[Breitbart] In her Saturday opening statement on "Justice," host Jeanine Pirro called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to open a federal criminal investigation into the actions of Hillary Clinton and former FBI Director Jim Comey because Comey began drafting a letter exonerating Clinton from any wrongdoing before the FBI investigation was complete.
"Jeff Sessions needs to follow his prosecutorial instincts and open a federal criminal investigation into the actions of Hillary Rodham Clinton and impanel a grand jury immediately," Pirro argued.
She continued, "This woman should not get a free pass because she lost an election. Her reign was one of bold, brazen in your face pay-to-play corruption. And I’m not even talking about the hypocrisy of this so-called women’s rights activists which starts and ends with the women who accused her husband of wrongdoing and contributions to her foundation from countries that literally hate and kill women.
Pirro then said it is "time to go after" Comey.
"[J]im Comey ‐ he needs to be the target of an active criminal investigation for obstruction of justice, conspiracy and perjury," she demanded. "His prejudging an investigation before 17 witnesses and the target of that criminal investigation were even interviewed is the essence of public corruption. He lied to the senate judiciary committee when he said he only made the decision to not charge, which by the way was not his decision to make in the first place after the investigation was completed."
#1
Absolutely. Both Hilda and Comey lied like rugs to Congress in sworn testimony; we owe it to restoring public trust in the law. No one above or below the law.
#2
Here's hoping that Sessions is working quietly on a number of investigation without all the fanfare that traditionally accompanies such things and then one fine day everyone will be totally surprised by a flurry of indictments.
Recipient of the 2017 Rantburg Optimist Club Senior Fellow award
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/04/2017 11:15 Comments ||
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#3
Yeah, well, I can dream can't I?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/04/2017 14:14 Comments ||
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[Houston Chronicle - 28 May 2016] As torrential rains have pounded the city in consecutive years, leading to repeated, heavy and deadly flooding, this inconvenient fact contributes to the region's misery.
Parts of Harris County have dropped between 10 and 12 feet since the 1920s, according to data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
State and local officials have made various efforts over the past 40 years to stabilize the ground, but some areas continue to sink - by as much as 2 inches per year.
Spring Branch, where Interstate 10 and Beltway 8 meet, has dropped 4 feet since 1975. Jersey Village, along Route 290 and to the west of Beltway 8, is almost 2 feet lower than it was in 1996. And Greater Greenspoint, where Interstate 45 intersects with Beltway 8, has given up about 2 feet in the last decade alone, according to USGS data.
"When you lose that much, it makes an area prone to floods when they weren't historically," said Mark Kasmarek, a hydrogeologist for more than 30 years with the USGS.
There is little mystery to why this is happening: The developing region draws an excessive amount of groundwater to keep itself quenched. Over the last century, aquifers here have lost between 300 and 400 feet, leaving the land to collapse.
The science behind this phenomenon is called subsidence.
#5
Put up more multi-million dollar houses there, it's all good. I wonder if that $100 improved house lot is still for sale by the city government of Finley, ND?
Maybe it matters, maybe it doesn't but the author is whiter than an egg salad sammich on white with mayo.
The future of life on the planet depends on bringing the 500-year rampage of the white man to a halt. For five centuries his ever more destructive weaponry has become far too common. His widespread and better systems of exploiting other humans and nature dominate the globe. Not just white folks, but do go on.
The time for replacing white supremacy with new values is now. And just as some whites played a part in ending slavery, colonialism, Jim Crow segregation, and South African apartheid, there is surely a role whites can play in restraining other whites in this era.
Beneath the sound and fury generated by GOP presidential candidates, Fox News, website trolls, police unions and others, white people are becoming aware as never before of past and present racism. And of anti white racism.
Admittedly, this encouraging development is hardly the dominant view. To the contrary, given the possibility that Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson or one of their ilk might become president, white supremacist ideology seems to be digging in harder than ever.
I don’t take this lightly. Once upon a time I foolishly thought that there was no way that Ronald Reagan could get elected president. Lesson learned. Now is the time to start contingency planning for intensified resistance to mass deportations of immigrants, atrocities against Muslims and extreme danger to African Americans. Atrocities not committed by Moslems noticeably absent. The author's concern is an example of the soft bigotry of low expectations.
That said, it would be a mistake to focus only on the negative. Recently the New York Times ran Gordon Davis’ op-ed "What Woodrow Wilson Cost My Grandfather". It is still generating debate. (Gordon Davis and I are both “alumni” of the Northern Student Movement, a 1960s civil rights group.) Davis was writing in the context of the student-led protest at Princeton University over the veneration of its former president, Woodrow Wilson. The controversy stems from Wilson’s viciously racist speech and behavior particularly when he was president of the United States. Tenor of the times. And leftists always want to deny their very background.
A subsequent Truthout article by Harvey Wasserman, “Princeton Students Are Right, Woodrow Wilson Was Way Worse Than You Think,” complements the critique. Most of the 776 comments on the NY Times article (as well as 1,600 more on a followup Times editorial) were the predictably negative responses usually heard regarding white racism. Many said some version of, “that was a long time ago when values were different.” Others took the tack that “nobody is perfect and the good things Woodrow Wilson did outweigh the bad of his racism, so let it rest.” A reasonable reaction to historical data.
But there was also a substantial undercurrent voiced by those who were open-minded enough to learn.
Following are NY Times comments on the article:
Jim K. New York, NY 2 days ago
As a former Princeton professor, I applaud the students for raising this issue. It’s not about erasing history, but confronting it honestly. This beautiful column makes clear how Wilson’s policies, based on his deeply racist and white-supremacist views, destroyed the lives of thousands of black families. Why should we publicly venerate this person? Why should elitist Northern universities get to insist that we overlook this man’s systematic, consequential racism, while every Southern municipality and retail store is expected to rid itself of monuments and souvenirs of their racist politicians and soldiers. Let’s indeed, every American community, take stock of the deeply embedded racism that has been a part of our history (North and South), recognizing that a thoroughgoing accounting will involve reconfiguring our public and institutional spaces in many ways. Because that has yet to be done, and the younger generation of Black militants will, rightly, not be content until it is.
JPBarnett Santa Barbara 1 day ago
It’s sad that after having been through 12 years of grade school in CA and graduating from a UC, I just learned this about Wilson. It’s silly that I’m surprised I didn’t learn of his racism I suppose, but I’m glad I do now. My opinion is forever changed.
Good for you.
Many commenters were startled to learn about a long known but rarely taught side of Woodrow Wilson. White people have a lot to be surprised about. The very nature of white supremacy requires sanitized teaching about slavery, the genocide of indigenous people, the reach of U.S. militarism and many other topics. A lot of unrelated topics.
Very few in the US do not know about the Indian Wars, but very few wish to beat themselves over the dead, or to punish themselves decades after the fact, especially if their family didn't partake in actions against Indians. Would the author punish himself if he finds his family had as little as a tangential involvement in actions against minorities? I doubt it.
Fortunately, gains from past struggles give African Americans increased opportunities to expose what was previously deliberately obscured. Ta-Nehisi Coates is the best known of a new generation of black, indigenous, Hispanic and white writers, scholars and activists revealing ugly realities hidden from most of us. Hidden = obscure
Even the New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks has acknowledged this development. “So much of the national conversation this year has concerned how to think about past racism and oppression, and the power of that past to shape present realities: the Confederate flag, Woodrow Wilson, the unmarked sights of the lynching grounds. Fortunately, many people have found the courage to tell the ugly truths about slavery, Jim Crow and current racism that were repressed by the wider culture.” If David Brook is a conservative, then I'm Josef Stalin's lovechild.
Admittedly, new information does not necessarily translate into social change. Cherished and deeply rooted beliefs are not easily surrendered. I often think of how long it took for the arguments of Copernicus and Galileo that the earth revolved around the sun, not the other way around, to be accepted. Ideas and habits are stubborn. Systems resist change. Powerful institutions have vested interests in preserving the status quo. That is true. It could take a flamethrower to dig out the parasites in government.
By way of example, a recurring concern of those responding to the Times’ Woodrow Wilson op-ed was, “Where will it all end? Will we have to destroy Mount Rushmore?” some asked. Maybe we should. Not just because it honors slave owners Jefferson and Washington, Mount Rushmore is also a powerful symbol of brutality and racism toward indigenous people. Sez you.
As idigenous (sic)
scholar Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz points out in her book, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, “The most prominent struggle has been the Lakota Sioux’s attempt to restore the Paha Sapa, or Black Hills, where the odious Mount Rushmore carvings have scarred the sacred site. Called the ‘Shrine of Democracy’ by the federal government, it is anything but that; rather it is a shrine of in-your-face illegal occupation and colonization.”
White racism distorts how we think about virtually everything, including history itself. No one will dismiss Bill O’Reilly’s goofy books about Jesus or Lincoln or Patton or Reagan as irrelevant because, “oh, that was a long time ago, it’s got nothing to do with me now.” As a general proposition people appreciate that we can discover in the present important things we didn’t previously know about the past. Discovery, yes. Use as a cudgel applied to political enemies, no.
Not so when it comes to race in the USA. Not for some people anyway.
This matters a great deal. In many years of anti-racist work, I have discovered that whites who deny any connection to the racism of the past will also generally deny any connection to the racism of the present. “Please don’t tell me,” cry deniers of systemic white racism. One step removed is the view that we should “accept” the history but must take the good with the bad. This is sometimes known as the “warts and all” theory of history. A variation is the convenient idea that slavery was the “original sin.” Sin, of course, in the Western Christian point of view is inevitable and immutable. If the author were a Christian, he would know that God's love includes forgiveness for past wrongs you have committed. You cannot blame people for the wrongs of their forebears, it is black letter English common law. The best you can do is to pass laws that apply to the living, which this country has done. It will have to be good enough. Anything else is a recipe for violent insurrection.
This takes an especially pernicious twist when white racism deniers argue that there has always been slavery as though that itself somehow makes it justified. It’s not true that every society over all time has enslaved people. But even if it were true, the kind of slavery on which the U.S. was built is unlike any other that preceded it. It co-evolved with capitalism and it conflated slavery with “race”—plantation capitalism as the Rev. James Lawson calls it. CSU Fresno scholars Blain Roberts and Ethan J. Kytle put it this way recently in theNew York Times: “New research has gone further, exposing how American capitalism and democracy — once thought to be antithetical to slavery — emerged hand-in-hand with it.” If the author read US history he would know that slavery would have collapsed on its own without the war, because of -- capitalist economics. Slavery, as has been shown throughout history, costs the oppressors far more than had those enslaved been employed as a free people.
Hard as it may be for propaganda-conditioned whites to grasp, global race-based capitalism is not a system of the past with lingering effects. It is a living, breathing organism of the present. It is a unitary thing. It is therefore not a good thing with warts. It is one thing. The “good” things always comes packaged with the “bad” thing. The mechanics of how it often works has a name: grand bargains. Here the author is projecting his own views onto those he opposes. No sale. The mother of all grand bargains is the U.S. Constitution which accommodated slavery in several ways, including the notorious three-fifths clause. While the Constitution was by no means the first grand bargain, it solidified a pattern that continues to this day. The New Deal, as Ira Katznelson demonstrates in his book Fear Itself, was another grand bargain that combined “progressive’ achievements such as union rights and Social Security with reaffirming the power of Dixiecrats and the institutions of Jim Crow. The author fails to mention all the above were Democratic Party institutions which survived the New Deal era by 20 years.
Katznelson is white. So am I. So are many others now writing and speaking honestly and openly about the enduring power of white racism. That is valuable because it strengthens the idea that whites can come to terms with reality, past and present, as opposed to the myths we are encouraged to believe. As we do so, another world does become possible. When you write "honestly and openly about the enduring power of white racism", and condemn your race for something the living did not do, you are paving the way for your own demise.
Of course white people can’t “save” the world. That mindset is the problem not the solution. But we can help. As Vietnam antiwar leader Rennie Davis points out, it is when we stop being invisible to each other that we start to become a movement.
#8
It's just a communist explaining that the massive advances in living standards white capitalism have brought are now bad and we still need communism (with him as king) to correct this.
#13
Author is another in a long line of utopian trollers. The "new values" are the same old values dating back to Cain & Abel, one man to rule them all, the masses being nothing more than slaves.
#17
Actually, I agree. I think all white men should go on strike for a month or so. Most farmers, truck drivers, policemen, firemen, construction workers, railroad engineers, factory workers, etc. are white.
So, after a while when the food stops getting grown, harvested and delivered; when calls to police are largely unanswered; when buildings burn to the ground because almost no firemen respond - then people will see what it is like with no white men around.
Of course, this will never happen. Most white men have families that they need to feed and protect.
Note: I am not being racist here. MOST of the people (roughly 3/4) in the US are white. Half of them are men. Most of the workers in the fields I mentioned are men.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
09/04/2017 14:04 Comments ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] I think Hamad bin Khalifa, Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates... ’s real ruler and the father of its current emir, suffers from megalomania.
Megalomaniac people are extremely narcissistic and overconfident in such unjustified ways and they often feel that they can adapt circumstances and impossible geographic factors in their favor.
Those who suffer from this disease are usually heads of states like the emperor of Rome Nero who played music as he watched Rome burn and Adolf Hitler ...late Fuehrer of Germany, founder of the Third Reich, currently communing with his pals Himmler and Heydrich. He is reincarnated every few days as a politician somebody doesn't like... who believed that the Aryan race was gifted above all other races. Hitler thus believed he must rule the world so he mobilized armies and sparked wars that killed more than 50 million people across Europe.
One of the most famous Arabs who suffered from megalomania is Saddam Hussein who only finished a war to engage in another and whom no one dared oppose. There’s also Muammar Qadaffy ...Proof that a madman with money will be politely received for at least 42 years until his people get tired of him and kill him... who crowned himself as the king of kings in Africa and the leader of Africans.
Qadaffy squandered Libya’s wealth on causes which the Libyans have nothing to do with only because he felt that he was the last "rebel" whom God sent to support rebels across the world. Hamad bin Khalifa surrounded himself with a group of opportunists and imposters, which include Arab leftists, and members of the Moslem Brüderbund. They convinced him that he was born to lead.
They convinced him that the Arab world is waiting for him to spark the Arab Spring, topple regimes and let the winds of change rock Arab thrones so he assigns rulers and Doha can become like Damascus was for the Umayyads or Baghdad was for the Abbasids.
Lack of loyalty
Besides his megalomania, Hamad is a treacherous man who does not know loyalty. He can ally with you today and turn against you tomorrow. He remains convinced that the Arab Spring did not fail and that he will achieve his dreams.
Stubbornness is often associated with megalomania as one pursues mad dreams, squanders money like he does not fear poverty and lies to himself and says that everyone is conspiring against him and that any conflict must end with him standing and others getting eliminated.
I think the one who resembles Hamad bin Khalifa the most is Qadaffy as they are two sides of the same coin. Leftists and men with wild dreams also surrounded Qadaffy and became wealthy thanks to him, especially if they were willing to carry out his orders and execute his conspiracies.
Hamad is also surrounded by murderous Moslem Brüderbund figures and Arab leftists whose major platform is al-Jazeera television channel, which is Hamad’s favorite weapon to achieve his aspirations.
These figures are regular guests of the Amiri palace in Doha. They discuss the details of the channel’s programs with him as Hamad bin Thamer, the chairman of the board of the Al Jazeera Media Network, is of no worth whom none of the network’s employees take into consideration because he’s just a powerless figurehead. This is what Qataris say in their private gatherings.
What’s sad, especially for the people of Qatar, is that the lives of megalomaniac leaders ‐ as we’ve seen throughout history with Nero, Hitler, Saddam and Qadaffy ‐ end in disaster that brings about catastrophic results to their people.
A megalomaniac leader continues to commit mistakes while neglecting everyone. He despises everyone around him and insists on his stances and stubbornness until the final fall. Qadaffy’s yesterday resembles Hamad’s present! You will remember my words very soon.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/04/2017 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Qatar (MB)
#1
Hamad bin Khalifa, Qatar’s real ruler and the father of its current emir, suffers from megalomania.
#2
Megalomaniac people are extremely narcissistic and overconfident in such unjustified ways and they often feel that they can adapt circumstances and impossible geographic factors in their favor.
The latest North Korean missile tests come at time when the U.S. defensive shield is weakened, missile-defense analysts say, by this summer’s loss of a pair of warships specially outfitted for ballistic-missile defense (BMD).
A Standard Missile (SM)-3 launches for a test from the USS Fitzgerald, a guided-missile destroyer equipped perform ballistic-missile defense that is now out of commission due to damage from a collision with a commercial ship. Credit: U.S. Navy
A Standard Missile (SM)-3 launches for a test from the USS Fitzgerald, a guided-missile destroyer equipped perform ballistic-missile defense that is now out of commission due to damage from a collision with a commercial ship. Credit: U.S. Navy
Those two guided-missile destroyers ‐ the USS John S. McCain and USS Fitzgerald ‐ collided with commercial ships, cutting down immediate regional U.S. maritime BMD capability by at least 14 percent.
The chinks in the ocean-going parts of the shield and the subsequent tests, the analysts say, show a need to develop and deploy more space-based sensors to guarantee full and continuous missile-defense coverage. A more robust space-based layer would also provide a more encompassing picture of threats than ship- or land-based radars.
The U.S. does possess a constellation of satellites to warn of missile launches, but what it lacks is enough satellites to provide adequate tracking and target discrimination for a missile traveling through space.
[The Hill] Retired Gen. Michael Hayden, who served as both the director of the NSA and the CIA, said Monday that some of President Trump’s rhetoric on North Korea "could lead to great danger."
"A very tough, but a very precise statement," Hayden told CNN’s "New Day," referring to the statement Secretary of Defense James Mattis made on Sunday after North Korea said that it successfully tested a miniaturized hydrogen bomb that can be placed on an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
"Which is a little bit different than some of the things the president has been allowing himself to say, Alisyn, which have been very tough, but very imprecise, and that could lead to great danger," Hayden told host Alisyn Camerota.
Trump has received criticism over the last month for some of his rhetoric in regard to North Korea, specifically comments in which he warned that North Korea would face "fire and fury" should it continue to threaten the United States.
"Secretary Mattis had very strong language, but it was about a North Korean threat, not a North Korean capability," Hayden explained.
"In other words, Alisyn, I think he was trying to make a distinction between ’we’re willing to pre-empt an imminent threat from North Korea but we’re not willing, it’s not our policy at least not yet, to conduct a preventive war to prevent the North Koreans from acquiring that kind of capability."
#5
Maybe General Hayden should have some tough talk for Pudgy and North Korea rather than Trump.
Posted by JohnQC
You can set your clock by these Klingon ramblings against Trump. They systematically rotate their bashings. I suppose they feel obliged to do so, being regime change specialists and puppet masters of the Deep State. If it were not such a serious issue it might be comical.
#6
It's after the weekend and the beginning of the new month. A muted conversation at the cocktail party or picnic, a quiet word aside when the remuneration is tendered. Perhaps even a pointed suggestion.
#7
and Alisyn has shown herself to be a CNN doofus
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/04/2017 12:41 Comments ||
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#8
Long term US strategic existence ends in eventual enslavement by somebody if we capitulate to a 4th world despot with an H-Bomb. Think about it. Every negotiation in the back of any oppositions mind - "They didn't stand up to a mentally ill spoiled brat. I can roll these pretenders."
#9
"if we capitulate to a 4th world despot with an H-Bomb. Think about it. Every negotiation in the back of any oppositions mind - "They didn't stand up to a mentally ill spoiled brat. I can roll these pretenders."
The Western reaction to 9/11 amounted to a political capitulation to 5th world warlords without any serious military assets after an asymmetrical mass fatality attack on the US.
The North Korea crisis is but one of the consequences of Western leaders' deliberate erosion of Western deterrence that has taken plane for over 15 years.
Why shouldn't Kim sponsor a VX terror attack in a Western nation that would kill a few thousand people? 9/11 didn't spell the end for Afghanistan, the Pashuns or the Taliban.
Why shouldn't he expect the West to cough up Danegeld payable to nuclear North Korea? Non nuclear Afghanistan got Danegeld as well.
During the Cold War rational adversaries would assess a potential US reaction to any aggressive move in light of America's reaction to Pearl Harbor.
It has become a truism in the continuing North Korean crisis to say that there is no good military option, but in fact there is.
The fact is that if a carefully planned swarm attack of low-flying cruise missiles was launched against the North Korean artillery massed across the frontier, just 35 miles from the immense South Korean capital city, Seoul, as well as at all North Korean missile launchers, and research and missile storage facilities, it would denuclearize the North and eliminate its power of intimidation against the South.
As the attacks occurred, the U.S. could warn North Korea, directly and via China, that if any attack were launched against any American or allied sites, the North Korean regime would be obliterated, but that if there were no military response, the United States and its allies would not seek regime change in the North or the reunification of Korea.
It is inconceivable that, in these circumstances, the Chinese would not sternly counsel Pyongyang to stand down. China does not want a nuclear North Korea, or a reunited Korea, which would shortly become a second Japan in industrial and strategic terms, immediately adjacent to it.
All the tired palaver about negotiating patiently with China about constraining North Korea is practically beside the point. It won't unmake North Korea as a nuclear military power. And it won't deter Iran from becoming one, now at the end of the 10-year life of the shabby agreement President Obama sponsored with that terrorism-supporting country.
Iran and North Korea have exposed the fraudulence of the non-proliferation regime, in which the existing nuclear powers made the spurious promise to pursue joint self-disarmament. The best that can be salvaged is a nuclear club from which psychopathically governed countries such as North Korea and Iran are excluded.
President Trump said on Tuesday that "All options are on the table." There is only one that will work, and it should be very seriously considered.
#1
"The fact is that if a carefully planned swarm attack of low-flying cruise missiles was launched against the North Korean artillery massed across the frontier, just 35 miles from the immense South Korean capital city, Seoul, as well as at all North Korean missile launchers, and research and missile storage facilities, it would denuclearize the North and eliminate its power of intimidation against the South."
I enjoy Mr. Black's opinions, but it has to be pointed out that there aren't enough cruise missiles in the entire US inventory to do this, never mind the fact that even if there were, the sight of all those launch platforms lining up would probably get someone's attention.
And the Chinese meant EXACTLY what they said - as long as we don't shoot first, they'll stay out of it. That means something like this brings the PRC in on Kimmie's side.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/04/2017 6:14 Comments ||
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#2
And the Chinese meant EXACTLY what they said - as long as we don't shoot first, they'll stay out of it. That means something like this brings the PRC in on Kimmie's side.
It's not like we haven't seen it happen previously.
#4
I like the idea of carpet bombing better than cruise missiles. Maybe use the cruise missiles for an initial strike on command and control but followed immediately with massive, heavy bombing.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
09/04/2017 11:25 Comments ||
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#5
I have read that some / many of the N Korean artillery emplacements were originally installed underground, and will not be exposed to possible air attack until a few minutes before they might be used. To deal with that, the US could drop autonomous bulldozes from cruise missiles to dig those out /sarc
#9
I have read that some / many of the N Korean artillery emplacements were originally installed underground, and will not be exposed to possible air attack until a few minutes before they might be used.
Built long before laser designators were cheap and popular. Then there is the problem when the firing port is covered by debris loosened from above.
#11
Both China and Nork have their regime stability as their primary objective. For this reason China won't get involved militarily. Any kind of blockade would send their economy into chaos.
[PJ] The freelance workforce in the United States has exceeded 55 million people, which represents about 35 percent of the working population, and recent trends show the sector rapidly growing with about a million additions a year.
Some of these workers ‐ accountants and network developers, for example -- stand to make more money than in traditional jobs, while others are simply unemployed and forced to take whatever gig they can land. Then there are some who forgo the traditional 9-to-5 routine for a more flexible lifestyle ‐ so-called digital nomads who want to take their work with them around the world.
Freelance website Upwork and the Freelancers Union have commissioned an annual survey on this growing sector for the past three years. The study is conducted by independent research firm Edelman Intelligence, which queries around 6,000 American workers over the age of 18. The annual study showed most recently that the freelance population (which includes full-time and part-time freelancers) has grown from 53 million in 2014 to 55 million in 2016, a 4 percent increase.
The study divides freelancers into a number of categories, including traditional, full-time freelancers; individuals who work full-time jobs and pick up freelancing on the side; temporary contract workers; and freelance business owners.
The survey concluded that 63 percent of respondents started freelancing by choice, not necessity. Of the 55 million, 34.3 million people work as traditional freelancers and what is described as diversified workers (people who work a part-time job and fill out the rest of their schedule with freelance writing and/or driving for Uber, for instance). About 13.5 million are regarded as "moonlighters," individuals who work full-time and freelance on the side.
#2
It's largely how the video game industry runs. When a big project is completed, the workforce moves on to another project run by another company. Not even unusual for the subcontracted company studio to fold after a delivery to a major distribution label. Gypsy workforces.
#4
This will be interesting over time as the gig economy does not provide the kind of income stability and security of the classic 9 - 5 routine.
This makes it more difficult to do things like schedule having kids and saving for any big purchases (like a house) and saving for retirement.
My youngest is freelance (31) and it is very tough to coordinate with his wife who is a norm. They don't have kids yet partly because of the instability of the employment picture.
#6
Just part of the Obamacare-driven change from full time to part time workers without benefits.
Posted by: KBK
Skill and job progression, retirement pensions, medical beneifits, and the gold watch, yesterday's story.... and all so overrated. Mobility is the key.
[American Thinker] Did President Trump have a right to be annoyed with Jeff Sessions for recusing himself? A plausible case can be made that Sessions didn’t have to do it, but then there’s an equally plausible case that he did. The real grounds for criticizing Sessions lie elsewhere: once he decided that he would need to recuse himself, Sessions had a duty to make sure that a replacement was on hand who was up to the task that Sessions had sidestepped. That he did not do. Rod Rosenstein has made one grievous mistake after another, with no end in sight.
Rosenstein’s most important error was the complete incoherence of his statement of the scope of the investigation in his order of May 17 appointing Robert Mueller as Special Counsel: "...any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump." Here he specified no particular actor (there are scores that this might refer to) nor particular actions, times or places, nor even crimes, because "links" and "coordination" are not in themselves criminal.
Think about what Special Counsel was being asked to do. Absent any specific allegations, he would need to do something akin to proving a negative. Proving that a specific event actually happened is possible because the details of that event tell us where to look, but proving that something never happened is impossible because it could have happened at any time or place and by action of any person. We could never exhaust all the possibilities. Similarly, for Special Counsel to reach the conclusion that no coordination ever took place is a logical impossibility: it would require that he retroactively monitor every moment of the life of every person involved in the Trump campaign, and that he seize every conceivable record of all such people. If he only asked for phone records, he would miss evidence in emails, but if he also asked for emails, he would miss evidence in written correspondence. And if he asked only for all of these, he would miss what diaries can tell him. And then there are text messages... But even all of this would not be enough: he would need to look into what other people’s records might tell him about each person’s activities. (But which other people? How many?) Mueller would have to do this for every single one of Trump’s campaign staff.
#3
Rod Rosenstein has made one grievous mistake after another, with no end in sight.
In hindsight, it doesn't seem like Rosenstein was a good appointment.
I didn't think Sessions should have recused himself right out of the box. How do you bring an end to this? Bringing an end to Special Counsel Mueller's witch hunt would invite a shit storm of criticism from the Dems and the left--there would be renewed calls for impeachment ad nauseam. It is hard to get good feelings from any Special Counsel investigation or witch hunt as some call them--especially right at the beginning of an administration. It was an effort from the start by the Deep State to control Donald Trump and keep him from fulfilling his promises to the electorate.
One has to recall how this Special Counsel came about. It was by a pissed=off Comey "colluding" with Mueller to establish a Special Counsel to stir up trouble for Trump. Comey, in doing so, may have broken the law by helping gin- up/promote the faked Trump-collusion meme, the Trump dossier, and by allowing illegal unmasking to occur.
Mueller seems to have an investigation looking for a crime instead of a crime needing an investigation. In a sense, it seems to usurp the function of a grand jury.
The American people hired Trump to do two things:
1. To drain the swamp.
2. To clean up the corruption mess left behind.
[Wash Times] Iran, with support from Hezbollah and Hamas, is building missile sites in Lebanon and Syria.
Israel’s national existence is again being threatened, this time by a three-front war being engineered by Iran.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the Russian city of Sochi on August 24 to attempt to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to restrain Iran’s actions.
Iran is extending its expansion in Syria, to which Russia is a party, from western Syria up to Israel’s doorstep on the Golan Heights. Iran, already heavily involved in Syria, is also deeply involved in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
Most of its involvement is through its Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces and proxy terrorist networks. As a result Israel is, justifiably, feeling surrounded.
What both leaders know, and Mr. Putin wouldn’t admit, is that Russia’s power to restrain Iran is limited. Gone are the days when America and Russia could exert a superpower’s near-total control over the actions of their allies and dependent or satellite states.
[Right Scoop] In a short but very effective video, Benjamin Netanyahu shows how the Palestinian Authority indoctrinates children to hate Israel and the Jews.
#1
Chose one - or embrace the power of "and/or".
(i) They were invented to commit genocide and failed to acquire any other purpose for themselves.
(ii) Because they're Muslims.
"Gaslighting is the attempt of one person to overwrite another person’s reality." ‐ Everyday Feminism.
"Narrative : 4. a story that connects and explains a carefully selected set of supposedly true events, experiences, or the like, intended to support a particular viewpoint or thesis: " ‐ some random online dictionary.
Note that the first definition includes the notion that a person has their own reality. That may have been sloppiness on the part of the article writer at Everyday Feminism, or it may be an assumption of the second definition and that your reality is carefully selected to support a particular viewpoint or thesis.
...But how does that work when we can each have our own reality?
If your reality, if your carefully constructed narrative to support a thesis of patriarchy and oppression isn’t objectively true, have you gaslighted yourself? Have you?
...lately I’ve been seeing charges and claims of gaslighting made when someone has been led to question their social and political narrative and become uncomfortable. If your narrative is a lie, it may be uncomfortable for you to question it, but it’s not gaslighting.
If I argue that women have been almost universally encouraged in any career ambition, and given outward and constant support for at least 30 years, hand-held and helped and even had much of our educational system rearranged specifically to cater to female learning styles, and you’re led to question your reality... I am not gaslighting you. I’m describing the truth of American life. Not my truth. The truth.
If I explain the negative effects on boys of all this promotion of girls, I’m describing the truth and I wish you’d listen because the situation is destructive and cruel.If I argue that women have been almost universally encouraged in any career ambition, and given outward and constant support for at least 30 years, hand-held and helped and even had much of our educational system rearranged specifically to cater to female learning styles, and you’re led to question your reality... I am not gaslighting you. I’m describing the truth of American life. Not my truth. The truth.
If I explain the negative effects on boys of all this promotion of girls, I’m describing the truth and I wish you’d listen because the situation is destructive and cruel.
#1
HISTORY 101
For those of you who slept through World History 101 here is a condensed version. Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter .The two most important events in all of history were:
1 . The invention of beer, and
2 . The invention of the wheel .
The wheel was invented to get man to the beer, and the beer to the man .
These facts formed the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:
1 . Liberals.
2 . Conservatives .
Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture . Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery . That's how villages were formed .
Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to BBQ at night while they were drinking beer . This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement .
Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly BBQ's and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing . This was the beginning of the Liberal movement .
Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women . The rest became known as girlie-men
Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy and group hugs, the evolution of the Hollywood actor, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide all the meat and beer that conservatives provided
Over the years, Conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant . Liberals are symbolized by the jackass .
Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water . They eat raw fish but like their beef well done . Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare . Another interesting evolutionary side note: most liberal women have higher testosterone levels than their men . Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals .
Conservatives drink domestic beer . They eat red meat and still provide for their women . Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, firemen, lumberjacks, construction workers, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, golfers, and generally anyone who works productively . Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living .
Liberals produce little or nothing . They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production . Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans . That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America . They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing .
Here ends today's lesson in world history .
It should be noted that a liberal may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to the above before forwarding it .
A conservative will simply laugh and be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be forwarded immediately to other true believers
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/04/2017 15:46 Comments ||
Top||
#3
What AP said! :-D
Posted by: Barbara ||
09/04/2017 18:48 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to BBQ at night while they were drinking beer . This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement.
h/t Instapundit
After two years of lectures about "principles" and "the Rule of law" by the establishment-loving hacks furious that normal Americans rejected them and elected Donald Trump, their performance last week demonstrated that their high-minded dedication to conservatism is all a fraud. It’s not about "principles" or "the Rule of Law." It’s only about holding on to power ‐ theirs.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Breitbart] In her Saturday opening statement on "Justice," host Jeanine Pirro called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to open a federal criminal investigation into the actions of Hillary Clinton and former FBI Director Jim Comey because Comey began drafting a letter exonerating Clinton from any wrongdoing before the FBI investigation was complete.
[Houston Chronicle - 28 May 2016] As torrential rains have pounded the city in consecutive years, leading to repeated, heavy and deadly flooding, this inconvenient fact contributes to the region's misery.
[The Hill] Retired Gen. Michael Hayden, who served as both the director of the NSA and the CIA, said Monday that some of President Trump’s rhetoric on North Korea "could lead to great danger."
by Conrad Black
[American Thinker] Did President Trump have a right to be annoyed with Jeff Sessions for recusing himself? A plausible case can be made that Sessions didn’t have to do it, but then there’s an equally plausible case that he did. The real grounds for criticizing Sessions lie elsewhere: once he decided that he would need to recuse himself, Sessions had a duty to make sure that a replacement was on hand who was up to the task that Sessions had sidestepped. That he did not do. Rod Rosenstein has made one grievous mistake after another, with no end in sight.
