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In an article title "What Drives Gun Sales", the NYT tries to spread the blame around, accusing everything from loose restrictions, to higher handgun sales, to hurricanes, but the real reason is a simple one. It begins with the letter O, ends in bama, and has made the crusade for gun control one of the core prerogatives of its presidency, as the following chart from the NYT itself shows.
© bsnorrell.blogspot.com
In bitter cold, North Dakota protests fracking
In bitter cold, North Dakota protests fracking
© Via twitter@hurriyet
Several police officers, including anti-terrorist units, have been dispatched to the scene, Hurriyet said. Local authorities immediately launched an investigation into the attack.
Turkish media previously reported that the attack had apparently been carried out from a vehicle that passed by the Hurriyet headquarters in the Turkish capital.
Hurriyet, one of Turkey's main newspapers, was founded in 1948. The network has 52 offices and 600 reporters in Turkey and abroad.
© We Are Better Than This"When public figures demonize whole swaths of people for their own political gain, they are complicit in the escalation from words to deeds that follow," said Heather McGhee, president of Demos.
"We grieve the many lives that have been lost or painfully transformed in recent weeks through extreme acts of violence. And we are appalled by the surge of divisive rhetoric that sows the seeds of more violence to come," reads the ad, which was organized by the National Domestic Workers Alliance, United We Dream, Center for Community Change, Demos, NARAL Pro-Choice America, Arab-American Association of New York, MPower Change, SEIU, Color of Change, and MoveOn.org.
Signatories warn that, in particular, violence is aimed at "Arab and Muslim Americans, women and the places we seek health care, Black people, immigrants and refugees, or people just going about their daily lives."
Comment: At least some segment of the population can see the ever more dangerous turns this country is taking. Will it be enough to stop Holocaust 2.0?
© Via twitter@denice_ruptly
About 150 members of different far-right organizations marched through the southern part of Leipzig. They included the neo-Nazi party Die Rechte (the Right), xenophobic organization Offensive für Deutschland (OfD) (Offensive for Germany), and a division of the PEGIDA movement called Thugida.
The right-wing march faced large-scale opposition as about a dozen counter-protests organized by different movements and leftist groups were staged in the city, Der Spiegel reports citing local authorities. Thousands of demonstrators joined the counter protests, according to police sources.
Police mobilized about 800 officers to keep control of the situation. Law enforcers managed to separate the right-wing march and the counter protests, although "massive clashes" broke out between police and the counter protesters. "Some protesters from a group of about 1,000 people attacked police officers deployed to the scene [in the southern part of the city]," police officials said in a twitter post.
© presstv.comGambian president gives the announcement his country is now an official Islamic Republic.
Comment: President Jammeh hopes to discontinue the use of English as his country's language and substitute a local one or Arabic. Language is the last hold-over from British "colonial legacy."
Jammeh further noted that citizens of other faiths would still be able to practice their religious rituals. Gambia's population of 1.8 million people is 95 percent Muslim. The smallest country in continental Africa gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1965.
In October 2013, Jammeh pulled Gambia out of the Commonwealth, which is an intergovernmental organization of 53 previous colonies of the former British Empire, calling the bloc neo-colonial.
Comment: Gambia gained its independence from the UK in 1964.
This comes as Gambia's relations with the West have also soured over the past few years. Last year, the European Union temporarily suspended its aid money to the West African nation over what it claimed as Banjul's poor human rights record.
Comment: A sovereign decision representative of its constituency and self-determination, it now joins other officially Islamic republics such as Iran and Afghanistan. Out of aid from Western sources, will Jammeh look towards the Arab world for resources?
The graphics-laden presentation goes on to mock the US military for its high suicide rates and ineffective air campaign before presaging the "final" battle with the crusaders where the nonbelievers will "burn on the hills of Dabiq."
''Lawyer by training, shitshow by life.''
Caleb Behn introduces himself a little apologetically, shoving aside boxes of bullets and books so I can squeeze into the front seat of his gunmetal-grey Tacoma. The back seat is a tangle of rifles, clothes and more books. On the dashboard, a Yoda figure sagely nods its plastic green head.
Caleb Behn: Change 'happens way outside comfort zones.' Photo by Kate Harris.
© www.dw.comIranian gas pipeline, connection Turkey
"If there is demand from European markets, it is possible to transport the natural gas via Turkey. There are many factors to lead to such trade, but it is now too early to speak about those factors," the Iranian official has been quoted as saying by Anadolu news agency. "We expect the sanctions to be fully eliminated; thereafter, we can consider the marketing of natural gas, the routes and the buyers," he added.
Iran had for years pursued plans to export natural gas to Europe. A tentative scheme that was developed in cooperation with Nabucco - a consortium led by Austria's OMV - envisaged piping Iranian natural gas from the southern energy hub of Assaluyeh to Turkey and thereon to Europe. However, Nabucco eventually abandoned Iran in 2008 after complications grew the most important of which were US-engineered sanctions against the Iranian energy sector.
Comment: This, on the heals of the KRG deal with Turkey, shows it is still all about "the oil" or its facsimile. Turkey will be raking in the pipeline transport fees in these deals as well. For Iranian sanctions to be completely lifted, concerning natural gas plans, it would not be hard to imagine the West will control the process by dictating those terms.
See also: Done deal: KRG gas to Turkey by 2017
Comment: From the White House we hear that: But what if this is all bullshit? If it is common knowledge that Obama's incessant calls for more control legislation only drive up the purchasing of guns then why keep harping on about more gun control? Could it be that the people who pull the strings behind the White House are that clueless? If this induced demand is intentional, then this begs the question: Why might the puppet masters be manipulating the masses into buying guns (not that having one used judiciously and for protection is necessarily a bad idea)?
Is it possible that the snakes in power anticipate a situation in the US where they actually want a well armed public battling the Police State apparatus and Federal forces? And if so, why? Or, a more simple explantation, the puppet masters still anticipate major social unrest and are trying to do all they can to maintain their positions via their own firepower and therefore really just want less guns available for when that happens - but are going about it in a counterproductive way?