May 7, 2017


News and Views


“COULD DECIDE EUROPE’S FATE” – LET’S PRAY FOR THE WORLD, IF THIS MEANS WHAT I THINK IT DOES. IS THE NEXT HITLER (OR HITLERINA) RISING FROM THE ASHES?

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/french-election-new-president-vote-decide-europes-fate/
France chooses new president in vote that could decide Europe's fate
CBS/AP May 7, 2017, 7:44 AM
France

PARIS -- French voters decided Sunday whether to back pro-business independent Emmanuel Macron or far-right populist Marine Le Pen as their next president, casting ballots in an unusually tense and important presidential election that also could decide Europe's future.

With Macron the pollsters' favorite, voting stations opened across mainland France at 8 a.m. under the watch of 50,000 security forces guarding against extremist attacks. A security scare caused by a suspicious bag prompted the brief evacuation of the Louvre museum courtyard where Macron plans to celebrate election night.

Apparent hacking in high-stakes French election
Play VIDEO
Apparent hacking in high-stakes French election

France's Interior Ministry said voter turnout at midday was running slightly lower than during the last presidential runoff in 2012. The ministry said 28 percent of eligible voters had cast ballots, compared with a half-day tally of 31 percent five years ago.

Commentators think a low turnout would benefit Le Pen, whose supporters are seen as more committed and therefore more likely to show up to vote.

Macron voted in the seaside resort of Le Touquet in northern France alongside his wife, Brigitte Macron. Le Pen cast her ballot just a hundred kilometers away in Henin-Beaumont, a small town controlled by her National Front party.

Macron, 39, a former Socialist economy minister and one-time banker who ran as an independent, was all smiles and petted a black dog as he stepped out of his vacation home. For security reasons, he was driven to his polling station nearby.

Le Pen, 48, was able to vote without any incident after feminist activists were briefly detained a couple of hours earlier Sunday for hanging a big anti-Le Pen banner from a church in the northern town.

Photograph -- frenchelection7may.jpg, A man and a woman look at posters of French presidential election candidate for the En Marche ! movement Emmanuel Macron (L) and French presidential election candidate for the far-right Front National (FN) party Marine Le Pen, in Paris, on April 28, 2017. PHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Meanwhile, police and soldiers worked to secure the symbolic Paris venues where the next president will celebrate victory.

The grand internal courtyard of the renowned palace-turned-museum Macron picked for his celebration party reopened after several hundred journalists preparing for the election event had to leave because of the security alert over the suspicious bag.

The museum itself was not evacuated, and tourists continued entering and leaving the site. The Louvre already was being heavily guarded after an extremist attacker targeted soldiers near the museum during the presidential campaign. Paris police said the evacuation was a "precautionary measure."

If Le Pen wins, she plans to celebrate at the Chalet du Lac in the Bois de Vincennes, a vast park on Paris' eastern edge.

Play VIDEO -- Stakes high for Europe ahead of French election Sunday

The fate of the European Union may hang in the balance as France's 47 million voters decide whether to risk handing the presidency to Le Pen, who dreams of quitting the bloc and its common currency, or to play it safer with Macron, an unabashed pro-European who wants to strengthen the EU.

Global financial markets and France's neighbors are watching carefully. A "Frexit" would be far more devastating than Britain's departure, since France is the second-biggest economy to use the euro. The country also is a central pillar of the EU and its mission of keeping post-war peace via trade and open borders.

The vote will help gauge the strength of global populism after the victories last year of a referendum to take Britain out of the EU and Donald Trump's U.S. presidential campaign. In France, it is a test of whether voters are ready to overlook the racist and anti-Semitic past of Le Pen's National Front party.

Photograph -- franceelection3.jpg, The French flag hangs from a balustrade as voters cast their ballots in the presidential runoff election between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, in Le Touquet, France, Sunday, May 7, 2017. AP

Le Pen has broadened the party's appeal by tapping into -- and fueling -- anger at globalization and fears associated with immigration and Islamic extremism. Macron has argued that France must rethink its labor laws to better compete globally and appealed for unity and tolerance that Le Pen called naive.

Either candidate would lead France into uncharted territory, since neither comes from the mainstream parties that dominate parliament and have run the country for decades. The winner will have to try to build a parliamentary majority in elections next month to make major changes.

The most closely watched and unpredictable French presidential campaign in recent memory ended with a hacking attack and document leak targeting Macron on Friday night. France's government cybersecurity agency, ANSSI, is investigating the hack, which Macron's team says was aimed at destabilizing the vote.

France's election campaign commission said Saturday that "a significant amount of data" -- and some fake information -- was leaked on social networks following the hacking attack on Macron. The leaked documents appeared largely mundane, and the perpetrators remain unknown.

The timing of the leak was very strange, coming at a time when all campaigning had officially stopped and all reporting on the election was likewise supposed to have ceased, CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips reported. The blackout was supposed to be a period of reflection for voters.

Suspicion for the attack fell on the Russians and was considered a possible attempt to benefit Le Pen.



“FORMING A US GOVERNMENT”

This article above contains the mysterious phrase “build a government,” or as I more often see it, to “form a government.” The Brits apparently use it to mean getting together enough of their chosen party members under one roof to vote into being whatever they want to achieve, i.e. “a winning team.” In this country, we often have a huge problem even passing legislation at all, much less desirable legislation, due to the amount of discord among the legislators. Competition between the parties has become the only game in town, rather than producing fair, reasonable, clearly written, and truly problem-solving legislation. We need to have structural changes, not merely a new election.

I think we need three or even four parties rather than two, representing both ends and the middle of the spectrum going from left to right, which would probably provide enough differences among them all to come to a CONSENSUS of the whole body, rather than pleasing one group completely and leaving out all the other groups. We are deeply involved in the “winner take all” model of government. That would also tend to give each issue and opinion a better chance of getting some representation, rather than the vicious head bashing conflicts that we have in the House. Members of the Senate quite primly sometimes claim to be the senior and wiser members in the US government, and I believe they are usually the most rational and responsible. Most of the very poor writing and bill formation that I see seems to happen in the House. This week’s Tea Party led House medical care bill is a prime example. It blatantly eliminates the weakest and most needy of help in the way of true Classists. I want it to be far less likely that one party can rule either house with an iron hand, as they do today. One Republican was quoted yesterday in the news as saying that “nobody dies” from lack of good medical care. Bilgewater! I wonder what country he has been living in all his life.

What we have in the US is two opposing monopolies going at each other viciously, rather than an honest attempt to create wise solutions to problems and write them up in a way that no group is totally disenfranchised, based on the premise that we are a government for ALL THE PEOPLE, rather than just the crème de la crème. The following article is the only place that I found the phrase “form a government” used in the way I am describing, and in a way that its’ meaning is clear to me from context if not from definition.

In searching for some ten minutes I could find nothing like a “definition” of the phrase until I came across “spot.colorado.edu,” below. This Colorado.edu article puts it perfectly and succinctly. The writer was Lloyd Norton Cutler, a prestigious lawyer. See excerpts:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Cutler,

“Lloyd Norton Cutler (November 10, 1917 – May 8, 2005) was an American attorney, who served as White House Counsel during the Democratic administrations of Presidents Carter and Clinton. He was also the trainer of the former Vice President of the European Parliament and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, Stavros Lambrinidis.”

FORMING A GOVERNMENT *

http://spot.colorado.edu/~mcguire/cutler.html,
This reproduction is subject to Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phono records or by any other means specified in that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.


TO FORM A GOVERNMENT

Lloyd N. Cutler,

Foreign Affairs 59 (1): 126-143, Fall 1980.

“When the great crisis and the resulting large consensus are not there - when the country is divided somewhere between 55-45 and 45-55 on each of a wide set of issues, and when the makeup of the majority is different on every issue - it has not been possible for any modern President to "form a Government" that could legislate and carry out his overall program. . . . .

If we decide we want the capability of forming a Government, the only way to do so is to amend the Constitution. Amending the Constitution, of course, is extremely difficult. Since 1793, when the Bill of Rights was added, we have amended the Constitution only 16 times. Some of these amendments were structural, such as the direct election of Senators, votes for women and 18 years olds, the two-term limit for Presidents, and the selection of a successor Vice President. But none has touched the basic separation of executive and legislative powers.

The most one can hope for is a set of modest changes that would make our structure work somewhat more in the manner of a parliamentary system, with somewhat less separation between the executive and the legislature than now exists.

There are several candidate proposals. Here are some of the more interesting ideas:

1) We now vote for a presidential candidate and a vice-presidential candidate as an inseparable team. We could provide that in presidential election years, voters in each congressional district would be required to vote for a trio of candidates, as a team, for President, Vice President and the House of Representatives. This would tie the political fortunes of the party's presidential and congressional candidates to one another, and provide some incentive for sticking together after they are elected. Such a proposal could be combined with a four-year term for members of the House of Representatives. This would tie the presidential and congressional candidates even more closely, and has the added virtue of providing members with greater protection against the pressures of single-issue political groups. This combination is the brainchild of Congressman Jonathan Bingham of New York, and is now pending before the Congress. . . . .

2) Another idea is to permit or require the President to select 50 percent of his Cabinet from among the members of his party in the Senate and House, who would retain their seats while serving in the Cabinet. This would be only a minor infringement on the constitutional principle of separation of powers, but it would require a change in Article I, Section 6, which provides that "no person holding any office under the United States shall be a member of either house during his continuance in office." It would tend to increase the intimacy between the executive and the legislature, and add to their sense of collective responsibility. The 50-percent test would leave the President adequate room to bring other qualified persons into his Cabinet, even though they do not hold elective office.

3) A third intriguing suggestion is to provide the President with the power, to be exercised not more than once in his term, to dissolve Congress and call for new congressional elections. This is the power now vested in the President under the French Constitution. It would provide the opportunity that does not now exist to break an executive-legislative impasse, and to let the public decide whether it wishes to elect Senators and Congressmen who will legislate the President's overall program. . . . .

4) Another variant on the same idea is that in addition to empowering the President to call for new congressional elections, we might empower a majority or two-thirds of both Houses to call for new presidential elections. This variant has been scathingly attacked in a series of conversations between Professor Charles Black of the Yale Law School and Congressman Bob Eckhardt of Texas, published in 1975, because they think that such a measure would vitally diminish the President's capacity to lead.7

5) There are other proposals that deserve consideration. There could be a single six-year presidential term, an idea with many supporters, among them Presidents Eisenhower, Johnson and Carter, to say nothing of a great many political scientists. (The French Constitution provides a seven-year term for the President, but permits reelection.) Of course Presidents would like to be elected and then forget about politics and get to the high ground of saving the world. But if first-term Presidents did not have the leverage of reelection, we might institutionalize for every presidency the lame duck impotence we now see when a President is not running for reelection.

6) It may be that one combination involving elements of the third, fourth and fifth proposals would be worthy of further study. It would be roughly as follows:

A. The President, Vice President, Senators and Congressmen would all be elected for simultaneous six-year terms.

B. On one occasion each term, the President could dissolve Congress and call for new congressional elections for the remainder of the term. If he did so, Congress, by majority vote of both Houses within 30 days of the President's action, could call for simultaneous new elections for President and Vice President for the remainder of the term.”



ON TO A LESS WEIGHTY SUBJECT, "SLOW TV":

This article below concerns a type of film which is new to me. They comprise magnificently long, highly eccentric films, from a cow meandering along seeking whatever it is that cows seek, to a cruise ship’s 30 or so years old bursar belting out Proud Mary, and doing it very well. I think this may be the most interesting form of filming that I’ve ever seen, and given the range of subjects, the most varied. It reminds me a little of the temporarily popular event of my young years called “a happening.”

Among my Discovery Channel videos, I have a favorite Animal Planet documentary film that is very similar, consisting of the night-time prowling of a muscular adult tomcat, as caught on a camera attached to its’ collar. If you think the way cats move is spooky, don’t watch that one, because after dark they begin to closely resemble a leopard or jaguar! Personally, I think they are magnificent and beautiful, even when they are cleaning their nether regions with one leg stuck up in the air like a ballet dancer – graceful, strong and funny, all at the same time.



http://www.cbsnews.com/news/norways-slow-tv-fascinating-viewers-for-hours-or-days-at-a-time/
CBS NEWS May 7, 2017, 9:45 AM
Norway's Slow TV: Fascinating viewers for hours or days at a time

Video – Do watch this video.

One axiom rarely observed on television nowadays is to "take it slow." And if you think that can't make for gripping TV, Seth Doane wants to tell you there's an entire country that would pointedly disagree:

It's television's version of taking a deep breath … a very long, very slow, deep breath.

It's called "Slow TV," and it's a surprising smash-hit in Norway.

It began with the broadcast of a train journey from the coastal city of Bergen to the capital, Oslo. The formula was simple: put a few cameras on a train and watch the scenery go by -- for seven hours.

Photograph -- slow-tv-train-ride-nrk-620.jpg, All aboard! Viewers shared a seven-hour train ride through Norway on the first installment of NRK's "Slow TV." NRK2

Rune Moklebust and Thomas Hellum are the brains behind the whole thing.

"Did you know where this journey would lead, how successful it would be?" asked Doane.

"No idea at all," said Moklebust. "It's normally one of those ideas you get late night after a couple of beers in the bar, and when you wake up the next day, Ahh, it's not a good idea after all."

But much to their surprise, there was a green light from their bosses at Norway's public broadcaster NRK2.

"We actually like it being a bit strange and a bit crazy, because then it's more fun," said Moklebust.

Hellum added, "If the viewers laugh, or think, Wow, this is too crazy, that's basically the kind of reaction you really want from the viewers."

About a quarter of all Norwegians tuned in to watch some part of that train trip.

They ran historical clips when the train went through a tunnel, but other than some music, there was no narration, no plot, and -- thanks to public broadcasting -- no commercials.

Hellum admits his own show is boring. "Yes!" he laughed. "Much of life itself is boring. But in-between, there are some exciting moments, and you just have to wait for them."

Photograph -- slow-tv-firewood-660.jpg, A scene from "National Firewood Night." NRK2

Since the train, in 2009, they've experimented with other slow ideas, and folks at all levels have taken notice.

"I understand that in Norway, for example, one of the big hits on TV is National Firewood Night!" President Obama said at a State Dinner for the heads of five Nordic countries in May 2016. "This is true! Video of logs burning for hours."

Twelve hours in all!

A "National Knitting Night" started, of course, with shearing the sheep; knitting the sweater came much later in the 13-hour broadcast.

The shows, Doane noted, "get slower, and slower, and slower."

Photograph -- slow-tv-knitting-eve-620.jpg, "National Knitting Night" on NRK2's "Slow TV." NRK2

"Well, it has to be unique -- not a copy of the last one," said Moklebust. "So we have to push the boundaries for each show, I think."

The show titled "Salmon Swimming Upstream" ran 18 hours -- and afterward, the head of the station said it felt "too short."

Photograph -- slow-tv-salmon-620.jpg, NRK's cameras caught endless salmon. NRK2

So, is there a recipe for the perfect "Slow TV"? "It's important that it's an unbroken timeline, that you don't take away anything," said Hellum. "It's all the boring stuff in there, all the exciting things in there, so you as a viewer has to find out what's boring and what's interesting."

"It kind of requires you precisely to slow down, to kind of twist your head in a little bit of a different direction," said Espen Ytreberg, a professor of media studies at the University of Oslo.

Ytreberg said when he first heard about "Slow TV," he thought "the whole notion was weird, to tell you the truth. But it turned out that at least some of it I found surprisingly appealing."

Ytreberg likens Slow TV to opening a sort of window -- an escape valve -- from what he calls fast-paced, "eye-candy" TV. "When did we come to accept that television should be this accelerated, busy, intense, in-your-face-thing?" he said. "At some point, that became the norm."

Rune Moklebust thinks one image sums up their approach: "Once we passed a cow on one of our journeys, and we put a camera on it. And the camera just kept rolling, and we didn't cut away. And then you keep it, and you keep it, and then you keep it, and then, suddenly a story evolves: What is this cow doing? Why is it walking there? Where is it heading? Why is the cow alone?

"So suddenly, there comes a story out of it, and you have to see what happens."

There was plenty of time to follow that cow, because they came across it while shooting an episode, which followed a cruise along Norway's coast.

Photograph -- slow-tv-cruise-b-620.jpg, Cameras came along for every minute of a cruise ship's 134-hour trip. NRK2

That cruise? Well, it was five-and-a-half-days long. Slow TV broadcast all 134 hours of it … live.

At one point almost half of Norway was watching.

Norwegians lined the ship's route, often waving flags or welcoming it in port.

Photograph -- slow-tv-cruise-crowds-on-shore-620.jpg, Well-wishers greet the arrival of the cruise ship broadcasting live on "Hurtigruten minutt for minutt." NRK2
And there were unexpected cameos: A water skier in a mankini, for instance … even the Queen of Norway made a surprise appearance.

Photograph -- slow-tv-purser-anna-bildstein-hagberg-sings-proud-mary-244.jpg, Purser Anna Bildstein-Hagberg belts out "Proud Mary." NRK2

And the trip revealed some unexpected talent: Anna Bildstein-Hagberg, the purser on board, remembered how one night seemed a little quiet. "I just felt that, we need to rock 'n' roll a little bit."

So she picked up a microphone -- and became a breakout star! "Well, it wasn't meant like that!" she laughed.

"Slow TV" has been syndicated around the world and, since then, Bildstein-Hagberg gets recognized: "People from Australia come and just, 'It's you!'"

"Slow TV" episodes are special events; they're not on all the time. The creators want them to stand apart from regular programming.

All of this got us to thinking:

Doane showed Moklebust and Hellum one of "Sunday Morning"'s Moments of Nature which close each broadcast.

"And how many seconds do you dare to keep it?" Hellum laughed.

"Slow TV in the making?" Doane asked.

"Compared to other things, yes, definitely. And I guess you get a lot of good reaction on this one?"

"The audience loves the Moment of Nature, and they always want it to be longer."

"Exactly. So make it longer!" laughed Moklebust.

"That means this piece has to be shorter, so watch it!" Doane laughed.

Well then, Moklebust said, "Stop this piece now!"

Photograph -- Cows are riveted by a Norwegian lass knitting. NRK2

For more info:

Slow TV on NRK2
Espen Ytreberg, Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo
The Slow TV Blog



DESCRIPTIONS OF ELECTIONS ARE AS EXCITING TO ME AS A HORSE RACE IF THEY ARE WRITTEN AS WELL AS THIS HUFFINGTON POST ARTICLE IS. I DO LOVE HUFF POST. THIS CONTEST IN FRANCE, HOWEVER, COULD BE THE BEGINNING OF A VERY UNDESIRABLE END POINT IF A FASCIST (OKAY, “FAR RIGHT” CANDIDATE) GAINS CONTROL, PULLS FRANCE OUT OF THE EU, AND STARTS A COLLAPSE OF EUROPEAN UNITY AND THE DEMOCRACIES INVOLVED. IT IS FRIGHTENING TO ME. I HAVE MY FINGERS CROSSED ON THIS ELECTION.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/france-presidential-election-runoff_us_5907778ee4b0bb2d087017c0?3n&ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009
WORLDPOST 05/07/2017 07:01 am ET | Updated 36 minutes ago
France Votes In Final Round Of Presidential Election
Far-right populist Marine Le Pen faces off against independent Emmanuel Macron.
By Nick Robins-Early

The French have cast their ballots in a pivotal presidential election pitting independent Emmanuel Macron against far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

Polling stations in most areas closed at 7 p.m. local time, although voting in larger cities ends an hour later. Preliminary results are set to come in shortly after 8 p.m. in France. Millions cast their ballots in towns and cities across the country, but turnout was lower than previous elections at 65.3 percent as of 5 p.m. local time.

Projections ahead of the vote showed centrist Macron with about a 20-point lead. He was looking to build on his first-round victory and rally a wide range of French voters against Le Pen.

France’s election is a crucial moment for both the country and the European Union. Le Pen has promised to pursue a French exit from the EU, a move that would likely lead to the collapse of the trading bloc. Macron is running on a pro-EU platform, promising to reform the union and bring back economic prosperity to France.

The vote is being watched as the biggest test yet of how much support there is for France’s far-right. Similar right-wing populist figures ― who vow to take power from a corrupt elite and return it to their narrowly defined version of “the people” ― have gained popularity across Europe. Many of these leaders, including Le Pen, have played on ethno-nationalist sentiment, declaring they would implement laws targeting immigrants and Muslims.

The election has also seen a fracturing of France’s traditional party system. Either candidate will be the first president not to come from one of the country’s historically powerful establishment parties. France has been struggling with years of economic malaise, major terror attacks and questions of national identity ― all contributing to widespread antipathy toward the political establishment.

Photograph -- POOL NEW / REUTERS, Candidates for the 2017 presidential election, Emmanuel Macron, head of the political movement En Marche !, and Marine Le Pen, of the French National Front party.

The road to Sunday’s vote was one of the most unconventional in modern French political history. The ruling Socialist Party is in shambles after the deeply unpopular presidency of Francois Hollande, while Republican Party candidate François Fillon’s candidacy was crippled by scandal and corruption allegations. Fillon’s fall allowed the field to broaden and saw Macron, a former banker who launched his En Marche ! political party last year, become the front-runner.

Macron took the election’s first round on April 23, with 24 percent of the vote to Le Pen’s 21.3 percent. Following close behind in the 11-candidate vote were Fillon at 20 percent and far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon at 19.6.

The final weeks of the campaign saw Le Pen attempting to downplay or moderate some of her policies in order to appeal to a wider range of voters and quell fears that her election would send financial markets into chaos. She announced following the first vote that she was stepping down from leadership of her National Front Party ― a bid to temporarily distance herself from a political organization many in France associate with decades of anti-Semitism and racism under the leadership of Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie.

Le Pen even wavered on her signature policy of holding a French referendum on EU membership after six months, saying a return to single currency could take longer if necessary. She floated the idea of a parallel French currency for daily purchases while keeping a common currency for major business deals, but provided no details on how that would work.

Le Pen also went on the offensive in the lead up to the final vote, attempting to paint Macron as no different from Hollande and “complacent” about Islamic fundamentalism.

“His program seems to be very vague, but in reality it is a simple continuation of Francois Hollande’s government,” Le Pen said.

Photograph -- PHILIPPE WOJAZER / REUTERS, French presidential election candidate Emmanuel Macron casts his ballot. Opinion polls gave Macron a sizable lead before the vote.

Macron, meanwhile, tried to remind voters of the extreme rhetoric and policies of Le Pen and the National Front. At a speech in Paris on Monday, he described his opponent as a “candidate of hate” and called on voters to join together to cast their votes against her. Macron also laid flowers at a memorial for a man who was killed by skinheads during a demonstration in 1995, highlighting the history of violence associated with far-right ideologies.

During a heated televised debate on Wednesday, the two traded barbs and ridiculed each other’s plans for governing. Le Pen accused Macron of being a stooge of private interests and banks, while Macron claimed she was stirring up fear and spinning lies for political gain.

Concern over foreign interference loomed over the race, as Macron’s party alleged it was the target of hacking attempts throughout the campaign. On Friday, the election saw another twist when a massive trove of hacked emails from Macron’s campaign leaked online. Party officials claimed that the documents also contained fake messages to spread “doubt and misinformation.”

French media largely refrained from covering the emails, with major newspaper Le Monde publishing a statement saying the hack was a clear attempt to influence the validity of the vote. French law asserts a media blackout and ban on campaigning for the 44-hour period before the election.

Photograph -- PASCAL ROSSIGNOL / REUTERS, Le Pen exits a voting booth after casting her ballot.

Macron derived his support in the first round from major cities, as well as areas with higher levels of education. But in the second round he is likely to gain supporters from a wider range of demographics and pick up voters who simply want to oppose a radical Le Pen presidency. Nearly all the other top contenders for the presidency have told their constituencies to back Macron, with the only major holdout Mélenchon.

Mélenchon’s party claimed on Tuesday that two-thirds of its supporters planned to abstain in the vote, rather than casting their ballots for Macron. If a large percentage of Mélenchon voters choose to abstain it could be a boost for Le Pen, who would benefit from apathy and low turnout from France’s left.

Le Pen is appealing to voters who see immigration and Islam as a threat to French identity, as well as parts of the working class and those who feel left out of the economic benefits of the EU. In the first round, Le Pen’s supporters included a large percentage of the young voters ― France’s youth are facing near 25 percent unemployment. Her strongholds are largely in the southeast and north of the country, which include rural and rust-belt regions.

Whichever candidate wins the election, they will be tasked with fixing France’s flagging economy and dealing with security fears resulting from years of terror attacks.

But the most immediate concern for the next president will likely be seeking an assembly majority in the upcoming parliamentary elections in June. The winner of Sunday’s vote will need to gain hundreds of seats in parliament, or they will have a very difficult time implementing the sprawling changes they’ve promised France.

This article has been updated with details from Election Day.

ALSO ON HUFFPOST
France Votes In Crucial Presidential Elections
Suggest a correction
Nick Robins-Early
World News Reporter, HuffPost



http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/5/6/1659722/-Joy-Ann-Reid-Nance-Was-Flynn-recruited-by-foreign-powers
Joy-Ann Reid: Nance: Was Flynn recruited by foreign powers?
By Eric Nelson
2017/05/06 · 23:04

VIDEO ONLY

— AmJoy | May 6th, 2017

Joy Reid and her panel discuss the numerous red flags regarding Mike Flynn that may have been ignored by the Trump team, but which Flynn himself should have steered clear of.
— a discussion on the latest Trump Regime and its connections to Russian electioneering
— some expert analysis for the record



“WHO KNEW WHAT WHEN …” I FEEL LIKE LOOKING AROUND TO SEE WHERE RICHARD NIXON IS NOW. THIS IS ALMOST CERTAINLY WHY THE HOUSE COMMITTEE CANCELED YATES’ TESTIMONY SOME MONTHS AGO. IF FEINSTEIN IS CORRECT, THIS SMELLS LIKE CORDITE TO ME.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/senators-looking-ahead-sally-yates-testimony-russia-flynn-n756006
POLITICS MAY 7 2017, 12:42 PM ET
Senators Looking Ahead to Sally Yates Testimony on Russia and Flynn
by KAILANI KOENIG

WASHINGTON — Revelations earlier this year that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was not telling the truth about his conversations with a Russian ambassador were concerning, Republican Senator Roy Blunt, a member of the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence, acknowledged Sunday.

"What was particularly wrong was General Flynn not being truthful about the substance of what he said and the campaign was apparently, or the transition rather, was apparently concerned about that early on, and it appears they should have been," Blunt said in an interview on NBC's "Meet The Press" when asked about indications that the Trump transition itself was warned about Flynn's connections to Russia and conversations he had with the ambassador.

Play Sen. Blunt on Gen. Flynn: His Untruthfulness Was 'Wrong' 2:10

This Monday, Sally Yates, a former deputy attorney general under President Obama who was then pushed out by Trump early on, will testify in front of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee about Russia's attempts to interfere with the last election, and she is expected to speak about what she knew of conversations between Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Yates was fired in January, ostensibly for refusing to defend the administration's travel ban in court.

That Senate subcommittee is one of a number of investigations within Congress looking into Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 elections, in addition to inquiries in the Senate and House Intelligence Committees.

Meanwhile, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a member of the Senate's Select Committee on Intelligence, said on "Meet The Press" that Yates "apparently has some information as to who knew what when that she is willing to share. And that would be what she knew about Michael Flynn's connections to Russia and exactly what she knew they were."

"I don't want to, in any way, say that I know what she's going to say because I don't," Feinstein continued. "But there are so many questions here as to who knew what when, what was done with this."

Play -- Sen. Feinstein on What She Hopes to Hear From Sally Yates 2:15

Sen. Blunt said on "Meet The Press" that it's undisputable that Russia attempted to interfere with the 2016 election, and warned that the United States must prepare to guard itself from such interference in upcoming votes.

"There's no question there was Russian interference in our elections just like we're seeing now in France and seen in Germany. In fact in Europe we've seen for well over a decade the Russians trying to interfere. So we need to look at that, that's one issue, we need to look at that in a way that better prepares us for 2018 and 2020."

He didn't know why Trump has been hesitant make [sic] similarly firm statements about whether or not Russia was involved.

"I don't know what the president's view of this would be, because I haven't talked to him about it," Blunt said.

Play Full Interview: Sen. Blunt on Heath Care and the Russia Investigation 8:13

He believed the president's concerns about a "witch hunt" were based on a number of concurrent investigations over whether or not there was any collusion with associates of the Trump campaign.

"We're going to determine whether there was any or not, and where those facts lead us. I'm not sure that there's any reason for the president to believe that there was collusion between his campaign. I think the president has to understand at this point that the Russians were doing things to both increase their influence."

Blunt also defended the work of his committee as they continue to investigate the matter.

"I think the Senate Intelligence Committee is the one committee that's been asked to reach conclusions here, and that conclusion needs to include talking to anybody that a reasonable person thinks we should've talked to, looking at anything that a reasonable person would think we should've looked at, and hopefully a largely bipartisan consensus of 'here's what we found' — and I think what you saw this week was the indication that that process of now bringing individuals in after a tremendous background effort to see what we ought to be asking is happening," said Blunt.

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CORDITE?* -- IT’S ACCORDING TO WHAT YEAR THIS IS.

What’s that Smell? Cordite vs. Gunpowder vs. Propellant
APRIL 30, 2015 / BEN
TLDR: Avoid depicting cordite, use gunpowder as a default, reference propellant to look like a smarty pants.

Gunpowder propellant cordite fiction writing

Modern gunpowder (aka propellant) doesn’t always look like a powder. It’s still OK to call it gunpowder when writing, though.

When articles debunk common firearm tropes in fiction, they usually mention how the “smell of cordite” isn’t in the air after a gunfight. Cordite’s heyday as the substance that makes a gun go bang started in the late 1800s and ended with the close of World War II. That means scenes set after 1945 wouldn’t include cordite.

What isn’t usually explained is a better alternative. Browse the aisles of a sporting goods store (always a good idea when researching guns and knives) and you’ll spot canisters labeled gunpowder, blackpowder, propellant, smokeless powder, blackpowder substitute, muzzleloader powder, Pyrodex® and other proprietary names, and itching powder (wait, turn around, you’ve left the store and wandered into a Three Stooges sketch). They all do about the same thing, so why are there so many kinds?

Different powders are designed for specific purposes. Some are designed for older firearms that can’t take the extreme pressures of modern powders. Others are high-performance rocket fuel for the latest guns. These commercial powders are used to manufacture ammunition at home or as part of a business. (Yes, that’s legal to do in the civilian world.)

Cheat Sheet

You don’t need to know the specifics to determine the best term to use in your writing. This cheat sheet sums it up nicely, but by no means is an exhaustive list.

Blackpowder/Black Powder (pick one and be consistent) – Use this term in settings from from the dawn of firearms in 9th century China to the 1880s. Antique or vintage-style firearms would use blackpowder after that.

Cordite – Only use in settings from about 1889 to 1945. Fun fact: instead of powder, cordite actually looks like tiny spaghetti noodles.

* Gunpowder – A blanket term OK to use in any setting, even if the material isn’t too powder-y. This gets the gold star as the best go-to term. Writing this as gun powder (two words) isn’t common but still acceptable so long as it’s used consistently.

Propellant – Any substance that makes a gun go bang is technically a propellant, but today this usage normally applies to a variety of modern powders that don’t always look powder-y to the eye. Check out the cylinder-shaped grains in the photo at the top for an example. Use propellant if a modern character is exceptionally familiar with firearms or if you want your writing to look hip.

What’s that Smell? Cordite

Although they’re similar, each formula of powder has a distinct aroma to hang in characters’ nostrils. I’ve never caught a whiff of cordite, but you can get the sense of it by sticking your schnoz near some nail polish remover. Acetone is a primary ingredient in both nail polish remover and cordite. I’ve read that cordite smoke is sharp and a little sweet.

Blog reader Ralph Schneider wrote to me to offer this perspective:

Acetone was used (as a solvent, presumably) in the manufacture of cordite, but I doubt that it remained as any part of the finished material itself—so the odor of acetone isn’t present if you take a whiff of the unburned cords (trust me on this), and it certainly would not be a part of the complex of odors present when guns using cordite have been fired.

Recently, as part of an experiment determining the corrosive nature of some primers in modern ammunition, I had occasion to pull the bullets from a couple of rounds of .303 British ammo and empty out the cordite strands. It is pretty much as you described it—looks like short pieces of spaghetti—but a dark tan in color.

What’s that Smell? Blackpowder

Blackpowder smoke is musty and sulfuric. The farther back in history you go, the worse it probably smelled, although I don’t have a source for that. Impurities likely made their way into the powder as people made the stuff in all sorts of conditions. And nothing smells better than burning horse shit.

As blog reader Darren pointed out in the comments below, it may be necessary to use the vanilla term “gunpowder” if the character making the reference to it is in a setting prior to 1884. There wasn’t a need to distinguish “blackpowder” from anything else. It was the only game in town. After smokeless powders came along in 1884, there became a need to tell the difference between the two versions. (Thank you, Darren, for the excellent tip.)

What’s that Smell? Modern Gunpowder/Propellant

Most modern gunpowder/propellant has an acrid bite to it, but it usually isn’t overwhelming. Much depends on the kind of firearm and whether the shooter is indoors or outdoors. There’s a reason indoor gun ranges use high-tech ventilation systems. (OK, sometimes that tech is just a window, but still.)

As for any other unusual smells on the scene, I’m looking at you, dear writer. I won’t judge you unless you blame it on the dog.

Get the Book

The Writers Guide to WeaponsThe Writer’s Guide to Weapons: A Practical Reference for Using Firearms and Knives in Fiction (Writer’s Digest Books) comes with everything but the ammo. Pick up a print or digital copy from these fine retailers:

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