Liberals...

On a tip from Ed Kilbane

Liberals...

The irony

But in did get a parting gift of $25 million.

The irony

Russia Bans Jehovah’s Witnesses, Calling It an Extremist Group

The pinnacle of cowardly stupidity. Why didn't they ban Islam?  How many Jehovah’s Witnesses killed their comrades compared to Muslims the last two decades? If you had a choice between a Jehovah’s Witness or a Muslim for a neighbor...guess I didn't have to ask. 

By ANDREW HIGGINSAPRIL 20, 2017

Jehovahs Witnesses gathered last month in a house in the village of Vorokhobino, north of Moscow, where they meet for services. 

MOSCOW — Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday declared Jehovah’s Witnesses, a Christian denomination that rejects violence, an extremist organization, banning the group from operating on Russian territory and putting its more than 170,000 Russian worshipers in the same category as Islamic State militants.

The ruling, which confirmed an order last month by the Justice Ministry that the denomination be “liquidated” — essentially eliminated or disbanded — had been widely expected. Russian courts rarely challenge government decisions, no matter what the evidence.

Viktor Zhenkov, a lawyer for the denomination, said Jehovah’s Witnesses would appeal the ruling. He said it had focused on the activities of the organization’s so-called administrative center, a complex of offices outside St. Petersburg, but also branded all of its nearly 400 regional branches as extremist.

“We consider this decision an act of political repression that is impermissible in contemporary Russia,” Mr. Zhenkov said in a telephone interview. “We will, of course, appeal.”

An initial appeal will be made to the Supreme Court’s appellate division, Mr. Zhenkov said, and if that fails, Jehovah’s Witnesses will take the case to the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg, France.

Hard-line followers of Russia’s dominant faith, the Orthodox Church, have lobbied for years to have Jehovah’s Witnesses outlawed or at least curbed as a heretical sect, but the main impetus for the current campaign to crush a Christian group active in Russia for more than a century seems to have come from the country’s increasingly assertive security apparatus.

Founded in the United States in the 19th century, Jehovah’s Witnesses has its worldwide headquarters in the United States and, along with all foreign-led groups outside the control of the state, is viewed with deep suspicion by Russia’s post-Soviet version of the KGB: the Federal Security Service, or F.S.B.

Summing up the Justice Ministry’s case against the denomination, the ministry’s representative, Svetlana Borisova, told the Supreme Court on Thursday that Jehovah’s Witnesses had shown “signs of extremist activity that represent a threat to the rights of citizens, social order and the security of society.”

During six days of hearings over two weeks, lawyers and witnesses for the religious group repeatedly dismissed the extremist allegation as absurd, arguing that reading the Bible and promoting its nonviolent message could in no way be construed as extremist.

Human Rights Watch, in a statement issued in Moscow, condemned the court ruling as “a serious breach of Russia’s obligations to respect and protect religious freedom.”

Rachel Denber, the human rights group’s deputy director for Europe and Central Asia, said the decision delivered “a terrible blow to freedom of religion and association in Russia.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses shuns political activity and has no record of even peaceful — never mind violent — hostility to the Russian authorities. But it has faced growing hostility from the state since President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia began his third term in 2012 and put the Orthodox Church at the center of his push to assert Russia as a great military and moral power.

The denomination suffered relentless persecution by the KGB during the Soviet era, and after more than a decade of relative peace following the collapse of Communism in 1991, it again became a target for official harassment under a 2002 anti-extremism law. That law makes it illegal for any group, other than the Orthodox Church and other traditional religious institutions, to proclaim itself as offering a true path to religious or political salvation.

Russia Bans Jehovah’s Witnesses, Calling It an Extremist Group

General Motors says Venezuela illegally seizes auto plant

This is the president of  Venezuela Nicolás Maduro a protégé of Chavez. You could say he is the Venezuelan Bernie Sanders. Proof that all the 'free stuff' has to be paid for by hook or by crook.

BTW...with Venezuela teetering on financial collapse what message does this latest 'acquisition' send to foreign investment? Venezuela is cutting its own throat. If you were the CEO of a large company after reading this article would you even consider opening a plant in Venezuela? 

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General Motors said on Wednesday that Venezuelan authorities had illegally seized its plant in the industrial hub of Valencia and vowed to "take all legal actions" to defend its rights.

The seizure comes amid a deepening economic crisis in leftist-led Venezuela that has already roiled many U.S. companies.

"Yesterday, GMV's (General Motors Venezolana) plant was unexpectedly taken by the public authorities, preventing normal operations. In addition, other assets of the company, such as vehicles, have been illegally taken from its facilities," the company said in a statement.

It said the seizure would cause irreparable damage to the company, its 2,678 workers, its 79 dealers and to its suppliers.

Venezuela's Information Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for information.

Venezuela's car industry has been in freefall, hit by a lack of raw materials stemming from complex currency controls and stagnant local production, and many plants are barely producing at all.

In early 2015, Ford Motor wrote off its investment in Venezuela when it took an $800 million pre-tax writedown.

The country's economic crisis has hurt many other U.S. companies, including food makers and pharmaceutical firms. A growing number are taking their Venezuelan operations out off their consolidated accounts.

Venezuela's government has taken over factories in the past. In 2014 the government announced the "temporary" takeover of two plants belonging to U.S. cleaning products maker Clorox which had left the country.

Venezuela faces around 20 arbitration cases over nationalizations under late leader Hugo Chavez.

General Motors says Venezuela illegally seizes auto plant

Barack Obama snaps photo of Michelle Obama on yacht

Washington (CNN) The Obamas are having the time of their post-White House lives.

 Why do you think this photo was taken from such a great distance?

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Former President Barack Obama snapped a photo of former first lady Michelle Obama as she posed on the top deck of a yacht where the couple and celebrity friends spent Friday morning off the island of Mo'orea, in the South Pacific.

The Obamas were vacationing with Bruce Springsteen, Tom Hanks and Oprah Winfrey and spent two hours aboard music mogul David Geffen's luxury yacht, the Rising Sun, before leaving Tahiti. They had been staying in French Polynesia for nearly a month.

So far, Obama's post-presidency life has been more glamorous than you can imagine.

In the past few months, his trips have included visiting California for some golf, a private island in the Caribbean -- where he kite-surfed with billionaire Richard Branson -- New York to take in a Broadway play, and then to dine with U2's Bono.

Barack Obama snaps photo of Michelle Obama on yacht