[Majorityrights News] KP interview with James Gilmore, former diplomat and insider from first Trump administration Posted by Guessedworker on Sunday, 05 January 2025 00:35.
[Majorityrights News] Trump will ‘arm Ukraine to the teeth’ if Putin won’t negotiate ceasefire Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 12 November 2024 16:20.
[Majorityrights News] Alex Navalny, born 4th June, 1976; died at Yamalo-Nenets penitentiary 16th February, 2024 Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, 16 February 2024 23:43.
Mix96, “Theresa May wants to bring back fox hunting”, 9 May 2017:
Theresa May wants to bring back fox hunting and has said she will renew the Tory pledge to hold a free vote on overturning the ban.
The Prime Minister says she has “always been in favour of fox hunting” and will recommit to the 2015 Conservative Manifesto promise to give Parliament the chance to make a decision.
During a visit to a factory in Leeds, Mrs May said: “This is a situation on which individuals will have one view or the other, either pro or against.
“As it happens, personally I have always been in favour of fox hunting, and we maintain our commitment, we have had a commitment previously as a Conservative Party, to allow a free vote.
“It would allow Parliament the opportunity to take the decision on this.”
The Labour government banned fox hunting in England and Wales in 2004 but the issue has remained highly divisive.
David Cameron dropped the plan for a vote due to lack of support and in December 2015 sports minister Tracy Crouch said that Parliament “had better things to do than bringing back hunting foxes with hounds”.
Ms Crouch, patron of the Conservatives Against Fox Hunting group, said it was a “pursuit from the past” that should stay “consigned to history”.
A survey by Ipsos MORI in December 2016 found 84% of people were in favour of retaining the ban on fox hunting.
According to an email seen by the Mirror newspaper, pro fox hunting campaigners see a Conservative landslide win as their change to repeal the ban.
In the exchange, Conservative Lord Mancroft, chairman of the Council of Hunting Associations, said: “A majority of 50 or more would give us a real opportunity for repeal of the Hunting Act.”
He added: “While nothing in politics is certain, this is by far the best opportunity we have had since the ban, and is probably the best we are likely to get in the foreseeable future.”
He said he had been given “assurances” a parliamentary vote would be in the Conservative manifesto.
Vice, “Jared Kushner’s sister courted Chinese investors with a controversial visa program Trump just extended”, 8 May 2017:
Jared Kushner’s sister Nicole Meyer, right
The $1.2 trillion spending bill President Donald Trump signed Friday extended the controversial EB-5 program, which grants U.S. visas to foreigners, mostly from China, who invest at least $500,000 in a domestic development project.
A day later, Jared Kushner’s sister stood at the Beijing Ritz-Carlton pitching the program to a ballroom-full of at least 100 wealthy Chinese investors. “Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States,” a brochure for the event read, according to the Washington Post. The family business, Kushner Cos. LLC, needed $150 million in financing for a housing development in Jersey City, New Jersey, the New York Times reported.
While Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser at the White House, promised to fully divest from his family’s multibillion-dollar real estate empire, the presentation Saturday highlighted clear conflicts between his lingering business interests and policy decisions. Kushner has become a key diplomat in increasingly tense U.S.-China relations, among his many roles with the administration.
During the presentation, Nicole Kushner Meyer didn’t hold back linking Kushner Cos. to the current U.S. administration. She:
- mentioned that her brother left the company to work for Trump, according to the Post
- showed a slide that pictured Trump as the “key decision-maker” on the fate of the EB-5 visa, according to the Times
- encouraged attendees to invest early before the Trump administration decides to roll back the program — as Congress is pushing for, according to the Post.
Footage of U.S. President Donald Trump is shown on a video screen as workers wait for investors at a reception desk for a presentation at a Shanghai hotel. The event promoted EB-5 investment in a Kushner Companies development in the U.S., Sunday, May 7, 2017.
“It’s incredibly stupid and highly inappropriate,” Richard Painter, former White House ethics counsel for President George W. Bush, told the Post. “They clearly imply that the Kushners are going to make sure you get your visa. . . . They’re [Chinese applicants] not going to take a chance. Of course they’re going to want to invest.”
This isn’t the first family’s first ethically questionable brush with Chinese investors and the EB-5 program. Kushner Cos. could earn as much as $500 million in a planned real estate deal, which relies on the EB-5 program for funding, with a Chinese company that has close connections to the Chinese government. And loans obtained through the EB-5 program funded about one-quarter of a Trump Tower in New Jersey.
Kusher Cos. apologized “if that mention of [Meyer’s] brother was in any way interpreted as an attempt to lure investors,” in a statement emailed to NPR.
Visigrad Post, “French-Polish relations undermined by Macron’s presidential campaign”
Poland – “You know the friends of Madame Le Pen, her allies: these are the regimes of misters Orbán, Kaczyński, Putin. These are not open and free democracies. Many freedoms are violated every day and, by this, so are our principles.” (Extract from Emmanuel Macron’s speech of May 1). Which freedoms exactly? We do not know, but this phrase made the headlines throughout Polish media this week.
The candidate has already been widely talked about on the banks of the Vistula the previous week with his promise to introduce sanctions against Poland within the first three months of his investiture. The sanctions are based on the relocation of Whirlpool – Ed. in Poland - but would relate to alleged non-compliance by Poland with the EU’s “principles”: “Regarding the Whirlpool case, within three months after election, a decision will be taken on Poland. I put my responsibility on the table on this subject,” declared the replacement candidate of Voix du Nord – on April 27 by mentioning the use of Article 7 of the EU Treaty which provides for the suspension of a country’s rights as a Member State.
Even before being elected, the candidate Emmanuel Macron [...] managed to quarrel with Poland and Hungary, the two leading countries in Central and Eastern Europe. His [...] election to the presidency of the French Republic promises therefore complicated relations with the former Eastern Europe.
[...]
Polish President Andrzej Duda made it very clear on May 3 in an interview with Polish television TVP: “He will have to start work on getting Poland back to trust him and France”. The Polish Foreign Ministry reacted to Emmanuel Macron’s speech on May 1 in an official statement: “We are following with interest the election campaign in France because of the importance of this country for the future of the EU. In this context, we regret to note that once again during this presidential campaign in France, an Allied country that belongs like Poland to NATO and the European Union, a candidate for the highest office uses unacceptable comparisons and intellectual shortcuts that mislead public opinion. […] The values and principles of free democracy are respected in Poland. Among the fundamental values that have been present in the Polish culture and tradition for several hundred years, there is respect and tolerance for those with different political views […]. We expect the French President [...] to carry out an in-depth analysis before making judgments on the policies of other States and to clarify any doubts in the context of bilateral contacts”.
Photographer Zakaria Abdelkafi’s shocking photograph of a French anti-riot policeman set ablaze by a molotov cocktail has quickly spread to every corner of the world. And yesterday, only one day after Abdelkafi captured the photograph, he shared the story behind it.
PetaPixel, “The Story Behind this Viral Photo of a French Policeman on Fire”, 3 May 2017:
The photograph was taken during a march for the annual May Day workers’ rally in Paris, and has since appeared on the covers of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and countless online publications and European newspapers. In an article for his employer, Agence France-Presse, Abdelkafi said he had no idea what was about to happen.
“I always follow [a group who hide their faces behind bandanas and hoodies] because, from past experience, I know they always cause trouble,” he said. “They’re very violent.”
His dedication to following this group around occasionally gets him pushed down and beaten by the very people he’s trying to photograph. This time, he placed himself between them and CRS (Republican Security Companies) police, taking photographs as the protesters began throwing rocks, bottles, “anything that they could get their hands on” at the riot police.
That’s when a molotov cocktail went flying.
“When they threw the Molotov cocktail, I didn’t actually see it. I just saw the guy engulfed in flames and I just snapped away,” he says. “I kept on following the policeman who was burning.” He was screaming, the officers around him were screaming, the scene was as horrific as you imagine it. “He was a human being being burned alive in front of me,” says Abdelkafi. “And the demonstrators, they didn’t care. They kept throwing things at the police.”
Abdelkafi is no stranger to horrific sights—a Syrian refugee, he was forced to flee his country in 2015, ultimately receiving asylum in France and a job with AFP. He has witnessed truly horrific sights; this moment hit close to home.
“I kept thinking about his face and whether he would be scarred. I kept thinking of his family. I’ve had lots of friends who have become disfigured because they have been burned by bombs in Syria. So I know what it’s like. I wonder if they do.” he said in his AFP article. “I have seen many people die in front of me. I have seen many people wounded. But this policeman really got to me.”
According to TIME, the unidentified 41-year-old police man suffered third-degree burns on his hands and neck, and second-degree burns on his face. As for Abdelkafi, he hopes to meet the man he photographed. “I would like to go see him in the hospital and bring him flowers.”
Zaida Catalán (6 October 1980 – March 2017) was a Swedish politician who was a member of the Green Party and leader of the Young Greens of Sweden between 2001 and 2005. She was known for her work in animal rights, equality and the sex purchase law (which she supported).
Equality is one of the cornerstones of the Greens’ ideology. They promised equal pay for equal work, breaking gender segregation in employment, splitting parental leave into three parts (one for each parent and one freely transferable including to a third person close to the child), fighting violence against women, quotas for women on the boards of stock market-listed companies, investments in school health (to fight mental health problems), laws against sexist advertising which perpetuate gender norms, improving sex ed, improving support to people who have faced abuse and a law on gender mainstreaming.
While these Green Party positions might be fine in Sweden and for Swedes, it is also the case that…
[...] the Greens are the most pro-immigration party, enthusiastically supporting open borders (or a world without borders). Its manifesto endorsed a liberalization of asylum laws (an automatic right to a permanent residence permit if an asylum seeker hasn’t been deported within 2 years, facilitating family reunification, people born and permanently residing in Sweden should automatically obtain citizenship); better integration (easier access to housing and jobs for new arrivals) and fighting discrimination.
Zaida Catalán was killed while on a UN mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in March 2017. On 12 March 2017, Catalán and another UN employee were kidnapped during a mission near the village Ngombe in the Kasai Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They were both found dead on 27 March. Catalán had been beheaded and was found in a shallow grave.
Federal housing policies created after the Depression ensured that African-Americans and other people of color were left out of new suburban communities - and pushed instead into urban housing projects, such as Detroit’s Brewster-Douglass towers. Paul Sancya/AP
In 1933, faced with a housing shortage, the federal government began a program explicitly designed to increase — and segregate — America’s housing stock. Author Richard Rothstein says the housing programs begun under the New Deal were tantamount to a “state-sponsored system of segregation.”
The government’s efforts were “primarily designed to provide housing to white, middle-class, lower-middle-class families,” he says. African-Americans and other people of color were left out of the new suburban communities — and pushed instead into urban housing projects.
Rothstein’s new book, The Color of Law, examines the local, state and federal housing policies that mandated segregation. He notes that the Federal Housing Administration, which was established in 1934, furthered the segregation efforts by refusing to insure mortgages in and near African-American neighborhoods — a policy known as “redlining.” At the same time, the FHA was subsidizing builders who were mass-producing entire subdivisions for whites — with the requirement that none of the homes be sold to African-Americans.
Rothstein says these decades-old housing policies have had a lasting effect on American society. “The segregation of our metropolitan areas today leads ... to stagnant inequality, because families are much less able to be upwardly mobile when they’re living in segregated neighborhoods where opportunity is absent,” he says. “If we want greater equality in this society, if we want lowering of hostility between police and young African-American men, we need to take steps to desegregate.”
Interview Highlights
On how the Federal Housing Administration justified discrimination
The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America - by Richard Rothstein
The Federal Housing Administration’s justification was that if African-Americans bought homes in these suburbs, or even if they bought homes near these suburbs, the property values of the homes they were insuring, the white homes they were insuring, would decline. And therefore their loans would be at risk.
There was no basis for this claim on the part of the Federal Housing Administration. In fact, when African-Americans tried to buy homes in all-white neighborhoods or in mostly white neighborhoods, property values rose because African-Americans were more willing to pay more for properties than whites were, simply because their housing supply was so restricted and they had so many fewer choices. So the rationale that the Federal Housing Administration used was never based on any kind of study. It was never based on any reality.
On how federal agencies used redlining to segregate African-Americans
The term “redlining” comes from a development by the New Deal, by the federal government of maps of every metropolitan area in the country. And those maps were color-coded by first the Home Owners Loan Corp. and then the Federal Housing Administration and then adopted by the Veterans Administration, and these color codes were designed to indicate where it was safe to insure mortgages. And anywhere where African-Americans lived, anywhere where African-Americans lived nearby were colored red to indicate to appraisers that these neighborhoods were too risky to insure mortgages.
Posted by DanielS on Wednesday, 03 May 2017 23:04.
We should be more eager to suspect Jewish deep state insiders who wanted Trump to win.
‘It takes a lot of work to lose to Donald Trump.’
Indeed, and that is why it looks like she may have gotten some “gentle encouragement” (read, subtle bum steer - part of ‘a lot of work’ from (((insiders)))) to not bother addressing typical White Americans - she would have won if she could have been at all bothered to treat them like normal human beings with legitimate concerns; rather than placing herself exclusively on the side and among an entourage of blacks, liberal feminists, married gay couples, etc. - anything to be in-the-face of Whites about the new, “tolerant”, America; i.e., basically anything to represent a cartoon of the political correctness that is totally intolerant of, and eager to ignore the concerns of White Americans; demonstrating more of the same, not giving a fig about them, as they’ve experienced for decades.
The Hill, “Axelrod on Clinton: ‘It takes a lot of work to lose to Donald Trump”, 3 May 2017:
Democratic strategist David Axelrod says Hillary Clinton would be well served to move on from last year’s presidential election and stop talking about it.
“It takes a lot of work to lose to Donald Trump,” Axelrod told CNN on Wednesday. “Let me tell you, he was the least popular presidential candidate to win in the history of polling.”
Clinton on Tuesday said she takes responsibility for her 2016 presidential election loss, but added she would have won if not for FBI Director James Comey, Russian hackers and WikiLeaks.
“If the election had been on Oct. 27, I would be your president,” she told CNN at a Women for Women event in New York on Tuesday, referencing Comey’s letter informing Congress that the FBI had discovered new emails that appeared pertinent to an investigation into Clinton’s handling of classified material.
“It wasn’t a perfect campaign - there is no such thing - but I was on the way to winning until a combination of Jim Comey’s letter on Oct. 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me and got scared off.”
Axelrod called the 2016 race a “miserable slog” and said nobody in America wants to relive it “except the combatants who keep going back to it.”
“She has a legitimate beef because Comey’s letter was instrumental I think in her defeat, so in a narrow sense she is right about it,” Axelrod said.
“But Jim Comey didn’t tell her not to campaign in Wisconsin after the convention. Jim Comey didn’t say don’t put any resources into Michigan until the final week of the campaign,” he continued.
“And one of the things that hindered her in the campaign was a sense that she never fully was willing to take responsibility for her mistakes, particularly that server.”
Axelrod then offered a piece of advice for Clinton.
“If I were her, if I were advising her, I would say, ‘Don’t do this. Don’t go back and appear as if you’re shifting responsibility.’ ... She said the words ‘I’m responsible,’ but the — everything else suggested that she doesn’t really feel that way,” he said.
“And I don’t think that helps her in the long run, so if I were her I would move on.”
Axelrod was chief strategist for both of Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns and worked in the Obama White House as a senior adviser.
We should be more eager to suspect Jewish deep state insiders who wanted Trump to win.
Jared Kushner’s sister Nicole Meyer, right
