USA Today

RAMALLAH, West Bank – The Palestinian President said Tuesday that he hopes the upcoming Mideast conference in France will set a timetable to end settlements, as Israel moves ahead with new housing unit construction in east Jerusalem, despite the recent U.N. Security Council resolution condemning construction there.

The developments came just days after the United States broke with past practice and allowed the U.N. Security Council to condemn Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem as a “flagrant violation” of international law.   Continue reading “Israel plans more settlements; Abbas looks to Paris summit”

Free Thought Project – by Justin Gardner

Continuing in the tradition of sacrificing everyone’s privacy to pursue a ‘war’ on the tactic of terrorism, the U.S. government has begun requesting social media identities from foreign travelers.

Politico first reported that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) approved an addition to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) on Dec. 19. The foray into people’s online presence was first proposed in June 2016.   Continue reading “US Govt Now Asking Travelers For Facebook And Twitter Profiles To Feed Surveillance State”

The Anti-Media – by Derrick Broze

Houston, TX — Local activists attempting to hand out food and gifts were shocked on Thursday afternoon when Houston police forced the homeless to throw away the donations.  Around 1 pm on Thursday,  several individuals met in downtown Houston to distribute plates of hot food, blankets, and other supplies to the city’s growing homeless population. Soon after, Houston police arrived on the scene of two different intersections where the homeless advocates were giving out gifts and food.   Continue reading “Unhappy Holidays: Houston Police Force Homeless People to Throw Away Food”

Yahoo News

If we’ve learned anything in the last few months it’s that seemingly, no entity is safe from hacking. From banks to ballot boxes (or rather, voter registration systems), occurrences of high security breaches have been on the rise. And now, the FBI is investigating how hackers managed to make their way into computers at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). Unfortunately, this isn’t a new case — it’s been going on since at least 2010.   Continue reading “The FBI is now probing FDIC hacks allegedly carried out by the Chinese military”

Yahoo News

Moscow (AFP) – A Russian military plane heading to Syria crashed into the Black Sea on Sunday, with no sign of survivors among the 92 on board, including Red Army Choir members on their way to celebrate the New Year with troops.

The Tu-154 plane went down shortly after taking off from the southern city of Adler where it had been refuelling, defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a briefing broadcast on the ministry’s website.   Continue reading “‘No survivors’ as Syria-bound Russian jet crashes”

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The Great Recession – by David Haggith

Since Trump’s election, the US stock market has climbed unstoppably along a remarkably steep path to round off at a teetering height. Is this the irrational exuberance that typically marks the last push before a perilous plunge, or is the market reaching escape velocity from the relentless gravity of the Great Recession?

This burst of enthusiasm in response to Trump’s victory, flew in the face of almost everyone’s predictions. That it lifted the market from seven months of languor certainly makes 20K on the Dow look like the elevation marker of a breathtaking summit.   Continue reading “Irrational Exuberance in US Stock Market Grasps at 20K for Dow”

KGW 8 News

PORTLAND, Ore. – Multnomah County commissioners voted to make the county a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants and refugees. A resolution passed Thursday morning, and the vote was unanimous.

Commissioner Loretta Smith says this is about making sure people can get the services they need, regardless of their status.   Continue reading “Commissioners vote to make Multnomah County, Oregon a sanctuary county”

Reuters – by Nia Williams and Ethan Lou

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Wednesday that U.S. President-elect Donald Trump was “very supportive” of TransCanada Corp’s proposed Keystone XL crude oil pipeline in their first conversation after the U.S. election.

“He actually brought up Keystone XL and indicated that he was very supportive of it,” Trudeau told an event in Calgary, Canada’s oil capital. “I’m confident that the right decisions will be taken.”   Continue reading “Canada’s Trudeau says Trump very supportive of Keystone XL pipeline”

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

One week ago, New Yorkers were captivated, and unnerved, by a 40-minute long military exercise in which one USAF C-130 and several HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters could be seen circling at very low altitudes above Manhattan. While the US military kept silent about the overflight, U.S. Air Force Col. Nicholas Broccoli, the vice commander of the Air National Guard’s 106th Rescue Wing, said the aircraft were conducting “standard military training.”  However, one look at the flight pattern of the plane shows there was seemingly little that was “standard” about a C-130 making dozens of circles over midtown Manhattan.   Continue reading “Mysterious Military Flyover Above Manhattan Was A Trump “Emergency Relocation Drill””

The Anti-Media – by Carey Wedler

Over the last several years, it has become increasingly apparent that factory farming and the mass slaughter of farm animals for meat is unsustainable for animals, humans, and the planet.

But as consumers begin to question their attachment to traditional meat, at least one company is eager to offer an alternative. Memphis Meats is a San Francisco-based start-up using stem cells to produce meat in a lab — rather than slaughtering animals to obtain it (they say the name comes from their close ties to Memphis and their desire to “merge the innovative spirit of Silicon Valley with the rich food traditions of the American South“).  Continue reading “Revolutionary New Company Creating Meat Without Slaughtering Animals”

Reuters

The United States on Tuesday targeted more Russian businessmen and companies over Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the conflict in Ukraine, slapping them with U.S. sanctions in a move Moscow criticized as hostile.

The measures come a month before U.S. President Barack Obama hands over power to President-elect Donald Trump, who has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and said it would be good if the two countries could get along.   Continue reading “U.S. sanctions companies, people over Russia actions in Ukraine”

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Khamenei – by Tim Anderson

In late 2016, at the cost of many young lives, Syrian forces took back the eastern part of the city of Aleppo, occupied by NATO and Saudi backed terrorists for more than four years.

The liberation of Aleppo, Syria’s second city and an ancient marvel, represents the most serious setback for the 15-year long Washington-led aggression on the entire region. An effective re-colonization of the region has stretched from Afghanistan to Libya, under a range of false pretexts. Invasions and proxy wars have been backed by economic sanctions and wild propaganda.   Continue reading “Liberation of Aleppo represents US’s most serious setback in 15 years: professor”

ABC News

An American man removed from a Delta transatlantic flight prior to take-off said he and a friend were taken off the plane after he was overheard by other passengers speaking Arabic. The airline later confirmed an incident in which a number of passenger expressed “discomfort,” but did not elaborate on the cause of what it described as a “disturbance.”

Flight 1 from London’s Heathrow Airport was scheduled for New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, according to Delta.   Continue reading “YouTube Star Says He Was Kicked Off Delta Flight for Speaking Arabic”

Activist Post – by Brandon Turbeville

Having spent a number of months on the ground in Syria, traveling all across the country and, specifically, Aleppo, journalist Eva Bartlett has finally returned to the Western world with yet another round of firsthand knowledge of the Syrian Crisis. Bartlett has traveled to Syria a number of times, each time carrying back a story widely different from that peddled on the mainstream corporate press of NATO countries.   Continue reading “Journalist Eva Bartlett DESTROYS Mainstream Journalist Over Syria, Aleppo”

Politico – by Louis Nelson

President-elect Donald Trump campaigned on a promised to “drain the swamp” in Washington of corruption, but now that he’s preparing to move into the White House, Newt Gingrich said the Manhattan billionaire is looking to distance himself from that message.

“I’m told he now just disclaims that. He now says it was cute, but he doesn’t want to use it anymore,” the former House Speaker and close Trump adviser said of the “drain the swamp” message in an NPR interview published Wednesday morning. “I’ve noticed on a couple of fronts, like people chanting ‘lock her up,’ that he’s in a different role now and maybe he feels that as president, as the next president of the United States, that he should be marginally more dignified than talking about alligators in swamps.”   Continue reading “Gingrich: Trump backing away from ‘drain the swamp’”