Millions Of Bees Quietly Killed In South Carolina Over Christmas

                       
Millions of bees in South Carolina were quietly exterminated over the Christmas holidays as part of a Zika virus pesticide spraying campaign. 

Farmers reported seeing millions of dead worker bees littering their farms, noting that the pattern of deaths matched acute pesticide poisoning.
Blacklistednews.com reports:
By one estimate, at a single Bee Farm in Summerville, 46 hives died on the spot, totaling around 2.5 million bees.
Walking through the farm, one Summerville woman stated it was “like visiting a cemetery, pure sadness.”
A Clemson University scientist collected soil samples from Flowertown on Tuesday, according to WCBD-TV.
The bee farmers have a clear opinion. Their bees had been poisoned by Dorchester’s own insecticide efforts, casualties in the war on disease-carrying mosquitoes.

On Sunday morning, parts of Dorchester County were sprayed with Naled, a common insecticide that kills mosquitoes on contact. The United States began using Naled in 1959, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which notes that the chemical dissipates so quickly it is not a hazard to people. That said, human exposure to Naled during spraying “should not occur.”
Trucks trailing pesticide clouds are not an unusual sight in S.C. This is thanks to a mosquito-control program that includes destroying the insects larvae. Given the current concerns of Zika virus, Dorchester decided to try something different. It marked a departure from Dorchester County’s usual ground-based efforts. For the first time, an airplane dispensed the pesticide in a fine mist between 6:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. on Sunday.
The county says it provided plenty of warning, spreading word about the pesticide plane via a newspaper announcement Friday and a Facebook post Saturday.
Local beekeepers felt differently.
“Had I known, I would have been camping on the steps doing whatever I had to do screaming, ‘No you can’t do this,’”beekeeper Juanita Stanley said in an interview with Charleston’s WCSC-TV. Stanley told the Charleston Post and Courier that the bees are her income, but she is more devastated by the loss of the bees than her honey.
The county acknowledged the bee deaths Tuesday. “Dorchester County is aware that some beekeepers in the area that was sprayed on Sunday lost their beehives,” Jason Ward, county administrator, said in a news release. He added, according to the Charleston Post and Courier, “I am not pleased that so many bees were killed.”
Spraying pesticides from the air is not uncommon, particularly when you are covering a large area. In a single year in Florida, more than 6 million acres were sprayed with the chemicals, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency argued in January that the technique should be used to curb Zika in Puerto Rico.
This particular pesticide cannot discriminate between honey bees and mosquitos. A profile of the chemical in Cornell University’s pesticide database warned that “Naled is highly toxic to bees.”
Summerville resident Andrew Macke noted that the hot weather had left the bees particularly exposed. Once temperatures exceed 90 degrees, bees may exit the nest to cool down in what is called a beard, clustering on the outside of the hive in a ball. Neither Macke nor Stanley had covered their hives.
And then came the plane…
“They passed right over the trees three times,” Stanley said to ABC 4 News. After the plane left, the familiar buzzing stopped. The silence in its wake was like a morgue, she said.
As for the dead bees, as Stanley told the AP, her farm “looks like it’s been nuked.”

                     http://yournewswire.com/millions-bees-killed-south-carolina/

HAPPY NEW YEAR

                                                     
Chinese Happy New Year 新年快乐

Russia 本刊Neuve的EAP

Portuguese feliz Ano Novo

Canadian Happy New Year

58 

Putin outsmarts Obama, turns Obama’s expulsion of Russian diplomats to his advantage

                      
By refusing to be provoked by the expulsion of Russian diplomats from the US, Vladimir Putin turns the tables on Barack Obama and provides political space to Donald Trump.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s grandly restrained response to the sanctions and expulsions US President Barack Obama announced yesterday was even by his standards both very surprising and extremely clever.

The full statement published on his website shows why:

We regard the recent unfriendly steps taken by the outgoing US administration as provocative and aimed at further weakening the Russia-US relationship. This runs contrary to the fundamental interests of both the Russian and American people. Considering the global security responsibilities of Russia and the United States, this is also damaging to international relations as a whole.
As it proceeds from international practice, Russia has reasons to respond in kind. Although we have the right to retaliate, we will not resort to irresponsible ‘kitchen’ diplomacy but will plan our further steps to restore Russian-US relations based on the policies of the Trump Administration.
The diplomats who are returning to Russia will spend the New Year’s holidays with their families and friends. We will not create any problems for US diplomats. We will not expel anyone. We will not prevent their families and children from using their traditional leisure sites during the New Year’s holidays. Moreover, I invite all children of US diplomats accredited in Russia to the New Year and Christmas children’s parties in the Kremlin.
It is regrettable that the Obama Administration is ending its term in this manner. Nevertheless, I offer my New Year greetings to President Obama and his family.
My season’s greetings also to President-elect Donald Trump and the American people.
I wish all of you happiness and prosperity.

(bold italics added)
Obama’s mean minded and spiteful act of yesterday has afforded Putin the perfect opportunity to appear broadminded and magnanimous, and he has seized it with both hands.
Where Obama has acted in the run up to the New Year holiday to make life as difficult for Russian diplomats in the US as possible (recent reports say they are struggling to find commercial flights to comply with Obama’s demand that they leave the US within 72 hours), Putin has invited the children of US diplomats in Moscow to go to the New Year and Orthodox Christmas parties in the Kremlin (it will be interesting to see whether their parents and the State Department let any of them go).
Where Obama has made angry and so far unsubstantiated claims that Putin was behind the Clinton leaks, Putin sends Obama and his family New Year greetings.
Putin then caps these grand gestures by reminding Obama – ever so gently – that in three weeks he’ll be gone. Thus the reference to the incoming Trump administration and the Season’s Greetings to Donald Trump. Twisting the knife even further (one can almost see the gleam in Putin’s eye) the statement ends with Season’s Greetings to the American people, where recent opinion polls show Putin is becoming increasingly popular with Republican voters.
In responding in this way, Putin is of course refusing to rise to Obama’s bait and be provoked into a reaction that will help Obama’s campaign to box in the incoming Trump administration. Indeed his statement says as much:
We regard the recent unfriendly steps taken by the outgoing US administration as provocative and aimed at further weakening the Russia-US relationship…..Although we have the right to retaliate, we will not resort to irresponsible ‘kitchen’ diplomacy but will plan our further steps to restore Russian-US relations based on the policies of the Trump Administration
(bold italics added)
However its careful wording shows that Putin has also carefully judged the public reaction. He must know – and his media advisers will have told him – that this was one statement of his which the Western media would not be able to suppress or ignore, but which if only for a few hours would dominate the news cycle.
He has seized the opportunity this has afforded him to show himself and Russia in the best possible light: refusing to be provoked, solicitous for people’s enjoyment of their New Year holidays, and generous towards their children.
The contrast with the way in which the Obama administration and the Western media have repeatedly sought to cast him could not be greater.
This episode also shows something else about Putin, which I have often commented on, but which receives no attention in the Western media because it so completely contradicts the image the Western media has of him. This is Putin’s deeply ingrained habit of courtesy. Here we have an example of Putin using it to his and Russia’s advantage.
That Putin’s statement has successfully hit home is shown by the bewildered Western media reaction, which whilst reporting the statement is struggling to come up with a coherent response. In one or two places even a note of unacknowledged and heavily qualified admiration grudgingly sneaks through, as for example in this comment by the BBC’s Jonathan Marcus

“This was a carefully stage-managed response from Mr Putin – dangling the possibility of tit-for-tat expulsions and then showing magnanimity in postponing any response – at least for now.
It is fundamentally a put-down for the Obama administration, suggesting that, in Moscow’s view, it is such a lame-duck, so irrelevant, as to make any response unnecessary.
It also poses an immediate test for President-elect Trump. Will he be convinced by the evidence the US intelligence agencies say they have? And, if so, what course will he steer in his relations with Russia?
This is no new Cold War. Russia is simply a kind of “pocket” superpower, nothing like the Soviet Union of old. But Mr Putin has shown here in relations with the West, as in Ukraine and Syria, that he can play a limited hand with great skill. Mr Trump will need to respond to this challenge in a decisive but graduated way.”

(bold italics added)
Though this comment is full of the West’s typical condescension towards Putin and Russia (“Russia a “pocket” superpower”) – which is incidentally contradicted by its call to Trump to “respond to this challenge in a decisive but graduated way” – it cannot in the end deny the “great skill” with which Putin has acted.
Putin’s statement is not of course only or even principally directed at the Western public. A fact which Western commentators consistently overlook is that Putin’s primary audience, and the one he always principally addresses whenever he speaks, is the Russian public.
Here again Putin’s statement shows what a skilful politician he is, which in turn shows why he has dominated Russian political life for so long.
His response to Obama’s boorish actions on the eve of the New Year holiday (the biggest and most important holiday in Russia) is to call them a “provocation” . He then makes Russia – and by extension himself – appear all the stronger and greater by refusing to be provoked by them.
At the same time he makes Obama appear vindictive by revealing how his actions have disrupted the New Year holidays of Russian diplomats and their families. He then contrasts this by making Russia – and again by extension himself – appear open hearted and generous by not only refusing to respond in kind but by inviting the children of US diplomats to the New Year and Christmas parties in the Kremlin.
This is a very skilfully judged response, which will only only serve to confirm the already high opinion most Russians have of Putin, and which will further consolidate their support for him as their leader.
This incidentally has been the consistent pattern throughout Putin’s Presidency, with Putin always turning the West’s attacks on him to his domestic political advantage.
All in all, if this episode shows Obama at his most ugly and small-minded, it also shows Putin at his most skilful and most clever.
Since a consistent feature of Obama as President is that he always wants to be taken for the cleverest man around, Putin’s reaction – showing Putin once again to be cleverer than he is – is all but guaranteed to enrage Obama even more.

http://theduran.com/putin-confounds-obama-cleverly-turning-obamas-expulsion-russian-diplomats-advantage/

Do you Agree?

https://www.facebook.com/politicalq/photos/a.1436120840008364.1073741828.1436001520020296/1480811668872614/?type=3&theater

Sanction! Sanction! Sanction!

                       

                                 https://www.facebook.com/JewishVoiceforPeace/photos/a.10150125586109992.332923.186525784991/10155615902654992/?type=3&theater

Good to know.

     https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1059434687477393&set=a.120572198030318.31323.100002326149244&type=3&theater

Netanyahu To Release Evidence Of Washington Pedophile Ring

                     

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just declassified 400,000 documents that expose child trafficking and a child sex ring in Washington.

Following Obama’s decision to abstain at the U.N. Security Council earlier in the week, Netanyahu has warned him that he is willing to release information that will potentially damage powerful people in Washington.
“From now on,” Netanyahu said, “with one touch of the keyboard everyone will have access to the documents and can trace what happened to the children.”
Jpost.com reports
Israel on Wednesday made public for the first time some 400,000 pages of documents related to the fate of the missing Yemenite children of the 1950s, something Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said was meant to “correct the historical injustice” of hiding the fate of the children.
“It is difficult to believe that for almost 70 years, people did not know what happened to their children,” Netanyahu said. “And as difficult as the reality may be, we are not willing for this to continue.”
Netanyahu’s comments came at a ceremony in the Prime Minister’s Office, where a website was launched with the documentation about the children.

The documents are those that three inquiry committees had at their disposal over the years in investigating the case of the missing children – in 1967, 1988, and 1995.
From now on, Netanyahu said, “with one touch of the keyboard,” everyone will have access to the documents and can trace what happened to the children.
In June, Netanyahu appointed Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi to reexamine the evidence in the three previous inquiries, and in November the cabinet decided to release the classified documents. This decision overturned a 2001 decision to seal the documents until 2071.
During the early days of the state, from 1948 to 1954, hundreds of babies and toddlers of families of Mizrahi descent, mostly from Yemen, mysteriously disappeared during the massive wave of immigration at that time.
In the vast majority of cases, parents were told in the hospital that their children had died, though they never received any official confirmation.
Over the years, families have claimed that their children were in fact kidnapped and given away or sold off to Ashkenazi families.
The archives opened some 3,500 case files which contained original background materials collected by the committees, including hospital records, death certificates, photos and personal testimonies.
As such, the collection includes some 1,248 documents regarding hospitalization of the missing children, 1,226 death certificates, 923 burial records, 202 records of surgery following their deaths and 358 birth certificates.
Despite the massive amount of documents released, the majority of families still did not receive closure or new information regarding the whereabouts of their lost family members. Still, the opening of the case files was hailed as a major win and a step forward toward acknowledgment of the affair.
At the ceremony on Wednesday, Hanegbi termed this a “big day to correct a big injustice.”
The reason this is happening now, he said, “is that we feel a moral need to reveal the truth.”
Hanegbi acknowledged that the matter was a trauma that haunted families for decades, and expressed hope that transparency on the matter will help people reach closure.
“Hopefully, this will give some relief to the families,” he said.
The public database will reduce “suspicion and distrust that the establishment is hiding information,” Hanegbi stated. “We’re not hiding information; there is transparency.
All the details are out there.”
As for the reasoning behind the decision to make the documents public, Hanegbi said that the prime minister asked him to review them, and that he found no justification for keeping them classified.
“Now, every citizen, journalist, family member or historian can look at all the details and choose the way he will perceive it,” he said.
Hanegbi denied that there was any organized effort by the government to take children away from their parents, but said that information does not make the matter any less painful for the families.
“The committee that tried to find a solution, for this issue came out with the understanding that most of the children did die in hospitals,” he pointed out. “But the fact is that 1,000 children disappeared without graves, a reason of death, a funeral or a body.”
As for those who lived, Hanegbi called for the establishment of a DNA bank. He posited that at this point, nearly 70 years since the children disappeared, people who think they may have been adopted no longer have to fear insulting their adoptive parents, since they are probably no longer alive, and may be more willing to give DNA samples and find their long-lost relatives.
Knesset Science and Technology Committee chairman Uri Maklev (United Torah Judaism) proposed a bill to create a genetic database to help solve more of the mystery.
“Without genetic information, we will not be able to take the next step and unite parents, children and siblings,” he said.
Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said that the affair “symbolizes for whole generations of Israeli citizens a phenomena of neglect, discrimination and racism. It is an open wound for whole families.”
With the opening of the database, Israel is showing it can no longer hide the findings, she added.
Shaked said that the legal situation was complex, but that a solution was found to give maximum information to the public, while protecting individual privacy in the case of adoption.
MK Eitan Cabel (Zionist Union), who is of Yemenite descent, said: “Today is a great day of hope for many families in Israel, and I am full of hope that opening the archives will bring relief to the families and help them get answers to the many questions that remained open and were an open wound to this day.”
President Reuven Rivlin also commended the government on opening the State Archives: “This has been a heavy burden on Israeli society and it should have been dealt with years ago.”
He expressed the hope that families and the rest of the country would now be able to learn what happened to the missing children.

http://yournewswire.com/netanyahu-evidence-washington-pedophile-ring/

CNN Ratings Hit All Time Record Low

                     

CNN, the network so thoroughly exposed by WikiLeaks as a propaganda mouthpiece of the establishment, have recorded their lowest ratings since records began. For the week ending December 18, CNN ranked a lowly number 18 for total viewers per day for ad supported cable networks.

CNN was beat out by channels such as The Cartoon Network and Home And Garden TV Network. Viewers obviously decided The Cartoon Network is closer to reality than what CNN pumps out. Perhaps most embarrassingly, The Food Network had more daily viewers than CNN.
How the mighty have fallen. For primetime viewers CNN did not even rank in the top 25.
CNN is falling apart, which is nice to see given they are an establishment run propaganda channel exposed by their former staff as accepting cash to play what amount to informercials for foreign dictators.
All these propaganda sites are being found out – like Snopes, whose owner is accused of embezzling money, spending hundreds of thousands on prostitutes, and has now married one. His new wife, who now works for Snopes as their administrator, was a high-end escort until last year. She also has an extensive history as a porn star and once ran for office under the anti-Bush slogans, “re-defeat Bush” and “don’t get screwed again”. To think Snopes claim they are “ethical” and “neutral.”
Once upon a time, the press held government’s feet to the fire as a rule. Now it’s an occasional minor exposé just so they can hold up something that resembles legitimacy for the year. The rest of the time it’s business as usual, lying, manipulating and ingratiating themselves with the ruling elite – attempting to protect the establishment from independent, legitimate inquiry – so they can still have access and keep that sweet establishment shill money flowing in.

                                     http://yournewswire.com/cnn-ratings-record-low/

Former narcotics police chief sentenced to 10yrs for running Finnish drug ring

                    
In an ironic case of Finnish corruption, the former head of the country’s drug squad police has been sentenced to a decade in jail… for running a drug ring. He plans to appeal the ruling, maintaining his innocence.
Jari Aarnio, the former head of Helsinki’s drug squad police, was found guilty of official misconduct and aggravated evidence tampering by the Helsinki District Court on Thursday, according to AP.

He was handed a 10-year sentence, the full term demanded by prosecutors. The court determined Aarnio was the infamous “Pasila man,” who led an operation to import 791 kilograms of hash into Finland, the Helsingin Sanomat reported. Pasila is a reference to a Helsinki neighborhood where phones used by the ring’s leader – now confirmed by the court to be Aarnio – were used.
The drugs were stored in barrels and brought to the country between March 2011 and January 2012, when Aarnio was in charge of Helsinki's drug police.
“Before being caught, Aarnio has during the years 2012–2013 been shown to have obstructed in a number of ways the investigation of the importing of the hash barrels. He has also been shown to have tried in other ways to prevent himself and other people involved in the operation from being caught,” the court said in a press briefing.
“The District Court concludes that Aarnio has flagrantly abused his position in Helsinki’s drug police and therefore is guilty of a number of aggravated and lesser abuses of public office.” Aarnio was convicted of 17 crimes, including misuse of official position and preparing false evidence, the Suomen Kuvalehti reported. An accomplice was also handed a sentence of 10 years for his role in the drug ring on Thursday.
                         
Aarnio, who was arrested in 2013 after 30 years on the force, denied all charges throughout the trial, stating that all of his actions were legal and part of his role as Helsinki’s drug squad police chief. His attorneys say he plans to challenge the sentence at the Helsinki Court of Appeal.
It is not the first time that Aarnio has had a run-in with the law. He was sentenced to three years in September after being found guilty of fraud and corruption related to an ownership interest in a company that sold surveillance equipment to Finnish police.
Cases like Aarnio’s are rare for Finland, a country which rarely sees corruption among its civil servants.

https://www.rt.com/news/372261-finland-police-drug-ring/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS

FBI: Rumors About Clinton Pedophile Ring Are True

                      

Multiple sources within the FBI and NYPD have confirmed Hillary Clinton’s involvement in a massive pedophile ring in Washington DC. 

According to experts on Reddit, insiders have recently confirmed rumors that a child sex scandal involving the Clinton’s and their cronies are true and about to become public knowledge.

Reddit.com reports:

It seems that things are about to heat up. We are told that of the 662,871 emails lifted from Anthony Weiner’s computer, 11,112 emails are Huma Abedin’s… and pay to play – including Saudis and Israelis. Meaning Huma was the one Hillary used to communicate with foreign leaders via email for inside information and deals via Huma’s computer.

It has been established through many avenues, but mainly through Wikileaks, that the Clinton Foundation was just a farce set up in order to perform pay-to-play games with multiple entities, including foreign nations. Pay-to-play nations include: Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Kazakhstan, and the Ukraine.

Furthermore, we are told by one of our insiders that one email unequivocally confirms ISIS was created by CIA and Israeli Secret Intelligence Service, with help from Joe Lieberman, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham!

An NYPD insider said the content they viewed did include State Department Top Secret emails. One file was called “Life Insurance”. A second file was titled “DNC Nuclear Arsenal“.

A third file I’m sure Hillary definitely does not want released was a file labeled “Intimate”… according to this NYPD insider, this file contained X-rated photos of Huma and Hillary with a teenager.

NYPD detectives were sickened by what they saw, according to our insider, and they had threatened FBI field agents that they would leak this information, if the FBI did not “step up and take off the kid gloves”. At that point, 13 of the FBI agents in NYC were also threatening to leak the information.

As you can imagine, the scandal has the entire Obama Administration in full panic. We are told there are emails that could send Loretta Lynch to prison, as well as Bill and Hillary.

The following information comes straight from an FBI Anonymous source, who is the senior analyst who posted on 4chan in early July of this year:

Jim Comey learned that some of his own investigators were tipping off both Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton, thus making his job impossible.

Comey sent a letter to Congress, knowing that ultimately it would expose Loretta Lynch as a dirty actor and the breadcrumbs would lead directly to Obama. The State Department is terrified now. Comey has assembled a small team of 40 agents, whom he has declared “The Untouchables” after the famous federal agent Eliot Ness.

Comey has clamped down on all FBI agents and he expects a full-scale war between the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ), the White House, and the State Department. He has confirmed and understands that many sitting senators, congressmen, lobbyists, and power players are going to be indicted and prosecuted. One of the main targets of the probe is the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative. Among the targets under investigation are John Podesta, Huma, Cheryl Mills, CNN, ABC, NBC, etc.

As it turns out, Weiner, Huma’s husband, had been forwarding Huma’s emails each time she came home and left her computer open. Huma appears to have been in touch with Saudi actors, and therefore, espionage is strongly suspected.

Comey and his 40 “Untouchables” are now preparing to take down the largest corruption ever witnessed in American history… which is what I think must happen if Comey is planning to stay part of the FBI. He lost so much respect and so much credibility with the first Hillary investigation, it would take something of this magnitude to allow him to face the public again.

The Pentagon has internal players and outside players they call “creatives“. Creatives are civilians who tend to be geniuses, malcontents, extreme hackers, or otherwise demonstrate brilliance in other useful areas. A Pentagon program called Cicada 3301, which we have reported on previously, was created by several of these talented civilians. The program is now used to allow thousands of honest government people to report on their corrupt superiors, using what is called a dead box whistleblower encryption method so the non-corrupted government officials can report corruption and still remain safe.

H/T: Your News Wire

http://endingthefed.com/fbi-rumors-about-clinton-pedophile-ring-are-true.html 

5-alarm fire tears through row of stores in Kew Gardens; 3 firefighters injured

                     

Eyewitness News

Friday, December 30, 2016 10:16PM

KEW GARDENS, Queens (WABC) --

Three firefighters have been hurt while battling a five-alarm fire burning through a row of businesses in Kew Gardens, Queens.

The fire broke out just after 6:30 p.m. on Vleigh Place. At least 14 stores are affected.

BREAKING: 4-alarm fire burns through more than a dozen stores in Queens: https://t.co/2HbNRnHjin pic.twitter.com/eDlcYiU08a

— Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) December 31, 2016

The flames are shooting through the roof and the ceiling has collapsed.
                       

The firefighters are said to have non-life threatening injuries.

#BREAKING: 14 stores engulfed by 4-alarm fire in #Flushing. #FDNY #abc7ny pic.twitter.com/USqjr6Nr5p

— Josh Einiger (@JoshEiniger7) December 31, 2016

http://abc7ny.com/news/watch-live-4-alarm-fire-tears-through-row-of-stores-in-kew-gardens/1679894/ 

Putin mic drops Obama: Russia retaliates against US retaliations... by inviting families of US diplomats to New Year's party at Kremlin, wishes Obama and family all the best

            

The Russian president has rejected a suggestion of the foreign ministry to expel 35 American diplomats in response to a similar move by the US. He said Obama's act was designed to provoke a reaction, but Russia would not take the bait.

"We reserve the right to retaliate, but we will not sink to the level of this irresponsible 'kitchen' diplomacy. We will take further moves on restoring Russian-American relations based on the policies that the administration of President-elect Donald Trump adopts," Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a statement published by the Kremlin website.

Putin said that, unlike the Obama administration, Russia will not target foreign diplomats and their families days before New Year's celebrations.

"We will not forbid families and children from spending the New Year's holidays at the places they are used to. Moreover, I invite the children of all American diplomats with accreditation in Russia to New Year's and Christmas festivities in the Kremlin," the Russian president said.

Putin said he regretted that US President Barack Obama is ending his term "in such a way," but that he extended his New Year's congratulations to the outgoing US president and his family nevertheless.

"I congratulate President-elect Donald Trump and the entire American people!" he concluded.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested that Russia respond to the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats from the US by expelling 35 American diplomats from Russia. Similarly, the eviction of a Russian diplomatic staff from two vacation houses in the US would be mirrored by a similar eviction of Americans in Russia.

President Obama targeted Russian diplomats as a part of wider sanctions against Russian, which he justified by the alleged interference by the Russian government in the November presidential election in the US. Moscow denies the allegations.

          

Teaching brats a lesson in being civilized

Comment: The Russian spirit - unbeatable during times of adversity.

Putin doesn't need to retaliate because the US elite is destroying itself all on its own.

Update: Nigel Farage commends Putin's 'mature' response to US diplomatic expulsions

Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage praised Russian President Vladimir Putin for his decision not to expel American diplomats in response to a similar move by the US.

The MEP and prominent Brexit campaigner commended Putin on Twitter, describing the move as "mature."

Farage, who has cultivated a close relationship with US President-elect Donald Trump since the US election, went on to say the new administration "can't come soon enough."

Alexander Mercouris's comments on this episode are worth reading:

This episode also shows something else about Putin, which I have often commented on, but which receives no attention in the Western media because it so completely contradicts the image the Western media has of him. This is Putin's deeply ingrained habit of courtesy. Here we have an example of Putin using it to his and Russia's advantage. That Putin's statement has successfully hit home is shown by the bewildered Western media reaction, which whilst reporting the statement is struggling to come up with a coherent response.
...
Putin's statement is not of course only or even principally directed at the Western public. A fact which Western commentators consistently overlook is that Putin's primary audience, and the one he always principally addresses whenever he speaks, is the Russian public.

Here again Putin's statement shows what a skilful politician he is, which in turn shows why he has dominated Russian political life for so long.

His response to Obama's boorish actions on the eve of the New Year holiday (the biggest and most important holiday in Russia) is to call them a "provocation" . He then makes Russia - and by extension himself - appear all the stronger and greater by refusing to be provoked by them. At the same time he makes Obama appear vindictive by revealing how his actions have disrupted the New Year holidays of Russian diplomats and their families. He then contrasts this by making Russia - and again by extension himself - appear open hearted and generous by not only refusing to respond in kind but by inviting the children of US diplomats to the New Year and Christmas parties in the Kremlin.

This is a very skilfully judged response, which will only only serve to confirm the already high opinion most Russians have of Putin, and which will further consolidate their support for him as their leader.

This incidentally has been the consistent pattern throughout Putin's Presidency, with Putin always turning the West's attacks on him to his domestic political advantage.

All in all, if this episode shows Obama at his most ugly and small-minded, it also shows Putin at his most skilful and most clever.

Since a consistent feature of Obama as President is that he always wants to be taken for the cleverest man around, Putin's reaction - showing Putin once again to be cleverer than he is - is all but guaranteed to enrage Obama even more.

Great move on delay (by V. Putin) - I always knew he was very smart!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2016

https://www.sott.net/article/338141-Putin-mic-drops-Obama-Russia-retaliates-against-US-retaliations-by-inviting-families-of-US-diplomats-to-New-Years-party-at-Kremlin-wishes-Obama-and-family-all-the-best

Diana Buttu & Gideon Levy on Israeli Settlements, Kerry, Military Aid & End of Two-State Solution

 

 This is viewer supported news. Please do your part today.

Secretary of State John Kerry has blasted Israel’s government, saying in a major address on Wednesday that the relentless expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank threatens Israel’s democracy and has all but ended the prospect of a two-state solution with the Palestinians. "If the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or Democratic; it cannot be both," Kerry said. "And it won’t ever really be at peace." Kerry’s speech followed intense Israeli criticism of the U.S. for refusing to veto a Security Council resolution last week. The measure condemns Israel’s expansion of settlements as a flagrant violation of international law. The resolution passed in a 14-0 vote. The U.S. abstained. We speak to Palestinian attorney Diana Buttu and Israeli journalist Gideon Levy, a Haaretz columnist.

---

TRANSCRIPT

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Secretary of State John Kerry has blasted Israel’s government, saying in a major address Wednesday that the relentless expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank threatens Israel’s democracy and has all but ended the prospect of a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY: Despite our best efforts over the years, the two-state solution is now in serious jeopardy. The truth is that trends on the ground—violence, terrorism, incitement, settlement expansion and the seemingly endless occupation—they are combining to destroy hopes for peace on both sides and increasingly cementing an irreversible one-state reality that most people do not actually want.

AMY GOODMAN: Secretary Kerry’s speech followed intense Israeli criticism of the U.S. for refusing to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution last week. The measure condemns Israel’s expansion of settlements, a flagrant violation of international law. The resolution passed in a 14-to-0 vote. The U.S. abstained. Kerry insisted the U.S. had not abandoned its longtime ally, but said Israeli democracy would not survive under a single state.

SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY: But here is a fundamental reality: If the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic; it cannot be both. And it won’t ever really be at peace.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: In the West Bank, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he was willing to resume peace talks in exchange for a halt to settlement construction. This is chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

SAEB EREKAT: Mr. Netanyahu knows very well that he has the choice: settlements or peace. He can’t have both. Settlements are illegal under international law. Settlements are a flagrant violation to international law. Settlements are the antidote for the two-state solution.

AMY GOODMAN: In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reaction to John Kerry’s speech was swift and harsh.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: I must express my deep disappointment with the speech today of John Kerry, a speech that was almost as unbalanced as the anti-Israel resolution passed at the U.N. last week. … Israel looks forward to working with President-elect Trump and with the American Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, to mitigate the damage that this resolution has done, and ultimately to repeal it.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Meanwhile, Donald Trump took to Twitter to blast Kerry’s speech, writing in a pair of tweets, quote, "We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect. They used to have a great friend in the U.S., but....... not anymore. The beginning of the end was the horrible Iran deal, and now this (U.N.)! Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!" Trump wrote. On Capitol Hill, lawmakers in both parties blasted Kerry’s address. South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham called it "delusional," while New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer said Kerry had, quote, "emboldened extremists on both sides," end-quote.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more, we’re joined by two guests. In Haifa, Israel, we’re joined by Diana Buttu. She’s an attorney based in Palestine who has served as a legal adviser to the Palestinians in negotiations with Israel. Buttu was previously an adviser to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. And in Tel Aviv, we’re joined by Gideon Levy, a Haaretz columnist and member of the newspaper’s editorial board. His new article is headlined "UN Resolution is a Breath of Hope in Sea of Darkness and Despair." Gideon Levy is also the author of The Punishment of Gaza.
We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Diana Buttu, let’s begin with you. Your response to this resolution?
DIANA BUTTU: This is a resolution that is good on its face, except what it requires is it requires the international community to actually follow up with it. What I think is important to remember is that these types of resolutions have been issued by all of the U.S. administrations, with even President Reagan not abstaining from this resolution but actually voting in favor of it. So, what really needs to happen now is sanctions need to begin to be imposed on Israel. It cannot be allowed to continue its colonization of the West Bank for yet another 50 years. And Israel must be sent the message that they cannot continue to defy international law. There will be a price to be paid.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Gideon Levy, your response to the vote in the United Nations, and especially to Kerry’s speech this week?
GIDEON LEVY: Both are too little. Both are too late. And about both, I can say, better late than never. I think that the main importance is, for the Israeli public opinion, it’s a wake-up call, is a last wake-up call, maybe even it is a too late wake-up call, to remind the Israelis that the world is very, very clear about the settlements, that the United States is not in the pocket of Israel, as we used to think in the recent years, rightly so, and, above all, that it doesn’t go together, settlements and peace, settlements and justice, settlement and being a democracy. This is the message, and I hope at least some of Israeli public opinion will start to think about it.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back to the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech. He described the many ways the Obama administration has supported Israel over the years.

SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY: Time and again, we have demonstrated that we have Israel’s back. We have strongly opposed boycotts, divestment campaigns and sanctions targeting Israel in international fora, whenever and wherever its legitimacy was attacked. And we have fought for its inclusion across the U.N. system. In the midst of our own financial crisis and budget deficits, we repeatedly increased funding to support Israel. In fact, more than one-half of our entire global foreign military financing goes to Israel. And this fall, we concluded an historic $38 billion memorandum of understanding that exceeds any military assistance package the United States has provided to any country at any time.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s the secretary of state. Gideon Levy in Tel Aviv, this is not how all of this is being portrayed, that it may be unusual for President Obama to abstain from vetoing a vote on Israel, but, as Diana Buttu just said, going back to Reagan—in fact, when Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., began her speech, she quoted Reagan, who had been involved with a number of resolutions that criticized Israel, and that went right up through Republican and Democratic presidents. And here you have John Kerry talking about this unprecedented, historic military deal, $38 billion over 10 years. Can you talk about whether President Obama has been, whether in manner, in fact, friendlier to Israel than any previous president since Reagan?
GIDEON LEVY: You, Amy, may call it friendly, and I would call it very hostile, because supplying Israel with more drugs just to get Israel satisfied is not friendship. It is hostility. And I think that President Obama, as great as he is, he really thought that, with Israel, it will go only with carrots. And we know by now that the last thing you can do with Israel is treat Israel with carrots, because Israel learned in those years, in those eight years of Obama, more than ever before, that it can do whatever it wants. The United States is still in its pocket. Many times when you were watching the relations between Israel and the United States in the recent years, one could even ask himself, "Who is really the superpower between the two? And who is really the friend of whom here?" because, as Tom Friedman wrote just today in The New York Times, you don’t supply a driver with more alcohol, you don’t let him drive drunk. And Obama let Israel drive drunk.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Diana Buttu, I’d like to ask you, Mahmoud Abbas has said that he’s willing to resume negotiations if the settlements stop, but you have said that Israel is not really interested in peace. Can you explain that?
DIANA BUTTU: Look, what Israel wants is it wants to have the farce of having a diplomatic process and bilateral negotiations, because what that does is it gives Israel a lot of support from the international community. We saw that during the period of Oslo, that Israel got more money coming into its coffers as a result of the negotiations, that it was allowed to establish more diplomatic ties. In fact, 34 countries established diplomatic ties as a result of Oslo. It ended up signing a peace agreement with Jordan that wouldn’t have been possible had it not been for the diplomatic process. And so, for Israel, negotiations pay.
But at the same time, what Israel was allowed to do during the negotiations process was continue to build and expand its settlements. And we saw that the number of settlers ended up doubling just in the few short years that the negotiations were taking place. Within a seven-year period, the number of settlers went up to 400,000. Even now, we see that the number has more than tripled. So what Israel wants is it wants to have this farce of a bilateral process, but it doesn’t at all want to pay the price of peace. It doesn’t want to end its settlements. It doesn’t want to end the occupation. All that it wants is for the international community to reward it for entering into dialogue and discussion with the Palestinians, all the while continuing to steal more Palestinian land.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s talk about the issue of one state versus two states. Benjamin Netanyahu says he supports a two-state solution. Diana Buttu, you have changed your views on this.
DIANA BUTTU: Yes, definitely. In the past, my view was that the only way forward was to be able to have Palestinians have a state of their own. But the more that I’ve spent time here, the more that I’ve come to realize, and after spending time in the negotiations, if, Amy, this were a battle line, a line would have been drawn a long time ago. That’s not what this is about. This is about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. And I believe that the only way that we can move forward is if we address that fundamental issue and if we begin to establish a situation in which all individuals living in this country are given equal rights, irrespective of what their religion is, irrespective of their race. And that is the only way that we’re going to move forward. At this point in time, continuing to believe in a two-state settlement, when what we’ve seen is that all that it’s done is to further entrench the occupation, is to believe in the concept of insanity. And I’m simply not somebody who believes in that.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I want to go back to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech. He said the future of a two-state solution is in jeopardy.

SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY: Despite our best efforts over the years, the two-state solution is now in serious jeopardy. The truth is that trends on the ground—violence, terrorism, incitement, settlement expansion and the seemingly endless occupation—they are combining to destroy hopes for peace on both sides and increasingly cementing an irreversible one-state reality that most people do not actually want.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Secretary of State Kerry went on to say a one-state solution would mean Palestinians will permanently be relegated to separate but unequal enclaves.

SECRETARY OF STATE JOHN KERRY: If there is only one state, you would have millions of Palestinians permanently living in segregated enclaves in the middle of the West Bank, with no real political rights, separate legal, education and transportation systems, vast income disparities, under a permanent military occupation that deprives them of the most basic freedoms. Separate and unequal is what you would have. And nobody can explain how that works.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Gideon Levy, what about this, the issue of a one-state—can there be a Jewish state that is at the same time a democratic state, in a one-state solution?
GIDEON LEVY: I think what Secretary Kerry described so nicely about the future is the past and the present. He just described the reality in the West Bank and Gaza in the recent 50 years. Nothing changed. It’s exactly there. And therefore, my claim is that the one state is—has been established 50 years ago. The only question now is what kind of regime will this state have, because, by the end of the day, the Green Line was killed many, many years ago. The '67 borders are, unfortunately, irrelevant anymore. The settlers go to such a quantity, that it became an irreversible reality. And what Secretary Kerry described is very, very precise. But the only question I ask myself: "Mr. Secretary, don't you know that this is the reality by now? Don’t you know that this is the reality in the recent decades? You are speaking about the future." When will be the stage in which people like Secretary Kerry will admit that the two-state solution is dead? I think that if they had more guts and more honesty, they would have said it by now. But saying this means to reshuffle everything—all our concepts, all our beliefs, all our values. And it takes time for statesmen to change their minds. But by the end of the day, we have only one alternative. And the alternative is the one state, which exists already for 50 years. And the struggle should be from now on, like the name of your program, democracy now, equal rights. That’s the only issue at stake.
AMY GOODMAN: Gideon Levy, your response to Donald Trump? I want to play a clip of Donald Trump, who spoke about Israel Wednesday night when he briefly took questions from reporters.

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: I think you know what I believe. I’m very, very strong with Israel. I think Israel has been treated very, very unfairly by a lot of different people. You look at resolutions in the United Nations. You take a look at what’s happened. They’re up for 20 reprimands. And other nations that are horrible places, horrible places, that treat people horribly, haven’t even been reprimanded. So, there’s something going on, and I think it’s very unfair to Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: So, he’s saying he thinks it’s very unfair to Israel. And in that tweet, "We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect. They used to have a great friend in the U.S., but....... not anymore. The beginning of the end was the horrible Iran deal, and now this (U.N.)! Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!" What is your assessment of Donald Trump and what he will mean for Israel and Palestine?
GIDEON LEVY: "Stay strong, Israel," as if Israel is just about to collapse and it’s only about the coming 20 days. With all the weapons and the F-35 and the submarines, "Stay strong, Israel," another 20 days. It is ridiculous.
But I’ll be very honest with you, Amy. Before the elections, I played with myself with the idea that maybe Donald Trump is the better choice for the Middle East, not for the United States, because we knew very well what will Hillary Clinton do, and mainly we knew what she will not do. And I thought that maybe an unexpected figure like Donald Trump might bring new air, new ideas, new approach, and stop this automatic and blind support to Israel.
But I’m really regretting this by now already, when I see his nominations, when I see his last expressions. I think that between the two, John Kerry is much more of a friend of Israel, friend of democracy and friend of peace in the Middle East, rather than Donald Trump. He is still very unexpected. Nobody knows—I doubt if he even knows—what are his plans about the Middle East. But my feeling is that Donald Trump will always go with the strong ones, and the victims will always be the weak ones. And in our case, we know very well who are the victims and who are the weak ones.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Diana Buttu, your sense of what should happen and what can happen under a Trump administration and Republican control of the Congress, as far as the United States is concerned? Your perspective on what needs to happen now in terms of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict?
DIANA BUTTU: Well, you know, in the United States, it’s become clear to me that Israel is not an issue that you even can discuss any longer, when you have presidents—President-elect Trump and a would-be President Clinton talking very much in the same form. And in the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, the line is pretty much the same. What’s become clear to me, as somebody who lives in Palestine, is that the United States is no longer relevant any longer and that what we need to begin to do is focusing on—focus on all those other countries and pushing for divestment, pushing for sanctions, pushing for boycotts of countries all around the world, just in the same way that the South African apartheid movement ended up pushing for—end of apartheid movement ended up going around the United States and pushing legislation through different countries around the world. To me, it’s become apparent that the United States is an obstacle. It’s been an obstacle for decades now. And the only way forward is to go around the United States, rather than continue to try to go through the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about David Friedman, Donald Trump’s bankruptcy lawyer, who is his pick to be the next U.S. ambassador to Israel. Friedman said in a statement he aimed to, quote, "strengthen the bond between our two countries and advance the cause of peace within the region, and look forward to doing this from the US embassy in Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem." When his nomination was announced, Haaretz ran an article headlined "David Friedman, Trump’s Radical-right Ambassador, Makes Netanyahu Look Like a J Street Lefty." Let’s go to David Friedman in his own words. October, he was interviewed on the Israeli network i24news.

NURIT ZUNGER: Will Donald Trump recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s sole capital?

DAVID FRIEDMAN: Yes. He said that countless times, that he will recognize the city of Jerusalem as Israel’s eternal capital. And he’ll move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

NURIT ZUNGER: All right. So, Trump’s policies, as far as the Israeli Jewish American voter, why should Israeli voters, Israeli-American voters, vote for Trump?

DAVID FRIEDMAN: Well, if those who want to see a strong relationship between Israel and the United States with no daylight, those who want to see Israel protected at the United Nations, those who want to see the strongest level of military and strategic cooperation between the two countries, those who don’t want to see any daylight between the two countries, those that want to live in an environment where the United States doesn’t attempt to impose upon Israel a solution to the Palestinian conflict against the state of Israel, those that want to see Jerusalem recognized as the capital of Israel, you know, vote for Donald Trump.

AMY GOODMAN: So that’s Donald Trump’s bankruptcy lawyer, David Friedman, who’s nominated to be the U.S. ambassador to Israel. Diana Buttu, I wanted to—if you could explain what this means, moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, for an audience, for example, in the United States, who really may not have any idea? And I also just want to point out how rare it is to bring on a Palestinian to comment on this in the last few days since the resolution. I’m not talking about Fox here. MSNBC, CNN rarely interview a Palestinian. They interview Netanyahu’s representatives. They interview the Obama administration, as if that represents the Palestinian side. And that’s pretty much it. But if you can explain what this means?
DIANA BUTTU: Well, first, to get to the issue of Jerusalem, not a single country around the world has recognized that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, including the United States. And the reason that nobody recognizes that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel is because under the partition plan, Resolution 181, the issue of Jerusalem was one that was to be decided in the future and to be internationalized. And this is why, when the negotiations actually began to take place in 1993, that Jerusalem was placed as one of those issues to be negotiated. The United States’s position has always been—and not just the United States, every country around the world—that the status of Jerusalem is one that will be decided bilaterally between the two sides and that neither side can impose their own vision for Jerusalem. And so, this is why the United States has never moved its embassy to Jerusalem and why you have to instead go to Tel Aviv. What Donald Trump is purporting to do is go behind—go around years of U.S. foreign policy to defy not only U.S. foreign policy, but international policy on the issue of Jerusalem and simply to appease Israel.
When it comes to the issue of representatives speaking before the media, you’re absolutely right, Amy. In order to get a Palestinian voice onto the mainstream media, the—I’ve noticed that the conversation ends up being between one Israeli faction and another Israeli faction, or sometimes you get somebody within the U.S. administration speaking. What I think that they need to know is that we are very capable of speaking for ourselves, and we should be invited to speak for ourselves, rather than having people speak about us. This is what one of the major problems is, is that, for decades, the Israelis have been speaking about us, but not to us. And the international community has spoken about us and not to us. And you see this particularly when it came to Secretary Kerry’s statement that people—that Palestinians don’t want to see a one state. The polls are actually showing the opposite, that people don’t believe in two states any longer, and even taking away the negative, not believing in it, that people genuinely want to see one state. So it’s time for people to start listening to the voices of Palestinians. We’re very capable of speaking for ourselves.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Gideon Levy, finally, your sense of what needs to be done now, not only here in the United States, but across the globe, by those who want a just solution in Palestine and—between Palestine and Israel? And also, your perspective on sanctions and the boycott movement?
GIDEON LEVY: Unfortunately, the only way to change things in Israeli policy will be only by pressure from the outside. I have very little hope that change will come from within the Israeli society, which is extremely brainwashed and nationalistic and religious and right-wing and even racist, more and more, day after day. I think the only hope is from international intervention and, above all, international pressure. It is about time that Israel will be punished for the crimes of the occupation. It is about time that Israelis will pay for the occupation that they all share responsibility for. We are all settlers. All of us Israelis carry responsibility for this occupation project, and all of us should be taken to pay, to be punished, to feel it, because the occupation is even not in the Israeli discourse. The occupation is not on the table. It’s not on the agenda. Nobody cares about the occupation. So, my only hope—and it’s a very limited hope—that gradually, gradually, the world will react, like it did react with South Africa. And hopefully it will be effective. And that’s right now the only optimistic scenario that I can draw.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, Diana Buttu, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is calling on President Obama to join 137 other nations in granting Palestine diplomatic recognition before Obama leaves office. In a New York Times editorial, Carter writes, quote, "The combined weight of United States recognition, United Nations membership and a Security Council resolution solidly grounded in international law would lay the foundation for future diplomacy. ... This is the best—now, perhaps, the only—means of countering the one-state reality that Israel is imposing on itself and the Palestinian people." Again, so wrote the former U.S. president, Jimmy Carter, in a New York Times op-ed piece. We’ll end with you, Diana.
DIANA BUTTU: Look, for me, this isn’t about a question of recognition. This is a question of whether we will be able to get our rights enforced. And if that means that recognizing Palestine is a means of precluding us going to court, then, simply, I don’t want it. But what I do want to see is I want to see the Palestinian government taking Israel to court. I want to see them go before the ICC, the International Criminal Court, when it comes to settlements and when it comes to their actions in Gaza. I want to see that Israel is being sanctioned around the world. And I want to see that Israel is being isolated around the world, as well. If that means doing—if that means that we have to trade one for the other, I’ll take the going to court instead of recognition.
AMY GOODMAN: Diana Buttu, we want to thank you for being with us, from Haifa, Palestinian attorney, and Gideon Levy, speaking to us from Tel Aviv, the Haaretz columnist. We’ll link to your piece in Haaretz.
This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. When we come back, Ava DuVernay. Stay with us.

https://www.democracynow.org/2016/12/30/gideon_levy_diana_buttu_on_israeli 

Trump’s Labor Secretary Pick Wants To Eliminate Break Time, Overtime Pay, And Other Protections

Workers need breaks. It gives them a chance to grab something to eat and recharge their batteries so they can go back to work with a fresher mind and body. Workers perform their jobs better with breaks and are less likely to make mistakes.
That’s why workers get a mandatory break thanks to labor unions and the federal government.
But fast-food CEO Andrew Puzder wants to force workers to work straight through the day without a break.
In a 2009 interview dug up by OC Weekly, Puzder expressed his disdain for the state of California where the Carl’s Jr. restaurant originated and openly whined about overtime laws and other worker protections, including laws allowing workers to take a much needed break during their shift.

Trump’s labor man also had choice words for Carl’s Jr.’s home state. “I think the big change in California, it’s really become a kind of socialist state,” Puzder opined. “You can’t be a capitalist in this state, and Carl was at heart a capitalist who created a company that to this day bears his initials.” The would-be Labor Secretary complained about regulations and overtime laws, claiming workers are overprotected.
“Have you ever been to a fast food restaurant and the employees are sitting and you’re wondering, ‘Why are they sitting?'” Puzder asked. “They are on what is called a mandatory break [emphasis his].” He shared a laugh with the interviewer, saying the so-called nanny state is why Carl’s Jr. doesn’t open up any new restaurants in California anymore.

In short, all those Trump supporters who think Trump is going to make their lives easier will not only lose Social Security and their healthcare, they are going to lose break time at work as well as their overtime pay, minimum wage, and other protections that keep them safe and unexploited while on the job.
The choice of Puzder as Labor Secretary is the ultimate “f*ck you” to the working class. Trump literally picked a guy who opposes worker’s rights and the right to get paid fair wages.
Any blue collar worker who voted for Trump because they believed he was on their side have just been betrayed and while they are denying it now, they won’t be able to deny it once they are worked to the bone and get little pay, no healthcare, and no Social Security to save them from poverty once they retire, assuming they are able to retire at a

By Stephen D Foster Jr on December 28, 2016 11:24 pm ·

The working class voters who supported Donald Trump just got duped again

 Because if Trump’s Secretary of Labor pick has his way, workers will no longer be able to take a much needed break during the workday.

http://addictinginfo.org/2016/12/28/trumps-labor-secretary-pick-wants-to-eliminate-break-time-overtime-pay-and-other-protections/

Congress just announced the most outrageous waste of taxpayer money designed by Obama.

                      

Watch the video at the bottom “Top 10 Insane Things Governments Have Wasted Money On”

This is the kind of graft and corruption that happens in places like Iraq and North Korea. Michelle Obama’s mom didn’t earn a pension that’s three times bigger than the average American family’s income.

                    

It seems that just like Barack, the rest of the Obama’s never had real jobs, and instead of live high on the hog off the backs of regular taxpaying Americans.

                  

 

Congress just announced the most outrageous waste of taxpayer money designed by Obama.

First Grandma Marian Robinson, 79, will receive a lifetime 160K government pension when she leaves the White House next year, according to congressional budget statements.
According to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Mrs. Robinson earned the lifetime pension for “services rendered as full-time/in-home caregiver” for granddaughters Malia, 18, and Sasha, 15, during President Obama’s two terms in office.

Michelle Obama’s mom got to live like a queen in the White House, but they are going to pay her $160,000 every year for the rest of her life for babysitting her own granddaughters?

 

http://ufpnews.com/michelle-obamas-mom-will-get-160k-life-paid-taxes/