Monday, September 9, 2024
Home Blog Page 233

When ‘liberty’ forces 18 girls into a single-stall shower room

by James Gottry

In recent years, a common refrain accompanying nearly every demand for newly invented “rights” has been: “It doesn’t affect you, so you can’t be against it.”
This claim—whether false or true, subjective or objective—has been played as the ultimate trump card.

If you could not point to a direct, immediate, and significant intrusion on your life, then your concerns—no matter how thoughtful and legitimate—were sacrificed at the altar of the New Regime.

Times change.

On Wednesday, Alliance Defending Freedom filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of high school students and parents, asking the court to strike down a Minnesota school district policy that empowers a male student to enter the girls’ locker room and disrobe.

Not surprisingly, many girls have been distressed by the actions of the male student, which include twerking, grinding, and other sexually explicit actions. The response of the district and other authorities to the concerns has been a collective yawn.
This, along with recent actions by President Barack Obama’s Department of Education and Justice Department, illustrates the evolution of the push to manufacture special privileges for a select few.

The pretense that such demands don’t affect the lives of others now has been abandoned, replaced by two options: (1) get over it and get in line; or (2) be pushed to the margins of society, losing your reputation—and possibly your career—in the process.

In version 2.0 of the New Regime, even if you can point to a direct, immediate, and significant intrusion on your life, your opinion is irrelevant (and perhaps bigoted) when compared to “social progress.”

For example, when the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that wedding photographer Elaine Huguenin and her husband Jonathan must set aside their freedom to peacefully live according to their faith, a concurring justice stated that the pair “now are compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives.” Chillingly, the justice added that this compulsion “is the price of citizenship.”

As the situations in Minnesota, North Carolina, and elsewhere demonstrate, the latest test sites for this theory of “social progress” are locker rooms, showers, and other private changing facilities.

In what would have been an unthinkable battleground just a few short years ago, these tile-floored, plastic-stalled, chrome-fixtured, and (formerly) sex-specific sanctuaries are now ground zero for experiments in the subjective theory of gender.

And the wisdom of the New Regime 2.0 goes like this:
The march toward true liberty requires 18 girls to squeeze into a prison cell-sized changing space or abandon their bodily privacy, and their right to safety and comfort in the most intimate and vulnerable of settings.

Why? So that a “bearded individual” can fully disrobe in the girls’ locker room at a parks department swimming pool on New York City’s Upper West Side. Empowered by the mere proclamation that he is a woman, he appropriates the entire space for himself.

Use whatever analogy you want:
The New Regime has flushed common sense down the toilet.

The New Regime has pulled back the curtain and washed away any remaining vestiges of bodily privacy.

The New Regime has transformed locker-room peepholes into doorways.

The point is, the New Regime embraces the idea that individuals can stride with impunity into any private space they choose, regardless of biology. This dismissal of biological fact in bathrooms, locker rooms, and showers reeks of irony, in what may be the best example to date of the lengths to which the New Regime will go to impose its orthodoxy.

These spaces, perhaps more than any other physical location, exist for and because of biological differences. Bathroom doors easily could have been labeled as the kid in “Kindergarten Cop” would have it, but decorum prevailed and we used “men” and “women” instead.

Separate locker rooms for men and women do not symbolize a sinister effort to force anyone’s conformity with “gender stereotypes.” They exist because men, women, and children should not be forced to encounter the opposite sex in private spaces or be viewed by the opposite sex while in various stages of undress.

There are reasonable solutions. There are ways to accommodate men and women and boys and girls who struggle to align their subjective beliefs with biological realities.
Consider the family changing room that 18 girls in New York now are forced to use to avoid encountering a man in the girls’ locker room. Indeed, one of the purposes of single-use or “family” facilities like these is to allow fathers to assist their young daughters, or mothers to assist their young sons.

It is an acknowledgement that neither the men’s or women’s restroom is an ideal solution in such circumstances. The same fact holds true for individuals who do not personally feel comfortable entering the private space that corresponds to their biology.

These accommodations protect the privacy of all individuals, not just a select few at the expense of everyone else.

Reasonable solutions are available that protect everyone from unwelcome bodily exposure. But under the New Regime, “social progress” trumps reason.

A free people erasing their own freedoms

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR:

Dear readers, in a time when our liberties are being threaten by the current political system, and most people have forgotten how did it happen that we live in a freer society than other nations and that we need to defend it, I found this article. Authored by Matt Patterson and Lindsey DePasse, it provides a little education of freedom, philosophy, history and the Constitution in a nutshell.

A free people erasing their own freedoms

by Matt Patterson and Lindsey DePasse
American Thinker

The Greek city-state of Athens had no constitutional protections for people who advocated notions radically at odds with prevailing wisdom.
The result: Socrates was put to death for “corrupting” the youth.

Four hundred years later, the Roman province of Judea contained no constitutional protections for wild-eyed preachers who advocated radical alternatives to established political and religious orthodoxies.

The result: Jesus was crucified for claiming to be “King of the Jews.”

Sixteen hundred years later in Italy, there were no constitutional protections for thinkers who discerned profound restructuring of metaphysical realities.
The result: Galileo Galilei was tried and sentenced to house arrest by the Catholic Inquisition for advocating views contrary to Church doctrine.

Four hundred years later, the United States of America did provide constitutional protections of speech and assembly, allowing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to lead a movement that changed laws and expanded liberty for millions.

Socrates, Jesus and Galileo lacked governmental protection to say crazy things. As a result, they were put to death or imprisoned by the government for saying crazy things.

True, Dr. King also met with an untimely end, slain by a fellow citizen who denied him his constitutionally protected freedoms. But the others were killed or imprisoned by the government because they had no constitutionally protected freedoms.

That is all the difference in the world. And it is a difference that Dr. King died for.

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution allowed Dr. King to spread his liberating and glorious message. But let us not forget that for many in the 1960’s South, Dr. King’s message was considered offensive “hate speech.” And so it was — hatred for the established order that kept millions of Americans locked in a horrible caste system. Hatred for an oligarchy that denied them essential freedoms.

It just goes to show, one man’s hate speech is another man’s emancipation. One person’s offense is another person’s release. Which is why the Founders, in their wisdom, protected all speech when they approved the charter for the new American Republic in 1787 and included therein a First Amendment that explicitly guaranteed freedom of speech, press, assembly and religion.

Now those protections are threatened, threatened because they are now frighteningly little cherished, especially by young people. A 2015 Pew Research survey found, “Four-in-ten Millennials say the government should be able to prevent people publicly making statements that are offensive to minority groups.”

Let that sink in for a moment: 40 percent of Millennials favor explicit, unconstitutional censorship of “offensive” speech. The same Pew survey found that 35 percent of all Democrats and 33 percent of all women “say the government should be able to curtail speech that is offensive to minorities.”

As if that isn’t frightening enough, a federal judge recently advised his colleagues to ignore the Constitution. Writing for Slate, Judge Richard Posner of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals admonished:
“I see absolutely no value to a judge… studying the Constitution, the history of its enactment, its amendments, and its implementation. Eighteenth-century guys, however smart, could not foresee the culture, technology, etc., of the 21st century. Which means that the original Constitution, the Bill of Rights… do not speak to today.”

This erosion of loyalty to the Constitution — by large sectors of the populace and those charged with protecting and preserving it — is both foolish and dangerous. Let us not forget that the “feelings” of white Southerners would have been protected with restrictions on Dr. King’s speech. Fortunately, King knew that the ideas embodied in the Constitution did speak to him and his time, just as they speak still to us and our time:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

True, these words were written by white, moneyed men in the late 18th-Century. But, if we can look past the color of the hands that shaped them, we could see profound elegance, foresight and astonishing courage.

So let judges adhere to the Constitution, not because it constricts, but because it liberates. Let young people hear all manner of speech, even (especially) offensive speech. And let us remember the words of Socrates, Jesus, Galileo and Martin Luther King Jr. were all at one time labeled “offensive.”

Let us not throw away the greatest gift ever given to a sovereign people, the freedom to think, speak, associate and worship according to the dictates of our conscience.

Let us keep the First Amendment first in our hearts.

(Matt Patterson is president of 1st Amendment First; Lindsey DePasse is executive director of 1AF. They can be reached at 1stamendmentfirst.org).

Flu vaccine contains 25,000 times more mercury than is legally allowed in drinking water

by Ethan A. Huff

In case you missed it, recent lab tests conducted at the Natural News Forensic Food Lab found that seasonal flu vaccines, which are pushed on virtually everyone these days, including young babies, pregnant women and the elderly, contain outrageously high levels of neurotoxic mercury. Vials of batch flu vaccine produced by British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) were found to contain upwards of 51 parts per million of mercury, or 25,000 times the legal maximum for drinking water established by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

This shocking discovery was made using advanced mass spectrometry technology with incredible accuracy, filling the gap left by the nation’s regulatory agencies that have failed to conduct this type of safety testing themselves. Millions of people are injected with flu vaccines annually, and most of them are completely unaware that one of the most toxic metals known to man is being implanted directly into their muscle tissue unabated.

“Mercury is one of the most poisonous substances known to mankind,” explained Dr. David Brownstein, a board-certified family physician and holistic medicine specialist, on his blog. “For over twenty years, I have been testing nearly every patient seen in my office for heavy metal contamination. … I have found that over 80 percent of my patients, both healthy and sick, have mercury toxicity.”

Pregnant women, young children and elderly encouraged to line up for mercury injections

Presenting this type of concrete data, which contradicts the official government position on vaccines, has sparked many venomous attacks from angry pro-vaxxers who insist that mercury is completely safe. Either that or they claim that mercury is no longer being added to vaccines, a detestable lie that continues to harm the most vulnerable among us, including innocent children.

You can see for yourself on the official drug insert for FluLaval, the flu vaccine evaluated by Natural News, that the vaccine does, indeed, contain mercury. The following quote is taken directly from RxList.com, the so-called “Internet Drug Index,” proving that flu vaccines contained added mercury in the form of thimerosal:
“Thimerosal, a mercury derivative, is added as a preservative. Each 0.5-mL dose contains 50 mcg [micrograms] thimerosal ([less than] 25 mcg mercury). Each 0.5-mL dose may also contain residual amounts of ovalbumin ([less than or equal to] 0.3 mcg), formaldehyde ([less than or equal to] 25 mcg), and sodium deoxycholate ([less than] 50 mcg) from the manufacturing process.”

And yet, even with all these added contaminants, pregnant women, the elderly and young children are prodded to get jabbed every year by health authorities. Never mind that each of these ingredients is a known neurotoxin, not to mention the fact that formaldehyde is a known cause of cancer — just line right up and get your flu shots, because the government says they’re good for you!

The mercury double standard continues to ravage public health

The irony in all this is that the government now admits that mercury is toxic, at least when it comes from other sources. The Obama administration, as we recently reported, is on a crusade to shut down all coal power plants, using the excuse that they blast heavy amounts of mercury into the atmosphere. And official government warnings tell pregnant women to avoid mercury from canned tuna.

But what about the mercury still being used in vaccines and dental fillings? Why is mercury exposure from these sources completely safe, according to the government, but mercury in food and smokestacks should be avoided?

For more breaking news on vaccines and the heavy metals like mercury lurking in them, visit Vaccines.NaturalNews.com and HeavyMetals.NaturalNews.com, respectively.

Obama advocates for UN gun treaty ratification

by Fred Lucas

The Obama administration upped its commitment to get the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty ratified, a tall order since a bipartisan coalition of 50 senators have already said they oppose the gun treaty Secretary of State John Kerry signed three years ago.

Second Amendment advocates are concerned the treaty could provide an international law rationalization for a national gun registry in the United States, and is overly vague.

“The language is so vague is could almost mean anything. A lot could be done to rationalize gun control. The treaty has no prohibitions, no thou-shalt-nots,” Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, told The Daily Signal. “President [Barack] Obama has for some time used as a defense a cell phone and a pen and not the Constitution or even a treaty for taking action.”

On Aug. 22, the Second Conference of State Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty was held in Geneva. According to the State Department, the U.S. representative to the conference, William Malzahn, said the U.S. wanted to ratify the treaty that establishes export and import controls for combat vehicles, aircraft, and small arms and light weapons, but was already currently complying.

The United States remains committed to the Arms Trade Treaty, which we signed in September 2013. We are still working on the package to transmit the treaty to the U.S. Senate for its advice and consent to ratification. It is not clear when we will complete this, but we are actively working on it. … As we pursue ratification, let me assure everyone that the United States is already fully compliant with the requirements of the [Arms Trade Treaty] as the U.S. national control system exceeds those requirements.

Currently, 79 countries have ratified the treaty dealing with arms exports and imports, but diplomats from 109 countries participated in the gathering.

The treaty states that: “Each State Party shall establish and maintain a national control system, including a national control list, in order to implement the provisions of this Treaty.” It goes on to say, “Each State Party is encouraged to include in those records: the quantity, value, model/type, authorized international transfers of conventional arms covered under Article 2 (1), conventional arms actually transferred, details of exporting State(s), importing State(s), transit and trans-shipment State(s), and end users, as appropriate.”

Mexico’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs Claudia Ruíz Massieu told the group that of the guns used to commit crimes in Mexico, “We found that more than 70 percent were related to a buyer or distributor in the United States.”

Massieu also said at the conference, “Mexico welcomes the strenuous and sincere efforts of President Barack Obama to establish administrative measures to strengthen controls on the possession and sale of weapons.”

The State Department did not clearly answer the question about whether the 70 percent figure is accurate, but said the United States is working with Mexico to prevent gun trafficking into the country.

Ultimately, it’s a border issue, said Ted Bromund, senior research fellow in U.S.-Anglo relations for The Heritage Foundation.

“The smuggling of guns from the U.S. into Mexico, the smuggling of guns from U.S. to any country, is already illegal,” Bromund told The Daily Signal. “The problem is that the border is not controlled. Guns go south because the border is open. The answer is effective border patrol by the U.S. and Mexico. Mexico will never talk about that.”

The Gun Control Act of 1968 and the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, which has been amended several times over the years, already give the executive branch essential control over the movement of weapons in and out of the United States, Bromund said.

The Arms Trade Treaty went into effect on Christmas Eve 2014, but the administration has never submitted the treaty to the Senate for ratification, where it would require 67 senators voting for it to pass. After Kerry signed on in 2013, 50 senators—including three Democrats—signed a letter to Obama expressing concern the treaty was overly “vague and easily politicized” and could encourage a national gun registry.

It’s a horrible treaty, Bromund said, but it won’t likely lead to more gun control.

“Are people using it to justify gun control? Yes,” Bromund said. “But what is the mechanism to achieve that? This is about exports or imports. In theory, a judge could say the United States must respect the [Arms Trade Treaty] and that all arms transactions within the U.S. are subject to it, but that would be a huge stretch.”

The treaty has been such an administrative disaster that it likely will have no impact at all, Bromund said. He noted the treaty is almost entirely European countries rarely living up to the reporting requirements of the treaty.  

“I basically think we are winning on this. This is not going to work,” Bromund said. “It’s turning into nothing but boring bureaucratic meetings. The gun controllers will lose interest and find another toy.”

A recent report by Bromund looked at reporting problems, among other failings of the participants.

States parties to the [Arms Trade Treaty] are already failing to meet its reporting requirements. As of Aug. 15, 2016, of the 66 states parties that were supposed to file an initial report on their implementation of the treaty by that date, only 49 had done so, and of these, 33 were in Europe. As of the same date, of the 83 states parties, only 46 (32 of them in Europe) had filed an annual report for 2015 on authorized imports and exports of conventional arms, a report due on May 31, 2016. In short, treaty reporting is lagging badly, and outside Europe, few nations are complying even nominally with the most basic treaty requirements.

State proposes bold law to treat pot like tabacco and expunge all records of marijuana ‘crime’

by Claire Bernish

Bold legislation introduced in New Jersey last week would not only treat cannabis like tobacco — legalizing it — but would expunge records for individuals previously convicted of certain marijuana-related ‘crimes.’

Should the bill, A4193, pass, convenience stores would be permitted to sell cannabis alongside cigarettes — available to anyone aged 19 and older.
“This bill would legalize marijuana by removing all criminal liability associated with marijuana from the New Jersey Code of Criminal Justice … as well as its regulation as a controlled dangerous substance under the New Jersey Controlled Dangerous Substances Act,” the proposed law states.

Sponsored by Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll — once deemed the state Legislature’s “Most Conservative” member, as the Newark Patch pointed out — the legislation “[l]egalizes marijuana and provides for records expungement for certain past marijuana offenses; treats marijuana products similar to tobacco products, including the use of civil penalties for providing marijuana to persons under 19 years of age.”

Carroll’s bill audacious thumbs its nose at the DEA’s vehemently criticized decision this year not to reschedule cannabis from its current inexplicable designation as a dangerous substance of no medical value, akin to heroin or cocaine.

“To me it’s just not a big deal,” Carroll told Politico. “It’s already ubiquitous. Anybody who thinks this is somehow going to increase the availability of marijuana has never been 19. If that’s the case, then what’s the big deal about having it available at the local 7-Eleven?”

Alcohol, after all, is a standard fixture at convenience stores and gas stations, with store owners facing fines and other civil penalties for underage distribution.
“The whole point here is to get the government out of the business of treating at least marijuana use as a crime and treat it instead as a social problem,” Carroll continued, adding he’s never tried cannabis, personally.

“You’re talking to the world’s most boring, straightest guy,” he said. “I’ve never popped a pill, never smoked a joint, nothing. I’ve never quite understood the all the allure of this stuff.”

Apparently, though, he doesn’t feel his personal views concerning substances should override contrary opinions and choices.

On the surface, the right-wing lawmaker would seem the last person sponsoring legislation taking such a radical departure from federal law — but on issues of personal freedom, his stances align most closely with libertarian philosophy. Carroll not only co-sponsored New Jersey’s medical cannabis legislation, in April he proposed lowering the state’s drinking age to 18, saying, according to the Patch.

“If you’re old enough to make the determination you want to enlist in the Marines, you’re old enough to determine if you want to have a beer.”

Despite an overwhelming public perception cannabis should at least be decriminalized and growing national disillusionment with the failed drug war  — with the resultant largest prison population in the world, gang violence, strengthening of Mexican cartels, epidemic-level police violence, and inability of those in need to get life-saving medical cannabis treatment — the Drug Enforcement Agency opted to maintain marijuana prohibition this year.

Should the proposed law indeed pass, New Jersey would join Alaska, Colorado, Washington, and Oregon in legal, recreational weed. In fact, degrees of decriminalization and legalization — mostly for medical use — exist in half the states in the nation.

November’s election will likely expand those numbers.

Ballot measures could potentially legalize recreational use in varying degrees in California, Nevada, Massachusetts, Arizona, and Nevada — and although they aren’t all expected to pass, the segment of the population arguing against legalization shrinks seemingly by the month.

New Jersey lawmakers are attempting a multi-pronged approach to legalizing weed. Another bill, A2068, filed in January by Assemblyman Reed Gusciora — ironically, one of the most liberal members of the state Legislature — and State Sen. Nicholas Scutari would legalize cannabis and treat it akin to alcohol. A third is expected after several legislators, including Gusciora and Scutari, return from an information-gathering field trip examining legalization in Colorado in October.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — whom Carroll refers to as “the Fat Man” — will almost certainly veto any legislation concerning cannabis. But his tenure in office draws to a close just over a year from now.

“We would like to get the ball rolling, even with this governor and even if he vetoes it, the choice then could be made to put it on the ballot through the Legislature or set the groundwork for the next administration,” Gusciora told Politico. “I think it’s only a matter of time.”

Central America advocates for strengthening links with Russia

by the El Reportero’s wire services

Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras today advocated to strengthen friendship and trade ties with Russia, amid celebrations for the independence day of these five nations.

Guatemala’s ambassador to Nicaragua, Estuardo Meneses Coronado, pointed out that the Central American states are united by a feeling of friendship and gratitude to Russia. Meneses Coronado stressed today that Central America is a region in peace and development and therefore he welcomed all efforts for world peace, especially the peace process in Colombia.

‘This shows that it is through respectful and well-intentioned dialogue that peace, democracy and development of peoples can be built,’ he pointed out referring to the signing yesterday in Colombia of a definitive peace agreement in Columbia.

‘The integration process in Central America, like others in the world, has had its moments of bloom and moments of setbacks,’ the Guatemalan ambassador acknowledged.
‘There is a strong desire that our people seek better ways of understanding and develop as brothers, although we recognize that we have a long way to go,’ the diplomat said.

Russia has expressed its interest in establishing effective and mutually beneficial cooperation with the Central American Integration System, the official recalled.
Moscow supports the main pillars of our development such as democratic security, the comprehensive management of risks, disasters and climate change, social and economic integration and the strengthening regional institutions, he added.

Most Colombians would support peace agreements in referendum

The 62 percent of Colombians to vote in the next Sunday referendum would support the peace agreements between the Government and FARC-EP, indicated an opinion poll today.

According to the survey carried out by the company Cifras y Conceptos, along with Caracol Radio and Red + Noticias, only 38 percent of those participating in the referendum would vote against it.

Referring to the total number of people coming to the polling stations, the final report of the survey suggests that nine million people out of the nearly 47 million Colombians living in the country would vote.

Cifras y Conceptos says that in the regions of the Caribbean, the Pacific, Central, East, coffee main region, and in the capital city there would be a broad support for the agreements reached in Havana and signed here before more than 2,000 guests, including 15 heads of State.

In the referendum, the population will express the opinion on the peace agreements officially signed yesterday in Cartagena de Indias by President Juan Manuel Santos and leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP), Timoleon Jimenez, seeking to end the military conflict.

9th Annual Redwood City Salsa Festival

Compiled by El Reportero’s staff

The Redwood City Salsa Festival, a FREE outdoor festival happening in downtown Redwood City. With three stages of live entertainment, and a Salsa Competition & Tasting, this event is a high point in Redwood City’s summer event.

Multiple stages featuring a variety of music, including Salsa, Latin Jazz and Reggae, will fire up Redwood City with music and dancing all day long. FREE hands-on art projects, and a Children’s Play Area, complete with bounce houses, and more! More info at 650-780-7340 or www.redwoodcityevents.com.

Madelina y Los Carpinteros Premiering @ Berkeley’s La Peña

Between the South and the North is the La Peña’s debut concert of Madelina y Los Carpinteros and Friends. The group features the soulful voices of Madelina Zayas with Brandon Vance (both Buena Trova Social Club), and multi-instrumentalists (former members of Grupo Raíz) Fernando Feña Torres and Denis Schmidt. Also, Bay Area jewels Ruthie Dineen, Craig Thomas and Brandon Vance.

Special performance by sikuri master and choreographer Luis Valverde and partner Claudia Susana (Valverde dance and former Grupo Anqari), and Tomás Enguidanos on the Andean Mandolina.

Following the tradition of the Nueva Canción and Nueva Trova – movements that came out of The Americas’ liberation struggles to freshly embody the folk roots with an enriched lyricism – this concert will premiere Fernando Torres’ own compositions as well as unique interpretations of music from Puerto Rico to the Andes Mountains (Argentina, Chile, Perú, Venezuela, the Andes Region, Puerto Rico) and the mainland US.

Madelina, Los Carpinteros and friends will be debuting at La Peña. Since its inception 41 years ago, the Berkeley’s venerated hut has become the casa of the nueva trova/nueva canción, where the attentive ear and lovers of the genre can enjoy the musical gems of its originators as well as the work currently developed locally. A not-to-be-missed Fall evening with some soulful and rhythmic picks into the Latin American cancionero, including originals from Fernando Torres and unique interpretations from Osvaldo Torres, Simón Diaz, Rafaél Manríquez, Roy Brown, Juan Antonio Corretjer, Rafael Hernández, Fernando Solanas and Roberto Goyeneche, amongst others.

Friday, Sept. 30, 2016. 8 p.m. $15 adv. $20 dr. At La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley. 510-849-2568 Tickets: http://bit.ly/2bCQ1ka.

Juan Luis Guerra on tour in the US

by the El Reportero’s news services

Dominican songwriter and singer Juan Luis Guerra is now on his US tour with his CD Todo Tiene Su Hora (Everything Has its Time) with concerts in Miami and Los Angeles, said his own press office Monday.

The show is going to several countries, with a great success, and wants to enchant the audiences at the 16 Hard Rock Hotel & Casino-Hollywood in Florida, on Friday, and later, on Sunday September 18, at the Greek Theater of Los Angeles.

The tour started last year with its first presentation, at the Altos de Chavon Amphiteater (La Romana, Dominican Republic) and from there started a tour on several European cities, in which Guerra received the applauses and recognition of the audiences.

Later, Guerra would receive the Latin Grammy Award and a recognition by the Association of Art Journalists (Acroarte) in the Soberano Awards Gala, in the category for Concert of the Year and Videoclip of the Year.

Anthologic songs like ‘Ojala que Llueva Cafe’ ‘La Bilirrubina’ and ‘Todo Tiene su Hora’ are forming the catalog of this tour.

SFFSawarded a total of $75,000 to help complete postproduction

The San Francisco Film Society today announced the three winners of the 2016 SFFS Documentary Film Fund awards totaling $75,000, which support feature-length documentaries in postproduction. The SFFS Documentary Film Fund was created to support singular nonfiction film work that is distinguished by compelling stories, intriguing characters and an innovative visual approach. Jeremy Levine and Landon Van Soest’s For Ahkeem, Alyssa Fedele and Zachary Fink’s The Rescue List and Peter Bratt’s Woman in Motion were each awarded significant funding that will help push them towards completion.

Icaro Panama Festival to screen domestic, Lat. Am. and European films

Some 29 Panamanian, Latin American and European films will be screened during the Icaro Panama Festival from September 21st to 30th in the capital city and the main provincial cities of Colon and Chiriqui, the latter for the first time.

According to the festival producer Roberto King, the capital city will have several movie theaters in which the audience will be able to enjoy free screening of films such as the Guatemalan Ixcanul, which will open the event.

Organized each year by the Experimental Group of University Film from the University of Panama and the Pro Performing Arts Foundation, the Icaro Panama Festival 2016 will have two film selections.

The first, a traveling selection with Central American and international films that won prizes in the Central American film festival annually hosted by Guatemala, and a second one with Panamanian films that will compete in October in that country.

‘The festival is seeking to achieve greater promotion and recognition of Central American films, highlighting the fact that we are making films that represent us as societies with their own cultural identity and a rich collective imagination’, said King.

Can the 2016 election be rigged? You bet

by Roger Stone
News Analysis

Donald Trump has said publicly that he fears the next election will be rigged. Based both on technical capability and recent history, Trump’s concerns are not unfounded.

A recent study by Stanford University proved that Hillary Clinton’s campaign rigged the system to steal the nomination from Bernie Sanders.
What was done to Bernie Sanders in Wisconsin is stunning.

Why would the Clintons not cheat again?

The issue here is both voter fraud, which is limited but does happen, and election theft through the manipulation of the computerized voting machines, particularly the DIEBOLD/PES voting machines in wide usage in most states.

POLITICO profiled a Princeton professor — who has demonstrated how the electronic voting machines that are most widely used can be hacked in five minutes or less! Robert Fitrakis Professor of Political Science in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department at Columbus State Community College has written a must-read book on the strip and flip technique sued to rig these machines. Professor Fitrakis is a Green Party activist.

A computer hacker showed CBS how to vote multiple times using a simple $15.00 electronic device.

To be very clear both parties have engaged in this skullduggery and it is the party in power in each state that has custody of the machines and control of their programming. This year, the results of machines in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio, where Governor John Kasich controls the machines, must be matched with exit polls, for example.

Illinois is another obvious state where Trump has been running surprisingly strong, in what has become a Blue state. Does anyone trust Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a longtime Clinton hatchet man. not to monkey with the machines? I don’t. He was using City funded Community groups to recruit anti-Trump “protestors” who posed such a threat to public safety the Trump Chicago event was canceled when the Secret Service couldn’t guarantee his safety.

How do the pols of both parties do it? As easy as determining, on the basis of honest polling, who is going to win. Then, if it isn’t your candidate, simply have the votes for the other guy be given to your guy and vice versa. You keep the total vote the same. This is where the “strip and flip” technique described by Professor Fitrakis comes in.

Maybe you don’t need all the votes the other guy was going to get. If you have a plan in mind involving votes and their redistribution, you can find a programmer who can design the machine instructions to produce that outcome. Or you can hack the machine you are voting in with that $15 device that you can get at BEST BUY.

Europe has rejected electronic voting machines because they are untrustworthy. This is not a secret. The media continues a drum beat insisting voter fraud is non existent without ever addressing the more ominous question of manipulation of the voting machines. It keeps those in control in control.

Additionally some states still use machines that include no paper trail. The “evidence” is destroyed. Florida’s machines have no paper trail in Bush v. Gore.

In Europe, they use exit polling to determine who won and lost. The tabulated vote only serves as a formal verification. But that is done with paper ballots and hand counts under supervision, the way we used to do it.

Here’s the recipe now:
(1) Publish a poll contrived to suggest the result you are going to bring about.
(2) Manipulate the machines to bring about precisely your desired outcome.

As someone with great sentimental attachment to the Republican Party, as I joined as the party of Goldwater, both parties have engaged in voting machine manipulation. Nowhere in the country has this been more true than Wisconsin, where there is irrefutable evidence that Scott Walker and the Reince Priebus machine rigged as many as five elections including the defeat of a Walker recall election.

Mathematician and voting statistic expert Richard Charnin has produced a compelling study by comparing polling to actual results and exit polls to make a compelling case for voting machine manipulation in the Badger state.

When the Trump vs. Cruz primary took place, the same pattern emerged again of a Marquette University poll showing a 20 point shift from Trump ahead by 10 percent to Trump behind by 10 percent, which was simply absurd. Shifts like that don’t happen over brief intervals of time, absent a nuclear explosion. It didn’t make any sense — unless you knew what was going on was an “instant replay” of Walker’s victories. The machine Priebus built was delivering for Cruz big time.

Today, the polling industry has been reported to be “in a state of crisis” because they are altering their samples to favor Hillary. The Reuters poll actually got busted for oversampling Democrats in order to inflate Hillary’s lead. We even had the absurdity of a Gallup poll proclaiming that 51 percent of those who had heard Trump’s speech were less likely to vote for him, which was endlessly repeated by the shills at MSNBC.

I predicted that Trump would lead in the polls after his highly successful convention (despite the media frenzy over the non-issue of a Melania Trump staffer plagiarizing a handful of words). In fact, post convention polling for the Trump effort by pollster Tony Fabrizio in key swing states was encouraging. Perhaps this is why the establishment elites have gone into over-drive to attack Trump.

Hillary hasn’t exactly had smooth sailing. Julian Assange of Wikileaks said he had inconvertible proof that as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton armed Isis. The IRS has opened an investigation to the Clinton Foundation and it’s many offshoots, and Hillary got caught lying about what FBI Director Comey did say about her.

But you will see less of Hillary’s problems in the mainstream media, which has gone completely overboard in its relentless, even hysterical, efforts to lambaste Trump and promote her. Every remotely objective commentator has been stunned. Trump will, however, have an opportunity to drive these points home in the debates.

We are now living in a fake reality of constructed data and phony polls. The computerized voting machines can be hacked and rigged and after the experience of Bernie Sanders there is no reason to believe they won’t be. Don’t be taken in.

Stone is a former consultant to Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign, a New York Times Bestselling Author and a veteran of nine Republican presidential campaigns from Nixon to Trump.
Source: http://www.thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/291534-can-the-2016-election-be-rigged-you-bet

Silencing America as it prepare for war – Part 2

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

DEAR READERS:

I hadn’t read an article with so much insight on international politics. Written with so much clarity, this article, authored by John Pilger, prepares the reader to really understand what is covered and what is not about American politics by the so called mainstream media. PART 2 OF TWO.

Silencing America as it prepares for war

by John Pilger

It was Hillary Clinton who, as Secretary of State in 2010, elevated the competing territorial claims for rocks and reef in the South China Sea to an international issue; CNN and BBC hysteria followed; China was building airstrips on the disputed islands. In a mammoth war game in 2015, Operation Talisman Sabre, the US and Australia practiced “choking” the Straits of Malacca through which pass most of China’s oil and trade. This was not news.

Clinton declared that America had a “national interest” in these Asian waters. The Philippines and Vietnam were encouraged and bribed to pursue their claims and old enmities against China. In America, people are being primed to see any Chinese defensive position as offensive, and so the ground is laid for rapid escalation. A similar strategy of provocation and propaganda is applied to Russia.

Clinton, the “women’s candidate”, leaves a trail of bloody coups: in Honduras, in Libya (plus the murder of the Libyan president) and Ukraine. The latter is now a CIA theme park swarming with Nazis and the frontline of a beckoning war with Russia. It was through Ukraine – literally, borderland – that Hitler’s Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, which lost 27 million people. This epic catastrophe remains a presence in Russia. Clinton’s presidential campaign has received money from all but one of the world’s ten biggest arms companies. No other candidate comes close.

Sanders, the hope of many young Americans, is not very different from Clinton in his proprietorial view of the world beyond the United States. He backed Bill Clinton’s illegal bombing of Serbia. He supports Obama’s terrorism by drone, the provocation of Russia and the return of special forces (death squads) to Iraq. He has nothing to say on the drumbeat of threats to China and the accelerating risk of nuclear war. He agrees that Edward Snowden should stand trial and he calls Hugo Chavez – like him, a social democrat – “a dead communist dictator”. He promises to support Clinton if she is nominated.

The election of Trump or Clinton is the old illusion of choice that is no choice: two sides of the same coin. In scapegoating minorities and promising to “make America great again”, Trump is a far right-wing domestic populist; yet the danger of Clinton may be more lethal for the world.

“Only Donald Trump has said anything meaningful and critical of US foreign policy,” wrote Stephen Cohen, emeritus professor of Russian History at Princeton and NYU, one of the few Russia experts in the United States to speak out about the risk of war.

In a radio broadcast, Cohen referred to critical questions Trump alone had raised. Among them: why is the United States “everywhere on the globe”? What is NATO’s true mission? Why does the US always pursue regime change in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine? Why does Washington treat Russia and Vladimir Putin as an enemy?

The hysteria in the liberal media over Trump serves an illusion of “free and open debate” and “democracy at work”. His views on immigrants and Muslims are grotesque, yet the deporter-in-chief of vulnerable people from America is not Trump but Obama, whose betrayal of people of colour is his legacy: such as the warehousing of a mostly black prison population, now more numerous than Stalin’s gulag.

This presidential campaign may not be about populism but American liberalism, an ideology that sees itself as modern and therefore superior and the one true way. Those on its right wing bear a likeness to 19th century Christian imperialists, with a God-given duty to convert or co-opt or conquer.

In Britain, this is Blairism. The Christian war criminal Tony Blair got away with his secret preparation for the invasion of Iraq largely because the liberal political class and media fell for his “cool Britannia”. In the Guardian, the applause was deafening; he was called “mystical”. A distraction known as identity politics, imported from the United States, rested easily in his care.

History was declared over, class was abolished and gender promoted as feminism; lots of women became New Labour MPs. They voted on the first day of Parliament to cut the benefits of single parents, mostly women, as instructed. A majority voted for an invasion that produced 700,000 Iraqi widows.

The equivalent in the US are the politically correct warmongers on the New York Times, the Washington Post and network TV who dominate political debate. I watched a furious debate on CNN about Trump’s infidelities. It was clear, they said, a man like that could not be trusted in the White House. No issues were raised. Nothing on the 80 per cent of Americans whose income has collapsed to 1970s levels. Nothing on the drift to war. The received wisdom seems to be “hold your nose” and vote for Clinton: anyone but Trump. That way, you stop the monster and preserve a system gagging for another war.

1...232233234...599Page 233 of 599

SELECTIONS

POPULAR TICKETS

POPULAR CATEGORY

ABOUT US

Welcome to our Marvin J. Ramirez website! We are an innovative newspaper located in the heart of San Francisco. With a relentless passion for telling powerful stories, we inform our community with truthful news, insightful analysis, and compelling reporting.

Contacto: lreportero@aol.com

FOLLOW US

© Copyright 2023. Agenciadigital.pw. All rights reserved.