Saturday, November 28, 2015

Globe Cassette Tape

I rewound it for you:

Cassette tapes are having an unlikely moment

Sorry, but I couldn't hear a thing.

Related: A Globe Thanksgiving

Second Day Leftovers (seeing as I'm rewinding; better smell them first):

"Somber and defiant, France honors dead; President promises to avenge killing of 130 in Paris attacks" by Lori Hinnant Associated Press  November 27, 2015

PARIS — With each name and age read aloud inside the Invalides national monument, the toll gained new force. Most, as French President Francois Hollande noted, were killed while enjoying a mild Friday night of music, food, drinks, or sports.

France’s somber homage to the victims bespoke the horrors of Nov. 13.

See: Saying Farewell to the French False Flag Coverage

Throughout Paris, French flags fluttered in windows and on buses in uncharacteristic displays of patriotism in response to Paris’s second deadly terror attack this year. The mood was grim, and the locked-down ceremony at the Invalides national monument lacked the defiance of January, when a million people poured through the streets to honor those killed by Islamic extremist gunmen. 

See: Finishing Friday With the French False Flag 

All fakes, it looks like.

Hollande, who in January locked arms with world leaders in a show of global unity against terrorism, sat alone in a hard-backed chair in the cavernous Invalides courtyard, the assembled mourners behind him as victims’ names were recited. France’s military provided the only images of Friday’s ceremony, and no one without an invitation was permitted inside. 

Related: The Truth "Behind" The Charlie Hebdo Solidarity Photo-Op 

More like photo-SHOP!

The night of Nov. 13, three teams of suicide bombers and gunmen struck across Paris, beginning at the national stadium — where Hollande was among the spectators — and ending in the storming of the Bataclan concert venue. In all, 130 people died and hundreds were injured.

In the midst of all the security being set up for the climate puke conference.

Hollande imposed a national state of emergency hours after the attacks, allowing wide extrajudicial powers including warrantless searches and house arrest. The government said it was temporarily pulling out of the European Convention on Human Rights, and some activists have expressed concerns about indiscriminate police roundups.

Paris’s administrative court ruled against two men on Friday — one of whom was convicted of sending jihadis to Mali — who had contested their house arrest.

Meanwhile, in Belgium, authorities charged a man with ‘‘terrorist attacks’’ as investigators worked to home in on culprits. The federal prosecutor’s office said the man was arrested a day earlier in Brussels and was ‘‘charged with terrorist attacks and taking part in the activities of a terrorist group.’’ He was not identified and it was not immediately clear if he was one of two fugitives authorities have been seeking....

At least some elements of normalcy have returned.

--more--"

Looks like it will be beef (with $ide of bullshit) for Thanksgiving next year. I see the Turkey has been left to twist in the wind.

Carson travels to meet refugees

Of more important note there: "Donald Trump accused Serge Kovaleski of The New York Times of backing off a story from a week after the attacks that said authorities in New Jersey detained and questioned ‘‘a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks.’’

Meaning Trump knows about the dancing Israelis who were there to "document" the event. 

He better be careful or he will commit political suicide and end up in a Kenyan slum.

Poland will not extradite Roman Polanski to the US

Polanski was accused of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl during a modeling session at Jack Nicholson's home in 1977.

It's one of Hollywood's most closely guarded secrets.

Boston police investigating alleged confrontation involving Jahlil Okafor

N.H. man arrested for 2 Andover break-ins

Two charged in ‘vicious’ North Reading attack

Plan for Station nightclub memorial advances

Police cite bar near where rail conductor was fatally shot

The Globe has gone soft on crime. Must be the Good Life.

Must read: Thanksgiving Day... 2015

Third Day Leftovers:

Last Straw for GOP Supporters of Trump? »

Chris Christie Scores Coveted Endorsement

Wellesley was a ‘touchstone’ for Clinton

Clinton to unveil large economic spending proposal in Boston

It's the same swirling steamer we have been hearing for years, just reheated.

Ben Carson says Syrian refugees should stay in Middle East

Advisers have conceded his foreign policy fluency isn’t where it needs to be and expressed hope missions like his two-day trip to Jordan will help change that.

Here is his top adviser:

"Duane R. Clarridge, a former CIA agent  is a colorful, even legendary figure in intelligence circles, someone who could have stepped out of a Hollywood thriller. He was a longtime CIA officer, serving undercover in India, Turkey, Italy and other countries. During the Reagan administration, he helped found the agency’s Counterterrorism Center and ran the CIA’s Latin American division. Indicted on charges of lying to Congress in the Iran-Contra scandal (he was later pardoned), Clarridge today runs a private network of intelligence sources." 

He is an Iran-Contra criminal scum, and we don't need any more of those.

"Republicans’ rhetoric on Muslims seen as having little cost" by Rachel Zoll and Adam Geller Associated Press  November 28, 2015

I've heard this already.

Some leading Republican presidential candidates seem to view Muslims as fair game for increasingly harsh words they might use with more caution against any other group for fear of the political cost. So far, that strategy is winning support from conservatives influential in picking the nominee.

Many Republicans are heartened by strong rhetoric addressing what they view as a threat to national security by Islam itself, analysts say. Because Muslims are a small voting bloc, the candidates see limited fallout from what they are saying in the campaign.

As opposed to the 2% Zionist Lobby that has outsized influence in both parties.

“I think this issue exists on its own island,” said Steve Schmidt, a Republican political consultant who ran Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. “It’s highly unlikely to cause a political penalty, and there is no evidence that it has.”

Since the attacks that killed 130 people in Paris, GOP front-runner Donald Trump has said he wants to register all Muslims in the United States and surveil American mosques. He has repeated unsubstantiated claims that Muslim-Americans in New Jersey celebrated by the “thousands” when the World Trade Center was destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001.

“Donald Trump is already very well known for being brash and outspoken and is appealing to a group of people — a minority of American voters, but a large minority — who seem to like that kind of tough talk,” said John Green, director of the Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron.

Related(?): Obama Has Destroyed the Democratic Party

Rival Ben Carson said allowing Syrian refugees into the United States would be akin to exposing a neighborhood to a “rabid dog.” Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said, “I’d like for Barack Obama to resign if he’s not going to protect America and instead protect the image of Islam.”

Such statements appeal to Republicans who think Obama and Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, have not done enough to fight jihadis, Green said. The sentiment also plays well for evangelicals concerned about violence directed at Christians in the Middle East and angered about restrictions their missionaries face in predominantly Muslim countries.

“There’s a religious undercurrent here, aside from foreign policy issues,” Green said.

Other inflammatory rhetoric from the Trump and Carson campaigns has generated far different reactions.

When Trump announced his campaign, he said Mexican immigrants are “bringing crime. They’re rapists.” He was widely denounced. Polls find Latinos strongly disapprove of his candidacy and his remarks alienated other immigrant groups.

The potency of comments criticizing Muslims was apparent even before recent attacks by extremists in France, Lebanon, and Egypt.

Carson’s campaign reported strong fund-raising and more than 100,000 new Facebook friends in the 24 hours after he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in September, “I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation.”

Campaign manager Barry Bennett said, “While the left wing is huffing and puffing over it, Republican primary voters are with us at least 80-20.”

“People in Iowa particularly, are like, ‘Yeah! We’re not going to vote for a Muslim either,’ ” Bennett said at the time. “I don’t mind the hubbub. It’s not hurting us, that’s for sure.”

A "debate" based on false premises and pre$$-driven prejudice, great!

According to a 2014 poll by the Pew Research Center, Republicans view Muslims more negatively than they do any other religious group, and significantly worse than do Democrats. A different Pew poll last year found that 82 percent of Republicans were “very concerned” about the rise of Islamic extremism, compared with 51 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of independents.

Today, 84 percent of Republicans disapprove of taking in Syrian refugees, most of whom are Muslims, compared with 40 percent of Democrats and 58 percent of independents, according to a Gallup poll released just before Thanksgiving.

Looks like the vast majority of Americans don't want them here, despite what I was told.

That is where my print copy ended.

In recent years, Americans’ attitudes toward Islam and Muslims have been relatively stable following terrorist attacks. But opposition jumped in the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq and around major elections. To Dalia Mogahed, research director for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding and former executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, those are signs that “the public was being manipulated” by politicians with agendas. 

I can see why the pre$$ cut that!

After the Sept. 11 attacks, when President George W. Bush visited a Washington mosque and said “Islam is peace,” public opinion of the faith actually improved, she said. But the absence of such a leader has created a clear path for candidates who oppose Islam. 

Yeah, George W. Bush was a man of peace, yup, and look at the way the Jewi$h War Pre$$ is lumping all Muslims together as the candidates "oppose Islam!"

“They’ve now latched onto Muslims as an easy target with no consequences,” Mogahed said. “We’ve really moved the threshold of what is socially acceptable.”

Singling out Muslims is not new.

Before the 2012 presidential election, Republican candidate Newt Gingrich called for a federal ban on Islamic law and said Muslims could hold public office in the US if ‘‘the person would commit in public to give up Shariah.’’ Huckabee, then considering a presidential run, called Islam ‘‘the antithesis of the gospel of Christ.’’

But candidates at the top of the field stayed away from such rhetoric.

‘‘The kind of things that Donald Trump and Ben Carson are saying today are things that Mitt Romney would have never said,’’ said Farid Senzai, a political scientist at Santa Clara University. Romney was the Republican nominee in 2012. 

He will be drafted as the nominee. Saw it here first!

Criticism of Muslims is hardly limited to presidential campaigns. In recent years, there have been ads by anti-Muslim groups and well-organized campaigns against the building of mosques, along with pressure on state legislatures to ban Shariah law. 

JWho was behind them?

‘‘All of these things — built up over more than a decade by a few very vocal people — have created a climate in which it is not just acceptable for politicians to play to our basest instincts, but perhaps politically expedient,’’ Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, said in an email

What chutzpah!

The intensity of the rhetoric is partly a symptom of the large field of GOP candidates, all trying to stake out ground to prove themselves as the most patriotic and toughest on national security, said Charles Dunn, former dean of the school of government at Regent University, which was founded by Pat Robertson, an evangelist and one-time GOP presidential candidate.

‘‘The tone is much more strident now, much less forgiving,’’ Dunn said.

American Muslims make up just under 1 percent of the US population, Pew estimates. They come from many different backgrounds and are widely dispersed, limiting their political influence, Green said.

The Muslim Public Affairs Council, a policy and advocacy group based in Los Angeles, sent letters in October to all the presidential candidates asking them to attend the organization’s public policy forum. The candidates either did not respond or declined, council spokeswoman Rabiah Ahmed said.

“Over the last 10 years, the political and civic organizations for US Muslims have become much better organized, but I think their voice is still fairly muted,” Green said. 

As opposed to that other group.

Even so, some observers say the verbal attacks risk alienating larger segments of voters, particularly other immigrants worried they could be next. 

They weren't voting Republican anyway, which is why Democrats need to go after the angry white man vote.

Suhail Khan, who worked in a number of posts in George W. Bush’s administration and has decried criticism by Republican politicians of fellow Muslims, said: “There’s no doubt that when specific candidates, in this case Dr. Carson and Mr. Trump, think that they can narrowly attack one specific group, other Americans of various faiths and backgrounds are paying attention.”

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"Russian leader Vladimir Putin orders sanctions against Turkey" by Suzan Fraser and Jim Heintz Associated Press  November 28, 2015

ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan voiced regret over the incident, saying his country was “truly saddened” by the event and wished it hadn’t occurred. 

Of course, he would do it again in an instant. 

I've come to the unfortunate conclusions that most bloggers have come to these days: Erdogan is a pos.

“We are truly saddened by this incident,” Erdogan said. “We wish it hadn’t happened as such, but unfortunately such a thing has happened. I hope that something like this doesn’t occur again.”

Erdogan said neither country should allow the incident to escalate and take a destructive form that would lead to “saddening consequences.”

He renewed a call for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of a climate conference in Paris next week, saying it would be an opportunity to overcome tensions.

If I were Putin I wouldn't meet with him, and there is no more fear in France.

Related: France Shutting Down Prepaid Debt Cards

I suppose the "terrorists" will simply use cash then.

Erdogan’s friendly overture however, came after he again vigorously defended Turkey’s action and criticized Russia for its operations in Syria.

Meaning it was not a heartfelt apology if it was one at all.

“If we allow our sovereign rights to be violated . . . then the territory would no longer be our territory,” Erdogan said.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu also said he hoped a meeting between Erdogan and Putin would take place in Paris.

“In such situations it is important to keep the channels of communication open,” he said.

Putin has denounced the Turkish action as a ‘‘treacherous stab in the back,’’ and has insisted that the plane was downed over Syrian territory in violation of international law. He has also refused to take telephone calls from Erdogan. Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said Friday that the Kremlin had received Erdogan’s request for a meeting, but wouldn’t say whether such a meeting is possible.

Asked why Putin hasn’t picked up the phone to respond to Erdogan’s two phone calls, he said that ‘‘we have seen that the Turkish side hasn’t been ready to offer an elementary apology over the plane incident.’’

After the incident, Russia deployed long-range S-400 air defense missile systems to a Russian air base in Syria just 30 miles south of the border with Turkey to help protect Russian warplanes, and the Russian military warned it would shoot down any aerial target that would pose a potential threat to its planes....

--more--"

Related: Turkey - A Rogue State? 

No. They were doing what NATO wanted and were then double-crossed by them. Doesn't absolve Erdogan at all.

Also see: Why is the US Hanging Turkey Out to Dry?

Russian Roulette/ Erdogan's Oily Revenge?