text:
No IP was a contributing factor.
No IP was a contributing factor.
I don't know what you people are talking about. There is considerable innovation in America today. The US is the leader in CDOs, derivatives, tax avoidance, and is always coming up with new and innovative schemes to part working people from their money.
No lack of innovation there, it's just misdirected.
TFA is built on the premise that crime would pay if there weren't patents on the crime methods.
Napster? Really?
Napster wasn't hit with a patent suit for its method of stealing music. It was busted up because it was stealing music.
I couldn't read the rest after it started with that. Someone tell me if it redeemed itself.
Napster wasn't hit with a patent suit for its method of stealing music. It was busted up because it was stealing music.
If you're going to be anal about terms you should make sure you aren't playing fast and loose with them yourself. Napster didn't *steal* anything.
Patents != Copyright, however IP covers both Patents and Copyright.
If you enable people to make illegal copies of their copyright material, and to find more people to make illegal copies from, and you make money from it, how is that not stealing?
The prosecutor can be more distinctive about the term he wants to use, but since the money you collected belongs to the copyright holders, it doesn't matter that you invented the machine that made you that money.
And my point stands. The idea that stifling crime is stifling innovation therefore it shouldn't be a crime is a canard.
If you enable people to make illegal copies of their copyright material, and to find more people to make illegal copies from, and you make money from it, how is that not stealing?
Napster was no more stealing than the person who wrote the first FTP client and server was stealing.
If you enable people to make illegal copies of their copyright material, and to find more people to make illegal copies from, and you make money from it, how is that not stealing?
You cannot 'steal' a digital bit. It simply exists and is copied or erased. But you cannot 'take' or 'steal' it in any way.
Napster is a bad example but for a different reason. Napster was busted for violating the copyrights of the music they were allowing to be traded.
How about Guitar Hero being killed because the copyright holders of the songs demanded ridiculous amounts when the game amounts to free advertising for them? They are certainly in the rights to do so, but it doesn't mean that 'innovation' isn't being stifled by it.
Patents are the bigger problem. Specifically software patents, but patents in general too. That Tivo can be sued because someone patented a completely vague idea without actually building their idea hurts everybody. Vonage also got sued over really technical things that Verizon (I think) purchased patents for and then sued Vonage. Worse, 'Patent Trolls' - companies that literally don't make anything purchase lots of patents solely for the purpose of suing companies who actually create things - *that* stifles innovation significantly.
I'm not advocating illegal sharing of copyrighted works. I am advocating that the current mindset of today's 'media' companies is very short sighted and backwards. Digital copies, instead of being a 'product' like a CD, are now the 'advertising' they should be using to drive people to buy things that aren't available in infinite supply. (This is not saying that because it's illegally available they should just give up).
Digital copies can be made in infinite numbers at just about zero cost. Say I'm selling apples and one day, someone comes and, without taking any apples, creates an apple tree next to my apple stand. Now apples are available for free right next to me. The value of my apples is lowered. I have not lost anything, nor been deprived of anything. There are simply more apples on the market and that causes value to go down. An infinite supply of apples puts the 'value' of any one apple at zero. I can complain that free apples exist - this is what 'media' is doing today. Or I can shift to having people come to my cart to by my 'worm free' apples. Instead of selling apples, I'm now providing a service of quality apples. I can certainly take apples from the tree too, I just spend time verifying they are worm free; that's the 'value' I am providing.
For the music industry, the 'value' is in live performances and merchandising. You simply can't produce a live performance infinitely, it can only be done at the concert with those musicians for a finite set of people.
But unfortunately we have billions of dollars fighting this basic fact of the digital world. Best description I've heard "Trying to make digital bits not copyable is like trying to make water not wet".
If you enable people to make illegal copies of their copyright material, and to find more people to make illegal copies from, and you make money from it, how is that not stealing?
Infringement of copyright is not stealing because the U.S. copyright statute does not use the word "steal" or "theft" to describe it, except in the (nonbinding) title of the No Electronic Theft Act. It's far closer to trespass than to theft.
It's a bit sad, considering the amount of energy spent on Slashdot discussing IP and innovation, that a sweeping and incorrect generalization like "No IP protection in the Baroque" that is still considered "Insightful." You would have hoped that people would have spent a fraction of the time writing and ranting instead reading.
There were of course considerable legal efforts used to keep smart people in place and harvest their output. This was an era when monopoly rights were routinely granted to restrict competition and the wealthy were obsessively worried about secret knowledge.
If you were, say, a glassblower in Venice, it would be impossible to take that knowledge and use it elsewhere within Venice; risky to use it outside Venetian control; and downright fatal if you did use it outside Venice and then returned home. By comparison, a patent lawsuit where most of the time you split the profits is downright encouraging.
In the arts, Handel basically had to defect from Hannover to compose in England.
This is not to over-dramaticize; states were weaker and their understanding of what could be considered a "valuable innovation" much more limited. I don't know how you could reasonably compare "IP" restrictions and say one era was better or worse; they were just very different. It would depend what you were trying to do.
I'm afraid my own opinion is fairly bland--clearly IP laws hurt innovation and clearly IP laws help innovation. (I could give personal examples of both--projects killed because an invention was patented but not developed by a competitor; projects not considered because you couldn't establish exclusivity and thus saw no path for ROI.) They have different effects in different industries. The proper balance between freedom, basic fairness and innovation is tricky.
Patents. Bloody software patents, and fat cats using patents to bludgeon little guys. IIRC, the intention was pretty much the opposite - patents were supposed to be a way to put the law on the side of the little guy. Where did it all go wrong?
As for copyright - no more damn extensions. Indeed, ratchet back.
Where it went wrong is when the "big guys" were allowed to pull tricks like patent-slamming and overwhelm the patent office.
That and when the rules were changed so that a corporation, rather than an individual, got to own the patent.
Absurd patents have always existed, but now they're allowed to destroy industries - and not just the software patent. When Wizards of the Coast [thefreelibrary.com] was granted a patent on card games, for instance, the patent NEVER should have been granted. It's a motherfucking joke [patentstorm.us].
A copy of Mr. Hoyle's Games Complete, circa THE YEAR 1750, offers every single mechanic WotC's patent describes that could possibly be counted as a nontrivial change. The idea of a "trading card game" in the patent ought to have been invalidated by, to name one early example "The Base Ball Card Game", produced by the Allegheny Card Company in the year 1904.
But some dope-on-a-rope in the patent office, overworked and underbrained, granted the patent to WotC. Sheer lunacy but the patent-slammers prevailed yet again.
And before you say "well but you could sue to have the patent invalidated" - NO. The point is that crap like this should never be granted. Most of the competing CCG-makers simply folded up shop after WotC started demanding royalties. It took until years later for Wizkids to finally offer a lawsuit to try to invalidate WotC's patent, and then it got settled without judgement [icv2.com], meaning WotC can still bully and make asses of themselves on an obviously invalid patent.
are patents, and fat cats using patents to bludgeon little guys.
Yes you used all the correct terms to get an Insightful mod on Slashdot while saying the exact opposite of what really happens. Please name for me the last "little" guy who was sued for patent infringement, especially for software patents..... Usually it's the "little guys" suing Microsoft, Google, etc. etc.
The reason is money. Despite the narrative that Slashdot likes to portray of multi-billion dollar companies suing some open source develop
Here's the thing. Sending you a nasty-gram explaining that your product is infringing on the following 27 patents will take 1 company lawyer maybe 1 hour.
That doesn't mean they are suing you. It's not a suit, until it gets to court. We only hear about the big vs big, because they are the only ones who can afford going to court.
You, as a private person or even a small company, does not have the resources to defend yourself against 27 patent infringement claims.
It went wrong when people started to patent things they had no intention of putting into practice. Such patents are like laying land mines or snares and waiting for someone to set them off.
I think a patent should expire after 6 months if they haven't been utilised in a product.
Orson Scott Card had a comment about the impossibility of expecting a bureaucrat (and presumably by extension, lawyer) to be able to understand the spirit of a law. Can't remember the quote offhand, but the gist of it is, if they understood enough about how the world works to be able to understand when to follow and when to ignore the letter of the law, they wouldn't be willing to be a bereaucrat.
We don't have to ditch patents or copyright to fix the problem, but I do think it's more realistic to push for that than for meaningful reform. What they could do is require that patents be used and that the plaintiff demonstrate a genuine effort to minimize damages when asking for damages. Additionally, measures to bar gatekeeper patents would be important as well.
And, yes I know, easier said than done.
What kind of communist nonsense is this?
When somebody has done something good, their childrens childrens children* deserve an ongoing income too!!!
* -copyright is life plus 70 years, possibly longer if Disney pays up again to the right politicians
My two cents:
From Article 1 Section 8 of the US constitution:
The Congress shall have the power...To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
No where in that line does it state that a patent or copyright is to grant any persons, natural or otherwise, a way to guarantee PROFITS or STIFLE COMPETITION. It specifically says: "...PROMOTE the PROGRESS OF SCIENCES AND USEFUL ARTS."
Prime examples:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5443036.html [freepatentsonline.com]
What is claimed is:
1. A method of inducing aerobic exercise in an unrestrained cat comprising the steps of:
(a) directing an intense coherent beam of invisible light produced by a hand-held laser apparatus to produce a bright highly-focused pattern of light at the intersection of the beam and an opaque surface, said pattern being of visual interest to a cat; and
(b) selectively redirecting said beam out of the cat's immediate reach to induce said cat to run and chase said beam and pattern of light around an exercise area.
2. The method of claim 1 wherein said bright pattern of light is small in area relative to a paw of the cat.
3. The method of claim 1 wherein said beam remains invisible between said laser and said opaque surface until impinging on said opaque surface.
4. The method of claim 1 wherein step (b) includes sweeping said beam at an angular speed to cause said pattern to move along said opaque surface at a speed in the range of five to twenty-five feet per second.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6368227.html [freepatentsonline.com]
1. A method of swinging on a swing, the method comprising the steps of: a) suspending a seat for supporting a user between only two chains that are hung from a tree branch; b) positioning a user on the seat so that the user is facing a direction perpendicular to the tree branch; c) having the user pull alternately on one chain to induce movement of the user and the swing toward one side, and then on the other chain to induce movement of the user and the swing toward the other side; and d) repeating step c) to create side-to-side swinging motion, relative to the user, that is parallel to the tree branch.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the method is practiced independently by the user to create the side-to-side motion from an initial dead stop.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises the step of: e) inducing a component of forward and back motion into the swinging motion, resulting in a swinging path that is generally shaped as an oval.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein the magnitude of the component of forward and back motion is less than the component of side-to-side motion.
The problem is that while well known now, there was no published prior art on this 'cat chasing laser exercise' technology back in 1993. Youtube didn't exist until 12 years after the patent was filed so there weren't widely published videos available. Actually, I think this may be a case where the patent system has succeeded. Someone may have seen the patent and learned the technology and then when the patent expired they used and spread the idea to the benefit of cats everywhere.
Seriously though, these
If you meet a man, and that man reminds you of an old friend, it doesn't follow that he is definitely your old friend's brother.
Proof of concept, or you lose it.
Perhaps the original inventor had a working model, but a nonpracticing entity bought the patent from the inventor's employer when the inventor's employer went bankrupt.
Besides, a working model requirement wouldn't clear up, say, the video codec situation. Any of the companies holding patents in MPEG-LA's AVC pool probably has the expertise to write its own AVC encoder and decoder.
Stephan Kinsella, an IP lawyer, has written an essay basically demolishing the philosophical and empirical reasons for supporting IP:
Highly recommended reading!
Assuming you think there's anything to libertarianism. I certainly think libertarians have started from a flawed position, and their logic goes off the rails because of their bad starting point.
And what do you think that flawed position is?
I think libertarianism starts from the belief that people are inherently selfish and that rather than try to outright fight human nature - a war that has been and apparently will be fought and lost countless times - we should channel it for the best possible good. But maybe I don't understand the basis of libertarianism, so perhaps you could explain it to me.
The thesis "Current IP law stifles innovation" is a good one, however I don't agree with the examples provided in the paper. I think a more persuasive argument would have used company vs company lawsuits are are going crazy right now
From the fine article:
Let's take Android. It's something new and the world is loving it. So what happened once it became a hit? Patent and copyright infringement lawsuits up the kazoo. Is that going to encourage innovation? And it's not just Android. It's any successful technical product. They all have to spend millions in litigation. And it's a drain on the economy too, because when the plaintiffs win, that money isn't a win for innovation, not when the law allows patents to be owned and litigated by entities that make nothing at all but litigation.
Just to be perfectly clear, the lawsuits against Android are actually filed against Google. They are a prime example of the "company vs company lawsuits" that you complain are not in the fine article.
I tried to read the link. It was long and rambling. Using Napster as your starting point for a discussion will immediately turn off your target audience. Go back to your unabomber shack you wingnut.
Exactly my thoughts, he picked the absolute worst example.
Wireless access for everyone will spark innovation? There's someone in a cabin in the woods in Montana ready to build the next Google. If only she had broadband?
Wireless access for everyone will enable residents of rural communities to share videos of their cats with the world. That's it.
Current intellectual property laws are blocking innovation.
To be absolutely clear, 'intellectual property' as a term comprises copyright, patents, and which other things that have actual laws and legal definitions? The quote comes from groklaw, but for those not in the know, it might help to be unambiguous about it
... are too easy to game by way of ignorance and overwhelming the staffs ability to approve them. Not to mention lobbying, bribes and kickbacks. People just do not have the skills to properly assess patents/copyright, I mean come on amazon's 1 click patent and others relating checkout? I mean seriously.
They will just be abused endlessly, they should be junked. What really needs to be innovated is the business model, laws that grant legal monopolies would merely force innovation on the business model end,
The people I want to hear most from are not the IP intellectual discussions about moot points of IP policy, but from actual patent holders who have innovative technologies that have been blocked from innovating by the patent system.
I used to be against most forms of US IP, but now in a position where I may be able to actually capitalise on some of my own IP, I find the system much more friendly than I thought. While I still find my own knowledge lacking, here are the two things I wish were reformed:
-A paten
Nearly all industry in the US seem to be either intellectual property or service oriented. Manufacture and agriculture are critically diminished and everything it getting outsourced and sent overseas. What we have left is IP which, as we know thanks to the secret ACTA negotiations, IP has become a matter of national security.
But Obama doesn't want to know the truth. He is in the pockets of those who want to keep their arsenal of intellectual property... and arsenals they are as we see an increase in IP's
My crystal ball, my Magic 8-ball, and my Steve Jackson Tarot deck all agree that the USA has deliberately shackled innovation for the last 10 years. I don't know why. But the signs are unmistakable, even for those who can't sense the aether.
There was no question what would happen when the US Patent Office was changed to fee based financing. The flood of junk patents, and their suppressing effects on innovation are a surprise to no-one. In the intervening years, there has been ample opportunity to revert.
IP = Internet Protocol and Intellectual Property rights as copyright, patents, and trademarks for corporate control of creativity and innovation are the biggest block to innovation.
Open Idea Protection (OIP) for the artist, scientist, engineer... is needed.
1. The artist, scientist, engineer... that is the driving intellect should have exclusive and lifelong rights to their creations and innovations irrespective of any corporate/government investments. Allow artist, scientist, engineer... to contract out r
We know what we want changed, but what do you think Obama will say? The cynic in me says he's probably going to blame it on the Chinese or something. "We have great ideas, but they keep stealing them away. So we don't have ideas anymore. Bad Dog!" Any competent lobbyist can turn this drive for innovation into a tool to push their agenda.
I'm going to buck the trend here and say it's NOT patents and copyrights and IP laws that are blocking innovation. No, it's a little more of a direct cause: An unproductive workforce that expects to get paid just for showing up with a degree.
There are a lot of people out there in the professional world, in technical professions, in engineering, in project management, etc. who can talk and talk but can't or won't deliver results. A lot of people full of degrees and education and smooth talk but no actual practical skill or work ethic. All hat and no cowboy as some say. I interview people all the time who bill themselves as hard-core in-the-weeds technical people, but when you actually dig and ask probing questions you find it's all superficial and the person actually isn't really capable of providing much value. For example:
Me: So, you write C++ software and work at XYZ corp, great! We're looking for C++ talent. Tell me about a project that you worked on!
Candidate: Well, we developed software that did ABC...
Me: We? No, what exactly did YOU do?
Candidate: Well, I worked on a major sub-component of the software...
Me: OK, so what are some of the algorithms and/or data structures you used while writing the code?
Candidate: Um, well I didn't use much of that. I provided analysis and resolution of major defects...
Me: So you fixed bugs. That's cool. What are some of the common C++ mistakes you have identified?
Candidate: Uhh, I didn't really get deep into the code. I basically facilitated the analysis.
Me: Oh, so you talked to the engineers and wrote bug reports?
Candidate: Well, no, but I ENABLED them to deliver their results by...
It sounds like the "So what exactly do you do, Bob?" segment in Office Space, but these people are everywhere, and not all of them are interviewing. Many are in nice comfortable do-nothing jobs in corporate division 23 department B in high tech companies everywhere. These people are dragging down our companies and our country and need to go away.
This country has a major talent gap. You guys all deride the government when they talk about the huge shortage of technical talent but it's absolutely true. We have a shit-ton of people with "Engineer" on their diploma. We have a lot of people who claim to be technical but simply sit in meetings and "enable" others who are actually doing the work. We have a very, very small number of actual implementors who know their stuff and can actually innovate.
I don't know what the solution to the problem is, but think I see the symptoms all around me every day.
It seems to me it all comes back to the pesky problem of whether a corporation is a person, with the same rights as a person. To me, the anser is an obvious no, but for some people, the answer is yes, and I have yet to figure out why.
But it seems to me, giving corporations personhood is key to what a lot of people are saying here, particularly the poster who pointed out that issuing patents to corporations and not people is a problem. However the Supreme Court has declared that corporations are people. So now what?
Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence of performance. -- James Bryant Conant


text:
Day 1 In Trump's America
See what the victims have to say: https://twitter.com/i/moments/796417517157830656
Remember the movie, The Siege?
Day 1 In Trump's America
See what the victims have to say: https://twitter.com/i/moments/796417517157830656
Remember the movie, The Siege?
Also Check out my threads:
Story Time - Duas - Daily Hadeeth - Islamic Figures - Health Issues - Weak Speakers & Their Ideology
'Christian' Soldier Excited For Post Election Civil War Where 'Your Skin Color Will Be Your Uniform'
by James Stahl - October 22, 2016
We have seen some pretty violent behavior coming out of Trump rallies over this election cycle. Now we are seeing a trend in self-described Christian soldiers frothing at the mouth for civil war and being riled up by the Donald.
Race wars will begin as well, as your skin color will be your uniform! Jim Moseley
Jim Moseley, a retired salesman, fancies himself a Christian soldier and is prepping for civil war with his fellow Americans. Earlier in a Facebook post this week Jim Moseley states Once the trucks stop rolling, the grocery shelves will go empty and gasoline rationing will go into effect.
Moseley continues in his post Liberals will have targets on their backs, as their behaviors are pretty much evident. Race wars will begin as well, as your skin color will be your uniform!
According to Raw Story, it isnt clear whether these fanatics will act out or if this is continued bolstering and saber rattling from the fringe right.
So Much Hatred, So Little Time
How is it that the hate and vitriol can go from just hating a political ideology to hating people of other skin tones? Oh yeah, thats right. Trump has continually scapegoated Mexicans calling them rapist and murderers. And he has stated he would place a ban on all Muslims entering the country. This, of course, driving hatred toward those in the Muslim community as evidenced in a foiled bomb plot by Christian terrorists this year.
The would-be bombers being members of a far-right group calling themselves the Kansas Security Force, were targeting an apartment community of Somali immigrants. The complex housed some 120 men, women, and children. This is obviously not the Christian thing to do.
Many Election Officials Are Undergoing Active Shooter Training
In Denver and all across the nation, many volunteering to work polls on this busy election day will have to undergo active shooter training. Trump has called for his violent extremist supporters to stand guard at polling stations armed to the teeth. This is raising concerns among many of minority voter suppression and illegal electioneering.
The Poorly Educated Turning Horrifyingly Violent
It would seem that the most uneducated of Trumps followers are taking his claims of election rigging to mean he is declaring a civil war. These so called patriots that keep telling liberals to love it or leave it have been in a gun buying frenzy convinced for the last 8 years that Obama was some boogeyman with a gay Muslim liberal agenda hellbent on world domination and disarming the people.
This absolutely ludicrous thinking is extremely dangerous for a couple of reasons. We now have American citizens eager to kill their fellow Americans. And these mentally unstable and radicalized potential terrorists are now armed to the teeth as gun sales continue to skyrocket. This is, quite frankly, terrifying.
With Christian extremists now foaming at the mouth and working themselves into a frenzy, we may very well see violence this election. Stay safe and keep your eyes open for these potential terrorists.
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Story Time - Duas - Daily Hadeeth - Islamic Figures - Health Issues - Weak Speakers & Their Ideology
Muslims Targeted by Hate in OH, NY, GA, MN, MI
CAIR-Ohio Calls for Hate Crime Probe of Threats Targeting Muslim Woman, Children, Seniors
The Ohio chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Ohio) tonight called on state and federal law enforcement authorities to investigate threats to a Muslim woman, her children and her elderly parents in that state as a hate crime.
The Muslim woman who wears and Islamic head scarf (hijab), was in her car with her children and elderly parents when they were threatened and abused by a man when she stopped at a traffic light.
A man allegedly approached the car at the traffic light and started banging on the window. He then reportedly started shouting abuse and obscenities at the Muslim woman driver. He allegedly told her, "C**t, you don't belong in this country," "Go back to your f**king country," among other obscenities. The man also allegedly took pictures of the children in the car.
The Muslim woman immediately called the police and reported the incident.
"We are alarmed by the nationwide rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes," said CAIR-Ohio Staff Attorney Romin Iqbal. "We hope law enforcement authorities follow up on this and all other alleged hate crimes targeting American Muslims. If perpetrators are held to account, it will lead to a reduction in the number of these incidents."
Iqbal said CAIR-Ohio is investigating other reports of hate crimes against Muslims in Central Ohio in the last few days, including an Ohio State Muslim student who was reportedly threatened for wearing her hijab.
CAIR's New York chapter is also investigating a similar incident in which a Muslim woman was assaulted on a bus in Queens.
SEE: Muslim Woman Says She Was Told to 'Take That Disgusting Piece of Cloth Off' Her Head on Queens Bus
Muslim Women in Hijabs Report Harassment, Intimidation Following Election
In Georgia, a high school teacher said she was left a note in class telling her that her hijab "isn't allowed anymore."
SEE: Muslim Gwinnett Teacher Told to 'Hang Yourself' With Her Headscarf
In Minnesota, Muslim students say they were targeted by racist graffiti.
SEE: 2nd High School Investigated for Racist Graffiti
In Michigan, a man was arrested for allegedly yelling ethnic slurs at a Muslim woman and hitting her car.
SEE: Jogger Exposes Self to Muslim Woman, Yells Ethnic Slurs Say Police
The Washington-based Muslim civil rights group is asking Muslim community members who believe their rights have been violated to contact local police and CAIR's Civil Rights Department at 202-742-6420 or by filing a report at: http://www.cair.com/civil-rights/report-an-incident/view/form.html
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Story Time - Duas - Daily Hadeeth - Islamic Figures - Health Issues - Weak Speakers & Their Ideology
Ray McGovern and Jill Stein talking about new president
Donald Trump is the new president of the United States of America. How should we process and how should we resist what comes next?
Clinton & Democrats created phenomenon Trump is responding too Chris Hedges
60 Minutes gave a master class in normalizing a dangerous demagogue -- inviting President-elect Donald Trump to reintroduce himself as a reasonable politician while glossing over the most dangerous features and promises of his recent campaign, including his reliance on the chief of the white nationalist alt-right website Breitbart News, Stephen Bannon, who has just been named White House senior counselor.
During the November 13 edition of CBSs 60 Minutes, Donald Trump gave correspondent Lesley Stahl his first extensive interview since winning the presidential election. The interview was a disturbing start for journalism in a Trump presidency -- asking softball questions, fixating on Trumps personal feelings about becoming president, and repeatedly minimizing Trumps most dangerous promises as mere campaign talk.
Americans Support Nuking Russia, Russians Oppose Nuking America
'Are you crazy?' People in Moscow widely oppose fake petition to nuke America (VIDEO)
June 12, 2015
While a majority of Americans asked by a US journalist to support President Obama's "plan" to nuke Russia signed a fake petition to do so, RT decided to conduct its own poll on the streets of Moscow. Most people said no to striking America.
Calling the plan "crazy," Russians refused to leave their signatures under a fake "petition" to send missiles to America.
Video: http://viewpure.com/bjB-MsU6Yec
People were shocked, commenting "Oh my God!," "Are you kidding?" and "This doesn't solve the problem."
"They can do lots of things, but it doesn't mean we have to hit them with rockets and kill innocent people," one woman told RT.
Earlier this week, US journalist and prankster Mark Dice offered people in California's San Diego the chance to sign a petition calling for a nuclear strike against Russia, to "maintain America's superiority." The majority of beachgoers didn't appear to get the joke, and signed the fake petition.
Although neither the RT poll nor the one conducted in the US claim to represent public opinion in Russia and America, many found the results of Mark Dice's experiment "disturbing," including the journalist himself.
Recently, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey in eight NATO member countries, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Britain and the US. Its findings showed that NATO nations are hesitant to be involved in a conflict with Russia, especially militarily.
Asked whether their NATO country should use military force "if Russia gets into a serious military conflict with one of its neighboring countries that is a NATO ally," at least half of Germans, French and Italians said their country should not take up arms.
According to the poll of over 11,000 respondents, Americans and Canadians are the only nations where more than half think their country should use military action if Russia attacks a fellow NATO member (56 percent and 53 percent, respectively). Germans are the most likely to say their country should not - with 58 percent being against military involvement.
One of the latest polls regarding a potential military conflict between Russia and the West, conducted in Russia, showed that 31 percent of people feared a US military invasion on Russian territory.
The majority of Russians - 55 percent - said they didn't expect their country to be the first to use nuclear weapons, even in the case of war with the US and NATO. Only seven percent said this was possible, May research released by the independent pollster the Levada Center showed.
Nuking Japan twice, and many Muslim countries since then, isn't enough for these warmongers. There is a reason rest of the world thinks this country is the biggest threat to world peace.
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Story Time - Duas - Daily Hadeeth - Islamic Figures - Health Issues - Weak Speakers & Their Ideology
Meet Frank Gaffney, the anti-Muslim gadfly reportedly advising Donald Trumps transition team
Muslim-Hating Conspiracy Theorist Frank Gaffney May (or May Not) Be Advising Trumps Transition Team
If Gaffney is a Trump advisor, its an extremely bad sign. Every society has people like Gaffney, but in healthy, functioning democracies they live quietly in their parents basements, free to play with action figures and construct intricate fantasy worlds without hurting anyone else.
Here are some highlights from Gaffneys bizarre, hateful career, in chronological order. You will see a pattern emerging:
Gaffney, now 63, was a deputy assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration until he was forced out. He then immediately founded the Center for Security Policy, funded by right-wing foundations and some defense corporations, to noisily oppose arms control agreements and agitate for more money for the Pentagon. For many years the center consisted mostly of Gaffney and his fax machine.
Board members and advisors of the Center for Security Policy would eventually include people like Charles Kupperman, vice president of space and strategic missiles sector at Boeing and Terry Elkes, former CEO and president of Viacom. The center gives out an annual award called Keeper of the Flame; its recipients have included Joe Lieberman and Donald Rumsfeld.
The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were a godsend for Gaffney, allowing him to repurpose Cold War conspiracy theories about the U.S. government being infiltrated by communists into conspiracy theories about the U.S. government being infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Soon he was warning of an Islamist Fifth Column operating inside our own country with the inherent capability to exploit the vulnerabilities, and the civil liberties, of our society.
Gaffney was predictably a vociferous supporter of the Iraq War. But for extra credit he adopted various loopy theories about Saddam Hussein being behind the 1993 World Trade Center attack and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
Defending the Iraq War in February 2007, Gaffney approvingly quoted Abraham Lincoln as declaring that Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged. Lincoln never said this, although that didnt stop Gaffney fan Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, from repeating the imaginary quote on the floor of the House of Representatives.
The same month Gaffney excitedly proclaimed that the CIA had found that there was a hot production line for chemical and biological agents in Iraq, that there were plans to ramp it up when sanctions were lifted, which was imminent, and to place the products of those lines into aerosol cans and perfume sprayers for shipment to the United States and Europe. Thats documented fact!
In 2009, Gaffney suggested that Barack Obama was still a Muslim and by concealing this had engaged in the most consequential bait-and-switch since Adolf Hitler duped Neville Chamberlain. In this analogy, of course, Obama was playing the role of Hitler.
In 2010, writing for Breitbart, Gaffney discovered that the logo of the Missile Defense Agency had been redesigned to be a morphing of the Islamic crescent and star with the Obama campaign logo. Gaffneys article ended: Watch this space as we identify and consider various, ominous and far more clear-cut acts of submission to Shariah by President Obama.
Gaffney was banned for several years from speaking at the popular right-wing Conservative Political Action Conference because he had begun claiming that it too had been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood.
In 2011, Gaffney claimed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie had committed misprision of treason by appointing a Muslim lawyer to a state court.
In 2013, Gaffney said that top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin had longstanding ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and was brilliantly placed to run Islamist influence operations.
In September 2015, Gaffney invited infamous white nationalist Jared Taylor to appear on his radio show. Gaffney told Taylor he appreciated tremendously his wonderful work.
Trump may now be considering Clare Lopez, vice president of the Center for Security Policy, as his deputy national security adviser. Lopez believesthat infiltration [of the U.S. government by the Muslim Brotherhood] is obviously very deep and very broad within the bureaucracy, not just the top level, but throughout the federal system, including the intelligence community.
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Donald Trump team 'discussing plans for Muslim registration system'
Donald Trump's policy advisers are discussing plans to establish a registry for Muslim immigrants in the US, a man believed to be a key member of the President-elect's transition team has revealed.
Kris Kobach, the secretary of state for Kansas, said the President-elect's advisers were looking at how to implement a proposal suggested by the billionaire businessman that would force immigrants from Muslim countries to register on a database.
Mr Kobach, who helped devise tough immigration laws in a number of US states and claims to have participated in regular conference calls with Mr Trump's immigration advisers, also said the Trump administration could push ahead rapidly on construction of a US-Mexico border wall without seeking immediate congressional approval.
The hardline immigration official, whose role has not been confirmed by the President-elect's transition team but who is thought to be a favourite for the role of Attorney General, said the immigration group had discussed drafting executive orders for the President-elect's review "so that Trump and the Department of Homeland Security hit the ground running".
The Muslim registration scheme, which would reportedly see Muslims given a form of identification that notes their religion, reflects policies Mr Trump put forward during his campaign to introduce "extreme vetting" of Muslims through tougher security measures.
Such a programme would echo a registration system created under Mr Bush's presidency, which Mr Kobach also helped design, and which required thousands of Arab and Muslim visitors and temporary US residents to register with the state, but was abandoned in 2011 after it was criticised for unfairly targeting immigrants from Muslim-majority nations.
Created in 2002 following the 9/11 attacks, the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEER) required Muslims from countries where extremist organisations were active to provide information about themselves, undergo interviews with officials and periodically notify the government of their whereabouts.
The registration programme, which focused on visitors and non-citizen men over the age of 16 from more than 24 designated countries, caused widespread controversy and was deemed redundant in 2011, following complaints from civil libertarians.
In the interview, Mr Kobach said immigration advisers were also looking at how the Homeland Security Department could move rapidly on Mr Trump's plans to build a wall between the US and Mexico without approval from Congress, acknowledging that "future fiscal years will require additional appropriations".
Mr Trump presented a hardline stance on Muslims in the US during his election campaign, making a call to temporarily ban all Muslims from entering the country and proposing the introduction of special identity cards for American Muslims during a debate over Syrian refugees entering the country.
While Mr Trump appeared to have pulled back on the anti-Muslim rhetoric immediately after he was elected, he has since indicated he still plans to follow through on his plans.
In an interview on Sunday Mr Trump told CBS's 60 Minutesshow he would deport two to three million undocumented immigrants "immediately" upon taking office, and confirmed he still planned to "build a wall", although he added that some parts of the barrier would in fact be a fence.
The President-elect is also reportedly considering appointing as his deputy security advisor the vice-president of a think-tank that has said Muslims are infiltrating the American government.
Mr Kobach reportedly said in the interview that he believed that illegal immigrants in some cases should be deported before a conviction if they have been charged with a violent crime, echoing Mr Trump's recent pledge to remove immigrants with criminal records who are in the country illegally.
The immigration hardliner also said the President-elect's immigration advisers had discussed ways of overturning President Barack Obama's 2012 executive action that has granted temporary deportation relief and work permits to more than 700,000 undocumented people who came to the US as children of illegal immigrants.
Former Trump PAC spokesman praises Muslim registry and cites Japanese internment camps as 'precedent'
Carl Higbie, a former representative for the Great America PAC, said he was in favor of Trump's Muslim registry
Higbie says that the US has a history of screening by race and religion
'We've done it with Iran back — back a while ago. We did it during World War II with Japanese, which, call it what you will'
When confronted by Megyn Kelly about the comparison, Higbie said he wasn't proposing the camps, they were simply a 'precedent'
Tens of thousands of Japanese-Americans were interred, in what is widely seen as a dark stain on US history
Trump adviser Kris Kobach said the new administration was considering a return the U.S. to tracking Muslim immigrants from terror-ravaged nations
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George Takei: They interned my family. Don't let them do it to Muslims.
The United States apologized for locking up Japanese Americans. Have we learned nothing?
There is dangerous talk these days by those who have the ear of some at the highest levels of government. Earlier this week, Carl Higbie, an outspoken Trump surrogate and co-chair of Great America PAC, gave an interview with Megyn Kelly of Fox News. They were discussing the notion of a national Muslim registry, a controversial part of the Trump administration's national security plans, when Higbie dropped a bombshell: "We did it during World War II with Japanese, which, you know, call it what you will," he said. Was he really citing the Japanese American internment, Kelly wanted to know, as grounds for treating Muslims the same way today? Higbie responded that he wasn't saying we should return to putting people in camps. But then he added, "There is precedent for it."
Stop and consider these words. The internment was a dark chapter of American history, in which 120,000 people, including me and my family, lost our homes, our livelihoods, and our freedoms because we happened to look like the people who bombed Pearl Harbor. Higbie speaks of the internment in the abstract, as a "precedent" or a policy, ignoring the true human tragedy that occurred.I was just a child of 5 when we were forced at gunpoint from our home and sent first to live in a horse stable at a local race track, a family of five crammed into a single smelly stall. It was a devastating blow to my parents, who had worked so hard to buy a house and raise a family in Los Angeles. After several weeks, they sent us much farther away, 1,000 miles to the east by rail car, the blinds of our train cars pulled for our own protection, they said. We disembarked in the fetid swamps of Arkansas at the Rohwer Relocation Center. Really, it was a prison: Armed guards looked down upon us from sentry towers; their guns pointed inward at us; searchlights lit pathways at night. We understood. We were not to leave.
My parents did their best to make life seem normal. As a child, I very readily accepted our new circumstance and adjusted to it. As far as I was concerned, it was normal to line up to use the common latrine, or to eat wretched grub in a common mess hall, prisoners in our own country. It was normal for us to share a single small barrack with no privacy whatsoever. And it was normal to stand each day in our makeshift classroom, reciting the words to the Pledge of Allegiance, "With liberty and justice for all," as I looked past the U.S. flag out the window, the barbed wire of the camp just visible behind it.
Not until I was older did I understand the irony of those words and the injustice that had been visited on so many of us. As I studied civics and government in school, I came to see the internment as an assault not only upon an entire group of Americans, but upon the Constitution itself — how its guarantees of due process and equal protection had been decimated by forces of fear and prejudice unleashed by unscrupulous politicians. It had been a Democratic administration at the time, under Franklin D. Roosevelt, that had ordered us to the camps, proving that demagoguery and race-baiting knows no party.
It took decades for the United States to own up to what it had done and officially apologize for the internment, offering symbolic monetary reparations to the survivors. I donated my own check to the Japanese American National Museum, whose mission, like mine, has been to help ensure the mistakes of the past are never repeated. That is why these words by Higbie, which ominously are representative of much of the current thinking in the incoming administration, have reopened very old and very deep wounds.
This was not the first time the Trump camp had raised the internment. When he did so before, it wasn't as the historical warning it should be, but as a precedent for what might yet come. In late 2015, during the presidential primary, Trump actually went on the record with Time magazine stating that he did not know whether he would have supported or opposed the internment. "I would have had to be there at the time to tell you, to give you a proper answer," he said. He argued that FDR was "one of the most highly respected presidents," and that what he was suggesting was "no different from FDR." Trump hedged his response with a nod to the horror of the camps, but tellingly did not disavow them: "I certainly hate the concept of it. But I would have had to be there at the time to give you a proper answer."
Higbie similarly has kept open the specter of the camps, in one breath stating that he does not favor the idea, but in the very next noting, "We have to protect America first." Indeed, in a follow-up interview with the New York Times, Higbie doubled down on the unthinkable: "There is historical, factual precedent to do things [that] are not politically popular and sometimes not right, in the interest of national security."
Let us all be clear: "National security" must never again be permitted to justify wholesale denial of constitutional rights and protections. If it is freedom and our way of life that we fight for, our first obligation is to ensure that our own government adheres to those principles. Without that, we are no better than our enemies.
Let us also agree that ethnic or religious discrimination cannot be justified by calls for greater security. During World War II, the government argued that military authorities could not distinguish between alleged enemy elements and peaceful, patriotic Japanese Americans. It concluded, therefore, that all those of Japanese descent, including American citizens, should be presumed guilty and held without charge, trial or legal recourse, in many cases for years. The very same arguments echo today, on the assumption that a handful of presumed radical elements within the Muslim community necessitates draconian measures against the whole, all in the name of national security.
It begins with profiling and with registries, but as Trump and Higbie have made clear, once the safety of the country is at stake, all safeguards are off. In their world, national security justifies actions that are "sometimes not right," and no one really can guarantee where it will end.
We cannot permit this invidious thinking, discredited by history at the cost of so much misery and suffering by innocents, to take root once again in America, let alone in the White House. The stigmatization, separation and labeling of our fellow humans based on race or religion has never led to a more secure world. But it has too often led to one where the most vulnerable pay the highest price.
The Constitution and the government exist in large measure to protect against the excesses of democracies. This is particularly salient when, in an atmosphere of fear or mistrust, one group is singled out and vilified, as Japanese Americans were during World War II and as Muslim Americans are today. How terrible it is to contemplate, once again, that the government itself might once more be the very instrument of terror and division. That cannot happen again. We cannot allow it.
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Trump supporter cites Japanese internment 'precedent' in backing Muslim registry
A spokesman for the pro-Trump Great America PAC cited World War II Japanese internment camps as "precedent" for President-elect Donald Trump's discussed plan for a Muslim registry system.
Carl Higbie, a former Navy SEAL, appeared on Fox News' "The Kelly File" to argue in favor of the plan, which Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said in a Reuters interview is being modeled after the highly controversial National Security Entry-Exit Registration System implemented after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Confronted with questions about the constitutionality of such a plan, Higbie cited history, in particular the forced relocation and incarceration of Japanese Americans following the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II.
"We've done it based on race, we've done it based on religion, we've done it based on region," he said. "We've done it with Iran back back a while ago. We did it during World War II with [the] Japanese."
Pressed by host Megyn Kelly on whether he was suggesting re-implementing the internment camps, Higbie said no, before adding: "I'm just saying there is precedent for it."
Kelly then swiftly rebuked his suggestion.
"You can't be citing Japanese internment camps as precedent for anything the president-elect is gonna do," she said.
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How One Policy Change Could Wipe Out Muslim Civil Liberties
Designating Egypts Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization could lead to major fallout for American Muslims.
Members of the hardline anti-Islam lobby are eagerly anticipating the possibility of the Trump administration designating the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, which is increasingly likely if conspiracy theorists like Frank Gaffney play a prominent role in Trumps transition team. Gaffney believes the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the US government at every level and has even questioned whether Barack Obama was Americas first Muslim president implementing the Brotherhoods plans.
While a terrorist designation would have several foreign policy implications, experts say the measure is being pushed primarily by stateside anti-Islam extremists like Gaffney who believe it would empower the Trump administration to target a number of major Muslim American nonprofits.Let me be extremely clear, said J.M. Berger, a counterterrorism analyst at George Washington Universitys Program on Extremism. This initiative is concerned with controlling American Muslims, not with any issue pertaining to the Muslim Brotherhood in any practical or realistic sense.Nathan Lean, author of The Islamophobia Industry, said such a designation could have chilling implications for Muslim civil society in the United States. Based on unfounded yet oft-repeated claims that American Muslim groups have ties to or are outright fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood, Lean said, the designation would provide cover for the administration to shut down nonprofits, maliciously prosecute individuals, and pursue other acts that would, in turn, leave ordinary American Muslims more vulnerable to marginalization and repression.I believe that Muslim civil liberties could potentially, with this policy move, be wiped off the map, Lean said. It sounds like hyperbole, but I mean that very seriously.The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, is widely considered the progenitor of Islamism the philosophy that the state should enforce perceived Islamic values in all spheres of life. Over the decades, the group remained centered in Egypt but developed offshoots across the Muslim world. The Muslim Brotherhood briefly took power in Egypt after the Arab Spring, but was displaced in a 2013 military coup that left the group in disarray.
Although violent groups like Hamas and al-Qaeda evolved from the Muslim Brotherhood, most counterterrorism experts do not consider the Muslim Brotherhood itself a terrorist organization, at least one that should be designated as such by the US State Department. This is true even of analysts who believe the Muslim Brotherhood should be treated as an adversary hostile to the West.The Muslim Brotherhood is a totalitarian organization that very explicitly seeks local, regional, and global power, said Eric Trager, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of Arab Fall, a book about the Brotherhood. However, a group that could not even achieve this goal in Egypt, where it is from, poses very little risk to a country like the United States. Moreover, Trager said, a terrorism designation would significantly constrain any US presidents ability to address the Brotherhood and its offshoots across the Middle East with a variety of approaches.However, a small group of committed anti-Islam conspiracy theorists in the United States view the Muslim Brotherhood as an enormously powerful, coordinated, and nefarious institution that has successfully infiltrated all levels of American government and society, particularly under the administration of Barack Obama.Trumps victory has given several of these groups and individuals unprecedented levels of influence. Chief among them is Frank Gaffney, a Reagan-era Pentagon official who yesterday was named to Trumps transition team, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Although a Trump spokesperson denied that Gaffney is involved in the transition on Wednesday morning, the report was enough to set off a flurry of opposition and concern. Gaffney, through his Center for Security Policy, has for years been the principal proponent of conspiracy theories centering around Islamist infiltration, and he has repeatedly opposed the nomination of American Muslims to local and state-level government appointments, usually by accusing them of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.In the worldview of Gaffney and his acolytes, the Muslim Brotherhood has several front groups in the United States, most prominently the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, a civil rights organization with chapters across the country. Experts outside the anti-Islam lobby say that these claims, by and large, are false. Some US Muslim organizations were founded by or with the assistance of the Muslim Brotherhood decades ago, but for most of them, these links are ancient history, said Berger, the analyst at George Washington University. No major American Muslim organization is today affiliated with the group.
During the early months of the presidential campaign, the anti-Islam lobbys strongest alliances were with Sen. Ted Cruz. (Gaffney was one of Cruzs chief national security advisors before moving to Trumps camp.) Last November, Cruz introduced legislation to the Senate asking the State Department to report to Congress about whether the Muslim Brotherhood should be designated a terrorist organization. The bill explicitly named CAIR along with two other major Muslim groups the Islamic Society of North America and the North American Islamic Trust as American affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood, citing their appearance on a list of unindicted co-conspirators in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation, a group convicted of sending money to Hamas. (The Justice Department concluded that neither CAIR nor any other Muslim group on the list merited being charged with a crime.)Its something that weve been quite concerned about, a senate aide to Cruz told BuzzFeed News, in reference to the Muslim Brotherhoods alleged influence in the United States via groups like CAIR. There seems to be a sort of single voice speaking for the Muslim community in the form of the Brotherhood.But Cruzs legislation stalled. Within the Republican foreign policy establishment, there was a desire to tamp down this idea during the spring, because it was seen as a distraction from the task of combating ISIS, said Trager, the analyst at the Washington Institute. That establishment, however, has been dealt a serious blow.Last week, Walid Phares, a top adviser to Trump, told an Egyptian newspaper that Trump would actively work to pass Cruzs bill. Experts told BuzzFeed News that a State Department directed by a Trump ally such as Rudy Giuliani or John Bolton would be significantly more likely to respond to Congresss call by giving the Muslim Brotherhood an official terrorist designation.That designation would open any US persons or organizations accused of having an association with the Muslim Brotherhood to investigations, asset seizures, and other state actions. Members of the anti-Islam lobby responded happily to Pharess statements. Frank Gaffney told Breitbart that the terrorist designation should be the first step in Trumps strategy of victory over jihad.What a sweet moment, what a miraculous moment, said Jamie Glazov, the managing editor of anti-Islam publication FrontPage Magazine. CAIR, ISNA, and other Brotherhood front groups should be shaking in their boots.
Corey Saylor, director of CAIRs Department to Monitor and Combat Islamophobia, said that, because CAIR is not in fact a front for the Muslim Brotherhood, he expects they will be able to survive any scrutiny by the new administration. Every Muslim institution in this country has already been subjected to extreme vetting, Saylor said. And if there were anything nefarious about any Muslim institution, they would already be in jail at this point.Nevertheless, Saylor said the terrorist designation could still be used to maliciously target CAIR and other groups. I think the possibility of another Salem witch trial is always a reality, he said.Even if the government did not attempt to directly harm CAIR, the public association by government officials with a designated terrorist organization could seriously harm the groups reputation, said Robert McKenzie, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies Muslims in the West. McKenzie pointed out that one of CAIRs principal functions is offering American Muslims legal protection in the event of discrimination, harassment, and hate crimes.If theres a dark cloud looming where they could be viewed as affiliated with a terrorist organization by the government, I think theres a huge disincentive for people to approach them, McKenzie said. This should concern us whether were talking about Muslims or any other minority.Weakening CAIR in such a way would eliminate the first line of defense for many American Muslims against several policies proposed by Trump and members of the anti-Islam right, such as registering Muslims in databases, surveilling their mosques, or banning their entry into the country, McKenzie said.Hassan Shibly, executive director of CAIRs Florida chapter, said the possible terrorist designation worried him deeply, given the now-powerful anti-Islam lobbys tendency to baselessly associate just about every major American Muslim organization with the Muslim Brotherhood.Ive gotta wonder whether the Jews in Germany and I dont say this lightly Ive gotta wonder whether they were asking themselves some of the questions that were starting to ask ourselves now, Shibly said.
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Trump then and now: How the President-elect has changed since his election
Trump Promised To Drain The Swamp, But Hes Filling It With Bush-Era Crazies Instead
A clique of Bush-era neoconservative outliers who whipped Americans into a frenzied state of fear and anxiety after 9/11. Now theyre back, lurking in and around Trumps transition team, ready to open a vastly improved and expanded toolset for war and profit.
Toward the end of the campaign trail Donald Trump said he would drain the swamp in Washington.
This became an easily distillable mantra of what Trump had been promising for the duration of his campaign, that his mission was to destroy and rebuild what had become a corrupt Washington establishment. He would be a golden wrecking ball, in the words of Sarah Palin.
A significant part of this swamp consists of defense company-funded think tanks and quasi-intellectual architects of foreign policy, including a number of Bush-era neoconservatives who were instrumental in laying the framework for the Iraq War. Some of these individuals learned to tone down their rhetoric, like David Frum, Max Boot and Robert Kagan, in the intervening years.
In a strange but not completely unpredictable twist, however, those neocons who managed to escape the taint of the Bush administration, started allying themselves with Hillary Clinton, warning that Trumps foreign policy would be a disaster for the world.
The Hillary Clinton the neocon meme went viral, not just because of her new neocon associates but because her own rhetoric on Russia and Syria took on a distinctly hawkish tone. She repeatedly said she would launch a military attack in response to Russian cyberattacks and enforce a no-fly zone in Syria.
Kagan was merely a protege of a neoconservative clique formed by Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and others who were extremely controversial players in the Reagan administration. In fact, they were referred to as the crazies in the halls of the CIA and State Department for their paranoid and aggressive methods in waging the Cold War.
Its not difficult to understand why the term crazy was used to describe them. In June of this year Kaganhosted an official fundraiser for Clinton, during which he mocked President Barack Obama for not wanting a nuclear war with Russia in a bizarre rant about the president delaying offensive weapons for Ukraine.
Even though Trump never used the term neocon in the course of bashing U.S. foreign policy, his fanbase likely assumed that part of draining the swamp consisted of kicking the crazies out of Washington. Unfortunately, this was merely a fantasy on par with Obamas Hope and Change, but on the opposite end of the spectrum.
While most Trump supporters had their attention turned to Clintons brash hawkishness, they failed to notice that some of the craziest of the neoconservative Bush-era war hawks in Washington had split off from the pro-Clinton neocon consensus and favored Trump. Some examples of this include Michael Ledeen, Bill Bennett, Frank Gaffney, John Bolton, and James Woolsey, signatories to the Project for the New American Century, a think tank co-founded by Kagan during the Clinton administration. PNAC is widely known for developing the roadmap for George W. Bushs foreign policy agenda that led to the illegal Iraq War and the invasion of Afghanistan. A total of 17 PNAC signatories assumed official positions in the Bush administration.
After Trumps shocking win on Election Day, the media started heavily focusing on the more cartoonish side of Trumps rumored transition team leaders, like Ben Carson, Sarah Palin, and Mike Huckabee. It became clear almost immediately that while the people generally known as the crazies might be gone, the even-craziers specifically, Bolton, Gaffney, and Woolsey were waiting in line for their Trump Cabinet appointments.
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the Army veteran with strong ties to the national intelligence state now rumored to be Trumps national security adviser pick, co-wrote a book with Michael Ledeen, one of the craziest neocons of them all, called The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies in July.
Unsurprisingly, Flynn shares many of Ledeens attitudes toward the Islamic world. On Feb. 26, Flynn admitted to his own Islamophobia when he shared a blatantly bigoted video on Twitter with the comment: Fear of Muslims is RATIONAL. Four months after the terrorist attacks in Nice, France,Flynn tweeted a dare for Arab & Persian world leaders to step up to the plate and declare their Islamic ideology.
It turns out Gaffney was the originator of the ban Muslim immigration policy which Trump adopted after the San Bernardino, California, shooting in December 2015. However, Gaffney never said he was advising Trump; he only admitted to advising Ted Cruz, the senator from Texas who competed against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination. Yet the mixing of the conservative hot-button topic of illegal immigration with terrorism a speciality of Gaffneys became a crucial flank in both campaigns.
The ban on Muslims also became a major talking point among the so-called alt-right movement, possibly because Gaffney was one of the only crazies who managed to build a bridge to the alt-right movement years before Trumps run, writing columns fear-mongering about Muslims and Shariah for Stephen Bannons far-right Breitbart News outlet. Most neoconservatives decided to liberalize their rhetoric in terms of Islam, but Gaffney stayed true to two of the more controversial neoconservative principles, that its only force that [the Arabs] respect and that Muslims, in general, pose a threat to free society around the world a notion sharply criticized by Francis Fukuyama, a PNAC signatory who defected from the neoconservative movement.
Gaffney is rumored to be leading the foreign policy section of Trumps transition team, although he and Trump spokespeople have publicly denied this. And while he claims hes not part of Trumps team, its worth noting that there is an uncanny overlap between his regular radio show guest lineup and Trumps transition team: James Woolsey, John Bolton, Newt Gingrich, and even Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
More at: http://www.mintpressnews.com/trump-p...nstead/222482/
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Kobach Accidentally Reveals Anti-Muslim Plan
Kris Kobach, the firebrand up for Trumps head of the Department of Homeland Security, accidentally revealed his anti-immigrant plans during a photo op.
On Sunday, Kris Kobach showed us his papersand civil liberties groups now want him out.
Kobach tipped his hand accidentally Monday afternoon as he posed for a photo with Donald Trump as he headed into their meeting at the moguls golf course in Bedminster, N.J. The Topeka Capital-Journal noticed that Kobach was holding a stack of papers, and that much of the text on the first paper was visible in the AP photo.
At the time it was first implemented, Critics argued it was a de facto registry of Muslim immigrants, and that it didnt do anything to make the country safer. It was partially rolled back in 2003 and suspended in 2011,according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Katherine Tactaquin, the executive director of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said Kobachs ideas could mean going back to the post-9/11 norm.
Obviously thats going to target Muslims, she said. Its another way of doing that without specifically saying, Were identifying Muslims.
It isnt clear if that kind of targeting would survive a court challenge today, according to Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration expert for the libertarian Cato Institute.
We dont know what the answer would be in a modern court, he said. But under current interpretation its fine.
But just because Kobachs ideas might withstand legal scrutiny doesnt mean they would reduce the risk of terror attacks in the U.S.
If it actually increased security then that would be a good argument for it, he said. But it didnt work under the Bush administration.
The government already had a list of people who legally entered the U.S., he noted, so the additional NSEERS surveillance and monitoring was largely redundant.
But dont expect that to stop Trump and Kobach, he added.
This is a sign that hes going to follow through with what he said he wanted to do on the campaign trail, he said.
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Trump Tells Supporters Committing Violence: 'Stop it'
By Cyra Master - 11/13/16
In a "60 Minutes" interview Sunday night, President-elect Donald Trump said he had not heard reports of an increase in racial slurs and threats against minorities since his election.
"I am very surprised to hear that-- I hate to hear that, I mean I hate to hear that," Trump said.
"But I think it's a very small amount," he added.
Lesley Stahl asked the president-elect if he had a message to people reacting violently to the election results.
"I would say don't do it, that's terrible, because I'm going to bring this country together."
When pressed by Stahl about harrasment of Latinos and Muslims, Trump said, "I am so saddened to hear that. And I say, 'Stop it.' If it-- if it helps. I will say this, and I will say right to the cameras: 'Stop it.'
On Thursday,the New York Times called on Trump to denounce acts of violence and vandalism against minorities that have popped up in the U.S. since his election.
Denounce the Hate, Mr. Trump
In his victory speech early Wednesday morning, Donald Trump pledged that he "will be president for all Americans," and he asked those who did not support him "for your guidance and your help so that we can work together and unify our great country."
Here's some guidance right off the bat, Mr. President-elect: Those sentiments will have more force if you immediately and unequivocally repudiate the outpouring of racist, sexist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic and homophobic insults, threats and attacks being associated with your name. Do this in a personal plea to people who supported your candidacy. Tell them this is not what you stand for, nor is it what your new administration will tolerate.
Explicit expressions of bigotry and hatred by Trump supporters were common throughout the campaign, and they have become even more intense since his election. On a department-store window in Philadelphia, vandals spray-painted "Sieg Heil 2016" and Mr. Trump's name written with a swastika. In a Minnesota high-school bathroom, vandals scrawled the Trump campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again," and next to it, "Go back to Africa." There are many more reports pouring in of verbal and physical harassment of Muslims, Latinos and other members of minorities. Though not all are verifiable, the atmosphere of intimidation and fear is unquestionably real and will keep growing. Mr. Trump may not be able to stop it by himself, but he must do everything he can.
The problem, of course, is that Mr. Trump's campaign was based on appeals - some explicit, some coded - to racial and ethnic resentment and division. His followers heard it starting with his speech declaring his candidacy, warning of Mexican immigrant "rapists," continuing to a rally last weekend where he promised to bar all Syrian refugees because they "will import generations of terrorism, extremism and radicalism into your schools and throughout your communities." These statements emboldened and even encouraged those who have been looking for a license to lash out against immigrants, refugees, minorities and anyone else they find threatening. They take his victory as vindication of their feelings.
David Duke, the former Louisiana lawmaker and former imperial wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, tweeted that Mr. Trump's victory was "one of the most exciting nights of my life," and also, "Our people have played a HUGE role in electing Trump!" In another tweet, he wrote, "Anyone telling you this was a vote for 'unity' is a liar and they know it!"
As a candidate, Mr. Trump could get away with ignoring racist and sexist abuse by his supporters. But as the president-elect, he has the moral duty to reject it in the most aggressive terms. There should be no space in American political discourse for violent or abusive behavior. And that includes, of course, acts of vandalism and other violence by anti-Trump demonstrators.
In a little more than two months, Donald Trump will take charge of a country of more than 320 million people of all races, ethnicities and religions. Every one of them deserves to live in safety, with dignity.
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Special: Bernie Sanders Interviewed by Amy Goodman at Philadelphia Free Library
In a Democracy Now! special, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders sat down with Amy Goodman at the Free Library of Philadelphia on Monday night in his most extensive broadcast interview since Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton two weeks ago.
Horrifying letter threatening Muslims with genocide sent to more mosques across America
Identical letters postmarked from Los Angeles area have now shown up at mosques throughout California and in Ohio, Michigan, Rhode Island, Indiana, Colorado and Georgia
Several more mosques across the US have reported receiving a hate-filled letter from California that warns Muslims to leave the country or face genocide.
Los Angeles police have been investigating the letters addressed to the children of Satan as a hate incident, but not a crime because it does not contain a specific threat. [so genocide is not and concentration camps is not a threat?]
The letters appeared to be photocopies of a handwritten note referring to Muslims as vile and filthy people and saying that President-elect Donald Trump would do to Muslims what Hitler did to Jews.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has asked the FBI to investigate.
The FBI said the threats, while inflammatory and awful, do not pose a threat specific enough to investigate at this point, but they're monitoring the situation and urged anyone to report such incidents.
Police in Providence, Rhode Island, said they would increase patrols after one of the letters was received at Masjid Al-Kareem.
Faissal Elansari of the Islamic Center of Rhode Island said he feels a wave of hate at his doorstep, WPRI-TV reported.
Envelopes have had a return address in the city the letter was sent - often 331 Oak St. - but are postmarked in Los Angeles or Santa Clarita, a suburb about 30 miles north.
The name above the return address is Reza Khan, said Shehadeh Abdelkarim, president of the Islamic Center of Cleveland, which received one of the letters. He noted that's a Muslim name. The person obviously knows a little about Muslim culture, Abdelkarim said.
The name is bogus, said Sgt. Mike Abdeen of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, which is assisting LAPD.
Letters have been received at six mosques in California, including Los Angeles, Fresno and San Jose, according to police and Islamic groups. Elsewhere, they have also turned up at mosques in Denver, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Savannah, Georgia, and a school affiliated with an Indianapolis mosque.
Trump's spokespeople have not responded to a request for comment. The president-elect told 60 Minutes that if his supporters were harassing others, they should stop it.
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Trumps son-in-law funds Israeli settlement projects
In recent years, the parents of Jared Kushner, the son-in-law and trusted confidant of US President-elect Donald Trump, have donated tens of thousands of dollars to organisations and institutions located in illegal West Bank settlements, according to their tax forms.
Kushners family donates a few million dollars a year on average to charitable causes through the Charles and Seryl Kushner Foundation, which Jared sits on the board of along with his brother and two sisters. The foundation was established in 1997.
Among organisations and institutions in the occupied West Bank that receive funding from the Kushner family, the American Friends of Beit El Yeshiva (religious school) received $20,000 in 2013.
Israels Haaretz newspaper reported that the president of American Friends of Beit El Yeshiva, whose offices are located in New York, is David Friedman, Trumps senior adviser on Israel affairs. Friedman, who has served as Trumps real estate lawyer for the past 15 years and is considered to be very close to the president-elect, has expressed interest in becoming the next US ambassador to Israel, Haaretz added.
Freidman is also seen as a top contender for the former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who was also keynote speaker at last years fundraising dinner for the Beit El Yeshiva American friends group.
The list of organisations that received donations from Kushners family foundation has included the Etzion Foundation, whose US fundraising offices are located in New Jersey. The foundation supports Yeshivat Har Etzion, Kibbutz Migdal Oz and the Herzog College teachers training institution all are located in the illegal Gush Etzion settlement bloc outside Jerusalem. In 2012, the Kushner family foundation donated $5,000 to the Etzion Foundation, in addition to another $10,000 in 2013.
Another recipient of Kushner funding in Gush Etzion, which headquartered in the settlement of Efrat, is Ohr Torah Stone which received $5,000 in 2011.
The Od Yosef Chai yeshiva, a religious school in the occupied West Bank, was granted $500 by the Kushner family. According to Haaretz, this particular school did not receive any funding from the Israeli government, as it had been involved in launching violent attacks against nearby Palestinian villages and Israeli security forces.
In 2014, the Kushner family pledged $18 million to the Shaare Zedek Medical Centre in Jerusalem, in addition to the $2 million it had already committed earlier. The Kushners have a history of supporting hospitals both in Israel and the United States but this was by far the largest gift given by the family to a single medical institution, Haaretz noted.
Another key beneficiary of Kushner charity in Israel is the Israeli army. Between 2011 and 2013, the foundation donated a total of $315,000 to Friends of the IDF, on whose board Jared serves.
Among other institutions and organisations the Kushners have supported in Israel in the past four years, are the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra ($2,500); the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design ($1,000); United Hatzalah ($70,000); the Israel Cancer Research Fund ($10,000); Meir Panim Lachayal, another organisation that supports Israeli soldiers ($4,000); the Shalva Childrens Centre ($20,000); Maayanei Yeshua Hospital ($25,000); and the Rabin Medical Centre ($23,000).
In the United States, the family foundation supports many Jewish day schools, charities and cultural centres. In recent years, it has contributed close to $30,000 to various institutions operated by Chabad the ultra-Orthodox outreach organization.
One of the single largest beneficiaries of Kushner contributions in recent years has been the Ramaz School in Manhattan which received $250,000. Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, the former principal of Ramaz, supervised Donald Trumps daughter Ivankas conversion before she married Jared.
Last November, the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely welcomed suggestions that US President-elect Donald Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner could be appointed as a special envoy to broker peace in the Middle East.
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Trump Asks Flynn, A Fiery General, To Be Top Adviser And Plans Romney Meeting
by Philip Rucker, Karen DeYoung, David Nakamura - 11/18/2016
President-elect Donald Trump has asked Michael Flynn, a retired lieutenant general with a record of incendiary statements about Muslims, to be his White House national security adviser, a person close to the transition confirmed Thursday night.
Flynn, who would hold the most powerful national security position, is a retired three-star general and decorated intelligence officer who established a close relationship with Trump while campaigning at his side this year. His behavior and a string of controversial and dark statements about Islam, among other topics, have alarmed many of his former colleagues.
Trump has spoken with or met with several dozen foreign leaders and officials. Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, appeared at Trump Tower on Thursday afternoon, but neither transition officials nor Israeli Embassy officials responded to questions about whether he met with Trump, someone else, or was just visiting.
With Conway by his side, Dermer told reporters that Israel had no doubt that Trump is "a true friend of Israel." Pence, he said, "was one of Israel's greatest friends in the Congress" and "we look forward to working . . . with all the members of the Trump administration, including Steve Bannon, and making the U.S.-Israel alliance stronger than ever."
full article @ http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politi...ing/ar-AAkr7Dc
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Trump picks settlement supporter as Israel ambassador
President-elect says David Friedman, who has no diplomatic experience, would benefit the US-Israel special relationship.
David Friedman, left, has plans to move the US embassy to Jerusalem
US President-elect Donald Trump will nominate David Friedman, a right-wing lawyer known for his staunch support for Israel, as US ambassador to Israel.
Friedman, who has no diplomatic experience, is a supporter of Israel's Jewish-only settlements - which are considered illegal under international law - in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
More than 530,000 Israelis live in settlements across the occupied Palestinian territory, according to the Israeli rights group B'Tselem.
Thursday's announcement raised alarm when Friedman said he looked forward to working from "the US embassy in Israel's eternal capital, Jerusalem", the eastern part of which has been occupied by Israeli forces in contravention of international law since 1967.
The US embassy is at present located in Tel Aviv.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority hopes the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank will include East Jerusalem as its capital, while most European and Arab countries reject Israel's claim to sovereignty in the city.
Virtually all embassies to Israel are located in or around Tel Aviv.
Trump said Friedman would "maintain the special relationship" between the US and Israel.
The statement does not detail how Friedman could work in Jerusalem. However, Trump's advisers have insisted in recent days that the president-elect will follow through on his call for moving the embassy.
"He has made that promise," Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway told reporters on Thursday. "I can guarantee you, just generally, he's a man who is going to accomplish many things very quickly."
One option Trump's allies have discussed would involve Friedman, if confirmed by the Senate, working out of an existing US consulate in Jerusalem. According to a person who has discussed the plan with Trump's advisers, the administration would essentially deem the facility the American embassy by virtue of the ambassador working there.
It is unclear how far those discussions have advanced, or whether Trump himself has been briefed on the proposal. Trump's transition team did not respond to questions about the matter.
Bill Clinton and George W Bush, both former US presidents, promised to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, but backed away from the idea once in office.
Nir Barkat, the mayor of the Israeli-administered Jerusalem municipality, told the Associated Press news agency he has been in touch with Trump's staff about the embassy issue.
Between 2009 and 2014, settlements were expanded by at least 23 percent.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, has vowed to continue settlement expansion. In March 2015, the day before Israelis re-elected him, Netanyahu promised to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state under his watch.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Teen Read Photo Board
September 23 – October 6
Do you have a favorite book? Let us know! Get a head start on Teen Read Week and star in your own READ mini-poster. Here's how: Pick your favorite book, write down the title, author and (in 25 words or less) why you think it's the best. We'll take your picture and include the photo of you and your book and why you love it on our photo board, which will be displayed in TeenSpace during Teen Read Week (October 13-19).
Want to make a short video telling us about your favorite book? We would love to see it. All video submissions should be sent to email@example.com. All teens that enter will receive a prize, and qualify for a bigger prize drawing to be held during Teen Read Week. Co-sponsored by the Friends of the Library.


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Homemade Cheese Biscuits Recipe
5 2 5
These savory biscuits from Lynn Tice of Osage City, Kansas couldn't be simpler to make! With from-scratch flavor and a golden-brown cheese topping, they're sure to be a hit.
Recommended: Biscuits
VERIFIED BY Taste of Home Test Kitchen
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- 1 tube (12 ounces) refrigerated buttermilk biscuits
- 1/4 cup prepared Italian salad dressing
- 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- 1/2 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
- Separate biscuits; dip the top of each in salad dressing, then in Parmesan cheese. Place cheese side up on an ungreased baking sheet; sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.
- Bake at 400° for 9-11 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm. Yield: 10 biscuits.
Originally published as Cheese Biscuits in Simple & Delicious November/December 2007, p51
Reviews forHomemade Cheese Biscuits
My Review
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Any changes to your rating or review will appear where you originally posted your review
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Reviewed Mar. 15, 2014
"These are very tasty."
Reviewed Feb. 23, 2012
"I 1st made this (and the chicken Marsala with Gorgonzola recipe) for Valentine's. I have made them twice since then in less than 2 weeks. Simple and Delicious."


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Sadie Arnold, 13, loves to dance and she loves the fact that she will play Clara in the Shepherdstown School of Dance production of The Nutcracker this weekend. Arnold is one of more than 85 participants in the holiday production which has become a tradition for the school.
In previous years, Arnold has played a variety of roles in the show and moves into the role of Clara with joy and a bit of nerves.
"I am very nervous about this weekend because it's our first time in our roles," she said speaking of herself and Richard Yates who will play the Nutcracker prince. "But, it's exciting," she smiled.
Article Photos
Her exuberance over the show and dancing in particular was shared by all of the dancers in attendance at Tuesday evening's rehearsal.
Tori Obendorfer, who has been dancing for eight years, says that she dances five days a week with the added rehearsals for the upcoming performance.
"I think it's worth it," she says. "It makes you a better dancer." Obendorfer says that her favorite part is the wooden doll although she also plays snow, flowers and Chinese this year. "My partner is my best friend, Jo Jo," she said, so that makes it even more fun.
Jo Jo Cifala agrees. "I really like ballet and hanging out with my friends here," she added. "The teachers are great and all my friends are here."
That feeling of family and friendship could be felt throughout the studio. Kelsy Eackles, who this year plays the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy, summed it up by saying, "It is a family here."
Eackles will have the pleasure of dancing with Jordan Nelson, a professional dancer coming from Chicago who will play opposite her in her performance. Nelson has visited Shepherdstown for some rehearsals already, something Eackles says she took full advantage of to learn from him.
"It's a great experience to work with a professional. He has already taught me so many different ways to do things," she said. The 15-year-old Jefferson High student says that she has been dancing since she was three or four years of age.
The commitment to the art of dance can be seen and felt at the studio and the plans to continue dance are held by all who feel the passion for what they do. The students speak highly of the instructors, especially Emily Romine who serves as the school's artistic director.
Romine, who has a background in classical ballet, started dancing at the age of nine. Growing up in Martinsburg, she recalls fondly taking classes in the ballroom of the Shepherdstown Men's Club.
In 2003 she joined with Mercedes Prohaska to open the dance studio, which she says has only grown since then.
Originally the school produced one show per year in the spring; however, Romine said they added "The Nutcracker" in 2006.Until this year's performances, the school presented two showings; however, with the high demand for tickets, they have expanded to three shows for this weekend. Romine indicated that tickets for the Sunday performance have already sold out.
"These performers want a full house," she said. "These kids work for the love of it, they are not getting paid. They give up a lot of things through the years for their dance," she explained.
The cast has been practicing specifically for this production since October, Romine said; however, she stressed that the practice is continual.
"By the very nature of what we do here, we have worked all year," she said.
Ariel Cifala confirmed Romine's comments adding, "We practice all year. We learn so much from Ms. Romine; she gives us the whole package." Cifala, 13, has been dancing for 10 years, as has her friend, Rachael Cochran. They describe themselves as not only friends, but almost like sisters.
Joining in for her first year in The Nutcracker is Haven Leigh, 9. "The people here are really nice and so is the teacher," she said of the school. "The Nutcracker is fun to do. It's like a team," she explained.
Emily Baker, who has been at the school since it opened, broadened the scope to say that those at the school are more than friends. "I've grown up with these girls, it's our family," she said.
The evidence of the joy felt in the dance will come across this weekend to those who are able to secure tickets to the show. Performances are at 2 and 7 p.m. on Saturday and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, although the Sunday tickets are already sold out. For more information on the show and ticket availability, call 304-264-1832 or 304-886-8398.


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In collaboration with the National University of Mexico, a team of Spanish researchers has analysed for the first time remains of cosmetics in the graves of prehispanic civilisations on the American continent. In the case of the Teotihuacans, these cosmetics were used as part of the after-death ritual to honour their city's most important people.
A research team from the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the University of Valencia has studied various funerary samples found in urns in the Teotihuacan archaeological site (Mexico) that date from between 200 and 500 AD.
The scientists have been researching Mayan wall paintings in Mexico and Guatemala since 2006. Published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, this project came about after contact on various occasions with other researchers in the area, namely the National University of Mexico, who wanted to know the composition and function of the cosmetics found in pots.


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Say it Aint So…You Let Helmer Go?
You meet a lot of people in life. Most leave no impression but every now and then you meet someone who leave a lasting impression. For me that was Tom Helmer.
I can't say exactly when I first met Tom but my first really good memory of meeting him was at the Top of the Rockies show towards the end of 2010. When I wrote the blog entry about the show I mentioned how cool I thought it would be interview one of the ROOT SPORTS (FSN Rocky Mtn back then) folks.
Not long after Tom emailed me and told me he enjoyed reading the Rant and said he'd be happy to let me interview him. That blew me away and I was stoked because I figured Tom would be a smooth first interview for me because he's so laid back.
Tom kept his word and on a cold snowy day in January the Rantics and I met Tom and his wife at Champps. The Rantics all hung out and Alanna X and I interviewed Tom.
He was easy to talk and the two of them were a total class act.
After that Tom was an official "Rantic" and he solidified his place in the Rant as a stand-up guy.
Five years I've been blogging about the Rockies and Tom was the first one in Colorado Media to give me any props at all, thank you Tom.
Helmer "IS" the Rockies pre and post game.
Plus his "Tom on the Town" series is always fun to watch.
The kids and I won't be celebrating any Rockies wins post-game at the ROOT SPORTS desk this season, the only reason we'll be there is to shout "Bring back Helmer" and you better believe the Rantics will be there in full force.
Helmer was the best for getting the crowd going after a Rockies win and anyone else trying to do that post-game would seem cheap and insulting to Rockies fans who respect Helmer.
I can tell you that I was extremely pro ROOT SPORTS at the beginning of last season. I bought in and plugged their new theme …"The Fan".
Ok ROOT SPORTS time to put your money where you mouth is. "The Fans" you reference want Tom Helmer back…NOW!. He's the heart and soul of your broadcast team and Rockies fans WILL suffer in his absence.
ROOT SPORTS you have totally misjudged the impact Helmer has on the Rockies fan base.
I'm not sure What direction ROOT SPORTS is headed but if it doesn't include Tom Helmer I don't need a map to tell you they're going the wrong way.
Helmer was so cool he even had his own T-Shirts made and distributed them to fans for a good part of last season. Me being the original homeboy I got the first one.
I have nothing against the rest of the crew at ROOT SPORTS I like them, but none of them have close to the personality and charisma that Helmer has. Plus who the hell wants to see the Cowboy up on the desk after a Rockies win. Not me, that's just scary.
Here's Tom on 850 KOA talking about the whole thing on 2-9-12
Stand up Rockies fans, help our "Homeboy". Do the right thing and let ROOT SPORTS know how you feel about this mess.
Here's a link to their Facebook page: ROOT SPORTS..Rocky Mountain
Or you can email directly by clicking here: ROOT SPORTS Rocky Mountain email.
Please show your support for Tom by Liking the Facebook page Dan Created: Bring Helmer Back NOW
And Don't miss the Save Helmer Fan Rally on Sunday at 2pm at the Blake Street Tavern. Then we march to Coors Field is support of "The Homeboy".
I'm "D" The Ranter and ROOT SPORTS seems more like BOOT SPORTS to me right now.