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21,700 | Germany says it would be 'wrong signal' to withdraw mission from Iraq | BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany s foreign minister urged parliament on Tuesday to extend a military mission training Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq, saying to withdraw the German force would raise the risk of a new civil war there. Germany resumed its military mission last month after a brief suspension following a referendum for independence in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. The vote was rejected by Baghdad and triggered an Iraqi military offensive that recaptured disputed areas of the north from the Peshmerga. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who will step down soon as his Social Democratic party returns to opposition after heavy losses in the Sept. 24 election, was appealing to likely participants in the next government, particularly the Greens, not to oppose an extension of Berlin s military mission in Iraq. Germany has about 150 soldiers training Kurdish forces to fight Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria. But the sharp rise in tensions between the Kurds and Iraq s central government has raised concern in Germany about the mission s future. Gabriel said, however, The more international groups are active there, the lower the chance of a new escalation. A withdrawal would be the wrong signal to the parties to the conflict, as if we were resigned to accepting the danger of a new civil war, he told reporters. He said the Berlin government had met with a variety of parties recently to urge a political solution to tensions between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Baghdad. We hope that the very fragile ceasefire holds and that a political solution can be achieved. A new civil war in Iraq would bring unbelievable suffering to this country, which has already suffered too much as a result of political conflicts in recent years. Iraqi Kurds voted overwhelmingly to break away from Iraq in the Sept. 25 referendum, defying the central government in Baghdad as well as neighboring Turkey and Iran who have their own Kurdish minorities. In retaliation, Iraqi government forces and the allied, Iran-backed Popular Mobilisation militia recaptured the oil city of Kirkuk and other disputed territories held by Peshmerga just outside official KRG boundaries. On Oct. 27 Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared a pause in the offensive, though it was unclear whether there was any official agreement on a ceasefire.The German cabinet has urged the Bundestag (lower house of parliament) to vote to extend the mission by three months to give the next government time to review all foreign missions. Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives are trying to form a new coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats and the environmentalist Greens after losing considerable support to the far right in the Sept. 24 election. | 1 |
21,701 | MILITARY LEADERS SPEAK UP: IRAN DEAL MAKES WAR MORE LIKELY | John Kerry insinuated that war would be more likely if the Iran Deal wasn t done but military experts are saying the exact opposite. I would have to agree with those who really know what they re talking about military leaders and intelligence officials.The nuclear agreement with Iran will increase the likelihood of military conflict, according to a council of prominent retired military leaders and intelligence officials.The Jewish Institute for National Security Affair s (JINSA) Iran Strategy Council released a report Wednesday that contends that the United States will be in a far worse position to prevent a nuclear Iran after 10 to 15 years of the agreement regarding Tehran s nuclear capacity, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Implementing JCPOA will have significant strategic consequences for our interests and allies in the region, retired Gen. James Conway and retired Air Force Gen. Chuck Wald, who together chair the council, said in a statement.According to the report, the agreement increases both the probability and danger of hostilities with Iran. The report also suggests that the deal will allow Iran to grow more militarily capable over the next decade as the United States sees an erosion of its own forces. The United States is in a far better position to prevent a nuclear Iran today, even by military means if necessary, than when the JCPOA sunsets, the authors say. The strategic environment will grow much more treacherous in the next 15 years. Comparatively, Iran will be economically stronger, regionally more powerful and militarily more capable, while the United States will have a smaller, less capable fighting force, diminished credibility and fewer allies. On a conference call with reporters Wednesday, Conway warned that the nuclear deal will unleash Iran in ways that we have not yet witnessed. The billions Iran will receive in sanctions relief, he said, would allow the country to bolster its military and conduct nefarious activity. Indeed, the report argues that the deal will provide Iran with the means to increase support for terrorist and insurgent proxies, aggravate sectarian conflict and trigger both nuclear and conventional proliferation cascades in the Middle East.Conway suggested that the finalized deal would do nothing to discourage Iran from funding terrorism or prevent Iranians from dispersing anti-American rhetoric. A few days after they sign the deal, they re still chanting Death to America, the retired general said.Via: WFB | 0 |
21,702 | Hurricane Max downgraded to tropical storm, moves inland over Mexico | MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Hurricane Max was downgraded to a tropical storm on Thursday evening, bearing down on a region with the popular tourist resorts of Acapulco, Zihuatanejo and Ixtapa. Max s maximum sustained winds decreased to 70 miles per hour (113 km per hour) on Thursday evening, and the storm was about 80 miles (129 km) east of Acapulco, the National Hurricane Center in Florida said. The storm is expected to continue weakening dramatically as it moves inland over Southern Mexico, and it will likely be downgraded to a tropical depression on Thursday evening. Nevertheless, the center warned of heavy rains and flooding in the coastal states of Guerrero and Oaxaca. In the state of Guerrero, home to some of Mexico s major tourist resorts, Max could dump as much as 20 inches (51 cm) of rain in coastal areas, the NHC said, potentially triggering flash floods and mudslides. The storm is bad news for Acapulco as tourists prepare to travel to the city to celebrate Mexico s Independence Day this weekend. Meanwhile, tropical storm Norma formed in the Pacific on Thursday, according to the NHC. The storm, which is currently 360 miles (579 km) south of Cabo San Lucas, on the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula, could become a hurricane by late Friday. Max arrives a week after a powerful 8.1-magnitude quake shook southern Mexico, destroying thousands of buildings in the state of Oaxaca and killing at least 98 people nationwide. | 1 |
21,703 | Tillerson, Russia's Lavrov discuss Syria, Ukraine, Middle East | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson discussed cooperation on the Syrian crisis, Middle East issues, and the agreement to bring peace to Ukraine in a meeting on Sunday, Lavrov s spokeswoman said. Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the meeting was on cooperation in Syria crisis, Middle East issues and Minsk agreement . No other details were immediately available. The top Russian and U.S. diplomats met in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. | 1 |
21,704 | Trump vows to back U.S. dairy farmers in Canada trade spat | (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump promised on Tuesday to defend American dairy farmers who have been hurt by Canada’s protectionist trade practices, during a visit to the cheese-making state of Wisconsin. Canada’s dairy sector is protected by high tariffs on imported products and controls on domestic production as a means of supporting prices that farmers receive. It is frequently criticized by other dairy-producing countries. “We’re also going to stand up for our dairy farmers,” Trump said in Kenosha, Wisconsin. “Because in Canada some very unfair things have happened to our dairy farmers and others.” Trump did not detail his concerns, but promised his administration would call the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and demand an explanation. “It’s another typical one-sided deal against the United States and it’s not going to be happening for long,” Trump said. Trump also reiterated his threat to eliminate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico if it cannot be changed. U.S. dairy industry groups want Trump to urge Trudeau to halt a pricing policy that has disrupted some U.S. dairy exports and prioritize dairy market access in NAFTA renegotiation talks. “A WTO complaint would be a last resort because it would take five or six years to come to any resolution,” said Jaime Castaneda, senior vice president for the U.S. Dairy Export Council. Canada’s dairy farmers agreed last year to sell milk ingredients used for cheese-making to Canadian processors, which include Saputo Inc and Parmalat Canada Inc [PLTPRC.UL] at prices competitive with international rates. The pricing agreement was a response to growing U.S. exports of milk proteins that were not subject to Canada’s high tariffs. Canada’s envoy to Washington on Tuesday sent a letter to the governors of New York and Wisconsin - both major dairy states - saying U.S. producers’ problems stemmed from overproduction rather than Canadian policy. In the letter, released by Ottawa, ambassador David MacNaughton said Canada’s dairy industry was less protectionist than its U.S. counterpart. Industry groups in New Zealand, Australia, the European Union, Mexico and the United States complained the new prices for Canadian milk ingredients under-cut exports to Canada. “President Trump’s reaction is not surprising. He is defending his domestic dairy industry,” said Jacques Lefebvre, CEO of Dairy Processors Association of Canada. “Further communications with the Canadian government will broaden his perspective.” The Dairy Farmers of Canada said it was confident Ottawa would “continue to protect and defend” the dairy industry. | 1 |
21,705 | Flynn, Kushner targeted several states in failed U.N. lobbying: diplomats | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Former U.S. National Security Adviser Michael Flynn admitted on Friday that he asked Russia to delay a U.N. vote seen as damaging to Israel, but diplomats said it was not the only country he and presidential adviser Jared Kushner lobbied. In the hours before the vote by the 15-member United Nations Security Council on Dec. 23, Flynn also phoned the U.N. missions of Uruguay and Malaysia, and Kushner spoke with Kim Darroch, the British ambassador to the United States, according to diplomats familiar with the conversations, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The lobbying took place before Republican President Donald Trump, who was known for his pro-Israel campaign rhetoric, took office on Jan. 20. It failed, with the Security Council adopting a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement building on land Palestinians want for an independent state. The vote was 14 in favor and one abstention by the United States. The efforts made on Israel’s behalf capped several days of unusual diplomacy. In a surprise Dec. 21 move, Egypt had called for a vote the next day on the draft resolution, prompting both Trump and Israel to urge Washington to veto the text. A senior Israeli official told Reuters that Israeli officials contacted Trump’s transition team at a “high level” to ask for help after failing to persuade Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration to veto the draft U.N. resolution. According to court documents made public on Friday, a member of Trump’s presidential transition team, later identified by sources as Trump’s son-in-law Kushner, told Flynn on Dec. 22 to contact officials from foreign governments, including Russia, to convince them to delay the vote or veto the resolution. Flynn spoke with then-Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak that day, and again the following day, according to the court documents. Also on Dec. 22, Trump discussed the resolution with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Egypt withdrew the text from a council vote the same day. The 1799 Logan Act bars unauthorized private U.S. citizens, which Trump, Flynn, and Kushner all were at the time, from negotiating with foreign governments. However, only two Americans have ever been indicted for allegedly violating it – in 1802 and 1852 – and neither was convicted. Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Kushner, did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Friday about Israel or other issues. A SECOND GO-ROUND After Egypt withdrew the resolution, its co-sponsors, New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela, and Senegal, put it forward again for a Dec. 23 vote. In Washington, Kushner was in contact with Britain’s Darroch, and Flynn spoke with Kislyak - lobbying to delay the vote or veto the resolution. A resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the council’s five permanent members - China, Britain, France, Russia, and the United States - to be adopted. Russian U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, who died in February, signaled to colleagues behind closed doors on Dec. 23 that he was unhappy with the haste with which the draft resolution was being put to a vote, but he did not ask for the vote to be delayed, diplomats said. Flynn also tried to speak to Malaysian U.N. Ambassador Ramlan Bin Ibrahim, but Ibrahim did not take the call. He also called the Uruguayan U.N. mission, eventually getting through to Deputy Ambassador Luis Bermudez – who was the charge d’affaires - minutes before the vote. | 1 |
21,706 | stupid things voxcoms matthew yglesias has said daily wire | an email released by wikileaks reveals annoyance from hillary clintons presidential campaign directors with one of their media allies leftwing cnbc democrat john harwood comment on this article via your facebook account comment on this article via your disqus account follow us on facebook | 1 |
21,707 | Another Prominent Republican Declares: ‘I Will Not Be Voting For Donald Trump’ | Donald Trump s Republican issue just got a lot harder. After 50 prominent Republican security expert denounced the Republican nomine as a threat to national security, a GOP member of the United States Senate has finally, after much speculation, come out and said what s music to every Democrats ears.Susan Collins, a moderate member of the GOP from Maine, has come out and pledged that she will not be voting for nor endorsing Donald Trump, after months of withholding an endorsement pending a change of heat from the presidential nominee. Talking to reporters, Collins said plainly:I will not be voting for Donald Trump for president. This is not a decision I make lightly, for I am a lifelong Republican. But Donald Trump does not reflect historical Republican values nor the inclusive approach to governing that is critical to healing the divisions in our country.While touching on Trump (and Bernie Sanders ) resonating campaigns that struck a nerve with millions of Americans who feel disenfranchised, Collins ultimately came to conclude that Trump rejecting the conventions of political correctness is different from showing complete disregard for common decency by shedding the stilted campaign dialogue has left her with no other option.One major reason Collins decided to back out of endorsing Trump was his attack on military personnel and their families, like her colleague John McCain.To Collins, Trump isn t just advocating for an abolition of political correctness, he s engaging in a full on assault on decency. And it s that boisterous arrogance that is turning off millions of decent, honest, Lincoln-Republicans like Collins.Collins joins her Independent colleague Angus King is deciding to forgo a Trump endorsement, representing a state that traditionally goes Democratic in presidential elections. Collins is also now the second Republican in the Senate to come out and refuse to support Trump indefinitely, no contingencies.Thank you, Senator Collins, for standing up to Trump and his bigoted, shameful scam of a candidacy. And special thanks for standing up the bully pulpit used by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has been desperately trying to herd his sheep of senators to get behind Trump.Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 0 |
21,708 | This Cruz Supporter Wins The Award For Craziest GOP Voter Of The Year (VIDEO) | Every once in a while, we are introduced to an undeniably bat sh*t crazy Republican. Linda Farley of Kentucky is one of these nut jobs.Farley, a die-hard Republican, was pulled over in West Virginia while driving her award winning Liberty Van because the vehicle was all lit up with illegal lights. The patriot mobile has all kinds of insane ramblings on it like Red is the new green and Occupy your brain first. Yep, that really says Amerika. It looks like she put all of her leftover lawn ornaments on the top of her van, doesn t it?I don t think she understands the meaning of injustice. Occupy your brain first ? Ohhhhh the irony.I just can t even ..I m so confused. What happened on 9-11-2002? Now that you have seen the just how nutty she is, let s get back to her police stop.In addition to all of the bedazzled sayings on the Liberty Van, it is lit up with Christmas lights. While traveling through West Virginia, the police saw the lights and stopped her. The state, like many others, prohibit the use of blue lights on cars that are not emergency vehicles. Farley was arrested for her illegal lights and believes that her personal liberty is in danger because she BROKE THE LAW. She also believes her criminal behavior somehow means that Hillary Clinton should be in prison.During an interview with InfoWars, the nutter said: If they can arrest grandmas for Christmas lights, definitely she belongs [in jail]. Yes, because that makes perfect sense.When she was asked what exactly she is doing with her super cool van, she responded: I m sick and tired by time we get a primary in Kentucky all the good ones are gone and I have to pick from the lesser of the evils. And I decided, since I m retired and I have this rolling billboard here, that I would try to help out the one that I think is not the lesser of evils. Her lesser evil is Senator Ted Cruz. The man who had a starring role in the government shutdown in 2013 (the one that cost Americans billions of dollars) and who was the first to say that he would block anybody President Obama nominates to replace Justice Antonin Scalia. I mean after all the best candidate for President of the United States is definitely someone who hates the government, right? Apparently, in Farley s mind he is and that is why she is CRUZ n for the Constitution. Watch her interview with InfoWars below: Featured image via video screenshot; all other images via Libertyvan.com | 0 |
21,709 | Mueller team lawyer brings witness-flipping expertise to Trump probes | (Reuters) - A veteran federal prosecutor recruited onto special counsel Robert Mueller’s team is known for a skill that may come in handy in the investigation of potential ties between Russia and U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign team: persuading witnesses to turn on friends, colleagues and superiors. Andrew Weissmann, who headed the U.S. Justice Department’s criminal fraud section before joining Mueller’s team last month, is best known for two assignments - the investigation of now-defunct energy company Enron and organized crime cases in Brooklyn, New York - that depended heavily on gaining witness cooperation. Securing the cooperation of people close to Trump, many of whom have been retaining their own lawyers, could be important for Mueller, who was named by the Justice Department as special counsel on May 17 and is investigating, among other issues, whether Trump himself has sought to obstruct justice. Trump has denied allegations of both collusion and obstruction. “Flipping” witnesses is a common, although not always successful, tactic in criminal prosecutions. Robert Ray, who succeeded Kenneth Starr as the independent counsel examining former President Bill Clinton, noted that Trump’s fired former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, has already offered through his lawyer to testify before Congress in exchange for immunity, suggesting potential willingness to cooperate as a witness. “It would seem to me the time is now to make some decisions about what you have and what leverage can be applied to get the things you don’t have,” Ray said, referring to Mueller’s team. Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and others close to the president already have hired their own lawyers to help navigate Mueller’s expanding probe and ongoing congressional investigations. Kathryn Ruemmler, who served as White House counsel under former President Barack Obama, said Weissmann is willing to take risks to secure witness testimony that other prosecutors might not. Ruemmler worked with Weissmann on the Justice Department’s Enron task force that investigated the massive corporate fraud that led to the company’s 2001 collapse. Ruemmler recalled that Weissmann had a hunch that former Enron treasurer Ben Glisan would be willing to talk despite already having pleaded guilty without agreeing to cooperate. So Weissmann had U.S. marshals bring Glisan before the grand jury from prison, Ruemmler said. Other prosecutors might have feared Glisan’s testimony could contradict their theory of the case, Ruemmler said, but Weissmann’s gamble paid off when the former executive became a key witness. “He’s not afraid to lose, and that is sometimes an unusual quality,” Ruemmler said of Weissmann. Weissmann also led lengthy negotiations with lawyers for Andrew Fastow, Enron’s former chief financial officer and a star prosecution witness in the case, gaining leverage from the fact that prosecutors had indicted Fastow’s wife, also a former Enron employee, on tax fraud charges. Both pleaded guilty, and Fastow testified against former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, who was convicted in 2006. Fastow declined to comment. Glisan could not be reached for comment. Representatives for Mueller and the Trump legal team declined to comment. Critics have said say Weissmann’s hardball approach can lead to prosecutorial overreach. A number of Enron convictions were overturned on appeal, and Skilling’s 24-year sentence was later reduced by 10 years. Defense lawyer Tom Kirkendall, who represented clients related to the Enron case, said the task force intimidated witnesses and misinterpreted the law. But Sam Buell, a former prosecutor who was a member of the Enron task force, called such criticism routine in high-stakes cases. Mueller has several other highly experienced lawyers on his team, including U.S. Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben. Trump has also been building a legal team led by New York lawyer Marc Kasowitz, with veteran Washington defense lawyer John Dowd recently coming aboard. Before his work relating to Enron, Weissmann served as a federal prosecutor in the organized crime bureau in Brooklyn. In 1997, he and trial partner George Stamboulidis brought down one of the country’s most powerful mob bosses, Vincent “the Chin” Gigante, with the help of turncoat witnesses. “We cut our teeth in the organized crime section,” said Stamboulidis, now in private practice. “And the only way you can make those cases is to get people to cooperate, even when the oath of Omerta (a Mafia code of silence and non-cooperation with authorities) was strong and in full play.” | 1 |
21,710 | Macron's Europe reforms in focus in German coalition talks: Gabriel | BERLIN (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron s proposed European reforms will play a big role in talks between German Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives to form a government with the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), a top SPD member said. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who led the party until stepping aside earlier this year to make way for former European Parliament president Martin Schulz, said he supported Macron s call for a separate budget for the eurozone. We should be ready to invest more in our future, Gabriel told Germany s Funke newspaper group and the French newspaper Ouest-France in an interview published Saturday. Germany is the biggest winner of the EU and can afford to contribute more. Gabriel said Macron s proposals to reform the European Union would be very important in the coalition talks, which are due to begin on Jan. 7 after Merkel failed to reach agreement with two smaller parties. He said he was enthusiastic about Macron s core idea of strengthening the EU and making it a global player. The SPD had initially hoped to go into opposition after suffering its worst election losses in the post-war era, but was persuaded to enter into negotiations with conservatives to avoid new elections. Merkel earlier this month gave her strongest endorsement of Macron s proposals, but Germany has been hamstrung in taking more decisive action on any concrete proposals until it has a new government in place. Merkel said she saw promising areas of common ground with Social Democrats on the future of Europe, and urged speedy action to work on EU reforms before the next European elections in 2019. This week she said she wants an initial coalition deal with the SPD by mid-January. Macron hopes to make progress with Germany on ideas to reform the eurozone by March, once Germany has a new coalition government in place, with the goal of agreeing a roadmap with all eurozone leaders by June. Gabriel also called for the EU to adopt programs that would encourage communities in poorer member states to accept more migrants by offering financial assistance. | 1 |
21,711 | PLEASE SHARE! TREY GOWDY DRILLS COMEY On The Clinton Lies…Every American Should See This [Video] | In crisp lawyerly style, Trey Gowdy makes good use of his 5 minutes, questioning FBI Director Jim Comey on his astonishing no-prosecute recommendation for Hillary Clinton after proving extreme carelessness in her (and her staff s) mishandling of classified information during her tenure as Secretary of State: | 0 |
21,712 | U.S. congressman to resign after report alleged he asked woman to have an abortion | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican Representative Tim Murphy will resign from Congress on Oct. 21, House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Thursday, following a report alleging that Murphy had asked a woman with whom he was having an affair to get an abortion. Murphy had said in a statement on Wednesday he would not seek re-election next year. The lawmaker had been a member of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, once receiving a 92 percent score from the conservative Family Research Council, which opposes abortion. There was no immediate response from Murphy’s office for request for comment on Thursday. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, citing a Jan. 25 text message, said the woman had chastised Murphy for asking her to get an abortion during a pregnancy scare despite his office posting an anti-abortion statement on Facebook. According to the newspaper, Murphy texted her in response: “I get what you say about my March for life messages. I’ve never written them. Staff does them. I read them and winced. I told staff don’t write any more. I will.” Murphy’s extramarital affair had first been exposed in 2016 during the woman’s divorce proceedings, the Post-Gazette said. “This afternoon I received a letter of resignation from Congressman Tim Murphy, effective October 21,” Ryan said in a statement. “It was Dr. Murphy’s decision to move on to the next chapter of his life, and I support it.” The resignation will not affect the balance of power in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Murphy, 65, who was first elected in 2002 to represent a southwestern Pennsylvania district, had been a commander in the U.S. Navy Reserves and is a practicing psychologist, his office’s website said. On Wednesday, Murphy voted for passage of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban women from having abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy in most cases, according to GovTrack, which follows congressional voting records. | 1 |
21,713 | Calm Down, Politifact Confirms Majority Of Money Clooney Raised Isn’t Going To Hillary Clinton | Recently, liberal firebrands like George Clooney and his wife, Amal Alamuddin, have come under heavy fire from the left for their $353,000 per couple fundraising dinner to benefit the candidacy of Hillary Clinton for president.Some people were so incensed they literally threw dollar bills at Clinton.But here s the kicker: the majority of the money raised at the Clooney-Clinton dinners aren t going to Clinton they re going to down ticket candidates to take back the House and the Senate.While appearing on Meet the Press, Clooney, who brushed off the notion that he is a corporate shill as one of the funnier things you could say about me told host Chuck Todd:It s [the money] going to the congressmen and senators to try to take back Congress. And the reason that s important (is) we need to take the Senate back because we need to confirm the Supreme Court justice, because that fifth vote on the Supreme Court can overturn Citizens United and get this obscene, ridiculous amount of money out so I never have to do a fundraiser again. And that s why I m doing it.Politifact rated that as Mostly True. Here s how it goes:So only $2,700 out of $353,000 will go directly to Clinton. That s approximately 0.0076 percent less than one percent.While leftists threw dollar bills at Clinton, Democrats across the country were getting the support they so need to take back two chambers (possibly three with the Supreme Court) thanks to George Clooney.Featured image via Justin Sullivan/Getty Images | 0 |
21,714 | LOL! Costco Puts Hillary In “Milk Aisle” For Book Signing…Customers Shout “HILLARY FOR PRISON!”…Ask For Membership Refunds [VIDEO] | Laura Loomer decided to make a trip to Brookfield, CT to see how customers at Costco were receiving Crooked Hillary at her book signing tour. Loomer is the same awesome activist who bravely stormed the stage in Central Park and disrupted the Trump assassination play (click HERE for the video), this summer. Last week, Loomer was forcibly removed from Hillary s book signing in New York. When it was her turn to have her book signed, Loomer asked Hillary questions like, Where are your 33,000 emails? and What happened to Seth Rich? (Click HERE for Hillary ambush video). Hillary s reaction was priceless.Here is Laura s video showing the reaction by customers to Hillary appearing at their local Costco for a book signing: Protesters at Hillary Clinton book signing in Brookfield, CT https://t.co/QYNtcVGlKJ Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) September 16, 2017Loomer was eventually blocked by secret service from getting too close to Hillary. Hillary clearly didn t want any more nasty videos out there exposing the truth about the questions Americans really want to hear her answer:Just showed up to @Costco for @HillaryClinton book signing and when I arrived police said @SecretService told them not to let me in. Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) September 16, 2017That moment when @HillaryClinton blocks Laura from going to Costco with secret service and she wanted to be president?? Haha. Way to go loom https://t.co/kmModmdsJ8 Joe Biggs (@Rambobiggs) September 16, 2017Costco did allow Loomer inside the store, in spite of Hillary s request to keep her away:Thank you @Costco for respecting my first amendment right and allowing me inside despite @HillaryClinton telling @SecretService to ban me! Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) September 16, 2017Loomer was told by Costco employees that they don t understand why Costco would allow her to come and that customers were canceling their memberships:A @Costco employee just told me "IDK why they even let her come. They said a lot of people have canceled their memberships. We hate her." https://t.co/c7t8TpF39o Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) September 16, 2017Hillary was strategically placed in the milk aisle and behind the toilet paper at Costco:Behind the toilet paper & yellow rope is where @HillaryClinton was signing books. Yes, #WhatHappened is in the toilet paper aisle @Costco! pic.twitter.com/37j1z6CnjD Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) September 16, 2017Could've been in the @WhiteHouse , but now @HillaryClinton is signing copies of her fiction book next to gallons of milk. #WhatHappened pic.twitter.com/Qdg276pSmL Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) September 16, 2017Here s a great video of some anti-Hillary protesters that were found in the parking lot of Costco, shouting Hillary for Prison :"I think it's a disgrace that @Costco has @HillaryClinton. She's a criminal!" Westchester. Housewife with a #Trump flag pic.twitter.com/YpdLq7yaTI Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) September 16, 2017This Twitter user shares a great photo and comment:So Trump is in the White House and Hillary is between the bottled water and toilet paper at Costco signing her book pic.twitter.com/4JfoYRbz4u Renna (@RennaW) September 16, 2017 | 0 |
21,715 | Twitter to meet Congressional panel probing 2016 election | (Reuters) - Twitter Inc representatives will meet with the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence staff next week in relation to inquiries into the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a company representative said. The committee, along with other congressional committees and special counsel Robert Mueller, is investigating possible links between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia. Twitter’s meeting with the committee comes amid mounting pressure on regulators and Silicon Valley companies to open up the opaque world of online political ads and to prevent governments from using them to sway elections or attempt other meddling. Facebook said earlier this month that a Russia-based operation spent $100,000 on thousands of ads on its social media platform promoting ‘divisive’ messages before and after last year’s presidential election. After Facebook’s revelations, Democrats have urged the Federal Election Commission to require transparency for social media advertising. Russia continues to deny meddling in the election, in which Republican Donald Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton. | 1 |
21,716 | Turkey could look elsewhere if Russia won't share missile technology: minister | ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey could seek a deal to acquire a missile defense system with another country if Russia does not agree to joint production of a defense shield, its foreign minister was quoted as saying on Monday. NATO member Turkey is seeking to buy the S-400 system from Russia, alarming Washington and other members of the Western alliance, and President Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara has already paid a deposit on the deal. Turkey hopes that the deal would allow it to acquire the technology to develop its own defense system, and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, in an interview with Turkish newspaper Aksam, said the two countries had agreed on joint production. If Russia doesn t want to comply, we ll make an agreement with another country, he said when asked about reports that Russia was reluctant to share the technology. But we haven t got any official negative replies (from Russia) . Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, asked in a conference call with reporters if the deal would go ahead if Moscow did not agree to joint production, said: Contacts and negotiations at an expert level in the context of this deal are ongoing. This is all I can say for now. Cavusoglu said Turkey had initially hoped to reach agreement with producers from NATO allies. Western firms which had bid for the contract included U.S. firm Raytheon, which put in an offer with its Patriot missile defense system. Franco-Italian group Eurosam, owned by the multinational European missile maker MBDA and France s Thales, came second in the tender. Turkey, with the second-largest army in the alliance, has enormous strategic importance for NATO, abutting as it does Syria, Iraq and Iran. But the relationship has become fractious since an attempted coup against Erdogan in July 2016 and a subsequent crackdown. | 1 |
21,717 | Dyer: ‘LA Times ‘Fake News’ Article is an Attack on Independent Media’ | Jay Dyer 21st Century WireAccording to a recent feature article published by the LA Times, and which has since gone viral, this website, 21st Century Wire, has been placed at the top of a list of fake news sites compiled by Dr Melissa Zimdars, an associate professor at Merrimack College in Massachusetts. Aside from being a highly political attempt to discredit a number of online news source which Dr Zimdars and the Democratic Party establishment probably labels as Alt Right, this coordinated effort also points directly to a much deeper agenda, as part of a larger as psychological operation to create an algorithm for filtering (censoring) news items on major internet platforms and social networks.I take that to heart, since I write for 21WIRE. It s no coincidence that this LA Times hit piece comes in the same week that Democratic Party pundits and leaders are blaming Hillary Clinton s loss to Donald Trump on fake news posted on Facebook which they claim wrongly influenced voters. Also just by coincidence this week, Facebook, Google and other DNC affiliated Silicon Valley media partners have announced they are planning to draw-up lists of numerous alternative media websites including right wing websites as well as known satire sites, and ours as fake. Google and Facebook will then be able to flag and restrict banned websites from being able to earn revenue through their advertising networks. Of course, the real reason for this is explained in my video (watch below) outlining the absurdity of the most astounding liars on the planet the Mainstream Media accusing websites like ours as pushing out fake news. Ultimately, this is an attack on all independent media.It seems that Dr Zimdar s master list was made to place 21WIRE at the top and yet, it s perhaps the best site on the list and is the only one that has been to Syria, reported on the ground in Aleppo, and even met with Syria president Assad all things that most corporate mainstream media outlets have not managed to do. 21WIRE also blasted faux NGO the White Helmets away as a western-funded propaganda front. 21WIRE is subject to regular DDoS attacks and regularly does real journalism. It is also edited by accredited journalists and is frequently featured on radio and television. That is why it has been targeted in this hit piece because it is independent and not attached to any political party.Watch my video analysis here: ***Jay Dyer is the author of the new book, Esoteric Hollywood: Sex, Cults and Symbols in Film from Trine Day Publishers. Focusing on film, philosophy, geopolitics and all things esoteric, JaysAnalysis and his podcast, Esoteric Hollywood, investigates the deeper meanings between the headlines, exploring the hidden aspects of our sinister synthetic mass media matrix.READ MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE NOW & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 |
21,718 | Clinton snags AFL-CIO official, former Sanders staffer, in labor outreach | LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has hired two people with close ties to U.S. organized labor to try to lock down support from union members as Republican candidate Donald Trump makes courting working-class voters central to his campaign. The two new staffers, Lori D’Orazio and Michele Gilliam, are to be deputy labor campaign directors, according to a campaign aide. D’Orazio is moving to the campaign from the biggest U.S. labor federation, the AFL-CIO. Gilliam is a former staffer for Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who was Clinton’s fiercest primary competitor. Clinton and Sanders battled fiercely over union support during the Democratic primary, with Clinton, the presumptive nominee, ultimately securing the bulk of the national endorsements from labor unions. But she will need to harness the on-the-ground manpower of unions in crucial battleground states ahead of November’s general election match-up with the populist presumptive Republican nominee, Trump. The aide said the campaign is counting on D’Orazio and Gilliam to do just that. Although organized labor is a traditionally Democratic constituency, Trump has made a play to win over rank-and-file union members by criticizing international trade deals such as the pending Trans Pacific Partnership, which labor opposes. Even so, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka warned last month when the federation endorsed Clinton that a Trump presidency would be disastrous for U.S. workers and vowed to mobilize the group’s resources to defeat him. The AFL-CIO is the largest U.S. federation of labor unions that collectively represent more than 12 million workers. Before joining the AFL-CIO, D’Orazio worked for another large U.S. union, the United Auto Workers, and Gilliam once served as an organizer for a local chapter of the Transport Workers Union. | 1 |
21,719 | WOMAN CRIES After Seeing How Easily Our Votes Are Stolen By Electronic Voting Machines [VIDEO] | There are people out there who are giving their lives trying to make our elections secure and they re being called conspiracy theorists and technophobes. And these vendors are lying and saying that everything s alright and it s not alright. It s as though our country is one country and pretending to be another country. How can this be happening in our elections? Watch: | 0 |
21,720 | U.S. Navy, shipbuilders ready for Trump's expansion plan | SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (Reuters) - The U.S. arms industry is ready and capable of boosting production of new ships if President-elect Donald Trump makes good his vow to expand the U.S. Navy to 350 ships, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson told Reuters. Shifting the current target of 308 ships upwards would be “remarkably easy” as long as there is funding to pay the bill, the top uniformed Navy official said in an interview at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in southern California. “If it’s resourced, it’s a matter of working closely with the industrial base, and they definitely are ready to do that,” he said, adding the only limiting factor would be hiring and training workers to build the new ships. “If I do not have that capacity, I can create it faster than you can appropriate the money,” Mike Petters, chief executive of Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc (HII.N), the largest U.S. military shipbuilder, said in a separate interview with Reuters. Trump promised during his U.S. election campaign to expand the Navy to 350 ships, although lawmakers and military officials caution that any such boost would require big increases in staffing, training, maintenance and infrastructure. Richardson said the incoming administration could smooth the way toward the increase by submitting a supplemental budget for fiscal 2017, which ends Sept. 30. “It seems to me that if you want to get something done, you get started.” All eyes are on the funding for an expansion under the shadow of sequestration, the self imposed U.S. spending cap. “The question is, can you get rid of sequestration, because that is going to cloud everybody’s judgment on how fast do I invest, how fast do I build that capacity.” Petters said. Navy officials were still calculating how much it would cost to expand the Navy to 350 ships from around 290 now, but it would depend on the mix of ships and related costs. A supplemental budget request could include munitions, aircraft, and other equipment that can be bought on short notice, followed by later orders for submarines, destroyers, amphibious ships and potentially even carriers, Richardson said. “If you build those closer together, you get economic order quantities. The learning curve gets to be a much more relevant thing and the cost starts to drive down,” he said. Building two carriers at a time would potentially save about $1 billion, Petters said. | 1 |
21,721 | Trump says was being 'sarcastic' in thanking Putin for embassy staff cuts | BEDMINSTER, NJ (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Friday he was being sarcastic when he thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for saving the United States money by ordering cuts in U.S. diplomatic staff in Russia. Asked whether he was being sarcastic, Trump told reporters: “In order to reduce our payroll, absolutely. I think you know that,” Trump said without explicitly criticizing the move. Breaking nearly two weeks of silence on Putin’s July 30 order cutting U.S. embassy and consulate staff by nearly two thirds, Trump said on Thursday: “I’m very thankful that he let go of a large number of people because now we have a smaller payroll,” adding “there’s no real reason for them to go back.” Trump’s remarks rekindled criticism of his kid-glove handling of Putin, especially as he has not shied away from being highly critical of members of his own party, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Putin, reacting to new sanctions imposed by the U.S. Congress and reluctantly signed into law by Trump, ordered Washington to cut its diplomatic and technical staff by 755 people by Sept. 1. Many of those affected likely will be local Russian staffers. It was also a reaction to former President Barack Obama expelling 35 Russian diplomats from the United States last December over the intelligence agency reports. “I was just speaking to the Secretary (of State Rex Tillerson) and we’re talking about coming up with an answer ... by September 1st we’ll have a response,” Trump said. Congressional committees and a special counsel are investigating the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 election campaign by hacking and other methods to help Trump, a Republican. They are also looking into possible collusion between the campaign and Russian officials. Moscow has repeatedly denied meddling in the election and Trump denies any campaign collusion. During his campaign and since becoming president, Trump has consistently called for better ties with Russia, declined to criticize Putin and refused to unequivocally embrace the conclusions of the intelligence agencies. Trump’s remarks were immediately denounced by current and former U.S. officials who have served both Republican and Democratic administrations. The remarks also raised some eyebrows in Europe. “I would have to say in my experience (it is) one of the most bizarre things I have ever heard from any government official, not just the U.S.,” Ojars Kalnins, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee at the Latvian parliament, told Reuters earlier on Friday. “Thanking another foreign leader for firing people from their embassy is unprecedented. It’s bizarre.” | 1 |
21,722 | In the weeds: How top official got tangled in Nigerian aid scandal | WACHAKAL, Nigeria (Reuters) - When millions of people in northeast Nigeria faced hunger and attacks by Islamist militant group Boko Haram in March 2016, the government acted: it decided to spend $1.4 million cutting down weeds around the village of Wachakal in order to stop flooding. Six months later, many of the weeds had grown back and 317 million naira (at the time $1.04 million) had been transferred from the company hired to destroy them to a firm founded by the government official in charge of dispensing aid, according to a Nigerian Senate report. The report, written by a committee of lawmakers from Nigeria s upper chamber of parliament, concluded that companies that received contracts for projects including the weeding from a government body overseen by the official, Babachir Lawal, transferred a total of 500 million naira (worth around $2.2 million) to the firm he set up. The report publicly called for a criminal investigation into the payments. Central to the probe was whether Lawal was involved in a suspected kickback scheme to divert aid money intended for the volatile northeast. The committee said the scheme involved inflating the value of contracts to enrich Lawal and his associates. The report did not provide evidence to show why it believed costs had been enlarged. Lawal, 62, is an ally of President Muhammadu Buhari and one of his first appointments. In a written statement responding to Reuters questions, Lawal denied wrongdoing and said he had been the victim of a Senate witch-hunt. The United Nations has warned that northeast Nigeria is gripped by one of the world s worst humanitarian crises. Boko Haram has burned down homes, destroyed livelihoods and killed thousands of people. Refugees living in camps complain of starvation and disease, while soldiers and police have been accused of rape. A Reuters review of the Senate report s findings shows how two pillars of Buhari s presidency - restoring stability in the northeast and fighting corruption - may have been undermined by the alleged misappropriation of aid money and food. The review draws upon documents detailing bank transfers and corporate records, visits to aid projects and interviews with senior politicians, diplomats and humanitarian workers. The final Senate report, published in May, recommended that Lawal be prosecuted for allegedly flouting procurement rules and breaking his oaths of office. He was suspended in April pending a presidential investigation launched after the Senate s findings first surfaced in an earlier draft of the report. The investigation into Lawal, ordered by Buhari, was headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who delivered his findings to the president on Aug. 22. The president has to look at the report, study it and then make his own decisions, Osinbajo said, without saying what was in the presidential investigation report. Buhari s office referred Reuters to the vice president s comments. Despite Buhari s vows to fight corruption, no major figures have been convicted so far. Boko Haram, who have killed around 20,000 people since 2009, have been pushed back in some areas yet continue to launch attacks, while millions of people in the northeast rely on some form of aid. Shehu Sani, who chaired the Senate committee that produced the report, said overall losses to suspected corruption in various forms in the northeastern humanitarian crisis in recent years had not been determined due to the probe s specific remit and factors that restricted its scope. He said the Senate investigation was limited by the timeframe examined, as it focused on government aid spending since the current administration took office in May, 2015. Sani also said some government agencies had refused to cooperate, access to bank account details was limited and the use of international donor funds was not investigated. We can say, conservatively, that over 10 billion naira ($33 million) of monies that were supposed to go to the IDPs (internally displaced persons) were misappropriated or unaccounted for, or misused from different segments of the Nigerian government, Sani told Reuters. He said he was referring to all forms of corruption related to funds involving Nigerian humanitarian aid dating back around three years, and not just allegations involving Lawal. He declined to elaborate further. The humanitarian crisis began in 2014. Nigeria s then-president, Goodluck Jonathan, set up the Presidential Initiative on the Northeast (PINE) to provide emergency assistance to communities and foster economic growth in the region. PINE had problems from the outset. According to a 2014 internal PINE presentation prepared by the then-chairman for the group s committee, a pilot scheme sent 51 food trucks to Borno state and 10 to Gombe state; none arrived. After he became president in 2015, Buhari made Lawal Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) - Nigeria s top civil servant. Through PINE, Lawal oversaw millions of dollars of aid. The Senate report alleges that most aid contracts in 2016 did not help the needy. Instead, inflated contracts were awarded to companies belonging to top government officials cronies and close associates . It said a company called Rholavision Engineering Limited, which describes itself as Information and Communication Technology Engineers & Consultants and was founded by Lawal in 1990, was where money for companies that were awarded contracts by PINE came to first. In his statement, Lawal said he relinquished ties with Rholavision on Aug. 27, 2015, four days before being sworn in as SGF. But company registry records show he did not resign as a director until Sept. 8, 2016. In addition, a signed letter from Lawal to the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) dated Sept. 16, 2016 - contained in the appendices of the Senate report - said he wished to relinquish his shares in Rholavision. That can t be true, said Lawal in a text message when asked about the apparent discrepancy. This is forged, he said, when sent a picture of the letter to CAC. He declined to elaborate. Rholavision declined to comment. In March and August 2016, PINE awarded two contracts to cut weeds and improve irrigation in riverside communities in the northeastern state of Yobe. For some 30 years, the weeds had caused farmland to flood and prevented people from fishing. The contracts, worth a combined total of 531 million naira, were granted to Josmon Technologies Ltd. The first contract, awarded in March 2016, was for 273 million naira - at the time worth $1.4 million. The second contract was awarded to Josmon in August 2016. Nigeria s naira currency lost around a third of its value two months earlier, so the 258 million naira contract was then worth some $845,000. Rholavision, the company founded by Lawal, received a contract for a consultancy role in the weed-cutting project. The 7.1 million naira contract was awarded in March 2016 when that sum was equivalent to $36,040. Some work was done. Ali Dodo, a farmer in Wachakal, told Reuters that he and others cut weeds around the Komadugu-Yobe river over a month-long period from August 2016. He said contractors paid them 2,500 naira a day. Reuters was unable to determine how much was spent on the work in total. Bank records, however, show that Josmon Technologies paid 317 million naira to Rholavision between March and September 2016. Monday John Apeh, a Josmon director, told Reuters that Josmon has no relationship with Mr Babachir Lawal . In a text message, he said Josmon struggled to finance the PINE contract because the company had been experiencing financial difficulties and would only be paid when the work was complete. That led us to borrow money from Rholavision s MD , he said. Josmon said 195 million naira ($637,359) of the 317 million naira it sent to Rholavision was to repay that loan. Apeh declined to comment on what happened to the remaining 122 million naira. Lawal said in his statement: These purely business transactions between the companies cannot be classified as bribes. Dodo, the local farmer, said weeds started growing back within six months. Despite numerous setbacks, Nigeria s government is trying to reboot aid efforts. Buhari replaced PINE with the Presidential Committee on the Northeast Initiative last October. In June, the government promised to distribute 30,000 tonnes of grain to people displaced by Boko Haram, after saying more than half of food aid previously dispatched had gone missing. Zainab Ahmed, who heads Nigeria s Inter-Ministerial Task Force on the Humanitarian Response in the Northeast, told Reuters the deliveries would now be guarded by soldiers. Coordination between agencies is not perfect but it has improved a great deal and is getting better, she said. | 1 |
21,723 | Myanmar protesters try to block aid shipment to Muslim Rohingya | SITTWE, Myanmar (Reuters) - Buddhist protesters in Myanmar threw petrol bombs to try to block an aid shipment to Muslims in Rakhine State, where the United Nations has accused the country s military of ethnic cleansing The incident late on Wednesday, ended when police fired in the air to disperse the protesters, reflected rising communal animosity and came during an official visit by U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Patrick Murphy. Murphy said later, after talks with government leaders, that Washington was alarmed by reports of rights abuses and called on authorities to stop the violence, which raised concern about Myanmar s transition from military rule to democracy. Myanmar s army chief on Thursday called for internally displaced non-Muslims to go home. In a speech on his plans for Rakhine State while on his first visit there since strife erupted, he made no mention of the estimated 422,000 Rohingya Muslims who have crossed the border into Bangladesh. They have fled Myanmar to escape a sweeping counter-insurgency operation by his army in response to attacks by Rohingya insurgents on Aug. 25. Hundreds of protesters were involved in the attempt to stop Red Cross workers loading a boat with relief supplies bound for the north of Rakhine State, where the insurgent attacks last month triggered the military backlash. The boat being was loaded with aid at a dock in the state capital of Sittwe, a government information office said. People thought the aid was only for the Bengalis, the secretary of the state government, Tin Maung Swe, told Reuters, using a term that Rohingya find offensive. Protesters threw petrol bombs and about 200 police eventually dispersed them by shooting into the air, a witness and the government information office said. The witness said he saw some injured people. Eight people were detained, the office said. No aid workers were hurt, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross said. Tension between majority Buddhists and Rohingya, most of whom are denied citizenship, has simmered for decades in Rakhine, but it has exploded at times over the past few years, as old enmities surfaced with the end of decades of harsh military rule. The latest bout of bloodshed began with August s insurgent attacks on about 30 police posts and an army camp, in which about a dozen people were killed. The government says more than 400 people, most of them insurgents, have been killed since then. Rights monitors and fleeing Rohingya say the army and Buddhist vigilantes have mounted a campaign to drive out the Muslim population and torch their villages. Myanmar rejects that, saying its forces are tackling insurgents of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army who it has accused of setting the fires and attacking civilians. The crisis has drawn international condemnation and U.S. President Donald Trump called on Wednesday for a quick end to the violence. The plight of the Rohingya has raised questions about the commitment of government leader Aung San Suu Kyi to human rights. Nobel peace prize laureate Suu Kyi addressed the nation on Tuesday and condemned abuses and said all violators would be punished. However, she did not address the U.N. accusations of ethnic cleansing by the military, which is in charge of security. Murphy, the most senior foreign official to visit Myanmar since the violence erupted, met government officials and representatives of different communities in Sittwe. It s become quite clear to many that the Burmese security forces have had a response that is disproportionate and failed to protect all local populations, he later told reporters. The situation could have an impact on Myanmar s transition and risked creating a more significant terrorism problem . We continue to call on the Burmese authorities to respect the rule of law, stop the violence - including that perpetuated by local vigilantes, he said, adding that he had raised concern about two remote Muslim villages cut off by hostile Buddhists that Reuters reported about this week. Military chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing said his forces had handled the situation as best they could and he urged the internally displaced, most of them Buddhist, to go home. For the national races who fled their homes, first of all they must go back ... that is their rightful place, he said in a speech in Sittwe. National races refers to officially recognized indigenous ethnic groups. The Rohingya are not recognized as a national race and Min Aung Hlaing did not refer to their return. The Bangladesh government and aid groups are struggling with shortages of food, water, shelter and medical supplies for the refugees, who keep coming, though at a slower pace than over the past couple of weeks, officials say. The group Medecins Sans Frontieres said a massive scale-up of humanitarian aid in Bangladesh is needed to avoid a massive public health disaster . | 1 |
21,724 | HILLARY’S CAMPAIGN MANAGER Deflects And Dodges Questions On Clinton E-mail Scandal And Sanctuary Cities [Video] | He also dodges the question of sanctuary cities: | 0 |
21,725 | Reagan’s Son TEARS The ‘Absurdity’ Of Trump, His Campaign And The Entire GOP to SHREDS | Ron Reagan, the late President Reagan s son, is understandably indignant over any idea at all that Donald Trump is anything like his father. In fact, he s angry that the GOP even nominated Trump this is not his father s party at all. To make matters worse, Mike Pence compared Trump s foreign policy ideas to Reagan, and that was just too much for young Ron Reagan.He let loose on Pence, Trump, the entire campaign, and the GOP in an interview on MSNBC. He first addressed Pence s ridiculous assertion that Trump s foreign policy is anything like Ronald Reagan s 1979 campaign s broad-shouldered approach : One thing he left out, I suppose, is that my father wasn t pathological. My father would ve been humiliated and embarrassed by what has happened to his party, the Republican Party, and would be humiliated and embarrassed that they have nominated somebody like Donald Trump to be president of the United States. As bad as St. Ronnie was, at least he carried some credibility. Trump has no credibility how can he when every word out of his mouth is a lie, and when he changes his opinions as often as anyone with a shred of personal hygiene changes their underwear? Ron touched on that, too, when he launched into his full-scale attack: Trump should not be in this race. He s an absurdity. He s a travesty. And that is the reality here. I know it s difficult for journalists to deal with this. We re used to covering presidential races where we grant credibility to both sides, but that is not the case this time Donald Trump is not [a credible candidate]. I had the dubious pleasure of reading the transcript of his speech today. It s full of the usual empty jargon. This is a man who knows nothing about the world and cannot be president of the United States. Ron went on by saying that a President Trump will be a national emergency because of his severe inexperience with the world, and his inability to learn, well, pretty much anything. Watch his full comments below, via MSNBC:Trump s foreign policy ideas are so insane that Republican foreign policy experts are saying his plans will badly undermine the U.S. something Trump himself will never acknowledge. For instance, he wants to beat China into submission on trade, but his ideas are more likely to wreck our country s credibility, economy, and leadership in very short order, particularly in Asia.That s the opposite of what Trump keeps peddling, but that s where Ron s statements come into play. Trump is an absurdity; a carnival sideshow, or a silly, outlandish cartoon. Despite the GOP s attempts to turn him into a serious candidate, he s continued down his own path and virtually cost himself the election already, and it s only August.St. Reagan might be responsible for a lot of our current ills, but even he could actually run things. Trump can t even run his own businesses, let alone mount a serious campaign for president. Ron is right he shouldn t even be in the race.Featured image via screen capture from embedded video | 0 |
21,726 | Chad withdraws troops from fight against Boko Haram in Niger | NIAMEY/DAKAR (Reuters) - Chad has withdrawn hundreds of troops from neighboring Niger, where they were helping local forces fight Boko Haram Islamist militants, humanitarian sources and officials said. The pull-out over the past two weeks could weaken a region-wide struggle against the militants who have killed tens of thousands of people, forced many more to flee and triggered a humanitarian crisis. There was no immediate explanation or comment from defense officials in Chad. But the move came a month after the vast central African country complained about an unexpected U.S. travel ban imposed on its nationals. Chad warned at the time the order could affect its security commitments - which include its involvement in the U.S.-backed fight against Boko Haram. Residents said the withdrawal had already had an impact on Niger s Diffa region, which has seen a string of attacks by Boko Haram militants crossing over from their base in neighboring Nigeria. Ibrahim Arimi from the border village of Bosso said banditry had increased since the Chadian troops started leaving and he had been temporarily moved to another village for safety. Diffa parliamentarian Lamido Moumouni said residents had started complaining. They have come to rely on the forces so there is a perception that security will be lacking, he said by telephone. At its peak in 2016 after an attack in Bosso, Chad had 2,000 troops in Niger to help counter Boko Haram although security sources said this has fallen since. Boko Haram has attacked Chad, Niger and Cameroon from its base in northeast Nigeria. Its eight-year bid to carve out an Islamist caliphate has driven millions from their homes - more than 200,000 of them are now based in Diffa, with little prospect of returning home. Thousands of them are camped alongside an unfinished highway in the middle of a barren savannah with few resources. Chad s soldiers also occupy front-line positions in a peacekeeping force in northern Mali. Falling oil revenues after the price crash in 2014 has also sapped Chad s appetite for expensive regional security commitments, analysts say. | 1 |
21,727 | Trump lawyer: Deutsche Bank has not received subpoena for Trump records | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A lawyer for U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) has not received any subpoena for financial records relating to the president or his family as part of the special counsel’s Russia probe. “We have confirmed that the news reports that the Special Counsel had subpoenaed financial records relating to the president are false,” Sekulow told Reuters in a statement. “No subpoena has been issued or received. We have confirmed this with the bank and other sources.” He confirmed the bank in question was Deutsche Bank. | 1 |
21,728 | Erdogan says Turkey seeking to annul Trump decision on Jerusalem at U.N. | ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey is launching an initiative at the United Nations to annul a decision by the United States to recognize Jerusalem as Israel s capital, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday. Erdogan was speaking two days after a Muslim leaders meeting in Istanbul condemned U.S. President Donald Trump s decision, calling on the world to respond by recognizing East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine. We will work for the annulment of this unjust decision firstly at the UN Security Council, and if a veto comes from there, the General Assembly, Erdogan told crowds gathered in the central Anatolian city of Konya via teleconference. The United States is a permanent Security Council member with veto powers, meaning any move to overturn Washington s decision at the council would certainly be blocked. Jerusalem, revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, is home to Islam s third holiest site and has been at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades. Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it in an action not recognized internationally. Trump s decision broke with decades of U.S. policy and international consensus that the city s status must be left to Israeli-Palestinian talks, leading to harsh criticisms from Muslim countries and Israel s closest European allies, who have also rejected the move. A communique issued after Wednesday s summit of more than 50 Muslim countries, including U.S. allies, said they considered Trump s move to be a declaration that Washington was withdrawing from its role as sponsor of peace in the Middle East. Asked about the criticism during an interview with Israel s Makor Rishon daily, the U.S. ambassador to Israel said Trump had done what is good for America . President Trump...does not intend to reverse himself, despite the various condemnations and declarations, Ambassador David Friedman said. | 1 |
21,729 | This Texas Pro-Cop Facebook Page Shared This Racist Image And It Went Viral (IMAGES) | For the entirety of the last week, there has been an endless string of politicians and pundits filling the internet and airwaves with accusations that the Black Lives Matter movement has created a negative view of police officers across the United States. Even President Obama scolded social media commentators, asking those that communicate there to not give into over generalizations about the police.Oddly enough, those same people have been very quiet about the extremely racist rhetoric coming from both police officers and their supporters (whatever that means).Take for example this extremely racist and inappropriate post that the Texas Sheriff s Deputies Facebook page shared just after the shooting in Dallas, Texas that resulted in the deaths of five police officers:This isn t an over generalization. It isn t just a funny post that was posted by those trying to find humor to cope with stress, hurt, and anger as one of the admins claims. It is an incredibly racist, inappropriate, and misinformed image macro. During a time when racial tensions in the United States are at a boiling point, when people are seriously concerned there is going to be a full-blown race war, a pro-cop page shares something like this. There are a plethora of examples of police officers, saying, writing, and sharing racist things on the internet or elsewhere.Police officers and their supporters need to think twice about what they post online. There is no justification for this type of humor ever but especially right now in this precarious time. One cannot support or be a good cop and support inflammatory racist messaging like this. Right now, more than ever, police officers need to take a cue from homeland security if you see something, say something.Featured image from screenshots | 0 |
21,730 | DUP says Northern Ireland will leave EU on same terms as rest of UK | BELFAST (Reuters) - The head of the Democratic Unionist Party said on Monday Northern Ireland would leave the EU on the same terms as the rest of the United Kingdom, rebuffing a suggestion from the bloc that the region remain subject to some of its rules. Brussels has said it will not move to the second phase of Brexit talks with Britain until London provides additional detail of how it will guarantee that there be no hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Chief EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier on Monday asked the British government to detail what specific EU rules it would retain in Northern Ireland to ensure regulatory equivalence between the region and the Irish Republic and thus avoid the need for a hard border. But the head of the DUP, whose votes the government of British Prime Minister Theresa May is dependent on to pass legislation, repeated her rejection of the suggestion on Monday, saying she would not create barriers to business with the rest of the United Kingdom to allow smooth trade with Ireland. Northern Ireland will exit the EU on the same terms as the rest of the United Kingdom, Arlene Foster said in a statement ahead of a meeting with May on Tuesday morning. We will not countenance a border in the Irish Sea. I welcome the Prime Minister s commitment on this. The EU has said the UK needs to come forward with concrete proposals on the Irish border and on what past financial commitments it will honor by early December if EU leaders are to declare at their Dec. 14-15 summit that enough has been achieved to start talks on a transition period and a trade deal. Britain is scheduled to leave the bloc in March 2019. Foster said the EU s stance on Northern Ireland amounted to blackmail. Those in Dublin and Brussels, recklessly trying to use Northern Ireland for their own objectives, should cease, she said in the statement. The Prime Minister should warn Brussels that Northern Ireland must not be used as blackmail. | 1 |
21,731 | WATCH: Kellyanne Conway Wore Out Her Welcome On CNN As Soon As She Opened Her Mouth | CNN host Anderson Cooper s reactions to Kellyanne Conway throughout this interview are priceless.After firing FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday, the wicked witch of the White House made her return to the cable news circuit to spout more bullshit in defense of her mentally defective boss.Conway was repeatedly reminded that Trump loved Comey during the 2016 campaign, but she repeatedly made an ass of herself by pretending that candidate Trump no longer exists. As a candidate, Donald Trump praised James Comey, Cooper said. Donald Trump talked about this on the campaign all the time. All of sudden the White House is concerned about James Comey s handling of Hillary Clinton s email? I think you re looking at the wrong set of facts here, Anderson, Conway bewilderingly replied. In other words you re going back to the campaign. This is the president of the United States, he acted decisively today, he acted at the direction of his deputy attorney general. He makes complete sense because he has lost confidence in the FBI director and he took the recommendation of Rob Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who has been on the job for two weeks. Cooper then proceeded to grill Conway. That makes no sense, he fired back. He said one thing as candidate and now he s concerned as president? Clearly, this White House is under investigation, the people around the president are under investigation. You would agree with that, yes? In defiance of the facts, Conway disagreed and whined about people who are obsessed with Russia. Then she argued that since she s around Trump and not under investigation that others cannot be. I m around the president, Conway said. I m not under investigation. So that person doesn t exist anymore? Cooper asked. Candidate Donald Trump, that s a fictional character we are no longer allowed to refer to? We can only refer to the Donald Trump who exists today? Conway accused Cooper of being mean and claimed that Trump fired Comey because he needs confidence in his FBI director and he doesn t have it. Throughout the interview, Cooper can be seen reacting to Conway s most inane responses with facial expressions. At one point, he even rolled his eyes because of how ridiculous her answers were.Here s the video via YouTube.Clearly, CNN wasted their time and ours by inviting Conway on to spread Trump s propaganda. The only thing saving this interview is Copper s reactions to being gaslighted.The only reason why Trump fired Comey is because the FBI is investigating his Russia scandal. Trump just impeded that investigation and obstructed justice by firing the man in charge of it. Now Trump will likely put someone in charge who will drop the investigation. This is exactly the kid of shady shit that Richard Nixon did in order to cover-up his involvement in Watergate. He resigned rather than face impeachment. Trump should not only face impeachment, he should actually be impeached and put in prison.Featured Image: Screenshot | 0 |
21,732 | Brazil speaker says pension overhaul in danger if left until 2018 | BRASILIA (Reuters) - The Brazilian government s plan to overhaul the costly pension system will be in trouble if it does not clear the lower house of Congress this year, and it still lacks the votes needed for approval, the Speaker Rodrigo Maia said on Friday. Maia told Reuters that cabinet changes by President Michel Temer benefiting coalition allies should make it clear by next week whether the government can muster the two-thirds super majority of votes needed to pass pension reform in the house. They don t have the votes yet ... if the bill is left for next year it will be hard to pass, he said in an interview. | 1 |
21,733 | France to skip 2018 Winter Games if security not assured | PARIS/SEOUL (Reuters) - France’s Winter Olympics team will not travel to the 2018 Games in South Korea if its security cannot be guaranteed, France’s sports minister said on Thursday, the first major doubts by a participating nation about growing North Korean tensions. The games organizer said on Friday that it is closely monitoring the current geopolitical situation with the South Korean government, adding that safety is the top priority. Tensions in the region have escalated since North Korea conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 3, prompting global condemnation. North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un said on Friday the North will consider the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history” against the United States in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to destroy the North. France’s Sports Minister Laura Flessel told RTL radio that if the crisis deepened and “our security cannot be assured, the French Olympics team will stay at home.” But she added: “We’re not there yet.” Participants in the Games - the first Winter Olympics hosted by an Asian nation outside Japan - had not previously raised safety concerns publicly. The games are scheduled for Feb 9-25 next year in Pyeongchang, just 80 km (50 miles) from the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, the world’s most heavily armed border. The two countries remain technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended with a truce and not a peace treaty. “Safety and security is one of the most important aspects of Games preparations,” Sung Baik-you, a spokesman for the organizing committee, said in a statement to Reuters on Friday. South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in said on Wednesday the country is pushing to ensure security at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. In a meeting with International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach, Moon said South Korea is well aware of the concerns. The Japanese Olympic Committee said on Friday it is not considering the cancellation of its plans. “We will continue to prepare in the same way as with other international competitions that we take part in,” a spokeswoman for the committee said. The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) said it was working with all the relevant authorities to ensure its athletes would be safe. “Each host city presents a unique challenge from a security perspective, and, as is always the case, we are working with the organizers, the U.S. State Department and the relevant law enforcement agencies to ensure that our athletes, and our entire delegation, are safe,” USOC spokesman Patrick Sandusky said. The Chinese Olympic Committee said it had no immediate comment. The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC), which has representatives in South Korea, said the safety of its team was always its main priority. “The safety of our entire Canadian Olympic Team is always our main priority, no matter where the Games are held,” the COC said in a statement emailed to Reuters. “The Government of Canada does not currently have travel advisories in place for South Korea and recommends that Canadians exercise normal security precautions, which is the lowest of four risk levels.” Australia, one of Asia’s largest participants at recent Winter Games, is monitoring the situation. “The safety of our team is of the highest priority but we are comfortable with the priority that the (International Olympic Committee) and the Org Comm are placing on security and safety of the Games and its participants,” the Australian Olympic Committee said in a statement emailed to Reuters. “We are relying on advice from DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) and working with the Korean Ambassador and if their advice changes, we will advise our team accordingly but for the moment there is no suggestion that the Games will not go ahead or their safety is compromised.” The chief of the International Ski Federation, Gian-Franco Kasper, dismissed any fears among athletes, saying the Pyeongchang Olympics would be the “safest in the world”. He conceded, however, that ticket sales among overseas visitors could be affected. The IOC has said it is not contemplating any ‘Plan B’ for the Games. IOC President Thomas Bach said last week that considering any scenario other than holding the Olympics in South Korea could hamper diplomatic efforts. | 1 |
21,734 | Few tears in China as old friend Mugabe ousted in Zimbabwe | BEIJING (Reuters) - China is shedding few tears over the ousting of its old friend Robert Mugabe as president of Zimbabwe, fed up with the ruinous state of its economy and confident a new government will not antagonize China or change course on policies towards it. China pointedly failed to offer any open support for Mugabe after the army took power last week, instead calling vaguely for a peaceful resolution under a legal framework and for talks to bridge differences. On Wednesday, the foreign ministry said it respected Mugabe s decision to resign as president, and that he remained a good friend of China s who made historic contributions to Zimbabwe s independence and liberation . China s friendship with Mugabe dates back to Zimbabwe s independence struggle, which China supported. Mugabe has visited China numerous times, most recently in January when President Xi Jinping told him: China will never forget its old friends. But trade has sagged amid Zimbabwe s economic turmoil of recent years, and China does not rely on it for any crucial raw materials, unlike Zambia for its copper or Angola and oil. China s total trade with Zimbabwe in 2016 was worth $1.11 billion, down 15 percent on-year, a fraction of the $35.3 billion in trade China and South Africa did. Last year, China did more trade with Tunisia and Senegal than Zimbabwe. It has been clear to China what has caused the problems, and China showed no desire to prop up Mugabe in his hour of need. China will not interfere and is happy to let Zimbabwe s people make their own choices, said Shen Xiaolei, an Africa expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences government think-tank. The ruling party is fighting amongst itself, and his economic policies and national governance have had many problems, Shen said. Zimbabwe s regime was certainly going to get into trouble; I just didn t expect it would happen so fast. In contrast to his elevated status on the continent, Mugabe is reviled in the West as a despot whose disastrous handling of the economy and willingness to resort to violence to maintain power destroyed one of Africa s most promising states. In 2015, Mugabe won the Confucius Peace Prize, supposed to be China s answer to the Nobel Peace Prize, but he turned it down according to Zimbabwe media after he learned it had no connection with the Chinese government. China had been an important ally on the world stage too for Mugabe. In 2008, China vetoed a proposed Western-backed U.N. resolution that would have imposed an arms embargo on Zimbabwe and financial and travel restrictions on Mugabe and 13 other officials, saying it would complicate conflict. China has denied that it knew anything about the army take over, despite a visit to Beijing by Zimbabwe s military chief, General Constantino Chiwenga, shortly before he moved against Mugabe. On Monday, the Chinese embassy in South Africa said it was complete nonsense to suggest Chiwenga had tipped off China about his plan, saying this was an attempt to smear China and that Mugabe had in any case approved Chiwenga s visit. However, the embassy also did not offer any support to Mugabe, reiterating that China believed Zimbabwe s crisis was an internal affair and that African people should resolve African problems. China s frustrations with Mugabe had begun to play out in its state media. Over the past week, Chinese media has run unfavorable articles about his wife, Grace, with online news portal Sina calling her a wanton squanderer . On Sunday, the WeChat account of the overseas edition of the ruling Communist Party s official People s Daily carried a largely negative account of a 1985 visit by Mugabe to Beijing when he met former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China s reforms. Showing pictures of Zimbabweans carrying bundles of cash during its hyperinflation crisis, the paper said Zimbabwe s chaos could in large part be traced to Mugabe s extreme leftist, populist policies. Zhang Weiwei, a professor at Shanghai s Fudan University, described a conversation he interpreted between Deng and Mugabe in which Deng warned him of China s mistakes and urged him to embark on the same reforms as China. Mugabe did not seem to get the message, Zhang wrote. This person didn t take anything in, and that will be his loss, Zhang cited an exasperated Deng as saying after the meeting. There is confidence too for China that Mugabe s former vice president and likely successor, Emmerson Mnangagwa, whose sacking prompted the military to take power, will not upset China. State media has pointed out he is a known quantity, with frequent visits of his own to China. Whereas Beijing has worried about anti-Chinese feeling in Zambia, where some workers have accused Chinese firms of abuses and underpaying, there have been no such problems in Zimbabwe. China and Africa are all-weather friends, and China and Zimbabwe are no exception, said Wang Wei, an associate research fellow at the foreign ministry s China Institute of International Studies. It does not matter what changes there are in government officials, the broader trend is still to develop friendly relations between China and Zimbabwe and China and Africa to promote joint prosperity and development. | 1 |
21,735 | Bomb blast in southeast Turkey kills four soldiers, wounds four: governor | DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) - A bomb planted by Kurdish militants ripped into a military vehicle, killing four soldiers and wounding four more, as they traveled in southeast Turkey near the border with Iran on Wednesday morning, local authorities said. Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants were behind the attack, which occurred in the Yuksekova district of Hakkari province, the provincial governor s office said in a statement. Security sources said a large number of armored vehicles were sent to the site of the blast. The governor s office said the wounded were being treated at a nearby hospital. More than 40,000 people have been killed since the PKK launched its separatist insurgency in 1984. It is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union. The collapse of a peace process between the state and the PKK brought an end to a ceasefire in July 2015 and thousands have been killed in renewed fighting since then across mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey. | 1 |
21,736 | John Anderson, liberal Republican who challenged Reagan, dies at 95 | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - John Anderson, a former Republican congressman who challenged the party’s conservative drift by taking on its chief symbol, Ronald Reagan, and ran for president as an independent in 1980, died on Sunday. He was 95. Anderson had been ill for some time, family friend Dan Johnson told Reuters in a telephone interview. Anderson’s wife, Keke, and his daughter Diane were at his side when he died in Washington, Diane Anderson said by phone. Anderson finished a distant third with almost 7 percent of the vote in the 1980 presidential election but gave almost 6 million voters an alternative to the conservative Reagan - who won the election - and the unpopular Democratic president, Jimmy Carter. But Anderson did not win a single precinct and political analysts said he ultimately may have contributed to Reagan’s electoral landslide by taking votes from Carter. Anderson’s first venture into politics came in 1956 when he was elected as a state attorney in Illinois. In 1960, he won the first of 10 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives running as a conservative. He later moved to the left, breaking with conservatives in 1968 by voting for a bill to outlaw racial discrimination in housing. Anderson served as chairman of the House Republican Conference for the next 10 years even as he became more critical of Republican President Richard Nixon, especially on his handling of the Vietnam War. He was one of the first Republican House members to call for Nixon’s resignation over the Watergate scandal. “He’s the smartest guy in Congress, but he insists on voting his conscience instead of party,” Republican U.S. Representative Gerald Ford, who later become president, said of Anderson in 1973. In 1980, with Carter low in the opinion polls and his administration mired in the Iran hostage crisis, many Republicans, including Anderson, jumped into the party’s presidential primaries for a chance to oppose the Democrat in the November election. Reagan, who had come close to winning the Republican presidential nomination in 1976, quickly moved to the front of the race, with his main opponent being former U.N. Ambassador George H.W. Bush. Anderson dropped out of the Republican primaries in the spring of 1980 and announced he was running as an independent. When he entered the race, he was enthusiastically greeted as an alternative to the major parties, getting around 25 percent support in at least one poll. But his poll numbers began sliding, even though he was seen as having bested Reagan in surveys after a televised debate with the Republican presidential nominee. Carter boycotted that debate and refused to face Reagan if Anderson was included. Carter finally agreed to a debate with Reagan shortly before the election, when the sponsoring League of Women Voters agreed not to invite Anderson. Four years later, Anderson’s break with conservative Republicans was complete and he supported Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale, who lost to Reagan in a landslide. Born in Rockford, Illinois, on Feb. 15, 1922, Anderson was educated at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Harvard Law School. He served in the Second World War and joined the foreign service, stationed in Germany, his family said in a statement. After his presidential defeat, Anderson became a visiting professor at various universities, wrote extensively and served on many boards including FairVote, a voting rights organization formerly known as the Center for Voting and Democracy. In the 2000 presidential election, Anderson was seen as a possible presidential candidate for the Reform Party founded by Texas billionaire Ross Perot, but he ended up endorsing Ralph Nader. Diane Anderson said her father believed the two-party system was broken and was appalled by what happened with the Republican Party. “Everything he wanted to prevent unfortunately came to pass,” she said. | 1 |
21,737 | Activist investor files Chevron proxy resolution on Myanmar rights concerns | HOUSTON (Reuters) - An activist investor in Chevron Corp said on Monday it filed a shareholder resolution that would require the oil producer to report on the feasibility of ending operations in Myanmar, where a crackdown on minority Rohingya Muslims has been decried by the United States as ethnic cleansing. The resolution, filed last week by Islamic finance firm Azzad Asset Management, pushes Chevron s board of directors to consider how it could avoid risks posed by doing business with governments complicit in genocide or crimes against humanity. Azzad filed a similar resolution at the last Chevron shareholder meeting, garnering support from 6 percent of votes cast. More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to southern Bangladesh since the end of August following a campaign by Myanmar security forces in response to attacks by militants in Rakhine State. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and United Nations officials have decried the crackdown as a form of genocide. Myanmar denies committing atrocities against the Rohingya. Chevron, the second-largest U.S.-based oil producer, does business in Myanmar through a subsidiary, Unocal Myanmar Offshore Co Ltd. It has projects that include a minority interest in natural gas production and a pipeline, according to the company s website. In a statement to Reuters on Monday, Chevron spokeswoman Melissa Ritchie said the company values the ongoing dialogue with the stockholders on this critical issue of violence in Rakhine State, Myanmar. We will continue to work with other U.S. companies and the government to promote the value of U.S. investment in Myanmar and the need to foster a business environment that respects human rights. Chevron has the option of accepting the proposal or asking the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to allow it to block it. If Chevron moves to block, Azzad would have the chance to appeal to the SEC. Chevron s annual meeting is slated for next spring. The filing comes as two Reuters journalists were arrested by Myanmar officials last week. Government officials accuse the pair of violating the country s colonial-era Officials Secrets Act. The arrests have been criticized by several governments as well as journalists and human rights groups. Chevron declined to directly comment on the arrests. | 1 |
21,738 | FLASHBACK: TRUMP PLANS STRATEGY Against North Korea In ’99 Interview [Video] | There is no debating the fact that tensions between the United States and North Korea have reached a boiling point. But what s still being continuously debated is how to handle these tensions.President Trump threatened to use fire and fury against North Korea after it was revealed that North Korea successfully created a miniaturized nuclear weapon designed to fit inside its missiles. In an interview with NBC s Tim Russert in 1999, then businessman Donald Trump voiced his support for a pre-emptive military strike against North Korea.Trump told Russert that if he was President, a Trump administration would negotiate like crazy to get the best deal possible. If a deal was not possible, Trump said he would order a pre-emptive strike. He went on to successfully predict that that they re [North Korea] are going to have those weapons pointed all over the world and specifically at the United States. He goes further by saying that it only does the U.S. minimal good to discuss the economy and Social Security without addressing the biggest problem: nuclear proliferation. He also calls out previous politicians including Jimmy Carter for not facing this situation head on and negotiating properly.Following President Trump s warning North Korea over further provocations, the Hermit Kingdom has announced it is considering striking Guam. The North Korean military warned it may carry out a preemptive operation once the US shows signs of provocation , and that it is seriously considering a strategy to strike Guam with mid-to-long range missiles. As Trump moves forward, this interview serves as evidence that his strategy will hold up against North Korea.Read more: The Gateway Pundit | 0 |
21,739 | Obama Just CRUSHED Trump’s Lies About His “Winning” Presidency In The BEST Way (DETAILS) | If there s one person that Donald Trump can t STAND to have criticizing him, it s his predecessor, Barack Obama and Obama just attacked Trump in a way that was pretty damn genius.Last night, at a private event in Manhattan, the former POTUS reminded America of the amazing leader they lost when his second term was up. As Trump continuously blasts him and takes credit for the many accomplishments that he worked hard for, Obama reminded the audience just how resilient and successful Obamacare is by pointing out that Obamacare now has a higher approval rating than the current president.According to CNN: As Republicans in Washington sputtered again this week in their efforts to undo the law, Obama noted to an audience in midtown Manhattan that the Affordable Care Act has never been more popular and it s more popular than the current president, according to a person in the room who paraphrased the comments. We couldn t have thought of a better way to insult Trump and the Republican Party, especially as their efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act continue to be a disastrous, embarrassing failure.Obamacare, which Trump repeatedly referred to as a disaster and jobs killer , isn t going anywhere thanks to its popularity and the GOP s failure to do any better. Considering that Trump s approval ratings are at a historic low despite its honeymoon period, it s unlikely that any major piece of legislation that he tries to pass will be accepted.It s nice to see that after all the backlash and attacks from Trump and the Republican Party, Obama is reveling in his hard work. The knowledge that his health care bill could not be taken down so easily and is now more appreciated by Americans than the idiot who replaced him in the White House, must be satisfying as hell and Obama has earned the right to gloat about it.Featured image via Zach Gibson / Getty Images | 0 |
21,740 | Thousands march against coal ahead of climate conference in Bonn | FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Thousands of people took to the streets of Bonn on Saturday to call for the phasing out of coal as a source of power ahead of global talks on climate change in the German city next week. The issue of whether to end coal production has been one of the sticking points in coalition negotiations between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her would-be allies: the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP). Organizers of the march called for the German government to implement the 2015 Paris plan to shift the world economy from fossil fuels this century. The implementation of the Paris accord will be discussed at the 195-nation climate meeting in Bonn from Nov. 6-17. We expect the Federal Government to finally and effectively implement the Paris Climate Agreement, activist group Campact said in a statement. The group said 25,000 people took part in the march. A spokesman for the Bonn police said he could not provide an official figure but estimated the number of participants at around 10,000. U.S. President Donald Trump has announced plans to pull out from the 2015 Paris accord to limit global warming. His pro-coal policies and doubts that climate change is caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions have cast a shadow over the Bonn meeting. To see a video of the march on Reuters Insider, please click: | 1 |
21,741 | ‘Responsible Gun Owner’ Who Shot His Girlfriend Beaten Unconscious By Partygoers (VIDEO) | According to the NRA, good guys with guns across the nation are the last line of defense between some unspecified threat that could occur anywhere at any time, and something else. But who will protect the world from the responsible gun owners who prove themselves to be anything BUT responsible?In the latest instance of responsible gun ownerness, a Utah man found himself beaten to a pulp by people who were leaving a party at his home after he shot his girlfriend. According to ABC4 Utah, everyone was enjoying the all-night party until the unnamed man began fighting with his significant other. Overcome by emotion, he responsibly pulled out a handgun and demanded that partygoers leave his home.Obviously, confronted by a presumably drunk individual who thinks a gun is the best way to get people to leave a party, those present quickly left but as they were in the driveway, they heard gunshots. Unified Police Department spokesperson Lex Bell says that the heroic individuals rushed back inside and pummeled the shooter, who left his victim with gunshot wounds to her ankle and hand, until he was unconscious.In an apparent effort to protect the shooter, the girlfriend told police that she accidentally shot herself while cleaning the gun but law enforcement says that she was likely shot while trying to wrestle the gun away from her violent and crazy significant other. A friend who drove her to the hospital confirmed that her story was false. Fortunately, her injuries are not serious, though she may need surgery on her hand.According to area residents, the couple recently moved into the neighborhood and after learning about their new neighbors, they are a bit concerned. One man, identified as Dan, called the incident troublesome because he has a family whose safety is placed at risk by the new responsible gun owners in the neighborhood.No charges have yet been filed, but Bell says that those who rushed in and heroically beat the living hell out of the shooter were likely, legally, justified.Watch a report on the attack below:Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
21,742 | EU withdrawal bill vital to ensuring orderly Brexit: minister | LONDON (Reuters) - Legislation to sever political, financial and legal ties with the European Union is vital to ensuring Britain leaves the bloc in an orderly manner, Brexit minister David Davis said on Thursday. Davis also said the powers offered by the EU withdrawal bill, which seeks largely to copy and paste EU law into British legislation, would allow the government to make sure the statute book works on the day Britain leaves the EU. This bill is vital to ensuring that as we leave, we do so in an orderly manner, Davis said at the start of a debate in parliament on the bill. | 1 |
21,743 | Sessions confirmed as U.S. attorney general after battle with Democrats | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bitterly divided U.S. Senate confirmed Republican Senator Jeff Sessions on Wednesday as the next attorney general of the United States after strong pushback from Democrats concerned about his record on civil rights. Sessions, 70, who has served two decades in the Senate from Alabama, was confirmed by a 52-47 vote largely along party lines after Democrats raised public opposition to his confirmation. In a rare move for a senator recently confirmed to a Cabinet position, Sessions took to the floor of the chamber after the vote and called for members of Congress to have some “latitude” in their relationships with members of the other party. “I want to thank those who after it all found sufficient confidence to confirm me as the next attorney general,” Sessions said. “Denigrating people who disagree with us, I think, is not a healthy trend for our body,” he said, referring to the Senate. On Tuesday, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, a darling of the political left, was silenced in the Senate for reading a 1986 letter from Coretta Scott King, the widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., that criticized Sessions for his civil rights record. Democrats, civil rights and immigration groups have voiced alarm about Sessions’ record of controversial positions on race, immigration and criminal justice reform. With Sessions as attorney general, eight of President Donald Trump’s 22 Cabinet nominees have been confirmed. The Republican-led Senate also voted on Wednesday to advance Representative Tom Price’s nomination to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Senate is likely to vote to confirm Price on Friday. Sessions, a known immigration hardliner, will take the lead of the Justice Department as its lawyers are defending Trump’s temporary entry ban on people from seven predominantly Muslim countries and all refugees, the most controversial executive order of the young administration. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is due to rule this week on whether to overrule a district court judge in Seattle who suspended the ban last week. Civil rights groups worry that the Justice Department’s civil rights division will not be aggressive in prosecuting abuses under Sessions. They cite his failure to win Senate confirmation to become a federal judge in 1986 because of allegations he made racist remarks, including testimony that he had called an African-American prosecutor “boy,” an allegation Sessions denied. Sessions said at his hearing in 1986 that groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union could be considered “un-American.” He also acknowledged he had called the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a “piece of intrusive legislation.” The left-leaning Center for American Progress think tank questioned whether Sessions would be an independent legal voice to challenge Trump’s agenda. “Trump has shown little respect for the courts or the constitutional limits on his power, and there is no reason to think that Attorney General Sessions will act as an independent check on the president,” said Michele Jawando, vice president for legal progress at the think tank. Sessions has pushed to curb immigration into the United States, including by those who enter legally on work permits. He has also voted against many measures to reduce sentences for prisoners. The Republican National Committee pushed back against what it called “obstructing” by Democrats. “That Democrats would try to skew Sessions’ strong civil rights record and consistent adherence to rule of law in a partisan effort to block their colleague’s nomination shows their only commitment is to blindly obstructing this administration,” Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said on Sessions’ confirmation. | 1 |
21,744 | GUANTANAMO JIHADIST FREED AFTER MURDER OF SFC CHRISTOPHER SPEER | Released from Guantanamo and then making his way back to Canada thanks to Obama, this murderer is free but SFC Speer is dead This deification of an al-Qaida-trained murderer is a slap in the face to every American soldier and every military family that has sacrificed to combat Islamic jihad. A Canadian judge ruled this week that Omar Khadr poses no public safety threat. Tell that to the children of Sergeant First Class Christopher J. Speer and the surviving American soldiers who valiantly fought Khadr on the battlefield.In 2012, Khadr pleaded guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty and guilty to five charges related to the killing of Speer, a 28-year-old medic with the U.S. Special Forces. This young American hero died in Afghanistan in 2002 during an ambush by al-Qaida operatives. Just days before he gave his life, Speer had fearlessly walked onto a minefield to rescue two wounded Afghan children. It was Khadr, born and bred an Islamic jihadist by his terrorist father, who lobbed the fatal grenade in the war zone. Another American soldier, SFC Layne Morris, survived the attack, but was blinded in one eye for life.In a sealed plea deal at Guantanamo Bay, Khadr admitted to throwing the grenade. He admitted to attempted murder, conspiracy, spying and providing material support to terrorism. He signed a 50-paragraph stipulation that classified him as an enemy belligerent because he has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States and its coalition partners and documented his family s intimate association and friendship with al-Qaida leaders Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Muhammad Atef.Don t believe the international human rights bleeding hearts. The Khadr family is rightfully known as Canada s First Family of Terror. This so-called child soldier and good kid was a full-blown Muslim soldier of jihad; he trained one-on-one in weaponry, explosives and Jew hatred. A then-teenage Khadr bragged to a U.S. official that the proudest moment of his life was constructing and planting IEDs to kill U.S. forces. Gloating over the Alberta judge s decision to let Khadr loose, his radical leftwing lawyer railed against Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a bigot. His fan club thinks he deserves a medal. No, really. A Toronto Sun columnist argued last week that the jihadist deserves some kind of recognition along the lines of the country s Order of Canada for the dignity and stoicism with which he s borne the mingy behaviour of Canada s governments. Disgusting. This deification of an al-Qaida-trained murderer is a slap in the face to every American soldier and every military family that has sacrificed to combat Islamic jihad.But don t look for our government to raise its voice in protest. It is because of jihad-coddler Barack Obama, working quietly to empty Gitmo, that Khadr found his way back to Canada in the first place. | 0 |
21,745 | UK border guard arrested in France in drugs, firearms bust | PARIS (Reuters) - A British border guard was one of 12 people arrested in France and Britain as part of an operation against arms and drugs smuggling across the English Channel, British police said on Monday. The 36-year-old from Britain s southern port town of Dover and three other British nationals were detained near Calais. French police also seized 34 kilos of cocaine, 7 kilos of heroin and 11 firearms, Britain s National Crime Agency (NCA) said. The raid took place last Friday and all four remain in police custody. Eight other men were arrested in southern England. | 1 |
21,746 | Syrian army nears besieged troops in Deir al-Zor: state TV | BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian state television said the Syrian army advanced on Tuesday to within 100 meters of troops that Islamic State has surrounded for years in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor. The army and allied forces have come close to relieving the Euphrates city after a swift lunge through jihadist lines. Islamic State has since 2014 besieged a government-held enclave where some 93,000 civilians live and an army garrison is stationed. | 1 |
21,747 | Spanish flag-waving underpins Rajoy's tough line on Catalonia | MADRID (Reuters) - At Jose Luis Sosa-Dias s factory near Madrid, lengths of bright red and yellow polyester are being steamed and pressed as workers rush to rebuild stocks of the Spanish flag after a huge surge in sales in the last few weeks. Patriotic displays of the flag are rare in Spain, where it still reminds many of the Franco dictatorship. But Catalonia s bid for independence has fired up national sentiment, and with it demand for flags. We sold about 35,000 flags in 50 days. Normally we might sell 500 or 600 in a month, said Sosa-Dias, who is originally from Uruguay. In the 38 years I have been in Spain it is the first time I have seen so many flags on balconies and houses, and at demonstrations as Spaniards said I am Spanish . Such displays reflect a rising nationalism that is encouraging Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to stick to his tough line against Catalonia. It also makes it harder to reach a compromise with the region. That nationalism was on display when hundreds of thousands of Spanish unionists staged protests in Madrid and Barcelona in support of unity after Catalonia s illegal independence referendum on Oct. 1 triggered a constitutional crisis and clouded prospects for Europe s fifth-largest economy. According to a monthly official opinion poll, the level of concern among Spaniards over the situation in Catalonia increased threefold in September compared with August. And while a majority say they feel they have both national and regional identities, 66 percent support Rajoy s refusal to offer more autonomy to the country s 17 regions, according to the poll. Among voters who back Rajoy s People s Party, this number jumps to 86 percent. Conflict around national identity is moving from Catalonia to the rest of the country, said Lluis Oriols, associate professor of politics at Carlos III University in Madrid. He said the government could therefore conclude there are gains to be made from taking a hard line. This new willingness to wave the national flag has not been accompanied by a resurgence in far-right nationalism, despite attempts by Catalan secessionists to associate Spanish nationalism with Franco-style fascism. Only a very few people parading with the national flag have given fascist salutes and the unionist demonstrations were instead attended by families with children draped in the flag. The flag has a long history. Its basic design of broad red and yellow stripes has been the same since 1785, with changes confined to its coat of arms. But until now it has been rare to see it displayed by the public, except on sports-related occasions. Flag sellers in the capital say demand during the Catalan crisis has far exceeded sales when Spain won the soccer World Cup in 2010 and sports fans filled the streets. We have doubled, tripled, quadrupled what we sold for the World Cup, honestly we lost count, said Angel Paniagua, who owns the Fieltros Olleros textile shop near Madrid s central Calle Mayor. We sold out four or five times, everyone buying flags, it has been amazing. As vans from Sosa-Dias s factory rushed thousands of flags to the demonstrations in Madrid and in Barcelona, many ordinary citizens said they simply wanted to show they stood behind the state and its institutions. David Rodriguez, 40, who owns an information technology company, said he hung a flag outside his home in Escorial, in the province of Madrid, after police were criticized for using rubber bullets and batons to thwart the independence vote. I wanted to support the security forces. It was a simple gesture of solidarity, he said. With Madrid now planning to suspend Catalonia s autonomy, others said they wanted to show support for the silent majority of Catalans who prefer a united Spain. When it s about soccer, everyone wears the Spanish flag and it doesn t seem strange, but when it s about politics people get scared, said Raimundo Nieto, a 65-year-old retired finance director. Spain s unity is at stake right now. | 1 |
21,748 | Report: Donald Trump Tried To Back Out Of Pence Announcement | Now that it s been established that Mike Pence will be Donald Trump s running mate (and not errand boy Chris Christie), the Clinton campaign has already begun pouncing on the anti-woman, anti-LGBT candidate that was brave enough to step on stage with Trump.But reports appear to show Trump had his reservations about the Indiana governor. Apparently, Trump was so regretful of picking the former Congressman that he asked his campaign aides the night before the announcement if he could back out of picking Pence.After the news leaked that Pence was indeed the choice, Trump s uncertainty was heightened after being incensed (he blamed the Pence camp). On Thursday, after telling Fox News he had not made a final decision, sources told NBC News:[D]onald Trump was stressed over the circumstances surrounding his choice for running mate even after news of the pick leaked. While in California, separated from family and most aides, Trump worked the phones late into the evening Thursday soliciting advice and sharing his concerns. Sources familiar with the calls said Trump conveyed that he felt backed into a corner. Another description suggested that Trump was talking it out, but knew that he could not and would not choose a different running mate.It hasn t even been two days and Trump already regrets his decision. Like everything else in his campaign, Trump seems to have been winging it the whole time, settling on a guy he wasn t even so sure about.The news that Pence was the choice shouldn t have been a surprise. For months the Trump campaign told reporters it was seeking an experienced Republican who had personal relationships on Capitol Hill. That left Pence and former House Speaker New Gingrich as the formidable options. But in the last several weeks the Trump campaign noted that it did not want an attack dog, which eliminated Gingrich Christie was never a true option, he was just the McDonald s boy.Of course the Trump campaign denied that he had regrets, but considering their main attraction lies 77 percent of the time, who can be so sure?With the RNC just around the corner, Trump enters the general race universally hated, with no money, no field organization, and a running mate he doesn t really like.Yet his supporters will still view him as a god.Featured image via Bryan Thomas/Getty Images | 0 |
21,749 | U.S. calling Rohingya operation 'ethnic cleansing' unhelpful: Russian envoy | YANGON (Reuters) - The U.S. labeling of a Myanmar army crackdown on Rohingya Muslims as ethnic cleansing is unhelpful and could aggravate the situation, Russia s ambassador to the southeast Asian nation said on Thursday, criticizing excessive external intervention . Rights groups have accused the military in mostly Buddhist Myanmar of carrying out mass rape and other atrocities during a ferocious military sweep launched in late August in retaliation for attacks by Rohingya Muslim militants in Rakhine State. That drove 620,000 Rohingya refugees, many traumatized with gunshot wounds and burns, to flee to Bangladesh, joining hundreds of thousands who have sheltered there for years after previous spasms of violence in the former Burma. The military operation amounted to ethnic cleansing , the United States said on Wednesday, echoing an accusation first made by top U.N. officials in the early days of the humanitarian crisis. I don t think that it will help to solve this problem, Russian ambassador Nikolay Listopadov told Reuters in an interview in Yangon, when asked about the U.S. move. On the contrary, it can aggravate the situation, throw more fuel, he said in English, citing concern over how the Buddhist community in Rakhine would react to such a designation. This month, Russia and China agreed to a UN Security Council statement urging Myanmar to ensure no further excessive use of military force and expressing grave concern over reports of human rights violations , but they have opposed tougher steps and further pressure on Myanmar. We are against excessive external intervention, because it won t lead to any constructive results, Listopadov said. Just pressure and blaming and accusing - it simply won t work. On a visit to Myanmar last week, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged the government of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi to lead a credible and impartial inquiry, saying those who committed abuses should be held responsible. But prospects for such an inquiry remain dim and Suu Kyi s government refused to cooperate with a mission launched by the United Nations Human Rights Council in March after a less intense bout of violence in Rakhine. The so-called independent investigation demanded by Tillerson was absolutely out of the question for Myanmar, Listopadov said. It s absolutely not acceptable for the Myanmar side - it will never accept it...it won t work - it s counterproductive, said Listopadov. Independent investigation means international (investigation) - no, it s not acceptable. Moscow s approach was for the Rakhine issue to be solved by political means, political dialogue, he added, without elaborating. He welcomed talks being held in Myanmar s capital of Naypyitaw between Myanmar and Bangladesh on the repatriation of Rohingya refugees, stressing it was important to start this process. We wish them success, said Listopadov, this complicated Rakhine issue can be solved mostly only by negotiations and agreements between the two sides, because they re the most involved, he said, referring to Bangladesh and Myanmar. China wants closer ties with Myanmar s military to help protect regional peace and security, a senior Chinese general told the visiting head of the southeast Asian country s army this week. | 1 |
21,750 | Republicans mull inviting Democrats into U.S. budget negotiations | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in the U.S. Congress, unable so far to resolve deep disagreements over spending for the fiscal year starting on Oct. 1, are mulling whether to seek a bipartisan budget deal with Democrats similar to one reached nearly four years ago. With only 20 working days to go before a lengthy August recess, some Republican lawmakers say a bipartisan agreement could help clear a legislative schedule crammed with other top priorities, including a separate budget resolution, tax reform, infrastructure and an increase in the federal debt limit. In December 2013, Republican Representative Paul Ryan, now speaker of the House of Representatives, and Democratic Senator Patty Murray worked out a two-year deal that canceled some spending cuts in fiscal 2014 and 2015 in return for some longer-term spending reductions. The Ryan-Murray agreement was promptly enacted into law. A bipartisan deal could avert a restrictive spending plan that would cap funding for U.S. agencies and a government shutdown threatened by President Donald Trump. “I think what we need is another Ryan-Murray sort of proposal,” said Republican Representative Mike Simpson, a senior member of the House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee, which is in charge of writing annual spending bills. Speaking to reporters after a House Republican meeting, Simpson said the idea was in the early stages. Republicans, who control the House and Senate, have lashed out at deep spending cuts that Trump has proposed. But they are divided over how much top-line spending should be appropriated next year, including for a military buildup Trump wants. A bipartisan negotiation is just one of several options. Another would rush one massive spending bill for fiscal 2018 through the House in July, instead of the dozen separate appropriations bills that Congress tries to write every year. Doing so would allow Republicans to tout an accomplishment to their constituents in August during a year that has so far seen few legislative achievements. Given the limited time to write such a bill, Ryan might have to resort to just passing a “national security” spending bill that would fund the military and other security activities. Some Republicans want to boost military spending to $640 billion, which would require deep cuts to non-defense programs that are popular among Republican moderates. Congress must also pass a budget resolution to facilitate tax reform legislation. The House Budget Committee hopes to mark up such a measure before June 30, panel members said. | 1 |
21,751 | Alabama Trump Supporter Gets Fired For Incredibly Racist Rant About The Obamas (IMAGE) | Her viral post won her the title of racist of the week. June Pridmore somehow got a job working as the vice-president of loan operations at a Regions Bank in Alabama, but after investigating a recent Facebook post she wrote, Pridmore no longer has a job.In an atrocious, incoherent, and racist post featuring multiple misspellings and poor grammar that make one wonder how the bank picked her for the job in the first place, Pridmore ranted about her support of Donald Trump and trashed President Obama and his wife First Lady Michelle Obama. I voted him in, Pridmore began in reference to Trump. I like him. He has a beautiful wife unlike the ugly and embarrassing woman (for lack of a better word), in the White House now. Ms. Trump s face would make Michele (sic) O Bama (sic) a Sunday face. Seriously, does this women not have spellcheck? I m certainly glad [Trump] he has a lot of money because she he (sic) won t be bought out like Barack (sic), socialist Muslim O Bama (sic) or his wife or all those host of relatives they have in the whitehouse (sic) for US to support. Oh, you mean his two kids and mother-in-law? That s only three people, and two of them really didn t have a choice since they are kids. On the other hand, Donald Trump s family is way bigger and they ve all made a mint mooching off the government and taxpayer dollars. Plus, it is costing taxpayers $1 million a day to protect Trump in his New York Trump Tower apartment.But Primore still wasn t done. She ranted about President Obama s vacations, which are less than the number of vacations President Bush and President Reagan took during their presidencies. And Trump has already expressed his desire to be a part-time president who spends most days at his golden tower or on the golf course instead of in the White House working.And then she said this: If any idiot out there thinks that is justified, you deserved him as president. I prefer a man who can buy Michele (sic) and Barack and sell them several times over. Yep, she went there. A definite reference to slavery.And she went on to bitch about people who are unemployed, calling them lazy non-working takers. Here s an image of the post via Facebook.This post was too much for Regions Bank, who fired Pridmore after receiving many complaints.Bank spokesman Jeremy King announced the canning in a statement. We appreciate the concerns shared about offensive social media comments that were made through an associate s personal Facebook account. We want you to know that we share those concerns. Those comments do not reflect our values as a company or the way we do business. The associate is no longer an employee of the company. So now Pridmore is unemployed and has the new title, Racist of the Week. Of course that title won t pay the bills unless Donald Trump has position open for another ignorant racist. Maybe she can use Jeff Sessions as a reference.Featured Image: Facebook | 0 |
21,752 | Party without parliamentary seats leads in Slovenia opinion poll | LJUBLJANA (Reuters) - A centre-left party that has no seats in Slovenia s parliament and is led by a former comedian topped an opinion poll published by daily newspaper Delo on Monday, about six months ahead of an expected general election. The Lista Marjana Sarca (LMS) under Marjan Sarec, mayor of the city of Kamnik, drew the support of 15.7 percent with a junior governing coalition party, the Social Democrats, in second place with 12.6 percent and the leading opposition party, the centre-left Slovenian Democratic Party, with 12.2 percent. The Party of Modern Centre led by Prime Minister Miro Cerar came in sixth with 5.5 percent. Last month, the Social Democrats led the same poll with 19.8 percent while the LMS was not yet included in the survey. Sarec surprised many last month when he was narrowly beaten in a presidential run-off election, gathering about 47 percent to incumbent Borut Pahor s 53 percent. Analysts said Sarec s party, which has so far been active only at local level, could win a parliamentary vote amid general dissatisfaction with the centre-left government, above all its inability to improve the inefficient national health system. The government of the southeast European country is also under heavy pressure from various public sector unions demanding wage hikes at a time of strong economic growth, expected to be 4.4 percent this year, up from 3.1 percent in 2016. Pahor will call a general election in the coming months and it is expected to be held in the first half of June. | 1 |
21,753 | Numbskull Republican Ignores History, Says Reagan Would NEVER Negotiate With Iran | Republican Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) spoke with Family Research Council President Tony Perkins yesterday, on the radio show Washington Watch, where they discussed Obama s diplomatic victory in the peaceful release of Iranian prisoners.Perkins was very upset over the idea that we got Americans returned home by talking to Iran and using diplomacy. He suggested that America has hit a dangerously slippery slope in regards to Americans being held abroad in prisons, because the fact we did something to get our people home would only invite more and more demands in future incidents.Poe agreed that it was a very sad state of affairs for the nation. The price as he put it, that America had paid was simply too high. What price is acceptable, he didn t say. He only continued on to lament the fact that the days of Ronald Reagan and not negotiating with terrorists were gone from the country.Since he brought up Ronald Reagan and his policy of not negotiating with terrorists, let s take a closer look at that.During Reagan s second term, officials of his administration and very likely Reagan himself secretly and illegally sold weapons to Iran. Iran was under an arms embargo at the time because they were considered a terrorist state. The sale was done in order to bribe Iran to help facilitate the release of American hostages in Lebanon.The Republican revisionism and selective memory, when it comes to the legacy of Ronald Reagan is nothing short of amazing. The Iran-Contra scandal happened when practically every establishment Republican was alive and old enough to be able to watch the news or read the newspaper. It s like Germany insisting World War 2 never happened, and instead the entire nation was on vacation for 6 years.President Obama did everything right, getting our people home, not firing one bullet to do it, while not sending more weapons into the hands of those who can do us harm, and the first reaction from the right is to attack him for it.I m sure Republicans wish the prisoners were still being held so they had a political football, but can t they just try to repeal Obamacare again?[soundcloud url= https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/242909973 params= color=ff5500 width= 100% height= 166 iframe= true /]featured image via YouTube screen capture | 0 |
21,754 | May's Conservatives win vote to bolster party's numbers on committees | (Reuters) - British lawmakers voted on Tuesday in favor of handing the governing Conservatives greater say on committees that scrutinize laws, a move denounced by the opposition as an attempt to rig parliament . The government won by 320 votes to 301, a day after lawmakers passed legislation to sever ties with the European Union. May lost the Conservatives majority in a June election, forcing her government to rely on the support of a small Northern Irish party to pass laws. | 1 |
21,755 | Penthouse Might Have Video Of Trump With Peeing Russian Ladies After Offering $1 Million Bounty | Donald Trump has been demanding that someone provide proof that the allegations that he hired some nice Russian ladies to pee for him. Well, that evidence may have surfaced and it may be in the possession of the adult magazine Penthouse or all places.On Tuesday, Penthouse offered up to $1 million for exclusive rights to tapes that multiple sources now say exist showing Trump, among other things, paying women to drain the swamp on his bed. Four sources now tell the BBC that video captured in Moscow and St. Petersberg, Russia indeed exists, this tweet may have found it:ATTENTION:We are offering up to $1-million for exclusive rights to the FSB tapes of Donald Trump's #goldenshowers Penthouse (@Penthouse) January 11, 2017Penthouse s offer attracted three responses, according to editor Ralphie Aronowitz. He explains that the magazine is not conducting a witch hunt, but that they simply want the truth to be out there. He says the $1 million bounty the highest they have ever offered is because it falls in line with the magazine s brand perfectly. If the story is real, which we don t know if it is or not, it really kind of hits at the intersection between politics, scandal and sex, which as a brand both historically and currently is our sweet spot, Aronowitz told IB Times. For us, this was the type of story that we wanted to jump all over. But at the same time there s been so much floating around as far as fake news stories there have been so many people who have just been taking shots at President-elect Donald Trump because he s an easy target, and we as a brand and as an informational source, we didn t want to jump on the bandwagon, he says. We wanted to make sure this story could be verified, that the murmurings of their being actual video documentation that corroborates the allegations, do exist. For us, this was a very real ask, which is just Give us some facts, and let us share the real story with our readers and with the public. Tapes will be turned over to experts Aronowitz claims are formerly affiliated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation for authentication. He says he has not yet received the physical tapes, but that he hopes to by the end of the week.Featured image via Getty Images/Spencer Platt | 0 |
21,756 | (VIDEO) TRUMP AND O’REILLY DISCUSS DEBATE: Admits He’s “Apprehensive” Before First National GOP Debate | You don t know what s gonna come at you all of this has nothing to do with being a great President. | 0 |
21,757 | Trump Rips Sessions Over Russia, Says He Never Should Have Made Him AG (AUDIO) | Donald Trump is obsessed with the Russia investigation. He has a right to be; after all, this is the modern day cancer on the presidency that Richard Nixon was warned about, and we all know what happened there. However, Nixon knew how to keep his mouth shut, and Trump definitely doesn t.In a new interview with the New York Times, Trump rails against Attorney General Jeff Sessions regarding Sessions decision to recuse himself from all things related to Russia. Of course, Sessions really had no choice after it was revealed that he lied to the Senate committee about his own meeting with the Russian Ambassador in order to get confirmed as Attorney General. That matters not to Trump, though. He says he would never have appointed Sessions had he known there would be a recusal. Trump told the Times: Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself, which frankly I think is very unfair to the president. How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, Thanks, Jeff, but I m not going to take you. It s extremely unfair and that s a mild word to the president. Here is audio of that clip:Newsflash, you 71-year-old toddler: It is not Jeff Sessions job to engage in an investigation in which he has a clear conflict of interest. Further, had he done that with the intention of providing cover for you and your criminal family, he would be in legal trouble himself. Jeff Sessions is a lawyer, and he knew this. It seems that you literally expect your officials to risk losing law licenses or even going to jail over loyalty to you.This administration is literally cannibalistic. The second anyone does anything that is even perceived as being harmful to Trump, or disloyal as he likes to call it, they fall out of favor and Trump starts threatening them.I d be willing to bet that right about now, Sessions is wishing he had never helped get Trump elected, much less taken a job in his administration. In Donald Trump s world, the only person who is safe is Donald Trump himself.Featured image via Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images | 0 |
21,758 | Saudi authorities pursue Twitter user over women's driving threat | RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia s public prosecutor issued an arrest warrant on Saturday for a Twitter user who called for anyone who supports women driving to be killed, days after a royal decree ended a long-time ban on women taking the wheel. The Twitter user, who was not named, was alleged to have referred to men who support women driving as cuckolds who should be killed, according to state-linked Asharq al-Awsat newspaper. The prosecutor s announcement comes two days after a separate arrest warrant was issued for a man who threatened in a video clip posted online to attack women drivers. Many Saudis welcomed Tuesday s announcement by King Salman lifting the ban by next year, but others expressed opposition online or in quiet conversations after decades of support for the policy by prominent clerics. In the statement, the prosecutor vowed to monitor for threats of abuse and pursue cases against those who incite attacks against society and violations of the rights of others . | 1 |
21,759 | Xi, top China party officials, make symbolic visit to Shanghai | SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Days after taking over as China s leader in 2012, Xi Jinping led other top Communist Party officials to Beijing s National Museum to visit an exhibit on party history entitled The Road to Rejuvenation . The museum trip telegraphed what would become one of Xi s overarching policy priorities in the next five years. On Tuesday, less than a week after being anointed for a second term as party chief at a twice-a-decade party congress, Xi and the other men at the pinnacle of the party made a rare joint visit to China s financial capital, Shanghai, where they paid homage to the party s birthplace and founding fathers. Official photos showed the men at the site of the first party congress in 1921, gazing solemnly at a relief sculpture of the party s original leaders and standing around a wooden meeting table. This is an important symbolic gesture, said Willy Wo-Lap Lam, an adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. It s a reinstatement of the commitment of the party in this so-called new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics that they would stick to original values of the founding fathers. That means definitely no move away from orthodox Marxism, orthodox Maoism. No taking up of Western values. The visit brought parts of the city of 25 million people to a standstill as police blocked roads and highways around the Xintiandi area, home to the modest grey brick building that hosted the first congress. State television showed Xi leading the six other Politburo Standing Committee members, fists raised, in a symbolic retaking of the Communist Party oath. The men then travelled to Jiaxing, in eastern Zhejiang province, visiting a replica of the Red Boat on the South Lake - another historic site of the Communist Party s founding. The Communist Party was born here, state television showed Xi saying. These are the roots of the party. At the congress that ended last week - the party s 19th - Xi consolidated his grip as China s strongest leader in decades, promoting allies and getting his name and signature political platform enshrined in the party charter. Xi is not the first general secretary of the party to try to send a message with a well-publicised trip early in his tenure. Hu Jintao, his predecessor, sought to cultivate a man of the people image starting with a visit one month after becoming party chief in 2002 to the town of Xibaipo, a one-time revolutionary base. In December 2012, a month after Xi became party chief, he made a low-key but widely watched trip to Shenzhen, the southern city was where late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping jumpstarted economic reforms in the early 1990s. The visit to Shanghai on Tuesday may also send another message, Lam said. The city had been synonymous with the political patronage network of 91-year-old former president Jiang Zemin, who attended the congress. At the weekend, Xi promoted ally Li Qiang to the role of Shanghai party chief, the city s top job. Li is not from the city, nor has he built his career there. In January another Xi man from elsewhere, Ying Yong, was appointed mayor. Traditionally, the city s party chief or mayor, or both, have hailed from Shanghai or worked up the ranks there. Having two outsiders is a break with the past. It shows indirectly that the Shanghai faction under Jiang Zemin has ceased to be a force to be reckoned with, Lam said. Now, it s Xi Jinping bringing his own people. | 1 |
21,760 | Mauritius attorney general steps down amid money laundering probe | PORT LOUIS (Reuters) - The attorney general of the island nation of Mauritius stepped down on Wednesday after allegations he had helped launder gambling money. Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth told reporters he wanted an investigation into Ravi Yerrigadoo to be conducted transparently. The Indian Ocean island markets itself as a link between Africa and Asia and is striving to move from an economy mostly based on sugar, textiles and tourism toward offshore banking, business outsourcing, luxury real estate and medical tourism. A scandal could hurt its burgeoning financial services industry. If Ravi Yerrigadoo is cleared he will be able to resume office, Jugnauth said. Mauritius-based L Express newspaper reported on Wednesday that an affidavit had been filed before the Supreme Court accusing Yerrigadoo of trying to facilitate the transfer of gambling money through a financial structure. It was not clear who had filed the affidavit. In a statement, Yerrigadoo denied the allegations and said he had quit to avoid the perception of a conflict of interest while the investigation was in progress. In March 2016, the environment minister was also forced to resign over corruption allegations. | 1 |
21,761 | BREAKING: DNC STAFFERS May Have Sold Sensitive Info To “Hostile Foreign Governments”…”A Massive, Massive Scandal” | Well, well, well The DNC IT scandal could become the biggest yet with the new investigation by federal authorities into whether sensitive date was sold to foreign agents. Former DNC Chair and DNC IT staffers are all involved. Shady doesn t even begin to describe these staffers who would sell out their own mother.CLAIMS OF PROFILING DON T STAND A CHANCE The defense for this criminal behavior from both the lawyer (former Clinton associate) and former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz is that these staffers are being targeted for being Muslim. DWS said recently that scrutiny of her Muslim aide was motivated by racial and ethnic profiling. The lawyer for the ringleader in all of this said his client was only indicted for working while Muslim. The main stream media is ignoring this HUGE scandal because they care more about statues Here s the low down:IT STAFFERS HAD ACCESS TO MOST CONGRESSIONAL INFO IMRAN AWAN and the other four staffers under investigation had full and complete access to lawmakers e-mails, calendars, schedules, hearing notes, meeting notes and memos and other sensitive information.Federal authorities are investigating whether sensitive data was stolen from congressional offices by several Pakistani-American tech staffers and sold to Pakistani or Russian intelligence, knowledgeable sources say.WASSERMAN SHULTZ THREATENS CAPITOL POLICE TO HAND OVER COMPUTER What started out 16 months ago as a scandal involving the alleged theft of computer equipment from Congress has turned into a national-security investigation involving FBI surveillance of the suspects.Investigators now suspect that sensitive US government data possibly including classified information could have been compromised and may have been sold to hostile foreign governments that could use it to blackmail members of Congress or even put their lives at risk. This is a massive, massive scandal SENIOR US OFFICIALAlarm bells went off in April 2016 when computer security officials in the House reported irregularities in computer equipment purchasing. An internal investigation revealed the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars in government property, and evidence pointed to five IT staffers and the Democratic Congress members offices that employed them. READ MORE: NYP | 0 |
21,762 | FBI Director Comey’s ‘Leaked’ Memo Explains Why He’s Reopening the Clinton Email Case | 21st Century Wire says 21WIRE reported on Friday about the FBI s surprising announcement that it would be reopening the Clinton email case due to new evidence of classified information found on sex cheat Anthony Weiner s (newly estranged husband of Clinton chief aid Huma Abedin) computer which was subject to a seperate investigation. Will this really yield anything significant in the 10 days running-up to the Nov 8th election, or is this just clever Democrat party smoke and mirrors? It seems that Washington s political tricksters have already sprung into action After Comey s shock announcement, a leaked memo appeared out of nowhere, supplied to Fox News, in which Comey and the FBI seem to be going through a routine set of prescribed political moves designed to implement damage control. ELITE CIRCLES: FBI head James Comey and friend Hillary Clinton.Certainly, a desperate Democratic Party, and an even more desperate Obama White House (over the last 3 weeks, Obama and his wife Michelle have been out campaigning more that Hillary Clinton herself), could be pressuring or nudging the FBI on this volatile issue which could easily tilt a close presidential race against Donald Trump. Aside from the obvious potential of another Clinton scandal, yesterday s FBI move could also be a prelude to the following possible scenarios:NOTE: Despite calls from the Clinton camp for FBI to disclose what they have (which they cannot by law anyway, you d think Hillary would have already known that), it is highly unlikely that the FBI will release any real specifics before the election if they have anything at all. It s just too early to tell. SEE ALSO: FBI James Comey was board member of HSBC Clinton Foundation & Drug Cartel bank of choice The FBI director stoked outrage last month when he announced that he would not recommend the Justice Department seek an indictment against Clinton or any of the other parties to the investigation allowing Clinton to dodge any criminal probe before the election despite the fact that Comey stated to a Congressional investigative committee that Clinton was extremely careless, and that Clinton openly lied about her handling classified information on her unsecured private server throughout her tenure as the US Secretary of State.Zero Hedge adds: Now, it is the democrats turn to rage at Comey and the FBI, although Comey likely did not have much choice: had he kept the information secret, it certainly would have leaked as we predicted; as such his best recourse was to come clean, although many have speculated about the cryptic nature of the disclosure. Needless to say, all Comey would need to do to regain the Demcorats trust and favor is to announce in just a few days that nothing material has been found and that the second probe is also over. Here is leaked (aka just covering my ass) memo from FBI director James Comey:Watch this space. Here is a highlight reel of Hillary Clinton lying on at least 5 occasions when asked direct questions about her illegal private email server: . READ MORE ELECTION NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire 2016 FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 |
21,763 | ‘SOUTH PARK’ MOCKS HILLARY CLINTON: Hilarious Takeoff On Robotic and Overly Scripted Debate Performance | South Park parodied former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as over-prepared to the point where she can only repeat the instructions her staff has given her.Read more: BPR | 0 |
21,764 | NY prosecutor’s office likely to plot similar course after Bharara’s firing | NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration’s firing of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara sent shockwaves through New York, but veterans of the high-profile office expect a longstanding mission of cracking down on political corruption and Wall Street wrongdoing to remain intact. Staffed with more than one hundred career prosecutors, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office has a long history of being apolitical and pursuing a wide range of investigations into terrorism, public corruption, securities fraud and cyber crime, former prosecutors said. Lorin Reisner, former head of the office’s criminal division from 2012 to 2014, who is now in private practice at law firm Paul Weiss, said the priorities of the office are unlikely to change, regardless of who replaces Bharara. “Generations of SDNY prosecutors have been told that their job is to do the right thing, for the right reasons, every day, in every case,” he said, using the acronym for the office, the Southern District of New York. Hanging in the balance are ongoing investigations of potential fraud at Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc and its ties to a mail-order pharmacy and of two massive data breaches at Yahoo Inc, including one affecting more than one billion user accounts. The office is also investigating a major cyber heist from the Bank of Bangladesh involving funds which moved through the New York Federal Reserve bank. Bharara, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009, lived up to the office’s reputation, investigating Republicans and Democrats alike. He has been overseeing a probe into Democratic New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s fundraising. “It would be tremendously difficult for any U.S. attorney to come in and politicize that office,” said Carrie Cohen, a former prosecutor who worked under Bharara and is now in private practice at Morrison & Foerster. President Donald Trump has yet to announce a replacement for Bharara or the other remaining 45 U.S. attorneys from the Obama era who were asked to step down on Friday. U.S. attorneys are political appointees requiring confirmation by the U.S. Senate. They usually leave office when a new president is elected, although some remain for months to help with the transition. But Bharara’s removal from office came as a surprise because Trump had met with him after the election and indicated he would be retained. Bharara refused to resign, prompting his firing on Saturday. Whoever Trump appoints to replace Bharara will likely reflect U.S. Attorney General Jeff Session’s priorities, including a desire to crack down on violent crime and less of a focus on civil rights cases. There is growing speculation among former prosecutors and others in the legal community that Bharara’s replacement will be Marc Mukasey, a defense lawyer whose father served as attorney general under Republican President George W. Bush. Mukasey declined to comment on Sunday. In the short-term, the office will be headed by acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim. He is a veteran of the office, returning under Bharara in 2013 as a key deputy following an earlier stint from 2000 to 2006. In between, he was a partner at the Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton law firm. A spokesman for the office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Outside of public corruption, Bharara was perhaps best known for overseeing a wave of cases focused on insider trading. Many of the investigations were already underway when Bharara took office in August 2009. But he became the face of the crackdown, landing on the cover of Time magazine in 2012 with the headline “This man is busting Wall St.” The new U.S. attorney will have some latitude on what to focus on in the future. “Each U.S. attorney has his own order of priorities and how they see the resources of the office best used and each U.S. attorney also has the right to discontinue an investigation if they feel it’s a waste of time,” said Ben Brafman, a leading defense lawyer. Sessions has, however, already signaled a shift away from some Obama administration priorities. Unlike Bharara and his former bosses in the Obama administration, Sessions advocates trying foreign militants before military commissions instead of in civilian courts. Bharara had pushed for trials in civilian courts while Sessions has criticized that approach and vouched for the ongoing value of trying foreign defendants before military tribunals. On civil rights, Norman Siegel, former executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said there was “growing anxiety” about the future of such cases since Bharara’s firing. | 1 |
21,765 | no title | anatomy lesson published hours ago
editors note do you need something to smile about every day wnd selects the best joke offered up by readers and contributors to its laughlines forum and brings it to you as the wnd joke of the day here is todays offering
a pediatrician in town always plays a game with some of his young patients to put them at ease and test their knowledge of body parts
one day while pointing to a little boys ear the doctor asked him is this your nose
the little boy turned to his mother and said mom i think wed better find a new doctor | 1 |
21,766 | U.S. Labor Department rescinds Obama-era rule on 'joint employment' | (Reuters) - The U.S. Labor Department on Wednesday said it was rescinding the Obama administration’s standard for determining when companies are “joint employers” of contract and franchise workers, in the agency’s first major shift in labor policy under President Donald Trump. The department in a statement said it had withdrawn a 2016 interpretation of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) that expanded the circumstances under which a business could be held liable for wage-law violations by staffing agencies, contractors, and franchisees. Previously, companies were considered joint employers when they hired and fired workers and set wages. The Obama administration said a worker’s level of “economic dependence” on a company should also be considered. The expanded definition of joint employment had rankled the business community, which said it threatened the franchise business model and would draw companies into lawsuits when they were not responsible for setting working conditions. Also on Wednesday, the department withdrew 2015 guidance that said that under the same law, many workers are improperly treated as independent contractors when they are actually employees, which would make them eligible for minimum wage, overtime, and other legal protections. Guidance issued by federal agencies is not legally binding, but serves as a blueprint for how agencies will enforce federal laws. A shift in enforcement priorities at the Department of Labor had been widely expected since President Donald Trump, a Republican and wealthy businessman from New York, took office. Business groups have said the department’s guidance on employment and worker classification was misguided and affected nearly every U.S. industry, and they praised the agency’s changes on Wednesday. “Diligent employers work hard to be compliant with the FLSA and these (department) interpretations were merely enforcement traps waiting to spring,” Randy Johnson, a vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement. Unions and workers’ rights groups said they were troubled by the labor department’s decision. “This was guidance that made it easier for employers, workers, unions and others to know about their rights and obligations under the law,” Lynn Rhinehart, general counsel for the AFL-CIO, said in a statement. The withdrawal of the guidance does not affect a separate expansion of the definition of joint employment by the National Labor Relations Board, which is under review by a federal appeals court. The NLRB’s standard has had more of an impact than the labor department’s because it is legally binding and requires joint employers to bargain with unions. | 1 |
21,767 | Burr: Nunes stepped aside to protect Russia probe investigation | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said on Thursday he felt his House of Representatives counterpart had stepped away from that panel’s investigation of possible links between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia because he felt it was necessary. “Chairman (Devin) Nunes has made the move he felt necessary to protect the viability of his Committee and its investigation going forward,” Republican U.S. Senator Richard Burr said in a statement. | 1 |
21,768 | TREY GOWDY Embarrasses Gun-Grabbing Obama Official In Brilliant “Gotcha” Moment [VIDEO] | Why is explaining our Constitution to liberals is like explaining algebra to a two year old? Shouldn t government officials who are being paid by We The Taxpayer have a basic understanding of how our Constitution and the basic rights it affords US citizens?The Left, from the White House on down, has scrambled to make the horrific Islamic terrorist attack on the LBGT community in Orlando, which left 49 innocents dead and injured 53 others, all about gun control and those evil Christians.Honing in on their indictment of the gun, the Left has exploited the tragedy in effort to pass anti-American gun legislation, much like Senator Dianne Feinstein s proposed (and failed) measure to ban those who have been named on the terror watchlist within the last five years from their Second Amendment right to purchase a firearm.No due process necessary; and not to mention, the terror watchlist is a train-wreck: naming journalists, politicians, cub scouts and right wing extremists to their list of suspects. In light of this push, South Carolina representative Trey Gowdy re-upped his complete domination of the issue to his Facebook page. Can you name another constitutional right that is chilled until we find out it is chilled, and then we have to petition the government to get it back? Is there another constitutional right we treat the same way for American citizens as we do the second amendment? wrote Gowdy, captioning the video.WATCH video Gowdy posted on his Facebook page here: What process is currently afforded an American citizen before they go on that list? asked Gowdy.After being told that there isn t one, but, rather, only a process to petition to get off the list after finding out that one has been put on it, Gowdy pushed back. Hard. I m actually talking about due process, which is a phrase we find in the Constitution. he quipped, that you cannot deprive people of certain things without due process. He continued hammering the liberal: Can you name another constitutional right that is chilled until we find out it is chilled, and then we have to petition the government to get it back? he asked. Is that true with the First Amendment? Without a coherent rejoinder to him, Gowdy persisted: If we re fine with doing it with the Second Amendment, how about the First? How about we not let them set up a website or a Goggle account? How about we not let them join a church until they can petition the government to get off the list. How about not getting a lawyer? How about the Sixth Amendment? How about you can t get a lawyer until you petition the government to get off the list? Or my favorite: How about the Eighth Amendment? We are going to subject you to cruel and unusual punishment until you petition the government to get off the list? Is there another constitutional right that we treat the same way, for American citizens, that we do for the Second Amendment? he asked. Via: Daily WireTrey Gowdy asks another brilliant question every one of our gun-grabbing legislators should have to answer: | 0 |
21,769 | State Department says FBI has not approached it in renewed email probe | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. State Department spokesman said on Monday that to his knowledge the FBI had not asked the department for anything in connection with its renewed scrutiny of emails linked to a private server used by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. State Department spokesman John Kirby said as far as he knew, the FBI had not approached the State Department for anything related to its decision to look at additional emails connected to the server used by Clinton, now the Democratic presidential nominee. | 1 |
21,770 | No role for Assad in Syria's future: Tillerson | GENEVA (Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad and his family have no role in the future of Syria, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Thursday ahead of peace talks aiming at a political transition scheduled to resume next month. Tillerson said that the Trump administration backed the Geneva peace talks as the only way to end the more than six-year-old war and move to a political transition and elections. He was speaking after holding talks with U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, who announced that stalled peace talks between the Syrian government and still-to-be-united opposition would resume in Geneva on Nov. 28. “The United States wants a whole and unified Syria with no role for Bashar al-Assad in the government,” Tillerson told reporters in the Swiss city at the end of a week-long trip that took him to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan and India. “It is our view and I have said this many times as well that we do not believe that there is a future for the Assad regime and Assad family. The reign of the Assad family is coming to an end. The only issue is how that should that be brought about.” When the Trump administration came into office it took the view that it was “not a prerequisite that Assad goes” before the transitional process started, he added. Supported by Russian air power and Iran-backed militias, Assad appears militarily unassailable and last month Assad ally Hezbollah declared victory in the Syrian war. Those forces have pushed Islamic State back from large swathes of eastern Syria in recent months and over the past year have taken numerous pockets of rebel-held territory around Aleppo, Homs and Damascus. “My reading is that Assad is here to stay for as long as the Russians and the Iranians have no alternative to him,” a Western diplomat told Reuters. “The date of his departure will depend on the Russians more than anyone else. Once - or if - they find someone better, he may go.” Ceasefire deals brokered by Russia, Turkey, Iran and the United States in remaining rebel-held areas of western Syria have freed up manpower for Assad’s allies. Tillerson called his discussions with de Mistura “fruitful” and said the United States will “continue our efforts to de-escalate the violence in Syria”. He said the only reason Assad’s forces had succeeded in turning the tide in the war against Islamic State and other militants was “air support they have received from Russia”. Tillerson said Iran, Assad’s other main ally, should not be seen as having made the difference in the defeat of Islamic State in Syria. “I do not see Syria as a triumph for Iran. I see Iran as a hanger-on. I don’t think that Iran should be given credit for the defeat of ISIS (Islamic State) In Syria. Rather I think they have taken advantage of the situation.” | 1 |
21,771 | McConnell will not give timeline for Obamacare replacement | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Monday the Senate will move to repeal President Barack Obama’s healthcare law shortly after Jan. 1, but declined to give a timeline for a plan to replace it. McConnell said the Senate would vote as soon as it returns from its year-end recess to repeal Obamacare. “And then we will work expeditiously to come up with a better program than current law, because current law is simply unacceptable and not sustainable,” he said. Asked repeatedly, McConnell did not give any timeline for when the Republicans would offer their own plan. He said they would be consulting with different “stakeholders.” Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president last month means Republicans will control the White House, Senate and House of Representatives in 2017. The new Congress goes to work on Jan. 3; Trump will be sworn in on Jan. 20. Republicans in both the Senate and House of Representatives say they want to repeal Obamacare early in 2017. But Republicans have not agreed on how quickly the Obamacare repeal should go into effect. A delay would give them time to work on a replacement, instead of throwing millions of Americans out of their health insurance with no substitute. | 1 |
21,772 | ANGRY VETERAN Posts Emotional Viral Video Against Flag Burning: “What’s happening is sickening” [Video] | Sacrifice, pride, honor | 0 |
21,773 | POPE MEETS WITH ANGRY, JEWISH, PR0 LATE-TERM ABORTION, SOCIALIST To Discuss Morality, Phony Climate Change | As a Catholic I m offended by this Pope s political meddling in our Presidential election beyond words Pope Francis met U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in the Vatican on Saturday morning and the two discussed the need for morality in the world economy before the pontiff left for a visit to the Greek island of Lesbos.Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs told Reuters that the meeting took place in the Vatican guesthouse where the pope lives and where Sanders had spent the night after addressing a Vatican conference on social justice.The Vatican had said that a meeting between the two was not planned, and Sanders said he did not expect to meet the pope during his trip. He is a beautiful man, Sanders said in an interview with ABC News after the meeting. I am not a Catholic, but there is a radiance that comes from him. Sachs said Sanders, who was accompanied by his wife, spoke with the pope for about five minutes. Sachs, his wife, and Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, head of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, were also in the room. I just conveyed to him my admiration for the extraordinary work he is doing raising some of the most important issues facing our planet and the billions of people on the planet and injecting the need for morality in the global economy, Sanders told ABC.The Democratic hopeful from Vermont has campaigned on a promise to rein in corporate power and level the economic playing field for working and lower-income Americans whom he says have been left behind, a message echoing that of the pope.When Sachs, who has advised the United Nations on climate change, was asked if the meeting could be interpreted as political, he said: This was absolutely not political. This is a senator who for decades has been speaking about the moral economy. The meeting came just days before Tuesday s Democratic party primary in New York, where polls say he is trailing Hillary Clinton. After he won seven of the last eight state contests, a loss in Sanders home state would give front-runner Clinton a boost toward the party s presidential nomination.Sanders, the Brooklyn-born son of Polish Jewish immigrants, has said the trip was not a pitch for the Catholic vote but a testament to his admiration for the pontiff. Via: Reuters | 0 |
21,774 | THE PROBLEM WITH ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION…Explained As If You Were 5-Years-Old | Among the findings:A Complex Fiscal Picture Welfare use. Our findings show that many of the preconceived notions about the fiscal impact of illegal households turn out to be inaccurate. In terms of welfare use, receipt of cash assistance programs tends to be very low, while Medicaid use, though significant, is still less than for other households. Only use of food assistance programs is significantly higher than that of the rest of the population. Also, contrary to the perceptions that illegal aliens don t pay payroll taxes, we estimate that more than half of illegals work on the books. On average, illegal households pay more than $4,200 a year in all forms of federal taxes. Unfortunately, they impose costs of $6,950 per household.The Impact of Amnesty. Finally, our estimates show that amnesty would significantly increase tax revenue. Because both their income and tax compliance would rise, we estimate that under the most likely scenario the average illegal alien household would pay 77 percent ($3,200) more a year in federal taxes once legalized. While not enough to offset the 118 percent ($8,200) per household increase in costs that would come with legalization, amnesty would significantly increase both the average income and tax payments of illegal aliens.What s Different About Today s Immigration. Many native-born Americans observe that their ancestors came to America and did not place great demands on government services. Perhaps this is true, but the size and scope of government were dramatically smaller during the last great wave of immigration. Not just means-tested programs, but expenditures on everything from public schools to roads were only a fraction of what they are today. Thus, the arrival of unskilled immigrants in the past did not have the negative fiscal implications that it does today. Moreover, the American economy has changed profoundly since the last great wave of immigration, with education now the key determinant of economic success. The costs that unskilled immigrants impose simply reflect the nature of the modern American economy and welfare state. It is doubtful that the fiscal costs can be avoided if our immigration policies remain unchanged. Center For Immigration Study | 0 |
21,775 | Obama Suggests Gun Confiscation Is Solution…Citizens In Gun Free Britain Disagree [Watch] | Buckle up America. Barack doesn t give up easily. When he wants something, he ll stop at nothing to get it. Chicago politics can get really ugly, and when we have a Chicago community organizer lives in our White House all bets are off. It doesn t help that we have a Congress who is willing to sit back and watch him trample our Constitution When President Obama spoke in reaction to the heinous October 1 attack on Umpqua Community College, he went beyond his usual calls for more gun control and suggested instead that America consider following the path blazed by Australia and Great Britain.In the mid-1990s Australia and Great Britain both instituted what were virtually complete bans on firearm possession.Obama referenced the bans thus:We know that other countries, in response to one mass shooting, have been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings. Friends of ours, allies of ours Great Britain, Australia, countries like ours. So we know there are ways to prevent it. Via: Breitbart NewsHere s what citizens in Britain have to say about living in a gun free country:https://youtu.be/mKdBxpKqUvsHere s Barack saying his biggest frustration is not being able to make gun control a reality in the United States: | 0 |
21,776 | The Rolling Stones Are DONE With Trump Using Their Music (VIDEO) | The Rolling Stones are now on a growing list of rock stars who have asked Republicans to stop using their music. This time it was Donald Trump, who has been playing the Stones music at his rallies.Just one day after Trump unofficially sealed the GOP nomination, the band stated that they had not given permission for the billionaire to use their music and they asked that he cease all use immediately. Ironically, the song in question is You Can t Always Get What You Want, which is about compromise something the Republicans know little to nothing about and something that goes against everything Donald Trump has been campaigning against. The campaign has also played Start Me Up. Trump, who will take anyone to court for virtually anything, seems not to care very much about artists intellectual property rights.Trump, perhaps more than most candidates, uses music to energize his crowds. Here s just one small sample, although not with the song in question:TrumpTube, which is like YouTube for Donald Trump, posted his playlist and the Rolling Stones song is still at the very top, with an unofficial video, of course.Adele and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler both asked the candidate to stop using their recorded songs to fire up crowds. Neil Young also objected when the real estate mogul used Rockin in the Free World during his campaign kickoff announcement last year. In those cases, the Trump campaign stopped using the songs.Source: CBS NewsTwisted Sister is also twisted up about Trump using their music without permission. Noted liberals R.E.M. were also fed up with being used by Trump.Trump is far from the only Republican to receive backlash from artists for using their music. FiveThirtyEight compiled this list last year, after Neil Young told Trump to knock it off. The list begins with Ronald Reagan, after Bruce Springsteen famously told him that Born In The USA didn t mean what Reagan thought it did. Both Bushes received cease and desist orders. John McCain made enemies of a whopping nine artists as diverse as ABBA, Heart, Jackson Brown, Tom Petty and the Foo Fighters. John Cougar Mellencamp had to ask two GOP candidates, McCain and Reagan, to stop using Pink Houses. Again, they had no idea what that song was about.Whether Trump (or any others of the candidates) was really violating copyright law is up to interpretation. Most commercially marketed music is licensed through one of two organizations, ASCAP and BMI. Campaigns can buy licenses without the artists permission in most cases, however, some of the more powerful and influential artists do have some say over what songs can be included in the licensing agreements.Trump s campaign hasn t yet commented.Featured image via YouTube screen shot. | 0 |
21,777 | German SPD votes for talks with Merkel's conservatives | BERLIN (Reuters) - German Social Democratic Party (SPD) members voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to allow their party s leadership to enter talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives on forming a government. The party congress s vote means leaders can discuss options including a renewed grand coalition , an informal cooperation or a formal agreement to tolerate a conservative minority government by not voting down certain parliamentary motions. | 1 |
21,778 | WATCH: Racist Trump Supporter Who Called Michelle Obama A ‘Gorilla’ Gets Booted Off School Board | The Buffalo School Board refuses to tolerate racism from one of their own members, and decisively voted to oust a racist Trump supporter from their ranks on Thursday.Earlier this month, Carl Paladino wrote a wish list hoping for President Obama s death from mad cow disease and called for First Lady Michelle Obama to be sent to live with gorillas in Africa. I d like her to return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla, Paladino wrote.Predictably, national outrage ensued as Paladino s own son condemned him. We value and respect our employees, friends, partners and all of our commercial and residential tenancies and we do not condone the statements made about the President of the United States and his wife, William Paladino wrote. They were disrespectful and absolutely unnecessary. And just this week, Paladino issued a pathetic non-apology apology while calling President Obama lazy and blaming the media for the outrage over his racist remarks before declaring, No, I m not leaving the school board. Oh, yes he is, if the school board has anything to say about it.On Thursday, the board voted 6-2 on a resolution condemning Paladino s remarks and demanding his resignation.School Board President Barbara Seals Nevergold had strong words for Paladino, who didn t bother attending the meeting because he s a coward. Words matter, Mr. Paladino, Nevergold said. The impact on children of color, especially African-American children is incalculable They would like me to tell you, You re fired. The resolution blasted Paladino for his unambiguously racist, morally repugnant, flagrantly disrespectful, inflammatory and inexcusable comments, and explained that his remarks garnered both local, national, and international attention that reflects negatively on the Buffalo Board of Education, the City of Buffalo and its leadership and its citizens. In addition, if Paladino refuses to resign the Buffalo School Board is going to get an attorney to file an application of removal to the State Education Department to force him out.In short, Paladino can resist but the school board has spoken and so did the many people in attendance who cheered when the resolution passed.Here s video of the meeting via Twitter.#BREAKING resolution calling for @CarlPaladino to resign from the @Buffalo_Schools BOE in 24 hours passes 6-2 @WGRZ pic.twitter.com/8T6an1ukCG Jeff Preval (@PrevalWGRZ) December 29, 2016And Carl Paladino has only himself to blame.Featured image via screenshot | 0 |
21,779 | ROSIE O’DONNELL, BROADWAY STARS Host Concert ‘Celebrating’ Hillary But Bash Trump | The biggest stars on Broadway are apparently still having trouble coping with Hillary Clinton s loss to Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.Tony and Grammy Award-winners convened Sunday evening for a special concert called Double Standards at the Town Hall Theater in New York City, with the event focused on celebrating Hillary Clinton and women s empowerment, reports InStyle.All proceeds from the concert tickets were donated to Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and the Breast Cancer Coalition.The brainchild of actress and singer Laura Bell Bundy, who portrayed the original Amber Von Tussle in Hairspray, the concert was produced through a partnership between Bundy and iS CLINICAL skincare. We have been fighting as women for rights that men are just born with, which is crazy, Bundy told InStyle. We have to stay on top of that, and we have to mobilize, and we can t just go to one march and think it s going to happen. We have to march and benefit and hashtag and call our representatives and get out there and create groups, so this is a part of the Broadway community essentially having a town hall meeting, except when we have a town hall meeting, we sing our faces off, she added. This is how we raise our voices, at Town Hall. In addition to featuring Broadway stars singing spins of famous tunes from classical musicals, the event saw comedian Rosie O Donnell continuing to mourn Clinton s loss as she injected her political viewpoint into the mix:I ve felt bad since last November, I ve been laying in bed for a couple of months. I figured out how to get Entenmann s crumb cake into an IV tube. It wasn t easy, it was miserable, but then you know what happened: Bob Mueller ladies and gentlemen. Bob Mueller I m getting a Bob Mueller tattoo right over my heart as soon as that orange piece of s is in jail.Wow! Rosie is bitter woman seek help! | 0 |
21,780 | (Video) Clinton: As president, I would ‘model the kind of behavior’ I’d hope all Americans would have | Like breaking federal laws and treating Secret Service agents like her minions? | 0 |
21,781 | WATCH: Trump Lashes Out After Being Grilled To His Breaking Point By ABC Host | George Stephanopoulos allowed presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to phone into Good Morning America on Friday morning only to be grilled for not releasing his tax returns. Do you believe voters have a right to see your tax returns before they make a final decision? Stephanopoulos asked. I don t think they do, Trump replied before claiming that he will gladly release his returns once the IRS completes an audit against him. Of course, the audit may not be over until after the election, a fact that even Trump conceded despite feigning hope that it will end before November.Stephanopoulos didn t buy that argument, however, pointing out that an audit didn t prevent former President Richard Nixon from releasing his tax returns. The IRS has made it very clear that an audit is not a bar to public release, Stephanopoulos said. It s entirely your choice. President Nixon released his tax returns even though he was under audit and when you were seeking a casino license in Pennsylvania and New Jersey you released your returns to state officials even though you were under audit. Trump repeated that he will not release his returns until after the audit is complete, which may or may not be completed until after the election, so the audit is a rather convenient excuse for Trump.Trump then erroneously claimed that many presidents have not released their tax returns, and Stephanopoulos didn t let him get away it. Every single nominee since 1976 has released his tax returns, the ABC host informed Trump.Trump went on to claim that his release of his financials should be enough, but Stephanopoulos noted that such documents fail to show what his tax rate is and how much in taxes he pays.That really set Trump off as he began to complain about having to pay taxes and he admitted that he tries very hard to pay as little in taxes as possible. As we all know, the reason why Bernie Sanders has been so popular this election season is because one of his goals is to force the wealthy 1 percent to pay their fair share of taxes.Testiness on Trump s part dominated the remaining part of the interview as Trump repeated that he would not release his returns until the audit is complete and claimed that he shouldn t have to release his returns until Hillary Clinton releases nonexistent missing emails. When pressed further on his returns, Trump said curtly that it s none of your business. Here s the video via YouTube.But it is Stephanopoulos s business because he is a journalist. It s also the American people s business because they deserve all the information before going to the polls in November. Trump can claim all he wants that he doesn t have secret overseas accounts or that he pays low taxes, but the American people won t know if he s lying or not until he releases the returns to the public. And since Trump is playing this game of hide and seek with his returns, the only conclusion we can assume at this time is that he has something to hide and he is doing everything he can to keep it hidden until after the election.Featured image via screen capture | 0 |
21,782 | EU to review Brexit approach if no deal by December: Tusk | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union will have to reconsider its Brexit strategy if Britain fails to improve its offers to Brussels significantly by the end of the year, European Council President Donald Tusk said on Tuesday. Effectively ruling out that EU leaders will agree to British demands to open talks on a future free trade pact when Tusk chairs a summit with Prime Minister Theresa May in Brussels next week, he said he still hoped for such a move in December. Responding to renewed suggestions from May s government that Britain could simply leave the EU in March 2019 without a negotiated settlement, Tusk said the EU was not working on a no deal scenario. But he warned that if, by the end of this year, progress was still slow then it would be time to think again. EU negotiators have stepped up contingency planning for a breakdown in talks and warn that time is short to agree even a basic divorce treaty. The more time passes, the less likely they can negotiate the kind of bespoke transition and future close trading relationship that May says she wants. We hear from London that the UK government is preparing for a no deal scenario, Tusk told EU regional leaders in Brussels. The EU is not working on such a scenario. We are negotiating in good faith, and we still hope that the so-called sufficient progress will be possible by December. However, if it turns out that the talks continue at a slow pace, and that sufficient progress hasn t been reached, then together with our UK friends we will have to think about where we are heading. Though Tusk did not specify what that might mean, EU officials say that without agreement to move into a second phase of talks on the future early next year, there will be insufficient time to negotiate much more than a very limited exit treaty. May lent new impetus to negotiations by making concessions in a speech at Florence last month, but a new round of talks in Brussels this week ahead of the summit is not expected to even touch on how much London may pay on Brexit the biggest of three key areas on which the EU demands sufficient progress . The other 27 national leaders could offer May some hope of opening trade and transition talks in December, which could help in her struggle with party rivals pushing for a clean break hard Brexit , diplomats say. But Tusk s warning is an indication that May should not expect the EU to ease up much. This week has seen some sign of public tension. May said on Monday that the ball was in the EU s court to make concessions and the European Commission retorted that it was in Britain s. Pressed further on the sporting metaphor on Tuesday, EU negotiator Michel Barnier told reporters after what he called a constructive lunch with British Brexit Secretary David Davis: Brexit is not a game. Further technical talks among officials were scheduled for Wednesday, as British officials rejected suggestions that they had not been available to negotiate. The day had originally been left blank on the schedule agreed by the two sides. | 1 |
21,783 | Wisconsin blocks federal funds from reaching Planned Parenthood | (Reuters) - Wisconsin Republican Governor Scott Walker signed two bills into law on Thursday that block federal funding from Planned Parenthood and could cost the local organization millions of dollars. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin could lose about $7.5 million a year because of the measures, an organization spokeswoman said. Texas, Louisiana other Republican-controlled states tried to halt funding for the reproductive health organization after an anti-abortion group released videos last summer purported to show Planned Parenthood officials trying to negotiate prices for aborted fetal tissue. Under federal law, donated human fetal tissue may be used for research, but profiting from its sale is prohibited. A grand jury in Texas cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing and indicted two anti-abortion activists behind the filming of the videos for tampering with a government record and violating a prohibition on the purchase and sale of human organs. One of the new Wisconsin rules requires the state to apply for federal “Title X” family planning grant money and to give those monies to “less controversial public entities” such as state, county and local health departments and clinics, a statement from Walker’s office said. Planned Parenthood is currently the only entity in Wisconsin receiving this federal money and the funds will not be sent to the organization, the statement said. State entities providing abortions will now bill Medicaid only for acquisition costs and dispensing fees for prescription drugs. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin could lose roughly $4 million a year as a result of this measure, depending on patient volume and the type of birth control patients choose, organization spokeswoman Iris Riis said. The legislation singles out Planned Parenthood and is an attempt to stop the organization from providing essential healthcare, the group said. “The move was the latest in a long line of attacks by the Governor and the Republican controlled state Legislature on the health of Wisconsin women and families,” the organization said in a statement. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has 22 health centers in the state, three of which offer abortion services, according to its website. Earlier this month, Ohio legislators approved a bill blocking state and federal funds for groups that perform or promote abortions, which cut $1.3 million annually used by Planned Parenthood clinics for HIV testing, pre-natal care and other programs. States including Alabama, Utah and Arkansas have fought losing court battles over their plans to cut funding for local Planned Parenthood operations. | 1 |
21,784 | Sarah Palin Hopes This Dead Boar Will Convince You To Vote For Trump (SCREENSHOTS) | On Sunday, Sarah Palin continued her campaign of stupidity-in-the-name-of-Trump after she did her best to Make America Great Again by using a photo of a dead hog to convince the Stupid Part of America to vote for Trump (as though they needed convincing). In a Facebook post that may go down in the annals of history as one of her most horrifically stupid of all time (and there are a lot of them), the half-term, half-wit former Governor of Alaska attempted to woo Wisconsin voters in the most intelligent manner of which she is aware: with a picture of a dead animal. Faith of America is in you to take us forward on Tuesday; to remain strong and independent of the status quo political establishment so your vote will truly represent your optimistic spirit and desire to WORK! Palin babbled in her post. Hardworking Wisconsinites deserve much better than a repeat of the establishment s agenda that led to losing this great state to Obama in 2012 by 200,000 votes! She encouraged her supporters to say ENOUGH to the continued political games of the permanent political class, otherwise she says a Hillary Clinton presidency is assured. Vote for Donald Trump on Tuesday to make America great again. This is the message shared with diverse Wisconsin voters this weekend, including those of you I m thrilled to see today at Zingers and Flingers Gun Range in Wausau today at 12:30, she concluded. See you there! For some inexplicible reason, she punctuated this bizarre rant with a photo of a hog she apparently killed in an effort to cater to those who are obsessed with that sort of thing like a cat dragging home a mouse in an effort to make someone love it more:Recently, Palin informed Wisconsinites that America is seducing immigrant children with teddy bears and soccer balls in a speech that had those who were listening struggling to refrain from laughing at her. While conservatives are stupid enough to listen to this babbling moron, the rest of the country (fortunately) learned long ago to ignore her.Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
21,785 | EU Commission has no new comment on Catalonia after declaration of independence from Spain | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission said on Friday it had no fresh comment on Catalonia after the region s parliament declared independence from Spain. We have nothing to add to what we said at (the regular) midday (briefing for journalists, Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said. At the briefing, she referred reporters to earlier comments by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who has repeatedly said that the debate on Catalonia s independence was an internal Spanish issue. | 1 |
21,786 | Reports Branstad picked as ambassador to China inaccurate: Branstad spokesman | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A spokesman for Terry Branstad on Wednesday denied reports that President-elect Donald Trump has chosen the Iowa governor to be U.S. ambassador to China. “Those reports are premature and not accurate,” said Ben Hammes, Branstad’s communications director. | 1 |
21,787 | U.S. ambassadors appointed by Obama must quit by Inauguration Day | (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has issued a blanket mandate for politically appointed ambassadors installed by President Barack Obama to leave their posts by Inauguration Day, the U.S. ambassador to New Zealand said on Friday. “I will be departing on January 20th,” Ambassador Mark Gilbert said in a Twitter message to Reuters. The mandate was issued “without exceptions” through an order sent in a State Department cable on Dec. 23, Gilbert said. He was confirming a report in the New York Times, which quoted diplomatic sources as saying previous U.S. administrations, from both major political parties, have traditionally granted extensions to allow a few such ambassadors, particularly those with school-age children, to remain in place for weeks or months. State Department spokesman John Kirby said it was “common” procedure for all politically-appointed ambassadors to step down as a new U.S. administration comes in on Jan. 20. “All political appointees for the Obama administration were directed to submit their resignation and the due date was Dec. 7, and the resignations are to take effect on Jan. 20,” Kirby told reporters. “That is common, typical practise ... that’s the way it works.” Kirby said, as expected, no career diplomats serving as ambassadors had been asked to resign by the transition team. He acknowledged, however, that in the past there had been exceptions made for a small number of political appointees to stay on for a short time for personal reasons. “But that is totally in the prerogative of the incoming administration,” he added. The order could leave the United States without Senate-confirmed envoys for months in critical nations like Germany, Canada and Britain, the New York Times reported. A senior Trump transition official told the newspaper there was no ill will in the move, describing it as a simple matter of ensuring Obama’s overseas envoys leave the government on schedule, just as thousands of political aides at the White House and in federal agencies must do. Trump has taken a strict stance against leaving any of Obama’s political appointees in place as he prepares to take office on Jan. 20, aiming to break up many of his predecessor’s signature foreign and domestic policy achievements, the newspaper said. Diplomats told the New York Times that the order has thrown their personal lives into a tailspin, leaving them scrambling to secure living arrangements and acquire visas allowing them to stay in their countries so their children can remain in school. | 1 |
21,788 | Palestinian president says U.S. can no longer broker peace | GAZA (Reuters) - The United States cannot broker the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Friday, in response to President Donald Trump s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel s capital. We reject the American decision over Jerusalem. With this position the United States has become no longer qualified to sponsor the peace process, Abbas said in a statement. He did not elaborate further. | 1 |
21,789 | Palin Blames Son’s Domestic Violence Arrest On Obama (VIDEO) | Sarah Palin has marked her return to the national stage as part of the Trump campaign with another doozy. Palin s son Track a combat veteran was recently arrested on domestic violence charges. He had a fight with his girlfriend, who told police that he threatened to kill himself with an AR-15 rifle.At a Trump rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Palin blamed her son s arrest on Obama. It s a shame that our military personnel even have to question, have to wonder if they re respected anymore. It starts from the top. The question, though, it comes from the top, the question, though, that comes from our own president where they have to look at him and wonder, Do you know what we go through? Do you know what we re trying to do to secure America and to secure the freedoms that have been bequeathed us? So when my own son is going through what he goes through coming back, I can certainly relate with other families who kind of feel these ramifications of PTSD and some of the woundedness that our soldiers do return with, and it makes me realize more than ever, it is now or never for the sake of America s finest that we ll have that commander in chief who will respect them and honor them, she said.President Obama has made the care and security of military members a priority since he was first elected. At the top of that agenda was his decision to end the war in Iraq, which took thousands of American lives and permanently injured and disabled so many serving in the military.Obama has also sought to cut down on gun violence specifically the problem of soldiers driven to suicide who use guns to end their lives.By comparison, Palin was in favor of the invasion of Iraq, and was part of a failed presidential ticket that promised to bomb Iran, a proposition which would have put more American soldiers in harm s way, and in her rambling incoherent speech with Trump she attacked Obama for proposing gun safety measures.But this is the Palin technique. A word salad with almost no meaning, combined with lies and deceptions in order to further the right wing s mission.Featured image via YouTube | 0 |
21,790 | Effort to repeal/replace Obamacare clears first Senate hurdle | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Tuesday voted to begin formal debate of healthcare legislation that would repeal major elements of Obamacare and possibly replace it with a less costly program. By a vote of 51-50, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking a tie, the Republican effort cleared an important procedural hurdle in the Senate, but it was still unclear whether there would eventually be enough votes to pass a bill. | 1 |
21,791 | Hillary HAMMERS Trump With This Awesome List That Disqualifies Him From Being President | With just three days until Election Day, Hillary Clinton just dropped a bombshell reminding us why Donald Trump is totally unfit to be president.The list could go on and on but Hillary and her team settled on just 153 things the Republican nominee has said and done that would disqualify anyone else in a normal election.As we all know, Trump has been saying offensive things since the first day of his campaign when he called Mexicans rapists, which is number 55 on the list. This list, which includes citations, is so long that it missed many other offensive things Trump has said and done.Here are just a few of the items listed.-Spent five years refusing to admit that President Obama was born in the U.S. and still hasn t apologized.-Said that wages in America are already too high. -Encouraged a foreign country to commit espionage in the U.S., calling on Russia to hack Hillary Clinton s emails.-Refused to disavow white supremacist David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan four times in one interview.-Confused the Kurds, a crucial partner in the Middle East, with the Quds Iranian Revolutionary Guards.-Didn t know the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas.-Had no idea that Russia already invaded Ukraine in 2014, promising that Russia is not going to go into Ukraine, all right? You can mark it down. -Bragged about his building becoming the tallest in Lower Manhattan after the collapse of the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001.-Said it would be totally fine if we defaulted because if the economy crashed, you could make a deal. -Regularly praises and defends Vladimir Putin as a leader who is getting an A , and has even described him more favorably than President Obama.-Launched a series of attacks on a federal judge that Paul Ryan referred to as textbook racism, saying it was common sense that the judge, who was born in Indiana, would be biased because of his Mexican heritage. -Compared his sacrifices of working very, very hard and buil[ding] great structures to the sacrifices of a Gold Star family.-Suggested there needed to be some form of punishment to women who get abortions.-Kicked a baby out of one of his rallies. Seriously.-Complimented North Korea s dictator, Kim Jong-un: You ve gotta give him credit. He goes in. He takes over. He s the boss. It s incredible. -Faced over 3,500 lawsuits, largely from ordinary Americans and small business owners who he refused to pay in spite of promises to the contrary.-Said, in 2006, that he was rooting for the real estate market to collapse, because people like me would go in and buy and you can make a lot of money. -Said veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress are not strong and can t handle war.And these are just the tip of the iceberg. To read the entire list, click here.As demonstrated perfectly by Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump should have been disqualified from running for president on the first day of his campaign. He is offensive. He is hateful. He is sexist. He is a racist. And he is a liar who is more interested in helping himself than he is in helping the American people.If he somehow wins this election it will be the most disastrous election this country has ever produced and it will be an embarrassment that ruins our reputation and image around the globe.Hillary is right to point out that in any other election year any of these remarks would end a candidate s campaign. But Donald Trump has conned his deplorables into supporting him no matter what he says or does. As the number one thing on this list noted, Trump has said he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn t lose any voters. One wonders what they ll let him get away with if he gets to be in the White House.Featured Image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 0 |
21,792 | Carson Gives LAUGHABLE Reason Trump Won’t Discuss His Good Deeds | Dr. Ben Carson has earned the dubious honor of refuting the idea that brain surgeon equals smart. It clearly doesn t, at least not beyond the operating table. Carson, who was beaten badly in the GOP primaries, is one of the few competitors who has given his full support to Donald Trump, although, if his latest comment is any indication, he s never actually met Trump or even heard him talk.On Morning Joe, Carson was asked a whole bunch of questions, with nearly zero follow-up. Carson, unchecked, lied about the economy and while he doesn t approve of the entire tone of Trump s campaign, he was allowed to make the claim that both sides do it.The most jaw-dropping part of the interview began at about 6:52 in when Morning Joe contributor Mike Barnacle asked Carson why Trump has such a hard time speaking to people about loss. He was referring to Trump s absolutely unsympathetic treatment of the Khans, who are a Gold Star family and who lost their son in Iraq. Carson denied that Trump was heartless. Please, for your computer s safety, swallow your drink before reading further.According to Carson, Trump is very compassionate and the only reason we don t hear about the good things he does for people is that no, I did not make this up Trump doesn t like self-praise. Yes, we re still talking about Donald Trump. I m then hopeful that he will begin to put to put out many of the stories that I am very familiar with, of things that he has done to help people who have been in very, very difficult situations. You know, he he feels that, you know, that s self-praising, he doesn t want to do it. Here s the video:Huh. Isn t that Carson right next to Trump during this debate last September, where Trump bragged enough about himself that someone made an entire video made of just Trump bragging? That s just one debate. If some brave soul attempted to go through all the election footage, the videos would go on for hours, if not days.Dr. Carson, there are plenty of things you can say about Donald Trump, and if you try hard enough, you might even find something that s not despicable, but modesty is certainly not one of them.Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
21,793 | U.S. Attorney General Sessions urges crackdown on asylum policies | FALLS CHURCH, Va., (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Thursday the policies that allow immigrants to seek asylum in the United States were broken and subject to “rampant abuse and fraud.” In a speech at the department’s Executive Office For Immigration Review, Sessions said too many immigrants were taking advantage of the rules, and urged Congress to pass legislation that could make it harder for asylum petitions to be granted. Overhauling the U.S. asylum system was on a list of immigration proposals the White House sent Congress over the weekend that President Donald Trump wants in exchange for a legislative fix for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Most of the principles, including a crackdown on the influx of Central American unaccompanied minors, are likely to be non-starters for Democrats. Sessions did not announce any specific policy shifts in his speech but urged Congress to act. “Congress must pass the legislative priorities President Trump announced this week, which included significant asylum reform, swift border returns, and enhanced interior enforcement,” he said. He said there were “loopholes” in the law that allow immigrants, whom federal officials determine have a “credible fear” of returning to their home countries, to be released pending a hearing before a judge. He also advocated for imposing and enforcing penalties for “baseless” asylum applications, elevating the threshold standard of proof in credible fear interviews, and expanding the ability to return asylum seekers to safe third countries. After they pass their credible fear review, many people simply disappear and never show up at their immigration hearings, Sessions said. He blamed the Obama administration for a policy shift in 2009 that allowed them to be released from custody, and said he believed many peoples’ credible fear claims were simply a “ruse to enter the country illegally.” Human Rights First, a group that provides pro bono legal assistance to refugees, said the attorney general’s comments mischaracterized asylum seekers as “threats and frauds.” “These individuals are not criminals,” said senior director Eleanor Acer in a statement, “they are mothers, teenagers, and children desperate to escape violence and persecution.” | 1 |
21,794 | Trump picks longtime friend of Beijing as U.S. ambassador to China | BEIJING/NEW YORK (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump will nominate Iowa Governor Terry Branstad as the next U.S. ambassador to China, choosing a longstanding friend of Beijing after rattling the world’s second largest economy with tough talk on trade and a telephone call with the leader of Taiwan. The appointment may help to ease trade tensions between the two countries, the world’s two biggest agricultural producers, diplomats and trade experts said. Branstad has visited China at least six times, and Chinese President Xi Jinping has traveled to Iowa twice, including once while Branstad was governor. Branstad’s appointment also suggests that Trump may be ready to take a less combative stance toward China than many expected, the experts said. Trump in a statement cited Branstad’s qualifications including experience in government and longtime relationships with Xi and other Chinese leaders. The nomination, which will be formally made once the Republican president-elect is sworn in on Jan. 20, was well received, even among some Democrats. “He’s tenacious, and trust me, with the Chinese, you need to be tenacious,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a former Iowa governor, said of Branstad. Trump, who defeated Hillary Clinton in last month’s election, has said that when he takes office he intends to declare China a currency manipulator, meaning it keeps the yuan artificially low to make its exports cheap, and has threatened to impose punitive tariffs on Chinese goods coming into the United States. Added to that, his unusual decision to accept a call from Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen last week prompted a diplomatic protest on Saturday from Beijing, which considers Taiwan a renegade province. Trump’s transition team played down the exchange as a courtesy call, but the White House had to reassure China that its decades-old “one-China” policy was intact. Branstad’s established personal connection with China could help smooth a relationship defined largely by international security matters and by bilateral trade, where the massive U.S. trade deficit with the country is a source of friction. “It means that the Trump team understands that it is important to have an ambassador who has access to Xi Jinping,” Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, said of the pick. Branstad called Xi a “longtime friend” when Xi visited Iowa in February 2012, only nine months before he became China’s leader. On Wednesday, Branstad said he and Xi have had a “30-year friendship” and added: “The president-elect understands my unique relationship to China and has asked me to serve in a way I had not previously considered.” Before his nomination was announced, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang called Branstad an “old friend” of China when asked in Beijing about a Bloomberg report on the appointment, although he said China would work with any U.S. ambassador. “We welcome him to play a greater role in advancing the development of China-U.S. relations,” he told a daily news briefing. Xi’s ties to Iowa go back more than 30 years: He visited Iowa in 1985 on an agricultural research trip when he led a delegation from Hebei Province, returning 27 years later and reuniting with some of the people he had met. Trump’s stance on China has been in particular focus since Friday’s call with Tsai, the first such top-level contact with Taiwan by a U.S. president-elect or president since President Jimmy Carter adopted a “one-China” policy in 1979, recognizing only the Beijing government. China is the United States’ largest trading partner in goods. But imports from China far outstripped U.S. exports, making for a trade deficit with China of $336.2 billion in 2015, according to the U.S. Trade Representative. Specific U.S. trade concerns include allegations that China is dumping steel and aluminum in global markets below the cost of production, hurting American producers. In the agricultural sector, the United States has been unable to get Beijing to lift anti-dumping measures on U.S. broiler chicken products and an animal feed ingredient known as distillers’ dried grains (DDGS). China is one of Iowa’s biggest export markets, so Branstad is well placed to deal with China-U.S. trade issues, said Professor Huang Jing, an expert on Chinese politics at the National University of Singapore. “This really sends a message that Donald Trump wants to handle China at the bilateral relationship level,” he said. Branstad, 70, visited China most recently as the leader of a trade mission that made stops in Beijing and Hebei in November. He will be “somebody who clearly understands agriculture representing U.S. interests” in China, said Dale Moore, executive director for public policy at the American Farm Bureau Federation. | 1 |
21,795 | WATCH: Republican Who Voted To Impeach Clinton Admits Trump Has Done Much Worse | The Republican effort to impeach former President Bill Clinton is coming back to haunt them.Back in 1998, Republicans passed articles of impeachment against Clinton for lying under oath about an extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky. Seriously, they really sought to impeach a sitting president for this.Fast-forward to 2017 and America has been suffering through the Donald Trump circus for six months. He has lied to the American people just about every time he speaks. He launches vicious attacks on the media and individuals. He is actively trying to kill an investigation into his ties with Russia that could reveal collusion during the 2016 Election, committing obstruction of justice along the way. He has violated the Constitution more time than we can count.Yet Republicans in this Congress have absolutely no problem with Trump abusing his power and acting like a petulant child.If Bill Clinton or Barack Obama had done these things, Republicans would have impeached both of them without thinking twice. And they would have successfully ousted them.Former Republican congressman Bob Inglis voted to impeach Clinton nearly 20 years ago, and now he admits that what Trump is doing is far worse than what Republicans tried to impeach Clinton for.During a 1998 interview, Inglis explained his vote by saying that president s need to have moral authority to lead. There are issues around the world that require American leadership, he said. The leader of the free world needs moral authority. And we ve got a president who is sorely lacking in that regard. CNN International host Christiane Amanpour reminded Inglis of his words on Monday and he was quick to apply them to the present day. Well, I guess that young guy you were just playing there apparently hadn t seen something called the Donald Trump show because this is much more serious than anything we ever accused Bill Clinton of, Inglis declared. I mean, Bill Clinton was a problem involving perjury with the underlying matter being a sexual affair. This is something quite different, particularly when it gets into the Russia investigation and the firing of James Comey. These are very serious matters. Inglis also has a problem with Trump s involvement with Russia, his withdrawal of United States participation in the Paris Climate accords, and Trump sidelining America in the area of global leadership.Here s the video via Twitter.He voted to impeach Clinton. @bobinglis now says he apparently hadn t seen something called the Donald Trump Show. https://t.co/8zWMrwHQ1o Christiane Amanpour (@camanpour) July 3, 2017Donald Trump should be impeached. His behavior has embarrassed the United States around the world and he has demonstrated clearly that he is unfit to hold office. If a simple extramarital affair and one lie is enough for Republicans to impeach a president, Trump should have been ousted on the first day. Republicans need to stop being hypocrites and do the right thing.Featured Image: Alex Wong/Getty Images | 0 |
21,796 | CLASSLESS OBAMA CRACKS JOKE While Addressing German Terror Attack [VIDEO] | There s a time for everything, and cracking jokes about your kids in he middle of an address to the world about another horrible terrorist attack is probably not the right time. If someone Obama loved was killed in a brutal terrorist attack, would he still be cracking jokes?On another note, if Obama spent half as much time trying to think of ways to make America more safe as he does attempting to convince the world Muslims have nothing to do with Islamic terrorists, we would all be feeling a bit more safe. | 0 |
21,797 | Gun-Advocating Mom Shoots Daughters During Family Argument (VIDEO) | In March, 42-year-old Christy Sheats wrote on her Facebook page: It would be horribly tragic if my ability to protect myself or my family were to be taken away but that s exactly what Democrats are determined to do by banning semi-automatic handguns. Instead of protecting her family, Sheats used a gun to kill her two young daughters, ages 22 and 17, on Friday. Police then shot and killed Sheats.Sheats oldest daughter, Taylor Sheats, was pronounced dead at the scene. Her younger daughter, Madison Sheats, was rushed to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead a short time later.Fulshear Police did not disclose details about what led up to the shooting, saying only that they believe it was triggered by a family argument.Sheats husband was at home at the time of the shooting. New York Daily News reports that he was not physically injured, but was taken to an area hospital to be treated for mental and emotional trauma.According to KHOU, the family s neighbors were also in shock over the shooting, which took place in a quiet neighborhood in Fort Bend County, Texas.They described the family as a nice, good, very good family, saying there had never been any issues at the home prior to the shooting.Contrary to Sheats statements in her March Facebook post, losing your right to own a gun is not horribly tragic. A horrible tragedy is when a mother loses her temper and uses a gun to shoot and kill her own children before getting shot and killed by police herself.As the L.A. Times reports here, the chances of someone using a gun in self-defense are slim to none. In 2012 there were just 259 justifiable gun-related homicides.The article goes on to point out that the number of justifiable homicides pales in comparison to the 8,432 criminal homicides that took place in the same year. Nor does it compare to the 20,666 intentional suicides. The number of deaths caused by unintentional shootings, 548, was more than double the number of self-defense shootings.Just a few months ago Christy Sheats and her family believed that owning a gun was a good idea. Now she and her daughters are dead. We can listen to the words of the NRA and second amendment enthusiasts, or we can move forward to enact sane gun-control policies and save lives.Here s more on this story from KHOU.Image credit: video screen capture KHOU | 0 |
21,798 | Rocker Marilyn Manson Is Thrilled That Fox News Is Imploding | Fox News is falling apart and no one is happier than Marilyn Manson, who was one of their biggest targets in the 1990s.Sexual harassment scandals and an exodus of top talent combined with an aging audience has put great strain on the conservative network in recent months. Millions of dollars has been lost and Fox s reputation as a defender of family values among conservatives has taken a major hit.Most of the public is cheering for Fox News collapse, bu shock rocker Marilyn Manson is cheering louder.Back in the 1990s, Fox News viciously attacked Manson and his music and falsely blamed him for the Columbine mass school shooting, which led to Manson appearing on the show to humiliate Bill O Reilly.During an interview with the Daily Beast, Manson talked about Fox News and expressed his joy at watching the network fall after being asked if he gets a sense of satisfaction out of seeing Fox News and its former chief Roger Ailes get its comeuppance? Fox News was just starting up and Columbine was really their platform that launched them. They used me and I enjoyed going up against Bill O Reilly. I remember being in their building and walking right past Shepard Smith, and he was the one who d reported on Columbine inaccurately. He was the one saying [the shooters] were wearing Marilyn Manson makeup and shirts which none of that was true and I walked right past him and gave him the f*cking dead eye. And Bill O Reilly was so ill-prepared, I loved handing him his ass. So yeah, it s been fun watching them go down. Roger Ailes was forced to resign after it was revealed that he spent years sexually harassing female employees, including Gretchen Carlson and Andrea Tantaros, both of whom filed lawsuits against Fox. Tantaros lawsuit is ongoing but Carlson recently settled hers and received $20 million from the network and an apology.Speaking of Bill O Reilly, he is named in Tantaros lawsuit, which must bring even more of a smile to Manson s face.Featured image via Wikimedia | 0 |
21,799 | hillary clinton shuts down protester and trumps divisive vision at florida rally | iran finland sign mous in tehran wed oct pm iranian president hassan rouhani meeting with the president of finland sauli niinisto at the presidential palace in tehran afp
yusef jalali press tv tehran
finlands president has paid an official visit to iran to boost mutual ties during the visit the countries signed documents on cooperation in such areas as energy ict and environment loading | 1 |
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