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10,100 | Russia tells U.S.: Unacceptable to politicize chemical weapons inspections in Syria | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson by phone on Thursday it was unacceptable to politicize the work of chemical weapons inspectors in Syria, Russia s foreign ministry said. Russia earlier set out why it disputed U.N. and Western accusations that the Syrian government had been behind a deadly chemical attack on the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in April that killed dozens. | 1 |
10,101 | Egypt's Sisi urges Palestinians to unite, co-exist with Israelis | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi urged Palestinians to overcome their differences and be ready to co-exist with each other and with Israelis in safety and security. I tell the Palestinian people it s extremely important ... to overcome the differences and not to lose opportunities and to be ready to accept co-existence with the other, with Israelis in safety and security, Sisi told the annual U.N. General Assembly gathering of world leaders in New York. Following Egyptian-mediated reconciliation talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Western-backed Fatah faction, Islamist Hamas said on Sunday it would dissolve its administrative committee to enable Abbas administration to retake control in the Gaza Strip. Hamas urged Abbas on Tuesday to respond by ending his sanctions on the impoverished enclave. Addressing the Israelis, Sisi said: We have an excellent experience in Egypt in peace with you for longer than 40 years. We can repeat this experience and this excellent step once again - the peace and security of the Israeli citizens together with the peace and security of the Palestinian citizens, Sisi told the 193-member General Assembly to a round of applause. Israel and Egypt signed a 1979 treaty that began with overtures toward peace in 1977. Qatar s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani also appealed on Tuesday, during his speech to the General Assembly, for the Palestinians to complete national reconciliation and unify positions and words in confronting the dangers and challenges facing the Palestinian cause and the future of the Palestinian people. | 1 |
10,102 | Kremlin says no proof Russia was source of radioactive pollution | MOSCOW (Reuters) - There has to date been no confirmation from any Russian government agencies that there was an incident on Russian soil that could have caused raised levels of pollution from a radioactive isotope, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday. Russia s meteorological service said on Tuesday it had measured pollution of the ruthenium 106 isotope at nearly 1,000 times normal levels in the Ural mountains. | 1 |
10,103 | U.S. can meet Paris climate deal goals despite court ruling: White House | ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) - The White House said on Wednesday that it was confident it could meet its obligations under the Paris climate change agreement, despite a court ruling temporarily blocking the administration’s limits on power plants’ carbon emissions. The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a serious blow to the Obama administration’s climate change agenda on Tuesday when it took the unusual step to delay implementation of the Clean Power Plan until legal challenges to the regulation are completed. The Clean Power Plan was designed to lower carbon emissions from U.S. power plants by 2030 to 32 percent below 2005 levels. While the plan was expected to be the main tool for the United States to meet climate goals agreed to in an international deal in December, White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters in a briefing that it was only one part of the nation’s response to climate change. The long-term extension of the tax credits for renewable energy last year will continue to provide momentum that will transition the power sector toward cleaner sources of energy, Schultz said. “The inclusion of those tax credits is going to have more impact over the short term than the Clean Power Plan,” he said. Schultz said the administration was in talks with its partners in the deal and that diplomats in those countries understood the complexities of establishing policies in the United States. He also said he expected that litigation involving the Clean Power Plan to be wrapped up in time for the United States to comply with the climate agreement. | 1 |
10,104 | WATCH: Bill Maher Hilariously Mocks Libertarians To Their Presidential Nominee’s Face | On Friday, during an interview on Real Time with Bill Maher, Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson sat down with Bill Maher and tried to make the case for a libertarian president. Maher brutally mocked Johnson and his party s economic beliefs saying that their economic theory is like Mad Max takes your gas and you die. The Libertarian Party would be more aptly named the Neoliberalist Party. They are both radically conservative on economic issues and radically liberal on social issues. As Maher described their views on government saying, I saw your convention. The vision of government is somewhere between colonial Williamsburg and Atlantis. Both Maher and Johnson cited examples of some of the more unorthodox views some people hold within the Libertarian Party. Johnson mentioned that he was booed at the Libertarian National Convention for stating that he believes that people should be required to get a driver s license in order for them to be able to drive. Maher mentions that the question as to whether 5-year-olds should be able to purchase heroin legally is a major debate between libertarians.As nutty as that sounds, Johnson insists that here are extremists and loons in every party, while posturing himself as an alternative to people who might be voting for the presumptive Republican nominee this November. Johnson insists that he is the best non-major party candidate to take votes away from Trump due to his predicted status of being on the ballot in all fifty states in the 2016 general election.The left has fervently hoped that a serious non-major candidate would run against Trump in the general election. With Republicans begrudgingly beginning to rally around Trump, it is looking more unlikely that either a serious or protest candidate backing a moderately conservative agenda will come from the Republican Party.Whether Johnson can run a serious campaign in November will mostly be determined by whether he can make his way into the debates. Candidates must be polling at 15% in order to make it into the debates. Johnson is currently polling at 10%. It s unlikely that Johnson is going to reach the necessary threshold to join the debates. That being said, he does seem like a reasonable choice for conservatives who cannot hold their nose to vote for Hillary Clinton and are adamantly a part of the #NeverTrump camp.You can watch the interview below, in full.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rK3IDl8RY8Featured image from video screenshot | 0 |
10,105 | Nepal to elect new parliament after years of instability | KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepalis vote on Sunday to choose a new parliament and seven state assemblies hoping to end years of fickle coalitions and complete a tumultuous transition, more than a decade after the end of a civil war. The two-phase election is also expected to determine the path the country takes in balancing ties with China and India, both of whom are pushing hard to expand influence in the buffer state. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba s centrist Nepali Congress party faces a tight battle against a left alliance between the main group of Maoist former rebels and the opposition Communist UML party. About 15.4 million eligible voters are tasked to pick a 275-member parliament - 165 through first-past-the-post and 110 through proportional representation - the first under a new constitution agreed after years of wrangling. Simultaneously, voters will choose representatives to seven provincial assemblies for the first time after Nepal turned into a federal republic and abolished monarchy in 2008. These elections will firmly put the country on the path of stability and prosperity, Deuba, the country s tenth prime minister in as many years, told Reuters. Counting of votes will begin after the second round of polling on Dec 7 and complete results may not be known until the middle of December because of cumbersome counting procedures. Political analysts say that the left alliance is likely to open up the country further to Chinese investments if they were to come to power in the election. Already, the UML has said it would hand back the country s biggest hydro-electric project to China after the Deuba-government, seen as more pro-India, canceled the deal citing lapses in the contract. Our government will revoke the decision after the election, UML general secretary Ishwar Pokharel said, adding there was nothing wrong in the $2.5 billion deal with China Gezhouba Group Corporation to build a 1,200 megawatt plant. Soon after the cancellation of the deal, the chairman of Indian state-run power company NHPC Ltd said it could bid for the project, underlining Delhi s attempts to claw back ground in a country which it has long considered its backyard. The performance of the two largest communist parties in the elections could determine the course of Chinese investment in infrastructure projects in Nepal, said Guna Raj Luintel, editor of the Nagarik daily. In March, Nepal received letters of intent worth $8.4 billion from Chinese investors compared with $300 million received from Indian delegates at an investment summit, officials said. Deuba s Nepali Congress has struck a loose-knit alliance with ethnic Madhesi minority groups who live in the southern plains and have long complained of being sidelined by the Kathmandu-based main political parties. Madhesis account for one third of Nepal s 28 million people and Deuba has promised to amend the constitution to address their grievances if the alliance won the election. Aid and tourism dependent Nepal, recovering from a devastating earthquake that killed 9,000 people in 2015, is among the world s poorest. The economy, which saw zero growth last year due to instability and the earthquake, is expected to expand by 6.9 percent this year because of improved power supply and agricultural production, officials said. | 1 |
10,106 | Zimbabwe opposition leader 'baffled' by Mugabe decision to stay | HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said he was baffled by President Robert Mugabe s address to the nation on Sunday when the veteran leader defied widespread expectations that he would resign. I am baffled. It s not just me, it s the whole nation. He s playing a game. He has let the whole nation down, Tsvangirai told Reuters. | 1 |
10,107 | TJ MAXX AND MARSHALLS Tell Employees To Trash Signs For Ivanka Trump Line, Mix Line With General Merchandise | According to the New York Times, outlet stores T.J. Maxx and Marshalls have instructed their employees to throw away signs for Ivanka Trump s clothing line, and hang her clothes so that they mix in with other lines.The instruction was to eliminate special displays for the merchandise, not to remove it from the sales floor, said Doreen Thompson, a spokeswoman for the TJX Companies, the retailers parent corporation. We offer a rapidly changing selection of merchandise for our customers, and brands are featured based on a number of factors, she said.The company did not respond to the New York Times query as to whether or not this kind of handling of product was normal, but one employee came forward and told the paper that after several years of being employed with the stores, she had not been instructed to do this before. -The BlazeTJ Maxx and Marshalls corporate headquarters are located in the very liberal city of Farmington, MA.In the 2016 general election, 75 percent of the 39,722 registered voters in Farmington participated in the presidential election.Of those voters, 20,277 voted for Clinton, with 7,031 for Trump. So it should come as no surprise that the people making the decisions on behalf of the stores would send such an outrageous message to their employees that appears to be intended to harm Ivanka Trump s clothing line. For many shoppers like myself, these new developments as they relate to the trashing of Ivanka Trump s clothing and accessory brand really puts a crimp in my shopping patterns at some of my favorite stores, which include Norstrom and TJ Maxx and the TJ Maxx owned Home Goods store. Gone are the days when these kinds of corporate decisions are made and kept under the radar. Trump has an army of exceptionally loyal supporters who are willing to defend him and his lovely family, even if it means we have to do our shopping elsewhere.In a USA Today article, TJ Maxx CEO Ernie Herrman noted, We are extremely pleased that our comp store sales growth was almost entirely driven by customer traffic. Your companies recent decision to trash Ivanka Trump s brand in your store may change that Mr. Herrman Here s a letter to TJMaxx CEO from a leftist in VT that was published in the local Mountain Times newspaper. Editors note: the following is an open letter to Ernie Herrman, CEO and president of TJMaxxDear Mr. Herrman,I am writing to tell you that I have stopped shopping in TJMaxx stores since the election in November of 2016. That is when I became aware that you carry Ivanka accessories. I m sure that you have not missed my 100 or so dollars a month that I would usually spend at your store. But I have missed shopping with you. This is probably hurting me more than it is you. But the real hurt is what is being delivered to our nation by Trump.Let me be very clear: The objective of boycotting is not to destroy your business or to cause job losses. The objective is to send a direct message to you, the CEO, to your Board of Directors, and your stockholders that your merchandising choice regarding Ivanka brand goods needs to change.I know that public pressure and consumer spending has a big effect on markets and policy. Just this week, the CEO of Uber resigned from Trump s Economic Advisory Council. Uber profited from continuing service at JFK airport last weekend when all the NYC cabs boycotted the airport in a show of support for the protesters. Consequently, 200,000 customers deleted their Uber accounts. The CEO decided it wasn t economically advantageous to be aligned with the Trump administration.Recently, the retailers: Shoes.com, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom s all cancelled their Ivanka fashion and jewellery line because of public outcry and customer boycotts of their stores.In a consumer based economy, our money has power. So I am asking you to cancel your merchandising of Ivanka accessories. Please let me know as soon as possible when you have done this, so that I can resume shopping at my favorite TJMaxx store.In the meantime, I am going to donate the $100.00 I would have spent at your establishment this month to the ACLU, so that green card holders, immigrants and refugees seeking to enter the US can have some legal representation.Sincerely and respectfully, Your Once Loyal Customer,Candy Jones, Rutland | 0 |
10,108 | Connecticut lawmakers pass $41.3 billion budget nearly four months late | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Connecticut lawmakers on Thursday passed a two-year $41.3 billion budget, nearly four months after it was due, that is expected to help capital city Hartford avoid bankruptcy through state aid provisions. The budget for fiscal years 2018 and 2019 closes a $3.5 billion deficit over the two years, in part with tax and fee hikes on tobacco products, ride shares and low-income working families. It also raids a host of funds - for everything from school bus seats to clean energy and tobacco cessation - for money that will be swept into the general fund. The state Senate passed the nearly 900-page legislation early on Thursday morning, with the House following suit later in the day. It was not immediately clear whether Governor Dannel Malloy, a Democrat who has said he will not seek a third term in office, would sign it. He vetoed a previous budget a month ago. In a statement, Malloy spokeswoman Kelly Donnelly said the governor and his staff would analyze the bill but had “uncovered egregious problems” with a tax increase on hospitals that could knock the budget more than $1 billion dollars out of balance. Raising hospital taxes would allow the state to get more federal Medicaid reimbursement, with the tax revenues to be returned to the hospitals. “If there’s a problem, we’ll fix it,” said House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, a Republican, about the hospital tax in a televised press conference after the vote. The budget contains aid for Hartford, which has said it could file for bankruptcy without extra funding to help close its own $50 million shortfall. That funding would come with strings attached in the form of a fiscal oversight board. Connecticut’s towns, schools and nonprofit service providers have grappled for months with growing uncertainty as they wait for state funding that helps them operate. When the fiscal year began on July 1 without a budget, Malloy took control of spending through an executive order and enacted steep cuts. | 1 |
10,109 | Donald Trump & Hillary Clinton: Defensive Realist vs. War Hawk? | 21st Century Wire says How will Trump and Hillary s foreign policy differ if they are President of the United States?In the following episode of CrossTalk experts debate how we might interpret the foreign policy direction that a Clinton or Trump administration might take.Trump s foreign policy speech reads like that of a defensive realist, while Hillary has a history of promoting war and aggression.With a new poll saying Trump can beat Hillary, and the other GOP candidates dropping out, we may be more likely to see President Trump than Hillary. Watch the episode here: GET THE FULL STORY ON THE 2016 ELECTION: 21st Century Wire Election Files | 0 |
10,110 | Judge tentatively rejects bid to toss Trump University lawsuit | SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Friday tentatively rejected Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s bid to dismiss a lawsuit by Trump University students who said they were defrauded through its real-estate seminars. U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego told a hearing he would take under consideration arguments on both sides in the case and issue a written ruling in the coming weeks. The 2013 lawsuit, one of three over the defunct Trump University venture, was filed on behalf of students who paid up to $35,000 to learn Trump’s real estate investing “secrets” from his “hand-picked” instructors. The plaintiffs have sought class-action status. The cases against Trump University have regularly cropped up during the presidential campaign. Trump was roundly criticized in May when he accused Curiel, who is of Mexican descent, of being biased against him because of the candidate’s pledge to build a border wall between the United States and Mexico. Curiel, who was born in Indiana, is presiding over two of the cases, with one set for trial in late November. A separate lawsuit by New York’s attorney general is pending in that state. Trump’s lawyers say Curiel should toss the 2013 California lawsuit on the grounds that the New York real estate mogul, though personally involved in developing the concept and curriculum, relied on other executives to manage Trump University by the time the plaintiffs purchased their seminars. “By 2007, his involvement was fairly minimal. He was not the person running this company. He founded it, he established it and he went off and let other people run it. It’s like any other celebrity endorsement,” Trump attorney Daniel Petrocelli said during the hearing. Trump’s lawyers claim references in marketing materials to “secrets,” “hand-picked” instructors or “university” were mere sales “puffery.” According to the defense, there is no evidence Trump intended to defraud students. Lawyers for the students say the wealthy developer conducted the marketing for Trump University more than anyone else, starring in and approving promotional materials. They claim Trump University instructors were high-pressure sales people, not “professors and adjunct professors” as Trump touted, and that New York authorities told Trump back in 2005 to stop calling his unaccredited venture a university. “Somehow, belligerence trumps substance,” plaintiff’s attorney Jason Forge said. “If we say it loud enough, forcefully enough, it becomes true. Well, it doesn’t.” Trump owned 92 percent of Trump University and had control over all major decisions, plaintiffs’ court papers say. | 1 |
10,111 | Spain's cabinet to hold special meeting at 1700 GMT | MADRID (Reuters) - Spain s cabinet will hold a special meeting at 6 p.m. (1700 GMT), the government said on Tuesday without giving any further details. | 1 |
10,112 | Twitter case shows breadth of U.S. power to probe anti-Trump statements | NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An attempt by U.S. authorities to identify an anonymous critic of President Donald Trump on Twitter has set off alarm bells among Democratic and Republican lawmakers and civil liberties advocates fearful of a crackdown on dissent. Twitter Inc on Friday succeeded in beating back a demand for records about a Twitter account called ALT Immigration (@ALT_uscis), which pokes fun at Trump’s immigration policies and appears to be run by one or more federal employees. The U.S. government withdrew an administrative summons that customs agents had sent the company in March demanding the records. But the government backed away only after Twitter filed a federal lawsuit accusing it of violating the First Amendment’s protection of free speech. Customs agents could still continue the investigation using some other methods, civil liberties attorneys said. Although authorities retreated, the case has laid bare the broad power of the U.S. government to demand information from technology companies, sometimes with no oversight from the courts and often with built-in secrecy provisions that prevent the public from knowing what the government is seeking. The summons that Twitter received came from agents who investigate corruption and misconduct within U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Even after it was withdrawn, some lawmakers had questions about the agency’s actions. “CBP must ensure that any properly authorized investigation does not disregard the rights to free speech enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” two Republican U.S. senators, Cory Gardner of Colorado and Mike Lee of Utah, wrote in a letter on Friday to Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. The senators asked whether the agency would ever ask a private company to divulge private records about a customer based solely on “non-criminal speech.” Senate Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon called for an investigation of whether customs agents had violated a law by retaliating against an internal critic. The Department of Homeland Security plans to respond directly to the senators, an official said on Friday. There are two primary ways the U.S. government can obtain information from internet companies without a judge’s approval using a law known as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, according to experts in privacy law. Agencies with enforcement power, such as the Internal Revenue Service, can issue administrative subpoenas demanding user records. Prosecutors can also ask grand juries investigating a crime to issue a subpoena. An aggressive agency, for example, might demand information about a Twitter account that used an agency logo on the grounds that it is deceptive, said Georgetown University law professor Paul Ohm. Similarly, a prosecutor could ask a grand jury to issue a subpoena based on the idea that a federal employee, suspected of criticizing the administration anonymously, was misusing government resources. “It doesn’t take a brilliant legal mind to think of hypotheticals,” Ohm said. Further, such subpoenas are usually kept secret, making them more difficult to challenge. Some other government tools, such as a national security letter, are intended to be used for narrow purposes related to counter-terrorism investigations. But they do not require judicial approval either, instead relying on internal safeguards. Challenging such demands is difficult and often requires deep pockets, attorneys familiar with such orders said. “It’s important to keep in mind how formidable the government’s range of investigatory powers is,” said Andrew Crocker, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which advocates for digital rights. In the case of ALT Immigration, Twitter said it was not bound to keep the summons a secret, and the company informed the account holder of the government demand. That person then found legal representation with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Esha Bhandari, the ACLU staff attorney representing the dissident, said she thinks the speed with which the government withdrew its summons - less than a day after Twitter sued - means the customs agents will cease investigating, but she cannot be sure. “It’s impossible to predict, of course, but I’m hopeful that this really is a recognition that people have the ability to speak online including in ways that are critical of the government,” Bhandari said. The Department of Homeland Security has not said what its plans are for the investigation. After Trump’s inauguration in January, anonymous Twitter feeds that borrowed the names and logos of more than a dozen U.S. government agencies appeared to challenge the president’s views on climate change and other issues. They called themselves “alt” accounts. Twitter has declined to say if it has received any other government demands to reveal such anti-Trump critics. | 1 |
10,113 | U.S. Senate negotiators zero in on Zika virus funding | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate negotiators on Wednesday tried to reach a deal to provide more than $1 billion to battle the Zika virus that is feared will creep north into the United States with the onset of warmer weather, which breeds mosquitoes that could carry the disease. Senior Senate Democratic aides said details were still being worked out, but votes could come by next week on whether to approve the new money. In February, President Barack Obama requested $1.9 billion in emergency funds, but Republicans balked, with some arguing that $1.1 billion is more in line with what is needed. Many Republicans also want any Zika funds to be offset with spending cuts elsewhere. These are among the details that still have to be worked out, according to aides. Republican Senator Roy Blunt from Missouri and Democratic Senator Patty Murray from Washington, the two senior senators on an appropriations panel that oversees healthcare spending, have been trying to hammer out a deal. An aide to Murray said in a statement: “Senator Murray is having conversations with Chairman Blunt and others about the path forward on emergency funding to respond to Zika.” The aide said Murray still supports Obama’s $1.9 billion request. Amid congressional inaction, the Obama administration shifted $589 million to help federal agencies prepare for Zika. Most of that money came from a fund to fight the Ebola virus and will have to be replenished, according to officials. Senator Marco Rubio, however, is one Republican pushing for both immediate, emergency funding and longer-term money to be made available starting on Oct. 1 to battle the disease that can cause severe brain deformities in babies born of infected mothers and other illnesses. “This is going to be an ongoing issue beyond this year,” Rubio said, adding, “We need to jump on it now.” There are fears that Rubio’s home state of Florida could be the first place in the continental United States to get hit hard by Zika because of its tropical climate. “For the first time, I’ve seen high-level conversations about a way forward here in the Senate and that’s a positive development,” Rubio said in a brief hallway interview with Reuters. Republicans in the House of Representatives are still deeply divided over new funding for Zika, according to two senior aides. | 1 |
10,114 | Trump Loses Support Of Police Union After Saying Tulsa Shooting Cop ‘Choked’ (VIDEO) | While giving a speech at a church rally in Cleveland, Donald Trump confused everyone by actually siding with a victim of police brutality instead of law enforcement and it s gotten him in trouble with America s largest police union.In speaking to the rally goers in Cleveland, Trump strayed from his normal, pro-cop rhetoric to say a few unflattering words about Betty Shelby, the Tulsa police officer who shot an unarmed black man. Clearly worried about how horrendously his attempts to reach black voters have failed, Trump gave an unusually thoughtful response to a group of African American pastors, in which he suggested that Shelby had choked : Now, did she get scared? Was she choking? What happened? But maybe people like that, people that choke, people that do that, maybe they can t be doing what they re doing, okay? They can t be doing what they re doing.I watched the shooting in particular in Tulsa. And that man was hands up. That man went to the car, hands up, put his hand on the car. I mean, to me, it looked like he did everything you re supposed to do, and he looked like a really good man. Trump made these comments just five days after the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), which has 330,000 members, endorsed him. But after hearing Trump criticize the Tulsa police officer, FOP executive director Jim Pasco is livid and thinks Trump s comments were inappropriate. Pasco said that Trump must be mindful of the due process rights and presumption of innocence accorded to all, including police officers. Now, no one should be proud or relieved that Trump finally decided to acknowledge police brutality victims he s been known to pander to whatever audience he is in front of at any given moment, and is notorious for flip-flopping almost instantly. This speech was easy for Trump to say in front of black pastors I doubt he would have dared to say this in front of a predominately white audience. Trump also knows he is struggling tremendously with the minority vote, which may very well determine this election. Trump will say whatever he needs to win but this time, he lost a major support group.Here s the clip that got Trump in trouble with the police union:Featured image via Joe Raedle / Getty Images | 0 |
10,115 | Short Film Envisions Effect Global Warming Will Have On New York With Terrifying Accuracy (VIDEO) | The world was stunned when Donald Trump pulled the USA out of the Paris Climate Accord, claiming that the deal was very unfair to the United States. For those that have been living in a bubble, which might be all of us in the near future, the Paris Climate Accord is a deal to keep the global temperature rise only two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for this century.Before Trump decided to hastily back out of the deal, there were 195 countries involved in the agreement, the only two not included being Syria, mainly because they have enough on their plate at the moment, and Nicaragua, who thought the plan wasn t stringent enough!Donald Trump has always called New York City home so two film artists who go by both Claire&Max and Menilmonde have decided to put together a short visual representation to explain what impact an increase of 2 C will have on New York, mainly because we know the president doesn t really read anything. Simply titled Two C, the four-minute film shows the frightening effect of climate change on New York City landmarks if the whole world follows in Trump s footsteps and throws caution to the wind on the issue of climate change.The French pair spoke to indy100 to discuss the two steps involved in completing the project, one that took several months to finish. We needed to delete all the people in the streets and the human life, then we added the water. It s the result of 3D simulation, they told the online publication. The place of man in our society is one of the main themes of our work, with the theme of emptiness and abandonment, convinced of the atrophic impact on the environment. We traveled a lot and [were] convinced, too, that our planet is very fragile, but people forget too fast or do not pay attention, still today. Worse, some do not believe in climate warming. They also mentioned that they received a lot of comments telling them that they should ve also included a flooded Trump Tower to really hammer the point home, however, they just hope that Trump s withdrawal will raise more awareness of the Paris climate deal. We thought that Macron had a good reaction with his Make the planet great again . Communication on climate change must go on and on. Featured image via Menilmonde | 0 |
10,116 | Fincantieri, Naval Group may exchange stakes in future military alliance | MILAN (Reuters) - Italy s Fincantieri and France s Naval Group may exchange between 5 and 10 percent of their share capital to cement a future naval alliance between Rome and Paris, a document published on the website of Italy s Treasury showed. France and Italy said on Wednesday they would study a possible tie-up between the two shipbuilders. They also agreed that Fincantieri would take effective control of French shipyard STX, ending a months-long dispute. The opportunity and modalities of an exchange between the two companies of 5 percent to 10 percent of their respective share capital will be analyzed, and concrete actions aiming at developing synergies will be defined and presented to both governments, the document detailing the agreement said. This roadmap should include the creation of a balanced joint-venture in which common projects would progressively be developed, with a priority given to surface vessels platforms, systems and equipment, it said. | 1 |
10,117 | Hamilton Cast Added ‘Sisterhood’ To ‘America The Beautiful’ And Conservatives Are Losing Their MINDS (TWEETS) | The Super Bowl had not yet begun and Trump fans were already throwing a tantrum not over something Lady Gaga did, but because of what is normally one of their favorite songs: America the Beautiful.The song was performed by three members of the cast of Hamilton, Phillipa Soo, Ren e Elise Goldsberry and Jasmine Cephas Jones, and it was just as excellent as one would expect. But there was a problem at least, there was a problem according to the Stupid Part of America. When the trip reached the line And crown thy good with brotherhood, two of the women added and sisterhood. Now to most people, recognizing that women are people and Americans is not a huge deal. The move was largely celebrated on social media as an attempt to stand up to Republicans bullying of women and repeated attempts to deprive them of healthcare and control their bodies. But it was for that very reason that Trump fans went nuts on Twitter following the song. WHAT THE FUCK INSTEAD OF AND SOUND THY GOOD WITH BROTHERHOOD THE LIBERAL SUPER BOWL SINGERS SAID BROTHERHOOD AND SISTERHOOD IM SO DONE, one enraged conservative who apparently doesn t even know the original lyrics writes. Another complains that the women changed the words for their polical correctness agenda. No, it s just brotherhood. Not sisterhood. Stupid cunts. You don t remix the shit. Just sing like you re told, one man added, apparently unaware that the did sing just as they were hired to do.#AmericatheBeautiful does not contain the word sisterhood. Don't change the words for your polical correctness agenda. #SuperBowl Larry Barringer (@LarryStLCards) February 5, 2017So much agenda already in this superbowl. Really feminist, crown thy good with brotherhood .and sisterhood. Michael Coulter (@Mike_Coulter93) February 5, 2017No, it's just brotherhood. Not sisterhood. Stupid cunts. You don't remix the shit. Just sing like you're told. D'Lone Woof (@underscore_tim) February 5, 2017And #sisterhood? Smh. when will liberals stop pushing their agenda down ceveryone's throat Kevin J. Cooper (@REALKevinCooper) February 6, 2017WHAT THE FUCK INSTEAD OF "AND SOUND THY GOOD WITH BROTHERHOOD" THE LIBERAL SUPER BOWL SINGERS SAID "BROTHERHOOD AND SISTERHOOD" IM SO DONE Resolve (@ResolveDZN) February 5, 2017"For brotherhood and sisterhood". How about you just sing the song you smug Hamilton cunts. Terrible over singing trash with a "message". Jack Miller (@Tarrnack) February 5, 2017"and sisterhood"Cant we do anything without bringing your social agenda into it? ndrew ? (@drewluminati_) February 5, 2017"And sisterhood.." Fuck that. Changing the lyrics of America the Beautiful to fit the modernization of the country is fucked up. Tyler Marks (@TylerCMarks) February 5, 2017Oh, okay. America the Beautiful is no longer acceptable, needed to add sisterhood too. Got it. Come the fuck on. #ItAintBrokeDontFixIt #SB51 Marie (@RIEW417) February 5, 2017Did they really just say sisterhood, fuck you that's not the lyrics cobi (@c0bi1) February 5, 2017"sisterhood"? just sing the damn song. lance (@aguyfromtx) February 5, 2017did that CUNT just add "and sisterhood" to america the beautiful brendan feeney (@ChuckieFeenster) February 5, 2017And sisterhood???? Fuck you, just sing the song!!!!! El Guapo (@johnnymclean13) February 5, 2017Did they really just say "brotherhood (and sisterhood)" in America the Beautiful during the Super Bowl Smh, fuck feminists. Ethan (@Iplayball_UHC) February 5, 2017Conservatives are terrible, and we will continue to see many, many examples of this as Donald Trump s presidency rolls on. Watch the Super Bowl moment that sent the Right into fits of rage below:Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
10,118 | explosive audio surfaces of gop senator joking about gun owners shooting clinton | more the file photo shows former rebel renamo fighters in gorongosa mozambique photo by afp
secret peace negotiations between mozambiques opposition leader afonso dhlakama and eu mediators were annulled at the weekend after fighting erupted between the countrys army and former rebel fighters local media say
the meeting aimed to contribute to talks that began in may to find a solution to the conflict between the government and dhlakamas rebel group turned political party renamo
we had agreed with president filipe nyusi that two mediators would come to meet me the independent weekly canal de mocambique quoted dhlakama as saying
dhlakama said he had cancelled the meeting after the army increased its presence near the place of the meeting
there was a violent shootout i even heard explosions from here said dhlakama who has been in hiding in the central gorongosa mountains since october
so i called chief mediator mario raffaelli to tell him that armed forces had come to ambush me he added
dhlakama quoted the mediator as saying that he was convinced that the ruling frelimo party wanted to capture me during the meeting
it is obvious they have a plan to kill me he added
raffaelli declined to comment on the matter but an eu diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed that two mediators had gone to gorongosa for a meeting with the opposition leader
the diplomat said dhlakama had told the mediators to turn back at the very last moment
the political situation in mozambique has been tense for months with dhlakama refusing to recognize the results of the elections where the frelimo party was declared the winner the party has been in power since the southern african countrys independence from portugal in dhlakama also threatened to seize power by force in the northern half of the country
renamo and the frelimoled government had been engaged in a civil war for years that was brought to an end in
renamos armed wing has conducted a string of fatal assaults in central mozambique in recent years as it seeks to increase its share of power
on october the warring sides resumed a new round of peace talks despite the killing of an opposition negotiator on october
the mediators continued separate talks on tuesday with representatives of each side loading | 1 |
10,119 | Trump's travel bans spook some students, fan fears of broader chill | SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Ramin Forouzandeh had applied to 13 PhD economics programs in the United States, but after President Donald Trump signed his first travel ban in January, the 25-year-old Iranian turned to Canada for other options. He said he had focused on U.S. schools because they hosted most of the world’s top 20 economics programs. “Before the travel ban, I never really considered other alternatives.” By late March, U.S. courts had halted two versions of Trump’s travel ban, yet Forouzandeh signed for University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and turned down the University of Minnesota’s prestigious PhD program. His countryman, Mahdi Ebrahimi Kahou, 30, was well into his first year of the Minnesota program when he decided to transfer to the University of British Columbia because of Trump’s executive orders that banned travel from seven and later six Muslim-majority countries, including Iran. “I lost my motivation to work completely,” he said. A Reuters survey of 19 Canadian universities showed a spike in international applications, most notably from Iran and India. Five top Canadian economics and business PhD programs are getting at least half of their new Iranian students this fall because of the ban, based on interviews with universities and students. Most of those, like Forouzandeh and Ebrahimi Kahou, are opting out of U.S. programs in a field where the United States both dominates and relies on foreign talent. While those programs represent only one field and a fraction of the U.S. student population, they offer early evidence of the direct impact of Trump administration policies. Academics fear they may also be a sign of things to come if the chilling effect of Trump’s “America First” agenda spreads beyond any specific field of study or nationality. “This strikes at the heart of what has made U.S. higher education the envy of the world,” said Mary Sue Coleman, chair of the Association of American Universities. “It’s this notion that the U.S. is no longer a welcoming place for the best and the brightest.” Iranians are by far the biggest group among students directly affected by the bans and form a small but notable part of the talent pool in areas such as engineering and economics, where U.S. academic institutions excel. Iranians ranked sixth last year among international students enrolled in U.S. graduate programs, according to the Institute of International Education. A survey conducted jointly by five U.S. higher education associations in February showed 38 percent of U.S. colleges reporting a drop in foreign applications, with those from the Middle East down the most, while 27 percent saw no change - a significant cool-down after nearly a decade of steady growth. In 2015, at least 35 percent of graduate students at U.S. universities granting graduate degrees in science, engineering and health were foreigners, according to the National Science Foundation. (For a graphic on U.S. universities, global brains, click tmsnrt.rs/2qLARio ) This year, about 60 percent of graduating PhDs from the top 10 U.S. economics departments come from other countries, a Reuters analysis shows. “You’ve got an issued order that’s been temporarily blocked that applies to six countries. But the destabilization of the whole situation for international students and faculty could not be overstated,” said Rice University President David Leebron. He said that for foreign students everything from getting a visa on time to employment opportunities had been thrown into question. According to Rice’s dean of graduate and postdoctoral studies, this year’s PhD programs will have slightly fewer Chinese, Indian and Middle Eastern students than expected. More Iranian students declined offers of admission than usual, with several saying that they decided to study in another country because of concerns about getting a U.S. visa. There is no evidence of a mass exodus of foreigners - indeed, Rice will have more students than expected from Europe and Latin America, offsetting declines elsewhere - but academics cite dozens of examples where Trump’s policies had an impact. At Arizona State University, for example, Iranians would typically make up a fourth of the economics PhD program, but there will be none in the incoming class this fall. Of those already enrolled, two are moving to Canada. One student who visited his family in Iran over the Christmas break still has not been able to return, leaving the university scrambling to cover the classes he was supposed to teach. “The effects of this are big,” said Gustavo Ventura, ASU’s economics department chair. “These people, not just the ones that come to us - anyone who comes to a PhD program abroad - are the cream of their student population.” The University of Illinois now has 10 Iranians in its PhD program, and while it’s not certain why, none of the Iranians whom it offered admission are among the 22 students from 11 countries entering in the fall. At Indiana University’s economics program, three Iranians withdrew their applications almost immediately after the travel ban, said Todd Walker, director of the department’s graduate studies. “We also had many more international applicants turn us down this year relative to the last three years,” he said. “I cannot say definitively how much of this is attributable to the travel ban, but I suspect it played a role.” In British Columbia, the Simon Fraser University has admitted 20 percent more international students for the fall term, according to Associate Dean Jeff Derksen. He said queries he had received and an online survey suggested more graduate students were considering alternatives to U.S. programs. “This indicates that the international map of academic knowledge production has changed.” The prestige of the U.S. programs remains a big draw, but those committed to a U.S. career are more aware of risks. For example, Soheil Ghili, who is getting a PhD in economics from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management this month and will start as a post-doctoral fellow at Yale this summer, is hedging his bets. “Let me put it this way: I will be more careful to not miss networking opportunities with people from Toronto and London.” | 1 |
10,120 | Putin, Egypt's Sisi discuss restart of flights, sign nuclear deal | CAIRO (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with Egypt s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Monday, agreeing to resume civilian flights which Moscow halted more than two years ago after militants bombed a Russian tourist jet over the Sinai. Putin s latest visit to Cairo reflects the deepening ties between Russia and Egypt, the second largest recipient of U.S. military aid after Israel and a strategic U.S. partner in the Middle East because of its control of the Suez Canal. Putin, who flew on to Turkey, briefly visited a Russian base in Syria before arriving in Egypt and ordered Russian forces to start withdrawing from Syria after a two-year military campaign there. In Cairo, Egyptian and Russian ministers signed a $21 billion deal to start work on Egypt s Dabaa nuclear power plant and Putin said Moscow was ready to resume Russian civilian flights to Egypt. 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. The attack and Moscow s decision damaged Egypt s already struggling tourism industry. Egyptian airport inspections and talks to resume flights have been going on for months. The Russian security services have reported to me that, on the whole, we are ready for opening the direct air link between Moscow and Cairo, Putin said. This would require signing a corresponding intergovernmental protocol. Russia s transport minister told reporters flights could resume in early February, and Russia was prepared to sign a protocol with Egypt this week. Earlier, Russian state nuclear company Rosatom said the Dabaa nuclear station it will build in Egypt will have four reactors and cost up to $21 billion. Construction is expected to finish in 2028-2029. Moscow and Cairo signed an initial agreement in 2015 for Russia to build the plant, with Russia extending a loan to Egypt to cover the cost of construction. Sisi said the two leaders had also discussed industrial projects, trade and Russian investments in Egypt, including in the Suez Canal Economic Zone. Sisi and Putin also discussed Syria and mutual rejection of U.S. President Donald Trump s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, a move that has triggered protests across the region and from European capitals. We had a detailed exchange of views on key international issues. Our approaches either coincide completely or are really quite close, Putin said. The high-level Russian visit comes after the U.S. government in August decided to deny Egypt $95.7 million in aid and to delay another $195 million because of its failure to make progress on human rights and democratic norms. Russia launched a military operation to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in September 2015, and there are signs Moscow is keen to expand its military presence in the region. Neither leader on Monday mentioned an announcement from November when Russia s government published a draft agreement between Russia and Egypt allowing both countries to use each other s air space and air bases for their military planes. But Putin has been steadily building relations with Egypt. On his first visit to Cairo in 2015, he was the first leader of a major power to meet with Sisi after the former Egyptian army commander ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi in 2013. That prompted Washington to cool relations with Egypt, and the U.S. government suspended some military aid. Since then the two leaders have increased cooperation, reviving the historical alliance between Egypt and Soviet Union of the 1970s. | 1 |
10,121 | WATCH STANDING OVATION For The Trump Family As They Arrive for Christmas Eve Service [VIDEO] | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzM9awNaewMThe Trump family has frequented the church many times in the past few decades. Trump married his third and current wife, Melania, there in 2005. The following year, Trump s youngest son, Barron, was christened there. And Trump attended the Christmas Eve service at Bethesda-by-the-Sea last year, and the Easter service earlier this year.Fun fact: Michael Jordan was married at the church in 2013. | 0 |
10,122 | POLITICAL SHOCKER: Barney Frank Is In Trump’s Camp On The Solution To Radical Islam | We can all agree on solutions to end terrorism but it takes something like a horrific terror attack to ditch the pc and work together to enforce common sense solutions that REALLY work. One of the best but more controversial methods of weeding out terror is surveillance. The political shocker of the week is that Barney Frank and Donald Trump are coming together in agreement on surveillance!Barney Frank, a long serving member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts, voiced concerns regarding the safety of gay Americans, an Islamic element in terrorism and an increased need for surveillance.Frank spoke of the attack at a gay nightclub in Orlando this weekend in an interview with the New York Times Monday. It s an attack against gay people but it does not reflect a general deterioration of our standing in America, he said. It reflects the virulence of the hatred in this sector of Islam. Frank represented Massachusetts in the House for 32 years, completing his final term in office in 2013. He came out publicly as gay in 1987, the first member of Congress to voluntarily do so, and has been a vocal gay rights advocate.The former Massachusetts representative said he d like to see more monitoring of people with extreme Islamic beliefs by both the Muslim community and government agencies. There is an Islamic element here, he told the Times. Yes, the overwhelming majority of Muslims don t do this, but there is clearly, sadly, an element in the interpretation of Islam that has some currency, some interpretation in the Middle East that encourages killing people - and L.G.B.T. people are on that list. And I think it is fair to ask leaders of the Islamic community, religious and otherwise, to spend some time combatting this. Frank said the mass shooting reinforces his belief that there should be significant surveillance of people identified by the FBI to have radical beliefs.The lone shooter, Omar Mateen, was interviewed by the FBI twice in recent years, but as a connection could not be drawn between him and terrorist organizations, both investigations were closed.Law enforcement officials say the gunman pledged his allegiance to ISIS during a 911 call just before the shooting.The day after 50 people including Mateen were fatally wounded, the Islamic State issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack.President Barack Obama said Monday that there is no clear evidence the shooting was apart of a larger plot or directed by a terrorist organization. Read more: masslive | 0 |
10,123 | LIVE Electoral Vote Count Tallies…UPDATE: TRUMP 306, HILLARY 224 | UPDATE: Trump 304 Clinton 224, Other 6 and 4 pending votes remaining.Among the electors today, there were more Hillary defectors than Trump defectors. Go HERE to see who they were and which states they are from.Although the official electoral college results won t be announced until January 6, when Congress meets in a joint session to officially count the results, many of the votes are already being announced in some states. We will update this post with the electoral count as state results are announced, so you can stay updated on the latest. Trump had 259 electoral votes before Texas cast 36 of its 38 electoral votes for Trump, pushing him over the 270 that he needed to win.Here are the results we know so far, as shared by local media outlets, electors, or state officials:Alabama All 9 electors have voted for Trump.Alaska All 3 electors voted for Trump.Arizona All 11 electors voted for Trump.Arkansas All 6 electors voted for Trump.Connecticut All 7 electors voted for Hillary Clinton.Delaware All 3 electors voted for Hillary Clinton.Florida All 29 electors voted for Trump.Georgia All 16 electors voted for Trump.Idaho All 4 electors voted for Trump.Illinois All 20 electors voted for Clinton.Indiana All 11 electors voted for Trump.Kansas All six electors voted for Trump, per 270 to WIN.Kentucky All 8 electors voted for Trump.Louisiana All 8 electors voted for Trump.Maine Maine and Nebraska are the only states that split their electoral votes. In Maine, Trump earned 1 electoral vote and Clinton earned 3. One of Clinton s electors, David Bright, announced on Facebook that he was giving his electoral vote to Bernie Sanders. He tried to do just that, but he was ruled out of order and the vote was recast, forcing him to vote for Hillary Clinton instead.Maryland All 10 electors voted for Hillary Clinton.Michigan All 16 electors voted for Trump.Minnesota All 10 electors voted for Clinton.Missouri All 10 electors voted for Trump.Mississippi All 6 electors voted for Trump.Nebraska All 5 voted for Trump.New Hampshire All 4 electors voted for Clinton.New York All 29 electors voted for Hillary Clinton.North Carolina All 15 electors voted for Trump.North Dakota All 3 electors voted for Trump.Ohio All 18 electors voted for Trump.Oklahoma All 7 electors voted for Trump.Oregon All 7 electors voted for Clinton.Pennsylvania All 20 votes for Trump (verified by CBS).Rhode Island All 4 electors voted for Clinton.South Carolina All 9 electors voted for Trump.South Dakota All 3 electors voted for Trump.Tennessee All 11 electors voted for Trump.Texas In Texas, 36 out of its 38 electoral votes went to Trump. Chris Suprun wrote today on The Hill that he still intended to cast his vote for John Kasich and not Trump. Once the meeting got underway, four electors resigned and then were replaced, which caused the results to be delayed. One of the electors, Sisneros, did not want to vote for Trump. The other three found out they were ineligible, Sean Walsh of the Statesman reported.Utah All 6 electors voted for Trump, per 270toWin.Vermont All 3 electors voted for Clinton.Washington In Washington, eight voted for Clinton, 3 voted for Colin Powell, and 1 voted for Faith Spotted Eagle.West Virginia All 5 electors voted for Trump.Wisconsin All 10 electors voted for Donald Trump.via: 270towinh/t Heavy | 0 |
10,124 | AWESOME! SEAN SPICER Gives Trump’s Salary Away At Press Briefing [Video] | Zinke and Brandyburg accompanied Spicer to the podium on Monday where the White House Press Secretary announced that President Donald Trump was donating the salary from his entire first quarter as president to the National Parks Service. It is my pleasure, on behalf of the President of the United States, to present a check for $78,333, to the Secretary of the Interior Ron Zinke, and superintendent of the Harpers Ferry Park Sites, superintendent Brandyburg, Spicer said.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRaLJumoAGoVia: Mediate | 0 |
10,125 | Alec Baldwin Just Tore Trump Apart Limb By Stupid Limb After Hellish Weekend Of Tyranny (TWEETS) | After this past week and few days that Trump has been our President*, we as Americans have no choice but to be fully aware of the horrors that are in store for us. Already, he has signed executive orders authorizing a partial Muslim ban that led to nationwide protests before it was ultimately shut down (temporarily) by a federal judge, removing funding from any international health organizations that so much as mention abortion, two major pipelines that will destroy our environment, his stupid fucking wall, and even concentration camps for the millions of undocumented immigrants he intends to round up.Already, the first President in history that was effectively installed by a hostile foreign dictator through an aggressive propaganda and fake news campaign as well as a series of hacks directly authorized and overseen by Russian President Vladimir Putin, is not only proving the naysayers correct, but showing the world that they have underestimated the level of horribleness he can attain. As always, Alec Baldwin rushed to the rescue Saturday night with exactly the words we need to hear:1- This country had a calling card.We all knew what it was.It wasn't Wall Street or Hollywood or the right to bear arms that brought ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) January 29, 20172- that brought countless people, America's future, to this country. It was freedom.Freedom was our calling card.Trump wants to kill that ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) January 29, 2017 This country had a calling card. We all knew what it was. It wasn t Wall Street or Hollywood or the right to bear arms that brought America s future, to this country. It was freedom, Baldwin wrote. Freedom was our calling card. Trump wants to kill that. Baldwin came to the conclusion reached by many, including a growing number of those who voted for him: Trump s gota go. 3- Trump's gotta go. ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) January 29, 2017 All the indignation is fine. But we gotta get him out! We must demand a competency test! Baldwin later added. He is ill! Mentally ill! All the indignation is fine.But we gotta get him out!We must demand a competency test!He is ill!Mentally ill! ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) January 29, 2017He s exactly right. Unfortunately most options are going to prove to be fruitless. Impeachment would require the rather enthusiastic participation of a Republican-controlled Congress. The 25th Amendment allows the Vice President and cabinet to declare him unfit for pretty much any reason, but that requires the people Trump appointed to turn on him and things are actually going pretty well for them right now as The Donald checks off the Neo-Nazi wish list items one by one. It would also require Republicans in general to be halfway decent people who care about the good of their country.Right now, things seem hopeless but something amazing is happening. Trump is bringing Americans together, causing even those who once were silent in the face of right-wing oppression to rise up and declare that they are not willing to take it anymore. Americans as a whole are facing this adversity head-on and, most importantly, together.Right now, our future is uncertain, but our number one duty to our country is to oppose Trump s hateful agenda at every turn. Our elected leaders the ones with backbones, anyway absolutely must obstruct Trump in any way possible. Our nation has never faced a test like Donald Trump, and it is imperative that we do not fail.Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
10,126 | HUMILIATING: Democrats Use RUSSIAN WARSHIPS As Backdrop For Tribute To U.S. VETERANS At DNC | Maybe Hillary s Russian uranium deal included a cameo of Russian warships on the DNC stage? It certainly wouldn t surprise anyone . On the last night of the Democratic National Convention, a retired Navy four-star took the stage to pay tribute to veterans. Behind him, on a giant screen, the image of four hulking warships reinforced his patriotic message.But there was a big mistake in the stirring backdrop: those are Russian warships.While retired Adm. John Nathman, a former commander of Fleet Forces Command, honored vets as America s best, the ships from the Russian Federation Navy were arrayed like sentinels on the big screen above.These were the very Soviet-era combatants that Nathman and Cold Warriors like him had once squared off against. The ships are definitely Russian, said noted naval author Norman Polmar after reviewing hi-resolution photos from the event. There s no question of that in my mind. Naval experts concluded the background was a photo composite of Russian ships that were overflown by what appear to be U.S. trainer jets. It remains unclear how or why the Democratic Party used what s believed to be images of the Russian Black Sea Fleet at their convention.In a new survey of American military personnel, Donald Trump emerged as active-duty service members preference to become the next U.S. president, topping Hillary Clinton by more than a 2-to-1 margin. MTA spokesman for the Democratic National Convention Committee was not able to immediately comment Tuesday, saying he had to track down personnel to find out what had happened.The veteran who spotted the error and notified Navy Times said he was immediately taken aback. I was kind of in shock, said Rob Barker, 38, a former electronics warfare technician who left the Navy in 2006. Having learned to visually identify foreign ships by their radars, Barker recognized the closest ship as the Kara-class cruiser Kerch. An immediate apology [from the committee] would be very nice, Barker said. Maybe acknowledge the fact that yes, they screwed up. Via: Military Times | 0 |
10,127 | UK's Johnson says Trump's recognition of Jerusalem not helpful | LONDON (Reuters) - British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said on Thursday U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel s capital was not helpful and that the world would like to see some serious announcements from President Donald Trump on how to resolve Middle Eastern issues. | 1 |
10,128 | Germany's Schaeuble urges parties to compromise, take responsibility | BERLIN (Reuters) - German parties must be more willing to compromise and take responsibility to form a coalition government because Europe and the world need Berlin as a strong and reliable ally, Parliamentary President Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Tuesday. Speaking to lawmakers in the Bundestag lower house of parliament after efforts to form a three-way alliance failed, Schaeuble said: Europe needs a Germany that is capable of acting. The reactions from abroad show that Europe and many other countries in the world are waiting for us. Schaeuble, a veteran conservative and former finance minister, added: The challenges are huge and just as we ourselves need strong partners, our neighbors also want a reliable partner at their side. | 1 |
10,129 | Senate votes to confirm Gottlieb as head of FDA | (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate voted on Tuesday to confirm Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a conservative health policy expert and venture capitalist, as commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Gottlieb, a physician and former deputy FDA commissioner during the George W. Bush administration, is seen as competent and knowledgeable. But critics worry about his ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Gottlieb has agreed to divest his holdings in about two-dozen healthcare stocks. | 1 |
10,130 | Trump Demands To Know Why The Millions Of Women Protesting Him ‘Didn’t Vote’ And Gets TRASHED (TWEETS) | On Sunday morning, Donald Trump took to Twitter to whine about crowd sizes and brag about his ratings because he s Donald Trump and let s face it did you really expect him to worry about little things like running the country now that he s President? Watched protests yesterday but was under the impression that we just had an election! Trump tweeted as most of you were having your morning coffee. Why didn t these people vote? Celebs hurt cause badly. Watched protests yesterday but was under the impression that we just had an election! Why didn't these people vote? Celebs hurt cause badly. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2017Yes, we did have an election and Trump lost bigly in terms of the popular vote. He is sitting in the Oval Office solely thanks to an archaic system that was set up to protect southern states right to own black people an idea that is quite fine with his racist and horrible supporters. Naturally, the Internet reminded him that the majority still hates him, and no amount of whining will change that:.@realDonaldTrump they did. That's why you lost the popular vote. And indeed, you are a celeb that hurt their cause badly. Sietse Bakker (@SietseBakker) January 22, 2017@realDonaldTrump They probably did. You lost by 3 million votes. Charles Clark (@CharlesClark) January 22, 2017@realDonaldTrump this is what the leader of the free world is doing at 7:45am on a Sunday. Little hands, inauguration turnout and brain. Andrew Hickey (@andrewmhickey) January 22, 2017@realDonaldTrump You lost the popular vote by 3Mil. We showed up to protest you bc you're garbage. Ben Berkon (@BenBerkon) January 22, 2017@realDonaldTrump FYI we did vote. You lost the popular vote. I'm surprised you don't remember that. It seems to keep you up at night. Maria Del Russo (@maria_delrusso) January 22, 2017@realDonaldTrump They DID vote. You lost the election by over 3 million votes. Remember? We just don't have a democracy is all, so you won. Scott Santens (@scottsantens) January 22, 2017Next, Trump moved on to his favorite thing in the world: ratings, bragging that 31 million people watched the Inauguration, though he failed to note that most of them were watching in horror.Wow, television ratings just out: 31 million people watched the Inauguration, 11 million more than the very good ratings from 4 years ago! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2017Unfortunately, The Donald wasn t able to get people to show up to see him, as people quickly reminded him:.@realDonaldTrump Donald, I'm worried you're treating the United States Presidency like a television show, dear. Bess Kalb (@bessbell) January 22, 2017.@realDonaldTrump got:7 mil fewer viewers than BO's 1st #Inauguration3 mil fewer votes than HRC50% fewer attendees than the #WomensMarch pic.twitter.com/52owPPsb5o Khary Penebaker (@kharyp) January 22, 2017@realDonaldTrump wait what? This includes live streaming which has only been established in recent times. ..also maybe watching in disbelief AJ Joshi (@AJ) January 22, 2017@realDonaldTrump 30m were watching to see if you did a nazi salute or tripped down the stairs kristyan benedict (@KreaseChan) January 22, 2017Ultimately, Donald Trump says he respects peaceful protests or at least the person who took over to do damage control does. Not-Donald calls peaceful protests a hallmark of our democracy and lauded the right of people to express their views. Peaceful protests are a hallmark of our democracy. Even if I don't always agree, I recognize the rights of people to express their views. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 22, 2017Trump respects others right to express their views so much that he offered to pay his rabid supporters legal fees during his campaign if they beat up black people at his rallies and he literally just attacked protesters and their right to express their views hours ago. So, um, people noticed:.@realDonaldTrump Oh thank God someone got to you, sweetheart. Bess Kalb (@bessbell) January 22, 2017.@realDonaldTrump But next time let's try not to take two hours to go from "Mad King Donny" to "President." Bess Kalb (@bessbell) January 22, 2017@BenSRachinger So glad the President agrees that the First Amendment is good. Phew! Was worried for a moment. Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) January 22, 2017@realDonaldTrump Remember when, in 2012, you called for a revolution because Obama lost the popular vote? pic.twitter.com/Wl9DUXWB72 Matt Haig (@matthaig1) January 22, 2017@realDonaldTrump here are some of my views: pic.twitter.com/tPSEEEQWfc #TheResistance (@AynRandPaulRyan) January 22, 2017@realDonaldTrump This is not donald j trump tweeting, which intern has his phone right now?, give trump a message for us: "Illegitimate" Diva (@sammypolsen12) January 22, 2017@realDonaldTrump Who stole your phone? Roland Scahill (@rolandscahill) January 22, 2017@realDonaldTrump who told you to say this? Can they be president? Sean Hartofilis (@BeachPillows) January 22, 2017@realDonaldTrump GIVE THE PRESIDENT HIS PHONE BACK!!! HE'S GOT CITIZENS TO INSULT! Jon Bershad (@JonBershad) January 22, 2017@realDonaldTrump who hacked you Austin Gebbia (@DearMorni) January 22, 2017@realDonaldTrump Now you post this tweet after mocking the millions in the #WomensMarch Jeffrey Guterman (@JeffreyGuterman) January 22, 2017@realDonaldTrump yeah but an hour and a half ago https://t.co/Rl3nfbRZ7o Kevin Collier (@kevincollier) January 22, 2017Our country has very real problems that need to be addressed like Trump s executive order, which is step one in Republicans plan to strip healthcare from millions of hardworking Americans. He should work on cleaning up his own mess rather than hate-tweet about American citizens and try to prove to the world that millions showed up to his sparsely-attended sh*tfest of a Sweet 16 party. (Wait that was a presidential Inauguration? Cthulhu help us all).Featured image via Getty Images (Pool)/screengrab | 0 |
10,131 | Manhattan U.S. attorney adds to probes of ex-Trump aide Manafort: reports | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan is investigating Paul Manafort for potential money laundering, according to media reports, adding to other federal and state probes targeting President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager. The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York launched the probe in conjunction with federal special counsel Robert Mueller, the Wall Street Journal reported late on Tuesday. Bloomberg separately reported that subpoenas had been issued in the case. Representatives for Manafort did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the reports. The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, led by acting U.S. attorney Joon Kim, had no comment. The probe marks the latest investigation of Manafort that comes amid the ongoing larger examination of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential race and possible collusion by the Trump campaign and associates. Separate investigations into Manafort’s financial transactions have been launched by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, including scrutiny of Manafort’s real estate deals. U.S. investigators examining Manafort’s financial transactions are seeking to push him into cooperating with their probe into the possible collusion, two sources with direct knowledge of the investigation have said. Manafort, who headed the Trump campaign for several months before resigning, has not been accused of any wrongdoing. Mueller’s team and congressional investigators are also probing Manafort, whose Virginia apartment was raided by agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in July. Russia has denied any meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. Trump has denied any collusion by his campaign and has condemned the investigation as a political witch hunt. Reports of the latest probe come as Trump is poised to appoint dozens of new U.S. attorneys across the United States, including in New York after seeking mass resignations earlier this year. Kim took over as the Manhattan U.S. attorney when Trump fired Preet Bharara as part of the wave of resignations in March. Earlier this month, Politico reported that Trump personally interviewed at least two candidates for the positions in Manhattan and Brooklyn, an unusual move that raised some questions given Trump’s business roots in New York. The Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office is examining Kushner Cos, the company owned by the family of Trump’s son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner, according to the Journal. The White House and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions have defended Trump’s right to talk with potential nominees, Politico said. The U.S. Senate must approve whomever Trump nominates, a move that could be complicated by the Manafort and other probes. | 1 |
10,132 | EU parliament questions independence of police, judiciary in Malta | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union lawmakers have raised concerns over money laundering in Malta and the independence of its police and judiciary in a draft resolution, stepping up pressure on the island after the assassination of an investigative journalist. Daphne Caruana Galizia, who had denounced high-profile corruption and accused Prime Minister Joseph Muscat of wrongdoing, was killed on Oct. 16 by a bomb that tore through her car. An investigation is under way and Muscat has promised that everything will be done to find the killers. Next week the EU parliament will vote on a resolution on the rule of law in Malta. In a draft text, seen by Reuters, the parliament said it regrets that developments in Malta in recent years have led to serious concerns about the rule of law, democracy and fundamental rights including freedom of the media and the independence of the police and judiciary . It said that the independence of law enforcement and the judiciary in Malta may be compromised by the fact that the government is empowered to appoint the Police Commissioner, the head of the FIAU (anti-money laundering agency) and the attorney-general . The resolution called on the European Commission to oversee more closely respect for the rule of law in Malta and regretted the EU executive s decision not to publish its anti-corruption report this year. At a news conference on Friday, the largest group in the parliament, the conservative European People s Party (EPP), called on the EU commission to urgently step up its monitoring of Malta. We think there are serious questions regarding the freedom of media and the lack of law enforcement in Malta, said Daniel Koster, an EPP spokesman. He said the EPP had doubts about what the commission was doing to address this situation. The calls from the conservatives were echoed by the liberal, leftist and green groupings in the assembly. Reports from the Maltese anti-money laundering agency were leaked in June via Caruana Galizia s blog. They raised concerns about Pilatus Bank, a Maltese lender accused of having failed to report suspicious dealings as required by law. The EU lawmakers draft resolution calls on Malta to investigate Pilatus Bank. The bank and the Maltese police did not reply to Reuters questions on the allegations. There appear to be no grounds to suspect a systematic breach, of money laundering rules in Malta, an EU Commission official told Reuters in reply to questions over the island s application of EU rules on money laundering. The draft resolution, citing findings of the parliament s inquiry committee on money laundering, said Maltese institutions in charge of enforcing rules to prevent financial crimes were highly politicized . The number of convictions and confiscations related to money laundering in Malta seems extremely low, it said. | 1 |
10,133 | Trump STRANDED As Longtime Pal BAILS On Performing At His Inauguration (DETAILS) | President-elect Donald Trump loves bragging about two things: things he doesn t deserve and things that aren t true. He kills two birds with one stone when he boasts about his landslide win, which is technically a loss when you consider that Hillary Clinton beat him by millions of votes.Despite how much Trump feels he deserves the presidency, many Americans disagree and we re seeing direct proof of this resistance as Trump is finding it impossible to get people to perform at his inauguration in January. With only a few weeks to go and no A-list entertainers up for the task, Trump had hoped he could turn to his longtime pal, opera singer Andrea Bocelli. It was reported: Trump has a long-standing relationship with Bocelli, and wants to ask him in person to perform. The plan is to have acts at the inauguration that are meaningful for Trump, and he s a huge fan of Bocelli. But unfortunately for Trump, this too is falling apart. Despite being friends with Trump for years, Bocelli has chosen to bail on him due to the intense backlash the singer faced on social media. Some threatened to Boycott Bocelli , while other fans warned him, You will lose millions of fans. According to another close source: Bocelli said there was no way he d take the gig . . . he was getting too much heat and he said no. As time runs out, so are Trump s options. He s already faced multiple rejections from artists such as John Legend, Adam Lambert, and Elton John. Trump became so desperate that he started to offer U.S. ambassadorships to talent agents if they could find him someone to perform, but that hasn t worked either.But Trump still has one more option. Considering that Trump ditched a critical press conference to have a meeting with artist Kanye West last week, perhaps Trump might consider asking him. It would only make sense to have an artist just as egotistical and narcissistic as Trump perform at his inauguration.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images | 0 |
10,134 | Ohio appeals U.S. court decision in favor of early voting | CLEVELAND (Reuters) - The state of Ohio filed a federal court appeal on Thursday seeking to restore a Republican-backed limit on early voting and accelerated voter-registration measures that were seen by civil rights groups as boosting minority turnout. U.S. District Judge Michael Watson in Columbus ruled on Tuesday that Ohio violated voters’ rights by reducing the period that ballots could be cast before an election to four weeks from five weeks. Watson’s decision also struck down Ohio’s elimination of a seven-day window during which residents could both register to vote and cast their ballots all in the same week - a period known as “Golden Week.” Ohio’s Republican-controlled legislature abolished “Golden Week” and shortened early voting by seven days in 2014, drawing a legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Watson sided with the ACLU and NAACP in finding that both changes, which critics said directly limited opportunities for minority participation in elections, violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and were unconstitutional. On Thursday, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican, petitioned the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review Watson’s decision, which he said scrapped a court-approved settlement the state previously reached with the ACLU and NAACP on early voting. The settlement allowed voters to cast ballots on multiple Sundays leading up to a presidential election and provided for additional evening voting hours, according to ACLU documents. Husted said Golden Week had become an administrative problem for state elections officials and increased the potential for voter fraud, arguing its elimination had broad bipartisan support. The Ohio Democratic Party countered with a statement accusing Republican state officials of “defending a law that clear data showed imposed a stark discriminatory impact on Ohio’s African-American voters.” The appeal came a day after the Ohio General Assembly passed legislation that would require any resident or organization to post a cash bond with a local court in order to keep polling stations open later than scheduled on election day. Judges in Ohio have on occasion ordered some polls to extend their hours because of voting equipment problems, major traffic issues and severe weather, including during the 2016 primaries. Opponents of the bill have said it violates the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which expressly prohibits the imposition of a “poll tax.” | 1 |
10,135 | WATCH: The Daily Show Epically DESTROYS Fox News For Blatant Racism | The Daily Show needs to go after Fox News more often because Jon Stewart would definitely be proud of this.Earlier this week, Bill O Reilly sent his goon, Jesse Watters to Chinatown in New York City to make fun of Asians using every stereotype in the book. Watters asked the residents, some of whom couldn t speak English, everything from if they know karate to if they can take care of North Korea for us.Asian American organizations were not amused and swiftly condemned Fox for the segment and demanded an apology.But nobody ripped Fox News a new one better than Daily Show correspondent Ronny Chieng. First of all, let me get this straight they say China in the debate so you go to Chinatown? In New York? Chieng frustratingly asked. So, when they mention Mexico, do you send someone to Taco Bell? Chinatown is nothing like China! They have nothing to do with each other. It s like if I want to talk about women s rights, I decide to go to Fox News to get opinions. But it was nothing compared to the idiocy that followed, Chieng continued.After showing some of the footage Fox put together, which included Watters asking if he should bow and if it s the year of the dragon, Chieng went off on him. No, it s actually the year of go f*ck yourself! Chien yelled before taking Watters to the woodshed for all the racist stereotypes he used for the segment. If you re going to with racist, at least get your stereotypes right, you ignorant sack of sh*t! Karate isn t Chinese it s Japanese and you re doing it in a tae kwon do studio which is Korean, you f*cking jackoff! Jackoff! Jackoff! F*ck this guy! And, seriously, Mr. Miyagi? Update your reference material. That s like me making fun of Americans for Saturday Night Fever and Mr. T. But that s wasn t the end. Watters also got his ass handed to him for trying to talk to residents who didn t understand English. A*shole, they don t speak English, that s why they re silent, Chieng said. It s easy to make fun of someone when they can t respond. I ll show you. Chieng threw an image of Watters on the screen and began asking him questions and each question was epic. Hey, douchebag, why do you look like a guy who carries around a pack of roofies just in case? Why do you look like you have a hooker on speed dial? And is it hard to fit Bill O Reilly s entire scrotum in your mouth? And in the final take-down of Watters and O Reilly, Chieng spoke with Chinese Americans himself about the segment, asking one about Jesse Watters. This is how he replied. The chickensh*t reporter who came here and thought he was funny because he talked to people who couldn t speak English? The one who was sent here by the larger chickensh*t who wouldn t come into Chinatown because he was afraid to do it himself? The one with no testicles, who came down here, who said let me talk to some old people and let me put them on camera without asking them and sort of put them on national television and made fun of them in the worst possible way? As I said before, EPIC.Here s the video via The Daily Show.The Daily Show has largely chose not to go after Fox News very much since Jon Stewart left, and that has been an absolute shame. So you know Fox News did something incredibly outrageous when the Daily Show really has no choice but to cover it and mock it relentlessly. Let s just hope they focus on slamming Fox more often.Featured Image via screencap. | 0 |
10,136 | Laverne Cox Tears Trans Hate To SHREDS In Passionate Post After Edited Fox News Interview (TWEET) | It s become quite clear that as much as Fox News wants to make the appearance of being honest and inclusive, it s very much on the surface, so don t believe everything you see.Recently on Fox News, Megyn Kelly interviewed Orange is the New Black star Laverne Cox. The pair discussed Cox being transgender with topics surrounding growing up, transitioning, as well as her love life. However, many were left scratching their heads that talk about North Carolina s discriminatory law, HB2, better known as the bathroom bill, wasn t discussed.Here s the thing it was. It was just edited out.Well, Media Matters has the edited dialogue and created a meme that Cox passionately posted on her Twitter account to make sure that people know she did, in fact, discuss the horrendous bill. Not only did she discuss it, she tore it to shreds with the truth.First, after being questioned why she didn t discuss the bill, she said:@dfoxfarrington we did talk about legislation specifically North Carolina's unconstitutional #HB2 but it didn't make it to air Laverne Cox (@Lavernecox) May 18, 2016Then later, she posted what was said: When a trans woman is called a man, that is an act of violence Discriminatory bills like HB2 in North Carolina misgender trans people The perpetuation of myths about who trans people are [is] at the root of this Those bills are about making us not exist. But I m a testament that trans people do exist. There are trans people all over this country that exist. pic.twitter.com/xTkZfw02aq Laverne Cox (@Lavernecox) May 19, 2016Amen!So, as Fox News wants to pretend like this discrimination doesn t exist by cutting out Cox s very passionate plea to recognize that she s a human being and should be treated as such out of her aired interview, she s making sure it s told anyway.Good on you, Laverne!Featured Image via video screen capture | 0 |
10,137 | Spain to control Catalan spending as long as 'exceptional' situation continues | MADRID (Reuters) - The Spanish government said on Friday it would continue controlling Catalan spending so long as the exceptional situation continued, referring to the regional government s plans to hold an independence referendum it says is illegal. The state will pay to a great extent (civil servants) salaries. That s what the spending control means and that will be in place as long as the exceptional situation continues, Budget Minister Cristobal Montoro said following the weekly cabinet meeting. | 1 |
10,138 | ‘Big Bang Theory’ Actor Tears Trump To PIECES (TWEETS) | When Donald Trump boldly declared that he had been released from the shackles of the GOP (that was him shackled?) Star Trek and Big Bang Theory actor Wil Wheaton just couldn t resist. It began with a one-word, yet oh-so-beautiful tweet:"shackles" Wil SCREAMton (@wilw) October 11, 2016Then, of course, Wheaton moved on to the defining moment of Trump s campaign: the revelation that he spends a lot of time grabbing women by their p*ssies:Oh you're gonna grab America by the pussy? Or are you gonna punch it in the face? Or not pay any taxes to support it? Please, do tell. https://t.co/51Pn40hZpq Wil SCREAMton (@wilw) October 11, 2016And his numerous, numerous bankruptcies:Oh wait! Maybe he's going to suck as much money out of America as he can, then declare bankruptcy so everyone else suffers for it. Wil SCREAMton (@wilw) October 11, 2016Then came the boom:Does anyone really believe Voldetrump has been "shackled" until now? They don't even make shackles small enough for his tiny little hands. Wil SCREAMton (@wilw) October 11, 2016Donald Trump is terrible. If Americans vote him into office next month, we will have a President who:On top of that, he s a bully with thin, orange skin who wants to build a wall to keep brown people out of the country, lock up Muslims in what can only be described as concentration camps (after forcing them to register in a national database and wear special little badges like Hitler made the Jews wear), and who is unfit to be President in every sense of the word.Democrats have traditionally had issues getting to the polls on election day, even during presidential elections. Make sure that doesn t happen this time. The stakes are too high.Featured image via Reddit/Getty Images(Joe Raedle) | 0 |
10,139 | This State Is Honoring Obama And Sending A Middle Finger To Trump At The Same Time – You Can Bet He’ll Be Fuming | President Obama s home state of Illinois has passed a bill honoring him by designating his birthday August 4 as a state holiday. So now, every year on August 4, Illinois has a state holiday known as Barack Obama Day. While Illinois has a Democratic supermajority in its general assembly, bills must still be signed into law by the governor, and Illinois governor is a Republican.Once known as Senate Bill 55, it reads: [Barack Obama Day] observed throughout the State as a day set apart to honor the 44th President of the United States of America who began his career serving the People of Illinois in both the Illinois State Senate and the United States Senate, and dedicated his life to protecting the rights of Americans and building bridges across communities. They re also renaming a large chunk of I-55, running from just southwest of the city of Chicago to near Bloomington-Normal, in the center of the state. That will become the Barack Obama Presidential Expressway. That may well rankle Donald Trump and his supporters, who insist that Obama was the worst thing ever to happen to this country. Trump spent a lot of time on Obama s case for his vacations, which is one of the most hypocritical things he does. He also falsely accused Obama of tapping his phones in Trump Tower, and Trump has been steadily working to dismantle everything Obama ever did.Trump has claimed he s the most presidential president this country has ever had with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln, and he says he s already gotten more done than FDR. Except, you know, he s gotten zilch done and he s a man-baby on Twitter. He politicized his speech to the Boy Scouts, where he again bragged about himself and actually got the audience to boo Obama.Would New York give Trump a holiday? Probably not, since he lost that state last year and they aren t exactly fond of him there. But who cares about Illinois, right? That state only produced both Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan two heroes of a Republican Party that s desperate for new heroes.Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images | 0 |
10,140 | This Is How Trump Made Millions While Running His Casinos Into The Ground | Trump s business prowess is his major selling point with his followers, and he s trying to sell it to the rest of the world. After all, he s made tons of money, right? That makes him such a brilliantly successful businessman, and he s so smart that he can translate that enormous fount of skill and knowledge into politics, and make America great again. What he doesn t talk about are his many failures, and how he turned those failures into money for himself, even while his employees suffered, Atlantic City suffered, and his investors suffered. What did he suffer? Oh, that s right, the stigma of fleecing, which isn t a stigma at all as far as he s concerned.How did he do it? He put up very little money of his own, shifted his personal debt over onto his casinos, and let the consequences of his failures fall onto his investors, who had bet that he was actually a good businessman. While all that was going on, he sat back and collected millions in salaries, bonuses and other payments.As a result, his casinos suffered from too much debt and too little revenue. He borrowed money for them at such ridiculously high interest rates that there was almost no chance his casinos could ever succeed. He did this after telling regulators he wouldn t, too. He filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy four times, and then continued with the expensive loans.In fact, he filed for bankruptcy on the Trump Taj Mahal twice, and Trump Plaza Casinos once. He then reorganized into Trump Entertainment Resorts, Inc., which ended up with $1.8 billion in debt (yes, that s with a b ), and then he filed bankruptcy there, too. Each time, he convinced his bondholders to accept much less money while he continued to pile on the debt.He also took money out of his casinos in Atlantic City to invest in his Manhattan properties, and then from his smaller Atlantic City properties to try and prop up the Taj Mahal. He called Atlantic City a very good cash cow for me for a long time. The lesson he learned from all that? Don t leave yourself on the hook for loans. So he shifts debt to everywhere else he can to avoid having to pay for it himself.In other words, he s a diamond-level master manipulator. Nobody without his skill at manipulation could have walked away from that many failures with millions in their pockets.His casinos aren t his only failed businesses though. He also has:That s a hefty list of businesses at which he s tried and failed. His casinos are probably the worst, though, because they had the biggest negative impact. The impact was made worse by a weak-kneed board that allowed him to rake in his own dough even though his casinos couldn t draw in enough people to create a sufficient revenue stream, let alone deal with the debt they were carrying.When Trump left Atlantic City, many people were happy to see him go not just because he was a blemish on their industry and city, but also because he failed to pay contractors and other workers for the work they did on his casinos. That s so sadly typical of Trump.As president, his business acumen would be his greatest liability, not his greatest asset. All he knows is manipulation in favor of himself. He doesn t actually know how to do anything real, as this demonstrates.Featured image by Joe Raedle/Getty Images | 0 |
10,141 | watch traffic reporters savage message to those who threatened to leave us if trump won | thoughts on steve bannon as white house chief strategist by ben shapiro november
so in a notunexpected move donald trump has elevated former breitbart news ceo steve bannon to chief strategist of the white house
when i left breitbart back in march i accused bannon of turning breitbart news into trump pravda as i wrote indeed breitbart news under the chairmanship of steve bannon has put a stake through the heart of andrews legacy in my opinion steve bannon is a bully and has sold out andrews mission in order to back another bully donald trump he has shaped the company into trumps personal pravda to the extent that he abandoned and undercut his own reporter
that decision paid off for bannon in august he became trumps campaign ceo at that point i wrote this piece describing who bannon was and this one for the washington post describing his probable impact on the campaign
with bannons accession to a top white house role its time to answer some brief questions about the man and what hes likely to do
is bannon antisemitic and racist i have no evidence that bannons a racist or that hes an antisemite the huffington posts blaring headline white nationalist in the white house is overstated at the very least with that said as i wrote at the washington post in august bannon has openly embraced the racist and antisemitic altright he called his breitbart the platform of the altright milo yiannopoulos the star writer at the site is an altright popularizer even as he continuously declares with a wink that hes not a member the lefts opposition to trump and their attempts to declare all trump support the altright have obfuscated what the movement is the movement isnt all trump supporters its not conservatives unsatisfied with paul ryan nor is it people angry at the media bannon knows that hes a smart man not an ignorant one the altright in a nutshell believes that western culture is inseparable from european ethnicity i have no evidence bannon believes that personally but hes happy to pander to those people and make common cause with them in order to transform conservatism into european farright nationalist populism that means that the altright will cheer bannon along as he marbles trumps speeches with talk of globalism and that bannon wont be pushing trump to dump the racists and antisemites who support trump anytime soon after all they love bannon actual white supremacists like peter brimelow called his august appointment great news and richard spencer explained breitbart has elective affinities with the alt right and the alt right has clearly influenced breitbart in this way breitbart has acted as a gateway to alt right ideas and writers i dont think it has done this deliberately again its a matter of elective affinities that doesnt mean bannon will push racist or antisemitic policy or that hell be antiisrael himself unless it serves his interests
what does bannons accession mean bannon has goals one of those goals is maximization of personal power which is why he spent the last decade and a half glomming onto powerful rightwing personalities bachmann morris palin kissing their asses and then moving on up the chain with breitbart and trump he picked two winners in a row and that means hes now at the pinnacle of american power
so what will he do with that power hell target enemies bannon is one of the most vicious people in politics which is why ive been joking for months that should trump win id be expecting my irs audit any moment that wasnt completely a joke he likes to destroy people
but more importantly bannons interested in turning the republican party into a farright european party because republicans will like some of the policy that comes with that it could happen heres what i wrote in march about the trump movement
trump is a europeanstyle response to the europeanstyle leftism of barack obama hes a soft europeanstyle populist from his interventionist economics to his closedborders foreign policy as i wrote in december compare trumps platform with that of marine le pen whose french national front poses a significant threat to the national political establishment she calls for harsher penalties for criminals significant restrictions on muslim immigration to france protectionism on trade a restoration of the franc as the national currency rather than the euro and big government in terms of health care this sounds a lot like trump but the european right is not the american right the american right believes in constitutional ideas about checks and balances and federalism and negative rights from government the european right doesnt believe any of these things should trump win we could watch american conservatism lose the only party it has ever had
thats the plan yesterday the daily beast reported that bannon reached out to le pen for global ultraright coalition over the weekend le pen met with nigel farage of the uk independent party and trump met with farage shortly after being elected bannon has always wanted to burn down the gop thats still his goal he wants it replaced with an american national front party in fact if not in name
which war will bannon lead bannon considers himself a wartime consigliore always at war always so the only question left is this what will bannons actual role be its difficult to tell since trump announced the bannon hire at the same time he announced that former rnc chairman reince priebus as his chief of staff what will their relationship be like ed morrissey of hotair thinks that bannon will lead the antimedia fight and reince will coordinate with congress that would be the best possible scenario
others have speculated that bannon has been added to the team as a sop to the populist base which would be angry at trump hopping into bed with the most establishmenty fellow in washington that too would be fine
its hard to tell from the outside whats happening but heres a third theory reince is the bagman for trump and bannons whispering in trumps ear that would fit the fact pattern here given reinces outsized praise for bannon this morning wise and smartvery very smart very temperate bannon is anything but temperate to those who disagree hes a consummate bully to anyone who disagrees hes actually malevolent priebus may not have seen a lot of disagreement because hes the one catering to bannons agenda
if bannons leading and reince is following that bodes ill for the republican agenda bannon opposes the republican party hates paul ryan minutes after the joint bannonpriebus announcement breitbart news approvingly tweeted about a congressional rebellion against speaker ryan and wants to watch it all burn bannon loves the firefight the only question is which direction hell turn his fire tags | 1 |
10,142 | Health staff in southern Libya strike after doctor's kidnapping | BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - Medical staff in the southern Libyan city of Sabha said on Monday they were suspending work for 10 days in protest over poor security after a doctor was kidnapped. Health services in Libya have been severely disrupted by years of conflict with the remote south particularly affected. Salem al-Selhab, who worked in the surgical department of the Sabha Medical Centre, the biggest hospital in southern Libya, was kidnapped by an unknown group on Thursday evening. For a long time the medical staff of the Sabha Medical Centre have suffered attacks, abuse and been shot at, said Osama al-Wafi, a spokesman for the center, adding that Selhab s kidnapping was a serious setback. This doctor was very important, he said. Staff at the center and at private clinics in the city announced a 10-day strike on Sunday to demand Selhab s release and the provision of security for medical staff. Sabha is a major hub for the smuggling of migrants toward Libya s northern coast, some of whom seek treatment in local medical facilities. The Sabha Medical Centre receives 70 percent of its backing from international organizations in the absence of state support from rival governments in Tripoli and the east, said Wafi. We suffer greatly from a shortage of medicines, political division and lack of support, he said. The World Health Organization (WHO), one of the international bodies to provide Sabha Medical Centre with support, strongly condemned violence against staff in the area. WHO urges all to refrain from attacking health workers and facilities, as required by international humanitarian law, and calls upon parties responsible for the kidnapping of the doctor in Sabha to ensure his safety and immediate release, it said in a statement. | 1 |
10,143 | Trump says U.S. should spend less on NATO | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said the United States should decrease the amount it spends on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. “We are paying disproportionately. It’s too much and frankly it’s a different world than it was when we originally conceived of the idea,” Trump said in an interview on CNN. “We have to reconsider. Keep NATO, but maybe we have to pay a lot less toward NATO itself,” he said. | 1 |
10,144 | WATCH: Bernie Sanders Absolutely BERNS Donald Trump During Interview | Donald Trump and his and the conservative media have been pushing a conspiracy theory that Bernie Sanders and his supporters are responsible for shutting down his rally in Chicago Friday.During a segment on CNN s State of the Union, Sanders fired back at Trump for some of the absurd claims the Republican primary front-runner has made. For a start, we should take Mr. Trump s words with a grain of salt, Sanders told the show s host, Jake Tapper. Because I think almost everybody knows, this man cannot stop lying about anything. To call me a communist is a lie. To talk about our organization, our campaign, disrupting his meeting is a lie. As I have previously pointed out, Trump decided to cancel his rally in Chicago. It was an event open to the public. The public showed up and Trump could not handle that. As Sanders notes, Trump s Republican primary rivals have even pointed out that Trump got what he was asking for. Even his Republican colleagues make this point, Sanders went on to say. His language, his intonations, when you talk about carrying people out in stretchers, you see at his rallies people sucker-punched, folks kick people when they re down. This is a man who keeps implying violence, and then you end up getting what you see. Sanders is drawing on a comment made by Marco Rubio, who said: I know people like it that Donald Trump says whatever he wants and whatever they feel like saying. Presidents cannot say anything they want. Presidents have to understand that their words have consequences, often life and death consequences, for real people in the real world. Then there is the fact that Trump has frequently encouraged his followers to inflict violence against those who protest his events. With the media focused on Chicago last Friday, many people didn t see the chaos Trump s supporters unleashed in St Louis earlier that day. I think that he, in fact, has got to tell his supporters that in the United States of America we don t go beating up people, that people have a right to peacefully protest, and I hope that becomes the tone of his campaign. You can watch the interview below in full.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwe5R3VsQYMFeatured image via video screen capture | 0 |
10,145 | Republican hold on U.S. state legislatures could slip in election | CHICAGO (Reuters) - The Republican Party’s grip on U.S. state legislatures could loosen in next month’s election as Democrats seek to link Republican candidates to the sinking fortunes of the party’s White House candidate, Donald Trump. Republicans, who have dominated control of legislatures since the mid-term election in 2010, currently hold the majority in 67 of the country’s 98 partisan legislative chambers, while Democrats have 31. Nebraska’s single chamber is nonpartisan. More than 80 percent of the nation's 7,383 state legislative seats are up for grabs on Nov. 8 and the race between Trump and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is expected to influence races further down the ballot papers. (See related graphic tmsnrt.rs/2ePmLDI) The bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) estimates 18 legislative chambers in 12 states could switch party control, including in Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nevada, Washington and Wisconsin. “More than three-fourths of the time the party winning the White House also makes gains in state legislatures. So the odds are Democrats would pick up chambers and seats on the whole if (Clinton) wins,” said Tim Storey, a NCSL elections analyst. National opinion polls show Clinton leading Trump with just under two weeks to go until Election Day. Democrats are also getting a big boost for down ballot races with Clinton surrogates such as President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and first lady Michelle Obama on the campaign trail stumping for party candidates. Trump, on the other hand, is openly feuding with Republican leaders, many of whom distanced themselves from the candidate after a 2005 video surfaced earlier this month in which he is heard bragging about groping women and making other unwanted sexual advances. Storey said while Trump has his pockets of popularity, the top Republican on the party’s ticket has become a main line of attack by Democrats in swing districts. “Instead of taxes or health care or public safety or education, Trump has been an issue in many places,” he said. According to Jessica Post, executive director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), which is working to elect Democratic state lawmakers, “Trump is quicksand for legislative Republicans.” But Matt Walter, president of the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), which hopes to spend $40 million on legislative and other state races this election cycle, said the Democrats’ strategy of using Trump to campaign against Republicans is not working. He contended his party’s candidates can win even without presidential coattails. “A good candidate who understands her district, who presents viable solutions for that district in that state has a better than even odds of winning in any type of environment,” he said. In addition to defending legislative turf, Republicans are trying to play offense, targeting 13 chambers in 10 states for seat gains, including Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Vermont, Colorado and Oregon. Post said Democratic candidates are offering voters “a crucial firewall against Republican overreach” in states dominated by Republicans, like North Carolina, where there has been a backlash against a law on use of public bathrooms that critics say discriminates against transgender people. With all of Minnesota’s legislative seats up for election, Democrats need a net gain of seven seats to take control of the House and turn the state, which has a Democratic governor, in their favor. Larry Jacobs, a University of Minnesota political science professor, said a Democratic sweep could open the way for legislation funding capital projects and transportation as well as early childhood education. In Illinois, Republican Governor Bruce Rauner, his wife and two of his wealthiest donors have contributed a combined $18 million since the March primary to House Republican leader Jim Durkin and to a super-PAC devoted to chipping away at Democrats’ veto-proof majorities in the state’s House and Senate. Democrats have been in a political stalemate with Rauner for nearly two years over the budget and other issues. In West Virginia, historically a Democratic stronghold state, Republicans took control of the state’s House, Senate, and governor’s office in 2014 for the first time in 83 years. This election, Democrats want the Senate back. Tom Susman, president of TSG Consulting, a Charleston, West Virginia-based government affairs public relations firm, said the likely scenario is the Senate remains Republican, with much of the power ceded to a growing fiscally conservative faction. “Moderate Republicans are in trouble,” said Susman. “We could be looking at a Kansas-like situation. Then, it would basically be the Tea Party running the state Senate. No new taxes. All cuts.” | 1 |
10,146 | VOTING MACHINES FOR HILLARY! MD Woman Reports Voting Straight Ticket…Watched Machine Flip To Hillary [VIDEO] | A woman in Hollywood, Maryland is the latest in a number of early voters to claim that her ballot was switched to Hillary Clinton after she had tried to vote for Donald Trump.Maryland Trump Supporter: They Switched My Vote to Hillary https://t.co/FkNiEUOZHH pic.twitter.com/dalY9KBWtj Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) October 28, 2016Noting that she had seen reports on the news of votes being flipped, the woman said, I went in and voted a straight Republican ticket and thank God I went back and checked and they had switched my vote from Trump to (Hillary). She said that she had to get the vote changed back by alerting election officials, who simply told her to vote for a second time. I went back the second time and made sure they didn t change it, she concluded. As we reported earlier this week, voters in numerous areas of Texas have made a series of complaints that votes are being switched from Trump to Clinton.One election official responded by claiming the problems were caused by voters not understanding how to use the machines properly. Typically, we ve found it s voter error with the equipment, Frank Phillips, Tarrant County s election administrator, told WFAA. Sometimes they vote straight party and then click on other candidates or do something with the wheel .There is not an issue with the equipment. However, Trump supporters continue to point to the reports as evidence that vote fraud may be taking place. InfoWars | 0 |
10,147 | WATCH: TRUMP SUPPORTER DESTROYS “Ghetto” McDonald’s Worker Who Refused To Serve Cop In Virginia | A uniformed police officer in Virginia said he was refused service at a local McDonald s because he was wearing a uniform, Richmond.com reported.Scott Naff, an officer for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, reportedly paid for his food in the drive-thru line, but was allegedly refused the food when he got to the window. Naff s wife, Cathy, told the newspaper that the employee saw the uniform and told her husband: I ain t serving no police. FOXCathy Naff, wife of Officer Naff told her husbands story on Facebook: The hilarious, outspoken conservative and President Trump supporter Terrence Williams, went off on the Ghetto McDonald s employee who refused to serve the VA police officer. If you re on Twitter, Terrence is definitely worth checking out. He s one of the funniest conservatives on social media and he doesn t hold back when it comes to his opinions.Watch:Police Officer was Denied Service by a Ghetto .@McDonalds worker. Give him his burger you cop hater! #BlueLivesMatter. I support the police pic.twitter.com/9QlCuLrAhv Terrence Williams (@w_terrence) July 20, 2017Here s the most recent update to Cathy Naff s Facebook post that explains what happened after her husband was refused service: | 0 |
10,148 | Highlights: The Trump presidency on March 22 at 6:30 P.M. EDT | (Reuters) - Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday: The Republican chairman of the House of Representatives intelligence committee says some of Trump’s personal communications may have been caught up in “incidental” surveillance involving a foreign power in the months after the election. The main investigative panel of the House of Representatives has asked the White House and the FBI for documents regarding former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s foreign contacts with Russia, Turkey and others, its Republican chairman and Democratic counterpart say. Trump and Republican congressional leaders appear to be losing the battle to gather enough support in the House of Representatives to pass their Obamacare rollback bill, watched by wary investors in financial markets. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, speaking at a meeting of countries fighting Islamic State, says the United States will set up “interim zones of stability” to help refugees return home in the next phase of the fight against Islamic State and al Qaeda. U.S.-led coalition aircraft drops fighters for the first time into an area near the Syrian city of Raqqa to retake territory from Islamic State in a mission that includes artillery and special operations troops. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch says presidents must obey court orders and expresses uncertainty about language in the Constitution barring U.S. government officials from taking payments from a foreign country as Democrats grill him on issues involving Trump. Labor Secretary nominee R. Alexander Acosta tells a Senate committee he will abide by Trump’s directive to review a pending “fiduciary rule” for retirement investment advisers, indicating he believed it goes too far. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will meet with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to discuss the administration’s proposed budget, the panel’s chairman says, after heated opposition in Congress to Trump’s plan to slash funding for diplomacy and foreign aid. A New York state judge is ordering ExxonMobil Corp to work with New York’s attorney general to recover lost emails from an account used by Tillerson when he was the oil company’s chief executive. The Senate takes up a measure to repeal regulations adopted by the Obama administration requiring internet service providers to do more to protect customers’ privacy than websites like Alphabet Inc’s Google or Facebook Inc. | 1 |
10,149 | Kerry says he's confident Trump administration will stick to peaceful policies in Asia | HO CHI MINH CITY (Reuters) - Outgoing U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday he was confident the next administration would stick to the same peaceful principles on Asian security as the current one, despite hawkish comments from President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet picks. Referring to the disputed South China Sea, Kerry told a university audience in Ho Chi Minh City that countries, big or small, should refrain from provocation and any dispute should be resolved peacefully in accordance with international law. Kerry said he was “confident the next administration will continue to adhere to the same good faith with the policies that I just articulated.” His comments came after his nominated replacement, Rex Tillerson, said the United States must send a clear signal to China that its island-building in the South China Sea must stop and that its access to those islands must not be allowed. On Thursday, Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, retired Marine General James Mattis, said Russia, China and Islamist militants were presenting the biggest challenge to the U.S.-led world order since World War Two, and called for Congress to lift spending caps undermining military readiness. China claims most of the energy-rich South China Sea, through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. Neighbours Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims. China has reclaimed seven reefs in the area, building man-made islands with anti-aircraft and anti-missile batteries, satellite images show. The United States would have to “wage a large-scale war” in the South China sea to prevent Chinese access to the islands, the influential state-run Chinese tabloid, the Global Times, said on Friday. “Tillerson had better bone up on nuclear power strategies if he wants to force a big nuclear power to withdraw from its own territories,” the paper said. The Philippines, which is seeking to improve ties with Beijing, said any U.S. action to drive China from the artificial islands would be its own prerogative, and in its own national interest. Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay was replying to a question during a television interview about Tillerson’s comments. “They said that they would prevent China from doing or undertaking these kind of activity. If it wants to do that, they have the force to do so, let them do it,” Yasay said. China has built several artificial islands in the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, which an arbitration tribunal in The Hague last year ruled unlawful. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte reiterated last month he wanted to avoid confrontation with China and saw no need to press Beijing to abide by the ruling. Yasay earlier said the Philippines wanted to strengthen ties with the United States and that Washington should be an “influential force” in Asia and help maintain balance there. He said he hoped the new government in Washington would refrain from criticising countries, as the Obama administration had over the Philippines’ deadly drugs war, and he welcomed Tillerson’s views that decisions and comments should be based on facts. | 1 |
10,150 | Britain's Hammond says Brexit deal is a boost to the economy | LONDON (Reuters) - The divorce deal agreed by London and Brussels on Friday is a boost to the British economy, finance minister Philip Hammond said on Friday, as he urged both sides to now move on to a trade deal that supports jobs and prosperity. Delighted a deal agreed in Brussels that paves way for further progress on talks about future UK/EU relationship, he said on Twitter. A positive step. Congratulations @theresa_may Today s announcement in Brussels is a boost for Britain s economy. Now let s conclude a trade deal that supports Britain s jobs, businesses and prosperity. | 1 |
10,151 | Top U.S. general says exiting Iran nuclear pact would make future deals tough | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. military officer said on Tuesday Iran was complying with the pact curbing its nuclear program and warned that any American decision to walk away from it would make other nations less likely to enter into agreements with the United States. President Donald Trump is considering whether to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers including the United States, calling the accord an embarrassment. Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Iran was complying with its obligations under the nuclear deal, but had increased its activity in other areas. Iran is projecting malign influence across the Middle East, threatening freedom of navigation, while supporting terrorist organizations in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, Dunford said. The committee s top Democrat, Senator Jack Reed, asked Dunford whether walking away from the Iran nuclear pact would affect the U.S. ability to negotiate with North Korea or devise a non-military solution toward Pyongyang. It makes sense to me that our holding up agreements that we have signed, unless there is a material breech, would have an impact on others willingness to sign agreements, Dunford said during his reappointment hearing. Trump this year also announced he would withdraw the United States from the international Paris climate agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. U.S. officials, including senior military leaders, have said that the first option to deal with the threat posed by North Korea s nuclear and ballistic missile program is through diplomacy. The ambassadors to the United States from Britain, France, Germany and the European Union all strongly backed the nuclear agreement with Iran on Monday as long as Tehran continues to comply with the pact. If Trump does not recertify by Oct. 16 that Iran is in compliance with the agreement, Congress would have 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions on Tehran suspended under the accord. That would let Congress, controlled by Trump s fellow Republicans, effectively decide whether to kill the deal. Although congressional leaders have declined to say whether they would seek to reimpose sanctions, Republican lawmakers were united in their opposition to the deal reached by Democratic former President Barack Obama. A collapse of the deal could trigger a regional arms race and worsen Middle East tensions. Dunford said that while North Korea currently poses the most urgent threat, Russia presents the biggest threat in terms of overall military capability. Asked if he supported U.S. lethal aid to Russia s neighbor Ukraine, Dunford said he does and has made that recommendation within the administration. He said discussion of the issue has reached the White House, but did not say when a decision would be made. Ukraine has sought U.S. support against Russia since a pro-Western government took power following street protests in 2014, when the Kremlin-backed president fled the country. Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine the same year. Dunford also said the United States would not be able to attain our objectives in Afghanistan, where American forces have been deployed since 2001, without a change of behavior by neighboring Pakistan. It is unacceptable that Pakistan provides sanctuary, and we ought to bring the full weight of the U.S. government and our coalition partners on Pakistan to ensure that they do not provide the sanctuary that they have provided historically to groups like Haqqani and the Taliban, Dunford said. U.S. officials remain frustrated by what they term Pakistan s unwillingness to act against Islamist militant groups including the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network. The Trump administration is exploring whether to harden its approach toward Pakistan to crack down on militants launching strikes in Afghanistan. Pakistan argues that it has done a great deal to help the United States in tracking down militants, and says it has suffered hundreds of deaths in Islamist attacks in response to its crackdowns. | 1 |
10,152 | FASCINATING: LIVE FEED OF COUP Unfolding In Turkey…Chaos…Shots Being Fired…Citizens Jumping On Military Tanks…”Very Fast Moving Situation” | LIVE FEED of Turkey s coup here: | 0 |
10,153 | DEMOCRATS OUTRAGED…But You’ll Love What Rex Tillerson is Doing to the Bloated State Department | The story below from the liberal New York Times is hysterical! Rex Tillerson is sweeping the State Department clean! The angle of the NYT article is one of horror and shock that Tillerson could let these lifers in the bloated bureaucracy of the State Department go in such large numbers. How dare he! LOL!5 MINUTES AND YOU RE OUTTA HERE:Of all the State Department employees who might have been vulnerable in the staff reductions that Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson has initiated as he reshapes the department, the one person who seemed least likely to be a target was the chief of security, Bill A. Miller.Mr. Miller got just five minutes with the secretary of state, the former officials said. Afterward, Mr. Miller, a career Foreign Service officer, was pushed out, joining a parade of dismissals and early retirements that has decimated the State Department s senior ranks. Mr. Miller declined to comment.DEMOCRATS GO NUTS OVER HOLLOWING-OUT OF DEPARTMENT:Democratic members of the House Foreign Relations Committee wrote a letter to Tillerson citing what they said was the exodus of more than 100 senior Foreign Service officers from the State Department since January . They expressed concern about what appears to be the intentional hollowing-out of our senior diplomatic ranks. Career diplomats are outta here! Tillerson has also slashed the State Department budget by 31 percent! This is great!Tillerson has also frozen hiring and offered payouts to many career employees He s hoping to reduce the State Department workforce by 2,000! Yes, 2,000!MAGA! | 0 |
10,154 | Trump Tries To Tie Chuck Schumer To Putin With Insane Twitter Fit (IMAGE) | It is becoming clearer and clearer that Donald Trump and the people around him have serious ties to Vladimir Putin and Russian operatives. On top of that, the story regarding Trump s Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, meeting with the Russian Ambassador and lying about it under oath completely stepped on what could have been a good news cycle after a surprisingly semi-normal speech delivered to a joint session of Congress. So, what does Trump do in retaliation? Why, he takes to Twitter, of course.First, Trump insisted that it was illegal leaks and fake news that was the REAL story, not Sessions s shading dealings with the Russian Ambassador and his lies regarding said dealings. When that tactic didn t kill the story, Trump tried an even more insane approach, and tweeted a 13-year-old photo of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) with Vladimir Putin.This approach makes no sense at all, considering that Team Trump keeps saying that there s absolutely nothing wrong with people in Congress meeting with foreign diplomats and leaders, be they adversaries or otherwise. However, Trump plowed on, and tweeted the following:So, let me get this straight. Trump s people and let s face, it likely Trump himself wants a decade- plus old photo of Chuck Schumer with Vladimir Putin investigated, but wants the investigation into his people s dealings with Russian operatives during a presidential campaign that everyone knows was compromised by Russia dropped? That s rich.Don t fall for it, folks. This is nothing but a ridiculous distraction. Where there s smoke, there s fire. There s no smoke with Schumer but there sure as hell is plenty of smoke with Trump and Co. Let s keep our eye on the ball here, and root these treasonous squatters out of our White House.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 0 |
10,155 | newyork le lâcher de confettis prévu à times square remplacé par un lâcher de mouchoirs en papier le gorafi | vermont fights the opioid epidemic by limiting prescribed painkillers
thursday october by daniel barker tags prescriptions opioids vermont naturalnews vermont gov peter shumlin is planning to combat his states opioid problem by limiting the number of painkillers that can be prescribedthe governors proposal is part of his strategy to address what has become a severe crisis in vermont over the past few yearsin a statement shumlin saidvermont and the rest of america will not get a handle on the opiate and heroin addiction crisis until we confront headon the source of the problem fdaapproved opiates that are handed out like candyvermont doctors and providers have been on the leading edge of curbing the irrational exuberance with which opiates are handed out these proposed limits will solidify that progress and help vermont continue to lead the nation when it comes to combating this crisis oxycontin lit the match that ignited americas opiate and heroin addiction crisis shumlin has been outspoken regarding the opioid epidemic and believes that the easy availability of drugs like oxycontin and other powerful opioid painkillers is the driving factor behind the problemin this years state of the state address shumlin castigated the fda and big pharma over oxycontin a drug which he said lit the match that ignited americas opiate and heroin addiction crisisjust a few months ago the fda approved oxycontin for kids he said you cant make this stuff up the billion a year opiate industry in america knows no shamethe new guidelines are intended to limit the number of pills that can be prescribed after a minor procedure only nine to pills would be included in the first prescriptionwithout such restrictions the amount of pills prescribed can vary widely according to state health commissioner harry chen this can lead to addiction or the potential for overdose chen said that in enough opioids were prescribed in vermont to give every man woman and child a bottle of oxycodone tabletsthe proposal would also require doctors to discuss the risks of opioid use with patients and gain informed consent before prescribing painkillers doctors will be expected to discuss alternatives with their patients requiring them to consider other treatments before opioids are prescribed rather than as a last resort said chen how big pharma created million opioid addicts waiting for the federal government to effectively tackle the opioid epidemic is a waste of time for decades the fda and dea looked the other way while big pharma quietly began turning a significant portion of the american public into drug addictsaggressive marketing by pharmaceutical companies led to the widespread use of opioids to manage longterm chronic pain as opposed to using opioids only for acute pain or palliative purposespurdue the maker of oxycontin lied to the public saying that the timerelease properties of its drug made it less addictive than other opioids in purdue pleaded guilty to having misled regulators physicians and patients and ended up paying million in fines but the epidemic continuesopioid prescriptions in the us more than doubled between and and there are an estimated million american opioid abusers more than americans die each day from prescription opioids and all the federal government does is drag its feet and make promisesin fact the fda seems to be trying to make opioids even more available to children no lessin the fda approved the limited use of oxycontin for children between the ages of and none of this may seem too surprising when one takes into account the fact that big pharma spent nearly million in lobbying and campaign contributions between and until we can stop the flow of money from opioid sales into the pockets of drugmakers and politicians we should expect the epidemic to continue unabated sources | 0 |
10,156 | American Workers Finally Fighting Back Against Corporations Replacing Them With Cheaper Foreign Labor | THE H-1B VISA PROGRAM IS KILLING JOBS FOR NATIVE AMERICANS! It was just reported in the recent jobs numbers that native-born Americans are losing jobs while immigrant employment is up. Corporations like Disney are bringing in foreign workers with the H-1B visa and having the American employees train the foreign worker for their job. Talk about adding insult to injury! This needs to stop but Washington lobbyists and the Chamber of Commerce really can t help themselves they love that cheap labor. The discrimination against Americans is very real and it s about time the workers fought back!Some U.S. IT workers who have been replaced with H-1B contractors are alleging discrimination and are going to court. They are doing so in increasing numbers.There are at least seven IT workers at Disney who are pursuing, or plan to pursue, federal and state discrimination administrative complaints over their layoffs. Another Disney worker, still employed by the firm, has filed a state administrative discrimination complaint in California. These complaints are a first step to litigation.Separately, there are ongoing court cases alleging discrimination against two of the largest India-based IT services firms, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services. The federal judges in each of cases have given a green light for the plaintiffs to proceed after rejecting dismissal efforts.There may be federal interest in examining this issue. The U.S. Department of Justice s Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices was asked by 10 U.S. senators in April to examine the IT layoffs at Southern California Edison (SCE) and to determine whether SCE or its contractors were engaged in prohibited citizenship status discrimination. What s being challenged, in sum, is the job replacement system created by the H-1B program. U.S. IT workers, as a condition for their severance, are being made to train H-1B visa-holding contractor replacements to take over their jobs.The contractors often work for IT services firms that employ large numbers of H-1B workers. Most of these workers are from India and regional countries. This practice of replacing U.S. workers with foreign workers constitutes national origin discrimination, say its critics.The court case against Tata, whose plaintiffs include a former SCE employee, alleges that some 95% of its employees are South Asian or mostly Indian. Tata has called the allegations baseless.The Disney IT workers were terminated because they were American citizens and all their replacements were foreign-born Indians, said Sara Blackwell, a Florida attorney, who is representing seven of the Disney workers at its parks and resort division. She has set up an organizationto challenge the practice. Other discrimination claims, including age and disability, will be made as well. Those complaints are being filed with the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission, which sees if a settlement is possible prior to any lawsuit.Disney did not respond immediately for comment. We need to protect American workers, said James Otto, a California attorney who is representing a Disney ABC Television Group employee in that state. This complaint is being filed in California under the state s Fair Employment and Housing Act, which Otto said is similar to the federal process, but with more protections.Otto s client still works at Disney and had been targeted for an earlier layoff, but Disney rescinded those layoffs. Nonetheless, the complaints being made include a hostile workforce and national origin discrimination.Read more: Computer World | 0 |
10,157 | U.S.-backed militias seize key oil field in east Syria: SDF | BEIRUT (Reuters) - U.S.-backed militias said they captured Syria s largest oil field on Sunday, pressing their assault against Islamic State in the east of the country. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said they took al-Omar field on the eastern bank of the Euphrates river in the early hours. Our forces managed to liberate the fields without notable damages, said Lilwa al-Abdallah, spokeswoman for the offensive in Deir al-Zor province. The jihadists holed up in buildings in a nearby district, where the SDF was trying to hunt them down, she said. With U.S.-led jets and special forces, the SDF has been battling in Deir al-Zor bordering Iraq. The alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias has focused on territory east of the river, which bisects the oil-rich province. The Syrian army, with Russian air power and Iran-backed militias, has been waging its own separate offensive against Islamic State, mostly to the west of the river. The U.S.-led coalition and the Russian military have been holding deconfliction meetings - to prevent clashes between planes and troops - though the two offensives have sometimes come into conflict. Islamic State has lost vast territory across Syria, and has now come under attack in its last footholds in a strip of the Euphrates valley and the desert in Deir al-Zor. The SDF declared victory over the jihadists in their former headquarters in Raqqa city this week. SDF fighters would now move to the frontlines in Deir al-Zor, speeding up the battle in eastern Syria. Last month, the Kurdish-led militias captured a major natural gas field upstream of Sunday s advance. Al-Omar oil field lies some 10 km (6.21 miles) north of the town of al-Mayadin, which government troops and their allies took earlier this month. The town had turned into a major base for Islamic State militants after the U.S.-backed offensive drove them out of Raqqa. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Islamic State fighters who had withdrawn from the oil field mounted a counter-attack overnight against government forces. The militants made some gains around al-Mayadin, the Britain-based monitor said. But a Syrian military source denied this, saying there was no significant attack and fighting raged on at the same pace. Any attack by the Islamic State militants there was a desperate attempt , the source said. The Syrian Arab Army is attacking, hitting Daesh positions...and advancing, the source said, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State. | 1 |
10,158 | Amazon Facing Mounting Pressure To Stop Funding Hate By Advertising On Breitbart (DETAILS) | A few years ago, very few people even knew what Breitbart.com was. It was a fringe website that only white supremacists and other bigots frequented, and the people who posted anonymously there almost certainly didn t voice their views publicly. All of that changed in 2015 when Donald Trump began running for president.Trump s campaign brought white supremacy mainstream, as he regularly retweeted neo-Nazis, refused to immediately disavow former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, and readily embraced the white supremacist alt-right. Breitbart itself went completely mainstream when Stephen K. Bannon, who ran the place, left its stewardship to become Trump s campaign CEO.Now that Breitbart and its toxic brand of hate is literally steps from the Oval Office, people who are opposed to its hateful ideology are putting pressure on major retailers to pull their advertising dollars from the right-wing hate site. The latest to receive such pressure is online retail giant Amazon.According to The Hill, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was asked by more than 500 of his employees via email to stop funding hate by advertising on Breitbart. In another exchange during a meeting, another high-ranking Amazon official, Jeff Blackburn, was asked point blank by an employee to kill the Breitbart advertising because the site regularly publishes hateful and bigoted content. One employee said the following of her experiences since people now know what Breitbart is: When people find out I work at Amazon, the first question they ask is - How can you justify working for Amazon when they advertise on a hate site?' Now, Amazon is being heckled from outside its own ranks as well.More than 500,000 signatures have been accumulated on a petition that demands Amazon stop investing in hate via its Breitbart advertising.Perhaps the most effective effort will come from the social media activist group Sleeping Giant, which has successfully gotten more than 1,800 companies to cease and desist with the Breitbart advertising. Major companies that caved to the pressure include BMV, Nordstrom (the company that infamously yanked Ivanka s clothing line), and Kellogg.Keep the pressure on, folks. Boycotts and bad headlines work. Personally, I ll be using jet.com until Amazon gets its act together.Featured image via screen capture from Talk Android | 0 |
10,159 | Ivanka Won’t Defend Trump’s “Rigged” Election Claims In AWKWARD Pre-debate Interview (VIDEO) | Things started to fall apart faster than ever just hours before Donald Trump would face off against Hillary Clinton in the final presidential debate.As everyone geared up and prepared for one of the most monumental moments of this election cycle, Ivanka Trump was stuck trying to defend her father s ridiculous whiney complaints at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit this afternoon. While the event was certainly not focused on Trump, he would undoubtedly come up in conversation, as America has never had a candidate that hates and disrespects women to the degree that Trump has.However, it seems that even Ivanka may be fed up with defending her father s outrageous acts and comments. When Ivanka was questioned about her father s insistence that this election has been rigged against him, Ivanka refused to back up his claims and instead tried to pivot the conversation away from The Donald s voter fraud conspiracy. Instead, Trump s favorite (and most lusted after) daughter avoided the question and said: I will tell you that the media has been vicious. Ivanka then went into a cringe-worthy rant about how the media s reports weren t fair and fact-checked and that Trump s campaign has been held to a different level than what is normally allowed (did she mean a much lower level?).As her embarrassing response dragged on, Ivanka also tried to insist that somehow her father s campaign hasn t permanently ruined the Trump brand, which is pretty preposterous. While Trump may have attracted racists, misogynists and white power advocates, the majority of America is appalled by Trump and his views and this will undoubtedly be reflected in the future of Trump s businesses. You can watch Ivanka try to get out of answering the Trump question below:[ad3media campaign= 1187 ]Poor Ivanka, always being forced to clean up the messes of Daddy Dearest. Trump has destroyed everything his family built during this election, and we won t be surprised if they also abandon him along with the majority of Americans in November.Featured image via Joe Scarnici / Getty Images | 0 |
10,160 | Brexit 'no deal' is massively less probable after EU agreement, Davis says | LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is less likely to leave the European Union without an agreed exit deal after last week s decision by the European Commission to recommend that talks move on to the next phase, Brexit minister David Davis said on Thursday. I think no deal has become massively less probable after the decisions of last Friday - and that s a good thing because the best deal is a tariff free, non-tariff barrier-free arrangement, Davis told parliament. He also said the government would have to think about how to respond to a decision by parliament to hand lawmakers more say over a final exit deal with the EU. | 1 |
10,161 | NYPD Official Sick Of Trump’s Costs To City, Wants Him To Vacate Trump Tower (DETAILS) | One of the things that happens when one runs for president is the fact that the United States Secret Service and other intelligence and security agencies begin to protect that person and his or her family. If said family is that of the elected President or Vice-President, that protection becomes the expense of the American taxpayers no matter where those people are. In the case of Donald Trump becoming president-elect, that means that New York City is now paying astronomical amounts of money to protect the Trump family. This is especially expensive, seeing as how the Trumps, prior to The Donald running for and eventually winning the presidential election, lived in a golden glass tower in the middle of New York City s Fifth Avenue, which is one of the busiest streets in the world.Well, one person is sick of Trump being able to milk the taxpayers of New York City a city that in no way voted for him for huge amounts of money and even more inconvenience to protect him and his family and their staff in the Fifth Avenue version of a palace in America. New York City Police Department Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence, John Miller, is sick of the Trumps bleeding a city that can t stand the guy and his family and didn t want them in the White House to begin with, and he doesn t want the people of New York City footing the bill on this one. Miller says of the chaos and money Trump is causing the city: We went down to Washington and we described those costs to our congressional delegation from New York. They got it immediately. But Congress has failed to pass a budget again. And to get funding for this, they had a continuing resolution. We asked them to add $35 million to reimburse New York City for [Trump s security]. They came up with a figure of $7 million, which covers a piece of the overtime but not the rest of it. Miller continued on, saying that New York City is obviously disappointed, with the idea of protecting Trump via taxpayer dollars in a city that clearly despises the man. Miller continued: We really won t be able to gauge the long-term costs, John, until we know: Is he coming home every weekend? Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 0 |
10,162 | White House calls Trump's relationship with Republican lawmakers 'fine' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Thursday that there was no need to repair the relationship between President Donald Trump and Republican congressional leaders, despite some recent policy disputes. “I think the relationships are fine,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said during a White House briefing. “Certainly there are going to be some policy differences, but there are also a lot of shared goals and that’s what we’re focused on.” | 1 |
10,163 | WATCH: Doctor Hilariously Tears Apart Donald Trump’s Ridiculous Health Letter | Donald Trump is taking a lot of fire over the letter his alleged physician wrote about his health, but it got hilariously worse on Thursday.Dr. Jennifer Gunter appeared on CNN with Chris Cuomo to discuss the letter, which was written in December by Dr. Harold Bornstein in lieu of an actual medical report.In her own examination of the letter, Gunter questioned Bornstein s terminology and picked apart how he diagnosed the Republican nominee throughout. Being able to unequivocally state that somebody would be the healthiest individual is just not a factual statement, right? Gunter said. You would have had to examine every other president to be able to say that, so that s incorrect. And then Gunter hilariously hammered how Bornstein described Trump s lab test results. Lab results aren t reported as being astonishingly excellent or not we give lab values of positive or negative. Then there s the fact that he says all of Mr. Trump s results are positive which, of course, would be a bad thing. When I tell someone they have gonorrhea, when they have a positive test for gonorrhea, they re not happy about that. That s not astonishingly excellent. Nope, I m guessing they would not be, doc, Cuomo replied. Interesting example you give there. So has Donald Trump ever had gonorrhea? It s definitely a question worth asking since Trump brags about how many women he has slept with. In 1997, Trump told radio host Howard Stern that sleeping around was his personal Vietnam and that he was lucky that he didn t contract any sexually transmitted diseases.Of course, Trump would never admit it if he did contract an STD, so who is to say he didn t lie when he talked to Stern?After all, all of his test results were apparently positive according to his physician. We don t know why Donald Trump lost 15 pounds he says he likes to eat KFC a lot, so that s a concern, Gunter continued. That s really important, you can t put a piece of medical information out there and not follow it up. Gunter then called for Bornstein to explain the inaccuracies stated in the letter. There s a lot of inaccuracies, and I think that the doctor should explain why he wrote it that way. If that s his letter and that s how he writes, what s the big deal about saying, This is me, and gosh, I made a mistake in saying which section that doesn t exist at Lenox Hospital that I thought I was in. So I think there s a lot of a inconsistencies, and you have a document that s this important it should be accurate. I want my health information to be accurate, I want the information I write about someone else to be accurate, and I guess we all wonder, if this part s inaccurate, what else is inaccurate, too? Here s the video via Twitter.Doctor lays out problems with Donald Trump s health letter: There s a lot of inaccuracies https://t.co/hex4QIjQDG https://t.co/690IMjNBom New Day (@NewDay) August 25, 2016As Donald Trump and his minions continue to spread false claims about Hillary Clinton s health, it s only fair to start asking questions about his own. And that means Trump s doctor note is fair game.The fact is, however, that Hillary has released her own detailed medical report written by her doctor while Trump continues to hide his own medical history from the voting public. He hoped that a bullshit letter would be enough, but going after Hillary s health only brought up new questions about his own. Voters deserve to see Trump s real medical history. If he is as healthy as he brags he is then he should have nothing to fear. But just like his taxes, Trump clearly doesn t want his medical history revealed because it could damage him even more than he has done to himself already.Featured image via screen capture | 0 |
10,164 | Republicans propose to delay, pause Obamacare taxes | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Republicans proposed on Tuesday to delay or suspend several taxes under former President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, including a tax on medical devices and the so-called “Cadillac” tax on generous health insurance plans. The move represents a new Republican attempt to roll back provisions of the 2010 Affordable Care Act widely known as Obamacare, after repeated failures by Congress’ majority party this year to repeal the law. Republicans in the House and Senate are also in the final stages of reconciling tax overhaul legislation, including a proposal to scrap Obamacare’s individual mandate, which imposes a tax penalty on Americans who do not obtain health insurance. A spokeswoman for the House Ways and Means Committee said the additional proposed healthcare tax rollbacks would not be part of the broader tax overhaul bill. Republicans could try to merge the healthcare tax proposals with a must-pass government funding bill that is expected to be passed by Dec. 22, when current funding runs out. But to succeed, Republicans in the Senate, who hold a slim majority of seats, would need an assist from Democrats to get past procedural hurdles. In a statement, House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady announced five new Republican-sponsored bills to provide targeted relief from Obamacare taxes, saying he looked forward to “advancing legislation in the weeks ahead.” One proposed bill would retroactively eliminate Obamacare penalties for employers who did not offer health insurance to their employees over the last three years, as well as for next year. The bill would also delay for one year the Cadillac tax on high-cost employer-sponsored insurance, which is otherwise scheduled to go into effect in 2020. Labor unions oppose this tax because their members often receive more generous healthcare plans, and they fear it would increase their costs. Another bill would suspend for five years the tax on medical devices, such as pacemakers and artificial hips. It was first imposed in January 2013 as a funding mechanism for Obamacare, a law that has brought medical coverage to millions of previously uninsured Americans. The medical device tax has powerful opponents in both parties and manufacturers have lobbied heavily against it. Other proposals in the package would suspend a tax on health insurers for two years, and provide two years of relief from a tax on over-the-counter medications. | 1 |
10,165 | Chelsea Handler Has Hilarious Proposition For Donald Trump And His ‘Large Hands’ (TWEET) | If there s one person in this world that clearly gives no f*cks about what people think of them, it s Chelsea Handler. Her no-nonsense humor is not only hilarious, but often times brutally honest. She ll say what most people are thinking, but just don t have the courage to say out loud.During this election cycle she s definitely let her voice be heard regarding the candidates running for president, in particular, the Republicans. Most recently, she s gone after Trump, tweeting:hey @realDonaldTrump. Do you want to come over and watch #chelseadoesracism with me? you can even wear a white hat I'll have made for you. Chelsea Handler (@chelseahandler) March 2, 2016Clearly going after the Republican frontrunner s racism and his band of merry racist morons.Now, Handler is going after Trump and his hands, which every one clearly knows is code for dick size. She goes for the jugular and hilariously tweets out:It stopped raining! Now what? @realDonaldTrump, do you want to come over and swing our dicks around my backyard? Chelsea Handler (@chelseahandler) March 6, 2016As recently as last night during a press conference after his Super Saturday victory, Trump was going on and on and on about how big his hands were. He said: So I just simply held up the hands. These are very strong hands. And they re fairly large, actually. Handler, clearly noticing this coded language and how pathetic it is for someone to try to prove themselves in this manner, called him out perfectly. Also, just as an FYI to Trump, if you re trying so desperately to prove your hand size and manhood, it likely means you re overcompensating for something.Oh, and guess what? Dick size has nothing to do with running a country. In fact, you don t even need one.Featured image: Twitter/flickr | 0 |
10,166 | A Trump loss would 'upset the verdict of history': Allan Lichtman | (Corrects this Oct. 5 story’s headline to conform with quote from professor that a Trump defeat would upset the verdict of history.) (Reuters) - The forces influencing the U.S. presidential election favor Republican nominee Donald Trump to win the popular vote - but even proven prediction models face “the most difficult election by far to predict accurately,” a political forecaster with a three-decade winning streak said on Wednesday. History Professor Allan Lichtman of American University in Washington has accurately predicted the popular result in presidential elections since Republican President Ronald Reagan defeated Democratic challenger Walter Mondale in 1984. Although the number of ballots cast by voters for each candidate counts, it does not ultimately determine who takes the White House. In a process known as the Electoral College, the candidate who wins a majority of 538 electoral votes is the victor. Each state and the District of Columbia is allocated a certain number of those votes, and the candidates have to amass them state-by-state on Election Day. While Lichtman’s “Keys to the White House” analysis predicts a popular victory by Trump, some other models, such as FiveThirtyEight’s and The New York Times’, have given Democratic rival Hillary Clinton a large probability of victory. Lichtman joined Reuters Global Markets Forum to discuss his take on Campaign 2016. What follows are excerpts from that conversation. Question: Why is Trump your favorite to win? Answer: With respect to my prediction, my “Keys” system is based on 13 true/false questions where an answer of “true” favors re-election of the White House party - the Democrats. They have exactly six “false” keys against them, just enough to predict their defeat. However, I also noted that Donald Trump is such a dangerously precedent-breaking candidate that he could upset the verdict of history and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. The two candidates have been repeatedly fact-checked by independent sources, and his lies vastly outnumber hers. Q: How big is the immigration issue in deciding the election? A: I think immigration is a very important issue. America is a nation of immigrants and immigrants have been demeaned for more than two centuries, the French, the Irish, the Jews, the Asians, the Mexicans, and now the Muslims. The two candidates have fundamentally different approaches to dealing with the issue. Q: What is your expectation for the next two debates? A: Trump has got to convince voters that he has the temperament, knowledge, and background to be a dependable and effective leader. He can try to do that without losing his base, which will never abandon him. The first debate was definitely a lost opportunity (for Trump), which may be hard to regain for him. Obama lost the first debate (against Mitt Romney) in 2012, but voters still did not have as many doubts about him as they do about Trump. In terms of temperament, he could take a lesson from Pence, but Trump has a great deal of difficulty preparing for a debate or keeping himself under control. | 1 |
10,167 | Ellen DeGeneres Wasn’t Being Allowed Into The White House To Receive Her Medal Of Freedom (TWEET) | Tuesday at the White House, several people are set to receive the prestigious Medal of Freedom from President Obama. Those who will receive them include Tom Hanks, Michael Jordan and Ellen DeGeneres, among others.According to USA Today: For the last time in office, President Obama will bestow the nation s highest civilian honor on 21 individuals from a varying list of categories from science to sports to entertainment. There s been a slight snag with Ellen DeGeneres entry to the White House, however. The television host and entertainer extraordinaire seemed to have forgotten her ID, and security at the White House won t let her in.But instead of get freaked out over it, because it likely gets solved in a timely manner, DeGeneres did what she always does, make a joke out of it. So she tweeted this: They haven t let me in to the White House yet because I forgot my ID. #NotJoking #PresidentialMedalOfFreedom They haven't let me in to the White House yet because I forgot my ID. #NotJoking#PresidentialMedalOfFreedom pic.twitter.com/sHocwqChKV Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) November 22, 2016Surely, by the time this article even gets published DeGeneres will have been allowed into the White House considering she is one of the individuals being honored. However, it doesn t make the whole situation any less funny, because even Ellen, as recognizable as she is, was told she couldn t enter without proper identification.So, kudos to White House security for playing it safe no matter what, and congratulations to Ellen on her much deserved award.FeaturedPhoto by Kevin Winter/Getty Images | 0 |
10,168 | Trump: I Don’t Meet With The Press Because They Mangle My ‘Beautiful Flowing Sentences’ | Donald Trump once bragged that he had the best words but researchers found that his speeches were at an average of about a 7th-grade reading level. Trump generally scored the lowest of all of his rivals. But, Trump being Trump, he s doing it again and bragging about his beautiful flowing sentences. This week, Trump canceled a much-anticipated press conference on his private business dealings, saying he was too busy nominating Cabinet members, but he was seen meeting with Kanye West. Trump promised to address his conflicts of interest but we suppose meeting with a rapper is more of a priority for the president-elect. Trump has not held a press conference since July 27th even though he blasted Hillary Clinton for not meeting with the press during the campaign.Vox reports that Trump now has a different excuse for not meeting with the press for interviews:The press mangles his beautiful sentences, and he has had enough of it, Trump told a crowd in West Allis, Wisconsin, at one of his Victory Tour rallies.Trump literally said that. For the last month I decided not to do interviews, because they give interviews and they chop up your sentences and cut them short, he said. You will have this beautiful flowing sentence where the back of the sentence reverts to the front and they cut the back of the sentence off, and I say I never said that. So, I said, you know what, I am not going to deal with them. They are very dishonest people, I said. Vox had linguists weigh in on Trump s speeches. His speeches are full of non sequiturs, says Kristin Kobes Du Mez, a Calvin College historian who has done a comparative study of Trump and Clinton s speaking styles. It s a completely different style from nearly any other politician you normally see on a big stage.What s even more peculiar about his remark is that after each incendiary statement he made during his campaign, it was as if his defenders felt the need to step in to say what he really meant. In March, the New York Post said that Trump speaks at a fourth-grade level and suggested he might do that intentionally. We wonder what speaking level Trump is in Russian.Photo by Scott Olson via Getty. | 0 |
10,169 | Trump hails 'great' cooperation with South Korea, vows to address trade | CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump praised cooperation with South Korea during a visit to a U.S. base there on Tuesday and said he planned to address trade issues in discussions with President Moon Jae-in in Seoul. There is great cooperation, he said. We have a terrific meeting scheduled on trade in a little while with President Moon and his representatives. And hopefully that will start working out and working out so that we create a lot of jobs in the United States which is one of the reasons that I m here. Moon met briefly with Trump before he toured the sprawling U.S. military base Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, which lies about 100 km (60 miles) from the border with reclusive North Korea. | 1 |
10,170 | Trump Just Proved He Has The Foreign Diplomacy Skills Of A Whiny Child | Donald Trump has so many feuds going on at the moment it can be hard to keep track of them all. One of the most potentially damaging feuds, though, is with the United Kingdom s Prime Minister David Cameron. Now, that feud continues with Trump s latest comments directed towards Cameron.Cameron has made his opinion of the guaranteed Republican presidential nomination very clear. Back in December, Cameron publicly stated that he thinks Trump s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States is stupid, divisive and wrong. Cameron s statement couldn t be more accurate, as Trump s proposal goes against the very basic principles of the United States and would be logistically impossible to enforce.During an interview with Piers Morgan, Trump spoke out against Cameron s comments, offering a sad attempt at an olive branch towards Cameron, where he insisted that he is not stupid and is a unifier. It looks like we re not going to have a very good relationship. Who knows! I hope to have a good relationship with him but it sounds like he s not willing to address the problem either, Trump said in the interview, according to the Jerusalem Post. Well, number one I m not stupid, Okay. I can tell you that, right now just the opposite. Number two, in terms of divisive: I don t think I m a divisive person. I m a unifier, unlike our president now, I m a unifier, he Trump concluded.As bizarre as it is to hear a grown man insist to another that he is in fact not stupid, Cameron never actually called Trump himself stupid. He called his policy stupid because it is. It s also nothing more than an incredibly xenophobic, racist, and ridiculous bit of fear mongering. It s one of the first policy proposals that Trump introduced. It sounded the alarm bells that Trump is more than just a buffoon looking for attention, it showed the world that he could actually be a very dangerous threat to the United States and the world if given the opportunity to seize actual political power.Featured image from (Photo by Isaac Brekken/Getty Images) | 0 |
10,171 | North Carolina’s Governor Went On TV To Defend His Anti-LGBT Bill – And Got Royally Owned (VIDEO) | North Carolina s Republican Governor allowed his own sexual hangups to influence his state and it has cost tens of millions of dollars (and counting) in lost business, a PR nightmare, and a justifiably outraged population who think fixing a problem that doesn t exist is a massive waste of time. In short, he tanked his state and has nothing but headaches to show for it.Rather than, say, fix the screw ups by reversing the anti-LGBT bill that he signed into law and which allows North Carolina businesses to legally discriminate against transgender people, he has instead doubled down and focused on changing the narrative. It s not going well.On Sunday, Governor Pat McCrory desperately tried to repair his reputation by appearing on Meet the Press. Instead, he blundered into a series of cringeworthy self owns that make one wonder how he ever got elected in the first place. In almost slapstick fashion, McCrory managed to step on just about every rake in the yard as he stumbled from weak talking point to weak talking point.Putting on his tough guy voice, McCrory told host Chuck Todd that he wouldn t be bullied by the boycotts, the loss of business, the national condemnation, or his own citizens desires. He also said he would stand against the Human Rights Campaign (which he misidentified as the Human Relations Commission ) because if there is anything that will help prove you re not a monster, it s proudly attacking an organization that fights for human rights.In an awkward exchange, McCrory said his critics were trying to silence him by not holding a dialogue on the issue, which prompted Todd to point out that Republicans had repeatedly refused to debate the discriminatory bill before forcing it through the state legislature and hurriedly signing it into law.McCrory also acknowledged that he didn t meet with a single trans person before signing the bill, but that he has met a few at some point in his life. (He also claimed a guy at an all-you-can-eat buffet hugged him.) The fact that he didn t meet with the people who would be most affected by his legalized discrimination speaks volumes. Notably, South Dakota s governor had a similar bill on his desk around the same time. He actually spoke with the trans community and ultimately decided to veto it. It s almost as if talking to the potential victims can impact the decision. Go figure.However, the best blunder came near the end: When finally pressed into a corner over the fact that North Carolina has become one of the least gay friendly states in the country under his eye, McCrory did the only sensible thing he blamed Batman. This is basically a restroom privacy issue, versus equality. And these things need to be discussed, not threatened by Hollywood or anyone. You know, Hollywood, with all due respects to the Hollywood, the new Batman and Robin movie is playing in China, which has anti-gay, terrible, terrible human rights violations. The new Batman and Robin movie! The argument is complete and utter nonsense. It s safe to say that even his supporters were probably watching this interview with a mixture of bafflement and terror. When the greatest advocate for your hate bill is reduced to claiming Batman playing in Chinese theaters justifies his own intolerance, you might as well just hang a sign around your neck that says We lost. Watch Pat McCrory s very bad day below:Featured image via NBC News screengrab | 0 |
10,172 | GOP’s Stunning Reactions To Trump’s Remarks On Orlando Show That His Election Chances Are Dead | As the GOP presidential nominee, Republicans have, as of late, been grudgingly getting behind Donald Trump. Following the massacre in Orlando, though, it seems that Senate Republicans can t stomach the thought of even mentioning Trump s name anymore. On Capitol Hill, the mood is one of depression, fatigue, and giving up and of simmering anger.Instead of being classy and offering condolences, or even just saying he was saddened at the loss of so many lives, Trump gloated over being right about radical Islam, and said we need toughness and vigilance. Then he expanded his ban all Muslims policy proposal to include people from any country with any history of terrorism, and said he d accomplish that through executive order.Can we say despotic? He also blamed Obama for the attack by calling him weak, and insinuating he might even be helping the terrorists.That might be what his drone-like fans want to hear, but putting the blame on Obama was what sent Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) over the edge on Trump. He told Politico: I m not going to be commenting on presidential candidates today. That s it. That s all. He s spent a lot of time explaining what Trump needs to do differently, and how he needs to tone it down, and it s fallen on deaf ears. So, at least for a day, McConnell is done.Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX), the number two Republican in the Senate, also brushed off any discussion of Trump except he s so sick of the guy that he went several steps further than McConnell. He doesn t plan on talking about Trump at all for the next five months. He ended his talk with Politico by saying: Wish me luck. He s going to need it.Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), whose name has been bandied about as a possible VP pick for Trump, is upset about what Trump said during a foreign policy speech following Orlando. Politico says Corker is normally very talkative, but he would only say: I don t know that I really have a lot to say. Apparently he said that twice, but he eventually spoke a little bit about King Trump s speech: It wasn t the type (of address) that one would expect a person who is wanting to lead the greatest nation in the world to make. Fifty people have perished, and [53] more have been harmed. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Richard Burr (R-NC) had nothing to say about Trump at all, according to Politico, except for a hurried comment from Burr about going to read Trump s speech. He then disappeared into an elevator.Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) also slammed Trump s remarks, saying: I think his comments are inappropriate when the nation is in mourning over the worst terrorism attack that we ve had since 9/11. She s not even sure she ll be able to make herself vote for Trump, according to Politico.Trump s more outspoken critics on Capitol Hill, such as Senators Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), continued to be outspoken as they slammed Trump s reaction to Orlando. But it was Flake s comments that hint at the strong possibility that Trump just sounded the death knell for his own campaign: He s won 13 million votes total so far; he s got to get 65 million or so to win the general election, which includes a lot of independents and Republicans that don t feel as he does. He can t win the general election talking the way he is. The latest Bloomberg poll shows Hillary Clinton leading Trump nationally by 12 points. Bloomberg says that Orlando has had little effect on the 2016 campaign, but that s likely to change as Trump continues to try and talk tough and falls flat on face with those who are reluctant about supporting him.Senate Republicans have been hoping for months that he would stop being the offensive, bombastic candidate that embodies everything shameful about America s conservative wing. But he s a particular problem for the Senate, because he could end up being the reason Republicans lose both the White House and the Senate in November.Featured image by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 0 |
10,173 | JUST IN: BADASS GENERAL JOHN KELLY Shoved Chinese Security Official’s Hand Off US Military Aide Carrying Nuclear Football During Trump Meeting In Beijing | Just one more reminder of why President Trump chose the no-nonsense General John Kelly to be his chief of staff On Thursday, Nov. 9, when President Trump and his team visited Beijing s Great Hall of the People, Chief of Staff John Kelly and a U.S. Secret Service agent skirmished with Chinese security officials over the nuclear football.I ve spoken to five sources familiar with the events. Here s what happened, as they describe it:The whole scuffle was over in a flash, and the U.S. officials told about the incident were asked to keep quiet about it. Trump s team followed the normal security procedure to brief the Chinese before their visit to Beijing, according to a person familiar with the trip but somebody at the Chinese end either didn t get the memo or decided to mess with the Americans anyway.I m told that at no point did the Chinese have the nuclear football in their possession or even touch the briefcase. I m also told the head of the Chinese security detail apologized to the Americans afterward for the misunderstanding. Axios | 0 |
10,174 | Trump administration drafts plan to raise asylum bar, speed deportations | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Department of Homeland Security has prepared new guidance for immigration agents aimed at speeding up deportations by denying asylum claims earlier in the process. The new guidelines, contained in a draft memo dated February 17 but not yet sent to field offices, directs agents to only pass applicants who have a good chance of ultimately getting asylum, but does not give specific criteria for establishing credible fear of persecution if sent home. The guidance instructs asylum officers to "elicit all relevant information" in determining whether an applicant has "credible fear" of persecution if returned home, the first obstacle faced by migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border requesting asylum. (Graphic: tmsnrt.rs/2m4aPAs) Three sources familiar with the drafting of the guidance said the goal of the new instructions is to raise the bar on initial screening in order to ease strain on the courts and reduce the number of immigrants allowed to stay in the United States, often for years, while they await a hearing. The administration’s plan is to leave wide discretion to asylum officers by allowing them to determine which applications have a “significant possibility” of being approved by an immigration court, the sources said. The guidance was first reported and posted on the internet by McClatchy news organization. In 2015, just 18 percent of asylum applicants whose cases were ruled on by immigration judges were granted asylum, according to the Justice Department. Applicants from countries with a high rate of political persecution have a higher chance of winning their asylum cases. A tougher approach to asylum seekers would be an element of President Donald Trump’s promise to crack down on immigration and tighten border security, a cornerstone of his election campaign and a top priority of his first month in office. The guidelines are contained in two draft memos signed by Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and currently under review by the White House, according to two people familiar with them. The memos also outlined plans for greatly expanding the categories of people that immigration agents target for deportation, and gives them wide discretion in deciding who to deport. Previously, recent arrivals and convicted criminals were the prime targets. The new plan would include migrants who have been charged but not convicted of crimes, and would also apply to illegal immigrants who have been in the country for many years. The memos also call for quickly hiring 10,000 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as well as 5,000 more border patrol agents. The DHS declined to comment for this story, referring questions to the White House, which did not respond to a request for comment. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, an applicant must generally demonstrate “a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” Immigration lawyers say any applicants who appear to meet that criteria in their initial interviews should be allowed to make their cases in court. They oppose encouraging asylum officers to take a stricter stance on questioning claims and rejecting applications. Interviews to assess credible fear are conducted almost immediately after an asylum request is made, often at the border or in detention facilities by immigration agents or asylum officers, and most applicants easily clear that hurdle. Between July and September of 2016, U.S. asylum officers accepted nearly 88 percent of the claims of credible fear, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data. Asylum seekers who fail the credible fear test can be quickly deported unless they file an appeal. Currently, those who pass the test are eventually released and allowed to remain in the United States awaiting hearings, which are often scheduled years into the future because of a backlog of more than 500,000 cases in immigration courts. Between October 2015 and April 2016, nearly 50,000 migrants claimed credible fear, 78 percent of whom were from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala or Mexico, according to statistics from USCIS. The number of migrants from those three countries who passed credible fear and went to court to make their case for asylum rose sharply between 2011 and 2015, from 13,970 claims to 34,125, according to data from the Justice Department. Former border patrol chief Mike Fisher credits that trend to advice from immigration lawyers who know “asylum officers are going to err on the side of caution and refer most cases to a judge.” The new guidance on asylum seekers is for border personnel implementing Trump’s Jan. 25 executive order on tightening U.S. border security. Among other measures, the president’s directive calls for expediting eligibility claims of those attempting to stay in the United States and promptly deporting those whose claims are rejected. Some immigration officers familiar with the draft guidance say they are concerned that a rapid increase in deportations of asylum seekers could strain overcrowded detention facilities and create transportation problems. Deportations take time and coordination, even when immigrants are quickly targeted for expulsion. U.S. officials must get approval from a deportee’s home country before repatriation can take place, and transportation can be complicated and expensive. Immigrants from non-contiguous countries are flown home by plane, while Mexicans are often bused across the border. Homeland Security personnel who worked on the guidance say they hope to expand detention space by at least 8,000 beds. The money to pay for that would require congressional sign-off. The extra beds, they say, would further the president’s goal, expressed in his executive order on border security, of ending the practice known as “catch and release” in which migrants, including asylum seekers, are freed pending a court hearing. The new guidance calls for expanding detention, but acknowledges that ending the practice “may not be immediately possible.” A congressional aide familiar with the administration’s plans said DHS is considering expanding its contracts with private prison companies like GEO Group (GEO.N) and CoreCivic (CXW.N), which currently hold most immigrant detainees. Immigrants rights advocates say they fear that raising the bar on the credible fear test could screen out migrants with a rightful claim to asylum, because asylum officers may dismiss cases that could make it through court if the asylum seeker were given legal counsel, said Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center. Asylum applicants have the right to appeal denials of credible fear claims and may request to see a judge to assert their claim to be in the United States for other reasons, such as family ties. For that reason, raising the bar on credible fear might not deter asylum seekers as much as the Trump administration hopes, said former border patrol head Fisher. | 1 |
10,175 | Turkey's defense industry says planning 22 projects worth $5 billion | ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey is planning 22 new defense projects worth a total of $5 billion and spanning the development of air defense missile systems, ammunition and arms systems, the defense industry executive board said on Thursday. It also said the board had discussed the modernization and mass production of tanks, combat and general purpose helicopters, as well as the production of new and additional unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) drones. | 1 |
10,176 | Obama administration officials warn lawmakers over Iran sanctions | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Obama administration officials told U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday they would oppose new sanctions on Iran if they interfere with last year’s international nuclear agreement, laying the groundwork for a potential fight over any legislation. “If legislation were to undermine the deal, by taking off the table commitments that we had put on the table, that would be a problem,” Adam Szubin, the acting Treasury Department undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, told a House of Representatives hearing. “Certainly our allies around the world would see us taking back major chunks of the sanctions relief as bad faith,” Szubin told a Senate Banking Committee hearing later on Wednesday. House and Senate members are drafting new sanctions measures, accusing Iran of supporting terrorism, human rights abuses and violating its international commitments by testing ballistic missiles. They want to renew the Iran Sanctions Act, a broad U.S. law imposing sanctions over Iran’s nuclear and missile programs that expires at the end of 2016. Administration officials have urged Congress not to rush to renew the ISA. Lawmakers argue that new sanctions will help send a message that Washington will take a hard line, despite the nuclear pact. Every Republican in Congress and several of President Barack Obama’s fellow Democrats opposed the agreement. “I feel it’s not so terrible to have Congress come up with new sanctions if we feel Iran is violating its agreements,” said Representative Eliot Engel, top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who opposed the nuclear pact. Szubin and Stephen Mull, the State Department’s lead coordinator for implementing the nuclear deal, told lawmakers that, so far, the deal announced in July 2015 was being fully implemented. They said the administration was tightly tracking Iran’s compliance. “We believe that we and our allies in the region are considerably safer,” Mull said. Members of Congress recently accused the administration of allowing sanctions workarounds that might provide Iran direct or indirect access to the U.S. financial system. Szubin reiterated the administration’s assurances that it had no such plans. Despite the easing of nuclear sanctions under the international agreement, Tehran’s hopes of rapidly ending its economic isolation have been complicated by companies’ concerns that doing business with Iran might violate non-nuclear sanctions that remain in place. | 1 |
10,177 | U.S. officials to hold Friday briefing on 'enhanced global security' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Officials from the Department of Homeland Security, White House, State Department and Justice Department will hold a briefing on Friday afternoon to discuss “enhanced global security measures,” the DHS said in a statement. Information from the briefing will be embargoed until 5 p.m. (2100 GMT), it said. The announcement of the briefing follows media reports that President Donald Trump is planning to replace his soon-to-expire travel ban on people from six Muslim-majority countries with a new ban tailored on a country-by-country basis and affecting slightly more nations. | 1 |
10,178 | WHY DIDN’T THE FBI Look At Huma Abedin’s Shared Computer The First Time Around? | Why didn t the FBI look at Huma s shared computer the first time around? Whether the FBI demanded Clinton s aides turn over personal devices and any they shared with their partners when it launched the investigation in July 2015 is not clear. Detectives are investigating emails on a computer shared by Clinton s former Chief of Staff, Huma Abedin, and her husband Anthony Weiner.In a deposition in June, Abedin said she conducted the majority of her work at her computer and Blackberry. She said she turned over two laptops, a Blackberry and some files she found in her apartment to her attorneys when requested as part of a lawsuit by the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch.The FBI later said in its 47-page report that Abedin and others used their private server email accounts when traveling. It previously mentioned the use of cell phones, Blackberrys and iPads but there is no mention of personal computers or laptops. Some of the devices, including 13 phones, were never turned over because the FBI could not locate them.John Podesta, Clinton s campaign chairman, said on Saturday Abedin had the campaign s full support. Huma completely and voluntarily complied with and cooperated with the investigation. She sat for a hours long interview. She turned over and went through with her lawyers all of the emails that might possibly be relevant and turned them over to the state department and investigators. There s absolutely nothing she s done that we think calls into question anything that she s done. The reopening of the investigation was prompted by detectives probing Anthony Weiner s explicit exchanges with a 15-year-old girl, The New York Times reported. They seized the laptop for the purposes of their separate investigation. What will be determined is if classified information obtained by Abedin could have been accessed on the computer. Disclosing classified information to anyone who does not have a high enough security clearance to view it is a crime punishable by up to 10 years in jail.JOHN PODESTA MIGHT WANT TO READ THIS: Abedin s I did not recall claim was believed by Comey and he didn t look furtherSkeptical agents showed Abedin three separate email exchanges she had with an IT staffer regarding the operation of the private Clinton server during Clinton s tenure at State. Abedin claimed she did not recall the email exchanges.So if you believe Abedin, she didn t know the private clintonemail.com server that hosted her huma@clintonemail.com account even existed until she heard about it in the news. Comey was a believer; he didn t even bother to call her back for further questioning. Case closed.But Abedin s role in this caper begs for fresh scrutiny. Making false statements to a federal agent is a felony. So is mishandling classified information.By forwarding classified emails to her personal email account and printing them out at home, Abedin appears to have violated a Classified Information NonDisclosure Agreement she signed at the State Department on Jan. 30, 2009, in which she agreed to keep all classified material under the control of the US government.Read more: Daily MailRead more:: NYP | 0 |
10,179 | UK Supreme Court hears attempt to change Northern Ireland abortion law | LONDON (Reuters) - An attempt to change the law in Northern Ireland to allow abortions in cases of rape, incest or serious malformation of the fetus started in the UK Supreme Court on Tuesday with harrowing accounts of women s experiences. A socially conservative province where the Catholic and Protestant faiths exert strong influence, Northern Ireland allows abortion only when a mother s life is in danger. The penalty for undergoing or performing an unlawful abortion is life imprisonment. As a result, women facing tragic circumstances such as a pregnancy resulting from rape or a diagnosis of fatal fetal abnormality, meaning that a baby will not survive outside the womb, have been forced to carry their pregnancies to term. The impact of the criminal law in Northern Ireland does amount to inhuman and degrading treatment by the state, said Nathalie Lieven, lead counsel for the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission which is spearheading the legal action. The commission, an independent body, launched legal action against Northern Ireland s government in 2014, arguing that the law violates the human rights of women and girls. The case has been working its way through the courts ever since. A panel of seven Supreme Court judges in London will hear arguments for and against the proposed changes during a three-day hearing. They will give their judgment at a later date. Lieven began by giving the judges an overview of detailed evidence provided by several women and girls. One of them, Ashleigh Topley, was told when she was four-and-a-half months pregnant in 2013 that her baby s limbs were not growing and she was going to die. Topley was told there was nothing to be done and she had to carry on with the pregnancy until her baby died inside the womb, or until she went into labor which would cause the baby to die. Topley had to endure 15 weeks of anguish as the pregnancy progressed. She has described how people would ask her if it was her first child, if she wanted a boy or a girl, and other well-meaning questions which exacerbated her suffering. In the end, Topley went into labor at 35 weeks and the baby girl s heart stopped. Other cases described to the judges included that of a girl under 13 years old who was pregnant as a result of sexual abuse by a relative. After police and social services got involved, the distraught girl had to be taken outside of Northern Ireland for the first time in her life to have an abortion. Northern Ireland s elected assembly voted against changing abortion laws in February 2016. The law is far less restrictive in the rest of the United Kingdom, and hundreds of Northern Irish women travel to England every year to have unwanted pregnancies terminated. As well as the parties in the case, the court will hear from organizations that support changing the law, such as Humanists UK, Amnesty International and a United Nations working group on discrimination against women. It will also hear from groups who oppose any reform, such as Catholic bishops from the province and the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, which describes the legal action as a crusade against disabled babies . (This version of the story includes updates with details from the hearing) | 1 |
10,180 | STARBUCKS EMPLOYEE Calls Police On Man Wanting Coffee Name To Be “Trump”…#TrumpCup [Video] | Starbucks SJWs call cops on customer for requesting Trump name on his coffee cup. pic.twitter.com/WlBoXgZEZF Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) November 18, 2016Via: Paul Joseph Watson | 0 |
10,181 | Syrian president says Jerusalem to be Palestinian capital | BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Palestinian cause will stay alive among Arabs until the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, the Syrian president s office said on Wednesday in response to U.S. President Donald Trump s Jerusalem decision. The future of Jerusalem is not determined by a state or a president but is determined by its history and by the will and determination in the Palestinian cause, President Bashar al-Assad s office said on an official social media feed. | 1 |
10,182 | Senate panel to hold hearing on Yahoo, Equifax breaches | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chairman of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee said on Tuesday he plans to hold a hearing later this month over massive data breaches at Equifax Inc (EFX.N) and Yahoo, which is now owned by Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N). Senator John Thune said he will ask witnesses from the two firms whether “new information has revealed steps they should have taken earlier, and whether there is potentially more bad news to come.” Yahoo disclosed late Tuesday that a 2013 data breach impacted all 3 billion of its accounts, compared with an estimate of more than 1 billion disclosed in December. Equifax said on Monday that a data breach impacted as many as 145.5 million U.S. consumers, 2.5 million more than announced earlier this month. | 1 |
10,183 | U.S. 'strongly opposes' Iraqi Kurdish independence vote: State Department | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States strongly opposes the planned independence referendum by Iraqi Kurds and urges Iraqi Kurdish leaders to engage in negotiations with the Baghdad government instead, the U.S. State Department said on Wednesday. In the most forceful U.S. statement so far opposing the referendum, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said: The United States strongly opposes the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government s referendum on independence, planned for September 25. | 1 |
10,184 | Pence voices U.S. concern to Turkish prime minister about arrests | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Mike Pence expressed deep concern to Turkey s prime minister on Thursday about the arrests of American citizens and local staff of U.S. missions in Turkey, the White House said. The matters raised by Pence are some of the issues that have created tension between the two NATO allies in recent months, along with a dispute over a Turkish cleric living in the United States whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating a failed military coup in Turkey last year. In a White House meeting with Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, Pence voiced deep concern over the arrests of American citizens, Mission Turkey local staff, journalists, and members of civil society under the state of emergency and urged transparency and due process in the resolution of their cases, the White House said in a statement. In May, a translator at the U.S. consulate in the province of Adana in southern Turkey was arrested. More recently, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration worker was detained in Istanbul. Both are accused of links to last year s coup attempt. The U.S. embassy has said the accusations are baseless. Before leaving for the United States, Yildirim had said Turkey s demand for the United States to hand over cleric Fethullah Gulen, who has lived in Pennsylvania since 1999, would be discussed during his visit. U.S. officials have said courts require sufficient evidence to order Gulen s extradition. Another issue to be raised, Yildirim had said, was the fate of some Turkish citizens arrested in the United States - a reference to a wealthy gold trader who was arrested over Iran sanctions evasion last year and an executive at a state-owned bank arrested this year. The White House statement made no mention of any discussions about either subject. It said the two officials expressed hope that their meeting would help to usher in a new chapter in U.S.-Turkey relations and agreed on the need for constructive dialogue, as friends and allies, on bilateral challenges. Pence reaffirmed the enduring strategic partnership between the two countries and stressed the U.S. commitment to stand with Turkey against the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and other terrorist threats. The United States partially resumed issuing visas in Turkey on Monday after getting what it said were assurances about the safety of staff at its missions following a number of detentions. Turkey said it would relax a visa ban of its own. | 1 |
10,185 | Catalan leader accuses Spain of 'unjustified violence' in referendum crackdown | BARCELONA (Reuters) - Catalan regional leader Carles Puigdemont accused Spanish authorities of using unjustified, disproportionate and irresponsible violence in a crackdown on a Catalan independence referendum on Sunday. The batons, rubber bullets and violence used by Spanish police to prevent voting in what Spanish authorities have said was an illegal referendum had shown a dreadful external image of Spain , he told reporters. The unjustified, disproportionate and irresponsible violence of the Spanish state today has not only failed to stop Catalans desire to vote ... but has helped to clarify all the doubts we had to resolve today, he said. | 1 |
10,186 | U.S. appeals to higher court over ruling against Trump's revised travel ban | NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government took the legal battle over President Donald Trump’s travel ban to a higher court on Friday, saying it would appeal against a federal judge’s decision that struck down parts of the ban on the day it was set to go into effect. The Department of Justice said in a court filing it would appeal against a ruling by U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia. On Thursday, Chuang issued an emergency halt to the portion of Trump’s March 6 executive order temporarily banning the entry of travelers from six Muslim-majority countries. He left in place the section of the order that barred the entry of refugees to the United States for four months. Another federal judge in Hawaii struck down both sections of the ban in a broader court ruling that prevented Trump’s order from moving forward. In Washington state, where the ban is also being challenged, U.S. District Court Judge James Robart put a stay on proceedings for as long as the Hawaii court’s nationwide temporary restraining order remained in place, to “conserve resources” and avoid inconsistent and duplicate rulings. The decisions came in response to lawsuits brought by states’ attorneys general in Hawaii and refugee resettlement agencies in Maryland who were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Law Center. Detractors argue the ban discriminated against Muslims in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom. Trump says the measure is necessary for national security to protect the country from terrorist attacks. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told a media briefing the government would “vigorously defend this executive order” and appeal against the “flawed rulings.” The Department of Justice filed a motion late on Friday night seeking clarification of Hawaii’s ruling before appealing to the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The 9th Circuit court last month upheld a decision by Judge Robart that halted an original, more sweeping travel ban signed by the President on Jan. 27 in response to a lawsuit filed by Washington state. The new executive order was reissued with the intention of overcoming the legal concerns. Trump has vowed to take the fight all the way to U.S. Supreme Court. The 4th Circuit is known as a more conservative court compared to the 9th Circuit, said Buzz Frahn, an attorney at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett who has been tracking the litigation nationwide. “The government is probably thinking that the 4th Circuit ... would lend a friendlier ear to its arguments,” he said. Judges have said they were willing to look behind the text of the order, which does not mention Islam, to probe the motivation for enacting the ban, Frahn said. Trump promised during the election campaign to ban Muslims from entering the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently split 4-4 between liberals and conservatives, with Trump’s pick for the high court - appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch - still awaiting confirmation. Hans von Spakovsky, from the Washington D.C.-based Heritage Foundation, said the Department of Justice might want to time their appeals to reach the Supreme Court after Gorsuch is confirmed. He said the court would be likely to hear the case. “They will take it because of its national importance,” Spakovsky said. | 1 |
10,187 | Martin Sheen Has The PERFECT Three Words To Describe Donald Trump | For decades, it seemed, when the nation imagined a president, they imagined Martin Sheen. It s no wonder. He was once cast as John F. Kennedy, he starred in The American President and he spent seven years as the cerebral President Jeb Bartlett in The West Wing.In real life, Sheen has never served in office, but he is a political activist, he s a Clinton supporter and he has strong and brutal opinions about Donald Trump.Sheen was interviewed about Trump in the Hollywood Reporter. When asked about Trump, Sheen said:Oh, Don Trump. He makes me laugh, in that nobody seems to get it yet.That he s an empty headed moron. That he has absolutely nothing to offer us. That he s done his bidding and he has to be responsible for the damage he s already done. Empty Headed Moron is perhaps the best description of Trump ever. It paints him as a man who doesn t deserve to be taken seriously, yet somehow is.The Hollywood Reporter countered that Trump is just a private citizen that he can t have yet done damage.Oh, come on. There s nothing private about this guy. Don Trump has been around for a very long time. He s a very self-centered promoter. I think that says it.He also called the billionaire scary. Asked about Clinton, he said he was a supporter and all the talk of Benghazi and emails doesn t faze him at all:She has some common sense. I m not saying she s mistake-free. Who is? I mean, she s a human being. She s been in public life for 30 years. She s made a few mistakes. Is anybody talking about George Bush and the 30,000 emails he destroyed about the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and all of that nonsense, and how Great Britain came in, and all the other allies knowing full well that it was bogus? So, please, if you want to talk about how much her mistakes have cost us, none in human lives and please don t mention Benghazi. That s a lot of crap. She was not controlling that situation. It was a military situation. And that s run by the Pentagon or the CIA or both. She s under orders.He also called Benghazi terrorism. Plain and simple. Terrorism. Sadly, the interview was done before Trump appeared to summon his supporters to assassinate Clinton. It s not hard to imagine that Sheen would have had even stronger words than moron and dangerous. Featured image via Andrew Burton at Getty Images. | 0 |
10,188 | Pastor Drops MASSIVE Truth Bomb About Liberal Tolerance That Will Have Trump Lovers FUMING | By now, we re all familiar with Trumpkins idiotic attempts to show that liberals are hypocrites by claiming that we scream for tolerance, yet we re intolerant of their own hateful, bigoted views. After all, doesn t tolerance mean accepting every viewpoint there is? These people are desperate to prove that we are just as hypocritical as they are, but their tolerance analogy just flat-out doesn t work. John Pavlovitz, a true Christian pastor from North Carolina (of all places), and someone who regularly calls the right-wing out, explains why.Early on in his post, Pavlovitz throws this out at conservatives who want liberals to tolerate their hate: The commitment to diversity and equality means demanding that everyone gets a seat at the table; that each person s inherent worth is recognized there, that no one is devalued or excluded based on a fixed and fundamental part of their identity: skin color, gender, nation of origin, sexual orientation, religion, etc.This means that we declare every human being equally valuable. It does not mean we treat all opinions and all behavior equally. And then he says this, which should put all the immature conservative Trump lovers who are looking for someone to validate their hate into a massive tizzy: If your opinion directly endangers people based on those essential parts of who they are we ll pushback [sic].If you re [sic] worldview permits you to treat someone as less deserving of civil rights or it discards their basic humanity your worldview is a threat to true diversity.If your evaluation of another makes you more tolerant of their mistreatment or less outraged by hate crimes against them, that s a fundamental problem.Discrimination and violence don t get a seat at the table. They don t get proximity to do damage The contention for the past year has been that all political perspectives are valid, but I won t consent to that and it s a matter of personal safety. No individual groups of white people are explicitly, measurably endangered by a Progressive platform, they receive the same consideration. But I can illustrate the specific ways people of color, immigrants, Muslims, women, and the LGBTQ community are less safe and less represented by the coming Administration, which is already by its conduct, a movement of exclusion. And that s the difference that our narrow-minded, racist, misogynistic right wing does not understand when they cry and whine about tolerance. They don t give a rat s ass about diversity they just want their viewpoints normalized and accepted, no matter how harmful they may be. When the tolerance they want doesn t come, they cry like spoiled toddlers.They re full of hate and they are asshats about it, and what they want should never be allowed to stand: If you believe people of color are simply inferior to white people, you re going to have to work hard to stay at the table.If you claim LGBTQ people to be abominations, you ll have to do better. If you believe Muslims are likely terrorists, you probably won t feel welcome at the table for long.And so no, it isn t at all hypocritical to champion diversity and to confront injustice simultaneously. They are fully collaborative and integrated movements.All people are welcomed at the table but bigotry isn t, so save the allegation that its acceptance is a requirement.Equality demands deceny [sic] toward humanity s diverse gathering and it s what I demand. It s what we all should demand. What they re demanding of us is a pass for their hate and their discrimination. They aren t demanding anything like tolerance they wouldn t know what tolerance was if it bit them in the ass.Read Pavlovitz full opinion here.Featured image by Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images | 0 |
10,189 | Russia's Lavrov, U.S. Tillerson to discuss North Korea in Vienna: RIA | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is expected to discuss the North Korean crisis with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson during the meeting in Vienna this week, RIA news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying. | 1 |
10,190 | Chances of 'no deal' Brexit not rising, says UK's Hammond | LONDON (Reuters) - The chance that Britain leaves the European Union without agreeing a divorce deal has not increased recently and talks have not hit an impasse, British finance minister Philip Hammond said on Monday. Hammond, who last week apologized for calling the EU the enemy , described relations with European countries as constructive. However, he said the EU s strict adherence to a phased negotiating process - which first tackles budget issues and the rights of EU citizens living in Britain - was delaying progress on more substantive trade issues. Last week the EU s chief negotiator said talks were deadlocked, notably over London s refusal to detail what it was offering to pay Brussels to settle outstanding liabilities after its June 2016 vote to leave the bloc. This followed an attempt by May last month to revive the negotiations with a speech in Florence promising Britain would honor its EU commitments. Asked in an interview with U.S. broadcaster CNBC whether the risk of no deal had risen, Hammond said: Personally I don t think so. It is so blindingly obviously in the best interests of both the UK and the European Union 27 that we do reach a deal so we can continue trading together. Prime Minister Theresa May is due to meet European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker over dinner later on Monday to try to refocus the talks on future trade ties. Earlier on Monday JPMorgan said the chance of a no deal Brexit had risen to 25 percent from 15 percent previously, in line with the consensus of a Reuters poll of economists published last month. Hammond was speaking in the United States during a visit to attend an International Monetary Fund meeting and see finance industry representatives. He predicted London would keep its status as a global financial center and said most international banks were planning to keep the vast majority of their London-based staff. EU business is only a fraction of London s total business, and we re very confident that the UK, London, will remain a global financial center, he said. | 1 |
10,191 | TWO RICH WHITE GUYS Who Made A Fortune Selling Ice Cream To Rich People Introduce NEW FLAVOR To Highlight BLACK VOTER SUPPRESSION | Two white guys living in a state where 96% of its residents are white, and who have become extremely wealthy by selling ice cream to the rich, want everyone to know how much they support diversity by marketing over-priced ice cream with diverse labels to more rich people Ben & Jerry s announced Tuesday that proceeds from its newest flavor of ice cream, Empower Mint, will help benefit the North Carolina NAACP s campaign to repeal the state s voter ID law. Ben Cohen, Jerry Greenfield and North Carolina NAACP President Rev. William Barber kicked off a voter registration drive at North Carolina Central University in Durham on Tuesday to help marshal support against a new North Carolina law requiring voters to present a photo ID before they vote.Proceeds from the sale of the new flavor will also go toward the organization s effort to get big money donations from corporations and wealthy elites out of politics. This flavor will benefit the North Carolina NAACP, an organization dedicated to ensuring the political, educational, social and economic equality of rights of all persons and eliminating racial hatred and discrimination, the ice cream company wrote in a statement on its website. It just felt really good to be working with all these people here in North Carolina, who ve been struggling to get back their right to vote for them and other people of color, said Ben Cohen.Campaigning against voter suppression is not something we get to do in Vermont, because they re so white, he added, chuckling. This flavor, Jerry Greenfield said, helps us connect with Ben & Jerry s fans as we work nationally on trying to help reauthorize the voting rights act. Right now we have a government that represents rich white people, Cohen added. That s not what s it s about. We ve got to overturn these laws. Ben & Jerry s Ice Cream was founded in 1978. Cohen and Greenfield sold the company they co-founded to British-Dutch corporation Unilever for $326 million in 2000. Via: Breitbart News | 0 |
10,192 | Trump son, former partner due before House panel this week: source | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s eldest son and a former business associate of the president are due to testify to the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, as it continues its investigation of possible Russian involvement in the 2016 election, sources familiar with the schedule said. Donald Trump Jr. will appear before the committee on Wednesday and Felix Sater, a Russian-American who was a former Trump business associate who claimed deep ties to Moscow, as soon as Thursday, the sources said. Neither session will be public. Donald Trump Jr.’s attorney declined a request for comment on his Wednesday appearance, which was first reported by CNN. An attorney for Sater, Robert Wolf, did not respond to a request for comment. Another source said his session with the panel had been set for Thursday but might be rescheduled. Committee aides declined to comment. It is the Intelligence Committee’s policy not to comment on the schedule for closed meetings. The panel is one of the three main congressional committees, as well as Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller, investigating Russia and the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and the possibility of collusion between Trump associates and Moscow. Separately, Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Monday she had made requests to three more people for information related to the Russia investigation. Feinstein, who has made public similar requests, said she wrote to Rick Dearborn, a deputy White House chief of staff; Maria Butina, a former assistant to Alexander Torshin, a deputy governor of the Russian central bank; and Rick Clay, an advocate for conservative Christian causes. She asked all three for interviews and for documents related to what she described as efforts by Torshin to arrange a meeting between Putin and Trump when he was a presidential candidate. The Russian government has denied any effort to affect the election and Trump has dismissed talk of collusion. A range of Trump associates has been called to testify during the investigation. Last week, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke to the House panel behind closed doors, as did Erik Prince, who founded the military contractor Blackwater and was a supporter of Trump’s campaign. A transcript of Prince’s testimony could be released as soon as Monday. There are no plans to release Sessions’ testimony. Among other people with ties to Trump who are expected to appear in Congress are Jared Kushner, the president’s close adviser and son-in-law, who had testified to the House committee behind closed doors in July. Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House panel, said last week that it would “very likely” be necessary for Kushner to testify again. Led by Trump’s fellow Republicans, congressional committees have also called to testify some aides to former Democratic President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Trump’s 2016 opponent. On Monday, Clinton’s former campaign manager John Podesta testified before the committee, The Hill reported, citing Republican Representative Mike Conaway, the Republican leading the investigation. A Conaway spokeswoman did not response to a request for comment. | 1 |
10,193 | LEFTIST HATE ON STEROIDS: Donald Trump Tombstone Appears In NYC | Suggesting a person should be killed because the Left disagrees with his desire to make America great again is beyond the pale But lets discuss micro aggressions and demands for safe spaces A tombstone for Donald Trump mysteriously appeared in Central Park this weekend, just one week after over a thousand avowed communists, socialists, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)16% fans, and pro-illegal immigration activists took part in an anti-Trump protest in Central Partk.The Gothamist posted a tweet showing the tombstone, which reads Made America Hate Again. Photo: You Can Visit Donald Trump's Tombstone In Central Park https://t.co/jetfxBxUFj pic.twitter.com/JvBKYsMKUI Gothamist (@Gothamist) March 27, 2016 As Breitbart News has reported, while the media and even other Republicans have castigated Trump for violence, in fact the calls for Trump s death have gone unpunished on social media sites like Twitter.The following tweets are just a sample from the last 24 hours:I think I m gonna assassinate Donald Trump (@Inuyashiha) March 27, 2016im going to hire someone on the deep web to assassinate donald trump fat cube head (@IovegIow) March 27, 2016@FaZeBlaziken 10 likes and I will assassinate trump Adam Gomez (@kingprimoLoL) March 27, 2016@patrickfoster Personally, I can t understand why there isn t a Kickstarter to assassinate Trump, yet. Eric Karjaluoto (@karj) March 27, 2016Meanwhile, an Assassinate Donald Trump page has been reposted on Facebook. The page s creator said that they don t personally plan to kill Mr. Trump, but they believe it should be done :Assassinate Donald TrumpMarch 25 at 3:10pm I find it important to say for my own protection that I have no intention or interest in assassinating a presidential cacandidate. Rather, I think it s something that should be done and I think the page needs to exists again, since the Republicans whined it down. Via: Breitbart News | 0 |
10,194 | Democratic voter-intimidation cases falter in three U.S. states | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats fell short in three U.S. states on Monday in their legal battle to impose tighter restrictions on supporters of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump who plan to monitor Election Day voting for signs of fraud. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to reimpose new rules on partisan poll watchers in Ohio after an appeals court struck them down, while U.S. judges in Pennsylvania and North Carolina declined Democrats’ request to impose new rules that Democrats had sought. Voter intimidation is prohibited under U.S. law, but Democrats worry that Trump’s warnings of a “rigged” election in his battle against Democrat Hillary Clinton might inspire supporters to harass minority voters and create Election Day chaos in big cities as they search for signs of vote manipulation. Numerous studies have found that U.S. voter fraud is exceedingly rare. Democrats have asked U.S. courts in six battleground states to impose greater restrictions on partisan poll watchers, arguing that the Trump campaign, state Republican parties and Republican operative Roger Stone are encouraging supporters to intimidate minority voters. Trump’s campaign and Republican parties in the various states say their poll watchers are trained to bring evidence of any problems to the party and not confront voters directly. “This was an attempt to intimidate Republican people engaging in lawful activity,” North Carolina Republican Party executive director Dallas Woodhouse told Reuters. Stone says those working for his planned “exit poll” will be trained to use neutral, non-threatening language. One day before the election, Democrats so far have failed to win any of their legal efforts. A U.S. judge denied the Democrats’ case in Arizona on Friday. Monday’s rulings in North Carolina and Pennsylvania give Democrats little time for appeals, while the Supreme Court’s Monday ruling put to rest the case filed in Ohio. The Supreme Court order, which only covers the Ohio case, included no noted dissents from the eight justices. Liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a brief statement noting that “Ohio law proscribes voter intimidation” and citing the relevant law. U.S. judges in Michigan and Nevada have yet to issue opinions. Democrats have waged a separate legal battle against the Republican National Committee, arguing in court that the RNC should be prevented from supporting the Trump campaign’s poll-watching effort. A U.S. judge in New Jersey denied that motion on Saturday. | 1 |
10,195 | BOMBSHELL Report Just Dropped Showing Gorsuch Is A Fraud | Apparently, original ideas are a liability in the Donald Trump administration. Nearly as many Trumpsters have been accused of plagiarism as weeks he s held in office. Okay, that s a slight exaggeration, but Neil Gorsuch, the man who s about to be rammed into a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court, appears to have plagiarized some of his writing.We should have known when Trump s own wife Melania plagiarized part of her Republican National Convention speech from Michelle Obama.Once in office, Trump picked Monica Crowley to head the National Security Council. You got it, she plagiarized her Ph.D. dissertation and the book she published in 2012.Crowley was forced to drop out of contention, but Betsy DeVos is Trump s education secretary and in a move that would get a child kicked out of school, she plagiarized part of the questionnaire she filled out to get the job. Now, it appears, Trump s pick for the Supreme Court is also guilty of plagiarism.Politico obtained several documents that showed several passages of Gorsuch s 2006 book, The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, were nearly identical to a 1984 article in the Indiana Law Journal. There were also several other incidents.In the most striking example, Gorsuch, in his book, appears to duplicate sentences from an Indiana Law Journal article written by Abigail Lawlis Kuzma without attributing her. Instead, he uses the same sources that Kuzma used: A 1982 Indiana court ruling that was later sealed, a well-known pediatrics textbook, Rudolph s Pediatrics, and a 1983 article in the Bloomington Sunday Herald.Politico reports on documents showing that SCOTUS nominee Neil Gorsuch plagiarized the work of others. Behold: https://t.co/XQnCmd62Ia pic.twitter.com/ooc2TkG2bA Christina Wilkie (@christinawilkie) April 5, 2017There s more. Read the Politico article for all the instances.The White House is calling the accusations false: This false attack has been strongly refuted by highly-regarded academic experts, including those who reviewed, professionally examined, and edited Judge Gorsuch s scholarly writings, and even the author of the main piece cited in the false attack, said White House spokesman Steven Cheung. There is only one explanation for this baseless, last-second smear of Judge Gorsuch: those desperate to justify the unprecedented filibuster of a well-qualified and mainstream nominee to the Supreme Court. Experts disagree with the White House: Each of the individual incidents constitutes a violation of academic ethics. I ve never seen a college plagiarism code that this would not be in violation of, said Rebecca Moore Howard, a Syracuse University professor who has written extensively on the issue.Not that it should make much of a difference. Senate Republicans are determined to get him through, even if it means changing the rules to require a simple majority.Featured image via Justin Sullivan/Getty Images | 0 |
10,196 | Trump intelligence nominee supports probes on Russian interference | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the director of national intelligence pledged on Tuesday to support thorough investigation of any Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election, seeking to reassure lawmakers worried that partisan politics might interfere with a probe. “I think this is something that needs to be investigated and addressed,” former Republican Senator Dan Coats told the Senate Intelligence Committee during his confirmation hearing to be the top U.S. intelligence official. Coats, 73, a former member of the intelligence panel, also promised that it would have full access to all of the documents and other materials needed for an investigation. “I have no intention of holding anything back from this committee,” Coats said. Trump denounced intelligence agencies for their assessment that Russia sought to influence the election on his behalf, prompting concerns about his support for them. Trump has also repeatedly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, leading some in Washington worry that he might not take a hard enough line in dealings with Moscow. In his opening statement, Coats addressed that concern by listing activity by Russia, along with that of China and North Korea, as among the main challenges faced by the United States. “Russia’s assertiveness in global affairs is something I look upon with great concern, which we need to address with eyes wide open and a healthy degree of skepticism,” Coats said. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created after the Sept. 11 attacks to oversee all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies and improve communications among them. One concern about Coats was his record on the U.S. use after the 2001 attacks of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, which are widely seen as torture. In 2015, he was one of the few lawmakers who opposed legislation sponsored by Republican Senator John McCain that made the use of such techniques illegal. Coats promised that he would follow the law, saying he voted against that legislation because he wanted “to at least have a discussion” about the best way to proceed if intelligence agencies wanted to obtain crucial information quickly. Coats also strongly defended U.S. government surveillance programs, though he said he would “do everything I can” to publicly disclose an estimate of the number of Americans caught in the crosshairs of internet surveillance programs intended to target foreigners. But he stopped short of guaranteeing such a disclosure, which privacy advocates in Congress have requested for years and said is necessary to properly debate possible reforms to a surveillance law that expires at the end of 2017. Although he was ambassador to Germany under President George W. Bush, Coats would be the first director of national intelligence who has not spent most of his career in the military, in intelligence agencies or as a diplomat. Coats, who is popular with Democrats and his fellow Republicans, is expected to be easily confirmed. | 1 |
10,197 | Three-Year-Old Dies After Finding Loaded Gun, Shooting Herself (VIDEO) | A three-year-old South Carolina girl died on Saturday, after a days-long battle for her life. According to WACH, the toddler got her hands on a loaded gun, accidentally shooting herself on Monday. On Saturday, the Lexington County Sheriff s Department posted a public tweet, informing the public that the little girl had lost her battle for life.Police say they are conducting an investigation into how the toddler got the gun in the first place. The identity of the family has not yet been made public. At this time no one has been charged in connection with the toddler s death.The toddler s death follows the July 20th shooting death of seven-year-old Thomas William Paisie III. The first-grader accidentally shot himself while handling a loaded gun at the home of his grandfather in Jones County, Georgia. According to The Telegraph, two adults were in the home when the seven-year-old came across the unsecured gun. Neither of the adults was in the room with the child. They heard the sound of a shot and then came in and found the child injured and immediately called 911, Jones County Sheriff s Officer Kenny Gleaton said. Unfortunately, the victim had passed away at the scene. Gleaton went on to say: I would urge people, if they are going to choose to have firearms in their homes, I just encourage them to be responsible and store them safely and separately from ammunition. Keep them under lock and key at all times when not in use. While we hear a lot about responsible gun owners, from the NRA, it seems nearly every day in the U.S. we read about a child killed in an accidental shooting. These needless deaths happen because a parent or relative failed to keep a deadly weapon out of the hands of someone too young to understand what can happen.According to the Gun Violence Archive, an organization which tracks shootings across the United States, more than 2,000 children have been injured or killed by guns so far in 2016. Many of these deaths were accidental shootings, like those that killed two children this week. No matter what the NRA says, there s nothing responsible about a nation that allows its children to die needlessly, year after year, because some adult believes owning a gun is their God-given right. We can do better than this.Here s more on this story from WACH. Featured image via wikipedia cc 2.0 | 0 |
10,198 | BREAKING: DEVICE THAT BUSTED HILLARY CLINTON Discovered To Have Tens Of Thousands Of Emails | Here s why Clinton and Abedin should be flipping out: Multiple State employees told the FBI that they considered emailing Abedin the equivalent of e-mailing Clinton. Another close Clinton aide told the FBI that Abedin may have kept emails that Clinton did not. The electronic device shared by Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin and husband Anthony Weiner on which the FBI found more Clinton emails was a laptop and it contained tens-of-thousands of emails, a senior law enforcement official told Fox News on Saturday.The FBI announced Friday that it had restarted an investigation into emails Clinton sent on a private server system while secretary of state, as a result of a probe into Abedin s husband, disgraced New York Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner, sexting, of sending sexually-suggestive electronic messages, to a teenage girl.The law enforcement official told Fox News that the laptop had five digits of emails, meaning tens-of-thousands of them. However, federal investigators remain unclear whether Abedin or Weiner own the laptop.The FBI conducted a roughly two-year investigation into Clinton s use of a private server system, finding several emails marked as classified and concluded that she had been extremely careless. However, the agency did not find evidence that Clinton had been criminally negligent and did not recommend criminal charges to the Justice Department.People familiar with the case say it was restarted by the FBI because the agency thought the new emails were pertinent to the investigation. The source also told Fox News that law enforcement officials think it s highly unlikely that all of the new-found emails are duplicates, as the Clinton campaign has suggested.Read more: FOX News | 0 |
10,199 | Biden knocks Trump for Nazi reference, criticism of intelligence agencies | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday criticized President-elect Donald Trump for comparing the U.S. intelligence establishment to Nazi Germany and said it was damaging to the United States’ standing in the world to denigrate agencies that protect the nation. Trump, a Republican who takes office on Jan. 20, on Wednesday said leaks from intelligence agencies led some U.S. media outlets to report unsubstantiated claims that he was caught in a compromising position in Russia, and said such leaks were reminiscent of Nazi Germany. “It is really very damaging, in my view, to our standing in the world for a president to take one of the crown jewels of our national defense and denigrate it,” Biden, a Democrat, told reporters at the White House, referring to intelligence agencies. “It plays into, particularly now, the Russian narrative that America doesn’t know what it’s doing.” Trump tweeted on Thursday that U.S. spy chief James Clapper had called him to “denounce the false and fictitious report that was illegally circulated.” Clapper, however, said in a statement on Wednesday night that in the call with Trump he emphasized that the report was not produced by U.S. intelligence agencies and that they had not judged whether the information was reliable. He did not say the document was false. Capper said he expressed his dismay over media leaks. The director of national intelligence added that he did not believe the leaks came from U.S. intelligence agencies. At the White House, Biden praised the quality of U.S. intelligence and said it was not surprising that someone who had never worked in government would not understand how consequential intelligence reports are. Trump has never held elected office. “The one thing you never want to invoke is Nazi Germany, no matter what the circumstances,” Biden said. “Even if you’re trying to make a point that may, and I’m not suggesting it did, may be relevant, it just, it is an overwhelming diversion.” Groups fighting anti-Semitism have also objected to Trump’s reference to Nazi Germany. “The president-elect’s use of Nazi Germany to make a political analogy is not only an inappropriate comparison on the merits, but it also coarsens our discourse and diminishes the horror of the Holocaust,” Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement on Wednesday. Biden said he hoped Trump would realize the importance of intelligence briefings at the White House. “It’s an extremely valuable tool ... I think he’ll come to understand that. And if he doesn’t, it would be a tragedy for the interests of the country,” Biden said. Biden said he liked his successor, Vice President-elect Mike Pence, and had briefed him on the job. He said he thought Pence’s views of Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, were more informed than Trump’s. “I never know what he means,” Biden said of Trump. “But I do think that Mike is significantly more informed about Russian conduct, potential intentions and Putin’s behavior than ... the president-elect is, based on what the president-elect says.” The vice president, who considered running for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, said he did not think his party was experiencing a crisis after its losses in the U.S. elections. Trump defeated Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the presidential race, and Democrats did not succeed in their efforts to regain control of the U.S. Senate and significantly erode Republican control of the U.S. House of Representatives. “I don’t think they’re in a crisis, I think the party has to just remember who the hell they are,” said Biden. | 1 |
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