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22,800 | U.S. House Intelligence Committee has 'successful' Russia hearing | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The leaders of a House of Representatives probe of possible Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election said they had a “successful” hearing on Thursday, projecting unity after a partisan division had threatened to derail their investigation. Representatives Mike Conaway, the new Republican leader of the House Intelligence Committee probe, and Adam Schiff, the top Democrat, addressed reporters together after Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey and Admiral Mike Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, testified at a classified hearing. “We had a very successful hearing,” Conaway said. Schiff said the witnesses had provided “some additional insights,” and the committee was working together very well. Neither responded to questions. The committee’s Republican chairman, Devin Nunes, recused himself from the investigation and was replaced by Conaway last month after a dispute caused Democrats to question whether Nunes could credibly lead a probe of possible Russian attempts to influence the election in favor of President Donald Trump. Russia denies the allegations. Nunes had infuriated Democrats by telling reporters, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and Trump - before informing committee Democrats - that he had seen documents showing that the communications of Trump associates had been caught up in surveillance. It later emerged that Nunes, a close Trump ally, obtained the information at the White House, after the Republican president pushed back against suspicions that Russia boosted his campaign by making the unsubstantiated accusation that former President Barack Obama had ordered a wiretap of Trump Tower in New York. Schiff and Conaway later issued a joint statement on Thursday’s classified hearing saying they remained committed to working with the FBI as it continues its investigation. They said they are currently sending out invitations for witnesses to testify and requesting documents. They said they were looking forward to the next steps of the investigation, including an open hearing with former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and John Brennan, who was director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Obama. Nunes canceled that hearing when it was originally scheduled in late March, frustrating Democrats, but the committee has now promised it will take place at a still undetermined date. Yates and Clapper are due to testify in the Senate on Monday. | 1 |
22,801 | Trump Says To H*ll With Benghazi Mom, Does Live Fox News Interview During Her Speech | The Republican National Convention got off to a rocky start on Monday. The evening portion opened with what else but Benghazi. Patricia Smith, who s son, Sean Smith, was killed that fateful night in Libya, spoke at the RNC. This should have been a big deal to the presumptive nominee, but Trump is a narcissist.Trump is ever so worried about Benghazi, but apparently not enough to decide not to interrupt this grieving mother s big moment by calling into Fox News for a live interview smack dab in the middle of her speech. MSNBC and CNN continued to cover Smith s emotional remarks, but Fox cut away from her to broadcast Trump s interview.What did he have to say that was so important? Not much. He gave a brief preview of what he plans to say on Thursday night when he accepts the GOP nomination, promising a fairly lengthy speech that will cover many themes one of them is law and order. O Reilly asked if he intended to discuss the recent police killings that have taken place in Baton Rouge and Dallas, and Trump said that he would definitely be talking about this issue.Of course. It s a big issue; it s a horrible issue; and it s going to be a very important one. It s called law and order. We want law and order.When he was asked about the Black Lives Matter movement, Trump said that some of the protesters are essentially calling death to the police, and that s unacceptable. He promised that if he makes it into the White House he will look into it very seriously. O Reilly pressed him on just what that meant, and Trump said that he would perhaps talk with the attorney general about it or do something, but at a minimum, we re going to have to be watching. Meanwhile, Patricia Smith was publicly mourning the death of her son at the RNC, slamming Hillary Clinton for her role in Benghazi. Benghazi! This has been the GOP s favorite witch hunt for years, but Trump thinks it is more important to talk about what he is going to talk about? Really? No narcissism there. Nope. None at all.You can watch the interview here:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USE4T27je0U]Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images | 0 |
22,802 | Lawyer urges Trump to press Iran on jailed U.S. father and son at nuclear talks | VIENNA (Reuters) - The lawyer of an American-Iranian father and son jailed in Iran called on U.S. President Donald Trump to get his officials to press for the men’s release at nuclear talks with Tehran on Tuesday. An Iranian court sentenced 46-year-old Siamak Namazi and his 80-year-old father Baquer Namazi to 10 years in prison each in October on charges of spying and cooperating with the United States. The Namazis’ lawyer, Jared Genser, said he had traveled to the nuclear talks venue in Vienna with Siamak’s brother, Babak, to encourage Washington’s delegation to press the case, adding that he was worried about the detained men’s health. The lawyer said a senior administration official in the U.S. delegation had told him on Monday that the case would be raised directly during the talks on the implementation of a deal reached in 2015 to shrink Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief. A State Department spokeswoman did not comment directly on the case, but said: “We continue to use all the means at our disposal to advocate for U.S. citizens who need our assistance overseas.” Iran has not commented on the Namazis’ prison conditions but has repeatedly said that political prisoners are kept under standard condition in Evin prison with full access to medical care. “In our view, something happening to the Namazis would be devastating not just to one side but to both sides,” Genser told reporters in a hotel near the venue. “For either or both of the Namazis to die on (Trump’s) watch would be a public and catastrophic failure of his negotiating skills,” Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps detained Siamak Namazi, a businessman, in October 2015 while he was visiting family in Tehran, relatives said. The IRGC arrested his 80-year-old father, Baquer Namazi, a former Iranian provincial governor and former UNICEF official in February lat year, family members said. Soon after the sentencing and days before he won the presidential election, Trump said on Twitter: “Iran has done it again ... This doesn’t happen if I’m president!” | 1 |
22,803 | Ryan tries to tamp down Comey memo furor, says has confidence in Trump | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan tried to tamp down the furor on Wednesday over reports that President Donald Trump asked former FBI Director James Comey to quash part of his Russia investigation, saying “we need the facts” and adding he has confidence in the president. “I’m sure we’re going to want to hear from Mr. Comey if this happens as he allegedly describes; why didn’t he take action at the time? So there are a lot of unanswered questions,” Ryan told reporters. “What I told our members is: now is the time to gather all the pertinent information.” Asked if he had confidence in Trump, Ryan said, “I do.” | 1 |
22,804 | The very idea of a President Trump scares some, bolsters others in Asia | SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Donald Trump’s “isolationist” foreign policy pronouncements are feeding insecurity in some Asian nations fearful of China’s growing power, and risk emboldening nationalists and authoritarians in the region. The real estate developer, who is very close to securing the Republican nomination for November’s presidential election, has with undiplomatic abandon challenged much of the status quo in U.S.-Asia relations. Overall, his comments have sounded like a death knell for the “pivot to Asia” strategy adopted by President Barack Obama five years ago. Trump has said U.S. allies like Japan and South Korea should pay more toward their defense, warned he could withdraw U.S. troops from bases in Japan, and mulled whether Japan and South Korea should have their own nuclear arms. This week he told Reuters he is willing to talk to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which would represent a major shift in U.S. policy. In a television interview on Friday, Trump told MSNBC that while he was open to talks, he “would never go to North Korea.” Trump has also threatened to rein in China’s big trade surplus with the United States, saying he will threaten to impose heavy duties on Chinese goods. And Trump says he will rip up and then renegotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact agreed to by the U.S., Japan, and 10 other countries in February. Furthermore, Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States risks undermining moderate leaders in Muslim countries like Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh. “If he becomes president and adopts his own version of foreign policy, the U.S. will cease to be a Pacific power. That’s the end result,” said Kunihiko Miyake, a former Japanese diplomat, who served in both Beijing and Baghdad. “It’s not that we would adopt ‘Japan First,’ but if the U.S. leaves, there will be a vacuum and … China will try to fill it,” said Miyake, research director at the Canon Institute for Global Studies. “It’s a survival issue for all allies of the United States.” Trump could, of course, lose the election to the likely Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, who is well known by many Asia policymakers. And if he is elected he could act much differently in office. But Asian diplomats and policy advisers say that initial impressions count. Trump’s idea of making Japan and South Korea pay up rather than enjoy a cheaper ride under the U.S. security umbrella sent shudders through Tokyo and Seoul. Trump reiterated his stance on Friday. “They have a lot of money, both of those nations,” he told MSNBC, pointing to Japan’s auto sales and South Korea’s electronics industry. “We have to get reimbursed.” In addition, his comments about the possibility of a local nuclear deterrent fanned fears among Asian diplomats that the world could become an even more dangerous place. “It is here that Trump is most scary,” Lalit Mansingh, a former Indian ambassador to Washington, told Reuters in New Delhi, though he also noted it may be “just election rhetoric.. Japan’s nationalist-led government has already boosted defence spending and has reinterpreted its pacifist constitution to allow its military to come to the aid of allies under attack even if Japan itself if not attacked, a major shift in Japan’s post-war security stance. “His position is causing anxiety, especially in East Asia,” said a senior lawmaker in Japan’s ruling coalition. “It is really hard to comprehend because conservatives have supported a stronger military presence and more engagement.” Mansingh said he expects China to test the foreign policy resolve of whoever occupies the White House next, and the South China Sea looms as one of the most likely flashpoints. Tensions over China’s land-building and installations on islets in the disputed waters flared on Tuesday, when two Chinese warplanes carried out what the Pentagon called an “unsafe” intercept of a U.S. military reconnaissance aircraft. “They’re building a massive fortress in the South China Sea. They’re not supposed to be doing that,” Trump told Reuters, without saying what he would do about it. At least, according to Mansingh, China’s leaders and Trump shared the mentality of dealmakers, which could help settle diplomatic wrangles before they get out of hand. Jia Qingguo, an adviser to China’s government on foreign affairs, said Trump sounds like an “isolationist” who doesn’t want the United States to become too active internationally. “So, he doesn’t sound that aggressive,” said Jia, the dean of the School of International Relations at China’s elite Peking University. “Chinese tend to think that too much so-called internationalism on the part of the U.S. is not that good.” A senior Japanese government official said Washington could lose influence in Asia if there was any perception it was softening its stance on issues like the South China Sea. “And it would be very difficult to get it back,” he warned. Mansingh says those fears are overblown as the United States’ self-interest lay in protecting access to the Pacific and Indian Oceans. “What would American withdrawal mean? Does it want to hand over the affairs of the world to China? Would that serve anybody’s interest? I don’t think so.” There are also fears that the TPP could unravel, or become worth a lot less to Asian partners, should Trump renegotiate the pact, as he has said he wants to do. The deal has yet to be ratified by the U.S. Congress, but Obama has warned that delay could allow China to steal a march through its own proposed regional trade deal with 15 other nations. “I think it’s hard to imagine that TPP would survive a Trump presidency,” said a top trade official in a major country in the region, who declined to be more closely identified. “‘Less intervention’ would be a small benefit compared to the massive damage to the world from a USA that becomes more isolationist and more crassly commercial under Trump,” he said. The lack of priority Trump appears to give to issues that don’t serve his “America first” agenda could mean he’ll soft-pedal on human rights and democratic values, some critics said. That would come at a time when generals are running Thailand, a ‘strong man’ has just been elected as president of the Philippines, and Malaysia’s prime minister has silenced independent media. “Let’s hope that someone on his team realizes that respect for human rights must be a core U.S. foreign policy value and not just a reality show line,” said Phil Robertson, deputy director for Human Rights Watch’s Asia division. On the other hand, Panitan Wattanayagorn, an adviser to Thailand’s defence minister, Prawit Wongsuwon, expressed confidence that Trump wouldn’t apply pressure to countries like his. “All in all, if Trump arrives, the chances of stronger ties will be good because he would want allies,” said Panitan. | 1 |
22,805 | WATCH: THE MEANING BEHIND TRUMP’S Hand Gestures Is Revealed | There s no denying it Trump is a very animated speaker. He does seem to have a whole second language thing going on with his hand gestures. You almost don t even need to hear him speak to know what he s saying. This great little animated illustration helps to decode Trump s second language:Donald Trump s hand gestures are his second language. We try to decode some of his most-used movements. pic.twitter.com/W8EhI5HwSZ Post Graphics (@PostGraphics) July 22, 2016 | 0 |
22,806 | Trump’s Response When Told He Should Stop Tweeting Makes Him Sound Like A Whiny Toddler | Donald Trump s tweeting is a source of endless nightmares for Republicans and White House staff. They can try to sugarcoat anything Trump does, but it s hard to put a positive spin on the ramblings of a clearly troubled man. A typical Trump tweet shot off in the early morning may, say, contradict an official statement. Or prove a White House talking point is a lie. Or contain basic grammar and spelling mistakes. And some have even been used in court to rule against the White House s attempted Muslim ban.Adding to that, Trump s tweets are a visual, daily reminder that our president is, at his heart, a complete moron. Take this classic two-piece of idiocy, for example:First Trump proudly announces he plans on creating a cyber team with the country that hacked America s last presidential election.Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded.. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2017Hours later, he screams that it isn t happening after Americans of all political stripes pointed out how stupid the idea was.The fact that President Putin and I discussed a Cyber Security unit doesn't mean I think it can happen. It can't-but a ceasefire can,& did! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 10, 2017His staff has privately told reporters that they spend a great deal of their time at the White House trying to find ways to get Trump to stop binge-watching Fox News and tweeting about whatever comes up on his favorite show, Fox and Friends. The struggle has, at times, descended into sheer lunacy. During one of Trump s latest Twitter meltdowns, a despondent aide sent a reporter a simple message:Informed of the president s denial that he had recorded his conversations with Comey, a senior administration official replied, At least that s behind us. When alerted to his apparent suspicions of Oval Office surveillance, the official replied in a text message, fml. What does Trump think about these attempts to save him from himself? It makes him angry.New York Times reporter Mark Leibovich filed a lengthy piece with a simple premise: The White House is a total-and-unending shitshow and Trump is at the epicenter. Leibovich was, in fact, in the room, when the idea of Trump s Twitter self-sabotage was brought up to the president. Trump s reaction speaks volumes.It was 12:30, but the president was not eating lunch. He was watching a recording of Fox and Friends from about four hours earlier on a large TV mounted on the wall. This was one of those stretches when Trump was tweeting a lot, including attacks on the mayor of London following a terrorist attack on the city the previous weekend. The tweets were becoming a growing topic of concern among Republicans, many of whom were urging him to stop. But like most reporters, I found his tweets far more illuminating than anything the White House press office could ever disgorge. I urged him to keep it up.Trump assured me that he would keep tweeting. It s my voice, Trump said of Twitter, enumerating how many millions of followers he had. They want to take away my voice, Trump said. They re not going to take away my social media. In just two paragraphs, Leibovich documented Trump s insane Fox News viewing habits, the well-known patent dishonesty of the White House press office, and Trump s own spoiled brat way of looking at his Twitter habits. It takes Stephen King an entire novel to write anything half as scary as that snapshot of the man who currently controls America s nuclear arsenal.Featured image via Matt Cardy/Getty Images | 0 |
22,807 | (VIDEO) NAVAJO NATION HAS A MESSAGE FOR SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN AS HE’S CHASED AWAY: “GET OFF OUR LAND!” | Is anyone the least bit surprised that the Obama administration hasn t contacted the Navajo Tribal Leaders since the tragic spill of toxic water by the EPA? Here s a quote from the Navajo Nation President: I keep saying when are we going to hear from the White House? Not a word, Begaye said, according to Native News. When somebody wins the Super Bowl or an NBA Championship, they get a call, right? And when something like this happens and people are suffering, nothing. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey Friday visited the Navajo Nation reservation s capital Window Rock to celebrate the Native Americans whose indecipherable language helped keep messages secret from enemies during World War II.The event though was met by a protest regarding the federal government s response to a toxic spill into rivers considered a lifeline for reservation and halted use of water for residential and agricultural use.According to Native News, McCain and Ducey met with Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye and Vice President Jonathan Nez to discuss the creation of a Navajo Code Talkers Museum.But the recent spill of millions of gallons of contaminated wastewater into the Animas and San Juan Rivers by a contractor doing work for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ended up being the focus for the tribal leaders. I keep saying when are we going to hear from the White House? Not a word, Begaye said, according to Native News. When somebody wins the Super Bowl or an NBA Championship, they get a call, right? And when something like this happens and people are suffering, nothing. | 0 |
22,808 | Russia thinks Trump's new Afghan strategy will not bring benefits: Ifax | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia does not believe that U.S. President Donald Trump’s new strategy on Afghanistan will lead to any significant positive changes in the country, the Interfax news agency cited an unnamed Russian Foreign Ministry source as saying on Tuesday. Trump on Monday committed the United States to an open-ended conflict in Afghanistan, reversing course from his campaign pledges and signaling he would send troops to America’s longest war in “a fight to win.” | 1 |
22,809 | HOW 125,000 ILLEGAL KIDS Have Been Able To Avoid Deportation | Did you know that only 3% of the 125,000 illegal minors have been deported? Thomas Homan, the head of deportation operations at ICE, told the Senate Judiciary Committee says that the Spanish-language media is giving instructions on how to avoid ICE agents and foil deportation orders. The pitiful effort to apprehend and deport illegals only fuels the desire for more and more illegals to try and cross into America. In fact, the numbers are expected to increase for 2016!Spanish-language media and human rights activists are actively educating illegal immigrants on how to break the law, avoid immigration agents and remain in the country even after a judge has ordered them to be kicked out, a top Obama administration official testified to Congress on Tuesday.Sometimes families shield the children by refusing to open the door to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, and other times they move the children to other locations, breaking their agreement with the Obama administration to notify the government of the children s whereabouts.HERE S THOMAS HOMAN S TESTIMONY FROM 2014: In as many as 75 percent of cases, the children are actively hidden from agents sent out to try to deport them, Thomas Homan, the head of deportation operations at ICE, told the Senate Judiciary Committee. Even though we re out looking for them, it s getting more difficult, based on everything I just told you, to actually apprehend these people and remove them, he said.Overall, only about 3 percent of the more than 125,000 unaccompanied alien children (UAC) who surged across the border in the last 30 months have been deported, as Mr. Homan and his agents struggle with the sheer size of the population and the difficulties in tracking them down.The Department of Homeland Security last month began trying to target children and families for deportation, working about 1,800 leads. But only 121 were actually rounded up.Mr. Homan said that s because when they show up at the address where the children are supposed to be staying, usually the agents leave empty-handed. For the number of UACs we arrested since January, three times as many weren t at the address they were supposed to be at, never were or weren t there any longer. The Spanish media, Spanish newspapers, a lot of NGOs are educating these folks on how not to comply with law enforcement, Mr. Homan said. There s been many situations where we ve been at the residence, we know they re there, but they won t open the door. My officers don t have the authority, of course, to go into that house. What a pitiful effort. We know where they are, we even know they re in the house, but we don t have the authority to go in? If they know these facts, why can t they get a search order? A lawful deportation order has been issued, and the government won t do what s necessary to enforce it.Read more: American Thinker | 0 |
22,810 | Trump 'arms race' comment sows more doubt on nuclear policy | WEST PALM BEACH (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump sowed more doubt about his position on nuclear proliferation on Friday, reportedly welcoming an arms race even as his spokesman insisted that an atomic weapons build-up was not likely to happen. Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, caused alarm on Thursday on Twitter, saying the United States “must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.” On Friday, he had an off-air phone conversation about the tweet with MSNBC TV host Mika Brzezinski, who said Trump told her: “Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.” MSNBC did not play his comments on air. But Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said in a round of television interviews on Friday that Trump’s comments were meant to send a general message of strength to countries like Russia and China rather than indicate the United States planned to build up its nuclear capabilities. “He is going to do what it takes to protect this country and if another country or countries want to threaten our safety and sovereignty, he is going to do what it takes,” Spicer said on CNN. “If another country expands theirs (nuclear capability), the United States will act in kind ... But I do believe that it won’t happen because I think what they have seen, domestically and internationally, is this is a man of action,” Spicer said. Russian President Vladimir Putin, at his annual news conference in Moscow on Friday, said he saw nothing new or remarkable about Trump’s tweet on Thursday, and made clear he did not see the United States as a potential aggressor. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that Russia has never initiated an arms race and never will, the RIA news agency reported. In an apparent attempt to calm any tensions about his nuclear comments, Trump said in a statement on Friday that he had received “a very nice letter” from Putin earlier this month calling for stronger relations between the two countries. A nuclear arms race is diametrically opposed to decades of Republican orthodoxy that has called for cuts in U.S. nuclear weapons since the Ronald Reagan White House. Trump’s tweet prompted analysts to question whether Trump was threatening to abrogate the 2011 New START treaty, which limits deployed warheads and delivery systems - or would begin deploying other warheads. The United States is one of five nuclear weapons states allowed to keep a nuclear arsenal under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The others are Russia, Britain, France and China. The United States is in the midst of a $1 trillion, 30-year modernization of its aging ballistic missile submarines, bombers and land-based missiles, a price tag that most experts say the U.S. cannot afford. Russia, also bound by the treaty limits, is also carrying out a modernization program but is not expanding its warhead stockpile. Twitter is Trump’s communication method of choice. But its 140-character limit does not lend itself well to talking about complex geopolitical issues like nuclear proliferation fraught with risk, analysts charged. “He must have leaders around the world trying to guess what he means,” Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, said on Thursday. Shares of uranium producers and a nuclear fuel technology company have jumped on Trump’s comments with Uranium Resources Inc, Uranium Energy Corp, Cameco Corp and Lightbridge Corp all trading higher on Friday. | 1 |
22,811 | Justice Department, FBI resist lawmaker demands for 'Trump dossier' files: officials | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department and the FBI are resisting demands from a Republican lawmaker to hand over documents about a former British spy’s dossier on purported Russian support for Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign, because the FBI has its own open criminal investigation, officials said. The U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee issued subpoenas in August seeking “any and all documents” about both agencies’ dealings with former MI6 officer Christopher Steele, according to a letter seen by Reuters from committee chairman Devin Nunes, a Trump supporter. Steele compiled the so-called Trump dossier, which Trump was told by FBI director James Comey contained salacious material about the businessman-turned president. Trump and his associates have said the dossier’s contents were false. Law enforcement and congressional officials said that the Justice Department and the FBI were reluctant to comply with the demand for documents as the FBI had its own probe, under the supervision of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, into U.S. allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign to tilt the November election in Trump’s favor. Moscow has repeatedly denied meddling and Trump has denied any collusion between his campaign and Russian officials. Two officials said Nunes met with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein behind closed doors on Thursday to discuss the subpoenas. “The Deputy Attorney General is meeting with Nunes as part of an ongoing negotiation over what information DOJ will provide or how it will be provided,” a Justice Department official said. The FBI declined to comment on anything to do with Nunes’ request. A spokesman for Nunes declined to comment. According to a Sept. 1 letter Nunes sent to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the subpoenas demand that the department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation produce all documents related to their “relationship” with Steele and the “so-called ‘Trump Dossier”. Such documents, the letter said, would include any payments the FBI made to Steele, and any efforts the government made to corroborate the contents of Steele’s reports. Sessions recused himself earlier this year from the Russia investigation. Nunes publicly recused himself from leading the Russia probe in April following a secret visit he paid to White House officials. Democrats on the committee said Republicans issued the subpoenas in an attempt to discredit Steele. Republicans say it is important to understand the genesis of the dossier and whether it was created to sabotage Trump during his successful campaign for president. Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee has also been battling with the Justice Department for months over its request to interview two FBI officials about Trump’s dismissal in May of Comey as FBI chief, according to letters from the committee and the department. The department twice refused to allow them to testify, according to the letters. On Sept. 22, it agreed that it would be “appropriate” for the officials to testify provided that it would be in a classified setting and did not interfere with Mueller’s inquiry. The Senate panel’s chairman, Charles Grassley, had told reporters on Sept. 20 that the committee had begun drafting subpoenas to compel the testimony. In another letter dated Sept. 27, the conditions of the testimony still appeared to be in dispute. | 1 |
22,812 | GOP Lawmaker Blames Obama For Staging Racist Mayhem In Charlottesville | According to Republican lawmaker from Idaho, it is completely plausible that former President Barack Obama was responsible for staging the racist mayhem to took over the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia. Because, OF COURSE it s Obama s fault. Everything is always Obama s fault. I m not saying it is true, but I am suggesting that it is completely plausible, Bryan Zollinger, a state representative for Idaho Falls, wrote on social media. We know that many protesters were Soros funded and we also know that Donald Trump is not a racist. The man was in the public spotlight for 20+ years with zero allegations of racism, Zollinger continued, clearly ignoring the reality and hanging onto alternative facts. He then blamed the media for choosing to push this narrative. Zollinger s Facebook post linked to an article published by the American Thinker entitled Charlottesville and Its Aftermath: What if It Was a Setup, which claimed that Obama, George Soros and the mayor of Charlottesville were responsible for staging the violent chaos we saw play out in Charlottesville. The conflagration in Charlottesville is beginning to feel like a set-up, perhaps weeks or months in the planning, the author of the article wrote. We know that Obama and his inner circle have set up a war room in his D.C. home to plan and execute resistance to the Trump administration and his legislative agenda. The Idaho Statesman contacted Zollinger to see just what he had to say for himself and his response was just as pathetic as you d expect. In hindsight, maybe it was a mistake to post it, he said. I didn t mean for it to ruffle any feathers, Zoros said before reiterating that the absurd theory was indeed a plausible theory.We all knew it was just a matter of time before Republicans found a way to try to blame President Obama for the stampede of hatred we saw in Virginia. But we also know that it is the GOP and their bigoted president that has inspired the new wave of white supremacists with Nazi ideologies we are seeing today. Conservatives are the ones who built this. But naturally, it s Obama s fault. Because its always Obama s fault. Always.Image via The Idaho StatesmanFeatured image via Scott Olson/Getty Images | 0 |
22,813 | Trump expected to pressure China's Xi to rein in North Korea: officials | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to pressure China s president when they meet next month in Beijing to do more to rein in North Korea out of a belief that Xi Jinping s consolidation of power should give him more authority to do so. Trump leaves Nov. 3 on a trip that will take him to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. It will be his first tour of Asia since taking power in January and one with a major priority: Preventing the standoff with North Korea from spiraling out of control. Xi is immersed in a Communist Party Congress expected to culminate in him consolidating his control and potentially retaining power beyond 2022, when the next congress takes place. Trump believes that Xi should have even more leverage to work on the North Korea problem. The president s view is you have even less of an excuse now, said one official. He s not going to step lightly. Trump wants to gain some serious cooperation from China to persuade Pyongyang to either change its mind or help deprive it of so much resources that it has no choice but to alter its behavior, the official said. Trump has heaped praise on Xi in recent weeks in hopes of gaining Chinese cooperation and has held back from major punitive trade measures. In an interview with Fox Business Network s Maria Bartiromo, Trump said he wants to keep things very, very low key with Xi until the Chinese leader emerges from the party congress. I believe he s got the power to do something very significant with respect to North Korea. We ll see what happens. Now with that being said, we re prepared for anything. We are so prepared, like you wouldn t believe, Trump said in the interview, to air on Sunday. Trump has traded bitter insults with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, using his speech at the United Nations General Assembly last month to dismiss Kim as a rocket man on a suicide mission for his repeated nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches. He said if threatened, the United States would totally destroy North Korea. Kim in recent weeks said the United States would face an unimaginable strike from North Korea if provoked. CIA chief Mike Pompeo said on Thursday that North Korea could be only months away from gaining the ability to hit the United States with nuclear weapons. | 1 |
22,814 | Russia to criticize Trump stance on Jerusalem at U.N. Security Council: RIA | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will criticize U.S. President Donald Trump s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in the United Nations Security Council, the RIA news agency cited Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov as saying on Thursday. | 1 |
22,815 | Could Brexit vote be a preview of U.S. presidential race? | WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Britain’s stunning vote to leave the European Union, buoyed by a frenzy of nationalism and populist anger, was a crushing rejection of the political elite. Republican Donald Trump hopes it is also a preview of November’s U.S. presidential election. The referendum result reverberated immediately in a U.S. presidential campaign dominated by Trump’s rapid rise to capture the nomination, fueled by a similar brew of anti-establishment and anti-globalization sentiment. The vote in Britain reinforced the notion that the insurgent campaign launched by the wealthy real estate developer had tapped into a global political movement that might be hard to stop. “This is a protest vote against globalization and there is one presidential candidate who won the nomination who has put globalization in his crosshairs - and that’s Donald Trump,” Republican strategist John Feehery said. Trump, who has spent much of his campaign warning of the dangers posed by immigrants who illegally enter from Mexico and proposing a temporary ban on U.S. entry for Muslims, has matched the global mood with his rhetoric. “There are swaths of the population around the world who are struggling economically in the current economy, and groping for targets of blame,” said Katherine Cramer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Trump and the Brexit vote offer up tangible targets, and it is not surprising that people grab onto them. The vote yesterday is a reminder that Trump could very well win the presidential election,” she said. A Brexit supporter, Trump was happy to note the parallels to his own campaign when he reopened his golf course in Turnberry, Scotland, on Friday. Presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton bemoaned the result. The referendum, which most British opinion polls had predicted was headed to defeat, was a wake-up call for Democrats who have been heartened by Clinton’s lead over Trump in opinion polls of late. “I woke up this morning a little dismayed,” said Democratic strategist Dane Strother. “The question is whether Trump is similarly underperforming in the polls here. If that under-polled anger was present in Britain, as a Democrat you have to hope it isn’t mirrored here.” Global stock markets wobbled immediately after the vote, which experts warned could trigger a global recession and weaken the U.S. economy. British Prime Minister David Cameron, who said after the vote he could step down by October, presents a cautionary lesson for Clinton as she prepares to face Trump. British voters ignored repeated warnings from Cameron about the dire consequences of a departure from the European Union. Clinton can take advantage of the unsettled global mood without indulging in predictions of doom or the over-the-top rhetoric that sometimes has set back Trump, Republican strategist Rich Galen said. “She can reflect some of the same sentiment that Trump and the Brexit forces tapped into but use it to her advantage,” Galen said. “She is not going to, and doesn’t want to, out-Trump Trump, but the idea is to say, ‘I understand these concerns.’” Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters after the vote that she has “a real confidence that Americans are generous, tolerant, big-hearted people” who believe that the country is stronger together. “They’re going to watch what impact (the Brexit vote) ends up having on the U.K. and on the British economy and come November, they are going to make their own decision about the kind of leadership that they’re looking for,” he said. Differences between the electorates in the United Kingdom and the United States are one reason the Brexit sentiment may not translate fully into success for Trump. About 30 million votes were cast in the last British general election in 2015, with about 10 percent of those cast by minority voters. Polling in the UK ahead of the Brexit vote suggested broad support for staying in the EU among those voters. By contrast, according to the Pew Research Center, nonwhite voters constituted 26 percent of all voters in the 2012 U.S. general election — and by a huge margin they backed Democratic President Barack Obama. Pew projects that by November, nearly one in three voters will be a minority, and opinion polls show Trump struggling with those blocs. Just being more mature, experienced and sympathetic than Trump may not be enough for Clinton. “The argument is you need a responsible grownup, but a large part of the world doesn’t want a responsible grownup,” said Tom Rath, a New Hampshire-based Republican strategist. “I don’t think it’s enough to say I know all the stuff he doesn’t or he’s rash, because right now people aren’t filtering that through.” | 1 |
22,816 | Haley lends Trump team diversity but little diplomatic heft | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - By picking fellow Republican South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s pick rounded out his early Cabinet choices with his first woman and ethnic minority. But he also opted for a state politician with little experience in the federal government or international diplomacy who has been a sharp critic, backing two of his rivals and criticizing the harsh rhetoric of the presidential campaign. In tapping the popular governor of a state that supported him, Trump’s choice could signal an attempt to reach out to minorities in the wake of his Nov. 8 victory following a bitterly divisive campaign. His victory has sparked protests and concerns by those worried that his denunciation of immigrants, Muslims and Hispanics during the campaign could translate into policies eroding civil rights. Trump said on Wednesday that Haley could bring people together and was “a proven dealmaker” who “will be a great leader representing us on the world stage.” Haley, 44, represents what some Republicans have said could be the new face of the Republican Party: a younger, more diverse generation of leaders who could help bolster conservatives as U.S. demographics shift. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she drew national attention in 2015 when she led a push to remove the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol grounds in Columbia after a white gunman killed nine people at a historic predominantly African-American church in Charleston. But Haley, now serving her second four-year term as governor, has little experience in foreign policy and the diplomatic issues likely to come before the United Nations. In a statement on Wednesday, she praised the state’s residents for taking “a chance on a little-known, 38-year old, minority, female governor” when she took office six years ago. Like Trump, Haley came to politics as an outsider. After years working in her family’s gift shop in Bamberg, a small town an hour south of the state capital, she ran for state representative in 2004 and defeated a nearly 30-year incumbent, touting her fiscal conservatism while brushing off racial slurs. She won her gubernatorial bid in 2010 on a platform of reform, receiving the endorsement of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, a former Republican vice presidential nominee and darling of the party’s Tea Party wing. Still, Haley has not hesitated to call out fellow Republicans, including Trump. In January, she offered the party’s rebuttal to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, seizing the spotlight in what was seen as a strong rebuke of Trump. Haley called for tolerance and civility in her remarks. Although she never mentioned Trump by name, she urged Americans not to “follow the siren call of the angriest voices,” adding: “No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws, and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country.” But she told the Federalist Society recently that although she was not an early or vocal supporter of Trump, she did vote for him and was “thrilled” that he won. Born to Sikh parents who emigrated to South Carolina from India, she is no stranger to U.S. racial and ethnic tensions. While Trump won with the lowest minority vote in decades,, Haley has scolded Republicans for not working harder to broaden their appeal beyond white Americans. “Our approach often appears cold and unwelcoming to minorities. That’s shameful and that has to change,” she said in a 2015 National Press Club speech. “It’s on us to communicate our positions in ways that wipe away the clutter of prejudices.” Although she worked to heal the racial tensions that exploded after the gun attack at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015, she has also been critical of the Black Lives Matter movement that gained ground after a series of high-profile shootings of unarmed African-Americans by police. “Some people think you have to yell and scream in order to make a difference. Well, that’s just not true,” she told the National Press Club. “When the sound is quieter, you can actually hear what someone else is saying and that can make a world of difference.” On Wednesday, Haley said, “When the President believes you have a major contribution to make to the welfare of our nation, and to our nation’s standing in the world, that is a calling that is important to heed.” Her international experience is largely centered on her efforts to draw foreign businesses to South Carolina, including at least eight overseas trips, local media reported. One - a June 2011 trip billed as an economic development mission to Europe and the Paris Air Show - cost the state $158,000 and drew criticism back home over its luxury accommodations and a hotel party. She said afterwards she did not know how much was spent and had learned a lesson, even as she pledged to keep up the sales pitches, the Charleston Post and Courier reported at the time. “There is a method to the madness,” she said, according to the newspaper. “I am selling the state the only way I know how.” The Post and Courier said her trips included trade show visits and economic development meetings, including stops related to BMW (BMWG.DE) and Volvo (VOLVb.ST), two automakers with facilities in South Carolina. She has visited Germany, Sweden, Britain, Japan, Canada and India, it reported. As governor, she has also been embroiled in the thorny issue of nuclear waste amid federal facilities in the state aimed at storing and converting such materials. Earlier this year, she fought to have some nuclear material from Japan headed for South Carolina moved to New Mexico. “Critics will ask if Nikki Haley has been engaged in int’l affairs. I’ve had convos w/her on & off over the years. She has a strong worldview,” Dan Senor, a former adviser to 2012 Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney, said on Twitter. | 1 |
22,817 | (Video) Colonel Ralph Peters Hammers Obama on Putin and Russian Airstrikes in Syria: “…our president is a deer caught in the headlights of history.” | In almost 7 years this president hasn t learned that words don t stop bullets. He is fundamentally out of touch with human reality, with the reality of history, with the reality of warfare, and Vladimir Putin ruthless and vicious and ugly though he is he s the one that s on the side of history, now. Not us. We re clinging to 20th century platitudes, and Putin is changing the world. CHANGING THE WORLD, as we do nothing. Putin is a man of action and God help us our president is a deer caught in the headlights of history. | 0 |
22,818 | Iowa Supreme Court puts state's abortion waiting period on hold | (Reuters) - The Iowa Supreme Court has maintained a block on a three-day waiting period for women seeking an abortion until a legal challenge concludes, a decision cheered by abortion-rights advocates. The provision was signed into law in May by former Republican Governor Terry Branstad, part of new regulations that also included a ban on most abortions after 20 weeks. The waiting period portion was challenged earlier this year by the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and Planned Parenthood. The Iowa state attorney general’s office could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. The U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973 although states can limit and regulate abortions. U.S. state legislatures enacted 41 new abortion restrictions in the first half of 2017, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health group that supports abortion rights. Planned Parenthood on Tuesday praised the court’s decision, issued on Monday, to keep in place a prior stay on the requirement that women wait 72 hours before having an abortion. “This ruling ensures that women in Iowa will have continued access to the health care they need throughout the course of this lawsuit,” said Susan Allen, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the Heartland. A lower court had earlier upheld the disputed provision of the law, noting that 27 states have implemented waiting periods for abortion, ranging from 18 to 72 hours, the Des Moines Register reported on Tuesday. In May, Planned Parenthood said it would shutter four of its 12 clinics in Iowa as a result of another Iowa measure that blocked public money for family planning services to abortion providers. | 1 |
22,819 | Putin orders Foreign Ministry to sue U.S. over seizure of diplomatic property | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his Foreign Ministry to sue the U.S. government over the seizure of Russian diplomatic property in the United States, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday. Putin this week warned he would order to take legal action over alleged violations of Russia s property rights by Washington. Putin also said Moscow reserved the right to further cut the number of U.S. diplomatic staff in response to what he called Washington s boorish treatment of Russia s diplomatic mission on U.S. soil that took place last week. | 1 |
22,820 | fbi director comeys leaked memo explains why hes reopening the clinton email case | in a stunning turn of events days before the presidential election the fbi announced it is reopenning its investigation into hillary clintons email server case by probing newly emerging emails linked to hillary clinton
new probe the fbi gives hillary clinton a second look photo illustraion wire
fbi october surprise
according to reports in a letter written today fbi director james comey stated that the fbi has begun a new probe into hillary clinton related emails once again comey offered scant details about the new probe but due to an unrelated case additional classified material may have been mishandled on clintons personal email server
cnbc reported the latest fbi developments including a passage from comeys letter discussing the new investigation
in previous congressional testimony i referred to the fact that the federal bureau of investigation fbi had completed its investigation of former secretary clintons personal email server due to recent developments i am writing to supplement my previous testimony comey wrote
in connection with an unrelated case the fbi has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation i am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday and i agreed that the fbi should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information as well as to assess their importance to our investigation he added
although the fbi cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant and i cannot predict how long it will take us to complete this additional work i believe it is important to update your committees about our efforts in light of my previous testimony comey concluded
humas estranged sexting husband
according to a new report released via the new york times
the presidential campaign was rocked on friday after federal law enforcement officials said that emails pertinent to the nowclosed investigation into hillary clinton s private email server were discovered on a computer belonging to anthony d weiner the estranged husband of a top clinton aide in a letter to congress the fbi director james b comey said the emails had surfaced in an unrelated case which law enforcement officials said was an fbi investigation into illicit text messages from mr weiner to a yearold girl in north carolina mr weiner a former democratic congressman from new york is married to huma abedin the top aide comey has come under fire recently for apparently letting clinton off the hook for mishandling and lying to congress about classified emails coming through her home brew email server while she was secretary of state after previously closing the case comey has done a uturn and is now saying the fbi will review the new emails to for classified information and see whether it was mishandled
this unprecedented investigative move comes just two days after a wikileaks docudump revealed a memo containing detailed financial information between clinton foundation donors and former president bill clinton s private financial activities among those included in the memo was a million dollar business arrangement under bill clinton inc with another million dollar deal scheduled over nine years
the following is a tweet from brad jaffy of nbc nightly news containing the new fbi recommendation
the new investigation into the clinton camp will most certainly spark new paytoplay allegations as the new fbi revelations also comes days after a project veritas hidden camera sting operation revealed that the democratic consultant robert creamer of democracy partners discussed ways to commit largescale voter fraud as well as paying political agitators to cause violence at donald trump rallies out of creamers visits to the white house also included his wife a term illinois democratic congresswoman jan schakowsky some times white house visitor records show that schakowsky took private meetings with obama or his senior staff also over the past year the consultancy democracy partners appears to have applied schakowsky as a political buffering point possibly in the event of a fallout over their operations at a grassroots level the impetus of this type of procedural separation is to keep certain highranking officials of the hook in case of a massive upheaval over various underhanded campaign tactics thus giving a political campaign or political entity plausible deniability caught on film robert creamer resigns over a massive democratic party controversy image source cnn creamer a convicted felon in creamer plead guilty million in bank fraud and tax violations was promptly shoved out of the hillary clinton campaigns inner circle following a heavily publicized video sting revealing his discussion about voter fraud and violence at trump rallies pay to play virginia governor terry mcauliffe closely allied with the clintons negotiated a a campaign contribution involving the fbi image source new republic it remains unclear what exactly reopened the new clinton probe but perhaps the fbi had its own cobwebs to clear out after it was revealed that a longtime clinton associate virginia gov terry mcauliffe helped steer to the election campaign of the wife of an fbi official who went on to lead the probe into hillary clintons use of a private email system according to a report the ny post also reported on the matter this past week
the political action committee of mcauliffe the clinton loyalist gave to the state senate campaign of the wife of andrew mccabe who is now deputy director of the fbi according to the wall street journal
the report states jill mccabe received an additional from the virginia democratic party which is heavily influenced by mcauliffe
the money directed by mcauliffe began flowing two months after the fbi investigation into clinton began in july around that time the candidates husband was promoted from running the washington field office for the fbi to the no position at the bureau
in a cnn report from october th a week before the mcauliffe revelations according to notes from interviews conducted during an fbi investigation into clintons email practices undersecretary of state patrick kennedy personally tried to convince fbi officials that the email should be declassified one interviewee described feeling pressured by another fbi official at kennedys request
the newly reopened fbi investigation into clinton could be related to all or some of the items listed above but theres no doubt that due to public backlash the fbi received following the first clinton investigation in addition to concerns over dealings between the fbi and clinton associates the agency needed to save face
it remains to be seen how new case will impact the us presidential election
more from rt below | 0 |
22,821 | Here’s A LONG List Of Bernie Sanders’ Accomplishments (WITH CITATIONS) | We ve already discussed Barack Obama s many accomplishments. And, we also did a piece recently discussing Hillary s long list of accolades, as well. It s only fair that we did one for Bernie, too, given the current nature of the Democratic presidential race.So, without further delay, here s an extensive list of Bernie Sanders accomplishments, and it s A LOT despite some of the rhetoric circulating around the internet stating he s too much of a far-left progressive to get anything passed.Won a championship on the basketball team at his primary school in Brooklyn.Was Captain of his cross-country team, winning a lot of races. In fact, he was so successful he was repeatedly talked about in the school s yearbook the very next year despite having already graduated.Forced the class president at his James Madison High School to raise scholarship money for kids in Korea, after they had been orphaned due to the war there in the 1950 s.Organized a sit-in against segregation when he was still a student in college. This was the first civil rights sit-in in Chicago history. This led to the University of Chicago investigating the discrimination just a week afterward.Defeated the 5-term mayor of Burlington, winning by just ten votes in his bid against Democratic mayor Gorden Paquette. Hey, a win is a win. The odds were stacked against him. (Guma, The People s Republic, pg. 42.)He won re-election three times, defeating Democratic and Republican contenders.Caused voter turnout to double during his tenure.Burlington became the first city in the country to fund community-trust housing under Sanders leadership.He not only balanced the city budget, but undertook ambitious downtown revitalization projects. He even helped bring in a minor-league baseball team to the town, the Vermont Reds.He sued the town s local cable franchise and won reduced rates for customers.Kept a developer from turning important waterfront property into condominiums, hotels, and offices to be used only by the wealthy and affluent. Instead, it was made into housing, parks, and public space. Even today, the area still has many parks and miles of public beach and bike baths, including a science center.Provided new firms with seed funding, and helped businesses create trade associations. He funded training programs to give women access to nontraditional jobs and even gave special attention to women wanting to become entrepreneurs.Voted as one of America s best mayors by U.S. News & World Report in 1987.Taught political science at Harvard University s Kennedy School of Government and Hamilton College.His 1990 victory was described by The Washington Post as being the First Socialist Elected to the United States House of Representatives in more than 40 years.Served in the House from 1991 until the time he became a Senator in 2007. Over a span of 16 years, he continuously won re-election by large margins, with the only exception being 1994.In his very first year in the House, he co-founded the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He led this group for its first eight years. Its primary devotion is to advance liberal causes and is currently the largest organization within the Democratic congressional caucus.He sided with the minority in voting against the use of force against Iraq in 1991 and 2002. He also opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq.Voted against the Patriot Act despite the majority of Congress voting for it (357 to 66). He also sponsored several amendments trying to limit its effects, even getting a proposal passed through the House preventing the government from obtaining a record of the books people buy.Was an open critic of Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan and took him head on insisting he only represented large and wealthy corporations. Greenspan later admitted to Congress that his economic ideology regarding risky mortgage loans was flawed.He passed more amendments than any other member during his time in the House. It earned him the nickname The Amendment King. He did this despite being a socialist and Congress being controlled by Republicans from 1994 to 2006, in one of the most partisan right-wing Houses ever.Passed an amendment to require offenders who are convicted of fraud and other white collar crime to give appropriate notice to victims and other persons in cases where there are multiple victims eligible to receive restitution. Passed an amendment that improved Postsecondary Education. It administered a competitive grant program to institutions of higher education seeking to reduce costs through the purchase of goods and services. This saved colleges and taxpayers both money.He amended the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act of 2003, stopping the IRS from being able to use funds that violate current pension age discrimination laws. He expanded free health care and won a $100 million increase in funding by using his amendment powers. This added community health centers that gave out a variety of free health care services.Prevented child labor by passing an amendment to a general appropriations bill. This stated that the U.S. will not appropriate funds for the importation of goods made by the hands of minors.Won a $22 million increase for low-income home energy assistance and a related weatherization assistance program. This helped heat homes for the poor.Passed an amendment that formed a bipartisan coalition effectively prohibiting the Export-Import Bank from handing out loans for nuclear projects in China.Defeated a wealthy businessman, Rich Tarrant, to win his U.S. Senate seat in 2006, in one of the most expensive campaigns in Vermont s history.Received the distinction of being named the third-most popular senator in the country, according to Public Policy Polling in August 2011.Given a score of 100 percent by the NAACP and NHLA (National Hispanic Leadership Agenda) based on his record during his time in the Senate.Named one of the top 5 American Jews of the Forward 50 in 2015.Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs in 2013-2014.Became ranking minority member of the Senate Budget Committee in January 2015.Became ranking minority member of the Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging.Passed an amendment making sure that solar water heaters provide at least 30 percent of hot water for new federal buildings. This is forcing us to use green energy.Made sure to it that bailout funds weren t used to replace laid-off U.S. workers with exploited and poorly-paid foreign workers.Helped ensure that child care was being offered to parents in the Armed Forces by requiring the Comptroller General to provide accurate reporting on what was being done.Required a public database be made available showing the names of senior Department officials seeking employment with defense contractors. This helped crack down on corruption.Required that the TRICARE program provide treatment to veterans affected by certain types of autism. It wasn t previously being done.Won a battle requiring the Government Accountability Office to conduct an audit of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the part that doesn t interfere with monetary policy). This revealed the names of the recipients of over 2,000,000,000,000 in taxpayer assistance.Was praised by John McCain(R-AZ) and Sen. Jack Reed(D-RI) for overhauling the Veterans Administration. Was said to have done such an excellent job of bringing all parties to a deal, that it wouldn t have gotten done without Sanders work.But, most of all, what Bernie has done is inspire Americans. That s what he s doing in this election. His list of accomplishments doesn t include all the times he s stood on the Senate floor giving a passionate speech on why the big banks need to be broken up. No, you can t quite quantify things like that.Featured image via Facebook | 0 |
22,822 | Venezuela says U.S. sanctions designed to push Venezuela to default | CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Friday his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump’s executive order prohibiting dealings in new debt from the Venezuelan government or its state oil company PDVSA was designed to push the crisis-hit country into default and essentially forces the closure of its U.S. refining unit Citgo. Maduro added in a TV address from the presidential palace that a preliminary analysis showed the sanctions would impede Venezuela’s crude exports to the United States. | 1 |
22,823 | BREAKING NEWS: TRUMP ADMIN ANNOUNCES “MASSIVE TAX CUT” For Businesses And Massive Tax Reform [VIDEO] | President Trump s 2017 Tax Reform for Economic Growth and American Jobs was announced today by National Economic Director Cohn and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin:Three Key Things to Remember (see photo below):-Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax-Reduce the top Cap Gains rate to 20%-Repeal the so-called death tax. TAX PLAN REDUCES CURRENT 7 TAX BRACKETS TO 3 AND DOUBLES STANDARD DEDUCTION GARY COHN, NAT L ECONOMIC DIRECTOR: ENTIRE SPEECH BELOW THIS VIDEOTax plan reduces current 7 tax brackets to 3 and doubles standard deduction, National Economic Director Cohn says https://t.co/T5uqoA85rO pic.twitter.com/hAOtIOh2WP CBS News (@CBSNews) April 26, 2017TAX REFORM FOR 2017: Tax reform plan reduces corporate tax rate to 15%; medium and small-sized businesses eligible for rate Treasurey Secretary Mnuchin -ENTIRE SPEECH BELOW THIS VIDEO:Tax reform plan reduces corporate tax rate to 15%; medium and small-sized businesses eligible for rate, Mnuchin says https://t.co/T5uqoA85rO pic.twitter.com/zavdOihq9E CBS News (@CBSNews) April 26, 2017ENTIRE SPEECH: | 0 |
22,824 | Trump picks former U.N. spokesman Grenell for ambassador to Germany | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump has picked former U.N. spokesman Richard Grenell as U.S. ambassador to Germany, a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity said on Thursday. Grenell served as U.S. spokesman at the United Nations from 2001 to 2008, during the administration of Republican President George W. Bush. Currently, Grenell is a contributor to Fox News. His nomination as envoy to NATO ally Germany must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Trump has scolded Germany for not reaching NATO’s target for defense spending and complained about its trade surplus with the United States. Grenell did not immediately respond to a request for comment. | 1 |
22,825 | UK employers, already on edge over Labour, worry about May's 'tinkering' | LONDON (Reuters) - British business leaders reacted warily to Prime Minister Theresa May s plan for more government intervention in power and housing markets, and said big unanswered questions about Brexit would drag on the economy. In an attempt to counter Britain s left-wing Labour Party, May s speech to her Conservative Party on Wednesday balanced emphasizing the importance of free markets with a pledge to cap what she called rip-off energy prices. The revival of the cap - which May appeared to have dropped after losing her parliamentary majority in a June election - was an unwelcome surprise for representatives of British employers, who are already disappointed by the government s lack of progress in Brexit talks. Today s announcement is an example of state intervention that misses the mark, Carolyn Fairbairn, CBI Director-General, said. Market-wide price caps are not the best answer. Shares in power providers such as Centrica and SSE fell sharply as May spoke. The Institute of Directors, another employer group, said businesses were worried by the signs of more state involvement in the economy from the Conservatives, a week after resurgent Labour proposed bringing billions of pounds worth of private contracts under state control and higher taxes for companies. In her speech on Wednesday, May said her government would spend an extra 2 billion pounds ($2.65 billion) to build cheaper houses for social housing. I think it s fair to say that this year s party conference season has been one big let-down for businesses across the UK, Stephen Martin, the IoD s director general, said. On the one hand you have a Labour Party which has decided that business is the bad guy, on the other you have a Conservative Party which talks about the importance of markets, but then tinkers around with Help-to-Buy (a housing program) and energy price caps. What are business leaders meant to make of it all? Beyond the proposals for specific sectors, employers said they remained concerned that May was not moving fast enough to clear up the uncertainty about Britain s relationship with its main trading partners in the European Union after Brexit. It is vital for business that a comprehensive transition agreement is agreed before the end of the year, Terry Scuoler, the head of engineering industry body EEF, said. She must redouble her energies ... if she is to avoid significant boardroom decisions going against UK plc, he said. | 1 |
22,826 | White House: It Wasn’t Sexist For Trump To Slut-Shame Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (VIDEO) | A backlash ensued after Donald Trump launched a sexist rant against Kirsten Gillibrand Thursday morning, saying that the Democratic Senator would do anything for a campaign contribution. Trump was calling Gillibrand a whore.White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders somehow denied that Trump s tweet was sexist. There is no way that is sexist at all, Sanders told reporters.Then Sanders tried to explain what Trump really meant (we all know what he really meant). According to Sanders, Trump was merely accusing Gillibrand of being controlled by contributions, and hammering home his pledge to drain the swamp in Washington, according to The Hill. I think that the president is very obvious, she said. This is the same sentiment the president has expressed many times before when he has exposed the corruption of the entire political system. Sanders claims that Trump does not owe Gillibrand an apology if his words were taken as sexist. I think only if your mind is in the gutter you would have read it that way, so no, she said.Watch:Gillibrand called on Trump to resign after Trump s accusers came back into the spotlight by hosting a press conference in which they called for an investigation into his past behavior. Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office begging for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED! Trump tweeted this morning.Gillibrand responded to Trump s attack, saying that she won t be silenced. You cannot silence me or the millions of women who have gotten off the sidelines to speak out about the unfitness and shame you have brought to the Oval Office, she tweeted.Yeah, Trump, you called her a whore.Image via screen capture. | 0 |
22,827 | U.S. to raise payments to insurers for Medicare Advantage 2017 plans | NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government will pay U.S. health insurers who provide Medicare Advantage plans to elderly and disabled Americans about 0.85 percent more on average in 2017 than in 2016, reflecting mostly stable medical costs, a government agency said on Monday. The Department of Health and Human Services’ final plan to raise payments was a bit less than the 1.35 percent increase the agency proposed in February. It said the lower figure reflected revisions to medical services cost calculations. “The Medicare Advantage rates look very much in line with the proposed rule,” said Ipsita Smolinski of Capitol Street, a Washington research firm. Insurers including UnitedHealth Group Inc, Aetna Inc and Anthem Inc manage health benefits for more than 17 million Americans enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans. The other more than 30 million people eligible for Medicare coverage are part of the government-run fee-for-service program. Shares in UnitedHealth and Aetna were slightly lower in very light after-hours trading, while Anthem was unchanged. Each year, the government sets out how it will reimburse insurers for the healthcare services their members use. Payments vary by region, the quality rating earned by the health plan and the relative health of the members. The proposal is always subject to industry lobbying and often changes before it is finalized. Analysts said that while that the lower-than-proposed payment was a slight negative for insurers, the agency made two other modifications in the final overall payment plan that would benefit the industry next year. Capital Alpha Partners analyst Kim Monk said the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the health agency division that regulates Medicare, gave ground on two issues: a new method for calculating risk and cuts in payments for certain employer-based retiree drug plans. The government agency, which initially planned to implement the cuts over a year, said on Monday it now planned to introduce a two-year transition period after hearing from insurers, unions, employers and lobbying groups that the cuts proposed in February were too aggressive. Insurance lobbyist America’s Health Insurance Plans President Marilyn Tavenner said in a statement the government had made changes to mitigate the negative impact of its original proposal, but that more could be done to improve the stability of the employer-based retiree plans. | 1 |
22,828 | Multiple Sclerosis Patient Montel Williams Rips GOP Health Care Bill To Pieces: ‘So Wrong’ (VIDEO) | Montel Williams, who has been fighting Multiple Sclerosis since 1999, ripped the GOP s hideous health care bill, and the Republicans who voted for it, to pieces.The American Health Care Act guts the protections for pre-existing conditions that Obamacare had provided. Under the AHCA, states could opt out of federal regulations and allow insurance companies to charge people with pre-existing conditions as much as they want. This means that sick people, the very people who need medical care the most, could find themselves priced out of insurance coverage.Williams, who has been a vocal advocate for MS, weighed in on the bill during an interview with CNN on Saturday. When by asked by Ana Cabrera what he thought of the AHCA, Williams did not hold back.What people at home don t understand, when you say terms and things like pre-existing conditions, they really are basing this on what an insurance company has stated was a pre-existing condition.So, they think about 22 percent of Americans have a problem right this minute. This is from the National Institutes of Health. Over 56 percent of adult Americans, 120 million adult Americans, have one chronic illness. And around 80 percent of them have at least two.So these numbers that people throw out are so wrong.Cabrera pointed out that Republicans have promised access to health care, but what they really mean is that you can get insurance coverage if you are rich enough to pay for it. Williams said that he is lucky to be able to afford whatever health insurance he needs, but most Americans don t have that luxury.He went on to say that many MS patients are already unable to get the medications they need to control this debilitating neurological condition because they don t have insurance. Williams explained that the medication he himself is on costs over $1,500 a month. I also have MS, and the price tag for just one of my medications tops $100,000 a year.Williams says that we need to worry about lowering costs, not signing people s death warrants with heinous bills like the AHCA. He explains that the normal American can t afford to pay these kinds of prices for the medicines that keep them alive. That s what insurance is for, he added.Watch Montel tear the GOP health care bill to pieces, here:Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
22,829 | Pentagon chief to preview fiscal 2017 budget on Feb. 2: sources | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter is scheduled to preview the Pentagon’s fiscal 2017 budget request in a speech on Feb. 2, a week before the White House sends its budget plans to Congress, two U.S. defense officials said on Monday. Carter is expected to highlight the broad themes of the Pentagon’s budget request and its priorities, rather than presenting a detailed list of programmatic changes, said one of the sources, who was not authorized to speak publicly. A massive government spending bill enacted by Congress last year set a spending level of about $576 billion for the Pentagon in fiscal 2017, which meant the Defense Department had to trim its planned funding levels by about $15 billion. The White House earlier this month said it plans to release President Barack Obama’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2017, which begins on Oct. 1, on Feb. 9. Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N), maker of the F-35 fighter jet, Boeing Co (BA.N) and other big weapons makers are anxiously awaiting details about the budget and how it will affect their programs. Senior defense officials have said that the $15 billion in cuts would largely come from procurement accounts since personnel costs and operations costs were harder to cut. Defense Undersecretary Frank Kendall, the military’s chief weapons buyer, told reporters last month that the Pentagon’s fiscal 2017 budget plan may slow production of key weapons programs, including the F-35 fighter jet. | 1 |
22,830 | Trump signs memo directing Pentagon to implement transgender ban | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Friday that directs the U.S. military not to accept transgender men and women as recruits and halts the use of government funds for sex-reassignment surgeries for active personnel unless the process is already underway. The memo, released by the White House, laid out in more detail a ban on transgender individuals serving in the U.S. armed forces that Trump announced via Twitter last month, reversing a policy shift started under his predecessor, President Barack Obama. In it, Trump directed the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security to stop using government funds for sex-reassignment procedures unless it is necessary “to protect the health of an individual who has already begun a course of treatment to reassign his or her sex,” the memo said. The order requires Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis to determine in the coming months how to handle transgender individuals currently serving in the military using criteria including “military effectiveness and lethality,” budget constraints and law. A White House official who briefed reporters about the memo declined to specify whether transgender service men and women who are currently active in the military could continue to serve based on such criteria. The official said Trump decided the Obama administration had not identified a sufficient basis for changing what was then long-standing policy on transgender troops. The memo called on Mattis to submit a plan to Trump by February 21, 2018, on how to implement the changes. Trump’s decision appealed to some in his conservative political base while creating uncertainty for thousands of transgender service members, many of whom came out after the Pentagon said in 2016 it would allow transgender people to serve openly. The change drew swift criticism from advocates of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights. “The President’s order to remove transgender service members from the United States armed forces and deny them healthcare is nothing less than a purge,” Matt Thorn, executive director of OutServe-SLDN, a group dedicated to LGBT equality in the military, said in a statement. “Our military is strongest when all people who are fit to serve have the opportunity to do so. This unprecedented policy amounts to a purge of qualified, contributing troops, and will serve only to undermine unit cohesion and weaken military readiness,” said Jennifer Levi, an official at the gay rights group GLAD (GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders) in a statement. Asked how the policy squared with Trump’s pledge to stand up for gay rights, the White House official said the president would ensure that such rights were protected but had been critical previously of the transgender changes under the Obama administration. | 1 |
22,831 | Trump Put Out A Survey On The Media, And What Happened Is So Hilarious He’s Now Crying ‘RIGGED!’ | Trump and his staff are so sure the media lies about everything that they ve put together a media accountability survey designed to gauge how people feel about the media, how they re representing Trump and Republicans, and numerous other things. Of course, because true scientific polls don t ever tell them what they want, this survey is anything but scientific. They want to feed their confirmation bias. But what s really happening is hilarious and it s made Trump call his own poll rigged.Seriously.The email that was sent to supporters asking them to take the survey again reads:The President emailed you to take the urgent Mainstream Media Accountability Survey.Since then, mainstream media outlets have viciously attacked it and thousands of Democrats have taken it to try to sabotage the results.Which is why we need your IMMEDIATE help as one of President Trump s biggest supporters.Please take the Mainstream Media Accountability Survey now.>>Thanks,Team Trump Not only does this email demonstrate that Trump is only interested in answers from people who think the exact same way he does, but it also demonstrates the sheer desperation on Trump s part to prove that the media is engaging in one giant conspiracy to bring him down. Or something.The questions in the survey are leading and biased, and were definitely not crafted by an experienced pollster. He wants specific answers and the questions are worded so he s more likely to get those answers: And those are just a sampling of the questions in the survey.At the end, it asks you for your name, email address and zip code, but there s no verification on it, so you can make up a name and email address, and pick a zip code. Any zip code. And you don t have to create dummy email accounts for it either so really, what did they expect to happen here?After you fill it out it takes you to a donation page, because of course it does.The bottom line is that, unless he gets the results he s looking for, he s going to keep crying rigged! If you d like to see what s in it, it can be found here, if you d like to take it for yourself. Repeatedly.Featured image by Sean Rayford via Getty Images | 0 |
22,832 | WHILE OBAMA TRIES TO DISARM AMERICANS, Israeli Ministers Encourage Citizens To Carry To Eliminate Enemy | The destruction of America is in full swing as we pay billions to deliver unchecked Muslims ( refugees ) to the shores of America. Meanwhile, real men in Israel are arming up to defeat the enemy As the number of terrorist attacks continues to grow Israel politicians, on the left and right, are encouraging citizens to carry guns and defeat the Islamist killers.Civilians who shot terrorists are heroes, politicians on right and left say; Deputy Defense Minister: People with guns should be alert and prevent further attacks.op terrorists are heroes, Education Minister Naftali Bennett said Thursday, after several cases in which people shot Arab terrorists stabbing Israelis. Against the cowardly Arab terrorism, a wave of Jewish courage is rising to defeat it, he said, visiting a protest tent in front of the Prime Minister s Residence, in which demonstrators called for more action against terrorism. Bennett said that wherever there is a terrorist, citizens rise to defend their brothers and eliminate the enemy. In the Kirya in Tel Aviv and Kiryat Arba, Petah Tikva and Kiryat Gat, we see great heroism and great friendship. For the past 120 years, people are trying to kill the Jews here. The enemy changes, but we remain here, growing and building our land, he added. We are the eternal nation, and we are raising our heads.Jewish heroism will defeat the enemy. Similarly, Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan, also of Bayit Yehudi, called on any civilians legally carrying a firearm to be alert and prevent another terrorist attack, in an interview with Army Radio.Ben-Dahan also called on the attorney-general to authorize the army to demolish terrorists houses immediately after they attack and not wait a year. Via: JP H/t: Gateway Pundit | 0 |
22,833 | ATHEIST TEACHER Gets 8 Year Old One-Week Suspension For Saying “Merry Christmas” | Bullies come in all different shapes, sizes and professions. It s too bad that this bully is protected by the teacher s union. San Francisco, CA The war on Christmas continues as a simple well-wishing of Merry Christmas has led to big trouble for one third-grade San Francisco girl this week.Samantha Dawson, an 8-year-old student at Westview Elementary School in San Francisco, CA., was in the school cafeteria Tuesday eating with friends when she was taken to the principal s office and given a week-long suspension. Her punishment was consequence for saying Merry Christmas to her homeroom teacher earlier that day.Dawson s teacher, 37-year-old Paul Horner who is an outspoken Atheist, was offended at the students display of Christmas spirit and had staff suspend the young girl for the rest of the week. I say Merry Christmas to everyone, the young girl told CBS News. I didn t think it would cause so much trouble just for saying a couple little words. The girl s mother, Laura Dawson, 41, was fuming over the issue. You don t traumatize a child who loves to go to school, who wanted to be early every day to school, you don t make her cry, just for wishing someone Merry Christmas, she told reporters, holding back tears. You just don t do it. Reporters spoke with Mr. Horner as he was leaving from school yesterday. I warned the children not to bring religion into my classroom, Horner said. Maybe Samantha will listen to adults next time. At the time of this press release, Westview Elementary School officials declined to comment, though this was posted on the school s website: Once again we had to suspend a student, 3rd grader Samantha Dawson, because she said Merry Christmas to her homeroom teacher, who is a proud atheist. CBS News Via: Truth Uncensored | 0 |
22,834 | Connecticut attorney general, others ask Equifax to stop collecting fees | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Connecticut’s attorney general, and others investigating Equifax Inc’s (EFX.N) data breach, which affected some 143 million people, asked the company on Friday to disable links to collect fees for credit monitoring. Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen acknowledged that Equifax has said it would give free credit monitoring to hack victims but asked it to stop collecting money for other credit monitoring. “Selling a fee-based product that competes with Equifax’s own free offer of credit monitoring services to victims of Equifax’s own data breach is unfair, particularly if consumers are not sure if their information was compromised,” he said. | 1 |
22,835 | Trump Completely COLLAPSING In Most Important Republican State | The only state keeping the Republican Party viable at the national level in presidential races is the state of Texas. Texas and its 38 electoral votes help to form the backbone in any Republican quest for the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.Republicans have not lost Texas since 1976, when Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford after Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Whether Republicans have won or lost the overall race, Texas has been blood red (Mitt Romney won by 16% there in 2012).But now with Donald Trump as the Republican nominee, suddenly the race has seriously narrowed in Texas.Donald Trump is still winning in the deep red state, but his advantage has dropped precipitously from double digits to under 5 percent in the last two weeks. The last three polls in the state show him ahead of Hillary Clinton by only 2 points in a Washington Post-SurveyMonkey poll, 3 points in a University of Houston poll and 4 points in a Survey USA/Texas Tenga poll.All of those most recent polls were conducted after the Oct. 7 release of a tape in which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women. Polls conducted in the prior month show the GOP candidate leading by at least 12 and up to 22 points. A couple of earlier polls had signaled the race might be closer than expected, but there hasn t been consistent evidence until now.A Clinton win in Texas isn t required for there to be considered a major ground-shifting development. Even a single-digit Texas loss would be a huge step forward for Democrats there, and a shock to the system for Republicans.The growing Latino population in Texas has consistently raised Democratic hopes that the state could be tipped into their column like it has been in Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico. Democrats are also hoping for success in Arizona, where incumbent Senator John McCain recently denounced Trump for his crude comments with Billy Bush.Things are changing in the southwest, and they might change faster than anyone expected.Featured image via Flickr | 0 |
22,836 | Presidential Lawyer Comes Forward; Says Trump Jr. May Have Committed Treason (VIDEO) | For as smug as he always appears to be, Donald Trump Jr. might want to wipe that entitled grin off his face. Especially when he finds out he may be going to prison.According to the New York Times: President Trump s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign, according to three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it. And now, coming forward is Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer who served under former President George W. Bush, and is telling us that what Trump Jr. has allegedly done borders on treason. Painter said: This was an effort to get opposition research on an opponent in an American political campaign from the Russians, who were known to be engaged in spying inside the United States We do not get our opposition research from spies, we do not collaborate with Russian spies, unless we want to be accused of treason. Adding: If this story is true, we d have one of them if not both of them in custody by now, and we d be asking them a lot of questions This is unacceptable. This borders on treason, if it is not itself treason. The punishment for treason is: Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States. It is absolutely one of the worst crimes, if not the worst crime, one can commit against one s nation. If true, it also shows that Trump s presidential campaign absolutely did collude with Russia in the months leading up to the 2016 election.Here s Painter on MSNBC: Bush 43 WH ethics lawyer on NYT story/Donald Trump Jr. and Kushner meeting with Russian lawyer: This borders on treason via @MSNBC pic.twitter.com/Ceu5xLYgnB Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) July 9, 2017Featured Photo by Getty Images | 0 |
22,837 | Arizona’s Largest Newspaper Breaks 125 Year Tradition, Backs Democrat For President | Since 1890, The Arizona Republic, now the state s largest and most popular newspaper, has seen over 30 presidential elections. And every time, they have endorsed the Republican contender Eisenhower, Nixon, Goldwater, Ford, Reagan, H.W. Bush, Dole, Bush, McCain, and Romney.This year, something changed dramatically for the editorial board they put country over party, and endorsed Hillary Clinton, the Democrat, over Donald Trump, the Republican.Once again, Hillary has broken a glass ceiling.Writing that Hillary Clinton is the only candidate who can lead America forward, the editorial board did not mince words with their hatred for Donald Trump. The 2016 Republican candidate is not conservative and he is not qualified, the board writes just after pointing out that they have a deep admiration for conservative principles.The board also pointed out that Hillary is by no means a conservative (rather a centrist), but in the grand scheme of things, Trump s bombastic, offensive, divisive and racial language is contrary to what America stands for, and this against what they argue to be real conservatism:Trump s conversion to conservatism is recent and unconvincing. There is no guarantee he will name solid conservatives to the Supreme Court Trump s inability to control himself or be controlled by others represents a real threat to our national security. His recent efforts to stay on script are not reassuring. They are phony.Ouch. Not only is Trump a faux conservative in their eyes, he s a con man who s trying to lie his way into the presidency. Luckily, the Arizona Republic sees right through his xenophobic nonsense.While chiding Trump for his bromance with Russia and complete lack of world knowledge and foreign diplomacy, the paper highlights Hillary s ability to take a composed and headstrong approach to the issues facing America abroad:Clinton has argued America s case before friendly and unfriendly foreign leaders with tenacity, diplomacy and skill. She earned respect by knowing the issues, the history and the facts. She is intimately familiar with the challenges we face in our relations with Russia, China, the Middle East, North Korea and elsewhere. She ll stand by our friends and she s not afraid to confront our enemies.Quite possibly the biggest factor in the Republic s decision was Trump s treatment of Mexico and the hardworking, honest people that live there and the immigrants that enrich Arizona culturally, economically and diplomatically.When you I aunt Mexico and its people, you insult Arizona and its people.Trump is learning the hard way that words have consequences, and that decent people and decent entities will stand up to his bully pulpit.That is why the Arizona Republic put people over party and made the right decision.Featured image via Justin Sullivan/Getty Images | 0 |
22,838 | U.S. Justice Department says anti-bias law does not protect gay workers | (In this July 27 story, corrects paragraph 7 to reflect that Zarda died in a BASE-jumping accident, not a skydiving accident) By Daniel Wiessner (Reuters) - The Trump administration told a U.S. appeals court that federal law does not ban discrimination against gay employees, a sharp reversal of the position former President Barack Obama took on a key civil rights issue. The U.S. Department of Justice, in a friend of the court brief, told the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan on Wednesday that Congress never intended Title VII, which bans sex discrimination in the workplace, to apply to gay workers. The department also said the court owed no deference to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal agency that enforces Title VII and has argued since 2012 that the law bans discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The brief came hours after President Donald Trump said he would ban transgender people from serving in the military. That would reverse a 2016 policy adopted by Obama. Justice Department spokesman Devin O’Malley said the brief was consistent with rulings by 10 federal appeals courts and “reaffirms the Department’s fundamental belief that the courts cannot expand the law beyond what Congress has provided.” The department’s brief was in support of New York skydiving company Altitude Express Inc in a lawsuit filed by a former employee, Donald Zarda. Zarda claimed he lost his job as a skydiving instructor after he told a customer he was gay and she complained. He died in a BASE-jumping accident after filing the lawsuit. In April, a three-judge 2nd Circuit panel dismissed Zarda’s case, citing a prior ruling that said discrimination against gay workers is not a form of sex discrimination under Title VII. The full court, which can overturn the prior decision, agreed in May to review the case. The issue could reach the U.S. Supreme Court in a different case brought by a former security guard at a Georgia hospital who claims she was harassed and forced to quit because she is gay. Earlier this month, LGBT rights group Lambda Legal, which represents the former security guard, said it would ask the high court to review the case. On Wednesday, the Justice Department said employers engage in sex discrimination only when they treat male and female workers differently. Objecting to homosexuality does not depend on sex, the department said, but on moral or religious beliefs. “Of course, if an employer fired only gay men but not gay women (or vice versa), that would be prohibited by Title VII,” the department wrote, “but precisely because it would be discrimination based on sex, not sexual orientation.” Zarda’s lawyer, Gregory Antollino, said on Thursday that the department was making the same arguments the Supreme Court rejected in cases involving discrimination against workers in interracial relationships. | 1 |
22,839 | U.S. coal miners applaud Republican axing of stream protections | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The battered U.S. coal industry rejoiced after the Senate voted on Thursday to repeal a rule that limited companies from dumping mining waste in streams, saying the move could halt the sector’s decline. The Senate, approving a resolution passed by the House of Representatives on Wednesday, overturned the Stream Protection Rule as part of a broader move by Republicans to reverse what they see as overregulation by former President Barack Obama’s administration on energy development. The demise of the rule had been expected. The Congressional Review Act allows Congress, controlled by Republicans, to undo rules finalized at the end of a previous administration. “This is one very, very important step to get coal back on its feet and stop the hemorrhaging of jobs that we’ve seen,” said Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Association. The coal industry hopes the move is the first step toward a recovery under President Donald Trump, who has vowed to clear away regulation to support more mining. Coal advocates are hoping his administration will overturn a moratorium the Obama administration placed on new coal leases on federal lands, and scrap regulations on carbon dioxide emissions. The coal waste rule was intended to protect 6,000 miles (9,700 km) of streams and large areas of forests over the next two decades, the Interior Department said when it issued the rule in December. It argued the rule would protect drinking water without undermining the economy or energy supply. The coal industry countered that the rule could have reduced the number of direct mining jobs by 30 percent and made 60 percent of its existing reservoirs uneconomic to produce. Coal companies such as Arch Coal Inc and Peabody Energy Corp - two of the nation’s biggest miners - experienced recent bankruptcies because of a surge in production of natural gas and new regulations curbing carbon dioxide emissions. Stephanie Weiler, a spokeswoman at Peabody Energy said the company was “pleased” by the elimination of the rule and supported “any actions aimed at reining in unnecessary regulations that don’t improve the environment yet harm the economic and jobs landscape.” Arch did not immediately comment. Gary Broadbent, a spokesman for private company Murray Energy, said the rule was an attempt to “destroy our nation’s underground coal mines” and put coal miners out of work. Democratic Senator Edward Markey said the coal industry’s request that Republicans kill the rule amounted to saying: “Please protect us from having to protect the public.” | 1 |
22,840 | Putin and Erdogan to use meeting next week to discuss Syria: agencies | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan will use a meeting in southern Russia next week to discuss the Syria situation and energy cooperation, Russian news agencies cited the Kremlin as saying on Friday. The two men are due to meet in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi on Nov. 13. | 1 |
22,841 | Islamic State claims attack on Damascus police center | BEIRUT (Reuters) - Islamic State claimed responsibility on Wednesday for an attack on the police headquarters in central Damascus, the second such attack this month. A statement on an Islamic State channel on the Telegram messaging service said three fighters carrying explosive belts and machine guns had attacked the police center. | 1 |
22,842 | Mongolian sumo champ apologizes after media reports beer bottle assault on fellow wrestler | TOKYO (Reuters) - Mongolian sumo grand champion Harumafuji on Tuesday apologized for injuring a fellow wrestler who media said suffered a fractured skull after being hit with a beer bottle in the latest scandal to engulf the closed, hierarchical sumo society. Harumafuji, 33, hit Takanoiwa on the head last month at a party of sumo wrestlers from Mongolia, public broadcaster NHK quoted unnamed sources affiliated with the Japan Sumo Association as saying. Takanoiwa, 27, is not taking part in the 15-day tournament that started on Sunday in Fukuoka, western Japan, due to the fracture, concussion and several other injuries, according to the association s Twitter entry. Takanoiwa told the association it would take two weeks for the injuries to heal, NHK and other media said. The association said Harumafuji would sit out the tournament and that it was looking into the matter. As for Takanoiwa s injuries, I apologize deeply for causing trouble for stable master Takanohana, people affiliated with Takanohana stable, the Sumo Association and my stable master, NHK showed Harumafuji telling reporters. He declined to give details of the assault, NHK said. Takanoiwa belongs to a stable led by former grand champion Takanohana. The stable master has already reported the incident to police, Kyodo news agency said. It was not immediately clear if Harumafuji would be charged. No one was available for comment at Harumafuji s or Takanoiwa s stable. In 2010, former stable master Tokitsukaze was sentenced to fives years in prison for instructing seniors to beat up a novice 17-year-old wrestler. The same year, grand champion Asashoryu, also from Mongolia, retired from the ancient sport following a probe into reports of a drunken scuffle in Tokyo. | 1 |
22,843 | Senate intelligence panel seeks more details from White House on Trump-Russia meet: congressional sources | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate intelligence committee has asked the White House for information regarding reports that President Donald Trump gave sensitive intelligence information to Russian government officials, according to Becca Watkins, a spokeswoman for committee chairman Sen. Richard Burr. Congressional investigators are expected to ask for copies of any notes taking during a May 10 meeting between Trump and Russian officials at which intelligence related to recent efforts by militants in Syria to install sophisticated bombs inside laptop computers was discussed, another U.S. official said. | 1 |
22,844 | GERMAN LEFTIST USES NUDITY ON FACEBOOK To Fight Back Against “Right-Wing” News Outlets Exposing Truth About Muslim “Refugees” | ***Warning*** Image is not appropriate for all ages.How very progressive A German photographer has started a campaign to have right wing propaganda censored on Facebook, but pornographic images of women allowed. He s calling it nipples instead of incitement. Photographer Olli Waldhauer kicked off his campaign by posting an image on Facebook of a topless woman stood beside a man holding a placard with racist slogan written on it. One of these people is against the rules of Facebook, reads the slogan on the image.Moderators deleted the image after 21 minutes. Good people, I had to change my profile. Facebook did not come clear with the amount of friend requests. Thank you for your feedback and support, wrote Mr Waldhauer on his page afterwards. What madness from a small image can be everything. Thank you all! Always remember #nippleinsteadbaiting! he added later.Mr Waldhauer is now encouraging his follower to download the image and post it on their own pages, in the hope of pressuring Facebook moderators in the spirit of the #freethenipple campaign.The #freethenipple campaign aims to end the discriminatory banning of female breasts on social media, and so stop men finding breasts attractive by exposing them more often (according to their logic).From his social media profile, Mr Waldhauer appears to be strongly in favor of mass migration, and has previous started a campaign labeled #iamnotaterrorist to challenge animosity towards migrants from the Middle East.Perhaps Mr. Waldhauer s time and effort would be better spent focusing on the Muslim caliphate taking place in his country and not on those trying to spread the truth about these refugees. His dream of censoring political debate on Facebook is less outlandish. In September German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she wanted more Facebook to filtering hateful and racial posts. Journalists overheard the comments as she conversed with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at a UN summit. Via: Breitbart | 0 |
22,845 | BOYCOTT BACKFIRES! Ivanka Trump Clothing Line Reports Record Sales | Ivanka Trump s eponymous women s fashion line is reporting record sales figures despite calls for a boycott and controversies surrounding President Trump. Since the beginning of February, they were some of the best performing weeks in the history of the brand, Abigail Klem, the president of the Ivanka Trump fashion brand, tells Refinery29 in an interview published Tuesday. For several different retailers Ivanka Trump was a top performer online, and in some of the categories it was the [brand s] best performance ever. The news of a sales surge comes after Nordstrom announced in early February that it would no longer carry the 35-year-old s clothing and accessories, citing poor product sales. The move caused President Trump to tweet shortly after the announcement that his daughter was being treated so unfairly by the luxury department store giant.Also last month, Neiman Marcus stopped carrying the first daughter s jewelry line on its website, and employees of T.J. Maxx and Marshalls stores were instructed to throw away any signage advertising her wares. The Office of Government Ethics recommended disciplinary action against White House adviser Kellyanne Conway after she urged viewers to go buy Ivanka s stuff during a February interview on Fox & Friends. A campaign called Grab Your Wallet, which is critical of the Trump administration, asked shoppers to boycott retailers with any Ivanka or Donald Trump-branded products.According to the e-commerce aggregator Lyst, from January to February, Ivanka Trump sales increased 346 percent, Refinery29 writes.Read more: The Hill | 0 |
22,846 | “KILL YOUR A$$”: Florida Lefty Threatens GOP Congressman…Gets A Dose Of Karma! | Only two weeks after U.S. congressman Steve Scalise and four others were shot during a baseball practice in a Washington suburb by a man with a history of lashing out at Republicans, a Florida lawmaker decided he wasn t taking any chances. After someone threatened his life on a Facebook page, state Rep. Jose Felix Diaz, R-Miami, told police. HADN T TAKEN HIS MEDS And on Monday, Northwest Miami-Dade resident Steve St. Felix, 34, was arrested and charged with written threats with intent to do bodily injury. Police said St. Felix was fed up with the Republican Party and that he hadn t taken his meds when he posted the threat. It s unclear what condition the medications were treating.The threat I ll kill your ass and you better not show up to the next REC meeting was quickly removed from the Facebook page, police said. It appeared to refer to the Republican Executive Committee, the name of the local Miami-Dade County GOP.RECENT THREATS AND THE SHOOTING OF SCALISE CALL ATTENTION TO THREATS:On June 14, Steve Scalise, the U.S. House Republican whip, was badly injured during an early morning shootout in Alexandria, Virginia, as a group of Republicans practiced for their annual baseball game against Democrats.Two members of Scalise s Capitol Police security detail, a congressional aide and a lobbyist were also shot and injured. The shooter, James T. Hodgkinson, a 66-year-old from a Belleville, Ill., a suburb outside St. Louis, was shot and killed.Two members of Scalise s baseball squad said they spoke with Hodgkinson before the practice and that he asked them what party they were affiliated with.Read more: Miami HeraldThe interesting thing is that Facebook just hired thousands to delete hate speech Facebook hires thousands to launch crackdown on hate speech Facebook s statement: Our current definition of hate speech is anything that directly attacks people based on what are known as their protected characteristics race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, sex, gender, gender identity, or serious disability or disease, said Richard Allan, Facebook vice president of public policy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa said in the blog post. There is no universally accepted answer for when something crosses the line. Although a number of countries have laws against hate speech, their definitions of it vary significantly. This could get really interesting with Facebook being called out for NOT catching things like the incident above but deleting a harmless conservative post. Censorship is getting even worse at Facebook. | 0 |
22,847 | CAUGHT ON VIDEO: DELTA PILOT Smacks Fighting Woman During Deplaning In Atlanta [Video] | A video of two women fighting in the jetway and a Delta pilot smacking one of them was turned over to Delta management. They say they are taking the pilot s action very seriously Please watch the video below and tell us what you think about this LANGUAGE ALERT ON THIS ONE!A Delta Air Lines pilot smacked a passenger who was fighting with another passenger at the Atlanta airport and it was caught on video.We re told the incident went down sometime on April 21. The plane had just landed and the passengers were leaving the jetway when 2 women started fighting.The pilot appears and tries separating the women. He then grabs one of them by the arm and hits her. The pilot walks away as the women are still on the ground.LANGUAGE ALERT!A CLOSE UP OF THE FIGHT:A representative for Delta Air Lines made a statement regarding a pilot striking a passenger who was fighting with another passenger during deplaning in Atlanta, Georgia: We became aware of this incident and a video last week and immediately removed the pilot from duty while we completed a thorough investigation. Local law enforcement was called to respond at the time of the incident. The pilot has since been returned to work as our investigation found that his actions deescalated an altercation between passengers on the jetway floor during deplaning. We re told the women in the vid had gotten into a skirmish earlier, on the airplane, and they knew each other. They were eventually escorted away by a Delta employee, and as they were walking away, cops showed up. We re told neither of the women wanted to press charges against anyone.Read more: TMZ | 0 |
22,848 | U.S. House Intelligence chairman questions leaks behind Flynn resignation: CNN | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee said he is concerned about leaks regarding Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, and his contacts with Russia that promoted Flynn’s resignation, CNN reported on Tuesday. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes told reporters that he wants to look into the leaks regarding Flynn and his December call with the Russian ambassador to the United States before Trump took office, according to CNN. | 1 |
22,849 | WATCH: Kellyanne Conway Loses Her Sh*t On Fox News, Demands Media Fire All Trump Critics | This is what it looks like when the Wicked Witch throws a temper tantrum.In addition to calling the worldwide chaos a small price to pay to keep America safe, Conway went on a long rant against the media on Sunday during an interview with Fox News host Chris Wallace, who let Trump s adviser hang herself rather than save her from humiliating herself.Conway whined about media criticism of Trump and demanded that people who criticize Trump be fired. Who is cleaning house? Which one is going to be the first network to get rid of these people, the people who think things were just not true, it happened last week. Talk about alternative facts. I went on three network shows and spoke for 35 minutes on three network Sunday shows. You know what got picked? The fact that I said alternative facts, not the fact that I ripped a new one to some of those hosts that they never cover the facts that matter. The 16.1 million women in poverty, the 12.4 million who have no health insurance. Everyone should be outraged Of course, Conway conveniently ignored that by repealing the Affordable Care Act her boss is stripping healthcare away from 30 million Americans and will cause millions of Americans to fall into poverty. But she doesn t seem to have a problem with that at all.Oh, but that wasn t the end of her rant. Conway continued to bitch about headlines and demanded that people be fired.We have all the headlines someone should be embarrassed.Not one network person has been let go. Not one silly political analyst and pundit who talked smack all day long about Donald Trump has been let go. They are panels every Sunday, they are on cable news every day.Who is the first editorial writer? Who is the first blogger that will be left out, that embarrassed him at outlets. We know their names. I m too polite to mention their names, but they know who they are, and they are all wondering who will be the first to go. The election was three months ago. None of them have been let go.If the mainstream media were a thriving private sector business that actually turned a profit, which is not true of many newspapers, 20% of the people would be gone. They embarrassed, they failed to protect their shareholders and the board members and their colleagues.And yet we deal with him every single day. We turn the other cheek. If you are part of team Trump, you walk around with these gaping, seeping wounds every day, that s fine. I m here every Sunday morning. I haven t slept in in a month.Conway literally attacked the free press for reporting accurately on Trump and the things he has been doing since taking office. And considering all those horrible things it s a wonder that Conway is able to actually sleep at night at all.Here s the video via Real Clear Politics.Reporters should not be fired for doing their jobs. Conway and Trump want to force the press to say nothing but good things about them. The problem is that Trump has done nothing but destroy America and ignore American values. Demanding that the media fire Trump critics is the same as demanding censorship and demanding that the media lie for you. That should not happen in a nation where the free press is guaranteed by the Constitution.Featured image via screenshot | 0 |
22,850 | Texas Planned Parenthood asks judge to block Medicaid funding cut | AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The leaders of Texas Planned Parenthood asked a federal judge on Tuesday to block the state’s bid to halt Medicaid funding for the healthcare group, which has long been targeted by Republicans for providing abortions. Planned Parenthood has said the threatened funding cut, by terminating Planned Parenthood’s enrollment in the state-funded healthcare system for the poor, could affect nearly 11,000 patients across Texas. It is seeking an injunction from Judge Sam Sparks in federal court in Austin to stop the cutoff, part of a protracted legal and political fight. Texas and several other Republican-controlled states have pushed to cut the organization’s funding since an anti-abortion group released videos it said showed Planned Parenthood officials negotiating prices for fetal tissue collected from abortions. The defunding efforts could gain traction now that Republicans, who already control the U.S. House and Senate, are expanding their powers with this week’s inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump. Ken Lambrecht, chief executive of Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas and a plaintiff, testified his group does not participate in fetal tissue donation for medical research. Planned Parenthood has denied wrongdoing nationally, saying the videos were heavily edited and misleading. The Medicaid cut was “unconscionable,” Lambrecht testified, adding it would make it more difficult for some of the state’s poorest people to access services his affiliate provides, such as cancer screenings and HIV testing. Texas has said other medical facilities could provide similar services as Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood affiliates across Texas received about $4.2 million in Medicaid funding during the 2015 fiscal year, the state’s Health and Human Services Commission said. None of that money went to abortions, plaintiffs in the lawsuit against Texas and the Medicaid defunding plan have said. Sparks said he does not see the videos as a central to the hearing, which opened Tuesday and is scheduled to run through Thursday. He called on the state to present evidence to back up its allegations that Planned Parenthood violated the law. Texas investigated Planned Parenthood over the videos and a grand jury last January cleared it of any wrongdoing. The grand jury indicted two people who made the videos for document fraud but the charges were later dismissed. The state took no further criminal action against Planned Parenthood after that but has repeated its accusations that the abortion provider may have violated state law. Planned Parenthood gets about $500 million annually in federal funds across the United States, largely in reimbursements through Medicaid. | 1 |
22,851 | MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD AFFILIATE INVITED To Obama’s State Of The Union…Will This Terror Group Also Be Invited? | So in an effort to reach out to Muslims living in America, we need to invite groups that are tied to terrorists? Why stop at groups like CAIR? Why not invite ISIS? Perhaps we missed it, but we haven t seen the list of prominent Christian leaders invited to Obama s SOTU, who will represent the worldwide mass persecution of Christians As many as 25 House Democrats are expected to have Muslim guests during Tuesday night s State of the Union speech. It s in response to a call from Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim voted into Congress, to counter an alarming rise in hateful rhetoric against Muslim Americans and people of the Islamic faith worldwide. The gesture might not generate much more than a shrug, except that in at least two cases, Democrats invited officials from a group the FBI formally avoids due to historic ties to a Hamas support network.Delray Beach Rep. Alcee Hastings invited Nezar Hamze, regional operations director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Florida. And San Jose, Cal. Rep. Zoe Lofgren invited Sameena Usman, a 10-year veteran government relations official with CAIR s San Francisco chapter, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has learned.CAIR officials routinely accuse federal law enforcement of entrapping otherwise innocent and peaceful Muslims in order to gin up terrorism prosecutions. Hamze s colleagues in CAIR-Florida are helping a family sue the FBI over the 2013 fatal shooting of a terror suspect who attacked agents after extensive questioning. Usman s office published a notorious poster urging Muslims to Build a Wall of Resistance [and] Don t Talk to the FBI. For its part, the FBI cut off contact with CAIR, except in investigations, in 2008 based on evidence its agents uncovered which placed CAIR in a Hamas-support network in the United States. Until it can be shown that those connections no longer exist, an FBI official explained in 2009, CAIR is not an appropriate liaison partner. In addition, several CAIR officials have compared Israel to ISIS.Calls to press contacts in Lofgren and Hastings offices were not returned Monday.Last month, the IPT provided exclusive details from eyewitness accounts about CAIR s creation, including an account of how a co-founder sought approval from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood for CAIR s bylaws, and how Executive Director Nihad Awad s move to Washington was in order to represent Hamas. Hastings and Lofgren either failed to check out their guests employer or they don t care. These connections have nothing to do with the faith of CAIR officials. But the organization has a record that elected officials stubbornly insist should be ignored. Unfortunately, this is part of a pattern of outreach House Democrats seek out with the wrong people. Last month, CAIR-Florida s Hassan Shibly was invited to the White House for a discussion about religious discrimination. Then, as with the State of the Union speech, no one from the new Muslim Reform Movement which issued a declaration clearly rejecting interpretations of Islam that call for any violence, social injustice and politicized Islam and standing for peace, human rights and secular governance. Via: Family Security Matters | 0 |
22,852 | Hawaii issues first challenge to Trump's new travel ban | (Reuters) - The state of Hawaii requested emergency court intervention on Wednesday to halt a revised executive order from President Donald Trump placing U.S. entry restrictions on refugees and travelers from six Muslim-majority countries. Arguing that the new travel ban violates the U.S. Constitution, the state asked a Hawaii federal court to grant a temporary restraining order that should apply nationally. U.S. District Court Judge Derrick Watson ruled earlier in the day that the state could sue over Trump’s new order, which was signed by the president on Monday. It is the first legal challenge to the revised order. Watson said the state could revise its initial lawsuit, which had challenged Trump’s original ban signed in January. A hearing is set for March 15, a day before the new ban is to go into effect. The government has said the president has wide authority to implement immigration policy and that the travel rules are necessary to protect against terrorist attacks. Some legal experts have said court challenges will be more difficult now because changes to the order give exemptions to more people. The revised travel order changed and replaced the original, more sweeping ban issued on Jan. 27 that caused chaos and protests at airports and was challenged in more than two dozen lawsuits around the country. A federal judge in Seattle put the first order on hold, in a decision upheld by an appeals court in San Francisco. The new order is much more narrowly tailored. It keeps a 90-day ban on travel to the United States by citizens of Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, but excludes Iraq and applies the restriction only to new visa applicants. It also removed an indefinite ban on all refugees from Syria. The order no longer covers legal residents or existing visa holders, and makes waivers possible for some business, diplomatic and other travelers. Immigration advocates have said the new ban, like the original one, discriminates against Muslims. But the first hurdle in a lawsuit is proving “standing” to sue, which means finding someone who has been harmed by the policy. With so many exemptions, legal experts have said it might be hard to find individuals that a court would rule have a right to sue. Hawaii claims its state universities would be harmed by the order because they would have trouble recruiting students and faculty. It also says the island state’s economy would be hit by a decline in tourism. The court papers cite reports that travel to the United States “took a nosedive” after Trump’s actions. The state was joined by a new plaintiff named Ismail Elshikh, an American citizen from Egypt who is an Imam at the Muslim Association of Hawaii whose mother-in-law lives in Syria, according to the lawsuit. “This second Executive Order is infected with the same legal problems as the first Order,” the state said in court papers filed on Tuesday. The President’s order “is subjecting a portion of Hawaii’s population, including Dr. Elshikh, his family, and members of his Mosque, to discrimination and second-class treatment,” Hawaii said. The lawsuit says that Elshikh fears his mother-in-law will not be able to enter the country under the new order. “The family is devastated,” the filing said. One of the groups eligible for waivers under the new ban are those seeking to visit or live with a close relative and who would face hardship if denied entry. Adam Lauridsen, a San Francisco attorney representing students challenging Trump’s first order, said the waiver provisions in the new ban are similar to case-by-case exemptions allowed in the first ban. Earlier legal challenges were allowed to move forward despite those waivers, he said. In support of its actions, the Trump administration has cited a section of law that says the president can suspend entry to the United States by “any class” of foreigners if he finds it would be “detrimental to the interests” of the country. | 1 |
22,853 | PATRIOT AT TRUMP RALLY Shuts Down Leftist Protester [Video] | The left has had control and the narrative for waaaay too long. Here s a patriot who s 100% FED Up! | 0 |
22,854 | Australians protest against unfolding 'emergency' in offshore detention camp | SYDNEY (Reuters) - More than 1,000 people protested in Australia on Saturday against the treatment of hundreds of asylum seekers in an offshore detention center that the United Nations has described as an unfolding humanitarian emergency . About 600 men have barricaded themselves inside the camp on remote Manus island in Papua New Guinea, defying efforts by Australia and PNG to shut it. Food, running water and medical services were cut off by Australia four days ago. Australian authorities want the men moved to a transit center elsewhere on the island at the start of a process the asylum seekers fear will result in them being resettled in PNG or another developing nation. The men also fear violent reprisals from the local community. These people have committed no crime other than to do what every single one of us would do if we thought our lives, or our family s lives, were at risk, Federal Greens lawmaker Adam Bandt told the crowd in Melbourne, Australia s second-largest city. Another smaller protest was staged in Sydney. The Manus island center, and one on the tiny Pacific island of Nauru, have been key parts of Australia s disputed Sovereign Borders immigration policy, under which it refuses to allow asylum seekers arriving by boat to reach its shores. Australia s offshore detention policies have been heavily criticized by the United Nations and human rights groups but are backed the center-right government and the Labor opposition. U.N. rights spokesman Rupert Colville told a news conference in Geneva on Friday about the unfolding humanitarian emergency in the Manus island center, where asylum seekers have been reported digging wells to try to find water. The Australian government has not responded to Colville s comments. It frequently does not comment on issues concerning the offshore centers, citing operational reasons. The relocation of the men is designed as a temporary measure, allowing the United States time to complete vetting of asylum seekers as part of a refugee swap deal, agreed on last year, under which Australia will accept refugees from Central America. Labor leader Bill Shorten has called on Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to consider New Zealand s offer to take 150 refugees from the camps on Manus and Nauru. | 1 |
22,855 | Thailand prepares to bid farewell to 'the people's king' | BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand is putting the finishing touches this month to a lavish five-day funeral ceremony in a final goodbye to its late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who helped shape the Southeast Asian nation for decades after World War Two. Many of the hundreds of thousands of black-clad mourners are expected to camp for days near Bangkok s Grand Palace to capture a good view of the ceremonies, which will be guarded by 78,000 police officers and culminate in the cremation on Oct. 26. October is a sad period, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who announced plans for a national election next year, told reporters in the capital on Tuesday. I ask that politicians and political parties be peaceful and orderly. Artisans have worked for ten months in Bangkok s ancient quarter to build an elaborate cremation site fashioned after a vision of heaven, where Thais believe dead royals return to live above Mount Meru, a golden mountain in Hindu mythology. The funeral of King Bhumibol, who died on Oct. 13 last year after seven decades on the throne, is also a time of uncertainty for some Thais, said a Thailand-based analyst, who declined to be identified because of sensitivities around the monarchy. In many ways the king was Thailand and his death has left a huge vacuum in the Thai psyche, said the analyst, pointing to social and political upheavals in recent decades. What happens after his funeral? Where will Thailand head next? These are profound questions that must be answered. The late king was succeeded by his son, King Maha Vajiralongkorn, or Rama X, who has overseen sweeping changes to the royal household, including the running of palace finances. Though steeped in ancient traditions, the funeral of King Bhumibol will permit more public participation than those of previous kings, said Thai monarchy expert Tongthong Chandransu. A strong bond has been formed between the people and the monarchy the strongest compared to past reigns, Tongthong told Reuters. So we can see more people participation in the royal funeral of this king. Among the many royal objects restored for the funeral is a golden chariot that will carry the king s body in a giant ornate urn to the cremation site. The urn will move to the Royal Crematorium before the cremation on the night of Oct. 26, which has been declared a national holiday. More than 3,000 performers will join in a nightlong final tribute of music and puppet shows to end a year of mourning. Thais devoted to the memory of the king have folded paper flowers for his cremation, making 10 million in Bangkok alone, city authorities said. This is our Mandela , or our Princess Diana , moment, said graphic designer and self-proclaimed royalist Apichai Klapiput. What the world will see is rivers of tears that show how much Thais love King Bhumibol Adulyadej. He was the people s king. | 1 |
22,856 | U.S. FCC chief unveils plan to scrap Obama-era internet rules | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The head of the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday released a 58-page draft plan to reverse the landmark 2015 “net neutrality” order and disclosed the agency may withdraw “bright line” rules barring internet companies from blocking, throttling or giving “fast lanes” to some websites. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, named by Trump in January, disclosed his intent Wednesday to repeal the Obama era rules that reclassified internet service and tightly regulated providers as if they were utilities. The FCC also plans to scrap the 2015 internet conduct standard and an ombudsman position created to hear complaints of net neutrality violations. The plan asks if network disclosure requirements should remain in force for internet providers. Pai’s plan faces an initial May 18 vote. He wants public comment on whether the FCC should keep its “bright line” rules, and said his decision on the rules would depend partly on the comments the agency receives. Websites such as Facebook Inc (FB.O), Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) and others back the rules, saying they guarantee equal access to the internet. Internet service providers such as AT&T Inc (T.N), Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N) and Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O) oppose the Obama order, saying they made it harder to manage internet traffic and discouraged investment in improving access. FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Federal Trade Commissioner Terrell McSweeny opposed Pai’s plan, saying it “would allow broadband providers to erect barriers or charge tolls to any application, connected device, or website that the broadband providers’ customers want to reach. It would allow broadband providers to favor their own content over others, and pick winners and losers on the internet.” Pai said the 2015 open internet rules were unnecessary because large internet providers did not block websites before they were imposed. “We were not living in some digital dystopia before the partisan imposition of a massive plan hatched in Washington saved all of us,” Pai said Wednesday. The FCC proposal seeks comment “on whether a codified no-blocking rule is needed to protect such freedoms.” The order also asks whether a legal bar on throttling “is still necessary, particularly for smaller providers.” The proposal also questions the ban on “paid prioritization” that the proposal argues was adopted to “address an apparently nonexistent problem.” AT&T said the question “is not whether the internet will remain open - it undoubtedly will. The question is how, as a country, we will regulate the internet ecosystem.” | 1 |
22,857 | Senate confirms Trump intelligence nominee, security adviser | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to confirm former Republican senator Dan Coats to be President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence and to approve Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster’s transfer to become his national security adviser. The vote was 85-12 to confirm Coats, who also served as ambassador to Germany under former President George W. Bush. Fifty-one votes were required for confirmation. The only Republican who voted against Coats was Senator Rand Paul, one of the Senate’s leading privacy advocates, as are several of the Democrats who also voted against Coats. Democratic Senator Ron Wyden had said he would object to Coats’ nomination because he felt the office of the Director of National Intelligence had not provided the committee with enough information about how many Americans’ communication records had been subjected to government surveillance. McMaster was approved as Trump’s second national security adviser in an 86-10 vote. No Republican senator voted against him. McMaster had faced some opposition from Democratic senators who cited concerns about his past decision to allow two service members accused of assault to advance their careers while the case against them was open, in violation of Army regulations. The Senate does not normally approve a president’s national security adviser but McMaster’s reappointment to his new position had to be considered by the Senate because he is an active-duty military officer. McMaster, 54, who is known for speaking his mind and challenging his superiors, replaces retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, who was fired as national security adviser on Feb. 13 after reports emerged that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about speaking to Russia’s ambassador to the United States about U.S. sanctions before Trump took office. Coats, 73, replaces James Clapper, who retired as President Barack Obama left office in January. Coats was a member of the Senate’s intelligence committee until he retired from the Senate at the end of last year. He pledged during his confirmation hearing on Feb. 28 to support a thorough investigation of any Russian effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. | 1 |
22,858 | Hopes fade for 8 Russians missing in Arctic helicopter accident | OSLO (Reuters) - Hopes of finding survivors from a Russian helicopter which disappeared off the coast of the Arctic Svalbard archipelago faded on Friday as Norwegian rescuers searched in vain for a second day in ice-cold waters. Eight Russian men - five crew and three passengers - were listed as missing by Norway s rescue coordination center, while the location of the Russian-made Mil Mi-8 aircraft remained unknown more than 24 hours after it disappeared. The helicopter was on its way from the abandoned Pyramiden settlement to the coal mining port of Barentsburg where the Russian coal company Arktikugol runs a mine employing Russian and Ukrainian miners. The assumption is that the helicopter has crashed during the approach two kms north of Kapp Heer, the Accident Investigation Board said in a statement, referring to the local helicopter base. Snowy weather and high waves were complicating efforts in a region that has almost no daylight at this time of the year, while the air temperature was around minus three degrees Celsius (27 degrees Farenheit). A search using a small, remotely-operated submarine, yielded no sign of the helicopter, the rescue coordinators said, dashing earlier hopes that a submerged wreckage had been located. A somewhat bigger submarine will be flown in and is expected to be operational on Saturday, the rescue center said. We re still conducting a search and rescue operation. We ve not moved to a recovery phase, and won t do so until the new submarine has completed its search a spokesman for the Norwegian coordinator said. Located around 700 kms (435 miles) north of the European mainland, Svalbard is governed under a treaty that grants NATO-member Norway sovereignty while allowing other signatories to do business and exploit natural resources. More than 40 countries are parties to the treaty. Moscow has maintained a presence on the islands for decades as a strategic foothold in the high north. | 1 |
22,859 | Senate Democrats ask Trump attorney general pick to recuse himself from Russia probes | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nine Democratic senators asked President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be U.S. attorney general, Senator Jeff Sessions, on Tuesday to recuse himself from any FBI or Justice Department investigation into Russia’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election. The request was signed by every Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the panel responsible for confirming Sessions’ appointment. It comes amid growing concern in the U.S. Congress about what U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded was hacking and other actions by Russia during the election campaign aimed at tilting the November vote in Trump’s favor, and about potential personal or financial connections between Trump associates and Moscow. The letter also asked Sessions, who as attorney general would be the country’s top law enforcement official and head of the Justice Department, to commit to not shutting down any investigation into Russia’s activities. FBI Director James Comey last week declined to comment on whether or not the FBI might be investigating links between Russia and associates of Trump. The president-elect frequently called during the campaign for improved relations between Washington and Moscow. A spokesman for Sessions, who is expected to be confirmed in the job by the Republican-controlled Congress, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the letter. On Friday the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee said their panel would investigate allegations Russia used cyber attacks to influence the U.S. presidential election, including any links between Russia and the political campaigns. Classified documents that the heads of four U.S. intelligence agencies presented earlier this month to Trump included unsubstantiated information compiled by a private security firm suggesting Moscow had compromising personal and financial details about Trump. Trump has called the dossier that contains salacious claims about him in Russia “fake news” and “phony stuff.” The Senate Judiciary Committee held a confirmation hearing last Tuesday for Sessions, a Republican and early backer of Trump’s candidacy. He declined to comment on news reports that emerged late in the hearing about the dossier, saying he had no information about the matter at that time. “We understand that you may have been unaware of this news report at the time, which is why we would like to give you another opportunity to respond,” the senators wrote. During his testimony, Sessions said he would recuse himself from investigations involving Trump’s rival for the White House, Democrat Hillary Clinton, saying comments he made during the campaign about her email practices and charitable foundation would cloud the perception of impartiality at the Justice Department. He said he would instead favor a special prosecutor to carry out any future Clinton probes. | 1 |
22,860 | After Alabama upset, Democrats see new prospects in U.S. South | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The solidly Republican South suddenly looks a little less solid. Tuesday’s upset win by Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama, coupled with last month’s Democratic sweep in Virginia, has given the party new optimism about its 2018 prospects in the South and other conservative, heavily rural regions where Republicans have dominated for decades. Jones, a former federal prosecutor, took advantage of the controversy over sexual misconduct allegations against his Republican opponent Roy Moore to become the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate in Alabama in a quarter-century. The Jones campaign also offered a template for how Democrats can win in the South, strategists said: Field a strong candidate, crank up turnout among the region’s sizable bloc of African-American voters, keep the liberal national party brand at arm’s length and compete hard in every county and region. Add in the grass-roots energy of the liberal resistance to President Donald Trump, the disaffection of moderate suburbanites turned off by Trump and a conservative wing sapped of enthusiasm by Republican infighting, and Democrats see an opportunity for a brighter future in the South starting in next year’s midterm elections. “You can hear that Republican wall in the South cracking. Doug Jones and Virginia are just the beginning,” said Phil Noble, a Democratic business and technology consultant who is running for governor in South Carolina. Republicans are not convinced, citing years of still unrealized Democratic predictions that demographic changes would turn Republican-dominated conservative states like Georgia and Texas into toss-ups. “Democrats still have issues with their brand in large swaths of the country. They are the party of Nancy Pelosi, and that image is cemented in many voters’ minds,” said Brian Walsh, a former strategist for the Republican party’s Senate campaign committee, referring to the House of Representatives Democratic leader, a liberal from San Francisco. In the fight for control of Congress next year, wins on once hostile Southern turf could be crucial to the Democratic cause. In the Senate, where Republicans’ already narrow majority will be shaved to 51-49 once Jones is seated, Democrats will have to defend 26 seats, including 10 in states won by Trump. They would need to pick up two more Republican-held states to reclaim control. Nevada and Arizona had been viewed as the only Republican-held seats vulnerable to a takeover next year. But Democrats now see possibilities in Tennessee, where popular former Democratic Governor Phil Bredesen has jumped into the race for the seat of retiring Republican Bob Corker, and Mississippi, where incumbent Republican Roger Wicker could face a bruising primary challenge. In the House of Representatives, Democrats need to gain 24 seats to win a majority. Their target list of 91 districts includes one each in Alabama, Arkansas and Kentucky, two in Georgia and four in North Carolina. “If the election were held today, I do think you could see Democrats winning in some areas of the country where Democrats haven’t won in the last decade,” said Zac McCrary, a Democratic pollster based in Alabama. In addition to the congressional races, governors’ contests in Georgia and South Carolina and state legislative races across the region will give Democrats a shot to compete in areas where they once dominated local politics but are now a minority party defined by liberal views on cultural issues such as abortion and gay rights. McCrary said Jones and Democrat John Bel Edwards, who won the Louisiana governor’s office in 2015, have shown it is possible to build a winning coalition in the South by energizing African-American voters while also appealing to white swing voters, soft Republicans and independents. In Alabama, Jones made inroads with voters in Shelby County, the Republican suburbs of the state’s biggest city, Birmingham, outpolling the results of Hillary Clinton there in last year’s presidential election by about 20 percentage points. That should be a warning sign to Republicans after Trump’s weak performance in wealthier, more educated suburban districts in 2016 and Democrat Jon Ossoff’s strong, though ultimately losing bid in a special election earlier this year for a congressional seat in a suburban Atlanta district that has been long held by Republicans, said David Hughes, a professor at Auburn University-Montgomery in Alabama. “If Democrats want to get out of the ditch they are in in Alabama and the South, they will do it in the suburbs,” said Hughes, an expert on Southern politics and judicial elections. In the nine states that form the political backbone of the Republican-dominated South - Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and South and North Carolina - Republicans will hold 17 of the 18 Senate seats once Jones takes office as well as 56 of the 70 House seats. Democratic Party Chairman Tom Perez acknowledged on Wednesday that the national party kept a low profile in Alabama even as it pumped money into turnout efforts targeting blacks and young voters because it knew that publicity about its involvement would not help Jones. But Perez said the victory showed that the party, which has launched a 50-state organizing effort aimed at electing candidates at the local and state levels, can compete in the South and elsewhere. “We can win in every zip code in America,” Perez told reporters. Democrats in Alabama said the party can start by learning lessons from Jones, who campaigned in every corner of the state and portrayed himself as a bridge builder who would listen to voters’ concerns and work across the aisle to help Alabama. “This is what we need to be doing more of, and not just at election time,” Thomas Jackson, a black Alabama state representative, said at a fish fry attended by Jones in rural Alabama last month. “We can get a lot accomplished if we just sit down and talk with people more.” | 1 |
22,861 | Belarus KGB says Ukrainian journalist set up spy ring in Minsk | MINSK (Reuters) - Belarus s KGB state security service said on Monday it had uncovered a spy ring working for the Ukrainian defence ministry that had been set up by a detained Ukrainian radio correspondent. Minsk-based journalist Pavlo Sharoyko was arrested in October and charged with being an undercover intelligence officer, KGB spokesman Dmitry Pobyarzhin said in a briefing. In Belarus, Sharoyko built a network of agents made up of Belarussian citizens, who carried out his assignments for monetary compensation, Pobyarzhin said. An adviser to the embassy in Minsk, Ukrainian Ihor Skvortsov, has been declared persona non grata - banned from the country - as he is believed to be Sharoyko s handler, Pobyarzhin said. The Ukrainian defence ministry denied the allegations against Sharoyko who it said had worked as a spokesman for the ministry before switching to journalism in 2009. The information contained in the (KGB) statement is not true, it said. The Ukrainian foreign ministry declined immediate comment. Sharoyko and Skvortsov could not be reached for comment. The case could put further pressure on relations between Minsk and Kiev that were tested earlier this year when Belarus hosted large-scale joint military exercises with Russia. September s Zapad-2017 ( West-2017 ) war games unnerved Ukraine and NATO member states on Europe s eastern flank, which feared the exercises could be a rehearsal or cover for a real offensive. | 1 |
22,862 | LEFT GOES NUTS: Chemist From DC Wins Miss USA Title After Saying Health Care Is A “Privilege” And Not A “Right” [VIDEO] | The District of Columbia has won back-to-back Miss USA titles.Kara McCullough, a 25-year-old chemist working for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, was crowned Sunday at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center on the Las Vegas Strip. She will go on to compete on the Miss Universe contest.The runner-up was Miss New Jersey Chhavi Verg, a student at Rutgers University studying marketing and Spanish. The second runner-up was Miss Minnesota Meridith Gould, who is studying apparel retail merchandising at the University of Minnesota.Fifty-one women representing each state and the nation s capital participated in the decades-old competition.McCullough was born in Naples, Italy, and raised in Virginia Beach, Virginia. She said she wants to inspire children to pursue careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.Last year, District of Columbia resident Deshauna Barber became the first-ever military member to win Miss USA.The top five finalists where asked different questions that touched on the pros and cons of social media, women s rights and issues affecting teenagers. McCullough was asked whether she thinks that affordable health care for all U.S. citizens is a right or a privilege. McCullough said it is a privilege.Later in the competition, the McCullough, Verg and Gould were asked to explain what they consider feminism to be and whether they consider themselves feminists. Miss District of Columbia said she likes to transpose the word feminism to equalism. Watch: ABC Newshttps://youtu.be/muS063iEnIkMany Americans were cheering her response on Twitter:Miss USA is a wonderful role model! Leave it to the nasty, sneering left to attack her b/c she doesn't fit their narrative. @foxandfriends pic.twitter.com/CFmVdivTke Kristin Tate (@KristinBTate) May 15, 2017https://twitter.com/TEN_GOP/status/864121879837241345But many on the left were not as happy with the newly crowned Miss USA Kara McCullough.This Twitter user tells McCullough she doesn t deserve Miss USA 2017 title because she s not towing the liberal line:#MissUSAHealthcare = privilege! loose a job ,ok to die bcs you don't deserve helpYou dont deserve Miss USA 2017! Homes by Sylva (@sylvalisko) May 15, 2017TwitterThis Twitter user thought the results were rigged and should be decided by a democracy LOL!Retweet if you think #MissUSA was rigged!!!!! OMG shouldn't MISS USA be decided by a democracy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/TJXp0U5Yl4 Sarah Lauren (@sarahmlauren) May 15, 2017When McCullough said she d like to replace feminism with equality the triggered left immediately turned that comment into a negative, insisting that she doesn t believe in equality for women.Miss USA 2017 is a no for me she said she's against feminism and healthcare being a right? pic.twitter.com/ihPGBslN7H Jon Snow (@justkriistel) May 15, 2017 | 0 |
22,863 | ’60 MINUTES’: 9/11 REPORT Could Incriminate Saudi Arabia With These Details | There s been tons of speculation about possible involvement by Saudi Arabia in the 9/11 terror attack. The 28-page report has been classified but many are calling for the papers to be released. Many details have trickled out but Americans should know the role Saudi Arabia played in supporting the 9/11 terrorists:Tim Roemer told 60 Minutes the two Saudi nationals found a way to gain access to housing and flight lessons upon their arrival despite extremely limited language skills and no experience with Western culture. FOX NEWS REPORT: Lawmakers are calling on the White House to declassify more than two dozen pages in the 9/11 Commission report that they say outlines evidence for possible support from the Saudi government for two hijackers who settled in Southern California.A CBS News 60 Minutes report quoted officials familiar with the 2003 report as saying 28 pages of redacted information raises questions over whether Saudi officials were involved in assisting Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar upon their arrival in Los Angeles in Jan. 2000. Former Democratic congressman and U.S. ambassador to India Tim Roemer told 60 Minutes the two Saudi nationals found a way to gain access to housing and flight lessons upon their arrival despite extremely limited language skills and no experience with Western culture. PLEASE WATCH THE 60 MINUTES 28-PAGES VIDEO: CLICK HERE L.A., San Diego, that s really you know, the hornet s nest, said Roemer. That s really the one that I continue to think about almost on a daily basis. According to the report, witnesses say both al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar met at the King Fahad mosque in Culver City with Fahad al-Thumairy, a diplomat at the Saudi consulate known to hold extremist views. He was denied reentry to the U.S. in 2003 for suspected terrorist ties.Thumairy was a a ghost employee with a no-show job at a Saudi aviation contractor outside Los Angeles while drawing a paycheck from the Saudi government , according to the report. 60 Minutes also cited phone records that lawmakers say may link Thumairy to Omar al-Bayoumi, a mysterious Saudi who became the hijackers biggest benefactor.Former U.S. Senator Bob Graham said he believes Bayoumi was a Saudi agent, telling CBS News Steve Kroft that Bayoumi had been listed even before 9/11 in FBI files as being a Saudi agent. According to 60 Minutes , Bayoumi visited Thumairy at a Saudi consulate office where he worked on the morning of Feb. 1, 2000. The two then had lunch at a Middle Eastern restaurant on Venice Boulevard , a meeting which Bayoumi later claimed was a coincidence , Roemer said.Another 9/11 Commission member, former U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey, has read the redacted 28 pages and told Kroft he and a solid majority of former 9/11 commissioners believes they should be declassified. We all have dealt for our careers in highly classified and compartmentalized in every aspect of security, Kerrey said. We know when something shouldn t be declassified those 28 pages in no way fall into that category. Via: CBS | 0 |
22,864 | BREAKING: WOMEN, MEN ARRESTED After MAJOR BRAWL BREAKS OUT At Florida Airport Over Spirit Airlines Cancelled Flights [VIDEO] | The moral decay of our nation continues full speed ahead. One has to wonder how many families with young children or frightened senior citizens had to endure this disgusting and embarrassing behavior by these young, disrespectful and out-of-control passengers over the cancellation of 9 flights?Call it Flight Club. Fisticuffs involving irate passengers broke out at a Florida airport Monday night following the cancellation of multiple Spirit Airlines flights.Authorities said several people were taken into custody at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after nine flights were canceled, leading to long lines and bubbling tempers, WSVN reported.Here is the FOX News video of the major brawl :Videos posted online show a chaotic scene at the Spirit Airlines terminal as fights broke out. Broward Sheriff s Office deputies were seen attempting to restore order.Paul Smith, a passenger at the airport, told WSVN that tensions escalated quickly. All of a sudden, one particular flight got canceled, and a mob ensued up here at the front counter, in front of everyone else who had been waiting in line, he said. At that point, the ticket agents couldn t handle what was going on, so they called in for the police, added another passenger.Jose L. Rodriguez captured footage of the incident for Twitter, saying some of the passengers were upset because they were bound for a graduation ceremony, which they would miss due to the canceled flight.A representative for the Broward County Sheriff s Office confirmed to WPEC-TVthat at least three people had been arrested, and one other person detained. FOX NewsHere is the LA Times version: | 0 |
22,865 | NBC REPORTER Asks Sarah Sanders About Taxes…She Points Directly To Reporter’s Paycheck [Video] | Sarah Sanders does it again! The snarky DC reporters always try and get her but she ends up on top every time! This time was no exception;Daily Caller reports:The GOP tax reform bill is the most talked-about thing in the country right now. When NBC asked White House press secretary Sarah Sanders about its effects Thursday, Sanders pointed to the huge bonuses many at NBC will be receiving because of the bill.Multiple corporations announced a mix of thousand-dollar bonuses, pay increases and heavy sums of charitable giving in response to the tax cuts.One of those corporations was Comcast-NBCUniversal.Sarah Sanders made use of the fact that journalists are getting a pay raise under this tax cut, in part because there was so much misinformation about the tax cut in media. CNN s Brian Stelter tweeted the report with this comment last night:Sanders responded to Stelter s comment with this reminder:The left has been tripped up numerous times in the past few days. Chuck Schumer claimed that AT&T employees would suffer because of the tax bill but they came out with a great bonus for employees right after the bill passed in the Senate:Democrats have played the drama queen role calling the tax bill Armageddon . They will be proven wrong on this even though they pulled out all the stops to try and make tax reform sound bad. MAGA! | 0 |
22,866 | BRAVO! TED CRUZ To Introduce Bill To Help Trump Keep One Of His Biggest Campaign Promises To Americans | Now one unlikely Senator is about to put forth a bill, paving the way for Mexico to pay for the wall and in the process, helping Trump to keep one of his most important campaign promises.Republican Sen. Ted Cruz wants to make Mexicans pay for the wall at least some of them, that is.The El Chapo Act was introduced by Cruz Tuesday, according to Axios, and it would use seized assets from drug lords such as Mexican Joaquin El Chapo Guzman to pay for the wall on the southwestern border.Federal prosecutors are trying to seize $14 billion in assets from El Chapo, and the border wall has been estimated to cost $21.6 billion. Fourteen billion dollars will go a long way toward building a wall that will keep Americans safe and hinder the illegal flow of drugs, weapons, and individuals across our southern border, Sen. Cruz told Axios.For entire story Daily Caller | 0 |
22,867 | Suicide attack on Kabul Shi'ite mosque kills at least 30 | KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance to a Shi ite Muslim mosque in Kabul as other attackers stormed the building, killing at least 30 people including worshippers gathering for Friday prayers, officials said. Islamic State, which has launched several attacks against minority Shi ite targets in Afghanistan, claimed responsibility, the jihadist group s news agency said. The assault sparked chaos as worshippers fled and others frantically searched for missing family members. The attackers are slaughtering people like sheep but there s no one to go and rescue them, said Murtaza, a young boy whose parents were trapped inside as the attack unfolded. A lot of people are on the ground and no one is trying to rescue them. By Friday evening police said they had secured the mosque in the Khair Khana area of the capital, and all three attackers were dead. Witnesses said they had thrown grenades, and police officials said a suicide bomber detonated himself at the gate. A second suicide bomber detonated among a group of women in the mosque, an official said. Security sources put the overall toll at 30 people killed and dozens wounded. At least 10 civilians were killed, including women and children, while another 30 were wounded, Ministry of Interior spokesman Najib Danish said earlier in the day. At least three policemen were also killed and eight wounded, he said. Police said they rescued more than 100 worshippers. At least 15 of the wounded were taken to city hospitals, said Ismail Kawosi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health. One witness, Sayed Pacha, said four attackers had entered the mosque. At first a suicide bomber opened fire and martyred two security guards at the entrance of the mosque and then they entered inside, he told Reuters. Human rights activists condemned the attack, the latest in a campaign of sectarian violence. Insurgents who carry out atrocities against a specific ethnic or religious community are committing war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity, Patricia Gossman, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. | 1 |
22,868 | Spanish Senate could approve Catalan direct rule measures as soon as next week: spokeswoman | MADRID (Reuters) - Spain s upper house Senate could vote on measures to impose direct rule on Catalonia, revoking the wealthy region s autonomy in response to a secession bid, as soon as the end of next week, a spokeswoman said on Friday. The Senate must create a committee to debate the measures, which have never been used before. The committee will probably meet on Oct. 23, the spokeswoman said. Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont will then be given an opportunity to reply. The entire upper house, where the ruling People s Party holds a majority, will then vote on the measures as soon as Oct. 27. | 1 |
22,869 | WATCH FIRST LADY Donate Inaugural Ball Gown To Smithsonian [Video] | If you get the chance to visit the Smithsonian, the area of dresses from former first ladies is stunning. It s a must-see part of the museum. The beautiful ball gown that Melania Trump wore to the Inaugural Ball will be a great addition to this collection.First Lady Melania Trump donated her inaugural ball gown to the First Ladies Collection at the Smithsonian Institution today. The Fist Lady handed over the vanilla silk, off-the-shoulder gown during a ceremony Friday in Washington: The president, Barron and I love living here and we are so honored to represent this country, the first lady told a crowd gathered in Flag Hall at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the museum where her inaugural ball gown will now live.In her speech, which lasted under four minutes, the first lady admitted procuring a ball gown had slipped her mind, so she made poor Herv , designer Herv Pierre, work on a tight two-week deadline to craft the gorgeous couture piece. She sent me first a text message and she said, It s Melania Trump, can I call you? the designer recalled to DailyMail.com. And I was like Ohhh! he said, making a gasping noise. Read more: Daily Mail | 0 |
22,870 | TUCKER CARLSON Shocked At Lawyer’s Delusion On Rejection Of Voter ID Law In Texas [Video] | A Texas federal judge appointed by Obama has again rejected the 2011 Texas voter ID law, stating that the legislators meant to discriminate against minority voters.Tucker Carlson interviewed one of the lawyers involved in the case. The reasoning is beyond flawed! The only people being discriminated against are the LEGAL voters of this nation! Why is this activist judge assuming that minorities are being discriminated against? You will find her reasoning to be biased and racist. The Court of Appeals even came back with this statement: some of the evidence used by the judge wasn t relevant. U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos made this same ruling in 2014, which forced an appeal. The Fifth Circuit issued a stay against the order. The Supreme Court stepped in and allowed Texas to use the voter ID law.But last July the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans asked the judge to re-examine the decision since the judges found that some of the evidence used by the judge wasn t relevant. The two sides reached a deal for the 2016 election, which allowed a voter to sign a declaration swearing that he or she has had a reasonable difficulty that prevented obtaining one of the accepted forms of photo identification. Ramos went back to the drawing board but came to the same conclusion.The Texas Tribune reported:After weighing the evidence again, she came to the same conclusion, according to Monday s ruling. Her decision did not identify what some have called a smoking gun showing intent to discriminate, but it cited the state s long history of discrimination; virtually unprecedented radical departures from normal practices in fast-tracking the 2011 bill through the Legislature; the legislation s unduly strict terms; and lawmakers shifting rationales for passing a law that some said was needed to crack down on voter fraud. The Court holds that the evidence found infirm did not tip the scales, Ramos wrote. Civil rights groups and others suing the state offered evidence that established a discriminatory purpose was at least one of the substantial or motivating factors behind passage of SB 14, she added.The law requires a voter to use one of seven forms of identification when they vote. The voter can use a driver s license, concealed handgun license, military ID, passport, or a state-issued personal ID card.Democrats and civil rights activists claimed the Republican legislators departed from procedural norms in passing the law, including classifying it as emergency legislation, cutting debate short and bypassing the ordinary committee process in both chambers. But Republican officials, which includes Governor Greg Abbott, insists the law stops voter ID and strengthens the integrity of elections.From The New York Times:They said that the law was aimed at preventing voter fraud and that the departures from the normal legislative process were made to prevent Democratic lawmakers from manipulating procedural rules to thwart passage. They maintained that opponents had turned up no evidence that any legislator had intended to discriminate against blacks and Hispanics.Texas lawmakers have not announced how they ll respond, but they can choose to appeal again.Fox News reported:Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton did not immediately react to the ruling, although the state could once again appeal, which is what one of Paxton s top deputies appeared to suggest would happen while testifying to lawmakers just as the ruling came down. Brantley Starr, a deputy first assistant attorney general, acknowledged that Texas could be dragged back under preclearance but noted there was little precedent. It s possible. It s our belief that you d have to have multiple instances of discriminatory purpose, he said. | 0 |
22,871 | Trump-Loving Oklahoma GOP Rep. Busted Calling For Hillary Clinton’s Murder (SCREENSHOTS) | What is it with Trump supporters constantly threatening future President Hillary Clinton s life? Oklahoma state Rep. John Bennett, who endorsed The Donald last year, decided he needed a little something to help his re-election bid next week, so he skipped straight from lock her up to hang her and lock her up if you can t a message that is sure to be popular with Deplorables who happen to escape from their basket.Linking a far-Right blog post blaming Clinton for the Benghazi attacks (come on, guys, this dead horse is beginning to smell terrible), Bennett offered a solution to dealing with this imagined criminal for her non-existent crimes: murder.After removing the post failed to make it go away because screenshots exist, Bennett moved on to damage control, explaining that he doesn t wish death on anyone because he apparently meant the kind of firing squad that shoots water guns. He explains that she should be charged with treason or thrown in jail for whatever the f*ck he thinks she did this week, though he did not say whom would be the judge in this case since no actual judge would participate in this bit of dumbfuckery we can only assume he would nominate himself to pronounce her guilty and get the ball rolling on the whole murder thing.Threatening a presidential candidate is a felony offense, but for some reason Trumpsters never seem to be held responsible for their actions. Hopefully, since this threat was made by an elected official, things will be different this time.Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
22,872 | Austria's far-right stakes claim to interior ministry ahead of coalition talks | VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria s far-right Freedom Party (FPO) on Wednesday named control of the interior ministry as its price for joining a future coalition government following its strong showing in a parliamentary election. The anti-immigrant, anti-Islam FPO won around 26 percent of votes cast in Sunday s election. The conservative People s Party (OVP) won most votes by also taking a hard line on immigration, while the centre-left Social Democrats took second place. Asked if the FPO would stick by its pre-election insistence that it would only join a future coalition if its candidate became interior minister, party leader Heinz-Christian Strache told reporters: Yes. We won t go down on our knees for anyone. At 26 percent we naturally aim to implement our (FPO) policies in government, Strache added. The interior ministry in Austria oversees asylum claims and the fight against terrorism, among other responsibilities. Austria s president will on Friday formally ask Sebastian Kurz, leader of the OVP, the largest party at around 32 percent, to start negotiations on forming a new coalition government. The OVP and the FPO overlap in their plans to curb immigration, cut social benefits for refugees, reduce the tax burden on companies and work towards repatriating powers to national governments from Brussels while strengthening external border security. (Click tmsnrt.rs/2yVUDsq for Election graphic) All parties have kept their coalition options open, but the Social Democrats (SPO) are technically still bound by a party conference decision from 2014 that bans it from entering into a coalition government with the Freedom Party. Under Austria s outgoing Social Democrat chancellor, Christian Kern, the SPO has opened up significantly to the Freedom Party by introducing a so-called value compass for potential partners which does not specifically rule out working with the Freedom Party. But Strache said on Wednesday that as long as there was no fresh vote among the Social Democrats base to formally annul the 2014 decision, talk of his party teaming up with the SPO was theoretical . Influential FPO official Manfred Haimbuchner told newspaper Der Standard that he definitely preferred his party to form a government with the conservatives. The FPO was founded by ex-Nazis in the 1950s and first became a major political force in the 1990s under the charismatic Joerg Haider, who praised Hitler s employment policies. Today the party says it has put its Nazi past behind it and purged its ranks of anti-Semitism but still frequently has to expel members for anti-Semitic comments. It has, however, stopped calling for Austria to leave the European Union. For more stories on Austria s election, please see | 1 |
22,873 | SLIPPERY SLOPE? New TWITTER Rules Ban ‘Hateful Conduct’ Promoting Violence | Isn t this a slippery slope even though it might reduce the ISIS traffic on Twitter. Freedom of speech is being challenged waaaay too much these days and here s yet another example:Twitter has clarified its definition of abusive behavior that will prompt it to delete accounts, banning hateful conduct that promotes violence against specific groups.The social media company disclosed the changes on Tuesday in a blog post, following rising criticism it was not doing enough to thwart the Islamic State s use of the site for propaganda and recruitment. As always, we embrace and encourage diverse opinions and beliefs, but we will continue to take action on accounts that cross the line into abuse, Megan Cristina, director of trust and safety, said in the blog.The new rules do not mention the Islamic State or any other group by name.Read more: NYP | 0 |
22,874 | WATCH: Fox Panel Glorifies This Vile Poverty Shaming Assault At Walmart | Fox News recently aired a panel discussion over one of the right s new favorite videos online. Conservatives are falling in love with a viral video that shows a woman harass a man at a grocery store for buying food with benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).The woman accosts the man and angrily states that she is not a bleeding heart f*cking liberal before she says that he must be a Bernie supporter. This woman embodies all that is wrong with the current generation of conservatism.The man defends himself, saying that he works 60 hours a week but still needs the extra support to help provide for his child. I put in 50, 60 hour weeks. Just because you see me doing this right now I m trying to provide for my family. Jonathan Hoenig, a hedge fund manager who is famous mostly for being a rich a**hole was on the Fox News panel, defended the woman s attack saying: I m proud of this woman. This is the producers and the looters. And you know what, she s absolutely right. You have every right to keep every cent of your money. It should be pointed out that this all happened at a Walmart. Walmart costs the U.S. about $6.2 billion dollars a year providing benefits such as SNAP to their employees because they refuse to pay their employees a higher wage. It s very likely that any Walmart employee who was working at the time of the incident would be using SNAP, or some other form of government assistance. In Hoenig s mind. those people are looters as well as everyone else who has ever struggled in their life.That s just a small taste of the hate and ignorance to come out of this particularly horrible Fox News panel.You can watch the Fox News panel segment below.Featured image via video screenshot | 0 |
22,875 | ISIS Releases New Video Making Clear Their Mission Is To Honor Islamic Faith And Destroy Non-Believers…Obama: “ISIL is not Islamic” | ISIS released a new video yesterday, where they threatened America and every other country they identify as the infidel. Meanwhile, we have a Commander In Chief who still refuses to identify them as terrorists or admit ISIS is actually fighting a holy war.I don t know maybe we re misunderstanding their message, but we re pretty sure they mention several times throughout the video that they are fighting a war for Allah Their latest video is pretty repulsive and we don t normally share their propaganda, but we thought is was worth viewing, given our President s insistence on convincing the world that ISIL is not Islamic. Here s the JV team s latest video. You be the judge. Are these evil beings waging a holy war, or are they as Obama said only two days ago, just bad guys with guns and good social media? Here s what Obama has to say about ISIL in 2014:Do you ever wonder why Barack Obama refers to ISIS as ISIL when every terror expert refers to them as ISIS? Click HERE for the entire story. | 0 |
22,876 | Ann Coulter Make Believes She Has ‘Gay Friends’ To Make A Racist Point (TWEET) | It s hard to believe, but Donald Trump does have a sizable amount of supporters who agree with his ideas on immigration and guns. Unsurprisingly, one of those people is Ann Coulter. A racist in her own regard, she falls perfectly into Trump s fan base.After the shooting massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, Coulter tweeted out: To my gay friends: Please consider the possibility that Hillary s immigration policies might get you killed. See Trump s speech today. To my gay friends: Please consider the possibility that Hillary's immigration policies might get you killed. See Trump's speech today. Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) June 13, 2016Okay, first, what gay person would be her friend? And before you get offended in any regard to that question (you know who you are) I m a lesbian and find Coulter repulsive on every level. Which leads to the bigger question what person, in general, would be her friend?During his speech, Trump of course spent time doubling-down on his racist and Islamophobic remarks that Muslims should be banned from immigrating to the United States.Does Coulter (and Trump) not even recognize the fact that the shooter (whose name I ll never mention, because that s what he wanted) was actually born in the United States, and was able to access his arsenal of weaponry and ammunition because of Florida s, and the United States, lax gun laws? Just like almost every shooter before him, and the only way to truly combat this sort of issue is to try to prevent them from happening in the first place.You can t always change a mindset, but you sure as hell can try to prevent a potential terrorist from owning a gun.The thing is, this is just Ann Coulter being Ann Coulter. She s a bigot and she s proud to be a bigot, and she doesn t care if you think she s a bigot. She s an isolationist who seems to think white people should reign supreme.It s just amusing to think that she wants us to believe she has gay friends. If, however, she really does have gay friends, they should probably realize they re friends with a bigot.Featured Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images Twitter | 0 |
22,877 | Trump names additional senior White House aides: statement | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday filled out his incoming White House senior staff jobs, naming three deputy chiefs of staff to help with operations, Trump’s transition team said in a statement. Trump named Katie Walsh of the Republican National Committee as deputy chief of staff to the White House; U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions’ top aide Rick Dearborn as deputy chief of staff for legislative, intergovernmental affairs and implementation, and former White House staffer Joe Hagin as deputy chief of staff for operations. | 1 |
22,878 | LIBERAL HEADS EXPLODE! Trump Donates First Paycheck…Sends a HUGE Message to Cultural Marxists | President Trump just made liberal heads explode! The liberal mantra has been to destroy anything to do with the Civil War. Civil War statues were recently removed from the city of New Orleans and the Gettysburg Battlefield was the scene of a protest just last week .So here s where our awesome President just donated his first months salary:President Trump just donated the first few months of his White House salary to Antietam National Battlefield, the national park in Maryland that preserves the hallowed ground of the bloodiest day of the Civil War, the government said Wednesday.Mr. Trump s first quarter salary of $78,333 was matched by an anonymous donor who gave another $22,000, bringing the gift to $100,000. AWESOME! The donation will restore an historic house on the battlefield, and will help replace fencing. As both the Secretary of the Interior and a military veteran, I m deeply honored and humbled to deliver the donation to Antietam National Battlefield on behalf of President Trump, Mr. Zinke said. The president s donation will allow generations of Americans to learn about our history and heritage on this sacred site. Mr. Trump promised to forgo his salary as president, saying he would instead donate it to the federal government. Wednesday s announcement marks the first installment of those donations.NEW ORLEANS CLEANSING THE CITY OF HISTORY BY REMOVING STATUES: IDIOTIC!HOW GREAT IS OUR PRESIDENT? HE GETS IT!VIA: WT | 0 |
22,879 | no title | the second video bottom one proves what trump is sayng is true corruption with the clinton gang is rife he could use this in his arguments httpwwwopborgnewsseriesburnsoregonstandoffbundymilitianewsupdatesammonbundyverdictoregonstandoffmalheurcourt and lets not forget there were undercover fbi infrmants doing the provications set up | 0 |
22,880 | HERE’S WHAT HILLARY’S “FAIR GROWTH” Economic Plan Means For Americans [Video] | If you ve never heard Betsy McCaughey speak you re in for a treat! She was one of the most outspoken and honest people warning us about Obamacare. She actually read the entire bill and then picked it apart. She s smart and very straightforward. Now, she s warning us about what a Hillary administration would do to our economy: | 0 |
22,881 | Report: GOP Voters Are Too Stupid to Know Jeb And George W. Bush Are Related | It s no secret that our frenemies on the Right are stupid. After all, conservatism, racism (one of the core GOP values ), and low IQ go together like rama lamma lamma ka dinga da dinga dong, according to science. But, you know, with a lot less dancing and a bit more drooling.In Iowa, voters had some important questions about the GOP candidates including why is Donald Trump so orange, a question science nor philosophy is likely to answer for decades yet to come. There is widespread opinion that he either uses tanning beds or a full-body spray to get his bright tangerine finish, a user on question and answer platform Quora postulated, though Trump is more likely to be found banging his daughter than in a tanning bed.Some wondered if Ted Cruz is from Canada, a query likely stemming from Trump and his fellow Cruz birthers inane suggestions that Cruz is not eligible to be President.But the dumbest questions were related to Jeb Bush, according to Google. The Washington Post reports:Iowans wondered: Is Jeb Bush related to George W. Bush? Who are Jeb Bush s parents? Who is Jeb Bush s father? and Is Jeb Bush George Bush s brother? While no data is available concerning demographics of the folks who asked Almighty Google those ridiculous questions, they likely stem from Republicans inability to know anything important about candidates they support past their willingness to build multi-billion-dollar walls to keep brown people out of the country, close mosques, and fight tooth-and-nail against women s rights.In any case, that people don t know Jeb and George Bush are related is nothing short of baffling. Liberals certainly know, as we remember his role in stealing the 2000 election for his brother. This, of course, is something no one would have learned on Fox News. To someone whose primary concern was ensuring that a future war criminal would become President, Jeb Bush was just some guy at the time.Of course, the fact that any Americans don t know even the basics about Jebra is probably an indicator that he should join pedophile-worshipping Mike Huckabee and baby parts affiche natto Carly Fiorina in dropping out of the presidential race.Featured image via Political Garbage Chute/YouTube | 0 |
22,882 | Reporters Covering Inauguration Day Anti-Trump Protest Face 70 Years In Prison (VIDEO) | On January 20 this year, more than 230 people were arrested without warning in relation to the anti-Trump protests that took place in Washington DC. Now some of those involved face up to 70 years behind bars, including the reporters and photographers who were just trying to bring us the news.Heavily-armed riot police closed off an entire city block in Washington on the day of Donald Trump s inauguration, encircling the bulk of the protestors, however, the order to disperse never came, police just started arresting protestors. It didn t even cross my mind that was what was happening, said independent photographer and videographer Alexei Wood. I was waiting for an order of dispersal and the mass of people showed no sign of resistance when the police completely surrounded them. Almost all of the protests that took place that day went by without violence or arrests on a mass scale, with the exception of Black Bloc anarchists and anti-fascists clashing with police. Wood was unfortunate enough to be scooped up when police retaliated by firing rubber bullets and tear gas at the protestors, as well as launching concussion grenades into the crowd.When the smoke had cleared, more than $100,000 worth of damage had been inflicted on property, cars, and buildings, according to the U.S. Attorney s Office for the District of Columbia. The following day, more than 230 people, including Wood and several other journalists, were arrested for felony rioting, a charge that carries a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of $25,000, however, some were lucky enough to have the charges dropped.Things went from bad to worse for Wood and company when, on April 27, the Superior Court of the District of Columbia returned a superseding indictment giving additional charges to 212 defendants, three of whom hadn t even been previously charged. These new charges include urging to riot, conspiracy to riot and destruction of property and could see the defendants spending between 70 and 80 years in prison. Wood alone faces five felony property destruction charges and three felony rioting charges.Alexei Wood, based in San Antonio, Texas, focuses on social justice struggles and resistance movements in his work, but now he finds himself in the exact same position as those for whom he tries to do justice, stating that the implications of the defendants cases are humungous for striking fear into protesters. The state is not just going after window-breakers, which in itself may not be justified. Instead, the state seeks to criminalize dissent by indiscriminately arresting more than 200 people and imposing a slew of felony charges that carry the potential of decades in prison, Wood continued. But it also means if we re [journalists] too close to a newsworthy story, we could be facing more than 70 years. Wood posted live footage of the anti-fascist march on his Facebook page, the 42-minute video showing him complying with police orders, while at no stage suggesting that he took place in any violent acts. The livestream speaks for itself. It s right there for everybody to see. I love that it s there for everybody to see because I want individual people to see my work and make their own decision, he said. I think it s a very clear case. Take a look at the livestream and decide for yourself if the man filming it deserves to spend what could possibly equate to the rest of his life in prison.(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));Anti fascist black bloc DCPosted by Lex Shoots on Friday, January 20, 2017Featured image via Kevin Dietsch Pool/Getty Images | 0 |
22,883 | Kremlin says understands why Russian parliament wants to ban U.S. media | MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Friday it fully understood why the Russian lower house of parliament planned to discuss banning representatives of U.S. media organizations in retaliation for what it says is U.S. mistreatment of Russian media. Russian lawmakers are to discuss a proposal to bar U.S. media from accessing the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, the RIA news agency quoted the chair of one of the chamber s committees as saying earlier on Friday. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters that the Kremlin understood why lawmakers wanted to hit back against the United States for its mistreatment of Russian media. Peskov said Russian media had been subjected to outrageous attacks in the United States which violated freedom of speech. | 1 |
22,884 | WATCH The White House Christmas Tree Arrival Ceremony [Video] | MAKING CHRISTMAS GREAT AGAIN! First Lady Melania Trump and Barron Trump received the official 2017 White House Christmas Tree today. It s a 19-and-a-half-foot Balsam fir from Wisconsin that was picked out in September The National Christmas Tree Association and White House officials decide on the tree in a contest held every year:CHAPMAN FAMILY WINS!Silent Night Evergreens, owned by the Chapman family, last provided the official White House Christmas tree in 1998 and 2003, according to the National Christmas Tree Association.The Chapman family got to present the tree at the White House and meet First Lady Melania Trump and Barron Trump.After the first lady and son Barron gave their symbolic approval, the tree will be set up and decorated in the Blue Room of the White House.THE FIRST LADY WROTE ON TWITTER: Thank you Silent Night Evergreens in Wisconsin for our beautiful tree! POTUS, Barron & I are excited for Christmas in our new home! Thank you Silent Night Evergreens in Wisconsin for our beautiful tree! @POTUS, Barron & I are excited for Christmas in our new home! pic.twitter.com/so6HVG1st8 Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) November 21, 2017 | 0 |
22,885 | BUSH-HINCKLEY NEXUS: Reagan Gunman Released, Reviving Conspiracy Suspicions | Shawn Helton 21st Century WireOn the eve of the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 Attacks, the man implicated in shooting the 40th President of the United States will be released from captivity after 35 years.The attempted assassination of US President Ronald Reagan is one of the most infamous crimes of the 20th century. Like the assassination of JFK, it was an act that will forever be shrouded in conspiracy, intrigue and mystery. CALCULATED CRIME Photo Illustration 21WIRE s Shawn HeltonAlthough it s been over three decades since John Hinckley Jr. reportedly shot Reagan and three others at the Washington Hilton Hotel in the spring of 1981, many questions regarding the traumatic event continue to persist to this day.The importance of this dramatic incident should be emphasized, as it revealed a rather uncanny family connection between the Bush family and the Hinckley family, highlighted by a series of strange circumstances prior to the shooting itself, as well as a crime scene that was largely left unexplained A DARK DAY According to analysts and researchers such as John Judge, Reagan had already been struck under his left arm after raising his left arm to the crowd outside the Hilton Hotel. Image Source: (lawabsolute) The Reagan Shooting Prior to being shot outside the Washington Hilton Hotel on March 30th, 1981, Reagan had been giving a speech to the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO. During that builders speech, Reagan outlined a budget cut plan that received a restrained response from those concerned over union jobs according to reports. Contrary to most mainstream reports about the incident, Reagan s exit on the south side of the Hilton on Florida Avenue following his speech, as we ll find out later, was anything but routine.According to the official story, Hinckley is stated to have crouched and fired a .22 caliber R hm RG-14 revolver during a rainy afternoon in the nation s capital.Reagan, his press secretary, James S. Brady, Secret Service agent Timothy J. McCarthy and District of Columbia policeman Thomas K. Delahaney, had all been shot in a sea of reporters, Secret Service members, police and plain clothes police, as well as unknown spectators at the location according to NBC cameraman Shelly Fieldman, one of those who filmed the chaotic ambush as it happened.The assassination attempt occurred just 69 days into the Reagan presidency and the apparent motive seemed born out of a Hollywood studio back lot, as Hinckley was supposedly trying to impress actress Jodie Foster by reenacting would-be-assassin Arthur Bremer s assassination attempt on then Presidential candidate, George Wallace, which in turn was fictionalized for Martin Scorsese s motion picture Taxi Driver, a film that co-starred Foster. Evidence of a note to Foster is said to have materialized out of Hinckley s room at the Washington Hilton Hotel following the shooting. PLANTED STORY? An all to familiar Hollywood narrative grafted onto a crime was Hinckley inspired by an actress and a film? (Image Source: upi)Incidentally, in 1992, George Wallace Jr. asserted that President Richard Nixon s campaign had prior knowledge of Bremer s whereabouts before the shooting of his father, something which prompted the family to call for a new investigation. The complaint emerged after an article appeared in New Yorker magazine stating that Nixon and one of his aides had talked about planting George McGovern s campaign literature in Bremer s apartment.According to other reports, The plan had to be dropped because the F.B.I. quickly sealed the apartment, according to the article. George Wallace s top aide Elvin Stanton, was later on record stating that government insiders may have been involved in a conspiracy to take Wallace out of the 1972 Presidential race. So was there a larger conspiracy behind the attempt on Reagan s life? STAY-BEHIND - Vice President George Bush seen here with Rita Clements first lady of Texas Governor Bill Clements, Texas Secretary of State George Strake and Dallas Congressman Jim Collins on an Austin tarmac waiting on Reagan s prognosis. (Image Source: dallasnews)Absent from the shocking scene at the Hilton, was Vice President George H.W. Bush, who had traveled to Fort Worth to dedicate a historical plaque at the Fort Worth Hyatt Regency. After news of the failed assassination on Reagan, he continued travelling to Austin to speak at the Tarrant County Convention Center to talk with the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. Some researchers have stated that Bush was waiting on the tarmac in Austin not only to learn of Reagan s prognosis, but to possibly be sworn in as Reagan s successor, if the commander-in-chief did not survive the shooting.Incidentally, the Fort Worth Hyatt Regency where Bush had been on March 30th, was once known as Hotel Texas, the same hotel that President John F. Kennedy stayed at On November 21, 1963 one day before being assassinated in Dealey Plaza.On March 24th, at the behest of National Security Adviser Richard Allen who was in command of the Situation Room, Reagan appointed Bush as the head of his crisis management team less than a week before the attempt on his life. Allen s National Security Council team was tapped to provide support for Bush s crisis squad.Amid a contentious atmosphere between Bush loyalists and Reagan loyalists at the White House, Secretary of State Alexander Haig famously declared, I am in control here. This prompted some to suggest that the move was an erroneous PR faux pas and at worst a grab for power while Reagan was being treated for injuries at the hospital. Others have suggested that Haig, was merely protecting the Reagan-led White House until an investigation into all elements of the shooting could be completed. Additionally, some also believed his comments may have been taken out of context in relation to an actual succession of the presidency.According to the author Dr. Peter Knight, Haig, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and others were aware of an apparent North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) exercise set to take place on March 31st, 1981, the very next day after the shooting. However, due to concern about the timing of the NORAD operation, amid the turbulent political wake of the Reagan shooting, the White House supposedly canceled it.Some five hours later after the shooting Vice President Bush arrived in Washington. While there should have been a lengthy investigation given the nature of the crime itself, the shooting was ruled an isolated incident, without conspiracy, according to the newly tapped leader of the White House crisis management team. RAWHIDE S EXIT The Secret Service code name used for Reagan was Rawhide. Though it was reported that agents maintained a diamond-shaped security formation surrounding Reagan, some suggest the group s alignment went askew as the President walked out in the open towards the limousine which was parked away from the exit. (Image Source: pbs.org)On the morning of March 30th, Reagan had apparently been advised that wearing a protective vest was not necessary because there would be minimal public exposure after his speech from the hotel and to the limousine and that there were no credible threats for safety that day.Reportedly, after being hit Reagan had been delayed on the way to the hospital and apparently according to well-known researcher John Judge, he was slated to be brought to Bethesda Medical Center but allegedly due to the coloration of his face and the blood he d been coughing up, he was transported to the much closer George Washington University Hospital though Brady was said to have arrived several minutes before Reagan.Interestingly, even though initial reports stated Reagan was never in any serious danger, nothing could have been further from the truth, as Reagan reportedly lost 3,400 cubic centimeters of blood, or about 3.7 quarts, there are 5 or 6 quarts held in an average body.According Dennis S. O Leary, dean of clinical affairs at GWU Hospital Reagan had a relatively simple procedure, receiving a fresh frozen plasma transfusion. Dr. Frank C. Spencer, chief surgeon at New York University Medical Center, was quoted as stating the following when asked about Reagan s health, Why would you give that amount of blood if he was not in a life-threatening situation and the patient s life was no in serious danger? Additionally, some have asserted that the cold blood or frozen plasma used to save Reagan, could have potentially caused other health problems for the President.On another note, Secret Service agent Joe Trainor, who was tasked with gathering evidence at the hospital after the shooting, oddly stated that Reagan s wound, was no bigger than a paper cut, and a thin dime-sized fragment was given to the FBI for processing.Here NBC cameraman Fieldman is interviewed by host and journalist John Chancellor on NBC Nightly News, discussing details of the incident. Notice that one of the still images appears to depict a bullet hole in the back of the limousine Unexplained ForensicsAll of shooter Hinckley s bullets could be accounted for according to the FBI, and gunman had deadly accuracy, supposedly landing out 4-6 shots on those at the scene, if you are to believe the official story.John Judge explained the following concerning the various pathways concerning Hinckley s apparent Devastator bullets, primarily used by air marshals to thwart hijackers in the 1970 s: Hinckley had six bullets in the gun. One hit Delahanty, a cop, and threw him to the ground by nicking, grazing his shoulder and neck. Another one into the groin of Agent McCarthy, a 160 pound man, it lifted him up and threw him back to the other end of the limousine. Another bullet, the initial bullet fired by Hinckley, hit Mr. Brady in the head, knocked him to the ground and did considerable brain damage. One bullet nicked the windshield of the limousine. One bullet went into the Universal office building across the street and one bullet went into the trunk of the car and you can see when you look at photos closely very clear hole, and not a ricochet or a scar mark but a hole going into the car penetrating the outer metal wall. The bullet that hit Reagan hit him by all accounts at an early point. Judge concluded, as others have contended, there was a second shooter at the Hilton Hotel located in the Bushy Knoll (a term Judge coined), as the limo waiting for Reagan was some 40ft down the curb. Reagan was allegedly shot, as Judge stated, [with] a very specific weapon developed by the intelligence agencies which is a CO2 propelled fleshet. This would account for the thin slit reported by Secret Service and others.Here s a description of the Devastator or exploding bullet from the National Center for Biotechnology Information: It should also be noted that individuals can easily obtain instructions for the creation of their own bullets. The most infamous use of such bullets was the attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981 by John Hinckley, who used Devastator bullets (Bingham Limited, USA) composed of a lacquer sealed aluminium tip with a lead azide centre designed to explode on impact. Although frequently referred to in works of fiction, they are rarely encountered in forensic practice, because sales have been restricted following the incident in 1981. POSING WITH GUNS Several images surfaced during Hinckley s trial depicting heavy-handed symbolism for dramatic effect. (Image Source: nydailynews)Releasing Hinckley?Though Hinckley would later be declared not guilty by reason of insanity, he was ordered to have ongoing treatment as a forensic patient at St. Elizabeth s hospital located in the southeast quadrant of the nation s capital.Flash forward more than three decades Over this past summer, it was reported that the 61-year-old Hinckley would be released from St. Elizabeth s maximum security mental hospital. Here s a passage from a mainstream media report that discusses the latest developments in the case and the court s reason for release: Judge Paul L. Friedman of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia wrote in his opinion that Mr. Hinckley, 61, no longer posed a danger to himself or others. The report continued adding that, Since 2014, Judge Friedman has allowed Mr. Hinckley to have 17-day stays in Williamsburg, where he has voluntary jobs doing landscaping at a Unitarian church and working in the library and cafeteria of a psychiatric hospital. Interestingly, Judge Friedman has banned Hinckley from corresponding with news media and has allowed the infamous shooter access to drive a 30-mile radius from Williamsburg unaccompanied in addition his ability to drive to monthly hospital appointments in the Washington DC area.Whether you believe the official story of the Reagan shooting or not, it is unconscionable to think that a person reportedly responsible for shooting a president, along with other law enforcement agents and a White House cabinet member, could see the light of day after such a high-profile crime.Hinckley s release will only serve to highlight the bizarre series events associated with the attempt on Reagan s life, which many believe has been covered up to this day. ASSASSIN S CREED Hinckley seen posing in front of Ford s Theater, the site of Abraham Lincoln s assassination. (Image Source: rawhidedown)Bush-Hinckley Family TiesThe Houston Post reported, the Hinckley s reportedly made large contributions to Vice President Bush s political campaign.According to the former dean of the University of Montana School of Journalism Nathaniel Blumberg the events of March 30th, were far from uncovered.The following is a passage from his book THE AFTERNOON OF MARCH 30: A Contemporary Historical Novel, where Blumberg discussed the Bush-Hinckley connection made by NBC s John Chancellor: John Chancellor, eyebrows raised, informed the viewers of NBC Nightly News that the brother of the man who tried to kill the president was acquainted with the son of the man who would have become president if the attack had been successful. As a matter of fact, Chancellor said in a bewildered tone, Scott Hinckley [brother of John Hinckley Jr] and Neil Bush [brother of George W. Bush] had been scheduled to have dinner together at the home of the vice president s son the very next night. According to the Missoulian, Blumberg called it a contemporary historical novel, and it centered on his belief that Neil Bush son of President George H.W. Bush and his wife Sharon were co-conspirators in John Hinckley s attempt to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in 1981. On March 9th, 1985, in an article entitled New novel questions probe of Reagan shooting, published by UPI, Blumberg s self-published novel, The Afternoon of March 30th, also discussed the following: The Hinckley oil company was warned, just hours before the shooting, that it faced a $2-million fine for overpricing oil. The possible charges were never mentioned after Hinckley s attempt. The widely accepted official story that Hinckley was trying to get the attention of actress Jodie Foster was based entirely on a letter that Hinckley was said to have written, but which the public and the media never saw. Additionally, Scott Hinckley was a Vice President for John Hinckley Sr. s Vanderbilt Energy and was reportedly friends with Neil Bush who had been working for AMOCO, in Denver. The Bush s Zapata Oil was said to have bailed out Vanderbilt Energy some time during the 1960 s.Other interesting connections concerning Hinckley were made by the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: The club records, mementos, and clippings that normally mark a student s passage through a university are nonexistent in the case of Hinckley. Official university transcripts and records were taken by Texas Tech administrators almost by the time President Reagan and the other victims reached a hospital Monday. Continuing, the journal outlined another curious connection in the Bush-Hinckley nexus: Jim Francis, operations manager of the Dallas oil firm Brighton Co., and a fundraiser for Gov. Bill Clements, was Hinckley s basketball coach in the fourth through sixth grades. In 1974, the Hinckley s moved from Texas to Evergreen, Colorado, while John Jr. reportedly stayed behind. However, prior to the Reagan shooting, Hinckley s primary home was listed in Evergreen.Other investigators have gone even further by citing the work of John Judge in support of a clear case for George H W Bush as the assassin of President Ronald Reagan.Hinckley was said to have had no criminal record before being arrested previously in Nashville, Tennessee by Metropolitan Airport Police in Nashville on Oct. 9, 1980, for carrying firearms. That same day, then President Jimmy Carter, was holding a town hall meeting at the Grand Ole Opry, while Reagan reportedly cancelled a stop in Memphis during that time frame.The guns confiscated at the time included a .38 and two .22-caliber pistols according to officials. Although the Hinckley s issued a statement about their son s mental health issues following the Reagan shooting, Nashville authorities could not find any information related to him being mentally ill in the past.Below is a montage of several clips discussing Hinckley s background and his family s relationship to the Bush family ABC s Charles Murphy discusses mysterious phone calls that Hinckley received each day at a phone booth while staying at a motel in Denver A touch of irony, the young man walking with the elder Hinckley is 30-year-old Scott Hinckley, John Jr. s brother, he and Vice President Bush s son Neil, are friends, they had planned to have dinner together in Denver tonight the plans have been cancelled Stephen Geer ABC News SHOCK & AWE During Reagan s campaign he often criticized Bush for being linked to the globalist designs of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. (Image Source: pinterest)A Shooter s Odyssey: Lone Gunman & Parallel PlotsAs 21WIRE has covered in recent years, very often there is much more involved behind-the-scenes when it comes to sensationalized shootings in America, particularly of those said to be lone wolf , or lone gunman events. The incidents themselves are quickly taken out of the political and forensic realm, giving way to a hyper-realized account, often defying logic and reason. Though simple elements of a shooting may defy explanation, authority actors will rapidly emerge with emotionally charged narratives along with some evidence; the grafting of parallel motives viewed in other crimes, the stacking of circumstantial evidence, a ready-made manifesto or gripping photographic imagery used to direct perception.The Hinckley case, like other more modern mass shootings and the shootings of JFK, RFK and MLK (as well as John Lennon who was killed by Mark Chapman who worked for the Hinckley linked organization World Vision), was certainly no exception.Below, researcher and writer John Judge takes through the winding conspiracy surrounding the attempt on Reagan s life. Watch carefully, as he pieces together one of the most enigmatic crimes of the 20th century Here s a news compilation of the reportage concerning the Reagan assassination attempt In SummaryOverlapping political narratives often dovetail a crisis, staged or otherwise, and the shooting of Reagan (as with other events) was no different, as tension was building in Europe there were critical new developments abroad and according to the CIA, [ by] mid-November 1981, Haig sent President Reagan a memorandum outlining the implications of what he described as a peaceful revolution underway in Poland under the leadership of Solidarity, the national trade union. Interestingly, Haig, who was believed to have protected the Reagan Administration during the March 30th shooting, saw the situation change, as the so-called peaceful revolution ended abruptly in December when the Polish regime imposed martial law throughout the country to challenge the movement. However, that event in Poland is accepted by most historians as one catalyst which eventually led to an end to the Iron Curtain, and then the Soviet Union.In a world full of foreign policy game changers, sudden shifts in international narratives may contain valuable clues to solving some of history s most perplexing events. And another story begins READ MORE DAILY SHOOTER NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Daily Shooter Files | 0 |
22,886 | German killer nurse suspected of 84 more murders, police say | FRANKFURT (Reuters) - A German nurse jailed for murdering two patients is suspected of killing at least 84 other people, police said on Monday. The man, identified only as Niels H. under reporting rules, has confessed in many of those cases , a police statement said, but could not remember all the details of his actions. If confirmed, the death toll would be among the worst ever compiled by a German serial killer. In past hearings, Niels H. admitted deliberately injecting patients at two clinics in northern Germany with deadly drugs and then trying to revive them in order to play the hero, German broadcaster NDR said. He was convicted of two charges of attempted murder and two counts of murder by an Oldenburg court in 2015. Police said on Monday that they had investigated additional deaths at hospitals in the northern German cities of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst after exhuming the remains of 134 people with links to Niels H. They said he had used five different drugs on the patients, including alkaloid ajmaline and arrhythmia drug sotalol, between 1999 and 2005. Toxicological reports for 41 people have not been completed, which means the number of victims could rise, police said. Prosecutors have also charged six people who worked with Niels H. at the Delmenhorst hospital on suspicion of failing to stop the killing even though they were aware of it. Ten years ago, a German nurse was convicted of killing 28 elderly patients. He said he gave them lethal injections because he felt sorry for them. He was sentenced to life in prison. In Britain, Dr. Harold Shipman was believed to have killed as many as 250 people, most of them elderly and middle-aged women who were his patients. Known as Dr. Death, Shipman was sentenced to 15 life terms in 2000; he died prison in 2004, apparently a suicide. | 1 |
22,887 | COINCIDENCE? CHOBANI SCORES MAJOR CONTRACT WITH MOOCH’S GOVERNMENT CONTROLLED SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM After Airing Naked Lesbian TV Ad To 3% Of Population [VIDEO] | Are there any coincidences in the quid pro quo world of Obama s Chicago style politics? Here s the link story we posted about Chobani and their naked lesbian ad. The video of their ad can be seen below:New York yogurt manufacturer Chobani just landed a massive U.S. Department of Agriculture contract for school lunches after years of lobbying lawmakers and President Obama on its products.The upstate-New York Greek yogurt maker will be distributing its products to schools nationwide next year as a USDA-approved meat substitute for school lunches, capping off a pilot program in a dozen states made possible by extensive lobbying efforts.Chobani Greek Yogurt first gained approval by the USDA for school lunches in 2013 as part of a pilot program after U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer and other New York lawmakers pressured USDA officials to include it in a pilot program for four states. The USDA s typically years-long approval process for new products was miraculously slashed to only about 8 months for Chobani.That pilot program was expanded last year to a dozen states after reportedly positive feedback from students, Syracuse.com reports. After at least three calls from the persistent senator, (U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom) Vilsack helped arranged a Sept. 20, 2012 meeting in Schumer s Capitol Hill office with Kevin Concannon, the key official for food, nutrition and consumer services, the New York Daily News reports.Chobani owner Hamdi Ulukaya was also named by President Obama as a Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship, which included a closed-press meeting with the president at the White House, according to the Daily Sabah.The special treatment was undoubtedly the result of Ulukaya s savvy political sense.According to a Green Monsters! blog about the original pilot program: Chobani has made a significant financial investment to be at the forefront of this new program and potentially come out as the victor. The New York-based company has already paid $80,000 to Cornerstone Government Affairs to lobby Congress on its behalf. Among its lobbyists are former agricultural department employees.The lobbying firm was also hired following New York Senator Charles Schumer s petition to the USDA asking that Greek yogurt be added school lunch program.The decision on Greek yogurt came rather quickly in just eight months although the agriculture department typically takes years to assess a new product. The tofu industry waited a decade before an ok, reports NY Daily News.Senator Schumer also worked with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York to push the Greek yogurt pilot program through. Both senators see it as a win-win for the children and the diary industry.The financial benefit has the potential to be quite considerable for New York in particular. Five years ago, the New York dairy industry was producing barely any revenue. Now it generates almost 40 percent of the $6.5 billion in U.S. yogurt sales annually. Businessweek magazine has even called upstate New York the Silicon Valley of yogurt. So, after a couple of years of lobbying and a pilot test program, Chobani the top selling Greek yogurt brand in the U.S. landed a contract for schools in all 50 states in April. The initial contract is worth $148,019 for the first two months of the 2015-16 school year, Syracuse.com reports.The government will then seek quarterly bids for the remainder of the school year.Chobani s fast-track to school cafeterias across the U.S. with a contract awarded faster than other companies have even gained approval for their products raises the same question Green Mosters! blogger Kristina Pepelko first raised in 2013: is the National School Lunch Program and the tightened restrictions on school food truly designed to produce healthier students, or are special interest lobbyists driving menu recommendations from Washington, D.C.?Chobani s senior director of nutrition and regulatory affairs, Robert Post, obviously wants the public to believe it s the former. This is an important step that Chobani is taking in its continued mission to bring nutritious, delicious and natural food to all people of all ages, he said in a statement. Allowing children to have healthy and delicious options for their lunch tray ingredients is one of the most important things Chobani can do as a company, and we decided to offer out products at significantly reduced prices as we want to extend our mission beyond our cups and into the communities we live in, Post said.Chobani officials have not disclosed the significantly reduced prices for their products, or the potential value of the new government contract, Syracuse.com reports.Via: EAG News | 0 |
22,888 | America’s Primal Scream: David Icke Explains Reason for Trump’s Election Result | 21st Century Wire says Author David Icke talks about the US election shocker and what it says about the relationship between society and big government.In the end, Trump s success was an expression of a complete rejection of the political establishment and the two party system. Like BREXIT, Trump s surprise electoral result represents a much bigger social and spiritual tremor happening beneath the establishment s feet one that the mainstream are prepared to admit. Watch: SUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 |
22,889 | Israel questions Iranian blogger after giving her asylum | JERUSALEM/LONDON (Reuters) - An Iranian blogger granted asylum in Israel has been questioned by its Shin Bet internal security service on suspicion of illegal communication with Iran, an Israeli official said on Friday. Israel admitted Neda Amin, 33, who was previously based in Turkey, on humanitarian grounds in August, saying that she faced forced repatriation to Iran and would be at risk given her writings for an Israeli news site. Amin, who is originally from Tehran, says her father was Jewish. Israeli law bars contact with the military or similar state agencies of its enemy Iran. As home to thousands of Iranian Jewish immigrants, Israel has in the past allowed citizens to visit family in Iran. But it outlawed these trips a decade ago over Shin Bet concerns that Tehran could recruit them as spies. A Shin Bet statement said that, after moving to Israel, Amin communicated with Iranian representatives and was questioned about this by the security service, whose responsibilities include counter-espionage. Asked by Reuters for clarification, an Israeli security official said only that the people with whom Amin was accused of communicating were not her relatives, and were inside Iran. Amin was not under arrest, said the Israeli official, who requested anonymity, adding: Whether there is a (criminal) case here is still being investigated. Amin later told Reuters she had been questioned for eight days over her contacts with a person she believed was an Israeli intelligence agent, but who her Shin Bet interrogators told her was in fact an Iranian government operative. A Farsi-speaking man had called her in Turkey, describing himself as an Israeli intelligence officer who wanted to protect her from Ankara s security services, she said, adding that they stayed in touch after she moved to Israel. Whenever the man phoned, Amin said, his number came up on her screen with an Israeli prefix. They never met, she said. They told me I am innocent as I have been in touch with an impostor, without knowing it, she said. I have spoken to this man, but I have done nothing against Israel s security. | 1 |
22,890 | AMERICA’S WORST FEAR: How Our Punishing President Will Harm America In His Final Months If Trump Wins | This nightmare could have all been prevented if America was able to look past their unwarranted white guilt for one second, and realize they were electing a second rate community agitator, with sealed records and a questionable birth certificate If Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination and defeats likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in November, President Obama will sabotage the economy in his final months in office, predicts talk-radio host Michael Savage. If Trump wins and I think he will there will be an economic crash, Savage told listeners of his nationally syndicated show, The Savage Nation, Monday. The reason I say that is not because of his policies, but because of what Obama will do on the way out the door. Savage said that if anyone thinks that a President Trump will be able to easily turn this huge ship around, you don t know much about navigation in turbulent waters. Wait until you see what happens in the last few months if Trump wins, Savage said. Wait until you see what that nice guy in the White House does. (Federal Reserve Chairman Janet) Yellen ups interest rates, Obama and his band of unmerry pranksters Sharpton and company unleash the mobs, Savage said. (George) Soros makes a last-ditch effort to distract Trump and the new Justice Department from currency manipulation and other financial games he may have been playing. Spends tens of millions on social agitation. Obama floods the U.S. with Central Americans, Syrians and Africans, mainly Muslim, mainly young males, and grants pardons to 10,000 more Central American drug dealers, Savage continued. Let s see what else might these decent Americans do? Release a few more billion pork barrel green projects? You can guess! Prior to his remarks about Obama s final days in office, Savage told his listeners he believed Trump would defeat Clinton in a landslide, describing the former secretary of state, senator and first lady as Fidel Castro in a dress. Savage cited the new Rasmussen poll of likely voters showing Trump with a 41-39 lead over Clinton nationally. And this is only an early poll, Savage noted on his show Monday. I said a long time ago that when it comes down to Trump vs. Clinton, he would win by a landslide, 60-40, 59-41, something like that. No matter how many illegal aliens Obama tried to flood into this country, Trump will win by a landslide, he said.In February, Savage warned that the banking deregulation under the Bill Clinton administration that led to the 2008 recession appears to be on the verge of impacting the economy again. We re being set up for an economic meltdown similar to the one that triggered the Great Depression, he said.This time, however, Savage continued, it s going to occur on a global scale, and it s unlikely that we ll be able to recover within even the next several decades, once it happens. For entire story: WND | 0 |
22,891 | Ex-California lawmaker to plead guilty in corruption case: prosecutors | LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A former California state senator accused of taking cash bribes and gifts from a businessman and from undercover FBI agents posing as Hollywood filmmakers to steer legislation in their favor has agreed to plead guilty to mail fraud, federal prosecutors said on Monday. Ronald Calderon, 58, a Democrat indicted in February 2014 on two dozen counts of bribery, fraud, money laundering and other charges, will enter his guilty plea this week, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles said. According to the plea agreement, prosecutors have agreed not to ask for a sentence of more than 70 months, although the statutory maximum for the charge is 20 years. Calderon’s attorney, Mark Geragos, could not be reached for comment. The former lawmaker’s brother, former state Assemblyman Thomas Calderon, pleaded guilty last week to a federal money-laundering charge in connection with the case. The Calderon brothers were members of a political dynasty going back several decades in California before they were ensnared in the federal investigation. “The Calderons have acknowledged their roles in a bribery scheme in which money for them and their families alone was driving legislation that would have benefited only a few individuals,” U.S. Attorney Eileen Decker said. The 2014 indictment accused Ronald Calderon of taking bribes from California hospital owner Michael Drobot to preserve a legislative loophole that allowed Drobot to defraud the state’s healthcare system out of hundreds of millions of dollars. According to the plea agreement, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Monday, Drobot hired Calderon’s son while he was in college, paying him some $30,000 for three summers of work. Drobot has agreed to plead guilty to separate federal charges and is cooperating in the case, prosecutors have said. Calderon was also charged with accepting money from undercover FBI agents, who he thought worked for an independent Hollywood movie studio, in exchange for supporting an expansion of film tax credits in California. According to the plea agreement, Calderon had the undercover agent hire his daughter for $3,000 a month, make a $5,000 payment toward his son’s tuition, pay for $12,000 in Las Vegas trips and give $25,000 to a nonprofit group the lawmaker and his brother used to pay themselves. In exchange, Calderon agreed to vote for the film tax legislation and hire the undercover agent’s purported girlfriend for his staff, according to the plea agreement. | 1 |
22,892 | France REJECTS Far-Right Fascist In LANDSLIDE Victory For Democracy (DETAILS) | All over the western world, we have seen a wave of nationalistic, xenophobic fascism take hold in the last year or so. It is what gave Great Britain its exit from the European Union, or Brexit. It is also what gave the United States Donald Trump. However, as the rest of Europe sees the results and suffering of these tragic mistakes, the tide is turning away from fascistic nationalism and back toward democracy. The Netherlands rejected Geert Wilders, a staunchly nationalistic, far-right candidate who wanted to ban Islam outright from The Netherlands, and who was also endorsed by U.S. Congressman Steve King (R-IA), he of the infamous somebody else s babies tweet. The same happened in Austria, where the voters there rejected another right-wing nut. Now, France has become the latest to prove that democracy trumps fascism, as their voters rejoice in the election of centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron over far-right, anti-immigrant lunatic Marine Le Pen.This was no squeaker, either. This was firm rejection of Le Pen s fascistic, bigoted rhetoric and anti-immigrant, nationalistic policies. Macron won with 65% of the French vote, and will hopefully now go quietly into the night now that the she can clearly see that the French people did not want her craziness to become law.There is another side to this, though. Perhaps the French people are seeing what the change election has done to us here in America? After all, Marine Le Pen has often been referred to as the French Donald Trump. Hell, Le Pen herself has admitted that Trump s election here in America has given her legitimacy, and she was spotted at Trump Tower in New York City earlier this year. Therefore it should come as no surprise that Trump endorsed her candidacy. They are two of a kind.However, Le Pen s sound defeat should give us all hope. As Trump s disastrous presidency unfolds and his failures mount, perhaps America will come to her senses in 2020 if we happen to survive this, and reject this nationalism and xenophobia. It s the only sensible thing to do.Featured image via video screen capture from Twitter | 0 |
22,893 | Republican Issa joins bipartisan House caucus on climate change | NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Republican Representative Darrell Issa of California has joined the Climate Solutions Caucus, a bipartisan group of lawmakers dedicated to fighting climate change, spokesmen for the group and Issa said on Wednesday. The group, founded a year ago by Florida lawmakers looking to slow the effects of global warming, like coastal flooding, now has 13 Republicans and 13 Democrats. It is committed to keeping an even number of members of both parties. The group hopes to become a counter-balance to President Donald Trump’s new administration, which includes several doubters of the science of climate change. “This is a place where Democrats and Republicans are working together on problem that’s really difficult to solve,” said Daniel Richter, the caucus spokesman and legislative director for the Citizens Climate Lobby, a non-profit whose volunteers encourage members of Congress to join the caucus. Not all Republicans accept the idea that human activity is causing global temperatures to rise, a conclusion reached by an overwhelming majority of scientists. Others accuse Democrats of overly politicizing a scientific issue in an attempt to demonize their opponents. Trump, a Republican, has expressed skepticism about climate change, speculating during his campaign that global warming was “a hoax” and concern over it was “a money-making industry.” Richter said he hoped the caucus can one day be as powerful as the House Freedom Caucus, a group of Republicans whose votes en bloc have become a strong force for conservative activism, scuttling new legislation its members ideologically oppose. But he said, with Congress strongly weighted in favor of Republicans, the caucus will need at least a dozen more Republican members to become a significant force. | 1 |
22,894 | U.S. Republicans quibble over effective date of Obamacare repeal | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Republican senators are leaning towards a plan to delay the effective date of an Obamacare repeal for three years, a senior Republican said on Wednesday. But some conservatives in the House of Representatives think that is too long to wait for the end of the Affordable Care Act, as President Barack Obama’s signature health insurance program is known. “In the Senate, there’s consensus for three years,” Senator Orrin Hatch, chairman of the chamber’s finance committee, told reporters, saying it could take that long to work out a replacement for Obamacare. “It takes time to do things around here.” Republicans in both the House and Senate say they want to repeal Obamacare early in 2017; it will be the first order of business in the Senate in January, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, said on Tuesday. Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president last month means Republicans will control the White House, Senate and House of Representatives in 2017. The new Congress goes to work on Jan. 3; Trump will be sworn in on Jan. 20. But Republicans have not agreed on how quickly the Obamacare repeal should go into effect. A delay would give them time to work on a replacement, instead of throwing millions of Americans out of their health insurance with no substitute. Some House conservatives favor phasing out Obamacare and getting a replacement within two years, because three years would not lapse until after the next congressional election, with the attendant uncertainty about who will be in the majority then. “We don’t think it’s very wise to leave a long-term plan like that up to a (future) Congress that you can’t necessarily control,” said Ben Williamson, spokesman for Representative Mark Meadows, the incoming leader of the Freedom Caucus, a group of about 40 House conservatives. “There is a potential that some members of the Freedom Caucus might vote against repeal, if the replacement was going beyond two years,” Williamson said. The Affordable Care Act has provided some 25 million previously uninsured Americans with health coverage. Republicans have repeatedly tried to dismantle the law, which they call a government overreach. Another senior senator said some Republicans are worried about whether they will have to raise taxes in three years to pay for an Obamacare replacement, which could for example involve tax credits to subsidize health insurance. “What Republicans could be faced with in three years, is voting for a tax increase ... and that’s not exactly a place that Republicans relish being,” said Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee. | 1 |
22,895 | Senator McCain returning to Arizona for cancer treatment: statement | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senator John McCain, who was diagnosed with brain cancer, is returning home to Arizona for medical treatment at the Mayo Clinic, McCain’s office said on Friday. “On Monday, July 31, he will begin a standard post-surgical regimen of targeted radiation and chemotherapy. During that time, Senator McCain will maintain a work schedule,” the office said in a statement. It said the 80-year-old Republican would return to Washington at the end of the August congressional recess. | 1 |
22,896 | Why Donald J. Trump Is The Only One Who Can Defeat An Anti-American Party That’s Gone Unopposed For 50 Years | Every American should read and share this brilliant article.So, to my friends on the Left and the #NeverTrumpers as well do I wish we lived in a time when our president could be collegial and dignified and proper ? Of course I do. These aren t those times. This is war. And it s a war that the Left has been fighting without opposition for the past 50 years.So, say anything you want about this president I get it, he can be vulgar, he can be crude, he can be undignified at times. I don t care. I can t spare this man. He fightsHE FIGHTSMy Leftist friends (as well as many ardent #NeverTrumpers) constantly ask me if I m not bothered by Donald Trump s lack of decorum. They ask if I don t think his tweets are beneath the dignity of the office. Here s my answer:We Right-thinking people have tried dignity. There could not have been a man of more quiet dignity than George W. Bush as he suffered the outrageous lies and politically motivated hatreds that undermined his presidency. We tried statesmanship. Could there be another human being on this earth who so desperately prized collegiality as John McCain? We tried propriety has there been a nicer human being ever than Mitt Romney? And the results were always the same.This is because, while we were playing by the rules of dignity, collegiality and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years, engaged in a knife fight where the only rules are those of Saul Alinsky and the Chicago mob.I don t find anything dignified, collegial or proper about Barack Obama s lying about what went down on the streets of Ferguson in order to ramp up racial hatreds because racial hatreds serve the Democratic Party. I don t see anything dignified in lying about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and imprisoning an innocent filmmaker to cover your tracks. I don t see anything statesman-like in weaponizing the IRS to be used to destroy your political opponents and any dissent. Yes, Obama was articulate and polished but in no way was he in the least bit dignified, collegial or proper. The Left has been engaged in a war against America since the rise of the Children of the 60s. To them, it has been an all-out war where nothing is held sacred and nothing is seen as beyond the pale. It has been a war they ve fought with violence, the threat of violence, demagoguery and lies from day one the violent take-over of the universities till today.The problem is, through these years, the Left has been the only side fighting this war. While the Left has been taking a knife to anyone who stands in their way, the Right has continued to act with dignity, collegiality and propriety.With Donald Trump, this all has come to an end. Donald Trump is America s first wartime president in the Culture War.During wartime, things like dignity and collegiality simply aren t the most essential qualities one looks for in their warriors. Ulysses Grant was a drunk whose behavior in peacetime might well have seen him drummed out of the Army for conduct unbecoming. Had Abraham Lincoln applied the peacetime rules of propriety and booted Grant, the Democrats might well still be holding their slaves today. Lincoln rightly recognized that, I cannot spare this man. He fights. General George Patton was a vulgar-talking, son-of-a-bitch. In peacetime, this might have seen him stripped of rank. But, had Franklin Roosevelt applied the normal rules of decorum, then Hitler and the Socialists would barely be five decades into their thousand-year Reich.Trump is fighting. And what s particularly delicious is that, like Patton standing over the battlefield as his tanks obliterated Rommel s, he s shouting, You magnificent bastards, I read your book! That is just the icing on the cake, but it s wonderful to see that not only is Trump fighting, he s defeating the Left using their own tactics.That book is Saul Alinsky s Rules for Radicals a book so essential to the Liberals war against America that it is and was the playbook for the entire Obama administration and the subject of Hillary Clinton s senior thesis. It is a book of such pure evil, that, just as the rest of us would dedicate our book to those we most love or those to whom we are most indebted, Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer.Trump s tweets may seem rash and unconsidered but, in reality, he is doing exactly what Alinsky suggested his followers do. First, instead of going after the fake media and they are so fake that they have literally gotten every single significant story of the past 60 years not just wrong, but diametrically opposed to the truth, from the Tet Offensive to Benghazi, to what really happened on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri Trump has isolated CNN. He made it personal. Then, just as Alinsky suggests, he employs ridicule which Alinsky described as the most powerful weapon of all. Everyone gets that it s not just CNN in fact, in a world where Al Sharpton and Rachel Maddow, Paul Krugman and Nicholas Kristof are people of influence and whose reporting is in no way significantly different than CNN s CNN is just a piker.Most importantly, Trump s tweets have put CNN in an untenable and unwinnable position. With Trump s ability to go around them, they cannot simply stand pat. They need to respond. This leaves them with only two choices.They can either go high (as Hillary would disingenuously declare of herself and the fake news would disingenuously report as the truth) and begin to honestly and accurately report the news or they can double-down on their usual tactics and hope to defeat Trump with twice their usual hysteria and demagoguery.The problem for CNN (et al.) with the former is, if they were to start honestly reporting the news, that would be the end of the Democratic Party they serve. It is nothing but the incessant use of fake news (read: propaganda) that keeps the Left alive. Imagine, for example, if CNN had honestly and accurately reported then-candidate Barack Obama s close ties to foreign terrorists (Rashid Khalidi), domestic terrorists (William Ayers), the mafia (Tony Rezko) or the true evils of his spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright s, church.Imagine if they had honestly and accurately conveyed the evils of the Obama administration s weaponizing of the IRS to be used against their political opponents or his running of guns to the Mexican cartels or the truth about the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the Obama administration s cover-up. This makes going high a non-starter for CNN. This leaves them no other option but to ratchet up the fake news, conjuring up the next nothing burger and devoting 24 hours a day to hysterical rants about how it s worse than Nixon. This, obviously, is what CNN has chosen to do. The problem is, as they become more and more hysterical, they become more and more obvious. Each new effort at even faker news than before, and faker outrage only makes that much more clear to any objective observer that Trump is and always has been right about the fake news media.And, by causing their hysteria, Trump has forced them into numerous, highly embarrassing and discrediting mistakes. Thus, in their desperation, they have lowered their standards even further and run with articles so clearly fake that, even with the liberal (lower case l ) libel laws protecting the media, they ve had to wholly retract and erase their stories repeatedly.Their flailing at Trump has even seen them cross the line into criminality, with CNN using their vast corporate fortune to hunt down a private citizen for having made fun of them in an Internet meme. This threat to dox release of personal information to encourage co-ideologists to visit violence upon him and his family a political satirist was chilling in that it clearly wasn t meant just for him. If it were, there would have been no reason for CNN to have made their deal with him public.Instead, CNN playing by Chicago Rules was sending a message to any and all: dissent will not be tolerated. This heavy-handed and hysterical response to a joke on the Internet has backfired on CNN, giving rise to only more righteous ridicule.So, to my friends on the Left and the #NeverTrumpers as well do I wish we lived in a time when our president could be collegial and dignified and proper ? Of course I do. These aren t those times. This is war. And it s a war that the Left has been fighting without opposition for the past 50 years.So, say anything you want about this president I get it, he can be vulgar, he can be crude, he can be undignified at times. I don t care. I can t spare this man. He fights.Townhall published this brilliant article on July 13, 2017. It was written by Conservative author and pundit Evan Sayet, who is the author of The KinderGarden of Eden: How The Modern Liberal Thinks. His lecture to the Heritage Foundation on this same topic remains, some ten years later, by far the single most viewed lecture in their history.Here is the link to the video of Evan Sayet s viral lecture on How the modern liberal thinks. | 0 |
22,897 | Six years after BP spill, U.S. sets new offshore oil safety rules | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Thursday unveiled new oil well control rules to prevent the kind of blowout that happened six years ago on a BP Plc (BP.L) rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement announced the finalized regulations, which include more stringent design requirements and operational procedures for offshore oil and gas operations. The new standards come nearly six years after a deadly explosion and fire on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig off the cost of Louisiana, which led to the worst oil spill of all time. The Macondo well blowout and the fire on April 20,2010 killed 11 workers. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell told reporters the rule took six years to complete because the agency wanted to understand the root cause of the disaster. “There are a number of things that went wrong,” she said. “It was important that we understood those things and the evolution of technology.” The Interior Department said it took into account industry and other stakeholder feedback since it first proposed the rule last April. To improve the “culture of safety” on oil rigs and prevent future spills or blowouts, the new rule tightens requirements for blowout preventers, well design, well control casing, cementing and sub-sea containment. It also calls for real-time monitoring, third party reviews of equipment, regular inspections and safe drilling margin requirements. The agency estimates the new rule would cost the industry $890 million over a 10-year period, but would yield $1.5 billion in benefits. Republican Louisiana Senator David Vitter slammed what he called an “overarching” rule that would “kick our oil and gas industry while it’s down.” Industry lobby group the American Petroleum Institute said it is still reviewing the document, but said technical problems in the initial proposal could cause unintended consequences if they remain. Offshore drilling has seen at least 1,066 injuries, 496 fires and explosions, 22 losses of well control, 11 big oil spills and 11 fatalities since the Deepwater Horizon accident, according to the Interior Department. Jacqueline Savitz, vice president of the ocean protection advocacy group Oceana, said the new standards were “a significant improvement over the status quo” since Congress has not passed legislation to improve offshore drilling safety but are “absolutely not sufficient to protect our oceans.” Earlier this month, a federal judge in New Orleans approved BP’s $20 billion settlement, paving the way for Gulf restoration to begin. | 1 |
22,898 | UK urgently needs Brexit transition deal, and more time after that, lawmakers say | LONDON (Reuters) - Britain urgently needs a standstill deal to keep its ties with the European Union unchanged in a post-Brexit transition period, and will probably need an adaptation phase after that for sectors such as financial services, a group of lawmakers said. A transition agreement - which is widely expected to last for two years - must be done with Brussels in a matter of weeks to stop companies from moving more operations away from Britain, the cross-party Treasury Committee said. It is highly likely that, for certain sectors, including financial services, the standstill transition period will have to be followed by an adaptation period, the committee said on Thursday in a report, summing up its work so far on Brexit. Many companies are drawing up contingency plans ahead of Britain leaving the EU in March 2019, given the lack of clarity about their future access to the bloc which accounts for nearly half of Britain s exports. Banks have previously said they want a deal to bridge the period between the end of a Brexit transition phase and the start of Britain s new, permanent relationship with the EU in order to phase in changes to the way they operate. At this stage, the committee makes no recommendations about the design or duration of this subsequent period, except that, unlike the standstill period, it need not involve the UK applying the existing framework of EU rules across all sectors, the committee said. Prime Minister Theresa May last week secured a deal with Brussels that will pave the way for talks on a transition deal and for negotiations about the future permanent UK-EU trade relationship after Brexit. Nicky Morgan, a lawmaker from May s Conservative Party who chairs the Treasury Committee, said time was of the essence and London should accept EU terms for a transition deal, including temporarily remaining subject to the European Court of Justice. Delays to agreements caused by arguments over arcane points of principle could damage the economy, Morgan said. The government should be prepared to accept the terms on which transition is offered by the EU-27. Some Brexit supporters have said Britain must no longer be bound by ECJ rulings after Brexit. But under last week s initial divorce deal, Britain will enable its judges to ask the court to weigh in on issues affecting EU citizens for eight years. The committee also warned the government against assuming that last-minute deals would be reached to avoid disruption in areas such as aviation. The history of international trade diplomacy is replete with examples of short-sighted political considerations prevailing over economic self-interest, it said. And the conclusion of such agreements may come too late for firms that are intending to activate their contingency plans in the first quarter of 2018. | 1 |
22,899 | Ted Cruz Was Just Trolled By The Master Campaign Troll — Vermin Supreme (VIDEO) | During a campaign stop, Republican primary candidate Ted Cruz was confronted with the most well-known troll in United States politics. In case you are not in on the joke, Vermin Supreme runs in every presidential election. He is a performance artist who pulls stunts that satirize the U.S. election system.The confrontation was hilarious, to say the least. Supreme and a group of his supporters ambushed Cruz, who was standing outside his campaign bus. They swarmed Cruz, carrying handmade Vermin Supreme 2016 signs. Shouting into a megaphone, Supreme asks Cruz: Ted Cruz, do you agree that the waterboarding water should be fluoridated? Shouldn t we at least fluoridate the water that we use to water board the bad people with? That s Supreme s act in a nutshell. He makes completely ridiculous comments about either real issues or fictional ones. Supreme rose to fame instantly when a video was published online that showed him campaigning on the promise that if he is elected, everyone will get a free pony.Obviously not knowing what the heck is going on, Cruz flees to the safety of his campaign bus. Once inside Supreme shouts into the megaphone towards the bus: Surrender, Ted Cruz, surrender. We have you surrounded. You must surrender immediately. Put your hands in the air and drop your pants for your safety, thank you. Mr. Cruz, why do you hate America? Sir, why do you hate America? Taking shots at both Cruz s religious zealotry and his hawkish foreign policy platform, Supreme concludes the protest/campaign event/performance piece by holding a prayer. Supreme prays that: That, uh, we don t get into any wars, and the war that we do get into against Narnia, that there will not be very many American causalities. The video of the encounter was posted to Twitter. You can watch it below in full.Vermin Supreme trolls Ted Cruzhttps://t.co/sSdA3u9fyd Independent Journal (@INJO) February 9, 2016 Featured image from video screenshot via Twitter. | 0 |
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