APRIL 8, 2018


NEWS AND VIEWS


I HAVE JUST DISCOVERED ANOTHER MEGALITHIC SITE, CALLED GOBEKLITEPE, WHICH GOES BACK TO 10,000 BC, EARLY AGRICULTURAL PERIOD. IT DOESN’T LOOK QUITE LIKE THE OTHERS, BUT I THINK IT PROBABLY IS AN EARLY EXAMPLE – PERHAPS THE PROTOTYPE OF A RELIGIOUS FORM THAT HAS LASTED THROUGH TIME MUCH LONGER THAN CHRISTIANITY – THE RUINS HAVE, I MEAN. THE ARTICLE DOESN’T SAY HOW LONG THE SCIENTISTS THINK IT WAS IN USE. GO TO THE WEBSITE AND LOOK AT IT. FOR MORE INFORMATION, SEE ALSO THIS FROM WIKIPEDIA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe#/media/File:G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe_site_(2).JPG.
PRONUNCIATION: https://www.howtopronounce.com/gobekli-tepe/.


http://gobeklitepe.info/
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Welcome to the presentation of the The World’s First Temple, Gobeklitepe … a pre-historic site, about 15 km away from the city of Sanliurfa, Southeastern Turkiye. What makes Gobeklitepe unique in its class is the date it was built, which is roughly twelve thousand years ago, circa 10,000 BC.

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Archaeologically categorised as a site of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A Period (c. 9600–7300 BC) Göbeklitepe is a series of mainly circular and oval-shaped structures set on the top of a hill. Excavations began in 1995 by Prof. Klaus Schmidt with the help of the German Archeological Institute. There is archelological proof that these installations were not used for domestic use, but predominantly for ritual or religous purposes. Subsequently it became apparent that Gobeklitepe consists of not only one, but many of such stone age temples. Furthermore, both excavations and geo magnetic results revealed that there are at least 20 installations, which in archeological terms can be called a temple. Based on what has been unearthed so far, the pattern principle seems to be that there are two huge monumental pillars in the center of each installation, surrounded by enclosures and walls, featuring more pillars in those set-ups.

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All pillars are T-shaped with heights changing from 3 to 6 meters. Archeologists interpret those T-shapes as stylized human beings, mainly because of the depiction of human extremities that appear on some of the pillars. What also appears on these mystical rock statues, are carvings of animals as well as abstract symbols, sometimes picturing a combination of scenes.

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Gobeklitepe_Home_003B_400

Foxes, snakes, wild boars, cranes, wild ducks are most common. Most of these were carved into the flat surfaces of these pillars. Then again, we also come across some three-dimensional sculptures, in shape of a predator depicting a lion, descending on the side of a T-pillar.

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Gobeklitepe_Home_004_B_400

The unique method used for the preservation of Gobeklitepe has really been the key to the survival of this amazing site. Whoever built this magnificent monument, made sure of its survival along thousands of years, by simply backfilling the various sites and burying them deep under, by using an incredible amount of material and all these led to an excellent preservation.

Gobeklitepe_Home_005_A_400

Gobeklitepe_Home_005_B_400

Each T-shaped pillar varies between 40 to 60 tonnes, leaving us scratching our heads as to how on earth they accomplished such a monumental feat. In a time when even simple hand tools were hard to come by, how did they get these stone blocks there, and how did they erect them? With no settlement or society to speak of, with farming still a far cry away, in a world of only roaming hunter-gatherers, the complexity and developed blueprints of these temples represented another enigma for archeologists. Do we have to change our vision of how and when civilized human history began? The plot thickens..


The First International Gobeklitepe Symposium videos are now online!

Today’s Zaman – Documentary rewrites history of civilization

Daily News – Roof to preserve Gobeklitepe excavation area

Andrew Curry on “The World’s First Temple?”



POOR BERNIE. “JUST KEEP ON TRUCKIN.’” THERE ARE SOME BLACK ATTITUDES, ESPECIALLY WITH THE YOUNG PEOPLE, THAT ARE SO HOSTILE THAT THEY DON’T EVEN TRY TO BE FAIR. WHEN I LIVED IN WASHINGTON DC THERE WAS A BLACK WOMAN WHO ACTUALLY SAID THAT “BLACK PEOPLE CAN’T BE RACIST.” THAT’S JUST A LIE. WE’LL SEE HOW THIS ALL TURNS OUT. PEOPLE DO CHANGE OVER TIME, AND WE HAVE ANOTHER TWO YEARS TO GO.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/rubycramer/bernie-sanders-revolution-needs-black-voters-to-win-but-can?utm_term=.wl109rGVM#.etQJBOMyW
Bernie Sanders’ Revolution Needs Black Voters To Win. But Can He Talk To Them?
Posted on April 5, 2018, at 7:00 p.m.
Ruby Cramer
BuzzFeed News Reporter
Darren Sands

PHOTOGRAPH -- Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba onstage with Sanders Wednesday night
Rogelio V. Solis / AP

On Wednesday at an MLK event, Sanders said that Barack Obama's charisma obscured Democratic failures over the last decade — a critique that ignited a sharp rebuke from black Democrats who say he hasn't learned the lessons of 2016. There's a lot more to the story from the last three years.

On the 50th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King Jr., Bernie Sanders was in Jackson, Mississippi, to talk about economic justice. It was here, in a state with the highest percentage of black residents in the country, where Sanders registered one of the worst performances of his presidential campaign, losing all 82 counties, by a total of 66 points.

Two years later, on Wednesday night, there were cheers of "Feel the Bern!" in the hall as Sanders and the city's mayor, Chokwe Lumumba, discussed King's legacy.

But midway through the event in downtown Jackson, an uncertain silence fell over the audience.

"The business model, if you like, of the Democratic Party for the last 15 years or so has been a failure," Sanders started, responding to a question about the young voters who supported his campaign. "People sometimes don't see that because there was a charismatic individual named Barack Obama, who won the presidency in 2008 and 2012.

"He was obviously an extraordinary candidate, brilliant guy. But behind that reality, over the last 10 years, Democrats have lost about 1,000 seats in state legislatures all across this country.”

It's a criticism of President Obama’s tenure that Sanders and plenty of others have made before. But the time and place for the remark — 50 years to the day after King's assassination, at an event to discuss that legacy — quickly shook loose old frustrations among Democrats who watched the senator struggle in 2016 to connect with black voters and speak to issues of racial justice.

Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ longtime top strategist, said that people were misreading the senator’s comment. “What Bernie was doing last night was praising the power and significance of the Barack Obama presidency, while at the same time pointing out that the national Democratic Party has had a lot of failures over the last 15 years, as evidenced by our loss of state legislative and congressional seats.”

“One is not the cause of the other,” Weaver said.

An Obama spokesperson declined to comment. But privately, former Obama lieutenants and other Democrats knocked the timing of Sanders’ criticism, considering his words on the Democratic Party a criticism of Obama’s own leadership. One texted that Sanders’ words were “dumb as hell.”

"Bernie's comments were tone-deaf and will not help him with communities of color, especially black folks," said Joshua DuBois, a strategist who led Obama's faith-based initiative. "On that hallowed day, our focus should've been on the transformative legacy of Dr. King and how we can come together to continue King's fight against systemic racism and injustice — not attacking the legacy of the first black president, who fought against many of the same things Dr. King fought."

Bakari Sellers, a South Carolina Democrat who emphatically supported Hillary Clinton in 2016, told BuzzFeed News that he and black Democrats have had patience with Sanders as he’s sought to better understand the role that race plays in the United States, even as Democrats have pushed Sanders to not just rely on the narrative that he marched with King in the 1960s.

To Sellers, anyway, Sanders’ time is up.


Bakari Sellers
✔
@Bakari_Sellers
Y’all can defend Bernie all you want. On #MLK50 his lack of self awareness and arrogance in dismissing #44, is wild.

Bernie 2020 died 4/4/18. https://twitter.com/rubycramer/status/981706802990546945 …

8:59 AM - Apr 5, 2018
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To “dismiss with utter arrogance and lack of self-awareness the first African African president,” he said on Thursday, is “just the height and epitome of arrogance and lack of self-awareness.”

Sellers argued that Obama’s legacy encompasses not just his work as president from a policy perspective, but his symbolic importance. He alluded to the photo of a boy touching Obama’s hair in the White House to see if it felt like his. “Bernie Sanders doesn’t understand how that photo is emblematic of the hope of many African Americans and that it speaks loudly to who Barack Obama is.”

Speaking by phone on Thursday, Weaver fired back at Sanders’ critics. Sellers, he said, was attempting to sow “racial division” by “deliberately misinterpreting” the senator’s remarks.

(“My father was shot because of racial [division],” responded Sellers, whose father was shot during what became known as the Orangeburg Massacre in 1968. “[Weaver] should find another line of attack, because I will not dignify that.”)

The episode, and the fast and sharp response, offers another reminder of how tense Democratic politics continue to be, especially around issues of race and economics, as the party decides its direction after Clinton’s loss two years ago.

In 2016, the 76-year-old Vermont senator struggled to attract wider black support with his message about wealth and income inequality, which he cast as "the great moral issue of our time," "the great economic issue of our time," and the "great political issue of our time" — often, critics said, at the expense of highlighting issues of race.

And in the lead-up to the first caucuses and primaries, he fumbled a series of tense confrontations with young black leaders protesting against police violence and race’s effect on mass incarceration. To his critics, Sanders’ lack of experience — coming up in politics in Vermont — and near lack of black voices among his senior campaign staff left him flat-footed on the intersectional political analysis young activists craved.

Now, as Sanders contemplates another run for president in 2020, he and his advisers face pressing question about whether his political revolution's message, and its messenger, can attract a large enough coalition of voters to win the Democratic nomination.

If former campaign aides still hang on to one frustration from 2016, it's the perception that Sanders can't connect with the black community. His pollster, Ben Tulchin, can still recite exit polling figures showing his gains with black millennials. His former press secretary, Symone Sanders, published a Washington Post op-ed headlined “It’s Time to End the Myth That Black Voters Don’t Like Bernie Sanders.” And his top aides are quick to point to a series of Harvard-Harris polls showing the senator as the most popular politician among black voters.

Sanders, in the months since 2016, has cultivated a closer relationship with leaders like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. He's been a more frequent presence at events like Wednesday's town hall in Jackson. And advisers insist that the Democratic primary, and the activists he met along the way in 2015 and 2016, did set off a real change in the senator's thinking on racial justice.

“It’s not Bernie’s fault, but the circumstance he was faced with [in 2016] is that he took on this image as this [exemplar] of progressivism when the progressive community tends to marginalize black concerns,” said Rev. Al Sharpton in an interview last week. “He was the progressive candidate and he incurred some wrath from all of us because of that.”

Tulchin, the senator’s pollster, described criminal justice and mass incarceration as relatively new issues for Sanders. “Yes, he took guidance from us on that front, because he recognized that Vermont is not at the epicenter of the criminal justice crisis, in terms of police misconduct problems. He understood that he had to absorb new areas,” Tulchin said. "But it is part of his worldview — I mean, the guy started in the ’60s as an activist in the civil rights movement getting arrested, right?"

On Wednesday night, in a brief interview backstage as he autographed campaign posters, Sanders said he saw the “fight for justice” as one for “racial justice” and “economic justice,” citing one of King’s last efforts, the Poor People’s Campaign aimed at mobilizing workers across different racial backgrounds. “That's what King's life was about,” the senator said. “We gotta move forward, fight against racism at the same time as we fight for economic justice.”

Still, early in his political career, and at times during the 2016 campaign, Sanders was reluctant to embrace any view of left-leaning politics that did not put class and economic inequality at the forefront. “The real issue is not whether you’re black or white, whether you’re a woman or a man,” he said in a 1988 interview. “The real issue is whose side are you on? Are you on the side of workers and poor people or are you on the side of big money and the corporations?”

“He was unconsciously unskillful on issues of race,” said the executive director of the Vermont Partnership for Fairness and Diversity, Curtiss Reed Jr., who has observed Sanders for years in his home state. “His framework is income inequality and economic justice. He sees that as the all-inclusive tent.”

It made for a steep learning curve in 2015, as a new generation of young black leaders staged protests at campaign events across the country. One of the first major actions, at the annual Netroots Nation conference for liberal activists in July of that year, left Sanders and his team shaken. The candidate on stage before him, Martin O’Malley, had already bungled an exchange with leaders from the Black Lives Matter movement, telling the activists concerned about police brutality and mass incarceration that “all lives matter.” When Sanders came out afterward, the moderator immediately asked him to address the topic at hand. “Whoa, whoa whoa whoa whoa,” Sanders said. “Let me talk about what I want to talk about for a moment.”

After protesters interrupted him with chants of “say her name” — referring to Sandra Bland, a black woman who’d recently died inside a Texas prison after a traffic stop — Sanders stopped talking and paced the stage. “Listen, black lives of course matter. And I’ve spent 50 years of my life fighting for civil rights,” Sanders finally said. From the crowd, someone shouted back, “What are you doing about it now?” The protracted exchange left campaign aides “demoralized” and “devastated,” an operative present recalled. Sanders, the person said, was “pissed.”

Though Clinton won the nomination on the strength of black support, she, too, struggled with the same kinds of interactions with protesters, who objected to her use of the term “super-predators” and her support of the crime bill in the 1990s. In the wake of the 2016 election, those critiques of the 1990s, and the way politicians talk about issues of racial inequality and injustice, have become a standard feature of American political life, especially as President Trump continues to single out black politicians and protesters.

The experience was a new one for Sanders. On a trip to Seattle in August 2015, Black Lives Matter activists interrupted two events in one day. The next day, in a meeting with Don't Shoot PDX, a Portland group loosely affiliated with Black Lives Matter, Sanders repeatedly answered questions by referring the activists to his campaign website. (“He said: ‘I don't know you and u don't me, so you have to read my website, you can go on [there] and see my work and judge me from that,’" one attendee recalled in a Facebook post about the meeting.)

Around that time, the candidate brought on Symone Sanders to serve as his national press secretary and one of the first black faces of his campaign. During her first week on the job, she said, she told Sanders that he had to treat racial inequality and economic inequality as “parallel issues” — a suggestion she said he ran with. “I [told him], you know, economic equality is an issue. It’s something we need to address. But for some people it doesn’t matter how much money you make, it doesn’t matter where you went to school, it doesn’t matter what your parents do. It doesn’t matter that Sandra Bland had a job and was on her way to teach for her alma mater. It doesn’t matter. None of that matters.”

By the time his campaign aides scrambled to release a detailed criminal justice platform on Aug. 9, Sanders was still struggling. In a September meeting with Campaign Zero, a movement formed out of the Ferguson protests, activists asked Sanders why, in his opinion, there were a disproportionate amount of people of color in jail for nonviolent drug offenses. Sanders, seated across the table, a yellow legal pad at hand, responded with a question of his own, according to two people present: “Aren’t most of the people who sell the drugs African American?” The candidate, whose aides froze in the moment, was quickly rebuffed: The answer, the activists told him, was no. Even confronted with figures and data to the contrary, Sanders appeared to have still struggled to grasp that he had made an error, the two people present said.

In a statement to BuzzFeed News, Bernie Sanders said he "clearly misspoke" during the meeting:

During this extremely important meeting three years ago, where I learned a great deal, we had a very open discussion about the issues of systemic racism and the intersection of race and class. I am grateful to the participants in this meeting for engaging with me. The experiences and perspectives they related were incredibly impactful on me as a person and as a presidential candidate. While I clearly misspoke and had more to learn with regard to the causes of this problem, we all came to the meeting understanding what is absolutely true: the criminal justice system is broken and disproportionately arrests and jails African Americans. I am thankful to the participants for their work and willingness to have the kind of discussions that we need to have in order to move forward as a country. I intend to continue having conversations with activists and experts about how we, as a nation, create the society all of us deserve.

Ahead of a possible 2020 campaign, Sanders’ inner circle remains largely unchanged: His closest advisers include his former campaign manager, Weaver; his media consultant, Tad Devine; and his wife, Jane Sanders. Some note that his operation now includes Ben Jealous, the former NAACP president now running for governor of Maryland, as well as Nina Turner, a prominent Sanders surrogate who is now running his political organization, Our Revolution.

"Candidates need to figure out how to include black women at the top, and to my knowledge he hasn’t met with the new guard or the old guard of black women — and that’s what needs to happen if they want to create a viable plan."

“Anybody that thinks they’d like to throw their hat in the ring for 2020 has to understand that you will never get anywhere close to the presidency without black women,” said Symone Sanders in an interview last month. “Candidates need to figure out how to include black women at the top, and to my knowledge he hasn’t met with the new guard or the old guard of black women — and that’s what needs to happen if they want to create a viable plan.”

On Wednesday night, seated beside Lumumba, the 35-year-old mayor who came into office last year, Sanders talked about King's focus later in life on connecting the fight for integration and civil rights with issues of income inequality. “All of us know where he was when he was assassinated 50 years ago today,” the senator said. “He was in Memphis to stand with low-income sanitation workers who were being exploited ruthlessly, whose wages were abysmally low, and who were trying to create a union. That's where he was. Because as the mayor just indicated, what he believed — and where he was a real threat to the establishment — is that of course we need civil rights in this country, but we also need economic justice.”

Backstage after the town hall, Sanders said that these are issues he’s always discussed, whether or not people were paying attention. “Don’t get me going on the media,” he said.

“You're running against somebody who's known by everybody, whose husband was very popular in the African American community,” he went on. “How many people in Mississippi knew who the junior senator from Vermont was when I began my campaign? Wanna guess? Five percent? Ten percent? But by the time the campaign ended, we were doing much better.”

But had the campaign changed him at all — or the way he talks about racial justice?

Sanders cut in. “It’s not a question of talking about it. It’s not phraseology. It's what you're gonna do about it,” he said. “You learn and you grow. If you're not smarter tomorrow than you are today, then you're not doing a good job. So coming to Mississippi, coming to Alabama, to Flint, Michigan — did I learn something? Did I change as a part of that? Of course I did.”

But how, exactly? Sanders didn’t answer the question.

“You're asking about me. And I'm not important. What's important are the kinds of policies that we need to transform this country. OK?”

Ruby Cramer is a political reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.
Contact Ruby Cramer at ruby.cramer@buzzfeed.com.

Darren Sands is a political reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.
Contact Darren Sands at darren.sands@buzzfeed.com.


THE TROUBLE WITH INSANITY IS THAT IT CAN WEAR A PRETTY FACE. I DON’T REMEMBER SEEING A REPORT THAT ANYONE HAS LIVED. WHATEVER TROUBLE THIS WOMAN WAS IN, KILLING NEARLY A DOZEN PEOPLE DIDN’T SOLVE IT.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hart-family-crash-body-recovered-near-where-suv-went-off-cliff-sheriff-says/
Hart family crash: Body recovered near where SUV went off cliff, sheriff says
CBS/AP April 8, 2018, 12:47 AM

MENDOCINO, Calif. -- A body was recovered Saturday in the vicinity where an SUV plunged off a Northern California cliff last month, killing a family of eight in what authorities suspect may have been an intentional crash. The body appears to be that of an African-American female, but the age and identity could not immediately be determined, said Lt. Shannon Barney of the Mendocino County Sheriff's office. An autopsy is planned Tuesday to determine a cause of death.

The sheriff's office said in a statement that a couple vacationing along the coast saw a possible body, which was pulled from the surf Saturday afternoon by a third bystander.

Hart family crash: Searchers find cellphone near site of deadly SUV plunge
While authorities said they believe the body may be that of one of two missing girls from the crash, positive identification will most likely be done by DNA analysis, which could take weeks.

Sarah and Jennifer Hart and their six adopted children were believed to be in the family's SUV when it plunged off a cliff last month. Five bodies were found March 26 near Mendocino, a few days after Washington state authorities began investigating the Harts for possible child neglect, but three of their children were not immediately recovered from the scene.

0329-ctm-deadlycliffcrash-green-1533215-640x360.jpg Hart family

There were no signs of the other two children, authorities said Saturday.

Authorities have said that data from the vehicle's software suggested the crash was deliberate. They said the SUV had stopped at a coastal highway overlook before speeding straight off the cliff and plummeting 100 feet into the rocky Pacific Ocean below.

Sarah Hart pleaded guilty in 2011 to a domestic assault charge in Minnesota over what she said was a spanking given to one of her children.

Bruce and Dana DeKalb, the family's next-door neighbors in Woodland, Washington, called child welfare officials last month because the couple's 15-year-old son, Devonte, had been coming to their house almost every day for a week, asking for food. They said the teen claimed his parents were "punishing them by withholding food."

Devonte, who is still missing, drew national attention after he was photographed in tears while hugging a white police officer during a 2014 protest.

The discovery of the body Saturday follows a two-day storm that swept through Northern California.

The sheriff's office noted that it is not uncommon after a significant storm that items would surface or wash onto the beach.

"The Mendocino County Sheriff's Office is monitoring the ocean conditions to see when further searches might be safely conducted," Barney said. "This evaluation includes the use of divers if conditions permit."

On Wednesday, Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman told HLN's "Crime & Justice with Ashleigh Banfield" that he is "calling it a crime," CBS Portland affiliate KOIN reports.

"I'm to the point where I no longer am calling this an accident," Allman told HLN. "I'm calling it a crime."

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.



THIS IS ONE OF THE WORST STORIES I’VE SEEN IN A LONG TIME. 500 GASSED AND 42 KILLED, MAINLY WOMEN AND CHILDREN, AND THE SYMPTOMS ARE SO SEVERE. THE PROBLEM WITH THE UN IS THAT THEY DON’T STEP IN AND DO ANYTHING VERY EFFECTIVE, IT SEEMS TO ME, TO STOP THE PERPETRATORS. THEY DO INVOLVE THEMSELVES WITH RENDERING AID, WHICH IS GOOD.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/syria-chemical-weapon-attack-douma-leaves-dozens-dead-opposition-says-04-08-2018/
CBS/AP April 8, 2018, 8:08 AM
Dozens suffocate in suspected chemical weapon attack in Syria, opposition says

Warning: The images below are graphic.

BEIRUT -- Syrian opposition activists and rescuers said Sunday that a poison gas attack on a rebel-held town near the capital has killed at least 40 people, allegations denied by the Syrian government.

The alleged attack in the town of Douma occurred late Saturday amid a resumed offensive by Syrian government forces after the collapse of a truce with the Army of Islam rebel group.

The reports could not be independently verified.

What a chemical attack in Syria looks like

First responders said they found families suffocated in their homes and shelters, with foam on their mouths. The opposition-linked Syrian Civil Defense were able to document 42 fatalities but were impeded from searching further by strong odors that gave their rescuers difficulties breathing, said Siraj Mahmoud, a spokesman for the group, which is known as the White Helmets.

A joint statement by the Civil Defense and the Syrian American Medical Society, a relief organization, said more than 500 people, mostly women and children, were brought to medical centers with difficulty breathing, foaming at the mouth, and burning of the eyes. It said patients gave off a chlorine-like smell. Some had blue skin, a sign of oxygen deprivation.

Syria

This image released early Sunday, April 8, 2018 by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, shows victims of an alleged chemical weapons attack collapsed on the floor of a building in the rebel-held town of Douma, near Damascus, Syria. SYRIAN CIVIL DEFENSE WHITE HELMETS / AP

It said the symptoms were consistent with chemical exposure. One patient, a woman, had convulsions and pinpoint pupils, suggesting exposure to a nerve agent. The pro-opposition Ghouta Media Center alleged that government forces dropped a barrel bomb containing the nerve agent Sarin, BBC News reports.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 80 people were killed in Douma on Saturday, including around 40 who died from suffocation. But it said the suffocations were the result of shelters collapsing on people inside.

"Until this minute, no one has been able to find out the kind of agent that was used," Mahmoud, the White Helmets' spokesman, in a video statement from Douma.

He said the government was also targeting homes, clinics, and first responder facilities with conventional explosives and barrel bombs. Most of the medical points and ambulances of the town have been put out of service.

Syria

This image made from video released by the Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows a medical worker giving toddlers oxygen through respirators following an alleged poison gas attack in the opposition-held town of Douma, in eastern Ghouta, near Damascus, Syria, Sunday, April 8, 2018. SYRIAN CIVIL DEFENSE WHITE HELMETS / AP

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said that Washington was closely following "disturbing reports" of the alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma.

"These reports, if confirmed, are horrifying and demand an immediate response by the international community," she said in a statement late Saturday. Last week, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley issued renewed warnings to Syrian President Bashar Assad against the use of chemical weapons. A spokesman from the U.K. mission to the U.N. said Sunday that "an urgent investigation is needed and the international community must respond."

Videos posted online by the White Helmets showed victims, including toddlers in diapers, breathing through oxygen masks at makeshift hospitals.

The Syrian government, in a statement posted on the state-run news agency SANA, strongly denied the allegations. It said the claims were "fabrications" by the Army of Islam, calling it a "failed attempt" to impede government advances.

"The army, which is advancing rapidly and with determination, does not need to use any kind of chemical agents," the statement said.

Syrian government forces resumed their offensive on rebel-held Douma on Friday afternoon after a 10-day truce collapsed over disagreement regarding the evacuation of Army of Islam fighters. Violence resumed days after hundreds of opposition fighters and their relatives left Douma toward rebel-held areas in northern Syria. Douma is the last rebel stronghold in eastern Ghouta.

The alleged gas attack in Douma comes almost exactly a year after a chemical attack in the northern Syrian town of Khan Sheikhoun killed dozens of people. That attack prompted the U.S. to launch several dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian air base. President Trump said the attack was meant to deter further Syrian use of illegal weapons.

The Syrian government and its ally, Russia, denied any involvement in the alleged gas attack.

Douma is in the suburbs of Damascus known as eastern Ghouta. A chemical attack in eastern Ghouta in 2013 that was widely blamed on government forces killed hundreds of people, prompting the U.S. to threaten military action before later backing down.

Syria denies ever using chemical weapons during the seven-year civil war, and says it eliminated its chemical arsenal under a 2013 agreement brokered by the U.S. and Russia after the attack in eastern Ghouta.

Pamela Falk contributed reporting.



I BELIEVE WE SHOULD RETHINK ALL THESE OUTRAGEOUSLY EXPENSIVE TRIPS, AND EVEN THE SECURITY DETAILS. PRUITT HAS MORE THAN JUST A COUPLE OF FLAWS FOR A PERSON IN POWER, BUT THE RIDICULOUS SECURITY DETAIL IS, TO ME, REALLY UNACCEPTABLE. HE FINALLY ADMITTED THAT HE MUST HAVE FIRST CLASS SEATING BECAUSE ONCE A PERSON SWORE AT HIM IN THE LESS EXPENSIVE SEATING AREA. OKAY. SO, TAKE ONE ARMED GUARD WITH HIM, BUT THERE’S NO REASONABLE NEED FOR SEVEN – AND ALL SITTING IN FIRST CLASS, TOO. WHEN WILL I WAKE UP FROM THIS NIGHTMARE?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-sons-trip-to-dubai-costs-taxpayers-at-least-73000/
Trump sons' trip to Dubai costs taxpayers at least $73,000
By LAURA STRICKLER CBS NEWS April 7, 2018, 1:09 PM

PHOTOGRAPH -- Eric Trump, left, and Donald Trump Jr. pose for a photograph at an event for Scion Hotels, a division of Trump hotels, Monday, June 5, 2017, in New York. KATHY WILLENS/AP

President Trump's sons' visit to Dubai this week has costed taxpayers a minimum of $73,000 in security costs, according to government purchase orders viewed by CBS News. The purchase orders describe the costs for United States Secret Service agents to stay at hotels close to the Trump property and car service for the trip listed as being from March 26 through April 8.

The trip is for the family business and not related to any government work.

Secret Service spokesperson Mason Brayman emailed CBS News in response to a request for comment on the trip: "The Secret Service is conducting a protective operation in the UAE. As a matter of practice we do not comment on the specifics of protectee's trips."

Eric and Donald Trump Jr. traveled to Dubai to spend time with the Trump Organization's Middle East business partner Hussain Sajwani and his family. Sajwani's daughter is getting married, according to the Trump Organization and tweets from Sajwani.

Sajwani tweeted a picture of himself with President Trump's sons Friday, saying, "Yesterday, I was delighted to host my dear friends and business partners @donaldjtrumpjr & @erictrump for a very special occasion in my family's life."

View image on Twitter

Hussain Sajwani
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@HussainSajwani
Yesterday, I was delighted to host my dear friends and business partners @donaldjtrumpjr & @erictrump for a very special occasion in my family’s life. We were celebrating my daughter Amira’s wedding.

3:45 AM - Apr 6, 2018
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The Trumps also went to Dubai to visit "the team at Trump International Golf Club, Dubai," according to a statement from a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization emailed to CBS News. Nearby, there is another Trump property under construction: the Trump World Golf Club, which was designed by Tiger Woods according to the Trump Organization.

So far compared to 2017, the Trump sons' travel has been somewhat curtailed, with just one other international trip to India for Donald Trump Jr.

Ivanka and Jared Kushner recently took the Trump Organization aircraft to Wyoming for a getaway with the extended Kushner family. The local mayor of Cheyenne, Wyoming, was invited onto the plane and posted pictures to Twitter.

CBS News previously reported that the extended Trump family vacation to Aspen, Colorado, during last year's spring break cost more than $300,000 in taxpayer funds for security costs.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.



“OR, BELIEVING HIS OWN THREAT NARRATIVE, WILL HE TIGHTEN AMERICA EVEN FURTHER TO LEVELS UNSEEN IN OUR HISTORY?” I PRAY NOT, BUT I, PERSONALLY, HAVE NEVER SEEN A US PRESIDENT WHO ACTED AND TALKED LIKE PRESIDENT TRUMP DOES. UP UNTIL THIS VERY TIME I HAVE RETAINED HOPEFULNESS AND FAITH THAT WE AS A PEOPLE WOULD BE SAFE FROM SUCH DARK FORCES AGAIN. OF COURSE, THE TRUTH IS THAT BLACKS, HISPANICS, AND GAYS HAVE ALWAYS HAD THEIR VERY LIVES ENDANGERED IN THIS COUNTRY, SO I GUESS IT’S MY TURN NOW. I THINK I’LL CALL THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY LOCALLY AND SEE IF THERE ARE PEOPLE ACTIVELY TRYING TO SET UP A SORT OF “COMMITTEES OF CORRESPONDENCE” TYPE OF ARRANGEMENT LOCALLY, AND INTERCHANGE IDEAS ON SOME OF THE THINGS THAT WORRY ME.

I’M GOING TO GO ABOUT MY DAILY LIFE METHODICALLY WHILE ALSO WATCHING WHAT IS HAPPENING, BUT NO LONGER MAKING AN ASSUMPTION THAT I WON’T HAVE TO EITHER RUN OR FIGHT. I’M ALSO GOING TO CONTINUE THIS BLOG UNLESS MY LIFE IS THREATENED, AND I DON’T BELIEVE THINGS WILL COME TO THAT. MY READERSHIP STATISTICS HAVE RISEN NOTICEABLY IN THE LAST SEVERAL WEEKS ON A REGULAR BASIS RATHER THAN MERELY AN OCCASIONAL UPWARD SPIKE, SO OTHERS ARE PROBABLY THINKING ALONG THE SAME LINES THAT I AM.

YES, THIS HUFF PO ARTICLE IS FROM A LITTLE OVER A YEAR AGO, BUT THE STARTLINGLY RAPID CHANGE IS EVER FRESH IN OUR MINDS. WHAT HAS CHANGED IS THE AGGRESSIVE MASSING OF PEOPLE WHO LOOK AND ACT LIKE CRIMINALS, BEHIND THE PRESIDENT, AND I CAN’T FORGET OR FORGIVE THE NAZI SALUTES. THIS ARTICLE SPEAKS MAINLY OF FEAR, BUT FOR THE LAST 15 OR 20 YEARS THERE HAS BEEN A CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT OF RANCOR, ABUSIVENESS AND HATRED THAT SEEMS TO EXIST ON ITS’ OWN, WHICH I CALL BULLYING. IF THAT TAKES OVER IN THE USA, THERE WILL REALLY BE “FEAR” HERE. WE HAVE BEEN A VIOLENT SOCIETY MOST OF OUR HISTORY, AND WE JUST CAN’T SEEM TO TEAR OURSELVES LOOSE FROM IT.

A CERTAIN TYPE OF POOR WHITE PERSON IS ALWAYS FEARFUL OF LOSING HIS “PRIVILEGE;” BUT THERE SHOULD BE NO “PRIVILEGE,” IN MY VIEW, AT LEAST WHEN IT’S BASED ON MAJORITY PHYSICAL AND RELIGIOUS CHARACTERISTICS. EVEN IF A PERSON HAS ACTUALLY EARNED GREAT RESPECT BY TRAINING AND DEEDS, THAT’S GOOD, BUT HE SHOULD BE MERCIFUL IN HOW HE EXERCISES IT. I WISH WE HAD A BETTER HISTORY OF THAT FAIRNESS AND MERCY IN THIS COUNTRY.

WE ALL HAVE DIFFERENT GIFTS AND SKILLS, AND WE SHOULD USE THEM TO MAKE THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE, BY BEING CARING TO OUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS, AND EVEN STRANGERS. WE SHOULD NOT EVER FIND OURSELVES IN A SITUATION IN WHICH WE FEEL THAT WE HAVE TO EXERCISE “PRIVILEGE” TO “WIN.” THAT’S ABUSE OF POWER, OR PUT ANOTHER WAY, “CHEATING.” THERE COMES A POINT AT WHICH WE SHOULD BACK OFF AND WORK OUT AN ARRANGEMENT TO SHARE.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-psychology_us_582362ade4b0e80b02ce6eb9
Trump Won by Following This Psychological Formula
The strongest Trump supporters were those who felt that America was under grave threat.
11/10/2016 12:17 pm ET
Joshua Conrad Jackson, Contributor
PhD Candidate, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Michele Gelfand, Contributor
Psychology Professor, University of Maryland; Visiting Scholar, Harvard University’s Belfer Center

PHOTOGRAPH -- AP PHOTO/CHARLES KRUPA
Trump at a campaign rally on Nov. 7 in Manchester, New Hampshire.
PHOTO GALLERY -- Donald Trump Win Sparks Protests Nationwide
PHOTOGRAPH -- CARLO ALLEGRI / REUTERS
Supporters cheer during a Trump campaign rally in Manchester, New Hampshire on Nov. 7.

The shock of President-elect Donald Trump’s triumph is reverberating around the media world, with editorial columns ranging from disbelief (“Absorbing the Impossible”) to despair (“A prayer for America”). In the end, betting markets, major polls, statisticians and pundits were wrong in predicting a Trump loss, with most sources putting Hillary Clinton’s chances well above 80 percent.

These professionals missed the signs because they were on the wrong road altogether. To understand Trump’s rise and success, we must look beyond ideology or a populist “backlash” against elites to something much deeper. Our research suggests that the Trump phenomenon, far from being a once-a-century outlier, taps into something much more primal and profound.

Trump’s campaign capitalized on a basic scientific principle that manifests time and time again in our cultural psychology research: When people perceive threats, they show a greater desire for tight rules and for strong leaders who say they can create social order and coordination. Leaders who have strong autocratic tendencies, like Trump, fit this bill. Trump wasn’t just a strong personality; he fostered a culture of threat and fear and in doing so, rode the wave of a changing culture of a significant portion of the American population.

Through a study in April, we confirmed this pattern in the current election cycle. In a nationally representative sample, the strongest Trump supporters were those who felt that America was under grave threat and believed that the country needed tighter rules and less tolerance toward anyone who seemed “un-American.”

This is known in psychology as cultural tightness ― the desire for strong rules and punishment of deviance, which increases when groups feel they are under threat. Trump capitalized on the psychology of cultural tightness to uncanny effect. Over the past year, social scientists have tried to account for Trump’s stunning rise in the polls with a variety of tools, one of which was a measure that tapped people’s desire for authoritarianism. Yet our survey found cultural tightness to predict Trump support with 44 times the power of people’s preference for authoritarianism.

With this kind of predictive power, cultural tightness has the potential to “rewire” America’s political map. Indeed, statewide difference in tightness correlates with the Trump vote share in the election at a remarkably high rate ― about the same strength as the relationship between height and weight in individuals.

The insights from our research suggest a formula that accounts for the emergence of “Trump’s tight culture.” The formula is easy enough to understand and even though we apply it to current-day America, it has played a role in many of history’s most extreme and dangerous political movements, from Adolf Hitler’s rise in Germany to Bashar Assad’s rule in Syria. Here are the essential elements:

CREATE AN ATMOSPHERE OF THREAT AND FEAR.

Americans were afraid before Trump, but Trump distorted this fear through an onslaught of dark language and insidious insinuations. Whether it was the so-called Islamic State, Syrian refugees or Mexican immigration, Trump validated and magnified many Americans’ superstitions about the threats that lurk outside of their control. He then scapegoated groups like Muslim Americans in order to assign blame for the fear that he invoked.

PANDER TO THE VULNERABLE.

Trump strategically targeted those who already felt threatened: white blue-collar Americans who felt that immigrants and Washington insiders undermined their privilege and their values. The success of Trump’s strategy was clearly evident in the presidential exit polls: While Clinton handily won among voters who prioritized the economy and foreign policy, Trump swept those who prioritized terrorism and immigration.

ATTACK EXISTING CIVIL INSTITUTIONS.

As Trump warned of doom and disaster, he simultaneously attacked the institutions that have been built to maintain order in society. These attacks were ranged widely, targeting the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Iran deal, the Federal Election Commission and the Federal Reserve System. Trump even undermined the principles of democracy by refusing to commit to the outcome of the election at the final presidential debate. This rejection of established institutions fueled Trump’s image as a leader who wasn’t accountable to the Washington elite.

Convince voters that you are the only person who can lead the revolution to restore order.

With each new attack and each new dark prediction, Trump sent a clear-cut message: he was the only one prepared to protect America. To cultivate this image, Trump intentionally cycled through campaign staff and eschewed advisors, even contradicting his own running mate during a national debate. Each of these moves reinforced Trump’s position that he alone was capable of maintaining social order in America.

Trump swept voters who prioritized terrorism and immigration.

Trump’s appeal is not exclusive to America. Cultural tightness was a driving force when Britain voted to leave the European Union this past June and when the Law and Justice Party won Poland’s parliamentary elections last year. Trump is a symptom of a larger principle that echoes across human history: threats change cultures, leading to stronger rules, obedience to autocratic leaders and ― at worst ― intolerance.

Our research can’t predict Trump’s future, but it does suggest that as long as Americans feel under threat, they will flock to leaders like Trump who peddle in fear and the threat of a dark future.

Moving forward, we are left wondering: Did Trump merely exploit the formula to get elected and is now truly ready to govern responsibly? Or, believing his own threat narrative, will he tighten America even further to levels unseen in our history? We can only hope that he will adapt his tone to better suit his position of immense democratic responsibility.