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Thursday, February 15, 2018
Wednesday, February 14, 2018
US to overtake Saudi Arabia, Russia to become top oil producer in 2019
The United States will overtake Saudi Arabia and Russia next year to become the world’s largest oil producer.
Surging output from its shale fields boosted output by 846,000 barrels per day in just the three months to November last year.
The country is on course to jump from third largest producer to global leader.
Making the prediction in a report on Tuesday, the International Energy Agency added: ‘All the indicators that suggest continued fast growth in the US are in perfect alignment.’
US producers have revolutionized their industry over the past decade, plundering shale rock and speeding up drilling techniques to become less dependent on foreign imports.
The IEA warned the increase in output would ramp up pressure on industry cartel Opec – of which the US is not a member.
Recent predictions suggest US output will grow by 8m barrels per day by 2025, the strongest growth in the history of crude markets.
Trump's election partly responsible for legendary gunmaker's demise: Experts
The "experts" say...what experts?
I swear to Christ whatever goes wrong it's Trump fault! Only this time he's 'partly responsible'.
What a bullshit story and of course it's from ABC. They devout one small paragraph to the REAL reason they're filing bankruptcy. A faulty trigger mechanism on Remington bolt-action rifles causes the gun to fire without pulling the trigger which resulted in a few deaths and injuries prompting a class action lawsuit costing millions. Take that away and they would not be filing for bankruptcy.
Trump had about as much responsibility for the downturn at Remington as he did for the BP oil spill. Email the CEO and ask him about the woes at Remington. I guarantee you he won't blame Trump.
BTW... Sandy Hook in the article blow?
The gun is responsible? Not the lunatic's mother who gave him access to guns? So if they ever find OJ's knife should the Brown and Goldman families file a lawsuit against the knife manufacturer?
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Daniel Acker/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesBolt action rifles sit on display in the Remington Arms Co. LLC booth on the exhibition floor of the 144th National Rifle Association (NRA) Annual Meetings and Exhibits at the Music City Center in Nashville, April 11, 2015.
For more than 200 years, Remington has been one of America's best-known gunmakers, a wild west throwback whose durable products have been favored by sportsmen as well as the military.
But on Monday, the North Carolina-based company announced it intends to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection due to massive debt.
"We will emerge from this process with a deleveraged balance sheet and ample liquidity, positioning Remington to compete more aggressively and to seize future growth opportunities," Anthony Acitelli, Remington's chief executive officer, said in a statement, adding that the "fundamentals of our core business remain strong."
Daniel Acker/Bloomberg/Getty ImagesThe Remington Arms Co. LLC booth stands on the exhibition floor of the 144th National Rifle Association (NRA) Annual Meetings and Exhibits at the Music City Center in Nashville, April 11, 2015.
Experts say the changing winds in Washington, specifically the election of President Donald Trump, has dramatically reduced the demand of guns and have hurt the bottom line of manufacturers like the Remington Outdoor Company.
Robert Spitzer, chairman of the political science department at the State University of New York at Cortland, said gun sales spiked during the 2016 presidential campaign because buyers feared Hillary Clinton would win and continue to strengthen gun regulations put in place by the Obama administration.
"We have seen the rise of 'political sales,' that is when people go out and purchase guns to make a political statement," Spitzer told ABC News. "Donald Trump was the 'great friend' of the National Rifle Association. They endorsed him early, then he wins and so the political incentive is gone. There's no looming threat of the national government imposing restrictions or taking guns away."
At the NRA convention last April, Trump told attendees, "You came through big for me, and I am going to come through for you. The eight-year assault on your Second Amendment freedoms has come to a crashing end."
FBI statistics show firearm background checks spiked in the last months of the 2016 presidential campaign rising from 1.87 million in May, when Trump was trailing Clinton, to 2.56 million in November, the month Trump was elected. Following the election, firearm background checks sank to 1.74 million by July 2017.
"I think Remington's decline is, in part, a reflection of the 'Trump slump,'" Adam Winkler, a professor of law at UCLA and author of the book "Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America," told ABC News.
But Winkler said Remington's financial woes are also tied to a class-action lawsuit over defective parts in the company's most popular firearms, including its iconic Model 700 rifle. As part of a settlement approved in March 2017, Remington agreed to replace the triggers for free in more than 7.5 million guns.
Yuri Gripas/AFP/Getty ImagesThousands of people participate in the March on Washington for Gun Control on Jan. 26, 2013 in Washington in response to last month's school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.
Remington's reputation also took a hit when loved ones of those killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook, Connecticut, school massacre, filed a class action suit charging the company's marketing of its Bushmaster AR-15 assault rifle, the firearm used by the killer, was responsible for the shooting. A judge threw out the suit in October 2016, ruling the company had immunity under a law passed in 2005, but the Connecticut Supreme Court is considering an appeal by the families.
"The long-term debt that they (Remington) was struggling with made the downturn in sales that much more worse for them," Winkler said.
In a statement released Monday, Remington said they have come up with a restructuring plan to reduce its debt by $700 million while injecting $145 million of new capital into its subsidiaries.
"I am confident this regrouping ensures that Remington will continue as both a strong company and an indelible part of our national heritage," Jim Geisler, executive director of Remington, said in the statement.
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
Lot about Rob Porter ...next to nothing about this
Justice for Gemmel Moore? Family wants answers in escort's death at Dem donor's home
Isn't it amazing?
Every time there's a scandal...there's a Clinton!
Democratic donor Ed Buck is seen at left in the fall of 2015 with Hillary Clinton. Gemmel Moore, at right, was found dead inside Buck's apartment on July 27, 2017. (Facebook)
Family and friends of a male escort found dead in the West Hollywood home of a high-powered Democratic Party donor last year continue to press for answers—in a case that has eluded the national media spotlight on incidents of sexual misconduct and racial injustice.
Gemmel Moore, 26, was discovered by police on July 27 inside the apartment of Ed Buck, 63. Buck is a well-known Democratic contributor and has given more than $500,000 to an array of Democrats including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey and a variety of state and local organizations in California.
The Los Angeles County Coroner’s office initially ruled the death an accidental methamphetamine overdose. But the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office Homicide Bureau on Aug. 14 announced they would investigate if there is any criminal culpability after Moore’s family and friends disputed the initial finding.
Investigators told Fox News they would like to have the inquiry wrapped up in the near future—but have had trouble interviewing certain witnesses.
(Emails suddenly disappeared?)
“We should have all the information, so we can make a good evaluation of everything that transpired to see if there’s any criminal culpability,” Lt. Joe Mendoza, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office homicide bureau, told Fox News in a recent telephone interview.
Detectives have already interviewed “numerous” witnesses who have information to share about their interactions with Buck, according to Mendoza. But investigators are trying to schedule additional interviews with people who may have useful information.
Shades of Trayvon.
The death of Gemmel Moore, 26, is being investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office. (Facebook)
According to the July 31 coroner’s report, Buck’s apartment was riddled with drug paraphernalia. Among the items found were 24 syringes containing brown residue, five glass pipes with white residue and burn marks, a plastic straw with possible white residue, clear plastic bags with white powdery residue and a clear plastic bag containing a piece of crystal-like substance.
The report also states coroner’s investigators spoke with a woman who said Moore told her someone whose name is redacted tied him up “over a year ago” and “held him against his will at the residence in West Hollywood.”
“We don’t want to move forward with anything else without every single piece of information,” said Mendoza, adding that investigators have worked with the district attorney’s office to give immunity to witnesses for unrelated minor crimes so they can speak freely. “We’re just in a holding pattern until we can get those people interviewed.”
Mendoza said investigators are “trying to leave no stone unturned.”
Buck's attorney, Seymour Amster, told Fox News that his client has done nothing wrong.
“If it didn’t hurt so bad, I’d kill myself, but I’ll let Ed Buck do it for now.”- Gemmel Moore, in his journal
"There’s nothing there. As we always stated, this was an accidental overdose that Ed Buck had nothing to do with and it’s a tragedy," Amster said in a recent phone interview. "The coroner has not changed his opinion from an accidental death. Until that happens, and that’s not going to happen, we’re done."
Once the probe is concluded, investigators will determine whether the findings should be turned over to a district attorney or brought before a grand jury. “I think a detective would probably present it to a DA, but a grand jury is not out of play either,” said Mendoza.
Among the items being investigated is a journal that Moore appears to have kept, which investigators discovered among his belongings. The writings in the journal, which Moore’s mother, LaTisha Nixon, discussed with Fox News, describes his drug use and interactions with Buck.
“I honestly don’t know what to do. I’ve become addicted to drugs and the worst one at that,” a December entry reads. “Ed Buck is the one to thank. He gave me my first injection of crystal meth it was very painful, but after all the troubles, I became addicted…”
Moore’s final journal entry, dated December 3, 2016, reads: “If it didn’t hurt so bad, I’d kill myself, but I’ll let Ed Buck do it for now.”
Talk about speaking from the grave.
A page of Moore's journal is seen in the screen grab above. (Courtesy of LaTisha Nixon)
According to Jasmyne Cannick, an advocate for Moore’s family, a number of other gay black men have claimed Buck would invite them to his house, then pay them several hundred dollars to take drugs.
The coroner’s report also said investigators spoke with a woman who said Moore told her another man, whose name is redacted, was tied up by Buck “over a year ago” and “held him against his will at the residence in West Hollywood.”
Moore’s family has set up a website where people can come forward with information. “Gemmel deserves justice. What’s done in the dark always comes to the light,” Nixon told Fox News. “I’m happy Ed Buck got exposed for what he was doing.”
Amster told Fox News that the two men were “friends” and that Buck was “legitimately trying to help” Moore.
Gemmel Moore is seen with his mother, LaTisha Nixon, above. (Facebook)
“These are merely accusations. This situation has turned into an attack on Mr. Buck’s personal life,” Amster told Fox News.
Moore family attorney Nana Gyamfi told Fox News she hoped a “substantive investigation can now take place with the statements of the additional victims who will corroborate certain details in Gemmel Moore’s journal, but also recount their own experiences with Ed Buck.”
Gyamfi said no wrongful death lawsuit has been filed, but that it’s “on the dry-erase board as one way in which some modicum of justice for Gemmel can be achieved.”
Moore’s mother is clear on what justice means for her:
“Getting Ed Buck off the streets and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for preying on and taking advantage of my son and others like him."
Judging by the results of recent Democratic, shall I say 'episodes', 10 to 1 Buck walks.
Judge awards graffiti artists $6.7 million after their New York works were destroyed
You're going to spray paint graffiti all over a building YOU DON'T OWN and collect $6.7 million after it was destroyed?
This could only happen in liberal states the likes of NY and CA. In any other state, with a rational judicial system, they would have charged the 'artists' with Willful and Malicious Destruction of Property.
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A Long Island City site known as 5Pointz was famous for its artwork on old buildings. The work was painted over in 2013, and the buildings were torn down a year later. (Emmanuel Dunand / AFP-Getty Images)
A judge awarded $6.7 million Monday to graffiti artists who sued after dozens of spray-paintings were destroyed on the walls of dilapidated New York warehouse buildings torn down to make room for high-rise luxury residences.
U.S. District Judge Frederic Block in Brooklyn said 45 of the 49 paintings were recognized works of art "wrongfully and willfully destroyed" by a remorseless landlord.
Twenty-one aerosol artists had sued the owner of a Long Island City site known as 5Pointz under the Visual Rights Act, a 1990 federal law that protects artists' rights even if someone else owns the physical artwork. Their graffiti was painted over in 2013, and the buildings were torn down a year later.
Before they vanished, the graffiti artworks became a tourist attraction, drawing thousands of spectators daily and forming a backdrop to the 2013 movie "Now You See Me," and a site for an Usher tour, the judge noted.
All the while, the crime-ridden neighborhood gradually improved and it became the "world's largest collection of quality outdoor aerosol art," through a system set up by the artists meant some paintings were temporary while others were given permanent status, Block wrote.
The ruling followed a three-week trial in November when Block said the "respectful, articulate and credible" artists testified about "striking technical and artistic mastery and vision worthy of display in prominent museums if not on the walls of 5Pointz."
He noted one artist came from London, another from rural West Virginia, while others were products of prestigious art schools. Some were self-taught.
He said he was impressed with the breadth of the artists' works and how many works "spoke to the social issues of our times."
Jerry Wolkoff, who owned the buildings, had conceded he allowed the spray-paint artists to use the buildings as a canvas for decades but said they always knew they would be torn down someday. His lawyer, David Ebert, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
The artists had once hoped to buy the properties before their value soared to over $200 million.
Block said he hoped the award would give teeth to a federal law that should have kept Wolkoff from demolishing them for at least 10 months when he had all his permits.
Artists then could have easily rescued some paintings from siding, plywood or sheet-rock before the rollers, spray machines and buckets of white paint arrived.
"Wolkoff has been singularly unrepentant. He was given multiple opportunities to admit the whitewashing was a mistake, show remorse, or suggest he would do things differently if he had another chance," Block said.
"Wolkoff could care less. As he callously testified," the judge said. "The sloppy, half-hearted nature of the whitewashing left the works easily visible under thin layers of cheap, white paint, reminding the plaintiffs on a daily basis what had happened. The mutilated works were visible by millions of people on the passing 7 train."
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