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rauthschild · 4 years

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Biden Terrorists Unleashed On Child As “Commie Fest 2020” Ghost Convention Becomes Satanic Ritual

By: Sorcha Faal,

A beyond shocking new Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) report circulating in the Kremlin today discussing the day four events of the 2020 Democratic National Convention, that’s otherwise been branded as “Commie Fest 2020” and the “Ghost Convention”, says most critical to be noticed is that this supposed political conventions finale used its last day to morph itself into an actual symbolic Satanic child sacrifice ritual of the kind warned about in the ancient Holy books Old Testament, Torah and Koran.

A Satanic child sacrifice ritual that began when this “Commie Fest 2020” convention created a drive-in for Joe Biden’s post-speech wave at an arena located in Wilmington-Delaware—a drive-in arena surrounded by Trump supporters, who outnumbered Biden supporters by 100 to 1—and while gathering, saw two young white women Biden terrorists demonically attacking a Trump supporting mother and her 7-year-old boy child—a child quickly terrified when these Biden terrorists ripped apart the Trump signs held by his mother—after which these Biden terrorists further terrified this child by tearing from his head the MAGA hat he was wearing—and while walking away as this terrified child begged “Mom call 911”—and even while knowing that they were being video taped, saw these glassy-eyed Biden terrorists exhibiting what can only be described as demonic rage and hate.

And while this terrified child was being comforted by his mother and the other Trump supporters who witnessed this display of demonic rage, then saw Joe Biden officially accepting the socialist Democrat Party nomination to be their presidential candidate—and in accepting, saw Biden giving an acceptance speech invoking “The Angel of Light Lucifer” with his declaration: “The current president has cloaked America in darkness for much too long...I will be an ally of the light, not the darkness”—a declaration well known to Christians, Jews and Muslims the world over—all of whom know that Satan and his allies invert the truth to claim the light for themselves.

As Satan and his allies like Joe Biden invert the truth to falsely claim that believers in God are the ones in darkness, it allowed this “Commie Fest 2020” ghost convention to welcome convicted rapist, torturer and killer Donna Hylton as one of its “Impactful Community Leaders”, who was convicted for the kidnapping, rape, torture and murder of a 62-year-old Long Island real estate broker in 1986, whom she demonically squeezed his testicles with pliers before murdering him—further allowed them to praise socialist New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who stripped the guns away from all of her citizens and is now locking them in quarantine camps, and this past week cancelled her nation’s elections—and allowed them to praise socialist Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who yesterday suspended his nation’s parliament to end their investigation into the crimes he committed.

According to this report, with it not even having to be imagined the socialist Democrat Party and leftist fake news media uproar that would ensue if President Trump cancelled his nation’s election and suspended the US Congress because they were investigating him, it bears noticing what happened in the hours just prior to when the “Commie Fest 2020” ghost convention and Joe Biden began their symbolic Satanic child sacrifice ritual—and was when President Trump gave a prebuttal to what these demons were doing and asked the American people to “Imagine the mayhem coming to your town” if these socialist Democrats ever took power—saw President Trump further telling them to “look at the smoldering ruins of Minneapolis, the violent anarchy of Portland and the bloodstained sidewalks of Chicago” and see what these socialist Democrats are planning for them—after which President Trump warned his citizens that these socialist Democrats “Want to Cancel You, Take Your Job, Turn Your Family Against You While They Indoctrinate Your Children with Twisted World Views”.

Warnings issued by President Trump, this report notes, grounded in the reality showing that socialist Democrat Party school districts are now making parents sign agreements that forbid them from monitoring the vile demonic garbage being flooded into their young children’s minds—today sees American universities answerable to Satan calling the police on any student who criticizes Communist China or the radical communist Black Lives Matter organization—today sees radical socialist demon Democrat Party Governor Janet Mills of the State of Maine ordering all restaurant workers to wear dog collar face shields—today sees top police officials in Portland-Oregon begging demonic socialist terrorists to stop burning down buildings filled with personal protection equipment needed for hospitals fighting against the coronavirus—and today most shockingly sees socialist Democrat Party demonic tyrant Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot banning protests in HER neighborhood as the sidewalks of her city continue flowing with the blood of innocent people.

Working to defend America and its peoples as the demonic powers of Joe Biden and his socialist Democrat Party grow, this report details, is President Trump—though to see what he is doing one must first remember what he’s already done—like last November-2019, when he had US Attorney John Durham and US Attorney General Bill Barr spending time on a narrowed focus looking carefully at CIA activity in the 2016 presidential election—about which one British official with knowledge of Barr’s wish list presented to London commented that “it is like nothing we have come across before, they are basically asking, in quite robust terms, for help in doing a hatchet job on their own intelligence services“—though factually, what both Durham and Barr have focused on is why the CIA and Department of Justice needed Wikileaks director Julian Assange arrested, and why British officials obliged them.

Not being understood by the American people, this report continues, is that Wikileaks and Julian Assange are the proverbial “house of cards” the entire coup plot against President Trump was built upon—a metaphor describing anything built a shaky and unsustainable foundation—and in this case sees its having been claimed that Russia hacked into the computer servers of the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election to aid then candidate Donald Trump—a Russian hacking of these Democrat Party computer servers claimed was for the purpose of obtaining secret emails that were then given to Wikileaks—but is a claim that’s never been supported by evidence, as the FBI was never allowed to examine them—thus leaving the only two entities knowing what really happened being Wikileaks and the Democrat National Committee.

With one understanding how critical the issue is in determining who exactly hacked into the Democrat National Committee computer servers during the 2016 election, this report further notes, they can then comprehend why ministry intelligence analysts, yesterday, described the arrest of former Trump Campaign manager Steve Bannon as being likened to the master strategist chess move known as a “sacrifice”— a move that gives up a chess piece with the objective of gaining tactical or positional compensation in other forms— and in this case, is a “sacrifice” loaded with comical irony when noticing that the final day of the “Commie Fest 2020” ghost convention had as its emcee famed Hollywood actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus—who aside from her being one of the richest persons in the world as an heiress to the Dreyfus Family banking fortune, is most popularly known for the role she played in the Seinfeld television programme—that remains one of the most successful television programmes in American history, that’s generated an estimated $3.26-billion in global syndication to date —and is the same Seinfeld television programme owned by Steve Bannon.

A Steve Bannon, this report concludes, whose worth, in 2017, was placed at over $48-million in a US government filing he had to make because he worked for a few months at the White House before President Trump fired him—was a filing that Steve Bannon didn’t have to include on the hundreds-of-millions of dollars he’s made on Seinfeld and the other television programmes he owns—and as a lifelong powerful investment banker, first at Goldman Sachs and later at his own office, Bannon & Co., stretches one’s mind to the breaking point to believe he committed the financial crimes he’s accused of—though when looking at Steve Bannon’s arrest in the context of its being a “sacrifice” made by master strategist President Trump, sees its having been the perfect distraction to keep notice away from the other arrest that occurred yesterday—an arrest in what is being called an “unprecedented case” that saw the US Department of Justice charging former Uber security chief Joseph Sullivan with felony obstruction of justice because he “concealed a hack” in 2016—and is the exact same felony obstruction of justice charge of “concealing a hack” that would be placed against the socialist Democrat Party when US Attorney Durham and US Attorney General Barr determine the truth that someone else hacked their computer servers, as it most certainly wasn’t Russia—and is widely believed to have been hacked by now assassinated Democrat National Committee computer worker Seth Rich—which both Wikileaks and Julian Assange know is the truth.

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drippeddaily · 6 years

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A look back to D'Angelo's Black Messiah, three years later.

”Black Messiah is a hell of a name for an album. It can easily be misunderstood. Many will think it’s about religion. Some will jump into to the conclusion that I’m calling myself a Black Messiah. For me, the title is about all of us. It’s about the world. It’s about an idea we can all aspire to. We should all aspire to be a Black Messiah.”

”It’s about people rising up in Ferguson and in Egypt and in Occupy Wall Street and in every place where a community has had enough and decides to make change happen. It’s not about praising one charismatic leader but celebrating thousands of them. Not every song on this album is politically charged (though many are), but calling this album Black Messiah creates a landscape where these songs can live to the fullest. Black Messiah is not one man. It’s a feeling that, collectively, we are all that leader.”

In the first words in the booklet of Black Messiah, D’Angelo explains that Black Messiah is not a hero, a leader, or him; he is no Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King or Malcolm X, D’Angelo is just a musician who wants to reflect the current situation. And that is shown in 1000 Deaths, the second song in the album, that showcases the pacifist position of D’Angelo. It first starts with a sample from a 1995 debate between Khalid Abdul Muhammad and Anthony J. Hilder called “The Origin of Jesus Christ: Myth or Reality”. This sample is a 83 seconds intervention of Khalid, whose argument is based on how Christ was not the ‘blond-haired, blue-eyed, pale-skinned, buttermilk complexion Christ’, but actually a black man, the black messiah:

I’m talking about the Jesus of the Bible, with hair like lamb’s wool. I'm talking about that good hair, I'm talking about that nappy hair. That his body would be like beryl. Another scripture said his body would be like jasper. Another scripture said his body would be like fine brass, as though it had been burned in an oven. Jesus: the Lord, the Savior, the Master, the Redeemer. Jesus, the Black revolutionary Messiah.

And that was later addressed on Muhammad’s Kean University intervention: It's the white man- the white man got a God complex. That’s what names Black Messiah, not only the sense of community, but the sense of an afrocentric community. And that sense shined during the protests after the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, months prior the release of Black Messiah. Before this skit ends another sample kicks in, this time from Fred Hampton, a deputy chairman on the National Black Panther party. Threatened by the FBI, he was murdered on December 1969, and months prior to his death he gave a speech where this sample comes from:

"Black people need some peace, white people need some peace. And we are going to have to fight, we're going to have to struggle, we're going to have to struggle relentlessly to bring about some peace because the people that we're asking for peace, they're a bunch of megalomaniac war-mongers, and they don't even understand what peace means. We've got to fight them, we've got to struggle with them to make them understand what peace means."

It’s ironic how precisely he got murdered by those ‘megalomaniac war-mongers’. But that’s what matters in this skit, the sense of unity of communities to get the best for everyone. It’s not about black vs white, it’s about people vs power.

And then we get to the actual song. Over guitars and muddy funk, D’Angelo’s distorted voice sings from two different perspectives, giving two meanings to 1000 Deaths: first, he sings as a soldier who is sent to the war and fears how his death is so near, but it also is from the point of view of Jesus before his death. The hill he mentions can be taken as the hill before the battle field, or the hill where Jesus was crucified. The soldier is thrilled, and so is Jesus, but both believe it’s from a larger good (winning a war and bringing peace or following God’s will).

Later in the chorus, D’Angelo mentions once again a extract of Khalid Abdul Muhammad, and once again in his Kean university speech:

“Jesus the Black Revolutionary Messiah said, “He or she who seeks to save their life shall lose their life. He or she, yet out of wisdom, but he or she who does not fear death shall save their life.” A coward dies a death a thousand times maybe in one day, a coward is dying all the time. But when you can look death in the face and snatch death’s tongue out of death’s mouth and rebuke the grave, rebuke the grave!”

Because a coward dies a thousand times But a soldier only dies just once Once, once

Then in the third verse, D’Angelo names God and Jesus again, but through their hebrew names: Yahweh and Yeshua. But in the second line he goes back to the war: ‘he don’t want no coward soldier’, and that’s what D’Angelo really wants to say with this song, mixing politics, revolution, war and faith: God and Jesus only want the best for us, and want us to be free. The sense of community comes back, compared to Jesus: for him being a messiah is not being a leader, but being a martyr, someone to guide the people through bad moments and being an example.

But as he says, not everything in Black Messiah is about politics. Sometimes it’s personal issues. The spark that ignited these issues was the video for Untitled (How Does It Feel), Voodoo’s third single. Inspired by Prince’s work, the video was released few weeks before the release of Voodoo and the airplay helped to increase the single’s and album’s popularity due to its heavily controversial content: D’Angelo bare naked, lip-syncing and doing gestures. All of this made D’Angelo a sex symbol, leading to frustration on his part. In the Voodoo tour, which lasted for six months, many women in the audience asked him to get naked and in general things that made him feel uncomfortable. One thing lead to another, and he ended up wanting to lose his fit figure, he wanted to get fat, to lose his sex symbol position. Months after the tour his friend Fred Jordan commited suicide, in April 2001, which lead to heavy alcoholism. 4 years later and after more alcoholism and drug abuse, his girlfriend had left him, he lost contact with most of his family and parted ways with his managers and attorney. One album was scrapped around that time, which apparently sounded like "Parliament/Funkadelic meets the Beatles meets Prince, and the whole time there's this Jimi Hendrix energy". After being arrested for possession of marijuana and cocaine, mugshots of him began to circulate. The muscular and sexy D’Angelo wasn’t there anymore, just an unhealthy and overweight version of him. Weeks after being sentenced for drugs charge, the infamous car crash happened. After that, he went into rehab.

Two years of radio silence ended with Questlove playing a new song, Really Love, in an australian radio. Because the center of the personal issues of D’Angelo, and who saved him, was Questlove. Him and Amy Winehouse. Both had been friends for a long time, and intended to form a group with Mos Def, but the sudden death of Amy stopped them. Following her death, Questlove begged D’Angelo to stop the ten year process of self-destruction he had been going through. He didn’t want him to end up like many ‘cursed stars’, like Kurt Cobain, Aaliyah or Amy Winehouse herself. These words were what changed D’Angelo’s path, and around that time he went back to recording again, this time with Pino Palladino, James Gadson and Questlove. Almost at the same time, D’Angelo goes back on tour and plays some new songs live, like Sugah Daddy and The Charade.

The personal issues are what matter on Black Messiah after all. D’Angelo went on a 15 year journey to a personal hell, and came back to tell everyone about it. The topics of love in many forms are spread through the album and the sound mixes influences in its torrid and thick funk, with obsessive guitar riffs, big basses, choirs that answer D’Angelo’s voice. The layers of sound overlap and disappear at will, with groovy pianos, precious strings, harmonical claps. Really Love stands out, starting with a female voice in spanish over strings and following with a beautiful acoustic guitar that progresses into latin rhythms, and D’Angelo offering one of his best vocal performances.

Finally, the Black Messiah booklet ends with a few words in caps:

ALL WE WANTED WAS A CHANCE TO TALK.

'STEAD, WE ONLY GOT OUTLINED IN CHALK.

This is part of the chorus to The Charade, another one of the political tracks in the album. It’s one of the most hard-hitting because of how direct it is, referencing how many oppressed communities (black, latin communities) have had to fight and die to be able to get some basic rights like voting, which in many cases conservative parties have been trying to deny, like republicans on Florida. Once Black Messiah ends, there is not much to say other than it being a proud lesson in history and a superb message about the radiant present of an artist who long ago seemed lost yet now sounds more alive, inspired and needed than ever.

He signed two of the records that redefined R&B and soul during the nineties - Brown Sugar in 1995 and Voodoo five years later - and then, vanished. For the last fifteen years, Michael Eugene Archer's work had been counted collaborations in other people's work, like J Dilla, Q-Tip, Common or Snoop Dogg, a few tours and tons of problems -sentimental, legal, accidental- that seemed to condemn him to the altar of the great accursed on music. The intermittent rumours of his comeback -years and years of talking about a James River that should have been his third album- were giving rise to hope, albeit not on their own terms: D’Angelo didn’t say a thing and it was close friends and collaborators -Questlove from The Roots, basically- who allowed us to keep the faith. Finally, two things happened that made D’Angelo release Black Messiah: first, James River turned into Black Messiah, and instead of the intended release in 2015 it got released in a very late 2014, December 15th, justified by the boiling hot political situation in the USA. That brings up the first and obligatory point when it comes up when talking Black Messiah: politics.”Black Messiah is a hell of a name for an album. It can easily be misunderstood. Many will think it’s about religion. Some will jump into to the conclusion that I’m calling myself a Black Messiah. For me, the title is about all of us. It’s about the world. It’s about an idea we can all aspire to. We should all aspire to be a Black Messiah.””It’s about people rising up in Ferguson and in Egypt and in Occupy Wall Street and in every place where a community has had enough and decides to make change happen. It’s not about praising one charismatic leader but celebrating thousands of them. Not every song on this album is politically charged (though many are), but calling this album Black Messiah creates a landscape where these songs can live to the fullest. Black Messiah is not one man. It’s a feeling that, collectively, we are all that leader.”In the first words in the booklet of Black Messiah, D’Angelo explains that Black Messiah is not a hero, a leader, or him; he is no Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King or Malcolm X, D’Angelo is just a musician who wants to reflect the current situation. And that is shown in 1000 Deaths, the second song in the album, that showcases the pacifist position of D’Angelo. It first starts with a sample from a 1995 debate between Khalid Abdul Muhammad and Anthony J. Hilder called “The Origin of Jesus Christ: Myth or Reality”. This sample is a 83 seconds intervention of Khalid, whose argument is based on how Christ was not the ‘blond-haired, blue-eyed, pale-skinned, buttermilk complexion Christ’, but actually a black man, the black messiah:I’m talking about the Jesus of the Bible, with hair like lamb’s wool. I'm talking about that good hair, I'm talking about that nappy hair. That his body would be like beryl. Another scripture said his body would be like jasper. Another scripture said his body would be like fine brass, as though it had been burned in an oven. Jesus: the Lord, the Savior, the Master, the Redeemer. Jesus, the Black revolutionary Messiah.And that was later addressed on Muhammad’s Kean University intervention: It's the white man- the white man got a God complex. That’s what names Black Messiah, not only the sense of community, but the sense of an afrocentric community. And that sense shined during the protests after the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, months prior the release of Black Messiah. Before this skit ends another sample kicks in, this time from Fred Hampton, a deputy chairman on the National Black Panther party. Threatened by the FBI, he was murdered on December 1969, and months prior to his death he gave a speech where this sample comes from:"Black people need some peace, white people need some peace. And we are going to have to fight, we're going to have to struggle, we're going to have to struggle relentlessly to bring about some peace because the people that we're asking for peace, they're a bunch of megalomaniac war-mongers, and they don't even understand what peace means. We've got to fight them, we've got to struggle with them to make them understand what peace means."It’s ironic how precisely he got murdered by those ‘megalomaniac war-mongers’. But that’s what matters in this skit, the sense of unity of communities to get the best for everyone. It’s not about black vs white, it’s about people vs power.And then we get to the actual song. Over guitars and muddy funk, D’Angelo’s distorted voice sings from two different perspectives, giving two meanings to 1000 Deaths: first, he sings as a soldier who is sent to the war and fears how his death is so near, but it also is from the point of view of Jesus before his death. The hill he mentions can be taken as the hill before the battle field, or the hill where Jesus was crucified. The soldier is thrilled, and so is Jesus, but both believe it’s from a larger good (winning a war and bringing peace or following God’s will).Later in the chorus, D’Angelo mentions once again a extract of Khalid Abdul Muhammad, and once again in his Kean university speech:“Jesus the Black Revolutionary Messiah said, “He or she who seeks to save their life shall lose their life. He or she, yet out of wisdom, but he or she who does not fear death shall save their life.” A coward dies a death a thousand times maybe in one day, a coward is dying all the time. But when you can look death in the face and snatch death’s tongue out of death’s mouth and rebuke the grave, rebuke the grave!”Because a coward dies a thousand timesBut a soldier only dies just onceOnce, onceThen in the third verse, D’Angelo names God and Jesus again, but through their hebrew names: Yahweh and Yeshua. But in the second line he goes back to the war: ‘he don’t want no coward soldier’, and that’s what D’Angelo really wants to say with this song, mixing politics, revolution, war and faith: God and Jesus only want the best for us, and want us to be free. The sense of community comes back, compared to Jesus: for him being a messiah is not being a leader, but being a martyr, someone to guide the people through bad moments and being an example.But as he says, not everything in Black Messiah is about politics. Sometimes it’s personal issues. The spark that ignited these issues was the video for Untitled (How Does It Feel), Voodoo’s third single. Inspired by Prince’s work, the video was released few weeks before the release of Voodoo and the airplay helped to increase the single’s and album’s popularity due to its heavily controversial content: D’Angelo bare naked, lip-syncing and doing gestures. All of this made D’Angelo a sex symbol, leading to frustration on his part. In the Voodoo tour, which lasted for six months, many women in the audience asked him to get naked and in general things that made him feel uncomfortable. One thing lead to another, and he ended up wanting to lose his fit figure, he wanted to get fat, to lose his sex symbol position. Months after the tour his friend Fred Jordan commited suicide, in April 2001, which lead to heavy alcoholism. 4 years later and after more alcoholism and drug abuse, his girlfriend had left him, he lost contact with most of his family and parted ways with his managers and attorney. One album was scrapped around that time, which apparently sounded like "Parliament/Funkadelic meets the Beatles meets Prince, and the whole time there's this Jimi Hendrix energy". After being arrested for possession of marijuana and cocaine, mugshots of him began to circulate. The muscular and sexy D’Angelo wasn’t there anymore, just an unhealthy and overweight version of him. Weeks after being sentenced for drugs charge, the infamous car crash happened. After that, he went into rehab.Two years of radio silence ended with Questlove playing a new song, Really Love, in an australian radio. Because the center of the personal issues of D’Angelo, and who saved him, was Questlove. Him and Amy Winehouse. Both had been friends for a long time, and intended to form a group with Mos Def, but the sudden death of Amy stopped them. Following her death, Questlove begged D’Angelo to stop the ten year process of self-destruction he had been going through. He didn’t want him to end up like many ‘cursed stars’, like Kurt Cobain, Aaliyah or Amy Winehouse herself. These words were what changed D’Angelo’s path, and around that time he went back to recording again, this time with Pino Palladino, James Gadson and Questlove. Almost at the same time, D’Angelo goes back on tour and plays some new songs live, like Sugah Daddy and The Charade.The personal issues are what matter on Black Messiah after all. D’Angelo went on a 15 year journey to a personal hell, and came back to tell everyone about it. The topics of love in many forms are spread through the album and the sound mixes influences in its torrid and thick funk, with obsessive guitar riffs, big basses, choirs that answer D’Angelo’s voice. The layers of sound overlap and disappear at will, with groovy pianos, precious strings, harmonical claps. Really Love stands out, starting with a female voice in spanish over strings and following with a beautiful acoustic guitar that progresses into latin rhythms, and D’Angelo offering one of his best vocal performances.Finally, the Black Messiah booklet ends with a few words in caps:ALL WE WANTED WAS A CHANCE TO TALK.'STEAD, WE ONLY GOT OUTLINED IN CHALK.This is part of the chorus to The Charade, another one of the political tracks in the album. It’s one of the most hard-hitting because of how direct it is, referencing how many oppressed communities (black, latin communities) have had to fight and die to be able to get some basic rights like voting, which in many cases conservative parties have been trying to deny, like republicans on Florida. Once Black Messiah ends, there is not much to say other than it being a proud lesson in history and a superb message about the radiant present of an artist who long ago seemed lost yet now sounds more alive, inspired and needed than ever.

#IFTTT #reddit

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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 years

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Dial M for Murdoch: exhaustive account of the UK tabloids' criminality and the resulting coverup #5yrsago

Tom Watson and Martin Hickman's Dial M for Murdoch is a timely, informative, infuriating insider account of the News International phone-hacking scandal that has occupied the news-cycle, off and on, for several years now (and shows no sign of slowing down). Watson, a veteran Member of Parliament -- and frequent target of the Murdoch press and its hackers and snoops -- was an early and consistent voice of alarm over the scale and illegality of the Murdoch tabloids' investigative methods. He's uniquely well-situated to tell this story. His co-writer, Martin Hickman, is a veteran investigative reporter who covered the story for the Independent. They make a good pair, and the narrative is relatively smoothly told and, at times, is very powerfully written.

The Murdoch papers -- and other UK tabloids and papers -- wield tremendous influence in the halls of British power. Dial M traces the intimate connections between the press and senior ministers, elected officials, and -- crucially -- the police in the UK. As the flagship Murdoch tabloid, News of the World attained the highest circulation of any English-language paper, and seems to have led the world in illegal investigation techniques as well. The early inklings of the scope of the company's criminality were systematically understated by the press, underrated by the police, pooh-poohed by officials (from every party), and buried.

But the story wouldn't die. There were just too many victims, a sympathetic poster-child for everyone -- dead soldiers and their families, terrorist bombing victims, royals, the families of murdered children, and so on. It was impossible for Scotland Yard to maintain its "nothing to see here" posture, not with so many different stakeholders and so many upwellings of outrage. It didn't help that the most senior police officers on the case were doing various kinds of business with Murdoch, or retiring into cushy sinecures as high-paid columnists and consultants. Neither could the impotent Press Complaints Commission maintain the fiction that it had investigated, censured, and cleaned house.

Murdoch's many enemies were willing to bring the fight, risking their private lives, risking their personal fortunes. Vindictive Murdoch executives drew up enemies lists, ordered deep background checks on Parliamentarians and attorneys, sent high-powered lawyers to lean on witnesses, set private eyes to follow Murdoch's opponents in secret, or dispatched obvious PIs to watch them openly and intimidatingly. Watson and Hickman are exhaustive in documenting the slimy depths plumbed by Murdoch's high-placed lieutenants and their thugs in their efforts to maintain the years-long suppression of the investigation.

They were ultimately undone by their own arrogance. You can't defend yourself by throwing your accomplices under the bus forever. Eventually, some of the minions on whom you've pinned the blame will start whispering your secrets to others. Likewise, you can't pin the blame on your fancy lawyers, insisting that they investigated your operation and gave it a clean bill of health -- they won't sit still for it. You can't just hack everyone who accuses you of hacking.

Indeed, the scale and arrogance of the Murdoch companies' illegality was both their undoing, and is the major problem with Dial M for Murdoch. Despite the authors' valiant efforts to be both exhaustive and engrossing, sometimes the sheer litany of the names of the hacked, the officials who participated in the coverups, the bribes and corruption -- well, it gets a little repetitive. This is the banality of evil, 350 pages' worth. The fact that it's hard to keep it all straight when it's delivered in sequence, with the benefit of hindsight, tells you a lot about how this managed to slip off the front pages so many times over the years. The revelations can be so similar that it's hard to remember that this is actually a fresh outrage, not just a re-reporting of last week's lies and crimes.

My other problem with Dial M is its unwillingness to set out an explicit agenda in defense of a free press. For all that the tabloids have gotten away with murder for decades, Britain has one of the most censorious and litigant-friendly environments when it comes to press freedoms. This is the land of the "superinjunction," where corporate criminals can order the news of their misdeeds to be vanished into the memory hole. This is the land where spurious libel claims can be used to silence science writers like Simon Singh and Ben Goldacre, who document the (sometimes literally) murderous quackery of "alternative medicine" gurus. Britain has the unwelcome distinction of being the world's center for "libel tourism," a place where despots can come to punish journalists who reveal their misdeeds.

One consequence of the Murdoch scandal has been a renewal of the call for "press regulation," to rein in the tabloids. But what the tabloids did was already illegal -- it didn't just violate a "code of conduct," it violated the actual statutes on the actual lawbooks. The problem wasn't that they slipped through a legal loophole: the problem was that they had the cooperation of crooked prosecutors and cops, and the collusion of highly placed officials, both elected and appointed. The problem wasn't the absence of a law, it was the absence of legal enforcement.

For example, Dial M paints Max Mosley as something of a hero of the fight against Murdoch. Mosley, a wealthy celebrity who'd been libeled by the tabloids, refused to settle and refused to back off, and spent a fortune bankrolling much of the legal action against Murdoch. For this, he is justly lionized by the authors. But Mosley also proposes far-reaching Internet censorship rules, and advance notice and "arbitration" whenever the press publishes stories about public figures, and an opportunity for those figures to seek injunctions against publication. I kept waiting for the authors to point out that one risk of the Murdoch scandal is that Britain's moneyed and powerful will seize on the opportunity to reverse the trend toward libel reform and other free-speech rules, and to demand expansions to the already onerous censorship and libel regime the country labours under.

Instead, Watson and Hickman walk a fine line between praise and condemnation of the press, without ever articulating what a "good" press should do, or what regulation they favour. There are plenty of opportunities for this, too: after all, the Guardian's Nick Davies was a key investigator of the scandal, and the authors credit him with bringing Murdoch to heel, at real personal risk. I wanted them to explain how they would create a policy or precedent that would let Davies investigate Murdoch at full tilt, but not be so broadly defined as to legalize the investigative techniques used by the Murdoch press. Indeed, the book opens with a quote from Bob Woodward, who brought down a president by publishing illegally leaked confidential material -- what system would protect Woodward and not Andy Coulson?

The other "other shoe" that never dropped in Dial M was a critique of the way that our IT systems are designed to be such juicy and easy targets for scumbags and crooks. It goes without saying that there's no excuse for the Murdoch invasions. But what on Earth are all these rich and powerful people doing sending unencrypted emails? Why do ministers of the government use voicemail servers operated by big, dumb phone companies like Vodaphone, instead of privately maintained Asterix instances run by Parliament's IT department (who, presumably, couldn't be tricked into resetting a voicemail PIN merely by calling up and saying, "It's Bob in tech support, and I'm on the other line with the Home Secretary and she's forgotten her PIN, can you reset it for me, mate?"). How is it that lawyers and clients send cleartext documents to one another, and how is it that ministers and civil servants keep the nation's most important information on unencrypted hard drives? It's one thing for an individual celebrity (or the bereaved parents of a murdered child or a felled soldier) to lack the wherewithal to protect themselves, but when it comes to officials and their staff, it's both inexcusable and inexplicable. Maybe the Murdoch snoops would still have gotten something on them with long lenses and PIs who shadowed them from home to work. But the fact that a crew of creepy dolts were able to sit in their basements hacking thousands of important and official phones and computers at a time is not merely an indictment of their employers at the tabloids. It should be a wakeup call to the establishment to put its house in order, get some training, and use the decades-old technology (that comes stock on every GNU/Linux box) in their official dealings.

Leaving aside those omissions, Dial M is a fabulous and infuriating read. If you have been trying in vain to keep all the crooked dealings straight, here, at last, is the scorecard you've been looking for. It's the perfect background reading for the nightly news, and I can't wait for a sequel once this business has been resolved (however long that might take!).

Dial M for Murdoch

https://boingboing.net/2012/05/15/dial-m-for-murdoch-e.html

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newssplashy · 6 years

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Tech: Prince Philip turns 97 on Sunday — here's the best photo from every year of his royal career

Prince Philip turns 97 on Sunday, more than a year after retiring from public life. These are the best photos from every year of his royal career.

Prince Philip turns 97 on Sunday — and it's been over a year since he announced his official retirement from public service.

According to The Telegraph, the Duke of Edinburgh has carried out 22,219 solo engagements and 637 solo visits overseas since he left active military service in 1952.

In retirement, the Duke is reportedly enjoying more leisure time at the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk — he is an avid carriage driver and enjoys oil painting.

His Royal Highness' career will be remembered equally for his sharp wit as he will be for his gaffes, which have often left the nation laughing or reeling.

The Prince's prolonged service has won him support from both sides of Parliament — Jeremy Corbyn applauded his "clear sense of public duty" and Theresa May praised his "steadfast support" to the Queen.

Philip's lengthy career, marked by hundreds of visits to far-flung corners of the British Empire, has unsurprisingly produced some remarkable royal photography.

As he turns 97, here are the best images from each of his years as Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh:

1947: Prince Philip began his journey as a British Royal when he married into the country's royal family after a five-month engagement to his distant cousin, Elizabeth. He was 26.

1948: The couple had their first child, Prince Charles, in 1948. In this picture, he sleeps in the arms of his mother, then Princess Elizabeth, after his Christening at Buckingham Palace.

1949: Philip spent many of his younger years in the Royal Navy meaning family time was precious. He spent much of 1949 stationed in Malta as the first lieutenant of the destroyer HMS Checkers, the lead ship of the 1st Destroyer Flotilla in the Mediterranean Fleet.

1950: Two years after the birth of Prince Charles, Elizabeth and Philip gave birth to their second child, Princess Anne.

1951: The family's first home was Clarence House, located just a stone's throw away from Buckingham Palace in central London. The family can be seen playing in its gardens in this photo.

1952: Despite his active naval career ending in 1951, he was promoted to commander of the Royal Navy in 1952.

Source: The British Monarchy

1953: During the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, Philip bowed to his while while more than 27 million people in Britain watched on television.

Source: Royal.uk

1954: This photo shows the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh during an official visit to HAMS Australia, flagship of the Australian Navy. The Royal couple went aboard during their visit to Cairns, Queensland.

1955: Throughout his career, he has been involved with more than 780 organisations and been a loyal supporter of his wife, attending events around the world with her for more than 60 years.

1956: In 1956, the royal founded the Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme. The scheme is still running 61 years later and aims to instill within young people a "sense of responsibility to themselves and their communities," by encouraging them to take part in charity work and outdoor activities.

1957: It wasn't until 1957 that Philip was formerly made a British prince. That same year, he completed a round the world tour aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia. Here he is feeding penguins during a visit to the Antarctic.

1958: Here, Prince Philip is handing a pen back to Levi Milley after signing an autograph. Milley was one of 12 men who survived nearly a week trapped in a mine in SpringHill, Nova Scotia in 1958.

1959: Philip and Elizabeth's children grew up meeting some of the world's most powerful leaders. President Eisenhower visited Balmoral Castle in 1959, where he was photographed patting Princess Anne on the shoulder as her father looked on proudly.

1960: Prince Andrew, the couple's third child, was born in 1960. In this photo, he laughs as he holds hands with his father, Prince Philip, and his sister, Princess Anne, during their summer holiday at Balmoral Castle.

1961: The royal couple made their first visit to the Taj Mahal in India in January 1961. He also became UK President of the World Wildlife Fund the same year.

1962: The Royals have been a regular fixture at Ascot, one of the biggest events in Britain's horse racing calendar.

1963: In 1963, the couple went on a three-month tour of Fiji, Australia, and New Zealand.

1964: People often don't realize that the royal is also a qualified pilot, having racked up nearly 6,000 flying hours over the past five decades. He's also the patron of the Guild of Air Pilots.

1965: Philip attended the funeral of Sir Winston Churchill, along with fellow British royals and dignitaries from overseas.

1966: The Queen and her husband visited St. Lucia in 1966. This was also the year he famously proclaimed "British women can't cook."

Source: The Telegraph

1967: The following year, he made an equally dubious gaffe. When asked whether he would like to visit the Soviet Union, he replied: "I would like to go to Russia very much, although the bastards murdered half my family." This is a reference to his German heritage.

1968: Britain celebrated the 50th anniversary of the formation of the RA Fin style. Here, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip ride past a number of Bloodhound missiles on display during their visit to the Royal Air Force Base at Abington, England.

1969: Prince Philip joined a patient's group therapy session when he visited the National Addiction and Research Institute in Chelsea, London. The prince spent 20 minutes with the patients discussing their problems.

1970: Queen Elizabeth II read her speech in the House of Lords alongside her husband for the State Opening of Parliament in 1970.

1971: The late Sir Roger Moore met the Duke of Edinburgh at an auction dinner in aid of the Variety Club of Great Britain, at the Savoy Hotel in 1971.

1972: In 1972, Philip and Elizabeth travelled to France and took part in remembrance services.

1973: Prince Philip talked to his wife before the new Sydney Opera House complex. Left is Frank Barnes., General Manager of the Opera House and right is Sir Roden Cutler, Governor of New South Wales.

1974: He received a traditional Maori welcome when he arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand, to open the 10th Commonwealth Games. In this ancient Maori challenge, the feather is thrown at the feet of the Duke, with the chant, "do you come as friend or foe," by picking up the feather the Duke was accepted and welcomed.

1975: Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip are greeted by Emperor Hirohito of Japan at the entrance of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on May 7, 1975.

1976: The royal couple laughed as the young girl stood next to them was reluctant to hand over a bouquet of flowers during their royal visit to Luxembourg.

1977: This photo captures Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth waving at a low-flying Concorde as it passed the Royal Yacht Britannia near Barbados. The iconic passenger jet could fly faster than the speed of sound but made its last flight in 2003 due to soaring costs.

1978: Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip were followed by their sons Prince Andrew, left, and Prince Edward, as they entered the stadium before the start of the 11th Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Canada.

1979: This family photo was taken in the ground of Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Elizabeth and Philip were joined by their sons (l-r) Prince Andrew, Prince Charles, and Prince Edward.

1980: The Royals made a historic visit to meet Pope John Paul II in the Vatican in October 1980. It was the first state visit to the Vatican by a British monarch.

1981: Philip's first son, Prince Charles, married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981. An estimated 750 million people watched the ceremony worldwide. Below is the official wedding portrait. Philip can be seen standing next to Diana.

1982: The Queen looked surprised after her husband, Prince Philip, pointed that they should be going another way as they drove through the crowd of athletes and officials during the Closing Ceremony of the 12th Commonwealth Games. The crowd forced them to make another lap around the stadium.

1983: The couple has met every sitting US president — bar Lyndon B. Johnson — since Elizabeth ascended to the throne. Here they're pictured with former President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan in San Francisco.

1984: The Royal family, along with Lord Spencer, attended Prince Harry's Christening in December 1984.

1985: The Queen, Prince Philip, the Prince of Wales, the Princess of Wales, the Princess Royal, Princes William and Harry, and the Earl of Wessex at the Trooping the Colour.

1986: The couple paid a state visit to China, making the Queen the first British monarch to ever do so.

1987: Philip held a news conference in Washington D.C. in May 1987, to announce a World Wildlife Fund Campaign to end illegal wildlife trade. The global organisation has also named an award after him — The Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Award — which recognizes "highly meritorious contributions to the conservation of wildlife and natural resources."

1988: Prince Philip was greeted by children of the British School in Holland. He was visiting the Netherlands for the celebration of the 300th Anniversary of the Glorious Revolution, when Prince William III of Holland ousted King James II from the English family.

1989: Philip was greeted by a worshipper at St. Mary's Cathedral in Kuala Lumpur after he stepped in for the queen who was unable to attend the service because of a chill. In the background is a plaque in honour of the royal couple.

1990: The prince had the honour of delivering the Rafael M. Salas Lecture at the United Nations' headquarters in New York. Named in honour of Mrs. Salas' — pictured below— late husband, Rafael was the first head of the United Nations Population Fund.

1991: President George H. Bush escorted Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip on the field at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, before the Orioles played the Oakland A's. This was the first baseball game the monarch had ever watched.

1992: Here, Prince Philip emerges from the channel tunnel near Calais, France, after becoming the first member of the royal family to use the rail line connecting England and France — one year before it welcomed its first fare-paying passenger.

1993: The Duke of Edinburgh chats with Diana, Princess of Wales, at a banquet he is hosting in honour of the Queen, at the Dorchester Hotel, London.

1994: This was the first ever visit to Israel by a member of the royal family. Philip flew to the country to participate in a ceremony honouring his mother for saving Greek Jews during WWII. In this photo, Prince Philip jokes with British veterans.

1995: Queen Elizabeth II looks up toward the sky as Prince Philip, left, and Prince Charles look on during memorial services to mark the 50th anniversary of VJ Day in London on August 19.

1996: Prince Philip caused outrage across the country on December 18, particularly in Dublin, the scene of that year's primary school massacre, when he suggested that cricket bats were potentially just as dangerous as guns.

1997: Philip and his wife, Queen Elizabeth II, walk through a sea of flowers left by the public outside Buckingham Palace in memory of Princess Diana, who was killed in a car crash in Paris in August that year.

1998: Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip greet Tony Blair and his wife Cherie at Buckingham Palace in London on the second day of the Asia-Europe meeting. The three days of meetings were dominated by discussions on how the Asian economic crisis was being handled.

1999: The Queen and her husband were welcomed to Ghana by the sound of drums and reggae music, where they met the 13 regional chiefs and eight Queen Mothers of Ghana.

2000: Prince Philip bids farewell to Former President Nelson Mandela. Prince Philip and Prince Edward went to see young offenders enrolled in rehabilitation programs in South Africa.

2001: Jordan's Queen Rania smiled with Prince Philip during arrival ceremonies in Windsor. The King and Queen of Jordan were on an official State Visit to England at the time.

2002: A year of glorious highs and sad lows — The Queen celebrated her Golden Jubilee, it was also the year the Queen Mother passed away.

2003: Then-US President George W. Bush visited Britain with his wife Barbara in 2003. The couple can be seen walking with the royals along the west terrace of Buckingham Palace.

2004: A memorial fountain dedicated to the late Princess Diana was unveiled in Hyde Park, London. The House of Windsor buried the hatchet with the aristocratic family of Diana earlier that week, almost seven years after her brother savaged the royals in his funeral eulogy.

2005: A National Service of Remembrance was held for the Victims of the London Bombings at St. Paul's Cathedral in central London. The service, where candles were lit to represent the four sites in London bombed on July 7, was also attended by Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair.

2006: Prince Philip visited the Queen's Royal Hussars in Basra. He told the troops that most people in Britain had "a great deal of sympathy for those of you at the sharp end who are trying to do your best to make life civilized and tolerable for the locals."

2007: Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth celebrated their diamond (60th) wedding anniversary. They marked the occasion with a special thanksgiving service held at Westminster Abbey.

2008: Prince Philip and France's then-first lady Carla Bruni laughed as they stood with Queen Elizabeth and French President Nicolas Sarkozy during a review of the Guard of Honour at Windsor Castle in Windsor.

2009: Prince Philip speaks to well-wishers during his visit with Queen Elizabeth to Newcastle, northern England.

2010: Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip attended the ninth inauguration of the General Synod at Westminster Abbey, with the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

2011: Prince Philip has spent his life supporting veterans and the armed forces. Here, he talks with soldiers and their relatives of the 2 Close Support Battalion RE ME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) after the Operation Herrick Medal Parade at the Saint Barbara's Barracks in undefined, Lower Saxony. Some 150 soldiers were awarded for their deployment in Afghanistan.

2012: This brilliant photo captures Philip, Elizabeth, and Charles laughing as they watch the Braemer Gathering in Scotland as competitors participated in a sack race.

2013: Prince Philip was presented with New Zealand's highest honour, the Order of New Zealand, by his wife, Elizabeth, at Buckingham Palace in London. He also celebrated his 92nd birthday that year.

2014: The couple laughed after bidding farewell to the President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins and his wife Sabina at Windsor Castle. The Irish President and his wife Sabina left Windsor at the end of a four day State Visit to Britain, during which they stayed at the castle as guests of her majesty.

2015: Philip played a vital role in saving Britain's engineering sector in the 1970s by creating a national engineering academy. He told the BBC in 2015 that after WWII, Britain was "completely skint — it seemed to me that the only way we were going to recover was through engineering."

Source: BBC

2016: The Duke of Edinburgh Award celebrated its 60 anniversary in 2016 — arguably the most successful venture of any current royal. The Queen also celebrated her 90th birthday in style with the Patron's Lunch street party, pictured below.

Source: The Telegraph

2017: After 65 years of public service, the prince retired from public life. Public appearances had become increasingly rare — but here he attends the annual garden party at the Palace of Hilarity's in Edinburgh.

2018: Though officially retired, Prince Philip has made appearances at a number of events in the past year. His grandson Prince Harry's wedding, for instance, was not something he was likely to miss.

Charles Clark contributed to an earlier version of this story.

source https://www.newssplashy.com/2018/06/tech-prince-philip-turns-97-on-sunday_8.html

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therightnewsnetwork · 7 years

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Italy’s Next Crisis Could Be Its Worst in Centuries

Italy is not Greece. The latter is technically a failed state because of its overwhelming public and private indebtedness. But Italy is in the process of becoming Greece. The economy is in terrible shape with a nearly 12 percent unemployment rate nationally. Youth unemployment hovers at 40 percent. Both of these numbers are much worse in southern Italy, a historically depressed region that is now in freefall.

Two legendary businessmen had such statistics in mind when they recently gave interviews to the Corriere della Sera newspaper. Carlo De Benedetti, longtime head of the Olivetti Corporation, declared that work “is the only thing that counts; the rest is superstructure. Work is dignity. A country without work sooner or later will experience social disturbances and upheavals.” Two weeks later the former head of Fiat, Cesare Romiti, concurred. He said that he was frightened by Italy’s unemployment problems: “I am anguished for my country, especially over public indebtedness and unemployment. There is no work; therefore, there is nothing.” We are used to hearing such apocalyptic forebodings about capitalism from Italy’s Marxist left, but not from the country’s corporate headquarters.

Ernesto Galli della Loggia, a distinguished contemporary historian and newspaper columnist, recently wrote that Italy is falling apart. Without work, young people are leaving the country in droves. The physical infrastructure is collapsing. Disorderly conduct is increasing. The menace of organized crime is proliferating. Italy is a country of insecure old people and young people without prospects. Italians look to their uncertain future with fear. In such a crisis-ridden atmosphere, the center, where stability for the status quo lies, cannot hold.

Another leading preoccupation in Italy today is the unwanted arrival of Muslim immigrants and refugees from the war-torn Middle East and North Africa. This is a European-wide problem, but Italy’s proximity to the two afflicted regions makes it especially appealing as a destination for the millions of displaced Muslims seeking safety.

There is particular concern in Italy today over the disastrous situation created in nearby Libya. The NATO-led military operation that overthrew the regime of Muammar Gaddafi resulted in the absolute chaos that has reigned there ever since. The country has disintegrated, and armed militias of fanatical Islamist groups have filled the void. Moreover, Libya has become a perfect environment for criminal traffic in drugs, weapons, and human beings. The real economy of Libya consists of such activities, which have replaced the oil industry. The Italians fear that the widespread Libyan violence will spill over into their country.

The Italian government has repeatedly issued warnings about the threat that Muslim extremists pose for the country. As a member of the Coalition of the Willing in Iraq and a supporter generally of American foreign policy, Italy is a likely target for revenge attacks. In Jihadi literature, Italy is cited as an enemy not only for its imperialist history and association with the United States, but also because of the country’s role as the center of Western Christianity. In his first declaration after becoming ISIL Caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared, “We will conquer Rome.”

Since 9/11, fears about violence coming from the ideological extremists on the left and right who had traumatized the country during the 1970s and 1980s—the so-called years of lead—have been replaced almost entirely by the threat of radical Islamic terrorism. As reported by Steve Hendricks in A Kidnapping in Milan: The CIA on Trial (2010), the Abu Omar case involving the 2003 CIA abduction of an imam in Milan for rendition in Egypt produced some startling revelations about the extent of radical Islamic activities in Italy, as well as a wave of brutal publicity about the American use of torture.

Front-page newspaper reports about Islamic fundamentalist extremism in Italy have been continuous, especially since the 2015 Charlie Hebdo and Bataclan Theatre attacks in Paris and the 2016 attacks in Brussels, Nice, and Munich. Muslims from Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, the UK, and Italy have joined ISIL in Syria. All of these countries fear that returning extremists will bring new levels of jihad to Europe.

In the wake of the March 2016 terrorist eruptions in Brussels, authorities reported that Belgium had more nationals fighting for jihadist forces than any other Western country. As of January 2015, 440 people born in Belgium were fighting in Syria and Iraq. Belgium serves as the European hub of jihadist recruiting activity. Planning for numerous Islamist bombings, including the November 2015 Paris attacks, has originated in the Molenbeek District of Brussels. Densely populated by immigrants from North Africa, Molenbeek has become the symbol of European jihadism. About 100 people from Molenbeek alone are fighting for ISIL in Syria and Iraq.

Dozens of Muslims from Italy reportedly are fighting for the Caliphate. The Italians also have begun to worry about an incipient Molenbeek syndrome of their own in Salerno, where about 45,000 Muslims have settled. Clashes between the Moroccans who live there and ethnic Italians have been in the news and now form part of a national pattern of concern over the country’s future.

It is not as if Italy has been entirely free in recent years of other forms of extremist violence. After the defeat and virtual disappearance of the Marxist-Leninist Red Brigades in the 1980s, a new generation of left-wing radicals appeared around the turn of the century. They laid claim to the mantle of Red Brigadism and sought to revive the cause of anti-capitalist revolution in Italy. Hoping to garner support in the ranks of Italians disaffected by globalization, they murdered two establishment economists identified with workplace and trade agreement reform, Massimo D’Antona in 1999 and Marco Biagi in 2002.

The widespread unpopularity of Silvio Berlusconi’s decision in 2003 to align Italy with the United States in Operation Iraqi Freedom gave the new Red Brigades added cause for optimism. Nevertheless, they failed and swiftly disappeared from the scene. There would be no encore of lasting significance for the Red Brigades. The national trauma that they caused in their heyday and their total failure to achieve anything make them an unlikely candidate for political revival.

Yet the country’s economic crisis and a widespread antagonism against globalization have fueled other dissident movements. Violent anarchist Black Bloc demonstrations have resulted in episodes of vandalism. In May 2015, for instance, extensive damage and mayhem occurred in Milan, where anarchists attacked shops, burned automobiles, and hurled Molotov cocktails at the police. Following this event, authorities expressed alarm about Italy’s preoccupying political climate and worried that the cumulative effect of anarchist violence and Muslim extremism might produce a crisis in Italy’s political institutions.

Two right-wing anti-establishment parties, the Lega and the Movimento Cinque Stelle, have gained the most from the disillusionment of the voters with the status quo.

Both of these parties have made strong showings in recent elections. In the coming general elections, scheduled to be held no later than May 2018, Matteo Salvini’s League and Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement are now projected to win more seats in Parliament than the mainstream center-left Democratic Party and the center-right Forza Italia Party combined. These two men could be running the country in a coalition government.

They have much in common. The core problem for both of them is the European Union, which they condemn as an abomination responsible for almost all of Italy’s worst problems. Grillo and Salvini both are trumpiani. They see Donald Trump as an ally against the European Union, the establishment media, open borders, unwanted immigrants, and globalized trade agreements. Salvini recently compared the historical significance of Trump’s victory to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Vladimir Putin also comes in for much praise from Grillo and Salvini because the Russian leader, too, is seen as an adversary of an irredeemably evil and dysfunctional European status quo, which only cares about the banks and the corporations. Grillo recently praised Putin for his perfectly sensible and moderate ideas about international relations. Trump’s desire for an understanding with Russia Grillo called the best initiative to emanate from Washington in many years, including all the years of the Obama administration, which he has denounced as an absolute disaster and a major cause of international disorder.

It would be fair to say that Italy is always in crisis. This is so for a reason advanced by the fifteenth-century historian Leonardo Bruni. In his classic History of the Florentine People, he noted that history is always a struggle between the popolo grasso and the popolo minuto, the haves and the have nots. In a country like Italy, which has suffered from a poor rapport among land, resources, and people, conflicts of the kind noted by Bruni assume exceptionally sharp forms.

Italy has been the classic land of political and ideological extremism. The Italians brought fascism into existence and carried it to its pioneering triumph. After World War II, they created the largest and most active European communist party outside the Iron Curtain. In the 1970s and 1980s, they had the worst problems with terrorism, left and right, of any people in the industrialized world. Today we observe in Italy mounting anxiety over the prospect of a deepening economic crisis and swelling migration streams flowing into the country. It does not require the perspicacity of a Thucydides or a Bruni to understand that such traumatizing conditions pose a serious challenge to existing systems of government and international arrangements. On the other hand, if climate change turns out not to be a hoax, Italy’s economic and political problems will disappear along with everything else in creation.

Richard Drake, a historian of Europe and the United States, is professor of history at the University of Montana.

from http://www.therightnewsnetwork.com/italys-next-crisis-could-be-its-worst-in-centuries/

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patriotnewsblogger-blog · 7 years

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Italy’s Next Crisis Could Be Its Worst in Centuries

New Post has been published on http://www.therightnewsnetwork.com/italys-next-crisis-could-be-its-worst-in-centuries/

Italy’s Next Crisis Could Be Its Worst in Centuries

Two right-wing anti-establishment parties, the Lega and the Movimento Cinque Stelle, have gained the most from the disillusionment of the voters with the status quo.

Richard Drake, a historian of Europe and the United States, is professor of history at the University of Montana.

http://www.therightnewsnetwork.com/italys-next-crisis-could-be-its-worst-in-centuries/ %cats%

#conservative #republican

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walnutandcarrara · 7 years

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Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte launched a bloody war on drugs that has killed more than 7,000 people, brags about personally executing criminals, and has compared himself to Hitler. President Donald Trump just praised Duterte for “fighting very hard to rid [his] country of drugs” and invited him to visit the White House. Trump’s warm weekend phone call with Duterte, who once joked about raping an Australian missionary and called the pope a “son of a whore,” illustrates two vital elements of Trump’s approach to foreign policy, including one that has gotten far less attention than it deserves. The first is Trump’s affinity for strongmen the world over. He repeatedly praised Vladimir Putin on the campaign trail, and he invited Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who took power in a coup and killed more than 800 protesters in a single day, to the Oval Office in April. Trump’s “very friendly conversation” with Duterte (a phrase that comes from the White House’s official statement), then, is in keeping with that pattern. But there’s a second dynamic at play, one that is perhaps even more troubling. It isn’t simply that Trump keeps warmly embracing some of the world’s most brutal leaders. It’s that he goes out of his way to specifically praise them for the specific things they’ve done that have most egregiously violated human rights, international norms, and basic tenets of democratic rule. Duterte’s government has killed thousands. Trump has no problem with that. Duterte came to power in 2016, winning by a landslide margin of more than 16 million votes. The 71-year-old former mayor promised to use any means necessary to fight his country’s drug epidemic, and he wasn’t speaking rhetorically. As Ana P. Santos wrote for Vox, drug dealers surrendered en masse, flooding the country’s jails. But they were the smart ones: Still, those inmates had it better than those whose names were on neighborhood “watch lists,” a list of suspected pushers and users put together by “informants” motivated by anything from civic duty to personal grudges. Many of the people on the watch list turned up dead. Bound and gagged, faces mummified in packaging tape, their corpses piled up on street corners and under bridges. Sometimes a piece of cardboard scrawled with “PUSHER. DON’T BE LIKE ME” was left as an epitaph — and a warning. The sheer numbers of killings, and the brutal ways they were carried out, stunned world leaders like then-President Barack Obama, who called on Duterte to deal with the drug problem “the right way.” Duterte responded by calling Obama a “son of whore” who should “go to hell.” European leaders didn’t fare much better. When the European Union demanded an end to the killings, Duterte answered with a two-word reply: “Fuck you.” He then flashed them the middle finger — twice — for good measure. Duterte has also been willing to pick a fight with the Catholic Church, historically one of the most powerful and revered parts of Filipino society. As Santos notes, a church in Manila exhibited photos taken by photojournalists documenting the nightly killings of alleged drug users and pushers and then sent the pictures to other churches that wanted to mount to similar exhibits. Duterte responded by calling out the church on its alleged hypocrisy over issues like family planning and revealing that he had once been molested by a priest as a teen. “I challenge the Catholic Church. You are full of shit and you all stink, corruption and all,” he said. This man — unapologetically profane and unapologetically willing to turn a blind eye to the extrajudicial killings of thousands of his own people — is the man that Donald Trump just invited to the White House. And he didn’t do it in spite of Duterte’s brutal drug war. He did it, at least in part, because of it. Trump likes autocrats because of the horrible things they do, not in spite of them Trump’s willingness to specifically condone Duterte’s drug war — something condemned by much of the rest of the world — is in keeping with a broader part of the president’s foreign policy. Take Sisi, who has imprisoned tens of thousands of dissidents since he took power and overseen a broad campaign of serious human rights abuses like torture, mass detention, and forced disappearances of journalists, aid workers, activists, students, and Islamists. In one particularly gruesome incident, a 28-year-old PhD student from Italy studying in Cairo was abducted, tortured, and murdered in what many believe was an attack by Egyptian state security forces. Sisi has said the measures were justified to fight Islamist terrorists in his country. But as my colleague Jennifer Williams notes: Sisi has violently cracked down on all forms of dissent and turned Egypt into a police state arguably worse than anything seen under former President Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled in 2011 after 30 years in power. And for all of that, Sisi hasn’t actually done a very good job of fighting terrorism. Regardless, Trump didn’t use his Oval Office visit with Sisi — an honor Obama had refused to extend to the Egyptian dictator — to urge him to pay more attention to human rights abuses in his own country. Instead, the president said Egypt should do whatever necessary to fight terrorism, and made clear the US would support him. “We will do that together,” Trump said after the meeting. “We will fight terrorism and other things, and we’re going to be friends for a long, long period of time.” Or take Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who narrowly won a vote last month over a referendum that gave him vast new powers while eviscerating the parliament and judiciary — the two institutions that stood as the last checks and balances against his increasingly autocratic rule. European leaders stayed mostly silent about Erdoğan’s win. International monitors condemned the vote as unfair. Trump quickly called Erdoğan to offer his personal congratulations. As I wrote at the time, it’s possible Trump may not have understood the magnitude of what just took place in one of Washington's most important allies. The likelier scenario is that Trump understood exactly what Erdoğan had just accomplished in bringing his country closer to autocracy — and that he liked what he saw. Most US presidents have liked democratic leaders. Trump prefers the opposite. After Trump’s call with Duterte, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut took to Twitter to say, in a widely-shared comment, “We are watching in real time as the American human rights bully pulpit disintegrates into ash.” That may be overstated, but if so, not by much. American presidents from both parties have been willing to look past human-rights violations and maintain warm relationships with the autocratic and at times brutal rulers of countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. They didn’t brag about that, though, and at least in public spent more time praising democratically elected leaders with liberal values like German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Trump, worryingly, has chosen the opposite path. His White House meeting with Merkel was frosty, his phone call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was so hostile that it made headlines in both countries, and he recently used Twitter to attack Canada, led by the popular liberal Prime Minster Justin Trudeau. Dictators and would-be dictators like Putin, Sisi, Erdogan, and now Duterte have gotten far friendlier receptions. We’re just into Trump’s second 100 days in office, and it’s possible aides may get him to change tacks. (The New York Times reported that the State Department and National Security Council were upset over the Duterte call.) But it seems much more likely that we will continue to see more of the same. That’s good news for the world’s autocrats. It’s terrible news for those who care about human rights — and about America’s long history of defending them. (folllink about to continue reading)

#donald trump #autocratic #rodrigo duterte

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Part 1, Wednesday, April 12th, 2017

International News:

--- "German Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged the United States and China to put political pressure on North Korea over its nuclear program, pressing for a peaceful resolution to escalating tensions. "I don't put my trust in military means, but rather in political pressure being exerted on North Korea from different sides," Merkel told the Funke media group in comments released on Thursday. "If China and the United States do that together, it won't be without consequence," she added. On Wednesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for a peaceful resolution of rising tension on the Korean peninsula in a telephone conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump, as a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group steamed toward the region."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear-germany-idUSKBN17F03Y?il=0

--- "Russia blocked a Western-led effort at the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday to condemn last week's deadly gas attack in Syria and push Moscow's ally President Bashar al-Assad to cooperate with international inquiries into the incident. It was the eighth time during Syria's six-year-old civil war that Moscow has used its veto power on the Security Council to shield Assad's government. In the latest veto, Russia blocked a draft resolution backed by the United States, France and Britain to denounce the attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun and tell Assad's government to provide access for investigators and information such as flight plans. The toxic gas attack on April 4 prompted the United States to launch missile strikes on a Syrian air base and widened a rift between the United States and Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that trust had eroded between the two countries under U.S. President Donald Trump. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson echoed that comment after meetings with Russian leaders in Moscow, saying that relations are at a low point with a low level of trust. Tillerson called for Assad to eventually relinquish power. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, called on Moscow to stop protecting Assad and said the United States wants to work with Russia toward a political solution for Syria. "Russia once again has chosen to side with Assad, even as the rest of the world, including the Arab world, overwhelmingly comes together to condemn this murderous regime," Haley told the 15-member Security Council. "If the regime is innocent, as Russia claims, the information requested in this resolution would have vindicated them." Russia's deputy U.N. envoy, Vladimir Safronkov, said the draft resolution laid blame prior to an independent investigation. "I'm amazed that this was the conclusion. No one has yet visited the site of the crime. How do you know that?" he said. He said the U.S. attack on the Syrian air base "was carried out in violation of international norms."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-un-vote-idUSKBN17E2LK?il=0

--- "A senior Trump administration official said on Wednesday that the positive bond developed between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping last week in Florida helped lead to China's abstention from a U.N. Security Council vote on Syria. The official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, would not say whether Trump personally asked Xi that China not veto the resolution. The official said Xi's decision not to veto the resolution spoke to China's determination not to obstruct the U.N.'s ability to sanction Syria for a chemical weapons attack last week."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-xi-idUSKBN17E2UN?il=0

--- "U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that NATO is not obsolete, as he had declared on the campaign trail last year, but said NATO members still need to pay their fair share for the European security umbrella. At a news conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Trump thanked NATO members for their support of his decision last Thursday to launch 59 cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack on civilians and said it was time to end Syria's civil war. "I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete," Trump said, adding that the Transatlantic alliance was adapting to the broader mission against Islamic militants that he had urged. Stoltenberg said he had an excellent and productive meeting in the Oval Office with Trump."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-nato-idUSKBN17E2OK?il=0

--- "The killings and other atrocities going on South Sudan amount to a genocide and African leaders need to "step up" and not just rely on others for a response, Britain's secretary for international development, Priti Patel, said late on Wednesday. After a visit to Africa's youngest nation, Patel also told journalists in neighboring Uganda that President Salva Kiir's government was blocking access to aid. "There are massacres taking place, people's throats are being slit ... villages are being burnt out, there's a scorched-earth policy," she said. "It is tribal, it is absolutely tribal, so on that basis it is genocide." South Sudan has been convulsed by mass violence since July when fighting broke out in the capital Juba, and then spread to several other areas. The fighting erupted between forces loyal to Kiir and his former vice president, Riek Machar, who come from rival ethnic groups. Civilians who have fled the violence to neighboring countries say government troops, mostly drown from Kiir's Dinka tribe, carry out killings and other crimes against Machar's Nuer and other smaller tribes suspected of supporting rebels."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southsudan-war-idUSKBN17E2TF?il=0

--- "U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the United States is prepared to tackle the crisis surrounding North Korea without China if necessary. The president made the comments at a joint news conference with visiting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping last week and spoke to him by phone on Wednesday night. "President Xi wants to do the right thing. We had a very good bonding, I think we had a very good chemistry together, I think he wants to help us with North Korea," Trump said. "We talked trade, we talked a lot of things, and I said the way you’re going to make a good trade deal is to help us with North Korea, otherwise we’re just going to go it alone, that’ll be all right too, but going it alone means going with lots of other nations.""

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-northkorea-idUSKBN17E2PO?il=0

--- "Polls showed France's presidential election campaign tightening further on Wednesday as financial markets fretted about the rising popularity of a far-left candidate who wants to put France's European Union membership to a vote. Investors have long been anxious about election frontrunner Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, who has promised a referendum on whether to quit the EU and ditch the euro. She has been joined on the list of investors' concerns by far-left veteran Jean-Luc Melenchon, who has surged in the polls after strong performances in two candidates' debates. The Communist-backed Melenchon also wants a referendum on EU membership after an attempt to renegotiate the EU treaties. The latest Ifop-Fiducial poll on Wednesday showed Le Pen winning 23.5 percent in the April 23 first round, one point ahead of centrist Emmanuel Macron. Both Le Pen and Macron's support dipped by half a point from Tuesday while conservative Francois Fillon was stable on 19 percent and Melenchon unchanged on 18.5 percent."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-idUSKBN17E2VF?il=0

--- "Foreign journalists visiting North Korea gathered in Pyongyang for "a big and important event" on Thursday with tensions high over the possibility of a new weapons test by the isolated state and as a U.S. carrier group sails towards the Korean peninsula. North Korea marks the 105th anniversary of the birth of the state founder Kim Il Sung on Saturday and in 2012 launched a long-range rocket carrying a satellite to mark the date. It tested a newly developed intermediate-range missile last year. Around 200 foreign journalists are in Pyongyang for North Korea's biggest national day called "Day of the Sun". Officials gave no details of the big event and similar announcements in the past have been linked to relatively low-key set pieces."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-event-idUSKBN17E2CT?il=0

--- "Germany needs a strong, pro-European France to hold together the European project, veteran German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Wednesday, less than two weeks out from the first round of the French presidential election. The comments from Schaeuble, 74, reflect the German government's aversion to far-right National Front presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, who wants to abandon the euro currency and is expected to go through to a run-off vote. "We need a strong France ... we need a pro-European France," Schaeuble said during a round table discussion in Berlin. "We need France to hold together Europe." "I hope Le Pen does not become French president," he added."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-france-eu-idUSKBN17E2DE?il=0

--- "Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai on Wednesday received honorary Canadian citizenship and praised Canada's open embrace of refugees under the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Canada last year accepted 25,000 refugees from Syria and in January, when U.S. President Donald Trump issued an immigration ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries, Trudeau pointedly tweeted that refugees were welcome in Canada. "Your motto and your stand - Welcome to Canada - is more than a headline or a hashtag," Yousafzai said in an address to legislators in the Canadian Parliament. "I pray that you continue to open your homes and your hearts to the world's most defenseless children and families," she said. Yousafzai, an Pakistani education activist who came to prominence when a Taliban gunman shot her in the head in 2012, is only the sixth person to receive honorary Canadian citizenship. Other recipients include Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-malala-idUSKBN17E2FI?il=0

--- "The United States imposed financial sanctions on Wednesday against two militia leaders accused of collaborating on violence intended to destabilize the Central African Republic, which is struggling to end years of division and bloodshed. The assets of Abdoulaye Hissene and Maxime Mokom were both frozen, although it was not clear whether either holds any property within U.S. jurisdiction. Generally, U.S. nationals are also prohibited from transactions with those under sanctions. Hissene is a chief in the mainly Muslim Seleka rebel coalition that ousted then-President Francois Bozize in 2013. Mokom is an leader in the Christian militias known as anti-balaka, which arose in reaction to Bozize's ouster. Violence between the Seleka and the anti-balaka, which included waves of ethnic cleansing, has left the country deeply divided along religious fault lines. "Today's action underscores our ongoing efforts to target those responsible for fuelling violence and human rights abuses in the Central African Republic," said John E. Smith, the director of the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-centralafrica-usa-sanctions-idUSKBN17E2FS?il=0

Domestic & International News:

--- "The dollar slumped broadly on Thursday, falling to a five-month low against the yen, after U.S. President Donald Trump helped accelerate its recent decline by saying the currency was too strong. The greenback took a heavy hit after Trump told the Wall Street Journal that the dollar "is getting too strong" and that he would prefer the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates low. The comments were a fresh reminder of the president's protectionist trade rhetoric, which has been a source of concern for dollar bulls. "Trump's comments came at a time when some had begun to think that perhaps the president was not as supportive of a weak dollar as initially perceived," said Shin Kadota, senior strategist at Barclays in Tokyo. "But he reiterated his view that a strong currency hurts U.S. competitiveness, adding fresh downward pressure on the dollar." The U.S. currency was a shade lower at 109.000 yen after stooping to a five-month low of 108.920. It has shed 1.8 percent against the yen so far this week, with the safe-haven Japanese currency already on a bullish footing because of a rise in geopolitical tensions. There are fresh concerns about the French presidential election and possible U.S. military action against Syria and North Korea."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-forex-idUSKBN17F00U?il=0

--- "President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that his administration will not label China a currency manipulator, backing away from a campaign promise, even as he said the U.S. dollar was "getting too strong" and would eventually hurt the economy. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump also said he would like to see U.S. interest rates stay low, another comment at odds with what he had often said during the election campaign...Trump's comments broke with a long-standing practice of both U.S. Democratic and Republican administrations of refraining from commenting on policy set by the independent Federal Reserve. It is also highly unusual for a president to address the dollar's value, which is a subject usually left to the U.S. Treasury secretary. "They're not currency manipulators," Trump told the Journal about China. The statement is an about-face from Trump's election campaign promises to slap that label on Beijing on the first day of his administration as part of his plan to reduce Chinese imports into the United States. The Wall Street Journal paraphrased Trump as saying that the reason he changed his mind on the currency issue was because China has not been manipulating its yuan for months and because taking the step now could jeopardize his talks with Beijing on confronting the threat from North Korea."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-currency-idUSKBN17E2L8?il=0

--- "A U.S. Treasury spokesman confirmed on Wednesday that the department will not name China as a currency manipulator in a report due at the end of this week, after President Donald Trump said in a Wall Street Journal interview that he would not do so. The Treasury spokesman declined to provide any other details about the semi-annual report on foreign exchange practices of major trading partners, including the exact timing of the release, or the Treasury's views on the practices of other countries."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-currency-treasury-idUSKBN17E2R9?il=0

--- "The United States is pushing for trade to be a key issue in top-level economic talks with Japan, the Asahi newspaper said on Thursday, an unwelcome push for Tokyo, which has sought to keep the talks from turning into a forum for U.S. pressure to reduce the bilateral trade imbalance. Japan wants to keep the bilateral dialogue, to be led by Vice President Mike Pence and Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso and starting next Tuesday, focused on economic policy, energy, infrastructure investment, and the rules of trade. But Tokyo has been wary of President Donald Trump's complaints that Japan and other countries block market access to U.S. companies and artificially weaken their currencies to boost exports. For now Tokyo is resisting America's "strong demand" for trade to be included in the economic dialogue, but the trade imbalance will become a key theme of the talks, the Asahi said on Thursday, citing unnamed sources for its information. Washington's demand, made last week, did not specify any trade areas for discussion, but a U.S. government source said the Trump administration mainly wants to discuss cars and agriculture, the newspaper said."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-usa-trade-idUSKBN17E2VH?il=0

--- "A Democratic U.S. senator pressed Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) on Wednesday to release information about issues including President Donald Trump's debt and any bank meetings with Trump administration officials, saying he had "great concern" about possible conflicts of interest. "I write to you with great concern regarding conflicts of interest between Deutsche Bank and the President of the United States and how these conflicts may impact ongoing investigations and regulatory oversight of your institution," Senator Chris Van Hollen wrote in a letter addressed to the chief executive of Deutsche Bank USA, which he released to the public. Van Hollen is a member of the Senate Banking Committee. A spokeswoman for Deutsche Bank declined comment. White House officials did not respond to a request for comment. Van Hollen's letter said prior financial disclosures listed two loans and two mortgages for which Deutsche Bank was the lender and Trump the borrower. Those loans amounted to about $340 million, with another $950 million extended to a venture in which Trump owns a 30 percent stake, he wrote. The letter also noted that Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, holds a multimillion-dollar line of credit at Deutsche Bank. Van Hollen asked for a response by May 12."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-deutschebank-idUSKBN17E2UD?il=0

--- "Paul Manafort, who served last year as U.S. President Donald Trump's campaign manager, is planning to register with the Justice Department as a foreign agent, his spokesman said on Wednesday. Manafort's lobbying for a foreign client ended before he began working on Trump's presidential campaign "and was not conducted on behalf of the Russian government," spokesman Jason Maloni said in a statement. Manafort's ties to Russia are part of probes underway by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and congressional intelligence committees into Moscow's interference in the 2016 presidential election, according to reports by the New York Times and other media. Manafort has denied any impropriety and has volunteered to be interviewed by the House intelligence committee. Russia has denied interfering in the election. "Since before the 2016 election, Mr. Manafort has been in discussions with federal authorities about the advisability of registering under FARA for some of his past political work," Mr. Maloni said, referring to the Foreign Agents Registration Act. "Mr. Manafort received formal guidance recently from the authorities and he is taking appropriate steps in response to the guidance. The work in question was widely known," Maloni said. He declined to be more specific. Manafort previously worked on behalf of the political party of Viktor Yanukovich, the former Kremlin-backed leader of Ukraine."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-manafort-idUSKBN17E2V5?il=0

Domestic News:

--- "A federal judge on Wednesday rejected Goldman Sachs Group Inc's (GS.N) bid to dismiss two of the four female plaintiffs in a proposed class-action lawsuit accusing the bank of discriminating against women in pay and promotions. U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan said former vice president Mary De Luis' claims did not become moot when she resigned last May, after the bank allegedly retaliated for her role in the case by refusing to allow a transfer to Miami from Dallas unless she accepted a demotion. The judge also said another ex-employee, former vice president Allison Gamba, had standing to pursue her claims even after Goldman left her without a job in August 2014 when it "divested itself" of her department. Torres said a judge who previously oversaw the 6-1/2-year-old lawsuit misinterpreted a 2011 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Wal-Mart Stores Inc v. Dukes, in finding that former employees like De Luis and Gamba who sought "reinstatement" could not sue. In an email, Goldman said it was "examining the implications of the latest ruling and will continue to contest this matter vigorously." The plaintiffs accused Goldman of systematically paying women less than men, and giving them weaker performance reviews that impeded their career growth."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-goldman-sachs-bias-lawsuit-idUSKBN17E2ZF?il=0

--- "Civil liberties groups on Wednesday said they were filing a series of lawsuits against the U.S. government seeking details on how federal agencies enforced President Donald Trump's ban on travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries. The lawsuits were filed by local chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union against U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security and cover their operations in 14 cities stretching from Portland, Maine, to San Diego. The suits are an attempt to enforce requests filed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) just days after Trump signed his first executive order limiting travel."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-lawsuit-idUSKBN17E2G4?il=0

--- "The U.S. government had a $176 billion budget deficit in March as spending outstripped revenue, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday. The budget deficit was $108 billion in March 2016, according to Treasury's monthly budget statement. The fiscal 2017 year-to-date deficit was $527 billion compared with $459 billion in the same period of fiscal 2016. When accounting for calendar adjustments, the deficit last month was $140 billion. The adjusted deficit for the fiscal year to date was $564 billion. Receipts last month totaled $217 billion, down 5 percent from March 2016, while outlays stood at $393 billion, an increase of 17 percent from the same month a year earlier."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy-budget-idUSKBN17E2EV?il=0

#international affairs #domestic affairs #source: reuters