Trump
TiLTNews Network: Earth Watch - Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference, not by safety. It is easy to clamor for government security when terrible things happen; but liberty is given true meaning when we support it without exception, and we will be safer for it ~ Dr. Ron Paul
Thursday, November 30, 2017
NBC Covered Up Matt Lauers Abuse For 10 Years
Dangerous when they eat their own, what aren't they telling us. More than likely this story is much, much worse and they are setting us up for a whitewashed version of the left. Don't be fooled America! The executives are playing us every step of the way. Hit them where it hurts most. Boycott them, stop supporting the MSM, stop supporting Amazon the company that brings you free shipping that you already pay for through your taxes through subsidies Bezo and cronies manipulated into receiving, the elite are trying to push a class war, wake up America!
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
Monday, November 27, 2017
Sunday, November 26, 2017
Statement from the Press Secretary on the Humanitarian Crisis in Yemen
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
November 24, 2017
Statement from the Press Secretary on the Humanitarian Crisis in Yemen
The United States welcomes the announcement from Saudi Arabia and the Saudi-led coalition that it is reopening Hudaydah port and Sanaa International Airport to allow the urgent flow of humanitarian aid to the people of Yemen. Full and immediate implementation of the announced measures is a first step in ensuring that food, medicine, and fuel reach the Yemeni people and that the aid organizations on the frontlines of mitigating this humanitarian crisis are able to do their essential work. We look forward to additional steps that will facilitate the unfettered flow of humanitarian and commercial goods from all ports of entry to the points of need. The magnitude of suffering in Yemen requires all parties to this conflict to focus on assistance to those in need. All sides must support a political process with facilitating humanitarian relief as the top priority.
We remain committed to supporting Saudi Arabia and all our Gulf partners against the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ aggression and blatant violations of international law. Backed by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Houthi rebels have used destabilizing missile systems to target Saudi Arabia—systems that were not present in Yemen before the conflict. The international community must take the necessary steps to hold the Iranian regime accountable for its repeated violations of United Nations Security Council Resolutions 2216 and 2231 as the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps exploits the grave humanitarian crisis in Yemen to advance its regional ambitions. Millions of Yemenis are currently enduring severe deprivation; the United States continues to believe that this devastating conflict, and the suffering it causes, must be brought to an end through political negotiations.
Statement from the Press Secretary regarding the Attack at a Mosque in Egypt
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
November 24, 2017
The United States condemns in the strongest terms today’s horrific terrorist attack at a mosque in Egypt’s North Sinai province. We offer our condolences to the families of those killed and wounded, and we stand with the people and government of Egypt against terrorism. There can be no tolerance for barbaric groups that claim to act in the name of a faith but attack houses of worship and murder the innocent and defenseless while at prayer. The international community must continue to strengthen its efforts to defeat terrorist groups that threaten the United States and our partners and we must collectively discredit the extremist ideology that forms the basis of their existence.
Readout of the President's Call with President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi of Egypt
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
November 24, 2017
President Donald J. Trump spoke today with President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi of Egypt to offer condolences to the people of Egypt after the heinous attack on worshippers in Egypt’s North Sinai province. President Trump condemned the attack and reiterated that the United States will continue to stand with Egypt in the face of terrorism. The international community cannot tolerate barbaric terrorist groups and must strengthen its efforts to defeat terrorism and extremism in all its forms.
Saturday, November 25, 2017
Trump Wants Peace With Erdogan - The Miltary Wants To Sabotage It
President Trump is attempting to calm down the U.S. conflict with Turkey. The military junta in the White House has different plans. It now attempts to circumvent the decision the president communicated to his Turkish counterpart. The result will be more Turkish-U.S. acrimony.
Yesterday the Turkish foreign minister surprisingly announced a phone call President Trump had held with President Erdogan of Turkey.
United States President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan spoke on the phone on Nov. 24 only days after a Russia-Turkey-Iran summit on Syria, with Ankara saying that Washington has pledged not to send weapons to the People’s Protection Units (YPG) any more.“President Trump instructed [his generals] in a very open way that the YPG will no longer be given weapons. He openly said that this absurdity should have ended much earlier,” Foreign Minister Mevlüt ÇavuÅŸoÄŸlu told reporters after the phone call.
Trump had announced the call:
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrumpWill be speaking to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey this morning about bringing peace to the mess that I inherited in the Middle East. I will get it all done, but what a mistake, in lives and dollars (6 trillion), to be there in the first place!
12:04 PM - 24 Nov 2017
During the phone call Trump must have escaped his minders for a moment and promptly tried to make, as announced, peace with Erdogan. The issue of arming the YPG is really difficult for Turkey to swallow. Ending that would probably make up for the recent NATO blunder of presenting the founder of modern Turkey Kemal Atatürk and Erdogan himself as enemies.
The YPG is the Syrian sister organization of the Turkish-Kurdish terror group PKK. Some weapons the U.S. had delivered to the YPK in Syria to fight the Islamic State have been recovered from PKK fighters in Turkey who were out to kill Turkish security personal. Despite that, supply for the YPG continued. In total over 3,500 truckloads were provided to it by the U.S. military. Only recently the YPK received some 120 armored Humvees, mine clearance vehicles and other equipment.
The generals in the White House and other parts of the administration were caught flat-footed by the promise Trump has made. The Washington Post writes:
Initially, the administration’s national security team appeared surprised by the Turks’ announcement and uncertain what to say about it. The State Department referred questions to the White House, and hours passed with no confirmation from the National Security Council.
The White House finally released what the Associated Press called:
a cryptic statement about the phone call that said Trump had informed the Turk of “pending adjustments to the military support provided to our partners on the ground in Syria.”
Neither a read-out of the call nor the statement AP refers to are currently available on the White House website.
The U.S. military uses the YPG as proxy power in Syria to justify and support its occupation of north-east Syria, The intent of the occupation is , for now, to press the Syrian government into agreeing to a U.S. controlled "regime change":
U.S. officials have said they plan to keep American troops in northern Syria — and continue working with Kurdish fighters — to pressure Assad to make concessions during peace talks brokered by the United Nations in Geneva, stalemated for three years now. “We’re not going to just walk away right now,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said last week.
To solidify its position the U.S. needs to further build up and strengthen its YPG mercenary forces.
When in 2014 the U.S. started to use Kurds in Syria as its foot-soldiers, it put the YPG under the mantle of the so called Syrian Democratic Forces and paid some Syrian Arabs to join and keep up the subterfuge. This helped to counter the Turkish argument that the U.S. was arming and supporting terrorists. But in May 2017 the U.S. announced to arm the YPG directly without the cover of the SDF. The alleged purpose was to eliminate the Islamic State from the city of Raqqa.
The YPG had been unwilling to fight for the Arab city unless the U.S. would provide it with more money, military supplies and support. All were provided. The U.S. special forces, who control the YPG fighters, directed an immense amount of aerial and artillery ammunition against the city. Any potential enemy position was destroyed by large ammunition and intense bombing before the YPG infantry proceeded. In the end few YPG fighters died in the fight. The Islamic State was let go or eliminated from the city but so was the city of Raqqa. The intensity of the bombardment of the medium size city was at times ten times greater than the bombing in all of Afghanistan. Airwars reported:
Since June, an estimated 20,000 munitions were fired in support of Coalition operations at Raqqa. Images captured by journalists in the final days of the assault show a city in ruins.
Several thousand civilians were killed in the indiscriminate onslaught.
The Islamic State in Syria and Iraq is defeated. It no longer holds any ground. There is no longer any justification to further arm and supply the YPG or the dummy organization SDF.
But the generals want to continue to do so to further their larger plans. They are laying grounds to circumvent their president's promise. The Wall Street Journal seems to be the only outlet to pick up on the subterfuge:
President Donald Trump’s administration is preparing to stop sending weapons directly to Kurdish militants battling Islamic State in Syria, dealing a political blow to the U.S.’s most reliable ally in the civil war, officials said Friday.
...
The Turkish announcement came as a surprise in Washington, where military and political officials in Mr. Trump’s administration appeared to be caught off-guard. U.S. military officials said they had received no new guidance about supplying weapons to the Kurdish forces. But they said there were no immediate plans to deliver any new weapons to the group. And the U.S. can continue to provide the Kurdish forces with arms via the umbrella Syrian militant coalition.
The "military officials" talking to the WSJ have found a way to negate Trump's promise.
A spokesperson of the SDF, the ethnic Turkman Talaf Silo, recently defected and went over to the Turkish side. The Turkish government is certainly well informed about the SDF and knows that its political and command structure is dominated by the YPK. The whole concept is a sham.
But the U.S. needs the YPG to keep control of north-east Syria. It has to continue to provide whatever the YPG demands, or it will have to give up its larger scheme against Syria.
The Turkish government will soon find out that the U.S. again tried to pull wool over its eyes. Erdogan will be furious when he discovers that the U.S. continues to supply war material to the YPG, even when those deliveries are covered up as supplies for the SDF.
The Turkish government released a photograph showing Erdogan and five of his aids taking Trump's phonecall. Such a release and the announcement of the call by the Turkish foreign minister are very unusual. Erdogan is taking prestige from the call and the public announcement is to make sure that Trump sticks to his promise.
This wide publication will also increase Erdogan's wrath when he finds out that he was again deceived.
Posted by b on November 25, 2017 at 12:14 PM | Permalink
Congress has handed Trump a historic presidential victory
- Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is giving President Trump yet another major victory on judicial nominations.
- None of this would have been possible without Harry Reid's decision to kill the filibuster.
- The result is Trump will get to fill the most federal judiciary vacancies in 40 years.
Published 10:26 AM ET Fri, 24 Nov 2017CNBC.com
Olivier Douliery | AFP | Getty Images
Donald Trump
President Donald Trump should give special thanks to two U.S. Senators this Thanksgiving weekend. One is still serving in the Senate, the other recently retired. One is a Republican. The other a Democrat. And what should President Trump be thanking them for? Quite simply they have handed him one of the biggest victories any president could claim in the past 45 years.
Yes, this has happened even as one of the most widely covered stories of the past year has been President Trump's difficulties in working with Congress. The growing rift between him and Republican Senators John McCain, Jeff Flake, and Bob Corker alone has made headlines for months. For a U.S. president to have this many public feuds with senators from his own party this early in his presidency is really unprecedented and makes for hot news copy.
But that story ignores a bigger and longer-lasting development in the federal judiciary. That brings us first to naming the Republican gift giver: Senator Chuck Grassley from Iowa. The longtime member of Congress has big time clout as the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And Grassley has just used that clout to eliminate one of the final hurdles in the already furious pace of Trump administration judicial appointments to the federal bench.
Late last week, Grassley decided not to honor a Senate tradition of holding up hearings for judicial nominees who aren't cleared by their own home state senators. That tradition is known as the "blue slip courtesy" born out of time before nationwide communication technology when a given state's senators had access to much more information about nominees than their colleagues from the rest of the country. Grassley correctly noted that Democrats were now trying to use the blue slips tradition to replace the filibuster, and he's having none of that. As recently as last month, the Democrats and much of the news media's punditry were expecting Grassley, who is no fan of the president, to keep the blue slip tradition in place. But Grassley gave Trump this very special gift instead.
And that brings us to the Democrat who provided the initial generous source of President Trump's solid triumph: Former Senate Majority Leader, and Democrat, Harry Reid. Reid is a major reason this good fortune has befallen President Trump because Reid was the one who killed the filibuster rule for judicial nominees in 2013. And when he killed it, it was gone for good.
Republicans were powerless to stop a series of President Obama's judicial nominees after that. That is, until they won control of the Senate in the 2014 elections. The GOP may have failed at using that majority to achieve much, especially making even a dent in Obamacare. But they were able to freeze the Obama nomination process in its tracks, most notably by delaying and eventually killing Merrick Garland's nomination for the Supreme Court.
That long period of confirmation obstruction has given President Trump a huge number of seats to fill; twice as many as President Obama's also large number of vacancies when he took office in 2009. The Christian Science Monitor reports this is likely the most vacancies for a president to fill in 40 years. And the Trump team hasn't been wasting much time.
For those who believe President Trump won the 2016 election thanks to a series of Democratic Party errors, this is cut from the exact same cloth.
Consider that as of November 3rd, 13 Trump nominees to the courts have been confirmed this year. The big name is Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, but we also have eight new federal appeals court judges, and four new U.S. district court judges. President Trump has now already surpassed the last four presidents' records for first-year judifical confirmations. And he's even tied President Ronald Reagan number of appeals court confirmations in year one.
But this isn't just about sheer numbers, it's about ideology too. While President Trump and conservatives have diverged in matters of policy several times over the past year, the judicial nomination process is decidedly not one of them. The nominees sent to the Senate from the White House are more conservative and even younger than what we saw during President George W. Bush's two terms in office.
In case the importance of making an impact on the courts is lost on anyone, just note the many setbacks the Trump administration has suffered this year alone thanks to the courts. Delays and changes to the White House-imposed travel and immigration bans have grabbed the most attention. But the administration is also dealing with judicial push back and other potential hurdles on everything from its opposition to the AT&T-Time Warner merger to its transgender military ban.
Now fast forward a couple of years where the Trump judicial appointment surge will have set in across the federal system. Just for this administration alone, that could make a huge difference. And for conservative causes and cases over time, it will be even more significant.
Sure, the tax reform and Obamacare repeal bills may be jeopardized by internal spats between the GOP and the White House. But real history is being made in the courts all thanks to a bad bet made by Senator Reid and remarkable cooperation between the Trump team, Senator Grassley, and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. While the fights with other senators like Flake et al may grab headlines, these judicial confirmations will have a much bigger impact.
And unless the Democrats win control of the Senate in 2018, there's nothing they can do about it.
So on this Thanksgiving weekend the most grateful person in America should be President Trump. An unlikely set of benefactors has truly given him the political gift that will keep on giving.
Commentary by Jake Novak, CNBC.com senior columnist. Follow him on Twitter @jakejakeny.
FOLLOW THE WHITE RABBIT EXPLAINED! #PizzaGate #QANON
Beware of the rabbit hole, your eyes will deceive you but your inherent truth will not:
http://go.shr.lc/2BaSiKo
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Alex+Podesta&t=vivaldi&ia=web
Friday, November 24, 2017
MASS UPSURG In "Unexplained Booms" As Predictions Of Quakes Explode & Patriarch Warns of THE END
LIVE: Sonic Booms Heard Worldwide
Nothing conservative about that...
Soros-Backed ‘Conservative’ Think Tank Urges Government to Make ‘Gender Identity’ Law https://www.prisonplanet.com/soros-backed-conservative-think-tank-urges-government-to-make-gender-identity-law.html
#DeepState does it again! Stealing almost a quarter million tax payer dollars to influence another government's election.Hungary's Prime Minister is the only guy and the only country calling out for the arrest of George Soros, the quintillionaire bent on bringing America to it's knees and turning Europe into caliphate! Call, call, the State Dept. today!! #EndTheDeepState #PurgeTheCIA it's broken!!!
Outrageous! Tillerson State Dept. Dumps $700,000 into Hungarian Media to Defeat Conservative Leader Orban http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/11/outrageous-tillerson-state-dept-dumps-700000-hungarian-media-defeat-conservative-leader-orban/
Thursday, November 23, 2017
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
President Donald J. Trump Amends California Disaster Declaration
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
November 22, 2017
President Donald J. Trump Amends California Disaster Declaration
Today, President Donald J. Trump made additional disaster assistance available to the State of California by authorizing an increase in the level of Federal funding for emergency protective measures undertaken in the State of California as a result of wildfires beginning on October 8, 2017, and continuing.
Under the President’s major disaster declaration issued for the State of California on October 10, 2017, Federal funding was made available for Public Assistance, Hazard Mitigation, and Other Needs Assistance at 75 percent of the total eligible costs.
Today, President Trump authorized a 100 percent Federal cost share for emergency protective measures, including direct Federal assistance, for a period of 30 days.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION MEDIA SHOULD CONTACT THE FEMA NEWS DESK AT (202) 646-3272 OR FEMA-NEWS-DESK@FEMA.DHS.GOV.
As Democrats Continue Their Push for Socialist State Video Emerges of North Korean Soldier Shot 5 Times As He Tries to Flee Regime
As Democrats Continue Their Push for Socialist State Video Emerges of North Korean Soldier Shot 5 Times As He Tries to Flee Regime http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/11/democrats-continue-push-socialist-state-video-emerges-north-korean-soldier-shot-5-times-tries-flee-regime/
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
CONFIRMED: Fusion GPS Paid Journalists Amid Trump-Russia ‘Collusion’ Hysteria
November 21, 2017 by Joshua Caplan
On Tuesday, a federal court unsealed Fusion GPS’s bank records, shining new light on Russia-related payments made by the firm behind the infamous ‘Trump dossier.’
Judge Richard Leon, a Bush-appointee, unsealed the records, showing 112 transactions involving Fusion GPS.
“Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented the Clinton campaign and DNC, paid Fusion a total of $1,024,408 between May 24, 2016 and Dec. 28, 2016, the records show,” reports Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller.
Ross adds, “The largest payment was made just before the election. Perkins Coie made a $365,275 payment to Fusion GPS on Oct. 28, 2016, according to the records.”
Daily Caller reports:
The unsealed documents also reveal details of the House committee’s requests for records related to Fusion’s payments to journalists.
The document shows that the committee sought records related to “five Fusion payments to research and Russia expert [name redacted], and production of three additional payments.”
[…]
The unsealed filings show that Fusion argued against releasing records related to payments to journalists.
The records raise new questions as to who is the mysterious ‘Russia expert,’ that Fusion GPS made various payments to. At the very least, the involvement of the expert, with the firm demonstrates more cooperation between the Clinton-linked group and Russia.
The bank records show that Fusion GPS paid journalists for work amid the Trump-Russia ‘collusion,’ hysteria.
The firm claims the journalists were paid to do work that was separate from the now discredited ‘Trump dossier.’
The journalists have not yet been identified.
Washington Examiner reports:
One of the documents filed by the company this week was an affidavit from one of Fusion GPS’s co-founders, Peter Frisch. That affidavit said, in part, “[The House Intelligence Committee] has also demanded records related to transactions between Fusion GPS and certain journalists — i.e., Request Nos. 66, 68-69, 107-112. Those requested records involve transactions that are not pertinent to work related to Russia or Donald Trump.”
[…]
Fusion GPS didn’t deny that some payments went to reporters, but argues that these payments were made to help the company with research.
“Fusion GPS is a research firm set up by former investigative journalists,” Fusion GPS’s lawyer, Josh Levy, said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “As such, it sometimes works with contractors that have specialized skills seeking public information. Contractors are not permitted to publish any articles based on that work, and Fusion GPS does not pay journalists to write stories.”
As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, the House Intelligence Committee suspected journalists may have been paid to report on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) demanded Fusion GPS, submit its banking records to the House Intelligence Committee so it can investigated if payments made to the research firm where funneled to reporters.
BREAKING: Major Congressional Harassment Scandal, Victims Were "Blackballed"
The major Congressional harassment scandal first broken by Mike Cernovich's team and ScuzzFeed, sorry BuzzFeed, may unravel an enormous amount of corruption and sleaze in D.C. I say "Unseal the Deals" and subscribe to Mike Cernovich's YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/DangerAndPlay
This was another solid research win for Cernovich.
Remarks by President Trump Before Marine One Departure
South Lawn
3:16 P.M. EST
Q Mr. President, are you ready to talk about Roy Moore at all?
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, I'll be talking about him. I can tell you one thing for sure: We don't need a liberal person in there, a Democrat -- Jones. I've looked at his record. It's terrible on crime. It's terrible on the border. It's terrible on the military. I can tell you for a fact, we do not need somebody that's going to be bad on crime, bad on borders, bad with the military, bad for the Second Amendment.
Q Is Roy Moore, a child molester, better than a Democrat? He's an accused --
THE PRESIDENT: Well, he denies it. Look, he denies it. I mean, if you look at what is really going on, and you look at all the things that have happened over the last 48 hours, he totally denies it. He says it didn’t happen. And, you know, you have to listen to him also. You're talking about, he said 40 years ago this did not happen. So, you know --
Q Are you going to campaign for Roy Moore?
THE PRESIDENT: I'll be letting you know next week. But I can tell you, you don’t need somebody who's soft on crime, like Jones.
Q Mr. President, what is your message to women, sir, during this pivotal moment in our country where we're talking about sexual misconduct? You've had your own allegations against you. What do you say to women?
THE PRESIDENT: Let me just tell you, Roy Moore denies it. That's all I can say. He denies it. And, by the way, he totally denies it.
Q Mr. President, what is your message to women? This is a pivotal moment in our nation's history.
THE PRESIDENT: Women are very special. I think it's a very special time because a lot of things are coming out, and I think that's good for our society, and I think it's very, very good for women. And I'm very happy a lot of these things are coming out, and I'm very happy it's being exposed.
Q Should Al Franken resign now?
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t know -- look, I don’t want to speak for Al Franken. I don’t know what happened.
Q What about John Conyers?
THE PRESIDENT: I just heard about Conyers two minutes ago.
As far as Franken is concerned, he's going to have to speak for himself. I'd rather have him speak for himself.
Q What did you say to Vladimir Putin, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: We had a great call with President Putin. We're talking about peace in Syria -- very important. We're talking about North Korea. We had a call that lasted almost an hour and a half. We've just put out a release on the call. But we're talking very strongly about bringing peace for Syria. We're talking about very strongly about North Korea and Ukraine.
Q The AT&T-Time Warner merger, sir -- what do you think about it?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I'm not going to get involved in litigation. But, personally, I've always felt that that was a deal that's not good for the country. I think your pricing is going to go up. I don’t think it's a good deal for the country. But I'm not going to get involved. It's litigation.
Thank you, everybody. Have a very great Thanksgiving.
Q Do you believe Roy Moore's denials? Do you believe him?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, he denies. I mean, Roy Moore denies it. And, by the way, he gives a total denial. And I do have to say, 40 years is a long time. He's run eight races, and this has never comes up. So 40 years is a long time. The women are Trump voters; most of them are Trump voters. All you can do is, you have to do what you have to do. He totally denies it.
Q Mr. President, do you believe Congress should release the names of lawmakers who have settled on sexual harassment claims?
THE PRESIDENT: I do. I really do. I think they should. Thank you. Have a good Thanksgiving, everybody.
END
ISIS Calls for Barron Trump’s Assassination
Tuesday, November 21, 2017 | Video
Location of First Son's school revealed.
By Adan Salazar | Infowars.com Tuesday, November 21, 2017
President Donald Trump’s 11-year-old son Barron is reportedly being targeted for assassination by ISIS supporters, the Washington Free Beacon reports.
In chatter found on the Telegram encrypted messaging app, pro-ISIS groups have shared details about Barron, including the name and location of the school he attends, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
“The initial message, sent on Nov. 21 by an ISIS supporter on Telegram, ‘called for the assassination of Barron Trump, and shared the name of the school that Barron attends along with a Google map pinpointing its location,’ according to MEMRI, which shares images of this messages with reporters,” reports the Free Beacon’s Adam Kredo.
One Telegram user, who goes by the name Dak Al-Munafiqeen – which in Arabic means, “striking the hypocrites” – wrote that “Barron Trump goes to this school in Washington.”
Memri reveals, “The post was followed by a photo of Barron Trump.”
“To widely disseminate the call for assassination, several pro-ISIS Telegram channels have shared and forwarded the post,” according to MEMRI.
In the past, ISIS supporters have used the Telegram app to call for attacks on France and to celebrate terror attacks in the UK and abroad.
Thanksgiving at the White House, Then and Now
NOVEMBER 21, 2017 AT 7:04 PM ET BY THE WHITE HOUSE
November is an opportune time to reflect on America's sacred traditions. While other holidays celebrate important values – Independence Day stokes our patriotism, for example, and Memorial Day reminds us solemnly of sacrifice – perhaps no day invites as much calm, personal reflection as does Thanksgiving.
President George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation, designating Thursday, November 26, 1789, as a day of public thanksgiving for
the first time under the new Constitution. Thanksgiving Day became a unified national celebration under President Abraham Lincoln, who declared the last Thursday in November to be regularly commemorated as Thanksgiving Day. In his proclamation, President Lincoln implored the war-torn nation to seek peace, harmony, and tranquility in the midst of what would become America’s deadliest war.
Since then, American Presidents have often used Thanksgiving proclamations to express their hopes for peace and well-being at home and abroad. "This year we have special and moving cause to be grateful and to rejoice,” President Woodrow Wilson said in 1918, mere days after the end of World War I. “God has in His good pleasure given us peace. . . . Complete victory has brought us, not peace alone, but the confident promise of a new day as well in which justice shall replace force and jealous intrigue among the nations."
Some Presidents spend Thanksgiving at the White House; others celebrate at Camp David or private family residences. The menu includes traditional Thanksgiving foods along with regional favorites, depending on the preferences of the First Family.
Turkey, of course, is a staple – but not the National Thanksgiving Turkey, which traditionally receives a Presidential pardon. Turkeys have been sent as gifts to American Presidents from as early as the 1870s, sometimes arriving in elaborate crates and costumes. By the 1920s, the influx of these turkeys had increased so greatly that President Calvin Coolidge discouraged Americans from sending them, reported a 1923 New York Times article. Eventually, however, the tradition resumed, and President Coolidge received not only turkeys, but quail, ducks, geese, rabbits, and a deer.
The most unusual gift was a raccoon, which was not served for dinner but became a Coolidge family pet.
In the 1940s, farmers and manufacturers began to send birds to the White House as a means of promoting the poultry industry. Sparing the turkey from becoming dinner became a tradition under President Ronald Reagan, but President George H. W. Bush was the first to formally grant the bird a Presidential pardon, taking a cue from the animal rights activists picketing nearby.
The tradition of selecting and pardoning a National Thanksgiving Turkey continues to this day. On Tuesday, November 21, President Donald J. Trump delivered the 2017 turkey pardon to a bird named “Drumstick.” Before pardoning the bird, President Trump delivered remarks in the Rose Garden, urging Americans toward greater unity and thanking the Armed Forces, police, and first responders for their service.
"As we gather together with our families on Thanksgiving and give thanks for our many blessings, we are reminded of the national family to which we all belong as citizens of this incredible country,” the President said. “This Thursday, as we give thanks for our cherished loved ones, let us also renew our bonds of trust, loyalty, and affection between our fellow citizens as members of a proud national family of Americans.”
The President and First Family wish all Americans a peaceful, happy, and healthy start to this holiday season.
Muslim College Basketball Player Grabs Ball and Shoots Baskets During National Anthem; Get’s Kicked Off Team; ACLU Defending Him
November 21, 2017 by Jim Hoft
Rasool Samir is a college ball player at Garden City Community College.
During the national anthem Rasool sat on the bench. Then he picked up a ball and started shooting baskets during the anthem.
FOX News reported:
Jim Howard, of Garden City, Kansas is a red-blooded, American patriot and a faithful supporter of the athletic program at the local community college.
For 32 years he’s volunteered with the booster club – keeping scorebooks, holding fundraisers, running the chain gang for football – and even providing a place for players to have a Thanksgiving meal.
He was in the stands on Nov. 1 for the season-opener of the Garden City Broncbusters basketball team. And when the announcer asked everyone to stand for the national anthem, he dutifully joined the crowd and stood at attention.
That’s when he noticed a lone player seated on a bench at courtside – Rasool Samir, a 19-year-old Muslim red-shirt…
…As the crowd began singing about the bombs bursting in air and the rocket’s red glare, the Muslim basketball player grabbed a ball, walked onto the court and began shooting baskets.
Rasool was later kicked off the team.
The far left ACLU is defending his Rasool’s right to shoot baskets during the National Anthem.
In direct violation of his First Amendment rights, Rasool Samir was kicked off the basketball team at Garden City Community College for not observing the national anthem.
We’re demanding answers. https://t.co/XNXFBr18fo
— ACLU of Kansas (@aclukansas) November 15, 2017
Rasool said it was against his religion to stand for the National Anthem.
Garden City Community College boots Muslim student for disrespecting the Nat'l Anthem.
Rasool Samir claims it's against his religion to stand for the flag. NEWSFLASH, Rasool:
The Anthem isn't abt religion. It's abt being American. Don't like it? LEAVE! https://t.co/N0ksu1wmVI— T. Zerilli-Edelglass (@TeresaEdelglass) November 18, 2017
'ANCHOR ABORTIONS' JOINING 'ANCHOR BABIES' AS RESIDENCY STRATEGY?
WND
Case before Supreme Court could open new 'rights' for illegals
Children born in the U.S. to illegal aliens, known as anchor babies, are automatically granted citizenship.
Now a new benefit may be developing for illegal-alien girls and women who are pregnant. The American Civil Liberties Union recently tricked the Department of Justice, arranging for taxpayers to fund an abortion for an illegal-alien teen.
More cases are in the pipeline that could create a “right” to taxpayer-paid abortion for illegal-alien girls and women.
WND reported the original case is being submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court because of the ACLU’s deception.
In that case, involving a 17-year-old pregnant illegal alien in Texas, court arguments were made at the district and appeals court levels.
When the appeals court said the abortion should proceed, ACLU lawyers told the DOJ they would arrange the procedure for the following day.
Instead, they summoned an abortionist to his business at 4:15 a.m. that very day to do the taxpayer-funded abortion.
The abortion was rushed, according to a new DOJ filing with the U.S. Supreme Court, because government attorneys were preparing to ask the high court to review the case after Democratic-appointed appellate judges effectively created a right to abortion for illegal aliens.
While the abortion on the illegal-alien teen already has been carried out, the precedent must be overturned, they argue.
The Washington Times reported Justice Department lawyers said they had been preparing to ask the Supreme Court to take up the case, “but the ACLU’s speedy abortion for the girl identified in court documents only as ‘J.D.’ short-circuited that.”
The brief reads: “The government planned to seek an emergency stay from this court before Ms. Doe could obtain an abortion. Ms. Doe’s appointment was changed so that instead of obtain counseling at 7:30 a.m. on October 25, she would undergo an abortion at 4:15 a.m. that morning, just hours before the government planned to file its stay application.”
Now the Washington Times is reporting a surge in pregnant illegal-alien girls.
“At least 420 pregnant Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) have been caught and put into government care over the last year, and 43 pregnant illegal immigrant girls were still in custody of the Health and Human Services Department as of Oct. 17, Jonathan White, the department’s director for children’s programs, said in court documents,” the report said.
“Of the 420 girls seen in fiscal year 2017, 18 requested abortions and 11 had them. Another five rescinded their request for an abortion, and two were turned over to sponsors in the U.S. before a final decision was made, Mr. White said, meaning they were outside of government custody.”
The Trump administration is in battle with the ACLU over the issue.
In a column for the Examiner, Margot Cleveland noted the government contends the Texas teen’s lawyers should be forced to prove why disciplinary action should not be taken against them, either by the court or the state bars to which they belong “for what appear to be material misrepresentations and omissions to government counsel designed to thwart this court’s review.”
The government filing said the government had asked to be kept informed of the timing of the abortion procedure, and “one of the respondent’s counsel agreed.”
It was on Oct. 25 that the DOJ was planning to file an appeal with the Supreme Court.
But even as paperwork was being prepared, the ACLU announced “Jane Doe” had had an abortion.
The abortion had been authorized by six Democratic-appointed judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, who were blasted by a variety of organizations for creating a new “right” to abortion at taxpayer expense even for those who have broken U.S. laws to enter the country.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, said, “We are deeply saddened to learn that Jane Doe’s child has been aborted.
“Our thoughts are foremost with the young girl, who has now been saddled with the death of her child before she has even reached her 18th birthday – a terrible burden for anyone to carry, much less at such a tender age and so far from home. We ask that the pro-life community and all compassionate Americans keep her and her child in their prayers.”
She continued: “We unequivocally reject abortion advocates’ narrative that justice has been done in this case. Instead the extreme agenda of the abortion lobby and the ACLU has claimed two victims and made a cruel mockery of the ‘American dream.’ We will continue to oppose all efforts to impose a so-called constitutional right to abortion and turn the United States into a sanctuary nation for abortion.”
Copyright 2017 WND
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2017/11/anchor-abortions-joining-anchor-babies-as-residency-strategy/#p14DLjWSSWoURKMS.99
NOW STATES LAUNCH ASSAULT ON LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR
WND EXCLUSIVE
New cases seek to accomplish what Obama failed to do
BOB UNRUH About | Email | Archive
Little Sisters at the Supreme Court (Image courtesy Becket Fund)
Remember the Little Sisters of the Poor, the Denver-based order of Catholic nuns who fought a years-long battle against the Obama administration over rules that forced them to fund abortion and contraception for employees?
The U.S. Supreme Court decided 8-0 in the nuns’ favor in 2016, sending the case back to lower courts for a resolution.
The case, Zubik v. Burwell, erupted when pro-abortion bureaucrats put in place by Obama demanded religious employers pay for optional services that terminate the life of an unborn child.
Obama claimed the government can force religious organizations to provide contraception coverage in their health plans even if the coverage violates sincerely held beliefs. But in a hugely embarrassing ruling for Obama, the Supreme Court ruled that the case had to be returned to the lower courts, and Daniel Blomberg, an attorney with the Becket Fund, explained it put the Little Sisters “in a place that we can get to a solution that frankly isn’t a win-loss; it’s a win-win.”
He said at the time the Supreme Court protected the Little Sisters “from having to violate their religious beliefs or pay massive fines.”
Now, however, Becket lawyers representing the Little Sisters are back in court, once again defending the nuns from a demand that they pay for abortion services.
Can Americans survive the Obamacare health crisis? Dr. Lee Hieb gives critically important advice in her book, “Surviving the Medical Meltdown: Your Guide to Living Through the Disaster of Obamacare.”
But this time the demands are coming from individual states. So far, cases have been filed by California and Pennsylvania.
Last month, the federal Health and Human Services agency issued a new rule protecting religious nonprofits like the Little Sisters, who dedicate their lives to caring for the elderly poor, from providing services such as the week-after pill, which violates their religious beliefs.
That means the long and complicated federal case likely will end soon.
But shortly after the new rule was issued, California and Pennsylvania sued to take away the religious exemption the Little Sisters just won.
The nuns, Becket said, are “asking the court to ensure that they can continue their vital ministry of caring for the elderly poor without violating their faith.”
Beckett said that, sadly, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra “think attacking nuns is a way to score political points.”
“These men may think their campaign donors want them to sue nuns, but our guess is most taxpayers disagree,” said Mark Rienzi, Becket’s senior counsel. “No one needs nuns in order to get contraceptives, and no one needs these guys reigniting the last administration’s divisive and unnecessary culture war.”
Becket said California admits that many of its own programs provide contraceptives to women who want them.
“California never filed suit over the much larger secular exemptions created by the Obama administration for big corporations – exemptions that applied to tens of millions more people than the religious exemption,” Becket argued. “California’s own mandate does not even apply to the Little Sisters of the Poor. And California has not identified a single actual person who had contraceptive coverage but will lose it because of this new rule.”
Despite all this, Becket said, California is asking a judge to find that the Little Sisters should be forced to comply with the federal mandate, not a state mandate, or pay tens of millions of dollars of government fines.
Pennsylvania is arguing the same points.
When the Trump administration changed Obama’s rules, it was because it wanted “to provide conscience protections for individuals and entities with sincerely held religious beliefs … and to minimize burdens in our regulation of the health insurance market.”
Becket Attorney Daniel Blomberg told WND and Radio America when the Supreme Court ruling was released that the Supreme Court doesn’t want groups such as the Little Sisters to be in the government’s cross-hairs, as they were under the Obama administration.
“Several lower court decisions had gone the wrong way, and they were forcing the Little Sisters to choose between their faith and fines, and they were massive, crushing fines,” he said at the time. “The Supreme Court today said, ‘No, we’re not going to do that. We’re going to send this back down to get reconsidered because the government has admitted it has other ways of accomplishing its mission without forcing the sisters to violate their beliefs.”
Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with Daniel Blomberg:
Daniel Blomberg calls Supreme Court's ruling on Little Sister of the Poor a 'win-win'
When Trump moved to remove Obama’s abortion-funding requirement, public-interest groups praised him.
“This interim rule, if issued as written, is an important step in acknowledging the importance of conscience rights for all Americans,” the Susan B. Anthony List organization said in a statement then.
“The taking of human life is the antithesis of health care. No one, including religious orders like the Little Sisters of the Poor, or groups like Susan B. Anthony List should be forced to be complicit in the provision of abortion inducing drugs and devices.”
Copyright 2017 WND
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2017/11/now-states-launch-assault-on-little-sisters-of-the-poor/#tEO6i5m1ugKzyU3g.99
BREAKING: MASSIVE NUCLEAR DISASTER IN RUSSIA POISONS EUROPE
MSM blames radioactive cloud on Russia
Alex Jones | Infowars.com - NOVEMBER 21, 2017
Alex Jones breaks down the radioactive cloud wafting over Europe being blamed on Russia.
https://www.facebook.com/AlexanderEmerickJones/videos/10156005051583459/
Read more:
The Telegraph: Report of ‘extremely high’ radioactive pollution suggests nuclear cloud came from Russia – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/21/report-extremely-high-radioactive-pollution-suggests-nuclear/
NYT: A Radioactive Cloud Wafts Over Europe, With Russia as Chief Suspect –
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/15/world/europe/radioactive-cloud-europe.html
Independent: Russian radioactivity recorded 986 times higher than usual as toxic cloud sparks nuclear accident rumours – http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-radiation-levels-986-times-higher-increase-toxic-cloud-power-plant-accident-rumoursrussia-a8066611.html
Monday, November 20, 2017
Sunday, November 19, 2017
President Donald J. Trump Proclaims November 19 through November 25, 2017, as National Family Week
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
November 17, 2017
President Donald J. Trump Proclaims November 19 through November 25, 2017, as National Family Week
NATIONAL FAMILY WEEK, 2017
- - - - - - -
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
During National Family Week, we emphasize the importance of preserving and promoting strong families, the cornerstone of our society. Families are as diverse as our Nation. They often extend beyond moms, dads, and their children, and include adoptive and foster parents, grandparents, and extended relatives. But no matter their makeup, families share a unique quality -- they naturally form the fundamental unit of our society. They hold more influence over our communities and our Nation than any other structure, so it is incumbent upon us, as a Nation, to strengthen and support them.
We cannot take strong families for granted. Each member of each family must work every day to nurture the bonds of love and loyalty that form the latticework of strong families. We can show support to our family members by loving selflessly, forgiving quickly, and spending quality time together.
In addition, Federal policy should be directed to facilitating the success of our families. Tax policy is a prime example. My Administration believes that Americans should be able to dedicate more of their resources and earnings to the task and duty of providing for their families. More of each paycheck should go toward supporting families and less should be directed to an all-too-often inefficient Federal Government. Our policies must also support working mothers, and enable them to reach their full potential. That is why I am committed to cutting taxes for middle-income families -- including by expanding the child tax credit -- and fundamentally reforming our Nation's outdated tax code. Our work will enable families to spend more of their hard-earned dollars on the success of their children.
Federal policy must also guard against threats to the family. In 2016, we lost at least 64,000 lives to opioid and other drug overdoses, devastating American families and communities. To combat this growing crisis, my Administration has already dedicated more than $1 billion in funding to address the drug addiction and opioid crisis since taking office. Last month, my Administration declared the opioid epidemic to be a nationwide public health emergency in order to focus needed Federal resources and attention on this critical matter. We will not abandon our families as they fight the scourge of opioids.
Throughout our Nation's history, in times of both turmoil and triumph, the strength and hope of the American family has sustained our citizens. The family is our foundation, a pillar of our past, and a key to our future prosperity. Strong families teach integrity and patriotism, encourage and foster teamwork, and demonstrate unconditional love and acceptance. When these foundational principles overflow from our homes into neighborhoods and communities, they strengthen and fortify the Nation.
During National Family Week, we support and encourage American families to create healthy, nurturing environments for their children and future generations. I hope all Americans will join me in gratitude to our Creator for the many ways families bless and enrich our lives and our Nation.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim November 19 through November 25, 2017, as National Family Week. I invite communities, churches, and individuals to observe this week with appropriate ceremonies and activities to honor our Nation's families.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this seventeenth day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand seventeen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-second.
DONALD J. TRUMP
Russell Simmons and Brett Ratner face new allegations of sexual misconduct
Russell Simmons and Brett Ratner face new allegations of sexual misconduct
By AMY KAUFMAN, DANIEL MILLER AND VICTORIA KIM
NOV. 19, 2017
Russell Simmons, left, and Brett Ratner attend the 2013 Vanity Fair Oscar Party in West Hollywood. (Kevin Mazur / VF13 / WireImage)
Keri Claussen Khalighi was a 17-year-old fashion model from a farm town in Nebraska when she met Brett Ratner and Russell Simmons at a casting call.
Ratner was an up-and-coming music video director and a protege of Simmons, the Def Jam Recordings mogul. They took Khalighi to dinner one night in 1991 at Mr. Chow in New York, and then back to Simmons’ apartment to show her a music video they’d been working on.
Quickly, Simmons began making aggressive sexual advances, yanking off her clothes, Khalighi said.
“I looked over at Brett and said ‘help me’ and I'll never forget the look on his face,” she recalled. “In that moment, the realization fell on me that they were in it together.”
Khalighi said that Simmons, who was then about twice her age, tried to force her to have intercourse. “I fought it wildly,” she said. He eventually relented and coerced her to perform oral sex, she alleged. “I guess I just acquiesced.”
Ratner, meanwhile, “just sat there and watched,” she said.
Feeling “disgusting,” Khalighi said she went to take a shower. Minutes later, she alleged, Simmons walked up behind her in the shower and briefly penetrated her without her consent. She said she jerked away, then he left. “It hurt so much.”
In a statement, Simmons, 60, strongly disputed her account. “Everything that occurred between Keri and me occurred with her full consent and participation,” he said. Much of the two days and one night he spent with her, he said, was with other people, or in public. Ratner had “no recollection” of Khalighi asking him for help and denied witnessing her “protest,” his attorney Martin Singer said.
Ratner has also disputed the accounts of four other women who accused him of sexual misconduct in this story and a previous report by The Times that included the claims of six others, among them actresses Olivia Munn and Natasha Henstridge.
Since that Nov. 1 report, which detailed allegations of harassment, groping and forced oral sex, additional women contacted The Times about Ratner, who has directed, produced or financed successful films including “Rush Hour,” “The Revenant” and “Horrible Bosses.”
ALSO: Six women accuse filmmaker Brett Ratner of misconduct »
In several of the accounts, the women said that Ratner, 48, surrounded himself with powerful friends, including Simmons and filmmaker James Toback, who, while sharing Ratner’s playboy lifestyle, have also been accused of engaging in sexual misconduct. Those friendships, some women said, enabled inappropriate behavior within the group, sometimes by active participation and in other cases by simply providing venues for incidents to take place.
These men and other older, controversial Hollywood friends — including producer Robert Evans and filmmaker Roman Polanski — have served as father figures to Ratner, who had a distant relationship with his late dad. Evans, the former Paramount Pictures production chief who was convicted of trafficking cocaine, explained his relationship with Ratner in a 2007 Vanity Fair story: “I was his Hollywood father. I don't know whether I should be proud of that or not."
‘Mutual admiration for beautiful women’
Simmons, who co-founded Def Jam, has often described how Ratner first curried favor by furnishing him with models after they met in 1987. Then an undergraduate studying film at New York University, Ratner seemed to know where the models lived in Manhattan, Simmons has said.
“He was willing to do anything to be of use,” Simmons wrote in his book “Do You!: 12 Laws to Access the Power in You to Achieve Happiness and Success,” published in 2007. “After he hung around a bit and figured out that I liked models, then he made it his business to take me to every model’s apartment he could find.”
Ratner, who has said his father abused drugs and became homeless, found in Simmons a willing surrogate. "He's my son, all right," Simmons told Vanity Fair.
Ratner’s introduction to a 2005 book about the rise of Def Jam acknowledged that their relationship was “initially based on our mutual admiration for beautiful women.”
The men would go clubbing in Simmons’ Cadillac limo, partying all night and into the next day. At the time, Simmons was a power player in New York who helped turn hip-hop into a mainstream business and cultural force with the release of records by Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys and LL Cool J. Simmons also has founded clothing labels including Phat Farm — once a staple of the hip-hop scene — and created HBO’s “Def Comedy Jam,” which has launched the careers of many black stand-ups.
Admiration — and success — were not the only things Ratner and Simmons allegedly shared. In a 2005 Playboy article about Simmons’ reformed ways, magazine writer Touré described a 1994 incident in which he met Simmons for an interview at a cafe below the music mogul’s apartment. When Ratner showed up a little while later, Simmons disappeared for half an hour without explanation. Touré wrote that he later learned that Simmons "had gone up to his place and had sex with a sumptuous model whom Ratner had just finished with."
The pair’s conduct together has also been scrutinized by authorities. In 2001, a woman told Beverly Hills police that she was held against her will at Ratner’s mansion, Hilhaven Lodge, “by two males who both unlawfully touched her,” Lt. Elisabeth Albanese told The Times this month.
In that moment, the realization fell on me that they were in it together.
Keri Claussen Khalighi
The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office declined to file criminal charges against Ratner and Simmons due to insufficient evidence.
Harland Braun, Ratner’s attorney for criminal matters, said that the allegation “was a minor thing” and that the accuser had made similar claims against others. In a statement to Variety, which first reported the investigation, Simmons said that public figures such as himself are “vulnerable and susceptible to claims that are untrue.”
In 1994, an aspiring young model said she crossed paths with the duo at a hotel in South Beach.
Tanya Reid had moved to Miami hoping to become a model. She’d dreamed of it since she was 14, taking modeling classes and entering regional modeling competitions in Caledonia, Miss., a small town of less than 1,000.
When she met Ratner, who was staying at the hotel where she worked the front desk, he was filming a music video featuring a coterie of beautiful models.
Simmons was also staying at the hotel, and, Reid said, the two men repeatedly called the front desk asking to speak to her. Simmons asked her to personally bring a toothbrush to him, but she deflected, saying a bellman would handle it. “I remember this very, very clearly, the exact words he said on the phone. He wanted me to come upstairs so Brett could hold me down and he could [perform oral sex],” Reid said.
One day, Ratner invited her up to his hotel room as she was leaving work. Spread out on his bed were photographs of models appearing in his video. Ratner asked if she wanted to be one of them, Reid recalled. She gave him her phone number. A couple of days later, he stopped by her apartment, a few blocks from the hotel. Not long after they sat down on her living room sofa, he exposed himself, put her hand on his crotch and asked for oral sex, she said.
Reid, who was an 18-year-old virgin, said she asked if they could just kiss. He then allegedly used his hand to push her head to his groin. Eventually, she said she gave in. Ratner left immediately after, and she never heard from him again.
Ratner, through attorney Singer, said he did not recall Reid or the alleged incident. Simmons said in a statement, “I mean no disrespect to her when I say I do not recall a conversation with a hotel front desk clerk over a quarter of a century ago.”
Reid's roommate in Miami confirmed that Reid told her at the time about inappropriate behavior by Ratner. Tara Garrett, her childhood best friend, said Reid told her, “I’m better off being at home.… You just don’t understand that world.”
A couple of weeks after the alleged incident, Reid packed up and moved back to Caledonia, giving up on her dream of becoming a model.
The ‘private playground’
Ratner has long sought to cloak himself in the mystique of Hollywood’s golden age. His circle of friends and his home, Hilhaven Lodge, have been a big part of his self-styled reputation as a playboy.
The Beverly Hills estate, situated on a large, leafy lot off Benedict Canyon Drive near Sunset Boulevard, was previously home to “Casablanca” star Ingrid Bergman, “Vertigo” actress Kim Novak and later “Grease” producer Alan Carr, who installed a disco. Ratner’s 2003 book, “Hilhaven Lodge: The Photo Booth Pictures,” features images of stars such as Britney Spears, Robert Downey Jr., Heidi Klum and Colin Farrell taken in a booth at the house.
He also branded a Hilhaven Lodge whiskey with a label that reads: “The lodge quickly became the private playground for those who live in the spotlight, a haven where they could be themselves.”
And for years, it has been just that. In January, Toback, the director who was accused of sexual harassment and misconduct by more than 300 women during a Times investigation, called it his “second home.”
Brittny McCarthy said she was approached by Toback at a Santa Monica bookstore in 2008. He told her she had a good look for a part in one of his upcoming films.
McCarthy, then 30, said Toback “name-dropped Ratner from the very beginning of our conversation,” suggesting that they go to Ratner’s house to screen a documentary Toback had recently directed.
When they arrived at Hilhaven Lodge, McCarthy said she did not see Ratner or any other people. Toback brought McCarthy into a bedroom where he asked her to show him how she masturbated, she alleged. “I was afraid that if I didn’t do what he said, it would get worse,” she said. “I felt frozen.”
Afterward, she said he humped her leg until he ejaculated.
“It is so terrible what these men have done — and to not be held accountable for it,” said McCarthy, who recently filed two police reports about the run-in, including one with the Beverly Hills Police Department. “… There is a lot of enabling that happens.”
ALSO: Dozens of women accuse director James Toback of sexual harassment »
When asked about the allegations, Toback hung up without comment. Ratner “denies knowledge of Mr. Toback ever engaging in any inappropriate behavior at Hilhaven,” Singer said.
Singer said the claim that Hilhaven Lodge was a venue for alleged inappropriate behavior involving Toback or others “does not square with the fact that there are regularly many other people around to whom someone could voice a complaint if something objectionable was allegedly taking place.”
‘Just touch it’
In other cases, Ratner did his own entertaining — separate from his friends.
Jaymee Ong, a model and actress who became acquainted with Ratner in 2001, said she was invited to a Halloween party at Hilhaven Lodge but when she arrived with two friends, there were no other revelers. “[Ratner] said, ‘Oh, I just thought we could chill,’” recalled Ong, whose credits include the TV shows “Entourage” and “Las Vegas.”
Ratner asked her to come to his bedroom. Once there, she said, he locked the door and began groping her. “I was saying, ‘No, stop, I don’t want to,’” she said. “And he took his pants off and he was trying to grab my hand and put it on him [saying], ‘Just touch it, just touch it, come on.’”
When Ong, then 21, refused, he masturbated and then ejaculated, she alleged. She said she left and immediately recounted the experience to her friends.
“I will just never forget the look on her face when she walked out of that bedroom,” said Gina Angel, who was with Ong at Hilhaven Lodge that night. “It gives me chills to think back to that moment, because we were all so young.”
Singer acknowledged that Ratner and Ong were “very friendly around that time period,” but denied Ong’s claims. He said that Ratner recalled Ong flirting with him and asking to be in one of his films. The actress Mei Melancon, Singer said, was also at Hilhaven Lodge with Ong in 2001 and witnessed no misconduct. Melancon said Ratner and Ong were never alone together, but witnessed Ong “all over” the filmmaker, according to Singer.
“I never, never, never have done that because I always wanted to be able to look at myself in the mirror,” Ong said, denying that she flirted with Ratner or asked to be cast by him.
In cultivating Hilhaven, Ratner was emulating Evans, the former Paramount executive, who had transformed his own Beverly Hills mansion, Woodland, into a party pad. Ratner lived there in the 2000s while Hilhaven was being remodeled.
Former marketing executive Melanie Kohler said in a Facebook post in October that Ratner raped her at Evans’ home (she told The Times she did not see Evans during the alleged encounter in the 2000s). After Kohler made these allegations, Ratner sued her for defamation; in subsequent interviews, Kohler has stood by her account.
As recently as January, Ratner named Evans as among his “closest friends,” but when reached for comment, Evans’ attorney said: “Mr. Evans has not interacted with Mr. Ratner for almost a decade — I think that speaks for itself.”
Singer said Ratner considered Evans a mentor, although “they have not been close” since Ratner lived at Evans’ home from 2003 to 2005.
Alleged on-set encounters
The new allegations against Ratner also include claims of harassment in show business settings.
In 2004, producer Shelly Clippard, then 29, flew to Prague, Czech Republic, with Ratner and others to tour a production facility that was offering promising tax incentives. She said Ratner traded seats to sit next to her for the transatlantic flight, and began making sexually explicit comments to her, showing her nude photographs of his famous then-girlfriend and graphically describing her body.
Clippard said she was so disturbed by the encounter that upon returning from Europe she shared details of the incident with a friend, who confirmed that conversation with The Times. (Two other women who talked to The Times described being shown nude photos of the same woman by Ratner.)
Singer said Ratner “has no recollection” of the alleged run-in with Clippard and “absolutely denies” showing her photos of his former girlfriend. “No such photos exist,” Singer said.
On the set of “Rush Hour 3,” Sarah Shahi, 37, said that on multiple occasions, Ratner approached her from behind, thrust his groin against her and made graphic sexual comments.
Fearful of looking like "one of Brett's girls," Shahi said she did her best to shun his advances. "Each time, I'd get really loud and say, 'Why are your hands on me? Don't you need to go set up a shot?'" said Shahi, who was then in her 20s.
Shahi told casting director Michelle Lewitt Kehl about the experience shortly after it occurred, which Kehl confirmed. Shahi said the encounters were also witnessed by other actors, including star Jackie Chan, who did not respond to requests for comment.
Despite the run-ins, Shahi stayed in touch with Ratner. She emailed him, sometimes to just say hello in flirtatious messages, and in other cases to ask for favors, such as when she solicited his vote for Maxim magazine’s “Hot 100” list. In 2011, she asked Ratner to give her sister, who had interned for the filmmaker, a job as an assistant.
Shahi, who has starred in the TV shows “Life” and “Person of Interest,” said that she kept in touch for business reasons, and did so without knowing of his alleged misconduct with other women.
Now, she wonders if she did the right thing. “I was trying to be a smart businesswoman by keeping the lines of [communication open],” she said. “I played the Hollywood game like every other actress.”
Ratner, through his attorney Singer, “vehemently denied” Shahi’s claims, noting their ongoing contact and providing copies of emails referring to him as a “cutie pie” and signing off with hugs and kisses. “These overwhelming contradictions make the claims inherently improbable,” Singer wrote.
Ratner has now denied the allegations of several women. Since The Times’ Nov. 1 story first detailed Ratner’s alleged misconduct, Warner Bros. has severed ties with the filmmaker, opting to not renew a production deal with his company, RatPac Entertainment. He has also lost his office on the studio’s Burbank lot.
‘Time for the truth’
Now 43, Khalighi said her memories of her encounter with Ratner and Simmons remain vivid — even as she has worked hard to move past the incident.
A year ago, she said, she saw Simmons at the Soho House in West Hollywood, where he approached her, “poured his heart out in a really touching, remorseful apology” for his behavior and offered his telephone number — saying she should call him if she wanted to talk further.
“He knew what he had done; I knew what he had done,” she said. “That's also why it was so vindicating, because it was there, acknowledged.”
That apology, Simmons’ attorney Brad D. Rose said, was in the “context for the embarrassment and upheaval the weekend caused her” related to her “infidelity.” (Khalighi disputes the account.)
“In fact, they also shared a meaningful healing hug,” Rose said.
In recent years, Simmons has publicly spoken of his personal reformation through yoga and meditation. Formerly a man "constantly on a mission to make more money, have sex with more women, and snort more coke than the next man," he has found peace, Simmons wrote in his 2014 book, “Success Through Stillness.” He wrote, though, that he was "still working on the women part."
Highlighting his own social activism and support for the #MeToo sexual harassment campaign, Simmons said in a statement to The Times that Khalighi’s claim “does a disservice to those who have been true victims of sexual harassment.”
“Let me be crystal clear and very direct. Abusing women in any way shape or form violates the very core of my being,” he said.
Khalighi said she has told at least three people about her 1991 encounter with Ratner and Simmons: a friend in the modeling industry shortly after the incident, model Claudia Mason and another friend several years ago when she was declining an invitation to an event one of the men would be attending. All three corroborated Khalighi’s account to The Times.
“It came up when we were discussing abuse of power from men who were in powerful positions,” Mason said. “I had heard stories about these two men — who I happen to know — but had not had any of this done to me. I was horrified, because she's a good, dear person."
Simmons’ attorney provided a signed statement from Simmons’ former assistant, Anthony “Mac” McNair, who said he saw Khalighi go to Simmons’ bedroom “on her own volition and without any coercion or undue influence.” McNair said the group also went out to a nightclub later that evening. McNair said he saw Khalighi at Simmons’ house the next day — an assertion affirmed by Simmons — and did not notice “any visible signs of distress or that anything improper had occurred.” Simmons’ attorney provided two additional anonymous statements from people who said Khalighi showed no signs of distress during the weekend.
Khalighi said she did not see anyone but Simmons or Ratner at Simmons’ home and did not recall being there the next day. The Times could not reach McNair for comment.
Khalighi said she reached out to Simmons on the day The Times published a story about Ratner’s alleged misconduct, and told him she was considering publicly telling her story. She urged him to disclose his past behavior. He called her, she said, and they spoke for 27 minutes, according to phone records reviewed by The Times.
Let me be crystal clear and very direct. Abusing women in any way shape or form violates the very core of my being.
Russell Simmons
Simmons, she said, did not deny any of her claims. Instead, he apologized, mentioning that he is now the father of two daughters, Khalighi said.
After their initial call, he continued to text message her repeatedly, asking if they could speak again, according to a record of the exchange Khalighi showed to The Times.
Khalighi said she responded to Simmons after reading about the 2001 police investigation to express displeasure over his statement referencing “untrue” claims. Simmons said in a text message that the woman who had filed the police report “has made a fortune on this racket,” adding: “I’m really in very scary space if u have time.”
She did not answer, she said.
Khalighi said she also discussed the 1991 run-in with Ratner when she saw him out one night in L.A. about 15 years ago.
“He listened and he un-defensively acknowledged the truth of what had happened,” Khalighi recalled. “He said he was young and stupid and blinded by Russell's sway over him.”
Now, however, Ratner has said, via his attorney, that he never heard any "alleged protest" from her. Ratner also has “no recollection” of Khalighi discussing the matter with him 15 years ago, Singer said.
“They are publicly denying these allegations, which implies that the women who come forward are liars,” said Khalighi, who is 38 weeks pregnant. “So I'm coming out because what I've experienced privately is not matching what they are saying publicly and hypocrisy to me is repugnant and it's time for the truth to come out.”
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Times staff writers Richard Winton and Glenn Whipp contributed to this report.
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Fake News; The Neutron Bomb Explodes
Fake News; The Neutron Bomb Explodes
- Published on Published on November 9, 2017
Richard Edelman
President and CEO, Edelman
We are just out of the field on a flash poll in the U.S. taken last week, with 1,000 members of the general population and an oversample of 113 Silicon Valley-based tech employees on the impact of fake news on trust in mainstream media. The sad conclusion that has been drawn by a majority of Americans is that fake news is created by the media with a motive, destruction of political opponents. The logical end point is establishment of echo chambers, in which one reads only that which one agrees with. It is the end of the town square that allowed for the discussion of issues based on mutually agreed facts.
Here are the key findings of the study:
- Fake news is decreasing trust in traditional news organizations. Thirty six percent said that their trust has decreased “a lot,” 26 percent said trust has decreased “a little.” The biggest decline is among Republicans, with 49 percent saying that their trust has decreased “a lot” and 25 percent saying trust has decreased “a little,” for a total of 74 percent. Contrast this to Democrats with a decline of 50 percent, with 22 percent.
- The most popular definition of fake news is “sloppy or biased reporting by news organizations” (47 percent), followed by an “insult being over-used to discredit news stories that people do not like” (39 percent). This has a political tinge…Republicans are much more inclined to believe that there is biased reporting (57 percent) than Democrats (38 percent), while Democrats are inclined to believe that fake news is a term used to discredit certain stories (47 percent) than Republicans (32 percent).
- Fake News is changing consumption behaviors. Over half (51 percent) said they are now more careful about where they get news. They are also fact-checking and verifying sources more than ever before. Nearly a quarter of respondents said it has made them doubt the truth of almost every news story they see.
- Despite protestations to the contrary, a near majority believe that social platforms are media companies. This pertains especially to Twitter, which is seen by nearly a 5 to 1 margin as more media than technology company, and to a lesser degree, Facebook. And more than half of our respondents blame social platforms for spreading fake news.
- The most frequently proposed remedies include large fines against companies that publish fake news, requirements to label the source of content (earned and paid), requiring companies to screen for fake news and educating the public to distinguish falsehood from truth.
In Plato’s “Republic,” there is the famous Allegory of the Cave, in which Socrates speaks with Plato’s older brother, Glaucon. “Let me show you in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened. Behold, human beings living in an underground cave…they have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move and can see only before them…they see only their own shadows or the shadows of one another…to them, the truth would literally be nothing but the shadows of the images…What will naturally follow if the prisoner is released? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?“
We have locked ourselves into a cave of our own making. We have become tribal and defensive. The mainstream media is categorized as elitist and politicized, unable to carry out its vital role of truth-telling as the fourth estate in global governance. We opt instead for opinion based on personal experience, using the social platforms as equivalent or superior forms of communication. Given this environment, business needs to take control of its own story, with every company becoming a media company. The employees become the most important audience and then most credible spokespeople, empowered to speak on behalf of the company to friends, family and customers. In so doing, we can reverse this inexorable slide toward judgment based on passion instead of fact.
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