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21,800 | Hillary Brands Bigoted Trump Supporters With Brilliant New Moniker In Fiery Speech | Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is not mincing words when it comes to the bigotry that runs rampant among Donald Trump supporters. While speaking in New York at a fundrasier focused on LGBTQ issues, Hillary pointed out what we already know: many on the Trump Train are straight up bigots, and there s no way around that fact. She said: You know, just to be grossly generalist, you could put half of Trump s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. Hillary then went on to make sure that people knew that she understands that not all of Trump s supporters are like this; in fact likely many are disturbed by many of his statements and the behavior of some of their fellow Trump supporters, and they are likely just desperate for change and have been duped into believing Trump can deliver it. She continued: That other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they re just desperate for a change, she said. They don t buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they re in a dead end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well. She also added that if you know folks who might vote for Trump, do something about it: If you know anybody who s even thinking of voting for Trump, stage an intervention. Hillary is right, of course. Donald Trump is a demagogue, and this is how demagogues work. They prey on the desperate, they exploit and magnify divisions, all for their own gain of political power. Trump is in no way fit to be president, and his very candidacy is already endangering the country. To that end, we need to listen to Hillary, get out the vote, and make sure she wins, for the future of our own lives and this great nation that we all love.Featured image via Justin Sullivan/Getty Images | 0 |
21,801 | Trump slaps sanctions on Venezuela; Maduro sees effort to force default | CARACAS/WASHINGTON/ (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order that prohibits dealings in new debt from the Venezuelan government or its state oil company on Friday in an effort to halt financing that the White House said fuels President Nicolas Maduro’s “dictatorship.” Maduro, who has frequently blamed the United States for waging an “economic war” on Venezuela, said the United States was seeking to force Venezuela to default — but he said it would not succeed. The order is Washington’s biggest sanctions blow to date against Maduro and is intended to punish his leftist government for what Trump has called an erosion of democracy in the oil-rich country, which is already reeling from an economic crisis. It suggests a weakening in already strained relations between the two countries. Just three days ago, Maduro said the relations between Caracas and Washington were at their lowest point ever. “All they’re trying to do to attack Venezuela is crazy,” said Maduro on a TV broadcast on Friday. “With the efforts of our people, it will fail and Venezuela will be stronger, more free, and more independent.” Venezuela faces a severe recession with millions suffering food and medicine shortages and soaring inflation. The South American nation relies on oil for some 95 percent of export revenue. Citgo Petroleum [PDVSAC.UL], the U.S. refiner of Venezuela’s ailing state-run oil company PDVSA, is “practically” being forced to close by the order, warned Maduro, adding that a preliminary analysis showed the sanctions would impede Venezuelan crude exports to the United States. He said he was calling “urgent” meetings with U.S. clients of Venezuelan oil. The new sanctions ban trade in any new issues of U.S.-dollar-denominated debt of the Venezuelan government and PDVSA [PDVSA.UL] because the ban applies to use of the U.S. financial system. As a result, it will be it tricky for PDVSA to refinance its heavy debt burden. Investors had expected that PDVSA would seek to ease upcoming payments through such an operation, as it did last year, which usually requires that new bonds be issued. Additional financial pressure on PDVSA could push the cash-strapped company closer to a possible default, or bolster its reliance on key allies China and Russia, which have already lent Caracas billions of dollars. “They want us to fall into default,” said Maduro, adding that just under two-thirds of Venezuelan bond holders are in the United States. Maduro insisted that Venezuela would continue paying its debts. The decision also blocks Citgo Petroleum from sending dividends back to the South American nation, a senior official said, in a further blow to PDVSA’s coffers. However, the order stops short of a major ban on crude trading that could have disrupted Venezuela’s oil industry and worsened the country’s faltering economy. It also protects holders of most existing Venezuelan government and PDVSA bonds, who were relieved the sanctions did not go further. Venezuelan and PDVSA bonds were trading broadly higher on Friday afternoon. “Maduro may no longer take advantage of the American financial system to facilitate the wholesale looting of the Venezuelan economy at the expense of the Venezuelan people,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday. Venezuela’s Oil Ministry and PDVSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. PDVSA, the financial engine of Maduro’s government, is already struggling due to low global oil prices, mismanagement, allegations of corruption and a brain drain. Washington last month sanctioned PDVSA’s finance vice president, Simon Zerpa, complicating some of the company’s operations as Americans are now banned from doing business with him. Trump has so far spared Venezuela from broader sanctions against its vital oil industry, but officials have said such actions are under consideration. The Republican president has also warned of a “military option” for Venezuela, although White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster said on Friday that no such actions are anticipated in the “near future.” Venezuela has for months struggled to find financing because of PDVSA’s cash flow problems and corruption scandals have led institutions to tread cautiously, regardless of sanctions. Russia and its state oil company Rosneft have emerged as an increasingly important source of financing for PDVSA, according to a Reuters report. On at least two occasions, the Venezuelan government has used Russian cash to avoid imminent defaults on payments to bondholders, a high-level PDVSA official told Reuters. “At this point our view is that the country can scrape by without defaulting this year, largely with the help of Chinese and Russian backing and by further squeezing imports. Next year is a tossup,” said Raul Gallegos, an analyst with the consultancy Control Risks. However, China has grown reticent to extend further loans because of payment delays and corruption. Russia has been negotiating financing in exchange for oil assets in Venezuela, sources have told Reuters, but going forward it would be difficult for the OPEC member to provide enough assets to keep up loans destined for bond payments. Venezuela’s government has around $2 billion in available cash to make $1.3 billion in bond payments by the end of the year and to cover the import of food and medicine, according to documents reviewed by Reuters. | 1 |
21,802 | THE ENDEARING THING TRUMP DOES TO HIS TIE That Has The Liberals Going Crazy | SALON WENT NUTS:Half Windsor, all fiasco: Trump s necktie-gate may undermine his statesmanlike gravitasAs you might have already seen, Donald Trump was recently photographed emerging from his airplane as a gust of wind caught his necktie and revealed a dirty secret. The president-elect, who is a man of substantial means, holds his necktie together with Scotch tape a discombobulating mishmash of Armani aesthetics and hobo fashion sense.As upsetting as this is, I really can t make head or tail of it. Clearly Trump is concerned about how terribly embarrassing it would be to have the two ends of his tie flopping about willy-nilly. And yet the solution he has landed upon or someone else in his inner circle has is to make a third-grade arts-and-crafts project out of his wardrobe.What the hell is going on here? | 0 |
21,803 | Key Democrat cites 'profound doubt' about Intelligence panel Trump probe | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee said on Wednesday that actions by the committee’s chairman cast “profound doubt” on its ability to conduct a reliable investigation of potential ties between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia. “This is not how you conduct an investigation. You don’t take information that the committee hasn’t seen and present it orally to the press and to the White House before the committee has a chance to vet whether it’s even significant,” U.S. Representative Adam Schiff told a news conference. Republican Representative Devin Nunes, the committee’s chairman, told reporters earlier on Wednesday that an anonymous source had provided him with information that communications by associates of Trump and possibly Trump himself had been swept up during routine surveillance. | 1 |
21,804 | Email leak may hurt Democratic party chair's re-election bid | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An email leak that led to the resignation of Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz could plague her bid for re-election to Congress, after a challenger said on Monday he would file a complaint alleging she had broken election rules. Political newcomer Tim Canova, who is challenging Wasserman Schultz in the Aug. 30 Democratic primary for her House of Representatives seat representing Florida’s 23rd Congressional District, said he would file the complaint against her with the U.S. Federal Election Commission. Wasserman Schultz said on Sunday she would be stepping down as chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee after Wikileaks released more than 19,000 emails showing Democratic officials had worked to undermine U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders in his presidential primary battle with Hillary Clinton. Canova suggested that the leaked emails also showed Wasserman Schultz had used the party’s resources in her congressional campaign against Canova in south Florida. Sanders has endorsed Canova in that race. “The Wikileaks emails indicate that Debbie Wasserman Schultz used DNC resources to assist her reelection campaign in violation of federal law. According to the emails, top DNC officials used party resources to monitor, respond to, and impede my campaign on numerous occasions,” Canova said in a statement emailed to Reuters by his campaign. “My campaign election lawyers are investigating these circumstances and preparing a complaint against Wasserman Schultz with the Federal Election Commission,” Canova said. He also repeated his call for a series of campaign debates with Wasserman Schultz. Searching for Canova’s name in the cache of emails released by WikiLeaks turned up dozens of emails. One indicated Wasserman Schultz had asked staffers to take Canova’s name out of a headline on a statement that was being sent out in response to Sanders’s endorsement of Canova. Sanders told CNN in May that he favored Canova, saying “His views are much closer to mine than as to Wasserman Schultz’s.” Canova’s south Florida campaign for Congress has reflected some of the themes that Sanders used nationwide to appeal to progressives, including a push for campaign finance reform. Canova has also been a critic of financial deregulation and the Federal Reserve Board under former Chairman Alan Greenspan, according to his biography on the website at Nova Southeastern University, where he is a professor of law and public finance. Sanders made attacks on Wall Street a central theme of his presidential campaign, and called for structural reforms in the Fed. Since Sanders’ endorsement, Canova has almost caught up with Wasserman Schultz in fundraising. Canova has raised $2.27 million so far; Wasserman Schultz has raised $2.81 million, according to the most recent Federal Election Commission filings. There are also two Republicans seeking Wasserman Schultz’s seat in Congress, Martin Feigenbaum and Joe Kaufman. | 1 |
21,805 | U.S. expels 15 Cuban diplomats, fuelling tensions with Havana | WASHINGTON/HAVANA (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Tuesday expelled 15 Cuban diplomats to protest Cuba s failure to protect staff at the U.S. embassy in Havana from a mysterious spate of health attacks, spurring new tensions between the former Cold War foes. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the expulsions from Cuba s embassy in Washington were also intended to ensure equity in staffing levels, after he recalled more than half the U.S. diplomatic personnel in Havana on Friday. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez denounced the decision as unjustified, accused the United States of insufficient cooperation with Cuba s investigation of the health incidents and urged Washington to stop politicizing the matter. The steps taken by Republican President Donald Trump s administration delivers another blow to his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama s policy of rapprochement, including actions likely to erode the normalization of a relationship dominated for decades by mutual hostility and suspicion. The latest U.S. move was communicated to Cuban Ambassador Jose Ramon Cabanas on Tuesday, and the diplomats were given seven days to leave, a State Department official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Until the Government of Cuba can ensure the safety of our diplomats in Cuba, our embassy will be reduced to emergency personnel to minimize the number of diplomats at risk of exposure to harm, Tillerson said in a statement. We continue to maintain diplomatic relations with Cuba, and will continue to cooperate with Cuba as we pursue the investigation into these attacks, he added. The United States announced on Friday that it was sharply reducing its diplomatic presence in Cuba, as it warned U.S. citizens not to visit the Communist-ruled island because of the alleged attacks it says have caused hearing loss, dizziness and fatigue in 22 U.S. embassy personnel. The State Department had said the embassy was halting regular visa operations for Cubans seeking to visit the United States and would offer only emergency services to U.S. citizens. Cuba has denied involvement in any attacks and says it has reinforced security for U.S. diplomatic personnel. Rodriguez said lack of U.S. cooperation had stymied its own investigation into the matter. Authorities had not provided access to the injured people and the doctors who examined them, or to the homes where the attacks allegedly took place, he said, adding that evidence had been delivered late. Rodriguez urged the United States to cooperate more and said Cuba was also working with Canada on the investigation as Canadian diplomats have reported similar symptoms. So far, none of the probes have yielded any answers about how the alleged attacks were carried out or who was responsible. Several Cuban-American Republican lawmakers, including U.S Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, had urged that Cuban diplomats be kicked out in retaliation for the Cuban government s failure to get to the bottom of the attacks. I commend the U.S. State Department for expelling a number of Cuban operatives from the U.S., Rubio, an influential voice on Trump s Cuba policy, said in a statement. But James Williams, president of Engage Cuba, a Washington-based pro-engagement lobbying group said: This decision appears to be purely political, driven by the desire of a handful of individuals in Congress to halt progress between our two countries. It looks like we are returning the threats and tensions of the 1960s, said Maria Fernandez, a 45-year-old office worker in Havana. This is madness by Trump. It s really sad, because we are so close, and yet so far away from a sincere rapprochement. Trump, who in June vowed to partially roll back the detente with Cuba agreed by his Democratic predecessor Obama after five decades of hostility, called the Cuban government corrupt and destabilizing in his address to the United Nations last month. Cuba described his comments as unacceptable and meddling. Rodriguez urged the United States not to continue politicizing this matter, which can provoke an undesirable escalation and could rarify and reverse even more bilateral relations. In Havana, U.S. diplomats frantically selling off their belongings at garage sales and on social media, said they were disappointed to be ordered to leave. In a message on Facebook, the embassy s top official, career diplomat Scott Hamilton, said he would also be leaving. I am an optimist and hope we will return one day, before too long, he wrote. Hasta la proxima Cuba. | 1 |
21,806 | Ben Carson’s Prepared HUD Testimony Contained Word-For-Word Plagiarism | It looks like National Security Pick Monica Crowley isn t the only plagiarist on Team Trump, aside from Melania, that is. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson Trump s pick for HUD Secretary started off the confirmation hearing today with a bang, refusing to say that the president-elect and his family wouldn t profit from the agency he hopes to head. To top that off, part of Carson s prepared opening statement appears to contain word-for-word plagiarism, according to The Washington Post.However, the Senate Banking Committee did not hear the plagiarized sections because Carson used his typical off-the-cuff style during his testimony leaving behind his prepared remarks.Carson s prepared remarks were taken verbatim:The two paragraphs in question focused on the health problems caused by lead exposure in young children. According to the Post, they were taken verbatim from Where We Live Matters For Our Health, a 2008 report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.A Trump transition spokeswoman told The Washington Post that the plagiarized text was included accidentally, and that Carson never intended to read it at his hearing. We re not sure exactly what accidental plagiarism is.Prepared statements from nomination hearings are typically entered into the congressional record. It was a written statement for the record his oral testimony, as I am sure you ve heard, is extemporaneous and planned that way, the spokeswoman told the Post. The original written statement was sourced with hyperlinks and footnotes, but unfortunately that seems to have fallen off.According to the Post, however, there was no sourcing included in the copies of prepared text which was passed out to reporters at the hearing.In mid-November, Carson declined a Trump cabinet position, citing his lack of experience. Even though he lacks political experience, the sleepy-eyed doctor ran for the GOP nomination for the presidency. Carson now wants to lead a massive agency with 8,300 employees and a budget of about $48 billion. Carson said he s a good pick for the position because he grew up in inner-city Detroit with a single mother who had a third-grade education and worked several jobs to keep a roof over their heads and put food on the table.At the hearing, Sen. Elizabeth Warren asked Carson, Can you assure me that not a single taxpayer dollar you give out will financial benefit the president-elect or his family? Carson failed to assure Warren that the president-elect would not financially benefit from HUD and that s because Donald J. Trump is the swamp.Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images | 0 |
21,807 | 33-Yr Old Skier LINDSEY VONN Says She Won’t Represent President Trump At Upcoming Olympics | Has there ever been a US Olympic athlete who, before representing the United States in the Olympic games, discussed whether or not they would be representing our President? Aren t the U.S. Olympic athletes made aware fairly early on, that they re representing our nation? I don t remember ever seeing any of our athletes carrying a flag with a picture of the President of the United States, or wearing apparel covered with the President s image or name. So why is Lindsey Vonn making a statement about how she s not going to be representing President Trump? Does anyone really care about Lindsey Vonn s opinion about President Trump? FOX News Olympic gold medal skier Lindsey Vonn says she ll represent the United States, but not President Trump, when she returns to the Winter Games in February.Vonn, who won a gold medal in the women s downhill competition in 2010 in Vancouver, skipped the 2014 Sochi games because of knee injuries. I hope to represent the people of the United States, not the president, Vonn said this week amid the buildup to the 2018 games in PyeongChang, South Korea. I take the Olympics very seriously and what they mean and what they represent, what walking under our flag means in the opening ceremonies, she added. I want to represent our country well, and I don t think there are a lot of people currently in our government that do that. Vonn also told CNN that she would absolutely not accept an invitation to the White House.Isn t this really more about a former Olympic athlete with an over-inflated ego and an overblown sense of how important her opinions are to the American people than anything else? | 0 |
21,808 | Kremlin accuses West of 'whipping up hysteria' over Russian war games | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia accused the West on Thursday of whipping up hysteria over large-scale military exercises underway in eastern Europe and denied charges that they were being conducted with a lack of transparency. The exercises, codenamed "Zapad", or "West", started on Thursday and will last until Sept. 20. They are being conducted on military ranges in Belarus, western Russia, Russia's exclave of Kaliningrad and in the Baltic Sea. (For graphic, click tmsnrt.rs/2iIkjEU) We reject complaints of these exercises not being transparent, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters. We believe that whipping up hysteria around these exercises is a provocation. It is a normal practice for any country to hold such exercises. Everything is being held in line with international law, Peskov said. Russian President Vladimir Putin may visit one of the stages of these drills, he said. NATO is closely watching the exercises and says they are larger than the 12,700 servicemen Moscow has publicized, actually numbering some 100,000 troops, and involve firing nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. Russia s defense ministry reiterated on Thursday that the exercises are of a purely defensive nature and are not a threat to any third country or group of countries. But NATO officials say the drills will simulate a conflict with the U.S.-led alliance intended to show Russia s ability to mass large numbers of troops at short notice in the event of a conflict. In a statement, the Pentagon said that while Russia and Belarus had taken some steps towards providing transparency, there were concerns about the official estimate of troop numbers. We urge Russia to share information regarding its exercises and operations in NATO s vicinity to clearly convey its intentions and minimize any misunderstandings, Lieutenant Colonel Michelle Baldanza, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said in a statement. In response to this uncertainty, the U.S. has built a joint, persistent rotational presence of air, land, and sea presence in the region to support our Allies, she added. Amid allegations about Moscow s aggressive ambitions from its post-communist neighbors, Russia s defense ministry has said that it does not intend to use the drills as a springboard to attack Lithuania, Poland or Ukraine. Moscow says it is the West that threatens stability in eastern Europe, because NATO has put a 4,000-strong multinational force in the Baltics and Poland. Russia s defense ministry said the current drills involve some 7,200 troops from Belarus and 5,500 from Russia, up to 70 aircraft and helicopters, up to 680 units of military hardware, including 250 tanks, up to 200 artillery pieces, multiple rocket launchers and mortars, and up to 10 warships. | 1 |
21,809 | In big win for Trump, Senate approves his conservative court pick | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican-led Senate on Friday gave Donald Trump the biggest triumph of his young presidency, confirming his Supreme Court nominee over stout Democratic opposition and restoring a conservative majority on the highest U.S. judicial body. The Senate, which last year refused to consider Democratic former President Barack Obama’s nominee to the court, voted 54-45 to approve Republican Trump’s pick, Colorado-based federal appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch, to the lifetime job. Three Democrats joined the Republicans in voting for Gorsuch. Gorsuch’s confirmation ends the longest Supreme Court vacancy since 1862 during the American Civil War, with the court down a justice for almost 14 months since long-serving conservative Justice Antonin Scalia died on Feb. 13, 2016. “Judge Gorsuch’s confirmation process was one of the most transparent and accessible in history, and his judicial temperament, exceptional intellect, unparalleled integrity and record of independence makes him the perfect choice to serve on the nation’s highest court,” Trump said in a statement. “He’s going to make an incredible addition to the court,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor. Illustrating the importance of the moment, Vice President Mike Pence served as the Senate’s presiding officer during the vote to confirm Gorsuch, who also worked in Republican former President George W. Bush’s Justice Department and is the son of the first woman to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Republicans, possessing a 52-48 Senate majority, on Thursday overcame a ferocious Democratic effort to block a confirmation vote, resorting to a rule change known as the “nuclear option.” “Today, for the first time in history, the theft of a Supreme Court seat has been completed, profoundly damaging the integrity of the court,” said Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley, referring to Republicans casting aside Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland, who would have tilted the court to the left for the first time in decades. Merkley this week delivered a 15-1/2-hour Senate speech against Gorsuch. The Senate’s approval of Gorsuch reinstates the nine-seat court’s 5-4 conservative majority, fulfilling an important Trump campaign promise. Gorsuch, 49, was the youngest Supreme Court nominee since Republican President George H.W. Bush in 1991 picked Clarence Thomas, who was 43 at the time. Gorsuch could be expected to serve for decades, while Trump could make further appointments to the high court to make it even more solidly conservative because three of the eight justices are 78 or older. Three Democratic senators up for re-election in 2018 in states won by Trump last year - Indiana’s Joe Donnelly, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp - voted for Gorsuch. Republican Senator Johnny Isakson missed the vote while recovering from back surgery. Gorsuch’s confirmation gave a boost to Trump, showing he can get important agenda items through a Congress controlled by his fellow Republicans after the House of Representatives last month failed to pass healthcare overhaul legislation. Trump is planning major tax cut legislation as well. Senate Republicans resorted to extraordinary steps to overcome Democratic opposition to Gorsuch, including changing long-standing Senate rules to prohibit the use of a procedural blockade called a filibuster for Supreme Court nominees. The rule change was dubbed the “nuclear option” because it was considered an extreme break from Senate tradition. Democrats accused Gorsuch of being so conservative as to be outside the judicial mainstream, favoring corporate interests over ordinary Americans in legal opinions, and displaying insufficient independence from Trump. Gorsuch joins fellow conservatives Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy on a court that also includes liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Trump has recorded accomplishments since taking office on Jan. 20, including a variety of unilateral executive actions such as moving to undo Obama’s climate change regulations. But he has encountered trouble with other major initiatives. Courts blocked his executive action to stop people from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. His administration also has faced questions about any role the president’s associates may have played in alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election to help Trump. The rule change could make it easier for Trump to win confirmation of Supreme Court nominees as long as Republicans control the Senate, with Democrats left powerless to resist even if he gets a chance to replace the court’s senior liberal, 84-year-old Ginsburg, or the court’s swing vote, 80-year-old Kennedy, with more conservative replacements. A conservative-majority court is more likely to support gun rights, abortion regulations, an expansive view of religious liberty and Republican-backed voting restrictions, while opposing curbs on political spending. The court also is likely to tackle transgender rights and union funding in coming years. Among the groups congratulating Gorsuch on his confirmation were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce business lobbying group, the National Rifle Association gun rights group and anti-abortion activists. Gorsuch will be sworn in on Monday in two different ceremonies, one at the court and one at the White House. He can then prepare for the court’s next round of oral arguments, starting on April 17. The court’s current term ends in June. Gorsuch will participate in the justices’ private April 13 conference to consider taking new cases. There are appeals pending on expanding gun rights to include carrying concealed firearms in public, state voting restrictions that critics say are aimed at reducing minority turnout, and allowing business owners to object on religious grounds to providing gay couples certain services. On April 19, the court will hear a case in which a church contends Missouri violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom by denying it funds for a playground project due to a state ban on aid to religious organizations. Gorsuch has ruled in favor of expansive religious rights during his decade as a judge. | 1 |
21,810 | Pentagon says diplomatic tension with Turkey not affecting military operations | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A diplomatic dispute between Turkey and the United States has not affected military operations or personnel out of Turkey, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. I can confirm that these developments have not impacted our operations or personnel, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Robert Manning told reporters. The Turkish air force base in Incirlik continues to fulfill an important role supporting NATO and coalition efforts. He said that Turkey was a close NATO ally and the U.S. would continue to coordinate joint and separate military activities with Ankara. | 1 |
21,811 | Scottish parliament offices briefly evacuated in suspect white powder scare | EDINBURGH (Reuters) - Offices at Scotland s devolved parliament in Edinburgh were briefly evacuated on Tuesday after suspicious packages containing white powder were found. It s a white powder incident, there were a couple of suspicious packages sent to a Tory (Conservative) MSP, a source at the parliament told Reuters, using the acronym for Member of the Scottish parliament. Business returned to normal after police gave the all-clear, the Scottish parliament said. Known as Holyrood, the parliament building is located at the bottom of the Royal Mile, Edinburgh s most famous thoroughfare which leads down from its historic castle to Queen Elizabeth s Edinburgh residence, Holyrood Palace. The parliament s chief executive said only the building housing MSPs offices had been evacuated while the rest of the parliamentary campus was operating normally. The parliament said later police inquiries had concluded there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the incident and that no crime had been committed. | 1 |
21,812 | U.S. attack killed nine civilians: Syrian state news agency | BEIRUT (Reuters) - Nine civilians including four children were killed in the U.S. missile attack on a Syrian airbase near the city of Homs on Friday, the Syrian state news agency said. The SANA report said the civilians died in villages near the airbase. It said seven more people had been wounded and homes in the area had been badly damaged. Earlier, Homs governor Talal Barazi said seven people had been killed in the attack. It was not immediately clear if these were separate casualty tolls. | 1 |
21,813 | Trump outreach to Dimon for Treasury job may fall on deaf ears | (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon did not support Republican Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, yet some Trump advisers want America’s most famous banker to become Treasury Secretary to calm nerves on Wall Street. A member of Trump’s transition team contacted Dimon recently to see if he would be interested in the role, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday. It was not clear whether Dimon had responded, though he has said emphatically multiple times that he was not interested in the role. JPMorgan spokesman Andrew Gray declined to comment, and Dimon, who is traveling outside the United States, could not be reached. Trump’s close circle of advisers includes several with Wall Street ties. His campaign finance manager, Steven Mnuchin, is a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc banker. Fundraiser Anthony Scaramucci is a hedge fund executive. A person familiar with Trump’s personnel efforts said the transition team’s list included Dimon, Mnuchin and Rep. Jeb Hensarling. The person said that Mnuchin was a more likely choice given his proximity to Trump. Trump’s controversial rhetoric and behavior during the campaign concerning immigrants, women, minorities, the disabled, Muslims and China, among other things, were offensive to many senior Wall Street executives who have tried to embrace inclusion, diversity and globalization. Trump also criticized Wall Street on the trail, saying the industry “got away with murder” and would not be let off the hook. Since being elected on Tuesday, Trump has softened his tone and tried to bridge gaps by meeting with President Obama and taking calls from foreign officials. Bringing Dimon on board could help him mend fences with the financial industry, which appears to be coming around to the idea of Trump in the White House. At an event on Thursday, Goldman Sachs Group Inc CEO Lloyd Blankfein said Trump could be good for the economy and Dimon would be an excellent choice for Treasury Secretary, while hedge fund manager Bill Ackman said Trump’s advisers would get “the best and brightest” to run the economy. Hensarling’s office indicated in a statement that he did not want the job. “Serving in his Cabinet is not something I’ve indicated an interest in and it’s not something I am pursuing,” the statement said. He said he looked forward to working in Congress to repeal the Dodd-Frank Act which tightened regulations on Wall Street in the wake of the financial crisis. Dimon, a lifelong Democrat, has been floated as a possible candidate for roles like Treasury Secretary in the past. However, resentment toward bankers following the 2007-2009 financial crisis made his candidacy much less likely, as did JPMorgan-specific scandals related to a costly derivatives trade and bad mortgages. A $13 billion mortgage settlement JPMorgan reached with the federal government in 2013 prompted Trump then to call Dimon “the worst banker in the United States.” However, Dimon has managed to retain a reputation within the banking industry as a distinguished leader, in part by the way he handled those scandals and the way he talks about JPMorgan’s role in society as the largest U.S. bank. For instance, Dimon decided to have JPMorgan make big investments in Detroit, calling it a civic duty to turn around an economically challenged city. His memos, speeches and letters to shareholders are often sprinkled with patriotic language. “America is best when we come together with clear leadership, expertise and the political will to take on difficult challenges and get things done,” the 60-year-old chairman and CEO said in a memo to JPMorgan Chase employees following Tuesday’s election. “No one should ever doubt the strength and resilience of our country and our democracy.” However, Dimon has said as recently as September that he would not want a role as Treasury Secretary. If he holds to that, it could put him and JPMorgan in an awkward position. Saying “no” to a presidential request to join the cabinet is unusual, and the bank would then be overseen by appointees from an administration Dimon rejected. Even so, his associates do not expect Dimon to say “yes.” Dimon has said his determination to act would make it hard to make political compromises. Talking before an audience in September, he said the only job in government he would want is the one Trump is about to get. “I would love to be president of the United States of America,” Dimon told the Economic Club of Washington. “Until Donald Trump got to where he was, they said you’ll never see a rich businessman who’s never been in politics be president. I clearly was wrong about that.” | 1 |
21,814 | REPORT: PRESIDENT TRUMP Is “Odds-On Favorite To Win Re-election” In 2020 | Liberal heads explode in 5 4 3 2 1President Trump could win the White House again in 2020 which likely would send hostile political operatives and the disapproving news media into an epic meltdown. News flash: Get ready. Mr. Trump will likely win re-election, says one analyst. President Trump did not ascend to the White House in the usual way; he broke with traditional campaign orthodoxy and tactics, Ford O Connell, a political analyst and adjunct professor at the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management, tells Inside the Beltway. While Trump s first six months in the White House have been marked by early stumbles, a healthy dose of palace intrigue and low approval numbers, history says Trump is in fact the odds-on favorite to win re-election in 2020, should he choose to run. Why? Because presidential incumbency has its privileges. Since 1900, 20 presidents have sought re-election. Of those, 15 won and five lost that is, if you include Gerald Ford, who was never elected in the first place. Adds Mr. O Connell, So how does President Trump avoid becoming the sixth president to be fired by the people in the last 120 years? Barring some unforeseen calamity or Dwayne The Rock Johnson becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, the fate of Trump s presidency will live and die with the state of the economy in the fall of 2020. To ensure that the electoral winds are favorable to Trump, his administration must deliver results by passing tax reform before the 2018 midterms, showing significant progress on other key campaign promises: securing America s borders, infrastructure, trade, conservative judicial appointees. He must also continue to instill in working-class voters in both the Rust Belt (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin) and Sun Belt (Florida, North Carolina, Arizona) battleground states the belief that he is tirelessly fighting for them. If Trump does that, voters will forgive his impetuous ways and rehire him, the professor concludes.For entire story: Washington Times | 0 |
21,815 | TOXIC CULTURE: ‘Suicide (Skank) Squad’ Film | Jay Dyer 21st Century WireSuicide squad is who they call to counsel the people leaving this vapid movie. Possibly the worst superhero film yet, it even rivals the likes of Spawn, Catwoman and Ghost Rider. At least there was Nic Cage, but here, only a confused and garbled CGI wasteland that is as messy as the single mom tats emblazoned every scene. Nothing in this movie makes sense, much less is the plot even coherent, as a selection of the worst of America s convicts are chosen to become Task Force X, a microchipped hit team to take on the meta-humans (X-men, yawn) and the extra-dimensional entities that possess two paper-thin characters.Side note the film is adapted from my old essay, United Skanks of America.This film is one of the few instances I can think of where the overt propaganda is actually more interesting to spot than the film itself. Will Smiff plays a hitman baby-daddy whose only concern is scoring 2 million dollars to buy his daughter s attention. Yes, all those noble baby-daddies are really just striving for ghetto release so they can become responsible parents. Next, a hot chick plays a psychiatrist babe-turned skank who, after falling in love with the joke that is The Joker, morphs into the average American skank, graffiti ed to the hilt with thug-style sleaze. In this sense, Harley Quinn makes sense as a representation of the mental illness that plagues the young western female, as evidenced in their body-defacing obsessions and self-mutilation.Planetary sigils adorn the headdress.As Matt Forney writes:No girl has ever improved her looks with a gaudy mural injected under her skin or a piece of metal dangling from her nostrils. There s no man on Earth who has ever thought about his girlfriend or wife, Man, you know what would make her even sexier? A butterfly emblazoned just over her ass. Yet, despite this objective reality, thousands of girls continue to mutilate themselves at an astounding rate, to the point where more girls now have tattoos than men.Indeed, nothing captures the full throttle ruination of the western female than this slut character which drives the ridiculous simulacrum of a plot by seeking to be reunited with Joker Leto. Since Grant Morrison is an open fan of Crowley, chaos magick and summoning entities through sigils, I am curious which god he offended to have the legions of suck demons inspire his advice to Leto. That is the only explanation.The Crowleyan elements of this film are really the only noticeable esoteric themes, with the Joker now being apparently bi-sexual (perfect embodiment of the ruined western male), and the planetary sigils that adorn Cara Delevingne s headdress. From here, you can divine the rip off of a rehash semblance a story a giant garbage vortex has opened up over a city with the intent of destroying humans who no longer worship the entities as gods. The giant garbage vortex was actually filmed when in reality it opened up over New York the night this film premiered.Faith, the Hillary-hero. Originally, the skank squad was formed through the machinations of Reagan (presumably based on the Latin American death squads) and now, even Obama plays a positive role in the storyline from the comic. Indeed, comic books have long been tools of propaganda, from World War 2 Americanism to Cold War absurdity, comic books have been a staple in the establishment-promoted anti-establishment toxic culture.The sad fact, as I have been arguing for a long damn time now, is that the increase in corporate government control of entertainment realm only results in the degeneration of artistic creativity. I can wait for the 5th version of the plot of Ghostbusters-Avengers-Ghostbusters-Suicide Squad, but can you? Aside from this, the other amazing, little-known tidbit is that since the market for comics is generally teenagers, the script was written by a teen how else would an ancient goddess lithely intone, You don t have the balls! ?Nowadays, comic books are the tip of the queer spear in promoting transgender heroes, fat acceptance heroes that promote Hillary, and the absurd reversing of racial and gender roles (such as Thor becoming a woman and Iron Man a black girl). The cultural degeneration and toxification is a symbiotic relationship as the west devolves at lightning speed into a troglodyte, Morlock genetic experiment, the comic book world then comes to reflect that gluttonous, scooter-bedeviled psych ward in its art. Since comic books now drive the film industry s big blockbuster productions, blockbuster films continue to foist the Disney-Degeneration of social justice warriors rabidly attempting to quell dissent.Meanwhile, the self-devouring ouroboros of the left is its own punishment and destruction. In sum, don t waste your time, as it s all chaos, and no magic. However, if you liked John Leguizamo s farting clown in spawn, you ll probably love the ebonics-speaking crocodile in this garbage.The comedy gold of the farting clown. READ MORE HOLLYWOOD NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Hollywood FilesTo hear Jay s full podcasts, see more information and learn how you can become a subscriber to JaysAnalysis.Jay Dyer is the author of the forthcoming title, Esoteric Hollywood: Sex, Cults and Symbols in Film from Trine Day. 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. | 0 |
21,816 | U.S. Navy rolls out new measures after deadly Asia-Pacific crashes | PATTAYA, Thailand (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy has introduced new measures aimed at avoiding a repeat of two deadly crashes in the Asia Pacific region involving its warships and commercial vessels following a review of its practices, the Seventh Fleet commander said on Monday. Vice Admiral Phillip Sawyer s comments come after a U.S. guided-missile destroyer was slightly damaged at the weekend when a Japanese tug drifted into it during a towing exercise off central Japan, the latest incident in the Pacific this year involving ships from the fleet. The U.S. Navy announced a series of reforms this month aimed at restoring basic naval skills and alertness at sea after a review of deadly collisions in the Asia-Pacific region showed sailors were under-trained and over-worked. Two of the incidents - collisions with commercial vessels involving guided-missile destroyers, the Fitzgerald in June off Japan and then the John S. McCain in August as it approached Singapore - have left a total of 17 sailors dead. The crashes were caused by preventable errors by the sailors on board the ships, Navy investigations showed. Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of an international fleet review in the Thai seaside town of Pattaya, Sawyer said the Navy made circadian rhythm sleep guidelines a requirement and a new group, the Naval Surface Group Western Pacific, has been training officers at the fleet s headquarters in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo, Japan. This is a team that is now in Yokosuka and they re charged with doing the man, train, equip aspect of our operations with surface ships, Sawyer told reporters. The second thing we have done is Automatic Identification System and that s a system onboard ships that puts out signal and it tells whoever is receiving that signal the course, speed and identification of the ship, he said. The third thing is that we are working on the circadian rhythm onboard the ships to make the sailors more alert. Sawyer took command of the U.S. force in August after the Navy removed the fleet s previous commander, Vice Admiral Joseph Aucoin, following a series of collisions. The U.S. Seventh Fleet operates in the largest of the U.S. Navy s numbered fleets. It oversees about 70-80 ships and submarines at any given time in the region. The fleet operates over an area of 124 million square km (48 million square miles) from bases in Japan, South Korea and Singapore. | 1 |
21,817 | Young conservative Kurz on track to be Austrian leader: vote projections | VIENNA (Reuters) - Young conservative star Sebastian Kurz is on track to become Austria s next leader, projections of Sunday s parliamentary election result showed, but his party is well short of a majority and could seek an alliance with the far right. Kurz, who is just 31, campaigned on an anti-immigration platform so strict that the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) accused him of plagiarism. That appears to have succeeded in drawing some voters away from the FPO two years after Austria was swept up in Europe s migration crisis, which boosted the FPO in polls. Kurz s People s Party (OVP) is in the lead on 30.5 percent, with its current coalition partner, the Social Democrats, on 26.2 percent, just behind the FPO on 26.8 percent, a projection by pollster SORA said shortly after polls closed, based on an early count of 49 percent of non-postal ballots. The projection had a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points. It will be refreshed and become more precise as more ballots are counted throughout the evening. Another projection by pollster ARGE Wahlen also showed the OVP in the lead. Kurz, named party leader only in May, has been careful to keep his coalition options open, but he called an end to the current alliance with the Social Democrats and pledged to shake up Austrian politics, which for decades has been dominated by coalitions between those two parties. While that would suggest he will turn to the anti-Islam FPO, he has also said there could be leadership changes within the losing parties, a possible hint at being willing to work with the Social Democrats if Chancellor Christian Kern were ousted as leader by Defense Minister Hans Peter Doskozil. The Social Democrats (SPO) have also opened the door to forming coalitions with the FPO, meaning the far-right party is placed to be kingmaker and play the two parties off each other during coalition talks. It is highly unlikely, however, that the Social Democrats would ally with the FPO if the SPO came third. | 1 |
21,818 | Bundy Ranch ‘Standoff’ Defendants Prepare for Trial in Nevada | 21st Century Wire says Defendants in the Federal case against Nevada rancher, Cliven Bundy, his sons and a group of their supporters have had a key weapons charge against them dropped in a recent pretrial hearing but there is still a major legal battle ahead of them. The charges stem from an event in April 2014 when Federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) agents tried to seize Bundy s cattle over a dispute between the Ranchers and the government about grazing fees in what the ranchers saw as federal over-reach in management of public land being at the heart of the dispute.Mark Anderson reports on the developing story of the Bundy Ranch Trials in the article below from American Free Press Mark Anderson American Free PressA key charge on weapons was recently dropped from the charges that were filed against Nevada ranchers Cliven Bundy, his sons, and several of their supporters over their protest in 2014. So far, the case has been split into three separate trials, set to start soon in Las Vegas. AFP will continue to follow this case as it evolves throughout the summer.LAS VEGAS, Nev. A federal judge in a pretrial hearing on Feb. 2 dismissed the third count, related to firearms, in the 16-count indictment against rancher Cliven Bundy and 17 others stemming from their April 2014 resistance of a crackdown carried out by federal agents in Bunkerville, located in southern Nevada.The standoff happened when federal agents unsuccessfully tried to seize Bundy s cattle following a decades-long dispute that, according to the government, was over unpaid grazing fees. The event is widely seen as a collision of two worldviews emblematic of Western landowners longtime efforts to resist and turn back what they see as heavy-handed federal micro-management of vast stretches of Western lands.While the Las Vegas Review Journal online called U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro s decision to drop count three as a minor victory for the men accused of organizing a mass assault on law enforcement, other observers have insisted that federal agents, especially those from the Bureau of Land Management, were the actual assailants.Judge Navarro ruled to drop that count amid requests by the defense for several of the charges contained in the federal indictment to be dismissed, according to the Journal.Paralegal Tatum Wehr, assistant to Bret Whipple, attorney for Cliven Bundy, told this AFP writer Feb. 3 that Navarro s decision applies to all the defendants awaiting trial. That was seconded by Roger Roots, an astute Montanan who s a legal adviser to both Cliven Bundy and his son, Ryan.Roots explained to AFP in a phone interview that, while the dropped count has to do with the alleged use of a gun to impede federal officers, the three other similar gun counts that weren t dropped allege the use of a gun to assault, threaten, and interfere with federal officers. In his view, those are just three ways of saying the same basic thing and that such wording is a deliberate way for the feds to get something to stick.Roots added that a motion to dismiss the case was filed on Feb. 2. That will be ruled on in a couple weeks. Unless that succeeds, this thing is definitely going to trial, he said, adding, This case is a big exposure for these guys. We re talking high stakes. According to Roots, the three remaining gun counts carry mandatory minimum sentences of several years each under what he described as an evil statute [USC 18, Sect. 924 (c)]. It carries stiff sentences (especially for second offenses) and mandates that the sentences be served consecutively, instead of the usual concurrent approach. The defendants could be looking at 25 years to life, depending on how many counts stick, as Roots understands it.Roots also said the federal government has been withholding critically important evidence from the defense, amid severe moral and ethical breaches and enormously wasteful and improper spending of tax dollars during the standoff by BLM agent Dan Love, a key figure in this saga.And with Love s testimony being the only thing the grand jury heard in the Bundy case before issuing its indictment meaning that the grand jury s inherent right to do its own investigation was never exercised the federal case evidently is far weaker than many people assume.An insightful overview of Love s behavior concerning the Bunkerville standoff and related matters can be heard here in an interview with Brianna Bundy, wife of defendant Mel Bundy, conducted by KSDZ-FM The Twister in Nebraska. They [BLM agents] laugh and joke about shooting women, shooting children, and dogs and horses, Brianna told KSDZ, referring to evidence in the form of body-cam footage evidently being withheld from public knowledge. Love is accused of egging other agents on to aggressively view Cliven Bundy and his supporters as an allegedly mortal threat. The discovery process could bring this matter to light, but that has yet to happen Continue this report at American Free PressREAD MORE BUNDY RANCH NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Bundy Ranch FilesSUPPORT OUR WORK BY SUBSCRIBING & BECOMING A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 |
21,819 | Trump Didn’t Want These Secrets To Get Out, But A Judge Just Said ‘No’ | Donald Trump has been trying to suppress internal documents from his controversial Trump University business, but a judge has just ruled that they must be released into the public domain.The Friday ruling, in which Judge Gonzalo Curiel cited heightened public interest in presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, was issued in response to a request by The Washington Post. The ruling was a setback for Trump, whose attorneys argued that the documents contained trade secrets.Curiel s order came the same day that Trump railed against the judge at a boisterous San Diego rally for his handling of the case, in which students have alleged they were misled and defrauded. The trial is set for November.The documents reportedly contain information on how Trump University advised its employees on how to squeeze the most money from students who had signed up for information on building their own real estate business. Trump University has been criticized by former students and investigators like the Attorney general for New York for trying to make money from people desperate to be entrepreneurs, when in fact much of the material they received was worthless.Trump University students have previously said they were constantly upsold new material, while rarely making the kind of money that was promised in ads featuring Trump and his personal branding.On Friday, Trump included an attack on the judge in the Trump University case in his remarks at a campaign rally. He described the judge as a Mexican, when in reality he is a U.S. citizen.Trump University is among the many failed businesses Trump has been involved in over the years. Other companies that failed include Trump Steaks, Trump Air, and Trump Magazine. Trump s business and casinos have filed for bankruptcy several times. Yet despite these failures, Trump has regularly presented himself as a winner who is unfamiliar with losing.Featured image via Flickr | 0 |
21,820 | Honduran presidential candidate Nasralla says election marred by fraud | TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Honduran center-left candidate Salvador Nasralla said on Sunday it was clear there had been fraud before, during and after a bitterly contested Nov. 26 presidential election and that he was headed to Washington to meet with U.S. and other officials. Nasralla s comments, made in a video posted on Facebook, followed a decision by the nation s electoral tribunal to declare conservative President Juan Orlando Hernandez the official winner of the vote. The announcement sparked calls for renewed street protests. Nasralla said he had meetings planned with the U.S. State Department and the Organization of American States. | 1 |
21,821 | Malaysia's Mahathir calls Trump a 'villain' for Jerusalem plan | KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Muslim-majority Malaysia s former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad on Friday called U.S. President Donald Trump an international bully and a villain for his move to recognize Jerusalem as Israel s capital. Trump last week reversed decades of U.S. policy by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and said the United States would move its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in the coming years. The status of Jerusalem is one of the thorniest barriers to a lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace. Israel considers Jerusalem its eternal and indivisible capital and wants all embassies based there. Palestinians want the capital of an independent state of theirs to be in the city s eastern sector, which Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed in a move never recognized internationally. The anger from Trump s decision will lead to what is called terrorism , the 93-year-old Mahathir told a protest rally in front of the U.S. embassy in Kuala Lumpur. Today we have an international bully. Trump, go find someone your own size. This (Jerusalem plan) will only stir the anger of the Muslims, said Mahathir, the chairman of Malaysia s opposition coalition. We must use all our power to oppose this villain who is the president of the United States, he said, urging all Muslim countries to cut ties with Israel. Muhyiddin Yassin, another opposition leader, called on the Malaysian government to not proceed with planned investments in the United States. Last week, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak urged Muslims worldwide to oppose any recognition of Jerusalem as Israel s capital. Social media users in Muslim-majority Malaysia vowed to boycott U.S. companies, such as McDonald s Corp, following Trump s decision. The chain s Malaysian franchise said it did not support or engage in any political or religious conflicts. Deputy Prime Minister Zahid Ahamd Hamidi on Friday said Najib and the leader of the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) would lead a protest rally next Friday in Malaysia s administrative capital of Putrajaya, media said. | 1 |
21,822 | Trump tweets he raised $13 million in 24 hours in online donations | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump tweeted on Tuesday that he raised $13 million in 24 hours from online donations. Trump, who has struggled to convince traditional Republican donors to back his campaign, has turned to online donations from supporters to fund his campaign for the Nov. 8 election. In August, Trump raised $90 million, trailing Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton, who raised $143 million in the same month. | 1 |
21,823 | TREY GOWDY BREAKS DOWN What Clinton Hasn’t Answered To About Use Of Private E-mail Server [Video] | Trey Gowdy rips into the Clinton case of using a private e-mail for convenience When you are habitual, serial liar in this facet of life it tends to make people not believe you in other facets of life | 0 |
21,824 | Court Just Gave Cops Permission To Murder Dogs | The 6th District Court in Ohio ruled on Monday that if a cop comes to your home, they are justified in killing your dog if your dog does so much as move.Mark and Cheryl Brown sued the Battle Creek, Michigan police department after, during a search of their homes, the police killed their two pit bulls. All the dogs were guilty of was moving. They argued in court that the officers actions violated the Fourth Amendment, that is was an unlawful seizure of property.In the case of the Browns two pit bulls, the imminent threat came from the dogs barking and moving around. One officer shot the first pit bull after he said it had only moved a few inches in a movement that he considered to be a lunge. The injured dog retreated to the basement, where the officer shot and killed it as well as the second dog while conducting a sweep of the residence. Officer Klein testified that after he shot and killed the first dog, he noticed the second dog standing about halfway across the basement, the court s opinion explained. The second dog was not moving towards the officers when they discovered her in the basement, but rather she was just standing there, barking and was turned sideways to the officers. Klein then fired the first two rounds at the second dog. The court, of course, placed the burden on the homeowners. It was up to them to prove that the first dog didn t lunge (how do they prove that?) and that the second dog didn t bark.While the benefit of the doubt typically goes to police now they are rarely prosecuted and even more rarely convicted for killing people it appears that cops can now legally kill dogs, just because they are afraid of them. In fact, nearly 25 dogs are killed at the hands of police each and every day. This is heartbreaking. Expect cops to get even more rights over the people they are supposed to protect under a Donald Trump presidency.Featured image via Pixabay. | 0 |
21,825 | TERRIFIC! PRESIDENT TRUMP Takes On The United Nations With Latest Executive Order | THE US PROVIDES 22% OF THE BUDGET FOR THE UNITED NATIONS!Donald Trump is preparing executive orders that would dramatically reduce US funding of the United Nations, as well as other international organizations that do not meet certain criteria.The executive order plans to repeal certain multilateral treaties too, officials told the New York Times, which would likely include treaties on climate change.The first order, called Auditing and Reducing US Funding of International Organizations , will take away funding for any United Nations agency or international body that meets criteria, including: organisations that give full membership to the Palestinian Authority or Palestine Liberation Organisation; support abortion and any group that circumvents sanctions on Iran or North Korea.Funding will be taken away from any organization that is controlled or substantially influenced by any state that sponsors terrorism or is behind the persecution of marginalised groups or systematic violation of human rights.The order has singled out peacekeeping, the International Criminal Court and the United Nations Population Fund. The UNPFA targets violence against women, fights to keeps childbirth and abortion, where it is legal, safe, and was a key presence in safeguarding women in Haiti following Hurricane Matthew.The order demands decreasing US funding towards international organizations by at least 40 per cent.Earlier reports revealed that Congress was planning legislation to stop funding the UN after it voted to condemn Israeli settlement building in the Occupied Territories.Read more: The Independent | 0 |
21,826 | Clinton holds slim lead over Trump in presidential race: polls | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Hillary Clinton maintained her narrow lead over Republican rival Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential race just days ahead of the Nov. 8 election, according to two polls released on Thursday. A New York Times/CBS poll of 1,333 registered voters found Clinton ahead by 3 percentage points, at the cusp of the Oct. 28-Nov. 1 survey’s margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. A Washington Post/ABC poll showed Clinton 2 percentage points ahead among 1,767 likely voters surveyed Oct. 29 - Nov. 1. It also had a 3-percentage point margin of error. | 1 |
21,827 | Presidential candidate Cruz appoints Islam critics as advisers | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ted Cruz, Donald Trump’s closest rival in the Republican race for the White House, named his national security advisers on Thursday, including former staffers of President Ronald Reagan and members of a think tank that has been called an anti-Muslim “hate group” by a civil rights organization. Announcing the team in a statement, Cruz said he would reverse what he described as the weakening of the United States in a dangerous world, singling out militant Islamist groups in the Middle East and North Africa as his focus. Among the most recognizable names on the senator’s list of 23 advisers was Elliott Abrams, who served in the administrations of both Reagan and President George W. Bush and is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. But the list of advisers drew more attention for its inclusion of several critics of Muslims. Among those were Frank Gaffney, a former official in the Reagan administration, and at least two other members of a think tank Gaffney founded, the Center for Security Policy. The center’s reports argue that hundreds of thousands of American Muslims support Islamist violence in the United States and that there is a conspiracy to erode the U.S. legal system by elevating sharia, the Islamic legal code. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization that monitors U.S. extremist groups, has labeled the Center for Security Policy a “hate group” and Gaffney a “notorious Islamophobe.” Gaffney did not respond to a request for comment, but a spokesman pointed to online essays where Gaffney has rejected such criticism, saying his group is a defender of civil liberties against “Islamic supremacists.” “Do you mention any of the other 22 members of the advisory coalition?” Brian Phillips, a Cruz spokesman, said in an email, declining to respond to questions about the criticisms made against Gaffney and his think tank. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim rights group, urged Cruz, a Christian, to reconsider having Gaffney and others who have made anti-Muslim remarks as his advisers, saying it suggested the candidate entertained “anti-Muslim bigotry”. Besides Gaffney and his think-tank colleagues, CAIR said Cruz should drop William Boykin, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who has said the government should be allowed to ignore the U.S. Constitution to pass laws limiting Muslims’ right to freedom of speech and religion. Some of Cruz’s other advisers have been critical of anti-Islamic rhetoric, including Abrams and Mary Habeck, another former Bush adviser; both have said Islam should not be demonized. Another adviser is Katherine Gorka, president of the Council on Global Security, a group that produces research on Islamist violence, who said in an email that Cruz “understands the vital role that America’s military strength plays across the globe but without wanting to engage the U.S. in expensive democracy-building adventures.” TRUMP-CRUZ SHOWDOWN Trump, a 69-year-old billionaire businessman from New York, has surged to the front of the once-crowded Republican field, drawing support from voters by proposing to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States for fear they might secretly be members of violent Islamist groups. Trump cited research by Gaffney’s group in announcing the plan last year. Cruz, a 45-year-old Texan, is seeking to keep Trump from winning an outright majority of delegates as states vote for party nominees in the coming months, and to wrest the nomination from him at the party’s national convention in Cleveland in July. Conservatives who think Trump strays too far from Republican ideology continued to plot openly to thwart him at or before the convention. Erick Erickson, a conservative blogger, said in a statement that he joined a meeting of “grassroots conservative activists” from around the country in Washington on Thursday. He said they made plans to appoint an as-yet-unnamed candidate at what they hope will be the first contested Republican convention since 1948, where a complicated system of ballot rules would come into effect. Earlier this month, Mitt Romney, the party’s unsuccessful 2012 presidential candidate, called on Republicans to use tactical voting to slow Trump. The call appeared to have been ignored by many Republican voters, with Trump remaining the leading candidate following the most recent round of primary elections on Tuesday. Cruz has said “everyone understands” the proposed Muslim ban by Trump, also a Christian, but the senator does not support it, saying there are millions of Muslims who are not murderous. Instead, Cruz supports stopping refugees from some predominantly Muslim countries from coming to the United States. Democratic politicians and others have condemned Republican candidates’ remarks on Islam, saying they foster further division and discrimination. | 1 |
21,828 | U.S.-backed forces in Syria's Raqqa say they take old city | BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, said on Friday it had taken the last districts in the old city of Raqqa from Islamic State, but the U.S.-led coalition which backs it could not confirm the report. We declare to our people the liberation of the old city of Raqqa, the SDF said in a statement. The SDF has been battling to capture the former de facto capital of Islamic State s self-declared caliphate since June with backing from U.S.-led jets and special forces. The walled old city lies in the heart of Raqqa but the jihadist group still holds important districts in the west of the city. The SDF said it now held 65 percent of Raqqa in total. A war monitor, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said it was not true that the SDF had fully captured the old city, but added that it did hold more than 90 percent of that area. The coalition said it was not yet able to confirm the news. We have not received confirmation of that through our channels, coalition spokesman Colonel Ryan Dillon said. | 1 |
21,829 | Nearly half of Americans oppose Republican tax bill: Reuters/Ipsos poll | WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Opposition has grown among Americans to a Republican tax plan before the U.S. Congress, with 49 percent of people who were aware of the measure saying they opposed it, up from 41 percent in October, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday. Congressional Republicans are trying to rush their tax legislation to a vote on the Senate floor before the end of the week. President Donald Trump strongly backs the bill and wants to sign it into law before the end of the year. In addition to the 49 percent who said they opposed the Republican tax bill, 29 percent said they supported it and 22 percent said they “don’t know,” according to the Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll of 1,257 adults conducted from Thursday to Monday. When asked “who stands to benefit most” from the plan, more than half of all American adults surveyed selected either the wealthy or large U.S. corporations. Fourteen percent chose “all Americans,” 6 percent picked the middle class and 2 percent chose lower-income Americans. The tax bill being crafted in the Senate would slash the corporate tax rate, eliminate some taxes paid only by rich Americans and offer a mixed bag or temporary tax cuts for other individuals and families. As congressional discussion on the bill has unfolded, public opposition to it has risen, on average, following Trump’s unveiling of a nine-page “framework” on Sept. 27 that started the debate in earnest, Reuters/Ipsos polling showed. On Oct. 24, for example, among adults who said they had heard of the “tax reform plan recently proposed by congressional Republicans,” 41 percent said they opposed it, while 31 percent said they “don’t know” and just 28 percent said they supported it. Trump and his fellow Republicans are determined to make a tax code overhaul their first major legislative win since taking control of the White House and Congress in January. The House of Representatives on Nov. 16 approved its own tax bill. The Senate is expected to decide on Wednesday whether to begin debating its proposal, as the measure moves toward a decisive floor vote later this week. The two chambers would need to reconcile differences between their plans before legislation could be sent to the White House for Trump’s signature. In the Nov. 23-27 poll, 59 percent of Republicans supported the tax bill, 26 percent said they did not know and 15 percent opposed it. Among Democrats, 82 percent opposed it, 11 percent said they did not know and 8 percent supported it. The online poll has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of 3 percentage points. | 1 |
21,830 | Youths charged with murder after fatal fire at Malaysian school | KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Two Malaysian teenagers were charged with murder on Thursday, for setting fire to an Islamic boarding school that killed 23 people, mostly boys. The fire in Kuala Lumpur on Sept. 14 was the deadliest of its kind in two decades, and the tragedy sparked public outrage, with calls for greater safety and tougher regulation at religious schools. [nL4N1LW1LS] The blaze had broken out in a top-floor dormitory at the three-storey boarding school where most of the students were sleeping in bunk beds, with many of the windows barred by metal grilles. The two accused were part of a group of seven youths, all male and aged between 12 and 18, who police said had started the fire after feuding with students from the boarding school. They lived in the neighborhood and did not attend the school. [nL4N1LX062] Prosecutors declined to provide the suspects names or ages, citing Malaysia s child protection laws, but said both the accused boys were minors. They are being tried jointly and are facing 23 counts of murder, one for each victim of the fire, prosecuting lawyer Othman Abdullah told reporters outside a juvenile court in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia carries a mandatory death penalty for murder, but authorities have said it will not apply to the youths as they were underage. They could instead face jail time, whipping, fines or detention at an approved school. The two, along with four others, are also facing drug use charges. All but one were minors, while another youth was released due to insufficient evidence, Othman said. Those charged had tested positive for drugs, including marijuana and methamphetamine, according to a charge sheet sighted by Reuters. The court has set Nov. 28 as the date for the next hearing, Othman said. | 1 |
21,831 | Greta Van Susteren Slams Fox News For Not Dealing With Roger Ailes Sooner | Fox News is collapsing like a house of cards as the fallout over rampant sexual harassment continues.Gretchen Carlson got the ball rolling when she filed a lawsuit against the conservative network, accusing Fox boss Roger Ailes of sexually harassing her and punishing her for refusing to have sex with him.Rather than stand by their colleague, however, Fox hosts such as Greta Van Susteren and others took Ailes side instead.But now that Carlson has been vindicated and Ailes forced to resign, Van Susteren now regrets not believing the victim in the first place.In a post on Facebook on Friday, Van Susteren opened up about Carlson and expressed regret for not believing Carlson from the start. I read Geraldo s FB post in which he said he regretted not believing Gretchen Carlson s claim of sexual harassment, she wrote. We all regret it I made my regret self evident in my GretaWire posting about 3 weeks ago which ended with this: Gretchen, you go girl. That said it all. Van Susteren continued by admitting that it was unfair for her to judge the case since she was 200 miles away from where the harassment took place and that she had never talked to Carlson about it to hear her side of the story personally. It is indeed true, when I read the complaint written by lawyers I never spoke to Gretchen as she was long gone from Fox I found it inconsistent with what was my experience and information at the Fox News Channel, admittedly working 200 miles from the scene of the crimes. It was hidden from all of us. Van Susteren left Fox News earlier this week and they replaced her with Brit Hume, a man who has spewed sexist remarks on the air for years.And now that she is no longer employed by Fox News, Van Susteren has absolutely no problem shaming her former employers for not doing anything about Roger Ailes sooner. But I have regrets beyond Geraldo s and beyond not believing a civil complaint written by lawyers. I regret that Roger Ailes was not supervised by those in a public corporation who had the duty to supervise him. This included his seniors, the CFO s of both Fox News Channel and 21CF (and its predecessor NewsCorp), the Board of Directors and what I assume this public corporation had, outside auditors. Checks written that were suspicious should have been spotted. But Fox News still hasn t learned much since many of the people who let Ailes get away with sexually harassing female employees, like Bill Shine, are still employed in their positions by the company.Even some high profile male hosts are still employed, including Steve Doocy, who was named in Carlson s lawsuit, and Bill O Reilly, who was named in Andrea Tantaros lawsuit.Fox News needs to go beyond axing Ailes. They need to clean house or the working environment at Fox will simply continue being like a sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult, steeped in intimidation, indecency and misogyny. Featured image via Facebook | 0 |
21,832 | FOOTBALL LEGEND MIKE DITKA Weighs In On National Anthem Protest | I think it s a problem anybody who disrespects this country and the flag. If they don t like the country they don t like our flag get the hell out. Mike DitkaOutspoken Hall of Famer Mike Ditka became the latest high-profile name to weigh in on San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick s national anthem protest Friday when he ripped the signal-caller s actions.In an interview on Shan & RJ on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas (h/t CBS DFW), the ESPN analyst said of Kaepernick s actions:I think it s a problem anybody who disrespects this country and the flag. If they don t like the country they don t like our flag get the hell out.I have no respect for Colin Kaepernick he probably has no respect for me, that s his choice. My choice is, I like this country, I respect our flag, and I don t see all the atrocities going on in this country that people say are going on.Additionally, Ditka painted an optimistic picture regarding the United States during his radio appearance: I see opportunities if people want to look for opportunity. Now if they don t want to look for them, then you can find problems with anything, but this is the land of opportunity because you can be anything you want to be if you work. If you don t work that s a different problem. Via: Bleacher Report | 0 |
21,833 | Trump ‘Promises’ To Fix Black People’s Problems And Gets Spectactularly Owned For It On Twitter | Donald Trump must really think black people are stupid.The Republican nominee has been making a series of pathetic attempts to reach out to black voters on the campaign trail recently as his poll numbers continue to implode. What the hell do you have to lose, Trump asked black voters in front of a white audience earlier this week as he claimed they all live in neighborhoods that are war zones, have bad schools, are unemployed, and live in poverty.Well, Trump took to Twitter on Thursday and made yet another pathetic effort to fool black voters into thinking that he actually gives a damn about them.Once again, Trump claimed poverty and crime are up in African-American communities while claiming that employment is down. I will fix it, promise, he tacked on at the end.So many in the African-American community are doing so badly, poverty and crime way up, employment and jobs way down: I will fix it, promise Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 25, 2016Of course, Trump is talking out of his ass.As it turns out the black poverty rate over the last two decades favors Hillary Clinton and is really damning for Republicans.According to BlackDemographics.com: During the decade of the 1990s while the nation was experiencing an economic boom the poverty rate of Black families dropped from 29% in 1990 to 19% in 2000 virtually cutting the disparity in half. The economic downturn in the decade from 2000 to 2010 caused the increase of the Black family poverty rate to 24%. Since 2010 the Black family poverty rate began to decrease sightly reaching 23% in 2014, however the disparity has remained relatively unchanged since 2000.As we all know, Bill Clinton was president in the 1990s and he presided over a strong economy that benefited just about everyone, including African-Americans. But then George W. Bush took over and black families began to slip back below the poverty line, especially during the Great Recession.In addition, Trump over-exaggerates the crime in black communities and his claim that the unemployment rate among blacks is up is bullshit, too. In fact, it s been cut nearly in half since 2011.So Twitter ripped Trump a new one. .@realDonaldTrump just like you fixed the availability of all those apartment buildings so black tenants couldn t rent from you?? Promise. Isaac Saul (@Ike_Saul) August 25, 2016@realDonaldTrump Mr. Trump, can you please be specific? Maybe about anything? #NeverTrump Mike Wickett (@mikewickett) August 25, 2016 @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/9bpOcGzUqX John Harris (@YahyaJohn) August 25, 2016@RealDonaldTrump needs to: Release tax returns Apologize to the Khan Fam Apologize to disabled Americans Apologize to Muslims & Latinos John Harris (@YahyaJohn) August 25, 2016 @YahyaJohn @realDonaldTrump also: delete his account Scott A. W. Brown (@Scott_AW_Brown) August 25, 2016@realDenaldTrump @realDonaldTrump You called us thugs, criminals, drug dealers, pigs, rapists. Now you want our votes! SAD! Judith Raquel (@GWGMJ30) August 25, 2016 @realDonaldTrump you were sued for refusing black people as tenants Andrew W Chamings (@AndrewChamings) August 25, 2016@realDonaldTrump If you are reaching out to the black voters you are going to need longer arms and bigger hands pic.twitter.com/Q3p1Y7hEtg Jake from state farm (@my2bits4u) August 25, 2016 @realDonaldTrump um pic.twitter.com/YaYxGFtr1R Paulino Nunes (@paulinocmnunes) August 25, 2016Featured image via Gustavo Caballero/Getty Images | 0 |
21,834 | PM May's deputy denies report pornography was found on office computer | LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May s most senior minister has denied an allegation that police found pornography on one of his computers in the Houses of Parliament in 2008 as the British government struggles to contain a scandal about sexual harassment. First Secretary of State Damian Green said the claims by a former senior police officer in a Sunday newspaper were completely untrue and political smears. This story is completely untrue and comes from a tainted and untrustworthy source, Green said in a statement on his Twitter page. The claims amount to little more than an unscrupulous character assassination, he said. The Sunday Times reported on its front page that former Metropolitan police assistant commissioner Bob Quick alleged the material was discovered by officers during an inquiry into government leaks in 2008. Quick, who was involved in the leak investigation, told the newspaper that officers had reported finding the extreme pornography on a parliamentary computer from Green s office. The claims against one of the prime minister s closest allies risks deepening a growing sexual harassment scandal that led Britain s defense minister Michael Fallon to resign last Wednesday. Fallon said his behavior has fallen short of the standards expected by the British military. May s minority government is already struggling with divisions over Britain s departure from the European Union. Britain s interior minister Amber Rudd said the issue would be investigated by the Cabinet Office on Monday and she denied the government was on the verge of collapse if Green resigned. Rudd said Britain needed to address allegations of sexual harassment in the corridors of power. It is something that will take place, in terms of clearing out Westminster of that sort of behavior, and Westminster, including the government, will be better off after it, she said. Green, 61, has also denied a previous allegation that he made an inappropriate sexual advance on a young woman. He said it was not true that he had touched the woman s knee and told her that his wife was very understanding during a meeting in a pub in which the pair discussed her career aspirations and gossiped about sexual affairs in parliament. | 1 |
21,835 | House panel to consider measure censuring IRS chief | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Republican-controlled oversight committee in the U.S. House of Representatives announced on Monday that it will consider a measure censuring the head of the Internal Revenue Service on allegations related to scrutiny of conservative groups. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, who is already facing a Republican-led impeachment effort, would be condemned for conduct inconsistent with “trust and confidence” under a measure due to come before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday. Republicans, including the committee chairman, Jason Chaffetz of Utah, allege that Koskinen failed to comply with a House subpoena as lawmakers sought evidence that the agency targeted Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny. IRS actions came to light in early 2013, months before Koskinen arrived at the agency. IRS officials had no immediate comment. Koskinen has denied any wrongdoing. Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the oversight committee’s top Democrat, accused Republicans of leap-frogging over the House Judiciary Committee, which is holding its own hearings to determine whether Koskinen committed any wrongdoing. Cummings said government investigators have found no evidence that the IRS targeted conservative groups or that Koskinen obstructed the House investigation. The proposed censure legislation urges Koskinen’s removal from office and would require him to forfeit his pension and other federal benefits. Committee approval would send it to the floor for a vote by the full House. Legal experts say a congressional censure would not pass constitutional muster if it imposed any penalty. | 1 |
21,836 | White House condemns missile attacks on Saudi by Yemen's Houthis | BEIJING (Reuters) - The White House on Wednesday condemned missile attacks by Yemen s Houthi militias on Saudi Arabia, saying they threatened the region s security and undermined efforts to halt the conflict. Saudi Arabia said its air defense forces intercepted a ballistic missile fired from warring Yemen over the capital Riyadh on Saturday. The rocket was brought down near King Khaled Airport on the northern outskirts of the capital. Saudi Arabia s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Iran s supply of rockets to militias in Yemen was an act of direct military aggression that could be an act of war. Houthi missile attacks against Saudi Arabia, enabled by Iran s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, threaten regional security and undermine UN efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict, the White House said in a statement as U.S. President Donald Trump began a visit to the Chinese capital. These missile systems were not present in Yemen before the conflict, and we call upon the United Nations to conduct a thorough examination of evidence that the Iranian regime is perpetuating the war in Yemen to advance its regional ambitions, the statement added. It said the United States would continue working with other like-minded partners to respond to such attacks and expose what it called Iran s destabilizing activities in the region. Iran denied it was behind the missile launch. On Wednesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said missile attacks from Yemen were a reaction to what he called Saudi aggression. In reaction to the missile, the Saudi-led coalition closed all air, land and sea ports to the impoverished country. It also intensified air strikes on areas controlled by the Houthis including the capital Sanaa. The war has killed more than 10,000 people and triggered one of the worst man-made humanitarian disasters in recent history. The United Nations on Tuesday called on the coalition to re-open an aid lifeline into Yemen, saying food and medicine imports were vital for 7 million people facing famine. | 1 |
21,837 | Senate's McConnell says tax bill should be revenue neutral | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said on Sunday he has not abandoned his longtime goal of making sure any tax cuts are revenue neutral, saying the growth estimates in the Republican tax reform plan will offset the cuts. The Trump administration’s tax plan promises up to $6 trillion in tax cuts but will increase the federal deficit by $1.5 trillion over the next decade. Asked on CNN’s “State of the Union” if it abandons the revenue-neutral goal, McConnell said: “No, actually we’re not because that’s a rather conservative estimate of how much growth you’ll get out of this pro-growth tax reform.” | 1 |
21,838 | BREAKING VIDEO: Clinton Can’t Explain Discrepancy About When She Started To Use Private Server | Lying, liar pants continues to fudge and hedge her bets on the short memory of the American voter. This just makes you want to take a shower dirty, dirty, dirty politics! The crazy thing is that 44% of American voters STILL like Hillary for president! Does the character of a candidate not matter at all? Unreal! | 0 |
21,839 | Trump Supporter Laura Ingraham FAILS With Fake Photo Of Trump’s Sh*tty Rally Crowd | You know how conservatives are constantly screaming FAKE NEWS every time they see something they don t like? It s interesting that they have no problem sharing news that is demonstrably fake given their professed distaste for it.This is what Trump Nazi Laura Ingraham s website looks like as I type this sentence:Notice anything off? If you guessed the photo of what she claims is five straight miles of Trump fans banging on the doors to barely halfway fill a venue that is capped at 5,000 people you re correct. Good job. You get a cookie. Go you!The image is from an event that serves as the traditional pick for conservatives when they want to lie about Donald Trump s crowd size. That s right the 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers victory parade (FUN FACT: Like almost everything else, it attracted more people than Trump s inauguration).This isn t the first time Ingraham has acted like an embarrassment to the human race. In 2016, she was captured at CPAC giving the Nazi salute to a photo of Trump that appeared to be doing the same back at her:I'd forgotten the one with Laura Ingraham giving the Nazi salute, it's been so long https://t.co/UBDRGOI98z pic.twitter.com/wxC8vCHPDL i, Smiley ???? (@smiley_yearwood) August 18, 2017It s important to remember that this is what passes for reality in the Stupid Part of America. Recently, the Virginia Republican Party shared a news article claiming that Rosa Parks daughter praised Trump as a civil rights hero, for example. Rosa Parks had no children, but that didn t stop their idiot followers from sharing it hundreds of times.Conservatives are easy to mock these days for some reason. It s no wonder they keep telling us that the way to win them over is to stop calling them racists and making fun of their hilarious stupidity.Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
21,840 | WATCH: Texas Lt. Gov. Goes Full Racist, Blames Black Lives Matter For Dallas Shooting | Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is known for making inflammatory comments after national tragedies in public. He is the guy who tweeted a picture with a bible verse that reads, Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows, right after the Orlando massacre.So, it shouldn t be too surprising that Patrick s post-Dallas shooting commentary is a giant pile of racist bullsh*t. Last Thursday during an interview on Fox News (of course), Patrick claimed that the protestors who were present at the protest during the shooting were hypocrites for running away while shots were being fired. All those protesters last night, they ran the other way, expecting the men and women in blue to turn around and protect them. What hypocrites. I understand the First Amendment. I understand freedom of speech, and I defend it. It is in our Constitution and is in our soul, but you can t go out on social media and mainstream media and everywhere else and say that the police are racist or police are hateful or the police are killers. Calling Black Lives Matter protesters hypocrites for running away when shots are being fired into a crowd shots that hit both protestors and police is just plain ugly. From all accounts, the protestors in Dallas and the local law enforcement were working together to make sure that the event was safe. Patrick went on to rant: I do blame people on social media, with their hatred towards police. I do blame, I saw Jesse Jackson I think it was on Fox the other night calling police racist without any facts. I do blame former Black Lives Matters protests. Last night was peaceful, but others have not been, Patrick went on to say.Yeah seriously, Patrick said that. Black Lives Matter is to blame for the actions of one individual who had no previous role in the movement.As far as Patrick s insistence on shutting up about the wholesale slaughter of black lives on social media goes it s never going to happen. Millions of people are standing up and saying enough is enough. Black lives matter. There are racist police officers out there. Initialized racism must end.You can watch the interview below.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNRun_af0h0Featured image from video screenshot | 0 |
21,841 | WATCH: CNN Host Destroys Trump Campaign Manager For Denying Trump Acted As His Own Publicist | Despite the fact that Donald Trump has admitted in the past that he has acted as his own publicist, he and his campaign continue to deny that it was his voice on the recordings. Jake Tapper confronted Trump s campaign manager on the issue and his defense of Trump was sloppy and full of nonsense.On Sunday morning s State of the Union, Tapper played the now infamous tape of Trump impersonating his own PR guy, and then asked campaign manager Paul Manafort if the campaign is seriously claiming that wasn t Mr. Trump? Manafort stuck to his story but Tapper pressed on and put Manafort on the spot. Tapper said: In 1990 under oath he testified he did use the name John Barron, and in 1991 he told People magazine he did use the name John Miller so this has already been admitted previously. I don t understand why now. Manafort then said, I don t know those facts to be true or not. I just know that he said it s not him. I believe him. He then went on in an attempt to change the subject, citing what he said was the lack of importance of the issue: I don t even know the relevance of this frankly. It s 25 years old and they re not dealing with the issues that Trump is trying to focus on today. Jobs, terrorism, immigration problems. These are the issues we should be talking about. Why the media is spending so much time going by 25 years, talking about People magazine on a tape that may or may not be Trump. But Tapper wasn t having it, and he explained the relevance of the story to Manafort. Here s what he said: This issue is here you have a man who in his 40 s allegedly is his own public relations agent, bragging about his exploits with women while married to Ivana Trump, the mother of his three children and speaks to a certain kind of character issue don t you think? Indeed, the character flaws here are tremendous. The lies along with the alleged betrayal of his wife and his disgusting talk about women should all be taken as important issues, especially since Trump is trying to become president. Let s hope it never comes to that scenario.Watch video here on mediaite.comFeatured image via video screen capture | 0 |
21,842 | China draws three-stage path for Myanmar, Bangladesh to resolve Rohingya crisis | NAYPYITAW (Reuters) - China called for a ceasefire in Myanmar s Rakhine State so that Rohingya Muslim refugees can return from Bangladesh, proposing a three-stage approach to the crisis as diplomats from 51 mostly Asian and European countries gathered in Myanmar on Monday. More than 600,000 Muslim Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since late August, driven out by a military clearance operation in Buddhist majority Myanmar s Rakhine State. Amid a burgeoning humanitarian catastrophe, rights groups have accused the Myanmar military of atrocities, while foreign critics have blasted Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace prize winner who leads a civilian administration that is less than two years old, for failing to speak out more strongly. On Monday, Suu Kyi opened an Asia-Europe Meeting for foreign ministers that had been scheduled in Myanmar before the outbreak of the crisis. Speaking in the capital of Naypyitaw on Sunday, having arrived from Dhaka, China s Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China believed Myanmar and Bangladesh could work out a mutually acceptable way to end the crisis. The first phase is to effect a ceasefire on the ground, to return to stability and order, so the people can enjoy peace and no longer be forced to flee, China s foreign ministry said in a statement, citing Wang. With the hard work of all sides, at present, the first phase s aim has already basically been achieved, and the key is to prevent a flare-up, especially that there is no rekindling the flames of war. During a meeting on Sunday, the ministry said, Wang told Myanmar President Htin Kyaw, As a friend of both Myanmar and Bangladesh, China is willing to keep playing a constructive role for the appropriate handling of the Rakhine State issue. Visiting Myanmar last week, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made many of the same points, but he also called for a credible investigation into reports of atrocities. Once a ceasefire is seen to be working, Wang said talks between Myanmar and Bangladesh should find a workable solution for the return of refugees, and the final phase should be to work toward a long-term solution based on poverty alleviation. Myanmar and Bangladesh officials began talks last month to settle a repatriation process for Rohingya refugees, which Bangladesh expects to take to the next level in coming days. Speaking on the sidelines of the ASEM meeting, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said, We believe that stopping the violence, the flow of refugees and guaranteeing full humanitarian access to Rakhine state, and safe, sustainable repatriation of refugees are going to be key. Mogherini, who also visited Bangladesh over the weekend, said, There s a real possibility of Myanmar and Bangladesh reaching a memorandum of understanding and agreement for the safe repatriation of refugees to Myanmar. The European bloc was ready to help with the process, she added. It was unclear, however, whether a safe return was possible, or advisable, for the thousands of Rohingya women and children still stranded on the beaches trying to flee hunger and instability in Rakhine. Myanmar intends to resettle most refugees who return in new model villages , rather than on the land they previously occupied, an approach the United Nations has criticized in the past as effectively creating permanent camps. Besides restoring peace for Rohingya to return, Myanmar also had to resolve the issue of their citizenship, having treated them as stateless for decades, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, told a news conference in Tokyo. The UNHCR was ready to assist both countries with repatriation, he said, adding that it could help Myanmar with the citizenship verification of the Rohingya. Until now it has not been invited to participate in either. Much as resources are needed in Bangladesh to respond to the crisis, the solutions to this crisis lie in Myanmar, Grandi said. The crisis erupted after the military launched a brutal counter-insurgency operation against the militants after attacks on an army base and 30 police posts in Rakhine on Aug. 25. Myanmar s military has said that all fighting against the Rohingya militants died out on Sept.5. The group behind those attacks, Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), had declared a one-month ceasefire on Sept.10, which was rejected by the Myanmar government. But there have been no serious clashes since. The United States and other Western countries have become more engaged with Myanmar since it began a transition to civilian government after nearly 50 years of military rule. Myanmar s generals retain autonomy over defense, internal security and border issues in the current power-sharing arrangement. China, with close ties to both Myanmar and Bangladesh, has long been a key player in lawless borderlands where rebel ethnic groups have battled Myanmar s government for decades in a conflict driving thousands of refugees to seek shelter in China. | 1 |
21,843 | Trump Goes Into Full Denial Mode During Temper Tantrum Over Historically Low Approval Rating | Donald Trump just refuses to admit that most Americans disapprove of him and his pathetic presidency.On Sunday, a new poll was released showing that Trump s approval rating had dropped to another historic low in the 70 year history of the poll.According to the ABC/Washington Post poll, only 36 percent of Americans approve of Trump, while a whopping 58 percent disapprove.That s the highest disapproval rating and lowest approval rating ever recorded by the poll.But Trump tried to sugercoat his numbers by rounding off his approval rating to 40 percent and actually had the gall to claim that the number is not bad at this time. Trump also attacked ABC and the Washington Post.The ABC/Washington Post Poll, even though almost 40% is not bad at this time, was just about the most inaccurate poll around election time! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 16, 2017Trump is in denial at this point. Just after his first 100 days, the same poll recorded a record low approval rating for a president just after the first 100 days. Now Trump has recorded the lowest approval rating for a president after just six months in office. Sad!These kinds of major polls are scientifically conducted and serve as a snapshot of American opinion during the given time-frame in which the poll was taken. This poll was taken in the days after Donald Trump Jr. released his damning email proving that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia and just after a trip abroad in which Trump embarrassed himself and the United States at the G-20 Summit.So Americans have a lot to disapprove of when it comes to Trump s performance in office.And Twitter users were quick remind Trump of the facts.Actually, Mr. President, people actually disapprove of you. The polls are not inaccurate. It is that you aren t competent or likeable. Dani Bostick (@danibostick) July 16, 2017It is the worst approval rating of any president after 6 months in office in the history of the poll. Morten verbye (@morten) July 16, 2017It really is bad. pic.twitter.com/HICkS6I3fD Morten verbye (@morten) July 16, 2017 40% is not bad at this time ? What do les he mean? No president wants 40% approval ratings at any time in their presidency. Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) July 16, 2017For comparison, on nearly the exact same day in his presidency, the same poll had Obama w a 59% net approval https://t.co/4Ble0RFKrp pic.twitter.com/CeZlxG58c2 Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) July 16, 2017 40% is not bad? Is that what Trump learned at Wharton? What parents should tell their kids about school? 40% is failing. Adam Best (@adamcbest) July 16, 2017Why are you so insecure? pic.twitter.com/uZahOVJ3YZ Laura Sesana (@lasesana) July 16, 2017Uh it s not almost 40%, and it s a record low for any President in history, AND you inherited a strong economy and no major war or disasters Calvin (@calvinstowell) July 16, 2017I used to tell my math teacher that 40% was not bad at this time. She disagreed. Jarrett Bellini (@JarrettBellini) July 16, 2017 Featured Image: Alex Wong/Getty Images | 0 |
21,844 | CAMPAIGN VOLUNTEERS Deliver Opposing Messages: Support A Lawless Nation Or Vote To Restore Law And Order, Honor Our Veterans | ILLEGAL ALIENS WHO CAN T Vote Are Knocking On Doors For HILLARY While Veterans Campaign For Trump They broke the law or their parents broke the law to enter our country illegally. Of course, they had the same opportunity to apply for citizenship and become legal citizens of the United States as every other legal immigrant, but they chose instead to ignore our laws. Now they re campaigning for Hillary so they don t lose their ability to take advantage of all the benefits legal American citizens enjoy. On the other side of the spectrum, men and women who ve served our nation are out campaigning for the only candidate who is making the care of our veterans one of his top priorities Unable to vote in the presidential election, a group of undocumented immigrants is knocking on doors in Northern Virginia in support of Hillary Clinton and other Democratic candidates, convinced that the outcome of the vote will determine whether they can secure a path to citizenship in the country they have known since childhood.The vote-seekers are some of the 750,000 recipients of temporary legal status under the Obama administration s 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. They are acutely aware that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has pledged to deport the nation s 11 million illegal immigrants and that under a GOP-controlled Congress, past attempts at immigration reform have failed. All DACA recipients should take this on as an added responsibility, to change the power structure, said Luis Angel Aguilar, 28, who received his protected status in 2013 and is helping to coordinate the effort. Our voices need to be heard, he said.Four years after the DACA program was launched, many of the beneficiaries are still in a kind of limbo, unsure about whether their status would be renewed under a President Trump and concerned that their family members could be deported.The uncertainty was underscored earlier this year when the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a federal court injunction against an expanded version of DACA and Obama s Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents program, which could benefit an additional 4 million people. The only way to resolve this is through the election, said Kim Propeack, political director of CASA In Action. There s been a recent uptick of despair and energy around that 4-4 vote. WP They [veterans] fought hard to protect us, they are going to come first in a Trump administration. Donald J. TrumpOn July 11, 2016 Trump spoke before We need to clean up the corruption in government and Hillary Clinton will never be able to do it. She s incompetent and has proven time and time again that she doesn t have what it takes. Doesn t have it, Trump said. Crooked Hillary Clinton, sadly, is the secretary of the status quo, and wherever Hillary Clinton goes, corruption and scandal follow. Included in Trump s 10-point plan for reform at the Department of Veterans Affairs is a proposal to establish a White House hotline, to be answered not by a computer but by a human being, to field complaints about the department. The hotline would ensure that every complaint is dealt with, Trump said, and any issue left unaddressed would be brought directly to the president himself, so that he could personally deal with it.Military Times Republican operatives are confident that if they turn out veterans, they ll turn out more votes for Trump. Being a veteran, your skin s a lot thicker, said Mendoza, 24, who noted that he s both Hispanic and a veteran. It conditions you to seeing that bigger world and seeing past what someone says off the cuff. The instant bond that veterans form with each other often defuses tension inherent in political canvassing and opens doors that would otherwise be closed, said Bob Carey, a former Navy captain and the RNC s veterans outreach director. But their political utility goes beyond that. Veterans have a disproportionate ability to gain the trust of any voter, Carey said. The military is the last institution that has the trust and respect of the general public. Veterans vote at a higher rate than civilians, but younger veterans are less likely to vote than their peers. That s no surprise to Staab. He was deployed to southern Iraq in 2008 where his unit received mail once a month and had to create a base virtually from scratch at an abandoned air field. He didn t even remember to vote in the presidential election back home.Many veterans feel out of place after returning from war, and Staab and Mendoza, who returned from Iraq more recently are no exception. Mendoza is still dizzied by the carefree way some of his fellow students act. People take being a citizen for granted, he said.Staab now runs the GOP s Reno office and has recruited Mendoza and a cadre of veteran volunteers to call other veterans and knock on their doors. In Nevada, the veterans outreach has a dual purpose helping Trump and also the GOP s senate candidate, Rep. Joe Heck, a brigadier general in the Army reserves. | 0 |
21,845 | WATCH JOHN KERRY’S FEAR MONGERING ON IRAN DEAL SUPPORT: “Profound and damaging implications” if denied by Congress | If denied by Congress it would have profound implications for us It would be extraordinarily damaging . Is Kerry trying to say that if not for this deal with Iran we would be attacked by Iran? | 0 |
21,846 | Fear and loathing in South Korea as university exam postponed by quake | SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean test-takers expressed confusion and dejection on Thursday as the country s highly competitive annual university entrance exam, called a life assignment exam by some, was postponed a week for the first time ever due to safety concerns. South Korea postponed the exam after a rare earthquake rattled the country on Wednesday, causing damage to buildings including some schools. The exam is life-defining for many high school seniors, as a prestigious university on one s resume is seen a minimum for securing a place in limited corporate jobs in Asia s fourth-largest economy, which is dominated by conglomerates. Because the wrong answer to a single question in the roughly 200-question exam can mean dropping in the national ranking and failure to enter one s choice of university, tensions ran high. It s a bit hellish thinking I have to do this for one more week, said 20-year-old Cho Hyun-lee, studying at one of Seoul s largest cram schools to take the test again after last year. People are dispirited, lying with their faces down. Some scrambled to recover books they d thrown away yesterday or buy new ones, two test-takers told Reuters, while others gave up , uploading pictures of classmates sleeping or reading online comics on social media. Still others agonized over missing concerts of their favorite singers or South Korea s largest online game exhibition this week. Meanwhile, South Korean society, geared for the exam s smooth progress, prepared to do it all again next Thursday. Airplanes, barred from taking off or landing for 35 minutes on Thursday morning to prevent their noise from interfering with the exam s listening section, were allowed to land or take off, the transport ministry said. But the stock market and banks still opened an hour late on Thursday a device to help keep roads clear for students getting to test sites. The defense ministry allowed extra leave for soldiers in mandatory military service who had taken personal leave to sit the exam. Four police officers were stationed on double shifts at each of the 85 locations exam questions are kept and police patrolled the premises every two hours to prevent their leaking. As fainter aftershocks continued on Wednesday and Thursday, many Koreans said they support the postponement but some were inconsolable. It feels like I was turning the handle on the exit door from hell then returned to square one, said Lee Yoon-mi, a high school senior in Incheon. If you re not a test-taker, you could never understand. | 1 |
21,847 | Twitter Mercilessly WRECKS Trump For Posting Celebratory Inauguration Day Tweet | Donald Trump woke up early as usual to post some bullshit on Twitter, and he got epically trashed.Today is Inauguration Day and Trump decided he would brag about it.It all begins today! I will see you at 11:00 A.M. for the swearing-in. THE MOVEMENT CONTINUES THE WORK BEGINS! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2017As the world waits in horror for what is likely to be a petty and divisive inaugual address, Twitter users launched an all-out attack on Trump in response to his tweet.Happy #Inauguration, @realDonaldTrump! Some facts for you: Climate change isn t a HOAX. The U.S. is a melting pot. Science matters. David G. McAfee (@DavidGMcAfee) January 20, 2017@realDonaldTrump you really should see a doctor if this movement doesn t stop. That s not healthy. Roland Scahill (@rolandscahill) January 20, 2017@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/w3ejKwLaxK paladine (@paladine) January 20, 2017@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/nToOu132HY Cult Of Personality (@ResemblingACult) January 20, 2017@realDonaldTrump Please remember: 7M more people voted against you than for you. There is no mandate. Don t believe it? Look to the streets, Bill Shapiro (@Bill_Shapiro) January 20, 2017@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/x3IRT4KDZt Diva (@sammypolsen12) January 20, 2017@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/rUlMozVg8I Diva (@sammypolsen12) January 20, 2017@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/LwWVpZkw1N Diva (@sammypolsen12) January 20, 2017.@realDonaldTrump Fake news thohttps://t.co/h4wOHGRek8 Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) January 20, 2017.I hope you fall on your face walking up to the podium. It ll be a perfect metaphor for the next four years @realDonaldTrump #rejecttrump Tomo Milicevic (@tomofromearth) January 20, 2017@realDonaldTrump its your BIG day little hands #Inauguration pic.twitter.com/8vyDsjuwOh Lil Kim Ms. G.O.A.T (@killerbee805) January 20, 2017@realDonaldTrump What time do you start the Hunger Games? Matt Haig (@matthaig1) January 20, 2017@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/p4tK62aCug JoeMyGod (@JoeMyGod) January 20, 2017It should also be pointed out that Trump s tweet is a complete lie because he does not intend to work until Monday. That s right. He s literally using his first two days as president as vacation days.Donald Trump is unqualified to be president and he should be impeached the second he finishes swearing to uphold and defend the Constitution, because he will immediately be violating that oath due to his conflicts of interest and his persecution of the free press.The last eight years of hope and change are being replaced with four years of darkness and hate. Let s hope America lasts long enough to fix the mess Trump makes.Featured image by Spencer Platt via Getty Images | 0 |
21,848 | FLASHBACK: EPIC FAIL When CNN’s Interview Of Syrian Victim Ends Up Bashing The Wrong Politician [Video] | To set up the attack on Trump, CNN producers showed Hillary Clinton saying, we cannot speak of protecting Syria s babies, and in the next breath close America s doors to them .What happened next shocked Baldwin and she couldn t shut this guy down fast enough Epic! | 0 |
21,849 | NANCY PELOSI GIGGLES LIKE A CHILD: Says It’s Hard to Call Donald Trump President Trump | Nancy Pelosi couldn t sink any lower than this. She was doing a question and answer when she giggled and said she can t call Donald Trump president Trump. The oddest behavior comes after the giggles. She goes on to brag about her position in the Democrat Party and how she was so looking forward to Hillary s win. It s quite a delusional rant. How can the Democrats be taken seriously when they behave this way? Pelosi isn t the only one. Maxine Waters is a very close second in the wacky category. See the video below this one where she goes ballistic on a woman who said I love my president .PELOSI GIGGLES LIKE A CHILD:MAXINE WATERS GOES BALLISTIC: The latest video of Maxine Waters is downright hysterical! She s confronted by one of her constituents who says they re going to work every day to make sure that President Trump isn t impeached and that Waters is impeached. Mad Max didn t care for that comment and shot back: You can t impeach a woman of Congress Constituent: Well I just want to talk about your representation in Washington and our President as well.Waters: I can t stand him! He s the most horrible man I ve ever seen in my life! Constituent: I love my President. Waters: I m glad you do! Your President is a dishonorable, lying man. He mocked a journalist. I ve never seen a grown man do that! He talked about grabbing women by the private parts. He s lies everyday. He s in bed with Putin and the Russians about oil! And everybody around him are allies with the Kremlin and with the Oligarchs of Russia. They re gonna take us down! NEW: Constituent confronts Maxine Waters: I m going to work every day to make sure that [Trump] isn t impeached and that you re impeached. pic.twitter.com/Bcv55wmpJx Josh Caplan (@joshdcaplan) May 30, 2017 The video is hysterical because you know she never ever is confronted by someone. | 0 |
21,850 | Syria deal may be on agenda for Putin-Trump Asia meeting: report | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump may discuss a Syria settlement at an Asian economic summit in Vietnam next week, the RIA news agency reported on Saturday. Relations between Moscow and Washington have soured further since Putin and Trump first met at a G20 summit in Hamburg in July when they discussed allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. election, but agreed to focus on better ties.. Tensions have risen over the conflict in Syria, after Russia vetoed a United Nations plan to continue an ongoing investigation into chemical weapons.. A Syria settlement is being discussed for the agenda of a possible meeting between the two presidents, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by RIA, adding it was in their common interest to have enough time to discuss the issue. Somehow or another it requires cooperation, Peskov said. Trump told Fox News this week that it was possible he would meet Putin during his Asia trip. We may have a meeting with Putin, he said. And, again Putin is very important because they can help us with North Korea. They can help us with Syria. We have to talk about Ukraine. | 1 |
21,851 | WATCH: Neo-Nazi Leader Regrets His Trump Vote, Blames ‘Jewish Lobby’ For Failure To Build Wall | This weekend, neo-Nazis and white supremacists gathered in eastern Kentucky. On Friday, Art Jones addressed the group. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has identified Jones as a denier of the Holocaust. Since the 1970s, he has been dressing up on Nazi attire and celebrating Hitler and the ideals of the Third Reich. He is now upset with President Donald Trump and wishes he could take his vote back.Jones told the crowd: I m sorry I voted for the son of a bitch, I really am. I m sorry I spent $180 out of my own pocket to buy three big banners that said, President Trump, build the wall , the blazer-clad Jones said, to a tent full of about 100 men, some of whom wore paramilitary-style uniforms. Now he says, Eh, what wall? I m embarrassed that I voted for him. Jones went on to blame the Jewish lobby and Jared Kushner for many promises that Trump has broken. Kushner is Jewish.Featured image via Lois Beckett. | 0 |
21,852 | U.S. asks U.N. to blacklist 10 ships over banned North Korea cargo | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States has proposed that the United Nations Security Council blacklist 10 ships for transporting banned items from North Korea, according to documents seen by Reuters on Tuesday. The vessels are accused of conducting illegal ship-to-ship transfers of refined petroleum products to North Korean vessels or illegally transporting North Korean coal to other countries for exports, the United States said in its proposal. If none of the 15 members of the Security Council s North Korea sanctions committee object to the ships being designated by Thursday afternoon, the U.S. proposal will be approved. Countries are required to ban blacklisted ships from entering their ports. Four ships were designated for carrying coal from North Korea by the council s North Korea sanctions committee in October. North Korea is under a U.N. arms embargo and the Security Council has banned trade in exports such as coal, textiles, seafood, iron and other minerals to choke funding for Pyongyang s missile and nuclear programs. In September, the council put a cap of 2 million barrels a year on refined petroleum products exports to North Korea. The ships proposed to be blacklisted are: Xin Sheng Hai (flag unknown); Hong-Kong-flagged Lighthouse Winmore; Togo-flagged Yu Yuan; Panama-flagged Glory Hope 1 (also known as Orient Shenyu), Kai Xiang, and Billions No. 18; and North Korean-flagged Ul Ji Bong 6, Rung Ra 2, Rye Song Gang 1, and Sam Jong 2. Reclusive North Korea has boasted of developing a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and reaching the mainland United States in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions and international condemnation. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday urged North Korea to carry out a sustained cessation of weapons testing to allow the two countries to hold talks. He did not specify how long the lull should last. North Korea conducted missile tests at a steady pace since April, then paused in September after firing a rocket that passed over Japan s Hokkaido island. But it renewed tests in November when it fired a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile, which flew higher and further than previous tests. | 1 |
21,853 | BUSTED: The Oh So Objective ABC News Chief Anchor, George Stephanopoulous Made Huge Donation To Clinton Foundation | Just like Hillary Stephanopoulos claims it was an honest mistake not to disclose his donations to the corrupt Clinton slush fund ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos has given $50,000 to the Clinton Foundation in recent years, charitable contributions that he did not publicly disclose while reporting on the Clintons or their non-profit organization, the On Media blog has learned.In both 2013 and 2014, Stephanopoulos made a $25,000 donation to the 501 nonprofit founded by former president Bill Clinton, the Foundation s records show. Stephanopoulos never disclosed this information to viewers, even when interviewing author Peter Schweizer last month about his book Clinton Cash, which alleges that donations to the Foundation may have influenced some of Hillary Clinton s actions as Secretary of State.In a statement to the On Media blog on Thursday, Stephanopoulos apologized and said that he should have disclosed the donations to ABC News and its viewers.Watch George discuss the problem with donations to the Clinton Foundation on the Daily Show with John Stewart, and how it might make people question if donations to the Foundation could be seen as pernicious : I made charitable donations to the Foundation in support of the work they re doing on global AIDS prevention and deforestation, causes I care about deeply, he said. I thought that my contributions were a matter of public record. However, in hindsight, I should have taken the extra step of personally disclosing my donations to my employer and to the viewers on air during the recent news stories about the Foundation. I apologize. Stephanopoulos is the chief anchor and chief political correspondent for ABC News, as well as the co-anchor of ABC s Good Morning America and host of This Week, its Sunday morning public affairs program. Prior to joining ABC News, he served as communications director and senior advisor for policy and strategy to President Clinton. He also served as communications director on Bill Clinton s 1992 presidential campaign.In its own statement on Thursday, ABC News said it was standing behind its star anchor. As George has said, he made charitable donations to the Foundation to support a cause he cares about deeply and believed his contributions were a matter of public record, the network s statement read. He should have taken the extra step to notify us and our viewers during the recent news reports about the Foundation. He s admitted to an honest mistake and apologized for that omission. We stand behind him. ABC News later told the On Media blog that it would not take any punitive action against Stephanopoulos: We accept his apology, a spokesperson said. It was an honest mistake. Sources with knowledge of Stephanopoulos charitable giving said he gives to dozens of charities Stephanopoulosevery year and that the total sum of these annual contributions is in the millions of dollars. Those sources said that the Clinton Foundation contributions represent a very small percentage of the total.On the April 26 edition of This Week, Stephanopoulos interviewed Schweizer and challenged the author s assertions that Hillary Clinton may have committed a crime because there was a troubling pattern between donations to the Foundation and Clinton s actions as Secretary of State. We ve done investigative work here at ABC News, found no proof of any kind of direct action, the host told Schweizer. An independent government ethics expert, Bill Allison, of the Sunlight Foundation, wrote this. He said, There s no smoking gun, no evidence that she changed the policy based on donations to the foundation. No smoking gun. Later in the interview, Stephanopoulos said, I still haven t heard any direct evidence and you just said you had no evidence that she intervened here. He also noted that other news organizations that used Schweizer s research haven t confirmed any evidence of any crime. Among the more notable revelations to come out of Schweizer s research is the relationship between the Clinton Foundation and Uranium One, a former Canadian mining company that was taken over by Russia in 2013 with U.S. government approval. Between 2009 to 2013, Uranium One s chairman donated $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation.Hillary Clinton has said that there is not an inherent conflict of interest between the Foundation donations and her decisions at the State Department. Her campaign has consistently dismissed the accusations as partisan attacks.Via: Politico | 0 |
21,854 | Hot Mic Catches Joe Biden Revealing His After VP Plans; Just As Amazing As We Thought (DETAILS) | Just when you thought you couldn t love Vice President Joe Biden more, his microphone gets left on and we all hear what he plans to do after leaving the White House continue his work against cancer.According to The Hill: Vice President Biden on Tuesday discussed on a live TV microphone his unconfirmed post-White House plans to continue his efforts on the cancer moonshot, working out of the University of Pennsylvania. While swearing in the new Senate, Biden was caught talking about The Biden Trust where he said: It s not so much about raising money or philanthropy, though there will be some of that, but it s more about keeping these guys cooperating and changing the culture. He then answered a question saying: I m going to be based out of Penn for foreign policy deliberately not associating with any one medical center. As you all may recall, Biden lost his son Beau Biden to brain cancer in 2015, and President Obama announced that the vice president s assignment was to fight and find a cure for cancer.Obama said during the State of the Union in January of 2016: Tonight, I m announcing a new national effort to get it done. And because he s gone to the mat for all of us, on so many issues over the past forty years, I m putting Joe in charge of Mission Control. A mission Biden is taking very seriously now and plans to continue after he is no longer vice president.Biden had said previously when he announced he wasn t going to run for president in 2016, that he s going to spend the next 15 months in this office pushing as hard as I can to accomplish this. Adding: Because I know there are Democrats and Republicans on the Hill who share our passion our passion to silence this deadly disease. If I could be anything, I would want it to be the President that ended cancer, because it s possible. And maybe, just maybe, in 2020 he ll have his chance.However, until then, he plans to keep moving forward to battle the deadly disease and we couldn t be more grateful for his efforts. Way to go, Joe!Featured image via Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images | 0 |
21,855 | Britain's defense minister resigns in growing harassment scandal | LONDON (Reuters) - British defense minister Michael Fallon quit on Wednesday, the first resignation in a growing sexual harassment scandal that prompted calls for a wholesale change in the locker room culture in parliament. Members of Prime Minister Theresa May s Conservative Party said the first high-profile resignation in the scandal showed it was time for reform at the 800-year-old parliament, where power is concentrated in lawmakers hands and wielded, often unchecked, over junior aides. The loss of Fallon, described by Conservative sources as a political Rottweiler , leaves May with a hole in her cabinet, already at odds on everything from Britain s departure from the European Union to the government s austerity agenda. Weakened after losing her party s majority in a June election, May will want to move swiftly to appoint a replacement with as little disruption as possible. In his letter of resignation to May, Fallon, who had apologized earlier this week for repeatedly touching a radio presenter s knee in 2002, said there had been many allegations about lawmakers, including some about my previous conduct . Many of these have been false but I accept that in the past I have fallen below the high standards that we require of the armed forces that I have the honor to represent, he said, offering no detail on the nature of any other allegations. I have reflected on my position and I am therefore resigning as defense secretary. May replied in a letter saying she appreciated the characteristically serious manner in which Fallon had considered his position and the particular example you wish to set to servicemen and women and others . The prime minister was expected to announce a new defense minister on Thursday and is unlikely to launch a major reshuffle of her cabinet at a time when she is trying to push forward Brexit talks. Dependent on the support of a small Northern Irish party for a majority in parliament, May will be keen to try to limit the fallout of the scandal, which has prompted allegations of sexual abuse or misconduct against lawmakers across parliament. Sexual abuse allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein have prompted hundreds of thousands of women and men to share stories about improper behavior and Britain s parliament - a bastion of tradition - has been no exception. Ruth Davidson, leader of the Conservatives in Scotland, said it was time to break with a culture in politics when powerful people use positions of power to demand things from others . The dam has broken on this now, and these male-dominated professions where the boys-own locker room culture has prevailed and it s all been a bit of a laugh, has got to stop, she told the BBC. Allegations of sexual abuse have ranged from a charge of rape by an activist in the opposition Labour Party by a senior party member, to unconfirmed details of serial sex pests on a list reportedly drafted by aides and researchers in parliament. On Monday, May sat beside the leader of the House of Commons Andrea Leadsom as she set out the government s plans to tackle sexual harassment, including measures to enforce a code of conduct and to set up an independent grievance procedure. May has ordered investigations into a report that one of her ministers asked a female secretary to buy sex toys and an allegation her deputy, Damian Green, made an inappropriate sexual advance on a young woman - something he denies. The prime minister, who has long championed the careers of female lawmakers, said on Wednesday that action would be taken when there were allegations and evidence of sexual misconduct. I am very clear that we will take action against those where there are allegations that we see, and the evidence is there, that there has been misconduct, May told lawmakers. | 1 |
21,856 | Obama: Republicans trying to 'talk down' U.S. economy | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Friday accused Republicans of trying to “talk down” the U.S. economy by painting a doomsday picture on the campaign trail and said the rhetoric used by Republican candidates was unworthy of the American people. In remarks to reporters at the White House, Obama said there would be a debate about the budget in the coming months on issues related to policies that could raise Americans’ wages. “That’s what we should be debating. That’s the debate that is worthy of the American people. Not fantasy. Not name calling. Not trying to talk down the American economy,” he said. “There’s a huge gap between the rhetoric that’s going on out there and the reality of success that we’re seeing in America’s economy.” (Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Eric Beech) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. | 1 |
21,857 | No-one can wreck our democracy, Schaueble tells Germans | BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany s departing finance minister expressed optimism that his country s democratic institutions were strong enough to withstand the arrival of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) as the third-largest party in parliament. Wolfgang Schaueble, who is due to step down as finance minister to become president of the Bundestag parliament, told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag that AfD s 90-odd elected lawmakers would be constrained by Germany s constitution. I d like to see more self-confidence, he told the newspaper in an interview published on Tuesday. Our free, democratic system based on the rule of law is so strong that nobody can wreck it, neither from within nor from without. Anybody who tries will fail. The 75-year-old conservative took his new job at the urging of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Her conservatives are trying to patch together a three-way coalition with the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats, who are expected to demand the position of finance minister. Also, many in Germany s mainstream felt a senior politician was needed to rein in the first far-right party to enter parliament in 50 years. Schaueble is Germany s longest-serving parliamentarian, and his stature is second only to Merkel s in German politics. But Schaueble said he was ready to move on: I decided before the elections after eight years as finance minister and many years government responsibility to take on a new task. He added he was confident that a three-party coalition would be agreed, dismissing arguments about a formal cap on immigration as a false argument . He defended Merkel s 2015 decision to open Germany s borders to over a million migrants fleeing war in Africa and the Middle East. Even our children will remember with pride the willingness to help that the Germans showed during the refugee crisis, he told the paper. | 1 |
21,858 | Republicans join Democratic call for clarity on Trump abortion order | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two of President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans joined four Democrats on Monday in demanding that the White House provide more information about an executive order that has sown confusion among international organizations involved in family planning, AIDS treatment and other healthcare issues. In one of his first actions as president, Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 23 reinstating the so-called Mexico City policy, known by critics as the “global gag” rule, which withholds U.S. funding for international organizations that perform abortions or provide information about abortion. Although other Republican presidents have also adopted the policy, Trump broadened the scope to all global health assistance, “which may encompass as much as fifteen times more federal funding than previous Republican administrations’ versions of this policy,” the six senators wrote in the letter, which was seen by Reuters. The order withholds half a billion dollars or more in U.S. funds, and aid groups said it was issued with so little guidance that they have been scrambling to figure out how to proceed. In the letter, the senators said Trump’s broader order now includes the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and all other global health programs funded through the Department of State, Agency for International Development and Department of Health and Human Services. PEPFAR, which enjoys broad bipartisan support in Congress, is the largest provider of AIDS-fighting medicine in the world, and has been credited with saving millions of lives. “This directive ... has caused mass confusion among federal agencies and international relief organizations. While they wait for clarity from this administration, there’s been a global chilling effect on life-saving work,” said Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who organized the letter. Among other things, the senators asked if Trump’s administration had conducted a cost-benefit assessment of the policy, whether it had determined how many lives might be saved or lost or whether it had researched how transmission of diseases such as HIV/AIDS and Zika might be affected. Besides Shaheen, the letter was signed by Republican Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, Democrats Ben Cardin and Richard Blumenthal and Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats. The Trump administration is planning to submit a budget proposing steep cuts in spending on the U.S. State Department and foreign aid. Several Republican members of Congress have expressed reservations about that plan. | 1 |
21,859 | China state media attacks Western democracy ahead of Congress | BEIJING (Reuters) - China s official Xinhua news agency attacked Western democracy as divisive and confrontational on Tuesday, praising on the eve of a key Communist Party Congress the harmony and cooperative nature of the Chinese system. China s constitution enshrines the Communist Party s long-term leading role in government, though it allows the existence of various other political parties under what is calls a multi-party cooperation system . But all are subservient to the Communist Party. Activists who call for pluralism are regularly jailed and criticism of China s authoritarian system silenced. In a lengthy English-language commentary, Xinhua took aim at the crises and chaos swamp(ing) Western liberal democracy . Unlike competitive, confrontational Western politics, the CPC and non-Communist parties cooperate with each other, working together for the advancement of socialism and striving to improve the people s standard of living, it said. The relationship maintains political stability and social harmony and ensures efficient policy making and implementation. China s system leads to social unity not the divisions which are an unavoidable consequence of the adversarial nature of today s Western democracy, Xinhua said. Endless political backbiting, bickering and policy reversals, which make the hallmarks of liberal democracy, have retarded economic and social progress and ignored the interests of most citizens. Xinhua did not name any countries, but state media has previously cited the examples of Britain s vote to leave the European Union and the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president as examples of why Western democracy is flawed. When Xi Jinping assumed office five years ago, his ascendancy gave many Chinese hope for political reform, mainly due to his folksy style and the legacy of his father, Xi Zhongxun, a former reformist vice-premier. But Xi has overseen a sweeping crackdown on civil society, charging or detaining dozens of rights lawyers and activists who authorities say are a threat to national security and social stability. Internet controls have also been tightened. Xi looks set to further cement his grip on power at the once-in-five-years Congress that opens on Wednesday, promoting key allies and laying out a policy framework for the years ahead. Xinhua said that under the leadership of the party, Chinese-style democracy has never been in better shape. China has absolutely no need to import the failing party political systems of other countries. After several hundred years, the Western model is showing its age. It is high time for profound reflection on the ills of a doddering democracy which has precipitated so many of the world s ills and solved so few. | 1 |
21,860 | HILLARY USES Fake Accent In “Victory” Speech To ATTACK POLICE…Wants To “Build On Record And Accomplishments Of President Obama” | Now that she s finally beaten the old cranky socialist in one state .Hillary s on fire! Hillary tells crowd, We don t need to make America great again, it s already great. The big question is, can Hillary do everything she promised from a jail cell?The best part of her speech is when she reminds the crowd that her campaign is being funded by the Clinton Slush Fund, Hollywood vagina voters and Wall Street grassroots donors. Hillary says, Tomorrow this campaign goes national . Maybe I m missing something but hasn t it been national for a long time? Hasn t everyone known she s been running for president for the last 25 years? Grass roots donors are powering this campaign. That s rich, given her big donor backing is the bulwark her campaign. She then begs for people to go to her website and donate money. This victory is for the parents and teachers in rural South Carolina , she says with affected accent.She s clearly positioning herself as the unifier . We re going to start by working together, with more love and kindness in our hearts and more respect for each other, even when we disagree. And she s already telegraphing how she would attack Trump, if he were the nominee. Despite what you hear, we don t need to make America great again, America has never stopped being great. But we do need to make America whole again. Instead of building walls, we need to be tearing down barriers. She then went on to lie about the facts in several high profile deaths of black young people.Hillary finds her manufactured southern drawl at about the 1:55 mark. https://youtu.be/W7gWvv6WfawVia: Weasel Zippers | 0 |
21,861 | WATCH SUSAN RICE Lie About Spying On Trump: “I know nothing about this”…White House Computer Logs Say She’s Lying! [Video] | Intelligence sources said the logs discovered by National Security Council staff suggested Rice s interest in the NSA materials, some of which included unmasked Americans identities, appeared to begin last July around the time Trump secured the GOP nomination and accelerated after Trump s election in November launched a transition that continued through January.The intelligence reports included some intercepts of Americans talking to foreigners and many more involving foreign leaders talking about the future president, his campaign associates or his transition, the sources said. Most if not all had nothing to do with the Russian election interference scandal, the sources said, speaking only on condition of anonymity given the sensitive nature of the materials.SUSAN RICE CLAIMS TO NOT HAVE A CLUE OF THE SPYING: I know nothing about this The question from Judy Woodruff is at the beginning of the video. The entire interview is interesting because of what we know now.Read more: Circa News | 0 |
21,862 | Catalonia will apply referendum law calling for independence declaration: leader | BARCELONA (Reuters) - Catalonia will apply a referendum law, which calls for a declaration of independence if a referendum shows a majority in favor, Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont says in a television program to be broadcast later on Sunday. The declaration of independence, that we don t call a unilateral declaration of independence, is foreseen in the referendum law as an application of the results. We will apply what the law says, Puigdemont says in the program on Catalonia s TV3, according to excerpts on the broadcaster s website. The Catalan government says more than 90 percent of people who voted in an Oct. 1 referendum voted in favor of independence from Spain. The referendum was declared illegal by Spanish authorities and turnout was only 43 percent. The Catalan law paving the way for the referendum said the parliament of Catalonia would declare the region s independence within 48 hours of a yes vote being proclaimed by the Catalan electoral office. | 1 |
21,863 | Former key ally of Nigeria's Buhari joins opposition party | ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria s Atiku Abubakar, a former vice president and key ally of President Muhammadu Buhari, said on Sunday he had joined the country s opposition party after quitting the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) last month. Abubakar is the first political heavyweight to signal a potential bid for the presidency, which could pit him against the 74-year-old Buhari. Buhari took power in 2015, but illness has kept him absent for much of this year. Abubakar is prepared to run for president in 2019, a spokesman said last month when he left the APC. He did not indicate on Sunday whether he would try to become the opposition People s Democratic Party s (PDP s) presidential candidate. Abubakar rejoined the PDP after four years because it has resolved its issues, he said, according to a statement on Sunday. He had left the PDP because he believed it was no longer aligned to the principles of equity, democracy and social justice, he said. In Sunday s statement, Abubakar criticized the APC for letting down the Nigerian people by failing to create a strong economy and jobs, especially for the young, with one quarter of 18-25 year olds unemployed. | 1 |
21,864 | BREAKING : Next In Line For Speaker Of The House, RINO Kevin McCarthy Makes Shocking Announcement | Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has dropped out of the race for House Speaker. The reason he gave to the Republican Caucus for dropping out: I am not the right person to lead at this moment. McCarthy was expected to win the Speakership in a landslide but his comments on Benghazi were frowned upon by his fellow Republicans. McCarthy s mistake of saying the Benghazi investigation was all about politics was exactly what Hillary Clinton needed to revive her campaign. Ultimately, he was concerned he could not get the 218 votes needed to win: McCarthy s decision, announced moments before Republicans were set to nominate their candidate, will postpone the vote for speaker. McCarthy had been running against Reps. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and Daniel Webster, R-Fla., before he dropped out, and it s unclear whether other candidates will now step forward.While McCarthy, R-Calif., faced vocal opposition from some conservative members and groups, he was thought to have more than enough support to win the party s nomination in the vote initially set for Thursday. Fox News is told McCarthy, in revealing his choice, simply told colleagues it was not his time.His withdrawal rattled fellow lawmakers, particularly allies in leadership. But addressing reporters afterward, McCarthy said he thinks the party needs a fresh face. READ MORE: FOX NEWS | 0 |
21,865 | Canada PM congratulates Trump, wants to work on trade, security | OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday congratulated Donald Trump on winning the U.S. presidency and stressed the close friendship and ties between the two nations. Trudeau said in a statement that he looked forward to working very closely with Trump and his administration on trade, investment, international peace and security. | 1 |
21,866 | Mexico to counter negative tone of U.S. presidential race | MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico’s government is planning a diplomatic push to counter aggressive rhetoric against its nationals in the U.S. election race, a senior official said on Tuesday, after calls by Donald Trump for a massive wall to divide the two nations. Republican presidential candidates Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have also proposed building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, but it is Trump who has taken the hardest line against the United States’ southern neighbor. The Republican front-runner has labeled Mexican migrants as drug runners and rapists, proposed mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and said Mexico is “killing” the United States with cheap labor. Francisco Guzman, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s chief of staff, on Tuesday said it was time for the government to push back against these negative images. Mexico plans to use its extensive network of U.S. consulates to highlight the benefits of U.S.-Mexican relations to the U.S. economy and the American people, Guzman said. The initiative will include forums with U.S. business people, politicians and public figures to get Mexico’s opinions heard. “Mexico’s positioning in the U.S. election debate is not generally adequate,” Guzman told a group of foreign correspondents. “It doesn’t reflect the constructive relationship between Mexico and the U.S.” Trump rolled up a series of primary wins on Tuesday and looked set to take command of the Republican nomination battle. The Mexican government has up till now avoided a direct confrontation with the billionaire real estate developer, though the country’s top diplomat has called his policies and comments “ignorant and racist.” Former Mexican presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon have publicly condemned Trump, both comparing him to Adolf Hitler. “We’re not going to involve ourselves in the (U.S. presidential) debate. We don’t want to polarize, but we do want to have a positive institutional relationship as we’ve had in the past,” Guzman said. “The U.S.-Mexico relationship requires more bridges and fewer walls. The isolationist solution is not a solution at all,” he added. The United States is Mexico’s top trade partner, the destination for about 80 percent of its exports, in addition to sharing many cultural and family links. To promote stronger ties, Mexico’s government plans to meet with the final contenders for the White House once the two major parties have selected their candidates, Guzman said. “Any candidate, above all if he wants to project himself forward, has to, in my opinion, see the relationship with Mexico not as a threat but as an opportunity,” he said. (Writing by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Simon Gardner and Andrew Hay) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. | 1 |
21,867 | Venezuela frees two anti-Maduro activists; scores still jailed | CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan authorities overnight freed two activists who were in jail for more than a year after being accused of plotting against socialist President Nicolas Maduro, the opposition said on Saturday. Delson Guarate, who had been a mayor in central Aragua state, and former student leader Yon Goicoechea were among nearly 400 jailed anti-Maduro activists who rights campaigners say are political prisoners but whom the government calls coup-plotters. I m with my family today, tweeted Goicoechea, displaying a photo of himself against the backdrop of Caracas Avila mountain. Tomorrow I ll address the country. God is with us. I m free! Guarate tweeted. The pair s freedom, with some unspecified conditions attached, was confirmed by opposition parties and a rights group, but the government had no comment. The releases came as Maduro called for one of the most prominent opposition leaders, congress head Julio Borges, to face treason charges for lobbying against his government in global financial circles. And the pro-Maduro Supreme Court began moves this week to remove parliamentary immunity for congress deputy leader Freddy Guevara, so he can be tried for instigating violence. Guevara runs the militant Popular Will party, which both Goicoechea and Guarate belong to. It has been at the forefront of anti-Maduro protests, including four months of demonstrations this year that led to 125 deaths. Critics say Maduro has turned the OPEC nation into a dictatorship. His supporters say the 54-year-old successor to Hugo Chavez is resisting a Western-backed push to oust him. In a New York Times column earlier this year, Goicoechea described how a dozen policemen put a black cloth over his head when they arrested him before taking him to a cell without natural light or ventilation. When I stretched my arms, I could touch two opposite walls, he wrote in the column smuggled out of prison. The door was blocked with black garbage bags, leaving the room in total darkness. There was rotten, worm-infested food on the floor alongside scraps of clothing covered in feces. It felt as if I had been buried alive. Senior officials said Goicoechea was an imperialist agent caught with explosives in his possession, while Guarate had been financing terrorism. Neither was tried. Popular Will, which the government has threatened to proscribe as a terrorist organization, said it would not stop fighting for the freedom of all activists. The dictatorship s justice is a revolving door, said party legislator Juan Mejia. Some leave, while others come in at its discretion and to its benefit. | 1 |
21,868 | DONALD TRUMP Gives Epic Response After PGA Moves From Trump’s Doral To Mexico | One thing Donald Trump is really great at is delivering one-liners that resonate with people because they re true. This is why Trump will win in a landslide! Americans are so sick of the pandering politicians who sugar-coat everything. Trump is a refreshing change and oh so witty. Here s an epic one-liner on the PGA move from Miami to Mexico: I hope they have kidnapping insurance. Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump is responding to the PGA moving the 2017 World Golf Championship to Mexico instead of holding it at Trump Doral in Miami. They move the World Golf Championships from Miami to Mexico City, Trump commented. They moved the PGA Tour, moved the World Golf Championships from Miami, where they re furious to Mexico City. If I become your president, this stuff is all going to stop, Trump added. He went on to criticize the U.S. economy for being taken advantage of by Mexico.The PGA Tour said the move happens because it couldn t find sponsors, according to BBC.Trump argued the PGA put profit ahead of thousands of American jobs. Timothy Finchem, PGA Tour commissioner, suggested Trump s profile made it difficult to get sponsors. It s fundamentally a sponsorship issue, Finchem added. Donald Trump is a brand, a big brand, and when you re asking a company to invest millions of dollars in branding a tournament and they re going to share that brand with the host, it s a difficult decision. Finchem insisted the move isn t political.Trump slammed the decision, saying it s a sad day for Miami, the U.S. and the game of golf. This decision only further embodies the very reason I am running for president of the United States. I hope they have kidnapping insurance, Trump stated during an interview with Fox News.Via: Breitbart | 0 |
21,869 | BREAKING: JUDGE SHOOTS DOWN Jill Stein’s Request For Wisconsin Election Recount By Hand | A Wisconsin judge has refused to order local officials to conduct the state s presidential recount by hand.Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein requested the recount last week. She alleged without evidence that the state s voting equipment may have been hacked.The state Elections Commission has ordered the recount to begin Thursday but rejected Stein s request that county clerks conduct the recount entirely by hand. Stein filed a lawsuit seeking an order for a statewide hand recount.Stein s attorneys argued during a hearing Tuesday evening that the best way to determine if a cyberattack occurred is to check ballots by hand against electronic tabulations from Election Day. State lawyers countered there s no evidence to suggest any attack took place.Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn refused to issue the order, saying Stein s team failed to show any mistakes or irregularities that would bring a machine recount into question.Read more: Star Tribune | 0 |
21,870 | China and India are development opportunities for each other, not threats, Xi tells Modi | BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese President Xi Jinping told Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi the two Asian giants are development opportunities for each other, not threats, China s foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, told a regular news briefing on Tuesday. Xi held a meeting with Modi in the southeastern Chinese town of Xiamen on the sidelines of a summit of the BRICS grouping of nations. | 1 |
21,871 | Trump says Russia probe will be fair, but timeline unclear: NYT | WEST PALM BEACH, Fla (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Thursday he believes he will be fairly treated in a special counsel investigation into Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election, but said he did not know how long the probe would last. The federal investigation has hung over Trump’s White House since he took office almost a year ago, and some Trump allies have in recent weeks accused the team of Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller of being biased against the Republican president. But in an interview with the New York Times, Trump appeared to shrug off concerns about the investigation, which was prompted by U.S. intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Russia tried to help Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton by hacking and releasing embarrassing emails and disseminating propaganda. “There’s been no collusion. But I think he’s going to be fair,” Trump said in what the Times described as a 30-minute impromptu interview at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Mueller has charged four Trump associates in his investigation. Russia has denied interfering in the U.S. election. U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said this month that he was not aware of any impropriety by Mueller’s team. Trump’s lawyers have been saying for weeks that they had expected the Mueller investigation to wrap up quickly, possibly by the end of 2017. Mueller has not commented on how long it will last. Trump told the Times that he did not know how long the investigation would take. “Timing-wise, I can’t tell you. I just don’t know,” he said. Trump said he thought a prolonged probe “makes the country look bad” but said it has energized his core supporters. “What it’s done is, it’s really angered the base and made the base stronger. My base is strong than it’s ever been,” he said. The interview was a rare break in Trump’s Christmas vacation in Florida. He has golfed each day aside from Christmas Day, and mainly kept a low profile, apart from the occasional flurry of tweets. He spent one day golfing with Republican Senator David Perdue from Georgia, who has pushed legislation to cap immigration numbers, and had dinner on Thursday with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, an international trade hawk. Trump told the Times he hoped to work with Democrats in the U.S. Congress on a spending plan to fix roads and other infrastructure, and on protections for a group of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. Trump spoke about trade issues, saying he had backed off his hard line on Chinese trade practices in the hope that Beijing would do more to pressure North Korea to end its nuclear and missile testing program. He said he had been disappointed in the results. He also complained about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which his administration is attempting to renegotiate in talks with Mexico and Canada. Trump said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had played down the importance of Canadian oil and lumber exports to the United States when looking at the balance of trade between the two countries. “If I don’t make the right deal, I’ll terminate NAFTA in two seconds. But we’re doing pretty good,” Trump said. | 1 |
21,872 | Tories lead for the first time since June election: Times | (Reuters) - UK Prime Minister Theresa May s conservative party is leading in polls for the first time since the June election, according to a YouGov poll for the Times. Theresa May s advantage over Labour party s Jeremy Corbyn has doubled, the newspaper said. The YouGov poll, conducted on Sunday and Monday among 1,680 adults, suggested that May s Brexit deal appears to have improved her public standing and pushed the Tories ahead on 42 per cent with Labour at 41 per cent of the vote. Liberal Democrats were at 7 per cent and the rest on 10 per cent, Times said. The public still does not think that the government is doing a good job on Brexit, but, Theresa May was the preferred choice for best prime minister with 37 percent of the votes. Only 28 percent voted for Jeremy Corbyn. The paper added that public did not shift its view on the referendum with 44 percent saying that Britain was right to vote to leave, and, 45 per cent said it was the wrong choice. | 1 |
21,873 | Amy Schumer Is All Out Of F*cks To Give, Releases Forbidden Gun Violence Sketch Anyway (VIDEO) | On Friday, Amy Schumer released a sketch that had been cut from her Comedy Central show, Inside Amy Schumer. It s a simple but incredibly dark set up: A commercial for an injury lawyer that has given up on helping the victims of mass shootings because the gun industry is almost completely protected by the law.H. Jon Benjamin, the voice of Sterling Archer on FX s Archer, introduces himself: Have you ever been injured in a mass shooting or other gun crime? Do you want justice? Hi, I m Toby Shrak of the law firm of Shrak and Murphy, but don t call me, because there s nothing I can do. And it gets darker from there. We re introduced to Shrak s twin brother that was killed in a mall shooting. We also meet two victims of gun violence that were, shit out of luck. One of them even had to pay for the ammo company s legal costs because the law prevents them from being sued in the first place! Isn t America grand?Schumer, fed up with the inaction of the GOP, felt it was time for this particular sketch to be seen. It highlights the cruel absurdity of American gun laws that protect an entire industry from the consequences of their actions while they rake in billions from selling death and promoting a culture of violence. It s dark satire at its finest and most necessary.Shrak closes out the commercial with a perfect depiction of the miserable despair the country is forced to live with because Republicans have whored out their souls to the NRA and gun lobby: I ll get the money you deserve. Unless it s a gun tragedy. In which case, you can call me just to talk. I m here and my brother s chair is always empty. Because he s dead. And I am getting old. As funny as it is, it s hard to laugh because the commercial simply cuts too close to the truth:Inside Amy SchumerFeatured image via screen capture | 0 |
21,874 | U.S. allied Syrian groups form civilian council to run Deir al-Zor | Deir al Zor, SYRIA (Reuters) - U.S.-allied militias in northern Syria announced on Saturday the formation of a civilian council to govern the oil rich eastern province of Deir al Zor where they are racing with the Syrian army to capture territory held by Islamic State. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which includes Arab militias but is dominated by the powerful Kurdish YPG militia, launched an operation in Deir Zor province which borders Iraq earlier this month which captured its northern countryside and advanced east of the Euphrates River. On Saturday they seized a major gas field in Deir al-Zor province from Islamic State militants in rapid advances that preempted the Syrian government that was also heading in that direction. In a separate offensive, Syrian army and Iranian backed militias with Russian air power had also this month broke a years-long Islamic State siege of government-held parts of Deir al-Zor on the other side of the Euphrates river. The advances against Islamic State have brought U.S.-backed forces and the Syrian government side, backed by Russia and Iran, into close proximity. The assaults by the Russian-backed Syrian army and the U.S.-backed SDF have at times raised fears of clashes that could stoke tensions between the competing world powers. The SDF appointed one hundred tribal figures to meet and elect a council to run the province on Sunday. In a final communique the council said its priority was the return of tens of thousands of displaced residents of the province who fled during the conflict and restoring basic utilities. It urged the U.S. led coalition to provide aid to the war-torn province. We want to cement ties among the people of the province, the statement of the newly formed Deir al-Zor civil council said. The extent of Kurdish control in the eastern province that lies at the heart of Arab tribal area is sensitive both for residents and for Ankara, which has fought a three-decade Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey and fears growing YPG ascendancy just over the border in northern Syria. Many local Arab tribes from the region also complain they are marginalized in decision making and blame the YPG for discrimination against them, including the forced conscription of their youths. The YPG denies these allegations. The establishment of a local council effectively run by the SDF expands a sphere of Kurdish influence that has grown in northern Syria during the multi-sided conflict. It would mirror governing arrangements put in place in other towns after the SDF repelled Islamic State. | 1 |
21,875 | Doubts linger after Florida's Scott pitches biggest budget | NEW YORK (Reuters) - After deep cuts in spending for Florida schools and other public programs following the Great Recession, outgoing Republican Governor Rick Scott this month proposed an $87.4 billion budget he says boosts spending on some depleted services to record levels. Despite Scott’s meaty 2018-2019 budget recommendation, which is about $2.4 billion above current spending, advocates for Florida public education, environment and affordable housing remained skeptical the new plan would go far enough. “It doesn’t move Florida (schools) out from the bottom when compared to other states,” said Mark Pudlow, spokesman for the Florida Education Association, the state’s teachers union. Florida’s public school per-pupil spending sank from a peak of $7,126 in the 2007-2008 budget to a post-recession low of $6,217 for the 2011-2012 year. In his latest proposal, Scott recommended increasing funding to $7,176 per student, a $50 rise above record-high per-student funding. Florida has more than 2.7 million students enrolled in its public K-12 schools. Pudlow said he welcomed the governor’s increases, but support for Florida education was still lagging far behind most of the United States. The nationwide per-student spending average was $11,392 in 2015, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data available. Adjusted for inflation, Pudlow pointed out, Scott’s budget puts Florida’s per-student spending at about $1,200 less than it was at its peak. Scott proposed increasing public elementary and secondary school spending to about $14.71 billion from some $14.45 billion in the current fiscal year. Andrea Messina, executive director of the Florida School Boards Association, said she was hopeful Scott’s proposal signaled a an attitude shift in the state capital toward public education financing, but the bill was far from final. The Florida House of Representatives and Senate will hear the governor’s budget recommendations at the next legislative session starting on Jan. 9. They then make their own budget proposals and negotiate until a single plan is agreed on. That budget will go back to the governor, who has the authority to veto line items before signing off on the bill. Scott has also proposed $180 million in cuts to taxes and fees and asked for sharp increases in spending on departments, including corrections, which would see more than 500 added jobs under the plan. The budget for environmental protection would surge to more than $1.7 billion from $1.48 billion in the current year, making it among the budget’s biggest gainers. Florida Everglades restoration would be among the environmental projects to receive an infusion of funds. “That’s one place where we’re happy, although the devil is in the details,” said Frank Jackalone, director of Sierra Club Florida. Jackalone said he was concerned the state would continue to cut environmental rules enforcement and to take from earmarked funds intended for the environment to spend on other government programs. State Representative Carlos Smith, a Democrat who represents a central Florida district seeing an influx of residents fleeing from hurricane-battered areas, including Puerto Rico, said he opposed Scott’s budget proposal on affordable housing. Under the plan, overall spending on affordable housing would rise, Smith said, but it would also include a raid of nearly $92 million on trust funds earmarked for affordable homes. “We don’t know what to do, people are sleeping in cars,” Smith said of storm evacuees, namely Puerto Ricans fleeing the bankrupt and hurricane-battered U.S. commonwealth. | 1 |
21,876 | Trump's foreign policy approach almost same as that of Putin: Kremlin | MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Thursday U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s foreign policy approach was “phenomenally close” to that of President Vladimir Putin, giving Russia hope that tattered U.S.-Russia relations could gradually be improved. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, speaking in New York, said he saw incredible similarities between the two men’s foreign policy ideas, and this meant there was a solid basis to start a meaningful dialogue between Moscow and Washington. Peskov, in the United States for a chess tournament, said he was struck by how similar parts of Trump’s victory speech were to a speech Putin gave in southern Russia last month. Both men said they would put their own country’s national interests first, but that they would be ready to develop ties with other nations, depending on how ready other countries were to deepen relations themselves. “They (Putin and Trump) set out the same main foreign policy principles and that is incredible,” Peskov said in comments broadcast by Russian state TV’s Channel One on Thursday evening. “It is phenomenal how close they are to one another when it comes to their conceptual approach to foreign policy. And that is probably a good basis for our moderate optimism that they will at least be able to start a dialogue to start to clear out the Augean stables in our bilateral relations.” With Moscow and Washington now at odds over Syria, Ukraine and NATO, Peskov cautioned that it would take a long time before relations could return to a high level, however, because of how far they had been allowed to deteriorate. “An atmosphere of mutual trust takes years to achieve,” he said. “It’s not possible to just declare that there is an atmosphere of mutual trust, especially after such serious damage was done in the last few years to our relations.” Peskov told the TASS news agency separately that Putin was ready to be flexible when it came to mending ties which he wanted to improve, but that there was a limit to his flexibility and that he would need to see some U.S. reciprocity. Peskov spoke after one of Russia’s most senior diplomats told the Interfax news agency earlier on Thursday that the Russian government had been in touch with members of Trump’s political team during the U.S. election campaign and knew most of his entourage. | 1 |
21,877 | Trump aide says endorsement of Ivanka's brand was 'light-hearted' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top aide to U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday defended his colleague, Kellyanne Conway, after she was widely criticized for her public endorsement of the fashion line of Trump’s daughter, Ivanka. Speaking on ABC’s “This Week” program, White House aide Stephen Miller said Trump adviser Conway was making a “light-hearted, flippant” comment when she urged Americans to buy Ivanka Trump’s products. Conway’s comments prompted criticism from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, as well as some legal experts who said she may have violated ethics rules that prohibit using a public office to endorse products or advance personal business gains. In comments to the Associated Press last week, Republican Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House of Representatives Oversight committee, said Conway’s statement was “clearly over the line, unacceptable.” Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the same committee, said on Sunday that Miller’s characterization of Conway’s remarks was incorrect. “This was a textbook case of a violation of the law,” he said on “This Week.” Cummings said he was troubled by the fact that Trump is the authority who will ultimately decide how to punish Conway, if at all, after the Office of Government Ethics issues its recommendation on the matter. Conway made the comments after retailer Nordstrom said it would stop selling Ivanka Trump’s clothing line, a move that had prompted a tweet from the president blasting Nordstrom. Nordstrom said it had made the decision to drop the brand because sales had steadily declined, especially in the last half of 2016, to where carrying the line “didn’t make good business sense.” Nordstrom shares initially fell after the president’s criticism last Wednesday, but closed up 4 percent on the New York Stock Exchange that day. On Saturday, a spokesman for major U.S. retailers Sears and Kmart said they had removed 31 Trump Home items from their online product offerings in order to focus on more profitable merchandise. | 1 |
21,878 | Argentines march to demand answers on case of missing activist | Buenos Aires (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Argentines marched through the rain in front of the presidential palace on Sunday to demand answers in the case of a young protester who went missing two months ago. Opposition and human rights groups believe state security forces took Santiago Maldonado, a 28-year-old craftsman, and allege President Mauricio Macri s government is covering up information on his whereabouts. Maldonado was last seen during an Aug. 1 operation by the National Gendarmerie to end a land occupation in Chubut province by the indigenous Mapuche. My intuition tells me the Gendarmerie have him. Where, I don t know, Maldonado s brother, Sergio Maldonado, told reporters at the rally in downtown Buenos Aires. Protesters marched carrying images of Maldonado s bearded face and signs that read may he appear alive now. Potential cases of abuse by security forces are sensitive in Argentina, where the 1976-1983 military dictatorship secretly detained, tortured and killed people in clandestine prisons. Rights groups say up to 30,000 people disappeared. Macri s government has said that there is no evidence that shows security forces detained Maldonado. | 1 |
21,879 | This Really Happened: Fox Interrupted Trump To Criticize Him And Praised Obama | If today on Fox News was any indication at all, Donald Trump may have finally gone too far, even for some of his base, when he tweeted this Thursday morning about Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski:I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don t watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came.. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017 to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017While his spokespeople have been working overtime defending the indefensible and sexist tweets, even Fox News thought it was over the top and even Fox News is beginning to see how much better we had it under President Obama.Scarborough and Brzezinski s network, MSNBC, along with CNN, was airing live remarks by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin during a White House press briefing, but Fox uncharacteristically broke away to talk instead about the tweets with Republican National Committee chair Ronna Romney McDaniel:McDaniel defended the president, arguing that his tweets were a natural response to the constant criticism he receives from Brzezinski and co-host Joe Scarborough. Today, the president acted like a human, and he pushed back, she said.Fox News anchor Julie Banderas wasn t buying the excuse. Listen, she replied, you don t need to stoop to the level, obviously. I don t care who you are. You don t stoop to the level of that. I mean that s like me scolding my 4-year-old for using a bad word and then me repeating it. That s just not how you run a country or you parent a 4-year-old. I mean I have to be honest, you know, if you see this negative commentary on a show, change the channel. Ignore it. I mean that s what I tell my kids: When somebody s mean to you, don t fight back. Just walk away. Source: Washington PostThat s not even the best part, Banderas, who s hardly a token liberal (just yesterday she blamed Democrats for the fact that Republicans can t pass Obamacare repeal), went on to compliment President Obama. People used to call President Obama stupid, she said. People used to call him a Muslim. People used to call him underqualified, a sellout to America, a hater of Israel. I mean they called him every name in the book, but you didn t see him lash out. No, you didn t. As Trump keeps embarrassing the Republican Party, you re going to see a lot more people distancing themselves.Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images | 0 |
21,880 | Exclusive: Chile expects to soon clinch Argentina energy swap deal | VINA DEL MAR, Chile (Reuters) - Chile expects to close an energy swap deal with Argentina in the days ahead, Chilean Energy Minister Andres Rebolledo said in an interview on Thursday, the latest example of increasing economic integration between the South American nations. The neighboring countries are also negotiating the locations for five additional transmission line interconnection points, with an agreement expected as early as January, the minister told Reuters. We made a proposal to Argentina and we are very close to reaching an agreement, Rebolledo said, referring to the energy swap. I think we can have an agreement in the next couple of days or if not, over the next few weeks, he added. Chile and Argentina share a 3,300-mile (5,300-kilometer) border running north to south along the rugged terrain of the Andes mountains. The deal would allow both countries to send natural gas or electricity at one point of the frontier and obtain needed supplies at another border point. In 2016, Chile exported 100 gigawatt-hours of electricity to Argentina and 361 million cubic meters of gas, worth nearly $100 million. The deal is the latest episode in a larger economic and diplomatic rapprochement between the neighboring South American countries that have often had frosty relations. Since conservative Argentine President Mauricio Macri came to power in 2015, the two nations have signed free trade deals and begun transporting gas between the nations, among several other measures. Rebolledo, who spoke with Reuters on the sidelines of the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA) meeting in the coastal city of Vina del Mar, said Chile and Argentina are planning to add five new electricity interconnection points in the coming years. For this, he said the countries commissioned studies with financial support from the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) to define the geographic points that would make the project most efficient. In January we will probably have the result (of the study), with the map of the five main points where there is supply and demand on the other side, and where it is best to put the transmission lines, he said. Chile is currently undergoing a broader transmission buildout. In August, Rebolledo told Reuters that the government hopes to have a formal proposal to pitch to investors for a line connecting northern Chile with southern Peru by the end of the current government in March. | 1 |
21,881 | Bernie Sanders Just Dropped A Bomb On Debbie Wasserman-Schultz That Could End Her Career | Debbie Wasserman-Schultz hasn t exactly been kind to the Bernie Sanders campaign. As Chairperson of the Democratic National Committee, Wasserman-Schultz has a duty to see that the party s primaries are fair and just and that the candidates are treated equally. The Sanders campaign has long complained that they have been treated anything but.Many of the rules the Sanders campaign doesn t like aren t new and certainly shouldn t have come as a shock, such as the use of superdelegates and closed primaries in states like New York, but there have been other things the campaign harped on that were met with a brick wall, such as the debate issue. It was almost as if the DNC didn t want anyone to watch they were scheduled so poorly. At a time when people were tuning in to watch the Republicans tear beach other to pieces in primetime, the Democrats looked like they were almost hiding their candidates, scheduling debates on Saturday nights during college and pro football s playoff season.The campaign has little recourse, as they are bound by the rules of the DNC, but Sanders on a personal level has dropped the bomb that he is supporting Wasserman-Schultz s opponent, Tim Canova, in his primary run against her in Florida s 23rd congressional district. Canova, a Sanders supporter, is a much closer fit to the senator s platform than Wasserman-Schultz, especially where dark money is concerned. She has repeatedly voted to keep that money flowing through the halls of corruption, where Sanders and Clinton both have called for it to end.There was a time when an endorsement from Bernie Sanders may not have seemed like that big a deal. Those days are over. Sanders has amazing influence with young people, and if enough in the Miami-Dade area come out to vote for the guy Sanders supports, Wasserman Schultz could very well be out of a job. Asked about Sanders endorsement of her opponent, she said: I am so proud to serve the people of Florida s 23rd district and I am confident that they know that I am an effective fighter and advocate on their behalf in Congress. Even though Senator Sanders has endorsed my opponent, I remain, as I have been from the beginning, neutral in the presidential Democratic primary. I look forward to working together with him for Democratic victories in the fall.The congresswoman will have to a little bit better of a job convincing people she s neutral. Actions speak louder than words.Featured Image by Andrew Burton/Getty Images | 0 |
21,882 | WHOA! 2006: HILLARY CLINTON CAUGHT Expressing Regret About Not Rigging Palestinian Elections | Crooked Hillary has always been crooked. She s just been better than anyone America s ever seen at not getting caught On September 5, 2006, Eli Chomsky was an editor and staff writer for the Jewish Press, and Hillary Clinton was running for a shoo-in re-election as a U.S. senator. Her trip making the rounds of editorial boards brought her to Brooklyn to meet the editorial board of the Jewish Press.The tape was never released and has only been heard by the small handful of Jewish Press staffers in the room. According to Chomsky, his old-school audiocassette is the only existent copy and no one has heard it since 2006, until today when he played it for the Observer.The tape is 45 minutes and contains much that is no longer relevant, such as analysis of the re-election battle that Sen. Joe Lieberman was then facing in Connecticut. But a seemingly throwaway remark about elections in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority has taken on new relevance amid persistent accusations in the presidential campaign by Clinton s Republican opponent Donald Trump that the current election is rigged. Speaking to the Jewish Press about the January 25, 2006, election for the second Palestinian Legislative Council (the legislature of the Palestinian National Authority), Clinton weighed in about the result, which was a resounding victory for Hamas (74 seats) over the U.S.-preferred Fatah (45 seats). I do not think we should have pushed for an election in the Palestinian territories. I think that was a big mistake, said Sen. Clinton. And if we were going to push for an election, then we should have made sure that we did something to determine who was going to win. Chomsky recalls being taken aback that anyone could support the idea offered by a national political leader, no less that the U.S. should be in the business of fixing foreign elections. Some eyebrows were also raised when then-Senator Clinton appeared to make a questionable moral equivalency.For entire story: Observer | 0 |
21,883 | This HORRIFYING List Is Exactly Why We Can’t Say ‘It Will Be Okay’ Under Trump | Two nights ago, we elected the worst person imaginable to the highest office in the land. His Majesty, King Hater, doesn t take officially take office until January 20, 2017, but the effects of his election are already spreading in a rash of hateful and bigoted incidents against everyone who isn t a straight, white, Christian male.Insanul Ahmed has collected a series of social media posts and videos detailing exactly what s happened.Because that s apparently not bad enough, there s even more:What s truly terrifying here is that this is just the beginning. Trump s election just legitimized every brand of hate there is. It s now okay to intimidate, harass and threaten anyone who isn t straight and white. It s now okay to sexually assault women. It s now okay to be anti-Semitic, and openly hurl epithets at anyone who isn t straight and white. There are people who keep saying, It will all be okay, and joking around about Trump s win without understanding why so many of us are so angry and scared.We re angry and scared because things we ve already been through, like what s above and more, were validated with Trump s election. The haters, the bigots, the anti-Semites, the racists, the men s rights activists/misogynists, the white supremacists, the Islamophobes, the nativists, and the religious right, were all vindicated, while we were invalidated and violently kicked to the side.Welcome to Trump s America. Price of admission: Rights, freedoms, equality, humanity. We ll waive your fees if you re a straight, white male.Here s Ahmed s full list, posted on Twitter:Day 1 In Trump s America Featured image by Win McNamee via Getty Images, and via Twitter | 0 |
21,884 | 46 Yr Old Millionaire Muslim In Court For Raping Teen: “I fell on her and penetrated her by accident’ | It was just an accident A millionaire property developer accused of raping a teenager while she slept claims he accidentally penetrated her when he fell on top of her, a court has heard.Southwark Crown Court has told Ehsan Abdulaziz allegedly forced himself on the 18-year-old on the sofa of his Maida Vale flat.The 46-year-old met his alleged victim in the Cirque le Soir nightclub in London, where she had been with a friend he had known for several months.He offered both women a lift home in his Aston Martin in August last year, before inviting them into his flat and taking the woman he knew into the bedroom for sex, the court heard.The next thing the alleged victim claims to remember is waking up early in the morning with Abdulazziz on top of her, forcing himself inside her. She woke up with the defendant kissing her and his penis in her vagina, Prosecutor Jonathan Davies told the court, The Times reports. She said: What are you doing? and he said It s fine , indicating that her friend was asleep. She got up to find her friend, tried to wake her but couldn t, she then tried to get out of the flat as quickly as she could. Via:UK Independent | 0 |
21,885 | JUST IN: POTUS Speaks Out On Alabama’s Roy Moore…The Left Goes Bonkers [Video] | President Trump just spoke out on the alleged sexual misconduct of Alabama s Roy Moore. It took a split second for leftist media outlets like Fake News CNN to say that Trump all but endorsed Moore. Twitter was exploding with faux outrage from the left. As usual, President Trump said what we re all thinking POTUS said Roy Moore totally denies it BUT did not endorse Moore Trump on Roy Moore sexual misconduct allegations: He totally denies it you have to listen to him also pic.twitter.com/HFCZjEhkFe NBC News (@NBCNews) November 21, 2017 He denies it. Look, he denies it, Trump said of Moore. If you look at all the things that have happened over the last 48 hours. He totally denies it. He says it didn t happen. And look, you have to look at him also. Several women have come forward and accused Moore of pursuing romantic relationships with them when they were teenagers and he was in his 30s, and several others also have accused him of assault .Not one of them has proven anything against him.The President expressed opposition to liberal Democrat Doug Jones: We don t need a liberal person in there, a Democrat, Jones. I ve looked at his record. It s terrible on crime. It s terrible on the border. It s terrible on military, Trump said. I can tell you for a fact we do not need somebody who s going to be bad on crime, bad on borders, bad for the military, bad for the Second Amendment. President Trump left the door open to campaigning with Moore: I ll be letting you know next week, he said, when asked whether he will campaign with Moore.Trump repeatedly emphasized that Jones has denied the allegations brought against him:Trump declined to say whether he believed Moore s denials, but when asked he again pointed to the denials. Well, he denies. I mean, he denies. I mean, Roy Moore denies it. And by the way, it is a total denial. And I do have to say 40 years is a long time. He s run eight races and this has never come up. Forty years is a long time, Trump said, pointing to the amount of time that has passed since the alleged behavior. | 0 |
21,886 | This Is Proof That Donald Trump May Be The WORST Money Manager In The Campaign (VIDEO) | While there have been what seems like dozens of Republican debates, one stands on its own as the one Trump didn t attend. That debate happened in January, and in lieu of attending, Trump held a rally that was supposed to raise money for veterans. Unfortunately, though, half the $6 million raised never got to the veterans and no one knows where it is.The Trump campaign said the event raised $6 million for different veterans groups, with Trump himself contributing $1 million, but details released by the campaign Thursday show only about half of that money has been dispersed so far.The campaign did not provide specifics earlier this week, but after a CNN report aired Thursday morning questioning the contributions, a spokeswoman shared a list in the afternoon showing 27 veterans organizations that have received a total of $2.9 million to date.The campaign promised that it was no big deal and that the veterans would get the money as soon as they figured it out. Well, several months have passed, and the missing $3 million is still missing. All they have now is deflection. If the media spent half as much time highlighting the work of these groups and how our veterans have been so mistreated, rather than trying to disparage Mr. Trump s generosity for a totally unsolicited gesture for which he had no obligation, we would all be better for it, (campaign spokeswoman Hope) Hicks said Thursday.When asked about the money by CNN s Chris Cuomo, the network s Drew Griffin said:We found the same thing that you found Chris, a lot of promises and not a lot of answers and it just shouldn t be that hard, number one in the big scheme of things it s just not that much money and the accounting is not that difficult to do.Here s a video from CNN:Some experts say that this isn t that unusual, that it often takes a few months before large donations make it to their destination, but others say that the veterans organizations should have been paid by now. The bigger question, though, is where the hell is the money?Whether this is an innocent mistake or something much worse, it doesn t bode well for the Trump campaign, but few are covering this. Trump is a terrible money manager. He has filed bankruptcy a whopping four times and he promised to do the same with the United States. Of course, even if every one of Trump s supporters were to read this, they wouldn t care. Hell, he could steal money right out of veterans hands, and they wouldn t care. It s just like Obama Derangement Syndrome (and Clinton Derangement Syndrome), only the exact opposite.Featured image via Christopher Furlong/Getty Images | 0 |
21,887 | Trump Fans Launch Brutal Attack On Teenage Girl At Wisconsin Rally (VIDEO) | A teenage girl who fought back when she was allegedly groped by a Trump supporter while protesting at a Wisconsin rally was then pepper-sprayed in the face by her attacker.In footage, the girl (identified as Alex Drake) can be seen confronting a man in his late-fifties to early sixties, incensed that he has apparently sexually assaulted her in the middle of the crowded event. The man claims she touched him first and an argument ensues in which Drake throws a punch at the man while the crowd attempts to separate the two. But as she swings, a male arm reaches out and pepper sprays the teenage girl directly into the eyes. She is then pulled to safety by her friends.The 15-year-old said:It was simple. I was in the crowd and a man started groping me. I yelled at him to stop touching me several times and he just laughed and continued, I yelled at him and said you re a grown man and I am a fifteen-year-old-girl, are you proud of yourself? As I tried to push him off. He just kept laughing and still had his hands on me, so I hit him. Immediately as my hands went towards him I got pepper sprayed and then I basically got carried to a cop car because I could not open my eyes.The images and video quickly made it to social media where people recoiled at this latest act of wanton violence at a Trump event.Alex, 15, of Janesville shoved and pepper sprayed by Trump supporter. #TrumpJanesville #DumpTrump pic.twitter.com/lT86udgBgn Lady Forward (@LadyForward) March 29, 2016This is a good day to remember that Trump supporters are exceedingly likely to bring a gun to a knife fight #TrumpJanesville Kelli Daley (@Kelli_Daley) March 29, 2016"You can't combover racism." #TrumpJanesville pic.twitter.com/GknKEKpPzu Molly Beck (@MollyBeck) March 29, 2016Meanwhile, other Trump fans at the rally continued to remind us all that they are totally NOT racist, at all, in any way.Trump supporter David Webb of Milton waves confederate flag at #TrumpJanesville site, calls it symbol of state power pic.twitter.com/aNKeChacuj Rob Schultz (@RobSchultzWSJ) March 29, 2016The scenes at this Trump rally range from the pathetic to the intolerable. To think the GOP race has descended to such gutter depths, that their political rallies are no longer a safe space for teenage girls. They have become cesspits of violent rage that have no place in modern America.Featured Image via screengrab | 0 |
21,888 | Trump mum on healthcare plan's future if it fails to pass House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday declined to say what steps he would take if Republican leaders’ proposed legislation to dismantle Obamacare failed to pass the House of Representatives. Asked whether he will keep pushing the bill aimed at replacing former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act if a vote on the replacement fails, Trump told reporters: “We’ll see what happens.” | 1 |
21,889 | China enshrines 'Xi Jinping Thought', key Xi ally to step down | BEIJING (Reuters) - China s ruling Communist Party enshrined President Xi Jinping s political thought into its constitution on Tuesday, putting him in the same company as the founder of modern China, Mao Zedong, and cementing his power ahead of a second five-year term. A key Xi ally, top corruption fighter Wang Qishan, will not be on the new Politburo Standing Committee, the apex of power in China, to be revealed on Wednesday as he was not among those named on Tuesday to the 204-member Central Committee. Whether or not the powerful Wang would remain on the Standing Committee, which currently has seven members, despite being beyond the customary retirement age of 69, had been among the key questions to be answered at the week-long party congress, which ended on Tuesday. Wang could still assume another senior role over the next few months. As expected, the party unanimously passed an amendment to include Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as one of its guiding principles. The party will announce its new Standing Committee, headed by Xi, at around midday (0400 GMT) on Wednesday, culminating a twice-a-decade leadership reshuffle. As expected, the amended constitution affirmed that Xi s signature fight against corruption, which has ensnared more than 1.3 million officials, will continue. Unexpectedly, Xi s Belt and Road initiative, an ambitious program to build infrastructure linking China with its neighbors and beyond, was also included in the party constitution. Also included was a commitment to supply-side industrial reforms, and giving play to the decisive role of market forces in resource allocation, a commitment Xi had made early in his first terms that many investors say he has failed to deliver on. The party exercises overall leadership over all areas of endeavor in every part of the country, the party said in a statement reflecting Xi s ongoing efforts to strengthen the party and its place in contemporary Chinese society. If no clear successor to Xi is named to the new Politburo Standing Committee, it will further fuel speculation that Xi may look to retain power beyond the customary second five-year term. This is about further erasing any distinction between Xi Jinping and the party, said Jude Blanchette, who studies the party at The Conference Board s China Center for Economics and Business in Beijing, referring to Xi s thought getting into the constitution. Add on to this having supply-side structural reform and One Belt One Road written into this, which were Xi s signature policies, this makes questioning or non-compliance with those tantamount to betrayal of the party. Xu Hongcai, deputy chief economist at the China Centre for International Economic Exchanges, a Beijing think-tank, said party control was needed to push through the market reforms key to restructuring the world s second-largest economy. To build a market economic system in such a big country, it s impossible without the leadership of the party, he said. Others have argued that the two are contradictory. When you put supply-side reform and market playing a decisive role in the same document, then that just shows they have to almost choose one, said Alex Wolf, Senior Emerging Markets Economist with Aberdeen Standard Investments in Hong Kong. China s blue-chip shares climbed to a 26-month high on Tuesday, led by infrastructure and property stocks, as Xi wrapped up a congress that began with his three-and-a half hour speech envisioning a more prosperous, confident China. The yuan strengthened against the dollar. Xi rapidly consolidated power after assuming party leadership in late 2012 and then the presidency the next year. The party gave Xi the title of core leader a year ago, a significant strengthening of his position. Whether Xi was able to have his name crowned in the party constitution had been seen as a key measure of his power, elevating him to a level of previous leaders exemplified by Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory. No other leader since Mao has had an eponymous ideology included in the document while in office. Deng s name was added after his death in 1997. A list of 133 committee members for the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection released on Tuesday included Zhao Leji, who heads the party s Organisation Department, a strong sign that he will take over from Wang as anti-corruption chief. China s top banking regulator, Guo Shuqing, and veteran banker Jiang Chaoliang, front runners to succeed Zhou Xiaochuan as central bank governor, both made it to the Central Committee. The constitutional amendment, along with Xi s work report and a work report of the graft watchdog to the congress, were passed by a show of hands. When Xi next asked for any no votes or abstentions for the amendment or two work reports, the sound of none echoed throughout the chamber, as officials shouted out from different sides of the hall. | 1 |
21,890 | Russia's Zapad war games unnerve the West | TALLINN/VILNIUS (Reuters) - From planes, radars and ships in the Baltics, NATO officials say they are watching Russia s biggest war games since 2013 with calm and confidence , but many are unnerved about what they see as Moscow testing its ability to wage war against the West. NATO believes the exercises, officially starting on Thursday in Belarus, the Baltic Sea, western Russia and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, are already underway. It says they are larger than Moscow has publicized, numbering some 100,000 troops, and involve firing nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. Codenamed Zapad or West , NATO officials say the drills will simulate a conflict with the U.S.-led alliance intended to show Russia s ability to mass large numbers of troops at very short notice in the event of a conflict. NATO remains calm and vigilant, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said last week during a visit to an Estonian army base where British troops have been stationed since March. But Lithuania s Defense Minister Raimundas Karoblis was less sanguine, voicing widely-felt fears that the drills risk triggering an accidental conflict or could allow Moscow to leave troops in neighboring Belarus. We can t be totally calm. There is a large foreign army massed next to Lithuanian territory, he told Reuters. Some Western officials including the head of the U.S. Army in Europe, Gen. Ben Hodges, have raised concerns that Russia might use the drills as a Trojan horse to make incursions into Poland and Russian-speaking regions in the Baltics. The Kremlin firmly rejects any such plans. Russia says some 13,000 troops from Russia and Belarus will be involved in the Sept. 14-20 drills, below an international threshold that requires large numbers of outside observers. NATO will send three experts to so-called visitor days during the exercises, but a NATO official said these were no substitute for meeting internationally-agreed norms at such exercises that include talking to soldiers and briefings. Moscow says it is the West that threatens stability in eastern Europe because the U.S.-led NATO alliance has put a 4,000-strong multinational force in the Baltics and Poland. Wrong-footed by Moscow in the recent past, with Russia s seizure of Crimea in 2014 and its intervention in Syria s war in 2015, NATO is distrustful of the Kremlin s public message. In Crimea, Moscow proved a master of hybrid warfare , with its mix of cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns and use of Russian and local forces without insignia. One senior European security official said Zapad would merge manoeuvres across Russia s four western military districts in a complex, multi-dimensional aggressive, anti-NATO exercise . It is all smoke and mirrors, the official said, adding that the Soviet-era Zapad exercises that were revived in 1999 had included simulated nuclear strikes on Europe. NATO officials say they have been watching Russia s preparations for months, including the use of hundreds of rail cars to carry tanks and other heavy equipment into Belarus. As a precaution, the U.S. Army has moved 600 paratroopers to the Baltics during Zapad and has taken over guardianship of the airspace of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, which lack capable air forces and air defense systems. Russia s military show of force raises some uncomfortable questions for the alliance because NATO cannot yet mass large numbers of troops quickly, despite the United States military might, NATO officials and diplomats said. NATO, a 29-nation defense pact created in 1949 to deter the Soviet threat, has already begun its biggest modernization since the Cold War, sending four battalions to the Baltics and Poland, setting up an agile, high-readiness spearhead force, and developing its cyberspace defenses. But NATO has deliberately taken a slowly-slowly approach to its military build-up to avoid being sucked into a new arms race, even as Russia has stationed anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles in Kaliningrad, the Black Sea and Syria. The last thing we want is a military escalation with Russia, said one senior NATO official involved in military planning, referring to Zapad. In the event of any potential Russian incursion into the Baltics or Poland, NATO s new multinational forces would quickly need large reinforcements. But a 40,000-strong force agreed in 2015 is still being developed, officials say. Lithuania s Karoblis said he hoped to see progress by the next summit of NATO leaders in July 2018. Baltic politicians want more discretion given to NATO to fight any aggressor in the event of an attack, without waiting for the go-ahead from allied governments. During Zapad, NATO is taking a low-key approach by running few exercises, including an annual sniper exercise in Lithuania. Only non-NATO member Sweden is holding a large-scale drill. NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe James Everard told Reuters there was no need to mirror Zapad. It s not a competition, he said during a visit to NATO forces in Latvia. | 1 |
21,891 | Under Trump, future of U.S. nuclear arsenal slowly taking shape | JULIETT-01 MISSILE ALERT FACILITY (Reuters) - About 70 feet (21 m) below ground, in a shielded military capsule that can launch nuclear missiles, 23-year-old 2nd Lieutenant Tia Hewuse is concerned that Americans have the mistaken impression that her mission is a gloomy one. “America doesn’t understand what we do,” says Hewuse, whose post sits below a tiny U.S. base surrounded by vast expanses of windswept North Dakota farmland. “This is what keeps our enemies at bay,” she says with a smile. Hewuse is one of the U.S. Air Force missileers who met Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Wednesday as he oversees a Pentagon review of America’s aging nuclear arsenal. Experts say it could cost a trillion dollars or more to modernize it. Critics of the intercontinental ballistic missiles have argued that the silos scattered across thousands of square miles of the upper Great Plains are sitting ducks in a war and that, given the costs of modernizing ICBMs, the United States should spend its money on weaponry that could better survive a first strike by an enemy. Mattis himself questioned in 2015 whether the three legs of America’s nuclear “triad” of ballistic missile submarines, bombers and land-based missiles should perhaps be reduced to a “dyad.” But in the latest sign that places like Hewuse’s Cold War-era missile alert facility will be around for years to come, Mattis said on Wednesday he believed all three portions of the triad were vital. “I have been persuaded that the triad, in its framework, is the right way to go,” Mattis told reporters traveling with him to Minot Air Force Base, where he got a firsthand look at U.S. land-based nuclear missile facilities and nuclear-capable bombers. Mattis declined to set a deadline for the review, which is expected to take months to complete. Mattis’ tour of America’s doomsday weaponry comes as President Donald Trump uses bellicose rhetoric about the “fire and fury” that could await North Korea, should it choose to attack the United States. North Korea has responded with similarly bellicose warnings after it staged its sixth and largest nuclear test this month. In July, Pyongyang tested an ICBM that experts believe was capable of reaching most of the United States. U.S. officials have also noted that America’s nuclear modernization is lagging behind Russia’s upgrade of its own nuclear triad. General Paul Selva, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress in August he believed Moscow was already two-thirds through its nuclear modernization process. The Arms Control Association estimates that the total cost of upgrading the U.S. nuclear forces will be between $1.25 trillion and $1.46 trillion over the next 30 years. Mattis, without offering a figure, suggested that nuclear deterrence was worth the investment. “America can afford survival,” he said. Mattis says his goal would be to ensure that an adversary concludes that there is no viable prospect for successfully attacking the United States and surviving. “We want the enemy to look at it and say this is impossible,” he said. The land-based, nuclear-capable missiles are a big part of that. The U.S. forces who staff these facilities near the U.S. border with Canada have to endure bitter cold in the winters, which can get so bad that missileers can be stuck in their posts for up to 72 hours, officials said. Officials says morale has improved since the nuclear forces were rocked by test-cheating and drug scandals under the Obama administration and a 2007 incident under the Bush administration, when the Air Force accidentally flew live nuclear weapons between Minot and another U.S. base. Hewuse uses her free time to study for a postgraduate degree in entrepreneurship. She has also brightened her capsule by painting the lock used to keep nuclear missile launch keys shut in a cabinet above her head. She painted the lock gold, with sparkles. “I’m a pretty sparkly person,” she said. “There’s no sunshine in here. So that’s my sunshine.” | 1 |
21,892 | LIBS ON TWITTER Go Nuts Over Kellyanne Conway’s Shoes On Couch In Oval Office…They Probably Forgot These Obama Pics…Or What Bill Clinton Did In The Oval Office | Liberals on Twitter just can t find enough reasons to hate Trump or anyone connected to him. Tonight, libs went nuts over a picture that was taken of Kellyanne Conway in the Oval Office as she positioned herself on a couch (gasp with her shoes still on) while taking a group picture, as President Trump met with the leaders of the nation s historically black colleges and universities. Hmmm .maybe the anger wasn t really about Conway s shoes after all. Maybe the outrage is really more about the idea that President Trump met with a large group of prominent black leaders in the oval office. They couldn t attack the black leaders, so why not attack one of the most accomplished women in America?Things must be slow at the liberal rag Buzzfeed, as their DEPUTY NEWS DIRECTOR took to Twitter over his concern for Kellyanne Conway wearing her shoes while kneeling on the couch in the Oval Office:Shoes on the couch in the Oval Office pic.twitter.com/h2MXUocEar Jon Passantino (@passantino) February 28, 2017And this from a Chicago Tribune columnist:I have so many questions about this photo, but chief among them is why nobody is telling Kellyanne Conway to get her damn feet off the couch pic.twitter.com/tU0CBS36Fe Rex Huppke (@RexHuppke) February 28, 2017Here s our response to this clever tweeter who attempted to imagine if Hillary Clinton actually put her shoes up on the couch in the Oval Office. Yeah, never mind that whole Monica Lewinsky thing with Bill in the Oval Office. Kellyanne s shoes on the couch is much worse than Hillary s husband committing sex acts with a 19 year old intern in the Oval Office. LOL!You've clearly forgotten what @HillaryClinton's husband did in the Oval Office.He turned it into cheap motel for 19 yr old interns 100% FED UP! (@100PercFEDUP) February 28, 2017You d think a Motherboard climate change freak reporter would be using every waking moment to cover the changes Trump s EPA is about to implement but no, this reporter is consumed with Kellyanne Conway s shoes on the couch, suggesting she may even need therapy . We could ve told you that before you tweeted! LOL i have to go to therapy after seeing the kellyanne conway shoes on the couch pic Sarah Emerson (@SarahNEmerson) February 28, 2017Here s a screen shot of liberal Kaivan Sheriff s post. He blocked us on Twitter, so we had to settle for an image of his tweet. Apparently he feels threatened by two moms who tweet about real news Here are just a few examples of Obama doing much worse. Yeah, okay libs wanna talk about disrespecting the Oval Office? We saved the best one for last:People "outraged" at Kellyanne Conway putting her feet on a couch so she can take a photo, but pic.twitter.com/6IW5Iv31qW Paul Sacca (@Paul_Sacca) February 28, 2017https://twitter.com/PolitiBunny/status/836409990915162112 | 0 |
21,893 | Silicon Valley blasts Senate proposal to tax startup options | SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A proposal by the U.S. Senate to change the way shares in startup companies are taxed incited panic and dread in Silicon Valley on Monday, with startup founders and investors warning of nothing less than the demise of their industry should the proposal become law. The provision in the Senate’s tax reform plan, which appeared to catch the industry by surprise, involves the treatment of employee stock options. These options give the holder the right to purchase shares in the future at a set price and can be very valuable if a company does well and the share price increases. Options are often a major portion of the compensation for startup employees and founders, who take lower salaries in anticipation of a big payout if their startup takes off. Options typically vest over a four-year period. Senate Republicans have now proposed taxing those stock options as they vest and before startup employees have the opportunity to cash them in, resulting in annual tax bills that could easily climb into the tens of thousands of dollars, say startup founders and venture capitalists. “If there were a single piece of legislation to adversely affect startups, it would be this,” said Venky Ganesan, managing director at venture capital firm Menlo Ventures. “Everyone is freaked out.” Justin Field, vice president of government affairs at the National Venture Capital Association, said that the Senate’s proposed tax change would be “crippling” to the startup industry. How far the provision gets remains to be seen. The National Venture Capital Association was successful in getting a similar proposal removed from the House tax bill, although it “didn’t fully appreciate” the Senate’s intention to add the tax provision, Field said. The association also helped to steer lawmakers away from a proposal discussed late last year to tax venture capitalists’ profits on investments at a higher rate. Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, a member of the Senate Committee on Finance, has filed an amendment to repeal the provision in the tax bill, according to his spokesman. Under current tax code, employees are taxed only when they exercise their options. Options are exercised when the price they were granted at—known as the strike price—is lower than the share price, and some shares can then be sold to pay the taxes. But the Senate proposal would require startup employees to pay regular income tax on the value gain of their stock options even before they are exercised. These options are illiquid assets, and cannot be spent or saved. “What this would mean is every month, when your equity compensation vests a little bit, you will owe taxes on it even though you can’t do anything with that equity compensation,” Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist with Union Square Ventures, wrote on his blog Monday. For instance, if a startup employee receives stock options at a dollar per share, and the shares increase in value by $1 every year during the four-year vesting period, the employee would have to pay income tax on $1 per share after the first year, pay again on the $1 increase in value after the second year, and so on. When that employee owns hundreds of thousands and even millions of shares, that is a hefty bill to pay. And there is always the risk the startup will eventually fail. “This reform will force the average employee to pay taxes on that bet well before they even know if it’s a winning ticket,” said Amanda Kahlow, founder and executive chairman of marketing data startup 6sense. For startup founders in particular, such a tax bill could be ruinous. “It would mean that I would have to sell the company,” said Shoaib Makani, founder and chief executive of long-haul trucking startup KeepTruckin. “I have zero net worth aside from the common stock I hold in the company. It would be impossible. I would be in default.” Some executives in the startup industry, however, have pushed for companies to move toward bigger salaries so employees are not so dependent on options to buy a house or pay for other large expenses. And when startups suffer valuation cuts, employees can end up with worthless options. The Senate’s proposal came as a revenue-generating measure to help offset tax breaks in the bill. A spokesman for Senator Orrin Hatch, a Republican and chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, did not respond to requests for comment and other Republicans on the committee were not immediately available. A spokeswoman for Senator Ron Wyden, the committee’s ranking member and a Democrat, said he was aware of concerns that the provision would limit startups’ ability to attract talent. | 1 |
21,894 | Air strike reported near Somalia's capital, official says Shabaab targeted | MOGADISHU (Reuters) - An air strike hit a village south of Somalia s capital Mogadishu on Wednesday and a local official said the attack targeted Islamist al Shabaab militants fighting to topple the country s central government. It was not immediately clear who had carried out the air strike but the United States frequently conducts such attacks to bolster Somalia s army in its fight against al Shabaab. A local government official told Reuters the strike occurred in Ilimey village, about 130 km (80 miles) southwest of Mogadishu. The area is mostly controlled by al Shabaab. The target, he said, was a car used by the militants to transport supplies to a squad preparing bombs. The strike hit the car ... but we do not know details of casualties, Ali Nur, deputy governor of Somalia s lower Shabelle region told Reuters. But Mohamed Abu Usama, al Shabaab s governor for the same region, denied that al Shabaab personnel had been attacked and instead said the strike had killed civilians. The strike hit a makeshift tea shop and thus killed 7 civilians and injured three others, he said. Somalia has been trapped in chaos and lawlessness since 1991 when dictator Siad Barre was toppled. Al Shabaab wants to topple the Western-backed central government and establish its own rule based on its strict interpretation of Islam s sharia law. An African Union peace keeping force AMISOM pushed the group from Mogadishu and other former strongholds. But the Islamists remain a formidable force, carrying out frequent bombings and other assaults on AMISOM, Somali army and civilian targets. In October over 500 people died in one of Somalia s deadliest bombings when a truck bomb exploded outside a busy hotel at Mogadishu s K5 intersection lined with government offices, restaurants and kiosks. A second blast struck Medina district two hours later. | 1 |
21,895 | HILLARY GOT DESTROYED By Chris Wallace On FOX News…But That Wasn’t The End Of It…Laura Ingraham Followed Up With A KNOCK Out Punch [VIDEO] | Hillary shouldn t be on FOX News giving interviews She should be in jail! Queen Hillary didn t quite get the same treatment from FOX News Chris Wallace as she gets when she visits MSNBC s Chris Matthews!Hillary Clinton acknowledges that Americans have a legitimate concern about her trustworthiness, particularly related to her email scandal and the Benghazi terror attacks, but criticized those who have attempted to undermine her Democratic presidential campaign and make a caricature out of her, in an exclusive interview with Fox News Sunday. I think that it s fair for Americans to have questions, Clinton said, in an interview taped Saturday. Every time I run for an office, though, oh my goodness, all of these caricatures come out of nowhere. And people begin to undermine me because when I left office as secretary of state, 66 percent of Americans approved of what I do. FOX Newshttps://youtu.be/G0XAt7aPYBsLaura Ingraham commented on Hillary Clinton s stunning interview on Fox News Sunday.Ingraham said Clinton has an astonishing ability to look into Chris Wallace s eyes and claim that FBI Director Jim Comey confirmed her statements on her email scandal were truthful. That comment earned Clinton four Pinocchios from the Washington Post s fact-checker.Ingraham said Clinton s aside about her mother loving Fox News was all well and good, but the fact of the matter is, this is about her tenure as secretary of state. If she didn t know that you couldn t put a government server in your bathroom, then what does Hillary Clinton really know about basic issues of foreign policy? Ingraham added that Clinton apparently can lie with impunity to most people in the press, other than some of the folks at Fox News. Fox News | 0 |
21,896 | TIFFANY & CO. TAKES BIG RISK…Sides AGAINST Trump On Very Controversial Issue | Who knew? Tiffany & Co. just decided to show its hand when it comes to politics. We re not happy to tell you that the luxury retail jeweler just bought into the global warming scam hook, line and sinker The American jeweler is asking the president to keep the U.S. in the Paris Climate Agreement.The American jeweler took to social media to send a message to president Donald Trump. Dear President Trump, read the Instagram and Twitter posts. We re still in for bold climate action. Please keep the U.S. in the Paris Climate Agreement. The disaster of climate change is too real, and the threat to our planet and to our children is too great. The move comes on the same day that the president postponed his decision on whether or not to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, reports CNN. The goal of the agreement is to create a global action plan to put the world on track to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2 C, according to European Commission s website.Trump intended on making an announcement before attending the Group of Seven nations summit in Sicily, Italy, on May 26-27, but now, he s going to make a decision after the G7, explained White House press secretary Sean Spicer.Trump has a long history with Tiffany & Co; he named his youngest daughter after the iconic jeweler and the brand s flagship store is connected to Trump Tower in New York. Following the election, sales at the flagship store tumbled 14 percent in November and December, compared with the same period last year. Tiffany & Co. even canceled its holiday window unveiling event due to post-election protests around the area.Read more: Hollywood ReporterWhat they re not telling you is this agreement is a HUGE redistribution of American tax dollars to other countries! So if we are to address the Climate crisis we need to challenge the structural causes of the crisis which lies on unequal distribution of wealth, of carbon, and of power. Whether it s political power, economic power, or even military power. -Camille Risler For many years the public at large has been spoonfed the idea that Global Warming Climate Change, is caused by man s excessive release of carbon into the atmosphere. And that the solution to the Climate crisis was to decrease the production of said gas.Over the past several years the Global Warming fanatics have changed their tune. Many of us in the new media have been warning about their true motives for year.Now, instead of the climate crisis being caused by carbon emissions, it is being caused by inequality.On Monday, during a press conference at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Paris, Ms. Camille Risler, a representative of the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) which is an organization listed as an official consultant to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, stated that the cause of Climate Change is the unequal distribution of wealth, carbon, and power: This is the press conference of the Women and constituency. It is one of the nine official constituencies of the UNFCCC, and we are composed of 15 women s rights and feminist organizations from all around the world. So I m going to begin with kind of an overview of our positions and then I will give the floor over to my colleagues that will go more into details of each section of negotiations.I m Camille Risler. I m from France but I m living in Thailand. I m working for a feminist network that is called Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development and I m working for the Climate Justice Program.So what we want to highlight here is that Climate Change is a clear symptom of an unequal and unjust world. Via: GP | 0 |
21,897 | Mitch McConnell VICIOUSLY Cuts Off Elizabeth Warren To Defend Racism (VIDEO) | Another girl hurt a Republican s feelings. This time, it was Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass) who dropped a truth bomb on the GOP, which was too much for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to handle. Trump s pick for attorney general, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala) is being scrutinized for some very obvious reasons. His history speaks for itself.Then this happened:McConnell took particular issue with Warren quoting a letter written by Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King Jr. s widow, when Sessions was under consideration for a federal judgeship in 1986.McConnell invoked the little-used Rule XIX, which says that No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator. King s letter argues that, during his time as a prosecutor in Alabama, Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens. It was that portion of the letter that McConnell read back to the presiding officer, arguing that it was over the line.Sen. Steve Daines (R-Montana) agreed with McConnell, ruling her in violation of the order and forcing her to sit down. Because of course he did. I am surprised that the words of Coretta Scott King are not suitable for debate in the United States Senate, Warren declared.Still yet, Republicans prevailed after a vote was held on Warren s appeal of the ruling of the chair.According to the rules, Warren would be barred from speaking during the remaining 30 hours of the Sessions debate.Even so, Democrats asked that Warren s speaking privileges be restored.Watch:Democrats held the floor for 24 hours to protest Sessions nomination just as they did in advance of Betsy Devos confirmation. Warren was part of that effort.Read more:Image via screen capture. | 0 |
21,898 | PANIC! REUTERS/IPSOS Will Radically Change Way They Poll After Trump Takes Commanding 17 POINT LEAD Over Hillary | B..b..but That can t be right Maybe we should change the way we poll The Reuters/Ipsos polling team announced Friday that they are dropping the Neither option from their presidential preference polls after their tracking polls showed a 17-point swing in favor of the Republican nominee Donald J. Trump, exposing the Secret Trump Voters Democrats fear. In a presidential campaign notable for its negativity, the option of Neither candidate appears to be an appealing alternative, at least to participants in the Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll, wrote Maurice Tamman, the leader of the Reuters news service s New York City-based data mining and investigative reporting team. Many voters on both sides have been ambivalent in their support for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump, complicating the task of the pollsters trying to track the race. Breitbart News noted the 17-point swing for Trump, which seems to have set off alarm bells at Reuters.Reuters has a reputation for accurate polling, so it is significant that Mamman made this decision as the presidential campaign enters its last 100 days with both conventions adjourned. In the nearly five years Reuters/Ipsos has been offering the Neither/Other option to respondents in presidential polling, it has never yielded such a skew, he wrote. The results highlight how poll designs and methodologies can yield significantly differing results, and how important differences can emerge from the way a question is framed. The real problem this year s polling presents to Democrats is the reluctance, especially among more educated voters, to confess their support of Trump. Other pollsters have noted the divergence between polls conducted with live operators and robo-phone calls. Live operators have long been considered the preferred, most accurate method inside the polling community. However, live operator polls uniformly show lower support for Trump than online or automatic-dial phone polls.Much has been made of Trump s lack of support among college-educated whites, a stronghold of Republican support, but it could very well be that these people, susceptible to social perceptions, have not abandoned the Republican nominee but are giving the socially acceptable answer until they are alone in the voting booth. Via: Breitbart News | 0 |
21,899 | Meet Zari, The First Feminist Muppet From Afghanistan | This is awesome on so many levels it s hard to know where to begin:Afghanistan is getting its first home-grown Sesame Street Muppet a six-year-old girl called Zari.Zari, a curious and lively girl whose name means shimmering in the Dari and Pashto languages, makes her debut on Thursday on the Baghch-e-Simsim Afghan local co-production of the long-running U.S. educational TV show for pre-schoolers.According to Sesame Worksop, the goal behind Zari is to teach Afghani girls that there is more to life than being a wife and mother, a tall order for a country besieged by Islamic fundamentalists dedicated to reducing women to little more than broodmares. But that doesn t mean they re not going to give it their all:Zari will be featured in Sesame Street segments about health, exercise and well-being, and will interview a doctor and other professionals to find out what she would need to do to become one herself. The exciting part about Zari is that she is modeling for young girls that it is wonderful to go to school and that it s ok to dream about having a career, Sherrie Westin, Sesame Workshop s executive vice president of global impact and philanthropy, told Reuters. It s so powerful that the first Afghan Muppet is a girl, Westin added.Sesame Street is a very powerful tool to teach those evil liberal values of fairness and equality and how to be a better human being. Or did you think Republicans wanted to cut its funding for no reason? I imagine that the Taliban, sill very active in Afghanistan, will take the same dim view of Zari as Republicans take of Sesame Street in general. These are, after all, the same people that shot Malala Yousafzai, a 15 year old girl at the time, in the head for daring to go to school and encourage other girls to do the same.But if Zari seems like propaganda, you d be right:She joins Baghch-e-Simsin at the beginning of its fifth season. The show, which receives funding from the U.S. Department of State, is the most watched TV program among young children in Afghanistan, where 81 percent of children aged three to seven have seen it, according to Sesame Workshop.The idea is to overcome cultural taboos against girls going to school and building careers for themselves. And apparently it s working according to Westin. This is how you defeat religious extremists; not with bombs and blood but with joy and love. In a war of ideas, freedom will win out. It s not as cool and doesn t make the military-industrial complex rich, but it s far more effective.Featured image courtesy of Sesame Workshop | 0 |
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