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23,200 | GUNFIGHT ERUPTS: Muslim Migrants Fight To Keep Minority Christians Out Of Camp in Northern France | Muslims want the majority Christian nations to accept them and pay for their existence, but will stop at nothing to keep the Christian refugees from staying in camps that are funded by the host nations A gunfight has erupted in a migrant camp in northern France, leaving four people wounded after clashes that were thought to have involved rival gangs of smugglers.Two men were treated overnight for gunshot wounds, a third for stab wounds and a woman for blows to the head following the clashes at the Grande-Synthe camp near Dunkirk.Four people were held for questioning on charges of attempted voluntary homicide. Police believe the fight erupted between rival people smuggling gangs against a backdrop of simmering tensions between Muslims and Christians in the camp.David Michaux, a CRS anti-riot officer from the Unsa Police union, told Le Figaro: There is a real problem of Muslims and non-Muslims. Most of the camp s 3,000-odd occupants are Muslim Kurds from Iraq, Iran and Syria but a minority are Christians from Iran. The Muslims are trying to expel the Christians from the camp. He added: A unit of gendarmes was at the Grande-Synthe camp [on Tuesday]. They heard shots fired, around 40 according to their estimates. Grande-Synthe is 22 miles away from the so-called Jungle camp in Calais. Via: National Posth/t Gateway Pundit | 0 |
23,201 | Trump’s Spokeswoman Just Said Half Of Bernie’s Supporters Will Vote For Trump (VIDEO) | Infamous Donald Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson has once again proven just how pitiful and ridiculous The Donald and his entire team is. In speaking about President Barack Obama s recent endorsement of Hillary Clinton, Pierson revealed that she actually thinks that supporters of Bernie Sanders are going to switch sides and vote GOP. Actually, she said with full confidence that she thinks HALF of Sanders fans are going to switch over to team Trump.It doesn t get any more idiotic than this, and it s almost hard to believe. When Jake Tapper asked Pierson how many Sanders supporters will jump ship to avoid voting for Clinton, Pierson said: I think the polls are showing, one in four, maybe, I think it s going to be half at some point. There is a transition happening, not just in this country but globally, the consciousness is definitely changing, and younger voters want to see the status quo busted up. That is absolute madness, and Pierson has mocked the intelligence of Bernie s followers by saying they would vote for a racist, misogynistic Republican. First of all, Trump has insulted their chosen candidate several times, referring to him as Crazy Bernie. He s also encouraged violence against Sanders supporters that dare to attend his rallies. Another thing Trump is in denial about is the fact that Sanders will probably be giving Clinton his endorsement soon, and urge his supporters to throw their support behind the former Secretary of State as well.Now, Sanders fans might not be happy that Clinton is leading the Democratic party, but most of them know that Trump needs to be stopped by any means possible. According to a recent poll, the real numbers reveal that less than a quarter of Sanders voters might switch over to Trump. The polls also revealed that 71 percent of Sanders backers would choose Clinton over Trump but when has the Trump campaign ever really been concerned with facts?You can watch Pierson spew this pro-Trump nonsense in the video below:Featured image is a screenshot | 0 |
23,202 | NEW VIDEO: NICE TERROR ATTACK…What The Media’s NOT Telling You | SHARE this video everywhere. We cannot allow the leftist media to control this narrative. Our freedom and our way of life is on the line | 0 |
23,203 | Factbox: Trump fills top jobs for his administration | (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Republican Representative Ryan Zinke of Montana, a former Navy SEAL commander, as his interior secretary, a senior transition official said on Tuesday. The following is a list of Republican Trump’s selections for top jobs in his administration; all the posts but those of national security adviser, the White House chief of staff, White House director of the National Economic Council and White House strategist require Senate confirmation: Sessions, 69, was the first U.S. senator to endorse Trump’s presidential bid and has been a close ally since. Son of a country store owner, the Alabama senator and former federal prosecutor has long taken a tough stance on illegal immigration, opposing any path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. U.S. Representative Pompeo, 52, is a third-term congressman from Kansas who serves on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, which oversees the CIA, National Security Agency and cyber security. A retired Army officer and Harvard Law School graduate, Pompeo supports the U.S. government’s sweeping collection of Americans’ communications data and wants to scrap the nuclear deal with Iran. Ross, 79, heads the private equity firm W.L. Ross & Co. His net worth was pegged by Forbes at about $2.9 billion. A staunch supporter of Trump and an economic adviser, Ross helped shape the Trump campaign’s views on trade policy. He blames the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, which went into force in 1994, and the 2001 entry of China into the World Trade Organization for causing massive U.S. factory job losses. Mattis is a retired Marine general known for his tough talk, distrust of Iran and battlefield experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. A former leader of Central Command, which oversees U.S. military operations in the Middle East and South Asia, Mattis, 66, is known by many U.S. forces by his nickname “Mad Dog.” He was once rebuked for saying in 2005: “It’s fun to shoot some people.” DeVos, 58, is a billionaire Republican donor, a former chair of the Michigan Republican Party and an advocate for the privatization of education. As chair of the American Federation for Children, she has pushed at the state level for vouchers that families can use to send their children to private schools and for the expansion of charter schools. Perry, 66, adds to the list of oil drilling advocates skeptical about climate change who have been picked for senior positions in Trump’s Cabinet. The selections have worried environmentalists but cheered an oil and gas industry eager for expansion. Perry, who also briefly ran in the 2016 presidential race, would have to be confirmed by the Senate to head the Energy Department, which is responsible for U.S. energy policy and oversees the nation’s nuclear weapons program. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ADMINISTRATOR: SCOTT PRUITT An ardent opponent of President Barack Obama’s measures to stem climate change, Oklahoma Attorney General Pruitt, 48, has enraged environmental activists. But he fits with the president-elect’s promise to cut the agency back and eliminate regulation that he says is stifling oil and gas drilling. Pruitt became the top state prosecutor for Oklahoma, which has extensive oil reserves, in 2011, and has challenged the EPA multiple times since. U.S. Representative Price, 62, is an orthopedic surgeon who heads the House Budget Committee. A representative from Georgia since 2005, Price has criticized Obamacare and has championed a plan of tax credits, expanded health savings accounts and lawsuit reforms to replace it. He is opposed to abortion. The final leadership role of Kelly’s 45-year career was head of the U.S. Southern Command, responsible for U.S. military activities and relationships in Latin America and the Caribbean. The 66-year-old retired Marine general differed with Democratic President Barack Obama on key issues and has warned of vulnerabilities along the United States’ southern border with Mexico. Carson, 65, is a retired neurosurgeon who dropped out of the Republican presidential nominating race in March and threw his support to Trump. A popular writer and speaker in conservative circles, Carson previously indicated reluctance to take a position in the incoming administration because of his lack of experience in the federal government. Carson is the first African-American picked for a Cabinet spot by Trump. Zinke, 55, a first-term representative and a member of the House subcommittee on natural resources, has voted for legislation that would weaken environmental safeguards on public lands. It is unclear where he would stand on opening up more federal lands to increased drilling and mining, something Trump promised he would do as president. The League of Conservation Voters, which ranks lawmakers on their environmental record, gave Zinke an extremely low lifetime score of 3 percent. Puzder, chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants Inc, which runs the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s fast-food chains, has been a vociferous critic of government regulation of the workplace and the National Labor Relations Board. Puzder, 66, has argued that higher minimum wages would hurt workers by forcing restaurants to close, and praises the benefits of automation, so his appointment is likely to antagonize organized labor. Cohn, 56, president and chief operating officer of investment bank Goldman Sachs, had widely been considered heir apparent to Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of the Wall Street firm. Trump hammered Goldman and Blankfein during the presidential campaign, releasing a television ad that called Blankfein part of a “global power structure” that had robbed America’s working class. Retired Lieutenant General Flynn, 57, was an early Trump supporter and serves as vice chairman on his transition team. He began his Army career in 1981 and was deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Flynn became head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2012 under President Barack Obama but retired a year earlier than expected, according to media reports, and became a fierce critic of Obama’s foreign policy. Tillerson, 64, has spent his entire career at Exxon Mobil Corp, where he rose to serve as its chairman and CEO in 2006. A civil engineer by training, the Texan joined the world’s largest energy company in 1975 and led several of its operations in the United States as well as in Yemen, Thailand and Russia. As Exxon’s chief executive, he maintained close ties with Moscow and opposed U.S. sanctions against Russia for its incursion into Crimea. McMahon, 68, is a co-founder and former chief executive of the professional wrestling franchise WWE, which is based in Stamford, Connecticut. She ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for a U.S. Senate seat in Connecticut in 2010 and 2012, and was an early supporter of Trump’s presidential campaign. Chao, 63, was labor secretary under President George W. Bush for eight years and the first Asian-American woman to hold a Cabinet position. She is a director at Ingersoll Rand, News Corp and Vulcan Materials Company. She is married to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky. Mnuchin, 53, is a successful private equity investor, hedge fund manager and Hollywood financier who spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs before leaving in 2002. He assembled an investor group to buy a failed California mortgage lender in 2009, rebranded it as OneWest Bank and built it into Southern California’s largest bank. Housing advocacy groups criticized the bank for its foreclosure practices, accusing it of being too quick to foreclose on struggling homeowners. Haley, 44, has been the Republican governor of South Carolina since 2011 and has little experience in foreign policy or the federal government. The daughter of Indian immigrants, she led a successful push last year to remove the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina state capitol after the killing of nine black churchgoers in Charleston by a white gunman. Recently re-elected to serve as Republican National Committee chairman, Priebus will give up his party post to join Trump in the White House, where the low-key Washington operative could help forge ties with Congress to advance Trump’s agenda. The 44-year-old was a steadfast supporter of Trump during the presidential campaign even as the party fractured amid the choice. CHIEF WHITE HOUSE STRATEGIST, SENIOR COUNSELOR: STEVE BANNON The former head of the conservative website Breitbart News came aboard as Trump’s campaign chairman in August. A rabble-rousing conservative media figure, he helped shift Breitbart into a forum for the alt-right, a loose confederation of those who reject mainstream politics and includes neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semites. His hiring signals Trump’s dedication to operating outside the norms of Washington. As White House chief of staff, Bannon, 63, will serve as Trump’s gatekeeper and agenda-setter. | 1 |
23,204 | Infamous Climate Denier Falls Apart After Bill Nye Makes Him A $20,000 Bet He Knows He’ll Lose (VIDEO) | Bill Nye was this close to participating in a debate on climate change with Sarah Palin, only to find out that he wasn t invited to the panel But in a recently aired teaser for an interview with Marc Morano, the organizer of the climate denial panel, it s obvious to see why the group was terrified to let Nye on the stage with an intellectual lightweight like Sarah Palin Nye mopped the floor with Morano s tired arguments and didn t even break a sweat.In a two-and-a-half minute clip of a lengthier interview, Nye gets Morano, a man whom Media Matters named the Climate Change Misinformer of the Year in 2012, to admit that the world is warming. Then he asks the outspoken denier to put his money where his mouth and winds up demonstrating just how little confidence Morano has in his own radical position.Nye: Would you take the bet? 2016 will be among the hottest of the last 10 years and that [between] 2010 and 2020 will be the hottest decade on record?Morano: No. I would agree with both of those, but I would say it s a meaningless stat because it s tenths of a degree.Nye points out that even tenths of a degree each year means major changes in climate over the next few decades. Morano, who comes from the school of Let future generations worry about it is again stumped when Nye flips the narrative by focusing on his children and the future he is building for them. Bear in mind, your reputation in the mainstream is a guy who will do almost anything to win. Your children go to school, they have access to the internet, they see your history, what you ve said about people. Your publishing of emails. You ve even encouraged harassment. I agreed to do this interview because I think it will expose your point of view as very much in the minority, and very much not in our national interest and not in the world s interest. And as I say again, I m very concerned about your kids. Morano is known as the guy who most vehemently pushed the bogus story that climate scientists were faking data to promote the climate change agenda. He operates almost exclusively outside of reality. Last year he threw an epic temper tantrum on Fox News after learning that Google planned to tweak their search algorithm to account for factual validity because he assumed (correctly, let s be fair) that his work would be pushed to the very bottom.The full-time propagandist recently produced and hosted a new documentary called Climate Hustle which he and friend Sarah Palin have billed the right-wing s response to Al Gore s Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth. Morano said the film delivers a powerful presentation of dissenting science, best of all, in a humorous way. Adding: This film may change the way you think about global warming.' According to an exclusive by Variety, Palin will be participating in an event that features a screening of the film and then a panel discussion afterwards. It will be hosted by Republican Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas (another denier) and Palin who once described oil, gas, and minerals as those things that God has dumped on this part of the earth [Alaska] for mankind s use instead of us relying on unfriendly foreign nations. They re not exactly playing with a full deck.Nye has a reputation for tearing ignorant opponents to shreds during debates. He recently put on a master class during a much-publicized debate with creationist theme park owner Ken Ham, in which he not only emerged the victor, but probably even changed a few minds in a crowd of deeply religious Ham fans.Nye already seems pretty confident that despite not being invited to appear in person, his interview with Morano says it all. On Twitter, he trolled Morano after the teaser for the contentious interview between the two aired showing that Morano would not accept Nye s bet of $20,000.Climate denier (extreme doubter) won't take the bets 'cause he knows what's up re: global temperatures. https://t.co/OJfUoDPOMB Bill Nye (@BillNye) April 11, 2016It was originally reported that Nye would be in attendance at the event to square off against Palin, this unfortunately isn t true. Instead, audiences will get to listen to Palin ramble on about polar bears and drill, baby, drill with nobody there to call her on her misinformation. It is, without a doubt, a major missed opportunity.Featured image via Getty | 0 |
23,205 | U.S. Democrat Pelosi gets 'obscene and sick' calls after hack | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said on Saturday she has been flooded with “obscene and sick” calls and text messages after a hacker linked to Russia posted personal contact information online for her and hundreds of other Democratic lawmakers and aides. Pelosi sent a letter to colleagues warning them to take precautions and said she was changing her phone number after a hacker identified as “Guccifer 2.0” posted the personal cellphone numbers and email addresses on Friday. The posted information appeared to have been gained in the electronic breach of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the fundraising and campaign arm of Democrats in the House of Representatives. Other Democratic campaign groups, including the Democratic National Committee, also were targeted by the cyber attack, which was made public late last month. “On a personal note, I was in the air flying from Florida to California when the news broke. Upon landing, I have received scores of mostly obscene and sick calls, voicemails and text messages,” Pelosi told her colleagues, urging them to keep their phones and incoming text messages away from their family members and children. “This is a sad course of events, not only for us, but more importantly for our country,” said Pelosi, who earlier in the week blamed Russia for the cyber attack and called it an “electronic Watergate” akin to the 1972 burglary at Democratic Party headquarters that ultimately brought down Republican President Richard Nixon. John Ramsey, the House’s chief information security officer, sent a memo to lawmakers and aides whose information had been made public urging them to change passwords for all their accounts and to consider changing their non-House email addresses. He said the hacker had uploaded a spreadsheet with a mix of House and personal email addresses and cellphone numbers for “nearly every” House Democrat and “an assorted number of Republicans,” and similar information for hundreds of staffers. “Along with the Excel file, ‘Guccifer 2.0’ uploaded documents that included the account names and passwords for an assortment of subscription services used by the DCCC. Initial analysis identifies some members’ home addresses, along with their spouse’s name, marital status, and religion,” the memo said. U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that Guccifer 2.0 is an individual or group operating with or for the GRU, the Russian military intelligence agency. Russia has denied involvement in the breach. The potential Russian involvement in the cyber attack has ignited a fierce campaign debate, with Democrats accusing the Russians of trying to aid Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. But U.S. officials suspect the operation and others directed at the DNC and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign were more likely an attempt to pursue email chains into classified networks or in search of national security policy information than to influence the Nov. 8 U.S. election. “The Russian assumption probably is that it doesn’t matter much who wins the election, because Wall Street and other powerful lobbies really run the country,” one of the officials said on Saturday, speaking like the others on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence assessments. “The old Soviet belief hasn’t faded completely when it comes to foreign policy,” the official said. | 1 |
23,206 | U.S., backed by China, proposes tough N.Korea sanctions at U.N. | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United States presented a draft Security Council resolution on Thursday it negotiated with China that would dramatically tighten existing restrictions on North Korea after its Jan. 6 nuclear test and create the toughest U.N. sanctions regime in over two decades. The draft, seen by Reuters, would require U.N. member states to conduct mandatory inspections of all cargo passing through their territory to or from North Korea to look for illicit goods. Previously states were only required to do this if they had reasonable grounds to believe there was illicit cargo. The United States used the nearly two months of bilateral negotiations that at one point involved President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, diplomats said, to win China’s support for unusually tough measures intended to persuade its ally North Korea to abandon its atomic weapons program. The proposal would close a gap in the U.N. arms embargo on Pyongyang by banning all weapons imports and exports. There would also be an unprecedented ban on the transfer to North Korea of any item that could directly contribute to the operational capabilities of the North Korean armed forces, such as trucks that could be modified for military purposes. Other proposed measures include a ban on all supplies of aviation and rocket fuel to North Korea, a requirement for states to expel North Korean diplomats engaging in illicit activities, and blacklisting 17 North Korean individuals and 12 entities, including the National Aerospace Development Agency or ‘NADA’, the body responsible for February’s rocket launch. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power told reporters the new measures, if approved, would be “the strongest set of sanctions imposed by the Security Council in more than two decades.” Several council diplomats predicted a Saturday meeting to adopt the draft but Russian deputy U.N. ambassador Petr Iliichev told Reuters Moscow needed time to study the draft and the earliest likely vote would be next week. The draft was the result of seven weeks of tough negotiations between the United States and China, North Korea’s neighbor and main ally. “This is a very robust resolution,” a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity. “Clearly this took a long time ... it was a difficult process.” North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 because of its multiple nuclear tests and rocket launches. China and the United States had differed on how strongly to respond to Pyongyang’s most recent test, with Washington urging harsh punitive measures and Beijing emphasizing dialogue and milder U.N. steps confined to non-proliferation. The Global Times, an influential Chinese tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party, said in an editorial that North Korea “deserves the punishment” of new sanctions, but China should “cushion Washington’s harsh sanctions to some extent.” “China insists the sanctions should focus on striking North Korea’s ability to continue developing nuclear weapons. It is the fundamental difference between China’s policy and that of the U.S., South Korea and Japan. China holds unswerving goodwill toward North Korea, which Chinese society hopes Pyongyang can understand,” it said. Diplomats said a sharp tightening of restrictions was necessary since Pyongyang has proved its determination to flout at all costs attempts at constraining its nuclear and missile programs. They said they hoped the latest measures would make it harder for North Korea to continue with that policy, keeping up the pressure on the country’s leadership without making the country’s impoverished population any poorer. “Pyongyang has prioritized the pursuit of these massively expensive programs over absolutely everything else,” the U.S. official said. “So is New York action going to automatically convince the regime’s leaders to cease? I think we’re realistic on that point.” However, he added that “this resolution will be felt, it will have an impact ... The DPRK (North Korea) have never been subject to the kind of pressure that is in the resolution.” Power said the measures were aimed at the country’s leadership, and “careful not to punish the North Korean people.” In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular press briefing on Thursday: “We hope and believe this new resolution can help effectively constrain North Korea from further developing its nuclear missile program”. There will also be further restrictions aimed at making it more difficult for North Korea to press ahead with its nuclear and missile programs. Pyongyang is currently banned from importing and exporting nuclear and missile technology and is not allowed to import luxury goods. The list of banned items will be expanded. The U.S. official said one of five annexes to the resolution lists 31 ships owned by North Korean shipping firm Ocean Maritime Management Company Limited, which will be blacklisted. Also new, countries will be required, not just encouraged, to freeze the assets of North Korean entities linked to Pyongyang’s nuclear or missile programs and to prohibit the opening of new branches or offices of North Korean banks or to engage in banking correspondence with North Korean banks. | 1 |
23,207 | Boat with 130 Rohingya refugee capsizes off Myanmar, IOM says | GENEVA (Reuters) - A boat carrying 130 Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar has capsized off the Bay of Bengal, the International Organization for Migration said on Thursday. IOM s Bangladesh office tweeted that 13 bodies had been recovered, including 8 children. | 1 |
23,208 | Russia opposes U.S. draft U.N. resolution on Syria chemical probe extension: RIA | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia opposes a draft U.N. resolution to extend the mandate of an international inquiry into chemical weapons attacks in Syria, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Wednesday. Ryabkov s comments came hours after Russia rejected a report by the international inquiry blaming the Syrian government for a deadly toxic gas attack, casting doubt on the U.N. Security Council s ability to extend the investigation s mandate before it expires next week. Russia last month cast a veto at the United Nations Security Council against renewing the investigation s mandate. I stress that we are in no way raising the question of ending this structure s activities, RIA state news agency quoted Ryabkov as saying. We are in favor of its maintenance, but on a different basis. The draft U.N. resolution by the United States says Syria must not develop or produce chemical weapons, and it calls on all parties in Syria to provide full cooperation with the international probe. The investigation by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) was unanimously created by the 15-member Security Council in 2015 and renewed in 2016 for another year. Its mandate is due to expire in mid-November. The investigation found that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad s government was to blame for a chemical attack on the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun that killed dozens of people in April, according to a report sent to the Security Council on Oct. 26. Russia, whose air force and special forces have bolstered the Syrian army, has said there is no evidence to show Damascus was responsible for the attack. Moscow maintains that the chemicals that killed civilians belonged to rebels, not Assad s government. | 1 |
23,209 | Catalan business lobby says worried by any declaration of independence | MADRID (Reuters) - The influential Catalan business lobby Cercle d Economia said on Wednesday it was extremely worried by the prospect of Catalonia declaring independence from Spain and called for leaders from both sides to start talks. Such a declaration would plunge the country into an extraordinarily complex situation with unknown, but very serious consequences, the lobby said in a statement. The lobby also condemned violence on Sunday, saying Catalan-Spanish relationships had deteriorated as a consequence, after Spanish riot police were seen beating Catalans attempting to cast a ballot in a vote the government had said was illegal. | 1 |
23,210 | U.S. House tax chief says state income tax deduction will not remain | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican tax legislation due to be released this week in the U.S. House of Representatives will not include a deduction for state and local income taxes, the top House Republican on tax policy said on Tuesday. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady said in a radio interview with commentator Hugh Hewitt that the emerging bill will offer relief only on property taxes. Brady spoke as House Republican leaders sought to broker an agreement with Republican lawmakers who want the state and local income tax deduction to remain. Asked if there would be relief on the income side of state and local taxes, Brady replied: “The answer is ‘no.’ ... Our lawmakers in those high-tax states really believe their families are being punished most by property taxes.” | 1 |
23,211 | SHOCKING COMMENTS AGAINST TRUMP Expose Intelligence Committee’s Schiff: ‘He doesn’t put the country first’ [Video] | It s a given that any Democrat from California is going to be against President Trump but this guy is through the roof against Trump to the point where he s seething with bitterness. PLEASE REMEMBER THAT THIS GUY IS PART OF THE COMMITTEE INVESTIGATING TRUMP!I just happened to see this interview and could not believe my ears! Not only are they over the top with the bashing of our president but they are lying through their teeth!Here s exactly what President Trump said about Putin: What I said is, I believe Putin believes that, Trump said at the press conference in Hanoi, Vietnam. I believe that he feels that he and Russia did not meddle in the election. As to whether I believe it or not, I m with our agencies, especially as currently constituted, with their leadership. I believe in our intel agencies. I ve worked with them very strongly Rep. Adam Schiff (D. Calif.) said on Monday that President Donald Trump is putting Russian President Vladimir Putin before the interests of the United States. Schiff, Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, agreed with the Andrea Mitchell Reports host and argued Trump insinuated with his comments that the intelligence agencies are political and can t be trusted ADAM SCHIFF NEEDS TO GO! He s saying basically you just can t trust them because they re part of a political establishment, but now I ve got my own political establishment. I m doing my own politicization of the intelligence agencies so now I can rely on them,' Schiff said. That s a horrible message that nobody within the IC intelligence community believes or accepts, but it denigrates the agencies nonetheless, Schiff continued. This is just how he operates. Schiff said Trump is trying to portray the message that everything that came before him was awful, and bad, and wrong, and now everything is great. THE COMMENT BELOW IS UNBELIEVABLE AND A TOTAL LIE: He doesn t put the country first He s putting Vladimir Putin first, Schiff said. He s putting his own that is, Donald Trump s own narrow, personal self-interest before the country, and that is a terrible quality to have in the President of the United States. Read more: WFB | 0 |
23,212 | BEST SUMMARY Yet Of The Shocking Clinton Uranium One Scandal From The Beginning | There s so much to know in order to understand just how bad the Uranium One scandal is to what s happening now with the Fake Russia probe by Comey. Once you understand the connections and the details of it, you realize it s HUGE!It s not just the Clinton grifters but Obama, the FBI and the DOJ!And at the heart of it is not just the greedy, grasping Clintons, but the Obama Administration, the FBI and the DOJ.Andrew McCarthy does a masterful job of breaking down the entire scandal from beginning until now.McCarthy breaks it all down for you.You ll be shocked to know that the same people investigating the phony Trump/Russia collusion were aware of the Uranium One scam AND even helped to cover it up! Here s just a little of what Andy McCarthy explains to us in his summary:Here s the kicker: The Uranium One scandal is not only, or even principally, a Clinton scandal. It is an Obama-administration scandal.The Clintons were just doing what the Clintons do: cashing in on their public service. The Obama administration, with Secretary Clinton at the forefront but hardly alone, was knowingly compromising American national-security interests. The administration green-lighted the transfer of control over one-fifth of American uranium-mining capacity to Russia, a hostile regime and specifically to Russia s state-controlled nuclear-energy conglomerate, Rosatom. Worse, at the time the administration approved the transfer, it knew that Rosatom s American subsidiary was engaged in a lucrative racketeering enterprise that had already committed felony extortion, fraud, and money-laundering offenses.This next part is even worse:The Obama administration also knew that congressional Republicans were trying to stop the transfer. Consequently, the Justice Department concealed what it knew. DOJ allowed the racketeering enterprise to continue compromising the American uranium industry rather than commencing a prosecution that would have scotched the transfer. Prosecutors waited four years before quietly pleading the case out for a song, in violation of Justice Department charging guidelines. Meanwhile, the administration stonewalled Congress, reportedly threatening an informant who wanted to go public.Read more here: Andy McCarthyOnce you read the entire summary you ll know just how bad this entire scandal is and how the Obama administration covered it all up. | 0 |
23,213 | KING OBAMA THREATENS CONGRESS TO NOT MESS WITH IRAN DEAL: Will Congress Have Will To Pull White Flag From Obama’s Hands? [Video] | Tough talk from Washington does not solve problems says our Thug in Chief as he threatens Congress not to cross him on this dangerous Iran deal Here is why FOX News Britt Hume says Obama doesn t need to sell this Iran deal to Congress: | 0 |
23,214 | ANOTHER AMERICAN KNOWN WOLF? Fort Lauderdale Shooter Known to FBI, Worked for Security, Amid Backdrop of Mass Drills | Shawn Helton 21st Century WireAnother shocking active-shooter incident rocks America. This time, according to Florida s Broward County Sheriff s Department, thirteen people were shot, including five dead, after an apparent shooting rampage took place at Fort Lauderdale s Hollywood International Airport yesterday.At the moment, there is still no clear motive for the shooting attack and no evidence linking the suspect to terror. However, officials have yet to rule out the possibility of terrorism.The timing of this shooting attack cannot be overstated, as there was a major US intelligence review over an alleged Russian hack influence on America s 2016 election that was scheduled on the very same day KNOWN WOLF? What really happened at the Fort Lauderdale airport? (Photo illustration 21WIRE s Shawn Helton)NOTE: It only took a matter of hours for the Fort Lauderdale shooter s back story to emerge.According to authorities, the suspected airport shooter, 26-year-old Esteban Santiago-Ruiz, checked a declared handgun inside his luggage, later retrieving it at Fort Lauderdale Airport s Terminal 2 baggage claim. Santiago then reportedly loaded the gun in a bathroom came out in the terminal opening fire on fellow travelers including a series of head shots.After the shooting spree, the suspect was reported to have calmly turned himself into the police.#Florida #BreakingNews #FLLSHOOTING Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport #Shooting#Warleak pic.twitter.com/XkU79MTx1J WarLeak (@WarLeak) January 6, 2017According to Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, The shooter is in custody and unharmed, said . No law enforcement officers fired any shots. First picture of the shooter released by eye witness via Twistity! @CNN @FoxNews #FortLauderdale #Termianl2 #Shooting #EstebanSantiago pic.twitter.com/np3CUKNr41 Twistity (@TwistityNews) January 6, 2017We're told this is the gun used by the shooter at Ft Lauderdale airport (Photo courtesy: Mark Lea) pic.twitter.com/oENsB9MP5J WSVN 7 News (@wsvn) January 6, 2017@PoliticsGhost Smiling swat? No record he flew Air Canada? Only 2 cops escort away? Friday aftrn standard Dem fake news time pic.twitter.com/8qpi4tnGwL NeuroTrade (@neurotrade) January 6, 2017The whole series of events is strange to say the least, but the oddities didn t stop there. Santiago-Ruiz s US military background includes service in the Puerto Rico Army National Guard in 2007, according to the Department of Defense. Santiago-Ruiz was listed as a combat engineer who had been deployed to Iraq in April 2010, returning to US soil in 2011. Later in November of 2014, following a move to Alaska, he became a member of the Alaska National Guard. In August of 2016, Santiago-Ruiz was transferred to Inactive Ready Reserve.Additionally, Santiago-Ruiz was stated to be employed by an as of yet unnamed Anchorage security company while living in Alaska.According to the Associated Press and Miami s local CBS News affiliate, The Pentagon said he [Santiago-Ruiz] went AWOL several times as a specialist during a stint with the Alaska National Guard and was demoted to private first class, the Associated Press reported. He was given a general discharge, which is lower than an honorable discharge. Earlier reports stated that Santiago-Ruiz flew on a flight from Canada. Air Canada promptly denied that the suspected airport shooter was on any of their flights. Other US mainstream outlets later stated that he arrived on an in-bound Delta Airlines flight instead. AIRPORT SHOOTING Esteban Santiago is in custody following a shooting at a Fort Lauderdale airport. Authorities gathered travelers on the tarmac after the incident. (Image Source: Chicago Tribune)Interestingly, former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer was on the scene of the shooting, and was live-tweeting :I'm at the Ft. Lauderdale Airport. Shots have been fired. Everyone is running. Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) January 6, 2017Another Known Wolf?As 21 WIRE has documented over the years, many so-called shooting/terror/attacks involve individuals being monitored by security services prior to an alleged act taking place. A place where a lone wolf graduates into the ranks of a known wolf. In fact, very often those being watched by authorities exhibit all the tell-tale signs of a patsy or an informant, working either for a law enforcement or intelligence agency. Historically, government operators have often made use of low-life criminals, and mentally disturbed individuals to fulfill various role in entrapment stings or sometimes as bonafide actors in an actual attacks. In any case, alleged attackers and security agencies have a dicey relationship, making any link between them highly suspect in nature.In January of 2015, a strategic security service think-tank known as The Soufan Group, reported that a larger national security threat resides with radicals who ve had a lengthy criminal background with known ties to security agencies: The Soufan Group, a New York think tank, said a better term for lone wolves would be known wolves , given how many are already known to Western intelligence agencies before they strike. These individuals, acting alone or in small groups have been on the radar of various agencies and organisations, highlighting the difficulty of effectively monitoring and managing people at the nexus of criminality and terrorism, it said in a report this week The Fort Lauderdale shooting story rapidly emerged out of corporate media halls looking to sell the public on the latest tragic shooting in America. The Hollywood International Airport shooting has elements of other high-profile shooting events in recent history, such as the TSA/LAX shooting, the the Tucson shooting, Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting, the San Bernardino shooting attack, the Chattanooga military base shooting siege, as well as the aspects of the Aurora theater shooting and the Grand theater shooting in Lafayette and many others.Is the Fort Lauderdale airport shooter another case of a known wolf triggered into action?The apparent Fort Lauderdale airport shooter, Santiago-Ruiz, who is said to be Puerto Rican was born in New Jersey (living in Alaska), and was well-known to authorities, having recently undergone a mental health evaluation after allegedly visiting an FBI office in Alaska where he claimed he was under CIA mind control, with voices in his head telling him to join ISIS : They say last November, he walked into the FBI s office in Anchorage, Alaska, claiming that his mind was being controlled by the CIA and that it was forcing him to join ISIS. He appeared agitated and incoherent, and made disjointed statements and although he said he didn t wish to hurt anyone, agents were concerned by his erratic behavior and decided to call local authorities, a senior federal law enforcement official said.Local police took him to a local medical facility for evaluation, and the FBI closed its assessment of Santiago after conducting database reviews, interagency checks and interviews with family members, the official said. NEW: In Nov. 2016, FLL suspect walked into FBI office in Anchorage, claiming he was being forced to fight for ISIS, sources tell CBS News. CBS News (@CBSNews) January 6, 2017Shades of the Manchurian Candidate?We re also told that the suspect s aunt had flagged his mentally unstable condition previously. According to USA Today:Yet the troubling episode is now part of an emerging profile of a deeply disturbed man described by his aunt Friday as someone who had lost his mind. Maria Luisa Ruiz of Union City, N.J., said her nephew, who had moved to Alaska for work as a security guard, only recently began to show signs of instability. Like a month ago, it was like he lost his mind, she said He said he saw things. The inclusion of Santiago-Ruiz s alleged voices in his head, supposedly triggered by the CIA, immediately recalls another bizarre case that was also difficult to comprehend the Navy Yard Shooter from 2013.Here s a passage from a 21WIRE report discussing the apparent Navy Yard shooter, Aaron Alexis: Rather than get caught up in the fear campaigns sold to us by our favorite news anchor-zombies, its important to consider another aspect of these mass shootings by making a tally of the trigger points that media uses to manipulate public perception, as they carefully propagandize certain elements within a crisis making sure to illicit the right reaction from every major demographic. Is this what we are seeing in the aftermath of the Fort Lauderdale shooting?Heavy.com added the following details about the supposedly troubled Santiago-Ruiz:The shooter whose troubled behavior had already drawn the attention of the FBI, Army, and Anchorage police arrived Friday afternoon at the busy airport on a flight from Alaska, with the gun used in the shooting properly stored in his checked baggage, NBC News reports.One report said the shooter, who lived in Alaska, had no other luggage but the gun, which federal rules allow a person to declare at a ticket counter and check under the plane but not carry on. In addition to Santiago-Ruiz s lengthy time with the US military and the National Guard, in recent years, the suspected shooter was involved in various crimes. Here s a passage from The Daily Beast describing some of Santiago s background: According to charging documents provided by the Anchorage prosecutor s office to The Daily Beast, on January 10, 2016, Santiago verbally assaulted his then girlfriend, a 40-year old mother of one child from a previous marriage whom The Daily Beast is not naming, through a locked bathroom door, telling her to Get the fuck out, bitch. After he forced his way in by breaking down the door, he smacked her in the head and strangled her. By the time police arrived, Santiago had fled the scene.Santiago was arrested days later and released on the condition that he have no contact with the victim, but in February, Anchorage police found him at his girlfriend s residence and he was charged for violating the conditions of his release. That case is still pending.Alaska court records show a criminal record under Santiago s name for minor traffic infractions including operating a vehicle without insurance and a broken taillight. Records also show his landlord evicted him for non-payment of rent in February 2015.The assault case was resolved in March when Santiago entered into a deferred prosecution agreement, an alternative to adjudication where prosecutors agreed to dismiss the charges in exchange for Esteban s completion of requirements, the details of which are unknown. While Anchorage municipal prosecutor Seneca Theno told The Daily Beast that previous charges against Santiago-Ruiz are unlikely to be dropped following the airport shooting you still have to wonder what requirements were asked of Santiago-Ruiz to get the alleged assault charges dropped from his record in the first place, given the brutal nature of them.FOX NEWS echoes a Sun Sentinel report, Why the gunman may have chosen South Florida was unclear. He had no clear connection to the state aside from relatives in the Naples area, a two-hour drive away, the Sun Sentinel reported.The same FOX report adds the following about Santiago-Ruiz s alleged lengthy mental health battle: Bryan Santiago said his brother never spoke to him directly about his medical issues. We have not talked for the past three weeks, Bryan Santiago said. That s a bit unusual I m in shock. He was a serious person He was a normal person. Mass Shooting Distraction?Another aspect to these highly emotive and polarizing known wolf shooting events, is that usually they dominate US media coverage for several days. As other charged elements of an alleged shooter/attacker are propagandized, such as Santiago-Ruiz s Palestinian scarf image (seen on the left) seized upon by FOX News anchors who fused Santiago-Ruiz s allegedly ISIS-like hand gesture with the Gaza-Israeli conflict.The shocking scene at Fort Lauderdale s Hollywood International Airport occurred the same exact day US intelligence leaders briefed President-elect Donald Trump on so-called Russian hack allegations in the lead up to the 2016 election.Back in September of 2016, while examining the aftermath of the New York and New Jersey bomb plot/attack, we analyzed whether a deeper social engineering agenda might have been at play as part of a larger geopolitical drama unfolded in Syria appeared to be masked by media.When looking deeper, we discovered other overlapping stories that coincided alongside the known wolf NYC bomber. Here s a passage that discussed the NYC attack that seemed to bury Western coverage regarding a vicious airstrike campaign that killed dozens of members of Syria s army: You have to wonder, were the events in New York and New Jersey also a weapon of mass distraction, following a major international embarrassment for the United States both at home and abroad the brutal airstrike campaign in Syria that killed over 70 Syrian troops? This unlikely bombing incident just happened to also coincide with the UN General Assembly in NYC, where President Obama was delivering among other speeches, his War on Terror addresses to the international community. No surprise then, with the city suddenly on high terror alert that Obama quickly, confidently and comfortably used his center stage spotlight at the UN, shifting into national security mode boasting how quickly his police forces solved the case. It was almost if he was ready for events that weekend. Similarly, you have to consider if this new high-profile shooting event at Fort Lauderdale s Hollywood International Airport will dominate the news cycle, as the US intelligence community scrambles to prove Russian hack allegations over the next week.On January 4th ABC News reported the following: The classified report requested by President Barack Obama detailing Russia s alleged role in cyberattacks during U.S. presidential elections dating back to 2008 is now complete, and he is expected to receive the first briefing on its findings on Thursday afternoon, U.S. officials tell ABC News.President-elect Donald Trump, who said last week he would receive his briefing on the matter on Tuesday or Wednesday of this week, is scheduled to receive his briefing on Friday. Both briefings will be conducted by the heads of relevant agencies, including the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Agency, the FBI and the CIA.U.S. officials denied claims from Trump that his special briefing was delayed so the U.S. intelligence community could strengthen its case against Russia. Officials instead said there may have been a scheduling disconnect or some confusion on the part of the Trump transition team. Interestingly, other explosive high-profile stories went to the back burner, such as the Chicago kidnapping and teen torture story and the fallout from CNN s Don Lemon following his egregious comments after the tragic racially motivated attack.Media Memory: Reports of a Second Shooter at Terminal 1During the later hours of the US mainstream media coverage, networks like CNN were still floating the possibility of a second shooter, as reports emerged of shots fired in the adjacent terminal housing United Airlines, Terminal 1.Interestingly, local reports also reported eye-witness accounts of a second gunman involved in the Fort Lauderdale shooting. Here s a passage from an ABC News affiliate discussing the reports of a second gunman at the Fort Lauderdale shooting: All day I ve heard people talking about second incidences, Catie Rutledge wrote on Instagram. After waiting on the tarmac for hours and hunting someone down to get our bags, we are now waiting for a bus, so that we can leave the airport. There was panic when authorities feared there was a second gunman. Law enforcement asked travelers to seek shelter. Fear prompted many to say their final good byes to loved ones. Some frightened parents were in tears as they tried to protect their children. This aspect of the case seemingly disappeared from media outlets following Santiago-Ruiz s arrest.The phenomena of multiple shooters being immediately reported after an apparent mass shooting event was also echoed during both the Orlando nightclub shooting and the San Bernardino attack in 2015.Later in the evening, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel confirmed that there was no second shooter despite previous reports. The suspect was being interrogated by the FBI. This statement was in stark contrast to multiple witness statements made on national TV, placing the series of shots, or perhaps an additional series of shots and subsequent crowds fleeing in panic at Terminal 1 that would either be instead of Terminal 2, or in addition to it. This wasn t just an anomaly this was backed up by at least 2 different witnesses on CNN, perhaps more in other reports which 21WIRE has yet to collate here.Was this a case of something that happened in Terminal 1 either part of a drill, or another gunman which was memory-holed by the media and DHS, or could this be we are looking at planted witnesses who got their lines wrong? This is a fair question to ask, considering we are talking about multiple witnesses stating the shots and crowds panicking in Terminals other than the official story in Terminal 2.Here are four alternative witnesses:Witness 1: CNN s coverage of the Active Shooter festival at Fort Lauderdale Airport reveals yet another anomaly in their story. CNN reported the alleged shooter, Esteban Santiago, shot 5 people dead in the Delta Terminal 2, and yet, all the witnesses reported 4 shots fired in the United Terminal 1. When this witness, a father who flew in from Chicago, tells of the United T1 shots fired, CNN s reporter Boris Sanchez appears to panic, possibly then receiving a feed in his ear and then essentially tells the witness you are wrong, there were no shots fired in United Terminal 1. Was this bad reporting, or bad stage management by CNN? Watch: Witness 2: Immediately after CNN s Boris Sanchez mix-up with man flying in from Chicago at United Terminal 1, another CNN witness was suddenly produced, going by the name of Ryan Ward , interviewed by Jim Sciutto, then comes on, using very scripted language apparently in an attempt to clean-up the inconsistent statements of the last witness. Ryan Ward describes the mayhem, people running, luggage flying and people screaming, gunman coming even though he admits he was NOT in Delta Terminal 2 where police report the actual shooting took place. Ward claims he was in a wheel chair because of back surgery, but then claims he got up and ran over to save a little girl and I ran back over and pushed the mom into a corner and laid on top of her . He then says that, It does sound like it was an unsubstantiated second threat, but people certainly weren t acting like it here he was mirroring the identical language used by the previous CNN reporters. Coincidence? Even more oddly, Ward claims he was flying Jet Blue, and that the, Jet Blue staff were really great only problem is that Jet Blue is in Terminal 3, and not in T1 or T2. Watch: Witness 3: Another witness, testifying multiple gunman on the scene, although the Terminal location being referenced by this 3rd witness is somewhat unclear:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBhiSblZtJs . Also, there is an additional media report by Intellihub of a pilot, in uniform and on-site, who also testifies about a loud commotion, with police in pursuit of a perpetrator seen in Terminal 1 a stark contrast to the official story: The pilot believes that there was another shooting in Terminal 1 that law enforcement and the F.B.I. are likely covering up. I could hear females screaming and people running away from terminal 1. The pilot said he feels that it was definitely some kind of combined effort to attack the airport.In addition to that, here is a fifth witness, seen in this unconfirmed cell phone video from a female passenger out on the airport tarmac apparently from Terminal 1, and referencing a second shooter event located after the TSA barrier which seems to be a different location to the baggage check area:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tayCW0pTBF8 . EDITORS NOTE: If readers have any other witness reports of a Second Shooter or shots fired in Terminal 2, please leave them below in the comment section.Here s an ABC News feature with Mark Lea, an apparent eye-witness (later photographed the crime scene) who came face-to-face with Santiago-Ruiz who also rather incredibly, managed to not get shot during the encounter Fort Lauderdale s Active Shooter DrillsVery often preceding an apparent shooting/attack there is the presence of mass casualty drills. Fort Lauderdale was no exception.In 2015, the Sun Sentinel reported the following: At a Fort Lauderdale cinema Wednesday, two men in camouflage gear calmly walked down the aisle and fired rifles and handguns at moviegoers.Twenty-seven volunteers were injured in three theaters during the drill.Fort Lauderdale police guarded and escorted paramedics wearing protective gear to tend to the wounded actors, even though the shooters weren t captured and blank gunfire echoed elsewhere in the Riverwalk movie complex.The agencies goal is to speed up paramedics responses during mass killings, domestic calls and other violent incidents. Similarly, in June of 2016, an inter-agency meeting described future protocols regarding mass drills: The meeting, held every quarter, is an opportunity for agencies to coordinate with one another and discuss the latest techniques in fighting domestic terror attacks.Last month, agencies participated in an active-shooter exercise at the Fort Lauderdale Postal Facility.In February, the group participated in Operation Heat Shield, consisting of weapons of mass destruction and an active shooting drill.Sheriff Scott Israel of Broward County Sheriff s Office and Sheriff Rick Bradshaw of Palm Beach County Sheriff s Office said these training exercises are important. With such a large law enforcement effort to tackle the active-shooter, you have to wonder why and how these events seem to coincide with major attacks on US soil.Here s a YouTube video from commentator Peekay Truth discussing aspects of this latest mass shooting tragedy in America https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYY0EgDRYgcDupes, Informants and PawnsAdditionally, as we ve mentioned before, during the aftermath of 2014 s Canadian Parliament Shooting in Ottawa, we outlined many of the primary markers used in certain terror related events globally and other mass casualty incidents often seen in America.The shocking event, like other bizarre attacks in recent years, have often distorted public opinion, pushing the populace towards new security measures in the wake of heavily coordinated and stylized crimes.The suspected Parliament Hill and National War Memorial shooter Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, (Left Image: therightscoop) had the perfect modus operandi and r sum to be an informant for either a law enforcement or intelligence agency.According to the Globe and Mail, Zehaf-Bibeau was already designated as a high risk traveller by the Canadian government s security services who had also seized his passport. Was this the reason why the Zehaf-Bibeau snapped? Was he being targeted or being pressured into becoming an informant?Other terror stooges and suspicious intelligence informant cases include the following:Tamerlan Tsarnaev (see his story here) Buford Rogers (see his story here) Jerad Miller (see his story here) Naji Mansour (see his story here) Quazi Mohammad Nafis (see his story here) Mohamed Osman Mohamud (see his story here) Timothy McVeigh (see his story here) Salim Benghalem (see his story here) Michael Adebolajo (see his story here) Daba Deng (see his story here) Elton Simpson (see his story here) Man Haron Monis (see his story here) Abu Hamza (see his story here) Haroon Rashid Aswat (see his story here) Glen Rodgers (see his story here) Omar Mateen (see his story here) Tashfeen Malik (see her story here) Djamel Beghal (see his story here) Anjem Choudary (see his story here) Cherif Kouachi (see his story here) Said Kouachi (see his story here) Amedy Coulibaly (see his story here) Hayat Boumeddiene (see her story here) Salah Abdeslam (see his story here) Michael Zehaf-Bibeau (see his story here) Nidal Malik Hassan (see his story here) Abdelhakim Dekhar (see his story here) Abdelhamid Abaaoud (see his story here) Samy Amimour (see his story here) Isma l Omar Mostefa (see his story here) Mohamed Lahouij Bouhlel (see his story here) Anis Amri (see his story here)As we ve mentioned here at 21WIRE before, many political leaders and media operatives bang the drums of security over so-called terror sleeper cells hiding in a nation near you none of them acknowledge the historical fact that they themselves have also helped to harbor, grow, foment and radicalize individuals through counter-terrorism operations for decades.It is important to mention again, that the FBI created the counter-intelligence program (COINTELPRO) to influence and disrupt political factions from the inside out. Between 1956 and 1971 (including the Socialist Workers party in 1973), the FBI s controversial program infiltrated and radicalized hundreds of left-wing and right-wing groups to control and neutralize political dissidents across America.As we stated after the suspicious Oregon campus shooting in 2015, mass media has worked out their own formula for laying out a familiar series of polarizing political points in the aftermath of any tragic event, as they have with many others incidents. The Fort Lauderdale shooting appears once again, to purposefully redirect the public to look at a ready-made laundry list of items (in this case mental-health, supported by online rants on social media) about the persona of a shooter as an ironclad motive for a crime. The aftermath in the case of Fort Lauderdale is no different, as it rapidly descended into an overindulgent barrage of media speculation and theorizing.All too often we ve seen the stage persona of any alleged attacker or killer being touted as hard evidence, despite the fact that even strong circumstantial evidence of any apparent crime would likely result in many hours of analysis and debate, potentially without a definitive conclusion, even if the evidence reaches a court room.For the average person, it s hard to differentiate from a drill or a real event, causing one to scrutinize the legitimacy of such an operation.In recent years, the investigative tactics of various intelligence agencies have come into question, none perhaps more dubious than the Newburgh FBI sting that involved entrapping four men to participate in a fabricated event created by the bureau. Here s a 2011 passage from The Guardian describing how an FBI informant named Shahed Hussain coerced four others into a fake terror plot: The Newburgh Four now languish in jail. Hussain does not. For Hussain was a fake. In fact, Hussain worked for the FBI as an informant trawling mosques in hope of picking up radicals.Yet far from being active militants, the four men he attracted were impoverished individuals struggling with Newburgh s grim epidemic of crack, drug crime and poverty. One had mental issues so severe his apartment contained bottles of his own urine. He also believed Florida was a foreign country.Hussain offered the men huge financial inducements to carry out the plot including $250,000 to one man and free holidays and expensive cars.As defence lawyers poured through the evidence, the Newburgh Four came to represent the most extreme form of a controversial FBI policy to use invented terrorist plots to lure targets. There has been no case as egregious as this. It is unique in the incentive the government provided. A quarter million dollars? said Professor Karen Greenberg, a terrorism expert at Fordham University. The whole episode seemed akin to the WTC 1993 bombing case, which involved yet another informant working alongside officials.The Gun Control & Security AgendaAs pointed out in 21WIRE during 2015 s Oregon campus shooting, the primary focus for mass media concerning the Fort Lauderdale incident, will now be all of the hot button socio-political issues including gun control-reform and those concerned over mental illness background checks, along with those who constitutionally oppose such restrictive legislation.It should be obvious by now that events like Fort Lauderdale, along with other mass-shootings , have become a sharp catalyst to usher in calls for endless new mass shooting protocols, inter-agency fusion , first-responder emergency medical protocols, and also for injecting more and more military terminology into civilian life with the media playing a critical role in steering the public away from questioning any of the dubious elements surrounding any shooting event.In a sense, the media is helping to nudge these shooting events out of the forensic sphere and into the political arena as quickly as possible, effectively closing the feedback loop of concerned citizens and those who may have been affected by an event.The Fort Lauderdale shooting has prompted the mainstream media to feed into concerns over airport security, gun ownership and a persons mental health background. All of media s fear-inducing drama regarding the Fort Lauderdale shooting boils down to a contentious battle over gun reform and mental health as the Obama administration comes to a close. No doubt this latest shooting will give cause to new security measures in airports across America.Here s another look at outgoing President Obama discussing his frustration on gun control in a legacy interview with the BBC from 2015 amazingly, only a few hours before a mass shooting in Lafayette *UPDATE* Broward Sheriff Scott Israel stated that deputies arrived on the scene between 60 to 70 seconds after the Fort Lauderdale shooting took place quite an incredible response time by most law enforcement standards.TMZ acquired footage of the Fort Lauderdale shooter in action the video appears to display elements of staging decide for yourself According to reports, Airport officials, along with federal and local authorities, are investigating who had access to the footage and who allowed it to be taped without authorization, Broward Mayor Barbara Sharief told the Sun Sentinel. *UPDATE* Just one week prior to the Fort Lauderdale shooting, Florida lawmakers began rallying support for SB 140, a state bill that would repeal laws which, among other things, ban guns in airport terminals like the one where the shooting occurred. Stayed tuned as more details come out regarding the Fort Lauderdale shooting READ MORE DAILY SHOOTER NEWS AT: 21WIRE Daily Shooter FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER@ 21WIRE.TV | 0 |
23,215 | Zimbabwe ruling party plans vote to strengthen Mugabe's hand | HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe s ruling ZANU-PF is planning a special vote to give veteran President Robert Mugabe a fresh five-year mandate as party leader, three sources said, strengthening his hand as rivals plot to succeed him. One member of the party s politburo told Reuters the 93-year-old president could also use the party election in December to end divisions in its top ranks, raising the prospect of the removal of some of his challengers. Comrade Mugabe is the only one center of power in ZANU-PF and that will be re-affirmed in December, another politburo member told Reuters. Mugabe is the only leader Zimbabwe has known since its independence from Britain in 1980 and is due to stand again in presidential elections next year. But his age, rumors about his health and a mounting economic crisis have prompted open speculation in local media of factions competing for control of the party, one led by Mugabe s wife Grace. Politicians and diplomats told Reuters last month that Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa had also been positioning himself for the day Mugabe either steps down or dies - an account backed up by hundreds of documents from inside Zimbabwe s Central Intelligence Organization. Leading members of the party held a five-hour meeting on Wednesday and decided to start making plans to hold the vote at a special congress, three people there said. Mugabe s term as party leader would have ended in 2019. A new mandate would take him past his 98th birthday. His argument is that the party is divided and only an elective congress can unite the party and go into the elections as a united team, the first politburo member said. When asked whether Mnangagwa would be fired at the meeting, the member said Mugabe was a stickler for party rules and had so far resisted pressure to ax the vice president outside such a congress. He did not elaborate further. Mnangagwa last week told reporters he had been poisoned in August - a report quickly dismissed by Grace Mugabe who went on to accuse the vice president of plotting to overthrow her husband. The vice president - also known as Ngwena or the Crocodile -was seen as Mugabe s favored heir when he was appointed in December 2014. But his political fortunes have dimmed in recent months. On Monday, Mugabe stripped him of his control of the justice ministry in a reshuffle and fired three of his allies. | 1 |
23,216 | Idiot Pastor Loses His Damn Mind – Refuses To ‘Pledge Allegiance’ To ‘Sodomy’ (VIDEO) | There are apparently still folks who believe that because the LGBT community is gaining more and more equality, and because women have the right to make their own medical decisions, they are being forced to promote being gay and apparently forcing abortions on everyone.Case in point Arizona Pastor Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church.Anderson seems discontent in knowing the United States is offering too much freedom for all. He seems to think the rule of his God should be the ruler of all. And now, he s even going after the Pledge of Allegiance, because he somehow thinks that by reciting it he s being forced to promote homosexuality and abortion.During one of his sermons, he said: One nation, corrupt, perverted, promoting abortion and homosexuality to all. Not gonna do it, my friend. Get mad at me. Quit the church. Umm granting equality under the law to people who are part of the LGBT community or letting women have control over their own bodies is not promoting anything it s freedom. Something the United States kinda prides itself on. He doesn t seem to understand that he isn t being forced to do anything he doesn t want to do. He can still live his life with hate in his heart and no one will do a damn thing about it. He said: I don t want anything to do with sodomy. It s wicked. I don t want anything to do with abortion. I don t want anything to do with the things that our country is starting to stand for. Then he steps further onto the crazy train by perpetuating the myth that the United States is pushing for a New World Order. He doesn t seem to realize that he isn t forced to pledge allegiance to the flag, nor that there is separation of church and state that protects the church as much as it protects the state. He said: The problem with making an oath or pledge or affirmation is that you might sit there and pledge allegiance, right? And then, like, 30 years later, what happens when that country is a totally different place? What happens when that country stands for something totally different? And you ve already pledged allegiance to it. I mean, we don t want to do that. We don t want to get wrapped up in that. Sure, but he doesn t seem to have a problem pledging allegiance to an archaic text that was written thousands of years ago by men who claim the are writing the word of God. It s more than fine to believe in the Bible. It s more than fine to believe in God. That s his freedom that is protected under the Constitution of the United States. He s allowed to worship freely under full protection of the law as so long as he doesn t harm anyone. So, before he goes and swears off our earthly government he should probably think long and hard about the fact that freedom is granted to all, not just some. Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
23,217 | REPORTER TO CLINTON: ‘So you still blame others more than yourself for loss?’ [VIDEO] | British TV journalist Matt Frei asked Hillary Clinton if she s still blaming other more than herself in an interview Friday: Your dynastic appeal or perhaps it was the opposite: The fact that you were called Clinton the fact that you were first lady basically trumped any novelty if you forgive the term of being the first female president of the United States, he said. People looked at your name and your legacy more than they looked at your gender. Clinton answered in her usual delusional way by laying out the amount of support she THINKS she received and then blaming former FBI director James Comey and the Russians for her defeat: That doesn t explain why I led all the way through, why I won the primary by 4 million votes, why I was winning, we had a great convention, she said. I was thought to have won all three debates. That doesn t explain it, Matt, so that s why I had to really dig deep. And, yes, I take responsibility. Obviously, there were things I must have been able to do differently in order to have won, Clinton continued. But at the end, there was this really perfect storm, and so you had the Comey letter and you had the enormous impact of the Russian theft of emails, the release of them by WikiLeaks, basically now a part of the Russian intelligence apparatus, and the weaponization of that. These were all new phenomena. So you re still blaming others more than yourself? Frei asked I DON T BLAME OTHERS ??? No, I take ultimate responsibility, I don t blame others, but I think it s important that people understand what happened, Clinton said. It easy to say, You know she wasn t a good candidate. Then why did lead all the way to the end, why did I get nominated overwhelmingly? Did people lie at the polls? Frei interjected. No, I think there were intervening events that caused people to worry, to have second thoughts, she said.Read more: WFB | 0 |
23,218 | Trump Just Posted Two Rules For This Country On Twitter That He Doesn’t Obey Himself | Donald Trump literally just posted the ultimate do what I say, not as I do tweet and got ripped to shreds for being a hypocrite.After delivering a depressing Inaugural Address on Friday that was full of lies and promises he won t keep, Trump took to Twitter to post some snippets of his speech and included two rules that he expects everyone to follow, except himself of course.We will follow two simple rules: BUY AMERICAN & HIRE AMERICAN!#InaugurationDay #MAGA?? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2017Yes, the man who buys materials for his hotels from overseas and has his products made by overseas laborers literally commanded Americans to buy American made goods and to hire American workers.And the Internet gleefully took Trump to the woodshed for it.@realDonaldTrump lollllll k pic.twitter.com/DwjwUuQKmr Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) January 20, 2017@realDonaldTrump buy ..American? pic.twitter.com/fXvDy5mbJp Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) January 20, 2017@JordanUhl @realDonaldTrump That s a typo. He meant buy America . Kristina Harbeson (@RNKit30) January 20, 2017@RNKit30 @JordanUhl @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/o7UwHrgcWY Trump s tweet Editor (@Spyhuntress) January 20, 2017@realDonaldTrump why is your tie you just wore made in china tho???????? https://t.co/qJaWOofVKL snck (@SNCKPCK) January 20, 2017@realDonaldTrump so you will no longer use foreign labor for your clothes line or hire foreign workers at Mar a Lago? Roland Scahill (@rolandscahill) January 20, 2017@realDonaldTrump Are you? Your stupid ties aren t made in the USA. Ben Berkon (@BenBerkon) January 20, 2017@realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/IOgBHxpa3i Austin Gebbia (@DearMorni) January 20, 2017@realDonaldTrump You didn t even follow those rules. Peter Jackson (@pjackson_nl) January 20, 2017.@realDonaldTrump Buy American? pic.twitter.com/PPDEa7I5TO Im genes Hist ricas (@HistoriaEnFotos) January 20, 2017.@realDonaldTrump Hire American ?Just days after election you applied to hire foreign workers pic.twitter.com/Ie7QVrZQCE Adam Khan (@Khanoisseur) January 20, 2017@realDonaldTrump Try it with your own business first! pic.twitter.com/bvEqQtUASy The Donald (@LoserDonDrumpf) January 20, 2017@realDonaldTrump The entire 1st family is made up of hypocritical con artists. The real House of Cards! pic.twitter.com/k6vj7J6Vct The Donald (@LoserDonDrumpf) January 20, 2017Donald Trump is a total hypocrite. Again, he literally screwed over American steel workers by buying metals from China to use to build his hotels.Trump also furnishes his hotels with goods made outside of the United States, including lamps, sheets, beds, chairs, etc Even David Letterman exposed and humiliated Trump for being a hypocrite.Donald Trump is already setting a poor example as president. He is telling Americans and American businesses to follow rules that he refuses to follow himself. Just more proof that Donald Trump is a liar and hypocrite who loves himself more than his country. And he should be impeached.Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 0 |
23,219 | Guns In Schools Advocate Slammed By BBC Host (AUDIO) | During an interview with a BBC Live Host, a Texas gun advocate defended his state s new gun law policies by saying that the only way to stop gun violence is to arm more people. C.J. Grisham, president of the gun advocacy group Open Carry Texas and a candidate for the state senate believes that law-abiding citizens should be able to access guns easily in order to counter those who have them illegally. He said: You can pass all the background checks you want, but a criminal gang member in Chicago isn t going to run a background check on another gang member. The host then interrupted Grisham and asked: Sorry. How many of the mass college shootings were carried out by criminal gang members? Grisham responds, Well they were all carried out by criminals, not licensed carriers. The host then asks, So how did those people manage to access the weaponry that led to all of those deaths then? Illegally. That s what I m saying, said Grisham.The host continues to drill Grisham by asking, How do you tighten that up then? Grisham s response is ridiculous: Well, you can t stop all crime. You tighten it up by getting rid of gun-free zones and allowing people to defend themselves no matter where they walk, no matter where they go, no matter where they study. So, just to be clear, C.J. asked the host, The solution is actually having more guns in circulation in America. Therefore, when a Columbine happens, a teacher can open fire in a classroom against the assailant. So, guns in classrooms? You advocate that? Well, there s already guns in classrooms. It s just that they re in the hands of criminals and the good guys can t defend themselves, said Grisham.The guns used in the Columbine shooting were bought from an unlicensed private seller. The guns: Were all purchased for them by Dylan Klebold s girlfriend, 18-year-old Columbine student Robyn Anderson, who accompanied the two 17-year-olds to the Tanner Gun Show outside Denver, shopping with their cash. She was what is called a straw purchaser, but it would not have been necessary, since youths were allowed to buy rifles and shotguns in Colorado and no background checks are necessary when guns are sold by individuals rather than federally-licensed gun dealers. President Obama is currently proposing laws that would crack down on that type of easy access.Grisham s logic is very flawed. His idea is that if a person is in possession of a gun, then that person is likely to be safer in an unsafe situation. However, a gun is more likely to discharge accidentally in the home or be used by a family member against another family member rather than against an intruder. The reality is that the more guns are around, the more likely the gun will not be used for self-defense against a criminal.[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQKpAmC3ASk]Feature Image Via YouTube | 0 |
23,220 | Trump Goes Wild, Makes Racist Remark About Obama (VIDEO) | Flustered by a series of protesters, including one just a few feet away from him that the candidate decided to stand up and single out by pointing, Trump told his audience, we have a terrible president who happens to be African-American. Here s the video of the moment.Trump went on to promise his diehard supporters that we have a divided country folks, and that there has never been a greater division that exists in America today. Trump also claimed he was upset about the hatred, the animosity in the country, and promised, I will bring people together. The comments come a day after Trump backers physically harassed Black Lives Matter protesters at a rally in New Orleans.The remarks also come less than a week after Trump refused to denounce the support of the Ku Klux Klan and former Grand Wizard David Duke during an interview on CNN.The White Power/White Nationalist movement has expressed a high level of support for Trump, especially due to his promise to build a beautiful wall on the U.S. Mexico border. Other white nationalists have said that Trump is their preferred candidate, and in return the campaign has given press credentials for white power radio shows to broadcast from his campaign rallies. His son, Donald Trump Jr., even gave an interview to a radio show alongside a white nationalist who favors a return to slavery.Trump s embrace of the racist movement has been condemned by both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.It has also become a problem for so-called establishment Republicans, who fear that a candidate so directly connected to the movement will spell disaster for them in the fall election. They dislike that Trump has said in public what has often been said behind closed doors with hushed tones.Featured image via YouTube | 0 |
23,221 | (VIDEO) DR. BEN CARSON’S GREAT CLOSING STATEMENT BRINGS THE HOUSE DOWN IN GOP DEBATE | I m the only one to separate Siamese twins. The only one to operate on babies while they were still in their mother s womb. The only one to take out half of a brain, although you would think if you went to Washington that someone had beat me to it. But I m very hopeful that I m not the only one who will pick up the torch of freedom. Because freedom is not free! | 0 |
23,222 | Japan PM welcomes U.S. designation of North Korea as sponsor of terrorism: Kyodo | TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday welcomed U.S. President Donald Trump s move to put North Korea back on a list of state sponsors of terrorism, saying it would ramp up pressure on Pyongyang, Kyodo News reported. The designation, announced Monday, allows the United States to impose more sanctions on Pyongyang, which is pursuing nuclear weapons and missile programmes in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions. I welcome and support (the designation) as it raises the pressure on North Korea, Abe told reporters, according to Kyodo. | 1 |
23,223 | Globally aligning derivatives rules dominates U.S. confirmation hearing | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Concerns about coordinating U.S. derivatives regulation with that of other countries dominated a Senate committee’s hearing on Thursday to consider two nominees for seats on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Members of both parties asked the nominees, Chris Brummer, a Georgetown University law professor, and Brian Quintenz, an investment firm founder who once worked for a Republican Representative, about cooperation with other countries during the Agriculture Committee hearing. The committee will vote on the nominations in a separate business meeting. If approved, the nominations then go to the full Senate. The CFTC oversees the U.S. derivatives market and recently gave swap dealers an extra month to comply with a new cross-border rule on collateral for uncleared swaps, after Asia’s market froze from uncertainty about the changes. The European Commission announced this summer it was delaying its implementation of similar rules. Both Brummer and Quintenz spoke of the need to build strong relationships with other countries. But Brummer emphasized the U.S. role in leading rulemaking. “Overall, I think that it’s hard...to lead if you don’t lead by example. I think if you want to have a cross-border regulatory environment that is high quality then the United States should commit to the highest standards and find those who are like-minded,” he said. Meanwhile, Quintenz worried firms could exploit timing gaps between different countries’ rules implementation for financial gain, calling it “regulatory arbitrage.” “Someone does have to go first but I don’t believe that’s the full analysis,” he said. “I believe the full analysis is: after you go first how long will it be until all the jurisdictions move and what is the size of the regulatory arbitrage you’re creating? And once other jurisdictions move will there be regulatory arbitrage going forward?” Republican Senator Thom Tillis said that in the current situation “it’s almost like we’re being penalized for good behavior.” “We’re on time. Some of the other key players are not...Our banking industry is suffering as we move forward with regulations that make us globally make us un-competitive,” he said. Separately, at a speech on Thursday, CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad said he had been assured by European counterparts that their delay in implementing their swaps margin rule would be short and he hoped it would be in place by March 1. He added the CFTC will explore actions it could take if the delay stretches on longer. | 1 |
23,224 | SAD! It Shouldn’t Be News That Trump Got Intelligence Briefings Two Days In A Row | News broke on Thursday that Donald Trump had actually taken his President s Daily Briefing two days in a row. How in the hell did this end up being news? The answer is simple: because the man we have chosen to run this country is too stupid to know just how stupid he is. He s so stupid he thinks he s too smart to get intel briefings.Trump has come under fire for refusing to get his daily intelligence briefings. His defense is that he s a really smart guy and the PDB is like, boring and stuff. So he d just rather not. Besides, that s what Mike Pence is for, right? I don t have to be told you know, I m, like, a smart person. I don t have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day, Trump told Fox News. I don t need to be told the same thing every day, every morning same words. Sir, nothing has changed. Let s go over it again. I don t need that. So now, this is where we find ourselves. When Trump actually does his job for a mere two days, it s news. Two freaking days..@realDonaldTrump received daily intelligence briefing today, his spokesman says, making it the second day in a row he s received PDB. Jeff Zeleny (@jeffzeleny) December 22, 2016Trump receiving president daily briefing today in Florida, for the second day in a row. Ben Siegel (@benyc) December 22, 2016The fact that it is news when the commander-in-chief gets two days of intelligence briefings back to back should terrify every person in this country. It also highlights exactly how Trump has managed to send our foreign relations, particularly with China, into a nosedive before he even gets inaugurated.If he had been interested in his intelligence briefings, maybe he would have known better than to chat up the president of Taiwan. If he had gotten his PDB before going off half-cocked on Twitter to rant about China seizing our drone, he would have known that the crisis had already been resolved.But for now, Trump has had two days of intel briefings in a row and since that is a first for this narcissistic moron, it s news. Sad.Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 0 |
23,225 | Ex-Trump aide Manafort's spokesman testifies to Russia probe grand jury | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The spokesman for President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort testified before a federal grand jury on Friday in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between Trump’s 2016 election campaign and Russia. Jason Maloni, the president of the crisis public relations firm JadeRoq LLC, spoke briefly with reporters after leaving a courtroom where he had testified for a little less than two hours. “I was ordered to appear today before the grand jury. I answered questions and I’ve been dismissed,” Maloni said. He declined to discuss the types of questions he was asked. Mueller is investigating Manafort’s financial and real estate dealings and his prior work for the Party of Regions, a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine, that backed former Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovich. Overall, Mueller’s investigation and two congressional panels are looking into conclusions by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia worked to tilt last November’s election in Republican Trump’s favor. Moscow has repeatedly denied any meddling in the election and Trump has denied any collusion by his campaign. Mueller’s investigators are examining potential money laundering by Manafort and other possible financial crimes, sources have told Reuters. Manafort was also present at a June 2016 meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya who offered to provide damaging information about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Others at that meeting included Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump, Jr., and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. In July, Manafort’s Virginia home was raided by FBI agents. Maloni, as Manafort’s spokesman, had told reporters that Manafort “has consistently cooperated with law enforcement and other serious inquiries and did so on this occasion as well.” | 1 |
23,226 | Trump nominee for ambassador to Beijing says China can do more on North Korea | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the U.S. ambassador to China said on Tuesday that China can do more to push North Korea to curb its nuclear program, although he did not initially offer any specifics. “I think there’s other things they can do diplomatically and economically to send a clear signal that they, as well as the United States and other countries in the world, do not tolerate this expansion of nuclear technology and missiles,” Iowa’s Republican governor, Terry Branstad, said at his U.S. Senate confirmation hearing. | 1 |
23,227 | Senate Democrat says Garland is Obama's Supreme Court choice | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will nominate U.S. Appeals Court Judge Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, Democratic Senator Charles Schumer said. Schumer, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, confirmed the decision to Reuters as he exited a Democratic leadership meeting in the U.S. Capitol. “It’s an excellent choice, a bipartisan choice. If the Republicans can’t support him, who could they support,” said Schumer, who represents New York. | 1 |
23,228 | DEMOCRAT ALAN DERSHOWITZ Schools Jeffrey Tubin: Witch Hunt On Trump Administration is Stalinist…Crimes should be investigated, not people. [Video] | Alan Dershowitz schools his former student Jeffrey Tobin on whether the subject matter is a crime in relation to Jared Kushner: I don t like investigations targeting, hoping we ll find something https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nxlPCwmnJ8 Does this sound like a crime to you? Dershowtiz goes after Carl Bernstein and a CNN panel too:https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=9nxlPCwmnJ8 | 0 |
23,229 | TRUMP HATER MEGYN KELLY Pummeled In Ratings While Hannity Soars! | Via: GP | 0 |
23,230 | Marvel Vows To Boycott Georgia If Discriminatory Religious Liberty Bill Becomes Law | The studio of superheroes will leave Georgia rather than make movies in a state that bullies gay people.The First Amendment Defense Act passed the Republican-dominated Georgia legislature earlier this month, but has yet to be signed by Governor Nathan Deal.Should the bill become law, it will allow conservative Christians to use their religion as a shield to justify bigotry and discrimination toward same-sex couples and give religious organizations the ability to fire gay employees at will.The bill has caused an uproar and many companies have stopped or are threatening to stop doing business with the state if it becomes law.That includes the NFL, which promptly told Georgia officials that such a blatantly discriminatory law would cost Atlanta the Superbowl bid they have been desperately seeking.And now Marvel and Disney have made an even bigger threat.As most of us know, many of Disney s Marvel films are shot in Georgia because of the state s advantageous tax incentives. Captain America: Civil War was just recently filmed at Pine Wood studios in Atlanta and such a massive production means jobs for people in Georgia and a boost in the economy.But if Georgia chooses to enshrine bigotry into law, Marvel will take their heroes elsewhere. Disney and Marvel are inclusive companies, and although we have had great experiences filming in Georgia, we will plan to take our business elsewhere should any legislation allowing discriminatory practices be signed into state law, Disney said in a statement that should worry Georgia officials to the core.It makes sense that Disney would pull the Marvel Cinematic Universe away from Georgia if this bill passes. After all, it s hard to imagine trying to film characters who believe in equality, fairness, and inclusiveness in an environment that promotes the exact opposite.Georgia would be well-advised to scuttle this bill before it costs them dearly. Because pissing off Captain America is not a good idea.Featured Image: Marvel s The Avengers | 0 |
23,231 | DELETED REPORT EXPOSES Major Muslim Government Donor To Hillary’s Campaign…A HUGE Conflict Of Interest! | Hillary took a jab at Saudi Arabia during her statement on the terror attack in Orlando BUT now we find out that the Saudis are major contributors to her campaign. It s the height of hypocrisy for Clinton to make claims of Saudi Arabia while taking their millions. Thank goodness for social media and all the resources we have to expose this corrupt and hypocritical hag grifter In what may be the pinnacle of hypocrisy, moments ago Hillary Clinton, while speaking live on national security and addressing the Orlando shooting took some time from her constant bashing of the Second Amendment and calling for a ban on assault rifles, to say some less than kind words about Saudi Arabia whom it accused of supporting radical organizations. This is what she said:The third area that demands attention is preventing radicalization and countering efforts by ISIS and other international terrorist networks to recruit in the United States and Europe. For starters, it is long past time for the Saudis, the Qataris and the Kuwaitis and others to stop their citizens from funding extremist organizations. And they should stop supporting radical schools and mosques around the world that have set too many young people on a path towards extremism. We also have to use all our capabilities to counter jihadist propaganda online. This is something that I spend a lot of time on at the State Department.There is nothing wrong with that statement, as it is the whole truth Saudi Arabia s involvement in supporting terrorism stretches from Sept 11 all the way through to ISIS however, where there is a big, and potentially law-breaking, problem is what Jordan s official news agency, Petra News Agency, reported on Sunday citing the Saudi crown price, namely that Saudi Arabia is a major funder of Hillary Clinton s campaign to become the next president of the United States.As MEE notes, the Petra News Agency published on Sunday what it described as exclusive comments from Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman which included a claim that Riyadh has provided 20 percent of the total funding to the prospective Democratic candidate s campaign.The report was later deleted and the news agency has not responded to requests for comment from Middle East Eye. However, the deletion took place too late, as the Washington-based Institute for Gulf Affairs managed to capture the report and has re-published the original Arabic Petra report, which quoted Prince Mohammed as having said Saudi Arabia had provided with full enthusiasm an undisclosed amount of money to Clinton.Read more and view report: Zero Hedge | 0 |
23,232 | Clashes in Rome as police evict refugee squatters from square | ROME (Reuters) - Police using water cannon and batons clashed on Thursday with refugees who had occupied a small Rome square in defiance of an order to leave a building where they had been squatting. The clashes were the latest example of tensions in Italy as the country deals with an influx of migrants. They quickly became fodder for political debate, particularly on the police handling of the incident. Refugees were screaming and trying to hit police, who were dressed in riot gear, with sticks. The square, just one block from Rome s main train station, was strewn with mattresses, overturned rubbish bins and broken plastic chairs. Some 100 refugees had occupied Piazza Independenza since Saturday, when most of about 800 squatters were evicted from an adjacent office building they had occupied for about five years. Hung on the building was a sheet with writing reading We are refugees, not terrorists in Italian. A small fire burned on the pavement and a sheet hanging from a first-floor window was set alight by squatters inside. Most of the squatters were Eritreans who had been granted asylum. Police said they had refused to accept lodging offered by the city. In a statement, the police said the refugees had gas canisters, some of which they had opened, and officers had been hit by rocks, bottles and pepper spray. Two people were arrested and Doctors Without Borders said in a statement that its medics had given first aid to 13 refugees, including one for a broken bone. Human Rights Watch and members of some leftist political parties criticized the police handling of the situation, saying the use of such force was disproportionate. The authorities need to urgently find appropriate, alternative housing, and investigate the use of force by the police during the eviction, said Judith Sunderland, associate director for Europe at Human Rights Watch. It s hard to see how the use of water cannon on people was necessary or proportionate, she said. Various Roman Catholic groups that help immigrants also criticized police conduct. But the Italian police union COISIP said officers were forced to use water cannon because of the risk of explosions caused by flammable liquids . Police said they were looking at possible irregularities after what appeared to be a policeman told a colleague to break the arm of any squatter who threw anything while being chased, according to a video that circulated widely on social media. Another video showed a woman fly to the ground after being hit in the face by water cannon, and later put in an ambulance. Squatters had put cooking gas tanks on the railing of a first-floor balcony, apparently ready to be opened to be used as makeshift flamethrowers, or dropped onto the square, Reuters photographers said on Wednesday. Matteo Salvini, head of the right-wing, anti-immigrant Northern League, Tweeted his unequivocal support of police, saying Go boys: Evictions, order, cleaning up and EXPULSIONS! Italians are with you. More than 600,000 boat migrants have arrived in Italy from North Africa since 2014. Some 200,000 asylum seekers now stay in state-run shelters. | 1 |
23,233 | LeBeouf's anti-Trump New York exhibit shuttered over safety concerns | NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York City museum has shut down an exhibit protesting U.S. President Donald Trump co-created by actor Shia LaBeouf, saying the installation titled “HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US” had triggered threats of violence and endangered public safety. LaBeouf and two artists had set up a live-streaming camera outside the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens on Jan. 20, the day that Trump was inaugurated, and encouraged members of the public to repeat “he will not divide us” into the camera. The exhibit was intended to continue through Trump’s four-year term. LaBeouf was arrested on Jan. 26 after getting into an altercation with a 25-year-old man at the museum, according to police. The actor allegedly pulled the man’s scarf, scratched his face and shoved him, police said. In a statement on Friday, the museum said the camera had “created a serious and ongoing public safety hazard.” “While the installation began constructively, it deteriorated markedly after one of the artists was arrested on the site of the installation and ultimately necessitated this action,” the museum said. “Over the course of the installation, there have been dozens of threats of violence and numerous arrests, such that police felt compelled to be stationed outside the installation 24 hours a day, seven days a week.” The New York City Police Department confirmed it had assigned a foot post to the location 24 hours a day. Police said only one other person had been arrested outside the museum since LaBeouf: a 21-year-old man on Feb. 2 accused of throwing eggs at another person. On Friday morning, the live stream showed the words, “The museum has abandoned us,” in capital letters, an image that LaBeouf shared on Twitter. A message about the project on its website said, “On Feb. 10, 2017, the Museum of the Moving Image abandoned the project. The artists, however, have not.” A representative for LaBeouf did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday. | 1 |
23,234 | Hillary Gives Rubio A New Name After He Says She Kills Babies On Their Due Date (VIDEO) | Marco Rubio is making a name for himself in the Republican Party. Some think (actually most) that he s the GOP s best chance to defeat the Democrats in a general election. He s young, he s Hispanic, he s from an important swing state like Florida, and he s not as crazy as Donald Trump (at least by appearance).But, what most people don t know, is that Rubio s views on abortion make him an absolute nightmare of a candidate. And, people within his own party even are calling him out on it. During Saturday night s Republican debate Senator Rubio made the craziest accusation against Hillary Clinton on abortion yet. He levied the charge that Hillary supports aborting babies on their due date. When Hillary was asked on Face The Nation what she thought of the comment, here was how she described it, among other words: Pathetic. That s one way to describe Rubio, for sure.We can t say these kinds of attacks are not typical of Republicans, cause then we d be lying. Hillary wasn t even surprised in the least and didn t even flinch when offering her rebuttal. Here was her full response: I think it s pretty pathetic. This is something that illustrates how Senator Rubio is going as far as he can to try and buttress his credentials within certain parts of the Republican constituency. I ve been on record for years of where I stand on making abortion safe and legal, the exceptions that are appropriate that should be looked into, and the very difficult choices that very few women have to confront that lead to very excruciating kinds of decisions. And, to begin to politicize this so early in the campaign season to try and raise false charges and look like he s going to try and make sure Roe v. Wade is overturned and Planned Parenthood is defunded is just a tried and true tactic by those on the right. Clinton followed this up by pointing out that Rubio should probably brush up on the law first before bringing this up again in the future.Senator Rubio may very well be the GOP s best chance to go up against the Democrats, but with comments like those in a debate, you can be sure Clinton will be ready to shut him down again if she has to. We rate her description of Rubio as pathetic to be accurate and right on the money. Featured image via screen capture. | 0 |
23,235 | Trump, at NATO, vows unwavering fight against terrorism | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump told fellow NATO leaders on Thursday that the United States would never stop fighting terrorism, calling the Manchester attacks “savage” and “barbaric”. While he also accused low-spending members of the alliance of owing “massive amounts of money” to NATO, Trump said he and allies would drive out militants and urged all nations to do the same. “We will never waiver in our determination to defeat terrorism and achieve lasting security, prosperity and peace,” Trump said after unveiling a memorial to the Sept.11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington at the NATO headquarters. “Terrorism must be stopped or ... the horror you saw in Manchester and so many other places will continue forever,” Trump said, referring to Monday’s suicide bomb in the northern English city that killed 22 people, including children. | 1 |
23,236 | gingrich slutshames megyn kelly | obamacare tax penalty ill take it millions say has not been large enough to motivate people to sign up for insurance published hour ago
new york times the architects of the affordable care act thought they had a blunt instrument to force people even young and healthy ones to buy insurance through the laws online marketplaces a tax penalty for those who remain uninsured
it has not worked all that well and that is at least partly to blame for soaring premiums next year on some of the health laws insurance exchanges
the full weight of the penalty will not be felt until april when those who have avoided buying insurance will face penalties of around a person or more but even then that might not be enough for the young and healthy who are badly needed to make the exchanges work it is sometimes cheaper to pay the internal revenue service than an insurance company charging large premiums with huge deductibles | 1 |
23,237 | EU executive steps up action against Hungary over NGO law | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission on Wednesday stepped up legal action against Hungary over restrictions on foreign funding likely to affect civil society groups funded by the billionaire investor George Soros. The EU executive believes the law, passed in June, violates the right to freedom of association and to protection of private life and personal data enshrined in the EU s Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as breaching the principle of free movement of capital. Hungary s right-wing prime minister, Viktor Orban, has long criticized organizations funded by the Hungarian-born Soros, accusing them of working as paid activists advocating Soros s political goals, notably by opposing Orban s tough immigration policy. When Soros in June praised the courageous way Hungarians have resisted the deception and corruption of the mafia state Orban has established , Orban called it a declaration of war , and accused Soros of running a mafia-like network. The Commission expressed its concerns over the law on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to Budapest in July, the latest in a long line of grievances about what Brussels and many member states see as a track record of flouting fundamental EU values. Having carefully analyzed the explanations put forward by Hungary, the European Commission concludes that its serious concerns have not been addressed, it said in Wednesday s statement. The Commission s next step in the infringement procedure is to issue a so-called reasoned opinion, giving Hungary one month to take the requested measures. If Hungary fails to reply satisfactorily to the reasoned opinion, then the Commission may refer the case to the Court of Justice of the EU, the statement said. The Commission has already issued a similar ultimatum to Hungary over an education law that Brussels says infringes academic freedom and could result in the closure of a Budapest university founded by Soros. Since coming to power in 2010, Orban has eliminated checks on his power by taking control of much of Hungary s media, curbing the powers of the constitutional court and placing loyalists in top positions at public institutions. While Brussels can open cases against EU states violating common rules, they are lengthy and often have little impact. That means the EU executive has little leverage over Orban, who has been in office since 2010 and faces an election next year. | 1 |
23,238 | Trump aide Juster to be nominated as U.S. ambassador to India: officials | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to nominate a top economic aide, Kenneth Juster, as the next U.S. ambassador to India, two senior White House officials said on Friday. Juster is a top deputy on the White House National Economic Council. He is a familiar face among Indian officials, having chaired the U.S.-India High Technology Cooperation Group when Republican George W. Bush was president. Trump is to play host to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House on Monday. | 1 |
23,239 | Iran calls Houthi missile attack targeting Riyadh 'reaction' to Saudi aggression | LONDON (Reuters) - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday that missile attacks by Yemen’s Houthis targeting Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh were a reaction to what he called Saudi aggression. “How should the Yemeni people react to bombardment of their country. So they are not allowed to use their own weapons? You stop the bombardment first and see if the Yemenis would not do the same,” Rouhani was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency. Rouhani also said Saudi Arabia had made a “strategic mistake” by considering the United States and Israel as friends and Iran as an enemy. | 1 |
23,240 | guardian front page a yearold migrant cries | clinton campaign circulated paul ryan relative as possible supreme court pick another reason as to why ryan tried to sabotage trumps campaign paul joseph watson october comments hillary clintons campaign circulated the name of one of paul ryans relatives as a potential supreme court pick suggesting a conflict of interest that could feed in to the republican speaker of the houses dislike for donald trump an email released in part of the wikileaks podesta dump features an article sent by hillary advisor sara solow to clinton campaign chairman john podesta and hillarys foreign policy advisor jake sullivan on february the piece draws attention to ketanji brown jackson a judge on the us district court for the district of columbia she was confirmed by without any republican opposition in the senate not once but twice she was confirmed to her current position in by unanimous consent that is without any stated opposition she was also previously confirmed unanimously to a seat on the us sentencing commission where she became vice chair reads the email her family is impressive she is married to a surgeon and has two young daughters her father is a retired lawyer and her mother a retired school principal her brother was a police officer in the unit that was the basis for the television show the wire and is now a law student and she is related by marriage to congressman and speaker of the house paul ryan earlier this month ryan said that he would no longer defend or campaign for donald trump a poll released this week found that nearly two thirds of republicans trust donald trump more than ryan to lead the gop many trump supporters speculated that ryan was involved in the leaking of the infamous billy bush tape in which trump made lewd comments about women as part of a plot to sabotage the republican nominees campaign could the fact that one of his relatives is being touted as a likely clinton supreme court pick be another reason as to why ryan who has been accused by many of being in bed with the washington establishment has abandoned his support for donald trump
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23,241 | Trump to order departments to beef up cyber security | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday postponed signing an executive order that is expected to require the heads of government agencies to play a more direct role in reviewing and managing risks to networks under their control. Trump, at a White House event with top officials to discuss his order, said his initiative would “hold my Cabinet secretaries and agency heads accountable, totally accountable, for the cyber security of their organizations.” “We must defend and protect federal networks,” he said. A signing ceremony was planned for Tuesday afternoon but an aide said it had been postponed. When signed, the order will give the White House budget office a central role in assessing cyber risks for the entire executive branch, and will require agency heads to develop plans to modernize aging information technology systems, a White House official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity. Cyber breaches featured in the run-up to the Nov. 8 election, which Trump won over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, most notably with the hacking and leaking of Democratic National Committee emails. Trump said hackers tried to penetrate the Republican National Committee as well but that they failed. Trump vowed his administration will work with the private sector to ensure owners and operators of critical infrastructure to make sure they have the support they need from the federal government to guard against cyber threats. Trump said he would take steps to ensure cyber security is central to the U.S. military. | 1 |
23,242 | Comey declined offer to talk to Senate intel panel: MSNBC | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on Friday that fired FBI Director James Comey had turned down an invitation to talk to the panel next week. “Yes well, one of the things we did do is we invited Comey to come and testify on Tuesday. He is not going to be testifying on Tuesday, but it is our hope in the not too distant future, that we can find time for him to come in and talk to our committee,” Warner told MSNBC in an interview. | 1 |
23,243 | Right-Wing Sheriff: We Don’t Need Rape Kits, Most Allegations False (VIDEO) | We definitely live in a rape culture, and one of the most infuriating parts of that is the huge backlog of untested rape kits around the country. For instance, after Detroit finally was taken to task regarding rape kits that sat for years in an old warehouse, more than 100 serial rapists were identified.Now, the state of Idaho is advancing a bill that is designed to force crime labs and law enforcement to clear the backlog and stop shifting rape kits to the back burner. However, there is one sheriff in that state who is not at all happy about that. In fact, Bingham County Sheriff Craig Rowland s comments on the matter are downright infuriating. He said: I really believe the Legislature needs to take a strong look at allowing law enforcement to do their job and not try to dictate what we need to do. I think they re trying to help, I really do. They need to let us decide if we re going to send the kit and when we send the kits in. Because the majority of our rapes, not to say that we don t have rapes, we do, but the majority of our rapes that are called in, are actually consensual sex. This is reminiscent of old Todd Akin s legitimate rape comments. What these idiots need to realize is that if ANYTHING sexual transpires that a partner wasn t okay with, and (s)he said to stop, THAT IS THE DEFINITION OF RAPE.Luckily, pressure was put on Rowland for his comments, and he at least attempted to apologize. However, the apology is now deleted from his Facebook page, so he likely didn t mean it anyway. It can be read at Jezebel.Rep. Melissa Wintrow took Rowland to task for his reckless remarks, saying: Many times people are focused on a woman s behavior, and the victim s response. when we should be thinking about what are we teaching men in this society. What are we teaching young boys and men about how we should not initiate or cross any physical boundary without consent. That s right. Stop blaming and not believing the victim. This is why so many victims suffer in silence and don t report.Watch the video news report below, via local station KIDK:video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo playerFeatured image via video screen capture | 0 |
23,244 | Hundreds of Afghans demonstrate against 'offensive' U.S. leaflets | QARA BAGH, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Hundreds of demonstrators rallied near the Afghan capital on Tuesday to denounce a propaganda leaflet drop by U.S. forces last week that caused widespread offense and forced American commanders to issue an apology. The leaflet drop near Bagram Air Field, one of the biggest U.S. bases in Afghanistan, was intended to encourage people to report insurgents to the authorities and depicted a lion chasing a dog, symbolizing the Taliban. However it prompted widespread outrage as the picture of the dog, considered an unclean animal in Islam, incorporated a profession of faith from the Quran that forms part of the Taliban flag. The Americans have insulted Muslims through this action and their beliefs and we will not sit quietly by, said Mir Rahman, a protester at the rally in Qarabagh district near Bagram. If the Americans and NATO continue to insult Islam, they will face the same fate that the Russians faced in Afghanistan. U.S. commanders apologized for the leaflet and promised to hold those responsible to account but the affair has caused severe embarrassment at a time of heightened sensitivity over the separate issue of civilian casualties caused by air strikes. While the NATO-led Resolute Support coalition has generally taken pains to avoid cultural insensitivities, there have been several other examples where international forces, most of which come from non-Muslim cultures, have caused offense. In a previous incident in 2012, when copies of the Quran were mistakenly burned, a number of people died in the following protests. So far, demonstrations have been on a much smaller scale but some protesters said they might continue. Apologies on their own will never cure any wound, said Mehrabuddin, another protester, who like many Afghans, goes by one name. If the Americans repeat such an insult in future we will keep up our demonstrations and, if needed, attack Bagram base, he said. Last week, the Taliban, seeking to establish Islamic law after their 2001 ouster, claimed a suicide attack near the entrance to Bagram which it said had been launched in retaliation against the leaflets. | 1 |
23,245 | Thai university removes student leader for defying royalist tradition | BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand s prestigious Chulalongkorn University has removed the head of its student council, a vocal critic of military rule, after he was accused of disrupting a royalist initiation ceremony. But Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal, 20, and the student council said they refused to accept the university order against him and four other members, and would appeal against the decision. First-year students are required to prostrate themselves before a statue of late Thai King Rama V, but older students are meant to do nothing except observe from the audience. Netiwit and his colleagues, however, strode out in front of the students and bowed to the statue during the ceremony, and university authorities took that gesture as a show of defiant disrespect for the tradition. This reflects disrespect towards rights and liberties of other people whose views differ from their own, Pomthong Malakul Na Ayudhaya, a deputy dean at Chulalongkorn University, said in a statement on Thursday. Pomthong said Netiwit was removed for student disciplinary misconduct . Respect for the monarchy is a fundamental tenet of Thai society. In recent years, Thailand has been riven by rivalry between the old, royalist-military establishment and populist forces that have arisen in conjunction with economic growth. Netiwit was elected in May to lead the student council at the university. He rose to prominence as an anti-establishment figure after refusing to prostrate himself before the statue as a first-year student last year. I only wanted to show there are different ways to pay respect to the King Rama V, Netiwit told Reuters. Everyone should be able to think for themselves. You shouldn t force or coerce anyone into doing anything. The tradition of prostration before kings was abolished in 1873 by King Rama V, the university s namesake. But the practice was revived in recent decades and the university began its own tradition in 1997. The university did not comment when contacted by Reuters. Netiwit has emerged as a rare critic of the military junta, which has silenced most dissent since seizing power in 2014. He has drawn comparisons with Hong Kong student activist Joshua Wong. The dismissals from the student council were less about misconduct than undermining what Netiwit represents, said Carina Chotirawe, a lecturer at Chulalongkorn University s Faculty of Arts who disagreed with the decision. To some their status as heroes is reinforced even more, Carina said. | 1 |
23,246 | Kremlin says hopes Putin and Trump will get along, disagrees with Tillerson | MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Thursday it hoped President Vladimir Putin and President-elect Donald Trump would get along and that there would be more mutual respect in U.S.-Russia relations than there was under the Obama administration. Addressing reporters on a conference call, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was responding to questions about how the Kremlin assessed Trump’s news conference on Wednesday. “Moscow is genuinely hoping that our presidents will get along,” said Peskov. “At least Trump has spoken of his readiness for dialogue. This doesn’t mean there’s a readiness to agree about everything with each other. That is hardly possible and Moscow isn’t expecting that, but dialogue is grounds for hope and could help us find a way out of many complex situations.” Peskov said however that the Kremlin did not agree with views on Crimea expressed by Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson on Wednesday, who said Moscow’s 2014 annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula was illegal. | 1 |
23,247 | Fox News Host Calls For American Muslims With Links To ISIS To Be Executed Without Trial (VIDEO) | Fox News host,Judge Jeanine Pirro appeared to endorse the summary execution of Muslims suspected of links to ISIS-related terrorism without due process under the law.Pierre asked her viewers if the U.S. should apply the death penalty for ISIS-related violence. There was no real definition of what scale of violence or links to ISIS would apply. And the U.S. already lists 41 crimes as capital meaning they are punishable by death including murder, assassination, espionage, treason, and death resulting from aircraft hijacking. It is not supposed to matter what religious, racial or other motivation a suspect has of committing these crimes the court is only interested in whether they committed the acts or not.In short, there is no need for a new capital crime specific to Muslims. Unless of course, you re a Fox News blowhard with an axe to grind.The responses from her viewers began as expected.A viewer named Josephine raged: They aren t afraid to kill us, so why should we be afraid to give them the death penalty? While Kevin wrote: We ve got a few guns down here in Texas, and more than happy to handle it!, Pierre reads this out with a grin reaching from ear-to-ear as if she s about to break out into a Happy Birthday song or something when she is infact, calling for the summary execution of Muslims.She reads out Al s comment with the same hysterical smirk on her face: Why waste taxpayer money holding them in prison? They d kill us in a heartbeat. Adding her own snarky reply: Hey Al, and if we held them in prison Obama would let them out! But even amongst the viewership of Fox News, there are some people who have a respect for law and order and the need to actually investigate a person suspected of committing a crime, rather than arbitrarily killing them. One such viewer, named Kimberly, said: Don t get ahead of yourselves. Everyone deserves a fair trial. Let the courts decide. This sent Pirro into a rage-induced tailspin of a rant in which she saw fit to lecture Kimberly. Hey Kimberly, she snorts. I drafted legislation all the time to increase sentences for punishment. The courts are the ones that implement the laws that we draft. Here we have a Fox News host openly endorsing the summary execution of Muslims, presumably Muslim-Americans, who are even suspected of ISIS-related violence. A channel which calls it unconstitutional to ask a white christian to register his gun, thinks it s totally appropriate to summarily execute a Muslim. Fair and balanced? Not a chance.Featured Image vis Screengrab | 0 |
23,248 | MEALS ON WHEELS Shuts the Lyin’ Lefties Up With Truth After MoveOn.org’s Fake News [Video] | Below is the comment in red that MoveOn.org put up before the video. Notice how they say NOTHING about the budget but just state that the program helps people. They re clearly fear mongering with vague information and NO FACTS. If you would like to go to the post on Facebook and hammer them with the statement below that s DIRECTLY from Meals on Wheels, here s the link: MoveOn.org Facebook Post On Meals on Wheels Trump wants to cut Meals on Wheels Meals on Wheels America is one program Donald J. Trump wants to cut in his federal budget plan. It s especially outrageous because according to one Meals on Wheels director, we re delivering a meal but we re delivering a lot more because sometimes we re the only people that this person may see Share the message. Notice how the people in the video just speak about how the program helps people BUT doesn t discuss budget? That s because they re only fear mongering and nothing else Shame on them!MEALS ON WHEELS CAME OUT WITH A STATEMENT TO CLEAR THINGS UP: The nationwide Meals on Wheels network, comprised of 5,000, local, community-based programs, receives 35% of its total funding for the provision of congregate and home-delivered meals from the federal government through the Older Americans Act, administered by the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Community Living. Other federal funding sources that support Meals on Wheels program operations may include the Community Development Block Grant, Community Services Block Grant or the Social Services Block Grant. In addition, programs rely on contributions from state or local governments, private donations and other resources to cover the rest, demonstrating one of the best examples of a successful public-private partnership. Meals on Wheels America, the largest and oldest national organization representing senior nutrition programs across the country, receives only 3% of its funding from the government, specifically to run the National Research Center on Nutrition and Aging. | 0 |
23,249 | Online ads offer legal option for U.S. election meddling | SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The laws that prohibit foreign nationals from spending money to influence U.S. elections do not prevent them from lawfully buying some kinds of political ads on Facebook and other online networks, campaign finance lawyers said. The omission of online ads could be a potential hurdle for those investigating alleged Russian meddling in last year’s U.S. presidential election, according to the campaign finance lawyers, who are not involved in the probes. Since 1974, the United States has barred foreign nationals from giving money to campaigns and it later barred them from donating to political parties. The laws also prohibit foreign nationals from coordinating with a campaign and from buying an ad that explicitly calls for the election or defeat of a candidate. At issue are laws concerning a category of ads known as “electioneering communications” that address where a candidate stands on an issue, that spread news stories about a candidate or that attack a candidate without directly calling for his or her defeat. Foreign nationals cannot spend money on electioneering communications but the term under U.S. law applies only to communications made by broadcast, cable or satellite - with no mention of the internet. A related law does bar foreign nationals from expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate in any advertising medium. But as long as online ads do not call on people to vote for a specific candidate, “they are not prohibited as a campaign finance matter,” said Jan Baran, a Washington lawyer who frequently represents Republican candidates. U.S. Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed in May to investigate alleged Russian interference as well as potential collusion between Moscow and associates of President Donald Trump. The Russian government says it did not meddle and Trump has denied collusion. Facebook (FB.O), which has become a leading platform for online political ads, has said that it has not found any evidence that Russian agents were buying ads. Facebook said in April, however, that it had become a battleground for governments seeking to manipulate public opinion in other countries and outlined new measures to combat what it called “information operations.” Trump’s election campaign spent some $70 million on highly targeted Facebook advertising last year, Brad Parscale, the digital director of the campaign, told Reuters this year. The absence of rules governing online advertising ties the hands of the U.S. Federal Election Commission, said Ann Ravel, a former Democratic appointee to the commission. “The law seems to totally exempt it and therefore it is not possible either to reasonably determine who is behind those ads, do an investigation to find out or penalize for that activity,” Ravel said. Other laws could come into play in an investigation. The U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act restricts publicity paid for by a foreign government such as Russia. | 1 |
23,250 | Trump Spotted Hanging Up Easily The Most Pathetic Picture Of All Time In The White House (PHOTO) | By generous accounts Trump is facing a scandal as inflammatory as Watergate. By less than generous accounts, Trump is facing a scandal even more inflammatory than Watergate. So what is he doing to address it? Apparently, clamping his hands over his ears, squeezing his eyes closed tight and wishing it was November 9, 2016 again.In what may go down as one of the saddest moments in West Wing history, Trump s aides were spotted shuffling in a giant framed picture of you guessed it the election map. Adding even more idiocy to the moment, the map is helpfully marked 2016 Presidential Election Results. Spotted: A map to be hung somewhere in the West Wing pic.twitter.com/TpPPDyNFtE Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) May 11, 2017It was a blown up version of the same election map that Trump has been carrying around with him as he goes about his days. He is so proud of the election map that he even printed out extra copies to give to several reporters who sat down with him in the Oval Office.here's a pic from reuters of Trump with the electoral maps he showed to reporters yesterday pic.twitter.com/1X3edpeJDQ Gideon Resnick (@GideonResnick) April 28, 2017Trump reportedly loves his maps so much that he begged the Washington Post run the map on the front page of its newspaper. (They said no.)The framed picture which will now hang somewhere in the West Wing (along historic portraits of former presidents and paintings commissioned from world-famous painters) seems to be Trump s answer to the press for not doing his bidding: If you won t run the map in your newspapers, I ll just hang it up in the White House!Trump, angry, bitter, and increasingly beleaguered by self-created scandals, has retreated further and further into his ego-friendly safe space. The fact that his map which reflects the election results by county doesn t show what he thinks it shows only makes his desperation more pathetic. Trump see s a lot of red, literally explains to reporter that it represents us, and thinks it shows that people like him. Instead, the map s colors are misleading. Trump may have won a lot of counties but the ones he won are mostly empty, and trees don t vote. The blue spots represent the biggest areas of human population in the country, including Trump s hometown of New York City, and they all voted against him. That s why he lost by three million votes.Featured image via Twitter | 0 |
23,251 | OBAMA JUST GAVE TERRORISTS INCENTIVE TO KIDNAP AMERICANS WITH RECKLESS NEW HOSTAGE POLICY | THIS ADMINISTRATION HAS TO BE THE MOST BUMBLING AND CLUELESS ONE EVER! They ve just incentivized kidnapping and holding hostage anyone and everyone the terrorists think they can get a ransom out of. Brilliant GENERAL JOHN R. ALLEN ON RANSOM FOR HOSTAGES: What is hard to prove is how many Americans have not been kidnapped as a result of the fact that the enemy knows they will not get a penny from us, said Gen. John R. Allen, who recently retired as the top commander in Afghanistan. The fact that there are Americans in the region who were never taken because they knew there was no advantage to doing so needs to be factored in. The Obama administration was accused Wednesday of giving terrorists an incentive to kidnap as it unveiled a hostage policy overhaul allowing families of U.S. hostages to pay ransom and allowing the U.S. government to help families communicate with captors. This doesn t fix anything, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a leading critic of the administration s hostage policy, told Fox News. The money that we re going to be paying ISIS is going to be used to buy arms and to buy equipment to fight Americans and to fight the Iraqis. But the White House said the changes are being unveiled with the families and victims in mind. We re not going to abandon you. We re going to stand by you, Obama said of hostages families, speaking at the White House on Wednesday.The policy review was formally released shortly before noon, and includes a host of changes beyond the clarifications on ransom discussions notably, the creation of a new bureaucratic structure for handling hostage cases.The White House plans to establish a Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell responsible for coordinating the recovery of hostages; a Hostage Response Group responsible for coordinating hostage policies; and the position of special presidential envoy for hostage affairs. Obama said this is being done to sync up various efforts, citing past coordination problems.Read more: FOX News | 0 |
23,252 | NFL opposes U.S. Republican tax plan on stadium funding | (Reuters) - The National Football League said on Tuesday it opposes a tax bill proposed by U.S. House of Representatives Republicans that could force teams to put up more of their own money to fund stadium construction. Under the legislation unveiled last week, local governments could no longer fund the building or renovation of professional sports stadiums by issuing tax-exempt, public-purpose bonds, the sort of bonds typically used to fund schools, libraries and public transit. According to the NFL, building new stadiums enhances economic development in cities that are home to the venues and federal tax breaks should be available. “You can look around the country and see the economic development that’s generated from some of these stadiums,” NFL spokesman Joe Lockhart told a conference call. “These sorts of infrastructure projects have a long history and the benefits of them are obvious in many of our communities around the country, so we will continue to make our opposition known on that.” President Donald Trump has called for an end to the subsidy, at least for the NFL, after some of its players angered the Republican president by kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial bias in the criminal justice system. His Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, also proposed ending the tax break for stadiums in 2015. A report last year by the Brookings Institution, the Washington-based social sciences research group, found that of the 45 major-league stadiums built or overhauled since 2000, 36 were at least partly funded by tax-exempt municipal bonds. The NFL’s Oakland Raiders are expected to begin playing in Las Vegas in 2020 and construction on a new stadium is already underway. Lockhart refused to what, if any, impact the bill could have on the viability of the new stadium. “That is a hypothetical at this point and we’d have to see how the final bill comes out,” he said. “What gets proposed out of the writing committee from the party in control very often is not what is eventually signed into law, so we’ll have to see where that goes.” | 1 |
23,253 | Zimbabwe swears in first post-Mugabe cabinet | HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe s new president Emmerson Mnangagwa swore in his cabinet on Monday, with allies defending him against criticism for giving top posts to the generals who helped his rise to power. Sworn in as president on Nov. 24 after 93-year-old Robert Mugabe quit following a de facto military coup, Mnangagwa has also come under fire for bringing back several faces from the Mugabe era, including Patrick Chinamasa as finance minister. Air Marshall Perrance Shiri, who was handed the sensitive land portfolio, defended his appointment in remarks to reporters after a simple ceremony to take oaths of office. Who says military people should never be politicians? I m a Zimbabwean so I have every right to participate in government, he said. Shiri is feared and loathed by many Zimbabweans as the former commander of the North Korean-trained 5 Brigade that played a central role in ethnic massacres in Matabeleland in 1983 in which an estimated 20,000 people were killed. Land is a central political issue in the southern African country, where reforms in the early 2000s led to the violent seizure of thousands of white-owned farms and hastened an economic collapse. Another military figure is foreign minister Sibusiso Moyo, whom most Zimbabweans remember as the khaki-clad general who went on state television in the early hours of Nov. 15 to announce the military takeover. He declined to discuss the cabinet with Reuters, saying he had yet to get into his new office. Assembling a cabinet has not been without mishaps. Mnangawa dropped his initial pick as education minister on Saturday, 24 hours after appointing him, after a public outcry and reshuffled two others to meet a Constitutional requirement that all but five ministers be Members of Parliament. This has left the information portfolio vacant after he named Chris Mutsvangwa, the influential leader of the war veterans association, as special advisor to the president. Mutsvangwa has defended the cabinet, which at 22 is smaller than Mugabe s 33-strong team, saying the two military appointments were not unique to Zimbabwe. He also said Mnangagwa had engaged the opposition MDC party about taking part in an inclusive government, but its leader Morgan Tsvangirai had blocked it a claim disputed by the MDC. As far as we are concerned there was no contact whatsoever between President Mnangagwa, ZANU-PF and our party regarding the possibility of inclusion or involvement of our members in the government, MDC Vice President Nelson Chamisa told Reuters. | 1 |
23,254 | U.N. chief says statesmanship needed on North Korea, takes digs at Trump | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed on Tuesday for statesmanship to avoid war with North Korea and criticized world leaders who stoke resentment over refugees for political gain, two digs at U.S. President Donald Trump. In his first address to the annual 193-member U.N. General Assembly since taking office in January, Guterres said the crisis over North Korea s nuclear and ballistic missile program must be solved through a political process. This is the time for statesmanship, said the former prime minister of Portugal. We must not sleepwalk our way into war. Trump has warned North Korea that military action was an option for the United States as Pyongyang has carried out a series of tests toward developing the ability to target the United States with a nuclear-tipped missile. The U.N. Security Council has unanimously imposed nine rounds of sanctions on North Korea since 2006 and Guterres appealed for the 15-member body to maintain its unity on North Korea. Guterres, a former head of the U.N. refugee agency, also spoke of being pained to see the way refugees and migrants have been stereotyped and scapegoated - and to see political figures stoke resentment in search of electoral gain. Shortly after taking office in January, Trump moved to put a 120-day halt on the U.S. refugee program, bar Syrian refugees indefinitely and impose a 90-day suspension on people from six predominantly Muslim countries. He says the move is needed to prevent terrorist attacks. I myself am a migrant, as many of you are. But no-one expected me to risk my life on a leaky boat or cross a desert in the back of a truck to find employment outside my country of birth, he said. Safe migration cannot be limited to the global elite. Guterres also warned of the dangers of climate change and urged world leaders to implement the 2015 Paris climate agreement to reduce emissions with ever greater ambition. Trump, who campaigned in the 2016 presidential election on an America First platform, has said the United States would withdraw from the accord. Trump said it would harm U.S. industries, cost U.S. jobs, weaken American national sovereignty and put the country at a permanent disadvantage to other nations. It is high time to get off the path of suicidal emissions. We know enough today to act. The science is unassailable, Guterres said. On counterterrorism, Guterres said he plans to convene next year the first gathering of heads of counterterrorism agencies of U.N. member states to forge a new international counterterrorism partnership. | 1 |
23,255 | ‘Squeaky Clean’ Super Bowl Champ And GOP Poster Boy Peyton Manning Buried A Sex Scandal In College | Denver Broncos Quarterback and two-time Super Bowl Champ Peyton Manning makes a great commercial. His boyish looks and unassuming southern drawl combined with a squeaky clean image make him the perfect poster boy for just about any product.Aside from being a Papa John Schnatter loving, Jeb Bush supporting Republican who sends maximum donations to GOP campaigns regularly, Peyton Manning has what appears to be a polished past with nothing but daisies, rainbows and NFL records dotting it. As with most Republicans, however, the illusion at some point comes crashing down. As it turns out, the already-famous Manning was reportedly responsible for an assault of a sexual nature and subsequent cover-up that changed the course of a woman s career while he was in college at the University of Tennessee.The woman, Dr. Jamie Ann Naughright, wasn t a random female student who could be bullied into silence the way so many in the twisted world of men s college sports are. She was a student volunteer on the training staff and a pioneer in a field where only men had previously prevailed.According to court records recently uncovered by The New York Daily News, a 74-page scandal was swept under the rug and a great woman was forced to leave a campus and a job she loved because Peyton Manning was a foolish and vulgar scumbag. After months of abuse by the misogynist coaching staff, who joked that she must be a lesbian and called her c*nt bumper, Dr. Naughright s glass ceiling was raised to impossible heights by none other than number 18.The story begins with Manning suffering a typical football injury and Naughtright, whose name was Whited at the time, attending to him. She said that Manning had first asked her personal questions, including if she hung out with people she worked with. Then things got infinitely worse.After turning down his advances, Manning decided to drop trou while Dr. Naughright had her head down. When she hears chuckles from the others in the room, she looked up to see Manning s privates in her face. According to the court documents, Naughright said: It was the gluteus maximus, the rectum, the testicles and the area in between the testicles. And all that was on my face when I pushed him up. To get leverage, I took my head out to push him up and off. Such blatant lewd behavior and disrespect for a woman who was trying to help him shows a different character than the one the NFL has sold its fans for nearly two decades. Not only did Manning stick his privates in this woman s face, he and the coaching staff tried to blame the incident on a black player, according to documents, and went on to downplay it as mooning. They went so far as to involve yet another player, who was supposedly the target of said mooning, who rebuffed the theory that Naughright accidentally placed her own face in the path of Manning s ass. Yes, it really did get that ridiculous. The other player rebuffed the claim, telling Manning in a letter that he should take responsibility for what he did.After the incident was reported, Manning was punished with the removal of his privilege to eat at the athletic facilities dining room, and requiring him to run at 6:00 a.m. for two weeks. The dining room ban was then reduced to two weeks as well. Dr. Naughright ended up being forced out of the University with a $300K settlement and a confidentiality agreement. For her, the incident was over.For Manning, however, the incident needed to be put into his own context, most likely as a pre-emptive strike against the truth ever coming out. In a book released by him and his father, Archie, Manning tells a completely different story of a woman he called vulgar. While he admitted his behavior was inappropriate, he placed most of the blame on Dr. Naughright, claiming she had a foul mouth and that she yearned to be one of the guys. In his book, Manning described his feelings towards women in the manly man s world of football: Never mind that women in the men s locker room is one of the most misbegotten concessions to equal rights ever made, Manning wrote. When Dad played, there was still at least a tacit acknowledgment that women and men are two different sexes, with all that implies, and a certain amount of decorum had to be maintained. Meaning when it came to training rooms and shower stalls, the opposite sex was not allowed. Common sense tells you why. Misogyny is what tells you why. Peyton Manning s need to display his superiority over a woman who had halted his advances tells you why.At the time, Naughright was working at Florida Southern College and while she wasn t named, it became common knowledge that she was the trainer Manning was referring to in his book. She ended up leaving the school and filing a defamation lawsuit against Manning, which is where the 74 pages of documents came from.USA Today picked the story up in 2003 but didn t release the documents they obtained that incriminated Manning. Instead, they ran a piece about an unnamed woman who took a mooning incident the wrong way, clearing the way for Manning s squeaky clean image to move forward.Here we are, on what seems to be the waning days of manning s career, and lo and behold the truth comes out. Consequences at this point for Manning will probably be non-existent, because even though what he did and how he treated this woman were disgusting, he has two Super Bowl Rings and the undying admiration of millions of fans.To those of us keeping score, Manning belongs in another club of players: The ones who got away with something horrible. Featured image via biography.com | 0 |
23,256 | Senate Democrats question if they can trust EXIM Bank nominee to support its mission | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Eight U.S. Senate Democrats questioned on Tuesday whether they could trust President Donald Trump’s nominee for the top job at the U.S. Export-Import Bank to support renewing the trade lender’s charter in 2019 and to believe in its mission. Scott Garrett, a former Republican congressman from New Jersey who was one of the EXIM Bank’s leading opponents during a 2015 fight in Congress to shut it down, “refused to confirm that he would unequivocally support reauthorizing the bank,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and seven other senators said in a statement after meeting with Garrett. The nominee for EXIM chairman has met with strong opposition from industry groups that use its financing, including the National Association of Manufacturers, which said Garrett had a track record of trying to undermine the institution. The bank has been unable to approve loans above $10 million for two years because of efforts by conservative Republicans in Congress to shut it down and then block nominations to its board, keeping it from financing large aircraft, satellites, power turbines and other major projects. Critics have charged that EXIM provides unnecessary “corporate welfare” to large companies such as Boeing (BA.N), General Electric (GE.N) and Caterpillar (CAT.N), putting taxpayers at risk. The bank also provides export financing and guarantees for thousands of small manufacturers. “Today’s meeting was bizarre. Scott Garrett – one of the most vocal opponents of the Export-Import Bank while he was in Congress – agreed to speak with us about his nomination, but during the meeting, he wouldn’t discuss his personal thoughts about the Bank and its mission,” the senators said in a statement. “The bank has overwhelming support from Republicans and Democrats in Congress and we need a leader of the bank who also fully stands by its goals,” added the senators, who included Democrats Heidi Heitkamp, Maria Cantwell, Patty Murray, Sherrod Brown, Amy Klobuchar, Chris Coons and Joe Donnelly. Their statement did not say specifically how they would vote on Garrett’s nomination. No nomination hearing has been scheduled by the Senate Banking Committee. A White House spokeswoman could not immediately be reached for comment on the senators’ statement. | 1 |
23,257 | Trump tells Middle East to 'drive out' Islamist extremists | RIYADH (Reuters) - President Donald Trump urged Arab and Islamic leaders on Sunday to unite and do their share to defeat Islamist extremists, making an impassioned plea to “drive out” terrorists while toning down his own harsh rhetoric about Muslims. Trump singled out Iran as a key source of funding and support for militant groups. His words aligned with the views of his Saudi Arabian hosts and sent a tough message to Tehran the day after Hassan Rouhani won a second term as Iran’s president. The U.S. president did not use his signature term “radical Islamic terrorism” in the speech, a signal that he heeded advice to employ a more moderate tone in the region after using the phrase repeatedly as a presidential candidate. “Terrorism has spread all across the world. But the path to peace begins right here, on this ancient soil, in this sacred land,” Trump told leaders from about 50 Muslim-majority countries representing more than a billion people. “A better future is only possible if your nations drive out the terrorists and drive out the extremists. Drive them out! Drive them out of your places of worship, drive them out of your communities, drive them out of your holy land and drive them out of this earth.” The president’s first speech abroad provided an opportunity to show his strength and resolve, in contrast to his struggle to contain a mushrooming scandal at home after his firing of former FBI Director James Comey nearly two weeks ago. He portrayed the conflict as one between good and evil, not between civilizations, and made clear in a forceful tone that Washington would partner with the Middle East but expected more action in return. “There is still much work to be done. That means honestly confronting the crisis of Islamic extremism, and the Islamists, and Islamic terror of all kinds,” he said in his speech. The advance excerpts of the speech had him saying “Islamist extremism.” A White House official blamed Trump’s fatigue for the switch. “Just an exhausted guy,” she told reporters. The term “Islamist extremism” refers to Islamism as a political movement rather than Islam as a religion, a distinction that the Republican president had frequently criticized the administration of his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, for making. As a candidate, Trump proposed temporarily banning Muslims from entering the United States. In office, he ordered temporary bans on people from several Muslim-majority countries, which have been blocked by courts that ruled they were discriminatory. The speech in a gilded hall bedecked with chandeliers is part of an effort to redefine his relationship with the Muslim world. Trump’s “America first” philosophy helped him win the 2016 election and has rattled allies who depend on U.S. support for their defense. Trump received a warm welcome from Arab leaders, who set aside his campaign rhetoric and focused on his desire to crack down on Iran’s influence in the region, a commitment they found wanting in Obama. “For decades, Iran has fueled the fires of sectarian conflict and terror,” Trump said. “It is a government that speaks openly of mass murder, vowing the destruction of Israel, death to America, and ruin for many leaders and nations in this very room.” Trump did not make overt mentions of human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia or the other Gulf nations in his speech. White House officials has said he did not want to lecture, something they believe Obama did, unsuccessfully. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif fired back at Trump in a tweet that Trump had attacked Iran in “that bastion of democracy & moderation” of Saudi Arabia and suggested he had “milked” his hosts for hundreds of billions of dollars in business deals. Introducing Trump, Saudi King Salman described their mutual foe Iran as the source of terrorism they must confront together. “Our responsibility before God and our people and the whole world is to stand united to fight the forces of evil and extremism wherever they are ... The Iranian regime represents the tip of the spear of global terrorism,” the king said. Iran is a Shi’ite Muslim country. The groups the United States has been fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on Washington and New York are mostly Sunni Muslims, and enemies of Iran. Iranian-backed militia are also fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq. The United States and Gulf Arab countries announced an agreement to coordinate efforts against the financing of terrorist groups. Trump’s welcome in the region was put on display during a series of individual meetings with Arab leaders. He praised Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, telling him: “You have done a tremendous job under trying circumstances.” The Obama administration had a difficult relationship with Sisi, who came to power after leading a military coup in 2013 during which hundreds of demonstrators were killed, and has since jailed thousands of opponents. Trump promised to schedule a trip to Egypt soon, and he singled out the Egyptian’s choice of footwear, a pair of shiny black shoes. “Love your shoes. Boy, those shoes,” he said. To Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, Trump declared that the two nations had a lot in common and “there won’t be strain with this administration.” The king lauded the relationship and said it had led to “great stability in the region and prosperity.” Bahrain is home to the U.S. fleet in the Middle East. Its Sunni Muslim royal family rules over a majority Shi’ite population and was occasionally rebuked by the Obama administration for harsh treatment of opponents. Trump’s Riyadh visit kicked off his first presidential trip abroad, with Saudi Arabia the first stop on a nine-day journey through the Middle East and Europe. Soon after Trump embarked on his trip on Friday, he was hit with more accusations that, with Comey’s firing on May 9, he was trying to squelch a federal investigation into his campaign’s ties with Russia last year. | 1 |
23,258 | Australian PM says first refugees to be resettled in U.S. under swap deal | SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Wednesday the first group of about 50 men and woman held in two controversial detention centers for asylum-seekers on remote Pacific islands will be resettled in the United States within weeks. The comments mark the first official timetable for when the United States will begin resettling up to 1,250 people held in Australian-run centers on Nauru and Papua New Guinea s Manus island as part of a refugee swap deal struck by former U.S. President Barack Obama late last year. Australia will begin resettling several dozen Central American refugees within weeks under the deal that U.S. President Donald Trump has described as dumb but has nevertheless said Washington will honor. There will be about 25 from both Manus and Nauru will be going to the United States and I just want to thank again President Trump for continuing with that arrangement, Turnbull said in a video statement. Three sources familiar with the process said about 25 men from countries such as Bangladesh, Sudan, and Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar held on Manus island were the first to be told on Wednesday, with a similar number on Nauru to be told Thursday. One Sudanese refugee approved for resettlement told Reuters he would leave Manus Island in a few days. It feels like my dreams are coming true. All we want is to go to a safe country, said the refugee, who declined to be identified for fear of jeopardizing the resettlement. While Trump has said he would honor the swap agreement, concerns remain about how many asylum-seekers will be resettled from the Australian-run centres. Nearly 2,000 men, women and children are held on Manus island and Nauru, the majority of whom have been awarded refugee status by the two tiny Pacific countries. Refugees and advocates cautioned against assuming the U.S. would take the full allotment, with its processing so far concentrated on individuals with applications that are both easier to verify through background checks and originate from citizens of nations with closer ties to the United States. Iranians are about a third of the refugees on Manus but are only about 10 percent of the ones interviewed so far, said Ian Rintol, spokesman for the Refugee Action Coalition. It seems there had been some discriminatory selection. U.S.-Iran relations have been strained under Trump, who called Tehran a rogue nation on Tuesday. As the two have no diplomatic ties, validating refugee claims is prohibitive. Representatives of Australia s immigration minister, Peter Dutton, refused to comment. Despite their refugee status, many of those on Nauru and Manus island have been held for four years in conditions widely criticized by the United Nations and human rights groups. Australia is under increased pressure to resettle asylum-seekers from Manus Island because that center is due to close on Oct. 31. Australia would need to make alternative arrangements should the bulk of the 800 men still be there by that deadline. Under Canberra s hardline immigration policy, asylum-seekers intercepted at sea trying to reach Australia are sent for processing at the Manus island and Nauru camps. They are told they will never be settled in Australia. | 1 |
23,259 | Kenyan president says repeat election must be held within set time | NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya s repeat presidential election must be held within the 60 days stipulated in the constitution after the Supreme Court nullified the result of a vote held last month, President Uhuru Kenyatta said on Thursday. Kenyatta also accused the court of reaching its decision without scrutinizing and verifying the forms used to tally the Aug. 8 vote and said the decision could thrust the country into judicial chaos. The Kenyan election board said earlier that it had now rescheduled the election for Oct. 26 after a French firm providing the technology for the polls said it would not be ready in time for Oct. 17, the previous date set for the re-run. | 1 |
23,260 | 2015 Broke A New Climate Change Record And It’s Bad News For The Planet | Every year without fail, the first major snowstorm to hit the Northeast is greeted by Fox News as proof that global warming is a myth. It doesn t matter that the claim is nonsensical, it s picked up and mindlessly repeated by their viewers and reinforced by Republicans in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry. But this year might be a little different as scientists announced that 2015 is officially the hottest year on record, not just beating the record set in 2014, but smashing it:Scientists reported Wednesday that 2015 was the hottest year in recorded history by far, breaking a record set only the year before a burst of heat that has continued into the new year and is roiling weather patterns all over the world.In the continental United States, the year was the second-warmest on record, punctuated by a December that was both the hottest and the wettest since record-keeping began. One result has been a wave of unusual winter floods coursing down the Mississippi River watershed.Those floods have negatively impacted millions and killed dozens, if not more. And don t forget the bizarre spat of unseasonable winter tornadoes that have been ripping through parts of the country, destroying communities and costing more lives. But it s going to snow this weekend so everything is A-OK!Unfortunately, it doesn t matter what we do now. We re locked into some of the worst effects of Climate Change for the next couple of centuries. Our children and their children will be thanking us for the gift of wild and unpredictable weather. Even worse, doing nothing will guarantee that the planet will become completely incapable is sustaining human civilization as we understand it. Yet, Republicans are still fighting even the mildest of measures tooth and nail in pursuit of the short term profits of their fossil fuel masters.Let s hope that future generations will have the luxury of examining the past and not be forced to focus on simple survival in a climate rendered inhospitable to human life.Featured image via the New York Times | 0 |
23,261 | #FakeNews Made By Mainstream Media | 21st Century Wire says There is no greater source of so-called fake news than the corporate mainstream media, particularly those outlets in the US. On a recent SUNDAY WIRE show, host Patrick Henningsen talks about US Mainstream Media fakery which has taken over Washington DC, exposing the litany of lies and disinformation being cranked-out by TIME Magazine, CNN, NBC News, New York Times and the Washington Post. Listen:[soundcloud url= https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/304139324 params= auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true width= 100% height= 450 iframe= true /] . READ MORE MSM FAKERY AT: 21st Century Wire MSM FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 |
23,262 | Trump to limit Cuba travel, restrict business deals with military: U.S. officials | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Friday will announce a plan to tighten rules on Americans traveling to Cuba and significantly restrict U.S. companies from doing business with Cuban enterprises controlled by the military, senior White House officials said on Thursday. Trump will lay out his new Cuba policy in a speech in Miami that will roll back parts of former President Barack Obama’s opening to the communist-ruled island after a 2014 diplomatic breakthrough between the two former Cold War foes. Taking a tougher approach against Havana after promising to do so during the presidential campaign, Trump will outline stricter enforcement of an existing ban on Americans going to Cuba as tourists and will seek to prevent U.S. dollars from being used to fund what the new U.S. administration sees as a repressive military-dominated government. The new policy will ban most U.S. business deals with the Armed Forces Business Enterprises Group (GAESA), a sprawling conglomerate involved in all sectors of the economy, but make exceptions related to air and sea travel, the officials said. This will essentially shield U.S. airlines and cruise lines now serving the island. But even as he curbs Obama’s détente with Cuba, Trump will stop short of closing embassies or breaking off diplomatic relations restored in 2015 after more than five decades of hostility, U.S. officials said. He will also leave in place some other tangible measures implemented by his Democratic predecessor, including the resumption of direct U.S.-Cuba commercial flights, though Trump’s more restrictive policy seems certain to dampen new economic ties overall. And, according to one White House official, the administration does not intend to “disrupt” existing business deals such as one struck under Obama by Starwood Hotels, which is owned by Marriott International Inc, to manage a historic Havana hotel. There are also no plans to reinstate the limits that Obama lifted on the amount of the island’s coveted rum and cigars that American can bring home for personal use, one White House official said. As a result, the changes – though far-reaching – appear to be less sweeping than many pro-engagement advocates had feared. Trump will justify his partial reversal of Obama’s measures to a large extent on human rights grounds. His aides contend that Obama’s easing of U.S. restrictions has done nothing to advance political freedoms in Cuba, while benefiting the Cuban government financially. Saying that the aim was to repair what Trump has called a “bad deal” struck by Obama with Havana, one U.S. official said the new administration would leave the door open to improved relations if Cuba undertakes democratic reforms such as allowing free and fair elections and the release of political prisoners. International human rights groups say, however, that reinstating a U.S. policy of isolating the island could make the situation worse by empowering Cuban hardliners. The Cuban government has made clear it will not be pressured into political reforms in exchange for diplomatic engagement. At home, Trump’s critics have questioned why his administration is now singling out Cuba for its human rights record while insisting that in other parts of the world it will not lecture other countries on the issue. Trump will issue a presidential memorandum when he delivers his speech at the Manuel Artime Theater in Miami’s Little Havana district, the heart of America’s Cuban-American and Cuban exile community. The venue is named after a leader of the failed U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 against Fidel Castro’s revolutionary government. Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who was played a key role in pushing for Trump’s changes, was expected to attend along with U.S. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart and other Cuban-American lawmakers. Under Trump’s order, the Treasury and Commerce Departments will be given 30 days to begin writing new regulations and they will not take effect until they are complete. Under the revised travel policy, U.S. officials say there will be tighter enforcement to make sure Americans legally fit the 12 authorized categories they claim to be traveling under, which could spook many visitors, wary of receiving a hefty fine. While tourism to Cuba is banned by U.S. law, the Obama administration had been allowing people to travel to Cuba as part of “people to people” educational trips for visitors, a classification that a White House official said was “ripe for abuse” by those looking for beach vacations. Trump’s new policy will eliminate such visits by individuals while still allowing them to be done as group tours, and also retaining individual travel under other authorized categories such as religious, artistic and journalistic activities, the official said. But Trump’s planned rollback of Obama’s policy has drawn opposition from American businesses and the travel industry, which have begun making inroads on the island, as well as many lawmakers, including some of Trump’s fellow Republicans. The new policy has come together after contentious meetings within the administration. Some aides have argued that Trump, a former real estate magnate who won the presidency promising to unleash U.S. business and create jobs, would have a hard time defending any moves that close off the Cuban market. But other advisers have contended that it is important to make good on a promise to Cuban-Americans whose support they considered significant in winning Florida in the 2016 election. Miami is home to the largest Cuban-American community. | 1 |
23,263 | Trump's pick to lead U.S. CFTC unveils major new policy agenda | WASHINGTON/BOCA RATON (Reuters) - The top U.S. derivatives regulator laid out plans on Wednesday for a sweeping overhaul of the agency that will include everything from cutting regulation to restructuring the unit that conducts surveillance for market abuses. In a wide-ranging policy speech that drew a rare standing ovation from more than 1,000 industry participants, Acting Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo, who was nominated by President Donald Trump as permanent chairman late Tuesday, said it was time for the CFTC to “reinterpret its regulatory mission” by focusing on fostering economic growth, enhancing U.S. markets, and “right-sizing” its regulatory footprint. In prepared remarks before the Futures Industry Association’s annual conference in Boca Raton, Florida, he outlined plans to create a new initiative to help streamline regulation known as “Project KISS” and said he intends to restructure the CFTC’s market surveillance branch in an effort to strengthen how the agency polices the marketplace. That unit, in charge of searching for manipulation and other abuses, is currently housed in the CFTC’s Division of Market Oversight. Giancarlo said it would be relocated inside the agency’s enforcement division to bolster how the CFTC polices the marketplace. A new “chief market intelligence officer” position will also be created, he said, to help oversee a new branch that will be tasked with keeping pace with new trends and technology. DODD-FRANK CRITICISM Giancarlo often has been highly critical of the way the CFTC has implemented rules stemming from the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation. In his speech, he pledged to fix what he called “flawed swaps trading rules” which he blamed for driving business away from the United States, and added that the he hopes to work more effectively with international regulators while still looking out for American interests. He also promised to soon release the results of a review launched in January into the financial technology or fintech sector that seeks to understand what the CFTC’s role should be in regulating the sector. Giancarlo, a Republican, has been acting chairman of the CFTC since Jan. 20 and first became a commissioner of the agency in 2014. Throughout his tenure, he has been critical of the way the CFTC has implemented many of the new rules for over-the-counter derivatives that were mandated by the 2010 Dodd-Frank law. Going forward, he promised to take a much more active role in his position as a member of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), a body of regulators created by the Dodd-Frank law that reviews large financial firms to determine whether their collapse could pose broad systemic risks. Once designated, a company faces an extra level of regulations and oversight. Giancarlo accused the FSOC of failing to weigh the cumulative effect of regulations, particularly stricter bank capital standards which he said are harming market-making and economic growth. “The CFTC must use its authority and influence to address the question of whether the amount of capital that bank regulators have caused financial institutions to take out of trading markets is at all calibrated to the amount of capital needed to be kept in global markets,” he said. His new “Project KISS” initiative, which stands for “Keep it Simple Stupid,” represents an effort to follow the guidelines set out last month in an executive order by President Donald Trump which calls on agencies to conduct regulatory reviews. As an independent agency, the CFTC is not bound by the order. Nevertheless, Giancarlo stressed the need to follow it, saying the project will entail a review “to make them simpler, less burdensome and less costly.” Any efforts to make changes to rules, however, could take time. The five-member CFTC is down to only two commissioners - Giancarlo and Democrat Sharon Bowen. U.S. Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts, who will be convening the confirmation hearing, praised Giancarlo on Wednesday as an “exceptional member” of the CFTC who is “well suited” for the job. | 1 |
23,264 | FURIOUS CUSTOMERS RESPOND To Home Depot Cashier’s “AMERICA WAS NEVER GREAT” Anti-Trump Hat [VIDEO] | The people who are angry about her wearing this hat should also be angry at the hate America indoctrination our children are getting at school, and from our Community Organizer In Chief who s made it cool to hate America and it s racist, homophobic, greedy citizens The decision by Home Depot cashier to wear a white baseball cap carrying the slogan America Was Never Great has caused a social media storm.A photo of Staten Island Home Depot employee Krystal Lake wearing the anti-Trump hat went viral Sunday. The reaction from Facebook and Twitter users skewed negative, with some promising to never shop at Home Depot again.According to this black @HomeDepot employee, "America was never great" pic.twitter.com/AO9p39TJCk Dr. White (@RealDoctorWhite) May 18, 2016Hey @HomeDepot you are OK with this? What an insult to #Vets and ALL Americans #Vets4Trump #Trump2016 pic.twitter.com/BjM835m4rH District fCriminals (@DistOfCriminals) May 18, 2016To be sure, Lake, 22, admits that wearing the America Was Never Great hat was her way of making a broader statement about U.S. history. The point of the hat was to say America needs changing and improvement, Lake told the Staten Island Advance. I don t think it s a positive message to say, Let s look to the past. The lifelong New Yorker said she was surprised when she awoke Wednesday morning to see a tsunami of calls and texts messages from friends and co-workers asking if she had noticed the firestorm her hat had created. Everyone kept asking me if I was on Facebook or Twitter, which I hadn t been, she said, and then I saw how many people were sharing [the picture] and that it was going viral. I was honestly shocked I didn t expect any of this to happen, Lake added.Interestingly, Republican presidential candidate and New York real estate mogul Donald Trump won the April 19 primary contest in a landslide, securing over 80% support in Staten Island.For its part, Home Depot didn t waste time responding to critics on Twitter and Facebook. The Atlanta Georgia-based home improvement retailer called Lake s hat inappropriate.It is against Home Depot policy for employees to wear apparel that reflects political statements, company spokesman Stephen Holmes said.Via: Breitbart News | 0 |
23,265 | Obama says U.N. vote didn't rupture U.S.-Israel relations | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama played down fallout from a U.S. abstention on a United Nations resolution last month demanding an end to Israeli settlements in occupied territory, saying it did not trigger a significant break in relations with Israel. Relations between the United States and Israel, which have soured during Obama’s eight years in office, reached a low point late last month when Washington, defying pressure from longtime ally Israel and President-elect Donald Trump, declined to veto the U.N. resolution. After the Dec. 23 vote, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the U.S. move as “shameful” and accused the Obama administration of colluding with the Palestinians in the U.N. move against the settlements, which are considered illegal by most countries and described as illegitimate by Washington. The White House denied the charge. “I don’t think it caused a major rupture in relations between the United States and Israel,” Obama said in an interview with the CBS program “60 Minutes” airing on Sunday night, according to a transcript provided by CBS. “If you’re saying that Prime Minister Netanyahu - got fired up, he’s been fired up repeatedly during the course of my presidency.” Trump has pledged to pursue more pro-Israeli policies and to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, all but enshrining the city as Israel’s capital despite international objections. Obama, who leaves office on Friday, said Israel’s settlements had made it harder to imagine a contiguous, effective Palestinian state, seen as key to a long-sought two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians want an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in a 1967 war. Israel disputes that settlements are illegal and says their final status should be determined in any future talks on Palestinian statehood. The last round of U.S.-led peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians collapsed in 2014. | 1 |
23,266 | Haitian army set to make controversial return after two decades | CAP-HAITIEN/PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Haiti s president on Saturday heralded the re-establishment of the country s military after 22 years, a divisive issue in the impoverished Caribbean nation which has a history of bloody coups and political instability. Haiti has been without military forces since 1995, when former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide disbanded the army after returning to power following a coup, leaving the national police responsible for security. The army s comeback has been a divisive topic in a country still suffering from a catastrophic earthquake and a fierce hurricane in recent years, with critics and activists concerned that armed forces would meddle in politics and rob essential resources from education and health care. Haitian President Jovenel Moise on Thursday named former army colonel Jodel Lesage as acting commander-in-chief, moving troops closer to full operation. The appointment still needs to be approved by Haiti s senate. On Saturday, Moise welcomed the army s anticipated return with a parade featuring dozens of camouflaged soldiers toting rifles in the northern coastal city of Cap-Haitien, calling on Haitians to recall the Battle of Vertieres won against French colonialists exactly 214 years ago. The army is our mother, he said. When your mother is sick and wears dirty clothes, you do not kill her. You take her to the hospital. So let us join forces to provide needed care to our mother. After Haiti s independence, the military mounted dozens of coups and its forces were accused of rampant human rights abuses. Moise acknowledged that history, but vowed that the new military would be different. The United Nations has called for increased support for the Haitian National Police (HNP) with about 15,000 members. A U.N.-backed mission to aid Haiti s justice system and law enforcement arrived in October, replacing a much larger peacekeeping mission that had focused on stability efforts since 2004. Having demonstrated its ability to maintain stability and guard against security threats, the HNP has emerged as one of the most trusted governmental institutions in Haiti, U.N. spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement last month. Haitian defense minister Herve Denis told Reuters the army will begin with 500 soldiers in engineering, medical and aviation corps, but is still working to fill its ranks. A recruiting process was well underway by last July, attracting many young men in a country that is the poorest in the Americas. Denis said the government plans to ultimately expand to 5,000 troops working to protect Haitian borders, fight terrorism, curb illegal trade and aid Haitians affected by natural disasters. Government opponents fear the Moise administration could use the military to crack down on foes despite the president s claims that troops will steer clear of politics. I don t believe the Moise regime really wants to reinstate the army, but instead set up a political militia to persecute political opponents, said Andre Michel, spokesman for an opposition coalition that has called for Moise s resignation. | 1 |
23,267 | DEAD BROKE HILLARY Buys Million Dollar “Mother/Daughter” Home For Chelsea…After Busted Giving Only 5.7% Of Clinton Foundation Money to Charity | The 2014 IRS filings for the Clinton Foundation were recently released and the numbers were absolutely sickening. Out of $91.3 million spent in 2014, the organization s IRS filings show that only $5.2 million of that went to actual charity. That s because the candidate who says she represents the everyday American can t be bothered with helping the poor she needs to focus on providing a lifestyle for her and her lovely daughter Chelsea that only 1% of Americans can enjoy. The Clinton s have mastered the art of getting rich in politics It s not quite the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, but Bill and Hillary Clinton are expanding their Westchester spread by buying the house next door, The Post has learned.The Clintons shelled out $1.16 million for the three-bedroom, 3,631-square-foot, ranch-style home set on 1.51 leafy acres on Old House Lane in Chappaqua.Westchester County land records and tax records from the town of New Castle where Chappaqua is located list William and Hillary Clinton as owners of the property.A source said the home could be used as a weekend retreat for their daughter, Chelsea, her hubby, Marc Mezvinsky, and their children, Charlotte and Aidan. Rumor has it that the Clintons plan to use this as a mother/daughter house for Chelsea and her kids to visit on the weekends when they want to escape the city and their Flatiron digs since the Chappaqua house has a nice pool and plenty of rolling green lawn for kids to play on, the source said. NYP | 0 |
23,268 | Senators unveil road map for self-driving car legislation | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan trio of U.S. senators said on Tuesday they planned to introduce legislation to remove regulatory roadblocks to the introduction of self-driving cars, including sorting out conflicts between state and federal rules. Republican Senator John Thune, who chairs the Commerce Committee, Bill Nelson, the top Democrat on the panel, and Senator Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, said in a joint statement that existing federal vehicle regulations written over recent decades did not account for self-driving cars without a human driver behind the wheel. Thune said the senators hoped to reach agreement based on “prioritizing safety, fixing outdated rules, and clarifying the role of federal and state governments.” Federal auto regulations pose significant legal hurdles that must be cleared before fully self-driving cars can be sold without steering wheels and gas pedals, a government report said last year. The Senate Commerce Committee is holding a hearing on self-driving cars on Wednesday. Mitch Bainwol, head of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, an auto trade group, will tell the panel that Congress should work to eliminate state or local laws that could “unduly burden or restrict the use of self-driving vehicles in the future.” The senators are joining a broader movement in Washington to respond to calls from Detroit and Silicon Valley for federal action to set rules for self-driving cars, rather than allowing states such as California to write potentially conflicting rules. The chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee told Reuters last week he planned to unveil a package of legislation to overhaul federal rules governing self-driving vehicles. Companies such as Alphabet Inc, General Motors Co and Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) are pursuing automated technologies and want unified federal regulations to replace outdated rules and make it simpler to develop and eventually sell the technology across the country. In April, automakers and technology companies urged California to make changes to its proposed state regulations governing autonomous vehicles. Many oppose California’s plan to require a state permit to deploy autonomous vehicles, which must meet performance and design criteria. The U.S. Transportation Department said last week it would unveil revised self-driving guidelines within the next few months, responding to automakers’ calls for regulations to sanction costly efforts to put autonomous vehicles on the road. Vehicle crashes annually kill more than 35,000 people on U.S. roads and injure 2.4 million. The economic cost of vehicle crashes is at least $240 billion annually, the government says. | 1 |
23,269 | Vietnam news agency apologizes over false report on prosecutions | HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam s state-run news agency apologized on Saturday for issuing what it said was a false report that two more officials of state energy firm PetroVietnam were to be prosecuted over financial losses. The original report had also been carried on the government s official website. Vietnam News Agency said in a statement that it had apologized to Phung Dinh Thuc and Do Van Hau over the false report. It also apologized to their families and to police. The news agency said it had failed to verify its information carefully enough before publication. PetroVietnam is at the heart of a sweeping high-level corruption crackdown in the communist state. Former PetroVietnam chairman Dinh La Thang, 56, was arrested on Friday. The former member of Vietnam s politburo is the most senior executive arrested so far. Thang s brother, Dinh Manh Thang, former chairman of a PetroVietnam unit, was also arrested on allegations of violating state regulations on economic management. Government critics have voiced suspicions that the corruption crackdown is politically motivated, at least in part, and aimed against those close to former Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, who lost out in an internal power struggle in 2016. The corruption crackdown made global headlines in August when Germany accused Vietnam of kidnapping former executive Trinh Xuan Thanh in Berlin to face trial over a separate case. | 1 |
23,270 | Germany softens stance on Turkish arms sales, citing security | ANKARA/BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday Germany would only restrict some arms sales to Turkey, softening an earlier announcement of a freeze on major arms sales after Ankara said that would hurt their joint fight against Islamic State. Merkel spoke a day after Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said Berlin had put all major arms exports to NATO partner Turkey on hold, citing deteriorating human rights there and strained diplomatic ties. She told broadcaster NDR that Germany would decide on arms sales requests from Turkey on a case-by-case basis, noting that Berlin cooperated with Ankara on security matters. We also remain in a joint fight against Islamic State, Merkel said, in an apparent rebuff of the more forceful remarks made by Gabriel, a senior member of the Social Democrats (SPD), junior partners in her ruling coalition. Turkey accused Gabriel of using the issue for political gain ahead of a Sept. 24 national election. The countries ties through the U.S.-led military alliance have come under increased pressure since Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan started a crackdown on political opponents after a failed coup last year. Germany has criticized mass arrests in Turkey, refused to extradite people Turkey says were involved in the putsch and demanded the release of around a dozen German or Turkish-German citizens arrested in recent months. This month, Merkel went as far as saying she would seek to end Turkey s membership talks with the European Union - drawing accusations from Turkey that she was flirting with populism to build support before the election. Berlin is also considering adding Turkey to a list of countries that pose high security risks for intelligence agents, police officers and military officials, Germany s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and two broadcasters reported, citing a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. The list includes China, Russia, Pakistan, North Korea and 26 other countries. Merkel did not give details of what criteria Germany would use to make its case-by-case decisions on arms exports. But in a written response to a question from Greens lawmaker Ozcan Mutlu about German arms exports to Turkey, Economy Ministry state secretary Matthias Machnig said they would not be approved if Berlin suspected they could be used for repression. Machnig s response, dated Sept. 7, also showed arms sales to Turkey had declined significantly since a year earlier. He listed arms exports to Turkey approved between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31 this year - primarily bombs, torpedoes and missiles with some small arms and munitions - worth a total of about 25 million euros ($29.84 million), down from 69 million euros in the same period last year. After Merkel spoke, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he found the chancellor s approach more suitable and chided Gabriel for using the issue to drum up votes. Gabriel s SPD is running 13 to 14 percent behind Merkel s conservatives in many opinion polls. Turkish EU Affairs Minister Omer Celik, speaking in London, had said Gabriel s ban on major arms deals would weaken Turkey s fight against terrorism and make Europe less secure. A NATO spokesman said the alliance has no role in commercial arms sales between member states. It does not monitor, promote or facilitate such transactions, the spokesman added. | 1 |
23,271 | UK minister Garnier keeps job after misconduct inquiry finds no rules broken | LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May wants to draw a line under allegations of misconduct against one of her junior ministers, Mark Garnier, a statement from her office said on Thursday after an investigation found he had not breached ministerial rules. May ordered the investigation in October after the Mail on Sunday newspaper reported Garnier, now a junior international trade minister, asked secretary Caroline Edmondson to buy two sex toys. The statement come a day after May forced her most senior minister, Damian Green, to resign for lying about whether he knew pornography had been found on computers in his parliamentary office. The investigation into Garnier s conduct said he had not breached the rules since becoming a minister in 2016. Addressing events between Garnier and his staff member, it said the incident happened before Garnier became a minister, and that whilst there was no dispute about the facts, there was a significant difference of interpretation between the parties. It was not his intention to cause distress, and Mr Garnier has apologized unreservedly to the individual. On that basis the Prime Minister considers that a line should be drawn under the issue, the statement from May s office said. The Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal has triggered a debate about a culture of abuse by some powerful men at the heart of Britain s Westminster parliament. That has played a role in the departure of two of May s senior ministers after former Defence Secretary Michael Fallon resigned in November saying his past conduct had fallen below the required standard. The departures have added to May s political difficulties at a time when she is trying to manage a party and electorate still split over Brexit, negotiate an exit deal with the European Union and convince voters she can drive through domestic reforms. Nevertheless, having secured progress in Brexit negotiations and steered key EU withdrawal legislation through difficult tests in parliament, she is not facing immediate pressure to quit from her own party. | 1 |
23,272 | HE’S OFF HIS ROCKER! JOHN KERRY MAKES OUTRAGEOUS STATEMENT On The Cause Of Terrorism | John Kerry decided to reveal how he truly feels about the danger of terrorism in other words, HE FEELS THERE IS NO DANGER. In Bangladesh on Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry discussed the threat of terrorism at home and abroad but ended up BLAMING THE PRESS for covering terrorism. If the press just didn t report on terrorism then maybe it would go away? Yes, this guy is officially off his rocker!Part of his proposal to fight this threat had to do with the media and how it covers terrorism. According to Fox News and a transcript of the press conference provided by the State Department, Kerry said the media could do us a service by not covering terrorism quite as much . Remember this: No country is immune from terrorism, he said. It s easy to terrorize. Government and law enforcement have to be correct 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. But if you decide one day you re going to be a terrorist and you re willing to kill yourself, you can go out and kill some people. You can make some noise.Perhaps the media would do us all a service if they didn t cover it quite as much. People wouldn t know what s going on. The fact is we have to stand together, and the United States is standing with Bangladesh in this fight. Via: Breitbart | 0 |
23,273 | feminism has lost the minds of young women | home this month popular what the trump skeptics got wrong what the trump skeptics got wrong fitzroy sommerset
fitzroy is a british and american nationalist who refuses to apologize for the british empire as a young man he took a presidents shilling and served in the us army in his free time he enjoys studying history and destroying the sjw revisionist narrative november politics
there have been few true upsets in our history caesar crossing the rubicon wellingtons victories at assaye and waterloo and washingtons victory at yorktown over the most professional army in the world it is often said that when general charles ohara who had the dubious distinction of surrendering to both george washington and napoleon bonaparte surrendered cornwalliss sword the band played the world turned upside down
today the establishment and the intellectuals cannot help but share a similar sentiment as cornwallis or ohara did at yorktown and i fully admit in spite of my vote for trump i fully expected him to lose the polls his negative approval rating and the sheer forces of the media the fbi and even some republicans were arrayed against him my skepticism of trump was not his ideas but his chances of winning the election myself and other conservative intellectual skeptics who voted for him were wrong
i am one of the intellectuals who expected a trump defeat ive been studying politics history and economics for years reading countless books on the matter from the prince to freakonomics to the wealth of nations
and i was wrong it was a canadian housewife and an iranian pickup artist who called it correctly for trump trump beat the odds he beat the intellectuals and made the establishment babies in the hands of a giant as was said after napoleons resounding victory at austerlitz in
the left is currently in panicmode in an attempt to explain how they lost they are calling trump supporters racist sexists homophobic and even sex offenders but in the end it was this same blindness that made them psychologically incapable of defeating donald trump trump was immune to almost all conventional political weapons trump won because of the following
the left seemed far more interested in calling trump and his supporters racist than saying something of substance
outlets such as the new york times did blatantly stupid crap like try to blame the nra for the orlando shootings and even tried to call them terrorists in this they beat even trump in outrageousness they thought the american people were stupid so they just lied to them and said fuck it those peasants will believe anything we write
all trump had to do was call them on their bullshit and call them liars and he was right the msm has lied to the american people this entire election cycle subsequent to every terrorist attack perpetrated by a muslim the msm continued to push the narrative that home grown rightwing terrorism is the real problem trump called them on their lies and the american people who are tired of being lied to by the msm cheered him on even if he had a few issues with the truth himself
the democrats ran the absolute worst candidate possible hillary clinton had negative approval ratings that rivaled trumps own and she was bland and she couldnt decide if she was a moderate or a firebrand progressive and she is corrupt and lied about it stupidly thinking the american people were too ignorant to understand that putting classified information on a private email server is a recklessly irresponsible thing to do
trump knew how to communicate with people he knew that whites without a college degree were tired of being talked down to by progressives on the left and genuine intellectuals on the right like myself i freely admit i am guilty of this when you study two thousand years of philosophy economics and rhetoric cicero was particularly effective it is sometimes frustrating when people dont approach a situation in terms of axioms and proofs the working class that built america go by what they feel in their gut and often times they are right
all in all the left failed because they failed to understand america they bought into the idea that americans are stupidhaha americans are not stupid they may not be smart but they sure as hell know when a liberal taking head is lying to them about now the nra is basically the taliban in an obviously biased hit piece hillary took working class americans for granted and she lost this should stand as a parallel for black americans whom the democrats also take for granted
i am pleased that donald trump is now presidentelect he wasnt just a candidate he was the anticandidate he did everything a politician should not do he used vulgar language he talked freely about his ideas he made no pretense about being polite to those who are destroying america he turned weaknesses such as his spotty track record into strengths that would have ended any other candidates campaign he was the uncandidate america needed
i have high hopes for trumps presidency in spite of my tepid support i see trump as a president who can do a lot of good and has the potential to do more good than any president of recent memory
first trump spat in the face of pc culture and won just as scott walker took on the unions in wisconsin and cucked them by winning the recall election by getting more votes than he did in the previous election trump defeated the sjws if trump can keep this up we can achieve a major strategic victory in the war against political correctness and get back to a concept called actually being correct
secondly trump is an unapologetic nationalist he loves america and doesnt give a damn if you think howard zinns a peoples history of the united states is a great book the department of cultural guilt that has infected schools in america teaches children to hate their own country i look forward to seeing trump abolish the practice of teaching children that the founding fathers were evil racists the british empire did nothing good for the world and that america is the greatest evil the world has ever seen
lastly trump is the antithesis of everything the social justice warriors stand for a successful alpha male who tells people to go fuck themselves and still gets elected i hope to see a rise in masculinity in america studies have shown that testosterone levels are down among the american male population this should rise under trump as men embrace their masculinity instead of hiding it for fear of being accused of sexual assault
i was a trump skeptic i underestimated him i didnt disagree with him on much perhaps maybe of his platform but i had little faith he could pull it off and i was vocal about my concerns regarding his electability but like the liberals i was wrong and a canadian housewife and a former pickupartistturnedconservativephilosopher were right
i recall something i told a fellow soldier while on a long boring convoy operation in iraq when a genius says something others say wow that is way above my head but when a true genius says something others say wow why didnt i think of that before trump is a true genius he stated the obvious to the american people and made them believe he wanted to make america great again and i think he genuinely does he didnt use fancy graphs or focus groups he spoke the truth without political correctness
and now he is presidentelect | 1 |
23,274 | As election looms, Trump says he is 'last chance,' Clinton sees 'moment of reckoning' | MANCHESTER, N.H./STERLING HEIGHTS, MICHIGAN (Reuters) - As Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton criss-crossed the United States on Sunday in a final, frenzied burst of campaigning, the Republican said he was the “last chance” to fix a broken country while his Democratic rival said a “moment of reckoning” had arrived. The two candidates in Tuesday’s presidential election presented starkly different views of the nation and evoked similarly disparate reactions from crowds gathered to hear them speak. In Iowa, Trump said he was the “last chance” to fix immigration and trade. Outside Minneapolis, he said the Somali refugee population there was a “disaster.” Supporters near Pittsburgh booed a song by musician Bruce Springsteen, who is set to campaign with Clinton on Monday night. Chants of “lock her up” came in waves even as news broke that the FBI again said Clinton should not face prosecution for her email practices while secretary of state. As rocker and guitarist Ted Nugent warmed up a Trump rally in a Detroit suburb, he grabbed his crotch. “I’ve got your blue state right here,” Nugent said, referring to states that typically vote for Democratic candidates, including Michigan. “By the way, my language is much, much cleaner, as you know, than Jay Z,” Trump said at the same event. Trump has criticized crude language in a Friday night concert that rapper Jay Z and his wife, Beyonce, held for Clinton in Cleveland. “The most filthy language you’ve ever heard,” Trump said at the Minnesota rally. One of his supporters there wore a t-shirt that said: “Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required.” Clinton began and ended Sunday with renditions of “America the Beautiful.” The first was at a black church in Philadelphia, the second time performed by folk singer James Taylor at a get-out-the-vote rally in New Hampshire, where the crowd swayed and sang along, linking arms. Clinton walked onto the stage with Khizr Khan, whose son was a slain Muslim U.S. soldier. Khan addressed the Democratic National Convention in July, criticizing Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the country and offering to loan him a U.S. Constitution. Some in Manchester held up miniature Constitutions in tribute. “In a race that has been marked by ugly suspicion and insults and attacks of all kinds against immigrants, Muslims and so many others, Mr. Khan, I think, reminded all of us that we are Americans,” Clinton said. Clinton called Tuesday a “crossroads election” and a “moment of reckoning,” echoing her earlier statements at a Cleveland rally with Cavaliers player LeBron James. “Our core values as Americans are being tested,” she said. | 1 |
23,275 | Obama: 20 million Americans insured thanks to 'Obamacare' | MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Thursday that some 20 million Americans had become insured as a result of the Affordable Care Act, his signature healthcare law also known as “Obamacare.” During a trip to Wisconsin to tout the program, Obama said he hoped Republicans would work with him during his final months in office to improve the law, which they have tried unsuccessfully to repeal. “Today I can announce that thanks to the law, 20 million more Americans now know the security of health insurance,” Obama told a crowd in Milwaukee after being introduced by a local man who said the law saved his life. The man, Brent Brown, said he was a Republican who had not voted for the Democratic president. The law was passed in 2010 and Republicans have sought to repeal it ever since. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said the estimates Obama referenced included coverage from the expansion of the Medicaid program, health insurance marketplaces, and provisions that allowed young people to stay on their parents’ private insurance plans longer. The 20 million figure was an update to a September 2015 government estimate that 17.6 million Americans had been insured as a result of the Affordable Care Act. | 1 |
23,276 | Factbox: Candidate platforms in Chile presidential runoff | SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Center-left Senator Alejandro Guillier and conservative billionaire Sebastian Pinera will go head to head in a runoff for Chile s presidency on Sunday, after securing the top two spots in the Nov. 19 first-round vote. There have been no major polls in the past month, leaving few indications of who will succeed outgoing center-left President Michelle Bachelet in the world s top copper producer. Below are the main proposals from both candidates: - The former journalist, elected to the Senate in 2013, has promised to deepen the progressive tax, education and labor reforms of ideological ally Bachelet. His spending plan includes investments in housing and infrastructure and carries a price tag of $10 billion. - Guillier has pledged to diversify Chile s economy away from copper, or add value to exports by processing the metal at home. He would seek a plebiscite in 2018 to rewrite the dictatorship-era constitution to include more protections for workers and indigenous communities. - Since the first round, Guillier and Pinera have both endorsed a public option to compete with Chile s private pension funds. Once widely praised worldwide, they have been criticized for delivering too-small payouts. Guillier has also recommended a new, mandatory contribution from employers. - Guillier and Pinera have both called for repeal of state-run copper producer Codelco s mandatory contribution of 10 percent of profits to the military. Guillier has signaled he would seek to maintain the government s strong ties with Codelco workers, something that has spared the company from strikes that have hit private miners under Bachelet. - The billionaire businessman, who served as president from 2010 to 2014, has promised to make Chile the first country in Latin America to achieve developed nation status in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based club of wealthy nations. - Pinera, the investor favorite, would cut corporate taxes to increase investment. He said his policies would double Chile s economic growth and eliminate poverty by 2025. - Pinera s $14 billion, four-year spending plan includes an overhaul of Bachelet s tax reform, and $2.7 billion in new investments in infrastructure and hospitals. Pinera said he would pay for his proposals by cutting unnecessary government spending and simplifying the tax code. - Pinera wants to revitalize and increase competition in Chile s private pension system. His plan includes new subsidies to raise pensions for women and the middle class, as well as incentives to encourage workers to retire later. - He wants Codelco to deploy a realistic investment plan using existing resources and to focus on existing assets rather than new projects. | 1 |
23,277 | Washington Post Issues PRICELESS ‘Apology’ To Trump, Puts Out ‘True, Unbiased’ Inauguration Story | The Washington Post, after being repeatedly dragged through the mud at the (tiny) hands of Donald Trump, not to mention also being labeled fake news, has decided it owes Trump an apology. They ve (sarcastically) conceded that the press has been mean and has hurt Trump s feelings, and that they ve even lied through their teeth. And they ve published the true, unbiased version of Trump s inauguration that he no doubt sincerely believes we should all heed.And it s amazing. It s hilarious. Its sarcasm is over the top, as it should be because Trump s overinflated opinion of himself is over the top. If it wasn t, he wouldn t have told the CIA, Wait a minute, I made a speech. I looked out, the field was it looked like a million, million and a half people. The Post s story addresses all of this and more with hilarious abandon. Written by Alexandra Petri, it starts off with an abject apology: I apologize to Donald Trump. As Sean Spicer so wisely said at his first news conference on Monday (It was the first. The one that happened on Saturday did not happen at all, and I recognize that!), it is unfair to be so mean and negative all the time.Here is the fair and unbiased story about the inauguration written in compliance with the Trump style guidelines that we should have been obeying all along. She also reports on the apology that all the media gave to Trump, which touches on his childish temper tantrums, his inability to let even the tiniest of slights go, and Sean Spicer s whining that the press hurts Trump s feelings:The media was there, too, and they were very sorry. Donald, the newscasters said, we were mean to you. We used to laugh and call you names. We were no better than all of the other reindeer. How can you ever forgive us? Forgive you? Donald Trump asked. I ve already forgotten. He smiled a big, beautiful smile.And she says, Nothing that has ever happened or will ever happen was as great as Donald Trump s inauguration. Truth. Not. But Trump doesn t know that. In his mind, he can do no wrong. His accomplishments are great and many, his failures and faults don t exist, and the press is very, very wrong to not focus on his great accomplishments. He s a legend in his own mind.Trump, we should all remember, has the best speeches, the best words, the best everything, and Petri highlights his incessant, exaggerated bragging with this: Everyone liked Donald Trump s speech and the words that he used. They liked even more the part where he rolled up his sleeve and showed off his bicep. It was a great bicep. It made the Rock so upset to see it that he threw something down on the ground and said darn. However, the true zingers start when Petri talks about how Trump walked through the crowd (he didn t), touching everyone in a way that they all thought was welcome and appropriate, (ha!) and curing diseases, kind of like Jesus, so nobody would ever need vaccines again. She then points out a piece of Trump s agenda in this gem of sarcasm: It was like the Oscars, but also like Woodstock, but also like the Super Bowl, but also like the Sermon on the Mount. If you were not there, you should just go home and die, because nothing in your life will have purpose or meaning by comparison, not even holding your newborn child in your arms or having health insurance. [emphasis mine]And finally, she closes with the biggest zinger of all: Donald Trump is the star. People love him.He won the popular vote, too. [emphasis mine]Considering he plans on wasting taxpayer dollars with an investigation to prove he won the popular vote, that s the best of all of them. Maybe Trump will notice this story, but not its sarcasm, and make an even bigger fool of himself on this.Featured image by Drew Angerer via Getty Images | 0 |
23,278 | Plane Passengers Get Into ALL OUT BRAWL, Then One Of Them Shouts ‘AMERICA!’ (VIDEO) | Yet another altercation has erupted on board an airplane. This time it was on board an ANA flight that looks to be returning from Japan, according to the Twitter timeline of the man who took the video.In the video you can see two men in an all-out brawl, fully fist fighting. As of now, there is no known reason why the fight took place, but the instigator seems to shout America! and You think I m crazy? What about the government! The man who took the video, Corey Hour, described the event in a series of tweets: So, 10 minutes before take off a passenger starts a huge fight in his row. I get in between him and flight attendants, but he won t 1v1 me. Corey Hour (@CoreyHour) May 1, 2017He yells, You think I m crazy? What about the government! Then exits the plane. 1.5 hours later and we finally take off. ? jfc Corey Hour (@CoreyHour) May 1, 2017For the record ANA staff and passengers handled the situation with grace and respect. They did the best they could to diffuse the situation. Corey Hour (@CoreyHour) May 2, 2017The video ended when I stepped in & confronted the man in the red shirt. I told him to leave and squared up with him, he backed down n left. Corey Hour (@CoreyHour) May 2, 2017As of now and after speaking with the other passengers the motive for why he did this is still UNKNOWN. None of us have any idea why at all. Corey Hour (@CoreyHour) May 2, 2017According to LADbible, who published the video, The man in the shirt was subsequently arrested for assault and public intoxication at the airport in Japan. Seeing as they re both wearing shirts, they likely meant the guy with the torn shirt who was escorted off the plane.What is happening with people right now, more than usual, that they think violence is the answer to all their problems? Who does this? Grow up, already.Watch the crazy brawl break out here:Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
23,279 | Trump says 'his decision' to fire FBI chief, calls him 'showboat': NBC interview | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Thursday called James Comey, the FBI chief he fired, a “showboat” and “grandstander” and said in a NBC-TV interview he would have dismissed him even if officials at the Justice Department had not recommended it. “He’s a showboat. He’s a grandstander. The FBI has been in turmoil,” Trump told NBC in his first interview since his abrupt firing on Tuesday of Comey, who was leading an investigation into possible Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and Moscow. “I was going to fire Comey. My decision,” Trump said. “I was going to fire regardless of recommendation.” | 1 |
23,280 | Senator Warren seeks investigation of insurers over retirement rule | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat who advocates for strong financial regulation, asked U.S. securities regulators on Thursday to investigate comments made by major insurance companies about a forthcoming federal rule on retirement advice. Last month, Warren criticized Lincoln National, Jackson National Life Insurance Company, Prudential Financial and Transamerica, a unit of Aegon NV , for publicly stating that the rule requiring retirement advisers to put their clients’ interests ahead of their own would hurt business while privately telling investors it would not create a major hurdle. On Thursday, she went one step further and requested the Securities and Exchange Commission to formally look into whether the statements were contradictory and ran afoul of securities laws. “Both sets of industry claims - that the proposed rule will harm them and their business model, and that the proposed rule will not harm them and their business model - cannot possibly be true. And if one these public statements is materially false, it would appear to violate long-standing interpretations of our securities laws,” she wrote to SEC Chair Mary Jo White. The White House will soon publicly release the latest version of the rule, drafted by the Labor Department. The 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform law called for holding brokers who give retirement advice to a strong fiduciary standard, meaning they must act in their clients’ best interest, as a way to protect retirees from buying unnecessary products that line brokers’ pockets. The Labor Department had to withdraw its initial version of the rule in 2011 after complaints from members of both political parties and the financial services industry. Warren says that financial and insurance companies have warned in public that the proposed rule could drive up costs and stop them from offering retirement services such as annuities to middle- and lower-income people. But in earnings calls they have reassured investors that they will come up with new products or approaches that will minimize threats to their businesses. Responding to Warren’s critique last month, most of the insurers said their public warnings did not contradict reassurances to investors that they could withstand regulatory changes. They said their companies could navigate potential disruptions but they were still concerned about the consequences for consumers seeking retirement advice. | 1 |
23,281 | Dozens of unidentified bodies found near Libyan city of Benghazi | BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - The bodies of 37 unidentified people have been found near the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, security sources said on Friday. The bodies were found on Thursday night in Al-Abyar, about 70 km (44 miles) east of Benghazi. The security sources gave no information about their possible identity. Smaller numbers of bodies have been found in and around Benghazi on several occasions in recent months. The area is controlled by the Libyan National Army (LNA), a force headed by eastern-based commander Khalifa Haftar. He declared victory in a campaign for Benghazi in July, though some fighting has continued in one district of the city. | 1 |
23,282 | MI Republican Gov Rick Snyder Now Trying To Steal $550 Million Dollars From Teachers | Michigan s Republican governor, Rick Snyder hasn t quite satisfied his penchant for evil doing. Snyder, who is globally infamous for overseeing the poisoning of the city of Flint, Michigan, is now trying to re-steal more than half a billion dollars from Michigan s teachers.In 2010, a law was passed that forced school employees to contribute 3 percent of their pay to their healthcare retirement benefits. The law was ruled as unconstitutional by the Court of Appeals on June 7. That means that the already collected $550 million dollars that are currently held in escrow must be returned to the school employees that it was originally stolen from. Governor Snyder s decision to drag this case out, even though the Attorney General will not assist in the appeal, is a shameful use of the people s time and money. School employees deserve to have their hard-earned money returned to them as soon as possible, but instead they will have to wait as Governor Snyder spends more time defending what is clearly an unconstitutional law, said David Hecker, president of American Federation of Teachers Michigan.That ruling doesn t fit into Snyder s master plan. He is now suing to appeal the court s decision. The suit is so frivolous and politically toxic that even the governor s Republican comrade, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schutte isn t willing to touch it with a ten-foot pole. Schuette has announced that he will not represent the Snyder administration. After reviewing the appellate decision in American Federation of Teachers V. State of Michigan the Attorney General is declining to provide counsel if the Governor wishes to appeal the ruling, said Schuette spokeswoman Andrea Bitely.Bitley also said that In this case, we ve not only reviewed the ruling, but we ve also spoken with many teachers and heard from many teachers across Michigan, and it just didn t make sense to continue the appeals process through our office at this point. Snyder insists that he is trying to protect the stability of the system, according to a statement from Snyder s press secretary, Anna Heaton.The Snyder administration has proven once again how badly government functions when it is controlled by Republicans. Snyder s political career is virtually over. That means he is free to fight for the causes he truly believes in without worrying about his name becoming more tarnished than it already is. Apparently, those causes include stealing from teachers and school employees paychecks.Featured image from Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 0 |
23,283 | Trump visit could be 'turning point' on North Korea policy, says Moon | SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea President Moon Jae-in said he hoped a visit by U.S President Donald Trump would be a turning point in efforts to defuse tensions over North Korea s nuclear program as the two leaders met in Seoul on Tuesday. The state visit in the South Korean capital was billed as an opportunity for Trump and Moon to present a united front, despite differences over how to confront North Korea s nuclear threat, as well as Trump s complaints over the two countries trade agreements. Besides vowing to prevent North Korean leader Kim Jong Un from developing nuclear weapons and missiles that can effectively strike the mainland United States, Trump has also threatened to pull out of a free trade pact between the two countries. | 1 |
23,284 | Republicans Flip Out Over Law That Would Require Women To Register For The Draft | Far too many people don t understand the awesome simplicity of the Republican war on women. They try to analyze the underlying causes; blame some on religion, some on chauvinism. Overthinking is a strictly Democratic problem. To the good ol white boys club of the GOP, women are just inferior creatures in need of nurturing: weak and restrained; helpless at best. Yeah, sadly it really is just that simple to figure out why their war exists. They have no respect for their mothers. Ouch OK, that was harsh. Republicans, in general, find women to be beneath them. Republican women depend on their men because their fathers told them to, just like their mothers told them to just pull the Republican lever and vote the straight ticket.Naturally when the time came to review the guidelines for selective service, Republicans went bonkers. It seems women have always been exempted from the draft because they weren t allowed to be in combat roles and the draft is for extreme-case national emergencies where combat would be likely. Things have changed. Women are now allowed in not some but ALL combat roles if they can pass the training the same as a man. Two women made national headlines as the first members of the Army Rangers earlier this year, they probably would have gladly signed up at 18 for the draft we haven t used since we stopped sending kids off to be slaughtered in Vietnam in 1973.Republicans still can t reconcile. Rep Duncan Hunter (R-CA) told The Hill: The draft is there to get more people to rip the enemy s throats out. I don t want to see my daughters put in a place where they have to get drafted. You mean you wouldn t want to see your daughters treated as equals among their peers. You wouldn t want to witness how incredibly strong any human being can be when put into extraordinary circumstances. You want them at home, right next to your sons, watching the horrors of war turned into a game show on Fox News. It s difficult as a father to imagine your daughters trotting off to war. It s just as difficult to imagine my son going. Hunter was right. The draft is there for extreme situations to get more people to rip the enemy s throat out. Do we just keep searching through the men and eliminate half the population s prospective ability to do just that? I don t know if these old men have been paying attention, but women aren t the delicate flowers they once were in the stone age when they were kids.The amendment passed the Armed Services Committee and moves forward to the house floor where a bunch more men will debate how awful it would be for their daughters to fight for their country and their freedom while they happily send the sons of the poor and working class and anyone who commits a misdemeanor who has a penis. There are a ton of exemptions available for people to be excluded from the draft, and certainly motherhood would be one. Don t worry, Republicans, there won t be moms pushing strollers across battlefields just yet.Featured image from Daniel Bendji/Getty Images | 0 |
23,285 | REPORT: Trump Blocked HIS OWN CAMPAIGN From Vetting His Past | When one becomes any sort of public figure especially a political public figure one s past is often scrutinized. Therefore, it is pretty much standard practice for potential campaign officials to vet the potential candidate prior to launching any sort of run for public office. However, when GOP nominee Donald Trump s original campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, sought to do this, Trump himself pulled the plug on any such endeavor.According to Bloomberg Politics, Lewandowski requested that Trump s past be looked into before he even filed to run for president. However, Trump refused, which means that his campaign officials have been caught completely off guard by things like the lewd tape from the Access Hollywood bus, as well as by the subsequent allegations that he groped multiple women without their consent over the years. Apparently, the same thing happened with Trump s second campaign manager, Paul Manafort. Allegedly, Manafort wanted to vet Trump just like Lewandowski did, but was rebuffed. As a result of this, the only things Lewandowski was prepared to combat were Trump s monetary contributions to Democratic causes and politicians, and his Iraq war comments. All the rest was off limits.This is exceedingly odd, considering that any information found on the part of Team Trump would be used to prepare for any backlash relating to things that might come out from the candidate s past, as has happened in the last week and a half or so. Such secrecy would lead one to believe that there is something out there so bad that Trump feared people bailing on his then-fledgling campaign if they should find out about it.As for Trump s current spin master campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway? Well, she s just as in the dark as her predecessors were. She went on Fox News on Thursday and said of the dumping of information on Trump s past: I don t know what s out there. There s no way to know what is and isn t out there. Ohhh, Kellyanne. Dear, dear Kellyanne. You might not know exactly what else is out there, but you seem to be an intelligent pollster/GOP operative. You can figure it out. And, as a woman and as a mother, you should be ashamed of yourself for continuing to deflect and defend a man whose past includes such behavior.Featured image via Scott Olson/Getty Images | 0 |
23,286 | Executive Order: Obama Orders Behavioral Experiments On Americans | If you think this is a good idea then you might be a leftist. Our government wants to nudge us to do what they want.President Obama announced a new executive order on Tuesday which authorizes federal agencies to conduct behavioral experiments on U.S. citizens in order to advance government initiatives.In its 2013 memo, which was reported by Fox News at the time, the White House openly admitted that the initiative involved behavioral experimentation.The initiative draws on research from University of Chicago economist Richard Thaler and Harvard law school professor Cass Sunstein, who was also dubbed Obama s regulatory czar. The two behavioral scientists argued in their 2008 book Nudge that government policies can be designed in a way that nudges citizens towards certain behaviors and choices.Read more: Daily Caller | 0 |
23,287 | Trump Fan Puts Disgusting, Racist Float Of Obama In 4th Of July Parade (IMAGES) | Don Christy, who claims he s neither a Republican nor a Democrat, but rather, a patriot in the most vile sense of the word, had a float in the town of Sheridan, Indiana s 4th of July parade. It wasn t all stars and stripes, though. No, he decided to go way too far with it, and constructed a likeness of President Obama in a toilet, with the words Lying African on it.While sane and reasonable people are questioning the town for even allowing that float, Christy is busy waving his flag and claiming that he tries to do something outrageous every year for that parade, because that makes it totally okay. Last year, he made fun of marriage equality by dressing gay and marrying a guy in the parade. This year, he did that horribly disrespectful and bigoted display as a statement against what he sees as rampant dishonesty in the White House, along with political correctness: It s time to start changing our country back a little bit. Christy is 73 years old, so he remembers well what life was like before African-Americans could even dream of seeing a black man elected President. That was a great time for white people no minorities, with their irrelevant, irrational feelings were ruining the country for white people with their political correctness.Take a look at the float in all its hateful glory:So.. today in Sheridan Indiana.. somehow this float was approved for their parade .. yea wtf Sheridan. Classy. pic.twitter.com/9NEOlMFLIs ashley s mething (@ashleys_mething) July 4, 2016And from another angle: Man drives Lying African Obama float in Fourth of July parade: SHERIDAN, Ind. Sheridan, Indiana is a small https://t.co/OJE6zirL9E Ogden Daily News (@ogdendailynews) July 5, 2016Christy thinks portraying Obama in one of the most racist and disrespectful lights imaginable is just fun and games, but others aren t laughing at all. Another Sheridan resident, Rebekah Sanders, said: Too many people die fighting for our freedom. I don t think that display is the type of freedom they are out there fighting for. She added: I do not want my child to think that racism is OK. Unfortunately, Christy doesn t care about that kind of thing. He s a Trumper, so he probably wants children to grow up in the supremely white environment he grew up in. He s on King Donald s bandwagon regarding political correctness, and totally missing the point that people always found racism offensive and saw it everywhere. The only difference is that now they re speaking up about it because they can.Not to worry, though. Christy issued a totally insincere and backhanded apology for this travesty of a float: I apologize to anyone I offended, which would be a total liberal. Here s hoping the Sheridan Lions Club bans this small, disgusting excuse of a human being from all future parades.Featured image via embedded tweets | 0 |
23,288 | Pennsylvania Church Demonstrates How To Deal With A Child-Molesting Pastor | While many churches defend pastors who have raped or molested children in their congregations, a church in Pennsylvania is showing them what doing the right thing looks like.35-year-old youth pastor Wesley Ryan Blackburn is currently in jail waiting to be tried on 84 felony counts of statutory sexual assault, 84 misdemeanor counts of indecent assault and one felony count of corruption of minors, according to The Tribune-Democrat.Blackburn worked at Faith Brethren Bible Church in New Paris until last week when he admitted to his wife and state troopers that he impregnated a 15-year-old girl who was a member of the youth group he was teaching.The so-called man of God admitted his crimes to his wife after she confronted him about his misconduct. He then told her he didn t love her anymore and demanded a divorce.Blackburn s wife immediately called pastor James Espenshade and told him about her husband s misconduct with the teen girl.But unlike other churches that have stood by pastors who commit sex crimes, the Faith Brethren Bible Church did the right thing and straight up fired Blackburn and called the police. We didn t even care what he had to say, Espenshade told WAJC. We don t tolerate this kind of stuff it s inappropriate, it s reprehensible. There was never a discussion of anything else. We had to do what was right. Police questioned Blackburn while he was packing up his office and he was arrested and charged.The way this church handled Blackburn stands in sharp contrast to the way Columbia Road Baptist Church in North Olmsted, Ohio handled a similar situation.When youth pastor Brian Mitchell, a married man with three kids, was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison for raping a teen girl, the church not only didn t fire him after discovering inappropriate texts he had been sending her, they continued to stand by him even after he went to prison by blaming the victim and demanding that she apologize to Mitchell s wife.Like Mitchell, Blackburn will probably receive a similar sentence. But Faith Brethren Bible Church deserves praise for calling the police upon learning of Blackburn s misconduct and for immediately terminating his employment. They also deserve praise for not blaming the teenage victim for Blackburn s actions. This is the way churches should handle these situations, but sadly, far too many of them do not.Featured image via Wikimedia | 0 |
23,289 | U.S. House Speaker Ryan: Meeting with Trump 'encouraging' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday said he was “very encouraged” following his meeting with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump earlier on Thursday, adding that the process to unify the party would talk time. “We had a very good and encouraging, productive conversation,” Ryan, the top elected Republican in the United States, told reporters at his weekly news conference. | 1 |
23,290 | Factbox: How South Africa's ANC will pick Zuma's successor | JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa s ruling African National Congress (ANC) will elect a new party leader to succeed President Jacob Zuma at a conference in December. The winner will be favorite to become South African president after a 2019 election. The frontrunners are Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, former chair of the African Union and Zuma s ex-wife. Other candidates include ANC Treasurer General Zweli Mkhize and Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu Below are the main stages of the process by which the ANC will choose its new leader. | 1 |
23,291 | OBAMA CRITICIZES SEPARATION OF POWERS: Republicans Imagine I Would Turn The U.S. Into Cuba | Yes, it s really hard to be a dictator in America Obama obviously doesn t like power to be given to anyone but him. | 0 |
23,292 | Trump Set Up An Alien Crime Hotline And It Went Exactly Like You’re Thinking Right Now (TWEETS) | Recently, Donald Trump became the second major elected leader in history to publish a newsletter focusing on crimes committed by a segment of the population he wanted to demonize Adolf Hitler with The Criminal Jew (a regularly published list of crimes allegedly committed by Jews) and Donald Trump with his Weekly and Declined Detainer Outcome Report, a regular publication of crimes allegedly committed by immigrants. The word allegedly is important here, because Trump s list so far has been mostly Latinos who are accused but have not been convicted of anything at all.Trump decided that a newsletter attacking all immigrants because some allegedly have committed crimes (at a much lower rate than the rest of us), so he established VOICE an entire department committed to criminalizing the Jews immigrants. While Trump set up a hotline for VOICE in an effort to give people an outlet for engaging this bigoted right-wing fantasy that immigrants are all criminals, he was in for a shock when people started calling. They called 1-855-48-VOICE about aliens, all right just not the ones he wanted them to call about.Trumps VOICE Hotline set up for people to report on crime from illegal aliens was reportedly overloaded with calls about space aliens Robbie Gramer (@RobbieGramer) April 26, 2017Trump wants you to report "bad aliens", so join me in complaining about the Hutt criminal organization in the Outer Rim: 1-855-48-VOICE. It's Phil with a Z (@PhilMQuinn) April 27, 2017Holy shit yes. Everybody call 1-855-48-voice and jam their shit with callAbout aliens and your vote for The Voice https://t.co/octtSP9heg wattznext (@wattznext) April 27, 2017To call Trump's new VOICE hotline for hot tips about illegal aliens, except to report any *space* aliens you find worrisome. Call often! https://t.co/Quw1XKU2Pc Janie Jones (@janieqjones) April 27, 2017In case you've spotted any aliens, the number is 1-855-48-VOICE https://t.co/HLR987Sk3n #ShePersisted (@magicclams) April 27, 2017Well who would have figured this would happen? 855-48-VOICE is the number to call, you know, in case space aliens are flying about. https://t.co/JshLCJlB5i Ziggy Zee Persisted (@francie1950) April 27, 2017If any of you need to report space aliens to our government, please call their hotline: 1-855-48-VOICE. Here are some of their Most Wanted: pic.twitter.com/nWnVYdDdpG Steven Santos (@stevensantos) April 27, 2017So, if you have been abducted by aliens, the new toll free hotline is: 1-855-48-VOICE https://t.co/vfMe4MsepP Jmcnairc (@johnmclarke3) April 27, 2017 All crime is terrible, but these victims as represented here are unique and too often ignored, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said of the alien crime line. They are casualties of crimes that should never have taken place because the people who victimized them often times should never have been in the country. If you have seen any strange alien activity especially criminal you should call. Whether you or a friend were abducted or probed, have seen crop circle-based vandalism, or witnessed livestock being turned inside out, it is your duty as a patriotic American to speak out.The number once again is 1-855-48-VOICE. Featured image via Getty Images (Mark Wilson)/screengrab | 0 |
23,293 | trump mocks bidens dare to take him behind the gym | so now he is not uptodate on what is going on in the government and has to learn his information through the tv news sources wtf really no one believes that garbage | 1 |
23,294 | false flag us intelligence warns of likely al qaeda terror attack day before election | by amanda froelich by the worlds population is estimated to reach billion people already million people go to bed hungry each evening | 0 |
23,295 | U.S.-backed militia to capture last Raqqa areas in hours: spokesman | BEIRUT (Reuters) - The spokesman for the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria s Raqqa said on Tuesday the alliance will capture the last parts of the city held by Islamic State in the coming hours. The spokesman, Talal Selo, said by telephone that there was still fighting around the National Hospital, which the SDF said earlier it had taken, and around the city stadium. | 1 |
23,296 | Rocked By Scandal, Wounded Warrior Project Fires Top Execs (VIDEO) | On Thursday, two top executives with the Wounded Warrior Project were fired.The dismissals came after a CBS investigation exposed the charity organization s outrageous spending on lavish parties, high-priced travel arrangements and luxury accommodations for staff.As Addicting Info reported here, one four-day team-building conference for Wounded Warrior Project staff cost more than $3 million.Under CEO Steven Nardizzi, who first began working for the organization in 2009, spending on conferences and meetings went from $1.7 million in 2010, to $26 million in 2014.A former employee told CBS that Nardizzi rappelled down the side of a building, at one company event, while at others he s come in on a Segway, he s come in on a horse. Both CEO Steven Nardizzi, and COO, Al Giordano were terminated by the board of directors, following an internal audit.The organization has been the subject of rumors and accusations for a number of years, many of which were focused on the higher-than-average salaries paid to Wounded Warrior Project executives, along with questions about the amount of money the charity spends on fundraising.While other veterans charities spend as much as 98 percent of money raised on veterans, the Wounded Warrior Project only spends about 60 percent. According to the CBS report, anywhere from 40 to 50 percent of money raised by the Wounded Warrior Project goes to staff and fundraising, instead of veterans.If that s bad enough, the charity may not use the small percentage of funds it does spend on veterans in the way you might think.The Wounded Warrior Project claims some 56,000 veterans as alumni, veterans who have registered with the organization.But according to The Daily Beast, many of the veterans counted as alumni in 2014 had no contact with the organization during that year. Just 62 percent of so-called alumni of the Wounded Warrior Project had participated in even one activity in 2014.As The Daily Beast reports here, Ken Davis, a veteran who served in Iraq before being injured, is considered among the alumni of the Wounded Warrior Project even though he said he no longer wants to be associated with it. Davis told The Daily Beast, I receive more marketing stuff from them, [and see more of that] than the money they ve put into the community here in Arizona. It s just about numbers and money to them. Never once did I get the feeling that it s about veterans. He is not the only veteran to report this experience. As Addicting Info reported here, Courtney Leigh Schumacher reached out to the Wounded Warrior Project when her husband lost both his legs in the line of duty.Rather than answer her requests for help with the things her family needed, the Wounded Warrior Project sent her a lot of useless stuff, including hats, stickers, magnets, clothing and backpacks, all displaying the organization s logo.There s no doubt that firing Nardizzi and Giordano is a step in the right direction.Yet that step alone may not be enough to fix the charity s negative image, or restore the trust of veterans and the public.Here s more on this story via CBS News:Image credit: video screen capture via CBS News | 0 |
23,297 | Trump's Obamacare shift complicates ability to work with Democrats | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s disavowal this week of a bipartisan agreement to stabilize Obamacare has further eroded the already minimal trust congressional Democrats had in him, complicating prospects for gaining their cooperation on a range of issues. Trump’s fellow Republicans who control Congress will need at least some Democratic support to pass critical legislation in the coming months to avert a government shutdown and prevent an unprecedented U.S. debt default. “I’ve been here with every president since Jerry Ford,” said Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, who was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1974 and is its longest-serving member. “I’ve always been willing to negotiate with anybody because they always keep their word. If you have a president who doesn’t keep his word, it makes it more difficult,” Leahy said when asked about Trump’s interactions with Congress. Trump initially backed the bipartisan deal announced on Tuesday by Democratic Senator Patty Murray and Republican Senator Lamar Alexander for shoring up insurance marketplaces established under Obamacare for two years by reviving federal subsidies to private insurers that Trump has scrapped. A day later, Trump disowned it. Going forward, Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen said that while more collaboration with Trump is possible, “I think we have to know that we can’t count on him.” Trump enraged Republicans in September with his collaboration with top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer and top House of Representatives Democrat Nancy Pelosi. Trump cut a short-term spending deal with them, blindsiding Republican leaders, and then discussed with them the outlines of a plan to revive protections for young adult immigrants dubbed “Dreamers” brought into the United States illegally as children. On both healthcare and Dreamers, Trump has shown that while he relishes deal-making, he is quick to row back in the face of a conservative backlash. The president also has sent signals over the past few weeks that he is wavering on working with Democrats to help the Dreamers, making demands that could be a deal-breaker. Republicans have worked seven years to get rid of Obamacare, Democratic former President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement, and many of them vehemently opposed the Alexander-Murray deal. It remains unclear whether it will ever come to a vote in the Senate or House. Because spending legislation requires a super-majority of 60 votes in the 100-seat Senate and there are 52 Republican senators, it cannot pass without at least eight Democrats backing it. Because hard-line House conservatives often oppose spending bills, Democratic support is expected to be needed there as well. A Dec. 8 deadline is looming for passing the spending measure needed to prevent a shutdown. Democrats could demand a steep price for their support, potentially an Obamacare fix and action to help the Dreamers. Under a budget resolution passed by the Senate on Thursday night, Republicans need only a simple majority to pass Trump’s proposed major tax cuts, though he has urged Democrats to support the overhaul. Schumer, who Trump earlier in the year called the Democrats’ “head clown” before their thaw last month, this week vented his frustration about the president, saying he “keeps zigging and zagging so it’s impossible to govern.” “This president cannot govern if, whenever the hard right frightens him and says ‘jump,’ he says ‘how high?’” Schumer told reporters on Wednesday. Schumer and Pelosi dined at the White House with Trump last month, and left feeling as if they had a deal on a proposal to help continue protections for the Dreamers that the president has moved to end effective in March. Within a day, Trump began distancing himself from that deal, with the White House later floating a series of hard-line immigration “principles,” including money for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border fiercely opposed by Democrats, that have thrown the entire effort into doubt. Pelosi and Schumer argue their deal with Trump is still salvageable, as the president himself has not called it off. Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill acknowledged that the principles “don’t help” the effort. But Hammill said that would not stop Pelosi, a former House speaker first elected to the chamber in 1987, from engaging Trump in the future. “It was always a case-by-case thing. It was never ‘the switch was on’” full-time, Hammill said. There will be plenty of cases to come in the weeks ahead, giving Trump an opportunity to improve his relations with Democrats if that is what he wants, Hammill said. As Congress and the White House approach the December deadline for settling fiscal affairs, Hammill said Trump can use that opportunity to stabilize Obamacare and shield Dreamers from deportation. “If he’s unable to do that, we’re unable to work with him on his priorities,” including taxes, Hammill said. | 1 |
23,298 | How Republicans can hobble Obamacare even without repeal | CHICAGO (Reuters) - Republicans may have failed to overthrow Obamacare this week, but there are plenty of ways they can chip away at it. The Trump administration has already begun using its regulatory authority to water down less prominent aspects of the 2010 healthcare law. Earlier this week, newly confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price stalled the rollout of mandatory Medicare payment reform programs for heart attack treatment, bypass surgery and joint replacements finalized by the Obama administration in December. The delays offer a glimpse at how President Donald Trump can use his administrative power to undercut aspects of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including the insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansion that Republicans had sought to overturn. The Republicans’ failure to repeal Obamacare, at least for now, means it remains federal law. Price’s power resides in how to interpret that law, and which programs to emphasize and fund. Hospitals and physician groups have been counting on support from Medicare - the federal insurance program for the elderly and disabled - to continue driving payment reform policies built into Obamacare that reward doctors and hospitals for providing high quality care at a lower cost. The Obama Administration had committed to shifting half of all Medicare payments to these alternative payment models by 2018. Although he has voiced general support for innovative payment programs, Price has been a loud critic of mandatory federal programs that dictate how doctors should deliver healthcare. Providers such as Dr. Richard Gilfillan, chief executive of Trinity Healthcare, a $15.9 billion Catholic health system, say they will press on with these alternative payment plans with or without the government’s blessing. But they have been actively lobbying Trump officials for support, according to interviews with more than a dozen hospital executives, physicians and policy experts. Without the backing of Medicare, the biggest payer in the U.S. healthcare system which Price now oversees, the nascent payment reform movement could lose momentum, sidelining a transformation many experts believe is vital to reining in runaway U.S. healthcare spending. Price “can’t change the legislation, but of course he’s supposed to implement it. He could impact it,” said John Rother, chief executive of the National Coalition on Health Care, a broad alliance of healthcare stakeholders that has been lobbying the new administration for support of value-based care. The move Friday to pull the Republican bill only reinforces the risk to the existing law, which Trump said on Friday “will soon explode.” “It seems that the Trump Administration now faces a choice whether to actively undermine the ACA or reshape it administratively,” Larry Levitt, senior vice president at Kaiser Family Foundation, wrote on Twitter. “The ACA marketplaces weren’t collapsing, but they could be made to collapse through administrative actions,” he added. The United States spends $3 trillion a year on healthcare - more by far than 10 other wealthy countries - yet has the lowest life expectancy and the highest infant mortality rate, according to a 2013 Commonwealth Fund report. Link to Graphic: tmsnrt.rs/2nkTWoC Health costs have soared thanks in part to the traditional way doctors and hospitals get paid, namely by receiving a fee for each service they provide. So the more advanced imaging tests a doctor orders or pricey procedures they perform, the more money he or she makes, regardless of whether the patient’s health improves. “We have a completely broken economy in healthcare,” said Blair Childs, senior vice president at hospital purchasing group Premier Inc. “Literally, all of the incentives in fee-for-service are for higher cost.” Alternative payment models are designed to remove incentives that reward overtreatment of patients. Private insurers are on board, with Aetna Inc, Anthem Inc, UnitedHealth Group and most Blue Cross insurers announcing plans to shift half of their reimbursement to alternative payment models to control costs. To promote the shift to alternative payments, the ACA created an incubator program at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The CMS innovation center is funded by $10 billion over 10 years to test payment schemes aimed at improving quality and cutting the cost of care. The Obama administration’s decision to make some of these payment programs mandatory has drawn the ire of Price, a former U.S. senator and orthopedic surgeon. In response to a mandatory payment program for joint replacements last September, for example, Price charged that the CMS innovation center was “experimenting with Americans’ health.” In his January 17 confirmation, Price said he was a “strong supporter of innovation,” but said he believed the CMS innovation center “has gotten a bit off track.” President Trump has already signed an executive order directing the HHS to begin unraveling Obamacare. In the early hours of his presidency, Trump directed government agencies to freeze regulations and take steps to weaken the healthcare law. The order directed departments to “waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation” of provisions that imposed fiscal burdens on states, companies or individuals. These moves were meant to minimize the costs and regulatory burdens imposed on states, private entities and individuals. David Cutler, the Harvard health economist who helped the Obama Administration shape the ACA, said Price could do all sorts of things to undermine the law. “If he wants to blow it up, he can,” Cutler said in an email. But if they do, he added, “they alone will own the failure.” | 1 |
23,299 | Saudi Arabia tightens security after Bahrain pipeline blast | DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia s energy ministry said pumping to Bahrain had been suspended and the kingdom was stepping up security precautions at its own facilities after its Gulf island neighbor blamed terrorism linked to Iran for an oil pipeline blast. Iran denies any role in unrest in Bahrain, host to the U.S. Fifth Fleet and a key Western ally, which has for years grappled with protests and sporadic violence. The attack on the pipeline ... was followed by the suspension of the pumping of oil to the State of Bahrain, the Saudi Ministry of Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources said. The Ministry of Energy also confirmed that it has increased its security precautions at all its facilities, and that all these facilities enjoy the highest levels of protection and safety, it added in a statement. | 1 |
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