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5,800 | newsticker | freitag november junge in brunnen gefallen suchtrupps leider in falsche richtung unterwegs mit video ein kleiner junge ist heute morgen beim spielen auf einer entlegenen wiese in einen alten brunnenschacht gestürzt leider sind die suchtrupps in die völlig falsche richtung unterwegs unsere reporterin silvia incardona berichtet live vor ort von der vergeblichen suche | 0 |
5,801 | border collapse amid election | miley cyrus crying over trump victory video shares by ike mclean november politics
after it was announced that donald trump would be the th president of the united states miley cyrus posted a video online of her crying over the results
with tears rolling down her face cyrus says so probably like most peoplewell maybe not because given the resultmaybe i really am different and maybe a lot of people that im surrounded by think with open minds and open hearts like i do and i do want to say that ive been very vocal for my support for everyone besides donald trump heavily supported bernie heavily supported hillary and i still think that in her lifetime she deserves to be the first female president and thats what makes me so sad
i just wish that she had that opportunity because she fought for so long and because i believe her when she says that she loves this country this is all shes ever done shes given her life to make it better but like donald trump so ironically played after his speech it said you cant always get what you want and happy hippies we adjust and we accept everyone for who they are and so donald trump i accept you she said and this hurts to say but i even accept you as the president of the united states and thats finebecause i think now i want to be hopeful
she then went on to thank barack obama for everything he has done the past eight years and thanked hillary for inspiring us
the video of miley crying can be seen below
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5,802 | Rape Deemed Legal In Oklahoma Because You Can’t Substitute Force With Intoxication Under The Law | The definition of rape came under fire in Oklahoma Wednesday when a the state s high court ruled that a girl who had accused a boy of sexually assaulting her was too drunk to be a reliable witness and dismissed the charges against the boy she says raped her while she was either too intoxicated or unconscious. She was 14 at the time of the assault and he was 17.The boy claims that the girl, who was four times past the legal limit to drive, engaged in a consensual oral act with him. The Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with him, stating that force can t be substituted with intoxication under the [forced sodomy] law. Prosecutors are furious, because the boy gets a walk, and while the court also said, We will not, in order to justify prosecution of a person for an offense, enlarge a statute beyond the fair meaning of its language, it stated it in an unpublished opinion, meaning the case can t be cited as precedent.That means that nothing has changed. The court has given its opinion on what some poor drunk teenage girl forever changed because a poor decision led to a boy who is legally an adult in many states raped her and got away with it. By saying it isn t precedent means they certainly don t want to close the door on the fact that people are raped, just not for this girl, who they obviously believe could have possibly been responsible for such a thing at 14-years-old. They don t make good decisions when they re stone cold sober, nevermind when you ply them with booze.From what s available, the boy, who had a friend with him, gave the girl a ride home because she was so drunk. He dropped his friend off first, who would testify that the girl was drifting in and out of consciousness, and somewhere between there and the girl s house his DNA ended up all over her and she has no memory of the encounter. The court said they wouldn t create a crime to prosecute one offender because the forcible sodomy law says you have to use force, not alcohol or by that logic, date rape drugs, to incapacitate and force yourself on your victim.Interpreting law is what a high court does. Does somebody really have to tell these idiots that rape is about control, not sex? Maybe they saw this one kid as some believable victim of a circumstance beyond his control, but what they ve done is fostered a rapist and given plenty of other young abusers -in-training a new something to think about. Until Oklahoma either changes the law or replaces the imbeciles on its high court who interpret it, it s a breeding ground for predatory behavior.Featured image from okhouse.gov | 0 |
5,803 | Banks, healthcare service firms among winners from U.S. tax bill | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sweeping U.S. tax legislation appears to be on the verge of approval, lifting the prospects in particular for banks, telecoms, transports and other industries that stand to gain the most from lower corporate tax rates. The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives hit a last-minute snag on Tuesday in their drive to approve the legislation favored by President Donald Trump. The plan on Capitol Hill was for the Senate to delete three offending provisions in the House version and vote on the bill, then send it back to the House for a vote on Wednesday. The bill slashes the corporate income tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent. That would boost overall earnings for S&P 500 companies by 9.1 percent, according to UBS equity strategists. For an interactive graphic on how the bill ripples through industries: tmsnrt.rs/2kf26gx Momentum behind the tax bill over the past month has helped propel the stock market, which had already rallied sharply this year, to fresh record highs. The S&P 500 has climbed about 5 percent since mid-November when the House of Representatives passed its tax overhaul bill. But the bill, which also includes a one-time tax on profits held overseas and industry-specific measures, would benefit some stocks, industries and sectors more than others. The industries that stand to benefit most from the lower rates are telecoms, transportation, retail and banks, analysts said. But for some groups, such as tech and healthcare, the impact is more mixed. Domestically geared healthcare companies that focus on services are poised to benefit from the lower tax rate. Hospital operator Universal Health Services Inc, lab-testing company Quest Diagnostics Inc and drug wholesaler Cardinal Health Inc are among the service companies set to benefit the most, according to Mizuho Securities. “We believe tax reform should be a significant positive cash flow event, especially for healthcare services companies that tend to have limited international exposure and significant capital expenditures,” Mizuho analysts said in a research note. While many large drugmakers already report adjusted tax rates in the low 20 percent range, a number of companies would benefit from the ability to bring back overseas cash, JPMorgan analyst Chris Schott said in a recent note. According to Schott, Pfizer Inc, with $160 billion in offshore earnings, and Merck & Co Inc, with $70 billion, are particularly poised to gain from repatriating overseas funds. Banks are expected to be among the biggest winners from a lower tax rate. The S&P 500 banks index has soared 9 percent since mid-November as the tax bill began moving swiftly through Congress. Of the major S&P sectors, financials pay the highest effective tax rate at 27.5 percent, according to a Wells Fargo analysis of historical tax rates. Large U.S. banks will see an average 13 percent increase to earnings per share from the lower rate, according to Goldman Sachs analysts, with Wells Fargo & Co and PNC Financial Services Group having the biggest gains. Citizens Financial Group, Regions Financial Corp and M&T Bank Corp would see sizable earnings benefits and are also poised to be relative winners among large bank stocks, UBS analyst Saul Martinez said in a recent note. Banks could benefit indirectly if the tax bill provides an economic boost that spurs increased lending and higher interest rates. The technology sector, which had led the market’s rally for most of 2017, has underperformed the S&P 500 as the tax bill moved forward in Congress. Tech is expected to benefit less than most other sectors from a drop in the corporate rate, with an earnings boost of 5.3 percent, according to UBS. Semiconductors, whose shares have had a particularly rough ride in the past month, are expected to see earnings drop by 3.3 percent due to the overall bill, according to UBS. “Many chip companies have extensive international operations and relatively low blended tax rates,” Wells Fargo analysts said in a recent note. “We see the possibility of changes in the U.S. tax rules as a potential risk for such companies.” One area where large tech companies could benefit is by spending cash held overseas for uses such as stock buybacks that boost earnings per share. UBS points to Cisco Systems Inc and Qualcomm Inc as companies that could see among the biggest buyback boosts. “The tech sector would certainly be among the largest beneficiaries if cash stashed overseas can be repatriated at a low rate and presumably used for stock buybacks or dividends,” according to a recent note from Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research. | 1 |
5,804 | Bernie Sanders Goes After Trump’s Tax Scam, Trump PISSED (TWEETS) | Just because Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is no longer in the presidential race does not mean he s stopped going after Republican nominee Donald Trump.Since his campaign ended, Sanders has been a major supporter of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, and has been urging his massive following to get behind the former Secretary of State. But that s not all he s doing to save America from Trump Sanders recently announced his plan to introduce legislation that will make it impossible for Trump continue to take advantage of tax loopholes.Trump s taxes have been a major topic throughout this entire campaign, as the business mogul continues to hold them hostage from the American people. However, the truth has been coming out little by little. Recent reports have stated that in 1995, Trump claimed a loss of almost one billion dollars on his tax returns, which may have enabled him to use legal tax loopholes to avoid paying federal income tax for 18 years! On Tuesday, Sanders said he would put an end to this: Special tax breaks and loopholes in a corrupt tax code enable billionaires and powerful corporations to avoid paying their fair share of taxes while sticking the burden on the middle class. It s time to create a tax system which is fair and which asks the wealthy and powerful to start paying their fair share of taxes.I will be introducing comprehensive legislation at the beginning of the next session of Congress to do just that. TwitterTwitterSanders believes his legislation will take care of the following loopholes that have been taken advantage of by people like Trump:For Trump, who bragged about how smart he was for not paying any taxes during the first presidential debate last week, this will be devastating.Featured image via Drew Angerer and David McNew / Getty Images | 0 |
5,805 | Kremlin dismisses Trump's 'imperialist' security strategy | MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin dismissed U.S. President Donald Trump s new national security strategy as imperialist on Tuesday, but welcomed Washington s willingness to cooperate in some areas. A day earlier, Trump s administration had unveiled a security paper - based on the president s America First push - that accused Russia of interfering in other countries internal affairs. A quick read of the parts of the strategy that mention our country one way or another... (shows) an imperialist character, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. The paper, he added also showed an unwillingness to give up the idea of a unipolar world, moreover, an insistent unwillingness, disregard for a multipolar world. Trump s strategy paper did not include specific accusations from U.S. security agencies that Moscow meddled in the 2016 U.S. election. But it reflected a broader view long held by U.S. diplomats that Russia actively undermines American interests at home and abroad. We can not agree with an attitude that sees our country as a threat to the United States, Peskov said. At the same time, there are some modestly positive aspects, in particular, the readiness to cooperate in areas that correspond to American interests. Trump has frequently spoken of wanting to improve relations with President Vladimir Putin, even though Russia has frustrated U.S. policy in Syria and Ukraine and done little to help Washington in its standoff with North Korea. In a speech laying out his strategy on Monday, Trump said he had received a call from Putin a day earlier to thank him for providing U.S. intelligence that helped thwart a bomb attack in the Russian city of St. Petersburg. A U.S. Justice Department investigation is looking into whether Trump campaign aides colluded with Russia, something that Moscow and Trump both deny. | 1 |
5,806 | U.N. to vote on new North Korea sanctions on Monday afternoon: diplomats | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council is set to vote on Monday afternoon on a watered-down U.S.-drafted resolution to impose new sanctions on North Korea over its latest nuclear test, diplomats said, but it was unclear whether China and Russia would support it. The draft resolution appears to have been weakened in a bid to appease North Korea s ally China and Russia following negotiations during the past few days. In order to pass, a resolution needs nine of the 15 Security Council members to vote in favor and no vetoes by any of the five permanent members - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China. The draft, seen by Reuters on Sunday, no longer proposes blacklisting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The initial draft proposed he be subjected to a travel ban and asset freeze along with four other North Korea officials. The final text only lists one of those officials. The draft text still proposes a ban on textile exports, which were North Korea s second-biggest export after coal and other minerals in 2016, totaling $752 million, according to data from the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency. Nearly 80 percent of the textile exports went to China. The draft drops a proposed oil embargo and instead intends to impose a ban on condensates and natural gas liquids, a cap of two million barrels a year on refined petroleum products, and a cap crude oil exports to North Korea at current levels. China supplies most of North Korea s crude. According to South Korean data, Beijing supplies roughly 500,000 tonnes of crude oil annually. It also exports 200,000 tonnes of oil products, according to U.N. data. Russia s exports of crude oil to North Korea are about 40,000 tonnes a year. The draft resolution also no longer proposes an asset freeze on the military-controlled national airline Air Koryo. Since 2006, the Security Council has unanimously adopted eight resolutions ratcheting up sanctions on North Korea over its ballistic missile and nuclear programs. The Security Council last month imposed new sanctions over North Korea s two long-range missile launches in July. The Aug. 5 resolution aimed to slash by a third Pyongyang s $3 billion annual export revenue by banning coal, iron, lead and seafood. The new draft resolution drops a bid to remove an exception for transshipments of Russian coal via the North Korean port of Rajin. In 2013 Russia reopened a railway link with North Korea, from the Russian eastern border town of Khasan to Rajin, to export coal and import goods from South Korea and elsewhere. The original draft resolution would have authorized states to use all necessary measures to intercept and inspect on the high seas vessels that have been blacklisted by the council. However, the final draft text calls upon states to inspect vessels on the high seas with the consent of the flag state, if there s information that provides reasonable grounds to believe the ship is carrying prohibited cargo. The Aug. 5 resolution adopted by the council capped the number of North Koreans working abroad at the current level. The new draft resolution initially imposed a complete ban on the hiring and payment of North Korean laborers abroad. The final draft text to be voted on Monday by the council would require the employment of North Korean workers abroad to be authorized by a Security Council committee. However, this rule would not apply to written contracts finalized prior to the adoption of this resolution provided that states notify the committee by Dec. 15 of the number of North Koreans subject to these contracts and the anticipated date of termination of these contracts. Some diplomats estimate that between 60,000 and 100,000 North Koreans work abroad. A U.N. human rights investigator said in 2015 that North Korea was forcing more than 50,000 people to work abroad, mainly in Russia and China, earning between $1.2 billion and $2.3 billion a year. The wages of workers sent abroad provide foreign currency for the Pyongyang government. There is new political language in the final draft urging further work to reduce tensions so as to advance the prospects for a comprehensive settlement and underscoring the imperative of achieving the goal of complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner. | 1 |
5,807 | Ted Cruz Gets OWNED By Fox Host For Whining About Tough Questions (VIDEO) | Ted Cruz just got his ass handed to him by a Fox News host on national television for whining about hard questions.During an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace grilled the Texas Senator over the dirty tricks his campaign has perpetrated since the Iowa Primary in apparently desperate attempts to smear candidates and steak votes from them. Your campaign has been involved in a series of incidents that people are calling dirty tricks. In Iowa, the Cruz campaign sent out tweets saying Ben Carson was suspending his campaign. That was false. The campaign put out fliers accusing people of voting violations, that was false. In South Carolina, a Cruz super PAC attacked Trump over the Confederate flag. And your then-communications director posted a link this week accusing Rubio of disrespecting the Bible. That was false. Do you take personal responsibility this was your campaign except for the super PAC do you take personal responsibility for this series of incidents? And what does it say about the culture of the campaign you are running? Cruz not only failed to take personal responsibility for his campaign s actions, he called Wallace a liar and accused him of being a Donald Trump pawn. Every accusation you raised there is incorrect, Cruz replied. I appreciate your reading the Donald Trump attack file on that. And that did NOT sit well with Wallace at all, and he proceeded to take Cruz to the woodshed for it.WALLACE: Oh, come on, sir. Wait a minute, sir. You personally apologized to Ben Carson on a debate stage. CRUZ: Chris, don t interrupt me. WALLACE: You fired your communications director. CRUZ: Chris, don t interrupt me. WALLACE: Don t say this in an oppo file on our part, sir. CRUZ: Chris, please don t interrupt me. WALLACE: Please don t accuse me of something I didn t do. CRUZ: Let me know when I m allowed to answer. WALLACE: Well, don t accuse me of doing something I didn t do. Two of those things, you apologized for one and you fired your communications director. Don t say this is the oppo file. After his ass-whooping by Wallace, Cruz went on to unbelievably claim that his campaign is running at the highest level of integrity, completely unfazed by the facts presented by Wallace to his face.Here s the video via YouTube.This is the perfect example of Ted Cruz saying and doing anything to be president. Rather than explain himself and accept personal responsibility, Cruz flat out lied to Wallace and pretended his campaign has never done anything wrong. And then he complained about the line of questioning and claimed they were part of a Donald Trump-approved attack line.Ted Cruz definitely could have handled this better, but now all he has is egg on his face.Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
5,808 | U.N. expert says torture persists at Guantanamo Bay; U.S. denies | GENEVA (Reuters) - An independent U.N. human rights investigator said on Wednesday that he had information about an inmate being tortured at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay detention facility, despite Washington banning enhanced interrogation techniques almost 10 years ago. The U.S. Department of Defense denied the allegation, saying there was no credible evidence to support it. Nils Melzer, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture, said he had information that Ammar al-Baluchi - accused of being a co-conspirator in the 9/11 attacks on the United States - was being subjected to treatment that is banned under international law. His torture and ill-treatment are reported to continue, a statement from the U.N. human rights office said, without giving details of the source of Melzer s information. In addition to the long-term effects of past torture, noise and vibrations are reportedly still being used against him, resulting in constant sleep deprivation and related physical and mental disorders, for which he allegedly does not receive adequate medical attention, it said. Major Ben Sakrisson, a Pentagon spokesman, said the allegation was not true. These claims have been investigated on multiple occasions in the past and no credible evidence has been found to substantiate his claims, he said. The prison, which was opened by President George W. Bush to hold terrorism suspects captured overseas after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks came to symbolize harsh detention practices that opened the United States to accusations of torture. His successor Barack Obama ended the use of enhanced interrogation techniques via executive order in January 2009, and reduced the inmate population to 41, but fell short of fulfilling his promise to close the jail. President Donald Trump asked Congress earlier this year for funds to upgrade the jail, having said during his electoral campaign that he wanted to load it up with some bad dudes . Citing a 2014 Senate investigation, the U.N. statement said al-Baluchi was said to have suffered relentless torture for three-and-a-half years in CIA black sites before being moved to Guantanamo, where he had been in a severely restricted-access facility at Guantanamo Bay for more than a decade. Al-Baluchi, a Kuwaiti-born Pakistani citizen also known as Abdul Aziz Ali, is the nephew and alleged co-conspirator of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Melzer said the ban on torture and ill-treatment was one of the most fundamental norms of international law and could not be justified in any circumstances, and called for prosecution of U.S. officials who had carried out torture. By failing to prosecute the crime of torture in CIA custody, the U.S. is in clear violation of the Convention against Torture and is sending a dangerous message of complacency and impunity to officials in the U.S. and around the world, Melzer said in the statement. He said he had renewed a long-standing request to visit Guantanamo Bay to interview inmates, but he and his predecessors in the role had consistently been denied access. A spokesman for the U.S. State Department said that the U.S. constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishment and requires humane conditions of confinement, including that of solitary confinement. We support the work of the U.N. special rapporteurs and the United States has a long history of engaging constructively on matters within mandates of the special rapporteurs, he said. | 1 |
5,809 | No. 2 House Democrat opposes temporary gov't spending bill | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Representative Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 House Democrat, on Tuesday said he opposed any temporary spending bill for the federal government that lasted beyond December. Members of the U.S. Congress, who returned to Washington after a summer recess, must pass a spending bill before the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30 or risk a government shutdown. Some conservative Republicans have said they want a temporary spending bill that extends into 2017. | 1 |
5,810 | Senate committee advances bill easing banking regulations | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate committee advanced legislation Tuesday that would ease financial rules for banks for the first time since the 2007-2009 financial crisis. The Banking Committee advanced the legislative package by a vote of 16 to 7, where it now heads to the full Senate for consideration. The bill would ease regulatory requirements for banks with under $250 billion in assets, among other changes to rules imposed by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law. The bill is supported by nearly every Republican in the Senate and at least 12 Democrats, making its passage extremely likely. The high likelihood the changes may become law has led to intense lobbying by industry groups eager to see legal changes included in the measure that they view as beneficial. Over 100 amendments were proposed to the bill, primarily by Democrats looking to trim favorable provisions for banks and boosting consumer protections. But the four moderate Democrats on the committee joined with the panel’s 12 Republicans to oppose any changes to the compromise package, which was first announced in November. While the bill seems likely to pass the Senate, its path forward remains unclear. Lawmakers are facing a busy December schedule, including efforts to finalize a tax cut package and the need to pass a funding bill to avert a government shutdown. “Financial regulation should promote safety and soundness while enabling a vibrant and growing economy,” said committee Chairman Mike Crapo. “The bill we are marking up today is the product of a thorough, robust process, and honest, bipartisan negotiations.” Proponents argue the bill would help spur the economy by encouraging lending. But critics argue it increases the risk of future crises while aiding banks that already enjoy record profits. “This bill is about helping the banks, including the largest of the largest,” said Senator Sherrod Brown. The legislation makes a number of changes to heightened financial rules enacted as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law, with the relief aimed primarily at smaller banks and credit unions. However, there are a handful of provisions beneficial to larger banks, most notably exempting some larger banks from heightened regulatory scrutiny as “systemically important” financial institutions. The bill raises the threshold by which banks face those stricter rules from $50 billion in assets to $250 billion. Banks with assets between $50 billion and $100 billion would be exempt once the bill is enacted, while those with assets between $100 billion and $250 billion would be exempted 18 months later. The Federal Reserve would have flexibility to release banks from stricter rules sooner, or reinstate them for scrutiny under certain conditions as part of the legislation. The bill also exempts banks with less than $10 billion in assets from several regulatory requirements, including the “Volcker Rule” ban on proprietary trading. | 1 |
5,811 | WATCH: Louisiana Governor Slams Giuliani For Criticizing His Response To Trump Visit | Rudy Giuliani threw a hissy fit over Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards reaction to Donald Trump visiting the flood damage in his state, and Edwards called him out for it.On Friday, the former New York mayor who now forgets about 9/11 posted a statement on Twitter whining about Bel Edwards asking the Republican nominee to do something to help the victims of the flooding instead of just showing up to do a photo-op.Instead of following Gov. Bel Edwards s advice, Trump proceeded to get that photo-op, which consisted of him handing out play-doh instead of real supplies such as food and water.But Giuliani criticized Bel Edwards for making such a request and said that reaction towards President Obama is not the same negative reaction President Bush received after Hurricane Katrina.Giuliani said that Trump showed true leadership by going to the flood ravaged state and then plugged his book in the same breath.Then he bragged about being the mayor of NYC during the September 11th attacks.Here s the full post via Twitter.Giuliani statement on Louisiana s governor criticizing Trump trip: During the September 11 attacks, I welcomed pic.twitter.com/wFDRW5qhyi Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) August 19, 2016On Sunday, Bel Edwards fired back by telling CNN s Dana Bash that there is not a double standard here. I believe Mayor Giuliani got it completely wrong. I have not been critical of Mr. Trump s visit. I have tried not to comment because I don t want to get tied up in the politics of whether it s the president, whether it s Hillary Clinton or whether it s Donald Trump. I have tried not to comment. And the comments that I have made have been very reserved. So I think he was off base there with that comment. So I think he was off base there with that comment. Bel Edwards went on to point out that the reason President Obama has not visited Baton Rouge yet is because he asked him to come next week instead.Here s the video via CNN.But Edwards explained why President Obama was right not to visit yet during an interview with Rachel Maddow on Thursday. It is a major ordeal, they free up the interstate for him. We have to take hundreds of local first responders, police officers, sheriffs, deputies and state troopers to provide security for that type of visit. I would just as soon have those people engaged in the response rather than trying to secure the president. So I d ask him to wait, if he would, another couple weeks. So President Obama s presence would have been a major distraction and would have kept first responders from doing their jobs to help those in need.But that doesn t mean President Obama has done nothing like Republicans would have us believe. Gov. Edwards said on that point: I do want you to know, and your viewers to know, that within hours of me making a request for a federal declaration I got it from the president. He called me. I want you to know that I ve been speaking to Valerie Jarrett just about every day. He dispatched the FEMA administrator to meet with me for an entire day. Today I had the Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. We ve also had the four-star general who runs all of the guard for the country here today. And that s in addition to FEMA workers who have been embedded in the state in preparation for the relief effort.President Bush was not so much criticized for not visiting as much as he was criticized for not being prepared and not doing enough to help the victims in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, a storm that took the lives of nearly 2,000 people. FEMA was completely disorganized under Bush s watch. But President Obama has been on top of this latest disaster in Louisiana since the beginning.So Giuliani is out of line for criticizing President Obama. And he is out of line for criticizing Bel Edwards for making a reasonable request of Trump. Louisiana needs help, not photo-ops. Trump visited a Republican dominated area to make it look like he was universally welcomed in the state when it is clear that he wasn t. President Obama s presence would have only hindered the rescue and recovery effort. And you know Republicans would have whined about that if he had visited.Featured image via screen capture | 0 |
5,812 | Zimbabwe's Mnangagwa appoints former army boss as party VP | HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa appointed retired army boss Constantino Chiwenga and veteran politician Kembo Mohadi as the ruling party s vice presidents, a spokesperson said on Saturday. The appointments paved the way for the two to ascend to similar positions in government, officials said. Mnangagwa, who took over last month from 93-year-old Robert Mugabe after the intervention of the military, is under pressure from opposition parties and the public to implement political reforms. Under Mugabe s 37-year rule political space was limited, with the latter part of his reign marked by the emergence of a ZANU-PF faction aligned to his wife Grace that threatened to usurp the army s central role in government. Chiwenga, who retired from the army on Monday, is the latest in a string of senior military figures appointed by Mnangagwa to important political posts. Presidential spokesman George Charamba said Chiwenga and Mohadi s appointments as vice presidents of the country could only be made by the Chief Secretary to the Government and Cabinet, Misheck Sibanda, who is out of the country. | 1 |
5,813 | Russia blocks bid to briefly extend Syria chemical weapons inquiry | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Russia vetoed on Friday a Japanese-drafted U.N. Security Council resolution to extend by one month an international inquiry into who is to blame for chemical weapons attacks in Syria, just a day after Moscow blocked a U.S. push to renew the investigation. The mandate for the joint inquiry by the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which was unanimously created by the 15-member Security Council in 2015, ends on Friday. Syrian ally Russia has now cast 11 vetoes on possible Security Council action on Syria since the country s civil war began in 2011. The U.N./OPCW investigation found that the Syrian government used the banned nerve agent sarin in an April 4 attack and has also used chlorine as a weapon several times. It blamed Islamic State militants for using mustard gas. | 1 |
5,814 | no title | josh why dont you just stop talking and sit down the american people are fed up with the spewing of lies coming from this administration its over the destruction of our country has come to an end the people have spoken and the time for change has been a long time coming as trump would say its time to drain the swamp | 1 |
5,815 | Secret Service manpower shortage as campaigns ramp up | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Secret Service, tasked with simultaneously protecting President Barack Obama and some of the Republican and Democratic candidates now running to replace him next year, is facing a manpower shortfall at a time of peak demand, the agency told Congress on Tuesday. Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy told a House Appropriations panel the agency is focused on “human capital needs across the organization” and accruing enough agents to ease overtime demands on the existing force. The Secret Service hopes to have 7,600 agents in its ranks by fiscal year 2019, up from the current figure of approximately 6,200, Committee Chairman John Carter of Texas said during Tuesday’s hearing. While Clancy said the Secret Service was making progress in hiring more agents, “we have yet to see the desired impact on our overall staffing levels due to increased attrition.” Clancy testified at a hearing to review the agency’s funding needs for the fiscal year starting on Oct. 1. Demands of the mission are peaking, he added, with Republican and Democratic presidential nominating conventions slated for this summer, the general elections in November and presidential inaugural events in January. Carter cited the loss of 19 agents in the last four months and the large amounts of overtime hours agents have had to put in on the president’s detail, on the campaign trail and in the uniformed division. Carter, a Republican, questioned whether the service’s hiring goals were “obtainable” with the agency “losing more agents than they have brought on board.” Clancy responded that the agency is exploring initiatives to lure more applicants and retain current agents. The Secret Service was rocked in 2012 when it surfaced that some agents working a presidential trip to Colombia were involved with prostitutes. In 2014, agents failed to stop a man who jumped the White House fence, ran across the lawn and made it into the mansion before he was apprehended. More recently, during a rally for presidential candidate Donald Trump in Radford, Virginia, a Time magazine photographer was grabbed by the neck and shoved to the ground by a Secret Service agent. An agency spokeswoman said the service is investigating the incident. Besides protecting the president and presidential candidates, Secret Service agents investigate financial crimes such as counterfeiting of U.S. currency and credit card and fraud. | 1 |
5,816 | Russian credit to cover part of S-400 missile deal with Turkey: agency | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia will offer Turkey partial financing for Ankara s purchase of S-400 surface-to-air missile systems, the Interfax news agency reported on Tuesday, citing a Russian presidential aide. Turkey has been in talks to buy the system for more than a year. Washington and some of its NATO allies see the move as a snub because the weapons cannot be integrated into the alliance s defenses. Turkish and Russian officials would meet to finalize the deal next week, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday. Russian President Vladimir Putin said in Ankara that credit for the defense industry would be signed with Turkey in the near future. When asked by Interfax whether the Russian financing would cover the full cost of the deal, Russian presidential aide Vladimir Kozhin said: Not the whole, partially. Technical questions are being discussed, the interest rate. Everything is in the Finance Ministry, he said of the deal. Turkey expects to receive the first missile system in 2019, Turkish Defence Minister Nurettin Canikli said in November. The deal included two S-400 systems and a third optional one. | 1 |
5,817 | End 'containment' of asylum-seekers on islands, aid groups tell Greek PM | ATHENS (Reuters) - Over a dozen human rights groups and aid organizations wrote to Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Monday urging him to end the containment of asylum seekers in island camps. More than 13,000 people, mostly Syrians and Iraqis fleeing years of war, are living in five camps on Greek islands close to Turkey, government figures show. Four of those camps are holding two to three times as many people as they were designed for. Those who arrive on Greek islands following a European deal with Turkey last year to stem the flow are forbidden from traveling to mainland until their asylum applications are processed, and those who do not qualify are deported. Applications have piled up and rulings can take weeks. A recent sharp rise in arrivals has piled additional misery on overcrowded facilities. The 19 signatories, which include Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Rescue Committee and Oxfam, said the islands of Lesbos, Samos, Kos, Chios and Leros had been transformed into places of indefinite confinement. We urge you to put an end to the ongoing containment policy of trapping asylum seekers on the islands ... and to immediately transfer asylum seekers to the mainland and meet their protection needs, they wrote. They described conditions as abysmal and said many asylum-seekers lacked access to adequate and timely procedures and protection. Some have been on the islands for 19 months. Reception conditions are deteriorating, and gaps in basic services, especially medical, are increasing, they wrote. Thousands of people, including young children, are crammed into tents with only a cloth separating one family from another, the groups said, and conditions were particularly harsh for pregnant women. Nearly 23,000 people have arrived in Greece this year, a fraction compared to the nearly 1 million who arrived in 2015, but state-run camps are struggling to cope with the numbers. As an emergency measure, the government has said it plans to move about 2,000 people from Samos and Lesbos to the mainland. In recent weeks, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) its research showed a mental health emergency was unfolding in migrant camps on the islands, fueled by poor living conditions, neglect and violence. The United Nations refugee agency called on Greece to speed up preparations at those camps, saying they were ill-prepared for winter. | 1 |
5,818 | Massachusetts senator's husband subject of sex abuse probe | BOSTON (Reuters) - The Massachusetts state senate on Friday prepared to open an independent probe into accusations that Majority Leader Stanley Rosenberg’s husband used his political connections to sexually harass men, following a Boston Globe report on the claims. Rosenberg, a Democrat, told reporters on Friday that he supported the investigation and that his husband, Bryon Hefner, was going to enter an inpatient treatment center for alcohol dependency. That came the day after the newspaper quoted four unnamed men who said Hefner, 30, had groped them or had other unwanted sexual contact. Hefner in a statement issued by an attorney expressed surprise at the report but did not specifically deny the allegations, the newspaper reported. “If Bryon claimed to have influence over my decisions or over the Senate, he should not have said that. It is simply not true,” Rosenberg, 68, told reporters outside his statehouse office. “I am looking forward to fully cooperating with the investigation.” Rosenberg did not directly address whether he believed the allegations of sex abuse and declined to answer questions. The newspaper quoted the four men who accused Hefner, 30, anonymously as they feared their work as political advocates would be imperiled by speaking against the spouse of a powerful lawmaker. The allegations, which the newspaper said related to incidents in 2015 and 2016, could not be confirmed by Reuters. “I was shocked to learn of these anonymous and hurtful allegations,” the newspaper quoted Hefner’s attorney-issued statement as saying. “To my knowledge, no one has complained to me or any political or governmental authority about these allegations which are now surfacing years afterward.” It did not name the attorney. A spokesman for Rosenberg said he did not know who was representing Hefner and Reuters could not immediately reach Hefner for comment. “These charges are very serious and very disturbing, and I am shocked and saddened,” said Senate Majority Leader Harriette Chandler, in a statement. “To ensure a completely impartial process ... we will be going to the unprecedented step of bringing in an independent special investigator.” Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, a Republican, and Attorney General Maura Healey, a Democrat, agreed with the call for an immediate probe. “Frankly, I am appalled by the allegations,” Baker told reporters late Thursday. The allegations are the latest in a wave of sexual assault and sexual harassment claims levied against powerful men in U.S. politics, entertainment and journalism. | 1 |
5,819 | Saudi airplane arrives in Baghdad, first time in 27 years | BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A Saudi Arabian commercial airplane arrived in Baghdad on Wednesday for the first time in 27 years, the Iraqi transport ministry said. There have been no flights between the neighbouring countries since former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are both wooing Baghdad now in an effort to halt the growing regional influence of arch-foe Iran. Baghdad International Airport today welcomed the first Saudi plane after a 27-year break, said a ministry statement cited by local media. This plane belongs to the Saudi company Flynas. Flynas, which launched as Nas Air in 2007 and first turned a profit in 2015, is facing increasing competition in Saudi Arabia, its primary market. It said last week it would soon start flights to several Iraqi cities. In August the two countries said they planned to open the Arar land border crossing for trade for the first time since 1990. | 1 |
5,820 | IT’S COME TO THIS: SWEDISH FAMILY KICKED OUT Of Home To Make Way For “Refugee” Invaders | It s come to this legal citizens are being pushed aside for the refugee invaders. Sweden began to import refugees decades ago and now has a reputation for being a failed experiment in multiculturalism. Yes, Sweden is now the rape capital of the world. Say goodbye to Sweden A local family in the Swedish city of Liding has been ordered by the government to leave their home so that it can be given to migrants arriving from a foreign country.Father of two teenage boys Uffe Rustan received a voicemail from his local municipality telling him he would need to vacate the property by August in order to make way for asylum seekers from the Middle East. I was evicted from my home over the phone. When I asked for the reason, he said that people come from other countries. He left the news and basically just said have a nice weekend, Rustan told a newspaper.Rustan lives with his teenage sons Rasmus (15) and Linus (17), all of whom were born in Liding . He rents the home from the city and has been living in it for less than a year. It feels like I m worthless, even though I pay taxes and my kids go to school here. You cannot put a family on the streets for another family, said Rustan. Just when it starts to feel like home, we are evicted. Rustan said that the news was depressing and wondered why native Swedes were being treated worse than migrants arriving in the country for the first time. Despite suffering from a housing shortage, Sweden is handing over property to economic migrants, with some politicians even encouraging citizens to give up their garages to asylum seekers. Sweden is not the only European government that is turfing its own citizens out of social housing to accommodate the influx of Muslim migrants. While migrants are in some cases enjoying all the comforts of good quality hotels, low income Germans are being ordered to leave their homes. As the Telegraph reported, Germans are beginning to receive notices of eviction to make way for asylum seekers.Read more: InfoWars | 0 |
5,821 | U.S., Afghan forces strike opium factories to curb Taliban funds | KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. and Afghan forces have launched joint attacks on Taliban opium factories to try to curb the insurgent group s economic lifeline, officials from both countries said on Monday. U.S. Army General John Nicholson showed videos at a press conference of targeted aerial strikes against what he described as Taliban drug factories. Last night we conducted strikes in northern Helmand to hit the Taliban where it hurts, in their narcotics financing, said Nicholson, flanked by Afghan Army Lieutenant General Mohammad Sharif Yaftali. The southern province of Helmand suffers heavy fighting and is the single-largest producer of opium. Opium production in Afghanistan reached record highs this year, up 87 percent on last year, the United Nations said last week. The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said output of opium made from poppy seeds in Afghanistan, the world s main source of heroin, stands at around 9,000 metric tons this year. UNODC has warned in the past that Kabul s weakening grip on security was contributing to a collapse in eradication efforts. Nearly half of Afghan opium is processed, or refined into morphine or heroin, before it is trafficked out of the country, according to U.S. and Afghan officials. We re determined to tackle criminal economy and narcotics trafficking with full force, said Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Twitter. Nicholson said the attacks were part of U.S. President Donald Trump s new policy toward Afghanistan as he boosts troop numbers. The four-star general showed one video of an F-22 fighter jet dropping 250-pound bombs on two buildings, emphasizing that a nearby third building was left unscathed. U.S. troops have long been accused of causing unnecessary collateral damage and civilian deaths. The United States says it takes every precaution to avoid civilian casualties. The United Nations said at least 10 civilians may have been killed by a strike in Kunduz earlier this month, contradicting a U.S. investigation that found no civilian deaths. | 1 |
5,822 | Russia says Trump's 'aggressive' stance on Iran doomed to fail | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump chose not to certify a deal on Iran’s nuclear program that there was no place in international diplomacy for aggressive rhetoric, and such methods were doomed to fail. Trump’s announcement “once again underlines the inadmissibility of using aggressive and threatening rhetoric in international relations,” Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement “It is a hangover from the past, which does not correspond to modern norms of civilized dealings between countries,” the statement said. “We viewed with regret the decision of the U.S. President not to confirm to Congress that Iran is fulfilling in good faith” the nuclear deal, the statement said. “We expect that this step will not have a direct effect on the progress of implementation of the agreements, although, clearly, it does not correspond to the spirit and letter,” of the nuclear deal. Iran was strictly abiding by the terms of the deal, and the agreement was already making a contribution to making the world safer, it added. “In any event, regardless of the decisions of individual parties to the agreement, it is not possible to return to a situation which previously existed around the Iranian nuclear program,” the statement said. “In particular, there can be no talk of a renewal of sanctions via the U.N. Security Council.” “Russia remains committed to ... (the Iran nuclear deal), wants it to be preserved and will continue to fulfill all its obligations under the deal. We call on all the other participants to do the same,” the ministry said. | 1 |
5,823 | Gala glitz masks Asia's tensions as Trump winds up tour | MANILA (Reuters) - Leaders from across Asia joined U.S. President Donald Trump at an extravagant gala dinner in the Philippines’ capital on Sunday, a show of amity in a region fraught with tensions that have lurked behind his marathon tour of the continent. Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte set the tone of cordiality ahead of the two days of summit meetings he will host, suggesting that despite their differences over claims to the South China Sea, the leaders should not discuss the issue. “We have to be friends, the other hotheads would like us to confront China and the rest of the world on so many issues,” Duterte said at a business conference, as planes carrying heads of state and government attending the summit landed in quick succession in Manila. “The South China Sea is better left untouched, nobody can afford to go to war. It can ill-afford a violent confrontation.” Hours earlier, during a bilateral visit to Vietnam, Trump offered to mediate in the dispute over the South China Sea, where four Southeast Asian countries and Taiwan contest China’s sweeping claims to the busy waterway. All the claimants will be at the summit, except for Taiwan. Trump will join leaders of Southeast and East Asian nations in Manila over the next two days, the last leg of a tour that has taken him to Japan, South Korea and China as well as Vietnam. The sheer length of the trip - the longest to Asia by a U.S. president in more than a quarter century - may reassure some that, despite Trump’s “America First” policy, Washington remains committed to a region China sees as its strategic domain. Leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), China, Russia, Japan, Canada, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand arrived one by one for a glitzy gala dinner where they were entertained by singers and dancers. Each of the men sported a cream-colored barong, a traditional Philippines shirt made of fiber from the pineapple plant, embroidered and worn untucked. They were served a four-course Filipino-Asian fusion meal curate and prepared by Chef Jessie Sincioco, who also designed the menu for Pope Francis when he visited the Philippines in 2015. Police used water canon to prevent hundreds of protesters reaching the U.S. embassy in Manila ahead of Trump’s arrival. Carrying placards declaring “Dump Trump” and “Down with U.S. Imperialism”, the left-wing protesters were blocked by police in riot gear with shields and batons, and then showered with jets of water from a fire engine. The United States and its former colony, the Philippines, have been strategic allies since World War Two. Trump is expected to try during the summit to shore up relations, which have been strained by the mercurial Duterte’s notorious anti-U.S. sentiment and his enthusiasm for better ties with Russia and China. Duterte - sometimes described as the ‘Trump of the East’ because of his brash style - said last week he would tell the U.S. president to “lay off” if he raised the issue of human rights when they met. More than 3,900 Filipinos have been killed in what the police call self-defense in a war on drugs declared by Duterte. Critics say executions are taking place with no accountability, allegations the police reject. But Trump, who has been criticized at home for neglecting rights issues in dealings abroad, praised Duterte in May for doing an “unbelievable job on the drug problem”. “INDO-PACIFIC” Trump’s tour comes against a background of tensions on the Korean peninsula following exchanges of war-like threats and insults between North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un and Trump over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile development program. China has been urged by both South Korea and the United States to take a more active role in curbing North Korea’s nuclear and missile ambitions. During his tour, Trump and his team have repeatedly used the term “Indo-Pacific” instead of “Asia-Pacific” for the region, which some see as an effort to depict it as more than China-dominated. Pacific Rim nation leaders agreed in Vietnam on Saturday to address “unfair trade practices” and “market distorting subsidies”, a statement that bore the imprint of Trump’s efforts to reshape the global trade landscape. The summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) countries in Vietnam put on show the contrasting vision of the “America First” policy with the traditional consensus favoring multinational deals that China now seeks to champion. Manila hosted the APEC summit two years ago, and at that meeting Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won a Twitter poll with the hashtag #APEChottie that asked people to vote for the most attractive leader there. Journalists swarmed the youthful leader and screamed in excitement. On his latest visit, Trudeau visited an outlet of Jollibee, a chain that has become a byword for Filipino fast food, chatting and posing for selfies, charming the people of Manila again. (This story has been refiled to correct word “untucked” in 10th paragraph.) | 1 |
5,824 | Officials found list of targets with 5,000 names in east German raid: media | BERLIN (Reuters) - German officials found lists with over 5,000 names of possible targets, including over 100 politicians, during the raids on the homes and workplaces of two terrorism suspects in the east German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern last week, Die Welt newspaper reported on Friday. The newspaper, citing security sources, said one of the suspects, a former policeman who has since been suspended, is believed to have used his office computer to search out the addresses of political opponents. German police on Aug. 28 raided the homes and workplaces of the policeman and another person suspected of planning to capture and kill politicians because of their views on immigration, authorities said. The newspaper report marked the first substantial details that have emerged about the case. At the time, the federal prosecutor s office said the suspects, who feared Germany s refugee policies would impoverish the country, had begun to stockpile food and ammunition and plan attacks. The newspaper said there were no indications thus far of surveillance of the people on the lists, or of any concrete murder plans. Much of the information was publicly available, the paper cited the sources as saying. Federal police officials seized two binders filled with names of over 5,000 people during searches of the properties of one of the suspects, an attorney and a local politician in Rostock, a northern city. It said the politicians on the list belonged to a wide range of parties, including Chancellor Angela Merkel s conservatives. | 1 |
5,825 | White House finds temporary fix in Zika funding fight | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Wednesday it will redirect $589 million in funds to prepare for the Zika virus before the mosquito that carries it begins to emerge in the continental United States, but urged Congress to act quickly on its request for more money. White House budget director Shaun Donovan said the use of money previously provided for fighting another health crisis, the Ebola virus, was only a temporary fix for Zika funding. Donovan said some measures to fight Zika would have to be delayed, curtailed or stopped unless the U.S. Congress approves more than $1.8 billion in emergency funds requested by the Obama administration in February. The Zika virus, linked to a growing number of cases of the birth defect microcephaly in Brazil, is spreading rapidly in Latin America and the Caribbean and heading north as the weather gets warmer. “We should not play with fire here,” Donovan told reporters on a conference call. Without full Zika funding, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said mosquito control and surveillance may have to be delayed or stopped, vaccine development could be jeopardized and development of faster diagnostic tests could be impaired. Most of the $589 million will come from $2.7 billion in funds set aside for public health projects aimed at the Ebola virus. West Africa was stricken by a two-year Ebola epidemic that killed more than 11,300 people starting in December 2013 and led to a small number of cases in the United States. The Republican-controlled Congress has said the White House should draw the money needed to fight Zika from the Ebola funds. Chairman Hal Rogers and other top Republicans on the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee said in a statement they would “monitor the changing needs resulting from this unpredictable crisis” to ensure that needed funds are available. “Republicans are going to look back on this time that they’ve had to act on the Zika virus and deeply regret it,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said. Burwell said a recent flare-up of Ebola in West Africa shows the United States cannot shortchange its work in the region. “We face two global health challenges, Ebola and Zika, and we don’t have an option to set one aside in the name of the other,” Burwell told reporters. Burwell said there were 672 confirmed cases of Zika infections in the United States, including 64 pregnant women. She said there was one confirmed case of Zika-related microcephaly in Hawaii. The World Health Organization has said there is a strong scientific consensus that Zika can cause microcephaly as well as Guillain-Barre syndrome, though proof may take months or years. Microcephaly is a condition defined by unusually small heads in babies that can result in developmental problems. Guillain-Barre syndrome is a rare neurological disorder that can result in paralysis. Brazil said it has confirmed more than 940 cases of microcephaly, and considers most to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. Brazil is investigating nearly 4,300 additional suspected cases of microcephaly. | 1 |
5,826 | U.S. Justice Dept seeks to scale back scope of warrant on anti-Trump site | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department is scaling back its request to obtain a broad swath of data in connection with an anti-Trump website, after critics accused the department of trampling the free speech rights of political dissidents. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia had previously issued a broader search warrant in July to DreamHost, a Los Angeles-based web hosting company, to obtain data about visitors to website disruptj20.org. Disruptj20 is home to a coalition of political activists who organized disruptive protests during President Donald Trump’s inauguration. The Justice Department said it sought the records connected to the site amid concerns that it helped facilitate the planning of violent riots on Inauguration Day in which more than 200 people were arrested for rioting and vandalizing businesses in downtown Washington. DreamHost resisted the request, saying the scope of the warrant was too broad and trampled on the rights of 1.3 million visitors to the site, many of whom were simply exercising their First Amendment rights to express their political views. The Justice Department on Tuesday proposed amending the scope of its warrant in a filing with the Superior Court of the District of Columbia Criminal Division, which is slated to hold a hearing over the dispute on Thursday morning. “The warrant - like the criminal investigation - is singularly focused on criminal activity. It will not be used for any other purpose,” it wrote. “The government has no interest in records relating to the 1.3 million IP addresses that are mentioned in DreamHost’s numerous press releases and opposition brief.” The department proposed asking the court to amend the warrant, and said that DreamHost “should not disclose the contents of unpublished draft publications” or “HTTP request and error logs.” An attorney for DreamHost called the Justice Department’s action “a tremendous win for DreamHost, its users and the public.” But in a statement, DreamHost counsel Raymond Aghaian added: “There remains, unfortunately, other privacy and First and Fourth Amendment issues with the search warrant, which we will address in a separate filing and at the hearing Thursday morning.” | 1 |
5,827 | Liberal Warren throws down gauntlet to President-elect Trump | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Democrats’ liberal firebrand, Senator Elizabeth Warren, threw down the gauntlet to President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday, telling labor union members there are financial and social issues where her party will fight him and continuing to blast the Republican. Battling bigotry is the first job for Democrats after the election, said Warren, of Massachusetts, giving a sense of how her party will operate now that it no longer controls the White House and remains the minority in both chambers of Congress. “We will fight back against attacks on Latinos, African Americans, women, Muslims, immigrants, disabled Americans - on anyone,” said Warren, who sparred frequently over Twitter with Trump and criticized him on the campaign trail in the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s election. “Whether Donald Trump sits in a glass tower or sits in the White House, we will not give an inch on this, not now, not ever.” She said Trump had “encouraged a toxic stew of hatred and fear” and during the campaign “regularly made statements that undermined core values of our democracy.” In the speech to the AFL-CIO labor federation, Warren also said Democrats will resist attempts to loosen financial regulation, “gut” the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law and eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). “If Trump and the Republican Party try to turn loose the big banks and financial institutions so they can once again gamble with our economy and bring it all crashing down, then we will fight them every step of the way,” she said. Warren did highlight areas of agreement. She said “count me in” on Trump’s support of a new Glass-Steagall law to separate investment and retail banking, reforming trade deals, maintaining Social Security benefits, helping on childcare and college costs and rebuilding infrastructure. Warren rose to lead the liberal wing of the party during the 2007-2009 financial crisis. After Republicans blocked President Barack Obama’s attempt to appoint her as the first director of the CFPB, she won a seat in Congress. In 2015, progressive groups and a political action committee pressed her to run for president. Since Trump’s victory on Tuesday, many have already renewed their calls, for the 2020 presidential election. | 1 |
5,828 | U.N. rights chief decries 'bigotry' in U.S. presidential race | GENEVA (Reuters) - The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights launched a thinly veiled attack on U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and other presidential hopefuls on Friday, in a speech entitled “The road to violence.” “Bigotry is not proof of strong leadership. It is evidence of the lowest and most craven lack of faith in the principles that uphold a ‘land of the free’,” Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein said in a speech at a university in Cleveland, Ohio. “Less than 150 miles away from where I speak, a front-running candidate to be President of this country declared, just a few months ago, his enthusiastic support for torture,... inflicting intolerable pain on people, in order to force them to deliver or invent information that they may not have. “We have heard hateful slander of foreigners, and multiple candidates declaring their support for extensive and intrusive surveillance of people based on their religious beliefs – vast and discriminatory systems to single out and discriminate against Muslims.” Zeid’s speech, the Klatsky Lecture at Case Western Reserve University, also recalled the Nazi holocaust and the genocide of Bosnian Muslims for which former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic was jailed last month. He said the eyes of the world would be on Cleveland when it hosts the Republican National Convention in July, and it was his “deepest hope” that Americans would use it to demonstrate their profound understanding of human dignity and human rights. “And yet, in what may be a crucial election for leadership of this country later this year, we have seen a full-frontal attack – disguised as courageous taboo-busting – on some fundamental, hard-won tenets of decency and social cohesion that have come to be accepted by American society.” He said the price for the “dangerously divisive” rhetoric would be paid by innocent people falling victim to violent acts, not by politicians. “We have heard these calls to hatred – calls stigmatizing and demonizing minorities, beginning the validation of violence,” he said. “Real courage would mean standing up for the great and enduring values of this society.” | 1 |
5,829 | Former Jail Guard Admits To Falsifying Documents In Sandra Bland Death (VIDEO) | Rafeal Zuniga, a former guard at the Waller County, Texas jail where Sandra Bland died, admitted to falsifying official logs documenting the final events leading up to her death. According to the Houston Chronicle, special prosecutors were aware of the falsified documents, but a grand jury still chose not to indict any employees of the jail or sheriff s office last December in connection with the woman s death.The Houston Chronicle reports that Zuniga, a new hire at the jail, was on duty the morning Sandra Bland was found dead in her cell. During sworn testimony, Zuniga stated that he was directed by other guards to document an 8:01 am check on Bland, although he never actually checked on her at all.Although the grand jury failed to indict 12 employees of the Waller County Jail, her family has filed a wrongful death suit. The case is scheduled for trial in January of 2017. In February the suit was expanded to include Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Brian Encinia who arrested Bland, his agency, Waller County, two of the jail employees and ten Waller County officials. The suit seeks unspecified damages.While no one from the Waller County Jail was indicted on murder charges, Brian Encinia was indicted on perjury charges. The charges stem from his testimony, under oath, regarding his actions on the day Bland was arrested.Video of the encounter between Encinia and Bland, a Black Lives Matter activist, contradicts the trooper s statements under oath. Encinia testified that he ordered Bland to exit her vehicle in order to conduct a traffic investigation. The jury, which had access to the dashcam video, found Encinia s statement to be untrue.Sandra Bland supposedly hung herself with a plastic trash bag, three days after Encinia took her into custody. The 28-year-old civil rights leader was in the process of moving from the Chicago area to Texas, where she was scheduled to begin work at Prairie View A&M University. Those who were closest to her say that her spirits were good and she was excited at the prospect of her new job and life in Texas.Watch the video below, courtesy of Democracy Now.Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
5,830 | Potential Trump VP Picks Running Away From Him In DROVES | Donald Trump is having a very difficult time finding a vice presidential running mate, and it s not hard to see why. After all, the guy is political poison for anyone who wants a post-Trump political career. Two potential VP picks, Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), have now withdrawn themselves from the short list of potential candidates for consideration for Trump s running mate.Of course, in her remarks, Ernst was in no way critical of Trump. She s clearly one of those party-before-country types who won t say a bad word against The Donald, but she also seems to want nothing to do with potentially being vice president under such a man. Ernst said: I made that very clear to him that I m focused on Iowa. I feel that I have a lot more to do in the United States Senate. And Iowa is where my heart is. I m just getting started here. I have a great partner with Chuck Grassley, we ve been able to accomplish a lot. And I think that President Trump will need some great assistance in the United States Senate and I can provide that. Like all good Republican toy soldiers lining up behind their bigoted standard-bearer, Ernst still wants there to be a President Trump, and says she will do what she can to make that happen. She said of the baffling decision to make sure the orange one is elected: I will probably participate more as an advocate. I would love to assist him out on the trail. Senator Corker was much less enthusiastic when announced his own withdrawal, only saying: There are people far more suited for being a candidate for vice president and I think I m far more suited for other types of things. There were no laudatory words about Trump, and nor was there any kind of promise to help Trump get elected. In other words, this guy is not going to be associated with Donald Trump in any way. And who can blame him? Trump s bigotry, praise of dictators, ignorance of the rule of law and any number of other repugnant things make him absolute political poison.Trump better stick to Christie and Gingrich. They re the only two who are dumb enough and/or have little enough to lose to attach themselves to a potential Trump administration.Featured image via Marc Piscotty/Getty Images | 0 |
5,831 | Amid South Korea freeze, China says cultural exchanges take the temperature | BEIJING (Reuters) - Cultural exchanges between countries need to consider the temperature of popular opinion and how people feel about each other, a senior Chinese official said on Friday, amid a freeze in cultural ties with South Korea over an anti-missile system. China has been angered by Seoul s decision to deploy the U.S.-made Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, saying that its powerful radar harms China s own national security and will do nothing to lessen tensions with North Korea, which THAAD is supposed to defend against. Popular South Korean soap operas have been pulled from streaming sites, K-Pop singers have had concerts canceled and there has been a dramatic drop in Chinese tourists to South Korea. China has not officially linked the moves to the THAAD tensions, but has said relations need to have a basis in popular opinion . Asked about the prospects for cultural exchanges with South Korea amid the THAAD dispute, deputy media regulator Zhang Hongsen said cultural exchanges were not an ordinary exchange of goods . Cultural exchanges relate to where the popular will inclines and to emotional choices, he said, speaking on the sidelines of a Communist Party Congress. So what we say is that culture exchanges are an exchange of temperatures, and this temperature comes from popular feeling and emotion, added Zhang, who is a Vice Minister of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television. When popular sentiments and emotions align, cultural exchanges and cooperation can certainly develop in a positive direction, he said, without elaborating. | 1 |
5,832 | Victorious Obama Schools GOP War-Mongers: Breakthrough With Iran Based On ‘Smart’ Diplomacy (VIDEO) | While Republicans continue to reveal their true colors by openly complaining about the release of American prisoners in Iran, President Obama is using his latest diplomatic success to teach his critics a lesson in what effective leadership really looks like.Obama had deliberately waited to talk about the hostage exchange until the American prisoners were out of Iran and safe, but upon news that the swap was a success and that the United Nations had certified that Iran was upholding its end of a landmark nuclear disarmament deal, the White House held a press conference that quickly turned into a teachable moment for those who had irresponsibly advocated for war over diplomacy. This is a good day, because once again we re seeing what s possible with strong American diplomacy, Obama said at the White House. Yesterday marked a milestone in preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, he noted. Most of important of all, we achieved this historic progress through diplomacy, without resorting to another war in the Middle East. And yet, somebody might want to tell the Republican Party that a victory like this without a single shot fired is considered a good thing. The friends at Fox and Friends were practically despondent when they had to tell their audience that the American prisoners in Iran were coming home.A good day for America is a bad one for Fox.Obama s negotiations were a massive blow to their narrative.For years, Republicans have insisted that the only way to get Iran to listen to the United States is through threats of war. Infamously, Republican Sen. John McCain ran for president on the platform of bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran. Even now, certain conservatives regret not being able to send troops into another Middle Eastern conflict. War is a tough addiction to kick.Nobody knows how much Republicans want war than President Obama. He s been boxing out the war-mongers for years. During his comments, he took a dig at those who say war is the only answer.Citing the cooling of tensions with Iran, Obama pointed out that his smart, patient and disciplined approach to the world has yielded results. America can do and has done big things when we work together, Obama said. We can lead this world and make it safer and more secure. But we can only do that if we stop listening to those who think threatening violence will make us look tough. America has tried that approach for decades and the situation with Iran had only been deteriorating. The change in recent months cannot be overstated.The nuclear talks have brought a sense of normalcy to relations with the U.S. and Iran, with top officials from each country in somewhat regular communication. While Obama emphasized that the U.S. continues to have deep concerns about Iran s destabilizing actions in the Middle East and its threats to Israel, he also opened up the prospect of Tehran working more cooperatively with the rest of the world.It s worth noting that those who want war with Iran represent a small minority of Americas mostly Republican politicians and Fox News hosts. It s not a coincidence that McCain s bomb Iran campaign strategy contributed to his being absolutely smoked by Obama s smart, patient and disciplined one in the election. It s also not a big secret that Americans are tired of sending young kids off to die in intractable wars in the Middle East. With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan finally winding down, it s only those in the GOP who seem eager to embark on a new one.If accomplishing America s goals of neutralizing Iran s nuclear program while avoiding war was the goal and for most of the country, it was then this deal represents a massive success for the country. For the bloodthirsty, it probably stings a little. Obama s clearly not sorry.[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xABl2Aeaycc]Featured image via White House | 0 |
5,833 | Trump Just Broke Another MAJOR Campaign Promise And People Are Outraged | Amateur president Donald Trump pledged to forego a presidential salary and his spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in mid-January that the former reality show star is required to get a paycheck but will be giving it back to (the) treasury or donating. In 2015, Trump said, I won t take even one dollar. I am totally giving up my salary if I become president. However, Trump s second payday is quickly approaching and the White House is declining to say if the alleged president has donated any of his earnings yet, NBC reports.Here is Trump pledging to his supporters in 2015 that he will forgo his salary:To follow up on Trump s pledge, MSNBC requested details and documentation regarding any salary donations from the White House, the Treasury Department and the Office of Personnel Management, but all declined to say whether Trump has donated any the salary due to him.Article II of the Constitution requires a president to be paid so Trump promised to only accept $1.00. That added to Trump s populist appeal but now he s not being transparent about his pledge after the election.Here s where it gets even worse.During the transition, Trump also unveiled a plan to donate all profits from foreign governments patronage of his hotels and similar businesses to the Treasury Department. The plan was released by Trump s private law firm, Morgan Lewis, but no system or accounting has been released for how or when such donations will be processed or disclosed.A president earns $400,000 and is afforded a $50,000 expense account. Trump has broken many promises to his supporters. Mexico will not pay for the wall. We, the taxpayers, will foot the bill. Hillary Clinton won t be locked up. But, he is trying to repeal Obamacare, a move which would largely affect Trump supporters. As for his Drain the swamp slogan during his campaign, he s filled it to the brim with bankers and billionaires.We re thinking that Trump really doesn t need a salary. He has already greatly profited from the presidency.Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images | 0 |
5,834 | Pence, Bannon appeal for conservatives to unite behind Trump | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and other top White House officials urged conservative activists on Thursday to set aside differences and unite behind President Donald Trump’s agenda stressing tough trade and immigration policies. Addressing the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, in suburban Maryland, outside Washington, Pence rallied the large group of Republicans who helped elect Trump on Nov. 8. “My friends, this is our time. This is the chance we’ve worked so hard for so long to see. This is the time to prove again that our answers are the right answers for America,” Pence said. Trump was due to address CPAC on Friday. Earlier on Thursday, Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, known as a forceful influence in the White House, made a rare public appearance to appeal for support for the Republican president. “We want you to have our back” in upcoming battles, Bannon told the gathering, denouncing media criticism of Trump. He appeared onstage along with White House chief of staff Reince Priebus. The early days of the new administration have been marked by deep post-election divisions between Trump backers and liberals over the president’s temporary travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries, as well as moves to increase deportations of illegal immigrants and build a wall on the border with Mexico. While conservatives celebrate Trump’s role in delivering them victory in November’s election, his agenda veers from traditional right-wing principles like limited government and open trade. Republicans who control the White House and Congress are also arguing over how to dismantle and replace former Democratic President Barack Obama’s landmark healthcare law. Bannon and Priebus both sought to dispel a sense of disorder in the White House portrayed in media accounts. Referring to media criticism of Trump and echoing the president’s attacks on the media, Bannon warned: “It’s going to get worse every day” as Trump presses forward with his 2016 campaign promises. “If you think they’re going to give you your country back without a fight you are sadly mistaken,” said Bannon, who formerly ran the confrontational right-wing website Breitbart News. He blamed the “corporatist, globalist media that are adamantly opposed to an economic nationalist agenda” under Trump. The CPAC conference, once a fringe event but now decidedly in the Republican mainstream, is being attended by an estimated 10,000 activists. White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, in remarks to the group, credited Trump with revitalizing the Republican Party’s right wing. “Every great movement ends up being a little bit sclerotic and dusty after a time, and I think they (conservatives) need an infusion of energy,” Conway said. CPAC organizers are trying to steer clear of controversy over the alt-right movement, a loose grouping that includes neo-Nazis, white supremacists and anti-Semites whom Trump has been slow to denounce. Breitbart has a following among some of those groups and Bannon in the past had called the media organization a platform for the movement. Some Breitbart staffers were scheduled to participate in CPAC panel discussions. “We don’t think there’s any role for the alt-right in the conservative movement,” Matt Schlapp, head of the American Conservative Union, which organizes CPAC, said in a phone interview. Just a month into his presidency, Trump is already being compared by some conservatives to their hero, former President Ronald Reagan, who swept into office in 1981 with a small-government, free-trade, tax-cutting agenda that energized the Republican right wing and molded the views of many of the CPAC faithful. Trump so far has been “pitch-perfect with conservatives as he starts his administration,” said Schlapp. Even so, some conservatives, including some at CPAC, are nervously watching Trump. Trump has proposed a major expansion of government to police immigration. He has already canceled a trade deal with Asia-Pacific neighbors and sharply criticized one among the United States, Mexico and Canada. “I always worry any discussion about trade competition and tariffs ... misdirects the focus,” said CPAC stalwart Grover Norquist, a powerful advocate of low taxes and small government. On taxes, Trump has backed cuts in rates, but his position on a Republican tax package under debate in Congress is unclear. Schlapp credited Trump with naming the most conservative Cabinet in a half-century and nominating a Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch, who has conservatives’ blessings. Trump has also thrilled conservatives by working hand in glove with congressional Republicans on overturning or gutting a handful of Obama-era regulations, including one that prevented coal companies from dumping waste into rivers and streams. | 1 |
5,835 | Britain says suspends training of Myanmar military following violence | LONDON (Reuters) - Britain has suspended its training program for military in Myanmar due to the violence in Rakhine state, a British government spokesman said on Tuesday. Human rights monitors and fleeing Rohingya say the army and Rakhine Buddhist vigilantes have mounted a campaign of arson aimed at driving out the Muslim population. In light of the ongoing violence in Burma s Rakhine State, the growing humanitarian crisis it has caused, and our deep concern about the human rights abuses that are taking place, we have decided to suspend the educational courses provided to the Burmese military until there is an acceptable resolution to the current situation, the spokesman said in a statement. We call on the Burmese Armed Forces to take immediate steps to stop the violence in Rakhine and ensure the protection of all civilians, to allow full access for humanitarian aid. | 1 |
5,836 | Court hears appeal of ruling in Menendez corruption case | PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The U.S. Constitution protects Sen. Robert Menendez from being prosecuted on bribery charges for talks he held with government officials on behalf of a friend who gave him gifts valued at $1 million, the New Jersey Democrat’s lawyers argued on Monday. The arguments came before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the corruption case against Menendez, who stepped down as the ranking member of the powerful U.S. Foreign Relations Committee when he was indicted in April 2015. Federal prosecutors charge that he accepted lavish stays at a Caribbean villa, a luxurious visit to a Paris hotel and flights on private jets from Florida ophthalmologist and businessman Solomon Melgen, a longtime friend. Menendez interceded on Melgen’s behalf in an $8.9 million billing dispute with Medicare, and in a dispute with the government of the Dominican Republic over a port security contract held by one of Melgen’s companies, prosecutors say. The hearing on Monday involved an appeal of an earlier ruling dismissing a motion by Menendez’s lawyers to have the case thrown out before it goes to trial. They argued that the discussions with high-level officials centered on government policies rather than Melgen himself. At the time of his indictment, Menendez was the ranking member of the powerful U.S. Foreign Relations Committee, a post that he stepped down from while the charges are pending. “You have to look at what happened in the room,” defense attorney Abbe Lowell told the three-judge panel hearing the case. “If you look at what happened in the room, the record reflects that there were high level policy discussions occurring.” The case highlights a seldom-discussed provision of the U.S. Constitution known as the “speech or debate” clause, which gives members of Congress broad protections against prosecution for actions they take in their capacity as legislators. The clause was designed to prevent the executive branch from intimidating members of Congress for legislative actions, but it is commonly cited by the legal teams of members of Congress when they run afoul of U.S. corruption laws. But Circuit Judge Thomas B. Ambro pointed out that not everything a member of Congress does is protected by the clause. “It looks like he’s doing constituent services, and that doesn’t get you the shield of the speech and debate clause,” Ambro said. Prosecutors argued that the justices should look at the circumstances surrounding the talks Menendez held with government officials. Peter Koski, the deputy chief of the U.S. Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, pointed to emails between Menendez and his chief of staff in which they discuss whether a meeting with then-U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius would get Melgen’s hopes up. “The only way Melgen’s expectations would be raised is if that meeting were about him,” Koski said. Melgen and Menendez have pleaded not guilty, and have challenged the charges against them. In September, U.S. District Judge Benjamin Walls dismissed some of the charges against the men related to allegations that Melgen passed along $40,000 in bribes with contributions through Menendez’s legal defense fund. | 1 |
5,837 | White House Confirms Resident Nazi Stephen Miller Is An Even Bigger Scumbag Than You Knew | White house Nazi Stephen Miller is a scumbag. At this point, there s no question about it. He s a Nazi and therefore is a scumbag.But there are other reasons Miller is a piece of trash outside of his struggle, or kampf, with people remembering his long history of riding the white rage train to the White House, spouting Nazi dog-whistle terms like cosmopolitan (it means Jew, in case you re unaware) when insulting opponents.Miller, whose family mostly seems to hate him based on their social media remarks, is now beset by the FAKE NEWS fake newsing up some more fake news about oh, the White House confirmed this one?The New York Times reports that in high school Miller showed his contempt for women by leaping into the final stretch of a race they had been running for quite some time:Mr. Miller set off on a patriotic semi-striptease before the editor of the student newspaper, according to the editor, Ari Rosmarin, theatrically removing a button-down to reveal an American flag T-shirt in protest of an article he found inconsistent with the national interest. (The White House denied any symbolic unbuttoning, though officials confirmed Mr. Miller s fondness for the T-shirt.)He jumped, uninvited, into the final stretch of a girls track meet, apparently intent on proving his athletic supremacy over the opposite sex. (The White House, reaching for exculpatory context, noted that this was a girls team from another school, not his own.)Miller apparently hoped to take advantage of this head start to show that he is genetically superior to women by crossing the finish line first (this, of course, perfectly matches his current professed views on women).Donald Trump hires only the best people.Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
5,838 | White House says no evidence of Trump team collusion with Russians | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House, responding to hearings on Capitol Hill about contacts between officials in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia, said on Tuesday there was no evidence of collusion between Trump’s team and Moscow. Testifying before a House panel, former CIA director John Brennan said he was aware of contacts between Russian officials and people involved in the Trump campaign and grew concerned that Moscow had sought to lure Americans down “a treasonous path.” Dan Coats, the Director of National Intelligence, was questioned in separate testimony before a Senate panel over a report in the Washington Post that Trump asked Coats to help him knock down the notion there was evidence of collusion. Coats sidestepped the question but said he has made clear to Trump’s administration that “any political shaping” of intelligence would be inappropriate. In a statement to reporters, a White House official said the hearings showed “there is still no evidence of any Russia-Trump campaign collusion.” Trump, who is in Rome on his first overseas trip as president, has been embroiled in controversy since his firing earlier this month of Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey amid the agency’s investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. | 1 |
5,839 | Trump taps ex-pharma executive Azar as U.S. health secretary | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Monday said he is nominating former pharmaceutical executive and industry lobbyist Alex Azar to serve as U.S. Health and Human Services secretary, saying Azar would push to lower the price of medicines. Republicans as well as the lead lobby groups for drugmakers and health insurers welcomed Azar as an experienced hand who could help overhaul the world’s most costly healthcare system. But several Democratic lawmakers questioned whether he would tackle changes that cut into pharmaceutical profits. If confirmed, Azar also would take the lead in implementing Trump’s campaign promise to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, former Democratic President Barack Obama’s 2010 healthcare overhaul that extended health insurance to 20 million Americans. Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings said Trump’s pick of a former pharmaceutical executive was “like a fox guarding the hen house.” Trump, who is in the Philippines on a diplomatic trip, announced the nomination on Twitter by saying Azar would “be a star for better healthcare and lower drug prices.” Trump’s first health secretary, former U.S. Representative Tom Price, resigned in September amid a public furor over his use of expensive taxpayer-funded private charter jets for government travel. Azar worked at Eli Lilly (LLY.N) and Co for a decade, including five years as president of its Lilly USA unit, and left the company in January, according to his LinkedIn page. Cummings and Senator Bernie Sanders, a 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, last year called for a federal probe into whether Eli Lilly, Sanofi SA (SASY.PA), Merck & Co Inc (MRK.N) and Novo Nordisk A/S (NOVOb.CO) colluded to set prices on insulin and other diabetes drugs. “This is a slap in the face to millions of Americans who are waiting on (the President) to take action to lower drug prices,” Cummings wrote on Twitter. He also pointed to Eli Lilly raising drug prices by double digits while Azar was an executive at the company. Azar, though a spokesman, declined to comment. Other Democrats were more cautious in their response to Trump’s announcement, with Senator Chuck Schumer calling for the health agency to turn over a new leaf with Azar. Democratic Senator Patty Murray, who has been working on bipartisan healthcare legislation, tweeted, “Given Alex Azar’s professional background, there are concerns on whether he can fairly execute any significant effort to lower drug prices for patients & families.” Republicans were supportive with Senate health committee head Lamar Alexander of Tennessee describing Azar as a qualified, experienced nominee. Azar also drew praise from PhRMA, the largest pharmaceutical industry trade group and America’s Health Insurance Plans, the key lobbyist for the insurer industry. Azar served several years on the board of directors of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, a drug industry lobbying group, and earlier was general counsel and deputy secretary for Health and Human Services under former Republican President George W. Bush. Patient advocacy organization Public Citizen said Azar has made it clear he is opposed to measures “to restrain prescription companies’ profiteering and limit improper marketing” and that he favors weaker safety approval standards. As head of HHS, Azar would have oversight responsibility for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates the drug industry including approving new treatments. Azar’s nomination must be approved by the U.S. Senate, which is controlled by Trump’s fellow Republicans. | 1 |
5,840 | CHECK OUT TINY CROWD At Hillary Rally In MUST WIN State Of Ohio | My kids draw bigger crowds at their neighborhood lemonade stands! From GP: She [Hillary] will speak at Luke Easter Park at 1:00 PM ET.Hillary is speaking at the park in 25 minutes with her vice presidential running mate Tim Kaine.So far only a couple hundred supporters have turned out to see her.Crowd waiting for Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine at Luke Easter Park in Cleveland. pic.twitter.com/b8QMTGGCXN Tom Troy (@TomFTroy) September 5, 2016Hillary Clinton starts rally in Cleveland 80 minutes late, talks after coughing fit she attributes to allergies. pic.twitter.com/vW5GmvTfRX Tom Troy (@TomFTroy) September 5, 2016CLINTON IN CLEVELAND: Ted Strickland kicks off speeches at #Cleveland Labor Day festival. @WEWS pic.twitter.com/YnWLUtpsUx Tara Molina (@TaraMolinaTV) September 5, 2016Compare Hillary s lethargic, tiny crowd in Ohio today to Trump s massive and enthusiastic crowd in Canfield, Ohio on the same day:Thank you Ohio! #AmericaFirst pic.twitter.com/p68GAJdhwu Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2016 | 0 |
5,841 | Bill Maher Has A DIRE Election Message The Whole Country Should Listen To (VIDEO) | We are now down to the wire in the all-important and hotly contested 2016 election. Everyone has crawled into their corners, and in this most bizarre and contentious year, we re all ready to end it already. People have lost friends, relationships have ended the tone of this campaign has been good for no one. That is all due to one man s toxic rise to the top of the GOP presidential ticket: Donald Trump.There s one thing that we all need to remember, though: This was no accident. Trump is a classic demagogue. He has brought out the worst in the entire country, has appealed to people s deepest, basest levels of prejudice, hate, and fear. He s made those of us who are minorities feel especially vulnerable, because we know what is really at stake here. Well, comedian Bill Maher has a very important message regarding all of this and especially the rise of Donald Trump no matter which side of the political aisle you fall on.Maher, like most liberals, has spent years excoriating the GOP for their bigotry, lack of belief in science, religious fanaticism, war- mongering, and fantasy economic proposals. However, he says he was wrong. Men like Mitt Romney and John McCain were nowhere near as dangerous as Trump. To that end, he had this to say the the nation on Friday night s edition of his HBO program Real Time: So I ve heard these young people on the news they say things like Donald Trump I don t like him but Hillary, I can t vote for a liar. First of all, it s just apples, and oranges and orange. After those opening lines, Maher got uncharacteristically grave and serious, saying: This is different. I promise it, this will not make your life better. And also, once fascists get power, they don t give it up. You ve got President Trump for life. I know liberals made a big mistake because we attacked your boy [George W.] Bush like he was the end of the world, and he wasn t. And Mitt Romney we attacked that way. I gave Obama a million dollars because I was so afraid of Mitt Romney. Maher then went on to offer olive branches to Republicans, while giving a warning about Trump: They were honorable men who we disagreed with and we should have kept it that way. So we cried wolf and that was wrong. But this is real. This is going to be way different. Bill Maher is right. Donald Trump is a dangerous demagogue. He s a literal fascist who has shown that he cares not about the Constitution, civil liberties, or any of the things we have come to take for granted as Americans. Trump is Hitler-level dangerous. Just like they treated the last Fuhrer as a clown and a buffoon prior to his rise, just as establishment types thought they could control him and use him as a puppet to get him elected so is the same with Trump. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.America don t make Germany s mistakes. This man is not who you think he is. I promise, we ll all live to regret it if we elect him.Watch Bill Maher s all too correct warning below:[ad3media campaign= 1311 ]Featured image via video screen capture | 0 |
5,842 | Congressional panel calls for U.S. women's history museum | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A congressionally-appointed panel on Wednesday called for the creation of a U.S. museum of women’s history, with preferred sites on or near Washington’s National Mall. The American Museum of Women’s History would close a gap in the U.S. capital, which has museums devoted to everything from space and spies to stamps and black history, but none focused on women, its backers said. “America needs and deserves a physical national museum dedicated to showcasing the historical experiences and impact of women in this country,” said the report from the seven-member commission - all women - empaneled by Congress in 2014. Creation of the museum would call for a decade-long effort to gather support and funding and to build it. The cost for a building of 75,000 square feet (6,900 square meters) to 90,000 square feet (8,400 square meters) would be estimated at $150 million to $180 million in private funds, the report said. The commission also recommended that Congress donate land free of charge for the museum site or provide an existing building. The museum would become part of the Smithsonian Institution, the world’s biggest museum complex, overseen by a board also appointed by Congress. The federal government would assume operation and maintenance costs. The panel recommended three sites for a women’s museum on or around the National Mall, a vast area stretching two miles (3.2 km) from the U.S. Capitol west to the Lincoln Memorial and often called “America’s front lawn.” One site is on the side of the Mall opposite the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in September. The second site is the Smithsonian’s 19th-century Arts and Industries Building, also on the Mall, and the third is on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol. Congress declared the Mall closed to new building in 2003, but made an exception for the African American museum. With the Mall already crowded with monuments and museums, Washington planners are looking for ways to pay tribute to U.S. historical figures and events away from the area. | 1 |
5,843 | U.S. Republicans in crisis over Trump's vulgar video | WASHINGTON/ST. LOUIS (Reuters) - The U.S. Republican Party on Sunday confronted its biggest crisis in more than 40 years when its presidential nominee, Donald Trump, faced a storm over sexually aggressive comments he made about women in a newly uncovered 2005 video. Only a month before the Nov. 8 election and on a day when Trump was due to debate Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Trump took to social media to squelch any speculation that he would leave the race. “Tremendous support (except for some Republican leadership”). Thank you,” Trump wrote on Twitter. Then in a last-minute surprise in St. Louis, host city for the town-hall debate, Trump called journalists into a hotel room to witness a meeting he held with four women who revived accusations of past sexual misdeeds by Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton. The party turmoil recalled past party crises, including the Watergate scandal that led to Republican President Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974. A businessman-turned-politician previously best known to Americans as a reality TV show host, Trump, 70, faced his latest crisis when on Friday the 2005 video emerged in which he was heard talking on an open microphone about groping women and trying to seduce a married woman. The video was taped only months after Trump married his third wife, Melania. The controversy pitched Trump, 70, into the biggest crisis of his 16-month-old campaign and deepened fissures between him and establishment Republicans. On Sunday, he struck a defiant tone in the face of calls for him to abandon the race. A source close to the campaign of Trump’s vice presidential running mate, Mike Pence, dismissed talk among some political analysts the Indiana governor might bolt the ticket in the uproar over Trump’s comments. “Absolutely not,” the source told Reuters. At a Democratic campaign event in Chicago, President Barack Obama weighed in on the controversy, saying Trump had been degrading not only to women, but to minorities, immigrants, people of other faiths, and the disabled. Obama said that “tells you he is insecure.” “He pumps himself up by putting other people down,” Obama said. With Republican Party leaders in crisis mode and doubts emerging over Trump’s ability to draw support from crucial undecided voters, there were nonetheless some early signs many of his core supporters would remain loyal. A public opinion poll by POLITICO/Morning Consult, taken just after news broke of the video, found 39 percent of voters thought Trump should withdraw, and 45 percent said he should stay. Of those who said Trump should leave, only 12 percent identified themselves as Republicans. As of Sunday afternoon, at least 160 of the United States’ 332 sitting Republican governors, senators and House of Representatives members had condemned Trump’s remarks, according to a Reuters review of official statements and local news coverage. At least 30 had called for him to withdraw from the race and three other officeholders said he should consider doing so. Eight of those said they were withdrawing their endorsement as well. Those facing a difficult re-election were more likely to speak out. All but six of the 40 Republican officeholders whose races are considered competitive had condemned Trump’s comments on the video, although only three members of that group called for him to drop out. Any attempt to replace Trump on the ballot would face huge legal and logistical hurdles. The Trump campaign was battling back, circulating “talking points” to a core of high-profile Republicans who promote Trump in the news media. The points sought to undermine establishment Republicans who have abandoned Trump. “They are more concerned with their political future than they are about the future of the country,” said a copy of the talking points, described to Reuters by two sources close to the campaign. A real estate developer making his first run at public office, Trump has made his battle against the establishment a central campaign theme. “Phones have been blowing up for the past 24 hours,” said a prominent Republican political operative in Washington, referring to a heavy volume of calls among party officials and Republican members of Congress. DOWN-BALLOT RACES The operative, who did not want to be identified, said Trump’s troubles could steer campaign donations away from him and to Republican candidates for Congress and other down-ballot offices. The source said Trump could help himself most during the presidential debate - the second of three before the election - if he addressed the video and an Oct. 1 New York Times report that he took so substantial a tax deduction on a declared $916 million loss in 1995 that he could legally have avoided paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years. Despite having recovered from a string of setbacks, Trump had an uphill battle to win the White House. Before the video surfaced, a Reuters/Ipsos poll had Clinton leading by 5 points on Friday. The question now is whether Trump’s quest for the presidency has been dealt a lethal blow. | 1 |
5,844 | NO POLICE IN SIGHT: Large Group Of Masked Antifa Cowards Take On Trump Supporters In Berkeley…CHAOS ERUPTS [VIDEO] | Watch these two stunning interviews, where police officers almost admit to this liberal reporter that they ve been told to stand down:I tell a police officer I've been seeing people get beat up all day and they haven't been around. "Okay, and?" he says. pic.twitter.com/OuGEcvvb8R Shane Bauer (@shane_bauer) April 15, 2017This police officer is clearly agitated that he s being asked why he s ignoring the violence:I ask a cop why they've been hanging back as a brawl is happening half a block away in Berkeley. "I'm not at liberty to discuss my tactics." pic.twitter.com/teGEYBV1ho Shane Bauer (@shane_bauer) April 15, 2017The last time violence erupted in Berkeley when anti-Trump terrorists attacked members of a pro-Trump rally, Americans were stunned to see police officers standing by and watching the violence unfold without making any attempt to stop it. So it s no surprise that the Berkeley farmers market made the decision to close down after 30 years for the day due to threats of violence at today s Patriots Day rally.Martin Bourque, director of the Ecology Center which runs the market, said the center decided to cancel the market because of the unpredictability of the planned Patriots Day rally, which is scheduled to start at the park at noon. A counter-rally organized by people on the far left will begin at 10 a.m. In early March, the last time the two sides met in the park, the protests turned bloody, police seized numerous bats and sticks, and ten people were arrested. Berkeley SideSome of the farmers chose to come anyhow, as seen in the background in the video below where conservative reporter Lauren Southern is covering the events while wearing a gas mask and helmet. https://t.co/XLf1ZJXTji Lauren Southern (@Lauren_Southern) April 15, 2017It wasn t long though before all out violence and chaos broke out between the patriots attending a pro-Trump rally and the terror group Antifa, which is really just a collection of Soros-paid thugs, anti-Trump Democrats and basement dwellers looking for something to do that makes them feel like they have a purpose in life. Watch how quickly things escalate in the video below. Note how the cowardly anti-Trumpers drag one person into their crowd and then gang up on him to ensure maximum violence is used against them, while Trump supporters appear to be trying to either stop the fights or fighting anti-Trumpers in one-on-one battles: https://twitter.com/TEN_GOP/status/853347335463743492Antifa terror group throws projectiles, pepper bombs at pro-Trump supporters then run away. Twitter user suggests they re running back to their parents basements LOL!#ANTIFA Throws bottles & pepper bombs at #Trump supporters in Berkeley then run away, presumably back to their mother's basement.#TaxMarch pic.twitter.com/MNpsm3mo7J DeeconX (@DeeconX) April 15, 2017Last March the local news station confirmed that the police allowed violent Democrats to attack peaceful Trump supporters and confirmed that Trump supporters who were part of a planned March 4 Trump nationwide rally were seriously outnumbered: | 0 |
5,845 | Music Legend And American Icon Prince Dies At 57 (VIDEO) | Music legend and American icon Prince has died at his compound in Chanhassen, Minnesota. Authorities say they responded to a medical call at 9.43 AM this morning and found the body of the 57 year-old singer. The cause of death is not yet clear and an investigation is under way.Prince, whose birth name is Prince Roger Nelson, was hospitalized on Friday after his jet flew from Atlanta and made an emergency landing in Moline, Iowa after suffering from what appeared to be flu like symptoms.Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on June 7, 1958, the gifted artist s work spanned five decades in what would become one of the most successful music careers in American history. Drawing influence from pop, R&B, soul, disco and jazz, Prince left an invaluable mark on current and future artists with his stage presence and flamboyant style.Hits like Wanna Be Your Lover and albums such as 1999 and Purple Rain cemented the artist s status as both a musical genius and an American cultural icon. Prince also left his mark on the music world with his prolific writing, working with countless of talented artists and launching the careers of others.Prince will be missed by generations of Americans who grew up listening to the artist or have been recently introduced to him in a sign of the musician s ability to attract people from different generations and all walks of life.Rest in Peace, Prince.Watch video here: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu-uQwLODkw]Featured image via video screenshot | 0 |
5,846 | Obama to meet with national security advisers about Islamic State | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will meet with his National Security Council on Tuesday morning to discuss U.S. efforts to fight Islamic State militants, the White House said. “The session is the latest in a series of NSC meetings in recent months convened at the White House and at key departments and agencies, including the CIA, the Department of State and the Department of Defense, on our campaign against the terrorist group,” it said in a statement. | 1 |
5,847 | U.S. condemns Russia veto of probe into Syria chemical weapons use | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is “very disappointed” that Russia on Tuesday cast a veto at the United Nations Security Council against renewing a mandate to continue an investigation into who was responsible for the use of chemical weapons during Syria’s civil war. “We are disappointed, we are very disappointed that Russia put what it considered to be political considerations over the Syrian people who were so brutally murdered,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told a regular briefing. | 1 |
5,848 | Cliven Bundy Indicted For Assault, Faces Life In Prison | If you missed it in all the kerfluffle over the Moron Militia surrendering without a fight in Oregon, Cliven Bundy, the Moron Militia s inspiration to break the law and threaten to kill people, was arrested as he attempted to join the 4 remaining imbeciles holed up in a wildlife refuge. But he wasn t arrested for trying to join domestic terrorists; he was arrested for his role as ringleader in the 2014 Nevada stand-off in which a group of armed assholes pointed guns at federal agents and threatened to shoot them.On Wednesday, Bundy, along with his idiot sons, was indicted and now faces life in prison:All were charged with conspiracy, carrying a firearm in relation to a violent crime, obstruction of justice, extortion, and assault and threats against federal law enforcement.The charge of assault on a federal law enforcement officer carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. If convicted, the defendants would also have to forfeit at least $3 million worth of property secured through the crimes, the statement said.The most delicious part about this is that the Bundys were so intent on making a media spectacle of their brave stance against the federal government that there is hours and hours of footage of them threatening to murder law enforcement and pointing their guns at agents. If they hadn t been so arrogant, they might have been able to plant the seeds of doubt in the minds of the jury. As it is, their eagerness to rally Murika to a second Civil War has all but guaranteed that Cliven will die in jail and his two sons will be in their 60s and possibly broke by the time they get out.While Bundy rotting in jail will put a smile on many of our faces, it does little to erase the fact that Bundy and his fellow domestic terrorists walked free for over a year for a crime that would have left anyone less white or conservative riddled with bullets. White Right Wing Privilege in this country is out of control. The only reason the Moron Militia thought they could get away with violently seizing a federal building is because of the FBI s lack of action in Nevada. They truly and honestly thought that they could throw their temper tantrum, play Freedom Fighter for a few weeks and then just go home like nothing ever happened. Listening to their press conferences (PRESS CONFERENCES!) and podcasts, they were shocked to their core that they would have to pay for their crimes. Honestly, I m surprised none of them blurted out, But I m a white conservative! You can t arrest me! This is MY country! Hopefully, Cliven and his followers going to prison will send a clear signal to the rest of the militia movement that their reckless disregard for the rule of law won t be tolerated in America. We should only be so lucky.Featured image via AI archives | 0 |
5,849 | Syrian army and Iranian-backed militias push towards Idlib province | AMMAN (Reuters) - The Syrian army and Iranian-backed militias backed by Russian air power stepped up a military campaign against rebels in eastern Hama province in a push towards the rebel stronghold of Idlib province in northwestern Syria, rebels and witnesses said. They said dozens of aerial strikes believed to be conducted mainly by Russian jets in the last 48 hours hit opposition held villages and towns in the northeastern Hama countryside and the southern part of Idlib province. The Islamist Hayat Tahrir al Sham and some Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel faction in control of these areas said they were sending reinforcements to seize back a string of villages in the northeastern Hama countryside, near the town of Rihjan, that the army had earlier announced were captured in heavy fighting. The army said the villages of Um Turayka, Bilil, and Rujum al Ahmar were seized, forcing the rebels to flee to areas close to the administrative boundaries of Idlib province. The Syrian army had lost the strategically located Idlib province to insurgents when the provincial capital fell to rebels in 2015. It has since become the only province that is fully under opposition control. The Syrian army s first goal was to retake strategic Abu al Dhour military airport, one of the largest airports in the north of the country that fell to rebels in 2015. It was heavily bombed on Sunday, a rebel source said. The regime movements seek to besiege Idlib province with the help of Shi ite militias fighting with them, said Colonel Mustafa Bakour, a commander in the Jaish al Izza rebel faction. Tahrir al Sham, which is spearheaded by the former al Qaeda branch in Syria, is the main rebel force in the province, raising fears among civilians and rebels alike that Moscow and the Syrian army and its allies would soon turn it into a major battlefield. The strategically located province that borders Turkey is part of the Russian-led de-escalation zones that seek to shore up ceasefires in western Syria. Idlib has been a haven for tens of thousands of rebels and civilians who were forced to abandon their homes in other parts of western Syria that the government and its foreign military allies have recaptured from rebels. It has already been the target of intensive strikes by the Russia and Syrian air forces in the past year that have killed thousands of civilians and destroyed hospitals and civil defense centers. Tahrir al Sham also repelled simultaneously an offensive by Islamic State militants who have been for the last few weeks pushing into the opposition-controlled territory to extend a small enclave they have in that area, among the few they retain across Syria. The ultra hardline militants also seized a string of villages that brought them within kilometers of Idlib province. The Russian and Syrian army advance towards Idlib is also piling pressure on Turkey which had since October begun a major military deployment in the province it considers within its sphere of influence. Ankara s intervention seeks to rein in Russian strikes and prevent Idlib from facing a similar fate to Mosul or Aleppo, according to a senior rebel commander briefed on Turkish policy. | 1 |
5,850 | Obama's State of the Union gets most young love in the West | (Reuters) - Millennnials in the West of the United States showed the strongest support for President Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address, according to data provided by Yik Yak, a location-based mobile app that is popular with young people. An analysis of Yik Yak posts that specifically discussed Tuesday’s speech, showed that 47 percent of millennials — defined as those aged between 23-35 — approved of Obama’s address, while 23 percent disapproved and 30 percent were neutral. In the West, however, those numbers jumped, with 68 percent showing their love for his address. The highest level of disapproval was in the Midwest, with 28 percent. That same region showed 40 percent of millennials approving of the speech. Many young posters were already expressing nostalgia for the president, who will leave office next January after November’s presidential election. A recurring theme among those posting was the wish for another term for the Democrat, and recognition that Obama had been president for as long as they could remember. “I’m going to miss Obama when he’s no longer president. I know a lot of you disagree with him, but we grew up with him and it’ll be weird when he’s gone”‘ wrote an anonymous Yik Yak user from the University of Virginia. Yik Yak said five percent of all its posts during the address were about the speech. Elsewhere on social media, the conversation focused largely on key campaign issues for the presidential election. The top-tweeted moment under the #SOTU hashtag was Obama saying, “I stand here as confident as I have ever been that the State of our Union is strong,” according to Twitter data. Among the issues most tweeted about during the address were foreign affairs, energy and the environment and the economy, in that order. On Facebook, the top issues discussed during the State of the Union address were Iran, Islam, Muslims and ISIS, according to a spokesperson for the social media site, using a common acronym for the Islamic State militant group. According to Facebook, users in Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, New York and North Carolina were the most engaged on the social media site during the speech. Facebook saw a spike in engagement, said the spokesperson, when Obama criticized anti-Muslim sentiment. In what appeared to be a slap at Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, Obama said insulting Muslims hurt the United States and “betrayed” its identity. Twitter data showed that Trump, and the two main rivals in the fight for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, were the three most tweeted about presidential candidates during the State of the Union. Sanders was the only one present in the chamber, Those three candidates also gained the most Twitter followers during the speech. | 1 |
5,851 | Republican Official Caught Exposing Himself Attacks Police Officer | Republicans always like to claim they are the party of family values. As such, they oppose anything they deem to be sinful, such as abortion, homosexuality, or pre-marital sex. They often use their political positions as a weapon against anyone who doesn t adhere to their twisted version of morality. Along with this, though, almost always comes some kind of amazing example of hypocrisy in their ranks.These examples pop up pretty regularly, and here we have another one.Fifty-four-year-old David Narromore is a dentist in Kingsport, Tennessee. He is also the chairman of that state s Republican Party. Narromore has been up to some decidedly un-family values like behavior of late, though, and now he might be going to jail for it. In the men s restroom at a Belk s Department Store, a most disturbing incident involving Narromore happened, and a store employee contacted police. Apparently, Mr. Narromore was exposing himself to the employee, who just happened to be a loss prevention officer using the restroom in the stall next to Narromore.Narromore went well beyond the usual toe-tapping that happens in this case here, too. He decided it would be a good idea to stretch his foot into the unidentified employee s stall and start massaging the other man s foot with his own. As if that weren t bad enough, Narromore also whipped his d*ck out for the poor innocent employee as well. This is what prompted the call to the cops.The employee then kept Narromore in the store in his office until police arrived. Narromore was taken into custody but not without a fight. He decided to resist arrest, refusing to comply with orders from police when they attempted to handcuff him. He became physically combative, and they had to tase him. When that didn t work, officers were forced to take Narromore to the ground in order to cuff him and take him away. He spent the night in a cell, right where he belonged, despite his efforts to make sure that didn t happen. After posting bail in the amount of $2,250, he was let out of the joint the next day. He is charged with resisting arrest and indecent exposure.Of course, the Tennessee GOP has relieved Narromore of his duties after this embarrassing dust-up. Tennessee GOP Communications Director Trent Watson says of the incident: Dr. Narramore is clearly going through some personal issues. We wish him well as he attempts to deal with (his) personal struggles. Ah, yes. In Republican circles, being gay is wrong, so that means that when one has a lapse, it s just personal issues. Maybe if this guy wasn t such a repressed closet case, he wouldn t be committing sex crimes in public restrooms. If you people weren t so archaic and hateful when it comes to LGBTQ people, the people in your ranks who are repressed homosexuals wouldn t wind up doing this sort of thing and continuously embarrassing your party.Maybe the issues here have to do with the wrong-headed, hateful, and dangerous views of the GOP when it comes to homosexuality, not the people who are gay, repress it due to said views, and wind up in the slammer over it.Then again, this guy, as a professional Republican, deserves no sympathy, as his hypocrisy is off the charts with this one. He pushes politicians and laws that harm LGBTQ people, then gets caught trolling for gay sex in a public men s room. Family values, indeed.Featured image via AJC.com/Kingsport City Jail | 0 |
5,852 | Hillary Lambasted Trump’s Hateful Rhetoric By Mocking His Ridiculous Tweets, And It’s Hilarious | When it comes to political campaign strategies, Donald Trump clearly believes he can hate and insult his way into the Oval Office. So far, it s working in the Republican primary, because let s face it, the GOP has become a party of hateful rhetoric and building up fear of anyone other than those who look and act exactly as they do (predominantly white, heterosexual, Christian, etc.). However, that strategy, most likely, will not work in the general election, because the rest of America sees Trump as the ridiculous mudslinger that he actually is.Pointing this out in a pretty hilarious way was none other than Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton. She, or her campaign staff with her approval, took to Twitter to put Trump on blast about his hateful tone and rhetoric. After all, Trump is already pivoting to the general and referring to Clinton as Crooked Hillary. It s a technique he s been using in the primaries against his Republican opposition, so he figures he should try it out for the general as well.What did Hillary tweet out? A Washington Post article highlighting pretty much every hateful and disparaging thing Trump has said throughout his campaign, with every paragraph beginning, Remember when Yet, she introduced the article on Twitter by hilariously mocking the way Trump tweets. All too often you ll see Trump tweet something out, and it will be followed with a one word sentence Sad! Well, Hillary did just that right back at him.Does Trump think he can fool us into forgetting his hateful rhetoric? Sad! https://t.co/0Vvw0m36ZX Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) April 23, 2016If Trump wants to pretend he s a politician and enter into the biggest political race in the entire world with no experience whatsoever, he s in for a boat-load of f*ck you from the Clinton campaign if they face off in the general election. Trump may be able to get away with going after his Republican opponents, because let s face it, they re weak and inexperienced themselves, but the Clintons?? Haaaa! Good luck with that. If you dish it, Hillary will take it, puree it, and serve it back to you with a cherry on top.We re in for a bumpy and very amusing ride throughout the coming months.Featured Photos by Justin Sullivan/Scott Olson/Getty Images Twitter | 0 |
5,853 | China urges North Korea to stop persisting on a dangerous course | BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi urged North Korea to stop persisting on a dangerous course and called on the United States to stick to promises of non-aggression towards Pyongyang, according to a statement release by the ministry on Friday. “No matter the changes in circumstance, no matter how long it takes, not matter the difficulties we face, China will always persist in the goal of denuclearizing the peninsula, in moving towards talks,” Wang said, speaking at the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday. | 1 |
5,854 | news shaking up washington donald trump just appointed a cloaked man as secretary of the hook | email
life can be tough but students at willow creek elementary school in duluth minnesota have done something this year that will make you cry tears of joy when they noticed that a fellow student wasnt eating lunch at school they brought him so many lunches that he clogged the door and school got canceled
compassion for the win
when caring students saw that yearold bryce oswald was showing up to school every day without a lunch they knew they had to do something they started giving bryce fruit snacks and pats of butter from their lunches and even pooled their allowances to buy bryce hoagies and rotisserie chickens in an effort to make sure that he wouldnt go hungry and would instead get massive enough to clog the door to the school and get school canceled
bryce didnt have anything to eat so we knew we had to help him out said willow creek student kali summers we gave him our lunches every day even if we got really hungry we knew if he kept eating he would get fat enough to clog up the door and we wouldnt have to go to school
the plan worked perfectly in a matter of months bryce went from having no lunch at all to having so many lunches that he packed on pounds got stuck in the door and school got canceled the students were so successful in plumping bryce up that it took four firefighters with a jackhammer to finally be able to pry him out
mission accomplished
due to these kids selfless dedication not only did bryce not go hungry but all of the kids and teachers were able to stay home from school to play watch tv and relax instead of going to school for a full two days they arent stopping there either even though bryce is now bigger than any other student in the district the kids are going to continue to give him lunches in hopes that he can get stuck in the door so tightly that school gets canceled for a full week
beautiful adults could learn a thing or two about kindness and commitment to your dreams from these remarkable kids | 0 |
5,855 | Ethnic clash in Nigeria leaves four police officers dead: official | YOLA, Nigeria (Reuters) - Muslim cattle herders are suspected of killing four police officers in the northeastern Nigerian state of Adamawa, a police official said on Friday. The four officers were killed on Thursday night defending a village in the Numan region from the herdsmen, who attacked the settlement as a reprisal for an earlier deadly clash, said Othman Abubakar, a police spokesman for the state. In the earlier clash, unidentified attackers killed more than 30 cattle herders in Numan. Numan has recently become a flashpoint for clashes between the herders and Christian farmers, which occur frequently across broad swathes of Nigeria, as each group contests the other s rights to land for pasture and agriculture. | 1 |
5,856 | Thousands of Indonesians again protest Trump's Jerusalem move | JAKARTA (Reuters) - Thousands protested outside the U.S. Embassy in the Indonesian capital on Sunday against U.S. President Donald Trump s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel s capital, many waving banners saying Palestine is in our hearts . Leaders in Indonesia, home to the world s largest Muslim population, have joined a global chorus of condemnation of Trump s announcement, including Western allies who say it is a blow to peace efforts and risks sparking more violence. Thousands of protesters in Muslim-majority countries in Asia have rallied in recent days to condemn the U.S. move. Israel maintains that all of Jerusalem is its capital. Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent state and say Trump s move has left them completely sidelined. Palestinian people were among the first to recognize Indonesia s independence in 1945, Sohibul Iman, president of the controversial Islamist opposition Prosperous Justice Party which organized the rally, told protesters. Indonesia should be more proactive in urging the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) member states and U.N. Security Council and the international community to respond immediately with more decisive and concrete political and diplomatic actions in saving the Palestinians from the Israeli occupation and its collaborator, the United States of America, Iman said. Indonesia as the world s largest Muslim country has the largest responsibility toward the independence of Palestine and the management of Jerusalem, he told reporters, adding that he hoped Indonesia would take a leading role within the OIC on the matter. Trump has disrupted world peace. It s terrible, one protester, Yusri, told Reuters. The decision was a major disaster for the Palestinian people, while the Palestinian s own rights have been taken away for a long time, said Septi, a student at the rally. Violence erupted for a third day in Gaza on Saturday in response to Trump s decision, which overturned decades of U.S. policy towards the Middle East. Indonesia s foreign minister left for Jordan on Sunday to meet the Palestinian and Jordanian foreign ministers to convey Indonesia s full support for Palestine . | 1 |
5,857 | Clinton Is Beating Trump By 9 Points In Pennsylvania – Here’s Why That Matters | It s a good thing Democrats picked Philadelphia to host their convention. Pennsylvania is continually being talked up as swing state that could go for Trump (they said the same thing about Romney in 2012, and he lost by 5 percent).But as Hillary Clinton delivered her acceptance speech, one that commentators say could sway undecided voters, a new poll comes out showing Clinton beating Trump by a whopping nine points in the swing state of Pennsylvania.Here s why that s important: people say Trump could (some say will) win Pennsylvania because of the rustic belt white, male centrists who typically lean Democrat, but could be swayed otherwise.The Suffolk University survey showed Clinton leading Trump 50-41, with 8 percent undecided. The poll also closely reflects NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll conducted earlier in July that showed Clinton with a 9 point lead, this one 45-36.What s also interesting is Clinton still blows Trump out of the water when factoring Jill Stein and Gary Johnson in the polling:When Clinton and Trump were matched in the poll against Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Clinton s margin over Trump was the same, at 9 points 46 percent to 37 percent. Johnson earned 5 percent, while Stein took 2 percent and 9 percent were undecided among those candidatesThink about that: before Clinton even delivered her speech of a lifetime, two polls one from a well known publication and one from a close-to-home college, show the same results. Clinton s choice of a progressively centrist VP pick (who is a major ally to unions) could pick up the weary and disenfranchised white blue dog Democrats.After the convention, Clinton and Kaine will be touring the state by bus as they seek to cement and keep their support among Pennsylvanians in the west.Trump continues to be liability for his own campaign while Democrats are getting major viewership at their convention. Let s hope the momentum can continue.Featured image via Justin Sullivan/Getty Images | 0 |
5,858 | Spain's Socialist leader agrees with Rajoy to launch constitutional reform | MADRID (Reuters) - Spain s opposition Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez said on Wednesday he had agreed with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to launch a constitutional reform that could change the way Spain s autonomous regions, including Catalonia, are governed. The two leaders agreed that a committee would study the current system of regional autonomy for six months, after which the Spanish parliament would debate constitutional reforms, Sanchez told reporters. He also backed Rajoy s demand that Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont clarify whether he declared independence from Spain and said he would support constitutional measures that may be taken by the Spanish government if Puigdemont failed to reply or said he had declared independence. | 1 |
5,859 | Trump, Liberal Hypocrisy & Humanity’s Future | 21st Century Wire says Here s an epic discussion for your Sunday afternoon.Last week, Stuart J. Hooper travelled to Los Angeles and met with YouTube star Hamish The Illusion Patterson; who holds a particularly interesting view on reality.The two also had an epic discussion on the current state of politics, hidden technology, our future on Mars, and the hypocrisy of so-called liberals protesting against Trump who had no problem at all with what Obama was doing, like sending Libya back to the stone age, in the past eight years.Check out the full discussion here: You can follow Hamish on Youtube, Facebook and Instagram.SUPPORT 21WIRE SUBSCRIBE & BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV | 0 |
5,860 | BAD NEWS For Trump: Memo Proves He Is Not Above The Law, Can Be Indicted | If Donald Trump thinks being president means he can t be prosecuted for his crimes, he should think again.As it turns out, Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller has the power to indict Trump if he has enough evidence proving that Trump committed a criminal act such as colluding with Russia in an effort to win the 2016 Election. Donald Trump s son Trump Jr. has already demonstrated that Trump s campaign met with a Kremlin-linked Russian lawyer and a former Soviet Intelligence officer in order to get dirt to use against Hillary Clinton, which is, indeed, the very definition of collusion.Mueller s power to indict is confirmed by a 56-page legal memo written by Ronald Rotunda, a conservative professor of constitutional law and ethics, who was hired as part of Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr s team during the Bill Clinton presidency.According to the 1998 memo, which was obtained by the New York Times,It is proper, constitutional, and legal for a federal grand jury to indict a sitting president for serious criminal acts that are not part of, and are contrary to, the president s official duties. In this country, no one, even President Clinton, is above the law.That means no sitting president is above the law, including Trump.Watergate special counsel, Leon Jaworski, came to the same conclusion in 1974.The only reason why Jaworski and Starr declined to indict President Nixon and President Clinton is because they chose to let impeachment proceedings play out instead.Well, Republicans have thus far done everything they can to protect Trump from being impeached. So it appears Mueller may not have a choice but to indict Trump if Republicans continue to refuse to do their public duty.Even the Supreme Court has ruled that sitting presidents are not above the law by deciding in 1997 that a lawsuit against Clinton for misconduct prior to becoming president can move forward. And since Trump was not president when he and his campaign colluded with Russia, that makes his misconduct open to indictment, along with any other crimes he committed prior to taking office. That means if Mueller digs through Trump s finances and finds other crimes, Trump could face an indictment for those as well. If there is no recourse against the president, if he cannot be prosecuted for violating the criminal laws, he will be above the law, Rotunda further wrote. If public policy and the Constitution allow a private litigant to sue a sitting president for acts that are not part of the president s official duties (and are outside the outer perimeter of those duties), and that is what Clinton v. Jones squarely held, then one would think that an indictment is constitutional because the public interest in criminal cases is greater. In short, Trump is in deep shit and he can t blame Hillary Clinton to get out of it. Not even Republicans can dispute the Starr memo. Republicans not only supported Starr s investigation, it was a conservative legal mind who wrote the memo.So unless Republicans proceed with impeachment proceedings to get to the bottom of this once and for all, Robert Mueller must indict Trump. Because it is clear that Republicans won t punish Trump for breaking the law and violating the Constitution.Featured Image: Addicting Info Archive | 0 |
5,861 | Trump says immigration bill cannot include 'chain migration' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday said so-called “chain migration,” a term often used to refer to citizens or permanent residents sponsoring relatives or the clustering of certain immigrants in the same areas, cannot be included in any immigration legislation. “CHAIN MIGRATION cannot be allowed to be part of any legislation on Immigration!” Trump wrote on Twitter. The statement comes after Trump stunned many fellow Republicans this week by negotiating with top congressional Democratic leaders over the DACA program protecting the children of undocumented immigrants. | 1 |
5,862 | U.N. rights boss urges U.S. Congress to give 'Dreamers' legal status | GENEVA (Reuters) - The top U.N. human rights official voiced concern on Monday at the Trump administration’s decision to end the DACA program for immigrants who arrived illegally as children and urged the U.S. Congress to give them lasting legal status in the country. Referring to a move to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in six months, affecting nearly 800,000 young migrants known as “Dreamers”, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva: “I hope Congress will now act to provide former DACA beneficiaries with durable legal status. I am disturbed by the increase in detentions and deportations of well-established and law-abiding immigrants.” | 1 |
5,863 | Foreign government code reviews 'problematic': White House cyber official | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Allowing foreign governments to require reviews of software secrets of technology products built by U.S. companies is “problematic,” the top White House cyber security official said on Tuesday, adding that the increasingly common arrangements presented both security and intellectual property risks. Rob Joyce, the White House cyber security coordinator, said that letting countries inspect source code, the closely guarded internal instructions of software, as a condition for entry into foreign markets was a protectionist effort by certain regimes that threatened a “free and open internet” and could “hobble” a product’s security and privacy features. Reuters on Monday reported that Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) last year allowed a Russian defense agency to review the inner workings of cyber defense software known as ArcSight that is used by the Pentagon to guard its computer networks. (Read the original Reuters special report: here ) Cyber security experts, former U.S. intelligence officials and former ArcSight employees said the practice could help Moscow discover weaknesses in the software, potentially helping attackers to blind the U.S. military to a cyber attack. “There are security aspects of those disclosures (and) they are problematic,” Joyce, a former hacker at the U.S. National Security Agency, said at a Washington Post Cybersecurity Summit when asked specifically about the story. He added that he was more concerned about the intellectual property risks associated with the reviews, however. “If you give your source code to China as a condition of entering into that market, you’ve got to wonder if competitors are then going to start to adopt those features,” Joyce said at the event, which was sponsored by HPE. “And we’ve seen some examples of that in the past and that really concerns us.” Asked about Joyce’s comments, an HPE spokeswoman said the company “has never and will never take actions that compromise the security of our products or the operations of our customers.” The company said the reviews have taken place for years and are conducted by a Russian testing company at an HPE research and development center outside of Russia, where the software maker closely supervises the process, and that no code is allowed to leave the premises. HPE has said the inspection process was necessary to obtain certification from Russia’s Federal Service for Technical and Export Control (FSTEC), a defense agency tasked with countering cyber espionage, in order to sell software in Russia. The review of ArcSight’s code was conducted by Echelon, a company with close ties to the Russian military, on behalf of FSTEC, according to Russian regulatory records and interviews with people with direct knowledge of the issue. British tech company Micro Focus International Plc (MCRO.L), which purchased ArcSight from HPE last year in a transaction completed in September, did not respond when asked about Joyce’s remarks. Micro Focus has not responded to requests for comment on whether it would allow Russia to do similar source code reviews in the future. Russia in recent years has stepped up demands for source code reviews as a requirement for doing business in the country, Reuters reported in June. China in May adopted a new cyber security law that western companies have criticized for requiring overly strict data surveillance and storage requirements. The law has raised concern that companies will need to choose between compromising security to protect business and losing out on the enormous Chinese market. “The idea that you can’t enter China’s market without offering up your intellectual property in this way, without agreeing maybe to hobble some of the security and privacy features of it ... Russia is heading that way, a bunch of totalitarian regimes are heading that way,” Joyce said. | 1 |
5,864 | A High School Student Just Bashed ‘You Deserve Rape’ Pastor’s Head In With A Baseball Bat (VIDEO) | For years, a street preacher has been embarrassing Christians by peddling what can only be described as extremist bullsh*t unfit for a family gathering at the Palin household. Brother Dean Saxton, who has been raising eyebrows and blood pressures while simultaneously lowering the standards of human decency by standing around holding you deserve rape signs on college campuses and other places a message to whores (that s Christian extremist for women ) that if they decide to consume a single drop of alcohol, or wear something that exposes so much as an ankle or a shoulder blade they deserve whatever happens to them. I think that girls that dress and act like it, Saxton told the Daily Wildcat in 2013, they should realize that they do have partial responsibility, because I believe that they re pretty much asking for it. He s also made some less-than nice remarks about African-Americans and the LGBT community though he is most famous for telling every female rape victim that they were asking for it. Here are just a few examples of the dumbass bullsh*t that goes on inside the cesspool that is this jerk s mind:via Arizona Daily Wildcat Now, you may have been wondering, a question may have been burning within you: when the hell is someone just going to take a baseball bat to this motherf*cker?While he was holding his hateful You deserve to be raped sign and condemning women who leave their homes without covering themselves head-to-toe in front of Apollo High School in Glendale, Arizona, a female student grabbed a baseball bat and hit him in the head. The Bible says it s not okay to be gay, he yelled, holding his hateful rape sign in his hands in a double-whammy expression of hatred. You need to stop doing naught, nasty things, Apollo High School. You need to stop looking up naughty, nasty things on the Internet. All the while, for some inexplicable reason, he was recording the children.Video posted by the preacher himself shows numerous students and teachers approaching him, demanding that he leave. As one gentleman informed Saxton that he shouldn t be displaying this sort of message to kids, we hear a loud, metallic impact noise.With students cheering in the background, the gentleman to whom Saxton was speaking calmly said, You see that? That s what I m telling you. Saxton then beat a hasty retreat as the students told him to get lost.Tabitha Brubaker, 19, was certainly wrong to respond with violence, but when you think about it it was really Saxton s fault by his own logic. Like men who can t resist raping those dirty, dirty whores who go outside looking like sluts with their elbows and knees showing (the ones he says deserve to be raped), we really can t blame Brubaker for giving into her inability to deal with misogynist bullsh*t and acting on her natural urge to bust this smarmy motherf*cker s head open. After all, by preaching hate in front of a high school, didn t he place himself in a scenario where he was likely to meet someone who wasn t willing to deal with his particular brand of awfulness?Though some would award her a medal, what Brubaker did was a crime and she has been charged with felony assault. She also had some weed on her, so she was charged with possession of a plant as well.Watch the full incident below:Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
5,865 | Putin says stronger Russia-China ties a major boon for everyone | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Stronger ties between Russia and China are good for everyone, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, adding that Moscow and Beijing would remain long-term strategic partners regardless of the result of Russia s 2018 presidential polls. Putin also told his annual news conference that China was looking with great interest at Russia s northern sea route in the Arctic which could significantly cut the time for shipments of goods between Asia and Europe. Putin said Russia would support China s further involvement in Russian projects, including in the energy sector. | 1 |
5,866 | OUCH! BUSH “BESTIE” Goes Against GOP Elites…ENDORSES TRUMP [VIDEO] | That s gonna leave a mark Former Vice President Dick Cheney will support Donald Trump, he told CNN Friday, an important move as the presumptive Republican nominee is encountering intense resistance from senior members of his own party.Cheney told CNN Special Correspondent Jamie Gangel that he has always supported the GOP nominee and will do so this year as well.CNN tried to coerce Cheney into a Trump endorsement only one month ago. Cheney wisely chose to wait and see who the people of America chose to be their nominee. Watch:The announcement makes Cheney one of the few Republican Party elders to announce their support of Trump and comes a day after House Speaker Paul Ryan told CNN he is just not ready to back Trump.The father-son duo have endorsed every GOP nominee since each of them left the White House, but it seems they ll draw the line with Trump and his anti-globalist campaign.Dubya is also likely sore with Trump for winning South Carolina after he pointed out the former president not only failed to prevent 9/11, but also accused the Bush administration of duping the public into supporting the 2003 invasion of Iraq.And Trump also called for the release of the missing 28 pages from 9/11 report, which were classified to protect the Bush family s connections with Saudi Arabia, according to those who have read the pages. That s very serious stuff, Trump told Fox in April. It s sort of nice to know who your friends are and perhaps who your enemies are. You re going to see some very revealing things released in those papers. It isn t surprising then that the Bushes won t endorse Trump, but that actually benefits the mogul who sealed the GOP nomination by tapping into the vast, anti-establishment sentiment shared by millions of U.S. voters both inside and outside the Republican Party. People in Washington need to recognize the reason that Trump is winning is because they (his supporters) feel like people in Washington have helped them lose and they re sick of it, Mike Huckabee pointed out. That s what this election is largely about, it s an overthrow of the government we ought to be glad that it is a peaceful revolution with ballots rather than one with bullets. The donor class runs the political environment in this country and people are waking up to that and they are tired of it. The populist movement was already there before Trump announced his candidacy last June; he simply grew into a wildfire powered by the vast winds of dissatisfied, everyday people.And Trump s crossover support which transcends traditional party lines reveals he has completely transformed U.S. politics forever.Via: InfoWars | 0 |
5,867 | Obama says upgrading U.S. cybersecurity is complex, long-term job | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Wednesday the United States is not as organized as it needs to be to step up its protections against cyber threats, and that making improvements would be a complex task lasting well beyond his time in office. Obama made his comments after meeting in the Oval Office with two advisers who will lead a new commission tasked with making recommendations by the end of the year on a long-term plan for cybersecurity upgrades. Obama did not respond to questions from reporters about a court order demanding that Apple Inc unlock an iPhone of one of the shooters in December’s attacks in San Bernardino, California. | 1 |
5,868 | Hezbollah says U.S. sanctions aim to stir unrest in Lebanon | BEIRUT (Reuters) - A Hezbollah member of the Lebanese parliament said on Thursday that proposed new U.S. sanctions against the powerful Iran-backed group aimed to provoke unrest in Lebanon. The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday endorsed new sanctions on the Shi ite Hezbollah militia, part of an effort to increase pressure on Iran. The new sanctions have not yet become law. The sanctions law ... is a blatant interference in Lebanese internal affairs, a violation of its national sovereignty and an unacceptable targeting of the Lebanese people, Hezbollah parliamentarian Hassan Fadlallah said in a televised statement. America aims, through this aggressive behavior in legislation, to subjugate Lebanon, to stir unrest and deprive its people of development, Fadlallah said. Hezbollah is in Lebanon s delicate, national unity government and fights alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria s more than six-year long conflict. It is classified as a terrorist group by Washington and on Wednesday the House of Representatives passed a resolution urging the European Union to do the same. One of the measures passed by the House of Representatives was an amendment strengthening the 2015 U.S. Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act (HIFPA) which aimed to sever the group s global funding networks. When HIFPA was introduced it caused alarm in Beirut where the government feared major damage to the banking sector that underpins Lebanon s economy. But Lebanon s central bank Governor Riad Salameh told Reuters on Tuesday Lebanon had mechanisms already in place to deal with any new sanctions. Salameh also said this week the American Treasury appeared content with how Lebanon was applying sanctions regulations. They consider the measures which Lebanon s central bank has put in place to be sufficient , he said after a visit to the U.S., in a statement distributed by Lebanon s presidential media office. | 1 |
5,869 | Fourteen people rescued from seaside tower in southern England | LONDON (Reuters) - Fourteen people had to be airlifted from a British seaside tower after a mobile observation capsule became stuck, rescue services reported. The Jurassic skyline tower in the southern resort of Weymouth offers 360-degree views of the surrounding area. Video footage shows the trapped visitors being winched to safety by rescuers dangling from a helicopter above the 53-metre tower. Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service was alerted on Tuesday afternoon after engineers failed to free the stuck capsule. The tower s operator said on twitter that the gondola had become stuck due to a mechanical issue. | 1 |
5,870 | Iraqi forces complete Kirkuk province takeover after clashes with Kurds | BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi forces on Friday took control of the last district in the oil-rich province of Kirkuk still in the hands of Kurdish Peshmerga fighters following a three-hour battle, security sources said. The district of Altun Kupri, or Perde in Kurdish, lies on the road between the city of Kirkuk - which fell to Iraqi forces on Monday - and Erbil, capital of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq that voted in a referendum last month to secede from Iraq against Baghdad s wishes. A force made up of U.S-trained Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service units, Federal Police and Iranian-backed fighters known as Popular Mobilisation began their advance on Altun Kupri at 7:30 a.m. (0430 GMT), said an Iraqi military spokesman. Kurdish Peshmerga forces withdrew from the town, located on the Zab river, after battling the advancing Iraqi troops with machine guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, Iraqi security sources said. Neither side gave information about casualties. The Iraqi central government forces have advanced into Kirkuk province largely unopposed as most Peshmerga forces withdrew without a fight. The government advance has transformed the balance of power in northern Iraq and is likely to scuttle the independence aspirations of the Kurds, who voted overwhelmingly on Sept. 25 to secede from Iraq and take the oil fields of Kirkuk with them. The fighting at Altun Kupri marked only the second instance of significant violent resistance by the Kurds in Kirkuk province. Dozens were killed or wounded in the previous clash on Monday, the first night of the government advance. The U.S. State Department said it was concerned by reports of violent clashes around Altun Kupri. In order to avoid any misunderstandings or further clashes, we urge the central government to calm the situation by limiting federal forces movements in disputed areas to only those coordinated with the Kurdistan Regional Government, it said in a statement. The State Department made clear that even though federal authority was reasserted over disputed areas , that in no way changes their status - they remain disputed until their status is resolved in accordance with the Iraqi resolution in what appeared to be a nod to the Kurds and their assertion that they have a stake in these territories. Altun Kupri is the last town in Kirkuk province on the road to Erbil, lying just outside the border of the autonomous region established after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Iraqi forces are seeking to reestablish Baghdad s authority over territory which the Kurdish forces occupied outside the official boundaries of their autonomous region, mostly seized since 2014 in the course of the war on Islamic State militants. Iraq s top Shi ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, called on Friday for the state to protect Kurds in northern Iraq, a rare political intervention by a figure whose words have the force of law for most of Iraq s Shi ite majority. Sistani s call, issued at the Friday prayer in the holy Shi ite city of Kerbala by one of his representatives, came amid reports of abuses against Kurds in areas evacuated by the Kurdish Peshmerga including Kirkuk, Tuz Khormato and Khanaqin. Kurdish officials said tens of thousands of Kurds fled Kirkuk and Tuz to the two main cities of the Kurdish autonomous region, Erbil and Sulaimaniya. Iraq s post-Saddam constitution allows the Kurds self rule in three mountainous northern provinces and guarantees them a fixed percentage of Iraq s total oil income, an arrangement that saw them prosper while the rest of the country was at war. Although Kirkuk is outside the autonomous region, many Kurds consider it the heart of their historic homeland and its oil to be their birthright. Its loss makes their quest for independence appear remote, since it would leave them with only about half the oil revenue they had sought to claim for themselves. Kurdish Peshmerga moved into Kirkuk without a fight in 2014, taking over positions left by the Iraqi army as it fled in the face of Islamic State militants. Iraqi and Kurdish forces traded accusations of using weapons that Western powers had originally given them to fight Islamic State. Iraqi forces use U.S. Humvees, tanks in latest offensive against Peshmerga, tweeted Hemin Hawrami, KRG President Masud Barzani s assistant. Today, Popular Mobilisation attacked us with American weaponry. What is this agreement between the Americans and the Iranians? said Harem Shukur, a Peshmerga fighter outside Altun Kupri. The Americans sold us to Iran, he added, echoing widespread bitterness among Kurds who think the United States did not honor friendly ties built over several decades. An Iraqi military spokesman accused the Peshmerga of using rockets supplied by Germany. Germany said it hoped to resume its mission training Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq on Sunday, provided the conflict did not worsen. Berlin suspended it last week as tensions mounted. | 1 |
5,871 | Iran vows 'firm response' unless Obama stops sanctions renewal | DUBAI (Reuters) - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani demanded on Sunday that Barack Obama block an extension of sanctions passed by the U.S. Congress, saying Tehran would otherwise “firmly respond”. In a speech to parliament, Rouhani denounced legislation passed by the U.S. Congress to extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) for 10 years as a violation of Tehran’s nuclear deal with six major powers. The deal curbs Tehran’s nuclear program in return for the lifting of international financial sanctions. “America’s president is obliged to exercise his authority by preventing its approval and particularly its implementation ... and if this gross violation is carried out we will firmly respond,” Rouhani said in the speech, carried live by state television. President Obama is expected to sign the legislation into law, the White House said on Friday. The U.S. Congress move was a blow to Rouhani, a pragmatist who engineered the diplomatic opening to the West that led to the nuclear deal. U.S. officials have said the ISA renewal would not infringe the nuclear agreement. U.S. lawmakers have also said the ISA extension would make it easier for sanctions to be quickly reimposed if Iran contravened the nuclear deal. On Sunday, 264 lawmakers in Iran’s 290-seat parliament issued a statement calling on the government to implement counter measures, including relaunching nuclear enrichment halted under the atomic deal, the official news agency IRNA reported. The diplomatic thaw between Washington and Tehran over the past two years looks in jeopardy with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump taking office next month. He said during his election campaign that he would scrap the nuclear agreement. Last month, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that the extension would be viewed in Tehran as a breach of the nuclear accord and threatened retaliation. Khamenei and his hardline loyalists have criticized the deal and blamed Rouhani for his government’s failure to deliver swift improvements in living standards since sanctions were lifted in January. | 1 |
5,872 | Mediterranean "by far world's deadliest border" for migrants: IOM | GENEVA (Reuters) - More than 33,000 migrants have died at sea trying to reach European shores since 2000, making the Mediterranean by far the world s deadliest border , the United Nations migration agency said on Friday. After record arrivals from 2014 to 2016, the European Union s deal with Turkey to stop arrivals to Greece and blocks on migrants inside Libya and off its coast have greatly reduced the flow, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said. Professor Philippe Fargues of the European University Institute in Florence, author of the report, said the figures probably underestimated the actual scale of the human tragedy. The report states that at least 33,761 migrants were reported to have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean between the year 2000 to 2017. This number is as of June 30, IOM s Jorge Galindo told a Geneva news briefing. It concludes that Europe s Mediterranean border is by far the world s deadliest, he said. So far this year some 161,000 migrants and refugees have arrived in Europe by sea, about 75 percent of them landing in Italy with the rest in Greece, Cyprus and Spain, according to IOM figures. Nearly 3,000 others are dead or missing, it said. Shutting the shorter and less dangerous routes can open longer and more dangerous routes, thus increasing the likelihood of dying at sea, Fargues said. The report said: Cooperation with Turkey to stem irregular flows is now being replicated with Libya, the main country of departure of migrants smuggled along the central route; however, such an approach is not only morally reprehensible but likely to be unsuccessful, given the context of extremely poor governance, instability and political fragmentation in Libya. Though sea arrivals to Italy are down almost a third this year, this week there was a surge in rescues and attempted crossings. On Friday, Libya s EU-backed coastguard intercepted more than 600 mainly sub-Saharan African migrants, including many women and children, from a total of five boats that had left from the coast east of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, coast guard officials said. On Wednesday and Thursday, Italy s coast guard said some 1,600 migrants were rescued from nearly 20 vessels in the central Mediterranean. Libya s U.N.-backed government said on Thursday it was investigating reports of African migrants being sold as slaves and promised to bring the perpetrators to justice. Footage broadcast by CNN appearing to show African migrants being traded in Libya sparked an international outcry and protests in Europe and Africa. | 1 |
5,873 | “HARRY, HARRY!” Crowd Yells Military Hero’s Name During President Trump’s Incredible Speech to Veterans [Video] | President Trump spoke at the first ever Celebrate Freedom Rally last night delivering a barn burner of a speech to veterans and wounded warriors from Walter Reid Hospital. It was one of the best red meat speeches our President has ever delivered. We think you ll enjoy it Go to the 21:45 point for the amazing story of Harry F. Miller:Harry lied about his age to join the American forces. He was just 15 when he joined the US military during World War II. Harry was a US hero at The Battle of the Bulge!Harry s story:During the battle, the 1st Army Headquarters instructed the tank crews to go down to an ordnance depot and take whatever they needed for the tanks. We had to take good parts off of one tank and put it on another. We finally got three tanks and a tank destroyer that would operate and run, and had a gun, he said in an interview with VA. They took the three working tanks and sent them to their C Company. Those three tanks ended up taking out three German tanks, which ended up being members of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitlerbeing, Hitler s old body guards. | 0 |
5,874 | Trump talks to U.S. automakers, pushes for new American plants | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump urged the chief executives of the Big Three U.S. automakers on Tuesday to build more cars in the country, pressing his pledge to bring jobs to America and discourage the car industry from investing in Mexico. Trump, who has threatened to impose 35 percent tariffs on imported vehicles, opened a White House meeting with General Motors Co CEO Mary Barra, Ford Motor Co’s Mark Fields and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV’s Sergio Marchionne by saying he wanted to see more auto plants in the United States. In return, the new Republican president has vowed to cut regulations and taxes to make it more attractive for businesses to operate in the United States. He promised during his campaign to be a job-creating president and stressed that message in his inaugural address last Friday. “We have a very big push on to have auto plants and other plants - many other plants,” he told reporters at the start of the meeting. “It’s happening. It’s happening big league.” Matt Blunt, who heads a U.S. automaker trade association and attended the meeting, told Reuters that Trump asked what his administration could do “on domestic and trade policy that would help make the United States more competitive and strengthen the ability of automakers to add production here.” The hour-long meeting was the latest sign of Trump’s uncommon degree of intervention for a U.S. president into corporate affairs as he has repeatedly pressured automakers and other manufacturers to “buy American and hire American.” It was the first time the heads of the big three automakers met jointly with a U.S. president since a 2011 session with Barack Obama to tout a deal to nearly double fuel efficiency standards by 2025. Automakers have urged the Trump administration to rethink those aggressive mandates. The auto executives on Tuesday raised the issue of the fuel efficiency rules, trade policy and other regulatory matters, another person briefed on the meeting said. Marchionne told reporters afterward that Trump did not give them specifics on what regulations he would cut. The companies also discussed autonomous and electric vehicles and Trump asked about advanced vehicles, the person said. With flattening U.S. auto sales and excess capacity in the United States, U.S. automakers have been reluctant to open new U.S. auto plants in recent years. GM and Ford last built new U.S. assembly plants in 2004, while Fiat Chrysler opened a new transmission plant in Indiana in 2014. Kristin Dziczek, an analyst at the Michigan-based Center for Automotive Research, said automakers still had excess capacity in North America after suffering in the 1990s and 2000s from overcapacity and shifts in market share. Building a new plant would take three or more years and cost at least $1 billion, industry experts said. Automakers have expanded operations at existing U.S. plants to meet rising demand for trucks and SUVs. GM, Ford, Fiat Chrysler and foreign automakers have announced new U.S. jobs and investments in recent weeks. Coinciding with Tuesday’s meeting, Toyota Motor Corp said it would add 400 jobs and invest $600 million in an Indiana plant, aiming to boost production of a popular SUV by 10 percent. Ford’s Fields said automakers wanted to work with Trump to create a “renaissance in American manufacturing” and that Trump’s economic priorities were encouraging, including his move on Monday to formally bow out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact championed by Obama. “The mother of all trade barriers is currency manipulation. And TPP failed in meaningfully dealing with that, and we appreciate the president’s courage to walk away from a bad trade deal,” Fields told reporters after the meeting. Barra said there was a “huge opportunity” to work together with the government to “improve the environment, improve safety and improve the jobs creation.” U.S. automakers have collectively added more than 78,000 jobs since 2009, the year when GM and Chrysler, now a unit of Italian-American Fiat Chrysler, filed for bankruptcy as part of government bailouts during the U.S. recession. They have invested more than $40 billion in U.S. facilities during that period. Despite the vocal pressure from Trump, the companies are unlikely to truly change their existing business plans for now, said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting with AutoForecast Solutions. “We need to have more concrete policies from the president,” he said. “Automakers will make decisions on whether there is a solid business case. Does it make more sense to build outside the U.S. or to build in the U.S.?” GM said in 2014 it would invest $5 billion in Mexico through 2018, a move that would allow it to double its production capacity, and Barra has said the automaker is not reconsidering the plan. While automakers are adding U.S. jobs, they are also cutting U.S. production of small cars. On Monday, GM ended two shifts of production of small cars in Ohio and Michigan, cutting about 2,000 jobs. Barclays auto analyst Brian Johnson said in a note on Tuesday that “automakers will be willing to make a deal that would bring back jobs to the U.S. in return for a slower ramp of (fuel efficiency) targets and related state-level mandates.” Auto stocks rose on Tuesday. U.S.-listed shares of Fiat Chrysler gained 5.84 percent to $10.88, while Ford was up 2.44 percent to $12.61 and GM rose 0.96 percent to $37. | 1 |
5,875 | Yahoo shares fall after latest security breach | (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc’s shares fell as much as 3.8 percent on Thursday, a day after the company said that more than 1 billion user accounts were compromised in a security breach in August 2013. The number of users affected by the breach, the largest in history, was double the number implicated in a prior 2014 breach that Yahoo had disclosed in September. Verizon, which has agreed to buy Yahoo’s core Internet business for $4.83 billion, had said at the time that it might withdraw from the deal. The No. 1 U.S. wireless carrier said on Wednesday that it would review the impact of the latest development. “The prior breaches were not seen to have an effect on the Verizon deal, so I would say that this is not going to have an effect either because its just something that is understood, it has to be addressed,” Tigress Financial Partner analyst Ivan Feinseth said. Up to Wednesday’s close, Yahoo’s stock had fallen more than 7 percent since the first breach was announced in September. | 1 |
5,876 | German foreign minister equates far-right AfD party with Nazis | BERLIN (Reuters) - Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel on Monday equated the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party with the Nazis who ruled the country from 1933 to 1945, an insult rarely heard in national politics. In an interview with Internet provider t-online.de, Gabriel said many German voters were considering voting for the AfD in the Sept. 24 parliamentary election because they felt their concerns about migration, security and jobs were not being addressed. Founded in 2013 as an anti-European Union party, the AfD shifted its focus from the euro zone debt crisis to immigration after Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2015 opened the doors to over a million migrants, many fleeing war in the Middle East. If we re unlucky, then these people will send a signal of dissatisfaction that will have terrible consequences. Then we will have real Nazis in the German Reichstag for the first time since the end of World War Two, said Gabriel, a member of the Social Democrats, junior partners in the ruling coalition. The AfD declined to comment on Gabriel s remarks, which came after the Welt am Sonntag newspaper cited what it called a racist email reportedly written by Alice Weidel, a top AfD candidate, to a Frankfurt business associate in 2013. The German government was destroying society by allowing it to be overrun by culturally foreign people such as Arabs, Sinti and Roma, the newspaper quoted the email as saying. Weidel s spokesman Christian Lueth, writing on Twitter, dismissed the report as fake news aimed at keeping his party out of parliament. He told the Tagesspiegel newspaper that Weidel had assured him the email was not from her. Lueth declined to comment further when contacted by Reuters. Other parties also lined up to criticize the AfD, which polls show is on course to enter the national parliament for the first time after the election. The party has seats in 13 of 16 state legislatures. Bavarian state premier Horst Seehofer, head of the CSU sister party of Merkel s conservatives, dismissed the leaked email as a publicity-seeking provocation by the AfD that was best ignored. Justice Minister Heiko Maas, a member of Gabriel s SPD, said in an essay published in the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper that parts of the AfD s program, including on religion, family and Europe, were unconstitutional. German prosecutors separately launched an investigation into remarks by another AfD official, Alexander Gauland, who said Germany s integration minister should be dumped back to Turkey, her parents country of origin. [nL2N1LS093] Christian Lindner, who heads the pro-business Free Democratic Party that is also poised to win seats in parliament, described the AfD as an anti-liberal and authoritarian party that was completely at odds with his own. Gabriel urged steps to reverse the AfD s gains in neglected communities and villages of the former communist East Germany. We must change course and not only reimburse the cost of taking in migrants, but also give local communities the same amount on top so they can do more for their citizens, he said. Merkel, whose CDU/CSU conservatives are leading the SPD by double digits in opinion polls, looks poised to win a fourth term. Both her camp and the Social Democrats have ruled out governing in coalition with the AfD. | 1 |
5,877 | Trump Just SHUT DOWN ALL Of The Department Of The Interior’s Twitter Accounts, Because Reasons | The Department of the Interior has a Twitter account just like pretty much everyone else these days, including government agencies. But it seems that those agencies aren t immune to censorship from our dear, sweet, thin-skinned, narcissistic Cheeto-in-Chief. The Department of the Interior was ordered to shut down its Twitter accounts Friday evening after the National Park Service had the gall to post two, ahem, unflattering tweets.The first has been flying around social media, and has to do with Trump s pathetically dismal crowds, particularly in comparison to Obama s crowds for both of his inaugurations:The second tweet made note of gaps in policy on the new White House website, including scrubbing the site of anything having to do with civil rights, LGBTQ rights, climate change and the ACA.Apparently, it was a Park Service employee who retweeted these things, and either Trump himself couldn t handle it and wanted to show them who s really boss now, or the Dept. of the Interior is afraid enough of Trump to not only delete those two tweets, but comply with an order to shut down their entire Twitter presence. The Washington Post got hold of the email with that order: All bureaus and the department have been directed by incoming administration to shut down Twitter platforms immediately until further notice. It would actually be understandable for them to delete the offending tweets and reprimand, reassign, or even fire the employee responsible. But to have to shut down their entire Twitter presence because of two goddamn tweets from one agency?Welcome to Trump s America.The department has dozens of official Twitter accounts across ten agencies, but that email was described as an urgent directive with which they had to comply.An official with knowledge of the incident sounds a bit like he s been cowed:A government official familiar with the stand-down said the agency is investigating whether the retweets were purposeful, errant or whether we ve been hacked. They were not reflective of Park Service policy, said the official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the directive. The stand-down was precautionary until the agency completes a review of its Twitter accounts, the official said.This is terrifying. This is dictatorial behavior, not the behavior of an incoming president who believes in democracy.Featured image by Alex Wong via Getty Images | 0 |
5,878 | South Korea parliament chief tells North Korea to resume missile talks: Ifax | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Chung Sye-kyun, the speaker of South Korea s parliament, on Sunday called on North Korea to resume talks over its nuclear and missile program, saying its nuclear tests were a threat to the Korean Peninsula, the Interfax news agency reported. Interfax said he was speaking at a congress of parliamentarians in St Petersburg, Russia, which a North Korean delegation is also attending. | 1 |
5,879 | TRUMP SPOKESPERSON Hammers it Home On Trump’s Moratorium On Refugees [Video] | Katrina Pierson does a fantastic job with this CNN anchor | 0 |
5,880 | Poland asks EU to drop legal case against Warsaw over migrant quotas | WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland has asked the European Commission to withdraw its legal proceedings against Warsaw over its migrant relocation quotas and said it was ready to fight its case in court, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday. In July the Commission sent so-called reasoned opinions to Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary urging them to apply EU migration rules. Poland has sent a motion to the European Commission requesting it to discontinue its ongoing infringement procedure. Should it be continued, Poland is prepared to argue its case before the Court of Justice of the European Union , the ministry said in a statement. Poland s ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) has repeatedly criticized the EU s relocation scheme for each member state to host a given number of migrants to help ease pressure on Greece and Italy, struggling with mass arrivals of migrants across the Mediterranean. Earlier on Wednesday, Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said in a statement that the EU s relocation policy was dangerous. Paris, Stockholm, Brussels, Berlin, Manchester, Barcelona, Blaszczak said, referring to recent attacks by Islamist militants which have killed scores of people. How many more European cities have to be hit by terrorists so the European Union wakes up? So the European Commission acknowledges that accepting blindly all those who come to the European shores is akin to putting a noose around Europe s neck? | 1 |
5,881 | our new country women and minorities hit hardest | wars and rumors of wars russia unveils satan missile nuclear weapon could wipe out france or texas report says published hours ago
cnn a russian missile design company has unveiled the first image of a new weapon in russias arsenal the sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile nicknamed satan
the rs sarmat rocket is capable of wiping out parts of the earth the size of texas or france russian state news outlet sputnik reported in may
the image was published by the makeyev rocket design bureau on its website
russian deputy defense minister yuri borsiov said the sarmat warhead was capable of destroying targets flying across both north and south poles russian state news agency tass reported tuesday | 1 |
5,882 | Commander of Taliban 'special forces' killed in Afghanistan: officials | KABUL (Reuters) - The commander of the Taliban s special forces branch, known as the Red Unit, was killed last week in Helmand province by Afghan forces, according to Afghanistan s main intelligence agency. The National Directorate of Security (NDS) said Mullah Shah Wali, also known as Mullah Naser, was killed in an air operation in Helmand. The province is a Taliban stronghold in the heartland of Afghanistan s lucrative drug trade. Wali became the commander of the Taliban s Red Unit as well as deputy shadow governor of Helmand province three years ago and was directly involved in Taliban offensives, the statement said. The Red Unit is thought to be equipped with advanced weapons, including night vision scopes, 82mm rockets, heavy machine guns and U.S.-made assault rifles, according to the Afghan military. Wali was killed alongside a suicide bomber and two other Taliban commanders in Helmand s Musa Qala district, according to the NDS. The United States has worked hard to build up Afghan air support and attack capabilities since they were found inadequate after most foreign forces withdrew three years ago. | 1 |
5,883 | Russian military working on deal to use Egyptian air bases: document | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia s government published a draft agreement between Russia and Egypt on Thursday allowing both countries to use each other s air space and air bases for their military planes. The draft deal was set out in a decree, signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Nov. 28, which ordered the Russian Defence Ministry to hold negotiations with Egyptian officials and to sign the document once both sides reached an agreement. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Cairo for talks with Egypt s political and military leadership on Wednesday and the decree said the draft had been preliminary worked through with the Egyptian side and approved by Medvedev. Russia launched a military operation to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in September 2015 and there are signs it is keen to further expand its military presence in the region. U.S. officials said in March that Russia had deployed special forces in Egypt near the border with Libya, an allegation Moscow denied. Russia has cultivated close ties with powerful Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar, who held talks with Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, via video link from a Russian aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean this year and visited Moscow. Russian and Egyptian war planes would be able to use each other s air space and airfields by giving five days advance notice, according to the draft agreement, which is expected to be valid for five years and could be extended. | 1 |
5,884 | Pope wears refugee ID bracelet in appeal for help for migrants | BOLOGNA, Italy (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Sunday urged governments and people to do more to help migrants and not see them as enemies, wearing a plastic ID bracelet used by asylum seekers to drive home his message. Francis visited a drab refugee center on the outskirts of Bologna known simply as The Hub . Run by a charity, it is home to about 1,000 asylum seekers, most of whom risked their lives crossing the Mediterranean from Africa and the Middle East. There, they live in gray containers and other forms of temporary housing while awaiting decisions on their asylum requests to be moved to other towns in Italy. Many of the refugees and migrants are without documents and all wear a plastic yellow bracelet. The pope wore one bearing his name and the number 3900003 on his right wrist. It was given to him by an African refugee. Many who don t know you are afraid of you, he told them as a light drizzle fell. That makes them think they have the right to judge (you) coldly and harshly, he said. He paid homage to those who never arrived because they were eaten up by the desert or the sea . Some 600,000 impoverished migrants and refugees have arrived in Italy in less than four years. In that time, more than 13,000 have died trying to cross the Mediterranean. Francis, who has made defense of migrants and refugees a major plank of his papacy, also condemned internet trolling against foreigners, saying they had been subjected to terrible phrases and insults. If we look on our neighbors without mercy we risk that even God will look on us without mercy, he said. The pope s defense of migrants, his second in less than a week, comes at a time of growing anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States and many European countries where far-right parties have made inroads. Last week, the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (Afd) party surged to third place in a national election, tapping into public disquiet over the arrival of more than a million migrants in Germany over the past two years. Francis called on more governments to facilitate initiatives backed by the private sector and community groups to set up humanitarian corridors for refugees in the most difficult situations. This was a reference to programs such as one run in Italy by the Rome-based Sant Egidio peace community, which regularly brings into Italy refugees fleeing the civil war in Syria. Italy s anti-immigrant Northern League, whose base is in the regions just north of Bologna, has vowed to clamp down on migration from developing countries if it forms part of a coalition government after next year s elections. | 1 |
5,885 | NY court allows fraud claim against Trump University to proceed | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump suffered a legal setback on Tuesday when a New York state court allowed a multimillion-dollar fraud claim against Trump University, filed by the state’s attorney general, to proceed. The claim is part of a lawsuit that accuses Trump and the now-defunct for-profit venture of misleading thousands of people, who paid up to $35,000 to learn the billionaire businessman’s real estate investment strategies. Trump University, which Trump chaired, has become a target for his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, particularly Marco Rubio. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s lawsuit, filed in 2013, seeks $40 million in restitution plus penalties and other costs, his office said. The ruling by a four-judge panel of a mid-level appeals court in Manhattan brings the case closer to a potential trial. It could make it easier for the Trump venture ultimately to be held liable, because the claim does not require proof that there was intent to defraud. The judges also extended the statute of limitations for the claim back to 2007 instead of 2010, as Trump’s attorneys want. The program stopped taking students in 2010. “Today’s decision is a clear victory in our effort to hold Donald Trump and Trump University accountable for defrauding thousands of students,” Schneiderman said in a statement. The Trump Organization’s general counsel, Alan Garten, said he would seek to appeal the ruling, and called the case “politically motivated.” Schneiderman is a Democrat. “We think all these claims are without merit and baseless,” Garten said. “Ninety-eight percent of those who participated in the programs filled out written surveys giving the programs the highest grades.” Class actions are pending in California on similar claims by former Trump University students. Rubio, who hammered Trump over Trump University at last week’s Republican presidential debate, on Tuesday pointed to the New York court’s decision at a rally in Minneapolis. The U.S. senator from Florida said prospective Trump University students increased the borrowing limit on their credit cards in order to pay for the course. “Some graduated, some didn’t, but in the end the only thing you got was a piece of paper that was worthless and a picture with a cardboard cutout of Donald Trump,” he said. “That’s a fraud case and it is outrageous,” Rubio said. “... What he did to those people is what he is doing to Americans now.” At the debate, Trump told Rubio he had won most of the lawsuits involving Trump University. The appeals court’s decision revived a second claim for fraud. A lower-court judge had allowed Schneiderman to proceed only on a type of fraud known as common-law fraud, which would have been more difficult to prove. The lower-court judge in Manhattan has already determined that Trump and his university are liable for operating illegally in New York state as an unlicensed educational institution. New York notified Trump in 2005 that he was violating state education law by using the word “University” when it was not actually chartered as one. In 2010, Trump University changed its name to Trump Entrepreneur Initiative and later that year notified the state Department of Education that it had ceased operations. (Reporting By Karen Freifeld; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Alexia Garamfalvi) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. | 1 |
5,886 | Trump Spokesperson Upset At Lack Of ‘Pure Breeds’ Running For President (TWEETS) | It gets more outrageous by the day for the Trump campaign when it comes to racism and racists. It appears Trump has assembled a political team and a fan base of individuals who are racist to the core. Take for example current Trump campaign spokesperson Katrina Pierson. Back in 2012, Pierson took to Twitter and lamented at the lack of pure breeds running for president in reference to President Obama, who has a father of Kenyan descent, and Mitt Romney, whose father was born in Mexico.Perfect Obama's dad born in Africa, Mitt Romney's dad born in Mexico. Any pure breeds left? #CNNDebate Katrina Pierson (@KatrinaPierson) January 20, 2012In her tweet, Pierson implies that having a parent born oversees somehow makes someone less American, or to put it in more eugenical terms, less pure. That s interesting, since Donald Trump s mother was actually born in Scotland. One can easily infer why she would find Scotland more acceptable to be born in than Kenya or Mexico.Pierson is in agreement on all of Trump s policies, including supporting the ban on Muslims from entering the United States. She also advocates using America s nuclear arsenal in some capacity against perceived enemies saying, What good does it do to have a good nuclear triad if you re afraid to use it? Katrina Pierson is not without a checkered history. She s been accused of collecting thousands of dollars in welfare benefits while working. She also made a recent appearance on CNN where she wore a necklace made of bullets. After anti-gun advocates called her out, she promised to wear a necklace made of fetuses. Pierson also has an arrest record for shoplifting. Ironically, four years before her wacky tweet, Pierson sued her previous employer for racial discrimination.Donna Pierson s antics and her checkered history shouldn t be surprising. After all, she s helping steer one of the most racist and frightening presidential campaigns in American history. Let s hope that the country can find a few good laughs with these crazies and put them all in the dust bin of history when the time comes.Featured Image Via YouTube Screenshot. | 0 |
5,887 | uc berkeley sjws build human wall to block white students from campus | a major new plan will be announced soon by the hillary campaign this will certainly solve the world problems that face humanity she will tax the rich and pay hundreds of millions of dollars to states that fight bullies its the antibully agenda to keep everybodys free speech and free thought on heel of the government the greatness is astounding the latest clinton to unveil antibullying plan hillary clinton is unveiling a plan to reduce bullying called better than bullying the plan released thursday by the democratic presidential nominee would provide million in new funding to states that develop comprehensive antibullying efforts clinton is expected to talk about the plan during an appearance with first lady michelle obama thursday she has called republican donald trump a bully for his derogatory comments the campaign said states must address verbal and cyber bullying and establish a process for addressing incidents they must also ban bullying on the basis of race color national origin sex disability sexual orientation gender identity and religion states could get dollars from the federal government for every they spend it would be paid for through clintons proposed tax increases on the wealthy | 0 |
5,888 | Greek archaeologists clear way for Hellenikon resort | ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece welcomed a decision by senior archaeologists to conditionally permit a major tourism project in Athens on Wednesday, saying it cleared the way for the country to turn the site into one of Europe’s biggest coastal resorts. The 8 billion euro ($9.4 billion) project to develop the disused Hellenikon airport site is a key term of Greece’s international bailout and is closely watched by its official creditors and potential investors in the crisis-hit country. Greek developer Lamda signed a 99-year lease with the state in 2014 for the 620-hectare (1,530-acre) area, once the site of Athens airport. But the project has faced delays, partly over a long-running row between developers and those who fear it will damage the environment and cultural heritage. After three inconclusive meetings in recent weeks, the Central Archaeological Council, an advisory body, recommended on Tuesday that about 30 hectares (74 acres) of the 620-hectare plot under the project be declared an archaeological site. “The decision is fine,” Deputy Economy Minister in charge of investments, Stergios Pitsiorlas, told Reuters. “The fact that a small area is declared of archaeological interest shields the whole process from future litigation.” Pitsiorlas said the recommendation meant that archaeologists will have a closer supervision of construction work. Backed by Chinese and Gulf funds, Lamda submitted its detailed development plan for Hellenikon in July, setting off a licensing process which will wrap up with a decree. The Council approved the plan on Tuesday and designated specific areas where construction should not be allowed. It was not immediately clear how the Council’s recommendation could affect Lamda’s construction plan. Lamda said it was waiting to be officially notified over the decision before making any public statement, noting that “the importance of the archaeological findings has been included from the beginning in the company’s undertakings”. It said it should be able to assess the impact of the Council’s decision on its development plan once it has reviewed the resolutions and accompanying diagrams. The recommendation is not binding, however, the culture ministry always respects the body’s decisions. Greece on Monday overcame another hurdle to the project by winning an appeal over objections by forestry officials. Hellenikon has become a major political issue in Greece, which is slowly emerging from a multi-year debt crisis. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, whose leftist party strongly opposed it before coming to power in 2015, is now seen as keen to implement the deal to help boost economic activity and reduce unemployment, the euro zone’s highest. Referring to the council’s decision, Deputy Foreign Minister Giannis Amanatidis said it was “a complicated process which was resolved in the best possible way”. | 1 |
5,889 | Mexican leftist Obrador leads ahead of 2018 election: poll | MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who leads the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) party, is the front-runner ahead of next year s presidential election, according to a newspaper poll published on Monday. The El Universal survey found that 23.3 percent of respondents would vote for MORENA in the 2018 vote, ahead of the conservative National Action Party, which had 20 percent support. President Enrique Pena Nieto s ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was in third place, with 16.5 percent, the poll found. The major parties have yet to pick their candidates for the race, but Lopez Obrador, or AMLO as he is known locally, is the de facto candidate of MORENA, which he founded in 2014 after breaking with his longtime base, the center-left Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). A victory for the combative and nationalist-leaning Lopez Obrador could stoke tensions with the Trump administration just as the United States, Mexico and Canada seek to seal a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The silver-haired Lopez Obrador, 63, is one of the best-known politicians in Mexico, having spent years relentlessly attacking other parties for corruption. But he is also a divisive figure, feared by the country s business elite. A former mayor of Mexico City, Lopez Obrador finished runner-up in the last two presidential contests. In various scenarios polled by El Universal, in which AMLO faced different candidates from the other parties, the leftist came out ahead, garnering between 28.6 and 31 percent support. Political analysts say that may be enough to win the July 2018 contest with the electorate increasingly divided. Only the PAN s Margarita Zavala, who is the wife of former President Felipe Calderon, came close, with 26.1-26.6 percent of respondents giving her their support. Additionally, AMLO was the most positively viewed potential candidate, with 43.3 percent of those polled holding an upbeat view of the veteran politician. An electoral pact linking the PAN, the PRD and the Citizen s Movement party is not well known in Mexico, the poll found, but among those with knowledge of the newly formed alliance, 46 percent thought it could beat MORENA next year. The survey, which had a margin of error of 1.3 percent, polled 6,400 Mexicans in face-to-face interviews between Aug. 18 and Sept. 3. | 1 |
5,890 | Trump eyes 'flexible' Islamic State war fund, Guantanamo upgrade | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump is asking Congress to give the Pentagon about $2 billion for a “flexible” fund to use against Islamic State over the next six months, as his administration weighs changes to the U.S.-led campaign against the militant group. Trump is also seeking to upgrade long-underfunded facilities at the U.S. military’s Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba that Trump’s Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, unsuccessfully sought to close during his eight-year administration. “It doesn’t seem like we are going to close it anytime soon,” John Roth, the acting Pentagon comptroller, told a Pentagon news briefing, explaining the move. The proposals were part of a $30 billion supplemental request to Congress to add more money to the Pentagon’s budget during the government’s ongoing fiscal year, which began under the Obama administration and ends in September. It includes plans to crank up U.S. funding for the fight against Islamic State militants for items like high-tech bombs and defenses against insurgents’ drones, bringing overall spending on the campaign to the highest level yet, the Pentagon said. “This will likely be our largest request,” Roth said. One analyst called the $2 billion flexible spending request a Pentagon “slush fund,” and many lawmakers were expected to be reluctant to loosen oversight over how the Pentagon spends money. What Trump’s additional funding might mean for America’s evolving war strategy against Islamic State in the coming months was not immediately clear. But the request comes as U.S.-backed forces in Iraq and Syria are entering a critical phase in their campaign to retake Islamic State’s two biggest cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria. Trump’s administration is weighing deployment of more U.S. troops. The heads of the top U.S. congressional committees that oversee the Pentagon have criticized Trump’s 2018 budget request, saying even more money was needed. “It is clear to virtually everyone that we have cut our military too much and that it has suffered enormous damage,” said Republican Representative Mac Thornberry, chairman of the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee. Todd Harrison at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington questioned whether Trump’s budget wish list could muster enough support among Democrats, whose votes would be needed to sign off on the spending bills given the slim Republican hold on the Senate. Trump said during the election campaign that he not only wanted to keep the Guantanamo Bay detention center open but “load it up with some bad dudes.” Trump’s $5.1 billion “overseas contingency operations” request included a provision for $1.1 billion in additional funds for a range of Pentagon projects, including “planning and design of construction projects in support of Detention Operations at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.” The prison, which was opened by Republican President George W. Bush to hold terrorism suspects captured overseas after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks came to symbolize harsh detention practices that opened the United States to accusations of torture. Obama reduced the inmate population to 41, but fell short of fulfilling his promise to close the jail. The 2017 request would also hike spending for the broader Defense Department over the next six months, with $24.9 billion more sought to “readiness needs” after years of complaints over congressionally imposed spending caps. Lockheed Martin would be one of the biggest beneficiaries of that proposal. Some $13.5 billion would be spent on more military hardware, including five F-35 warplanes as well as Army Blackhawk helicopters made by Sikorsky Aircraft, a Lockheed subsidiary. Trump also wants 12 interceptors for the THAAD missile defense system. The United States is now deploying THAAD in South Korea in response to North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear tests. Boeing would also gain with $2.4 billion for an additional 24 of its F/A-18 E/F jet fighters. A further $7.2 billion would pay for things like military training, cyber and intelligence capabilities and support for weapons systems. | 1 |
5,891 | U.S. announces new Iran-related sanctions | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Friday sanctioned 13 individuals and 12 entities under U.S. Iran sanctions authority, days after the White House had put Iran “on notice” over a ballistic missile test and other activities. In a statement on its website, the U.S. Treasury listed the sanctioned individuals and entities, some of which are based in the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon and China. | 1 |
5,892 | Trump’s Energy Secretary Has An Idea For Stopping Sexual Assault – This Is INSANE | Who knew that Rick Perry would come up with an idea for stopping sexual assault? He no doubt thinks he s absolutely brilliant because his idea is fossil fuels. Yes, he thinks fossil fuels can help stop the problems with massive rape in developing countries. But while he thinks he s shining a light on an amazingly novel idea, he s really being insanely offensive to all the victims of rape in the world. Here s how he managed to combine fossil fuels with sexual assault: But also from the standpoint of sexual assault, when the lights are on, when you have light that shines, the righteousness, if you will, on those types of acts. So from the standpoint of how you really affect people s lives, fossil fuels is going to play a role in that. I happen to think it s going to play a positive role. Well gee, so sorry you were raped but your village doesn t have electricity yet. That totally would have stopped it. Does he not know that they already have ways to light their dwellings and their villages? We won t even ask whether he understands what rape is and why it happens it s clear he thinks it s only a violent act that happens in darkness.That s not just offensive to rape victims in the developing world, it s offensive to all rape victims everywhere. But Rick Perry hails from the crowd that blames women for sexual assault and harassment. It wouldn t be surprising to find that he thinks keeping lights on will stop the rape gangs in South Africa and elsewhere.There s also the fact that Perry doesn t believe that fossil fuels are responsible for accelerating climate change, so of course he s going to put his ignorance on display like this. To that, we say, go home, Perry. You are disgusting.Featured image via Kevin Dietsch-Pool/Getty Images | 0 |
5,893 | TOP TEN THINGS Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Want You To See From Wikileaks E-mails | TOP 10 THINGS HILLARY DOESN T WANT YOU TO SEELeaked Transcripts of Hillary Clinton s Closed Door Paid Speeches Reveal What Clinton s Title Should Actually Be, (D-Wall Street) Hillary Clinton s secret Wall Street speeches prove what we have known all along that Clinton is a self-serving Washington insider who has continued to deceive the American people for 30 years. Now we finally get confirmation of Clinton s catastrophic plans for completely open borders and diminishing America s influence in the world. There is a reason Clinton gave these high-paid speeches in secret behind closed doors her real intentions will destroy American sovereignty as we know it, further illustrating why Hillary Clinton is simply unfit to be president. Jason Miller, Senior Communications AdviserTOP TAKEAWAYS Clinton said that to be successful, politically you need both a public and private position on public policy. In a speech to a Wall Street audience, Clinton went to great lengths to shift blame from the big banks, divulging that she allowed her constituents to literally yell at her to take out their anger for the financial crisis. Clinton confessed in the Big Banks that she was far removed from the struggles of the middle class because of her and Bill s fortunes. To the Big Banks, Clinton said that Wall Street insiders are needed to solve the problems on Wall Street. Clinton bragged that as a Senator she did all she could do to make sure the financial industry continued to prosper Clinton confided in the Big Banks that she feels there is a bias against people who have led successful and/or complicated lives In front of a Brazilian bank, Clinton cited that her dream is hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders. CLINTON TOLD WALL STREET SHE NEEDS THEIR MONEY FOR HER CAMPAIGNS In front of a Canadian audience, Clinton said she hopes the US can model ours after their system. In front of a Big Bank, Clinton bragged about her great relationship with the financial sector and about how much respect she has for the industry.Read more: DJT | 0 |
5,894 | In Florida, Donald Trump has a model for success | SARASOTA, Fla. (Reuters) - The pundits said he never had a chance: He was a high-powered U.S. businessman who had never run for office. He largely financed his own campaign. He took a hard line on illegal immigration and Obamacare. His attacks on Islam were controversial. Six years ago that businessman, Rick Scott, won Florida’s Republican primary for governor. He then went on to take the general election. Now in his second term, Scott is in many ways a prototype for Donald Trump’s U.S. presidential campaign. Scott’s success in Florida is something that should give serious pause to Marco Rubio, a U.S. senator from the state who hopes to use it as a springboard to unseat Trump as the leading contender for the Republican nomination to the Nov. 8 election. Florida’s March 15 primary, to select a wealth of delegates to the Republicans’ July nominating convention, is likely the final chance for Rubio, and perhaps the Republican establishment, to halt the furious advance of Trump, a billionaire businessman with homes in New York and Florida. Trump’s two leading strategists in Florida have strong ties to Scott, rebutting the commonly held presumption among Trump’s critics that his campaign is all about the former reality TV show host’s celebrity and popular appeal and not about tactics. “Nobody thought he had a shot. Nobody!” said Joe Gruters, a top Republican Party official in the state who was an early ally of Scott and who now co-chairs Trump’s Florida effort. “The establishment threw everything you can imagine at Rick Scott.” A first-term senator, Rubio has finished behind Trump in early-nomination contests to date. Rubio grew up in Miami, and his Cuban-American heritage could give him an edge with the state’s burgeoning Latino population. But Rubio is still climbing uphill in the state race. While he has benefited from the withdrawal from the race of another Florida son, ex-Governor Jeb Bush, he trails Trump significantly. A Quinnipiac University survey released on Thursday showed Trump with 44 percent of the Republican vote, with Rubio far behind at 28 percent. The good news for Rubio is that it’s the highest level of support he has had in the state, suggesting that he is moving upward when he needs it the most. But it may not be enough with many voters having cast early and absentee ballots. “When you have such a commanding lead like Trump has in all these states, you have the ability to focus on states like Florida where you know you can deliver the knockout blow,” Gruters said. While other Republicans campaigned in early-voting states, Trump served notice he was taking winning Florida seriously, methodically holding large-scale events across Florida, including one in October in Miami, home to both Rubio and Bush. When Bush and Rubio came to Florida at all, it was largely to raise money in closed-door fundraisers. “There’s a big difference between when you have 10,000 people showing up to a rally, hearing the battle cry and getting motivated,” Gruters said, “than when you are meeting people for $10,000-a-plate dinners where you exclude the rank-and-file members.” Bush’s campaign was in such poor shape near the end that when a Reuters correspondent visited his state campaign office in Tampa, it was deserted. All of the staff and volunteers had been sent to South Carolina for a primary vote in an unsuccessful last-ditch effort to rescue his presidential bid. Gruters is vice-chairman of the state Republican Party, making him perhaps the highest-ranking party official in the country to embrace Trump. He heads Trump’s Florida effort with Susie Wiles of Jacksonville, who ran Scott’s 2010 campaign. He said he sees strong similarities between Scott and Trump. “It’s not unusual for Florida to elect these non-establishment guys,” he said. Scott was the former CEO of Columbia/HCA, the healthcare giant that ultimately settled a massive billing fraud case brought by the U.S. government during his tenure. When he entered the 2010 Republican primary, the assumption was that it was Attorney General Bill McCollum’s race to lose. Financing his own campaign, Scott ran hard to McCollum’s right, supporting Arizona’s then highly controversial anti-immigration law and releasing an ad that ripped President Barack Obama for defending a possible mosque in New York near the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Like Trump, Scott portrayed himself as a businessman better suited to repairing the distressed economy than the Republican establishment was. “They both bring the same kind of attitude to government,” said Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida, “that a business person can run government better than professional politicians.” Trump has contributed $125,000 to Scott’s political-action committee since 2012. Some have speculated Scott could serve as Trump’s vice presidential nominee. But in what may serve as another lesson for Trump, Scott remains a highly polarizing figure. His relationship with the state legislature has been prickly — and his approval ratings have never crossed 50 percent. “He entered politics with half the state’s voters liking him,” MacManus said. “He’s never gone much beyond that.” Bush’s departure from the presidential race has left Rubio flying the establishment flag. His local supporters say it already has made a huge difference, both in terms of support and money. “(Bush) was dividing votes,” Tom Rooney, a U.S. congressman from Florida who is chairing Rubio’s campaign here, told Reuters. “We don’t have that issue anymore.” The Rubio campaign, in Florida as elsewhere, is not courting Trump’s voters. It believes they are unlikely to switch. Instead, Rooney said, the idea is to woo the 60-65 percent of the party that so far has not supported Trump. To that end, Rubio has been playing catch-up, opening new offices and securing a bevy of endorsements from local politicians. But Rooney concedes while Rubio has consoled himself with second-place finishes in places such as Iowa and South Carolina, that will not be enough in Florida, especially given that the winner gets all of the state’s 99 delegates. “When we get into the winner-take-all states,” Rooney said, “you can’t come in second and say you’re doing well.” (Reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Howard Goller) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. | 1 |
5,895 | INSANE: SECRET DEAL OBAMA MADE WITH “Death To America’s” IRAN INCLUDES Iran Monitoring Their Own Nuclear Sites | Does anyone else find it strange the Obama would lobby so hard to make it easy for Iran to develop nuclear weapons they will likely use against us and our allies in the Middle East? Maybe he s not aware that we re dealing with a country who has an actual day set aside to celebrate their hate for America and Israel Iran s Quds Day: Death to America, Death to IsraelThe ritualistic rally cries of Death to America and Death to Israel. Quds Day has become a day in which Iran and protestors in other societies attack the legitimacy of the state of Israel ( The Little Satan ) and continue to threaten the United States ( The Big Satan ). Gatestone Institute An apparent draft of one of the secret side agreements to the Iran nuclear deal indicates that Tehran will be permitted to use its own experts to inspect the Parchin nuclear site believed to have housed nuclear arms development.The Associated Press obtained the document, which an anonymous official described as a draft of an agreement between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that does not differ much from the final version. The IAEA is the U.N. agency responsible for ensuring that Tehran abides by the stipulations in the finalized deal.The secret agreements between Iran and the IAEA of which there are at least two have to do with the inspection of Iran s Parchin military facility as well as the extent to which Tehran must admit to the details of its alleged nuclear weapons program.Despite repeated calls from lawmakers, President Obama has refused to provide Congress with the details of the secret deals.The AP reports:Any IAEA member country must give the agency some insight into its nuclear program. Some countries are required to do no more than give a yearly accounting of the nuclear material they possess. But nations like Iran suspected of possible proliferation are under greater scrutiny that can include stringent inspections.But the agreement diverges from normal inspection procedures between the IAEA and a member country by essentially ceding the agency s investigative authority to Iran. It allows Tehran to employ its own experts and equipment in the search for evidence for activities that it has consistently denied trying to develop nuclear weapons.The document suggests that IAEA officials will merely monitor Iranian experts as they inspect the Parchin site and provide the U.N. agency with photos and videos taken only of areas that Iran has not deemed off-limits because of military implications.Iranian technicians are also to perform the sampling of weapons development work, which is limited to seven samples inside the facility building.In the face of criticism, the Obama administration has denied that the nuclear deal is built on the trust of the Iranians.Multiple GOP lawmakers have sounded the alarm regarding the secret agreements between Tehran and the IAEA, accusing Obama of violating the law by denying Congress access to the details of the side deals.Before the final deal was reached in Vienna, Obama signed the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, which requires congressional lawmakers view all documents of the nuclear agreement specifically including those reached on the side. Via: WFBWatch Barack Hussein Obama compare the GOP to Iranian s chanting death to America over their opposition to his heinous deal: | 0 |
5,896 | Deadly U.S. raid may bolster Yemen's al Qaeda - Crisis Group | DUBAI (Reuters) - A commando raid approved by new U.S. President Donald Trump this week may have given al Qaeda in Yemen a propaganda boost in killing civilians, the International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report on Thursday. Local medics said 30 people including 10 women and children were killed in the helicopter-born Navy SEAL attack on a cluster of houses in Yemen’s southern al-Bayda province. Al Qaeda said in a statement that a senior leader and an unspecified number of other militants were killed. One U.S. soldier died in the assault, and a Pentagon spokesman alleged some of the women were firing at the U.S. force. “The raid ... is a good example of what not to do,” ICG’s senior Arabian Pensinsula analyst April Alley wrote. “The use of U.S. troops and the high number of civilian casualties ... are deeply inflammatory and breed anti-American resentment across the Yemeni political spectrum that works to the advantage of AQAP,” she added. Nearly two years of civil war in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country has allowed local branches of al Qaeda and Islamic State to expand and carry out new attacks within Yemen. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is one of the global militant group’s most active branches. It unsuccessfully plotted to blow up U.S.-bound airliners and claimed responsibility for a 2015 shooting at the satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris. Former President Barack Obama repeatedly killed top leaders in the organization with unmanned drone attacks but, ICG said, that strategy may not ultimately defeat it. “It is too early to determine what, if any, broader strategy the Trump administration has in Yemen ... (But drone strikes) have failed to stop its rapid growth – in large part because the opportunities provided by the war outstrip its losses.” | 1 |
5,897 | no title | she got and received just what she was seekingher fifteen minutes | 1 |
5,898 | ‘Pro-Life’ GOP Refuses To Help Zika Infected Babies | The world is scrambling to deal with fallout from the spread of the Zika virus, the global pandemic which appears to be linked to birth defects in children when pregnant women are infected. President Obama has requested that America help lead the global effort to fight the infection which has reached our shores. Republicans, who describe themselves as pro-life, are resisting.House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) is taking the lead among Republicans in refusing to help.In a letter to President Obama s budget director, Shaun Donovan, Rogers noted the Department of Health and Human Services has $1.4 billion allocated for the Ebola fight of 2014. And the State Department has $1.3 billion left over. These funds can and should be prioritized to meet the most pressing needs of mounting a rapid and full response to Zika, Rogers and two other Republican committee members wrote.The White House will likely ask that some Ebola funds be repurposed for the anti-Zika effort but not so much that it would undermine the response to Ebola, Earnest said, adding that amount would not be sufficient to take on what we believe is a pretty serious threat from the Zika virus. Strangely Republicans are arguing that funds already being used to fight the Ebola outbreak now be used against Zika, instead of a separate request. But these are the same Republicans who attacked the Obama administration s response to that outbreak.Along with their allies in the media, many on the right said Obama was exposing America to Ebola, with some even floating the conspiracy theory that Obama wanted a mass infection of Americans with the Ebola virus.Instead, the administration s response to that outbreak has now been cited as a model of America using its superpower status to fight a global problem. Ebola infections are down to nonexistent in many of the African nations where it killed thousands, in part due to the global alliance organized by President Obama.There were no outbreaks of the disease in America, and in fact Americans infected with the virus survived and are now Ebola-free, thanks to American doctors. At the same time Republicans and conservatives were harsh in their condemnation of the Obama response.The Obama administration is asking for funds to show American leadership, to help the babies Republicans profess to care so much about, and again they are dropping the ball.Featured image via YouTube | 0 |
5,899 | Trump: Sexual-assault accusers 'want to stop our movement' | CHARLOTTE, N.C./LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday charged that the women accusing him of sexual misconduct fabricated their stories to damage his campaign after two more women came forward with allegations that he had groped them. The new accusations were made by a contestant on his reality TV show “The Apprentice,” who cited a 2007 incident, and by a woman who described an incident from the early 1990s. With the allegations against Trump dominating the campaign, opinion polls show Trump trailing Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. A Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll taken Oct. 7-13 and released on Friday showed Trump behind Clinton by 7 percentage points among likely voters in the Nov. 8 election. Trump has spent more and more time at his rallies denying allegations of groping since a video from 2005 became public a week ago showing him bragging about groping and making unwanted sexual advances. On Friday, in addition to his denials, he suggested that he never would have found two of the women who have made allegations attractive. Summer Zervos, who competed on the fifth season of “The Apprentice” in 2006, appeared at a news conference with celebrity attorney Gloria Allred in Los Angeles, saying Trump kissed her, touched her breast and tried to get her to lie down on a bed with him during a meeting about a possible job. “He put me in an embrace and I tried to push him away. I pushed his chest to put space between us and I said, ‘Come on man, get real.’ He repeated my words back to me, ‘Get real,’ as he began thrusting his genitals,” Zervos said. Zervos said she thought Trump was going to take her to dinner to discuss a job, but the meeting took place in his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. “I wondered if the sexual behavior was some kind of test and whether or not I had passed” by rejecting it, she said, but Trump later offered her a job at a golf course for half the salary she had requested. Trump released a statement denying her allegations. “I vaguely remember Ms. Zervos as one of the many contestants on ‘The Apprentice’ over the years. To be clear, I never met her at a hotel or greeted her inappropriately a decade ago,” Trump said. “That is not who I am as a person, and it is not how I’ve conducted my life.” At his last event of the day on Friday, in Charlotte, Trump suggested that his accusers were fabricating their stories for publicity or to damage his campaign. “It’s not hard to find a small handful of people willing to make false smears,” he said. Trump said the women may be motivated for financial reasons or political reasons or “the simple reason they want to stop our movement.” Earlier Friday, the Washington Post published an interview with a woman who said Trump put his hand up her skirt in a crowded New York nightclub in the early 1990s in an unwanted advance. “He did touch my vagina through my underwear, absolutely,” Kristin Anderson said in a video interview on the newspaper’s website. “It wasn’t a sexual come-on. I don’t know why he did it. It was like just to prove that he could do it,” she told the newspaper. Anderson could not be reached for comment. Trump’s White House campaign has been scrambling to recover from the release a week ago of the 2005 video. While Trump said the video was just talk and he had never behaved in that way, several women subsequently went public with allegations of sexual misconduct against the New York real estate magnate going back three decades. National opinion polls have shown that women voters have been fleeing Trump in large numbers, putting his campaign in free-fall. Late on Friday, the Trump campaign put forward a British man who disputed the account of one of the accusers, Jessica Leeds. Leeds, who is now 74, said Trump groped her on a flight to New York, in or around 1980. Her account was published in The New York Times earlier this week and she has since been interviewed on CNN. The New York Post reported that the man, Anthony Gilberthorpe, contacted the Trump campaign after Leeds went public with her story, and said he was sitting near Leeds and Trump in first class on the same flight. “I was there, I was in a position to know that what she said was wrong, wrong, wrong,” said Gilberthorpe, who is now 54 and would have been a teenager at the time. Trump had been promising that he would soon provide information showing the allegations against him were false. Gilberthorpe is known in Britain for his claims that he provided underage boys to British politicians for sex parties in the 1980s. Trump, 70, mocked Leeds on Friday. “Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you,” he said. He called Natasha Stoynoff, a reporter who wrote in People magazine that Trump kissed her and pinned her against a wall, a “liar” and told the rally to “check out her Facebook page, you’ll understand.” Many Republicans have sought to distance themselves from Trump. The most senior of them, House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, angered Trump when he announced this week he would no longer campaign for Trump or defend him but would focus on trying to preserve the Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate in the election. Ryan gave a campaign speech in Madison, Wisconsin, on Friday without mentioning Trump’s name once. He urged college students to look beyond the “ugliness” of the presidential campaign to focus on issues such as tax and healthcare reform. “The kind of election we really want to have, it’s not the one we’re necessarily having right now,” Ryan said, urging students to “take the high ground.” Trump on Friday also accused Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, the top shareholder in The New York Times Company, of helping to generate the reports of sexual misconduct. He said Slim, as a donor to the Clinton Foundation charity and who holds a 17.35 percent stake in the Times, has an interest in helping Clinton’s White House campaign. Arturo Elias, Slim’s spokesman and son-in-law, said Slim had “absolutely no contact” with the newspaper’s reporters or editors on their Trump campaign coverage and “zero” contact with the paper’s news operations. New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said in a statement, “Carlos Slim is an excellent shareholder who fully respects boundaries regarding the independence of our journalism. He has never sought to influence what we report.” Trump’s allegation about Slim was the latest chapter in a running series of skirmishes he has had with Mexico and Mexicans. Trump kicked off his campaign last year accusing Mexico of sending rapists and drug dealers to the United States, and promised to build a wall along the southern U.S. border and said he would make Mexico pay for. | 1 |
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