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Eating apples and pears can reduce your risk of Type 2 diabetes

by Michelle Simmons

Type 2 diabetes is on the rise, but this chronic disease can be prevented with the help of dietary and lifestyle changes. A study published in the journal Food & Function suggested that eating apples and pears can cut your risk of this dreaded disease.

Researchers at Zhejiang University in China carried out a meta-analysis to determine the effect of apple and pear consumption on the risk of Type 2 diabetes. To do this, they gathered studies, literature reviews, and meta-analyses from journal databases that looked at the consumption of apple and/or pear in association with Type 2 diabetes. All included studies used a validated food frequency questionnaire.

The researchers reviewed five studies with a total of 228,215 participants, of which 14,120 have developed Type 2 diabetes. They also converted all consumption data into servings per week using a standard portion size of 106 grams per week.

The researchers found that the consumption of apples and pears was associated with a significant decrease in Type 2 diabetes risk – an 18 percent reduction. In addition, they found a dose-response relationship between apple and pear consumption and Type 2 diabetes risk. In particular, one, two, three, four, and five servings per week corresponded to respective reductions of three percent, eight percent, 12 percent, 15 percent, and 19 percent in Type 2 diabetes risk, respectively.

They believe that the protective effect of apples and pears against this chronic disease may be attributed to the fruits’ polyphenols, which have powerful antioxidant effects; soluble fiber, which slows gastric emptying, reduces postprandial blood sugar spikes, and is associated with reduced hyperinsulinemia; and other phytochemicals that may fight inflammation.

Based on these results, the researchers concluded that eating apples and pears was significantly associated with a lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. This finding is important because apples and pears are two of the most commonly consumed fruits around the world. In addition, these fruits also offer many beneficial compounds to the diet.

Preventing diabetes with whole fruits

Another study, which was published in the BMJ, also revealed that eating whole fruits can lower the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. However, there are certain fruits that are more effective than others at preventing the disease.

Carried out by a team of researchers from Harvard University, the study used data from three long-running health studies that included 151,209 women and 36,173 men where the participants answered questionnaires about their lifestyle, diet, and health — particularly any diseases they’d developed — every few years for at least two decades. The Harvard researchers asked about 10 fruits, including apples or pears, bananas, blueberries, cantaloupe, grapes or raisins, grapefruit, oranges, peaches, plums or apricots, prunes, and strawberries.

The results revealed that blueberries were the most effective in warding off diabetes. Grapes came in second most effective, followed by apples. Bananas and grapefruit were also good in preventing diabetes, while strawberries did not have much of an effect. Cantaloupe, on the contrary, slightly increased the risk for Type 2 diabetes.

The researchers also explored the effect of fruit juice consumption and found that drinking all kinds of fruit juice, including apple, grapefruit, and orange, was associated with a higher risk of the disease. However, replacing three servings of fruit juice per week with blueberries reduced the risk of the disease by an average of 33 percent.

Lastly, the researchers suggested that the protective effect of blueberries, red grapes, and apples against Type 2 diabetes can be attributed to their high content of anthocyanins, which have been reported to increase glucose uptake in mice with diabetes.

When eating fruits, make sure that they are organic and free of pesticides. Strawberries, apples, grapes, peaches, and pears belong to the Environmental Working Group‘s (EWG) 2019 Dirty Dozen list of fruits and vegetables that contain pesticide residues. (Related: Make a list and check it twice: “Dirty Dozen” list of fruits and vegetables CONTAMINATED with pesticide residue).

Learn more on how to ward off diabetes by going to PreventDiabetes.news.

Sources include:

CMS.HerbalGram.org
BusinessInsider.com

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Venezuela to host 8th International Theater Festival

by the El Reportero’s news services

The Venezuelan Ministry of Culture is preparing the Eighth International Theater Festival 2019, to be held from April 12 to 21 in this capital, where 30 national and eight international groups will participate.

The mayor of the Libertador municipality, of the Capital District, Erika Farías, explained in a press conference that the new edition of the appointment of the tables, called the Peace Scenario, has as a novelty the extension of the event to four states as subsedes: Zulia, Vargas, Falcón and Cojedes.

Also, the territorial leader said that the Venezuelan family can enjoy more than 400 activities, centered on five axes, with special emphasis on the community that began from April 1 with visits to 110 locations in Caracas, where the artists will exchange directly with the population.

Farías added that the activities for the children will be concentrated in the Alí Primera national park, where 20 groups will present puppet, dance, theater and circus shows. The mayor pointed out that another axis is that of theatrical halls, in which 49 companies will present their shows in 14 centers, among which the theaters Municipal, Bolívar, Nacional, Principal, Teresa Carreño, Casa del Artista, Rajatabla, Ana Julia Rojas stand out , Alameda, among others.

He added that the opening of the Festival will be in the vicinity of the Museum Square on April 12 at 7, while highlighting the participation of all State security agencies to ensure mobility and enjoyment citizen in the activities.

Farías during the statements to the press was accompanied by the Minister of Culture Ernesto Villegas, the president of the Foundation for Culture and the Arts (Fundarte), María Isabella Godoy, among other personalities.

The Curse of La Llorona

La Llorona (The Weeping Woman).  A horrifying apparition, c aught between Heaven and Hell, trapped in a terrible fate sealed by her own hand.  The mere mention of her name has struck terror around the world for generations.  

In life, she drowned her children in a jealous rage, throwing herself in the churning river after them as she wept in pain.  Now her tears are eternal.  They are lethal, and those who hear her death call in the night are doomed.  

La Llorona creeps in the shadows and preys on the children, desperate to replace her own.  As the centuries have passed, her desire has grown more voracious…and her methods more terrifying.

In 1970s Los Angeles, La Llorona is stalking the night—and the children. Ignoring the eerie warning of a troubled mother suspected of child endangerment, a social worker and her own small kids are soon drawn into a frightening supernatural realm.  

Their only hope to survive La Llorona’s deadly wrath may be a disillusioned priest and the mysticism he practices to keep evil at bay, on the fringes where fear and faith collide. 

On April 19, 2019, this timeless Mexican legend comes to terrifying life in New Line Cinema’s The Curse of La Llorona.

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The metaphysical dream and reality

by Jon Rappoport

Hard showers of rain, sky clearing, warming temperatures, then cold, snow, quickly followed by the budding greenery of spring…a collision of seasons…

I was walking in the woods and came to a small cottage. The door was open. There was just one room. The walls were lined with shelves, and books filled the shelves. I picked one out and brought it to a small table and a chair. I sat down. There was a lighter, an open pack of small twisted cigars, and a glass bowl on the table. The book was bound in soft leather, and my birth date was engraved in silver on the cover. I opened the book.

It contained a shockingly detailed account of my life. There were no chapter headings—but instead, pages with decades indicated. 1940-50, 1950-60, and so on. I searched the pages until I came to one that announced a decade I had not yet lived. After a moment of reflection, I picked up the lighter, flicked it, and set the book on fire. It quickly burned down to ash. I scooped the ashes into my hand and poured them into the glass bowl. A small translucent figure appeared in the bowl.

“Right,” it said. “You’ve made a bold decision. Your future is now destroyed. You’re no longer part of the Great Plan for all human beings. You can strike out in any direction.”

“What’s the Great Plan?” I asked.

The figure smiled. “The ultimate collective destination and organization of beings. It’s the structure.”

“Then I’m satisfied,” I said. “I don’t want to be part of that.”

The little figure nodded. “Good luck,” it said, and faded out.

I walked out of the cottage and down a path in the forest. I came to a house. It was conventionally built, with two identical wings. But the wing to my left was broken by a series of blurred overlapping shapes. Inside and around this Thing were several people. I recognized their faces. They were not part of my past or future, and I couldn’t call up their names. They were changing the shapes. They were making space and time. There was no intention of coordination. But in some way, the evolving shapes did interact with one another.

Drawn to this activity, I walked into a multi-sided shape and began to invent my own forms. I erased some and added others. I felt a strange delight. I was in a place I always wanted to occupy.

I had no sense of copying forms. I was inventing them from zero. Space and time were null until I gave them shape. The other artists and I were apart from one another and also together, but the togetherness was not intrusive. There was no urge to collaborate or mimic one another. Space and time—their changing nature—were delicious. We were all free in the same way. Free meant FREE. Every line, every stroke we made carried a sense of spontaneous revelation. Look at THIS.
I knew my own past, but no details remained. It had all been absorbed and digested.

Then I began to see scenes—waves breaking and rolling on a distant beach, a black sky full of blinking stars, a great high waterfall pouring down in the middle of a jungle, ranges of mountains receding to the horizon—they were inside a giant frame that was labeled ETERNITY. I understood that I was supposed to see these pictures as markers of endless life, but life inside the Plan. It was pure deception.

If anything was eternal, it was my own act of creation.

I passed into a state of ecstasy…

(Jon Rappoport is the author of three explosive collections, The Matrix Revealed, Exit From The Matrix, and Power Outside The Matrix).

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15,000 trucks stranded in Ciudad Juárez as border chaos enter week 4

In Tijuana a line of trucks 10 kilometers long Thursday

by Mexico News Daily

Thousands of trucks are stranded in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and Tijuana, Baja California, as chaos at the northern border enters its fourth week.

The National Chamber of Trucking (Canacar) said yesterday that 15,000 trucks were stuck in the former city, where there are long lines at border crossings to El Paso, Texas, and Santa Teresa, New Mexico.

Long wait times at several ports of entry to the United States have been reported since March 28 – the day after U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced the reassignment of 750 border agents to deal with a large influx of migrants.

“It’s been catastrophic,” said Manuel Sotelo, a regional vice-president of Canacar.

He explained that the manufacturing industry in Chihuahua has incurred losses of around US $20 million a day since the delays began.

Sotelo, who is also the president of a Ciudad Juárez transport association, said he was told at a meeting with United States authorities that 100 border agents had returned to their port of entry posts, but most went to border crossings between Tamaulipas and Texas.

“We were confident that the [border] agents who were returning would come back to our ar-ea … but they were sent to Laredo,” he said.

Further complicating the situation in the Juárez area is that commercial border crossings are currently operating with reduced holiday hours even though Canacar requested that the normal schedule be maintained.

Lines of three, four and five kilometers were seen yesterday at the Bridge of the Americas, the Ysleta-Zaragoza Bridge and the San Jerónimo port of entry respectively. Sotelo said that trucks are waiting five hours on average to cross into the United States.

In Tijuana, long lines of trucks have been reported over the past two days due to the closure of commercial lanes at the border and an increase in Easter vacation traffic.

A report in the newspaper Milenio said there were lines as long as 10 kilometers in the border city yesterday.

Truck driver Miguel Ángeles said he would normally cross the border twice a day but now he can only cross once, and after a long wait at that.

Yesterday, he joined a line of trucks at 5 a.m. but didn’t cross into the San Diego area until 3 p.m. Average wait times at commercial ports of entry in the area have tripled to nine or 10 hours.

Another driver said his earnings had dropped by half in recent weeks as a result of the long border delays.

“In an economic sense, it’s hitting me really hard…” Francisco Javier said.

In an attempt to clear the congestion, commercial border crossings are operating with regular hours in Tijuana today but will close at 2 p.m. tomorrow and Sunday.
Chihuahua Governor Javier Corral and other politicians, as well as representatives of several business groups, will meet with Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard in Mexico City on Monday to discuss the situation and consider their options to speed up cross-border trade.

Chihuahua government spokesman Mario Dena said Mexican authorities need to reach an agreement with their United States counterparts so that all personnel who were reassigned from ports of entry are reinstated.

Source: El Mañana (sp), Milenio (sp).

In other migrants news:

Mexico getting tougher on migrants as thousands wait for visas in Chiapas

Aid organizations say humanitarian crisis unfolding

Mexican authorities have begun implementing stricter immigration policies amid pressure from the United States to stop the flow of migrants from Central America.

When he took office in December, President López Obrador pledged that his government would treat migrants more humanely than that of his predecessor, Enrique Peña Nieto.

In January, his administration issued around 13,000 humanitarian visas to migrants who entered Mexico at the southern border that month.

The visas allow recipients to work and access services in Mexico for up to a year or, if they choose, travel legally to the northern border to apply for asylum in the United States.

The National Immigration Institute (INM) issued a few thousand additional visas in February but none since, an immigration official who requested anonymity told the news agency Reuters.

According to other sources familiar with Mexican immigration policy who also spoke to Reuters, near-daily pressure from the United States government has resulted in the secretariats of the Interior (Segob) and Foreign Affairs (SRE) pushing the INM to adopt a tougher approach to-wards migrants.

On April 4, United States President Donald Trump claimed that Mexican authorities had taken note of his threats to shut the border, stating that Mexico had recently been “capturing people and bringing them back to their countries at their southern border.”

Indeed, detentions of undocumented migrants for registration increased to 12,746 last month, according to unreleased INM data seen by Reuters, an increase of almost one-third compared to February and two-thirds compared to January.

The INM says that migrants staying at its facilities are not detained but being held for pro-cessing but rights groups and the migrants themselves say that they are not free to leave.

Thousands of migrants have been stranded in Chiapas, especially Tapachula and Mapastepec, as they wait to see if they will be granted humanitarian visas, or at least 20-day transit visas that allow them to legally travel through Mexico.

In the latter town, some of the migrants have been staying inside a makeshift shelter set up inside a sports stadium for almost three weeks, while others have camped in a field opposite.

“It’s madness that they’re making us wait so long. For what? For nothing!” said Daisy Mal-donado, a 26-year-old from Honduras who traveled to Mexico with her five-year-old daughter.

With migrants facing oppressive conditions in high temperatures – those camping in the field have no ready access to water, medical attention or government assistance – a coalition of more than a dozen human rights and humanitarian aid groups warn that there is a “humanitarian crisis” unfolding in Chiapas.

The coalition said that the detention center in Tapachula is severely overcrowded and that the confusion over whether visas will be issued or not is worsening the migrants’ plight.

“The government is responding with practices and repressive methods similar to the previous administration in terms of control and deportation, but in a way that’s even more disorderly [and] in some ways, it’s worse,” said Salva Lacruz, a coordinator of the Fray Matías de Cordova migrant advocacy group.

INM Commissioner Tonatiuh Guillén López said in a recent interview that a “stricter” immigration approach was being adopted in the south of Mexico due to the large number of arrivals but he denied that it was a result of pressure from the United States.

Whereas migrants were once effectively given free passage to travel through Mexico, the INM said yesterday that the migrants in Mapastepec would only be able to request seven-day visas that will limit their legal stay to Mexico’s southern states.

It is unclear when migrants in Tapachula might be issued visas as the INM office in that city closed following a riot last month. Thousands more migrants are stranded in cities on Mexico’s northern border.

In addition to detaining migrants, immigration authorities are also deporting them.

Two large groups of migrants – 204 from Honduras and 148 from Cuba – were deported from Mexico in recent days after they were located traveling through the country without having first regularized their immigration status.

“Migration officials are grabbing us like pigs,” said Erick Morazan, a 28-year-old Honduran migrant who traveled to Mapastepec at night in a “caravan of zombies” to avoid detection by immigration officials and the possibility of deportation.

Source: Reuters (sp).

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López Obrador y Aparicio en la lista de Time de las 100 personas más influyentes

El presidente y la nominada al Premio de la Academia se unen al Papa Francisco, Donald Trump y otros notables

por Mexico News Daily

El presidente López Obrador y la actriz nominada al Oscar Yalitza Aparicio se encuentran entre las “100 personas más influyentes de 2019” de la revista Time.

Los dos mexicanos aparecen junto a nombres notables, como el Papa Francisco, el Presidente de los Estados Unidos Donald Trump, la cantante Lady Gaga, la ex primera dama de los Estados Unidos Michelle Obama y el fundador de Facebook Mark Zuckerberg.

La lista se divide en cinco categorías: pioneros, artistas, líderes, iconos y titanes.

Como es costumbre, breves biografías o homenajes escritos por figuras prominentes explican por qué cada una de las 100 personas en la lista merece su lugar.

En el caso de López Obrador, el autor invitado fue Jorge Ramos, un periodista mexicano de Estados Unidos que se enfrentó con el presidente en una conferencia de prensa matutina la semana pasada sobre la exactitud de las cifras de homicidios del gobierno.

“Más de 30 millones de mexicanos votaron por un cambio en la última elección, y eso es exactamente lo que obtuvieron”, escribió Ramos.

“El presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador (o AMLO, como se le llama) viaja en clase económica y se niega a vivir en la mansión presidencial de Los Pinos; su mensaje principal es contra la corrupción. y cada mañana, a las 7:00 am, da una conferencia de prensa (conocida como la mañanera). Sí, está en marcado contraste con los líderes anteriores. ¿Pero es eso lo que México realmente necesita?”, continúa.

Ramos continúa señalando que el “control total del Congreso por parte del presidente y su estilo muy personal de tomar decisiones han levantado banderas entre quienes no quieren a otro populista autoritario”.

Señala que AMLO ha logrado “desactivar” a Trump al no responder a los tweets amenazantes del presidente de los Estados Unidos hacia México, pero agrega que “para consternación de muchos, el político izquierdista ha rechazado los llamamientos para denunciar la dictadura en Venezuela”.

Ramos sostiene que la “gran prueba” de López Obrador es combatir la violencia en México antes de concluir con una predicción que desafía el estado mesiánico del presidente entre sus más fieles partidarios.

“AMLO esperó 12 años para convertirse en presidente, y él tiene prisa por actuar. Pero tarde o temprano se dará cuenta de que solo una persona no puede salvar a México. Otros lo han intentado y han fracasado“.

Al escribir sobre Aparicio, la estrella de Roma de 25 años, el director de la película, Alfonso Cuarón, dice que la mujer mixteca de Oaxaca “desafía paradigmas”.

Señala que “antes de protagonizar en Roma, no tenía experiencia como actriz, pero obtuvo una nominación al Premio de la Academia a la mejor actriz en un papel principal”, y agregó que también superó su miedo al océano y aprendió el idioma mixteco para la película.

“Yalitza puede tomar cualquier tarea que se le ponga delante y sobresalir de una manera que nadie creía posible”, declara Cuarón.

El director explica que supo desde el momento en que conoció a Aparicio que ella “fue la única” en asumir el papel de Cleo, una trabajadora doméstica y la protagonista de Roma.

Cuarón escribe que Aparicio está “increíblemente fundamentado en su verdad y no es fácilmente arrastrado por el brillo y el glamour de Hollywood”, y agrega que “se enfoca en ser una fuerza de cambio y empoderamiento para las mujeres indígenas, abrazando el valor simbólico de lo que tiene”. Hecho y llevando esa responsabilidad con dignidad y gracia“.

La ex maestra de preescolar de la ciudad de Tlaxiaco es una de las 48 mujeres en la lista de Time, un aumento de tres respecto al año pasado y el doble del número que apareció en la lista inaugural en 2004.

Cuarón concluye escribiendo que admira profundamente a Aparicio y espera que ella continúe actuando y evolucionando su oficio.

“Siendo egoísta, quiero ver más de ella en pantalla. Ella tiene un regalo increíble…“

Fuente: El Financiero (sp).

En otras noticias en México:

La feria de artesanos más grande de América Latina ahora en Michoacán.
Cerca de 2.000 artesanos tienen un millón de piezas en exhibición.

En la segunda ciudad más grande de Mi-choacán se está llevando a cabo una feria de artesanos que ha sido considerada la más grande de América Latina.
El Tianguis Artesanal de Uruapan recibe a casi 2,000 artesanos de los cuatro grupos étnicos del estado: otomí, nahua, mazahua y purhépecha, cuya cerámica, tejido, cobre, madera tallada y artesanías musicales se exhibirán y venderán hasta el 28 de abril.
Más de un millón de piezas están en exhibición.
Las festividades comenzaron el viernes con un desfile de 3 1/2 horas en el que participaron 63 organizaciones y 40 bandas de 48 comunidades.
Más de 50 eventos culturales y artísticos se organizan en torno a la feria, incluido un concurso entre los artesanos.
Un total de 1,710 de 58 comunidades participaron con 3,118 piezas únicas, 207 de las cuales recibieron un premio. Más de un millón de pesos (US $54,600) fueron entregados a los ganadores.
También hay un festival tradicional de comida purhépecha, donde 15 mujeres de 15 pueblos de Uruapan se inspiran en sus tradiciones y preparan comidas con los mismos ingredientes y herramientas artesanales que sus antepasados.
Fuente: Mi Morelia (sp).

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Expresident of Perú Alan García commits suicide when he was about to be arrested

by the El Reportero’s wire services

Peruvian President Alan García died Wednesday after shooting himself in the head when he was about to be arrested on corruption charges.

Garcia, 69, underwent emergency surgery at the José Casimiro Ullóa Hospital in Lima, officials from the Health Ministry reported. A doctor who was interviewed at the hospital said that the ex-president had suffered three cardiorespiratory arrests.

Garcia’s personal secretary, Ricardo Pineda, told a Peruvian radio station that when the authorities arrived at the residence of the former president with an arrest warrant, he locked himself in his room and shot himself. Subsequently, he was taken to the hospital.

The charges against the exmandatario are related to Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction giant that last year agreed to have made payments of 800 million dollars in exchange for lucrative contracts for infrastructure projects. That revelation sparked a series of investigations by prosecutors and lawmakers, mainly in Latin America, as they sought to discover who had received the payments.

The investigations have targeted several former presidents of Peru.

Last week, Peruvian prosecutors ordered the arrest of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, predecessor of the country’s current president (Martín Vizcarra), as part of an investigation related to the case. He has been asked to be detained for up to three years while evidence is gathered.

The United States has requested the extradition of Alejandro Toledo, who was president at the beginning of the decade of the two thousand; Ollanta Humala, García’s successor, was also arrested and subsequently released.

Alan García was president of Peru from 1985 to 1990 and after 2006 to 2011; in his first term he governed during an economic collapse, and an expansion in his second presidential term.

It was precisely his second presidency that became the target of the investigation for Peruvian prosecutors, who began to examine whether campaign contributions from García’s Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) party were linked to the Odebrecht scandal. (Source: The York Times).

Over 2,000 deportees to arrive in Honduras this week

TEGUCIPALGA- Honduras – More than 2,000 emigrants will return to Honduras deported from the United States, Mexico and Guatemala this week, said Tuesday the Head of the General Directorate of Protection of Honduran Migrants, Liza Medrano.

There were 936 arrivals on Monday, including complete family groups and unaccompanied minors, according to Medrano, quoted by the daily Primicia Honduras.
Eight flights are expected this week: six from the United States and two from Mexico, although they will also enter the country by land, she added.

A total of 22,160 Hondurans had been returned this year up to April 5, and the number has been increasing.

All returnees receive comprehensive care upon arrival and are provided with transportation facilities so that they can return to their places of origin, she added.

Hundreds of Hondurans, every day flee the country because of poverty, poor access to basic services, violence and insecurity.

Mass departures, from October to date have raised the world’s attention to this migration problem which is not new to the country, nor its causes.

Medrano urged Hondurans not to risk their lives on the migratory route, where they are exposed to fraud, drug cartels, extortion, human trafficking and smuggling, kidnapping, mutilation, injury, rape and even death. He also asked not to expose minors to these risks.

Despite the growing emigration, the deportations of many Hondurans looking for better living conditions are also striking.

Pemex Plans to Dig this Year 20 New Oil Wells

Mexico’s hydrocarbons corporation Pemex is planning to increase production this year by digging 20 new wells, the company has reported.

According to the report, particularly issued for investors, during the past three years of the previous administration no new field was developed, but with the new authorities things are different.

The Government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is working to boost the oil industry, not only by allocating 5 billion dollars announced in February, but also with a new assistance of a similar amount the Secretary of Finance and Public Credit Carlos Urzua Macias made public.

As part of the goal to rescue Pemex and expand its production, the authorities are pushing forward the plan to dig 20 wells, 16 of them in coastal waters, the rest on land.

The report for investors indicate that during the past three years of Pena Nieto administration no field was developed, though in the first half of his mandate Pemex worked in five in 2013, on two the following year and only one in 2015.

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Keep the Electoral College!

by John F. McManus

2016 election, this Massachusetts senator favored Hillary Clinton who won the popular vote with a large margin. But Mrs. Clinton lost in her quest to be the first female U.S. president because Donald Trump won more Electoral College votes. When those votes were counted, Trump was the winner by 304 to 222. (Seven electoral votes were cast for others.)

The popular vote total actually showed Ms. Clinton with 2,870,000 more votes than Trump, the largest popular vote margin for a losing presidential candidate in our nation’s history. Hence Elizabeth Warren (and numerous others who identify as Democrats) believe something is terribly wrong. What can be certain, however, is that Warren would hardly be proposing change in the Electoral College system — including its complete abolition — if Ms. Clinton had won the electoral vote and her opponent gained more popular votes. No purist is she.

The unlikely result is 2016 isn’t really that unlikely. In 1888, incumbent Democrat Grover Cleveland won the popular vote with 90,000 more popular votes than Republican Benjamin Harrison. But Harrison won the presidency with 233 Electoral College votes to only 168 for the sitting president.

More recently in 2000, Democrat Al Gore won 540,000 more popular votes than Republican George W. Bush. But Bush won the Electoral College race 271-266 and became president. Partisans for Gore cried foul but the numbers showed that they had no case as long as the Electoral College system was still in place.

What needs to be said here is that our nation’s constitutional system retains the Founders’ abhorrence of democracy. Yes, it’s certainly true that most fellow Americans believe our system of government is — and always has been — democracy. They’re wrong. The truth is that the men who formed the constitutional convention in 1787 gave us a republic, the rule of law, not a democracy, the rule of the majority. The nation would be far better off if that simple fact were taught in the nation’s schools, something that hasn’t been done for many decades.

It’s not terribly difficult to find out why the men who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 created an unusual process for choosing the chief executive for our country. They preferred having the president selected by a few knowledgeable and principled men from each state. They wanted individuals who would choose a partisan for good government, not someone who wins the favor of a swayable mob. The method they chose is reliance on knowledgeable electors.

James Madison, rightly named “Father of the Constitution” due to his invaluable recording of the proceedings during the gathering, expressed his strong detestation of democracy in The Federalist Papers. His colleagues similarly abhorred what their study of history had shown them was a path to chaos. Madison wrote:

Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

The Founders knew there would be reasons to protect the rights of minorities, even in the small population states. With the system they created, California, New York, and other large population states may indeed tilt the nations toward what Madison and his colleagues feared. But the mid- and small-population states were given a say in every presidential race.

After careful deliberation, the Founders produced the electoral system as their way of avoiding the excesses they expected if the choice of a president were left to the general public. Their system became known as the “Electoral College.” But it’s not a college and, unlike what defines many of today’s democracy-promoting colleges, it has no football team.

What the existing system does have is one way of avoiding what history clearly demonstrates are indeed the ravages of direct democracy. Those who want to discard the existing process, including Senator Warren and many others seeking a nomination and subsequent election to the high office of president, want to abandon the Electoral College. If they are successful, they will endanger everyone’s “personal security and property rights” while creating for our nation “spectacles of violence and contention.”

The Electoral College should not be abolished. Replacing it in the name of fairness will terminate more limitations on government’s always voracious appetite for control over mankind’s freedom.

(John F. McManus is president emeritus of The John Birch Society).

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If hidden technology were exposed for all to see

by Jon Rappoport

Note: I have couched this piece in FICTION, which is a convenient way to pinpoint hidden trends…

While the cathedral of Notre Dame burned and grabbed headlines all over the world, a little noticed development took place along the Texas-Mexico border in a town called Twin. A reporter for the Twin Clarion wrote the following:

“In a heavily guarded Twin facility belonging to Two Border Oil, Inc., a massive leak of information occurred. Letters, emails, memos, and studies made their way ‘out the door’. These documents, taken together, spell out an unmistakable series of developments in the energy sector: new cutting edge forms of energy have been successfully tested and confirmed.

A Border Oil executive (name blacked out) stated, in a memo to his seniors: ‘It now appears certain that the age of energy decentralization is upon us. Within the next several years, we will be able to produce small highly efficient “energy packs” at shockingly low prices. These packs will enable any person anywhere on the planet to power personal devices, without the use of oil. Obviously, we must do everything possible to prevent this revolution.

The technological breakthrough would necessitate the reorganization of society along lines of extreme decentralization. The population of the planet is not prepared. Traditional political and economic structures would collapse. We would see the emergence of a new type of system—not capitalistic as we know it, and not socialistic. The individual would be empowered at a level never before seen. The collective energy grid would be superseded and made obsolete within a decade.

The mechanics (physics) of this breakthrough are not totally understood—but it is clear that the tests of the technology are overwhelmingly positive and repeatable. At one point it was thought that a community of companies could control all the relevant patents, but this promise has faded.

The engineering for the “new energy” is rather simple. Its method would quickly sweep across the planet and be absorbed. Our only alternative is to continue to keep the whole development secret. I enclose expert testimonies and test results for your inspection, so you can confirm what I and others already know. Our research has brought us across a bridge into a future we cannot control, predict, or fully fathom…’”

The Twin reporter continued: “A high-ranking scientist who works at a European energy company replied: ‘I’m quite sure I understand the breakthrough you’re referring to, and I can say that this is not the only one of great magnitude in the energy field. There are several others—each one different, and each one offering the same promise: the availability of small and cheap energy devices that would make The Individual self-sufficient. We are at a highly dangerous crossroad…’”

The Twin reporter: “A quite different memo has surfaced…this one appears to have been written by a senior public relations executive for a company located in England—‘Our efforts to squelch knowledge of several key energy breakthroughs have foundered on the rocks. We have somehow been outflanked. We set up a number of false fronts, inventors of technology who were actually on our payroll, who were destined to fail, who were intentional fakers. We thought that, in this way, we could discredit the whole alternative energy movement, but this has not been the case. Instead, interest in new forms of energy has increased. There is now a popular sentiment in favor of true decentralized energy platforms. We are retrenching our position. It’s possible we can predict new energy breakthroughs, but couch these estimates in terms of huge production costs, thereby making it seem that actual practical usage is decades away. We have analysts and reporters primed in this direction, should we choose it as our next step…”

A professor at Harvard offers his analysis in the leaked documents: “Self-sufficient energy usage (SSEU) will take focus away from national governments. Imagine these governments flailing at each other in their usual manner, but in the absence of interest and concern on the part of the citizenry. Politicians would look like sheer buffoons. It would be on the order of doctors insisting on expensive and quite risky surgery, when ingesting a small harmless food pill would cure the condition and thus make the surgery appear to be an absolutely insane solution for a problem that no longer exists…”

An opinion is put forward by a leader in the American Socialist Party: “Even if these estimates of SSEU are correct, the consequences would contradict and destroy every principle we have attempted to ingrain in the population. Untold numbers of individuals who can own and regulate their own energy will obviate the need for collective answers and programs…Even though SSEU will improve the condition of the environment, the very notion of individuals in charge of their own separate destinies will wreak psychological havoc in ways we as yet barely understand. We must stand for The Group, no matter what lurks over the horizon…”

All in all, the titanic leaks coming out of Big Oil sketch a campaign that is desperately trying to turn back the clock, framing civilization’s problems as they may have existed 50 years ago, thus requiring old centralized and authoritarian responses that no longer apply. It’s really a form of time travel—an attempt to force everyone to move backwards and be what they once were, not what they are now, or could be tomorrow…

The Twin reporter concludes: “I have in my possession a memo written by a research physicist at a Midwestern US oil company. It suggests the most radical position of all in this deeply shocking situation. The physicist states: ‘It appears that a variety of approaches produce technologies that run cars, buses, trains, planes, localized electrical grids, and home energy devices—for pennies. In other words, a great deal depends on the mindset of the isolated lone inventor. He can, as it were, come up with a description of a tiny particle no one has ever heard of, develop mathematics that describes its motion and other characteristics, and eventually discover (or invent) energy technology that actually works in a revolutionary manner. All these different scientific approaches seem to contradict each other, but clearly they don’t. In some way, they are complementary. How is this possible? We need to rethink our fundamentals about consciousness itself…’”

(Jon Rappoport  is the author of three explosive collections, The Matrix Revealed, Exit From The Matrix, and Power Outside The Matrix).

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Alan García, former president of Peru, died after being shot before being arrested

by the El Reportero’s wire services

Peruvian President Alan García died Wednesday after shooting himself in the head when he was about to be arrested on corruption charges.

Garcia, 69, underwent emergency surgery at the José Casimiro Ullóa Hospital in Lima, officials from the Health Ministry reported. A doctor who was interviewed at the hospital said that the ex-president had suffered three cardiorespiratory arrests.

Garcia’s personal secretary, Ricardo Pineda, told a Peruvian radio station that when the authorities arrived at the residence of the former president with an arrest warrant, he locked himself in his room and shot himself. Subsequently, he was taken to the hospital.

The charges against the exmandatario are related to Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction giant that last year agreed to have made payments of 800 million dollars in exchange for lucrative contracts for infrastructure projects. That revelation sparked a series of investigations by prosecutors and lawmakers, mainly in Latin America, as they sought to discover who had received the payments.

The investigations have targeted several former presidents of Peru.

Last week, Peruvian prosecutors ordered the arrest of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, predecessor of the country’s current president (Martín Vizcarra), as part of an investigation related to the case. He has been asked to be detained for up to three years while evidence is gathered.

The United States has requested the extradition of Alejandro Toledo, who was president at the beginning of the decade of the two thousand; Ollanta Humala, García’s successor, was also arrested and subsequently released.

Alan García was president of Peru from 1985 to 1990 and after 2006 to 2011; in his first term he governed during an economic collapse, and an expansion in his second presidential term.

It was precisely his second presidency that became the target of the investigation for Peruvian prosecutors, who began to examine whether campaign contributions from García’s Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA) party were linked to the Odebrecht scandal. (Source: The York Times).

Over 2,000 deportees to arrive in Honduras this week

TEGUCIPALGA- Honduras – More than 2,000 emigrants will return to Honduras deported from the United States, Mexico and Guatemala this week, said Tuesday the Head of the General Directorate of Protection of Honduran Migrants, Liza Medrano.

There were 936 arrivals on Monday, including complete family groups and unaccompanied minors, according to Medrano, quoted by the daily Primicia Honduras.

Eight flights are expected this week: six from the United States and two from Mexico, although they will also enter the country by land, she added.

A total of 22,160 Hondurans had been returned this year up to April 5, and the number has been increasing.

All returnees receive comprehensive care upon arrival and are provided with transportation facilities so that they can return to their places of origin, she added.

Hundreds of Hondurans, every day flee the country because of poverty, poor access to basic services, violence and insecurity.

Mass departures, from October to date have raised the world’s attention to this migration problem which is not new to the country, nor its causes.

Medrano urged Hondurans not to risk their lives on the migratory route, where they are exposed to fraud, drug cartels, extortion, human trafficking and smuggling, kidnapping, mutilation, injury, rape and even death. He also asked not to expose minors to these risks.

Despite the growing emigration, the deportations of many Hondurans looking for better living conditions are also striking.

Pemex Plans to Dig this Year 20 New Oil Wells

Mexico’s hydrocarbons corporation Pemex is planning to increase production this year by digging 20 new wells, the company has reported.

According to the report, particularly issued for investors, during the past three years of the previous administration no new field was developed, but with the new authorities things are different.

The Government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is working to boost the oil industry, not only by allocating 5 billion dollars announced in February, but also with a new assistance of a similar amount the Secretary of Finance and Public Credit Carlos Urzua Macias made public.

As part of the goal to rescue Pemex and expand its production, the authorities are pushing forward the plan to dig 20 wells, 16 of them in coastal waters, the rest on land.

The report for investors indicate that during the past three years of Pena Nieto administration no field was developed, though in the first half of his mandate Pemex worked in five in 2013, on two the following year and only one in 2015.

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Here’s why the book Julian Assange was holding when he was arrested is vitally important

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR:

The news of the momentum: the arrest of journalist Julian Assange in the Embassy of Ecuador in London. It has hit us journalists like a nuclear bomb today, April 11, 19 – making it a sad day for journalism. And as he was being dragged outside the building, someone paid much attention with the lens of his camera to a book he was holding. Much of this book’s content is explained here in this article, written by Matt Agorist, which I hope will be a history lesson for those who know little or only know what they learned in the American History classroom. – Vale, Marvin Ramírez.

Here’s why the Book Julian Assange was holding when he was arrested is vitally important

As he was dragged from the embassy in handcuffs, Julian Assange managed to grab a very important book

by Matt Agorist

On Thursday, several men in black suits, surrounded by a dozen cops, raided the Ecuadorian embassy in London and kidnapped Julian Assange. Moments later, the Department of Justice released a statement charging Assange with computer hacking “conspiracy” for allegedly working with US Army soldier at the time, Chelsea Manning. Assange was in handcuffs when he was brought out and as he was being dragged from the embassy, he managed to grab the book, Gore Vidal: History of the National Security State. As he was shoved into the van, Assange held the book facing forward so that it could be seen by the camera.

For those who may not know, Gore Vidal was an American author who has studied the actual history of the United States—not the propagandistic chest pumping horse manure taught in schools—but the very real, violent and corrupt history of the United States government.

Vidal was born inside this system, educated in expensive private schools in Washington DC and grew up, quite literally, surrounded by the elite. His father was a high ranking official in the Franklin Roosevelt administration and his grandfather was US senator Thomas Pryor Gore (D-Oklahoma). He was incredibly smart and would eventually become a best-selling author.

In his 30s, after writing a series of mainstream novels, Vidal decided to try his hand at historical fiction. This decision would set him on a path to waking up to the atrocities carried out by the United States dating back to Abraham Lincoln.
Vidal was one of the first public figures to question the motives and wisdom of Lincoln—and he was lambasted for it. Despite bipartisan attacks on all fronts for his critical skepticism of the United States, Vidal’s six-volume “American Chronicle” series of historical novels about the United States became best sellers.

As the years went on, Vidal became outspoken about the rise of the military industrial complex and predicted the very situation we find ourselves in today.

“The US belongs to a handful of men who also control the media. Look at General Electric. It produces nuclear weapons for the Pentagon and also owns the NBC News cable channel, which is a very sophisticated censure apparatus, intrinsic to the system. It’s genius. It’s like an electronic cage around the nation which blocks information from getting through.” ~ Gore Vidal.

In the book Assange was pictured holding, Vidal explained how the United States established the “massive military-industrial-security complex” and the “political culture that gave us the ‘Imperial Presidency.’”

The book was written by Vidal and The Real News Network senior editor Paul Jay. In it, the two dissected the apparatus that would eventually facilitate Assange’s arrest. Through propaganda and manipulation, the establishment has tricked the masses into accepting their corrupt order as the norm. Both Vidal and Assange knew this.

“It doesn’t actually make any difference whether the President is Republican or Democrat. The genius of the American ruling class is that it has been able to make the people think that they have had something to do with the electing of presidents for 200 years when they’ve had absolutely nothing to say about the candidates or the policies or the way the country is run.” ~ Gore Vidal

In the book, Vidal explains the false history of the US and how this false history is used to manipulate people into supporting mass murder and corruption.

“I think everybody should take a sober look at the world about us, remember that practically everything that you’re told about other countries is untrue, what we’re told about ourselves and our great strength and how much we are loved – forget it,” wrote Vidal.

“Our strength is there, but it’s the kind of strength that blows off your hand while you hold up the grenade; it’s a suicidal strength as well as a murderous one.”

Although Vidal died before realizing the plight of Julian Assange and the attack on the freedom of the press that it represents, he saw it coming decades in advance.

The DOJ says part of what Assange did to justify his prosecution – beyond allegedly helping Manning get the documents – is he encouraged Manning to get more docs for him to publish. Journalists do this with sources constantly: it’s the criminalization of journalism pic.twitter.com/GXNjWlkFZw. — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 11, 2019.

Sadly, not many people heeded Vidal’s words and we are witnessing a full scale attack on true independent journalism as we know it, and we are seemingly powerless to stop it. This is likely the reason Julian Assange grabbed that book and made sure we saw it as he yelled out through dozens of cops that we “must resist.”

Though Vidal had become somewhat cynical in his final years, his wisdom can help to free us from our self-imposed slavery of worshiping corruption and statism.

Julian Assange is a hero. His actions helped to expose horrifying crimes carried out by the US government, including mowing down innocent journalists with a .50 cal. His persecution by the UK and the US is retaliation and punishment for exposing these crimes and their actions, as Assange said, must be resisted.

If this established behemoth of media, government and tech giants are allowed to persist and snub out the independent press—as they are currently doing—we may soon realize George Orwell’s prediction of a boot stomping on a human face—forever.
Like Vidal, Assange wanted people to know true history as this is the path to peace. “If wars can be started by lies,” Assange so eloquently noted, “they can be stopped with the truth.”

We must resist.

“You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul.” — Gandhi #FreeJulian pic.twitter.com/KuxjsUwcq8.

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