June 13, 2016

Hillary Clinton FULL Speech In Cleveland 6/13/16

Disclaimer. I am listening to this as I type.

June 13, 2016

Clinton: I'll say the words 'radical Islamism'

&quot CNN)- Hillary Clinton said Monday she's not afraid to say "radical" Islam as she countered attacks from Donald Trump that she's too politically correct to use the phrase.

"From my perspective, it matters what we do more than what we say," Clinton said on CNN's "New Day." "And it mattered we got bin Laden, not what name we called him. I have clearly said we -- whether you call it radical jihadism or radical Islamism, I'm happy to say either. I think they mean the same thing."

Clinton -- who also reupped her call to restore the assault weapons ban -- was forceful in dismissing Republicans' criticism -- vocally echoed by Trump -- that President Barack Obama and Democrats won't describe such terror attacks as "radical Islamic terrorism."

Trump was also interviewed later on "New Day" Monday morning about the Orlando attack, and repeated the charge that Democrats' reluctance to say "radical Islamic terror" was hampering efforts to combat terror.

"The first thing you need is a president that will mention the problem. And he won't even mention what the problem is," Trump said. "Unless you're going to say that, you're never going to solve it."

Trump then claimed Clinton was "afraid to use [the term] because President Obama doesn't want her to" before host Christine Romans corrected him, pointing out Clinton had just used the term in the preceding interview. After Romans interjected, Trump replied, "She would love to use those words because almost everybody agrees that those words should be used."

In her appearance, Clinton also was quick to link the attack to the terror organization.

"This was a terrorist attack. ISIS appears to be claiming credit for it, whether it had anything to do with it or not -- at a minimum, they seem to have inspired it," Clinton told host Chris Cuomo."


http://m.wgal.com/politics/clinton-ill-say-the-words-radical-islamism/40028020

June 13, 2016

One-third of the world cannot see the Milky Way -- why that matters

"If you look up at the evening sky, there's a good chance you will not be able to see what your grandmother saw when she was a little girl.

That's because we're enshrouded in an artificial haze of light that is blocking the night sky, a phenomenon scientists call light pollution.

Scientists believe one-third of humanity cannot view the Milky Way — this includes 80% of Americans and 60% of Europeans because city lights are creating fogs of light pollution, according to a new study that published Friday in the journal of Science Advances.

An international team of scientists created a world atlas of artificial sky luminance that details how light pollution is permeating our planet. This light is obscuring our vision of the stars, celestial events and the Milky Way — the galaxy that contains our solar system.

Although there are a few patches of pristine dark sky still left in the world, 83% of the world's population and more than 99% of the U.S. and European populations live under the bright glow of light pollution.

"This is a huge cultural loss with unforeseeable consequences in the future generations," scientist Fabio Falchi, one of the authors of the study, says. "Pristine night skies are a precious merchandise."

http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/11/health/light-pollution-atlas-milky-way-irpt/

I remember going camping as a kid with there not being light for miles. Looking up at night always blew me away!

June 10, 2016

New Hillary Scandal Checks All the Boxes on the Clinton Controversy Bingo Card

"Hillary Clinton had an undeniably great day on Thursday, but Friday brought a stark reminder that as the presumptive Democratic nominee looks ahead to the general election, there will be plenty of people justifiably looking into her past.

Thanks to a newly released batch of State Department emails, ABC News was able to revisit the story of Rajiv Fernando, a wealthy securities trader who gave heavily to both Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign and the Clinton Foundation—and who just so happened to land himself a plum spot on a sensitive government intelligence advisory panel after Hillary became secretary of state.

Politicos rewarding donors is sadly not uncommon but what makes this particular example stand out is Fernando’s lack of qualifications for a job that involved advising the secretary of state—and, by extension, the president of the United States—on the topic of nuclear weapons. And if that weren’t enough, the story also looks an awfully lot like a Clinton Controversy Bingo Card. In addition to the appearance of quid pro quo with a major fundraiser, we also have a clear lack of transparency, Clinton loyalists going to great lengths to protect her, questions over access to sensitive government information, and, of course, Hillary’s private email account.

You can read ABC’s full blow-by-blow here, but the short version is this: The rest of the International Security Advisory Board was filled with nuclear scientists, past Cabinet secretaries, and former members of Congress. But the only thing Fernando had to offer the group was, in ABC’s words, “his technological know-how,” which none of his fellow panelists seemed to find all that helpful. Fernando was so out of place, in fact, that one board member told ABC that none of his colleagues could figure out why he was even there.

Days after the network started asking questions about Fernando in the summer of 2011, he promptly resigned from the panel citing a need to focus on his business interests. He and the State Department declined to make public a copy of his résumé and refused to field follow-up questions at the time. Which brings us back to the present. Via ABC:
The newly released emails reveal that after ABC News started asking questions in August 2011, a State Department official who worked with the advisory board couldn’t immediately come up with a justification for Fernando serving on the panel. His and other emails make repeated references to “S”; ABC News has been told this is a common way to refer to the Secretary of State.

“The true answer is simply that S staff (Cheryl Mills) added him,” wrote Wade Boese, who was Chief of Staff for the Office of the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, in an email to [Jamie] Mannina, the press aide. “Raj was not on the list sent to S; he was added at their insistence.

ABC was unable to follow the trail directly to Clinton herself, though the emails did suggest her staff was eager to shield her from the controversy and any potential fallout. “We must protect the Secretary’s and Under Secretary’s name, as well as the integrity of the Board,” her press aide wrote. “I think it’s important to get down to the bottom of this before there’s any response.”

So just how big of a deal is this? In the big bucket of Clinton controversies (both real and imagined), this is merely a drop. Hillary and her staff had broad leeway to name pretty much whomever they wanted to the board, so while tapping Fernando was highly questionable, it wasn’t illegal. It is impossible to read the ABC report and not get a distinct whiff of favor trading, but there is no smoking gun—as there almost never is when it comes to this type of thing. In a political system where the inputs and outputs are both money and power, proof of guilt, or, really, innocence, rarely exists.

Still, it’s yet one more example of why Clinton is so fortunate that she’s set to face off against Donald Trump in the general."


http://amp.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/06/10/how_clinton_donor_rajiv_fernando_got_a_job_as_a_nuclear_expert_he_wasn_t.html

June 10, 2016

How the ‘Texts From Hillary’ Photo Sparked an Inquiry Into Clinton’s Emails

"Never let anyone tell you memes don’t matter. That famous image of Hillary Clinton looking chill with her Blackberry actually prompted a government official to inquire about the status of her State Department email account. No one listened, and here we are now.

In a deposition this week, State Department official Karin Lang revealed some new details about the photo’s wacky history. Lang testified that the government knew that Clinton didn’t plan to use her official email address back in 2008 or 2009. Then the photo of Hillary wearing sunglasses and looking at her phone appeared in late 2011, and Clarence Finney from the office that handles FOIA requests got curious.

“When Mrs. Clinton’s photo appeared in the media with her using appearing to use some sort of a mobile device, Clarence Finney checked with [information management staff] to confirm... whether the answer was still that she did not have a State.gov e-mail account,” Lang said in her testimony.


Well, the inquiry didn’t go very far at the time, but the photo went viral in 2012. It spawned a dedicated Tumblr called “Texts from Hillary,” a blog post from Hillary herself, a Maureen Dowd column, a tweet from Questlove, and many LOLs all around. However, we now know that the photo raised some concern about her secretive email habits years before the controversy and FBI probe and endless discussion. Just yesterday, Donald Trump referred to the email conspiracy after Hillary’s “delete your account” burn. (To be fair, though, everyone has been referring to the email conspiracy.)

Again, according to Lang’s testimony this week at the Justice Department, Finney was “told at the outset” that Hillary wouldn’t use an official email account. And then Finney followed up when he saw the now iconic photo. But imagine an alternate universe where Finney’s inquiry had been taken more seriously. Hillary had been using that private server for a while by 2011, but that’s still years of secret emails that could have been avoided. Instead, all we got was this amazing meme."


http://gizmodo.com/how-the-texts-from-hillary-photo-sparked-an-inquiry-i-1781746629

It's something that one of the most iconic photos of Hillary would spark this.

June 10, 2016

Archaeologists discover massive Petra monument that could be 2,150 years old

Source: The Guardian


Archaeologists have found a monumental structure buried under the sands of Petra, according to a new study that drew on satellite imagery to scan the ancient city.

Satellite surveys of the city revealed a massive platform, 184ft by 161ft, with an interior platform that was paved with flagstones, lined with columns on one side and with a gigantic staircase descending to the east. A smaller structure, 28ft by 28ft, topped the interior platform and opened to the staircase. Pottery found near the structure suggests the structure could be more than 2,150 years old.

“This monumental platform has no parallels at Petra or in its hinterlands at present,” the researchers wrote, noting that the structure, strangely, is near the city center but “hidden” and hard to reach.

“To my knowledge, we don’t have anything quite like this at Petra,” said Christopher Tuttle, an archaeologist who has worked at Petra for about 15 years and a co-author of the paper.



Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/09/petra-buried-monument-discovered-jordan

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There's so much underneath our feet that we don't even know is there.

June 9, 2016

Britain's Royal Navy warships are breaking down because sea is too hot

Source: CNN

Britain's £1bn ($1.4bn) warships are losing power in the Persian Gulf because they cannot cope with the warm waters, MPs have been told.

Six Type 45 destroyers have repeatedly experienced power outages because of the temperatures, leaving servicemen in complete darkness.

During the Defence Committee hearing on Tuesday, MPs questioned company executives about the warship failures.

"The equipment is having to operate in far more arduous conditions that were initially required," Rolls-Royce director Tomas Leahy said. Managing director of BAE Systems Maritime, John Hudson, supported Leahy's comments, adding: "The operating profile at the time was that there would not be repeated or continuous operations in the Gulf."

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/09/europe/britain-royal-navy-warships/index.html

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Sounds like bean counters on the committee got their way and this is the end result.

June 9, 2016

Hillary Clinton’s State Department Gave South Sudan’s Military a Pass for Its Child Soldiers

I met a few of them in the town of Pibor last year. These battle-tested veterans had just completed two or three years of military service. They told me about the rigors of a soldier’s life, about toting AK-47s, about the circumstances that led them to take up arms. In the United States, not one of these soldiers would have met the age requirements to enlist in the Army. None were older than 16.

Rebel forces in southern Sudan began using child soldiers long before seceding from Sudan in 2011. The United States, on the other hand, passed a law in 2008 that banned providing military assistance to nations that use child soldiers. The law was called the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, or CSPA, but after South Sudan’s independence, the White House issued annual waivers that kept aid flowing to the world’s newest nation despite its use of child soldiers. President Obama stated in 2012 that the waiver that year was in “the national interest of the United States.”

The president’s move was criticized by human rights activists and others. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, a Republican from Nebraska and the author of the CSPA, described the use of child soldiers as an “unthinkable practice.” The U.S. “must not be complicit in this practice,” he said. “The intent of the law is clear — the waiver authority should be used as a mechanism for reform, not as a way of continuing the status quo.” Because of the requirements of the law, the waivers were issued by the White House rather than the State Department, so Obama was the target of most of the criticism.

Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state when the first waivers were issued, was apparently never asked to comment on them, and the State Department never provided any explanations about its role. Clinton had spent years vowing to defend the rights of children worldwide — in 2012, she railed against “modern-day slavery” in the introduction to a State Department report on human trafficking that took aim at the “unlawful recruitment or use of children” by armed forces. Yet she does not appear to have publicly explained her role in allowing South Sudan and other countries to receive military support despite using children as combatants. In fact, the State Department played a central role in issuing the controversial waivers, according to two sources, including a former State Department official."


https://theintercept.com/2016/06/09/hillary-clintons-state-department-gave-south-sudans-military-a-pass-for-its-child-soldiers/

June 8, 2016

Experts: Clinton emails could have compromised CIA names

Source: AP

The names of CIA personnel could have been compromised not only by hackers who may have penetrated Hillary Clinton's private computer server or the State Department system, but also by the release itself of tens of thousands of her emails, security experts say.

At least 47 of the emails contain the notation "B3 CIA PERS/ORG," which indicates the material referred to CIA personnel or matters related to the agency. And because both Clinton's server and the State Department systems were vulnerable to hacking, the perpetrators could have those original emails, and now the publicly released, redacted versions showing exactly which sections refer to CIA personnel.

"Start with the entirely plausible view that foreign intelligence services discovered and rifled Hillary Clinton's server," said Stewart Baker, a Washington lawyer who spent more than three years as an assistant secretary of the Homeland Security Department and is former legal counsel for the National Security Agency.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/1a737240cf144c728b45ef64e181f19d/experts-clinton-emails-could-have-compromised-cia-names#

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AP confirms what's obvious based on those codes. It should also be noted that the FBI officially confirmed that they recovered files from Hillary's server and considers it evidence.

June 8, 2016

Justice Dept. granted limited immunity to staffer in Clinton email probe

Attorneys for a former State Department staffer who helped set up Hillary Clinton’s private email server said Tuesday that he was granted limited immunity by federal prosecutors in an ongoing Justice Department investigation and not shielded from prosecution in connection with other matters.

The disclosure came as Bryan Pagliano met a court deadline to disclose details of the agreement after he sought to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid answering questions in a civil open-records lawsuit brought by the conservative group Judicial Watch.

Pagliano’s attorneys, led by Mark J. MacDougall, filed the agreement under terms that it be sealed from all but U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of Washington.

In an accompanying filing, they explained that Pagliano entered into “use and derivative use” agreements with the Justice Department shortly after approaching it in December 2015 with a proposal to give testimony.

The agreements do not give Pagliano blanket immunity in what The Washington Post reported in March was part of an ongoing FBI criminal investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information related to Clinton’s email setup while she was secretary from 2009 to 2013. Instead, such deals typically prohibit prosecutors from using evidence against a witness developed from his own testimony — but not evidence obtained independently.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/justice-dept-granted-limited-immunity-to-staffer-in-clinton-email-probe/2016/06/07/a1a46d2c-2ce8-11e6-b5db-e9bc84a2c8e4_story.html