafted a suspicious activity report and compiled a small bundle of documents to back up her decision.
This story will be a one-day wonder, and there will be no follow up.
Typically, such a report would be reviewed by a team of anti-money laundering experts who are independent of the business line in which the transactions originated — in this case, the private-banking division — according to McFadden and two former Deutsche Bank managers. That did not happen with this report.
That is where my print copy ended it.
The web version added this:
It went to managers in New York who were part of the private bank, which caters to the ultrawealthy. They felt McFadden’s concerns were unfounded and opted not to submit the report to the government, the employees said.
McFadden and some of her colleagues said they believed the report had been killed to maintain the private-banking division’s strong relationship with Kushner.....
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Congressional and state authorities are investigating, and it should lead to this:
"Trump calls Republican congressman a ‘loser’ over impeachment talk" by Glenn Thrush New York Times, May 19, 2019
WASHINGTON — President Trump attacked US Representative Justin Amash as a “total lightweight” and “loser” on Sunday, a day after the Michigan Republican said Trump’s behavior as president had reached the “threshold for impeachment.”
The president’s attacks reinforced Amash’s isolation within his party, as even the Republican lawmakers who might be most sympathetic to his position avoided stepping forward to join him.
Earlier on Sunday, Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, who has been one of the few members of his party to even mildly chastise Trump in public after the release of the Mueller report, described Amash’s statement as “courageous,” but Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, dismissed the idea of impeachment, saying on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the evidence lacked “the full element that you need to prove an obstruction-of-justice case.”
Trump and his team have successfully cowed Republican critics through sheer political force: The president is overwhelmingly popular among the Republican base — and the White House and national Republican organizations controlled by Trump loyalists have threatened anyone who opposes them with supporting potential primary opponents.....
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So when will it all come crashing down?
"Defunct steelmaker’s 21-story headquarters imploded" Associated Press May 19, 2019
BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Sixteen thousand tons of Bethlehem Steel collapsed in a matter of seconds Sunday as a demolition crew imploded Martin Tower, the defunct steelmaker’s former world headquarters.
Reminds me of a sunny September morning long ago, and the point of this article appearing in the paper is to shove it in your face after 18 years.
They got away with it, folks.
Crowds gathered to watch the demolition of the area’s tallest building, a 21-story monolith that opened at the height of Bethlehem Steel’s power and profitability but had stood vacant for a dozen years after America’s second-largest steelmaker went out of business.
Explosives took out Martin Tower’s steel supports and crumpled the 47-year-old building, which had earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places despite its relatively young age. The implosion, which took 16 seconds, created a thick plume of dust that lingered for several minutes.
Tyler Kent, whose father worked at Bethlehem Steel for 46 years and raised 11 children, said his ‘‘heart stopped’’ as he watched the building fall. His father and other relatives took pride in working at the industrial behemoth that armed the US military and helped shape skylines across the country,
‘‘To see it come down brought a tear to my eye. I didn’t think it was going to affect me emotionally like it did, but I just can’t imagine it’s gone. It’s so sad,’’ said Kent, who could see the tower from his house.
Martin Tower’s current owners spent years trying to redevelop the 332-foot structure — the tallest in a heavily populated region of Pennsylvania that includes the cities of Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton — but ultimately concluded it made more economic sense to knock it down and start over. Plans call for a $200 million development with medical offices, retail stores, a restaurant, a convenience store, a hotel, and 528 apartments.
They did the same at the WTC (cur bono?).
Bethlehem Steel was a major supplier of ships and armaments to the US military during World War II, and its steel is found in the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge and many other landmarks.
The company moved into its new corporate headquarters in 1972, shortly before the US steel industry plunged into a severe recession. Bethlehem Steel, which employed more than 120,000 people when Martin Tower opened, declared bankruptcy in 2001 and closed for good two years later.
To some, the tower — built in a cruciform shape to maximize the number of corner offices — symbolized corporate excess.
‘‘This is where the money went that the workers never got,’’ said Fran Maiatico, whose father worked at Bethlehem Steel. She was among hundreds of people who gathered several blocks away from the building Sunday to watch it come down.
Leonard Gentilcore, 88, a retired Bethlehem Steel structural draftsman who worked on Martin Tower, said he didn’t care that it was gone. He said he associated the building with out-of-touch company executives who helped drive Bethlehem Steel into the ground, but his son, 49-year-old Mike Gentilcore, a former Bethlehem Steel metals researcher, said ‘‘it breaks my heart’’ that an important piece of the company’s history is no more. He recalled looking out the tower’s windows as a child, and later worked there himself.
‘‘It’s the end of an era and I’m going to miss seeing it there,’’ he said.
The company’s flagship Bethlehem mill, less than 2 miles from Martin Tower, was redeveloped into a casino and entertainment destination 10 years ago.
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Martin Tower, former world headquarters of Bethlehem Steel, imploded Sunday in Bethlehem, Pa. Crowds gathered to watch the demolition of the area's tallest building, a 21-story monolith that opened at the height of Bethlehem Steel's power and profitability.(Jacqueline Larma/Associated Press)
Remind you of anything?
House explosion kills 1, injures 2 in southern Indiana city
Also reminds me of the plaza that morning.
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"India’s Narendra Modi appears headed for reelection, exit polls show" by Jeffrey Gettleman and Mujib Mashal New York Times, May 19, 2019
NEW DELHI — Prime Minister Narendra Modi, one of the most powerful and divisive leaders India has produced in decades, appeared headed for re-election, according to exit polls released Sunday at the end of parliamentary elections.
Modi seemed to have emerged from the vote relatively unscathed by growing complaints across India about joblessness and distress on farms.
According to all of the major exit polls, Modi’s brand of brawny Hindu nationalist politics, coupled with his efforts to project a strong image of India abroad, played well among the 900 million registered voters. If the voter surveys prove accurate, Modi is positioned to govern with a strong hand for five more years.
To the end of the race, he campaigned as a passionate Hindu. Modi spent Saturday night and Sunday morning, the last day of the election, praying at a Hindu shrine and meditating in a remote Himalayan cave.
At least seven exit polls released by Indian media organizations Sunday night predicted that Modi’s party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, and its allies would win at least 280 of the 545 seats in the lower house of Parliament, empowering them to choose the next prime minister.
If the results back the polls up, it will be a much more dominating performance than many analysts had thought was possible. Official results are expected Thursday.
Another stinky election.
“The exit polls are surprising,” said Sudha Pai, a former political science professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, the capital. Modi’s social media efforts and the fact that the opposition was divided delivered bigger-than-expected gains, she said.
I sure hope no one interfered with the elections on social media!
What we have seen since Brexit and Trump, the PTB are taking no chances with elections. Wherever they have influence they are being rigged. Whatever narrative they can sell, from this to Macron's over-the-top win, etc, etc. Whatever lying narrative will shove the pre-selected puppet through to power.
Similar exit polls in other recent Indian elections have accurately predicted the trends.
Yeah, right, the exit polls are right this time.
The exit polls this time forecast that the Indian National Congress, the leading opposition party, would do marginally better than its stunning defeat in the last elections in 2014, but it still seemed destined to remain a distant second.
Rahul Gandhi, Congress’ leader and the scion of an Indian political dynasty, had tried to pick up votes by appealing to communal harmony and minority rights, but that seemed no match for Modi’s aggressive and well-financed campaign machine, which enjoys the fervent support of many grass-roots groups within India’s Hindu majority.
“One thing we know for sure is that Modi remains incredibly popular despite everything that’s happened in the last five years,” said Milan Vaishnav, a South Asia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Nothing really sticks to him.”
Like Kushner.
As news of the exit polls spread, the people most distressed were India’s minorities. Under Modi’s government, mob violence against Muslims, who make up about 14 percent, and lower caste Hindus has increased, and the bloodshed often goes unpunished.
If the exit poll data is any indication, it seems the opposition parties’ complaints that India has become more divided under Modi did not change many voters’ minds. According to the data, Modi’s party won in most of the areas it won in the last election.....
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Meanwhile, down under:
"Australia’s leader vows to get back to work after shock win" Associated Press, May 19, 2019
SYDNEY — A jubilant Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison vowed Sunday to get straight back to work after a shock election victory by his conservative government that has left bewildered voters wondering how they were taken by surprise.
I think I know: rigged machines.
The opposition Labor Party, meanwhile, began another bout of post-election soul searching while starting the task of finding a new leader, after Bill Shorten stepped down following an emphatic defeat Saturday in a poll many had seen as unlosable for his party.
Center-left Labor, which has governed Australia for only 38 of its 118 years as a federation, was rated an overwhelming favorite, both in opinion polls and with odds-makers, to topple the conservative Liberal-National coalition government after its six years in power.
Instead, Morrison swept the coalition to victory with what is likely to be an increased representation in Parliament.
The result is much the same as the last election.
They are just rerunning the last ones, aren't they?
I guess Trump wins in 2020 then!
Sydney University political scientist Stewart Jackson said the polls that had put Labor ahead of the government for the past two years were too consistent for too long to be credible.
I guess there is no amount of codswallop they will serve you.
‘‘That indicates ‘herding,’ where the pollsters themselves are getting results that they don’t think are right and are adjusting them,’’ Jackson said. ‘‘Because statistically, polls should never come up like that.’’
Oh, Australians are being lied to, too?
Martin O’Shannessy, who headed the respected Newspoll market research company in Sydney for a decade until 2015, said he was ‘‘shocked’’ by the government’s victory, given the polling.
Until Saturday, Newspoll had accurately predicted the winner of every Australian state and federal election since its inception in 1985.
Something smells rotten in the country of Australia.
The web version added this:
Australia has made voting compulsory, so pollsters’ surveys of Australians’ party preferences usually come close to the election result.
Newspolls are published every few weeks and are reported by the Australian media like a game score of the government and opposition’s popularity and achievements.
Labor lawmaker Anthony Albanese, said, ‘‘The truth is that clearly there is a major gap between what the polling was showing and what the outcome was,’’ Albanese said. ‘‘That is something that no doubt will be examined over coming days and weeks.’’
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Also see:
Europe elections will gauge populism’s power
I would expect to be disappointed if Austria is any indication:
"Austrian president calls for elections in September" by Christopher F. Schuetze and Melissa Eddy New York Times,May 19, 2019, 8:28 p.m.
BERLIN — The Austrian president called on Sunday for new elections in September, a day after the government collapsed over the emergence of a video that showed the country’s far-right vice chancellor promising favors to a woman who claimed to be a Russian investor.
The revelations led thousands to take to the streets of Vienna on Saturday to demand new elections.
The downfall of Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s right-leaning coalition government, just 17 months after taking office, fueled suspicions about how much far-right parties were willing to let Russia get involved in national politics, and it came a week before elections for the European Parliament, in which far-right movements across the Continent were poised to weaken support for more moderate and established parties, but with months remaining until a new national Parliament is voted in, it is too early to tell who will ultimately benefit from the Austrian scandal, analysts said.
Questions also remain about how Kurz will be able to govern in the months before the new national elections, with opposition figures and members of his own conservative People’s Party calling for all Freedom Party ministers to quit their posts. The most important of those is the interior minister, Herbert Kickl, who is responsible for the country’s security apparatus.
Pamela Rendi-Wagner, leader of the opposition Austrian Social Democrats, said in a statement to The New York Times on Sunday that Kurz “had his chance and lost it.”
That's where my print copy ended, and there was no mention how the meeting on video was a SET UP (like the Papadopoulos thing and the Steele report)!!
The video that led to the collapse of Kurz’s governing coalition had been filmed in a villa on the Spanish island of Ibiza three months before the 2017 Austrian elections in which Kurz led his party to victory. It showed Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache promising infrastructure contracts to a woman who claimed to be the niece of a Russian oligarch in return for support for his Freedom Party and her offer to invest 250 million euros, around $280 million, in Austria.
Strache also suggested undermining the independence of Austria’s news media. The New York Times could not independently verify the contents of the entire video.
The revelations followed a series of missteps by the Freedom Party since joining the coalition, such as a raid on the country’s own domestic intelligence service, verbal attacks on the news media, and a poem comparing immigrants to rats, and they raised new concerns about whether a party inside government had been working to undermine liberal democracy and press freedom in Austria.....
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I guess mentioning the set up is now taboo:
"Taboos fall away as far-right EU candidates breach red line" by Elaine Ganley Associated Press,May 16, 2019, 7:20 p.m.
PLIEUX, France — Virulent language castigating immigration and Islam is creeping from extremist fringe groups on social media and the dark web into politics, and it’s raising concerns that ideas that once shocked are becoming commonplace.
Phrases like ‘‘massive invasion,’’ ‘‘the great replacement,’’ and its corollary, ‘‘remigration,’’ the chilling notion of returning immigrants to their native lands in what amounts to a soft-style ethnic cleansing.
The terms remain verboten for mainstream politicians on a continent scarred by the Holocaust — and that has worked for half a century to ensure such a horror could never happen again, through an unprecedented project to break down borders and overcome age-old ethnic conflicts called the European Union.
The extreme language gained renewed stigma with the March slayings of 51 Muslim worshippers in Christchurch, New Zealand, by an Australian white supremacist who titled his manifesto ‘‘The Great Replacement.’’
It's a call for censorship based on a sloppy and dubious false flag.
It has also gained new attention, with the man who coined the term nearly a decade ago, Renaud Camus, now himself a candidate for Europe’s legislature.....
Yeah, Camus was found to be the top ‘‘influencer’’ -- WhateverTF that means.
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Also see:
Swiss voters approve tighter gun laws, lining up with the EU
Disarming themselves, and isn't it interesting that none of the carnage of WWII took place in the globali$t banker's home base?
"In Iran, a plunging economy trumps fears of US confrontation" by Mehdi Fattahi and Nasser Karimi Associated Press, May 19, 2019
TEHRAN — The Associated Press spoke to a variety of people on Tehran’s streets recently, ranging from young and old, women wearing the all-encompassing black chador, to those loosely covering their hair.
Most say they believe a war will not come to the region, though they remain willing to defend their country. They think Iran should try to talk to the US to help its anemic economy, even as they see President Trump as an erratic and untrustworthy adversary.
Then the Iranians are deluding themselves. If Israel demands war, and the U.S. government must go to it.
‘‘Trump is not predictable at all, and one doesn’t know how to react to him and what is the right thing to do against him,’’ said Afra Hamedzadeh, a 20-year-old civil servant and university student. ‘‘Since he controls the global economy, we are somehow left with few options,’’ but opinions vary across Iran’s capital, Tehran, depending on whether you speak to someone coming out of Friday prayers, in the back of a shared taxi cab, or exiting the coffee shops popular with young people.
Trump is a figurehead who does what he is told.
‘‘If America could do anything, it would have done many things by now,’’ said the chador-wearing Zoherh Sadeghi, a 51-year-old housewife coming out of prayers. ‘‘It can’t do anything. It can’t do a damn thing.’’
That’s an opinion shared by 35-year-old office worker Massumeh Izadpanah.
‘‘When someone keeps trying to scare you, it means that they think they are not yet ready for war. When someone really wants war, it starts the war right away. Like when Iraq attacked us; all of a sudden, bombs were dropped,’’ she said. ‘‘But right now America just says, ‘I’m coming,’ to scare Iran.’’
Yeah, it's when the ships and planes leave that you should worry.
A young nation, many across Iran were alive for its bloody 1980s war with Iraq, a conflict that began when dictator Saddam Hussein invaded and dragged on for eight years. That war, in which Saddam used chemical weapons and Iran launched human wave attacks, killed 1 million people.
It's a forgotten war, and the U.S. played both sides of that by arming Iraq while covertly arming Iran via the Iran-Contra affair in war in which Kissinger said it was a pity both couldn't lose (looks like they both did: The U.S. double-crossed Iraq and Iran was and is still subject to American threats and terror).
Since Trump withdrew the United States from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers last year, state television increasingly has focused attention on that war’s wounded.
Unlike here in America, where the costs of the Wars for the Jews must be hidden while at the same time the country is awash in militarism.
In Tehran’s southern Javadieh neighborhood, veteran Mohammad Ali Moghaddam said he was ready to fight again.
Arezou Mirzaei, a 37-year-old mother of two in central Tehran, said, ‘‘If war was good, then Afghanistan and Iraq would not be the mess that we see on TV.’’
What channel, because we never see anything about that on our T.V. stations.
Still, many pointed to the economy, not the possible outbreak of war, as Iran’s major concern.
Nationwide, the unemployment rate is 12 percent. For youth it’s even worse.
Yet for Iran’s youth, many of whom celebrated the signing of the 2015 nuclear deal in the streets, the situation now feels more akin to a funeral. Many openly discuss their options to obtain a visa — any visa — to get abroad.....
I don't believe that when it comes from a Jewi$h War Pre$$.
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Let's hope the war doesn't spread to Africa:
"Fighting Ebola when mourners fight the responders" by Joseph Goldstein and Finbarr O’Reilly New York Times, May 19, 2019
BENI, Democratic Republic of Congo — This Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo, the second-largest ever recorded, is spiraling out of control. Despite some early success — helped by a new and effective vaccine — the disease has come roaring back in the past two months.
Now roll up your sleeve for the laboratory-created disease.
Efforts to combat the epidemic have been hobbled by attacks on treatment centers and health workers; deep suspicion of the national government, which is managing the eradication efforts; and growing mistrust of the international medical experts who have struggled to steer patients into the treatment centers, according to interviews with dozens of family members, politicians, doctors, and health workers.
And rightly so.
When the outbreak was discovered last summer, health workers had reason to worry. This part of eastern Congo has long been beset by dozens of armed groups fighting over land, natural resources, ethnicity, and religion — including one outfit with ties to the Islamic State group.
Yet optimism ran strong among the arriving wave of international health experts and humanitarian workers, many of whom had experience treating Ebola, an often fatal disease caused by a virus transmitted by body fluids.
That's where my print copy stopped flowing.
They came with lessons learned from the outbreak that tore across West Africa starting in 2013, killing more than 11,000 people. And they were buoyed by a recent success: the speedy containment of an outbreak in western Congo.
They also brought medical advances: a strikingly effective vaccine, experimental treatments, and a transparent container known as the “cube” that Ebola patients live inside, reducing the transmission risk to doctors and visitors. Some of the responders hoped big outbreaks were a thing of the past.
Hmmmmmmmm.
The stakes were high. The outbreak was in one of Congo’s most populous regions, and near the borders of three countries — Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan — raising fears that it would spread beyond Congo, and while Congo has had nine earlier recorded Ebola outbreaks, the disease had never been detected in the region until it showed up last year in a town called Mangina, health workers said.
Some local politicians publicly suggested that the national government — or some other hidden hand — had imported the disease. Conspiracies took root.
Ah, conspiracies! You know you are onto to something when the lying and distorting pre$$ haul out that word to throw at you.
Adding to the suspicion, vaccination teams and other responders often traveled under armed police or military escort. This made it appear that the Ebola response, which relied heavily on international medical organizations and the United Nations, was an extension of an unpopular national government.
Making matters worse, police officers and soldiers accompanying Ebola response teams have on occasion opened fire during confrontations with grieving family members and neighbors, according to interviews with health workers who described three such episodes — one that is being examined by the United Nations. The confrontations tend to occur when Ebola responders try to take bodies away from grieving family members and take charge of the burial.....
Time to bury this.
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Also see:
Attack on tourist bus near Egyptian pyramids wounds at least 14
The NYT piece says there were "no immediate claim of responsibility, no initial reports of deaths from Sunday’s blast, and photographs posted to social media showed some people walking away from a bus whose side windows had been blown out," so who even knows if this event even happened.
"The United Arab Emirates’ energy minister said Sunday that he does not think oil-producing nations should relax the production cuts currently in place. Suhail al-Mazrouei spoke on the sidelines of a meeting in Saudi Arabia of major oil producers, suggesting there have not been major oil shortages because of US sanctions on Iranian and Venezuelan oil exports. As part of the six-month deal reached in December, OPEC countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, were expected to cut production by 800,000 barrels a day while non-OPEC countries, including Russia, trim 400,000. Sunday’s meeting was aimed at monitoring and reporting on compliance with that agreement. The group, known as OPEC+, is expected to decide in late June whether to roll over the current cuts to the second half of the year. They were designed to prop up oil prices after a sharp fall last year....."
Just as US sanctions on oil-rich Venezuela appear to be taking hold, too!
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"Trump tells antiabortion activists to stay united for 2020" by Darlene Superville Associated Press, May 19, 2019
WASHINGTON — Disagreement among Republicans is becoming apparent over Alabama’s law, and Trump sees Democrats taking advantage of that.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, the top Republican in the Democratic-controlled chamber, opposed the law, saying he supports exceptions for rape and incest and serious risk to the woman’s life. Evangelist Pat Robertson, meanwhile, said the law is too ‘‘extreme’’ and not the best vehicle to attempt to force the Supreme Court to revisit — and possibly overturn — Roe v. Wade, the high court’s 1973 ruling that established a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.
Robertson said it was too extreme?
Several of the Democrats who are competing for the right to challenge Trump in 2020 have come out against Alabama’s law and other state moves to impose new abortion restrictions, vowing to protect abortion rights through national legislation or, if elected, their Supreme Court nominees.....
That is when I aborted my reading.
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Related: Illinois not alerted to early clues in womb-cutting case
Time to cut the cord, imho.
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
"Graduating students get inspiring send-offs" by Aimee Ortiz and Amanda Kaufman Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent, May 19, 2019
In her commencement address at Brandeis University Sunday morning, Deborah Lipstadt, who holds a doctorate from Brandeis and teaches modern Jewish history and Holocaust studies at Emory University in Atlanta, told the more than 1,000 graduates that she had never been more worried about the future of the country.
She referenced the white supremacist beliefs of the shooters who attacked synagogues in Pittsburgh and outside San Diego, contending that anti-Semitism cannot be defeated without also battling other forms of prejudice, including sexism, racism, and homophobia.
Yeah, forget the Jewish Supremacism that no one dare talk about. Pots hollering kettle as Jewish interests play both ends.
Related: Arsons probed at Arlington, Needham Chabad centers
It's the "latest in a troubling string of anti-Semitic incidents around the United States and world that have drawn widespread condemnation" -- meaning it's another self-inflicted false flag for the usual reasons.
“We must recognize that we cannot be against just one ‘ism’ to the exclusion of all others,” Lipstadt told the crowd. “You cannot be a fighter against anti-Semitism but be blind to racism or, even worse, engage in it yourself.”
I oppose all isms, for they require blind adherence to dogma without critical evaluation.
Lipstadt, who earned a master’s degree from Brandeis in 1972 and then a PhD in Jewish history from the school in 1976, suggested steps that students could take to combat hatred, including becoming the “unwelcome guest” by standing up to an aunt, uncle, or “hotshot cousin” who might casually purvey prejudicial views at family gatherings.
Easy for her to say. She won't be ruining the party.
Just wondering what kind of job you can get and how valuable Jewish history is beyond their self-serving and supremacist concerns.
Oh, it qualifies you to own and operate a chain of nursing homes, huh?
“You may not change the mind of your awful uncle, but you will telegraph a message to all the people there, especially the young people, that such talk is not to be tolerated,” she said.
I'm sick of being sent self-serving, mind-manipulating, agenda-pushing messages. Sorry.
At Tufts University, award-winning actor and activist Alfre Woodard told graduates to follow their passions, not a paycheck.
“It’s your world now; my generation is just living in it,” Woodard told them, calling on the graduates to do the important work of healing the nation.....
Let's hope they have a world after all this boilerplate pablum.
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Barbara Mendel, who served two terms as the president of the National Council of Jewish Women, received an honorary degree during the Brandeis University commencement ceremony in Waltham on Sunday afternoon.(Nathan Klima for The Boston Globe)
Related:
Nancy Pelosi receives Profile in Courage Award
I didn't know it took courage to be a Zionist toady.
Sister Janet Eisner has been the heart and soul of Emmanuel College
Billionaire pledges to pay off Morehouse College Class of 2019’s student loans
‘Black Panther’ costume designer tells Suffolk grads to create their own adventures
How are things in Haiti these days, Globe?
From newcomer to graduation speaker: an immigrant’s story
Texas church opens new sanctuary 18 months after massacre
Trump denies plans to fly migrants from border to Florida
Just going to dump them secretly in the middle of the night like Obama instead.
How about going to a pow-wow this weekend?
To discuss this:
"Moulton unveils national service education plan" by Alejandro Serrano Globe Correspondent, May 19, 2019
Presidential hopeful Representative Seth Moulton on Sunday unveiled a plan modeled after the GI Bill that would guarantee young Americans an educational benefit if they take part in national service.
“I have a simple proposition: If you are willing to work hard and sacrifice to serve your country, America will support you by paying for job training and education,” the Salem Democrat said in a statement announcing the plan. “Using the GI Bill as a model, we will provide education and job training benefits for those who answer the call to serve.”
Are you ready for a draft, kids?
The plan includes broad outreach to Americans ages 17 to 24 to ask them to serve in some capacity. It would create a Federal Green Corps to address climate change and environmental protection. The current National Service and Community Service would be renamed and expanded. The administrator would also be elevated to a Cabinet position, the statement said.....
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Would you like fries with that?
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
All the Massachusetts tech IPOs have run into choppy water so you better take the T instead:
"Senator seeks probe of Chinese company making MBTA’s subway cars" by Michael Balsamo Associated Press, May 19, 2019
WASHINGTON — The Senate’s top Democrat is calling on the federal government to step in and investigate whether a plan for new subway cars in New York City and Boston designed by a Chinese state-owned company could pose a threat to national security.
Then why were they awarded the contracts?
Senator Charles Schumer of New York said in a statement on Sunday that he has asked the Commerce Department to conduct a ‘‘top-to-bottom review’’ after CRRC, one of the world’s largest train makers, won a design contest for new subway cars that would include ‘‘modern train control technology.’’
The company hasn’t won a contract in New York City, which has America’s biggest transit system, but it has been awarded contracts in recent years for new subway cars in Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia.
Stay the hell out of New York's deteriorating subways at all costs!
In announcing the contest winners last year, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the subway system, said CRRC had proposed investing $50 million of its own money to develop the new cars. The contest was designed to bring out new ideas for future projects but did not lead to any contracts for new subway cars, and the MTA is not currently purchasing any new cars, but in the last few years, China has pushed to dominate the US rail car market, a multibillion-dollar industry. CRRC is also believed to be pursuing a $500 million contract with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
Security experts and members of Congress have raised the alarm about CRRC because it is owned by the Chinese government, warning of prior cyberthreats and hacking attacks linked to Chinese intelligence officials. They fear allowing the company to install technology in America’s rail system could potentially expose it to cyberespionage and sabotage.
Schumer’s call for an investigation comes amid rising tensions between the United States and China.....
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At least the trains run on time in China.
Time to hop aboard one:
"China Charges 2 Canadians With Spying, Deepening a Political Standoff" by Chris Buckley, Javier C. Hernández and Dan Bilefsky New York Times ,May 16, 2019, 8:07 p.m.
BEIJING — Two Canadian men detained in China since December have been formally arrested on espionage charges, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Thursday, a move likely to ratchet up tensions between China and Canada that broke out with the arrest of a Chinese tech executive in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Michael Kovrig, a former diplomat who was detained while visiting Beijing, was arrested on suspicion of “gathering state secrets and intelligence for abroad,” and Michael Spavor, a business consultant who was detained in northeastern China, was accused of “stealing and providing state secrets for abroad,” Lu Kang, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, said at a regularly scheduled news briefing.
Time to break my silence: They are no doubt spies.
The vague reference to unspecified overseas entities left open the question of whether the men were suspected of working for a government or for some other organization.
Lu did not provide further details and said only that the arrests had been made recently. “Everything in China is done in accordance with law,” Lu said.
Many in Canada have reacted with consternation at China’s treatment of the two Canadians, who have been denied access to lawyers and been confined in secret detention centers, without visits from family members. Canadian diplomats have been allowed to visit them about once a month.
Yeah, like in Syria.
Not Gitmo, though.
Their circumstances are a striking contrast to those of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei, China’s biggest telecommunications company, who is out on bail, has been living in Vancouver in a six-bedroom home, and is free to roam largely about the city with a GPS tracker on her ankle.
In addition to the diplomatic tensions, the Meng case and detentions of the two Canadians have fueled economic tensions between the two countries.
A former Canadian ambassador to China, Guy Saint-Jacques, said the formal arrest of the two men signaled a worsening in relations with China and would make it even more challenging for Canada to secure their release.
“We are in for a long period of difficulties with China in which pressure from the Chinese will increase,” he said.....
That's the price of hitching your wagon to the war criminal USraeli state to your south.
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Even the Globe agrees that Trump has this one right -- even if the Chinese have already won.
Btw, the trade issue is a side show, and the reason behind all of this is that no American firms make the core switches that will direct 5G Internet traffic and Huawei is refusing to install the CIA and NSA trapdoors that western and allied firms do that give rise to facial recognition, constant surveillance of the population, and human rights abuses (good thing we already have all that in the good old US of A).
Of course, it is all the Russians fault (ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha)!
I saved the be$t laugh for la$t:
"Perhaps you love your job, and you meant to nominate your company for the Boston Globe’s annual Top Places to Work rankings, but you were so wrapped up in loving your job that you forgot. Too much? Fair enough, but here’s what really matters: The deadline has been extended to June 21. So stop kicking yourself and get to nominating....."
HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!
The Globe has become irrelevant! No wonder its coverage has such a chosen slant!
Either that or there ARE NO JOBS!
As for loving this job, nothing could be further from the truth.
NEXT DAY UPDATES:
Here is the cover:
"Judge upholds House subpoena demanding years of Trump’s financial records" by Devlin Barrett and Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post, May 20, 2019
WASHINGTON — Monday’s ruling threw historical shade at President Trump, comparing him with former president James Buchanan, generally considered one of the country’s worst leaders.
US District Judge Amit Mehta of Washington noted that Congress also launched an investigation into the conduct of Bill Clinton before he became president.
An appeal could test decades of legal precedent that has upheld Congress’ right to investigate — a legal battle that is one part of a broader effort by House Democrats to examine Trump’s finances, his campaign, and allegations that he sought to obstruct justice in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
In the Mazars case, Mehta cut down Trump lawyers’ complaint that Congress was usurping the Justice Department’s powers to investigate ‘‘dubious and partisan’’ allegations of private conduct, by inquiring into whether Trump misled his lenders by inflating his net worth.
Rather, Mehta said, a congressional investigation into illegal conduct before and during a president’s time in office fits ‘‘comfortably” with Congress’ broad investigative powers, which include an ‘‘informing function,’’ or power to expose corruption.....
Just not their own!
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Now their star witness is McGahn (remember when it was Cohen?):
"Trump instructs McGahn to defy subpoena and skip House testimony" by Michael S. Schmidt and Nicholas Fandos New York Times, May 20, 2019
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Monday directed his former White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, to defy a congressional subpoena and skip a hearing scheduled for Tuesday, denying House Democrats testimony from one of the most important eyewitnesses to Trump’s attempts to obstruct the Russia investigation.
The House Judiciary Committee had subpoenaed McGahn to appear. The White House, though, presented McGahn and the committee with a legal opinion from the Justice Department stating that “Congress may not constitutionally compel the president’s senior advisers to testify about their official duties.”
“Because of this constitutional immunity, and in order to protect the prerogatives of the office of the presidency, the president has directed Mr. McGahn not to appear at the Committee’s scheduled hearing on Tuesday,” Pat A. Cipollone, the current White House counsel, wrote in a letter to the Judiciary Committee.
McGahn will not appear, his lawyer said late Monday.
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee were livid....
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Related:
"Michael Cohen, the former longtime personal attorney for President Trump, told a House panel during closed-door hearings earlier this year that he had been instructed by Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow to falsely claim in a 2017 statement to Congress that negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow ended in January 2016, according to people familiar with his testimony. In fact, Cohen later said discussions on the Moscow tower continued into June of the presidential election year, after it was clear that Trump would be the GOP nominee. Cohen is serving three years in prison for lying to Congress, financial crimes, and campaign finance violations. House Democrats are now scrutinizing whether Sekulow or other Trump attorneys played a role in shaping Cohen’s 2017 testimony to Congress. Cohen has said he made the false statement to help hide the fact that Trump had potentially hundreds of millions of dollars at stake in a possible Russian project while he was running for president. ‘‘We’re trying to find out whether anyone participated in the false testimony that Cohen gave to this committee,’’ House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said in an interview. He did not comment on who, if anyone, might have instructed Cohen to lie. Jane Serene Raskin and Patrick Strawbridge, attorneys for Sekulow, said in a statement that ‘‘Cohen’s alleged statements are more of the same from him and confirm the observations of prosecutors in the Southern District of New York that Cohen’s ‘instinct to blame others is strong.’ ” Cohen’s assertions about Sekulow are laid out in transcripts of his February and March appearances before the House intelligence panel that could be released as soon as Monday evening....."
I guess you can see why he is no longer a star witness.
"Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has sometimes used her personal e-mail accounts for government business and has not always properly saved the messages, according to an internal investigation released Monday. The agency’s Office of Inspector General, which was investigating at the request of House Democrats, said it searched the department’s e-mail system and found a ‘‘limited’’ number of messages to or from DeVos’s personal accounts. In total, it said there were ‘‘fewer than 100’’ e-mails linked to four personal accounts. Most of the e-mails were from the first six months of 2017, soon after DeVos took office, and most were from a single person, the inquiry found. The person, who was not identified in the report, was writing to recommend candidates for agency jobs. Other e-mails were from people who congratulated DeVos on her confirmation or offered other job advice. In total, investigators said they identified six e-mails sent by DeVos on private accounts, including five that involved official agency business. The inquiry concluded that there was no evidence of ‘‘active or extensive’’ use of DeVos’s personal accounts. During his 2016 campaign, President Trump repeatedly attacked Democratic rival Hillary Clinton over findings that she used a private e-mail server for work while she was secretary of state....."
Yeah, the Clinton and Obama crimes are of no interest to my pre$$.
Btw, whatever happened to Ivanka's emails?
Also see:
Pelosi’s leadership team breaks ranks in meeting, advocates for launch of impeachment inquiry
Ed Markey will face a Senate challenger
Like it matters!
Sentors introduce bipartisan bill to raise minimum age for purchasing tobacco to 21
More stink coming from that $wamp:
"EPA plans to get thousands of deaths off the books by changing its math" by Lisa Friedman New York Times, May 20, 2019
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency plans to change the way it calculates the future health risks of air pollution, a shift that would predict thousands of fewer deaths and would help justify the planned rollback of a key climate change measure, according to five people with knowledge of the agency’s plans.
It has been a constant struggle for the EPA to demonstrate, as it is normally expected to do, that society will see more benefits than costs from major regulatory changes. The new modeling method, which specialists said has never been peer-reviewed and is not scientifically sound, would most likely be used by the Trump administration to defend further rollbacks of air pollution rules if it is formally adopted, but the proposed change is unusual because it relies on unfounded medical assumptions and discards more than a decade of peer-reviewed EPA methods for understanding the health hazards linked to the fine particulate matter produced by burning fossil fuels.
Fine particulate matter — the tiny, deadly particles that can penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream — is linked to heart attacks, strokes, and respiratory disease.
The five people familiar with the plan, who are all current or former EPA officials.....
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Related:
Another round of severe weather forecast for Southern Plains
Better put that fire out:
"Stakes high in New Hampshire timber industry debate" by Jon Chesto Globe Staff, May 20, 2019
New Hampshire’s wood-fired power plants helped support the timber industry for nearly four decades, but their days could be numbered now — unless the state Legislature’s latest lifeline succeeds.
Good.
If there is a carbon problem, you shouldn't be cutting down and burning trees, right?
The state Senate is set to vote this Thursday on up to $75 million in ratepayer subsidies for the state's biomass plants over three years. Passage is expected. After that, this biomass bill goes to the House, where it also apparently enjoys wide support.
WTF?
Now New Hampshire taxpayers are going to be asked to $ub$idize and dying and dirty energy source?
Then there’s Governor Chris Sununu, who has concerns about the costs. He vetoed the last biomass bill that came his way in 2018, citing the impact on ratepayers — only to watch that veto get overridden. Efforts to put that legislation into action were promptly stymied by a legal challenge. The timber industry hopes this new version provides an airtight workaround.
The timber industry says hundreds of jobs are at stake — drivers, loggers, and the like — beyond just the 120 people at the power plants at risk of closing because they are no longer economically feasible to run.
The industry, unsurprisingly, finds itself at odds with other business interests who don’t want to see subsidies that drive up their electricity costs.
Caught in the middle: Eversource. Or perhaps more accurately, Eversource’s New Hampshire customers.....
Well, why were you not more accurate in the first place?
What's with the deceptive news reporting and "journalism" anyway?
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Also see:
Work underway on British tanker sunk by U-boat off NY in WW2
A transgender woman who was attacked in Dallas last month has been found dead
Guatemalan teen dies at border station while awaiting move to shelter
Border agent used slurs before allegedly hitting migrant with his truck
If the situation was reversed and an illegal plowed into someone, the pre$$ would either minimize, bury, or ignore it.
For example: Border Patrol finds 6, including juvenile, near Canada line
Related:
"The University of Massachusetts Boston said Monday that it received a $1 million donation from Robert and Diane Hildreth for the Mauricio Gaston Institute for Latino Community Development and Public Policy. “UMass Boston is a gem in the community that deserves our support,” Robert Hildreth said in a statement. The Gaston Institute was created in 1989 by the Massachusetts Legislature, with a mission to inform the public and policy makers about issues vital to the state’s growing Latino community, and provide information and analysis necessary for effective Latino participation in public policy development. Hildreth worked for the International Monetary Fund, Citibank, and Drexel Burnham Lambert before starting his own Boston-based brokerage company, International Bank Services. He now focuses on philanthropy through the Hildreth Institute and two related nonprofits, Inversant and La Vida Scholars. The three organizations have complementary missions to get low-income students to college....."
Yeah, it's the banker's and the monied cla$$ that are pushing for all the cheap labor to flood into the country -- despite the lowest work participation rate in over 50 years.
Also see:
"Amid an unprecedented financial crisis, the university has hired at least seven people with connections to state government and politics as administrators with salaries between $81,000 and $222,000 in the past year and a half, records show. The hires include the former head of the state Democratic Party, a former legislative aide, and a former state commissioner of environmental protection. Together, the seven people earn nearly $1 million. A UMass campus spokesman said in a statement that hiring is based on merit, and the hires underscore UMass’s reputation as a place where the politically connected of Beacon Hill can land a job with a single phone call. It’s an attractive place to work in part because the UMass system is part of the state retirement system, so state employees can continue to earn toward their pensions, which are based on their three highest years of pay and their number of years of service. And the campus’s location is for many more appealing than traveling to the other campuses in Lowell, Dartmouth, Worcester, or Amherst."
Sorry, I didn't mean to undermine the gem in the community.
What you find here in Ma$$achu$etts is that state agencies serve as a place of political patronage first. That's why this state is falling apart, literally and figuratively.
