Mike Barnicle, John Heilman, Matt Lewis, Ron Fournier, Lanhee Chin, Michael Lewis are all on with Mika. And, Mikey Kay, John Cox, Bill Neely and Anthony Roman, Tom Costello, Chris Dickey are on to go over the Breaking News This Am (Plane Crash)
Damn. They are posting pictures from the Dusseldorf airport which hit me hard. I am in tears for some reason watching the reactions from the people that lost their loved ones, friends and family members, etc. That is hard to view. Because put yourself in that situation where you are waiting for people to arrive and then boom, you get that news. Heartbreaking...This story begins for us this morning after a long half an hour or so before the breaking news hit the panel. I honestly never heard of this type of airline ever crashing. Let alone in mid air at 38K feet. Which plummeted down to 6K in seconds or within a minute is really telling. Something went very bad. Actually, what am I saying because the pilot reported great distress while in mid air and before the unfortunate crash into the French Alps. Which is going to be hard to get to as far as grabbing everyone and getting at the site. I know there was debris spread out on the ground. I am not sure how far from the crash or if it were a part of the crash. As Mika just reported to us, there are three narratives which i guess is why i am confused here and she is basically repeating what I just said even before I posted it. So, I am not alone in thinking this way. Tom Costello just reported that he got information that the distress call was put in with a code by the pilot. It could have feasibly only been a data transmittal and not some voice or person yelling mayday, mayday (so to speak, not literally) which is what I had initially thought. The plane could have went down in the Swiss Alps. I thought or assumed it was in the French Alps. Sorry.
This first story is a great one. Peter Weber from the WSJ (Wall Street Journal) reports that Israel reportedly spied on Iran talks, leaked details to Congress. Like I said just now. That is brilliant stuff that Israeli intelligence was eavesdropping on closed-door nuclear negotiations between Iran and the U.S. and other world powers, then passing the classified information along to the U.S. Congress to try and pre-emptively scuttle the deal, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing "interviews with more than a dozen current and former U.S. and Israeli diplomats, intelligence officials, policymakers, and lawmakers."
The White House, which learned of the espionage early on in the talks, was more upset about Israel using selected bits of purloined information to try and undermine the sensitive nuclear negotiations than the actual spying, explains the Journal's Adam Entous:
The U.S. and Israel, longtime allies who routinely swap information on security threats, sometimes operate behind the scenes like spy-versus-spy rivals. The White House has largely tolerated Israeli snooping on U.S. policymakers — a posture Israel takes when the tables are turned. The White House discovered the operation, in fact, when U.S. intelligence agencies spying on Israel intercepted communications among Israeli officials that carried details the U.S. believed could have come only from access to the confidential talks, officials briefed on the matter said. A senior official in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office denied that Israel spied directly on the U.S., but "U.S. officials said Israel has long topped the list of countries that aggressively spy on the U.S., along with China, Russia, and France," Entous reports. "The U.S. expends more counterintelligence resources fending off Israeli spy operations than any other close ally, U.S. officials said." Read the entire fascinating look at the Israel-U.S. spying game at The Wall Street Journal.
Obama is indeed taking the heat for all of this happening. Yesterday, someone had to add into the conversation that there are five allies and five different countries involved in the talks and yet you would never know it. Honestly, you cannot make this up. If you even made some joke about it, it would be laughed at and I am almost positive John Heilman laughed too. White House chief of staff sates that 50 years of Israeli occupation must end. The U.S. cannot pretend Netanyahu didn't say no Palestinian state would be established on his watch, Denis McDonough tells J Street conference in Washington. White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough made it clear Monday that the crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations over the issue of a Palestinian state has not dissipated, despite efforts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to clarify remarks he made late in the election campaign that no such state would be established on his watch.
“We cannot simply pretend that those comments were never made,” McDonough told the J Street conference in Washington, whose leftist audience received his remarks enthusiastically. He also warned Israel’s next government not to consider unilateral annexation of any West Bank territory, saying it would “be both wrong and illegal,” and that America would strenuously object.
“Israel cannot maintain military control of another people indefinitely,” he said. “An occupation that has lasted for almost 50 years must end.” He denied claims that the administration’s reevaluation of its approach to the peace process stemmed from U.S. President Barack Obama’s “personal pique” with Netanyahu, but he described Netanyahu’s remarks before the election as “troubling.” McDonough called into question Netanyahu’s sincerity regarding the two-state solution.
“After the election, the prime minister said that he had not changed his position, but for many in Israel and in the international community, such contradictory comments call into question his commitment to a two-state solution, as did his suggestion that the construction of settlements has a strategic purpose of dividing Palestinian communities and his claim that conditions in the larger Middle East must be more stable before a Palestinian state can be established,” he said. “We cannot simply pretend that those comments were never made, or that they don’t raise questions about the prime minister’s commitment to achieving peace through direct negotiations.”
McDonough did not address the possibility that the focus of the peace process would move to the United Nations – which may indicate a softening of that position compared to what was said immediately after last week’s election results became known - but said that Obama would “never stop working for a two-state solution,” despite the difficulties. He also detailed what the U.S. believes the arrangements would be: borders based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, security arrangements, and a “sovereign and sustainable” Palestinian state.
In what seems like wishful thinking given the presumed makeup of the next government, McDonough said the United States expects it to “to match words with actions and policies that demonstrate a genuine commitment to a two-state solution.” In an unusual move, McDonough also warned against any unilateral annexation of lands in the West Bank, saying it “would be both wrong and illegal,” that America would never support it, “and it’s unlikely Israel’s other friends would either. It would only contribute to Israel’s isolation.”
McDonough also described J Street, which is ostracized by much of the American Jewish establishment, as the White House’s “partner” in advancing the peace process and the two-state solution.
Mika just said something about (John) Heilman laughing because no one knows what to say about it. And, someone named Adam evidently wrote up the story. I thought it was done by Peter Weber. There is a lot of damage between the two admin's and man are we working hard to make it happen. We meaning everyone. (John) Boehner did invite Netanyahu behind Obama's administration backs.
Anyway, here is a complete transcript of Ted Cruz’s address at Liberty University in which he officially announced his 2016 presidential bid.
CRUZ: Good to see you.
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Thank you. (APPLAUSE)
Thank you so much, President Falwell. God bless Liberty University.
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I am thrilled to join you today at the largest Christian university in the world.
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Today I want to talk with you about the promise of America.
Imagine your parents when they were children. Imagine a little girl growing up in Wilmington, Delaware during World War II, the daughter of Irish and Italian Catholic family, working class. Her uncle ran numbers in Wilmington. She grew up with dozens of cousins because her mom was the second youngest of 17 kids. She had a difficult father, a man who drank far too much, and frankly didn’t think that women should be educated.
And yet this young girl, pretty and shy, was driven, was bright, was inquisitive, and she became the first person in her family ever to go to college. In 1956, my mom, Eleanor, graduated from Rice University with a degree in math and became a pioneering computer programmer in the 1950s and 1960s.
(APPLAUSE)
Imagine a teenage boy, not much younger than many of you here today, growing up in Cuba. Jet black hair, skinny as a rail.
(LAUGHTER)
Involved in student council, and yet Cuba was not at a peaceful time. The dictator, Batista, was corrupt, he was oppressive. And this teenage boy joins a revolution. He joins a revolution against Batista, he begins fighting with other teenagers to free Cuba from the dictator. This boy at age 17 finds himself thrown in prison, finds himself tortured, beaten. And then at age 18, he flees Cuba, he comes to America.
Imagine for a second the hope that was in his heart as he rode that ferry boat across to Key West, and got on a Greyhound bus to head to Austin, Texas to begin working, washing dishes, making 50 cents an hour, coming to the one land on earth that has welcomed so many millions.
When my dad came to America in 1957, he could not have imagined what lay in store for him. Imagine a young married couple, living together in the 1970s, neither one of them has a personal relationship with Jesus. They have a little boy and they are both drinking far too much. They are living a fast life.
When I was three, my father decided to leave my mother and me. We were living in Calgary at the time, he got on a plane and he flew back to Texas, and he decided he didn’t want to be married anymore and he didn’t want to be a father to his 3-year-old son. And yet when he was in Houston, a friend, a colleague from the oil and gas business invited him to a Bible study, invited him to Clay Road (ph) Baptist Church, and there my father gave his life to Jesus Christ.
(APPLAUSE)
And God transformed his heart. And he drove to the airport, he bough a plane ticket, and he flew back to be with my mother and me.
(APPLAUSE)
There are people who wonder if faith is real. I can tell you, in my family there’s not a second of doubt, because were it not for the transformative love of Jesus Christ, I would have been saved and I would have been raised by a single mom without my father in the household.
Imagine another little girl living in Africa, in Kenya and Nigeria. That’s a diverse crowd.
(LAUGHTER)
Playing with kids, they spoke Swahili, she spoke English. Coming back to California.
(APPLAUSE)
Where her parents who had been missionaries in Africa raised her on the Central Coast. She starts a small business when she’s in grade school baking bread. She calls it Heidi’s Bakery. She and her brother compete baking bread. They bake thousands of loaves of bread and go to the local apple orchard where they sell the bread to people coming to pick apples. She goes on to a career in business, excelling and rising to the highest pinnacles, and then Heidi becomes my wife and my very best friend in the world.
(APPLAUSE)
Heidi becomes an incredible mom to our two precious little girls, Caroline and Catherine, the joys and loves of our life.
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Imagine another teenage boy being raised in Houston, hearing stories from his dad about prison and torture in Cuba, hearing stories about how fragile liberty is, beginning to study the United States Constitution, learning about the incredible protections we have in this country that protect the God-given liberty of every American. Experiencing challenges at home.
In the 1980s, oil prices crater and his parents business go bankrupt. Heading off to school over a thousand miles away from home, in a place where he knew nobody, where he was alone and scared, and his parents going through bankruptcy meant there was no financial support at home, so at the age of 17, he went to get two jobs to help pay his way through school.
He took over $100,000 in school loans, loans I suspect a lot of ya’ll can relate to, loans that I’ll point out I just paid off a few years ago.
(APPLAUSE)
These are all of our stories. These are who we are as Americans.
And yet, for so many Americans, the promise of America seems more and more distant. What is the promise of America? The idea that -- the revolutionary idea that this country was founded upon, which is that our rights don’t come from man. They come from God Almighty.
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And that the purpose of the Constitution, as Thomas Jefferson put it, is to serve as chains to bind the mischief of government.
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The incredible opportunity of the American dream, what has enabled millions of people from all over the world to come to America with nothing and to achieve anything. And then the American exceptionalism that has made this nation a clarion voice for freedom in the world, a shining city on a hill.
That’s the promise of America. That is what makes this nation an indispensable nation, a unique nation in the history of the world.
And yet, so many fear that that promise is today unattainable. So many fear it is slipping away from our hands.
I want to talk to you this morning about reigniting the promise of America: 240 years ago on this very day, a 38-year-old lawyer named Patrick Henry...
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... stood up just a hundred miles from here in Richmond, Virginia...
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... and said, “Give me liberty or give me death.”
(APPLAUSE) I want to ask each of you to imagine, imagine millions of courageous conservatives, all across America, rising up together to say in unison “we demand our liberty.”
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Today, roughly half of born again Christians aren’t voting. They’re staying home. Imagine instead millions of people of faith all across America coming out to the polls and voting our values.
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Today millions of young people are scared, worried about the future, worried about what the future will hold. Imagine millions of young people coming together and standing together, saying “we will stand for liberty.”
(APPLAUSE)
Think just how different the world would be. Imagine instead of economic stagnation, booming economic growth.
(APPLAUSE)
Instead of small businesses going out of business in record numbers, imagine small businesses growing and prospering. Imagine young people coming out of school with four, five, six job offers.
(APPLAUSE)
Imagine innovation thriving on the Internet as government regulators and tax collectors are kept at bay and more and more opportunity is created.
(APPLAUSE)
Imagine America finally becoming energy self-sufficient as millions and millions of high-paying jobs are created.
(APPLAUSE)
Five years ago today, the president signed Obamacare into law.
AUDIENCE: Boo.
Within hours, Liberty University went to court filing a lawsuit to stop that failed law.
(APPLAUSE)
Instead of the joblessness, instead of the millions forced into part-time work, instead of the millions who’ve lost their health insurance, lost their doctors, have faced skyrocketing health insurance premiums, imagine in 2017 a new president signing legislation repealing every word of Obamacare.
(APPLAUSE)
Imagine health care reform that keeps government out of the way between you and your doctor and that makes health insurance personal and portable and affordable.
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Instead of a tax code that crushes innovation, that imposes burdens on families struggling to make ends met, imagine a simple flat tax...
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... that lets every American fill out his or her taxes on a postcard.
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Imagine abolishing the IRS.
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Instead of the lawlessness and the president’s unconstitutional executive amnesty, imagine a president that finally, finally, finally secures the borders.
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And imagine a legal immigration system that welcomes and celebrates those who come to achieve the American dream.
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Instead of a federal government that wages an assault on our religious liberty, that goes after Hobby Lobby, that goes after the Little Sisters of the Poor, that goes after Liberty University, imagine a federal government that stands for the First Amendment rights of every American.
(APPLAUSE)
Instead of a federal government that works to undermine our values, imagine a federal government that works to defend the sanctity of human life...
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... and to uphold the sacrament of marriage.
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Instead of a government that works to undermine our Second Amendment rights, that seeks to ban our ammunition...
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... imagine a federal government that protects the right to keep and bear arms of all law-abiding Americans.
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Instead of a government that seizes your e-mails and your cell phones, imagine a federal government that protected the privacy rights of every American.
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Instead of a federal government that seeks to dictate school curriculum through Common Core...
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... imagine repealing every word of Common Core.
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Imagine embracing school choice as the civil rights issue of the next generation...
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... that every single child, regardless of race, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of wealth or ZIP Code, every child in America has the right to a quality education.
(APPLAUSE)
And that’s true from all of the above, whether is public schools, or charter schools, or private schools, or Christian schools, or parochial schools, or home schools, every child.
(APPLAUSE)
Instead of a president who boycotts Prime Minister Netanyahu, imagine a president who stands unapologetically with the nation of Israel.
(APPLAUSE)
Instead of a president who seeks to go to the United Nations to end-run Congress and the American people...
AUDIENCE MEMBER: That’s horrible.
CRUZ: ... imagine a president who says “I will honor the Constitution, and under no circumstances will Iran be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon.”
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Imagine a president who says “We will stand up and defeat radical Islamic terrorism...”
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“... and we will call it by its name.”
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AUDIENCE MEMBER: That’s right.
CRUZ: “We will defend the United States of America.”
(APPLAUSE)
Now, all of these seem difficult, indeed to some they may seem unimaginable, and yet if you look in the history of our country, imagine it’s 1775, and you and I were sitting there in Richmond listening to Patrick Henry say give me liberty or give me death.
Imagine it’s 1776 and we were watching the 54 signers of the Declaration of Independence stand together and pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to igniting the promise of America.
Imagine it was 1777 and we were watching General Washington as he lost battle, after battle, after battle in the freezing cold as his soldiers with no shoes were dying, fighting for freedom against the most powerful army in the world. That, too, seemed unimaginable.
Imagine it’s 1933 and we were listening to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tell America at a time of crushing depression, at a time of a gathering storm abroad, that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Imagine it’s 1979 and you and I were listening to Ronald Reagan.
(APPLAUSE)
And he was telling us that we would cut the top marginal tax rates from 70 percent all the way down to 28 percent, that we would go from crushing stagnation to booming economic growth, to millions being lifted out of poverty and into prosperity abundance. That the very day that he was sworn in, our hostages who were languishing in Iran would be released. And that within a decade we would win the Cold War and tear the Berlin Wall to the ground.
That would have seemed unimaginable, and yet, with the grace of God, that’s exactly what happened.
(APPLAUSE)
From the dawn of this country, at every stage America has enjoyed God’s providential blessing. Over and over again, when we face impossible odds, the American people rose to the challenge. You know, compared to that, repealing Obamacare and abolishing the IRS ain’t all that tough.
(LAUGHTER)
The power of the American people when we rise up and stand for liberty knows no bounds.
(APPLAUSE)
If you’re ready to join a grassroots army across this nation, coming together and standing for liberty, I’m going to ask you to break a rule here today and to take out your cell phones, and to text the word constitution to the number 33733. You can also text imagine. We’re versatile.
Once again, text constitution to 33733. God’s blessing has been on America from the very beginning of this nation, and I believe God isn’t done with America yet.
(APPLAUSE)
I believe in you. I believe in the power of millions of courageous conservatives rising up to reignite the promise of America, and that is why today I am announcing that I’m running for president of the United States.
(APPLAUSE)
It is a time for truth. It is a time for liberty. It is a time to reclaim the Constitution of the United States.
(APPLAUSE)
I am honored to stand with each and every one of you courageous conservatives as we come together to reclaim the promise of America, to reclaim the mandate, the hope and opportunity for our children and our children’s children. We stand together for liberty.
(APPLAUSE)
CRUZ: This is our fight. The answer will not come from Washington. It will come only from the men and women across this country, from men and women, from people of faith, from lovers of liberty, from people who respect the Constitution.
It will only come as it has come at every other time of challenge in this country, when the American people stand together and say we will get back to the principles that have made this country great. We will get back and restore that shining city on a hill that is the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you and God bless you.
There were lots of jabs at the POTUS of course and also some at Rand Paul. But it was all about religion. BTW, it was mandatory that the students attended the speech or they would be faced with a $10 fine. Mat Lewis says that Cruz used the word imagine 38 times. (there were reports that he used it 40 times).
Hilary Clinton spoke at the center for American Progress yesterday. It was labeld Expanding Opportunity in America’s Urban Areas amnd here were the particulars that I posted at the Sustainable Action Network (SAN) web site last week:
Featured guests:
Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Secretary of State
Lee Saunders, President, AFSCME
Neera Tanden, President, Center for American Progress
Distinguished panelists:
Julián Castro, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Aja Brown, Mayor of Compton, California
Wade Henderson, President and CEO, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
Glenn Hutchins, co-founder, SilverLake
Bruce Katz, Vice President and Director, Metropolitan Policy Program and The Adeline M. and Alfred I. Johnson Chair in Urban and Metropolitan Policy, Brookings
Janet Murguía, President and CEO, National Council of La Raza
Dixon Slingerland, Executive Director, Youth Policy Institute, Los Angeles, CA
Randi Weingarten, President, AFT
Beth Williams, President and CEO, Roxbury Technology, LLC
Last night, Hilary spoke at the Journalism for the Press event. She poked fun at the email controversay which is actually quite good to do. But it was all but a speech by a candidate. Lanhee Chin called it awkward. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joked on Monday about her famously contentious relationship with the press and her private email account.
Just weeks before Clinton is set to make her 2016 presidential candidacy official, she appeared at dinner honoring longtime Washington Post correspondent Dan Balz, the winner of the Robin Toner Prize, an award from Syracuse University for political reporters. “An evening with a room full of political reporters,” Clinton quipped after taking the stage, “I thought to myself, what could possibly go wrong?” In an understatement, she added, “My relationship with the press has been at times, shall we say, complicated.”
“I am all about new beginnings,” she said. “A new grandchild. A new hairstyle. A new email account. A new relationship with the press,” she added. “No more secrecy, no more zone of privacy … After all what good did that do for me?” Clinton praised Toner, the former New York Times corespondent who covered her husband’s 1992 presidential campaign and died in 2008, saying that in a fractured and more ideological media environment, “We need more Robin Toners.” “We rely even more on reporters to try to get us out of the echo chambers we all inhabit,” she said. “We need more than ever smart, fair-minded journalists.” Clinton received a standing ovation from the journalist-heavy crowd.
And, here is the story we wrote last night or yesterday afternoon (It was our top story for most of the day) at Sunset Daily (Yahoo/Reuters) about the UVA situation: Police in Charlottesville, Va., say they found no evidence to support claims by a woman who said she was gang raped at the University of Virginia in 2012 — an explosive allegation that gained national attention when it was reported by Rolling Stone last fall.
"I went through what I imagine thousands of other women have felt," Jolie, 39, writes. "I told myself to stay calm, to be strong, and that I had no reason to think I wouldn't live to see my children grow up and to meet my grandchildren." Jolie called her husband, Brad Pitt, who was on a plane within hours. "The beautiful thing about such moments in life is that there is so much clarity. You know what you live for and what matters. It is polarizing, and it is peaceful," the mother of six writes. Keep up with Angelina Jolie in the pages of PEOPLE Magazine by subscribing now.
That same day Jolie went to see the surgeon who had treated her mother Marcheline, who died in 2007 of ovarian cancer. "She teared up when she saw me: 'You look just like her,' " Jolie writes. "I broke down." She waited another five days for test results that would reveal whether there was cancer somewhere in her body. "I passed those five days in a haze, attending my children's soccer game, and working to stay calm and focused."
Finally the results came and she learned that the tumor test was negative. "I was full of happiness, although the radioactive tracer meant I couldn't hug my children," she writes. "There was still a chance of early stage cancer, but that was minor compared with a full-blown tumor. To my relief, I still had the option of removing my ovaries and fallopian tubes and I chose to do it." It was no small decision on her part because removing her ovaries would push her into forced menopause. Jolie, who carries the BRCA1 gene mutation that predisposes her to cancer and prompted her to have a double mastectomy in 2013, stresses in the op-ed that the decision she came to is not for everyone. "The most important thing is to learn about the options and choose what is right for you personally," she writes.
The actress adds that she had been planning on having the procedure at some point in the future because her doctors had recommended preventative surgery about a decade before the earliest onset of cancer in her female relatives. "My mother's ovarian cancer was diagnosed when she was 49. I'm 39," she writes. So last week Jolie had "a laparoscopic bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy." The surgery revealed a small benign tumor on one ovary but no signs of cancer in the other tissues. She chose to keep her uterus because there is no history of uterine cancer in her family. She now wears a small clear patch that delivers bio-identical estrogen and has a progesterone IUD inserted in her uterus that will help her maintain a hormonal balance.
"Regardless of the hormone replacements I'm taking, I am now in menopause," she acknowledges. "I will not be able to have any more children, and I expect some physical changes. But I feel at ease with whatever will come, not because I am strong but because this is a part of life. It is nothing to be feared." Jolie says that having the surgery has not removed all risk: "The fact is I remain prone to cancer." She writes that she is looking for natural ways to strengthen her immune system. "I feel feminine, and grounded in the choices I am making for myself and my family," she continues. "I know my children will never have to say, 'Mom died of ovarian cancer.' "
Breaking News is that there has been an airline crach in the French Alps. Over 140 people were on board the plane. Its a German Airliner. Airbus A320 crash: German Wings flight 'down in southern France'. An Airbus A320 operated by the German Wings airline has crashed in southern France, according to reports. The plane was travelling between Barcelona and Dusseldorf when it came down in the French Alps near Digne, according to the AFP News Agency.There were conflicting early reports of the number of passengers on the plane, which is believed to have a capacity of 174. Le Monde reported that 142 passengers and six crew were on board at the time. That is indeed horrible news to break this morning.
No Survivals are expected and so I'll post this recap now because I think most of the show will be about this tragedy. Stay in Touch!
Damn. They are posting pictures from the Dusseldorf airport which hit me hard. I am in tears for some reason watching the reactions from the people that lost their loved ones, friends and family members, etc. That is hard to view. Because put yourself in that situation where you are waiting for people to arrive and then boom, you get that news. Heartbreaking...This story begins for us this morning after a long half an hour or so before the breaking news hit the panel. I honestly never heard of this type of airline ever crashing. Let alone in mid air at 38K feet. Which plummeted down to 6K in seconds or within a minute is really telling. Something went very bad. Actually, what am I saying because the pilot reported great distress while in mid air and before the unfortunate crash into the French Alps. Which is going to be hard to get to as far as grabbing everyone and getting at the site. I know there was debris spread out on the ground. I am not sure how far from the crash or if it were a part of the crash. As Mika just reported to us, there are three narratives which i guess is why i am confused here and she is basically repeating what I just said even before I posted it. So, I am not alone in thinking this way. Tom Costello just reported that he got information that the distress call was put in with a code by the pilot. It could have feasibly only been a data transmittal and not some voice or person yelling mayday, mayday (so to speak, not literally) which is what I had initially thought. The plane could have went down in the Swiss Alps. I thought or assumed it was in the French Alps. Sorry.
This first story is a great one. Peter Weber from the WSJ (Wall Street Journal) reports that Israel reportedly spied on Iran talks, leaked details to Congress. Like I said just now. That is brilliant stuff that Israeli intelligence was eavesdropping on closed-door nuclear negotiations between Iran and the U.S. and other world powers, then passing the classified information along to the U.S. Congress to try and pre-emptively scuttle the deal, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing "interviews with more than a dozen current and former U.S. and Israeli diplomats, intelligence officials, policymakers, and lawmakers."
The White House, which learned of the espionage early on in the talks, was more upset about Israel using selected bits of purloined information to try and undermine the sensitive nuclear negotiations than the actual spying, explains the Journal's Adam Entous:
The U.S. and Israel, longtime allies who routinely swap information on security threats, sometimes operate behind the scenes like spy-versus-spy rivals. The White House has largely tolerated Israeli snooping on U.S. policymakers — a posture Israel takes when the tables are turned. The White House discovered the operation, in fact, when U.S. intelligence agencies spying on Israel intercepted communications among Israeli officials that carried details the U.S. believed could have come only from access to the confidential talks, officials briefed on the matter said. A senior official in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office denied that Israel spied directly on the U.S., but "U.S. officials said Israel has long topped the list of countries that aggressively spy on the U.S., along with China, Russia, and France," Entous reports. "The U.S. expends more counterintelligence resources fending off Israeli spy operations than any other close ally, U.S. officials said." Read the entire fascinating look at the Israel-U.S. spying game at The Wall Street Journal.
Obama is indeed taking the heat for all of this happening. Yesterday, someone had to add into the conversation that there are five allies and five different countries involved in the talks and yet you would never know it. Honestly, you cannot make this up. If you even made some joke about it, it would be laughed at and I am almost positive John Heilman laughed too. White House chief of staff sates that 50 years of Israeli occupation must end. The U.S. cannot pretend Netanyahu didn't say no Palestinian state would be established on his watch, Denis McDonough tells J Street conference in Washington. White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough made it clear Monday that the crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations over the issue of a Palestinian state has not dissipated, despite efforts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to clarify remarks he made late in the election campaign that no such state would be established on his watch.
“We cannot simply pretend that those comments were never made,” McDonough told the J Street conference in Washington, whose leftist audience received his remarks enthusiastically. He also warned Israel’s next government not to consider unilateral annexation of any West Bank territory, saying it would “be both wrong and illegal,” and that America would strenuously object.
“Israel cannot maintain military control of another people indefinitely,” he said. “An occupation that has lasted for almost 50 years must end.” He denied claims that the administration’s reevaluation of its approach to the peace process stemmed from U.S. President Barack Obama’s “personal pique” with Netanyahu, but he described Netanyahu’s remarks before the election as “troubling.” McDonough called into question Netanyahu’s sincerity regarding the two-state solution.
“After the election, the prime minister said that he had not changed his position, but for many in Israel and in the international community, such contradictory comments call into question his commitment to a two-state solution, as did his suggestion that the construction of settlements has a strategic purpose of dividing Palestinian communities and his claim that conditions in the larger Middle East must be more stable before a Palestinian state can be established,” he said. “We cannot simply pretend that those comments were never made, or that they don’t raise questions about the prime minister’s commitment to achieving peace through direct negotiations.”
McDonough did not address the possibility that the focus of the peace process would move to the United Nations – which may indicate a softening of that position compared to what was said immediately after last week’s election results became known - but said that Obama would “never stop working for a two-state solution,” despite the difficulties. He also detailed what the U.S. believes the arrangements would be: borders based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, security arrangements, and a “sovereign and sustainable” Palestinian state.
In what seems like wishful thinking given the presumed makeup of the next government, McDonough said the United States expects it to “to match words with actions and policies that demonstrate a genuine commitment to a two-state solution.” In an unusual move, McDonough also warned against any unilateral annexation of lands in the West Bank, saying it “would be both wrong and illegal,” that America would never support it, “and it’s unlikely Israel’s other friends would either. It would only contribute to Israel’s isolation.”
McDonough also described J Street, which is ostracized by much of the American Jewish establishment, as the White House’s “partner” in advancing the peace process and the two-state solution.
Mika just said something about (John) Heilman laughing because no one knows what to say about it. And, someone named Adam evidently wrote up the story. I thought it was done by Peter Weber. There is a lot of damage between the two admin's and man are we working hard to make it happen. We meaning everyone. (John) Boehner did invite Netanyahu behind Obama's administration backs.
Anyway, here is a complete transcript of Ted Cruz’s address at Liberty University in which he officially announced his 2016 presidential bid.
CRUZ: Good to see you.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you. (APPLAUSE)
Thank you so much, President Falwell. God bless Liberty University.
(APPLAUSE)
I am thrilled to join you today at the largest Christian university in the world.
(APPLAUSE)
Today I want to talk with you about the promise of America.
Imagine your parents when they were children. Imagine a little girl growing up in Wilmington, Delaware during World War II, the daughter of Irish and Italian Catholic family, working class. Her uncle ran numbers in Wilmington. She grew up with dozens of cousins because her mom was the second youngest of 17 kids. She had a difficult father, a man who drank far too much, and frankly didn’t think that women should be educated.
And yet this young girl, pretty and shy, was driven, was bright, was inquisitive, and she became the first person in her family ever to go to college. In 1956, my mom, Eleanor, graduated from Rice University with a degree in math and became a pioneering computer programmer in the 1950s and 1960s.
(APPLAUSE)
Imagine a teenage boy, not much younger than many of you here today, growing up in Cuba. Jet black hair, skinny as a rail.
(LAUGHTER)
Involved in student council, and yet Cuba was not at a peaceful time. The dictator, Batista, was corrupt, he was oppressive. And this teenage boy joins a revolution. He joins a revolution against Batista, he begins fighting with other teenagers to free Cuba from the dictator. This boy at age 17 finds himself thrown in prison, finds himself tortured, beaten. And then at age 18, he flees Cuba, he comes to America.
Imagine for a second the hope that was in his heart as he rode that ferry boat across to Key West, and got on a Greyhound bus to head to Austin, Texas to begin working, washing dishes, making 50 cents an hour, coming to the one land on earth that has welcomed so many millions.
When my dad came to America in 1957, he could not have imagined what lay in store for him. Imagine a young married couple, living together in the 1970s, neither one of them has a personal relationship with Jesus. They have a little boy and they are both drinking far too much. They are living a fast life.
When I was three, my father decided to leave my mother and me. We were living in Calgary at the time, he got on a plane and he flew back to Texas, and he decided he didn’t want to be married anymore and he didn’t want to be a father to his 3-year-old son. And yet when he was in Houston, a friend, a colleague from the oil and gas business invited him to a Bible study, invited him to Clay Road (ph) Baptist Church, and there my father gave his life to Jesus Christ.
(APPLAUSE)
And God transformed his heart. And he drove to the airport, he bough a plane ticket, and he flew back to be with my mother and me.
(APPLAUSE)
There are people who wonder if faith is real. I can tell you, in my family there’s not a second of doubt, because were it not for the transformative love of Jesus Christ, I would have been saved and I would have been raised by a single mom without my father in the household.
Imagine another little girl living in Africa, in Kenya and Nigeria. That’s a diverse crowd.
(LAUGHTER)
Playing with kids, they spoke Swahili, she spoke English. Coming back to California.
(APPLAUSE)
Where her parents who had been missionaries in Africa raised her on the Central Coast. She starts a small business when she’s in grade school baking bread. She calls it Heidi’s Bakery. She and her brother compete baking bread. They bake thousands of loaves of bread and go to the local apple orchard where they sell the bread to people coming to pick apples. She goes on to a career in business, excelling and rising to the highest pinnacles, and then Heidi becomes my wife and my very best friend in the world.
(APPLAUSE)
Heidi becomes an incredible mom to our two precious little girls, Caroline and Catherine, the joys and loves of our life.
(APPLAUSE)
Imagine another teenage boy being raised in Houston, hearing stories from his dad about prison and torture in Cuba, hearing stories about how fragile liberty is, beginning to study the United States Constitution, learning about the incredible protections we have in this country that protect the God-given liberty of every American. Experiencing challenges at home.
In the 1980s, oil prices crater and his parents business go bankrupt. Heading off to school over a thousand miles away from home, in a place where he knew nobody, where he was alone and scared, and his parents going through bankruptcy meant there was no financial support at home, so at the age of 17, he went to get two jobs to help pay his way through school.
He took over $100,000 in school loans, loans I suspect a lot of ya’ll can relate to, loans that I’ll point out I just paid off a few years ago.
(APPLAUSE)
These are all of our stories. These are who we are as Americans.
And yet, for so many Americans, the promise of America seems more and more distant. What is the promise of America? The idea that -- the revolutionary idea that this country was founded upon, which is that our rights don’t come from man. They come from God Almighty.
(APPLAUSE)
And that the purpose of the Constitution, as Thomas Jefferson put it, is to serve as chains to bind the mischief of government.
(APPLAUSE)
The incredible opportunity of the American dream, what has enabled millions of people from all over the world to come to America with nothing and to achieve anything. And then the American exceptionalism that has made this nation a clarion voice for freedom in the world, a shining city on a hill.
That’s the promise of America. That is what makes this nation an indispensable nation, a unique nation in the history of the world.
And yet, so many fear that that promise is today unattainable. So many fear it is slipping away from our hands.
I want to talk to you this morning about reigniting the promise of America: 240 years ago on this very day, a 38-year-old lawyer named Patrick Henry...
(APPLAUSE)
... stood up just a hundred miles from here in Richmond, Virginia...
(APPLAUSE)
... and said, “Give me liberty or give me death.”
(APPLAUSE) I want to ask each of you to imagine, imagine millions of courageous conservatives, all across America, rising up together to say in unison “we demand our liberty.”
(APPLAUSE)
Today, roughly half of born again Christians aren’t voting. They’re staying home. Imagine instead millions of people of faith all across America coming out to the polls and voting our values.
(APPLAUSE)
Today millions of young people are scared, worried about the future, worried about what the future will hold. Imagine millions of young people coming together and standing together, saying “we will stand for liberty.”
(APPLAUSE)
Think just how different the world would be. Imagine instead of economic stagnation, booming economic growth.
(APPLAUSE)
Instead of small businesses going out of business in record numbers, imagine small businesses growing and prospering. Imagine young people coming out of school with four, five, six job offers.
(APPLAUSE)
Imagine innovation thriving on the Internet as government regulators and tax collectors are kept at bay and more and more opportunity is created.
(APPLAUSE)
Imagine America finally becoming energy self-sufficient as millions and millions of high-paying jobs are created.
(APPLAUSE)
Five years ago today, the president signed Obamacare into law.
AUDIENCE: Boo.
Within hours, Liberty University went to court filing a lawsuit to stop that failed law.
(APPLAUSE)
Instead of the joblessness, instead of the millions forced into part-time work, instead of the millions who’ve lost their health insurance, lost their doctors, have faced skyrocketing health insurance premiums, imagine in 2017 a new president signing legislation repealing every word of Obamacare.
(APPLAUSE)
Imagine health care reform that keeps government out of the way between you and your doctor and that makes health insurance personal and portable and affordable.
(APPLAUSE)
Instead of a tax code that crushes innovation, that imposes burdens on families struggling to make ends met, imagine a simple flat tax...
(APPLAUSE)
... that lets every American fill out his or her taxes on a postcard.
(APPLAUSE)
Imagine abolishing the IRS.
(APPLAUSE)
Instead of the lawlessness and the president’s unconstitutional executive amnesty, imagine a president that finally, finally, finally secures the borders.
(APPLAUSE)
And imagine a legal immigration system that welcomes and celebrates those who come to achieve the American dream.
(APPLAUSE)
Instead of a federal government that wages an assault on our religious liberty, that goes after Hobby Lobby, that goes after the Little Sisters of the Poor, that goes after Liberty University, imagine a federal government that stands for the First Amendment rights of every American.
(APPLAUSE)
Instead of a federal government that works to undermine our values, imagine a federal government that works to defend the sanctity of human life...
(APPLAUSE)
... and to uphold the sacrament of marriage.
(APPLAUSE)
Instead of a government that works to undermine our Second Amendment rights, that seeks to ban our ammunition...
(APPLAUSE)
... imagine a federal government that protects the right to keep and bear arms of all law-abiding Americans.
(APPLAUSE)
Instead of a government that seizes your e-mails and your cell phones, imagine a federal government that protected the privacy rights of every American.
(APPLAUSE)
Instead of a federal government that seeks to dictate school curriculum through Common Core...
(APPLAUSE)
... imagine repealing every word of Common Core.
(APPLAUSE)
Imagine embracing school choice as the civil rights issue of the next generation...
(APPLAUSE)
... that every single child, regardless of race, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of wealth or ZIP Code, every child in America has the right to a quality education.
(APPLAUSE)
And that’s true from all of the above, whether is public schools, or charter schools, or private schools, or Christian schools, or parochial schools, or home schools, every child.
(APPLAUSE)
Instead of a president who boycotts Prime Minister Netanyahu, imagine a president who stands unapologetically with the nation of Israel.
(APPLAUSE)
Instead of a president who seeks to go to the United Nations to end-run Congress and the American people...
AUDIENCE MEMBER: That’s horrible.
CRUZ: ... imagine a president who says “I will honor the Constitution, and under no circumstances will Iran be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon.”
(APPLAUSE)
Imagine a president who says “We will stand up and defeat radical Islamic terrorism...”
(APPLAUSE)
“... and we will call it by its name.”
(APPLAUSE)
AUDIENCE MEMBER: That’s right.
CRUZ: “We will defend the United States of America.”
(APPLAUSE)
Now, all of these seem difficult, indeed to some they may seem unimaginable, and yet if you look in the history of our country, imagine it’s 1775, and you and I were sitting there in Richmond listening to Patrick Henry say give me liberty or give me death.
Imagine it’s 1776 and we were watching the 54 signers of the Declaration of Independence stand together and pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to igniting the promise of America.
Imagine it was 1777 and we were watching General Washington as he lost battle, after battle, after battle in the freezing cold as his soldiers with no shoes were dying, fighting for freedom against the most powerful army in the world. That, too, seemed unimaginable.
Imagine it’s 1933 and we were listening to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tell America at a time of crushing depression, at a time of a gathering storm abroad, that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Imagine it’s 1979 and you and I were listening to Ronald Reagan.
(APPLAUSE)
And he was telling us that we would cut the top marginal tax rates from 70 percent all the way down to 28 percent, that we would go from crushing stagnation to booming economic growth, to millions being lifted out of poverty and into prosperity abundance. That the very day that he was sworn in, our hostages who were languishing in Iran would be released. And that within a decade we would win the Cold War and tear the Berlin Wall to the ground.
That would have seemed unimaginable, and yet, with the grace of God, that’s exactly what happened.
(APPLAUSE)
From the dawn of this country, at every stage America has enjoyed God’s providential blessing. Over and over again, when we face impossible odds, the American people rose to the challenge. You know, compared to that, repealing Obamacare and abolishing the IRS ain’t all that tough.
(LAUGHTER)
The power of the American people when we rise up and stand for liberty knows no bounds.
(APPLAUSE)
If you’re ready to join a grassroots army across this nation, coming together and standing for liberty, I’m going to ask you to break a rule here today and to take out your cell phones, and to text the word constitution to the number 33733. You can also text imagine. We’re versatile.
Once again, text constitution to 33733. God’s blessing has been on America from the very beginning of this nation, and I believe God isn’t done with America yet.
(APPLAUSE)
I believe in you. I believe in the power of millions of courageous conservatives rising up to reignite the promise of America, and that is why today I am announcing that I’m running for president of the United States.
(APPLAUSE)
It is a time for truth. It is a time for liberty. It is a time to reclaim the Constitution of the United States.
(APPLAUSE)
I am honored to stand with each and every one of you courageous conservatives as we come together to reclaim the promise of America, to reclaim the mandate, the hope and opportunity for our children and our children’s children. We stand together for liberty.
(APPLAUSE)
CRUZ: This is our fight. The answer will not come from Washington. It will come only from the men and women across this country, from men and women, from people of faith, from lovers of liberty, from people who respect the Constitution.
It will only come as it has come at every other time of challenge in this country, when the American people stand together and say we will get back to the principles that have made this country great. We will get back and restore that shining city on a hill that is the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you and God bless you.
There were lots of jabs at the POTUS of course and also some at Rand Paul. But it was all about religion. BTW, it was mandatory that the students attended the speech or they would be faced with a $10 fine. Mat Lewis says that Cruz used the word imagine 38 times. (there were reports that he used it 40 times).
Hilary Clinton spoke at the center for American Progress yesterday. It was labeld Expanding Opportunity in America’s Urban Areas amnd here were the particulars that I posted at the Sustainable Action Network (SAN) web site last week:
Our nation’s urban centers are the engines of the U.S. economy, and in recent years, more Americans are moving to these communities. Despite the growing popularity of living in urban areas, these communities face a number of ongoing challenges, from housing and transportation to education and workforce accessibility. On Monday, March 23, at 10:00 am ET, the Center for American Progress and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME, will host a discussion on these issues with former Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton and an expert panel.
Featured guests:
Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Secretary of State
Lee Saunders, President, AFSCME
Neera Tanden, President, Center for American Progress
Distinguished panelists:
Julián Castro, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Aja Brown, Mayor of Compton, California
Wade Henderson, President and CEO, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
Glenn Hutchins, co-founder, SilverLake
Bruce Katz, Vice President and Director, Metropolitan Policy Program and The Adeline M. and Alfred I. Johnson Chair in Urban and Metropolitan Policy, Brookings
Janet Murguía, President and CEO, National Council of La Raza
Dixon Slingerland, Executive Director, Youth Policy Institute, Los Angeles, CA
Randi Weingarten, President, AFT
Beth Williams, President and CEO, Roxbury Technology, LLC
Last night, Hilary spoke at the Journalism for the Press event. She poked fun at the email controversay which is actually quite good to do. But it was all but a speech by a candidate. Lanhee Chin called it awkward. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joked on Monday about her famously contentious relationship with the press and her private email account.
Just weeks before Clinton is set to make her 2016 presidential candidacy official, she appeared at dinner honoring longtime Washington Post correspondent Dan Balz, the winner of the Robin Toner Prize, an award from Syracuse University for political reporters. “An evening with a room full of political reporters,” Clinton quipped after taking the stage, “I thought to myself, what could possibly go wrong?” In an understatement, she added, “My relationship with the press has been at times, shall we say, complicated.”
“I am all about new beginnings,” she said. “A new grandchild. A new hairstyle. A new email account. A new relationship with the press,” she added. “No more secrecy, no more zone of privacy … After all what good did that do for me?” Clinton praised Toner, the former New York Times corespondent who covered her husband’s 1992 presidential campaign and died in 2008, saying that in a fractured and more ideological media environment, “We need more Robin Toners.” “We rely even more on reporters to try to get us out of the echo chambers we all inhabit,” she said. “We need more than ever smart, fair-minded journalists.” Clinton received a standing ovation from the journalist-heavy crowd.
And, here is the story we wrote last night or yesterday afternoon (It was our top story for most of the day) at Sunset Daily (Yahoo/Reuters) about the UVA situation: Police in Charlottesville, Va., say they found no evidence to support claims by a woman who said she was gang raped at the University of Virginia in 2012 — an explosive allegation that gained national attention when it was reported by Rolling Stone last fall.
At a news conference Monday, Charlottesville Police Chief Timothy Longo said the woman, identified as “Jackie” by the magazine, refused to cooperate with police in their investigation. Longo said the case has been suspended, but he emphasized that it has not been closed. “There is no substantive basis to conclude that what was reported in that article happened,” Longo said. “That doesn’t mean something terrible didn’t happen to Jackie.”
The Nov. 19 article (“A Rape on Campus”) — in which writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely detailed Jackie’s alleged brutal rape by seven men at a 2012 Phi Kappa Psi party during her freshman year — prompted the police to launch an investigation and the fraternity to voluntarily suspend its operations.
But shortly after it was published, questions were raised about Jackie’s account. Rolling Stone initially stood behind Erdely’s reporting. But in December, the magazine issued an apology, saying there were “discrepancies” in Jackie’s story.
“In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced,” Rolling Stone Managing Editor Will Dana said in a statement. “We are taking this seriously and apologize to anyone who was affected by the story.” Erdely, who promised Jackie she would not interview the alleged attackers, relied on the accounts of the alleged victim and her friends. Dana admitted that was a mistake.
“We were trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault,” he wrote, “and now regret the decision to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account.”
Rolling Stone later enlisted the Columbia University graduate school of journalism to conduct an independent review of its editorial process. That review will be published in April. In an interview with Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric, Longo said the investigation was hampered by Jackie’s decision not to cooperate. “We would’ve loved to have had Jackie come in ... and tell us what happened,” Longo said, “so we can obtain justice ... even if the facts were different.” Ryan Duffin, a UVA student who was with Jackie the night of the attack, said that Jackie told him she was assaulted by five men — not seven — and that he urged her to report it.
“I wanted to go to the police immediately,” Duffin told Couric. “But she didn’t want to, so I and another friend just stay with her to make sure she’s OK.”
Duffin said that given Jackie’s condition the night of the alleged incident, “It’s difficult to think nothing happened.” Alex Pinkleton, a UVA student and advocate for sexual assault victims, said that she came to doubt Jackie’s story — but not her pain.
“The pain was real,” Pinkleton said. “I would not have supported her for that long if that wasn’t."
This has been the longest 36 minutes ever. There has been so much gone over in such a short period of time.
Michael Lewis is on now talking about the "rigged" financial "system." His Book Flash Boys is in stores now.
Also, People magazine reports that after having a preventive double mastectomy two years ago to reduce her risks of getting cancer, Angelina Jolie – who lost her mother, grandmother and aunt to the disease – got a call from her doctor two weeks ago with results from a recent blood test. As she writes in a New York Times op-ed piece published early Tuesday, the doctor told her that the test showed markers that could be a sign of early cancer. The Nov. 19 article (“A Rape on Campus”) — in which writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely detailed Jackie’s alleged brutal rape by seven men at a 2012 Phi Kappa Psi party during her freshman year — prompted the police to launch an investigation and the fraternity to voluntarily suspend its operations.
But shortly after it was published, questions were raised about Jackie’s account. Rolling Stone initially stood behind Erdely’s reporting. But in December, the magazine issued an apology, saying there were “discrepancies” in Jackie’s story.
“In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced,” Rolling Stone Managing Editor Will Dana said in a statement. “We are taking this seriously and apologize to anyone who was affected by the story.” Erdely, who promised Jackie she would not interview the alleged attackers, relied on the accounts of the alleged victim and her friends. Dana admitted that was a mistake.
“We were trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault,” he wrote, “and now regret the decision to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account.”
Rolling Stone later enlisted the Columbia University graduate school of journalism to conduct an independent review of its editorial process. That review will be published in April. In an interview with Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric, Longo said the investigation was hampered by Jackie’s decision not to cooperate. “We would’ve loved to have had Jackie come in ... and tell us what happened,” Longo said, “so we can obtain justice ... even if the facts were different.” Ryan Duffin, a UVA student who was with Jackie the night of the attack, said that Jackie told him she was assaulted by five men — not seven — and that he urged her to report it.
“I wanted to go to the police immediately,” Duffin told Couric. “But she didn’t want to, so I and another friend just stay with her to make sure she’s OK.”
Duffin said that given Jackie’s condition the night of the alleged incident, “It’s difficult to think nothing happened.” Alex Pinkleton, a UVA student and advocate for sexual assault victims, said that she came to doubt Jackie’s story — but not her pain.
“The pain was real,” Pinkleton said. “I would not have supported her for that long if that wasn’t."
This has been the longest 36 minutes ever. There has been so much gone over in such a short period of time.
Michael Lewis is on now talking about the "rigged" financial "system." His Book Flash Boys is in stores now.
"I went through what I imagine thousands of other women have felt," Jolie, 39, writes. "I told myself to stay calm, to be strong, and that I had no reason to think I wouldn't live to see my children grow up and to meet my grandchildren." Jolie called her husband, Brad Pitt, who was on a plane within hours. "The beautiful thing about such moments in life is that there is so much clarity. You know what you live for and what matters. It is polarizing, and it is peaceful," the mother of six writes. Keep up with Angelina Jolie in the pages of PEOPLE Magazine by subscribing now.
That same day Jolie went to see the surgeon who had treated her mother Marcheline, who died in 2007 of ovarian cancer. "She teared up when she saw me: 'You look just like her,' " Jolie writes. "I broke down." She waited another five days for test results that would reveal whether there was cancer somewhere in her body. "I passed those five days in a haze, attending my children's soccer game, and working to stay calm and focused."
Finally the results came and she learned that the tumor test was negative. "I was full of happiness, although the radioactive tracer meant I couldn't hug my children," she writes. "There was still a chance of early stage cancer, but that was minor compared with a full-blown tumor. To my relief, I still had the option of removing my ovaries and fallopian tubes and I chose to do it." It was no small decision on her part because removing her ovaries would push her into forced menopause. Jolie, who carries the BRCA1 gene mutation that predisposes her to cancer and prompted her to have a double mastectomy in 2013, stresses in the op-ed that the decision she came to is not for everyone. "The most important thing is to learn about the options and choose what is right for you personally," she writes.
The actress adds that she had been planning on having the procedure at some point in the future because her doctors had recommended preventative surgery about a decade before the earliest onset of cancer in her female relatives. "My mother's ovarian cancer was diagnosed when she was 49. I'm 39," she writes. So last week Jolie had "a laparoscopic bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy." The surgery revealed a small benign tumor on one ovary but no signs of cancer in the other tissues. She chose to keep her uterus because there is no history of uterine cancer in her family. She now wears a small clear patch that delivers bio-identical estrogen and has a progesterone IUD inserted in her uterus that will help her maintain a hormonal balance.
"Regardless of the hormone replacements I'm taking, I am now in menopause," she acknowledges. "I will not be able to have any more children, and I expect some physical changes. But I feel at ease with whatever will come, not because I am strong but because this is a part of life. It is nothing to be feared." Jolie says that having the surgery has not removed all risk: "The fact is I remain prone to cancer." She writes that she is looking for natural ways to strengthen her immune system. "I feel feminine, and grounded in the choices I am making for myself and my family," she continues. "I know my children will never have to say, 'Mom died of ovarian cancer.' "
Breaking News is that there has been an airline crach in the French Alps. Over 140 people were on board the plane. Its a German Airliner. Airbus A320 crash: German Wings flight 'down in southern France'. An Airbus A320 operated by the German Wings airline has crashed in southern France, according to reports. The plane was travelling between Barcelona and Dusseldorf when it came down in the French Alps near Digne, according to the AFP News Agency.There were conflicting early reports of the number of passengers on the plane, which is believed to have a capacity of 174. Le Monde reported that 142 passengers and six crew were on board at the time. That is indeed horrible news to break this morning.
No Survivals are expected and so I'll post this recap now because I think most of the show will be about this tragedy. Stay in Touch!
