kscarbel2

Yes, of course you are quite right. However, I feel that our local, state and federal authorities are all on the same team......the American team. And you see that, from Oklahoma City to 911. Inherently by the woven fabric of our government, they must and do work together.

Rudy Giuliani fought federal government to defend illegal immigrants as NYC mayor CNN / November 16, 2016 Rudy Giuliani has a long record of defending and advocating for illegal immigrants as mayor of New York City. His past positions are at odds with Trump's plan to end so-called sanctuary cities and deport millions of undocumented immigrants. Giuliani is under consideration to join Trump's administration as secretary of state or attorney general. Giuliani prefers secretary of state. Either role would give Giuliani a hand in federal immigration policy. As New York City mayor, Giuliani praised the contribution illegal immigrants made to the city and went to court to protect them from being reported to the federal government. "Some of the hardest-working and most productive people in this city are undocumented [illegal] aliens," Giuliani said at a 1994 press conference. "If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented [illegal] status, you're one of the people who we want in this city. You're somebody that we want to protect, and we want you to get out from under what is often a life of being like a fugitive, which is really unfair." Appearing on WABC in 2001, Giuliani said, "The city of New York, quite frankly, is quite tolerant of undocumented [illegal] immigration and this shouldn't surprise you because I've been the mayor for a long time and outspoken on this issue, even nationally, I happen to agree with that." "I think New York City should not deal with undocumented [illegal] immigrants in a harsh way. I think they make a big contribution to the life of the city and were much better off being sensible and practical about it," he continued. "And the reality is that restaurants are going to have a certain number of people who are undocumented [illegal], you know people that come here to make a living trying to help themselves and their families." In 1996, Giuliani sued the federal government over a provision in a welfare law that said any city or state employees could not be prevented from reporting someone's immigration status to the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service. Giuliani argued at the time that the provision was a direct attack on New York City's Executive Order 124, which prohibited city employees from reporting the immigration status of an illegal immigrant unless they were suspected of a crime. The court ruled against Giuliani. "For those who may not know, 'Executive Order 124' is New York City's policy regarding undocumented [illegal] immigrants," said Giuliani in an October 1996 statement. "This order was issued seven years ago by Mayor Ed Koch and then later reissued by Mayor Dinkins and then by me. 'Executive Order 124' protects undocumented [illegal] immigrants in New York City from being reported to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service while they are using City services that are crucial for their health and safety, and critical for the health and safety of the entire city. I know 'Executive Order 124' offends some people. They ask, 'Why should we pay to provide services for illegal immigrants?' The answer is it's not only to protect them, but to protect the rest of society, as well." In a speech at Harvard around the same time in 1996, Giuliani forcefully argued for the city's right to "protect the health and well being of our city" by shielding illegal immigrants from the federal government. "The Tenth Amendment provides that 'The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people,'" said the mayor in a speech at Harvard shortly before filing suit. "One right not granted to the federal government is the right of state and local governments to provide for the health and safety of their local communities. This right is generally described as 'the police power.' When Ed Koch signed 'Executive Order 124' it was a classic example of New York City's police power being used to protect the health and well being of our city." "Most likely, the federal government will reply that controlling immigration is one of their core functions. But this is a disingenuous argument [???]," he continued. "The federal government will be forced to argue that it has to treat undocumented [illegal] immigrants unfairly in order to discourage others from coming here [???]. Attempting to control immigration by creating a disincentive for a woman to report to the police that she has been beaten up by her husband is a very weak argument. And it's a horrible position for the federal government to take."

Scavengers hurt diving industry New Straights Times / October 26, 2015 The future of recreational wreck diving appears bleak with the damage caused to shipwrecks by illegal salvage operators, who cannibalize sunken wrecks on the seabed off Pulau Tioman, Pahang. Efforts must be made to preserve the shipwrecks, which comprised warships, submarines, super tankers and freighters, in Malaysian waters, urged the diving fraternity. B&J Diving Centre Sdn Bhd managing director Zainal Rahman Karim said it was a shame that sunken ships with a historical significance were disappearing. He said the country’s underwater sites that had heritage value drew a large number of tourists, who would go on liveaboard diving cruises and day-trip explorations to such sites. “It is bad news when divers say shipwrecks in Malaysia are being blown apart. “The popularity of the sites is declining. How would the survivors feel when they hear that the ships they served on during World War 2 are being torn apart?” He said the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse Survivors Association and the next of kin of those who died in the war were concerned about the damage to the sunken ships. He said they hoped that the authorities would act swiftly to stop the further demolition of the shipwrecks. “The shipwrecks are big attractions and an icon for technical diving enthusiasts.” Zainal, better known as Ben among those in the diving community, said although the sites of the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse wrecks were referred to as “war graves”, they were not legally war graves. He said the activities of illegal salvage operators were uncovered when they looted several sunken Japanese ships off Penang and in the Straits of Malacca last year. He said the scavengers then moved their operations to the South China Sea and Java Sea off Indonesia, following reports of their activities. “If all shipwrecks with a historical significance are protected, no one can remove anything from the country’s seabed. Our concern is that the sunken ships will be removed within the next few years.” Zainal, who has more than 25 years of diving experience, said scavengers had removed the massive propellers of HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales. He said each propeller blade was worth more than SG$25,000 (RM77,000). He said the salvage operators ran as syndicates and had a proper understanding of the location of each sunken ship. “The syndicates include dive crew and crane operators, who would take up any job as long as they are promised lucrative returns.” Zainal said the explosives used to blow up the sunken ships posed a threat to marine life. The director of a Singapore-based diving company, David Liu, said he had, on numerous occasions, tried to curb illegal scavenging. “I am prepared to work with the authorities to find a solution to the problem.” He said he had risked his life to preserve shipwrecks by taking divers to the site of HMS Repulse to place memorial flags. However, he was caught by Malaysian authorities during a diving trip this year and consequently, spent 29 hours in detention. Liu said British families visited the sites every year to perform simple rituals, such as laying flowers, cleaning the Union Jack flag and conducting services in memory of their loved ones, who had served as crewmen on board the ships.

American and British second world war shipwrecks in Java Sea destroyed by illegal scavenging The Guardian / November 16, 2016 Three British ships and a US submarine that sank in the Java Sea during the second world war have been destroyed by illegal scrap metal scavengers, the Guardian can reveal. The UK’s Ministry of Defence said it condemned the “unauthorised disturbance of any wreck containing human remains” and requested Indonesian authorities investigate and take “appropriate action”. The commercial salvaging of war wrecks has caused significant upset among veterans, historians and governments who want to preserve the final resting place of sailors who went down with their ships. A preliminary report from an expedition to document sunken ships, seen by the Guardian, shows that the wrecks of HMS Exeter, a 175m heavy cruiser, and destroyer HMS Encounter have been almost totally removed. Using equipment that creates a 3D map of the sea floor, the report showed that where the wreck “was once located there is a large ‘hole’ in the seabed”. A 100-meter long destroyer, HMS Electra, had also been scavenged, the report found, although a “sizeable section” of the wreck remained. The 91-meter long US submarine Perch (SS-176, an "S Boat"), whose entire crew were captured by the Japanese, had been totally removed, the report said. All four sank during operations in the Java Sea in 1942, when Japanese forces overpowered Dutch, British, American and Australian sailors. The battle was one of the costliest sea skirmishes for the allies during the war and led to the Japanese occupation of the entire Dutch East Indies. The Ministry of Defence said in a statement that the British government had contacted Indonesian authorities to express “serious concern” and request they investigate and take “appropriate action to protect the sites from any further disturbance. “Many lives were lost during this battle and we would expect that these sites are respected and left undisturbed without the express consent of the United Kingdom. “It is British Government policy that our military wrecks are offered appropriate protection and management,” it said. The news comes after the Netherlands defence ministry said this week that it had launched an investigation into the disappearance of three of its own shipwrecks, also in the Java Sea. “The desecration of a war grave is a serious offence,” it said in a statement. That announcement appears to be based on the same preliminary report, which also mapped empty space where HNLMS De Ruyter, HNLMS Java, and HNLMS Kortenaer used to be. The expedition had been sent to the Java Sea this month to take video footage of the underwater Dutch ships in advance of next year’s 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Java Sea. Some 900 Dutch sailors died in the battle, including Rear Admiral Karel Doorman, a war hero in the Netherlands. Divers were planning to put a plaque on the vessels, which were located in 2002 – only to discover that they had vanished. The story has caused outrage in the Netherlands, with De Telegraaf newspaper putting the story on the front page on Wednesday under the headline: “Mystery in the Java sea.” When the crew found the three Dutch vessels had essentially been removed, they decided to broaden the scope of the mission to examine other wrecks, the Guardian understands. The British embassy in Jakarta was informed last week. Andy Brockman, an archaeologist and researcher in maritime crime, said the UK government had not done enough to stop undersea looting. “My feeling is that the Ministry of Defence files the issue of taking active steps to protect historic Royal Navy wrecks under the heading of too difficult and too expensive,” he said. “However, I think it is becoming ever more clear that this attitude is not acceptable to the wider public, not least to veterans and their families. “This latest example of commercially driven damage to what are maritime military graves should be a spur to international action, led by the governments of Britain, Australia, the Netherlands and the USA, over two thousand of whose sailors lie in the Java sea.” In the ministry’s statement, it said that “given the vast locations of Royal Navy wrecks around the world, that there are limitations on what protection we can provide, but we will continue to work with regional governments and partners to prevent inappropriate activity on the wrecks of Royal Navy vessels. “Where we have evidence of desecration of these sites, we will take appropriate action,” it added. Exeter had a crew of around 700 men, most of whom were rescued by the Japanese to become prisoners of war. The Ministry of Defence said 54 men died when it sank. Encounter and Electra both had crews of 145 men, although they were significantly overloaded with sailors rescued from other ships sunk in the Java Sea. Eight men died on Encounter before it sank. Most of Electra’s crew are believed to have been killed. Crews posing as fishermen and using long rubber hoses to stay underwater for hours have scavenged the waters around Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia, locating the wrecks and stealing parts, including steel, aluminium and brass. The potential worth of metal-built shipwrecks is estimated at hundreds of thousands of pounds. Some of the propellors, often the first items to be stolen, are made of phosphor bronze scrap metal, valued at over £2,000 per tonne. Brockman said the wrecks were the property of the flag state in which they were registered. Under the international salvage convention it is illegal to remove scrap without official permission, he added. He said: “It’s like a cottage industry, apart from the fact the illicit salvage boats are dealing with substantial wrecks. Basically they use explosives and grabs to rip things apart. You get basis steel. In a single engine room you have a lot of non-ferrous metals, copper and brass, which have a premium on the scrap metal market.” Last year the Malaysian navy spotted a vessel near the site of second world war shipwrecks and arrested 17 Vietnamese crewmen. Several other men were underwater removing parts. In a separate incident, a Vietnamese crew was caught with iron cutters and a crane. In 2014, the wrecks of the HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales and the resting place of more than 800 Royal Navy sailors off the coast of Malaysia were found to have been damaged by scavengers. And when divers found that Australia’s HMAS Perth, also sunk by the Japanese in 1942, had been salvaged, Canberra was accused of trying to keep the news secret to avoid any potential diplomatic fallout between between Australia and Indonesia. The US military has also sent several delegations to Indonesia to try to protect its wreck sites. The Ministry of Defence has been accused of not doing enough following allegations that some of the 25 ships sunk in the North Sea battle are being torn apart. There has also been extensive scavenging of both German and British vessels sunk in the first world war during the battle of Jutland. The war graves commission said on Wednesday that the wrecks were not formally designated as war graves. It said the 386 servicemen who died in the battle were commemorated on memorials in the UK. The figure includes those were rescued and who died in Japanese captivity. Brockman described the battle in the Java sea as “not much known”, and said it was a crushing defeat for British, Australian, American and Dutch forces. A squadron of ships from the four nations was hastily assembled, he said, under the command of Rear Admiral Doorman. He added: “Effectively it was a shambles. They had never trained together and their equipment was incompatible. They were basically massacred. They were trying to get back towards Ceylon in the face of the Japanese invasion. “They ran into a crack Japanese cruiser squadron which outgunned and outmatched them and was trained in night fighting. All the vessels involved were sunk in one-and-a-half days. The wrecks are spread over the whole area of the Sunda straight [between the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra].” ‘I shall never forget the sight of Exeter going’ Lt Cmdr George Cooper wrote this account of HMS Exeter’s last action, which appeared in War Illustrated in 1946 For some unaccountable reason it was considered at headquarters that our best means of escape lay through the Sunda Strait to the westward, whereas the chances of doing this successfully were very remote in such enclosed waters. It would have seemed wiser to get away to the eastward towards Australia, as a chase in this direction would have drawn the enemy away from his fuelling bases, which he could not easily afford. The following morning, Sunday, March lst, 1942, at 7.30, we sighted the topmasts of two Japanese heavy cruisers and turned south until they were out of sight, when we resumed our westward course. At 9.30, we sighted them again to starboard with a large destroyer, and shortly afterwards two smaller cruisers with five destroyers appeared on the port side. We turned to the eastward with our escorting destroyers, the British Encounter and the American Pope, to put the enemy astern. For two hours we had a running fight with them. They straddled us many times but never hit us until at 11.30 one shell penetrated the boiler room. It was a shot in a million as it cut our one remaining main steam pipe. The ship just came to a stop in all departments. The main engines stopped through lack of steam. The dynamos stopped. The turrets were motionless on different bearings. The steering failed. The inside became full of smoke as escaping oil fuel in the forward boiler room burst into flames. There was nothing we could do except sink her. So the magazine valves were opened. The condenser inlets were allowed to flood the engine room, and watertight doors usually kept closed were opened. A pretty good inferno was going on down below as the fire spread. She started to list slightly to port, pouring black smoke out of her funnels. I thought she looked defiant, like a stag at bay. Men were cutting down carley floats and flotanets, casting timber adrift, turning out boats. The Japanese were starting to hit us now as the range closed in. The after superstructure caught fire and the whine of projectiles sounded like the Ride of the Valkyries. She was getting lower in the water and heeling more. The inside had been completely evacuated; no one could live down there. At the bottom of the ladder leading to the upper deck were a lot of people, all quite calm. She was very nearly stopped, and men were leaving in dribs and drabs. As they went they drifted away astern. Then I climbed over the side and jumped into the water. A little later, a destroyer closing on the starboard beam fired a torpedo. It was a good shot as it hit her right amidships. The old dear shuddered a bit. She seemed to shake herself from bow to stern. She must have had very little positive buoyancy left as she went right over to starboard until her funnels and masts were horizontal. Then, heaving herself up in a final act of defiance, she disappeared in a swirl of water, smoke and steam. I had never seen a ship sink in day time before. I had seen twelve ships sunk in a convoy in the Atlantic one wild night in October 1940. One of these I saw break in half and the two halves rear up in the air and disappear in twenty seconds. But darkness had spared me the most terrible sight for any sailor – a ship’s final lurch below the waves when the ocean floods inside and gets her down forever. So I shall never forget the sight of Exeter going. It did not seem real. We had lived in that ship for a year. We had our cabins and messdecks there, all our private belongings and treasures, mementos of home, books, photographs.I remember throwing my large Barr and Stroud binoculars on the deck before I went over the side. What a waste, I thought, yet a bagatelle compared to the loss of a fine 8-inch cruiser with a score that included the Graf Spee off the River Plate. Anyhow, we all gave her three cheers as she went. You could hear the faint cheers rippling over the water.” .

Mystery as wrecks of three Dutch WWII ships vanish from Java seabed The Guardian / November 16, 2016 An international investigation has been launched into the mysterious disappearance of three Dutch second world war shipwrecks which have vanished from the bottom of the Java Sea off the coast of Indonesia. The Netherlands defence ministry has confirmed that the wrecks of two of its warships that sank in 1942 have completely gone, while large parts of a third are also missing. The wrecks were first found intact by amateur divers in 2002. But a new expedition to mark next year’s 75th anniversary of the Battle of the Java Sea discovered the ships were missing. While sonar shows the imprints of the wrecks on the ocean floor, the ships themselves are no longer there. The ministry said in a statement: “The wrecks of HNLMS De Ruyter and HNLMS Java have seemingly gone completely missing. A large piece is also missing of HNLMS Kortenaer.” All three ships sank during the Battle of the Java Sea, which turned out to be a disastrous defeat for Dutch, British, American and Australian sailors by Japanese forces in February 1942. It was one of the costliest sea battles of the war and led to the Japanese occupation of the entire Dutch East Indies. About 2,200 people died, including 900 Dutch nationals and 250 people of Indonesian Dutch origin, and the wrecks have been declared a sacred war grave. “An investigation has been launched to see what has happened to the wrecks, while the cabinet has been informed,” the defence ministry said. “The desecration of a war grave is a serious offence,” it added, suggesting the wrecks may have been illegally salvaged. The seas around Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia are a graveyard for more than 100 ships and submarines sunk during the war. For years, scavengers have surreptitiously located the wrecks and stolen parts, including steel, aluminium and brass. A recreational diving school in Malaysia told the New Straits Times last year that shipwrecks were being blown apart by with explosives by people posing as fishermen before their metal is removed. The US military found two years ago that there had been an “unauthorised disturbance of the grave site” of the USS Houston, which sank in the Battle of Sunda Strait, also in the Java Sea. It is the grave for nearly 650 sailors and marines. [What was our response???] Theo Vleugels, director of the Dutch War Graves Foundation, told the ANP news agency: “The people who died there should be left in peace.” .

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A city mayor as an elected official has a moral obligation, if not a legal one, to uphold our nation's laws.........all of them, at all times. Any mayor who refused to support and/or ignores our nation's immigration laws should be promptly removed. Entering and existing in the United States illegally is a crime. Anyone who does so should be immediately deported, and as a penalty, prevented from ever entering again (That sends a message that we take our laws seriously). The requirement to enter a country legally, under both immigrant and non-immigrant status (visitor), is a global norm. I'm tired of the pro-amnesty people saying the illegals are in the US because of a broken immigration system. What a farce. That couldn't be farther from the truth. I have an intimate knowledge of our immigration system. It's on par with other countries in the world, it is reasonable and performs well. The problem began when select foreigners decided to illegally enter the United States.........that is the problem........not our immigration system. We need to enforce our current laws, sending a message, as Australia has, that the United States has a zero tolerance policy on illegal immigration.

CNN / November 15, 2016 Retiring Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer is set to introduce a Senate bill that aims to end the Electoral College. Boxer announced in a statement on Tuesday that the bill, which she planned to introduce later Tuesday afternoon, would determine the winner of presidential elections by the outcome of the popular vote. She cited President-elect Donald Trump's victory in the Electoral College despite Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's apparent popular vote advantage. "In my lifetime, I have seen two elections where the winner of the general election did not win the popular vote," said Boxer. "The Electoral College is an outdated, undemocratic system that does not reflect our modern society, and it needs to change immediately. Every American should be guaranteed that their vote counts." The presidency is the only office where you can get more votes & still lose. It's time to end the Electoral College. — Sen. Barbara Boxer (@SenatorBoxer) November 15, 2016 "In 2012, Donald Trump tweeted, 'The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy,' " Boxer added. "I couldn't agree more. One person, one vote!" According to the election results as of Tuesday, Clinton won 61,329,657 votes and Trump won 60,530,867. This is the fifth time in history that a nominee has won the popular vote but not the Electoral College.

Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross shortlisted for top economic roles The Financial Times / November 15, 2016 Trump signals he plans to pursue pro-growth and business friendly economic policy US President-elect Donald Trump is sending another strong signal that he plans to take a pro-growth and business friendly approach to economic policy, with leading New York investors Steve Mnuchin and Wilbur Ross on his short list for Treasury and Commerce secretary. The pair on Tuesday won the endorsement of billionaire investor and Trump backer Carl Icahn who announced after speaking with Trump that they were in the running for the top economic roles. “Both would be great choices,” Icahn said. “Both are good friends of mine but, more importantly, they are two of the smartest people I know.” Both men are pragmatists and free marketeers who would focus on ways to unleash US growth through business-friendly policies. Mnuchin, a 17-year veteran of Goldman Sachs who served as the Trump campaign’s chief fundraiser, is chairman of Dune Capital Management and Dune Entertainment Partners and a longtime business associate of Trump. The softly-spoken Ross is a private equity investor with a long history of striking deals around the world. He served as a senior economic adviser to the Trump campaign and was one of the main public articulators of his trade policy. Ross said the top economic priorities for a Trump administration would be encouraging infrastructure investment, the repatriation of profits parked overseas by US multinationals and corporate tax cuts and other measures to encourage investment. Among those is a plan designed to make it easier for companies to write off capital expenditures, much as they can now write off the interest they pay on debt, though not both at the same time. “We are tying to spur more investment. The big lagging thing in our economy has been shrinkage of gross private sector investment. I think it is one of the reasons why [US] productivity gains have not been so strong [in recent years],” Ross said. Low investment and bad trade agreements were in fact the two biggest things holding back the US economy, he said. But Ross also rejected the charge that a Trump administration would herald a new era of American protectionism, saying it would be focused on negotiating smarter trade pacts with the US’s major trading partners. A Trump administration would work to narrow its trade deficit with China and other countries. But it would not do so by applying blanket tariffs on imports from any country, he said. “The U.S. is the reason why the whole world has a trade surplus. We have a $500 billion deficit which is a 3 per cent permanent reduction in the size of our economy,” Ross said. “Cutting our balance of payments deficit doesn’t mean slapping on 45 per cent tariffs on everything from China. Absolutely not.” “But here is the key issue. We should treat ourselves as the world’s biggest customer and treat nations that are selling to us as suppliers to us,” he said. “One of the great dangers for trade is that since the free trade people are so ideological they do not admit that anything was wrong on any trade agreement so they run the risk of free trade going right down the drain — [which is why] there is all this populism and protectionism.” To secure better trade deals the Trump administration would pursue a three-point plan which would call for clear cost-benefit analyses, their automatic reopening for possible adjustments after five years and a requirement that other countries implement required changes to laws and other policies at the same time as the US. Mnuchin’s past and present collegues at Goldman Sachs speak of him as a hard worker, who tends to have a tough, ruthless streak with an intense focus. He was not considered to be particularly sociable or deft at navigating relationships. “He’s not a people-person or salesman, not at all,” a former colleague recalled, adding that he appeared to have a strong free-market ethos. .

LAPD chief says department will refuse to help Donald Trump’s deportation efforts The Washington Post / November 15, 2016 Donald Trump has pledged to begin deporting millions of undocumented immigrants as soon as he takes office next year. For now, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck has no plans to help him do it. “We’re going to maintain the same posture we always have,” says Beck. “We don’t make detentions or arrests based solely on status, whether that’s immigration status or any other status.” “If the federal government takes a more aggressive role on deportation, then they’ll have to do that on their own,” he continued. [We are not team players. We’re not going to help the federal government rid our nation of illegal immigrants, people inherently criminals by their action] Beck called any effort to arrest and deport people a “monumental task” and estimated that there are 500,000 undocumented residents in the city of Los Angeles alone. “This is a population we police by creating partnerships, not by targeting them because of their immigration status,” he added. If there was one location in the United States in which Trump could make the largest dent in the country’s undocumented population, it would be sprawling Los Angeles County, where citizens and noncitizens have lived side-by-side for decades. Almost a quarter of the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants live in California, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. With an undocumented population of nearly 815,000, according to PPIC, Los Angeles County has more undocumented residents than any county in the state. Though estimates vary, experts calculate that more than 1.6 million illegal immigrants live in Texas, making it second only to California in the size of its undocumented population. The LAPD has spent decades avoiding a significant role in the enforcement of federal immigration policies, even as the city’s undocumented immigrant population swelled. Following a special order by then-chief Daryl Gates in 1979 that stopped officers from inquiring about someone’s immigration status, the Los Angeles Times reported, the LAPD has for decades managed to remain outside the contentious immigration debate. Beck says working with the Department of Homeland Security on deportation is not the department’s job. “I don’t intend on doing anything different,” he said. “We are not going to engage in law enforcement activities solely based on somebody’s immigration status. We are not going to work in conjunction with Homeland Security on deportation efforts. That is not our job, nor will I make it our job.” Unveiled in 1979, “Special Order No. 40” directed LAPD officers to “not initiate police action” in an effort to ascertain someone’s legal status. Officers were instructed to notify the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service after arresting someone “for multiple misdemeanor offenses, a high grade misdemeanor or a felony offense” or someone who “has been previously arrested for a similar offense.” “The Los Angeles community has become significantly more diverse during the past several years with substantial numbers of people from different ethnic and sociological backgrounds migrating to this City,” the order states. “Many aliens, whether from Latin American, African, Asian or European countries, are legal residents. Others are undocumented and are residing in the City without legal sanction.” Since Beck became police chief in November 2009, the Times reported, the department has gone even further to remove itself from playing a role in deportations. Officers no longer hand people “arrested for low-level crimes to federal agents for deportation and [have] moved away from honoring federal requests to detain inmates who might be deportable past their jail terms.” Beck says his command staff has met with community leaders and has delivered a consistent message when asked about immigration enforcement: “This is the same LAPD you had Monday, a week ago,” he said. “We have not changed because of the election on Tuesday. We have the same principles. We have the same values,” he said. “This is not going to change the way that the Los Angeles Police Department enforces the law.” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has reiterated that police would continue to enforce Special Order 40. “Our law enforcement officers and LAPD don’t go around asking people for their papers, nor should they,” he said. “That’s not the role of local law enforcement.” Though Trump has threatened to withhold federal tax dollars, mayors of U.S. cities across the country have promised to protect their [illegal immigrant] residents from deportation. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio even left open the possibility of deleting a database with the names of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants living in New York. He was joined in opposition by Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel and Seattle’s Ed Murray, both of whom have pledged to resist efforts to deport their residents. “Seattle has always been a welcoming city [to illegal immigrants],” Murray said Monday, according to ABC News. “The last thing I want is for us to start turning on our neighbors.”

In a huge but downplayed policy change, the Obama administration has decided to stop trying to overthrow Assad (regime change), which inherently reopens the door to cooperation with Russia. With the argument of whether or not Assad should go out of the way, we now will have a clear common goal. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Obama directs Pentagon to target al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, one of the most formidable forces fighting Assad The Washington Post / November 10, 2016 President Obama has ordered the Pentagon to find and kill the leaders of an al-Qaeda-linked group in Syria that the administration had largely ignored until now and that has been at the vanguard of the fight against the Syrian government. The decision to deploy more drones and intelligence assets against the militant group formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra reflects Obama’s concern that it is turning parts of Syria into a new base of operations for al-Qaeda on Europe’s southern doorstep. The move underlines the extent to which Obama has come to prioritize the counter­terrorism mission in Syria over efforts to pressure President Bashar al-Assad to step aside [Major strategy change], as al-Nusra is among the most effective forces­­ battling the Syrian government. That shift is likely to accelerate once President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Trump has said he will be even more aggressive in going after militants than Obama, a stance that could lead to the expansion of the campaign against al-Nusra, possibly in direct cooperation with Moscow. The group now calls itself Jabhat Fatah al-Sham — or Front for the Conquest of Syria — and says it has broken with al-Qaeda, an assertion discounted by U.S. officials. (This is the U.S. supported rebel group that beheaded a 12-year-old child before the world...... http://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/41827-syria/?page=2) Obama’s new order gives the U.S. military’s Joint Special ­Operations Command wider authority and additional intelligence-collection re­sources to go after al-Nusra’s broader leadership, not just al-Qaeda veterans or those directly involved in external plotting. The White House and State Department led the charge within the Obama administration for prioritizing action against the group. Pentagon leaders were reluctant at first to pull resources away from the fight against ISIS. Aides say Obama grew frustrated that more wasn’t being done by the Pentagon and the intelligence community to kill al-Nusra leaders given the warnings he had received from top counter­terrorism officials about the gathering threat they posed. Obama was repeatedly told over the summer that the group was allowing al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan to create in northwest Syria the largest haven for the network since it was scattered after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Officials also warned Obama that al-Nusra could try to fill the void as its rival ISIS lost ground. Lisa Monaco, Obama’s White House homeland security and counter­terrorism adviser, said Obama’s decision “prioritized our fight against al-Qaeda in Syria, including through targeting their leaders and operatives, some of whom are legacy al-Qaeda members.” “We have made clear to all parties in Syria that we will not allow al-Qaeda to grow its capacity to attack the U.S., our allies, and our interests,” she said in a statement. “We will continue to take action to deny these terrorists any safe haven in Syria.” To support the expanded push against al-Nusra, the White House pressed the Pentagon to deploy additional armed drones and intelligence-collection assets in the airspace over northwestern Syria, an area that had been sparsely covered by the United States until now because of its proximity to advanced Russian air-defense systems and aircraft. A bitterly divided Obama administration had tried over the summer to cut a deal with Moscow on a joint U.S.-Russian air campaign against al-Nusra, in exchange for a Russian commitment to ground Syrian government warplanes and to allow more humanitarian supplies into besieged areas. But the negotiations broke down in acrimony, with Moscow accusing the United States of failing to separate al-Nusra from more moderate rebel groups and Washington accusing the Russians of war crimes in Aleppo. Armed drones controlled by JSOC stepped up operations in September, according to military officials. Drone strikes by the U.S. military under the program began in October and have so far killed at least four high-value targets, including al-Nusra’s senior external planner. The Pentagon has disclosed two of the strikes so far. One of the most significant strikes — targeting a gathering of al-Nusra leaders on Nov. 2 — has yet to be disclosed, officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operations. So far, Russian air-defense systems and aircraft haven’t interfered with stepped-up U.S. operations against al-Nusra. Officials attributed Moscow’s acquiescence to the limited number of U.S. aircraft involved in the missions and to Russia’s interest in letting Washington combat one of the Assad regime’s most potent enemies within the insurgency. U.S. officials said they provided notifications to the Russians before the al-Nusra strikes to avoid misunderstandings. Officials who supported the [policy] shift said the Obama administration could no longer tolerate what one of them described as “a deal with the devil,” whereby the United States largely held its fire against al-Nusra because the group was popular with Syrians in rebel-controlled areas and furthered the U.S. goal of putting military pressure on Assad. Russia had accused the United States of sheltering al-Nusra, a charge repeated Thursday in Moscow by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. “The president doesn’t want this group to be what inherits the country if Assad ever does fall,” a senior U.S. official said. “This cannot be the viable Syrian opposition. It’s al-Qaeda.” Officials said the administration’s hope is that more-moderate rebel factions will be able to gain ground as both the Islamic State and al-Nusra come under increased military pressure. A growing number of White House and State Department officials, however, have privately voiced doubts about the wisdom of applying U.S. military power, even covertly, to pressure Assad to step aside, particularly since Russia’s military intervention in Syria last year. Trump has voiced strong skepticism about arming Syrian rebels in the past, suggesting that U.S. intelligence agencies don’t have enough knowledge about rebel intentions to pick reliable allies. Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and other Pentagon leaders initially resisted the idea of devoting more Pentagon surveillance aircraft and armed drones against al-Nusra. In White House Situation Room meetings, Carter and other top Pentagon officials argued that the military’s resources were needed to combat ISIS and that it would be difficult to operate in the airspace given Russia’s military presence, officials said. While Obama, White House national security adviser Susan E. Rice, Secretary of State John F. Kerry and special presidential envoy Brett McGurk agreed with Carter on the need to keep the focus on ISIS, they favored shifting resources to try to prevent al-Nusra from becoming a bigger threat down the road. A senior defense official said additional drone assets were assigned to the JSOC mission. Carter also made clear that the Pentagon’s goal would be to hit al-Nusra leadership targets, not take strikes to try to separate the moderate rebels from al-Nusra, officials said. “If we wake up in five years from now, and ISIS is dead but al-Qaeda in Syria has the equivalent of [the tribal areas of Pakistan] in northwest Syria, then we’ve got a problem,” a second senior U.S. official said. . . .

Immigration hardliner says Trump team preparing plans for wall, mulling Muslim registry Reuters / November 15, 2016 An architect of anti-immigration efforts who says he is advising President-elect Donald Trump said the new administration could push ahead rapidly on construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall without seeking immediate congressional approval. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who helped write tough immigration laws in Arizona and elsewhere, said in an interview that Trump's policy advisers had also discussed drafting a proposal for his consideration to reinstate a registry for immigrants from Muslim countries. Kobach, reportedly a key member of Trump's transition team, said he had participated in regular conference calls with about a dozen Trump immigration advisers for the past two to three months. Trump made building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border a central issue of his campaign and supports “extreme vetting” of Muslims entering the United States as a national security measure. Kobach told Reuters last Friday that the immigration group had discussed drafting executive orders for the president-elect's review "so that Trump and the Department of Homeland Security hit the ground running." To implement Trump's call for "extreme vetting" of some Muslim immigrants, Kobach said the immigration policy group could recommend the reinstatement of a national registry of immigrants and visitors who enter the United States on visas from countries where extremist organizations are active. Kobach helped design the program, known as the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), while serving in Republican President George W. Bush's Department of Justice after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by al Qaeda militants. Under NSEERS, people from countries deemed "higher risk" were required to undergo interrogations and fingerprinting on entering the United States. Some non-citizen male U.S. residents over the age of 16 from countries with active militant threats were required to register in person at government offices and periodically check in. NSEERS was abandoned in 2011 after it was deemed redundant by the Department of Homeland Security and criticized by civil rights groups for unfairly targeting immigrants from Muslim- majority nations. Kobach said the immigration advisers were also looking at how the Homeland Security Department could move rapidly on border wall construction without approval from Congress by reappropriating existing funds in the current budget. He acknowledged "that future fiscal years will require additional appropriations." HELPED DRAFT TOUGH ARIZONA LAW Kobach has worked with allies across the United States on drafting laws and pursuing legal actions to crack down on illegal immigration. In 2010, he helped draft an Arizona law that required state and local officials to check the immigration status of individuals stopped by police. Parts of the law, which was fiercely opposed by Hispanic and civil rights groups, were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011. Kobach was also the architect of a 2013 Kansas law requiring voters to provide proof-of-citizenship documents, such as birth certificates or U.S. passports, when registering for the first time. A U.S. appeals court blocked that law after challenges from civil rights groups. .

Associated Press / November 15, 2016 A Minnesota man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiring to join ISIS in Syria after telling the judge: 'I am a terrorist, your honor'. Hanad Musse, 21, is one of nine friends in Minnesota's large Somali community who are being sentenced this week for conspiring to join the militant group. Earlier Tuesday, one of his co-defendants, Hamza Ahmed, received 15 years on charges connected to the plot. Before he was sentenced on Tuesday, Musse apologized for lying to his family and acknowledged that he committed a serious offense. The judge asked Musse directly whether he was a terrorist, and Musse replied: 'I am a terrorist, your honor.' Musse, Ahmed and two other men took a Greyhound bus from Minneapolis to New York in November 2014 and were stopped by federal agents as they tried to travel overseas from JFK Airport. Prosecutors said they were part of a group of friends who began inspiring and recruiting each other to join the Islamic State group in the spring of 2014. Some of their friends made it to Syria, but the nine who were prosecuted did not. Three men were sentenced Monday; two who cooperated were given lighter sentences, but another who didn't help prosecutors was sentenced to 10 years [why not deported to Somalia?]. Musse and Ahmed are among group members who pleaded guilty but did NOT cooperate with prosecutors. Four others await sentencing, including three who went to trial and were also convicted on a charge of conspiracy to commit murder outside the U.S., which carries a possible life sentence, though prosecutors are seeking sentences of 30 or 40 years. When the judge asked Musse why he didn't cooperate with the government, he replied that he felt he would have lost the support of the community. U.S. District Judge Michael Davis, who has handled all of Minnesota's terror conspiracy cases, had the six defendants who pleaded guilty evaluated by a German expert on deradicalization and is taking those findings into consideration. The sentencings cap a long case that shined a light on terrorism recruitment in Minnesota, the state with the largest concentration of Somali immigrants in the U.S. The FBI has said about a dozen people have left Minnesota to join militant groups in Syria in recent years. .

26-year-old Ohio man pleads guilty to kidnapping, raping 6-year-old Mansfield News Journal / November 14, 2016 An Ashland, Ohio man admitted Monday in Ashland County Common Pleas Court that he pulled a six-year-old girl out of her bedroom and raped her in the back yard of her home last August. Brock D. Martin, 26, of 815 Union St., pleaded guilty to six felony charges as part of a plea bargain in which he also admitted to two other burglaries dating back to 2013, including one that was sex-related. Martin pleaded guilty to one count of kidnapping, two counts of rape and one count of aggravated burglary, all first-degree felonies. He also pleaded guilty to single second-degree felony counts of attempted rape and burglary. As part of the agreement, the prosecution will drop one count of aggravated burglary and two counts of rape, all first-degree felonies, along with a second-degree felony attempted kidnapping count and a fifth-degree charge of drug possession. All four rape counts alleged in an 11-count grand jury indictment in September 2015 carried sexually violent predator specifications, while the aggravated burglary and kidnapping charges included sexual motivation and sexually violent predator specifications. According to Ashland County Prosecutor Christopher Tunnell, Martin was charged with an incident on Aug. 18, 2015 in which he pushed a fan out of a window of an Orange Street home on Ashland’s north side, reached in and pulled a six-year-old girl out of her bed and raped her in the back yard. He said Martin ran off into nearby woods after a resident of the home came out of the house and interrupted the incident. He later was captured by an Ashland Police Department K-9 unit. During a police interview, Martin confessed to two other, unsolved, crimes, including an Aug. 11, 2015 burglary in the 900 block of Orange Street in which a woman awoke to find him standing over her bed. Martin fled when he saw the woman’s husband come down the hallway after the husband came home from work. Martin also admitted to and was charged with an unsolved burglary on March 17, 2013 where he entered an Ashland residence around midnight and assaulted two 13-year-old girls who were having a sleepover. He attempted to drag one of the girls out of the home but fled after being caught in the act. The aggravated drug possession charge was for an incident involving Percocet. Tunnell told reporters Monday that Martin was not familiar with any of his victims. “It appears all the incidents were completely random,” he said. Martin originally pleaded innocent by reason of insanity to all counts in the indictment. However, Judge Ron Forsthoefel determined he was competent to stand trial after reviewing a competency evaluation report by the District V Forensic Diagnostic Center. During Monday’s hearing, Martin quietly answered “Yes, your honor,” as Forsthoefel asked him if he understood the charges, that he was waiving his right to a trial and most of his appeal rights and was agreeing to a sentence of life in prison without parole and to pay $3,000 in restitution for out-of-pocket victim medical expenses. The judge indicated he was ready to sentence Martin on Monday but delayed action until Dec. 19 at 9:20 a.m. after defense attorney Rolf Whitney asked for a pre-sentencing investigation into Martin’s background. Forsthoefel warned Martin that the state was not obligated to withdraw any of the charges if he changed his mind about his guilty pleas before sentencing. “You understand that if the court orders a pre-sentence investigation report it’s going to give me some information on your background, educational background, treatment and general and criminal history but it’s not going to change the impact of the written plea agreement and the likely sentence you are facing if we proceed with sentencing?” the judge asked. Martin replied that he did. One of the victim’s family members muttered that Martin was “one sick (expletive)” as she left the courtroom. Several other family members were heard to say after they met privately with Tunnell, that they were satisfied with the plea. Tunnell said the five charges that were dropped involved additional conduct that occurred in each circumstance. He also emphasized that each situation was accounted for with Martin’s guilty pleas. Tunnell did not anticipate that the pre-sentence investigation report would change any terms sentence in the plea agreement. .

55-pound teen critical after 2 years 'isolated' in Shelby County basement WVTM 13 / November 15, 2016 A 14-year-old boy weighing only 55 pounds is fighting for his life after spending much of two years locked in the basement of his Helena home with little food, water or medical care. Authorities in Shelby County announced charges against the boy's adoptive parents, and say it's one of the most horrific cases they've investigated. "It's the worst case of neglect that I have ever seen," said Helena police Chief Pete Folmar. The 14-year-old boy, whose name is not being released, is in critical condition. Authorities said he weighs less than half of what a boy his age should weigh. “Doctors noted the child was severely, chronically malnourished, dehydrated, suffering from acute respiratory distress, shock, hypothermia, hypothyroid and that he was close to death. The child remains gravely ill at this time and faces a long and difficult recovery and an uncertain prognosis," Helena police Chief Pete Folmar said. Richard and Cynthia Kelly late Monday afternoon were charged with aggravated child abuse, a Class B felony. They were moved from the Helena City Jail to the Shelby County Jail, where they were undergoing the booking process. Their bonds are set at $1 million bond each. The investigation began Sunday when Helena police were notified by hospital staff through DHR of the boy's arrival at the hospital. Authorities say his parents took him there when his condition worsened. Richard and Cynthia Kelly are accused of denying food, nourishment and medical care to the boy, who was "subjected to forced isolation for extended periods of time." Authorities say that "isolation" was disciplinary in nature. The boy was was not enrolled in Shelby County Schools, and authorities were told he was homeschooled. Neighbors said they had seen the boy mowing the lawn weekly through the summer while his dad stood on the porch and watched him. They told WVTM 13 they believed he was 8 or 9 years old because he was so small. . .

5 Utah students stabbed in boy's locker room; teen detained Associated Press / November 15, 2016 As a group of boys at a Utah high school changed Tuesday morning into gym clothes for physical education class, a straight-A student pulled out a knife in the locker room and stabbed five of his classmates, sending the injured running for their lives and covered in blood. The 16-year-old suspect with no record of disciplinary trouble also stabbed himself in the neck and was cornered by school workers until a police officer assigned to Mountain View High School got to the locker room and subdued him with a Taser shot. The five victims are all expected to survive. The two most seriously injured were in critical but stable condition. The suspect was treated and released following the attack. Police say none of the victims had done anything to hurt the suspect, and the stabbings were not racially or ethnically motivated. School district spokeswoman Kimberly Bird said the suspect was a new sophomore student who was previously homeschooled. There were no indications he was having problems or being bullied.

Trump remains direct election advocate, dislikes Electoral College Associated Press / November 15, 2016 President-elect Donald Trump once tweeted that the Electoral College is “The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.” But now that it has helped him to win the election, does he still believe that? “I’m not going to change my mind just because I won,” Trump said in an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday. “But I would rather see it where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes and somebody else gets 90 million votes and you win.” Trump beat Clinton in last week’s election by amassing more than the 270 electoral votes needed to win. He won 290 to Clinton’s 228, with Michigan and New Hampshire still too close to call. But Clinton currently leads Trump in the popular vote by more than 700,000 votes (61.3 million to 60.6 million) with several million left to be counted. If her lead holds, Clinton would be the first presidential candidate since 2000 to win the popular vote while losing the White House. (In that year, Al Gore lost the Electoral College to George W. Bush.) Hillary Clinton, who was then first lady, called at the time for the college to be disbanded so that no one would ever have to doubt again whether his or her vote counted. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lesley Stahl: Now, for months, you were running around saying that the system is rigged, the whole thing was rigged. You tweeted once that the Electoral College is a disaster for democracy. Donald Trump: I do. Lesley Stahl: So do you still think it’s rigged? Donald Trump: Well, I think the electoral ca-- look, I won with the Electoral College. Lesley Stahl: Exactly.But do you think-- Donald Trump: You know, it’s-- Lesley Stahl: --it’s rigged? Donald Trump: Yeah, some of the election locations are. Some of the system is. I hated-- Lesley Stahl: Even though you won you’re saying that-- Donald Trump: I hated-- well, you know, I’m not going to change my mind just because I won. But I would rather see it where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes and somebody else gets 90 million votes and you win. There’s a reason for doing this because it brings all the states into play. Electoral College and there’s something very good about that. But this is a different system. But I respect it. I do respect the system.

Why the West's right wing admires Vladimir Putin France 24 / November 15, 2016 Russian President Vladimir Putin is widely admired by right-wing leaders in Western democracies – including Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Marine Le Pen – a stark reversal from when conservatives were the staunchest of Cold Warriors. Autocratic Russian President Vladimir Putin has garnered much admiration in recent years from a bevy of right-wing politicians who have praised everything from his single-minded pursuit of Russian national interests to his rejection of “elitist” liberal values. Republican US President-elect Donald Trump, UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage and French National Front leader Marine Le Pen have all expressed varying degrees of appreciation for the Russian leader’s approach to international affairs. This would seem to mark something of a reversal from previous decades, when Western conservatives took a more adversarial approach to Russia and its interests, shoring up international support for the alliances and agreements that isolated and contained Moscow. And while many on the right have traditionally favored robust interventionist foreign policies, the “new right” appears to be veering toward isolationism and a rejection of internationalism, preferring go-it-alone strategies of national self-interest that undermine support for both the EU and NATO, much to the Kremlin’s delight. At the same time, identity politics have come to the fore in the form of a preoccupation with questions of national identity and the challenges posed by multiculturalism, the pursuit of liberal secularism and a sharp rise in immigration. Nationalist, Eurosceptic and anti-immigrant Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, National Front leader Marine Le Pen was unequivocal in rejecting the global status quo, telling BBC presenter Andrew Marr that it is the EU and not Vladimir Putin that poses the real threat to Europe. Le Pen characterised the EU as an "oppressive model" of “unfettered globalisation that has been imposed upon us”, expressing the hope that one day it would be replaced by a "Europe of free nations". In a further rejection of internationalism, she said NATO had lost its raison d’être. “NATO continues to exist even though the danger for which it was created no longer exists,” said Le Pen, laughing off the suggestion that Moscow poses a threat to Europe. “What is NATO protecting us against, exactly? Against a military attack from Russia? … In fact, NATO today has become a tool to ensure that its member countries comply with the will of the United States.” This is “unbearable” for someone who values independence and sovereignty, she said. Le Pen hailed Putin’s approach to global affairs as an example of "reasoned protectionism", saying he is understandably “looking after the interests of his own country and defending its identity”. Asked about her views on immigration, Le Pen said France was simply not capable of handling any more arrivals. “We cannot take care of hundreds of thousands of people arriving here, because our first obligation is to protect the French people,” she said. The National Front leader, who is a candidate for the French presidency next year, said the UK’s vote for Brexit in June and the recent election of Donald Trump in the US had been part of a "global revolution". Le Pen expressed the hope that France would join this revolt by rejecting elitism when it votes for a new president in April. She said the election would offer a choice between a "multicultural society, on which fundamentalist Islam is encroaching" and an "independent nation where people are able to control their own destiny". ‘We want our country back’ For UKIP leader Nigel Farage, sovereignty is also at the heart of his political philosophy. He told Fox News in the days following the June 23 Brexit vote that the decision to leave the EU was not based on economic concerns, as many had surmised. "It was decided by a basic argument of sovereignty," he said. "Should we make our own laws in our own country, and crucially, should we control our own borders?" In the following days, Farage hailed the Brexit result in an address before the European Parliamant in which he warned that Britain might not be the last to leave the union. He called the vote “a seismic result, not just for British politics [and] for European politics but perhaps even for global politics”, saying that “ordinary people” had sent a clear message: “We want our country back. We want our fishing waters back. We want our borders back. And we want to be an independent, self-governing, normal nation…” This renewed focus on sovereignty while questioning current international norms echoes some of the views expressed by the Russian president. Farage shocked many when he was asked by GQ magazine in a 2014 interview which world leader he admired most. "As an operator, but not as a human being, I would say Putin," he replied. After coming under fire, he later defended his statement in London at a Chatham House event. "I said I don't like him, I wouldn't trust him and I wouldn't want to live in his country, but compared with the kids who run foreign policy in this country, I've more respect for him than our lot.” Farage, has expressed strong disdain for the European Union, once telling RT that EU leaders "are not undemocratic. They are anti-democratic. These are very bad and dangerous people. They are the worst people we have seen in Europe since 1945." 'At least he's a leader' US President-elect Donald Trump has also been criticized for praising Putin and remains under scrutiny over allegations that either he or his advisers had inappropriate contact with the Kremlin during the 2016 presidential campaign. On a US morning talk show on December 18 last year, Trump defended Putin over allegations that he has had numerous political opponents and journalists murdered. "He's running his country, and at least he's a leader. Unlike what we have in this country," Trump said, in a reference to US President Barack Obama. America is at a great disadvantage. Putin is ex-KGB, Obama is a community organizer. Unfair. — Donald J. Trump / April 17, 2014 At an NBC News forum on national security in September, Trump doubled down on these sentiments, saying that Putin "has been a leader far more than our president has been". "I’ve already said, he is really very much of a leader. I mean, you can say, ‘Oh, isn’t that a terrible thing – the man has very strong control over a country.’ Now, it’s a very different system, and I don’t happen to like the system. But certainly, in that system, he’s been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader." NBC moderator Matt Lauer reminded Trump that Putin had annexed Crimea, invaded eastern Ukraine, supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and is suspected of being behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee’s emails. "Well, nobody knows that for a fact," Trump interrupted. Rejecting 'cosmopolitan' values Many on the political right view Putin as an ally in defending Western civilization against an excess of multiculturalism and the “cosmopolitan” beliefs that they feel threaten more traditional values. Moreover, his pragmatic view of world affairs suits those who prefer a realpolitik approach over grandiose visions of spreading democratic values, with often questionable results. “Putin supports conservative values and puts his country's interests above international concerns or political correctness, without being apologetic for doing so,” says Liliya Karimova, a Russia and Eurasia expert at the Kennan Institute/Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. A South Caucasus expert at Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Programme who declined to be named pointed out that the Western right wing and Putin also “agree on a number of common enemies”, including “Islamic extremism, the liberal left [and] ‘cosmopolitan’ values”. He said the global interests of the right wing and Russia are also beginning to merge. There is now a strong affinity between their worldviews that includes “rejecting universalist values and insisting on national specificity/isolationism”. “Right-wingers in the West don't see the point of getting involved in conflicts in faraway countries where US or European interests are not clear, or of wasting resources investing in grand projects to democratize other parts of the world,” the analyst said. “This [jibes] with Putin's basic concept of spheres of influence – Putin appears as a partner in ‘taking care’ of parts of the world in which right-wingers see no vital interest.” Russia is no longer the “ideological rival” that the Soviet Union once was, he noted. “[And] without ideological issues at stake, Putin appears to be a transactional politician – a ‘dealmaker’ that we can do business with. This suits the kind of post-truth politics that Western right-wingers are currently embracing, and fits with the idea that Putin can be trusted and relied upon in a world where the US no longer wants to be a global policeman.” “He is your ideal realpolitik* partner.” * A system of politics or principles based on practical rather than moral or ideological considerations. Karimova said Trump “was able to capitalize on the idea of strong – if not authoritarian – leadership in the likes of Putin”, a position that marked “a departure from a stance that Republicans in the US have traditionally taken toward authoritarian leaders”.

Trump tapped the misery of factory workers, but can he bring back their jobs? Natalie Kitroeff, Los Angeles Times / November 15, 2016 Michael Smith is not used to stretching a paycheck. As recently as March 2015, the 42-year-old was earning nearly $100,000 a year as a district manager on oil fields for company based in Union City, Pa. Then oil prices dropped, and his company laid him off. Smith, a father of four boys, now makes $12 an hour as an apprentice electrician. He is not a die-hard disciple, but voted for Donald Trump because he’s desperate for something new. “Do I think Donald Trump is what this country needs and do I think he will make it great again? No,” Smith said. “Do I think he is a step in the right direction? Absolutely.” It was not poor Americans who made the difference in this election; it was people like Smith. Trump soared among white voters who earn decent wages, but have seen their pay decline and jobs in their industries disappear over the past 15 years. Some of those workers say they were responding in part to Trump’s repeated bashing of trade, and at the same time perceived Hillary Clinton as a poster child for the free-trade deals that her husband signed and President Obama tried to push through Congress. “A lot of our members equated NAFTA to Hillary and Bill Clinton,” said Donnie Blatt, a coordinator with the United Steelworkers union in Ohio. “A lot of our members felt like they hated Hillary Clinton, they believed she caused the loss of all their jobs.” But it will be almost impossible for Trump to fulfill his promise to bring back most of the assembly line gigs lost to globalization, economists say. The U.S. has moved toward advanced manufacturing, which employs highly educated people, and plants that once required manual labor are now manned by robots that work faster than people and cost less. U.S. factories are producing more than ever, with far fewer employees. “The Democrats have no credibility with these people, and the trade issue brings it out more than anything,” said Dean Baker, the co-director of the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research. “Trump is making these promises, but they aren’t realistic. It isn’t like he has a plan to bring the jobs back, but he was out there saying it.” It’s not surprising that trade issues resonated with some voters in vast swaths of the Midwest and Southeast. Since 2000, American manufacturers wiped 5 million people off their payrolls, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Millions of those jobs went to China or Mexico, research suggests. For context, it took more than three decades for 560,000 mining jobs to disappear, after reaching a peak of 1.2 million the early 1980s. The shock of losing so many middle-class jobs so quickly hit hardest in the Rust Belt states, which were crucial to Trump’s victory. Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania had among the steepest cuts in assembly line jobs across the country since 2000. California cut the most manufacturing jobs of any state from 2000 to 2015, partly because its workforce is so huge. More than 576,000 Californians lost their jobs in factories over that period. But the biggest losers after California were Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, which hemorrhaged a combined 1.2 million manufacturing jobs. That means that about a quarter of the total manufacturing job loss in the country since 2000 occurred in those four swing states. Ohio and Pennsylvania voted for a Republican for the first time since at least 2004. Michigan hasn’t been called for Trump, but he is leading there. The counties in those states where Clinton lost the largest number of voters compared with Obama in 2012 were also the counties that lost particularly large numbers of manufacturing jobs over the last 15 years, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. How much of the shift took place because of trade is hard to tell: The job losses mostly took place during the first decade of this century, but the states did not flip to vote for a Republican until this year. And many other issues were in play, including tensions over immigration, race and the presence of a woman on the Democratic ticket. Still, trade and its impact on manufacturing jobs almost certainly played a role in boosting Trump’s prospects in the nation’s industrial belt. “The real ones who are hurt [by trade] are centered, not coincidentally, in the swing states in this election,” said Peter Navarro, an economist from UC Irvine who has been a powerful voice on Trump’s economic advisory board. “You go around the rim of the Midwest…those are the key states that have been ground zero of this problem,” Navarro said. These workers were not necessarily scraping by — the average American with a factory gig made around $64,000 in 2015, BLS data show. But in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, pay for manufacturing employees has declined or remained relatively flat since 2000, after adjusting for inflation, even as it inched up in the country overall. Ryan Germonto said that when he hears politicians talk dreamily about the economy today, he feels betrayed. “Even if the progressives want to say we are progressing, we aren’t really progressing,” Germonto said. The 32-year-old father of two used to make $55,000 inspecting gear boxes used in wind turbines for Eickhoff Wind Energy, in Pittsburgh. But the company stopped making the gear boxes in the U.S., and Germonto was laid off in November 2015. Now he’s working at a job that barely pays his bills. He makes $40,000 per year as a site manager, overseeing the housekeeping staff at an upscale mall in Pittsburgh. He now has to pay $800 per month for healthcare coverage that cost him less than $250 at his old job. “I’m sick of outsourcing jobs. I’m sick of the government taking the easy way out,” Germonto said. He voted for Trump because he believes the real estate mogul is “more for the people” than Clinton. Economists say that people like Germonto were already in trouble. Automation has been steadily decimating assembly line jobs, and as new plants come back to the U.S. they are increasingly staffed by robots. But trade has also damaged American factories, something workers noticed long before academics measured it. “Until a few years ago most economists were convinced that international trade had only very minor implications for labor markets,” said David Dorn, an economist who specializes in U.S.-China trade. “Academics and policymakers underestimate the negative side effects of globalization by quite a bit,” he said. China alone could have knocked out up to 2.4 million jobs in the U.S. from 1999 to 2011, according to a recent study that Dorn co-wrote. That economic shock made people want change. Areas that were hammered by trade became more likely to vote out incumbents in favor of “politicians that were politically extreme” to Congress between 2002 and 2010, Dorn and three other economists found in a September study. White-dominated regions opted for unconventional conservatives in the tea party, while places with a majority of Blacks, Hispanics and Asians chose Democrats at the other extreme, Dorn’s study found. Germonto, the former gear box inspector, said he didn’t vote on race issues, but they were on his mind. “More people are hating on white Americans than any other race or any other walk of life,” he said. “I think white America is fed up with that.” In reality, there isn’t a politician in the country who could turn things around for manual laborers in this country, economists say. Manufacturing output in the U.S. — the amount that we produce — reached a record high this year, after tanking during the recession. But jobs have only trickled back, and the ones that are appearing aren’t going to women and men who work with their hands — they’re going to highly educated engineers, programmers and MBAs. “There is a reallocation away from traditional manufacturing, toward parts of manufacturing that are more intensive in tech and in human capital,” said Enrico Moretti, an economist at UC Berkeley. “Automation keeps reducing the need for blue-collar positions." Lindsay Patterson, 61, doesn’t buy Trump’s guarantee to resuscitate jobs like his. Patterson lost a $50,000 annual salary with benefits when the tubing plant he worked for in Philadelphia shut down in October 2015. “They lost market share because Chinese pipes were coming in and it was becoming really difficult for them to compete on the price they were charging,” said Patterson, who is now getting by on an unemployment check and his wife’s salary as a schoolteacher. Patterson voted for Clinton, because he says Trump can’t change what’s happened to industrial America. “He is going to start a fight with China and with all these companies to bring jobs back, but it isn’t that easy,” Patterson said. Still, many of Patterson’s former coworkers sided with Trump, because he said the right things, often and loudly. “They hear it, it sounds good, and if they don’t have anything to base it on, well, that was what they have been waiting to hear,” Patterson said.

Chevy forges off-road cred with Colorado ZR2 Automotive News / November 15, 2016 Chevrolet hopes to take advantage of surging demand for midsize pickups with an off-road, high-performance version of the Colorado. Chevy unveiled the Colorado ZR2, touted as having the most off-road technology of any vehicle in its segment, at a private event ahead of the Los Angeles auto show. The ZR2 has a 3.5-inch wider track than the standard Colorado and a lifted suspension. Modified bumpers give the truck better off-road clearance, while functional rockers improve handling over rocks and other obstacles. Chevy did not give details about market launch or pricing for the 2017 truck. “Our engineers have been incredibly successful developing Corvette and Camaro performance variants with broad performance envelopes,” Mark Reuss, GM’s product development chief, said in a statement. “The ZR2 applies that same philosophy to off-road performance. You can go rock crawling on Saturday, desert running on Sunday, and comfortably drive to work on Monday. This truck can do it all, and do it all well.” The ZR2, visually similar to a concept version shown here two years ago, builds on the Colorado’s momentum at a time when sales in the segment are up 25 percent this year. That compares with a gain of just 2.4 percent for full-size pickups this year through October. U.S. sales of the Colorado, up 29 percent, and its GMC sibling, the Canyon, up 21 percent, account for a large portion of the segment’s gain. Chevy says fewer than 8 percent of Colorado buyers previously had a full-size Silverado, suggesting that its sales have been overwhelmingly incremental to the brand rather than cannibalizing a more expensive and undoubtedly more profitable product. More than 50 percent of buyers are new to Chevrolet, said Alan Batey, General Motors’ president of North America. Batey said the vehicles most commonly traded in for a Colorado are the Ford F-150 and Toyota Tacoma, but that many buyers previously drove cars and never owned a pickup before. “They come from everywhere,” Batey said in an interview. “They don’t need a truck. They want a truck.” Chevy partnered with Multimatic Inc., the Ontario motorsports company that’s building the GT supercar for Ford Motor Co., to create the ZR2’s dampers. The ZR2 will be the first use of Multimatic dynamic suspensions spool valve dampers in an off-road vehicle. The technology, previously used on the 2014 Camaro Z/28, enhances ride and handling performance both off road and on, while offering increased precision and manufacturing repeatability, Chevy said. “From our experience on Z/28, we knew the performance advantages offered by DSSV dampers,” said Mark Dickens, Chevrolet’s executive director of performance variants, performance parts and motorsports engineering. “For the driver, this translates to greater confidence and control in a wider range of driving experiences.” Chevy said the ZR2 shares powertrains with the standard Colorado and will be available in nine drive configurations. It can tow 5,000 pounds and has a 1,100-pound payload capacity. To develop the ZR2, Chevy said it created new off-road test areas at GM’s proving ground in Yuma, Ariz., including high-speed desert sand trails, low-speed loose river-rock crossings and steep hills. The truck’s components also were tested in Moab, Utah, and the Rubicon Trail. .

Automotive News / November 15, 2016 The next generation of Ford’s Expedition SUV is expected to be offered in two wheelbases, based on new spy photographs of the vehicle undergoing testing on public roads around Ford Motor Co.’s product development campus in Dearborn, Michigan. The next Expedition is scheduled to debut in 2017, possibly as a 2018 model. And two different sized grilles indicate a variety of engines will be offered. The engine lineup for the Expedition will likely mimic the F-150 pickup: a base 3.5-liter, 2.7-liter twin turbo V-6 and a high output twin turbo 3.5-liter V-6. A 5.0-liter V-8 or a 3.0-liter V-6 diesel, the same motor used in Land Rover SUVs, is also expected to be available. Transmission choices are likely to be six-speed automatic standard with 10-speed automatic optional. Styling of the vehicles in the photos shows shorter rear doors cut directly into the rear wheel wells, a more rounded roof and a smaller rear window. The side mirrors also appear new. One of the engineering vehicles also has a rear muffler with twin exhausts, a first for Expedition. .

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Rand Paul: I oppose both Rudy Giuliani and John Bolton for secretary of state The Guardian / November 15, 2016 Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul reiterated his opposition to both former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and former UN ambassador John Bolton as secretary of state in an interview with the Guardian on Tuesday. Paul condemns Bolton as “out of touch”. He said Trump should “pick people who agree with his foreign policy”. Trump repeatedly argued on the campaign trail that the Iraq war was a mistake and condemned what he saw as an overly interventionist foreign policy from Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. As Paul phrased it, Trump was “standing up not just to Woodrow Wilson” but also “a whole line of neocons in both parties”, and the senator believed such policies were “a big part” of Trump’s campaign. Paul, who serves on the Senate foreign relations committee, insisted “there is no way I could vote for someone who is an unrepentant supporter of the Iraq war and regime change. I think that is a disaster for the country. It has made us less safe and so categorically I can’t support anybody that supports regime change.” He noted in particular that Bolton, who wrote an op-ed in support of bombing Iran in 2015, was one of the biggest cheerleaders for the Iraq war and pointed out that Giuliani agreed with the former UN ambassador on Iran. Instead, Paul suggested Senate foreign relations committee chair Bob Corker as an alternative. He’s “much more of a realist, not likely to be loading the bombs to go to Iran tomorrow”. In contrast, he suggested that Bolton’s hawkish stance was perhaps because he was trying to “assuage guilt” over “not serving in combat”. Paul, who has been one of the leading advocates for privacy issues in the Senate, also expressed concern about Giuliani as a potential attorney general, pointing out the former New York mayor had far fewer disagreements with the president-elect on the subject than he did. Paul noted that while “Trump wasn’t as concerned about privacy as I am, he still very consistently said regime change was a mistake”. The result was that Paul found Giuliani as attorney general to be “less objectionable but still a concern for civil liberties”. When asked if private companies should purge user data in advance of a Trump administration, Paul said: “I just don’t know yet, but having Giuliani or Chris Christie in charge of information would be very worrisome.” Paul also made clear he would continue to work across the aisle with Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat on the intelligence committee, as bipartisan privacy watchdogs. One privacy battle taking shape early in the next administration concerns the reauthorization of a critical surveillance provision, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, that permits the widespread collection of Americans’ international communications. Paul said he was preparing to contest the reauthorization of 702, the legal wellspring of the NSA’s controversial Prism program. The Kentucky senator’s criticisms of Giuliani come nearly a decade after the former New York mayor attacked Rand Paul’s father, Ron, when they both ran for president in 2007. During a presidential debate, Giuliani interrupted Ron Paul and attacked him after Ron Paul suggested that the United States’ interventionist foreign policy was a contributing factor to the terrorist attacks of September 11. .