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Election recount halted in Michigan, Stein plans appeal


RT
Wed, 07 Dec 2016 19:34 UTC
Oakland County clerks count election ballots during a recount of presidential ballots in Waterford Township, Michigan December 5, 2016.
© Rebecca Cook / Reuters
Oakland County clerks count election ballots during a recount of presidential ballots in Waterford Township, Michigan December 5, 2016
A federal judge in Michigan has ordered the halt of a statewide recount effort inspired by former Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein. The judge determined that the recount was unwarranted, despite the inconsistencies it uncovered.

Michigan Republicans celebrated a victory Wednesday after US District Judge Mark Goldsmith ruled that a statewide recount was unwarranted, effectively cementing a victory in the state for President-elect Donald Trump. Republicans argued that Stein had no authority to seek a recount due to her earning only 1 percent of the vote.

Goldsmith's ruling determined that there was no reason for the recount to continue in light of the Michigan Court of Appeals 3-0 ruling against the recount. The Court of Appeals ruling determined that due to Stein's low vote, she did not qualify as an aggrieved candidate.

"To date, plaintiffs have not presented evidence of tampering or mistake. Instead, they present speculative claims going to the vulnerability of the voting machinery - but not actual injury," Goldsmith wrote after hearing arguments.
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Fire

Burn-outs: Teens charged with arson, Tennessee wildfires


RT
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 15:59 UTC
tennessee wildfire
© National Park Services Staff / Handout via Reuters / Reuters
Motorists stop to view wildfires in the Great Smokey Mountains near Gatlinburg, Tennessee, U.S., November 28, 2016. Photo taken November 28, 2016.
Two juveniles are being charged with aggravated arson after being suspected of starting the East Tennessee wildfires that killed 14 people and destroyed 1,700 structures across Sevier County.

The teens could be charged as adults, pending an ongoing investigation.

The fires that ravaged Gatlinburg and Sevier County, Tennessee are believed to have been connected to the two teenagers. On Wednesday, authorities confirmed charges of aggravated arson against the minors after "information was developed that two juveniles allegedly started the fire," the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation said in a news release.

Information about the suspected arsonists is sparse as their charges do not allow their ages, genders or names to be released to the public.

"I understand that you have a lot of questions," District Attorney General Jimmy B. Dunn explained in a news conference. "However, the law does not allow for the disclosure of additional information at this time."
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Dollar

More thoughts on Trump's $1 trillion infrastructure plan which "looks at everything"

Ellen Brown
Web of Debt
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 15:43 UTC
trump
© Evan Vucci/Associated Press
Donald J. Trump waves to the crowd after laying out his economic platform in a speech at the Detroit Economic Club on August 8, 2016. Credit
To stimulate the economy, create new jobs and generate new GDP requires an injection of new money. Borrowing from the bond markets or off-balance-sheet in public/private partnerships won't do it. If Congress won't issue money directly, it should borrow from banks, which create money on their books when they make loans.

The Trump agenda, it seems, is not set in stone. The president-elect has a range of advisors with as many ideas. Steven Mnuchin, his nominee for Treasury Secretary, said in November that "we'll take a look at everything,"even the possibility of extending the maturity of the federal debt with 50-year or 100-year bonds to take advantage of unusually low interest rates.

Steve Bannon, appointed chief White House strategist, seems to be envisioning Roosevelt-style experimentation with whatever works. "We're just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks," he said in an interview posted by Michael Wolff on November 18th:
Like [Andrew] Jackson's populism, we're going to build an entirely new political movement. It's everything related to jobs. The conservatives are going to go crazy. I'm the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the world, it's the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Shipyards, ironworks, get them all jacked up. . . . It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution — conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement.
That sounds promising. Obsolete systems will go and will be replaced. But how to ensure that the replacements are an improvement?
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Heart - Black

2 Chinese students raped & abused in Germany - Iraqi refugee detained


RT
Wed, 07 Dec 2016 15:25 UTC
Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum Germany
© Henning Kaiser / DPA / Global Look Press
People walking on campus at the Ruhr-Universitaet in Bochum, Germany.
An Iraqi refugee has been arrested in Germany over suspicion that he abused and raped two Chinese students near a university in Bochum. The suspect has been living nearby with his wife and two children since last year.

Police officials said on Tuesday that they have detained a 31-year-old Iraqi man living at a refugee hostel suspected of sexually assaulting Chinese students who reported being attacked near Ruhr-Bochum University in recent months, Die Welt reported.

Chief of Bochum police Kerstin Wittmeier said news of the arrest was "a great relief" and"a good sign not only for the two victims, but also for many women who felt unsafe, especially in the vicinity of Ruhr University."

In the first assault, which took place on the university campus on August 6, a 21-year-old Chinese student was walking back to her dorm from a local underground station when she was overpowered and dragged into the bushes by her assailant, who then tried to rape the young woman while threatening her with a knife, police commissioner Roland Wefelscheidt said.

Nearly two months later, on November 16, another Chinese student, aged 27, was abused and raped in the bushes.

The suspect, who has been charged with attempted murder, rape, and aggravated assault, refutes the charges. His name has not been disclosed.
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Attention

Julian Assange releases testimony, SMS records showing he was framed by Swedish police in alleged "rape" case

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Wed, 07 Dec 2016 02:43 UTC
assange
© AP Photo/ Kirsty Wigglesworth
Julian Assange, for the last six years, has been persecuted and held captive because of rape allegations; allegations that we have now found out are entirely fabricated by police.


Today marks the first time that Assange has gone public with his version of events surrounding the rape allegations for which he was arrested in 2010.
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TV

Mainstream media continues to push hard to ban 'fake news'

Kurt Nimmo
Another Day in the Empire
Tue, 06 Dec 2016 17:17 UTC
The "fake news" story isn't going away. It should have fallen out of the news cycle by now but the establishment and its propaganda media are pushing it hard.

On Tuesday, panelists on MSNBC's Morning Joe agreed something must be done.


Comment: Basically, fake news is anything the mainstream media or government doesn't like.

Journalists struggle to define 'fake news' while they declare war on it

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Attention

France is decomposing right in front of our eyes

Yves Mamou
Gatestone Institute
Wed, 07 Dec 2016 22:39 UTC
pile of trash bags in front of the Cafe de Flore in Paris
© Charles Platiau / Reuters

Comment: This article is interesting, not so much for the content, but for the source. The "Gatestone Institute" is a US think tank "dedicated to educating the public about what the mainstream media fails to report in promoting". Its board of governors and advisors include notables such as John Bolton and Alan Dershowitz, two people who have done much to destroy the physical and social fabric of many countries, including the USA.

One would almost think that this gaggle of think-tankers are hyping and distorting the reality of the social conditions in France in an effort to create that very reality. After all, according to people like Bolton, there's nothing like a bit of 'creative destruction' in the form of a manipulated 'revolution' to 'open up' a country to allow the political and corporate global elite (like Bolton) to plunder its resources.


France will elect a new president in May 2017. Politicians are already campaigning and debating about deficits, welfare recipients, GDP growth, and so on, but they look like puppets disconnected from the real country.

What is reality in France today?

Violence. It is spreading. Not just terrorist attacks; pure gang violence. It instills a growing feeling of insecurity in hospitals, at schools, in the streets -- even in the police. The media does not dare to say that this violence is coming mainly from Muslim gangs -- "youths," as they call them in the French media, to avoid naming who they are. A climate of civil war, however, is spreading visibly in the police, schools, hospitals and politics.

The Police

The most jolting evidence of this malaise was to see more than 500 French police officers demonstrating with police cars and motorcycles on the night of October 17, without the backing of labor unions, without authorization, on the Champs Elysées in Paris. According to the daily, Le Figaro, "the Interior Ministry was in panic," frightened by a possible coup: "Police blocked access to the Avenue Marigny, which runs beside the Presidential Palace and overlooks the Place Beauvau."
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Wedding Rings

Christian B&B fined and forced to host same-sex marriages

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Wed, 07 Dec 2016 17:24 UTC
gay marriage
Using the state to prevent two consenting adults from entering into a contract of marriage, regardless of their genders or sexual preference, is tyranny. Anyone who attempts to control what consenting adults do in their private lives and on their own private property facilitates said tyranny. These actions are abhorrent, and they have no place in a society that desires to be free.

Bottom line, if gay marriage bothers you — don't get gay married — and if you use the government to prevent gay people from marrying, you are acting against society's desire to be free.

That being said, if you think people should be able to live their lives how they see fit as long as they do no harm to others, you should apply this rule — to everyone.

When people challenge the state for their right to do what they want only to turn around and use that same state to force others to do what they want, hypocrisy is born.

This hypocrisy is exactly what is playing out in Paxton, Illinois.
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Sheriff

Police departments put out fake news too

Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Wed, 07 Dec 2016 17:27 UTC
fake news
As the war on alleged 'fake news' wages on, the establishment is losing horribly. All the corporate media and government's war on fake news has done is serve to expose the most guilty — the corporate media and the government. From the Gulf of Tonkin to Weapons of Mass Destruction — corporate media and government have colluded to perpetuate the death and suffering of millions.

Government constructed lies spread by their mouthpieces in the media isn't solely limited to the Pentagon and their blowhards. As a new report from the Guardian shows, fake news is also put out by police departments.

When Santa Maria police chief Ralph Martin was caught last week in a conspiracy to deceive the press and the public through the release of a fictitious news story, he was unapologetic.

"It was a moral and ethical decision, and I stand by it," Martin said. "I am keenly aware and sensitive to the community and the media. I also had 21 bodies lying in the city in the last 15 months."

For the supposed greater good, Martin deliberately undermined the trust of the community and the press alike. According to the Guardian:
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Safe

Former oligarch thug Khodorkovsky has $105mn of his offshore cash funds unfrozen by Irish judge


RT
Wed, 07 Dec 2016 11:41 UTC
Khodorkovsky slime

Mikhail Khodorkovsky
An Irish court has granted an application by Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky to release €100 million ($105mn) of his funds that were frozen after a request by Irish fraud investigators in 2011.

Judge Timothy Lucey made the ruling at a sitting of Dublin District Court on Wednesday, following a four-day hearing in November.

In coming to the decision, Lucey said the burden of proof was on Khodorkovsky to prove there were no grounds for a freezing order and that the court's decision had to be based on evidence, which is something that Khodorkovsky had provided plenty of, the court said.

Lucey said the court believed the applicant's evidence and was "satisfied that there are no reasonable grounds to suspect money laundering," so was revoking the order to freeze the funds.

Comment: Mikhail Khodorkovsky made his name raping the resources of Russia during the Yeltsin years and early Putin presidency. He must be quite comfortable in the West now (court cases notwithstanding) where his way of operating is valued and quite usually protected. Make no mistake though: Khodorkovsky is an arch criminal who probably deserves to be put in prison for the rest of his life.

See also:

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