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4,900 | ‘F*ck Donald Trump’: Democratic Chair Of California Goes Out With Both Middle Fingers In The Air | John Burton, the outgoing chairman of California s Democratic party, had one final thing to say before he leaves and it was a sentiment we can all relate to. Speaking at the convention of the California Democratic Party, Burton proudly raised both middle fingers in the air and shouted, Fuck Donald Trump. The crowd of thousands, who joined in on the mantra, obviously felt the same way.The Sacramento Bee reports:The always foul-mouthed Burton, 84, stood before thousands of Democratic delegates at Saturday s general assembly and as a rallying cry asked the crowd to join in. He then shoved two fists in the air, flipping the bird. Across the room at the Sacramento Convention Center, others onstage and in the audience followed suit.Burton was not alone onstage, also present were House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, Rep, Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, and state Sen. Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, among others.While Burton may have been the most direct with his message, just about every lawmaker who spoke at the convention was quick to denounce Trump and his disaster of a presidency. We are President Trump s worst nightmare, California Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Le n said in his speech.You can watch Burton give Trump the finger here:Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
4,901 | DID BILL CLINTON ADVISE DONALD TRUMP TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT? | Well, well, well the left is trying pretty much anything to discount the Trump candidacy. WaPo had a blurb earlier in the week that said Bill Clinton suggested Trump run for president. Nope, nada, did NOT happen! We can put this lie to bed Donald Trump s race for the White House has nothing to do with a phone call with Bill Clinton, according to a Hillary Clinton campaign spokeswoman. They exchanged pleasantries. Mr. Trump noted that he was thinking about running for president, and the president wished him well but didn t give him any advice, Jen Palmieri, the communications director for Clinton s campaign, told Andrea Mitchell of MSNBC on Thursday. Donald Trump doesn t strike me as somebody who takes a big step like this because somebody else wants him to do; he seems to be somebody who very much operates under the premise of free will. The Clinton campaign played no behind-the-scenes role in encouraging Trump s candidacy, Palmieri added.Earlier this week, The Washington Post reported Trump and former President Clinton spoke on the phone before the real estate mogul announced his 2016 bid.Sources in the story said that Bill Clinton urged Trump to play a larger role in the Republican Party. Trump has taken the lead in the GOP primary in several polls and is in the No. 1 spot entering the first prime-time debate Thursday.Via: Politico | 0 |
4,902 | Trump says prepared to take on North Korea without China if needed | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the United States is prepared to tackle the crisis surrounding North Korea without China if necessary. The president made the comments at a joint news conference with visiting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping last week and spoke to him by phone on Wednesday night. “President Xi wants to do the right thing. We had a very good bonding, I think we had a very good chemistry together, I think he wants to help us with North Korea,” Trump said. “We talked trade, we talked a lot of things, and I said the way you’re going to make a good trade deal is to help us with North Korea, otherwise we’re just going to go it alone, that’ll be all right too, but going it alone means going with lots of other nations.” | 1 |
4,903 | Equifax Is Tricking Consumers Into Waiving Their Right To Sue Over Data Breach | Equifax, the oldest and most valuable of the three main credit reporting agencies, revealed a massive data breach; one of the largest such hacks ever recorded. Personally identifying information like Social Security numbers, birth dates, and even driver s license numbers were involved in the breach, affecting up to 143 million people nearly half the U.S. population.Naturally, anyone who with any credit at all will want to know whether or not their info was involved in the incident, and Equifax says they want to help. But now, concerns are being raised that Equifax is deceptively requiring consumers to waive their rights to join any class action lawsuit against them, should they enroll in the company s fraud protection program and possibly if they even use the website to see if they ve been affected.PSA: If you check Equifax's site to see if your data was stolen, you *waive your rights* to sue Equifax or be part of a class action suit. pic.twitter.com/p4AlmmLQ3r Zack Whittaker (@zackwhittaker) September 8, 2017That s right if you enroll in their fraud protection something they specifically provided to you because of the breach you automatically agree to arbitration and lose your right to sue. It s currently unclear whether this applies to merely checking to see if your information has been compromised.Outrageous. The website for the Equifax ID monitoring service Equifax is telling victims to sign up for includes an arbitration clause. pic.twitter.com/G7kSbrOsjS Matthew Preusch (@mpreusch) September 8, 2017The website, which, for obvious reasons, we will not provide a clickable link for here, is equifaxsecurity2017.com.The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB ) is actually trying to ban arbitration clauses like this, specifically because they can be so deceptive. But those rules have not yet taken effect, and won t for another ten days. More importantly, the rule will not work retroactively, so consumers can t get out of this arbitration if they follow through with the sign-up process on the Equifax site.New York s Attorney General has already contacted Equifax about the arbitration clause:This language is unacceptable and unenforceable. My staff has already contacted @Equifax to demand that they remove it. https://t.co/vT0x7f5Xhc Eric Schneiderman (@AGSchneiderman) September 8, 2017The CFPB said in a statement that the clause was troubling, and that they were investigating both the security incident that set this all off and the company s response to it, saying that Equifax could remove this clause so that consumers can receive this service without condition. Not only is Equifax requiring an agreement that strips you of your legal rights, but even if you decide you don t care about all that, the company requires you to provide even more personal information as you sign up for the resolution tool.Featured image via media library | 0 |
4,904 | Rabbis Cancel Annual Call With President Over Trump’s Open Support Of White Supremacists | Rabbis representing four prominent Jewish organizations have decided that they will not hold their annual conference call with the President because the man currently holding that office openly supports white supremacists.Following Trump s atrocious response to the tragic events in Charlottesville, the rabbis issued a statement explaining that they simply cannot organize such a call this year. They said that this decision was made because Trump s reaction to Nazis marching in the streets and the death of Heather Heyer was lacking in moral leadership and empathy for the victims of racial and religious hatred. We have concluded that President Trump s statements during and after the tragic events in Charlottesville are so lacking in moral leadership and empathy for the victims of racial and religious hatred that we cannot organize such a call this year, the rabbis wrote. The President s words have given succor to those who advocate anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia, they wrote. Responsibility for the violence that occurred in Charlottesville, including the death of Heather Heyer, does not lie with many sides but with one side: the Nazis, alt-right and white supremacists who brought their hate to a peaceful community. They must be roundly condemned at all levels. In the days following the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville that left three people dead, Trump insisted that many sides were to blame for the violence. The rabbis concluded by saying that they would pray that President Trump will recognize and remedy the grave error he has made in abetting the voices of hatred. They added that they will also pray that those who traffic in anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia will see that there is no place for such pernicious philosophies in a civilized society. The statement was signed by the Central Conference of American Rabbis, The Rabbinical Assembly, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.Featured image via Bill Pugliano/Getty Images | 0 |
4,905 | NEW YORK VOTERS GET IT: Protesters Let It Rip On Hillary! [Video] | This is great! Protesters let it rip on Hillary! | 0 |
4,906 | Trumpsters Launch Insane Conspiracy Theory About The Boot On John McCain’s Foot | Senator John McCain (R-AZ) was treated at Walter Reed Medical Center over the weekend for a minor tear in his right Achilles tendon, according to his website which further explains that he has returned to work in the Senate and will be wearing a walking boot until his injured tendon is fully healed. I can t tell you how much I hate wearing this boot! McCain tweeted.I can't tell you how much I hate wearing this boot! https://t.co/W6zClDRpFb pic.twitter.com/x3mDC4n11H John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) November 6, 2017McCain then posted a photo on Twitter from his daughter Meghan s wedding in which his walking boot was on his left foot, but previously he was seen wearing it on his right foot.Mother, father & puppy of the bride in beautiful Cornville #Arizona yesterday! pic.twitter.com/sd3rsye1OV John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) November 22, 2017Instead of concentrating on the real concern which is that McCain appears to be shapeshifting into Mike Pence, Trump supporters were sure they had the goods on the Arizona Republican because of his boot. So, far right-wing sites such as Gateway Pundit, a blog which was gifted with White House credentials (!), wrote up the breaking news about the boot-switch.Comments poured in the thread under the post, many speculating that McCain is under house arrest and wearing an ankle monitor. Trump supporters weighed in on Twitter, too.John McCain's walking boot mysteriously appears to swap feet in latest photo-It s official #bootgate is real https://t.co/nC3q3mYK5w Eazy Duz MAGA (@socalmike_SD) November 23, 2017*hypocrite.WHAT A HIPOCRITE!!! Deborah F. Kellum (@DKellum19761) November 23, 2017This guy is totally losing his sh*t over the boot.This demonstrates yet again the scared corrupt Dems / with photo evidence @SenJohnMcCain mistakenly thinks the #USA Trusts him & Crooked Hillary This #BootGate will not fly when you tell a lie.. you sir cannot be trusted #Resign pic.twitter.com/kMAu6kuA0q MBNI (@MBNI_) November 23, 2017@SenJohnMcCain do you have something to share with us? #bootgate pic.twitter.com/AOPAejLALY Nimble Navigator (@basedcentipede1) November 22, 2017It's amazing how many "Democrats" are out in force to throw shade on the McCain "BootGate." Why is it so important to them and why are they so adamant that this a "fake flipped" image when it's clearly not?Weird #DasBoot #McCainBoot #BootGate pic.twitter.com/YnhqWgsB14 Balance (@Balance_In_Life) November 23, 2017Did @SenJohnMcCain use a REAL DOLL & Leave the Country or is that a Corpse?I Wouldn't put anYthing past him!!!Hair looks like felt on Right & Hands Look Unnatural**See Linked Tweet Above pic.twitter.com/4d29kY8SJP Kate Mazzochetti (@1st5d) November 22, 2017 @senJohnMcCain caught faking an injury! #McCain IS NOT In Pain!Why is #JohnMcCain lying to the American public? BUSTED!! Share this EVERYWHERE! #BootGate #FollowtheWhiteRabbit. #QAnon pic.twitter.com/OLlYcFha0Z Truth Report (@realtruthreport) November 23, 2017Can you say #Ankle Monitoring Bracelet ! @11S_L_2016_Cat @1VirtualPixie #Bootgate pic.twitter.com/OQEjK8ncE7 Penny (@PVotedtrump) November 23, 2017Because of the insane conspiracy theory, McCain was forced to explain in a tweet. Thank you for your support & best wishes, McCain tweeted. My left leg was doing extra work to compensate for the boot, so I m giving it a break. I still hate wearing this boot, but it won t slow us down from frying 7 turkeys today! Thank you for your support & best wishes. My left leg was doing extra work to compensate for the boot, so I'm giving it a break. I still hate wearing this boot, but it won't slow us down from frying 7 turkeys today! John McCain (@SenJohnMcCain) November 23, 2017As a surprise to no one ever, Trump supporters still do not believe McCain. The Arizona Senator has been receiving treatment for brain cancer after announcing in July that he had been diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of the disease. The tendon tear is considered a normal side effect of his cancer therapy.Image via Twitter. | 0 |
4,907 | CROOKED HILLARY’S BIGGEST NIGHTMARE: Brilliant Filmmaker Finds A Way To Turn Hillary’s Emails Into A Movie For Every American To See [VIDEO] | The movie that Hillary will NOT want America to see Hillary Clinton s staff are currently giving depositions under oath about how she got away with having an allegedly illegal private email server when conducting matters of national security.The depositions are being filmed, but Hillary s lawyers have managed to persuade a judge to block the release of the tapes in case they are used to make her look bad in the election!This is amazing and unacceptable that films, showing the truth are being blocked from the American people, especially in the run-up to an election.Film Director, Phelim McAleer and Producers Ann McElhinney and Magdalena Segieda have managed to find a way around this. George Orwell described journalism as something somebody somewhere doesn t want published. So they are going to commit a series of acts of journalism.The deposition transcripts have been released and they are re-enacting and filming highlights of the depositions.Here is a peek into what the film looks like so far:An URGENT Message from Film Director Phelim McAleer: Today we re releasing a film of Cheryl Mills deposition highlights, using the transcript her actual words. Cheryl Mills has worked for the Clintons for almost 30 years. She was Hillary s Chief of Staff at the State Department.Cheryl Mills evidence is amazing, full of classic Clintonian evasions. She used the phrase I don t remember or I don t recall 189 times. This deserves to be brought to a wider audience not censored and hidden away. And we now have it on film. (You can share the film with your friends by sending them to ClintonEmailsOnFilm.com.)These short videos will be: The Films that Hillary Clinton Doesn t Want You to See. There will be a total of five short films ending with Huma Abedin s deposition at the end of the month. And if the depositions uncover enough evidence, then the judge could give them permission to depose Hillary. That will be a great film!Here s how the #NeverHillary every day Americans can help make the movie that Hillary will NOT want America to see:We need your help to finish the videos. The American people deserve to see what s being said in these depositions. To make a video of each of the deposition, we need to raise at least $84,000. We launched a crowdfuding campaign so people like yourself can donate and make these videos possible: www.ClintonEmailsOnFilm.comBy supporting this project, you re making a statement: TRUTH IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN POLITICS.Click HERE to donate!Please choose a perk, make a contribution, and spread this campaign far and wide. Tell your friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers. Send them to ClintonEmailsOnFilm.com.Let s send a message to Hillary and her lawyers: They can t stand in the way of the truth.Thank you for your support! | 0 |
4,908 | LOL! UN Refugee Spokes-Celebrity ANGELINA JOLIE Admonishes U.S. For “Undermining International Law” By Resisting Flow Of Muslim Refugees | Great advice from a woman who has 24-7 security and lives in an imaginary world. Her life and the life of her children will likely never be affected by a rapefugee or terrorist who is greeted with open arms by naive leftists Angelina Jolie Pitt, the UN refugee agency s special envoy, has warned that the international humanitarian system for refugees is breaking down.Ms Jolie Pitt has been speaking as part of the BBC s World on the Move day of coverage of global migration issues.She warned against a fear of migration and a race to the bottom as countries competed to be the toughest to protect themselves.Earlier, the UNHCR s head said the refugee crisis was now a global issue.UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told the BBC that simply turning migrants away won t work .She warned that amid a fear of uncontrolled migration there was a risk of a race to the bottom, with countries competing to be the toughest, in the hope of protecting themselves whatever the cost or challenge to their neighbours, and despite their international responsibilities .Isolationism was not the answer, she said, adding: If your neighbor s house is on fire you are not safe if you lock your doors. Strength lies in being unafraid. Such policies would lead to an even greater set of problems, she said. It would amount to the worst of both worlds: failing to tackle the issue and undermining international law and our values in the process. Urging the world to rally together, she said: Whether we succeed will help define this century the alternative is chaos. Click here for entire story and video : BBC | 0 |
4,909 | Trump Presidency IMPLODES As 17 Top White House Officials BETRAY Him In EXPLOSIVE Report (DETAILS) | The whirlwind of chaos that follows Donald Trump everywhere he goes has just reached a level we ve never seen before. It turns out, things are way, WAY worse than any of us could have even predicted!According to a new report by The Washington Post, it turns out that the undeserving POTUS isn t the only one who creates mayhem his staff is right behind him, and it s because they have ZERO loyalty to their awful boss. In a heavily cited article, The Washington Post summed up Trump s shockingly erratic weekend in which he accused former President Barack Obama of wiretapping his phones in the Trump Tower. But more importantly, this article lists SEVENTEEN White House officials who spoke out against Trump under the protection of anonymity. The article states: At the center of the turmoil is an impatient president increasingly frustrated by his administration s inability to erase the impression that his campaign was engaged with Russia, to stem leaks about both national security matters and internal discord and to implement any signature achievements.This account of the administration s tumultuous recent days is based on interviews with 17 top White House officials, members of Congress and friends of the president, many of whom requested anonymity to speak candidly.Gnawing at Trump, according to one of his advisers, is the comparison between his early track record and that of Obama in 2009, when amid the Great Recession he enacted an economic stimulus bill and other big-ticket items. To make matters even worse for Trump, the photo The Washington Post chose as the leading photo is a photograph of Trump with his grandchildren while pointing out the fact that the sloppy former reality television star literally uses tape to hold his tie together:This couldn t be worse news for Trump, who has previously flipped out about leaks from within his staff. Expect a colossal Twitter meltdown any second now!Watch a report here:Featured image via Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images | 0 |
4,910 | HOW TRUMP RESPONDED WHEN 200 Gulf War Marines Were Stranded And Needed A Ride Home | The story you ll never see in the mainstream media..When Corporal Ryan Stickney and 200 of his fellow Marines prepared to return to their families after Operation Desert Storm in 1991, a logistics error forced them to turn to a surprising source for a ride home: Donald J. Trump.Today, Stickney would like to say thank you. Stickney (left), was a squad leader in a TOW company of a Marine reserve unit based in Miami, FL and spent approximately six months in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War between 1990 and 1991.Upon his unit s return to the United States, the former Marine says the group spent several weeks decompressing at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina before heading back to Miami.Stickney recalls being told that a mistake had been made within the logistics unit and that an aircraft wasn t available to take the Marines home on their scheduled departure date.This according to Stickney is where Donald Trump comes in. The way the story was told to us was that Mr. Trump found out about it and sent the airline down to take care of us. And that s all we knew .I remember asking Who is Donald Trump? I truly didn t know anything about him, the former Marine said.Corporal Stickney snapped a photo to remember the day by:The Trump campaign has confirmed to Hannity.com that Mr. Trump did indeed send his plane to make two trips from North Carolina to Miami, Florida to transport over 200 Gulf War Marines back home. No further details were provided.The Marine says he and his family are to this day grateful for Trump s kind gesture. It may not seem like much to most people, but it was very important to a bunch of jar heads and more importantly their families waiting for them on the hot tarmac. Stickney says that his father a Korean War veteran and former Eastern Airlines captain claimed to have never seen a 727 turn around and refuel so quickly. His father was so appreciative of Mr. Trump s help; he said he would fly for Trump for free to thank him for what he did.Sticky says that in his 28 years of public service, he has yet to see this kind of support for the troops from any of the other candidates running for president: I have not seen a Clinton or Sanders plane, or anything else for that matter, sent to support the troops. Via: hannity.com | 0 |
4,911 | At least three dead as Indian passenger train derails in northern India | MUMBAI (Reuters) - A passenger train slipped off the rails in northern India early on Friday, killing at least three people and injuring about 10, the railways ministry said. The train was on its way from Goa in western India to Patna in the east when 13 coaches derailed, the ministry said. It did not provide any reason for the accident, which occurred in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. Television news agency ANI however quoted the Uttar Pradesh Additional Director General of police as saying that the cause of accident is most probably a fractured railway track as per local assessment. A medical train and a relief train had reached the accident spot, the railways said. India has seen a spate of rail accidents over the last 12 months. Earlier in August, there were three separate incidents on the world s fourth-biggest rail network injuring over 165 people and killing several others. The biggest accident so far this year was on Aug. 19 in Uttar Pradesh, which resulted in the death of 23 people and led to the suspension of three senior railways officials. A crash in Uttar Pradesh last November killed 150 people. India s ailing rail network is in the midst of a $130 billion, five-year modernization process. In addition, the government launched a $15 billion safety overhaul in February after the surge in accidents blamed on defective tracks. But in June, Reuters reported that the overhaul was facing delays as the state steel company could not meet demand for new rails. [nL3N1JO1TU] | 1 |
4,912 | Organizers name TV journalists to moderate U.S. presidential debates | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Journalists from NBC, ABC, CNN and Fox News will moderate the three scheduled debates between U.S. presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump ahead of the Nov. 8 election, the nonpartisan group organizing the events said on Friday. NBC anchor Lester Holt will ask questions at the first debate on Sept. 26 in New York, while ABC global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz and CNN anchor Anderson Cooper will co-moderate the Oct. 9 “town meeting” style debate in St. Louis, the Commission on Presidential Debates said. Fox News anchor Chris Wallace will moderate on Oct. 19 in Las Vegas, it said in a statement. CBS journalist Elaine Quijano will moderate the single vice presidential debate on Oct. 4 between Republican Indiana Governor Mike Pence and his Democratic rival, U.S. Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, the commission said. C-SPAN’s Steve Scully will be a back-up moderator for all four of the debates, it added. Trump, the Republican candidate, has said he will take part in the three debates but wants to see the conditions. Representatives for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday’s announcement. The New York businessman, who has never held elected office, has had repeated run-ins with the media since launching his campaign last year, charging networks like CNN with “phony reporting,” sparring with MSNBC hosts and insulting Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly. His campaign has also black-listed several reporters and news outlets. Clinton, the Democratic candidate, has said she will participate in all three debates as scheduled. Separately, NBC has said Trump and Clinton will participate in a “commander-in-chief” forum focused on military issues on Sept. 7 in New York, appearing separately. On Friday, Trump’s son Eric raised questions about ties between the anchor for that event, Matt Lauer, and the Clinton Foundation and said NBC and its cable offshoot MSNBC have been against his father. “Obviously, there’s a lot of speculation because of his involvement with the foundation,” Eric Trump told Fox News in an interview. “I hope he’ll be fair.” Representatives for NBC said Lauer was not a member of the foundation and that he had interviewed former President Bill Clinton for the network’s “Today” show, not on behalf of the foundation. Trump’s reality television show, “The Apprentice,” debuted on NBC in 2004. NBC later cut other ties with the businessman, dropping his “Miss USA” and “Miss Universe” pageants, and Trump sued. NBC is a unit of Comcast Corp.. Fox News is part of the Twenty-First Century Fox Inc, ABC News is owned by Walt Disney Co, while Time Warner Inc owns CNN. CBS Corp is also publicly traded. | 1 |
4,913 | a guide to the paradoxroutine | tonopah test range google earth imagery page lots of cars buildings removed new building new radar berm happy hunting note they cut this really close to the north edge of the runway as if someone ordered this imagery and google poached it tonopah is the area site these look like the white sand targets ive fired at above edit on by thesungod because no reason given edit on by thesungod because no reason given the only things missing are the commercial gravel pits that is how the mining tailings are covered up posted a thread on this here looks like something maybe f or something else being moved into a hangar the only things missing are the commercial gravel pits that is how the mining tailings are covered up i would presume since available imagery would show large amounts of muck which is the technical term for the rock left over tailings are actually something else they would eat the cost associated with trucking it elsewhere or using previously excavated areas on site rumors persist that the proposed underground mobile mx system was mocked up and extensive tunnels were dug in and around the nts and nellis etc which could also be used for storing the muck otherwise a giant pile of the stuff would be a dead giveaway new topics | 0 |
4,914 | U.S. national security handover to Trump bumpy, officials say | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump’s national security transition has been more chaotic than others in recent memory, with important positions unfilled and many of his people less able, or willing, to engage on substance, U.S. officials said. The uncertainties surrounding Trump’s personnel, policies, and rise to power have rattled many of America’s allies, including Japan, Germany and Britain, at a time when China is more assertive, Russia more aggressive, terrorism more diffuse, the Middle East still unstable and North Korea nuclear-armed and unpredictable, said U.S. and foreign diplomats. Disruption and uncertainty can provide strategic advantages, Mark Lagon and Ross Harrison of Georgetown University wrote in Foreign Policy magazine. “But what is seriously in doubt is whether Trump’s disruption will be strategic or beneficial to U.S. foreign policy interests. Even before getting elected, he acted like a missile without a guidance system.” Top Trump officials, however, described the transition as having gone smoothly, including on national security. Republican Trump’s camp announced on Thursday it had asked more than 50 of Democrat Obama’s appointees to stay on. However, at least three officials, a senior intelligence officer and two diplomats whose names are on a list of “requested political holdovers,” will depart. Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Stephanie O’Sullivan, Under Secretary of State Catherine Novelli and Assistant Secretary of State Toria Nuland appear on a Jan. 17 partial list of people the transition wanted to remain after Trump’s inauguration on Friday. The two diplomats have told colleagues they are going, and O’Sullivan is keeping her long-standing plans to retire. A U.S. official said that Nuland was never asked by the transition to stay on and was unaware of her name appearing on such a list. The State Department declined comment. The Trump transition and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It is not clearly whether the uncertainties extend to other parts of the government, but another senior official at a national security agency said Trump’s effort was “much slower” than the 2001 Bill Clinton-to-George W. Bush or the 2009 Bush-to-Barack Obama handovers. “Personnel appointments were far more advanced in both those cases,” said the official, who spoke on condition he not be identified. “In both cases, advance teams were working on substance.” During the 2008-2009 transition, the official said, incoming and outgoing officials had worked together on issues “in a very harmonious fashion.” “None of that is the case in this transition,” he added. He said that he had expected to have met by now with his likely replacement or others on the transition, but had not. “It’s not just me. Everybody’s experience is like mine.” Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Vice President-elect Michael Pence said Trump’s transition was being completed ahead of schedule and under budget. “Our job is to be ready on day one. The American people can be confident that we will be.” Trump spokesman Sean Spicer also told reporters that contact between the incoming and outgoing National Security Council staffs had been “tremendous.” “We’ve had reams of briefings,” he said. “That is one area where frankly they have been very, very aggressive and robust with both meeting with their counterparts and ensuring that the team is ready to go day one.”Trump’s team did not respond to requests for further comment. Three State Department officials, though, called the transition there “a mess,” and said that until recently the Trump team had little contact with department officials and read few if any of their briefing books. That has left many career officials with misgivings about the incoming administration and the possibility that many foreign policy and national security veterans may be swept out. A dozen serving officials at four intelligence agencies said they are troubled by Trump’s apparent disdain for their work; by his designated national security advisor Michael Flynn’s perceived bent for conspiracy theories and hostility toward some of his former colleagues; and by what some say is the incoming president’s disinterest in the briefings he has received. Two officials with knowledge of those briefings said Trump’s attention has wandered, he has asked few questions, has read few if any of the briefing books he’s been given – including the one on Russian hacking of the 2016 election - and has requested few topical sessions, one of which was on North Korea. Secretary of State John Kerry and his nominated replacement, Rex Tillerson, were to meet on Thursday, but their schedules did not mesh, State Department spokesman John Kirby told reporters. One Obama official, who has dealt with the Trump transition team at the State Department and spoke on condition of anonymity, said it appeared ‘totally disconnected’ from Trump’s top echelon of advisers and from Tillerson. Tillerson’s nomination is not expected to get a Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote before Monday at the earliest. | 1 |
4,915 | Bill Maher SCORCHES Republicans: Stop Blaming Liberals – ‘Trump Is YOUR Problem’ (VIDEO) | Since the rise of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, the GOP has been throwing up their hands in disbelief and trying to blame everyone but themselves for the success of such a horrendous presidential candidate, all while completely ignoring the fact that conservatives have paved the way for a candidate like Trump to succeed with decades of hateful rhetoric and ignorance.Bill Maher expertly pointed this out on Friday night during his HBO show Real Time, when he sent a very special message to Republicans: stop blaming liberals for the candidate you created! Pointing out several headlines that showed that conservative think pieces have been pointing the finger at liberals, Maher destroyed the concept that liberals condescension and political correctness forced otherwise reasonable people into Trump s hateful embrace. Maher brilliantly dissed the illogical, rage-driven individuals that support Trump, sarcastically stating that they would vote rationally if not for overbearing liberals, scientists, and historians and nutritionists telling real Americans that they re dumb. It hurts their feelings when we insult their values with our facts. He continued: I m sorry you find it irritating when liberals point out that global warming exists or that racism exists or that gay people exist. But here s the thing: You people were wrong about all that. Maher also attacked conservatives opposition to facts and reason which has been going on long before Trump entered the political arena. Maher hilariously joked that liberals were to blame for things like the man-bun and gluten free cupcakes so the GOP must accept blame for the racism and widespread hatred of Muslims, because those are the very attitudes that the Republican party has propelled over the last several years. They are what is truly to blame for Trump s rise.Maher even stated that he himself has mocked political incorrectness in the past, criticizing liberals for overreactions. However, Maher said that none of that justifies embracing a dangerous buffoon simply because his lack of political correctness is cathartic. To a huge round of applause, Maher sent a message straight to the GOP: Trump is your problem. But somehow the party of personal responsibility doesn t want to take responsibility for this one. You can watch the brilliant segment below:Featured image is a screenshot | 0 |
4,916 | Chris Rock Ends Oscars With #BlackLivesMatter, Racists LOSE It (VIDEO/IMAGES) | This year s Academy Awards nominations received loads of backlash for their lack of diversity, sparking a boycott and the widely used hashtag #OscarsSoWhite.The 88th Academy Awards was hosted by black comedian Chris Rock, who made sure to comment on the overwhelming whiteness in his brilliant monologue, where he spoke of how black actors deserved equal opportunities. Here s just a sample of how Rock blasted the lack of diversity at the ceremony: I m here at the Academy Awards, otherwise known as White People s Choice Awards. If they nominated hosts, I wouldn t even get this job. Y all would be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now. This year things are gonna be a little different at the Oscars. This year, the In Memoriam package is just gonna be Black people shot by the cops on their way to the movies. At the end of the awards ceremony, Rock closed the show with three important words: Black Lives Matter. And as expected, Chris powerful human rights message was lost amongst racists, even those who work in the Hollywood industry. Hollywood producer Juergen Pichler Levine even had the audacity to say that the Oscars were too black! Levine posted (and then deleted) a meltdown that he shared with his 900,000 Instagram followers about the obscene number of black people at the Oscars. Levine said, God bless America but not these monkeys and complained about Obama.Levine wasn t the only one. Fox News had a field day when contributor Kevin Jackson ripped Rock over his remarks. When host Brian Kilmeade asked Jackson about what he thought about Rock s remarks, Jackson said: It was tragic. It was fun though watching a group of white racist liberals get put back on them the things that conservatives face every single day. At the end of the day, you can t say that Hollywood is racist because blacks have been getting awards in proportionate numbers for the last couple of decades. So at the same time I m watching these very sanctimonious liberals suffer, I also know that it s not good for the country that we go through this. Jackson also said that Rock was solely responsible for the worst performance the Oscars had seen in years. He argued: It was definitely one of the ones I wish I had a chance to miss. I think it was more just this idea how he was treating Hollywood of being so racist because black people hadn t been nominated. You can watch Jackson spit straight nonsense below:Even CNN s Carol Costello couldn t take the fact that racism still exists in America and watching it on television made it uncomfortable for her to sit smugly in her white privilege. Her reaction was, Please stop and let me enjoy this for a moment. Guest commentator Michaela Angela David agreed and said that the hashtag #OscarsSoAwkward would have been more appropriate. You can watch the exchange below:Rock did a great job at the awards ceremony, regardless of what anyone says. Sometimes the truth is uncomfortable, but we should not avoid exposing it just because it s hard to hear. Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
4,917 | Elijah Cummings Warned Mike Pence That Michael Flynn Was Lobbying For Turkey MONTHS Ago | Donald Trump swears he had no idea that former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, had lobbied for Turkish interests. None at all. Mike Pence says he was also clueless that Flynn had basically been a foreign agent. Hearing that story today was the first I d heard of it, Pence told Fox News Bret Baier on Thursday night.Now, this may come as a shock to you, but they lied. I know, I know. Who d of thought something said by the Trump administration would turn out to be a steaming load of crap. (Insert eye roll here.)Business Insider reports that Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent sent Pence a letter on November 18 requesting more information about the potential conflicts of interest posed by Flynn s lobbying work. Recent news reports have revealed that Lt. Gen. Flynn was receiving classified briefings during the presidential campaign while his consulting firm, Flynn Intel Group, Inc., was being paid to lobby the U.S. Government on behalf of a foreign government s interests, Cummings wrote. Lt. Gen. Flynn s General Counsel and Principal, Robert Kelley, confirmed that they were hired by a foreign company to lobby for Turkish interests, stating: They want to keep posted on what we all want to be informed of: the present situation, the transition between President Obama and President-Elect Trump. When asked whether the firm had been hired because of Lt. Gen. Flynn s close ties to President-elect Trump, Mr. Kelley responded, I hope so.' Between August and November of last year, Flynn s consulting firm was hired by Turkish businessman Ekim Alptekin to lobby the U.S. government for the extradition of Fetullah Gulen a Turkish cleric living in Pennsylvania who Erdogan believes is responsible for planning last year s attempted coup and generally fomenting dissent inside Turkey. Flynn resigned as Trump s national security adviser after he was busted in shady talks with Russia. He claims he acted alone and it was all harmless, but that seems unlikely to anybody wth even the tiniest shred of common sense. Now, he is at the center of yet another scandal with foreign powers.Cummings said that if Pence had listened to him months ago the administration might have been able to avoid the problems that have occurred with Lt. General Flynn. In addition to being in the press, I warned the Vice President directly three months ago about the conflicts created by Lt. General Flynn s company lobbying on behalf of Turkish interests, Cummings said. If the Vice President had heeded my warnings, it s clear now he could have prevented the problems that occurred with Lt. General Flynn. Republicans in Congress are doing a disservice to the White House and our national security interests by not conducting rigorous and serious oversight of the administration, especially to help catch issues early and address them. Featured image via Alex Wong/Getty Images | 0 |
4,918 | At least 29 dead after Islamist attack on Somali hotel | MOGADISHU (Reuters) - An Islamist attack on a hotel in Mogadishu ended on Sunday after 29 people were killed during a siege lasting nearly 12 hours, police said, prompting the government to sack two top security officials over their failure to stop repeated attacks. The attack proved once again that insurgents can carry out deadly assaults in the heart of the Somali capital. Twin bombings in Mogadishu two weeks ago killed more than 350 people, the worst such attacks in the country s history. More than 50 people are still missing. Islamist militants al Shabaab claimed responsibility for this weekend s attack, which took place ahead of a planned meeting to try to defuse tensions between the federal government and regional states. Government officials had begun to meet at the hotel to discuss strategy. So far I am sure 29 people died - the death toll may rise, Abdullahi Nur, a police officer, told Reuters. At least 12 of the dead were police officers, Nur said. A woman was beheaded while her three children were shot dead , he said. A Reuters witness saw seven bodies lying inside the hotel. (Click tmsnrt.rs/2gTg1ds for a graphic showing map where explosion took place) Three militants were captured alive and two others blew themselves up after they were shot, police said. Some militants may have disguised themselves and escaped with the residents who were rescued from the hotel, one police officer said. The attack began around at 5 p.m. on Saturday when a car bomb rammed the gates of Nasahablod Two hotel, which is close to the presidential palace, and destroyed the hotel s defenses. Then gunmen stormed the building. The explosion destroyed the front of the three-storey hotel and damaged the hotel next door. Many Somali officials live in fortified hotels for the security they offer. The attack presents a further challenge to the new government of President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, whose defense minister and chief of army staff resigned this month. They did not give their reasons for leaving. On Sunday, the government sacked the country s police commander, Abdihakin Dahir Saiid, and the director general of the National Intelligence Security Agency, Abdullahi Mohamed Ali, the prime minister s office announced. Abdikadir Abdirahman, director of Amin ambulances, complained the emergency service had been denied access to the blast sight. After the hotel operation was over, we wanted to transport the casualties ... all entrances of the scene were blocked by security forces. Al Shabaab said 40 people had been killed, including three of its fighters who stormed the hotel. The government and al Shabaab typically give different figures for victims in such attacks. The twin bombings in Mogadishu on Oct. 14 killed at least 358 people and ignited nationwide outrage. Al Shabaab has not claimed responsibility for that attack, but the method - a large truck bomb - is one it has often used. The militant group wants to overthrow the weak, U.N.-backed government and impose a strict form of Islamic law. | 1 |
4,919 | Leaked Footage Of Johnny Depp Shows How Aggressive He Was To Amber Heard (VIDEO) | Shortly after Amber Heard revealed that she suffered abuse from a partner, who happened to be famed actor Johnny Depp, many people quickly decided to claim that she was lying. They didn t want to dare believe that such a beloved actor and character on film could be so abusive in real life.Many even said that seeing Heard out with friends and smiling days after she reported the abuse was proof of her lying. As if she s supposed to stay in hiding and never smile again. God forbid she go out with friends and be happy away from a destructive relationship.Well, it seems Heard most definitely wasn t lying as TMZ just released footage that she secretly took of Depp being intoxicated, slamming around, kicking doors, drinking heavily in the morning with very distressing and reactive behavior towards her. Then, when he notices she s recording, getting increasingly angry, grabbing the camera, and then that s when it goes dark.Of course, TMZ stated: Sources connected with Johnny tell TMZ the video is heavily edited and there are portions where Amber is seen smiling and egging him on. The sources add the video was a complete set up by Amber. However, here s the thing, the video was shot in one shot, there doesn t seem to be anywhere it could be edited.It s important to remember to not make a villain of a victim as it is what seems to be happening with Heard because the alleged abuser is a beloved actor. We need to listen to her, especially before this happens to anyone else.Here s the video via TMZ.Video evidence just surfaced of Johnny Depp being extremely aggressive towards Amber Heard, smashes wine glass pic.twitter.com/JgkNDXLUY6 Pop Crave (@PopCrave) August 13, 2016Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
4,920 | Pentagon revises law of war manual after criticism of press treatment | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Friday updated its law of war manual after a previous version came under fire for appearing to allow commanders to treat journalists as belligerents or spies. The U.S. Department of Defense manual, the first and most comprehensive of its kind, was first released last June. It compared some of the tasks of journalism to spying or other hostile actions by an enemy. The manual said some journalists may be considered “unprivileged belligerents” — a legal category with fewer protections than combatants, such as prisoner-of-war status. “Reporting on military operations can be very similar to collecting intelligence or even spying,” one passage of the manual said. Press freedom advocates said the manual’s wording blurred the line between journalists and combatants and gave commanders the authority to detain reporters without charge. They also warned that it would erode U.S. credibility abroad at a time when journalists are being targeted by governments and militant groups. Sixty-nine journalists were killed for their work in 2015, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, up from 61 in 2014. In 2015, 199 journalists were being detained worldwide, compared to 221 in 2014. After the manual’s release last year, news organizations including Reuters met with Pentagon officials to protest the language and ask for changes. The revised manual provides greater detail on the legitimate purposes that journalists serve and makes clear that journalists have all the rights of civilians. Press freedom groups, including CPJ and Reporters Without Borders, praised the revisions. Advocates said the new manual acknowledged journalists’ right to interview enemy combatants and placed the onus on commanders to discern between the actions of reporters and combatants. “These are major changes,” said Frank Smyth of the CPJ. “This affirms the rights and the practice of open and independent reporting on the battlefield.” The Pentagon eliminated the passages comparing reporting to spying or hostile acts, but gives specific examples of how an act of reporting could result in the loss of civilian status. Journalists could still be considered unprivileged belligerents, the manual states, if they were a member of a non-state armed group and were carrying out propaganda “or other media activities.” Journalists could also lose their civilian status in certain cases, such as relaying target coordinates for an artillery strike against opposing forces, the manual said. The new manual also eliminates language that called for journalists to seek permission from “relevant authorities” for their work “to avoid being mistaken for spies.” That passage drew criticism for setting an unrealistic standard for war reporting, in which frontlines can shift quickly. To cover conflicts in Libya or Syria, for instance, reporters often have to cross borders illegally. Pentagon officials also said they would be willing to revise the manual again if needed. “The department’s mission is to defend the very freedoms that journalists exercise,” the Pentagon’s top lawyer, Jennifer O’Connor, said in a statement. “We have learned a lot during this process, and the department and the manual are better off for the experience.” | 1 |
4,921 | Revealed: Loretta Lynch Given Talking Points for Secret Clinton ‘Tarmac Meeting’ | 21st Century Wire says Clearly, below the surface of current events, the 2016 election process is still ongoing, and a partisan war is going on for control of the White House. This latest news could very well be used as a bargaining chip by Trump s faction behind the scenes.Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch claims her secret meeting with Bill Clinton was about golf and grand kids. It seems like this was simply part of her prepared talking points, which would indicate that Lynch was lying to the public about the true nature of that crucial conversation ABC15 PhoenixPHOENIX Newly released documents reveal former Attorney General Loretta Lynch was prepared for questions about the now-infamous tarmac meeting at Sky Harbor International Airport with former President Bill Clinton.The private meeting happened in Phoenix on the evening of June 27, 2016, a matter of hours before the Obama Department of Justice decision on whether then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton had revealed classified information when using a private email account while secretary of state.ABC15 s Christopher Sign broke the story of the tarmac meeting two days later, prompting a chain of events that would include an unprecedented news conference by then-FBI Director James Comey.Documents reveal Department of Justice staffers were given a heads-up that ABC15 had learned about the meeting, and assisted the Attorney General on how to address any potential questions from reporters Large portions of the hundreds of emails have been redacted, but what remains gives rare insight into the crisis-mode reaction by the DOJ. At least ten high-level staffers were involved in an e-mail chain discussing how to handle the situation, crafting talking points for the Attorney General Continue this exclusive story at ABC15READ MORE TRUMP NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Trump FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @ 21WIRE.TV | 0 |
4,922 | ANTI-GUN Zealot KATIE COURIC Hit With $12 MILLION Defamation Lawsuit By 2nd Amendment Group [VIDEO] | Little Miss Sunshine has fooled a lot of people over the years into believing her she was just some innocuous, peppy little host with everyone s best intentions as her primary concern. Unfortunately, Katie Couric may have just ironically shot herself in the foot when she and her director Stephanie Soechtig edited their anti-gun documentary Under the Gun in order to make a gun rights group in Virginia look as if they couldn t answer a simple question.Here s Rush Limbaugh explaining how Katie Couric deceived her viewers with her anti-gun documentary : They re now facing a $12 million defamation lawsuit, according to documents provided to Bearing Arms.Second Amendment rights advocacy organization the Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL), along with two of its members, today filed a $12 million defamation lawsuit against Katie Couric, director Stephanie Soechtig, Atlas Films, and Studio 3 Partners LLC d/b/a Epix for false and defamatory footage featured in the 2016 documentary film Under the Gun. The film portrays a fictional exchange in which members of the VCDL appear silent, stumped, and avoiding eye contact for nearly nine seconds after Katie Couric asks a question about background checks. An unedited audio recording of the interview reveals that contrary to the portrayal in the film the VCDL members had immediately begun responding to Couric s question.In the filing, the VCDL, Daniel L. Hawes, Esq., and Patricia Webb allege that the filmmakers knowingly and maliciously manufactured the fictional exchange by splicing in footage that the filmmakers took surreptitiously after telling the interviewees to be silent for ten seconds so that recording equipment could be calibrated. The filing also contains side-by-side screenshots of the film s footage of the VCDL members and anti-gun advocates, alleging that the filmmakers manipulated lighting to cast shadows on the VCDL members and to make them appear sinister and untrustworthy. We were horrified to see how Couric and her team manipulated us and the video footage to make us look like fools who didn t stand up for the Second Amendment, said Mr. Philip Van Cleave, President of the VCDL. We want to set the record straight and hold them accountable for what they ve done. You shouldn t intentionally misrepresent someone s views just because you disagree with them. The lawsuit, filed in federal court (United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia Richmond Division), seeks $12 million in compensatory damages, plus punitive damages. The VCDL, Mr. Hawes, and Ms. Webb are represented by Tom Clare, Libby Locke, and Megan Meier of Clare Locke LLP, a boutique law firm specializing in defamation litigation. The fraud committed by Couric and Soechtig should be a career ender for both women, who have been unashamed of their behavior.What is not yet known is if Couric, Soetchtig, and one of their producers will face federal gun crimes criminal charges for obvious felonies they committed in Arizona while making the anti-gun film. Soechtig has now twice confessed (on video and in writing) to committing federal felony crimes that should lead to criminal charges against at least her and the Colorado producer (believed to be Kanau), along with any other Under the Gun staff/producers who took part in the conspiracy to make these clearly illegal interstate sales.ATF Phoenix Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Thomas Atteberry and Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) Mickey D. Leadingham have little recourse other than to start an investigation into the confessed crimes.You can read the defamation case against Couric here (PDF).Among other things, the complaint alleges that, The Defendants manipulated the footage in service of an agenda: they wanted to establish that there is no basis for opposing universal background checks by fooling viewers into believing that even a panel of pro-Second Amendment advocates could not provide one. The Defendants intentionally disregarded the truth of the actual exchange that had taken place and took at least six intentional steps to manufacture a fictional exchange to support their agenda. In addition to editing footage of VCDL members, the suit alleges that Soechtig s film crew used lighting tricks to make VCDL members look shadowed and sinister, while favoring gun control supporters with much more flattering lighting.For entire story: Bearing ArmsHere is a clip showing how Katie Couric edited Under the Gun to make gun owners look like they don t have an answer to what she has framed as an unanswerable question: | 0 |
4,923 | Zimbabwe's Mnangagwa promises financial stability, elections next year | HARARE (Reuters) - In his inaugural address, Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa promised on Friday that elections would be held next year as scheduled and outlined a broad vision for restoring economic and financial stability. Mnangagwa, who took over from Robert Mugabe after a military intervention, also told a packed national stadium in Harare that Zimbabwe was ready to re-engage with the outside world but said its land reform process could not be reversed. | 1 |
4,924 | Trump says U.S. Senate candidate Moore should leave race if allegations true | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump finds the sexual misconduct allegations against U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore “troubling” and thinks he should leave the race if they are true, the White House said on Thursday, as party leaders in Alabama stood by their nominee. Trump’s position did not go as far as other Republican leaders in Washington who have said they believe the women accusing the former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice and have demanded Moore withdraw from the race before the Dec. 12 vote. “The president believes that these allegations are very troubling and should be taken seriously,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said at a news briefing. “The president said in his statement earlier this week that if the allegations are true, then Roy Moore should step aside. He still firmly believes that,” she said. Asked if the president’s endorsement of Moore still stands, Sanders said Trump thinks Alabama voters should decide the winner of the race. Trump supported the Republican National Committee’s decision to withdraw resources from the contest, Sanders added. In the past week, multiple women have accused Moore of sexual improprieties or unwanted romantic advances they said occurred decades ago. Some of the women were teenagers at the time, and he was in his 30s. Moore, 70, has denied any wrongdoing. The married Christian conservative has said he is the victim of a witch hunt and has refused to drop out of the race. The allegations are “not only untrue but they have no evidence to support them,” Moore told a news conference on Thursday after about 20 supporters, including religious leaders, said they still backed his candidacy. In a tweet, he accused U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and others of trying “to steal this election from the people of Alabama.” The Alabama Republican Party on Thursday said its 21-member steering committee would continue to support Moore. “He deserves to be presumed innocent of the accusations unless proven otherwise,” state party Chairwoman Terry Lathan said in a statement. Reuters was unable to independently verify the allegations by the women. Before the allegations surfaced, Moore was heavily favored to defeat Democrat Doug Jones in the special election next month. Moore scored a decisive Republican primary victory in September over Luther Strange, who was appointed to fill the vacant seat after Jeff Sessions became U.S. attorney general earlier this year. Trump backed Strange in the primary but threw his support to Moore after Strange’s defeat. A poll released on Wednesday by the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm showed Jones surging to a 12-point lead since the accusations became public. A Democratic win in Alabama would be a blow to Trump’s agenda and shift the political outlook for next year’s congressional elections, giving Democrats a stronger shot at recapturing control of the Senate. Republicans currently hold 52 seats in the 100-member upper chamber. | 1 |
4,925 | White House supports renewal of spy law without reforms: official | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration does not want to reform an internet surveillance law to address privacy concerns, a White House official told Reuters on Wednesday, saying it is needed to protect national security. The announcement could put President Donald Trump on a collision course with Congress, where some Republicans and Democrats have advocated curtailing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, parts of which are due to expire at the end of the year. “We support the clean reauthorization and the administration believes it’s necessary to protect the security of the nation,” the official said on condition of anonymity. The FISA law has been criticized by privacy and civil liberties advocates as allowing broad, intrusive spying. It gained renewed attention following the 2013 disclosures by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden that the agency carried out widespread monitoring of emails and other electronic communications. Portions of the law, including a provision known as Section 702, will expire on Dec. 31 unless Congress reauthorizes them. Section 702 enables two internet surveillance programs called Prism and Upstream, classified details of which were revealed by Snowden. Prism gathers messaging data from Alphabet Inc’s Google , Facebook Inc , Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc and other major tech companies that is sent to and from a foreign target under surveillance. Upstream allows the NSA to copy Web traffic flowing along the “internet backbone” located inside the United States and search that data. U.S. intelligence officials say the programs are vital to national security. Democratic and Republican lawmakers have said reforms to Section 702 are needed, in part to ensure the privacy protections on Americans are not violated. The U.S. House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee met Wednesday to discuss possible changes to the law. Though FISA is intended to govern spy programs intended for foreigners, an unknown amount of communications belonging to Americans are also collected due to a range of technical and practical reasons. Such collection has been defended by U.S. intelligence agencies as “incidental,” but privacy groups have said it allows for backdoor seizures of U.S. data without proper judicial oversight and could impact thousands or millions of Americans. For years lawmakers have sought an estimate on how many Americans are caught in the crosshairs of the foreign intelligence programs, saying it is necessary to consider changes to Section 702. On Tuesday former Senator Dan Coats, Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, told a Senate panel he would “do everything I can” to publicly disclose such a figure before the law’s expiration, though he stopped short of guaranteeing it. Section 702, he added, was the “crown jewels” of the intelligence community. | 1 |
4,926 | Sanders vows to help Clinton beat Trump, but keeps campaign alive | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bernie Sanders promised on Thursday to work with presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton to defeat Republican Donald Trump in the Nov. 8 election, but did not formally pull out of the race for the White House. Sanders did not endorse Clinton during an online speech to his supporters, but made it clear he was shifting his focus to building a grassroots movement to fight for his liberal policy agenda and transform the Democratic Party. “The major political task that we face in the next five months is to make certain that Donald Trump is defeated and defeated badly, and I personally intend to begin my role in that process in a very short period of time,” the U.S. senator from Vermont said. “I also look forward to working with Secretary Clinton to transform the Democratic Party so that it becomes a party of working people and young people, and not just wealthy campaign contributors,” he said in a speech broadcast from his hometown of Burlington, Vermont. Sanders, who has resisted pressure from Democrats to exit the White House race and back Clinton since she clinched the party nomination last week, said he would keep fighting for his goals of reducing income inequality, removing big money from politics and reining in Wall Street. “Defeating Donald Trump cannot be our only goal. We must continue our grassroots efforts to create the America that we know we can become,” he said. “And we must take that energy into the Democratic National Convention on July 25 in Philadelphia where we will have more than 1,900 delegates.” Sanders has kept his campaign alive as leverage to force concessions from Clinton on his policy goals during deliberations on the party’s issues platform, and on the reforms he seeks in the Democratic Party’s nominating process. But he has laid off some staff, stopped campaigning and dropped plans to court unbound delegates in an unspoken acknowledgment the former secretary of state will be the nominee. Sanders, who met with Clinton on Tuesday night after the nominating process ended, said he would continue his discussions with her campaign to make certain “the Democratic Party passes the most progressive platform in its history, and that Democrats actually fight for that agenda.” “Our vision for the future of this country is not some kind of fringe idea. It is not a radical idea. It is mainstream. It is what millions of Americans believe in and want to see happen,” Sanders said. | 1 |
4,927 | Trump Just Loosened Sanctions Against Russian Spy Agencies, Americans Are F*cking FURIOUS (TWEETS) | You know how everyone suspected that there would be some quid pro quo for all the help Vladimir Putin gave Donald Trump during the election? Well, it s happening.On Thursday, Donald Trump lifted sanctions imposed by President Obama that prevented Putin from cyberspying. The sanctions were a response to Putin s team of hackers doing Trump a series of favors by hacking his political opponents and releasing any and all information they could that could assist him in becoming President. Reuters reports:The Treasury Department said in a statement it would allow U.S. companies to make limited transactions with the intelligence service that are needed to gain approval to import information technology products into Russia.The broader significance of the sanctions exemptions were not immediately clear. The Treasury Department often issues general licenses such as the one announced on Thursday to help U.S. companies overcome unintended business consequences of sanctions.U.S. intelligence agencies accused the FSB of involvement in hacking of Democratic organizations during the election, won by Republican Donald Trump.The agencies and private cyber security experts concluded the FSB first broke into the Democratic National Committee s computer system in the summer of 2015 and began monitoring email and chat conversations.They say FSB was one of two Russian spy agencies believed to have been involved in a wide-ranging operation by top-ranking individuals in Russia s government to discredit Democrat Hillary Clinton and help Trump win the election.When Obama imposed the sanctions, Vladimir Putin announced that he would wait to respond until after Trump became President because he expected a response that favors him. This move was just the first of many we can expect to benefit Vladimir Putin. This is the same group (FSB) that, just a month ago, our intelligence community determined was responsible for the attack on our democracy, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., ranking member of a House CIA subcommittee, said in response to Trump rewarding Putin for his help during the election. We just made it easier for the same group to import into Russia the tools they could use to hack us or our allies again. Naturally, Americans are not happy with this new development:Riddle me this Batman, how is lifting sanctions against Russia not a change in policy? Dragonrider (@StHsg) February 2, 2017Spicer just said Trump "creating carve outs" in Russia sanctions is not Trump "rolling back sanctions."Un. Real. Corey Ciorciari (@CoreyCiorciari) February 2, 2017Treasury dept posted letter to ease sanctions on Russia. @seanspicer says it isn't! Dude, we can read! #alternativefacts Pamela Baxter (@BaxterPamela) February 2, 2017.@PressSec Yes, Treasury eased sanctions on Russia, but that's not really easing sanctions on Russia. It's complicated,don't worry about it. Spinoza (@azon1ps) February 2, 2017No, this is not normal for the Treasury department to ease sanctions with Russia. Jesus Spicer is such a tool. Amy (@bunnyhugger75) February 2, 2017Spicer "were not easing sanctions" then goes on to say they are reviewing the sanctions on Russia to see what they will keep. LOL Don The Con (@LyinDonTheCon) February 2, 2017@PeterAlexander I wish HRC would've warned us about Trump being a potential puppet regime. vin (@vin_esposito) February 2, 2017@PeterAlexander @mattdpearce threaten our closest allies ease Russian sanctions in the 1st month. Makes sense. MW (@MDub79) February 2, 2017@PeterAlexander We piss off fucking australia and already begin spooning russia. What the fuck Manny (@Manny__42) February 2, 2017Not just any sanctions: Trump appears to have lifted the very sanctions put in place to limit Russia's purchase of equipment to spy on U.S. https://t.co/ucHKivaoCR Caroline O. (@RVAwonk) February 2, 2017Sean Spicer: "We're not easing sanctions on Russia" pic.twitter.com/Jtcb2yJ4CM Hanna (@hannanekoranec) February 2, 2017@tedlieuImpeach him for fucks sake!!! Cowboy from Hell (@pjbruno79) February 2, 2017when you scream at Australia and lift sanctions on Russia, you're making it clear you're on the side of authoritarian nationalist states. Dante Atkins (@DanteAtkins) February 2, 2017#Trump s golden shower movies paying off for Putin als US treasury relaxes sanctions on Russia ThaiMythbuster (@thaimythbuster) February 2, 2017Did anybody notice how fast @PressSec wanted to push past the easing of sanctions on Russia pic.twitter.com/ZqvbVrjS46 Roentgens (@roentgens9) February 2, 2017Even though Trump eased sanctions, White House Press Secretary says that we are not easing sanctions against Russia screw reality! Spicer says that easing sanctions which is totally not what just happened is a regular course of action with regard to hostile dictatorships who commit cyberattacks against our country and interfere with our elections.In just two weeks, Donald Trump has diverted taxpayer funds to build his stupid wall, created an international incident with Australia (the cuddly teddy bear of diplomacy and our strongest ally), threatened to invade Mexico and Chicago, enacted his Muslim ban, stripped federal funding from international health organizations that so much as mention abortion, and rewarded a hostile nation for helping him win the presidency.We re completely f*cked if we don t do something to get this orange buffoon out of office.Watch Spicer dance around the huge favor Trump just did for Russia below:Featured image via Getty Images/Nicholas Kamm | 0 |
4,928 | Syria's militant ex-Qaeda group denies leader injured in Russian strike | AMMAN (Reuters) - Syria s Tahrir al-Sham militant group denied in a statement on social media on Wednesday that its leader had been critically wounded in a Russian air strike and said he was in good health and performing his duties. The Russian Defence Ministry said it had seriously injured Abu Mohamad al-Golani on Oct. 3 in an intelligence-led special operation while he was meeting his field commanders. Golani headed the Nusra Front, the former al Qaeda affiliate, before it merged with other groups to form Tahrir al-Sham. | 1 |
4,929 | LEFTIST LEGAL EXPERT DERSHOWITZ Calls Out 9th Circuit For Playing Politics: ‘Not a solid decision’ [Video] | Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz was on MSNBC to make a statement on the 9th Circuit Opinion: He stated that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against President Trump s immigration order is not a solid decision. And looks like it s based more on policy than on constitutionality. Look, this is not a solid decision. This is a decision that looks like it s based more on policy than on constitutionality. There are many, many flaws. He added, I think this court opinion will not ultimately be sustained by the Supreme Court. Take, for example, the argument that it s an establishment of religion, because it favors Christians or other religious minorities. In 1944 we passed the War Refugee Act, which specifically was designed to rescue a hundred thousand Jews, and everybody knew the purpose was to rescue jews. That didn t establish Judaism as the state religion of the United States. I think the establishment argument will fail in the Supreme Court. I think the standing arguments may fail in the Supreme Court. | 0 |
4,930 | Fake News: The Collapse of the MSM’s ‘Facebook Russian Bot’ Story | As 21WIRE said last year, the Russian hacking, or Russiagate story was a political hoax from the start. What this story can now demonstrate, is that for the last 18 months, the entire mainstream media has been promulgating a highly politicised, and relentless campaign of fake news designed to implicate Russia in an imaginary scandal. Leading the pack are former papers of record The New York Times and The Washington Post, flanked by America s premier broadcast TV propaganda outlet CNN.Last week, we revealed how powerful politicians in Washington had pressured Facebook executives to come up with any evidence to support the Democratic Party s theory of Russian meddling, demonstrating clear collusion between the Obama Administration and Silicon Valley corporation Facebook, with the goal of fabricating a scandal in order to scapegoat Vladimir Putin and the Russians for the electoral collapse of Hillary Clinton last November.As a result, US-Russian relations have been sacrificed at the altar of petty partisan politics and a failing deep state agenda.It certainly begs the question: with so much at stake, why would Washington and MSM lie and risk pushing global tensions closer to a world war level confrontation? If they are prepared to lie about this, what else are they prepared to lie about?Consortium News Exclusive: The U.S. mainstream media is determined to prove Russia-gate despite the scandal s cracking foundation and its inexplicable anomalies, such as why Russia would set up a Facebook puppies page.By Robert ParryWhat is perhaps most unprofessional, unethical and even immoral about the U.S. mainstream media s coverage of Russia-gate is how all the stories start with the conclusion Russia bad and then make whatever shards of information exist fit the preordained narrative.For instance, we re told that Facebook executives, who were sent back three times by Democratic lawmakers to find something to pin on Russia, finally detected $100,000 worth of ads spread out over three years from accounts suspected of links to Russia or similar hazy wording.These Facebook ads and 201 related Twitter accounts, we re told, represent the long-missing proof about Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election after earlier claims faltered or fell apart under even minimal scrutiny.In the old days, journalists might have expressed some concern that Facebook found the ads only under extraordinary pressure from powerful politicians, such as Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a leading legislator on the tech industry. But today s mainstream reporters took Warner s side and made it look like Facebook had been dragging its heels and that there must be much more out there.However, it doesn t really seem to matter how little evidence there is. Anything will do.Even the paltry $100,000 is not put in any perspective (Facebook has annual revenue of $27 billion), nor the 201 Twitter accounts (compared to Twitter s 328 million monthly users). Nor are the hazy allegations of suspected links to Russia subjected to serious inspection. Although Russia is a nation of 144 million people and many divergent interests, it s assumed that everything must be personally ordered by President Vladimir Putin.Yet, if you look at some of the details about these $100,000 in ads, you learn the case is even flimsier than you might have thought. The sum was spread out over 2015, 2016 and 2017 and thus represented a very tiny pebble in a very large lake of Facebook activity.But more recently we learned that only 44 percent of the ads appeared before Americans went to the polls last November, according to Facebook; that would mean that 56 percent appeared afterwards.Facebook added that roughly 25% of the ads were never shown to anyone. For 50% of the ads, less than $3 was spent; for 99% of the ads, less than $1,000 was spent. So, as miniscule as the $100,000 in ad buys over three years may have seemed, the tiny pebble turns out really to be only a fraction of a tiny pebble if the Russians indeed did toss it into the 2016 campaign.What About the Puppies?We further have learned that most ads weren t for or against a specific candidate, but rather addressed supposedly controversial issues that the mainstream media insists were meant to divide the United States and thus somehow undermine American democracy.Except, it turns out that one of the issues was puppies.As Mike Isaac and Scott Shane of The New York Times reported in Tuesday s editions, The Russians who posed as Americans on Facebook last year tried on quite an array of disguises. There was even a Facebook group for animal lovers with memes of adorable puppies that spread across the site with the help of paid ads. Now, there are a lot of controversial issues in America, but I don t think any of us would put puppies near the top of the list. Isaac and Shane reported that there were also supposedly Russia-linked groups advocating gay rights, gun rights and black civil rights, although precisely how these divergent groups were linked to Russia or the Kremlin was never fully explained. (Facebook declined to offer details.)At this point, a professional journalist might begin to pose some very hard questions to the sources, who presumably include many partisan Democrats and their political allies hyping the evil-Russia narrative. It would be time for some lectures to the sources about the consequences for taking reporters on a wild ride in conspiracy land.Yet, instead of starting to question the overall premise of this scandal, journalists at The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, etc. keep making excuses for the nuttiness. The explanation for the puppy ads was that the nefarious Russians might be probing to discover Americans who might later be susceptible to propaganda. The goal of the dog lovers page was more obscure, Isaac and Shane acknowledged. But some analysts suggested a possible motive: to build a large following before gradually introducing political content. Without viewing the entire feed from the page, now closed by Facebook, it is impossible to say whether the Russian operators tried such tactics. [Seriously, this is what the New York Times is passing off as journalism now]The Joe McCarthy of Russia-gateThe Times then turned to Clinton Watts, a former FBI agent and a top promoter of the New McCarthyism that has swept Official Washington. Watts has testified before Congress that almost anything that appears on social media these days criticizing a politician may well be traceable to the Russians Continue this story at Consortium NewsREAD MORE RUSSIAGATE NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Russiagate FilesSUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @ 21WIRE.TV | 0 |
4,931 | Nigeria's Senate to probe police brutality allegations | LAGOS (Reuters) - Lawmakers in the upper house of Nigeria s parliament voted on Tuesday to launch an investigation into alleged acts of brutality by a specialist unit of the police. The move follows a social media campaign calling for the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) to be scrapped. The campaign, which has gathered pace in the last few days, involves people sharing stories of alleged maltreatment by the unit s officers. Nigeria s police force has been dogged by allegations of human rights abuses for years. It has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. The Senate said lawmakers on a security committee would consider the claims about SARS. The committee has been mandated to look into allegations of human rights abuses raised by the general public, make relevant recommendations, and include it in its final report, the Senate said in a statement posted on its official Twitter feed. The inspector general, who heads the Nigeria Police Force, on Monday announced the immediate re-organization of SARS nationwide. He ordered an investigation into all the allegations, complaints and infractions leveled against the unit. Ibrahim Idris, the police chief, also said the division was responsible for a drastic reduction in armed robberies, kidnappings and cattle rustling nationwide. | 1 |
4,932 | Elizabeth Warren Did NOT Mince Words In Her Reaction To Trump’s Presumptive Nomination | With Donald Trump s latest primary victory in Indiana, he s all but secured the Republican nomination for president and can be considered the presumptive nominee. What sealed the deal was also the fact that Ted Cruz suspended his campaign and will no longer be seeking the nomination. And with Kasich not even close behind in delegates, it s pretty much a sure thing for The Donald.Taking to social media after Trump s victory and presumed nomination was Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). She did not mince words, and got deadly serious letting us all know that it s on us to make sure Donald Trump doesn t get anywhere near the Oval Office.Warren wrote on Facebook: Donald Trump is now the leader of the Republican Party. It s real he is one step away from the White House. Here s what else is real:Trump has built his campaign on racism, sexism, and xenophobia. There s more enthusiasm for him among leaders of the KKK than leaders of the political party he now controls.He incites supporters to violence, praises Putin, and, according to a columnist who recently interviewed him, is cool with being called an authoritarian and doesn t mind associations with history s worst dictators.He attacks veterans like John McCain who were captured and puts our servicemembers at risk by cheerleading illegal torture. In a world with ISIS militants and leaders like North Korean strongman Kim Jong-Un conducting nuclear tests, he surrounds himself with a foreign policy team that has been called a collection of charlatans, and puts out contradictory and nonsensical national security ideas one expert recently called incoherent and truly bizarre. What happens next will test the character for all of us Republican, Democrat, and Independent. It will determine whether we move forward as one nation or splinter at the hands of one man s narcissism and divisiveness. I know which side I m on, and I m going to fight my heart out to make sure Donald Trump s toxic stew of hatred and insecurity never reaches the White House. And reiterated her point on Twitter shortly after.I'm going to fight my heart out to make sure @realDonaldTrump s toxic stew of hatred & insecurity never reaches the White House. Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) May 4, 2016Now it s up to us to make sure Donald Trump never becomes president. Which side are you on?No matter who vote blue.Featured Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | 0 |
4,933 | Fox News Host DESTROYS His Colleagues For Kissing Donald Trump’s Ring (TWEETS) | Fox News host Greg Gutfeld has taken to Twitter to vent his rage at senior Fox hosts for treating GOP Presidential frontrunner Donald Trump with kid gloves, and he got brutal.Gutfeld made his remarks in response to the Republican Town Hall on Sunday night, and he was not pulling any punches. He took aim at Greta Van Susteren and Sean Hannity. As the moderators soft-pedalled Trump, Gutfeld began with a series of tweets mocking the fluffing.whew another rough one for trump. how does he put up with this stuff!! GregGutfeld (@greggutfeld) April 4, 2016Soon after, he hit out again, mocking Trump s WINNER! exaggerations.According to my score, Donald Trump won tonights debate by an overwhelming margin (i scored it 1012 to 0) GregGutfeld (@greggutfeld) April 4, 2016And then again, savagely mocking Trump s macho bravado and schoolyard bully posturing:i have been informed tonight wasn't an actual debate, but nonetheless, the other candidates clearly were too scared to show up. GregGutfeld (@greggutfeld) April 4, 2016Just incase Gutfeld s dry attacks had been mistaken for Trump-level encouragement, he laid it on a lot thicker for his final hurrah:and get this: tomorrow Trump's gunna be on Hannity, so u know Donald will be facing the fight of his life. Thoughts and prayers. GregGutfeld (@greggutfeld) April 4, 2016FYI I'm hosting a TownHall at my place tonite where Ill be questioning drifters I met at Port Authority. leave your questions in Bryant Park GregGutfeld (@greggutfeld) April 4, 2016It will come as little surprise to hear that Trump fans immediately jumped on Gutfeld with the usual hate-tweets about being un-American and so on. But the Fox host beat them off like wanton flies.hahah. best line ever: make jokes except about what i like! https://t.co/91s0Yq2S9b GregGutfeld (@greggutfeld) April 4, 2016The tweets come just a week after Gutfeld spoke out openly about the division in Fox over Trump. As the contest heats up the organization, like the Republican Party itself, is fracturing down the middle. We as a show are facing internal strife, from a micro level to a macro level he said. Look at The Five. On any given day, we have tension over this nomination, over this candidate. You can look at our network as a whole. Of course, it s hard to feel too sorry for Gutfeld, working for an organization which cares so little for the facts, that it s viewers have been found to be less informed than those who watch no news at all. After decades of his organization drilling the stupid into its viewers, they are now pliable to the twisted campaign of a chump like Trump.Featured image via YouTube Screengrab | 0 |
4,934 | Democratic senators raise concerns about Charter-Time Warner Cable tie-up | (Reuters) - Five Democratic U.S. senators, including presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, told the Justice Department and Federal Communications Commission on Thursday that they had “significant concerns” about Charter Communications Inc’s (CHTR.O) planned acquisition of Time Warner Cable Inc TWC.N and Bright House Networks. The senators, who also included Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, Ron Wyden and Al Franken, said in a letter to the agencies that are reviewing the proposal that the deal would create “a nationwide broadband duopoly,” with Charter and Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O) in nearly two-thirds of U.S. high-speed broadband homes. The senators urged the government to thoroughly address all potential harm to consumers. They also raised concerns that Charter will take on significant debt that could harm its ability to honor commitments to build out its network, including in rural areas. The FCC has said U.S. broadband prices are among the world’s most expensive, according to the senators, who urged more competition. The merger could lead to higher prices and fewer innovative services, they added. Charter said in May that it would buy Time Warner Cable in a $56 billion cash-and-stock deal that would make it the No. 2 U.S. Internet and cable company after Comcast. Shareholders of both companies and most U.S. states have approved the deal, which still awaits clearance from the federal government. On Wednesday, Charter said it had won approval from New Jersey and was only awaiting clearance from two states where it will operate as New Charter. The company agreed to return Time Warner Cable call centers to the United States and add jobs. “Having demonstrated that the pending transactions with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks are squarely in the public interest, Charter remains confident they will close in a timely fashion,” the company said on Wednesday. New Charter would be the third-largest cable provider in the country, serving roughly 17.3 million customers, and the second-largest broadband provider, with 19.4 million subscribers. It would be in nearly 40 states. Charter and Time Warner Cable did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday. FCC spokeswoman Kim Hart said the commission had received the letter and was reviewing it. The FCC hopes to complete its review by the end of March. In April, Comcast withdrew its $45 billion offer for Time Warner Cable after U.S. regulators raised concerns that the deal would give it an unfair advantage in the cable TV and Internet-based services market. | 1 |
4,935 | Iraqi forces capture Akkas gas field from Islamic State: minister | BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi forces captured the Akkas gas field from Islamic State on Thursday, Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi told reporters in Baghdad. Iraqi forces launched an offensive last month to oust the militant group from the last area still under its control in Iraq, on the border with Syria, where the field is located. The field hasn t entered production yet. Akkas, which has reserves of 5.6 trillion cubic feet, is operated by Korea Gas Company (KOGAS) and located in western Anbar province near the Syrian border. Development of Iraq s Akkas gas field had been delayed after Islamic State seized large territories in Anbar in May 2014. KOGAS halted operations after multiple attacks by militants against the company s sites in the field. Iraqi oil ministry officials said they plan to send a crew to Akkas to assess damages to the field s energy facilities. We will make a field visit to write a report about the damages and what we need to bring back the field online as soon as possible, said engineer Mohammed Ibrahim who is a member of an oil ministry team supervising Akkas. Iraq is planning to contact KOGAS soon to start preparations to resume development works at the field, said Ibrahim. Security forces are working to clean Akkas from landmines and booby-traps that might be left by Daesh, said Colonel Saad Hardan from Anbar police. | 1 |
4,936 | us elections november chaos what youre not being told | by shane trejo the dakota access pipeline protests have made national news as millions of americans are concerned with potential property rights violations and environmental | 0 |
4,937 | Facebook Hits Back, Responds To Allegations They’re Hiding Conservative Opinions | There have recently been allegations claiming that Facebook is purposefully keeping conservative news and topics out of the trending news section of their website. However, Facebook has released this statement in response: We take allegations of bias very seriously. Facebook is a platform for people and perspectives from across the political spectrum. Trending Topics shows you the popular topics and hashtags that are being talked about on Facebook. There are rigorous guidelines in place for the review team to ensure consistency and neutrality. These guidelines do not permit the suppression of political perspectives. Nor do they permit the prioritization of one viewpoint over another or one news outlet over another. These guidelines do not prohibit any news outlet from appearing in Trending Topics. According to an article put out by Gizmodo, it was claimed that news curators for Facebook would purposefully pick and choose which topics should be put into trending. And while sure, depending on who is curating the news at any given moment their may be some underlying bias, it appears Facebook s algorithms do not allow such bias to rule the roost. In fact, according to Facebook s VP of search, Tom Stocky, it s not feasible and if guidelines are violated it is a fireable offense. Here s the full statement by Stocky: My team is responsible for Trending Topics, and I want to address today s reports alleging that Facebook contractors manipulated Trending Topics to suppress stories of interest to conservatives. We take these reports extremely seriously, and have found no evidence that the anonymous allegations are true.Facebook is a platform for people and perspectives from across the political spectrum. There are rigorous guidelines in place for the review team to ensure consistency and neutrality. These guidelines do not permit the suppression of political perspectives. Nor do they permit the prioritization of one viewpoint over another or one news outlet over another. These guidelines do not prohibit any news outlet from appearing in Trending Topics.Trending Topics is designed to showcase the current conversation happening on Facebook. Popular topics are first surfaced by an algorithm, then audited by review team members to confirm that the topics are in fact trending news in the real world and not, for example, similar-sounding topics or misnomers.We are proud that, in 2015, the US election was the most talked-about subject on Facebook, and we want to encourage that robust political discussion from all sides. We have in place strict guidelines for our trending topic reviewers as they audit topics surfaced algorithmically: reviewers are required to accept topics that reflect real world events, and are instructed to disregard junk or duplicate topics, hoaxes, or subjects with insufficient sources. Facebook does not allow or advise our reviewers to systematically discriminate against sources of any ideological origin and we ve designed our tools to make that technically not feasible. At the same time, our reviewers actions are logged and reviewed, and violating our guidelines is a fireable offense.There have been other anonymous allegations for instance that we artificially forced # BlackLivesMatter to trend. We looked into that charge and found that it is untrue. We do not insert stories artificially into trending topics, and do not instruct our reviewers to do so. Our guidelines do permit reviewers to take steps to make topics more coherent, such as combining related topics into a single event (such as # starwars and # maythefourthbewithyou ), to deliver a more integrated experience.Our review guidelines for Trending Topics are under constant review, and we will continue to look for improvements. We will also keep looking into any questions about Trending Topics to ensure that people are matched with the stories that are predicted to be the most interesting to them, and to be sure that our methods are as neutral and effective as possible. Many have been bringing up the fact that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is a liberal, so he may purposefully promote liberal content and trending topics. Now, while the company claims this isn t true, what s to honestly keep them from doing this anyway. The irony in all of this is that conservatives are for freedom within a capitalist society and if a company were to operate in a way that they see fit, that is their freedom. They are not bound to not be biased except for their own rules they put in place. With that being said, Facebook is adamantly denying the claims that they are being biased, and maybe, just maybe, liberal opinions are the more popular opinions and thus trend more often. Ever think of that?Featured Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images | 0 |
4,938 | WATCH: Sarah Palin Dehumanizes Black People: They’re ‘Thugs,’ Not People | Sarah Palin continued to fan the flames of hatred and racism toward black people on Sunday by demanding that the media refer to them as thugs and avoid acknowledging that they are living breathing human beings.During an interview with Breitbart two days after five Dallas police officers were killed by a lone gunman who was totally unaffiliated with Black Lives Matter, Palin followed other conservatives by blaming black people for the killings and said she refuses to call the protesters people. They re not protesters. You know, these are thugs, they re rioters. And yeah, I m calling out the media, saying quit claiming that these rioters are people. They re stomping on a flag figuratively and literally shouting death to cops , celebrating violence. Black Lives Matter is a non-violent peaceful movement protesting police brutality and the unjust killing of innocent black people by police officers who flagrantly use excessive force.Furthermore, the Black Lives Matter rally in Dallas was a peaceful march and leaders worked with police prior to and during the demonstration. And when shots were fired protesters helped police identify where the shots were coming from.It should also be pointed out that burning an American flag is not illegal and is considered protected by free speech.But none of the facts matter to America s village idiot.She went on to call black people who speak out against police violence evil and attempted to co-opt Dr. Martin Luther King, who also led nonviolent demonstrations in the 1960s to fight for civil rights the same way Black Lives Matter does today. I think the media is perpetuating a message that really evil people are thriving on right now as they try to warp malleable minds that would believe that one race matters more than another. You know, it s the antithesis of Martin Luther King Jr. s message. It s the antithesis of our Constitution, of the Bill of Rights, our charters of liberty that says all men are created equal. Here s the video via YouTube.Conservatives across the country have been making every effort to portray black people as monsters and criminals in an effort to shut down the Black Lives Matter movement. They are perfectly fine with black people getting shot like dogs in the streets by police officers and their rhetoric against the protesters has already nearly resulted in a massacre at a Portland, Oregon rally. A right-wing gun nut could have killed dozens of people had he not lost his nerve after pulling his gun and aiming it at the protesters marching down the street.So rhetoric like Palin s is only making things worse. As bad as the racism and hate from conservatives has been, it s about to get even uglier and could erupt in violence.Featured image via YouTube screenshot | 0 |
4,939 | Fox News To Black Hamilton Actor: Shut Up And ‘Stick To Hip Hop’ (VIDEO) | In a convenient distraction from Trump s recent $25 million settlement in fraud lawsuits connected to his fake university, virulently homophobic Indiana Governor and future Vice President Mike Pence decided to go see a Broadway show.Naturally, Pence s appearance at Hamilton was not well-received, with the crowd booing him as he entered and the cast taking some time at the end of the show to have a come to Jesus moment with the man who thinks many of them should be electrocuted, imprisoned, or killed.Now to many of Trump s followers who are, shall we say, not exactly fans of Abraham Lincoln, this was the worst thing to ever happen in a theatre in the history of ever. But to the rest of us, a much-needed message was delivered: that he should be there to represent all Americans, not just the ones he likes.This message to Pence sent the conservative world nosediving into Lake Stupidity, with many of them vowing to boycott the musical (which is sold out until seemingly six generations from now) and one particularly deplorable Trump fan decided to cause a scene that lasted through multiple musical numbers (the cast was praised for acting like he wasn t even there).While Pence himself was not offended by the cast s message, Fox News Jeanine Pirro joins Donald Trump in being irrationally furious about the nontroversy. What happened in that theater one block from this studio was out-and-out reverse racism and teed-up hate! Pirro said on her show Saturday, accusing the actors of using a play about our American history as a political bully pulpit an ironic statement given Pence s numerous horrific remarks about women, they gay community, and many other groups of Americans (not to mention that Trump has become one of the most notorious internet trolls in history).Pirro demanded to know why the cast did not lecture Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, who are not terrible people, for being terrible people when they attended the production. Last night violates everything that you say that you stand for, she raged. You re Hamiltonians, you re students of American history. Why not hip hop about the electoral college or is that the part of the Constitution that you just want to ignore? Maybe you want to dance about Hamilton, why not dance about that! Pirro continued as she dissolved into a greater degree of madness than normal. And I ve got news for you. Don t lecture this man. You may know a little about hip hop and dancing around a stage. I majored in American history and I saw the play Hamilton and I loved it, she said as he rant ended. But you just took the fun, the enjoyment and the memory of that play right out of me, which might explain why the number one hashtag is that s trending right now is #BoycottHamilton. Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
4,940 | Tennessee Republican Leader Vows Punishing Tax Hike On Companies That Support LGBT Rights | It s amazing how quickly free market values go out the window when Republicans don t get their way.In Tennessee, House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick (R) vowed to start an economic hit list on businesses in the state that stood up for LGBT rights in the face of a recent discrimination bill similar to the one passed in North Carolina.The so-called bathroom bill would have forced trans students at public schools and colleges to use the gender on their birth certificate to determine which bathroom to use. It was an increasingly desperate response by conservatives to solve a non-existent problem in opposition to the expansion of gay rights across the country. Thankfully, Tennessee s Republican lawmakers got cold feet after watching states like North Carolina and Mississippi get economically devastated by their own versions of the law.However, McCormick was not happy about it. On the floor of the House he threw an epic tantrum that included floating the idea of using economic coercion in order to get businesses to drop their support for LGBT rights. His plan was to block companies who are seen as gay friendly from getting tax breaks like other businesses in the state. The ultimate goal appears to be to drive those businesses to bankruptcy or force them to comply with McCormick s narrow view of human rights. All these companies who tried to blackmail us over this thing, when they come for their corporate welfare checks next year, we need to have a list out and keep an eye on it. Note: McCormick s use of Blackmail here means democratic and economic expressions of protests.McCormick also accused people concerned with gay and trans rights of being unconcerned with gang violence. What do the two have to do with one another? Who knows, and certainly not McCormick. This weekend we had four people shot in Chattanooga, McCormick said. But our Chamber of Commerce is writing us letters about the bathroom bill. Now the reason they re not all fired up about the city of Chattanooga s handling of the gang problem is because the city of Chattanooga sends them money and funds their budget. And we don t. Guess what. We ain t gonna. The hypocrisy of creating a needless bill and then getting upset when people waste time opposing it is, of course, extremely rich.Like his counterparts in North Carolina, McCormick seems absolutely bewildered by the fact that the American people are not cool with his party s attempt to bully transgender people. Rather than reflect on the outrage and reassess his own beliefs, the Republican response has been to double down and accuse the opposition of being part of a vast gay agenda conspiracy.With his delusions intact, McCormick now wants to use his position to destroy businesses that stand with the LGBT community. It would be laughably desperate if it weren t so vile.Featured image via YouTube screengrab | 0 |
4,941 | THIS IS GREAT! ANTI-HILLARY STREET ART POPS UP EVERYWHERE IN BROOKLYNHillary Clinton’s supporters were calling certain words used to describe her as sexist. Words like entitled, ambitious, and secretive… The area around Hillary’s campaign headquarters was plastered with this: | Hillary Clinton s supporters were calling certain words used to describe her as sexist. Words like entitled, ambitious, and secretive The area around Hillary s campaign headquarters was plastered with this: | 0 |
4,942 | NATO Officials Planning For Trump Visit As If He Is A Small Child (DETAILS) | Donald Trump is a small child in a 70-year-old man s body who somehow managed to get elected president of the United States. It seems that world leaders are aware of this, and therefore are now devising methods to deal with him as such. Case in point Trump s very first summit with the other member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).NATO officials are well aware that Trump has the attention span of a toddler who needs a nap, so they are going to keep the topics simple and make sure that any remarks are limited to two to four minute bursts. In addition to the shortened speeches and elementary subject matter, the summit will have no formal statement after the meeting with the heads of state for the 28 countries in the NATO alliance. Officials in the know say that the people involved in setting all of this up to accommodate Trump s childlike ways are really scrambling, as the summit is set to commence on May 25. In short- they are going to Trump- proof the event. From Uproxx: It s kind of ridiculous how they are preparing to deal with Trump, said one source briefed extensively on the meeting s preparations. It s like they re preparing to deal with a child someone with a short attention span and mood who has no knowledge of NATO, no interest in in-depth policy issues, nothing, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. They re freaking out. People are scared of his unpredictability, intimidated by how he might react knowing the president might speak his mind or tweet his mind, [a] former official said. Or, as another current senior NATO official put it before the meeting: We re bracing for impact. As if this isn t bad enough, a big topic of this particular meeting of the NATO alliance will be how to share the costs and other burdens associated with NATO. Of course, we all remember how Trump actually gave German Chancellor Angela Merkel a bill for supposed monies she owes to NATO on her very first visit to our country. So, there s no telling what he ll say to other member nations on this topic at the summit. This worry has not escaped the international officials preparing for this event. Again, from Uproxx: His views of burden-sharing seem to be more ambitious than past presidents, and that could become a source of tension at the big NATO confab, said Alexander Vershbow, former deputy secretary-general of NATO. The burden-sharing conversation may not go entirely smoothly. This is beyond embarrassing. With each passing day, Trump s childish temperament, incompetence, and buffoonery lessens America s standing in the world. When will the Republicans in Congress wake up, admit they made a mistake by getting this man elected, and start preparing to oust him from office?Only time will tell. Until then, #RESIST.Featured image via Mark Wilson/Getty Images | 0 |
4,943 | Trump Says He Doesn’t Have Any Investments In Russia — He Must’ve Forgot About This One | A new report from the New York Times reveals that Trump renewed trademarks in Russia, which contradicts this claim that he does not have any investments in Russia. Apparently, Trump owns a number of unused registered trademarks in Russia that are left over from a failed attempt to expand his hotel empire into the Russian Federation in 1996 and 2007. Trump has repeatedly sworn that he does not have any investments in Russia. On Twitter, he wrote back in January, Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING! Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017Except, these trademarks are intellectual property owned by the Trump Organization. Which means that Trump can lie as much as he wants, the fact remains that he does have investments in Russia. The trademarks were renewed get this on November 8, 2016, election day. The day which I assume future generations may come to know as the official expiration date for our democracy. There are six trademarks that were renewed in total. The New York Times reports that: Despite their inactivity, the Trump Organization sought extensions for the trademarks from Rospatent, the Russian government agency in charge of intellectual property. In a series of approvals starting in April 2016 and ending in December, Rospatent granted new 10-year terms for the trademarks, the agency s records show. Under normal circumstances, renewing trademarks in Russia is generally a routine matter, and there is nothing to suggest from the few public records available that Mr. Trump was shown favoritism. Still, extensions are not guaranteed and can be subject to challenge particularly if, as in this case, the trademarks went unused for years, according to interviews with a half-dozen lawyers specializing in intellectual property law. It seems hard to believe that the Trump Organization would bother going through with re-registering the trademarks if Trump or his spawn do not plan on conducting (more) business in Russia in the future. The Intercept has been running an effort to document every possible connection between Trump s more minor henchmen and Russia. So far, the results are staggering. It appears that there are major conflicts of interest with Russia at every level of the Trump administration. This just adds more fuel to an inferno that might end up burning the Trump administration down. As the investigation into Trump s connections with Russia continues, it becomes more evident every day that Trump and his cronies have a lot of reasons to keep Vladimir Putin happy. Even if that means the man who campaigned vehemently on supporting America First policies, is putting himself and his company s profits, ahead of the nation he is supposed to be leading.Featured image via Wikimedia Commons | 0 |
4,944 | You’re Going To Want To Read Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Tribute To Her ‘Best Buddy’ Scalia | All over the world you ll see unlikely pairings; an elephant that is best friends with a dog, or a horse that befriends a duck, or a tiger that loves his monkey. And then there s Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the recently departed Justice Antonin Scalia. Two people who on paper should loathe one another, because quite frankly, they couldn t be more opposite in political viewpoints. Ginsburg the liberal and Scalia the staunch conservative. Yet, they were close friends during their tenure together on the United States Supreme Court, and even before that as well.As every Justice wrote a statement after the passing of Scalia, all very moving and paying tribute to the conservative, one stood out among all the others Justice Ginsburg s. As you read it, you can tell she was thinking back on memories of times they spent together and it is actually quite touching. She refers to their friendship as best buddies. Toward the end of the opera Scalia/Ginsburg, tenor Scalia and soprano Ginsburg sing a duet: We are different, we are one, different in our interpretation of written texts, one in our reverence for the Constitution and the institution we serve. From our years together at the D.C. Circuit, we were best buddies. We disagreed now and then, but when I wrote for the Court and received a Scalia dissent, the opinion ultimately released was notably better than my initial circulation. Justice Scalia nailed all the weak spots the applesauce and argle bargle and gave me just what I needed to strengthen the majority opinion. He was a jurist of captivating brilliance and wit, with a rare talent to make even the most sober judge laugh. The press referred to his energetic fervor, astringent intellect, peppery prose, acumen, and affability, all apt descriptions. He was eminently quotable, his pungent opinions so clearly stated that his words never slipped from the reader s grasp.Justice Scalia once described as the peak of his days on the bench an evening at the Opera Ball when he joined two Washington National Opera tenors at the piano for a medley of songs. He called it the famous Three Tenors performance. He was, indeed, a magnificent performer. It was my great good fortune to have known him as working colleague and treasured friend. The opera she s referring to Scalia/Ginsburg noted their relationship, and in the song We are different, we are one it shows that despite their differences in almost every way opinion-wise, they were still there together on the Supreme Court. Respecting one another s opinions, albeit perhaps not agreeing. They were friends.What Ginsburg s statement shows is that despite all that may divide us, there is far more that can bring us together. We need to acknowledge these otherwise unlikely best buddies and respect their bond. She is undoubtedly very sad after his passing, and after reading her statement, you can t help but look at Scalia in a different light than one may have originally perceived. This is a note from a friend to another friend after their passing, and it has to be appreciated.Featured image: Flickr/Wikimedia | 0 |
4,945 | Underdog center-left party may outperform expectations in Japan snap poll | TOKYO (Reuters) - A new center-left party pledging to bring bottom up democracy to Japan may prove the surprise success story of an election on Sunday, although the party is forecast to win a mere sliver of seats compared to Prime Minister Shinto Abe s ruling bloc. Abe s conservative Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition is on track to roughly match the two-thirds super majority it held in parliament s lower house before dissolution, helped by divisions in the opposition camp and jitters over North Korea s nuclear and missile programs, media forecasts say. But the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ) formed just this month could become the core of opposition to Abe s LDP if, as some forecast, it challenges Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike s flashier conservative Party of Hope for the top opposition spot. The CDPJ opposes Abe s proposal to revise the post-war, pacifist constitution to clarify the ambiguous status of the military. Whether to revise the U.S.-drafted charter has long been a symbolic marker dividing Japan s left and right, and Abe is expected to use his big win to push for amendments. CDPJ founder Yukio Edano, 53, who grabbed the spotlight as Japan s top spokesman during the 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis, formed the CDPJ on the run after the main opposition Democratic Party s leader stunningly decided the party would run no candidates and encouraged members to run on Koike s slate. Edano told Japanese media he was inspired by the Stand up, Edano tweets he received after the Democrats imploded. Many Democrats jumped on the Hope bandwagon. Others either declined to join or were shut out after refusing to sign off on a hawkish security stance that echoes that of the LDP. Some joined Edano s party, others are running as independents. A Sankei newspaper survey published on Tuesday predicted the CDPJ would get between 46 and 60 seats, compared to initial estimates that about 30 of its 78 candidates would be elected. That compared to 39 to 57 seats for the Party of Hope, which is running 235 candidates. [tmsnrt.rs/2kGwCm5] A Kyodo news agency survey released on Wednesday also forecast the CDPJ could become the biggest opposition group. If so, that would suggest voters unhappy with Abe are seeking not a conservative replica of the LDP but a more liberal alternative, political analysts said. The failed Democratic Party was a fractious mix of liberals and conservatives, saddled with an image of incompetence after a rocky 2009-2012 rule. Almost all parties have been conservative and there is no party for liberal voters to vote for, said University of Tokyo professor Yu Uchiyama. If this party is successful in attracting liberal votes, there could be a prospect to do well. Edano, however, eschews what he calls outdated labels such as liberal or left , terms often associated with Cold War-era socialists or communists that can turn off mainstream voters.Unlike the more authoritarian LDP, he stresses commitment to individual civil rights, rather than obligations to the state, and wants to redistribute wealth to create a more equitable society. I want to take a first step toward creating a bottom up society ... toward a trend that is neither left, nor right, but moves forward, Edano said during a debate this month. The lack of preparation time, and a shortage of cash and candidates will be formidable obstacles for the CDPJ to overcome. It could also struggle to differentiate its economic policies from those of the LDP, which has long been more center-left than right when it comes to bread-and-butter issues. Edano s group wants to put off a sales tax hike and exit nuclear power. The LDP says it will keep nuclear power as a key energy source and raise the sales tax in 2019 but divert revenue to education and child care from repaying public debt. Both parties promise equal pay for equal work, higher wages for day care and elder care workers and more financial support for education, although they differ on details. A Reuters poll published Wednesday showed Japanese companies overwhelmingly want Prime Minister Shinzo Abe s ruling coalition to stay in power but about two-thirds want it to lose seats. The poll showed significant opposition in the corporate world to Abe s plans to raise the sales tax and to delay bringing down the fiscal deficit. Abenomics would be comfortably left-of-center in most developed democracies, said Tobias Harris, an analyst at advisory firm Teneo Intelligence. A healthy showing by the CDPJ could lure more lawmakers to its ranks after the election, although low voter turnout could diminish its performance as could competition with the Japanese Communist Party on the left. If the CDPJ comes in second, in a couple of months they will have grown and become the core of a new center-left opposition party, said Chuo University professor Steven Reed. | 1 |
4,946 | White House Sinks To New Low: Spokesperson Makes Fun of Trump’s ‘Outrageous Appearance’ and Hair | This is really reaching the spokesperson for the President has just made an a@@ of himself by making fun of a candidate for the 2016 Presidency. He said we can t take Trump seriously with his fake hair . Nice, huh? Speaking of fake hair Not to sink to his level but (two can play this childish game)now that he mentions it, can we talk about Mooch? White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Tuesday that Donald Trump s appearance, and particularly his famous hair, makes it easy to understand why people don t take him seriously as a presidential candidate.At the White House, Earnest said Trump s overall appearance should give voters pause for thought. The Trump campaign for months now has had a dustbin of history-like quality to it, from the vacuous sloganeering, to the outright lies to even the fake hair, the whole carnival barker routine that we ve seen for some time now, Earnest said. Earnest was pressed to explain later why the White House would seemingly play Trump s game by mocking his appearance, but Earnest defended his remarks.Read more: iotw | 0 |
4,947 | CNBC DEBATE HACK Proves Allegiance To Democrat Party With This Tweet Celebrating Mass Murder | By looking at the two Democrat presidential candidates left standing, most Americans would think their platform is primarily about the destruction of capitalism and gun control. The real truth however, is that the Democrat party knows without their unyielding support for the culture of death, they would cease to exist. The sickening truth is, they either support the killing of the most vulnerable or it s curtains for them. What does that say about how far our society has fallen when leftist TV hosts celebrate China s brutal One Child policy on Twitter?Quintanilla may not have been endorsing the one-child policy, but he didn t offer any overt or even implied criticism of it either. In fact, saying it worked sounds a lot like he is suggesting it was a success.The problem, of course, is that the one-child policy, which China converted to a two-child policy this week, was a brutal, harrowing invasion of the human rights of millions of families under the guise of national policy. Since 1979, an estimated 13 million women a year underwent abortions, many of them forced to do so by government officials. Another 200 million women were sterilized under the same policy.https://twitter.com/carlquintanilla/status/659734982915657728These practices mostly went unseen and unnoticed in the era before social media and digital cameras. In 2012, the world got to see the result of this policy on one young woman when her family members posted an image of her lying next to her dead baby after she d been forced to have an abortion.The young woman, Feng Jianmei, already had one child; so after she became pregnant again, family planning officials called her house to persuade her to have an abortion. When that failed, they showed up at her home and spent hours pressuring her for consent. Jianmei slipped out of the house but was followed by a group of 15 officials to her aunt s house. After briefly escaping and hiding under the bed of a relative, Jianmei was found by the government officials and was reportedly carried out by four men.Here is the horrible story about forced abortions in China and their victims:Meanwhile, family planning officials were negotiating with Jianmei s husband. At first they demanded $15,000, but then dropped the birth planning fee to around $5,000. In any case, it was more than he could raise. Finally, Jianmei was forced to give consent by having her thumbprint placed on a form and was injected with a drug that killed her baby. Her family posted this image, which went viral, of Jianmei with her dead daughter. For criticizing the government, government officials led a march denouncing her family as traitors, and her husband was beaten.And that nightmare is not the only kind of suffering caused by the policy. Those who dared to violate the policy had to keep their secret children out of sight of government officials. As the Washington Post reported last month, the consequences of getting caught were severe: It was terrifying if you had an over-quota child, my father says now. If the government knew, you would be in trouble. People would come to your house, remove all your grains and do anything they could to you. And sometimes, they d destroy your house. My mother recalls: Even for a new house, they d get on the roof, rip it apart and bulldoze the entire house. We had to keep moving and hiding. It was really painful for us. We knew it wasn t a long-term solution. The one-child policy was a decades long campaign of forced abortion, extortion, sterilization, and terror that traumatized hundreds of millions of people. Saying it worked seems like an odd way to sum up such a policy. Via: Breitbart News | 0 |
4,948 | Donald Trump Jr. Runs With Bernie Sanders Conspiracy Pushed By White Supremacists (TWEETS) | If there is one thing we know for certain, it s that Donald Trump is in no shortage of racist white supremacists supporting him and pushing conspiracy theories for him. Now, it s one thing to have that racist fan base; it s another to embrace it and promote it yourself, which is exactly what both Trump, and now his son Donald Trump, Jr. are doing.We ve already seen Trump retweet white nationalists who tweeted their support of the candidate, but now, in an effort to somehow make Bernie Sanders guilty of starting the chaos at the Chicago Trump rally, Donald Trump, Jr. has decided to retweet a conspiracy theory pushed by a white nationalist group.Here s the photo in question, where a woman in Trump paraphernalia is doing a white pride salute reminiscent of Nazi Germany.Trump cancels Chicago rally amid security concerns https://t.co/LVEGWkrAQ7 #Chicago #DonaldTrump photo by @ejwamb pic.twitter.com/tF1NTu8qui Chicago Trib Photo (@ChiTribPhoto) March 12, 2016Twisting and making things up out of the clear blue sky, many started claiming that this woman was Bernie Sanders organizer Portia Boulger.The "Trump Nazi" is Portia Boulger, who runs the Women for Bernie Sanders Twitter account. It's another media plant. pic.twitter.com/m1CkwWgwud Supreme Dark Lord (@voxday) March 12, 2016However, the woman in question, can be seen here, and clearly was not the woman making the Nazi salute in solidarity with Donald Trump.I wasn't in Chicago last pm spreading some nasty. My hair is short. Come on 2 IBEW in Chillcothe & #GOTVforBernie pic.twitter.com/igtJNC7ITj Portia A. Boulger (@PortiaABoulger) March 12, 2016But still running with the conspiracy theory is none other that Donald Trump, Jr.:However, who Trump Jr. is retweeting is what is most concerning. He is pushing the conspiracy via a Twitter handle that boasts white pride. A handle that has actually admitted they were wrong about who the woman was, but Trump Jr. still ran with it, and as of now, it s still up on his Twitter account.Here's "Vox Day" explaining how white people are superior to black people https://t.co/JAaeZlDOsQ Adam Serwer (@AdamSerwer) March 12, 2016While that person is shocked that Trump Jr. would do such a thing, most people probably aren t considering his dad has retweeted white supremacists a number of times.Racism with the Trumps is nothing new. Back in 1973, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump and his father for refusing to rent to people of color. If you haven t noticed by now that Trump is racist himself, notice it by who follows and supports him. It s clear as day. If you disagree, you are either willfully ignorant, or absent from reality.Featured image via Instagram | 0 |
4,949 | NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTER FRAUD BOMBSHELL: New Report Reveals How Over 5,500 Votes Were Illegally Cast On Election Day 2016 | Kris Kobach For years, the mainstream media has ignored the problem of voter fraud and belittled those of us who are trying to do something about it. And when secretaries of state like me identify cases of fraud, we are told that the number of incidents of voter fraud is too insignificant to matter.New Hampshire was a must win for Hillary. Watch CNN explain the significance of winning the state of New Hampshire for Hillary: New Hampshire is one of fifteen states that allow same-day voter registration. The benefit of same-day registration is that it allows a person who has procrastinated or has forgotten to register to nonetheless cast a ballot on election day. The downside of same-day registration is that it does not allow the state time to assess the eligibility of the voter. A volunteer poll worker simply accepts a modicum of identification and takes the voter at his word that he s a U.S. citizen resident of the state who is eligible to vote.New Hampshire is also a battleground state. Unlike neighboring Massachusetts and Vermont, which reliably vote for the Democrat in presidential elections, New Hampshire can swing either way. It has long been reported, anecdotally, that out-of-staters take advantage of New Hampshire s same-day registration and head to the Granite State to cast fraudulent votes.Now there s proof.According to statistics released by the Speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, on the date of the general election in November 2016, there were 6,540 same-day registrants who registered to vote in New Hampshire using an out-of-state driver s license to prove their identity. In and of itself, that doesn t prove that any fraud occurred theoretically, each of those individuals could have been someone who recently moved to the State and had not yet had time to get a New Hampshire driver s license. According to New Hampshire law, a new resident has 60 days to obtain a New Hampshire driver s license.So if those 6,540 voters were bona fide New Hampshire residents, they would get their driver s license no later than January 7, 2017. However, the numbers tell a very different story. It turns out that, as of August 30, 2017 nearly ten months after the election only 1,014 of the 6,540 same-day registrants who registered with an out-of-state license had obtained a New Hampshire driver s license. The other 5,526 individuals never obtained a New Hampshire driver s license. And, of those 5,526, only 213 registered a vehicle in New Hampshire.So 5,313 of those voters neither obtained a New Hampshire driver s license nor registered a vehicle in New Hampshire. They have not followed the legal requirements for residents regarding driver s licenses, and it appears that they are not actually residing in New Hampshire. It seems that they never were bona fide residents of the State.5,513 is a big number more than enough to swing two very important elections. The closest major election was the contest between incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte and challenger Maggie Hassan (D). Hassan won the election by a razor-thin margin of 1,017 votes. Those 5,313 fraudulent votes were more than enough to swing the election. If 59.2 percent or more of them went for Hassan, then the election was stolen through voter fraud. That s likely, since the surrounding states are Democrat strongholds.It s also possible that New Hampshire s four electoral college votes were swung to Hillary Clinton through illegal voting by nonresidents. Clinton won New Hampshire by only 2,732 votes. If 74.8 percent of the 5,513 fraudulent votes were cast for Clinton, then the presidential election in New Hampshire was tipped as well.If the presidential contest had been closer and had come down to a margin of three or four electoral college votes, then this voter fraud might have had extraordinary consequences. Regardless, in the Senate contest, it is highly likely that voting by nonresidents changed the result. Breitbart | 0 |
4,950 | Catalan parliament session delayed for talks between parties | BARCELONA (Reuters) - Tuesday s session of the Catalan parliament at which regional leader Carles Puigdemont could unilaterally declare the region s independence from Spain has been delayed, a parliament spokeswoman said. Organisers of the political parties in the assembly are holding a meeting, she said. Local media said the delay could be the result of disagreements within the pro-independence coalition on how far Puigdemont s speech should go in declaring a split from Spain. | 1 |
4,951 | South Korea warns North not to repeat armistice violation | PANMUNJOM, South Korea (Reuters) - North Korea violated an armistice agreement with South Korea this month when North Korean soldiers shot and wounded a North Korean soldier as he defected across their border and it must not do so again, South Korea s defense minister said on Monday. The defector, a North Korean soldier identified only by his surname, Oh, was critically wounded but has been recovering in hospital in South Korea. The incident comes at a time of heightened tension between North Korea and the international community over its nuclear weapons program, but the North has not publicly responded to the defection at the sensitive border. South Korean Minister of Defence Song Young-moo issued his warning to the North while on a visit to the border where he commended South Korean soldiers at a Joint Security Area (JSA), in the so-called Truce Village of Panmunjom, in the demilitarized zone, for rescuing the defector. A North Korean border guard briefly crossed the border with the South in the chase for the defector on Nov. 13 - a video released by the U.N. Command (UNC) in Seoul showed - a violation of the ceasefire accord between North and South at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. Shooting towards the South at a defecting person, that s a violation of the armistice agreement, Song said. Crossing the military demarcation line, a violation. Carrying automatic rifles (in the JSA), another violation, he added as he stood near where South Korean soldiers had found Oh, collapsed and bleeding from his wounds. North Korea should be informed this sort of thing should never occur again. Since the defection, North Korea has reportedly replaced guards stationed there. Soldiers have fortified a section of the area seen aimed at blocking any more defections by digging a trench and planting trees. As Song was speaking 10 meters away from the trees North Korean soldiers planted, four North Korean soldiers were spotted listening closely. South Korean military officials pointed out two bullet holes in a metal wall on a South Korean building, from North Korean shots fired at Oh as he ran. Oh has undergone several operations in hospital to remove bullets. His lead surgeon, Lee Cook-jong, told Reuters his patient has suffers from nightmares about being returned to the North. In South Korea, six soldiers, three South Korean and three American, were given awards by the U.S. Forces Korea last week in recognition for their efforts in rescuing the defector. After inspecting the site on Monday, Song met troops stationed there for lunch and praised them for acting promptly and appropriately . South Korea has been broadcasting news of the soldier s defection towards North Korea via loudspeakers, according to the South s Yonhap news agency. South Korean military officials have declined to confirm that. | 1 |
4,952 | Five ‘All American’ Football Players Booted From Team With Black QB After KKK Display | The city of Creston, in the heart of Iowa, sits nestled between State Route 25 and U.S. Highway 34, only a mile from the eastern bank of Summit Lake. The seat of Union County offers two additional lakes to fish in, the glorious Green Valley State Park, and a high school football team full of terrifyingly virulent racists.At least, Creston had that last one until Thursday. Scheduled to play the Clarinda Cardinals Friday night, the Creston Panthers will suddenly find themselves without five of their starters after a viral photo of them wearing hoods and posing with a burning cross, a rifle, and a Confederate flag, made the rounds on social media earlier this week.Clearly, the players didn t do well in history at Creston High. The location of the school in Union County is a stark reminder of which side Iowans fought for in the Civil War.The boys will probably not face legal difficulties. Being a piece of shit KKK member, or even pretending to be one, is protected under the First Amendment, and in a town of fewer than 10,000, it s not likely there s a lawyer in town who could successfully argue that anyone suffered damages as a result of their racist idiocy. Not even Kylan Smallwood, the Panthers quarterback, who is black. Sadly, Smallwood is already all too aware of the fact that this will blow over like nothing happened once the incident is forgotten. He won t forget, though: It s a bad way to put our town on the map, but I think as a community, we just have to move past it. Deal with it, I guess. I thought these guys were my friends. Like, I ve been to some of their houses before I wanted to ask them why, why they did it, but I haven t had the chance to yet. For their part, Creston High School has said that the students have been punished in addition to their removal from the team, but has not specified what that punishment was. Coach Brian Morrison called the families of each boy personally to tell them their sons were no longer playing for the Panthers.Just another day in post-racial America.Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
4,953 | AUSTRIAN PARENTS AND TEACHERS Sacrifice Young Girls At Liberal Altar: Teen Refugees Sexually Abuse School Girls For Months | Anyone up for a European vacation? How about sending your young daughters to Europe to study for a semester or two? Is this the end of the tourism and study abroad business for America s youth? More reports of European countries sacrificing their young girls on the altar of Islamic supremacism. School girls were sexually assaulted and groped by the boys for months. The girls had suffered for so long without reporting the abuse, as authorities most obviously turned a blind eye.The headmaster said that the male pupils had all come to Austria as unaccompanied minors from Syria and Afghanistan and she believed them to be happy and grateful for being allowed to live in Austria and attend school, adding that they were integrating themselves very well. I am sure that the victims were afraid to come forward. Afraid they d be called racists. Afraid the Muslims would take their revenge on them and their families. Schoolgirls report abuse by young asylum seekers, The Local, January 15, 2015 (thanks to Lookmann):Austrian officials are investigating allegations that four under-age asylum seekers sexually harassed and assaulted three schoolgirls for months, without anybody taking action.The four boys attended the Schlossstrasse middle school in Salzburg. It was only in the wake of the widely reported New Year sexual assaults in Cologne that one of the victims, aged 14, made a complaint to police.That resulted in the four youngsters, aged 14, 15 and 16, being suspended. Only one of them had a residence permit.According to a report in the Kronen Zeitung newspaper, three female students say they were assaulted and groped by the boys for months.Last Wednesday an attack on one girl was reportedly so severe that it came to the attention of the school headmistress Eva Szalony, who made a complaint to police.She said the allegations were a complete shock and that the school is now investigating why the girls had suffered for so long without reporting the abuse.She said that the male pupils had all come to Austria as unaccompanied minors from Syria and Afghanistan and she believed them to be happy and grateful for being allowed to live in Austria and attend school, adding that they were integrating themselves very well .Police have now confirmed they are investigating allegations of sexual assault, grievous bodily harm and threats.The allegations go back to last November, and involve verbal abuse and suggestive comments as well as physical violence in which the girls say they were groped and fondled.The attacks got more serious as time went by. The 14-year-old said that she was often hit by a 15-year-old from Afghanistan, including an incident where she was hit so badly from behind that she smashed her head onto the desk.She was attacked again on Wednesday by the same boy, who smashed her against a locker so hard that the police were called. They took the victim and the accused to the station. After hearing of her ordeal, police then expanded the investigation.Local education officials in Salzburg have said the incidents are being dealt with very seriously and that it will appoint a coordinator to oversee all school-age asylum seekers and their teachers. Via: Pamela Gellar | 0 |
4,954 | Cuba marks anniversary of Fidel death as post-Castro era nears | HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba marks the first anniversary of the death of revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Saturday with a week of vigils nationwide, as the island embarks on a political cycle that will end 60 years of the Castro brothers rule. Fidel, a towering figure of the 20th century who built a Communist-run state on the doorstep of the United States and defied U.S. efforts to topple him, died aged 90 on Nov. 25 last year. The Cold War icon had already been largely out of public view for around a decade, having formally ceded the presidency to his younger brother, Raul Castro, in 2008 due to ill health. Cubans say his death changed little on the island. The pace of reforms instigated by Raul to update the Soviet-style command economy has continued as hesitantly as before. Cuba s relationship with the United States, meanwhile, has actually worsened due to U.S. President Donald Trump s more hostile stance. More significant politically, analysts say, will be the electoral cycle that starts Sunday with a municipal vote and will end with the selection of a new president in late February. Raul, 86, has said he would step down at the end of his two consecutive terms. The transition is expected to be gradual as Raul will remain head of the Communist Party. It comes, however, as the country faces a tricky time with a decline in aid from ally Venezuela, weaker exports and a resulting cash crunch. Not even we know what our future will be, said Ariadna Valdivia, 45, a high school teacher. Raul is ending his term in 2018, Fidel is already history, and I don t really see any way of improving things. Salaries are the same, food is always getting more expensive and now we have Trump tightening the embargo. By the time of his death, Castro had been out of the public limelight since an intestinal ailment nearly killed him in 2006, occasionally writing columns and receiving foreign dignitaries at his home. His death last year plunged Cuba into nine days of national mourning. A funeral cortege carried his ashes on a three-day journey from Havana to his final resting place in the east of the island, where he had launched the Cuban revolution. I am Fidel became a nationwide chant, as many Cubans pledged to stay faithful to the revolution he led that in 1959 overthrew a U.S.-backed dictator. He was the best we ve had as a leader, said Rene Perez, a Havana taxi driver, echoing the feelings of many Cubans who miss Fidel s leadership, especially at times of crisis. Raul did not appear in public after Hurricane Irma thrashed the island in September. In keeping with his wishes to avoid a personality cult, no statues have been made of Fidel or public places named after him in Cuba. Even his tomb is a sober affair, a large granite boulder in Santiago de Cuba s Santa Ifigenia Cemetery with a plaque simply reading Fidel. Galas and vigils in honor of Fidel will be held around the country this week, according to state-run media. Cultural institutions like the national ballet are dedicating their shows to his memory, and state television is running archived footage on a loop. The municipal vote on Sunday, the only part of the electoral process with direct participation by ordinary Cubans, is being cast in state media as a show of support for his ideas. Posters of Fidel hung at assemblies where neighborhoods nominated candidates over the last two months. It will be followed by provincial and national assembly elections in which candidates are selected from slates by commissions. The new National Assembly will then in late February select a successor to Castro, widely expected to be First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel. Eduardo Torres, the director of Cuba s National Library, said there were several politicians well placed to become president but there would never be another Fidel and the country faced a generational transition. Raul had the weight of the historic generation, said Torres. When he leaves, it is another generation and another history we will start to build. | 1 |
4,955 | Ninety-Year-Old Senator Finds Love Again, This Time With A Man | On Saturday, former Pennsylvania senator Harris Wofford, now 90, announced his engagement in a touching op-ed, published by the New York Times.In his younger days, Mr. Wofford served as special assistant for civil rights to President John F. Kennedy and adviser to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.He was married to his wife Clare for 48 years.In his op-ed, Wofford writes: Clare and I fell in love trying to save the world during World War II. He goes on to say that the couple s romance and adventure continued through the decades. They raised three children, and he states that she was the heart of their family. He writes:When I told her, You re my best friend, she would reply, and your best critic. And when I said, You re my best critic, she responded, and your best friend. She died 20 years ago, as they were both nearing their 70th birthdays.He says:I assumed that I was too old to seek or expect another romance.But five years later, Mr. Wofford would find love again.In writing about the moment he met his future spouse, he describes the scene in this way:It was afternoon, and the tanning beachgoers faced west, toward the wall of concrete buildings lining the boulevard, to catch the sun, ignoring the beautiful sea. I swam alone in the water, attracting the attention of two bystanders near the shore. They came over to say hello, which is how I met Matthew Charlton.He says his second love is someone whose inquisitive and thoughtful manner and charm struck him right away. They became fast friends and travelled together often.It was three years before the former senator found the nerve to tell his children about the romance. In time, he says, they welcomed him into the family.Now, 15 years later, the couple is planning to celebrate their marriage on April 30.He writes:Twice in my life, I ve felt the pull of such passionate preference. At age 90, I am lucky to be in an era where the Supreme Court has strengthened what President Obama calls the dignity of marriage by recognizing that matrimony is not based on anyone s sexual nature, choices or dreams. It is based on love.The former senator speaks from the heart when he says: It is right to expand our conception of marriage to include all Americans who love each other. Image credit: Why Tuesday via Flckr cc 2.0 | 0 |
4,956 | EU's Tusk says agreed with U.S. Pence on need for close ties | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Council President Donald Tusk said on Monday that U.S. Vice President Mike Pence agreed with him on the need to preserve close cooperation between the United States and Europe, including Washington’s support for NATO and a united Europe. “After such a positive declaration, both the Europeans and the Americans must simply practice what they preach,” Tusk said after hosting Pence in Brussels.[nL8N1G51L3] | 1 |
4,957 | Slovakia delays decision to replace Russian fighter jets | BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Slovakia will postpone a planned fighter jet purchase pending a broader upgrade of its armed forces, the defense minister said on Wednesday, following warnings that such a move could prolong its dependence on Russia. The central European NATO member state has been in talks with several firms about replacing its aging Russian-made MiG-29s. Peter Gajdos mentioned U.S. F-16 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin and Gripen jets made by Sweden s Saab as options. Neighboring Hungary and the Czech Republic already operate the latter. Slovakia was expected to make decision by the end of this month, but Gajdos said this would be delayed. We need to modernize the ground forces which are the backbone of our military. While we have been replacing some parts of the air force, the ground forces have not been renewed for decades, he said. Slovakia is due to spend about 6.5 billion euros ($7.80 billion) by 2030 to modernize its army, the defense ministry said in a strategy document, released last week and to be debated in the first half of 2018. Its spending on defense is due to rise from 1.1 percent of GDP to 1.6 percent in 2020 and 2.0 percent by 2024. Prime Minister Robert Fico said last month Slovakia should pick European solutions for the army if it wanted to be part of a more deeply integrated core European Union. Gajdos, from the nationalist, eurosceptic SNS party that forms part of the governing coalition, has faced criticism from both its partners Fico s leftist Smer and the centrist Most party that delays in closing the fighter deal could prolong Slovakia s dependence on Russia. If the finance ministry and government earmark money for all projects, we are ready to finalize the ongoing negotiations and close the deal on new jets, Gajdos said. In 2015, Slovakia made a deal to buy nine U.S.-made Black Hawk helicopters to replace its Russian Mi-17 fleet, and signed with Italy s Alenia Aermacchi for two Spartan C-27J transport aircraft to replace Russian Antonovs the year before. The government already approved a plan to spend 1.2 billion euros ($1.44 billion) to replace its outdated armored personnel carriers in May. Slovakia has a maintenance contract with Russia for its 12 MiG-29s until autumn 2019. If it does not order new jets soon it would need to prolong that, as they would typically take 18-24 months to deliver. Prolongation of the Mig-29s contract is the plan B, the plan A is the purchase of new jets. I won t accept any other than a pro-European and pro-Atlantic solution (for their replacement), Gajdos said. | 1 |
4,958 | Republican Trashes Senate’s Health Care Bill, Accuses Them Of ‘Trying To Hide Something’ (VIDEO) | The Senate Republicans have attracted loads of criticism and backlash for being super shady and secretive while creating their latest version of the American Health Care Act and rightfully so. This has taken place behind closed doors, with very little information being let out to the American public. Luckily, some GOPers are taking a stand against it.Rep. Pete King (R-NY) didn t mince his words as he railed against his fellow conservative lawmakers. In an interview with Long Island radio host Jay Oliver earlier today, King went off on Senate Republicans and accused them of trying to hide something in a blistering rant. King said: Listen, there has to be private meetings all the time, but I think there should be more public debate on it. It looks like they re trying to hide something and it does add to conspiracy theories and everything else. Oliver suggested that the secrecy of the Republican Party over this made it look like Senate GOPers were trying to do something underhanded, and King couldn t agree more. Proving that there are some Republicans who actually do have spines, King said: This looks too secretive. It s going to put a cloud over the whole final product Keeping America and other politicians in the dark is a bad move for Senate Republicans, and will likely result in failure. Many Democrats and GOPers are highly concerned about what s being done in these Senate meetings, and many are openly condemning the drafting process. You can listen to King trash the Senate below:King has spoken his mind before, many times against his own party. King trashed the GOP a second time today when it came to the victory of Karen Handel last night in Georgia s special election. While many GOPers were celebrating, King criticized Trump for his Twitter behavior, and told the tweet-happy POTUS don t bother tweeting. Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images | 0 |
4,959 | Trump meets with leaders of building, sheet metal unions | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump met Monday at the White House with leaders of construction, carpenters, plumbers and sheet metal unions, the White House said. According to the White House, participants included North America’s Building Trades Unions President Sean McGarvey, Laborers’ International Union of North America President Terry O’Sullivan, SMART sheet metal workers’ union President Joseph Sellers, United Brotherhood of Carpenters President Doug McCarron and Mark McManus, president of the United Association that represents plumbers, pipefitters, welders and others. The union meeting also included several local union officials and follows a gathering of 12 chief executives of large companies at the White House to discuss revitalizing the U.S. manufacturing economy. Earlier this month, Trump held separate meetings with Teamsters President Jim Hoffa and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka in New York. On Monday, Trump signed an order to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, a deal that was harshly criticized by organized labor. “This is a group I know well,” Trump said at the meeting with union members, noting as a businessman he hired thousands of union workers for construction projects. Not all major unions were invited to Monday’s event. A spokesman for the United Steelworkers union, Wayne Ranick, said the union was not invited. “We are always interested in such discussions given that 100,000s of our members work in manufacturing and (are) affected by trade,” he said in an email. Trump sparred with a local steelworkers union president Chuck Jones in December over the number of jobs United Technologies Corp agreed to save at a Carrier plant in Indiana. Nearly all major unions endorsed Trump’s rival, Hillary Clinton, during the presidential election campaign. During the campaign, Trump appealed to blue collar workers in Midwestern states vowing to bring jobs back from Mexico, which helped him win crucial states like Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. A CNN exit poll said Trump carried 42 percent of voters in union households compared with 51 percent for Clinton. He did far better among union members than Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney did in 2012. | 1 |
4,960 | Republican tax code revamp hits House budget obstacle | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican efforts to overhaul the U.S. tax code have hit a snag in the House of Representatives, where infighting over spending cuts is delaying adoption of a legislative tool they need to move a tax bill forward. The House Budget Committee canceled plans to send a budget resolution for fiscal 2018 to the floor this week, lawmakers said on Tuesday, as conservative Republicans pushed to add hundreds of billions of dollars in mandatory spending cuts to the blueprint. House and Senate passage of a budget resolution is vital to President Donald Trump’s pledge to deliver on tax reform this year because the document would free Republicans to circumvent Democratic opposition in the Senate. But the push to cut programs including Medicaid and food stamps, which benefit the poor, could lead to a stalemate. Trump administration officials and Republican leaders in Congress are working separately to agree on a tax bill that can be unveiled in September. “No budget, no tax reform,” said Representative Mark Walker, who chairs the Republican Study Committee, a group of more than 150 conservative lawmakers. “That’s why there should be a sense of urgency to get this done pretty quick.” Their aim is to cut mandatory programs that are required by law and viewed as principle drivers of deficit spending. The result could be legislation containing lower taxes for the wealthy and corporations alongside reduced benefits for the poor. Lawmakers say there is Republican agreement on topline discretionary spending levels of $621.5 billion for defense and $511 billion for non-defense programs. Representative Jim Jordan, a leading member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, is pushing to cut as much as $400 billion over a decade from a range of programs that benefit the poor. Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows said he wanted another $295 billion in cuts on top of that. “It has to be linked to tax reform, because we believe tax reform is going to happen,” Jordan said in an interview. The budget committee canceled its plans this week after the chairmen of several other panels pushed back against efforts to include $250 billion in spending cuts. “The end game is to get a budget out of the committee,” House Budget Committee Chairwoman Diane Black told reporters. “I do see a viable path. And I am going to continue to push.” | 1 |
4,961 | Israeli kibbutz can 'feel the Bern' of forgotten volunteer Sanders | KIBBUTZ SHAAR HAAMAKIM, Israel (Reuters) - An Israeli kibbutz is taking considerable pride in a former volunteer, U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, even though no one on the communal farm can quite remember him. In 1990 Sanders, then running for Congress, told Israel’s Haaretz newspaper he had volunteered for several months as a young man at Kibbutz Shaar Haamakim, a community with deep socialist roots on the edge of the Biblical Jezreel Valley in northern Israel. Sanders, 74, has mentioned in the past that he once worked on a kibbutz, but its name remained a mystery until Haaretz republished its interview with him earlier this month. There are no records at Shaar Haamakim of Sanders’ stint in 1963 and none of its veteran members can say for sure they ever met him. That hasn’t stopped journalists from streaming into the community to try to dig for details about Sanders’ experience at the kibbutz, where the Brooklyn-born Vermont senator, who is Jewish, is now the talk of the farm. “The fact that Bernie Sanders’ name was linked with Kibbutz Shaar Haamakim is a big honor for the kibbutz,” said its chairman Yair Merom. “The values that Bernie Sanders speaks about and his ideology in the presidential race - the modern social democratic values - are incredibly compatible with Kibbutz Shaar Haamakim.” Kibbutz elder Albert Ely, 79, told Reuters he couldn’t put a face to the name but he remembered that “an American called Bernard” had once been a volunteer. “Everybody mentions it. Now that the election campaign began, there is great happiness in the entire kibbutz,” said Gilad Hershkikovich, who tends to its cows. “I’m sure he had a good time here.” (Reporting by Elana Ringler; Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Tom Heneghan) SAP is the sponsor of this content. It was independently created by Reuters’ editorial staff and funded in part by SAP, which otherwise has no role in this coverage. | 1 |
4,962 | Islamic State claims responsibility for attack southeast of Baghdad: Amaq | CAIRO (Reuters) - Islamic State claimed responsibility for a suicide attack that took place on Monday targeting the Nahrawan area southeast of Baghdad, the group s Amaq news agency said. The Sunni militant group said it had killed 35 members of Shi ite paramilitaries known as Popular Mobilisation Forces but the Interior Ministry had earlier said the attack targeted civilians and did not provide official casualty figures. | 1 |
4,963 | Senate takes step toward passage of tax bill, vote likely this week | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Wednesday took a step toward passage of tax legislation that is a top White House priority, setting up a likely decisive vote later this week even though it was unclear if the bill had enough Republican support to become law.Republicans spent the day scrambling to reformulate the bill, which aims to cut taxes on corporations, other businesses and many individuals and families, to satisfy lawmakers worried about how much it would balloon the U.S. budget deficit. Stocks rallied on optimism it could pass, but obstacles remained, including attempts to address the estimated $1.4 trillion that the bill would add to the United States’ $20 trillion national debt over 10 years. Lawmakers voted 52-48 to begin formal debate, a step that could lead on Thursday and Friday to a full vote on the bill. Republicans are eager to pass the legislation, wanting something to show for their control of the White House and both houses of Congress. Republicans have a 52-48 majority in the 100-member Senate, giving them enough votes to approve the bill if they can hold together. Without Democratic support, Republicans can afford to lose no more than two of their own votes. President Donald Trump in a speech in Missouri on Wednesday, implored members of his own party to get behind the effort, which would be his first significant legislative achievement since taking office in January. “A vote to cut taxes is a vote to put America first again,” Trump said, adding the bill could “cost me a fortune” and that his wealthy friends were not happy. “My accountants are going crazy right now. It’s all right. Hey look, I am president, I don’t care. I don’t care anymore.” Democrats say the tax cuts are a giveaway to corporations and the wealthy at the expense of working Americans. Some Democrats have said Trump and his children would gain from the bill, which would repeal the estate tax on inherited wealth. Among Americans aware of the Republican tax plan, 49 percent said they were opposed, up from 41 percent in October, according to a Nov. 23-27 Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday. The latest online poll of 1,257 adults found 29 percent supporting the plan and 22 percent saying they “don’t know.” The sweeping tax package was developed over several months behind closed doors by a small group of senior congressional and Trump administration figures, with little input from many Republican lawmakers and no involvement from Democrats. A major sticking point in the Senate is how the bill deals with the federal deficit and the national debt. Senator Bob Corker, one of the few remaining fiscal hawks in the Republican Party, wants to add a tax snap-back provision to the bill that would raise taxes automatically if economic growth targets are not hit in the future to offset a higher deficit. That trigger proposal has become a target of growing criticism among conservative Republicans and lobbyists, including interest groups aligned with the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, who say the prospect of tax hikes could undermine future economic growth. “I’d prefer not having it there. We’re probably going to have one. But I’d prefer not having it,” Republican Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch told reporters. Republican Senator David Perdue, a businessman from Georgia, said lawmakers could find common ground on a measure that delays any tax hike for at least five years and spreads the prospective burden among those who benefit from Republican tax cuts. Senator Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican on the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, suggested such an approach may be gaining ground. “It looks like the idea is part way through the first 10 years, there’d be an opportunity to see if the economic growth numbers are performing as expected. And if not, there would be a trigger mechanism over a 10-year period,” Portman said. Democrats and independents were trying to persuade nonpartisan Senate officials to disqualify parts of the bill, including one to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as impermissible under Senate rules, an aide said. While some Republicans signaled determination to get the bill passed, they still did not have the votes. “It’s time for us to saddle up and ride. And I’m ready to go,” Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana told reporters. Corker declined to say whether he would vote for the tax bill even if Senate Republican leaders agree to the kind of trigger mechanism he wants. “I don’t do conjecture,” he told reporters, saying he could have other concerns about the final legislation. “There are also qualitative issues like the bill not getting any worse, that it doesn’t get more expensive.” | 1 |
4,964 | Myanmar faces 'defining moment', must stop the violence: U.S. | LONDON (Reuters) - Myanmar is facing a defining moment and must stop the violence against its ethnic minority Rohingya population, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Thursday. Attacks by Rohingya militants on security posts last month triggered an army operation that has killed more than 400 people, destroyed over 6,800 houses and sent nearly 400,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh. On a visit to London where he met British Prime Minister Theresa May and foreign minister, Boris Johnson, he told a news conference: I think it is a defining moment in many ways for this new, emerging democracy. He said he understood that Myanmar s Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel prize laureate and de facto head of the government in Myanmar, was in a power-sharing agreement with the military and the complex situation in which she found herself. I think it is important that the global community speak out in support of what we all know the expectation is for the treatment of people regardless of their ethnicity, he added. This violence must stop, this persecution must stop. | 1 |
4,965 | Donald Trump Storms Glenn Beck’s Ted Cruz Rally Live On-Air And Shuts It Down (VIDEO/TWEETS) | Awkward does not even come close to describing how cringeworthy and weird things got in Nevada on Tuesday night. As Glenn Beck was merrily rallying Republicans in the name of Ted Cruz, competitor Donald Trump gatecrashed the event and proceeded to give an impromptu speech to the assembled audience. Seemingly unwilling to be outmaneuvered by the Cruz camp as Ben Carson was in Iowa, Trump decided to take his war to the Ted Cruz camp in person. First, the hate-tweets there was a Twitter tirade in the run-up to the event.Ted Cruz only talks tough on immigration now because he did so badly in S.C. He is in favor of amnesty and weak on illegal immigration. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 23, 2016Wow was Ted Cruz disloyal to his very capable director of communication. He used him as a scape goat-fired like a dog! Ted panicked. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 23, 2016Ted Cruz does not have the right "temperment" to be President. Look at the way he totally panicked in firing his director of comm. BAD! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 23, 2016Ted Cruz lifts the Bible high into the air and then lies like a dog-over and over again! The Evangelicals in S.C. figured him out & said no! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 23, 2016Then, came the in-person assault.Conservative pundit Beck was literally on stage, making his case to vote Cruz before a large crowd, when Trump stormed the hall. Trump, flanked by security, was immediately mobbed by the GOP fans in the room. He then picked up a microphone and began his own impromptu speech, cutting Beck dead.The crowd seemed all-too-happy to have their Cruz-fest interrupted by the GOP favorite, gathering tightly around the candidate and cheering in response to his weird and creepy speech.MSNBC happened to be broadcasting live at the Palo Verde High School in Summerlin, and was able to capture the bizarre scenes in full.Beck stood in silence on the stage, looking on helplessly as his event was overtaken by Trump, who told crowds: We are going to have hopefully a historic night, I appreciate everybody being here. I wanted to be here myself and say a few words. Get over there and vote! Make America great again! Trump went on to win Nevada by a landslide, with Marco Rubio narrowly pushing Ted Cruz into third place.He won a massive 45.9% of the vote, knocking Marco Rubio into 2nd place with just 23.9%, and Cruz in 3rd on 21.4%. It appears that the Trump campaign is unassailable at this point, although a week is a long time in U.S. politics.Awkward.Featured image via Screengrab | 0 |
4,966 | The Vacationer-In-Chief Was Asked To Grade His First Month In Office, And It’s RIDICULOUS | Amateur president Donald Trump s first thirty days in office have been chaotic, ill-prepared and downright embarrassing. A list of polls released this past week shows a mostly negative view of Trump s behavior as an alleged president so far, and given his actions, it s only going to get worse. One poll shows that a majority of Americans are embarrassed by Trump s behavior. Another poll by Quinnipiac University found a majority of voters say that he does not act level-headed. Still, Trump thinks he s doing a fantastic job.When he was asked how he would grade his administration through its first four-plus weeks, Trump suggested that he has been a high achiever. The former reality show star-turned-alleged president said he would give himself an A for effort and achievement, but just a C or a C+ on his ability to communicate his successes to the American people, according to Politico. In terms of achievement, I think I d give myself an A. Because I think I ve done great things I and my people, but I don t think we ve explained it well enough to the American public, Trump said in an interview on Fox and Friends Tuesday. I think I give myself an A in terms of what I ve actually done, Trump added.But Trump seemed to think he s just been an average messenger. In terms of messaging, I would give myself a C or a C+, he said.Trump also gave himself an A+ for effort. But results are more important (than effort), he added.As for the protests that have erupted nationwide, Trump blamed hurt feelings from the results of the 2016 presidential election. Trump added that he intends to bring the country together. The way you do that is through success, he said, vowing to boost jobs and replace the Affordable Care Act.About Obamacare: Angry constituents have shown up at town hall meetings across the country. When you take someone s healthcare away, they re not happy and it s not a unifying moment. The GOP replacement is so bad that even the number three Republican in the House vowed not to sign off on it. Trump may indeed be bringing the country together against him. And for the fake president who vowed to work hard and never vacation as president, he has taken weekends off and repeatedly gone golfing. On weekends, he hangs out at his Mar-a-Lago resort surrounded by his rich guests.According to the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, former President Barack Obama s travel costs during his eight years in office totaled about $97 million. If Trump maintains his current pace, he ll outspend Obama in less than one year. After winning the election, Trump went on a thank you tour, then held a rally in Florida.We ll leave you with this 2011 tweet of Trump s criticizing President Obama.Why is @BarackObama always campaigning or on vacation? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 17, 2011Featured image by Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images. | 0 |
4,967 | City Of Detroit Begins Punishing Poor People For Being Poor In The Most Inhumane Way (VIDEO) | Imagine your child was playing outside, runs into the house for a drink, turns on the tap and nothing comes out. Your baby is standing there sweating and thirsty all because the city you live in has decided that your family deserved to be punished for being poor and shut your water off. When you realize what has happened, you send your child to your neighbor s house to get a glass of water there, but their water has been shut off too, and thousands of other people in the city are facing the same dilemma. Elderly people, families with children, young couples, students, all without water that s what s happening in Detroit, Michigan.Roughly 20,000 people are in danger of having their water turned off today, according to Detroit s ABC 7 News:The water is still on for Detroit residents behind on their bills, but not for long. Detroit Water and Sewerage announced they re shutting off service to those who owe them payments. About 20,000 people could see their water shut off, starting May 3rd at 8 a.m.Since 2014, the people of one of the poorest cities in the country have been fighting to keep their water on. The Detroit Water Crisis is so bad that experts from the United Nations have accused the city of violating human rights. In June 2014, the group put out a press release saying: Disconnection of water services because of failure to pay due to lack of means constitutes a violation of the human right to water and other international human rights Disconnections due to non-payment are only permissible if it can be shown that the resident is able to pay but is not paying. In other words, when there is genuine inability to pay, human rights simply forbids disconnections. Nearly two years later the fight over water is still going on and city officials are claiming that they don t want to turn the services off, but they have to if residents do not ask to be put on payment plans. Detroit Water and Sewerage Director Gary Brown said, We don t want to shut anyone s water off. Come in, ask for assistance, get on a payment plan. Residents who have bills of up to $700 will have the balance frozen and be allowed to pay $25 a month.While it may seem like a sweet payment plan, clearly it is not working. In the two years since the city started to aggressively target residents who could not pay, they still have thousands of residents in the same situation. These are not people who are refusing to pay their water bills because they want to go out and party; these are people who live in extreme poverty the likes of which should not exist in this country.It is incredibly inhumane for the city to do this. Water is a right, not a luxury and it should NEVER be shut off because someone cannot afford to pay. But capitalism isn t it great?For more on Detroit s water wars, watch this video:Featured image via Bill Pugliano/Getty Images | 0 |
4,968 | A&E Cancels KKK Documentary After It’s Revealed Producers PAID Racists To Be In It | A&E decided to just scrap its previously upcoming documentary series Escaping the KKK once called the more friendly Generation KKK before the avalanche of complaints after learning that the Klansmen and women in question were paid to take part in it.In a statement released Saturday, the network announced the cancellation the final leg of a shameful journey of backtracking that has accompanied the show, which claimed to offer an unprecedented look inside the Ku Klux Klan comes following a discovery that the producers made nominal cash payments to participants. Our goal with this series has always been to expose and combat racism and hatred in all its forms, the network said. However, A&E learned last night from the third-party producers who made the documentary that cash payments which we currently understand to be nominal were made in the field to some participants in order to facilitate access. Apparently, A&E could handle the shame of a docuseries attempting to normalize the Klan, but not actually paying them. The network says it stands by the show s content, which allegedly showed the struggles with the internal families of the Klan, but the cash payments violated company policy: While we stand behind the intent of the series and the seriousness of the content, these payments are a direct violation of A&E s policies and practices for a documentary. We had previously provided assurances to the public and to our core partners including the Anti-Defamation League and Color of Change that no payment was made to hate group members, and we believed that to be the case at the time. We have now decided not to move forward with airing this project. Network vice president Robert Sharenow lashed out at America for making the network s awesome KKK series go away, reminding everyone that it doesn t erase the hate and throwing out the obligatory we don t endorse the hate group we were promoting by giving them a platform message: A&E takes the authenticity of its documentary programming and the subject of racism, hatred and violence very seriously. Just because this particular show goes away, the issues of hate in America do not. We will still seek to fight hate in America through on-air programming including town halls and documentary programs produced in partnership with civil rights organizations, as well as continue to work with the civil rights community to facilitate a deeper dialogue on ending hate through comprehensive educational and outreach campaigns. This isn t the first time A&E has given voice to hateful and deranged people. The network previously played host to Duck Dynasty, whose patriarch regularly spouts hate speech masked by his religion, and numerous shows that featured child molesters and alleged child molesters. While they have backpedaled a lot first changing the name of the show in response to backlash and ultimately canceling it for the cash payments it is probably unwise to cut them any slack here based on their history.The show was set to premier on January 10, just in time to accompany the beginning of Donald Trump s presidency.Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
4,969 | Republican West Virginia Lawmaker Wants You To Know His ‘N*****’ Tweet Wasn’t Racist (VIDEO) | Whenever Republicans dredge up a certain specious quote from former President Lyndon Johnson about n*ggers, I am reminded of my grandmother.My grandmother didn t like black people much at all. Living next door to her and conversing regularly, I heard more slurs than one would typically hear at a Tea Party convention devoted to discourse on race relations. In fact, when a Republican says that blacks are the real racists or tells us what he or she thinks about negroes, it reminds me of my childhood and not in a good way.Apart from that, she was a sweet, kind woman who genuinely cared about others enough so that her personal prejudices rarely (if ever) impacted her interactions with others. My mother, though her demeanor has changed over time, was also not too fond of African-Americans when I was younger. When I was 15 or 16, I was dating an African-American girl. She was intelligent, caring, and probably one of the better people I have had the pleasure to know. However, her skin was darker, so my mother disapproved heavily.After meeting the girl, we ll call her Samantha, once, my mom knew what she had to do to protect her son from the risk of race-mixing (which, at the time, she was against, for the good of the child ). I was not permitted to leave the vicinity of my house because I might visit her. I was not allowed to go out with friends because she might meet me wherever I wanted to go at any given time. I was a prisoner.Despite my grandmother s pretty open racism, she had a huge problem with my mother s actions. While she personally had a low opinion of people because of their skin color, she also recognized one great truth: It doesn t matter how she or anyone else feels, because everyone deserves to be treated equally. After learning of my mother s decision to effectively imprison me around my home because disagreed with the skin color rather than the character of the person I was dating, my grandmother pulled me aside and said something that was equally heartwarming and offensive to me: I want you to know that no matter what your mother says, there is nothing wrong with you dating that n*gger girl. She s nice and sweet. You tell me any time you want to see her and I ll make it happen because it ain t right that your mom won t let you be with who you want. And so it went for months. Any time my parents left the house, my grandmother would take me to pick Samantha, and she would go over an escape plan if they returned home prematurely. Despite her prejudices, she was always kind to Samantha. In fact, those interactions changed her opinions somewhat. She stopped being a n*gger. She became a person in my grandmother s eyes. She became human. Actually getting to know someone can have that impact. At first, she was one of the good ones, but eventually race stopped being a factor altogether as my grandmother learned that people are just people, regardless of skin color.People could offer a number of defenses for how she felt the majority of her life: she was a product of her time or she didn t know any better. I won t do that. At any point in our nation s history, there has been someone strong enough to fight for what is right, to take a stand against such horrific classifications of people. My grandmother was not one of them, but despite this she was also outspoken about equal rights (though a slur was usually included in the discussion). She genuinely believed that her own prejudices (which she admitted even early on might be wrong ) should have no bearing on how society as a whole treats people just like Lyndon Johnson.At first glance, Johnson would fit right in at a Trump rally. In April 2014, MSNBC s Adam Serwer noted that the former President was practically a connoisseur of the n-word. There is absolutely no question that Johnson was a massive racist, but he was also a huge proponent of the Civil Rights Act, which he lovingly called the n*gger bill. Serwer writes:Then in 1957, Johnson would help get the nigger bill passed, known to most as the Civil Rights Act of 1957. With the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the segregationists would go to their graves knowing the cause they d given their lives to had been betrayed, Frank Underwood style, by a man they believed to be one of their own. When Caro asked segregationist Georgia Democrat Herman Talmadge how he felt when Johnson, signing the Civil Rights Act, said we shall overcome, Talmadge said sick. The Civil Rights Act made it possible for Johnson to smash Jim Crow. The Voting Rights Act made the U.S. government accountable to its black citizens and a true democracy for the first time. Johnson lifted racist immigration restrictions designed to preserve a white majority and by extension white supremacy. He forced FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, then more concerned with communists and civil rights activists, to turn his attention to crushing the Ku Klux Klan. Though the Fair Housing Act never fulfilled its promise to end residential segregation, it was another part of a massive effort to live up to the ideals America s founders only halfheartedly believed in a record surpassed only by Abraham Lincoln.Ihle is under fire for jumping on the opportunity to use the word n*gger in a context he assumed was safe.The remark was in response to a thread about food stamps the sort of free stuff the right often claims Democrats use to get black votes. The implication, of course, is that black people only want free stuff. While Ihle used the quote in furtherance of racist bullsh*t, something we can expect from pretty much any Republican at any time, he defends his uncensored use of the n-word, claiming the tweet is being is taken out of context (you know, just like he used the quote without providing context). That kind of racism needs to be rooted out of society and shining a light on it is an effective way to do so, Ihle told WCHS. He says that he was simply stating a historical truth and that he will not be taking the tweet down. He did not address the fact that there is little evidence that Johnson even said the words he quoted.While Ihle doesn t see a problem with his n*gger tweet, pretty much everyone else does: Johnson was a racist, but he was a racist (just like my grandmother) who believed society s attitudes, including his own, needed to change. Johnson recognized that he irrationally hated the very same people whose rights he fought for. It is not just Negroes but all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry, he said of the plight of African-Americans. Undoubtedly, he included himself in that assessment.The first step toward change is self-awareness. Johnson knew enough to know he was a racist something of which Ihle seems incapable.Watch him defend his remarks below:Featured image via screen grab | 0 |
4,970 | Clinton seeks to keep Trump on defensive after presidential debate | RALEIGH, N.C. (Reuters) - Democrat Hillary Clinton sought on Tuesday to keep Republican rival Donald Trump on the defensive a day after their first U.S. presidential debate with accusations he is a sexist, racist and tax dodger, while Trump suggested he would “hit her harder” next time by bringing up her husband’s infidelity. While the New York real estate mogul found himself in another controversy over his fresh insults about the weight of a former beauty pageant winner, Clinton tried to keep up the momentum after her forceful debate performance. She told reporters that during the debate, Trump “was making charges and claims that were demonstrably untrue, offering opinions that I think a lot of people would find offensive and off-putting.” For his part, Trump, speaking at a rally in the battleground state of Florida on Tuesday, said of the debate: “On issue after issue, Secretary Clinton defended the terrible status quo – while I laid out our plan to bring jobs, security and prosperity back to the American people.” Monday night’s face-off between Clinton, with decades of experience in public life, and Trump, famous as a television personality but running for office for the first time, attracted a record audience for a U.S. presidential debate. Nielsen data showed 84 million people watched the debate on U.S. television, topping the 80.6 million viewers for the Jimmy Carter-Ronald Reagan TV presidential debate in 1980. Trump praised himself for not attacking Clinton during the debate about the marital infidelity of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, but said he may take up the attack line going forward. There are two more debates scheduled, on Oct. 9 in St. Louis and Oct. 19 in Las Vegas, ahead of the Nov. 8 election. “I may hit her harder in certain ways. I really eased up because I didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings,” Trump said in an interview on the Fox News program “Fox & Friends.” He added that when Clinton criticized him for his treatment of women, he held back, saying: “I was going to hit her with her husband’s women. And I decided I shouldn’t do it because her daughter was in the room.” Clinton brushed off Trump’s vow, saying: “He can run his campaign however he chooses.” She added that “the real point is about temperament and fitness and qualification to hold the most important, hardest job in the world.” Trump himself was still married to his first wife, Ivana Trump, when he had a high-profile affair with Marla Maples, who became his second wife. He eventually divorced Maples and married his third and current wife, Melania Trump. In the interview with Fox News, Trump sought to deflect criticism of his debate performance, saying the debate moderator, Lester Holt of NBC News, asked him “very unfair questions” and that he was given a “very bad” microphone. “I don’t want to believe in conspiracy theories, of course, but it was much lower than hers and it was crackling,” Trump said of the microphone. Clinton, speaking to reporters on her campaign plane, said: “Anyone who complains about the microphone is not having a good night.” Clinton, 68, excoriated Trump, 70, during the debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, for having called women “pigs, slobs and dogs.” But Trump leveled new and highly personal criticism on Tuesday toward Venezuelan-born beauty queen Alicia Machado, who won the 1996 Miss Universe title and is now a U.S. citizen. “She was the winner and she gained a massive amount of weight,” said Trump, the former owner of the Miss Universe pageants. “And it was a real problem. We had a real problem. Not only that - her attitude - and we had a real problem with her.” Clinton, the first woman to win the presidential nomination of a major U.S. political party, seemed to pique Trump when she brought up during the debate how Trump had insulted women, mentioning Machado by name. Clinton said Trump called her “Miss Piggy” and also “Miss Housekeeping” because she was a Latina. Clinton, a former U.S. senator and secretary of state, stepped up her criticism of Trump for refusing to release his tax returns, as presidential candidates have done for decades, and for saying during the debate that not paying federal income tax “makes me smart.” “He actually bragged about gaming the system to get out of paying his fair share of taxes. In fact, I think there’s a strong probability he hasn’t paid federal taxes a lot of years,” she said at a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, a pivotal state in the election. “He probably hasn’t paid a penny to support our troops or our vets or our schools or our healthcare system.” Trump held a campaign event in Miami’s Little Havana, aiming to shore up support among Hispanic voters. His campaign said on Tuesday it had raised more than $18 million since the debate. Trump earlier complained that issues from Clinton’s 2009-2013 tenure as secretary of state were not addressed on Monday night, including topics such as her use of a private computer server for government emails, the deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya, and the Clinton Foundation charity. In one of their more heated exchanges, Clinton accused Trump of promulgating a “racist lie” by questioning the citizenship of Barack Obama, the first black U.S. president, saying he was not born in the United States. Obama lent his support again to Clinton’s bid to become his successor, tweeting on Tuesday: “Couldn’t be more proud of @HillaryClinton. Her vision and command during last night’s debate showed that she’s ready to be our next @POTUS.” The Washington Post, citing a Clinton campaign source, reported she would be endorsed by John Warner, a former Republican U.S. senator from Virginia and Navy secretary, who the newspaper said would appear at an event in Virginia on Wednesday with Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine. The Arizona Republic’s editorial board also endorsed Clinton, the first time in the newspaper’s 126-year history it has backed a Democrat for president. | 1 |
4,971 | Trump’s Friend Snaps Pic With Guy Holding ‘Nuclear Football’ And Identifies Him On Facebook (SCREENSHOTS) | One of the guests at what Trump calls the Winter White House his private business in Florida really got to feel the privilege associated with being able to drop $200,000 on a membership fee to gain access to the President on Saturday. Guests were treated to quite a bit of excitement when a call came in that North Korea had launched a missile and Trump read over confidential documents in full view of everyone as his white supremacist staffers held their cell phones flashlights on it so he could see properly at the dinner table.Richard DeAgazio, one of the rich guests who somehow gets access to the President simply by paying him money, posted about watching Trump deal with the North Korea news complete with photos of Trump reviewing information that is supposed to be secure.But that s not all DeAgazio posted! He also snapped a photo with the guy whose job it is to carry the nuclear football. Now the existence of the football is, of course, not a national secret. Hillary Clinton, for example, warned us that it is dangerous to place something so dangerous in Donald Trump s care. But DeAgazio made sure our enemies know who has it, what he looks like, and what his name is. This is Rick He carries the football The nuclear football (also known as the atomic football, the President s emergency satchel, the Presidential Emergency Satchel, the button, the black box, or just the football) is a briefcase, the contents of which are to be used by the President of the United States to authorize a nuclear attack while away from fixed command centers, such as the White House Situation Room, he posted on Facebook along with a photo of Rick, whom he says is the Man. All it costs is $200,000 and literally anyone is able to get within inches of access to our nuclear secrets an interesting fact given The Donald s constant stream of attacks on Hillary Clinton simply for using a private email server. This, of course, is a small matter when compared to Trump s friends exposing details related to our national secrets on social media in real time.I never want to hear about emails again. On the plus, we finally figured out what it takes for one of Trump s rich white buddies to be willing to touch a black man.Featured image via Facebook | 0 |
4,972 | U.S. Navy plane crashes in Philippine Sea, three missing | TOKYO (Reuters) - A U.S. Navy transport plane carrying 11 people crashed in the Philippine Sea south of Japan on Wednesday as it flew to the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan and three people were missing, in the latest Navy accident in the region. Eight other people were rescued and transferred to the carrier where they were in good condition, the U.S. Seventh Fleet said. Search and rescue efforts for three personnel continue with U.S. Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) ships and aircraft on scene, the U.S. Seventh Fleet said in a news release. The incident will be investigated, it added. The plane was conducting a routine transport flight carrying passengers and cargo from Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni to the carrier, which was operating in the Philippine Sea as part of an exercise with Japanese forces, it said. U.S. President Donald Trump was briefed on the crash at his Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida, where he is spending the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, said White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters. The @USNavy is conducting search and rescue following aircraft crash. We are monitoring the situation. Prayers for all involved, Trump wrote in a Twitter post. Japanese Minister of Defence Itsunori Onodera told reporters the U.S. Navy informed him that the crash may have been a result of engine trouble. The propeller-powered transport plane, a C-2 Greyhound, carries personnel, mail and other cargo from mainland bases to carriers operating at sea. C-2 aircraft have been in operation for more than five decades and are due to be replaced by the long-range tilt-rotor Osprey aircraft. Two crashes in the Asia Pacific region involving U.S. Navy warships and commercial vessels this year have raised questions about Navy training and the pace of operations in the region, prompted a Congressional hearing and the removal of a number of officers. The guided missile destroyer Fitzgerald almost sank off the coast of Japan after colliding with a Philippine container ship on June 17. The bodies of seven U.S. sailors were found in a flooded berthing area after that collision. In a separate incident in August, 10 sailors were killed when the guided missile destroyer John S. McCain collided with an oil tanker. The Navy has dismissed a number of officers, including the commander of the Seventh Fleet, as a result of the collisions involving its warships in Asia. | 1 |
4,973 | Corrupt Republican Blames ‘Deep State’ For His Arrest After Stealing Charity Money | Something strange happens when the President sees conspiracies everywhere: they tend to bleed into the rest of the government, at least the Republican government. Now, a crooked former GOP Congressman, who s best known for inviting Ted Nugent to President Obama s State of the Union speech, is blaming a Trump-touted conspiracy for the fact the he allegedly stole money for his campaign and personal use and got caught.Former Texas Rep. Steve Stockman blamed the deep state on his alleged campaign finance crimes, for which he was arrested. This is part of a deep state that s continuing to progress, he said after a hearing. Stockman cited a right-wing conspiracy theory that the IRS targeted conservative groups.Stockman is being charged with diverting money from a charitable organization called Life Without Limits to his political campaign and for personal use. Beginning shortly after the $350,000 charitable donation was deposited into his Life Without Limits account, rather than spending the money on the Freedom House, Stockman secretly diverted the funds to pay for a variety of personal expenses and to fund illegal contributions to Stockman s campaigns for public office, court documents filed with the criminal complaint stated.Source: RollcallSince Trump has taken office, we ve seen a lot about the supposed deep state. The deep state is, according to the Oxford Dictionary, A body of people, typically influential members of government agencies or the military, believed to be involved in the secret manipulation or control of government policy. Before Trump s election, the term was generally only used by fringe conspiracy theorists and white supremacists who accuse Jewish people of running a shadow government. Now, though, the head of the deep state could be Jewish, but he could also be Barack Obama. Conspiracy theories are fluid like that.Of course, Stockman has a history with the IRS. During the non-scandal scandal that involved the IRS daring to verify the veracity of non-profit statuses (from both sides of the aisle), he called for the arrest of IRS head at the time, Lois Lerner. It s looking more and more like his only reason for wanting Lerner s arrest was to prevent his arrest.Stockman has been released on bond and his main defense is that he stole only $15,000, not $350,000.Featured image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr | 0 |
4,974 | WATCH: Retired Alabama Cop: We Were Told To Keep Roy Moore Away From High School Cheerleaders | It seems that Republican candidate for Attorney General Jeff Sessions vacated Senate seat Roy Moore s proclivity for teenage girls was well known decades ago in Gadsden, Alabama even within the courthouse where he worked as an Assistant District Attorney, and even within the police department. Retired police officer Faye Gary spoke with MSNBC and said of the situation: The rumor mill was that he liked young girls, and we were advised that he was being suspended from the mall because he would hang around the young girls that worked in the stores and really got into a place of where they say he was harassing. We were also told to watch him at the ball games, and make sure that he didn t hang around the cheerleaders. Faye Gary went on to say that she originally thought that Moore liked, perhaps, women in their 20 s you know, LEGAL younger women. But, no. It was actually teenagers the old creep liked. Gary also said that Moore s liking for little girls was a known fact, while speaking with the New York Times, going on to say, It was treated like a joke. That s just the way it was. Of course, Roy Moore has long been a controversial character. He was removed from the Alabama Supreme Court twice, both times refusing to follow the law. The first time it was over his refusal to removed a 5,000+ pound monument of the Ten Commandments from the Supreme Court building, and the second time for ordering officials around the state to refuse to comply with the United States Supreme Court s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized marriage equality nation wide. He has also said that Representative Keith Ellison should not be allowed to serve in Congress because he is a Muslim. In other words, this is a man who has no regard for the rule of law, and is likely a child molester to boot.In short, the voters of Alabama need to reject this bigoted extremist, and, if they don t, they ll be sending a message to the rest of the nation: a child molester is much better to be seated in the Senate than a Democrat.Watch Faye Gary s comments on the matter below:Featured image via Drew Angerer/Getty Images | 0 |
4,975 | Trump spokesman accuses Democratic Senate leader of 'stalling tactics' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A spokesman for President-elect Donald Trump accused Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday of “stalling tactics” for slowing confirmation of the incoming Republican president’s Cabinet picks. Schumer should recognize that “this is more about continuity of government and ensuring that these qualified individuals get voted on as soon as possible so that we can lead this country forward,” spokesman Sean Spicer said at a news briefing. | 1 |
4,976 | Kurdish oil flows to Turkey resume after technical stoppage: shipping source | LONDON (Reuters) - Crude oil flows through an Iraqi Kurdistan pipeline to Turkey resumed on Monday after a technical stoppage for several hours, a Kurdish shipping source told Reuters. The source said the flows were still reduced at around 200,000-220,000 barrels per day (bpd) compared with the usual volume of 600,000 bpd. The next cargo to load at the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan will be Santa Cruz that will exports volume from the November loading program, the source said. | 1 |
4,977 | Senate votes to begin tax bill negotiations with House | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate voted on Wednesday to go to a conference committee to resolve differences between its tax legislation and a rival version passed by the House of Representatives, moving the Republican-led Congress a step closer to a final bill. Republican leaders are aiming to finalize tax legislation to pass it and send it to President Donald Trump by the end of the year. | 1 |
4,978 | Top Democrat: I Will Make Comey Answer For Trump’s Wiretapping Allegations | Representative Adam Schiff is clearly fed up with Donald Trump s lies. This is especially true of Trump s latest lie, which is the insane accusations he made on Saturday morning about President Obama wiretapping Trump Tower during the 2016 election. Of course, this is the most outrageous statement ever made by a sitting president, but it s Donald Trump, so of course he did it. Well, there are hearings coming up regarding ties between the Trump campaign and Russian hacking, so Rep. Schiff is looking forward to getting to the bottom of all of this.Appearing on Tuesday night s edition of The Rachel Maddow Show, the Ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said that he intends to ask FBI Director James Comey directly about Trump s wild Twitter accusations against the former President. Schiff said of the upcoming March 20 hearings: The president has asked our committee to investigate this and I would say, Mr. President, we accept. We will investigate this. We should be able to determine in fairly short order whether this allegation is true or false. Rep. Schiff went on to say that if (as we all know they will) the allegations turn out to be false, it s just as huge of a scandal, if not more so, as it would be if they were true, since it would be the scandal of a sitting U.S. president alleging that his predecessor engaged in the most unscrupulous and unlawful conduct. Adam Schiff is right. Further, if and when it comes out that Trump flat-out lied, that really should be an impeachable offense. And if that isn t enough, the House Intelligence Committee has an all-star line-up of people who will be testifying, including National Security Agency head Admiral Mike Rogers, former CIA director John Brennan, former National Intelligence Director James Clapper, and former acting Attorney General Sally Yates, among others.Pop your popcorn, folks. The testimony is sure to be damning.Featured image via Win McNamee/Getty Images | 0 |
4,979 | Lawmaker says U.S. foreign surveillance 'unmasked' Trump associates | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives intelligence committee set off a political firestorm on Wednesday when he said the communications of members of Donald Trump’s transition team were caught up in incidental surveillance targeting foreigners. Representative Devin Nunes said at a news conference that it was possible President Trump’s own communications were also intercepted and disseminated among U.S. intelligence agencies. The White House seized on Nunes’ remarks, which had cited anonymous sources, to bolster Trump’s unproven assertion that former President Barack Obama’s administration spied on the incoming president. Nunes himself said there is no proof of that, as have other lawmakers of both parties and the FBI director. A short while later, Trump spokesman Sean Spicer cited Nunes’ comments at his White House news briefing. “I do think it is a startling revelation, and there’s a lot of questions that need to get asked,” Spicer said. Democrats denounced Nunes’ statements as highly unusual from the chairman of an intelligence committee, with the top Democrat on the committee saying its members had not been informed and implying that Nunes was giving political cover to the president. Intelligence reports about the communications appeared to “unmask” the identity of the Trump associates and the names were widely shared among the agencies, Nunes said. He said it was possible Trump’s own communications were also collected. The National Security Agency routinely collects electronic communications on foreigners through a variety of surveillance tools. But information about Americans is also sometimes incidentally gathered, such as when someone is communicating to a foreign target. Typically the names of Americans are made anonymous, or masked, in foreign intelligence reports unless an intelligence agency determines the identity of that person is relevant to national security or a criminal investigation. It was unclear why the reports Nunes cited contained unmasked names. A U.S. government source said it was logical, if not normal, that communications from Trump aides would have been incidentally intercepted by U.S. agencies after his election, given that they would have an interest in talking to foreign governments. Trump took office on Jan. 20. Two days ago, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey, told a hearing of Nunes’ committee that his agency was conducting a criminal investigation of potential links between Trump associates and Russia’s attempts to influence the 2016 U.S. election to benefit Trump. “I recently confirmed that on numerous occasions the intelligence community ... collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition,” said Nunes, who was himself on Trump’s transition team. Nunes said he was referring to intelligence reports of communications collected under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. “I want to be clear, none of this surveillance was related to Russia or the investigation of Russian activities or of the Trump team,” he said. Trump said he felt “somewhat” vindicated by Nunes’ announcement after being briefed by Nunes. FBI head Comey on Monday said that Trump’s claims were groundless. According to Nunes, the conversations in question were collected legally in November, December and January. In an interview with CNN, the committee’s leading Democrat, Adam Schiff said, “The chairman will need to decide whether he is the chairman of an independent investigation into conduct which includes allegations of potential coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russians, or he’s going to act as a surrogate of the White House, because he cannot do both.” Nunes’ remarks appeared tied to a line of questioning from Republicans during Monday’s hearing about the importance of identifying and prosecuting those responsible for intelligence leaks. Republicans have focused much of their discussion of the issue on the release of the names, or “unmasking” of Trump associates in the investigation. Trump fired his former national security adviser, General Mike Flynn, after the revelation that he had spoken to Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, during the transition - which was leaked to the press after those calls were caught by surveillance intercepts. Nunes appeared to suggest intelligence reports about intercepts other than Flynn’s conversations existed. Former intelligence officials and Democrats said Nunes’ announcement was highly unusual from the chairman of an intelligence committee. Schiff said he was not consulted by Nunes before his news conference. Nunes’ decision to share the information with the White House before informing the committee was a “profound irregularity,” Schiff said, adding that “a credible investigation cannot be conducted this way.” Schiff said the unmasking of a U.S. person may be appropriate in the context of an investigation. U.S. intelligence agencies have accused Russia of seeking to influence the presidential election in Trump’s favor against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton by hacking computer systems and spreading disinformation. Russia denies the allegations. Nunes said he was “very concerned” about whether U.S. intelligence agencies were spying on Trump. He briefed Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan before the news conference and went to the White House to share the information. Admiral Mike Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, was asked by Republicans at Monday’s hearing about the agency’s policies for “unmasking” the names of Americans whose communications were incidentally collected under foreign surveillance programs. Rogers said that 20 NSA employees, including himself, have the authority to unmask the identity of an American’s communications, and that senior officials at the CIA, FBI and Justice Department can make such a request. Asked how many Americans had been unmasked since June 2016, Rogers said he did not know. | 1 |
4,980 | CNN Fires Reza Aslan For Describing Trump As A ‘Piece Of Sh*t’; Cable News Continues Death Spiral | CNN announced it would be severing its ties to religious scholar and popular writer Reza Aslan. The long-time CNN contributor was working on a nonfiction show called Believer on the cable network. His crime? Responding to Trump s pathetic smears on London after it suffered a terror attack by calling him a piece of shit. If CNN was interested in relaying the truth, they should have had no problem with the apt description of Trump in the London aftermath. Many, many Americans and many, many people around the world watched in stunned horror as the President of the United States had a complete meltdown in the hours and days after the attack.All of these behaviors, if done by anyone, would make them a piece of shit. The fact that it was the President of the United States doing so only reinforced how inappropriate it all was.Aslan s response was not particularly groundbreaking or controversial. Given the way the president has described women ( moved on her like a bitch, blood coming out of her whatever ), POWs ( I like people who weren t captured ), and well that awful mockery of the disabled, the use of the word shit is hardly an unforgivable sin in this media environment. And yet CNN has decided to not move forward with production on the acquired series Believer with Reza Aslan, the network said in a statement. We wish Reza and his production team all the best. How brave.Aslan, meanwhile, has taken the opportunity to take the high road while also giving a middle finger to censorship. In a post, he says he believes speaking out against Trump is more important than ever and that if CNN can t handle that then it was probably a good thing the two parted ways.My statement about the cancellation of #Believer pic.twitter.com/ITtXAyQwd5 Reza Aslan (@rezaaslan) June 9, 2017CNN, meanwhile, continues to employ Trump surrogates like Jeffrey Lord who have given audiences such nonsense insights such as birtherism isn t racist and the Congressional Black Caucus is just like the KKK. CNN also infamously hired Trump s former campaign manager after he was dismissed from Trump s campaign for, among other things, assaulting a female reporter. They paid him a reported $500,000. They later let him go after it was revealed he was still being paid an additional $500,000 by Trump s campaign.Featured image via CNN | 0 |
4,981 | Who collects costs for Trump's Taiwan call? | BEIJING (Reuters) - There are many pressure points China can push to express its anger at Donald Trump’s call with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen last week, including luring away more of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies and ramping up military deployments in the Taiwan Strait. China’s irritation with the call, the first by a U.S. president-elect or president since President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China in 1979, has mostly been directed at the self-ruled island China claims as its own. But it could also make life difficult for the United States and its allies in the region. Shi Yinhong, head of the Centre for American Studies at Beijing’s Renmin University, who has advised the government on diplomatic issues, said China was still in a wait-and-see period when it came to Trump, noting Beijing’s reaction to the call had been quite restrained. But that would change if Trump continued like this in office, Shi said. “Without a doubt, if the Chinese government judges a president Trump wants to challenge the ‘One China’ principle followed since President Carter, China will definitely make a very strong response.” That could include policy toward North Korea, where China has been working with Washington to rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear program, or in the disputed South China Sea. “Everything is possible,” he said. Beijing could, for example, ease up on United Nations sanctions on North Korea, providing economic succor to a country developing missiles that could target the United States, or take a more aggressive stance to U.S. freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea, where it has so far limited itself to verbal warnings. Washington and Beijing have also cooperated on the multilateral agreement to limit Iran’s nuclear program and on climate change, areas that Trump has said he wants to revisit to get a better deal for the U.S. The status of Taiwan is an unresolved issue from China’s civil war, when defeated Nationalist forces fled there in 1949, posing a pointed challenge to the Communist Party’s claim to rule all of China. Beijing has never renounced the use of force to bring what it calls a “renegade province” under its control, and Taiwan estimates that China has hundreds of missiles targeting the island over the narrow straits that separate them. The Global Times, an outspoken and influential tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, said punishing Taiwan was the best way to convey a message to Trump. “The Chinese mainland can let Taiwan lose one or two diplomatic allies as a punishment as well as a warning. The mainland can also strengthen its military deployment,” it said in editorials in its Chinese and English editions. The number of countries maintaining formal ties with Taiwan, which until 1971 held China’s seat at the United Nations, has since been whittled away by China to just 22, mostly poor nations in Latin America and the Caribbean. An unofficial diplomatic truce between China and Taiwan ended earlier this year after Tsai was elected in January, when China established ties with former Taiwan ally Gambia. Last week a large Chinese business delegation visited Panama, another Taiwan friend. Tsai says she wants peace and stability with China, but China fears she wants to push the island’s formal independence, one of the core principles of her Democratic Progressive Party. China could also step up its divide-and-rule policy favoring pro-China politicians in Taiwan with trade and access deals, while excluding those from the ruling party. The People’s Daily overseas edition said the Trump-Tsai call set a “terrible precedent” for China-U.S. ties and put a big question mark over a smooth transition in the relationship. Jia Qingguo, dean of the School of International Relations at Peking University and a government advisor, said the incident would help Chinese leaders get past initial uncertainty about Trump and better understand what his administration could mean for China, but “in a negative way”. “Donald Trump is hurting the relationship, and that will also hurt U.S. interests. If he continues this when he is in office, I assume we will have more frictions - over trade, over Taiwan. This is bad for both countries.” Beijing also has to bear in mind the opinion of a Chinese public brought up to insist on sovereignty over Taiwan. “Taiwan is simply a province of our China,” said one user on Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter. “Anywhere, anytime we can bring things to a conclusion. Have no worries about that.” China and Taiwan have nearly gone to war three times since 1949, most recently ahead of the 1996 Taiwan presidential election. Then, China carried out missile tests in waters close to the island, hoping to dissuade people voting for Lee Teng-hui, whom it suspected of harbouring pro-independence views. Lee won by a landslide. In the intervening 20 years, Chinese wealth and power have grown. “China is much stronger now,” said Jia, the academic and advisor. “Presumably a U.S.-China confrontation over Taiwan would have a much more negative impact on the international order and relations between the two countries.” | 1 |
4,982 | Trump likely to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital next week: official | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is likely to announce next week that the United States recognizes Jerusalem as Israel s capital, a senior administration official said on Friday, a move that would upend decades of American policy and possibly inflame tensions in the Middle East. Trump could make the controversial declaration in a speech on Wednesday though he is also expected to again delay his campaign promise to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. The senior official and two other government sources said final decisions had not yet been made. The Palestinians want Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, and the international community does not recognize Israel s claim on all of the city, home to sites holy to the Jewish, Muslim and Christian religions. Word of Trump s planned announcement, which would deviate from previous U.S. presidents who have insisted the Jerusalem s status must be decided in negotiations, drew criticism from the Palestinian Authority and was sure to anger the broader Arab world. It could also unravel the U.S. administration s fledgling diplomatic effort, led by Trump s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, to restart long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and enlist the support of U.S. Arab allies. Nabil Abu Rdainah, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel s capital would destroy the peace process and destabilize the region. Such a move, however, could help satisfy the pro-Israel, right-wing base that helped Trump win the presidency and also please the Israeli government, a close U.S. ally. The senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said details were still being finalized and could still change. Another U.S. official said Trump appeared to be heading toward recognizing Israel s claim to Jerusalem but that it was not a done deal. We ve nothing to announce, said a spokesperson with the White House National Security Council. Trump s impending decisions on Jerusalem, one of the most sensitive core issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, follow intense internal deliberations in which the president has personally weighed in, one White House aide said. Trump is likely to continue his predecessors practice of signing a six-month waiver overriding a 1995 law requiring that the U.S. embassy be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, two officials told Reuters on Thursday. But seeking to temper his supporters concerns, another option under consideration is for Trump to order his aides to develop a longer-term plan for the embassy s relocation to make clear his intent to do so eventually, the officials said. It was unclear, however, whether any public recognition by Trump of Israel s claim on Jerusalem would be formally enshrined in a presidential action or be more of a symbolic statement. Trump pledged on the presidential campaign trail last year that he would move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. But in June, Trump waived the requirement, saying he wanted to maximize the chances for a new U.S.-led push for what he has called the ultimate deal of Israeli-Palestinian peace. Those efforts have made little, if any, progress so far and many experts are skeptical of the prospects for success. The status of Jerusalem is one of the major stumbling blocks in achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed it, a move not recognized internationally. Arab governments and Western allies have long urged Trump not to proceed with the embassy relocation, which would reverse long-standing U.S. policy by granting de facto U.S. recognition of Israel s claim to all of Jerusalem as its capital. Visiting Washington this week, Jordan s King Abdullah warned lawmakers that moving the U.S. embassy could be exploited by terrorists to stoke anger, frustration and desperation, according to the Jordanian state news agency Petra. Some of Trump s top aides have privately pushed for him to keep his campaign promise to satisfy a range of supporters, including evangelical Christians, while others have cautioned about the potential damage to U.S. relations with Muslim countries. | 1 |
4,983 | HA! THEY’RE NOT FORGETTING About Hillary At The World Series! | Cubs close out Indians to win first Series since 1908 Mike Montgomery gets Michael Martinez to ground into the final out, and the Cubs clinch their first World Series since 1908 with an 8-7 victory over the Indians in 10 innings.A HILLARY FOR PRISON SIGN POPPED UP TONIGHT DURING THE WORLD SERIES COVERAGE A COUPLE NIGHTS AGO | 0 |
4,984 | German police present stolen John Lennon diaries | BERLIN (Reuters) - German police presented on Tuesday diaries, pairs of glasses and other items belonging to late Beatle John Lennon that were stolen from his widow Yoko Ono in 2006 and eventually ended up in Berlin. Police arrested a man in Berlin on Monday suspected of receiving the 86 stolen items, which include Lennon s last diary that ended on the day he was shot and killed in New York on Dec. 8, 1980. This day contains the entry that on that morning John Lennon and Yoko Ono had an appointment with Annie Leibovitz to take a photo which I think is world famous, Berlin prosecutor Michael von Hagen told a news conference. The Leibovitz portrait of a naked Lennon curled up around Ono on their bed ran on the January 1981 cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Hagen rejected suggestions that Ono might have lent or given away the objects: The diaries especially ... were also treated by Yoko Ono as something sacred. And the idea that she would have given away three original diaries, especially the one that ends on the very day Lennon died, can be completely ruled out. Carsten Pfohl, head of property crime for Berlin police, said investigators had found one of the pairs of glasses and a receipt in Lennon s name hidden in the trunk of the car of the accused on Monday. Police suspect that the items were stolen by Ono s former driver and then taken to Turkey and were only brought to Berlin in 2013 or 2014. Another suspect lives in Turkey, they said. The Berlin police was alerted after they were found by the administrator for a bankrupt auction house, which had previously valued the objects at 3.1 million euros ($3.64 million). ($1 = 0.8519 euros) | 1 |
4,985 | muslims busted they stole millions in govt benefits | print they should pay all the back all the money plus interest the entire family and everyone who came in with them need to be deported asap why did it take two years to bust them
here we go again another group stealing from the government and taxpayers a group of somalis stole over four million in government benefits over just months
weve reported on numerous cases like this one where the muslim refugeesimmigrants commit fraud by scamming our systemits way out of control more related | 1 |
4,986 | Trump's new travel ban raises bar for legal challenges | NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The new, more narrowly tailored temporary travel ban President Donald Trump signed on Monday will be more difficult to challenge successfully in court, legal experts said. They said that since his order no longer covers legal residents or existing visa holders, and makes waivers possible for some business, diplomatic and other travelers, challengers are likely to have a harder time finding people in the United States who can legally claim they have been harmed, and thus have so-called “standing” to sue. Trump’s first executive order signed on Jan. 27 banned travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations - Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen - for 90 days and halted refugee admission for four months, barring Syrian refugees indefinitely. Its hasty implementation caused chaos and protests at airports. The order was hit with more than two dozen lawsuits, many that claimed it discriminated against Muslims. The new ban, which goes into effect on March 16, removes Iraq and adds categories of people who would be exempt from the order. The Trump administration said the executive order is necessary for national security reasons. It also lists groups of people that could be eligible for waivers, including travelers who have previously been admitted to the United States for work or school, those seeking to visit or live with a close relative and who would face hardship if denied entry; infants, young children and adoptees or people in need of medical care, employees of the U.S. government and international organizations among others. All the exceptions make the new order “a lot harder to attack,” said Andrew Greenfield, an immigration attorney with Fragomen law firm in Washington D.C. Trump had promised to make the new directive harder to fight in court and many of the changes were expected. “They dotted their ‘i’s’ and crossed their ‘t’s’ in trying to anticipate what litigation might result,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr, a Cornell Law School professor who specializes in immigration. He said opponents might still be able to find plaintiffs - a U.S. citizen could potentially sue if the government denies a waiver to their foreign spouse for an arbitrary reason, for example. In a legal challenge to the original order, the state of Washington was successful in preventing it from being carried out. A federal judge in Seattle and then an appeals court in San Francisco ruled that Washington could claim standing, in part because the order adversely affected legal permanent residents, known as green card holders, in the state. More than 100 businesses, including many of the best-known tech companies, filed briefs in court that argued their employees were harmed. Bob Ferguson, the Attorney General for Washington State said on Monday that he will likely decide on the next litigation steps this week after consulting with state universities and businesses about potential harms. “We need to do our homework and be thoughtful about this,” Ferguson said. The U.S. Department of Justice, in a filing in Seattle federal court on Monday, said the new order applies “only to those who are overseas and without a visa.” Foreign nationals outside the country who do not have a U.S. visa do not have the same protections under the U.S. Constitution as people already here, legal experts said. Rosemary Jenks, the director of Government Relations at NumbersUSA, a conservative group that favors less immigration overall, said that the new order would leave the state of Washington having to argue on behalf of unidentified foreign nationals who have not been screened, vetted or processed yet by U.S. authorities. “That would be a pretty big stretch,” Jenks said. And unlike the old order, the new one lays out with more detail why the specific countries were selected, she said. Attorneys challenging the ban, including the American Civil Liberties Union said there were still questions about whether or not the ban is justified by national security reasons and the revisions do not address concerns that the order discriminates based on religion. Adam Lauridsen, a Keker & Van Nest attorney in San Francisco representing students challenging Trump’s first order, noted the revised directive still targets Muslim-majority countries. Stephen Legomsky, chief counsel at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the previous Obama administration, pointed to statements by Trump about wanting a Muslim ban. “That evidence is baked in, you can’t change the past,” said Legomsky. He said, however, that does not mean the inevitable legal challenges will ultimately be successful in the likelihood that they reach the U.S. Supreme Court. “It’s not a slam dunk.” | 1 |
4,987 | TRAITOR: GOP Senator Lindsey Graham TRASHES and THREATENS President Trump…Tells Voters He Won’t Back Down On AMNESTY PUSH | Senator Lindsey Graham made a bold announcement the other day when he told his constituents in South Carolina that if they were against amnesty for illegals and outsourcing, to vote him out. Most Republicans outside of the state of South Carolina have been scratching their heads for years over the popularity of the pro-climate change, war-hawk and pro-amnesty Senator Graham in his home state. It seems like this might be the perfect time for voters in South Carolina to replace the liberal senator who is clearly a traitor to the president and to the Republican Party.Watch Senator Lindsey Graham tell his allies at CNN that President Trump is weak for publicly addressing his concerns about his AG Jeff Sessions:Sen. Lindsey Graham says President Trump is demonstrating "weakness" through his attacks on AG Jeff Sessions https://t.co/a92rbGyWC1 CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) July 26, 2017Watch Senator Graham, as he threatens President Trump during an interview with NBC over the possibility that he may fire or go after the DOJ s special counsel Robert Mueller, who was hired by the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein to investigate possible ties to Russia and the Trump campaign.WATCH: "Any effort to go after Mueller could be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency," says Sen. Lindsey Graham. pic.twitter.com/x2scZCKUIo NBC News (@NBCNews) July 27, 2017Senator Graham has been jealous of Donald Trump since the primaries where Graham got shellacked by Donald Trump. Watch his embarrassing appearance on the Daily Show with Trevor Graham during the primary elections, as he accuses Donald Trump, as well as his own party of being racists and xenophobes .Go to the 3:47 mark to watch Lindsey Graham ask Noah Trevor of The Daily Show if he s a citizen or if he has a green card to which Trevor replies, no . Graham then proceeds to tell Noah Trevor that If I were you, I d be in a hurry. If Trump wins, your days are numbered pal. Young, black, liberal guys from Africa is not gonna work with him. Watch Graham tell his constituents he ll be supporting amnesty whether they agree with him or not. He actually urges South Carolina citizens to vote against him if they disagree with him. He talks about illegal aliens kids like their all sweet young children looking for a better life. Someone should tell him about MS-13 the most dangerous international gang in the world that is growing in numbers as Obama opened the flood gates for them to come in while he was president:Watch pro-man made climate change Lindsey Graham attempt to shame President Trump prior to his decision to pull out of the Paris Climate deal:Last but not least, and or anyone who may have forgotten, RINO Lindsey Graham also warned Republicans to back off their attacks on Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as Graham warned Republicans risk getting Burned on Benghazi issue. | 0 |
4,988 | China says will work with South Korea towards denuclearization on Korean peninsula | BEIJING (Reuters) - China and South Korea will work towards denuclearization on the Korean peninsula, the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement on Wednesday. China and South Korea will continue to use diplomatic means to address the Korean peninsula issue, according to the statement. The statement came following a meeting in Beijing on Tuesday between Lee Do-hoon, South Korea s representative for six-party nuclear talks, and his Chinese counterpart, Kong Xuanyou. | 1 |
4,989 | Boiler Room EP #124 – Weather Warfare & CNN Goblin Pits | Tune in to the Alternate Current Radio Network (ACR) for another LIVE broadcast of The Boiler Room tonight 6:00 PM PST | 8:00 PM CST | 9:00 PM EST for this special broadcast. Join us for uncensored, uninterruptible talk radio, custom-made for bar fly philosophers, misguided moralists, masochists, street corner evangelists, media-maniacs, savants, political animals and otherwise lovable rascals.Join ACR hosts Hesher and Spore along side Jay Dyer of Jay s Analysis and Andy Nowicki the Nameless One, for the hundred and twenty fourth episode of BOILER ROOM. Turn it up, tune in and hang with the ACR Brain-Trust for this weeks boil downs and analysis and the usual gnashing of the teeth of the political animals in the social reject club.This week on the show the ACR Brain-Trust is back with another meeting of the Social Reject Club in the No Friends Left Zone and the gang is discussing the ongoing aftermath of the Charlottesville protests, Hurricane Harvey, weather warfare, geoengineering, movies, CNN faking flood rescues and more.Direct Download Episode #124Please like and share the program and visit our donate page to get involved! Reference Links, for your consideration and research: | 0 |
4,990 | Factbox: Women who have accused Trump of inappropriate conduct | (Reuters) - Three of the women who have accused U.S. President Donald Trump of sexual misconduct called on Monday for a congressional probe of his behavior amid similar accusations against powerful men in Hollywood, the media and politics. Over the past two years, more than a dozen women have accused Trump of making unwanted sexual advances against them long before he entered politics. Trump has denied the accusations, and the White House has accused the women of lying. Among his accusers are a Miss Utah beauty pageant winner, a businesswoman, a reporter and a receptionist. The following are the three women who on Monday renewed their call for action: ** Jessica Leeds recounted in a video interview posted on The New York Times website in October 2016 that Trump grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt on a flight on which she was traveling to New York in or around 1980 when she was a 38-year-old businesswoman. ** Rachel Crooks, formerly a receptionist at a real estate firm in Trump Tower, told The New York Times in a report published in October 2016 that Trump “kissed me directly on the mouth” in 2005 at Trump Tower in Manhattan when she was 22. ** Samantha Holvey, the 2006 Miss North Carolina and a former contestant in the Miss USA pageant, told NBC’s “Today” program on Monday that Trump walked into the pageant dressing room in 2006 while contestants were naked and in bathrobes. She told CNN in an October 2016 report that Trump personally inspected each woman prior to the contest, “eyeing us from head to toe like we were meat, we were sexual objects.” Here are other women who have made accusations against Trump: ** Summer Zervos, a contestant on Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice” in 2006, told an October 2016 news conference that Trump tried to get her to lie down on a bed with him when she met him in 2007 to discuss a possible job. Zervos said she complied with a request to sit next to Trump and, “He then grabbed my shoulder and began kissing me very aggressively and placed his hand on my breast.” Trump has denied the allegation. Zervos sued Trump in January, contending that his denials of her accusations amounted to false and defamatory statements and that being “branded a liar” by Trump has harmed her and her business. ** In a video posted on The Washington Post website in October 2016, Kristin Anderson accused Trump of putting his hand up her skirt in a crowded New York nightclub in the early 1990s in an unwanted advance. “He did touched my vagina through my underwear, absolutely,” Anderson said in the video interview. ** Lisa Boyne said in a short film titled “16 Women and Donald Trump” that she met Trump in the early 1990s at a dinner party he hosted in New York. Boyne said that Trump picked up her and another person in his limousine, and he made inappropriate remarks about famous actresses. “He asked us to rate them from 1 to 10,” Boyne said. Boyne said that at the party, Trump “used his table as a ‘casting couch,’ instructing women who attended to model above the table. He then looked under the dresses of each women and made comments of what he saw.” ** Jessica Drake, an adult film actress, told a news conference in Los Angeles in October 2016 that Trump pressured her to have sex with him 11 years ago when they met at a golf tournament. Trump’s campaign said the accusations were false. ** Jill Harth, a former Trump beauty pageant business associate, filed a $125 million lawsuit in 1997 against Trump alleging that on Jan. 24, 1993, at Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, Trump “forcibly removed plaintiff to a bedroom, whereupon defendant subjected plaintiff to defendant’s unwanted sexual advances.” A Trump spokesperson was quoted by The New York Times in October 2016 as saying, “Mr. Trump denies each and every statement made by Ms. Harth.” The lawsuit was dropped in May 1997. ** Cathy Heller said that in 1997 Trump tried to kiss her during a Mother’s Day brunch at Mar-a-Lago. Heller, her husband, her three children and her in-laws attended the event. When she was introduced to Trump, “He took my hand, and grabbed me, and went for the lips,” she told The Guardian newspaper in October 2016. She said she turned her head and Trump kissed her on the side of the mouth. ** Ninni Laaksonen, a former Miss Finland, accused Trump of groping her in 2006 when she was representing her country in the Miss Universe beauty contest. Laaksonen told the Ilta-Sanomat newspaper in October 2016 that he had grabbed her behind before she appeared on a television show in New York with other contestants. “He really grabbed my butt. I don’t think anybody saw it but I flinched and thought: ‘What is happening?’,” she was quoted as saying in the newspaper. ** In October 2016 Mindy McGillivray told the Palm Beach Post that she was a 23-year-old photographer’s assistant at a Jan. 24, 2003, event at Mar-a-Lago when Trump grabbed her buttocks. ** Natasha Stoynoff, a reporter, wrote a first-person account that described Trump kissing her without her consent in December 2005 at Mar-a-Lago while she was working on an article about him and his third wife, Melania, for People magazine. In the account published by People in October 2016, Stoynoff said “he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat.” ** Temple Taggart, a former Miss Utah, said Trump twice kissed her on the lips while she was a contestant for the Miss USA pageant in 1997 when she was 21 years old. “What he did made me feel so uncomfortable that I ended up cutting my trip short, bought my own plane ticket, flew home and never spoke to him again,” Taggart said at an October 2016 press conference with her attorney, Gloria Allred. ** At an October 2016 news conference, yoga instructor Karena Virginia said Trump approached her outside the U.S. Open tennis tournament in 1998 when she was 27 years old. She alleged that Trump commented on her legs and then touched her breast before she was able to get into a car and be driven away. | 1 |
4,991 | Trump says will issue new order next week to protect Americans | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he would be issuing an order next week aimed at keeping the American people safe, as his temporary ban on travel from seven Muslim-majority countries remains kept on hold by a federal court. “We will be issuing a new and very comprehensive order to protect our people,” Trump said at a news conference. | 1 |
4,992 | Democrats fail to block Arctic reserve oil drilling | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democrats on Thursday failed to pass a measure to block oil and gas drilling in part of the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, losing to Republicans who believe production there would provide jobs and wealth. An amendment blocking the development failed 48-52, mostly along party lines. A lone Republican, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, supported the measure. The only Democrat to vote against it was Joe Manchin from West Virginia. Conservationists and many Democrats treasure the Alaskan reserve, also known as ANWR, as one of the planet’s last paradises. Established by Congress in 1980, it is home to tribes and a habitat for sensitive wildlife including caribou, polar bears and hundreds of species of migratory birds. Republicans, who now control Congress and the White House, have long wanted to open a portion of ANWR called the 1002 area. Senator Lisa Murkowski, the chair of the Senate energy committee and an Alaskan Republican, called the 1002 portion a “non wilderness area” because the government put it aside decades ago for petroleum exploration. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates the area on the Prudhoe Bay in Northern Alaska has up to 12 billion barrels of recoverable crude. A Senate budget measure introduced this fall instructed Murkowski’s committee to raise $1 billion over 10 years. She hopes some of that money will come from energy company royalties after opening the 1002 area to drilling. Murkowski urged senators to see the “instruction as an opportunity to do something constructive” and focus on boosting energy output from federal lands that have long been off limit. The failed amendment, sponsored by Senator Maria Cantwell the top Democrat on the Senate Energy Committee, would have eliminated the directive from the budget resolution seeking to raise funds. Republicans led a “sneak attack” that turned “public lands over to polluters,” Cantwell said. Senator Jeff Merkley, another Democrat, has said there is “something cynical and sad” about the effort to open ANWR because it would boost oil output from the state feeling the fastest effects of climate change, which a majority of scientists link to carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels and development. The battle is not over. The House of Representatives will next have to pass its version of a plan to raise revenues from the drilling. A final budget package would then be worked out by leaders from the two chambers. Petroleum interests have long lobbied to explore in the area and say technology advances mean the impact of operations in the reserve would be small. Murkowski said oil companies could use infrared cameras to detect and avoid polar bear dens while exploring for oil and gas. It is uncertain whether energy companies that have faced years of static crude prices amid a wealth of oil in the continental United States would be willing to increase drilling in the harsh and frigid Arctic. Environmentalists vowed to keep up their fight. “Congress cannot sneak this through the back door when they think nobody is looking,” said Jamie Williams, president of the Wilderness Society. ANWR “is simply too fragile and special to drill, and we have a moral obligation to protect it for future generations of Americans.” | 1 |
4,993 | Hungary's Fidesz prepares campaign against 'Soros plan' for migrants | BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary s ruling Fidesz party, preparing for elections next April, promised on Thursday to highlight what it called a plan by billionaire financier George Soros to bring millions of migrants into Europe. Fidesz asked Prime Minister Viktor Orban s government to carry out a national consultation about Brussels plans to distribute asylum-seekers in the EU, a week after the EU s top court ruled against complainants Hungary and Slovakia. Previous such consultations have taken the form of sending out questionnaires to millions of voters, setting out the government s right-wing nationalist position and asking people if they agree. Soros, a Hungarian-born Jew who has spent a large part of his fortune funding pro-democracy and human rights groups, has been targeted by Orban s government repeatedly. His spokesman has described the government s portrayal of his views on immigration as fantasy . Orban has been one of the loudest opponents of mandatory migrant resettlement quotas proposed by the EU, arguing this would undermine its sovereignty and social fabric. His stance has gone down well with voters, and Fidesz is firmly ahead in opinion polls. Lajos Kosa, a party vice chairman, said the national consultation should focus on the alleged Soros plan, something that would place migration at the center of the campaign. The European Commission stops just short of saying that they carry out the Soros plan... but all their steps and ideas with regard to migration point in this direction, Kosa said, adding last week s EU court defeat for Hungary had opened the gates . Soros spokesman Michael Vachon in July dismissed the idea that the financier and philanthropist was promoting a scheme to import millions of illegal immigrants into Europe. Soros s actual position on migration is that the international community should provide more support to the developing countries that today host 89 percent of refugees and that Europe should accept several hundred thousand fully screened refugees through an orderly process of vetting and resettlement, he said. He said an anti-migrant billboard campaign by the Hungarian government, showing a smiling Soros and carrying the caption Don t let Soros have the last laugh , was reminiscent of Europe s darkest hours . The government ended the poster campaign over the summer. | 1 |
4,994 | Thousands of Romanians mourn former king Michael | BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Thousands of Romanians lined the streets of Bucharest on Saturday for the funeral of the country s former king Michael, one of the last surviving World War Two European heads of state. Born in 1921, Michael ruled Romania twice, switched its alliance away from Nazi Germany to the Allied side during the war and was subsequently forced into exile by a Communist takeover in 1947. He died in Switzerland on Dec. 5 at the age of 96, having retired from public life due to severe illness in 2016. On Saturday, Bucharest churches rang their bells and mourners, many in tears, threw white flowers at the funeral procession, chanting King Michael and Down with communism . European royalty attended, including Spain s former king, Juan Carlos, Britain s Prince Charles, King Carl Gustaf of Sweden and his wife Queen Silvia. Even though the restoration of the monarchy is not an issue in the European Union state, Michael commanded great respect from Romanians who saw him in sharp opposition to a political class which they link with poverty and corruption. His death comes at a time of deep divisions in Romanian society. Massive street protests against attempts by the ruling Social Democrats to weaken the fight against corruption and the rule of law have taken place on and off throughout 2017. Earlier this month, the Social Democrats used their solid majority to approve a judicial overhaul in the lower house that threatens to put the justice system under political control. On Monday, lawmakers begin debating changes to the criminal code that critics say will derail law and order. A descendant of the German Hohenzollern dynasty and a cousin of Britain s Queen Elizabeth, Michael was in his early twenties when he participated in a 1944 coup that overthrew fascist leader Marshal Ion Antonescu. Romania then broke with Nazi Germany and switched to the Allied side. Historians have said his actions might have shortened the war and saved thousands of lives. After communism collapsed, politicians fearing Michael s influence blocked his first few attempted visits after decades of exile in Switzerland, Britain and the United States. He finally returned to Romania in 1992 and regained citizenship in 1997. With his passing, the Romanian royal family s relevance will likely fade, since his children have little public standing. Princess Margareta, his eldest daughter, remains custodian of the crown. | 1 |
4,995 | Texas attorney general backs Trump in travel ban litigation | (Reuters) - President Donald Trump acted well within his authority in issuing his executive order on immigration, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton told a federal appeals court on Wednesday. Paxton, a Republican, attached a brief in asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California for permission to argue in support of Trump’s temporary ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries. Texas is the first state to back Trump in the closely watched litigation. A group of 15 states and the District of Columbia have filed papers with the appeals court in support of Washington state’s challenge to Trump’s Jan. 27 order, saying it harms their educational institutions and economies. Paxton said the full court should reconsider whether a lower court judge was justified in halting the ban. U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle suspended Trump’s order across the country on Feb. 3. Washington state argued that it violated constitutional protections against religious discrimination. That ruling was upheld by a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit in San Francisco last week, raising questions about Trump’s next step. The appeals court will soon vote on whether to reconsider the case with an 11-judge panel. Trump’s directive, which he said was necessary to protect the United States from attacks by Islamist militants, barred people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the country for 90 days. Refugees were banned for 120 days, except those from Syria, who were banned indefinitely. The rulings put the order on hold until the courts can rule on the underlying merits. Ultimately, they will have to address questions about the extent of the president’s power on matters of immigration and national security. Traditionally, judges have been extremely cautious about stepping on the executive branch’s authority in such matters, legal experts said. In the brief, Paxton said the order had a clear national security goal, to ensure proper vetting of foreigners seeking entry into the United States. It “reflects national-security interests implicated by the ongoing War on Terror against radical Islamic terrorists.” Paxton rejected any claim that the order discriminates against Muslims while favoring Christian minorities. If that argument is accepted, he said, it would jeopardize the government’s ability to help persecuted religious minorities abroad by granting them refugee status. Texas led the legal fight against President Barack Obama’s plan to protect up to four million immigrants from deportation, joined by 25 other Republican-led states. The challengers won a February 2015 nationwide injunction blocking the program before it was due to go into effect. In June 2016, the Supreme Court split 4-4 in the case, leaving in place an appeals court ruling in favor of the states.. A major question in that litigation was whether Texas had legal standing to sue, an issue that the Supreme Court did not resolve. In Wednesday’s brief, Texas did not address whether Washington and other states had standing to sue over Trump’s ban. | 1 |
4,996 | Illinois governor announces veto of $5 billion tax hike | CHICAGO (Reuters) - Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner announced on Tuesday his veto of a $5 billion income tax rate hike that was the lynchpin of a newly passed bipartisan budget package designed to end the state’s record-setting fiscal impasse, he announced via social media. “I just vetoed Speaker Madigan’s 32 percent permanent income tax increase,” the Republican governor announced in posts to his Facebook and Twitter accounts, referring to Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, the package’s main legislative architect. The posts did not disclose whether he had taken similar action on spending and borrowing measures that made up the entire package. | 1 |
4,997 | Mexico president agrees with Trump on 'convenience' of not ending NAFTA | MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto spoke with U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday and they agreed on the “convenience” of not scrapping the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), but instead renegotiating the treaty along with Canada. Mexico’s peso gained more than 1 percent after the White House released a readout of calls Trump had with Pena Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in which the U.S. leader, a long-time critic of the trade pact, agreed to “bring NAFTA up to date through renegotiation.” | 1 |
4,998 | German coalition talks could stretch into Saturday: conservative leader | BERLIN (Reuters) - Talks to form a three-way German ruling coalition will continue into Saturday, if needed, Peter Tauber, secretary general of Germany s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said early on Friday. We still believe that it s worth it to work at it with our full energy, Tabuer told reporters after a marathon session of talks among the three political blocs broke up. On the other hand, it s evident that it s difficult. | 1 |
4,999 | U.S. senators seek lifetime ban on ex-Congress members lobbying | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan bill introduced on Thursday would prohibit members of the U.S. Congress from ever working as lobbyists after they leave the Senate or House of Representatives. Republican Senator Cory Gardner with Democratic Senators Michael Bennet and Al Franken in introducing the Senate legislation to stop the lucrative “revolving door” practice that has drawn the ire of watchdog groups for decades. “By banning members of Congress from lobbying when they leave Capitol Hill, we can begin to restore confidence in our national politics,” Gardner said in a statement. Similar legislation has failed in the past. Currently, there are only temporary restrictions on former members of Congress becoming lobbyists. The Center for Responsive Politics has noted that former members often score large-salaried lobbying jobs, sometimes of $1 million or more. The non-partisan group found that just over 51 percent of former members of the 113th Congress (2013-2014) became lobbyists. Besides a lifetime ban on lobbying for current members of Congress, the legislation would require former congressional aides to wait six years instead of one year before engaging in lobbying and require better reporting of lobbying activities. | 1 |
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