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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
4/1/2015 1:07:35 AM

TV

Trans stories find a home on reality TV following Orange is the New Black, Transparent success


BY
LYNETTE RICE

(Netflix)

Posted March 30 2015 — 4:59 PM EDT

As Laverne Cox’s star continues to rise and Olympian Bruce Jenner contemplates whether to share his transition on E!, a revolution is already taking place to bring more stories about the transgender community to the small screen. Three new reality shows are set to debut in the wake of the groundbreaking work of Orange Is the New Black’s Cox—the first transgender actress to earn an Emmy nomination—and Jeffrey Tambor’s Golden Globe-winning performance as a father in transition on Amazon’s Transparent.

On April 11, Discovery Life will premiere its first original series, New Girls on the Block, featuring six transgender women in varying stages of transition living in Kansas City, Mo. This summer, TLC will air All That Jazz, about 14-year-old activist and YouTube star Jazz Jennings, who allows cameras to follow her as she navigates suburban South Florida adolescence. And also this summer, ABC Family will offer Becoming Us, a real-life version of Transparent. The unscripted show focuses on 17-year-old Chicago teen Ben Lehwald, whose dad, Charlie, undergoes sexual-reassignment surgery to become Carly.

“I don’t really mind people seeing it,” says Ben of the intimate look at his life. (The show will also feature his mom and his girlfriend, who has a transgender parent as well.) “I want to be able to help people dealing with someone becoming trans in their family.”

No one is more aware of the trans trend than GLAAD (formerly the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), which is working with the new reality shows to provide an accurate portrayal of transgender people, who number 700,000 in the U.S., according to UCLA’s Williams Institute. But GLAAD says its job is far from finished. “While it seems like there’s an explosion of new shows, we are still very much invisible in scripted shows on broadcast TV,” says the organization’s Nick Adams.

Other than a few rare exceptions such as Glee’s Coach Beiste (Dot-Marie Jones), who transitioned from a woman to a man in the show’s final season, “the vast majority of portrayals on broadcast TV can be categorized as straight-up defamatory or inaccurate,” Adams says. “And the vast majority of times, the roles of trans characters are either as victim of violence or some kind of psychotic killer.”

At least one CBS daytime drama is trying to turn the tide. On March 18, The Bold and the Beautiful revealed that a character named Maya Avant (Karla Mosley)—who’s dating the fabulously wealthy Rick Forrester—was born male. “When is the best time to disclose that you are a transgender woman to someone you love?” says executive producer Bradley Bell. “That’s going to be some fresh and interesting material.”

Meanwhile, two projects are in development for broadcast this fall that, if ordered to series, will feature transgender performers as series regulars. Transparent’s Trace Lysette has been cast on the NBC family drama The Curse of the Fuentes Women, from Silvio Horta (Ugly Betty), while Cox will trade in her orange prison scrubs for a business suit to play an Ivy League-schooled attorney in the CBS pilot Doubt.

But for some trans people, the real progress on TV will come when the focus (finally) steers away from their gender identity. ” ‘Do you have a boy body?’ That’s the question that I often hear,” Jennings tells EW. “I say, ‘Even if I do, it doesn’t matter what’s below my waist.’ You have to judge someone for who they are inside, not their outward appearance. If everyone were able to accept people for their personality, then the world would be a better place for people of any difference.”


(EW)


"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
4/1/2015 9:46:03 AM

US releases military aid to Egypt, cites national security

Associated Press

President Barack Obama speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, March 31, 2015, after signing a Memorandum of Disapproval Regarding S.J. Res. 8, a Joint Resolution providing for congressional disapproval of the rule submitted by the National Labor Relations Board relating to representation case procedures. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Tuesday released military aid to Egypt that was suspended after the 2013 overthrow of the government, in an effort to boost Cairo's ability to combat the extremist threat in the region.

The White House said Obama notified Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in a phone call Tuesday that the U.S. would be sending 12 F-16 fighter jets, 20 missiles and up to 125 tank kits, while continuing to request $1.3 billion in military assistance for Egypt. The White House said Egypt will remain the second-largest recipient of U.S. foreign military financing worldwide.

The funds were suspended 21 months ago when el-Sissi, then military chief, overthrew Egypt's first democratically elected leader, Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. But Washington could not provide almost half of the annual aid package — along with assistance held up from previous years — until it certified advances by el-Sissi's government on democracy, human rights and rule of law or issued a declaration that such aid is in the interests of U.S. national security.

The U.S. has been providing hundreds of millions in counterterrorism assistance to its ally, which didn't stall as a result of the government overthrow. Egypt has been arguing it needs the money to face growing threats from extremists creeping over the border from lawless Libya or operating in the Sinai Peninsula, and the U.S. sees the funds as critical for stability in the volatile Middle East.

The aid comes as Egypt is trying to play a leading role in forming an Arab military alliance that can fight terrorism in the region. And it comes at a time when Arab nations have expressed concern about Washington's negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, questioning whether the U.S. is aligning itself with Tehran instead of its long-standing allies in the region, like Egypt.

White House spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said the assistance will help address the growth of a group in Egypt, affiliated with Islamic State militants, that has attacked Egyptian soldiers and civilians.

The White House said it is not issuing a certification that Egypt has made progress toward democracy. Instead, the U.S. said it is maintaining that the aid is in the interest of U.S. national security.

The White House said Obama, during his call to el-Sissi, "explained that these and other steps will help refine our military assistance relationship so that it is better positioned to address the shared challenges to U.S. and Egyptian interests in an unstable region, consistent with the longstanding strategic partnership between our two countries." The White House said Obama also reiterated U.S. concerns about Egypt's continued imprisonment of activists and encouraged increased respect for freedom of speech and assembly.

"We will continue to engage with Egypt frankly and directly on its political trajectory and to raise human rights and political reform issues at the highest levels," Meehan said.

___

Follow Nedra Pickler on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nedrapickler

Related Video:

Arab Summit Agrees on Unified Military Force for Crises


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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
4/1/2015 9:58:33 AM

Iraq hails Tikrit 'liberation' after month-long battle

AFP

Iraqi government forces keep watch from a position on the southern outskirts of Tikrit, on March 30, 2015 (AFP Photo/Ahmad Al-Rubaye)


Tikrit (Iraq) (AFP) - Iraq said security and allied forces backed by US-led coalition aircraft "liberated" the city of Tikrit on Tuesday, its biggest victory yet in the fight against Islamic State jihadists.

The operation to retake the hometown of former president Saddam Hussein began on March 2 and had looked bogged down before Iraqi forces made rapid advances in the past 48 hours.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi "announces the liberation of Tikrit and congratulates Iraqi security forces and popular volunteers on the historic milestone," his official Twitter account said.

He was referring to paramilitary groups which played a major role in the fighting to retake Tikrit, a Sunni Arab city which IS had controlled since it captured swathes of Iraq in June.

A spokesperson for the US-led coalition told AFP however that "parts of the city remain under (IS's) control and there is still work to be done."

In a statement to AFP just minutes before Abadi's tweet, his spokesman Rafid Jaboori said: "Iraqi forces reached the centre of Tikrit, raised the Iraqi flag and are now clearing the city."

The provincial government headquarters was retaken on Monday and on Tuesday the Iraqi tricolour replaced the black IS flag on the building.

In scenes captured in an AFP video, jubilant fighters can be seen tearing up the black flag amid the extensive destruction in the city.

"We are in the centre of Tikrit. The city and all administrative buildings were completely liberated," said one of them, policeman Bahaa Abdullah Nasif.

Iraqi military officials have been saying since the start of the operation that IS fighters had laid thousands of bombs in streets, houses and tunnels to make their last stand.

- Political tension -

There was no immediate information on how many fighters were killed, wounded or captured in the fighting.

The government has not provided any casualty figures since the operation started.

Iraqi army and police forces, as well as volunteers and Iran-backed Shiite militias, completely surrounded Tikrit within two weeks of launching the operation.

There was a lull in fighting when government forces and their allies apparently balked at the number of snipers, booby traps, berms and trenches which IS was using to defend its city centre redoubt.

Iran was Baghdad's top foreign partner in the early stages of the operation but Iraqi air strikes were proving insufficient to break the back of IS resistance.

Abadi's government eventually requested strikes from the US-led coalition which has been assisting Iraqi forces elsewhere in the country since August last year.

US jets began bombing IS targets in Tikrit on March 25. France also took part in the campaign.

The move sparked a freeze in the participation of the Popular Mobilisation units, an umbrella organisation for volunteers and militias which accounted for the bulk of the forces in Tikrit.

The Pentagon had expressed unease at the role played by Iran and its proxies and said it conditioned its intervention on regular forces taking the lead.

- Mosul next -

On Friday, it hailed the withdrawal from the fight of "those Shiite militias who are linked to, infiltrated by, (or) otherwise under the influence of Iran".

But after giving themselves political cover by declaring they do not want to work with each other, both sides took part in the operation this week.

Tikrit, once with an estimated population of about 200,000, had been largely emptied of civilians by the time the operation was launched.

The fate of those believed to have remained in the city was unclear, however.

Thousands of people displaced last year or more recently from Salaheddin province, of which Tikrit is the capital, have started returning to their homes in outlying liberated areas.

But the level of destruction and the threat posed by unexploded bombs mean residents could take longer to return.

Tikrit holds both strategic and symbolic importance.

It was the hometown of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, remnants of whose Baath party collaborated with IS last summer.

Iraqi forces had since June tried and repeatedly failed to retake the city, seen as a key stepping stone to recapturing Mosul, the jihadists' largest hub in Iraq.

Defence Minister Khaled al-Obeidi met all his top commanders Tuesday to discuss preparations for an operation to retake the Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital.

"This victory is only a new starting point from which to launch the operation to liberate Nineveh province," his ministry said.

Mosul, Iraq's second city, is close to 10 times the size of Tikrit and still holds a large civilian population.

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
4/1/2015 10:15:04 AM



FALSE FLAG?

03.31.15

ISIS Wants a Truce


In the new edition of its magazine, ISIS floats the idea of a truce. Is the group flagging—or is this just another tactic?

After months of being targeted by U.S.-led airstrikes, losing ground in Iraq and suffering defeat in a weeks-long assault to capture the Syrian border town of Kobani, is the Islamic State flagging and putting out feelers to see if a truce might be possible? Or is it just seeking to sow confusion in the ranks of its opponents and to undermine their unity and resolve by raising the idea of negotiations?

Intriguingly, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, floated the idea on Tuesday of a negotiated truce in the latest issue of the militants’ English-language magazine Dabiq, via an article written by one of the group’s remaining Western hostages, British photojournalist John Cantlie.

Ever since the execution of other Western hostages this summer, Cantlie—who was captured in Syria with American reporter James Foley in 2012—has been used for propaganda purposes by the Islamic State, both by writing for Dabiqand fronting propaganda videos.

In an article entitled “Paradigm Shift,” in the eighth and latest issue of the magazine, Cantlie notes in the mocking style his captors presumably have ordered him to adopt that Western leaders appear to have accepted now that the Islamic State is like no previous terrorist organization, and that it is a country with all the attributes of a bona fide state—from a police force and schools to a functioning court system and supposed currency.

“At some stage, you’re going to have to face the Islamic State as a country, and even consider a truce,” he argues. Acknowledging that it is “going to take some swallowing of pride,” he asks rhetorically, “What’s the alternative, launch airstrikes in half-a-dozen countries at once?” “He adds, “They’ll have to destroy half the region if that’s the case.”

This isn’t the first time that Cantlie—who has been used mercilessly by his captors as a conduit for their fear campaigns and has been maneuvered into acting as a champion of the jihadist cause—has offered an argument for the futility of the West’s strategy against the militants and called for Washington to reconsider how it approaches the Islamic State.

‘When the mujāhidīn start beheading Western troops,” Cantlie writes, “then every option is going to be on the table, and fast. A truce will be one of those options.”

In the fifth issue of the magazine, Cantlie, obviously on the orders of his captors, ridiculed Western governments for acting “like a robot that is stuck on a loop…Military action doesn’t work, what about negotiations?”

According to Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a Mideast expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, those remarks about the West acting robotically appear in hindsight to foreshadow the current, more developed argument about a truce.

So is this a genuine offer, an invitation for talks?

“The talk of a truce I don’t make much of,” says Gartenstein-Ross. “I take it much more as a tactic designed to break the morale of their opponents and to give credence to anti-war voices in the West.”

He adds: “ISIS is very attuned to the different audiences it wants to influence and fairly effective in how it does that, and here, I think, it is seeking to appeal to those in the West who have unease about the military action that is being undertaken taken with the aim of eroding the enemies’ political will.”

Cantlie has certainly been used in the past by the militants to offer, in video and written commentary, a counter-narrative to Western audiences, one that seeks to sap the morale of the West, pour scorn on Western media reports and legitimize the caliphate announced in the summer by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Earlier this month, a former hostage, Spanish journalist Javier Espinosa, disclosed that during his time in captivity, Cantlie twice tried to escape and suffered “weeks and weeks” of torture as a result. Cantlie’s punishment for trying to flee the extremists was so harsh that the journalist almost drowned during one waterboarding session.

Espinosa was held by the Islamic militants between December 2013 and March of last year.

In Tuesday’s article the 43-year-old Cantlie continues to play to the war-weariness of Americans and Britons, urging them to understand the foolishness of yet another U.S.-led military intervention in the Middle East. And he insists that the Islamic State cannot be defeated militarily, quoting for effect General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, saying on television recently “there’s no military-only solution to [ISIS].”

He writes: “From the toothless roaring of Obama’s address to the nation on 10 September, in which he declared that the Islamic State ‘is a terrorist organization, pure and simple,’ it would seem that some of his closest advisors, many figures in the rest of the NATO world and the media in general are not convinced by such a simplistic description, although ‘terrorism’ is undoubtedly one of the tactics, amongst many, adeptly employed and advanced by the Islamic State in its jihād.”

“Is a truce even realistic?” he asks. “Right now, it’s too early,” he answers. But he predicts: “The scene is just being set for a big operation against the Islamic State to be executed by Iranian militias (AKA the Iraqi army) backed by the U.S.. But when that fails because Shiite militiamen are afraid of being burnt alive, when special forces operations skyrocket in an effort to make up for what the Iraqi army cannot achieve, and when the mujāhidīn start beheading Western troops, then every option is going to be on the table, and fast. A truce will be one of those options.”

As if to underline the significance of the talk of a truce, and presumably to ensure it is understood as being endorsed by the Islamic State’s leadership, there is an editor’s note to the Cantlie article, saying while no truce can be permanent with infidels, a temporary one could be possible. “A halt of war between the Muslims and the kuffār can never be permanent, as war against the kuffār is the default obligation upon the Muslims only to be temporarily halted by truce for a greater sharia interest,” the anonymous editor announces.

Certainly there is nothing else in the magazine to suggest that the floating of a truce is being prompted by fears of defeat. The tone in all the articles is one of triumphalism. The militants bray about the bloody acts of terrorism that affiliates pulled off last week in Yemen and Tunisia that left 160 people dead and at least 300 wounded—bombings that have jeopardized the economic recovery (and therefore) the political stability of Tunisia, just across the water from Europe and probably set Yemen on a death spiral of Shia-Sunni violence.

And there is sharp criticism in Dabiq of al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, for cooperating with moderate and Islamist rebels seeking to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Those attacks are significant—until recently there were signs that ISIS and al-Nusra were seeking behind-the-scenes to reach some kind of working accommodation and to bury their rivalry. That deal-making appears now to be over.

(The Daily Beast)

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
4/1/2015 10:30:34 AM

U.S. corporations accuse Indiana and Arkansas of curbing gay rights

Reuters


View Gallery

Elizabeth Ladd, owner of River Knits Fine Yarns, poses while holding up a "This businesses serves everyone" sticker she plans to place outside her business in downtown Lafayette, Indiana March 31, 2015. REUTERS/Nate Chute

By Fiona Ortiz

(Reuters) - Arkansas lawmakers passed a Religious Freedom Restoration Act on Tuesday that critics said would allow businesses to deny service to gays and lesbians, drawing a swift demand from Wal-Mart Stores Inc for the governor to veto the bill.

Arkansas followed Indiana, which passed a similar act last week. They are the first to do so since same-sex marriage became legal in many states last year. Corporations have criticized the measures.

At present 37 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia permit gay marriage.

The world's biggest retailer, Wal-Mart , based in Bentonville, Ark., issued a statement saying the Arkansas bill threatened to undermine "the spirit of inclusion" in the state and "does not reflect the values we proudly uphold."

Signed by Doug McMillon, chief executive officer, the statement asked Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson to veto the legislation.

Indiana's Republican Governor Mike Pence, responding to national outrage over his signing of his state's law last week, vowed earlier on Tuesday to "fix" the act so that businesses could not use the law to deny services to same-sex couples.

COMPANIES, GOVERNORS ACT

Some of the most powerful U.S. companies, including Apple , Angie's List, diesel engine-maker Cummins Inc , Salesforce Marketing Cloud and drug-maker Eli Lilly and Co , had called on Pence to clarify or repeal the law, which passed with an overwhelming majority in the state's legislature.

Democratic governors, joined by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday, banned official state business travel to Indiana. Auto racing company NASCAR and the Indianapolis-based NCAA, an organization for university athletic programs, voiced concern over the law.

At a news conference Pence said the law protected people of all faiths from being forced by the government to go against their beliefs. The lawyer and one-time radio talk-show host repeatedly denied that the intent of the law was to allow discrimination.

Critics said Indiana's law as it is now written would allow businesses to deny services such as wedding cakes or wedding music for gay marriages on religious grounds.

Pence found support from conservatives including Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz and possible presidential contenders Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, who praised the law.

Supporters have said the acts do not allow for discrimination and are needed to protect religious freedoms.

But critics contend they are part of a broader effort by Republican-dominated statehouses in socially conservative states to push back against a series of U.S. court decisions allowing same-sex marriage.

Pence said the law he signed last week had been unfairly "smeared" and called on the Republican-controlled General Assembly to come up with clarifications this week.

SUPREME COURT CASE

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide by the end of June whether the U.S. Constitution protects a right to same-sex marriage, and if it does not, whether states that ban it must recognize marriages performed in states permitting such unions.

"What's happened is that with same-sex marriage on the horizon, the individuals and the believers who do not want to support same-sex marriage are looking to a formula in RFRAs to allow them to avoid same-sex marriage in the market place," said Marci Hamilton, law professor at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School and an opponent of RFRAs.

Arkansas' RFRA also allows religious discrimination lawsuits between private parties, and goes a step further in that it would bar employees from invoking religious freedom in suing employers, Hamilton said.

Lori Windham, senior counsel with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which has brought RFRA cases on behalf of people of different faiths, said the clarification should not be necessary.

"It should already be clear that these laws require courts to balance religious freedom against other interests. They don't mean religion always wins, they mean that religious people have their day in court," she said.

(Reporting by Mary Wisniewski and Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago, Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, Steve Barnes in Little Rock, Emily Stephenson and Susan Heavey in Washington. and Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Writing by Fiona Ortiz and Jon Herskovitz; Editing by James Dalgleish and Howard Goller)


"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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