Hasbro CEO: ‘We Eliminated Gender’ for Our Toys

Hasbro CEO: ‘We Eliminated Gender’ for Our Toys (Source heatst.com) Unlike Mattel and Lego, Hasbro hadn’t caved to modern sensibilities by separating its business units by gender. But suddenly, the third biggest toy and board game company, whose brands include Star Wars, My Little Pony and G.I. Joe, considers gender a very dirty word. Last January, Hasbro reported its revenue by type of brand rather than by “Boys/Girls/Games/Preschool” categories. And now CEO Brian Goldner boldly claims that gender doesn’t even exist. “We look at our brands more inclusively than ever. In fact, we eliminated the old delineation of gender,” Goldner tells The Hollywood Reporter in a new interview. “And if you think about a brand, be it My Little Pony, where 30 percent of our global TV audience is boys, or Star Wars, where we are launching [all-female animated series] Forces of Destiny with Lucas and Disney, you’re seeing people who want to be engaged in these stories.”

 

Germany threatens retaliation if U.S. sanctions harm its firms

Germany threatens retaliation if U.S. sanctions harm its firms (Source Reuters) Germany threatened to retaliate against the United States if new sanctions on Russia being proposed by the U.S. Senate end up penalizing German firms. The Senate bill, approved by a margin of 98-2, includes new sanctions against Russia and Iran. Crucially, it foresees punitive measures against entities that provide material support to Russia in building energy export pipelines. Berlin fears that could pave the way for fines against German and European firms involved in Nord Stream 2, a project to build a pipeline carrying Russian gas across the Baltic. Among the European companies involved in the project are German oil and gas group Wintershall, German energy trading firm Uniper, Royal Dutch Shell, Austria’s OMV and France’s Engie. German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman described the Senate bill, which must be approved by the House of Representatives and signed by President Donald Trump before it becomes law, as “a peculiar move”. He said it was “strange” that sanctions intended to punish Russia for alleged interference in the U.S. elections could also trigger penalties against European companies. “That must not happen,” said the spokesman, Steffen Seibert. In an interview with Reuters, German Economy Minister Brigitte Zypries said Berlin would have to think about counter-measures if Trump backed the plan. “If he does, we’ll have to consider what we are going to do against it,” Zypries said.

Trump still hasn’t appointed anyone to these 14 key national security positions

Trump still hasn’t appointed anyone to these 14 key national security positions (Source vox.com) President Trump has hollowed out the federal government, failing to even  “nominate anyone for 420 of the 599 available political jobs, as of Tuesday afternoon. Only 42 Trump appointees have been officially confirmed by the Senate. You would expect that Trump would have at least nominated people to fill the positions responsible for issues he claims to care most deeply about, like fighting terrorism and securing the border. You’d be wrong. The Pentagon has 53 political slots; only six of them have been filled (10 people have been nominated but not yet confirmed). At the Department of Homeland Security, two positions out of 16 have been filled. The State Department has only filled nine of 120 positions. Embassies in key countries like China, Britain, Germany, and India don’t yet have ambassadors. Some of the open slots are particularly glaring. No one has been appointed to run the Transportation Security Administration, which is primarily charged with protecting the United States’ air travel system. The same goes for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And then, of course, there’s the FBI, currently in the awkward position of investigating several current and former members of Trump’s campaign and administration. Trump fired James Comey on May 9; it took him about one month to nominate a successor. That being said, all of Trump’s Cabinet slots have been filled. Still, the lower-level positions responsible for actually running the departments and carrying out day-to-day tasks remain vacant.

Inside what Trump leaked to the Russians:

Inside what Trump leaked to the Russians: He told them details of how Israeli cyberspies got inside ISIS bombmaking cell and discovered their plans for laptop battery bombs (Source dailymail.co.uk)The New York Times is out with a report shedding more light on what details President Trump told the Russians Israel’s cyberoperators penetrated a cell of ISIS bombmakers in Syria and found out their plans to make bombs that look like laptop batteries Intelligence officials found out how the bombs would be detonated leading to a laptop ban from some counties coming into the US and UK. When President Trump met with Russians Sergei Lavrov and Sergie Kislyak in the Oval Office on May 10, he told the duo, ‘I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day,’ according to  world/national-security/trump-revealed-highly-classified-information-to-russian-foreign-minister-and-ambassador the Washington Post’s account. Now,  the New York Times is out with a report shedding light on some of that intelligence, which came courtesy of the Israelis. Israel’s cyberoperators penetrated a cell of ISIS’ bombmakers in Syria and told the U.S. about the group’s plans to make explosives that look like batteries for laptop computers, which would trick airport X-ray machines.

Crisis On The Horizon: Will It Be Economic Collapse?

Crisis On The Horizon: Will It Be Economic Collapse? Global Civil Unrest? War? We Won’t Have To Guess Much Longer. (Source Zero Hedge) There are too many individuals with dreams, plans, goals, and ambitions for themselves and their families.  There is too much individualism.  It eventually must be crushed, in order to maintain the existing social, political, religious, and economic order.  The order will eventually blend all of the elements and “homogenize” them to assure mutual self-support for the overall goal: the supremacy of the State and the subjugation of the masses.
The paradigm shift is from the rugged individual raising a family of self-supporting and producing citizens that contribute to their government to the collective, where the individual is a number and controlled/controllable in every aspect.  The family has been divided to not think for the family and to be in awe and obedience to the State.  The end-state is this phrase: “I am the State; the State is all.”
-The words of Quarlo in the episode “Soldier,” (The Outer Limits)
We are seeing the transformation occur before our eyes.  We are also seeing the “justification” for such control in the form of a rise in various stages of actions labeled either as “civil unrest” or “terrorism” by the governments.  It was just announced on by Gateway Pundit in an article entitled  HYPERLINK “http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/06/macron-hopes-put-france-permanent-state-emergency/” \t “_blank” Macron Hopes to Put France in a Permanent State of Emergency, via a bill that will make it a law of the land.
The United States did that with the NDAA and the EO’s that recertified the continuous succession of “states of emergency,” and added to that by making (labeling under color of law) the whole world a “battlefield” in the “war on terror.”  The UK is “toying” with the idea of  HYPERLINK “http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/operation-temperer-the-uk-will-be-under-martial-law-in-a-years-time_06092017” \t “_blank” imposing Martial Law indefinitely upon Britain in wake of the “terrorist” bombings…the ones that coincided so nicely with Teresa May’s calling for an election…one that backfired on her.
The shooting of House Representative Steve Scalise, the multiple shootings occurring nationwide, and the growing calls for the government to take action…all of these are examples of crises that will not be allowed to go to waste.  The governments are allowing the actions to occur in order to justify Draconian measures that will be implemented for the greatest reason of all: to protect the citizen…from himself. The endless and  HYPERLINK “http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/the-electronic-surveillance-web-draws-tightly-around-us-all-of-this-is-being-recorded-where-we-shop-where-we-work-when-we-commute-a-camera-always-filming_06092017” \t “_blank” ever-increasing surveillance in the form of CCTV cameras, all of the cameras tied in to the tracking devices (deliberately labeled as “cellular telephones”), the monitoring, tracking, and recording of every purchase, deposit, withdraw, and shift with funds: The Big Brother state isn’t around the corner.  The Big Brother state is here. What will it be?  Global economic collapses that occur as a result of the credit bubble suddenly bursting and the bottoms falling out?  Will it be civil unrest globally?  Or will it be the most likely event, a war that escalates and brings about the previous two actions. We won’t have to guess much longer, as the events are unfolding before us by the day and narrowing down the possibilities…making them probable, as well.

Defense Secretary Mattie “shocked” by poor state of U.S. combat readiness

Defense Secretary Mattis “shocked” by poor state of U.S. combat readiness (Source cbsnews.com) Defense Secretary Jim Mattis declared that he was “shocked” upon his return to the Pentagon by the poor state of the U.S. military’s readiness for combat. He put most of the blame on Congress for its inability to approve budgets on time or repeal a law that strictly limits defense spending. Testifying before the House Armed Services Committee, Mattis said Congress has “sidelined itself from its active constitutional oversight role” by failing to deliver a steady stream of funding to pay for new weapons and other critical gear. “It has blocked new programs, prevented service growth, stalled industry initiative and placed troops at greater risk,” Mattis said as he urged the panel to do away with the Budget Control Act of 2011. If the budget caps mandated by the law are breached, automatic spending reductions known as sequestration are triggered. “For all the heartache caused by the loss of our troops during these wars, no enemy in the field has done more to harm the readiness of our military than sequestration,” said Mattis, who retired from military service in 2013 as a four-star general.

China, Russia held navy drill on Sunday: Xinhua

China, Russia held navy drill on Sunday: Xinhua(Source Reuters)
A Chinese naval fleet held a scheduled military exercise with the Russian navy in St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad on Sunday in the first of planned exercises this year to strengthen their cooperation, state news agency Xinhua reported.
The “Joint Sea-2017” exercise follows similar ones held last year, and more exercises will be held in late July in the Baltic Sea, and in mid-September in the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk, it added.
The Chinese fleet, which sailed out from Hainan province in southern China, consisted of the missile destroyer Changsha, missile frigate Yuncheng, a comprehensive supply ship, ship-borne helicopters and marines, it said. China and Russia are veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council, and have held similar views on many major issues such as the crisis in Syria, often putting them at odds with the United States and Western Europe. They have previously held naval drills in the fiercely-contested South China Sea which China, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have rival claims over.
Xinhua said the theme of this year’s drills was “joint rescue and protection of maritime economic activities”.

The U.S. Escalation in Syria and the Threat of World War

The US Escalation in Syria and the Threat of World War (Source globalresearch.ca)
In the wake of Sunday’s US shoot-down of a Syrian fighter plane and the following day’s warning from Russia that it will treat all American warplanes flying west of the Euphrates River as targets for its surface-to-air missiles, the threat of an armed confrontation between the world’s two largest nuclear powers is now greater than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis nearly 55 years ago.
This threat, which carries with it the grim prospect of the annihilation of humanity, is the product of a calculated escalation on the part of US imperialism. The downing of the Syrian fighter marked the first time in this century that a US warplane has shot down the plane of another country. The last instance of such aerial combat took place in 1999 during the US-NATO war against Serbia, when an American fighter plane shot down a Serbian MiG. The gravity of the event was underscored Tuesday with Australia’s announcement that it is grounding its planes that have been flying over Syria. Australia was one of the few members of the US-led “anti-ISIS coalition” that made any significant contribution to the increasingly murderous US air campaign against both Iraq and Syria. While the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, responded to the Russian threat with bravado, extolling the ability of US pilots to “take care of themselves,” the Australian military clearly believes that one of its planes could be brought down.
The escalation of the conflict continued Tuesday with a US warplane shooting down an Iranian drone in southeastern Syria.
What will be the consequences if a Russian surface-to-air missile battery fires on a US plane seen as posing an imminent threat to Moscow’s forces on the ground in Syria, or, for that matter, if a US warplane “painted” with the radar of a Russian SAM site takes preemptive action? No one knows. Complacent US foreign policy “experts” insist that the last thing either Washington or Moscow wants is a nuclear firestorm, and, therefore, it will not happen. This fallacious argument is then employed to justify unbridled US aggression.

Russia orders doctors to carry out ‘virginity tests’ on underage girls

Russia orders doctors to carry out ‘virginity tests’ on underage girls and ‘inspect the integrity of the hymen’ if they are believed to have had sex (Source dailymail.co.uk) Medics have been told to inform police ‘about all cases when virginity was lost’ Gynaecologist Yelena Uvarova branded the tests ‘completely unacceptable’ The order came from the Russian Investigative Committee – equivalent to the FBI
A row has erupted in  Russia after doctors were instructed to perform virginity checks on underage schoolgirls. Doctors have begun implementing an order from the Russian Investigative Committee – seen as the equivalent of the FBI – demanding that all medical evidence of sex involving girls under the age of 16 should be reported to the police. The edict has led to an angry backlash with claims that girls will avoid going to clinics even when they have sexually transmitted diseases or pregnancies. Russia’s health ministry has joined newspapers and social media in lashing out at the virginity checks for young girls.

 

Putin Offers Asylum To “Leaker” Comey

Putin Offers Asylum To “Leaker” Comey (Source Zero Hedge)
Vladimir Putin trolled the US on Thursday, when speaking in a live call-in show with the Russian nation, the Russian president likened Comey to Edward Snowden, who was granted asylum in Russia in 2013, and scoffed at James Comey’s disclosure of his conversations with U.S. President Donald Trump, saying the move has made Comey eligible for political asylum in Russia. “It looks weird when the chief of a security agency records his conversation with the commander-in-chief and then hands it over to media via his friend,” Putin was quoted by  Russia’s Tass. “This is strange. What is the difference then between the FBI director and Mr. Snowden? He is not a head of the special services, but a human rights activist.” The trolling concluded when Putin said that “by the way, if he (Comey) is subject to any sort of persecution in connection with this, we will be ready to give him political asylum in Russia.