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10,000 | Thanks To Trump, ‘Local Milk People’ Is Trending, And That’s Not Weird AT ALL | Thursday morning, the Washington Post released transcripts they obtained of two important phone calls Donald Trump place shortly after his inauguration. The first was to Mexican president Enrique Pe a Nieto, and Trump placed a call to Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull the very next day. But it was the latter call that sparked a trending topic on Twitter, following the discovery of a bizarre turn of phrase by the American president. Speaking to Turnbull about the Syrian refugee crisis, Trump said:I hate taking these people. I guarantee you they are bad. That is why they are in prison right now. They are not going to be wonderful people who go on to work for the local milk people.It was those last four words the local milk people that set off a hilarious stream of tweets that still has us laughing. What could Trump have possibly meant?*steps away from twitter for literally two seconds*"what the hell are local milk people" Ali Watkins (@AliWatkins) August 3, 2017maybe "local milk people" is what Trump calls cows Walmart Azathoth (@bombsfall) August 3, 2017'Give me your tired, your poor "Local Milk People" yearning to deliver for free'#LocalMilkPeople 990-6907XB71 (@kinoptika) August 3, 2017How good a person are you on a scale from Refugee to Works For The Local Milk People? Cyrus O'Merican (@CyrusOMerican) August 3, 2017Look at this sad local milk person. He's sad because refugees are not wonderful people who will go on to work for the #localmilkpeople. pic.twitter.com/TsDGh4fVLF Jon Fassnacht (@JonFassnachtRE) August 3, 2017Local Milk People's new album GRAND JURY BLUES pic.twitter.com/eu7yBo3w3c ElElegante101 (@skolanach) August 3, 2017This might be one of the members of the "Local Milk People" #Trump was referring to. #Kiss pic.twitter.com/vUArn0DLgB Harry Disco (@harrydisco) August 3, 2017Tonight, there will be at least 500 trivia teams around the country named Local Milk People. Jason Notte (@Notteham) August 3, 2017One of the "local milk people" is Ivanka's real dad. #birther #conspiracy Dusten Taylor (@DecUnderground) August 3, 2017Who decided to call them wet nurses rather than local milk people? bannonSucOwnCock.gif (@RegularFred) August 3, 2017The La Leche League should rename the organization Local Milk People to really fuck him off. Amanda Mancino (@Manda_like_wine) August 3, 2017Local Milk People sounds like a dating website for milk enthusiasts. Aeijan (I-zin) (@HeHellaAsian) August 3, 2017when you are confused about a #Trumpism just use your fox network decoder ring . local milk people pic.twitter.com/PnDdxXai7s Amanda C. Harder (@AmandaCHarder) August 3, 2017Local milk people pic.twitter.com/m0JtvzKsz3 Erin ?Gloria? Ryan (@morninggloria) August 3, 2017But it was the tone of the comment that really set people off."Local milk people" god does he ever say anything that doesn't sound so condescending and stupid? How more out of touch could he be?? Carol Coolidge ? (@Carol_Coolidge) August 3, 2017Sure, it s hilarious that Donald Trump sounds like such a complete tool. But how out of touch do you have to be to say something like that? At least the last completely detached Republican candidate for president ended up knowing what real life looks like:PHOTO: HOT on Reddit right now Mitt Romney pumping gas pic.twitter.com/ik8O7J10 NewsBreaker (@NewsBreaker) November 20, 2012I doubt Trump will ever pump his own gas, but maybe as president he could at least learn where milk comes from?Featured image via Spencer Platt/Getty Images | 0 |
10,001 | U.S. defense chief: White House shakeup will not affect Europe debut | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Tuesday played down any impact that White House national security adviser Michael Flynn’s resignation might have on Mattis’ debut trip this week to Europe to meet NATO allies. “Frankly, this has no impact. Obviously, I haven’t changed what I’m heading there for. It doesn’t change my message at all,” Mattis told reporters shortly before landing in Brussels, as he praised the NATO alliance but stressing its need to adapt to the challenges posed by Russia. “And who’s on the president’s staff is who I will work with,” he said. Flynn resigned late on Monday after revelations that he had discussed U.S. sanctions on Russia with the Russian ambassador to the United States before Trump took office and had misled Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations. Flynn’s resignation occurred hours after it was reported that the Justice Department had warned the White House weeks ago that Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail for contacts with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak before Trump took power on Jan. 20. Mattis has taken a dimmer view of the prospects of partnership with Moscow than Flynn did during the presidential campaign or Trump has since taking office, while not ruling out areas where U.S. and Russian interests might align. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Mattis said the North Atlantic Treaty Organization needed to adapt to the challenges posed by Russia after 2014, when Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula upended the alliance’s assumptions about cooperation with Moscow. “2014 was a watershed year. It was a year when many of our hopes for some kind of partnership with Russia were shown to be unavailing,” Mattis said, extolling NATO as “the most successful military alliance in history.” “We’ve got to adapt and make certain that the trans-Atlantic bond remains strong,” he said. In his January Senate confirmation hearing, Mattis accused Russia of trying to break the NATO alliance. [nL1N1F218B] Flynn, in contrast, frequently raised eyebrows among Washington’s foreign policy establishment for trying to persuade Trump to warm up U.S. relations with Russia. One U.S. official said Flynn’s departure, coupled with Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and Syria and Republican congressional opposition to removing sanctions on Russia, removes Trump’s most ardent advocate of taking a softer line toward Russian President Vladimir Putin. Flynn’s leaving “may make a significant course change less likely, at least any time soon,” the official said. [nL1N1FY1L9] Another official said Flynn’s departure might strengthen the hands of some Cabinet secretaries, including Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. | 1 |
10,002 | Trump ‘Clarifies’ Abortion Comments: I Meant That Women Should Punish THEMSELVES (VIDEO) | Every time Donald Trump tries to walk back his punishment comments on abortion, he only manages to become even more offensive and misogynistic.In a recent New York Times interview with reporter Robert Draper, Trump made yet another pathetic attempt to clarify the disgusting comments he made during an interview with MSNBC s Chris Matthews in March, where he stated that women should get some form of punishment for seeking an abortion. Trump originally tried to correct his comments shortly after by saying only doctors who perform illegal abortions should face criminal charges which was still a very anti-woman stance to take. Now, Trump has made another attempt to defend his comments and it s just as bad. Trump said: I didn t mean punishment for women like prison. I m saying women punish themselves. I didn t want people to think in terms of prison punishment. And because of that I walked it back. TwitterBut it turns out, every time Trump walks his comments back, it s only because he s receiving backlash and he wants to do damage control he s not really sorry at all. Draper investigated Trump s claims that he hadn t meant that women should be punished, and discovered that the presumptive Republican nominee was lying through his teeth. Draper reported that Trump initially saw nothing wrong with his remark and refused to walk it back before giving a statement. It wasn t until numerous media outlets swarmed him that Trump tried to soften the blow with another statement that said the exact opposite. Those two contradictory statements were released approximately an hour apart but that s nothing new for the dishonest, constantly contradicting and flip-flopping candidate.You can watch Trump s original punishment comments below and see for yourself that Trump s claim that it was a misinterpretation is complete bullsh*t. This is a guy who clearly hates women, and will be a major threat to their health, safety and future if he gets the White House.To prove just how crazy Trump is, in the same Times interview, Trump insisted he would do better on women s issues than Democratic front runner Hillary Clinton and everybody else combined. He said, Frankly, for the general election I think that s a very good issue for me. Trump still remains completely oblivious that almost three quarters of American women hate his guts. And of course, shaming and telling them that they should punish themselves for having an abortion isn t going to help.Featured image via Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / Getty Images | 0 |
10,003 | Key U.S. lawmaker suggests openness to encryption legislation after Apple order | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior U.S. lawmaker expressed a new willingness to support legislation establishing ground rules for when technology firms should grant authorities access to their products, after Apple Inc (AAPL.O) said it would fight a court order to unlock an iPhone linked to the San Bernardino shooting rampage. Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives’ Intelligence Committee, said in a statement on Wednesday that the “complex issues” raised by the Apple case, as well as the prevalence of strongly encrypted devices and communications, “will ultimately need to be resolved by Congress, the administration and industry, rather than the courts alone.” Two weeks ago, Schiff told reporters he considered a legislative approach to the issue neither “feasible or even desirable.” On Tuesday, a federal judge in Los Angeles said that Apple must provide “reasonable technical assistance” to investigators seeking to unlock the data on an iPhone that had been used by San Bernardino shooter Rizwan Farook, who, with his wife, killed 14 people on Dec. 2. Apple said it would fight the court order, which it said would set a dangerous precedent that could ultimately undermine the security of its iPhones. While lawmakers are far from a consensus on the issue, Schiff said, “the court’s decision will likely accelerate our consideration of how to weigh the competing privacy, security and competitiveness issues.” Schiff’s pivot could signal renewed interest from lawmakers in an encryption debate that so far has found little traction in Congress. The House Judiciary Committee is planning to hold a hearing on encryption on March 1 and has invited Apple to attend, according to a congressional source. Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate intelligence panel respectively, have said they want to pursue encryption legislation, though neither has introduced a bill yet. The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, reported on Thursday that Burr was working on a proposal that would levy “criminal penalties” on companies that did not comply with court orders to decrypt communications, though it said negotiations were still fluid. However, Burr’s spokeswoman Becca Watkins told Reuters he “is not considering criminal penalties in his draft encryption proposals.” Momentum for a law that would require companies to provide government access to the contents of encrypted devices relevant to a criminal investigation faltered last summer when the White House stopped pushing for a bill amid intense opposition from technology companies and privacy advocates. It is difficult to gauge the Apple case’s impact on Congress, as both the Senate and House of Representatives are on recess this week. But congressional aides say any encryption legislation likely still faces a steep climb. That is especially true in the House, which in 2014 passed an amendment to a defense funding bill that would have barred the government from forcing an organization to build a technical “backdoor” into its products. The measure was later removed during negotiations. Federal officials have privately dismissed a theory that the Apple case was choreographed to stir up support for encryption legislation. But Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, said she believed the U.S. Justice Department is pursuing the case in California with one eye on Congress. “It’s a win-win for them,” she said. “If they prevail in court, they don’t need a law. And if they lose, they have it set up to go to lawmakers and say: This is what we need, the courts didn’t give it to us, so we need a new law.” | 1 |
10,004 | CAUGHT ON CAMERA! ANTI-TRUMP THUGS Stoop To New Low But Challenge Cameraman When Questioned [Video] | The anti-Trump protesters stoop to a new low and when challenged by the cameraman they verbally abuse him. These people need a big reality check! Thank goodness for the Rebel Pundit cameraman who caught this on video. | 0 |
10,005 | HYSTERICAL! PRO-COP Billboard Causes Controversy And Offends Liberals…But You’ll Love It! | People are offended by just about everything so it s really no surprise that people in Muncie, Indiana would be offended by a billboard that reads: Hate cops? The next time you need help call a crackhead. It gets the point across! A billboard in Indiana has caused some controversy in the wake of the high-profile police killings and officer-involved shooting deaths of African-American men.The electronic billboard in Muncie caught the eyes of plenty of people around the town Saturday and one person described it as vulgar and discriminatory. It read Hate cops? The next time you need help call a crackhead. Megan Thomas told The Star Press on Sunday that she noticed the sign while walking with her niece. She said she was offended by the message, which she alleged was vulgar, discriminatory to many different classes of people in our city. She said it also seemed to have been up ahead of a police brutality protest. I was very ashamed that something so dividing was present in Muncie, she added. Via: Law Officer | 0 |
10,006 | Trump's low approval rating masks his support among likely voters: Reuters/Ipsos poll | NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is more popular with likely voters than he is with the general public, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that underscores why Republican lawmakers have largely stuck with the polarizing president despite his plunging approval ratings. The poll, released on Wednesday, shows he polls better among people who voted in the 2016 presidential election than with the overall U.S. adult population – a group that includes both voters and non-voters. Only about 60 percent of the voting-age public took part in last year’s election. In October, for example, 44 percent of 2016 voters said they approved of Trump’s performance in office, compared with 37 percent of the general population. Among Republicans, 82 percent of voters approved of Trump in October, compared with 75 percent of all Republicans. (Graphic: tmsnrt.rs/2zoIC1A) Some 85 percent of those who voted for Trump in 2016 said they would do so again, the poll found. The findings suggest that Republican candidates in the 2018 congressional elections who shun the president risk alienating his followers, Republican strategists and political scientists said. At the same time, those who embrace him in the early primary races that choose party candidates risk losing moderate voters in the general election. “It’s very difficult for any Republican candidate to distance themselves from Trump,” said Michael McDonald, an expert on voter turnout at the University of Florida. That dilemma played out in Virginia on Tuesday, when Ed Gillespie, the Republican candidate in the governor’s race, was soundly beaten by his Democratic opponent. Gillespie had adopted some of Trump’s hardline positions but had avoided campaigning with the unpopular president. Gillespie’s strategy had been closely watched within the party to see if it could provide a template for other Republican candidates in 2018, when control of the House of Representatives and the Senate will be up for grabs. Gillespie’s loss sparked debate among Republicans on the way forward on Wednesday. Trump suggested in a tweet that the outcome could have been different had Gillespie fully embraced him, but critics pointed out that exit polls showed that a third of Virginian voters had turned out to signal displeasure with Trump, double the number who cast ballots to express support for the president. Tuesday’s results clearly signal that opposition to Trump has grown, even though he remains popular among 2016 Republican voters, said Elaine Kamarck, an expert in presidential politics at the Brookings Institution. For Republicans, “the hurdle won’t be with getting out the base,” Kamarck said. “It will be in getting anyone else to vote for you” in elections where Republican voters are outnumbered. Reuters/Ipsos was able to compare the opinions of voters with the general public by creating two separate surveys: a poll of voters and a poll of the public. For the voter poll, Reuters/Ipsos reconnected with people who took its exit poll on Nov. 8, 2016, the day of the U.S. presidential election. Those voters were sent additional questionnaires in May, July and October that asked if they approved or disapproved of the president. Their responses were then compared with the results of a separate survey – the Reuters/Ipsos national tracking poll – that surveys all adults in the United States. In May and July, the results of both polls were nearly identical, with about 40 percent of voters and the general adult population expressing approval for the president. The two polls diverged in October, however, with voters expressing stronger levels of approval than the general public. Jan Leighley, an expert on political behavior at American University, said it makes sense that Trump is more popular among people who voted in the 2016 election. They were more likely to be white and less likely to identify with Democrats than the general public, she said. The Reuters/Ipsos poll is conducted online in English throughout the country. Some 1,206 of those 2016 voters took the survey between May 10-12, followed by 1,296 who took the July 11-12 survey and 1,195 who took the survey between Oct. 18-19. Individual responses were weighted so they would reflect the latest population estimates, as well as the support their presidential pick received in the election. Each of the voter polls had a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 3 percentage points for the entire group and 5 percentage points for Republican voters. | 1 |
10,007 | PRESIDENT TRUMP Receives Patriots Jersey From Close Friend In White House Ceremony [VIDEO] | In an outdoor ceremony to celebrate the super Bowl champ New england patriots, president Trump received a football jersey with the number 45 on it. It s no secret that Trump is close with Robert Kraft, the owner of the Patriots (see below). This was a special moment!Patriots owner Robert Kraft tells Brian Kilmeade of Fox and Friends about the special friend that Trump was to him and how he went out of his way to help him after his beloved wife died, I m loyal to my friends, I remember who the people are there when the tough times are there and he did that for me. "I remember who the people are there when the tough times are there and he did that for me." -Robert Kraft on his friendship with Pres Trump pic.twitter.com/pQiBWDYCtF FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) February 3, 2017 | 0 |
10,008 | Trump says he will order 'safe zones' for Syria | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he “will absolutely do safe zones in Syria” for refugees fleeing violence in the war-torn country. Saying Europe had made a tremendous mistake by admitting millions of refugees from Syria and other Middle Eastern trouble spots, Trump told ABC News in an interview: “I don’t want that to happen here.” “I’ll absolutely do safe zones in Syria for the people,” he added, without giving details. According to a document seen by Reuters on Wednesday, Trump is expected to order the Pentagon and the State Department in coming days to craft a plan for setting up the “safe zones,” a move that could risk escalation of U.S. military involvement in Syria’s civil war. The draft executive order awaiting Trump’s signature signaled the new administration was preparing a step that Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, long resisted, fearing the potential for being pulled deeper into the bloody conflict and the threat of clashes between U.S. and Russian warplanes over Syria. “The Secretary of State, in conjunction with the Secretary of Defense, is directed within 90 days of the date of this order to produce a plan to provide safe areas in Syria and in the surrounding region in which Syrian nationals displaced from their homeland can await firm settlement, such as repatriation or potential third-country resettlement,” the draft order said. Creation of safe zones could ratchet up U.S. military involvement in Syria and mark a major departure from Obama’s more cautious approach. Increased U.S. or allied air power would be required if Trump chooses to enforce “no fly” restrictions, and ground forces might also be needed to protect civilians in those areas. Still, the document gave no details on what would constitute a safe zone, exactly where they might be set up and who would defend them. Jordan, Turkey and other neighboring countries already host millions of Syrian refugees. The Turkish government had long pressed Obama, without success, for creation of a no-fly zone in Syria on its border with Turkey. The draft raised the possibility of establishing those safe havens in neighboring countries but did not elaborate. Trump’s call for a plan for safe zones is part of a larger directive expected to be signed in coming days that includes a temporary ban on most refugees to the United States and a suspension of visas for citizens of Syria and six other Middle Eastern and African countries deemed to pose a terrorism threat. It represents a modified version of the blanket ban on Muslims entering the United States that Trump initially advocated on the campaign trail last year, sparking criticism from human rights groups and across the U.S. political spectrum. U.S. military officials had long warned that the creation of no-fly zones inside Syria would require a large number of additional resources beyond the fight against Islamic State and it would be difficult to ensure that jihadist insurgents did not infiltrate those areas amid the chaos of Syria’s civil war. Some Republican lawmakers have advocated the creation of such zones, especially to protect civilians fleeing the conflict against attacks by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. During and after the presidential campaign, Trump called for no-fly zones to harbor Syrian refugees as an alternative to allowing them into the United States. Trump accused the Obama administration of failing to properly screen Syrian immigrants entering the United States to ensure they had no militant ties. Obama’s aides have insisted the vetting was meticulous and none of the Syrian refugees allowed in have been implicated in any attacks. On the campaign trail, Trump gave no details as to how he might go about creating such havens, except to say that he would ask Gulf states to help pay. “All the questions of setting up a safe zone are still there,” a U.S. official said. “If you’re going to declare a safe zone, there’s a lot of other things” that would have to be analyzed and put in place before it becomes feasible. Among the biggest questions would be how to avoid confrontations with Russian forces in Syria helping keep Assad in power. Under the broader executive order, which the draft document says is intended to “protect the American people from terrorist attacks by foreign nationals,” Trump would impose a 30-day suspension of the entry of immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The temporary halt is aimed at giving the homeland security secretary, the secretary of state and the director of national intelligence enough time to determine what information is needed from each country to ensure visas are not issued to individuals that pose a national security threat, according to the draft. Countries that do not provide adequate information about their nationals will be required to do so within 60 days or risk being blocked from entering the United States. That would exclude diplomatic visas, NATO visas and visas for travel to the United Nations. It would also suspend the overall U.S. refugee program for 120 days so the government can study the process and determine if additional checks are necessary, but that could be waived on a case-by-case basis. It would completely stop refugee processing of Syrians until “I have determined that sufficient changes have been made” to the refugee program to ensure “its alignment with national interest,” the draft said. | 1 |
10,009 | Waiting for green cards, Indian visa-holders see hope in Trump review | SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - When Gokul Gunasekaran was offered a full scholarship for a graduate program in electrical engineering at Stanford University, he saw it as the chance of a lifetime. He had grown up in Chennai, India, and had a solid job offer with a large oil company after getting his undergraduate degree. He came to America instead, got the Stanford degree and now works as an engineer at a data science startup in Silicon Valley. But for the past five years, he has been waiting for a green card that would give him full legal rights as a permanent resident. In the meantime, he is in a holding pattern on an H1-B visa, which permits him to live and work in the United States but does not allow him easily to switch jobs or start his own company. “It was a no-brainer when I came to this country, but now I’m kind of regretting taking that scholarship,” said Gunasekaran, 29, who is also vice president with a non-profit group called Immigration Voice that represents immigrants waiting for green cards. Immigration Voice estimates there are some 1.5 million H1-B visa holders in the country waiting for green cards, many of whom are from India and have been waiting for more than a decade. Many of these immigrants welcomed President Donald Trump’s executive order this week to the federal departments overseeing the program to review it, a move that may lead to H1-B visas being awarded to the highest-paying, highest-skilled jobs rather than through a random lottery. Their hope is that merit-based H1-Bs might then lead to merit-based green cards. “I think less random is great,” said Guru Hariharan, the CEO and founder of Boomerang Commerce, an e-commerce startup. Hariharan, who was previously an executive at Amazon.com Inc and eBay Inc, spent 10 years waiting for his green card and started his own company as soon as he got it. Green cards can be a path to naturalization and Hariharan expects to become a U.S. citizen soon. H1-B visas are aimed at foreign nationals in occupations that generally require specialized knowledge, such as science, engineering or computer programming. The U.S. government uses a lottery to award 65,000 such visas yearly and randomly distributes another 20,000 to graduate student workers. The H1-B and the green card system are technically separate, but many immigrants from India see them as intimately connected. The number of green cards that can go to people born in each country is capped at a few percent of the total, without regard to how large or small the country’s population is. There is a big backlog of Indian-born people in the line, given the size of India’s population - 1.3 billion - and the number of its natives in the United States waiting for green cards. That leaves many of those immigrants stuck on H1-B visas while they wait, which they say makes them almost like “indentured servants,” said Gaurav Mehta, an H1-B holder who works in the financial industry. Mehta has a U.S.-born son, but he could be forced to take his family back to India at any time if he loses his job and cannot find another quickly. “He’s never been to my country,” Mehta said of his son. “But we’ll have no choice if we have to go. Nobody likes to live in constant fear.” The H1-B visa is tied to a specific employer, who must apply for the visa and sponsor the employee for a specific job laid out in the visa application. To switch employers, the visa holder must secure their paperwork from their current employer and find another employer willing to take over their visa. Some H1-B holders suspect that employers purposely seek out Indian immigrants because they know they will end up waiting for green cards and will be afraid to leave their employers. But changing the green card system away from country caps to a merit-based system would require an act of Congress. Some executives also worry that allocating H1-Bs and green cards based on salary - while it would be done to counter the argument that immigrants undercut American workers - would hurt startups that cannot afford high wages. In the meantime, H1-B holders like Nitin Pachisia, founding partner of a venture capital firm called Unshackled Ventures, are taking more practical measures. His firm specializes in taking care of the legal paperwork so that H1-B holders can start their own companies, a process that is possible but tricky. Pachisia is hopeful that changes to the H1-B visa program could revive interest in making the entire system, from H1-B visas to green cards and eventual citizenship, more merit-based and focused on immigrants who are likely to start companies and create jobs. “If the purpose of our high-skilled immigration program is to bring in the most talented people, let’s use that as a lens. From that perspective, it’s a good thing we can focus on the most talented, and I’d say most entrepreneurial, people,” he said. (This version of the story has been refiled to add missing word “startup” in paragraph two) | 1 |
10,010 | Russia calls U.S. threat to destroy North Korea a 'bloodthirsty tirade' | ROME (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday that a U.S. threat to destroy North Korea in the event of a war was a bloodthirsty tirade and military action against Pyongyang would be a big mistake. Speaking on a visit to Italy, Lavrov strongly condemned comments made by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who earlier this week warned North Korea s leadership it would be utterly destroyed if war were to break out after Pyongyang test fired its most advanced missile. If someone really wants to use force to, as the U.S. representative to the United Nations put it, destroy North Korea ...then I think that is playing with fire and a big mistake, Lavrov told reporters. He called Haley s speech on North Korea, which she made at an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting, a really bloodthirsty tirade . We will do everything to ensure that (the use of force) doesn t happen so that the problem is decided only using peaceful and political-diplomatic means, said Lavrov. Later, addressing a Rome conference, Lavrov said Russia and the United States both wanted North Korea to disarm, but said Washington would send a bad message if it walked away from a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. U.S. President Donald Trump said in October he would not certify that Tehran was complying with the 2015 deal and warned he might ultimately terminate it, accusing Iran of not living up to the spirit of the accord. If the United States drops out of this deal, it won t be very credible in the eyes of those who are now requested to drop their (own) nuclear program like North Korea, Lavrov said. He added that most serious analysts ... and many officials in Washington understood this. | 1 |
10,011 | CLUELESS HILLARY SUPPORTERS Endorse Karl Marx For Vice President [Video] | MARK DICE goes out on the street in San Diego and asks people to sign a petition to help get Karl Marx on the ballot. Oh my gosh! Americans are clueless! | 0 |
10,012 | U.S. tech titans lead legal brief against Trump travel ban | (Reuters) - More than 100 companies, including most of high-tech’s biggest names, joined a legal brief opposing President Donald Trump’s temporary travel ban, arguing that it would give companies strong incentives to move jobs outside the United States. The companies - including Apple Inc (AAPL.O), Google Inc (GOOGL.O) and Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) - banded together late on Sunday to file a “friend-of-the-court” brief with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. They argued that the executive order temporarily banning citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries and all refugees “inflicts significant harm on American business.” Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) and SpaceX were among other companies signing onto the brief on Monday, raising the number of signatories to 127. Musk is among the few tech executives on Trump’s business advisory council. He has been forced to defend his participation in recent days, particularly since Uber Technologies Inc’s [UBER.UL] chief executive, Travis Kalanick, quit the group on Thursday following the travel ban. The new Republican president’s Jan. 27 executive order sparked protests and chaos at U.S. and overseas airports in the weekend that followed. Trump has defended the ban as necessary to ensure tougher vetting of people coming into the United States and better protect the country from the threat of terror attacks. On Friday, U.S District Judge James Robart in Seattle, ruling on a lawsuit challenging the order filed by Washington state and Minnesota, temporarily lifted the ban. The federal government appealed the decision, which was heavily criticized by Trump. In their brief, the companies argued that the order created uncertainty for companies depending on talent from overseas and global business travel to innovate and create jobs in the United States. “Highly skilled immigrants will be more interested in working abroad, in places where they and their colleagues can travel freely and with assurance that their immigration status will not suddenly be revoked,” the brief said. “Multinational companies will have strong incentives ... to base operations outside the United States or to move or hire employees and make investments abroad.” “Ultimately, American workers and the economy will suffer as a result,” the companies argued. A major theme of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign was bringing back jobs he said had been moved to other countries. Responding to the lawsuit, the federal government argued in legal filings that the president was exercising his constitutional authority to control U.S. borders and that the law allows him to suspend the entry of any class of foreigners who “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.” Companies that initially joined the brief included Facebook Inc (FB.O), Twitter Inc (TWTR.N), Intel Corp (INTC.O), eBay Inc (EBAY.O), Netflix Inc (NFLX.O) and Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL], as well as non-tech corporations such as Levi Strauss & Co [LEVST.UL] and Chobani Llc. The brief hailed the contributions inclusive immigration policies have made to the American economy. It said that immigrants or their children have founded more than 200 of the companies on the Fortune 500 list. Trump’s agenda on immigration, trade, cyber security, tax reform and other issues has caused deep consternation in the tech industry. Before the travel ban, most companies said they wanted to work with him and avoided any direct confrontations. But the immigration restrictions provoked a broad backlash in Silicon Valley, where foreign-born nationals are an integral part of the tech economy. There have been peaceful protests at Google and Facebook. Uber was the target of a boycott, and scrambled to reassure its many immigrant drivers that it was on their side. Partly because of pressure from their rank-and-file, big tech companies have separated themselves from much of corporate America in directly confronting Trump policies. Only a handful of non-tech companies joined the friend-of-the-court brief, though some of the lawyers involved said that was mainly because the group came together very quickly through personal contacts. | 1 |
10,013 | Hollywood moves from words to action in Trump era | LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hollywood is gearing up for a concerted response to the policies of U.S. President Donald Trump, planning a pre-Oscar rally and a political action group as the show business world moves beyond angry speeches. Talent agency WME-IMG, which represents actors, musicians, writers and sports figures, said it was forming a national political action committee (PAC). In a memo to employees on Tuesday, WME-IMG, one of the biggest talent agencies in Hollywood, said it also planned to develop “actionable public policy solutions,” connect clients with politicians from both political parties, and support donations of time and money by employees. The memo, seen by Reuters, does not mention Trump and avoids taking a direct political stance. But it adds “this company’s greatest asset is the diversity of our backgrounds and beliefs. Please know that we will do everything in our power to support and protect this diversity now and in the months and years ahead.” United Talent Agency (UTA) on Wednesday canceled its annual Oscars party and said it will instead hold a rally in Beverly Hills two days before the Feb. 26 Oscar ceremony to protest “anti-immigrant sentiment” in the United States. “If our nation ceases to be the place where artists the world over can come to express themselves freely, then we cease, in my opinion, to be America,” UTA chief executive Jeremy Zimmer said in a statement. UTA said it will also donate $250,000 to the American Civil Liberties Union and the International Rescue Committee. The twin moves follow widespread opposition by celebrities to Trump during the 2016 election campaign, and fiery speeches at recent awards shows and rallies condemning Trump’s travel restrictions on seven predominantly Muslim nations. On Monday, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said that barriers to artistic freedom have “made Academy artists activists.” Trump’s attempts to temporarily ban travel have hit Hollywood hard ahead of the movie industry’s most prestigious night. Oscar-nominated Iranian director Asghar Farhadi and actress Taraneh Alidoosti have said they will boycott the Academy Awards to protest Trump’s actions. Syrian civilian rescue workers featured in the Oscar-nominated documentary “The White Helmets,” will be unable to attend, producers said this week. UTA represents Farhadi. The agency said the Tehran-based director said he felt “honored and in tears” when he heard about the announcement. | 1 |
10,014 | As Mattis peers into North Korea, he gets warning on artillery | DEMILITARIZED ZONE, South Korea (Reuters) - As U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis peered into North Korea from a lookout post on Friday, he was given a blunt reminder by his South Korean counterpart of the vast amount of North Korean artillery within range of Seoul. Above the faint sound of North Korean propaganda music being blasted from across the border, South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo suggested that U.S. and South Korean missile defenses simply could not stop all of them. Defending against this many LRAs (long-range artillery) is infeasible in my opinion, Song told Mattis, citing a need for strategies to offensively neutralize the artillery in the event of a conflict. Mattis replied: Understood. The brief exchange at the inter-Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) - where U.S .President Donald Trump may visit in coming days - spoke volumes about the risks of any miscalculation as tension soars over Pyongyang s rapidly advancing nuclear weapon and missile programs. Last week, CIA chief Mike Pompeo said North Korea could be only months away from developing the ability to hit the United States with nuclear weapons, a scenario Trump has vowed to prevent. U.S. intelligence experts say Pyongyang believes it needs the weapons to ensure its survival and have been skeptical about diplomatic efforts, focusing on sanctions, to get Pyongyang to willingly denuclearise. But, as the DMZ trip highlighted, North Korea s conventional weaponry poses such a risk to South Korea that any attempt to denuclearize the North by force could easily escalate into a devastating conflict. Mattis was keen to emphasize efforts to peacefully resolve the crisis, including at the DMZ, as he addressed reporters with his back to the dividing line between North and South. Our goal is not war, but rather the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, Mattis said, as North Korean soldiers kept watch. Mattis said he and Song also made clear their mutual commitment to a diplomatic solution to address North Korea s reckless, outlaw behavior, when they met this week at a gathering of Asian defense chiefs in the Philippines. He carried that same message after his helicopter flight back to Seoul, where he addressed a small group of U.S. and South Korean soldiers. "It comes down to you to make it work, my fine young troops ... and we'll buy time for our diplomats to solve this problem," he said. The emphasis on diplomacy came before Trump departs next week on a trip to Asia. He has declined to say whether he will visit the DMZ when he stops in South Korea, telling reporters on Wednesday: You ll be surprised. Trump, in a speech last month at the United Nations, threatened to destroy North Korea if necessary to defend the United States and its allies. Kim has blasted Trump as mentally deranged. The bellicose verbal exchanges have stoked fears of a military confrontation, but White House officials say Trump is looking for a peaceful resolution. At the same time, the U.S. and South Korean militaries are looking for ways to deter Pyongyang, and bolster its defenses. As Mattis at one point met some of the roughly 28,000 American forces stationed in South Korea, he said the role of U.S. and South Korean troops was essential. We re doing everything we can to solve this diplomatically, everything we can. But ultimately our diplomats have to be backed up by strong soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, so they speak from a position of strength, he said. So thanks for standing watch, for holding the line. | 1 |
10,015 | One more Republican defection would doom Senate healthcare bill | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump turned up the heat on Friday on fellow Republicans in the U.S. Senate to pass a bill dismantling the Obamacare law, but with their retooled healthcare plan drawing fire within the party even one more defection would doom it. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has planned for a vote next week on revised legislation, unveiled on Thursday, and he has his work cut out for him in the coming days to get the 50 “yes” votes needed for passage. Republicans control the Senate by a 52-48 margin and cannot afford to lose more than two from within their ranks because of united Democratic opposition, but two Republican senators already have declared opposition. “After all of these years of suffering thru Obamacare, Republican Senators must come through as they have promised,” Trump, who made gutting Obamacare one of his central campaign promises last year, wrote on Twitter from Paris, where he attended Bastille Day celebrations. The top U.S. doctors’ group, the American Medical Association, on Friday called the new bill inadequate and said more bipartisan collaboration is needed in the months ahead to improve the delivery and financing of healthcare. Hospital and medical advocacy groups also have criticized the bill. “The revised bill does not address the key concerns of physicians and patients regarding proposed Medicaid cuts and inadequate subsidies that will result in millions of Americans losing health insurance coverage,” AMA President Dr. David Barbe said, referring to the government insurance program for the poor and disabled. A major test for McConnell’s legislation expected early next week is an analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which last month forecast that the prior version of the bill would have resulted in 22 million Americans losing insurance over the next decade. A day after that CBO analysis was issued, McConnell postponed a planned vote on the legislation because of a revolt within his own party, including moderates and hard-line conservatives. While the bill’s prospects may look precarious, the same could have been said of healthcare legislation that ultimately was passed by the House of Representatives. Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan called off a vote in March in the face of a rebellion involving the disparate factions of the party but managed to coax enough lawmakers to back it and engineered narrow approval on May 4. Vice President Mike Pence sought to shore up support among the nation’s governors at a meeting in Rhode Island, but a key Republican governor, Ohio’s John Kasich, came out strongly against the revised bill, saying its Medicaid cuts were too deep and it does too little to stabilize the insurance market. Kasich’s opposition could put pressure on Rob Portman, a Republican senator from Ohio, who has not yet taken a position on the bill. If the current Senate legislation collapses, some lawmakers have raised the possibility of seeking bipartisan legislation to fix parts of Obamacare but leaving intact the structure of the Affordable Care Act, Democratic former President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement, commonly known as Obamacare. “There are changes that need to be made to the law,” Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, told MSNBC, citing “a bipartisan appetite to tackle this issue.” Moderate Susan Collins and conservative Rand Paul already oppose the revised Senate bill. Other Republican senators have either expressed concern or remained noncommittal, including Portman, Mike Lee, Shelley Moore Capito, John McCain, Dean Heller, John Hoeven, Lisa Murkowski, Jeff Flake, Ben Sasse, Cory Gardner, Todd Young and Thom Tillis. Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy floated an alternative plan. The new version was crafted to satisfy the Republican Party’s various elements, including moderates worried about Americans who would be left without medical coverage and hard-line conservatives who demand less government regulation of health insurance. A provision championed by Republican Senator Ted Cruz and aimed at attracting conservatives would let insurers sell cheap, bare-bones insurance policies that would not have to cover broad benefits mandated under Obamacare. But two major health insurance groups, America’s Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, called on McConnell to drop the Cruz proposal, saying it would undermine protections for pre-existing medical conditions, raise insurance premiums and destabilize the individual insurance market. The bill retained certain Obamacare taxes on the wealthy that the earlier version would have eliminated, a step moderates could embrace. But it kept the core of the earlier bill, including ending the expansion of Medicaid that was instrumental in enabling Obamacare to expand coverage to 20 million people, and restructuring that social safety-net program. John Thune, a member of the Senate Republican leadership, said in order to complete work on the bill by the end of next week, Senate leaders would have to try to formally begin debate on Tuesday or Wednesday, a move that requires a majority vote. | 1 |
10,016 | The 7 Biggest Republican Lies About The Economy Torn Apart In Three Minutes (VIDEO) | In two-and-a-half minutes, former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich destroys the seven biggest economic lies told by Republicans.In the short video, uploaded to YouTube by MoveOn, Reich uses facts to shred the Republican myth of trickle-down economics.While Republicans tell us that cutting taxes on the rich will spur economic growth and fuel job creation, the economic data tells a very different story. As Reich points out in the video, both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush cut taxes on the rich, and nothing trickled down. The result of Republican tax cuts for the rich have been the same across the states. GOP governors like Bobby Jindal and Rick Snyder have driven their states into economic ruin by imposing experimental trickle-down economic policies on citizens, with disastrous results.Along the same lines, Republicans claim that high taxes on the rich are bad for the economy. Yet history shows the opposite is true.Until 1980, taxes on the top earners in the U.S. were 70 percent. It wasn t until Republicans started cutting these tax rates that economic growth began to slow.Reich also tackles the myth that shrinking government creates jobs. The idea that we create jobs by firing people who already have jobs literally defies reason, but that hasn t stopped republicans from pushing it. It doesn t take much to destroy this lie.While republicans were remarkably silent about the national deficit while George Bush was in the White House, it suddenly became earth-shatteringly important on the day President Obama took office.Reich destroys the myth of deficit reduction as a top priority, explaining that the goal is to reduce the debt as a percent of the GDP, something that cannot be accomplished by slashing budgets all over the place.Reich also looks at how the rising cost of health care impacts the budget, busting the GOP myth that programs like Medicare and Medicaid are negatively impacting the economy.What s important to understand in relation to the health care debate is that government programs actually help slow the increase in health care costs for everyone.The right has been attacking social security as a Ponzi scheme ever since they figured out that there was a lot of money in the social security fund that they couldn t get their greedy little hands on.Is this true? Of course it s not. As Reich explains in the video, Social security is solvent for the next two-plus decades, and it would solvent for much longer if we lift the income cap.The video would not be complete if it didn t address the lie that lower-income people not paying taxes is horribly unfair to the rich.Watch the video below, courtesy of MoveOn on YouTube: While the video above was released in 2011, Republicans are still using these same debunked economic myths to press their disastrous agenda all across the country.As long as Republicans continue to try to repackage and sell these same old lies at election time, we ll be forced to keep debunking their myths time and time again.Image credit: wikimedia commons, video screen capture via MoveOn | 0 |
10,017 | U.S. Congress to advance Zika funding bill: Sen. McConnell | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Leaders in the U.S. Congress on Monday were making progress toward temporarily funding the government in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 and providing money to battle an outbreak of the Zika virus, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said. Making his remarks shortly before he was set to travel to the White House to discuss these long-deadlocked issues with President Barack Obama and other congressional leaders, McConnell said “a lot of important progress” had been made. He did not provide further details, other than to say that he expected to advance the legislation in the Senate this week. | 1 |
10,018 | sercos zulu bridge to mumbai pig farm clinton a patent obama visa snuff | i dont know guys i must say that attack looks mighty fake i didnt see anyone firing back it looked very staged i think the idea of fake terror is to give reason for the gov around the world to have an exuse to change laws and terrorise the polulation so they needquotquot the armies to protect them they mentioned that in the white paper of a world without war because without armies the people might overthrow the crooks in power no one appeared to be really stressed in that video lets face it not one country has ever exposed all the false flags of other nations rothschild has a central bank in everycountry except or three he controls all of them they do all war game together and have immunity for all their spooks which only leaves the public as an enemy there are no good guys in the elites and if you think they would let anyonecontrol them in any way your dreaming you wont see them on the front line they are far too busy counting the profits and partying on the human rights clatter is only directed against the west so are the chemtrails and green c fraud its not hard to work out and only the west has made it law to force the deadly vaccines on people | 0 |
10,019 | Coal CEO pressing Trump to speak up for miners' benefits | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Coal mining executive Robert Murray, one of Donald Trump’s biggest campaign backers, said on Friday he wants the president-elect to support a bill that would protect the health and pension benefits of thousands of coal miners retired from companies that have gone bust. The outspoken founder of Ohio-based Murray Energy Corp said he has asked Trump, who campaigned on a promise to help the coal industry, to speak out on behalf of the spending bill provision currently tied up in Congress. “I asked him and Vice President-elect Mike Pence to be involved verbally and in writing,” Murray told Reuters in an interview. Murray said he has not yet heard back. A Trump transition official did not respond to a request for comment. Murray Energy was among the biggest contributors to Trump’s bid for the presidency. Its $100,000 donation to the Trump Victory PAC was the PAC’s largest from a company, according to Trump’s fundraising committee’s latest filing. Murray also hosted fundraisers for the Republican candidate. On the campaign trail, Trump won over coal-producing states by promising to revive the sector, put laid-off miners back to work, and scrap regulations that he said are hobbling the industry. Coal prices have sunk in recent years due to competition from cheap natural gas and rules to combat climate change ushered in by President Barack Obama. The Senate is now contemplating a spending bill that contains a provision to extend the benefits of retired coal miners whose companies have gone bankrupt until next April, but some coal state Democratic senators are agitating for a longer-term solution and threatening a government shutdown. A group of Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, are resisting, and the bill is in limbo. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday that the Obama administration hopes “there should be bipartisan common ground to address the needs of these 20,000 coal miners who are slated to lose their health insurance at the end of the month.” Dozens of United Mine Worker retired miners have been on Capitol Hill this week holding rallies and visiting lawmakers to urge them to pass a longer-term solution. UMWA spokesman Phil Smith said the Trump transition team is aware of the issue but has not said anything publicly. As one of just a handful of U.S. coal companies that has not declared bankruptcy, Murray said his company is struggling to pay into its health and pension funds and “can’t compete with those companies that didn’t go through bankruptcy proceedings.” | 1 |
10,020 | U.S. special counsel's investigators met author of 'Trump dossier': source | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former British spy who compiled a dossier with allegations that Russia helped Donald Trump in the 2016 U.S. presidential election has met with investigators working for the special counsel on the case, a source familiar with the contact said on Thursday. Christopher Steele, a former senior operative for MI6, the British foreign intelligence agency, met representatives of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team “recently,” said the source, who declined to provide further details. A spokesman for Mueller declined comment. While President Trump and some of his supporters have dismissed the dossier as “fake news”, two sources familiar with Mueller’s probe and a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation of suspected Russian meddling in the election said on Thursday that investigators have not dismissed it. Russia has repeatedly denied any interference in last November’s election won by businessman Trump, a Republican. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr said on Wednesday that his panel had made several attempts to contact Steele and to meet him and “those offers have gone unaccepted.” “The committee cannot really decide the credibility of the dossier without understanding things like who paid for it, who are your sources and sub-sources,” Burr said. The meeting between members of Mueller’s team and Steele was first reported by CNN earlier on Thursday. Reuters reported on Wednesday that Mueller’s team had taken over multiple strands of FBI investigations related to possible financial and personal links between Trump, his associates and Russia. Steele met with FBI representatives before the election to discuss his findings on Trump and Russia. A copy of his so-called Trump dossier was posted publicly on the BuzzFeed website in January. Although several news organizations, including Reuters, were briefed on Steele’s dossier, most decided not to report on the material because its inflammatory and sometimes salacious content could not be verified. The information on Trump collected by Steele, whom officials say was one of MI6’s most respected Russia hands, was laid out last year in political “opposition research” initially financed by supporters of one of Trump’s Republican primary election opponents. After Trump won the Republican nomination in July, backers of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton picked up the support of Steele’s work. | 1 |
10,021 | UK says Briton kidnapped in Nigeria last month killed, three others released | LONDON (Reuters) - A Briton kidnapped in Nigeria last month has been killed with three others released after negotiations, Britain s Foreign Office said on Monday. The four Britons were taken hostage three weeks ago and although the British High Commission, with help from the Nigerian authorities secured the release of three of them, Ian Squire was killed, the Foreign Office (FCO) said in a statement. It said it was unable to give further details because of an ongoing investigation by the Nigerian authorities We are supporting the families of four British people who were abducted on October 13 in Nigeria, one of whom was tragically killed, the statement said. This has clearly been a traumatic time for all concerned, and our staff will continue to do all we can to support the families. A statement from the families of Squire and the other hostages, Alanna Carson, David Donovan and Shirley Donovan, said the last three weeks had been traumatic for the relatives and friends of those involved. We are delighted and relieved that Alanna, David and Shirley have returned home safely. Our thoughts are now with the family and friends of Ian as we come to terms with his sad death, their statement said. | 1 |
10,022 | Thai junta sets firm date for election after many false starts | BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand will hold a general election in November 2018, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said on Tuesday, the most precise date he has given yet for the vote since taking power in a 2014 military coup. Prayuth, head of the ruling junta, said the exact date would be announced in June 2018. The junta has announced election dates at least two times in the past, only to push them back later, citing concerns such as changes to the constitution and security issues. Around June we will announce the date for the next election, Prayuth told reporters at Bangkok s Government House. In November we will have an election. Former army chief Prayuth, who led the May 2014 coup widely criticized by Western nations, said it was necessary to end a decade of political turbulence and root out corruption. In April, King Maha Vajiralongkorn signed into law a military-backed constitution that kickstarts the process for an election the junta has promised will restore democracy. The new charter provides for a proportional voting system likely to reduce the influence of major political parties, which critics say aims to strengthen the role of the military. Analysts expect political activities to resume slowly after the funeral of King Bhumibol Adulyadej this month ends a year of mourning for a monarch many Thais saw as a father figure. Prayuth wants to delay the election but he knows that after the king s cremation, there will be pressure for an election, said Kan Yuenyong of the Siam Intelligence Unit think tank. This announcement for the election in November next year will act to reduce that pressure, because if not, there could be chances for protests, he told Reuters. Thailand s main stock index rose 0.7 percent after the news, having opened Tuesday down 0.3 percent. The government has faced increasing pressure to lift a ban on political activities levied soon after the coup. Prayuth will consider lifting the ban at an appropriate time , he told reporters, without giving details. The junta had initially promised an election in 2015, after seizing power from the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, sister of Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin s governments, or those backed by him, have won every election since 2001, partly because of their overwhelming popularity with politically-powerful rural voters. But the Shinawatras made enemies, including those among the military-backed establishment who accused Thaksin and his allies of corruption. Thaksin was ousted in 2006 and lives abroad in self-imposed exile. Yingluck followed suit in August, when she fled Thailand ahead of the verdict in a criminal case. Some politicians expressed skepticism over the election date. It isn t really believable, because they have changed it many times, said Chaturon Chaisang, a member of Thaksin s Puea Thai Party. Ong-art Klampaiboon, deputy leader of the Democrat Party, Puea Thai s biggest competitor, welcomed the news. The election date creates clarity, Ong-art said. This should be good for the country and the people. | 1 |
10,023 | OUTRAGEOUS! MEMPHIS VOTES TO DIG UP CONFEDERATE GENERAL AND WIFE | THE CLEANSING OF OUR HISTORY CONTINUES What the heck is wrong with the city of Memphis???Late Tuesday, the Memphis, Tennessee, City Council voted unanimously to dig up the remains of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife, Talking Points Memo reported Wednesday. The council also voted to remove a statue placed in Forrest s honor. The move came after Mayor A.C. Wharton called for the bodies to be dug up and relocated.Tuesday s vote is not the end of the story, however. According to WREG, the Chancery Court would also have to approve the removal of the remains and Forrest s family would also be involved in the decision.Forrest and his wife are currently buried beneath a statute honoring the general in a park which had been named after him until two years ago. The park is now known as Memphis Health Sciences Park.Officials with Elmwood Cemetery the location of Forrest s original resting place said they would be willing to help move the remains but said they did not want to become the new home of the statue. It is not known where the statue would go if the Tennessee Historic Commission approves its removal. The commission is not set to meet before October. It is no longer politically correct to glorify someone who was a slave trader, someone who was a racist, on public property, said City Council member Myron Lowery. WREG said Lowery spearheaded the effort to remove Forrest, his wife and the statue. The move to relocate Forrest is part of what many now see as a Stalinist effort to purge U.S. history after the tragic shooting in a Charleston, South Carolina church that left nine dead.Not everyone is celebrating the vote, however. Lee Millar, a spokesperson for the Sons of the Confederate Veterans, said the shooting proves the need for the statue to remain. I think it s disgusting that people use the shooting in Charleston and use those victims to forward their own agenda and join this anti-Confederate hysteria that s going on, he said. To attack something like that now I feel is just really misguided, he added, calling the response in Memphis and other places a knee-jerk reaction.Katherine Blalock, an area resident whose great grandfather served with Forrest in the Confederate Army, agreed. We need to have a coming together of people, not a divide and conquer, she said.But it seems that dividing the country is exactly what some want. Not content with removing the Confederate battle flag from the national memory, some now want to see the Jefferson Memorial taken down. Retail stores have yanked the battle flag and the House has voted to forbid sales of the battle flag at National Parks. As we reported Wednesday, one former academic called the U.S. Constitution a Confederate symbol and said it should be edited.Via: examiner | 0 |
10,024 | Trump, pushing immigration plan, meets with family of woman killed in 2007 | PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Donald Trump sought to sell Americans on his tough approach to immigration on Friday, meeting in Philadelphia with the family of a woman who was killed in a 2007 shooting that involved people who came to the United States illegally. Trump this week unveiled a hardline immigration plan that emphasized deporting illegal immigrants who commit crimes. His plan was cheered by other immigration critics, but some Hispanic backers and moderate Republicans felt it lacked compassion toward millions of people in the United States illegally. Trump often points to examples of people hurt by illegal immigrants to defend his tough positions, which include building a wall at the border with Mexico, though some studies have found immigrants are less likely to commit serious crimes. On Friday, he met with the family of Iofemi Hightower, who was 20 years old when she and two others were killed in a schoolyard in Newark, New Jersey. At least one of the people convicted in the 2007 shootings was in the United States illegally, according to a New York Times report in 2010 about the trials. Another had likely entered the country illegally and later gained legal status, the paper said. “These are people that shouldn’t be in the country,” Trump told reporters. “A lot of people don’t even know, they have no idea the consequence of these people coming in.” Shalga Hightower, 55, Iofemi’s mother, said her family endured seven years of legal trials, as well as a period of homelessness and job loss. Asked if she would be supporting Trump for president, she said yes. Her son, Jamar Hightower, 26, said Trump was the only person paying attention to the problem of crimes committed by people living in the United States illegally. “I feel as though this man is the only one that’s actually standing up to do something about it,” Jamar Hightower said. “This is not a problem that just started. They’ve been here.” | 1 |
10,025 | Under fire in Washington, Trump back in campaign mode in Iowa | CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump, under siege in Washington, defended his record at a raucous political rally in Iowa on Wednesday, rejecting a Russia investigation as a witch hunt and saying he was succeeding against all odds, despite no major legislative achievements. “All we do is win, win, win,” he told a cheering crowd. His first tweet on Thursday morning praised the “special people” there. A feisty Trump spoke for more than an hour at a rally in Cedar Rapids that was similar to those he held during last year’s presidential campaign. It included protesters escorted out by police, Trump attacking the news media and supporters waving signs saying “Drain the Swamp” in Washington. Trump’s first trip to Iowa since taking office on Jan. 20 came against a backdrop of problems in Washington. His legislative agenda is struggling to gain traction, a federal investigation of alleged Russian meddling into the election and possible collusion with Trump’s campaign continues, and his approval rating is below 40 percent in most polls. But Trump touted job gains and an improving stock market as evidence that his economic policies are working, and he lauded his wealthy appointees such as his top economic adviser Gary Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs executive, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, a billionaire known for his investments in distressed industries. “In those particular positions, I just don’t want a poor person — does that make sense?” Trump said. He also vowed he would eventually get funding for a border wall with Mexico, possibly with solar panels attached, despite congressional refusal thus far. “We’re thinking about building the wall as a solar wall,” he said. “Pretty good imagination, right? It’s my ideas.” Solar panels along the wall are among proposals that have been submitted by companies to the Department of Homeland Security, according to media reports. Buoyed by Republican victories in special congressional elections in Georgia and South Carolina on Tuesday, Trump blasted his opponents as “unbelievably nasty” and said cable news anchors appeared stunned by the Democratic losses. Unable to get Democrats to join Republicans in major legislative efforts, Trump said the wounding by a gunman last week of Republican Representative Steve Scalise in Alexandria, Virginia, had fostered a spirit of unity. But he did not sound optimistic about breaking through the partisan divide any time soon. Trump said he doubted he would have help from Democrats in getting major healthcare legislation through the U.S. Congress. He wants the Senate to join the House of Representatives in approving legislation soon to overhaul the signature domestic achievement of his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama. “If we went and got the single greatest healthcare plan in the history of the world we would not get one Democrat vote because they’re obstructionists,” Trump said. Looking to foreign policy, Trump complained about the “bad hand” he had been dealt, such as North Korea’s nuclear program. His comments came days after American student Otto Warmbier died after returning in a coma from captivity in North Korea. On Tuesday, Trump had tweeted that he has basically given up on getting help from Chinese President Xi Jinping on North Korea after investing a lot of effort to coaxing Beijing to use its influence on Pyongyang. “I do like President Xi,” said Trump, who was with the new U.S. ambassador to China, former Iowa Governor Terry Branstad. “I do wish we would have a little more help on North Korea.” | 1 |
10,026 | Trump Plans To Issue Executive Order Allowing CIA To Use Torture | Torture is illegal in this country and the United States is bound by the United Nations and the Geneva Convention to not commit such a war crime.But Donald Trump intends to sign an executive order that would open the door for the CIA to use torture on detainees and reopen secret black sites that are used to make people disappear.According to the New York Times, the sweeping executive order would clear the way for the Central Intelligence Agency to reopen overseas black site prisons, like those where it detained and tortured terrorism suspects before former President Obama shut them down. Republicans have been defending the use of torture since it was revealed that former President George W. Bush authorized waterboarding during his presidency. It s a form of torture that simulates drowning. Even Senator John McCain says that waterboarding is torture. He would know. He was tortured in Vietnam while Trump dodged the draft and spent his days womanizing and spending his daddy s money.Most tellingly, conservatives who say waterboarding isn t torture, like Trump propagandist Sean Hannity, cowardly refuse to be waterboarded themselves even though they claim it s not torture.The only thing standing in Trump s way is a 2015 law that Republicans can easily repeal now that banned American officials from torturing detainees.Of course, it really doesn t matter what the law is since Trump will likely ignore it anyway like he ignores everything else such as facts and reality.The United States Constitution expressly forbids the use of cruel and and unusual punishment. Furthermore, torture does not work as an information gathering technique because the victim will say anything to make the torture stop. So if the CIA tortures an innocent person, they would get false information no matter what they do. And such bad information is a threat to the lives of our soldiers in the field and can lead to disastrous decisions by government. This country should not be making decisions based on what a torture victim is telling their torturer.Using torture also opens the door for other nations to use torture against us and we would be no better than the nations that currently do use it.Donald Trump is not making America great. He s an embarrassment who is only weakening this country every single day he is allowed to continue being president. Our power and reputation in the world is becoming a joke that nations like Russia and China are laughing at because our loss is their gain. America is not only losing international prestige and respect, we are being destroyed from within as Trump continues to take a jackhammer to the foundation of this country, which will destroy lives both inside and outside our nation.Resistance to Donald Trump s regime is no longer enough. If we want to save America s soul it will take something more. Because waiting for four years will be too late.Featured image via Wong/Getty Images | 0 |
10,027 | Trump Spoke With Putin About Election Interference, It’s Just As Bad As You’d Expect (VIDEO) | On Friday, Donald Trump finally got the chance to be in the same room as his favorite world leader, Russian President Vladimir Putin. Giddy with the chance to speak with a global leader whom he truly admired, Trump made Putin meet with him for over two hours, according to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.Tillerson also reported that Trump brought up the Russian interference in the election, opening the meeting by asking Putin if he d done any meddling. No one knows why the hell Trump would do this, but Putin responded exactly as we all expected him to by denying it.Reporters at the briefing also seemed stunned that Trump actually thought Putin would admit to such a thing, especially since Trump has defended Russia and denied the interference so extensively, even at the expense of America s intelligence agencies and free press. Apparently, Trump asked Putin about the election several times, each time getting a denial from Putin. And according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, that was all Trump needed to convince him or satisfy his need to prove his own innocence in the Russian scandal.In a report about the meeting, Tillerson said: What the two presidents I think rightly focused on is how to we move forward Because it s not clear to me that we will ever come to some agreed-upon resolution of that question between the two nations. You can listen to Tillerson s recap of what happened between Putin and Trump below:Putin and Trump s relationship is highly problematic, and their meeting was the focus of the G20 Summit this week. As Trump s Russia scandal continues to heat up, it was almost too predictable that America s corrupt POTUS would ask a question like this, which would of course be denied. Trump is, once again, trying to make fools out of us all and we re not buying it.Featured image via Handout / Getty Images | 0 |
10,028 | Kellyanne Conway Makes A Fool Of Herself Trying To Defend Trump’s Ridiculous Attack On Obama (VIDEO) | On Monday, Trump propaganda minister Kellyanne Conway crawled out of her slimepit to once again defend the indefensible this time, Trump s ridiculous and baseless allegation that President Obama tapped his wires at Trump Tower. He s the president of the United States, he has information and intelligence that the rest of us do not, Conway told Fox News, adding that a number of credible media outlets are reporting there was politically-motivated activity all during the campaign and suggesting there s more there. Not a single credible news source has reported that President Obama ordered Trump s wires tapped. The report initially came from Breitbart, a white supremacist propaganda website. People deserve to know, so why not include in the existing investigations into Russia whether or not this actually happened? Conway says.What actually happened was Donald Trump read an article that was being passed around the White House, made the mistake of believing it, and melted down on Twitter, sticking to the story even after the conspiracy theorist upon whose claims the story relied admitted he has zero evidence to back it.Trump s allegations are so ridiculous that the FBI asked the Department of Justice Saturday to officially tell the American people Trump is full of sh*t. They have not yet done so.Watch Conway s humiliating performance below:Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
10,029 | COLLEGES ENLISTING “Bias Response Teams” To Snitch On Each Other For…”Offensive” Speech [VIDEO] | Hundreds of Universities across the nation are encouraging students to report other students or even professors who use what they deem to be offensive or even impolite verbiage. The investigations are being done by Bias Response Team ROBERT SHIBLEY ON WHAT S GOING ON AT ALL THESE COLLEGES;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_lpVv-fShg&feature=youtu.beVia Washington Examiner: Over the past year, I surveyed more than 230 such reporting systems for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and asked dozens of schools for records about their Bias Response Teams. What I found is detailed in a new report describing how universities broadly define bias to include virtually any speech, protected or not, that subjectively offends anyone. On many campuses, administrators are called upon to referee whether speech is polite. The threat to free speech is a real and present issue in America today as some Americans are putting a higher premium on political correctness than the right to freedom of speech.The threat to expressive rights isn t confined to speech from the Left or the Right. Bias reporting systems are being used to report all kinds of speech.At Appalachian State University, students have reported on one another for messages that were pro-Trump as well as calling Trump a RACIST. The former were reported by students as hate speech, the latter politically biased slander that was unlawful. While students at Ohio State University reported each other for comparing Hillary Clinton to Hitler, students at Texas Tech were telling administrators that the Black Student Union s tweets in support of the Black Lives Matter movement offended them. Meanwhile, the University of Oregon thought it define community expectations to students who complained about the oppression.Source: Washington Examiner | 0 |
10,030 | Ukrainian police clash with Saakashvili supporters in Kiev | KIEV (Reuters) - Ukrainian police clashed with backers of opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili on Sunday and prevented them from forcing their way into Kiev s October Palace after a rally against President Petro Poroshenko. The confrontation, which included the firing of tear gas canisters, was the latest chapter in the former Georgian president s stand-off with Ukrainian authorities that led to his detention and release from custody last week. The October Palace, a cultural center, became a symbol of revolt when it was a key location in the 2013-14 pro-European uprising that ousted a Moscow-backed president and installed Poroshenko, who promised to eliminate widespread corruption. Saakashvili, president of his native Georgia in 2004-2013, moved to Ukraine after an uprising there and served as a regional governor in 2015-16 before falling out with Poroshenko, whom he accuses of failing to stamp out endemic graft and being corrupt himself. Poroshenko denies the accusations. Sunday s scuffles at the October Palace were an offshoot of a larger, peaceful opposition rally in which several thousand people marched through central Kiev earlier in the day, calling for Poroshenko s impeachment. The situation was relatively calm at the Palace after darkness fell with a large number of riot police blocking the entrance to the center, whose doors protesters had earlier tried to break through, some throwing stones and other objects. We have to be calm, keep the peace, Saakashvili told a few hundred of his supporters, who remained outside the building. No serious injuries were reported in the clashes. Saakashvili accused the authorities of engineering the situation to provoke violence. Earlier, he had called on protesters to set up a headquarters in the building. But later, he condemned any attempt to seize administration buildings. Interior ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko held Saakashvili responsible for the clashes. Despite all the provocations as a result of which Mikheil Saakashvili wants to spill the blood of Ukrainians, he has not succeeded, he said in a post on Facebook. The comments continue a long-running blame game that has included prosecutor s accusing Saakashvili of assisting a criminal organization, charges he says are trumped up to undermine his campaign to unseat Poroshenko. Police said the attempt to charge into the October Palace occurred while a children s concert was going on inside. Ukrainian lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko, who attended the rally, joined other opposition MPs in condemning Saakashvili s actions. This behavior could destroy the remnants of trust among like-minded political associates and alienate society, he said on Facebook. | 1 |
10,031 | Episode #6 – DRIVE BY WIRE: ‘Syria WMD Redux?’ (Part 1) | MEMBERS can join co-hosts Patrick Henningsen and Shawn Helton for the full version of this episode of DRIVE BY WIRE at 21WIRE.TV EPISODE #6 Here is Part 1 of this special emergency installment of DRIVE BY WIRE with Patrick Henningsen and Shawn Helton. This is an urgent discussion on this week s alleged chemical weapons attack in Idlib, Syria which the US and Donald Trump have automatically blamed on the Syrian government and Bashar al Assad. Is this a dangerous precedent?NOTE: This segment was filmed the day before Trump launched a missile strike against Syria . SUPPORT OUR WORK SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TVREAD MORE SYRIA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Syria Files | 0 |
10,032 | Police Commissioner Explains Why It’s Hard To Hire Black Cops In NYC | It sounds like a perfectly legitimate reason it s likley NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton has claimed it is hard to hire more black cops because so many of them have spent time in jail. We have a significant population gap among African American males because so many of them have spent time in jail, he told The Guardian. And, as such, we can t hire them. Partially to blame for the pool of eligible officers that is much smaller than it might ordinarily have been is the NPYD s controversial stop and frisk policy that was shut down in 2013, said Bratton.The NPYD commissioner said stop and frisk had unfortunate consequences as it resulted in a number of young black men receiving summons for minor misdemeanors.Stop and frisk, which allowed police to question and potentially search someone if they had so-called reasonable suspicion that person was committing an offense, was ruled unconstitutional in August 2013 by Judge Shira A Scheindlin.Scheindlin said the program was a violation of both black and Hispanic people s right to equal protection, as they were being stopped at much higher rates than those who were white.Both demographics made up 84 percent of the people who were stopped by officers using the policy, according to a report by the Public Advocate s office and cited by the Washington Post.Fifty-three percent of that figure was made up of black people.Black recruits made up only 6.86 percent of this year s police academy, according to another Guardian report, in a city where they represent 22 percent of the population.The NYPD stopped supporting the policy when Bratton returned as commissioner in 2014, after serving in Los Angeles.But he continued to defend a policy he had New York adopt in the early 1990s, dubbed broken windows, which some of his critics say is where the the real blame should lay.Robert Gangi, the director of the Police Reform Organizing Project in New York, said stop and frisk was not at the heart of the problem but a symptom of broken windows blatant racist policing .Via:UK Daily Mail | 0 |
10,033 | navy petty officer joins dapl protest with upside down flag our greatest enemies are right here | by justin gardner as the corporatocracy tightens its grip on the masses finding ever more ways to funnel wealth to the top humanity | 0 |
10,034 | Trump Says He Never Makes Mistakes, Then Immediately Makes A Mistake (VIDEO) | In perhaps the clearest example of the small, but egregious way Donald Trump lies about even the little things, he got caught screwing up less than 2 seconds after announcing that he doesn t make mistakes. It unfolded like a scene from a comedy, Trump, angry at his plummeting poll numbers and numerous scandals, complained that the press were obsessed with looking for flaws in his White House. Rather than admit he s only human, Trump doubled down on his absurd contention that he s never wrong. One mistake and it s no good. But we just can t make mistakes, right? So we don t make mistakes. Ready for the punchline?Trump next passes the conversation over to Ken. Go ahead, Ken. That wasn t Ken. That s Chuck Canterbury, the head of the National Fraternal Order of Police.Oops.While flatly stating that you never make mistakes is a ridiculous thing to lie about, it only serves to highlight the general level of dishonesty that is rampant in Trump s White House. He s so incapable of admitting he s wrong that Trump goes to great lengths to never apologize for anything he s ever said no matter how false. Trump never apologized for linking Ted Cruz s dad to the JFK assassination. His apology for six years of promoting birtherism turned out to be a sorry, not sorry publicity stunt. He can t even admit his unfounded claim that Obama wiretapped his phones was a complete fabrication.But here s the really scary part. A lie as obvious as I never make mistakes brings us to an unsettling truism: If a person will lie about the little things, what will he do to cover up the big ones?Featured image via YouTube | 0 |
10,035 | Trump Imitates Indian Call Center Worker In Latest Racist Tirade On Campaign Trail (VIDEO) | If one were to best describe Donald Trump, especially at one of his campaign rallies, he would be the living embodiment of a Fox News Facebook comment section just full of vile, fear-filled, xenophobic, racist, hate-filled rhetoric.Making sure he lives up to this reputation while on the campaign trail in Delaware, Trump decided he would tell people about his experiences with call centers, primarily those that are overseas. And while these call centers are taking away American jobs, the people who work in these centers overseas are human beings trying to make an honest day s wage for themselves, and should be treated as such.However, Trump decided to do what he always does, and with no regard for who s he s throwing under the bus because he has a point to make, decided to imitate a call center worker from India.Trump said that he called the center to pretend he was checking on his credit card, then asked the worker, Where are you from? and that s when he did the impression, saying We are from India, in his disgusting attempt to pander to his racist and xenophobic crowd. Trump then supposedly said to the call center, Oh, great. That s wonderful. Thank you very much, that s all I need to know, and proceeds to pretend to hang up the phone.Did he make this story up? Probably, but it doesn t make it any less racist.Here s the thing, Trump doesn t care who he s offending as long as he s winning. He s fanning the flames of racism and hatred everywhere he goes, because it s clearly working, and that should terrify all of us.We need to make sure Trump gets nowhere near the Oval Office come November. He s not only bad for the nation, but it would be devastating for the entire world.Donald Trump says he called his credit-card company just to see if an Indian call center answered https://t.co/Cdv0korqNo ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) April 22, 2016Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
10,036 | Adele Brings Whole Crowd Together To Dedicate Song To Brussels, And It’s Breathtaking (VIDEO) | When there are those who are injured and killed in terror attacks, there will also be those who stand behind them in solidarity to show their unending love and support. No greater example of this was exhibited than on Tuesday night in London s O2 arena when Adele dedicated a song to the city of Brussels, Belgium and got the entire crowd to sing along with her.Brussels is the latest city to feel the sting of those who see harming others as a means to be heard and get their way. These terrorists are cruel, yet unfortunately, no longer unusual. Too many of these attacks are occurring and there needs to be a united effort to stop the spread of terror across the globe.One way to show these inhumane monsters that their terror will not affect life as we know it, is by sticking together in times of need and moving forward with a bond that is greater than anything hatred can foster. By dedicating her song Make You Feel My Love to the city of Brussels and having the entire arena sing along while waving light proves that age-old saying from Martin Luther King, Jr.: Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. And this is, by far, one of the most perfect examples of such light and love. At the end, Adele was so touched that she said, I don t think I ve ever actually been so moved in my life at one of my shows that was just so beautiful. And it really, truly was.We re all standing with you Brussels.Featured image via YouTube | 0 |
10,037 | U.S. says troubled by reports of another U.S. citizen jailed by Iran | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is troubled by reports that an Iranian-American man may have been sentenced by Iran to 18 years in prison, a State Department spokesman said on Tuesday, a week after an Iranian-American businessman and his father were also jailed by an Iranian court. “We are troubled by reports that Robin Reza Shahini, a person reported to be a U.S. citizen, may have been convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison,” spokesman John Kirby told a daily briefing. He called on Tehran to halt “arbitrary and politically motivated detentions.” California-based Shahini was detained while visiting his mother in Gorgan in July, according to Shahini’s friends. Last week, businessman Siamak Namazi and his 80-year-old father Baquer Namazi, a former Iranian provincial governor and former UNICEF official, were sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of cooperating with the United States. Iran does not recognize dual nationality, which prevents Western embassies from visiting such detainees. Washington secured the release of five U.S. citizens from Iran in January in a prisoner exchange and has said it raises the detention of other Americans held by Tehran during meetings with Iranian officials. Major world powers, including the United States, reached a landmark nuclear deal with Iran in July last year, which lifted some international sanctions against Iran. “Nobody is turning a blind eye here, but what is behind this, I don’t think any of us know with certainty,” Kirby said, when asked why Iran keeps detaining dual citizens. “I can’t speak to the motivation behind these detentions but if one of the motivations was to secure ransom, it is a false perception. It is wrong.” Republican leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives plan a vote as soon as mid-November on a 10-year reauthorization of the Iran Sanctions Act, congressional aides told Reuters. The move could increase frustrations in Iran, which has been complaining for months that remaining U.S. sanctions have frightened away trade partners. | 1 |
10,038 | Libertarian Candidate Gary Johnson STUNS America With Statement On Presidential Election | For months, various third parties have been making all sorts of noises about how we need third-party candidates in the presidential elections if we ever want to break the tyranny of the two-party system. This has resonated especially well with people who think Hillary Clinton is about as bad as Donald Trump. However, Libertarian Gary Johnson, and his running mate, Bill Weld, have issued a surprising announcement about this election that doesn t include begging for votes for Johnson.The Johnson-Weld campaign believes that Trump is a monumentally bad choice for President of the United States, saying, in their statement on the matter: A President of the United States operates every day under a great deal of pressure from all sides, and in furtherance of many different agendas. With that pressure comes constant criticism.After careful observation and reflection, I have come to believe that Donald Trump, if elected President of the United States, would not be able to stand up to this pressure and this criticism without becoming unhinged and unable to perform competently the duties of his office. [emphasis mine]No, Trump wouldn t be able to handle the pressure. Johnson and Weld are both reading this quite correctly, because Trump is a) too thin-skinned to deal with hostile world leaders who might ridicule him (along with a hostile Congress that just won t do his bidding), and b) just plain too mired in fascism to be the leader of the free world. He would destroy the free world.The campaign went on to say: Mr. Trump has some charisma and panache, and intellectual quickness. These qualities can be entertaining. Yet more than charisma, more even than intellectual ability, is required of a serious candidate for this country s highest office. A serious candidate for the Presidency of the United States must be stable, and Donald Trump is not stable. [emphasis mine]While it does sound like they re admitting defeat and endorsing Hillary, or, at least, trying to convince people to vote for Hillary, that s not quite the case, whatever other sites have claimed. The Johnson-Weld campaign wants the Nov. 8 election to be between Johnson and Hillary, rather than Hillary and Trump: Governor Weld and Governor Johnson are campaigning nonstop, with rallies and appearances scheduled over the next few days across the country from Alaska to Cincinnati, and are fully committed to giving voters the third choice they deserve in this election.Any suggestion to the contrary is the product of active imaginations and partisans in both the Republican and Democrat camps who see how many independents, millennials [sic] and other disenfranchised voters are looking to the Johnson-Weld ticket as a vote they can cast in good conscience. Either way, the Johnson campaign, despite being much closer to Republicans than Democrats ideologically, cannot stomach voting for Trump. They can t tolerate their voters voting for Trump, either, but neither do they want their voters choosing Hillary.Featured image by Bill McCay via Getty Images for SiriusXM | 0 |
10,039 | defeating white liberalism in the age of trump | shares
book review dr rafiq islam emertec rd ltd dalhousie university halifax nova scotia
book title true islam jihad and terrorism the science of islamic foreign policy jaan s islam
publisher new york nova science publishers
isbn
at a time of politics of fear jaan islam counters fear with knowledge in his masterpiece true islam jihad and terrorism nova science publishers new york during the us election it has become clear world peace and security is connected to the state of islam and how it is understood in todays context this is a very timely book that fills a gap in the western society about islamic history philosophy and political science this book presents the islamic political philosophy as represented in the writings of great muslim thinkers and scholars such as ibn khaldun jaan islam uses the socalled islamic cognition technique and starts the book with a chapter dedicated to islamic cognition this chapter on cognition itself is a paradigm shift in the modern research scholarship and can be considered for advancing knowledge in other fields such an extension was first pointed by islam zatzman and islam in their groundbreaking work on educational curriculum
more stop using millenary religions as a scapegoat for the crimes of modern imperialism another ramadan for muslims amid sufferings a conversation on equality integration and islam as a religious marker an open letter to young muslims everywhere the seed of triumph in every adversity following the tradition of early islamic scholars jaan islam presented all theories in the book with evidence from the primary islamic sources quran and authenticated traditions of the prophet these sources were completely ignored in the in the orientalist now it has morphed into neoorientalism writings which led to the inundation of the post world with disinformation and agendadriven research about islamic history the distinction between this book and these agendadriven ones gives the book a special value
although the book explains the islamic foundations of political science and governance it should not be looked at as a book of theology it is a dogmafree approach that has been characterized as truly scientific elsewhere quite appropriately the author starts off with a brilliant narration of islamic cognition it has been all but forgotten in the west that islam is the religion that started the tradition of dogmafree truly scientific cognition the west does recognize averröes the famous islamic scholar as the father of secular philosophy whereas brands islam as just another religion similar to christianity infected with doctrinal philosophy it is no surprise that with that starting point islam remains the most misunderstood religion in the west
chapter of the book deals with fundamental philosophies of three major philosophers namely hobbes locke and ibn khaldun in this chapter the author debunks another myth that is ibn khalduns political theory is somehow similar to those of hobbes and locke ibn khaldun the father of social science indeed had a very different starting point in his cognition the author points out how ibn khalduns first premise was shahadah that formed the basis of the cognition axis by using quran as the origin and prophet muhammads life through the book of hadith as the pivotal point one the other hand locke had placed himself as the pivotal point whereas hobbes eliminated any cognition point the author makes it clear that both hobbes and lockes cognition tools are just as illogical as dogmatic cognition in my researched opinion this accurate distinction has not been made by any other author on the topic it is because the eastern authors do not know about hobbes and locke and the western authors do not know about islamic cognition that was obviously alive and well with ibn khaldun
in chapter the author uses the case laws of the prophet and his four rightly guided caliphs known as rashedun caliphs clearly the authors intention is to understand how the prophet and his closest followers went to war or which verses of the quran they were enacting for the first time anyone took this approach and not surprisingly the author comes up with four rigid criteria from the quran no other author to the best of my knowledge connected them to specific wars that the prophet and his companions engaged in this finding helps the author establish jus ad bellum that can explain every war that shaped the foundation of the young islamic state of the time
similar to chapter the author discovers jus ad bello in islamic jurisprudence in chapter once again the case laws are presented and analyzed in such a manner one can take any new example and evaluate it to call it permissible or not the theoretical basis for critiquing any modern warfare is set in this chapter
in chapter the author addresses a difficult topic when is it allowed or even mandatory to rebel against a head of state it is often stated that islam is a complete code of life the author makes it clear that islam didnt leave anything to imagination and has left a strict criterion and modus operandi for any imaginable crisis that can occur at any time the important question arises as to when a head of state that once claimed to have divine authority can be removed or when a head of state can be declared unfit and it becomes mandatory for the citizens to remove him or wage war if necessary this is not an easy topic to cover even in todays world the author covers it with dexterity from an epoch he considers as exemplary the history is not pretty and there is room for controversy as often the history is written by the victor and clearly after the demise of the rightly guided caliphate the victors were no longer rightly guided the author weaves through this difficult process and makes it clear for the readership this chapter can be an eye opener even for a student of islam that has spent lifetime on the topic
often when islamic criteria are discussed eyes roll and eye brows furrow in disbelief if it is all that simple why dont islamic scholars have consensus the author handles this topic like a pro in chapter he analyzes current islamic scholars and deconstructs their thought process he has kind words for some but has nothing but scorn for the selfrighteous apologist scholars that have done great disservice to islam andor scientific cognition process one doesnt have to be personal but the writing is so clear one can hardly afford to not get angry at certain genre of scholars to anyones surprise this list is not made out of antiislamic nonmuslim scholars
chapter is where proof of the pudding appears the author analyzes every major event of todays political arena and analyzes it with the islamic criteria of both jus ad bello and jus ad bellum the author comes up with an index to rank various countries and groups most interesting is the discussion on current us allies such as saudi arabia and how they rank among the biggest offenders of islam and islamic laws this is not a topic for the faint of heart but the author did an excellent job making it easily readable punctuated with numerous riveting arguments
chapter is the conclusion and recommendation i have studied islam for some years and yet i found these conclusions novel and entirely logical i doubt anyone would agree with the conclusions unless of course that person reads the entire book prior to reading the conclusion it is important to read the book in sequence
chapter lists the bibliography and references it is many pages long and is quite comprehensive
chapter is the appendix that lists the letters of the prophet it is a great idea to give the letters in original arabic so there is no room for misinterpretation let alone disinformation
anyone with knowledge of islam knows that jihad is in the core of islam and this book shows it is so and there needs to be no apology quite interestingly the author even depicts jihad as the roof of islam without the roof the fort of islam has no protection whatsoever this depiction captures the essence of protection security as well as integrity and puts away the notion of jihad being a weapon for crusade like aggression
this book belongs to the desk of any researcher interested in knowing about islam or what islam can do to bring about peace on earth in order to live out the true meaning of the word islam that means peace through submission to the creator this book is equally useful for anyone interested in pursuit of peace and harmony that is truly elusive in todays world in this sense this book is a manual for world governance in peace | 0 |
10,040 | Ousted Michigan lawmakers face felony charges for affair cover-up | DETROIT (Reuters) - Two former Michigan representatives forced out of the state legislature last fall for a scheme to cover up their extramarital affair face felony charges of misconduct and related counts, officials said on Friday. Todd Courser, who resigned from his seat in Lapeer County, was charged with three counts of misconduct while in office, each of which carries a five year prison term, as well as a perjury charge, which has a 15-year sentence, according to the Michigan attorney general’s office. Cindy Gamrat, who was removed from her Allegan County seat, faces two charges of misconduct while in office. Warrants have been served for both former lawmakers. “We are demonstrating to the citizens of Michigan that no one is above the law, not even those who walk in the hall of power,” Attorney General Bill Schuette told reporters. Schuette’s office and Michigan State Police launched an investigation into the two disgraced lawmakers last fall. Schuette said on Friday that Courser and Gamrat both lied to investigators, and that Courser asked his staff to send out false emails to cover up the extramarital affair. Courser had devised a plan to distribute an email falsely claiming he had sex with a male prostitute, according to the Detroit News. That claim, Courser said, would have blunted the political impact of an actual affair if it had come out. He was charged with perjury for allegedly lying while giving testimony to a House committee, Schuette’s office said. Both won seats in 2014 as Tea Party conservatives and devout Christians. They tried to regain their seats last year, but lost in the Republican primary. Courser and Gamrat were not immediately available for comment on Friday. | 1 |
10,041 | life we dont know how to take down these photoshops of bald donald trump so weve stretched his face out all wide so nobody can recognize its him | email
donald trumps inauguration may be months from now but it looks like his oval office transition is already well under way in addition to naming reince priebus his chief of staff and meeting with advisors on policy issues trump had to schedule in some time this week to go around to houses in the white houses neighborhood and inform residents that hes moving in down the street
looks like trump is not wasting any time preparing for his big move to pennsylvania avenuehello my name is donald trump and as a new resident in this community i am required to inform you that i have a history of sexually assaulting women said the presidentelect while standing on one of his new neighbors doorsteps in the past i have grabbed women inappropriately made multiple unwanted advances toward women and harassed women with vulgar and inflammatory language for this reason i have to go door to door telling residents of my new presence in the neighborhood sorry to bother you and have a nice day
after spending most of tuesday exploring potential cabinet picks trump was later spotted going around the white houses neighborhood and knocking on doors continuing to alert his new neighbors to his history of sexual assault standing awkwardly on front porches and avoiding eye contact trump promised local residents that he wouldnt cause any trouble for them or their families and planned to mostly keep to himself for the next four years as president of the united states he then finished the day by meeting with several economic advisors
itll be interesting to see what a trump presidency might look like as he spends the next few days crafting policy goals and reassuring his new neighbors that his motorcade will take alternate routes to ensure that he is never within a hundred yards of a school if he keeps making the rounds at this pace it wont be long before all of the residents of pennsylvania avenue have been made aware of his record of sexual assault
president obama still has a few more months left in the white house but pretty soon trump will be moving in so far the presidentelect seems determined to make that transition as smooth as possible for him his fellow republicans and the local residents whom he has been individually informing of his status as a sexual predator | 0 |
10,042 | U.N. rights boss condemns "spreading hatred through tweets" | GENEVA (Reuters) - In a thinly veiled reference to U.S. President Donald Trump, the top U.N. human rights official on Thursday condemned populists who spread hatred through tweets . Britain criticised Trump on Wednesday after he retweeted anti-Islam videos originally posted by a leader of a far-right British fringe party who was convicted this month of abusing a Muslim woman. There are the populists political hooligans who through their incitement which is the equivalent of hurling racist insults, throwing bottles onto the field, attacking the referee and, as we saw yesterday, spreading hatred through tweets seek to scramble our order, our laws, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra ad Al Hussein said in a speech in Geneva. A U.N. official, who declined to be identified, said that Zeid s remarks were clearly a reference to Trump tweets but also others using social media in this way . (Refiles to add dropped full name of official) | 1 |
10,043 | WATCH: MUSLIM MAYOR Of Rotterdam, Holland To Muslim Immigrants, “If you can’t accept freedom, f*ck off” | Freedom is under attack across the globe. Radical Muslims are committing horrendous acts of violence against innocent people around the world. Meanwhile, the Left demands we don t identify the faith of the terrorists, for fear of offending them. It s time to fight back America. The Netherlands, France, and the Uk are our future.Moroccan born Mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb grew up in a very poor family. His family came to Holland at the age of 15. He has no tolerance for liberals who try to justify the violent actions of poor Muslims. He has taken a hard line in the city of Rotterdam, which has been overrun with Muslim migrants who have no intention of assimilating. Here is his open, honest and some would say stunning response to the Muslims who attacked the Charlie Hebdoe publication in Paris:https://youtu.be/Jped8eVIZoEMayor Aboutaleb is not the only one speaking out against the Muslim invasion of the Netherlands.Geert Wilders, Party for Freedom leader in the Netherlands appears on trial against free speech for speaking the truth about the invasion of Muslim migrants in the Netherlands who refuse to assimilate. He has been chased down and has had his life threatened by radical Muslims for the past 11 years. His story should send shockwaves through America, but alas, our media does everything they can to ignore his message. Those in the media who highlight him, do it in such a way as to make him out to be a villain and hater, much like they have tried to do to Donald Trump for saying we need to stop the flow of Muslim migrants into America until we can properly vet them.Watch Geert Wilders chilling Orwellian testimony here:Here is an example of the hate and vitriol Geert Wilders, the brave leader of the Freedom Party in the Netherlands is facing on a regular basis: | 0 |
10,044 | Rosie O’Donnell Writes Powerful Poem That Perfectly Sums Up Donald Trump (TWEET) | If anyone knows what it s like to be attacked by the likes of Donald Trump, it s Rosie O Donnell. The bitter feud between the two goes back years, and it should have been made clear then how much of a cruel and creepy misogynist he truly is. What we ve been seeing from Trump on this most current campaign trail shouldn t really surprise us. Yet, here we are, every day, getting shocked and appalled by everything he says. However, it s really no different than he s always been if we looked past his celebrity to actually watch and listen.In a poem she posted to her website, Rosie O Donnell wrote about Donald Trump. The piece really encapsulates everything that is the real estate mogul and failed businessman. It highlights his failures and his outright creepiness, and really goes to show that he s always been this way.The poem reads: trump was once perceived to be powerful in wealthy NY circles to Long Island Kids like ME he was always a joke failed everything his tacky large lame gold letters TRUMP like a commandhe went after me with a vengeance that only now comes to tipify himdangerous evil richie rich this charlatan this compassion free creephe is all smoke and mirrors THIS truth I told back then seemed revolutionarySIMPLE TRUTHS PEOPLE last night ASK RO https://t.co/q8Vgw5xdDd pic.twitter.com/oda1TvCRH6 Rosie (@Rosie) April 3, 2016The fact that people are still drawn to Trump says more about those people than it does about the Republican frontrunner for president. If that s the type of person they want leading the nation a hateful, vindictive, bigoted, misogynistic narcissist his supporters have to look deep within themselves to discover why those qualities are so desirable. Either they are that way themselves, or they re too dumb to know the difference and easily respond to applause lines that can fit on a bumper sticker.Kudos to Rosie for always standing up to him and for still telling it like it is. Never stop being you, Rosie. Never stop.Featured Photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images | 0 |
10,045 | Donald Trump’s First Campaign TV Ad Is Here, And It’s Worse Than We Imagined (VIDEO) | While an armed militia group of domestic terrorists seize and occupy a federal building by force, GOP Presidential hopeful Donald Trump has released his first campaign TV ad. It s worse than we imagined.Donald Trump says he wants to make America great again. In this small catchphrase lay a few assumptions. Firstly, that America is not great now. Secondly, that it ever was great. Thirdly, all the assumptions around what exactly is wrong, and what would restore the nation to greatness.Let s pretend for a moment that the first and the second assumptions are true. It is certainly ground that liberals and conservatives might share. That is what is so enticing about the statement, but when progressives list the greatest issues facing America, they often come up with things like:But if you were hoping optimistically that any of these issue were going to be addressed in Trump s campaign ad you ll be bitterly disappointed. What three things will Donald Trump do to make America great again?The eagle-eyed amongst you will note, none of these three things in any way relates to the major issues facing America in the coming decade and century.Where are our next great engineers, inventors and scientists going to come from when we have the worst education system in the developed world? If we aren t growing them at home, and we can t import them due to immigration bans, how on earth is America going to be great in these fields?It is not only that Trump and the GOP do not have the answers to the biggest questions of our age, it s that they aren t even asking those questions. Trump doesn t want to make America great again, he wants to make America white again. He is speaking only to the frightened, white folks of the land who genuinely believe anybody other than rich white people (lawmakers, business leaders and presidents past) are responsible for the decline of the nation.As Hillary Clinton put it in New Hampshire this week: You can t make America great again if you insult and demean the people of America. Featured Image via YouTube Screengrab | 0 |
10,046 | Trump threat to run as independent counterproductive: party chief | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus said on Sunday that Donald Trump is making it harder for himself to win the Republican presidential nomination by threatening to run as an independent if he is not treated fairly. In several television interviews, Priebus, who chairs the Republican National Committee, said candidates sometimes make such statements in hopes of gaining leverage over the party, but that it would not work. “Those kinds of comments, I think, have consequences,” Priebus said on ABC’s “This Week.” “And so when you make those kinds of comments and you want people to fall in line for you, it makes it more difficult. “... And certainly, you know, if you were running for president of the Kiwanis Club or the Boy Scouts and you said you don’t know if you like the Kiwanis or the Boy Scouts, I think that makes your challenge even greater to ultimately win those kinds of posts,” he said. “It’s no different for the Republican Party.” On Tuesday, Trump backed away from the loyalty pledge he signed in September promising to support the party’s eventual nominee and not to run an independent campaign for the White House. The RNC pledge has unraveled as Trump’s remaining rivals, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Ohio Governor John Kasich, also indicated they were unlikely to observe the pledge if Trump was the nominee. Priebus said candidates signed the loyalty pledge as part of a deal in which the RNC agreed to provide data about voters. “We expect that when candidates make commitments, that they keep them,” Priebus told Fox News Sunday. Trump’s relationship with the RNC has been contentious at times. Talking to Fox News Sunday, he once again did not rule out running as an independent if he does not get the Republican nomination. “We’re going to have to see how I was treated,” Trump said. “I want to be treated fair.” Priebus said that if one candidate gets the support of 1,237 delegates before the Republican convention opens in Cleveland in July, that candidate will win the party’s presidential nomination. But if no one wins on the first ballot, delegates can switch their allegiances and “they can vote for who they want,” Priebus told ABC. Nonetheless, Priebus told CNN, the nominee is likely to be one of the three people now running and not someone like House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, who some have speculated could be a dark-horse candidate - mainly because “he doesn’t want to do it.” Priebus also cited some practical reasons that the nominee most likely would have to be Trump, Cruz or Kasich: “That candidate would have to have a floor operation (in Cleveland) and an actual campaign going on to make that possible.” | 1 |
10,047 | NY Sanitation Workers Block Driver, Hurl Racist Deportation Threats While Invoking Trump (VIDEO) | If you don t think that Donald Trump s horrible racist rhetoric is making a difference in the discourse surrounding race in America, think again. Case in point what happened to one driver at the hands of sanitation workers in Brooklyn, New York. The workers can be seen on tape blocking a driver s passage after he had tried to maneuver around their sanitation vehicle, which was blocking his way. They also threatened him with deportation, all the while invoking Donald Trump s hateful ideas. One worker says to the driver: Behave or you ll be deported. Another said: Where s Trump? Where s Trump when you need him? Luckily, the driver did the smart thing and instead of saying anything to these Trump-loving imbeciles, drove around them another way and left. These are the sorts of every day confrontations and bullying that are becoming all too common as a direct result of the rise of Donald Trump. The fact that these workers felt like it was okay to do this while working for the city of New York is quite ominous indeed. They are the perfect example of what Trump has done to America. Whether he gets the GOP nomination or not, whether he wins the election or not, he has done monumental damage to America s social climate, and here is your proof.Hopefully, these workers are identified and fired.Watch the video below, via NY Daily News:Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
10,048 | Trump Attacks Mark Cuban In Bizarre Tweet That Everyone Is Humiliating Him For Right Now | Donald Trump made two claims about Mark Cuban that prove just how delusional and narcissistic he is.Apparently, Trump woke up this morning and saw the Dallas Mavericks owner on television and decided that deriding him on Twitter was more important than doing his current job.Trump claimed that Cuban was a big-time backer of his and that Cuban isn t smart enough to ever be president like him.I know Mark Cuban well. He backed me big-time but I wasn t interested in taking all of his calls.He s not smart enough to run for president! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2017First of all, Mark Cuban backed Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Election and repeatedly slammed Trump s business acumen and personality. Last time I checked, big-time backers don t support the other candidate and go on television to destroy you every week.Second, Mark Cuban is a more successful businessman than Donald Trump is and his vocabulary is higher than the fifth grade vocabulary Trump possesses.As usual, Twitter users were quick to humiliate Trump for his childish behavior.Wtf @realDonaldTrump? This is seriously the type of thing you re talking about? Not the fact that North Korea just tested another missile? David G. McAfee (@DavidGMcAfee) February 12, 2017. @realDonaldTrump What the fuck are you even talking about, man? Cody Johnston (@drmistercody) February 12, 2017. @realDonaldTrump As President, your direct communication with the American people heavily features you waking up and yelling at the TV. Cody Johnston (@drmistercody) February 12, 2017@realDonaldTrump Not smart enough? Dude you have like an 18 word vocabulary. Mikel Jollett (@Mikel_Jollett) February 12, 2017.@realDonaldTrump You re so smart you had to ask about our deal with Russia while you were on the phone with Russia. Nick Jack Pappas (@Pappiness) February 12, 2017.@realDonaldTrump This election disproved any intelligence requirement. Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) February 12, 2017What s funny here is Trump, who is only wealthy because of his dad, is bashing @mcuban who is entirely self-made. Sad! Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) February 12, 2017@realDonaldTrump but pic.twitter.com/szpjJ8QRyb Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) February 12, 2017@realDonaldTrump but . pic.twitter.com/8C23Ve4cW3 Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) February 12, 2017.@realDonaldTrump So you have time to tweet about Mark Cuban but still have yet to comment on the Quebec mosque shooting? Al x Young (@AlexYoung) February 12, 2017@realDonaldTrump Would you PLEASE put your tiny little hands back in your pockets and give your Android to the nearest respectable grownup? Shaf Patel (@ShafPatel) February 12, 2017.@realDonaldTrump I know it s hard for you, but a President doesn t obsess over which billionaire TV personality insulted him that day. Bess Kalb (@bessbell) February 12, 2017Donald Trump seriously needs to re-examine his priorities. Because acting like a petulant child is not making our country look good.Featured image via YouTube | 0 |
10,049 | U.S. takes 'full responsibility' for Manchester intelligence leaks: Tillerson | LONDON (Reuters) - The United States government takes full responsibility for leaks of the British police investigation into Monday’s deadly bomb attack in Manchester which killed 22 people, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Friday. Appearing alongside British foreign secretary Boris Johnson in London, Tillerson said that “all across America, hearts are broken” at news of the attack on people attending a concert by U.S. pop singer Ariana Grande. British police briefly suspended intelligence sharing with the United States on Thursday after private details of their investigation repeatedly appeared in American media. “We take full responsibility for that and we obviously regret that that happened,” Tillerson said. “With respect to the release of information inappropriately ... certainly we condemn that.” Tillerson said he expected the close security relationship between the United States and Britain to withstand the leaks. | 1 |
10,050 | TRUMP’S NEW COMM DIRECTOR Puts CNN’s Chris Cuomo On Notice…Days Of Republicans Being Bullied By Leftist Media Are Over [VIDEO] | Remember when the media used to think they controlled the narrative? That was before President Trump, and his badass communications staff decided this administration wasn t going to be conducting business as usual. The days of the media bullying Republicans into submission are coming to an end. And for that monumental achievement, we can all thank the very courageous and determined President Trump Scaramucci promised the heads of White House leakers would roll. He clearly wasn t kidding It was announced yesterday, that suspected leaker Michael Short had been terminated from the White House communications office.Short, an ally of White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and now former Press Secretary Sean Spicer who resigned last week was terminated on Tuesday by new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci.This morning, White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci told Chris Cuomo that I m straightly not answering your question when the CNN host asked about the resignation Tuesday of senior assistant press secretary Michael Short. Watch:Scaramucci said that someone above his rank wanted Short out of his White House position. When Cuomo asked Scaramucci who above his rank told him to fire the aide, Scaramucci said that he would not answer the question. I didn t answer the question, Chris, Scaramucci said. See, I m getting so subtle and surgical in terms of the way I talk to you guys. A clearly frustrated Chris Cuomo responded, You re as subtle as a heart attack. Did the president tell you, Get rid of this guy, he s one of the leakers?' Cuomo asked. I m not going to answer that question because I just said I wasn t going to answer it, Scaramucci said. Yeah, I know, but what happened to being straight? Cuomo asked in reference to Scaramucci saying he would tell it to him straight earlier in the interview. I m straightly, straightly not answering your question, Scaramucci said.For entire story WFB | 0 |
10,051 | Lawmakers to go to Cuba with Obama, who mulls more trade moves | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will be accompanied on his historic visit to Cuba this month by up to 20 members of Congress, and is also considering further measures to ease travel and trade restrictions around the time of the visit, U.S. sources said on Monday. Details were being worked out, but congressional sources told Reuters the White House hoped the delegation would include Republicans as well as Obama’s fellow Democrats, to underscore bipartisan support for his moves toward normal relations with the Communist-ruled country. Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, who has been one of his party’s leading proponents of easing the embargo restrictions, said there was “a good chance” he would join the trip. A spokesman for Flake later confirmed he would be going. Congressional aides and sources outside the government who were consulted on the matter said timing was still uncertain, but the administration could roll out more changes to travel, trade and banking rules before or during the March 21-22 visit. “They will unveil a regulations package as it gets closer to the trip, further easing of travel, and further commerce and trade (changes),” said one person familiar with the discussions. Obama’s aides are considering regulatory changes to make it easier for individual Americans to visit Cuba as long as they qualify for 12 authorized “people-to-people” categories of travel, the sources said. Until now, most have been allowed to visit Cuba only on group tours or to see family on the island. The White House is also weighing possible revisions and clarifications of how the dollar can be used in trade with Cuba, a person familiar with the discussions said. The White House said on Feb. 18 that Obama would visit Havana on March 21 and 22 in another step toward ending decades of animosity between the former Cold War foes. It will be the first visit to Cuba by a sitting U.S. president since 1928. News of Obama’s trip prompted sharp criticism from some members of the Republican-controlled Congress, where there is strong opposition to normalizing relations with Havana, mostly from Republican lawmakers. Some Republicans want more normal relations with Cuba, as do most Democrats. But the issue is complicated on Capitol Hill because two senators vying for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, both Cuban-Americans, strongly oppose Obama’s policy shift. Obama said the trip would help accelerate changes in Cuba since he and President Raul Castro announced moves to restore ties in late 2014. Administration officials hope it will give Washington more leverage to make progress on opening business opportunities for U.S. companies. Opponents say Obama has demanded too little from Havana, particularly in the area of human rights, to end the embargo imposed in 1960. The administration believes that moves to loosen the embargo would help meet its goal of benefiting the Cuban people. Obama has used his executive powers to ease some trade and travel restrictions since announcing his new Cuba policy 15 months ago. Some major U.S. airlines have begun asking regulators to approve routes to Cuba. So many lawmakers are expected to make the trip that the White House is arranging a separate aircraft to transport them, congressional aides said. “As the president has done on past trips, he has invited a group of senators and House members to join him on his upcoming trip to Cuba. Further details on the members’ travel will be available closer to the departure date,” a White House official said on condition of anonymity. Analysts said establishing U.S.-Cuban business relationships would make it difficult for the next U.S. president to roll back Obama’s policy changes after he leaves office next January, if a Republican opponent of the policy wins the election. Businessman Donald Trump, the leading Republican candidate, told the Daily Caller in an interview published in September that he supported the Obama administration’s opening with Cuba. But the embargo cannot be lifted without Congress’ approval and Republicans say that will not happen while Obama is president. | 1 |
10,052 | Trump agrees 'in principle' to scrap South Korean warhead weight limit: White House | WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump agreed in principle to scrap a warhead weight limit on South Korea s missiles in the wake of North Korea s sixth nuclear test, the White House said on Monday. During a call with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Trump also gave conceptual approval for South Korea to buy billions of dollars of weapons from the United States, the White House said in a statement. Separately, South Korea s presidential office said the two leaders had agreed to scrap the weight limit and to apply the strongest sanctions and pressure on North Korea through the United Nations. In a separate phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin also on Monday, Moon said the U.N. Security Council should seek ways to sever North Korea s foreign currency income, including from its workers employed abroad and oil shipments, according to the South Korean statement. Under the existing missile pact between the United States and South Korea, Seoul s warheads currently face a cap of 500 kg (1100 lb). The agreement, last amended in 2012, was in the process of being changed in the wake of a series of missile tests by North Korea this year after Moon took office in May, including two intercontinental ballistic missile launches. North Korea said it tested an advanced hydrogen bomb for a long-range missile on Sunday, prompting global condemnation and a U.S. warning of a massive military response if it or its allies were threatened. An unlimited warhead weight allowance would enable the South to strike North Korea with greater force in the event of a military conflict. The missiles would still be bound by a flight range cap of 800 km. No changes to the flight range were mentioned in the Blue House statement. Most analysts and policymakers agree cutting off supplies of oil to North Korea would hurt its economy. It remains to be seen whether China, the North s biggest ally and trade partner, would cooperate. South Korea said earlier in the day it was talking to the United States about deploying aircraft carriers and strategic bombers to the Korean peninsula after signs North Korea might launch more missiles. | 1 |
10,053 | BUILD THE WALL! House Voted on Funding Trump’s Wall in Partisan Vote | Yes, this will happen! America needs a wall at our southern border and the House just passed a spending measure that funds a portion of Trump s wall!The House passed a spending measure Thursday that includes funding for a portion of President Donald Trump s border wall with a vote largely along party lines.The funding was included as a part of a minibus, which packaged together four appropriations bills aimed at funding the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Energy, water projects and the legislative branch. The lower chamber opted to group the must-pass appropriations measures together due to leadership s lack of votes to pass an all-encompassing omnibus.Building the structure has been a top priority for the president, who placed a strong emphasis on the proposal during the course of the campaign.Democrats have met the border wall proposal with strong opposition, feeling that the project will be expensive and ineffective.Read more: Daily Caller | 0 |
10,054 | Spain's Rajoy calls for calm, says rule of law will be restored in Catalonia | MADRID (Reuters) - Spain s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Friday called for calm in a tweet posted minutes after the Catalan regional parliament declared independence from the rest of the country in a disputed vote that will likely be declared illegal. I ask for calm from all Spaniards. The rule of law will restore legality in Catalonia, Rajoy wrote. | 1 |
10,055 | Republican Senator Rubio will back tax bill: CNBC, citing sources | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican Senator Marco Rubio will support a compromise tax bill when it comes up for a vote next week in Congress, CNBC reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources. The Florida lawmaker earlier on Friday repeated his concerns that an expansion of child tax credits in the bill was too little to win his support, keeping a cloud over prospects for the legislation’s passage. | 1 |
10,056 | Bill Maher And Barney Frank Destroy GOP For Choosing Petty Politics Over Functioning Supreme Court | Bill Maher and Barney Frank totally schooled Republicans on Friday night.The Real Time host began by asking his panel to help explain why Senate Republicans are being complete pricks about President Obama picking the next Supreme Court Justice.Maher pointed out that Republicans have wobbled since Obama picked centrist Judge Merrick Garland to replace recently deceased Justice Antonin Scalia. Now they are saying they want to wait until the lame-duck period after the election to make a final decision.Of course, we all know why they want to do this all of a sudden. A centrist like Garland may be the best Republicans can get, especially if the Democrats retain the White House in November. If that happens we can expect Republicans to eagerly confirm Garland in order to prevent a more liberal nominee from being nominated. And if Republicans win the White House they ll wait until 2017 so a more conservative nominee can take the position instead.In other words, Republicans are playing a duplicitous game of politics and the GOP consultant on board the panel actually had the stones to admit that his party is playing politics in an effort to keep the Republican Party from blowing apart. Because if they balk now, they risk pissing off their conservative base. Mitch McConnell knows one thing very clearly, Rick Wilson said. If they allow an Obama justice to go forward at this point it will blow a gigantic hole in the Republican coalition like we have never seen before. They have drawn a bright line, they have sworn this is a line they re not going to cross After Wilson said he s a shameless political guy, Maher chimed in by asking, Aren t you an American first? Wilson responded by saying there is nothing in the Constitution keeping Republicans from doing what they are doing and that GOP leadership is telling the base that they ve drawn a line to keep President Obama from having a lasting legacy on the Supreme Court.Well, that didn t impress former longtime congressman Barney Frank. I spent 40 years as an elected official. I ran for office 20 times, Frank told Wilson. I understand the role of politics, but I am disappointed, Rick. The explicit elevation of the need of keeping your coalition together over the functioning of the federal government is awful. Frank went on to say that there is a need for an odd number of Justices on the Court because an even number could lead to tied rulings that don t settle cases and agreed that this is about restricting President Obama to a three year term. Yes, it s in the Constitution that Obama gets to make an appointment, Frank continued. And what McConnell is putting forward is a nonsense theory, namely that it s only a 3-year term. Frank also expressed his hope that Republicans would have taken the opportunity to to pull back from their rabid base a little bit because of Donald Trump but it appears they have no intention of doing that. Instead, they appear to be doubling down on their allegiance to the base at their peril.Maher then re-introduced a word he came up with years ago known as blacktracking, which is when Republicans change their mind because President Obama agrees with them. As it turns out, it happened again this week because Republicans had no problem with Merrick Garland being nominated for the Supreme Court until President Obama nominated him this week.Here s the video via Twitter.Watch @BillMaher and the #RealTime panel discuss the GOP s blacktracking over @POTUS s SCOTUS nomination.https://t.co/5iiG9vrtBp Real Time (@RealTimers) March 19, 2016 Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
10,057 | Russia risks decades of low growth under U.S. sanctions: Putin adviser | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia risks being saddled with U.S. sanctions for decades, curbing economic growth and preventing it from regaining its status as a leading economic power, an adviser to President Vladimir Putin said in an interview. Alexei Kudrin told Reuters that the current proposed tightening of sanctions in Washington should not have any serious impact. But he called for a major structural reform program after the 2018 presidential election. He said that was the only way for Russia to return to growth of more than 2 percent a year. Putin has not yet said whether he will run for re-election next year, but is widely expected to do so and to win what would be a fourth term as president. Putin has tasked Kudrin, who has known Putin since they worked together in the St Petersburg Mayor’s Office in the 1990s, with devising a strategy to lift Russian economic growth after 2018. Whereas Putin oversaw several years of growth in excess of 5 percent in his early presidential terms, the Russian economy suffered two years of contraction in 2015 and 2016 and is forecast to grow by a little over 1 percent this year. In May GDP rose by 3.1 percent year on year, but that pace is not expected to last. The slowdown has put Putin under pressure. U.S. lawmakers earlier this week voted to impose new sanctions on Russia — on top of earlier penalties over its role in the Ukraine conflict — and Kudrin said the mood in Washington meant it would be difficult for U.S. President Donald Trump to ease sanctions in future. “In its current form the tightening of sanctions under discussion wouldn’t seriously affect the Russian economy, there aren’t serious changes with the version that exists. But the hope that sanctions would be canceled in the coming years has now faded,” Kudrin said. “We are likely to end up with the story with the old Jackson-Vanik amendment — even when all the conditions had already changed, they couldn’t cancel it,” he said. Jackson-Vanik, a 1974 provision to a U.S. federal law that punished former Communist bloc countries for restricting human rights, was only repealed in 2012 under previous U.S. President Barack Obama. It was a major sticking point in relations between Moscow and Washington. Trump was widely perceived to be the Kremlin’s favored candidate in last year’s U.S. presidential race, and his White House victory raised hopes in Moscow that sanctions could be relaxed as early as this year. But Trump’s administration has since become bogged down in investigations into possible ties between his campaign and Russia. Trump has said his campaign did not collude with Russia, which flatly denies allegations it meddled in the U.S. vote. Kudrin, who served as finance minister from 2000 to 2011, won praise from foreign investors for building up Russia’s formidable fiscal buffers during an era of high oil prices. He was one of relatively few liberal voices among top officials. He now heads the Centre for Strategic Research, an analytical group founded on Putin’s initiative to draft policy ideas. Kudrin said Western sanctions in their current configuration were knocking off around 0.5 percent from Russian gross domestic product, down from 1 percent in the year after they were introduced in 2014. Russia had a “window of opportunity” after the 2018 election in which to enact meaningful reforms to counteract the effects of sanctions, he said. But for now a populist camp around Putin appeared to have the upper hand over those calling for reform. “To what extent the president will use that [window], we don’t know,” Kudrin said. “After previous elections that window for reforms wasn’t used.” Among the reforms Kudrin is calling for are greater public control over law enforcement officials, raising the retirement age, reducing government stakes in large companies, and improving revenue collection from the shadow economy. He said he thought the state should sell government stakes in Russian oil companies in stages over the next six to 10 years, and that it could sell a portion of its majority holding in the country’s largest bank Sberbank in the same time period. With such reforms, Kudrin said Russia could increase its economic growth rate to 3-4 percent in five to six years, even with sanctions staying in place. Without reforms, Russia will not notice the damage from sanctions before it is too late, he said. “In the next six to seven years we could not notice the decline in the areas of productivity and technological development. In the end we will see it, because others will grow faster, but by then it will be difficult to change something.” | 1 |
10,058 | APPARENTLY “NEVER AGAIN” DOESN’T RESONATE WITH MAJORITY OF JEWS IN AMERICA, As Shocking Poll Shows Majority Of Jews Are Okay With Iran Deal | This is what happens when making abortion legal becomes more important than the threat of the elimination of your faith A new poll sponsored by the Los Angeles Jewish Journal reveals that a strong plurality of American Jews support the Iran nuclear deal, 49% to 31%. That compares to much smaller support among Americans in general, who split 28% to 24% for the deal. When asked if Congress should vote for the deal, most American Jews say yes, 53% to 35% (as compared to a 41% to 38% among Americans in general). The poll included 1,000 adults, split between Jews and non-Jews, and was conducted via telephone (and cell phone) from July 16 through July 20.The results among American Jews contrast with polls among Israeli Jews, who are strongly against the Iran deal. A recent poll of Israeli Jews indicated that 78% believe the Iran deal endangers the country. A strong plurality of Israeli Jews favored a military strike against Iran, 47% to 35%. The rift, says Jewish Journal columnist Shmuel Rosner, is the first damaging impact of a troubling agreement with Iran. One obvious reason for the split is that Israeli Jews are directly exposed to the threat of a nuclear Iran. American Jews, for whom Israel is an issue of diminishing importance, view the Iran deal primarily through the prism of domestic politics. Aside from blacks, American Jews are the most loyal supporters of President Barack Obama.Rosner notes: Jews like most other humans tend to understand the world in a way that is compatible with their beliefs.If they support Obama, they believe Obama. If they believe Obama, they also believe him when he says that the deal is good for Israel s security. Rosner s conclusion is supported by one of the most interesting results of the poll: among those American Jews who don t know whether the Iran deal will make Israel safer, 66% favor the deal while only 8% do not.Via: Breitbart News | 0 |
10,059 | BREAKING: “DEPLORABALL” Organizer Mike Chernovich To File Charges With FBI Against Radical Anti-Trump Terrorists [VIDEO] | James O Keefe released a blockbuster undercover video yesterday saying they were going to commit acts of terror against Trump supporters who attend the Deploraball in Washington DC. The video can be seen HERE.One of the organizers of the Deploraball, Mike Chernovich is a conservative author, activist and is very active on Twitter. Here is an excerpt from his video below: When you go on video and you admit to committing an act of domestic terrorism, and then you buy tickets, that is an overt act. It s a criminal conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism. And they definitely picked the wrong group to try and terrorize. Jeff Sessions is gonna be the Attorney General. This is a new Department of Justice. They thought they were dealing with Obama. Because Obama would let it go. Obama would say Oh terrorism against these people, who cares? Well Obama isn t in charge of the Department of Justice anymore. Obama, Eric Holder, Loretta Lynch they re out. This afternoon DeploraBall organizer Mike Cernovich announced plans to file terrorism charges against the DisruptJ20 leftist group.Mike Cernovich said the FBI was contacted and the DeploraBall is going to file civil charges.Mike Cernovich: They picked the wrong people to threaten with terrorism. GPTHIS IS A GREAT VIDEO -Deploraball statement re: #J20Disrupt's plans to engage in domestic terrorism https://t.co/jKNSTMWrk6 Mike Cernovich (@Cernovich) January 16, 2017 | 0 |
10,060 | WHY DECISION LIBERAL JUDGE IN CONNECTICUT Is About To Make Could Be HUGE Threat To Our SECOND AMENDMENT | Obama s goal of making gun control a reality in the United States of America is one step closer, thanks to this radical judge A Connecticut judge ruled Thursday that a lawsuit against the manufacturer of the gun used in the Sandy Hook shootings, and other companies, can move forward.A Connecticut Superior Court judge denied a motion to dismiss the lawsuit against the companies involved in the manufacturing, distribution and sale of the rifle used in the deadly 2012 shootings.Adam Lanza used a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings on Dec. 14, 2012 to kill 26 people in less than five minutes. The families of the victims, which included 20 children, have sued the maker, distributor and seller of the rifle, arguing that the military-style gun should have never been available for civilians to purchase.Connecticut State Judge Barbara Bellis rejected the gun companies argument that a 2005 federal law can protect gun businesses from civil lawsuits.Remington Arms Co., the manufacturer of the rifle, is named in the suit. Also named is Camfour Inc., a distributor of firearms, and the now-defunct Riverview Gun Sales, a dealer in East Windsor, Conn., that sold the rifle to the Lanza s mother in 2010. Via: Washington ExaminerNolan Finley, The Detroit News The lawsuit, filed by nine victim families, claims Remington is liable for making and selling to the public a rifle unfit for civilian use.The claim plays right into the anti-gun lobby s latest end-around of the Constitution. It follows the strategy laid out in last week s Democratic debate by Hillary Clinton, who wants to open up both gun manufacturers and gun retailers to product liability lawsuits.While Clinton chortles derisively whenever it s pointed out that the threat of such litigation would become an effective ban on gun sales, and ultimately on gun ownership, that is precisely the desired outcome.Clinton s charge that gunmakers enjoy unique protection from liability isn t true. All manufacturers of defect-free, legal goods enjoy a broad shield against damage resulting from the intentional misuse of their products.Still, gun opponents compare firearm manufacturers with automakers, who are routinely sued when their cars and trucks are involved in a fatal accident. But those suits center around product malfunctions or design flaws. If someone gets drunk and plows an automobile into a group of children at a bus stop, the automaker is only liable if something was defective on the vehicle that contributed to the carnage.The weapons used by Lanza were not defective. The were misused. Neither the manufacturer nor the retailer, who is also being sued, sold them to Lanza. The emotionally troubled teen took them without permission from his mother s home. A negligence case could be made against the mother. She should not have allowed her deranged son access to her extensive arsenal; I m all for holding gun owners responsible for properly securing their firearms.Unfortunately, his mother was Lanza s first victim.Judge Barbara Bellis permitted the suit against Remington to proceed based on her gross misunderstanding of firearms.She agreed with the plaintiff s attorneys depiction of the Bushmaster AR-15 semi-automatic rifle as a military weapon not intended for civilian use.That s just wrong. The difference between the Bushmaster and a common hunting rifle is cosmetic. It looks more lethal, but it operates the same way, firing one bullet with each pull of the trigger. It s not a machine gun; it doesn t fire rounds in bursts.If the military were to arm its soldiers with Bushmasters, it would lose every battle.Lanza used legal weapons that were sold within the strict confines of Connecticut s gun laws, but taken without the owner s permission.If that becomes the flimsy standard for manufacturer and retailer liability, as both this lawsuit and Hillary Clinton hope, it will be the end of gunmaking and sales in this country. And that s just what backers of this strategy want. | 0 |
10,061 | UK PM May will chair meeting of emergency committee after west London incident | LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May will chair a meeting of Britain s emergency response committee later on Friday after an incident at a west London tube station, her office said in a statement. My thoughts are with those injured at Parsons Green and the emergency services who, once again, are responding swiftly and bravely to a suspected terrorist incident, May said in the statement. The meeting of COBR, the emergency response committee, will take place at 1200 GMT. | 1 |
10,062 | OBAMA RELEASES TOP IRANIAN SCIENTIST…LEAVES 4 AMERICANS TO FEND FOR THEMSELVES IN IRANIAN PRISONS As Part Of Nuke Deal | On Wednesday Barack Obama lashed out at CBS reporter Major Garrett after he asked him about the four Americans left behind to languish in Iranian prisons.Former Marine Amir Hekmati, Saeed Abedini and Vahid Salemi are being held in Iranian prisons. (Breitbart)Obama was defending his nuclear deal with Iran when Garrett asked him about the US hostages in Iran.https://youtu.be/rqdVAd25CHUObama: I got to give you credit Major for how you craft those questions. the notion that I m content as I celebrate with American citizens languishing in Iranian jails. Major, that s nonsense and you should know better.Of course, that is exactly what he did. The Obama administration did nothing to free American hostages during their talks with the Iranian regime.Now we know Obama released a top Iranian scientist as part of the deal but left the Americans to rot in hell in Iranian prisons. The Times of Israel reported:Mojtaba Atarodi, arrested in California for attempting to acquire equipment for Iran s military-nuclear programs, was released in April as part of back channel talks, Times of Israel told. The contacts, mediated in Oman for years by close colleague of the Sultan, have seen a series of US-Iran prisoner releases, and there may be more to come.The secret back channel of negotiations between Iran and the United States, which led to this month s interim deal in Geneva on Iran s rogue nuclear program, has also seen a series of prisoner releases by both sides, which have played a central role in bridging the distance between the two nations, the Times of Israel has been told.In the most dramatic of those releases, the US in April released a top Iranian scientist, Mojtaba Atarodi, who had been arrested in 2011 for attempting to acquire equipment that could be used for Iran s military-nuclear programs.No wonder he didn t want reporters talking about it!Via: Gateway Pundit | 0 |
10,063 | Trump Demotes Career State Department Official After Breitbart Questions Her Loyalty To America | McCarthyism has returned.Donald Trump is literally letting a white nationalist publication dictate personnel decisions in his administration.Sahar Nowrouzzadeh is an American citizen of Iranian descent. She is an expert on Iran and has played a crucial role in shaping U.S. policy in the Middle East. She was born in America, first served at the State Department under the George W. Bush administration in 2005 and was on the team that negotiated the Iran Nuclear Deal under President Obama.But because she is of Iranian descent, Breitbart and other conservative outlets believe she is in league with Iranian leadership against the United States. Seriously.According to Politico,Nowrouzzadehad had been detailed since last July to the secretary of state s policy planning team, where she handled ongoing issues related to Iran and Gulf Arab countries. Her yearlong assignment was cut short earlier this month, after critical stories about her and others appeared in the Conservative Review and on Breitbart News, according to the State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter. Nowrouzzadeh did not want to be reassigned, according to the official.Indeed, being reassigned is basically a demotion and one based on racism and fear instead of one based on her job performance.Nowrouzzadeh will now be working in the Office of Iranian Affairs despite the State Department praising her work as valuable in furtherance of U.S. national security. Nowrouzzadeh is the kind of State Department employee America needs right now as tensions between Iran and the United States remain strained because Trump and his Republican allies have repeatedly threatened to trash the nuclear deal.Former State Department official Phillip Gordon slammed the Trump administration for caving to pressure from conservative media. Like many civil service experts and career foreign service officers, she possesses just the sort of expertise political leaders from either party should have by their side when they make critical and difficult foreign policy decisions, Gordon said.The bottom line is that this smacks of McCarthyism from the right-wing just as it did when Joe McCarthy led a witch hunt against government employees in pursuit of alleged communists.Only this time, conservatives are targeting anyone who has a name that sounds Middle Eastern or Muslim.Breitbart should not have the power to affect personnel decisions at the State Department and Donald Trump should not listen to them. Doing so only makes us weaker because the experts we need on the front lines are being persecuted or living in fear of being persecuted.It also makes America less safe because this demotion will be used as an example of how the current United States government treats people of Middle Eastern descent in order to recruit terrorists.Sahar Nowrouzzadeh already swore an oath to defend the United States Constitution when she was hired by the State Department in 2005. It s the same oath that members of Congress swear when they enter office. Questioning her loyalty based on the color of her skin or her birth name is wrong and constitutes discrimination. Frankly, she should file a lawsuit against Trump.Featured Image: Olivier Douliery-Pool/Getty Images | 0 |
10,064 | Senator Rubio: Hackers targeted former presidential campaign staffers | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator Marco Rubio said during a Senate intelligence hearing on Thursday that unsuccessful cyber attacks from Russia targeted former members of his presidential campaign staff in July 2016 and within the past 24 hours. Rubio said he would not comment on a remark earlier in the hearing by Clinton Watts, a cybersecurity expert, that Rubio may have been victimized by Russian activity during his unsuccessful campaign for the 2016 Republican nomination against President Donald Trump. The cyber attacks Rubio mentioned took place after the end of his campaign for the nomination. | 1 |
10,065 | Fox News Shamefully Tries To Pass Off Obama’s Economic Achievements As Trump’s And Gets POUNDED For It | Fox News made a desperate effort to convince everyone that Donald Trump is having more economic success than President Obama did, and it was shamefully dishonest.Trump has been touting his first 100 days as the best since World War II despite the fact that his first three months in office have been a complete embarrassment. No major legislation has been signed and Trump has issued a ton of destructive executive orders.Trump has been especially bragging about the economy, and Fox News tried to help him by comparing the economy after Trump s first 100 days with the economies under Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton in their first 100 days.Dow Jones Industrial Average Change after first 3 months in office: Trump vs. Obama vs. Bush vs. Clinton. pic.twitter.com/ve8RqFCByx Fox News (@FoxNews) April 29, 2017Hourly wages after the President s first 3 months in office: Trump vs. Obama vs. Bush vs. Clinton. pic.twitter.com/KMjQHBTEEd Fox News (@FoxNews) April 29, 2017Jobless rate after first 3 months: Trump vs. Obama vs. Bush vs. Clinton. pic.twitter.com/w8FzJJ9nXc Fox News (@FoxNews) April 29, 2017Jobs added during first 2 months Trump vs. Obama vs. Bush vs. Clinton. pic.twitter.com/paBPjhfNiN Fox News (@FoxNews) April 29, 2017However, Fox News apparently ignored the fact that presidents inherit the state of the economy from their predecessors.For instance, President Obama inherited the Great Recession from President Bush, which is why the economy during his first 100 days stood in shambles as 1.5 million jobs were lost, unemployment topped 9 percent, and GDP dropped by 5 percent.In other words, President Obama was not responsible for those economic losses. But he did reverse them.After eight years in office, President Obama managed to bring down the unemployment rate to 4.8 percent, oversaw the longest streak of job creation on record and created 11.3 million jobs. Obama s best year for average GDP growth was in 2015 at 2.6 percent, but he did have many months that topped three percent. And he did all of this despite Republican obstruction at every turn.Donald Trump inherited Obama s economy, which is why he is touting it as his achievement. The fact is, however, that we won t really know what Trump s economy will be until his policies take effect.So far, Trump has touted 500,000 jobs created, but that number is lower because he included the entire month of January, which rightfully should be in Obama s column. Trump s first three months in office also shows a GDP of 0.7 percent, far lower than the 4 percent he promised on the campaign trail.But again, Trump inherited Obama s economy, so he owes the positive growth rate that he is starting with to President Obama.When it comes to wages, Trump also doesn t have a leg to stand on. Many states passed laws increasing the minimum wage in 2015 and 2016, many of which went into effect this year. Meanwhile, the federal minimum wage remains at $7.25 an hour. Republicans refused to raise the federal wage during Obama s presidency. Trump himself opposes raising the minimum wage and his first Labor Secretary appointee supported killing minimum wage laws entirely. Republicans also still largely oppose the minimum wage. With that much opposition to minimum wage, including Trump s own opposition against it, he can hardly take credit for the minimum wage boosts that have occurred.These graphics were incredibly misleading and were clearly designed to make Trump look good at the expense of President Obama. But the tweets backfired spectacularly as Twitter users pointed out that they were not only lies, but demonstrated that Republican presidents inherit good economies from Democratic predecessors.@FoxNews What a stupid comparison Obama inherited Bush s & Trump inherited Obama s. The rate of job growth has declined 50% (!) under Trump. William LeGate (@williamlegate) April 29, 2017@FoxNews Fixed it for you, @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/XXcvDiWc3B Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) April 29, 2017@FoxNews FOX just proved that Republicans leave office with high unemployment rates and Democrats fix it. Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) April 29, 2017@FoxNews This is an ad for Democrats. Matthew Savener (@msavener) April 29, 2017@FoxNews The most misleading statistic imaginable. Are Fox viewers really stupid enough to fall for this shit? WideAngle_ (@WideAngle_) April 29, 2017@gourmetspud @FoxNews They keep running this bullshit. It just indicates the terrible economy that Clinton & Obama inherited from their GOP predecessor. Kevin Bartner (@heshsson) April 29, 2017@FoxNews That s a dumb tweet. Here s some Labor data https://t.co/BlvRnosxZw pic.twitter.com/206gM9aPbf Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) April 29, 2017@FoxNews Looks like Clinton and Obama did a great job of setting up their successors, who then screwed things up! Thanks Clinton and Obama! Alex Zalben (@azalben) April 29, 2017So Democratic presidents have inherited economic messes and have left the economy in much better shape for their GOP successors. Got it. https://t.co/wgbtjj5XXE Julie Roginsky (@julieroginsky) April 29, 2017Fox News just got owned.Featured Image: Win McNamee/Getty Images | 0 |
10,066 | Will American Law Enforcement Lie, Cheat and Forge Police Reports? Answer: Yes. | 21st Century Wire says The issue of honest policing and institutional corruption within law enforcement has been exercised over and over, with every high-profile controversy. Certainly, 2015 had its fair share of these kind of incidents.The issue of institutional corruption still goes unattended however, as media seem to prefer the obsession of spinning every story in terms of race, or class, rather than seriously looking at the problem of devolving so much power and blind authority that are by their very nature often corrupt.Where is the DOJ, and where is the President weighing-in? Where are the race mobs? Is this story not sexy enough for the media?This latest story should be a warning to everyone about what would likely be systemic in the fully-functioning police state which Washington DC is currently attempting to construct under the noses of its citizens Matt Kessler GuardianSince 26-year-old Ricky Ball was shot and killed by police in October, the black community in Columbus, Mississippi, has grappled with questions that don t have clear answers.Why did police shoot Ball that night? Why did a string of police officials resign in the months that followed? And why did police claim Ball stole a gun from a police officer s home only after his death?Attempts to obtain police documents about the case have raised a new question: why did police release two different versions of events from the shooting?Documents obtained by the Guardian show police altered a document labeled uniform incident report in Ball s death. An initial version published by the Commercial Dispatch said an officer tased Ball before he fled. A new version of the incident report released to the Guardian does not include any mention of Taser use. One of these two reports is not true Continue this story at the GuardianREAD MORE POLICE STATE NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Police State Files | 0 |
10,067 | Ousted Turkish beauty queen may face jail time over tweet | ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A former Turkish beauty pageant winner may face up to a year in prison over a tweet referring to last year s failed military coup that cost her Miss Turkey title, the private Dogan news agency said on Thursday. An Istanbul prosecutor has indicted 18-year-old Itir Esen, who in September was stripped of her title after one day, for publicly humiliating a segment of the society following three official complaints over her tweet, Dogan reported. On July 16 this year, Esen tweeted: I had my period on July 15 morning to celebrate the day to commemorate martyrs. As a representation of our martyrs blood, I am commemorating this day by bleeding. She later deleted the tweet and deactivated her Twitter account. Dogan said the indictment included a statement by Esen in which she said her tweet was shared in an ironic way to commemorate those who died on July 15, 2016 and there was no intent to insult any part of Turkish society. Around 250 people, mostly unarmed civilians were killed and over 1,000 wounded in the failed coup bid on July 15, 2016. The day was later declared Democracy and National Unity Day and a public holiday in Turkey. More than 150,000 state employees have been suspended or sacked and over 50,000 have been jailed pending trial in a security crackdown following the attempted coup. Rights groups and some of NATO-member Turkey s Western allies have voiced disquiet about the crackdown, fearing the government is using the coup as a pretext to quash dissent. | 1 |
10,068 | Trump decides against Russia 'war room' in the White House: official | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump has opted not to set up a “war room” in the White House to serve as a rapid-response team to answer accusations involving an investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia, a White House official said on Tuesday. Any such rapid-response team, the official said, is instead likely to be a function of Trump’s outside counsel, Marc Kasowitz. White House officials had been discussing the possibility of hiring former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski to spearhead an internal “war room” to battle the various controversies emanating from a Justice Department probe into contacts between Trump aides and Russia. “If it exists, it won’t be here,” the White House official told Reuters. “It would most likely be outside the White House.” But it is possible, the official added, that the White House could beef up its rapid-response operation as it does some retooling of Trump’s communications effort. The official said it made more sense from a legal standpoint to have any Russia war room operation outside of the White House. Trump fired James Comey, former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, on May 9 amid accusations that the president was trying to squelch a federal probe into the Russia claims. Comey is to testify before the U.S. Congress on Thursday to lay out the details of his conversations with the president about Russia before the firing. Trump has called the probe a “witch hunt” and said there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia. | 1 |
10,069 | Republicans Just Moved To Repeal Obamacare. They Never Expected Americans To Respond Like THIS (TWEETS) | President Barack Obama accomplished many great things in his 8 years as President of the United States, and he undoubtedly took America to heights greater than the mess he inherited when he first came into office.One of Obama s most notable presidential accomplishments was Obamacare, also know as the Affordable Care Act an initiative that gave more Americans than ever access to affordable healthcare that they may not have been eligible for beforehand. Unfortunately, now that the GOP has taken back control of Congress with its disastrous President-elect Donald Trump, the Republican Party is making moves to undo all of Obama s hard work starting with health care.Late on Wednesday night, the Senate made a disgustingly sneaky move toward repealing the Affordable Care Act, and shot down proposed amendments to protect Americans with preexisting conditions from discrimination and losing coverage.TwitterOn Thursday morning, Americans across the country woke up to a nightmare. Not only did they discover that the Senate was making fast moves to gut the Affordable Care Act, but many of them would be facing life or death consequences thanks to the Republican Party s agenda. As one woman said to Rep. Keith Ellison (D -MN) on Twitter, As a breast cancer survivor, this is a death sentence for me. She was far from alone in that fear.Before Republicans knew it, people from across the country were using the hashtag #SaveTheACA to vent both their despair and desperation. Many of them are fully aware that once the ACA is taken away, they will die and the GOP will be to blame.The GOP never banked on this kind of backlash and here s what many Americans had to say:TwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterCurrently, the GOP has no reasonable plan to replace health care and innocent Americans will be the ones to suffer.Featured image via Mark Wilson / Getty Images | 0 |
10,070 | Trump says Russia probe will reveal no collusion with his campaign | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Wednesday said a special counsel’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election would show there was “no collusion” between his campaign and a foreign power. “As I have stated many times, a thorough investigation will confirm what we already know –- there was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity,” he said in a statement released by the White House. “I look forward to this matter concluding quickly. In the meantime, I will never stop fighting for the people and the issues that matter most to the future of our country.” Earlier the U.S. Justice Department appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate possible links between Trump’s 2016 campaign team and Russia as well as alleged Russian interference in the U.S. election. | 1 |
10,071 | Amsterdam mayor Van der Laan, who once snubbed Putin, dies of cancer | AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Eberhard van der Laan, Amsterdam s popular mayor, has died of lung cancer, the city said on Friday. Van der Laan informed city residents of his illness in January, saying the prognosis left little reason for optimism . When he retreated from public life three weeks ago, thousands gathered in front of his canal-side house to applaud for several minutes in a display of support. Van der Laan, 62, was known as an effective, pragmatic and sometimes combative mayor with a sense of humor. When an Occupy tent camp arose in front of the stock market in October 2011, Van der Laan was a frequent visitor, engaging protesters in discussion. He allowed the tents to remain until a court ordered them cleared months later. One of his most remarkable moments on an international stage was in 2013 when Van der Laan said he was too busy to meet Vladimir Putin during the Russian president s visit to Amsterdam, and ordered a rainbow flag flown from city hall in protest at Russian policies against homosexuals. The former lawyer served briefly as housing minister and shortly after becoming mayor in 2010 enforced a law banning squatting, sparking minor riots and banishing a long Amsterdam tradition to the fringes. Van der Laan is survived by his wife and five children from two marriages. | 1 |
10,072 | Italy's Northern League criticizes magistrates after bank accounts frozen | ROME (Reuters) - The leader of one of Italy s biggest political parties, the Northern League, criticized magistrates on Thursday after the Genoa court froze several of the bloc s bank accounts. Matteo Salvini, speaking to reporters at the lower house of parliament, said five of the party s bank accounts were frozen on Thursday, following a July conviction of party founder Umberto Bossi and others of illegal use of party funds. The court in Genoa in northern Italy has accepted a request by prosecutors in the fraud case to preventively freeze the accounts, a source close to the matter told Reuters. The magistrates are trying to outlaw a political party, Salvini said. They re trying to stop the advance of the League, which has reached a historic high. Salvini said he would meet with the party s lawyers on Friday to discuss how to fight the seizure. Bossi is no longer in frontline politics, but he remains an influential figure in the party. In July, the Genoa court said Bossi had used party funds to pay for family expenses. The ruling is being appealed and is not definitive. The League would win 15 percent of the vote if an election were held now, recent polls show, which is about three times higher than it faired in the 2014 European elections. That would make it the country s third most-popular party, and a national vote is due early next year. As hundreds of thousands of boat migrants have arrived in Italy in the past three years, the opposition Northern League has attacked the government s and the European Union s handling of the immigration crisis. At the same time, Salvini has tried to broaden the appeal of the party, which was founded to protest Rome s funneling of taxpayer money to the under-developed south. | 1 |
10,073 | Zimbabwe renames main airport after Mugabe, plans $153 million upgrade | HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe will upgrade its main airport at a cost of $153 million in an effort to attract more visitors, state media reported on Thursday, as authorities renamed the airport in honor of 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe. Harare International Airport will from Thursday be known as Robert Mugabe International Airport and is expected to undergo an upgrade so that it can handle 6.5 million passengers a year, more than double its current capacity. State-owned Herald newspaper reported that China Export and Import Bank will provide a $153 million loan that will, among other things, be used to expand the runway to allow multiple planes to land at the same time. Accepting the honor, Mugabe said renaming the airport was a great gesture to him and his family. In the last few months, Mugabe s vocal ruling ZANU-PF youth wing has been pushing the government to honor Mugabe by giving public institutions his name. The government has said from next year the veteran ruler s Feb. 21 birthday will be known as Robert Mugabe National Youth Day, a public holiday. On Aug 9. the cash-strapped government announced plans to build a $1 billion university named after Mugabe, a move that was criticized by the opposition as a waste of resources. Mugabe is the only leader that Zimbabwe has known since independence from Britain in 1980 and despite his advanced age, he remains the most influential political figure in the country. | 1 |
10,074 | SYRIAN MUSLIM IMMIGRANT HAIRDRESSER SLITS Female Employer’s Throat After Media Hailed Him As “Example Of Successful Integration” | She wanted him to assimilate. She gave him a good job. She trusted him and offered the chance to prove he was willing to be a good employee. He slit her throat. There was nothing special or unique about Mohammad Hussain Rashwani, he was just another Muslim immigrant looking for a better life who had no interest in assimilating. Slitting his employer s throat is how Rashwani chose to show his gratitude for her trust in him.Mohammad Hussain Rashwani was hailed in the media as the paramount example of successful integration after he got a job as a hairdresser at a salon in Herzberg, Germany in late 2015.After a little over a year on the job, he decided to slit his female employer s throat.From Lausitzer Rundschau as translated by Gates of Vienna: For me there weren t any signs that I could see Herzberg s hairdresser speaks about the knife attack by her Syrian employeeHerzberg s master hairdresser talks about what is motivating her these days since the attack by her Syrian employee two weeks ago.Should she have seen this attack against her coming? She keeps asking herself this question over and over. And she can t find an answer. Even today, I do not know what I should think. Until that Wednesday evening, he was an endearing man. I believed up to the very last minute that something good could come of him because I appreciated his professional abilities very much, Ilona F. says.The Herzberg woman doesn t want to talk about the attack itself; her thoughts are much more circling around why again and again. Did I intervene too much? Was I too strong for him? Did we, my husband and I, organize too much for him? These and other thoughts are constantly crossing her mind. But there weren t any signs that the Damascus-born Syrian maybe had other plans. His mother, which whom Ilona F. was in contact, had repeatedly written how grateful her son was for the chance that he received and how much he had respected the she-boss . He even assured my husband and me personally of this. Yet still, something had to have happened to him that made him commit this terrible bloody deed. For me, there were no signs that something like this could happen, the 64-year-old says, looking back. But, she admits, he had changed considerably in the past few months. Ilona F. explains: We had invested a lot of time in him after our spectacular beginnings, and we had helped him in every way possible. We had plans. He is an outstanding hairdresser. The customers were super-happy with his work. Until the very last minute I had believed that things were going to work. Here s where the story that is all too typical of Muslim immigrants starts to take shape:Even then changes started to set in. He, a Muslim who until now did not seem in any way a devout believer, had began to talk about Allah more and more. This certainly got on her nerves for over time. He also quit visiting the hairdresser and her husband at home. Before the changes he came by almost every day. They had talked about everything, professional and private. But he had begun to neglect his study of the German language more and more. He kept assuring me that he wanted to learn the language, but later. More and more he said later this, later that, when we talked about his future, the businesswoman recounts.And then there were also problems in the salon. Mohammad H. came to work too late more often; he didn t take time very seriously. He became very reluctant to drive to work at Sch newalde, where his boss owned a second hair salon. And during the week the attack took place, he outright refused to go.After a disagreement in the Herzberg salon, when a customer was unhappy with the work of the Syrian hairdresser, she had given him notice that they had to talk. I knew it couldn t go on like this. But immediately the question arose in my mind, what would become of him if I were to throw him out. After all, I still believed in him. That this by now was a fatal mistake is something the Herzberg woman is only slowly beginning to realize. That I could have been so wrong in my judgment of another person, she shakes her head. Actually, I feel really sorry for him. Information Liberation | 0 |
10,075 | IRS CHIEF: Okay For Illegal Aliens To Use Stolen Social Security Numbers [VIDEO] | It sure would be nice to have a President and Congress who took this whole illegal alien thing seriously IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told a Senate panel on Tuesday that the IRS wants to continue to allow illegal aliens to use stolen social security numbers to file tax returns without allowing the numbers to be used for bad reasons. Koskinen said it s in everyone s interest to have illegal aliens paying taxes.Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) asked the Koskinen to explain the policy after revealing that his staff looked into IRS procedures and found that, the IRS continues to process tax returns with false W-2 information and issue refunds as if they were routine tax returns, and say that s not really our job. What happens in these situations is someone is using a Social Security number to get a job, but they re filing their tax return with their [taxpayer identification number], Koskinen said. They are undocumented aliens . They re paying taxes. It s in everybody s interest to have them pay the taxes they owe. Sen. Coats also revealed that the IRS ignores notifications from the Social Security Administration when a name and SSN does not match and that IRS agents are prohibited from informing the victims of employment-related identity theft even though the agency identified 200,000 new cases last year.Koskinen explained that as long as they were using the stolen SSNs to only illegally obtain a job that they would allow them to continue to use the number in order to file taxes, since the IRS uses the taxpayer identification number (ITIN) to process the tax return. The question is whether the Social Security number they re using to get the job has been stolen. It s not the normal identity theft situation, Koskinen said.The topic of the hearing was to address the cybersecurity failings of the IRS to protect taxpayer data. In February 2016 about 464,000 of these stolen SSNs were targeted by hackers in a cyber breach. The agency said it wants to differentiate the bad misuse of personal data from other uses. Washington ExaminerVia: Numbers USA | 0 |
10,076 | Deadline looms for South Africa's Zuma over revived graft charges | JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Lawyers for Jacob Zuma have until midnight to file papers outlining why nearly 800 corruption charges shelved before he became South African president eight years ago but recently reinstated by the courts should not be brought against him. The revival of the charges could increase pressure on Zuma to step down before his term ends in 2019 and diminish his influence over who succeeds him when the ruling African National Congress (ANC) chooses a new leader in December. The 75-year-old president has faced and denied numerous other corruption allegations since taking office in 2009. The 783 charges, which relate to a 30 billion rand ($2.2 billion) government arms deal arranged in the late 1990s, were filed but then dropped by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) shortly before he ran for the presidency. South Africa s High Court reinstated the charges last year and the Supreme Court upheld that decision in October, rejecting an appeal by Zuma and describing the NPA s decision to set aside the charges as irrational . The NPA said then that Zuma had until Nov. 30 to make submissions before it decided whether to pursue the charges. Spokesmen for the NPA and Zuma were not available for comment on Thursday. Last month s Supreme Court ruling lifted the rand currency against the dollar as investors bet that Zuma s removal may be inching closer. The president is unpopular with many investors after sacking respected finance minister Pravin Gordhan in March, a move that hit South African financial assets and helped tip the country s credit ratings into junk territory. Infighting within the ruling ANC ahead of next month s conference to elect a successor to Zuma as party chief has also sapped confidence among the investors upon whom South Africa relies to finance its hefty budget and current account deficits. One of South Africa s leading universities, the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg, said on Thursday that it had appointed Gordhan as a visiting professor. He will join other ANC heavyweights who have ended up at the Wits after being sidelined by Zuma, among them another respected and ousted finance minister, Nhlanhla Nene, and former Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni. Widely seen as a competent and honest technocrat, Gordhan has become an unlikely poster boy for public anger at the president, whose administration has been marred by missteps and allegations of corruption. Zuma denies any wrongdoing. ($1 = 13.6794 rand) | 1 |
10,077 | Morneau Shepell sees no impact from pension legislation | OTTAWA (Reuters) - Morneau Shepell Inc (MSI.TO), the human resources management company at the heart of conflict-of-interest allegations against Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau, said on Friday it would not benefit from pension or tax legislation proposed by the Liberal government. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau s government has been badly shaken by the conflict-of-interest controversy about his finance minister, who is the multimillionaire former chief executive officer of Morneau Shepell. Some have questioned whether Morneau, whose father founded Morneau Shepell, would be forced to resign. Morneau Shepell, a major provider of pension administration services to private companies and government agencies, said it is not involved in the consultation for either changes to the small business tax code or to the pension reform. If passed, (the pension reform) would allow federally regulated pension plans the option to implement target benefit pension plans. They would not be required to do this, the company said in a statement. Several provinces have already enacted similar enabling legislation for pension plans that they regulate, but in practice, very few employers have adopted it, Morneau Shepell said. The company said it severed all contact with Morneau upon his election to the House of Commons in October 2015. Morneau resigned as executive chairman of Morneau Shepell shortly after his election. Morneau, who was named finance minister shortly after his election to Parliament, said last week he would put his assets in a blind trust and divest his stockholding in the family business in response to criticism that his proposals for pension or tax reform could benefit his company and his personal finances. On Thursday, Morneau said he will donate to charity any profit that his Morneau Shepell shares have made since he was elected. The company s stock, currently trading at C$21.17, closed at C$15.77 in the session before the election, which would put the potential profit for the 1 million shares Morneau has said he holds at C$5.4 million. Morneau told reporters on Thursday he did not know what the difference in the value of the shares will be. Opposition parties from both the political left and right have seized on the ethics scandal, trying to tie Trudeau s team to what they say is an entitled Liberal Party that has previously faced corruption charges. | 1 |
10,078 | Trump meets insurers, promises catastrophic year for Obamacare | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump told several chief executives of large insurance companies on Monday that 2017 will be a “catastrophic” year for the Affordable Care Act as he seeks to make good on a campaign promise to repeal the measure. The Republican president told the insurers they must all work together to save Americans from the law known as Obamacare and try to bring down health care prices. He said he hoped to work with Democrats on a health care plan to repeal the law, which provided coverage for millions of uninsured Americans. | 1 |
10,079 | German industry see FDP revival boosting digital transition | FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German industry leaders want a shift toward digital services to be a priority as the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) appear set to enter coalition talks with Angela Merkel s conservatives and the Greens. The FDP, which returned from the German political wilderness with 10.7 percent of the vote in Sunday s election, promise to cut taxes and raise investment in infrastructure, partly funded by privatizations. Investing in high-speed telecoms networks and automation would boost economic activity and global competitiveness and has long been a key demand of Germany s export-led manufacturers although some workers fear it risks job losses. Investments in education and digital infrastructure are urgently needed, Werner Baumann, chief executive of drugmaker Bayer (BAYGn.DE), said in an emailed statement. Joe Kaeser, chief executive of industrial group Siemens (SIEGn.DE) agreed, but warned of marginalizing workers and pushing them into the arms of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), the first far-right party to enter the German parliament in more than half a century. We are an industrial nation and must shape the fourth industrial revolution and design it in a socially inclusive way - so that as many people profit from its as possible, he said. Economists see such investments as a way to combat the effects of an ageing population and to boost stalling productivity gains, factors that are casting a shadow over growth prospects in the medium term in Europe s largest economy. Domestically, a focus on digitalisation is one opportunity to counteract these structural headwinds, and re-accelerate productivity growth, Morgan Stanley economist Elga Bartsch wrote in a note. German business confidence deteriorated unexpectedly in the weeks before Sunday s federal election, suggesting that a consumption-led upswing could lose momentum in coming months. Thilo Brodtmann, executive director of powerful engineering lobby VDMA, said on Monday: We need a clear signal for a digital breakthrough, for education and research, innovation-friendly tax policies and above all a priority for flexibility and good ideas. The VDMA represents large manufacturers such as engineering group Siemens, robot maker Kuka (KU2G.DE) or machine-tool maker DMG Mori (GILG.DE) as well as a host of smaller firms banking on digitization to boost productivity. And a host of communications firms including Vodafone (VOD.L), Liberty Global (LBTYA.O) and United Internet (UTDI.DE) stand ready to take advantage of funds that may be made available to expand rural broadband, for example through the further privatization of incumbent Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE). But UBS economist Felix Huefner said he doubted that any radical stimulus measures would be taken soon, given that the German economy is expected to grow at its strongest pace in six years this year. Even if digitalization may be a key priority for Merkel, we don t expect deep reforms... given the lack of pressure in a very benign economic environment, he wrote in a note. | 1 |
10,080 | Watch Allison Janney Take Over For Josh Earnest The Only Way She Knows How – As CJ Cregg (VIDEO) | After The West Wing wrapped up its final season in 2006, many of us were left with a gaping hole in our soul watching a part of our lives cease to exist any longer. The brilliance of the show between the writing, directing and acting is one that seldom happens, and can seldom be recreated.However, what it can be, is reprised. Which is what just happened as actress Allison Janney took to the White House press podium to reprise her role as Claudia Jean CJ Cregg. For six seasons Janney played the beloved role of Press Secretary for the President Bartlet administration, and then played the White House Chief of Staff.Janney came to the podium telling everyone that Josh is out today, and that the president is still preparing his jokes for the Correspondents Dinner. That s when real-life Press Secretary Josh Earnest makes an appearance and seems surprised to see Janney there.Clearly, it was a set-up that was brilliantly pulled off, and was made so that Janney could get her broader message across which is the dangers of opioid abuse. She came to the White House alongside television heavyweight Chuck Lorre, creator of Janney s show Mom, to discuss opioid abuse and recovery.According to ABC News: The White House held an event today honoring 10 White House Champions of Change who help fight the epidemic in their local communities. After Janney was done speaking, a reporter asked if he could ask her a question. She politely said sure. Then the reporter asked if she knew which Democrat President Bartlet is supporting for the election. To which Janney quickly quipped back, I think you know the answer to that. After all, Janney s character CJ has been said to have been modeled after former Clinton Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers. So, one can only assume who she was talking about in her answer to the reporter s question.All in all, it was great to see CJ Cregg back in action!Watch here:.@AllisonBJanneyAKA CJ CreggAKA Bonnie on @MomCBSdrops by the White House press briefing. https://t.co/TK4NJ7TEyM The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 29, 2016Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
10,081 | 400,000 children still displaced from Mosul fighting: Save the Children | BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Around 400,000 children are still displaced from the fighting for Mosul, one year after the start of a military offensive to recapture the Iraqi city from the Islamic State, Save the Children said on Monday. Islamic State s self-declared caliphate effectively collapsed in July, when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces re-took Mosul, the group s de facto capital in Iraq, after a grueling nine-month battle. Just because the fighting in Mosul has stopped doesn t mean the humanitarian needs aren t great. If anything, children need our help now more than ever - those that are still displaced and those that are returning to see what s left of their homes, said the London-based charity s Iraq country director, Ana Locsin. Large parts of Mosul have been reduced to rubble; schools, homes, hospitals, roads, playgrounds and parks. I ve spoken to dozens of children haunted by their experiences, left with psychological scars that ll take years to heal, Locsin said in a statement. With the fall of Mosul and other small towns in the country s north and west, the only area still under control of Islamic State in Iraq is a stretch alongside the western border with Syria, where the militant group is also in retreat. | 1 |
10,082 | Commerce Secretary says Trump-Xi talks will address trade imbalances | BEIJING (Reuters) - Meetings between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing this week will focus on addressing trade imbalances between the two countries, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Wednesday. Ross was speaking at a signing ceremony in the Chinese capital for commercial deals worth about $9 billion on Trump s visit. Trump has ratcheted up his criticism of China s massive trade surplus with the U.S. - calling it embarrassing and horrible last week - and has accused Beijing of unfair trade practices, fuelling worries of increased tension between the world s two largest trading countries. Addressing the imbalance in China trade has been the central focus of collaborative discussions between President Trump and President Xi and achieving fair and reciprocal treatment for the companies is a shared objective, Ross said. Data on Wednesday showed China s exports to the U.S. rose 8.3 percent in October on the year, while imports grew 4.3 percent. That led to a trade surplus of $26.62 billion with the U.S. last month, down from September s record $28.08 billion, but higher than recent trends. Deals signed on Wednesday included a pledge by Chinese ecommerce company JD.com to buy more than $2 billion of food products from the U.S. over three years and a pact for Reignwood International to buy additional helicopters from U.S. firm Bell Helicopter. While 19 deals were signed on Wednesday, some in the U.S. business community have expressed worry that contract wins could come at the expense of resolving long-standing complaints over market access restrictions in China. At the ceremony, China s vice premier Wang Yang said deals signed between China and U.S. firms would contribute to the stabilization of the general and overall economic relations between the two countries . The ceremony was a prelude to a more important signing ceremony set for Thursday, he added. Among the companies expected to sign deals on Thursday are Qualcomm, Boeing and Goldman Sachs. Chinese commerce minister Zhong Shan also attended the event in the Great Hall of the People next to Tiananmen Square. | 1 |
10,083 | Tourists, authorities feel the heat as Bali volcano keeps airport closed | KARANGASEM, Indonesia (Reuters) - Indonesia kept the airport on Bali closed on Tuesday as ash from an erupting volcano swept the holiday island, leaving thousands of tourists stranded as authorities tried to persuade villagers living nearby to leave their homes. A total of 443 flights, both domestic and international, were affected by the closure of the airport, about 60 km (37 miles) from Mount Agung which is spewing smoke and ash high into the sky. Aircraft flight channels are covered with volcanic ash, the transport ministry said in a statement, citing aviation navigation authorities. The airport - the second-biggest in Indonesia - will be closed at least until 7 a.m. on Wednesday (2300 GMT on Tuesday), the ministry said. Frustration at the airport was starting to boil over, with an estimated 2,000 people attempting to get refunds and reschedule tickets. There are thousands of people stranded here at the airport, said Nitin Sheth, a tourist from India. They have to go to some other airport and they are trying to do that, but the government or authorities here are not helping. Others were more relaxed. No, there s not a lot of information ... very little. (But) it s all right. We re on holidays so it doesn t matter. We don t know what s going to happen but we can get back to the bar and have another drink, said Matthew Radix from Perth. The airport operator said 201 international flights and 242 domestic ones had been hit. Ten alternative airports had been prepared for airlines to divert inbound flights, including in neighboring provinces, the operator said, adding it was helping people make alternative bookings and helping stranded travelers. The airport on Lombok island, to the east of Bali, had reopened, authorities said, as wind blew ash westward, towards the southern coast of Java island. Agung towers over eastern Bali to a height of just over 3,000 meters (9,800 feet). Its last eruption in 1963 killed more than 1,000 people and razed several villages. On Tuesday, however, life went on largely as normal in surrounding villages, with residents offering prayers as the volcano sent huge billows of ash and smoke into the sky. Some villagers who fled in September, when the alert was last raised to the highest level, have gone home despite government warnings. On Monday, authorities said 100,000 residents living near the volcano had been ordered to get out of an 8-10 km (5-6 mile) exclusion zone, warning a larger eruption was imminent . While the population in the area has been estimated at anywhere between 63,000 and 140,000, just over 29,000 people were registered at emergency centers, said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for the Disaster Mitigation Agency. Not all people in the danger zone are prepared to take refuge, he said. There are still a lot of residents staying in their homes. Indonesia s Volcanology and Geological Disaster Mitigation Center has warned that an eruption of a size similar to that seen in 1963 could send rocks bigger than a fist flying a distance of up to 8 km (5 miles), and volcanic gas a distance of 10 km (6 miles) within three minutes. Monitoring has shown the northeastern part of Agung s peak had swollen in recent weeks indicating there is fairly strong pressure toward the surface , the center said. For interactive package on Agung eruptions, click: tmsnrt.rs/2hYdHiq For graphic on the Pacific Ring of Fire, click: tmsnrt.rs/2BjtH6l | 1 |
10,084 | Trump tied with Clinton in Utah after lewd remarks in video: poll | (Reuters) - Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s support has sharply fallen in Utah where a poll on Wednesday showed him tied with Democrat Hillary Clinton in a state that has voted Republican in presidential races for decades. The survey of 500 people from Salt Lake City-based Y2 Analytics also showed a surge for Evan McMullin, an ex-CIA officer running as an independent. Trump and Clinton were both at 26 percent while McMullin, a member of the Mormon faith that dominates in Utah, trailed just behind at 22 percent. The telephone poll of likely voters was conducted on Monday and Tuesday, after a video featuring comments from Trump about groping women surfaced last week. The survey underscored the level of disaffection some conservatives have shown for Trump, who has found himself at odds with much of the Republican Party establishment. The last time a Republican presidential nominee lost in Utah was in the landslide national election victory of President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, in 1964. “There’s limits to partisanship even in Utah of all places,” Scott Riding, managing partner of Y2 Analytics, said. The poll results indicate severe erosion in Trump’s popularity in Utah even as Clinton’s support has grown slightly. A Salt Lake Tribune poll in September put support for Trump at 34 percent, compared with 25 percent for Clinton. A number of prominent Utah Republicans, including Governor Gary Herbert and U.S. Senator Mike Lee, pulled their support for Trump or called on him to quit the race. McMullin, a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and investment banker whose campaign is based in Utah, is less well known nationally than the other minor candidates, Green Party nominee Jill Stein and Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson. Johnson ranked fourth in the Y2 Analytics poll with support from 14 percent of likely voters, roughly in line with his previous level of support in Utah. McMullin, who is running as a conservative independent, is on the ballot in a dozen states including Utah, with plans to expand his reach before the Nov. 8 election, according to his campaign spokesman Rick Wilson. The vast majority of participants in the poll were familiar with the video tape of Trump’s vulgar comments about women during a 2005 recording and a third of them said it lowered their opinion of the New York businessman. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.38 percentage points. | 1 |
10,085 | Boiler Room #90 – Downtown Brown and The Loss & Curse of Celebrity | Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at 6:00 PM PST | 8:00 PM CST | 9:00 PM EST for this special broadcast. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for barfly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher and Spore along with Basil Valentine of The Sunday Wire Radio Show, Jay Dyer from Jay s Analysis and Stewart Howe of 21WRire and ACR for the 90th episode of BOILER ROOM. Water the plants, put the kids to bed and get your favorite snuggy out so you can drop deep into the Boiler Room with the ACR brain-trust.Please like and share the program and visit our donate page to get involved!BOILER ROOM IS NOT A POLICTALLY CORRECT ZONE! LISTEN TO THE SHOW IN THE PLAYER BELOW ENJOY!Listen to Boiler Room #90 on Spreaker.Reference Links: | 0 |
10,086 | Trump Can’t Decide Which Lie To Stick To Regarding His Claim That Obama Founded ISIS | After all the backlash Trump received for saying that Obama was literally the founder of ISIS, he tried backpedaling, and then tried to backpedal off his backpedal (wait, what? Make a decision, fool). He first tried to lie his way out of it on Twitter, saying:Ratings challenged @CNN reports so seriously that I call President Obama (and Clinton) the founder of ISIS, & MVP. THEY DON T GET SARCASM? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2016Because it s always the press that s out to get him, and not the press reporting on what he says. But that s beside the point. After that tweet, he held a rally in Erie, Penn., and he went back on that tweet: So I said the founder of ISIS, Trump recalled to the crowd, after accusing the president of being so weak and so bad that he allowed the Islamic State to grow. Obviously I m being sarcastic. Then but not that sarcastic, to be honest with you.' Well, which is it, Your Royalness? Either you were being sarcastic or you meant what you said. Trump, however, really doesn t know what he s doing, and he will never admit that he was wrong to say something. When Hugh Hewitt asked him, point blank, whether he was talking about the vacuum created in Iraq by pulling our troops out, that exchange went like this:Trump: No, I meant he s the founder of ISIS. I do. He was the most valuable player. I gave him the most valuable player award. I gave her too, by the way, Hillary Clinton.Hugh Hewitt: But he s not sympathetic to them. He hates them. He s trying to kill them.Trump: I don t care, he was the founder. His, the way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, okay.The only reason he s saying that was sarcasm now is because he was called on the carpet for it, and he has to cover his growing mountain of lies somehow. But it seems his loyal subjects might not have liked that as much, because he decided swerving back and forth on this was better than picking an opinion and sticking to it.Trump knows his campaign is in trouble. He s asked for help in Utah and Ohio, and also called for a meeting with the RNC to repair that relationship after more than fifty Republicans signed a letter to ask the RNC to pull his funding. Trump isn t going to change, though. He thinks he s invincible now that he s locked up the nomination, and has become so incapable of consistency that he can t even pick one lie and stick to it.Featured image by Regine Mahaux/Getty Images | 0 |
10,087 | Trump unveils companies' $500 million U.S. drug packaging project | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Thursday announced a $500 million investment that Corning Inc is making with pharmaceutical giants Merck and Pfizer to manufacture a new kind of glass for injectable drug vials. At a White House event, Trump said the effort will create nearly 1,000 jobs at facilities in New York and New Jersey and at a soon-to-be-determined site in the southeastern United States. The deal could eventually result in a total investment of $4 billion and create around 4,000 jobs, Trump said, joined by the CEOs of Corning, Merck and Pfizer. The commitments were made as part of Trump’s “Made in America” week, during which he has showcased American-made products and made an impassioned defense of his “America First” policies. Corning said it developed the new type of glass in collaboration with the drugmakers. “This initiative will bring a key industry to our shores that for too long has been dominated by foreign countries. We’re moving more and more companies back into the United States,” Trump said. After the remarks, Trump tested the strength of the new Corning Valor Vial. Pressing down on an old vial in a vise-like machine, he easily broke it but struggled to break one of the new vials despite putting far greater effort into it. | 1 |
10,088 | Reports Confirmed: Major Corporate Sponsor Just Ditched The RNC To Boycott Trump | Donald Trump s presumptive nomination just cost the Republican Party a major sponsor at the Republican National Convention. Reports circulated over the weekend that Apple will be withholding technological and financial support for the RNC. Those rumors have now been confirmed.Politico first reported on Apple s boycott of the convention, saying that Apple has decided to pull out because of Donald Trump s controversial comments about women, immigrants and minorities. Other major tech companies such as Facebook, Google, and Microsoft will still provide support at the convention. Microsoft says that they will not provide any financial support at the convention. In a statement, Erin Ergan said that Facebook does not endorse the GOP s platform and that their continued support is an effort to facilitate an open dialogue among voters, candidates, and elected officials during the conventions. Though Mark Zuckerberg did speak out, condemning Trump s proposals regarding banning Muslims from entering the United States. The GOP s stance on immigration is also out completely out of line with the Facebook CEO s.Apple is by far the largest tech company to boycott the convention, though they are not the first. After facing pressure from activist organizations, HP pulled their support from the convention. In addition to tech companies, The GOP is being hit hard by other major companies, like Coca-Cola who has decided to radically scale back the amount of support they will give to the RNC.Apple has traditionally supported both the RNC and the Democratic National Convention, this will be the first time in recent election years where they will only support the DNC. This is a bold move being played by Apple. Tech companies tend to lobby politicians in both major parties and rarely make a huge public splash politically. Apple s decision to leave the RNC is a major departure from that strategy.Featured image from Isaac Brekken/Getty Images | 0 |
10,089 | Mattis looking at ways to bring Russia into compliance with arms control treaty | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Thursday he had discussed Russia s violation of an arms control treaty with his NATO counterparts and they were looking at how to bring Moscow into compliance with it. We have a firm belief now over several years that the Russians have violated the INF and our effort is to bring Russia back into compliance, Mattis said, speaking with reporters during a meeting of NATO defense ministers. U.S. officials have said Russia has deployed a cruise missile despite complaints by Washington that it violates the arms control treaty banning ground-based, U.S. and Russian intermediate-range missiles. Russia however, has said in the past that it appears that Washington, now in the midst of a $1 trillion, 30-year modernization of its ageing ballistic missile submarines, bombers and land-based missiles, that was in breach of the same treaty. Many of the nations already have their own evidence of what Russia has been up to and we have been in active discussions amongst ourselves on the issue, Mattis said. He added that the United States and NATO would be engaging with Russia to try and resolve the issue. | 1 |
10,090 | UK PM May promises frank talk with Trump after women protest | LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May promised on Sunday to challenge any “unacceptable” talk when she meets President Donald Trump later this week, as she tries to secure Britain’s “special relationship” with the new U.S. administration. May, Britain’s second female premier, made the comments after thousands of women marched in London on Saturday to protest about Trump’s attitude to women, joining demonstrations held in major cities across the globe. She told the BBC she would use Friday’s meeting in Washington to discuss issues including future U.S.-UK trading relations, following Trump’s promise to put “America first” in his inauguration speech on Friday. Since Britons voted last year to leave the European Union, May’s government has been keen to deepen ties with the United States and other nations outside Europe to show that Brexit will not diminish its standing in the world. May indicated she would not shy away from any difficult issues, when asked about the controversy over Trump’s comments on women. This erupted last year during the presidential election campaign over a 2005 video in which he boasted about grabbing women’s genitals. “I’ve already said that some of the comments that Donald Trump has made in relation to women are unacceptable, some of those he himself has apologized for,” May said. “When I sit down (with Trump) I think the biggest statement that will be made about the role of women is the fact that I will be there as a female prime minister,” she said. “Whenever there is something that I find unacceptable I won’t be afraid to say that to Donald Trump.” Trump’s election has raised questions over the future of the so-called “special relationship” that has underpinned close British-American ties for decades, but the new U.S. leader has said he believes Brexit will be “a great thing”. May, who initially struggled to build relations with Trump’s team, said she would also use the meeting to discuss the NATO defense alliance and challenges such as defeating terrorism and the conflict in Syria. Becoming one of the first world leaders to meet with Trump following his inauguration will be viewed as a coup for May, who was perceived to have been snubbed by the billionaire following his election when he spoke first to nine other world leaders. She will be trying to improve relations with Trump after he irritated the British government by meeting Nigel Farage, an outspoken anti-EU campaigner and critic of May, and saying he would be a good choice for Britain’s ambassador to Washington. Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn cast doubt on whether Trump, who has promised to protect American jobs and industry from foreign imports, would offer Britain much. “There were no signs of any special relationship in Donald Trump’s inauguration speech. Quite the opposite, it was ‘America first, America only’,” he told Sky News. “The idea that Donald Trump is suddenly going to roll over and offer some trade deal with Britain which doesn’t have strings attached ... I think she needs to be extremely careful.” British newspapers were divided on the visit, with the Sunday Telegraph reporting Trump calls May “My Maggie”, referring to her predecessor Margaret Thatcher, who enjoyed a close relationship with her U.S. counterpart Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. The front page of the Mail on Sunday however, ran the headline: “Cut out your sexist insults, Mr President”. Brexit supporters have cheered comments by Trump that he wants to arrange a swift bilateral trade deal with Britain, but others have cautioned his protectionist policies make an agreement which is good for Britain unlikely. The Telegraph also reported plans were underway for a state visit to Britain later this year by Trump, who has played up his ancestral ties to Britain, saying in an interview this month that his Scottish mother was “so proud” of Queen Elizabeth. | 1 |
10,091 | Moscow, Cairo may sign deal on Friday to resume Russian flights to Egypt: TASS | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia and Egypt may sign an agreement on Friday allowing to resume Russian civilian flights to Egypt, the TASS news agency cited Russian Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov as saying on Thursday. Egypt s aviation minister will travel to Russia on Thursday to sign protocol agreements to resume the flights that were suspended after the 2015 bombing of a Russian tourist jet, two ministry sources said in Cairo. Moscow halted civilian air traffic to Egypt in 2015 after militants detonated a bomb on a Russian Metrojet flight, downing the jet leaving from the tourist resort of Sharm el-Sheikh and killing 224 people on board. | 1 |
10,092 | Kosovo PM removed from international arrest warrant: minister | PRISTINA (Reuters) - Kosovo s Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj was removed from an international arrest warrant issued by Serbia, lifting an obstacle to him travelling outside the country, the justice minister said on Friday. Early this year Ramush Haradinaj, a former Kosovar guerilla leader who in September took over as prime minister, was arrested in France on an arrest warrant issued by Serbia. He was released after a French court rejected Belgrade s extradition request. Despite many attempts by Pristina, Belgrade refused to remove his name from the Interpol red notice. Today I was informed that Interpol has removed 18 people from Kosovo that are wanted by Serbia and this list includes also the prime minister, Abelard Tahiri, Kosovo s Justice Minister told Reuters. After today s decision all these individuals are free to travel outside the country without any problem. Haradinaj and others are wanted by Serbia for allegedly committing war crimes. Serbia has charged Haradinaj with murdering Serbs in the late 1990s war. The 1998-99 conflict ended after NATO bombed the now-defunct Yugoslavia, then comprising Serbia and Montenegro, for 78 days to force a withdrawal of its troops from Kosovo and end a counter-insurgency campaign against ethnic Albanians. Haradinaj, who has twice been tried and acquitted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in the Hague, denies any wrongdoing. Kosovo declared independence in 2008 but Serbia refused to recognize its former breakaway province. | 1 |
10,093 | PUTIN PUSHES His Own Reset Button With America In A Very Surprising Move | In this chess match of political wills, Putin is coin very well against Obama.Instead of expelling the diplomats, Putin invited the children of U.S. envoys to a New Year celebration for kids held at a concert hall on the grounds of the Kremlin. He said:The diplomats who are returning to Russia will spend the New Year s holidays with their families and friends. We will not create any problems for US diplomats. We will not expel anyone. We will not prevent their families and children from using their traditional leisure sites during the New Year s holidays. Moreover, I invite all children of US diplomats accredited in Russia to the New Year and Christmas children s parties in the Kremlin.It is regrettable that the Obama Administration is ending its term in this manner. Nevertheless, I offer my New Year greetings to President Obama and his family.As it proceeds from international practice, Russia has reasons to respond in kind. Although we have the right to retaliate, we will not resort to irresponsible kitchen diplomacy but will plan our further steps to restore Russian-US relations based on the policies of the Trump Administration.President-elect Donald Trump even tweeted out a response after Putin s move to take the high ground:Read more: Legal Insurrection | 0 |
10,094 | Read President Obama’s Moving Proclamation Declaring June LGBT Pride Month | Every year President Obama declares June LGBT pride month. Last year s pride month was a little more special considering the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage across all 50 states.This year, however, showcases another important issue: transgender rights. As states in the south mimic their bigotry from the era of Jim Crow by intentionally discriminating against trans individuals, President Obama and his administration continue to fight for everyone, no matter who they are or who they love.The proclamation begins:Since our founding, America has advanced on an unending path toward becoming a more perfect Union. This journey, led by forward-thinking individuals who have set their sights on reaching for a brighter tomorrow, has never been easy or smooth. The fight for dignity and equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people is reflected in the tireless dedication of advocates and allies who strive to forge a more inclusive society. They have spurred sweeping progress by changing hearts and minds and by demanding equal treatment under our laws, from our courts, and in our politics.Taking a page out of the Martin Luther King Jr. handbook (literally), President Obama also echoes the timeless phrase that we recognize all they have done to bring us to this point, and we recommit to bending the arc of our Nation towards justice. President Obama reaffirmed his administration s opposition to conversion therapy, and support of a national law protecting LGBT members of society from housing and employment discrimination, both in the public and private sector. The president also singled out those suffering from HIV/AIDS, especially men and women of color, and pledged support for more funding.Concluding with, In line with America s commitment to the notion that all people should be treated fairly and with respect, champions of this cause at home and abroad are upholding the simple truth that LGBT rights are human rights, and that Americans have a responsibility to end hatred and discrimination wherever they may see it, President Obama for his eighth and last time writes these timeless words of tolerance:By virtue of authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2016 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.The love, tenderness, support and hope shown by President Obama is unparalleled to anything this country has seen before. Can anyone imagine a President Trump doing such a thing?Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 0 |
10,095 | New Trump travel order expected in coming days, Pence says | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump plans to finalize a new order limiting travel to the United States in the coming days, his vice president said on Wednesday, after federal courts blocked the administration’s earlier travel ban. A White House source had previously said the new order was likely to be announced on Wednesday. More than two dozen lawsuits were filed in U.S. courts against the Jan. 27 travel ban, which temporarily barred entry to the United States for people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, as well as halting the U.S. refugee program. The ban was suspended by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling in a case brought by Washington state. The Trump administration then said it would produce a new order. “They’re putting out the finishing touches on that executive order. It should be out in the next few days,” Vice President Mike Pence told CBS program “This Morning.” The original order triggered chaos at airports as people, including legal residents known as green card holders, were temporarily blocked from entering the country and federal agencies tried to interpret the new guidelines. The administration has said it is likely the new directive will exclude legal permanent residents, making it harder for opponents to challenge the ban. Pence did not elaborate on the revised directive. The Associated Press, citing unidentified U.S. officials, reported late on Tuesday that the new order will remove Iraq from the list of countries whose citizens face a temporary travel ban. | 1 |
10,096 | British PM May wants Northern Ireland's government restored | LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May said on Wednesday everyone wanted to see an agreement to restore Northern Ireland s devolved government after parties failed to reach agreement. We all want to see a Northern Ireland executive restored, she told lawmakers. | 1 |
10,097 | EU's Tusk says ready to ramp up sanctions against North Korea | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union is prepared to ramp up sanctions against North Korea after it conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sunday, European Council President Donald Tusk said. The EU stands ready to sharpen its policy of sanctions and invites North Korea to restart dialogue on its programers without condition, Tusk said in a statement. We call on the UN Security Council to adopt further UN sanctions and show stronger resolve to achieve a peaceful decentralization of the Korean peninsula. The stakes are getting too high. | 1 |
10,098 | Trump Vows To Save America From ‘Curse’ Of Functional Health Care System | In a pair of tweets on Thursday afternoon, Donald Trump proved once again how out of touch he is with the American public. Just three months ago, Pew Research published a study showing that a substantial majority of Americans some 60 percent feel the federal government is responsible for providing healthcare coverage for all citizens. Not only that, but the formerly-controversial idea of a single-payer system, like the Medicare For All bill just introduced with wide Democratic support by Senator Bernie Sanders, was favored by a third of Americans.Trump, however, sees universal coverage, enjoyed by every highly-developed nation in the world except the United States, as a curse on the citizens of this country.Bernie Sanders is pushing hard for a single payer healthcare plan a curse on the U.S. & its people Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 14, 2017 I told Republicans to approve healthcare fast or this would happen. But don't worry, I will veto because I love our country & its people. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 14, 2017Universal coverage was long considered a pipe dream, even as recently as during the primary campaign between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Secretary Clinton dismissed it as an idea that will never, ever come to pass. But buoyed by the popularity of Senator Sanders after the disastrous win by Donald Trump in November, the Democratic Party has moved decidedly left on the issue.At the time of Sanders introduction of his bill, painted as the sane alternative to the Republican frenzy to strip all Americans of non-private health coverage, there were a number of Democratic senators signed on, including those widely considered to be front-runners for the Democratic nomination in 2020. Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, and even the favorites among Clinton loyalists, Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand, all joined Senator Sanders in introducing Medicare For All. They were joined by Tammy Baldwin, Richard Blumenthal, Martin Heinrich, Mazie Hirono, Pat Leahy, Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley, Brian Schatz, Jeanne Shaheen, Tom Udall, and Sheldon Whitehouse.The irony, of course, is that even if one considers universal coverage a curse as Donald Trump does, the bill stands essentially no chance of passage in the first place. Trump would love to portray himself as a savior of conservative principles, but with Republicans in firm control of Congress (at least until 2018), the odds of Trump even needing to look through his plethora of gold-plated pens to find the one for vetoes are slim to none. | 0 |
10,099 | VACATIONING LAME-DUCK OBAMA Ready To Announce Sanctions Against Russia | The Obama administration plans to announce on Thursday a series of retaliatory measures against Russia for hacking into U.S. political institutions and individuals and leaking information in an effort to help President-elect Donald Trump and other Republican candidates, two U.S. officials said on Wednesday.Both officials declined to specify what actions President Barack Obama has approved, but said targeted economic sanctions, indictments, leaking information to embarrass Russian officials or oligarchs, and restrictions on Russian diplomats in the United States are among steps that have been discussed.One decision that has been made, they said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, is to avoid any moves that exceed the Russian election hacking and risk an escalating cyber conflict that could spiral out of control. One example of an excessive step might be interfering with Russian internet messaging.Russia has repeatedly denied hacking accusations. Trump has dismissed the assessments of the U.S. intelligence community.Obama, in an interview earlier this month with NPR, said, We need to take action and we will against Russia for interfering in the U.S. election.Trump seemed to suggest the United States should not impose sanctions on Russia. I think we ought to get on with our lives, Trump told reporters in Florida on Wednesday when asked about remarks by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who said Russia and President Vladimir Putin should expect tough sanctions for the cyber attacks.Russia s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, promised retaliation on Wednesday against Washington in the event of new economic sanctions.Jim Lewis, a cyber security expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said further sanctions may be an effective U.S. tool in part because they would be difficult for Trump to roll back and because Russia hates dealing with them. For the rest of the world, it s like having scumball stamped on your forehead, Lewis said.How to respond to the growing problem of cyber attacks carried out or sponsored by foreign powers has bedeviled Obama, whose eight years in office witnessed a torrent of major hacks against the U.S. government and private organizations that were attributed to China, North Korea, Iran and Russia.In past cases, administration officials have decided to publicly blame North Korea and indict members of China s military for hacking because they decided the net benefit of public shaming and increased awareness brought to cyber security outweighed potential risks.But determining an appropriate response to Russia s actions has proven more complicated in part because Russia s cyber capabilities are more advanced and due to fears about disrupting other geopolitical issues, such as the civil war in Syria.Obama may choose to invoke an April 2015 executive order that empowered him to levy sanctions in response to cyber attacks perpetrated by foreign groups targeting infrastructure, such as transportation, or done for economic purposes.Another option would be further economic sanctions against Russia. Washington has already sanctioned Russia over the past two years to punish Moscow for its role in annexing Crimea. But former U.S. officials say the existing measures leave Washington plenty of room to slap new, tougher sanction on Russia in response to cyber intrusions. ReutersIn recent months, WikiLeaks and I personally have come under enormous pressure to stop publishing what the Clinton campaign says about itself to itself. That pressure has come from the campaign s allies, including the Obama administration, and from liberals who are anxious about who will be elected US President.On the eve of the election, it is important to restate why we have published what we have.The right to receive and impart true information is the guiding principle of WikiLeaks an organization that has a staff and organizational mission far beyond myself. Our organization defends the public s right to be informed.This is why, irrespective of the outcome of the 2016 US Presidential election, the real victor is the US public which is better informed as a result of our work.The US public has thoroughly engaged with WikiLeaks election related publications which number more than one hundred thousand documents. Millions of Americans have pored over the leaks and passed on their citations to each other and to us. It is an open model of journalism that gatekeepers are uncomfortable with, but which is perfectly harmonious with the First Amendment.We publish material given to us if it is of political, diplomatic, historical or ethical importance and which has not been published elsewhere. When we have material that fulfills this criteria, we publish. We had information that fit our editorial criteria which related to the Sanders and Clinton campaign (DNC Leaks) and the Clinton political campaign and Foundation (Podesta Emails). No-one disputes the public importance of these publications. It would be unconscionable for WikiLeaks to withhold such an archive from the public during an election.At the same time, we cannot publish what we do not have. To date, we have not received information on Donald Trump s campaign, or Jill Stein s campaign, or Gary Johnson s campaign or any of the other candidates that fufills our stated editorial criteria. As a result of publishing Clinton s cables and indexing her emails we are seen as domain experts on Clinton archives. So it is natural that Clinton sources come to us.We publish as fast as our resources will allow and as fast as the public can absorb it.That is our commitment to ourselves, to our sources, and to the public.This is not due to a personal desire to influence the outcome of the election. The Democratic and Republican candidates have both expressed hostility towards whistleblowers. I spoke at the launch of the campaign for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, because her platform addresses the need to protect them. This is an issue that is close to my heart because of the Obama administration s inhuman and degrading treatment of one of our alleged sources, Chelsea Manning. But WikiLeaks publications are not an attempt to get Jill Stein elected or to take revenge over Ms Manning s treatment either.Publishing is what we do. To withhold the publication of such information until after the election would have been to favour one of the candidates above the public s right to know.This is after all what happened when the New York Times withheld evidence of illegal mass surveillance of the US population for a year until after the 2004 election, denying the public a critical understanding of the incumbent president George W Bush, which probably secured his reelection. The current editor of the New York Times has distanced himself from that decision and rightly so.The US public defends free speech more passionately, but the First Amendment only truly lives through its repeated exercise. The First Amendment explicitly prevents the executive from attempting to restrict anyone s ability to speak and publish freely. The First Amendment does not privilege old media, with its corporate advertisers and dependencies on incumbent power factions, over WikiLeaks model of scientific journalism or an individual s decision to inform their friends on social media. The First Amendment unapologetically nurtures the democratization of knowledge. With the Internet, it has reached its full potential.Yet, some weeks ago, in a tactic reminiscent of Senator McCarthy and the red scare, Wikileaks, Green Party candidate Stein, Glenn Greenwald and Clinton s main opponent were painted with a broad, red brush. The Clinton campaign, when they were not spreading obvious untruths, pointed to unnamed sources or to speculative and vague statements from the intelligence community to suggest a nefarious allegiance with Russia. The campaign was unable to invoke evidence about our publications because none exists.In the end, those who have attempted to malign our groundbreaking work over the past four months seek to inhibit public understanding perhaps because it is embarrassing to them a reason for censorship the First Amendment cannot tolerate. Only unsuccessfully do they try to claim that our publications are inaccurate.WikiLeaks decade-long pristine record for authentication remains. Our key publications this round have even been proven through the cryptographic signatures of the companies they passed through, such as Google. It is not every day you can mathematically prove that your publications are perfect but this day is one of them.We have endured intense criticism, primarily from Clinton supporters, for our publications. Many long-term supporters have been frustrated because we have not addressed this criticism in a systematic way or responded to a number of false narratives about Wikileaks motivation or sources. Ultimately, however, if WL reacted to every false claim, we would have to divert resources from our primary work.WikiLeaks, like all publishers, is ultimately accountable to its funders. Those funders are you. Our resources are entirely made up of contributions from the public and our book sales. This allows us to be principled, independent and free in a way no other influential media organization is. But it also means that we do not have the resources of CNN, MSNBC or the Clinton campaign to constantly rebuff criticism.Yet if the press obeys considerations above informing the public, we are no longer talking about a free press, and we are no longer talking about an informed public.Wikileaks remains committed to publishing information that informs the public, even if many, especially those in power, would prefer not to see it. WikiLeaks must publish. It must publish and be damned. | 0 |
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