FYI - Must Read Articles of Interest Today October 7, 2016

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Hurricane Matthew

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/57f604f9e4b087a29a5486fd

Hurricane Matthew: Hundreds dead in Haiti storm disaster

The death toll in Haiti as a result of Hurricane Matthew - the most powerful Caribbean storm in a decade - has soared to more than 400, officials say.

Some 50 people were reported killed in the town of Roche-a-Bateau alone

The nearby city of Jeremie saw 80% of its buildings levelled. In Sud province 30,000 homes were destroyed.

Category Three Matthew, with sustained winds of 120mph (193km/h), is heading up the coastline of the US state of Florida but has not made landfall.

It remains unclear whether it will do so.

At 08:00 local time (12:00 GMT) Matthew was off the Florida coast, about 45 miles east of Daytona Beach and moving north-west at about 13mph, the National Hurricane Center said.

§                       Live updates on Florida

§                       Hurricane Matthew in pictures

§                       Drudge Report kicks up storm

§                       Haitians describe hurricane ordeal

§                       Hurricane response: How do Haiti and Florida compare?

One Senator told AFP news agency that at least 400 people had died. Reuters news agency put the death toll at 478, quoting Haitian officials, but this has not been independently confirmed.

Complete BBC article

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-37582009

Russian threatens United States over Syria

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/russia-warns-us-not-intervene-syria-threatens-shoot-181512495--abc-news-topstories.html

The destruction of Aleppo

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/nation-world/world/article106400962.html

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The Politics of Hypocrisy in the American Election - Bill Clinton as character reference for wife Hillary Clinton

First Published May 8, 2009

Obamaville - April 23 - The Clinton Legacy - Public Service or Public Con Job - and who is being conned?

With Bill and Hillary Clinton continuing to soar in popularity in the minds of some Democrats, although not in the eyes of liberal and progressive Democratic institutions like The New York Times, Newsweek, and The Washington Post, the stunning article today in The New York Times raises more questions.

The newspaper disclosure about the manipulation of hundreds of millions of foreign dollars in the Clinton Foundation while she was Secretary of State probably explains better than any other explanation why Hillary erased tens of thousands of emails from her personal server covering that period.

Of course, Clinton apologists say it was just the Clintons being the Clinton's and they are just targets of a Right Wing conspiracy.  However, no one would label the Times or Post right wing radicals.

Bill Clinton is almost certainly the most popular person in American politics. A new NBC-Wall Street Journal poll showed that 56 percent of people have a positive view of the former president while just 26 percent hold a negative one.  It makes him more popular than his wife; 44 percent of Americans have a positive view of Hillary Clinton while 36 percent have a negative one.

Most Clinton fans point to the lead Hillary holds in the choice to be Democrat nominee for president, a number that wavers around 60%.  Running against Joe Biden who has not said he is in the race, nor campaigned, he sits at about 10% of the Democrat votes, Clinton has already lost 40% of the Democrats with no opposition.

People may be tired of the Clinton love of walking the tightrope when it comes to federal laws and regulations.  Bill Clinton spent over $7 million on legal fees to avoid impeachment and settlements for lawsuits against him by women.

Of course, he smoked pot but did not inhale and had oral sex with an intern but did not actually have sex, so one must adjust to the Clinton definitions.

We are yet to open the book on the changes Clinton made in the twilight of his presidency, which may have directly led to the collapse of our economy.

In addition, there is Goldman Sachs and their relationship with both Clintons in bailing out his legal expenses.  They also arranged for $500,000 speaker fees, and channeled tens of millions of foreign, and somewhat illegal dollars, into the Clinton Foundation of which she was a director, even while Secretary of State.

Did I mention their relationship to former Goldman Sachs executive Rahm Emanuel, Clinton's chief fundraiser, and Obama's Chief of Staff?

You get the idea, if Hillary runs unopposed as it now looks she may spend far more money defending herself against the acts of her husband, their family foundation, the $200 plus million dollars in their bank accounts, and their very strange relationship with the richest people throughout the world, some from countries whose money is banned.

Just what transpired to lift the Clinton couple from being broke according to Hillary in 2000 when Bill left office millions of dollars of debt from legal fees and lawsuit settlements, to being worth up to $200 million along with the assets of the Clinton Foundation 14 years later.

Most disappointing if I were a Democrat is how they continually sucker in the progressive wing of the party with promises of helping the little people, as they rocket up the ladder of former politicians who got rich manipulating the power of government.

Not only are they the classic politicians who have run Washington for far too long, but they show  no signs of stopping their efforts to convert public service to personal gain.

Ironically, Obama seemed to have been wary of the wily Clinton clan.  The White House said when he made Hillary Secretary of State she signed an agreement to publicly report all Clinton Foundation sources of money, and she was subject to preserving a permanent email record of all her dealings as Secretary.  Both promises seem to have been broken.

This might raise the question did the Clinton's tell Obama they would support him in the elections if she became secretary of State?  It could be the appointment was a bribe or a payoff but not being a right wing Republican I have no grounds to pursue such an abuse of power.

Hillary's biggest fear should be not having an opponent and having to spend the next 15 months before the general election explaining the Clinton actions over the past two decades.

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Obamaville June 16 - America burns as Obama Fiddles - Terrorist Attacks and Economic weakness demonstrate Obama loss of focus and perspective on America

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Did Obama fall into the Trump Trap in Presidential Campaign?

This has been the strangest campaign in history and things get more bizarre by the day.  You can thank the unconventional disrupter Donald Trump for throwing out the rules and shattering all tradition.  Of course what do you really expect from the Populist Disrupter, Trump.

So far, he has opened eyes and shattered many preconceived notions about how to run presidential campaigns.  For example, both Trump and Clinton won their respective nominations in the primaries but it cost Trump about $50 million and Hillary four times as much, about $200 million.

When you consider that Trump was one of 17 candidates, meaning he had to defeat 16 other opponents, and Hillary was one of just 3, her spending seems much more unreasonable.  At the last check, Hillary had about 800 campaign staff while Trump had about 60.

Then there is the near total absence of prepared speeches by Trump, his habit of telling it like he sees it regardless of the truth, and his total disregard for the news media, and one wonders how he could possibly survive.

He may or may not be a Republican, he contributed money to Democrats in the past, and he thinks his private jet is better than Air Force One, and he may just be right.  People love him or hate him, and that includes fellow Republicans.

His unfavorable rating is the highest ever recorded in a presidential campaign, at 69%, yet Hillary has the second highest unfavorable rating in history at 56%.  The last two weeks were the best two weeks of her campaign as Hillary won the nomination, got the endorsement of Obama and many others, and teamed up with Elizabeth Warren to dice and slice poor Donald, yet her unfavorable continued to rise.

On the positive side for Mr. Trump, Hillary is still waiting for the FBI to act on her email scandal.  President Putin of Russia just might help Trump by disclosing classified Hillary emails hacked by the Russians, proving she jeopardized national security with her private server.

Trump has still not started on her about the Clinton Foundation, her conflicts of interest as Secretary of State, and her husband's dismal record when president in terms of jailing African Americans, destroying the manufacturing base in America, and providing the rule changes that directly led to the economic collapse of 2008-2009.

So in spite of everything I have just outlined, at best we can say we do not even know if either presidential candidate selected by the popular vote of the people will actually make it to election day without getting thrown off the party ticket, thrown in jail, charged with felony actions, or discovers some other form of self-destruction.

As for Obama taking over the Clinton campaign, here was the headline on CNBC this past week regarding the Obama economy.

US created 38,000 jobs in May vs. 162,000 expected

(Editor's note, just 23% of what was expected)

How Trump Trumped Obama!

We know Hillary decided to run on the coattails of President Obama, promising to protect his legacy if elected president.  In fact, she has been pandering to him the entire campaign, even though the whole world knows the Clinton and Obama clans do not like each other, maybe even despise the other.

It is an unhealthy alliance for the moment in order to keep Trump from winning the presidency and exposing all the bad things Obama might have done.  Tenuous at best, it could implode at any moment.

Trump seems to have come up with a strategy with his favorite advisor, himself, to change the campaign from a contest with Hillary to a referendum on the Obama presidency but like most lame duck presidents Obama pretty much kept out of the campaign.  Here in America tradition has it that a sitting president stays above politics by staying out of politics at the end of his term.

Obama followed such a course until this week when the constant baiting by Trump with little jabs at the departing president finally made Obama come unglued and viciously attack Donald.  It was quite the spectacle when the president lowered himself to the Trump standard and then distortions and exaggerations started flowing from his lips.

Suddenly Obama was morphing into the very person he hated the most, Donald Trump.

So here we are, just four months until the general election.  Trump is standing alone taking on the last two Democratic Presidents (Obama and Clinton), the good old boy VP Joe Biden, the former First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the entire elitist political establishments from both parties, and the purveyor of the truth, the liberal news media.

On the Republican side, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan seems to be the only party leader willing to try to help Trump become a viable candidate.  The two Republican Presidents from the Bush family are sitting on the sidelines along with the party establishment and the last GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney seemingly willing to let the party suffer a humiliating defeat rather than help Trump.

Most of the major Republican contributors whose money is essential for most candidates to win are also like Ladies in Waiting on the sidelines.  The vast majority of the news media, long ago wrote off Trump and are now working overtime to make certain it was a self-fulfilling prophecy and not just a pipedream to stop Trump.

So, it is David versus Goliath, Trump versus the world.

On the side of Goliath stands everyone in the universal establishment from the news media to financial contributors to Republicans and Democrats united in their hatred of Trump and their desire to protect the status quo.

As the camera pans to the opposition, the David or Trump side of the most one-sided battle in the history of politics, we see a lone soul in the wilderness like a John the Baptist shouting out that it does not have to be like this.

Behind the lone soul in the wilderness the forest of trees emerge from the fog and we begin to see not trees but the Little People, the forgotten Americans.  These are the disenfranchised voters, the disappointed public, the out of work minorities, the undocumented workers, union members abandoned by their protectors, unemployed manufacturing and coal workers who believed their politicians, the people upon whose backs and hard labor the Establishment has flourished.

Now we see millions of Little People begin to come into view armed only with a faith in our nation and believing things have got to be better than what we have.  This army of forgotten souls has been searching for a leader for decades as both political parties have made empty promise after empty promise.

Very special interests that dominate the two party system and control Wall Street and all wealth, those one percent few, demand the politicians and media they own take down this radical from the wilderness and his followers who threaten their gravy train, their control of power, and their obsession with wealth.

Even President Obama, the latest of the political beneficiaries of the super wealthy, who has played their game since becoming president and increased their wealth enormously, is now worried about the voice in the wilderness.  Trump is threatening his legacy so Obama decides to break all the rules himself and use the office of the president and power of the presidency to destroy this insignificant gnat.

Watch as Hillary fades into the background as Obama takes front and center on stage to crush this brash native of Queens.

Perhaps this is why Obama wants to crush Trump.  Trump is in the process of exposing the real Obama eight-year legacy including;

failed to heal the economy,

failed to secure payroll increases for Middle Class

failed to improve foreign policy,

failed on his campaign promises to heal the nation and end illegal immigration,

failed to end the fighting in the Middle East,

failed to help the African American community,

failed to provide immigration reform to Hispanics,

failed to save 400,000 Syrian citizens from death since his red line promise,

failed to save 182,650 Mexicans murdered in drug wars to supply USA

It will be interesting to see how the battle between David and Goliath evolves the next five months.

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Obamaville - April 23 - The Clinton Legacy - Public Service or Public Con Job - and who is being conned?

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First Published May 8, 2009

Obamaville - April 23 - The Clinton Legacy - Public Service or Public Con Job - and who is being conned?

With Bill and Hillary Clinton continuing to soar in popularity in the minds of some Democrats, although not in the eyes of liberal and progressive Democratic institutions like The New York Times, Newsweek, and The Washington Post, the stunning article today in The New York Times raises more questions.

The newspaper disclosure about the manipulation of hundreds of millions of foreign dollars in the Clinton Foundation while she was Secretary of State probably explains better than any other explanation why Hillary erased tens of thousands of emails from her personal server covering that period.

Of course, Clinton apologists say it was just the Clintons being the Clinton's and they are just targets of a Right Wing conspiracy.  However, no one would label the Times or Post right wing radicals.

Bill Clinton is almost certainly the most popular person in American politics. A new NBC-Wall Street Journal poll showed that 56 percent of people have a positive view of the former president while just 26 percent hold a negative one.  It makes him more popular than his wife; 44 percent of Americans have a positive view of Hillary Clinton while 36 percent have a negative one.

Most Clinton fans point to the lead Hillary holds in the choice to be Democrat nominee for president, a number that wavers around 60%.  Running against Joe Biden who has not said he is in the race, nor campaigned, he sits at about 10% of the Democrat votes, Clinton has already lost 40% of the Democrats with no opposition.

People may be tired of the Clinton love of walking the tightrope when it comes to federal laws and regulations.  Bill Clinton spent over $7 million on legal fees to avoid impeachment and settlements for lawsuits against him by women.

Of course, he smoked pot but did not inhale and had oral sex with an intern but did not actually have sex, so one must adjust to the Clinton definitions.

We are yet to open the book on the changes Clinton made in the twilight of his presidency, which may have directly led to the collapse of our economy.

In addition, there is Goldman Sachs and their relationship with both Clintons in bailing out his legal expenses.  They also arranged for $500,000 speaker fees, and channeled tens of millions of foreign, and somewhat illegal dollars, into the Clinton Foundation of which she was a director, even while Secretary of State.

Did I mention their relationship to former Goldman Sachs executive Rahm Emanuel, Clinton's chief fundraiser, and Obama's Chief of Staff?

You get the idea, if Hillary runs unopposed as it now looks she may spend far more money defending herself against the acts of her husband, their family foundation, the $200 plus million dollars in their bank accounts, and their very strange relationship with the richest people throughout the world, some from countries whose money is banned.

Just what transpired to lift the Clinton couple from being broke according to Hillary in 2000 when Bill left office millions of dollars of debt from legal fees and lawsuit settlements, to being worth up to $200 million along with the assets of the Clinton Foundation 14 years later.

Most disappointing if I were a Democrat is how they continually sucker in the progressive wing of the party with promises of helping the little people, as they rocket up the ladder of former politicians who got rich manipulating the power of government.

Not only are they the classic politicians who have run Washington for far too long, but they show  no signs of stopping their efforts to convert public service to personal gain.

Ironically, Obama seemed to have been wary of the wily Clinton clan.  The White House said when he made Hillary Secretary of State she signed an agreement to publicly report all Clinton Foundation sources of money, and she was subject to preserving a permanent email record of all her dealings as Secretary.  Both promises seem to have been broken.

This might raise the question did the Clinton's tell Obama they would support him in the elections if she became secretary of State?  It could be the appointment was a bribe or a payoff but not being a right wing Republican I have no grounds to pursue such an abuse of power.

Hillary's biggest fear should be not having an opponent and having to spend the next 15 months before the general election explaining the Clinton actions over the past two decades.

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