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20,800 | Clinton, other former top diplomats mark new diplomacy center | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Four current and former U.S. secretaries of state, including Hillary Clinton, gathered at the State Department on Tuesday to mark the ceremonial opening of a museum on American diplomacy. The privately funded U.S. Diplomacy Center will formally open in 2018. It includes an exhibition hall named after Clinton, who lost the November presidential election to Republican Donald Trump. Other halls in the nonpartisan center are named for U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and predecessors Henry Kissinger and James Baker. In the light-filled hall named in Clinton’s honor, marked by glass walls and a glass roof, she joked that it “is the most transparent part” of the center, an apparent reference to the controversy over her use of a private email server which dogged her presidential ambitions. In her brief remarks, Clinton did not mention Trump or the campaign. She said that democracy, freedom and the rule of law were under attack around the world and that the world faced “a rising tide of authoritarianism and illiberalism.” “The longstanding bipartisan goal of a Europe that is whole, free and at peace is under enormous pressure,” she said. “We should remember that the world looks to America as the indispensable nation not just because of the size of our military or the strength of our economy,” she said. “It looks to us because America stands for universal values and aspirations. And if we stay true to those values like the best of the men and women whose leadership and service will be commemorated here, then our country will weather every storm on the horizon.” Former top U.S. diplomats Madeleine Albright, who will donate her personal collection of more than 200 pins to the center, and Colin Powell also spoke at the ceremony. Supporters of the center include private American companies Boeing Co, Intel Corp and FedEx Corp; the Kuwaiti, Qatari, United Arab Emirates and Brunei governments; and the Clinton Family Foundation, according to a panel in the exhibition hall. Nearly $48 million in private sector funds have been raised for the center, and $18 million more is needed, according to the website of the Diplomacy Center Foundation created to support the museum. | 1 |
20,801 | Cruz returns to Washington, warns of 'volcanic anger' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz returned to his job in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday with a warning to Washington that the turbulent primary race was a wake-up call. “All across this country people are hungry for change. This election cycle should be a wake-up call to Washington, D.C.,” the senator from Texas said outside his office. “The frustration and volcanic anger with Washington was echoed throughout this election.” Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders have upended expectations in their respective presidential campaigns, tapping into voter anger at establishment politicians in Washington. Cruz, a favorite of the conservative Tea Party movement, also tried to position himself as an outsider. However, he dropped out of the Republican race a week ago after a crushing loss in Indiana and a brutal campaign in which Trump attacked Cruz’s wife and father and constantly derided the senator as “Lyin’ Ted.” Cruz ruled out a third-party candidacy, and said the democratic process had run its course. Earlier on Tuesday, Cruz welcomed the idea of tossing his hat back into the ring in a lighthearted exchange with a staunch supporter, conservative radio host Glenn Beck. Beck, who campaigned heavily for Cruz in the senator’s quest for the Republican nomination, asked the 45-year-old Texan whether he would consider getting back into the race if he won Nebraska’s primary on Tuesday. “I am not holding my breath,” Cruz said to laughter on Beck’s show on TheBlaze Radio Network. “My assumption is that that will not happen. ... The reason we suspended the race last week is with Indiana’s loss I didn’t see a viable path to victory.” “If that changes, we will certainly respond accordingly.” Trump’s victory in Indiana last Tuesday pushed Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich out of the Republican race and put the brakes on the “Stop Trump” movements sparked by his unorthodox candidacy. Trump campaign adviser Sam Clovis dismissed the possibility of Cruz re-entering the race as highly unlikely. “I think if Ted has a future in Republican politics in this country, I think he’ll want to preserve that,” Clovis told CNN. Cruz may be hoping to put his conservative imprint on the party’s July 18-21 national convention in Cleveland. On Monday, he said he would not release delegates he had won in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas, according to news reports. Trump needs 1,237 delegates, a majority of the delegates at the convention, to clinch the nomination on the first ballot, and it is not guaranteed he will win them in the remaining nominating contests. Asked if he would endorse Trump, Cruz said every voter needs to make their own choice and they do not need to make it now. “The Republican convention isn’t for another two-and-a-half months; the election isn’t for another six months,” the senator said. “I think we need to watch and see what the candidates say and do.” | 1 |
20,802 | U.S. forces apologize for 'highly offensive' Afghan propaganda leaflet | KABUL (Reuters) - A senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan apologized on Wednesday for a highly offensive leaflet which contained a passage from the Koran used in the Taliban militants banner superimposed on to the image of a dog. The Taliban said the leaflet showed American hatred of Islam, adding that it had launched a suicide attack near the entrance to the U.S. Bagram Air Field, north of Kabul, in revenge. The image, distributed by U.S. forces in Parwan province, north of Kabul, on Tuesday, showed a section of the Taliban s banner superimposed onto the side of a dog - an animal considered unclean by Muslims. The banner contains a passage from the Koran in Arabic. The design of the leaflets mistakenly contained an image highly offensive to both Muslims and the religion of Islam, Major General James Linder said in a statement. I sincerely apologize. We have the deepest respect for Islam and our Muslim partners worldwide, he said, adding that an investigation would be held to determine the cause of this incident and to hold the responsible party accountable . Parwan Governor Mohammad Hasem condemned the leaflet as unforgivable . Those who have committed this unforgivable mistake in the publicity, propaganda or media section of the coalition forces will be tried and punished, he said. The incident highlights one of the challenges facing international forces in Afghanistan, most of which are from non-Muslim cultures, despite the efforts Western forces have generally taken to avoid stoking anti-foreigner sentiment. The risk of a backlash against international forces has grown more pronounced with a rise in civilian casualties caused by increased U.S. and Afghan government air strikes since the beginning of the year. The Taliban, fighting to restore strict Islamic rule to Afghanistan and drive out foreign forces, issued a statement saying the leaflet made clear that this war is a war between Islam and unbelief . The insurgent movement claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on the U.S. base at Bagram Air Field north of Kabul that local officials said wounded four Afghan civilians, although the Taliban itself said 20 Americans were killed. In 2012, U.S. commanders were forced to apologize after copies of the Koran and other religious texts were mistakenly burned at Bagram Air Base near Kabul. The incident triggered large demonstrations in Kabul and other provinces in which several people were killed. On another occasion, a film of U.S. Marines urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban fighters caused widespread offense, prompting an investigation and criminal charges. So-called information operations conducted by government and coalition forces have long been used to try to persuade local people to turn against the Taliban and other insurgent groups. Above the picture of a lion and the dog, the leaflet urged people to report insurgents to the authorities. Take back your freedom from the terrorist dogs and cooperate with coalition forces so they can target your enemy and eliminate them, it said. | 1 |
20,803 | Trump in Japan stresses unity on North Korea; talks trade, too | TOKYO (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump ramped up his tough rhetoric against North Korea when he arrived in Japan on Sunday, saying the United States and its allies are prepared to defend freedom and no dictator should underestimate U.S. resolve. Trump kicked off a 12-day Asian trip and is looking to present a united front with Japan against North Korea through meetings with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe amid heightened tensions over Pyongyang s nuclear and missile tests. He told reporters on Air Force One en route to Asia that North Korea would figure prominently in discussions, and also singled out trade, which he said had been badly handled in the region for years. Trump has rattled some allies with his vow to totally destroy North Korea if it threatens the United States and with his dismissal of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a rocket man on a suicide mission. A top aide said last week Trump intends to tell Asian leaders the world is running out of time in dealing with the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula. No dictator, no regime, no nation should ever underestimate American resolve, Trump told hundreds of cheering U.S. and Japanese troops in camouflage uniforms gathered at Yokota Air Base, just west of Tokyo, soon after he arrived. Every once in a while, in the past, they underestimated us. It was not pleasant for them, was it? said Trump, who wore a bomber jacket as he addressed the troops. North Korea s recent actions, including several missiles that flew over Japan and Pyongyang s sixth and largest nuclear test, have raised the stakes in the most critical international challenge of Trump s presidency. Recent drills over South Korea by two U.S. strategic bombers have further heightened tensions. We will never yield, never waver and never falter in defense of our freedom, Trump said. He told reporters earlier on Air Force One that a decision would be made soon on whether to add reclusive North Korea to a list of state sponsors of terrorism. Trump said his administration planned to take a different approach after years of what he termed total weakness. It s a big problem for our country and the world, and we want to get it solved. In an apparent attempt to distinguish between North Korea s leadership and ordinary people, he said he thought North Koreans were great people. And I hope it all works out for everybody. Abe told reporters before Trump s arrival that he welcomed the visit as a chance to deepen bilateral ties by building on the friendship and trust between the two leaders, fostered by several meetings that included a round of golf in Florida earlier this year. I hope we will be able to have thorough discussions about international issues, including North Korea, he said. Trump and Abe greeted each other with a handshake at a golf course to be used during the 2020 Olympic Games, changing clothes and heading out to play after what media said was a lunch of hamburgers. In an allusion to a Trump campaign slogan, they signed caps that said Donald and Shinzo Make Alliance Even Greater. They discussed North Korea and trade while playing nine holes with Hideki Matsuyama, the world no. 3 pro golfer. A senior White House official said the two leaders have developed a close bond since Trump took office in January. Playing golf with Prime Minister Abe and Hideki Matsuyama, two wonderful people! Trump tweeted. For his part, Abe took to Twitter to say he played golf with a marvellous friend (President Donald J. Trump) full of spirited conversation. The two leaders and their wives later dined on grilled Japanese premium beef at an upscale restaurant. In brief pre-dinner remarks, Trump said U.S.-Japan ties were closer than ever. But he added: We ll have dinner tonight. I think we ll insult everybody by continuing to talk about trade. Trump also said he planned to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin during his trip, the longest Asian tour by any U.S. leader since George H.W. Bush in 1992. I think it s expected that we will meet, he said. We want Putin s help on North Korea. Trump wants a united front with the leaders of Japan and South Korea against North Korea before he visits Beijing to make the case to Chinese President Xi Jinping that he should do more to rein in Pyongyang. Separately, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson discussed that now is the time to apply firm pressure on North Korea, Kono told reporters. A senior U.S. State Department official traveling with Tillerson said the pressure was having an effect. I think we have a better chance now than we ve had in the last couple of decades to solve this problem because the most important thing is to have the international community completely united in order to really choke off the lifeline for North Korea. It s got to be the way, the official said. Trade will factor heavily during Trump s trip as he tries to persuade Asian allies to agree to policies more favorable to the United States, a point Trump emphasized. A centerpiece of the trip will be a visit to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Danang, Vietnam, where Trump will deliver a speech in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific region, which is seen as offering a bulwark in response to expansionist Chinese policies. One of the things we re going to be very focused on is trade because trade has not been done well for 25 years by the United States with this part of the world, with any part of the world, he said on Air Force One. We re going to be discussing reciprocal trade. Fair, free but reciprocal, he said. | 1 |
20,804 | BWAH-HA-HA! ARTIST BRILLIANTLY Captures Hillary’s Reaction To Her Fear Of “Alt-Right” Media | Hillary would like American voters to believe the alt-right media (new nickname for media who s not afraid to out her and the Clinton Crime family) is out to get her and they would be correct. Hillary and Bill have been given a pass by the mainstream media for decades. Thanks to alternative media sources, Hillary is no longer able to behave like the queen of the Clinton Crime Syndicate and get away with it. Hillary should be afraid of the alt-right boogeyman they can t be bought and won t be frightened by the Clinton Crime family. And best of all, they re not going away until every American knows the truth about #CrookedHillary #HillarysBoogeyMen #Trump #Breitbart @RealAlexJones #pepe #pickle #Brexit #Putin #Harambe https://t.co/Oj98iIxEAZ pic.twitter.com/L2pQjUmdef BenGarrison Cartoons (@GrrrGraphics) August 29, 2016Here s Hillary interrupting her seizures, coughing fits and 3-day naps to call out the Alt-right : | 0 |
20,805 | Iran military chief of staff says not acceptable for Israel to violate Syria | BEIRUT (Reuters) - Iranian military chief of staff General Mohammad Baqeri said the Islamic Republic would not accept Israeli violations of Syria, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). It is not acceptable for the Zionist regime to violate Syria anytime it wants, Baqeri said during a visit to Damascus, according to IRNA. | 1 |
20,806 | Comey’s Old Boss Giuliani Knew About The FBI Letter DAYS Before Its Release; Here’s PROOF (VIDEO) | Something is definitely incredibly suspicious with recently looked at video of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani knowing about something coming out against Hillary Clinton exactly two days before it happened.Giuliani seemed pretty damn sure of himself while appearing on Fox News on October 26, that there was going to be something released. Giuliani said with a grin a mile wide: I think he s got a surprise or two that you re gonna hear about in the next few days. Then only two days later, FBI Director James Comey came out with his letter to Congress declaring his vague information regarding emails and Hillary Clinton.Keep in mind one very important fact, Giuliani is Comey s old boss, and it sure as hell seems like the former NYC mayor was given some information before anyone else.Not only would this definitely prove the Hatch Act was violated, Giuliani would be part of the violation.According to CNN: Congress passed the Hatch Act in response to concerns that federal employees had been used to support candidates during the 1938 congressional elections. Its general intent is to greatly restrict the ability of most federal employees to engage in political campaign activities (such as soliciting campaign donations or actively working on behalf of individual candidates), especially while on the job or to otherwise use [their] official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election. Giuliani is one of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump s top surrogates on the campaign trail, and he seemed to know about something that would directly be harmful to Trump s opponent days before it was released. He clearly knew something.What did he know? And how did he get that information? Is this proof Comey violated the Hatch Act?Watch Don Lemon and Michael Moore discuss how Giuliani seemed to know about the letter before anyone else, as well as the former mayor admit to knowing something:Here it is. Watch this & tell me Giuliani didn t know. Did u know Rudy used to be FBI Director Comey s BOSS? https://t.co/UP3y963SsR Michael Moore (@MMFlint) November 4, 2016Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
20,807 | New York Republican Zeldin opposes tax bill | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican Representative Lee Zeldin said he would not support the tax reform legislation introduced by Republican congressional leaders on Thursday. “I am a ‘no’ to this bill in its current form. We need to fix this state and local tax deduction issue. Adding back in the property tax deduction up to $10,000 is progress, but not enough progress,” Zeldin said in a statement. A number of lawmakers from New York opposed eliminating the deduction for state and local taxes. | 1 |
20,808 | Netanyahu lauds Trump's Iran turn, sees chance to change nuclear deal | JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated U.S. President Donald Trump for his speech against Iran on Friday, seeing an opportunity to change the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran as well as Iranian conduct in the region. He (Trump) boldly confronted Iran s terrorist regime (and) created an opportunity to fix this bad deal, to roll back Iran s aggression and to confront its criminal support of terrorism, Netanyahu said in a Facebook video. | 1 |
20,809 | U.S. denies Iran report of confrontation with U.S. vessel | BEIRUT (Reuters) - An Iranian military vessel confronted an American warship in the Gulf and warned it to stay away from a damaged Iranian fishing boat, Tasnim news agency reported on Sunday, but the U.S. Navy denied any direct contact with Iranian forces. The American vessel turned away after the warning from the Iranian ship, which belonged to the naval branch of the Iranian army, according to Tasnim. The Iranian military vessel then towed the fishing boat, which had sent out a distress signal after taking on water, back to shore. The agency did not specify when the incident, close to the strategic Strait of Hormuz, took place. In statement, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT) said the coastal patrol USS Tempest, operating in the Gulf of Oman on Sept. 6, heard the distress call of an unidentified small boat about 75 nautical miles from the Tempest s position. At the same time the motor vessel Nordic Voyager, much closer to the boat in distress, offered help and had made visual contact with it. The Tempest offered to support the Nordic Voyager which declined the offer, NAVCENT said. Following the radio traffic from a distance, USS Tempest heard the Nordic Voyager coordinate additional Iranian Navy help for the vessel in distress to tow it back to Iran. At no time was there any direct contact between the U.S. and Iranian maritime forces, NAVCENT spokesman Chloe Morgan said. Tensions have been on the rise between the Iranian and U.S. military in the Gulf in recent months. In August, an unarmed Iranian drone came within 100 feet (31 meters) of a U.S. Navy warplane as it prepared to land on an aircraft carrier in the Gulf, a U.S. official said at the time. And in July, a U.S. Navy ship fired warning shots when an Iranian vessel in the Gulf came within 150 yards (137 meters) in the first such incident since President Donald Trump took office in January, U.S. officials said. Years of mutual animosity had eased when Washington lifted sanctions on Tehran last year as part of a deal to curb Iran s nuclear ambitions. But serious differences remain over Iran s ballistic missile program and conflicts in Syria and Iraq. The Trump administration, which has taken a hard line on Iran, recently declared that Iran was complying with its nuclear agreement with world powers, but warned that Tehran was not following the spirit of the accord and that Washington would look for ways to strengthen it. During the presidential campaign last September, Trump vowed that any Iranian vessels that harass the U.S. Navy in the Gulf would be shot out of the water. | 1 |
20,810 | Couple Gives Up Buying $1 Million Boat To Send 26 Kindergarteners To College (VIDEO) | The parents at a Southern California elementary school just got their minds blown when they heard that a complete stranger had decided to pay for their kindergarten-age children to go to college.Navy vet and Fullerton lawyer Marty Burbank and his wife were the people who selflessly decided to abandon their dreams of buying the $1 million boat they met and got married on to put 26 kindergarteners at the Rio Vista Elementary School through college.When 51-year-old Burbank told kindergarten teacher Tessa Ashton his plan to ensure that each one of her kindergarteners would receive a college education, she could hardly believe it. Ashton said that the news forced her to give her young students a lesson about happy tears because they couldn t understand her powerful reaction to the news. She said: He cried and I cried. And the kids got really concerned because they ve never seen me cry! You don t walk into moments like that very often so it was kind of a magical thing. Burbank had met Ashton several years ago when they were both attending a service day at the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District campus. Since then, he d donated tons of supplies to the elementary school such as a thousand notebooks and snacks for the children. Burbank noticed that one of the rooms had a display of college flags, and the image stuck with him. Burbank knew he could change these children s lives in a bigger way than simply donating supplies. He said: They don t come from families where anybody has had an opportunity to go to college. And college is not something that the parents talk to the kids about. Burbank was inspired to forgo his plan to buy the sentimental boat after he heard a sermon about giving. Burbank, who d been sailing since he was a toddler, said: Sailing has been a big part of my life. (But) the boat seemed like a real selfish thing to me at that point. This is something significant that I think is going to impact a lot more people than just me. Burbank s wife, Seon Chun-Burbank, was more than on board with the idea. She had come from a family who could never afford a college education, and said it was only because of her aunt s financial support that she became a first-generation college graduate. She explained: I like the movie Pay It Forward. I got a lot of help and now I m helping others. And I hope they can do that too. You can listen to Burbank talk about his amazing act of kindness below:The kids are more than enthusiastic about their new future. Six-year-old Jessyca Resendiz said, College is a big place and there is a fountain. It has a big cafeteria that has coffee and bread. Resendiz has plans to be a doctor, and because of Burbank and his wife, she ll get to fulfill that dream.One of the kindergartener s parents, Silvia Escobar, revealed that she had only completed second grade and didn t have the opportunity that her son would have thanks to Burbank s kindness. She said, May God bless him always for helping people who truly need his help. There are no words. Burbank s gift is for each child to receive two years of community college, and two years at a university in California. Burbank will also cover the cost of the children s books. With inflation taken into account, the lawyer estimates that it will take approximately $1 million to cover the kindergarteners tuition and expenses, beginning in 2032.On Monday, the Burbanks received thank-you cards from the students, but the knowledge that there will be education in each child s future is enough for the couple. There s just one catch the parents are to keep the Burbanks up to date on their children s academics and the students must submit a picture or essay about what they would like to be when they grow up every year. Burbanks, who has now decided to postpone his retirement, said: I d rather not have a boat and get these kids through school. Maybe one day they ll buy me a boat. Featured image is a screenshot | 0 |
20,811 | CNN’S DON LEMON LOSES IT: Screams No! No! No! When Hillary, Huma, Weiner Scandal Brought Up [Video] | CNN host Don Lemon continues to show his extreme bias when it comes to Democrats vs Republicans. His most recent show of bias was his interview with a panel that included Ben Ferguson. When Ferguson brought up the Hillary, Huma, Weiner scandal, Lemon screamed No! over and over again. He thinks this is old news but it s a fact that the emails from Weiner s laptop are coming out today. We took a screenshot of Lemon s smirk at the end of the video (SEE BELOW) showing his irritation at the direction Ferguson took during the interview.EMAILS TO BE RELEASED TODAY THIS ISN T OLD NEWS!.@StateDept will publish releasable portions of 2800 government docs that @FBI found on Anthony Weiner laptop tomorrow (Dec. 29th). Again, thanks to @JudicialWatch lawsuits. Will @RealDonaldTrump DOJ finally take action on Clinton/Abedin misdeeds? https://t.co/8X4p0srBa9 Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) December 28, 2017A screenshot from the last moment of the interview shows Lemon s disgust and frustration with the fact that Ben Ferguson brought up a topic the Dems would like to forget:ONE OF OUR ALL TIME FAVORITES WITH LEMON IS WHEN ROY MOORE S ATTORNEY TROLLED HIM ON-AIR SO FUNNY!Roy Moore s attorney just called political hack Don Lemon a funny name on air. The CNN host was not pleased with the attorney s quip of Don Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy Roy Moore attorney calls CNN host 'Don Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy' pic.twitter.com/dDyvj81xnO Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) November 12, 2017 | 0 |
20,812 | Martin Luther King's daughter says 'God can triumph over Trump' | ATLANTA/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Martin Luther King’s daughter said on Monday that “God can triumph over Trump,” but the slain civil rights leader’s son struck a conciliatory tone after meeting with the president-elect on the U.S. holiday that honors their father. The comments by the children of King, who championed racial justice until he was assassinated in 1968 at the age of 39, punctuated an imbroglio involving Donald Trump and African-American congressman John Lewis that broke out over the weekend. The dispute started when Lewis, 76, a contemporary of King’s who endured beatings and jail time in the civil rights movement of the 1960s, said in a televised interview that he saw Trump’s election as illegitimate because of Russian interference in the campaign. That drew a scornful response from Trump. Bernice King, King’s youngest daughter, told a gathering at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta not to give up hope and “Don’t be afraid of who sits in the White House.” “God can triumph over Trump,” she said, drawing a standing ovation, one of several times she was interrupted by thunderous applause. The service at the church where King once preached takes place every year on Martin Luther King Jr Day, a federal holiday honoring his life. This year the holiday fell days before Barack Obama ends his second term as the country’s first African-American president. Trump takes the oath of office as his successor on Friday. Obama and first lady Michelle Obama spent part of their last MLK Day in office helping paint a mural in the “community room” of a Washington shelter, to which they donated a play set used by their daughters when they arrived at the White House in 2009. Trump, who won only 8 percent of the black vote, offered praise for King in a Twitter post on Monday, a few hours before meeting King’s oldest son, Martin Luther King III, at his Trump Tower offices in New York. “Celebrate Martin Luther King Day and all of the many wonderful things that he stood for. Honor him for being the great man that he was!” Trump tweeted. Trump and King III emerged from an elevator together, shaking hands. Trump said goodbye to King, then returned to the elevator without answering questions. King said they had a constructive meeting to discuss how to improve the U.S. voting system, which King considers broken, but he skirted questions about whether he was offended by Trump’s comments on Lewis. “First of all I think that in the heat of emotion a lot of things get said on both sides. I think at some point I bridge-build. The goal is to bring America together,” King told reporters. Lewis did not mention Trump in a speech in Miami about the civil rights struggle to honor King, who would have turned 88 on Sunday, but he urged young black Americans to consider voting a “sacred” act. “We all must become participants in the democratic process. When you get old enough to register to vote, go and register and vote,” Lewis said in a half-hour address. Gunfire during Miami holiday festivities wounded eight people ages 11 to 30 at Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Park, police said. Two people were detained and two weapons seized, and the cause of the shooting is under investigation. The Trump-Lewis exchange began when Lewis told NBC News in segments of an interview released on Friday that he would not attend Trump’s inauguration in part because “I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president.” He referred to the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia used hacking and other methods to try to help Trump, a Republican, defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 election. Trump was withering in his response the following day, saying in tweets that Lewis, a revered figure who risked his life for civil rights, was “All talk, talk, talk - no action or results.” While many Democrats and Republicans said they disagreed with Lewis, they also questioned Trump’s decision to denigrate an African-American political leader of Lewis’ stature, especially over the Martin Luther King Jr weekend. Civil rights leaders have also opposed Trump’s nominee for U.S. attorney general, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who was denied a federal judgeship in 1986 after allegations that he was racist and harbored sympathies toward the Ku Klux Klan, a violent white supremacist organization. The Senate Judiciary Committee has received letters from 400 civil rights organizations opposing his confirmation to the country’s top law enforcement post, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein has said. Sessions strongly denied that he is a racist during his confirmation hearing in the Senate last week. (This story corrects senator’s name in final paragraph to ‘Feinstein’.) | 1 |
20,813 | U.S. House passes sanctions on Iran-backed Hezbollah | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday backed new sanctions on Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah militia, part of an effort to take a tough line against Tehran without immediately moving to undermine an international nuclear agreement. Three Hezbollah-related measures passed by voice vote, without opposition. The House will vote on Thursday on another bill, to impose additional sanctions on Iran related to its ballistic missiles program. President Donald Trump said on Oct. 13 he would not certify Iran is complying with an international agreement on its nuclear program, and threatened that he might ultimately terminate the accord. Trump’s action opened a 60-day window for Congress to act to reimpose sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program that were lifted under the agreement, but there has been no move to do so in the House or Senate. Aides said that, for now, House lawmakers are focusing on clamping down on Iran in other ways such as the Hezbollah and missile-related sanctions. The first of the Hezbollah-related measures passed on Wednesday would impose new sanctions on any entities found to support the group, such as by providing weapons to Hezbollah. The second imposes sanctions on Iran and Hezbollah for using civilians as human shields. The third was a resolution urging the European Union to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. The United State named Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. Earlier this month, Washington offered multimillion-dollar rewards for two of its officials as the Trump administration developed its strategy for countering Iran’s growing regional influence. “These critical measures will impose new sanctions to crack down on Hezbollah’s financing, and hold it accountable for its acts of death and destruction,” said Representative Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. However, winning international support for an intensified campaign against Hezbollah could prove difficult. The powerful organization is part of Lebanon’s fragile coalition government and commands enormous support for the social services it provides. | 1 |
20,814 | Senator Markey places hold on Obama's nominee to lead FDA | (Reuters) - Democratic U.S. Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts said on Monday he placed a hold on President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Food and Drug Administration until the agency agrees to reform its process for approving opioid painkillers. Markey wants opioid-approval matters to be reviewed by an FDA advisory committee and believes the committee should consider the risk of addiction and abuse during the approval process. He also wants the agency to rescind approval of OxyContin for children and convene an advisory panel to guide that process. “Last year, the FDA approved a new pediatric use for OxyContin without convening an advisory committee even though its guidelines note that FDA decisions that relate to controversial issues or matters relating to children are particularly well-suited to advisory committee empanelment,” Markey said in a statement. A “hold” is a procedure by which a senator can prevent a measure from being voted on by the full Senate. The nominee, Dr. Robert Califf, a cardiologist and researcher, is widely expected to be approved when the Senate votes on the nomination later this year, although critics argue his ties to the pharmaceutical industry are too close. A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the FDA, said it had made addressing the opioid crisis “a top priority.” “Work at FDA and across HHS will continue on this important effort,” spokesman Kevin Griffis said in a statement. “HHS will be in touch directly with the Senator regarding his concern.” The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions voted earlier this month to confirm Califf as FDA commissioner, a position open since Dr. Margaret Hamburg stepped down last February. Califf, who joined the FDA a year ago as a deputy commissioner, previously held senior positions at Duke University, where he founded a large academic research center that received more than half its funding from the drug industry. He has also led multiple large-scale, company-funded clinical trials and published more than 1,200 papers. His interest in streamlining the clinical trial process dovetails with those of patient groups and members of Congress who are eager to see new drugs brought to market faster. U.S. deaths from drug overdoses hit a record in 2014, increasing 6.5 percent to 47,055, propelled by prescription painkiller and heroin abuse, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Drug overdoses are seen as a major contributor to recently rising death rates among middle-aged white Americans. Since 2000, deaths from powerful, highly addictive opioids have jumped 200 percent, the CDC said, with those addicted to prescription painkillers, such as hydrocodone, increasingly turning to widely available, often cheaper heroin. | 1 |
20,815 | Here Are Three Of The White Supremacists On Twitter That Have Inspired Trump | Donald Trump s reputation as a disgusting racist prig is well known, and it s why known white supremacy groups would pick him up and hug him, and stroke him, and cuddle him, and sing to him, and call him King if they could. What may not be as well known, though, is just how many of His Royal Racist s retweets come from people who have some tie to white supremacy movements.The Twitter analytics firm, Little Bird, looked at his retweets just from the last week and found that a whopping 62 percent of his retweets are from people who like white supremacy a little too much. Even worse than this, though, are three Twitter accounts that are so deeply racist and anti-Semitic that it defies description: @cheesebrit, @FishBoneHead1, and @whitegenocideTM.King Trump has retweeted blatantly false things from these accounts, or he s retweeted horrifically racist tweets from them. The two overlap.That last one, @whitegenocideTM, is particularly frightening, not least because of his handle (he calls himself Donald Trumpowitz), but because of just how full of hatred his feed is (although you can t expect anything else from someone who has white genocide in his handle). He regularly hurls epithets at everyone from Jews to Muslims, along with everyone else who isn t white and Christian.@cheesedbrit is the account that tweeted these bald-faced lies posing as statistics awhile back:Trump retweeted that in apparent support of the idea that systemic racism, particularly in our justice system is something the African-American community brings on themselves. The media got all over him for that, and he shot back with this absolute crap: Am I gonna check every statistic? Well, yes, King Dunce, if you re going to put them forth as fact, you are going to check them first. But of course, he didn t.@cheesedbrit s account has since been deleted, however, pieces of it live on as screencaps, and on Twitter itself, including his profile pic, which contained a neo-Nazi symbol:For anybody who doesn t know, goyim is Hebrew for non-Jew, and The Austrian chap with the little mustache, of course, refers to Hitler. CheesedBrit wants another Hitler, and he believes Trump is that man.Finally, there is the jerk who put out the highly controversial anti-Semitic meme against Hillary Clinton recently. The meme showed a picture of her next to a Star of David, and said, Most corrupt candidate in history. Trump has since deleted the meme and replaced it with an edited one that didn t have the Star of David on it, because of course he did.That account holder @FishBoneHead1 should have changed his name to @BoneHead1, because he is, in fact, a world-class bonehead who isn t just a racist, but also a misogynist. However, that account is likewise deleted, perhaps at Twitter s behest, and perhaps because he just couldn t take the backlash he unleashed on himself with that sickening anti-Hillary, anti-Semitic meme.According to Little Bird, 28 percent of the accounts His Royal Whiteness likes to retweet follow at least one of the top 50 white supremacist groups in the country, and 62 percent follow people who use the #WhiteGenocide hashtag. If there was any doubt left that Trump is a white supremacist, this erases that entirely.Featured image by Marc Piscotty/Getty Images | 0 |
20,816 | Got bank? Election could create flood of marijuana cash with no place to go | October 31 (Reuters) - Although the sale of marijuana is a federal crime, the number of U.S. banks working with pot businesses, now sanctioned in many states, is growing, up 45 percent in the last year alone. Still, marijuana merchants say there are not nearly enough banks willing to take their cash. So many dispensaries resort to stashing cash in storage units, back offices and armored vans. Proponents believe the Nov. 8 election could tip the balance in favor of liberalizing federal marijuana laws, a move seen as key to getting risk-averse banks off the sidelines. Measures on ballots in California, Florida and seven other states would bring to 34 the number of states sanctioning pot for medical or recreational use, or both. That could push annual sales, by one estimate, to $23 billion. The prospect for a market of such scale is adding urgency to calls for a national approach to marijuana that expands banking options. Law enforcement and Federal Reserve officials have expressed concern about the fraud and crime associated with un-bankable cash. Nearly 600 dispensary robberies have been reported in Denver since recreational pot was legalized in Colorado three years ago. “There’s not a single human being who thinks there is any benefit at all in forcing marijuana business to be conducted on an all-cash basis,” said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, a Democrat from Oregon who has called for the decriminalization of marijuana since coming to Congress in 1996. The U.S. Justice Department said in 2014 it would not prosecute banks for serving state-sanctioned marijuana businesses. At the same time, the Treasury Department requires banks to report suspected drug crimes. At last count, 301 banks were serving marijuana businesses, according to the Treasury Department. Many more have avoided the sector out of fear that making the wrong call could put them at risk, said Robert Rowe, a vice president at the American Bankers Association. The National Cannabis Association is pressing Congress for a law that would hold banks harmless for handling pot cash, said Michael Correia, a lobbyist for the trade group. If California legalizes recreational use next week, the nation’s biggest Congressional delegation will have a big stake in the issue. In lieu of federal action, some states have tried their own fixes. Colorado created a credit union system for state-sanctioned marijuana businesses. But it fell apart when the Kansas City Federal Reserve denied a Colorado pot credit union access to the national payments system, which distributes currency and clears checks and electronic payments. California has no such plans, said Tom Dresslar, spokesman for the state’s Department of Business Oversight. “This was a problem created by federal law,” Dresslar said, “and it needs a federal solution.” In northern California, where growers serve state-sanctioned medical dispensaries as well as the black market, the Community Credit Union of Southern Humboldt stopped opening pot business accounts because of the red tape and uncertainty, said senior vice president Janet Sanchez. “We’re not being asked to go over to the gun dealer and ask them if they’re making appropriate background checks,” she said. Dispensary operators unable to find willing banks tell tales of subterfuge, recordkeeping nightmares and armies of security guards. Many open bank accounts and submit credit card charges in ways that obscure their true enterprise, such as “spa services.” Susana de la Rionda has run a Los Angeles medical marijuana dispensary for 12 years and has had to find a new bank about once a year and submit to tax audits twice as often. “I feel like a gangster,” she said. Denver Relief dispensary founder Ean Seeb said operators always are trying workarounds to get cash into banks, including washing bills in fabric softener to hide the odor of pot. For a time, he said, one automated teller machine near a Denver mall drew lines every night of marijuana merchants, each depositing the maximum $500 in cash. Partner Colorado Credit Union began working with state-sanctioned dispensaries two years ago and has developed elaborate protocols to minimize risk, including an initial vetting that can take three weeks. It uses armored trucks to take cash deposits directly from dispensaries to the Denver branch of the Federal Reserve Bank. When the credit union spots a red flag, Chief Executive Sundie Seefried dispatches employees to pay the dispensary a visit, and she has closed two accounts for compliance problems. Seefried encourages operators to visit by keeping fine cigars in her office, and she stays in touch with regulators. “Our program is designed with eyes on the business, eyes on the owner, eyes on the money,” she said. With 95 dispensary members, Seefried said the credit union is at capacity, and she hopes more bankers will get involved. She fields calls for advice, speaks to industry groups and, earlier this year, shared what she’s learned in a book. Despite the safeguards, Seefried said she takes nothing for granted. Every few months, she said she drills her staff to make sure they know what to do in the event of her arrest. “What calls are you going to make?” she said she asks them. “If you don’t have a little fear going into this because of the illegality at the federal level, you’re probably not the person to do this job,” she said. | 1 |
20,817 | WATCH: Kellyanne Conway Pathetically Begs People To Buy Ivanka Trump’s Products On Fox News | Donald Trump is clearly using the office of the presidency to enrich himself and his family, a clear violation of the Constitution.In January, the retailer Nordstrom informed Ivanka Trump of their decision to drop her product line from their stores. A boycott of Ivanka s products and any retailer who sells them contributed to the decision. That s the way the free market works.But after the decision became public earlier this week Trump lost his shit over it on Wednesday.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, 2017Nordstrom responded by announcing that the decision was made purely for business reasons and that Ivanka was informed last month and understood the choice they made. Since then, Nordstrom s stock has risen and other retailers have also dropped Ivanka s products.And so, Donald Trump sent Kellyanne Conway on Fox News on Thursday to give free advertising to Ivanka s business. They are using the most prominent woman in Donald Trump s life, Conway began. Using her, who has been a champion for empowerment of women in the workplace, to get to him. I think she s gone from 800 stores to a thousand stores, or a thousand places where you can buy. You can buy her goods online, she continued before literally telling Fox viewers to go buy her products. Go buy Ivanka s stuff is what I would tell you. I hate shopping, I m going to go get some myself today. This is just wonderful line. I own some of it. I fully I m going to give a free commercial here. Go buy it today, everybody. You can find it online. Here s the video via YouTube.Seriously. Kellyanne Conway actually shilled for Ivanka s products during an interview. This is not only an unconstitutional conflict of interest, it s completely unfair. Trump is literally using his platform to advertise his daughter s business, a business she was supposedly going to walk away from because she joined Trump s White House team. Clearly, she lied just like her daddy did.The fact that Conway appeared on Fox to advertise for the Trumps demonstrates that Donald Trump only sees the presidency as a way to enrich himself and his family. He doesn t give a damn about the economy or foreign policy or any other problems we face. He only cares about personal profit and this is proof of his selfishness.Featured Image: Yana Paskova/Getty Images | 0 |
20,818 | Don Trump Jr. Testified To The Senate Today And They Don’t Seem To Believe A Word He Said | Donald Trump, Jr. went before Congress today to give yet another version of his reasons for meeting with a Russian lawyer in June of 2016. While he did actually confirm what he said in the email string he was dumb enough to post to Twitter that he met with Natalia Veselnitskaya because she claimed to have dirt on Hillary he gave a ridiculous reason for it. His reason was that he was trying to determine Hillary s fitness for office, because that s a totally innocent reason that makes it all okay.So that makes it all innocent, especially because he also claimed that he was just so overwhelmed with the campaign due to inexperience, but he did still evidently have the presence of mind to know he should talk to legal counsel about the propriety of the meeting and info, or so his claim goes.Some, however, on the Senate Judiciary Committee don t believe him, it seems. Sen. Chris Coons, who sits on that committee, sent out a memo to interested parties about Don the Con Jr. and his testimony today, complete with the statute regarding giving false testimony to Congress. And there s no ambiguity about it the top of the memo says: Below is a statute to keep in mind in regards to Donald Trump Jr. s testimony today. It quotes the full statute, which states that it s illegal to lie to Congress, and then Coons says: It is important to remember that anyone who testifies in front of a Senate committee is under the restrictions of the False Statements statute that says material false statements to Congress are criminal and punishable with fines or imprisonment or both. Read Coons full memo below:? After Don Jr. testimony to Senate Judiciary Cmte, Sen. Chris Coons office sends out statute on giving false statements to Congress pic.twitter.com/OUdKXMBfqm Andrew Desiderio (@desiderioDC) September 7, 2017The many contradictions in Don Jr. s reasons for meeting with Veselnitskaya clearly raise doubts that his testimony today was the truth. He first claimed, months ago, that he didn t meet with any Russians, and then later claimed that meant he didn t meet with any known Russian officials. Then he claimed that he did meet with a Russian attorney, but it was about adoptions. After that, he said he did meet with her, but it was because he was told she had dirt on Hillary. He said the meeting was a fruitless endeavor.Now he says it s because he wanted to determine her fitness for the presidency, which he seems to think makes it all okay. Coons is right to be skeptical. It would be one thing if the junior Trump s story had never changed, and contradicting information had never come out. But it s impossible to trust the testimony of someone who s changed their story as many times as he has.Featured image via John Moore/Getty Images | 0 |
20,819 | Canada bans its agencies from sharing information that could lead to torture | OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada, which has been accused of sharing intelligence that led to the torture of prisoners abroad, on Monday issued rules to prevent its security agencies from disclosing or requesting information from other countries if it would result in mistreatment. The rules also prohibit Canada s spy agency, border services agents and federal police from using information likely obtained through torture, unless it is necessary to prevent death or significant injuries. The directions replace 2011 rules put in place by the previous Conservative government that was replaced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau s Liberals in 2015. The Liberals appear to have publicized the rules to repair the government s reputation, according to experts who noted that it is unusual for a country to publicly disclose such guidelines. Canada has taken the lead in this regard, partly because it has been stung by past history, said University of Ottawa professor Wesley Wark. In one high-profile case, the Conservative government in 2007 apologized and paid C$10.5 million to compensate Maher Arar, who was deported to Syria by U.S. agents after Canadian police mistakenly labeled him an Islamic extremist. Earlier this year, Canada apologized to three Canadian men of Arab descent who said they had been tortured in Syria and blamed Canadian secret services for their ordeal. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canada Border Services Agency will be prohibited from disclosing or requesting information that would result in a substantial risk of mistreatment, the government said. Information that was likely obtained through torture also cannot be used if there is a risk it would lead to further mistreatment. The government of Canada unequivocally condemns in the strongest possible terms the mistreatment of any individual by anyone for any purpose, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said in a statement. Alex Neve, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada, said the clearer rules were an improvement over the previous directions that allowed for information to be shared with other countries in exceptional circumstances. There s been a lot of pressure in Canada over the last several years as the previous guidelines came to light and all of the inadequacies in those guidelines gathered quite a bit of concern, said Neve. | 1 |
20,820 | Death toll from Vietnam storm tops 60 and dams near bursting | DANANG, Vietnam (Reuters) - The death toll from a typhoon and ensuing floods in Vietnam reached 61 on Monday and the government said some reservoirs were dangerously near capacity after persistent rain. Typhoon Damrey tore across central Vietnam at the weekend just days before the region is due to host the APEC summit of Asia-Pacific leaders, among them U.S. President Donald Trump, China s Xi Jinping and Russia s Vladimir Putin. The Communist state s Search and Rescue Committee said 61 people had been killed and 28 were recorded as missing. It said some of the victims were in vessels that capsized at sea. Others were killed in landslides. It did not give a full breakdown. More than 2,000 homes had collapsed and more than 80,000 had been damaged, it said. Roads that had been flooded or washed away caused traffic jams across several provinces. Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc chaired an emergency meeting on the disaster. Ministers said that because some dams were so full, water might need to be released to relieve pressure - potentially worsening flooding downstream. In Danang, authorities called on soldiers and local people to clean up so that the beach resort would be ready for delegates to the meetings of Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries, which started on Monday. Leaders are due to meet from Nov. 10 and organizers said the schedule had not been disrupted because of the weather. But in much of the ancient town of Hoi An, a UNESCO World Heritage site that spouses of APEC leaders are scheduled to visit on Saturday, muddy waters rose to head height and people boated through the streets. Hoang Tran Son, 37, who left his home there when the water reached his chest, said it was the worst flooding he had seen for decades. We re pretty much all right in the city, but people in remote areas are devastated, he said. The storm moved from the coastal area into a key coffee-growing region of the world s biggest producer of robusta coffee beans. The typhoon had damaged some coffee trees at the start of the harvest season, farm officials said. But farmers in Daklak, the heart of the region, said the damage was limited. Authorities said that more than 7,000 farm animals had been killed. Floods killed more than 80 people in northern Vietnam last month, while a typhoon wreaked havoc in central provinces in September. The country of more than 90 million people is prone to destructive storms and flooding, due to its long coastline. | 1 |
20,821 | EU should impose more sanctions on North Korea-foreign policy chief | TALLINN (Reuters) - The European Union should add more sanctions on North Korea as part of international pressure following Pyongyang s largest nuclear test to date, the bloc s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said on Thursday. While sanctions have so far done little to stop North Korea boosting its nuclear and missile capacity, Federica Mogherini said more such steps were required along with piling on political pressure. I would propose to ministers today to strengthen the economic pressure on North Korea, supporting a new U.N. Security Council resolution adopting tougher economic measures, starting new autonomous EU sanctions... and working with other partners in the world to make sure that everybody implements fully and strictly the already-decided economic measures, Mogherini told reporters before meeting the EU defense and foreign ministers in the Estonian capital. The United States and China are discussing options to rein in Pyongyang and South Korea has deployed a defense system aimed at countering North Korean missile attacks. No formal EU decision is expected from the bloc on Thursday and its leverage on Pyongyang, as well as Russia and China North Korea s main ally is limited. It has to be pursued because the alternative in our view is and could be extremely dangerous, especially if in front of you have an interlocutor that might act quite irrationally. | 1 |
20,822 | GREAT SPEECH! DONALD TRUMP Gets A Dig At Hillary When He Says These Three Words [Video] | If you watched Trumps acceptance speech last night you might now have caught this quick little dig at Hillary. Hillary s slogan is I m with her but Trump said, I m with you I will fight for you! Beautiful!Donald Trump: I am with you, I will fight for you, and I will win for you. https://t.co/bCDBHPB5oi#RNCinCLEhttps://t.co/ZgzgVJZCVY CNN (@CNN) July 22, 2016 | 0 |
20,823 | Shot North Korean defector suffered massive internal injuries: surgeon | SEOUL (Reuters) - The North Korean soldier who was shot while defecting to South Korea on Monday suffered massive internal damage, the surgeon leading his treatment said on Wednesday. I ve never seen such injuries outside of a textbook in more than 20 years of my career, Lee Cook-jong, the surgeon in charge of the soldier, said at a media briefing. The soldier was being operated upon for a second time on Wednesday, the hospital treating him said. | 1 |
20,824 | Spain's High Court calls Puigdemont to testify on Thursday | MADRID (Reuters) - Spain s High Court on Tuesday called former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and 13 members of his sacked administration to testify on Thursday at 9 a.m. (0800 GMT). The court also said it had started processing rebellion and sedition charges against Puigdemont and the other Catalan leaders. | 1 |
20,825 | WOW! BRITISH ACTRESS HAMMERS EU Leaders: “Every one of you who said refugees are welcome, You Are Responsible For Brussels…Europe is ‘Jihadi Central'” | Outspoken British actress and columnist asks brilliant question: Any mosques lit up in the colors of the Belgian flag? She is dead on (no pun intended) about these refugees flooding Europe and attempting to flood (with the aid of Obama and Democrats like Hillary Clinton) America.KATIE HOPKINS has been told to show some respect for those affected by the Brussels terrorist attacks, after blaming what happened on refugees and German chancellor Angela Merkel.Look at you all. Gawping at pictures of death. Fascinated by the chaos you brought to our peaceful countries. You the left disgust me. Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) March 22, 2016On a more positive note, the Jihadi's of Brussels just put Donald Trump much closer to the White House. Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) March 22, 2016The controversial columnist said anyone who supported those fleeing war-torn countries was also in the frame for the blasts, which has so far claimed 34 lives.Any mosques lit up in the colours of the Belgium flag? No thought not. Just celebrations in prayer houses country-wide #ReligionOfMurder Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) March 22, 2016The 41-year-old told her 628,000 Twitter followers: Next time you hear someone say we are safer IN the EU remember Brussels. Seen as the heart of Europe, it is now jihadi central. Katie continued: How can you separate the human from the political. Merkel and her ilk blew up Brussels #brexit.How can you separate the human from the political. Merkel and her ilk- blew up Brussels. #brexit Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) March 22, 2016How about we cut from pics of dead bodies on the Metro to more boats, happily crossing the Med. liberal left sh*t at joining the dots Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) March 22, 2016 How about we cut from pics of dead bodies on the Metro to more boats, happily crossing the Med. Liberal left s*** at joining the dots. @KTHopkins totally agree xx Danielle Mason (@daniellemasonUK) March 22, 2016Katie added: Every one of you who said refugees are welcome, if you said let them in . You are responsible for Brussels. And you still can t see. Human traffickers setting up new cargo ship route from Libya to Italy. Are you ready Brussels? Open borders=open season for ISIS #brexit Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) March 22, 2016Her remarks were quickly met by angry users who blasted her for the insensitive tweets. To those of us who thought what @KTHopkins has had to go through recently would open up a shred of humanity, sense or empathy have been disappointed, one person wrote.Via: Express UK | 0 |
20,826 | Putin says had useful interaction with Trump at Vietnam summit | DANANG, Vietnam (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday he had a normal dialogue with U.S. leader Donald Trump at a summit in Vietnam, and described Trump as civil, well-educated, and comfortable to deal with. Putin said that a mooted bilateral sit-down meeting with Trump did not happen at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, citing scheduling issues on both sides and unspecified protocol issues. Putin, at a briefing for reporters at the end of the summit, said there was still a need for further U.S.-Russia contacts, both at the level of heads of state and their officials, to discuss issues including security and economic development. | 1 |
20,827 | U.S. backs re-election of Honduran president despite vote controversy | WASHINGTON/TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - The United States on Friday backed the re-election of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez despite widespread misgivings about the vote count, prompting the opposition candidate to describe his bid for the presidency as a lost cause. The Honduran electoral tribunal declared Hernandez winner of the Nov. 26 election last weekend amid strident opposition protests over the vote count in the impoverished Central American country, which is a major hub for drug trafficking. The vote tally had initially clearly favored opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla, a center-leftist, but it swung in favor of the incumbent after a 36-hour delay. After the United States weighed in, Nasralla was pessimistic about his chances of winning support in Honduras, claiming in an interview with Reuters that the nation s supreme court and electoral tribunal are in Hernandez s camp. But he maintained that he had a path to victory at the international level, noting the Organization of American States (OAS) had called for new elections to resolve the dispute. Nationally, we think it s a lost cause, he told Reuters. But internationally, we are confident that the OAS, which understands the great fraud in Honduras, will take action so that they repeat the elections. Earlier in the day, Nasralla appeared all but ready to bow out of the race, saying in an interview with TV network France TV that his political career was over. The situation is practically decided, he told the network. I no longer have anything to do in politics, but the people, which are 80 percent in my favor, will continue the fight. The United States followed Mexico and other Latin American countries in supporting Hernandez, who has been a reliable U.S. ally. The U.S. State Department congratulated Hernandez and said Honduras should pursue a long-term effort to heal the political divide in the country and enact much-needed electoral reforms, spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement. The Honduras election tribunal s declaration in Hernandez s favor last week sparked violent protests in Honduras, and the OAS s call for new elections has been rejected by the Honduran government. Nasralla had been backed by former President Manuel Zelaya, a leftist who was ousted in a 2009 coup after he proposed a referendum on his re-election, which was barred by the constitution at the time. But Zelaya said Friday that Nasralla was no longer a member of his alliance. Nasralla said that he had no need for party membership anymore. I am the president elect of all Hondurans, he said. It no longer makes sense to belong to the Alliance. The streets of the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa and other major cities were largely calm on Friday with a few protests cleared by the armed forces. By mid-week some 27 people had died in clashes, according to local human rights group COFADEH. The State Department called for all sides to refrain from violence, for those who wish to challenge the result to use legal means, and for the government to ensure that security services respect the rights of peaceful protesters. It also called for the electoral tribunal to transparently and fully review any challenges filed by political parties. Hernandez has led a military crackdown against gangs in the Central American country, and Honduras notoriously high murder rate has slid since he took power in 2014. Nasralla, a television host, traveled to Washington this week to urge the United States not to recognize the vote, but a senior State Department official said on Wednesday the government had not seen any evidence that would alter the vote s outcome. Nasralla said the U.S. decision reflected Washington s strategic concerns over a leftist government in Honduras. They re afraid of losing Honduras, he told local television. | 1 |
20,828 | GOP Lawmaker: ‘A Lady Needs To Be Told When She’s Being Nasty’ | A Texas lawmaker just defended Donald Trump s remark toward Hillary Clinton during the third and final presidential debate. Clinton was discussing Social Security and Medicare when Donald interrupted her to say the Democratic presidential nominee is such a nasty woman. Apparently Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX) agrees with Donald. You know what, she s saying some nasty things, Babin told Alan Colmes on this show. You think it s appropriate to call her a nasty woman? Colmes asked. Well, I m a genteel Southerner, Alan, Babin replied. So that means no? Colmes asked. The radio host had to repeatedly press Babin to answer the question. You re ducking me, Congressman, Colmes said when Babit tried to pivot the topic to immigration. No, I think sometimes a lady needs to be told when she s being nasty. Oh, really? Colmes asked.Babin replied, I do. My assessment is that Mrs. Clinton has got so much baggage, Babin continued. I think she s done some nasty things. Colmes asked Babin about Trump s rigged election rhetoric. We re going to have to agree to disagree, Babin said.The Texas lawmaker went on to blame the media for Trump s negative coverage.Colmes asked who he thought would win in November. Im sure hoping that Mr. Trump wins, Babin said.Audio courtesy of CNN:Babin initially backed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) but later threw his support behind the GOP presidential nominee.We re glad that Babin brought up nasty things. Trump was recently outed in a video bragging about sexually assaulting women in 1995. Since then, he s gone on to call women fat, slobs, pigs and dogs. He s attacked his sexual assault accusers looks. The man-baby candidate is whipping his supporters into a frenzy by telling crowds that the election is rigged. Trump is a Nasty Man. But thank you, Babin, for mansplaining that women need to be put in their place.The word genteel doesn t mean what the Texas lawmaker thinks it means.Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr | 0 |
20,829 | ‘Stop Arming Terrorists Bill’ Fails in US Congress After Getting Only 13 Supporters | 21st Century Wire says What this latest result proves is that the level of institutional criminality in Washington DC is so deeply entrenched that American Congressmen are not fit to govern not even in a progressive democracy, much less a constitutional republic.How can they claim to be the world s moral leader and global police when history demonstrates that over the last 40 years the United States has been the world s number one state sponsor of terrorism ?Once again this week, the US was caught helping ISIS by providing air cover for terrorist operations on the ground in Syria.Despite all of this, Donald Trump still remains clueless as to how it all works By Matt AgoristFor the last several decades, the US government has openly funded, supported, and armed various terrorist networks throughout the world to forward an agenda of destabilization and proxy war. It is not a secret, nor a conspiracy theory, America arms bad guys.Given the insidious history of the American empire and its creation and fostering of terrorist regimes across the globe, it should come as no surprise that the overwhelming majority of politicians would refuse to sign on to a law that requires them to Stop Arming Terrorists. And, that is exactly what s happened.H.R.608 Stop Arming Terrorists Act was introduced by Rep. Gabbard, Tulsi [D-HI] on January 23 of this year. The bill doesn t have any crazy strings attached and its original cosponsors are a mix of Republicans and Democrats highlighting that it transcends party lines. For years, our government has been providing both direct and indirect support to these armed militant groups, who are working directly with or under the command of terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, all in their effort and fight to overthrow the Syrian government, Gabbard said in an interview earlier this year.The text of the bill is simple. It merely states that it prohibits the use of federal agency funds to provide covered assistance to: (1) Al Qaeda, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or any individual or group that is affiliated with, associated with, cooperating with, or adherents to such groups; or (2) the government of any country that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) determines has, within the most recent 12 months, provided covered assistance to such a group or individual.The only thing this bill does is prohibit the US government from giving money and weapons to people who want to murder Americans and who do murder innocent men, women, and children across the globe. It is quite possibly the simplest and most rational bill ever proposed by Congress. Given its rational and humanitarian nature, one would think that representatives would be lining up to show their support. However, one would be wrong.After nearly 5 months since its introduction, only 13 of the 535 members of Congress have signed on as co-sponsors. What this lack of support for the bill shows is that the federal government is addicted to funding terror and has no intention of ever stopping it.To add insult to treason and murder, Senator Rand Paul [R-KY] introduced this same legislation in the Senate. He currently has zero cosponsors.Given the overwhelming lack of support for a bill that simply asks the government to stop giving money to people who behead children and video it, it should come as no surprise that Donald Trump signed hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons deals with other countries who also fund these people.As Americans bicker over Trump s bogus and non-existent Russian scandal, he s signing a deal worth hundreds of billions of dollars with the largest state sponsor of terror in the world ensuring decades of future wars and the continuation of the cycle of terrorism.What s more is the fact that less than one week after publicly reprimanding Qatar for terrorism, President Trump signed off on the sale of $12 billion in weapons to the country he referred to as a funder of terrorism. This move, in Trump s own stance, makes him a de facto funder of terrorism now READ MORE ISIS NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire ISIS FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 |
20,830 | #CNNBlackmails Private Citizen! Threatens to Expose Reddit User Who Made Hysterical WWE/Trump Video…Protects Identities of Fake Russia Story Sources Who Lied. | CNN reported that they declined to expose a private citizen who made the WWE video of President Trump wrestling with a CNN logo if the guy promises not to do it again: CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change. This is blackmail right?#FraudNewsCNN #FNN pic.twitter.com/WYUnHjjUjg Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 2, 2017 The hysterical video has been seen over 1 million times after it was tweeted out by President Trump. It was produced by a Reddit user who is private:Soon after the CNN statement, twitter was abuzz over the fact that CNN was extorting this private citizen: DONALD TRUMP JR RETWEETED THE THREAT:CONGRESSMAN SCOTT TAYLOR TWEETED OUT: @CNN U basically coerce apology & threaten release of identity if something changes? Pretty sure a line is crossed here. #CNNBlackmail https://t.co/k4W9AepP6W Scott Taylor (@Scotttaylorva) July 5, 2017 #CNNBLACKMAIL IS TRENDING WORLDIWDE!What CNN thought was a gotcha moment turned putto backfire on them. It s being reported that the private Reddit user who made the WWE video is only 15-years old! | 0 |
20,831 | TRUMP SUPPORTERS TAKE OUT THE TRASH: Radicals Disrupt Rally So Pro-Trump Crowd Takes Care Of Business [Video] | Radical goons disrupted a Florida Trump rally so the crowd handled them just as they should: | 0 |
20,832 | WATCH: Anderson Cooper Throws MAJOR Shade At White House Aide Over ‘Fake News’ | An interview with CNN anchor Anderson Cooper and Sebastian Gorka Wednesday night went off the rails when the White House deputy assistant started lecturing the host on fake news. It s remarkable really because Gorka is fake. Even his PhD is fake and yet, he used to insist that everyone call him Doctor. Still yet, the fake doctor couldn t help himself and launched into a rant against fake news. It s laughable. Your chryon talked about a crisis, Gorka told Cooper in response to a suggestion that the White House was in turmoil. I actually work in the West Wing, I work in the White House, it is absolutely nothing of the kind. The president is a steam locomotive that can t be stopped. It s just fake news. I m sad to see CNN fall to this, Gorka said. I know you want salacious and sensational coverage for your ratings so your corporate sponsors and owners will have more money, but that s not media, that s not reportage. It s just fake news. Okay, I m just going to ignore the insults because I don t think it really gets us anywhere, Cooper shot back.Cooper pressed Gorka over a tweet which Trump posted on Twitter saying the media often makes up its sources, despite the fact that Trump Jr. released the email chain which confirms The New York Times reporting.Remember, when you hear the words "sources say" from the Fake Media, often times those sources are made up and do not exist. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2017 I m giving you an opportunity right now to correct what the president said this morning. Because what he s alleging is that the reporting is fake and in fact, his son s own email chain shows that it s accurate. Do you deny that? Cooper asked. No, I deny the fact that there is anything here that is untoward. Again this is an obsessive nine-month campaign, Gorka said.An exhausted Gorka eventually said, I thought we were going to talk about real issues, like what we re doing with our allies in France, defeating ISIS. I am going to ask you but you re not being honest, you re not being upfront, Cooper responded. How many minutes are we in? Gorka said. Are you a TV producer now? Cooper fired back. You re concerned about how many minutes we ve been talking? Do you have somewhere else to go? If you gotta go, you gotta go. You re falling into the fake news trap again, said Gorka. And it s sad, Anderson. You re shaking shiny objects to try to divert people, but I don t think viewers are really that easily diverted, Cooper said. Do you know why the president s description of a witch hunt is accurate, Gorka asked. Because there never were witches. And there never was any collusion. It s bogus Anderson, you re like a broken record. No, because I m not getting any answers from you, replied Cooper. I m answering it. Every time, said Gorka. No, you re responding, said Cooper. You re not actually answering because you re not actually being up front. Let s let the viewers judge, Gorka said, who then mocked CNN s ratings. You used that line on Monday, and you know, it was sort of mildly amusing, Cooper said. But I think it s funny that you have enough time in the White House, which is apparently you re so busy, you re able to sit around [and] read Nielsen numbers. No, I had really good prep from my team, because the White House press team is superb, Gorka said. I don t deal with this stuff because I do have a day job. Watch a clip from the interview:.@andersoncooper fires back at @SebGorka: I m just going to ignore the insults, I don t think it gets us anywhere https://t.co/CbyGcCWsLd Anderson Cooper 360 (@AC360) July 13, 2017Cooper brought up that CNN apologized for an inaccurate story but Trump has never corrected his errors. Later in his show, Cooper described Gorka as the Hungarian Don Rickles. While the Trump administration would love for everyone to think that everything is fine, the White House is in crisis.Image via screen capture. | 0 |
20,833 | Italy lower house passes new electoral law, moves on to Senate | ROME (Reuters) - The Italian Chamber of Deputies on Thursday gave its final approval to a contested electoral law that is likely to penalize the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement in next year s election. The bill, which is supported by the ruling Democratic Party (PD) and mainstream center-right opposition parties, was approved in a secret ballot by 375 votes to 215, and will now move to the upper house Senate for further debate. An election is due by May 2018. Analysts say the new system looks highly unlikely to throw up a clear parliamentary majority, with opinion polls showing the center-left, center-right and 5-Star splitting the vote three ways. The so-called Rosatellum law favors parties which group together ahead of the election. The 5-Star refuses to join any alliance and says the reform could cost it at least 50 seats in the next parliament, hobbling its chances of taking power. The party, which tops many opinion polls, has held two days of street protests against what it sees as an attempt by its mainstream rivals to scupper its chances at the election. You are manipulating the foundations of our democratic system and rigging the rules before the game starts, 5-Star leader Luigi Di Maio told parliament before the vote. Every single day of the election campaign we will remind people of what you are doing today. Small left-wing and right-wing parties are also against the bill, which is supported by the center-right Forza Italia (Go Italy!) and the right-wing Northern League. Ettore Rosato, the parliamentary party leader of the PD who has put his name to the reform, said it was the best compromise possible among political adversaries and blamed 5-Star and leftist parties for refusing to join negotiations. You always said no to everything that we proposed, he told the Chamber. President Sergio Mattarella has called for new voting rules because he says the current system is too different for the upper and lower houses, meaning it could conceivably throw up conflicting majorities. All previous attempts to harmonize the rules have failed, most recently in June when dissident deputies used a secret vote to up-end part of the proposed legislation. The 5-Star and other opponents of the new rules had hoped that the same would happen in Thursday s final vote in the Chamber, which had already approved the bill in three votes of confidence held with open voting. The package still needs the approval of the upper house Senate, where Gentiloni s government does not have a stable majority. The upper house is expected to begin discussing and voting on the bill next week. | 1 |
20,834 | It’s Happening: Justice Department Appoints Special Counsel For Russia Investigation, Trump FURIOUS | After the nation joined together and demanded a special prosecutor for the Trump/Russia investigation, it happened.Former FBI director Robert Mueller was the second-longest running in history, serving between 2001 and 2013 two years longer than the typical 10-year tenure for his position. My decision is not a finding that crimes have been committed or that prosecution is warranted, Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein, on whom Trump attempted to blame FBI Director James Comey s firing, said of his decision to appoint special counsel. I have made no such determination. Rosenstein says that based on the unique circumstances, the public interest requires me to place this investigation under the authority of a person who exercises a degree of independence from the normal chain of command. During his time as FBI director, Mueller taught his agents that main stream [sic] Muslims are radical and that the more devout a Muslim is the more likely he his to be violent a view shared by the majority of Republicans.Ultimately, Mueller reports to Rosenstein, who reports to Jeff Sessions, who reports to Donald Trump, but this is the absolute best-case scenario we can hope for in the swampful of corruption that is the Trump administration.It remains to be seen if Mueller, whose conduct as director was called appalling and disgraceful, will be working for the American people or if this is just part of the show.Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
20,835 | trumps campaign backfires as hillary clinton attracts millions of new voters | senate democrats arent playing around with fbi director james comey four top democrats sent comey and attorney general loretta lynch a letter demanding details on the emails that the fbi is investigating by monday in the letter sens carper leahy feinstein and cardin wrote
senate democrats arent fooling around they want answers and they want them right now as more details become known fbi director comeys motives have come under criticism comey was advised by attorney general lynch not to send his letter until after the election but he sent it anyway
comey worried to fbi employees that his letter would be misunderstood but he could have easily avoided any misunderstanding by either being specific in his letter or not sending the letter at all it is becoming difficult to look at comeys actions in an objective manner and not see partisan political motivations
the fbi director has interfered in a presidential election with new emails that have nothing to do with the democratic nominee but can be used by her opponents for political purposes
democrats are demanding answers and if james comey doesnt answer their questions by monday he will be forced to under oath if the democratic party wins a majority of seats in the senate
either way comeys october surprise has blown up in his own face | 1 |
20,836 | Hillary Clinton Snags Coveted Endorsement Of The Congressional Black Caucus | If there was any doubt about whether or not Hillary Clinton had the black vote locked up, said doubts are sure to be squashed now. The Congressional Black Caucus will formally endorse the former Secretary of State for president on Thursday morning, according to The Washington Post. Endorsing isn t all they are doing, either.Following the planned meeting with the Democratic National Committee to officially hand Clinton their nod, Caucus leaders will send their troops out into states where the black vote is a make-or-break situation to make sure that they have as much support for their candidate as possible. They are intensely focused on South Carolina, where getting the black vote out will definitely be a boost for whichever candidate takes that state s primary. From the Washington Post: It s one thing to endorse and do nothing. It s another thing to endorse and to go to work, said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), chairman of the CBC PAC. These lawmakers are, Meeks said, people that can actually testify [to] the work that Hillary Clinton has done. This is so true. Endorsements hold power, but the work that goes along with them is just as if not more than important. A whopping 90 percent of the Congressional Black Caucus is on board with endorsing Clinton. Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D- NC), who chairs the Caucus, says of the endorsement of Clinton over Sanders, despite the fact that Sanders message is popular with young progressives: Many of these are first-time voters and Senator Sanders message resonates with the younger generation because of the promises that he is making. But Mrs. Clinton and others are going to challenge the message by suggesting that it is unrealistic to believe that we can accomplish all of the things that Senator Sanders proposes. They need to understand that when a candidate presents a message, you ve got to pierce the message to determine whether or not it s realistic, given the political climate that we live in. It s not a negative, it s not an aspersion on the new voter. It s the fact that many of them are inexperienced and have not gone through a presidential election cycle before. And that is what is important they aren t against Sanders just because they are for Clinton. It is important for folks here on the left to realize you can support one candidate over the other during the primary, but to ultimately vote blue in November.Congratulations, Secretary Clinton!Featured image via Hillary Clinton Twitter | 0 |
20,837 | Obama warns Democrats against overconfidence about Clinton victory | CHILMARK, Mass. (Reuters) - Declaring he was tired of talking about Donald Trump, President Barack Obama urged Democrats on Monday not to grow too confident about their prospects in the 2016 election despite Hillary Clinton’s strong position in the race for the White House. Obama, who is on a two-week vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the coast of Massachusetts, took a short break from his relaxation time to raise money for Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee he hopes will succeed him when he leaves office in January. Clinton leads Trump in opinion polls, and the Republican nominee’s campaign has suffered following remarks he made denigrating the parents of a fallen Muslim American soldier and charging that Obama was the founder of the Islamic State militant group. The president warned his party, however, to maintain a sense of urgency until the Nov. 8 election. “If we are not running scared until the day after the election, we are going to be making a grave mistake,” Obama told some 60 donors who contributed $10,000 each to attend the fundraiser at a private home on the island. “If we do our job, then Hillary will be elected president of the United States. But if we do not do our jobs, then it’s still possible for her to lose.” The remarks could foreshadow the president’s role this fall in encouraging get-out-the-vote efforts for Clinton, his former secretary of state. Obama has made clear his disdain for Trump, calling him unqualified for the White House. He told the donors he was tired of talking about Clinton’s rival. “I don’t have to make the case against her opponent, because every time he talks he makes the case against his own candidacy,” Obama said. The president is expected to campaign heavily for Clinton in October. | 1 |
20,838 | WATCH: Trump Awkwardly Panders To Empty Black Church So White People Will Vote For Him | Trump has recently caught on to the fact that there just aren t quite enough angry white guys and open racists to get him elected, and has decided to strike a more moderate tone sometimes in an effort to have broader appeal. If you believe the Trump camp, he s honestly trying to court the vote of black Americans. For those of us that weren t born yesterday, it s pretty obvious what the real goal is here: He s trying send a message to the not racist white voters at home that it really is morally acceptable to vote for him, promise!And it s pretty obvious black people aren t buying it, either. Trump has made headlines today for a highly publicized photo op at an African-American church ( This is the first African-American church he s been in y all, Bishop Jackson said, as he introduced him) but apparently, a significant percentage of the congregation stiffed him. There were also protests outside, and inside, the building was nearly empty, as shown in this Tweet by Politico s Shane Goldmacher: Nowhere near a full crowd as Trump enters (far left) pic.twitter.com/kL1AlVukG4 Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) September 3, 2016Even for this photo op, Trump was not fully able to turn the racism off, however. His speech, obviously written by someone else, was full of subdued tones and pandering, but this video clip by ABC News probably sums it up best: .@realDonaldTrump: A lot of people don t realize Abraham Lincoln was a Republican https://t.co/q9Gu8G8cMw https://t.co/i4kQQ7cPF2 ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 3, 2016Because if you re black and from Detroit, what are the chances you know anything about American history, amiright? Twitter promptly let Trump have it for that one and rightly so: @ABCPolitics @realDonaldTrump @ABC Lincoln is spinning in his grave like Linda Blair from the exorcist head spun Lmao Michael Sanders (@michael514514) September 3, 2016 This and other idiotic statements in, Donald Trump s Condescending Speeches on sale this Tuesday near you! @ABCPolitics @realDonaldTrump Yankeesfan66 (@Rangersfan66) September 3, 2016@ABCPolitics @realDonaldTrump @ABC Yes, Don. They probably don t know anything about American history because they re black. #ConAmerica Daniel Kucera (@adlerdrive) September 3, 2016 .@realDonaldTrump: A lot of people don t realize Abraham Lincoln was a Republican https://t.co/q9Gu8G8cMw https://t.co/i4kQQ7cPF2 ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 3, 2016Other than tweeting the event, Goldmacher also wrote an article for Politico that highlights the church visit:Chuck Westbrook, a lifelong Detroit resident who attended the service, said Trump s tone here was unfamiliar, like a weak little whisper from Donald Trump. Westbrook said Trump would struggle to cut into Clinton s overwhelming support among African-Americans. Her track record is so long with black people, he said, mentioning her work for children in the 1970s. Donald Trump hasn t done anything for black people in 30 years. As I said, Trump s not fooling anybody. And to you conservative-leaning white people that aren t racist and have felt better about voting for Trump over the last week of his outreach, don t. He s still as racist and repugnant as always, and the fact that his outreach has consisted of assuaging the doubts of suburban whites makes his racism insidiously worse than ever.Featured image via screen capture | 0 |
20,839 | Belgian police detains four over foiled attack on high-speed train | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgian police detained four people over a foiled attack in 2015 on a high-speed train linking Brussels and Paris, federal prosecutors said on Monday. In August 2015 a machinegun-toting attacker wounded three people on a high-speed train before being overpowered by passengers, one in a series of militant attacks that has rocked Belgium and France over the past two years. Police carried out six house searches in Brussels and elsewhere in Belgium early on Monday, but did not find any explosives or weapons. A judge will decide at a later stage whether those detained could be kept further, prosecutors said. | 1 |
20,840 | Muslim Family Restaurant Finds Creative Way To Tell Donald Trump To Go F*ck Himself | Donald Trump and his deplorable supporters are going to lose their shit when they hear about this.Since 1960, Mama Ayesha s restaurant has served Middle Eastern cuisine in Washington D.C. in the same spot. Since 2009, it has been the home of a special presidential mural featuring Ayesha standing in unison with the last ten presidents, including President Obama. This is Mama welcoming the presidents to DC, her great-nephew Abu-El-Hawa told the Washingtonian about the painting. She was the American dream. For a Muslim and Arab woman immigrant from Palestine to come here on her own and build this business, is a remarkable legacy. The painting was commissioned in 2007 and supported by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and was completed by artist Karla Karlisima Rodas, an immigrant from El Salvador.But Donald Trump will not be joining the ten presidents on the mural. And that s a good thing.When Ayesha passed away in 1993, she left the famous restaurant to her nephew, who is citing budgetary reasons for declining to add Trump to the mural. Our official position is that it is not in the budget, Abu-El-Hawa stated.In other words, Trump can go f*ck himself.Donald Trump does not deserve to be recognized in a mural that celebrates diversity. Mama Ayesha is a Palestinian woman linking arms with ten presidents, one of whom is the first African-American president. It would also be insulting to President Obama since Trump would be shown linking arms with him.And that just does not jive well considering Trump is a racist divider who panders to white supremacists and wants to ban Muslims from the country, which would be an insult to Ayesha.Here s a look at the mural via YouTube.The mural serves as Washington DC s largest postcard and it s safe to say that Trump is not someone who will make people want to visit our nation s capital.Cue the temper tantrum from Trump and his supporters in 3 2 1 Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 0 |
20,841 | DUP leader says Brexit transition should be kept to 'absolute minimum' | BELFAST (Reuters) - The head of Northern Ireland s Democratic Unionist party, which is propping up British Prime Minister Theresa May s government, on Friday called for any Brexit transition period to be kept to a minimum and accused the EU of trying to damage Britain. In some of her most anti-EU comments since she agreed her 10 members of parliament would support May, Arlene Foster said in a statement that she believed aggressive EU negotiators ... seem determined to do as much damage as they can to the UK. The DUP campaigned to leave the European Union during last year s referendum. But 56 percent of Northern Ireland voters supported remain, and Foster has tended to shy away from hard Brexit positions. Northern Ireland is widely seen as the region with the most to lose if customs barriers are introduced between Britain and the EU. Foster described May s Friday speech in Florence, in which she called for Britain to stay in the single market under its current terms for around two years, as a positive vision. Any transition period should be for the absolute minimum period, she said. The wishes expressed in the referendum should be delivered without undue delay. | 1 |
20,842 | O’REILLY BLASTS FOX NEWS’ Liberal Murdoch Brothers After Disastrous Viewer Ratings Are Revealed | It looks like Bill O Reilly is getting the last laugh When the Fox News Channel fired cable news giant Bill O Reilly in April, reports surfaced revealing Fox News owner, the Murdoch family, wanting to move the network in a different direction. Out with the old guard, in with the new. More hosts similar to Megyn Kelly, who is now at NBC News, fewer like the ones who built the network from the ground up, including O Reilly.About one month later, Fox News has a completely different news lineup, and the results thus far have been nothing short of disastrous.On Thursday, TV Newser reported Fox News, which once dominated its competitors in virtually every timeslot, is now losing across the board in the key 25-54 demographic.The results are most notable in primetime, which used to carry Fox News most reliable audience. Now, Fox News is running a distant third to hosts who previously drew audiences half the size of O Reilly s.On Thursday, at the 7 p.m. hour, Fox News The Story, hosted by Martha MacCallum, lost by more than 100,000 viewers in the 25-54 demographic to CNN s OutFront with Erin Burnett. Chris Matthews Hardball beat MacCallum by nearly 60,000 viewers.At 8 p.m., Fox News Tucker Carlson Tonight lost to both CNN s Anderson Cooper and MSNBC s All In with Chris Hayes.At 9 p.m., Fox News Channel s The Five was absolutely demolished by Cooper and MSNBC s The Rachel Maddow Show, which won the key demographic by more than 200,000 viewers.Of all the Fox News hosts in primetime, Sean Hannity performed the best, although he still finished third to CNN Tonight with Don Lemon and MSNBC s The Last Word with Lawrence O Donnell.Through May 18, Fox News Channel s total audience in May remained larger than its cable-news competitors, including CNN and MSNBC, according to Nielsen Media Research.O Reilly, who joins Glenn Beck on The Glenn Beck Program every Friday, told Beck on Friday there s no doubt that Fox News has a problem. They have a problem, O Reilly said. Fox News has a problem. There s no doubt about it. Whenever you lose a key person in any industry, competitive industry, sports, media, you better have a plan. And it doesn t look like FNC has a plan. The Blaze | 0 |
20,843 | Nazareth cuts back Christmas celebrations to protest Trump's Jerusalem move | JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Nazareth, the Israeli Arab city where Jesus is thought to have been raised, has canceled some Christmas celebrations in protest at U.S. President Donald Trump s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel s capital, an official said. Trump announced the move last week, reversing decades of U.S. policy and recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, jeopardizing Middle East peace efforts and upsetting the Arab world and Western allies alike. Nazareth, the largest Arab town in Israel with a Muslim and Christian population of 76,000, is one of the Holy Land s focal points of Christmas festivities. We have decided to cancel the traditional Christmas singing and dancing because we are in a time of dispute, because of what Trump has said about Jerusalem, city spokesman Salem Sharara said. Nazareth is traditionally thought to be where Jesus grew up. The imposing Basilica of the Annunciation in central Nazareth is built on a site which many Christian faithful believe was the childhood home of Jesus mother, Mary. Sharara said the town s market stalls and the traditional Christmas church services would be held as they are every year. Within an hour of the announcement, the Palestinian towns of Bethlehem, Jesus s traditional birthplace, and Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank briefly switched off their Christmas lights in protest. There was no word from the Bethlehem municipality whether it was also weighing a cutback on its celebrations at a crucial time of year for the town s tourist trade. | 1 |
20,844 | Second Anti-Gay Massacre Stopped By Police In L.A. (VIDEO) | Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks confirmed that a man arrested on his way to gay pride event in Los Angeles, CA intended to do harm, to those in attendance.According to the Los Angeles Times, the man has been identified as Indiana resident James Howell. Howell was in possession of a cache of weapons, ammunition and explosive-making materials, when he was stopped by police on the morning of June 12.At this time police say they have not found a connection between Howell and Omar Mateen, the Florida man who killed 53 people and injured more than 50 others at a gay nightclub in Orlando on Sunday morning.According to police, they first encountered Howell after receiving a call about a suspected prowler in a Santa Monica neighborhood. The Los Angeles Times reports that Howell was knocking on doors, loitering in the area, and exhibiting behavior that caused local residents to feel uneasy.After inspecting Howell s car, police discovered the weapons stash, which included three rifles, one of them an assault rifle and a lot of ammunition. Howell was also in possession of a five-gallon bucket containing the explosive Tannerite. Tannerite is commonly used for making pipe bombs.Howell initially told police he was waiting for a friend. Later he stated that he was going to the gay-pride event in Los Angeles to find a friend. The Los Angeles Times reports that authorities are still looking for that person. Police have not said that they believe the individual is a threat.While police say that they ramped up security for the Los Angeles gay-pride event, they also said that they did not believe there was a reason to cancel.Following the mass shooting at Pulse in Orlando, many people felt an even greater need to participate in the Los Angeles rally. I feel like it s all the more reason to come out, one participant told the Los Angeles Times. He went to say that the violence is trying to push us back. This is showing we re still here, we re still going to take a stand. Here s more from KTLA:Image credit: video screen capture KTLA | 0 |
20,845 | Israel's Sara Netanyahu may face indictment: attorney general | JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel s attorney general is considering indicting the wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Sara, on suspicion of using state funds for personal dining and catering services amounting to some $100,000, the justice ministry said on Friday. The ministry statement said the attorney general was considering prosecuting Sara Netanyahu for offences that include fraudulently procuring items, fraud and breach of trust. A post on the prime minister s Facebook page published late on Thursday in response to media reports about a forthcoming announcement by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, said the claims against Sara Netanyahu were absurd and will be proven to be unfounded . It was unclear what political impact Friday s announcement might have on Netanyahu, who himself is under investigation in two corruption cases. One of those, known as Case 1000, involves gifts that the prime minister and his family may have received from businessmen, while Case 2000 deals with alleged efforts by him to secure better coverage from an Israeli newspaper publisher. Netanyahu - who has been prime minister for 11 years over four terms - has denied any wrongdoing. Netanyahu leads a relatively stable coalition government and presides over a buoyant economy. His conservative Likud party has rallied behind him in the absence of clear rivals for the leadership, rebuffing calls for his departure from the center-left opposition. Likud s religious-nationalist coalition partners, seeing no threat to their agenda with Netanyahu as prime minister, are likewise sticking with him for now. In a case dubbed the meals-ordering affair by the Justice Ministry, Sara Netanyahu with help from an aide allegedly created a false impression between 2010-2013 that no cooks were employed at the prime minister s official residence, while indeed there were, according to the ministry statement. This was done, the statement said, to procure state funding for outside catering that would have been covered had there been no chef. In this way, hundreds of meals from restaurants and chefs worth 359,000 shekels ($102,399) were received from the state fraudulently, said the justice ministry statement. Sara Netanyahu has the option to plead her case in a hearing with the attorney general. | 1 |
20,846 | Oklahoma Republican: God Will Pay Legal Expenses And Save Economy If We Ban Abortion | Republican delusion never ceases to reach new ridiculous heights of absolute stupidity.In their race to make Oklahoma the most anti-abortion state in the nation, Republicans passed SB1552 in the House this week. The legislation now moves to the Senate where it will likely also pass before then heading to the desk of GOP Governor Mary Fallin, who will likely sign it into law. You know, because hating women and costing taxpayers millions of dollars to defend an unconstitutional law is what Republicans obsess with these days.But one Republican actually argued that Oklahoma taxpayers shouldn t worry about the cost of the legal expenses because according to him, God will pay the costs.Despite the fact that Oklahoma faces a $1.3 billion deficit, GOP state Rep. David Brumbaugh excused passing the bill by claiming that God will fix the state s crumbling economy and pay all the legal expenses resulting from forthcoming lawsuits if they do the moral thing and ban abortion. Everybody talks about this $1.3 billion deficit, Brumbaugh said on Thursday. If we take care of the morality, God will take care of the economy. I ve heard almost every argument today about judicial challenge to this legislation and after much prayer and study, I ask myself this question, he continued. Do we make laws because they re moral and right, or do we make them based on what an unelected judicial occupant might question or overturn? No, Rep. Brumbaugh. We make laws in this country based on the Constitution and the Supreme Court has ruled that the 14th Amendment prohibits banning women from making private choices regarding their own bodies, and that includes the right to choose to have an abortion.But if SB1552 passes in Oklahoma, women across that state will no longer get a choice because the bill makes it a law that doctors who perform an abortion other than for a woman who has suffered a miscarriage or their life is in danger to have their license revoked. In short, women would not even be able to get an abortion within the first 13 weeks of pregnancy when 90 percent of abortions occur because doctors would be faced with having their license to practice medicine taken away from them. Basically, Republicans are trying to ban abortion by punishing doctors who perform the procedure.Brumbaugh went on to compare abortion to slavery and then scoffed at the fact that the bill is unconstitutional. Don t let people tell you, Unconstitutional arguments, Roe v. Wade, all this, he said.Once again, a Republican insanely believes that passing certain legislation will please God enough that all of our problems will be magically fixed. Taxpayers in Oklahoma should be outraged that one of their own representatives is trying to dupe them in this way to excuse a bill that would strip millions of women of their reproductive rights.Featured Image: YouTube | 0 |
20,847 | MAXINE WATERS Wants Leaks to Continue…Claims World Leaders are “Glad” about Leaks [Video] | Maxine Waters wants the leaks to continue even if they are confidential! Waters was on The View when she claimed she s glad that the leaks are happening! This woman is off her rocker!OUR LATEST VIDEO ON MAD MAXINE :MAXINE GOT A MAKEOVER and is hopping mad about speculation she s running for POTUS in 2020. It can t help that Tucker Carlson is mocking her just about every night.Waters was in a foul mood during an interview with her favorite news anchor Joy Reid. Reid is a foot soldier for Waters. These two get together every other day to bash Trump. Pitiful!The funny thing is that no one was criticizing Waters. They were merely speculating if she is considering a presidential run, something she has admitted to if she had the support of millennials. Right?Waters told Reid: Just because I m going to New Hampshire to be at a Democratic Party event for one of my colleagues, they made this story up. , or to make people uncomfortable with me, all of that. So you re gonna be hearing a lot more from them these people who are all, you know, aligned around trying to discredit Maxine Waters because she has stayed on Trump s case so much. And so you re going to hear a lot more from them. Don t believe anything they re saying. | 0 |
20,848 | Alabama House speaker's ethics trial roils state politics | (Reuters) - Opening statements in the ethics trial of Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard got underway on Tuesday in a political drama that could rattle the Republican Party controlling the state, where two other top party leaders are ensnared in separate scandals. The proceedings against Hubbard, a powerful Republican who faces 23 ethics violations, involve actions taken in office and while he was a state party chairman. Alabama’s governor and chief judicial officer also face scrutiny in other matters. Governor Robert Bentley, a Republican, is under fire for his relationship with a former political advisor, prompting efforts to begin impeachment proceedings this spring. Bentley is among the state party leaders who could be called to testify in the Hubbard case, according to local media. Meanwhile, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore was suspended this month amid an ethics inquiry over his urging state probate judges not to grant marriage licenses to gay couples, despite a U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that legalized gay marriage last year. Hubbard was indicted by a state grand jury in October 2014 on charges of using his elected office, along with his former post as chair of the state Republican Party, for personal gain. He pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing, describing his prosecution as politically motivated, local news outlets have reported. Hubbard’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. During opening arguments on Tuesday, state prosecutors said Hubbard used his powerful roles to send money to businesses that he had an interest in. “He sees an opportunity and he takes it,” state prosecutor Matt Hart, who oversees a special prosecutions division, told the courtroom, the Montgomery Advertiser reported. Hubbard’s defense said it would show he had not committed the alleged felony crimes. “They’re not going to prove anything,” said defense attorney Bill Baxley, according to the Advertiser newspaper. If convicted, Hubbard could see prison time and removal from office, local news outlets reported. The office of State Attorney General Luther Strange, a Republican, declined further comment, noting that the judge in the case has imposed an order restricting comments to media. | 1 |
20,849 | COMEDY GOLD: Hillary Claims Trump “Unfit” To Handle Hurricane Caused By “Climate Change” [Video] | Watch as she s speaking to a crowd in Tampa, Florida in September and makes this hilarious and outrageous claim: When it comes to protecting our country against natural disasters and the threat of climate change, once again, Donald Trump is totally unfit and unqualified . -HRCHILLARY CLINTON: Another threat to our country is climate change. 2015 was the hottest year on record and the science is clear: it s real, it s wreaking havoc on communities across America. Last week s hurricane was another reminder of the devastation that extreme weather can cause and I send my thoughts and prayers to everyone affected by Hermine. But, this is not the last one that s going to hit Florida given what s happening in the climate. [ ] If it affects people who lose their homes or their businesses that took a lifetime to build, it doesn t matter to him. When it comes to protecting our country against natural disasters and the threat of climate change, once again, Donald Trump is totally unfit and unqualified to be our President. TOTALLY READING AND TOTALLY PHONY: Read more: Climate Depot | 0 |
20,850 | N. KOREA WARNS It Will Strike U.S. Bases In S. Korea…Mike Pence Travels To S. Korea As Sign Of Commitment To Ally…China Warns Of “War At Any Moment” | During Obama s 8 years in office, he took a passive approach to the aggressive and unhinged North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. At the end of his time in office, Obama had to admit that his approach with them didn t work. President Trump however, is not Barack Obama, and has chosen a different course of action. He s not about to sit back and ignore North Korea s crazy dictator, as he continues to threaten the United States.CNS News President Obama, speaking at his final news conference in Laos, said his approach to North Korea is to not reward bad behavior, but he also admitted that his approach isn t working because Pyongyang has continued to engage in the development of their nuclear program. Obama spoke shortly before North Korea conducted its fifth and largest nuclear test.Obama said he is deeply disturbed by North Korea s continued flouting of international obligations, and he pointed to the defensive measures the deployment of U.S. THADD missiles in South Korea intended to protect the U.S. and its allies.North Korea upped its warmongering with Donald Trump today in a series of menacing boasts threatening to ravage US troops amid fears the two countries are heading for war.The secretive state vowed to pulverize US bases and South Korean capital Seoul if it was threatened by the US military, which is carrying out drills on the Korean peninsula. A US aircraft carrier group is steaming towards the region.It claimed it would ruthlessly ravage the US if Washington attacked. China warned the region could go to war at any moment .The rhetoric comes after North Korea warned that President Donald Trump s troublemaking and aggressive tweets have pushed the world to the brink of thermo-nuclear war.Pyongyang s Vice Minister Han Song Ryol accused Trump of building up a vicious cycle of tensions and warned the US against provoking North Korea militarily. He said: We will go to war if they choose. He added the country would continue developing its nuclear program and conduct its next nuclear test whenever its leaders see fit.In the past week Trump has shown his willingness to launch military strikes, with US missiles deployed in Syria and Afghanistan.In other developments today, as tensions heighten in the Korean peninsula:Pence plans to celebrate Easter with US and Korean troops on Sunday before talks on Monday with acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn. We re going to consult with the Republic of Korea on North Korea s efforts to advance its ballistic missile and its nuclear program, a White House foreign policy adviser told reporters, previewing Pence s trip.Pence will land in Seoul the day after North Korea s biggest national day, the Day of the Sun. The White House has contingency plans for Pence s trip should it coincide with a another North Korean nuclear test by its leader Kim Jong Un, the adviser said. Unfortunately, it s not a new surprise for us. He continues to develop this program, he continues to launch missiles into the Sea of Japan, the adviser said. With the regime it s not a matter of if it s when. We are well prepared to counter that, the adviser said.U.S. officials have played down the prospect of any military strike against North Korea, which would likely provoke massive North Korean retaliation and huge casualties in Japan and South Korea and among U.S. forces in both countries.China, North Korea s sole major ally and neighbor, opposes its weapons program and has called for talks leading to a peaceful resolution and the denuclearization of the peninsula. Military force cannot resolve the issue, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Beijing. Amid tensions we will also find a kind of opportunity to return to talks. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also underscored fears about possible threats from North Korea, telling parliament in Tokyo that Pyongyang could have the capacity to deliver missiles equipped with sarin nerve gas.CIA director Mike Pompeo said North Korea was closer now than it had ever been to being able to threaten the United States with a nuclear-tipped intercontinental missile and increased its technical know-how with each new test.Experts do not believe North Korea has a deliverable long-range nuclear weapon, or intercontinental missiles.But that could change within the next few years, as experts say North Korea could have a viable nuclear warhead and a ballistic missile capable of hitting the US mainland during Trump s watch as president.Aerial photos taken Tuesday show continued activity at the Punggye-ri Nuclear site where US officials fear a nuclear device has been installed in a tunnel ahead of another test.And Han, referring to North Korea as the Democratic People s Republic of Korea, said Friday: If the US comes with reckless military maneuvers then we will confront it with the DPRK s preemptive strike. We ve got a powerful nuclear deterrent already in our hands, and we certainly will not keep our arms crossed in the face of a U.S. preemptive strike. The message had been echoed in the days before, when North Korea said it would launch a merciless retaliatory strike against US military action.Pyongyang also recently launched a ballistic missile and some experts say it could conduct another nuclear test at virtually anytime.For entire story: Daily Mail | 0 |
20,851 | Georgia Republican Threatens To ‘Disappear’ Democrat Over Monuments To Slavery | A furious Georgia Republican issued a horrifying threat to a Democrat over her push to remove Confederate statues. In an ominous social media post, State Rep. Jason Spencer warned that if former state Rep. LaDawn Jones doesn t abandon her fight against monuments to slavery, she might go missing. In a contentious back and forth on Facebook, Spencer told Jones that people in South Georgia are people of action, not drama and then added that people who don t understand that will go missing in the Okefenokee. Too many necks they are red around here, he wrote. Don t say I didn t warn you about em. Jones, a black woman who represented an Atlanta-based district from 2012 to 2016, did not back down from Spencer s threat of physical violence. Enjoy but know WINTER IS COMING, Jones wrote back. You know it too otherwise you wouldn t have found a need to even make this post or those hollow threats of not coming to south GA. Spencer now swears that he really wasn t threatening Jones. Of course. No, to the contrary, he was just trying to keep her safe by giving a warning to her of how people can behave about this issue. (Insert eye roll here.) She is from Atlanta and the rest of Georgia sees this issue very differently, Spencer said. Just trying to keep her safe if she decided to come down and raise hell about the memorial in the back yards of folks who will see this as an unwelcome aggression from the left. Jones later said in an interview that she and Spencer had developed a friendship during their time representing the people of Georgia and that she wasn t worried about his online threat. If it were anybody other than Jason Spencer, then I would be alarmed. But we had a unique relationship in the Georgia Legislature, Jones said. If that had come from anybody else, I d take it as a serious threat. But she did say that she was very concerned by his appalling reaction to her efforts to remove the statues of people who fought against the U.S. in their quest to continue the practice of owning people based on skin color. Because if that s representative of what people in south Georgia think, then yikes. You can read the tense exchange in its entirety here:Featured image via screenshot | 0 |
20,852 | UK parliament to vote on Brexit deal before European parliament: May | LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Monday she expected a vote in parliament on the final Brexit deal to take place before the European parliament gets to vote on the agreement. We have said that there will be a vote on the deal in this House and we expect that to be a vote that will take place before the European parliament votes on the deal, May told parliament on Monday, as she gave an update on the latest round of talks with the European Union. | 1 |
20,853 | France's Macron says his job not 'cool', cites talks with Turkey's Erdogan | PARIS (Reuters) - France s young new president, Emmanuel Macron, said life as a world leader is less cool than it might seem, citing talks with Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan as an example. Asked by Le Point magazine in an interview if he was trying to be the new cool kid on the global stage, Macron replied: The global stage is not really a cool scene, you know. Asked to give an example, he said: I am the one who has to talk with Erdogan every 10 days. He did not elaborate. Erdogan is often criticized by leaders in Western Europe and he has clashed with the European Union over human rights and other issues. The last known conversation between Macron and Erdogan was on Aug. 27, when they discussed the fate of a French journalist jailed in Turkey. An aide to Macron later said the French president had not meant to mock or criticize his Turkish counterpart. The conversations with Mr. Erdogan are always very serious, the aide explained. | 1 |
20,854 | Republicans Look To Shut Down The Government Over Coal Miner Pensions And Healthcare | Republicans won the 2016 presidential election. Why? Well, besides an avalanche of racial demagoguery, they appealed the white working class in Rust Belt America. They became the unsung heroes of the middle-class struggle to survive. Economic anxiety, as they called it, ran rampant.Well, their commitment to the white working class lasted roughly three weeks, and now it s back to square one. And the first victims of the Republicans newfound power? Coal miners.Yes, coal miners, the very people that represent the backbone of manual labor in the United States. From the hills of West Virginia all the way down to Kentucky, coal miners are what keeps America s energy bills under control and our electricity efficient. Democrats (like Hillary Clinton) lost big in coal country because of a failure to connect with them (even though she was the only candidate to offer them alternative programs to the dying industry). Trump and the Republicans pounced, promising them revitalization and a basket of goodies to make them great again.And now the United States may face a looming shutdown because of them. Why? Republicans don t want to pay their healthcare and pension plans.That s right, the same people who promised to be their champions are now turning their backs.Labeling the plan a bailout, Republicans are stonewalling Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, who offered an amendment to the chief funding bill of the United States government that will revitalize the United Mine Workers health and pension system, which went broke because of the 2007-2008 financial crisis.If Republicans continue to block the legislation which would lead to a shutdown over 16,000 retired coal miners and their families will lose their healthcare and pension plans. Manchin s amendment would offer temporary assistance until April 28 when another budget would have to be considered. Working with Manchin is West Virginia s other Senator, Republican Shelly Moore-Capito and Democrat Sherrod Brown of Ohio. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also supports the amendment being added but blocked it from consideration last year.McConnell, however, has asked that Democrats step aside and not block the continuing resolution over the miner s benefits.Aside from Moore-Capito and Mitch McConnell, no Republicans have expressed support for the measure, and the opponents have called it a government bailout that sets a precedent to bail out other troubled pension systems and healthcare benefits.If Republicans want to see what a precedent looks like, they should ask Trump about his Carrier deal.So Democrats are accused of turning their backs on the working class. Meanwhile, Democrats Joe Manchin and Sherrod Brown are spearheading an amendment that helps that very class of workers, and Republicans are slamming it as a government bailout. If Republicans don t get Manchin, Moore-Capito and Brown on board with a continuing resolution, it won t pass.So bankers can get a trillion dollars in tax payer bailouts, but coal miners, who were promised their pensions and healthcare and who power our country, get squat and demonized?Democrats have been, are, and will be for the working class. They may not be as theatrical and slick as Republicans, but let today s example show who really has the back of the working class. Only one party is instilling economic anxiety in them and it isn t the Democrats.Every pundit better be reassessing this issue.Watch Senator Manchin deliver remarks:Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 0 |
20,855 | Franken and Franks resign as misconduct charges batter Congress | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic Senator Al Franken announced his resignation on Thursday after facing a series of sexual misconduct allegations, and Republican Representative Trent Franks also said he was stepping down as he too was hit with ethics charges. Franken, buffeted for weeks by sexual harassment charges and under pressure from party colleagues, said on the Senate floor he would leave in a few weeks, although he denied some of the allegations against him and questioned others. The 66-year-old former comedian from Minnesota had been seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party. “I know in my heart that nothing I’ve done as a senator - nothing - has brought dishonor on this institution,” he said. “Nevertheless, today I am announcing that in the coming weeks, I will be resigning as a member of the United States Senate.” Hours later, Franks announced his resignation after two former staff members complained about discussions he had with them about his efforts to find a surrogate mother. “I deeply regret that my discussion of this option and process in the workplace caused distress,” said Franks, who was first elected to his Arizona congressional seat in 2002 and is an outspoken opponent of abortion. Franks said in a statement that he and his wife “have long struggled with infertility.” The developments came with Congress already held in low regard by voters. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, only 20 percent approved of the way Congress was handling its job, with 70 percent disapproving. In recent weeks, charges of sexual misconduct have taken down prominent people in the worlds of entertainment, media and politics. It is somewhat rare for members of the Senate or House of Representatives to resign from office, but veteran Democratic Representative John Conyers also resigned earlier this week amid sexual harassment accusations that he has denied. The House Ethics Committee said on Thursday it was investigating yet another lawmaker. Blake Farenthold, a Republican representative from Texas, faces allegations of sexual harassment, discrimination and retaliation involving a former female staff member. Franken has the highest profile of the lawmakers hit by allegations in the past few weeks. Reuters has not independently verified the accusations against Franken, Franks, Conyers or Farenthold. Franken’s seat will initially be filled by a Democrat appointed by Minnesota’s Democratic governor, meaning the Republicans’ slim majority in the Senate will not change. Allegations that Franken had groped and tried to kiss women without their consent began to surface three weeks ago. He initially said he was embarrassed and ashamed by his behavior but would not resign. But the majority of his Democratic colleagues in the Senate called on Wednesday for his resignation after a new allegation, denied by Franken, hit the news. “Some of the allegations against me are simply not true. Others I remember very differently,” Franken said on Thursday. Striking a tone of defiance, he also sought to contrast himself with two prominent Republicans - President Donald Trump and Senate candidate Roy Moore. “I, of all people, am aware that there is some irony in the fact that I am leaving while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office and a man who has repeatedly preyed on young girls campaigns for the Senate, with the full support of his party,” he said. Trump was heard bragging about kissing and forcibly touching women in a 2005 videotape that surfaced last year as he was running for the White House. He apologized for the remarks, but called them private “locker-room talk” and said he had not done the things he talked about. Trump also denied allegations at that time by at least 12 women of sexual advances and groping in the past. Moore, who is running for the Senate in Alabama in a special election on Tuesday, has been accused by several women of sexual assault or misconduct when they were teenagers and Moore was in his early 30s. Moore, 70, has denied the accusations, which Reuters has not independently verified. Trump has backed Moore, but Senate Republicans have been cooler toward his candidacy. In pressing Franken to step aside, Democrats have tried to capture the moral high ground and draw a distinction between their party and Republicans. “In every workplace in America, including the U.S. Senate, we must confront the challenges of harassment and misconduct,” said Amy Klobuchar, Franken’s fellow Democratic senator from Minnesota. Similarly, House Republican Speaker Paul Ryan said on Thursday he had told Franks that he should resign. A special election will be scheduled to determine a replacement for Franks. While a Democrat will be appointed initially to replace Franken, his departure could complicate the party’s efforts to maintain or build on the 46 Senate seats they hold. Two independent senators also vote with the Democrats. Republicans are defending eight seats in the congressional elections in November 2018 but Democrats will be defending 26 if Minnesota holds a special election for Franken’s seat. The election to fill Franken’s seat could be close. When he ran in 2008, the race was decided after an extensive recount, with Minnesota’s Supreme Court weighing in. In the 2016 presidential election, Democrat Hillary Clinton won the state by less than 2 percentage points. | 1 |
20,856 | In Beijing, Trump presses China on North Korea and trade | BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump pressed China to do more to rein in North Korea on Thursday and said bilateral trade had been unfair to the United States, but praised President Xi Jinping s pledge that China would be more open to foreign firms. On North Korea s nuclear and missile programs, Trump said China can fix this problem quickly and easily , urging Beijing to cut financial links with North Korea and also calling on Russia to help. Trump was speaking alongside Xi in the Chinese capital to announce the signing of about $250 billion in commercial deals between U.S. and Chinese firms, a display that some in the U.S. business community worry detracts from tackling deep-seated complaints about market access in China. Xi said the Chinese economy would become increasingly open and transparent to foreign firms, including those from the United States, and welcomed U.S. companies to participate in his ambitious Belt and Road infrastructure-led initiative. Trump made clear that he blamed his predecessors, not China, for the trade imbalance, and repeatedly praised Xi, calling him a very special man . But we will make it fair and it will be tremendous for both of us, Trump said. Xi smiled widely when Trump said he does not blame China for the deficit and also when Trump said Xi gets things done. Of course there are some frictions, but on the basis of win-win cooperation and fair competition, we hope we can solve all these issues in a frank and consultative way, Xi said. Keeping opening up is our long-term strategy. We will never narrow or close our doors. We will further widen them, he said. China would also offer a more fair and transparent environment for foreign firms, including U.S. ones, Xi said. Trump is pressing China to tighten the screws further on North Korea and its development of nuclear weapons in defiance of U.N. sanctions. At least modest progress is hoped for, although there are no immediate signs of a major breakthrough, a U.S. official said earlier. Referring to Xi, Trump said: I do believe there s a solution to that, as do you. Xi reiterated that China would strive for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula but offered no hint that China would change tack on North Korea, with which it fought side-by-side in the 1950-53 Korean war against U.S.-led forces. We are devoted to reaching a resolution to the Korean peninsula issue through dialogue and consultations, Xi said. Briefing reporters after the talks, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Trump told Xi: You re a strong man, I m sure you can solve this for me. Tillerson said both leaders agreed they could not accept a nuclear-armed North Korea but he acknowledged they had some differences over tactics and timing. Tillerson pointed out that Trump, in a speech in Seoul, had invited the North Koreans to come to the table, in line with the Chinese desire for a negotiated solution. He added, however, that Trump was prepared for a military response if he deemed the threat serious enough, but that s not his first choice . We are going to work hard on diplomatic efforts as well, he said, but did not elaborate. In a show of the importance China puts on Trump s first official visit, Thursday s welcoming ceremony outside Beijing s Great Hall of the People overlooking Tiananmen Square was broadcast live on state television - unprecedented treatment for a visiting leader. Earlier on Thursday, Xi said he had a deep exchange of views with Trump and reached consensus on numerous issues of mutual concern. For China, cooperation is the only real choice, only win-win can lead to an even better future, he said. Xi said China and the United States strengthened high-level dialogue on all fronts over the past year and boosted coordination on major international issues, such as the Korean peninsula and Afghanistan. Relations between China and the United States are now on a new historical starting point, Xi said. Trump and Xi hit it off at their first meeting in April at Trump s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and continued their bromance on Wednesday with an afternoon of sightseeing together with their wives. However, divisions persist over trade and North Korea. And while Xi is riding high after consolidating power at a twice-a-decade Communist Party Congress last month, Trump comes to China saddled with low public approval ratings and dogged by investigations into Russian links to his election campaign. Trump has ratcheted up his criticism of China s massive trade surplus with the United States - calling it embarrassing and horrible last week - and has accused Beijing of unfair trade practices. For its part, China says U.S. restrictions on Chinese investment in the United States and on high-tech exports need to be addressed. Several corporate chief executives were in Beijing as part of a delegation led by U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, with General Electric and semiconductor maker Qualcomm Inc among those announcing billions of dollars in sales to China. [L3N1NF2IA] But Qualcomm s agreement to sell $12 billion worth of components to three Chinese mobile phone makers over three years is non-binding, and critics say such public announcements are sometimes more show than substance. This shows that we have a strong, vibrant bilateral economic relationship, and yet we still need to focus on leveling the playing field because U.S. companies continue to be disadvantaged doing business in China, said William Zarit, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China. Trump railed against China s trade practices during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and threatened to take action once in office. But he has since held back on any major trade penalties, making clear he was doing so to give Beijing time to make progress reining in North Korea. A U.S. official said both sides were in sync about wanting to minimize friction during the visit and recreate the positive tone of the April summit. Trump was not expected to put much emphasis in his talks with Xi on thorny issues such as the disputed South China Sea and self-ruled Taiwan, claimed by China as its own, although the leaders aides may deal with those matters privately, the official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. China has repeatedly pushed back at suggestions it should be doing more to rein in North Korea, which does about 90 percent of its trade with China, saying it is fully enforcing U.N. sanctions and that everyone has a responsibility to lower tension and get talks back on track. (This story was refiled to restore dropped word in paragraph 16.) | 1 |
20,857 | OOPS: Hypocrite Trump Accuses Amazon Of Not Paying Taxes, Except They Do | Donald Trump just posted a provable lie on Twitter that makes him look like a complete hypocrite.In retaliation against the Washington Post for correctly reporting that Trump is displaying fake Time magazine covers of himself at his golf resorts, Trump attacked the Post as fake news and took aim at Amazon, which owns the Post, seemingly threatening the Internet giant and accusing it of not paying their taxes.The #AmazonWashingtonPost, sometimes referred to as the guardian of Amazon not paying internet taxes (which they should) is FAKE NEWS! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 28, 2017Not only is there no such thing as internet taxes, Newsweek pointed out that if Trump is somehow referencing Amazon s legal battle to not pay state sales taxes he is spreading fake news because Amazon lost in court and has been paying sales taxes in the 45 states that have a sales tax ever since.The president may be referring to Amazon s years-long fight against paying state sales taxes. But Amazon lost that battle, and recently has been adding states where it does pay sales tax.Amazon now pays sales tax in all 45 states that have a sales tax. On April 1, Amazon began collecting sales taxes in Hawaii, Idaho, Maine and New Mexico, the last four holdouts. Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon do not have a state sales tax.If Trump was, in fact, referring to sales tax in his tweet, the tweet is fake news.Trump s tweet also smacks of hypocrisy since he actually does not pay his taxes. Trump has refused to release his tax returns and the only tax return we have seen shows that Trump may not have had to pay federal income taxes for two decades after he wrote off a $900 million business loss.Furthermore, Trump is currently suing the town of Briarcliff Manor, New York in an effort to force the town to cut the property taxes on his $38 million Westchester golf course and resort. Trump currently pays just $500,000, but he is trying to pay only half that amount by devaluing the worth of his own property despite bragging that it was worth $50 million on his 2016 financial disclosure forms.Trump has been disputing the taxes in court for years even though the town already gave him a generous tax break in 2008. Childishly, Trump sends a check every year marked Paid Under Protest. Donald Trump is a hypocrite who lies through his teeth. And by attacking Amazon and the Washington Post, he is attacking Jeff Bezos, who just so happens to be a member of Trump s own American Technology Council. That will probably change soon.Featured Image: Alex Wong/Getty Images | 0 |
20,858 | Australia's second largest state edges towards permitting euthanasia | SYDNEY (Reuters) - The parliament of Australia s second largest state passed legislation on Friday to allow terminally ill patients to seek medical help to end their lives, a bill that is expected to act as a catalyst for the rest of the country to adopt similar laws. Any resident of Victoria state over 18, with a terminal illness and with less than 12 months to live can request a lethal dose of medication, the bill permits. Anyone that is too ill to administer the dosage can ask for a doctor to help. Many countries have legalized euthanasia or physician-assisted deaths, including Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and some states in the United States. But Australia s federal government has opposed legalizing euthanasia even though the remote Northern Territory became the first jurisdiction in the world to do so in 1995. The federal government enacted its own legislation to override the Northern Territory law in 1997 under rules allowed by the constitution. State law can not be overridden. The passage of the bill in Victoria is expected to herald assisted death legislation in other Australian states. It is a landmark moment. Other states are likely to follow. We have seen this in other jurisdictions and I expect once politicians see how the system works, they will adopt similar models, said Ben White, director of the Australian Centre for Health Law Research at Queensland University of Technology. The issue has divided lawmakers and medicinal professionals. Victorian premier Daniel Andrews introduced the bill following his father s death from cancer in 2016. An opponent of the legalization, Michael Gannon, president of the Australian Medical Association, which represents medical practitioners, said state law should not change because of the death of Andrews father. He later apologized for the comment. Members of the state assembly debated the emotive bill through the night in a 26-hour session that ended with approval by 47 votes to 37. The legislation needs the approval of Victoria s senate, though analysts expect it to pass into law. The legislation will not come into effect for 18 months to allow time to properly implement the assisted dying scheme. | 1 |
20,859 | LANGUAGE WARNING BUT SO FUNNY! LISTEN TO TWO BLACK LADIES “STUMP FOR TRUMP” | This is a little racy but pretty funny. | 0 |
20,860 | Trapped by landmines and a creek, Rohingya languish in no-man's land | COX S BAZAR, Bangladesh Reuters) - Until late last month, Syed Karim grew rice and sugarcane on a strip of unclaimed land along the international border where Myanmar ends and Bangladesh begins. On Aug. 25, the 26-year-old Rohingya Muslim man abandoned his home in a nearby Myanmar village and moved to the no-man s land, fleeing a crackdown by the military against his community in response to militant attacks. An estimated 370,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since that day. But Karim and thousands of his neighbors from Rohingya villages near the border face a unique predicament. They have fled to the safety of the buffer zone along the border and are now stuck. Bangladesh security forces have instructions to not let them in, said Monzurul Hassan Khan, a Bangladesh border guard officer. Some of the Rohingya there said they are too afraid to go back to their homes but not ready to abandon them altogether and become refugees in Bangladesh. I can see my house but can t go there, said Karim, whose Taung Pyo Let Yar village could be seen from his shack in the no-man s land. The top U.N. human rights official has called Myanmar s operations against the Rohingya as a textbook example of ethnic cleansing and the Security Council is to meet behind closed doors on Wednesday to discuss the situation. The 40-acre (16.2-hectare) buffer zone, about the size of 40 soccer pitches, is strung along the border, with a barbed wire fence on the Myanmar side and a creek on the other. Hundreds of tarpaulin bamboo shacks have come up on what used to be a paddy field, with hills in the south. Khan said 8,000 to 10,000 Rohingya had camped there. The UN refugee agency, which runs camps in Bangladesh, doesn t go there because of security reasons, said Vivian Tan, a spokeswoman for UNHCR. Tan said that they work with some NGOs to provide people in the area with plastic sheets and clothing. Myanmar has laid landmines on its side of the border, which have wounded at least four people, Bangladesh authorities and Rohingya refugees said. Buddhist-majority Myanmar says its security forces are fighting a legitimate campaign against terrorists it blames for the attacks on the security forces. Several Bangladesh officials said they suspected that about 100 fighters from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), the insurgents who attacked Myanmar police posts and an army base on Aug. 25, have also been spotted in the border area. Bangladeshi security officials said they learned from informers that suspected ARSA fighters were in the area early last week, after the Eid al-Adha festival. The officials, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said 11 suspected fighters were also being treated in a hospital in Chittagong city, north of Cox s Bazar, which is close to the border. An ARSA spokesman denied that any of its fighters were using the no-man s land to launch attacks and said none of its fighters were in Bangladesh. Mostafa Kamal Uddin, Bangladesh s home secretary, said he did not have information about the presence of Rohingya militants in Bangladesh. Karim and other Rohingya people, mostly from the border villages, said they started fleeing to the buffer zone after the Aug. 25 attacks. Khan, the border guard officer, said their numbers swelled on Aug. 27. We kept hearing gunshots and also saw a fire and smoke on their side of the border, Khan said. He pointed to two brown patches of burned trees in Taung Pyo Let Yar village from his operations base on a hilltop in Bangladesh s Gundum village near the border. His men with automatic rifles kept watch as Rohingya children waded across the creek to fetch fresh water in aluminum pots and plastic bottles from a hand-pump on Bangladeshi soil. A toddler, with the knee-deep waters rising to his neck, struggled with three plastic bottles, dropping one before turning around and picking it up and pressing forward. In interviews at the buffer zone, where Reuters was taken by Khan, residents of three villages - Taung Pyo Let Yar, Mee Taik and Kun Thee Pin said they were spared in the previous big military crackdown in October last year. But things changed on Aug. 25. Mohammed Arif, a Rohingya man from Taung Pyo Let Yar village, said he fled into the woods near the village to hide when the army came. From there, he watched a mortar shell hit his two-storey house, burning it down. He crossed over the fence on Aug. 26 with his family. Arif said he had not seen any ARSA fighters in the no-man s land. In our country, Buddha worshippers treat us like a virus that needs to be eliminated. We have heard them saying, No Rohingya in Myanmar. But we will go back, Arif said. | 1 |
20,861 | Putin says he doesn't know who hacked U.S. Democratic Party: Bloomberg | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said he did not know who was behind the hacking of U.S. Democratic Party organizations but the information uncovered was important, Bloomberg news agency reported on Friday. In an interview two days before a G20 meeting in China with U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders, Putin said it might be impossible to establish who engineered the release of sensitive Democratic Party emails but it was not done by the Russian government. “Does it even matter who hacked this data?” Putin said. “The important thing is the content that was given to the public.” “There’s no need to distract the public’s attention from the essence of the problem by raising some minor issues connected with the search for who did it,” he added. “But I want to tell you again, I don’t know anything about it, and on a state level Russia has never done this.” The hacked emails, released by activist group WikiLeaks in July, appeared to show favoritism within the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and prompted the resignation of the body’s chairwoman. A computer network used by Clinton’s campaign, and the party’s fundraising committee for the U.S. House of Representatives were also hacked. Clinton, who polls show as leading Donald Trump in the campaign for the U.S. presidential election in November, has said Russian intelligence services conducted a cyber attack against her party. Some officials have suggested Moscow is trying to influence the U.S. election. Putin dismissed the allegations. “We have never interfered, are not interfering and do not intend to interfere in domestic politics,” he said. “We will carefully watch what happens and wait for the election results. Then we are ready to work with any American administration, if they want to themselves.” Relations between Russia and United States hit a post-Cold War low in 2014 over the Ukraine crisis, and Washington and Moscow have since clashed over diverging policies in Syria. Obama said in August he would discuss the cyber attack with Putin if Russia was responsible, but it would not “wildly” alter the two countries’ relationship. The U.S. election contest has been hard fought and frequently dominated by both candidates’ attitudes toward Russia. Clinton has rounded on her Republican rival Trump for his perceived praise of Putin and what she says is an “absolute allegiance” to Russia’s foreign policy aims. Trump, in return, has said Clinton’s own close ties to the Russian president deserve greater scrutiny. Putin said both candidates were using shock tactics and that playing “the anti-Russian card” was short-sighted. “I wouldn’t like for us to follow their example,” he said. “I don’t think they are setting the best example.” | 1 |
20,862 | Clinton, Trump clash over who is best for U.S. minorities | RENO, Nev./MANCHESTER, N.H. (Reuters) - Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton accused Donald Trump on Thursday of fuelling America’s “radical fringe” with racist rhetoric, even as her Republican rival sought to soften his image with an appeal to minorities. Clinton needs to retain support from black and Latino voters to win the Nov. 8 election, the same coalition that helped propel Democrat Barack Obama to the White House in 2008. Trump, whose support comes mainly from whites, is unlikely to be victorious unless he can cut into that support. “Donald Trump has built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia,” Clinton said in a scathing speech in Nevada. “He’s taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over one of America’s two major political parties.” “This is a moment of reckoning for every Republican dismayed that the Party of Lincoln has become the Party of Trump,” Clinton said, referring to Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, who issued the Emancipation Proclamation and championed the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution during the Civil War that led to the abolition of slavery in 1865. Trump, who trails Clinton in national opinion polls, has polled poorly with minorities and has been criticized for his proposals on immigration, which include deporting millions of undocumented foreigners, building a wall along the Mexican border, and suspending Muslim immigration to shore up national security. He described some Mexican immigrants as “criminals and rapists” in a 2015 speech launching his candidacy and more recently questioned the impartiality of an American-born judge of Mexican heritage. On Thursday, the New York real estate mogul-turned-politician criticized Clinton before her speech, saying she and her party had let black Americans down with failed economic policies and were falsely labeling Republicans as bigoted. “When Democratic policies fail, they are left with only this one tired argument: You’re racist, you’re racist, you’re racist,” Trump told a crowd in Manchester, New Hampshire. “It’s a tired, disgusted argument and is so totally predictable.” At a Mississippi rally on Wednesday, Trump called Clinton a “bigot who sees people of color only as votes, not as human beings.” He argued on Thursday that Clinton’s opposition to charter schools and vouchers locked minority students in failing jobs, that her tax policies would hurt black-owned businesses and that she would allow immigrants to take jobs from minorities. Trump said the Clinton attacks were not only an assault on him, but on all his supporters - people, he said, who want strong borders and security. “To Hillary Clinton, and to her donors and advisers, pushing her to spread smears and her lies about decent people, I have three words ... shame on you.” A Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation poll for the week beginning Aug. 15 found Clinton beating Trump among Hispanic voters by 15 percentage points, and by 57 percentage points among black voters. Trump has tried recently to broaden his appeal to them, hinting at a softening of his hardline position on immigration. In comments broadcast on Fox News on Wednesday night, Trump said he would be willing to work with immigrants who have abided by U.S. laws while living in the country, backing away from his insistence during the primaries that he would try to deport all 11 million illegal immigrants. Trump also met with black and Latino Republican leaders at his headquarters in New York City on Thursday morning. Trump’s efforts were unlikely to draw out minorities in his favor but could reassure some moderate Republicans worried about his views on race, said Bernard Fraga, a political science professor at Indiana University. “I don’t think these efforts will do a lot to help him in minority communities,” Fraga said. An association of 40 Latino organizations sent a letter on Thursday calling on him to “cease” his rhetoric and meet with their leadership to discuss ways he could improve his outreach to Hispanics. “As we have expressed numerous times, your rhetoric of relentless attacks against our community is an issue of serious concern and has had a significant impact, fuelling an alarming trend in our nation,” the letter reads. Clinton released a video on Thursday ahead of her Nevada speech tying Trump to white supremacist groups. The video shows a Ku Klux Klan member praising Trump and plays a recording of former leader Klan leader David Duke calling on white people to vote for Trump. The video also shows newly appointed Trump campaign chairman Steve Bannon, who ran the website Breitbart.com, which has been accused of stoking online racists. Bannon told the magazine Mother Jones during the Republican National Convention last month that the website was “the platform for the alt-right,” a brand of U.S. political conservatism associated with white nationalism. Trump’s campaign called for the Clinton campaign to withdraw the video. “This type of rhetoric and repulsive advertising is revolting and completely beyond the pale,” Mark Burns, an African-American pastor who supports Trump, said in a statement. “I call on Hillary Clinton to disavow this video and her campaign for this sickening act that has no place in our world.” | 1 |
20,863 | Trump's spokesman promises reporters 'never to lie' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s press secretary promised reporters on Monday that he would never lie after a weekend briefing in which he made statements about the crowd size for Trump’s inauguration that were debunked. In comments to reporters on Saturday that became known as the “alternative facts” briefing, White House spokesman Sean Spicer declared that Trump’s crowd was “the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration - period.” Photographs showed the crowds at Trump’s swearing-in on Friday were smaller than Barack Obama’s first presidential inauguration in 2009. Spicer’s statement drew further criticism after Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway said on Sunday the White House had wanted to “put alternative facts out there” to counter what she said was a biased media. At his first formal White House briefing on Monday, Spicer was asked by a reporter if he intended to always tell the truth from the lectern. “Our intention is never to lie to you,” he replied. Spicer defended his right to give the administration’s point of view. He said he had been including television and online viewers in his remarks on Saturday about the size of the inauguration crowd. He told reporters that Trump and his advisers had been frustrated by “demoralizing” coverage that he called a “constant attempt to undermine his credibility.” “I want to have a healthy relationship with the press,” Spicer said. Spicer answered questions on a wide range of policy issues, with a focus on trade policy. He did not take questions from reporters on Saturday. “That moves it away from the acrimonious session on Saturday,” said Martha Kumar, a political scientist and emeritus professor at Towson University in Maryland who studies the relationship between the White House and its press corps. Spicer took questions from 43 reporters - more than twice the average, Kumar said in an interview. He also said he would start taking questions from four “Skype seats” later this week to allow news organizations outside of Washington to participate. | 1 |
20,864 | “NEVER-TRUMPER” and Weekly Standard Editor Sends Vile Tweet Mocking VP Pence…Suggests Pence Has Replaced God With President Trump | The former Fox News contributor and editor of the Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol, took to Twitter to appease his newfound liberal friends with a disgusting tweet, mocking devout Christian and genuine conservative, Vice President Mike Pence. Ever since President Trump won the election, Kristol and his never-Trump friends have become unhinged with hate for the President and for anyone he surrounds himself with. Yesterday, Vice President Mike Pence made a surprise visit to the troops in war-torn Afghanistan to roll out President Trump s new fight to win policy.Pence addressed the troops at a Bagram Airfield hangar, telling them that before he made his trip, he asked president Trump what message he wanted to be delivered to the troops. Here is Pence s touching message to the troops from President Trump:Pence told the troops, Before I left the White House yesterday, I asked Trump if he had a message for our troops here in Afghanistan. And he looked at me and said, Tell them I love them. And he did.WATCH:Before I left the @WhiteHouse yesterday, I asked @POTUS Trump if he had a message for our troops here in Afghanistan. And he looked at me and said, Tell them I love them. pic.twitter.com/PO4F7Z5vOx Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) December 21, 2017 Never-Trumper and former frequent FOX News guest Bill Kristol mocked Vice President Mike Pence over his speech to our troops. Kristol wrote:And I, a mere humble and unworthy VP, gazed back into the kindly and understanding eyes of the great and glorious POTUS, and said, Thank you O POTUS! And thank you for letting us say once again, Merry Christmas! And I, a mere humble and unworthy VP, gazed back into the kindly and understanding eyes of the great and glorious POTUS, and said, Thank you O POTUS! And thank you for letting us say once again, Merry Christmas! https://t.co/RAQwmQk2Sq Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) December 22, 2017Little sad man, Bill Kristol, who was once respected by conservative Americans, has been reduced to retweeting glowing articles about himself published by liberal rag publications like The Slate to discuss where Republicans went awry, whether Palin abetted Trump s rise, and the costs of rationalization. NEW @IHaveToAskPod: @BillKristol talks about where Republicans went awry, whether Palin abetted Trump's rise, and the costs of rationalization. https://t.co/rEwacCUfZx Isaac Chotiner (@IChotiner) December 21, 2017 | 0 |
20,865 | SHOCKING GESTAPO TACTICS: P*ssed Off Patriot Removed From Delegate List For Supporting Trump [VIDEO] | I ve been a lifelong Republican all of my life. I m ashamed to call myself a Republican. https://youtu.be/MVc_hIKFmmE | 0 |
20,866 | WATCH MSNBC “Objective” Host’s Loud Outburst When Latina Guest Says She “Feels At Home” In GOP | Somebody needs to make sure Chris Matthews doesn t miss his meds before the cameras start rolling | 0 |
20,867 | White House to host fresh biofuels talks to help refiners: sources | (Reuters) - The White House will host talks between the rival oil and ethanol industries on Wednesday in hopes of brokering a deal to help refiners struggling to meet the country’s biofuels policy, according to sources familiar with the matter. The meeting comes after the White House last week pressured Midwest lawmakers to take part in talks over possible tweaks to the Renewable Fuels Standard, a law that requires refiners to blend increasing amounts of biofuels, mainly corn-based ethanol, into the nation’s fuel supply each year. A handful of refiners say the law is threatening to put them out of business. But ethanol interests have said the refineries can pass along the costs at the pumps and have vehemently opposed any changes to the regulation. The meeting on Wednesday will include staff from the offices of Republican Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, both representing the oil-refining industry, according to the sources. On the corn side, staff will be present from the offices of Republican Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst of Iowa, along with Deb Fischer of Nebraska, the sources said. Staff from the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture were also expected to attend. A spokesman for Grassley confirmed that “staff-level dialogue and meetings” were under way but did not provide details. Officials for the other senators and the White House did not comment. One source familiar with the matter said the meeting would likely focus on short-term fixes to help oil refiners on the U.S. East Coast who say they are struggling with the costs of meeting the RFS requirements. Refining companies - like Philadelphia Energy Solutions PESC.N and Monroe Energy, both of Pennsylvania, along with Texas giant Valero Energy Corp (VLO.N) - that do not have adequate facilities to blend biofuels into their products are required to purchase blending credits called RINs from rivals that do. RINs prices have surged this year. The source said talks on Wednesday could center on solutions like a price cap for RINs or waivers to certain refiners that are at risk of going bankrupt without relief. The governors of both Texas and Pennsylvania have already formally requested such waivers from the administration. The industry has requested tweaks to the policy in the past that would cut the annual volume targets for biofuels, allow ethanol exports to be counted against those targets, or shift the blending burden to supply terminals from refiners. But the Trump administration has ruled in favor of Big Corn and against the refining industry in a series of decisions this year. Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency, the regulator which administers the RFS, slightly increased biofuels volumes targets for 2018. The refining industry has also been seeking a longer-term overhaul of the RFS before it expires in 2022, but such a change would require an act of Congress and has met with stiff resistance from the corn lobby. The RFS was introduced more than a decade ago by President George W. Bush as a way to boost U.S. agriculture, slash energy imports and cut emissions, and it has since fostered a market for ethanol amounting to 15 billion gallons a year. | 1 |
20,868 | Comey account could fuel obstruction accusations against Trump: legal experts | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony that U.S. President Donald Trump expected loyalty and hoped Comey would drop an investigation of a former top aide could bolster obstruction of justice allegations against Trump, several legal experts said. Such allegations might be used as the basis for impeachment proceedings, some of the analysts said. Any such step would face a steep hurdle, however, as it would require approval by the U.S. House of Representatives, which is controlled by Trump’s fellow Republicans. According to written testimony posted on the Senate Intelligence Committee’s website on Wednesday, Comey said Trump told him during a one-on-one Feb. 14 conversation that former national security adviser Michael Flynn was a “good guy” and hoped that Comey could see his “way clear” to letting go a probe into ties between Flynn and Russia. Trump had fired Flynn the previous day in a controversy over contacts between the retired general and the Russian ambassador to the United States. Comey’s account, released ahead of his appearance before the committee on Thursday, could show that Trump intended to impede the Flynn investigation, said Michael Gerhardt, a professor of constitutional law at the University of North Carolina School of Law. “The express discussion of loyalty is disconcerting,” and could heighten speculation that the “president was trying to exert some pressure or at least exert some influence over the Russia investigation,” Gerhardt said. Comey, who was fired by Trump on May 9, was leading an FBI investigation of Flynn as it looks into allegations of links between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Moscow and Trump have both denied any collusion. Trump’s lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, did not immediately respond to a Reuters query about whether Comey’s testimony would support an obstruction case. But he said in a statement that Trump felt “vindicated” by Comey’s confirmation he was not under investigation in any Russia probe. To build a criminal obstruction of justice case, federal law requires prosecutors to show that a person acted with “corrupt” intent. It does not matter whether the person succeeds in impeding an investigation. While a sitting president is unlikely to face criminal prosecution, obstruction of justice could form the basis for impeachment. Bruce Green, a professor at Fordham University School of Law, said it would be difficult to show Trump intended to impede the Flynn investigation. He said Trump could say he was merely vouching for Flynn’s character and voicing concerns about how the probe was interfering with his ability to function as president. Alan Dershowitz, a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School and well-known defense lawyer, added that Trump’s comments to Comey were “ambiguous statements” and “not even close to obstruction of justice.” Other legal experts said, however, that details surrounding the Feb. 14 conversation could indicate that Trump intended to interfere with the Flynn probe. According to Comey, Trump told his close advisers, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Jared Kushner, to leave the room so he could speak to Comey privately. “Asking others to leave the room could suggest the president was aware that there was something wrong with what he was doing,” said Andrew Wright, a professor of constitutional law at Savannah Law School. Wright said there were other damaging details in Comey’s testimony, including that Comey did not document his conversations with former President Barack Obama but “felt compelled” to do so after his first conversation with Trump. Comey’s testimony does “maximum damage” to Trump, Wright said. Gerhardt agreed the testimony was a blow to Trump, saying: “Some people who weren’t concerned before should be concerned now.” | 1 |
20,869 | Witness Trump Tell A Room Of Cheering Morons That Women Have It Better Off Than Men (VIDEO) | In the world according to presumed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, women apparently have it better than men. Who knew?Trump told his band of merry morons: All of the men, we re petrified to speak to women any more the women get it better than we do, folks. They get it better than we do. If by get it he means understand then maybe he s on to something, but if he meant it in terms of have it better off in life, well, then he s absolutely just full of shit.Women earn, on average, only 79% of what men make. This isn t due to men s greater ability, or being smarter, or having more training. It s based upon the fact that they have an extra appendage between their legs that women don t have. And the pay gap is even worse among women of color. Not to mention the fact that many women are treated with far less respect in the work place. Often times their opinions are treated as hostile or bossy compared to a man s assertiveness and drive to succeed. Trump is a bully, and he thinks that he can belittle women by saying how much they have it better than men. He says this because he gets in trouble for belittling them. He doesn t think people should call him out on his misogynistic bullshit. That s what he means by women get it better, because women these days are finally being heard, and he hates it. Absolutely despises it.Honestly? Any person who votes for Donald Trump, a man with zero policy or diplomacy experience, is an idiot, but women who vote for Trump? Seriously? Have a little more respect for yourself than that.Watch Trump s remark here: All of the men, we re petrified to speak to women any more the women get it better than we do, folks. Trump pic.twitter.com/VMUYEk2TxD Alan Kestrel (@AlanKestrel750) May 7, 2016Featured Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images | 0 |
20,870 | Syrian opposition says U.N. talks are in 'great danger' | GENEVA (Reuters) - The international community must do more to persuade the Syrian government to negotiate in U.N.-led talks, which were in great danger , the head of the opposition delegation said after an eighth round ended in failure in Geneva on Thursday. Opposition negotiator Nasr Hariri told a news conference that the government of President Bashar al-Assad hated the talks process and rejected all negotiations, and although there was pressure from its ally Russia, another state was putting obstacles in the path of the Geneva talks. | 1 |
20,871 | UNREAL! OBAMA APPOINTS VALERIE JARRETT And Other Top Staffers To Cushy Gov’t Jobs | I could go on an on about Susan Rice Does she REALLY deserve anything after the poor job she did?Valerie Jarrett has been Obama s right hand woman for 8 years Will anyone ever forget what she said in election 2012?Ben Rhodes is another crooked person from Obama s 8 years Obama might be done in the White House in three days, but that doesn t mean he s not going to make sure some his top administration officials and favorite athletes don t get plum assignments first.The White House released a list of new appointments Tuesday morning and some top Obama administration names were included. Among them were Valerie Jarrett, his White House senior adviser, and Susan Rice, the national security adviser, who will both become general trustees to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications and chief salesman of the Iran nuclear agreement, was appointed as a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.Read more: WE | 0 |
20,872 | Palestinian rivals Hamas, Fatah agree to complete Gaza handover by Dec. 1: statement | CAIRO (Reuters) - Palestinian rivals Hamas and Fatah on Thursday agreed to complete the handover of administrative control of Gaza to a unity government by Dec. 1, a statement from Egypt s state information service said. | 1 |
20,873 | Trump Throws A Hissy Fit At His Golf Course As Criticism Over Puerto Rico Response Grows | The people of Puerto Rico, who are American citizens, are dying. Yet Donald Trump is whining from his golf course like he s the victim.It has been ten days since Puerto Rico was devastated by Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria, but Trump is only just responding to the tragedy. In fact, Trump spent more time bashing the NFL than he has talked about Puerto Rico. And then he excused his slow response by blaming it on the ocean and big water. Trump and his team have insisted that all is well in Puerto Rico and that it s really a good news story. That infuriated San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, who slammed the Trump Administration by pointing out that this is a people are dying story. On Saturday morning from his luxury golf course, which is the second time he has gone golfing since Puerto Rico was hit, Trump attacked Cruz and suggested the people of Puerto Rico should help themselves.The Mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2017 Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help. They . Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2017 want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort. 10,000 Federal workers now on Island doing a fantastic job. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2017That s right. Trump literally said this about AMERICAN CITIZENS.Trump then praised the military and attacked the media for reporting accurately on the response and suggested that he is the real victim.The military and first responders, despite no electric, roads, phones etc., have done an amazing job. Puerto Rico was totally destroyed. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2017Fake News CNN and NBC are going out of their way to disparage our great First Responders as a way to get Trump. Not fair to FR or effort! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2017I will be going to Puerto Rico on Tuesday with Melania. Will hopefully be able to stop at the U.S. Virgin Islands (people working hard). Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2017The Fake News Networks are working overtime in Puerto Rico doing their best to take the spirit away from our soldiers and first R s. Shame! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2017But even Lt. Gen. Jeff Buchanan, whom the Pentagon put in charge of the military response, says that Trump has not sent enough troops or equipment to Puerto Rico.And the fact is that Trump was slow to respond to Puerto Rico s needs, and even had the gall to complain about the island s debt while are suffering due to lack of drinking water, homelessness, and no electrical power.Texas & Florida are doing great but Puerto Rico, which was already suffering from broken infrastructure & massive debt, is in deep trouble.. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 26, 2017 It s old electrical grid, which was in terrible shape, was devastated. Much of the Island was destroyed, with billions of dollars . Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 26, 2017 owed to Wall Street and the banks which, sadly, must be dealt with. Food, water and medical are top priorities and doing well. #FEMA Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 26, 2017It should be pointed out that Florida and Texas have higher debt than Puerto Rico does, but you never heard Trump complain about those two states. Could it be because he does consider Puerto Ricans American citizens?Trump really should stop throwing temper tantrums. It only gives people more reason to post gifs like this one:Leader of the Free World #Merkel will head back to Germany&confer w/#NATO allies. #ComradeTrump heads to #MaraLago pic.twitter.com/2CDM714z7S Miss Myrtle (@MissMyrtle2) March 17, 2017Featured Image: Ian MacNicol/Getty Images | 0 |
20,874 | Trump to nominate Robert Jackson for seat on SEC: source | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to nominate Columbia University law professor Robert Jackson to be a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission, a person with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday. Jackson is expected to be formally nominated on Friday, the source said. He would fill a vacant spot reserved for a Democrat on the five-member panel. His appointment follows the administration’s decision to nominate Hester Peirce as a Republican commissioner in July and would bring the SEC to full strength and paving the way for Chairman Jay Clayton to push ahead on an agenda of reducing public companies’ regulatory burdens. Jackson could not be reached for comment on Thursday. Jackson is known for his advocacy work in trying to advance new rules at the SEC that would force public companies to disclose their political spending to investors. | 1 |
20,875 | Starr steps down as Baylor chancellor after sex assault scandal | AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Former Baylor University President Kenneth Starr resigned as chancellor of the world’s largest Baptist university on Wednesday after being implicated in a report for not doing enough to probe sexual assaults by athletes. Starr, who rose to prominence for his exhaustive investigation of sex scandals surrounding then-President Bill Clinton, stepped down as chancellor but will keep his post as a professor in Baylor’s law school. “With sorrow, earlier this morning, I announced my resignation effective immediately as chancellor of Baylor University as a matter of conscience,” Starr said in an exclusive interview on ESPN television’s “Outside the Lines.” Starr added he was unaware of what was happening but still accepted responsibility. “We need to put this horrible situation behind us,” he said. One of the victims of sexual assault at Baylor, identified only as “Sarah,” told the show she sent a letter to Starr about being raped. She finds it hard to believe that he did not know about other sexual assaults. Baylor’s board of regents accepted the resignation, the school said. Last week, the central Texas university in Waco removed Starr as president and fired head football coach Art Briles after an independent report found administrators mishandled sexual abuse cases involving football players. The investigation found actions by Baylor administrators directly discouraged students from reporting sexual assaults. In one case, the actions included retaliating against a complainant for reporting a sexual assault. “We were horrified by what we learned from the investigation and again express our public acknowledgment and deepest apologies,” the board said in a statement on Wednesday. In March, a former student at Baylor brought a negligence lawsuit in federal court against the school, claiming it acted callously and indifferently after she was raped by a Baylor football player. In a separate scandal, Baylor football player Sam Ukwuachu was sentenced last year to six months in jail for sexually assaulting a fellow student in 2013. Starr became Baylor’s president in 2010, promising to promote the school’s “great tradition in the Christian world.” A former appeals court judge, Starr was appointed as a special counsel to investigate Clinton over a real estate investment and other matters. His probe widened to include Clinton’s sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, and led to Clinton’s impeachment by the House of Representatives. Republicans could not muster the two-thirds majority in the Senate needed to remove Clinton from office. | 1 |
20,876 | Senate Democrats Have Been Sneaking Around Behind GOP’s Back To Unravel Trump Administration | For the last several months, liberals have been watching the news with frustration over Congress apparent Keystone Cop incompetency in its investigation of the Trump administration ties to Russia. The Senate has been somewhat better than the House, but still, we are pinning most of our hopes on special counsel Robert Mueller, until now.In a bombshell report in the Daily Beast, it was revealed that Senate Democrats are going behind the backs of Republicans and running their own investigation.According to the report, Senate Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee have been secretly investigating the Trump/Russia connections with hope of making them public soon:Sean Bartlett, a Democratic spokesman for the committee, called the report a major effort to expose how Vladimir Putin s government has kept the Russian public supportive of wars abroad, while distracted from the regime s criminality and corruption at home, and how, over the past decade-plus, it has adapted that toolkit and taken it global. The report, he added, describes how these efforts are led by the government s security services and buttressed by state-owned enterprises, Kremlin-aligned oligarchs, and Russian criminal groups that have effectively been nationalized by the state. It traces how the operations emanate out of Russia in concentric geographic circles: they began in Russia, expanded to its periphery and former satellites, and then into the rest of Europe and eventually, the United States. It s not completely secret. According to the committee s chairman, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), they know about the investigation, but they have no idea what the Democrats have found. The Democrats would like Republicans to get on board, though.The investigation isn t just about Trump. It s broader, and it explores all of Russia s sins dating back years. They are investigating issues as varied as cheating in the Olympics and Russia s attacks on Soviet Bloc countries, including its illegal annexation of Crimea.That doesn t mean they aren t investigating Trump. As one member of a Republican think tank said: It s not about Trump, but the impact will be: Hey Mr. President, here s a list of 55 sins of the Russians, and you re kissing Putin s ass what s the deal?' Yeah, Republicans are scared, and so, I m sure, is Trump.Featured image via Pool/Getty Images. | 0 |
20,877 | Obama must make new budget request for Iraq troops: Thornberry | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee said on Monday that President Barack Obama must ask Congress for additional funds to pay the deployment of more troops to Iraq, as Congress and the White House debate defense spending amid mandatory budget cuts. “Added to the President’s Afghanistan announcement last week, the United States will now be deploying thousands more troops than we have budgeted for in the President’s budget request,” Representative Mac Thornberry said in a statement. “Those deployments can only be fully supported through a supplemental budget request,” Thornberry said. U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced on Monday that Washington would send 560 additional troops to assist Iraqi forces in an expected push on the Islamic State stronghold of Mosul. Obama said on July 6 he would keeping 8,400 troops in Afghanistan through the end of his presidency in January. As the Republican-led Congress and the Democratic administration grapple over spending, Obama has threatened to veto a $602 billion defense policy bill because of its use of special funds for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to avoid mandatory spending limits. Democrats say the Department of Defense should be subject to the same spending restrictions as non-military programs, but Republicans accuse Democrats of stinting on national security in order to fund pet projects. | 1 |
20,878 | Trump Has Planted Spies To Ensure His Cabinet’s Loyalty – What He’s Calling Them Is TERRIFYING | It s hard not to wonder just how paranoid and/or dictatorial Trump really is. One would think that, since he s the one appointing his cabinet, that he d be able to trust those secretaries to do their jobs according to how he wants them done. Apparently, though, that s not the case. Trump is so ridiculous that he s appointed many White House aides whose jobs are specifically to spy on the cabinet secretaries.All of these people have the title of senior White House adviser, and their offices are very close to their secretaries offices. The point literally seems to be ensuring the cabinet secretaries loyalty to Trump, seeing as how they report to the Office of Cabinet Affairs and not to the secretaries.But that s not all. That would be bad enough, but the White House has names for some of them that aren t senior White House adviser. For instance, the officer who s spying on General Mattis over at the Department of Defense is literally called the commissar. That s a reference to Soviet-era Communist Party officials whose task was just to ensure their commanders loyalty.These people are embedded in every agency from the Departments of Defense and Health and Human Services to the EPA, even to NASA. They are in constant contact with the White House.Obama, Bush and Clinton did not use this kind of spy method to ensure their cabinets did exactly as they were told.And that s nuts. But one former Trump adviser actually thinks this is smart, which just illustrates the level of paranoia and authoritarianism that has existed inside Trump s circles even before he was elected: Especially when you re starting a government and you have a changeover of parties when policies are going to be dramatically different, I think it s something that s smart. Somebody needs to be there as the White House s man on the scene. Because there s no senior staff yet, they re functioning as the White House s voice and ears in these departments. We guess the secretaries themselves just aren t good enough.The funny thing is that the Trump administration is all up in arms about the deep state, and the alleged shadow government that Obama s supposedly running to oppose Trump. Yet, they re creating their own shadow government with these advisers who are supposed to spy on leaders to make sure they remain properly loyal.If Trump can t trust even his own appointees to be loyal without spies like this, then he has no business running the U.S. government. But we already knew that, and this is just the latest thing to prove that Trump is trying to position himself as Supreme Overlord of the United States, or something.Featured image by Andrea Morales via Getty Images | 0 |
20,879 | COLLEGE PROF DEVELOPS 10 “Cracka Commandments” TO HELP WHITE PRIVILEGED PEOPLE WITH IMMINENT “Black Spring” | Dr. Christopher Driscoll, an Africana Studies program affiliate, is a perfect example of how academia uses religion to divide students along racial lines, which ironically only promotes division and hate A hip hop symposium recently inspired a professor at Lehigh University to develop a list of Cracka Commandments intended to help white people accommodate the imminent black spring. Christopher Driscoll, a visiting assistant professor of religious studies at the private university in Bethlehem, Penn., posted the list of commandments last Friday following a lecture on the white appropriation of rap.According to Driscoll, his lecture led to a discussion about how white people fit into the #BlackLivesMatter movement and prompted a collaboration between himself, Lehigh Theater Professor Kashi Johnson, and hip hop artist Asheru. Together, we came up with these, the ten cracka commandments for 2015, Driscoll wrote on his personal blog, Shades of White.Driscoll says the first commandment is: that all lives won t matter until #BlackLivesMatter which he describes as both a litmus test and the greatest commandment. The nine other commandments read as follows:1. Always remember that white privilege is real, even if you do not understand it. Use it to convince other people that black lives, including black women s lives, matter.2. Show up for protests, write letters to representatives, and start discussions with other white people about black lives mattering.3. Always remember that ignorance is real, and is a product of privilege. Treat the ignorant with compassion, but hold them accountable. 4. Never think that the critique does not apply to you. Just because you were at Barack s inauguration and your dad was a freedom rider, or because you are the head of your local chapter of GLADD, that does not mean you do not have more work to do on yourself, your family, and your community. 5. Always remember that it is never a question of if violence, but whose violence are you going to defend. Unjust state-sanctioned and racist violence, or justified resistance; the choice is yours, the choice is ours. 6. Never tolerate racism from your friends or family. Whether it is coming from your eighteen-year-old friend, your thirty-one-year-old cousin, or your eighty-year-old grandmother, confront it always. Confronting racism does not mean you will lose your friend or family. It means you will help to make them act and think in less racist ways. 7. You cannot love cultural products without also loving the people who make those products. If you like black art or athletics, that appreciation is an entryway into recognizing that black lives matter. 8. Never quote black leaders like Dr. King in order to criticize protesters and activists. 9. Always embrace uncertainty. Life is uncertain; death is certain. Uncertainty promotes life; certainty produces death and destruction. 10. Never put white fragility ahead of justice. If you are more concerned to argue that you aren t racist than you are with racism or with people dying, you re priorities are skewed. Do you want justice or comfort? In addition to teaching, Driscoll recently penned the book White Lies: Race and Uncertainty in the Twilight of American Religion, which addresses the instabilities central to a white religion . Driscoll describes his personal website as designated for the progressive anti-racist ally and curious and frustrated, alike. Shades of White is a space for whites to clumsily, openly, and actively wrestle with a host of social issues that impact us, Driscoll states, adding that it is about time white folks come to terms with a problematic social arrangement that has seen them disproportionately advantaged for far too long. According to Driscoll, left-wing blogs do a good job of criticizing white folks on our failings albeit without offering concrete responses to meet the civic and social demands of everyone else. At the same time, Driscoll says right-wing blogs feel good, make us proud to be an American, but are often actively racist and sexist and sometimes, downright dumb. WATCH VIDEO FEATURING DR. CHRISTOPHER DRISCOLL S VIEWS ON RACISM HERE: Dr. Christopher Driscoll from Lehigh IMRC on Vimeo.In an email to Campus Reform, Lehigh s Director of Media Relations, Jordan Reese, said the university is committed to strongly supporting faculty academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas, theories and philosophies on campus. Lehigh believes diversity of thought fuels a healthy exchange of ideas, discussion and debate, contributing to a vibrant intellectual environment in which our students can grow and learn, Reese said.Via: Campus Reform | 0 |
20,880 | Fiat Chrysler ready to comply with new rules from Trump administration: CEO | DETROIT (Reuters) - Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCHA.MI) is ready to comply with the new rules on the auto industry the incoming administration of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump will introduce, the carmaker’s CEO Sergio Marchionne said on Monday. “We are waiting for the new rules and will adapt to them,” Marchionne said, speaking to reporters at the Detroit motor show. On Sunday Fiat Chrysler said it would invest $1 billion to modernize two plants in the U.S. Midwest and create 2,000 jobs. “The announcement to invest in the U.S. was already part of our plans,” Marchionne said, adding he had not met Trump since his election victory. Marchionne said he did not want to speak for the new U.S. President-to-be but added commercial barriers could be an “obstacle to development”. | 1 |
20,881 | House Speaker Ryan says special counsel should not be fired: Fox News Sunday | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Sunday that special counsel Robert Mueller should not be fired or step down, and needs to be allowed to follow his Russia investigation to its end. “We need to let these career professionals do their jobs, see it through...I don’t think he should be stepping down and I don’t think he should be fired,” Ryan said in an interview on Fox News Sunday. | 1 |
20,882 | Trump’s HHS Secretary Stole Over $1 Million From Taxpayers And Now He’s Unemployed | Donald Trump ran and won on a platform of drain the swamp. He supposedly meant that Washington was corrupt, and that nobody in the establishment could be trusted. However, he has run the swampiest of Washington swamps that America has seen since the Watergate scandal with President Richard Nixon. Case in point- his Health and Human Services Secretary, Tom Price, being mired in scandal for taking hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of trips around the nation and world in private jets on the taxpayer dime. He has sworn, now that he is caught, to pay back every dime to taxpayers over this scandal of luxury, but that was never true. Taxpayers paid over a million dollars for these trips, but we re only getting reimbursed for Tom Price s personal seats.Well, it seems that the news coverage has gotten the best of Price, because we all know how much The Donald wants to be loved by cable news. As such, the news coverage made Trump and his administration put more pressure on Price, and that pressure has worked. Tom Price has now resigned as Health and Human Services Secretary.Under all the pressure from the public and the press, as per usual, the White House is in hiding. They released a simple statement: Secretary of Health and Human Services Thomas Price offered his resignation earlier today and the President accepted. And, in case you were wondering, no, neither Sarah Huckabee Sanders nor any other Trump Administration official came to a camera to discuss this huge development, which comes on the heels of a humiliating defeat in the FOURTH attempt from the GOP-led Congress and the Trump Administration to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. All this proves is what Democrats have been saying about Republicans all along they are corrupt, and they are incapable of change and of governing. Do America a favor next time, folks, and vote BLUE.Featured image via Drew Angerer / Getty Images | 0 |
20,883 | Trump Lawyer LITERALLY Argued That Muslim Ban Shouldn’t Be Based In Reality, And Twitter Is LOSING IT (VIDEO/TWEETS) | If you had it in your head that the only defense for Donald Trump s Muslim ban is that we should completely ignore reality, you were more right than you knew. On Saturday out borders reopened after Judge James Robert blocked President Asterisk s Muslim ban, correctly pointing out that there is no support for The Donald s argument that we have to protect the U.S. from individuals from the seven countries affected by the ban.Robert s decision, which also block the Trump administration from enforcing its limits on refugees, was celebrated nationwide as Trump and his allies stewed and our so-called President unleashed a ridiculous attack on the so-called judge who foiled his evil scheme. After learning about checks, our unbalanced President whined:The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017But here s the thing: even the Trump administration doesn t believe that their fear and bigotry-based attempt to keep members of an entire religion out of our country. I m also asked to look and determine if the executive order is rationally based, Robart told Trump s attorney. Rationally based to me at least implies to some extent I have to find it grounded in facts as opposed to fiction. Trump s attorney s baffled the world, responding that the facts simply do not matter: Well Your Honor, we don t think you re supposed to look at whether it s rationally based. We think that the standard is facially legitimate. Seriously, she said this:The moment Trump lawyer tells judge Robart of travel ban: "We actually don't think you're supposed to look at whether it's rationally based" pic.twitter.com/u9PRy4cKGT Rob S Silver Surfer (@RobPulseNews) February 5, 2017Robart is correct, as no one from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan or Yemen has committed a terrorist attack in the United States since 9/11. I m sorry, there s no other way to put it, Robart said of the order. It s Keystone Kops. It really is. And that s not just me speaking, that s Republican members of Congress. Robart was referencing incompetent 20th-century cops who appeared in silent films early last century.Naturally, she is now the subject of widespread mockery.@spencerwoodman @EnterElysium where did that women get a law degree out of a cereal box Resender (@Resender2be) February 4, 2017@spencerwoodman @KipperBedwas She's a career DoJ lawyer. She's forced to defend the indefensible. The judge confirmed 2x she did her job. Bob Blaskiewicz (@rjblaskiewicz) February 4, 2017@spencerwoodman The administration would like to crack down on all rationally based thought, words or actions. Citizen (@kathylun) February 4, 2017@spencerwoodman there you have it folks Trumps not interested in anything being RATIONAL which is why he is so irrational judy (@endhomelesnes) February 4, 2017Amazing. Trump has Gov't arguing that his EOs do not have to be rationally based. Trump's next EO: Cows must say Bah instead of moo https://t.co/L8wJtnAeoA (((ProfessingProf))) (@Professing_Prof) February 5, 2017Now that we have seen this, we know for certain that Donald Trump and his administration don t care about facts (or reality) at all and Trump s policies reflect that.You can see more of the exchange below:Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
20,884 | Turkey orders former intelligence personnel detained in Gulen probe: AA | ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey issued arrest warrants for 63 people, including former National Intelligence Agency (MIT) personnel, over alleged links to the U.S.-based cleric accused of orchestrating last year s attempted coup, Anadolu agency reported on Tuesday. The police operation was launched in 21 provinces across Turkey, the state-run news agency reported. Ankara says cleric Fethullah Gulen, who has lived in the United States since 1999, was behind the abortive putsch in July 2016. Gulen has denied involvement. More than 50,000 people have been jailed pending trial for alleged ties to Gulen s movement and some 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from jobs in the public and private sectors for the same reason. Some of Turkey s Western allies and rights groups have expressed concern about the crackdown and suspect the government has used the coup as a pretext to quash dissent. The government says the purges are necessary due to the gravity of the threats it has faced since the failed putsch, in which more than 240 people were killed. | 1 |
20,885 | Obama says protectionism no answer to inequalities of globalization | (Reuters) - America must work with all nations to build stronger economies, recognizing the inequalities that globalization can generate but refusing to give in to protectionism, U.S. President Barack Obama wrote in the Economist on Thursday. Months before he leaves the White House in January, Obama wrote that a certain anxiety over globalization had taken hold in the United States, not unlike the discontent leading to Britain’s vote in June to leave the European Union. “The world is more prosperous than ever before and yet our societies are marked by uncertainty and unease,” the Democratic president wrote. “So we have a choice - retreat into old, closed-off economies or press forward, acknowledging the inequality that can come with globalization while committing ourselves to making the global economy work better for all people, not just those at the top.” Calling capitalism the greatest driver of prosperity the world has ever known, Obama argued that trade had helped the U.S. economy much more than hurt it. His enthusiastic advocacy for trade runs counter to the stated policies of both his potential successors, who say many trade deals hurt U.S. workers. The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal championed by the president is opposed by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his Democratic rival in the Nov. 8 election, Hillary Clinton, whom Obama has endorsed. Obama listed four major structural challenges facing the United States - “boosting productivity growth, combating rising inequality, ensuring that everyone who wants a job can get one and building a resilient economy that’s primed for future growth.” Trumpeting the achievements of his eight-year presidency, led by preventing the 2007-2009 recession from turning into a depression, Obama said a foundation was laid for a better future. “America must stay committed to working with all nations to build stronger and more prosperous economies for all our citizens for generations to come,” he wrote. | 1 |
20,886 | Putin discusses North Korean missile test with his security council: agencies | MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin has discussed North Korea s latest missile launch with Russia s security council, Russian news agencies reported on Friday. Participants exchanged their views about the situation on the Korean Peninsula with regard to the new missile launch, agencies quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying. Pyongyang fired a missile that flew over Japan s northern Hokkaido far out into the Pacific Ocean on Friday, deepening tension after its recent test of its most powerful nuclear bomb. | 1 |
20,887 | BILL CLINTON STEPS IN IT: Accuses FBI Of Serving Up A “Load Of Bull” | Oh boy! This is getting good! Bill Clinton is now accusing the FBI of serving up a load of bull in the comments about the investigation into Hillary s e-mails. How idiotic is it to publicly slam the FBI? I guess Slick Willy isn t so slick anymore. all we have to say about this is KEEP ON TALKIN SLICK WILLY!Bill Clinton is accusing the FBI director of serving up the biggest load of bull I ve ever heard marking the first significant public comments from the husband of the Democratic nominee on the scandal that s plagued his wife s campaign for over a year. First of all, the FBI director said, when he testified before Congress, he had to amend his previous day s statement that she had never received any emails marked classified, Clinton told journalists at an Asian American Journalists Association meeting in Las Vegas on Friday, making a strong defense for Hillary Clinton.He added, They saw two little notes with a C on it this is the biggest load of bull I ve ever heard that were about telephone calls that she needed to make. The State Department typically puts a little C on it to discourage people from discussing it in public in the event the secretary of state, whoever it is, doesn t make a telephone call. Does that sound threatening to the national security to you? VIA: NYP | 0 |
20,888 | Republican Satisfaction In ‘Trump’s America’ Takes 17 Point Dive In Just One Month | According to a Gallup poll released on Thursday, Republican satisfaction with the direction in which the USA is heading took its biggest hit between the months of May and June in the time since Donald Trump took office, dropping a massive 17 points.While satisfaction among Democrats and independents also fell during the same time period, one and three points, respectively, the level of satisfaction among Republicans plummeted from 58% in May to only 41% in June. To add insult to injury, these latest numbers bring the overall satisfaction rating among Americans to a paltry 24%, the lowest since July, 2016, which came on the heels of a spree of killings of African-American men at the hands of police officers and then a spate of shootings of law enforcement officers, pushing the country to the brink. That s a pretty tough act to follow.The latest drop in Trump s satisfaction rating comes amid a slew of controversies in the last several weeks, especially his decision to abruptly fire FBI director James Comey, the man who just so happened to be responsible for handling the investigation into Russian interference in last year s presidential election. The fact that it was revealed that Trump may have also divulged highly classified information to the Russians only compounded the problem.What Comey had to say under oath at his Senate inquiry last week didn t help matters for the President much, either, such as the revelation that Trump had not only asked Comey in February to drop the FBI investigation into former national security advisor Michael Flynn, but also asked for Comey s loyalty. Fortunately for all of the United States of America, Comey instead promised his honesty.If President Trump can take any satisfaction from any of this, it is the fact that the previous six US Presidents also suffered dwindling satisfaction ratings of their time in office. Perhaps not to this extent within the first five months, but it did happen eventually.Featured image via Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images | 0 |
20,889 | Alec Baldwin NAILS Trump’s ‘Grab Them by the P*ssy’ Fauxpology, And It’s PERFECT (VIDEO) | Who didn t miss Saturday Night Live s take on the 2016 election? Alec Baldwin returned this week as Donald Trump (and Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton) to provide us with some much-needed levity following Pussyghazi or whatever one chooses to call the leak of Donald Trump explaining exactly where he likes to grope seemingly every woman he meets. Sure, some would call that sexual assault, but to Trump and gang it s just a friendly handshake that happens to involve someone s vagina.Trump s campaign has been scrambling to come back from this situation as his former allies practically climb all over one another to denounce, un-endorse, and repudiate The Donald, with many calling on him to drop out and hand the election to Hillary Clinton. It may seem surprising that talking about groping women was what did it given Trump s wall comments, his support for Muslim bans and even concentration camps, and the 9,764,487,921 other awful things he has done and said in just the past month. But that s where we re at, and Republicans are finally coming around.It s easy to get caught up in the furor, but Saturday Night Live once again swooped in at the end of the week and saved the day as a re-broadcast of the vice presidential debate is interrupted by coverage of Pussy-Gate. I deeply apple-gize, Baldwin s Trump continues as they mock his first public apology ever, with Trump being unable to even say the word.The sketch features a cutaway to a party at the Clinton campaign after the news broke and lots, lots more pussy. Watch it below:Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
20,890 | WATCH: Kellyanne Conway Runs From Reporter Asking About Trump’s Vile Attack On Mika | White House counselor Kellyanne Conway likes to call her critics sexist but she s always stood by amateur president Donald Trump s misogynistic attacks. In May, Conway said that CNN s Anderson Cooper was sexist because he rolled his eyes. Conway s boss unleashed an appalling personal attack on MSNBC s Mika Brzezinski Thursday that left even some Republicans speechless. Melania Trump has undergone numerous cosmetic surgeries, but her husband bashed low IQ Crazy Mika for bleeding after an alleged facelift. Then he went on to attack Psycho Joe Scarborough.While even House Speaker Paul Ryan said Trump s tweets this morning were not appropriate, Conway couldn t answer the question from a TMZ reporter.The video published by TMZ shows Conway turning herself into a pretzel trying to dodge the question as she headed as quickly as possible for the elevator. But halfway there she gave what she called a bipartisan hug to Rep. Debbie Dingell. That s right, she even hugged a Democrat to get out of answering the simple question about the former reality show star unleashing highly inappropriate mean-girl tweets this morning. Look, Conway said, a bipartisan hug. The elevator wasn t on the ground floor yet so Conway had to wait impatiently for it while she was still questioned about her boss s tweets, so naturally, she brought up the weather. It s a gorgeous day here, she said.Back in May, Conway said, I face sexism a lot of times when I show up for interviews like that, of her interview with Anderson Cooper. And now it s a little more than a month later and she s strangely quiet after the alleged president launched a personal attack on Mika Brzezinski simply because she s critical of the former reality show star. While Conway blasts the media over negative coverage, Trump is supposedly the president of the United States and Mika is the co-host of a cable show only one of them is supposed to act presidential.Image via screen capture. | 0 |
20,891 | New Zealand party leaders meet with caucuses to start negotiation talks | WELLINGTON (Reuters) - New Zealand s major party leaders met with their caucuses on Tuesday, preparing to kick off talks on forming the next government with a nationalist party that holds the balance of power after an inconclusive weekend election. The ruling National Party won the most seats in Saturday s general election, but failed to secure enough to form a government, leaving the New Zealand First Party in the position of kingmaker. Deputy leaders of both the ruling National and opposition Labour parties said they would be willing to give up the role of deputy prime minister to win the backing of Winston Peters, who leads New Zealand First. But the Labour Party, whose support spiked after Jacinda Ardern became leader last month, also has a chance to govern in New Zealand s proportional representation system, if it can woo Peters into a coalition along with the Green Party. Ardern said she had every chance to become the country s youngest prime minister in modern history, adding that her team had contacted that of Peters, a veteran politician who has served in National and Labour governments. We are willing and available when he is ready, Ardern, 37, told reporters in Wellington. I respect the time that Mr. Peters will need to talk with his party. Asked about possible sticking points in talks, she said budget responsibility rules would apply in any government Labour led. Both National and Labour are expected to stick to fiscal prudence, but to differ on monetary policy, trade and immigration. Labour wants to cut immigration and renegotiate some trade deals that could hurt two key sources of growth. It wants to add employment to the central bank s inflation-targeting mandate, which could make monetary policy more stimulatory, and there is some concern about New Zealand First s preference for more central bank intervention in the currency market. The political uncertainty weighed on the New Zealand dollar , which was down 0.32 percent at $0.7243, after posting its biggest daily drop in more than four months on Monday. Forming a coalition government could take weeks, Prime Minister Bill English has said, though he hoped talks would be constructive, even if expected to be tense. English has courted Peters since election night, when he acknowledged his strong performance , saying voters had given him a role in the new government s formation. He understands his role and the role here is, now that we ve had an election where the people have spoken... then it s up to the political party leaders to form the kind of government indicated by the election, English told media. The National Party secured 58 seats, ahead of the 52 won by the Green Party and Labour in Saturday s election, leaving both still in need of NZ First s nine seats to reach the tally of 61 required to form a government. A final tally of election results is due on Oct. 7, when special votes , which constitute 15 percent of the total and include overseas votes, are released. English remains prime minister in the interim. | 1 |
20,892 | French foreign minister in Libya to push peace deal | TRIPOLI (Reuters) - France s Foreign Minister Jean Yves Le Drian was in Libya on Monday to meet rival political leaders and offer support for a deal aimed at stabilizing the strifetorn North African country. Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Seraj and the divided nation s eastern commander Khalifa Haftar signed an agreement in Paris in July committing them to a conditional ceasefire and to work toward elections in 2018. The deal did not include other key factions. Western governments, worried about Islamist militants and smugglers thriving in Libya s chaos, are pushing a broader U.N.-backed deal to unify Libya and end the instability that has weakened the country since the 2011 fall of Muammar Gaddafi. In Tripoli, Le Drian met Seraj and planned to hold talks with Abdulrahman Swehli, a politician connected to some of Haftar s rivals who heads a parliamentary council in the capital, Libyan officials said. Le Drian was also to visit Misrata, Swehli s home city and a base of opposition to Haftar, before heading to Benghazi to meet Haftar and to Tobruk to meet the head of an eastern-based parliament aligned with him. The minister wants to consolidate this agreement by getting the parties not invited in July to support it, said a French diplomatic source. He wants to ensure that everyone is playing the game and lay the groundwork for elections. The French minister s visit is in line with President Emmanuel Macron s push for a deeper French role in bringing Libyan factions together in the hope of countering militant violence and easing Europe s migrant crisis. Our objective is the stabilization of Libya in the interests of the Libyans themselves, Le Drian said in a statement in Tripoli. A united Libya, equipped with functioning institutions, is the condition for avoiding the terrorist threat in the long term. He said the Paris deal was meant to support the U.N.-backed accord for a government of national unity. Le Drian met U.N. special envoy Ghassan Salame on Sunday. The French diplomatic source said the visit would fit into efforts by Salame to announce a road map to elections during the coming U.N. General Assembly. Seraj and Haftar clearly want to measure themselves in elections, the source said. Libya would likely need to agree on a new constitution or electoral law before elections, which will be a difficult task for the country s divided institutions. Organizing polls would also involve big logistical and security challenges. Past Western attempts to broker agreements have often fallen victim to political infighting among rival factions and armed brigades vying for power in the OPEC oil producer. Seraj s government has struggled to impose control and its presidential council is divided. Haftar has refused to accept its legitimacy. He has been gaining ground, backed by allies Egypt and United Arab Emirates. The ceasefire between non-terrorist elements is in general respected, the French diplomatic source said. Haftar s advances are accompanied by a strengthening of Seraj in the west so it s creating a fragile balance that encourages a compromise. | 1 |
20,893 | WATCH: Hillary CRUSHES Trump On Kimmel, Will Draw On Elementary School Experience To Debate Him | Hillary Clinton appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Monday night and absolutely killed it.Jimmy Kimmel has spent a lot of time on his show mocking Donald Trump, so it was only natural for him to talk to the Democratic nominee about him.The first segment of the interview was dedicated entirely to discussing the imploding Republican nominee.Right after Hillary sat down Kimmel remarked that the crowd was cheering quite enthusiastically for the co-founder of ISIS, which drew laughter from the former Secretary of State, who replied that the claim was one of the crazier things that Trump has said during his campaign.And with all the ridiculous things Trump has said on the campaign trail, Kimmel asked if she gets upset. I don t get upset anymore, Clinton said, because I d be upset all the time. Hillary pointed out that Trump s rhetoric is music to the terrorists ears because they would love to influence our elections in any way they can. It also gives them advertising material to use to draw new recruits.Considering Trump s unpredictability and insanity throughout his run for the presidency, Kimmel wondered how Hillary is preparing to debate him, which drew a very interesting and hilarious response. I watched a lot of his debates during the primaries and he insulted all of his opponents, he insulted all the moderators, he insulted, I guess about 80 percent of the American people and the rest of the world You gotta be prepared for all the wacky stuff that comes at you. I am drawing on my experience in elementary school. Kimmel also asked Hillary about her health and the claims of Trump and his team that she is unfit to serve because she is not well. Hillary compared Trump s attack to a tabloid story, remarking that the National Enquirer once said she would be dead in six months, but that was a long time ago and she s still full of life. I don t know why they are saying this, Clinton said. I think on the one hand, it s part of the wacky strategy. Just say all these crazy things and maybe you can get some people to believe you. On the other hand, it just absolutely makes no sense. I don t go around questioning Donald Trump s health. Kimmel then challenged her to open a pickle jar to prove her fitness, and she opened it.Hillary then admitted that she had hoped to be running against someone more serious and qualified to do the job of President of the United States. I would prefer to be running against somebody who I thought was qualified to be president and temperamentally fit to be commander-in-chief I don t think we ve ever been confronted with somebody who we see right now in the midst of this election is unqualified and temperamentally unfit. Hillary went on to name three Republicans who have endorsed her and praised their decision to put country first.And at the end of the interview, she read some mean quotes uttered by Donald Trump. But she refused to read the one of Trump saying he would date his own daughter.This was an excellent interview for Hillary Clinton. She dispelled the rampant falsehoods being pushed by Trump and his minions while at the same time showing the American people that she is a positive person who is qualified for the office she seeks. Now it s just a matter of waiting for the thin-skinned Trump to throw a hissy fit about on Twitter.Featured image via Screenshot | 0 |
20,894 | Kenya's opposition says postpones 'swearing-in' of alternative president | NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya s opposition said on Sunday it had postponed plans to swear in its leader Raila Odinga as an alternative president, easing political tensions and opening a window for possible talks with the government of President Uhuru Kenyatta. Opposition coalition NASA had planned to publicly inaugurate Odinga at a rally on Tuesday, Kenyan independence day, in what the attorney general said this week would be an act of treason. Kenyatta was re-elected as Kenya s president with 98 percent of the vote in a repeat election held on Oct. 26 which Odinga boycotted. He had beaten Odinga in the original poll, held in August, which was nullified by the Supreme Court on procedural grounds following opposition allegations of vote-rigging and other malpractices. NASA said in a statement it would postpone the swearing-in after consultations and engagement with a wide range of national and international interlocutors . It did not specifically name any mediators involved in the talks. The coalition said it would be announcing a new date for the swearing in ceremony and the launch of its People s Assembly as well as a more vigorous and prolonged resistance . The plan to install Odinga as an alternative president had threatened to exacerbate rifts opened by an acrimonious election season that left more than 70 people dead in political violence. The United States had also urged opposition leaders to work within the law and avoid actions like the proposed inauguration ceremony. | 1 |
20,895 | AFGHANISTAN AMBASSADOR Was Delightfully Shocked After Meeting With President Trump: Asked 3 Important Questions Obama Never Did [VIDEO] | Donald Trump wanted to win, where as before, President Obama just didn t want to lose Watch: President @realdonaldTrump wants to Win President Obama just didn t want to lose!#MAGA #Gutfeld pic.twitter.com/oWBDR9tSOu gab.ai/VandeMataram (@Vande_Mataram) March 15, 2017 | 0 |
20,896 | Republicans appear all but certain to pass tax legislation | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican-controlled U.S. Congress appeared all but certain to pass sweeping tax legislation this week after two Senate Republican holdouts agreed on Monday to support a tax overhaul backed by President Donald Trump. As the Republicans’ self-imposed Friday voting deadline loomed, Senators Susan Collins and Mike Lee each said they had decided to back the legislation hammered out last week among Republicans from the Senate and House of Representatives. “The first major overhaul of our tax code since 1986, this legislation will provide tax relief to working families, encourage the creation of jobs right here in America and spur economic growth that will benefit all Americans,” Collins said on the floor of the Senate while announcing her support. The Maine Republican had been undecided on the legislation. Lee had been similarly undecided until the Utah Republican tweeted earlier in the day that he would “proudly” vote for the bill. The House of Representatives, which is also expected to adopt the bill, was due to vote first at around 1:30 p.m. (1830 GMT) on Tuesday, Republican aides said. The Senate vote is expected to follow either later on Tuesday or on Wednesday. “We will get it on the president’s desk for him to sign into law before Christmas, as we pledged,” predicted No. 2 Senate Republican John Cornyn, who said the Senate would begin 10 hours of debate after receiving the House-approved measure. White House officials said on Monday that Vice President Mike Pence, who would cast the tiebreaking vote in the Senate if necessary, was delaying his trip to Egypt and Israel this week to be in Washington for the vote on the tax plan. “The tax vote is still in very good shape, but we don’t want to take any chances,” a White House official said. The package of tax cuts for businesses and individuals, if enacted, would overhaul the U.S. tax code for the first time in more than 30 years and give Republicans their first major legislative victory of Trump’s presidency. Republicans, who believe they must act to preserve their House and Senate majorities in next year’s congressional elections, insist the tax cuts will drive U.S. economic growth higher and create jobs. Democrats, who oppose it, describe the legislation as a giveaway to corporations and wealthy Americans that will add $1.5 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade while raising taxes on some middle-class taxpayers. Lawmakers in the House, where Republicans hold a 239-193 seat majority, are expected to approve the legislation largely along party lines. A smattering of “no” votes is likely from Republican fiscal hawks and lawmakers from New York, New Jersey and California who oppose a provision that would scale back a popular deduction for state and local taxes. Both the House and Senate must approve the measure before Trump can sign it into law. The 100-seat Senate, where Republicans have only a 52-48 majority, proved to be the graveyard for last summer’s Republican drive to overturn former Democratic President Barack Obama’s healthcare law, when three Republicans opposed the measure. The tax overhaul has also faced challenges. But the specter of failure appeared to lift on Monday, as Congress closed in on final votes. Senate Republicans can afford to lose no more than two votes if they intend to pass tax legislation, and they are already down one vote. Senator John McCain, who is undergoing treatment for brain cancer, will not be available to support the bill because he is spending time with family in Arizona. With support from Collins and Lee, only Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona remained undecided. A fifth Republican, Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi, has missed votes for health reasons this year but was expected to be on hand to support the tax bill. Republican Senator Bob Corker, a fiscal hawk, voted against the initial Senate bill but has said he will support final legislation. | 1 |
20,897 | Chronology: Europe's long road in search of a common defense | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - France, Germany and 21 other EU governments signed a defense pact on Monday they hope marks a new era of greater European military integration after Britain s decision to quit the bloc. Below is a list of dates in European defense cooperation: 1949 - The United States, Canada and European countries set up the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a U.S.-led military alliance. 1950 - The European Defence Community is proposed as a European alternative to NATO to incorporate West Germany and create a European army, a joint budget and shared arms. 1954 - The French parliament rejects the European Army plan. Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Britain form the Western European Union, a common defense group with a shared air force and joint command. 1993 - The EU s Maastricht Treaty redefines European integration and introduces a Common Foreign and Security Policy as one of its goals, allowing European governments to take joint action in foreign policy. 1998 - Britain and France agree to common defense in the Saint-Malo Declaration, and London pledges to play a central role in the security and defense policy of the European Union. 2003 - The European Union launches its first independent military mission outside of Europe, Operation Artemis, with United Nations backing, to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 2004 - The European Defence Agency is formed to help EU governments develop their military capabilities. 2007 - Rapid-reaction forces of about 1,500 soldiers, called EU Battlegroups, are formed under control of the Council of the European Union. However, they are never used. 2009 - The EU s Lisbon Treaty strengthens the Common Foreign and Security Policy, creating an EU foreign policy chief. 2011 - France and Britain lead a campaign to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi but cannot impose no-fly zone without U.S. aircraft, munitions. 2017 - More than 20 EU governments sign a defense pact to integrate military planning, weapons development and operations that will rely on a 5 billion-euro ($5.83 billion) defense fund. | 1 |
20,898 | Rocky start to U.S.-China talks pushes steel shares higher | SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Shares of steel makers rallied on Wednesday after a rocky start to U.S.-China economic talks raised expectations that President Donald Trump would impose tariffs on steel imports. The S&P 1500 steel index .SPCOMSTEEL jumped 2.3 percent to its highest level since early May. U.S. Steel (X.N) rose 4.9 percent, AK Steel (AKS.N) gained 3.6 percent and Nucor (NUE.N) climbed 2.2 percent. In opening remarks at an annual summer dialogue between Washington and Beijing, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross criticized China’s $347 billion trade surplus with the United States. Ross’s comments heightened expectations on Wall Street that Trump would follow through on threats to apply new tariffs to remedy a “big problem” of steel dumping from China and others. “Investors are essentially handicapping a probability that Trump will announce a broad-based anti-dumping measure on steel imports,” said Longbow Research analyst Christopher Olin. Honoring a promise made in the 2016 election campaign, in April this year Trump initiated a “Section 232” review of the steel industry, a provision in the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 allowing for the imposition of tariffs or quotas on imports if national security is threatened. Steel producers in the United States, like U.S. Steel Corp and AK Steel, stand to benefit from protectionist tariffs which would enable them to raise their prices. But such tariffs would hurt U.S. manufacturers who buy steel. KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst Philip Gibbs said speculation that the Commerce Department would soon release its section 232 report was helping steel stocks. He added that potential U.S. tariffs on steel could be found illegal by the World Trade Organization. | 1 |
20,899 | ¡VIVA LA REVOLUTION! As Venezuela Collapses Under Socialist Rule, Dictator Maduro Endorses Fellow Socialist Bernie Sanders | The leader of the worst economy on the planet is endorsing fellow Socialist Bernie Sanders. Let that sink in Yes It s A future you can believe in if you re an abject idiot who doesn t have access to a single news source. VENEZUELA TODAY: The army has moved in, Coca-Cola has stopped production and inflation is expected to hit 500 per cent.Venezuela s economic crisis has ratcheted up a gear in the last week after President Nicholas Maduro deployed the army to strategic areas for two days of war games designed as a show of strength to a population increasingly pitted against him.The drastic escalation follows a major deterioration in the country s finances that have seen widespread shortages of food, basic goods and power cuts, fueled by years of economic mismanagement and corruption that have seen unemployment skyrocket to 17 per cent as the oil price has plummeted.University College London s leadership professor Marco Aponte-Moreno, who was born and raised in Caracas, told news.com.au the past few days had seen the stakes raised for both corrupt officials and those dying from lack of food and medicine in his home country. The stakes are very high [for the government] if they lose power, he said, adding that many involved in illegal activities could be charged and taken to trial. The situation has become a matter of life and death for the government and also a matter of life and death for the people because people are dying because they don t have their medicines, the water they need. It s very sad to see the country like this, especially when you take into account that this is a country that has large natural resources. I have to admit it isn t a surprise. Corruption, shortages are things that are not new in Venezuela but they have never reached this level before. Via- News.comauVenezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has endorsed fellow socialist Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., for president, calling him our revolutionary friend. In a televised address on Tuesday, Maduro criticized the U.S. election system, which he called archaic, for putting Sanders at a disadvantage. If the elections were free, Maduro said, Bernie Sanders would be president of the United States. Socialist Venezuela, which has been criticized for lack of transparency in elections, frequently denounces the U.S. government and accuses it of imperialism. The South American country is also prone to blaming its economic woes on Washington, and the two countries do not exchange ambassadors.Is this the America so many college students are dreaming of?Venezuela teeters on the brink of collapse, with low global oil prices contributing to massive shortage of basic goods like flour and toilet paper. The government recently moved to a two-day work week for public employees in an effort to conserve electricity.Maduro, who has publicly denounced President Barack Obama, said Sanders ought to win in the United States. The Vermont senator trails frontrunner Hillary Clinton and has little chance of amassing the delegates needed to receive the Democratic nomination. Via: The Olympian | 0 |
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