Phil1111

Berkeley cancels Ann Coulter’s speech over security concerns "Given current active security threats, it is not possible to assure that the event could be held successfully," the letter read. But Coulter told The Hollywood Reporter that she plans to speak anyway. "Yes, it was officially banned," Coulter said, according to the report. "But they can't stop me. I'm an American. I have Constitutional rights." http://thehill.com/homenews/news/329608-berkeley-cancels-ann-coulters-speech-over-security-concerns Ah!, the right to spread lies, hate and misinformation. What was the name of that organization that beat up the protestors last week in California, "freedom fighters?? The ones from Idaho??

No one sane thinks that it did. The outcome isn't the point. The fact that another superpower actively tried to interfere at all is the point. How can you not see what a huge concern that is? What they said was there was no evidence that the physical voting process. i.e. voting machines and counting was not manipulated. The psychological manipulations of news and information was not under consideration by any US agencies. As it would be very difficult to quantify.

Bill O'Reilly was safe at Fox until General Motors, Nutrisystem, and 48 other advertisers out of 100 pulled their ads. Obviously all run by leftists and Obama lovers. Be it politics or business. Follow the money.

trump's carrier battle group instead of sending a warning to North Korea. turns out be be a big sham. Like trump; " A photograph released by the Navy showed the aircraft carrier sailing through the calm waters of Sunda Strait between the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java on Saturday, April 15. By later in the day, it was in the Indian Ocean, according to Navy photographs. In other words, on the same day that the world nervously watched North Korea stage a massive military parade to celebrate the birthday of the nation’s founder, Kim Il Sung, and the press speculated about a preemptive U.S. strike, the U.S. Navy put the Carl Vinson, together with its escort of two guided-missile destroyers and a cruiser, more than 3,000 miles southwest of the Korean Peninsula — and more than 500 miles southeast of Singapore. Instead of steaming toward the Korea Peninsula, the carrier strike group was actually headed in the opposite direction to take part in “scheduled exercises with Australian forces in the Indian Ocean,” according to Defense News, which first reported the story." https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/despite-talk-of-a-military-strike-trumps-armada-was-a-long-way-from-korea/2017/04/18/e8ef4237-e26a-4cfc-b5e9-526c3a17bd41_story.html?utm_term=.b3ae703c1b67 Oh well, trump and the baby leader from N. Korea can continue on. Sabres on the ready.

They were laid off due to slowing sales, something that had been going on for centuries, not because they were replaced by robots. trump's photo stop at Boeing South Carolina received 900 million in subsidies to move that plant there. "Created 3000 "NEW" jobs" "President Donald Trump visited a Boeing aircraft factory in South Carolina on Friday, just days after workers there rejected a bid to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers." http://www.voanews.com/a/trump-visit-boeing-plant-where-workers-rejected-union/3727947.html So if one state outbids an existing union shop fly-fly-away go the jobs. A state paying $300,000 per job seems like good economics. Subsidizing aircraft manufacturing is a worldwide national pastime. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/bombardier-and-canadas-corporate-welfare-trap Bombardier lost: "In mid-January, Bombardier announced a “pause” for an “indeterminate period” in the Learjet 85 program, interpreted by some market analysts as permanently shelving the project. In light of Montreal’s taking a pre-tax special $1.4 billion write down that represents nearly 90 percent of development costs, as well as announcing a cut of 1,000 jobs at company facilities in Wichita, Kan., and Queretaro, Mexico, it appears the most ambitious Lear model ever is lapsing into a deep coma." http://aviationweek.com/bca/bombardier-learjet-85 In their failed attempt to build a carbon Learjet. The new wing on the Global 7000 was too heavy and now has to be redesigned and rebuilt. "Bombardier launched a costly redesign of the Global 7000 wing in 2015 to reduce the structural weight and not to alter its aerodynamic profile, chief executive Alain Bellemare has disclosed." https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/weight-reduction-cited-for-global-7000-wing-redesign-434265/ Which more than eats up the money from the Province of Quebec and the Gov. Canada. that it just received. Oh Airbus, Awash in subsidies from just about every EU country that it operates in. "EU rapped by WTO for $10bn a year Airbus subsidies" http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37444780

They were laid off due to slowing sales, something that had been going on for centuries, not because they were replaced by robots. trump's photo stop at Boeing South Carolina received 900 million in subsidies to move that plant there. "Created 3000 "NEW" jobs" "President Donald Trump visited a Boeing aircraft factory in South Carolina on Friday, just days after workers there rejected a bid to join the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers." http://www.voanews.com/a/trump-visit-boeing-plant-where-workers-rejected-union/3727947.html So if one state outbids an existing union shop fly-fly-away go the jobs.

You are right

Boeing Co. plans to lay off hundreds of engineers amid slowing aircraft sales, the company announced Monday. The workforce reduction scheduled for June 23 comes after the Chicago-based manufacturer laid off about 1,800 mechanics and engineers earlier this year. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/04/17/boeing-laying-off-hundreds/100573444/

A Lesson in Moscow About Trump-Style ‘Alternative Truth’ Jim Rutenberg NY Times APRIL 16, 2017 MOSCOW — I wanted to better understand President Trump’s America, a place where truth is being ripped from its moorings as he brands those tasked with lashing it back into place — journalists — as dishonest enemies of the people. So I went to Russia. It was like a visit to the land of Alternative Truth Yet to Come. But it also gave me a glimpse into how our new national look is playing in the global information war, where competing narratives are clashing along a sliding scale of fact and fiction. I had picked a ghoulishly perfect week to swing through President Vladimir V. Putin’s Moscow, where spring was struggling to break out over the low-slung, slate-gray cityscape. Mr. Trump had just ordered a Tomahawk strike against Syria’s Shayrat air base, from which, the United States said, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria had launched the chemical weapons attack that killed more than 80 and sickened hundreds. As soon as I turned on a television here I wondered if I had arrived through an alt-right wormhole. Back in the States, the prevailing notion in the news was that Mr. Assad had indeed been responsible for the chemical strike. There was some “reportage” from sources like the conspiracy theorist and radio host Alex Jones — best known for suggesting that the Sandy Hook school massacre was staged — that the chemical attack was a “false flag” operation by terrorist rebel groups to goad the United States into attacking Mr. Assad. But that was a view from the fringe. Here in Russia, it was the dominant theme throughout the overwhelmingly state-controlled mainstream media. On the popular Russian television program “Vesti Nedeli,” the host, Dmitry Kiselyov, questioned how Syria could have been responsible for the attack. After all, he said, the Assad government had destroyed all of its chemical weapons. It was the terrorists who possessed them, said Mr. Kiselyov, who also heads Russia’s main state-run international media arm. One of Mr. Kiselyov’s correspondents on the scene mocked “Western propagandists” for believing the Trump line, saying munitions at the air base had “as much to do with chemical weapons as the test tube in the hands of Colin Powell had to do with weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” That teed up Mr. Putin to suggest in nationally televised comments a couple of days later that perhaps the attack was an intentional “provocation” by the rebels to goad the United States into attacking Mr. Assad. RT, the Russian-financed English-language news service, initially translated Mr. Putin as calling it a “false flag.” The full Alex Jones was complete. When Trump administration officials tried to counter Russia’s “false narratives” by releasing to reporters a declassified report detailing Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles — and suggesting to The Associated Press without proof that Russia knew of Mr. Assad’s plans to use chemical weapons in advance — the Russians had a ready answer borrowed from Mr. Trump himself. As the pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia put it, “Apparently it was for good reason Donald Trump called unverified information in the mass media one of the main problems in the U.S.” It was the best evidence I’ve seen of the folly of Mr. Trump’s anti-press approach. You can’t spend more than a year attacking the credibility of the “dishonest media” and then expect to use its journalism as support for your position during an international crisis — at least not with any success. While Mr. Trump and his supporters may think that undermining the news media serves their larger interests, in this great information war it serves Mr. Putin’s interests more. It means playing on his turf, where he excels. Integral to Mr. Putin’s governing style has been a pliant press that makes his government the main arbiter of truth. While talking to the beaten but unbowed members of the real journalism community here, I heard eerie hints of Trumpian proclamations in their war stories. Take Mr. Trump’s implicit threat to the owner of The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, during the election campaign. In case you’ve forgotten, while calling The Post’s coverage of him “horrible and false,” Mr. Trump warned that if he won the presidency Mr. Bezos’s other business, Amazon, would have “such problems.” (The Post was undaunted, and the issue hasn’t come up again.) The government here doesn’t make threats like that. Things just happen. That was the case last year at the independent media company RBC after its flagship newspaper reported on sensitive financial arrangements of members of Mr. Putin’s family and his associates. The Russian authorities raided the offices of its oligarch owner, Mikhail Prokhorov. Within a few weeks its top three editors had left. The Kremlin denied involvement. But it must have liked the new editor’s message to the RBC staff: Journalism is like driving, and “if you drive over the solid double line they take away your license.” Mr. Prokhorov is considering selling RBC to another oligarch who is closer to the government, the Russian business journal Vedomosti reported on Tuesday. That same day, I met with one of the former RBC editors, Roman Badanin. We chatted at his new place of employment, TV Rain, in the Flacon warehouse complex here, populated by young people with beards, tattoos, piercings and colored hair. (Brooklyn hipster imperialism knows no bounds.) TV Rain has its own hard-luck tale. It was Russia’s only independent television station. Carried mainly on cable, it regularly covered anti-Putin protests and aired voices excluded from the rest of television. But after it ran an online poll asking whether Russia should have abandoned Leningrad to the Nazis to save lives — deeply offending Russian national pride, and receiving a public rebuke from Mr. Putin’s top spokesman — its landlord evicted it and its cable carriers dropped it. It now lives primarily as a subscription service on the internet, which remains fairly free given Mr. Putin’s primary focus on television as the most powerful medium in the country. (Mr. Badanin and others worry that’s going to change, too.) When I asked Mr. Badanin what would be different if Russia had full press freedoms, he looked at me wearily and said: “Everything. Sorry for that common answer, but everything.” Despite steep challenges, people like Mr. Badanin are still battling on. Their journalistic spirit couldn’t be killed, even after some of their friends and colleagues had been. One newspaper here, Novaya Gazeta, has lost five reporters to violence or suspicious circumstances since the turn of the century. Toward the end of the week, I went to its spartan offices in central Moscow to visit its longtime editor, Dmitri Muratov, who has fiercely guarded the paper’s independence through all of the killings and the crackdowns. With the gallows humor of a seasoned journalist, Mr. Muratov was in a jovial mood and told me that he was getting a great kick out of state media’s hard turn against Mr. Trump. Initially, Mr. Muratov said of the president, “he was treated as warmly as McDonald’s; he entered every home like he was our national Santa Claus.” Mr. Muratov had no doubt the sentiment toward Mr. Trump would reverse again, perhaps soon. (To borrow from “1984”: “Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”) Novaya Gazeta had the toughest coverage on the chemical weapons attack that I saw here, challenging the government narrative with reporting from the ground indicating the chemical weapons were dropped from the air. (The anti-Assad forces do not have airplanes.) There’s a lot of speculation in Russian media circles about why the Kremlin allows Novaya Gazeta to continue to operate. Mr. Muratov says he believes it’s because the newspaper is not owned by a single businessman subject to pressure. The newspaper’s staff owns a majority of the shares, and the rest of them are owned by the former Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and the Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev. (Mr. Lebedev told The Guardian last year that he was no longer financing newsroom operations because of “the strain.”) That, and a loyal subscriber base of more than 240,000, help insulate it from outside pressure, if not the violence. The very day of my visit, Mr. Muratov received a threat against his entire staff from religious leaders in Chechnya, angry over articles about anti-gay violence in the region. The Novaya Gazeta offices are scattered with reminders to take such threats seriously, like the case that holds the dusty desktop computer of Anna Politkovskaya. She was shot dead in her apartment building in 2006 after exposing human rights abuses in Chechnya and writing unflinchingly about Mr. Putin. I wondered aloud whether it scared any of Mr. Muratov’s reporters away from certain stories. He turned serious, looked straight at me and said, “I really wish it could.” Mr. Muratov follows the American news media closely. I asked him what he thought about the American press corps’ quandary when it comes to covering a president, like Mr. Trump, who trades in falsehoods and demonizes journalists. He seemed put off by the question; the answer, to him, was so obvious. “Information from the Kremlin or from the White House, it’s not for us verified information,” he said. “We don’t place our trust just on their word.” It’s a lesson American reporters should have learned long before Mr. Trump came along, especially after Iraq. Journalists in Russia like Mr. Muratov haven’t lost sight of that lesson because they can’t afford to. Neither can we. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/16/business/media/vladimir-putin-moscow-press-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Considering it has no engine, thats allot better price. Its getting better all the time. Price dripping and effectiveness rising. The number of ISIL fighters killed after the United States' army dropped its largest non-nuclear bomb was at least 90, Afghan officials said on Saturday, raising a death toll of 36 reported a day earlier... "We pulled out 90 dead bodies of fighters who lived underground in those tunnels and caves for years, operating and planning attack across the country.".. An elderly man who lives close to the bombing site in Achin's Momand Dara area told the AFP news agency the blast was so piercingly loud that his infant granddaughter was experiencing hearing loss... The Taliban armed group, which is expected to soon announce the start of this year's fighting season, also denounced the bombing. "Using this massive bomb cannot be justified and will leave a material and psychological impact on our people," the armed group said in a statement. ISIL has made inroads into Afghanistan in recent years, attracting disaffected members of the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban as well as Uzbek fighters But the group has been steadily losing ground in the face of heavy pressure both from US air raids and a ground offensive led by Afghan forces. http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/04/afghanistan-scores-isil-fighters-dead-moab-raid-170415071056526.html

LOL. How big of an area counts as 'hovering', how often do conditions in any given place make this feasible, and what range of altitudes would a balloon need to run through to make this happen? Ballpark figure? Rough estimate? How many zeroes before the decimal point? I must have missed that. I have about 10 launches, 4-5 hours PIC in hot air balloons and another 5-6 jumps from them. Somehow I missed the lessons on hovering. Might have been drunk that day.

http://www.space.com/5401-french-space-diver-balloon-takes.html http://www.pdsol.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Why_Try_to_Jump_from_Space.pdf

Here is a start for you. As always, I'll be ready to be jumper number 1001. Call me then. http://spacegrant.colorado.edu/COSGC_Projects/space/Documents/Verhage/NearSpace0%5B1%5D.pdf

I'm a gonna say BS on all that. There is about 60# of lift per 1000 cu ft of commercial he at the surface. Which can grow to 80 times that volume at altitude. So one jumper with equipment @ 230 lbs and balloon weight, basket weight, etc. you likely have 300-400 lbs. = 5800 cu ft at the surface and 460,000 cu ft at altitude depending on height. Per jumper.

The three greatest understatements in the history of mankind. Ok ok thats a lie. But understated truths at a minimum.

Putin Is Looking Vulnerable in a Crumbling Russia At first glance, Russian actions since the 2014 annexation of Crimea appear to signal a resurgence of power in the international system. Increases in military spending, forays into the Middle East and a foreign policy punching above its weight have all served to remind the world that Russia maintains influence on the global stage. However, behind the Cold War-levels of military activity and violations of international laws are fundamental issues which will plague Russia going forward. Demographic struggles have stricken the state since World War II, commodity price fluctuations and sanctions have crippled economic output and the current defense spending trends are unsustainable. Against the backdrop of harsh economic reality, the illusion of Russian resurgence can only be maintained for so long, and NATO policymakers should take note.... The Russian people, however, are still in dire straits. In 2016, one-quarter of Russian companies cut salaries. Overall, the average Russian wage dropped 8 percent last year and 9.5 percent the year before. International sanctions imposed on Russia continue to cause problems, and energy prices have not recovered to previous highs.... Yet while a cursory examination of approval ratings may show an unassailably popular leader, Putin’s power structure is more fragile than it first appears. Financial strain will continue to pressure state-dependent segments of the Russian populace, which have historically been the bedrock of Putin’s support. It seems Putin’s Russia won’t perish in a Manichean clash in the Fulda Gap, but like the Soviet Union before it, today’s Russia will crumble under the weight of its own mismanagement and economic failure. Perhaps history does repeat itself. http://www.newsweek.com/putin-looking-vulnerable-crumbling-russia-583593

It is astonishing how long it is taking for some people to realize: 1. Trump has no ideology. He is too shallow to think that deeply. 2. He is a carnival-barker / demagogue who says whatever he thinks his immediate audience wants to hear. I think the recent flip-flopping is all about Kushner displacing Bannon as the main influence. I am becoming fascinated about exactly how Kushner has pulled this off. I had thought Trump was too much the narcissist to listen to anyone but the voices in his own head. largely agree, but there is another Steve Trump’s got a new favorite Steve But while Steve Bannon is on the ropes in Trump’s fractious White House, Stephen Miller has managed to endear himself to the man emerging as the president’s most indispensable adviser: son-in-law Jared Kushner. As the relationship between Kushner and Bannon has deteriorated, Miller has made sure his colleagues know he’s not on Bannon’s team. In interviews, seven White House officials described the emerging dynamics. ... The shifting and seemingly divergent fortunes of the president’s most ideologically committed advisers, both nationalist firebrands who forged their partnership working together to scuttle the 2013 “Gang of Eight” immigration reform bill, illustrates the changing imperatives for those closest to Trump as he learns how to govern. In conversations with colleagues, Miller has taken pains to distance himself from Bannon, despite their ideological kinship and long collaboration issues like immigration... More than anything, White House officials say, he has undeniable loyalty to the president. He will never contradict Trump, no matter what the president says. He will reinforce the president's beliefs with news articles that support them. And unlike Bannon, a wealthy man in his own right, the president doesn’t see Miller as a peer or someone trying to take the spotlight, unless he’s been allowed to take it. “I am prepared to go on any show, anywhere, anytime and repeat it and say the president of the United States is correct 100 percent,” he said in February. http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/stephen-miller-white-house-trump-237216 The new Steve favorite sounds like the ultimate trump man. The ultimate yes man.

Completely agree. Trump's unpredictability may be the answer needed for Un's unpredictability. China's national airline, Air China, has canceled some flights to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, due to poor demand but it has not suspended all flights there, it said on Friday, denying a report by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV. CCTV had reported that all flights run by the airline between the two cities were to be suspended indefinitely. "Air China did not stop operation of the Beijing to Pyongyang route, but temporarily canceled some flights based on the situation of ticket sales," said a person in Air China's communications team. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-china-airline-idUSKBN17G11O?il=0

Because they didn't want to blow $7m on a publicity stunt? Apparently 36 IS fighters were killed. Not sure this was a good return on investment. On previous day it seems we killed 18 friendlies in an air attack on Tabqah I read elsewhere that there were about 800 IS fighters in the area. 36 Ain't bad and certainly those buried below ground can't be counted. I'm surprised by the publicity this has generated. The biggest conventional bomb ever deployed by the US was 43,000 lbs from a B-36. In WW-2 Britain used 12,000 lb bombs regularly to attack German battleships and sub pens. In Vietnam tear-gas powder was used for denying the enemy the use of tunnels. Once spread into the tunnel any movement by a person would stir it up. Plus regular CS tear gas which was pumped into tunnels. I'll give President Trump credit for giving the military the freedom of action vr. micromanagement from the Pentagon, Washington, etc. by politician lawyers. Each MOAB costs around $16 million, according to military information website Deagel. With 20 made so far, the site says the U.S. military has spent some $314 million on the production of the explosive. http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/13/what-we-know-about-the-mother-all-bombs-that-was-dropped-on-afghanistan.html

If children need protection from sexual exploitation and mistreatment. Catholic priests should be examined first. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_sex_abuse_cases_by_country#United_States Archdiocese of Anchorage See also: Sexual abuse scandal in the Society of Jesus In 2007, the Society of Jesus made a $50 million payout to over 100 Inuit who alleged that they had been sexually abused. The settlement did not require them to admit molesting Inuit children, but accusations involved 13 or 14 priests who allegedly molested these children for 30 years.[73] In 2008, the Diocese of Fairbanks, a co-defendant in the case, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, claiming inability to pay the 140 plaintiffs filing claims against the diocese for alleged sexual abuse by priests or church workers during this period.[74][75][76] Archdiocese of Boston Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Boston Allegations of sexual misconduct by priests of the Archdiocese of Boston, and following revelations of a cover-up by the Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, became known in 2004, causing Roman Catholics in other dioceses of the United States to investigate similar situations. Cardinal Law's actions prompted public scrutiny of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the steps taken in response to past and current allegations of sexual misconduct by priests. The events in the Archdiocese of Boston became a national scandal. Archdiocese of Chicago Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Chicago Daniel McCormack, a self-confessed sexually abusive priest was sentenced to five years in prison for abusing five boys (8–12 years) in 2001.[77] Diocese of Crookston Rev. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul was charged with molesting two teenage girls at a Catholic church in Greenbush, Minnesota, a small rural town near the Canada–United States border. The abuse occurred in 2004, and charges were filed in 2006 and amended in 2007.[78] Without facing legal punishment, Jevapaul returned to his home diocese in Ootacamund, India, where today he works in the church’s diocesan office. A Roseau County, Minnesota attorney is seeking to extradite the priest from India in a criminal case involving one of the girls.[79] The Archbishop of Madras, India (Madras is now called "Chennai") has asked Jeyapaul to return to the US to face the charges.[80] Jevapaul has said that he will not fight extradition if the US seeks it.[81] Diocese of Davenport Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in Davenport diocese On 10 October 2006, the Diocese of Davenport filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.[82] Archdiocese of Denver In July 2008 the Archdiocese of Denver paid a settlement of $5.5 million to 18 claims of alleged sexual abuse perpetrated by two clerics between the years of 1954 and 1981.[83] Archdiocese of Dubuque Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in Dubuque archdiocese In 2006 the Archdiocese settled a number of claims of sexual abuse, and the Archbishop offered a personal apology.[84] Diocese of Fall River Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in Fall River diocese Father James Porter was a Roman Catholic priest who was convicted of molesting 28 children;[85] He admitted sexually abusing at least 100 of both sexes over a period of 30 years, starting in the 1960s.[86] Bishop Sean O'Malley settled 101 abuse claims and initiated a zero-tolerance policy against sexual abuse. He also instituted one of the first comprehensive sexual abuse policies in the Roman Catholic Church.[87] Diocese of Honolulu Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in Honolulu diocese Reverend Joseph Bukoski, III, SS.CC., Honolulu, Hawaii, a member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary was canonically removed in 2003 as the pastor of Maria Lanakila Catholic Church in Lahaina by Bishop Francis X. DiLorenzo for allegations relating to sexual improprieties some 30 years earlier. Fr. Bukoski issued a written public apology to his victim on 12 November 2005. Reverend Mr. James "Ron" Gonsalves, Wailuku, Hawaii, Gonsalves the administrator of Saint Ann Roman Catholic Church in Waihee, Maui, pleaded guilty on 17 May 2006 to several counts of sexual assault on a 12-year-old male. Bishop Clarence Richard Silva has permanently withdrawn his faculties and has initiated laicization proceedings against Deacon Gonsalves with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Archdiocese of Los Angeles Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles The Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay out 60 million dollars to settle 45 lawsuits it still faces over 450 other pending cases. According to the Associated Press, 22 priests were involved in the settlement with cases going back as far as the 1930s.[88] 20 million dollars of this was paid by the insurers of the archdiocese. The main administrative office of the archdiocese is due to be sold to cover the cost of these and future lawsuits. The archdiocese will settle about 500 cases for about $600 million.[89] Diocese of Memphis The Diocese of Memphis reached a $2 million settlement with a man who was abused as a boy by Father Juan Carlos Duran, a priest with a history of sexual misconduct with juveniles in St. Louis, Panama, and Bolivia.[90] Archdiocese of Miami Main article: Sexual abuse scandal in Miami archdiocese Since 1966, the Archdiocese of Miami Insurance Programs have paid $26.1 million in settlement, legal, and counseling costs associated with sexual misconduct allegations made by minors involving priests, laity and religious brothers and sisters.[91] Eddie Lee Long (May 12, 1953 – January 15, 2017) was an American pastor who served as the senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, a megachurch in unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, from 1987 until his death in 2017. When Long started as pastor for New Birth Church, there were 300 church members, which grew to 25,000.[3] During this time, Long was a subject of a Senate investigation, concerning whether he personally profited from his church's tax-exempt status, which eventually ended without a finding of wrongdoing. Also, civil lawsuits were filed against him alleging sexual abuse of multiple underage male members of his parish. Long denied wrongdoing through his attorneys and privately settled the lawsuits out of court for undisclosed amounts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Long Eddie Long's jet of choice for child molestation? The Gulfstream II About 1/2. Odd how the Alt-right, trump and the Christian fundamentalists seem to have missed this.

What do you call a person who does all of those things? The Atlantic wrote a story just for you! Trump’s Disillusioned Supporters The president’s military action in Syria is a bitter disappointment for some of his biggest fans. At the end of the story trump's biggest fan is asked for comment Asked for comment for this piece, Coulter declined in an email. “I’m too depressed,” she said. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/04/trumps-disillusioned-supporters/522336/ Ahhhh! the pretty racist little bigot is depressed. I almost feel bad for taking pleasure in her plight.. But NOT

After Campaign Exit, Manafort Borrowed From Businesses With Trump Ties By MIKE McINTIREAPRIL 12, 2017 NY Times Aug. 19 was an eventful day for Paul Manafort. That morning, he stepped down from guiding Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaign, after a brief tenure during which Mr. Trump won the Republican nomination, Democrats’ emails were hacked and the campaign’s contacts with Russia came under scrutiny. Dogged by revelations about past financial dealings in Ukraine, Mr. Manafort retreated from public view. But behind the scenes, he was busy with other matters. Papers were recorded that same day creating a shell company controlled by Mr. Manafort that soon received $13 million in loans from two businesses with ties to Mr. Trump, including one that partners with a Ukrainian-born billionaire and another led by a Trump economic adviser. They were among $20 million in loans secured by properties belonging to Mr. Manafort and his wife. The purpose of the loans is unstated in public records, although at least some of them appear to be part of an effort by Mr. Manafort to stave off a personal financial crisis stemming from failed investments with his son-in-law. The transactions raise a number of questions, including whether Mr. Manafort’s decision to turn to Trump-connected lenders was related to his role in the campaign, where he had agreed to serve for free. They also shine a light on the rich real estate portfolio that Mr. Manafort acquired during and after the years he worked in Ukraine. Mr. Manafort, often using shell companies, invested millions of dollars in various properties, including apartments and condos in New York, homes in Florida and Virginia and luxury houses in Los Angeles. Mr. Manafort’s ties to Ukraine and Russia have come under scrutiny as federal officials investigate Russian meddling in the American presidential election. Investigators are known to have examined aspects of his finances, including bank accounts he had in the secretive tax haven of Cyprus; there is no indication his recent loans are part of the inquiry. The source of the money for the real estate purchases is not clear, and Mr. Manafort never filed lobbying registrations for his work in Ukraine that would have disclosed his compensation. Such registrations are necessary for activities that involve influencing policy and public opinion in the United States, and some of Mr. Manafort’s Ukraine work appeared to fall into that category. Anti-corruption officials in Ukraine say $12.7 million in “off the books” cash payments were earmarked for him in a handwritten ledger kept by the political party of the deposed strongman Viktor F. Yanukovych. Last month, a Ukrainian lawmaker released documents that appeared to corroborate one of the ledger entries, and on Wednesday The Associated Press reported confirmation of another payment. The two payments in 2007 and 2009, totaling $1.2 million, were routed through shell companies in Belize to a bank account in Virginia belonging to Mr. Manafort’s consulting firm. Mr. Manafort has previously claimed the ledger is a fake. On Wednesday, he issued a statement that did not dispute the ledger entries, but suggested that any payments he received were legal because they were not made in cash. “Mr. Manafort has always denied that he ever received any cash payments for his work and has consistently maintained that he received all of his payments, for services rendered, through wire transfers conducted through the international banking system,” the statement said. Separately on Wednesday, a spokesman for Mr. Manafort said he had “received formal guidance recently from the authorities” on the need to register, retroactively, for lobbying work in Ukraine, and was “taking appropriate steps in response.” Mr. Manafort was advised last week that he should file the belated registration within 30 days to come into compliance with the law, according to a person with direct knowledge of conversations between Mr. Manafort’s lawyers and the Justice Department. One of Mr. Manafort’s recent loans, previously unreported, was for $3.5 million in September from the private lending unit of Spruce Capital, a small New York investment firm that has a Ukrainian connection through the billionaire Alexander Rovt. An American citizen who made his fortune in the privatization of the fertilizer industry in post-Soviet Ukraine and has long done business in that part of the world, Mr. Rovt is a financial backer of Spruce, whose co-founder Joshua Crane has been a developer of Trump hotel projects. Mr. Crane did not respond to requests for comment. Mr. Rovt, who donated $10,000 to Mr. Trump’s campaign on Election Day — the campaign refunded most of it because it was over the legal maximum of $2,700 — said he had never met Mr. Manafort and was not involved in the loan to him. “I did not recommend him or put the parties together,” Mr. Rovt said in an email provided by his lawyer. Mr. Manafort declined to answer specific questions about any of his loans, other than to say that they “are personal and all reflect arm’s-length transactions at or above market rates.” He derided the interest that his finances had generated in the news media and among do-it-yourself researchers, some of whom have even set up a website that dissects his loans. “There is nothing out of the ordinary about them,” Mr. Manafort said, “and I am confident anyone who isn’t afflicted with scandal fever will come to the same conclusion.” A Trail of Scandal Scandal has trailed Mr. Manafort since his earliest work as an international lobbyist and consultant in the 1980s, when he testified before Congress about influence peddling to win federal housing contracts and was linked to $10 million in cash that a confidant of the Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos claimed was delivered to Mr. Manafort in a suitcase. In the 1990s, Mr. Manafort’s work for clients such as the Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi was cited in a human rights watchdog report, “The Torturers’ Lobby,” which examined Washington consultants who catered to brutal regimes. Mr. Manafort went to work for Mr. Yanukovych and his Russian-backed Party of Regions in the mid-2000s, and during that time also entered into business deals with two oligarchs, Oleg Deripaska of Russia and Dmytro Firtash of Ukraine. Both deals, which were ultimately unsuccessful, involved the use of murky offshore companies and were tainted by allegations that cronies of Mr. Yanukovych’s schemed to funnel assets out of Ukraine. The transaction with Mr. Deripaska, a billionaire industrialist close to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, involved the attempted purchase of a Ukrainian cable telecommunications business using $18.9 million that Mr. Deripaska invested in a Cayman Islands partnership managed by Mr. Manafort. The cable business was controlled by offshore shell companies that Ukrainian anti-corruption investigators said were used by Mr. Yanukovych’s inner circle to loot public assets. And last summer, the Ukrainian investigators announced the discovery of the handwritten ledger, said to have been kept in the offices of Mr. Yanukovych’s political party before he was ousted in 2014, which showed the $12.7 million in payments designated for Mr. Manafort. The nature of Mr. Manafort’s work in Ukraine appeared to concern his family, according to text messages belonging to one of his adult daughters, Andrea, which were hacked last year and posted on a website used by Ukrainian hackers. The thousands of messages span from 2012 to 2016 and include references to millions of dollars Mr. Manafort apparently transferred to his two daughters. In one text written in 2015, Ms. Manafort, a lawyer, called her father’s activities in Ukraine “legally questionable,” and in a separate exchange with her sister, Jessica, she worried that cash he gave them was tainted by the violent response to the uprising that ultimately led to the downfall of Mr. Manafort’s client, Mr. Yanukovych. “Don’t fool yourself,” Ms. Manafort wrote. “That money we have is blood money.” In addition to the money he gave his daughters, Mr. Manafort also began acquiring a number of real estate assets during the years he worked in Ukraine, several of them costing millions of dollars and bought with cash. Among them is an apartment in Trump Tower in Manhattan, bought in 2006 for $3.7 million, and a Brooklyn brownstone bought in 2012 for $3 million. Being able to cite his Trump Tower address came in handy when he pitched his services to Mr. Trump’s campaign early in 2016. By then, Mr. Manafort had been out of American politics for many years, but he expressed a desire to get back in the game and offered to work free, suggesting that he did not need the money. Soon, however, he was embarking on a borrowing spree, using his many properties as collateral, including a summer home in the Hamptons valued at more than $11 million. The transactions began with the filing of papers that created the shell company, Summerbreeze L.L.C., on Aug. 19 as Mr. Manafort’s resignation as campaign chairman was being announced. Shortly thereafter, Summerbreeze obtained the $3.5 million loan from the Spruce Capital unit. In November, after Mr. Trump won the presidential election, Summerbreeze received a second loan, for $9.5 million, from Federal Savings Bank of Chicago, which focuses on affordable mortgages for military veterans and is headed by Stephen M. Calk, a senior economic adviser to Mr. Trump at the time. The collateral for the loan included Mr. Manafort’s Hamptons home and other assets. In addition to the loans taken out on the Hamptons house, Mr. Manafort has recently obtained mortgages on another property. Those loans, totaling $6.6 million, were obtained in January on a brownstone in Brooklyn and also came from Federal Savings Bank in Chicago. Soured Investments Mr. Manafort declined to explain the purpose of his loans. But a review of public records suggests at least some of them are connected to efforts to salvage investments he made with Jessica Manafort’s husband, Jeffrey Yohai, whose real estate business filed for bankruptcy in December. Mr. Yohai faces a lawsuit by another co-investor who claims he exploited his connections to Mr. Manafort “to meet numerous public figures and celebrities” and solicit investments from them; Mr. Yohai denies the accusations. In an affidavit filed in the bankruptcy case, Mr. Manafort said he had decided to “assist with additional funding to protect my existing investments,” totaling more than $4 million, in several luxury properties in California owned by limited liability companies controlled by Mr. Yohai. Why Mr. Manafort opted to go to Spruce Capital and the Chicago bank for the loans is unclear. For Federal Savings, Mr. Manafort’s loans amount to about 5.4 percent of the bank’s total assets. Mr. Calk did not respond to messages seeking comment, and a spokeswoman for Federal Savings said it would not discuss its customers’ business. At Spruce Capital, the loan secured by the Hamptons house appeared to be somewhat unusual. Of the 40 transactions listed under “recent activities” on the investment group’s lending unit website, it was the only one outside of New York City and the sole loan involving a single-family house. Mr. Crane, the co-founder of Spruce Capital, had previously been involved in two Trump projects, including a Trump International Hotel & Tower in Waikiki. Mr. Rovt, who has partnered with Mr. Crane’s firm on several major real estate investments in New York and is an investor in its lending business, is active in the Ukrainian-American community. Last year, he took part in a small panel discussion on Ukrainian relations at Manor College in Pennsylvania, where he shared the stage with Andrii V. Artemenko, a member of the Ukrainian Parliament. The New York Times reported in February that Mr. Artemenko worked behind the scenes with Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer, and Felix H. Sater, a former business associate of Mr. Trump’s, to relay a proposed Ukrainian-Russian peace plan to the White House. Mr. Rovt, through his lawyer, said that he knew Mr. Artemenko, but that he was “not involved in any peace proposal.” As for his excessive last-minute donation to Mr. Trump in November, it stands out, given that Mr. Rovt had previously donated almost exclusively to Democrats during the election —– including $2,700 to Hillary Clinton in February 2016. Mr. Rovt said the reason was simple: Friends had been encouraging him to support the Trump campaign. “So,” he said, “I finally did.” https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/12/us/politics/paul-manafort-donald-trump.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Correct, but we still have the account of the victim's parents and the prosecutor that actually saw the video. Not sure what you mean. "The prosecutor's office said the family of the victim and the victim's attorney approved the the following settlements reached in the three cases presided over by the Hon. Thomas H. Borresen:" from the last link. They all plead guilty so there was no trial per say.

Apparently the two never even met. Putin and Page likely never met either. Clearly that means that Page could never be an agent for Russia. He may or may not that goes the same from general Flynn. They are both out and have no demonstrable influence on policy. Why continue with your hair on fire. Three of his former staff have turned out to be Russian or Ukrainian foreign agents. Your reaction to this is: move along, nothing to see here. I have a hard time thinking this is all just coincidence. Specially since he didn't fire some of these guys until after it became public knowledge and not when he was told. I am beginning to think that all the sabre rattling over N. Korea. Is nothing but an attempt to change the subject from a trump point of view on all the investigations.

Here is a longer and more detailed account of the sexual assault. trump and Idaho. “If You Want to Live Here, You Need to Live by the Rules Here” Last month, rumors began to ricochet around the city of Twin Falls, Idaho, that three Syrian refugees had raped a 5-year-old girl. Some in town said that the attackers, all juveniles themselves, held the girl at knifepoint. It was said that they urinated on her naked body and that one of the boys’ fathers high-fived his son when he learned what he had done.... Soon the story of the alleged rape spread beyond Twin Falls. One resident provided an anonymous report to a right-wing website called BehindMyBack.org. The anti-Muslim blog Creeping Sharia picked up the report, and by June 20, it had migrated to Infowars.com, a conspiracy site favored by Donald Trump. The Drudge Report trumpeted the Infowars story with the headline “Syrian Refugees Rape Little Girl at Knifepoint in Idaho.” The story circulating online was wrong in all its particulars. On June 20, Twin Falls county prosecutor Grant Loebs told the local newspaper, “There were no Syrians involved, there was no knife involved, there was no gang rape.” He blamed anti-refugee groups for circulating misinformation. “There is a small group of people in Twin Falls County whose life goal is to eliminate refugees, and thus far they have not been constrained by the truth,” Loebs said. Yet as wild as the rumors were, they’d grown from a kernel of truth. There had been an incident involving three boys, ages 7, 10, and 14, and a mentally disabled 5-year-old girl; Loebs described it to me as a “very serious felony.” On June 2, an 89-year-old neighbor discovered the children in the laundry room at the Fawnbrook Apartments, a low-income housing complex. The youngest boy is from Iraq while the older ones, brothers, are from an Eritrean family that passed through Sudanese refugee camps. (Most news reports have identified the older boys as Sudanese.) Only the youngest boy, Loebs said, is alleged to have touched the girl, though investigators suspect the 10-year-old might have as well; the elder boys reportedly made a video. Because everyone involved in the case is a minor, the records were sealed. Nevertheless, on the evening of June 20, Twin Falls Police Chief Craig Kingsbury appeared at the weekly City Council meeting to update the anxious public as best he could. He announced that police had arrested the two older boys the previous Friday and that they were being held in juvenile detention. (Loebs later told me that the 7-year-old was also charged with a felony but wasn’t taken into custody because of his age.) Kingsbury laid out how the investigation had been conducted, elaborating the police department’s procedures for questioning children in sexual abuse cases and explaining why it took weeks to charge the boys.... Julie Ruf, head of the local chapter of ACT for America—the country’s largest grassroots anti-Muslim organization—took the microphone during the part of the City Council meeting set aside for public comment. “... speaker after speaker stood up to denounce Islam and warn that terror had come to Twin Falls. A white-haired woman named Vicky Davis said, “The nation of Islam has declared global jihad on us. And Obama, this administration, is bringing them in as fast as he possibly can. And why do you think he’s doing that? Do you think it’s out of the goodness of his heart? It isn’t! There is a war on the American people! And you people are allowing the importation of these people, these people who have declared war on us.” http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/07/sexual_assault_case_involving_refugees_in_idaho_in_the_age_of_donald_trump.html Twin Falls Police Chief Craig Kingsbury has said that all three boys had been in the United States for less than two years at the time of the assault, but he wasn't certain of their refugee status. The prosecutor's office said the family of the victim and the victim's attorney approved the the following settlements reached in the three cases presided over by the Hon. Thomas H. Borresen: - One defendant pleaded guilty to felony sexual exploitation of a child and misdemeanor battery. - The second defendant pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting felony lewd conduct and aiding and abetting misdemeanor battery. - The third boy pleaded guilty to accessory to the commission of a felony. Twin Falls authorities last summer said other misinformation that circulated on social media and online included that the boys gang-raped the girl, that they were armed with a knife, or that a parent of one of the children "high-fived" or congratulated them on the sexual assault. Because the boys are juveniles, specific details about the case are sealed. Sentencing dispositions will be held later, the prosecutor's office said. http://www.ktvb.com/news/crime/boys-plead-guilty-in-assault-of-girl-at-twin-falls-apartments/428601503