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1,600 | HAWAIIAN RESTAURANT Gets Hammered With Negative Reviews After BANNING Trump Supporters: “You cannot eat here” | Honolulu s Caf 8 gets rave reviews on Yelp for its Radiatore Verde and Italian stir fry, among other popular dishes at the eclectic mom-and-pop restaurant but the response to its new policy barring pro-Trump patrons has been decidedly more mixed.A bright yellow, handmade sign posted on the restaurant s front glass door declares: If you voted for Trump you cannot eat here! No Nazis. A photo of the sign was shared with FoxNews.com. One also is proudly posted on the caf s Facebook page, and was liked by some 40 people.Honolulu resident and Donald Trump voter Susan Roberts told FoxNews.com she found the sign in extreme poor taste. It s childish and very unprofessional, she said in an email. The restaurant owner doesn t have to worry I will not be stepping foot in that establishment. A Facebook user who wrote on the 8 1/2 Cafe page says he was joking about the restaurant not serving Trump supporters when the owner came over and took away his food:Unlike everybody else, I actually DID eat here recently on a trip. I was there with one of my friends and we thought they were joking about not serving Trump supporters WRONG!!! We were talking about it when all of a sudden a giant fat male comes over, identifies himself as the owner and takes away our food. He still insisted we pay until we called the police and they sorted him out explaining to this guy that you can t take away food and then expect people to pay. What a joke this place is.Here are a few additional comments from Facebook users that were found on the 8 1/2 Cafe website:Maybe someone should call the health department on them. Didn t someone see a rat skittering across the floor or maybe that was cockroaches.No need to eat at a restaurant owned by a Trumpophobe they ll be sued shortly for discrimination, just like the bakers were who wouldn t bake cakes for gay weddings.Like the Nazis put signs in the windows of restaurants and businesses No Jews Allowed . I find it strange that your sign says no Nazis no Trump supporters? Yet you are doing the exact same thing the Nazis did in Poland. Your business will suffer because you do not understand the power of social media, nor do you understand the power of Trump supporters. Oh, by the way your food looks like shit!Going to Hawaii this summer but I will stay away from your so called restaurant. I voted for Trump and apparently my money isn t good enough for you your choice. By the way you might want to pick up a history book and read about the Nazis I think you might find the similarities in you both uncanny. People should be able to get food without hearing a political message, one apparent former customer wrote on Yelp. I will never go back. The 8 1/2 Cafe received so many negative comments on YELP that the service designed to rate restaurants as a way to help consumers find good food had to step in and shut down the comment and ratings section for their restaurant:According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, the caf was founded by Robert Warner, a former hair stylist for Vidal Sassoon in San Francisco and former restaurateur in Seattle, along with his wife Jali. FOX News | 0 |
1,601 | Trump Horrifically Declares Getting An Abortion Should Carry ‘Some Form Of Punishment’ | It s alarming that so many people are lining up rank and file behind Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump. It seems that no matter what he says or does, people will love and defend him. He not only lies, but he s incredibly dangerous with his rhetoric and is tapping into a part of conservative rage that can only be seen as desperate but it s working.Now, during a taping of MSNBC s townhall that will air on Wednesday, Trump was asked about his position on abortion. What he said shouldn t only disgust people, but terrify them.MSNBC s Chris Matthews asked Trump: Should abortion be punished? This is not something you can dodge. Trump half-ass answered: Look, people in certain parts of the Republican Party, conservative Republicans, would say, Yes, it should. So Matthews pressed him harder on it asking, How about you? Trump responded: I would say it s a very serious problem and it s a problem we have to decide on. Are you going to send them to jail? Matthews pressing even further said, I m asking you. This is when Trump decided to say: I am pro-life. Well, you go back to a position like they had where they would perhaps go to illegal places but we have to ban it. Then being pressed further, Trump says, There has to be some form of punishment. With Matthews asking for the woman? and Trump responding in the affirmative declaring that the punishment would have to be determined. All of this proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we need to now, more than ever, make sure Trump gets nowhere near the Oval Office. He would have the ability to choose who goes on the Supreme Court, and that thought alone should terrify every woman to their core.Trump even said: They ve set the law and frankly the judges, you re going to have a very big election coming up for that reason because you have judges where it s a real tipping point and with the loss of Scalia, who was a very strong conservative, this presidential election is going to be very important When you say what s the law, nobody knows what the law is going to be. It depends on who gets elected. People, please, if you re a liberal and your candidate doesn t get the nomination and you choose to sit at home or vote out of spite, your choice to do so will have national repercussions bigger than yourself. No matter who gets the nomination for the Democrats vote blue. This is beyond critical, and these latest remarks by Trump prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt.Featured Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images HT: Bloomberg | 0 |
1,602 | On The Anniversary Of The Berlin Wall Coming Down, Trump Is On His Way Towards Building His Own | Americans woke up on to a country that will soon have Donald Trump serving as president. It is a frightening realization. However, overcome with horror, the irony of the date went largely unnoticed by many. November 9, the day after Election Day, is the anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down.On this day in 1989, the spokesman for East Berlin s Communist Party announced that citizens of the GDR would be permitted to freely cross the country s borders. The scene of East and West Berliners flooding to the site became iconic. People used hammers and picks to chip away at the wall. The reunification of East and West Germany was made official on October 3, 1990, almost one year after the fall of the Berlin Wall. While almost three decades ago this date became synonymous with freedom in the hearts and minds of so many, Americans woke up today to a president-elect that plans to build a wall of his own. Since the very beginning of his election, Trump has promised to build a wall along the border between Mexico and the United States. Of course, he still insists that Mexico is going to pay for it. Anti-immigrant rhetoric served as the foundation of Trump s campaign and the wall was his keystone.Anti-immigrant rhetoric has served as the foundation of Trump s campaign and the wall has been his keystone. While most of us were simply overwhelmed by the reality of a Trump presidency, some couldn t help but notice the date and point out the irony.The sad irony is that the #berlinwall came down today in 1989 and #PresidentTrump is about to build a new one that will be just as brutal. Harry Leslie Smith (@Harryslaststand) November 9, 2016It is said that those who don t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. It certainly looks as if we have an awful lot to learn. This is more proof of just how far backward we have to go for Trump to Make America Great Again. We took one step forward 27 years ago, and today, we took 10 steps back.Featured image via History.com | 0 |
1,603 | CLOAKED ORDER: Who’s Really Behind ‘New Authority’ for CIA Drone Strikes? | 21st Century Wire says Earlier this week, the mainstream media reported that the Trump administration granted the CIA a new secret authority broadening their ability to conduct drone strike operations against suspected terrorists. The new drone provision said to be without oversight from the Pentagon, was brought to our attention by unnamed sources published in the Wall Street Journal But is this the full story?As big media rushed to condemn the Trump administration over the supposedly brand new drone policy given to the CIA, the public has been left without a complete picture.While the new powers allowing the CIA to conduct larger-scale drone operations overseas should be of concern to the public you have to wonder if it was truly issued by the Trump administration or already under place during the Obama administration.While it s no secret that Trump has openly discussed being tough on terror and might be involved with the CIA drone order in some capacity, we should also consider the fact that many Obama and Democratic Party loyalists would like nothing more than to paint the new president in a less than agreeable light, potentially looking to create a political tripwire to derail his first term.Over the past few years the Obama administration was said to be shifting more drone operations away from the CIA but was that what really happened?In 2015, the NY Post published the following: President Obama secretly granted the Central Intelligence Agency more flexibility to conduct drone strikes targeting terror suspects in Pakistan than anywhere else in the world after approving more restrictive rules in 2013, according to a published report. The Wall Street Journal, citing current and former U.S. officials, reported that Obama approved a waiver exempting the CIA from proving that militants targeted in Pakistan posed an imminent threat to the U.S. In particular, the drone report outlined that while on the surface it appeared that Obama issued a directive to get rid of signature strikes conducted by the CIA many of the changes specified in the directive either haven t been implemented or have been works in progress. A signature strike can be conducted without presidential approval against any suspected militants.The NY Post then admitted that CIA had in fact a much broader latitude to target individuals under the Obama administration: The paper also reports that the CIA s Pakistan drone strike program was initially exempted from the imminent threat requirement until the end of U.S. and NATO combat operations in Afghanistan. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported the following drone statistics under Obama: Pakistan was the hub of drone operations during Obama s first term. The pace of attacks had accelerated in the second half of 2008 at the end of Bush s term, after four years pocked by occasional strikes. However in the year after taking office, Obama ordered more drone strikes than Bush did during his entire presidency. The 54 strikes in 2009 all took place in Pakistan.Strikes in the country peaked in 2010, with 128 CIA drone attacks and at least 89 civilians killed, at the same time US troop numbers surged in Afghanistan. Pakistan strikes have since fallen with just three conducted in the country last year. QUESTION: Is it possible that the CIA drone policy was just transferred from one administration to another?More from the Wall Street Journal below (Photo Illustration 21WIRE s Shawn Helton). By Gordon Lubold and Shane Harris Wall Street JournalPresident Donald Trump has given the Central Intelligence Agency secret new authority to conduct drone strikes against suspected terrorists, U.S. officials said, changing the Obama administration s policy of limiting the spy agency s paramilitary role and reopening a turf war between the agency and the Pentagon.The new authority, which hadn t been previously disclosed, represents a significant departure from a cooperative approach that had become standard practice by the end of former President Barack Obama s tenure: The CIA used drones and other intelligence resources to locate suspected terrorists and then the military conducted the actual strike. The U.S. drone strike that killed Taliban leader Mullah Mansour in May 2016 in Pakistan was the best example of that hybrid approach, U.S. officials said.The Wall Street Journal continues here READ MORE TRUMP NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Trump FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @ 21WIRE.TV | 0 |
1,604 | Russia sees Exxon boss, tipped to be Secretary of State, as an old friend | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Soon after the United States imposed sanctions on Moscow in 2014, Russian oil tsar Igor Sechin told a Reuters reporter he would miss three things: exploring U.S. culture, the chance to show his children American landscapes, and riding motor-bikes with Exxon Mobil chief executive Rex Tillerson. Tillerson is now front-runner to be Secretary of State in the cabinet of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, and Russian officials are relishing the prospect of having someone with long-standing ties to Russia as the chief U.S. diplomat. Those same ties — Tillerson has met Russian President Vladimir Putin several times and even received a medal from him — are causing disquiet among some policymakers in Washington, who see the relationships as a potential liability. Few people in Moscow expect that the bitter rifts with Washington, over Syria, Ukraine, and NATO’s presence in eastern Europe, will be healed overnight with Tillerson at the State Department. But his emergence as front-runner for the job was seen in Moscow as confirmation the Trump administration would put aside old enmity and do deals with the Kremlin. Trump is expected to name Tillerson, a 64-year-old Texan, as Secretary of State, a source familiar with the situation said on Saturday. Tillerson would join other figures with Russia ties already in the Trump cabinet. “The choice of Tillerson is a sensation,” said Alexei Pushkov, a pro-Kremlin lawmaker in the upper house of the Russian parliament. “This is a businessmen, by definition a pragmatist, who also has lots of experience working with Russia.” “Judging by the appointments to the key posts in the administration, Trump wants to see a decisive and strong America, but does not see reasons for conflicts with Russia,” Pushkov wrote on Twitter. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was cautious on Tillerson’s cabinet prospects, saying the appointment had not been confirmed. But he praised his personal qualities. “As part of his duties as head of one of the biggest oil companies, he had contacts with our representatives,” Peskov, said on a conference call with reporters. “He carries out his duties in a highly professional way.” Asked about how close Tillerson is to Putin, Peskov said: “They had working meetings. Indeed, the president received Mr. Tillerson several times.” Though he and Putin know each other, the most important relationship Tillerson forged in Russia is with Sechin, one of Putin’s closest lieutenants. Tillerson started coming into regular contact with Russian officials when, in January 1998, he was made vice president of an Exxon unit involved in exploration projects in Russia and the former Soviet Union. The flagship project was the Sakhalin 1 offshore project in the Pacific Ocean. Exxon was the operator and Rosneft, the Russian state oil giant headed by Sechin, was a major shareholder. “He knows this whole sphere excellently,” said an oil executive close to Rosneft and Exxon, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He was involved in the negotiations and the implementation of Sakhalin 1.. From the start. And he knows the peculiarities of the Russian mind-set very well.” In 2012, Rosneft and Exxon deepened their cooperation, signing an agreement on joint development of oil fields in Western Siberia. Putin, Tillerson and Sechin came together for the signing ceremony. Later the same year Zeljko Runje, who until then had been vice president of Exxon’s Russian operations, moved to Rosneft to take up the post of vice president and member of the management board. Their next big joint project was launched in June 2013, when they set up a joint venture to explore for oil in the Kara Sea, in the Arctic, and in the Black Sea. Sechin and Tillerson both attended the signing ceremony. In the same month, Putin awarded Tillerson the Order of Friendship, a Russian state honor. The citation said it was for his “significant contribution to strengthening cooperation in the energy sector.” Then the Ukraine conflict intervened in 2014, testing Tillerson’s relations with his Russian partners. After Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea region and backed separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, the United States started several rounds of sanctions. Tillerson, like other U.S. energy CEOs under pressure from the White House, stayed away from an annual investors’ meeting with Putin in St Petersburg in June. He sent a senior Exxon executive in his place. By August 2014, Exxon was poised to start drilling on the Kara Sea’s Universitetskaya exploratory well but an imminent fresh round of sanctions could have halted work. According to two offshore drilling sources familiar with the Kara Sea project, Tillerson and his team went into crisis mode. They managed to sign the contract to supply a drilling rig just before one round of sanctions was imposed, giving them some legal breathing space. The Exxon managers then pushed through the drilling program in two months before a further round of sanctions eventually knocked it off course, the sources said. They found large reserves of crude. An Exxon representative was not immediately available for comment. Soon after, obstacles arising from the sanctions forced Exxon to suspend its cooperation with Rosneft in the Kara Sea. The project has since been idling. But Exxon’s Russian partners remember its effort to get the well drilled. “I think his appointment is favorable for Russia,” one of the two sources said about Tillerson being lined up for Secretary of State. | 1 |
1,605 | Trump’s Atty. Gen. Pick LIES About His Civil Rights Record, REAL Civil Rights Lawyers CRUSH Him | Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) is Trump s pick for attorney general. The U.S. attorney general is generally someone who not only knows what s legal and illegal but also knows what s right and what s wrong. Sessions doesn t know right from wrong, at least insofar as civil rights goes. He s desperate to change his image as a racist prick, but real civil rights lawyers aren t having any of it.He s even cited civil rights cases that he supposedly worked on, but it turns out, all of that is a bald-faced lie. Several attorneys who have fought long and hard for true civil rights penned an op-ed, which appeared in the Washington Post, denouncing Sessions for pretending to be a civil rights champion.Actually, they didn t just denounce him, they annihilated him for it. Right off the bat, they said: Attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions is trying to mislead his Senate colleagues, and the country, into believing he is a champion for civil rights. We are former Justice Department civil rights lawyers who worked on the civil rights cases that Sessions cites as evidence for this claim, so we know: The record isn t Sessions to burnish. We won t let the nominee misstate his civil rights history to get the job of the nation s chief law enforcement officer. Sessions had to fill out a questionnaire and file it with the Senate Judiciary Committee. In that questionnaire, he listed four cases that he claims he personally litigated as Alabama s attorney general in the 1980s. After receiving backlash for that lie, he then tried to claim he provided assistance and guidance on these cases. One of the examples these lawyers give to show Sessions is trying exaggerating his record on civil rights: Sessions supported reauthorizing the Voting Rights act ten years ago, and he s promoting that as solid evidence that he s a civil rights champ.The truth there is that the reauthorization passed the Senate by a vote of 98-0. As such, there was no feat of courage involved in supporting that reauthorization. It would mean a lot more if he d supported it with significant opposition from his own party. Then he celebrated the Supreme Court s decision to gut the Voting Rights Act, which led to Southern states working their tails off to keep minorities from voting.Sessions also once lost out on a judgeship because of his racism. In 1986, the state of Alabama turned him down for a position as a judge after he called a black lawyer boy. He supposedly also told another attorney to be careful what you say to white folks. He also denigrated both the ACLU and the NAACP as un-American organizations that were inspired by Communists.Because equality is totally a communist trait.The NAACP has actually been protesting his nomination as Attorney General, and several got arrested for doing so. For as not-racist as Sessions supposedly is, one would think he d yell at anyone who arrested peaceful protesters who were just speaking out about racial inequality.Instead, these protesters face charges of criminal trespass.The civil rights attorneys that actually know what they re talking about say that Sessions involvement in the cases they themselves litigated is limited to his signing a complaint and maybe a few briefs. He didn t personally litigate anything, and if he had, he probably would have done so with an eye towards, Black people bring this on themselves because they re black. In fact, they end their op-ed with: Sessions has not worked to protect civil rights. He worked against civil rights at every turn. Sessions knows that his real record on race and civil rights is harmful to his chances for confirmation. So he has made up a fake one. But many of us who were there in Alabama in the 1980s, 1990s and beyond are still around. We lived that story, too. And we are here to testify that Sessions has done many things throughout his 40-year career. Protecting civil rights has not been one of them. Both Sessions and Trump probably think that Congress will buy their revisionist history. To them, equality doesn t matter in their view, white people rule and everyone else drools. There s a reason white supremacists are thrilled with Trump s election win, and this is it. Jeff Sessions doesn t give a flying fuck about civil rights. He doesn t know a thing about litigating civil rights cases. He ll make a shitty attorney general, and will only help Trump further his agenda of setting this country back 75 years.Featured image via Kevin Hagen/Getty Images | 0 |
1,606 | PALESTINIANS STEPPING UP STABBINGS: Dramatic Video Shows Palestinian Man Stabbing Israeli Police Officers…Israeli Teen Stabbed On Bicycle | ***Warning*** Graphic photo and videoThank goodness Israeli s are able to use guns to defend themselves against the religion of peace with knives The latest developments in ongoing violence between Palestinians and Israelis (all times local):4:00 p.m.Israeli police say that in the latest Palestinian attack in Jerusalem an Israeli teen was stabbed while riding a bicycle.Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said two Palestinians stabbed a 20 -year-old as he walked down a street. They then stabbed a 14-year-old Israeli riding his bicycle, wounding him critically.Police say an Israeli civilian chased the two Palestinian attackers.One of the attackers was apparently hit by a car and wounded. Police say they shot the other attacker and killed him when he ran at officers with a knife raised and ignored calls to stop.The attack took place in Pisgat Zeev, a Jewish settlement in traditionally Arab east Jerusalem, which Israel seized in the 1967 war and annexed shortly thereafter. Palestinians want east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.Israeli media had previously reported different ages for the teen who was stabbed.__3:20 p.m.Israeli police say two Palestinians stabbed two Israeli teens in Jerusalem in the latest such assault in over a week of bloody attacks.Spokeswoman Luba Samri said one of the Palestinian attackers was neutralized after stabbing the Israeli youth while his accomplice was caught after he ran away. She said the two Israeli victims are minors.Israel s Channel 10 TV reported that Israeli forces shot one of the Palestinians after the attack Monday afternoon.Eli Bin of Israel s emergency service said the two Israelis and the Palestinian attacker were treated for injuries.The attack was in Pisgat Zeev on the outskirts of Jerusalem.It was the latest in a rash of Palestinian attacks against Israelis.___2:45 p.m.Israeli police say a Palestinian woman has lightly wounded a police officer in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem.Police spokeswoman Luba Samri says the officer shot and wounded the woman, whose condition was not immediately known.Samri says the attack took place near Israeli police headquarters, in an area between the city s predominantly Arab eastern district and the predominantly Jewish western district.___9:15 a.m.Israeli police are reporting that a Palestinian man attacked an Israeli officer with a knife and was shot dead by police.Police said the attack early Monday took place near a gate of Jerusalem s walled Old City on the predominantly Arab eastern side of the city.Israeli police spokeswoman Luba Samri says border police officers ordered the Palestinian to take his hand out of his pocket. She said the man then attacked the officer with a knife, but he was wearing a protective vest and was not injured.The attack comes amid a recent wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence, marked primarily by Palestinian stabbing and shooting attacks.At least 25 Palestinians, including nine attackers, have been killed by Israeli forces, while five Israelis have been killed in attacks. Via: US NewsHere is the dramatic video showing the stabbing of Israeli police officers: | 0 |
1,607 | FANTASTIC! BILL O’REILLY LETS IT RIP On The Democrats And “Smear Merchants” Who Scream Racism When They’re Told The Truth [Video] | So true! The freebies promised to Americans on the backs of tax paying Americans need to stop! The truth is the government really should provide protection, secure borders, infrastructure NOT freebies! Amen Bill! | 0 |
1,608 | Trump FURIOUS After Federal Judge Stops His Bigoted Muslim Ban In Its Tracks (VIDEO) | Just hours before Donald Trump s new Muslim ban was set to go into effect, a federal judge in Hawaii blocked the executive order. U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson ruled on Wednesday afternoon that the travel ban still doesn t still doesn t pass legal muster. The illogic of the Government s contentions is palpable. The notion that one can demonstrate animus toward any group of people only by targeting all of them at once is fundamentally flawed, Watson wrote. Equally flawed is the notion that the Executive Order cannot be found to have targeted Islam because it applies to all individuals in the six referenced countries, Watson added. It is undisputed, using the primary source upon which the Government itself relies, that these six countries have overwhelmingly Muslim populations that range from 90.7% to 99.8%. It would therefore be no paradigmatic leap to conclude that targeting these countries likewise targets Islam, Watson added. Certainly, it would be inappropriate to conclude, as the Government does, that it does not. Trump then proceeded to fly into a rage during a campaign rally in Nashville, Tennessee. (Yes, this man is seriously still holding campaign rallies. But I digress.) While speaking, Trump said the ruling was terrible and promised to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court if he had to. We re going to take our case as far as it needs to go, including all the way up to the Supreme Court, Trump said. We re going to win. The danger is clear. The law is clear. The need for my executive order is clear. Obviously fuming over the decision, Trump insisted that Judge Watson ruled against his Muslim ban for political reasons. After all, it simply couldn t be because it s based on bigotry. Trump said that this makes us look weak when it comes to fighting terrorism.According to Trump, his latest attempt to ban Muslims from the country was tailored to the dictates of the flawed ruling on his first ban. This is a watered-down version of the first one, Trump said. And let me tell you something, I think we ought to go back to the first one and go all the way, which is what I wanted to to in the first place. Trump also whined that he couldn t say the things he really wanted to say about the judge s decision to halt his bigoted ban because he would be criticized. I have to be nice otherwise I ll be criticized for speaking poorly about our courts, he told the crowd. Among the most dishonest people in the world, I will be criticized. You can watch this segment of Trump s speech here:Featured image via Bill Pugliano/Getty Images | 0 |
1,609 | the reopening of the clinton email investigation is more gop hype over nothing | by jason easley on mon oct st at pm a new report is painting cia director james comey as having used his office to influence the presidential election as comey sent a letter about hillary clintons emails but refused to call out russia for meddling in the election by hacking democrats share on twitter print this post
a new report is painting cia director james comey as having used his office to influence the presidential election as comey sent a letter about hillary clintons emails but refused to call out russia for meddling in the election by hacking democrats
cnbc reported fbi director james comey argued privately that it was too close to election day for the united states government to name russia as meddling in the us election and ultimately ensured that the fbis name was not on the document that the us government put out a former fbi official tells cnbc
according to the former official comey agreed with the conclusion the intelligence community came to a foreign power was trying to undermine the election he believed it to be true but was against putting it out before the election comeys position this official said was if it is said it shouldnt come from the fbi which as youll recall it did not
director comey didnt want to interfere in the presidential election by releasing information that could harm republican presidential nominee donald trump but he had no qualms about sending a letter to congress about emails that he had never seen in an apparent effort to interfere in the current presidential election
with each new revelation and detail it is becoming impossible not to come to the conclusion that fbi director comey may have violated the hatch act with his letter to congress it is illegal for federal employees to use their positions to interfere in elections
when the information was bad for donald trump comey argued that it should not be publicly released so close to the election however he embraced a different standard when he had less information but could frame it in a way that could damage hillary clintons campaign
it is becoming clear that comey has abused his power and must be removed as fbi director immediately | 1 |
1,610 | Haley says does not want Secretary of State Tillerson's job | KINSHASA (Reuters) - U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Friday she did not want to take the job of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, whose tenure has been dogged by rumors of rifts with President Donald Trump. Asked by reporters whether she wanted to be the top U.S. diplomat, Haley said: “I just don’t want to keep having this conversation. The focus is, I really want to do a good job now in what I’m doing.” “We have a secretary of state. Tillerson’s not going anywhere, so it’s really not been a topic of conversation,” she told reporters in Kinshasa at the end of a week-long trip to Africa. If she was offered the job, she said: “I would say no.” Tillerson, a former chief executive officer of Exxon Mobil Corp, said on Oct. 4 he had never considered resigning, but failed to address whether he had referred to Trump as a “moron,” as NBC reported. That was a few days after Trump said on Twitter that Tillerson was “wasting his time” trying to negotiate with North Korea after the secretary of state said Washington was directly communicating with Pyongyang on its nuclear and missile programs. More recently Trump has said he has a good relationship with his secretary of state but that Tillerson could be tougher. Haley, a Republican former governor of South Carolina, traveled to Ethiopia, South Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo. | 1 |
1,611 | Brazil's Temer escapes corruption charges in committee vote | BRASILIA (Reuters) - A congressional committee voted 39-26 on Wednesday to reject charges against Brazilian President Michel Temer stemming from a corruption case involving the world s largest meatpacker. The full lower house of Brazil s Congress still must vote on the charges but is expected to shelve them next week, sparing Temer from trial by the Supreme Court for alleged obstruction of justice and membership in a criminal organization. Temer was accused of taking bribes and condoning the payment of hush money to a jailed politician in testimony by meatpacker Joesley Batista. Temer has denied any wrongdoing and his lawyers argued that the case against him was flawed because it was based on an inconclusive recording that Batista secretly made of a conversation with the president. The lower chamber decides whether a Brazilian president can be put on trial. Two-thirds of its members must vote to approve a charge for it to move forward, a hurdle his opponents are not expected to clear. Temer survived an earlier corruption charge in the lower house in August in connection with the same graft scheme in which prosecutors accused him of arranging to receive a total of 38 million reais ($11.8 million) in bribes from JBS SA. In committee debates on Wednesday, opposition Congressman Alessandro Molon, of the center-left party called Sustainability Network, said Temer was part of a criminal organization that collected bribes. He accused the president of taking part in decisions on how the money was distributed. Workers Party lawmakers called for Temer to stand trial, saying the charges against him were more serious than those leveled at his predecessor Dilma Rousseff, who was impeached last year for a lesser crime of violating budget rules. But Temer s allies argued that the charges should be thrown out because the country needs Temer to serve out his mandate through the end of 2018 for political and economic stability. They said Temer has recovered Brazil from its worst recession, brought inflation under control, restored the purchasing power of Brazilian consumers and should stay in office to recover investor confidence. Presidential aides said Temer will now be able to get on with his economic policy agenda focused on boosting weak growth and bringing a bulging government budget deficit under control. The political capital and time Temer has spent defending himself, however, has delayed approval of a crucial overhaul of the pension system, the main cause of the fiscal deficit that cost Brazil s its investment-grade credit rating in 2015. Temer will be hard pressed to get the unpopular pension bill approved before the 2018 election year starts and promised reform of Brazil s burdensome tax system might is now unlikely. | 1 |
1,612 | Watch This Awesome Mashup of Michael Flynn Leading The ‘Lock Her Up’ Chant As He Goes Off To Court (VIDEO) | Donald Trump s disgraced National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has just plead guilty to lying to the FBI a felony. He has also agreed to testify against Trump in exchange for leniency from Special Counsel Robert Mueller s team. The irony here is beyond delicious especially since Flynn infamously led the LOCK HER UP! chants at the 2016 Republican National Convention, saying that Hillary Clinton was some kind of criminal, and that if Trump was elected they d be able to put her in jail, where many Trump supporters believe she belongs. Well, now the tables are turned, and it is Flynn who will be heading to jail, and the people who realize who the REAL criminals are have been having a field day. Perhaps one of the best pieces of Twitter schaudenfraude is this video of Flynn heading into court to plead guilty with the Lock her up! chant being played:I mashed up Michael Flynn s perp walk with audio of him leading a lock her up chant. pic.twitter.com/L1o5CjJXrQ Adam Smith (@asmith83) December 1, 2017This is BEYOND awesome. These fools thought they d get a chance to put Hillary Clinton in jail as if we live in some kind of banana republic. Instead, they are all turning on each other in order to save their own asses in the best circular firing squad any of us ever could have imagined. Michael Flynn is going to sing like a canary so that he can keep himself and his equally criminal son out of federal prison and railroad the entire Trump crime family into the slammer just where they belong.The GOP made a deal with the devil when their ignorant, bigoted voters chose this unfit orange overlord to be their presidential nominee. Now, they are very likely to rue the day they ever heard the name Donald Trump.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 0 |
1,613 | Kremlin calls U.S. allegations of subversive activity 'groundless' | MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Wednesday that U.S. allegations it was involved in a new generation of warfare, including internal political subversion, against the United States, were groundless and not backed by facts. White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster made the allegations on Tuesday. | 1 |
1,614 | BETTE MIDLER Asks Obama To Release VIOLENT BLACK PANTHERS From Prison…Gets HAMMERED On Social Media | Pardoning the Black Panthers will just be the tip of the iceberg for this radical President. Look for prison doors to be flung open across America, in his final act of screw you White America, as he exits the White House, with a lifetime of Secret Service protection The day after PBS aired a controversial documentary about the Black Panthers that said there are still many members of the violent cop-killing movement in prison, Hollywood liberal Bette Midler turned to social media to call on President Barack Obama to pardon them.PBS is taking heat for the documentary that looks admirably upon the militant organization, painting them as a civic organization that fed the hungry and helped the poor.In the description of a preview, PBS stated: A new revolutionary culture emerged in the turbulent 1960s, and the Black Panther Party was at the vanguard. Weaving together a treasure trove of rare footage with the voices of a diverse group of people who were there, Stanley Nelson tells the vibrant story of a pivotal movement as urgent today as it was then. The left understands how critical it is for the success of the Democratic Party for black voters to turn out in November without Obama on the ballot and what better way to drive racial discord than Midler s suggestion:#BlackPanthersPBS says there are there are still 20 BlackPanthers still in jail. That must be nearly 40 years served. Will Mr Obama pardon? Bette Midler (@BetteMidler) February 17, 2016The scary thing is, Obama will not go quietly in his final year in office and Midler s idea is not entirely out of the realm of possibilities that he may consider.Perhaps the songstress, worth an estimated $230 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth, can take in some of the militants should they be freed a common theme in the reactions from social media users.Here s how Americans responded to Bette Midler s idiocy on Twitter: Via: BPR | 0 |
1,615 | ‘COVER THE REAL NEWS!’ Heated Debate on CNN’s Obsession With Trump Tweets [Video] | Alisyn Camerota sparred with Rep. Scott Taylor (R-VA) over President Donald Trump s weekend tweet of a video in which he beats Vince McMahon with a CNN graphic superimposed on the WWE commissioner s face.Notice how Camerota just keeps on going even though Taylor shuts her down with so much truth! He s awesome! Camerota is a political hack who has one agenda she only wants to make President Trump look bad. In interview after interview, she blatantly attacks Trump and his administration. Who knows why Trump supporters attempt an interview with Camerota!OUR PREVIOUS REPORT ON CAMEROTA:TRUMP PRESS SECRETARY Calls Out CNN S CAMEROTA For Unbelievable Questions : I know it s frustrating for you that we re doing it in a logical way [Video]Wow! This interview is hysterical! Sean Spicer runs circles around political hack Camerota It gets good around the 3:30 mark I know it s frustrating for you that we re doing it in a logical way, Sean Spicer to Allison Camerota https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6mzC5kPR3sCamerota just can t break Spicer He s too good at debate. | 0 |
1,616 | Bolton says Trump moves could signal 'different,' tougher, China line | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One of Donald Trump’s possible picks for secretary of state said on Friday that the president-elect’s criticisms of China and phone call with Taiwan’s president could signal a “different” relationship with Beijing and a tougher line on issues from trade to the South China Sea. In a speech on Thursday in Iowa, Trump said the United States needed to improve its relationship with China, which he criticized for its economic policies and failure to rein in North Korea. “That and the call to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen that was arranged a week ago, I think, certainly lay the foundation for a different relationship (with China),” John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, told Fox Business. Bolton, a hawkish conservative seen as being among the contenders to be Trump’s secretary of state, said Trump expected countries to live up to commitments they have made on issues such as trade. “The Chinese have not just been doing that,” Bolton said, while also highlighting what he said were China’s political and military steps “to make the South China Sea into a Chinese province.” Asked if he thought Trump’s remarks were a statement of intent and an opening negotiating position, Bolton said, “I think that’s at least what it is, and it may be more than that as well. You could use the Taiwan relationship to play off against their performance in the South China Sea. “I think it was very important that he mentioned what I’ve seen for the past 15 years, which is that China says they’re being helpful with the North Korean nuclear weapons program, when in fact they’ve done precious little,” he said. In an opinion article last January in The Wall Street Journal, Bolton proposed using degrees of escalation on Taiwan that could start with receiving Taiwanese diplomats officially at the State Department and lead to restoring full diplomatic recognition, to pressure China to step back from its pursuit of territory in East Asia. Experts saw Trump’s call with Tsai on Dec. 4 - the first by a U.S. president-elect or president with a Taiwanese leader since President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 1979 - as an opening salvo in a risky test of wills with Beijing. However, Trump followed this by saying he would nominate Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, a long-standing friend of Beijing, as the next U.S. ambassador to China, a move which that country’s state news agency said was a positive sign for ties. | 1 |
1,617 | China backs U.N. call for justice in Yemen, U.S. and Saudis don't | GENEVA (Reuters) - China signaled on Wednesday it was willing to back an international inquiry into atrocities in Yemen, as demanded by the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, but Saudi Arabia and the United States said they did not support the idea. For three years running U.N. human rights chief Zeid Ra ad al-Hussein has asked the 47 countries in the U.N. Human Rights Council to set up an independent investigation into Yemen s war, which has killed at least 10,000, destroyed the economy, led to a cholera epidemic and pushed millions to the brink of famine. Despite his pleas, they have twice supported a Saudi plan to let Yemen investigate by itself. On Wednesday, the Netherlands and Canada unveiled a draft resolution to establish an international commission of inquiry (COI) to ensure that perpetrators of violations and abuses, including those that may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, are held accountable . The three-page text was supported by many countries when diplomats met to discuss amendments. We agree with the actions, including the COI, to promote the political solving of the Yemen crisis, a Chinese delegate told the meeting, which was boycotted by the Arab group of countries supporting a rival Saudi-led resolution. Britain and the United States said they wanted to see consensus around a single resolution. We do have concerns that a full international independent Commission of Inquiry is not likely to get us there, U.S. diplomat Michele Roulbet told the meeting. Saudi Arabia, which leads an international coalition battling the Iran-aligned Houthi movement in Yemen, said the time was not right for an international inquiry. Although Zeid has said Yemen is not up to the job of investigating its own war, Saudi Ambassador Abdulaziz Alwasil said Yemen s national commission was in a better position to investigate for the time being. We have no objection to the inquiry itself, we just have a discussion about the timing, whether this is the right time to establish an international commission, with the difficulties on the ground, Alwasil told reporters. Georgette Gagnon, head of field operations at the U.N. human rights office, said Yemen s own human rights commission was established by, is funded by and reports to a party to the conflict and said it was way past time for an effective probe. Not having an international inquiry would be a green light to the parties to the conflict, said Radhya Al-Mutwakel, co-director of Yemen s Mwatana Organization for Human Rights. Zeid said on Monday there had been only minimal efforts at holding people to account in what the United Nations has branded the world s worst humanitarian crisis. The Saudi envoy said the international community should focus its efforts on gaining access for humanitarian personnel. The Saudi-led coalition has also has set up a team to investigate civilian casualties. On Tuesday it said it had found a series of deadly air strikes had been largely justified. | 1 |
1,618 | Protesters vow to battle Trump's 'poor decision' to revive pipeline | CANNON BALL, N.D. (Reuters) - Tribal leaders protesting the construction of a controversial North Dakota pipeline vowed on Tuesday to fight U.S. President Donald Trump’s order to revive the $3.8 billion project, calling his decision a “bad move.” Protesters have rallied for months against plans to route the Dakota Access pipeline under a lake near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, saying it threatened water resources and sacred Native American sites. The tribe, which has fought to stop the pipeline since last year, won a major victory last month when the government denied Energy Transfer Partners LP the right to run the pipeline under Lake Oahe, a water source upstream from the reservation. Trump’s order instructed the Army and the Army Corps of Engineers to review the decision. The Republican president also signed an order reviving the C$8 billion ($6.1 billion) Keystone XL pipeline project, which was rejected in 2015 by then-President Barack Obama. As a small airplane circled over the main protest camp near the Dakota Access pipeline on Tuesday, the mood following the White House’s announcement was calm but defiant. “I’m staying here,” Benjamin Buffalo, a 45-year-old Blackfeet tribal member from Browning, Montana, told a reporter. “I’m standing with the natives. This is our future.” Buffalo has been at the camp since August, when tensions started to flare up between law enforcement officers and protesters, who have been backed by Hollywood celebrities, veterans and other activists. The tribe had recently called for protesters to leave after the Army Corps of Engineers agreed to an environmental review last month, saying the battle had moved beyond the camp and into the courts or back rooms for negotiations with the government. The tribe also warned that the camp itself might contaminate the river if hit by heavy flooding in March, when waters are expected to rise. On Tuesday, Standing Rock leaders said they would meet in the coming days to plan next steps. Some said they feared fresh violence after past clashes between protesters and law enforcement officers. Dana Yellow Fat, Standing Rock Sioux tribal council member at large, called Trump’s order “a poor decision and a bad move” and said he worried about injuries if new violence broke out. “Now you’re going to see both sides gear up for even more actions on the ground because you have a group of people that is determined to stop that pipeline one way or another,” he told Reuters. Yellow Fat said he was unsure whether the tribe would back away from its request for protesters to leave the camp, but said Trump’s order has prompted “a total re-evaluation of our recent actions.” Since the exit of the Standing Rock Sioux, the camp has been less organized, with no regular sunrise prayers and communal kitchens that now only serve food sporadically. In some spots, tents are buried under snow and as many as 60 cars have been abandoned. Tribal officials expect the cleanup of the site to take about a month. The Morton County Sheriff’s Department urged activists to remain peaceful in light of Trump’s order and said they were bracing for a possible resurgence in protests. “We’re preparing for anything that might come,” department spokeswoman Maxine Herr said. “We continue to monitor the situation.” She declined to say whether additional officers would be sent to the protest site. Morton County spokesman Rob Keller on Monday said police had no plans to forcibly remove people from the campsite, where protesters now number 500 to 600, down from the nearly 10,000 once there. Many in the camp, some of them members of Native American tribes from other parts of the country, had already planned to defy the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s call to leave, saying the fight against the pipeline was not over. Forest Borie, 33, of Magalia, California, said the protest will only become more intense. “Our struggle to protect the planet is getting more intense, and the stakes are getting higher, said Borie, who has been at the camp since early November. | 1 |
1,619 | Brazilian police target gangs shipping cocaine to Europe | RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian authorities were serving 127 arrest warrants in six states on Monday as part of a year-long investigation into international drug traffickers who have shipped at least six tonnes of cocaine to European cities, federal police said. Operating out of the Brazilian ports of Santos, Salvador and Itaja , the drug gangs sent the cocaine to Antwerp in Belgium, Gioia Tauro in Italy and Valencia in Spain, police said. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) collaborated in the investigation, Brazilian police said in a statement. The warrants were being served in the states of S o Paulo, Minas Gerais, Santa Catarina, Paran , Rio Grande do Sul and the Federal District. | 1 |
1,620 | Trump Doubles Down On Being An Ass To Australia, And Twitter BUTCHERS Him (TWEETS) | Trump isn t smart. He s a complete buffoon with a temper that s so short it s virtually nonexistent. But he likes to pretend he s the President of the United States, which means he thinks he s this country s sole leader. As such, he believes he can do and say as he wishes, even if it means alienating people, countries and groups that we need.During a phone call to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Trump threw a livid fit over an agreement we reached with them under Obama to accept 1,250 refugees. Trump accused Australia of planning to send us the next Boston bomber, and promptly hung up. Then, instead of staying quiet or actually (gasp) doing some basic homework and admitting he made a mistake with that, he took to Twitter to double down:Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 2, 2017First of all, 1,250 is not thousands. Secondly, refugees are not illegal immigrants and Trump s calling them such is dangerous. Third, how can they be illegal immigrants if they aren t even here yet, and have permission, via a diplomatic pledge and paperwork, to come here? And fourth, he s not the deal-maker he thinks he is if he believes being a jackass to Turnbull is the way to handle this.Fortunately, here s Twitter, coming to the rescue and giving Trump a much-needed dressing down in front of the whole world:@realDonaldTrump Jesus. They re refugees. And Obama agreed to take them in, so they re not illegal. Tom Coates (@tomcoates) February 2, 2017And there it is, confirmation that Trump really did insult Australia today. @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/nBbcR8AZx4 Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump We have a deal to review 1,250 refugee applications. You re deliberately deceiving people and it s really worrying. Hank Green (@hankgreen) February 2, 2017Who haven t I pissed off yet? Australia?! Oh I got this. @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/OMX0rANHfe Keegan Stephan (@KeeganNYC) February 2, 2017.@realDonaldTrump The Australian immigrants are Muslim refugees literally living in detention camps but nah it s not a Muslim ban. Keegan Stephan (@KeeganNYC) February 2, 2017I wonder if this is related, @realDonaldTrump. pic.twitter.com/mCTGSibbCr David G. McAfee (@DavidGMcAfee) February 2, 2017.@realDonaldTrump You should ve studied it before it was written in your immigration executive order. You re confessing to incompetence. Lawrence O Donnell (@Lawrence) February 2, 2017.@realDonaldTrump I m sorry, hun. I m not mad. You just don t know better. But every time you learn new information, don t go nutso online. Bess Kalb (@bessbell) February 2, 2017@TVMaury @Tat2Metal @NastyWoman20 @wslayher @bessbell @realDonaldTrump Jesus Christ. I went out for ?.You guys couldn t keep him from a war? Colleen H (@ColleenHolt20) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump You should build a wall on the border with Australia, that ll stop them coming over and taking our kangaroos. Mark Pygas (@MarkPygas) February 2, 2017.@realDonaldTrump Good plan, but it s worth studying the facts *before* you tweet. https://t.co/QdijGh5Jz9 pic.twitter.com/fPtlTZ5GV1 Chris Choi (@thischoi) February 2, 2017By the way these illegal immigrants Trump is ranting about? They re actually refugees. @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/nBbcR8AZx4 Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump if we agreed to take them, then they ARE NOT ILLEGAL. Brandon Keating (@BrandonTalks) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump Please! You would only study if the book had pictures coloring sections. Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump An honorable president would honor US commitments, regardless. Mike Elgan (@MikeElgan) February 2, 2017@AmyOtto8 when Australia sends their kangaroos, they aren t sending their best kangaroos. Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump The Prime Minister of Australia just said on national tv that you agreed to the deal he made with Obama. Are you lying? Michael Skolnik (@MichaelSkolnik) February 2, 2017@doctorcherokee @iamkawsar @MichaelSkolnik @realDonaldTrump He called it dumb and said he didn t read it. erin lynn o connor (@erinoface) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump why write this on twitter. I don t get it? Are you a 15 year old or are you having a meltdown? Aron Price (@aronpricePGA) February 2, 2017@Tooda @realDonaldTrump HA! Donald? Briefings? Come on. James Alexander (@Tasselguy) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump You pissed off Antarctica yet? Make sure you enrage the whole planet before the week is over. Matt Besser (@MattBesser) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump Do you really not know the difference between illegal immigrants and refugees Dave Levitan (@davelevitan) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump you. are. so. fucking. stupid. Jen Statsky (@jenstatsky) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump they re refugees fleeing persecution, you know, like the first settlers in America. But don t let facts cloud ur ignorance Craig Wilson (@mediahunter) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump Australia agreed to send thousands of troops to support US in overseas combat over many wars & years. Study THAT. #allies Lisa Hurring (@Hypocaffeinic) February 2, 2017@realDonaldTrump you build your wall. We have our own barrier reef. It s the best. Huge. Really huge. The finest barrier you ve ever seen. Mike Cannon-Brookes (@mcannonbrookes) February 2, 2017Too bad the Great Barrier Reef is nearly dead thanks to asshats like Trump who keep saying climate change is a hoax. They re one of the reasons we weren t able to work to save the Reef.Maybe when he s done with Australia, he can go to work on Canada? Maybe the U.K., or any one of our other close allies. Perhaps he ll bomb Antarctica for being one of the worldwide sites for the Women s March on Jan. 21. This man-child needs his Twitter account canceled and his phone taken away. He s going to get us destroyed.Featured image by Michael Reynolds via Getty Images/screen capture | 0 |
1,621 | no title | october has been a portentous month for the presidential campaign in the beginning of the month women came forward accusing trump of unwelcome advances later fbi director james comey reopened the criminal investigation of hillary clinton after finding more government emails on pervert anthony weiners computer but the most important event may be a meme campaign that highlights hillarys support forcing women to register for the selective service
the meme campaign consisted of dozens of fake ads posted under the draftourdaughters hashtag that highlight two very important policy points of the hillary campaign first hillary is a radical feminist thus she favors equality in all thingsthat includes equality in combat as a step in that direction hillary told the huffington post that she will support legislation to register for the draft
young women may think registering for the draft is not a big deal they should reconsider because of the second policy of the clinton campaign she will almost certainly start a war against russiaa war that will see those young women drafted into combat on the front lines
hillary has repeatedly blamed russia for wikileaks and she stated that she would get revenge through military action
as president i will make it clear that the united states will treat cyber attacks just like any other attack we will be ready with serious political economic and military responses
the draftourdaughters campaign could be the thing that brings down the hillary campaign to get elected hillary relies on two demographics people of color and liberal white women up until now women have been able to support leftist social policy because it did not impact them negatively if they become aware that hillary intends to draft them into combat to fight a war with russia they may rethink the wisdom of their equalist position
here are some of the best examples of the draftourdaughters campaign
i feel this one is the most powerful it clearly states hillarys intention to put women into combat and start a war with russia unlike the arab nations that the us has been toppling for the neocons russia has a formidable military and nuclear weapons any military conflict will not be short and easy that means it will highly likely that young women will soon find themselves getting blown to smithereens if they elect hillary
the above three ads all target the weak cowardly men who either support hillary or the never trump cuckservatives in the alt right these men are frequently portrayed as being cuckolded by wives hence they are often mocked for their wives having children who are not their own my wifes son or my wifes daughter
the ad below drives this point home even more forcefully while women might encourage their men to vote hillary or oppose trump for being too alpha they secretly despise the weakness of these men
the following ads are directed to convincing women of the ramifications of their decision to vote feminist feminism taken to its logical conclusion means you are going to have to trade your louboutins for combat boots
lots of the ads emphasize hillarys extremely aggressive stance toward putin and russia she has blamed wikileaks on russian hacking even though there is no proof that the russians were to blame and she and the obama administration have been saber rattling against russia in syria
the really frightening thing is that mainstream pundits are now starting to parrot the idea that the us must go to war with russia all the more reason to elect someone who is not controlled by wealthy donors like hillary
the ad below indicates that our enemy putin has a saner view on women in combat than the democrats do
while the campaign is mostly geared to point out hillarys intention to draft women it also reminds men that their lives will not be spared in the conflagration that hillary will start
the media often portrays war as a sanitized affair a soldier safely positioned in a uslocated command center controls a drone that takes out the bad guys the reality of war is that people from both warring factions die and are maimed once hillary gets in it wont be just men dying in large numbers women will experience equality in having their lives snuffed out
a final ad drives home the point that the future war with russia and iran and syria will not be any sort of conflict against barbarism or evil it will be for hillarys power trip
conclusion elections matter for decades women have voted for leftist policies that have put the burden on other people if they are successful in electing hillary they will face the bitter consequences of their decisions but unfortunately they will not be the only people impacted thousands of innocent americans russians syrians and iranians will also have to pay the price of their virtue signaling
the draftourdaughters campaign may be enough to wake some of them up from their folly
read more hillarys alt right speech bombed | 0 |
1,622 | AWESOME! AMERICAN FLAG COMES BACK AFTER 1,000 VETERANS SHOW UP To Protest Removal Of American Flag From Hampshire College [Video] | GREAT UPDATE! Three weeks after Hampshire College removed the American flag from campus, the Stars and Stripes was raised again on Friday morning at the liberal arts school in Amherst.The flag s return comes after a torrent of calls, e-mails, and protests from people angered by its removal eight days after it was set on fire in an apparent protest of the election of Donald Trump as president. I ve received many e-mails, a lot of them extremely unpleasant, Hampshire College president Jonathan Lash said by telephone on Thursday night. Our phone lines have been clogged with people calling to express their anger. People can disagree with us, but we ve also received very explicit threats. For us, we raise the flag as a symbol of our hopes for justice, fairness and freedom, Lash said. I hope this is not the end of the dialogue about these issues. The underlying issues are very important for the country. | 0 |
1,623 | Ireland trying to force Northern Ireland to stay in customs union after Brexit: DUP | LONDON (Reuters) - Ireland is trying to force the United Kingdom, or at least Northern Ireland, to remain in the customs union after Brexit as it suits their national interest, the deputy leader of the province s Democratic Unionist Party said on Friday. Their real aim is to try to get to a situation where either they try to force the United Kingdom as a whole to stay within the customs union, which is in their interests clearly, Nigel Dodds told Sky News. Or, if they fail that, to at least force Northern Ireland to stay within the customs union and the single market, follow the rules of it, something then we d have no say over, but we d have to abide by the rules which would then bring about a united Ireland much easier. | 1 |
1,624 | Muslim pilgrims converge on Jamarat for symbolic stoning of the devil | JAMARAT, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - Two million Muslim pilgrims performed a symbolic stoning of the devil on Friday, the riskiest part of the annual haj pilgrimage where hundreds of people were killed in a crush two years ago. Saudi Arabia, which stakes its reputation on organizing the world s largest annual Muslim gathering, has deployed more than 100,000 security forces and medics as well as modern technology including drones and fiber optics to ensure a safe pilgrimage. Under close supervision from Saudi authorities, pilgrims clad in white robes converged on Jamarat carrying pebbles to perform the ritual from a three-storey bridge erected to ease congestion. Group leaders carrying flags from their countries directed pilgrims into the building. Some of the faithful held umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun, with temperatures surpassing 40 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit) around midday. This is the embodiment of the Prophets Ismail and Ibrahim (Abraham) fighting the devil, said Egyptian pilgrim Mohammed al-Jawhiri, 56. The ritual reveals the extent of the devil s evil and his actions to destroy this world. The 2015 incident killed nearly 800 people, according to Riyadh, when two large groups of pilgrims arrived together at a crossroads in Mina, a few kilometers east of Mecca, on their way to performing the stoning ritual. Counts by countries of repatriated bodies, however, showed over 2,000 people may have died, more than 400 of them Iranians. It was the worst disaster to strike haj for at least 25 years. The Saudi authorities redesigned the Jamarat area after two stampedes, in 2004 and 2006, killed hundreds of pilgrims, and the frequency of such disasters has greatly reduced as the government spent billions of dollars upgrading and expanding haj infrastructure and crowd control technology. Officials said they had prepared a strict timetable for pilgrims from various countries to follow in order to reduce congestion. Saudi Arabia said more than 2.3 million pilgrims, most of them from abroad, had arrived for the five-day ritual, a religious duty once in a lifetime for every able-bodied Muslim who can afford the journey. They will continue the stoning ritual over the weekend and return to Mecca to pray at the Grand Mosque before completing the pilgrimage. Some 90,000 Iranians have returned to haj after boycotting last year amid a diplomatic rift between Tehran and Riyadh, which are both vying for power and influence in the region. In previous years, jostling to perform the stoning before returning to Mecca accounted for many of the stampedes and crushes that have afflicted haj. Thanks to the latest construction, this time even small children, old men, women and the disabled are being accommodated, said Abdelaziz al-Azmi from Kuwait. As you see, there is no problem. King Salman was in Mina on Friday, the first day of Eid al-Adha (feast of the sacrifice). He and his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, welcomed well-wishers at a palace gathering attended by princes, clerics, military leaders and distinguished guests. Saudi authorities have urged pilgrims to set aside politics during the haj but violence in the Middle East, including wars in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya and other global hotspots are sure to be on the minds of many. For a graphic on the Haj journey, click: here For a graphic on Haj stampedes, click: here | 1 |
1,625 | Michigan Governor Snyder to testify at House hearing on Flint | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Michigan Governor Rick Snyder will testify at a House oversight committee hearing on March 17 on the Flint, Michigan, drinking water crisis, the panel said on Thursday. Snyder, a Republican, has publicly apologized for the crisis in which thousands of children are believed to have ingested dangerous amounts of lead from the city’s water. Snyder has also said missteps by the federal Environmental Protection Agency helped lead to the crisis in Flint, a predominantly African-American city of 100,000 about 60 miles (100 km) northwest of Detroit. Under direction of a state-appointed city manager in 2014, Flint changed its water supply from Detroit’s to the Flint River, and the more caustic water helped to leach lead, a neurotoxin, from old pipes into the drinking water. The former city manager, Darnell Earley, and the former Midwest EPA chief, Susan Hedman, will also testify before the committee at separate hearing on March 15. | 1 |
1,626 | Trump working with Republican leaders on healthcare plan changes: spokesman | ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is working with Republican leaders in the House of Representatives to make changes to their healthcare overhaul plan to ensure it has enough support to be approved by lawmakers, a White House spokesman said on Wednesday. “We’re obviously in talks with Speaker (Paul) Ryan, the entire leadership team over there ... to get the best outcome based on feedback from members,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters during a briefing. | 1 |
1,627 | Japanese PM Abe says election won't distract him from tackling North Korea | TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Monday said his decision to call a snap election would not distract his government from responding to North Korean threats, pledging to increase pressure if Pyongyang failed to halt its missile and nuclear weapons development. North Korea has launched two ballistic missiles and tested what was likely a hydrogen bomb in the past several weeks raising tension in East Asia. Abe spoke at a press conference to announce his plan to dissolve parliament on Thursday and call a snap election. | 1 |
1,628 | BREAKING: Leaked DHS Memo Tells Of Obama’s Plan To Defy Federal Court On Amnesty | Let s face it, we have a president who s going rogue and defying the rule of law at every turn. This is not your mama s lame duck presidency, but a stealth effort to do everything possible to push the agenda at all costs. The big question is that if Obama continues to defy the rule of law like this, shouldn t Congress finally take action against him? Who ll stand up? I ve got a pen and I ve got a phone. And I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions King Obama A newly leaked internal DHS memorandum produced for an off-the-record agency conclave reveals that the Obama administration is actively planning to circumvent a federal court injunction that suspended part of last November s deferral-based amnesty initiative. The document, apparently prepared as follow-up from a DHS Regulations Retreat last summer, appears sure to re-ignite concerns in Congress as well as federal judges in the Fifth Circuit. The Administration has already been criticized from the bench for handing out work permits to hundreds of thousands of deferred action beneficiaries, in direct violation of a district court s order. With the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals deciding any day now whether to deny the Administration s request to reverse that injunction, this public leak has come at a critical juncture for U.S. enforcement policy. Last June, four months after Texas federal judge Andrew Hanen s order to freeze President s DAPA and Expanded DACA programs disclosure: the Immigration Reform Law Institute has filed briefs in these cases DHS s immigration policy makers apparently held a Regulations Retreat to discuss different options for open market Employment Authorization Document (EAD) regulatory changes. EAD is the statutory term for work permits. From a memo recording these discussions, we now know that the Obama DHS has, rather than pausing to allow the courts to assess the constitutionality of its enforcement nullification initiatives, been gearing up to roll out one or more of four plans drawn up at the meeting, each one designed to provide EADs to millions of nonimmigrants, including those lawfully present and visa overstayers, crippling the actual employment-based visa system on the federal statute-book. Read more: The Hill | 0 |
1,629 | VIOLENT ENVIRONMENTAL LUNATICS Cost Taxpayers MILLIONS To Protect Trump’s EPA Director After Receiving “Unprecedented” Number of Credible Death Threats | Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt has received an unprecedented amount of death threats, requiring a 24-hour security detail, according to an editorial published in the Wall Street Journal.The paper revealed the EPA has received more than 70 credible threats against EPA staffers, with a disproportionate number menacing Administrator Scott Pruitt and his family, since President Donald Trump took office.Credible threats from liberal opponents have resulted in the EPA s inspector general s office recommending 24/7 security detail for Pruitt, which is costing taxpayers $2 million per year. Mr. Pruitt has received more than five times as many threats as his predecessor, Gina McCarthy, the editorial explained. These include explicit death threats. Some have referenced Mr. Pruitt s home address. Federal law enforcement has determined that some of those threatening Mr. Pruitt are likely capable of carrying out acts of violence. Democratic lawmakers have complained that the security detail is a waste of money, claiming there is no apparent security threat against the administrator to justify such a security detail or expenditures. EPA security has already caught suspects prowling around the Administrator s neighborhood, the Journal reported.Liberals have justified the death threats. Last week, a San Francisco columnist argued death threats against Pruitt were justified because he is a banally evil, milquetoast, science-denying government administrator. The death threats make a warped sort of sense, wrote liberal columnist Mark Morford. Mr. Pruitt didn t invent these threats, and Cabinet members shouldn t have to fear violence as a price of public service, the WSJ editorial board said.For entire story: WFB | 0 |
1,630 | breaking trump just gave obama horrible news check out what the pentagon just did | a lot of people in the us are suddenly identifying as white eric d knowles and linda r tropp quartz october
many political commentators credit donald trumps rise to white voters antipathy toward racial and ethnic minorities however we believe this focus on racial resentment obscures another important aspect of racial thinking
in a study of white americans attitudes and candidate preferences we found that trumps success reflects the rise of white identity politicsan attempt to protect the collective interests of white voters via the ballot box whereas racial prejudice refers to animosity toward other racial groups white identity reflects a sense of connection to fellow white americans
were not the first to tie trumps candidacy to white identity politics but our data provide some of the clearest evidence that ongoing demographic changes in the united states are increasing white racial identity white identity in turn is pushing white americans to support trump
white identity
when we talk about white identity were not referring to the altright fringe the white nationalist movement or others who espouse racist beliefs rather were talking about everyday white americans who perhaps for the first time are racially conscious
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nonhispanic whites are projected to become a minority in the year this increasing diversity across the country is making whites own race harder and harder to ignore snip
trump and white identity politics
as whites increasingly sense that their status in society is falling white racial identity is becoming politicized trumps promise to make america great again speaks to these anxieties by recalling a past in which white people dominated every aspect of politics and society snip
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to test our ideas about trump and white identity politics we surveyed a nationally representative sample of about white americans the survey covered racial identities attitudes and political preferences in examining the relationship between white identity and ethnic diversity we chose to focus on an ethnic minority of particular salience in contemporary politics hispanics snip
do whites from heavily hispanic neighborhoods show stronger white racial identity to measure identity we used a widelyused questionnaire on a fivepoint scale participants rated their agreement with items such as being a white person is an important part of how i see myself and i feel solidarity with other white people as shown in the graph below there is a positive relationship between exposure to hispanics and white respondents sense of racial identity
and does white identity lead to support for donald trump we examined the relationship between white identity and respondents likelihood of supporting trump for the presidency versus hillary clinton or several republican primary challengers consistent with others analyses white identity strongly predicts a preference for trump
whites at the high end of the racial identity scale are more than four times as likely to support trump than those at the low end of the scale perhaps thats because whites highest in racial identity are also the ones most likely to harbor negative attitudes against latinos indeed we found white identity was significantly correlated with another characteristicprejudice
however differences in prejudice dont explain the relationship between white identity and trump support the pattern in the figure above was tested while statistically controlling for levels of antihispanic prejudice because the relationship between identity and support for trump remains strong we are confident that white identity independently predicts greater trump support
weve seen that living close to hispanics leads whites to develop a strong sense of racial identity and that strong racial identity is associated with support for donald trump we should therefore expect that whites in heavily hispanic neighborhoods support trump more often than those in neighborhoods with fewer hispanics this prediction gains credence from work by political scientist ryan enos who finds that everyday exposure to latinos can increase support for restrictive immigration policies
whites support for donald trump is in fact greatest in areas with a large hispanic population
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1,631 | Spanish prosecutor accuses sacked Catalan leader of rebellion | BARCELONA/MADRID (Reuters) - Spain s state prosecutor accused sacked Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont on Monday of rebellion and sedition as the former regional president traveled to Belgium with other members of his ousted administration and hired a lawyer there. As Madrid began direct rule of Catalonia, Attorney General Jose Manuel Maza called for charges of rebellion, sedition, fraud and misuse of funds to be brought against Catalan leaders who organized an illegal referendum on independence from Spain. The Oct. 1 vote in the prosperous region with its own language and culture has triggered Spain s biggest crisis in decades. On Friday, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy dismissed Catalonia s secessionist government, called a regional election for Dec. 21 and said the central government would take direct control. That process began smoothly on Monday as employees ignored calls for civil disobedience and turned up for work, while secessionist parties agreed to stand in the December poll. A senior Spanish government official said on Monday that Puigdemont had traveled to Belgium. He drove to the French city of Marseilles to catch a flight to Belgium with five other members of his sacked administration, Spanish media reported. Belgian lawyer Paul Bekaert, whose website says he is involved in a human rights organization, said he had taken on Puigdemont as a client but would not confirm whether he was working with him on a political asylum claim. I can confirm Carles Puigdemont has appointed me as his legal representative, as he is currently in Belgium, Bekaert told Reuters. At the moment there are no specific dossiers I am preparing for him. Bekaert told Belgian broadcaster VTM that Puigdemont had not fled Catalonia, was not hiding and would make a public appearance in Brussels on Tuesday. After what he described as an hour-long meeting in his office in western Belgium, the lawyer - who quoted his experience with asylum and extradition cases, as well as with Spain - said his client was in high spirits, driven by strong support among his backers in Catalonia . Some of the most prominent ousted Catalan leaders, including Puigdemont and Vice President Oriol Junqueras, had said they would not accept their dismissal. But their respective parties, PdeCat and Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, said on Monday they would take part in the election called by Rajoy, a tacit acceptance of direct rule from Madrid. The regional parliament canceled a meeting for Tuesday, another signal lawmakers accepted they had been dismissed. A call for widespread civil disobedience from the main civic groups behind the secessionist campaign failed to attract many followers. Public-sector workers such as teachers, firefighters and the police mostly started work as normal on Monday and there was no sign of widespread absenteeism. A trade union, Intersindical-CSC, which had called for a general strike in Catalonia, said on Monday it had canceled it. Other regional leaders did not turn up to their offices, although some of their staff did. One of 140 senior officials appointed directly by the outgoing government described the situation as normal and said he had not yet received any letter of dismissal. We civil servants want everything to be normal. Things have to carry on. The day-to-day work still has to be done, he said. Some 200,000 public-sector workers receive salaries paid by the Catalan region, and 100,000 others in the region rely directly on the Madrid government. Hundreds of thousands of supporters of a unified Spain marched on Sunday in one of the biggest shows of force yet by the so-called silent majority that has watched as regional political leaders push for Catalan independence. Two opinion polls showed support for independence may have started to wane. A Sigma Dos survey published in El Mundo showed 33.5 percent of Catalans were in favor of independence, while a Metroscopia poll published by El Pais put that number at 29 percent. That compared with 41.1 percent in July, according to an official survey carried out by the Catalan government. Opponents of secession largely boycotted the Oct. 1 referendum, when participants voted overwhelmingly for independence on a turnout of 43 percent. Spain s interior ministry named a new chief for the regional police on Saturday, who has insisted that the 17,000 officers of the force should remain neutral. The force has already withdrawn protection for dismissed regional government members, who were also left without their official cars. Their portraits were removed from the walls of public buildings. The government s move to impose direct rule received the backing of several influential Catalan business lobbies, which called on firms to stay in the region. The chaos has prompted an exodus of businesses from Catalonia, which contributes about a fifth of Spain s economy, the euro zone s fourth-largest. Credit ratings agency Fitch said on Monday the escalation of tensions in Catalonia significantly worsened the outlook for Spain s economic growth and could prompt negative action on the country s rating. | 1 |
1,632 | A YOUNG FATHER EXPLAINS SOCIALISM To His 10 Year Old Son…A MUST Read For Every American | The discussion Bret Stephens had with his 10 year old son, is one every parent should be having with the very generation who has the most to lose if socialism really is implemented in America. As parents, we re asked countless times by our children to explain ghosts, scary shadows on the walls, or some other imagined childhood fear. How many times however, do our children ask us to explain something that every American should truly fear? How many times do we have the opportunity to explain the reality of Socialism to our children? We Applaud Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal for the brilliant way he explained Socialism to his son. We thank him for sharing it with his readers.Noah, my 10-year-old son, was reading over my shoulder a powerful story about the state of medicine in Venezuela by Nick Casey in Sunday s New York Times. We scrolled through images of filthy operating rooms, broken incubators and desperate patients lying in pools of blood, dying for lack of such basics as antibiotics. Dad, why are the hospitals like this? Socialism. What s socialism? I told him it s an economic system in which the government seizes and runs industries, sets prices for goods, and otherwise dictates what you can and cannot do with your money, and therefore your life. He received my answer with the abstracted interest you d expect if I had been describing atmospheric conditions on Uranus.Here s what I wish I had said: Socialism is a mental poison that leads to human misery of the sort you see in these wrenching pictures.The lesson seems all the more necessary when discredited ideologies are finding new champions in high places. When Venezuelan President Hugo Ch vez died in 2013, an obscure U.K. parliamentarian tweeted, Thanks Hugo Chavez for showing that the poor matter and wealth can be shared. He made massive contributions to Venezuela & a very wide world. The parliamentarian was Jeremy Corbyn, now leader of the Labour Party.Up north, Naomi Klein, Canada s second-most unpleasant export, treated Ch vez as heroically leading the resistance to the forces of dreaded neoliberalism. Jimmy Carter mourned Ch vez for his bold assertion of autonomy and independence for Latin American governments and for his formidable communication skills and personal connection with supporters in his country and abroad to whom he gave hope and empowerment. There are lesser names to add to this roll call of dishonor Michael Moore, Sean Penn but you get the point: Democratic socialism had no shortage of prominent Western cheerleaders as it set Venezuela on its road to hyperinflation, hyper-criminality, water shortages, beer shortages, electricity blackouts, political repression and national collapse. Ch vez and his successor, Nicol s Maduro, gained prestige and legitimacy from these paladins of the left. They are complicit in Venezuela s agony.And so to the U.S. election, specifically the resolutely undead presidential candidacy of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. The Sanders campaign is no stranger to accusations that its brand of leftism is cut from the same cloth that produced Chavismo. Yesterday, one of Hillary Clinton s most prominent Super PACs attacked our campaign pretty viciously, Mr. Sanders complained in September, noting that they tried to link me to a dead communist dictator. The senator protests too much. As mayor of Burlington, Vt., in the 1980s, he boasted of conducting his own foreign policy, including sister-city relations with Puerto Cabezas in Nicaragua and Yaroslavl in the Soviet Union. On a 1985 trip to Nicaragua, he lavished praise on Daniel Ortega s communist regime Chavismo s older cousin. In terms of health care, in terms of education, in terms of land reform . . . nobody denies they [the Sandinistas] are making significant progress in those areas, then-Mayor Sanders told one interviewer in 1985. And I think people understand that and I think the people of Nicaragua, the poor people, respect that. If Mr. Sanders ever rethought or recanted those views, I m not aware of it.But the point isn t what Mr. Sanders may have thought of the Sandinistas in the 1980s or the Chavistas in the past decade. It s that the type of socialism that the senator espouses $18 trillion in additional government spending over the next decade, accusations that Wall Street is a criminal enterprise and the continuous demonization of millionaires and billionaires is not all that different from its South American cousins.Democratic socialism whether Chavez s or Sanders s is legalized theft in the name of the people against the vilified few. It is a battle against income inequality by means of collective immiseration. It is the subjugation of private enterprise and personal autonomy to government power. Mr. Sanders promises to pursue his aims on the Scandinavian model, as if that was a success, and as if Americans are Scandinavians. It wasn t. We aren t. Bernie s Way paves the same road to serfdom that socialism does everywhere.That s a fact Americans might have learned after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. We didn t. Take the time to tell your kids what socialism is, and does, before they too feel the Bern.Via: Wall Street Journal | 0 |
1,633 | The BRUTAL Truth About Why Kids Love Bernie Sanders | At some point, most of us grow up and realize there s no such thing as free | 0 |
1,634 | France should know that Iran's missiles are not negotiable: spokesman | BEIRUT (Reuters) - France should know that Iran s missile program is not an issue that can be negotiated, Iran s foreign ministry spokesman, Bahram Qassemi, said in an interview with state media on Monday. French official, other officials, who want to speak about Iran s affairs need to pay attention to the deep developments that have come to pass in the region in past decades and the big changes between the current situation and the past, Qassemi said Monday, according to state media. The Islamic Republic of Iran will definitely not negotiate on defense and missile issues. Tension between Iran and France increased last month when French President Emmanuel Macron said that Iran should be less aggressive in the region and should clarify its ballistic missile program. His foreign minister also denounced, during a visit to Saudi Arabia, Iran s hegemonic temptations . France could play a productive role in the Middle East by taking a realistic and impartial approach , Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told Macron in a telephone call two weeks ago, according to Iranian state media. Iranian state media said Rouhani told Macron that the Islamic Republic was ready to develop its relations with France on all bilateral, regional and international issues based on mutual respect and shared goals. | 1 |
1,635 | Myanmar army Facebook posts covering key period of offensive 'hidden' | YANGON (Reuters) - Facebook posts from Myanmar s army detailing the opening phase of its crackdown last month on Rohingya Muslim insurgents - an operation now being probed by the United Nations - are no longer visible on its official page, Reuters found. Posts for the period between Aug. 1 and Aug. 29 appear to have been hidden on the Facebook page of the office of the commander-in-chief, Min Aung Hlaing, which has covered the military s actions, including those in western Myanmar, in detailed dispatches. The posts, which can still be found using specific date or keyword searches, included detailed accounts of the operation launched by the army following attacks on security forces on Aug. 25. It is unclear why, or when exactly, the posts disappeared. They were not visible on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday from several locations across Asia. We don t hide anything, it might be some kind of error, said Ministry of Defense spokesman General Aung Ye Win. Zaw Htay, the spokesman for national leader Aung San Suu Kyi, referred questions to Aung Ye Win. A spokesman for the military-run home affairs ministry, Police Colonel Myo Thu Soe, said he had no idea about the issue. A Facebook spokesperson said it was at the discretion of page administrators to hide posts if they wished. Around 480,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since the military counter-offensive began. The United Nations has described the campaign as ethnic cleansing. Myanmar has rejected that accusation, saying it is waging a legitimate fight against terrorists. A U.N.-mandated fact-finding mission is looking into alleged recent human rights violations by military and security forces and abuses in Myanmar, in particular in Rakhine State . The probe includes the violence that followed the Aug. 25 attacks. It was established after a similar, smaller military operation late last year. The official military Facebook page shows a gap of nearly a month between a post on July 31 and the next one on Aug. 30. Like other news organizations, Reuters had used the detailed, timely postings in much of its early coverage of the August crisis. The August posts can still be seen if searched for with a specific date or a keyword, suggesting they have not been deleted but removed from the page s timeline using Facebook s hide function. Keep in mind that if a post you ve hidden was shared, it may still be visible to the audience it was shared with in other places on Facebook, says Facebook about the function on its website. The feature can be undone by the account holder to restore the posts. The hidden August posts include very detailed accounts of clashes with militants, often accompanied by pictures. The military first posted on the attacks on Aug. 25, attaching a map showing police posts and military base that had been attacked. The timeline updates resume on the military page after Aug. 31, with more than 360 posts in September, mostly about operations in Rakhine. Myawady, a media group which covers the military and publishes daily newspapers, has kept the August issues available online. | 1 |
1,636 | U.S. military orders additional probe into August Somalia raid | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of U.S. forces in Africa has ordered an additional investigation into an August raid in Somalia by Somali and American forces, the U.S military said on Thursday. Last month, the U.S. military said it did not kill any civilians when it accompanied Somali forces on a deadly raid in the village of Bariire. At the time, it described the dead as enemy combatants and that they were members of al Shabaab, the al-Qaeda linked insurgent group. However, eyewitnesses have told Reuters that 10 civilians were killed and that the military had been drawn into a local clan conflict. In a statement, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) said it had referred the incident to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service after media reports alleged misconduct by U.S. personnel to ensure a full exploration of the facts given the gravity of the allegations. AFRICOM takes all allegations of misconduct seriously and will leverage the expertise of appropriate organizations to ensure such allegations are fully and impartially investigated, the statement said. The United States has stepped up operations in Somalia this year after President Donald Trump loosened restrictions on the military s operations in March. A Navy SEAL was killed in Somalia in May, the first U.S. combat casualty there since Somali militiamen shot down U.S. Black Hawk helicopters in 1993. The United States has also ramped up its use of air strikes, conducting twice as many strikes this year as last year. Somalia has been riven by civil war since 1991. It now has a weak, internationally-backed government, supported by African peacekeepers. | 1 |
1,637 | Lindsey Graham Calls Out His Own Party; Says Republicans Aren’t Patriotic (VIDEO) | S.C. Senator Lindsey Graham has been a shining beacon in the Republican Party when it comes to the Russian hacking scandal. He knows that no matter what party it benefited, it s beyond dangerous to let a foreign government, especially a foreign nuclear power, gain control over our elections.On Sunday s Meet the Press, Graham laid down a pretty brutal truth bomb for Republicans, calling them political hacks, and unpatriotic. Most Republicans are condemning what Russia did. And to those who are gleeful about it you re a political hack. You re not a Republican. You re not a patriot, Graham said during an appearance on NBC News s Meet the Press with Chuck Todd. We should all Republicans, Democrats condemn Russia for what they did. To my Republican friends who are gleeful, you re making a huge mistake, Graham said.Graham added that he hopes Trump, who signaled in his campaign that he would work for a better relationship with the Kremlin, takes advantage of the chance to make Russia pay a price for trying to meddle in the election.Source: The Hill17 intelligence agencies have all come to the conclusion that Russia hacked our election and loaded social media with fake news. It was clearly enough to sway the election. Donald Trump has been in a general state of denial about it. On Saturday, he tweeted, Intelligence stated very strongly there was absolutely no evidence that hacking affected the election results. Voting machines not touched. But even his camp is starting to come around. However, they re blaming it on the Democratic National Committee for apparently making it too easy to get hacked. Of course, the Republican National Committee was also hacked, but the Russians and WikiLeaks chose to sit on those revelations, perhaps to use them for a later date?Graham expressed confusion about Trump s relationship with Russia. I don t know what drives him on Russia, but I do know this. That if our policies don t change vis a vis Russia, the worst is yet to come. And the Congress is going to have a different view on Russia than the president-elect does, he said.Here s the video:Featured image via Riccardo Savi via Getty Images. | 0 |
1,638 | des américains assurent quils continueront à faire confiance aux sondages le gorafi | keywords pet care pet care tips
having a pet or a companion animal is an amazing thing as the little bundle of joy loves you immensely without asking for much in return but they do want your little time and attention pets are just like kids who need care and support from you and if they dont get these things then they can become victims of infection malnutrition and diseases therefore here we have listed some important pet care tips so that you can easily keep your pet happy and healthy train your pet
behavioral training is very important for dogs and cats especially when you have children at the house proper training can reduce their aggression and help them to accommodate easily in your home environment if you are not well experienced with pet training then you can take help of a professional trainer to train them like sitting on command or walking on a leash spaying and neutering
if you have many pets and you dont want an increase in their numbers then you can get them spayed or neutered by a vet it also benefits your pet as it reduces the chances of your pet getting lost because the tendency to roam around will decrease after spaying and neutering it also lowers the risk of certain cancers hernias in male pets and uterine infection in females induce natural healing
increasing immunity of your pet is very important and you can do with a much safer approach animal oral nosodes provide a wide range of protection to your pet from various diseases like corona virus lyme disease west nile virus tick fever etc and they are very easy to administer as it can be given either by mouth this natural alternative is safe and has many advantages over the conventional vaccines many of which are found to be carcinogenic or having side effects body cleaning
it is important to get your pet habitual to bathing and other cleaning activities like clipping nails flea or tick examination etc from an early age so it doesnt get surprised when you give it a bath or try to cut its nails they can even attack you in defense if they are not used to these activities keep them active
walking your dog early in the morning is good for him and you as well it gives you time to bond and keeps both of you fit besides that you must play with your pets regularly to keep them active you can use a frisbee or ball to play with your pets or tell them to chase you while you run these activities benefit both of you mutually skincare
this is very important especially in the case of pets with a white coat or less pigmentation as they are prone to skin inflammation and skin cancers also check your pet regularly for any external parasite like fleas as it can cause irritated skin hair loss hot spots infection and introduction of other parasites like a tapeworm in your pet after cleaning and check up groom your pet by brushing their coat as it helps in reducing hair shedding by them watch their diet
children tend to feed their pet anything even their favorite food without knowing that it can be harmful to them therefore inform your young ones about the right food for your pet food items containing alcohol coffee chocolate poultry bones salt or unripe fruit can be bad for your pets you can also ask your vet about other food items which must not be given to your pet moreover you also need to check the weight of your pet regularly as less physical activity and regular feeding can make them obese or overweight pet bedding
proper rest is equally necessary for the overall wellbeing of your pet and they need a corner for their own for that you should pick a spot in your house which is warm clean and quiet to make their bed their bedding should be cleaned on a regular basis to prevent any parasites like ticks and fleas provide a healthy environment
your pet can understand your mood as it is a living being like you therefore try to act happily around them you must have seen that your cat is scratching the post or toys or your dog becomes restless when you come home they do these things because they need mental stimulation give them toys to play take them on a walk and play with them to reduce their restlessness and keep their boredom away pet identification
this prevents your pet from getting lost or taken away by the municipal persons by considering them as stray ones make them wear a collar with the address of your house so that it can be returned to you if it gets lost these days microchips are used to identify the pet these microchips are of the size of a rice grain and placed under the skin of the pet within a second it doesnt require any battery and sensitive enough to be scanned and tracked easily by a vet or animal control officer you might also like | 0 |
1,639 | The Head Of The NRA Just Issued The Dumbest Challenge Ever To President Obama (VIDEO) | Wayne LaPierre has a way about him that defines a**hole. maybe it s the condescending look his beady little eyes get from behind those frameless glasses. Maybe it s the tone in his voice as he declares that the tens of thousands of U.S. gun deaths since his tenure began have nothing to do with guns.Or maybe we all remember his impassioned call for more guns in our schools after 20 1st graders were gunned down on one of the coldest days in American history.No matter the reason you may despise Wayne LaPierre, the fact remains the he is despicable. He s a disgusting human being whose moral code has been lost to the cold hard cash of the gun manufacturers who want as many guns as possible in the hands of whoever has the money to buy one.Understanding all of that, this video will enrage you. LaPierre has decided to challenge President Obama to a one-on-one gun control debate. His terms are that the debate be one hour with a moderator, no pre-screened questions and no long answers.It s difficult for the ammosexual mind to come up with much other than criminals won t follow laws, so the last stipulation isn t really that surprising. He may want to consult with Taya Kyle before he assumes that the president isn t willing to answer tough questions from the opposition.Rather than simply issue the challenge, LaPierre attached it to 8 minutes of propaganda attacking not only the president s stance on gun control but also the affordable care act and yes, you guessed it Benghazi. He calls the president a tyrant who ignores the constitution just before he calls on him to mobilize a national force to turn Chicago upside down in search of felons and criminals with guns.Because sending the National Guard to black communities to illegally search the residents and their homes without warrants or probable cause is just fine, but asking law-abiding white folks to fill out a form and wait ten minutes is an egregious act of tyranny.The entire video is nothing but a propaganda piece aimed at keeping the far-right extremists mobilized and ready to do things like occupy the Oregon wilderness in the name of Murica or shoot up a Planned Parenthoood office in the name of life. In the very least he wants the status quo conservative argument of fear for your guns to weigh on the minds of every idiot who believes their firearm is the most important thing in their lives.You can watch the ridiculous challenge and the bloviating blowhard who issued it in the video below. If ever there was a time to have a puke bucket nearby, this is it. https://www.facebook.com/NationalRifleAssociation/videos/10154021771331833/?permPage=1Featured image via screen capture | 0 |
1,640 | Joe Biden Just Said What Every (Sane) Woman Is Thinking About Donald Trump | Hillary Clinton and most of her surrogates have stayed silent, apparently waiting to pounce on Donald Trump during the debate scheduled for Sunday night. The Vice President, though, couldn t hold his opinion. He took to Twitter and said exactly what most women are thinking about Donald Trump s disgusting remarks about grabbing women by the pussy. Joe Biden called it sexual assault.The words are demeaning. Such behavior is an abuse of power. It s not lewd. It s sexual assault. Joe Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 8, 2016Much of the media (and Republicans) is treating the tape, in which Trump is heard talking about groping women and kissing them, without permission, as just more words. It s Trump as usual, they say, only raw and on steroids. The problem with that, though, is that Trump is describing criminal acts. He s clearly in the habit of using his power and money to take anything he wants, and women to Trump are just things.Biden has long been an advocate of women s rights. He has been a driving force behind helping to end the backlog of unprocessed rape kits.Biden was also key in the passage of the Violence Against Women Act in the Senate and calls it the proudest thing I ve ever done. His goal is to change the culture in this country. When a woman is raped, when a woman is abused, the first thing other women ask is what did you do? Why were you there? What were you wearing? Biden said. Folks, all the opportunity and entrepreneurship in the world is good. But ultimately, starting in this country, we have to change the culture. And we re not going to change that culture until not a single woman who is abused ever asks herself: What did I do? Source: Huffington PostTrump supporters, of course, are doing the only thing they know how. They are playing a game of I know you are but what am I and are turning it around on Biden:Is this an official duty of the Vice President? Doubtful, Joe Biden , doubtful. Looks like an unwanted sexual advance. #TrumpTape pic.twitter.com/2JL40JDOlF bbaroo (@DempseyToe) October 8, 2016They even posted this completely debunked video:You mean sexual assault like this, Joe Biden ? #TrumpTape pic.twitter.com/YhxKFTPiCT bbaroo (@DempseyToe) October 8, 2016Of course, Biden isn t running for president and Trump is. It s not just women Trump disrespects, it s everyone. If his white male voters really think Trump is going to do something for them, they are sadly delusional. As for women, well, Trump s choice of Mike Pence as running mate should be all we need to know. The video was just confirmation that Trump isn t just a misogynist. He s a criminal, at east according to his own words.Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 0 |
1,641 | BLACK LIVES MATTER RESPONDS TO Oakland Police Department’s BBQ Invite: “I eat pigs, I don’t eat with them” [VIDEO] | Proving that they really don t want anything to do with improving relations with local law enforcement. This hateful and divisive movement is about reparations and getting special privileges. The Oakland Police Department (OPD) extended an invitation to followers of the Black Lives Matter movement to participate in a barbecue to start a constructive dialogue between the two groups. However, the police were met with flat-out rejection by a spokesperson who referred to law enforcement as pigs. A BBQ is definitely not going to stop this blockade, Karissa Lewis, a self-described radical black farmer from East Oakland, told local Fox affiliate KTVU. And as a radical-black farmer from East Oakland, I eat pigs, I don t eat with them, she said.According to KTVU, Lewis used the mic-check call and response technique, which was popularized at many of the Occupy protests, in order to rally support for her response from fellow protesters, who also rejected the offer. KTVU notes that many of the activists, at least at this one protest, seemed to be in agreement with her about the offer. Via: Breitbart News | 0 |
1,642 | Canadian Woman DESTROYS Liberal Prime Minister Trudeau Over Socialist Carbon-Tax Policy: “How is it justified for you to ask me to pay a CARBON TAX when I only have $65 left of my paycheck every 2 weeks to feed my family?” [VIDEO] | I m making almost $50,000 per year and I m living in energy poverty! WATCH: Sobbing woman confronts Prime Minister @JustinTrudeau over the cost of her hydro bill #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/MPAc7v6noI Globalnews.ca (@globalnews) January 13, 2017Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued an ultimatum to the provinces in October 2016, announcing his government s plan to set a minimum carbon tax even as environment ministers were meeting in Montreal to discuss options for carbon pricing.Several provinces and territories reacted angrily three environment ministers walked out of the federal-provincial climate talks after Mr. Trudeau s unilateral announcement in the House of Commons. Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall said the decision is a betrayal of the co-operative approach the Prime Minister had promised and that the tax would devastate his province s economy.The self-described feminist leader of Canada however seems hell-bent on pushing his radical agenda on his citizens. Kudos to this brave woman for speaking out against him | 0 |
1,643 | YIKES! WATCH CONSERVATIVE HOST EMBARRASS Trump-Hater On FOX “Outnumbered” Show | You gotta hand it to her Whether you love or hate Trump Fox News Andrea Tantaros is right on the money with her assessment of the National Review s unabated hate for Trump National Review s Rich Lowry gleefully bashed Trump on Outnumbered for coming in second in Iowa. Tantaros let him have it.Rich Lowry: He went to Iowa and HE LOST! And he was beaten fair and square by Ted Cruz. And if this thing would have gone one more day Rubio probably would have clipped him. It s because he skipped the FOX debate, he insulted one of the anchors Andrea Tantaros: This is what I don t understand. The party has shifted into a nationalist mode and the voters are angry and they ve been discounted and insulted by your publication. It s really, really rude Tell me this logic. This is the logic I m hearing from you. Third place is a win. Second place is a loss and first place is irrelevant?Via: Gateway Pundit | 0 |
1,644 | Factbox: Trump on Twitter (September 18) - CIA, U.N., Macron, Netanyahu | The following statements were posted to the verified Twitter accounts of U.S. President Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS. The opinions expressed are his own. Reuters has not edited the statements or confirmed their accuracy. @realDonaldTrump : - Happy 70th Birthday @USAirForce! [0914 EDT] - Happy 70th Birthday @CIA! [0916 EDT] - We commend SG @AntonioGuterres & his call for the UN to focus more on people & less on bureaucracy. #USAatUNGA #UNGA 45.wh.gov/K2mggs [1236 EDT] - Looking forward to meeting with Prime Minister @Netanyahu shortly. Peace in the Middle East would be a truly great legacy for ALL people! [1257 EDT] - Such an honor to have my good friend, Israel PM @Netanyahu, join us w/ his delegation in NYC this afternoon. #UNGA 45.wh.gov/Israel [1931 EDT] - It was a great honor to be with President @EmmanuelMacron of France this afternoon with his delegation. Great bilateral meeting! #UNGA [2301 EDT] -- Source link: (bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (bit.ly/2jpEXYR) | 1 |
1,645 | CHRIS MATTHEWS CONFUSED About Georgia Election Loss: “I don’t know what the h*ll he was selling” [Video] | MSNBC s Chris Matthews definitely didn t get a tingle up his leg when it came to Democrat Jon Ossoff. Turns out he s confused over what Ossoff was selling Matthews said about Ossoff: I don t know what the hell he was selling. He wasn t selling much. Ossoff lost a race that was the most expensive House election ever to Republican Karen Handel on Tuesday night in a race Democrats hoped to turn blue as a sign of national discontent with President Donald Trump. Outside donors from liberal states like California, spent big bucks to win this seat. Donations totaled a whopping $50 million1Ossoff s loss has prompted much soul searching from Democrats, including the left-leaning Matthews.Introducing his panel, Matthews discussed the race, saying that he wasn t even really sure what Ossoff was running on. It seems to me that there was a lot of progressive hype about a guy who wasn t running as a progressive, which is another interesting twist to this, Matthews said. He was running on basically, let s get together and be normal or something. I don t know what the hell he was selling. He wasn t selling much, he said.Further on in the discussion, Matthews made fun of his panelists for the rapidly changing narrative pushed by Democrats in the wake of yet another Democratic defeat. If it went for Ossoff, you would be jumping up and down, saying how great a victory it was, right? Come on, you re smiling. I know you re smiling. I know how people play politics. If you lose, oh, no, big thing. if you win, yay! I mean, which is it? Matthews asked.Wow! What an ASS! He s treating his guests with such a condescending tone. | 0 |
1,646 | BREAKING: Putin Tramples Obama’s Imaginary Red Line With Airstrikes In Syria | We have a weak leader in our White House who s willing to be pushed around after leaving a vacuum in the Middle East for chaos. Putin has decided he s in it for the long term and wants to have his presence strengthened in the Middle East since the U.S. has been so absent in the area. Remember THE RED LINE? That was a big turning point in our President s effectiveness in the area. Obama has done NOTHING and continues to let Putin bring in his military mite to take over dominance. So it s a win for Russia and Putin s desire to be the dominant big gun in the Middle East. Obama has officially surrendered influence in the Middle East and Assad is staying. Checkmate! FOX NEWS: Russian warplanes have begun bombarding Syrian opposition targets in the war torn nation s north, working on behalf of dictator Bashar al Assad, according to a senior military official.The official said airstrikes targeted fighters in the vicinity of Homs, located roughly 60 miles east of a Russian naval facility in Tartus, and were carried out by a couple of Russian bombers. It was not clear if the strikes targeted ISIS, Al Qaeda or other forces opposed to Assad, who Moscow is aiding. According to a Twitter handle belonging to the Syrian government, the Russian strikes were initiated at the request of Assad.The development came after Pentagon officials brushed aside an official request from Russia to clear air space over northern Syria, where Moscow intends to conduct airstrikes against ISIS on behalf of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, according to sources who spoke to Fox News.The request was made by a Russian three-star general who spoke with U.S. officials at the American embassy in Baghdad, sources said. The general, who was not identified, used the word please when delivering the verbal request, known as a demarche, according to the written transcript of the exchange. | 0 |
1,647 | Khamenei says Iran, Russia should cooperate to isolate U.S., foster Middle East stability | TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday that Tehran and Moscow must step up cooperation to isolate the United States and help stabilize the Middle East, state TV reported. Iran and Russia are the main allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while the United States, Turkey and most Arab states support rebel groups fighting to overthrow him. Putin met Iranian political leaders in an effort to nurture a warming relationship strengthened since U.S. President Donald Trump threatened recently to abandon the international nuclear deal with Iran reached in 2015. Our cooperation can isolate America ... The failure of U.S.-backed terrorists in Syria cannot be denied but Americans continue their plots, Khamenei told Putin, according to Iranian state television. Since Russia s military intervention in Syria s war in 2015, and with stepped-up Iranian military assistance, Assad has taken back large amounts of territory from rebels as well as swathes of central and eastern Syria from Islamic State militants. Moscow is now trying to build on that success with a new diplomatic initiative, including a congress of Syria s rival parties it plans in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Nov. 18, though a major opposition bloc has refused to take part. Pragmatist Iranian President Hassan Rouhani echoed Khamenei, saying Iran and Russia together could tackle regional terrorism - an allusion to Sunni Muslim armed groups hostile to Iran, Assad and many other Arab states. Our cooperation has helped the fight against terrorism in the region ... Together we can establish regional peace and security, Rouhani said in a televised joint press conference with Putin and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, who took part in a three-way summit in Tehran. The rapprochement between Iran and Russia is worrying for both Saudi Arabia, Shi ite Muslim Tehran s main Sunni rival for dominance in the Middle East, and the United States. Putin praised cooperation with Iran as very productive . We are managing to coordinate our positions on the Syrian issue, Putin said. Moscow is also an important ally for Iran in its renewed confrontation with the United States, where Trump broke ranks with major allies on Oct. 13 by de-certifying Tehran s nuclear deal with six world powers including Washington under his predecessor Barack Obama. Trump has called the agreement the worst deal ever negotiated and branded Iran a terrorist nation for involvement in conflicts in the Middle East. We oppose any unilateral change in the multilateral nuclear deal, Putin told Khamenei, Iranian state TV reported. Russia has criticized Trump s disavowal of the nuclear agreement, which has opened a 60-day window for the U.S. Congress to act to reimpose economic sanctions on Iran. These were lifted under the 2015 accord in return for Tehran curbing nuclear activity of potential use in developing an atomic bomb. This is a very important visit (by Putin) ... It shows the determination of Tehran and Moscow to deepen their strategic alliance ..., which will shape the future of the Middle East, an Iranian official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Both Russia and Iran are under American pressure ... Tehran has no other choice but to rely on Moscow to ease the U.S. pressure, said the official. Another Iranian official said Trump s hawkish Iran policy had united the Islamic Republic s often feuding leadership - split into hardline conservative, pragmatist and reformist factions - in alignment with Russia. During Putin s visit, Russian oil producer Rosneft and the National Iranian Oil Company agreed an outline deal to work on a number of strategic projects in Iran together worth up to $30 billion. The deal appeared to dovetail with Putin s strategy to reassert Russian political and economic influence in the Middle East that faded after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. | 1 |
1,648 | Social service groups sue Illinois for $100 million over unpaid work | CHICAGO (Reuters) - Dozens of Illinois social service providers, starved of cash by the state’s long-running budget stalemate, sued Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner and six statewide agencies on Wednesday, seeking more than $100 million for unpaid work since July. The plaintiffs, who provide services for sex-abuse victims, the homeless, senior citizens and at-risk youth, are suffering “acute financial hardship” as a result of the unresolved budget fight, according to the lawsuit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court. It is the latest attempt at judicial relief by groups hurt by the state’s record-setting, 11-month budget impasse between the Republican governor and Democrats controlling the legislature. The coalition of 64 organizations, calling itself Pay Now Illinois, contended that Rauner’s June 2015 veto of appropriation bills amounted to an unlawful impairment of the their constitutional right to seek a legal remedy for non-payment by the state of their various contracts. “We’ve had to deal with this uncertainty now for the 11th month, over 300 days, without being paid,” said Andrea Durbin, chairwoman of Illinois Pay Now. “We’re seeking to be paid in full for the work we’ve done.” Rauner’s office expressed empathy but urged state lawmakers to approve a spending plan. “While we understand that frustration is driving many worthwhile organizations to seek solutions anywhere, including the courts, the only solution is for the General Assembly to pass a balanced, reform-oriented budget as soon as possible,” Rauner spokeswoman Catherine Kelly said. In another budget-related development, a plan to change how Illinois taxes its residents and businesses stalled in the House of Representatives after a successful lobbying push by Rauner. The proposed constitutional amendment would have stricken the state’s flat income-tax rates and allowed state lawmakers to impose new, multi-tiered tax rates tied to an individual or company’s level of income. Supporters said it would raise an additional $1.9 billion annually for the state. But facing a Wednesday deadline to pass the House, one of the measure’s sponsors, State Representative Christian Mitchell, said lobbying by the governor’s office convinced up to five Republicans whose backing was needed for passage to withdraw their tentative support. “It’s disappointing because this could have helped us with our budget crisis,” Mitchell, a Chicago Democrat, told Reuters. Rauner’s administration said the measure would cost the state 20,000 jobs in four years and lead to a migration of 43,000 high wage earners from Illinois. | 1 |
1,649 | Russia holds rates amid geopolitical risks, sees cuts by year-end | MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Russian central bank held its key interest rate unchanged at 9 percent on Friday, citing geopolitical risks and inflationary pressures, but it indicated rate cuts would follow in the coming months. Facing new U.S. sanctions and a recent spike in food prices, the central bank opted for a cautious no-change decision, even though inflation, its key area of focus, has nearly slowed to its 4 percent target. The inflation slowdown has allowed the central bank to cut benchmark borrowing costs three times this year, helping the economy recover following two years of contraction. “Volatility in global commodity and financial markets, as well as exchange rate dynamics amid elevated geopolitical risks may have negative implications for exchange rate and inflation expectations,” the central bank said in a statement. The U.S. Senate this week voted almost unanimously to slap new sanctions on Russia and backed a provision that allows Congress to stop any effort by President Donald Trump to ease existing sanctions. Although analysts have played down the potential economic impact of the new sanctions, the rouble has been dragged lower in recent days because of them. If rouble weakness were to intensify, that would represent an inflation risk. Although annual inflation unexpectedly rose from 4.1 percent in May to 4.4 percent last month because of higher food prices, the central bank said it still saw room to cut the key rate in the second half of 2017 as a new harvest would help lower prices for fruit and vegetables. “While making its decision hereinafter, the Bank of Russia will assess inflation risks, the inflation dynamics and economic developments against the forecast,” the bank said. Keeping its 2017 economic growth forecast unchanged at 1.3-1.8 percent, the central bank noted that a decline in inflation expectations had come to an end. “In order to maintain inflation close to the 4 percent target, the Bank of Russia will continue to conduct moderately tight monetary policy,” said the bank, which has previously promised to keep its key rate up to 3 percentage points above inflation. “All in all, extreme caution is the focus at the CBR,” Dmitry Polevoy, chief economist at ING Bank in Moscow, said in a research note. With the threat of more U.S. sanctions looming, the central bank likely wants to take no risks with financial stability by keeping rates stable, said Tim Ash, senior strategist at BlueBay Asset Management. The bank is seen cutting its main lending rate to 8.25 percent by the end of the year, a Reuters poll showed last month. Capital Economics said it expected the central bank to cut rates as soon as its next board meeting, scheduled for Sept. 15, as inflation would fall back towards the central bank’s target by year-end. | 1 |
1,650 | Portugal government survives no confidence vote over fires | LISBON (Reuters) - Portugal s government on Tuesday survived a no confidence vote in parliament called by the opposition which alleged the government had failed to protect the lives of 110 people who died in two wildfire tragedies in the past four months. This year s fires in Portugal - one in June which killed 65 people and others last week which overwhelmed fire-fighting services and killed 45 people - are the worst on record and led to the resignation of the interior minister. The motion was presented by the center-right CDS-PP after a barrage of criticism of the Socialist government of Prime Minister Antonio Costa. But the Socialists, together with their far-left parliamentary allies, the Communists and Left Bloc, rejected the motion in parliament by 122 to 105. The lethal wildfires are the biggest challenge faced by the government since it came to power in 2015 and have highlighted a glaring divide between the poor, abandoned interior of Portugal and its coastal, urban centers. The government failed because its political leaders didn t know how to coordinate or execute a policy capable of stopping the fires, CDS-PP party leader Assuncao Cristas told parliament during the debate. Thousands of Portuguese waited for help which never came. The government says extraordinary weather conditions, including unusually strong winds and extreme drought, made the fires very difficult to avoid. Portugal s yearly summer fires rarely kill civilians. Facing a growing backlash, including protests and demands for action by the president, the government announced a series of measures at the weekend. We are here because the suffering of the victims and their families and the feeling of insecurity of the Portuguese demands a response, Prime Minister Costa told parliament during the debate on the motion. A report on the fire in June pointed to a long list of mistakes, including slow response times by the police, firefighters and civil protection agency. A special communication system for emergencies stopped working during the fire. This year s fires in Portugal accounted for 60 percent of the total area burnt in the entire European Union. Portugal is equal to 2.1 percent of the EU s landmass. In the interior, many have clamored for years for deep changes to land management to prevent fires, by creating viable forestry and farm units that will make land more valuable. | 1 |
1,651 | Senator McCain to vote against Obamacare repeal: statement | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator John McCain said on Friday that he would vote against a new Republican bill to dismantle Obamacare if it is brought onto the Senate floor next week, in a new setback for the proposal. “I cannot in good conscience vote for the Graham-Cassidy proposal,” McCain said in a statement about the bill sponsored by Senators Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy. McCain said he could not support the bill not knowing how much it would cost and how it would affect insurance coverage, adding that he believed both parties could do better if they work together on legislation. | 1 |
1,652 | U.S. lawmakers offer bills to counter Obama Guantanamo plan | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican lawmakers introduced legislation on Tuesday to counter President Barack Obama’s bid to close the Guantanamo detention center, underscoring the difficulty he faces keeping a promise to close it before leaving office next year. Republican Representative Ed Royce, the chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced a measure that would force the Obama administration to publicize plans for transfers from Guantanamo. Currently, the administration must inform Congress of plans for any transfers, but those notices are classified. Public notice of plans to move detainees would allow opponents more time to marshal opposition and potentially stop any transfers. “This legislation will bring much needed public scrutiny to the administration’s mad rush to transfer detainees out of Guantanamo Bay before President Obama leaves office,” Royce said in a statement. Four other Republicans, Senators Richard Burr, Kelly Ayotte, Tom Cotton and Marco Rubio, a 2016 presidential hopeful, introduced a bill late on Monday that would bar Obama from returning the naval base at Guantanamo to Cuba without authorization from Congress. A similar bill was introduced in the House by Republican Representative David Jolly. “It’s clear that the threats to the United States are increasing, not decreasing, and we need every available military asset. As President Obama continues to court the Castro regime, I believe it is important that Congress makes clear that he cannot give up our base in such a strategic location,” said Burr, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “President Obama’s aggressive push to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay is dangerous,” Burr said. | 1 |
1,653 | Putin says will run as independent candidate for new Kremlin term | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin, seeking a new term in office in a March election, said on Thursday he would run as an independent candidate while hoping for support from more than one political party. Putin, 65, told an annual news conference that Russia s political system must be competitive, but the opposition lacked a strong candidate to challenge him because his opponents, while creating a lot of noise, had very little to offer the nation. | 1 |
1,654 | Nearly half of Americans still oppose Republican tax bill: Reuters/Ipsos poll | WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - As Republicans in the U.S. Congress rush to finish their tax plan, the legislation is not getting more popular with the public, with nearly half of Americans still opposed to it, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Monday. Of adults who were aware of the plan being considered by Congress, 49 percent said they were opposed to it, a sentiment that has not changed much in the past few weeks, the poll showed. In addition to the 49 percent who said they opposed the Republican tax bill, 31 percent said they supported it and 20 percent said they “don’t know,” according to the online opinion poll of 1,499 adults conducted Dec. 3 to 7, with 1,138 adults saying they were aware of the tax legislation. A poll taken at the end of November also showed 49 percent opposed to the plan. Tax negotiators are trying to reconcile the differences between separate bills passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate, then to send a final bill to President Donald Trump, who want to sign it into law before year’s end. Accomplishing this feat would represent the Republicans’ first major legislative victory since they took control of both chamber of Congress and the White House in January. Republican tax legislation would slash the corporate tax rate, eliminate some taxes paid only by rich Americans and offer a mixed bag of temporary cuts to other individuals and families. Trump, who is expected to give a speech on the tax overhaul on Wednesday, praised it in a tweet on Sunday by saying the “end result will be not only important, but SPECIAL!” When asked about Trump’s handling of tax policy, 53 percent of those polled said they disapproved, 38 percent approved and 9 percent said they “don’t know,” the Reuters/Ipsos poll showed. When asked who stands to benefit most from the Republican plan, more than half of American adults surveyed selected either the wealthy or large U.S. corporations. Twelve percent chose “all Americans,” 8 percent picked the middle class and 2 percent chose lower-income Americans. The Reuters/Ipsos poll has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 3 about percentage points. A USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll released on Sunday showed that 32 percent of Americans support the Republican tax plan, with more than half predicting it would not lower tax bills for their families or help the economy in a major way. | 1 |
1,655 | Republicans BETRAY Paul Ryan And Mitch McConnell – Obamacare Repeal DOOMED | Many Republicans in Congressional leadership are touting their idiotic repeal and delay plan as the perfect way to repeal the ACA without kicking millions off their insurance plans. People like Mitch McConnell are already acting like it s done deal. People like Paul Ryan think things like tax-free health savings accounts are the answer to our healthcare woes. Trump himself has said he wants the repeal to happen as soon as possible. So it should be a foregone conclusion that all of this is happening in the very near future.Except it might not.Republicans need 50 votes in the Senate to pass their repeal. They have 52 seats. If they lose three votes, they ll have 49.With just 49 votes, the repeal effort fails.But which three? The truth is that not every Republican is happy with the idea of repealing the law now and working on a replacement later. They ve had six years to come up with a replacement, as Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) acknowledges. They haven t done so. The idea that they can now come up with a good replacement before millions lose their healthcare coverage is laughable at best, but really, it s cold-blooded fuckery.Corker, along with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), strongly oppose passing any repeals without simultaneously passing their replacement plan.These are the three who are likely to derail the repeal effort.Even better (worse?) is that Corker, along with Sens. Rob Portman (R-OH), Susan Collins (R-ME), Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) have introduced an amendment to the repeal bill that would push the vote back a month:Five GOP senators offer an amendment to extend the Obamacare repeal reconciliation deadline by more than a MONTH. pic.twitter.com/8MPlAy50mR Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) January 9, 2017That goes directly against Mitch McConnell s insistence that they ll repeal the law soon, and then come up with a replacement rapidly, which happened over the weekend in an interview on CBS Face the Nation. However, he couldn t give us anything like a timetable for the replacement, even though he was pressed hard.Let s also not forget all the Republican governors who are currently trying to pressure Congress into holding off repealing the ACA. These are governors who ve seen massive benefits to their states from the Medicaid expansion in the ACA. A full repeal means all states that expanded Medicaid will lose their federal funding for it. Governors, regardless of party, hate that.Democrats will block repeal efforts as best they can not just because they oppose Republicans, but because what paltry fragments of plans the Republicans do have rob from the poor to give to the rich. For instance, they want to greatly expand the use of health savings accounts, which helps absolutely no one who can t afford to put any money away for anything (like retirement, their children s college, their own savings, etc.). Sure, the accounts are tax-free, but they re a way to force us to pay even more for our healthcare than we already do.Neither McConnell nor Ryan will be happy with their own turning against them on something they and their handlers insist must be done now, and fuck the people who will end up as collateral damage while they dicker over a full replacement plan. But it s true that if Corker, Paul and Alexander block the repeal bill because there s no replacement to go with it, then the effort fails.Featured image by Drew Angerer via Getty Images | 0 |
1,656 | U.S. judge to lift house arrest for former Trump campaign manager Manafort | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. District Court judge on Friday said she would release former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort from house arrest once he meets certain conditions, expressing satisfaction that the $10 million he agreed to forfeit would be available if he ever failed to appear for court proceedings. In her order, Judge Amy Berman Jackson said to be released from home confinement, Manafort must execute documents agreeing to forfeit four properties, including two in New York, one in Alexandria, Virginia, and his Florida home. He will be subject to restrictions including a curfew and electronic GPS monitoring but will be allowed to leave his home in Alexandria for his home in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, once he meets the conditions. Manafort is charged with conspiring to launder money and failing to register as a foreign agent working on behalf of the government of Ukraine’s former pro-Russia President Viktor Yanukovych. He is being prosecuted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, as part of Mueller’s investigation into accusations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. In case the forfeited properties do not raise $10 million, the judge said, Manafort’s wife, Kathleen, has deposited $5 million in an account and his daughter Andrea Manafort Shand, $2 million in a separate account, to make up any difference. The assets cannot be touched without a court order. Once in Florida, Manafort must stay within the area, unless he is traveling to Washington for court appearances or meetings with counsel, according to the order. He needs permission for any other domestic travel and cannot leave the country. | 1 |
1,657 | Supreme Court rejects Michigan straight-ticket voting appeal | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday rejected a bid by Michigan to reinstate its Republican-backed ban on straight-ticket voting for the Nov. 8 general election. The justices left in place a decision by a federal district judge in Michigan who in July suspended a law that abolished straight-ticket voting, the practice of using one mark to vote for all candidates from one party, finding that it would disproportionately affect black voters. The 6th U.S. Court of Appeals upheld that finding last month, prompting the state to seek a stay from the Supreme Court. Two conservative justices on the eight-member court, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, voted to grant the request, the brief order said. The Michigan law, passed by a Republican-controlled legislature and signed by a Republican governor, was one of numerous voting measures passed at the state level that put new restrictions on voting. These measures also include stricter voter-identification laws and reduction of early-voting periods before election day. Proponents of the law, enacted in January, have said most states have moved away from a straight-ticket voting option. Removing the option forces voters to study candidates and encourages voters to make decisions based on criteria other than party affiliation, they said. Opponents say voting restrictions are aimed at reducing turnout of minorities, who are more likely to vote for Democrats. U.S. District Judge Gershwin Drain in July granted a preliminary injunction sought by civil rights and labor groups who sued Michigan’s Secretary of State Ruth Johnson and Attorney General Bill Schuette. The judge said elimination of straight-ticket voting would be a burden on voting rights and cause long wait times at polls. After Friday’s decision, Schuette said, “It is my duty to defend Michigan’s laws, in this case a law that stands in 40 other states. Now the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken and I will respect that decision.” The case is one of several voting disputes being litigated ahead of the election and is the second emergency application the Supreme Court has recently been asked to handle. On Aug. 31, the court rejected a bid by North Carolina to reinstate for November’s elections several voting restrictions, including a requirement that people show identification at the polls. The high court is short one justice following the death of conservative Antonin Scalia in February. As a result the court is evenly split 4-4 between liberals and conservatives. | 1 |
1,658 | WIKILEAKS: CLINTON CAMPAIGN CHAIRMAN Held 75,000 Shares In Putin-Connected Energy Company | The disclosure that Clinton Chair John Podesta transferred his shares in Putin-backed Joule Unlimited to an anonymous holding company when he joined the Obama Administration is extremely concerning Hillary Clinton s campaign chairman John Podesta s membership on the executive board of an energy company, Joule Unlimited, which received millions from a Putin-connected Russian government fund, also included 75,000 common shares, according to an email exchange uncovered by the Wikileaks hacks. In the newly-uncovered email exchanged under the subject Podesta Outstanding Docs for Joule, Eryn Sepp, who was an assistant to Podesta at the Center for American Progress, forwarded a message to Podesta from Mark C. Solakian, who was Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Joule Unlimited Technologies, Inc. It is my understanding that John transferred the resulting 75,000 common shares from the option exercise to the Leonidio LLC., Slovakian wrote in a January 2014 email, referencing the Delaware-based holding company. As such, we would need to edit the Transfer of Share Agreement to reflect the transfer of 75,000 common shares to the LLC. Podesta s membership on the board of directors of Joule Unlimited was first revealed in research from Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large and Government Accountability Institute (GAI) President Peter Schweizer.In the report, tilted, From Russia with Money: Hillary Clinton, the Russian Reset, and Cronyism, it s revealed that Podesta joined the Joule Unlimited board in June 2011.Read more: Breitbart | 0 |
1,659 | Sanders lashes out at Clinton in contentious Democratic debate | CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) - Democratic White House candidate Bernie Sanders went on the offensive against front-runner Hillary Clinton on Sunday in the most contentious of their four presidential debates, accusing her of cozying up to Wall Street and misrepresenting his stance on healthcare and guns. Reflecting Sanders’ rise in opinion polls, the two battled with new urgency over who was best suited to lead Democrats in the November election. Sanders cast himself as the outsider who would lead a political revolution, while Clinton touted her experience and embraced President Barack Obama’s legacy. In their last televised debate before Iowa’s caucuses launch the nominating race on Feb. 1, Clinton raised questions about the self-styled democratic socialist’s positions on Wall Street reform, healthcare and gun control. Sanders pushed back at every turn. He painted Clinton as a defender of the status quo who accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees as a former secretary of state from Wall Street backers. “I don’t take money from big banks. I don’t get personal speaking fees from Goldman Sachs,” the U.S. senator from Vermont said, adding, “I have huge doubts when people receive money from Wall Street.” He referred to his rising poll numbers in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, where he has pulled even or ahead of Clinton, saying he believed he could expand his number of supporters to include more African-American voters. He noted that when his presidential campaign began, Clinton was 50 percentage points ahead of him in the polls. “Guess what: In Iowa, New Hampshire, the race is (now) very, very close,” Sanders said. The debate followed a week of rising tension between the two leading candidates. Sanders was noticeably more animated that in previous debates, sometimes grimacing and shaking his head during Clinton’s answers. Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, who lags badly in polls, was often a bystander although he joined Sanders in criticizing Clinton’s Wall Street ties. Clinton said she would build on Obama’s agenda, accusing Sanders of voting to deregulate the financial market in 2000 in a way that led to the central causes of the financial collapse of 2008 that pitched the U.S. economy into a deep recession. Clinton tried to undercut Sanders’ support among supporters of Obama, who remains a popular figure in the Democratic Party. “He’s criticized President Obama for taking donations from Wall Street. And President Obama has led our country out of the Great Recession,” she said. “Senator Sanders called him weak, disappointing, he even in 2011 publicly sought someone to run in a primary against President Obama.” Clinton pounced on Sanders’ “Medicare-for-all” plan that was announced just hours before the debate after Clinton had criticized Sanders for refusing to explain how he would pay for the proposal. The former secretary of state, former U.S. senator and wife of former President Bill Clinton said Sanders’ healthcare plan would undermine Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act at a time when Republican legislators were still trying to repeal and replace it. “I have to say I’m not sure whether we’re talking about the plan you introduced tonight or the plan you introduced nine times over 20 years,” she told Sanders. “But the fact is we have the Affordable Care Act. ... We have already seen 19 million Americans get insurance.” Sanders said he wanted to build on the Obama law by making health insurance more affordable. “Nobody is tearing this up,” he said, referring to the program popularly known as Obamacare. “We’re moving forward.” The debate was held across the street from the Charleston church where a white gunman killed nine black worshippers in June, and Clinton made reference to the incident while accusing Sanders of being weak on gun control. She welcomed his decision on Saturday night to back a bill in Congress rescinding portions of a law giving gunmakers immunity from lawsuits, but said his record showed a more lenient attitude toward the demands of the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA) gun lobby. Sanders defended himself, saying he has a strong record on trying to prevent guns from getting into the wrong hands and standing up to the NRA. Sanders supporters watching in Manchester, New Hampshire, said he seemed more engaged than in past debates. “I thought that Bernie was much more prepared,” Chris Haigh, 66, said. Sanders has pulled into a statistical tie with Clinton in recent polls in Iowa, whose caucuses are the first contest in the race to pick a nominee for the November election. He also leads Clinton in the next state to vote, Vermont neighbor New Hampshire, on Feb. 9, according to polls. After those two states, the race moves to Nevada and South Carolina, which have more diverse voting populations and where polls show Clinton leading. On March 1, or “Super Tuesday”, voters in 11 states, many of them in the South where Clinton has big poll leads, will cast primary ballots. (Additional reporting by Alana Wise and Luciana Lopez; Writing by Steve Holland and John Whitesides; Editing by Mary Milliken and Jonathan Oatis) SAP is the sponsor of this coverage which is independently produced by the staff of Reuters News Agency. | 1 |
1,660 | Trump’s Ego Goes Into Overdrive As He Retweets Anyone Who Kisses His A** Over Withdrawal From Paris Climate Accord | Donald Trump is so desperate to hear praise that he is retweeting anyone who congratulates him for withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate deal.In an effort to prevent and reverse climate change, the developing nations of the world came together in Paris, France and agreed to curb their carbon emissions.Trump, however, is a climate change denier. So he promised to pull America out of the deal and he did exactly that on Thursday. In order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord, Trump announced. We re getting out. And then he referred to himself in the third person and patted himself on the back. The Paris accord is a bad deal for Americans and the President s action today is keeping his campaign promise to put America first. The accord was negotiated poorly by the Obama administration out of desperation. Trump s decision has spurred outrage across the nation and around the globe as world leaders feel that the United States has betrayed them. One of the big reasons why the Paris Agreement became reality is because the United States led the way. Now America is retreating from that leadership role.However, Trump was only interested in hearing praise for his monumentally moronic decision, so he proceeded to retweet anyone who kissed his ass, including Lindsey Graham, Reince Priebus, and Kevin McCarthy.I support President Trump s desire to re-enter the Paris Accord after the agreement becomes a better deal for America and business. Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) June 1, 2017Promise kept. @POTUS exits flawed #ParisAccord to seek better deal for U.S. workers & economy. This WH will always put #AmericaFirst. Reince Priebus (@Reince45) June 1, 2017.@POTUS made the right call in leaving a deal that would have put an unnecessary burden on the United States. https://t.co/quc6hxAK2y Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) June 1, 2017President Trump did the right thing by withdrawing us from Paris treaty it would hurt American companies and American workers Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) June 1, 2017Our President is choosing to put American jobs, American consumers, American energy, and American industry first. https://t.co/y2OpdTMDu7 Vice President Pence (@VP) June 1, 2017Wall Street hits record highs after Trump pulls out of Climate pact https://t.co/PDmwj13Lus FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) June 2, 2017But Trump s ass kissers are no match for his critics, especially The Weather Channel, which made epic changes on their website homepage to drive home just how bad Trump s decision is.The Weather Channel is really not happy with President Trump right now.Their homepage is popping off with climate change facts: pic.twitter.com/1ermhoYRKk AJ+ (@ajplus) June 1, 2017.@weatherchannel is not playing around today. look at the homepage pic.twitter.com/bZX2JtlzMV McKenna Blair (@macblairlife) June 1, 2017Make no mistake, Trump s decision might make big businesses happy in the short term, but we are all going to suffer the long term environmental consequences. And that is NOT something to celebrate.Featured Image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 0 |
1,661 | Seth Meyers Breaks Down The Scary Reality Of Trump’s Inevitable Nomination (VIDEO) | During a segment of Closer Look, Seth Meyers examined the reality that is an inevitable Donald Trump GOP presidential nomination.After Trump s win in Indiana, The Zodiac Killer Ted Cruz dropped out of the race. Meyers spent the beginning of the segment recounting Cruz s final moments before the fall of his campaign. That fall was partly literal. In a last ditch effort, Cruz had announced Carly Fiorina as his VP pick and running mate for the campaign. During a campaign event, Fiorina fell while on stage. Meyers played a clip of Trump roasting Cruz over his lack of effort to try and help Fiorina out during the event. Trump said that even he would have helped her.Meyers commented on Trump s statement saying: Even I would have helped her. Not only does Trump know he s an asshole, he knows that we know he s an asshole. Even I would have helped her and watching women fall down is basically my favorite thing,' Meyers said while impersonating Trump.Later in the segment, Meyers gets savage with this one question for the GOP: This should be a serious moment of introspection for Republicans. How did they get to the point where they re handing their nomination to a race-baiting, xenophobic serial liar who peddles conspiracy theories? It probably has to do with the GOP s southern strategy. After the fall of the old Jim Crow, Republicans took advantage of southern white people s racism. They invented a coded language that would allow them to say and do incredibly racist things while in public. How else would the GOP get poor whites to vote for the interests of the rich?The reason that the GOP is about to have a race-baiting, xenophobic serial liar who peddles conspiracy theories is because they have spent the last 40 years crystallizing a public that will consent to such rule. When working class white people are confronted with hyper objects such as income inequality or other concepts hard to personally conceptualize, they default to a leader who gives them the answers they were taught to accept as reality.You can watch the segment below, in full.Featured image from video screenshot | 0 |
1,662 | Britain says Johnson comments do not justify more Iran charges against jailed aid worker | LONDON (Reuters) - Britain said on Monday that comments by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson about jailed Iranian-British aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe should not be used by the Islamic Republic to bring additional charges against her. Johnson told the British parliament s foreign affairs committee last Wednesday that Zaghari-Ratcliffe had been teaching people journalism, a statement that the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a charity organization for which she works, said was incorrect. Last week s remarks by the Foreign Secretary provide no justifiable basis on which to bring any additional charges against Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a spokesman for the British Foreign Office said. While criticizing the Iranian case against Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the Foreign Secretary sought to explain that even the most extreme set of unproven Iranian allegations against her were insufficient reason for her detention and treatment. Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager, is serving a five-year jail sentence after being convicted of plotting to overthrow Iran s clerical establishment. She was brought again into court on Saturday, three days after Johnson s remarks, and accused by a judge of spreading propaganda against the regime . She is not a journalist and has never trained journalists at the Thomson Reuters Foundation where she is project manager in my Media Development team, Monique Villa, Thomson Reuters Foundation chief executive, said in a statement. I see a direct correlation between this statement by Boris Johnson, who rightly condemned the treatment that Nazanin has received in Iran, and the fact that Nazanin was brought once again into Court on Saturday 4 November. The charges against Nazanin were denied by her family and the Foundation, a charity organization that is independent of Thomson Reuters and operates independently of Reuters News. Tulip Siddiq, a lawmaker for the opposition Labour Party, said Johnson had failed to retract his comments, which she said had undermined efforts to secure Zaghari-Ratcliffe s release. By suggesting Nazanin was in Iran teaching people journalism , Boris Johnson has endangered the cause to secure her release, Siddiq, who is the lawmaker for the area where Zaghari-Ratcliffe lived in London, said in an emailed statement. The Foreign Secretary s failure to retract his comments to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee is unforgivable, Siddiq said. His comments were both untrue and unhelpful to her case. The Iranian Embassy in London could not be reached for comment. | 1 |
1,663 | Chicago City Council passes mayor's 2017 budget | CHICAGO (Reuters) - The Chicago City Council on Wednesday approved Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s fiscal 2017 budget which calls for a tax on plastic bags and the first phase of hiring more than 900 police officers. The council voted 48-0 for the budget which begins on Jan. 1. Emanuel last month unveiled his $9.8 billion all-funds spending plan, which includes $3.7 billion for operations. The budget relies on $82.3 million in revenue growth, savings from efficiencies, and a few one-time measures - but no big tax hike. “To think that we’re on the verge today of passing a budget with almost unanimity is remarkable,” Alderman Ed Burke said just before the vote. Emanuel last year pushed through a $543 million phased-in property tax increase for police and firefighter retirement systems. The city enacted a new tax on water and sewer usage in September to rescue its largest pension fund for municipal workers from insolvency. The council previously increased a telephone surcharge for laborers’ pensions. Credit ratings for the nation’s third-largest city have been deteriorating due largely to an unfunded pension liability that stood at $33.8 billion at the end of fiscal 2015 for Chicago’s four retirement systems. The new budget includes a 7-cent fee on store bags and parking rate hikes. It also accommodates the initial phase of the mayor’s two-year plan to add 970 police positions to address the city’s sharp spike in violence. “This is the first year in recent memory that we’ve made investments in public safety with the addition of 1,000 police officers,” said Alderman Jason Earvin. “And we can direct investment in some of the most challenged communities ... and with our youth in some of the most troubled parts of the city.” After the vote, Emanuel noted record-high summer job creation for youth, record-high project starts in commercial and residential real estate and the city using reforms to place pensions on the path to solvency. “Chicago’s employment is at a 15-year high that we haven’t seen since 2000 since the tech bubble,” Emanuel said. “What we have done, not just today, but over the last five years is give people confidence in the city that we are going to take care of our business, get our fiscal house in order.” | 1 |
1,664 | Henningsen: Obama White House Colluded with Facebook to Fabricate ‘Russian Bot’ Conspiracy | WASHINGTON DC This week the Senate Intelligence Committee finally gave an update on its continuing investigation into whether Russia actually had anything to do with the 2016 Election. If anyone was expecting any actual evidence to be presented, they would have been sorely disappointed, again. Still, that s not going to stop Official Washington from burning though more public money to try and prove a conspiracy theory. The issue of collusion is still open, said committee chairman, Richard Burr of North Carolina (R). We have more work to do as it relates to collusion, but we re developing a clearer picture of what happened. Likewise, the committee s ranking Democrat, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, admitted they had nothing, but implored Americans to be on guard of the Russian. The Russian active measures did not end on Election Day 2016, said Warner. He maintains that the US should adopt a more aggressive whole government approach to combat Russian influence on the vulnerable minds of unsuspecting Americans.However, yesterday 21WIRE revealed via Consortium News that it was Senator Warner, along with the Obama White House, who colluded with Silicon Valley giant Facebook in 2016, with Warner making multiple trips to Palo Alto to pressure Facebook to produce some evidence that Warner and his colleagues could hold up as proof of Russian Bots using Facebook to interfere in the 2016 Election. As it turns out, this was fake news fabricated by Washington and its mainstream media partners.21WIRE editor Patrick Henningsen spoke to RT International yesterday about these developments, and how the US government is using their own fake news in order to shut down competition in the information sphere. By definition, that collusion between big government and corporations is classic fascism. Watch:. What I will confirm is that the Russian intelligence service is determined, clever, Senator Burr said. And I recommend that every campaign and every election official take this very seriously. Russiagate has really turned into a Vaudeville act.READ MORE RUSSIAGATE NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Russiagate FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @ 21WIRE.TV | 0 |
1,665 | Trump Tried Recreating Obama’s Iconic ‘Bin Laden Raid’ Situation Room Photo – And It’s So Pathetic | For months now people close to Trump have been privately saying the president is consumed by a seething jealousy of his predecessor, Barack Obama. Where Trump s approval ratings continue to circle the drain, Obama s have seen a post-presidency surge. Adding to that, Obama s signature piece of legislation is not only more popular than ever, but the replacement Trump came up with imploded before it even got a vote. In the media and from political observers Obama is viewed as smarter, more mature, and more gifted politically than Trump. And Trump knows it.So what is Trump to do? Imitate.Hours after he ordered a missile strike in Syria, Trump s press secretary Sean Spicer tweeted an image of the situation room.WH photo (ed for security): @potus receives briefing on #syria military strike fr Nat Security team, inc @vp , SECDEF, CJCS via secure VTC pic.twitter.com/aaCnR7xomR Sean Spicer (@PressSec) April 7, 2017It bore a disturbing resemblance to one of the most famous photographs of Obama s time in office, the night he ordered the mission to kill Osama Bin Laden.However, unlike Obama s image filled with serious people doing serious jobs Trump s version contains a number of unqualified goons. The photograph of Obama and his staff signaled strength. Trump s imitation serves only to show the world what a clown show Trump s White House is.Trump s attack on Syria may have earned praise by right-wingers, but it s already escalating tensions in the region and may someday be viewed as the opening shot in a devastating global war. Russia, rather than cave to Trump s show of strength has vowed to arm the Syrian regime with more anti-aircraft weapons meant to shoot down any U.S. plane that crosses the border.BREAKING Russian military says it will help Syria strengthen its air defenses after US strike. The Associated Press (@AP) April 7, 2017The attack also alienated Iran, pushing them further into the sphere of Russia and the Assad government.Those are some serious consequences for actions being made by Rex Tillerson, a former oil executive with ties to Russia; Steve Bannon, the owner of white nationalist website Breitbart; and Jared Kushner, the son of a real estate mogul who married the daughter of a real estate mogul. The fact that those men are even in the room is a disgrace to America s military, who will likely carry the brunt of the consequences.But perhaps the biggest joke in the room is that Donald Trump himself. Or put another way:Two years ago, the man who just ordered a missile strike was deciding whether or not to fire Gilbert Gottfried from a game show Andrew Lawrence (@ndrew_lawrence) April 7, 2017Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 0 |
1,666 | HAWK OR NOT? Is Trump Expanding the Wars? | So once again, here we are. A new President must deal with the old war. President Donald Trump must decide on whether to send thousands of additional American troops overseas into the longest-running US combat theatre on the planet, Afghanistan.Back in March of 2016, 21WIRE s Shawn Helton penned a insightful piece entitled, HAWKISH DOVE: The Enigma of Donald Trump in Volatile Race to the White House. In this article, Helton describes how then GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump was putting forward a populist, alomist Paulist image among a bevy of warhawk and Neocon rivals.Back then, Helton described the media and political pressure placed on Trump: Recently, Trump was pressed again on matters concerning the Middle East and his response has been surprisingly diplomatic with a non-interventionist platform. Trump s open condemnation of the Bush administration for the Iraq war and the Obama White House for the destruction of Libya, has resonated across the board for voters on both sides of the political spectrum. Trump has asserted that 2003 s invasion in Iraq and the blitzkrieg in Libya via NATO members in 2011, is further evidence of failed US foreign policy throughout the world.Doubling down, the GOP frontrunner Trump, has also refused to pick a side between Israel and Palestine and in true form to his business pedigree, stating that he would rather attempt to broker a peace deal in the ages old conflict, rather than tow the party line. Onlookers wondered how this stance would play if Trump ever made into office. Back then it was immpossible to know, but now after 6 months in office, we have something to work with. We saw how fast Trump reacted to the alleged chemical weapons attack at Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib, Syria on April 4, 2017. His errant, knee-jerk cruise missile strike days later might go down in history as one of the biggest fumbles in US history (if that s even possible to measure).Is Trump continuing down Obama s proven path of juggling multiple conflicts while engaging in illegal proxy wars?Vanity Fair explains a possible fait accompli:On the campaign trail, Donald Trump pitched Americans on an immiscible foreign-policy agenda, combining elements of staunch isolationism and a rejection of Bush-era interventionism with promises to bomb the shit out of ISIS. But in his four months as president, Trump, characteristically, has done something of a 180-degree turn. He turned over much of his military policy and decision-making to the same embarrassing generals he previously claimed to know more than; he authorized a missile strike and boots on the ground in Syria, a country he had repeatedly warned against getting involved with; and he increased troop levels in Iraq, doubling down on a tactic he had called a horrible mistake. Now, the Trump administration is considering sending more troops into the war in Afghanistan, which he previously called a complete waste. On Tuesday, the president gave Defense Secretary James Mattis the authority to determine the number of troops in Afghanistan, The New York Times reports, a rejection of the management levels adopted by the Obama administration.Then there s the issue of rogue dinosaur John McCain, who refuses to retire and seems happy as ever to take down various and sundry nation-states, in order to quench his own desire for chaos and conflict:This dynamic has left some lawmakers frustrated. During a meeting last week in which Mattis conceded to the Senate Armed Services Committee that the U.S. is not winning in Afghanistan right now, John McCain derided the delay of a broader strategy. We are now six months into this administration; we still haven t got a strategy for Afghanistan, the Arizona senator said. It makes it hard for us to support you when we don t have a strategy. We know what the strategy was for the last eight years don t lose. That hasn t worked. Mattis responded, We are putting it together now, and there are actions being taken to make certain that we don t pay a price for the delay, he said. We recognize the need for urgency, and your criticism is fair, sir. It may be too early to tell, but getting the White House to decouple from Pentagon group-think may prove to be too hard a task for a President who is desperate for poll rating and a win, any win.Time will tell.***READ MORE SYRIA NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire SYRIA FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 |
1,667 | House Democrats will stage sit-in until they get gun control bill: Pelosi | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday a sit-in on the House floor by Democrats will continue until a gun control bill is brought to the floor of the chamber for debate. “We are in for the long haul here,” Pelosi said. | 1 |
1,668 | BREAKING VIDEO: BRICKS AND ROCKS HURLED AT POLICE BY TEENS (7 injured) IN BALTIMORE AS THEY PREPARE FOR A NIGHT OF MORE VIOLENCE | High school kids out of control? Noooo! We ve been reporting of the huge groups of high school kids getting violent at malls and other places in towns across America. Basically they re organized riots There were reports of an organized riot, called a purge, to be carried out by students from three Baltimore high schools in the name of Freddie Gray and unrest over police brutality.// <![CDATA[ var p = new anv_pl_def(); p.config = {}; p.config.width = 640; p.config.height = 360; p.loadVideoExpressV3('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|1000011|SPS'); // ]]>At least seven police officers were injured. At least one police officer suffered a broken bone. Another officer was knocked unconscious.Read more: abc2news | 0 |
1,669 | Obama visits Midway Atoll, a symbol of his climate, Asia legacy | MIDWAY ATOLL (Reuters) - President Barack Obama snorkeled on Thursday in the electric-blue water off Midway Atoll, a remote coral reef that serves as a reminder of both modern global climate challenges and the United State’s dominance in the Pacific since its World War Two victory there. The journey was aimed at sending a message about the need to protect vulnerable species and spaces from the ravages of climate change. But it was also timed as Obama makes his way to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping and other world leaders in his last visit to Asia, having sought to refocus U.S. defense and trade policy on the region. “It’s a signal, it’s a message saying the United States is committed to staying in the Pacific, and not sort of backing away,” said naval historian Tom Hone, who has studied the Battle of Midway. Zipping around the island in an 18-golf-cart motorcade filled with Secret Service, aides and camera crews, Obama stopped to see several endangered green sea turtles lazily paddle in to bask on the white sand beach. “When I grew up, we’d see these turtles all the time. You almost never see them beaching like this, just basking in the sun,” said Obama, who grew up in Hawaii, more than 1,100 nautical miles to the southeast. Obama, whose presidency comes to an end in five months, has tried to use his time in office to make Americans more passionate about climate change. Less than 5 percent of American voters say the environment is the most important issue facing the country, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling between July 24 and Aug. 21, and 35 percent say climate change will not affect the way they vote in the Nov. 8 election to pick Obama’s successor. The island visit bookends Obama’s trip last year to Alaska, where he hiked on a shrinking glacier. “These aren’t ‘photo ops’ - I think these are real opportunities to help the American people understand,” said Carol Browner, a former head of the Environmental Protection Agency who advised Obama on climate issues in his first term. “He can get a level of attention that nobody else can get,” Browner said. Last week, Obama quadrupled the size of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument to create the world’s largest marine monument, protecting the area off the coast of Hawaii from commercial fishing and drilling. “This is going to be a precious resource for generations to come,” said Obama, his dress shirt undone an extra button in the sauna-like heat. “This is hallowed ground,” he said near a beach where young soldiers hunkered down under pillboxes, awaiting Japanese fighter planes during the World War Two Battle of Midway, one of the most-studied battles in military history. “Had it not been for the courage and the bravery of those airmen, we might have not seen the tide turn in the battle of the Pacific,” he said. In June 1942, U.S. forces, tipped by code-breakers that the Japanese navy was planning an attack, sank four Japanese aircraft carriers and a heavy cruiser in a giant air and sea battle. Obama’s golf cart motorcade bumped over a tarmac pock-marked by shrapnel from the battle, passing old hangars and a “bone yard” of scrap metal, old office chairs, and broken appliances. Massive bags held some of the 20 tons of plastic ocean garbage that land on the island each year, 5 tons of which come from the bellies of albatrosses, which feed the plastic to their young, often fatally. Curious tern fledglings checked out his entourage, which tripled the island’s average population of about 35 humans. “Watch the burrow!” called Miel Corbett, a Fish and Wildlife Services spokeswoman, as a visitor narrowly avoided stomping the underground home of the bonin petrel. About a million of the birds swoop out of their nests each night at dusk. Vestiges of the island’s former life as a large naval base remain, although many have fallen into decay. Visitors have not been allowed since 2012 because of tight budgets. Reporters wrote their stories in a still-working 1970s bowling alley, just down the way from barber shop. | 1 |
1,670 | Republican candidate Trump reverses stance on torture | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump softened his stance on torture on Friday, saying he would not order the U.S. military to break international laws on how to treat terrorism suspects, as the top U.S. military commander was asked to weigh in on his comments. “I do, however, understand that the United States is bound by laws and treaties and I will not order our military or other officials to violate those laws and will seek their advice on such matters,” Trump said in a statement to the Wall Street Journal. “I will not order a military officer to disobey the law. It is clear that as president I will be bound by laws just like all Americans and I will meet those responsibilities.” In a Republican presidential debate on Thursday night, Trump indicated he might order the U.S. military to break the law on interrogation tactics, including waterboarding. Trump also suggested his willingness to target the families of terrorist suspects. The exchange prompted Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a former 2016 White House contender and frequent Trump critic, to send Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a letter asking his thoughts on whether targeting relatives of terrorist suspects was legal under the laws of war and whether waterboarding or other more extreme interrogation techniques were legal for the U.S. military. Dunford has yet to make a public response to Graham’s letter. Waterboarding is the practice of pouring water over someone’s face to mimic drowning as an interrogation tactic. Critics say it is torture. Democratic President Barack Obama banned use of the method days after taking office in 2009. Asked during the debate what he would do if the U.S. military refused to carry out such orders, Trump said, “They won’t refuse. They’re not going to refuse me. Believe me.” “Can you imagine? Can you imagine these people, these animals over in the Middle East, that chop off heads, sitting around talking and seeing that we’re having a hard problem with waterboarding? We should go for waterboarding and we should go tougher than waterboarding,” Trump said on the Fox News debate. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu; additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle; editing by Tim Ahmann, James Dalgleish and Andrew Hay) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. | 1 |
1,671 | Trump Is Already Creating A STRIKING Double Standard With Requirements For His Administration | One of the major issues of the 2016 campaign was Trump s taxes, and the reason everyone made such a big deal of it was the fact that, except for a financial disclosure that was about as vague as possible, he was being as opaque as he could. It s hard to trust someone who s that opaque. For applicants for his transition team and administration? They have to be transparent about it, which reveals massive double standards on Trump s part.The transition team s website, GreatAgain.gov, says: Financial holdings and sources of income must be disclosed. Any conflicts must be remedied by divestiture, the creation of special trusts, and other actions. Okay, so they can do that with financial disclosures rather than their tax returns. In fact, they ll be required to file those financial disclosures. But then there s this, which is where Trump s hypocrisy comes in: You will be asked about possible conflicts of interest deriving from your sources of income; all aspects of your personal and professional life, including organization [sic] which you belong or once belonged; speeches you may have given and books, articles and editorials you may have written; legal, administrative and regulatory proceedings to which you may have been a party; in short, anything that might embarrass the President or you if he should choose you for a position in his administration. This refers, in part, to the SF-86, which is required for anyone in order to gain a security clearance. The kicker is this: Even knowing that these job candidates have to give out sensitive and detailed information about their lives, it shows that Trump is applying a different set of standards to himself than those by which his workforce must abide.Trump gets away with being opaque to everyone and probably pats himself on the back for it, and can continue to be so while his candidates will have to be forthcoming and detailed. He can even continue to lie about things that are important to gain the public s trust. His candidates?Nope.The SF-86 is ridiculously thorough, and it s an ungodly pain in the ass to fill out because of that, even through the online e-Qip system. It asks for a lot of financial information (along with just about everything else that was ever in your life) including bankruptcies, tax liens, repossessions, judgments entered against you, and more. A lot of this is information that Trump has flatly lied about, denied, or downplayed. His candidates don t have that luxury.Information provided on the SF-86 is covered under the Privacy Act, so his candidates info will not be made public, even through a FOIA request. Someone handling those forms and investigations would have to get stupid in order for that info to be made public.The double standard remains, though. Trump is a hypocrite who is already making it clear that he won t live or govern by the same standards that everyone else must live and/or govern. That s absurd.Featured image by Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images | 0 |
1,672 | FACEBOOK’S VP Of Ads BLASTS MEDIA: Majority Of Russian Ad Spend Happened AFTER Election…Media Knows Truth But Won’t Report It “Because It Doesn’t Align With Narrative of Trump And The Election” | Facebook s VP of Advertising took to Twitter to set the record straight about ads that were run on Facebook and were paid for by Russians. Rob Goldman tweeted about how the media has been trying to promote a false narrative about how the Russians interfered in the 2016 presidential election, when in fact, that s not at all what happened.Goldman tweeted about special counsel Robert Mueller s indictment of 13 Russian nationals and 3 Russian entities for alleged interference in our 2016 presidential election.The indictment says that a Russian organization called the Internet Research Agency sought to wage information warfare against the United States and to sow discord in the American political system by using fictitious American personas and social media platforms and other Internet-based media.Internet Research Agency, a so-called troll farm based in St. Petersburg, Russia, was allegedly controlled by a defendant in the indictment named Yevgeny Progozhin, who is a wealthy associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin. CNBCVery excited to see the Mueller indictment today. We shared Russian ads with Congress, Mueller and the American people to help the public understand how the Russians abused our system. Still, there are keys facts about the Russian actions that are still not well understood. Rob Goldman (@robjective) February 17, 2018The majority of the Russian ad spend happened AFTER the election. We shared that fact, but very few outlets have covered it because it doesn t align with the main media narrative of Tump and the election. https://t.co/2dL8Kh0hof Rob Goldman (@robjective) February 17, 2018Facebook s VP of ads then tweeted about how the majority of the ad spend took place AFTER the election. He then landed a verbal molotov cocktail at our dishonest press, as he pointed out that Facebook shared that fact, but the mainstream media didn t cover it because it doesn t align with their narrative of Trump and the election.Goldman went on to explain that the main goal of the Russian propaganda campaign is to divide Americans by using free speech against us on social media. Goldman claims they are stoking fear and hatred amongst Americans. The main goal of the Russian propaganda and misinformation effort is to divide America by using our institutions, like free speech and social media, against us. It has stoked fear and hatred amongst Americans. It is working incredibly well. We are quite divided as a nation. Rob Goldman (@robjective) February 17, 2018President Trump retweeted Goldman s tweet:The Fake News Media never fails. Hard to ignore this fact from the Vice President of Facebook Ads, Rob Goldman! https://t.co/XGC7ynZwYJ Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2018Here s a screenshot of Trump s tweet:Finally, Goldman tweeted a real and scary example of how the Russians are using fake propaganda on social media to intentionally divide United States citizens:The single best demonstration of Russia's true motives is the Houston anti-islamic protest. Americans were literally puppeted into the streets by trolls who organized both the sides of protest. https://t.co/9w1EAl28CH Rob Goldman (@robjective) February 17, 2018The only thing Goldman got wrong, is the reason our nation is so deeply divided. It actually has little to do with Russian bots or social media operatives. Our nation is divided because we had a president that for 8 years worked behind the scenes, meeting with radical hate groups like BLM and underground Democratic Party groups like the one headed up by felon Rob Creamer whose purpose was to disrupt and create violence and chaos at Trump rallies across America.Goldman also tweeted a very recent example of how Russian operatives are attempting to divide Americans on a very heated issue, gun control.Russia-linked bots are promoting pro-gun messages on Twitter in an attempt to sow discord in the aftermath of the Florida school shooting, monitoring groups say https://t.co/67K6UIZzcJ pic.twitter.com/uDqCWQp4lo CNN (@CNN) February 17, 2018According to CNBC, the indictment said the Internet Research Agency was registered with the Russian government as a corporate entity in 2013, and by May 2014 the group s strategy included interfering with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, with the stated goal of spread[ing] distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general, the indictment said.The indictment details an extremely sophisticated conspiracy in which defendants traveled to the United States to conduct research, employed specialists to fine-tune social media posts to ensure they appeared authentic, and stole real people s identities to purchase online ads. | 0 |
1,673 | In Trump travel ban fight, Justice Kennedy's 2015 opinion looms large | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Justice Anthony Kennedy’s legal reasoning in a 2015 immigration case suggests the U.S. Supreme Court’s frequent swing vote would be skeptical of President Donald Trump’s travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries. The little-noticed case involved an Afghan-born naturalized U.S. citizen named Fauzia Din who argued she had the right for a full explanation from the U.S. government as to why her Afghan husband was denied entry. The justices ruled 5-4 against her. Kennedy wrote in a concurring opinion that in some circumstances the U.S. government’s motives in denying someone entry could be subject to legal review. In their lawsuit challenging Trump’s Jan. 27 ban, the states of Washington and Minnesota cited Kennedy’s opinion. Lower courts have temporarily blocked the ban, but the administration may ask the Supreme Court to revive it. Trump’s executive order barred entry for citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days and imposed a 120-day halt on all refugees, except refugees from Syria who are barred indefinitely. Curbing entry to the United States as a national security measure was a central premise of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, originally proposed as a temporary ban on all Muslims. He has voiced frustration at the legal challenge to his order. Washington and Minnesota argued that Trump’s order violated the U.S. Constitution by discriminating against Muslims. Trump during the presidential campaign called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” In the 2015 case, Din, who lives in Fremont, California, sued the U.S. government after her husband, Afghan citizen Kanishka Berashk, was denied a visa in 2009. She objected to the government’s visa denial under a law giving consular officials wide discretion to bar people linked to “terrorist activities.” The high court’s ruling overturned a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that said Din was right to insist the government give her more information about the visa denial. Kennedy’s opinion suggested he could be willing to dig into the Trump administration’s rationale for the order, said Mark Haddad, the Los Angeles-based lawyer who represented Din in the 2015 case. “The ostensible reason for the travel ban is security but that’s not a good faith concern if the underlying reason is religious animus,” Haddad said. Kennedy’s opinion showed he is “not prepared to give complete and total deference to the executive branch in the enforcement of immigration laws,” Haddad added. Samuel Alito, one of the court’s most conservative justices, signed onto Kennedy’s opinion. In total, six of the current eight justices suggested in that 2015 case that the government was not immune from scrutiny over immigration-related decisions if there was evidence of a questionable motive. The case brought by Washington and Minnesota, or one of several similar disputes around the country, could reach the high court quickly in the wake of Thursday’s decision by a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit upholding a Seattle district judge’s decision to block Trump’s order. The Trump administration would need to win the support of five of the current eight justices to reinstate the order while litigation over the legality of the directive continues. It could also seek to end the litigation by issuing a new order. Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s nominee to fill a lingering vacancy, is awaiting Senate confirmation hearings and is unlikely to be seated on the court for at least two months. The 2015 case, called Kerry v. Din, was cited both by the challenging states and the Trump administration in their court fight. Washington state’s lawyers argued Kennedy’s opinion showed that courts must look at what motivated the government’s decision beyond the words that appear in the order itself. They cited the previous comments by Trump and others expressing a desire to keep Muslims from entering the United States. The administration noted in court papers Kennedy also made it clear that the government is entitled to deference, especially on national security. Anil Kalhan, an immigration law professor at Drexel University’s Kline School of Law in Philadelphia, said there are multiple ways of interpreting Kennedy’s opinion, which could muddy the waters. Kennedy’s opinion “doesn’t necessarily mean he would reach the same conclusion” on Trump’s ban, Kalhan said. In Tuesday’s 9th Circuit oral argument, administration lawyer August Flentje called the executive order “facially legitimate,” meaning there is no need for courts to inquire further into motive. Judge Michelle Friedland immediately pounced: “Haven’t there been allegations here of bad faith?” She said Kennedy’s opinion in the Din case as well as a 1972 Supreme Court ruling in a case with similar themes “envision that’s something we should look at.” The 1972 case involved professors objecting to the U.S. government’s decision not to allow a Marxist academic to speak at a Stanford University conference. The appeals court cited both cases in its Thursday ruling. | 1 |
1,674 | Obama Does NOT Hold Back, BLASTS ‘Sheepish’ Republicans On SCOTUS Obstruction | While meeting with the press in the Oval Office on Wednesday, President Obama clearly had enough of Republican obstructionism and party politics holding the nation back from having a full Supreme Court. The GOP has made it clear that they won t even entertain the possibility of a new Justice until there s a new president. However, that s not going to prevent Obama from doing his job, and he really hopes these sheepish Republicans step up and do their job as well.Obama said: I m going to do my job. I recognize the politics are hard for them [Senate Republicans] because the easier thing to do is to give in to the most extreme voices within their party and stand pat and do nothing. But that s not our job. Our job is to fulfill our constitutional duties. Obama knows that once a nominee is chosen, and the American public sees this Republican obstructionism for all that it is, chances are, they won t be so quick to dismiss them. The president continued: I think it will be very difficult for Mr. McConnell to explain how, if the public concludes that this person is well qualified, that the Senate should stand in the way simply for political reasons. We ll see what happens and I think the situation may evolve over time. I don t expect Mitch McConnell to say that is the case today. President Obama then goes on to lay all the cards on the table and simply show the Republicans for what they are: unconstitutional fools. The GOP is trying so hard to prevent Obama that they are going against their supposed values of being strict constitutionalists, and Obama shows them as the hypocrites that they truly are.Obama said: It s not in the text of the Constitution. Ironically, these are Republicans who say they believe in reading the text of the Constitution and focusing on the intent of the Constitution. None of the Founding Fathers thought that, when it comes to the President carrying out his duties, he should do it for three years and on the last year stop doing it. Also saying that these Republicans take a posture that defies the Constitution, defies logic, and is not supported by tradition. And really not holding back, the president states: There s not a lot of vigor when they defend the position they re taking when they defend their point. They re pretty sheepish about it when they make those comments. Which is exactly what they are. These Republicans are choosing party politics over what s best for the nation. They want to obstruct any choice the president makes while vilifying a hypothetical appointee before they even know who it s going to be. They aren t even hiding their blatant politicking anymore. To be honest, these Republicans should all find a new job if they don t want to do the one they ve been elected to do.Featured image: Pete Souza Instagram | 0 |
1,675 | NFL CUTS FUNDS for Breast Cancer, Military Charity to Pay for Players’ $89 Million ‘Social Justice’ Activism | The NFL is toast They just caved to demands made by players to dump millions into a social justice boondoggle aimed at the black community. The problem is that the entire Black Lives Matter scam is a lie AND PLAYERS KNOW IT. There is now discord between players who feel differently about the kneeling protest. A lack of leadership by Goodell to put an end to the protests, has harmed the NFL irreparably . The NFL is just another social justice program BOYCOTT!WHAT EXACTLY IS SOCIAL JUSTICE ?The NFL met with a group of players and reached an agreement in principle late Wednesday night to partner on a plan to address social justice issues considered important to African-American communities, sources told ESPN.The unprecedented agreement calls for the league to contribute $89 million over seven years to projects dealing with criminal justice reform, law enforcement/community relations and education.During a conference call Wednesday night, Malcolm Jenkins and Anquan Boldin, who lead roughly 40 players who have negotiated with the league office about demonstrations during the national anthem, guided the group through the highlights of the package, which represents the NFL s largest contribution to a social issue, surpassing that of Salute to Service or Breast Cancer Awareness/Crucial Catch.The partnership came a day after some players broke away from the Players Coalition because of their dissatisfaction with how Jenkins and Boldin have handled negotiations. Commissioner Roger Goodell, believing that an agreement was at hand, was furious when ESPN reported that players were breaking off, according to one source. But during an afternoon call, Jenkins asked that the commissioner and the owners continue to stand with the players and allow them to do important work in the community.NO END IN SIGHT FOR PROTESTS:The agreement does not include language calling for players to end protests during the national anthem in exchange for funds; there s no implicit quid pro quo. But the NFL hopes this effort will effectively end the peaceful yet controversial movement that former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick started in 2016, when he refused to stand for the anthem.Via: ESPN | 0 |
1,676 | Tens of thousands of Indonesians rally over Trump's Jerusalem stance | JAKARTA (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Muslims marched from the main mosque in Indonesia s capital to a square in Jakarta on Sunday to protest against U.S. President Donald Trump s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. It was the biggest protest in Indonesia since Trump s controversial move earlier this month to reverse decades of U.S. policy. Police estimated the number attending the rally, organized by various Muslim groups, at about 80,000. The protest was peaceful but rows of police behind coils of barbed wire held back the crowd outside the U.S. embassy in Jakarta. A police spokesman said 20,000 police and members of the military were deployed to ensure security. We urge all countries to reject the unilateral and illegal decision of President Donald Trump to make Jerusalem Israel s capital, Anwar Abbas, the secretary general of the Indonesian Ulema Council, told the crowd. We call on all Indonesian people to boycott U.S. and Israel products in this country if Trump does not revoked his action, Abbas said, reading from a petition due to be handed to the U.S. ambassador in Indonesia. Many of the protesters were clad in white and waved Palestinian flags and held up placards, some reading: Peace, love and free Palestine . There have been a series of protests in Indonesia over the issue, including some where hardliners burned U.S. and Israeli flags. The status of Jerusalem, a city holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians, is one of the biggest barriers to a lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace. Jerusalem s eastern sector was captured by Israel in a 1967war and annexed in a move not recognized internationally. Palestinians claim East Jerusalem for the capital of an independent state that they seek, while Israel maintains that all of Jerusalem is its capital. | 1 |
1,677 | CHECKMATE! President Trump Just Made A HUGE Announcement About The White House Correspondents’ Dinner | President Trump just pulled the rug out from under the press yet another time He just tweeted he won t be going to The White House Correspondents Dinner this year:OBAMA ON TRUMP: | 0 |
1,678 | Trump Loses His Sh*t After Nordstrom Stops Peddling Ivanka’s Sh*tty Product Line | Donald Trump should not be lashing out like this. It s embarrassing.After months of boycotts and protests, Nordstrom and several other retailers have dropped Ivanka Trump s product line from their inventory.The Grab Your Wallet campaign has only been growing since Trump won the election the Russians rigged in November. The campaign began as a protest against Trump over his grab them by the p*ssy remark. This is a sharply divisive subject, Nordstrom co-president Pete Nordstrom said. No matter what we do, we are going to end up disappointing some of our customers. Every single brand we offer is evaluated on their results if people don t buy it, we won t sell it. And so, Americans across the country listened and stopped buying from Nordstrom, forcing them to make a choice. They can die as a company defending the Trump brand, or they can survive by dumping it.Nordstrom made the smart choice, and now Donald Trump is pissed.My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by @Nordstrom. She is a great person always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 8, 2017If Trump didn t want his daughter s business to be negatively affected by his campaign and presidency, he should have stayed out of it to begin with. Now his family is paying the price and Twitter isn t shedding a single tear.@realDonaldTrump you put the brief in briefing. pic.twitter.com/E9B0ti2EYt Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) February 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump Calm down, dear. She s got a new job all lined up manipulating you via her husband. Erich McElroy (@erichmcelroy) February 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump are you saying you usually choose the wrong thing and she stops you? Asking for a friend/planet. pic.twitter.com/9GJLyTFtnA Adam Mordecai (@advodude) February 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump @Nordstrom By being treated unfairly do you mean Ivanka is on of the seven countries BANNED by Nordstroms? Kristina Wong (@mskristinawong) February 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump @Nordstrom Also, you have managed to tweet to a department store but have yet to acknowledge the tragedy in Quebec. Kristina Wong (@mskristinawong) February 8, 2017.@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/qrQAA6JBkV Lee ?? (@RejectTrump) February 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump @Nordstrom she should have pushed you to drop out. Sahil Lavingia (@shl) February 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump @Nordstrom also this is clearly a conflict of interest. ??? Sahil Lavingia (@shl) February 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump @Nordstrom Free market, Orange man. Jeffrey Guterman (@JeffreyGuterman) February 8, 2017@realDonaldTrump @Nordstrom is there a point when you re going to start acting like a President? Andy Cohen (@Andy) February 8, 2017.@realDonaldTrump @Nordstrom yes the president just publicly bitched about his daughter losing income streams Roland Scahill (@rolandscahill) February 8, 2017Donald Trump should not be using the office of the presidency to attack a company for dropping his daughter s product line. That s a clear conflict of interest.But Nordstrom is far from being the only retailer to ditch Ivanka. As Raw Story points outs, Home Shopping Network, Retailers Belk, Neiman Marcus, Jet and ShopStyle have all dropped her this week.Donald Trump is truly pathetic. It s one thing to criticize companies for outsourcing jobs, it something entirely different, however, to criticize a business for deciding what products to sell. And Trump is definitely trying to punish Nordstrom for not continuing to sell Ivanka s product line. Of course, Ivanka s products are made overseas, which makes Trump a hypocrite, too.Featured image via Joe Raedle/Getty Images | 0 |
1,679 | Nobel laureate says Trump policies may lead to budget problems | STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to increase spending on infrastructure while cutting taxes would endanger public finances, Economics Nobel laureate Oliver Hart said on Wednesday. With much infrastructure in the United States in bad shape, increased spending could be good even if the details in Trump’s plans were “not so impressive”, he said. “But then also reducing taxes, I mean that is going to lead to all sorts of budgetary problems in the future,” Hart told a news conference in Stockholm, along with the other winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, Bengt Holmstrom. Hart and Holmstrom are due to receive the prize at a ceremony in Stockholm on Saturday. Hart also criticized the idea of tearing up trade agreements and said reducing taxes on the rich was contrary to his belief of what was needed. “I would be in favor of actually increasing the tax burden on the wealthy,” he said, adding it was very hard to know what Trump will actually do when taking office. | 1 |
1,680 | How blood money, diplomacy and desperation are reuniting Palestine | GAZA (Reuters) - A decade on, Rawda al-Zaanoun is at last willing to forgive the gunmen who killed her son during the civil war that split Palestine. It has been painful, but she says it is time. He was hit with a bullet in the back. He was a martyr, the 54-year-old said at an event in Gaza city to mark the public reconciliation of families of people killed in the war. The decision was not easy because the blood of our son is precious. But we have given amnesty. Her son Ala, a married father of two and an officer in the Palestinian Authority security forces, was killed in June 2007 after he rushed out of his house in Gaza City, having heard that his uncle was injured in clashes between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah. Since that war a decade ago, Fatah, led by the secular heirs of Yassir Arafat, has run the West Bank, headed the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority and been responsible for all negotiations with Israel. Its rivals, the Islamist group Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, drove Fatah out of Gaza and has run the tiny coastal strip that is home to 2 million people, nearly half of the population of the Palestinian territories. The schism is set to end on Monday, when Hamas hands over control of Gaza to a unity government. Although it agreed to the arrangement three years ago, the decision to implement it now marks a striking reversal for Hamas, which is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and most of the most powerful Arab countries. Hamas has made big concessions, and every coming concession will be stunning and surprisingly bigger than the one that passed, so that we can conclude reconciliation and this division must end, the chief of Hamas in Gaza, Yehya Al-Sinwar, said during a meeting this week with social media activists. If Hamas has swallowed a bitter pill by ending the feud, perhaps bitterest of all is the role played by exiled former Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan, once Hamas s fiercest foe who is now a leading player in regional efforts to pull Gaza back into the Palestinian mainstream. Officials on both sides of the Palestinian divide and in other Arab countries say Dahlan, based since 2011 in the United Arab Emirates, is behind an influx of cash to prop up Gaza, and a detente between Hamas and Arab states including Egypt. His office did not respond to a Reuters request for comment. Dahlan s return to prominence could have consequences for Palestinian politics as profound as the reconciliation itself. As hated as he once was in Gaza for trying to uproot Hamas, he is perhaps even more reviled by the Fatah leadership in Ramallah for challenging the authority of President Mahmoud Abbas. Ambitious and charismatic, he has long been suspected of harboring designs to succeed the 82-year-old Abbas. Among the initiatives Dahlan has promoted in Gaza is the reconciliation program of families like the Zaanouns and 19 others, who each accepted a $50,000 blood money payment from an Egyptian-Emirati charity fund in return for publicly renouncing the demand to avenge the deaths of their sons. Old wounds will be hard to salve. Activists on both sides hold memories of their enemies shooting out kneecaps or torturing each other in partisan prisons. Zaanoun said her family took the decision to reconcile, despite their intense grief over the loss of their son, for the sake of preventing bloodshed, for the sake of blockaded Gaza and for the sake of Palestine . Dahlan has raised millions more, financing mass weddings for hundreds of young couples and distributing cash aid for several thousand needy families. He has also used a close relationship with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in particular to regain his influence. Sisi, who took power by toppling a president from Hamas s Muslim Brotherhood allies, controls Gaza s only non-Israeli frontier and the keys to its prosperity. Dahlan worked hard, together with his contacts in Egyptian intelligence and sometimes with direct intervention from Sisi, a Gulf source who asked not to be named told Reuters. The strategy may be gaining him good will: an opinion poll last week by the West Bank-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey showed that those who still support Fatah in Gaza are shifting their loyalty to Dahlan. His popularity among Gazans, the survey said, has risen over the past nine months from nine to 23 percent. The handover of Gaza suggests Dahlan s allies in Egypt and the UAE realize that any bid to put the Palestinian house in order, for now at least, needs unity. Every time anyone speaks to (Israeli Prime Minister) Netanyahu, he would say how can you reach a solution when the Palestinians are splintered? the Gulf source added. The reconciliation is an effort by several like-minded countries looking for a comprehensive solution, he added. Short of funds and friends, Hamas may have few options but to make concessions. For years it had modest but stable economic backing by Islamist-leaning Turkey and the wealthy Gulf Arab state of Qatar, where Hamas houses its headquarters. But in recent months its friends, especially Qatar, have been on the back foot. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have imposed an economic and diplomatic boycott on Doha over alleged support of terrorists, including, in their reckoning, Hamas. Three conflicts with the Jewish state left many civilian neighborhoods in Gaza pulverized. Rebuilding has been thwarted by the Israeli-Egyptian blockade, which Sisi has the power to ease. Hamas figures blame Abbas, Fatah and Dahlan for encouraging Egypt and other Arab countries to keep the economic pressure on, forcing Hamas to agree to the reconciliation. One of our reasons was to spare our people this suffering which this time was made by Palestinian hands, Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters. Senior Fatah official Nasser al-Qidwa praised Hamas s reconciliation moves and chalked up the group s sudden change of tack to the governance crisis that Hamas is living through and the crisis of foreign alliances, as well as the difficult conditions of some of Hamas traditional allies. Imposing its writ over policing Gaza and its borders will be the main challenge for the non-partisan cabinet of technocrats as it seeks to make this month s unity initiative a reality. Setting out a hard line, Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah said in a statement on Tuesday that Hamas must eventually cede all crossings, security and government departments. Gaza bristles with hundreds of rockets belonging to Hamas s armed wing, and the movement insisted that the arsenal it says is essential to confronting Israel will never be given up. Hamas deputy political chief Musa Abu Marzooq conceded in an interview this month with pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat that decisions to fight or make peace with Israel should be in future agreed jointly with Fatah. But the movement, he suggested, would keep its finger on the trigger: The subject of the resistance s weapons ... will not be on the table for dialogue. | 1 |
1,681 | WH Staffer Explains Trump’s ‘Calm Before The Storm’ Comment, Proves He Shouldn’t Be POTUS (VIDEO) | By now, most of us even conservatives know that Donald Trump has no business being in the White House or running the country. Unfortunately for Trump, even the words of his own White House staffers can be used as evidence that he needs to be removed from office for his irresponsible behavior.According to Axios.com, an anonymous White House staffer stated that Trump s terrifying calm before the storm comment during a White House photo shoot didn t mean anything Trump was just trolling the media.In an interview with MSNBC s Stephanie Ruhle this morning, Axios political reporter Jonathan Swan said: I think there s a high degree of probability that he s trolling everyone. Apparently, this anonymous White House source had told Swan Don t you get it? He s trolling all of you. America should be able to trust its president, but that s clearly not the case with Trump. Swan pointed this out that Trump was extremely irresponsible to play around like this. Swan noted that when surrounded by military leaders, to troll about something like that could have serious consequences. Swan commented on Trump s madman kind of approach and said: But this is what he does with national security. Obviously, there are risks to that kind of conduct. You can watch the interview below:.@jonathanvswan on Trump s calm before the storm comment: I think there s a high degree of probability that he s trolling everyone. pic.twitter.com/PTr7Vh0YXB Axios (@axios) October 6, 2017Trump s behavior is reckless and dangerous. He makes comments and spews nonsense without even thinking about the consequences and how he might be hurting the country. A president should not be trolling anyone he should be working hard to lead the country and take care of the critical issues that the American people are facing. Unfortunately, that is hardly the case with this imposter.Featured image via Drew Angerer / Getty Images | 0 |
1,682 | Joe Biden Just SKEWERED Donald Trump For Bragging About Sexual Assault (VIDEO) | Vice President Joe Biden has been a strong advocate for sexual assault victims and he is letting it be known exactly where he stands when it comes to Donald Trump bragging about being a sexual predator.During the interview on Meet The Press, Biden told NBC s Chuck Todd that when Trump boasted that he could grab em by the p*ssy, the GOP nominee was giving a textbook definition of sexual assault. Todd asked the vice president why Trump didn t deserve to get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the sexual assault allegations against him that have been piling up. Biden s answer was simple: His own words. His own words, I don t even have to go to the accusers, Biden explained. When a man says what he said, that is a textbook definition of sexual assault. I mean, it s a textbook definition. But what makes it believable that he engaged in that kind of activity, it s not that just that he said it, but sort of his instinctive abuse of power. He acts like that in private sector and he acts in the way he treats employees, he continued. You know, I live in the penthouse. I m a billionaire, I m a star and I can do what I want. That s the most disturbing piece! You know, my father used to say, The greatest abuse is the abuse of power. Economic power, political power, physical power. And this is not a guy who should be representing the United States in anyway. Watch Biden skewer Trump for bragging about being a sexual predator, here:Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
1,683 | Myanmar tells U.N. Rohingya refugees can return from Bangladesh | GENEVA (Reuters) - Myanmar told the United Nations refugee agency on Monday its top priority was to bring back Rohingyas who have fled to Bangladesh, but much work was needed to consolidate stability in its troubled northern region of Rakhine. Bangladesh and Myanmar agreed on Monday to set up a working group to plan the repatriation of more than half a million Rohingya Muslim refugees who have fled to Bangladesh to escape an army crackdown, the Bangladeshi foreign minister said. Win Myat Aye, Myanmar s Union Minister, Minister of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement, addressed the U.N. refugee agency s (UNHCR) Executive Committee after U.N. refugee chief Filippo Grandi called for resolving issues related to Rohingya citizenship and rights. Our next immediate priority is to bring back the refugees who have fled to Bangladesh, Win Myat Aye told the Geneva forum. The repatriation process can start any time for those who wish to return to Myanmar. The verification of refugees will be based on the agreement between the Myanmar and Bangladesh governments in 1993, he said. Those who have been verified as refugees from this country will be accepted without any problem and with full assurance of their security and their access to human dignity. The status of Rohingya remains unsettled in Myanmar where they are denied citizenship and classified as illegal immigrants, despite claiming roots in Myanmar that go back centuries, with communities marginalized and subjected to bouts of communal violence over the years. Many refugees are gloomy about the prospects of going back to Buddhist-majority Myanmar, fearing they will not be able to furnish the documents they anticipate the government will demand to prove they have a right to return. Win Myat Aye accused terrorist organizations of launching coordinated attacks on police posts on Aug. 25 that sparked the exodus. He said in addition to a humanitarian perspective, handling the situation also required considerations from security and political angles . Although the security situation has improved in the affected areas and (there has been) no more armed clashes since Sept. 5, much needs to be done to consolidate the stability in the region, he said. Giving preferential treatment to one group in terms of providing humanitarian assistance or media advocacy could worsen the sentiment of the other group, he said. | 1 |
1,684 | Kurds stick with independence vote, 'never going back to Baghdad': Barzani | ERBIL, Iraq/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Iraq s Kurds will go ahead with a referendum on independence on Monday because their partnership with Baghdad has failed, Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani said on Sunday, shrugging off international opposition to the vote. In response, the Iraqi government asked the autonomous Kurdish region to hand over control of its international border posts, its international airports and called on foreign countries to stop importing Kurdish crude oil. It asked the neighboring countries and the countries of the world to deal exclusively with the federal government of Iraq in regards to entry posts and oil, according to a statement from Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi s office. The United States and other Western powers have urged Kurdish authorities in the oil producing region to cancel the vote, arguing that it distracts from the fight against Islamic State. Turkey and Iran have also kept up the pressure to stop the vote, with presidents Tayyip Erdogan and Hassan Rouhani speaking by phone and expressing concern that it will bring chaos in the region , according to Erdogan s office. Barzani, at a news conference at his headquarters near Erbil, dismissed the worries of Iraq s neighbors, committing to respect laws on international boundaries and not seek to redraw the region s borders. We will never go back to the failed partnership with Baghdad, he said, adding Iraq had become a theocratic, sectarian state and not the democratic one that was supposed to be built after the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The vote, expected to result in a comfortable yes to independence, is not binding and is meant to give the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) a mandate to negotiate secession with Baghdad and the neighboring countries. Barzani said Iraq s Kurds would seek talks with the Shi ite-led central government to implement the expected yes outcome, even if they take two years or more, to settle land and oil sharing disputes ahead of independence. Abadi s government in Iraq regards the referendum as anti-constitutional and in a televised address on Sunday he said it could lead to ethnic divisions, exposing (the Iraqis) to disastrous dangers that only God knows. Earlier, Iranian authorities stopped air traffic to Iraqi Kurdistan s international airports at Erbil and Sulaimaniya in response to a request from Baghdad, Fars News Agency said. Iran also started war games at the Kurdish border. Speaking by telephone with Abadi, Iran s Rouhani voiced support for Iraq s national unity and territorial integrity, the state news agency IRNA reported. Iran fully supports Iraq s central government, Rouhani was quoted as telling Abadi. On Saturday, Turkey s parliament voted to extend by a year a mandate authorizing the deployment of Turkish troops in Iraq and Syria. Turkey has also vowed political, economic and security steps without specifying what they are, but Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim reinforced the message on Sunday. Turkey is the transit route of all crude exported by the landlocked Kurdistan region of Iraq. Turkey will never ever tolerate any status change or any new formations on its southern borders, he said in a speech in the capital Ankara. The KRG will be primarily responsible for the probable developments after this referendum. But Barzani said Ankara won t benefit economically should it close the border with Iraqi Kurdistan. Tehran and Ankara fear the spread of separatism to their own Kurds. Iran also supports Shi ite groups who have been ruling or holding key security and government positions in Iraq since the U.S-led invasion which toppled Saddam Hussein. Barzani said Kurds will keep extending their hand to Iran and Turkey, even if they do not reciprocate. He said he recently met in the Kurdish region Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander Qassem Soleimani, who came to convince him to delay the vote. The KRG has resisted calls to delay the referendum by the United Nations, the United States and Britain who fear it could lead to unrest in disputed areas like multi-ethnic oil-rich Kirkuk, as well as distracting from the war on Islamic State. But the Iraqi Kurds say the vote acknowledges their crucial contribution in confronting Islamic State after it overwhelmed the Iraqi army in 2014 and seized control of a third of Iraq. Kurdish Peshmerga fighters who control Kirkuk were given instructions not to respond to any provocation meant to disrupt the vote, but they will defend the region if attacked from outside, he said. The U.S. embassy in Iraq warned its citizens that there might be unrest during the referendum, especially in disputed areas like Kirkuk, also claimed by the Iraqi central government. The Iranian military drills, part of annual events held in Iran to mark the beginning of the 1980-1988 war with Iraq, were launched in the Oshnavieh border region, according to Iranian State broadcaster IRIB. Turkey s military said on Sunday its aircraft launched strikes against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets in northern Iraq s Gara region on Saturday after spotting militants preparing to attack Turkish military outposts on the border. | 1 |
1,685 | Top lawmakers confident in fairness of Clinton email probe | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Top lawmakers from both major U.S. political parties said on Sunday they trusted the Justice Department to appropriately handle its probe of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s private email server, after a heavily criticized meeting between Clinton’s husband and the U.S. attorney general. Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain said on CBS show “Face the Nation” that they would respect Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s decision on whether to prosecute Clinton, the likely Democratic presidential nominee. Congressman Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, also said he respected the process, though he acknowledged Lynch’s private meeting last week at an airport with former President Bill Clinton was unfortunate. “I think both of them wish their airplanes had never come anywhere near each other,” Schiff said on “Face the Nation,” adding that he still had confidence in the DOJ and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to do a thorough investigation of Clinton’s email use. “If they say they are going to conduct this investigation by the book, I believe that’s what’s going to happen,” said Schiff, who supports Clinton for the party’s nomination. Lynch said on Friday that she would accept whatever recommendations the career prosecutors working on the case made about whether to prosecute Clinton. The lawmakers’ endorsement for the process follows Clinton’s meeting Saturday with investigators at the FBI’s Washington headquarters, where she answered questions for three and a half hours as part of the probe into use of her private email server. The FBI is investigating Clinton’s email use and whether laws were broken as a result of a personal email server kept in her Chappaqua, New York, home while she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. Lawmakers and political strategists speculated on Sunday that the FBI’s interview of Clinton signaled its investigation could be nearing its end. But the FBI offered no information about the status of the probe or who its targets may be. Clinton has long insisted she is not a target. Clinton herself said in comments to MSNBC on Saturday that she “was pleased to have the opportunity to assist the department in bringing its review to a conclusion.” Her rival, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, said it was “impossible” for the FBI not to recommend criminal charges against her. The two have already begun an acrimonious battle ahead of the presidential election on Nov. 8. Democrats are hoping the issue will be resolved before their four-day convention in Philadelphia that begins July 25, which is expected to culminate with Clinton’s nomination for the presidential race. It is unclear what Democrats would do if Clinton were to be indicted and if any contingency plan exists. Not all lawmakers said they were confident the Justice Department could maintain impartiality. Tom Cotton, a Republican senator, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday he thought Lynch’s meeting with Bill Clinton “raises questions about political interference in this investigation.” | 1 |
1,686 | USGS says cannot confirm if North Korea quake natural or manmade | (Reuters) - The U.S. Geological Survey said on Saturday it could not conclusively confirm whether a magnitude 3.5 earthquake detected in North Korea was manmade or natural. USGS put the epicenter of the quake 22 km (14 miles) east-northeast of Sungjibaegam, North Korea, near the country s main nuclear test site. Chinese earthquake officials earlier said the tremor was a suspected explosion , while South Korean officials and CTBTO, the nuclear proliferation watchdog, both said they believed it was a natural quake. The depth is poorly constrained and has been held to 5 km by the seismologist, USGS said. The Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC) is the sole organization in the U.S. federal government whose mission is to detect and report technical data from foreign nuclear explosions. | 1 |
1,687 | FLASHBACK: MALCOLM X On Blacks Who Keep Voting For Democrats Who Lie To Them: You’re not only a chump, but you’re a traitor to your race” | The Democrats have been in Washington DC only because of the negro vote. You put them first, and they put you last. Because you re a chump. A political chump. Malcolm XIf Malcolm X were alive today, how would he feel about our first Black President ? How would he feel about Obama encouraging millions of illegal aliens and refugees to come to America and take the jobs of millions of unemployed Americans struggling to find work? The truth of the matter is, Obama will go down as the worst President in history for Blacks in America. While we definitely don t agree with some of the positions Malcolm X took, we do agree that the Democrats have been selling the black community a bill of goods for decades. Perhaps it s time to get off the Democrat Plantation and vote for a candidate who genuinely wants to put every unemployed black citizens back to work. Perhaps its time for someone with no political ties to come in and clean Obama s corrupted house. Larry Elder had a fascinating column discussing Malcolm X and how he really felt about the Democratic Party and black people who voted in lockstep with this party. He even goes on to show how the Democrats have continued to destroy almost every aspect of the black family and how their policies are exactly against what Malcolm X had been advocating.Back in 1964, the black community gave 80 percent of their vote to the Democratic Party. As a result of this, Malcolm X called them political chumps. Why? Because the black community had been betrayed by the Democrats. The white vote was so close that they always need to go back and recount, which means that if black people were to stick together, they have the power of determining who is ultimately elected. Still, the Democrats failed to deliver on a promised civil rights bill because they correctly anticipated that they could still count on the black vote and their blind support in the next election.https://youtu.be/7BYVv4LY_KQStrong words indeed. But it also begs the question of what would Malcolm X think about the situation today? Today, it is even worse, with about 90 to 95 percent of the black vote being in lockstep with the Democratic Party. Yet, the Democrats have not kept their promises of family stability, education, and job creation.Over the last 50 years, the black community and its family unity has been completely destroyed. Even when slavery prevented marriage, a black child was more likely to be raised in a home with their biological mother and father than today. According to economist Walter Williams, during the period of 1890-1940 a black child was slightly more likely to grow up with married parents than a white child.Back in 1965, 24 percent of black babies were born to unmarried mothers. Then, the War on Poverty began and today this number is up to 72 percent. Interesting to see that the more money we supposedly threw at helping the black family, the worse things have become. Plus, it has not helped to reduce the rate of poverty, either. Since 1965 the government has spent nearly $20 trillion fighting poverty. When this started, the poverty rate was 17 percent. After this spending started, the rate began to flat line (it had been consistently going down since 1949 before this) because people learned that they could marry the government and that men could abandon their financial and moral responsibility.Malcolm X was also fond of pointing out how he learned from a good library. Wonder how he would feel today about the Democratic opposition to school vouchers, allowing money to follow the student rather than the school? Urban schools, with predominantly black students, have unquestionably failed. They continue churning out kids who cannot read, write, and compute. The drop out rate approaches 50 percent in some districts. Teachers even send their own kids to private schools.Plus, there is 14 percent black unemployment thanks to our wonderful community organizer in chief. Heck, Emanuel Cleaver (Dem, MO), former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, has admitted that if this had happened under a white president, there would be hell to pay but Obama knows that blacks are going to show him more slack since he black himself.All of this is interesting to think about. It shows us just exactly what the Democrats really think of the black community. They have never been about actually doing something to help and improve the lives of their constituents. Rather, they are only focused on increasing their power. Starting with Kennedy and LBJ, the whole idea was to trap the black vote in a cycle of dependence so that they would need to rely on the government for everything. DownTrend | 0 |
1,688 | Watch This Mattress Company’s Impossibly Vile 9/11 Sale Commercial (VIDEO) | Miracle Mattress of San Antonio wants everyone to know that they ll never forget Sept. 11, 2001. To that end, they posted the most amazingly, disgustingly tone-deaf and just plain terrible commercial to commemorate the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil. It was cheerful, it talked about the Twin Towers and used them to promote discounts on all their mattresses, and then And then they took it too far. Way too far. So impossibly far that we can t even see it from the boundaries of decency with the Hubble Space Telescope.Because using a national tragedy to promote a sale isn t classless enough.Watch it for yourself (TRIGGER WARNING):It was posted to a parody page aimed at shaming Miracle Mattress up one side and down the other for this, and remains viewable there. It has been removed from social media elsewhere.Miracle Mattress has been shredded to confetti for this, to the point where they ve posted a letter of apology on their main Facebook page, and changed their background image to show part of that letter. That s not enough for some of the people on their page, though. Many of the comments below are from members of the military, people who were in NYC on that horrific day, and even some of the responders.They re rightfully angry and their comments are heart-wrenching. For them, and for anybody with the tiniest micron of a heart, the apology rings hollow and false and just plain isn t enough. Miracle Mattress last post on Facebook is a screenshot of a second letter from the owner, Mike Bonnano. The company has closed the doors of their store indefinitely, will remain silent through the 9/11 anniversary, and then will issue a formal statement next week.That will be of major comfort to the people who are pissed off, offended, and hurt by that video, we re sure. This will definitely cost the company business. It might push them out of business, and for a company that s so clueless that the owner didn t know his own daughter made that video, perhaps that s for the best.Featured image via screen capture from embedded video | 0 |
1,689 | FBI probes possible U.S. ties to corruption by former Ukraine president: CNN | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI and U.S. Justice Department are investigating possible U.S. ties to alleged corruption involving the former president of Ukraine, including the work of firms headed by political operatives Paul Manafort and Tony Podesta, CNN reported on Friday, citing multiple U.S. law enforcement officials. The broad-based investigation was looking into whether U.S. companies and the financial system were used to enable corruption by the party of former pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, CNN said. A person who answered a telephone number for Manafort said Manafort was not available for comment. The person, who said he was an associate of Manafort and who gave his name only as David, referred queries to a lawyer in Washington, who did not immediately respond to a phone call and an email. In response to a report in the New York Times on Monday, Manafort denied any impropriety in a statement. “I have never received a single ‘off-the-books cash payment’ as falsely ‘reported’ by The New York Times, nor have I ever done work for the governments of Ukraine or Russia,” he said. The New York Times reported that he had received cash payments worth more than $12 million over five years that were itemized on secret ledgers belonging to Yanukovich’s Party of Regions. Manafort, who resigned as chairman of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign on Friday, had not been the focus of the probe, CNN said, citing the officials. The probe was looking at the work of other firms linked to the former Ukrainian government, including the Podesta Group, a lobbying and public relations company headed by Tony Podesta, whose brother John Podesta is chairman of the campaign to elect Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Manafort’s attorney Richard Hibey did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined to comment, CNN reported. The Podesta Group has hired an independent legal firm to investigate whether it had been misled by the Centre for a Modern Ukraine, a not-for-profit group linked to the ousted Ukrainian government, a spokeswoman for the group said in a statement. The Justice Department, asked to comment on the report, said it remained “committed to helping recover stolen assets on behalf of the people of Ukraine.” Investigators in Ukraine have said Yanukovych and his party engaged in widespread corruption. He fled to Russia following a popular uprising in 2014. | 1 |
1,690 | dr duke mark collett to the antiwhite scum who promised to leave get the hell out | views share commentary seriously you always hear that we mustnt deport people because it could break up families yet we are encouraging teenagers to run away from their families and try their luck on americas streets latino invasion set for new record
the new observer march
more than unaccompanied alien minors had invaded the us over the mexican border in the past few months and the number of family units has increased to the us house judiciary subcommittee on immigration and border security has been informed
the house was also told that if the present trends continue there will be a percent increase on the record number of invaders who entered the us in
in the past few months the number of unaccompanied alien minors unlawfully entering the us soared to over and the number of family units increased to chair rep trey gowdy rsc informed the us house judiciary subcommittee on immigration and border security in a february hearing on capitol hill
if these trends continue it is predicted there will be a percent increase in the record high numbers we witnessed in
the widespread criminal violence endemic in the nonwhite third world countries to the south continues to be a major factor in the ongoing invasion omar zamora public affairs officer for the us border patrol rio grande valley rgv sector told the local kvue tv station
weve got gangs over there that are controlling the neighborhoods controlling the cities zamora said
agents of the rrgv sector he said man the front lines of the battle against drug trafficking and human smuggling
the us government has mounted an ad campaign along the guatemalahonduras border warning wouldbe invaders what to expect from human traffickers
according to zamora the human traffickers engage in everything from child molestation and rape to extortion and fraud read cologne police officer confirms it was refugees
i think the biggest misconceptions are hey theyre just children down there right its a humanitarian crisis said zamora but what i want to stress is theres the percent of the other individuals that are running that are fighting that have criminal records
rep lamar smith rtx who chairs the house border security caucus told kvue that if people figure they have a percent chance of being allowed to stay and work and get government benefits theyre going to come no matter what they might hear on the street or on the radio or see in a leaflet
in a february hearing of the senate judiciary committee sen john cornyn rtx asked agency acting chief ronald vitiello whether giving undocumented immigrants the impression they wont be allowed to stay in the us without a legal claim would act as a deterrent and slow the flow of unauthorized crossings
yes i believe that matters vitiello answered | 1 |
1,691 | Republicans take first steps to kill Obama-era regulations | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans on Monday continued their drive to loosen U.S. regulation, taking the first step to kill five Obama-era rules on corruption, the environment, labor and guns under the virtually untested Congressional Review Act. The House Rules Committee sent to the full chamber three regulations enacted under former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, to ax. They were the Stream Protection Rule, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s “resource extraction rule,” and one on gun buying. Republicans put as much urgency on limiting what they consider over-regulation that stifles economic growth as they do on overhauling the tax code and dismantling the Affordable Care Act, according to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. This is the first time the Republican-led House of Representatives has targeted specific rules since convening on Jan. 3. Earlier this month it passed bills to limit regulatory agencies and Republican President Donald Trump is cutting regulation through executive orders. Under the law, Congress can use simple majority votes to stop recent regulations in their tracks. Agencies cannot create a new rule to replace any part of an overturned regulation. Timing in the law means any rules enacted in the final months of Obama’s administration are eligible for axing. The law has been used effectively only once, in 2001. Both sides consider this week a test of its powers. On Tuesday the Rules Committee will send two more regulations to the full chamber, which is expected to vote to kill all five on Wednesday and then hand them off to the Senate. Senate Republicans on Monday prepared to act quickly after the House vote, with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Environment Committee Chairman James Inhofe introducing companion measures on the stream and extraction rules. The Interior Department took years to craft the stream rule, hoping to prevent coal-mining waste from contaminating water sources in areas near mountain-top removal mining sites. Critics say it is unnecessary and goes too far, wiping out jobs and usurping state rights. The extraction rule is required in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, but was only approved six years later this summer. It requires companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) to state publicly how much they pay governments in taxes and other fees. Opponents say it hurts U.S. energy companies, while human rights groups argue it reduces corruption. Meanwhile, the gun rule requires extra scrutiny of purchasers who receive Social Security benefits and also have a history of mental illness. Liberal groups are outraged by the rollbacks, but their traditional allies, Democratic lawmakers, have limited means to stop them in the Republican-dominated Congress. Those on the Rules Committee said important protections were being rushed to the chopping block and pleaded for hearings on the regulations, to no avail. This week House Democrats and activists are planning to rally the public, hoping to persuade Republicans to vote no. Senate Democrats cannot filibuster the measures but congressional aides expect them to slow the process by taking the full five hours they are allowed to speak against each measure on the chamber’s floor. | 1 |
1,692 | Lawmakers say NSA plan to expand sharing data ‘unconstitutional’ | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Democratic and a Republican congressmen have asked the National Security Agency to halt a reported plan to share more raw intelligence data with other federal agencies, warning the policy shift would be “unconstitutional and dangerous,” according to a letter seen by Reuters. U.S. Representatives Ted Lieu and Blake Farenthold, who sit on the House Oversight Committee, said in a letter dated March 21 to NSA Director Michael Rogers that the proposal would violate Fourth Amendment privacy protections because the collected data would not require a warrant before being searched for domestic law enforcement purposes. “If media accounts are true, this radical policy shift by the NSA would be unconstitutional, and dangerous,” Lieu, a California Democrat, and Farenthold, a Texas Republican, wrote. The New York Times reported last month that the proposal would allow the NSA to share intercepted private communications with other U.S. intelligence agencies before applying any privacy protections to the data. Bob Litt, general counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, told the Times the Obama administration was finalizing a 21-page draft of the new permissible procedures. The draft has not been made public. Civil liberties advocates have interpreted the change as potentially allowing NSA foreign intelligence data, which sometimes can include collection of communications to, from or about Americans, to be used for domestic policing purposes. The NSA has said its analysts scrub out certain personal information before handing any communications data over to other agencies. “Our country has always drawn a line between our military and intelligence services, and domestic policing and spying,” the lawmakers wrote. “We do not — and should not — use U.S. Army Apache helicopters to quell domestic riots; Navy Seal teams to take down counterfeiting rings; or the NSA to conduct surveillance on domestic street gangs.” The executive branch is able to change its rules for some surveillance programs without congressional approval. Without a law from Congress, the government relies on executive order 12333, which was signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and later modified by President George W. Bush. Critics have said the order is overly broad and vague. The NSA did not respond to a request for comment about the letter. Congress last year passed a law curtailing certain aspects of the NSA’s surveillance authority, most notably ending its bulk collection of domestic phone records exposed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in 2013. | 1 |
1,693 | WOW! CONFIRMED BY ICE: 5-Time Deported ILLEGAL ALIEN Protected By Sanctuary County Is Suspected ARSONIST Behind Worst Fires CA History | Remember when candidate Donald Trump was condemned by the left for telling Americans that we have criminals coming across our borders? Well, it turns out that he was not only correct, it appears as though the worst fire in California s history that caused the death of 42 so far and over $1 billion in damage to almost 3,000 homes was very likely started by an ILLEGAL ALIEN arsonist. From Donald Trump s campaign speech at a rally in Arizona: The U.S. has become a dumping ground for everybody else s problems. When Mexico sends its people, they re not sending their best. They re sending people that have lots of problems, and they re bringing those problems with us. They re bringing drugs, they re bringing crime, they re rapists and some, I assume are good people. Watch:Well, now that ICE has confirmed that the arsonist arrested in connection with setting the fires that devastated California is a 5-time deported ILLEGAL ALIEN, who in the media is going to tell Trump they re sorry for criticizing him? Will it be one of the local government officials in Sonoma County who decided to make their county a sanctuary county to protect people like Jesus Fabian Gonzalez, who was arrested Sunday?Breitbart U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Acting Director Tom Homan confirmed on Thursday that a man arrested in connection with setting a fire in Sonoma County Wine Country is an illegal alien from Mexico who has been twice returned to his home country. Homan also confirmed that ICE has issued detainer requests for Jesus Fabian Gonzalez five times now in the past year alone, including the one issued on October 16 in relation to his most recent arrest on suspicion of arson. All of the arrests were made by Sonoma County on various felony and misdemeanor charges, according to Homan.Sonoma County is considered a sanctuary jurisdiction and does not fully cooperate with federal immigration officials. That includes not honoring ICE detainer requests. ICE was never notified of Mr. Gonzalez various releases, Homan wrote in the statement regarding Gonzalez.There were several fires in the region, and it is not clear what role the fires Gonzales allegedly set played in the overall disaster.The LA Times reported on the incident from eyewitnesses after Gonzalez was seen leaving the scene of the fire: He was screaming really bad things at the police when he was arrested, recalled David Moreno, 29, who witnessed the arrest. He was yelling things like, I m going to teach you a lesson you ll never forget. Three Sonoma County probation officers patrolling Maxwell Farms Regional Park just before 3 p.m. noticed a plume of smoke rising from an area near the Sonoma Creek, Sheriff s Department spokeswoman Misti Harris said.Gonzalez walked away from the fire as the officers approached, Harris said. Nobody else was in the area, Harris said.Sonoma County Sheriff s Department deputies followed Gonzalez to a nearby McDonald s. Gonzalez had previous contacts with law enforcement, she said.Gonzalez told police he started the fire because he was cold, Harris said. Officers found a lighter in his pocket.*The recorded temperature at the time that the fires started was a balmy 78 degrees.Some homeless people who knew Gonzalez said that he had a habit of setting fire to brush along the creek bed.Tensions were already high in this smoke-filled region, about 25 miles east of Santa Rosa.Local mechanic Shawn Stephensen, 40, said, A few days ago I was walking down the street with a gas can and someone driving by stopped to say, I wouldn t be carrying a thing like that around at a time like this. At first I didn t get it, Stephensen, who knew Gonzalez, said. Then it dawned on me Oh yeah, instant felony case. What will Governor Jerry Brown, who recently signed off on legislation that makes the entire state of California a sanctuary state have to say about this recent development? | 0 |
1,694 | BREAKING REPORT: MITT ROMNEY To Make Huge Announcement About Running For Major Political Office…There’s Only ONE Thing Standing In His Way | Sources tell UtahPolicy.com that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is preparing to run for Senate in 2018 if Sen. Orrin Hatch decides to retire.Sources close to Romney say the two-time presidential candidate will jump into the 2018 Utah Senate scrum if Hatch opts not to.So far, Hatch has not made up his mind as to whether he ll run for an eighth term in 2018. He has previously said he was planning on running as long as his and his wife s health holds up.Dave Hansen, a longtime political advisor to Hatch, told UtahPolicy.com last month that he didn t expect Hatch to decide on his political future until October. However, sources now tell UtahPolicy.com that Hatch may not make up his mind until December.Hatch s reticence to make a definitive announcement is presenting other candidates from getting in the race, but Romney has the financial resources to mount a campaign no matter when Hatch decides.A UtahPolicy.com poll shows Romney would be in great shape to win a Senate race against Democrat Jenny Wilson. Romney pulls 64% of the vote to Wilson s 26%. The poll shows Stewart would only be ahead of Wilson 34-30, but that s likely due to Stewart being less familiar to Utah voters.Earlier this year Hatch said he would be willing to step aside if an outstanding person like Mitt Romney were to run for the seat he currently holds. Utah PolicyVia: Utah Policy | 0 |
1,695 | TRUMP’S HISTORIC SPEECH: 4 Words That Will Cause Trump To Win Landslide Election [VIDEO] | Trump talked about a country on the brink of disaster. He talked about a country he loves, and how he welcomes EVERY American who loves their country to help him save it. Trump s speech started out:Friends, delegates and fellow Americans: I humbly and gratefully accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.Together, we will lead our party back to the White House, and we will lead our country back to safety, prosperity, and peace. We will be a country of generosity and warmth. But we will also be a country of law and order.Our Convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not fit to lead our country.Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims.I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th 2017, safety will be restored.It is finally time for a straightforward assessment of the state of our nation. For entire text of Trump s speech: Politico I am YOUR voice! Trump touched on the LGBT community and wanted them to know he was on their team. He also addressed veterans, women, unemployed and under-represented minorities, refugees who have no place in America if they chose not to assimilate and middle class working Americans.Trump also did a brilliant job of laying out a timeline of Hillary s crimes and how he planned to stop corruption at the highest level of government. He was all about unity and working to make America ONE again. His speech was brilliant, passionate and powerful.Keep your eye the polls over the next couple of days | 0 |
1,696 | Drug enforcement chief criticizes Trump in email to agents | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s acting director criticized President Donald Trump for telling law enforcement officers not to be “too nice” to suspects, urging DEA agents to show “respect and compassion” and saying he felt compelled to speak out when “something is wrong.” Acting Director Chuck Rosenberg sent an agency-wide email on Saturday, one day after Trump’s speech to officers in Brentwood, New York, on Long Island. The email was seen by Reuters on Tuesday. Trump suggested to officers that, as part of a tougher approach to suspects, they do away with practices like protecting the head of a suspect being put into a patrol car. That suggestion drew criticism from many local law enforcement agencies, as well as Rosenberg. “I write because we have an obligation to speak out when something is wrong,” the acting DEA chief said in the email. “The President, in remarks delivered yesterday in New York, condoned police misconduct regarding the treatment of individuals placed under arrest by law enforcement.” Rosenberg, who was not nominated by Trump but is a holdover from the Obama administration, was the first head of a federal agency to challenge Trump’s remarks in a wide arena. Incidents of police brutality and law enforcement killings of black suspects have sparked mass protests nationwide and led many departments to purchase body cameras to record interactions between officers and the public. Trump, a Republican, campaigned on a pro-law enforcement platform, winning the support of several police unions by promising to be tough on crime and more supportive of police than his predecessor, Democratic President Barack Obama. Chuck Canterbury, national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest police union, said Trump’s “off the cuff comments” are taken “too literally” by news media. “The President knows, just as every cop out there knows, that our society does not, and should not, tolerate the mistreatment or prejudgment of any individual at any point in the criminal justice process,” Canterbury said in a statement on Saturday. The DEA combats drug trafficking into the United States from offices nationwide and several international posts. Rosenberg said he was not seeking to advance a political agenda, but to remind his agents of their core values, including accountability, diversity and integrity. “This is how we conduct ourselves. This is how we treat those whom we encounter in our work: victims, witnesses, subjects and defendants. This is who we are,” he wrote. | 1 |
1,697 | Iraq, Syria converge on Islamic State's last strongholds | BAGHDAD/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Iraqi forces launched an attack to drive Islamic State from the last territory it holds in Iraq on Thursday and the Syrian army and its allies said they planned to march on the jihadist s last Syrian stronghold. The separate assaults across the Iraqi-Syrian frontier aim to deal a final blow to the Islamic State caliphate that has crumbled this year in Syria and Iraq, with the group losing the cities of Mosul, Raqqa and swathes of other territory. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Islamic State fighters would have to choose between death and surrender as he announced the offensive on the region of Rawa and al-Qaim, which is located at the Syrian border. The Iraqi air force dropped thousands of leaflets on the border area calling on militants to surrender and urging the population to stay away from their positions, according to a statement from the Joint Operations Command in Baghdad. Tell those among your children and relatives who took up a weapon against the state to throw it aside immediately, and to go to any house on top of which a white flag has been raised when the liberation forces enter al-Qaim, said the text. Regular Iraqi army units, Sunni tribal forces and Iranian-backed paramilitaries known as Popular Mobilisation are taking part in the offensive toward the Syrian border, the Joint Operations Command said. In a statement welcoming the offensive, the U.S.-led international military coalition which has run an air campaign against Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq since 2014, said approximately 1,500 Islamic State fighters were estimated to be still in the immediate vicinity of al-Qaim. In Syria, Islamic State has been driven back into a strip of territory along the Euphrates River by separate offensives waged by the Syrian government and its allies on the one hand, and by Syrian militias backed by the U.S.-led coalition on the other. A report issued by a military news service run by Hezbollah, which is fighting in support of Damascus, said on Thursday that the army and its allies had captured the T2 pumping station from Islamic State. This was a launch pad for the army and its allies to advance towards the town of Albu Kamal ... which is considered the last remaining stronghold of the Daesh organization in Syria , it said. Around 70 km (40 miles) from T2, Albu Kamal is located on the west bank of the Euphrates at the Iraqi border in the Syrian province of Deir al-Zor, just over the frontier from al-Qaim on the Iraqi side. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said the Syrian army had advanced from T2 to reach 45km from the outskirts of Albu Kamal. Syrian government forces and their allies have made rapid gains against Islamic State in Deir al-Zor in recent weeks. They have advanced mostly in areas to the west of the Euphrates River where they have captured the town of al-Mayadin and besieged the last Islamic State-held pockets of Deir al-Zor city. The U.S.-led coalition is waging a separate campaign against the group in Deir al-Zor, focused on areas to the east of the Euphrates River. | 1 |
1,698 | Turkish gold trader hires Giuliani, Mukasey in U.S. sanctions case | NEW YORK (Reuters) - A wealthy Turkish gold trader’s decision to hire former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey to represent him, as he defends against charges he conspired to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran, raises a potential conflict of interest, prosecutors said. At least eight big banks allegedly victimized by the trader, Reza Zarrab, are current or former clients of Giuliani and Mukasey’s law firms, acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim in Manhattan said in a letter dated Monday to the federal judge hearing the case. The banks’ relationships with the law firms require a special hearing, known as a “Curcio” hearing, to make sure Zarrab understands the potential conflict, Kim said. Giuliani is a lawyer for Greenberg Traurig, while Mukasey, who is also a former federal judge, is a lawyer for Debevoise & Plimpton. Neither firm had an immediate comment. The eight banks are Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc, Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Standard Chartered Plc, UBS Group AG and Wells Fargo & Co. “Through various deceptive acts, including layering the transactions and omitting information concerning the Iranian nexus, Zarrab and his co-conspirators allegedly tricked numerous U.S. financial institutions into processing barred transactions, thus exposing them to significant potential loss,” Kim said in a letter to U.S. District Judge Richard Berman, explaining the potential conflict of interest. Prosecutors accused the Iranian-born Zarrab and two others of engaging in hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions for Iran’s government and Iranian entities from 2010 to 2015, in a scheme to evade U.S. sanctions. A trial is scheduled for Aug. 21. Zarrab has been in federal custody since his March 21, 2016, arrest in Miami, while en route to Disney World with his wife and daughter. Holding a Curcio hearing now could eliminate one ground for appeal if the case goes against Zarrab. The case has been closely watched in Turkey, where Zarrab was arrested in 2013 in a corruption probe into individuals with close ties to Tayyip Erdogan, then Turkey’s prime minister and now its president. Zarrab is a dual national of Iran and Turkey. Another lawyer for Zarrab, Benjamin Brafman, said in a letter on Monday that Giuliani and Mukasey’s roles “will not require any appearance in court and, accordingly, a hearing is not required.” The case is U.S. v. Zarrab, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 15-cr-00867. | 1 |
1,699 | Trump declares national emergency on opioid abuse | BEDMINSTER, N.J. (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday declared the opioid epidemic a national emergency and said his administration was drafting papers to make it official. “The opioid crisis is an emergency and I’m saying officially right now it is an emergency,” Trump told reporters in New Jersey. “We’re going to draw it up and we’re going to make it a national emergency. It is a serious problem, the likes of which we have never had.” Trump spoke about a week after a White House commission on the opioid crisis led by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie recommended the president declare it a national emergency. The declaration could help unlock more support and resources to address the drug overdose epidemic, such as additional funding and expanded access to various forms of treatment, and it gives the government more flexibility in waiving rules and restrictions to expedite action. National emergencies are typically declared for short-term crises, such as the Zika virus outbreak or a natural disaster. It is unclear what Trump’s declaration will mean for a complex, long-term public health problem. “We’re going to spend a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of money on the opioid crisis,” Trump said. “This is a worldwide problem, not just a United States problem.” More than 100 Americans die of drug overdoses every day, the commission wrote in a report, noting that “America is enduring a death toll equal to September 11th every three weeks.” Opioids played a role in more than 33,000 deaths in 2015, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Trump held a “major briefing” on the epidemic on Tuesday, but stopped short of following the commission’s recommendation. Instead, he talked mostly about stopping the flow of drugs into the United States and ensuring young people never start using drugs. He did not discuss access to treatment. | 1 |
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