Monday, April 30, 2018

US taxpayers are global joke, the world sees no one will protect us, that entire US political class views us as slaves: "Dilapidated scrap metal border fence" easily hopped over in San Diego proves US has no government. Persons are said to have climbed over fence at San Ysidro Entry-LA Times...(US taxpayers must demand an end to all "US" military presence and action around the world. A scrap metal fence anyone can hop over in 2018 proves the US no longer exists)

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4/29/18, "People 'associated with' Central American caravan have entered U.S. illegally, federal officials say," LA Times, Cindy Carcamo,  

"Some people associated with the Central American migrant caravan, which arrived in Tijuana this week, have crossed into the United States illegally in the last 24 hours, federal officials said Saturday....

They were said to have climbed over a dilapidated scrap metal border fence on either side of the San Ysidro Port of Entry. 

The statement was issued Saturday afternoon by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. 

No information was given on the number of people caught entering the U.S. illegally or what became of them. 

It also was not clear if the statement's phrase "people associated with" the caravan meant people who actually had taken part in the bus trek from Central America, through Mexico, to seek political asylum in the U.S.

Members of the caravan are expected to ask for asylum Sunday. Caravan members interested in requesting asylum spent Friday and Saturday at legal orientations to understand their rights and what to expect when they enter the U.S. port of entry."...




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Sunday, April 29, 2018

Media was most important weapon of German war industry, per Nuremberg prosecutor. Before every major aggression, media ran propaganda campaign to prepare German people psychologically for the attack-John Pilger, 10/28/2016

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10/28/2016, "Selling ‘Regime Change’ Wars to the Masses," Consortium News, John Pilger
 

"In 1946, the Nuremberg Tribunal prosecutor said of the German media: “Before every major aggression, they initiated a press campaign calculated to weaken their victims and to prepare the German people psychologically for the attack. In the propaganda system, it was the daily press and the radio that were the most important weapons.”"...[end of article] 

"Propaganda is now such a pervasive part of Western governance that any foreign leader who resists the prevailing power structure can be turned into a demon and made a target of a “regime change” war."... 
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Added: Today's media favors war with Russia for two reasons, one of which is to block non-intervention Trump promised as a candidate. The Endless War Industry survives only via unlimited access to US taxpayer dollars:

1/5/2017, "Very Powerful People in the U.S. Government Want War – This is Their Sales Pitch," Liberty Blitzkrieg, Michael Krieger











"The rising hysteria about Russia is best understood as fulfilling two needs for Official Washington: the Military Industrial Complex’s transitioning from the “war on terror” to a more lucrative “new cold war” – and blunting the threat that a President Trump poses to the neoconservative/liberal-interventionist foreign-policy establishment.

By hyping the Russian “threat,” the neocons and their liberal-hawk sidekicks, who include much of the mainstream U.S. news media, can guarantee bigger military budgets from Congress. The hype also sets in motion a blocking maneuver to impinge on any significant change in direction for U.S. foreign policy under Trump....


One of the main reasons I opposed Hillary Clinton so vehemently, was I felt she embodied the neocon, neoliberal, military-intelligence-indsustrial complex’s burning desire for a global confrontation with Russia, as well as continued disastrous imperial adventures all over the world. Many of us hoped that with her loss, cooler heads would prevail and the American public might receive a much needed respite from never-ending war. This has not happened.

If anything, those in the Hillary camp have become even more aggressive and unhinged in their bloodlust, and appear willing to do “whatever it takes” to start a fight that will result in unimaginable devastation for the American public. This has become such an overwhelming concern to me, I felt the need to discuss what those of us who wish to avoid this outcome must do.

First, we need to understand the motivation of those driving us in this disastrous direction. Their primary motivation is pretty simple, a desire to retain power and status. They can see the writing on the wall when it comes to the disintegration of status quo authority and credibility, and they fundamentally understand the need to focus on an outside enemy in order to distract attention away from internal failures.

Second, we need to understand where we are in the war-creating process. We must acknowledge that very powerful interests have already decided they want this war. To them, this isn’t about weighing facts and being reasonable, they’ve already made up their minds. As such, we are currently in the sales process.

Right at this very moment, we are being sold on this war by the media, politicians, intelligence agencies, as well as various other vested interests who benefit from imperial dominance abroad (unlike the vast majority of us who are severely harmed by it). When you understand that this is simply a huge sales pitch to herd the American public like sheep into a conflict that is not in their best interests, then everything you see and hear around you starts to make sense....


James Clapper admits he wants to throw rocks at Russia. Why? Because in his opinion, Russia provided genuine information to Wikileaks which was embarrassing to the Democratic Party, and Hillary Clinton lost an election. Let’s just assume for a second that U.S. intelligence does have proof that Putin ran the operation and sent it to Wikileaks for the expressed purpose of helping Trump. If that can be proven, I absolutely think it is meaningful information, and I think the American people should be aware of it. However, would I be willing to get into a war with Russia over it? Certainly not. Would most Americans? I doubt it. To summarize, the American people don’t want war, but many D.C. politicians and special interests do. This divergence makes the situation all the more dangerous.

We need to understand that those who want this war will be absolutely relentless. The sales pitch will not end until they get exactly what they want. This is where all of us critical thinkers need to play a key role. We must be prepared to diligently analyze all unsubstantiated official claims, and push back against the war-mongers, because we know for certain the oligarch-owned corporate media won’t. We must be prepared to inform our fellow citizens about what’s happening so that we don’t fall victim to a cheap sales pitch with devastating consequences. Unfortunately, we must also be prepared for a possible deep state false flag if the current sales tactic falls on deaf ears. 

This is not to say that in the course of human events war is never necessary. Sometimes it’s simply thrust upon you, but we’re nowhere near that point. Moreover, the fact so many people are pushing this conflict forward based on what is actually a pretty trivial accusation in the grand scheme of things, should be seen as particularly problematic. Which brings me to the most important point of all.

America cannot win a global war of such a scale if it is based on false pretenses and in the absence of exceedingly strong public support. This support does not exist. Will this serve as a necessary restraint against the masters of war and their devious plans? It’s too early to tell, but I do know that if we are unnecessarily pushed into a global conflagration, it will not end well for us. If this is the road our twisted status quo insists on taking us down, let us never forget who they are and the self-serving motivations behind their actions.


Finally, let me conclude with the following observation:











– From the post: Who Benefits from War with Russia? (1/2/17)

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Added: Full 10/28/2016 John Pilger article, source of citation at top of this post:

10/28/2016, "Selling ‘Regime Change’ Wars to the Masses," Consortium News, John Pilger 

"Propaganda is now such a pervasive part of Western governance that any foreign leader who resists the prevailing power structure can be turned into a demon and made a target of a “regime change” war....

Today, the invisible government has never been more powerful and less understood. In my career as a journalist and filmmaker, I have never known propaganda to insinuate our lives and as it does now and to go unchallenged.... 

Without this drumbeat of propaganda dressed up as news, the monstrous ISIS and Al Qaeda and the Nusra Front and the rest of the jihadist gang might not exist, and the people of Syria might not be fighting for their lives today.... 

The attack on Iraq, the attack on Libya, the attack on Syria happened because the leader in each of these countries was not a puppet of the West. The human rights record of a Saddam or a Gaddafi was irrelevant. They did not obey orders and surrender control of their country.... 

As WikLeaks has revealed, it was only when the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in 2009 rejected an oil pipeline, running through his country from Qatar to Europe, that he was attacked. From that moment, the CIA planned to destroy the government of Syria with jihadist fanatics – the same fanatics currently holding the people of Mosul and eastern Aleppo hostage. 

Why is this not news? The former British Foreign Office official Carne Ross, who was responsible for operating sanctions against Iraq, told me: “We would feed journalists factoids of sanitized intelligence, or we would freeze them out. That is how it worked.”

The West’s medieval client, Saudi Arabia – to which the U.S. and Britain sell billions of dollars’ worth of arms – is at present destroying Yemen, a country so poor that in the best of times, half the children are malnourished....The bomb aimers in Saudi Arabia work side-by-side with British officers. This fact is not on the evening news.

Propaganda is most effective when our consent is engineered by those with a fine education – Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Columbia – and with careers on the BBC, the Guardian, the New York Times, the Washington Post.

These organizations are known as the “liberal media.” They present themselves as enlightened, progressive tribunes of the moral zeitgeist. They are anti-racist, pro-feminist and pro-LGBT. 

And they love war. 


While they speak up for feminism, they support rapacious wars that deny the rights of countless women, including the right to life.

In 2011, Libya, then a modern state, was destroyed on the pretext that Muammar Gaddafi was about to commit genocide on his own people. That was the incessant news; and there was no evidence. It was a lie.

In fact, Britain, Europe and the United States wanted what they like to call “regime change” in Libya, the biggest oil producer in Africa. Gaddafi’s influence in the continent and, above all, his independence were intolerable.

So Gaddafi was murdered with a knife in his rear by fanatics, backed by America, Britain and France. Hillary Clinton cheered his gruesome death for the camera, declaring, “We came, we saw, he died!”

The destruction of Libya was a media triumph. As the war drums were beaten, Jonathan Freedland wrote in the Guardian: “Though the risks are very real, the case for intervention remains strong.”

Intervention – what a polite, benign, Guardian word, whose real meaning, for Libya, was death and destruction.


According to its own records, NATO launched 9,700 “strike sorties” against Libya, of which more than a third were aimed at civilian targets. They included missiles with uranium warheads. Look at the photographs of the rubble of Misurata and Sirte, and the mass graves identified by the Red Cross.

The Unicef report on the children killed says, “most [of them] under the age of ten.” 


As a direct consequence, Sirte became a capital of ISIS.

Ukraine is another media triumph.
Respectable liberal newspapers such as the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Guardian, and mainstream broadcasters such as the BBC, NBC, CBS, CNN have played a critical role in conditioning their viewers to accept a new and dangerous Cold War. All have misrepresented events in Ukraine as a malign act by Russia when, in fact, the coup in Ukraine in 2014 was the work of the United States, aided by Germany and NATO.

This inversion of reality is so pervasive that Washington’s military intimidation of Russia is not news; it is suppressed behind a smear-and-scare campaign of the kind I grew up with during the first Cold War. Once again, the Russkies are coming to get us, led by another Stalin, whom The Economist depicts as the devil....

The drum-beaters of the Washington Post inciting war with Russia are the very same editorial writers who published the lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

To most of us, the American presidential campaign is a media freak show, in which Donald Trump is the arch villain. But Trump is loathed by those with power in the United States for reasons that have little to do with his obnoxious behavior and opinions.

To the invisible government in Washington, the unpredictable Trump is an obstacle to America’s design for the Twenty-first Century. This is to maintain the dominance of the United States and to subjugate Russia, and, if possible, China.

To the militarists in Washington, the real problem with Trump is that, in his lucid moments, he seems not to want a war with Russia; he wants to talk with the Russian president, not fight him; he says he wants to talk with the president of China.

In the first debate with Hillary Clinton, Trump promised not to be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into a conflict. He said, “I would certainly not do first strike. Once the nuclear alternative happens, it’s over.” That was not news.

Did he really mean it? Who knows? He often contradicts himself. But what is clear is that Trump is considered a serious threat to the status quo maintained by the vast national security machine that runs the United States, regardless of who is in the White House.

The CIA wants him beaten. The Pentagon wants him beaten. The media wants him beaten. Even his own party wants him beaten. He is a threat to the rulers of the world – unlike Hillary Clinton who has left no doubt she is prepared to go to war with nuclear-armed Russia and China....

Without a shred of public evidence, Clinton has accused Russia of supporting Trump and hacking her emails. Released by WikiLeaks, these emails tell us that what Clinton says in private, in speeches to the rich and powerful, is the opposite of what she says in public.


That is why silencing and threatening Julian Assange is so important. As the editor of WikiLeaks, Assange knows the truth. And let me assure those who are concerned, he is well, and WikiLeaks is operating on all cylinders.

Today, the greatest build-up of American-led forces since World War Two is under way – in the Caucasus and Eastern Europe, on the border with Russia, and in Asia and the Pacific, where China is the target.

Keep that in mind when the presidential election circus reaches its finale on Nov. 8. If the winner is Clinton, a Greek chorus of witless commentators will celebrate her coronation as a great step forward for women. None will mention Clinton’s victims: the women of Syria, the women of Iraq, the women of Libya. None will mention the civil defense drills being conducted in Russia. None will recall Edward Bernays’s “torches of freedom.”...

In 1946, the Nuremberg Tribunal prosecutor said of the German media: “Before every major aggression, they initiated a press campaign calculated to weaken their victims and to prepare the German people psychologically for the attack. In the propaganda system, 

it was the daily press and the radio that were the most important weapons.”"
 



 

Attendance at Trump rally in Macomb County, Michigan, 4/28/18: 5500 inside, 5000 outside. Fire officials cut off entry at 5500, "leaving an estimated 5000 people outside to watch the rally on a giant tv monitor." "We have always been known as land of the Reagan Democrats, but right now we are known as Trump Country"-Macomb Daily

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"Approximately 5,500 people were inside the new 118,000-square-foot sports building when Washington Township Fire officials cut off further entry, leaving an estimated 5,000 people outside to watch the rally on a giant television monitor."











Above, 4/28/18, "Thousands of Trump supporters gather for rally in Washington Township," Mlive, You Tube (preceded by ad which you can skip)











  Above, 4/28/2018, "President Trump welcomed by ‘old friends' in Macomb County, " Macomb Daily, Mitch Hotts 














Above, 4/28/18, "President Trump's visit to Michigan: From left, Michael Sakowski, 14, Matthew Sakowski, 12, Dylan King, 13, Evan Sakowski, 9, and Bryce King, 13, all of Macomb Township, pose for a photo during President Donald J. Trump's Make America Great Again rally at Total Sports Park in Washington Township, Saturday, April 28, 2018." Detroit Free Press photo
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Below: Attendee who waited in line 4 hours:




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4/28/18, "Trump rally fires up crowd in Washington Township," MacombDaily.com, Norb Franz

"President Donald Trump called on thousands of enthusiastic supporters during a spirited rally Saturday night in Washington Township to work to get Republicans elected in the mid-term elections. Touting tax reform, low unemployment, tougher trade policy, reductions in regulations and demanding stronger border security, Trump delighted the audience who shouted their satisfaction and encouragement throughout his 80-minute speech.... 

Approximately 5,500 people were inside the new 118,000-square-foot sports building when Washington Township Fire officials cut off further entry, leaving an estimated 5,000 people outside to watch the rally on a giant television monitor.

Trump halted his speech for about five minutes and called for a doctor when one person inside suffered a medical issue. Township Fire Chief Brian Tyrell reported about 10 people needed medical assistance at the complex at 30 Mile and Powell roads just east of M-53 but none were serious enough to require transport to a hospital.... 

On infrastructure, the president unexpectedly promised repairs will be made to the Soo Locks in the Upper Peninsula.

“The Soo Locks are going to hell, you know that, right? We’re going to get them fixed up.”...

The Macomb County Sheriff’s Office reported no problems Saturday resulting in arrests. 

Trump’s visit to the township, in northern Macomb County, was his first to the county since his election victory in November 2016. He held two campaign rallies in the county in 2016 – one during the Republican primary campaign and the other, at Freedom Hill Amphitheatre in Sterling Heights attended by about 20,000 people, just two days before the November election.

Macomb County, long known as the land of the Reagan Democrats, helped propel Trump to victory in Michigan and the White House in the 2016 Election against Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump defeated Clinton in Macomb County, 53.6 percent to 42.1 percent.

The difference in votes was 48,348 – more than three times the amount of his statewide, 13,478-vote margin. Trump beat Clinton in 19 or 24 cities and townships in the county (votes cast by residents in the villages of Armada, New Haven and Romeo are tabulated with neighboring communities).

Most municipalities in the northern half of Macomb County are Republican strongholds, and GOP dominance in elected offices down to township boards. 

Before Trump took to the podium, Macomb County Public Works Commissioner and former Congresswoman Candice Miller was the first speaker and fired up the partisan crowd, leading the crowd in the first “make America great again” shout. 

We have always been known as land of the Reagan Democrats, but right now we are known as Trump Country,” Miller said, drawing a roar of approval.... 

Brian Tinnion, one of the partners at Total Sports Complex, said the first rally attendees began arriving at approximately 9 a.m. By 10 a.m., about 500 were in line – six hours before the doors were scheduled to open to the public. The crowd doubled by noon and continued to swell. 

A sea of people,” he said about 90 minutes before Trump was scheduled to appear. “It’s nothing like I’ve ever experienced before. 

Once people cleared security before entering the sports facility, the line to reach the portable restrooms outside was approximately 30 minutes. 

Rose Ramirez, her husband and their three children drove from Grand Rapids to attend the rally, said they arrived around 12:30 p.m.

“I just wanted the experience of being here,” she said while relaxing as the couple’s three kids – ages 15, 12 and 10 – wore new “American Dreamer” caps purchased at the rally."

"The Associated Press contributed to this report."

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Added:

"The parking lot quickly filled up as some parked a couple of miles away from the site and walked along dirt roads to get to the event." 

4/28/2018, "President Trump welcomed by ‘old friends' in Macomb County, " Macomb Daily, Mitch Hotts 

"A seemingly never-ending line of supporters turned out on a windy, cloudy Saturday to attend a campaign-style political rally in northern Macomb County featuring President Donald Trump. 

Many wore the familiar red baseball caps with white trim emblazoned with the slogan “Make America Great Again,” as they waited to get inside the rally at Total Sports Park in Washington Township. 

“This turnout says to me that people are happy he’s our president and that they believe in him,” said Robert Golembiewski of Petoskey, Mich. “He’s making our country safe, creating better incomes and doing what’s right for the people.”

Those waiting listened to the music of Kid Rock, Lee Greenwood and Aerosmith being played over the loudspeakers, but the conversations centered on Trump and what they said were his victories on Capitol Hill.

Ed and Racheal Schoendorff of Manchester, Mich., gave the president high marks for his time in the White House so far. 

Considering the uphill battles he’s faced, considering all the drama and considering everything that’s stood in his way, and the fact that he continues to get things done, with tax reform and the Korean situation, and taking care of veterans, I feel he’s doing pretty well,” Schoendorff said.

His wife agreed.

“We can now say Merry Christmas to each other again,” she said.

“We are trying to get rid of all of this political correctness so that people can be real people again. I feel he’s doing a fabulous job.” 

The parking lot quickly filled up as some parked a couple of miles away from the site and walked along dirt roads to get to the event. 

The crowd’s enthusiasm level
was reminiscent of similar events when Trump was a presidential candidate in 2016.


“He’s like a rock star -- he’s fulfilling promises he made as a candidate,” said Arnold Molten of Port Huron. “It’s good to see him, he’s like an old friend of ours.”

Total Sports Park on Powell Road between 30 Mile and 31 Mile roads was already packed with several thousand people as even more waited outside hoping to get in. Others stood in front of a Jumbotron video screen, where they planned to watch the president speak. 

One Macomb County Sheriff’s Office official, who did not want to be named, said we’ve worked rock concerts with Santana and big-name entertainers, but we’ve never seen these numbers of people.”"...
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4/28/18, "MASSIVE Crowd Seen at Trump MAGA Rally in Washington, Michigan April 28, 2018," Live Satellite News, You Tube  
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Added: Saginaw, Michigan turned to Trump-BBC

1/28/18, "The Paul Simon city that turned to Trump," BBC News, Owen Amos, Saginaw, Michigan

Saginaw River
Saginaw - a blue-collar city made famous by Paul Simon - surprisingly voted for Donald Trump in 2016. What do they think now?

It's January in Michigan, and Thomas Darabos is walking on water. 

He finds a spot, carves a hole in the ice, and sits on a bucket. Then he waits for a bite. 

He and 10 others are fishing on the Saginaw River. Their frozen breath hangs in the air. 

Tall, smoky chimneys used to line the water. Now, naked trees form silhouettes against the blank sky. 

"We had all kinds of industry, but everything's gone," says Darabos. 

"They've got a couple of factories here and there, but it's not like when I was a kid.

"Business was booming in Saginaw. Now it's dead."
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How does he feel now? "He's creating jobs," he says.

"He's bringing money from different countries back to the United States. I think that's a good thing."

A few yards away, Gerald Welzin lifts his line from the water and nods. Like Darabos, he voted Republican for the first time in 2016.

"I think he's doing a great job," says the 61-year-old landscaper.

"A lot of people criticise him, badmouth him, say a lot of bad things about him. But you've got to give the man a chance."

On the river bank, a lyric has been sprayed on a huge, concrete bridge support.

"It took me four days to hitch-hike from Saginaw," it says. "I've gone to look for America."

The line is from America, a Simon and Garfunkel song about young love, adventure and optimism. According to a local promoter, Paul Simon wrote it in Saginaw in 1966.

If he came back now, he may not recognise the place.

For decades, Saginaw was a General Motors city. In 1979, the manufacturer employed 26,100 people here.

Now, just one GM facility remains, employing fewer than 500 people (a former GM plant, run by the Chinese firm Nexteer, employs around 5,000 more).

When the jobs went, the people followed. In 1960, almost 100,000 people lived in Saginaw. Now it's fewer than half that.

The population of Saginaw County has also declined, though less sharply.

As a working-class city, Saginaw supported Democrats. From 1988 to 2012, the county voted blue

More widely, Michigan was part of the so-called "blue wall" of solid Democrat states. And then, in 2016, Donald Trump came along.

Mr Trump's victory in Saginaw County was narrow - he won just 1,074 more votes than Hilary Clinton - but notable.

County by county, brick by brick, the blue wall came down. For the first time since 1988, Michigan voted Republican.

One year on, Trump supporters are not hard to find in Saginaw

In the city centre, there's a workshop in an empty car park. On one wall - in view of the Democrats' office - is a Trump sign.

Rick Coombs, 32, put it there before the election. "What I really, really liked, was the same thing people dislike about him," he says.

"He's not the most politically correct person, and I'm 100% fine with that."

Coombs, born and raised in Saginaw, owns three businesses, including a gun shop called Reaction Armory.

The Trump sign has been defaced and his companies targeted online. "False accusations, cheesy little Trump comments, poor ratings, things like that," says Coombs.

(He is not alone - in August, a Republican event at a Saginaw pizzeria was cancelled after the business was threatened).

Coombs, though, will not take his sign down.

"One hundred per cent, I'm keeping it up," he says. "You're not going to scare me out of here. That's just not going to happen."

Coombs gives President Trump a "solid eight" (out of 10) for his first year in office. "Look at the numbers, look at the GDP," he says.

He's disappointed the healthcare bill failed, but hopes tax cuts, passed before Christmas, will benefit his businesses. He also thinks the president is unfairly criticised.

"Here's the problem I really have with the left," he says.

"Every president - I mean every president - is easy to make fun of. No matter what he does, they will be against it, simply because it's Trump.

"They're still sore losers. They're still salty about the situation."

Darryl Wimbley knows he's not a typical Trump supporter.

Darryl (l) made 1000+ calls for Trump
The 49-year-old was born in Alabama to a black mother and Arabic father [growing up, his father spoke to him only in Arabic]. He moved to Saginaw with his mother aged three.

"Back then, to have a baby out of wedlock was unacceptable," he says. "They would send you north."

He spent 20 years as car salesman - "I said I'd do it for two months and I made ten grand" - but had to stop after a motorcycle accident.

In 2008, he voted for Barack Obama. But he has an admission.

"The most racist thing I ever did," he says.

"I didn't care what his views were. I didn't care. He was black, and that was it. I didn't question it."

After Obama came to office, he did question it, voting Republican for the first time in 2012. And, when Donald Trump became a candidate, he listened. 

"He said a lot of things that I thought, but would never say in public," he says.

Such as?

"Illegal immigrants do cause a lot of crime," he replies.

"I lived in Chicago, I know what immigrants do. I understand MS-13 (a mainly Central American gang), I understand the Latin Kings, I understand Maniac Disciples.

"I've seen it first hand, and most of them are illegals."

After telling his family he supported Mr Trump, his sister and mother stopped speaking to him. Some black people, he says, called him an "Uncle Tom, a sell-out".

But he still supports the president.

"The tax bill I like, the jobs are coming back, we're getting rid of regulation," he says. "A big thing is coal mines for me, because my family are coal miners."

And, like Rick Coombs, he thinks Mr Trump is treated unfairly.

"If you are the person in a room who everyone hates, you could actually give someone a million dollars - and they'll complain you didn't wrap it right."

Saginaw is a sprawling, un-pretty city.

Unloved, unneeded homes have been razed. Buildings - such as the red-brick railway station, closed since 1986 - lie derelict. And graffiti is common.

There are, however, signs of life. 

The old Bancroft Hotel is now home to "luxury" apartments, a coffee shop, and a cocktail bar. Twenty-four brownstone homes have gone up by the river.

There are boutiques, craft breweries, and murals on street corners.

One piece of graffiti that used to say "Saginasty" now reads "Saginawesome".

Jim Hines, a 62-year-old doctor who lives in Saginaw, thinks the city's future is "bright".

Dr Hines has delivered thousands of babies, owns a medical practice, and spent four years in the Central African Republic, running two hospitals.

He has seven sons, 12 grandchildren, and a third-degree black belt in taekwondo.

He also rides a Harley, has flown planes since he was 16, and - if that's not enough - wants to become the next governor of Michigan.

Dr Hines grew up in a poor family in Warsaw, Indiana - he met his wife, Martha, in the pizza place where he washed dishes - and is a long-time Republican.

The party will choose their candidate in August, before the state-wide election in November.

He says he is an underdog - early polling suggests the same - but he takes inspiration from another underdog, now sitting in the White House.

"I'm not bashful in my support of Donald Trump," he says.

"Am I going out campaigning saying 'Hey, I'm Trump-like, vote for me?' No. 

"But I am an outsider, I am a businessman, I want to put people first."

Dr Hines, a Christian, is not put off by the president's crudeness -

"It's not how I would express myself, but I think he speaks from his heart" - or his tough line on immigration.

"To have a sovereign country you need borders," he says

"Immigration - great. But not illegal immigration."

He supports the wall on the Mexican border, and thinks Mr Trump's policies - especially the tax cuts - have rejuvenated Saginaw.

"I think there's a lot of optimism," he says. "There wasn't so much before Trump. It was like 'Saginaw is kind of dwindling away'."

In Tony's Original Restaurant - a cosy, old-fashioned diner - a group of Dr Hines' supporters has come to meet the media (a local TV station is also here).

They are anti-abortion, low-tax people. Judy Anderson, a 73-year-old retired nurse, "had to study and think" before voting for Mr Trump.

But, one year on, she is proud of what he's done - even if she doesn't like his tweets.

"The companies being taxed less are rewarding their employees, left and right," she says. "And that's a positive thing."

On the next table, Sue Lynn, 63, also admires the president. But her language is more colourful; more Trump-like.

"If you've got an infestation of rats, you call the guy to come in," she says.

"You don't care if his crack's showing. You don't care if he's swearing.

"You don't care if he's got tobacco-stained teeth.

"You want the rats taken out.""...images from BBC




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Convicted felon George Soros launches "fact check" service in UK to be provided first to media for global fight against Fake News, will help "journalists" "push back" against politicians at press conferences-UK Guardian, 8/9/2017...Equally compassionate Mozilla and its browser Firefox start fact check service to ease our "mental burden" when, for example, choosing a US president

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8/9/2017, "Firefox browser maker Mozilla is taking on fake news," UK.business insider.com, C. Cakebread...Mozilla is motivated by compassion. It kindly seeks to lessen the "mental burden" on us when faced with deciding whom should be US president: "The company's researchers examined the news consumption habits of a subset of Firefox users-with their permission-during the period leading up to and after the 2016 election."

Soros convicted felon citation: 6/14/2006, "Soros’ Insider-Trading Conviction Upheld," NY Times Dealbook

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August 2017: 

Aug. 8, 2017, "Journalists to use 'immune system' software against fake news," UK Guardian, Robert Booth

"Full Fact software backed by George Soros and Pierre Omidyar fact-checks statements in parliament and news media in real time."

"Broadcast, print and online journalists are to beginning using an automated fact-checking system that quickly alerts them to false claims made in the press, on TV and in parliament.



An early version of the system, dubbed the “bullshit detector” by its creators, will be rolled out for testing from October as part of a global fightback against fake news. 

It is being developed by researchers at the Full Fact organisation in London with $500,000 (£380,000) of funding from charitable foundations backed by two billionaires: the Hungarian-born investor George Soros, and the Iranian-American eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.

The software, which was demonstrated to the Guardian, scans statements as they are made by politicians and instantly provides a verdict on their veracity. An early version relies on a database of several thousand manual fact-checks, but later versions will automatically access official data to inform the verdict. The researchers are co-operating with the Office of National Statistics on the project.

The Full Fact program will be first tested in the UK but will also be deployed in South America and Africa, where Kenya’s presidential election campaign has been beset by fake news such as bogus BBC and CNN news reports using fabricated polls to overstate the prospects of President Uhuru Kenyatta.

In London, Full Fact is working with Chequeado, an Argentina-based fact-checking organisation, and Africa Check, which operates in several sub-Saharan countries, including Nigeria and South Africa.

“It is like trying to build an immune system,” says Mevan Babakar, project manager at Full Fact in London. “As more information goes out into the world that is wrong, what we don’t have is the means of pushing back against that.”

The early version of the software scans the subtitles of live news programmes, broadcasts of parliament, the Hansard parliamentary record, and articles published by newspapers. It tracks millions of words sentence by sentence until it identifies a claim that appears to match a fact-check already in its database.

The Guardian witnessed a real-time demonstration during a health debate in parliament. Words spoken by the politicians were underlined if they matched an existing fact-check. For example, the claim that “in the last six years of the last Labour government, 25,000 hospital beds were cut” flags a fact-check from the database that states: “Correct, the number of overnight beds in the English NHS actually fell by slightly more – about 26,000 – between 2003-04 and 2009-10”.

Another claim, that 10,000 more NHS nursing training places had been made available is also flagged: “Incorrect. This figure refers to the government’s ambition for additional places by 2020 on nursing, midwifery and child health courses”.

In another version of the software, the fact-checks pop up on the TV screen as politicians are speaking, giving viewers instant verdicts on politicians’ claims. The experience of watching political debate programmes like BBC’s Question Time could be transformed.

The developers want to expand the program so that it carries out its own fact-checks by using databases of statistics and verified information. Work is also under way to give Twitter and Facebook users the chance to fact-check their social media feeds, where the large majority of the worst fake news has been distributed. 

“This is an important investment in the future of fact-checking,” says Stephen King, the Omidyar Network’s global lead on governance and citizen engagement. “These tools will expand the reach and impact of fact-checkers around the world, ensuring citizens are properly informed and those in positions of power are held accountable.

However, Babakar [Full Fact project manager] is keen to stress the limitations of the system so far and believes the tool should only be used by journalists in the first instance rather than the general public. 

“If we go straight to the public it will pit us against people wanting quick answers who won’t be satisfied because we can’t always make the answers small,” she said.It is to help the journalist better push back, for example by challenging politicians at a press conference  rather than going back to their desk and researching the claims. This way you can challenge the claim straight away. That is really important for public debate.”

The fledgling system is not without its problems; sometimes it flags up a fact-check that isn’t relevant, for example. The challenge for the programmers is to get the software to understand the fuzzy logic and idiom used so often in speech.

Neither is Babakar comfortable with the idea that the system separates the true from the false, especially since “fake” has become associated with information people dislike rather than which is objectively false.

“I have a problem with the word truth because that means different things to different people,” said Babakar. “I think things are correct or incorrect. A truth can be personal. People may say crime is rising because it is in their area but the national average may be falling.”

The software’s aim is not to offer people conclusions, but instead provide “the best available evidence”, Babakar says."

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Saturday, April 28, 2018

Caravan people won't be saved by legal aid. Caravan people should fear coming to US because they can be given to human and sex traffickers, forced to work as slaves. US gov. has no ability to prevent this, doesn't keep track of kids, has no way of dealing with so-called sponsors who prevent kids from receiving services-Washington Post, NY Times, Jan. 28, 2016

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Jan. 28, 2016 articles, Washington Post and NY  Times:

1/28/2016, "Obama administration placed children with human traffickers, report says," Washington Post, Abbie Van Sickle  

"The Obama administration failed to protect thousands of Central American children who have flooded across the U.S. border since 2011, leaving them vulnerable to traffickers and to abuses at the hands of government-approved caretakers, a Senate investigation has found.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services, failed to do proper background checks of adults who claimed the children, allowed sponsors to take custody of multiple unrelated children, and regularly placed children in homes without visiting the locations, according to a 56-page investigative report released Thursday.

And once the children left federally funded shelters, the report said, the agency permitted their adult sponsors to prevent caseworkers from providing them post-release services. 


Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) initiated the six-month investigation after several Guatemalan teens were found in a dilapidated trailer park near Marion, Ohio, where they were being held captive by traffickers and forced to work at a local egg farm.

The boys were among more than 125,000 unaccompanied minors who have surged into the United States since 2011, fleeing violence and unrest in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador....

The report concluded that administration “policies and procedures were inadequate to protect the children in the agency’s care.” HHS spokesman Mark Weber said in a statement that the agency would “review the committee’s findings carefully and continue to work to ensure the best care for the children we serve.”

The report was released ahead of a hearing Thursday before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which Portman co-chairs with Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). It detailed nearly 30 cases where unaccompanied children had been trafficked after federal officials released them to sponsors or where there were “serious trafficking indicators.”

“HHS places children with individuals about whom it knows relatively little and without verifying the limited information provided by sponsors about their alleged relationship with the child,” the report said.

For example, one Guatemalan boy planned to live with his uncle in Virginia. But when the uncle refused to take the boy, he ended up with another sponsor, who forced him to work nearly 12 hours a day to repay a $6,500 smuggling debt, which the sponsor later increased to $10,900, the report said. A boy from El Salvador was released to his father even though he told a caseworker that his father had a history of beating him, including hitting him with an electrical cord. In September, the boy alerted authorities that his father was forcing him to work for little or no pay, the report said; a post-release service worker later found the boy was being kept in a basement and given little food.

The Senate investigation began in July after federal prosecutors indicted six people in connection with the Marion labor-trafficking scheme, which involved at least eight minors and two adults from the Huehuetenango region of Guatemala.

One defendant, Aroldo Castillo-Serrano, 33, used associates to file false applications with the government agency tasked with caring for the children, and bring them to Ohio, where he kept them in squalid conditions in a trailer park and forced them to work 12-hour days, at least six days a week, for little pay.

Castillo-Serrano has pleaded guilty to labor-trafficking charges and awaits sentencing in the Northern District of Ohio in Toledo. 

The FBI raided the trailer park in December 2014, rescuing the boys, but the Senate investigation says federal officials could have discovered the scheme far sooner. 

In August 2014, a child-welfare caseworker attempted to visit one of the children, who had been approved for post-release services because of reported mental-health problems, according to the report. 

The caseworker went to the address listed for the child, but the person who answered the door said the child didn’t live there, the report added. When the caseworker finally found the child’s sponsor, the sponsor blocked the caseworker from talking to the child. 

Instead of investigating further, the caseworker closed the child’s case file, the report said, citing “ORR policy which states that the Post Release Services are voluntary and sponsor refused services.” 

That child was found months later, living 50 miles away from the sponsor’s home and working at the egg farm, according to the report. The child’s sponsor was later indicted."

"VanSickle is a reporter for the Investigative Reporting Program, a nonprofit news organization at the University of California at Berkeley."
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Jan. 28, 2016 NY Times article: 
 
"The report also said that it was unclear how many of the approximately 90,000 children the agency had placed in the past two years fell prey to traffickers, including sex traffickers, because it does not keep track of such cases."...

1/28/2016, "U.S. Placed Immigrant Children With Traffickers, Report Says," NY Times,

The Department of Health and Human Services placed more than a dozen immigrant children in the custody of human traffickers after it failed to conduct background checks of caregivers, according to a Senate report released on Thursday.

Examining how the federal agency processes minors who arrive at the border without a guardian, lawmakers said they found that it had not followed basic practices of child welfare agencies, like making home visits.

The Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations opened its inquiry after law enforcement officials uncovered a human trafficking ring in Marion, Ohio, last year (2015). At least six children were lured to the United States from Guatemala with the promise of a better life, then were made to work on egg farms. The children, as young as 14, had been in federal custody before being entrusted to the traffickers....

 In addition to the Marion cases, the investigation found evidence that 13 other children had been trafficked after officials handed them over to adults who were supposed to care for them during their immigration proceedings. An additional 15 cases exhibited some signs of trafficking.

The report also said that it was unclear how many of the approximately 90,000 children the agency had placed in the past two years fell prey to traffickers, including sex traffickers, because it does not keep track of such cases....

In the fall of 2013, thousands of unaccompanied children began showing up at the southern border. Most risked abuse by traffickers and detention by law enforcement to escape dire problems like gang violence and poverty in Central America.

As detention centers struggled to keep up with the influx, the Department of Health and Human Services began placing children in the custody of sponsors who could help them while their immigration cases were reviewed. Many children who did not have relatives in the United States were placed in a system resembling foster care.

But officials at times did not examine whether an adult who claimed to be a relative actually was, relying on the word of parents, who, in some cases, went along with the traffickers to pay off smuggling debts.

 Responding to the report, the Department of Health and Human Services said it had taken measures to strengthen its system, collecting information to subject potential sponsors and additional caregivers in a household to criminal background checks.

 Mark Greenberg, the agency’s acting assistant secretary of the Administration for Children and Families, said it had bolstered other screening procedures and increased resources for minors.

“We are mindful of our responsibilities to these children and are continually looking for ways to strengthen our safeguards,” he said."    

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Translation/comment: This is called "overwhelming the system" and gets predictable results for all concerned, ie misery, poverty, and disease. This is exactly what the entire open borders, globalist US political class has been working toward for decades. American citizens, if they must exist, are enslaved for the purpose of forcing continuous low wages globally. A wink is also given to the world's tyrants and dictators who know they're free to continue their brutal ways, which include forcing out all the people they don't want because US taxpayers will be forced to pay their expenses. US elections are meaningless. George Soros runs the US.
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30 million jobs in the US paying an average of $55,000 yearly don't require bachelor's degrees. Unfortunately for those with bachelors degrees, median earnings were lower in 2015 than 2010 when adjusted for inflation-NPR

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"Tennessee has made its technical colleges free."

4/25/18, "High-Paying Trade Jobs Sit Empty, While High School Grads Line Up For University," npr.org, All Things Considered, Ashley Gross, Jon Marcus

"Like most other American high school students, Garret Morgan had it drummed into him constantly: Go to college. Get a bachelor's degree.

"All through my life it was, 'if you don't go to college you're going to end up on the streets,' " Morgan said. "Everybody's so gung-ho about going to college."

So he tried it for a while. Then he quit and started training as an ironworker, which is what he is doing on a weekday morning in a nondescript high-ceilinged building with a concrete floor in an industrial park near the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Morgan and several other men and women are dressed in work boots, hard hats and Carhartt's, clipped to safety harnesses with heavy wrenches hanging from their belts. They're being timed as they wrestle 600-pound I-beams into place.

Seattle is a forest of construction cranes, and employers are clamoring for skilled ironworkers. Morgan, who is 20, is already working on a job site when he isn't at the Pacific Northwest Ironworkers shop. He gets benefits, including a pension, from employers at the job sites where he is training. And he is earning $28.36 an hour, or more than $50,000 a year, which is almost certain to steadily increase.

As for his friends from high school, "they're still in college," he said with a wry grin. "Someday maybe they'll make as much as me." 

While a shortage of workers is pushing wages higher in the skilled trades, the financial return from a bachelor's degree is softening, even as the price — and the average debt into which it plunges students — keeps going up.

But high school graduates have been so effectively encouraged to get a bachelor's that high-paid jobs requiring shorter and less expensive training are going unfilled. This affects those students and also poses a real threat to the economy.

"Parents want success for their kids," said Mike Clifton, who teaches machining at the Lake Washington Institute of Technology, about 20 miles from Seattle. "They get stuck on [four-year bachelor's degrees], and they're not seeing the shortage there is in tradespeople until they hire a plumber and have to write a check."

In a new report, the Washington State Auditor found that good jobs in the skilled trades are going begging because students are being almost universally steered to bachelor's degrees.

Among other things, the Washington auditor recommended that career guidance — including choices that require less than four years in college — start as early as the seventh grade.

"There is an emphasis on the four-year university track" in high schools, said Chris Cortines, who co-authored the report. Yet, nationwide, three out of 10 high school grads who go to four-year public universities haven't earned degrees within six years, according to the National Student Clearinghouse

At four-year private colleges, that number is more than 1 in 5.

"Being more aware of other types of options may be exactly what they need," Cortines said. In spite of a perception "that college is the sole path for everybody," he said, "when you look at the types of wages that apprenticeships and other career areas pay and the fact that you do not pay four years of tuition and you're paid while you learn, these other paths really need some additional consideration."

And it's not just in Washington state.

Seventy-percent of construction companies nationwide are having trouble finding qualified workers, according to the Associated General Contractors of America; in Washington, the proportion is 80 percent.

There are already more trade jobs like carpentry, electrical, plumbing, sheet-metal work and pipe-fitting than Washingtonians to fill them, the state auditor reports. Many pay more than the state's average annual wage of $54,000.

Construction, along with health care and personal care, will account for one-third of all new jobs through 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There will also be a need for new plumbers and new electricians. And, as politicians debate a massive overhaul of the nation's roads, bridges and airports, the U.S. Department of Education reports that there will be 68 percent more job openings in infrastructure-related fields in the next five years than there are people training to fill them.

"The economy is definitely pushing this issue to the forefront," said Amy Morrison Goings, president of the Lake Washington Institute of Technology, which educates students in these fields. "There isn't a day that goes by that a business doesn't contact the college and ask the faculty who's ready to go to work."

In all, some 30 million jobs in the United States that pay an average of $55,000 per year don't require bachelor's degrees, according to the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce. Yet the march to bachelor's degrees continues. And while people who get them are more likely to be employed and make more money than those who don't, that premium appears to be softening; their median earnings were lower in 2015, when adjusted for inflation, than in 2010.

"There's that perception of the bachelor's degree being the American dream, the best bang for your buck," said Kate Blosveren Kreamer, deputy executive director of Advance CTE, an association of state officials who work in career and technical education. "The challenge is that in many cases it's become the fallback. People are going to college without a plan, without a career in mind, because the mindset in high school is just, 'Go to college.' "

It's not that finding a job in the trades, or even manufacturing, means needing no education after high school. Most regulators and employers require certificates, certifications or associate degrees. But those cost less and take less time than earning a bachelor's degree. Tuition and fees for in-state students to attend a community or technical college in Washington State, for example, come to less than half the cost of a four-year public university, the state auditor points out, and less than a tenth of the price of attending a private four-year college.

People with career and technical educations are also more likely to be employed than their counterparts with academic credentials, the U.S. Department of Education reports, and significantly more likely to be working in their fields of study.

Young people don't seem to be getting that message. The proportion of high school students who earned three or more credits in occupational education — typically an indication that they're interested in careers in the skilled trades — has fallen from 1 in 4 in 1990 to 1 in 5 now, according to the U.S. Department of Education. 

Washington is not the only state devoting attention to this. 

California is spending $200 million to improve the delivery of career and technical education. Iowa community colleges and businesses are collaborating to increase the number of "work-related learning opportunities," including apprenticeships, job shadowing and internships. Tennessee has made its technical colleges free.

So severe are looming shortages of workers in the skilled trades in Michigan that Gov. Rick Snyder in February announced a $100 million proposal he likens to the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe after World War II.

At the federal level, there is bipartisan support for making Pell grants available for short-term job-training courses and not just university tuition. The Trump administration supports the idea.

 

A quarter of states last year reduced their own funding for postsecondary career and technical education, according to the National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education.

The branding issue

Money isn't the only issue, advocates for career and technical education say. An even bigger challenge is convincing parents that it leads to good jobs.
 
"They remember 'voc-ed' from what they were in high school, which is not necessarily what they aspire to for their own kids," Kreamer said.

The parents "are definitely harder to convince because there is that stigma of the six-pack-totin' ironworker," said Greg Christiansen, who runs the ironworkers training program. Added Kairie Pierce, apprenticeship and college director for the Washington State Labor Council of the AFL-CIO: 

"It sort of has this connotation of being a dirty job. 'It's hard work — I want something better for my son or daughter.'"

Of the $200 million that California is spending on vocational education, $6 million is going into a campaign to improve the way people regard it. The Lake Washington Institute of Technology changed its name from Lake Washington Technical College, said Goings, its president, to avoid being stereotyped as a vocational school.

These perceptions fuel the worry that, if students are urged as early as the seventh grade to consider the trades, then low-income, first-generation and ethnic and racial minority high school students will be channeled into blue-collar jobs while wealthier and white classmates are pushed by their parents to get bachelor's degrees....

In a quest for prestige and rankings, and to bolster real-estate values, high schools also like to emphasize the number of their graduates who go on to four-year colleges and universities.

Jessica Bruce followed that path, enrolling in college after high school for one main reason: because she was recruited to play fast-pitch softball. "I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life," she said.

She never earned her degree and now, she's an apprentice ironworker, making $32.42 an hour, or more than $60,000 a year, while continuing her training. At 5-foot-2, "I can run with the big boys," she said, laughing.

As for whether anyone looks down on her for not having a bachelor's degree, Bruce doesn't particularly care.

"The misconception," she said, "is that we don't make as much money." And then she laughed again."


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