October 1, 2017


News and Views


DONALD TRUMP HAS A TRULY DANGEROUS WAY OF LOOKING AT THE WORLD. FOR A PRESIDENT OR A SOCIETY AS A WHOLE, THAT SHORT-TERM, SIMPLISTIC THOUGHT PROCESS LIMITS HOW MUCH INFORMATION WE CAN TAKE IN AND PROCESS, WITH THE RESULT THAT HASTY AND INCOMPLETE DECISIONS AND STATEMENTS ARE MADE. IT’S HUMAN TO DO THAT, BUT IT MAKES PEOPLE LIKE ME REALLY NERVOUS ABOUT OUR NATION AND GOVERNMENT.

IF THIS WERE ONLY ONE SUCH INCIDENT I WOULD BE UNFAIR TO HIM TO SAY THIS, BUT IT ISN’T. OF COURSE, HE DOES SEEM TO BE ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO MAKES A MISSTATEMENT AND THEN AFTER SOME HOURS, DAYS OR WEEKS FINALLY LISTENS TO HIS ADVISORS AND CHANGES HIS STATEMENT, BUT NOT ACKNOWLEDGING THAT WHAT HE PREVIOUSLY SAID WAS EVEN UTTERED IN THAT PARTICULAR WAY, MUCH LESS ACKNOWLEDGING ANY ERROR. IT ISN’T UNCOMMON, BUT IT IS UNFORTUNATE IN A HEAD OF STATE.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-says-envoy-wasting-time-talking-north-korea-151307066--politics.html?soc_trk=gcm&soc_src=69f70237-124f-3ea9-acd0-fc922af945e2&.tsrc=notification-brknews
Trump says envoy 'wasting his time' talking to North Korea
Associated Press•October 1, 2017

VIDEO -- Lavrov hints that US-Russia tit for tat may be over

BRANCHBURG, N.J. (AP) — President Donald Trump says his chief diplomat is "wasting his time" trying to negotiate with North Korea about its nuclear and missile programs.
Trump tweets this advice to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson: "Save your energy, Rex, we'll do what has to be done!"
The president isn't elaborating, but he told the United Nations last month that if the U.S. is "forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea."
Tillerson — while in China — said Saturday the U.S. is maintaining direct channels of communications with North Korea and probing the North's willingness to talk.
Trump says he's told Tillerson that "he's wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man." That's a reference to leader Kim Jong Un.

COMMENTS

Stubers41 minutes ago
Trump is wasting his time being our president.

Bear41 minutes ago
Way to undercut your SecState! What a leader!

United!!43 minutes ago
So the toddler-in-chief is actively discouraging diplomacy despite the specter of nuclear war. Sigh. Well, we had a good run, Earth.



“‘THIS WILL BE THE HEIGHT OF THE BEAUTIFUL ‘COLOR CHANGE,’ BUT THIS IS ABOUT LEAVES IN THE DECIDUOUS FOREST,” HE WROTE, HIS WHITE SUPREMACY OUTSTRIPPING HIS DENDROLOGY.” WHAT A WIT THIS WHITE NEO-NAZI KKK GUY IS! THIS IS HOW HE SHOWS HIS GREAT WHITE INTELLIGENCE.

IT’S NICE THAT SOMEONE IN THE KNOW DECIDED TO TELL HUFFINGTON POST ABOUT IT. I AM SORRY THAT HE IS SO AFRAID FOR HIS POSITION OR MAYBE HIS LIFE THAT HE HAS TO REMAIN ANONYMOUS.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/search-apos-deciduous-forest-apos-220710653.html
U.S.
Our Search For A Secret White Supremacist Meeting In A Tennessee Forest
Luke O'Brien
HuffPost•September 29, 2017

Photograph – This includes White Supremacists with a Confederate flag, a Nazi flag (swastica) and one decorated with what may be ancient Celtic artwork or a Middle Eastern script (Emily Molli/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON ― Prominent neo-Nazis, white supremacists and Klansmen are gathering in East Tennessee this weekend ― over Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar ― for a conference associated with Stormfront, the infamous neo-Nazi internet forum. The topic at hand is protest tactics, according to an attendee.

The attendees would prefer that you not know their whereabouts this weekend, but we think we found a few locations where they may be meeting: a local restaurant in Crossville, Tennessee, on Friday night, and in Cumberland Mountain State Park on Saturday afternoon. (If you’re a local with information, tip us: scoops@huffingtonpost.com.)

When white supremacists meet to strategize about the future of “the movement,” they try to do it as privately as possible. Unless they are engaged in public shows of force, like last month’s deadly rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, neo-Nazis and white supremacists are careful to cover their tracks, not wanting to attract the attention of antifa and other counterprotesters. Members send out decoy flares and obscure the nature of their meetings when reserving space.

The Stormfront conference this weekend is no different. Stormfront founder Don Black said last month that the event would take place in the “still beautiful part of nearly all-White east Tennessee outside Knoxville,” but declined to disclose the location. The Nazi waxed poetic: “This will be the height of the beautiful ‘color change,’ but this is about leaves in the deciduous forest,” he wrote, his white supremacy outstripping his dendrology.

White supremacists have gathered in public parks before, sometimes posing as a family reunion group.

On Thursday, Billy Roper, a white nationalist who says his father and grandfathers were Klansmen, mentioned to us that he was heading to the Stormfront conference in Tennessee. He said there were going to be a “couple hundred people” ― a claim we could not verify ― and said they would be conducting “training on how to do real world activism, protests, demonstrations and rallies.” (His website elaborated that there would be workshops about “‘Agitation Propaganda’ techniques” and “pro-White flash mobs.”)

Roper said he planned to meet Southern secessionist Michael Hill, neo-Nazi Matthew Heimbach, prominent Klansman Thomas Robb and white supremacist Francis John Gilroy. (Most of the people he listed did not respond to requests for comment, though Heimbach said he was going.) We asked Roper if journalists could come. He said no.

Later that night, a source tipped us off to a pre-conference neo-Nazi “meet and greet” happening Friday evening at the Beef and Barrel Restaurant & Lounge in Crossville. An employee who answered the phone said there was a reservation for 35 people at 7 p.m., but said he did not know who’d made the reservation. Bruce Cannon, the restaurant’s owner, said he was not aware of a planned Stormfront gathering, adding that the restaurant does not ask for the affiliation of groups when taking reservations.

Cannon said he is not a supporter of Stormfront, but said it’s not up to him to decide who comes to his restaurant. “It would be like me not allowing a black person into the restaurant because they’re black, or a liberal into the restaurant because they’re liberal,” he said. Denying Stormfront service could result in a lawsuit, Cannon claimed, pointing to litigation involving a Colorado baker who declined to bake a cake for an LGBTQ couple and a New Mexico photographer who refused to work a same-sex wedding.

Daryle Lamont Jenkins, who runs the One People’s Project, an antifascist organization that monitors far-right groups, told us he called the Beef and Barrel and spoke to an employee who confirmed the white supremacists were meeting there. Jenkins provided us with an audio recording of the call. When we spoke with this employee later, she refused to comment and hung up on us.

Cumberland Mountain State Park is six miles from the Beef and Barrel. We called the park, but an employee told us there were no obvious signs of white supremacists trying to organize there. Employees at Fall Creek Falls State Park and Norris Dam State Park ― where Stormfront has gathered in the past ― said the same thing.

On Friday, we learned that the Homestead Harvest Restaurant at Cumberland Mountain State Park has a reservation for Saturday for 40-50 people listed under “Richard Pumphrey.” This appears to be short for “C. Richard Pumphrey,” the name of a Tennessee resident who has previously reserved space in local state parks for white nationalist meetings. The restaurant confirmed the reservation under Pumphrey’s name.

There is also a recreation center in the park that hosts events where Stormfront could hold their conference.

A woman who identified herself as Pumphrey’s wife told HuffPost that there was one meeting “that was supposed to happen,” but that her husband passed away earlier this month, and she personally canceled a reservation. “If there’s anybody coming here or going to Knoxville, to Norris or something like that, that’s out of their own doing,” she said.

A Facebook page called Antifa Tennessee has named the Beef and Barrel and Cumberland Mountain State Park as the likely locations for the Stormfront gathering, and urged activists to attend.

White supremacists who are attending the conference would not confirm whether they are meeting at Cumberland Mountain State Park.

Dubbed the “murder capital of the Internet,” Stormfront was once the most popular neo-Nazi site in the world. Stormfront’s members committed nearly 100 murders between 2009 and 2014, including 77 carried out by the Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups.

Nevertheless, the website remained online for about 20 years. But after the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, where a man rammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing one woman, Stormfront’s domain registrar terminated its registration. Since then, members have shared workarounds for accessing the site, which we did not confirm are effective.

The National Park Service has no policy that would prevent Stormfront from gathering in one of its public, taxpayer-funded parks. NPS allows people to use park land for “public assemblies, meetings, demonstrations, religious activities and other public expressions of views protected under the First Amendment,” NPS spokeswoman Kathy Kupper said in a statement, without specifically commenting on Stormfront. Tennessee State Parks did not respond to multiple requests for comment about whether its policies differ from those of NPS.

HuffPost is seeking more information about this event. If you’re a local tipster, get in touch: scoops@huffingtonpost.com.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.



ONE REASON THAT THE FREQUENTLY NON-POLITICAL CITIZENS OF THE USA SHOULD REVISE THEIR FONDLY HELD VIEWS OF WHITE SUPERIORITY IS THAT THE RUSSIANS, ACCORDING TO THIS AD, HAVE TARGETED THOSE HOLDING THAT VIEWPOINT AS MARKS, IN ORDER TO DIVIDE THE US POPULATION, AND IMPROVE THE CHANCES OF ANTI-DEMOCRATIC BELIEVERS’ GAINING OFFICE.

WHITE SUPREMACISTS AND OTHER CLASS-BASED GROUPS -- SUCH AS, I AM SORRY TO SAY, THE REPUBLICAN PARTY -- FOSTER AMONG THEMSELVES IDEAS WHICH – THEY WON’T ADMIT THIS – ARE DIRECTLY AND AGGRESSIVELY ANTI-DEMOCRACY. A CONSTITUTION WHICH DOES NOT INCLUDE THE WELFARE OF ALL THE CITIZENS IS NOT DEMOCRATIC OR JUST; AND THE RUSSIANS HAVE TRIED TO GIVE THOSE PEOPLE MORE POWER WHILE DIMINISHING THAT OF THE PROGRESSIVE OR MODERATE CITIZENS WITH LIES.

THAT PREPARES THE MINDS OF THE POPULATION AS A WHOLE FOR YET MORE RADICAL AND ANARCHICAL IDEAS WHICH THE RUSSIANS WILL GLADLY SUPPLY VIA PSYCHOLOGICAL SEDUCTION ON THE INTERNET, BRIBERY OF OFFICIALS, THE SUPPRESSION OF THE FREE PRESS AND OF LEGAL PROTEST DEMONSTRATIONS, AND THE ELECTION YEAR AFTER YEAR OF AN INCREASING NUMBER OF CORRUPT AND POLITICALLY RADICAL RIGHTISTS ON ALL LEVELS OF THE GOVERNMENT. THE LOCAL LEVEL MAY BE THE MOST DANGEROUS OF ALL TO THE MAINTENANCE OF MOST OUR IMPORTANT FREEDOMS.

I REMEMBER MODERATE AND EVEN LIBERAL REPUBLICANS. WHERE ARE THEY NOW? THEREBY THE RUSSIANS BELIEVE THEY WILL CONQUER – IT’S SO MUCH CHEAPER AND EASIER THAN AN INVASION OF THE USA – OH, YES, AND LESS OBVIOUS. OF COURSE, THERE’S ALWAYS THE BACK DOOR THROUGH THE NOW INCREASINGLY ICE-FREE ARCTIC OCEAN. IT WAS ABOUT TEN YEARS AGO WHEN RUSSIANS PLANTED THEIR FLAG IN THE OCEAN BOTTOM AT THE NORTH POLE. THAT IS OF COURSE AN INSULT, BUT IT ALSO, I BELIEVE, IS A GENUINE STATEMENT OF INTENTIONS. LUCKILY, SO FAR THAT IS, IT ISN’T A LEGAL GUARANTEE OF THEIR OWNERSHIP OF THE FAR NORTH REGIONS, BUT GIVEN ANOTHER TEN YEARS, AND WHO KNOWS.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/russian-operatives-used-facebook-ads-to-exploit-divisions-over-black-political-activism-and-muslims/2017/09/25/4a011242-a21b-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.html?utm_term=.c632ab34e9ed.
Technology
Russian operatives used Facebook ads to exploit America’s racial and religious divisions
By Adam Entous, Craig Timberg and Elizabeth Dwoskin
September 25, 2017

The batch of more than 3,000 Russian-bought ads that Facebook is preparing to turn over to Congress shows a deep understanding of social divides in American society, with some ads promoting African American rights groups, including Black Lives Matter, and others suggesting that these same groups pose a rising political threat, say people familiar with the covert influence campaign.

The Russian campaign — taking advantage of Facebook’s ability to send contrary messages to different groups of users based on their political and demographic characteristics — also sought to sow discord among religious groups. Other ads highlighted support for Democrat Hillary Clinton among Muslim women.

These targeted messages, along with others that have surfaced in recent days, highlight the sophistication of an influence campaign slickly crafted to mimic and infiltrate U.S. political discourse while also seeking to heighten tensions between groups already wary of one another.

The nature and detail of these ads have troubled investigators at Facebook, on Capitol Hill and at the Justice Department, say people familiar with the advertisements, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share matters still under investigation.

[Obama tried to give Zuckerberg a wake-up call over fake news on Facebook]

The House and Senate intelligence committees plan to begin reviewing the Facebook ads in coming weeks as they attempt to untangle the operation and other matters related to Russia’s bid to help elect Donald Trump president in 2016.

“Their aim was to sow chaos,” said Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “In many ­cases, it was more about voter suppression rather than increasing turnout.”

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam B. Schiff of California, said he hoped the public would be able to review the ad campaign.

“I think the American people should see a representative sample of these ads to see how cynical the Russians were using these ads to sow division within our society,” he said. Schiff had not yet seen the ads but was briefed on them, he said, including the ones mentioning “things like Black Lives Matter.”

The ads that Facebook found raise troubling questions for a social networking and advertising platform that reaches 2 billion people each month, and they offer a rare window into how Russian operatives carried out their information operations during an especially tumultuous period in U.S. politics.

[Mark Zuckerberg denies that fake news on Facebook influenced the election]

Investigators at Facebook discovered the Russian ads in recent weeks, the company has said, after months of trying in vain to trace disinformation efforts to Russia. The company said it has identified at least $100,000 in ads purchased through 470 phony Facebook pages and accounts. Facebook said this spending represented a tiny fraction of the political advertising on the platform during the 2016 campaign.

The divisive themes seized on by Russian operatives were similar to those that Trump and his supporters pushed on social ­media and on right-wing websites during the campaign. U.S. investigators are now trying to figure out whether Russian operators and members of Trump’s team coordinated in any way. Critics say Trump, as president, has further inflamed racial and religious divisions, citing his controversial statements after violent clashes in Charlottesville and limits imposed on Muslim immigration.

The previously undisclosed ads suggest that the operatives worked off evolving lists of racial, religious, political and economic themes. They used these to create pages, write posts and craft ads that would appear in users’ news feeds — with the apparent goal of appealing to one audience and alienating another. In some cases, the pages even advertised events.

“The idea of using Facebook to incite anti-black hatred and anti-Muslim prejudice and fear while provoking extremism is an old tactic. It’s not unique to the United States, and it’s a global phenomenon,” said Malkia Cyril, a Black Lives Matter activist in Oakland, Calif., and executive director for the Center for Media Justice. Social media companies “have a mandate to stand up and take deep responsibility for how their platforms are being abused.”

Facebook declined to comment on the contents of the ads being turned over to congressional investigators and pointed to a Sept. 6 statement by Alex Stamos, the company’s chief security officer, who noted that the vast majority of the ads run by the 470 pages and accounts did not specifically reference the U.S. presidential election, voting or any particular candidate.

“Rather, the ads and accounts appeared to focus on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum — touching on topics from LGBT matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights,” Stamos said at the time.

A Cold War tactic

Moscow’s interest in U.S. race relations dates back decades.

In Soviet times, operatives didn’t have the option of using the Internet, so they spread their messages by taking out ads in newspapers, posting fliers and organizing meetings.

Much like the online ads discovered by Facebook, messages spread by Soviet-era operatives were meant to look as though they were written by bona fide political activists in the United States, thereby disguising the involvement of an adversarial foreign power.

Russian information operations didn’t end with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

After a lull in tensions, Russia’s spy agencies became more assertive under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin. In recent years, those services have up­dated their propaganda protocols to take advantage of new technologies and the proliferation of ­social media platforms.

“Is it a goal of the Kremlin to encourage discord in American society? The answer to that is yes,” said Michael A. McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia who is now a director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. “More generally, Putin has an idea that our society is imperfect, that our democracy is not better than his, so to see us in conflict on big social issues is in the Kremlin’s interests.”

Clinton Watts, part of a research team that was among the first to warn publicly of the Russian propaganda campaign during the 2016 election, said that identifying and exploiting existing social and cultural divisions are common Russian disinformation tactics dating back to the Cold War.

“We have seen them operating on both sides” of an issue, said Watts, a fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a former FBI agent.

Microtargeting users

When Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in his college dorm room in 2004, no one could have anticipated that the company would become an advertising juggernaut worth almost half a trillion dollars — the largest online advertising company in the world after Google. Roughly a third of the world’s population now logs in monthly.

As Facebook’s user base rapidly expanded, the company wrote the playbook for digital targeting in the smartphone era — and for the type of microtargeting that has become critical to modern political campaigns.

The social network invested heavily in building highly sophisticated automated advertising tools that could target specific groups of people who had expressed their preferences and interests on Facebook, from newlyweds who studied at Dartmouth College to hockey enthusiasts living in a particular Zip code in Michigan.

The migration from traditional personal computers to smartphones and tablets helped Facebook gain a major edge: The company pioneered techniques to help advertisers reach the same user on their desktop and mobile devices, helping Facebook grow sevenfold in value since it went public in 2012. Today, advertisers who want to target Facebook ­users by demographics or interests have tens of thousands of categories to choose from, and they are able to flood users with ads wherever they go on the Internet.

Ads on Facebook have directly appeared in people’s news feeds since 2012. If a user “likes” a page, administrators of that page can pay for ads and post content that will then appear in that person’s news feed.

Since the 2012 presidential election, Facebook has become an essential tool for political campaigns that wish to target potential voters. During the height of election season, political campaigns are among the largest advertisers on Facebook. Facebook has built a large sales staff of account executives, some of whom have backgrounds in politics, who are trained to assist campaigns in spreading their messages, increasing engagement and getting immediate feedback on how they are performing.

The Trump campaign used these tools to great effect, while Clinton’s campaign preferred to rely on its own social media experts, according to people familiar with the campaigns.

Aiming at swing voters

Since taking office, Putin has on occasion sought to spotlight racial tensions in the United States as a means of shaping perceptions of American society.

Putin injected himself in 2014 into the race debate after protests broke out in Ferguson, Mo., over the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an African American, by a white police officer.

“Do you believe that everything is perfect now from the point of view of democracy in the United States?” Putin told CBS’s “60 Minutes” program. “If everything was perfect, there wouldn’t be the problem of Ferguson. There would be no abuse by the police. But our task is to see all these problems and respond properly.”

In addition to the ads described to The Post, Russian operatives used Facebook to promote anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim messages. And Facebook has said that one-quarter of the ads bought by the Russian operatives identified so far targeted a particular geographic area.

[Did Facebook ads traced to a Russian company violate U.S. election law?]

While Facebook has played down the impact of the Russian ads on the election, Dennis Yu, chief technology officer for BlitzMetrics, a digital marketing company that focuses on Facebook ads, said that $100,000 worth of Facebook ads could have been viewed hundreds of millions of times.

According to Yu, “$100,000 worth of very concentrated posts is very, very powerful. When you have a really hot post, you often get this viral multiplier. So when you buy this one ad impression, you can get an extra 20- to 40-times multiplier because those people comment and share it.”

Momentum is building in Congress and elsewhere in the federal government for a law requiring Facebook and other Web companies to reveal publicly who bought political ads and the amount that was spent on their platforms. Newspapers, television stations and other traditional carriers of campaign messages already disclose such information.

Watts, the Foreign Policy Research Institute fellow, said he has not seen the Facebook ads promised to Congress, but he and his team saw similar tactics playing out on Twitter and other platforms during the campaign.

Watts said such efforts were most likely to have been effective in Midwestern swing states such as Wisconsin and Michigan, where Democratic primary rival Sen. Bernie Sanders had beaten Clinton. Watts said the disinformation pushed by the Russians included messages designed to reinforce the idea that Sanders had been mistreated by the Democratic Party and that his supporters shouldn’t bother to vote during the general election in November.

“They were designed around hitting these fracture points, so they could see how they resonate and assess their effectiveness,” Watts said. “I call it reconnaissance by social media.”

Dwoskin reported from San Francisco. Tom Hamburger contributed to this report.

Follow The Post’s tech blog, The Switch, where technology and policy connect.



THIS NEW YORK TIMES NEWS REPORT IS SO EXCITING THAT IT SHOULD BE WRITTEN UP AS A FACTUAL AND WELL PRODUCED MOVIE SCRIPT – ONE OF THOSE DOCUMENTARIES THAT I LIKE SO MUCH! I WONDER HOW MUCH FILM FOOTAGE THERE IS AVAILABLE FOR THE PURPOSE. I PRAY THAT THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT DOESN’T DO A REAL RUSSIAN STYLE CRACKDOWN TO CRUSH CATALONIA NOW. CATALONIA, GOING BY THIS ARTICLE, IS A SEPARATE CULTURE FROM THE REST OF SPAIN WITH A SEPARATE HISTORY AND LANGUAGE. IN SUCH CASES, IT IS RATIONAL THAT THEY WOULD WANT THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT AND ECONOMY. THEY CLAIM THAT SPAIN HAS BEEN “SIPHONING OFF” THEIR WEALTH AND GIVING THEM LITTLE OR NO AUTONOMY. THAT’S THE REASON THAT THE AMERICAN COLONIES SPLIT FROM THE BRITISH, I YOU REMEMBER – THE STAMP ACT, THEIR SLOGAN BEING “NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.”

THE CATALONIAN LEADER IS DEMOCRATIC RATHER THAN “CONSERVATIVE,” LIKE THE SPANISH CENTRAL GOVERNMENT, AND I DO LIKE “SPIRIT” IN A PERSON OR A PEOPLE. THAT’S WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THE KURDS AND THE JEWS, ALSO, ASIDE FROM THEIR ACCOMPLISHMENTS. FOR EXAMPLE, THOUGH 9O% OF THE CITIZENS OF KURDISTAN ARE OF THE SUNNI ISLAMIC FAITH ACCORDING TO AN ARTICLE I SAW YESTERDAY, THEY DO NOT MANDATE THAT OTHER GROUPS BE BANNED OR REPRESSED IN ANY WAY FROM RELIGIOUS BEHAVIOR. THEY ARE ESSENTIALLY SECULAR RATHER THAN FUNDAMENTALIST IN THEIR GOVERNMENT, WHICH TO ME MEANS “RATIONAL.” THAT’S WHAT WE AS A DEMOCRATIC NATION SHOULD VALUE, RATHER THAN BENDING TO THE DESIRES OF THE TURKS AND IRAQIS WHOSE GOAL IS TO SUPPRESS THE KURDISH PEOPLE. TOO OFTEN WE ARE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF ISSUES, INTERNATIONALLY.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/01/world/europe/catalonia-independence-referendum.html?_r=0
Catalonia’s Independence Vote Descends Into Chaos and Clashes
By RAPHAEL MINDER and ELLEN BARRY OCT. 1, 2017

Photograph -- The Spanish police blocked the entrance of a Barcelona school that was to be used as a polling station in the Catalan independence referendum on Sunday. Credit Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press

BARCELONA — Catalonia’s defiant attempt to stage an independence referendum descended into chaos on Sunday, with hundreds injured in clashes with police in one of the gravest tests of Spain’s democracy since the end of the Franco dictatorship in the 1970s.

National police officers in riot gear, sent by the central government in Madrid from other parts of Spain, used rubber bullets and truncheons in some places as they fanned out across Catalonia, the restive northeastern region, to shut down polling stations and seize ballot boxes.

The clashes quickly spoiled what had been a festive, if expectant, atmosphere among voters, many of whom had camped inside polling stations and stayed on into late Sunday night, fearful that officers might seize ballot boxes.

Photo -- Counting votes during a power outage at a school assigned to be polling station by the Catalan government in Barcelona. Credit Manu Fernandez/Associated Press

By the day’s end, both sides were claiming victory. Voting went ahead in many towns and cities, with men and women, young and old, singing and chanting as they lined up for hours to cast ballots. Just after midnight, the Catalan government said that the referendum had been approved by 90 percent of some 2.3 million voters. Those figures could not be independently confirmed.

The Spanish government declared that the referendum had been disrupted.

More than 750 people were injured in the crackdown, Catalan officials said, while dozens of Spanish police officers were hurt, according to Spain’s interior ministry.

The day’s events left nothing clear except that the clashes over the status of the region — Spain’s economic powerhouse, where yearnings for a separate nation have ebbed and flowed for generations — had left supporters on both sides more hardened and polarized than before.

By The New York Times -- The Madrid government, with the backing of Spanish courts, had declared the referendum unconstitutional and ordered the vote suspended. But that did not stop Catalans from gathering before sunrise on Sunday, massing on rain-slicked streets across the region.

“Spain has shown us today its ugliest and darkest face, that which we really thought had disappeared 40 years ago,” said Mario Pulpillo, 54. “You simply can’t use violence against people who just want to vote.”

Despite the police threat, Mr. Pulpillo, who uses a wheelchair, said he went to vote “to make sure this was our feast of democracy, not our humiliation at the hands of a Spanish state that believes in repression.”

Photo -- Awaiting the referendum results in Barcelona. Credit Cesar Manso/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Voters like him made the turnout an extraordinary show of determination in the face of a steady drumbeat of threats from Madrid.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, at a news conference Sunday evening, characterized the police actions as a proper and measured response to the acts of secessionists. “We did what we had to do,” he said.

Proponents of the referendum immediately pointed to the heavy use of police force as a blight not only on Mr. Rajoy’s conservative government, but also on Spain’s still relatively young democracy.

Photo -- People gathering in Barcelona to wait for referendum results on Sunday evening watched a speech by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. Credit Cesar Manso/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

“The image of the Spanish state has reached levels of shame that will stay with them forever,” the leader of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, told a crowd in the town of Sant Julià de Ramis, the scene of clashes.

“Today, the Spanish state has lost a lot more than it had already lost, and Catalan citizens have won a lot more than they had won until now,” he said.

He and other Catalan authorities maintained that balloting had proceeded in most of the polling stations and seemed determined to use the vote as further evidence of the legitimacy of their claim for a separate nation.

Photo -- Some Catalans managed to cast ballots at a school in Barcelona on Sunday. Credit Jon Nazca/Reuters

The Catalan vote has been watched with rising trepidation — and no sign of support — by a European Union wary of stoking forces of fragmentation already tugging at the bloc and many member states, where populist and nationalist parties have surged in recent elections.

Nationalism in Spain, a country with a long and painful 20th century history that included civil war and fascism, has been all but dormant since the coming of democracy after the death of the dictator Gen. Francisco Franco in 1975. There are already signs that Catalonia’s threat to fracture the country is changing that.

Because of the tensions Sunday, F.C. Barcelona, the soccer club, played a match behind closed doors in its Camp Nou stadium, where the opposing Spanish team came with special uniforms emblazoned with the Spanish flag — something unusual here.

Photo -- Soccer fans made their sentiments known Sunday as they waved the Spanish flag at a soccer game in Madrid. Credit Paul White/Associated Press

Yet none of the tensions or lack of support — Scotland and Venezuela were among the few backers of the referendum — has dimmed aspirations for independence in Catalonia, a prosperous region with a distinct language, history and culture.

Those separatist passions rose in recent years as Catalans complained that Madrid was unfairly siphoning off their wealth and denying them the right to choose their own political destiny.

INTERNATIONAL By MALACHY BROWNE, DAPHNE RUSTOW and CAMILLA SCHICK 1:23
Catalan Independence Vote Turns Violent
Photograph -- Hundreds of people were hurt as the Spanish police closed polling stations and seized ballot boxes during Catalonia’s independence vote on Sunday. By MALACHY BROWNE, DAPHNE RUSTOW and CAMILLA SCHICK on Publish Date October 1, 2017. Photo by Emilio Morenatti/Associated Press. Watch in Times Video »
Photograph -- Pro-referendum supporters blocked a gate to a polling station in Barcelona as members of the Spanish police arrived to control the area. Credit Chris Mcgrath/Getty Images

“If there is something to conclude from today, it is the strength of Spain’s democratic state,” Mr. Rajoy said on Sunday. “We have acted with the law and only with the law and we have shown that our democratic state has resources to defend itself against such a serious attack.”

Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, Spain’s deputy prime minister, praised the Spanish police for blocking a vote that “couldn’t be celebrated and wasn’t celebrated.”

She told a news conference that the Catalan government had acted “with absolute irresponsibility, which had to be overcome by the professionalism of the security forces.”

Photo -- Demonstrators protesting against the Catalonia referendum passed a cafe in Barcelona on Sunday. Credit Jim Hollander/European Pressphoto Agency

After the extent of the crackdown became apparent, Ada Colau, the left-wing mayor of Barcelona, called on Mr. Rajoy to resign over his “cowardly” and unjustified police intervention.

“Today, we’re not talking about independence or not, but about a breakup between Mariano Rajoy and his government with Catalonia,” she told reporters.

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Ada Colau ✔@AdaColau
Un presidente de gobierno cobarde ha inundado de policía nuestra ciudad. Barcelona ciutat de pau, no té por #MésDemocracia @marianorajoy
3:13 AM - Oct 1, 2017
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Overnight, Catalans had used tractors to block police access to some rural municipalities so that the vote could go on. In other places, residents removed the doors of polling stations to ensure that the police could not bolt them on Sunday.

Photo -- Pro-referendum supporters blocked a gate to a polling station in Barcelona as members of the Spanish police arrived to control the area. Credit Chris Mcgrath/Getty Images

As Sunday approached, the Madrid government tried everything it could to thwart the referendum: disabling the internet, confiscating ballots, detaining some officials and threatening scores more with prosecution.

The vote took place anyway in an atmosphere of cat and mouse and in improvised conditions, with a disputed census used as the voting list.

Catalan officials instead relied on privately printed ballots, and changed the voting rules an hour before polls were scheduled to open, to allow voters to cast a ballot at any poll station, without using an envelope and whether registered there or not.

The Referendum
What's at stake? Catch up here.

Catalonia voted on independence despite opposition from Spain's government. What are the origins of the secessionist movement, and who tried to block the vote?

Enric Millo, the Spanish government’s representative in Catalonia, said the last-minute change turned what was already an illegal referendum into “a joke.”

Mr. Millo deplored the fact the national police were forced to take over from Catalan police officers who failed to stop the voting. “We’re being forced to do what we didn’t want to do,” he said.

Some videos posted on social media even showed arguments and some tussling between Spanish national police and the Catalan police.

Photo -- Catalan police officers walked by people camping out at the entrance to a Barcelona elementary school, one of the designated polling stations for the independence referendum. Credit Jon Nazca/Reuters

The Catalan police also intervened in Barcelona’s main downtown square to prevent clashes between separatists and a small group of far-right partisans of Spain.

A few outsiders had traveled to Catalonia from other countries to act as observers, saying they wanted to make sure that the police did not use force against voters.

Dimitrij Rupel, a former foreign minister of Slovenia, led a delegation of 35 foreign officials invited by the Catalan government. After watching the police intervene, he said that the “police have nothing to do with the democratic process — they shouldn’t be here.”

Photo -- A tractor was used to block police access to a polling station in Sant Julià de Ramis. Credit David Ramos/Getty Images

Recent opinion polls suggest that slightly less than half of Catalonia’s 7.5 million people support separation from Spain, but separatist parties won a majority in the region’s Parliament in 2015 and their influence has grown.

Many say Catalonia would face a perilous and uncertain future outside Spain, the market for most of the region’s goods, and would not be assured of being readmitted to the European Union.

Others complained that the thrust for independence had deepened divisions within the region, whose vibrant economy has attracted families from inside and outside Spain.

Olga Noheda, a doctor in Centelles, said one of her patients, an older man, began crying in her examination room, and explained that his granddaughter had begun expressing dislike for Spaniards.

“He was very sad, because he didn’t understand where it all came from,” she said. “He migrated to Catalonia many years ago, from Seville, and he was wondering if his granddaughter was aware that he was a Spaniard.”

In Barcelona’s Placa de Catalunya late Sunday night, voters chanted and celebrated the referendum, even if it remained very unclear how the separatist leaders hope to enforce its outcome.

“We’ve shown our way of making politics and changing things is very different to that of Spain,” said Marti Feliu, 21, a history student at Barcelona University. “It’s our opportunity to create a different kind of country, even if we don’t yet know exactly how and when.”

Ellen Barry and Raphael Minder reported from Barcelona, and Palko Karasz from Tarragona, Spain. Silvia Taulés and Marta Arias contributed reporting from Barcelona, and Germán Aranda from Berga, Spain.



CATALAN PRESIDENT PUIGDEMONT CLAIMS VICTORY (OF COURSE, SPAIN ALSO CLAIMED VICTORY). WE’LL SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT AS TIME GOES BY.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spain-catalonia-independence-referendum-protest-carles-puigdemont/
CBS/AP October 1, 2017, 6:13 PM
Catalan president says his state has won right to independence

Video – Spain cracks down on independence vote

BARCELONA, Spain -- Catalan president Carles Puigdemont says Catalonia "has won the right to become an independent state."

Speaking on television Sunday from Barcelona after polling stations closed in the northeastern region in Spain, Puigdemont said "today the Spanish state wrote another shameful page in its history with Catalonia."

Spanish riot police smashed their way into polling stations across Catalonia to try and stop Sunday's referendum on independence, sometimes beating and kicking voters.

Spain's top court had suspended the vote but local authorities went ahead anyway. At least 844 people and 33 police were reported injured in the raids.

Puigdemont says "I will make a direct appeal to the European Union" to look into alleged human rights violations by the Spanish government Sunday.

Photograph – Catalonia, An elderly lady is applauded as she celebrates after voting at a school assigned to be a polling station by the Catalan government at the Gracia neighborhood in Barcelona, Spain, on Sun., 1 Oct. 2017. AP

As voting ended, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said Catalans had been fooled into taking part in an "illegal" vote, calling it a "mockery" to Democracy, BBC News reports.

No one knows precisely what will happen if Catalan officials use the vote -- chaotic as it was -- as a basis for declaring the northeastern region independent, a provocative move that would threaten Spain with the possible loss of one of its most prosperous regions, including the popular coastal city of Barcelona, the regional capital.

It was also unclear how many of the region's 5.3 million eligible voters were able to cast ballots, how their votes would be counted and how many votes had been confiscated by police.

Photograph -- spain referendum protest, A woman yells at riot police near a a polling station for the banned independence referendum in Barcelona, Spain, on Sun., Oct. 1, 2017. REUTERS

© 2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.



ABOUT CATALAN PRESIDENT PUIGDEMONT (PRONOUNCED “POOCH-DA-MON”) – LOOKS LIKE A GOOD MAN TO ME, MODERATE TO LIBERAL POLITICALLY, AND BESIDES THOSE THINGS, I OFTEN LIKE THE BREAKOUT CANDIDATE FOR THEIR STRENGTH AND INDIVIDUALITY. I ALSO REALLY DISLIKE THE WAY THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT HAS RESPONDED TO THE VOTE, WHICH IT CALLS “ILLEGAL,” AND IN A VIOLENT WAY HAS HURT AND KILLED MANY. IT’S NO WONDER PEOPLE ARE REBELLING.

https://www.thelocal.es/20170929/10-facts-on-catalan-president-and-pro-independence-leader-carles-puigdemont
10 facts on Catalan President and pro-independence leader Carles Puigdemont
Lee Roden
lee.roden@thelocal.com
@leeroden89
29 September 2017

Photograph -- Catalan regional President Carles Puigdemont. Photo: Lluis Gene/AFP

The face of the pro independence campaign, Catalan regional President is one of the key figures in the upcoming plebiscite in the north-eastern region of Spain. Here are 10 facts to know about the separatist leader.

1. Born in 1962, Puidemont was named after his grandfather, Carles Casamajó, who fled to France at the end of the Spanish Civil War and lived at various refugee camps before disappearing in 1943. The family hasn't found any trace of him since.

2. The 54-year-old hails from the town of Amer in the hills west of Girona, where textiles are the dominant industry. Politics aside, his family is best known locally for its patisserie, which is famous for its capricis, a kind of biscotti.

3. Puigdemont's uncle Josep was mayor of Amer between 1979 and 1983. The younger Puigdemont’s first taste of politics came when he helped found the Girona district of Joventut Nacionalista de Catalunya (JNC), the youth branch of the Catalan European Democratic Party in the early 1980s. Around that time he was also caught in a serious accident while driving from Girona to Amer, when his Seat Marbella collided with a truck. Though he "miraculously" survived despite serious injuries, the Catalan President still has scars from the collision to this day.

4. A journalist by trade, he started out writing reports on football for newspaper Los Sitios at the age of 14. A few years later, he dropped out of his degree in philology at Girona University College because his journalistic work for newspaper El Punt Diari (now El Punt Avui) was too time-consuming.

5. It proved a wise move, as the Amer native would eventually end up editor in chief of El Punt. During his time at the newspaper he took a sabbatical year to travel Europe. The result, published in 1994, was his book “Cata...what? Catalunya as seen by the international press”, which looked at the understanding (or lack) of Catalonia abroad in the build-up to the Barcelona Olympics.

6. A multi-linguist, Puigdemont speaks English, French and Romanian on top of his native Catalan and Spanish. He learned Romanian through his wife, Marcela Topor, who he met while she was visiting a festival in Girona, then later went to visit in her native Romania before convincing her to relocate to Spain.

He is also one of the founders of English language news paper Catalonia Today, as well as founder and former director of the Catalan News Agency, a media agency owned by the Catalan government with international branches in Berlin, Brussels, London, New York and Paris.

7. Through a close friend of former FC Barcelona President Joan Laporta, Puigdemont is a supporter of local team Girona FC, who won promotion to La Liga for the first time in the club's history in the summer of 2017. He can sporadically be seen in the club's executive box during match days.

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8. Puigdemont’s political career started relatively late, in 2007 he was elected as a member of the opposition at Girona City Hall, before being elected mayor four years later and breaking Socialist rule that had stood there since 1979.

Opinions of his time as mayor are mixed: critics say he isn't present enough in day to day life, spending most of his time away in Barcelona. Admirers praise him for helping to convince Game of Thrones to film in Girona, as well as for funding the archiving of art critic Raael Santos i Torroella's collection which includes original work by Joan Miro and Pablo Picasso.

9. In 2016, the Girona Mayor won a vote of confidence in the Catalan parliament to be named new President. He had not been one of the favourites, and emerged at the eleventh hour to end a three-month political stalemate after the various member parties in the pro-independence Junts pel Sí struggled to agree on a candidate to preside over their government.

10. Politically, Puigdemont has been defined as somewhere between a centrist and a social democrat, who appeals more to those on the left of centre than previous Catalan President Artur Mas thanks to his relatively humble upbringing in Amer away from the Barcelona bourgeoisie.

Photograph -- Artur Mas (left) and successor Puigdemont. Photo: Lluis Gene/AFP


https://www.howtopronounce.com/catalan/puigdemont/
How To Pronounce Puigdemont
pooch-duh-MON



PROTESTS AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY GO ON, WHETHER OR NOT MR. TRUMP LIKES IT. I’M PROUD TO SEE THAT. THAT’S THE SPIRIT WE NEED WHEN WE ARE CONFRONTING A RIGHTIST POLITICAL GROUP WHO HAVE WITH THE AID OF AN INTERNATIONAL ENEMY, TAKEN OVER THIS GOVERNMENT.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nfl-players-kneel-during-national-anthem/
By JUSTIN CARISSIMO CBS NEWS October 1, 2017, 4:42 PM
Some NFL players kneel Sunday during national anthem

Some NFL players across the league continued to sit, kneel and raise fists during "The Star-Spangled Banner" on Sunday following President Trump's calls for the protests to end.

Three Miami Dolphins players -- Kenny Stills, Julius Thomas and Michael Thomas -- took a knee during the anthem before they faced off against the New Orleans Saints in London's Wembley Stadium. Most Saints players knelt before the anthem and stood while it played.

"As a way to show respect to all, our #Saints team will kneel in solidarity prior to the national anthem & stand together during the anthem," Saints quarterback Drew Brees tweeted Thursday.

New Orleans Saints v Miami Dolphins

The New Orleans Saints players kneel before the anthem is played at the NFL game between the Miami Dolphins and the New Orleans Saints at Wembley Stadium on Sun., Oct. 1, 2017 in London, England. GETTY

On Saturday evening, Mr. Trump called again for an end to the protests that began as a movement to protest racial injustice in America.

"Very important that NFL players STAND tomorrow, and always, for the playing of our National Anthem," Mr. Trump tweeted. "Respect our Flag and our Country!"

Oakland Raiders running back Marshawn Lynch was spotted wearing a shirt that read "Everybody vs. Trump" on Sunday afternoon before his team took on the Denver Broncos.

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Raiders RB Marshawn Lynch wearing an "Everybody vs Trump" T-shirt:
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About 20 San Francisco 49ers players were kneeling as the anthem played Sunday.

"For more than a year, members of our team have protested the oppression and social injustices still present in our society," 49ers coaches players ownership and staff said in a statement. "While some may not have taken a knee or raised a fist, we have all shared the desire to influence positive change."

49ers Cardinals Football

Members of the San Francisco 49ers kneel during the national anthem as others stand prior to an NFL football game against the Arizona Cardinals on Sun., Oct. 1, 2017, in Glendale, Ariz. AP

Several Cleveland Brown players stood with their fists raised, while the Baltimore Ravens and New York Jets were booed by fans after they knelt before the anthem.

"Before the singing of the national anthem, please join Ravens players and coaches, and the entire Ravens organization, to pray, that we as a nation can embrace, kindness, unity, equality and justice for all Americans," the Ravens' announcer said to a chorus of boos Sunday.

Last week, more than 200 players knelt during the anthem after Mr. Trump called on NFL team owners to fire any players who refuse to stand while it plays. NFL team owners defended their players while some joined them on the field by linking arms or kneeling.

The Indianapolis Colts issued a statement Sunday night explaining some players decision to kneel last week. The team said they had no intention of disrespecting the military and simply wanted to "speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves."

"Our intention was to raise awareness and continue critical conversations about real equality, the injustices against black and brown people, police brutality, respect, unity and equal opportunity," the statement said.



AT THE TIME THAT THIS HAPPENED THERE WERE A NUMBER OF REPORTS STATING THAT THE UPPER MANAGEMENT TO WHOM HE ANSWERED HAD GIVEN HIM A COMMAND TO TAKE THE SHIP IN ORDER TO MEET A DEADLINE, AS I SEEM TO REMEMBER, WITH WHAT WAS MORE OR LESS A THREAT OF DEMOTION OR WORSE IF HE DIDN’T DO IT. STILL, HE SHOULD HAVE RUN THE RISK OF BEING FIRED AND CHANGED THE ROUTE, AS THE COAST GUARD SAID, OR EVEN HELD UP THE TRIP UNTIL THE WEATHER BECAME SAFE AGAIN.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/el-faro-captain-errors-sinking-coast-guard-report/
CBS/AP October 1, 2017, 2:47 PM
Coast Guard report: Captain's errors primary cause of El Faro sinking

Photograph -- The stern of the El Faro is shown on the ocean floor taken from an underwater video camera on November 1, 2015. Courtesy National Transportation Safety Board/Handout via HANDOUT/REUTERS

A Coast Guard report released Sunday says the primary cause of the 2015 sinking of the cargo ship El Faro, which killed all 33 aboard, was the captain underestimating the strength of a hurricane and overestimating the ship's strength.

The report said Capt. Michael Davidson should have changed the El Faro's route between Jacksonville, Florida, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, to avoid Hurricane Joaquin's 150 mph winds and when the 790-foot vessel got stuck he should have taken more aggressive measures to save it.

Speaking at a news conference in Jacksonville, Florida, Capt. Jason Neubauer also said the Coast Guard would have sought to revoke Davidson's license if he had survived.

Davidson "was ultimately responsible for the vessel, the crew and its safe navigation," said Neubauer, who chaired the investigation.

El Faro's data recorder reveals cargo ship crew's final moments
Play VIDEO
El Faro's data recorder reveals cargo ship crew's final moments

He said Davidson "misjudged the path of Hurricane Joaquin and overestimated the vessel's heavy weather survivability while also failing to take adequate precautions to monitor and prepare for heavy weather. During critical periods of navigation ... he failed to understand the severity of the situation, even when the watch standards warned him the hurricane was intensifying."

The report also says the ship's owner, TOTE Maritime Inc., had not replaced a safety officer, spreading out those duties among other managers, and had violated regulations regarding crew rest periods and working hours. The Coast Guard said it will seek civil actions against TOTE but no criminal penalties as there was no criminal intent.

TOTE Maritime released a statement Sunday saying the report "is another piece of this sacred obligation that everyone who works upon the sea must study and embrace. The report details industry practices which need change."

Florida community mourns El Faro crew
Play VIDEO
Florida community mourns El Faro crew

The El Faro went down on Oct. 1, 2015, sinking in 15,000 feet of water to the sea floor near the Bahamas. No bodies were ever recovered. It was the worst maritime disaster for a U.S.-flagged vessel since 1983.

Family members of the 33 victims filed wrongful death lawsuits against the owner of the ship in federal court, and they have since been settled, WOKV-FM reports.

Voice recordings recovered from the ship show an increasingly panicked and stressed crew fighting to save the ship after it lost propulsion as they battled wind, shifting cargo and waves.

Davidson ordered the ship abandoned shortly before it sank but its open air lifeboats likely would have provided insufficient protection, the Coast Guard said. The agency said it would recommend that all ships now be equipped with modern enclosed lifeboats.

El Faro was one of two ships owned by TOTE Maritime Inc. that navigated in constant rotation on shipping runs between Jacksonville, Florida, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. It brought everything from milk to Mercedes Benzes to the island.

© 2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.



ISIS CLAIMS TO BE FOLLOWING A RELIGION, BUT THEY ARE JUST A MIND-CONTROL CULT WITH DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR. THEY HAVEN’T ACHIEVED ANYTHING EXCEPT KILLING AND MORE KILLING; AND THEY CERTAINLY ARE NOT A “GOVERNMENT,” CALIPHATE OR OTHERWISE.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/isis-soldier-stabbing-2-women-marseille-france-train-station-attack/
AP October 1, 2017, 7:25 PM
ISIS claims on of its "soldier" stabs 2 women at train station in France

Photograph -- French police and soldier secure a street near the Saint-Charles train station after French soldiers shot and killed a man who stabbed two women to death at the main train station in Marseille, France, on Sun., Oct. 1, 2017. REUTERS

MARSEILLE, France -- A man with a knife stabbed two women to death Sunday at the main train station in the southern French city of Marseille as he reportedly shouted "Allahu akbar!" -- an attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed was the work of one its "soldiers."

French soldiers shot the man to death after the attacks and authorities were working to determine if he had links to Islamic extremism.

Interior Minister Gerard Collomb, who went to Marseille to meet with local authorities and troops on the scene, said police have video that shows the man attacking a woman and running away, then coming back and attacking a second woman.

The video shows the man running toward soldiers who were rushing to Marseille's Saint Charles train station. The soldiers fatally shot him and both women died of their injuries, Collomb said.

Some witnesses reported hearing the assailant shout "Allahu akbar!" Arabic for "God is great," Collomb said.

france train station stabbing ISIS
Police investigators work outside the Saint-Charles train station after French soldiers shot and killed a man who stabbed two women to death at the main train station in Marseille, France, on Sun., 1, 2017. REUTERS

The Paris prosecutor's office, which oversees all terror cases in France, said it had opened a counterterrorism investigation into the Marseille attack.

The ISIS-linked Aamaq news agency said in a statement Sunday night that the assailant was acting in response to ISIS calls to target countries in the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS extremists in Syria and Iraq.

The statement did not provide details or evidence of a direct link to the attacker. France has been part of the anti-ISIS coalition since 2014 and has been repeatedly targeted by ISIS attacks.

Police sources told The Associated Press that one of the victims was stabbed and one had her throat slit. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly about the investigation.

Collomb declined to provide any details about the suspect or identify the victims.

Earlier this month, four American college students were attacked with acid at the same Marseille train station. French authorities said the female assailant who doused the four Boston College students was suffering from a mental illness.

French President Emmanuel Macron said he was "deeply outraged" by Sunday's "barbarous" knife attack. In a tweet, Macron paid tribute to the French soldiers who responded "with cool heads and efficiency."

The French government this month decided to maintain the military force of 7,000 soldiers that was created to protect sensitive sites after the deadly extremist attacks of 2015.

The Saint Charles train station was evacuated and closed for several hours after the attack, and Marseille police warned people to avoid the area. The train station was partially reopened in the late afternoon.

Photograph -- French soldiers patrol outside the Marseille railway station, Sunday, Oct. 1, 2017. AP

Police find 3 vans linked to deadly attacks in Spain
ISIS leader al-Baghdadi purportedly calls for new attacks in recording
Police warn people to avoid Marseille train station amid reports of attack



THIS REALLY IS EMBARRASSING. GEORGE W BUSH WAS ACCUSED BY GOVERNOR ANN RICHARDS OF TEXAS OF HAVING BEEN BORN “WITH A SILVER FOOT IN HIS MOUTH.” IT’S CLEAR THAT TRUMP HIS THE SAME PROBLEM. I WONDER, IS IT INHERITED? BOTH WERE BORN BILLIONAIRES AND MAY POSSIBLY BE DISTANT RELATIVES. WHAT DO YOU THINK?

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-puerto-rico-island-surrounded-big-water
Trump: Puerto Rico is ‘an island surrounded by … big water’
09/29/17 02:29 PM—UPDATED 09/29/17 03:43 PM
By Steve Benen

With Americans in Puerto Rico still facing crisis conditions in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, Donald Trump has faced considerable criticism for his administration’s emergency response. The president has been eager to defend himself – he routinely tweets praise from Puerto Rican officials desperate for assistance, for example – but Trump’s rhetoric hasn’t exactly inspired confidence.

Take this morning, for example, when the president delivered a speech to the National Association of Manufacturers. Reading from his teleprompter, Trump began by sending “our thoughts and prayers to the people of Puerto Rico, who have been struck by storms of historic and catastrophic severity.” But then he strayed from his script:

“The response and recovery effort probably has never been seen for something like this. This is an island surrounded by water. Big water. Ocean water.”

I suppose his point was that Puerto Rico’s distance and location have hampered the speed of the federal response, though we’ve responded effectively to disasters in the Philippines and Hispaniola – both of which are islands “surrounded by water” – with greater speed and efficiency.

Complicating matters is the series of related comments the president has made about the disaster. After a prolonged silence on Puerto Rico – he seemed far more interested in protesting athletes last weekend – Trump eventually addressed the island’s crisis on Monday night, noting that Puerto Rico is “billions of dollars in debt to Wall Street and the banks which, sadly, must be dealt with.”

It wasn’t exactly the angle that seemed relevant this week.

A day later, the president said at a press conference that the disaster in Puerto Rico “just happened,” when in fact, the storm hit the island several days earlier. Trump went on to say, “This is a thing called the Atlantic Ocean. This is tough stuff.”

Earlier in the day, the president added, “This is an island sitting in the middle of an ocean. It’s a big ocean, it’s a very big ocean.”

Not to put too fine a point on this, but Puerto Rico is in the Caribbean. The U.S. territory is not around the corner, but from Miami, it’s about 1,000 miles – roughly the distance from the White House to the president’s Floridian golf resort. Puerto Rico is obviously an island, but it’s not “in the middle” of a “very big ocean.”

Obviously, what matters right now is the humanitarian crisis facing these millions of Americans, not Trump’s rhetorical difficulties. That said, it’s nevertheless true that the president’s references to “big water” sound more like an excuse than an attempt to put things right.