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3,300 | ‘The Lord’ Told A Trump-Loving Tow Truck Driver To Leave A Disabled Woman Stranded–So He Did | Shupee Max Towing in Traveler s Rest, South Carolina apparently has some rules if you re looking to actually be towed somewhere. At least that s what Cassy McWade found out when she was in an accident and her family called for a tow. Her regular mechanic wasn t available, so they called Ken Shupe, who arrived on the scene in about an hour.McWade, most likely relieved to see the car being cared for and the incident behind her, was stunned when Shupe came around the car, told her he couldn t help her because of who she supports, got in his truck and drove away. Yes, that just happened. According to WLOS News 13: He goes around back and comes back and says I can t tow you. My first instinct was there must be something wrong with the car. And he says, No, you re a Bernie supporter. And I was like wait, really? And he says, Yes ma am, and just walks away. This Bernie sign and a message from the lord were all Ken Shupe needed to be an ignorant jerk screen captureShupe claims it was a moment of clarity. He says he thinks the Lord came to him and told him to get in his truck and leave. With his backwards-thinking head held high and his ignorance on his sleeve, this idiot left a disabled woman sitting on the sidewalk. McWade, 25, suffers from fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, psoriatic arthritis and early-onset Crohn s. All of which she said made the waiting by the side of the road with no restroom nearby terrifying. McWade Told WLOS: I personally don t believe that you don t have to agree on anything just to be kind to one another. I was like, what did I do to you? You know, I do believe I try to do right by people. So I was offended, and I don t know what exactly he thinks I would have done to him directly by being a believer in Bernie. Shupe s claims that it was all about his convictions and a message from God came crashing down when he got to the real reason he doesn t want to do business with Bernie Supporters: I ve had some horrible experiences in the last six months with towing cars for this mindset individuals, in that I don t get paid. They want to argue about a $50 tow bill, and it turns into just a drama and a fuss. And I said, you know, I m not going to associate with them, and I m not going to do any business with them. I m really not interested in doing business with that clientele, In other words, I believe Bernie supporters are socialist commies who want stuff for free because internet memes tell me so, so my ignorant self just wasted a bunch a gas and made myself look like an imbecile in public. It would be highly doubtful that anyone could corroborate this guy s stories about all of his terrible misdealings with Bernie supporters. Should have stuck with God; at least the zealots will give you GoFundMe money.Watch the report from WLOS below:Featured image via screen capture | 0 |
3,301 | the influencing machine and magnus olsens blood | watch up mission impossible against voter registration to make trump win starts from indiana page the peace of god to all that belong to the light dear readers a so serious and suspicious move in indiana today is practically leaving voters the major part of which are african american possibly out of any possibility to vote this november th presidential election this following instructions of the vice presidential republican nominee and governor of the state mike pence please read thinkprogressorg patriot majority alleges the investigation and raid were political moves and that lawson worked closely with gov mike pence r who has pushed the voter fraud conspiracy on the campaign trail alongside donald trump weve seen nothing but partisan activity from the secretary of state and even from the police buck said they saw that there was a very successful voter registration drive happening and this was an attempt to shut it down its clear that the governor or the governors staff are very aware and involved in whats happening he continued it fits into the trumppence narrative that in certain neighborhoods you have to watch how many times people show up to vote and how things happen if this situation is not fully clarified in the following hours we could see in the general election how trump will probably take indiana with a really small margin of votes by blocking these voters to be able to express their decision freely all this operation of today is part of carefully designed republican strategy to use the excuse of a possible fraud to justify arbitrary measures that will prevent many americans to elect the next president is a political boycott of the general election please check theinterceptcom this is an red alert to all voters that oppose donald trump to watch carefully the behavior and decisions taken by the republican governors to try to favor their candidate they saw that there was a very successful voter registration drive happening and this was an attempt to shut it down please check wwwdailykoscom the thread is open not only to discuss this so dark operation but also to invite other members of ats community to report irregularities of any kind that are right now taking place to assure that on november who become elected will be president not because it has really the support of the majority but because thousands of americans are going to be deprived of their right to vote voter registration drives across the country follow similar protocol without being subject to investigations a huffington post investigation reported that it seems the extraordinary investigation is likely to find no more than potential technical violations of obscure regulations for thirdparty voter registration groups thanks for your attention | 0 |
3,302 | Factbox: Early voting starts next month in U.S. election | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Although the Nov. 8 U.S. presidential election is more than two months away, the first ballots will be cast in just a few weeks when several states begin early voting. Thirty-eight of the 50 U.S. states have some form of early voting in this year’s race between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump. Pushing supporters to vote early has become a large organizational effort by both major U.S. parties. Below are the dates for early voting in the states that allow it. State rankings, such as "most competitive states," are based on the Reuters States of the Nation poll. (here) * Florida: Oct. 24 to Nov. 6 * Iowa: Sept. 29 to Nov. 7 * Nevada: Oct. 22 to Nov. 4 * North Carolina: Varies by county * Ohio: Oct. 12 to Nov. 7 * Virginia: Sept. 23 to Nov. 5 * Arizona: Oct. 12 to Nov. 4 * Colorado: Oct. 24 to Nov. 7 * Georgia: Oct. 17 to Nov. 4 * New Mexico: Oct. 11 to Nov. 5 * Wisconsin: Varies by municipalities * Alaska: Oct. 24 to Nov. 7 * Arkansas: Oct. 24 to Nov. 7 * Idaho: Oct. 24 to Nov. 4 * Indiana: Oct. 12 to Nov. 7 * Kansas: Nov. 1 to Nov. 7 * Kentucky: Oct. 21 to Nov. 7 * Louisiana: Oct. 25 to Nov. 1 * Mississippi: Sept. 26 to Nov. 5 * Montana: Oct. 11 to Nov. 7 * Nebraska: Oct. 10 to Nov. 7 * Oklahoma: Nov. 3 to Nov. 5 * South Dakota: Sept. 23 to Nov. 7 * Tennessee: Oct. 19 to Nov. 3 * Texas: Oct. 24 to Nov. 4 * Utah: Oct. 25 to Nov. 4 * West Virginia: Oct. 26 to Nov. 5 * Wyoming: Sept. 29 to Nov. 7 * California: Varies by county * Hawaii: Oct. 25 to Nov. 5 * Illinois: Sept. 29 to Nov. 7 * Maine: Oct. 9 to Nov. 7 * Maryland: Oct. 27 to Nov. 3 * Massachusetts: Oct. 24 to Nov. 4 * Minnesota: Sept. 23 to Nov. 7 * Vermont: Sept. 23 to Nov. 7 * Washington state: Oct. 21 to Nov. 7 * Washington, D.C.: Oct. 29 to Nov. 5 | 1 |
3,303 | After Yemeni air strike, little girl is family's only survivor | SANAA (Reuters) - Her bruised eyes still swollen shut, Buthaina Muhammad Mansour, believed to be four or five, doesn t yet know that her parents, five siblings and uncle were killed when an air strike flattened their home in Yemen s capital. Despite concussion and skull fractures, doctors think Buthaina will pull through her family s sole survivor of the Aug 25 attack on an apartment building that residents blame on a Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen since 2015. The alliance said in a statement it would investigate the air strike, which killed at least 12 civilians. Yemen s long war involving competing Yemeni factions and regional power struggles has killed at least 10,000 people. Millions more have been forced to leave their homes and face disease and hunger. Aid agencies have called for a speedy resolution to the conflict, warning that the impoverished country is now victim to the world s greatest man-made humanitarian disaster. Lying disoriented in her hospital bed on Saturday, Buthaina called out for her uncle, Mounir, who was among those killed in the attack. Another uncle, Saleh Muhammad Saad, told Reuters Mounir had rushed to the family s house when Buthaina s father called him at 2 a.m. to say war planes were bombing their neighborhood in Sanaa s Faj Attan district. He never returned. By the time Saleh got to the house, it was a ruin of broken concrete blocks and wooden planks. Hearing survivors groaning from beneath the rubble, he battled to free them. I could hear the shouts of one of their neighbors from under the rubble, and tried to remove the rubble from on top of (Buthaina s father) and his wife, but I couldn t. They died, he said. We lifted the rubble and saw first her brother Ammar, who was three, and her four sisters, all of them dead. I paused a little and just screamed out from the pain. But I pulled myself together, got back there and then heard Buthaina calling. He said her survival had given him some solace as he mourned the rest of the family. Her sister Raghad always used to come up and hug me and kiss me when I visited. I used to say to her, Come on, that s enough. And she would say Oh no it isn t! and just keep hugging and kissing. | 1 |
3,304 | Kellyanne Conway Announces Trump’s HUGE ‘Thank You’ Gift To Putin, And It’s Treasonous As F*ck (VIDEO) | Kellyanne Conway accidentally announced exactly how Donald Trump intends to reward Vladimir Putin for all the help he received from the Russian dictator s propaganda team, internet troll squad, and hackers on Monday. Conway told Capitol Download that she doesn t feel more investigations are needed into the Kremlin s attack on our nation last year that helped barely win Trump the presidency (with a huge asterisk). In fact, we re such good friends with Russia now that Putin helped The Donald with his little getting elected issue that Conway says Trump is going to look into lifting some of those pesky sanctions Putin couldn t get Obama to lift. I predict that President Trump will want to make sure that our actions are proportionate to what occurred, based on what we know, Conway said, claiming that we have imposed harsher sanctions on the country that directly interfered in our election rather than North Korea and China after they hacked our nation.Conway attacked a bipartisan effort to get to the bottom of the hack, mocking Democrats not Republicans, who have spent the last eight years focusing solely on obstructing President Obama for attempting to work with the other side. It s curious and a little bit humorous that Democrats would talk about anything bipartisan given how they have vowed to obstruct everything we do, she said, adding that there is a great deal of information out there about the hack. I do find it to be very ironic that the uptick and the hue-and-cry of investigation and information has occurred after the election results are in, she added, completely forgetting that Hillary Clinton warned us of this exact scenario during the time leading up to the election and was mocked by Republicans when she suggested we look into it. The fact is, the Democrats became super-duper interested in this entire issue after the election did not go the way they, quote, wanted and the way they expected. But it s not just Democrats who think that a foreign power interfering with and manipulating our election, especially at this level, is a problem. While most Republicans have remained silent in cowardly acceptance of the huge gift that has been given to them by Vladimir Putin and company, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and a few others have also called for an investigation.Now, our next President whom a foreign dictator helped get into office by personally spearheading a hack of his political opponents and an aggressive propaganda campaign is poised to reward said dictator by lifting sanctions. You know how Trump kept saying we should lock someone up? Perhaps we should consider it but not the person he wants behind bars.Watch Conway s interview below:Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
3,305 | Trump Fans Threaten Jewelers Who Donated Ivanka Money To Hillary: ‘Karma’s A B*tch!’ | Jewelry designers Jill Martinelli and Sabine Le Guyader of Lady Grey in Brooklyn left Ivanka Trump a note with her recent purchase. Let s just say the two designers aren t fans of her father s. In the note, the two thanked her for her order but added that they were donating the proceeds to the American Immigration Council, the Everytown for Gun Safety organization and the Hillary Clinton campaign.The handwritten note was signed, Best, Jill + Sabine, with the Instagram photo of the letter captioned, Dear @ivankatrump, #thanksbutnothanks #payitFORWARD. While we were flattered to receive an order from Ivanka Trump, our social and political views couldn t be further from those of the Trump campaign, Marinelli told The Cut. When we received her order, we instantly felt compelled to take the money and donate it to a few organizations that were more aligned with our ideals. That was too much for Trump fans to handle so they besieged Lady Grey s Instagram and Facebook pages.One commenter went there, stating, Your company is f*cked!! Loooooosers ! Say buh bye to your company, wrote ilianaruizjcj on Instagram.Duke7045 wrote (in Conservative caps), DISGUSTING ASSHOLES!!! HOPE YOU GO BANKRUPT SOON!!! WAIT TILL TRUMP BECOMES PRESIDENT. Brag it up!! Very poor business choice! Your company is fucked!!, fearss33 wrote.From there, things got worse: Disgusting! Keep your political views to yourself. Run your business with class. Hope you loose [sic] lots of money from being so ignorant, added valleygrrrl, with another commenter chiming in, I m utterly in shock of your display of professionalism. I hate to, no actually ladies I m not afraid to say but karma is a b*tch and I know it will come back to hurt you. A really chill guy on Facebook, JJ Lars, wrote, F*cking worthless c*ck suckers! Laura Fleckenstein wrote, I just sent them about 100 emails. Block up there [sic] business. Susan Phipps went all caps and typos on Lady Grey, writing: EVERYONE BOYCOTT LADY GREY..WE HAVE NEVER OF HEARD OF THIS CHEAP UGLY JEWELRY.. BUT WHAT FEW CUSTOMERS THEY DO HAVE NEED TO BOYCOTT..RUDE..DISREPECTFUL UNGRATEFUL BUSINESS..AND REALLY UGLY JEWELRY! IT MUST BE HARD FOR THOSE WHO WROTE THIS LETTER TO BE SO JEALOUS OF A RICH..SUCCESSFUL..BEAUTIFULWOMAN LIKE IVANKA WHO IS LOVED BY MILLIONS! #boycottladygrey Sky Roxy wrote, What a bunch of fucking idiots I hope your business goes down . Disrespectful distasteful bitches you guys are. Marina Farra Swiatek-Barnett wrote, Karma is a Bitch. The note from Lady Grey on Instagram: Dear @ivankatrump, #thanksbutnothanks #payitFORWARD A photo posted by Lady Grey Jewelry (@ladygreyjewelry) on Aug 16, 2016 at 12:15pm PDTThe audacity of these two women to donate money to worthy causes as well as their choice for president. As of now, there are over 5,500 comments on Facebook, most of them from Trump supporters.Photo by Joe Raedle via Getty. | 0 |
3,306 | SMILING HOST Shows Women How To Apply Make-Up To Beaten Up Face In Country With 99% Muslim Population [VIDEO] | This video was filmed on Moroccan television, the same country who paid Hillary Clinton ( advocate for women rights ) $28 million through her Clinton Foundation for favors reportedly performed by our government that would benefit Morocco The smiling woman on the daily Moroccan television show spoke to viewers as if it were any other makeup tutorial, comparing brands and hues of face foundation and demonstrating how to apply it.Seated next to her was a woman with what appeared to be a black eye and bruises on her cheekbones.#aworldadrift Morocco TV. Makeup tutorial show how abused women can hide bruises. pic.twitter.com/xk1AlCEkpT CaLi-Bano 3 (@CurioGorilla) November 26, 2016 After the beating, this part is still sensitive, so don t press, the host said in Arabic as she applied makeup on the woman s face, eventually concealing the woman s bruises. Make sure to use loose powder to fix the makeup so if you have to work throughout the day, the bruises don t show, she said.The makeup tutorial, aired Wednesday on Moroccan state television, instructed viewers how to use concealer to camouflage the traces of violence against women, spurring outrage on social media that prompted an apology from the channel. The segment was broadcast two days before the U.N. International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the Guardian reported. It s a subject we shouldn t talk about, but unfortunately that s what it is, the segment s host, Lilia Mouline, said in the tutorial. We hope that these beauty tips help you carry on with your normal life. Use foundation with yellow in it, she said. If you use the white one, your red punch marks will always show. WP | 0 |
3,307 | Pentagon: Will provide Trump options if North Korea provocations continue | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Monday that it would provide U.S. President Donald Trump with options to deal with North Korea if its provocations continue, after North Korea s foreign minister said his country reserved the right to shoot down U.S. bombers even if they are not in its air space. If North Korea does not stop their provocative actions, you know, we will make sure that we provide options to the President to deal with North Korea, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Robert Manning told reporters. | 1 |
3,308 | Four Serbs get suspended sentences for 2008 attack on U.S. embassy | BELGRADE (Reuters) - Four Serbian men got suspended prison terms on Tuesday for taking parts in riots at the U.S. embassy in 2008 - a long-delayed case that has soured relations between Belgrade and Washington. The four were convicted of hurling stones at the embassy during protests over perceived U.S. support for Kosovan independence. They were not charged over a fire that broke out at the peak of the riots and destroyed part of the building. Washington has pressed for prosecutions for almost a decade, but no one has so far been convicted over the blaze which killed one protester. The four - Dejan Vucckovic, Dragan Marinkov, Marko Novitovic and Milan Tomas - pleaded not guilty but were convicted of endangering public safety and given two-year suspended sentences. The court ruling said the men s rocks broke windows in the embassy and other protesters later threw in flares that started the fire. Another three defendants were acquitted due to lack of evidence. Serbia s government and the protesters reacted with fury after Kosovo s declaration of independence on Feb 21, 2008. Serbia considers Kosovo its historic heartland and has waged a diplomatic campaign against the secession of the predominantly ethnic Albanian region. Belgrade lost control of Kosovo in 1999 after NATO bombing ended Serbia s brutal counterinsurgency against Albanians there. Defense lawyer Zelimir Cabrilo said the court s verdict had not addressed the political factors behind the riot. It was a political decision to stage the rally ... to remove (police) security from the embassy, Cabrilo told reporters. Instead, we have light, modest sentences against four persons ... for hurling stones, they were not sentenced for torching it (the embassy). The case was delayed last year when the Serbian Court of Appeals annulled a lower court s sentencing, citing deficiencies in the ruling, and ordered a retrial. | 1 |
3,309 | Samantha Bee Slams ‘Moderate’ John Kasich’s DISGUSTING Anti-Choice Record (VIDEO) | Full Frontal host Samantha Bee is not known for mincing words, and this time she has turned her attentions to supposedly moderate GOP presidential candidate John Kasich (R-OH). Before the election season heated up, Kasich was not known nationwide, so understandably his relatively non-crazy public persona made him seem like a safe pick next to the clown show that is Donald Trump, and the dangerous extremism of Ted Cruz. However, Samantha Bee wants to warn us to not be fooled by Kasich s not being as openly batty as his fellow GOP presidential candidates.Bee spoke of Kasich s record on her show, in which she reminded everyone that he is very anti-gay and even more anti-choice: In the nauseating bus terminal restroom that is the Republican primary, John Kasich initially seems like the least disgusting stall, but is Kasich really the huggable moderate he s made out to be? The short answer to that question is a resounding NO!! From Salon:Bee noted the candidate s scarcely mentioned record on gay marriage ( Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage, was originally called Obergefell v. Kasich ) and reproductive rights (citing Michael Gonidakis, president of Ohio Right to Life, who said, There is no candidate running for president who has done more for the pro-life movement than John Kasich ).That doesn t sound like a moderate at all to me. In fact, it sounds like Ted Cruz part deux, only even more dangerous, because nobody knows what he s really like. Kasich s campaign is built upon trying to make him seem like one of the sane GOP candidates, when, in actuality, he s just as crazy as the rest. Bee continued: If you live outside Ohio, you don t hear much about Kasich s anti-choice record because he hides his abortion restrictions in larger budget bills, where they won t be noticed. Kind of like a desperate, pregnant teenager buying ever-larger sweatshirts. In a lot of ways, this makes Kasich even worse than the others. At least we see their crazy and know what we re getting. Kasich is very adept at hiding his. What does it say about the current incarnation of the GOP that the only sane candidate is this guy?Thanks, Ms. Bee, for telling it like it is, as always.Watch the segment below:Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
3,310 | Argentina's first female submarine officer on board missing vessel | BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - One of the 44 crew members on board the Argentine submarine that is missing in the South Atlantic is Eliana Maria Krawczyk, who came from a landlocked province to become the country s first female submarine officer. In a Facebook video posted in January by the Defense Ministry, Krawczyk discussed her experience of being the first woman in a traditionally male space. She said that she aspired to become the commander of a navy submarine one day. If you think about being underwater, navigating, and being the only woman, it is strange, but at the same time it is exciting and very challenging, she said in the video. Any woman that wants to can do it. Krawczyk, 35, was born in the northeastern province of Misiones and joined the navy in 2004, after responding to an advertisement online. She rose to become the master-at-arms aboard the ARA San Juan, which went missing last week. She graduated from Argentina s submarine and diving school in 2012 as the first female officer and always loved her job working at sea, according to her sister Silvina Krawczyk. It is like she was born for this, Silvina told Reuters. She really likes to do what she does in the navy. Hopes of discovering the ARA San Juan received a setback on Monday when the navy confirmed that failed satellite calls traced to the area on Saturday did not come from the submarine. With rough seas and high winds hampering the search for the 34-year-old vessel, a navy spokesman said the German-built submarine had surfaced and reported an electrical problem before it disappeared 268 miles (432 km) off the coast. They are working very hard to find them, said Silvina Krawczyk who, like many relatives of the missing crew members, was camped out at a naval base in the coastal city of Mar del Plata, awaiting updates on the search and rescue mission. Besides just the faith one has to maintain in these situations, I truly trust that they are going to find them, Silvina said. The pioneering submariner had been aboard the ARA San Juan - the newest of the three operated by the Argentine navy - when it made the same trip from Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, to Mar del Plata last year without incident, her sister said. The voyage normally takes around a week, but modest delays due to poor weather are not uncommon. The submarine left Ushuaia on Nov. 13. It is the first time that something like this has happened, said Silvina, who herself is a machinist in Argentina s Merchant Marines. At the entrance to the Mar del Plata base, locals hung signs with messages in support of the crew members and their families on a chain-link fence. Strength for Argentina. We trust in God. We are waiting for you, read one inscribed on a celestial blue-and-white Argentine flag hanging on the fence. | 1 |
3,311 | (VIDEO) PANTSUIT ON FIRE! HILLARY CLINTON CAUGHT IN ANOTHER WHOPPER ABOUT SELLING THE RUSSIANS OUR URANIUM | The author of Clinton Cash responds to Hillary Clinton s brazen dishonesty. Who does she think she s fooling is she lying or just very incompetent? I think it s brazen dishonesty. I was not personally involved because that wasn t something the secretary of state did, said Clinton.The transfer of 20 percent of US uranium the stuff used to build nuclear weapons to Vladimir Putin did not rise to the level of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton s time and attention?Beyond being an admission of extreme executive negligence on an issue of utmost national security, Hillary s statement strains credulity to the breaking point for at least three other reasons.First, nine investors who profited from the uranium deal collectively donated $145 million to Hillary s family foundation, including Clinton Foundation mega donor and Canadian mining billionaire Frank Giustra, who pledged $100 million. Since 2005, Giustra and Bill Clinton have frequently globetrotted together, and there s even a Clinton Foundation initiative named the Clinton-Giustra initiative. But Hillary expects Americans to believe she had no knowledge that a man who made a nine-figure donation to her foundation was deeply involved in the deal? Nor eight other mining executives, all of whom also donated to her foundation?Second, during her Sunday interview, Clinton was asked about the Kremlin-backed bank that paid Bill Clinton $500,000 for a single speech delivered in Moscow. Hillary s response? She dodged the question completely and instead offered this blurry evasion. The timing doesn t work, said Clinton. It happened in terms of the support for the foundation before I was secretary of state. Hillary added that such allegations are being made by people who are wielding the partisan axe. The reason Hillary ignored addressing the $500,000 direct payment from the Kremlin-backed bank to her husband is because that payment occurred, as the Times confirms, shortly after the Russians announced their intention to acquire a majority stake in Uranium One. And as for her comment that the timing of the uranium investors donations doesn t work as a damning revelation, in fact, the timing works perfectly. As Clinton Cash revealed and others have confirmed, Uranium One s then-chief Ian Telfer made donations totaling $2.35 million that Hillary Clinton s foundation kept hidden. Telfer s donations occurred as Hillary s State Department was considering the Uranium One deal. Third, Clinton correctly notes in the interview that there were nine government agencies who had to sign off on that deal. What she leaves out, of course, is that her State Department was one of them, and the only agency whose chief received $145 million in donations from shareholders in the deal. Does she honestly expect Americans to believe she was simply unaware that the deal was even under consideration in her own State Department?Read more here: New York Post | 0 |
3,312 | U.S. senators reach bipartisan deal on Obamacare, Trump indicates support | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. senators on Tuesday reached a bipartisan agreement to shore up Obamacare for two years by reviving federal subsidies for health insurers that President Donald Trump planned to scrap, and the president indicated his support for the plan. The deal worked out by Republican Senator Lamar Alexander and Democratic Senator Patty Murray would meet some Democratic objectives, including reviving the subsidies for Obamacare and restoring $106 million in funding for a federal program that helps people enroll in insurance plans. In exchange, Republicans would get more flexibility for states to offer a wider variety of health insurance plans while maintaining the requirement that sick and healthy people be charged the same rates for coverage. The Trump administration said last week it would stop paying billions of dollars to insurers to help lower-income Americans pay medical expenses, part of the Republican president’s effort to dismantle Obamacare, former Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law. The subsidies to private insurers cost the government an estimated $7 billion this year and were forecast at $10 billion for 2018. Trump’s move to scuttle them had raised concerns about chaos in insurance markets. Trump hoped to make good on his campaign promise to dismantle the law when he took office in January, with Republicans, who pledged for seven years to scrap it, controlling Congress. But he has been frustrated with their failure to pass legislation to repeal and replace it. Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act, extended health insurance coverage to 20 million Americans. Republicans say it is ineffective and a massive government intrusion in a key sector of the economy. The Alexander-Murray plan could keep Obamacare in place at least until the 2020 presidential campaign starts heating up. “This takes care of the next two years. After that, we can have a full-fledged debate on where we go long-term on healthcare,” Alexander said of the deal. It is unclear whether the agreement can make it through Congress. Chuck Schumer, the top Senate Democrat, said it had “broad support” among senators in his party, but it was harder to gauge possible support among Republicans. Moderate Republican Senator Susan Collins, who helped sink earlier Obamacare repeal legislation, voiced backing for the new plan, but conservative Republicans may be less welcoming. Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, threw his weight behind the effort. In an interview with Reuters, Sanders said Alexander was a “well-respected figure” known for bipartisanship and that the Tennessee senator’s reputation would help propel the legislation through the Senate. The willingness of Sanders, a liberal champion, to offer his support of a deal with Republicans that could allow states to change some Obamacare requirements provided a boost to the Alexander-Murray effort. “We are going to overturn what Trump is trying to do,” Sanders said. Schumer urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to bring the plan to a vote on the Senate floor and urged the House of Representatives to take it up then as quickly as possible so Trump can sign it. TRUMP STILL SEEKS LONG-TERM SOLUTION Trump, during comments at the White House, suggested he could get behind the Alexander-Murray plan as a short-term solution. In remarks later at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, Trump commended the work by Alexander and Murray, but said: “I continue to believe Congress must find a solution to the Obamacare mess instead of providing bailouts to insurance companies.” Trump said earlier he wanted lawmakers, once they completed a major tax reform effort, to again take up broader legislation that failed in the Senate last month that would divvy up federal healthcare money as block grants to states. Murray is the top Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Alexander is its chairman. She said the two were able to find common ground on the steps aimed at stabilizing the insurance markets created under Obamacare and to “help protect families from premium spikes as a result of the sabotage we have seen from this administration.” According to a document seen by Reuters, the plan would make it easier for states to get waivers approved that would allow them to offer cheaper healthcare plans, including catastrophic health plans, which cover a limited set of benefits and are currently only available to those under 30. Shares of U.S. hospital operators, including Tenet Healthcare Corp and HCA Healthcare Inc, moved higher after news of the deal. Tenet shares closed 5.3 percent higher, while HCA rose 2.2 percent. Shares of some U.S. health insurers also extended their gains on the day, with Anthem Inc finishing up 1.9 percent and Centene Corp gaining 3.2 percent. Analyst Brian Tanquilut of global investment banking firm Jefferies, who focuses on hospital companies, said that if the deal is passed in Congress, it should stabilize the Obamacare insurance exchanges and improve their viability. “Hospitals will avoid a potential spike in bad debt and charity care next year,” Tanquilut said. “This is obviously a good step. It’s bipartisan and guaranteed for two years.” | 1 |
3,313 | voting is the problem heres the solution | enter your email address below to receive updates each time we publish new content privacy guaranteed we never share your info follow us | 0 |
3,314 | BAD NEWS FOR HILLARY: CNN Says “Millennials Are More Conservative Than You May Think” | Make America Conservative again. There really isn t any downside It might be time to rethink the millennial voter.A new paper suggests that Americans are more politically polarized now than they ve been in the past 46 years, and millennials are guiding this trend.The young adults, who were born between 1980 and 1994, are currently more politically polarized than Generation Xers and Baby Boomers, according to the paper, which was published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin on Wednesday. Additionally, millennials are more likely to identify as conservative than either Generation Xers or Baby Boomers were at the same age, said Jean Twenge, professor of psychology at San Diego State University and lead author of the paper. High school seniors are more likely to identify as political conservatives now compared to 10 years ago. Most surprising, more identify as conservatives now compared to the 1980s, presumably the era of the young conservative, such as the character Alex P. Keaton in the 1980s show Family Ties. That goes against the common view of millennials as very liberal, said Twenge, author of the book about millennials titled Generation Me. So the current view of millennials as liberals might be due to their age young people are more likely to be liberal. But if you compare young people now to young people in previous decades, those now are more conservative, she said.The data showed that, as entering college students, 23% of millennials identified as leaning far right, compared to 17% of Baby Boomers and 22% of Generation Xers.Less than half 47% of millennials identified as middle-of-the-road, compared to 50% of Baby Boomers and more than half 53% of Generation Xers.Millennials have surpassed Baby Boomers both as the United States largest living generation and as the largest generation in the American electorate. CNN | 0 |
3,315 | Putin says Democrats wrongly trying to blame others for defeat | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that the U.S. Democratic Party was wrongly trying to blame its electoral defeat to Donald Trump on external factors. Speaking at an annual end-of-year news conference, Putin said that the party needed to learn how to lose gracefully. | 1 |
3,316 | Mistrust of Clinton on trade shadows her at Democratic convention | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When it comes to trade policy, Hillary Clinton is taking heat from all sides. At the Democratic National Convention this week, where Clinton will formally accept her party’s presidential nomination, opposition to trade deals was plastered on buttons, scrawled on signs and chanted by delegates. Many are worried by her past support of 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is still awaiting congressional approval. Things are unlikely to get any easier for her. Clinton has said her stance on trade has evolved, that she now opposes TPP because it does not do enough to protect jobs and that she wants changes in NAFTA, the trade deal her husband, Bill Clinton, signed during his presidency. But that allows her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, to question her credibility, painting Clinton’s evolving position as a desperate attempt to catch up with his tough stance. Trump has vowed to force Canada and Mexico to renegotiate NAFTA, labeling it a job killer. The real estate developer has also said he would pull the United States out of the 12-nation TPP. Even among the Democrats there are doubts about Clinton’s resolve, particularly among supporters of her former Democratic rival, Bernie Sanders, the U.S. Senator from Vermont whose opposition to trade deals featured prominently in his speeches during the Democratic primary season. The concern about trade was on display at the convention during a speech delivered on Wednesday night by Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, a U.S. senator from Virginia who once supported TPP. Delegates waved anti-TPP placards as Kaine spoke, even though he changed his position after joining Clinton’s ticket. Larry Cohen, a senior adviser to Sanders, said trade was “absolutely” a danger for Clinton in the race against Trump, saying she had to show her commitment to opposing it and not just “make pronouncements.” “The Trump campaign is smart enough that they will exploit this issue,” Cohen said. Sanders supporters have said they intend to keep fighting TPP through the November election via a new group called “Our Revolution” that is dedicated to championing issues that Sanders pushed on the campaign trail. The frustration that a post-recession recovery has failed to translate into better wages and opportunities for million of working Americans has become one of the leading themes of the 2016 presidential campaign. A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken in March showed that 65 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of Republicans believed that trade cost some U.S. jobs even though many also agreed that trade helps to keep the costs of goods low. Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO labor federation, told Reuters that Clinton has told all of the major unions that endorsed her that she wanted to re-work NAFTA, echoing similar comments by Dennis Williams, president of the United Auto Workers union. Trumka said Clinton’s campaign has told him that she would take “a whole new approach” on trade and he said he was convinced that he could trust her on the issue. “She’s not giving lip service to it. She’s committed to it,” he said. Consulted about Clinton’s talks with unions regard NAFTA, a senior Mexican government official said the TPP already provided the United States with a platform to strengthen the rights of workers compared to NAFTA, although U.S. union activists say the new pact weakens rather than strengthens workers’ protection. “They have the solution in their hands, if they back it,” the official said, noting Congress had yet to ratify the TPP. The official added that it would be in Mexico’s interests to strengthen the rules of origin in TPP that determine which country a product comes from, but sometimes allow foreign components in it. He cautioned, however, that re-opening trade deals was a highly complex undertaking. Morris Fiorina, a political science professor at Stanford University, said Clinton should try to address workers’ concerns but avoid a wholesale dismissal of free trade. “Were I advising her I’d suggest she try to thread the needle - explain that free trade has great benefits for the country as a whole, but past and pending agreements do not adequately recognize and compensate the losers. She will remedy that failure,” Fiorina said. However, such nuanced approach may prove self-defeating in the light of Trump’s challenge and internal dissent. Robin Biro, a field director for the Democratic Party in Atlanta and a Clinton supporter, said TPP was a make or break issue for Clinton to attract Democrats who voted for Sanders in the primary. “She’s only going to get the support of the Bernie people if she comes out strongly on that issue,” Biro said. | 1 |
3,317 | U.S. lawmakers introduce bill to limit phone searches at the border | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday introduced legislation that would require border agents to obtain a warrant before searching data held on electronic devices belonging to Americans. The bill comes amid rising concern among civil liberties advocates about the effect on privacy of border searches of social media information, photos and email held on phones and laptops, which have grown in frequency in recent years and do not require a warrant. President Donald Trump’s administration has fanned those concerns as it has sought to implement “extreme vetting” security checks to restrict the flow of immigrants and refugees into the United States, an effort that has included consideration of a requirement that visitors share their social media passwords. In addition to foreign visitors, media reports in recent months have suggested digital data of Americans re-entering the country has also been subject to added scrutiny. Numbers maintained by the Department of Homeland Security show border searches of phones have spiked in recent years, and official documents show the agency is able to extract data from some mobile devices, including those protected by passwords. Generally, U.S. law enforcement is required to obtain a warrant before it can search electronic devices of an American. A unanimous 2014 U.S. Supreme Court decision affirmed that a search and seizure of an arrested person’s cell phone was unconstitutional without a warrant. But a so-called “border search exception” allowed federal authorities to conduct searches within 100 miles (160 km) of a U.S. border without a warrant. The Protecting Data at the Border Act would seek to limit the exception by requiring a warrant before searching devices at the border that belong to a U.S. citizen of permanent resident, except in some emergency circumstances. It would not apply to foreigners with valid U.S. visas who are entering the country or people who are applying for U.S. visas. The bill would also bar officials from delaying or denying entry into the United States if a person refused to share passwords, personal information numbers, social media or online account information or access credentials. Democratic Senator Ron Wyden and Republican Senator Rand Paul sponsored the legislation, while Democratic Representative Jared Polis and Republican Representative Blake Farenthold introduced the bill in the House. Despite attracting bipartisan sponsors, it was not clear whether the measure would be able to earn enough Republican support to advance in the Republican-controlled Congress. “A border stop shouldn’t be an excuse for extreme surveillance such as downloading the entire contents of your phone,” said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a Washington civil liberties organization that supports the legislation. | 1 |
3,318 | Two dead, several wounded in stabbing in southern Dutch city Maastricht: police | AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - At least two people were killed and several others wounded by stabbings in the southern Dutch city of Maastricht on Thursday evening, police said. The police said in a statement there were two stabbing incidents with a few hundred meters (yards) of each other in a residential neighborhood in northern Maastricht, which borders Germany and Belgium. | 1 |
3,319 | Ugandan parliament passes law allowing Museveni to seek re-election | KAMPALA (Reuters) - Ugandan legislators voted late on Wednesday to amend the country s constitution to allow 73-year-old leader Yoweri Museveni to extend his rule, potentially guaranteeing him a life-time presidency. A provision in the current constitution limits the age of a presidential candidate at 75 years, which would have made Museveni ineligible to stand at the next polls in 2021. At the end of Wednesday s day-long House debate, which capped a protracted and violence-marred process to remove that age limit, MPs voted 315-62 in favor of the amendment. The bill passes, said speaker Rebecca Kadaga after announcing tally results, prompting raucous celebrations from the mostly ruling party MPs who favored the bill. Earlier in the day, two lawmakers were dragged away and detained when they tried to enter parliament, as the divisive debate proceeded in the chamber. Police had blocked some legislators from entering the building, and live television footage showed two of them being driven away in security vehicles. Both opposed the bill. The legislators blocked by police were attempting to enter parliament to serve court documents on House speaker Rebecca Kadaga, who was presiding over the debate. The document called on her to appear in court at 2:00 PM in respect of the irregular suspension of our members of parliament, independent lawmaker Wilfred Niwagaba told a local television station minutes before he was detained. Six MPs - all opposed to removal of the age cap - were suspended from parliamentary proceedings on Monday for alleged disorderly conduct and refusing to heed the speaker s instructions. The bill to amend the constitution was introduced in parliament on October 4 by a Museveni loyalist, after two consecutive days of brawling in the debating chamber between those opposed and those in favor, supported by security personnel. On the second day, security personnel who some MPs said were soldiers from an elite military unit entered the chamber and violently ejected at least 25 MPs that the speaker had suspended from proceedings for alleged misconduct. Wednesday s vote was the second time Ugandan parliament has changed the constitution to allow Museveni extend his rule. In 2005, they voted to remove a limit of two five-year terms, which blocked him from standing again. The bill also extended the length of a term for MPs to seven years from the current five. The limit of two terms was also re-imposed for the president, although that only means Museveni would be limited to two more terms, starting with the 2021 election. Are you not seeing what happened in Zimbabwe, do we want his excellency to end like Gaddafi of Libya, opposition legislator, Gilbert Olanya, who opposed to the amendment, said in Wednesday s debate as he attempted to persuade colleagues to reject it. Several African leaders have amended laws designed to limit their tenure. Such moves have fueled violence in countries including Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan. Initially hailed for restoring political order and fostering economic growth, Museveni has lately come under mounting pressure fueled by runaway corruption, and accusations he uses security forces to maintain his grip on power. A combination of both military and police personnel were heavily deployed around parliament this week, which opposition MPs say was meant to intimidate members. | 1 |
3,320 | (VIDEO) JOHN KERRY: ‘ARMS AND MISSILES WERE THROWN IN AS ADD-ONS’ TO IRAN DEAL | What a bunch of unbelievable traitors we have in this White House Kerry can t be that naive or dumb to Iran s evil. The more he opens his mouth, the more I question his motives.Secretary of State John Kerry told NBC s Chuck Todd that the arms and the missiles were thrown in as an add-on to this nuclear agreement. So this [deal] focused on getting rid of the principal problem in the region, which is Iran s threat to Israel, their threat to the region, to have a nuclear capacity, Kerry said defending the deal. We believe with this, for years into the future, we have this incredible capacity to have access, to have inspections, to hold them accountable. And by the way, even though the arms and the missiles, they were thrown in as an add-on to this nuclear agreement. It was always contemplated if Iran did come and deal on the nuclear program, that was going to be lifted. Via: Weekly Standard | 0 |
3,321 | Najib will aim to win over voters in last budget before elections | KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak will aim to reduce unhappiness over rising costs of living when he unveils his 2018 budget on Friday, ahead of an election that must be held within 10 months. Prices rose sharply in Malaysia - where household debt is among the highest in Asia - after Najib cut subsidies and in 2015 imposed a broad-based consumption tax, denting his popularity. The leader also faces a political challenge from his mentor-turned-foe, former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who called Najib a thief in connection with a scandal at state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Najib has denied any wrongdoing. Najib will bank on the new budget to shore up support before his five-year tenure ends in June. Given the coming election, it will be more surprising if he announces something not people friendly, said Brian Tan, a Singapore-based economist with Nomura. Stronger global commodity prices have aided the oil-dependent economy and given Najib some room to boost spending. But progress in narrowing the fiscal deficit - expected at 3 percent this year compared with 6 percent in 2009 - would plateau next year if the government focuses on pre-election spending, said Moody s analyst Anushka Shah. It depends on what they do... whether they spend it on handouts and be seen as more populist or whether they save it, in which case we should see a reduction in the deficit, Shah said. Most economists expect the new budget s fiscal deficit target will be slightly below 3.0 percent. Any widening of the deficit would disappoint foreign investors. They have gradually returned to Southeast Asia s third largest economy as the ringgit currency, after a tumultuous period, strengthened 6 percent against the dollar this year. Najib, who has pushed a pro-business stance since becoming premier in 2009, dismantled decades-old fuel subsidies after narrowly winning the 2013 elections, to stave off the threat of a sovereign rating downgrade. To bolster government revenue in 2018, Najib will likely broaden the scope of the goods and services tax imposed in 2015 to include e-commerce transactions, though he is unlikely to change the 6 percent rate. The extra revenue is expected to fund goodies for Malaysia s 1.6 million civil servants - a key vote bank for his Barisan Nasional (BN) ruling coalition - to mitigate the strain from pricier goods and services. Civil servants saw a salary hike between 7 and 13 percent in 2012, ahead of the 2013 polls. But the recent sharp price increases may be eroding support among them. The opposition naturally anticipates that the coming budget will have handouts to help the BN win votes in the election. Malaysians can expect many goodies... budgets are one of the political tools for Barisan Nasional to prepare them for general election, said Kerk Chee Yee of the opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP). Najib, who is also finance minister, has already rolled out billions of ringgit worth of handouts for palm plantation settlers and armed forces veterans, and affordable housing projects, new schools and hospitals across the country. We have to ensure quality of life of Malaysians (by) introducing more affordable housing, steady level of income growth, managing cost of living and certain initiatives that can supplement income, Najib said on the government s official budget website. He is likely to maintain cash handouts to low income earners, provide tax breaks for middle income earners and expand policies to provide affordable housing. ($1 = 4.2240 ringgit) | 1 |
3,322 | WATCH: The Infamous Dictator Who ALSO Said ‘Make America Great’ | Infamous Italian dictator Benito Mussolini anticipated Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump s campaign slogan 89 years before Trump first descended the escalator at his Manhattan headquarters to declare his candidacy.Mussolini visited the United States in 1927 and gave a speech that was recorded by Fox Movietone News in one of the first newsreels with audio and video. In that speech, Mussolini exhorted Americans to make America great. I am very glad to be able to express my friendly feelings toward the American nation. Friendship with which Italy looks at millions of citizens who, from Alaska to Florida, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, live in the United States, Italy is deeply rooted in our hearts. This feeling created by mutual interests so contributed to preparation of an even brighter era in the lives of both nations.I greet with wonderful energy the American people and I see and recognize among you the salt of your land, as well as ours, my fellow citizens who are working to make America great.I salute the great American people. I salute the Italians of America who unite in a single love of two nations.Mussolini was a fascist dictator who ruled Italy with an iron fist. His regime engaged in assassination of political opponents, and put him in control of nearly all aspects of Italian life without respect for liberty and freedom of speech.A few years after this appearance, Mussolini formed a pact with Germany , forming the Axis along with Japan. Eventually, the three nations were at war against the United States, England, and Russia in World War II. They were of course, completely defeated.In 1945,Mussolini was caught and executed by his own people, shot as he tried to escape the country with his mistress. Make America Great Again is not the only Trump slogan to be associated with fascism. Throughout his campaign, Trump has declared America First, which shares a name with the America First Committee. AFC was a pressure group associated with aviator Charles Lindbergh that was sympathetic to Adolph Hitler and tried to keep America out of World War II.Featured image via Youtube/Flickr | 0 |
3,323 | Myanmar to grant families access to two Reuters journalists after remand period expires: media | YANGON (Reuters) - Two Reuters journalists detained in Myanmar will be allowed to meet their families once their first 14-day period of remand expires, according to local media reports. Reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo have been in detention for 11 days in an undisclosed location and have had no access to their families, lawyers or colleagues. They were arrested after being invited to meet police officials over dinner on the outskirts of Myanmar s largest city, Yangon on Dec. 12. The authorities are investigating whether they violated the country s colonial-era Official Secrets Act, which has a maximum prison sentence of 14 years. After the first remand (expires), they will be able to meet their families. They will be sent to the court for testimonies, Tin Myint, permanent secretary of Ministry of Home Affairs, was quoted as saying by Radio Free Asia. In Myanmar, those remanded must be brought to court within 14 days. But it s not immediately clear when the pair was first remanded and whether the authorities will seek court approval to remand them for a second 14-day period. The Home Affairs Ministry did not responded to several requests for comments. Family members of the two journalists say they have not received any official communication about the question of remand or the investigation, and neither has Reuters. Tin Myint said the case against the two Reuters reporters will be transparent and the authorities will follow the rule of law, according to Daily Eleven newspaper. Major governments, including the United States, Britain and Canada, leading international political figures and top United Nations officials are among those who have demanded the release of the Reuters reporters. The two journalists had worked on Reuters coverage of a crisis in the western state of Rakhine, where an estimated 655,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled from a fierce military crackdown on militants. A spokesman for Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi this week told Reuters that the police had almost completed their investigation and the two reporters will be treated in line with the law. The Ministry of Information said last week that Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, had illegally acquired information with the intention to share it with foreign media . | 1 |
3,324 | Timeline: From TVs to microwaves, White House tries to explain wiretapping charge | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Friday distanced itself from a news report it embraced a day earlier that Britain’s top-secret eavesdropping agency monitored Trump Tower at former U.S. President Barack Obama’s behest. The White House had cited the report by a Fox News analyst as it sought to defend President Donald Trump’s charge that Obama’s administration wiretapped him during the 2016 election. Over the past two weeks, Trump and his aides have pressed the claim in numerous ways, including suggestions that Trump may have been monitored through microwaves and television sets. The White House has provided no proof to support Trump’s allegation and the heads of U.S. House and Senate intelligence panels, including from Trump’s Republican Party, have rejected it. Here is a chronology of the administration’s assertions: MARCH 4: In a series of early morning tweets, Trump accuses Obama of having his wires tapped and calls him a “bad (or sick) guy.” Trump spokesman Sean Spicer says the White House’s top lawyer was examining options for pursuing the claim. MARCH 5: The White House cites reports of potentially politically motivated investigations, and says Trump wanted the congressional intelligence committees to examine whether executive branch investigative powers were abused in 2016. MARCH 6: Spicer suggests monitoring may have been broader than a wire tap, might have been conducted under a secret foreign intelligence eavesdropping warrant and that “there is substantial reporting out there from individuals and from sources” that such surveillance occurred. MARCH 7: Spicer says while there is no new proof of Trump’s allegation, the president has absolutely no regrets about his tweets and that he was “not walking anything back or regretting.” MARCH 12: Senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway suggests in an interview with the Bergen County Record newspaper that the monitoring may have been conducted through television sets or “microwaves that turn into cameras.” MARCH 13: Conway says her comments the previous day were misconstrued but continues to air the allegation about the president and wiretapping at Trump Tower. Spicer says Trump’s charges were based on reporting by a number of news organizations, including Fox, the BBC and the New York Times. Trump’s use of the word “wiretapping ... spans a whole host of surveillance types of options,” Spicer says. MARCH 14: Spicer says Trump is extremely confident the Justice Department would find evidence proving his allegation. MARCH 15: Republican and Democratic leaders of the House Intelligence Committee say they have seen no evidence of wiretapping. The White House defends Trump’s allegation, and Trump says in a Fox News interview that, “We will be submitting things before the committee very soon that hasn’t been submitted as of yet. But it’s potentially a very serious situation.” MARCH 16: The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and House Speaker Paul Ryan, separately say there is no proof of Trump’s charge. Spicer says there is no question that surveillance techniques were used. He cites a litany of news reports to justify the allegation. They include an assertion by a Fox News analyst, former New Jersey Judge Andrew Napolitano, that he had been told by unidentified intelligence officials that Obama obtained transcripts of Trump’s conversations from Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, the British agency that monitors overseas communications. MARCH 17: The administration backs away from the Fox News report after the British government said it was assured by the White House that it would not repeat Napolitano’s allegation, dubbed “nonsense” by a GCHQ spokesman. “Mr. Spicer was simply pointing to public reports, not endorsing any specific story,” said a White House official. | 1 |
3,325 | Russia denies it bombed U.S.-backed militias in Syria - RIA | MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Russian Defence Ministry on Monday denied its planes had bombed U.S.-backed militias in Syria s Deir al-Zor province earlier in the day, saying it was always careful to ensure its air strikes were accurate, the RIA news agency reported. RIA cited Major-General Igor Konashenkov as issuing the denial which followed allegations from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias fighting with the U.S.-led coalition, that Russia had killed one of its fighters and injured two others in the air strike. | 1 |
3,326 | Warren Drags Trump Sideways In Brutal Commencement Speech — It’s Beautiful (VIDEO) | If there s one Democrat that Donald Trump is scared sh*tless of, it s Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Warren was a massive thorn in Trump s side during his presidential campaign, and she certainly hasn t let up after he got into the White House. And now that Trump has pissed Democrats off by firing FBI Director James Comey, he s probably regretful that one of them is Warren.Warren s feelings about Trump s shady firing of Comey were made known on Friday, when Warren gave a commencement address at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. During her speech, she basically wiped the floor with Trump, encouraging the UMass graduates to get involved in political causes and join the resistance. Warren slammed Trump s firing of Comey when she said: I m trying to keep this apolitical but I can t help myself the principle that no one, no one in this country is above the law and we need a Justice Department, not an obstruction of justice department. And she didn t stop there. Warren made sure to criticize all of Trump s helpers equally, even mocking Kellyanne Conway for her alternative facts. Warren joked: Go online and read the facts, not the alternative facts the real facts. I have to say I had never thought we would need a modifier for facts. Warren made sure to trash the spineless Republicans that have helped Trump succeed as well. Zeroing in on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Warren observed that nudging graduates to get involved in policy wouldn t make her Ms. Popularity. Then she quipped: I think as long as Mitch McConnell is running the Senate that s out of reach for me. This was a speech where Warren let loose on the GOP and Trump administration, and we couldn t be more proud. Warren has been a powerful voice in fighting Trump s disgraceful agenda, and we need her to inspire America s youth more than ever. You can watch her speech below: America needs your commitment, Sen. Warren tells UMass graduates at commencement https://t.co/Pur56UvEFh masslivenews (@masslivenews) May 13, 2017Featured image is a screenshot | 0 |
3,327 | Trump Supporters Threaten To Rape And Murder Elector’s Family If He Doesn’t Vote For Trump | The Electoral College should tell Donald Trump and his deplorable supporters to go f*ck themselves.The Electoral College convenes on December 19th to cast their votes for president. And it will only take 38 of them to cast their votes against Trump to prevent him from taking office.You see, while we have an election every year consisting of electoral votes and the popular vote, all 538 from all 50 states are constitutionally required to have the final say on who becomes president. As Alexander Hamilton explained in the Federalist Papers, the Electoral College is the last line of defense to choose a person who is To an eminent degree, endowed with the requisite qualifications to be President of the United States.And that is why millions of Americans are pleading with the Electoral College to exercise their power and vote against Donald Trump.Of course, Trump supporters are trying to bully and threaten the electors to make sure our country gets destroyed. In fact, an elector in Texas reports that Trump supporters threatened to rape and murder his family if he doesn t vote the way they want him to vote.Christopher Suprun shared the grisly threat with his fellow elector Art Sisneros, who shared the threat with Texas Monthly. You vote for Trump or we rape your wife and daughters with a knife before we kill you, the threat reads. Do as told or face consequences. Sisneros explained that he has also been receiving threats from Trump supporters. The Trump supporters and the people on the right thought that I absolutely had to vote for Trump, and to do otherwise was some kind of treasonous act, he said.Except that Sisneros can vote for whomever he pleases when December 19th rolled around, and that is getting easier to figure out since left-wing groups are reportedly encouraging the electors to choose anyone but Trump, even if it s not Hillary Clinton.Right-wingers and Trump supporters, on the other hand, are being downright scary and are acting like the electors are required to vote for Trump. They were far more aggressive and far more nasty, Sisneros said. I received a lot of threats. I just didn t think it would do any good to share them or make a big deal out of them. There were several nasty ones to vote for Trump, or else. Some of them were pretty vague like, We re going to hunt you down, that kind of stuff. Some were like, We re going to find out where you work and come after you. Frankly, threats like these ought to immediately disqualify Trump from office. After all, he and his supporters are the ones threatening the electors with dire consequences. This should really make it easy for the electors to reject Trump outright. He is a danger to our democracy and his cabinet picks are a threat to our government and democratic institution. Trump is even a danger to our continued survival as a free people considering Russia interfered with our election and helped Trump win so Putin can have a puppet in the White House.The Electoral College has a chance to do what they were designed to do and that is making sure that a demagogue and con artist is prevented from holding the highest office in the land. So the electors need to have courage to save our nation. Rejecting Trump is the right thing to do.Featured Image: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 0 |
3,328 | Another Fox Host Just Got Busted Sexually Harassing Female Staff | It s an epidemic over there inside the Fox network studios: The guys there can t seem to keep their dicks to themselves.The first big-news takedown of a star at the cable channel was network bigwig Roger Ailes, who has since thankfully passed away (who could handle looking at his Jabba-like appearance with SEX SCANDAL blaring in the background?). Then earlier this year, Bill O Reilly, the detestable prime time face of Fox News, was vacationed until it was no longer tenable and they had to cut ties. The president of their sports division, Jamie Horowitz, struck out next, getting sacked early in July.Now Fox is dealing with the fallout of another explosive accusation, this time against insufferable asshat and The Five host Eric Bolling.Late Friday, the Huffington Post reported they had confirmation from two undisclosed current and former co-stars of Bolling s that the noted bigot and conspiracy theorist had sent them unsolicited pictures of his genitals. I use the clinical term for fear I might accidentally imagine what Bolling s little breaking news might look like.Unfortunately for the minor celebrity, his junk is apparently as famous as he is: According to the HuffPo piece, the recipients of the photos shared them with at least four other people, and conversation about the photos which can be just as descriptive reached the ears of more than a dozen. In all, HuffPo spoke to 14 people about the allegations, and everybody s story matched.Maybe Eric s got a freckle or something.A spokesman for Fox deflected, saying We were just informed of this and plan to investigate the matter. As for Bolling himself, he has been silent. But his lawyer was quick with the standard denial boilerplate:Mr. Bolling recalls no such inappropriate communications, does not believe he sent any such communications, and will vigorously pursue his legal remedies for any false and defamatory accusations that are made.Bolling s exclusive interview with Donald Trump at the start of his newest show The Specialists may have rubbed off on Eric in just the kind of way you d image when two lecherous piles of garbage like that get together. We ll see if Trump continues to tweet support for the soon-to-be-fired newsman.Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 0 |
3,329 | Critics urge WHO to reverse choice of Mugabe as goodwill envoy | GENEVA/LONDON (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) should overturn its decision to appoint Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe as a goodwill ambassador, global health leaders said on Saturday, describing the move as unjustifiable and wrong. Britain said Mugabe s appointment was surprising and disappointing and added that it risked overshadowing the WHO s global work. The United States, which has imposed sanctions on Mugabe for alleged human rights violations, said it was disappointed. This appointment clearly contradicts the United Nations ideals of respect for human rights and human dignity, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said. This selection underscores why the United States continues to push for U.N. reform and leadership actions that uphold our shared U.N. ideals. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the appointment at a high-level meeting on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Uruguay on Wednesday. The meeting was attended by Mugabe, 93. He is blamed in the West for destroying his country s economy and numerous human rights abuses during his 37 years leading the country as either president or prime minister. In a speech, Tedros praised Zimbabwe as a country that places universal health coverage and health promotion at the center of its policies to provide health care to all . The former Ethiopian health and foreign minister, who was elected last May as WHO s first African director-general, added: Today I am also honored to announce that President Mugabe has agreed to serve as a goodwill ambassador on NCDs for Africa to influence his peers in his region to prioritize NCDs. But the NCD Alliance, which represents 28 international health groups seeking to combat chronic diseases, said it was shocked and deeply concerned to hear of the appointment, given Mugabe s long track record of human rights violations . Jeremy Farrar, a leading global health specialist and director of the Wellcome Trust charity also said the decision was deeply disappointing and wrong and called on Tedros to be brave and reverse it. Robert Mugabe fails in every way to represent the values WHO should stand for and those that Dr Tedros has stood for since becoming DG and has done over many years, Farrar said. Brave leaders are willing to listen, rethink and overturn bad decisions, this is one such case, he said. WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said the WHO chief had made the move seeking broad support for the agency s work. Tedros has frequently talked of his determination to build a global movement to promote high-level political leadership for health, he said by e-mail. Human rights activists also criticized the move. Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based group UN Watch described the choice by WHO, a United Nations agency as sickening . The government of Robert Mugabe has brutalized human rights activists, crushed democracy dissidents, and turned the breadbasket of Africa and its health system into a basket-case, he said. He noted that Mugabe himself had traveled to Singapore for medical treatment three times this year rather than in his homeland. | 1 |
3,330 | DEMOCRAT LEGAL EXPERT Shocks The Left With His Take On Statues [Video] | Legal expert and Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley makes a case for why we need to ADD to statues and not take them down. He says we can learn more from keeping them up in direct opposition to what Democrats are saying:TURLEY RECENTLY ARGUED AGAINST THE REMOVAL OF THE GEORGE WASHINGTON STATUE: George Washington may have survived the winter at Valley Forge, but he may not see the end of the summer of Charlottesville. Bishop James Dukes of Chicago s Liberation Christian Center and others are calling for the removal of his and Andrew Jackson s statues and and stripping of their names from parks. Dukes insists that these monuments are a slap in the face and it s a disgrace for African Americans given their history as slave owning presidents.The bishop s call for the removal of our first president s statue is the latest effort to strip away the names of historical figures over ties to slavery or segregation. There is a movement to remove the name of Woodrow Wilson (who helped establish Princeton as a world academic institution) from buildings and schools, due to his support for segregation. The University of Virginia was founded by Thomas Jefferson, but last year, University President Teresa Sullivan was denounced by students and faculty for merely quoting our third president in a public message because he was a slave owner.The call to remove Washington s statue came less than a day after President Trump asked whether Washington would be next in the movement to remove statues like the Robert E. Lee monument in Charlottesville. The statement drew the ire of CNN s Jim Acosta who described the notion as absurd and said it was taken as a sign that the president perhaps needs a refresher course and needs to go back to History 101. History is precisely where this controversy should begin and end. Washington is rightfully condemned for his ownership of slaves. There were contemporaries like John Adams, John Jay, Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton who were outspoken critics of slavery. Franklin called slavery an atrocious debasement of human nature, while Adams referred to it as a foul contagion in the human character. These visionaries not only saw a great evil but answered the call of history to stand steadfastly against it.However, before Mayor Rahm Emanuel sends in the bulldozers into Washington Park, it is worth considering a few facts about our first president s history with slavery. Washington inherited a number of slaves at age 11 and received more slaves in his marriage to Martha Custis. However, he gradually came to oppose slavery. On the interim, Washington tried to assuage his guilt by refusing to sell slaves that would break up families, telling an associate that it was against my inclination to hurt the feelings of those unhappy people by a separation of man and wife, or of families. After the war, Washington continued to discuss ways to convert his plantation from slaves to tenants at the suggestion of his close aide (and outspoken opponent of slavery) Marquis de Lafayette. By 1786, Washington wrote his friend Robert Morris, I can only say that there is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of [slavery]. In the end, Washington was the only one of nine slaveholding presidents (and the only slaveholding founder) who freed his slaves upon his death. Washington freed as many of his 317 slaves as possible. Some 123 slaves were his to emancipate while neither he nor Martha could free the so-called Custis Dower slaves (who remained property of the heirs to the estate of Daniel Parke Custis, Martha Washington s first husband). He further ordered that all of the elderly or sick slaves would be supported by his estate for the rest of their lives.So where does this leave us? With a complex and flawed figure who practiced a great evil while belatedly coming to reject it. He finished his life allied with his more enlightened colleagues but this is no reason to forgive his prior history. However, that is the point of history. It is never some neat narrative divided cleanly between demons and angels. Washington was a great leader who held a nation together through sheer leadership and stands as one of the few leaders in history to refuse to become a monarch himself.Curiously, Dukes does offer a concession. Washington Park and Jackson Park could be formally named after former Mayor Harold Washington and civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson or singer Michael Jackson. It is unlikely to convince those who view these statutes as not simply reminders of past leaders but past struggles in an evolving society. The same cannot be said for Michael Jackson. Thriller may be the best selling album in history, but the Battle of New Orleans still has more of a hold on history.The fact is that we often learn as much from the failures as we do the triumphs of historical figures. Washington ultimately proved to be an early transitional figure in our ugly history of slavery. Washington himself described his desire at Mount Vernon to lay a foundation for a rising generation with a new destiny other than slavery.For my part, I am proud to teach at the George Washington University, whose charter was paid for by Washington himself as part of that same final testament. Of course, that does not mean we could not make other improvements. Another school in Washington is named after a British king, George II, who kept our nation under colonial oppression. After all, the moonwalk and robot dance steps did have a transformative impact on my generation and Jacksontown University has a nice ring to it.Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.READ MORE: THE HILL | 0 |
3,331 | get ready for civil unrest survey finds that most americans are concerned about election violence | record numbers say no to proposed handgun ban
steve
a new poll released by gallup has found that a record amount of americans are opposed to gun control measures
the survey found that percent of respondents over three quarters believe that a ban on civilian ownership of handguns should not be made law
the findings represent a fourpoint increase on the same survey from last year in addition to an alltime high for the past three decades
the poll also found that almost two thirds percent are against a ban on semiautomatic rifles or assault weaponsas the corporate media refers to them
that figure represents a full tenpoint increase on previous findings and is an all time record high since polling began on the issue years ago
just percent less than a third say they support a ban on handgun ownership while only percent support a semiautomatic ban an eightpoint decline on previous findings
in addition gun sales have been hitting record highs for months on end
in a summary of the new poll gallup seemed surprised by the findings describing waning support for a gun ban as a paradox
perhaps paradoxically opposition toward a ban has increased against a backdrop of multiple mass shootings and terrorist attacks in which the perpetrators used assault rifles these guns were used in highprofile incidents including the terrorist attacks in san bernardino california and orlando and the mass shootings in aurora colorado and newtown connecticut
the findings reveal just how out of step hillary clintons position on gun control is with the majority of americans
hillary is a staunch gun control proponent wikileaks releases have revealed that hillary plans to implement strict gun control measures by executive order
clinton purportedly plans to open gun manufacturers to lawsuits by crime victims a move that critics say would do nothing to reduce crime but would bankruptand eventually endgun manufacturing in the united states this article was posted thursday october at am share this article | 0 |
3,332 | Trump’s Trying To Attend Muhammad Ali’s Muslim Funeral – His Family’s Response Is Brilliant | Donald Trump, the GOP candidate who has been completely anti-Muslim for his entire presidential campaign and even proposed a ban on all Muslims from coming into the United States, has said that he wants to attend the funeral of boxing legend Muhammad Ali, who happens to have been an openly proud Muslim.Not only has Trump perpetuated xenophobia and a deepening fear and hatred of Muslims in his supporters, but he has repeatedly insisted that everyone who follows Islam hates us. All things considered, it s baffling that Trump would want to be at a funeral where there will literally be thousands of Muslims. While it s not clear why Trump wants to go, Ali s family has responded to Trump s desire to attend the Muslim funeral on Thursday, and it s definitely worth sharing.Ali s family spokesmen Bob Gunnell said: Everything we re doing here was blessed by Muhammad Ali and was requested. Ali firmly believed in inclusiveness, and Gunnell said that the boxing legend would have wanted people from all different faiths to be at the service. While Gunnell couldn t confirm if Trump would actually show his face or not, he said Trump would be welcome to attend. Saliha Shakir, a friend to Ali, said that the family knows the nasty things Trump has said about Muslims, but it wouldn t have stopped Ali from extending kindness in the face of hate. He would have wanted people to know that Islam is an inclusive religion, rather than the divisive one that Trump has portrayed it as. Shakir said: None of us care for [Trump s] rhetoric, but this is what Ali would have wanted. He would not have turned him away. This response shows a great deal of class, as Ali wasn t naive to Trump s Islamophobia. After Trump said he would ban Muslims from coming into America in response to a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, Ali spoke out about Islam and its true principles. I am a Muslim and there is nothing Islamic about killing innocent people in Paris, San Bernardino, or anywhere else in the world. True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so called Islamic Jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion. We as Muslims have to stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda. They have alienated many from learning about Islam. True Muslims know or should know that it goes against our religion to try and force Islam on anybody. And he also brilliantly called out Trump and those who try to make Islam out to be a violent religion: Speaking as someone who has never been accused of political correctness, I believe that our political leaders should use their position to bring understanding about the religion of Islam and clarify that these misguided murderers have perverted people s views on what Islam really is. Even after his death, Ali s values will live on. While it s not clear if Trump will attend Ali s Muslim funeral on Thursday or the interfaith services on Friday, he could really learn something.Featured image via Wikipedia and John Moore / Getty Images | 0 |
3,333 | Michelle Obama TORCHES Donald Trump: ‘It’s Not About Politics, It’s About Parenting!’ | Barack and Michelle Obama are incredibly smart, articulate and charming. They came from relatively modest backgrounds and the Obama administration was nearly completely scandal free. So why wouldn t Republicans vote for the man whose only real promise was to be the anti-Obama?Well, they got the anti-Obama. Donald Trump is rude, crude and without class or charm. His IQ, or at least his communication skills, are below that of your average 5th grader and in fewer than four months, he has racked up more scandals than any President in history, On the governing front, we ll he s been the anti-Obama there too. He s trying to overturn every single Obama accomplishment, including Michelle s efforts at ensuring that poor children receive at least some nutrition at school, which for Republicans, is a step too far.Now, the Trump administration is putting a stop to those evil healthy lunches. Agriculture Secretary Sunny Perdue is delaying requirements for schools to have reduced sodium in lunches and he is issuing waivers so schools won t have to serve whole grains. Yes, depriving children of healthy lunches is petty and petulant, but that s the way the Trump administration rolls, so Michelle Obama weighed in.Speaking at an annual health conference in Washington, D.C., Obama said more nutritious school lunches are important since millions of kids eat federally subsidized school breakfast and lunch. Without mentioning President Donald Trump, she said parents should stop and think about why someone is OK with your kids eating crap. If we want to make this country great, our kids need to be healthy, Obama said. Not some, but all. Source: NBC ChicagoMichelle also took aim at the GOP argument that she was helping to create a nanny state by attempting to regulate school lunches. In the perfectly crafted response, she pointed instead at the oligarchy, which lets corporations make the decisions for us: You want to talk about nanny state and government intervention, well, you just buy the food and be quiet and you don t need to know what is in it,' Obama said. That is essentially what a move like this is saying to you moms. She even used Trump s own words against him, saying that if we want to Make America Great, we need healthy children. It does seem pretty simple, doesn t it?Featured image via Gerardo Mora/Getty Images | 0 |
3,334 | LEAKED AUDIO: Trump Picked Miss USA Contestants Based On DISGUSTING ‘Trump Rule’ | In new leaked audio that will make your skin crawl, Donald Trump s incredible misogyny is clearly displayed.When the Republican nominee bought the Miss USA contest he instituted a rule he calls the Trump rule in which he and his staff line all of the contestants up so that he can ogle them up close and only pick the most beautiful women to compete in the pageant.First, Trump lines up the women and starts dividing them based on their looks. At one point in the audio Trump remarks that women in West Virginia don t know what cellulite is, a backhanded comment meant to fat-shame women who don t meet his personal standards.He also asked contestants to choose contestants they think are pretty enough to compete for the Miss USA title, essentially allowing certain contestants to judge the others. Thus, the women were divided into groups based on which women made Trump horny.Trump went on to complain to the women about how the judges were supposedly judging the contest wrong and that the most beautiful women were left backstage instead of being picked to win.While Trump is obsessed with the women s looks, the contest has not been just about who is the prettiest. Personality is also judged.But Trump thinks only looks matter, so he and his team inspected the women and jotted down notes on a pad of paper about each one. So if a woman had a mole that Trump didn t like, it was more than likely marked down and used against her in the judging.Here s the audio via The Daily Beast:This is about as creepy as it gets, and as Raw Story points out, confirms what former Miss USA 2009 runner-up Carrie Prejean wrote in her book about Trump. Prejean described the experience of Trump looking over the girls as humiliating. We were told to put on our opening number outfits they were nearly as revealing as our swimsuits and line up for him on stage, she wrote. Donald Trump walked out with his entourage and inspected us closer than any general ever inspected a platoon. He would stop in front of a girl, look her up and down, and say, Hmmm. Then he would go on and do the same thing to the next girl. He took notes in a little pad as he went along. Many of the girls found this exercise humiliating. Some of the girls were sobbing backstage after he left, devastated to have failed even before the competition really began to impress The Donald. Donald Trump is a creep who doesn t deserve a single vote from any woman in America. As Bill Maher noted during his show on Friday, the only concrete position Trump has taken throughout his campaign is no fat chicks. It s a cruel and creepy policy Trump has held his entire life and he should be punished for it in November. He and the Republican Party need to learn that women come in all shapes and size and that women are sick of the bullshit way they are treated by them.Featured Image: Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images | 0 |
3,335 | U.S. top court's Gorsuch says does not share 'cynicism' about government | CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court appointee Neil Gorsuch said on Friday that he does not share what he acknowledged was currently “a lot of cynicism about government and the rule of law.” Gorsuch, the newest member to the nation’s top court, spoke about the value of an independent judiciary during an evening event at Harvard University that also featured fellow Justice Stephen Breyer. Gorsuch reflected on how the “government can lose in its own courts and accept the judgement of those courts without an army to back it up.” He said 95 percent of all U.S. cases are resolved at the trial court level, with few reaching the appellate level or Supreme Court, a fact that he said indicated that litigants were satisfied that justice had been done. “I know a lot of cynicism about government and the rule of law, but I don’t share it,” he said. Gorsuch, whose confirmation to the lifetime job restored the court’s conservative majority following Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in February 2016, formally joined the Supreme Court on April 10. Gorsuch served on the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals before Trump nominated him in January. Trump was able to fill the vacancy after Senate Republicans last year refused to consider President Barack Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland. Breyer, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, and is a member of the liberal wing of the nine-member court, stressed during his comments the value of international values. “The values you are talking about are very widespread across the world,” he said. “Interest in democracy, human rights and so forth and rule of law.” | 1 |
3,336 | Anti-corruption blogger killed by huge bomb in Malta | VALLETTA (Reuters) - Daphne Caruana Galizia, Malta s best-known investigative journalist, was killed on Monday when a powerful bomb blew up her car, police said, in a case that stunned the small Mediterranean island. Caruana Galizia, 53, ran a hugely popular blog in which she relentlessly highlighted cases of alleged high-level corruption targeting politicians from across party lines. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate, she wrote in a blog published on her site just half an hour before an explosion tore into her car. Locals said Caruana Galizia had just left her house and was on a road near the village of Bidnija in northern Malta when the bomb detonated, sending her car flying into an adjacent field. Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who faced accusations of wrong-doing by Caruana Galizia earlier this year, denounced her killing, calling it a barbaric attack on press freedom . He announced that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had agreed to help local police investigate the killing and was flying experts to the island as soon as possible. I will not rest until I see justice done in this case, he said in a statement, calling for national unity. Around 3,000 people held a silent, candle-lit vigil on Tuesday evening in Sliema, just outside Valletta. The hashtag Je Suis Daphne circulated widely among social media users on the island of 400,000 people, the European Union s smallest state. Everyone knows Caruana Galizia was a harsh critic of mine, both politically and personally, but nobody can justify this barbaric act in any way, Muscat said. The only remedy for anyone who felt slandered was through the courts. Muscat sued Caruana Galizia after she wrote blogs earlier this year saying his wife was the beneficial owner of a company in Panama, and that large sums of money had been moved between the company and bank accounts in Azerbaijan. Both Muscat and his wife denied the accusations. Looking for a vote of confidence to counter the allegations, Muscat called snap elections in June which he easily won. Recently, Caruana Galizia s outspoken blog had turned its fire on opposition politicians. Malta Television reported that Caruana Galizia had filed a complaint to the police two weeks ago to say she had received threats. It gave no further information. Opposition leader Adrian Delia said the blogger was the victim of a political murder . Caruana Galizia revealed the Panama Papers and was the government s strongest critic, he said, calling for a independent probe of her killing. We will not accept an investigation by the Commissioner of Police, the Army commander or the duty magistrate, all of whom were at the heart of criticism by Caruana Galizia, he said. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said he would offer a 20,000 euro ($23,578.00) reward for information leading to the conviction of Caruana Galizia s killers, and European politicians expressed dismay at her death. Frans Timmermans, first vice president of the European Commission, tweeted that he was shocked and outraged , adding that if journalists are silenced our freedom is lost . Manfred Weber, head of the conservative bloc in the European Parliament, said the killing marked a dark day for democracy . Caruana Galizia took aim at politicians and senior officials from across Malta, seeing the island as a hotbed of corruption. Malta s public life is afflicted with dangerously unstable men with no principles or scruples, she wrote last year. Her family asked that the magistrate assigned to investigate the case, Consuelo Scerri Herrera, be substituted because of an alleged conflict of interest, court documents showed. Herrera had sought libel damages after Caruana Galizia attacked her in her blog. | 1 |
3,337 | Kentucky lawmakers pass 'right-to-work' legislation | LOUISVILLE, Ky. (Reuters) - Republican lawmakers in Kentucky passed a bill on Saturday making it the 27th U.S. state to allow workers the right to work in union-represented shops and receive union-negotiated benefits without paying dues to the representing body. Republican lawmakers in a handful of states have passed similar so called “right-to-work” and anti-union laws in recent years. Supporters say the measures spur economic growth while opponents cast the laws as assaults on organized labor and blue-collar workers that limit union revenues. The effort to pass the legislation in Kentucky came two months after Republicans won control of the state’s General Assembly for the first time since 1921. Republicans now control both chambers in the state’s legislature and the governor’s office. A Kentucky Senate committee on Friday passed the “right-to-work” bill, sending it to the full Senate, which passed it during a rare Saturday session. “I personally have no problem with an individual opting to be part of a labor union ... but government shouldn’t stand in the way of someone who opts not to join a union,” said Speaker of the House Jeff Hoover in a statement earlier this week. It is widely expected that Republican Governor Matt Bevin will sign the bill into law in the coming days. If so, Kentucky will immediately become the 27th state and last Southern state to enact “right-to-work” legislation. The state Senate also passed an ultrasound abortion bill that was approved by the House on Thursday. Supporters of the “right-to-work” measure say it will make Kentucky more competitive with neighboring states with similar laws in attracting new business. Kentucky has been unable to pass “right-to-work” legislation in the past because of its strong union ties across the state, labor leaders said. The Republican-led state Senate had passed similar bills in recent years, but House Democrats refused to hear the bills. “The future of the fight is in, as best we can, trying to stop the erosion of wages, benefits and safety,” said Caitlin Lally, a spokeswoman for the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 227 in Louisville and vice president of the Greater Louisville Central Labor Council. Hundreds of Democrats heeded their party leaders’ call for a protest and packed the Capitol rotunda in Frankfort on Saturday. “Politicians didn’t create the labor movement, and politicians won’t destroy the labor movement,” said DeLane Adams, spokesman for the AFL-CIO Southern regional office. | 1 |
3,338 | UK Brexit campaign probed over possible breach of campaign finance rules | LONDON (Reuters) - Britain s Electoral Commission has opened an investigation to establish whether Vote Leave Limited, the organization behind the official campaign to leave the European Union, breached campaign finance rules during the 2016 referendum campaign. The commission said on Monday its decision to open an investigation followed a review of previous assessments conducted in February in March, which had resulted in no further action being taken. Since that time, new information has come to light which, when considered alongside the information obtained previously, has given the Commission reasonable grounds to suspect an offense may have been committed, it said in a statement. | 1 |
3,339 | Police arrest seven youths after deadly Malaysia school blaze | KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Police in Malaysia have arrested seven youths in connection with a fire at an Islamic boarding school in Kuala Lumpur that killed at least 23 people, mostly teenagers. The seven, aged 11 to 18, were brought to court and remanded for seven days, Kuala Lumpur police chief Amar Singh told reporters at a news conference on Saturday. I can assure you now that the case is solved with the arrest of the seven of them, Singh said. It was the most deadly incident of its kind in Malaysia in two decades, and has outraged the public, some of whom have called for greater safety and tougher regulation at such religious schools. The arrested include students from the surrounding neighborhood, and some have tested positive for consuming marijuana. The police are treating the case as one of murder and mischief by fire. The blaze erupted early on Thursday in a top-floor dormitory at the three-storey boarding school where most of the students were sleeping in bunk beds, with many of the windows covered by metal grilles. Asked if the suspects had planned to kill the victims, Singh said: Intention was to burn, but it could be because of their age or because of their maturity levels, perhaps they may not have known that it would cause deaths. Two gas cylinders were brought up from the kitchen to the second floor, he said. | 1 |
3,340 | obamacare architect gruber demands larger mandate penalty | breaking google youtube caught censoring bill clintons son danney williams youtube channel goes does days before election infowarscom
the youtube channel of danney williams the reported son of bill clinton was taken offline wednesday without explanation
infowars reached out to williams via cell phone to learn the details on why he believes his channel was removed
williams recently joined the alex jones show for an exclusive sitdown interview to reveal his past and current mission to reach his father
in a second exclusive interview williams also revealed his views on hillary clinton and why he thinks she is keeping him away from his father newsletter sign up | 0 |
3,341 | moronic trump campaign thinks reopened clinton email investigation will save them | by sean colarossi on mon oct st at pm cnn has obtained audio of north carolina gop senator richard burr joking about gun owners putting a bullseye on hillary clinton share on twitter print this post
cnn has obtained brand new audio of north carolina republican senator richard burr joking about gun owners putting a bullseye on hillary clinton
the despicable comments come as burr faces a close senate race against democratic opponent deborah ross both candidates are within a point of each other according to realclearpolitics
more of the cnn report
the north carolina republican locked in a tight race for reelection quipped that as he walked into a gun shop nothing made me feel better than seeing a magazine about rifles with a picture of hillary clinton on the front of it
i was a little bit shocked at that it didnt have a bullseye on it he said saturday to gop volunteers prompting laughter from the crowd in mooresville north carolina but on the bottom right of the magazine it had everybody for federal office in this particular state that they should vote for so let me assure you theres an army of support out there right now for our candidates
this type of rhetoric is hardly uncommon when it comes to republican leaders in as the campaign has gone on the hateful and violent rhetoric particularly from the man at the top of the republican ticket has become increasingly worse
at one point this year donald trump suggested that second amendment people should take up arms against clinton if she nominates a supreme court justices they dont like he also said that hed like to see what happens if the democratic nominees bodyguards were disarmed
as cnn notes trump has never issued a genuine apology for his dangerous language or anything hes ever said or done but burr quickly came out with a statement once the audio was revealed although it does not excuse what he said
the comment i made was inappropriate and i apologize for it the republican senator said according to cnn
this type of imagery has no place in our politics regardless of whether its being said in public or private especially given the heightened level of anger and hatred toward hillary clinton from trump supporters
whether its trump or burr voters should remember their irresponsible language when they go to vote in just one week | 1 |
3,342 | Obama prods Vietnam on rights after activists stopped from meeting him | HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama chided Vietnam on political freedoms on Tuesday after critics of its communist-run government were prevented from meeting him in Hanoi, a discordant note on a trip otherwise steeped in amity between the former foes. Tens of thousands turned out to welcome Obama on the second leg of his visit, Ho Chi Minh City, which was called Saigon until April 1975 when North Vietnamese tanks rolled in to bring U.S.-backed South Vietnam under communist rule. Many in the crowds lining the streets chanted “Obama, Obama,” some held handwritten signs reading “Obama, we love you,” and one woman held a boy dressed in a Captain America costume, complete with shield. Underlining the importance of the growing economic ties between the countries, Obama held an open forum with young entrepreneurs and laid out the benefits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact between 12 Pacific Rim countries. The high point of his visit came on Monday, with an announcement that Washington was scrapping its embargo on the sale of lethal arms to Vietnam. That clears the biggest hurdle remaining between two countries drawn together by concern over China’s military build-up. Critics said that by removing the ban, a vestige of the Vietnam War, Washington had put concerns about Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea first and given up a critical lever to press Hanoi for improvements in human rights. One prominent intellectual, Nguyen Quang A, told Reuters that about 10 policemen had come to his house at 6:30 a.m. and put him in a car that was driven out of the capital until Obama was about to leave. An outspoken lawyer, Ha Huy Son, said he was also stopped from joining Obama’s meeting with six other civil society leaders. Human Rights Watch said a journalist who was also invited had been arrested on Monday. Quang A, a former IT entrepreneur, was one of more than 100 Vietnamese who tried to run as independents for last weekend’s election to the parliament, which is tightly controlled by the Communist Party. Almost all failed to get on the ballot. Before he was taken away, Quang A posted on Facebook a photograph of himself dressing for the meeting with Obama, with the message: “Before going. May be intercepted, arrested. Advising so people know.” Vietnam’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Obama noted that several activists had been blocked from meeting him and said this was an indication that, despite some “modest” legal reforms “there are still folks who find it very difficult to assemble and organize peacefully around issues that they care deeply about.” “There are still areas of significant concern in terms of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, accountability with respect to government,” he said. U.S. officials said that lifting the arms embargo would make it easier for Washington to engage with Vietnam on such issues. In Washington, members of the U.S. Congress, including Republicans as well as some of Obama’s fellow Democrats, criticized the policy shift alongside about a dozen Vietnamese human rights activists. “This is the definition of a bad deal,” Republican Representative Chris Smith said at a news conference. “This is not smart diplomacy, it is surrender of U.S. interests and values.” Democratic Representative Adam Lowenthal said, “I am very disappointed that we lost yet another opportunity to elicit any kind of commitment from the Vietnamese government on improving the human rights of the Vietnamese people.” In a speech before leaving Hanoi, Obama stressed the importance of freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, where China has been turning remote outcrops into islands with runways and harbors. “Big nations should not bully small ones. Disputes should be resolved peacefully,” he said, without naming China, which claims sovereignty over most of the South China Sea. China’s Global Times, run by the Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, said the decision to lift the embargo showed a willingness to relax standards on human rights for the sake of containing China. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, in Ho Chi Minh City with Obama, told reporters that Washington’s efforts to normalize relations with Vietnam were not aimed at China. “This is not about China. Nothing that we did here or (are) arguing here is focused on China. It is focused on the fastest-growing marketplace in the world,” Kerry said. Obama interviewed three entrepreneurs at Ho Chi Minh City’s “Dreamplex,” which hosts budget tech start-ups with support of angel investors and Silicon Valley funds. He also touted the benefits of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, especially for unlocking entrepreneurial innovation. Vietnam’s manufacturing and export-led economy is seen as the biggest TPP beneficiary. Annual U.S.-Vietnam trade swelled to $45 billion last year from $450 million when ties were normalized. Washington is a big buyer of Vietnam’s televisions, smartphones, clothing and seafood. But the TPP, which would remove tariffs across a 12-nation bloc worth a combined $28 trillion of gross domestic product, is not a done deal. Opposition is expected in Washington amid concern about competition and a loss of U.S. jobs. | 1 |
3,343 | Trump's tax cut won't be the biggest in U.S. history | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump repeatedly says his proposed tax cut would be the biggest in U.S. history, but it will not even come close to the record. Trump would be on target if he were talking only about corporate taxes, but he has included other taxes in his boast. The president and his fellow Republicans in Congress propose cutting the top corporate tax rate to 20 percent from 35 percent. If they succeed, it would be the largest American corporate tax cut since the modern corporate tax began more than a century ago. As proposed by the Republicans, the corporate rate would fall 43 percent, compared with the second-largest such cut of 26 percent under Republican President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. But on individual taxes, Trump's claim does not hold up, according to data on top personal income tax rates collected by the Tax Foundation, a Washington think tank. (For a graphic tracking U.S. tax rates, see: tmsnrt.rs/2z5Cv20) Some Republicans in Congress are backing away from cutting the top individual tax rate, now 39.6 percent. But even if they did cut it as low as Trump wants, to 35 percent, the president would not even come close to winning bragging rights. The Reagan cuts lowered the top rate to 28 percent from 70 percent. That was an impressive 60 percent drop. But the huge tax cuts of President Warren Harding and President Calvin Coolidge, both Republicans, take the prize. In 1922, the top tax rate was 73 percent. By 1925, it was only 25 percent, almost a 66 percent decline. Coolidge alone was responsible for a 57 percent cut in taxes. Under President John Kennedy and President Lyndon Johnson, both Democrats, the tax cuts of 1964 and 1965 cut the top rate to 70 percent from 91 percent, a decline of 23 percent. Still, there are other ways to measure the size of a tax cut besides the rates themselves. One approach would measure how much tax revenue the federal government does not get and taxpayers get to keep. That is the “cost” of a tax cut. But that number is disputed between those who favor tax cuts and those who do not. The Trump administration argues its tax cuts will ignite the economy and tax revenue will increase, not decrease. That way, the cuts “pay for themselves,” they say. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a bipartisan Washington think tank, estimated the Trump tax cut could be the fourth-largest as a percentage of gross domestic product, or GDP, a measure of national economic output. The think tank favors that measure because it eliminates the effects of inflation, economic growth and the size of total federal revenue. By that measure, it agreed with a number of economists who said the Reagan cuts were the largest in history, even larger than Coolidge’s. As for bragging rights to the all-time biggest tax hike, the winner is Democratic President Woodrow Wilson. During World War One, he increased the top individual rate to 77 percent from 7 percent and the corporate rate to 12 percent from 1 percent. | 1 |
3,344 | won now what | the syrian army and hezbollah resistance forces continued their military operations in aleppo province and managed to push back a large number of terrorists from alrashedeen region which is the most important concentration point of the terrorists in southwestern aleppo shares
the progovernment troops could bring the terrorists in alrashedeen region to verge of collapse after taking full control of housing project and alhikma school in the southwestern part of aleppo
the syrian government forces who have been trying to take back the towns of rashedeen and started the new phase of their military operations on thursday by hitting hard the terrorists military positions in alrashedeen and towns with artillery shells
the syrian air force for its part pounded the terrorists positions in alrashedeen and towns
some news media also reported the start of the syrian armys new operations in zahiya alassad and jamiat alzahra to the west of aleppo
also in northwestern aleppo the missile and artillery units of the syrian army hit the terrorists positions in the towns of andan kafr hamra and maaret alartiq as well as their surrounding areas
more russian navy fleet starts strikes at terrorists positions in syrias aleppo jaish alfatah leader admits receiving financial military aid from saudi arabia why do we only hear of the humanitarian crisis in aleppo and not everywhere else in syria is maintaining assad the least worst option army sources disclosed on wednesday that progovernment troops are making final coordination for a massive offensive on jeish alfatah terrorists in the eastern parts of aleppo city
as the armys hour ultimatum to the terrorists to leave the city came to an end and as relative calm has prevailed over the western and southwestern parts of aleppo the army the lebanese hezbollah fighters and special forces are getting ready to start attacking militants defense line from several eastern and southern flanks an army officer said
meantime he appreciated the russian help saying the russian air and naval back up will speed up the syrian armys advances in the operation
government forces are about to start their operation against the terrorists in aleppo any moment he added
local sources disclosed earlier on wednesday that civilians in the eastern districts of aleppo city took to the streets to oppose jeish alfatahs rule in the city calling on the militants to leave aleppo immediately
unprecedented clashes between people and terrorists have pushed the eastern neighborhoods of aleppo city into a new wave of tensions sources said adding people have taken part in demonstrations across the districts of bostan alqasr and alkelaseh calling on the terrorists to leave the city now
people have also attacked terrorists food stuff warehouses fighting with the militants for looting their food stuff from their neighborhoods the sources added
the sources went on to say that terrorists have arrested a number of demonstrators hitting them badly
civilians in militantheld districts of aleppo are tired of terrorist groups measures including suppression of people and banning food and medicine for the families who prevent their young sons from joining the terrorist groups
meantime tens of fighter jets launched airstrikes on terrorists positions in aleppo on tuesday to herald the longawaited ground operations to capture the eastern parts of the city
tens of warplanes started massive air assaults on enemy targets in the eastern parts of aleppo on tuesday after three weeks of lull and as russias admiral kuznetsov aircraft carrier launched combat operations in syria the arabiclanguage almayadeen news channel reported
the airstrikes started after several humanitarian pauses declared by the syrian army and russia to give a chance to the civilian population as well as the militants to leave the eastern parts of the city through corridors thousands of civilians left the city in the first few days but militants blocked their exist paths threatening to kill anyone who dares to approach the passages opened by the army the terrorists aim to use the civilian population as a human shield
the last such pause was declared on monday when the army gave a hour lone ultimatum to the jeish alfatah coalition of terrorist groups to leave the flash point city the deadline was not met by the militants though
defense experts believe that the blitzkrieg is the first part of the longawaited army operations in eastern aleppo to take back the entire city aleppo is halved into the governmentruled west and militantheld east the militants rejected a guaranteed exit to relocate to idlib or other militantruled territories in the hope that over fresh forces would penetrate the city through the southwestern front to lift the armys severalmonthlong siege on eastern aleppo
jeish alfatah lost thousands of militants in over two weeks of bloody war in southern and southwestern aleppo but failed to open a corridor for entrapped friends in the east
the massive airstrikes in aleppo come as russias admiral kuznetsov aircraftcarrying cruiser began combat operations in syria
russian defense minister sergei shoigu announced earlier that russian frigate admiral grigorovich launched missiles on terrorist targets in syria
today we started a major operation to launch massive strikes on isil and alnusra front also known as fatah alsham front targets in the idlib and homs provinces in syria shoigu said at a meeting with the ministrys leadership and defense enterprises
for the first time in history of russian navy admiral kuznetsov aircraftcarrying cruiser has begun military operations shoigu said
russian naval task force in syria is reliably protected by bastion coastal defense missile systems and pantsir systems the minister said
also general command of the syrian army announced earlier that the countrys soldiers and popular forced are about to hit jeish alfatahs positions in the eastern districts of aleppo from nine different flanks
our forces including very well trained units are deployed in nine different fronts and are waiting for the specified deadline the command center said in a statement
other informed sources disclosed that the syrian army has prepared a large number of forces who are expert in street battle and are equipped with lethal weapons ready to start final the battle with the terrorist groups
the sources also added that these forces will be backed up by the missile and air support of the syrian and russian force | 0 |
3,345 | Top Democrat, in letter, blasts Valeant CEO for lack of cooperation | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday called on Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc for more details on its relationship with Philidor RX services and chided the company for not providing Congress any documents or other requested information. “Your refusal to cooperate fully with Congress is extremely troubling and reflects a pattern of obstruction that impairs our ability to protect the American people against your company’s exorbitant price increases,” U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings wrote in a letter to Valeant Chief Executive Michael Pearson. | 1 |
3,346 | Clinton’s ‘No-Fly Zone’ over Syria Will Not “Save Lives” – It Will Lead to War with Russia | Prof Michel Chossudovsky Global ReaseachThe media has failed to address the confrontation between the U.S. State Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Francis Dunford (image, left) has warned both the US Senate as well Secretary of State John Kerry in no uncertain terms that a No Fly Zone over Syria would lead to war with both Syria and Russia, intimating a dangerous process of military escalation.In a Senate Arms Services Committee hearing, Dunford said, responding to questions from Republican Senator Roger Whicker (Mississippi): Right now, Senator, for us to control all of the airspace in Syria it would require us to go to war, against Syria and Russia That s a pretty fundamental decision that certainly I m not going to make. (Senate Armed Services Committee, September 22, 2016, emphasis added)At the third presidential debate, Hillary Clinton reasserted her commitment that if elected president, she would implement a no-fly-zone, intimating that the objective was to save lives : I think a no-fly zone could save lives and could hasten the end of the conflict. I am well aware of the really legitimate concerns you have expressed from both the president and the general, Clinton said in response to a question from Fox News debate moderator Chris Wallace. This would not be done just on the first day. This would take a lot of negotiation and would also take making it clear to the Russians and Syrians that our purpose here was to provide safe zones on the ground I think we could strike a deal and make it clear to the Russians and the Syrians that this was something that we believe was in the best interest of the people on the ground in Syria. (Fox News, emphasis added)At present, under the Obama administration, the joint chiefs of staff are opposed to the No Fly zone .The Joint Chiefs of Staff are appointed by the Secretary of Defense.Under a Clinton presidency, a new Secretary of Defense as well as a new Chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, firmly committed to A No fly Zone over Syria would be appointed.Mich le Angelique Flournoy, a former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy is Hillary s choice for the position of Secretary of Defense, who favors the No Fly Zone option.According to Defense One: The woman expected to run the Pentagon under Hillary Clinton said she would direct U.S. troops to push President Bashar al-Assad s forces out of southern Syria and would send more American boots to fight the Islamic State in the region. Confirmed by the Leaked Emails Michele Flournoy is a crony of the Clintons. She has called for limited military coercion to help remove Assad from power in Syria, including a no bombing zone over parts of Syria held by U.S.-backed rebels. This is tantamount to a no fly zone to protect the terrorists including ISIS Daesh from actions by Syrian and Russian forces.According to Defense One:Flournoy did not deny the entire report that she favors increased U.S. intervention; for instance, she acknowledged her support for U.S. strikes using standoff weapons to retaliate against Syrian military targets to enforce the no-bomb zone Continue this article at Global ResearchREAD MORE HILLARY NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Clinton Files | 0 |
3,347 | Trump’s #1 Deplorable Has A Question For You Libtards (VIDEO) | Jim Stachowiak is a staunch Trump supporter who is just sick and tired of it all (though he probably couldn t name an actual problem the United States has) and wants to take his country back and make it great again just like The Donald says. Sure, Stachowiak (like his Fuhrer) hasn t traditionally bothered with facts, or the truth, or even so much as a rational thought but he has been a foot soldier in the 2016 GOP nominee s war on decency for quite some time.Stachowiak regularly posts Facebook videos with him sharing his dumbass ideas with the world like that we can fight Islam by killing n*ggers, patriots like himself should assassinate Obama, and shooting black kids in the backs would somehow solve crime.Stachowiak has long been inviting mockery long before he famously tried to organize an anti-Muslim rally to which no one showed up. Now he s inviting you to mock the living hell out of him by asking your opinion of his stupid anti-Obama shirt.Standing on the Bobby Jones Expressway in Georgia (not in traffic, though that might have made this video more entertaining), this Second Amendment-loving deplorable asked one simple question of his viewers: How do you like the shirt, people? Normally, Stachowiak is the star of the show, the dumbest deplorable in the basket. But his cameraman decided to steal his crown this time. A few minutes into their whatever this was, Mr. Cameraman yells:Rights are United States citizens law. The government is wrong right now. In this day and age we need the man who will make it all better for us. The law and all his people in America. We re fighting for the cause. Everybody bring out their big gun, cause we bring them home boys.Anybody know that the f*ck he s saying? He continues:You think if you re a minority you gonna have rights when everything hits the fan and everybody gets to go to camps? No the only ones that s gonna have rights is those that has something, has money, to make that they gum lick to bein on the other side of that big ol gate.Seriously? Anyone? Everyone s gonna see when that time comes, Dipshit adds ominously (you know, if he knew what that word meant). You think Islam is just over there on the other side of the word, no they are here, he says, apparently having just learned that Islam is a religion and therefore a worldwide thing. Once the Muslims take over, Camera Guy says, they re gonna chain us up in 10-foot-wall camps and slowly cut our heads off. We oppose all enemies both foreign and domestic, Stachowiak says. Your ass is ours people. Watch as much as you can stomach below:Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
3,348 | U.S. intelligence agencies feud with Republicans over Russian hacking | Republican members of Congress are complaining that U.S. intelligence agencies are refusing to brief them widely on a classified CIA report that concluded Russia hacked Democratic Party data in an effort to help Donald Trump win the presidency. The Republicans said Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has refused their requests for full briefings of Congress’ two intelligence committees. U.S. government officials said the leaders of Congress and the chairmen of the two intelligence committees, known as the “Gang of Eight,” have been briefed on the Central Intelligence Agency’s conclusion. Nevertheless, Representative Devin Nunes, the California Republican who chairs the House Intelligence Committee and is a member of President-elect Trump’s transition team as well as the Gang of Eight, has called for a briefing for his entire committee on the CIA assessment. “The committee is vigorously looking into reports of cyber-attacks during the election campaign, and in particular we want to clarify press reports that the CIA has a new assessment that it has not shared with us,” Nunes said.Representative Ron Johnson, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said his panel also has asked for a briefing but the CIA refused. “It is disappointing that the CIA would provide information on this issue to the Washington Post and NBC but will not provide information to elected members of Congress,” Johnson said in a statement on Friday. Three U.S. government sources, who all asked for anonymity to discuss classified information, told Reuters that while the full congressional committees have not been briefed, the congressional leadership has, which is the standard procedure for briefing Congress on sensitive intelligence. The sources said that Nunes was personally briefed on the CIA finding. A congressional official denied Nunes was briefed, however. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said in a statement that because President Barack Obama last week ordered the intelligence community to conduct a full-scale “review of foreign efforts to influence recent presidential elections – from 2008 to the present,” the agencies would not comment further until the study is completed. ODNI, which oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, said that when the review is complete, the U.S. intelligence community “stands ready to brief Congress.” The office said it also would make the study “available to the public consistent with protecting intelligence sources and methods.” The CIA based its conclusion about Russia hacking to influence the election not on irrefutable evidence but largely on its analysis of the fact that the Russians hacked both political parties while only publicizing information damaging to Democrats and their presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, said a U.S. official familiar with the agency’s work, who also requested anonymity. Two of the government sources said on Friday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation now backs the CIA assessment that the Russian hacks were aimed at helping Trump win. The ODNI also agrees with the assessment, all three government sources said. There was no immediate comment from the FBI. The FBI, which has responsibility for counterintelligence investigations inside the United States, initially did not endorse the CIA’s finding because it did not meet the standards of evidence necessary to win a conviction in a U.S. court or identify individuals whose hacking violated American law, one source said.The debate over Russian hacking also is opening a rift between Trump and some Republican members of Congress. The president-elect continues to dismiss the intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Russian President Vladimir Putin directed the hacking. On Friday, Senator Richard Burr, Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, announced his committee will conduct a review in the new year of U.S. intelligence on Russian activities and its cyber activity more broadly. The review will include questioning of both Obama and Trump officials, “including the issuance of subpoenas if necessary to compel testimony,” Burr said in a statement. | 1 |
3,349 | North Korea shipments to Syria chemical arms agency intercepted: U.N. report | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Two North Korean shipments to a Syrian government agency responsible for the country s chemical weapons program were intercepted in the past six months, according to a confidential United Nations report on North Korea sanctions violations. The report by a panel of independent U.N. experts, which was submitted to the U.N. Security Council earlier this month and seen by Reuters on Monday, gave no details on when or where the interdictions occurred or what the shipments contained. The panel is investigating reported prohibited chemical, ballistic missile and conventional arms cooperation between Syria and the DPRK (North Korea), the experts wrote in the 37-page report. Two member states interdicted shipments destined for Syria. Another Member state informed the panel that it had reasons to believe that the goods were part of a KOMID contract with Syria, according to the report. KOMID is the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation. It was blacklisted by the Security Council in 2009 and described as Pyongyang s key arms dealer and exporter of equipment related to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons. In March 2016 the council also blacklisted two KOMID representatives in Syria. The consignees were Syrian entities designated by the European Union and the United States as front companies for Syria s Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC), a Syrian entity identified by the Panel as cooperating with KOMID in previous prohibited item transfers, the U.N. experts wrote. SSRC has overseen the country s chemical weapons program since the 1970s. The U.N. experts said activities between Syria and North Korea they were investigating included cooperation on Syrian Scud missile programs and maintenance and repair of Syrian surface-to-air missiles air defense systems. The North Korean and Syrian missions to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The experts said they were also investigating the use of the VX nerve agent in Malaysia to kill the estranged half-brother of North Korea s leader Kim Jong Un in February. North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear programs and the Security Council has ratcheted up the measures in response to five nuclear weapons tests and four long-range missile launches. Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons in 2013 under a deal brokered by Russia and the United States. However, diplomats and weapons inspectors suspect Syria may have secretly maintained or developed a new chemical weapons capability. During the country s more than six-year long civil war the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has said the banned nerve agent sarin has been used at least twice, while the use of chlorine as a weapon has been widespread. The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons. | 1 |
3,350 | Trump's Islam comments draw attacks as Republicans discover civility | MIAMI (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump came under fire from his rivals on Thursday for saying Muslims hate the United States at a debate where the gut-punching attacks of earlier forums gave way to a suddenly civil tone with a serious focus on the issues. Trump, who has voiced skepticism about U.S. military involvement abroad in the past, for the first time said America’s effort against Islamic State militants might require between 20,000 and 30,000 U.S. troops, a number similar to what some Republican hawks have proposed. The CNN-hosted debate at the University of Miami was crucial, coming days before votes in Florida and Ohio that will determine whether U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Ohio Governor John Kasich will be able to continue with their increasingly long-shot candidacies. With previous assaults on Trump having failed to knock him down, Rubio and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas chose a more civil approach, raising questions about Trump’s policy positions without attacking him personally. Trump, for his part, used the debate to try to attract establishment Republicans, saying he is generating support from non-Republicans who could help carry the party to victory in the Nov. 8 election. And he eschewed the inflammatory, personal attacks on his rivals that have drawn both cheers and boos in prior debates. “The Republican Party has a great chance to embrace millions of people that it’s never known before. They are coming by the millions. We should seize that opportunity,” he said. But he stuck to positions that many establishment Republicans reject, such as his belief, as stated in television interviews, that followers of Islam “hate us.” “We have a serious problem of hate. There is tremendous hate,” said Trump, who has proposed a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. Rubio, Cruz and Kasich said the United States needs to maintain good relations with Muslim countries in the Middle East to help in the fight against Islamic State militants. “We are going to have to work with people in the Muslim faith even as Islam faces a serious crisis within it,” Rubio said. Rubio also defended American Muslims as patriots. “If you go anywhere in the world you’re going see American men and women serving us in uniform that are Muslims,” he said. “Anyone out there that has the uniform of the United States on and is willing to die for this country is someone that loves America,” he added. Rubio shifted to a more positive tone after his anti-Trump tirades of the past two weeks. But he and Cruz repeatedly sought to raise questions about Trump’s policy positions from trade to the Middle East. Cruz pointed to areas where Trump has been a late-comer to the conservative movement, such as his past support for Democratic causes and candidates. He also noted how Trump has asked his supporters at rallies to demonstrate support by raising their right hand, a scene that produced photographs that some critics said looked like Nazi Germany. “At Donald‘s rallies recently he’s taken to asking people in the crowd to pledge their support to him. I have to say I think that’s exactly backwards. We are here pledging our support to you, not the other way around,” Cruz said. Trump, in discussing how he would consider placing between 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops on the ground to defeat Islamic State militants, vowed to complete the mission quickly and bring troops home to focus on rebuilding the United States. “We really have no choice, we have to knock out ISIS,” Trump said. “I would listen to the generals, but I’m hearing numbers of 20,000 to 30,000.” It was the most detailed view yet of Trump’s thinking about Islamic State. He has previously talked of “knocking the hell” out of ISIS without offering specifics. Next Tuesday’s Florida and Ohio Republican primaries both award delegates on a winner-take-all basis, meaning that the winner of the popular vote is awarded the state’s entire slate of delegates. So far, 25 states and Puerto Rico have held nominating contests, and Trump has amassed a solid lead in the delegate race. According to the Associated Press, Trump has 458 delegates, followed by Cruz at 359, Rubio at 151, and Kasich at 54. Clinching the Republican nomination requires 1,237 delegates. There are a total of 367 delegates at stake on Tuesday, including a total of 165 in Florida and Ohio. Trump on Thursday appeared to try to appear more presidential, something he has pledged often in the past to do so but never has. On Thursday he modulated both the tone of his voice and the tenor of his remarks, which in prior debates have drawn sharp criticism for being vulgar. “I would say this, we’re all in this together. We’re going to come up with solutions, we’re going to find the answers to things, and so far I can’t believe how civil it has been up here,” Trump said. The two-hour debate included a sober discussion of pressing foreign and domestic policy challenges, including illegal immigration, reform of Social Security, free trade deals, the role of the federal government in education and Israel. (Additional reporting by Ginger Gibson, Alana Wise, Amanda Becker; Writing by Steve Holland; Editing by Leslie Adler) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. | 1 |
3,351 | White House accuses media of playing down inauguration crowds | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Saturday accused the media of framing photographs to understate the crowd that attended Donald Trump’s inauguration, a new jab in a long-running fight between the new president and the news organizations who cover him. In an unusual and fiery statement on Saturday night, White House spokesman Sean Spicer lashed out about tweeted photographs that showed large, empty spaces on the National Mall during the ceremony on Friday. “This was the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period. Both in person and around the globe,” Spicer said in a brief statement. “These attempts to lessen the enthusiasm about the inauguration are shameful and wrong.” Washington’s city government estimated 1.8 million people attended President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, making it the largest gathering ever on the Mall. Aerial photographs showed that the crowds for Trump’s inauguration were smaller than in 2009. Spicer’s rebuke followed a larger-than-expected turnout for women’s marches protesting Trump across the United States on Saturday, including at the flagship event in Washington, where a crowd of hundreds of thousands clogged the streets and appeared to be larger than those who came for Trump’s inauguration. Spicer, who did not take questions from reporters, said spaces for 720,000 people were full when Trump took his oath. He also said the National Park Service does not put out official crowd counts. “No one had numbers.” Washington’s Metro subway system said 193,000 users had entered the system by 11 a.m. on Friday, compared with 513,000 at that time during Obama’s 2009 inauguration. On Saturday, Metro reported ridership of 275,000 at 11 a.m. as it struggled to handle the crowd converging on downtown Washington for the protest march. Trump has long used the media as a foil during his unconventional climb to the White House. On Saturday, he blamed the media for making up his feud with the CIA over its investigation into Russian hacking. Spicer also criticized a reporter who made an error in a pool report during a brief ceremony in the Oval Office on Friday. Earlier, Trump called out the reporter by name at the CIA headquarters. “There’s been a lot of talk in the media about the responsibility to hold Donald Trump accountable, and I’m here to tell you it goes two ways. We’re going to hold the press accountable as well,” Spicer said. | 1 |
3,352 | Trump's funding request for U.S. border wall hits snag among some Republicans | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s call for $1.5 billion this year to help build a wall along the border with Mexico could be in jeopardy as fellow Republicans in Congress weigh delaying a decision on the request. Republican Senator Roy Blunt, a member of his party’s leadership, told reporters on Tuesday that money for the wall likely would not be coupled with a spending bill that must pass by April 28 to avoid shutting down federal agencies whose funding expires then. Blunt said the must-do funding “comes together better” without Trump’s additional request for the border wall and military programs and could be considered “at a later time.” Democrats are threatening to block the bill funding federal agencies from April 29 to Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year, if money for the border wall is included. They object to one of Trump’s premier 2016 campaign promises, saying it is poorly planned and that there are other border security measures already constructed or under consideration. When he ran for president, Trump pledged Mexico would pay to build the wall, designed to keep illegal immigrants and drugs from entering the United States. The Mexican government has said it will not do so. The initiative has also faced resistance among Republicans, including lawmakers representing some border towns. The federal government would have to purchase land in many locations in order to construct the edifice, which could make construction costs soar. Reuters reported the wall could end up costing as much as $21.6 billion, far more than the $12 billion Trump cited. Representative Mario Diaz-Balart also expressed skepticism about Congress’ ability to approve funds for the wall, given the super-majority vote needed in the Senate for most major legislation. Asked about the wall, Diaz-Balart, a senior member of the House of Representatives’ Appropriations Committee and a leading voice on immigration policy, said: “I’m always willing to look at other things we can do to try to get that 60-vote threshold” on border and interior security. Lawmakers said progress was being made on legislation to keep the government running beyond April 28. House Speaker Paul Ryan removed another potential land mine on Tuesday when he said a Republican drive to end federal funding for women’s healthcare provider Planned Parenthood would be best accomplished on legislation other than the upcoming funding bill. Democrats have vowed to stop the must-do money bill if it ended Planned Parenthood’s federal funds. | 1 |
3,353 | Indigenous protesters seize oil wells in Peruvian Amazon: chief | LIMA (Reuters) - Villagers in the Peruvian Amazon have shut down at least 50 oil wells operated by Frontera Energy Corp to protest talks over a new contract even as past pollution lingers, the leader of an indigenous federation said on Wednesday. Some 600 members of native Achuar communities in the Corrientes River basin seized the wells on Monday along with an electric plant and oil tanks used by the Canadian company in Block 192, the country s biggest oilfield, said Carlos Sandi, president of the Feconacor federation. The latest protest in a region long plagued by complaints of oil pollution came after the center-right government of President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski declined to apply an indigenous rights law as it negotiates with Frontera. The so-called prior consultation law, passed in 2011, requires the government to seek input from indigenous people before approving development plans that might affect them. The growing indigenous anger threatens to disrupt Frontera s plans to keep operating in Peru after its two-year contract expires. Frontera has been negotiating a long-term contract for Block 192 with state energy regulator Perupetro. Tribal leaders had warned they would forcibly halt oil operations there unless their demands were taken into account through prior consultation. Communities in Block 192 mainly want past oil pollution cleaned up and better access to education and healthcare, Sandi said. Frontera, which has operated Block 192 for the past two years, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Protests could expand into other parts of Block 192 as Quechua villagers readied plans to seize 16 additional oil wells and an airport in the Pastaza River basin on Thursday, said Aurelio Chino, president of the indigenous federation Fediquep. Peru s Culture Ministry, charged with protecting indigenous rights, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Last week, the ministry rejected the communities request for prior consultation, but said the government might reconsider if new measures regarding Block 192 were implemented. Block 192 in Peru s Loreto region produced about 9,500 barrels of oil per day in August, according to official data. | 1 |
3,354 | YMCA Camp Forces Black Children Through Slavery Reenactment | A YMCA camp in Jackson, Michigan forced ten-year-old student campers to participate in a disturbing slavery reenactment activity. During the activity, which took place at night, teachers and camp instructors acted as slave masters, forcing 5th grade campers to stand on a makeshift auction block.According to the mother of one student who endured the camp s slavery reenactment: The slave masters (camp instructors and teachers) had certificates which allowed them to pay for the slaves, and the students were required to hold up the certificates when they were bought or sold. The students, who were chased through the dark by their slave masters on horseback, were also ordered not to look the adult participants in the eye.Tiffany Birchett, the mother of two Black students who attended the camp last summer, was outraged after learning that her children had been put through this ordeal by camp leaders.She emailed the principal of her daughter s school, Pardee Elementary School in Dearborn Heights, saying: My daughter came home after the camp. She was very disturbed, and she told me what happened. First, I was wondering if this was a ritual that they do to these kids every year they attend the camp. She told me the camp instructors, including some of their teachers, were dancing and happy before they went out to do this slave re-enactment. Birchett told school officials that her 10-year-old daughter, Mikayla, was traumatized by the YMCA camp s slavery reenactment, which is dubbed by the camp as an educational activity called The Underground Railroad. She went on to say: As the mother of an African American son and daughter, I am dismayed that Pardee Elementary would authorize and condone such an extremely racially insensitive and damaging activity. Likewise, Regina Crutchfield, the mother of a 5th grade student at Jane Addams Elementary in Redford, Michigan, came forward to say that her daughter had been put through the same experience at the YMCA camp, and was similarly traumatized. My daughter said she was scared. One of the guys (camp instructors) re-enacted killing a deputy. They should not do that in front of a 10-year-old, and not when kids are hundreds of miles away from home. If they want to teach black history, they should do that in the classroom. As the Detroit News reports here, both the principal of Pardee Elementary School and the YMCA camp defended the slavery reenactment, which forced Black students like Mikayla Birchett and Crutchfield s daughter, Brooklyn Jones, to relive the trauma of slavery, even as their white, adult leaders celebrated.On February 4, Michigan ACLU Racial Justice Project attorney, Mark Fancher, sent a letter to Kevin Washington, the Black president and CEO of the YMCA USA, demanding a halt to the program.Francher wrote: Not only is the Underground Railroad activity emotionally and intellectually harmful it also creates a racially hostile environment that has legal implications both for the camp in its role as an educational institution or agent of an educational institution, and for the schools that send their students to the camp facility. The same day that the letter was sent out, Francher received a call from the head of YMCA s Camp Storer, saying that the underground railroad activity was officially discontinued. The decision was confirmed by the Detroit News.The ACLU issued the following statement, We applaud the YMCA s mature and responsible decision to terminate the Underground Railroad activity. The activity presented a risk of trauma for children who identify with their enslaved ancestors. We encourage further efforts to educate children about slavery but without re-enactments and in consultation with experts. According to the Detroit News, children attending YMCA camps have been forced to endure this experience for more than 20 years.Featured image from Wikipedia | 0 |
3,355 | MUST WATCH VIDEO: Obama Tries To Trash Trump But Turns Into A Babbling Mess [Video] | This is too good to miss! Mr. Teleprompter didn t do so well when he went off script during an appearance in Indiana. | 0 |
3,356 | This Is How Trump Could Win In A Landslide – Prepare To Laugh | Ah, the ultimate Trump fangirl, with the exception of Sarah Palin (gag). Both of them are enamored of Trump, and it s not hard to believe that they might even think they re in love with him. Palin s just an idiot about it, though. Ann Coulter, though? She s a very cunning racist closed-mind who wants Trump to win so badly that she would make voting rights for every group of people here disappear entirely. Except her own, of course. Maybe.Last night s tweet about it was probably one of the most egregious of ideas for how to ensure that we crown King Trump:If only people with at least 4 grandparents born in America were voting, Trump would win in a 50-state landslide. Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) November 8, 2016HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! The funny thing is that if we went by that standard, Trump s own kids couldn t vote for him. Trump himself couldn t even vote all his grandparents came from Europe, as did his mother, which excludes Tiffany. So even his grandkids, if they were of age, couldn t vote for him.And then there s Melania, who worked in this country illegally. For all we know, she stole a modeling job from an American model who badly needed the work. Going by Coulter s logic, she shouldn t be allowed to cast a vote for her husband. But then again, Trump s logic about immigrants would send Melania back to Slovenia, since there s a chance she stole a job from a hardworking American.Then there are all the people with four grandparents that were born here who still think Trump is a racist prick and would never vote for him. My family history here goes all the way back to before we were even a country. In fact, my family was here almost 150 years before the Declaration of Independence was signed. Plenty of others like me feel the same, but of course a racist like Coulter didn t think of that.Actually, it s very likely that all she thought of was eliminating the Latino vote, because many Latinos are first- or second-generation, and tend to vote Democratic. She didn t think of all the members of her kind who are likewise first- and second-generation, who couldn t vote at all if her idea became law.And what of her own family history? She considers herself, and her family, settlers rather than immigrants (they were immigrants). She would qualify to vote under her idea, so of course most other white conservatives would. She didn t think this through at all. Or maybe she did, but she s so ignorant about the makeup of this country that she has no idea what she just said. She s gone from being an annoyance to being one hell of a joke.Featured image by Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images | 0 |
3,357 | Cash and coffee: a young woman's path in a changing China | CHENGDU, China (Reuters) - When she was a child, Qin Lijuan s grandfather was the local Communist Party boss in the district where they lived in southwestern China. But one of her favorite things to do was decidedly capitalistic. Her grandmother ran a shop and around Chinese New Year was flush with cash. Qin loved handling the money and counting it. She wanted to be rich one day. When I was little I told my grandma that when I was done with school I d take care of the store, she said. When she eventually went to university in the southwestern metropolis of Chengdu, Qin, who goes by the English name Coco, still had money on her mind. Studying animation at a branch of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Qin counted her pennies and dreamed of making 10,000 yuan a month so that she could enjoy the best of what the thriving city had to offer. At the time I thought, very simplistically, I d eat the best that Chengdu has to offer and see the best things, she said. That s how big my dream was. However, she learned that working as an animator on video games or in movies, natural career paths in her field, would earn her less than half of what she hoped for. She decided to look elsewhere and in early 2014 a friend helped her land a job selling memberships to an exclusive golf club with branches around China. She quickly got the hang of sales and learned to network within the small circles of people rich enough to join the club. As she picked up clients, though, a sweeping anti-corruption campaign launched by President Xi Jinping was gaining traction. Xi targeted extravagant behavior, including golf, which was regarded as synonymous with wealth and power. In 2015, the party banned officials from holding golf club memberships. Even before that happened, Qin felt the effects of the campaign. Officials began quietly returning memberships or transferring them to others, she said. Golf memberships had become a liability. Business wasn t as good as before, she said. Her mother had recently had minor surgery, so Qin decided it was a good time to leave the golf company and move back to her hometown of Nanchong, a city in Sichuan province some 200 km (125 miles) east of Chengdu. She moved in with her sister and got a job managing a new golf driving range, but soon felt out of place after more than five years in the provincial capital. She said she felt a strong sense of culture shock. I basically couldn t find similar people in terms of their thinking, she said. In Chengdu, she had grown accustomed to having a coffee to start the morning, but her colleagues at the driving range in Nanchong thought that was pretentious. She felt she had outgrown her hometown and wasn t moving forward. Chengdu beckoned, but she knew she needed a new job. She had been interested in finance but didn t know much about it, so she enrolled in a wealth management course. Within months, she moved back to Chengdu and was hired by a consumer credit company where she has worked for the past two years. The dreams of the cash-counting girl seemed back on track but the future remains uncertain. I m quite anxious, she said. My main concern is whether or not I ll have enough earning power. | 1 |
3,358 | Kremlin agrees with Trump that bilateral ties 'at very dangerous low' | MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Friday it fully agreed with U.S. President Donald Trump who said in a Twitter message that Washington’s “relationship with Russia is at an all-time and very dangerous low”. Trump’s comments posted on Thursday came one day after he grudgingly signed new sanctions against Russia into law, a move Moscow said amounted to a full-scale trade war and an end to hopes for better ties with the Trump administration. “We fully share this opinion,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a conference call with reporters when asked about Trump’s Twitter message. “The danger may lie in a deficit of interaction and cooperation in those matters which are vitally important for our two countries and peoples.” | 1 |
3,359 | Trump hires Republican insider, conservative firebrand for White House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday picked Reince Priebus, a Washington insider who heads the Republican National Committee, as White House chief of staff, signaling a willingness to work with Congress to advance his agenda when he takes office in January. But while giving the influential post to the low-key Priebus, Trump handed another senior White House job to rabble-rousing conservative media figure Stephen Bannon, his campaign chairman who helped engineer his surprise victory on Tuesday over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Priebus is a friend of U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, who distanced himself from Trump during the campaign but embodies the Republican establishment in Washington and will play a critical role in shepherding Trump’s agenda in Congress. Both Priebus and Ryan are from Wisconsin. But Bannon, former head of the right-wing Breitbart News website, has been fiercely critical of Ryan. Trump’s statement announcing the appointments said Bannon and Priebus would be “working as equal partners to transform the federal government,” with Bannon serving as chief strategist and senior counselor to the president. The White House chief of staff serves as a gatekeeper and agenda-setter for the president, but Trump’s statement mentioned Bannon’s job first. “I am thrilled to have my very successful team continue with me in leading our country,” Trump said in a statement. “Steve and Reince are highly qualified leaders who worked well together on our campaign and led us to a historic victory. Now I will have them both with me in the White House.” Before joining Trump’s team, Bannon spearheaded Breitbart’s shift into a forum for the “alt-right,” a loose online confederation of neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semitics. Bannon’s hiring by Trump’s campaign this year signaled the businessman’s dedication to operating outside the norms of Washington. Under Bannon’s leadership, the Breitbart site presented a number of conspiracy theories about Clinton as well as Republicans deemed to be lacking in conservative bona fides. Critics have accused Bannon of harboring anti-Semitic and white nationalist sentiments. In a 2007 court filing during divorce proceedings, Bannon’s former wife accused him of making anti-Semitic comments on at least three occasions. As head of Breitbart, he repeatedly attacked the Republican Party establishment including Ryan, alienating many veteran Republicans. Bannon showed his willingness to engage in brutal political tactics when he instigated the appearance before a presidential debate of three women who said they had been sexually abused by his Democratic rival’s husband, former President Bill Clinton. Trump, who will succeed Democratic President Barack Obama on Jan. 20, has been contemplating the candidates for top jobs in the White House and in various Cabinet positions since Tuesday’s victory. Priebus’ appointment could anger some hardline Trump supporters who were counting on Trump to keep his campaign promise to “drain the swamp” of business-as-usual Washington insiders. Priebus is a longtime Wisconsin political operative who was credited with marshaling party resources for Trump’s White House bid. The Republican National Committee stepped in and ran most of the party’s get-out-the-vote effort this year in the absence of such an operation by the Trump campaign. While some Republicans fled from Trump during the campaign, Priebus was unwavering in his backing for the New York real estate developer. Priebus frequently traveled with Trump on the campaign trail and was seen as a positive force who helped rein in the unpredictable Trump in the closing weeks. Trump made his high regard for Priebus known on election night when he pulled him to the microphone to take a bow for his campaign efforts. Trump and his advisers already have hedged on some of his major campaign promises, including on immigration, healthcare and appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton. Trump, in an interview that aired on Sunday, backed away from his promise to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border, saying some areas could instead be “fencing.” Trump, whose pledge to force Mexico to pay for a border wall was a centerpiece of his White House, said in “certain areas” he would accept fencing instead of a brick-and-mortar wall, according to his interview with the CBS program “60 Minutes.” “But certain areas, a wall is more appropriate. I’m very good at this, it’s called construction, there could be some fencing,” he said. In the “60 Minutes” interview, Trump said Americans alarmed by his election had nothing to fear. “Don’t be afraid. We are going to bring our country back. But certainly, don’t be afraid,” he said. Demonstrators in major U.S. cities took to the streets on Sunday for a fifth straight day to protest against Trump. Trump said in the interview that once he takes office, he would remove immigrants with criminal records who are in the country illegally. During the campaign, Trump said he would deport the estimated 11 million immigrants in the country illegally, most of whom are Hispanic. Ryan on Sunday backed away from Trump’s promise during the campaign of a “deportation force” to round up and deport immigrants in the country illegally. “We are not planning on erecting a deportation force. Donald Trump’s not planning on that,” Ryan told CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “I think we should put people’s minds at ease. That is not what our focus is. That is not what we’re focused on. We’re focused on securing the border.” | 1 |
3,360 | U.S. consumers will want Trump, Congress to take on drug prices | LOS ANGELES/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans’ growing alarm over rising prescription drug costs will pressure a new U.S. administration and Congress to take action on pharmaceutical pricing, industry executives and healthcare experts say. Drugmaker stocks, battered in recent months, soared this week after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s victory. Democratic rival Hillary Clinton had vowed to take on pharmaceutical “price gouging,” and some pundits predicted the Democrats would gain control of the Senate, giving her a stronger hand. The Republican sweep of Congress eliminated those fears, while boosting chances for other measures, such as corporate tax reforms that would benefit industry. However, the vote did not change a key dynamic: U.S. consumers are paying more of the cost of drugs through higher health insurance deductibles and copayments, making them more sensitive to manufacturer price hikes. Most recently, a sixfold increase in the price of Mylan NV’s EpiPen stoked outrage for families who rely on the lifesaving allergy shot and prompted investigations by state attorneys general and Congress. If a manufacturer sharply raises the price of a drug, “it will be in the headlines. I don’t think it matters which party is in office,” said Sandra Hunt, principal at PricewaterhouseCooper’s health industry practice. Republican lawmakers have taken up drug pricing alongside Democrats. Republicans Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Representative Jason Chaffetz, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, led inquiries into Mylan’s EpiPen pricing. “A very strong majority of Republican voters want the Congress to address drug prices,” said John Rother, president and CEO of the National Coalition on Health Care, which campaigns for lower prices. An October Kaiser Family Foundation survey showed that 74 percent of respondents said making drugs for chronic conditions affordable should be a top health care priority for the federal government. Among Republican respondents, 68 percent put drug prices as a top priority. A poll conducted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that 64 percent of voters - including 78 percent of likely Clinton voters and 48 percent of Trump supporters - believe the federal government should be able to limit pharmaceutical drug price hikes. Trump and Republican leaders have vowed to repeal President Barack Obama’s healthcare reform law, known as Obamacare, which has extended medical insurance to more than 20 million Americans. Despite complaints about Obamacare insurance premium increases, just 37 percent of Kaiser poll respondents said that overturning it was a high priority. Chaffetz is “evaluating his next steps” on the drug pricing issue when the next Congress convenes, an aide said. A representative for Grassley said he would press forward with a scheduled Nov. 30 hearing into Mylan’s EpiPen pricing. “The U.S. has always been a country that supports innovation ... and we hope it will remain the same,” said Pascal Soriot, chief executive of AstraZeneca Plc, which sells drugs like cholesterol-fighter Crestor. “But we also believe we will continue to have to deal with price ressures.” Clinton’s proposals to curb drug prices included capping consumers’ monthly out-of-pocket costs. In the past, Trump has suggested allowing the government’s Medicare health program for seniors to negotiate prices and making it easier to import drugs from countries where they sell for less. A Trump administration also could provide extra funding to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to speed approval of generic drugs, which still tend to cost far less than their brand name equivalents, health policy experts said. Capital Alpha Partners analyst Kim Monk, in a research note on Wednesday, said she expects advisors and Congress to steer Trump toward “more Republican-oriented ideas,” including pricing drugs based on their relative health benefit and requiring more disclosure of pricing details. Consumer advocate Rother cited the FAIR Drug Pricing Act, introduced in September by Senators John McCain, an Arizona Republican, and Tammy Baldwin, Wisconsin Democrat, as a potential vehicle for federal action. The bill would require manufacturers to explain annual price increases of more than 10 percent. “It is a bipartisan bill consistent with traditional Republican health policy based on transparency and competition,” Rother said. In California, voters on Tuesday rejected a ballot measure that would have require drugmakers to provide state health plans with discounts similar to those given to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA pays the lowest prices in the country. Drugmakers spent more than $106 million on a campaign to defeat the measure. A similar measure will go before Ohio voters, who backed Trump in the election, next November. The coalition behind California’s proposition on Wednesday urged legislators to come up with “a more comprehensive solution to lower sky-rocketing drug prices.” | 1 |
3,361 | China urges North Korea to 'stop taking actions that are wrong' | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - China s U.N Ambassador Liu Jieyi urged North Korea to stop taking actions that are wrong and called on all parties to seriously consider Beijing s proposal for a joint suspension of Pyongyang s ballistic missile and nuclear programs and military drills by the United States and South Korea. We strongly urge (North Korea) ... stop taking actions that are wrong, deteriorating the situation and not in line with its own interests either and truly return to the track of resolving the issue through dialogue, Liu told the U.N. Security Council. North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sunday, which it said was an advanced hydrogen bomb for a long-range missile, prompting global condemnation and drawing a warning of a massive military response from the United States if it or its allies were threatened. | 1 |
3,362 | Labor Dept Throws Football Tailgate Party… Bans This Team’s Football Jersey | We ve been over and over the reasons why the Washington Redskins name is not offensive. Even the American Indians who had everything to do with the name are saying it s a name to be proud of. Our most recent article on this topic:JUDGE ORDERS CANCELLATION OF REDSKINS TRADEMARK REGISTRATION WASHINGTON REDSKIN S NEW STADIUM CONSTRUCTION HELD HOSTAGE BY PETTY OBAMA ADMINISTRATIONWhen the U.S. Labor Department s Center for Civil Rights wanted to celebrate its accomplishments last week, its managers threw the staff a football-themed tailgate party in the office parking lot.The invite, distributed across the agency s official email system, had all the rah-rah of a playoff game. Celebrate a championship year! it declared.Even the regular office dress policy was relaxed. Show your team spirit and wear your favorite sports or club theme gear and come and enjoy tailgating favorites like dips, chili, chicken wings, nachos and more game-day grub, the invite said.There was only stipulation: no Washington Redskins jerseys, paraphernalia or memorabilia. It has been respectfully requested that employees voluntarily refrain from wearing clothing or other sports memorabilia that promote Washington D.C. s professional football team, the Redskins, or other teams that use names, characters, etc. that may portray American Indians or other cultures in a derogatory manner, an asterisk-marked note at the bottom of the invitation reader.An email from an office manager went into greater detail about the ban, while forwarding the invite. While I recognize the varying opinions surrounding the name of the Washington D.C. football team, as a civil rights office, I ask us all to be particularly sensitive to names, symbols, etc., that may be considered offensive based on race, ethnicity, sex, etc., the email read. Please join me in promoting an inclusive environment for all employees and be conscientious about how we represent our values as a civil rights office. The email included links to statements opposing the Redskins logo from the Society of American Indian Government Employees (SAIGE) and Blacks in Government (BIG).The two federal worker groups have asked the Office of Personnel Management to ban the use of the Redskins name or paraphernalia at government activities and to conduct training to educate federal workers on why the team name is racially offensive. Read more: Washington Times | 0 |
3,363 | Britain's May to press case with EU on security in Tallinn | TALLINN (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May will press on Friday for Britain to have a new security partnership with the European Union after Brexit, visiting 800 British troops in northern Estonia to strengthen her case. Security cooperation is seen by British government officials as one of their strongest arguments to gain leverage in the complicated talks to unravel more than 40 years of union, and May will again underline Britain s role in European defense. In a speech in Florence last week, May sought to re-set the tone of talks and nudge them forward, after they all but stalled over the divorce settlement, especially over the so-called Brexit bill. But after another week of talks in Brussels, EU negotiators said there had not been enough progress yet to move to the next phase of discussions on a transition period after Brexit or a future trade deal. With the largest defense budget in Europe, a far-reaching diplomatic network, world-class security, intelligence and law enforcement services, and our position at the heart of NATO, the UK s role in Europe s defense has never been more vital, May said on the eve of an EU meeting in the Estonian capital. As we prepare for Brexit, I want to build a bold, new security partnership with the EU. A partnership that reflects our shared history, promotes our common values, and maintains a secure and prosperous Europe. The informal get-together in Tallinn, arranged before a digital summit on issues ranging from data and cybersecurity to taxing online businesses, has no set agenda, allowing May another chance to pitch her Brexit ideas. She sought to re-set the tone of the negotiations, using the speech in Florence to offer some concessions on the future role of the European court in Britain and over the cost of the divorce, moves which were cautiously welcomed. But by focusing on defense in Tallinn, May will want to show that Britain has something to offer its European neighbors and will say she is ready to share British expertise - including through the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) - to help EU nations build up their own cyber-security capability. We will continue to work with our NATO allies, our European neighbors and the EU, to support a future partnership of unprecedented breadth and depth, she said in a statement. That will guarantee the security and stability of the continent for generations to come. | 1 |
3,364 | South Korea, China nuclear envoys to meet in Beijing: South Korea government | SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea s foreign ministry said Lee Do-hoon, its representative for six-party nuclear talks, and his Chinese counterpart, Kong Xuanyou, will meet in Beijing on Tuesday. The meeting will be the first since the two officials took office and is an extension of recent meetings between nuclear envoys from South Korea, the United States and Japan, the foreign ministry said in a statement. The officials will exchange analyses on the current situation regarding North Korea s nuclear and missile program and also discuss ways to cooperate in managing the situation in a stable manner, the statement said. | 1 |
3,365 | Trump Once Threatened ‘Apprentice’ Contenstant He’d Show His ‘Power Tool’ To Her (VIDEO) | After it was revealed in the leaked Access Hollywood tape that Donald Trump admitted to sexually assaulting women, many of these women have started to come forward.These stories are piling up every day, and of course, Trump is denying every single one. Even going so far as to call these women too ugly to sexually assault.Now, a former contestant of Trump s show The Apprentice is speaking out on MSNBC with yet another story of Trump s lewd behavior. She recalls hearing a story from another female contestant while they were both sequestered in housing after being fired from the show.Apparently, during an episode that featured the home repair store Home Depot, Trump told this contestant, I ll show you my 9-inch power tool, clearly insinuating that he wanted to show her his penis. A statement that seems to line up with several of the stories we ve been hearing lately.This threat of being forced into sexual behavior with Trump seems to be something that happened quite regularly if you were so unfortunate to be working around the Republican candidate.While this story is not confirmed, it s fitting with the profile we ve been hearing of late about Trump, even from his own story he shared on the Access Hollywood tape.He simply cannot be allowed anywhere near the White House.Watch the Apprentice contestant reveal that information here: I ll show you my 9-inch power tool. Former Apprentice contestant was told Trump said this during a Home Depot task. @JoyAnnReid @amjoyshow pic.twitter.com/SGNr75WC1o John Aravosis (@aravosis) October 15, 2016Featured Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images | 0 |
3,366 | Billionaire Richard Branson Breaks Silence About Trump, Exposes Truth About His ‘Temperament’ (TWEETS) | Up until this point, Mark Cuban has been one of the most outspoken billionaires going after Trump and begging America to vote for Hillary Clinton in November. Today, it seems like another business mogul is ready to join Cuban s cause and tell America to wake the hell up.Billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Group, has finally spoken out against Trump and has done so via a brutal statement on his company s website. His statement opened with something that most of us especially Cuban could agree with. Branson said: I want an entrepreneur to become president one day just not Donald Trump. In railing against the disgraced GOP candidate, Branson didn t hold back in telling Americans that Trump is such a horrendous excuse for a candidate, that many of Branson s conservative wealthy colleagues cannot even bring themselves to vote for him, even though they may have voted Republican religiously in the past. Branson said: Quite a few of my American friends, especially some very successful entrepreneurs, are registered Republicans. They have told me they are unable to vote for Donald Trump due to his extreme views, and his shocking ignorance of policy. Branson continued to trash Trump while showering his opponent in compliments, stating that Clinton is a safe pair of hands and a leader of supreme experience and knowhow. TwitterThen, Branson got real on Trump s temperament, because apparently some people need to be reminded over and over again how dangerous it is to have a ticking time bomb with the maturity of a three-year-old in the White House: On the other hand, Mr Trump s temperament is irrational, aggressive and he lacks informed ideas on how to grow jobs in America. An entrepreneur president would put that at the heart of his plans and yet his fear-based campaign blames immigrants and open borders. America was built upon a collective embracing of diversity and openness not division and close-mindedness. There are too many examples of Mr Trump s lack of empathy and respect to name. I agree with many on both sides of America s political aisle that he is unfit for office. TwitterBranson concluded by urging Americans to make sure you vote for your future and not be misled by uninformed, inflammatory remarks. Featured image via Ty Wright and Mike Coppola / Getty Images | 0 |
3,367 | leaked memo exposes shady dealings between clinton foundation donors and bills forprofit activities | proud shares
the nras magazine acknowledged that president obama really hasnt had the opportunity to confiscate firearms undercutting years of fearmongering about the supposed existence of a massive obama conspiracy to dismantle the second amendment and take guns away
the nras admission that a president cant confiscate guns because congress writes the laws not the president also demonstrates the implausibility of repeated recent claims from the nra that link hillary clinton to gun confiscation
the admission was included in a june article for nra magazine americas st freedom which took issue with how obama rudely responded to a question from a gun store owner at a recent town hall event
the article quoted obama as telling the questioner im about to leave office there have been more guns sold since ive been president than just about any time in us history there are enough guns for every man woman and child in this country and at no point have i ever proposed confiscating guns from responsible gun owners so it is just not true
responding to obamas statement the article acknowledged now the gun store ownercould have interrupted the president to mention that obama really hasnt had the opportunity to do that congress writes the laws not the president
rhude didnt sit down after asking his question rather he stood silently as president obama didnt even try to answer his question but instead went off on a defensive tirade first of all the notion that i or hillary or democrats or whoever you want to choose are hellbent on taking away folks guns is just not true and i dont care how many times the nra says it
obama then said im about to leave office there have been more guns sold since ive been president than just about any time in us history there are enough guns for every man woman and child in this country and at no point have i ever proposed confiscating guns from responsible gun owners so it is just not true
now rhude could have interrupted the president to mention that obama really hasnt had the opportunity to do that congress writes the laws not the president he could then have listed the many attacks on the right to bear arms from operation fast and furious to operation choke point to obamas attempted ban on common ammunition for artype rifles to his using a pen and phone to push antigun executive actions but rhude respectfully stayed silent
claims about gun confiscation and obama have been the nras bread and butter for the past eight years more recently the nra has suggested that the election of clinton could lead to gun confiscation for lawabiding americans
read in full on media matters for america nra admits it obama really hasnt had the opportunity to confiscate guns | 0 |
3,368 | Obama, Republican leaders seek elusive common ground in White House meeting | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama met with a frequent critic, House Speaker Paul Ryan, on Tuesday as the political leaders searched for areas where they may be able to overcome partisan divisions. The Oval Office discussion was the Democratic president’s first formal face-to-face meeting with Ryan since the Wisconsin congressman took over the top post in the Republican-dominated House of Representatives in October. Following the meeting, which was closed to the press, the two ate lunch together in the White House. The session marked a rare public detente between Obama and Ryan, who have repeatedly clashed over issues such as gun control and immigration reform. The get-together in the Obama’s office also included the Republican-controlled Senate’s majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. While the leaders said they hoped to find common ground, there were already signs on Tuesday that compromise might be elusive. Sniping between the administration and the Republicans resumed just hours after the meeting, as White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough slammed Republicans’ latest attempt to overturn the Affordable Care Act. “Groundhog’s Day is great for a movie plot, not a legislative strategy,” McDonough said on Twitter in response to a post from Ryan’s account. “Groundhog Day” is a 1993 movie about a man who relives the same day over and over again. During the meeting Obama urged actions in areas where Republicans had signaled some support, including ratifying the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, providing tools to help address Puerto Rico’s fiscal crisis and advancing cancer treatment. McConnell told reporters after the meeting that he had “some problems” with the trade pact and said he thought it should not be pursued before the November U.S. presidential election. Ryan also raised concerns about the trade deal, his office said in a statement. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said after the meeting that the administration does not have a specific timeline for Congress to act on the trade agreement, but lawmakers should act “quickly” once the pact is ready for consideration. The leaders also discussed taking action to combat opioid addiction, criminal justice reform and the fight against the Zika virus. Obama was pleased to meet with the Republican leaders, Earnest told reporters. Despite the divisiveness seen on the campaign trail, “it actually is possible for leading Republicans to sit down in the same office with a leading Democrat and have a conversation about the priorities of the country,” he said. | 1 |
3,369 | Merkel cancels news conference with Dutch PM as coalition talks fail | BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel has canceled a news conference with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte that had been planned for Monday, her office said, after German coalition talks collapsed overnight. The chancellery gave no reason for the cancellation of the news conference, which had been scheduled for 1 p.m. (1200 GMT). Merkel said earlier on Monday her efforts to form a three-way coalition government had failed, thrusting Germany into a political crisis. | 1 |
3,370 | Canada finance minister says will adopt blind trust, divest assets | OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada s Finance Minister Bill Morneau said on Thursday he will place his assets in a blind trust and divest all his stock in a publicly traded family business, amid opposition allegations that these holdings put him in a conflict of interest. Questions about the assets of Morneau, the multimillionaire former chief executive officer of human resources management firm Morneau Shepell, have dogged the minister and led some to question whether he would be forced to resign. His plan to adopt a blind trust follow weeks of backlash over a government attempt to reform small business taxes, which have become a major stumbling block for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau s two-year-old Liberal government. Morneau said he had initially intended to put his assets in a blind trust - as Trudeau has - but had changed his mind after consultations with the ethics watchdog. He said he had naively believed that following the advice of the ethics commissioner was a high enough standard. What we ve seen over the last week is that I need to do more. As minister of finance, in this role, it s important to make sure people have absolute confidence, he told a news conference, adding he has about a million shares in the company and would work with a trustee to divest his and his family s holdings. Shares of Morneau Shepell Inc fell nearly 2 percent on Thursday to C$20.63, shedding about C$21.6 million in market value. Morneau was elected in 2015 when the left-leaning Liberals were vaulted to a surprise majority under Trudeau, becoming one of the many rookie ministers in Trudeau s cabinet. In a heated session of parliament after the news conference, opposition politicians said Morneau s 2016 legislation on pension reform increased the profits of Morneau Shepell. The finance minister and his company, Morneau Shepell, have benefited from the minister s actions, said Conservative member of parliament Maxime Bernier. Morneau said he had been pulled out of government meetings at least twice since becoming finance minister to guard against conflicts of interest between policy decisions and his company. I don t know the total number of times, but I can remember at least two times being taken out of meetings because of that conflict-of-interest screen, I believe. Of course I don t know what happened in those meetings, he said. Separately, Morneau said the government s autumn fiscal update will be released on Oct. 24. | 1 |
3,371 | Romania says Britain more 'positive' on Brexit talks, so is EU | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said on Friday it was clear that British Prime Minister Theresa May was more positive and result-oriented after she addressed European Union leaders over a dinner in Brussels on Brexit. If somebody says that the negotiations got stuck - they didn t get stuck, he told reporters. It s just that the negotiations have not fostered enough progress. My hope is that, in the end, we will reach sufficient progress on all three chapters ... It s obvious that everybody is looking for a success story. Nobody tries to block the negotiations, he said, adding that there was absolutely no guarantee both sides would arrive at a deal by December. | 1 |
3,372 | Ex-FBI chief Comey tells U.S. senators Trump pressured him on Russia probe | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former FBI Director James Comey said on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump asked him to drop an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn as part of a probe into Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election. In written testimony released the day before he appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Comey said Trump told him at a meeting in the White House in February: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.” The testimony puts more pressure on Trump, a Republican, whose presidency has been overshadowed by allegations that Moscow helped him win last year’s election. Some legal experts said Comey’s testimony could strengthen any impeachment case built on obstruction of justice, but U.S. markets shrugged off the news from the testimony for lack of any major disclosures. To build a criminal obstruction of justice case, federal law requires prosecutors to show that a person acted with “corrupt” intent. It does not matter whether the person succeeds in impeding an investigation. While a sitting president is very unlikely to face criminal prosecution, obstruction of justice could form the basis for impeachment. Comey said he had told Trump on three occasions he was not being investigated, confirming an earlier account from the president. Trump, who spent part of Wednesday in Ohio talking about the need to fix the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, ignored reporters’ shouted questions about Comey. On returning to the Oval Office, Trump went into a meeting with top advisers, including chief of staff Reince Priebus. Later, his outside counsel released a statement saying Trump felt “completely and totally vindicated” by Comey’s account. “The president is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the president was not under investigation in any Russian probe,” Marc Kasowitz, Trump’s attorney, said in a statement. Several congressional committees, as well as the FBI and a special counsel, are investigating whether Russia tried to tilt last November’s election in Trump’s favor, using means such as hacking into the emails of senior Democrats. Trump and the Kremlin have separately denied any collusion. Trump abruptly fired Comey, who was leading the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe, on May 9. Comey painted a vivid picture for senators of awkward encounters with Trump in seven pages of testimony. Comey described a private dinner in the Green Room of the White House on Jan. 26, where Trump asked him whether he wanted to stay on as FBI director, telling him: “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” “I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence,” Comey said in his testimony, explaining he became concerned that Trump was trying to create “some sort of patronage relationship.” On Feb. 14, after an Oval Office briefing on counterterrorism, Trump asked Comey to stay behind, dismissing Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who lingered, and waving off Priebus, who peeked through the door. “When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the president began by saying, ‘I want to talk about Mike Flynn,’” Comey said in his testimony. Trump had fired Flynn the previous day in a controversy over contacts between the retired general and the Russian ambassador to the United States. The FBI has been investigating Flynn as it looks into allegations of links between Russia and the Trump campaign. Comey quoted Trump as telling him: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” On March 30, Trump phoned Comey and asked what “we could do to lift the cloud” of the FBI’s Russia investigation. “He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia,” said Comey, who had briefed Trump on “salacious material” that had arisen in a counter-intelligence investigation. Michael Cohen, a lawyer for Trump, said in a statement that the uncorroborated dossier of compromising material that Russian operatives allegedly collected on Trump has been “debunked.” “Comey’s statement released today needs to be carefully scrutinized as his testimony claims the president was concerned about the dossier,” said Cohen. Cohen, along with Flynn, has been subpoenaed by the House Intelligence Committee, which is also conducting a Russia probe. Some legal experts said Comey’s written statement could be used to show that Trump engaged in obstruction of justice. “It shows the president was doing everything he could to shut down the Flynn investigation,” said Andrew Wright, a professor of criminal law at Savannah Law School. Bruce Green, a professor of law at Fordham University School of Law, said it would be difficult, however, to show that Trump intended to obstruct justice. Trump could say he was merely vouching for Flynn’s character and voicing concerns about how the probe was interfering with his ability to function effectively as president, Green said. Democrats jumped on the testimony, expressing concern that Trump had inappropriately meddled with the probe. “It’s certainly very possible that this is evidence, in combination with other actions by the president, that could amount to obstruction. It’s certainly an effort to interfere in the investigation,” the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff, told CNN. Republican House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, asked about Trump’s request for loyalty from Comey, said it was “very, very critical” that FBI directors remain “independent.” But Republican Senator Richard Burr, who heads the Senate intelligence panel, said he did not take issue with Trump’s request. “I don’t think it’s wrong to ask for loyalty from anybody in an administration,” Burr said. | 1 |
3,373 | Attorney General Sessions says now recalls meeting flagged in Russia probe | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Tuesday he now recalls a meeting in March 2016 that has come under scrutiny as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether President Donald Trump’s election campaign colluded with Russia. In testimony before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Sessions acknowledged he attended a meeting with George Papadopoulos, a former campaign adviser who pleaded guilty last month to lying to the FBI. According to court documents, Papadopoulos told the meeting he could help use his Russian connections to broker a meeting between then-candidate Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Sessions had previously testified to Congress he was unaware of communications between the campaign and Russian officials. | 1 |
3,374 | THINGS GET UGLY WHEN IRAQ VETERAN Confronts Terrorist Sympathizers Protesting On Street Corner [VIDEO] | ***Language Warning***This video will make your blood boil. My heart bleeds for this veteran who bravely pulled over to confront these terrorist sympathizers. The veteran was simply asking them to turn the US flag right side up. The terrorist sympathizers refused to turn the flag over and were actually dragging the flag on the ground during the confrontation.You will see a man in an orange jacket wearing a hat that says Navy Seal. After watching this video, you can decide for yourself, but we think he is an imposter. Notice that when asked if he is a veteran by the cameraman, the man in the orange jacket quickly realizes he is wearing a Navy Seal hat and removes it from his head. It s hard to believe a Navy Seal veteran would be standing on the corner with these punks protesting the imprisonment of terrorists by our government.Watch and decide for yourself:I wish I knew this Iraq veteran. I would love to shake his hand and thank him for his service in Iraq and for defending our flag at home | 0 |
3,375 | OBAMACARE TAKING DOWN MORE RURAL HOSPITALS | Let s face it Obamacare s been a disaster from Day 1. The closing if rural hospitals is the latest issue and it s a big one for those who ll need to travel farther to get medical help.The AP has noticed something. Rural hospitals seem to be closing. Now, what has happened to the American health care system in recent years that might help explain that? Hmmm .From The AP via ABC (with some honest commentary mixed in): Sac-Osage is one of a growing number of rural U.S. hospitals closing their doors, citing a complex combination of changing demographics, medical practices, management decisions and federal policies that have put more financial pressure on facilities that sometimes average only a few in-patients a day. Most of the rural hospital closures so far have occurred in the South and Midwest. Of those at risk,nearly 70 percent are in states that have declined to expand Medicaid coverage under the federal Affordable Care Act, although some experts are hesitant to draw a cause-and-effect correlation.At first, the AP tries to blame the closures on the conservative states that decided not to expand medicaid coverage (in spite of Obamacare s explicit instructions), but then admits that this is likely correlation without causation. They don t expound on it, but the obvious reason for the 70% figure is that, generally speaking, the more rural a state is, the more conservative it is, and therefore, the more likely it is to have a governor who opposes Obamacare enough to refrain from expanding medicaid.After all, that was the point (Are you listening, SCOTUS?). Even the AP could see that one a mile a way.Big city hospitals have been closing at about the same rate as rural ones during the past five years, but an abundance of alternatives in most major metropolitan areas typically reduces the effect on patients. When a rural hospital closes, people may have to travel dozens of miles to reach the nearest hospital, an inconvenience that potentially is a matter of life or death.They (briefly) admit that rural hospitals are closing at roughly the same rate as urban hospitals. Isn t this strong evidence that there might be another reason for the closings? What do rural hospitals and urban hospitals have in common? (hint: Obamacare) Declining populations and stagnant economies make it hard on rural hospitals. Rural areas tend to have older, poorer, sicker populations, said Michael Topchik, senior vice president of iVantage.That means they often have a higher percentage of patients covered by Medicare and Medicaid, a pair of government health care programs that pay a lower reimbursement rate than private-sector insurers. Hospitals that rely heavily on those government programs have been particularly hard hit by federal budget cuts and provisions in the 2010 federal health care law that reduced charity care reimbursements and changed other payment criteria.Oh this section is pure gold (and, of course, it all appears on page 2). Not only does the AP admit that part of the problem is that the economy is stagnant, they admit that the closings are, in large part, specifically due to the low rates Medicare and Medicaid pay. And to make it worse, they note that the government is reducing the amount of charity care reimbursements that go to these hospitals.Obamacare is a disaster REPEAL!Via: Poor Richard s | 0 |
3,376 | Reince Priebus Mansplained Hillary’s Behavior During Forum, And It’s REPULSIVE (TWEET) | If there s one thing strong, successful women love to hear from men who are jealous of their success, it s how they should behave. With that previous sentence being clearly sarcasm if you possess a brain, it needs to be noted that s what RNC Chair Reince Priebus just did to Hillary Clinton while watching NBC s latest presidential forum discussing veterans and military issues.Priebus thought it wise to write: Hillary Clinton was angry and defensive the entire time no smile and uncomfortable upset that she was caught wrongly sending our secrets. @HillaryClinton was angry + defensive the entire time no smile and uncomfortable upset that she was caught wrongly sending our secrets. Reince Priebus (@Reince) September 8, 2016Didn t you know that if you re to be taken seriously as a woman you need to be smiling at all times and look appealing? God forbid you have a face that reads you re taking Veteran issues very seriously and want to make sure they re given the respect and dignity they so rightfully deserve.This is yet just another example of a brutal double standard that still exists not only within modern politics but among the workplace in general.Donald Trump sat there during the entire forum without a smile on his face while discussing Veteran issues with NBC s Matt Lauer, but no one spoke of his lack of facial expression. Why? Because it s not expected of men. Women, on the other hand, are held to a different standard where they need to appear appealing at all times.It s bullshit is what it is.Let s stick to the issues, Priebus.Featured Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images | 0 |
3,377 | Leading U.S. House Republican rejects tax cuts without reform | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top Republican on tax policy in the House of Representatives rejected the possibility of cutting taxes without fundamental changes to the U.S. tax code on Thursday, as the main actors in the tax reform debate prepared to meet for a fourth time. With the window for tax reform narrowing, lobbyists and analysts say Congress could abandon comprehensive tax reform for simple tax cuts to reduce the U.S. corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent, well above the 15 percent advocated by President Donald Trump. But House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, one of six principals involved in closed-door efforts to agree on legislation, told CNBC that such a measure would not meet the Republican goals of bolstering economic growth and enhancing U.S. business competitiveness overseas. “It’s not acceptable to me. I don’t think it’s acceptable to the House or anyone else, for that matter. Look, that won’t make us competitive,” Brady said. “Just doing low rates is a little like putting supercharged fuel in an old clunker of a tax car. There’s no question it’ll go faster. It can’t keep up with the newer models on the road,” he added. “We’ve got to go after a competitive design.” Brady spoke as principals prepared to meet later on Thursday. Members of the group have vowed to make good this year on a top Republican campaign pledge to overhaul the U.S. tax system. But while the principals have met three times, the discussions have major issues to resolve. “How low we can get these rates; how do we stop businesses from continuing to leave the U.S.; and more importantly, how do we bring those supply chains back; how we deal with issues like full and unlimited expensing – those are still parts of this discussion,” Brady said. Brady and House Speaker Paul Ryan are pushing for changes outlined in the “A Better Way” agenda released a year ago, including a border adjustment tax that would tax imports but exempt export revenues from federal tax. The measure could raise more than $1 trillion in revenue to help pay for tax cuts and effectively resolve the problem of corporations shifting profits overseas. But it is opposed by some industries and unpopular with Republicans in the House and Senate who fear it would raise consumer prices. | 1 |
3,378 | House votes to repeal U.S. retirement rule, Obama threatens veto | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday to repeal a Labor Department rule aimed at protecting retirement savers from profit-hungry brokers, a largely symbolic move that President Barack Obama has threatened to veto. Obama’s administration earlier in April released the rule setting a fiduciary standard for financial brokers who sell retirement products, requiring them to put clients’ best interests ahead of their bottom lines. Republican political leaders and some in the financial industry responded by trying to override it through legislation, saying complying with it would be expensive for brokers which would result in higher costs for retirement advice that many Americans could not afford. They also say that the rule does not take into account other laws and regulations on financial advice. Thursday’s vote of 234 in favor, and 183 opposed split along party lines. Democrats said the fiduciary rule would protect families from paying higher fees and that the Obama administration took into consideration industry concerns when drafting the rule. “Bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. have no business getting between you and your financial planner. But that’s what the Obama administration’s fiduciary rule does,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan in a statement after the vote. “It’s Obamacare for financial planning.” The Senate would have to take up and pass a version of the resolution and then Congress would send a combined bill to Obama to sign into law. Obama made clear that would not happen in a statement issued on Wednesday saying the final Labor Department rule “reflects extensive feedback from industry, advocates, and members of Congress, and has been streamlined to reduce the compliance burden and ensure continued access to advice.” The rule has followed a long path to fruition. It was first proposed in 2010 and a year later the Labor Department, which oversees retirement plans, had to rescind it in the face of enormous industry backlash. | 1 |
3,379 | Myanmar says working to ensure returns of Rohingya refugees | GENEVA (Reuters) - Myanmar told the United Nations on Tuesday that it was finalizing terms for a joint working group with Bangladesh that will launch the process of safe and voluntary return of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees within about two months. Htin Lynn, Myanmar s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, told a special session of the Human Rights Council that his government was ready to work with all international partners to ensure the voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable repatriation and resettlement of the displaced - whom he did not refer to as Rohingya. There will be no camps, he added. | 1 |
3,380 | ‘Responsible’ Gun Owner Tries To 2nd Amendment A CHILD Because Of Fireworks | Okay, we all probably get it. Independence Day weekend can be annoying as all hell because it seems like there s always someone shooting off pyrotechnics, having a loud party or barbecue, or otherwise making a major nuisance of themselves. That s no reason to fire a gun at someone, though, especially when that someone is a child.Unfortunately, that s what a Wisconsin man did when he got fed up with a 10-year old child shooting off fireworks in his neighborhood, because, you know, when someone pisses you off that s what you do these days: Solve it with a gun.It was the child himself who called the police, and, of course, the man tried to lie his way out of it by saying he was merely shooting off fireworks, too. That lie didn t last very long, and he eventually admitted that he d fired his .40 caliber pistol in the child s direction. What a clusterfuck of a human being.It s not clear whether the child s parents were home, but what happened to going over to the neighbor s house to politely ask them to stop with the noise, or working something out that would be mutually agreeable? Alas, to many so-called responsible gun owners, it s not, and they d rather threaten, or even harm, people who piss them off.This guy may even be part of the 1 in 10 here who are pathologically angry and have access to a firearm. Nobody who isn t, at minimum, full of rage would consider pointing a loaded gun at a child and pulling the trigger for any reason. Nobody in their right mind would consider anybody who does that a responsible gun owner. Yet even gun owners who pull this kind of nonsense seem to think they re responsible. Instead of spending money on guns, these people need to go buy a clue.The child is unharmed, and the man has been arrested. He currently faces charges of recklessly endangering safety, as well he should. He should also undergo a psych evaluation geared at finding out just how deep his anger runs that he thought firing a gun at a kid because he was annoyed was okay.Featured image by George Frey/Getty Images | 0 |
3,381 | Russia says ready to exert influence on North Korea: Ifax | (Corrects source in headline and first paragraph of Dec. 5 story; adds source in third paragraph) By Vladimir Soldatkin MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has communication channels with North Korea open and Moscow is ready to exert its influence on Pyongyang, Interfax news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov as saying on Tuesday. We have channels, through which we are conducting a dialogue, and we are ready to deploy them, we are ready to exert our influence on North Korea, Morgulov was quoted as saying at a conference in Berlin. He also said that neither Washington nor Pyongyang want a real war but such scenarios exist , according to RIA news agency. The Kremlin has traditionally protected the reclusive state though the latest Pyongyang tests have irked Moscow. North Korea, which conducted its sixth and largest nuclear bomb test in September, has tested dozens of ballistic missiles under Kim Jong Un s leadership in defiance of international sanctions. Morgulov called for other measures than isolation to exercise in dealing with North Korea. We believe that the isolation alone...will not work, this won t take us forward. By doing this, we will only worsen the situation, which is dangerous. We are really on the brink of a real war, he said. In Washington, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman said the Trump administration still wanted a peaceful, diplomatic solution to the nuclear and missile threat from Pyongyang but said: (North Korea) has shown through its actions that it is not interested in talks. We must remain focused on increasing the costs for Pyongyang to continue to advance its WMD programs. Morgulov was also quoted as saying that North Korea was seeking a direct dialogue with the United States on its nuclear program, while it was not in need of security guarantees either from China or Russia. | 1 |
3,382 | Republican senators want review of 'too big to fail' process | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican lawmakers on Tuesday asked the U.S. Treasury secretary to review the process a government council uses to label non-bank institutions “too big to fail,” saying the additional capital requirements and regulations are too onerous. The current designation process “lacks transparency and accountability, insufficiently tracks data, and does not have a consistent methodology for determinations,” wrote 10 Republican senators to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who chairs the Financial Stability Oversight Council. The council “has created substantial new regulatory costs while putting taxpayers on the hook for any future bailout to these firms,” said the letter, signed by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton and Idaho Senator Mike Crapo, who chairs the Senate’s banking committee. Treasury did not immediately comment on the letter. The Financial Stability Oversight Council was created by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, which former Democratic President Barack Obama signed in 2010 to prevent a repeat of the 2007-09 financial crisis. Republicans consider the designations of non-banks one of the most egregious extensions of federal power included in the law. Only two insurers, American International Group Inc and Prudential Financial Inc currently have the label, which triggers tougher oversight and requires them to hold more capital in case they come into crisis. A judge last year struck down the designation of MetLife Inc, and the government under Obama appealed the ruling. Until the appeal is decided, MetLife is not considered systemically important. While an overhaul of Dodd-Frank is progressing in the House of Representatives, reform efforts are moving slowly in the Senate. Representative Ann Wagner, a Republican from Missouri, on Tuesday said the Republican plan, called the CHOICE Act, would make the council more accountable. As chair of the council, Mnuchin may be able to make changes faster than lawmakers. He has said he would like to review the council’s work and Republican President Donald Trump has said he wants to cut a lot out of Dodd-Frank. A spokeswoman for Cotton said there were moves Mnuchin, appointed by Trump, could make without legislation, such as dropping the MetLife appeal, releasing FSOC’s criteria for labeling non-banks as systemically important, or providing steps that designated companies can follow to have the label lifted. | 1 |
3,383 | LET’S PLAY! CAN YOU ANSWER The 21 Questions That Every American Should Know? | CAN YOU DO IT? WE D LOVE TO KNOW WHAT SURPRISED YOU. Via: Playbuzz | 0 |
3,384 | Head Of Homeland Security Destroys Ted Cruz For Asking Extremely Dumb Question At Hearing (VIDEO) | The head of the Department of Homeland Security was at a Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill when, after enduring a lengthy rant about Muslims from Sen. Ted Cruz, he finally had enough. As Cruz checked the boxes off on his Islamophobia checklist, he wound up asking the same stupid question repeatedly to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson: Why is the White House refusing to use the term radical Islam? As national security issues go, this one is somewhere around the bottom of the priority list. As has been repeatedly pointed out by military and foreign policy experts, the term radical Islam doesn t do a single thing to stop terrorism, while at the same time playing directly into the hands of terrorist groups like ISIS. As a rule, presidents don t like to engage in that terminology precisely because it works to undermine the fight against global terrorism. Ted Cruz might even dimly recall how the last Republican president, George W. Bush, also didn t like to lump all Muslims into the category of terrorists. Even he understood that it was self-defeating. Americans understand we fight not a religion, [George Bush] said. Ours is not a campaign against the Muslim faith. Ours is a campaign against evil. Although [Bush and Obama] have taken very different approaches to combating terrorism, it s strikingly hard to tell the difference between their statements on the divide between the majority of those who practice Islam and those who invoke the faith to carry out violence. There are thousands of Muslims who proudly call themselves Americans, and they know what I know that the Muslim faith is based upon peace and love and compassion, Bush once said.Americans might understand that, but Ted Cruz apparently didn t.At the hearing, Cruz demanded to know if President Obama or anyone else in the White House had intentionally removed references to radical Islamic terrorism. After several times rebuking Cruz, Johnson finally snapped. Senator, I find this whole debate to be very interesting, but I have to tell you, when I was at the Department of Defense giving the legal sign off on a lot of drone strikes I didn t particularly care if the baseball card said Islamic extremist or violent extremist . I think this is very interesting, but it makes no difference to me in terms of who we need to go after. And who is determined to attack our homeland. As Secretary Johnson reminded Cruz, the war against groups like ISIS won t be won by semantics. The airstrikes are real. The fighting on the ground (often times most heavily supported by Muslim nations) is real. The words a blustering Ted Cruz wants to use aren t. But Johnson wasn t down twisting the knife. The other point I d like to make is that I have to think in practical terms in Homeland Security. I think this is all very interesting, makes for good political debate, but in practical terms, if we in our efforts here in the homeland start giving the Islamic State the credence that they want to be referred to as part of Islam or some form of Islam we will get nowhere in our efforts to build bridges with Muslim communities. In other words: Stop grandstanding, Ted. Take a seat and shut up.Watch Sec. Johnson make mincemeat of Cruz below:Featured image via YouTube | 0 |
3,385 | Senator Slimeball Is At It Again: Cruz Sends Fake ‘Checks’ To Trick Voters Into Giving Him Money | It might just be time to say Sen. Ted Cruz, in his desperation to win, is running the most disgusting, deceitful political campaign in U.S. history. He seems eager to keep using these underhanded tactics. He clearly enjoys it.After unapolegetically pissing off the entire state of Iowa with fraudulent mailers, Cruz immediately traveled to New Hampshire and beyond where he s doing the exact same thing. In New Jersey, for example, residents woke up this week to find that Cruz had sent them a check in the mail.For a struggling family, a bit of free money coming in the mail out of the blue could mean everything. Tearing it open, what did they find? A shameless campaign tactic designed to get them to give money to Cruz s floundering campaign. Rather than a check made out to them, Cruz s campaign took it upon themselves to write out a check paid to the order of Cruz for President for $45.00.It was all part of Cruz s (possibly illegal) money-making scheme that he s used in recent weeks. Cruz has suggested that he has secret wealthy backers that have promised to match donations with regular voters. He begs supporters to give him as much money as they can so that these anonymous, super-secret definitely real rich friends of his will double the money.While these underhanded tactics probably do work to get Cruz the money he needs to pay people to like him, it s hard to imagine they are doing wonders for his electability. At this rate, there won t be a state in the country that Cruz hasn t personally disgusted with his slimeball campaign. Iowa s state government is already floating the idea that they will be looking into legal action against Cruz s campaign for the numerous election laws that Cruz skated the line of.For Cruz, all of this backlash might be worth it. He s long been considered one of the most reviled people in politics. People who know him, people who work with him, people who once lived with him in college, all say he s a creep. He s not going to win votes by popularity or policy. Instead, his campaign has always been about raising a ton of money from a select group of millionaires and billionaires and then desperately clinging onto fringe right voters who find his homophobia and poor-shaming rhetoric a turn on.If Cruz s campaign continues to drag for the duration of the primaries, expect to see all the stops pulled out. His team is clearly looking for any possible way to win ethics and lawfulness need not apply.Featured image from Gage Skidmore/Flickr | 0 |
3,386 | Obama to call for increases in budget for SEC, CFTC: White House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama’s fiscal 2017 budget will call for an 11 percent increase in funding for the Securities and Exchange Commission and a 32 percent increase for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a White House official said on Monday. Obama will propose that the SEC be given $1.8 billion and the CFTC $330 million in the budget, economic adviser Jeffrey Zients said in a blog post on the White House website. “Last year the Administration fought hard to keep Congressional Republicans from using must-pass budget legislation to roll back Wall Street Reform,” he wrote, referring to fiscal 2016. “We also fought to increase funding for financial regulators and to maintain their independence. But even these gains aren’t enough.” “And while the Administration is pushing for more funding for these regulators, we’ll also continue to oppose efforts to restrict the funding independence of the other financial regulators, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,” he wrote. The Republican-controlled Congress is likely to oppose these and many other proposals in Obama’s budget. In addition to the proposed increases from the previous fiscal year, the budget will offer support again for user fees to fund the CFTC in a similar way to other financial regulators, Zients said. “Fee funding would shift the costs of regulatory services provided by the CFTC from the taxpayer to the very firms that benefit from the CFTC’s oversight. This is a commonsense change that is long overdue,” he said. The budget would also take steps to reduce risk in the financial sector by assessing a fee against large financial institutions based on their liabilities. “We learned the hard way in 2008 just how damaging risk and leverage in the financial system can be, and we’ve done a lot to curb excessive risk on Wall Street since,” Zients said, referring to the global financial crisis. “This fee is another way to further those reforms, ensuring that taxpayers aren’t on the hook for risky Wall Street gambles.” Federal fiscal 2017 begins on Oct. 1 of this year. | 1 |
3,387 | This Man Reveals The Raw, Terrifying Truth About What REALLY Goes On At Trump Rallies (TWEETS) | When Jared Yates Sexton, a professor of creative writing at Georgia Southern University, decided to attend a Trump rally in North Carolina, he probably wasn t expecting a drunken free-for-all more appropriate to an out-of-control frat party than a presidential rally. Yet, that s what he saw, and he live-tweeted the entire event, giving the world a chilling look at what Trump supporters are really like when they think they re just among friends. Upon trying to get in, Sexton saw how security treated people:Trump event like a security state. Just watched a girl get denied for being too alternative. Jared Sexton Sexton (@JYSexton) June 14, 2016Sexton himself also got told something strange: Just got told I don t look right. Jared Sexton Sexton (@JYSexton) June 14, 2016But these two tweets just barely scratch the surface. After Trump took the stage, people shouting the word Bitch! was common whenever Hillary Clinton s name came up. Homophobic hate speech ran rampant as Trump spoke about the Orlando massacre. A protester cowered in fear after another was escorted out, with the crowd chanting Hurt him, hurt him, even as King Donald told security not to hurt him.Lots of people yelling bitch at Clinton s mention Jared Sexton Sexton (@JYSexton) June 14, 2016 Crowd member just shouted gays had it coming Jared Sexton Sexton (@JYSexton) June 14, 2016Trump says not to hurt protestor, several chant HURT HIM HURT HIM Jared Sexton Sexton (@JYSexton) June 14, 2016 There s a protestor next to me and he s scared to death Jared Yates Sexton (@JYSexton) June 14, 2016If you thought Trump himself was scary, he s nothing compared to his fans. Sexton s full account of that night included horrors such as this: The gays had it coming [in Orlando]! a man shouted and gazed back at the guy who d called Hillary a bitch. They met eyes, shared a smile, a look of recognition.As if it were some kind of joke.As if 49 of his fellow Americans 49 living, breathing human beings hadn t just been mowed down. Elsewhere, a father was telling his son all about Bill Clinton s presidency: I walked behind a father explaining the shirt to his ten-year-old son by saying the former secretary of the state, the first female presidential nominee of a major political party, had let her husband have all kinds of oral sex in the White House.' Awhile back, Trump said that Hillary had enabled her husband s adultery while he was president, as if that somehow makes her both less of a woman, and unqualified to be president. Trump doesn t go after anyone s policy positions the way a presidential candidate should. He attacks his opponents personally, like the schoolyard bully he is, and his fans are doing the same.That a father thinks it s okay teach his 10-year old how to be the same childish bully as Trump is just sick.But the worst is yet to come. Trump rallies are full of drunken, brawling racists who say things like: You can t trust Latinos. Some maybe, but not most. Immigrants aren t people, honey. You know them crazy black girls, how they are. Sexton s Twitter feed is full of sarcastic humor, but what he live-tweeted from that rally in Greensboro, NC, was devoid of his sharp wit. And it s no wonder, because he also wrote this in his recount of the event (if it can even be called an event ): Sickened, I got in my car and watched in the rearview as a group of college boys tailgated out of their pickup That s when I realized what had been there all along. This campaign, whose success has long been attributed to the forgotten working and middle classes, the so-called Silent Majority, has been, and always will be, an unholy alliance between the Hateful and the Privileged, the former always on a never-ending search for new venues for their poison and the latter enjoying, for the first time since Reagan s 80s, an opportunity to get out and step on some necks in public. Any reasonable person would find themselves sickened at a Trump rally if this is normal, and given what s happened to protesters, members of the press, and others, this is normal. It s clear that the only thing Donald Trump is truly capable of is bringing out the worst of humanity, which isn t surprising considering he himself embodies the worst of humanity.Featured image by Gerardo Mora/Getty Images | 0 |
3,388 | BUSTED? IT’S “HIGHLY LIKELY” THERE’S A BACK-UP TO HILLARY’S SERVER AND E-MAILS STILL EXIST | Why didn t the IT firm come forward before now with the backup of Hillary s server? She s even more busted if the e-mails still exist. It s believed that she won t take the fall for this but that Abedin or Mills will. This entire mess is yet another example of why Clinton is NOT and never will be a good choice to lead America. Platte River Networks, the Denver-based cybersecurity firm Hillary Clinton hired in 2013 to maintain her old email server, says it is highly likely a full backup of the device was made and that the thousands of emails Clinton deleted may still exist, ABC News is reporting.On Wednesday, Platte River gave the FBI the server Clinton used as secretary of state. The Democratic presidential candidate had stated numerous times prior to that that she would not relinquish control of the server to a third party.But the FBI became interested in the hardware after the revelation that the Intelligent Community inspector general had determined that two emails that traversed the server contained top secret information. While Clinton is not believed to have sent the emails in question, the finding undermines her claims at the onset of the email scandal in March that no classified information ever landed on her server. Via: Daily Caller | 0 |
3,389 | Britain, EU have very different legal stances on Brexit bill: UK minister | LONDON (Reuters) - Britain and the European Union have very different legal stances over the so-called Brexit bill London should pay as it leaves the bloc, Britain s Brexit minister David Davis said on Tuesday. After a third round of talks last week, officials said a gulf between the EU and Britain over how much London owes may be the biggest obstacle to a deal on an orderly Brexit in March 2019. It is clear that the two sides have very different legal stances, Davis told parliament during an update on the talks. (EU chief negotiator) Michel Barnier and I agreed that we do not anticipate making incremental progress on the final shape of the financial deal in every round ... it is also clear there are significant differences to be bridged in this sector. Davis also said it was still Britain s intention to negotiate a future trade agreement with the EU within the two-year divorce period. | 1 |
3,390 | Juncker says Catalan split would lead to splintering EU | LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker said on Friday he did not want Catalonia to become independent, because that would encourage other regions to do the same, making the European Union ungovernable. If we allow Catalonia and it is not our business to separate, others will do the same. I do not want that, Jean Claude Juncker said in a speech at Luxembourg University. I wouldn t like a European Union in 15 years that consists of some 98 states, he continued. It s already relatively difficult with 28 and with 27 not easier, but with 98 it would simply be impossible. The EU s statistics agency Eurostat lists the bloc as consisting of 98 major regions. Juncker said he was very worried about separatist tendencies in Europe and had encouraged Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to ensure the situation did not get out of control. Referring to Catalan calls for EU mediation, he said the Commission could not mediate if only one side asked it to do so. The EU has said it has confidence in Rajoy to resolve what it sees as an internal issue. If the Commission or European Council President (Donald) Tusk were to get involved with only one party asking for mediation, this would lead to a great rejection of the European Union, Juncker said. | 1 |
3,391 | Virginia governor vetoes bill cutting Planned Parenthood funding | (Reuters) - Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe on Tuesday vetoed a Republican-backed bill aimed at blocking state funding for Planned Parenthood, which performs abortions and provides other health services. McAuliffe, a Democrat, said the bill passed by the Republican-dominated legislature would harm thousands of state residents who relied on Planned Parenthood for health care. “The fact is that Virginians, and particularly low-income Virginians, need more access to health care, not less,” he said in a statement. Several states have sought to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood following the release of videos secretly recorded by an anti-abortion group. Activists have said the videos showed that Planned Parenthood officials in some states had discussed the sale of aborted fetal tissue. Planned Parenthood has denied the accusations. President Barack Obama in January vetoed a effort by Congress to defund Planned Parenthood. | 1 |
3,392 | Puerto Rico either gets legislative fix or humanitarian aid: Congressman | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Puerto Rico’s debt crisis, if left unaddressed by the U.S. Congress where legislation has stalled in the House Natural Resources Committee, will result in the need to pay for a humanitarian aid package, Congressman Raul Grijalva said on Thursday. Grijalva, the ranking Democrat on the HNRC from Arizona, said in a teleconference with reporters that it is an “either/or” situation as Puerto Rico faces $70 billion in debt it cannot pay off and a growing humanitarian crisis because it cannot afford maintaining basic social services. “Either we begin this process, stabilize, create some carve out opportunities for essential services and/or wait for the crisis to get worse and then have to respond with humanitarian relief,” Grijalva said, adding that a new draft of the bill had not been made available as of Thursday morning. Grijalva visited Puerto Rico this week and met with the island’s leadership and toured its main medical facilities. He said austerity alone is not going to stay the situation of degraded conditions for health, nutrition and education. “People talk about a bailout. Thus far there is no money being talked about extended by the United States government,” Grijalva said, adding: “We are talking about a piece of legislation that provides for a method of restructuring and for some accountability attached to that restructuring.” The Republican chairman of the HNRC, Rob Bishop of Utah, said he wants a bipartisan bill to emerge from committee but canceled an expected release of the legislation on Wednesday while lawmakers hashed out language revolving around the status of the island of Vieques, pensions and minimum wage rates. Puerto Rico defaulted on May 1 for a third time on some of its debt, missing a roughly $400 million payment owed by the Government Development Bank, the island’s main fiscal agent. It faces a near $2 billion July 1 debt payment. The legislation’s basic structure still includes the creation of an independent oversight board to lead the restructuring of the U.S. commonwealth’s credit and work with the local government to develop an economic reform plan. On the issue of Vieques, Democrats are concerned the language regarding the transfer of federal land on the island, which is mainly a nature preserve, could leave it vulnerable to commercial development in the name of recreation. “Our position has been from the beginning that Vieques did not belong in this package of legislation,” said Grijalva. | 1 |
3,393 | COMMANDER IN CHIEF APPROVED RACISM? U.S. Military Makes SHOCKING Disciplinary Decision For 16 Black West Point Cadets | Do we even need to ask how 16 white West Point cadets posing in uniform, with a white power fist before graduation would have been resolved? Never mind the media circus it would have created Sixteen black West Point cadets who posed with raised fists for a pre-graduation picture that sparked debates on race and proper behavior in uniform won t be punished for the gesture, the U.S. Military Academy said Tuesday.The decision, less than two weeks before the 16 female seniors are poised to graduate, found they didn t violate any U.S. Department of Defense rules limiting political activity.An internal inquiry found that the cadets did not pre-plan or set out to make a political statement, West Point s superintendent, Lt. Gen. Robert Caslen Jr., said in a letter to the student body.But, he said, they showed a lapse of awareness in how symbols and gestures can be misinterpreted and cause division and they will get some instruction on that.The fists-up image, which circulated online, led some observers to question whether the women were expressing support for the Black Lives Matter movement, which grew out of protests over police killings of unarmed black men.But the inquiry found the picture, one of multiple photos the women made in keeping with an informal campus tradition, captured a spur-of-the-moment gesture intended to demonstrate unity and pride in graduating, Caslen wrote. Groups of cadets often take Old Corps pictures in traditional dress uniforms to echo historical portraits.A raised fist has symbolized political resistance for generations, from Nelson Mandela upon his release from prison in 1990 to Democratic Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders on the presidential campaign trail this year. It was used by black power advocates in the 1960s, including by two American sprinters during a medal ceremony at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games, and more recently by activists for the Black Lives Matter movement.Some observers suggested the women were improperly identifying with the movement while in uniform.Defenders said the women were simply celebrating their forthcoming graduation, something closer in spirit to a team lifting helmets to celebrate a win or Beyonce raising her fist at this year s Super Bowl halftime show. Via: Yahoo h/t WZ | 0 |
3,394 | Trump F*cks Himself By Admitting Russia Interfered With 2016 Election To Help Him Win | For months, Donald Trump has denied that Russia meddled in the 2016 Election on his behalf. That changed on Friday night after his aides apparently failed to take his phone away from him again.In yet another Twitter slip-up, Trump admitted that Russia DID interfere with the election, and then he tried to blame it on President Obama.Just out: The Obama Administration knew far in advance of November 8th about election meddling by Russia. Did nothing about it. WHY? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 24, 2017Keep in mind that this tweet comes after months of Trump referring to Russian meddling as fake news and a hoax. He has also accused Democrats of making up an excuse for why Hillary Clinton lost. As it turns out, Hillary Clinton lost because Russian hackers messed with our democratic process.Not only did Russian hackers hit voting systems in 39 states across the country, all at the direct order of Vladimir Putin.Rather than take issue with this, Trump has been busy thanking Russia by doing things they want him to do such as not endorsing Amendment 5 of NATO, which provides common defense if a member nation is attacked by Russia. Trump is also trying to remove sanctions placed on Russia by the Obama Administration and has refused to open an investigation into Russia s cyberattack against us.But the bottom line is that Trump has finally admitted that Russia interfered with the election.Blaming Obama, however, is nothing more than Trump scapegoating in an effort to save his own ass.President Obama did slap sanctions on Russia in retaliation, but he was unable to do anything at the time because Trump was out there claiming that the election was rigged. If Obama had made a move to stop Russia, Trump would have used it as evidence to support his claim.Twitter users mercilessly mocked Trump for it.um. already knew about it; and so did you when Obama told you (as we all heard). That s what the investigation was about. Do keep up. Dr. Craig Malkin (@DrCraigMalkin) June 24, 2017Maybe Obama admin trying to figure out why you & Kremlin were saying the same things at the same time while election hacks were occurring pic.twitter.com/HsyDcxUN09 Clint Watts (@selectedwisdom) June 24, 2017Or maybe they were trying to figure out why you would cite Russian false propaganda to mislead Americans and attack a fellow American pic.twitter.com/4Ydq6rfveK Clint Watts (@selectedwisdom) June 24, 2017pic.twitter.com/9pUOmdVzFL Melissa Evans (@melissacevans33) June 24, 2017The sanctions the Trump admin is trying to ease were established by Obama in DECEMBER in response to the hacking https://t.co/1PTn944Jqy Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) June 24, 2017A prison with a view of a golf course he is never allowed to play on. Joimonki (@joimonki) June 24, 2017Russia hacking and interference is what Trump has called a hoax and fake news .And tarnished + undermined our own Intelligence agencies pic.twitter.com/Y4bu3sNBQp DCResisterBee? (@DC_Resister_Bee) June 24, 2017Trump insulted the US Intelligence Community which protects our nation falsely accusing of leaks and comparing to Nazis and Russia. pic.twitter.com/8q5EWkOAwO DCResisterBee? (@DC_Resister_Bee) June 24, 2017Trump co-opting both narratives: hoax & Obama s fault . Because. Diabolic narcissists gaslight American citizens. Sarah Smith (@SarahLSmith677) June 24, 2017You realize you are admitting Russia put you in the White House which technically means you shouldn t be President. Why are you so dumb? Daniel Danger Marin (@dangermarin) June 24, 2017It s not only time to oust Trump and his entire administration, it s time to hold a new presidential election. It is clear that Russia attacked our democracy to help Trump win. Therefore, Trump and his administration are totally illegitimate.Featured Image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images | 0 |
3,395 | U.S. lawmakers propose making it easier to meet auto fuel rules | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan pair of Michigan lawmakers introduced a bill to make it easier for automakers to comply with federal fuel efficiency requirements, as the Trump administration considers softening standards that require nearly doubling the fuel economy of the U.S. new vehicle fleet by 2025. The proposal, introduced late on Wednesday, would extend the life of fuel economy credits that would currently expire after five years, lift a cap on transferring credits between car and truck fleets and award automakers credits for emissions reductions not measured by existing test procedures. The measure proposed by Representatives Fred Upton, a Republican, and Debbie Dingell, a Democrat, would also grant an industry wish by requiring that the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reconcile their respective fuel economy standards so the industry can comply with just one set of rules. The proposal comes on the heels of a bipartisan measure to create a single federal standard for self-driving cars, also backed by the industry, that is on track to passage. The Union of Concerned Scientists said the harmonization legislation and a similar bill introduced in the Senate would allow manufacturers to make vehicles that are on average 3 miles a gallon less efficient in 2021. The group estimated that would result in additional U.S. oil consumption of 350 million barrels of oil, costing drivers $34 billion and an additional 155 million metric tons of greenhouse gases. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group representing General Motors Co, Toyota Motor Corp, Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) and others, praised the bill for “recognizing the consumer benefits that can come from better alignment of government programs.” The group noted there were significant differences between how the EPA and NHTSA award and allow use of credits. Last week, automakers told U.S. regulators they should revise fuel efficiency mandates because the standards do not reflect how cheap gas prices are affecting consumer demand. Automakers want changes in the 2021-2025 requirements that would make it easier for them to comply with fuel economy standards. Former President Barack Obama’s administration finalized rules in 2012 to double the fleetwide average fuel economy to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, but the EPA revised the target to 51.4 mpg based on rising truck sales. The Obama administration said the rules would save motorists $1.7 trillion in fuel costs but cost the auto industry about $200 billion over 13 years | 1 |
3,396 | WATCH: UNCOVERED VIDEO REVEALS Dan Rather Saying Americans Are Bored With Bill Clinton Rape Story…Want To “Move On” To The Next Thing | In one of his regular appearances on the Imus In The Morning radio show, Dan Rather was asked by Imus in 1999, if he had any idea why NBC News was sitting on the story about the rape charges against Bill Clinton by Juanita Broaddrick? Rather responded that the reason they were sitting on the story was pretty obvious. First, Rather clarified that they don t call to tell him why or why not they choose to hide a story from their news channel, but suggested: I think it s pretty obvious that they re nervous about, number one, whether this information is accurate, whether it s really true or not. And number two, even if it does turn out to be true, it happened a long time ago, and number three, they ve got to be figuring that maybe, just maybe the American public has heard all that they want to hear about it and they re saying, next , let s move on to the next thing. Imus went on to say that he read an article in either the leftist propaganda Newsweek or Time magazine that even the woman herself, Juanita Broaddrick said she hoped that this thing went away this week, and even she was sick of hearing about it, [Dan Rather interrupted Imus with laughter] and it s her story. Dan Rather then busted out in laughter and agreed, saying, Well let s hope she gets her way with that. More laughter Imus then revealed that Someone from NBC News told me that she wasn t clear about when exactly this thing happened, but then her son called me and he s an attorney someplace, in, I guess in Arkansas, and he wanted me to know, why he called me god knows, but he wanted me to know that that was not the case, that she knows exactly what it was, and there was some other reason they were sitting on it. Instead of responding to Imus comments, Rather deflected by making an embarrassing play to stroke Imus ego and distract him from the reason NBC hiding the Clinton rape story. Rather continued, But I just don t know if this is going anywhere, you know, I d have to bet for the moment that it isn t. The Washington Post gave it a pretty good ride on Saturday, and there wasn t much pick up from it. So unless there s some new and sensational information developed out of it, my guess is that it probably dribbles away. | 0 |
3,397 | Boiler Room #94 – President Trump & The Great Neo-Liberal Freakout of 2017 | Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room starting at 6:00 PM PST | 8:00 PM CST | 9:00 PM EST for this special broadcast. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for barfly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher and Spore along with Andy Nowicki host of The Nameless Podcast, Jay Dyer Jay s Analysis, Stewart Howe and ACR regular InfidelPharaoh for the 94th episode of BOILER ROOM. Water the kids, put the plants to bed and get your favorite mead horn ready so you can drop deep into the Boiler Room with the ACR brain-trust.Please like and share the program and visit our donate page to get involved!Listen to Boiler Room Episode #94 on Spreaker.Reference Links: | 0 |
3,398 | Remember That Time Prince Wrote A Song About Donald Trump? Listen Here (AUDIO) | With the passing of the legendary music icon Prince, many have been going to their music libraries to binge listen to everything they own that was done by the musician. It s a way for people to both grieve and celebrate the life of such an immense talent that was a gift to everyone he came in contact with, whether personally, or through his music.Yet, digging through the very large amount of music that Prince was a part of, it turns out that in the 90s Prince wrote a song called Donald Trump (Black Version) put out by the group The Time. Upon listening to the lyrics, it seems it s a song that has a man trying to be everything to a woman by buying her affection.Here s a brief taste of the lyrics: Honey baby, you truly know it. You truly know it. You look good. Tryin your best to show it. If I were you, I would. True love and affection. These are nice, so nice but when a money man walks in the room, girl, you look more than twice. You look once, you look twice. Can I rap to you sugar tonight?(chorus) Donald Trump (black version), maybe that s what you need. A man that fulfills your every wish, your every dream. Donald Trump (black version), come on take a chance. A 1990 s love affair, the real romance. Flash forward to 2016, and the real Donald Trump is trying to buy the nation s affection to win himself the White House, even though he has no diplomatic, policy, or political experience whatsoever.Hopefully, money can only buy the Donald Trump s of the world love and not the presidency.Listen to the entire song here:Featured Photo by Chris Graythen/Getty Images | 0 |
3,399 | NOT TO BE MISSED! The Brilliant Daniel Hannan On Socialism Versus Liberty: “Hitler was a socialist” [Video] | Wish we could clone this guy we love Daniel Hannan! We couldn t have said it better! | 0 |
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