Amazon's Ingenious Scheme to Undermine Black Friday | WIRED: "...Of all the retailers hoping to capitalize on this trend, Amazon is by far the most well-positioned. This week, on the heels of launching a Black Friday online store well ahead of the actual day, the company said that its holiday deals would start rolling out as early as today—a full week ahead of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving here in the US.
The company had eight days of Black Friday deals last year, too, but this year it’s giving the promotion an even bigger push: new deals will be added as often as every five minutes on Amazon’s dedicated Black Friday page, twice the rate of last year...."
"The White House said in a statement Wednesday evening that President Barack Obama would veto a House bill tightening controls on Syrian refugees seeking entrance into the U.S."
History for November 20 - On-This-Day.com Edwin Hubble 1889 - American astronomer, Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) 1925 - Politician, Richard Remick "Dick" Smothers 1939 - Actor, comedian, composer, musician (The Smothers Brothers) Joe Biden 1942 - U.S. Vice President, Veronica Hamel 1943 - Actress ("Hill Street Blues"), Bo Derek 1956 - Actress ("10") 1943 - During World War II, U.S. Marines began their landing on Tarawa and Makin atolls in the Gilbert Islands. 1945 - 24 Nazi leaders went before an international war crimes tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany. 1962 - The Cuban Missile Crisis ended. The Soviet Union removed its missiles and bombers from Cuba and the U.S. ended its blockade of the island. 1970 - The majority in U.N. General Assembly voted to give China a seat, but two-thirds majority required for admission was not met. 1977 - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to address Israel's parliament. 1980 - On Jefferson Island, Louisiana, an oil rig in Lake Pigneur pierced the top of the salt dome beneath the island. The freshwater lake completely drained within a few hours. The Delcambre Canal reversed flow and two days later the previous freshwater lake was a 1,300-foot-deep saltwater lake. 1983 - An estimated 100 million people watched the controversial ABC-TV movie "The Day After." The movie depicted the outbreak of nuclear war. 1998 - Afghanistan's Taliban militia offered Osama bin Laden safe haven. Osama bin Laden had been accused of orchestrating two U.S. embassy bombings in Africa and later terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon.
“Every week, representatives of each of these nine agencies meet to review the biographic information and other case records sent by the overseas Resettlement Support Centers to determine where a refugee will be resettled in the United States” the State Department’s policy reads.
According to Beck, the federal government is deciding where the incoming refugees will be placed because the president is attempting to make the country “more diverse.”
“If America was more diverse, if we had more Muslims here, then America wouldn’t be so hateful of Muslims — that’s the way he thinks,” Beck said. “He really believes he’s … above the American people.”
"PARIS (AP) — The Belgian jihadi suspected of masterminding deadly attacks in Paris died along with his cousin in a police raid on a suburban apartment building, officials said Thursday."
"A man was removed from a Hillary Clinton rally in Texas Tuesday after holding up a sign critical of the Democratic presidential candidate.
The man was standing what appeared to be just a few feet away from Clinton while calmly holding up a sign that read, “Yes, Ms. Clinton, it does make a difference.”"
The bill was reportedly passed 289-137, giving the legislation the two-thirds majority required to override a veto. A total of 47 Democrats voted with Republicans to pass the “veto-proof” bill."
It's about time they stood up to the dictator. It's un-American to have an anti-American president in office.
"He said he is not going to deploy large numbers of U.S. ground forces in the volatile region and argued that Middle East nations need to get more involved in the ground campaign. Obama said the U.S. will continue to lead an aggressive campaign of airstrikes against ISIS targets. He also called on more nations to contribute to efforts to deal with the Syrian refugee crisis. Obama again condemned Friday's deadly terrorist attacks in Paris. He called ISIS barbaric and said the attacks were heinous. Obama noted that the civilized world is united against the ISIS threat. He cited progress against ISIS in Syria and Iraq but warned that there will be ongoing setbacks.."
"Think about that. In the very country where Barack Obama stood and insulted every day American citizens and governors for their opposition to Syrian ‘refugees’ following the terrorist attacks in Paris, eight ISIS terrorists were arrested after they attempted to get into Germany via a detailed migration route. Just yesterday in Germany, a stadium where a soccer match between Germany and the Netherlands was set to take place was evacuated after police discovered an ambulance parked outside filled with explosives."
It’s not just stagnating cities in states like California or Illinois that are running into pension troubles. The pension vise is now tightening around Houston too, an oil-rich metropolis that has been enjoying rapid job growth for years. . . .
Houston’s experience is a cautionary tale. The city counted on oil money and didn’t manage its finances well when times were good, and, like many cities, built its pension promises on overly optimistic projections for future growth. Pensions are in trouble in states and municipalities all over the country because while politicians have strong incentives to over-promise in the short-term, they have little incentive to plan for future slowdowns. And if Houston can’t create sustainable pension systems, despite its impressive economic fundamentals, what hope is there for Chicago?
The WSJ story also highlights the many divisions and conflicts that will flare up in the coming years as a pension reckoning approaches. Houston residents are “reluctant to support any tax increases” even as the pension woes “have contributed to reductions in hiring of police officers and spending on pothole repairs, which have become issues in the mayoral race.” This type of tradeoff is part of what we call the blue civil war. Various interests (in particular, the people who produce public services and the people who consume them) will be pitted against each other as the unsustainability of the blue model of governance, present in both Republican and Democratic states, becomes more and more clear.
"Politicians don’t care if it’s unsustainable, so long as they get theirs before it collapses. This is a problem."
"Eager to reopen arguments or eager to spy on us? Or perhaps they want to admit that they are already spying on us and don't want to worry about another whistleblower like Edward Snowden. Ultimately, they want us to thank them for violating our Fourth Amendment rights. But the government is the reason we are in this situation. It was European policies that encouraged Muslim immigration without assimilation. And in the U.S. we are expected to house thousands of inadequately vetted Syrian refugees. Are we supposed to give up our Fourth Amendment in order to keep us safe from the terrorist among them?
In the United States, surveillance is the core issue for the security agencies combating the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and for the watchdog groups that monitor those agencies. In addition "
During Victory In Europe Day in 2015, event organizers had a spectacular show lined up for the thousands of spectators. Taking place in the skies over Washington DC, you can only imagine this flyover was rehearsed over and over again with strict guidelines and itineraries.
With hours of training and flying about, the team was ready for the show. Before the incident, the Avenger has been in the air for an hour with no problems and they were coming up to the final flyover.This was the pinnacle of the entire show and the culmination of what these guys were working for. Then, the cabin filled with smoke.
“Are we on fire?”- Passenger of the ill fated TBM Avenger
In this video, you’ll see the moment when things went wrong and the passenger suspected a fire. In the heat of the moment, the pilot stayed cool and collected and declared an emergency, heading for the nearest airstrip which happened to be Reagan National Airport.
The whole operation went really smoothly and the cool thing about this video is that it’s broken down into two part. First, you’ll see the event happening as it did. Later, the pilot breaks the video down into the thoughts he was having while trying to stay calm and assess the situation. As it turns out, he took a lot of lessons home.
In the end, it was a pin sized hole in the hydraulic system that started smoking. It was not a big deal but precautions had to be taken. The plane was ready to fly again within an hour of the emergency landing.
“Examining White Privilege: A Retreat for Undergraduate Students Who Self-Identify as White” took place last weekend, November 13-15, and was “specifically for white students.”
“How does whiteness impact you?” Tweet This
According to the university, the self-identifying white students who attend the retreat will come to “recognize and understand white privilege from an individual experience” and have the opportunity to “conceptualize and articulate whiteness from a personal and systematic lense as well as the impact of white privilege on the UVM community and beyond.”
The self-identifying white students also tackled tough questions such as “What does it mean to be white?” and “How does whiteness impact you?”
The university website features testimonials from past attendees of the retreat, who praised the way the event was a “safe space...”
"This, to be sure, is odd. Hillary decrying hateful rhetoric smacks of irony – she despises Republicans so much that she labeled them her enemies during the first Demoratic debate. Furthermore, Hillary is no fighter for religious freedom. In April, she told the Women in the World Summit that “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed” to allow for abortion. And in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s egregious same-sex marriage decision in June, Hillary explicitly called for the government to force churches to sanction homosexuality, explaining, “Our work won’t be finished until every American can not only marry, but live, work, pray, learn and raise a family free from discrimination and prejudice.” Pray – as in attend church “free from discrimination and prejudice.”
The report, published by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General on June 4, blamed bureaucratic mistakes.
Though the TSA says it frequently cross-checks applications and employee lists with the DHS’s “Consolidated Terrorist Watchlist,” both are incomplete.
The TSA’s employee lists, which consist of thousands of records, “contained potentially incomplete or inaccurate data, such as an initial for a first name and missing social security numbers,” the report found.
The DHS Consolidated Terrorist Watchlist was also incomplete because “[TSA] is not authorized to receive all terrorism-related categories under current interagency watchlisting policy.”
It is unclear what, if anything, will happen as a result of this discovery.
But last week, the top TSA official wasreassignedafter aninternal investigationshowed undercover agents were able to smuggle fake explosives and weapons through security checkpoints in 95 percent of trials at dozens of America’s busiest airports.
A video of the short performance, which is less than three minutes, is posted on the website of the renowned club, Laugh Factory, and the Clinton campaign has tried to censor it.
Besides demanding that the video be taken down, the Clinton campaign has demanded the personal contact information of the performers that appear in the recording. This is no laughing matter for club owner Jamie Masada, a comedy guru who opened Laugh Factory more than three decades ago and has been instrumental in launching the careers of many famous comics. “They threatened me,” Masada told Judicial Watch. “I have received complains before but never a call like this, threatening to put me out of business if I don’t cut the video.” ...The Laugh Factory has appropriately titled it “Hillary vs. The First Amendment.”
Masada told Judicial Watch that, as soon as the video got posted on the Laugh Factory website, he received a phone call from a “prominent” person inside Clinton’s campaign. “He said the video was disgusting and asked who put me up to this,” Masada said. The Clinton staffer, who Masada did not want to identify, also demanded to know the names and phone numbers of the comedians that appear in the video.
Masada refused and hung up.
He insists that the comedy stage is a sanctuary for freedom of speech no matter who is offended.
“Just last night we had (Emmy-award winner) Dana Carvey doing Donald Trump and it was hilarious,” Masada said.
Immigration experts: Michigan, other states lack legal authority to block Syrian refugees - Crain's Detroit Business:
"Governors across the U.S. — including Gov. Rick Snyder in Michigan — have threatened to stop accepting Syrian refugees following last week's attacks in Paris, even as experts counter they lack legal authority to block the relocations. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama, whose administration recently pledged to accept about 10,000 Syrian refugees, argued Monday that the United States needs to allow them because many are fleeing terrorism.
...The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights group, called the governors' comments and recommendations "un-American," adding that rejecting refugees projects "our fears to the world.""
"Glenn Beck shared on The Glenn Beck Program Monday night a reel of many in the media mocking his 2011 prediction that radical Islamists would seek to create a worldwide religious caliphate.
“The caliphate is not a conspiracy,” Beck said on his radio program in 2011. “It’s the words of Hamas; it’s the words of the Muslim Brotherhood; it’s the words of [then-Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad. … It’s ridiculous to call it a conspiracy theory.”
The day Beck shared his opinion, the word “caliphate” rose to the No. 3 most searched phrase on Google, and many in the media were quick to responded."
Pollsters defend craft amid string of high-profile misses | TheHill: "Can the public trust the polls?
The question is gaining intensity following a string of misses — most recently in Kentucky’s gubernatorial race — that has fueled doubts about survey accuracy and forced the industry into some soul-searching amid an election season when polls are both ubiquitous and increasingly influential to the process of choosing candidates.
...“Not every poll,” Koning added, “is a poll worth reading.”
Scott Keeter, director of survey research at the Pew Research Center, agreed.
Placing too much trust in early surveys, when few voters are paying close attention and the candidate pools are their largest, “is asking more of a poll than what it can really do.” “A high degree of skepticism is certainly warranted,” he said."
History for November 19 - On-This-Day.com James Garfield (U.S.) 1831, Tommy Dorsey 1905, Indira Gandhi 1917 Larry King 1933, Dick Cavett 1936, Ted Turner 1938 1863 - U.S. President Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address as he dedicated a national cemetery at the site of the Civil War battlefield in Pennsylvania. 1928 - "Time" magazine presented its cover in color for the first time. The subject was Japanese Emperor Hirohito. 1959 - Ford Motor Co. announced it was ending the production of the unpopular Edsel. 1970 - Hafiz al-Assad seized power in Syria. 1994 - The U.N. Security Council authorized NATO to bomb rebel Serb forces striking from neighboring Croatia. 1998 - The impeachment inquiry of U.S. President Clinton began. 2002 - The U.S. government completed its takeover of security at 424 airports nationwide. 2007 - The Amazon Kindle was first released.
"...Of all the retailers hoping to capitalize on this trend, Amazon is by far the most well-positioned. This week, on the heels of launching a Black Friday online store well ahead of the actual day, the company said that its holiday deals would start rolling out as early as today—a full week ahead of Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving here in the US.
