Friday, June 30, 2017

Commenter shocked to hear things Mika and Joe say about Trump on a daily basis (such as that he's 'mentally ill'). Had no idea since doesn't watch them and media and their GOP pals don't mention

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6/29/17, "Mika and Joe postpone their vacation to hit back at Trump: MSNBC hosts will sling "bad blood" back at the President on air tomorrow morning over "bleeding from a facelift" tweet," Daily Mail (UK), by Francesca Chambers, Hannah Parry**

Commenter at Lucianne.com to above article:

"Reply 5 - Posted by: stablemoney, 6/29/2017 10:19:28 PM

I never listen to this program, or MSNBC. Nobody else does either, but I find it interesting that the msm plays Trump´s tweets, but not Mika and Joe´s remarks about Trump. We are expected to judge, and the Republicans jumped in to do just that, hearing only one side of the story. That is what the msm does, frame the narrative, and lead the uninformed idiots, like the GOP. When Mark Levin played some of the things Mika and Joe say every day about Trump, I was totally shocked, never watching this channel, and being brought up in the 60´s when anybody saying these kind of things would have been thrown off tv, which is what should happen to Mika and Joe today."

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Added: Example reported 6/8/17 in The Hill:

June 8, 2017, MSNBC Morning Joe cohost Mika Brzezinski says Trump May Be Mentally Ill, "said Thursday President Trump is ‘not well,’ and even possibly ‘mentally ill.'

6/8/17, The Hill: "'Morning Joe' co-host: Trump may be 'mentally ill'"




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Wednesday, June 28, 2017

David Miliband wants millions more from US taxpayer refugee gravy train so he appears on CNN with Elmo. Miliband group, International Rescue Committee, is among 9 most successful leeches on US taxpayers in multi-million dollar refugee resettlement racket

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Above image, IRC pres. David Miliband with George Soros, 2013 IRC Freedom Award winner. via Refugee Resettlement Watch.
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6/28/17, Miliband appears with Elmo on CNN:

""Popular "Sesame Street" character Elmo sympathized with refugee kids in an interview Monday with CNN, remarking that they are just like kids in America. 

Elmo was part of a panel including CNN reporter Clarissa Ward, Sherrie Westin from Sesame Workshop, and David Miliband from the International Rescue Committee."...

Miliband, CNN, 6/26/17

The segment was clearly designed to emotionally blackmail American children, to twist them into unthinking beings who will see President Trump as a monster who hates children."...

6/28/17, "New Low: CNN Uses Sesame Street's Elmo to Attack Trump's Travel Ban," John Nolte, Daily Wire

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Added: Miliband's group IRC is one of nine biggest winners of US taxpayer cash in the lucrative refugee resettlement racket.

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Added: Miliband refugee aid group in corruption probe in 2016:

May 11, 2016, "David Miliband's refugee aid group in corruption probe," UK Telegraph, Louisa Loveluck, Istanbul

"The United States is investigating an international aid group headed by David Miliband over allegations of corruption in projects intended to help Syrian civilians and refugees.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is one of three international groups to have had millions of pounds in funding withdrawn over alleged bid-rigging and bribery.

Mr Miliband, a former foreign secretary, was appointed president and chief executive of the organisation in 2013, following his exit from Westminster politics.

USAID's Office of the Inspector General confirmed on Friday that 14 entities and individuals had been suspended as part of a "complex investigation into cross-border aid programs".

This includes International Medical Corps, one of the largest providers of medical aid to Syrians, and GOAL, an Irish NGO. Allegations relate to the organisations systematically overpaying for goods in Turkey. A senior USAID official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said private Turkish companies had sold cut-rate blankets and other basic materials at vastly inflated prices and pocketed the difference.

The items are meant to ensure the survival of hundreds of thousands of Syrian civilians, many of whom have been left with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

"What became clear in the course of this investigation was this was a pretty sophisticated operation," the USAID official said.

The IRC, which has an annual budget of £350 million [$439 million US dollars], relies heavily on government funding from Britain and the United States.

An IRC spokesman told The Times: "We are fully engaged and working with USAID on this issue.” 

Two IRC staff members were dismissed in January (2016) after it was found that they had accepted money from suppliers in return for awarding them contracts.

The Telegraph understands that International Medical Corps has suspended one of its most senior officials working on the cross-border aid operation. GOAL has also replaced a locally staffed logistics team in Turkey and is currently barred from using its €6.2m [Euros] [$6.6 million US dollars] of US grant money to procure food and non-food items."...

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Added: Miliband's group IRC is one of nine biggest winners of US taxpayer cash in the lucrative refugee resettlement racket:

From Refugee Resettlement Watch

"These are the nine major US resettlement contractors and working under them (using your tax dollars) are hundreds of local subcontractors.

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Added: Supreme Court rewrites US refugee law:

6/28/17, "And so it begins—the battle of the bona fides." Refugee Resettlement Watch, Ann Corcoran

"The US Supreme Court has taken it upon itself to re-write Refugee law by creating a new requirement (even if it is just for a few months) that refugees may enter the country ABOVE TRUMP’S CEILING OF 50,000 ADMISSIONS by September 30th if they can show a “bona fide relationship” to someone already here or to an "entity" in the US. In Washington, DC, the scrambling to define those words—“bona fide relationship”—is underway!

The Refugee Act of 1980 has no provisions for going over the President’s CEILING except in an emergency and in such a case, the President (wishing to increase the ceiling) must “consult” with Congress. 

The Supremes have thus gone beyond their Constitutional role and are crafting a new requirement that effectively nullifies Trump’s 50,000 admissions ceiling and strips the President and Congress of their authority under the Refugee Act of 1980."...

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Added: 2016 Reuters article on Miliband group re Syria refugee fraud, US halts grants to several Miliband group vendors but USAID IG won't confirm or deny whether IRC is under investigation as reported elsewhere: 

 

May 11, 2016, "U.S. probes reports of fraud in obtaining aid for Syria," Reuters, by Ellen Wulfhorst 

 

"The activities of several vendors obtaining humanitarian aid for Syria for the International Rescue Committee have been halted amid an investigation by the U.S. government into reports of corruption, officials said on Wednesday. 

 

The global aid agency, headed by former British foreign secretary David Miliband, is not suspended from U.S. funding, said a spokesman for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). 

 

But the aid agency said it could not disclose whether the organization was under investigation as reported in some media. 

 

USAID's Office of Inspector General said last week that it had unearthed corrupt practices involving a number of programs operating out of Turkey which provide humanitarian aid to Syria. 

 

"The investigation to date has identified a network of commercial vendors, NGO employees, and others who have colluded to engage in bid-rigging and multiple bribery and kickback schemes related to contracts to deliver humanitarian aid in Syria," it said in a statement.

 

In response, USAID has halted several aid activities in Turkey over suspicions of fraud and suspended some people and some vendors from getting U.S. funds, officials said. The agency refuted media reports that the IRC and another leading charity, the International Medical Corps, were among those getting USAID funding withdrawn. 

 

"IRC and IMC have not been suspended," said Sam Ostrander, a spokesman for USAID in Washington, D.C. 

 

But he said several humanitarian aid procurement activities have been halted while the system is repaired.

A report in the Times of London said the IRC was under U.S. investigation.

The Inspector General for USAID cannot confirm or deny whether a group is under investigation, a spokesman said.

Not being suspended does not preclude an organization from being under investigation, however, the agencies said.

A spokeswoman for the IRC in London told the Thomson Reuters Foundation: "We are working openly and collaboratively with USAID to investigate this issue."

The Inspector General's office said several aid agencies have fired staff members due to misconduct it had uncovered."...

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This is FNN: Fake News Network White House correspondent apparently wants to be on tv, doesn't like audio only press conferences-Rush Limbaugh

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image from Rush Limbaugh














6/27/17, "Could Donald Trump Be the End of CNN?" Rush Limbaugh

(scroll down): "RUSH: This Jim Acosta guy, little Jim Acosta, CNN....He lost it yesterday at the press briefing because once again cameras were not permitted. Little Jim is a White House correspondent for the Fake News Network, CNN. He was...heckling the press secretary, Sean Spicer, about the fact that the cameras were not turned on
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There are kids in kindergarten who have more maturity than Jim Acosta. He threw a fit in the briefing room because it was audio only.

He claimed the Constitution was imperiled. He claimed that the nation was hanging on the precipice because Spicer and Trump wouldn’t let the TV cameras be turned on yesterday. Spicer was calling on other people and Acosta kept interrupting. He was heckling him. We put together a montage for him.

ACOSTA: (crosstalk) Maybe we should turn the cameras on, Sean.
SPICER: Jen?
ACOSTA: Why don’t we…
SPICER: Jen?
ACOSTA:…turn the cameras on?
SPICER: Jen?
ACOSTA: Why don’t we turn the cameras on?
SPICER: Jen?
ACOSTA: Why not turn the cameras on…
SPICER: Jen?
ACOSTA:…Sean? They’re…
SPICER: Jen?
ACOSTA:…in the room, the lights (crosstalk) are on.
SPICER: Doug?
ACOSTA: Why are the cameras off, Sean?
SPICER: Trey?
ACOSTA: Why are they — why did you…
SPICER: Trey?
ACOSTA:…turn them off? Can you just…
SPICER: Trey?
ACOSTA:…give us an answer to that? Can you…
SPICER: Trey?
ACOSTA:…tell us why you turned the cameras off? Why are they off? It’s a legitimate question.
SPICER: Trey?
ACOSTA: Can you at least give us an explanation as to why the cameras are off?
SPICER: There’s no camera on, Jim....

As far as the talent [tv reporters] is concerned, the objective is to get rid of Trump. They are failing, and it’s got to be frustrating them to no end, and we had one of them boil over yesterday, Acosta."...

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Added: Christopher Steele is the source for most of alleged Trump/Russian collusion narrative, including that Trump hired prostitutes to urinate on a bed in Moscow, none of which has been confirmed: 

"(Former British spy Christopher) Steele’s most sensational allegations [about Trump and Russia] remain unconfirmed. For instance, his claim that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen held a “clandestine meeting” on the alleged hacking scheme in Prague with “Kremlin officials” in August 2016 unraveled when Cohen denied ever visiting Prague, his passport showed no stamps showing he left or entered the US at the time, witnesses accounted for his presence here, and Czech authorities found no evidence Cohen went to Prague.

Steele hadn’t worked in Moscow since the 1990s and didn’t actually travel there to gather intelligence on Trump firsthand. He relied on third-hand “friend of friend” sourcing. In fact, most of his claimed Russian sources spoke not directly to him but “in confidence to a trusted compatriot” who, in turn, spoke to Steele — and always anonymously.

But his main source may have been Google. Most of the information branded as “intelligence” was merely rehashed from news headlines or cut and pasted replete with errors — from Wikipedia.

In fact, much of the seemingly cloak-and-dagger information connecting Trump and his campaign advisers to Russia had already been reported in the media at the time Steele wrote his monthly reports."...

6/24/17, "Sketchy firm behind Trump dossier is stalling investigators," NY Post, Paul Sperry

"A secretive Washington firm that commissioned the dubious intelligence dossier on Donald Trump is stonewalling congressional investigators trying to learn more about its connections....

The Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month threatened to subpoena the firm, Fusion GPS (which hired Christopher Steele), after it refused to answer questions and provide records to the panel identifying who financed the error-ridden dossier, which was circulated during the election and has sparked much of the Russia scandal."...

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Added: In Oct. 2016 meeting, FBI told Trump/Russia "Golden Showers" dossier author that they'd pay him $50,000 if he could get solid corroboration of his reports-NY Times:

4/22/17, "Comey Tried to Shield the F.B.I. from Politics. Then He Shaped an Election." NY Times, Matt Apuzzo, Michael S. Schmidt, Adam Goldman, Eric Lichtblau 

(subhead): ‘Exceptional Circumstances’... 

(parag. 7): Just a few weeks later, in late September (2016), Mr. Steele, the former British agent, finally heard back from his contact at the F.B.I. It had been months, but the agency wanted to see the material he had collected “right away,” according to a person with knowledge of the conversation. What prompted this message remains unclear. 

Mr. Steele met his F.B.I. contact in Rome in early October (2016), bringing a stack of new intelligence reports.... 

The agent said that if Mr. Steele could get solid corroboration of his reports, the F.B.I. would pay him $50,000 for his efforts, according to two people familiar with the offer. Ultimately, he was not paid."...
 
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Added: Fusion GPS refuses to disclose to US Senate Judiciary Committee who paid for "Golden Showers" dossier:

4/24/17, "[Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles] Grassley takes methodical approach, follows the money to find source of 'dodgy dossier," Washington Times, Dan Boylan 

"Lawyers from the Washington firm Cunningham, Levy, Muse LLP, which represents Fusion (GPS), cited confidentiality agreements as a reason not to divulge who paid for Mr. Steele’s work.

When Mr. Grassley’s staff followed up and asked if Fusion’s clients were willing to waive the confidentiality agreements, the firm’s lawyers replied that the clients have opted not to be known."

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Fusion GPS "Golden Showers" dossier claimed Trump hired Russian prostitutes to urinate on a bed in Moscow:

1/10/17, "Trump, Russian Spies and the Infamous 'Golden Shower Memos'," Newsweek, Jeff Stein

"Now, according to a leaked annex to the combined U.S. intelligence agencies’ report on Kremlin intrigues in the American elections, Russian security agents watched Trump engaging in “perverted sexual acts” that were “arranged/monitored by the FSB,” the Kremlin’s leading spy agency. The FSB, it said, employed a number of  prostitutes to perform a golden showers (urination) show in front of him.”"...

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Added: In Feb. 2017 a US businessman sued Christopher Steele in UK court for false claims of internet hacking related to Steele's Trump/Russia dossier: "In his final December (2016) dossier memo — his 16th — Mr. Steele accused Mr. Gubarev and his web-hosting companies of hacking the Democratic Party computer networks with pornography and bugging devices. Mr. Gubarev calls the charge fiction and filed a lawsuit in February." Mr. Steele is author of the 'Golden Showers' anti-Trump dossier.  

April 25, 2017, "Ex-spy admits anti-Trump dossier unverified, blames Buzzfeed for publishing," Washington Times, Rowan Scarborough 

"Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the infamous anti-Donald Trump ['Golden Showers'] dossier, acknowledges that a sensational charge his sources made about a tech company CEO and Democratic Party hacking is unverified. 

In a court filing, Mr. Steele also says his accusations against the president and his aides about a supposed Russian hacking conspiracy were never supposed to be made public, much less posted in full on a website for the world to see on Jan. 10. 

He defends himself by saying he was betrayed by his client and that he followed proper internal channels by giving the dossier to Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, to alert the U.S. government. 

Mr. Steele has not spoken publicly about his disputed opposition research project, but for the first time he is being forced to talk in a London court through his attorneys. 

Barristers for Mr. Steele and his Orbis Business Intelligence firm filed their first defense against a defamation lawsuit brought by Aleksej Gubarev, chief executive of the network solutions firm XBT Holdings. 

Mr. Steele acknowledges that the part of the 35-page dossier that identified Mr. Gubarev as a rogue hacker came from “unsolicited intelligence” and “raw intelligence” that “needed to be analyzed and further investigated/verified. 

Democrats in Washington have embraced the unproven dossier as an argument for appointing a high- powered commission to investigate President Trump and his aides. 

In his final December (2016) dossier memo — his 16th — Mr. Steele accused Mr. Gubarev and his web-hosting companies of hacking the Democratic Party computer networks with pornography and bugging devices. Mr. Gubarev calls the charge fiction and filed a lawsuit in February. 

Mr. Steele’s court filing portrays him as a victim of Fusion GPS--the Washington firm that hired him with money from a Hillary Clinton backer. 

Fusion specializes in opposition research for Democrats and circulated the Steele dossier among reporters in an effort to injure the Trump candidacy and presidency. Mr. Steele said he never authorized Fusion to do that. 

“The defendants did not provide any of the pre-election memoranda to media organizations or journalists. Nor did they authorize anyone to do so,” Mr. Steele said through his attorney. “Nor did they provide the confidential December memorandum to media organizations or journalists. Nor did they authorize anyone to do so.” 

“At all material times Fusion was subject to an obligation not to disclose to third parties confidential intelligence material provided” by Mr. Steele and his firm Orbis, the court filing reads.

 
Mr. Steele personally signed the seven-page filing. He is represented by two London barristers who specialize in defamation cases: Gavin Millar and Edward Craven. 

Mr. Steele says the ultimate responsibility lies with BuzzFeed, the liberal news website whose editor, Ben Smith, decided to post the entire 35 pages — memos from June to December — on Jan. 10 even though Mr. Smith said he doubted the far-flung accusations were true. 

That momentous web posting sent Mr. Steele into hiding. He re-emerged March 7 in London, made a brief statement to the press and went inside his Orbis office. 

The Steele dossier’s major charge is that the Trump campaign entered into an elaborate conspiracy with Russian agents to hack Democratic Party computers. 

The Trump White House denies the charge, as do at least four people whom Mr. Steele's unidentified sources accused of breaking the law. 

The final Steel memo in December targets Mr. Gubarev and Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s personal attorney. 

That memo, after accusing Mr. Gubarev, then recounts from previous memos a supposed trip Mr. Cohen took to Prague in late August to meet with Russian agents and devise a plan to cover up the purported Trump team’s role in the hacking. 

Mr. Cohen calls the dossier “fabricated.” He has shown that he was in California at the time and has never been to Prague. He told The Washington Times that he has instructed his attorneys to investigate a lawsuit against Mr. Steele. 

The fact that Mr. Steele acknowledges that he put unverified “raw intelligence” into his December memo casts further doubt on his research techniques for the entire 35-page dossier. 

Although Mr. Steele portrays himself as a victim of Fusion and BuzzFeed, he acknowledges in his court filing that he provided “off-the-record briefings to a small number of journalists about the pre-election memoranda in late summer/autumn 2016.” 

The narration of the involvement of Mr. McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a vocal critic of Mr. Trump, reads like a spy novel. 

Andrew Wood is a former British ambassador to Moscow and is an associate at the Orbis firm. After the Nov. 8 presidential election, Mr. Wood met with Mr. McCain and David J. Kramer, a former assistant secretary of state who is director of human rights and democracy at The McCain Institute for International Leadership at Arizona State University. By that time, Mr. Steele had written 15 memos for the dossier. 

As a result, Mr. Wood arranged for Mr. Kramer to meet with Mr. Steele “in order to show him the pre-election memoranda on a confidential basis,” the court filing says. The meeting occurred on Nov. 28 in Surrey, England."... 


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Rush Limbaugh "Related Links"




Sunday, June 25, 2017

Beltway Republicans set on sabotaging Trump have been brought into his administration by Chief of Staff Reince Priebus whose loyalty remains with GOP Establishment rather than Trump or even voters-Sunday Guardian Live, New Delhi, Madhav Nalapat

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June 25, 2017, "Trump-Modi Meeting a Game Changer, despite Beltway Sabotage," SundayGuardianLive.com, Madhav Nalapat, New Delhi
 
"Those eager to ensure friction, want Trump to bring up issues that impinge on India’s sovereignty, aware that Modi would react strongly to any such efforts."... 

"Prime Minister Modi...may be expected to accelerate towards a much more transformative structure of governance, in this case matching the attempted speeds of President Trump in his own administration. The bureaucratic speed-breakers to a much more rapid overall congruence and in several respects convergence of Washington-Delhi policies and actions are getting weaker on the Indian side.

However, in Washington, the “Beltway” establishment (both Republican as well as Democrat) is still powerful enough to have a high degree of success in blocking many of President Trump’s initiatives. 

EFFORTS TO DERAIL 

In the US, the higher layers of the federal bureaucracy are composed of what may be termed “political bureaucrats”, i.e., officials chosen by politicians and usually on political considerations. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, apparently, still considers himself to be beholden to the entire leadership of the Republican Party, which he was while Chair of the Republican National Committee, forgetting that from 20 January onwards, his loyalty needed to be directed solely in the direction of President Trump. Over the past months, Priebus has instituted a quota system in the US administration, trying to select candidates for high positions that are a mix of those loyal to George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, John McCain and other Republican Party heavyweights weights.

The problem is that these party grandees would be (not so secretly) delighted were Trump to be made to step down as early as possible. Hence, some of those appointed to high office by the Trump team see as their primary interest the failure of the 45th President of the United States to implement the agenda for which he was elected.

Should the 26 June Trump-Modi meeting go well, it would redound to the credit of President Trump and lead substantially towards the long-cherished objective of an India-US alliance for security and prosperity that would in its effects span the globe.  

Hence, they [Establishment Republicans appointed by Reince Priebus who want Trump to fail] are seeking to ensure that the meeting goes badly, by seeking to ensure that President Trump brings up issues that impinge on the sovereignty and self-respect of India, aware that Prime Minister Modi is 100% a nationalist, who would react strongly to any such efforts. 

Among the issues they would like Trump to bring forward for discussion are issues relating to some NGOs operating in India that have been reported as having indulged in activities that have the potential to cause mayhem and violence. Other issues sought to be introduced into the conversation relate to some of the matters that have been exciting both foreign and domestic media during the past weeks, including matters of diet. Another googly being suggested is to bring up the cordial relations that Delhi has with both Teheran and Moscow, of course for valid geopolitical reasons. 

The expectation of those in the Trump administration who are eager to ensure friction, and not understanding, during the Modi-Trump summit is that the introduction of such issues into the Modi-Trump dialogue would visibly set relations back, thereby slowing down the momentum already generated by previous heads of government in both Delhi and Washington. 

However, the few within the Trump administration who are genuine loyalists of the 45th US President (and not of his Republican traducers) say that Trump is fully aware of such moves and will ensure that they are not given a chance to work. They say that while such issues may figure in some conversations, these would be at a lower level and privately.

From the very first days of his ascension to office, Prime Minister Modi showed his goodwill for the US by casting aside years of hostility manifested in the denial of a US visa to him and making thus far four successful visits to the US. Those familiar with President Trump say that he is in sync with Modi on the need for the US and India to work closely together, and can be expected to ensure that the Prime Minister’s potentially very consequential visit to Washington ends up as productive and ground-breaking. On the Indian side, although there are issues relating to US policy that are of concern, such as recent changes in visa rules in some categories or climate-related matters, these are expected to be dealt with at a lower level and mostly in closed-door sessions, so that the overall atmospheric remain cordial, an important consideration in a democracy. Prime Minister Modi is going the extra mile to ensure this, for example, by refusing to accept the invite by some organisations in cities across the US to address mass rallies of Indian-Americans during his latest US visit. Such meetings may give rise to anti-immigrant feelings in a section of Trump supporters about Indian-Americans, despite this group being the most law-abiding and high (average) tax-paying of any ethnic community settled in the US. Hence the expectations on the part of both Modi as well as Trump loyalists are that there would be a Trump-Modi breakthrough in US-India relations on 26 June. 

This would ensure that the two democracies move largely onto the same page in confronting threats and taking advantage of opportunities in the Indo-Pacific century....

"Both during the 2016 Presidential campaign trail and in his previous avatar as a billionaire businessperson, President Donald John Trump had integrated India as a core component of the global order in his policies and actions. However, since his inauguration on 20 January and subsequently, very little mention has been made of India in the statements made by spokespersons for the Trump administration, while, as yet, several posts relevant to relations with India (such as that of Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia) remain unfilled. 

However, the incoming US Ambassador to India, Ken Juster, was informed two months ago that he was the White House choice for the post, and his nomination has been made official days before the 26 June first-ever meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Trump. The chemistry between the two will play an important role in ensuring that the India-US alliance, which was first initiated by President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, becomes a reality during the terms in office of Trump and Modi. This may already have occurred during the first two years of NDA-II, which began in 2014, but for foot-dragging by those loyal to Bill and Hillary Clinton, who were disproportionately influential during the Barack Obama administration, relative to the Obama loyalists, although less so in the 44th US President’s second term (2013-17).

It was known within the Washington Beltway—the US equivalent of India’s Lutyens Zone—that (former) Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held the view that the benefits of a close alliance with India were “oversold” by Condoleezza Rice and others in the Bush team, and that far greater emphasis needed to be paid on ensuring improved relations with China, her rhetoric to the contrary.... While President Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saw the advantages...of much closer India-US ties, the former was slowed down by the Clintonites in his administration and the latter by the leadership of the Congress Party, which went largely by the views of Antony in such matters, despite the close personal friendship between Sonia Gandhi and Hillary Clinton. 

Once Prime Minister Modi came to power on 26 May 2014, he adopted a careful approach towards transforming the chemistry and approach of the Central higher bureaucracy, even inducting several into his team who were charter members of the Lutyens’ Zone. President Trump had (in the start of his administration) a different approach, looking for a speedy transition from the traditional Beltway policies and practices to a construct more in tune with current realities. However, the blowback that Trump has been receiving from the Beltway shows that Modi was correct in his caution, as overall the Prime Minister of India has in three years had a far more peaceful innings than the US President in just six months of his term."...




 
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Friday, June 23, 2017

George HW Bush began destroying coal jobs long before Obama did. Bush #1 Clean Air Act additions knowingly put thousands of coal miners out of work-LA Times, 4/2/1990...Bush #1 also caused Arctic and N. Hemisphere warming by mandating removal of large amounts of cooling sulfates from the atmosphere, per NASA (chart), Houston Chronicle, 2009

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Bush #1 EPA chief Reilly praised "global consensus" of Agenda 21 (EPA Journal, 1992).

April 02, 1990|, "EPA Chief Sees Job Losses for Miners," LA Times staff and wire reports 

"William K. Reilly, the chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, acknowledged that a proposed new clean air law will put some coal miners out of work, but said he is hopeful that technology can save jobs. "We are prepared to work very carefully with those workers and with the states to try to ensure that we have as good a safety net and unemployment retraining provisions as possible," Reilly said on NBC's "Meet the Press." To reduce acid rain, the legislation would restrict sulfur dioxide emissions. The new limits are expected to cause thousands of job losses in the coal mines throughout Appalachia and the Midwest. Reilly said he is hopeful that advances in "clean-coal technology" can save some of the jobs in the East."

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George Bush #1 signs Clean Air Act amendments in 1990, making rules stricter than 1970 and 1977 versions. Top left, clapping, Bush EPA chief William Reilly, plucked from his job as WWF president by jackass Bush.
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2009 NASA graph shows warming of Arctic latitudes resulting from US Clean Air Acts of 1970, 1977 and 1990:



Image from Nasa.gov

4/8/2009, "Half of recent arctic warming may not be due to greenhouse gases," Houston Chronicle, Eric Berger




That’s the conclusion of two scientists in a new Nature Geoscience paper (see abstract), which is more deeply outlined in this NASA news release....Clean air regulations passed in the 1970s have likely accelerated warming by diminishing the cooling effect of sulfates....This is potentially a huge blow to those who advocate immediate action on controlling carbon dioxide.

Finally, for those of you who hate James Hansen: Please note that the author of this study works for Hansen."

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NASA: "Over the past three decades, the United States and European countries have passed a series of laws that have reduced sulfate emissions by 50 percent. While improving air quality and aiding public health, the result has been less atmospheric cooling from sulfates....At the same time, black carbon emissions have steadily risen, largely because of increasing emissions from Asia. Black carbon -- small, soot-like particles produced by industrial processes and the combustion of diesel and biofuels -- absorb incoming solar radiation and have a strong warming influence on the atmosphere."...

4/8/2009, "Aerosols May Drive a Significant Portion of Arctic Warming," nasa.gov/topics

"Though greenhouse gases are invariably at the center of discussions about global climate change, new NASA research suggests that much of the atmospheric warming observed in the Arctic since 1976 may be due to changes in tiny airborne particles called aerosols.

Emitted by natural and human sources, aerosols can directly influence climate by reflecting or absorbing the sun's radiation. The small particles also affect climate indirectly by seeding clouds and changing cloud properties, such as reflectivity.

A new study, led by climate scientist Drew Shindell of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, used a coupled ocean-atmosphere model to investigate how sensitive different regional climates are to changes in levels of carbon dioxide, ozone, and aerosols.

The researchers found that the mid and high latitudes are especially responsive to changes in the level of aerosols. Indeed, the model suggests aerosols likely account for 45 percent or more of the warming that has occurred in the Arctic during the last three decades. The results were published in the April issue of Nature Geoscience....

Sulfates, which come primarily from the burning of coal and oil, scatter incoming solar radiation and have a net cooling effect on climate. Over the past three decades, the United States and European countries have passed a series of laws that have reduced sulfate emissions by 50 percent. While improving air quality and aiding public health, the result has been less atmospheric cooling from sulfates.

At the same time, black carbon emissions have steadily risen, largely because of increasing emissions from Asia. Black carbon -- small, soot-like particles produced by industrial processes and the combustion of diesel and biofuels -- absorb incoming solar radiation and have a strong warming influence on the atmosphere....

The regions of Earth that showed the strongest responses to aerosols in the model are the same regions that have witnessed the greatest real-world temperature increases since 1976. The Arctic region has seen its surface air temperatures increase by 1.5 C (2.7 F) since the mid-1970s. In the Antarctic, where aerosols play less of a role, the surface air temperature has increased about 0.35 C (0.6 F).


That makes sense, Shindell explained, because of the Arctic's proximity to North America and Europe. The two highly industrialized regions have produced most of the world's aerosol emissions over the last century, and some of those aerosols drift northward and collect in the Arctic. Precipitation, which normally flushes aerosols out of the atmosphere, is minimal there, so the particles remain in the air longer and have a stronger impact than in other parts of the world. 

Since decreasing amounts of sulfates and increasing amounts of black carbon both encourage warming, temperature increases can be especially rapid. The build-up of aerosols also triggers positive feedback cycles that further accelerate warming as snow and ice cover retreat.

In the Antarctic, in contrast, the impact of sulfates and black carbon is minimized because of the continent’s isolation from major population centers and the emissions they produce.

"There's a tendency to think of aerosols as small players, but they're not," said Shindell. "Right now, in the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere and in the Arctic, the impact of aerosols is just as strong as that of the greenhouse gases."


The growing recognition that aerosols may play a larger climate role can have implications for policymakers. 

"We will have very little leverage over climate in the next couple of decades if we're just looking at carbon dioxide," Shindell said. "If we want to try to stop the Arctic summer sea ice from melting completely over the next few decades, we're much better off looking at aerosols and ozone."


Aerosols tend to be quite-short lived, residing in the atmosphere for just a few days or weeks. Greenhouses gases, by contrast, can persist for hundreds of years. Atmospheric chemists theorize that the climate system may be more responsive to changes in aerosol levels over the next few decades than to changes in greenhouse gas levels, which will have the more powerful effect in coming centuries."...

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Added: Above NASA article notes Northern and Southern hemispheres have very different geography: Unlike the Arctic, the Antarctic is isolated from major population centers and emissions they produce. Antarctica isn't exposed to black carbon from Asia which is naturally transported  across North America and the Arctic. Nor was Antarctica warmed by decades of US Clean Air Acts that removed cooling sulfates from the atmosphere. 
 

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Added: Bush #1 EPA chief Reilly loved "global consensus" of Agenda 21:

Sept./Oct. 1992, "The Road from Rio," EPA Journal, by William K. Reilly (EPA Chief for George HW Bush)

"The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), the "Earth Summit," (in June 1992) was a watershed event in environmental history....

While the hopes of some developing nations for vast commitments of new foreign assistance did not materialize, what was extraordinary to me was how many expectations were met--and how much the world did achieve....
Agenda 21 represents an extraordinary new global consensus on standards against which to measure the environmental performance of governments. No doubt the press, non-governmental groups, and the business community will mine these documents for years to come. The human rights commitments of the 1970s and 1980s, the Helsinki Accords, and others, offer a model for how committed nongovernmental interests can confer authority on moral obligations and translate them into new policies."...
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https://archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/road-rio.html 
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