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Trump Confesses To Felony Bribery
Trump describes a hypothetical call to Exxon mobile in which he asks for campaign money in exchange for special treatment with permits.
Tags: bribery, campaign-finance, campaign-finance-bribery, corporate-bribery, corruption, exxon-mobile, exxon-mobile-bribery, exxon-mobile-campaign-finance, oil, quid-pro-quo, trump-bribery, trump-corruption, young-turks
Trump Administration Accidentally Sends Democrats Talking Points
Republican talking points were accidentally sent to Democrats.
Talking points are often sent out by think tanks who are funded by wealthy donors.
Tags: deflection, distraction, lindsey-graham, lindsey-graham-puppet-for-power, quid-pro-quo, talking-points, talking-points-think-tanks-power, think-tank, think-tank-donors, think-tank-talking-points, think-tank-wealthy, trump-accept-aid-from-a-foreign-power, trump-distraction, trump-investigate-opponents-joe-biden, trump-ukraine-quid-pro-quo, whataboutism, young-turks
The Trump–Ukraine Transcript Contains Evidence of a Quid Pro Quo
I haven't been a litigator since 2015. I haven't conducted a proper cross-examination since 2014. But if I couldn't walk a witness, judge, and jury through the transcript of Donald Trump's call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and demonstrate that a quid pro quo was more likely than not, then I should just hang up my suit and retire in disgrace. Far from being "scattershot" — as my esteemed colleague Kyle Smith declares — the actual sequence is extremely tight, and the asks are very clear.
Indeed, as I also laid out today in Time and on Twitter, the sequence unfolds quite literally in consecutive paragraphs.
First, right near the beginning of the call, President Trump signals his displeasure with Ukraine. He notes that while the United States has been "very good" to Ukraine, he "wouldn't say" that Ukraine has been "reciprocal" to the United States. There's nothing subtle about this statement. It's plain that Trump wants something from Ukraine.
To be clear, there is nothing inherently wrong with that. Nations strike deals all the time. It's the nature of the proposed deal that's potentially problematic, not whether two leaders bargain.
In the next paragraph, Zelensky responds with the key ask. He wants more Javelin missiles, an indispensable weapon system in Ukraine's conflict with Russia. It's an anti-tank missile that helps address the yawning power imbalance between the two countries. It doesn't level the playing field, but it does help deter Russian aggression by raising the possibility of substantial armor losses on the battlefield.
Given the multiple layers of Ukrainian–American contact during the 2016 campaign cycle, a request for Ukrainian assistance in lawful American investigations of foreign interference is entirely proper. If that's where the transcript ended, there would be no problems, and it's entirely proper for Zelensky to respond "yes" and state that the matter was "very important to him."
But then, in the following paragraph, Trump continues his ask. He says he is going to ask Rudy Giuliani, his personal attorney, to call Zelensky, and he asks Zelensky to take the call. Then, Trump says this: "The other thing, there's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that, so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great." He continues, "Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it . . . It sounds horrible to me."
And what is Zelenksy's response? He pledges that the new Ukrainian prosecutor will be "100 percent" his person and that "he or she will look into the situation."
I highlight the quid pro quo aspect of the transcript because the other published report — that Trump asked that Ukraine work with Giuliani to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden — is clearly and unequivocally established. The transcript provides proof that Trump made a completely improper request that the president of Ukraine work with Trump's personal counsel to investigate a political rival. It provides strong evidence that this took place in the context of a quid pro quo for desperately needed military aid.
Trump's comments to Zelensky should not be considered an offhand remark or word salad that's merely "Trump being Trump." Recall that Giuliani has been working on his Ukraine project for months. He has bragged that his efforts should be "very, very helpful to my client." Trump has wanted to push Biden's Ukrainian conflicts of interest into the center of the national debate.
More investigation is necessary. Congress needs to understand the full context of Trump's decision to place a hold on military aid to Ukraine, it needs to hear the whistleblower's complaint (though it appears that the whistleblower may have been mainly complaining about the call that we've now read), and it needs to determine what, if anything, Ukraine did in response to Trump's requests. It also needs a full accounting of Giuliani's odd actions on behalf of his client.
I'm honestly puzzled that Trump's defenders online are claiming any kind of vindication over the contents of this transcript. It admits one profound abuse of power, and it implies another, even worse, violation of the public trust.
Tags: david-french, quid-pro-quo, rudolf-giuliani, rudolf-giuliani-ukraine, trump-investigate-opponents-joe-biden, trump-ukraine, trump-ukraine-quid-pro-quo
It's time for liberals to get over Citizens United
Repealing the controversial decision is a pipe dream. And there are more promising avenues for campaign-finance reform.
From the moment the 2010 Supreme Court ruling Citizens United v. FEC came down, it scandalized liberals. The decision heralded the "hostile corporate takeover of our democratic process," Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) thundered at the time.
In 2017, a commissioner of the Federal Election Commission resigned, claiming "since the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, our political campaigns have been awash in unlimited, often dark money."* This was the animating sentiment of Bernie Sanders's 2016 campaign for president; he even went so far as to claim that billionaires are simply "buying elections."
This idea has given rise to a new liberal battle cry: Repeal Citizens United! Unfortunately, that tactic is naive and misguided, and relies on a misunderstanding of the law and politics surrounding the case. As we approach the 2018 congressional elections — and beyond that, the crucial presidential election of 2020 — it is more vital than ever to have a clear view of where this ruling fits into the mosaic of campaign finance law.
Such understanding will, in turn, shine light on what can be done to make the election process fairer and make politicians more responsive to all their constituents, not just the big spenders.
Some cities and states are already experimenting with programs that strengthen the voices of ordinary voters. Building on such efforts is likely to have far greater effects than continuing to demonize Citizens, whose logic is defensible on First Amendment grounds.
Most widespread in liberal circles is the idea that Citizens opened the floodgates to massive amounts of corporate spending in politics. But as many legal scholars have argued, the floodgates were already open. Citizens is not responsible for the massive amounts of money showered on favored candidates. Nor is it responsible for the rise of so-called dark money in politics.
Citizens didn't upend our campaign finance system. It was a logical next step, given past court decisions.
Let's put the hated decision into context. The inundation of elections with private cash is not the result of Citizens but rather was facilitated by the 1976 decision Buckley v. Valeo. That case established the legal framework sanctioning billions of dollars of independent private campaign spending. In it, the Court ruled that limits on campaign donations — direct donations to candidates — are constitutional but said it was unconstitutional to limit non-donation expenditures, such as independently funded advertisements.
Such independent spending — which cannot be coordinated with candidates, according to the Court — was protected under the First Amendment as not just speech but political speech. The idea is that money is a necessary instrument for supporting a political candidate, whether it's paying for yard signs or taking out an ad in the newspaper.
Not unreasonably, the Court ruled that limitations on independent expenditures would constitute limitations on one's ability to support a candidate through any number of media. Placing a dollar limit on such expenditures would arbitrarily prevent certain kinds of campaign support simply by the fact of how expensive they are.
Our inability to trace campaign donations to their source — the dark money issue — is the result of the lack of federal regulations to make disclosure mandatory. And such regulations are legal; the Court said as much in Citizens, with eight of nine justices agreeing on that point! The only thing standing in the way of transparency is congressional stonewalling. In 2010, Republican senators defeated a disclosure law 59 to 39, which would have made it more difficult for donors to use legal loopholes to hide their identities.
Citizens simply has not had the seismic legal impact that many think. Since Buckley protected money as speech, the only question was whether corporations were legitimate speakers. It may surprise some to hear, but the Court had already answered this question in 1978. In First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, the Supreme Court recognized a corporate right to free speech, concluding that the value of speech in the course of political debate does not depend on the identity of the speaker. Citizens simply followed the precedent of these two cases.
So when liberals intone that "corporations aren't people," thinking they are making a knock-down argument against Citizens, they miss the point. Citizens did not make corporations persons. And corporations do not need to be persons to receive First Amendment protections. Citizens upheld the liberty, provided by Bellotti, of corporations to speak, and they speak under the rules provided by Buckley.
The details were debated by expert lawyer Floyd Abrams and First Amendment scholar Burt Neuborne not long after Citizens came down. Abrams noted that even the liberal Justice John Paul Stevens, dissenting, recognized that the Court has "long since held that Corporations are covered by the First Amendment."
Neuborne, in response, argued that corporations lack dignity and a conscience, which he thinks underpin the human right to free speech. But Justice Kennedy, writing for the slim five-justice majority, cited the long history of First Amendment protections for corporations. The Court had sided heavily with the Abrams view.
The Court seems inclined to limit the definition of "corruption" to explicit bribery
The only remaining question was whether there could be a justification for the government's curtailing of that speech. Abridging political speech falls under the strictest category of judicial scrutiny; any law that does so must be justified by a "compelling state interest."
One such objective, some suppose, is stopping corruption, a clear threat to the integrity of Congress. And indeed, in Randall v. Sorrell (2006), the Court reaffirmed that combating "corruption" rises to the level of a compelling state interest. But in Citizens, Justice Kennedy said the only kind of corruption that would count in this context is the most direct kind: "quid pro quo" corruption, which covers only vote-buying bribery.
No such vote buying was at issue in Citizens, since the controversy centered on the release of a privately funded campaign video during an advertising "blackout" period. Such off-limits periods, established by the McCain-Feingold legislation, paid insufficient heed to the Court's precedents on money as speech and the high bar for restricting political speech.
In response to Kennedy's narrow conception of corruption, Harvard Law professor and onetime presidential contender Lawrence Lessig has advocated for a broader idea of corruption. In his book Republic, Lost, Lessig spells out his notion of "dependence corruption," whereby Congress is unduly responsive to big donors because they are dependent on them for campaign money.
He takes pains to argue on "originalist" grounds, hoping to appeal to the conservative majority of the Court, who attempt to cleave closely to the meaning of words as they are found in documents at the time of the Constitution's drafting. Alas, his arguments have largely fallen on deaf judicial ears.
Where does that leave us?
We are almost certainly stuck with Citizens, not to mention Buckley and Bellotti. The major hope of many concerned lawyers and academics in the runup to the 2016 election has been dashed: the hope of filling the late Justice Antonin Scalia's seat with a more liberal justice who might help reverse the decision. Instead, reformers got Neil Gorsuch.
So even if there were a stronger legal argument to be made against Citizens, that argument won't attract enough votes in the Supreme Court. Desperation has led some, like Sanders, to push for a constitutional amendment limiting corporate campaign spending. But beyond being a pipe dream, given the institutional challenges, this tactic fails to take seriously the intricate First Amendment questions at issue.
The upshot of the Sanders campaign is its demonstration of the strength of a candidacy funded by small donations. As a candidate, Sanders rejected Super PAC funding in favor of donations averaging well under $100. Since Super PACs are the primary means individuals and corporations funnel their money to campaigns, it is historically noteworthy that a candidate without such support was capable of seriously contending for the presidency.
The lessons to draw from Sanders's campaign is not that the system is healthy. Instead, we should conclude that the medicine to cure it may take the form of enabling citizens to make more Bernie-size donations. As of late, there has been an uptick in under-$200 donations to congressional races. In order to make such donations a staple in our democratic process, they should be supported by legislation.
Such a program has been introduced in Seattle, which gives away "democracy vouchers,"which could serve as a national model.
The basic idea is simple: Every eligible voter in Seattle receives $100 in vouchers, which they can freely donate to campaigns in the local city elections. This means every voter can participate in the pre-election process by using their money to "speak up" for candidates they endorse, and it enables lesser-known candidates to find financial support without bending the knee before big money special interests.
Theoretically, this ensures that every citizen has a baseline level of equal participation in the political process. It expands our understanding of political equality beyond "one person, one vote" to a wider notion of equal opportunity for electoral participation.
The local focus is a crucial first step to reshaping public participation in campaigns. As ACLU national legal director David Cole has argued, the most likely path to substantial federal campaign finance reform is by winning small victories in cities and states. Fostering state- and local-level initiatives accomplishes several things.
First, it draws more citizens into the debate over the proper role of money in politics — an essential step toward a sustained national conversation.
Second, it allows for political and legal experimentation. Because the Supreme Court is unpredictable, especially given the uncertainty of Justice Kennedy's swing vote, attempting several strategies at once for public funding increases the chances that a constitutionally passable version is found.
More experiments also mean more models that can be used as contrasts to the federal system, making the weaknesses of the federal system all the more clear.
Third, such an approach will spark important legal work, which is far from a purely academic matter. By pursuing ballot initiatives and enacting local laws that address money in politics, we will invite legal challenges by entrenched, moneyed interests. This forces judges to issue ever more opinions on what is constitutional, justifying themselves along the way.
Higher courts will receive appeals and further scrutinize this reasoning. This, in turn, will attract legal academics like moths to a flame, whose work will be cited by advocates and courts.
All of this will arm the public with constitutional arguments to defend the integrity of our democracy.
There is no guarantee that all of this will be enough to counterbalance the power of big money in elections. But we can hope that bottom-up political activism will light a fire underneath the complacent rump of Congress. Increased national dialogue, successful local and state initiatives, and a proliferation of academic criticism of current law and policy all generate real political pressure.
Signs of hope
Disclosure laws are not out of reach in the coming years, and increased participation in local elections, subsidized by voucher systems, may usher in increased voter turnout for national elections. Higher turnout has been shown to heavily favor one of the two major political parties. Hint: It's not the Republicans.
Liberals should take note of the recent special election in Pennsylvania's 18th District. Outside donations for the Republican candidate, Rick Saccone, were more than five times larger than for the Democrat, Conor Lamb. Yet Lamb pulled off the upset, showing money isn't everything. He drew strength from a well-mobilized, engaged electorate.
Such vigor can be stimulated in elections across the country — particularly if we provide concrete, monetary means for voters to participate in the selection of their representatives.
Rather than continuing to rail against Citizens United, reformers should pursue strategies that increase democratic participation and encourage voter turnout.
Source: www.vox.com
Tags: anthony-kennedy, anti-corruption, citizens-united, corruption, dark-money, free-speech, mccain-feingold, quid-pro-quo, stonewalling, stonewalling-anti-dark-money
Trump's Administration Used to Fight Corruption in Guatemala. Then Guatemala Moved Its Embassy to Jerusalem
For a decade, the United States backed an international body investigating corruption in Guatemala. Now experts are asking why the White House is silent as the country's president, Jimmy Morales, wages war on the panel
In May, Guatemala became the first country in the world to follow in the Trump administration's footsteps and move its Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The White House promised at the time that it would reward the small Latin American country for its decision. Could that reward come in the form of turning a blind eye to attacks by Guatemala's president on an international anti-corruption body?
Experts and former U.S. officials see a possible link between Guatemala's decision to move the embassy and the Trump administration's change of policy with regards to the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a U.N.-supported panel that has uncovered vast corruption scandals in the country.
The administration, according to experts on U.S. policy in Latin America, is looking the other way while Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales tries to dismantle CICIG by sending military forces to its local office and barring the panel's head, Iván Velásquez, from entering the country.
"The American position on this issue has shifted dramatically – not just in comparison to how the Bush and Obama administrations treated it, but also in comparison to how the Trump administration treated it just last summer," said Benjamin Gedan, an expert on Latin America at the Wilson Center in Washington.
Gedan said he has no direct knowledge of a connection between Guatemala's policy on Jerusalem and Trump's policy on the Latin American state. He notes, though, that "this seems like a possible explanation. The change in American policy on CICIG makes no sense."
The Guatemalan government has accused CICIG of being a "super-national entity that dictates to governments how to exercise their duties" on behalf of the UN. An article in The Economist called this accusation "flimsy".
.. Mac Margolis, a columnist on Latin America for Bloomberg News, wrote last week that a "quid pro quo" over the embassy issue could potentially explain the administration's policy shift on CICIG.
He mentioned another possible explanation: That, unlike other Latin American countries, Guatemala has not cozied up to China and continues to hold diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
A number of recent news reports in outlets such as The New York Times and The Economist have also raised the possibility that Trump's flip-flop on CICIG was related to Guatemala's embassy move – though that connection could not be definitively proved.
CICIG was established in 2007 with the strong backing of the George W. Bush administration. "Fighting corruption in politics is an urgent need in Guatemala and elsewhere in Latin America," said Gedan, who worked on Latin America policy in the Obama White House. Over the past decade, he added, the panel has contributed to the downfall of a number of senior politicians in Guatemala, including the country's previous president, Otto Pérez Molina. He is currently in detention and awaits trial on corruption charges.
Molina was replaced in 2016 by Morales, who was a comedian prior to entering politics. Over the past year, Morales has been showing an increasing level of hostility toward CICIG, probably as a result of an investigation regarding his campaign finances. The panel is looking into allegations that Morales' party received more than $1 million of illegal campaign donations in the 2015 election, according to a report last week in The Washington Post.
Morales' attacks on CICIG first surfaced in the summer of 2017 when he tried to expel Velásquez from the country and get him replaced. The Trump administration reacted quickly and forcefully, signaling to Morales that the United States had the anti-corruption body's back.
The U.S. ambassador in Guatemala posed for a photograph with a sign proclaiming "I love CICIG."
Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, also expressed support for the panel's work, and Morales eventually backed down.
This was not the first time a U.S. administration thwarted attempts by the Guatemalan government to weaken CICIG. Under the Obama administration, Vice President Joe Biden at one point threatened to cancel all U.S. aid to Guatemala, in light of attempts by the country's previous president, Molina, to shut down the panel's investigations.
"When you compare those past responses to how the Trump administration is reacting to Morales' current attack on CICIG, there truly is no good explanation for what they are doing," said Gedan.
Morales announced last week he was shutting down the panel and barring Velásquez from entering Guatemala. He also sent military forces, driving U.S.-manufactured vehicles, to CICIG's offices. While the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala released a statement expressing support for CICIG's work, the statement did not include direct criticism of Morales' actions.
On September 6, at the height of Morales' attacks on CICIG, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke to the Guatemalan president over the phone. The State Department readout of the conversationcontained no criticism of Morales' actions. Instead, it opened by stating that Pompeo "reiterated the United States' support for Guatemalan sovereignty."
According to the readout, Pompeo "expressed continued support of the United States for a reformed CICIG and committed to continue working with Guatemala on implementing the reforms in the coming year."
A former senior U.S. official who worked on Latin America policy told Haaretz that this statement was "a huge achievement" for Morales in his fight against CICIG.
The former official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that "Pompeo basically told Morales that America had his back, and that CICIG is viewed as a problematic organization that needs to go through reforms. The fact that the readout included no mention of Morales' aggressive steps against CICIG is a sad capitulation to violence, and it sends a message that has already been received by other leaders in the region," the official added.
"Since 2007, across the Bush and Obama administrations, and in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, a bipartisan commitment to CICIG has been a fundamental element of our foreign policy," the legislators wrote in their letter. They also mentioned Morales' use of U.S.-manufactured military vehicles against CICIG, writing that "such a gesture is unacceptable and does not comply with the purpose for which the United States donated the vehicles."
It should be noted that all four lawmakers are considered strong supporters of Israel. This could indicate that, on the congressional level at least, Guatemala's decision on Jerusalem has not affected, so far, their response to Morales' attacks on his own investigators.
Flight on Adelson's private jet
Morales may be losing popularity on Capitol Hill, but there are other places where he still enjoys support and appreciation. One such place is Jerusalem.
Over the weekend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement congratulating Guatemala on its Independence Day, personally applauding Morales for his leadership.
Morales is also popular in pro-Israel circles in the United States. Last May, for example, when Morales visited Israel to celebrate the relocation of his country's embassy to Jerusalem, gambling tycoon and Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson let Guatemala's government use his personal Boeing 767 aircraft for the journey. The plane carried government officials and other guests, according to a statement by Guatemala's foreign minister.
Morales also spoke in March at the annual conference of the AIPAC pro-Israeli lobby in Washington, where he received a warm welcome from thousands of participants. An AIPAC official told Haaretz that it was not doing anything to help Morales push back against the current criticism he is facing in Congress. "We are not involved," the official said.
The Israeli Embassy in Washington also said it was not aiding Guatemala on Capitol Hill or with the Trump administration.
But perhaps Morales doesn't need any help. Hector Silva Avalos, a journalist and former diplomat who has written extensively on corruption in Latin America, wrote in InSight Crime last week that "mixed messages from Washington have left the door open for Morales to strengthen his fight against the institutions investigating him for alleged illicit campaign financing."
Avalos added that "with several Trump administration officials in his corner, Jimmy Morales has the advantage in his battle against CICIG."
Source: www.haaretz.com
Tags: allies-for-ill, campaign-finance, china-allieance-influence, cicig-international-commission-against-impunity-in-guatemala, corruption, guatemala, jerusalem-embassy, jimmy-morales, joe-biden, nikki-haley, no-good-explanation, otto-perez-molina, quid-pro-quo, sheldon-adelson, sovereignty, turn-a-blind-eye
U.S. Officials 'at a Fucking Loss' Over Latest Russia Sellout
Current and former American diplomats are expressing disgust and horror over the White House's willingness to entertain permitting Russian officials to question a prominent former U.S. ambassador.
.. "It's beyond disgraceful. It's fundamentally ignorant with regard to how we conduct diplomacy or what that means. It really puts in jeopardy the professional independence of diplomats anywhere in the world, if the consequence of their actions is going to be potentially being turned over to a foreign government,"
.. During President Trump's press conference with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Putin pivoted a question about extraditing the 12 Russian intelligence officers whom Robert Mueller has indicted into a quid pro quo for going after longtime betes noire currently beyond his reach.
.. Putin singled out Bill Browder, whose exposure of widespread Russian tax fraud led to the passage of a U.S. human rights sanctions law Putin hates. Standing next to Trump, the Russian president accused Browder of masterminding an illegal campaign contribution to Hillary Clinton and alleging vaguely that he had "solid reason to believe that some intelligence officers guided these transactions." Should Trump permit the Russians to question people around Browder, Putin hinted, he will let Mueller's people be "present at questioning" of the intelligence officers.
.. On Wednesday, Russian prosecutors escalated the stakes. The prosecutor-general's office said it wanted to interview Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, another Putin bete noire. McFaul—the Obama-era ambassador to Moscow—replied on Twitter that the Russians know well that he wasn't even in Russia during the relevant time frame for any case against Browder.
.. Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to rule out permitting the Russians to question McFaul. Sanders said that there had been "some conversation" in Helsinki about the issue, though Trump made no "commitment."
.. Heather Nauert called the Russian request for McFaul "absolutely absurd"—which was closer in line with how former U.S. diplomats viewed Putin's gambit."If the U.S. would make a former diplomat avail for questioning by a foreign government without evidence of wrongdoing, then that would be quite horrifying," said Ron Neumann,
.. Susan Rice, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and Barack Obama's national security adviser, tweeted that the lack of commitment to protecting McFaul was "beyond outrageous.
.. If the White House cannot defend and protect our diplomats, like our service members, they are serving a hostile foreign power not the American people."
.. "To even hint that there's some element of credibility to Russian disruptions and distractions puts a bullseye on the back of any diplomat and invites authoritarian regimes to bully and threaten American public servants for the crime of doing their job
.. Ned Price, a former CIA analyst and spokesman for the Obama National Security Council, said Sanders' comments made Trump look "even weaker" than during Trump's Monday press conference with Putin. "Trump has always been all too eager to cave to Putin, but, as far as we know, it'd been largely in the abstract. He sells out our intelligence community, attacks NATO, shelves our commitment to human rights. But Putin now has specific demands in the form of human beings—one of them formerly our designated representative to Russia," Price said.
.. "By failing to reject the idea out of hand – immediately and forcefully – Trump signaled that absolutely nothing is off limits when it comes to Putin. And just as shocking, he's willing to play Putin's brand of ball, in which the world is purely transactional and lives are expendable."
.. The current U.S. diplomat said the openness to turning over McFaul capped off a shocking week for U.S. geopolitics.
.. "The president has first and foremost his interests at the top of his mind, as opposed to the government's. That's very clear over the past week and a half, between shitting on our NATO allies and kissing Putin's ass," the diplomat said. "He cares more about himself than the nation and any of us who serve it."The diplomat continued: "Either he's compromised by Putin or he's a pussy, in which case he should grab himself."
Source: www.thedailybeast.com
Tags: bête-noire, bill-browder, cave-to, compromised, decline-to-rule-out, defend-staff, diplomacy, disgust, embolden, embolden-authoritarians, expendable, gambit, helsinki-trump-putin, horrifying, horror, ignorant, michael-mcfaul, no-evidence, nothing-off-limits, putin-demands, putin-investigation-offers, putin-pivot, quid-pro-quo, transactional, trump-first, trump-self-interest, vladimir-putin, vladimir-putin-bill-browder, vladimir-putin-michael-mcfaul
The Two Things That Will Determine Netanyahu's Fate
With the Israeli police recommending that he be indicted, the prime minister is entering a major battle for political survival.
.. Twenty-one years ago, in early 1997, the Israeli police announced its recommendation that Benjamin Netanyahu, then a 47-year-old first-term prime minister, be criminally indicted for breach of public trust.
.. The attorney general in 1997—a well respected jurist beyond suspicion—decided that the case was too weak for trial. Nor did the police recommendation alone cause Netanyahu's coalition partners to leave the government or go to new elections. And so, the 1997 police recommendation notwithstanding, Netanyahu survived politically and continued to serve until 1999, when he was defeated in the ballot box.
.. he is entering a major, perhaps final battle for political survival.
.. Case 1000, involves a longstanding Netanyahu household practice of receiving regular gifts from a small set of multi-millionaires, some with business interests in Israel.
.. "Receiving gifts from friends is not forbidden" is the Netanyahu public defense.
.. the case reflects the widespread perception that the Netanyahu family enjoys the good life just a little too much for public servants, and often disregards norms and perhaps even the law in pursuit of perks. Netanyahu, in this regard, ushered in an age of leaders who didn't espouse the modest, even austere image of the early-day Israeli leaders.
.. Case 2000, involves the media, and it is in many ways far more troubling. Netanyahu has been media-focused and media-savvy, more than any other Israeli leader.
.. he Madrid peace conference of 1991. He was armed with perfect English, a baritone voice, and an American style of speaking, replete with well-crafted sound-bites, visual gimmicks, and—a novelty in 1990s Israel—an interest in the minutiae of interviews: how to apply makeup and which camera angle to choose for best effect.
.. He seemed then to be part of a wave of young, attractive American-style politicians around the democratic world, such as Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and Gerhard Schroder, even if ideologically he was much closer to Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Helmut Kohl.
.. Over the decades, he has paid a great deal of attention to message management, and, increasingly, to management of the media itself.
.. In 2007, however, something dramatic changed. The main newspapers in Israel suddenly found themselves outmatched in their own game: a new publication, Israel Hayom ("Israel Today") appeared on Israeli streets. Rather than a hostile tone toward Netanyahu, Israel Hayom (also known as the Bibi-paper) propagated an adoring tone toward Netanyahu and his family, and a hostile one toward Olmert, the center, and the left. Israel Hayom's cover price was unbeatable: 0.00 shekels.
.. No one suffered more from the entry of Israel Hayom than the old papers, chief among them Yediot Ahronot. The Israeli public took up the free publication; when Netanyahu became prime minister Israel Hayom also adopted a positive, optimistic tone about the direction of the country, and all this at no financial cost to the reader. It became the mostly widely read publication, dethroning Yediot Ahronot after many years, and causing havoc throughout the press scene.
.. Case 2000 surrounds a shocking revelation: a tape recording unearthed in a separate investigation of apparent negotiations between Netanyahu and the publisher of Yediot Ahronot. The purported deal was a detente between the two warring factions: the publisher, Noni Mozes, would provide more favorable coverage for Netanyahu in his paper, and Netanyahu would limit the circulation of the competitor Israel Hayom to weekdays, leaving the lucrative weekend editions to Yediot Ahronot.
.. Netanyahu has claimed that he was just bluffing; there was no real quid-pro-quo, merely a proof of precisely what Netanyahu had been saying all these years: The media moguls were out to get him
.. the deal never came to fruition
.. the police claim, Netanyahu was not bluffing; he convened parliamentarians to see what legislation might be promoted to limit his own ally publication and looked into implementing the deal. He was, they claim, conspiring to use his official position to the benefit of a commercial entity in exchange for a political favor. If a correct interpretation of the facts, that is bribery.
.. Netanyahu has now publicly acknowledged that the "Israel Hayom bill" (not Iran, or the Palestinians, or economic affairs) was the reason for calling the elections
.. Some members of his own party would hope that he resign without an election, meaning that one of them
would replace him temporarily.
.. He may point to the letter of Israeli law, which does not require a prime minister's resignation until conviction (despite precedent to the contrary
.. Israelis are correct, however, that the string of corruption cases in the past two decades have brought a new a level of shamelessness to Israeli political life.
.. If his term ends in the coming year it will be because he is forced to: most likely his partners eventually force him to resign, or the voting public opts for someone holding a broom.
Source: www.theatlantic.com
Tags: benjamin-netanyahu, bill-clinton, breach-of-trust, bribery, camera-awareness, coalition, corruption, denial, ehud-olmert, free, gerhard-schröder, gift, gimmicks, high-lifestyle, israel, israel-hayom, makeup, margaret-thatcher, media-message-management, media-savvy, newspapers, optimism, political-favor, quid-pro-quo, ronald-reagan, shameless, sheldon-adelson, tony-blair, yediot-ahronot


Over a decade of quality focused best practices for building world class products have helped us enhance quality of life and delight customers.
Over a decade of engineering excellence and unique initiative towards Backward Integration that has helped us control costs, and deliver on time, every time.
Over a decade of passion in every detail of work, at every level, driving continuous innovation; has resulted in making Sobha a preferred real-estate brand in India.
Over a decade of rock-solid values, uncompromising business ethos, and transparency in all transactions; have contributed to our earning the trust of all our stakeholders.
It was in the year 1995 that Mr. P N C Menon founded Sobha developers with the clear vision to "transform the way people perceive quality" in the real estate industry returned home from the Middle east where he was acclaimed for quality interiors and construction since 1977. His intuition and business sense buttressed with the exhilaration of returning to his homeland led him to believe that he could make Quality the key differentiator between his proposed venture and other construction companies. Over the intervening years this vision continues to be the bedrock of all endeavours.
Today SOBHA Developers a Rs. 10 billion plus company is one of the largest and only backward integrated company in the construction arena. Since its inception Sobha's reputation is built on rock solid values, benchmark quality standards, uncompromising business ethos, focused customer centric approach, robust engineering, in-house Research and development and transparency in all spheres of conducting business, which have contributed in making Sobha a preferred real estate brand in both Residential and Commercial segments. This was emphatically endorsed during its IPO in 2006 when the issue was oversubscribed by 126 times that created history, being the first event of its kind in Indian capital markets.
In the past 14 years since its inception, SOBHA Developers has completed 47 Residential Projects, 13 Commercial Projects and 166 contractual projects covering about 36 million sq. ft. area in 18 cities across India (as of 31 March 2010). The company currently has 21 ongoing Residential Projects aggregating to 8.5 million sq. ft., while 4.24 million sq. ft. of contractual projects are under various stages of construction. On an average, Sobha has constantly executed about 6 million sq. ft. of work on an average basis over the last 5 years. In the current year, which will be the 15th year of establishment, Sobha Developers are inching towards the execution of the 50th million sq. ft., which will be a landmark in the real estate industry.
The who's who of Corporate India form the client list including stalwarts like Infosys Technologies, Hewlett Packard, dell, the Taj Group, Mico, Timken and others. Residential Projects include premium apartments, villas and row houses with amenities like club houses, shopping centres and swimming pools as a value addition to the Sobha lifestyle that the company brings home to all its clients.


text:
Q: Join two subquery in hql How can I write this sql query in as hql:
select count(distinct s.id) as prepaid, count(distinct ss.id) as postpaid
from (select * from subscriber where subscriber.ispostpaid=0) s
join (select * from subscriber where ispostpaid=1) ss
where s.subscriber_status='active';

Or can make this query without using join by using only subquery.

A: Assuming I understand what you're looking to return, and assuming subscriber.id is unique in the table (seems likely), here is a SQL Server answer (though it should be adaptable to MySQL):
select
    isnull(sum((case when s.ispostpaid = 0 and s.subscriber_status = 'active' then 1 else 0 end)), 0) as prepaid,
    isnull(sum((case when s.ispostpaid = 1 then 1 else 0 end)), 0) as postpaid
    from subscriber s;

This selectively counts the rows of interest with one table access instead of an expensive cross join and grouping in the original query. The use of ISNULL is to still return counts of 0 if the table is empty.
Using NHibernate, I believe this could also be written using ICriteria... but it's been a while for me on that. Check out my answer here, as it might help if that's what you're looking for.

A: try this..
SELECT     CASE WHEN ispostpaid=0 AND subscriber_status='active' THEN COUNT(DISTINCT S.ID) END AS PrePaid,
           CASE WHEN ispostpaid=1 THEN COUNT(DISTINCT S.ID) END AS PostPaid
FROM       Subscriber
GROUP BY   ispostpaid

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


text:
God Only Knows - The Beach Boys - 1966
Notes: "God Only Knows" later also charted for Marilyn Scott in 1978.
TOP PICK ALBUM THAT INCLUDES THIS SONG:
Sounds Of Summer - The Very Best Of The Beach Boys - The Beach Boys - Capitol
Amazon.com has audio clips of "God Only Knows" by The Beach Boys on the albums listed below. To listen to a clip, click on any album name and you will be taken to a CD product web page with a list of album tracks linked to song clips.
Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys - The Beach Boys - Capitol (5 CDs)
Vol. 1-Greatest Hits - Beach Boys - Capitol
The Amazon.com MP3 Store also has a clip of the above song on the album listed below. Click on the album name and you will be taken to a list of mp3 album tracks with audio samples that include the above song.
Pet Sounds - The Beach Boys
CDUniverse also has a clip of the above song on the album listed below. Click on the album name and you will be taken to a list of albums, including the one below, that include the above song. (Note: Those albums with music note icons all have song clips. To see the entire list of CDs, you may need to scroll down all the way to the bottom as many songs have lyrics and other information displayed at the top.)
Sounds Of Summer: Very Best Of - Beach Boys
Click here for more songs, clips, and CDs by The Beach Boys.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: Node JS push mySQL query to frontend for display Here's what I need to do,

*

*Query my database and get back a JSON array of items. Got it

*Parse the JSON list. Easy.

The part I get stuck on now is displaying this content on the HTML side. If it helps I am using express.js and node.js. The html content has a button in a form that posts to the node.js backend and queries the data. The issue is now sending that content back in a displayable format. I have seen some people using response.send() to push that data back to the front end, but I do not believe that is applicable in this situation because it simply overwrites my webpage.
        <form method="post" action="/loadInventory">
        <fieldset>
            <button type="submit" id="refresh">Refresh Inventory</button>
        </fieldset>
        </form>

Then on the backend, it looks like this.
app.post('/loadInventory', function(req,response)
{
    var connection = mysql.createConnection({
        //connection code
    });

    connection.query('SELECT * FROM inventory', function(err, result){
        if (err) throw err
        Object.keys(result).forEach(function(key){
            const row = result[key];
            //one individual result, push to array, then push array to table on front-end.
        })
    })
});

I cannot use document.getelementbyid(#idoftable), not in node.js, and I tried using node local-storage and accessing that from front-end script attribute, but I can not do that because node local-storage isn't available in plain JS.


text:
Visit Farrbury website
London Resort Equity
London Resort Fractional Sales
Theme Park Hotels Equity
THE LONDON RESORT
EQUITY SHARES
WELCOME TO FARRBURY
Download your FREE investment brochure today
I confirm that I have read and agreed to Farrbury Privacy Policy
INVEST FROM £50,000
Projected 12% IRR
Flexible Tradable Equity
As the exclusive appointed investment partner to The London Resort, Farrbury Capital are delighted to present investors with a private placement equity share in the most highly anticipated themed entertainment project within Europe for the last 30 years.
The London Resort is a one of a kind tier 1, £2 billion theme park and resort bringing some of the best theme park engineers and hospitality professionals together to produce the number 1 theme park in Europe.
Once underway the resort will be one of the largest and most ambitious construction projects in Europe, a staggering 30,000 people and a multi-billion pound investment will transform 2.1 million square metres of land, on the bank of London's River Thames, into one of the largest theme parks in the world.
Leisure Investments SPV1, was established with the sole purpose of facilitating direct investment in The London Resort, a tier one, £2 billion, world class theme park, to be ranked in the top 10 globally.
The financial modelling in the London Resort has been structured by PwC and this structure is engineered to enable retail investors to access direct equity in the London Resort.
THE LONDON RESORT IN NUMBERS
£2 BILLION
A tier 1, £2 billion themed resort only the second of it's kind in Europe
Number of acres at the London Resort
2,250 hotel rooms available in Theme Park Hotels
4 Star Radisson Operated Hotels
NSIP
The London Resort is a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP Status)
Number of expected visitors to the London Resort in the first year
Only 17 minutes from Central London
There will be 48,000 Jobs Created By 2038
This Secured Equity Investment information is being sent to you on the basis that you are a certified high net worth individual (as that term is defined in article 48(2) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion Order 2005) ("FPO")). Accordingly, this document is exempt from the general restriction on the communication of invitations or inducements to engage in investment activity set out in section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 ("FSMA"). To qualify as a certified high net worth individual, you must have signed a statement (within the last 12 months) in the terms set out in part I of schedule 5 of the FPO. To be certified as a high net worth individual, you must have had annual income of at least £100,000 or held net assets to the value of not less than £250,000 throughout the financial year immediately preceding the date on which the certificate is signed. Any investment to which this Secured Equity Investment information relates is only available to, and will only be entered into with, certified high net worth individuals or other persons to whom this information may be communicated lawfully (all such persons together being referred to as "Relevant Persons"). If you are not a Relevant Person, you should not act or rely on this document or any of its contents.
info@farrburycapital.com
Farrbury Capital Partners
W1J 8LQ
© 2020 Farrbury Capital. Company Number: 11969636
020 3973 1510 | info@farrburycapital.com
15 Stratton Street, Mayfair, London W1J 8LQ


text:
Beyond ICT: a new digital revolution
Jan 3, 2013 10:53pm
The history of human social development is, to some extent, the history of human scientific and technological progress. Humanity achieves scientific and technological progress by pushing its physical and mental limits and breaking away from the restrictions of time and space. This has been true in times both ancient and modern.
Our ancestors built beacon towers and invented the wheel, while we have ubiquitous Internet connection and vehicles capable of reaching outer space. In the course of our scientific and technological development, two epoch-making inventions have been the steam engine and the computer.
The steam engine ushered in the industrial age by providing far more power than what manual labor and beasts of burden could generate. The computer brought us into the information age through data processing capabilities that far outperform the human brain.
The past century has witnessed several waves of progress made possible by information technologies, including those used for communications (telegraphy, telephony, and broadcasting), home entertainment (radio, TV), computing, and the Internet. Information technologies drive economic growth worldwide and reshape the way people live and work.
At present, we are evolving from a "society on wheels" to a "society on the network." However, information systems are still regarded as aid tools and support systems, keeping the digital and physical worlds somewhat parallel and compartmentalized. Now, as the digital and physical worlds begin to merge, the development of the Internet of Things has proven to be an effective catalyst of information-based developments and is sure to bring groundbreaking changes to all of humanity.
Beyond information and communications, the increasing integration of the digital and physical worlds will lead to a new digital revolution.
British philosopher Karl R. Popper divides human society into three parts: the physical world, the mental/psychological world, and the world of products of the human mind (also known as the world of objective knowledge). In the future, the physical world will be married with the digital world to form a new world. This integration will bring tremendous changes to the way we live and work, the way businesses operate, and the way society functions — a new age of digital citizens, digital enterprises, and digital society.
Heavy reliance on networks will usher in an age of digital citizenry. Nowadays, the ways in which people communicate, acquire information, study, have fun, shop, make friends, and pair-bond are quite different from what we saw just two decades ago. People not only have more means to stay connected and obtain information, but have exceeded the constraints of their physical location or time zone. With the developments in this short time span, rather than waiting days or even months for letters to arrive, people now contact others in real time via email, instant messaging, and social networking. Likewise, people can read the news online anytime, anywhere, rather than clinging to their TVs or radios. Wikipedia and other interactive platforms allow people to easily find answers to their questions, without having to wade through voluminous encyclopedias or wait for office hour-working librarians. Internet users exceeded 2.4 billion in 2012, over 34% of the world's population, with this figure growing roughly 8% each year. There are also as many as 1.1 billion smartphone subscribers right now, an increase of 42% over 2011. However, this is just the beginning. As digital lifestyles are adopted, digital citizenry will shape the behaviors of next-gen consumers, changing the way people live, and shaking up numerous industries. For example, traditional video sales and rental stores are disappearing, and the 244-year old Encyclopedia Britannica is no longer printed. It is very likely that in the next few decades, children will ask why the word newspaper contains the word paper in much the same way as our children today ask why the media is still referred to as the press.
The age of digital business is drawing near, as seen by our commercial dependence on networks for production and operations. Network developments have significant influence on business activities. Which business today can even continue to operate if its network fails? E-commerce is booming and extending its reach into every consumer buying decision, whether involving digital content (e-books and digital music), cars, or home appliances, or even small items like snacks and slippers. In 2012 alone, electronic retail sales worldwide totaled $1.1 trillion. Information technologies will be further applied to enterprise production and operations. Rather than being tools or support components, ICT will become integral to production, decision-making, customer relationship management, service provisioning, marketing, and logistics. ICT will be employed in the building of end-to-end systems that work in real time, playing a role in each and every link, from idea generation to product conceptualization to precision marketing to efficient operations to on-time delivery. In other words, digitization will become a key characteristic of the future enterprise.
A borderless internet gives rise to a digital society. Thanks to the boundary-free nature of the Internet, a large number of borderless virtual communities and societies have come into being. A plethora of these communities will combine to form a digital society that transcends borders, cultures, and races. Facebook is home to over one billion users (or netizens), making it the third largest "citizenry" in the world. This type of digital society, which mirrors while extending beyond the physical world, will undoubtedly impact many aspects of social administration and transformation, including politics, economy, law, culture, news & media, security, and ethics, among others. As a communications tool and support system, information technologies have significantly changed the way in which people live and work over the past few decades. They also spawn new economies and industries while reshuffling traditional ones. No doubt, the increasing integration of the physical and digital worlds will have a more tremendous impact on society. Such integration will direct ICT development in a way that can better serve society.
Smart infrastructure presents opportunities for further ICT development.
Technologically-speaking, ICT innovations mainly fall into five groups: mobility, broadband interconnectivity, social networking, cloud computing, and big data processing. The objective of these innovations is to transform the physical world into a smart world underpinned by smart ICT infrastructure, making the latter key to advancing information-based development.
From big data to "big" wisdom, the IT systems of carriers and enterprises are evolving from post-processing support systems to real-time business systems. This transition marks a fundamental change in how IT functions. We are living in what may be the "big bang" of information. In 2012, up to 2.4 zettabytes of data (that's 2.4 billion terabytes) was generated globally; it would take as many as three trillion DVDs to store all this data. By 2020, the amount of data generated is expected to grow fourteen-fold. This data will have two major sources. The first is from the huge amount of transactions between enterprises and between enterprises and consumers. The second is from countless interactions on the Internet, social networks, enterprise service networks, and the Internet of Things. Social networking will be particularly pervasive; it will be emblematic of all applications, not just for social networking utilities like Facebook. Typically, big data has four characteristics: variety, volume, velocity, and value. Velocity and value are most important. By combining the analytical capabilities of the human brain to determine behavioral patterns and the data processing capabilities of computers, we can quickly analyze big data and leverage digital assets to develop valuable diagrams that show relationships, intentions, consumption patterns, interests, and mobility. From big data to "big" wisdom, IT systems will be capable of understanding not only the present preferences of customers but also their future tendencies. This will make social administration, corporate decision-making, and individual lifestyles smarter and more logical. Therefore, IT systems for both enterprises and carriers shall no longer function as post-processing support systems. Rather, they will become real-time business systems that facilitate business operations, a transition that marks a fundamental change in IT.
As traditional IT enterprise architecture is no longer capable of processing the huge volumes of data being encountered, an Internet-oriented cloud computing architecture is needed. The rebuilding of data centers will prove the basis of supporting big data. Over the past two decades, most enterprises have applied client-server architecture for their IT. Although these systems were constantly upgraded, their technical architecture was not, making each upgrade repetitive and not transformative. With client-server, the server primarily stores small volumes of enterprise transaction data, leaving most data scattered across employee PCs (clients). As Internet technologies have continued to develop, data has begun its migration from the PC to the cloud, causing a sharp spike in data volume for the latter. The need to store such vast volumes is exactly what is driving innovations in computing and storage architectures, and giving rise to the emergence of cloud computing architectures that feature virtualization, parallel computing, distributed storage, and automation, making for a dramatic change over the traditional architectures. In fact, this new push is considered the third major wave of IT transformation after those related to the mainframe and client/server architecture. Presently, traditional enterprise IT architectures are no longer capable of processing the voluminous amounts of data that they take in. To answer this need, an internet-oriented cloud computing architecture is required. This architecture will form the basis of both big data and "big" wisdom.
Low-bandwidth networks are hindering information-based development and user experience improvement. A ubiquitous Gigabit network is a prerequisite for any digital society. To lay the foundation for a Terabit-network society, next-gen research is needed. As public and private clouds develop, the amount of data they carry is sure to mushroom, as the analysis of data is more effective when its storage is centralized. To drive this migration, ubiquitous networking with greater bandwidth is required to support data upload and data usage. Ubiquitous broadband makes cloud computing accessible. Devices across the entire industry chain, including content creation devices (video cameras), cloud computing devices that process information, and terminals where information is generated and consumed (PCs, tablets, etc.) all now support high-definition video, even smartphones that cost only $150. However, the global network, which has an average bandwidth of only 3.1Mbps, is still unable to support high-definition video, leading to the aforementioned hindrances to user experience. Therefore, we must accelerate the construction of Gigabit networks to enable seamless ultra-broadband access, the basis for building a digital society. We must also intensify our research into and innovation efforts for technologies such as next-generation mobile access, next-generation digital subscriber line (DSL) access, passive optical network (PON) access, next-generation Internet, and all-optical networking (AON). This focus on future networks will lay a solid foundation for building a Terabit-network society.
To support evolution from a "hard" pipe to a "soft" pipe, we should develop programmable, scalable, application-agile, automatic, and open intelligent networks. Software-defined networking (SDN) will lead to the development of next-gen network architectures. Technologies are enablers of network development. In the past two decades, driven by advancements of technologies from time-division multiplexing (TDM) towards all-IP, networks have undergone three different revolutions: analog to digital, fixed to mobile, and narrowband to broadband. At present, All-IP networks are undeniably the mainstay for telco and enterprise networks. However, as networks grow, with information flowing in and out in uncertain directions and technologies being upgraded rapidly, it is important that networks be flexible, intelligent, scalable, and automated. Equally important is a change in how we think about network architectural design. The core concepts for cloud computing development, such as virtualization, software decoupling from hardware, centralized resource pool scheduling, automatic deployment, high scalability, and on-demand service provisioning, provide valuable references for network development. Introduction of these concepts into the design of network architectures and products can form the concepts of SDN, including forwarding and control element separation (FORces) to centralize network control and resource scheduling, software decoupling from hardware to virtualize network functions, network function development of cloud-based architecture to realize automatic deployment and high scalability, and application-aware network development to improve network capabilities, among others. By adopting these concepts, we can lead the developments of next-generation product architectures and network architectures, establish an intelligent application-aware network that can intelligently schedule traffic, improve user experience and network utilization, support traffic-based operations, and generate new revenue streams.
Intelligent terminals will not just be tools for communications; they will become extensions of our own senses. Terminals of the future will be context-aware and have intelligent sensory capabilities. What makes a terminal intelligent is far more than just its CPUs and operating system - It also relates to its sensory capabilities. By using various sensors (compasses, accelerators, gyroscopes, barometers, global positioning systems, light sensors, microphones, cameras, touch screens, temperature sensors, and infrared instruments), we can extend the human sensory and nervous systems in the form of intelligent terminals, bringing us one-step away from true brain-machine interaction. These intelligent terminals will be context-aware, and able to both sense and predict behavior through features such as auto-completion. By combining cloud-based big data analysis capabilities with context-aware terminals, we can provide personalized and intelligent services that realize true human-machine interaction, enabling a dramatic improvement in the user experience.
To respond to the ICT transformation being driven by the integration of the physical world and digital worlds, Huawei has developed a pipe strategy that covers cloud-based data center infrastructure (used for information storage and processing), infrastructure networks (used for information transmission and delivery), and intelligent terminals (used for information creation and consumption). Huawei has also set up its 2012 Laboratories, dedicated to researching next-generation technologies, while developing a SoftCOM (Software Defined Network + teleCOM) network architecture development strategy. Huawei will openly partner with industry peers to raise information society to a new level.
MORE COVERAGE OF 2013 PREDICTIONS


text:
Rising DJ turn youtuber Keemstar net worth is about $1.5 million dollars. Born in 1983, his wiki revealed real name, height, age, salary and family detail. DJ Keemstar is currently married, check out her wife and children detail here. Any avid internet surfer has heard the name of Keemstar at some point. DJ Keemstar is a famous online personality, YouTuber and a vlogger. He is maintaining a YouTube show called 'DramaAlert', which is a news source on social interactions often within YouTube. Apart from this, he is also the founding member and a host of the Baited Podcast.
Full Name Daniel Keem
Birth Date March 8, 1983
Height 5.7 feet / 1.70 m
Source of Income YouTube Personality
Sibling N/A
Children Mia (daughter)
Wife Married
Keemstar was born as Daniel M. Keem on March 8, 1982, in New York, USA. His parents are Italian and Keemstar comes from an Italian, German and Dutch descent. He has two other siblings, a brother and a sister. Before becoming a full-time YouTuber, Keemstar was a lawyer. He was a former Twitch.tv livestreamer. Then in October 2009, he got his chance with his YouTube channel, XDJKeemstar. However, the channel was taken down by the platform in January, 2013, because he was playing Halo 3 under influence. Moreover, someone from the game session recorded him cussing about the game, and uploaded it on YouTube. But somehow, the people who uploaded this video contacted him and asked him to be a member of their channel,F.A.G (The Federation of Asshole Gamers) to make videos aimed at trolling the popular game, Halo. It was here that he started using his now screen name, DJ Keemstar. Unfortunately for him, his second YouTube channel, DJKeemstar, was taken down In March 2014.
Keemstar own a house and living in Buffalo, New York. His now functioning YouTube channel DramaAlert, was started as a platform to showcase the twitter wars between several YouTubers. It is now an extremely popular channel in YouTube with more than 2.9 million subscribers.
Keemstar claims that he does not control the channel as he has been permanently banned from creating or handling a YouTube channel. He claims that an assistant handles the channel. But in August 2016, while conducting a livestream he went into the DramaAlert YouTube channel's settings, revealing that he had the access to the channel all along, even after claiming he was banned. Kemmstar has been a part of numerous scandals and allegations, including a racist allegation against him for using the n-word. He has a daughter named Mia and a net worth of $200 thousand.
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text:
Congress-mukt Bharat not possible: Ashok Chavan
Published : Sep 29, 2019, 5:46 am IST
Updated : Sep 29, 2019, 5:46 am IST
The BJP is adopting "saam,daam, dand, bhed" policy. says Ashok.
Ashok Chavan
Even as experts are writing the political obituary of Maharashtra Congress, former chief minister Ashok Chavan is hopeful that the alliance between the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) will do well in the upcoming elections. Edited excerpts:
Why are so many Congr-ess and NCP leaders leaving?
Leaders are not leaving the party. They are being pressurised to leave the party. They are being hara-ssed by the BJP government through agencies. Th-ey are being offered posts, money and tickets. This is the trend all over the country, not just Maharashtra.
The Congress and NCP have always been at odds with each other despite being alliance partners. With both parties in crisis, will you bury the hatchet?
In a coalition government, there are bound to be differences between alliance partners. There were issues; I don't deny it. Despite this, the alliance helps us keep our votes intact. More importantly, we retain our vote banks. At this juncture, there has to be an alliance.
How do you perceive the Enforcement Directorate's actions against Mr Pawar?
It is nothing but political vendetta. The ED has been behind Opposition leaders in order to help the BJP finish Opposition parties in the country.
The Shah-Modi combo has been speaking of a 'Congress-Mukt Bharat'. Will Maharashtra be the first step towards it?
I don't think so. In a democracy, there can't be 'mukt' Congress or any other party. The BJP is adopting "saam,daam, dand, bhed" policy. The states of Rajasthan, MP, and Chhattisgarh have proven that 'Congress-Mukt' slogan is not acceptable to all. I don't think everybody will be swayed by such slogans.
How close will the contest be this time? How many seats do the Congress and NCP expect to win?
It is too early to say. Let's see how the seats are distributed. It also depends on the candidates. Congress has good candidates for the seats that have been shortlisted so far. I am confident that both parties will win a good number of seats.
How important is the VBA factor? Does the Cong-ress still believe that the VBA is the BJP's B-team?
I will not say that but people have seen VBA's role. VBA is ultimately helping the BJP. This can be gauged from the results of the Lok Sabha election. People have realised that voting for the VBA ultimately helps the BJP. Things are changing on the ground now.
Mr Pawar was trying to bring the MNS into the alliance. Will the Congress agree to this?
I don't think Raj Thackeray had been keen on joining the alliance. The NCP's stance on the issue is a different matter. Within the Congress, we have reservations about the MNS.
There is factionalism in the state Congress unit and you have been a victim of it. How do you plan to address it?
I have never been a victim of factionalism. I have resigned on my own because I felt that someone who can get things done should be given the opportunity. I have tried my level best in the last four years but things went otherwise. I faced things sternly and boldly. Poor political chemistry failed us this time. So, I thought that it was better if I resigned.
What is your assessment of Devendra Fadnavis' tenure?
Very poor performance. The promises that were made during the election campaign have not been fulfilled. Whether it is the issue of unemployment, farmers' suicides, loan waiver, employment generation, or the economic slowdown, Maharashtra has gone from bad to worse.
Tags: ashok chavan, congress-mukt bharat
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text:
Tips For Using Dragon Successfully
Sometimes it's surprising to find that people go out and spend a lot of money on software, then don't do the things that will make it work well. Here are a few tips from the support calls we've gotten that are likely to improve your experience with Dragon.
1. If you are purchasing Dragon for business use, get training! Yes, we know: you talk, you see your words appear, you think it's easy to use. Half right. Easy to use, not so easy to use well - and that's where your real return-on-investment comes from. Remember how your mom or dad took you out when you were 14 or so and let you drive the car around a parking lot? You could steer it, make it go forwards and backwards, stop it -- but did that mean you could drive? Of course not. Same with Dragon.
2. You have a full user guide on the DVD. Take a look at it. You can browse to it and print it out if you like, or just keep it for reference. It shows you how to improve your accuracy, as well as a host of other things.
3. Make sure you've chosen the right microphone setup in the New User Wizard. The default setting is "Microphone plugged into the mic-in jack." If you're using the microphone that came with your software, this is incorrect, because the mic in the box is a USB microphone. If you've purchased a Bluetooth or wireless microphone, you're not using a USB mic anymore. If you're just starting out, be sure to drop the "Dictation Source" droplist on the first screen of the New User Wizard and choose your microphone type. If you're switching over after having already completed the New User Wizard, you have to click the "Source" button in the "Open User Profile" dialog (under "Profile" ) and choose "New." Select your new source from the dropdown list. Do the same thing for any other new dictation source you add, like recorders. OR.. You can select "Add audio source to current user" from the Profile menu - it does the same thing.
When you're dictating, the source you're actually using will show up after your name on the Extended Tool Bar. If you're using a USB adaptor and the Extended Tool Bar says "Mary (Mic-In)," you're likely to have problems. (If your name is Ed, you have different problems.) It's as if you told Dragon you'd be talking into the front door of the house, so Dragon goes there and presses its ear up to the front door, and meanwhile you've decided to talk in the back door upstairs.
4. MAKE CORRECTIONS ! ! ! This is one of the two biggest things you can do to improve accuracy. Dragon has a rather average picture of your voice following enrollment - you have to teach it the idiosyncrasies. If you don't correct misrecognitions, it will be making the same mistakes a year from now that it's making on the first day. Making corrections does not mean taking your mouse and crossing out something and typing in the right word. It means saying "Correct " and using either the Spell dialog or the Correction menu. Doing this improves the software: Dragon is "smart" software, and if you correct it when it gets things wrong, it gets better and better. If you don't, it won't. Just resign yourself to making a lot of them for the first week or two, and if you do, you won't have to correct much after that. (It's more of an investment than an ongoing chore.)
5. Add words to your vocabulary. Dragon ONLY knows the words in its vocabulary. If you have retained the option (it's checked by default) that says "Add corrections to vocabulary," correcting or spelling an individual word (a name, say) will (at least sometimes - nothing's perfect) insert that word into your active vocabulary if it's currently in the background vocabulary. If you have not, it won't. If it's not in the background vocabulary, it won't, either. And it won't understand it in the future no matter how many times you spell it or train it. So if your partner's name is an unusual one, and you'll be using it a lot, add it to the vocabulary. You may be seduced by the fact that after you spell/correct a name, Dragon gets it right when you use it again. Dragon has a little short-term memory, but when you shut down the program ... it's gone.
6. Run electronic documents YOU have written through the vocabulary builder. If you go to the Improve My Accuracy (under Help) and choose "Learn from specific documents" (listed under Personalize Your Vocabulary), you will be given the opportunity to have Dragon analyze your documents, pull words out that it finds that are not in the vocabulary, analyze your writing style. It's a quick and dirty way to add words -- but look the list of proposed additions over, and don't add commonplace words that are only on the list because they are capitalized as the result of having been found in a heading, or words that are typos. The more important thing is that Dragon will analyze the way you write -- the frequency with which you use certain words, for example, and the context in which you use them. For this reason, it's important to choose only documents that YOU have written -- not your officemate. The analysis is a little like card-counting in blackjack: it sort of stacks the deck in favor of recognizing that pattern when it confronts it again. It's a small thing to do that many people skip, which is a shame because it's remarkably effective.
You can also run the Vocabulary Optimizer to achieve the same effect.
7. Don't speak the second you turn on the microphone. The mic needs a couple seconds to initialize - if you don't provide it, you'll find the first couple words of your dictation cut off every time. You might say something like "Testing" before you start, then wait for the word "Testing" to appear in your document before proceeding.
8. Make every word you dictate a complete word. You can speak very quickly with Dragon, but it has to be clear. Dragon doesn't understand "implied" words. Implied words are like when you start out a sentence "The patient came in today....", but instead of saying that, you say "[Th] PAtient," thinking that Dragon will know that because you inserted your tongue between your teeth and breathed a little, you meant the word "the." It won't. That sort of dictation will produce "Patient came in today..."
9. Make yourself some macros. The half-hour you spend to make a few macros to automate the things you say ten times a day will repay you that half-hour a thousand times over. Aside from Advanced Scripting, macros can be made by anyone with the IQ of a piece of celery.
10. Use playback as a diagnostic tool. If Dragon seems to misrecognize a lot, use the playback feature to hear what Dragon is hearing, especially if the "voicebar" (the bar next to the microphone icon that is alternately green and yellow) shows a lot of red. Highlight some text and say (or click, under Sound), "Play that back."
You'll hear your own voice dictating, but listen to see if there's a lot of static, humming, or other sound problems. Those can really interfere with Dragon's ability to understand you. You might have a bad microphone (they don't
last forever), or a lot of internal noise in the machine (laptops can be susceptible to this). But you won't know unless you listen.
If you see a lot of red in the voicebar, it probably means the volume is too loud - try moving the mic away from your mouth a little. It could mean you have a lot of "noise" in your system (e.g. static, humming), but you can only find that out by listening to the playback.
11. Use the Results box the same way. The Results box is that little box that floats around in which you see all your words appear before they get plunked onto the page. It can be used quite successfully as a tool to see what's going on inside Dragon. If you say a command, and see the words "select shoes" appear in the Results box, but the box is not outlined in dark blue, you know that it heard you correctly but is not recognizing what you said as a command. That can be due to one of a couple different problems. If you look at the Results box and don't see "select shoes" in it, but you do see words you said 30 seconds ago in it, that means that Dragon - which processes all the audio in order - hasn't gotten to your command yet in the audio stream, so saying it again won't help - you just have to wait. If you say "select shoes" and you see "and and and the and" (or similar gibberish) in the Results box, you very likely have a corrupted voicefile.
If you don't see a Results box - only a whirling green icon - it's because its visibility has been turned off (by default) in the Options. You can re-enable it by going to Tools > Options > View tab, and checking the box that says "Show preliminary results." If you want, you can also check "Anchor," which will allow you to drag the Results Box out of your way and pin it in a corner of your screen if you want. (It has a habit of hovering right over where you're dictating.)
12. Learn how to restore your voicefiles. Voicefiles can become corrupted - turning off your computer before you shut down Dragon is a good way to do that. If you see gibberish (and hear gibberish on playback), or see a message that "an internal recognizer error has occurred," or a message that "the selected vocabulary is not compatible" (even though you used it fine yesterday), or a message that "a COM error has occurred," you have corrupted voicefiles. In that case, go to Dragon (or NaturallySpeaking) > Manage Users > the Advanced button >Restore user. Do not keep opening and closing Dragon and saving your voicefiles each time - after 5 saves, you will start saving the bad over the good in the backup folder.
13. Hold on to your discs and your serial number! You never expect it to happen, but one day, BOOM, your hard drive goes south, and now you can't find your discs to reinstall Dragon, or if you have your discs, you don't have the serial number. Or maybe you get a new computer, and you have the upgrade, but not the previous disc to insert during the installation process. No, we do not keep track of the S/N for you. If you lose your discs - and especially if you lose the serial number - you're plumb out of luck.


Well, that was interesting. I figured Vice President Biden would outperform his boss by a long shot. I figured Congressman Ryan would stand his own with the elder and more experienced Biden. Ryan was confident and resolute with his comments. Biden was a more adept speaker in this forum than he has been in months, if not years since his 2008 debate against Governor Palin, a much less capable opponent. Unfortunately, Biden cut his legs off at his knees with his arrogance, dismissive nature, interruptions, and uncontrolled laughter. Ryan handled himself well and maintained his composure despite Biden's awkward behavior. Ryan behaved like a Statesman.
I respected Biden's answer on the abortion question and how he reconciles his policies with his spiritual beliefs. I thought his response that his faith dictates his beliefs, but he doesn't impose those beliefs on others was an honest one. Hard right Republicans could learn a great deal from Biden on that front.
In the end, both candidates appeared equally qualified to do the job. I wouldn't call the debate a draw because to me, that's a copout. I give the advantage to Ryan based on his ability to maintain composure and stand toe to toe with a much more experienced statesman. Ryan stuck to the questions and spent far less time attacking Obama than Biden did attacking Romney. Ryan's close was much stronger and heartfelt than Biden's.
When I consider the behavior and decorum of both parties' candidates, I'm much more impressed with the Romney/Ryan ticket than I have been. Obama entered the stage for first Presidential debate with a cocky swagger and then failed to display enough respect to even look Romney in the eye as his debate performance quickly sunk. Romney came across polite, sincere, and gracious. In last night's debate, Ryan behaved much like his boss did a week before. It was Biden's smug, condescending nature that stood out and watered down his otherwise impressive performance.
I found myself considering which pair I would prefer representing America in front of an adversary like Iran or Venezuela. Biden's smug confidence might resonate with the hubris of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Hugo Chávez, but Obama's persistent apologies would negate any gained ground, imagined or genuine. I believe stern politeness coupled with a dignified eye contact would better project America's position and intentions. Regardless of the media's interpretation of who won or lost these two debates, it's clear which pair of candidates demonstrated those traits.