The extent to which this man is willing to flack for the Clintons is amazing, operatic in its denial, majestic in its sheer devotion. Almost as majestic as Brock’s hair, which let’s face it, gets more spectacular every time I see it...Click through for the video, heh.
NEW YORK — Wall Street is growing increasingly terrified that Donald Trump — once viewed as an amusing summertime distraction — could actually win the Republican nomination for president.Well, as they say, don't hold your breath.
The real estate billionaire, who took another populist shot on Sunday by ripping into lavish executive pay, continues to rise in the polls. Would-be Wall Street saviors like Jeb Bush are languishing in single digits. The belief that Trump's candidacy would quickly fade is now evaporating in a wave of fear.
“I held four lunches for investors in August and at the first one everyone assumed Trump would implode,” said Byron Wien, vice chairman of Blackstone Advisory Partners and a senior figure on Wall Street. “By the fourth one everyone was taking him very seriously. He taps into frustrations that are very real and he is a master manipulator of the media.”
The CEO of one large Wall Street firm, who declined to be identified by name criticizing the GOP front-runner, said the assumption in the financial industry remains that something will eventually knock Trump off and send voters toward a more establishment candidate. But that assumption is no longer held with strong conviction. And a dozen Wall Street executives interviewed for this article could not say what might dent Trump's appeal or when it might happen.
"I don't know anyone who is a Donald Trump supporter. I don’t know anyone who knows anyone who is a Donald Trump supporter. They are like this huge mystery group,” the CEO said. "So it's a combination of shock and bewilderment. No one really knows why this is happening. But my own belief is that the laws of gravity will apply and those who are prepared to run the marathon will benefit when Trump drops out at mile 22. Right now people think Trump is pretty hilarious but the longer it goes on the more frightening it gets."
CANBERRA, Australia—The party coup to install Malcolm Turnbull as Australia’s fourth prime minister in just over two years has exposed deep unease about the resource-dependent country’s sharply slowing economy and a political system that lets small groups of politicians oust elected leaders.Still more (and be sure to check that cool graphic on the Liberal Party's "stability to volatility").
The 60-year-old former investment banker unseated Tony Abbott as leader of the ruling Liberal-National coalition government late Monday in a party rebellion, as voter surveys pointed to defeat for the ruling Liberal-National coalition at federal elections due next year.
He now faces many of the same challenges as his predecessor, first among them how to revive an economy in which a recession may be imminent after 24 years of avoiding one. Australia’s economy expanded just 0.2% in the second quarter from the first, the slowest pace in four years, as China’s slowing economy translates into less construction of skyscrapers, bridges and railways—hurting demand for raw materials like iron ore.
“We need to have in this country…an economic vision, a leadership that explains the great challenges and opportunities that we face, that describes the way in which we can handle those challenges, seize those opportunities, and does so in a manner that the Australian people,” Mr. Turnbull said.
The latest ouster caps nearly a decade of instability in Australian politics that has splintered both major political parties.
The Liberal-National coalition came to office in a landslide election victory in September 2013, in part because of voter discontent over the leadership contests that roiled the former center-left Labor government. Former Labor leader Kevin Rudd was ousted by his own party in 2010 and succeeded by Julia Gillard, before being returned to power by his colleagues three years later amid dwindling voter support for Ms. Gillard.
Some conservative party elders spoke out against the latest leadership challenge, saying it risked inflaming political divisions within the party and repeating the tumult of Labor rule.
“This act by Malcolm Turnbull is one of gross disloyalty and extreme egotism,” said Jeff Kennett, a former state leader and conservative party elder, on Australian television. “He is without a doubt the Kevin Rudd of the Liberal Party. He has consistently proved himself not to be a team player, but one who pursues self interest.”
Mr. Turnbull said he was mounting the challenge because Mr. Abbott hadn’t been able to provide effective leadership and persuade skeptical voters to accept the overhaul of taxation and rigid labor laws that could unlock growth in the 1.6 trillion Australian dollar (US$1.1 trillion) economy.
But he said he wasn’t expecting to hold snap elections—instead giving voters time to adjust to changes—and wouldn’t shift course on climate policies already agreed by the party ahead of global climate talks in Paris in December...
CLEVELAND, MS (Mississippi News Now) - Forty-five year old Dr. Shannon Lamb has been upgraded from person of interest to suspect in the murder of DSU history professor Ethan Schmidt.Also, "Victim in Gautier murder identified as Amy Prentiss."
Lamb is also the suspect in the murder of Amy Prentiss in Gautier this morning. MHP says they believe Lamb is driving a black Dodge Avenger with Mississippi tag # STF 015.
Lamb is a Geography teacher at the university. He joined Delta State in 2009 and just recently received his doctorate in 2014.
Prior to working for Delta State, Lamb taught geography at Mississippi Valley State University (2006-2009.)
He was also previously a math teacher at Riverside High School in Avon, MS (2006-2009), Murrah High School in Jackson, MS (2005-2006), and Greenville-Weston High School in Greenville, MS (2003-2005).
Schmidt was shot and killed in his office. According to the Delta State’s website, Schmidt was an Assistant Professor of American History.
He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Kansas in 2007. Before coming to Delta State, Schmidt taught for six years at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, TX .
Commissioner of Higher Education Dr. Glenn Boyce issued the following statement on Schmidt's death:
“The Board of Trustees and I are extremely saddened by the passing of Delta State University professor Ethan Schmidt. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends. We commend the Delta State University police and leadership for the quick response to the situation and their efforts to keep students, faculty and staff safe. We would also like to thank the other law enforcement agencies who have responded for their immediate and ongoing assistance to the university. We are in constant communication with the campus and are working with campus officials to provide assistance where needed.”
Delta State says that all classes are canceled for the remainder of the day and night...
Clashes broke out Sunday morning between Israeli police and Palestinians at the Al Aqsa mosque compound, leaving more than 20 Palestinians injured and damaging the windows and carpet of the mosque, according to police and Palestinian officials.Still more.
The violence occurred after Israeli police allowed Jewish worshipers and tourists to visit the hilltop compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, revered by Muslims as their third holiest site after Mecca and Medina and by Jews as the site of their ancient temple.
Palestinians were preparing to disrupt attempts by the Jewish visitors to hold prayers at the compound to mark the impending Jewish New Year, which began at sunset Sunday. Israeli policies allow Jews to visit the area outside the mosque during specific hours, but forbid them to pray there.
Police had recently shut down the mosque to Muslim worshipers, mainly women, during the Jewish visiting hours to prevent confrontations.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said Palestinian protesters barricaded themselves inside the mosque early Sunday and threw rocks and firecrackers at police. He said police did not enter the mosque but removed barricades around the building.
There also were reports of a Jewish man in a prayer shawl being attacked nearby.
Police released video showing lit firecrackers and other objects being thrown by Palestinians inside the mosque at the officers outside, with some exploding within the holy site. The Jerusalem police website said pipe bombs were seized near the entrance to the mosque.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said 20 Palestinians were injured, none seriously. No arrests were reported...
Russia is shipping massive quantities of offensive weapons, materiel and soldiers to Syria....More at Memeorandum,
The only thing surprising about this is that it took so long...
After two decades of the most remarkable crime drop in U.S. history, law enforcement has come to this: “I’m deliberately not getting involved in things I would have in the 1990s and 2000s,” an emergency-services officer in New York City tells me. “I won’t get out of my car for a reasonable-suspicion stop; I will if there’s a violent felony committed in my presence.”That's actually kind of depressing.
A virulent antipolice campaign over the past year—initially fueled by a since-discredited narrative about a police shooting in Ferguson, Mo.—has made police officers reluctant to do their jobs. The Black Lives Matter movement proclaims that the police are a lethal threat to blacks and that the criminal-justice system is pervaded by racial bias. The media amplify that message on an almost daily basis. Officers now worry about becoming the latest racist cop of the week, losing their job or being indicted if a good-faith encounter with a suspect goes awry or is merely distorted by an incomplete cellphone video.
With police so discouraged, violent crime has surged in at least 35 American cities this year. The alarming murder increase prompted an emergency meeting of the Major Cities Chiefs Association last month. Homicides were up 76% in Milwaukee, 60% in St. Louis, and 56% in Baltimore through mid-August, compared with the same period in 2014; murder was up 47% in Minneapolis and 36% in Houston through mid-July.
But something more fundamental than even public safety may be at stake. There are signs that the legal order itself is breaking down in urban areas. “There’s a total lack of respect out there for the police,” says a female sergeant in New York. “The perps feel more empowered to carry guns because they know that we are running scared.”
The lawful use of police power is being met by hostility and violence, often ignored by the press. In Cincinnati, a small riot broke out in late July when the police arrived at a drive-by shooting scene, where a 4-year-old girl had been shot in the head and critically injured. Bystanders loudly cursed at officers who had started arresting suspects at the scene on outstanding warrants, according to a witness I spoke with.
During anticop demonstrations in Ferguson, Mo., last month, 18-year-old Tyrone Harris opened fire at police officers, according to law-enforcement officials, and was shot and wounded by police in response. A crowd pelted the cops with frozen water bottles and rocks, wounding three officers, while destroying three police cars and damaging businesses, Ferguson police said. “We’re ready for what? We’re ready for war,” some protesters reportedly chanted.
In Birmingham, Ala., an officer was beaten unconscious with his own gun last month by a suspect in a car stop. There was gloating on social media. “Pistol whipped his ass to sleep,” read one Twitter post. The officer later said that he had refrained from using force to defend himself for fear of a media backlash.
Officers are being challenged in their most basic efforts to render aid. A New York cop in the Bronx tells me that he was trying to extricate a woman pinned under an overturned car in July when a bystander stuck his cellphone camera into the officer’s face, trying to bait him into an argument. “You can’t tell me what to do,” the bystander replied when asked to move to the sidewalk, the cop reports. “A few years ago, I would have taken police action,” he says. “Now I know it won’t end well for me or the police department.”
Supervisors may roll up to an incident where trash and other projectiles are being thrown at officers and tell the cops to get into their cars and leave. “What does that do to the general public?” wonders a New York detective. “Every time we pass up on an arrest because we don’t want a situation to blow up, we’ve made the next cop’s job all the harder.”
The Holocaust, like no other act or example of human evil, has inspired legions of lessons and “warnings,” as if they were required to justify the attention. The enshrinement of “tolerance” is only the most egregious example, but the Holocaust didn’t take place because of intolerance, and it would not have been prevented by tolerance. Why the compulsion to make comparisons with other atrocities? It would be like concluding a history of World War II by emphasizing that there were other deadly wars too, and we should all learn to be peaceful creatures. Somehow, in the case of the Holocaust, this approach has become conventional. Why the persistent straining at homily? Is there an element of shame involved? And why is the Holocaust so relentlessly invoked in irrelevant situations? Is that, too, some form of self-exoneration or alibi?In other words, just skip the hysterical warning about the coming climate change apocalypse. It's truly bizarre, and Snyder's seriously mucking up his scholarly reputation.
I wondered about some of this when encountering Mr. Snyder’s last chapter, “Our World.” He writes: “The planet is changing in ways that might make Hitlerian descriptions of life, space and time more plausible.” He suggests that now, as then, there is a sense of imminent apocalypse. Just as the Jew disrupted the global ecology for Hitler, something has now “diverted nature from its proper course.” And it may well cause a similar series of events. What is the contemporary threat? Climate change. And the irony, Mr. Snyder suggests, is that it could again place Jews in a precarious position. Mr. Snyder points out that the Holocaust proved the need for a strong nation-states, and Israel’s existence is essential for Jewish survival. But, he argues, “the continuing desertification of the Middle East might generate both regional conflict and the demand for scapegoats” (the Jews of Israel, of course). And the irony is that “some of Israel’s American political allies”—the Christian Right, if I understand correctly—“tend to deny the reality of climate change,” which, along with many other peculiarities, makes apocalypse more likely.
After reading this chapter and seeing its ritualistic homilies and sweeping comparisons, I became concerned that somehow I had been wrong about the intelligence, vision and insight that had characterized the rest of the book. But no, I am not wrong. Just skip the warning.
The reason I’m writing this in English — and that I have a column in Foreign Policy at all — is that 25 years ago, on April 28, 1990, my family arrived in the United States as refugees from the Soviet Union. It is a day the four of us mark every year because it was the beginning of a new, free, and prosperous life. Had it not been for the American Jews lobbying Congress and the White House on our behalf for years, had it not been for the Jackson-Vanik amendment, had it not been for the fact that the geopolitical struggle against the USSR was hitched up to its humanitarian ramifications, had it not been for Mikhail Gorbachev wanting to put a human face on socialism, I would be writing this in Russian. More likely, I probably wouldn’t be writing this at all.Hmm... Very moving, but it's not Jewish refugees by the tens of thousands --- even hundreds of thousands --- now flooding Europe's borders, and soon our as well. It's Muslim refugees, and if folks think they've got "no-go zones" in Europe now, just wait until after this latest wave of migration plays out.
I think often about April 28, 1990, and the two years my parents spent waiting in lines at the U.S. embassy in Moscow. It’s a moment that splits my life in two. What would my life have been like if not for all those political forces — and my parents’ foresight and dedication — that snapped my 7-year-old self on a radically different course?
I don’t know that my life would have been terrible, but I know that I would not have reconnected with my family’s Jewish heritage. I would not have gotten to follow my passion for history with some of the world’s leading scholars at Princeton. I would have a lot more health issues, and I would also probably be divorced with a couple of kids, living in a country that is increasingly hostile not only to its neighbors but to its own citizens. If I would’ve been anything like the friends and family we left behind, I would probably be scrambling for an exit — to Israel, Latvia, anywhere where the walls aren’t closing in like they are in Moscow.
Sometimes, my American life still feels like a dream and an accident. And in the course of it, I’ve come across many people whose lives are accidents, too — accidents far starker and more implausible than mine.
One of my closest friends is the son of a man who, at the age of six, was whisked out of prewar Prague by Sir Nicholas Winton as part of the Kindertransport that saved so many and yet so very few Jewish children. A friend from high school recently posted the desperate letters her German-Jewish grandfather sent to the United States, hoping someone would sponsor him as a relative, trying to escape the swelling sense of danger that was slowly squeezing him of oxygen. One of the first friends I made at college was a Bosnian Muslim refugee. We spoke sometimes of the sheer wonder that the two of us, two refugee kids randomly plucked from a bad place and planted in a good place, should end up at such an elite institution. Last fall, I attended the wedding of a friend, the granddaughter of Armenian refugees from the genocide, and a Bosnian refugee who had escaped Banja Luka on his own as a teenager.
All of these people’s lives in America are accidents of history and politics. Had war not come to Banja Luka or Prague or Berlin, had there not been rumors in 1988 that there would be pogroms in Moscow to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of the christening of Rus, we would’ve lived on in those places. Some of us would have been born as other people, sure, but we would’ve found a certain blinkered happiness in things because we would not have known an alternative life...
WARSAW — Even though the former Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe have been asked to accept just a tiny fraction of the refugees that Germany and other nations are taking, their fierce resistance now stands as the main impediment to a unified European response to the crisis.More.
Poland’s new president, Andrzej Duda, has complained about “dictates” from the European Union to accept migrants flowing onto the Continent from the Middle East and Africa.
Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, says his country will accept only Christian refugees as it would be “false solidarity” to force Muslims to settle in a country without a single mosque. Viktor Orban, Hungary’s hard-line prime minister, calls the influx a “rebellion by illegal migrants” and pledges a new crackdown this week.
The discord has further unsettled a union already shaky from struggles over the euro and the Greek financial crisis and now facing a historic influx of people attracted by Europe’s relative peace and prosperity.
When representatives of the European Union nations meet on Monday to take up a proposal for allocating refugees among them, Central and Eastern European nations are likely to be the most vocal opponents. Their stance — reflecting a mix of powerful far-right movements, nationalism, racial and religious prejudices as well as economic arguments that they are less able to afford to take in outsiders than their wealthier neighbors — is the latest evidence of the stubborn cultural and political divides that persist between East and West.
When joining the European Union — as the former Communist countries have done since 2004 — nations are asked to pledge support to a raft of so-called European values, including open markets, transparent government, respect for an independent media, open borders, cultural diversity, protection of minorities and a rejection of xenophobia.
But the reality is that the former Communist states have proved sluggish in actually absorbing many of these values and practicing them. Oligarchs, cronyism and endemic corruption remain a part of daily life in many of the countries, freedom of the press is in decline while rising nationalism and populist political movements have stirred anti-immigrant tensions.
“People must remember that Poland has been transitioning from communism for only 25 years,” Lech Walesa, who led that country’s independence movement, said in an interview. “Our salaries and houses are still smaller than those in the West. Many people here don’t believe that they have anything to share with migrants. Especially that they see that migrants are often well-dressed, sometimes better than many Poles.”
Few migrants, in fact, are particularly interested in settling in Eastern Europe, preferring to head to Germany or Scandinavia, where social welfare benefits are higher, employment opportunities greater and immigrant communities better established. In that sense, migrants are aligned with leaders in Eastern and Central European capitals, who frequently argue that the 28-member bloc should focus first on securing its borders and figuring out a way to end the war in Syria before talking about mandatory quotas for accepting refugees...
Germany announces emergency border protections after weeks of leading Europe's response to the migrant crisis.
Germany’s announcement on Sunday that it was instituting emergency border protections marks a sudden shift in its response to the refugee crisis.Keep reading.
Chancellor Angela Merkel was hailed as a saviour after her government said last month it expected to take in 800,000 refugees and asylum seekers this year alone.
Germany also became the EU first country to suspend the so-called Dublin protocol, which mandates that refugees seek asylum in the first European country they enter, by declaring last month that all Syrian refugees could remain in Germany regardless of the country through which they entered...
Sanders promulgates democratic socialist (not socialist, I think) ideas and programs. It is a good thing that these progressive ideas are injected by Sanders as inoculation for the otherwise neoliberal dogma of Hilary’s campaignGreat. Let's put Vietcong pins on Bernie Sanders supporters, or better yet, the Sanders campaign can hand out ISIS flags at campaign rallies.
Certainly among the Sanders supporters there are many who will flock like liberal sheep to Hilary once the Bern burns out. However, I believe that among the Sanders supporters there are thousands who are dissatisfied, who are disgruntled, but who do not have a coherent left analysis, who therefore are open to our ideas as they weren’t before they got involved in the Sanders surge. These seekers will be open (certainly many of them) to ideas from the Left of Sanders
We must think as organizers. Yes, demonstrate, fight in the streets but spend some time and energy going to places where the Sanders campaign has gathered a crowd or a meeting but go not to disrupt, disrupting there would show how true we are to our knowledge, to our anger, to our need to show “them” us. But, what does this do? Doesn’t it drive away people, many of them young people who don’t (yet) have our understandings?
So I think that we should jump in the water. After all, the anti-war multitudes of the 60s and 70s were only disgruntled, dissatisfied people and without a coherent left analysis, yet we jumped in. Why? Because a movement can only be built on motion. Motion is people open, people leaving their normal placid acceptance if only a little, if only briefly. So, things swirled. Liberal anti-war marches. My collective would go, stand alongside the marchers with paper Viet Cong flags and pins, encouraging people to wear the flags. We gave maybe a thousand away. A good left action. We also had leaflets with our analysis of the war on Vietnam. Many people took those. Good. Better than if we had stayed home.
So, why don’t we joined [sic] a Sanders local campaign or go to a mass rally?
