Peter Walker reports there was a memorial service for LaVoy Finicum today, in the place where he tried to grab his gun while being arrested, and was shot and killed by an Oregon cop. He overheard comments that “This is the shot that will be heard around the country,” and “This isn’t the end it’s only the beginning.”

Peter Walker

Freedom from or to what, one wonders. Freedom to grab a publicly owned wildlife refuge in order to graze cattle on it for free? Freedom to steal public land at gunpoint for personal profit? Freedom to resist arrest by shooting cops and FBI agents? Freedom to make the US into a failed state like Somalia?

Updating to add another photo:… Read the rest

North Korea is playing its funny games again.

North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Sunday carrying what it has said is a satellite, South Korea’s defense ministry said, in defiance of United Nations sanctions barring it from using ballistic missile technology.

The rocket was launched at 9:30 a.m. Sunday local time (7:30 p.m. ET), and South Korea was tacking it in flight, a South Korean military official said. “We have no information about any missile parts yet,” the official said.

A U.S. Defense official said the rocket was launched on a southern path over the Yellow Sea, and the trajectory indicated the rocket posed no threat to the U.S. or its allies. The launch vehicle appears to have

Here’s Shaista Gohir talking about the way Muslim women are shoved aside by men in the Labour party.

… Read the rest

The Press Association via the Guardian:

A women’s rights organisation has written to Jeremy Corbyn calling for an inquiry into allegations female Muslims were discriminated against and blocked from seeking office by male Labour councillors.

Muslim Women’s Network UK (MWNUK) urged the Labour leader to investigate “systematic misogyny displayed by significant numbers of Muslim male local councillors”.

The organisation claimed that the problem had been an “open secret” within Labour and accused the party of being “complicit at the highest levels”.

The Tories are not great either, but there are more Muslim councillors in Labour.

In her letter to Corbyn, she wrote: “As this is an open secret and has been going on for decades, we can only assume

In Dublin today:

Anti-Islam group Pegida launched its Irish branch at a rally outside the GPO today.

Pegida (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West) is a broad European network of loosely linked groups opposed to what they call the “Islamisation of Europe”.

Meanwhile, the ‘anti-racist coalition’ also held a counter demonstration outside the GPO in protest of Pegida.

And the gardaí broke up the demonstrations.

Some action pics from a NoPegida participant:

Cllr Michael O’Brien ‏@cllrmobrien4 hours ago
A great crowd turned up for the Anti-racism day of action at the GPO today! #NoPegida

Members of Pegida stopped from marching & then hiding inside a shop on North Earl Street #NoPegida

Crowds gathered around @RuthCoppingerTD

Why there is such a low reporting rate for rape and other sexual abuse, reason #947,859.

Media outlets do not have the right to publish the bikini-clad photo of one of the complainants in Jian Ghomeshi’s sexual assault trial, even with the woman’s face blurred, the judge in the case has ruled.

A lawyer representing seven major news organizations — including the CBC — sought access to a photo that the woman sent to Ghomeshi more than a year after he allegedly assaulted her.

The photo was presented as evidence, but was not shown to spectators in the courtroom. It was described as a shot of the woman in a red bikini on a beach.

Well we want to … Read the rest

What’s John Kerry doing bashing IS for being “apostates”?

The US secretary of state, John Kerry, sparked controversy on Tuesday after referring to Daesh as “apostates” while speaking in Rome. His unusual word choice did not go unnoticed, and it was not long before both Muslims and non-Muslim scholars, journalists and political commentators were voicing their opinions on why it was problematic.

“Daesh is in fact nothing more than a mixture of killers, of kidnappers, of criminals, of thugs, of adventurers, of smugglers and thieves,”  Kerry said. “And they are also above all apostates, people who have hijacked a great religion and lie about its real meaning and lie about its purpose and deceive people in order to fight for

ABC did a little rundown of people who get enormous speaking fees in July 2014.

Donald Trump led with $1.5 million.

“The Donald earned a staggering $1.5 million per speech at The Learning Annex’s ‘real estate wealth expos’ in 2006 and 2007,” according to Forbes. “Trump appeared at 17 seminars and collected this fee for each one.”

Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Timothy Geithner all came in at 200k.

W gets 150k.

Since leaving office, the former president has made more than $15 million in speaking fees, apparently charging between $100,000 and $150,000 per speech, according to Yahoo News.

Being president turns out to be a nice little earner.

Condoleezza Rice gets 150k. Larry Summers, 135. Al Gore and Sarah … Read the rest

Greg Grandin in The Nation takes a look at Hillary Clinton’s admiration for, of all people, Henry Kissinger.

Last night in the New Hampshire debate, Clinton thought to close her argument that she is the true progressive with this: “I was very flattered when Henry Kissinger said I ran the State Department better than anybody had run it in a long time.”

Henry Kissinger.

Let’s consider some of Kissinger’s achievements during his tenure as Richard Nixon’s top foreign policy maker. He (1) prolonged the Vietnam War for five pointless years, (2) illegally bombed Cambodia and Laos, (3) goaded Nixon to wiretap staffers and journalists, (4) bore responsibility for three genocides in Cambodia, East Timor, and Bangladesh, (5) urged Nixon to

A couple of Daily Mail reporters went to visit Roosh V and found him, scruffy and unappetizing, living in his mother’s basement. No not figuratively; literally.

Daryush ‘Roosh’ Valizadeh, 36, the self-proclaimed ‘King of Masculinity’ called police after receiving death threats from around the world and canceled a series of ‘tribal meetings’ in 45 countries set for this weekend.

I love those self-declared kings of something who are actually just dorks who spend too much time on Twitter.

In a highly-criticized blog he said that if a woman was raped on private property, it should be legal.

Today he told police that it was meant to be a satirical article and that he had written it in early 2015

And then in October CNN reported that Clinton said she won’t reinstate Glass-Seagall – saying also that she would do something “more comprehensive,” but that sounds to me like jam tomorrow.

Davenport, Iowa (CNN) Hillary Clinton on Tuesday dismissed the idea of reinstating a Depression-era banking law that has found champions in two of her Democratic opponents, setting up what will likely be a flashpoint in next week’s Democratic primary debate.

Asked by a voter in Iowa about reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act, a law that separated commercial and investment banks until its repeal under President Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton said that her Wall Street plan — which will be unveiled next week — would be “more comprehensive” than reinstating the

Hillary Clinton and Glass-Steagall.

Robert Reich discussed it last July:

Hillary Clinton won’t propose reinstating a bank break-up law known as the Glass-Steagall Act – at least according to Alan Blinder, an economist who has been advising Clinton’s campaign. “You’re not going to see Glass-Steagall,” Blinder saidafter her economic speech Monday in which she failed to mention it. Blinder said he had spoken to Clinton directly about Glass-Steagall.

This is a big mistake.

It’s a mistake politically because people who believe Hillary Clinton is still too close to Wall Street will not be reassured by her position on Glass-Steagall. Many will recall that her husband led the way to repealing Glass Steagall in 1999 at the request of

Amy Goodman talks to investigative reporter Lee Fang about Hillary Clinton’s extremely lucrative career of giving talks at big banks.

The Intercept’s Lee Fang recently questioned Hillary Clinton about her speeches for Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs, which paid her $675,000 for just three appearances. After a town hall in Manchester, New Hampshire, Fang asked Clinton if she would release the transcripts of her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs. Clinton laughed and turned away. Fang joins us to discuss Clinton’s Wall Street ties along with Ellen Chesler, a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and longtime Clinton supporter.

Hang on a second. She laughed. Why? What’s funny about it? Is that supposed to make us think it’s some kind … Read the rest

Congress is mad at Martin Shkreli, even the Republicans. I guess they don’t like it when capitalists make capitalism look bad?

Mr. Shkreli, who left Turing Pharmaceuticals, the drug company he started, after being indicted on federal securities fraud charges in December, repeatedly exercised his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination, angering various members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen the committee treated with such contempt,” Representative John L. Mica, a Florida Republican, said after Mr. Shkreli was excused and left the room.

Dude, he’s a successful entrepreneur. You’re just a politician.

The theatrics surrounding Mr. Shkreli’s appearance, which included his smirking at some remarks by committee members and calling

Naz Shah MP:

Today I participated the Westminster Hall debate – Domestic Violence (DV) against women. In this debate I drew attention to:

• DV against women is an issue for all of us and men especially
• A minority of men are perpetrators of DV but other men may know about situations and fail to challenge and or report
• Behind DV rest sexism and views of women as objects and in this day and age we need to support young people and adults what healthy relationships are and what it involves.
• DV has to become socially unacceptable and so I was proud to make mention of the White Ribbon Campaign.
• Some of the facts

It’s disgusting the way US politicians simply take corruption for granted.

MSNBC reports:

Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton struggled Wednesday night to answer a question about why she took more than $600,000 in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs in one year.

“Well, I don’t know. That’s what they offered,” she said when asked about the fees by CNN host Anderson Cooper in a forum televised by the network with less than a week away from the Granite State’s first-in-the-nation primary. Clinton had a lucrative turn on the paid speaking circuit after she stepped down as secretary of state, which rival Bernie Sanders has used as fodder against her.

That’s taken for granted, but it shouldn’t be. It’s as if being … Read the rest

So Roosh V canceled the whole thing, which seems to confirm what lots of people said, that the whole thing was just a scam to draw attention.

The founder of a group who has advocated legalising rape on private premises has cancelled plans for meetings following a widespread outcry.

Roosh V, whose real name is Daryush Valizadeh, 36, is the founder of Return Of Kings, a group for aspiring self-described “neo-masculinists”.

…

Mr Valizadeh made the announcement on his website: “I can no longer guarantee the safety or privacy of the men who want to attend on February 6, especially since most of the meet-ups can not be made private in time. While I can’t stop men

I took a little travel break to stroll the gardens at Villandry on streetview.

Wikimedia commons:

Jean-Christophe BENOIST

I did the same thing at Chambord the other day; it’s striking how different the settings are. Chambord is plunked down in the middle of a flat plain near the Loire, with nothing else around it, just fields and trees. It looks downright odd, this massive chateau in the middle of nothing.

I love this setting, with the village right at the end of the garden. I went down a street in the village before going to the gardens, a street that ends at that church you see sticking up. It’s a substantial village.… Read the rest