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National Guard in Baltimore: Armored vehicles, military gear (PHOTOS, VIDEO)
National Guard troops stand watch along E. Pratt St. in Baltimore, Maryland April 28, 2015. (Reuters / Eric Thayer)
Riots in Baltimore, Maryland have largely subsided since protests there - in the wake of Freddie Gray's death - turned violent earlier this week, albeit in the shadows of a massive police presence amplified by the activation of the National Guard.
A week-long nightly curfew went into effect in Baltimore on Tuesday evening, and more 3,000 police officers were on the scene thanks to a collaborative effort between law enforcement from Maryland, New Jersey and Washington, DC, as well as the National Guard.
Clad in riot gear, flanks of police marched through sections of Baltimore late Tuesday evening to clear the city streets pursuant to the curfew.
Efforts to enforce the curfew proved largely successful, and much of the city was comparatively quiet during early Wednesday morning - a sharp contrast to the riots and looting on Monday night after Freddie Gray's funeral.
Gray, 25, died earlier this month, a week after he suffered critical injuries while in the custody of the Baltimore Police Department. Demonstrations, mostly peaceful, have been waged across the region since Gray's arrest on April 12, and have become amplified following his death. Thousands attended Gray's funeral on Monday and went on a peaceful protest after. It turned violent later in the day, prompting Republican Gov. Larry Hogan to activate the National Guard to restore order.
"People have the right to Protest and Express Their Frustration, But Baltimore City Families Deserve safety and peace in Their Communities and Acts of Violence These and Destruction of Property CAN not and Will not be tolerated," Hogan Said.
On Wednesday, Baltimore Police Capt. Eric Kowalczyk said that the city will be assessing the need to keep the curfew into effect "day by day, hour by hour."
Libya: The world’s ‘smuggler state’
Evidence of the boom in the trafficking trade everywhere in Misrata
Image Credits: Nicolas Raymond via Flickr.
by BBC | April 29, 2015
By a checkpoint outside the Libyan city of Misrata, a truck full of hay-bales is opened by border guards and a badly-kept secret is revealed.
Inside are women and children, and men too. Fifty people, migrants, in each truck, smuggled across the desert.
They had been inside for two days without food or water, some almost suffocated.
Abdul Rahim thought he would die. He has since been transferred to a Libyan jail.
“I paid 3,570 Libyan dinar (£1,700; $2,600) to be smuggled,” he told me. “We were treated like cargo, the smugglers took a cut at every step.”
People smugglers don’t take too kindly to enquiries about their business but, after weeks of searching, one agreed to speak to me if he could remain anonymous.
He’s grown rich out of the trade.
Baltimore Councilman Loses It, Says “Just call them N******” After CNN Host Calls Rioters “Thugs”
Attack on language as word "thug" declared racist, despite Obama, black Mayor and City Council President using it
by Steve Watson | InfoWars | April 29, 2015
A city councilman in Baltimore dropped the N word on live TV after becoming irate that a CNN host argued that labeling violent rioters and looters “thugs” was a correct use of language.
An angry Carl Stokes said that CNN’s Erin Burnett should “just call them n*ggers. Just call them n*ggers,” when she attempted to explain that the word “thug” was a justified description.
“No, it’s not the right word to call our children ‘thugs,’” Stokes said, when Burnett brought up the point.. “These are children who have been set aside, marginalized, who have not been engaged by us.”
“But how does that justify what they did?” Burnett argued. “That’s a sense of right and wrong. They know it’s wrong to steal and burn down a CVS and an old persons’ home. I mean, come on.”
“No, we don’t have to call them by names such as that. We don’t have to do that. That is exactly what we’ve sent them to. When you say, ‘Come on,’ come on what? You wouldn’t call your child a thug if they should do something that would not be what you expect them to do.”
“I respect your point of view,” Burnett replied. “I would hope that I would call my son a thug if he ever did such a thing.”
The clear insinuation is that the use of the word ‘thug’ is a racist term. This is despite the fact that even the President used the word in his Tuesday address on the Baltimore troubles.
Obama described the rioters as “criminals and thugs” who he said were exploiting the death of Freddie Gray.
The response was remarkable, drawing Orwellian language police out of the woodwork.
As Newsbusters notes, following leftist media attempts to denounce the President’s use of the word, the AP even eliminated it from their transcript of Obama’s speech.
The Twitter universe responded with outrage, labeling Obama an ‘Uncle Tom’ and a ‘Nigga':
The idea that the word ‘thug’ is somehow racist was initially raised by Ahmir Khalib Thompson, better known as Questlove, drummer and leader of The Roots, the house band for the Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon. It has since been touted by Red Flag News, Salon, Huffington Post, CBS News and a host of other leftist news sites as the new “code word” for the “N” word.
Thompson took offense to Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s use of the word in a press conference Monday. The Mayor has since backtracked and been forced to apologise for using the T-word, as it has been labeled by the language police.
“We don’t have thugs in Baltimore,” Rawlings-Blake said. “Sometimes my own little anger translator gets the best of me. … They’re going to regret what they’ve done, but it’s too late.”
The president of the Baltimore City Council also apologized Tuesday for calling rioters “thugs”, re-branding those responsible for the violence as “misdirected” youths.
Those who disagree that the word thug means anything other than ‘violent individual’ hit back:
Michael Brown, the former under secretary of Homeland Security to President George W. Bush, noted the hypocrisy in the use of terms such as ‘Thug life’, according to the ‘new rule':
Former congressman Joe Walsh openly used the T-word:
Watch Alex Jones break down the origin of the word “thug”, and how those declaring it to be ‘racist’ are literally engaging in an attack on language to forward their agenda, devoid of any intellectual prowess.
Two Shot in Ferguson, Missouri, in Overnight Protest
Dumpsters and portable toilets were set on fire in the middle of the street
by NBC News | April 29, 2015
While Baltimore had a less turbulent night, a few dozen demonstrators took to the streets in Ferguson, Missouri, where trash cans were set ablaze, rocks were thrown and at least two people were shot, according to local reports.
One person was shot in the leg on West Florissant Avenue, the scene of unrest last year following the police shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, NBC affiliate KSDK reported.
Another person was reportedly shot in the neck on nearby Canfield Drive, where gunshots were fired throughout the night, according to St. Louis Alderman Antonio French, who tweeted from the scene.
“He got himself in the truck to the hospital,” French wrote of the victim. “Hopefully will be OK.”
Obama: Police Must Hold Officers Accountable for Wrongdoing
Feds retraining police and providing body cameras to hold them accountable
Image Credits: Public domain.
by Newsmax | April 29, 2015
President Barack Obama said the Baltimore riots show that police departments need to hold officers accountable for wrongdoing “instead of just the closing-ranks approach that all too often we see.”
In an interview broadcast Wednesday morning on “The Steve Harvey Morning Show,” Obama said his heart goes out of the Baltimore officers who were injured by rioters. He said there’s no excuse for that kind of violence and Baltimore police showed “appropriate restraint.”
But he said police departments have to build more trust in minority communities by building accountability and transparency.
“It’s in their interest to root out folks who aren’t doing the right thing, to hold accountable people when they do something wrong, instead of just the closing-ranks approach that all too often we see that ends up just feeding greater frustration and ultimately, I think, putting more police officers in danger,” Obama said in the interview taped Tuesday and broadcast on black radio stations nationwide.
Obama said Attorney General Loretta Lynch is reaching out to mayors to let them know what resources are available for retraining police and providing body cameras to hold them accountable. But he said solving the problems is going to require a broader political movement that addresses problems like poor education, drugs, absent fathers and limited job opportunities.
Truth Has Been Murdered
The Western media has created a fictional account of events in Ukraine
Image Credits: News Front.
by Paul Craig Roberts | Infowars.com | April 29, 2015
The Obama regime and its neocon monsters and European vassals have resurrected a Nazi government and located it in Ukraine. Read this statement by Elena Bondarenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament:http://slavyangrad.org/2015/04/18/statement-by-elena-bondarenko-peoples-deputy-of-verkhovna-rada-of-ukraine/
The Western media has created a fictional account of events in Ukraine. The coup organized by the Obama regime that overthrew the elected democratic government in Ukraine is never mentioned. The militias decked out in Nazi symbols are ignored. These militias are the principle source of the violence that has been inflicted on the Russian populations, resulting in the formation of the break-away republics. Instead of reporting this fact, the corrupt Western media delivers Washington’s propaganda that Russia has invaded and is annexing eastern and southern Ukraine. British and European politicians parrot Washington’s lies.
The Western media is complicit in many war crimes covered up with lies, but the false story that the Western media has woven of Ukraine is the most audacious collection of lies yet. Truly, truth in the Western world has been murdered. There is no respect for truth in any Western capital.
The coup in Ukraine is Washington’s effort to thrust a dagger into Russia’s heart. The recklessness of such a criminal act has been covered up by constructing a false reality of a people’s revolution against a corrupt and oppressive government. The world should be stunned that “bringing democracy” has become Washington’s cover for resurrecting a Nazi state.
Holograms Could Bring Videogame-Like Navigation to Your Car
There are plenty of ways to get directions in the car, but most have one big shortcoming. Whether you’re using a standalone GPS, in-car navi system, smartphone, the Apple Watch, or even a paper map, you have to look away from the road (you know, that thing you’re supposed to be paying attention to when driving) in order to see where you’re supposed to be going.
So how to keep your eyes on the road and not get lost? One option is the heads-up display. Increasingly common on high-end cars, these devices project things like navigation directions and current speed onto the windshield, so the driver has important information right in their field of vision. It’s a technology that’s fast spreading beyond this incarnation, though: We’ve seen screens showing ghost cars for racers, and another that uses lasers to “paint” the edge of a road on the windshield in inclement weather. Then there are these wacky augmented reality concept goggles from Mini.
China stockpiling bullion to boost yuan
China’s push to challenge US dominance in global trade and finance may involve gold – a lot of gold.
While the metal is no longer used to back paper money, it remains a big chunk of central bank reserves in the US and Europe. China became the world’s second-largest economy in 2010, and has stepped up efforts to make the yuan a viable competitor to the dollar. That’s led to speculation that the government has stockpiled gold as part of a plan to diversify $3.7 trillion (R45 trillion) in foreign-exchange reserves.
Global Strike Command is USAF’s new weapon against China: expert
A pure bomber command is likely to be established for the first time in US military history after the Air Force made the announcement last week to reassign all its heavy bombers to the Global Strike Command last week, James Hasik, a senior researcher from the Washington-based Atlantic Council wrote in a piece for National Interest magazine.
The USAF put the nuclear-capable B-52Hs and B-2As bombers of the 8th Air Force and the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles of the 20th Air Force under the Global Strike Command in 2009. However, the de-nuclearized B-1B bombers stayed with the Air Combat Command’s 12th Air Force. Such policy reconfigures the newly established Global Strike Command as a Bomber and Missile Command according to the author.
Hasik said that the consolidation of heavy bombers under the Global Strike Command will provide a single organizational home to all big bomber crews, including those of the forthcoming Long-Range Strike Bombers. “With that art of the possible emerging, the organizational heft of this new ‘Bomber Command’ may then spur some really new thinking, which the USAF genuinely needs for dealing with the mounting threat from China,” Hasik said.
‘Animal rights’ police to be set up in Norway
Animals in Norway could soon feel much safer, as the country’s government has announced plans to set up a police force for animals. The animal cops will initially work on a three-year trial period, with the move being hailed by animal rights activists.
Sor-Trondelag in the west of Norway, is the county where the initiative is going to be tested. It will employ three staff – an investigator, a legal expert and a coordinator – to fight animal abuse. It will also work closely with the Norwegian Food Safety Authority, which is responsible for animal welfare.
“First of all, it’s important to take care of our animals, so that they enjoy the rights they have and that there be a follow-up when their rights are violated,” Agriculture Minister Sylvi Listhaug said, describing animals at risk as “often defenseless,” AFP reported.
Her viewpoint was also supported by the Justice Minister Anders Anundsen, who urged for increasing numbers of similar projects to come to fruition.
Whole Foods Finds Itself in Whole Controversy in Baltimore
Whole Foods is facing anger from some social media users after a photo showed members of the National Guard, which is patrolling the streets of Baltimore, holding food from the grocery chain.
One Twitter user wrote, “Dear @WholeFoods: The National Guard already has a supply system for food. The citizens of #Baltimore could probably use your help more.”
A spokeswoman for Whole Foods said in a statement to ABC News, “We’re all Baltimoreans and have supported community organizations for many years to improve lives around our city. Currently, we are providing food and water to children across our city by partnering with rec centers and community organizations, and have been doing so in parallel with providing food and water to first responders.”
CNN Anchor on Baltimore Riots: Some Veterans Are Coming Home ‘Ready to Do Battle’
Speaking from Baltimore, where vicious riots have torn through the city, CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin pointed to veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan as the reason behind increased violence in the United States.
“I love our nation’s veterans, but some are coming back from war, they don’t know the communities, and they’re ready to do battle,” Baldwin said.
ISIS using Baltimore riots to recruit ‘dissatisfied’ blacks
ISIS is taking advantage of racial tensions in the U.S. by attempting to recruit dissatisfied Muslims among the American black population.
This according to Abu Saqer, leader of Jihadiya Salafiya, an Islamist militant group in the Gaza Strip. Jihadiya Salafiya represents al-Qaida in Gaza and has made statements in support of ISIS.
Saqer, speaking to WND from Gaza, would not provide further details other than to confirm ISIS is taking advantage of what he described as the “growing movement within the black community toward Islam and the racist policies of the U.S. government.”
Saqer said he was not aware of whether ISIS actually recruited any dissatisfied black Muslims within the U.S. or whether any such cells have been established.
Media reports on warm ‘blob’ in Pacific Ocean pretend it can’t be related to huge plume of radioactive waste
Media outlets are widely reporting on two recent studies in the journalGeophysical Research Letters describing a giant “blob” of warm water that may be responsible for recent ecological and weather anomalies across the United States — from California’s drought to the East Coast’s severe winter to the thousands of dying sea lions washing up along the West Coast.
The “blob” — more precisely, the “warm anomaly” — is a patch of ocean water just off the coast of the Pacific Northwest that is about 1,000 miles across, 300 feet deep, and 3 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than usual. It received its nickname from Nick Bond of Washington State University, lead author of one of the new studies.
Do the new studies actually explain what the media are claiming? Are there potential explanations that are being ignored?
1,100 donors to a Canadian charity tied to Clinton Foundation remain secret
A charity affiliated with the Clinton Foundation failed to reveal the identities of its 1,100 donors, creating a broad exception to the foundation’s promise to disclose funding sources as part of an ethics agreement with the Obama administration.
The number of undisclosed contributors to the charity, the Canada-based Clinton Giustra Enterprise Partnership, signals a larger zone of secrecy around foundation donors than was previously known.
Details of the organization’s fundraising were disclosed this week by a spokeswoman for the Canadian group’s founder, mining magnate Frank Giustra.
The Canadian group has received attention in recent days as a potential avenue for anonymous Clinton Foundation donations from foreign business executives, including some who had interests before the U.S. government while Hillary Rodham Clinton was secretary of state.
Obama, Abe push for completion of free-trade deal among Pacific rim nations
President Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed Tuesday to join forces to push for completion of a major free-trade deal among Pacific rim nations, starting with Mr. Abe’s speech on Wednesday to a divided Congress.
The two leaders emerged from a meeting in the Oval Office expressing a commitment to work together on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, although U.S. and Japanese negotiators have yet to resolve questions about tariffs on auto and beef exports.
“I know that the politics around trade can be hard in both our countries, but I know that Prime Minister Abe, like me, is deeply committed to getting this done,” Mr. Obama said at a joint news conference in the White House Rose Garden. “And I’m confident we will.”
Mr. Abe, in Washington for a State Dinner Tuesday night, said he is “eager” to conclude the TPP because “prosperity brings peace.”
“We will continue to cooperate to lead the TPP talks to its last phase,” he said through a translator. Mr. Abe will be the first Japanese prime minister to address Congress when he speaks to a joint session on Wednesday.
Negative interest rates put world on course for biggest mass default in history
Here’s an astonishing statistic; more than 30pc of all government debt in the eurozone – around €2 trillion of securities in total – is trading on a negative interest rate.
With the advent of European Central Bank quantitative easing, what began four months ago when 10-year Swiss yields turned negative for the first time has snowballed into a veritable avalanche of negative rates across European government bond markets. In the hunt for apparently “safe assets”, investors have thrown caution to the wind, and collectively determined to pay governments for the privilege of lending to them.
On a country by country basis, the statistics are even more startling. According to investment bank Jefferies, some 70pc of all German bunds now trade on a negative yield. In France, it’s 50pc, and even in Spain, which was widely thought insolvent only a few years ago, it’s 17pc.
Not only has this never happened before on such a scale, but it marks a scarcely believable turnaround on the situation at the height of the eurozone crisis just a little while back, when some European bond markets traded on yields that reflected the very real possibility of default. Yet far from being a welcome sign of returning economic confidence, this almost surreal state of affairs actually signals the very reverse. How did we get here, and what does it mean for the future? Whichever way you come at it, the answer to this second question is not good, not good at all.
U.S. Officials Expect Bird Flu to Return in the Fall
Officials with the Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said the H5N2 virus, along with two other highly pathogenic strains of bird flu, would probably be passed among birds at breeding grounds in the northern United States and Canada through the summer.
The strains are difficult to control, say scientists, in part because wild birds can carry the viruses without appearing to be sick.
Could religious institutions lose tax-exempt status over Supreme Court’s gay marriage case?
The Supreme Court Tuesday considered whether same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, raising questions about how it would affect religious institutions.
During oral arguments, Justice Samuel Alito compared the case to that of Bob Jones University, a fundamentalist Christian university in South Carolina. The Supreme Court ruled in 1983 the school was not entitled to a tax-exempt status if it barred interracial marriage.
Here is an exchange between Alito and Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr., arguing for the same-sex couples on behalf of the Obama administration.
Justice Alito: Well, in the Bob Jones case, the Court held that a college was not entitled to taxexempt status if it opposed interracial marriage or interracial dating. So would the same apply to a 10 university or a college if it opposed same-sex marriage?
Huckabee: ‘We Are Moving Rapidly Toward the Criminalization of Christianity’
The persecution of Christians because of their moral opposition to homosexual behavior and so-called gay marriage is on the rise in America, to the point where “Christian convictions are under attack as never before” and “we are moving rapidly toward the criminalization of Christianity,” said former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who is also an ordained Southern Baptist minister.
During an Apr. 23 conference call with conservative pastors arranged by the Family Research Council (FRC), Gov. Huckabee and FRC President Tony Perkins talked about persecution of Christians in the U.S. military, in the business world, and how homosexuality as a “civil right” and same-sex marriage are affecting the social and legal climate.
“I think it’s fair to say that Christian convictions are under attack as never before, not just in our lifetime, but never before in the history of this great republic,” said Huckabee, who was governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007.
‘We will not obey’: Christian leaders threaten civil disobedience if Supreme Court legalizes gay marriage
“We will not obey.”
That’s the blunt warning a group of prominent religious leaders is sending to the Supreme Court of the United States as they consider same-sex marriage.
“We respectfully warn the Supreme Court not to cross that line,” read a document titled, Pledge in Solidarity to Defend Marriage. “We stand united together in defense of marriage. Make no mistake about our resolve.”
“While there are many things we can endure, redefining marriage is so fundamental to the natural order and the common good that this is the line we must draw and one we cannot and will not cross,” the pledge states.
The signees are a who’s who of religious leaders including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, National Religious Broadcasters president Jerry Johnson, Pastor John Hagee, and Franklin Graham, president and CEO of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse.
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