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3,900 | White House plans directive targeting 'conflict minerals' rule: sources | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is planning to issue a directive targeting a controversial Dodd-Frank rule that requires companies to disclose whether their products contain “conflict minerals” from a war-torn part of Africa, according to sources familiar with the administration’s thinking. Reuters could not learn precisely when the directive would be issued or what the final version would say. However, a leaked draft that has been floating around Washington and was seen by Reuters on Wednesday calls for the rule to be temporarily suspended for two years. Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the document. The sources spoke on Tuesday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record about the plan. The 2010 Dodd-Frank law explicitly gives the president authority to order the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to temporarily suspend or revise the rule for two years if it is in the national security interest of the United States. The conflict minerals rule was endorsed by human rights groups that want companies to tell investors if their products contain tantalum, tin, gold or tungsten mined from the Democratic Republic of Congo in the hope that such disclosures would curb funding to armed groups. Business groups opposed to the measure have contended that it forces companies to furnish politically charged information that is irrelevant to making investment decisions and that it costs too much for companies to trace the source of minerals through the supply chain. In the leaked draft memo seen by Reuters, the Secretary of State and Secretary of the Treasury were asked to propose a plan for addressing human rights violations and the funding of armed groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo and report back within 180 days. The memo also lays out a justification for suspending the rule, saying that while it has helped discourage some American companies from purchasing materials in the region, it has also led to “some job loss.” It also cited 2014 SEC estimates about the costs imposed on companies, which entailed upfront costs of $3 billion to $4 billion, and $200 million per year thereafter. Carly Oboth, a policy adviser at human rights group Global Witness, said in a statement on Wednesday that she was deeply concerned about Trump’s planned executive action. “This law helps stop U.S. companies funding conflict and human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of Congo and surrounding countries,” she said. “Suspending it will benefit secretive and corrupt business practices. Responsible business practices are starting to spread in eastern Congo. This action could reverse that progress.” A White House executive order last week took aim more broadly at the Dodd-Frank rules that were put into place after the 2007-2009 financial crisis. That order did not single out a particular rule, but called on the Treasury Secretary to consult with other regulators, including the SEC, and come back with a report outlining possible regulatory changes and legislation. The conflict minerals rule is one of several disclosure regulations in Dodd-Frank that are unrelated to the financial crisis. Another Dodd-Frank SEC disclosure rule that required oil, gas and mining companies to disclose payments to foreign governments was repealed by the Republican-controlled Congress last week. In 2014, a U.S. appeals court struck down part of the conflict minerals law after the Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers sued the SEC over it. The court found part of it violated free speech rights of companies by forcing them to publicly state that their products were not conflict free. The rest of the rule was left intact and companies are required to conduct due diligence and report the details of those inquiries in public reports filed with the SEC. The SEC cannot repeal the rule without a law passed by Congress. It can, however, use its broad exemptive powers to scale back some of the requirements or stop enforcing the rule entirely. Last week, acting SEC Chair Michael Piwowar took steps toward doing that by announcing that he had asked SEC staff to reconsider how companies should comply with it and whether “additional relief” was warranted. House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling, meanwhile, is planning to reintroduce his Financial CHOICE Act bill, which contains a provision to repeal the conflict minerals rule. | 1 |
3,901 | OOPS! MEDIA LIED…Transgender Surgery For Military Members Cost Taxpayers A LOT More Than #FakeNews Is Telling Americans | Liz Harrington, a writer for the Washington Free Beacon appeared on the Tucker Carlson Show to discuss the real cost of sex reassignment surgery for transgenders in the military. Harrington debunked the fake numbers the media s been peddling to the American public about the cost of the sex assignment surgeries, in an effort to discredit President Trump s decision to ban transgenders serving in the military. It turns out the media hasn t been exactly honest about actual cost of allowing transgenders to serve in our military. The media s been saying the costs are only a few million per year, but according to Harrington, the actual estimated cost is more like $1.3 billion to taxpayers over a 10 year period. Additionally, the military members who have these surgeries take an estimated 238 days off to recover.As a side note, the $1.3 billion cost to taxpayers doesn t even include the very costly hormone treatments that transgenders in the military will need following the costly surgeries.The Washington Post has done their part to mislead the American public about the cost of transgenders serving in our military. They re not interested in taking an honest look at the costs to the American taxpayer. For the media, this issue has nothing to do with the cost to American taxpayers or with our national security. It s simple a matter of political correctness. And for The Washington Post, who Americans used to rely on for actual news, political correctness trumps truth every time.The Washington Post published an article on July 26th titled that supposedly addressed the cost of transgenders in the military. Instead, the article was written and titled to reinforce a false narrative that our president is a homophobe , a racist and a misogynist .Trump s argument against transgender soldiers echoes one used against gays, women and blacksHere is a portion of their article:Seemingly out of the blue on Wednesday morning, President Trump took to Twitter to announce that he would not allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. The rationale? The military cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. The question of costs presumably referring to procedures like gender reassignment surgery was addressed in a Rand report that estimated a 0.04- to 0.13-percent increase in military health-care expenditures should transgender people be allowed to serve. Trump has proposed a 10 percent bump in overall military spending, which could certainly absorb that increase.Can anyone explain why members of Congress would vote to increase spending on our military that would then be used for sex reassignment surgery for transgenders serving in our military? What in the world does sex reassignment have to do with defending our nation? | 0 |
3,902 | Trump vows strong ties with Israel if elected president | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump vowed on Monday to pursue a strong U.S. alliance with Israel if elected president in November and said he would resist any attempt by the United Nations to impose its will on the Jewish state. In a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Trump said he would side with Israel, a close U.S. ally, in any negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians. “The Palestinians must come to the table knowing that the bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable,” he said. “They must come to the table willing and able to stop the terror being committed on a daily basis against Israel and they must come to the table willing to accept that Israel is a Jewish state and it will forever exist as a Jewish State,” Trump told the pro-Israel lobbying group. Trump also questioned the role of the United Nations in the peace process, saying any attempt by the international body to impose a Middle East agreement would be a disaster. | 1 |
3,903 | Trump LIVID After Legit National Poll Gives Him A Reality Check (IMAGES) | Just judging from Donald Trump s disastrous performance at the first presidential debate last week, it was clear that Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton came out the winner. Trump couldn t give solid answers for any of the questions moderator Lester Holt asked, fact-checkers called him out for lying constantly, and his weaknesses on policy were exposed for all to see. Still, Trump insisted for days that he d won the debate and that he was rising in the polls, all while citing inaccurate or bogus statistics.A new national poll has come out to set the record straight. According to the latest NBC News|SurveyMonkey Weekly Election Tracking Poll, Clinton is ahead of Trump, 46% to 40% and unlike any of Trump s polls, it s actually legit. Here s how the election is panning out so far:Now, Trump is probably going to claim that this poll (AND this election, AND the upcoming debate) is rigged because he always comes up with an excuse for why he sucks. But the truth is, Trump only has himself to blame.This poll also discovered that one of the main reasons Trump is failing so hard is because he s destroyed his chances of appealing to women. Last election, women accounted for 53% of voters and you can bet that more women than ever will come out to vote in November to prevent the most misogynistic presidential candidate from getting into the White House. Thanks to Trump s sexist, degrading and objectifying attacks and comments, Trump has pretty much excluded women from his fan base. Even GOP women hate him!This was especially true for women who were not married. Trump s standing with minorities is even more horrendous. He has never even been able to leave the single digits when it comes to African American voters!Good job, Trump! You re in the home stretch of the election, and you re destroying your campaign by the day. SAD!Featured image via Ralph Freso / Getty Images | 0 |
3,904 | China to expand corruption supervision pilot scheme nationwide: Xinhua | BEIJING - China will expand a pilot project for anti-graft supervision reforms nationwide next year that will consolidate existing corruption agencies, state-run news agency Xinhua reported, as President Xi Jinping expands his signature policy drive. Xinhua said in a report published late on Saturday China s top legislature adopted a decision calling for new supervisory commissions to be set up by the People s Congresses at provincial, city and county-levels to supervise those exercising public power . Xi s signature anti-graft drive has jailed or otherwise punished nearly 1.4 million Communist Party members since 2012. The leader, who began his second five-year term in October, has vowed to maintain the irreversible momentum of the campaign to root out corruption. China aims to pass a national supervision law and set up a new commission at the annual parliament meetings early next year. The new National Supervision Commission will work with the Communist Party s anti-graft body, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, expanding the purview of Xi s anti-graft campaign to include employees at state-backed institutions. Xinhua said the commissions to be set up nationwide under the China legislature s new directive will have the power to investigate illegal activities such as graft, misuse of authority, neglect of duty, and wasting public funds. The commissions will have the ability to conduct searches, freeze assets and detain suspects as part of those efforts, the Xinhua report said. | 1 |
3,905 | JPMorgan passes up chance to counter Sanders' criticism | NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co has been lambasted by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, but Chief Executive Jamie Dimon opted not to fire back on Wednesday while reviewing quarterly results and taking questions about his latest failure with regulators. “No comment,” Dimon quickly responded on a conference call with reporters when asked about Sanders’ recent statement that JPMorgan was among companies destroying the moral fabric of the nation. Nor was Dimon willing to respond to a follow-up question about the tone of the U.S. presidential campaign. To drive home the refusal, his top communications adviser, Joseph Evangelisti, stepped in and said, “We’re not going to comment on political statements.” Dimon also turned away from the chance to make his case again that JPMorgan’s size is an advantage. In the past he has argued that JPMorgan, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, is good for customers, shareholders and the country because of the stability and efficiency that come with its scale and diverse mix of business. JPMorgan’s earnings came on the same day that federal regulators gave the bank and four other big banks a failing grade for their plans to show that they can be quickly and safely dismantled in bankruptcy. Dimon said JPMorgan will correct its plan. | 1 |
3,906 | Cruz Makes Baffling Bestiality Joke About Trump, Marks New Low Point In Campaign | Ted Cruz has been on the warpath recently after Republican front-runner Donald Trump made several sexist comments about this wife. However, his tough guy act was tempered by the fact that his loyalty to the Republican Party meant that he would not refuse to vote for Trump if it came down to it. Instead, when asked point blank by a reporter whether he would support Trump as nominee, Cruz fumbled for an answer and quickly became a laughingstock.In the days since, Cruz seems to have found a spine, and signaled that he would finally be ready to never vote for Trump, even if he wins the nomination. I don t make a habit out of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my family, Cruz told reporters at a news conference.At the event, Cruz also addressed rumors that he had had affairs with as many as five women by pinning the attacks on Trump. We have done nothing to his family, and we will not. But Donald was unhappy with the news of the day, unhappy with losing elections, was unhappy with his dangerous ignorance of foreign policy being revealed on the world stage, so he decided to engage in a personal attack directed at my wife, Cruz saidBut Cruz had to ruin what could have been a moment that showed he had a bit of integrity by immediately making a bizarre bestiality joke directed at Trump that was just plain creepy. Another in a long line of examples of how something just seems off with Cruz. Trump may be a rat, but I have no desire to copulate with him. And this garbage does not belong in politics. Uh, what?Cruz had perhaps wanted to politely suggest that Trump was a ratf*cker (classy), but instead wound up seeming to suggest that he himself likes having sex with rats, just not rats named Trump.It was decidedly one of the lowest points in a presidential race that has featured more than its fair share of rock bottoms. Neither Trump nor Cruz seem to have any problem lying, cheating, or stealing their way to victory. As the two grow closer in the polls, the vicious attacks have become more personal and more ugly. It seems impossible to imagine a scenario where Republicans find a way to come together after this. Their two top prospects have run scorched earth campaigns against each others families and friends. The resentment will likely glow red hot for years.Featured image via Ethan Miller/Getty Images | 0 |
3,907 | Republicans Say Everything’s Terrible Because Of Obama, Show Them THIS And Shut Them Up | Republicans insist that everything under President Obama is awful and terrible and getting worse. Their nominee for the presidency has based his entire candidacy on the idea that America is a complete trianwreck and only he alone can fix things.But when you ask actual Americans about what their lives are like after eight years of Barack Obama being president, a completely different message emerges. Gallup did just that, in a survey of over 100,000 people, and almost completely across the board people feel better off than they did before.In 2008, fewer than half of Americans said their life was good enough to be considered thriving, according to Gallup. But that s changed: The 55.4% who are thriving so far in 2016 is on pace to be the highest recorded in the nine years Gallup and Healthways have tracked it, according to the report.The report even has findings that obliterate Donald Trump s constant harping that black Americans are living lives of complete desperation inside crack-destroyed inner city ghettos. The percentages of U.S. whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians who are thriving have all increased during the Obama era, Gallup notes. The percentage of blacks thriving has risen by about 6 points, as has the percentage of whites and Hispanics. Asian thriving has risen by about 10 points since 2008.It isn t magic or left wing propaganda. People simply feel better off and more optimistic, and it isn t a coincidence that this change has occurred between the presidency of a conservative Republican and a progressive Democrat.As a result, President Obama s approval rating has gone over 50 percent and reports are now emerging that Trump is having trouble convincing voters in key states that they need to turn the page from Obama because people are feeling positive about the situation in America.Ignore the hype and noise of the right, check out the data and you ll learn how people really feel.Featured image via Flickr | 0 |
3,908 | CHIP OFF THE OLD BLOCK: Harvard Bound Malia Obama Caught In Frat House Picture With Large Party Bong | Malia Obama is taking a party gap year before she begins school at the prestigious Harvard University. Even though it was reported that Barack Obama was furious with the pot smoking, twerking, Malia Obama after she was caught at a rowdy party that was reportedly busted by the police on Martha s Vineyard it doesn t seem to have slowed her down The idea that Malia is embarrassing the family is laughable, given the antics of her father and mother over the past 8 miserable years A picture circulating on social media appears to show Malia Obama near an item that resembles a large bong.The image was taken at a University of Pennsylvania fraternity house on Sunday, according to Radar Online.The 18-year-old is wearing the same distinctive Smoking Kills T-shirt that she was seen sporting at the Budweiser Made in America festival in Philadelphia that day.The teenager, who is taking a gap year and will attend Harvard in 2017, also sported a crimson baseball hat with an H on it a nod to her future alma mater. Daily Mail | 0 |
3,909 | [VIDEO] Hillary Channels Southern Drawl While Addressing Black Democrats In Alabama…Plus Throwback Video Bonus: Hillary’s Accent Evolution | Hillary, the first female, black, flat-broke southern President Of course, its not the first time Mrs. Bill Clinton channeled her husband s southern roots. Here s a great montage of Hillary s accent flip-flops:And this viral video showing Hillary s ridiculous attempt at playing to a black crowd in the South: | 0 |
3,910 | Grassley, Garland reprise 1990s judicial confirmation fight | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chuck Grassley and Merrick Garland go way back, but when the Republican Senate Judiciary Committee chairman and President Barack Obama’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee meet for a private breakfast on Tuesday, they will not exactly be sharing fond memories. Two decades ago, Grassley, an Iowa Republican, spearheaded a fight against Garland’s nomination to the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Just like now, a Democratic president, in that case Bill Clinton, submitted Garland’s nomination to a Republican-controlled Senate. Garland, then a top Justice Department lawyer, was denied a Senate confirmation vote in 1995 and 1996 despite earning bipartisan praise. Finally, in 1997, after Clinton renominated Garland upon winning re-election in 1996, was he confirmed to a seat on the court that was a launching pad to the Supreme Court for Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas, as well as the late Antonin Scalia. Fast-forward to 2016: Another Democratic president has chosen Garland to replace Scalia only to have Grassley and a Republican Senate maneuver to block the nomination without so much as a Judiciary Committee hearing. “Nothin’ against him,” the 82-year-old Grassley, who describes himself as “just a farmer from Butler County,” told Reuters. Even so, Garland, 63, will sit down with Grassley on Tuesday and be told that once again, his nomination will be put on ice. In 1995 and 1996, Garland was entangled in “what ended up being a 12- or 15-year crusade,” Grassley said, to reduce the number of judges on the federal appeals court that Clinton chose him to join. Two decades later, Grassley again offered no criticism of Garland’s qualifications. Grassley, like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has decided to ignore Garland’s nomination in the hope that a Republican will be elected president on Nov. 8 and, after taking office in January, would choose a conservative rather than the centrist Garland. “It’s not about him because we’re living by the principle ‘let the people have a voice,’” Grassley said, referring to the November presidential and congressional elections. Grassley, no stranger to controversy during 35 years in the Senate, has become the target of Democrats’ scorn in this Supreme Court drama. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said Grassley could go down as both inept and the “most obstructionist” Judiciary Committee chairman in history. Other voices have weighed in against Grassley and his fellow Republicans, with the Des Moines Register newspaper in his home state calling the Garland blockade “un-American.” Grassley, facing re-election in November, insists he will not buckle, and called the Register’s editorial “hyperbolic rhetoric.” In a Senate speech last week, he recounted showdowns dating back to the 1980s when he took on a popular president from his own party, Ronald Reagan, over budget matters. “I am no stranger to political pressure and to strong-arm tactics,” Grassley said. Grassley then turned his attention to Roberts, criticizing a speech the chief justice made shortly before Scalia’s death about the politicization of the confirmation process and warning Roberts, appointed by Republican George W. Bush, to keep his mouth shut in the Garland fight. “Now that’s a political temptation that the chief justice should resist,” Grassley said. | 1 |
3,911 | Trump says he will name possible Supreme Court nominees by July: Fox | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said on Thursday that before the party’s convention in July, he would put out names of possible candidates he might nominate to the Supreme Court if he is elected president. In an interview with Fox News, Trump said would consider “wonderful, conservative, good, solid, brilliant judges in the form of” the late Justice Antonin Scalia. “I’m going to actually lay them out. I’m going to discuss people ... I think before the convention. I want to put 10, 12, 15 names of the type of people that we’d like,” he said. “From that list, I would choose.” | 1 |
3,912 | DEMOCRATS CONVENIENTLY FORGET 6,000 Prisoners Obama Pardoned Including Crack Dealer Who Committed Horrific Crime Against 3 Innocent Americans | Democrats are calling for President Trump s scalp after he pardoned America s toughest law enforcement officer on illegal aliens, Sheriff Joe Arpaio. How quickly the Left and their allies in the media forget about the massive release of felons that were returned to the streets after Obama released them just before he left office. The criminals he released included terrorists and even prisoners from America s Most Wanted list. One of his most reckless and horrific releases however, was that of Wendell Callahan, a convicted crack dealer who committed an unimaginable crime against an innocent family.A convicted crack dealer who left prison early as part of the Obama administration s mass release of federal inmates was indicted by a grand jury for fatally stabbing his ex-girlfriend and her two kids in Columbus, Ohio. The gory crime drew national attention because the children, ages 7 and 10, were murdered to eliminate them as witnesses in the brutal massacre of their 32-year-old mother.This week a grand jury in Franklin County returned a 10-count, death-penalty indictment against the ex-con, 35-year-old Wendell Callahan, for the triple murders. Callahan broke into his ex-girlfriend s apartment and stabbed the three victims, according to a statement issued by Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O Brien announcing the indictment. The bloody crime scene was discovered by the woman s current boyfriend, who subsequently engaged in a fight with Callahan before he fled. The indictment includes charges of aggravated murder with prior calculation and design and aggravated murder of victims under the age of 13. There are multiple charges regarding the three victim deaths because there are different methods to commit the crime of murder and the Prosecutor s Office typically charges all methods , O Brien stated. Callahan is in jail on $3 million bail and is scheduled to be arraigned later this week.Callahan should have been in jail when the crimes occurred, but he was released four years early because federal sentencing guidelines for crack dealers got reduced. The change was part of President Obama s effort to reform the nation s justice system as a way of ending racial discrimination. The initiative was technically launched back in 2010 when the president signed a measure that for the first time in decades relaxed drug-crime sentences he claimed discriminated against poor and minority offenders. This severely weakened a decades-old law enacted during the infamous crack cocaine epidemic that ravaged urban communities nationwide in the 1980s. As part of the movement the U.S. Sentencing Commission lowered maximum sentences for drug offenders and made it retroactive, leading to the early release of thousands of violent thugs like Callahan.In November of 2016, the administration began releasing 6,000 drug convicts coined non-violent offenders whose sentences were too long under the old guidelines. News reports quickly surfaced contradicting the administration s assessment that the newly released convicts were not violent. Among them was the leader of a multi-million dollar operation that smuggled drugs from Canada to Maine. Prosecutors refer to the 29-year-old con as a drug kingpin who was one of America s Most Wanted. Shortly before the administration s mass release of drug convicts, federal prosecutors warned that drug trafficking is inherently violent and therefore the phrase non-violent drug offenders is a misnomer. The nation s prosecutors also cautioned that reducing prison sentences for drug offenders will weaken their ability to bring dangerous drug traffickers to justice.As if it weren t bad enough that the administration is rewarding thousands of criminals with get-out-of-jail cards, huge amounts of taxpayer dollars are being spent on programs to help them find housing and jobs. Judicial Watch | 0 |
3,913 | Obama FINALLY Eliminates Funding For Abstinence-Only Sex Ed | President Obama s new budget will eliminate all government funding for abstinence-only sex education.For too long the federal government has been using tax dollars to support abstinence-only sex education programs, in spite of the fact that an overwhelming amount of evidence shows that such programs do not work.The federal government first began funding these programs in 1981, under then-president Ronald Reagan. According to the Sexuality Information and Education Center of America (SIECUS), between 1996 until 2006 funding for these programs grew exponentially. All told, over the past 25 years, Congress has spent more than $1.5 billion on failed abstinence-only programs.In spite of the shocking amount of money invested in these program, the evidence tells us that they do nothing to reduce the rate of teen pregnancy and abortion, nor do they help prevent the spread of sexually transmitted disease. In fact, the opposite is true.For example,An independent study commissioned by the Minnesota Department of Health found that sexual activity doubled among junior high school participants in the state s Education Now and Babies Later (ENABL) program at three schools between 2001 and 2002. The number of participants who said they would probably have sex during high school almost doubled as well.As Addicting Info reported here the rate of teen pregnancy in states that require comprehensive-sex education has been declining steadily for the past several years.At the same time, the rate of teen pregnancy in conservative states, where abstinence-only sex education is allowed and even mandated, remains embarrassingly high.As we also reported here, as of 2014, the state with the highest number of teen pregnancies was New Mexico, followed by Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. All of these states have shamelessly backwards laws regarding sex education, which mandate sex-education programs stress abstinence and the importance of sex only during marriage. The liberal states of New Hampshire, Vermont, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Maine had the lowest numbers of teen pregnancies in the nation during the same year.President Obama s decision to eliminate federal funding for programs that have been proven ineffective when it comes to reducing teen pregnancy, abortion and STD s will not only save Americans the $10 million upfront cost of these programs.Teen pregnancy costs the U.S. approximately $9.4 billion.Eliminating federal funding for abstinence-only sex education programs will encourage schools to choose curriculum that is science-based and fact-based.As more schools move toward putting this type of curriculum in place, rather than relying on the fantasy-based abstinence-only model that conservatives endorse, the rate of teen pregnancy and teen abortion will finally begin to decline in red states, along with the number of teens who are exposed to sexually transmitted disease.In the long run, the decision to eliminate funding for failed abstinence-only programs will save teen lives, all while saving taxpayers billions of dollars.Image from Wikipedia | 0 |
3,914 | Trump Says Sarah Palin Won’t Attend RNC Because Alaska ‘A Long Ways Away’ | Sarah Palin is a huge Donald Trump fan. However, she is also political poison. Trump has that whole being politically deadly thing locked down all by himself, so the last thing he needs is the likes of the Alaskan half-term halfwit showing up to give yet another crazy, drunken, rambling speech in front of the entire nation and world at the GOP convention. However, The Donald has given a completely nonsensical reason for Palin s all-too-obvious convention absence: Alaska is simply too far away for her to travel.Trump said of Palin not attending: She was asked. It s a little bit difficult because of where she is. We love Sarah. Little bit difficult because of, you know, it s a long ways away. That s as flimsy of an excuse as ever, and an obvious lie. Then again, it just continues the trend of GOP high rollers and national figures who are sitting this one out. Hell, some even suggested that they are not going because of silly commitments like mowing their lawns, even though it s clearly because they don t want to be within a country mile of the upcoming fiasco that is Donald Trump s coronation party.As for Palin s conspicuous absence that s likely RNC bigwigs like Paul Ryan and Reince Priebus leaning on Trump and his campaign to keep her away. She is yet another national embarrassment, and they already have enough of that with their current, and grudgingly accepted standard-bearer. Palin proved herself to be a political disaster during the 2008 presidential campaign, when Arizona Senator John McCain picked her to be his running mate, and the country watched in horror as someone who was so obviously unqualified to be anywhere near Washington for any reason almost got to the point of being one 72-year-old man s heartbeat away from being leader of the free world.Palin never went away after that debacle, and America dodged a bullet for sure with the McCain/Palin ticket s spectacular loss to Barack Obama and Joe Biden. However, she has been a fixture in the conservative movement ever since, and not a welcome one, either. No, this has nothing to do with distance and everything to do with the fact that the RNC and GOP leadership has enough chaos to deal with over Trump. They don t need Palin there as well.Featured image via Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images | 0 |
3,915 | U.S. theory on Democratic Party breach: Hackers meant to leave Russia's mark | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some U.S. intelligence officials suspect that Russian hackers who broke into Democratic Party computers may have deliberately left digital fingerprints to show Moscow is a “cyberpower” that Washington should respect. Three officials, all speaking on condition of anonymity, said the breaches of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) were less sophisticated than other cyber intrusions that have been traced to Russian intelligence agencies or criminals. For example, said one official, the hackers used some Cyrillic characters, worked during Russian government business hours but not on Russian religious or political holidays.”Either these guys were incredibly sloppy, in which case it’s not clear that they could have gotten as far as they did without being detected, or they wanted us to know they were Russian,” said the official. Private sector cyber security experts agreed that the evidence clearly points to Russian hackers but dismissed the idea that they intentionally left evidence of their identities. These experts - who said they have examined the breach in detail - said the Cyrillic characters were buried in metadata and in an error message. Other giveaways, such as a tainted Internet protocol address, also were difficult to find. Russian hacking campaigns have traditionally been harder to track than China’s but not impossible to decipher, private sector experts said. But the Russians have become more aggressive and easier to detect in the past two years, security experts said, especially when they are trying to move quickly. False flags have grown more common, but the government and private experts do not believe that is involved in the DNC case. The two groups of hackers involved are adept at concealing their intrusions, said Laura Galante, head of global threat intelligence at FireEye, whose Mandiant subsidiary conducted forensic analysis of the attack and corroborated the findings of another cyber company, CrowdStrike. Russian officials have dismissed the allegations of Moscow’s involvement as absurd. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in his only response to reporters, said: “I don’t want to use four-letter words.” While private cyber experts and the government were aware of the political party’s hacking months ago, embarrassing emails were leaked last weekend by the WikiLeaks anti-secrecy group just as the Democratic Party prepared to anoint Hillary Clinton as its presidential candidate for the Nov. 8 election. DNC chairwoman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, resigned after the leaked emails showed party leaders favoring Clinton over her rival in the campaign for the nomination, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The committee is supposed to be neutral. The U.S. intelligence officials conceded that they had based their views on deductive reasoning and not conclusive evidence, but suggested Russia’s aim probably was much broader than simply undermining Clinton’s campaign. They said the hack fit a pattern of Russian President Vladimir Putin pushing back on what he sees as the United States and its European allies trying to weaken Russia. “Call it the cyber equivalent of buzzing NATO ships and planes using fighters with Russian flags on their tails,” said one official. Two sources familiar with Democratic Party investigations into the hacking said the private email accounts of Democratic Party officials were targeted as well as servers. They said that the FBI had advised the DNC that it was looking into the hacking of the individual officials’ private accounts. They also said the FBI also requested additional information identifying the personal email accounts of certain party officials. The DNC hired CrowdStrike to investigate the hack. It spent about six weeks, from late April to about June 11 or 12, monitoring the systems and watching while the hackers - who they believed were Russian - operated inside the systems, one of the sources said. What actions, if any, the Obama administration will take are unclear and could depend on what diplomatic considerations may ultimately be involved, a former White House cyber security official said. In past cases, administration officials have decided to publicly blame North Korea and indict members of China’s military for hacking because the administration decided that the net benefit of public shaming – and increased awareness brought to cyber security – outweighed potential risks, the former official said. But “the Russia calculation is far more difficult and precarious,” the former official said. “Russia is a much more aggressive, capable foreign actor both in the traditional military sense and in the cyber realm” and that made public attribution or covert retaliation much less likely. The former official, and a source familiar with the Democratic Party investigations, said that they also were unaware of any U.S. intelligence clearly demonstrating that WikiLeaks had received the hacked materials directly from Russians or that WikiLeaks’ release of the materials was in any way directed by Russians. | 1 |
3,916 | no title | draining the swamp youtubecomwatchvotakuaoi | 0 |
3,917 | hillary won more votes lost the election | after donald trumps politicalworldshattering upset of hillary clinton the polling industry finds itself facing an existential crisis comment on this article via your facebook account comment on this article via your disqus account follow us on facebook | 1 |
3,918 | Cuba urges U.S. not to politicize allegations of harmed diplomats | UNITED NATIONS/HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba urged the United States on Friday to cooperate with its investigation into incidents that the U.S. says have harmed its diplomats in Havana and not to politicize the matter, days after Washington said it was considering closing its Cuban embassy. In an address to the United Nations General Assembly, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said the top level of the government in Havana had ordered an investigation into the mysterious matter, which threatens the fragile detente between the old Cold War foes. However, a Cuban government source told Reuters that the United States had provided no evidence of the harm, including hearing loss, dizziness and nausea, that it says U.S. diplomats and their relatives based in Havana have suffered. Cuban doctors had also not been allowed to examine anyone, the source said. A spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Havana declined to comment. The investigation to clarify this issue continues, and in order to be able to arrive to a conclusion, it will be crucial to count on the cooperation of the U.S. authorities, Rodriguez told the U.N. It would be unfortunate if a matter of this nature is politicized, said Rodriguez. Cuba has denied any involvement in the affair. U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida was among five Republican senators that a week ago called for U.S. President Donald Trump to retaliate against Cuba by expelling its diplomats and possibly shuttering the U.S. embassy in Havana. Rubio helped forge Trump s new Cuba policy, rolling back parts of the detente achieved under Democratic former President Barack Obama and taking a harder line on the Communist-run island. Cuba s state-run media this week said the only party interested in a deterioration in relations were a small group of Republicans led by Rubio. The U.S. government in August first officially confirmed they were investigating the incidents it said began in late 2016. Several Canadians were also affected, a Canadian official said, further deepening the mystery. The last incident to affect a U.S. citizen occurred late in August, bringing the number of those with symptoms to 21, a U.S. State Department official said last week. Some of those had returned home for testing and treatment, the U.S. official said, while others had been tested in Cuba, where the embassy has a fulltime medical officer. Investigations by Cuba, the United States and Canada have yet to come up with any answers. Experts agree it is hard to see how any attacks could have been carried out or what the motivation could be. Theories abound, from surveillance technology gone awry to a sophisticated acoustic weapon in the hands of Cuban-American exiles or third-party state actors such as Russia, Iran or North Korea, but most flounder. Audiologists for example have raised doubt over the possibility of whether any sonic weapon exists that can be used covertly to bring about the range of symptoms mentioned by diplomats. | 1 |
3,919 | HUD ASKS FOR $4 BILLION MORE AFTER SPENDING MILLIONS ON LOBBYING CONGRESS??? | The news broke this week that Obama wants to equalize housing for everyone. Social engineering is nothing new in this day of Obama. State s rights mean nothing to this group and if you disagree you re called a heartless racist. The HUD secretary, Julian Castro, was on Capitol Hill this week to testify about the HUD budget asking for $4 billion more. Below are two videos of Cong. Sean Duffy going at it with Castro. Please take the time to listen to the conversation. Castro gives ZERO information to Duffy. Doesn t that tell you something? HUD is just another bloated government entity that s actually lobbying the very body that they are part of Congress(see below)! Does this offend you as much as it does me? In the new President s Budget, HUD s funding level will increase to $49.3 billion, nearly $4 billion more than Fiscal Year 2015 s enacted level. A MUST WATCH! SEAN DUFFY(WI) WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO ACTUALLY ASKED CASTRO FOR SPECIFICS AND GOT NONE: The findings from HUD s internal watchdog expose a system in which offices around the country funded by the federal housing agency used tax dollars to campaign for favorable policies and larger budgets, government watchdogs found.The failure to police such expenditures gives good reason for taxpayers to be angry, experts told The Washington Times. You re using federal money to lobby Congress to get more federal money, said Mark Calabria, a former HUD official who then spent seven years overseeing the agency as a Senate staff member working with the Banking Committee. This is directly taking money that has been allocated by Congress to helping poor people and it s being diverted to lobbying, he said.Investigators said the housing agencies in cities across the U.S. failed to disclose roughly $2.5 million they spent on lobbying and that was only at nine of the 12 agencies that report engaging in lobbying activities.However, watchdogs worry that undisclosed lobbying still could be occurring at the 3,200 other agencies HUD oversees, but which do not acknowledge engaging in any lobbying at all.For a lack of control that has allowed its various offices to violate transparency and spending laws and take money that could have been used to provide housing the Department of Housing and Urban Development wins this week s Golden Hammer, a distinction given out by The Washington Times to mark examples of waste, fraud and abuse with taxpayer money.The Philadelphia Housing Authority failed to disclose lobbying activities for which it spent as much as $660,000 during the period 2006 to 2010, the report found. It also improperly spent $48,500 in federal funds on lobbying activities conducted through law firms, which the agency should be required to repay, the HUD inspector general said.The Housing Authority of the City of Pittsburgh failed to disclose lobbying activities on which it improperly spent as much as $80,000 in federal funds in 2004 and 2005, and Home Forward in Portland, Oregon, failed to disclose lobbying activities conducted on its behalf.While inspectors think the examined housing agencies may have wasted only $129,000 in federal money, they cautioned the problem could be affecting many more offices than the ones investigators reviewed, and suggested a further investigation of the problem. Because HUD failed to implement adequate policies to monitor agencies compliance with lobbying requirements HUD lacked assurance that other agencies did not spend Federal funds on lobbying activities or violate other lobbying-related requirements, the inspector general report, released last week, found.HUD officials said the extremely small sample size investigators looked at does not warrant extensive changes at the agency to correct problems, and that additional steps to obtain, track and retain lobbying certificates and disclosures is not a necessary remedy. In light of these facts, the recommendations are overly burdensome to implement in relation to limited error rate and limited staff resources, said a letter signed by Milan Ozdinec, the deputy assistant secretary in charge of public housing. The suggestion that HUD staff take proactive steps to detect violations related to lobbying activities would present an enormous challenge to HUD staff, the statement said. To require staff to run queries on approximately 3,200 [public housing agencies] does not appear to be an effective control to cover 12 or so exception cases. The lobbying issues have escalated beyond the scope of a single watchdog, bringing in investigators from HUD s internal Office of Inspector General, the Government Accountability Office and the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Millions of Americans who have fallen on hard times veterans, single mothers, their children they all rely on HUD s programs, said Rep. Sean Duffy, Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.The agency s funding should not be diverted to illegal lobbying efforts or overpaying a lobbyist, said Mr. Duffy, at a Wednesday committee hearing examining HUD s policies.Part of the problem, the inspector general report found, was that HUD rarely monitored the housing agencies and instead relied on their word they were complying with lobbying laws. HUD accepted and relied on agencies certifications and disclosures without performing additional verification, the IG report found. HUD lacked reasonable assurance that agencies did not spend federal funds on lobbying activities, and the lack of accurate lobbying disclosures could create an appearance of a lack of transparency. HUD officials from the top down have urged their members and member agencies to lobby Congress in order to protect their interests.Last year, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan told an audience at the National Leagues of Cities Conference in Washington that local HUD officials should be lobbying their congressional representatives to restore funding to key programs.The same year, the agency s deputy secretary sent an e-mail to more than 1,000 people asking them to call senators in support of a funding bill for HUD, according to the Government Accountability Office. It is critical that your Senator hears from you NOW, the e-mail read. We need to maintain the current level of Republican support for the Senate [bill], acquire other Republican supporters and ensure vocal and active support from Democratic senators. The message then included a list of 17 U.S. senators that HUD wanted the public to focus on.Instead of using its time and resources lobbying Congress, HUD officials would be better off running their programs more efficiently, Mr. Calabria said. We the taxpayers are having to pay the public housing industry to lobby Congress on its own behalf, said Mr. Calabria, the director of Financial Regulations Studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank. If JP Morgan had used TARP money to go lobby Congress, we d all be greatly offended. Read more: WTMAXINE WATERS SPEAKS ABOUT HOW REPUBLICANS WANT TO JUST THROW EVERYONE OUT ON THE STREE (SARCASM) NOTICE THAT SHE CALLS HUD HOUSING OUR NATIONAL HOUSING SYSTEM : Today, we gather to discuss the Future of Housing in America. But frankly, if left to my Republican colleagues, that future looks very bleak for many of our most vulnerable populations, said Congresswoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., Ranking Member of the Financial Services Committee. But as we will see here today, my colleagues have no interest in strengthening our national housing system. Their priorities are clearly reflected in the recently passed HUD funding bill, which drives investment in this agency down to historic lows undercutting programs which help families reach housing stability, Waters continued.HERE S DUFFY WITH SOME GREAT QUESTIONS FOR CASTRO FROM FEB 2015: | 0 |
3,920 | WATCH: Wolf Blitzer SILENCES Trump Supporter’s Whining About No Equal Air Time For Clinton Accusers | Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway ran into a buzzsaw named Wolf Blitzer on Monday and she was absolutely shredded with facts.The CNN host grilled Conway for being a hypocrite when it comes to women who are accusing Republican nominee Donald Trump of sexual assault versus the women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault twenty years ago. Why do you believe that voters should believe Bill Clinton s accusers, there are several of them, but not Donald Trump s accusers? Blitzer asked during The Situation Room after pointing out a tweet by Conway saying that she agrees with Hillary Clinton that every survivor of sexual assault deserves to be heard. Conway responded by basically walking back her tweet and then started ranting about evidence and that belief should only apply if the women take Trump to court. Of course, the statute of limitations pretty much prevents any meaningful judgment from coming down. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton s accusers did not file their own claims in court until after they went public in the media. Juanita Broaddrick, who accused Bill Clinton of raping her, even filed a sworn affidavit claiming that the rape allegations were not true, thus contradicting her own retraction later on.Conway also tried to change the subject, but Wolf didn t let her off the hook, and that led to Conway whining about how little air time Bill Clinton s accusers supposedly received at the time they made their accusations. These woman got nearly no air time compared to the air time that was given on CNN and other places, Wolf, to the accusers of Donald Trump, she complained. It s simply unfair and unbalanced. It s also a complete fabrication. You see, Wolf Blitzer was a Senior White House Correspondent at the time so he remembers the media circus surrounding the accusations against Clinton and he brutally reminded Conway of that fact and the fact that she should know better since she was there as well. Let me just point out, I was CNN s Senior White House Correspondent in 1998, 1999, 2000, when these women, including of course Monica Lewinsky, got tons and tons and tons of air time. You remember those days, I remember those days. We all remember those days, we went through all of those cases, these women who have come forward. We gave them a lot of reporting time. When Blitzer continued by asking Conway if she would encourage Trump s supporters to go to court, she quickly denied doing that. You know, because Trump would be forced to go to court as well.Conway proceeded to argue that Hillary s conduct toward the women is relevant but then turned around and cheered on Melania Trump for calling her husband s accusers liars and accusing them of fabricating these allegations for financial and political reasons. In other words, Conway is okay with Melania Trump believing her husband and treating these women like moneygrubbers and liars, but she thinks Hillary Clinton is evil for doing the same thing back in the 1990s?That s some professional hypocrisy Conway is practicing.Here s the video:The bottom line here is that Bill Clinton is not running for president. Donald Trump IS.Hillary Clinton was First Lady twenty years ago. And she acted as any wife would in defense of her husband. But again, Hillary Clinton has never been accused of sexual assault. Trump IS being accused of sexual assault. But Trump and his team are pretending that Hillary Clinton s conduct toward her husband s accusers is worse than Trump s conduct toward women and that is a false equivalency that should be blown to smithereens the same way Wolf Blitzer torpedoed Kellyanne Conway s whining about equal air time.Featured Image: Screenshot | 0 |
3,921 | Kenya election board: all eight candidates will be on ballot in repeat poll | NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya s election board said on Wednesday that all eight presidential candidates who competed in elections in August - later nullified by the Supreme Court - would be on the ballot when repeat elections were held on Oct. 26. The board also noted that opposition leader Raila Odinga, the main challenger to incumbent President Uhuru Kenyatta, had not yet submitted the official form to withdraw from the elections. Odinga had only sent them a letter after he announced he was withdrawing on Tuesday amid concerns over fairness. | 1 |
3,922 | Women in male-dominated career fields watch a unique U.S. presidential campaign | LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Dr. Linda Liau works with the precision of a master, peering into a patient’s head with magnifying loupes as she removes a brain tumor. When Liau was called into an emergency room as a surgeon more than 20 years ago to help treat a car crash victim, another member of the medical team assumed she was a nurse. Even today, the 49-year-old neurosurgeon sometimes gets a surprised reaction from new patients who were expecting a man. Such an assumption is common in career fields dominated by men. Neurosurgery, welding, venture capitalism, construction, film directing and the electrical trade - these are six jobs where U.S. women have made inroads but are still vastly outnumbered. And one position, U.S. president, has never been filled by a woman. With presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton seeking to become the first to break that barrier, several women in career fields made up mostly of men told Reuters that they saw her candidacy as significant. “I think ultimately the goal would be to be gender-blind completely, so the fact that we’re even talking about having a female president as a novelty is, in a way, sad,” Liau said. On a construction site, Joundi White, 31, has often been reminded of her gender. Early in her career, the reminders were pet names such as “sweetheart” and “honey.” Now, she can rarely shake the sense that she is outnumbered. “I eat lunch alone,” White said. “I don’t have people to relate to at work. “Don’t get me wrong, I identify more with the guys, but to them, ultimately, I’m just a girl.” Wearing a hard hat, White passes under heavy steel beams, walking along the commuter train tracks she is helping build in her working-class neighborhood in southern Los Angeles. Welder Darlene Thompson, 45, is also no stranger to the construction site, or to the hostility that she says women often encounter in the field. These days, she teaches others as an instructor at Los Angeles Trade Technical College. In a heavy coat and blue gloves, she looks from under her helmet at the white-hot flame of a welding torch. It was a fight to learn these skills. More than a decade ago, when she began receiving job training as a welfare recipient, Thompson had to argue for the chance to study welding. Public assistance administrators wanted to push her toward cosmetology or culinary arts, she said. Thompson did not say how she would cast her ballot in November but said she would not vote for Clinton just because the candidate is a woman. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s slogan has resonated with her. “When they talk about ‘Let’s make America great again,’” Thompson said, “what I think of is the companies in Detroit, the automotive industry going back to Detroit and giving back jobs.” A well-paid job as an electrician has opened up opportunities for Hannah Cooper, 28. For one thing, she was able to buy a house in the expensive Los Angeles real estate market. Sometimes, she will encounter someone on a construction site who knows her mother, Kelly Cooper, who also was an electrician. “Everyone remembers her because there’s only a few women,” Cooper said. Kelly Cooper began as an apprentice in 1975. “You have to have thick skin to be anyone in the trade,”she said. “To be a woman in the trade, you have to have a particularly thick skin.” She is now director of construction for the Los Angeles Department of General Services. Eva Ho, 44, is a woman working in the technology field, which is unusual enough. But she is also a venture capitalist, which is rarer still. “In some ways the V.C. career has really been an old boys club, and it’s been dominated by white men for the last three or four decades,” Ho said. A graduate of Harvard and Cornell, Ho said she was drawn to work in technology because of its ability to drive social change. But she came late to it, never having used a computer until college. For the Burtons, who work together as filmmakers through their company Five Sisters Productions, their career had its seeds in their childhood as the daughters of a writer and a former professional musician. Both parents were feminists who thought their five daughters could do anything, said Ursula Burton, a director, producer and actor. Now the possibility of a female president could help create more opportunities for women, she said. “Having a woman president opens up the presidency for girls,” Burton said, “and it will shift the perception for boys of what girls can do.” | 1 |
3,923 | Alabama speaker convicted of ethics charges, removed from office | (Reuters) - Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard, a powerful figure in state politics, was found guilty on Friday of using his elected office, along with his former post as chair of the state Republican Party, for personal gain, local media reported. After seven hours of deliberation, a Lee County jury found Hubbard guilty of 12 of the 23 felony ethics charges he faced, convictions that automatically removed him from office, according to Alabamanews.net. “This should send a clear message that in Alabama we hold public officials accountable for their actions,” state Attorney General Luther Strange said on his website. Sentencing for Hubbard is scheduled for July 8. He faces 20 years in prison, Alabamanews.net reported. Hubbard’s attorneys told the news website that they would appeal the convictions. Hubbard was indicted by a state grand jury in October 2014 on charges of using his elected office, along with his former post as chair of the state Republican Party, for personal gain. Hubbard helped guide Republicans to majorities in both houses of the state legislature in 2010 for the first time in 136 years before his indictment. | 1 |
3,924 | Watch GOP Senator Almost Knock Over American Flags As He Dodges Indictment Questions (VIDEO) | A Capitol Hill press conference that was supposed to be about judicial nominations went quickly south when Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) suddenly felt the need to sneak out, and in the process almost knocked over the flags behind the podium.The podium was being held by Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX). Anybody have any questions for Senator Grassley, or anybody else here, on this topic? Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, asked reporters, making clear he didn t want questions about the indictments and guilty plea involving three of President Donald Trump s campaign aides to dominate the news conference.When reporters pressed to get on-camera comment about the legal problems facing Trump campaign aides Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and George Papadopoulos, the usually accommodating Cornyn tried to deflect, saying the issue wasn t in the Senate s wheelhouse. As multiple reporters shouted out, Grassley, who chairs the judiciary committee, which is investigating alleged Russian meddling in US elections, decided to slip out.Source: CNNAt about the 20 second mark, you can see Grassley start anxiously planning his exit. Even while Cornyn was answering questions, Grassley continued to eye the exit, just behind the flags. Then a reporter asked about the indictment of Trump s former campaign chair, Paul Manafort. Behind Cornyn, the flags begin to rock and you see a head appear and then soon disappear through the exit, but since the flags were blocking the doors, Grassley almost knocked them over on his way out. Just imagine for a moment if a Democrat had done that. They would forever be labeled anti-American.The flag episode is not why I d label Grassley anti-American. I would label him anti-American because he s attempted to obstruct and deflect the investigation into Russian collusion from its inception.Here s the video:CLIP: Sen. @ChuckGrassley exits news conference via door behind American flags.Full news conference here: https://t.co/mdeAUFERPh pic.twitter.com/IHdgD7hXlT CSPAN (@cspan) October 30, 2017 | 0 |
3,925 | Indian journalists, activists protest murder of newspaper publisher | BENGALURU, India (Reuters) - Indian journalists and rights activists protested on Wednesday against the murder of an outspoken publisher of a weekly tabloid amid growing concerns about freedom of the press at a time of rising nationalism and intolerance of dissent. Gauri Lankesh, 55, the editor and publisher of the Kannada-language Gauri Lankesh Patrike newspaper, was shot dead on Tuesday by unidentified assailants near her home in the southern city of Bengaluru. She had parked her car outside her gate and was walking to the main entrance of her home when the attackers fired at least seven rounds, killing her, police said. The motive was not known. Lankesh was a fierce advocate of secularism and opposed hardline Hindu groups associated with Prime Narendra Modi s right-wing, nationalist ruling party. Her weekly, with a circulation of more than 5,000, is regarded as influential in the state, read by policy makers and politicians. Lankesh spent decades with various media outlets before taking over the newspaper started by her father. Several journalist groups, including the Editors Guild, Press Club of India and Press Association, held protests in cities across India, calling her murder a brutal assault on the freedom of the press . They said she was a critical, secular voice at a time when the country was being swept by a wave of right-wing, Hindu nationalism. She was an idealist and would take on the right-wing forces on several controversial issues, said Y.P. Rajesh, an executive editor at the news website The Print and a long-time friend of Lankesh. The U.S. embassy in New Delhi also condemned the killing. The murder is a new low in India s recent record of protecting journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists has said that there have been no convictions in any of the 27 cases of journalists murdered in India because of their work since 1992. This year, the country of 1.3 billion people slipped three places to 136th in the World Press Freedom Index, compiled by Reporters Without Borders. The group said Hindu nationalists, on the rise since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to power in 2014, were trying to purge all manifestations of anti-national thought . Journalists seen to be critical of Hindu nationalists are often insulted on social media, and some women reporters have been threatened with assault. People, including BJP members, have also openly insulted journalists, using terms like presstitute - a combination press and prostitute - to berate them. In recent weeks, Lankesh had posted videos on her Facebook page that were critical of Modi s economic policies and the rise of hardline Hindu groups since he came to power. Last year, she was sentenced to six months in jail after a defamation case was filed by a BJP member. She was released on bail. Ananth Kumar, a federal minister in the Modi government, said the state government must arrest those behind the killing. The state government in Karnataka, run by the Congress party, said it had set up a special investigations team to investigate and police were examining CCTV footage. M.N. Anucheth, a senior police official investigating the case, said Lankesh was shot in the head, neck and chest. This is an attempt to silence all of us all of those who believe in democracy and decency, Ramchandra Guha, a historian told the Indian Express newspaper. (This story has been refiled to fix spellng in paragraph 22) | 1 |
3,926 | life preparing for change this woman is scrambling to experience as much human dignity as possible before the trump administration takes power | email
automation in the workplace can bring new levels of efficiency and employee happiness but it can also mean that human workers lose their jobs in favor of robotic replacements no matter your stance on cuttingedge technology in the office there is no doubt that its a swiftly approaching reality according to a new study released by stanford university americans can expect over percent of all workplace discrimination to be fully automated by
the future is coming and its coming fast
thanks to recent advancements in computer intelligence and predictive analytics it may not be long before you see an automated machine in your office demoting female employees for becoming pregnant whether humiliating subordinates with unwanted sexual comments or automatically filtering out résumés from people with middle eastern last names trends in technological development suggest that an increasingly computerized workforce will soon be enforcing inequality in office environments with far greater proficiency and costeffectiveness than human labor
people think that automated workplace discrimination is still far off in the future when truthfully its right around the corner said stanford computer scientist dr oliver thorpe who spearheaded the new study were already at the point with facial recognition software where it can identify which genders and races should be passed up for leadership roles with far greater accuracy than humans and technologies like this are only getting better and cheaper by the day
with intelligent algorithms becoming rapidly more sophisticated and capable virtually every industry can soon expect to begin replacing humans with machines that can oppress minorities senior citizens and other subjugated people groups with unprecedented efficiency and accuracy within years marketavailable computers will have the ability to grossly neglect the needs of disabled workers and make them feel like burdens within years roving automatons will travel about openplan offices smacking female subordinates buttocks with their carbonfiber paddle attachments adeptly wielding their power in such a way as to avoid consequences
some believe that machines will never be able to fully replicate the complexity and intuitiveness of human onthejob prejudice but employers will likely be willing to sacrifice that human touch for the sake of their bottom line thorpe notes that maintaining a fuckedup culture of occupational disparity is expensive and as soon as companies realize that they can enlist semiautonomous robots to mistreat their employees at a fraction of the cost theyll be lining up to install them in offices nationwide
only time will tell whether or not the human workers who have so dutifully carried out discriminatory business practices for decades get laid off or reassigned but one thing is for sure the american office is about to look way different | 0 |
3,927 | British minister hopes condemnation of Trump tweet has impact | LONDON (Reuters) - British interior minister Amber Rudd said on Thursday she hoped Britain’s condemnation of U.S. President Donald Trump for retweeting material from a British far-right group would have an impact. “I think we all listen more carefully, perhaps, to criticism from our friends than from people who we don’t have a relationship with. So, I hope that the prime minister’s comments will have some impact on the president,” Rudd told parliament. British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Wednesday that Trump was wrong to have retweeted posts from the Britain First group. | 1 |
3,928 | Obama torches Trump at his final Washington correspondents' dinner | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Saturday took aim at Democrats and Republicans alike in his final appearance headlining the star-studded White House correspondents’ dinner, but saved his sharpest barbs for Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump. “The Republican establishment is incredulous that he’s their most likely nominee,” Obama told attendees at the black-tie event, which brought together journalists and media moguls with Hollywood stars and power brokers from Capitol Hill and beyond. “They say Donald lacks the foreign policy experience to be president. But in fairness he has spent years meeting with leaders from around the world: Miss Sweden, Miss Argentina, Miss Azerbaijan,” the president said to howls of laughter, referring to contestants on the Miss Universe pageant that Trump formerly co-owned. Obama made fun of the angst many in the Republican establishment have expressed at the prospect that Trump or Tea Party candidate Ted Cruz could win the party’s nomination to run in the Nov. 8 presidential election. “Guests were asked to check whether they wanted steak or fish, but instead a whole bunch of you wrote in Paul Ryan,” Obama said, referring to the top Republican in the House of Representatives, who many have hoped could be lured into running for president. “That’s not an option people,” Obama said, displaying comedic chops perfected through seven previous appearances at the annual dinner. “You may not like steak or fish, but that’s your choice.” In his remarks, Obama looked back on his presidency and jokingly predicted the country may be nearing its doom. “The end of the republic has never looked better,” the tuxedo-clad president said looking out at the well-groomed crowd as he blasted Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus. “Congratulations on all your success,” Obama told Priebus, while wearing a sarcastic grin. “The Republican party, the nomination process – it’s all going great.” Larry Wilmore, the host of a show on cable outlet Comedy Central, took his own shots at Trump when he took the podium after Obama, joking that next year the dinner will be called: “Donald Trump presents a luxurious evening paid for by Mexico.” Trump has famously promised to build a wall between the United States and Mexico to prevent illegal immigration, and he has said he would force Mexico to pay for it. With a bit of nostalgia, Obama reflected on his more than seven years in office, saying he had been a young man of idealism and vigor before he became president. “Eight years ago I said it was time to change the tone of our politics,” Obama said. “In hindsight, I clearly should have been more specific.” | 1 |
3,929 | Ex-Michigan lawmaker to stand trial; charges dismissed against another | (Reuters) - A Michigan judge on Tuesday dismissed charges against a former state representative, while ruling another lawmaker should stand trial after he tried to hide their extramarital affair, according to a prosecutor’s office spokeswoman. Ingham County District Judge Hugh Clarke ruled that former State Representative Todd Courser should stand trial for perjury and one count of misconduct for his attempted cover-up of the affair with fellow lawmaker Cindy Gamrat, said Andrea Bitely, a spokeswoman for the Michigan attorney general’s office. Prosecutors originally charged Courser with three counts of misconduct while in office and perjury, but the judge dismissed two of the misconduct charges. Clarke also dismissed the two criminal misconduct-in-office charges against Gamrat due to insufficient evidence that she knowingly lied to House investigators about an email that Courser sent to distract from their affair, Bitely said. Prosecutors will not appeal the dismissed charges against Gamrat, but they are reviewing their options regarding the charges against Courser that were not sent to trial, Bitely said. An attorney for Courser, Matthew DePerno, maintained his client is not guilty, and said he believed there was not enough evidence to support the perjury or misconduct charge. Courser is due back in court in late June. A lawyer for Gamrat, Mike Nichols, said the charges against his client stem from a house investigation that arose from a political dispute. The former legislators faced charges of misconduct related to Courser’s failed attempt to cover up their affair. He had devised a plan to distribute an email falsely claiming he had sex with a male prostitute in a move meant to blunt the political impact of the actual affair if it was ever revealed, according to the Detroit News. The two former lawmakers also were charged with misconduct for allowing their employees to forge their signature on proposed legislation. | 1 |
3,930 | Bombshell Reveals Nazi Connection To the Koch Brothers | The infamous conservative Republican financiers Charles and David Koch had a family connection to the Nazis, a new book reveals.Jane Mayer, the New Yorker journalist who was among the first mainstream writers to document the Kochs multi-million dollar campaign to effectively take over the Republican Party and the larger conservative movement, uncovers the connection in her new book, Dark Money.The book, Dark Money, by Jane Mayer, traces the rise of the modern conservative movement through the activism and money of a handful of rich donors: among them Richard Mellon Scaife, an heir to the Mellon banking fortune, and Harry and Lynde Bradley, brothers who became wealthy in part from military contracts but poured millions into anti-government philanthropy.But the book is largely focused on the Koch family, stretching back to its involvement in the far-right John Birch Society and the political and business activities of their father, Fred C. Koch, who found some of his earliest business success overseas in the years leading up to World War II. One venture was a partnership with the American Nazi sympathizer William Rhodes Davis, who, according to Ms. Mayer, hired Mr. Koch to help build the third-largest oil refinery in the Third Reich, a critical industrial cog in Hitler s war machine.The Kochs, who are among two of the wealthiest individuals in America, stand atop an industrial giant Koch Industries that has previously been fined for being one of the worst polluters in America. The brothers use their fortune to finance a political machine that often pursues goals that would enrich the brothers by pursuing a hardline right wing agenda that favors big business and opposes government oversight and regulation.The brothers bankroll a network of groups that often hide their spending on political goals under tax laws. That is the dark money that Mayer s book title refers to. The Kochs run groups like Americans for Prosperity, Freedom Partners, the Center to Protect Patients Rights and then they are also able to flow money towards groups like the NRA, Americans for Tax Reform, and the Club for Growth.What those groups all have in common is their opposition to progressive ideals and their targeting of progressive and Democratic politicians.These groups also work at the state level to prop up governors and state legislators. One particularly potent success the Kochs had was helping Wisconsin s Scott Walker in his campaign to restrict union rights in his state. And the Kochs have cells working towards similar results in all 50 states.After spending about $400 million on the 2012 election, unsuccessfully trying to dislodge President Obama, the brothers announced plans to spend at least $900 million pushing for conservatives in 2016.Featured image via Flickr | 0 |
3,931 | HYSTERICAL VIDEO: SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE DOES CNN | PRETTY FUNNY STUFF-MAKE SURE TO WATCH TO THE END. | 0 |
3,932 | Trump fills homeland security, environment, China ambassador jobs | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday picked a fossil fuel industry defender as his top environmental official, another retired general as homeland security chief and Iowa’s governor as U.S. ambassador to China in choices at odds with some of his recent pronouncements. Trump, continuing to build his Cabinet as he prepares to take office on Jan. 20, said Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, 48, would be nominated to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt sued the EPA in a bid to undo a key regulation under outgoing President Barack Obama that would curb greenhouse gas emissions blamed for climate change, mainly from coal-fired power plants. Trump tapped retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, 66, for secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, whose responsibilities include immigration. Kelly, the third retired general named by Trump to a senior administration post, last year told Congress that a lack of security on the U.S.-Mexican border posed a threat to the United States. Trump’s transition team said Republican Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, 70, who has boasted of close ties to Beijing’s leaders, was picked as U.S. ambassador to China. In addition, transition officials said Linda McMahon, 68, former CEO of professional wrestling company WWE and wife of wrestling kingpin Vince McMahon, was Trump’s choice to head the Small Business Administration. Trump has taken part in WWE events in the past and has close ties to the McMahons. He is a member of the WWE Hall of Fame. All four posts require Senate confirmation. Pruitt’s selection came despite a softer tone Trump has struck on environmental regulation since his Nov. 8 election. He has stepped back from casting climate change as a hoax, signaled he might be willing to allow the United States to continue participating in the Paris climate change deal aimed at lowering world carbon emissions, and met with former Vice President Al Gore, a leading environmental voice. Pruitt’s selection brought a quick rebuke from Democrats. “The head of the EPA cannot be a stenographer for the lobbyists of polluters and Big Oil,” House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said of Pruitt. Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, brushed off the criticism, praising Pruitt’s record and telling reporters at Trump Tower: “We’re very accustomed to the naysayers and the critics.” Trump talked tough during the campaign about deporting all of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States and building a wall along the Mexican border. But since the election he has softened his comments on deportation and referred to some illegal immigrants as “terrific people.” Kelly would work in tandem with Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, Trump’s pick for attorney general, who is a leading advocate of cracking down on illegal immigration. The former four-star general would head a department in charge of securing borders against illegal immigration, protecting the president, responding to natural disasters and coordinating intelligence and counterterrorism. He formerly headed the Southern Command, responsible for U.S. military activities and relationships in Latin America and the Caribbean. He was a proponent of keeping open the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Trump previously picked retired Marine Corps General James Mattis as defense secretary and retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as national security adviser. Branstad has been an eager trading partner with China, helping Iowa sell agricultural goods to the Asian powerhouse. His choice came after Trump rattled the world’s second-largest economy with tough talk on trade and a telephone call with the leader of Taiwan. Trump has more key appointments to make in coming days, including the high-profile job of secretary of state. His team said former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a fierce Trump critic during the campaign, is still under consideration for a diplomatic job. Aside from the personnel announcements, Trump basked in being named Time magazine’s “person of the year,” telling NBC’s “Today” show, “It’s a great honor, it means a lot.” In an interview with Time, Trump continued to take on corporate America, promising to bring down drug prices and causing shares of U.S. pharmaceutical and biotech companies to fall. | 1 |
3,933 | U.S. bars throwing 'covfefe' parties for televised Comey testimony | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. bars are offering $5 Russian vodka drinks, “impeachmint” cocktails and free drinks with every presidential tweet to draw crowds on Thursday to watch fired FBI Director James Comey’s televised testimony to Congress. Television “watch parties,” typically hosted for sporting events and awards shows, are planned at homes and bars across the country for Comey’s 10 a.m. EDT appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee. During “the SUPER BOWL of Washington,” as it was billed by the Axelrad Beer Garden in Houston, the former director will testify that U.S. President Donald Trump tried to get him to scale back the agency’s investigation into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. “Join us for an early morning beer and engage in friendly debate with fellow patrons,” a post on the Axelrad Facebook page said. The bar also is serving a drink called the impeachmint. In Washington, Shaw’s Tavern was one of several bars promising to open its doors a half hour before Comey begins speaking, with a $10 “FBI” breakfast special. In this case, FBI stands not for Federal Bureau of Investigation but French toast, bacon and ice cream. “Grab your friends, grab a drink and let’s COVFEFE!” the tavern said on Facebook, referring to a truncated Trump tweet last week with that word that left some people scratching their heads. The Partisan bar just off the tourist-rich National Mall will offer “The Last Word” and “Drop the Bomb” cocktails and “The Patriot” breakfast sandwich. “We’ve got two TVs in our bar and we’re going to have the audio on full blast,” said Molly Hippolitus, a spokeswoman for the bar’s owners. “I’m expecting a pretty good mix, a bipartisan crowd to show up.” The Union Pub in Washington planned to buy patrons a round of drinks every time Trump, a frequent tweeter, makes a post on Twitter during Comey’s testimony. Several bars in San Francisco will open as early as 6 a.m. PDT to allow patrons to gather for the testimony. “It’s important for us to be well informed,” said bartender Darren “Buddy” Jaques at the Mix, where the TV will be tuned into the hearing. | 1 |
3,934 | UK lawmakers back EU withdrawal bill at second reading | LONDON (Reuters) - British lawmakers on Tuesday voted in favor of legislation to sever political, financial and legal ties with the European Union at its second reading, allowing the bill to move to the next stage of the parliamentary process. The opposition Labour Party, which said several clauses in the legislation amount to a power grab by government, opposed the bill but would have needed to convince EU supporters in the governing Conservatives to side with them to vote it down. After more than eight hours of debate on Monday, lawmakers voted by 326 to 290 in favor of the EU withdrawal bill, which will now go on to face days of line-by-line scrutiny. | 1 |
3,935 | Munich prosecutors arrest ex-Porsche executive in Audi emissions probe: source | MUNICH (Reuters) - Munich prosecutors have arrested a former board member of Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) unit Porsche in connection with an emissions scandal at carmaker Audi, a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday. Wolfgang Hatz, former Research and Development chief at Porsche and head of powertrain development at Audi and parent Volkswagen in previous roles, was taken into custody, the person said, marking the first arrest of a former board member of one of Volkswagen s units in Germany. A lawyer representing Hatz declined to confirm the arrest and also declined any further comment. Hatz left Porsche last year, having been suspended since Volkswagen s emissions test-cheating scandal broke in September 2015. Investigations found no evidence against him, Porsche said in May 2016. Munich prosecutors earlier said they had arrested a second suspect and widened the number of suspects in their investigation. They did not disclose the suspect s identity. Prosecutors have also searched personal premises, a spokeswoman for the Munich prosecutors said, adding that corporate locations were not part of the raid. Audi has no knowledge of the arrest and continues to cooperate with authorities, a spokesman said. German business daily Handelsblatt first reported the arrest and Sueddeutsche Zeitung disclosed Hatz s identity. Audi admitted in November 2015, two months after parent Volkswagen s diesel emissions scandal broke, that its 3.0 liter V6 diesel engines were fitted with an auxiliary control device deemed illegal in the United States. In March, Munich prosecutors searched offices at the carmaker s Ingolstadt base, where about 44,000 workers are employed, and the premises of Jones Day, a U.S. law firm hired by Volkswagen to lead an investigation into the emissions scandal. Four months later the U.S. Justice Department said it had charged a former Audi manager with directing employees at the company to design software to cheat U.S. emissions tests in thousands of Audi diesel cars. The former Audi manager, Italian citizen Giovanni Pamio, was subsequently arrested by Munich prosecutors on suspicion of fraud and false advertising in connection with the carmaker s emissions scandal. Pamio remains in custody pending ongoing German investigations and an extradition request by U.S. authorities. Pamio s lawyers said he is cooperating fully with prosecutors and has denied the allegations. | 1 |
3,936 | Senior U.S. House Republican expects action on gun 'bump stocks' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The No. 2 Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives said on Thursday that he expects Congress will take steps to control the use of “bump stock” gun accessories that enable rifles to be turned into rapid-fire guns, following Sunday’s mass shooting in Las Vegas. “This is definitely an area we should look at,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told the Fox News Channel. “The one thing I do want to do is, let’s let the sheriff and the authorities carry out their entire investigation,” McCarthy said. “But I think this is definitely an area we’re going to look (at) and be able to act on,” he said, referring to the use of bump stock gun accessories. | 1 |
3,937 | Disturbing Uncovered Emails From Huma Abedin Bring Hillary’s Mental Health Into Question: “Often confused” | How quickly the Democrats have forgotten about that little incident that landed Hillary in the hospital, following the death of the 4 Americans that she likely caused in Benghazi After reviewing more than 35 pages of email from top Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, Judicial Watch observes that Abedin advised a State Department staffer that it was very important to review phone calls with Clinton because she was often confused. Judicial Watch notes that Abedin emailed State Department Clinton aide and companion Monica Hanley from her Huma@clintonemail.com to alert her about the need to go over phone calls with Clinton.Additionally, Abedin s emails reveal repeated security breaches, with the Secretary s schedule and movements being sent and received through Abedin s non-governmental and unsecured Clinton server account, states Judicial Watch.On January 26, 2013, Abedin had the following email exchange with Hanley:Abedin: Have you been going over her calls with her? So she knows singh is at 8? [India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh] Hanley: She was in bed for a nap by the time I heard that she had an 8am call. Will go over with her Abedin: Very imp to do that. She s often confused. The emails also provide specific details of Clinton s last day in office on January 31, 2013. Exact times and locations of all her appointments during the day are given. Huma Abedin s description of Hillary Clinton as easily confused tells you all you need to know why it took a federal lawsuit to get these government emails from Clinton s illegal email server, said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. These emails also show that Hillary Clinton s and Huma Abedin s decision to use the Clinton email server to conduct government business was dangerous and risky. Via: Breitbart NewsHere is Bill Clinton attempting to convince the interviewer that Hillary works out every week (not every day) and that she is the picture of health:From Edward Klein s book Unlikeable :Ed Klein, whose book Unlikeable hits shelves on Sept. 28, told the National Enquirer that the former secretary of state is battling a host of mounting health issues including blinding headaches that have frequently plagued her. Bachmann, a former Minnesota Republican congresswoman, bowed out of the 2012 GOP primary race after reports surfaced that she was wrestling with debilitating migraine headaches including one that kept her offstage during part of a televised debate. A Clinton friend told Klein that the Democrats current leading light might even be suffering from multiple sclerosis.Clinton herself released a letter on July 28 from a doctor who gave her a clean bill of health.Dr. Lisa Bardack of Mount Kisco, N.Y. wrote that Clinton, 67, has completely recovered from a December 2012 concussion that left her seeing double for two months.While treating that condition, doctors diagnosed a blood clot in her sinuses, requiring long-term daily doses of the blood-thinning medication Coumadin.Bardack added that Clinton had been diagnosed with blood clots previously, in both 1998 and 2009. But Klein s book goes far beyond talk of ordinary medical conditions. For the first time I ve known her, she s showing self-doubt about her strength and vitality, a friend of Hillary told him, according to Radar Online.She also reportedly suffers from severe insomnia, which has sapped her energy just when she needed it most for the campaign. She is exhausted and depressed a lot of the time, the friend said, and has turned to sleeping pills in order to rest at night. | 0 |
3,938 | Under fire from Republicans, Trump says he'll stop talking about judge | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bowing to pressure from fellow Republicans, Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would no longer talk about a Mexican-American judge after U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan denounced the presidential candidate’s criticism of the jurist as textbook racism. But Trump refused entreaties from party leaders to disavow his charge that U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel was showing bias because of his Mexican heritage and should recuse himself from a lawsuit alleging fraud at Trump’s defunct Trump University real estate training school. Trump said in a statement that his previous remarks about Curiel had been misconstrued. “I do not feel that one’s heritage makes them incapable of being impartial, but, based on the rulings that I have received in the Trump University civil case, I feel justified in questioning whether I am receiving a fair trial,” the presumptive Republican nominee said. Trump added that he did not plan to comment further on the matter. Trump had been suggesting that Curiel’s heritage was influencing the judge’s opinion about the case because of Trump’s campaign rhetoric about illegal immigration. Trump has pledged to seal the U.S.-Mexico border with a wall, and has said Mexico is sending rapists and drug dealers to the United States. Ryan, the country’s top elected Republican, blasted Trump’s comments, which have threatened to disrupt Republicans’ already rocky efforts to unite behind the candidate. “I regret those comments that he made. Claiming a person can’t do their job because of their race is sort of like the textbook definition of a racist comment. I think that should be absolutely disavowed,” Ryan told reporters. The controversy over Trump’s attacks on the judge has set back his efforts to try to unify the Republican party behind him ahead of the Nov. 8 general election when he will face off against presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Speaking to supporters at the golf club he owns in the hilly suburbs of New York later on Tuesday, Trump laid out his vision for the meaning of his campaign slogan “America First,” talking about its implications for trade, energy, financial regulation and tax policies. Breaking with his usual practice of speaking off the cuff, Trump read from a teleprompter and left without taking questions from reporters. Ryan, who endorsed Trump last week after initial misgivings, said he still supported his candidacy, saying Trump would be preferable to Clinton. Behind the scenes, Trump has been pressured from friends and family to back down, fearful of the damage that may be done to his prospects in the general election, a source close to the Trump campaign said. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a potential Trump vice presidential running mate, was spotted at Trump Tower in New York before Trump’s statement was issued. Christie earlier in the day defended Trump as “not a racist.” “Some of his friends and family have talked to him and asked him to drop it and so far he won’t do it,” the source said, speaking before Trump’s statement was issued. “Everybody is mystified about why he would keep doing it.” Ryan’s emphatic rejection of Trump’s comments showed anxiety among party leaders about their ability to hang on to control of the U.S. Congress in November if voters trounce Trump and also punish candidates for other offices on the Republican ticket. Ryan’s counterpart in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, said Trump should stop attacking minority groups. “My advice to our nominee is to start talking about the issues that the American people care about, and to start doing it now,” the Senate Republican leader told reporters. “In addition to that, it’s time to quit attacking various people that you competed with or various minority groups in the country and get on message.” Senator Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican who said back in March he would support whoever turned out to be the Republican nominee, said on Tuesday he could not support Trump because he did not have the “temperament necessary” for the White House. Kirk condemned Trump’s comments on Curiel as “dead wrong” and “un-American.” Kirk is seeking re-election in November. During the Republican primary campaigns, in which Trump vanquished 16 opponents with a stream of insults to rivals and inflammatory comments about Muslims, immigrants and women, establishment Republicans squirmed over the prospect of the former reality television host becoming their standard-bearer. But many, seeing no alternative, have reconciled themselves to a Trump run for the White House. Trump’s continuing practice of making explosive remarks about racial, religious and gender issues is making Republicans, including those who have embraced him, uncomfortable. With greater scrutiny of Trump now that he is set to formally win the Republican presidential nomination at the party’s July convention in Cleveland, there are concerns about the party’s ability to maintain control of the House of Representatives and Senate. “Trump’s continuing missteps, punctuated by his outrageous and indefensible comments about Judge Curiel, make that goal much more difficult to achieve,” said Lanhee Chen, a senior adviser to former presidential candidate Marco Rubio and a senior fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution. | 1 |
3,939 | U.S. extends some Iran sanctions relief under nuclear deal | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday extended some sanctions relief for Iran under the 2015 nuclear deal but said it has yet to decide whether to preserve the deal itself, the State Department said. President Donald Trump, who must make a decision by mid-October that could undermine the agreement, said Iran is violating the spirit of the 2015 deal under which Iran got sanctions relief in return for curbing its nuclear program. In a sign of Trump s desire to put pressure on Iran, which denies violating the deal, the U.S. Treasury announced new cyber-related and other sanctions on seven Iranian individuals, two Iranian entities and two Ukraine-based entities. We are not going to stand for what they are doing, Trump told reporters on Air Force One. But he stopped short of saying whether he will refuse to recertify the agreement. Trump must decide in October whether to certify that Iran is complying with the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). If he does not, Congress has 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions waived under the deal. The prospect of Washington reneging on the agreement has worried some of the key U.S. allies that helped negotiate the deal, especially as the world grapples with another nuclear crisis, North Korea s nuclear and ballistic missile development. Republican Senator Bob Corker, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and wrote the law giving Congress the right to review the Iran deal, said he and the White House were preparing in case of a change in policy. He also said he recognized the need to work with allies. I think it s important that ... we take steps that, to the extent we can, we keep all of our allies together, Corker told Reuters. What you don t want to do is self-create a crisis for no reason. You want to make sure that you have an outcome here that is a good outcome for the United States and our interest. Asked if it made sense to abandon the Iran nuclear deal given concerns about North Korea, Corker said, I don t think you should prejudge what they re (the administration) going to do. Separately, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson argued that the United States must consider the full threat it says Iran poses to the Middle East when formulating its new policy toward Tehran, saying Iran had breached the spirit of the deal. We have to consider the totality of Iran s activities and not let our view be defined solely by the nuclear agreement, he told a news conference in London. Citing the preface to the 2015 agreement, Tillerson said in our view, Iran is clearly in default of these expectations. He cited Iranian support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, its development of ballistic missiles and cyber activities. The deal s preface does not oblige Iran to promote global peace. Rather, it says the nations involved anticipate that full implementation of this JCPOA will positively contribute to regional and international peace and security. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters the administration had approved waivers of some sanctions on Iran to maintain some flexibility as it develops its Iran policy. She did not specify which sanctions were waived. Earlier, sources said the United States will renew a waiver of the most punitive sanctions on Iran. Tucked into Section 1245 of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, Washington threatened to sanction the banks of Iran s main oil customers if they did not significantly cut their purchases of Iranian crude. Under the law, these sanctions can be waived for a maximum of 120 days, forcing the U.S. government to revisit the issue every four months. Even as the administration waived the oil-related sanctions, the Treasury Department announced it had sanctioned 11 entities and individuals for engaging in support of designated Iranian actors or malicious cyber-enabled activity. Of the 11, seven were Iranian individuals, two were Iranian entities and two were entities based in Ukraine. The Treasury alleged they either supported Iran s ballistic missile program or its Quds Force, or engaged in cyber attacks against the U.S. financial system. The action freezes any assets they may hold in the United States and generally prohibits U.S. individuals from doing business with them. | 1 |
3,940 | Russian Senate head to discuss nuclear program with North, South Korea | MOSCOW (Reuters) - A senior official in the Russian parliament will discuss North Korea s missile and nuclear program in separate talks with parliamentarians from Seoul and Pyongyang on Monday, TASS news agency said. Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the Senate upper house, will discuss the issue with a deputy head of North Korea s legislature and the head of South Korea s parliament on the sidelines of a congress of parliamentarians in St Petersburg, TASS quoted a senior Russian lawmaker as saying. Both meetings will take place on Oct. 16, TASS cited Konstantin Kosachev, head of the Senate s international relations committee, as saying. Quoting an unnamed source, RIA news agency said earlier on Saturday the meetings would take place on Oct. 15. I believe that during the meetings the Russian side will call (on North and South Korea) to hold direct contacts. This would be quite natural, but of course we cannot, and should not, force anyone to do so, Kosachev told TASS. North Korea s nuclear tests and missile launches have stirred global tensions and prompted several rounds of international sanctions at the U.N. Security Council. A de-escalation plan, which is backed by Russia and China, would see North Korea suspend its ballistic missile program and the United States and South Korea simultaneously call a moratorium on large-scale missile exercises, both moves aimed at paving the way for multilateral talks. | 1 |
3,941 | Factbox: How Catalan autonomy stacks up against other regions | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Questions around nationhood, tax autonomy, international representation and policy powers are at the heart of Sunday s violence-marred independence referendum in Catalonia, Spain s wealthiest region. Below please find brief description of how Catalonia compares with other regions with separatist leanings. A historic principality that became part of a united Spanish kingdom in the 15th century, it is one of 17 autonomous regions under Spain s devolved political system created after the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. It has its own government, presidency, and parliament. The statute of autonomy defining Catalonia s powers refers to Catalonia as a nationality . Catalan and Spanish share status as official languages in Catalonia. Catalonia has its own flag and anthem. Half of the income tax and value-added tax (VAT) levied in Catalonia is returned to the region of 7.5 million people, with the central government in Madrid deciding how the rest is spent. Company taxes also go to Madrid. Catalonia receives 58 percent of the proceeds of a number of other taxes, including on alcohol and fuel, raised there. Its tax-collecting agency also gathers some taxes on wealth, inheritance, gambling and transport and keeps all the proceeds. Catalonia, with about 16 percent of Spain s population of 47 million, complains about the redistribution of tax revenues. Each year, it pays about 10 billion euros ($12 billion) more in taxes to Madrid than it gets back, or around 5 percent of regional economic output, according to Spanish Treasury data. The Catalan government has a number of delegations abroad, including in Brussels, London and Washington. The Catalan government has broad powers in areas such as education, health, security, culture, urban development and the environment. It has its own police force, the Mossos d Esquadra. The central government has powers over foreign, defense, immigration and broad economic policy. A kingdom occupying the northern half of the island of Great Britain from the 9th century, Scotland s monarch took the crown of England through dynastic succession in 1603 and in 1707 the two countries formed the state of Great Britain. It is now part of the United Kingdom, with England, Wales and Northern Ireland. After rejecting independence in a 2014 referendum, Scotland was allowed to raise a portion of its own taxes with the option to set what is currently half the level of income tax. From this year, it has had the power to set rates and bands of income tax, and half of VAT receipts from Scotland are now assigned to the Scottish government to spend. The rest of Scotland s financing comes from the UK budget via a formula which takes into account population changes. In general, Scotland, with about 8 percent of the UK s 66 million population, is a net beneficiary from the central budget. Scotland has its own international soccer team and the Scottish government has offices in Brussels, Washington, Toronto and Beijing to promote its regional interests. Scottish Development International also has some 40 offices in about 20 countries aimed at promoting trade and investment. Decisions taken in Scotland s parliament at Holyrood in Edinburgh, which was created in 1999, encompass agriculture, health, education, transport, local government, law, social work, housing, tourism and economic development, sport and arts. All other powers such as immigration, defense and foreign policy - are reserved to the UK parliament at Westminster. After gaining independence from the Netherlands in 1830, Belgium later faced demands for equality from Dutch-speakers in a state dominated by the then-richer French-speaking south. Since World War Two, demands for independence for the now more numerous and richer Flemings were met with six rounds of constitutional change that left Dutch-speaking Flanders and French-speaking Wallonia highly autonomous within a complex federal structure. Most tax rates are set at federal level, though the regions have some powers, such as over car and property taxes. In general, Flanders with about 6 million of Belgium s 11 million people, is a net contributor to the federal budget. Regional governments are in charge of foreign trade and conduct separate trade missions in addition to those of the federal government. Wallonia nearly derailed an EU-Canada trade deal last year. Flanders has permanent representatives in several locations Europe, as well as New York and Pretoria. Flanders, like Wallonia, is in charge of several policy areas, notably education, healthcare and agriculture. Mainly French-speaking since the days of British and French colonial rivalry in North America, Quebec, with a population of 8.2 million, is now one of 10 provinces of the federal state of Canada, whose population is 36 million. Independence referendums in 1980 and 1995 delivered majority votes in favor of remaining part of Canada. The Canadian parliament voted in 2006 to recognize Quebec as a nation . All Canadian provinces have the power to levy provincial taxes and receive transfer payments from the federal government. Quebec, has its own delegations in the Unites States, Latin America, Asia, Europe and Africa. Quebec is also a member of its own right in some international organizations, including UNESCO, the U.N. education, science and culture arm. The province can make laws concerning provincial matters and is still bound by federal regulations. | 1 |
3,942 | Trump says new trade orders set stage for manufacturing revival | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday directed his administration to review U.S. trade deficits and clamp down on countries that abuse trade rules in two executive orders he said would start a new chapter for U.S. workers and businesses. “Today I’m signing two executive orders that send this message loud and clear, and that set the stage for a great revival of American manufacturing,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “We’re going to get these bad trade deals straightened out,” Trump said. | 1 |
3,943 | Factbox: Build a giant wall, cut Education Department. What a President Trump would do | (Reuters) - Presidential candidate Donald Trump has been accused by some in his Republican Party of being vague on policy specifics and heavy on rhetoric. Here is a look at what the billionaire businessman, the front-runner for the Republican nomination, has said he would do on some of the big issues should he become the nominee and go on to win the Nov. 8 election. The policies are drawn from a review of his website, stump speeches, debates, town halls and televised interviews. Trump has complained that China, Japan, Mexico, Vietnam and India are “ripping us off” by devaluing their currencies and keeping out some U.S. exports. He would not sign the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact and would renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada. He has said he favors reaching trade agreements with individual countries as opposed to multilateral accords like the TPP. He would designate China a currency manipulator and impose countervailing duties on its exports. He also wants to pursue a World Trade Organization case on Chinese government programs that subsidize exporters. Trump has said he would put activist investor Carl Icahn in charge of negotiating a better trade relationship with China. Icahn has said he is happy to advise Trump, but would not seek a formal position if Trump was elected. Trump has said the United States should raise tariffs on foreign-made goods in response to reductions in interest rates by European Union nations and other countries, which he says could hurt manufacturing jobs at home. Trump has also said he would slap 35 percent tariffs on air conditioners made in Mexico by United Technologies Corp’s Carrier after the company decided to move production there from Indiana, and on Ford Motor Corp vehicles made in Mexico that are sold in the United States. Trump has pledged to cut and simplify taxes. Individuals making less than $25,000 per year and married filers earning less than $50,000 would not pay income tax. There would be three other tax brackets, down from seven currently, with a top marginal income tax rate of 25 percent, and a top rate for long-term capital gains and dividends of 20 percent. The current top marginal income tax rate is 39.6 percent and the current top rate for long-term capital gains is 20 percent. Deductions for charitable giving and mortgage interest would remain unchanged. Other deductions would be trimmed in the highest tax brackets. He would eliminate the alternative minimum tax, the estate tax, and the carried interest tax break that allows investment fund managers and some hedge fund managers to treat income as capital gains. The corporate tax rate would be cut to 15 percent, down from the current level of 35 percent. Trump would phase in a “reasonable cap” on deductions for business interest expenses and would cut other corporate loopholes. Trump would impose a onetime 10 percent “deemed repatriation” tax on deferred corporate overseas profits and would end deferral of income from foreign subsidiaries. Trump would also move quickly to stop corporate inversions, in which a U.S. company acquires an overseas firm and reduces its tax bill by reincorporating overseas. He has offered no specifics. He has criticized Republicans and Democrats for being unable to halt inversions, saying, “They can’t make a deal because they don’t have leadership.” The Tax Foundation, an independent policy research group, has said Trump’s plan would cost more than $10 trillion over the next decade. His campaign has said the plan is fully paid for. Trump has pledged to get rid of the $19 trillion federal deficit by boosting jobs and cutting government waste, but he has not released a formal policy paper on how he would do this. He has said he would not cut the Medicare and Medicaid healthcare programs for senior citizens and low-income Americans, nor Social Security retirement benefits. He would eliminate the Education Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. Trump has promised to build a high wall at the U.S.-Mexico border to keep out illegal immigrants, which he has said would cost $10 billion to $12 billion. Mexico would pay for the wall or face consequences, his campaign said. Trump would “impound” remittance payments to Mexico from undocumented workers, and increase visa and border crossing fees for Mexican workers, as well as visa fees for Mexican chief executives and diplomats. Applying tariffs on Mexican goods and cutting foreign aid are also “options,” his campaign has said on his website. He would deport the 11 million illegal immigrants living in America and end “birthright citizenship” for children born in the United States to illegal immigrants. He has called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States and would not allow refugees from Syria. Trump would triple the number of border agents and require all businesses to use the E-Verify database to ensure employees are in the country legally. He would increase penalties for overstaying visas and would complete a visa tracking system. He would withhold federal funding from “sanctuary cities” that decline to help the federal government deport illegal immigrants. Trump’s campaign has also said he would “pause” new green cards and require employers to hire American workers first. Trump has said he would seek repeal of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. He would still require insurers to provide coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions, a key feature of Obamacare. He would allow prescription drugs to be imported and would turn the Medicaid program for the poor into block grants for the states. His plan also calls for full deduction of health insurance premiums from income tax. He would move to allow insurance companies to sell plans across state lines to spur competition. He would allow individuals to use tax-free Health Savings Accounts, which he says should be allowed to accumulate and be passed on to a person’s heirs. Currently, Health Savings Accounts, which were created as part of Obamacare, can be used only with high-deductible health plans. They are tax free and can accumulate and be rolled over into a retirement account when a person is ready for Medicare. Trump has said he could save the government $300 billion by negotiating better prices with drug companies. He would require price transparency from all healthcare providers, especially doctors and organizations like clinics and hospitals, to enable individuals to find the best prices for exams or other procedures. Trump has promised to “knock out” Islamic State quickly and said he is open to working with Russia to do so. He has said he would consider putting 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops on the ground to defeat Islamic State militants and has vowed to complete the mission swiftly and bring troops home to focus on rebuilding the United States. He has said he would “bomb the oil” that helps finance the insurgent group and stop the “back channels of banking” used by the group. He has vowed to bring back the use of waterboarding, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning and has been banned as torture under U.S. law. He said he also supports other, unspecified techniques “a hell of a lot worse” than waterboarding. He has said he would not order the U.S. military to break international laws on how to treat terrorism suspects , but has also said he would seek to “have those laws broadened.” He would “take out” the family members of Islamic State militants and would like to shut down “areas” of the Internet to try to stop the group from recruiting members. He wants to build a “safe zone” for Syrian refugees in Syria. But Gulf states would have to pay for it. He has said the United States should first deal with Islamic State before addressing the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, saying, “We have to do one thing at a time.” He has questioned whether the United States should back opposition groups in Syria, saying, “We have no idea who they are.” Trump has said he would increase the size and power of the U.S. military to make it “so strong, so powerful that nobody’s going to mess with us.” He says too much money is wasted buying equipment the military does not want. He wants Japan, Germany, South Korea and Saudi Arabia to bear more of the cost of military aid provided by the United States. “We can no longer defend all of these countries,” he said, citing the deficit. Trump would boost the U.S. military presence in the East and South China seas to “discourage Chinese adventurism,” according to his website. | 1 |
3,944 | Maryland to join other states in court challenge to Trump's travel ban | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Maryland became the latest state to join in legal challenges against President Donald Trump’s revised temporary travel ban on Friday, with its attorney general saying it would join a lawsuit brought by Washington and other states. Attorney General Brian Frosh said his office would formally join the suit on Monday. “The administration persists in an effort to implement a policy that is inhumane and unconstitutional, but also makes us less safe, not more safe,” Frosh said in a statement. The new travel order, which is set to take effect on Wednesday, replaced a more sweeping ban issued on Jan. 27 that caused chaos and protests at airports. The first order, which temporarily halted the entry of refugees and travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries, was hit by more than two dozen lawsuits. Detractors claimed it discriminated against Muslims and violated the U.S. Constitution. The government has said the president has wide authority to implement immigration policy and that the travel rules are necessary to protect against terrorist attacks. “Trump’s second executive order is still a Muslim ban,” Frosh said in the statement. The state of Washington brought one of the suits against the original ban, and last month a federal judge in Seattle ordered an emergency halt to the policy. That ruling was upheld by an appeals court in San Francisco. Washington is now asking the court to apply the emergency halt to the new ban, arguing it is a veiled version of the old one. The new order keeps a 90-day ban on travel to the United States by citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, but excludes Iraq. Refugees are still halted from entering the country for 120 days, but the new order removed an indefinite ban on all refugees from Syria. Oregon and Minnesota also are joining Washington’s challenge. Hawaii has a separate case pending against the new ban. Frosh said the ban would make Maryland less competitive by deterring visits by academics, scientists and engineers from other countries and would hurt Maryland’s universities and economy. The U.S. Department of Justice has declined to comment on the states’ cases because the litigation is pending. | 1 |
3,945 | The Law Says Donald Trump Can Already Be Impeached And That Might Be The Plan | The moment Donald Trump is sworn in as president, Congress could begin impeachment proceedings and they could win. It could easily happen, and as much as we can t stand Trump, that would be horrible.Before you shake your head and dismiss this as just another conspiracy theory, here are some facts from a Utah law professor, Christopher Lewis Peterson, who wrote a 22 page article telling us how and why Congress can and should impeach Trump. Clearly, we won t reprint all of the 22 pages, but here s the abstract, which by itself is pretty compelling:In the final weeks of the 2016 Presidential campaign Donald J. Trump faces three lawsuits accusing him of fraud and racketeering. These ongoing cases focus on a series of wealth seminars called Trump University which collected over $40 million from consumers seeking to learn Trump s real estate investing strategies. Although these consumer protection cases are civil proceedings, the underlying legal elements in several counts that plaintiffs seek to prove run parallel to the legal elements of serious crimes under both state and federal law. This essay provides a legal analysis of whether Trump s alleged behavior would, if proven, rise to the level of impeachable offenses under the presidential impeachment clause of the United States Constitution. This essay begins with a summary of the evidence assembled in the three pending Trump University civil lawsuits. Next, it describes the legal claims involved in each matter. Then, this essay summarizes the applicable law of presidential impeachment under the United States Constitution and analyzes whether Trump s actions in connection with Trump University are impeachable offenses. Finally, I offer concluding thoughts, considering in particular the policy implications of a major presidential campaign with simultaneously pending legal complaints of fraud and racketeering.Now, why would a Republican Congress impeach a Republican President? Well, as you recall, the vast majority of the GOP wing of Congress only reluctantly supported Trump.Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, was perhaps the most vocal reluctant supporter, saying that he was sickened by Trump s rhetoric, but would support him anyway.Most thought Ryan was sticking with Trump as a matter of political expediency. After all, they share the exact same voter base, but perhaps Ryan, who s not stupid, had something up his sleeve. Trump s VP pick, Mike Pence, is tailor made to help elevate Paul Ryan s agenda. He s ber conservative and ber Christian. While Trump is a wildcard, Pence is someone who Ryan can Trust. Pence won t squawk while Ryan strips senior citizens of Social Security or the poor of food. Trump might not squawk, but he s not predictable, either.While both Ryan and Pence (and most Republicans in Congress) are social conservatives who want to set back rights for LGBT people and women, again, Trump is a wildcard. Trump used to be pro-choice and despite the fact that his campaign was built on hate, he said very little about LGBT people. It s highly doubtful that Trump will defend the rights of gay people or abortion rights, but that s not a chance Ryan or Republicans in Congress want to take.The Trump University lawsuit is set to start at the end of the month. It s a civil suit, but it will highlight that voters elected a con man. It will certainly be enough to make the most anti-Trump members of Congress talk and it could give us a President Pence. Yes, that s frightening.Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images. | 0 |
3,946 | Pentagon's Mattis again seeks to reassure U.S. allies | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Jim Mattis travels to the Middle East and eastern Europe next week to play the increasingly familiar role of reassuring allies that the United States is committed to them despite mixed messages from President Donald Trump. Mattis will visit Jordan, Turkey, and Ukraine to address concerns about the fight against Islamic State and give a message that Washington will not tolerate Russia’s annexation of eastern Ukraine. The informal portfolio of soothing traditional U.S. friends upset by Trump’s often sharp comments and tweets on foreign policy is one that the retired Marine general is becoming used to. “There is no-one in the administration, maybe with the exception of Vice President Mike Pence, that has to shoulder the responsibility of Trump’s rhetoric more than Mattis,” said Joshua Walker, a former U.S. diplomat and current fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a think tank. Earlier this month, Trump said that a U.S. military option was being considered for Venezuela as the country is torn by political and economic upheaval. Within a few hours, the Pentagon publicly announced that it had not received any orders on Venezuela, lowering the temperature slightly. Mattis, along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, sent a conciliatory message to North Korea last weekend in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal after Trump had threatened “fire and fury” if Pyongyang tried to attack the United States. The two officials wrote that the United States “has no interest in regime change or accelerated reunification of Korea,” addressing some of North Korea’s fears that Washington ultimately intends to replace its leadership. “It is certainly true that to some extent if you look at both Mattis and Tillerson, who travel a lot, they are both explainers and people who both manage to moderate and reassure,” said Anthony Cordesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. Mattis served as the head of U.S. military’s Central Command from 2010 to 2013, and foreign leaders, especially in the Middle East, trust him, said Cordesman. On a trip to Iraq earlier this year, Mattis grabbed headlines when he said the U.S. military was not there to “seize anybody’s oil.” That was an attempt to calm Iraqi worries after Trump had told CIA staff in January, when referring to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003: “We should have kept the oil. But okay. Maybe you’ll have another chance.” Trump has also upset NATO allies by demanding they increase their defense spending and by seeking better relations with Russia. “I do think that Secretary Mattis finds himself spending time, putting President Trump’s statements into a broader context... in some cases that does mean defining them more narrowly, or more precisely as to what they mean,” Christine Wormuth, a former number three at the Pentagon, said. On the trip that starts this weekend, Mattis will make the first visit to Ukraine by a U.S. secretary of defense since 2007. He will try to reassure Kiev that the United States remains committed to restoring Ukraine’s sovereignty after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Questions were raised when Tillerson said in June that the Trump administration did not wish to be “handcuffed” by the 2015 Minsk accord to end fighting in Ukraine. That agreement, signed by Russia and Ukraine, calls for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the front line and constitutional reform to give eastern Ukraine more autonomy. While it is not a close U.S. ally, Ukraine has counted on American support against Russia since a pro-Western government took power following street protests in 2014 that ousted a Kremlin-backed president. Trump’s comments during the election campaign last year, from praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin to appearing to recognize Crimea as part of Russia and contemplating an end to U.S. sanctions on Moscow, stoked fears in Kiev that Trump would mend ties with Russia at Ukraine’s expense. The Pentagon is awaiting White House approval for a proposal to send “defensive” weapons to Ukraine, including anti-tank missiles, a U.S. official said. Michael Carpenter, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the region, said the trip would be important because it would send a signal to Kiev that the United States remained committed and the approval of the lethal weapons would be a tangible sign of that. “Mattis believes that this is a security issue that goes beyond Europe, that this is about international norms, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Carpenter said. The Pentagon says Mattis will also emphasize the commitment of the United States to Turkey and help Ankara “address its legitimate security concerns- including the fight against the (Kurdistan Workers Party).” However, Mattis will have to address a number of differences, including the Pentagon’s decision to arm Kurdish YPG fighters to support an operation to retake the Syrian city of Raqqa from Islamic State. Ankara views the YPG, fighting within a larger U.S.-backed coalition, as the Syrian extension of the Kurdish PKK militant group, which it is fighting in southeastern Turkey. | 1 |
3,947 | U.S. business wary of skin-deep results from Trump-Xi trade talks | BEIJING (Reuters) - The 100-day trade talks announced after a Sino-American presidential summit last week will aim to deal with decades of thorny trade issues, leaving some U.S. business leaders wary that the short timeline might yield superficial results. Business executives are also worried that President Donald Trump’s focus on curtailing North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs could undercut U.S. commercial interests in China. Days after Trump’s meeting with President Xi Jinping, Trump tweeted that Beijing would get a better trade deal with Washington if it helped resolve the U.S. problem with Pyongyang. The U.S. business community should not be used as a “bargaining chip”, said James Zimmerman, a Beijing-based lawyer and the former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China. “Trump’s ‘far better trade deal’ linkage to North Korea is amateurish, illogical horse trading, at best,” Zimmerman said. The White House has said U.S and Chinese officials are still at the early stages of “fleshing out” a pledge by Trump and Xi to develop the 100-day plan to reduce the U.S. trade deficit with China, which last year reached $347 billion. It was among the limited set of public outcomes from their first meeting in Florida. While Trump has promised to aggressively address trade imbalances and open the Chinese market to more American goods and services, William Zarit, the Chamber’s current chairman, said the talks need to address the “structural impediments” U.S. companies face in China. “We’d rather be talking than having a trade war. But remember we’ve been talking for 20 years and haven’t gotten very far,” Zarit said. The White House has said that issues including opening up China’s financial services sector and getting U.S. beef exports into China were up for talks. “We are pleased to hear the issue has been elevated to the highest levels of both governments and that there is commitment to resolve the U.S. beef access issue in an expedited fashion,” CEO of the U.S. Meat Export Federation Philip Seng said. Others remain skeptical. “Beef should have been done 10 years ago. The fact that that has been going on for so long is emblematic of the imbalance in the way we negotiate and deal with each other,” said James McGregor, Chairman of APCO Worldwide in Greater China. China has purchased hardly any American beef since it conditionally lifted an import ban last year that was imposed in 2003 due to a case of mad cow disease in Washington state. Despite initial media reports suggesting Xi may have offered access for U.S. beef as a concession to stave off rising trade tensions, China’s Premier Li Keqiang this week appeared to link progress on the issue to U.S. restrictions on imports of some Chinese poultry products for food safety reasons. “China is willing to import market-competitive U.S. beef that meets quality and health standards,” Li told a U.S. Congressional delegation in Beijing on Monday, according to the state-run Beijing News. “Chinese chicken is also very competitive in the international market. We hope the United States can quickly lift the ban on Chinese chicken imports. Only in this way can we better embody fair trade,” Li said. While individual companies are hesitant to criticize China for fear of backlash, critics from U.S. business groups accuse Beijing of unfairly subsidizing domestic firms and restricting foreign investment into much of the world’s second-biggest economy. A 50-percent ownership cap for foreign life insurers, for example, despite China’s 2001 World Trade Organization commitments to lift it, has helped limit their market share to about 6 percent. Beijing has repeatedly promised to open up financial services more widely to foreign firms, but has given few details on implementation. Jacob Parker, vice president of China operations at the U.S.-China Business Council, said concerns persist that China would make commitments but not follow through or take only incremental steps. While the government could remove some industries from a list of sectors restricted for foreign investment, businesses could still face red tape and licensing hurdles or be restricted to regional pilot zones. “There are lots of ways China can call something an opening and it is not,” Parker said. Xi proposed further cooperation on infrastructure development in meetings with Trump, but Chinese state-owned companies working on major U.S. public works is a politically fraught issue in the United States, where Trump campaigned on creating jobs. High-tech industries where China hopes to funnel investment, such as semiconductors, virtual reality and autonomous vehicles, are considered sensitive. Such partnerships would likely also have to clear national security hurdles. Skeptics also wonder if Chinese cooperation in redressing the trade imbalance will be limited to areas that serve Chinese needs, such as increasing imports of U.S. gas, oil and coking coal. Xi stopped in Alaska on his way home, meeting with Governor Bill Walker, who touted the state’s oil, gas, and mineral resources. On the market access side, lowering restrictions on foreign investment in Chinese banking, securities, investment management, futures, insurance, credit ratings and accounting sectors, as Beijing has already promised, would help China improve the quality financial of instruments and make their markets more stable and professional, said McGregor. “If you look at the things that China is talking about opening, it’s all areas where China needs help,” McGregor said. | 1 |
3,948 | Exclusive: Republicans could target Obamacare tax in wider tax overhaul - Brady | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans will consider using planned tax reform to eliminate one of the biggest taxes in Obamacare, if the Senate fails to overturn the healthcare law, a senior Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives said on Wednesday. Kevin Brady, the top Republican on tax policy in the House as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said Republicans will look at the 3.8 percent Net Investment Income Tax in discussions aimed at unveiling a tax reform plan in September. The levy is a weight on economic growth, he said in an interview with Reuters. Efforts by Republicans to overhaul or repeal the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, collapsed in the Senate on Tuesday in a major setback for Republican President Donald Trump. Given a wholesale repeal or overhaul now seems imperiled, Republicans are looking at other ways to attack a law they have vowed to overturn since it was signed by Democratic former President Barack Obama seven years ago. Brady said tax legislation was unlikely to be able to include the repeal of other Obamacare taxes. Doing so would result in about $1 trillion in additional revenue losses over a decade, cutting into efforts to avoid adding to the federal deficit in the overall tax package, he said. “Will we look at the Net Investment Income Tax provision? Yes, mainly because it is incredibly anti-growth the way it is today,” Brady said. But he was cautious about a full repeal of the tax, given the large revenues involved and the fact that some Senate Republicans resisted overturning it as part of the healthcare bill that was under consideration. The tax raises $172.2 billion in revenue over 10 years to fund Obamacare, including health insurance subsidies for individuals. Its repeal is viewed by critics, including some moderate Republicans, as a tax cut for the wealthy since the tax hits individuals who earn more than $200,000 a year and married couples with more than $250,000 in earnings. Brady said he was most concerned about the investment tax’s effect on small businesses. “It doesn’t just affect high earners. It goes across a broad spectrum of small business and captures too much of their activity as well. So we will take a look at that,” he said. However, he noted, “You’ve got to ask the question: if it couldn’t pass the Senate in healthcare, can it pass the Senate in tax reform?” But he added: “Leaving that in place, from an economic standpoint, is a mistake.” | 1 |
3,949 | Trump commutes fraud sentence of kosher meatpacker | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump, in a first exercise of his power to commute criminal sentences, cut short the 27-year prison term of a kosher meatpacking executive who was convicted eight years ago of bank fraud, the White House said on Wednesday. The commutation granted to Sholom Rubashkin, 57, marked only the second time that Trump has invoked his clemency authority as president, following the blanket pardon he granted earlier this year to Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona. Unlike the case of Arpaio, whom a judge had found guilty of contempt in a case involving racial profiling, Trump’s latest action leaves Rubashkin’s conviction intact, as well as terms of his supervised release from federal prison and his obligation to make restitution. Rubashkin was convicted in 2009 of 86 counts of financial fraud that came to light after a government raid on a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, where hundreds of undocumented immigrant workers were arrested. Rubashkin, a father of 10, was the chief executive overseeing the slaughterhouse and headquarters for a family business that was then the largest kosher meat-processing company in the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2012 refused to hear an appeal contesting Rubashkin’s sentence, which his lawyers argued was excessive for a first-time, non-violent offender. His lawyers also contended, to no avail, that he was entitled to a new trial based on evidence of alleged judicial misconduct. The case sparked an outcry from members of the legal and Orthodox Jewish communities who rallied to Rubashkin’s defense. The White House statement cited letters of support for review of Rubashkin’s case from more than 30 members of Congress of both parties, including House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and veteran Republican Senator Orrin Hatch. Trump also pointed to bipartisan expressions of support for review of the case from over 100 former high-ranking U.S. Justice Department officials, prosecutors, judges and legal scholars. The White House further noted criticism of Rubashkin’s sentencing as unusually harsh in comparison to penalties imposed on others for similar white-collar crimes. Former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling was originally sentenced to 24 years in prison, but a federal judge later shortened his term of 14 years. The former CEO of Tyco International Ltd, L. Dennis Kozlowski, was sentenced to 8-1/3 to 25 years in prison and was paroled after serving eight. | 1 |
3,950 | HA! THIS ONE PICTURE Sums Up Hillary Clinton’s Campaign…Classic! [Video] | IT S A SNOOZER! If you missed the coverage last night of the Dem Convention, you might have missed the moment that Bill Clinton fell asleep during Hillary s speech! It was a classic moment what the heck is up with Bill Clinton? Is he that sleep deprived? IN CASE YOU MISSED IT LAST NIGHT WATCH TIM KAINE TRY AND COVER FOR BILL PRICELESS@ | 0 |
3,951 | France's Macron urges China, Russia to support North Korea sanctions | PARIS (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday he was counting on U.N. Security Council members China and Russia to step up sanctions on North Korea after its latest missile test. I once again condemn with the greatest force the missile launch yesterday and now we must increase sanctions, Macron told France 24 television. I am counting a lot in particular on China and Russia in order to take the most difficult and effective sanctions, he added, speaking during an interview from Abidjan in Ivory Coast. | 1 |
3,952 | German Minister Of State Just Smacked Donald Trump Down With Facts | Donald Trump just got owned for comparing Hillary Clinton to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in an effort to demonize her plan to let Syrian refugees settle in this country.During a rally on Monday, the Republican nominee told a crowd in Ohio that crime rates are up in Germany due to the influx of refugees from war torn parts of the Middle East and declared that Hillary Clinton wants to be like Merkel and make America just like Germany. Hillary Clinton wants to be America s Angela Merkel and you know what a disaster this massive immigration has been to Germany and the people of Germany, Trump said. Crime has risen to levels that no one thought they would ever, ever see. It is a catastrophe. Trump s claims baffled Germany s European Affairs Minister Michael Roth in particular because, as usual, Trump is lying in an effort to scare Americans into voting for him.In remarks made to Reuters, Roth apologized for Trump s made up claims and took on the task of cleaning up his mess by informing him of what is actually going on in Germany. I m sorry that the Republican presidential candidate trumpets out things like that without any factual basis, Roth said. If he had studied the actual situation in Germany, he would know that, while the many refugees who came to Germany and Europe pose a big challenge for us, and everything is still not completely resolved, they have not led to a massive increase in crime rates. Indeed, statistics show that the number of crimes committed in Germany are virtually unchanged from 2015, which means crime rates are NOT increasing due to the increased number of immigrants.According to Reuters:Statistics compiled by the German Interior Ministry showed the number of crimes reported in 2015 excluding visa violations and other immigration violations remained essentially unchanged from the previous year at 5.9 million.Once again, Trump embarrassed himself and America by spouting falsehoods about another nation. Roth should not have to comment on bullshit like this but he is forced to do so because American conservatives hate facts and would rather lie to win elections.In addition, comparing Hillary to Angela Merkel is a high compliment since Merkel is a powerful and successful female head of state who has turned Germany into an economic powerhouse that is 20 years away from becoming 100 percent energy independent.If Hillary Clinton is anything like Merkel America can expect to achieve great heights in the years ahead.Featured image via Jeff Swensen/Getty Images | 0 |
3,953 | Trump Reportedly Lost His Sh*t When He Realized The Women’s March Was Bigger Than His Inauguration | Donald Trump threw a petty hissy fit in the White House.Prior to Sean Spicer scolding the media in the White House press room for accurately reporting on the crowd size at the inauguration, Donald Trump apparently threw a massive temper tantrum.According to White House sources who spoke to the Washington Post, Trump became visibly enraged after watching some of the Women s March on Washington the day after his inauguration because he realized that the march was way bigger than the meager crowd who showed up to for his swearing-in ceremony. Trump turned on the television to see a jarring juxtaposition massive demonstrations around the globe protesting his day-old presidency and footage of the sparser crowd at his inauguration, with large patches of white empty space on the Mall, the Post reported. As his press secretary, Sean Spicer, was still unpacking boxes in his spacious new West Wing office, Trump grew increasingly and visibly enraged. Trump was adamant, aides said. Over the objections of his aides and advisers who urged him to focus on policy and the broader goals of his presidency the new president issued a decree: He wanted a fiery public response, and he wanted it to come from his press secretary.So now we know why Trump lied his ass off during a visit to CIA Headquarters about his inauguration crowd size and why Trump mouthpiece Sean Spicer was sent out to whine about press coverage of the inauguration.Trump completely lost his shit because he watched television expecting to hear nothing but nice things being said about him and instead heard the news that the Women s March was more popular.Seriously.It didn t even take a day for Trump to overtake George W. Bush as America s most embarrassing president. And considering Trump s agenda, it won t take him long to become the nation s most disastrous president either.Featured Image: Joe Raedle/Getty Images | 0 |
3,954 | BREAKING: WATCH TWO PROTESTERS Crash ‘Trump Assassination’ Play in NYC: “Liberal Hate Kills!” [Video] | Awesome! Two protesters crashed the Trump Assassination play tonight yelling Goebbels would be proud! and Liberal Hate Kills! This is the second night protesters have jumped on stage at the Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar where a modern twist shows a President Trump look-a-like assassinated. Lovely, huh?A second protester jumped on stage and yelled but a videographer capturing the moment was tackled by liberal thugs.The videographer was eventually released by the police with the assurance that the police are on their side.In case you missed the first protest on Friday night: Laura Loomer of Rebel Media rushed the stage at the controversial NYC Shakespeare in the Park performance that takes a modern twist on Julius Caesar by playing out an assassination of a President Trump look-alike. Loomer yelled stop leftist violence before she was escorted off stage.We re huge fans and hope more people will follow her lead. Can you imagine if the tables were turned and they performed the same play using Obama as the one to be assassinated? The double standard here is unbelievable! You have the blood of Steve Scalise on your hands! The interesting irony is that the liberal crowd screamed and yelled at her. The left loves civil disobedience -except when it spoils their enjoyment of highbrow assassination porn. Do they advocate for violence against our president?They literally have Antifa chants during Julius Caesar before Trump gets assassinated pic.twitter.com/6AbHOChSnC Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) June 17, 2017Ms. Loomer was arrested by the the NYPD and was released within hours. Laura s press conference: Jack Posobiec also got up and bravely yelled at the crowd. He yelled You re all Goebbels In case you don t know:GOEBBELS WAS THE NAZI PROPAGANDA MINISTER:German Nazi Party member Joseph Goebbels became Adolf Hitler s propaganda minister in 1933, which gave him power over all German radio, press, cinema, and theater.In 1925 Goebbels met the party leader Adolf Hitler. In 1926 he was made Gauleiter, or party leader, for the region of Berlin, and in 1927 he founded and became editor of the official National Socialist periodical Der Angriff (The Attack). He was elected to the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1928. By exploiting mob emotions and by employing all modern methods of propaganda Goebbels helped Hitler into power. His work as a propagandist materially aided Hitler s rise to power in 1933. When Hitler seized power in 1933, Goebbels was appointed Reichsminister for propaganda and national enlightenment. From then until his death, Goebbels used all media of education and communications to further Nazi propagandistic aims, instilling in the Germans the concept of their leader as a veritable god and of their destiny as the rulers of the world. In 1938 he became a member of the Hitler cabinet council. Late in World War II, in 1944, Hitler placed him in charge of total mobilization. As Reichsminister for Propaganda and National Enlightenment, Goebbels was given complete control over radio, press, cinema, and theater; later he also regimented all German culture. Goebbels placed his undeniable intelligence and his brilliant insight into mass psychology entirely at the service of his party. His most virulent propaganda was against the Jews. As a hypnotic orator he was second only to Hitler, and in his staging of mass meetings and parades he was unsurpassed. Utterly cynical, he seems to have believed only in the self-justification of power. He remained loyal to Hitler until the end. On May 1, 1945, as Soviet troops were storming Berlin, Goebbels committed suicide.Via: whale | 0 |
3,955 | Lawyer withdraws from consideration for US Justice Dept post | NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York lawyer George Conway, who had been expected to be nominated to head the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil division, has withdrawn from consideration. Conway, the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, said in a statement received on Friday that he was “profoundly grateful to the President and to the Attorney General” for selecting him to serve in the Justice Department. However, he said, he had concluded that it is “not the right time for me to leave the private sector.” Conway had notified the White House of his decision on Wednesday in a letter, according to a person familiar with the matter. A White House spokeswoman referred a request for comment to the Justice Department. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on the withdrawal. “We don’t comment on personnel matters,” the spokesman, Ian Prior, said in a statement. Conway joins a number of potential hires who have withdrawn from consideration for posts in the Trump administration in recent weeks, including candidates for director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation after President Donald Trump fired James Comey. It has been increasingly difficult to attract people to work in the administration, Reuters reported last month, citing sources. Conway, a Harvard University and Yale Law School graduate, is a partner at the prestigious New York law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. He has worked on major securities and takeover matters, including a 2010 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court said federal securities laws typically do not apply to conduct in foreign countries. That decision has likely saved companies billions of dollars in potential liability. Conway also has been involved in politically charged cases, including a behind-the-scenes role in the sexual harassment lawsuit that former Arkansas state employee Paula Jones brought against then-President Bill Clinton. That case led to the eventual impeachment of Clinton on charges stemming from his relationship with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. Kellyanne Conway was Trump’s campaign manager before taking her White House post. The Republican pollster and political strategist has been one of the administration’s most visible faces. The Conways, who have four children, just purchased a nearly $8 million mansion in Washington’s Massachusetts Avenue Heights. Wachtell does not have an office in Washington. | 1 |
3,956 | Ahead of Trump meeting, Abe told not to take campaign rhetoric literally | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will seek reassurances from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on U.S.-Japan ties on Thursday and a senior adviser to Abe said he had been told that campaign remarks calling the alliance into question should not be taken literally. Abe is due to meet Trump in New York on Thursday and is expected to be the first foreign leader to meet the president- elect since his election last week. Trump’s transition team has not responded to requests for comment on the meeting, but an adviser to Trump, speaking anonymously, said this week that Trump would seek to reassure Abe and other Asian allies rattled by his campaign rhetoric. Trump had fanned worries in Tokyo and beyond with his comments on the possibility of Japan acquiring nuclear arms and demands that allies pay more for the upkeep of U.S. forces on their soil or face the possibility of their withdrawal. Katsuyuki Kawai, an adviser to Abe sent to set up the Trump meeting, said he had spoken to several Trump advisers since arriving in Washington on Monday. “I have been meeting with so many top aides to the president-elect and also I have been meeting with the very distinguished senators and congressmen and they unanimously told me that we don’t have to take each word that Mr. Trump said publicly literally,” he told Reuters. Kawai said that among the Trump advisers he had met were Representative Devin Nunes, Senator Tom Cotton, and the presidents of the conservative Heritage Foundation and Hudson Institute think tanks, Jim DeMint and Ken Weinstein. Kawai said the fact that Abe would be the first foreign leader Trump would meet since winning the presidency on Nov. 8 was “a meaningful signal” and Abe’s aim was “to establish the highest level personal ties with the president-elect.” “That meeting will be the first for building up the great personal relationship between two leaders,” he said. “Prime Minister Abe will definitely talk about the importance of the Japan-U.S. alliance and that alliance is not only for Japan and the United States, but also for the entire Indo-Pacific region as well as world politics.” A Trump adviser, who did not want to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said he expected the meeting to “set the tone” for Trump’s relations with Japan and the region. “I think the message ... is going to be extremely reassuring,” the adviser said. “I expect he is going to reaffirm his commitments to the alliance and the American commitment to being in the Pacific long-term.” The adviser said Japan’s financial support for U.S. troops in Japan might come up but was unlikely to be a focus. Some diplomats say that until Trump makes key appointments, it will be hard to assess his policies on issues ranging from overseas deployments of U.S. troops, China’s maritime aggressiveness in Asia and North Korea’s nuclear threat. A day before the Trump-Abe meeting, Japanese officials said they had no idea exactly when the meeting would take place, where in New York it will happen, who will be invited or whom to call for answers. Japanese and U.S. officials said on Wednesday the State Department had not been involved in planning the meeting, which has left the logistical and protocol details that normally would be settled weeks in advance still to be determined. “There has been a lot of confusion,” said one Japanese official. Abe, a political blue blood and veteran lawmaker, and Trump, a brash outsider with no diplomatic or government experience, have sharp differences on policy issues such as free trade. But the two may find they have much in common, including pledges to restore their countries’ global stature and a desire to counter a rising China while improving relations with Russia. “Prime Minister Abe and Mr. Trump will have good chemistry,” said Takashi Kawakami, a professor at Tokyo’s Takushoku University. “Both tend to decide and act based on intuition. And both are pragmatists who put their countries’ interests first.” Kawai said Abe considered the U.S. relationship Japan’s most important and that it was essential that it was built on trust. “That is why the prime minister wants to build the highest level personal ties with Mr. Trump,” he said. Some of Trump’s rhetoric suggests an image of Japan forged in the 1980s, when Tokyo was seen by many in the United States as a threat to jobs and a free-rider on defense. His election also has dashed hopes for U.S. approval of a 12-nation trade pact, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a linchpin of Washington’s “pivot” to Asia and a pillar of Abe’s economic reforms. But Abe’s personal attitude about defense appears to be viewed more positively in the Trump camp, even if it would like Japan to do more. Since taking office in 2012 Abe has boosted Japan’s overall defense spending while stretching the limits of its pacifist post-war constitution to allow the military to take a bigger global role. “Frankly, the prime minister has been more assertive and forthright in trying to make those changes to Japan’s global posture,” the Trump adviser said. “I think he’s going to get a very receptive audience there.” Japan agreed last December to boost spending for U.S. forces in Japan by 1.4 percent for the next five years, at an average of 189.3 billion yen ($1.74 billion) per year. Defence Minister Tomomi Inada has said Tokyo was paying enough. However, defense spending still stands at just over 1 percent of GDP against over 3 percent in the United States. | 1 |
3,957 | Russian Lawyer At Trump Jr.’s Meeting Has Worked For Russian Spy Agency | The whole world knows about the bombshell report of Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and the former campaign manager for Donald Trump s 2016 presidential run, Paul Manafort, holding a secret meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. Of course, despite how shady this is on its face, Team Trump s party line has been, nothing to see here. Well, it seems that there just might be something to see here, considering that Veselnitskaya actually once represented a Russian spy agency.Reuters reports that Veselnitskaya was involved in a bitter fight over elite, exclusive pieces of property in Moscow. Who was her client? The FSB, of course. Meaning, essentially, she was working for the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin. Supposedly, that connection ended in 2013 when Veselnitskaya won the case for the FSB. However, with the way Russia operates, once a Russian spy operative, always a Russian spy operative. Here is how Reuters describes the chain of events:Reuters could not find a record of when and by whom the lawsuit which dates back to at least 2003 was first lodged. But appeal documents show that Rosimushchestvo, Russia s federal government property agency, was involved. It did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Veselnitskaya and her firm Kamerton Consulting represented military unit 55002 in the property dispute, the documents show.Now, to play devil s advocate, it is very possible that Trump Jr. and the rest didn t know Veselnitskaya s history. That is possible, but certainly not probable, considering the fact that Trump Jr. himself has admitted that his family has been getting money from Russia to fund their business ventures for years. That makes it highly unlikely that the Trumps and those in their orbit weren t well aware of who this woman was, what her background was, and who she worked for.At the end of the day, this is a woman that never should have been allowed into this nation at all, and she definitely shouldn t have been anywhere an American presidential campaign. All of this is shady as hell, and hopefully Robert Mueller can get to the bottom of it while we still have a republic to save.Featured image via Flickr | 0 |
3,958 | After German election, France's Macron paints sweeping vision for Europe | PARIS (Reuters) - French President Emmanuel Macron offered an ambitious vision for European renewal on Tuesday, calling for the EU to work more closely on defense and immigration and for the euro zone to have its own budget, ideas he may struggle to implement. In a nearly two-hour speech delivered two days after the German election in which Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservative CDU/CSU bloc scored its worst result since 1949, limiting her freedom to maneuver on Europe, the 39-year-old French president held little back in terms of sweep, self-assurance and aspiration. But at a time when Europe is beset by tensions between east and west and battling to overcome nearly a decade of draining economic crisis, Macron s earnest and at times high-brow discourse ran the risk of falling on deaf ears. Speaking at the Sorbonne, he portrayed Europe as needing to relaunch itself, saying that on issues as diverse as asylum, border protection, corporate tax, intelligence sharing, defense and financial stability it needed much deeper cooperation. The only path that assures our future is the rebuilding of a Europe that is sovereign, united and democratic, the former investment banker and philosophy student said, flanked by a French and a European Union flag. At the beginning of the next decade, Europe must have a joint intervention force, a common defense budget and a joint doctrine for action. In his run for the presidency, Macron made European reform a central plank of his centrist campaign, and he and Merkel have spoken frequently about their desire for France and Germany, the European Union s two largest economies and often its engines of change, to take the lead on integration. But five months into his five-year term, Macron faces the threat that Merkel, 63 and looking to start her fourth term, has less capacity to move than either would have hoped. Her alliance is still the largest bloc in the Bundestag, but to build a working majority she will likely have to form a coalition with the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), who are opposed to many of Macron s ideas. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, a senior member of the Social Democrats (SPD), hailed Macron s speech a passionate plea against nationalism and for Europe . He can count on us, said Gabriel, whose party has ruled out being part of a new grand coalition. Rather than tailoring his speech to fit the contours of what the FDP, the Greens or Merkel may have wanted to hear, Macron kept his vision broad and far-reaching, while also detailing some specific ideas for an improved euro zone. A budget can only go hand-in-hand with strong political leadership led by a common (finance) minister and a strong parliamentary supervision at the European level, he said, emphasizing the need for democratic accountability. The fiscally conservative FDP dislikes the idea of a euro zone budget or any facility that may lead to financial transfers from wealthier euro zone countries to poorer ones, as well as the possibility of national debt being pooled. The party has also called for phasing out Europe s ESM bailout fund, which Macron wants to turn into a European Monetary Fund, and wants to see changes to EU treaties that would allow countries to leave the euro zone. You don t strengthen Europe with new pots of money, Alexander Lambsdorff, an FDP member in the European Parliament, said on Twitter in reaction to Macron s speech. In a statement issued by the FDP in Berlin, Lambsdorff said: The problem in Europe is not a lack of public funds, but the lack of reform. A euro zone budget would set exactly the wrong incentives. Not shying away from addressing Germany directly even as it tries to resolve the fallout from Sunday s election, Macron set an objective that the two countries completely integrate their markets and corporate rules by 2024. We share the same European ambitions and I know her commitment to Europe, he said of Merkel. I m proposing to Germany a new partnership. We will not agree on everything, not immediately, but we will discuss everything. In Berlin on Monday, Merkel said it was important to move beyond catchphrases and provide detail on how Europe could be improved. It was not immediately clear whether Macron had managed to go beyond slogans as far as Merkel was concerned. But Martin Selmayr, the chief of staff of European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, said the proposals to reinforce the euro zone would be discussed alongside Juncker s own at a euro zone summit planned for December. Italy s EU affairs minister, Sandro Gozi, said the speech would inspire European leaders into action. An excellent speech by Emmanuel Macron on reviving the European Union. Let s work on this together, starting tomorrow at the Lyon Summit, he said, referring to a meeting of the Italian and French leaders to discuss industrial policy. Macron said he hoped his ideas would be taken into account in Germany s coalition building negotiations. Those talks are not expected to begin until mid-October and may take several months. Some had said I should wait for the coalition talks to be concluded, Macron said, adding had he done so, the reaction in Berlin would have been: Your proposals are great but it s too late, the coalition deal already lays out what will we do on Europe for the next four years. | 1 |
3,959 | Trump Appointee Didn’t Last Two Months Before Being Fired For Calling For Muslim Genocide | That didn t take long.One of Trump s oldest campaign backers was hooked up with a job he was blatantly not qualified for and seemingly had no interest in. Just two months later, he has already been fired for being a racist nutjob. Trump only hires the best. According to reports first covered by Buzzfeed, Trump s associate Sid Bowdidge worked as a massage therapist before riding Trump s coattails to a gig at the Department of Energy.According to two employees at the nuclear weapons agency, who asked to remain anonymous, Sid Bowdidge, 60, began working at the department following President Trump s inauguration. An internal department database identified the New Hampshire Trump campaign worker as assistant to the secretary, a nebulous title given to political appointees at varied levels of responsibility.The move from back rubs to working on nuclear weapons policy was already a scandal, but Bowdidge refused to lie low. On his social media accounts, the man had routinely posted about desiring to see all Muslims exterminated. Bowdidge is among a growing list of people who got cushy government jobs based on their loyalty to Donald Trump and not to their qualifications or temperment. Many of Trump s appointees even for positions of extreme national importance were unvetted. In the worst example, Trump s National Security Advisor was actively working as a foreign agent of the Turkish government at the time he was hired. At various times Trump has claimed he knew about it and was totally cool with it and that he didn t know about it. It s not clear which is worse: to be corrupt or incompetent and Trump may very well be both.An honest and competent administration, for instance, would have seen Bowdidge s insane tweets and immediately disqualified him. Trump hired him without even checking.Bowdidge also illustrates the caliber of person attracted to Trump. Since 2015, he has been one of Trump s fiercest supporters, even going on television to defend the former reality tv star from Republican and Democratic opposition. From his tweets, Bowdidge is a xenophobe who believes that President Obama was a secret Muslim.Again and again people in Trump s orbit are exposed as similarly vile and pathetic. He has been endorsed by KKK leader David Duke and is beloved by white nationalist website Breitbart. Several of his most prominent advisors are birthers. His former campaign manager resigned after covering up his ties to Russia. He lost his nominee for communications director to an infidelity scandal. He lost one of his campaign surrogates to the exact same infidelity scandal.It s difficult to put into words just how unqualified this administration is. It s rotten to the very core. Or as MSNBC s Chris Hayes summed up this particularly sad twist:Just to recap: the Trump admin hired & placed in DOE,a person w 1) no relevant experience 2) who called for all Muslims to be exterminated Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) March 11, 2017Featured image via Facebook/New York Daily News | 0 |
3,960 | Final death toll from London's Grenfell Tower fire is 71: police | LONDON (Reuters) - The final death toll from the fire that destroyed the Grenfell Tower social housing block in London in June is 71, police said on Thursday after five months of painstaking search and recovery operations. Police had previously said about 80 people died in the blaze, which tore through the 24-storey tower in west London in the middle of the night, but officers now believe all those who died in the fire have been recovered and identified. The figure has come down because some people were reported missing several times, some people who lived in the tower and were feared dead were found to have been elsewhere on the night, and some people were falsely reported dead by fraudsters hoping to receive financial compensation. The final toll includes 70 adults and children who died in the tower during the fire, and one baby who was stillborn shortly after the heavily pregnant mother escaped from the 21st floor, suffering severe smoke inhalation on her way down. The mother survived. Specialist teams working inside Grenfell Tower and the mortuary have pushed the boundaries of what was scientifically possible to identify people, said Metropolitan Police Commander Stuart Cundy, who is in charge of operations at the tower. I know that each and every member of the team has done absolutely all they can to make this possible. They have done that for every person who lost their life, their families and loved ones, and all those for whom Grenfell Tower was home. The tower was home to a tight-knit, multi-ethnic community in a deprived social housing estate within the wealthy Kensington and Chelsea borough that is also home to large numbers of millionaires. The tragedy has prompted political debate and soul-searching about London s stark social inequalities and whether neglect of social housing estates and the communities living in them played a part in the fire. A criminal investigation is under way that could result in individuals or organizations being charged. A separate public inquiry aims to shed light on any flaws or irregularities in the design, construction or maintenance of the tower. Cundy said that when he first entered Grenfell Tower after the fire, the devastation was such that he feared it would not be possible to find, recover and identify all those who died. Police officers, assisted by forensic anthropologists, archaeologists and specialists in using dental science to identify unknown human remains, searched every flat on every floor and every communal area. The search involved sifting through tonnes of debris by hand to identify all human remains in the charred building. In parallel, huge amounts of investigative work was undertaken to identify who was in Grenfell Tower on the night of the fire, who was missing and presumed dead, enquire after those reported missing and reconcile all the information. One person was reported missing 46 separate times. Some were reported under a number of different names, and even the slightest differences in spelling had to be investigated. Police said that having completed all this work, they now believed it was highly unlikely that anyone remained in Grenfell Tower. | 1 |
3,961 | Lithuania expects NATO to reach deal on Baltic air shield | HELSINKI (Reuters) - Lithuania expects NATO to reach an agreement next year to shield Baltic countries with air defenses, plugging a gap in its security against Russia, its defense minister said on Tuesday. Since Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and began providing weapons and troops to separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine, NATO has send more forces to the Baltics, eastern Poland and around the Black Sea. Lithuania, which borders the Russian region of Kaliningrad, wants NATO to permanently deploy anti-aircraft weapons in the Baltics or Poland a move seen by Moscow as an unjustified military build-up on its borders. We expect so, defense minister Raimundas Karoblis told Reuters when asked if he saw an agreement shaping up for the NATO summit in 2018. Air defense is one of the issues which we need to address. We also need to look at other domains, like NATO command structure reform, we need to move forward on all on these aspects, he said, also calling for NATO to strengthen maritime defenses in the Baltics. Karoblis spoke in Helsinki after meeting his counterparts from Northern Group countries, including the Nordic and Baltic states, Britain, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands. U.S. Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis also joined the meeting. Karoblis said exercises should be considered by NATO after Russia s Zapad war games unnerved the West in September. Mattis told reporters after the meeting that the 12 nations stood together to reaffirm territorial integrity. It is clear that one nation thinks it holds some kind of a veto or strong influence, over others, that is Russia. The country s name came up repeatedly, over the last 48 hours, he said. | 1 |
3,962 | CHAMPION OF FOREIGN WORKERS: Hillary Gets Standing Ovation In India…”There’s No Way To Legislate Against Outsourcing” [VIDEO] | Every union member who believes the Democrats are looking out for them needs to remember, that President Bill Clinton signed the NAFTA agreement and Hillary defended the outsourcing of American jobs Ladies and gentlemen Here she is, the champion of the foreign worker in 2005: https://twitter.com/magnifier661/status/761359175716712448Is it any wonder Indian gave her a standing ovation?Here s the full gut-wrenching video: | 0 |
3,963 | LA TIMES COLUMNIST Slammed For Mocking Sarah Sanders In ‘Sexist’ Article…What About The Cartoon? | A political reporter for the Los Angeles Times is under fire from all sides for making sexist remarks about White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders in his latest anti-Trump column .WHAT ABOUT THE CARTOON???While David Horsey issued a lame apology for his article, he still has a cartoon up with the article that s a disgusting portrayal of Sarah Sanders. We hope you ll let Mr. Horsey know his lack of ethics is deplorable: David Horsey LA TimesEven left-leaning columnists ripped into Horsey for his body shaming and very snarky remarks against Sanders:California resident, Claire Adida, said: Hey, @latimes and @davidhorsey, you can do better. How about you focus on what she says rather than how she looks? While Adam Serwer, Senior Editor for The Atlantic, wrote: Genuinely confused as to how this column got past an editor. Teen Vogue columnist, Lauran Duca, further added: Things that are true at the same time: 1) Sarah Huckabee Sanders is an unabashed enemy of the truth 2) This profile of her is sexist trash. NASTY ARTICLE:In the article Sarah Huckabee Sanders is the right mouthpiece for a truth-twisting president published Wednesday morning, David Horsey compared Sanders to a chunky soccer mom who organizes snacks for the kids games. Horsey criticized Sanders, who was appointed the role back in July, for not meeting up to Trump s standards, as he suggested the aide does not look like the kind of woman (he) would choose as his chief spokesperson. While the columnist pointed out positive aspects of Sanders part in the Trump administration following the leave of Sean Spicer Horsey veered into the misogynist comments.He said: Rather than the fake eyelashes and formal dresses she puts on for briefings, Sanders seems as if she d be more comfortable in sweats than running shoes. Then added: Yet, even if Trump privately wishes he had a supermodel for a press secretary, he is lucky to have Sanders. WHAT A NASTY MAN! DAVID HORSEY S EMAIL | 0 |
3,964 | Trump presses fraud concerns as panel begins investigation | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump pressed his unproven claims of voter fraud on Wednesday at the first meeting of a commission he created to study the issue, and implied states that did not share voter data with the panel had something to hide. The panel has faced lacerating criticism from Democrats and voting rights groups that argued it could be a vehicle for changes that would make it harder for lawful voters to cast ballots - and by a number of state governments reluctant to hand over information about their voters to the White House. Despite evidence from state officials from both parties that voter fraud is rare in U.S. elections, Trump has claimed that millions of illegal immigrants voted in the November 2016 election. “Every time voter fraud occurs it cancels out the vote of a lawful citizen,” he told the commission. “Any form of illegal or fraudulent voting, whether by non-citizens or the deceased, and any form of voter suppression or intimidation must be stopped.” Trump won the state-by-state Electoral College tally that decides the presidential race, but he lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes to his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. He established the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in May and assigned Vice President Mike Pence to lead it. The panel will next gather in September, and hold at least four more meetings over nine months. Some members of the panel emphasized that even small numbers of illegal votes could affect the outcome of elections. Bill Gardner, a Democrat who has been involved in almost 500 vote recounts in New Hampshire since becoming its secretary of state in 1976, said he has seen 11 end in a tie, 32 decided by one vote, and 202 by fewer than 10 votes. “I am a witness that every vote matters, and it doesn’t need to be massive voter fraud to sway the outcome,” Gardner said. Alan King, a Democrat who is a probate judge from Jefferson County in Alabama, said he has not seen evidence of voter fraud - but said local governments need help from Congress to keep up with changing technology. “We can talk about elections a lot, but if people can’t vote because the machines don’t work, we’ve got a massive, massive problem,” said King. Civil rights groups and Democratic lawmakers have said the commission could lead to new ID requirements and other measures making it harder to vote. “I can tell you, President Trump, that we will be watching your commission,” said U.S. Representative Terri Sewell of Alabama, an African-American whose district includes the civil rights landmarks Selma, Montgomery and Birmingham, where, she said, “people died, bled and fought for the right to vote.” The panel ran headlong into controversy last month when its vice chair, Kris Kobach, the Republican secretary of state for Kansas and an advocate of tougher laws on immigration and voter identification, asked states to turn over voter information. The data requested by Kobach included names, the last four digits of Social Security numbers, addresses, birth dates, political affiliation, felony convictions and voting histories. More than 20 states refused outright and others said they needed to study whether they could provide the data. Trump questioned the states’ refusal, saying, “If any state does not want to share this information, one has to wonder what they’re worried about? ... There’s something, there always is.” Several federal lawsuits have been filed against the voting commission. The American Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit alleged that the panel failed to comply with federal transparency laws, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund alleged the commission was formed with the intent to discriminate against voters of color. Other lawsuits, including one from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, raised concerns about Americans’ privacy. | 1 |
3,965 | China says peaceful settlement for North Korea issue wanted | BEIJING (Reuters) - A peaceful settlement of the North Korean nuclear issue is in line with the common will of the international community, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, state news agency Xinhua said on Thursday. Wang and Pence acknowledged the important consensuses both sides have on the denuclearization of the peninsula and agreed to enhance communication over the issue, Xinhua said of the meeting on Wednesday on the sidelines of a United Nations meeting in New York. | 1 |
3,966 | NRA ‘Good Guy With a Gun’ Angry About Obama’s Executive Orders Shoots Up Apartment Building (VIDEO) | Gun enthusiasts across the country have been expressing their rage over President Obama s common sense attempts to close the gun show loophole and make America safer by keeping firearms out of the hands of people who should not have them like those who would start shooting up a building because they are displeased with the idea of keeping children safe from violent criminals.Ever since Obama announced his planned executive action on guns, conservatives have been preparing for war on the President s policies. We ve been hearing from the right that President Obama is making a gun grab that he s coming to round-up law-abiding gun owners and something, something Dark Side. And, of course, as we saw with Robert Dear and the extreme anti-Planned Parenthood rhetoric, one brave ammosexual decided to do what he viewed as his duty and offer up an armed opposition to Obama s policies.At around 6 p.m. on Tuesday, police in Redding, California responded to a report of shots fired at an apartment building. According to a statement from the Shasta County Sheriff s Department, what law enforcement found was sort of expected. A white man in his 50s had fired 6-8 shots into neighboring apartments because he was mad at Obama for attempting to reform gun laws. If that s not bad enough, he also had a letter from the NRA taped to his window. Once police arrived, he began shooting at them: Officers made verbal contact with the subject, described as a white adult male in his 50 s via a patrol car PA system. The suspect would open the door to the apartment briefly and yell at the officers. Witnesses on scene later advised detectives that the suspect was upset about the recent legislation regarding gun laws issued by President Obama. The suspect was not compliant with officers who directed the suspect to exit his apartment with his hands up. During this time, officers attempted to subdue the suspect by utilizing less lethal bean bag rounds which had no effect on the suspect s compliance. An attempt to utilize a police K-9 to subdue the suspect was also unsuccessful. After further commands by officers for the suspect to surrender, the suspect exited the apartment holding a handgun in his right hand, leveling it at officers who were tactically positioned outside his apartment, in the parking lot near parked vehicles and nearby trees, the release notes. Nine officers engaged the suspect with handguns and rifles subsequently striking the suspect multiple times. The suspect was declared deceased on scene. We heard the five shots everyone was screaming, resident David Rice recalled. He came out screaming Obama! Obama! Obama! (Police) told him to come out with (his) hands up, and he kept telling them No, no, no. One woman recounted being briefly taken hostage by the anti-Obama shooter, who grabbed her and pulled her into his apartment: As soon as he shut the door, he hugged me and he kissed me on the forehead. He was aiming at a guy, and then he just got sloppy he was shooting everywhere. The shooter, whose name has not been released, had a documented history of mental issues and was a felon, but was somehow able to get a gun in other words, he was exactly the sort of person the President s plan aims to keep from being weapons.Fortunately, no one was hurt (aside from the shooter) this time.Watch a video of the shooter below:(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));EXCLUSIVE: Cell phone video captures exactly what happened at a deadly officer involved shooting Tuesday night in Posted by Madison Wade on Wednesday, January 6, 2016You can also view a report on the shooting here:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0-aOi2nkHk?rel=0&showinfo=0&w=560&h=315]Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
3,967 | Senate Democrats to force vote on FCC net neutrality repeal | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. Senate Democrat said on Friday he would force a vote on the Federal Communications Commission’s decision to repeal landmark net neutrality rules, but the move was unlikely to block a ruling that could reshape the digital landscape. The FCC voted Thursday along party lines to reverse the Obama era rules barring internet service providers from blocking or throttling internet traffic, or offering paid fast lanes. A group of state attorneys general vowed to sue. On Friday, Senator Charles Schumer of New York said he would force a vote on the FCC action under the Congressional Review Act. Republicans scuttled internet privacy rules adopted under the Obama administration using the same procedural vehicle. “There will be a vote to repeal the rule that the FCC passed. It’s in our power to do that,” Schumer said in New York. “Sometimes we don’t like them, when they used it to repeal some of the pro environmental regulations, but now we can use the CRA to our benefit and we intend to.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell opposes Schumer’s effort and backed the FCC repeal, a spokesman for the Republican said Friday. A reversal of Thursday’s FCC vote would need the approval of the Senate, U.S. House and President Donald Trump. Trump also backed the FCC action, the White House said Thursday. This week’s FCC order grants internet providers sweeping new powers to block, throttle or discriminate among internet content, but requires public disclosure of those practices. Internet providers have vowed not to change how consumers get online content. The FCC rules also seek to bar states from imposing their own net neutrality requirements. The FCC said the rules would take effect once the White House Office of Management and Budget approved the new transparency rules, which could take several months. Democrats say net neutrality is essential to protect consumers, while Republicans say the rules hindered investment by providers and were not needed. Moody’s Investors Service said in a note Friday the FCC vote was “credit positive” for internet service providers that could have faced rate regulation under the 2015 rules that would have treated them like public utilities. Moody’s said providers “will tread lightly when it comes to engaging in paid prioritization and throttling, as there could be significant negative public reaction to these acts.” Moody’s said “at least in the near term, the cost of negative publicity on their existing businesses far outweighs the benefit of additional revenue streams these companies can generate from paid prioritization agreements.” | 1 |
3,968 | Bette Midler’s Brilliant Tweet Perfectly Exposes The Sad Irony Of Jeb Bush’s Gun (TWEET) | Let s just say, hypothetically, that Donald Trump is right about something. Let s say that Jeb Bush is a low energy dweeb who nobody seems to want to get behind. Let s assume that Jeb Bush will, in fact, do or say anything to bring his campaign into double digits, with the exception of refraining from that goofy head tilt and nod thing he s got going on.If that were true, Jeb Bush would probably go the route of route of Ted Cruz, whose ripped off machine gun bacon stunt gave him a boost with hill folk and other rednecks who just love guns and bacon. If Jeb Bush were to do it, it wouldn t be wearing full camo so the bacon can t see the dangerous predator ready to kill it. At least the noble already-dead beast will not go to waste.Jeb Bush would post a picture of his beloved gun with the caption America, because Jeb Bush is a desperate fool at this point who would claim to be getting regular visits from Jesus Christ in a Volkswagen bus if it were trendy:America. pic.twitter.com/TeduJkwQF3 Jeb Bush (@JebBush) February 16, 2016How sad is that? That Jeb Bush could choose to Tweet that garbage goes miles in showing what he would look like in the White House. Not to mention he d look with his terrible posture firing that thing.Who better to school him on the sad irony of his nifty little gun than Bette Midler:Jeb Bush tweeted a pic of his handgun with the caption "America." With over 300 mass shootings last year, maybe that IS our national symbol. Bette Midler (@BetteMidler) February 17, 2016I mean seriously. Who couldn t see that coming? The Divine Miss M went ahead and pointed out the obvious, extremely disturbing elephant in the room that stupid Jeb tweets is sitting in guns are undeniably and embarrassingly American. Argue about the murder rate in Honduras all you want, conservatives. Show a picture of that gun to people around the world and ask them the first country that comes to mind.Bette Midler is incredibly insightful. Her laser-guided efforts to humiliate anything GOP are becoming legendary. It s always a pleasure to have her weigh in to make Jeb Bush look stupid.Featured images from Twitter screen captures | 0 |
3,969 | Oklahoma rejects Russian request to monitor election in state | (Reuters) - Oklahoma voting officials have denied a request from the Russian consulate in Houston to monitor the Nov. 8 general elections in the state, saying foreign delegates are not allowed into polling stations, an official said on Friday. The move comes as the U.S. government this month formally accused Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against Democratic Party organizations to interfere with the U.S. election process. The consul general made similar requests to officials in Texas and Louisiana, local news reports said, and was rebuffed in both states. The Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Houston was not immediately available for comment. The consulate asked to have personnel in Oklahoma to study the Nov. 8 presidential election and was told that state law forbids anyone other than election officials and voters into areas where votes are being cast, said Bryan Dean, spokesman for the Oklahoma State Election Board. In a letter provided by Oklahoma, Russian Consul General Alexander Zakharov asks to have a consulate officer “at one of the ballot stations of Oklahoma with the goal of studying the U.S. experience in organization of (the) voting process.” Oklahoma Secretary of State Chris Benge said he hopes the Russian officials can watch the U.S. election process on TV. “It is truly an amazing system,” he wrote back in a letter provided by the state. U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby told a news briefing that individual states maintain the authority to approve or deny requests from parties to observe elections. When asked if it was a worry to have the Russian request coming on the heels of the U.S. accusations of the country trying to meddle in the vote, he replied: “We don’t have anything to hide … and we’re confident in the electoral system.” U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that the Russian government was conducting or orchestrating cyber attacks against the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, possibly to disrupt or discredit the election, in which Democrat Hillary Clinton faces Republican Donald Trump. A Kremlin spokesman has called the U.S. allegations “nonsense,” the Interfax news agency reported. | 1 |
3,970 | Obama administration releases rules on wellness programs | (Reuters) - A federal agency on Monday released final rules on how employers can offer workers financial incentives of up to 30 percent of the cost of their cheapest health insurance plans to participate in wellness programs without violating federal laws protecting the confidentiality of medical information. The move from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission aims to clear up confusion over the way two federal laws protecting employees’ medical privacy apply to the popular programs, which are designed to control medical spending by reducing obesity, smoking and other risk factors. The rules, which were first proposed in November, mark a compromise with U.S. businesses that opposed the EEOC’s previous stance that providing incentives for voluntary wellness programs rendered them involuntary, and thus illegal. The 2010 Affordable Care Act allowed U.S. employers to increase the rewards they offer to employees who participate in wellness programs. But in a series of 2013 lawsuits against companies, including Honeywell International Inc, the EEOC said requests for medical information related to incentive-based wellness programs violated the Americans with Disabilities Act or the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. Under the new rules, incentives for wellness programs are open only to employees, not their families, and are capped at 30 percent of the cheapest individual health insurance premium offered through the employer. The new rules are more restrictive than those passed under the ACA, which allowed incentives of up to 30 percent of the actual cost of an employee’s insurance plan and 50 percent for programs approved by the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Labor and the Department of Health and Human Services. Only smoking-cessation programs received that approval. Senator Lamar Alexander (R.-Tennessee), chair of the Senate’s Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said he would push legislation, along with House Republicans, to reverse the rules. The National Business Group on Health, a non-profit organization advocating for large healthcare employers, said that although it would have “hoped for some additional flexibility... the rules do what the EEOC was asked to do.” Some health and workers’ rights groups say the rules, which take effect next year, penalize employees who decline to join wellness programs and hand over private medical information. Maxwell Mehlman, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, said lower-income employees could be unduly pressured to join wellness programs. “It’s hard to say that that’s a voluntary program for a lot of people,” he said. | 1 |
3,971 | Qatar emir again urges dialogue, Trump says dispute to be resolved quickly | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Qatar s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani on Tuesday renewed a call for unconditional dialogue to end a crisis pitting Qatar against four Arab states while U.S. President Donald Trump said he expected the dispute to be resolved quickly. Speaking from the podium of the 193-member United Nations General Assembly, Sheikh Tamim renewed the call for an unconditional dialogue based on mutual respect for sovereignty . Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain cut diplomatic and trade links with Qatar on June 5, suspending air and shipping routes with the world s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, which is home to the region s biggest U.S. military base. The nations say Doha supports regional foe Iran and Islamists, charges Qatar s leaders deny. Kuwait has been trying to mediate and the United States has taken an increasingly robust role in trying to end the crisis, but as yet to no avail. Trump and Sheikh Tamim later held a meeting in which the emir was careful to emphasize the strong Qatar-U.S. relationship after Trump appeared to be more sympathetic to the Saudi position at the start of the crisis. Qatar hosts Al Udeid air base, the largest U.S. military facility in the Middle East. As you said, Mr. President, we have a problem with our neighbors, Tamim said, adding that with Trump s intervention, hopefully we can find a solution for this problem. Trump, who has said he would be willing to mediate the worst dispute in decades among the U.S.-allied Arab states and Qatar, said he had a very strong feeling the dispute would be solved pretty quickly . In a speech severely criticizing the four Arab states conduct during the dispute, the emir said the countries were inflicting damage on the war on terror. The countries who imposed the blockade on the State of Qatar interfere in the internal affairs of many countries, and accuse all those who oppose them domestically and abroad with terrorism. By doing that they are inflicting damage on the war on terror, Sheikh Tamim said in his speech to the annual gathering of world leaders. We have refused to yield to dictations by pressure and siege. A Gulf official from one of the opposing countries said it was unfortunate that Emir Tamim continues to talk about a blockade when even he in the same speech acknowledged that his ship lanes are open. It s disappointing that he talks about interference in the internal affairs of others while refusing to admit that is a core part of the four nations complaints against Qatar, the official added. Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia suspended any dialogue with Qatar, accusing it of distorting facts, just after a report of a phone call between the leaders of the two countries suggested a breakthrough in the Gulf dispute. Saudi Arabia s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman spoke by the telephone with Qatar s emir in the first publicly reported contact between the two leaders since the start of the crisis. | 1 |
3,972 | Fix the roads, California Governor Brown tells lawmakers | SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - California Governor Jerry Brown urged continued fiscal restraint amid the state’s economic expansion but hinted broadly that new fees would be needed to pay for repairs of deteriorating roads, bridges and other infrastructure. Improvements in the state’s financial health and a weather pattern that is helping to ease four years of catastrophic drought put California on a stronger footing as Brown addressed the legislature for his 14th State of the State address on Thursday. “We have to bite the bullet,” said Brown, who last summer pushed unsuccessfully for new fees to help pay long-neglected repairs to the state’s transportation infrastructure. Roads and bridges make up the bulk of an estimated $77 billion in delayed repairs to public property, he said, and, “One way or another the roads must be fixed.” Brown, who served two terms as governor from 1975 to 1983 before returning to California’s top job in 2011, also called on Republicans to agree to proposed changes in a tax on some health insurers, with proceeds to help pay for healthcare for the poorest Californians. Brown cited his administration’s support for California’s new $10 minimum wage, saying the January hike, combined with a tax credit for the working poor, will ease income inequality. Brown has been tight-fisted since returning to office in 2011, reining in the state’s liberal Democratic majority lawmakers to build a rainy day fund and hold down expenses after facing down a $27 billion budget deficit. He is widely credited with stabilizing the state’s finances, in large part by urging voters in 2012 to approve a temporary tax increase that allowed the state to cover its budget gap and restore some social services. Earlier this month, Brown proposed a budget plan for fiscal year 2016-2017 that included a $2 billion payment to the state’s rainy day fund and called for increases in spending on education, transportation infrastructure, as well as a modest increase in aid for the disabled. But the fiscal moderate has held the line on committing more funds to such programs in the absence of new revenue streams for the state. He is hesitant to call for new taxes on income or sales after supporting a temporary tax three years ago, but has supported other fees, such as a road usage tax or an increase in the tax on gasoline. Senate Republican leader Jean Fuller of Bakersfield said her caucus would work with Brown on infrastructure repairs, but opposes enacting new fees. | 1 |
3,973 | Roy Moore Is Asking People To Snitch On The Media And He’s Getting Trolled HARD (TWEETS) | Roy Moore is desperate to paint all these child molestation allegations against him as nothing more than a smear campaign one that the media is busy amplifying for the sole purpose of taking him down. His website roymoore.org even has a form people can fill out asking whether the media has contacted them, and to describe the contact. So of course Twitter got hold of it, and now Moore is getting hilariously trolled.The blank form looks like this:An editor for Viewpoint Magazine tweeted it out, along with his response and a call for people to troll Moore this way. Twitter has responded with gusto:Roy Moore has a snitching page on his site where you can report if the media has contacted you, join me in flooding it with trolling https://t.co/EfP1eJMN2t pic.twitter.com/7c6k6WeOHk Shuja Haider (@shujaxhaider) November 15, 2017pic.twitter.com/UOu2SndGh8 Jack (@jrkisbad) November 15, 2017pic.twitter.com/JrF4Cplgp7 CANCEL THE SUPERBOWL (@bornwithatail_) November 15, 2017pic.twitter.com/xukVyXc4FA Gen JC Christian, patriot ? (@JC_Christian) November 15, 2017My patriotic duty! pic.twitter.com/BbYS3uci58 Dustin (@DustinForAll) November 16, 2017Done. pic.twitter.com/A6kP35oAAr Jenna Mullins (@JBomb11) November 15, 2017Roy Moore now has in his inbox a complete copy of the Bee Movie script. You re welcome pic.twitter.com/uvyT2W6oa2 Aleksei? (@AlekseiTheWolf) November 16, 2017pic.twitter.com/yhuiBRah8I Rich ? (@high_light) November 15, 2017i, ms. elizabeth savannah frizzle, am but another victim of the lamestream media https://t.co/a9l94Fr3Cz pic.twitter.com/kOawxJMlf9 kellen???? (@hellenkeniford) November 15, 2017Flap Turtlepeen reporting in. pic.twitter.com/f5ivYIGSoI Clarence Wethern (@cwethern) November 15, 2017Sent by Jesus Christ, from lordhelpusall @ https://t.co/Mh106goEDi pic.twitter.com/BliIXbSfU1 grailsnail (@grailsnail) November 16, 2017How s this? pic.twitter.com/jnrM11CskY Korey Hosch (@korey_hosch) November 15, 2017It s important to be politically involved. pic.twitter.com/VFAhsThswB Let s Be Sapid (@LetsBeSapid) November 16, 2017pic.twitter.com/QkWObh598u patrick? (@Patar4950) November 15, 2017pic.twitter.com/s0hzn9dHxj Dave ? Jackson (@DerAnwalt83) November 15, 2017thank you for your service pic.twitter.com/zVetXGx4sb Aaron Eisenberg (@ae53) November 15, 2017sent the entirety of the Unabomber Manifesto pic.twitter.com/JZW4IXkcBa Chuddy Holly (@blingwads) November 15, 2017Yo, bro. pic.twitter.com/AUEguNerzq Martin R. Schneider (@SchneidRemarks) November 15, 2017pic.twitter.com/ksgERfBatD John Anderson (@jtadrum) November 16, 2017pic.twitter.com/jwGK0wUXAm Luke Brz (@relaxed_hobo) November 15, 2017Sent! pic.twitter.com/2JZ4n5RAY8 Sean Dailey (@deansailey) November 15, 2017Done and done pic.twitter.com/NIMmNyRzSD garrypl (@garrypl) November 15, 2017pic.twitter.com/ozPQje7Lt9 z1pperintheback (@z1pperintheback) November 16, 2017My goal was to draw them in first. pic.twitter.com/EnGXbUxroM Alan Onamous (@Listen_Buddy) November 16, 2017Looks like he could stand to make a lot of money here. Seems legit. pic.twitter.com/6pJICdSyHv John. Just John. (@BlueGuitarPick) November 16, 2017seemed appropriate pic.twitter.com/56RD8xkQW9 Daniel Gu rin-N-Out Burger (@a_p_crowley) November 15, 2017And this one might be among the best:If you would like to troll him a little yourself, click here. Moore clearly doesn t understand the Internet.Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 0 |
3,974 | Sarah Palin Accuses Ted Cruz Supporter Rep. Steve King Of ‘Huffing Ethanol’ | Sarah Palin is having a rough day. It began with an awkward interview with NBC s Today Show when Palin fumbled and gibberished her way through a softball question about whether she really blamed Barack Obama for her son Track s PTSD (she clearly did).And then, during her introduction of Donald Trump during an Iowa rally on Monday, she attacked a longtime ally, Iowa congressman Steve King, and accused the far-right member of the House Crazy Caucus of huffing ethanol.From TPM: It s dirty business but why would a conservative guy want to say something that he knows isn t true? Palin asked the crowd. Maybe he s forgotten some of his heart in the heartland. Maybe he s been hanging out in a corn field too long huffing ethanol. Steve King endorsed Ted Cruz and, during an appearance on MSNBC, King accused Trump of buying off Palin in exchange for his assets and resources. A few things here.1) The first rule of conservatism remains: Don t try to be funny. It never works.2) You might recall how Palin expressed admiration for King during her infamous off-prompter speech in which she inexplicably blurted, Steve very strong, he goin rogue. 3) If anyone knows the impact of huffing fumes, it s Palin. In fact, she might ve been high or drunk during her Trump introduction today like always.4) I wonder how Iowa residents feel about Palin insulting their famous congressman, while also insulting ethanol as being nothing more than something one can huff. 5) It s worth repeating: Stop trying to be funny, conservatives.6) Now, Ted Cruz? Ted Cruz might actually be more tolerable if he huffed something. Anything.7) Palin thinks it s smart politics to emphasize the notion that huffing ethanol can get you really, really high. I m sure the children of Iowa Republican caucus-goers will thank her for it. Featured image via video screen grab. | 0 |
3,975 | NOTHING NEW: ‘Fake’ & Weaponized News Has Long Haunted Our War-Weary World | In response to the establishment media s contrived fake news crisis designed to marginalise independent and alternative media sources of news and analysis, and due to our readers engagement on this important issue, 21WIRE is extending its #FakeNewsWeek awareness campaign for additional week, where each day our editorial team at 21st Century Wire will feature media critiques and analysis of mainstream corporate media coverage of current events exposing the government and the mainstream media s fake news assembly line Hearst vs Pulitzer battle for the yellow journalism title (Image Source: US Library of Congress)Mark Anderson 21st Century WireToday s fake news crisis is by no means a recent phenomenon born during the Presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump, as the mainstream media would have us believe, even while big media outlets hypocritically label alternative news outlets as the sole source of fake news.Not only is America suffering under the maliciously misleading fake news peddled by today s mainstream media; America and the world also have gravely suffered, at least since the mid-19th Century, under an orthodox media that was and remains a weaponized menace to peace and social concord. There is hardly a more unsettling example of an early war-mongering media figure than famed editor Horace Greeley.Stepping back for a moment, it s notable that the liberal-internationalist New York Times unlike liberal-left street protestors who typically march against U.S. military intervention in foreign lands has long interpreted liberalism quite differently on the geopolitical level. Our esteemed newspaper of record spanning three centuries, has frequently used its pages to call for, justify or not seriously challenge claims made by governments as the pretext for highly questionable military interventions. This has led to the current reality of perpetual, unwinnable conflicts that are prosecuted without even the pretense of Congress officially declaring war as the Constitution requires.And pesky facts such as the reality that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein never possessed the kind or quantity of weapons of mass destruction to excuse the U.S.-led coalition s March 2003 shock and awe intervention in Iraq have never been allowed to obstruct the Times support for Iraq and subsequent wars. The role of the Times, along with its staff reporter Judith Miller, in presenting the false case for that war is well documented. In addition to this, a tertiary story that Saddam Hussein was hosting al Qaeda terrorists and he have been involved in the 9/11 attacks of 2001, was concocted by members of the Bush Administration and then injected into both the US and British mainstream media.All that was needed was somebody to hate in the true Orwellian tradition, so the military-industrial-banking-intelligence-media complex gave Americans Iraq as the phony target of their revenge.DRUMMING-UP A CIVIL WARAll told, the Times famous slogan, All the News That s Fit to Print might just as well be: All the Wars That Are Fit to Fight. So, it s all the more ironic that of all newspapers, the New York Times, on July 28, 2011, in a respectable article by James M. Lundberg, clearly outlined (in accordance with other sources) Horace Greeley s unhinged Times-style actions to help propel the U.S. into an incredibly bloody war against itself the grossly misnamed Civil War. (A civil war is that in which two or more factions fight for control of a government, while this war involved southern states seceding from the Union to form another government. Big media and court historians don t even bother using correct terms.)19th Century media mogul Horace Greeley.Horace Greeley (1811-1872) founded and edited the widely influential New York Tribune. Having served briefly as a congressman from New York, he also was the new Liberal Republican Party s unsuccessful candidate in the 1872 presidential election against incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant the celebrated Union general whose military actions were partly made possible by Greeley s poison pen. To Greeley, the pen was not mightier than the sword; rather, his pen was a sword, wielded in zealous pursuit of a fratricidal war that ended up solidifying federal dominance over the several states.Under the robber barons of Greeley s day (who would later foist a central bank on America, based on several economic panics that the big newspapers hyped, instilling widespread fear) such federal dominance became an enduring debt slavery that, to this day, has arguably made all Americans into perpetual serfs under the yoke of compound interest, massive taxes and endless toil. And Greeley s fingerprints are all over that bleak outcome, however unwitting he may have been about it.Greeley and the Tribune railed over the South s black agrarian slavery and urged the North to take up arms to end such servitude, while northern media moguls kept extremely quiet about the slavery of children working in northern factories.Lundberg noted, It didn t take long for Horace Greeley, the nation s most loved, hated and widely read newspaper editor, to become impatient with the progress of the war. From the moment news of Major Robert Anderson s [northern] surrender at Fort Sumter reached New York City, drumbeats and bugle calls for immediate military action could be heard in the columns of Greeley s paper, the New York Tribune. Greeley and his deputies, while ignoring the towering task that others would have to undertake to prepare for the anticipated titanic collision of military forces, poured his messianic vision into the Tribune s pages to sway the people toward war, although even President Lincoln himself was not yet on the same page as Greeley. But the delusional Mr. Greeley would not settle for a mere sovereign making his own decisions. Never mind the logistical challenge of assembling, arming and training a suitable military force the people, or at least the [Tribune] editors, were ready, and there was hardly a moment to lose. What appeared to be lacking, from Greeley s perspective, was a necessary vigor from President Lincoln and his administration, Lundberg wrote. Within a week of Lincoln s initial call for volunteers on April 15, 1861, the Tribune was already sharply critical of [Lincoln s] apparent sluggishness. Greeley gloated that the People supposedly stood ready to fight with old flint-lock muskets if [they] can get no better. But, he wondered, Will the government stand by the People? And before April was out and military operations still hadn t started, Greeley, casting objectivity aside and seeking the dehumanization of the South, was reminding Lincoln: We are at war with these pestilent rebels and traitors, while urging heavy and instantaneous blows at Maryland and Virginia. The manipulation of the narrative did not end there. Greeley even called for the absolute conquest of the South on the first of May, 1861. We mean to conquer them, he blathered, and we shall do this most mercifully, the more speedily we do it. Who could argue with an offer as gracious as merciful conquest?As Lundberg explained, Greeley believed the Union could be saved and much bloodshed spared with swift, decisive Federal action. And swift, decisive action would be effective because the Rebels were weak, disorganized and unlikely to fight if their cause of independence appeared lost. Moreover, Greeley believed that secession had been the work of a small minority of fire-eating fanatics; a quick blow and a little taste of the full force of the Union Army would embolden the silent majority of Southern Unionists he believed had yet to be roused. But it was easy for Greeley, who couldn t have had the slightest idea how this clash of arms would turn out, to assume from the safety of his desk that bloodshed could be spared by a quick attack. Such a large-scale battle of Americans against Americans brother against brother, fathers against sons in some cases, reddening U.S. soil itself on such a huge scale was an unprecedented, utterly unpredictable thing. If sparing bloodshed was to be the goal, then avoiding war would have been the prudent path. But poisoning public opinion via newsprint, in favor of war, would make war appear unavoidable on both sides of the conflict.Greeley, having seriously injured himself chopping wood on his Chappaqua Farm, tapped Fitz Henry Warren, a Washington correspondent, to watch over the newspaper. Warren promptly filed a trembling dispatch, describing Union forces in ultra-glowing terms. And while Greeley popularized the well-known words Go West, young man in the days of westward expansion and the opportunities it afforded, another phrase that historians associate with Greeley s newspaper was born in latter May of 1861: On to Richmond! But according to Lundberg, it was Warren who sired that refrain and also declared: Unloose your chivalry, Man of high command . . . pierce the vitals of Virginia, and scourge the serpent seed of her rebellion on the crowning heights of Richmond. Keep in mind that the simmering North-South conflict hadn t yet morphed into a full-blown war, even as Greeley s paper agitated for all-out war and never allowed for cooler heads to prevail. For many, the unavoidable question is: Whose war was this? The Union s? Or the New York Tribune s?Warren wasn t the only Tribune staffer to escalate the nation into full-blown war. The On to Richmond! slogan, which at first was printed in the Tribune s tiny type within dense columns of war correspondence, was given new life with slightly different wording by the Tribune s Charles A. Dana about a month later. As Lincoln and his commanders continued careful deliberations, Dana recklessly threw the paper s full weight behind Warren s idea that Richmond must be taken immediately. Beginning June 28, the paper s masthead bore in boldface what Dana called:THE NATION S WAR-CRY Forward to Richmond! Forward to Richmond! The Rebel Congress must not be allowed to meet there on the 20th of July! BY THAT DATE THE PLACE MUST BE HELD BY THE NATIONAL ARMY!Greeley did come to his senses a little. He soon came to regret his subordinates choice of words when the Union s push toward Richmond became the deadly debacle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861 following the approximate schedule that had been urged by the Tribune. Furious rebuttals against Greeley came from the Northern public and some press, as saner minds saw the travesty of the situation at a time when unlike today mainstream news journals were not so centrally controlled and offered a reasonable divergence of opinion.As Lundberg related, Henry Jarvis Raymond s Times blasted the insane clamor of certain reckless journals and their senseless and incessant cry of Onward to Richmond. But the Albany Evening Journal, offered an especially precise appraisal: The on to Richmond dictators [emphasis added] have added another year to the war, a hundred millions of dollars to its cost, and opened graves for fifteen or twenty thousand more soldiers. The Albany paper, perhaps not realizing the full import of its own words, had pinpointed what Greeley s Tribune had become a weaponized media, which would become the norm in the mainstream media as the 19th Century gave way to the 20th Century, and into the 21st Century.WAVERING FALSE FLAGSThe great unmentionable, however, is something that this New York Times account of Greeley s exploits did not address and which the Times will always avoid altogether: That the South s April 1861 attack on a Union military outpost at Fort Sumter, S.C., which provided the initial push toward the Civil War, would be a harbinger of things to come in that it was a type of false flag operation, clandestinely arranged by the White House to maneuver the South into firing the first shot, the same basic model used against Japan in the lead-up to Pearl Harbor 80 years later.And less than 40 years later, when the American battleship USS Maine, on Feb. 15, 1898, was destroyed in Havana harbor, the media s lack of seeking accurate knowledge as to exactly what blew up the ship gave leading 19th Century newspapermen the platform they needed to instead detonate information bombs , once again, instilling fear and overriding wiser counsel in order to blame Spain, and catapulting the U.S. into the Spanish-American War the first international-scale war that set the dangerous precedent of constant U.S. military patrols and interventionism across the world.The leading fake news figures of that era who so inflamed public opinion toward that war are still household names: William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, the latter being the namesake of the famed Pulitzer Prize in Journalism. These two moguls, who became emblematic of the era of sensationalized Yellow Journalism , competed to see who could better ratchet up war fever against Spain.Hearst, on whom the movie Citizen Kane was loosely based, with Orson Wells playing the media mogul, was an especially reckless newsman. Ironically, Hearst had developed his passion for journalism in his early 20s and wrote for the Harvard Lampoon while a college student before working as an apprentice for the New York World s editor, none other than future rival Joseph Pulitzer. Hearst s father had become wealthy from Western mining interests, so the younger Hearst was able to use his dad s backing to acquire the New York Journal. As Hearst sought to gain readership for his New York Journal against Pulitzer s New York World, he pursued increasingly sensational stories, author and history teacher Ian C. Friedman noted online. Front pages shouted about the boy who bit into a stick of dynamite thinking it was candy and leading to an awful death, and a tale of a deranged girl running down a street with her hair all ablaze, and other stories of violence, sex, catastrophe, and mayhem were typical of what became known as yellow journalism, so named because the newly-introduced colored comics sections often spread [yellow ink] to other parts of these newspapers. Hearst s penchant for publishing fake or exaggerated stuff as if it s real or accurate was given full reign as he angled for an ill-advised, pointless U.S. intervention in Cuba. In so doing, he took the forbidden leap from journalism to war participation. [He] was persistent in finding ways to achieve it, including organizing a daring and successful rescue mission to free a young, female Cuban political prisoner, Evangelina Cisneros, which he proudly trumpeted on the front page of the Journal, Friedman added. Though the Cuban insurrection against their Spanish rulers was stagnating, Hearst continued to send many of his high-profile writers and illustrators to the Cuba in hopes of capturing a great story. Among Hearst s employees was the famed illustrator Frederic Remington. In 1897, Remington became very bored by the lack of anything newsworthy in Cuba and cabled to Hearst, Everything quiet. There is no trouble here. There will be no war. Wish to return. Responding to Remington s message, Hearst famously replied, Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I ll furnish the war. Less than three weeks later, the USS Maine exploded in Havana s harbor. The cause of the explosion that claimed 274 lives remains a mystery to this day. Theories include that the ship detonated an external mine; that the blast was caused by an undetected internal coal fire; that it was attacked by the Spanish; and even that it was intentionally attacked under a clandestine American operation to force the U.S. into the war on false pretenses.Clearly, if we do not know what happened to the Maine even now, then Hearst certainly did not know what happened at the time of the explosion, yet he published headlines such as, CRISIS AT HAND . . . SPANISH TREACHERY . . . Maine Destroyed by An Outside Attack, Naval Officers Believe. Other war first, ask questions later, if ever situations would follow. The May 1915 sinking of the British passenger ship Lusitania, which, having been secretly loaded with munitions, is thought to have been used as bait to help spark World War I. And even if the German U-Boat which sank her was not directly baited, the British admiralty, in tandem with the American admiralty, knowingly and willfully let that ship leave New York loaded with munitions, bound for shark-infested waters (German U-boats). Yet the existence of the munitions was not officially admitted until 1982.Nearly 1,200 unwitting passengers and the crew perished in an event that shifted American opinion against Germany, priming the pump for the U.S. to enter the war.Moreover, gutsy historian John Toland and retired sailor and researcher Robert Stinnett, among others, exposed the FDR Administration with reams of evidence demonstrating how Washington DC knowingly baited the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor, an event which sparked U.S. entry into World War II (and also for treacherously denying Pearl Harbor s commanders any warning of the coming attack).Stinnett, who earned 10 battle stars and a Presidential Unit Citation in World War II and was in the same naval aerial photography group as George H.W. Bush, was no flunky. His book on Pearl Harbor, Day of Deceit absolutely destroys those who hopelessly cling to the surprise attack narrative, which still includes the deceitful big media.There was also the second of the two Gulf of Tonkin incidents on Aug. 4, 1964, in which North Vietnamese forces allegedly fired upon the U.S. Naval vessels. But an in-depth U.S. Naval Institute review found that the Aug. 4 incident, which was the turning point that led to full U.S. involvement in the Vietnam conflict, never happened. There was not a second attack on U.S. Navy ships in the Tonkin Gulf in early August 1964. Furthermore, the evidence suggests a disturbing and deliberate attempt by Secretary of Defense McNamara to distort the evidence and mislead Congress, the USNI concluded.Congress, without a responsibly skeptical press to rely upon, soon passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution to cement the U.S. into what became the Vietnam nightmare. But no formal war declaration ever occurred.TOTAL INSTITUTIONAL FAILURE? Yet, as increasingly more people in our Internet age ask harder questions and finally discover the truth about all these watershed events, only mainstream editors, reporters and court historians, with rare exceptions, believe the old official narratives anymore narratives which ushered America into wars in such a manner that war has become a permanent fixture in U.S. geo-politics.Put another way, the Western press has not only utterly failed to stop the power of government from ballooning into a perpetual war machine despite institutional claims that it speaks truth to power the mainstream media has been a major agent in justifying and escalating wars, without ever acknowledging its dreadful history of doing so. Covering-up real history and failing to consider other viewpoints and correct the record is arguably another form of fake, weaponized news because it denies the world a full reckoning of its past, thereby making future wars much more likely.Instead, an honest look at history shows, with only minor exceptions, that the mainstream orthodox press of yesteryear laid the groundwork long ago for the modern centralized news institution that relishes in fear porn supporting ongoing war, mayhem and grave economic uncertainty by covering up past and present realities, avoiding solutions and constantly recycling the corrosive narratives that go nowhere and cause real, lasting harm and have put, and continue to put, large swaths of humanity into early graves.*** Author Mark Anderson is an investigative journalist and features writer for American Free Press, and is editor of The Truth Hound. Contact Mr. Anderson at truthhound2@yahoo.com. READ MORE ABOUT MSM FAKE NEWS AT: FAKE NEWS WEEKSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE NOW & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 |
3,976 | Neo-Nazi group moves to 'Dark Web' after website goes down | TORONTO (Reuters) - Neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer, which helped organize a gathering in Virginia on Saturday that turned violent, moved to the so-called Dark Web on Tuesday because its registration to use the open internet was revoked. GoDaddy Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google canceled Daily Stormer’s Internet registration on Monday, saying the group had violated terms of service, which prohibit clients from using their sites to incite violence. Andrew Anglin, the founder of Daily Stormer, did not respond to requests for comment. Supporters of Daily Stormer took to Twitter on Tuesday to tell people they could gain access to the website on the Dark Web, a portion of the Internet that is not indexed by popular search engines. It can only be seen with a special browser, which hides the identity and location of the users. A 32-year-old woman was killed and 19 other people injured when a man rammed his car into a group of people objecting to a “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The man has been charged with murder. The violence presented President Donald Trump with one of his biggest domestic political challenges so far in how he has responded to right-wing groups that are a segment of his political base. | 1 |
3,977 | Fresh Off The Golf Course, Trump Lashes Out At FBI Deputy Director And James Comey | Donald Trump spent a good portion of his day at his golf club, marking the 84th day he s done so since taking the oath of office. It must have been a bad game because just after that, Trump lashed out at FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe on Twitter following a report saying McCabe plans to retire in a few months. The report follows McCabe s testimony in front of congressional committees this week, as well as mounting criticism from Republicans regarding the Russia probe.So, naturally, Trump attacked McCabe with a lie. How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man in charge, along with leakin James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wife s campaign by Clinton Puppets during investigation? Trump tweeted.How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man in charge, along with leakin James Comey, of the Phony Hillary Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails) be given $700,000 for wife s campaign by Clinton Puppets during investigation? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2017He didn t stop there.FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go?!!! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2017Wow, FBI lawyer James Baker reassigned, according to @FoxNews. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2017With all of the Intel at Trump s disposal, he s getting his information from Fox News. McCabe spent most of his career in the fight against terrorism and now he s being attacked by the so-called president. Trump has been fact-checked before on his claim of his wife receiving $700,000 for her campaign.Politifact noted in late July that Trump s tweet about Andrew McCabe is a significant distortion of the facts. And the implication that McCabe got Clinton off as a political favor doesn t make much sense when we look at the evidence. His July tweet was rated mostly false. But Trump repeats these lies because he knows his supporters will believe them without bothering to Google. It s still a lie, though.Photo by Zach Gibson Pool/Getty Images. | 0 |
3,978 | China to prosecute former party boss of Chongqing | BEIJING (Reuters) - The former Communist Party boss of one of China s most important cities, the southwestern megalopolis of Chongqing, has been expelled from the party and will be prosecuted for corruption, state news agency Xinhua said on Friday. Sun Zhengcai, a senior official once considered a contender for top leadership, had been party chief of the city until an abrupt announcement in July that he had been replaced by a rising political star close to President Xi Jinping. He was put under investigation later in July. | 1 |
3,979 | Twitter TEARS Paul Ryan To BLOODY RIBBONS For Praising CBO Review Of GOP Healthcare Plan (TWEETS) | The Congressional Budget Office s review of the Republicans replacement plan for the ACA is out, and it s not good news. Under the plan, 24 million people will lose their healthcare coverage by 2026. 14 million of those people will see their insurance ripped from them just in the next two years. In total, this plan will result in 52 million uninsured people in 2026. Over the next four years, premiums are expected to rise by as much as 20 percent more than they would under the ACA. Premiums might fall for younger people after 2020 but would continue to rise for older people.And on it goes.Paul Ryan, however, sees the report as a resounding endorsement of the plan because it will reduce the deficit by a whole $336 billion over a decade and is supposed to maybe lower premiums at some point in the future.CBO report confirms it American Health Care Act will lower premiums & improve access to quality, affordable care. https://t.co/jNzmYFPe9H pic.twitter.com/f0NGuLiztl Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) March 13, 2017And Twitter is throwing a livid fit with him for that tweet, as well they should. The GOP s first priority should be the uninsured and the risk of people becoming uninsured. Instead, they re worried about deficits and getting lower premiums at some point for some demographics. Twitter is being merciless in their evaluation of his response.@SpeakerRyan Delete your account. David Podhaskie (@davidpodhaskie) March 13, 2017.@SpeakerRyan it literally says 24 million will lose coverage pic.twitter.com/iDDTerO77X Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) March 13, 2017.@SpeakerRyan ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? TALK ABOUT THE 24,000,000 AMERICANS LOSING COVERAGE! Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) March 13, 2017@SpeakerRyan Goal achieved. You ve given Americans the freedom to die bankrupt. Erich McElroy (@erichmcelroy) March 13, 2017@SpeakerRyan This tweet isn t a misrepresentation it s a straight up lie. Seth Grahame-Smith (@sethgs) March 13, 2017@SpeakerRyan Quick question: When you sell your soul, whose blood do you sign with? Your own, right? Ryan Parker (@TheRyanParker) March 13, 2017@SpeakerRyan Why don t you just tell the truth about the new law? You believe the gov t shouldn t be providing health care, right? Say so Jeremy Greenfield (@jdgreenfield) March 13, 2017@SpeakerRyan it literally says 24 million people will be uninsured by 2026, how fucking evil are you dude? Jeremy M (@thismyshow) March 13, 2017@SpeakerRyan that s not what the report says. You re a dumb liar and your selfish actions will kill people. Myles Tanzer (@mylestanzer) March 13, 2017@SpeakerRyan 24 million people will lose coverage, as per the CBO s report. _Your own guy_ is saying this bill is a healthcare disaster. Laura Anne Gilman (@LAGilman) March 13, 2017.@SpeakerRyan the CBO report says literally the opposite. Specifically, how premiums will go up and will cause 24 million to lose insurance Emanuel Zbeda (@therealezway) March 13, 2017@SpeakerRyan You re a liar and I wish hell was real. BenDavid Grabinski (@bdgrabinski) March 13, 2017@SpeakerRyan It will. Take insurance. Away from. 24 million people. Who will die. And the blood. Will be on. Your hands. K. Thor Jensen (@kthorjensen) March 13, 2017@SpeakerRyan you re a disingenuous amoral shitstain Matthew Kory (@mattymatty2000) March 13, 2017@speakerryan You re a walking pile of horseshit shaped like a man. Robot Chicken (@cyborgturkey) March 13, 2017@SpeakerRyan I wonder if @oreillyfactor still has that No Spin Zone segment cause this is some dressed up trash. 24 million w/o access! Sophia (@SophiaTesfaye) March 13, 2017.@SpeakerRyan for real, what report are you reading that caused you to draw *this* conclusion? Jay Willis (@jaywillis) March 13, 2017.@SpeakerRyan Did you even read it? Beth Elderkin (@BethElderkin) March 13, 2017@SpeakerRyan HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Bruce Holsinger (@bruceholsinger) March 13, 2017@SpeakerRyan BRO seriously do even READ? AltUSCustoms (@alt_uscbp) March 13, 2017@SpeakerRyan By improve access do you mean making 24 million people lose coverage? Joe Hurwitz (@Joe_Hurwitz) March 13, 2017@SpeakerRyan Facts : CBO confirmed 24 Million will lose their Health Care : You ve put us all in danger https://t.co/R7UTjARnVi pic.twitter.com/WqHckwAxAm Jolene Sugarbaker (@JolenesTrailer) March 13, 2017@SpeakerRyan Your willingness to lie and let people die to save millionaires some money makes my skin crawl. Nerdista (@Nerdista) March 13, 2017@SpeakerRyan You are a pile of earwax in a suit. Dennis Perkins (@DennisPerkins5) March 13, 2017The CBO s report shows a bloodbath that Republicans are couching in pretty flowers, and Ryan is busy trying to convince us that the pretty flowers are all that exist here. Perhaps, in his mind, the scent of the flowers will cover the scent of blood in this if he just says it will enough times.Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images | 0 |
3,980 | Chances of Republican brokered convention up since Super Tuesday: PredictIt | NEW YORK (Reuters) - The chances that the Republican Party will decide its nominee for the November presidential election through a brokered convention have increased since Super Tuesday even as front-runner Donald Trump has racked up primary wins, according to two online betting sites. According to PredictIt, the probability of a brokered convention stood at 43 percent as of midday on Wednesday, following primaries in five states, including Florida and Illinois, the previous night. That was up from 35 percent on March 2, the day after Trump won contests in seven out of 11 states, according to the website, which is run by Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. According to Ladbrokes PLC, another online betting site, the chances of a brokered convention were 4-5 on Wednesday, down from evens on March 2. That means there is a 56 percent probability of a brokered convention, up from 50 percent. Trump’s chances of winning the general election dropped to 5/2 from 2/1 despite his victories on Tuesday night, but Ladbrokes attributed the result partly to a large single bet of nearly $20,000 that skewed the results. That gives him a 29 percent probability of winning, down from 33 percent. The billionaire New York businessman has emerged as the clear leader in the Republican race. On Tuesday, he scored big wins in primaries in Florida, Illinois and North Carolina, knocking out rival Marco Rubio and bringing him closer to the 1,237 convention delegates he needs to win the nomination. But he lost the crucial state of Ohio and left the door open for those in the party trying to stop him from becoming the Republican nominee for the Nov. 8 election. That means that Trump might fall short of the majority required, enabling the party’s establishment to put forward another name at the July convention in Cleveland to formally pick its candidate. Meanwhile, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the presidency fell to 4/9 from 8/15. That increases her probability of winning to 69 percent from 65 percent following Tuesday’s primary victories in Florida, Illinois, Ohio and North Carolina. Those wins cast doubt on U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders’ ability to overtake her for the Democratic Party’s nomination. | 1 |
3,981 | Obama's defense chief doesn't see big changes in Iraq campaign | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ash Carter, who until January was U.S. defense secretary, said on Tuesday he did not see major changes in the campaign against Islamic State since President Donald Trump took office, amid accusations the U.S. military may be relaxing rules protecting civilians. “I don’t see overall major changes and I certainly hope they stay on the path that we set because I think that’s the right path,” Carter said at a forum at Harvard University, in his first public address since leaving the post. Carter declined to speculate about the investigation into an explosion in Mosul believed to have killed scores of civilians, even as he stressed the importance of probes of such incidents. The U.S. military has acknowledged a possible role in the incident but also says Islamic State could be to blame. | 1 |
3,982 | Here’s How Lying Trump Supporters Turned A Random Protester Into ‘ISIS’ (TWEETS) | Donald Trump and his supporters are absolutely crazy. There is video that has surfaced from a rally from this weekend with his supporters doing a Hitler-esque salute and telling reporters to go to Auschwitz, and of course we all know about the outbreaks of racist violence. Well, the one that really takes the case is how Trump and his supporters have managed to make a great part of his ignorant base believe that a protester who rushed the stage is somehow connected the terrorist group ISIS.The protester, identified as 22-year-old college student and activist Thomas DiMassimo, is in no way tied to ISIS. However, Trump and his supporters have plowed on with this ridiculous and untrue theory. Trump was questioned about the spreading of this lie on a recent edition of Meet The Press, when the shutting down of his Chicago rally due to violence was addressed. He gave his usual crazy and uninformed answer, and said, All I know is what s on the internet. So, we have a guy who literally is winning the race to be a presidential nominee who lies all the time and admits to believing everything he reads online. That s scary as hell, to say the least. He even tweeted out the fake video created by his lying fans:USSS did an excellent job stopping the maniac running to the stage. He has ties to ISIS. Should be in jail! https://t.co/tkzbHg7wyD?ssr=true Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 12, 2016Journalist John Harwood tweeted this ridiculous travesty:Trump response to being told video connecting rally protestor to ISIS is a hoax: "all I know is what's on the Internet" John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) March 13, 2016Of course, we also know that Trump is now threatening protesters with arrests that will ruin their lives if they exercise their First Amendment rights against the hateful environment of his rallies as well. His supporters are also still steadily spreading the lie that DiMassimo is an ISIS supporter, though the FBI has thoroughly debunked that claim. The edited video that they used to promote that dangerous nonsense was actually of the young man at a protest that had nothing to do with ISIS. DiMassimo says of his reasons for rushing Trump on stage and taking the disorderly conduct charge: We must nonviolently shut down every Trump rally. We must stop this violent, foolish man from taking this country and destroying it. Thomas DiMassimo is absolutely correct. Trump is America s Adolf Hiter, and the really scary part is that a lot of people are too blinded by bigotry, hate, and fear to see it.Featured image via video screen capture from Addicting Info archives | 0 |
3,983 | China says will protect sovereignty from any conflict on Korean peninsula | BEIJING (Reuters) - China s Defense Ministry said on Thursday that the Chinese military will make all necessary preparations to protect national sovereignty and regional peace and stability, when asked about the risk of conflict on the Korean peninsula. Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian made the comments at a monthly briefing in Beijing when asked what preparations China was making in case a war breaks out. Wu also reiterated China s view that the issue should be resolved via talks, not military means, which he said were not an option to resolve tensions. | 1 |
3,984 | Oklahoma Governor Fallin speaks to Trump about possible Interior Department job: spokesman | (Reuters) - Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin met on Monday with President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence and discussed the possibility of serving in the new administration, including in the Department of the Interior, her spokesman said. “It was a wonderful discussion ... I was not offered a position,” Fallin told reporters in the lobby of the Trump Tower in New York. “It was just an initial meeting to address a wide range of topics.” A spokesman said they discussed the possibility of Fallin serving at the Interior Department. | 1 |
3,985 | CELEBRITY CRUISE LINE CEO Makes Political Statement With Stunning Open-Borders, Trump Bashing Ad [VIDEO] | Perhaps Celebrity Cruises didn t get the memo Donald J. Trump won the election. Trump won the election in large part because people are sick and tired of the unchecked invasion of illegal aliens and refugees from countries who hate us into our country. Here is the transcript from this insane anti-Trump ad. Far from the talk of building walls, far from the threats of keeping people out, far from the rhetoric of fear is a world of differences. Differences that expand and enrich us. Because after all, our lives aren t made better when we close ourselves off to the world, they re made better when we open ourselves up to it Celebrity Cruises. If that language sounds targeted to one specific candidate, that s no mistake but it s also not the whole point. It s in response to the rhetoric around the world, Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, president and CEO of Celebrity Cruises, told Skift. She named the Brexit vote, the rise of hate crimes in the UK, and the plight of refugees in France as examples.Closest to home for the Miami-based cruise line which gets the majority of its passengers from the United States are the positions that Trump has taken, such as calling for the building of a wall between the U.S. and Mexico and for ideological tests to be given to visitors. If people want to choose [to view] this statement as a political statement, I can t control that, Lutoff-Perlo said. She said she has thought about whether some potential passengers might be turned off by the spot, but she hasn t worried about the possibility. I believe anybody that truly looks at this and says, We re not going to sail on Celebrity again, they re probably not sailing on Celebrity, she said. I hope I get more people than I lose. Lutoff-Perlo continued: Is there a risk? Sure. At some point in time you have to take a stand. SkiftConservative Twitter user @MightyBusterBro created this video to expose the real message behind Celebrity Cruise Lines anti-Trump ad:https://youtu.be/CioVjCyP-lI | 0 |
3,986 | U.S. strike on Islamic State camps in Yemen kills dozens: Pentagon | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. forces killed dozens of Islamic State members in a strike on Monday on two training camps in Yemen, the Pentagon said. The camps in al-Bayda province were being used to train new fighters using AK-47s, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, the Pentagon said in a statement. Islamic State has used ungoverned areas in Yemen to plot, direct, instigate, resource and recruit for attacks against America and its allies around the world, it said. | 1 |
3,987 | Exclusive: Cruz about even with Trump in Republican presidential race - poll | NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. presidential candidate Ted Cruz’s support among Republicans is about even at a national level with party front-runner Donald Trump, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling, as the U.S. senator picked up a victory in Wisconsin’s primary. Cruz’s gains in the polling mark the first time since November that one of Trump’s rivals has threatened his lead in support among Republicans in the race to be party nominee for the Nov. 8 election. The gains coincided with a bumpy patch for Trump, who was forced to backtrack last week after saying women who had abortions should face punishment if the procedure is outlawed, and who voiced support for his campaign manager after he was charged with misdemeanor assault for allegedly grabbing a reporter. Cruz, a senator from Texas, got 35.2 percent of support to Trump’s 39.5 percent, the poll of 568 Republicans taken April 1-5 found. The numbers put the two within the poll’s 4.8 percentage-point credibility interval, a measure of accuracy. Cruz and Trump were also briefly about even early last week. But as recently as a month ago, when Senator Marco Rubio was also still a candidate, Cruz trailed Trump in the Reuters/Ipsos polling by about 20 points. Ohio Governor John Kasich, the only other candidate left in the race for the Republican Party nomination, placed third in the April 1-5 poll with 18.7 percent. Trump’s support has faltered among women in particular in recent weeks. More than 70 percent of likely women voters said they had an “unfavorable” opinion of Trump, according to the rolling poll average for the five-day period ended April 5. In the Democratic race, front-runner Hillary Clinton held a nationwide lead in the poll of about 7 points over U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Cruz and Sanders easily won their Wisconsin presidential primary contests on Tuesday night. Sanders would still face a difficult task overtaking Clinton as the nominating contest, but Cruz’s double-digit win over Trump was seen as a breakthrough for Republican Party forces battling to block him. | 1 |
3,988 | As Trump meets biotech CEOs, farm advisers fret over empty USDA spot | CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has left the agriculture secretary as the last department head to be named to his Cabinet, while a meeting with the chief executives of two agribusiness giants gave a hint at a roster of farm issues the incoming president will face. Trump met on Wednesday with the leaders of Monsanto Co (MON.N) and Bayer AG (BAYGn.DE), who pitched the benefits of their proposed $66 billion merger. While critical of other large tie-ups, Trump has not publicly taken a stance on the Bayer-Monsanto deal. The secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will not approve or reject the merger but will face the issue of industry consolidation. Dow Chemical Co DOW.N has proposed to merge with DuPont DD.N, and China National Chemical Corp (ChemChina) [CNNCC.UL] is seeking to acquire Syngenta AG SYNN.S. Trade, environmental regulation and the 2018 federal farm bill are also expected to be at the top of the farm agenda once Trump takes office Jan. 20, according members of an agricultural advisory committee he formed during the campaign. How Trump responds on those issues - and who he picks to lead the USDA - could determine whether he is able to maintain the strong rural support he demonstrated in the Nov. 8 election. Some committee members told Reuters they have had meetings with Trump and his advisers, and have suggested possible nominees to help define the type of person who should lead the department. Former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue is Trump’s leading candidate to run the department, a senior Trump transition team official said last week. Trump has also met with Elsa Murano, undersecretary of agriculture for food safety under President George W. Bush, and Chuck Conner, head of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives. He has also talked with Abel Maldonado, former lieutenant governor of California and co-owner of Runway Vineyards; Tim Huelskamp, former Republican U.S. representative from Kansas; and Sid Miller, Texas agriculture commissioner. Trump’s committee wants someone who is familiar with day-to-day farm life, can open up new markets for trade and will pressure federal regulators to ease environmental restrictions, according to a dozen committee members interviewed by Reuters. “The sooner we have someone in place (as Agriculture Secretary), the better,” said Mike Strain, Louisiana’s commissioner of agriculture and forestry, and part of Trump’s agricultural advisory committee. A.G. Kawamura, a former California agriculture secretary who is on the committee, said discussions within Trump’s transition team were “free and flowing” about who should head the agency. The USDA is made up of 29 agencies and offices that perform jobs ranging from agricultural research to working with foreign governments to facilitate trade. “Generally, the country knows who the proposed cabinet is going to be before Inauguration Day. But if I’ve learned anything this past year, it’s that you can’t make assumptions about what will happen,” he said. John Block, an Illinois corn, soybean and hog producer who served as USDA secretary under President Ronald Reagan, is certain Trump will make the right choice. “We like to think we’ll see a conclusion soon, so we can look to the future,” he said. “But we have plenty of confidence in Trump, and we’re hanging in there.” One key trait some are looking for: someone to stand up for farmers amid a flurry of merger deals, such as the Bayer-Monsanto tie-up. But even members of Trump’s own agricultural advisory committee disagree about the deal’s merits. Bayer CEO Werner Baumann and Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant had a “productive meeting with President-elect Trump and his team to share their views on the future of the agriculture industry and its need for innovation,” according to a statement issued by both companies. Bill Northey, Iowa’s agriculture secretary and a member of Trump’s agricultural advisory team, said he believed the president-elect was paying attention to the Monsanto-Bayer merger because rural voters supported him in the election. He said it was possible that parts of the deal might be “beneficial and pieces of it would be detrimental.” | 1 |
3,989 | Trump eyes Supreme Court after appeals court rejects travel ban | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized a federal appeals court one day after it handed him another legal setback by refusing to revive his U.S. travel ban on people from six Muslim-majority nations, and appeared poised for the nation’s top court to weigh in. On Monday, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals became the second federal appeals court to reject the Republican Trump administration’s bid to undo a Hawaii federal judge’s decision that blocked the temporary travel ban in a dispute headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The three-judge panel said Trump’s March 6 order violated existing immigration law, but did not address whether it was unconstitutional discrimination against Muslims. Trump’s 90-day ban targets travelers from Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. “Well, as predicted, the 9th Circuit did it again - Ruled against the TRAVEL BAN at such a dangerous time in the history of our country. S.C.” Trump said in a post on Twitter, apparently referencing the U.S. Supreme Court. The nation’s top court, which leans conservative after Trump’s appointee won confirmation as the ninth justice earlier this year, could act as soon as this week on his administration’s request to reinstate the order. The 9th Circuit, headed by Democratic appointees, largely left in place a nationwide injunction by Judge Derrick Watson of Hawaii that stopped parts of the order, which Trump contends is needed to prevent terrorism in the United States. Those who have challenged the travel ban dispute that it is needed to protect Americans and argue that the order violates the U.S. Constitution’s bar against favoring or disfavoring a particular religion. Another appeals court, the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, last month upheld a Maryland judge’s ruling that also blocked Trump’s ban. Trump has been on the losing side in all four court rulings on the March order and has asked the U.S. Supreme Court for an emergency review. In a statement on Monday, U.S. Attorney General Sessions said Trump’s executive order was lawful and that the court rulings have had a “chilling effect” on security operations. | 1 |
3,990 | Chinese media upbeat on U.S. ties ahead of Trump visit | BEIJING (Reuters) - China and the United States have common interests but the relationship needs careful handling, Chinese state-run media said on Wednesday ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump s visit to Beijing. North Korea and trade are expected to dominate Trump s trip, with the U.S. leader likely to push Chinese President Xi Jinping to do more to rein in Pyongyang s nuclear and missile programs and address China s large trade surplus with the United States. The ruling Communist Party s official People s Daily said in a commentary that as China becomes strong, it won t repeat old fashioned zero-sum thinking in handling ties, but will work with the United States to construct a cooperative and mutually profitable relationship with no conflict. In realizing the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and protecting peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula, China and the United States have common interests, it said. The two sides should respect one another s interests, maintain close communication and consultation, and make unremitting efforts to promote a thorough resolution of the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue. Trump heads to China later on Wednesday after visiting Japan and South Korea in the first legs of his marathon Asian tour. Trump s attempt to make a surprise visit to the heavily fortified border separating North Korea and South Korea was aborted on Wednesday after dense fog prevented his helicopter from landing at the doorstep of the North Korean nuclear standoff. The China Daily, in an editorial which preceded the announcement of the abortive Trump trip to the border, said Trump not going to the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) and North Korea not recently carrying out any nuclear or missile tests was a hopeful sign that both prefer to find a peaceful solution to their predicaments . China has promised a state visit plus for Trump, and while having not released any details, Beijing is attaching great importance to the visit. Trump is expected to go to the Forbidden City, possibly guided by Xi. Such hospitality is rarely seen in modern China, influential tabloid the Global Times, published by the People s Daily, said in its editorial. Beijing s enthusiasm reflects the most positive part of the attitude that the diversified world holds toward the U.S., and the realistic international outlook of the rising China. | 1 |
3,991 | House committee to hold hearing on Wells Fargo sales practices | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House Financial Services Committee has opened a probe into Wells Fargo’s sales practices and plans to call the company’s chief executive before lawmakers at a hearing later in September, the committee chairman said on Friday. Wells Fargo has settled with regulators over allegations that its staff opened more than two million bank accounts and credit cards for customers without their consent to meet internal sales goals. As part of last week’s settlement, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $185 million in penalties and $5 million to customers. Committee Chairman Representative Jeb Hensarling said the committee was “requesting all records related to the allegations of fraudulent or improper activity by Wells Fargo employees” from the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and also requested records from the company. | 1 |
3,992 | Here’s The REAL Reason Hillary Clinton Left That 9/11 Memorial Early Sunday | It seemed like it took exactly 30 seconds for every person on the right-wing to take Hillary Clinton s early departure from a 9/11 memorial as proof that she is suffering from some severe medical disorder. In reality, Clinton did actually become overheated. Her medical doctor released a statement that explains that Clinton is currently suffering from pneumonia. It explains why she has been coughing on the campaign trail and why she needed to leave the event she was attending in New York.Politico reports that Clinton s physician, Lisa Bardack released a statement saying: Secretary Clinton has been experiencing a cough related to allergies. On Friday, during follow up evaluation of her prolonged cough, she was diagnosed with pneumonia. She was put on antibiotics, and advised to rest and modify her schedule. While at this morning s event, she became overheated and dehydrated. I have just examined her and she is now re-hydrated and recovering nicely. Shocking. It s almost as if Clinton is a human being who gets sick. Pneumonia can, of course, turn deadly. However, given the medical miracles of the modern age, she ll probably be fine. Just as Clinton s doctor, who you know, actually has a medical degree, and who examined her just today after the incident says she will be.Thanks to right-wing blowhards such as Sean Hannity, this bizarre health conspiracy has gone totally mainstream. It really says a lot about the power that the right-wing has harnessed when it comes to the media, both in traditional and online formats. They managed to turn a brief clip of Clinton falling while being rushed into a car into absolute proof that Clinton is suffering from Alzheimer s disease or whatever they believe she has this week.Welcome to the era of Alex Jones-like mass media speculation.Featured image from Justin Sullivan/Getty Images | 0 |
3,993 | NOT KIDDING: Obama’s Weak Immigrant Vetting Process Doesn’t Even Include Asking If They Belong To ISIS, Al Qaeda Or Muslim Brotherhood | This new information just adds more validity Trump s argument, that the US needs to take a more serious look at the way we vet immigrants if we want to protect our national security While State Department and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service branch of the Department of Homeland Security do ask if immigrants have been involved in terrorism, the most well known of over a dozen terrorist groups aren t listed in applications, according to the analysis from homeland security expert Mark A. Sauter.The form asks if the applicant has ever belonged to a terrorist group, but neglects to ask if they currently belong to one. How hard would that be to update? He said that federal officials told him that the questions about terror group involvement are required by federal law, meaning that congressional action is needed to include modern-day threats in the written questions.However, detailed written questions are asked about Nazi cooperation, as are questions about whether applicants are drunks, polygamists, or Communists. One survey does single out Colombian terror organizations in the written questions, though they have never attacked inside the U.S. The lack of specific questioning about the biggest threat to the United States as the country eyes thousands in line from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran and elsewhere seeking residency raises new questions about how immigrants are vetted, and gives ammunition to Republicans like presidential candidate Donald Trump who has called for extreme vetting to weed out likely terrorists. The Examiner | 0 |
3,994 | Exclusive: U.S. document certifies Honduras as supporting rights amid vote crisis | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department has certified that the Honduran government has been fighting corruption and supporting human rights, clearing the way for Honduras to receive millions of dollars in U.S. aid, a document seen by Reuters showed. The document, dated Nov. 28, which was seen by Reuters on Monday, showed that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson certified Honduras for the assistance, two days after a controversial presidential election that has been claimed by an ally of Washington. Honduras has faced violent protests over the disputed results of the election, which has still not produced a clear winner over a week after the vote ended. The decision to issue the certification prompted concern from some congressional Democrats that Republican President Donald Trump s administration could be seen to be taking sides. What kind of message does that send? one congressional aide asked. State Department officials did not have an immediate response when questioned about the timing of the certification. Honduras is required to fulfill about a dozen requirements in order to receive its share of $644 million appropriated by the U.S. Congress under a program to assist Central American governments. Among those requirements are combating corruption - including investigating and prosecuting current and former government officials alleged to be corrupt - and protecting the rights of political opposition parties. Honduras struggles with violent drug gangs, one of the world s highest murder rates and endemic poverty. In recent years, many Hondurans - including children - have attempted to migrate to the United States. In hopes of stemming this migration, former President Barack Obama s administration in 2015 came up with a plan that included sending hundreds of millions of dollars in additional aid to Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Congress agreed to provide the money, if the governments were found to be taking steps to fight crime and corruption. A preliminary ballot count in Honduras on Monday pointed to a narrow victory for President Juan Orlando Hernandez over opposition challenger Salvador Nasralla, although the electoral tribunal has not declared a winner. Early last week, Nasralla, a former sportscaster and game show host, appeared set for an upset victory over Hernandez. The counting process suddenly halted for more than a day and began leaning in favor of Hernandez after resuming. Opposition leaders said they wanted a recount and have accused the government of stealing the election. Hernandez, 49, implemented a military-led crackdown on gang violence after taking office in 2014. He has been supported by Trump s chief of staff, John Kelly. Nasralla, 64, is one of Honduras best-known faces and is backed by former President Manuel Zelaya, a leftist ousted in a coup in 2009. | 1 |
3,995 | Exclusive: Cameroonian troops entered Nigeria without seeking authorization, sources in Nigeria say | ABUJA/DAKAR (Reuters) - Cameroonian troops this month crossed into Nigeria in pursuit of rebels without seeking authorization from Nigeria, causing a falling-out between the governments behind the scenes, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. At least one incursion was confirmed by a Nigerian government official, two Nigerian military officers and two foreign diplomats, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity. Nigerian security forces were deployed to the border to stop any further crossings, said a military source. The Cameroonian and Nigerian governments said in separate statements there were no incursions. Relations between the two countries are good, Cameroon said. Cameroonian military officials and pro-government media accuse Nigeria of sheltering Anglophone insurgents. For the past year they have been based in the dense equatorial forests that straddle the border between the two countries, fighting for an independent state they call Ambazonia. At least 7,000 people have fled as refugees from Anglophone Cameroon to Nigeria following a crackdown ordered this year by President Paul Biya to quell the insurgency, which represents the gravest challenge yet to his 35-year rule. French is the official language for most of Cameroon but two regions speak English and these border Nigeria, which is also Anglophone. Cameroonian troops were in Nigeria, said a foreign diplomat. Zero warning, zero authorization. The troops crossed into Nigeria at least twice this month, the diplomat and a Nigerian military official told Reuters. The incidents have caused anger on both sides and could sour diplomatic relations further as Cameroon increases pressure on its Anglophone regions, according to the diplomat and a Nigerian government official. Tensions are high and could escalate, the government official said. Cameroon government spokesman Issa Tchiroma Bakary denied that troops had crossed the border illegally. Relations between the two countries are cohesive when it comes to fighting against terrorism. Cameroon and Nigeria are on the same wavelength. Nigeria s foreign minister, speaking to Reuters after a cabinet meeting in Abuja, also denied the incursions. The (Nigerian) government had investigated and discovered that it s not true, said Geoffrey Onyeama, Nigeria s foreign minister. But the Nigerian government official and a diplomat said Cameroon had threatened to suspend senior Nigerian embassy officials in Yaounde after they lodged complaints. Tchiroma and Onyeama denied this. Governments in Africa often play down diplomatic disputes and present a show of harmony even during bitter rows. On Monday, rebels killed four gendarmes, Cameroon s government said, the latest raid on police and military positions in the country s southwest region. Nigeria has for decades been West Africa s powerhouse but the militaries of the two countries have cooperated extensively to confront a threat posed by Islamist militant group Boko Haram. The group has staged attacks in Nigeria for years but more recently it has also conducted deadly assaults in Cameroon. Cameroon has repeatedly pressed Nigeria to allow it the right of hot pursuit for Boko Haram militants and the issue has left the countries at loggerheads. After Cameroon s military crossed the border this month in pursuit of separatist insurgents, Nigeria sent security forces to deter any future attempts, said one of the military sources. We were not for war but keeping the peace and protecting our territorial integrity. They were asked to leave and they did and everything has been brought under control, the source said. Many refugees have crossed into Nigeria and many more are still crossing and the Cameroon authorities appear to be concerned that the situation may escalate if they keep coming into Nigeria. Two Cameroonian military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters separatists had set up bases and launched attacks from Nigeria. One attack was on Dec. 14 and involved two groups of at least 100 separatists, one of the officials said. How do you explain that these guys come to attack us and then leave without being troubled across the border? When we drive them back, these separatists withdraw toward Nigeria, the official said. Julius Ayuk Tabe, the Nigeria-based chairman of the Ambazonian Governing Council, the political wing of the armed resistance, said he was not aware of any separatist military bases in Nigeria. Cameroon s linguistic divide harks back to the end of World War One, when the German colony of Kamerun was carved up between allied French and British victors. The English-speaking regions joined the French-speaking Republic of Cameroon the year after its independence in 1960. French speakers have dominated the country s politics since. | 1 |
3,996 | Conservatives Are Now Arguing We Shouldn’t Be Able To Vote For The President At All | If it weren t for the Electoral College, we would soon be inaugurating President Hillary Clinton. If it weren t for the Inaugural College, we would likely never have had a President George W. Bush and all the disasters that followed. No wonder Republicans love the Electoral College. They haven t won the popular vote for the presidency since 1988. It s also no wonder they want to abolish the popular vote.In an OpEd in the conservative blog, the Reason, writer Eric Boehm argued that ONLY the electors should vote and no one else.It s difficult not to agree with some of the argument. Boehm suggests that the Founding Fathers didn t trust Americans to think for themselves, and there is some truth to that and they were right, to an extent. In their days, literacy was not for the common man and today, well, we fall for fake news.Yes, get rid of the popular vote. For all the money, time, and attention paid to the presidential race, the actual votes cast on Election Day are basically meaningless. In non-swing states, votes are literally meaningless. Even in states where a small number of votes could change the outcome of the election, your vote and mine are still so insignificant as to be practically worthless, as Reason editor in chief Katherine Mangu-Ward explained in detail in 2012.The only reason to hold popular votes for president, as the system functions now, is to select the electors from each state who will participate in the Electoral College.Here s a better way. Hold a national lottery to determine the 538 electors (drawing an appropriate number from the voter rolls of each state) and then let those people choose the president.Source: ReasonAccording to Boehm, this would ensure that people who actually care about the election would be the ones voting. It would also free the rest of us up to do whatever we want to be doing, or whatever we need to do to keeps our lives on track.While it might be appealing to take the masses out of the equation, Boehm s solution does absolutely nothing to solve the problems created by the Electoral College. A vote in Wyoming, for example, is worth four times what a vote in California is worth. In other words, the Electoral College isn t even representative, let alone democratic.The other huge problem with the Electoral College is that it s designed to keep white people and people in power in power. It s also designed to suppress the vote and it leaves women and minorities without a voice at all.Obviously, I can t know what Boehm s motives are, but it s clear that the motives of the Republican party are to keep minorities from voting, wherever they can. The demographics in this country are changing quickly. If it weren t for the Electoral College, it s doubtful we d ever have another Republican president, at least unless they dramatically change their platform. As for the lottery he proposes, well, who s to guarantee the lottery would choose engaged voters? We d still have uninformed voters, just a lot fewer of them.Featured image via Sarah Rice/Getty Images. | 0 |
3,997 | Hyatt Hotels discovers card data breach at 41 properties | (Reuters) - Hyatt Hotels Corp (H.N) said on Thursday it had discovered unauthorized access to payment card information at certain Hyatt-managed locations worldwide between March 18, 2017 and July 2, 2017. Hyatt said the incident affected payment card information, such as, cardholder name, card number, expiration date and internal verification code, from cards manually entered or swiped at the front desk of certain Hyatt-managed locations. (bit.ly/2yHBSfr) The owner of Andaz, Park Hyatt and Grand Hyatt chain of hotels said a total of 41 properties were affected in 11 countries, with China accounting for 18 properties, the most among impacted countries. Seven Hyatt properties were affected at U.S. locations, including three in Hawaii, three in Puerto Rico and one in Guam. The Chicago, Illinois-based company said its cyber security team discovered signs of the unauthorized access in July and launched an internal investigation, completed on Thursday, that resolved the issue and took steps to prevent this from happening in the future. This is not the first time Hyatt is facing data breach problem at its hotels. In late 2015 Hyatt said its payment processing system was infected with credit-card-stealing malware, that had affected 250 hotels in about 50 countries. | 1 |
3,998 | Former GOP Rep Throws Support Behind Obamacare After Becoming Unemployed With Pre-Existing Condition | This proves that Republicans never care about the struggles Americans face until they go through it themselves.Donald Trump is continuing to push Republicans to pass his Trumpcare bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would strip healthcare from millions of Americans and end protections that help people with pre-existing conditions get access to affordable health insurance.Republicans have been whining about what is also known as Obamacare for a long time now. They even demonized the landmark healthcare law so much that they ran campaigns on it. That includes David Jolly, who ran an anti-Obamacare campaign in Florida back in 2014 for a House seat.Jolly has since lost his seat in Congress, but he is singing a much different tune about the Affordable Care Act now.You see, Jolly became unemployed after losing his re-election bid. And to top it all off, he has a pre-existing condition that would have made getting insurance much harder had it not been for the protections provided by Obamacare, the very same law that Jolly opposed.During an appearance on MSNBC on Monday night, Jolly revealed that he has a pre-existing condition and went to say that he now supports Obamacare and does not want it to be repealed because doing so would put millions of Americans at serious risk. On January 4th, I was a former member of Congress unemployed with no health insurance, Jolly explained. And a pre-existing condition. And while I ultimately chose a private sector plan, I also knew in 2017 that Obamacare provided an exchange that was a safety net that wasn t there before, Jolly continued. If I had to rely on it, I knew it was there. Jolly went to say that the politics of Obamacare are different today than they were in 2013 when he ran for Congress out of anger towards Obamacare. But he now realizes that Obamacare provides protections and options for people who need a safety net.Here s the video via YouTube. Jolly s relevant remarks are at the 9:30 mark.22 million Americans would lose their healthcare coverage if Republicans pass Trump s healthcare bill. Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, get to keep their taxpayer-funded health insurance. That s not right.The Trumpcare bill is cruel. It destroys healthcare for the poor just so the wealthy can get a major tax cut. It should not only end the political careers of any Republican who votes for it, it should put them behind bars. People will die because of this bill. And when that happens, every Republican who voted for it should be charged with murder.Featured Image: Screenshot | 0 |
3,999 | Kurdish leaders studying western delegation plan to delay referendum | ERBIL (Reuters) - Kurdish leaders will study a western delegation s plan to delay the autonomous region s planned referendum on independence, according to a statement from the Kurdish presidency. A delegation from the U.S., UN and UK, met with the autonomous region s president, Massoud Barzani, on Thursday with a proposal to postpone the vote scheduled to take place on Sept. 25. The delegation is concerned that the timing of the vote could disrupt the coalition s drive against Islamic State. But hours later at a pro-referendum rally in Zakho, Barzani told those gathered that they would vote on Sept. 25 as planned, according to local media. | 1 |
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