You do realize that there is a difference between being Jewish and being a Zionist?

Though Zionists are Jewish not all Jews are Zionists. Just as not all Muslims are Al-Queda or all Christians are Catholic.

Zionists believe That Israel Belongs to the Entire Jewish People.

"the concept emerged only at the end of the 19th century. It’s meaningless to try and describe Yehuda Halevi as a Zionist, or any other Jew who immigrated to the Holy Land in centuries past. In the same fashion, we can’t use the terms “socialism” or “socialist” for periods before the middle of the 19th century, and describe Robespierre, for example, as the “socialist” of the French Revolution, which occurred at the end of the 18th century. These concepts only have significance from the time when they emerged in a specific historical context, and tossing them around freely as labels for anything we choose is a clearly anachronistic act.

If so, how would we define who is a Zionist, starting from the emergence of the Zionist movement as inspired by Theodor Herzl and his associates? Here is the definition: A Zionist is a person who desires or supports the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, which in the future will become the state of the Jewish people. This is based on what Herzl said: “In Basel I founded the Jewish state.”

The key word in this definition is “state,” and its natural location is the Land of Israel because of the Jewish people’s historical link to it. Thus my grandfather’s grandfather, for example, who came to the Land of Israel from Thessaloniki in the mid-19th century, cannot be considered a Zionist. He came to settle in the Land of Israel, not to establish a state here. This is also the rule for the ancestors of Neturei Karta and other Hasidic groups that came to the Land of Israel as far back as the 17th and 18th centuries, and who remain loyal to it. Not only were these Jews not interested in establishing a Jewish state, but they include some who saw − and still see − the State of Israel as an abomination and a desecration of God’s name.

A Zionist, therefore, is a Jew who supported the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, and not necessarily one who actually settled in the land. Herzl himself and many Zionist leaders never settled in the land, yet you wouldn’t hesitate to call them Zionists. Even today, the members of Zionist federations worldwide are considered Zionists by us and by themselves, even though they don’t live in Israel."

read more: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/defining-zionism-the-belief-that-israel-belongs-to-the-entire-jewish-people.premium-1.525064




Regarding OP:



Nothing new there. It's been happening for years and until people see each other as equals ... will continue.




Really would like to know where you get this from. Especially since they just repealed some Obama regulations that prevented some from getting firearms.




Again, would like to see where you get this from. Miranda is so entrenched in the legal system that removing it would be next to impossible.




So far it's just been bluster. Though a trade war with Mexico is possible.




Thankfully there are more are more people that actually check his alternate facts and know what the true facts are.
ie: President Donald Trump claimed Thursday that he cannot find a country with which the United States has a trade surplus.

Answer: The U.S., in fact, has a merchandise trade surplus with more than half of the countries in the world, according to the U.S. International Trade Commission. A trade surplus means America exports more goods to a country than it imports from it.

US Trade Surplus

Irregardless of which President it started under it more than just a question of the environment. Though if it is so safe that NOTHING will ever happen ..... why was it relocated from it's original planned course upstream from Bismark? Did Bismark have the same concerns?

The reason that The Sioux and Cheyenne are against it is that it infringes on their land.

TxsGal is quite correct that it doesn't pass through the actual reservation but it does pass through land that belongs to the natives.

................

As settlers headed west in the middle of the 19th century, nations of Native Americans wanted them to keep their distance and their foreign diseases at bay. The United States wanted easements for trails and permission to build forts in Indian territories.

The result was the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1851 — a historic agreement that has found new resonance in the disagreement over the path of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

“It really is an important thing,” said Suzan Harjo, president of the Morning Star Institute and a longtime Native American historian and advocate. “These agreements — they all started out with peace and friendship.”

Harjo curated an exhibit on treaties at the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian and wrote an accompanying book, both called, “Nation to Nation: Treaties between the United States and American Indian Nations.” The exhibit is slated to be open until at least 2018. President Barack Obama in 2014 awarded Harjo the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, for her decades of advocacy on behalf of Native Americans.

Because of the unique standing of treaties under the U.S. Constitution, many parts of the treaty remain in effect, according to Harjo, who said she believes Dakota Access Pipeline opponents are correct in citing the treaty in their efforts to stop pipeline construction on treaty lands that are privately owned and not part of the Standing Rock Reservation.

The Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1851 was an attempt to establish Native American territories and set ground rules for the westward spread of settlers, Harjo said. More than 10,000 Native Americans came to Fort Laramie for discussions with U.S. officials. Because the fort couldn’t hold them, negotiations were held at Horse Creek, leading some to call it the Treaty of Horse Creek. Others call it “the Great Smoke,” because of the smoke when tribal leaders burned sage and buffalo grass and other symbolic things up to the Creator to signify the deal was done, Harjo said.

“They made this treaty, and it was a reasonable treaty on all sides,” she said.

A map drawn by Belgian Jesuit missionary Father Pierre-Jean DeSmet with information from famous guide and fur trapper Jim Bridger helped define the approximate boundaries of the tribes, Harjo said. The pool-table sized map now is at the Library of Congress.

The treaty also laid out rules for interaction among the tribes and with the United States, gave the government permission to build small forts and provided easements no wider than a Conestoga wagon for westward trails, said Harjo, who explained that is part of the reason for the width of railroad tracks: They originally had to fit in those same easements.

Areas on the Dakota Access Pipeline route run through the 1851 territories of tribal bands that make up the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and the Yankton Sioux Tribe, as well as through the Great Sioux Reservation drawn up in the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868, Harjo said.

However, Congress in 1889 divided the Great Sioux Reservation into six separate, smaller reservations, which have remained intact. While Congress forced the tribes on to smaller parcels of land, the treaties of 1851 and 1868 didn’t go away, Harjo said.

Grant Christensen, an assistant professor at the University of North Dakota School of Law, said he hasn’t reviewed the two Fort Laramie treaties close enough to give an opinion on any legal standing related to them. But, he explained the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution makes any treaty the “supreme law of the land" and the terms of treaties remain in place unless specifically repealed by Congress.

The U.S. Supreme Court also has held that subsequent treaties do not do away with an earlier treaty unless the new treaty specifically addresses and removes the terms of the older treaty, he said.

An example is a 1999 Supreme Court case called Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians, in which the Mille Lacs Band successfully argued they never lost the right to hunt and fish on lands laid out in an 1837 treaty despite an 1855 treaty that made their reservation smaller, Christensen said.

Harjo said she believes Standing Rock still has claims to the lands in the 1851 territories. The Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1851 didn’t make the tribes change who they were, she said.

“They didn’t give up their right to speak their language or exercise their religion. They didn’t give up their ancestors’ graves. They didn’t give up their worship and other sacred places. They didn’t give up their right to have a clear blue stream to jump in to conclude the Sun Dance,” Harjo said.

Harjo said she believes the 1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act, the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and the 1996 Executive Order on Indian Sacred Sites — all of which she played a part in molding — have built on those treaty rights and also are in play.

“The native people in this situation haven’t begun to mount the kind of legal case that they could,” she said.



1851 treaty resonates in DAPL discussion

The jobs 'staying' in America were already planned long before Trump became President. Same as some are remaining out of the country.
......................................................

President Obama's presidency began a year after the stock market lost nearly 40% in the midst of the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

"When President Obama's term as president started the markets were grossly undervalued," he said.

"Obama just happened to be at the right place, right time — after a 50%-60% correction in the equity market amid historical fears about another depression," Paulenoff added.

Trump, on the other hand, is not in the right place.

"He is touting the upside in equity markets, for which he is not responsible," Paulenoff said."And it's ironic because the coming correction is also not his fault, but people will likely attribute it to him."

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-in-wrong-place-at-wrong-time-when-it-comes-to-the-stock-market-2017-2


Ford
The decision not to build the plant in Mexico, where Ford had planned to build the next generation Ford Focus, was scrapped because “we’ve seen decreasing demand here in North America for small cars, and we simply don’t need the capacity anymore,” Fields said on Fox Business News. Instead, he said, Ford will build it in an existing facility in Mexico.

Fields noted that the 700 new jobs were in addition to the 28,000 the company has added over the last five years. The company has also invested $12 billion in U.S. plants over the same period.

“Would you have done this [the moves announced] if Donald Trump were not elected president?” Cavuto asked.

“Yes, absolutely,” Fields said.


General Motors

But GM leaders stressed that the investments in the U.S. were part of a longtime trend. The company noted that it has announced investments of $2.9 billion in the U.S. in 2016 — and more than $21 billion since 2009.

The insourcing of IT jobs, in particular, has been part of an ongoing strategy. The company’s press release states:

GM press release, Jan. 17: GM’s announcement is part of the company’s increased focus on overall efficiency over the last four years. With a strategy to streamline and simplify its operations and grow its business, GM has created 25,000 jobs in the U.S. − approximately 19,000 engineering, IT and professional jobs and 6,000 hourly manufacturing jobs – and added nearly $3 billion in annual wages and benefits to the U.S. economy over that period. At the same time, GM reduced more than 15,000 positions outside the U.S., bringing most of those jobs to America. During that period, the company moved from 90 percent of its IT work being outsourced to an insourced U.S.-based model.



Lockheed Martin

But it’s unclear how Trump can claim that the additional jobs “came back because of me.” As the New York Times reported, the “government’s next contract in the F-35 project would cover 90 planes, compared with 57 in the previous batch. The increase was in the works before Mr. Trump was elected, and other Lockheed officials said the added positions would come as production increases.”

In other words, Trump can claim credit for helping to drive down the cost of the program — though the Times noted the cost had been dropping even before Trump weighed in — but the additional jobs announced by Lockheed are tied to increased production of F-35s called for in the new government contract.


Michelle Krebs, a Detroit-based senior analyst for Autotrader who has been writing about the automotive industry for 35 years, told us few of the automakers’ announcements were a surprise to her or anyone else who covers the industry.


Bruce Belzowski, managing director of Automotive Futures group at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, told us Trump and the automakers appear to be using each other for public relations purposes.

“They [jobs] didn’t come back because of him [Trump],” Belzowski said.

Most of the auto manufacturing investments have been in the works before Trump was elected, he said, but there is an incentive to announcing them now that extends beyond staying on the good side of the incoming president.

“He’s a pretty good PR machine for them,” Belzowski said. And for Trump, he said, it gives the inflated impression that he is affecting significant change.

Belzowski thinks car companies are “taking advantage of” Trump’s platform and “playing up to him. … And he seems to want to be played up to.”

The new investments by car companies in the U.S. have been happening for years, since early in the Obama administration, he said. They just didn’t get the same kind of media attention.


Nonetheless, the authors expect such announcements to continue. “We expect manufacturers to continue to publicly announce investment plans in the US even if they are not directly linked to the election,” the report states.

Maryann Keller, an independent auto industry consultant at Maryann Keller & Associates, chalked up the moves by automakers as “the normal course of business.”

“All they’re doing is announcing investments that they would have made anyway,” she told Bloomberg.

Again, corporate officials at all of the companies Trump listed praised Trump’s plans as business-friendly — specifically his promises to reduce regulations and cut corporate taxes. Those may well allow companies to grow in the future — time will tell. But as for the recent spate of announcements made by these companies, experts and officials from the companies themselves warn not to assign too much credit to Trump.


Trump: Jobs Returning ‘Because of Me’








After weeks of tumult in Washington, Trump returned to Florida and his private club for a third straight weekend.

President Trump hit the golf course for the third weekend in a row.

Trump played “a couple of holes” on Saturday and Sunday while staying at his resort Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., the White House told reporters.

Throughout former President Barack Obama’s eight years in the White House, Trump criticized him for taking breaks from his work to go on vacation and play gol

Trump plays golf for third weekend in a row





There is also the matter of ........ how much will he mess up the economy? These people invested time, money and hard labor in their economy, personal and local.

...............................................

But the Texas cattle rancher now faces a new threat: the Trump administration's blundering, blustering trade policy. By threatening a trade war with Mexico within days of inauguration, the president helped trigger a slide in cattle futures. Mexico is a major export market. By sinking the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the new administration cut off long-sought access to the Japanese market. Now banks have raised the conditions for collateral for loans for ranchers.

Texas ranchers, though, will not be alone for long. Beef producers from Nebraska to the Dakotas face the same problems. So do grain farmers in Kansas and the snow-covered corn fields of Iowa, just like tomato farmers in California and Florida and autoworkers in Michigan, longshoremen, truckers and railway workers in Miami and Houston and Long Beach. These will be the first casualties of a trade war.

The first casualties of Trump's trade wars are Texas cattle ranchers

On the morning of February 8, a civil servant from Buffalo, New York—a Somali by birth but an American by choice—walked into a heavily guarded airplane hangar in the battle-scarred capital of his native country where an important vote was about to take place. When he emerged that night, he was president. His surprise victory, which was celebrated with gunfire and camel slaughter in Mogadishu and high-fives at the Buffalo office of the New York Department of Transportation, where he was still technically employed as an equal opportunity compliance officer, was all the more remarkable because it came at the very moment a federal court in the U.S. was deciding the fate of a travel ban that targeted refugees exactly like him.

The story of how Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed came to be the leader of a country that is synonymous with anarchy and terrorism is both a classic American immigrant’s tale and one about the age-old conflict between basic democratic principles and the forces of political corruption. It begins in 1988, when Mohamed, then a first secretary for the Somali embassy in Washington, D.C., decided it was too dangerous to return home and applied for asylum. Back then, the U.S. was inclined to say yes to such requests.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/how-an-american-bureaucrat-became-president-of-somalia-214798


Somalia's new president visited victims wounded by the Mogadishu car bomb that on Sunday killed 34.

President Mohamed Abdulahi Mohamed also offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of those who planned the blast.

The powerful explosion was the first major attack since Somalia's new president was elected on Feb.8. Although no group has yet claimed responsibility, it bears the hallmarks of Somalia's Islamic extremists rebels, al-Shabaab.

In a Twitter post, President Mohamed condemned the blast, saying that it shows the "cruelty" of al-Shabaab.

A few hours before the blast, al-Shabaab denounced the new president as an "apostate" and vowed to continue fighting against his government.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/somalia-market-bomb-1.3990273

........................................


From asylum seeker to President, not bad. Hopefully he can accomplish what he seeks to do.

A Virginia jury declared Lorena Bobbitt temporarily insane after she chopped off her husband's penis.

Jurors acquitted Lorena Bobbitt of the crime, agreeing with the defense that she suffered an "irresistible impulse" caused by the abuse, the Times reported.

Bobbitt was ultimately committed to a mental hospital. However, the judge ordered her released from the hospital five weeks after her acquittal, according to the LA Times.


A Chicago-area doctor was found not guilty by reason of insanity after he killed his wife and daughter.



Lee Robin killed his wife with an ax and drowned their nearly-3-month-old daughter in 1988, The Chicago Tribune reported at the time.

But instead of running from police, the Palatine, Ill.-based doctor waited at the family's home. Robin reportedly sat at the foot of the stairs and told police the bodies were upstairs when they arrived.

He was ultimately found not guilty by reason of insanity after a trio of mental health experts decided he was too psychologically ill to understand his actions were wrong, according to a 1999 Chicago Tribune article.

Robin spent about 10 years at the Elgin Mental Health Center before a judge ruled he could be transitioned back into the community.


Steven Steinberg

teven Steinberg became the subject of the book Death of a Jewish American Princess, seen above, thanks to a terrible thing he did while living in Scottsdale, Arizona in 1981: He stabbed his wife, Elena, 26 times with a kitchen knife.

Steinberg didn't deny killing Elena. But he claimed to have done so while sleepwalking, which technically meant he wasn't in his right mind at the time. The closest corollary to this assertion was the insanity defense.

At trial, his attorney called witnesses to testify that Steinberg may have been sleepwalking or in a short-lived "dissociative" mental state when he stabbed his wife.

Defense attorney Bob Hirsh alleged that Steinberg's "Jewish American Princess" wife had driven him mad with nagging and spending too much money. A jury found Steinberg not guilty on the grounds that he was temporarily insane when he'd killed her. Because he was deemed "sane" at the time of his acquittal, Steinberg walked out of court a free man.


Mom Accused of Drowning Girl Wins With Insanity Defense; Now, Can She Re-Enter Society?


Bigham was found not guilty of murder and child abuse by reason of insanity on Jan. 22 after her daughter was drowned in a bathtub inside a relative's home on Jan. 14, 2010, in Patterson, Calif.

The Stanislaus County District Attorney's office is determining whether to appeal the judge's ruling to release Bigham, questioning whether he based it upon the proper standard.

"We think he used the wrong standard," said Carol Shipley, assistant district attorney for Stanislaus County. "It wasn't just [that] she was restored to sanity."

She added that the judge also should have considered the question: "Would this community be safe if she were released?"

An attorney for Bigham did not return a call for comment.

Bigham was held at the Stanislaus County Jail and treated at a local hospital. Two doctors testified that Bigham no longer exhibited the symptoms that led to the psychotic breakdown, the Modesto Bee reported.

"People found insane beat the rap, but in reality they may lose their freedom for a longer time," Resnick said.

Steven Michael Stagner

Stagner shot Angelica Toscano, 19, and six other Hispanics in a Rifle RV Park and a grocery store parking lot on July 3, 2001. The others who died were Juan Manual Hernandez-Carrillo, 44, Melquiades Medrano-Velasquez, 23, and his brother, Juan Carlos Medrano-Velasquez, 22. Those injured were Rudolfo Beltran, 30, Efred Marinmotes-Ortega, 18, and Medel Ortega-Venzor, 24.

Three years ago, Steven Michael Stagner began leaving the fenced and guarded grounds of the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo to go on camping trips and community excursions, much like grade-school field trips, accompanied only by unarmed hospital staff members — against the objections of Garfield County prosecutors.

The spree killer could, in a matter of a few years, be living in a neighborhood somewhere in Colorado.

A Denver Post review found that three-fifths of 41 killers determined “not guilty by reason of insanity” over the past 25 years in Colorado have been moved from the mental hospital into halfway houses and homes across the state, sometimes as soon as three years after their commitments.


Robert Dunn

The prospect of releasing Robert Dunn from the mental hospital sent shock waves through Manitou Springs, where a few years earlier on June 28, 2000, he stabbed his 7-year-old daughter, Aaren, believing she was possessed. After she yelled, “Daddy, Daddy, you’re killing me!” he slashed her throat from ear to ear and tried to pry her head off with a crowbar. Dunn was committed that December.

Hospital psychiatrists began seeking off-grounds privileges for Dunn in 2003, less than three years later. In 2004, when a second request was made and publicized, school teachers wrote letters opposing the move. One had counseled Aaren Dunn’s best friend.

Years later, the hospital sought court approval to let Dunn fly to Hawaii. Prosecutors opposed the trip, “fraught with danger,” because it called for “peers” ensuring that Dunn took medications. Schwartz approved the trip, based on the hospital’s safety plan. He let Dunn move into a halfway house in 2011 and into an apartment in 2014.

Dunn must attend group therapy, keep a daily diary and take blood and urine tests to ensure he is taking medications and not drinking alcohol. A case manager checks up on him randomly, doing apartment searches for weapons and drugs, court records indicate.


Mary Winkler

Mary Winkler, 32, was charged with the first-degree murder in the March 22, 2006, shotgun shooting death of her husband, Matthew Winkler.

Winkler had been serving as the pulpit minister at the Fourth Street Church of Christ in Selmer, Tennessee. He was found dead in his home by church members after he failed to show up for an evening church service that he was scheduled to lead. He had been shot in the back

A jury convicted Mary Winkler of voluntary manslaughter after hearing testimony that she was physically and mentally abused by her husband. She was sentenced to 210 days and was free after 67 days, most of which was served in a mental facility

Jennifer Lynn Bigham


Three years after Jennifer Lynn Bigham drowned her 3-year-old daughter in a bathtub at a Patterson home, a judge ordered jail officials to release her from custody because doctors say the woman no longer is insane.

The court already had ruled that Bigham, 26, was not guilty of murder and child abuse by reason of insanity in connection with the death of her daughter, Alexandrea Bigham. At a hearing Tuesday, the judge had to decide whether the defendant should be confined in a secure medical facility.

Two doctors testified that Bigham no longer exhibits the symptoms that led to the psychotic breakdown, causing the defendant to drown her daughter. Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Thomas Zeff said the law clearly dictates that he has to order the defendant's release if she has fully recovered her sanity.

The court ruled that she was not guilty based on reports from two doctors, Phil Trompetter and Jocelyn Roland, who examined the defendant and determined that she suffered from severe mental illness when she drowned her daughter.


.........................................

Dr. Stephen Montgomery, a forensic psychiatrist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., said people found not guilty by reason of insanity and released from psychiatric care need close monitoring to protect themselves and those around them.

While society may be skeptical, Montgomery said, people released from prison with no major mental illness are a greater threat.

"Those are the kind of people that are going to be at risk with future violence," he said, "as opposed to those people found not guilty ... by reason of insanity."


..............................................


I could misquote the OP title and say "What are American authorities thinking??"

But as already pointed out:

ciretom




I realize that Civil Forfeiture has been around for a long time. But when Trmp states (jokingly or not) that he should ruin a Senator's career because the Senator, among others, believes in returning assetts if there is no conviction of a crime ... that's sad.







Transparency in government is one thing ... holding meetings of that nature in public is another.




FarFarRight



American politics / economy affect Canada a great deal. I am also married to an American so what happens here affects her and her family. Also my maternal grandfather was an American / Canadian citizen.

side note: Just your state.... 459,700 jobs in Texas depend on Canada–U.S. trade and investment. Total Canada–Texas goods trade: $41.3 billion.

Texas’ top goods imports from Canada

Crude petroleum: $2.6 billion
Aircraft: $1.2 billion
Plastics & plastic articles: $1.0 billion
Engines & turbines: $829 million
Fuel oil: $786 million


Texas’ top goods exports to Canada

Crude petroleum: $5.1 billion
Fuel oil: $2.8 billion
Plastics & plastic articles: $2.0 billion
Organic chemicals: $1.2 billion
Optical, medical & precision instruments: $1.0 billion


http://www.can-am.gc.ca/business-affaires/fact_sheets-fiches_documentaires/tx.aspx?lang=eng





I am neither Pro-Trump or Anti-Trump. I simply read, observe and as an individual form an opinion. I believe these political forum posts are full of those ... personal opinions.



You haven't been reading these forums for very long have you.

..............................................................



Despite what I read, despite what the opinions of others are and even my own opinions I do hope that Trump succeeds in MAGA. A strong American economy just makes for a strong economy world wide.

National security adviser Michael Flynn has resigned after reports he misled Trump administration officials about his contacts with Russia's ambassador to the U.S.

Flynn's departure less than one month into the Trump administration marks an extraordinarily early shakeup in the president's senior team of advisers. Flynn was a loyal Trump supporter throughout the campaign, but his ties to Russia caused concern among other senior aides.

Flynn initially told Trump advisers that he did not discuss sanctions with the Russian envoy during the transition. Vice President Mike Pence, apparently relying on information from Flynn, publicly vouched for the national security adviser.

Flynn later told White House officials that he may have discussed sanctions with the ambassador.

As recently as Friday, Trump said he was unaware of reports Flynn discussed sanctions before the inauguration.

Trump managed to avoid questions on the controversy during a joint press conference Monday with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.



http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/michael-flynn-nsa-resigns-trump-1.3981476


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-department-warned-white-house-that-flynn-could-be-vulnerable-to-russian-blackmail-officials-say/2017/02/13/fc5dab88-f228-11e6-8d72-263470bf0401_story.html?utm_term=.657bb6abec05



The list of possible replacements includes retired Gen. David Petraeus, who’s scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House on Tuesday, according to two people familiar with the plans. Other possibilities: Stephen Hadley, who served as national security adviser under President George W. Bush; Tom Bossert, who also served as a national security aide under Bush and now oversees cybersecurity under Trump; Adm. James Stavridis, dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts; and Department of Homeland Security head John Kelly.

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/trump-flynn-replace-kushner-234977

Hmmmm Where do I begin? I have had the opportunity to see a U.S. electoral campaign, election result and the aftermath from an 'insider' view instead of through Canadian news channels. It was very .... 'interesting'.

A man who told the people exactly what they wanted to hear .... not necessarily what they needed to hear is now the leader of the U.S.
Now understand this ..... during the campaign I saw and heard what everyone did and I wanted to believe that he may actually be able to be positive and unite the country. Would I have voted for him had I been able to ........ no. The fear of what may happen outweighed any positive feelings I had.

His mouth and continuous 'tweets' come across like a kid, a spoiled one. As POTUS his manner hasn't changed at all. If someone disagrees with him ..... insult them, dismiss them or humiliate them.
His decisions affect his businesses, in a positive way, and family members are just as quick to use a new level of 'fame' to push themselves.

DAPL .. He has shares in that and basically ordered that the Army Corps of Engineers allow ETP the access they required.

Wall Street .... Regulations eased.

Environment ... Thank the Republicans, who were sure their 'business savvy' boss would agree, have repealed a regulation that prevented coal mines from dumping their slag in streams / rivers. (If the water tastes funny ... thank them.)
Alternative Facts ..... seems like another $20 dollar term for ...... LIES.

Using the position of POTUS to speak out against a company because they dropped his daughter's merchandise line. I would have thought he would be happy. After all.."Buy American Made" / "America First" / 'Bring jobs and companies back to America" were his favorite phrases. Ivanka Trumps line is made in China, Vietnam and Indonesia. He threatened to hit those nations with tariffs.
President Trump Retweeted

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 16h16 hours ago
My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person -- always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!


Nordstrom handed a presidential gift certificate

The Travel Ban .... Not one of the nations that were actually involved in 9/11 or later attacks is on the list. They do however have Trump business dealings.

Civil Forfeiture .... Trump for it..... which allows law enforcement officials to seize assets from those suspected, not charged or convicted, of involvement in criminal activity . So if you are driving down the highway and have cash on you for a LEGAL business purpose ....... they can take it and keep it because they THINK you may be up to something illegal. Seems more like legalized theft.

And now the story that finally got me to post on Trump.

President Trump and his top aides coordinated their response to North Korea’s missile test on Saturday night in full view of diners at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida — a remarkable public display of presidential activity that is almost always conducted in highly secure settings.
The fact that the national security incident played out in public view drew swift condemnation from Democrats, who said it was irresponsible for Mr. Trump not to have moved his discussion to a more private location.

“There’s no excuse for letting an international crisis play out in front of a bunch of country club members like dinner theater,” Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader in the House, wrote on Twitter.

Senators Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Tom Udall of Mexico, Democrats who have called for Mr. Trump’s club to release a list of its members, denounced the president on Monday for discussing the North Korean missile launch in the open.





I removed the posts congratulating the man on being so close to the action and left the ONE post that actually hit the point the fool should have thought of himself.

Use google and there are multiple articles on a Russian financial angle as well. Not necessarily government banking either.

It would seem that supporters have had enough as well....... usually due to his childish Tweets.


http://twitter.com/Trump_Regrets

For the sake of my in-laws and the friends I have made here ....... I only hope that the U.S.A. survives Trump.

He was deem not criminally responsible due to psychological issues. Once those issues were deemed cured / medically controlled by doctors he was permitted to live in a supervised environment and afterwards given an absolute discharge.

Does it make sense from the point of view of the public / victim family ......HELL NO. But the law was written to protect the mentally ill from being punished for their ailment.

Like the not guilty by reason of insanity in the States. May not go to prison but can be sentenced to an institution until deemed not dangerous to self or public. Once deemed safe ....... released.

Boo !!!

In Missouri, you must be at least 15 to get married with parental consent, and must be 18 or older to marry without consent. Only one parent or legal guardian needs to consent for each party under 18. The "Show-Me" state allows minors younger than 15 to get married "under special circumstances and for good cause."

I remember shoveling snow.

When I'm out in a t-shirt at Xmas again this year I'll think of you.

Seriously though. It is getting cold here. I need a sweater to take the dog out.

Standing Rock protesters celebrated Sunday as news broke that construction of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline near their territory has been halted.

Moira Kelley, a spokeswoman for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a federal agency, said in a news release Sunday that the administration will not allow the four-state, $3.8-billion pipeline to be built under Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

The decision came a day before the government's deadline for the several hundred people at the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires, encampment to leave the federal land. But demonstrators say they're prepared to stay, and authorities say they won't forcibly remove them.

Standing Rock protesters celebrate 'big victory' as pipeline construction halted



CANNON BALL, N.D. -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Sunday that it won't grant an easement for the Dakota Access oil pipeline in southern North Dakota, handing a victory to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and its supporters, who argued the project would threaten a water source and cultural sites.

North Dakota's leaders criticized the decision, with Gov. Jack Dalrymple calling it a "serious mistake" that "prolongs the dangerous situation" of having several hundred protesters who are camped out on federal land during cold, wintry weather. U.S. Rep. Kevin Cramer said it's a "very chilling signal" for the future of infrastructure in the United States.

U.S. Army Corps blocks Dakota Access pipeline route

As dollars and donations poured into Standing Rock, beleaguered law enforcement officers shivering on the other side of the line put out a call for support as well, asking for warm hats and gloves, granola bars, energy drinks and soda pop.

Standing Rock activists saw the request on the Morton County Sheriff’s Department, and responded, ferrying crates of supplies north to the sheriff’s office in Mandan on Friday. An officer, clad in riot gear, opened the door and accepted the donation.

“Thanks, guys,” he said.

“We’re going to give them everything they want, except the soda, except the energy drink, because it’s not healthy for them,” said Andre Perez, who traveled from Hawaii to come to Standing Rock. “We’re going to give them water instead, because water is life,”


Standing Rock camp grows ahead of Monday's evacuation deadline


How ironic is this......

Many have noted that the pipeline corridor was repositioned from its original route north of Bismarck after white citizens spoke up against the threat a spill would pose to their drinking water ― a threat duly recognized by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Yet the Corps failed its federal mandate for meaningful consultation with the Standing Rock Tribe before signing off on a route that moved the pipeline to their doorstep.

So if it has to go through why not it's original route?

As to "From time to time pipelines do leak, and people fix them." watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ7vxC7_oJ8

I may live in the United States ................... but my roots are Canadian.
Been married for four years now.

*heads down to basement to make fresh batch of blue juice*


Almost forgot .... cold?? What is this cold thing? Missouri is warm compared to living in Quebec.

The Associated Press
Published Monday, November 28, 2016 7:45PM EST

Authorities say no action will be taken to enforce North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple's emergency evacuation order for protesters of the Dakota Access oil pipeline.

Dalrymple signed the order Monday for protesters who are camping on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers land. Dalrymple cited “harsh winter conditions,” and his order said the unpermitted camp sites are not zoned for suitable housing.

Emergency Services spokeswoman Cecily Fong told The Associated Press that authorities will not be using law enforcement or the National Guard to enforce the governor's order.

Earlier, the Corps ordered the protesters to leave federal law but said it has no plans to forcibly remove anyone. Hundreds of people have been gathered at the encampment for months to oppose the four-state, $3.8 billion project, which they contend could affect drinking water and damage cultural sites.


http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/north-dakota-issues-emergency-evacuation-order-for-dakota-pipeline-protesters-1.3180973

With the force already being used does anyone actually believe this?


President-elect Donald Trump’s investments in two companies behind the Dakota Access pipeline, although small, are raising concerns about whether Trump’s stake in the project could affect decisions he makes about the pipeline as president.

According to Trump’s 2016 federal disclosure forms, the billionaire businessman owned between $15,000 and $50,000 in stock from Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, the owners of the controversial Dakota Access oil pipeline. A year earlier, his share was between $500,000 and $1 million.

The president-elect sold off his shares in Energy Transfer Partners, Trump campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said. If true, it is unclear why investments in the company are still listed in the disclosure.

However, Trump’s financial disclosures also show he has between $500,000 and $1 million invested in Phillips 66, another energy company headquartered in Texas with a 25 percent ownership share of the Dakota Access.

While Trump’s share in the $3.8 billion Dakota Access project is minuscule (about 0.02 percent), the president-elect’s close ties to the pipeline’s parent company and other beneficiaries of the project don’t stop there.

The Trump campaign also received hundreds of thousands of dollars from Energy Transfer Partners Chief Executive Officer Kelcy Warren. In June, Warren donated $3,000 to Trump’s presidential campaign – over the $2,700 limit for individual campaign contributions to a candidate. Warren also gave $100,000 to the Trump Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee between Trump’s campaign and the Republican Party.

Trump is also reportedly considering Harold Hamm, founder of oil and gas company Continental Resources, for a position in his Cabinet as secretary of energy. Hamm has told investors in the past that he would use the Dakota Access pipeline to ship his company’s oil. Trump is also reportedly considering former Texas Governor Rick Perry for the energy secretary post as well, and Perry sits on the corporate board for Energy Transfer Partner.

http://www.rt.com/usa/368216-dapl-conflict-interest-trump/


http://www.politicususa.com/2016/11/25/donald-trump-owns-stake-dakota-access-pipeline.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-11-25/trump-s-stock-in-oil-pipeline-company-raises-concern


But Trump’s ties to fossil fuels and infrastructure projects like the Dakota Access Pipeline don’t stop at his financial investments. They run deep through the team advising him on energy policy, including top adviser and oil billionaire Harold Hamm.

Hamm is Trump’s energy adviser, campaign surrogate, and the CEO of the largest fracking company in the country, Continental Resources. He’s made billions of dollars drilling and fracking for oil in North Dakota, and it would be Continental’s oil that would flow through the Dakota Access Pipeline if completed.

Hamm recently announced to investors that oil fracked from his North Dakota holdings would be transported by the pipeline, and he anticipates huge profits for himself when the project is completed.

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/in-case-you-were-wondering-donald-trump-has-multiple-ties-to-the-dakota-access-pipeline/



Article 3 of TREATY OF FORT LARAMIE WITH SIOUX, ETC., 1851.

ARTICLE 3.

In consideration of the rights and privileges acknowledged in the preceding article, the United States bind themselves to protect the aforesaid Indian nations against the commission of all depredations by the people of the said United States, after the ratification of this treaty.

She just doesn't want you to go hungry.

Floor is a mess

Sticky spilled drinks gum

Time for broom, scraper and mop

Then



Now have nice floor again.

Oh yeah, almost forgot




Old sign .... but good warning.

Police officer shot, gunman captured

A U.S. Capitol Police officer was shot Monday at the Capitol Visitor Center complex in Washington, D.C., and the shooter was taken into custody, Capitol officials and police said.

The event unfolded with Congress on recess and lawmakers back in their districts.

The shooting occurred in the visitors center of the sprawling Capitol complex. Staffers, reporters and others were told to "shelter in place" and not allowed to leave their offices. The White House and the Capitol complex were put on lockdown.

The police officer who was shot was not believed to be seriously injured.

Capitol police did not immediately return calls and no further information was available.


http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/capitol-hill-shooting-1.3509677