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6,000 | Exclusive: Australia-U.S. refugee swap again in doubt as officials exit Nauru | SYDNEY/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials interviewing refugees held in an Australian-run offshore detention center left the facility abruptly, three detainees told Reuters on Saturday, throwing further doubt over a plan to resettle many of the detainees in America. U.S. officials halted screening interviews and departed the Pacific island of Nauru on Friday, two weeks short of their scheduled timetable and a day after Washington said the United States had reached its annual refugee intake cap. “U.S. (officials) were scheduled to be on Nauru until July 26 but they left on Friday,” one refugee told Reuters, requesting anonymity as he did not want to jeopardize his application for U.S. resettlement. In the United States, a senior member of the union that represents refugee officers at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a Department of Homeland Security agency, told Reuters his own trip to Nauru was not going forward as scheduled. Jason Marks, chief steward of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1924, told Reuters his trip has now been pushed back and it was unclear whether it will actually happen. The USCIS said on Saturday that the program would continue but offered no details. “We do not discuss the exact dates of USCIS’ circuit rides to adjudicate refugees’ applications. However, we are planning return trips,” the agency said in a statement. “It is not uncommon for the dates of tentatively planned refugee circuit ride trips worldwide to change due to a wide variety of factors.” The Australian Immigration Department declined to comment on the whereabouts of the U.S. officials or the future of a refugee swap agreement between Australia and the United States that President Donald Trump earlier this year branded a “dumb deal”. Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said on Sunday the deal was progressing as expected, reiterating the government had assurances from the Trump administration. “The quota will roll over again on October 1 as I said, and I expect that the United States will adhere to this agreement, as the president promised,” she told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. An indefinite postponement of the deal would have significant repercussions for Australia’s pledge to close a second detention center on Papua New Guinea’s Manus island on Oct 31. Only 70 refugees, less than 10 percent of the total detainees held in the camp, have completed U.S. processing. Bishop said she did not believe it was the case only 10 percent of refugees had been processed. “The U.S. deal looks more and more doubtful,” Ian Rintoul from the Refugee Action Coalition said. “The U.S. deal was never the solution the Australian government pretended it to be.” Former U.S. President Barack Obama agreed a deal with Australia late last year to offer refuge to up to 1,250 asylum seekers, a deal the Trump administration said it would only honor to maintain a strong relationship with Australia and then only on condition that refugees satisfied strict checks. In exchange, Australia has pledged to take Central American refugees from a center in Costa Rica, where the United States has taken in a larger number of people in recent years. The swap is designed, in part, to help Australia close both Manus and Nauru, which are expensive to run and have been widely criticized by the United Nations and others over treatment of detainees. The U.S. government confirmed on Thursday that its refugee intake cap of 50,000 people had been reached with the new intake year not due to begin until Oct. 1. Exemptions could be made for those who have a “credible claim to a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States,” following a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court last month reviving elements of Trump’s travel ban while it considers the legality of the order. Given the risky boat journey the refugees in Manus and Nauru undertook to reach Australia, it is unlikely many of them have strong family ties to the United States, experts said. The majority of the detainees interviewed on both Manus and Nauru by U.S. officials in April are from Sudan, Somalia and Afghanistan. Australia’s hardline immigration policy requires asylum seekers intercepted at sea trying to reach Australia to be sent for processing to camps at Manus and on Nauru. They are told they will never be settled in Australia. Trump’s resistance to the refugee deal had strained relations with a key Asia Pacific ally, triggering a fractious phone call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull earlier this year. Trump’s concession and a series of high-level visits by U.S. dignities have since help mend connections between the two countries. Australia has already offered detainees up to $25,000 to voluntarily return to their home countries, an offer few have taken up. | 1 |
6,001 | Austria's Kurz says will fight anti-Semitism after Israel voices concern | VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Wednesday his new coalition would focus on fighting anti-Semitism, after Israel made it clear it would not work directly with any ministers from the far-right party now back in government. Kurz, a 31-year-old conservative, was sworn in with the rest of his government on Monday after reaching a coalition deal that handed control of much of Austria s security apparatus to the anti-Islam Freedom Party (FPO). The FPO came third in October s parliamentary election with 26 percent of the vote. Israel reacted to the inauguration by saying it would do business only with the operational echelons of government departments headed by an FPO minister. The FPO now controls the foreign, interior and defence ministries, though Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl is not officially a member of the party. Anti-Semitism has no place in Austria or Europe. We will fight all forms of anti-Semitism with full determination, both those that still exist and those that have been newly imported, said in a speech outlining the government s goals to parliament. That will be one of our government s significant tasks. The FPO, which was founded by former Nazis in the 1950s, says it has left its anti-Semitic past behind it, though it has still had to expel members each year for anti-Semitic or neo-Nazi comments. It now openly courts Jewish voters, with limited success. Its leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, has also visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. Israel wishes to underline its total commitment to fighting anti-Semitism and commemorating the Holocaust, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a short statement on Monday in response to the Austrian government s swearing in. The European Jewish Congress has called on the new government to take concrete steps against anti-Semitism while taking a generally more inclusive approach. The Freedom Party cannot use the Jewish community as a fig leaf and must show tolerance and acceptance towards all communities and minorities, it said on Monday. Austria, where Adolf Hitler was born, was annexed by Nazi Germany in March 1938. Next year will mark the 80th anniversary of that takeover as well as the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One, which led to the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Kurz said the events of 1938 were shameful and sad . His People s Party (OVP) and the FPO published a 180-page coalition manifesto over the weekend, which includes plans to cut public spending, taxes and benefits for refugees. The OVP won October s election with a hard line on immigration that often overlapped with the FPO s. The issue dominated the campaign after Austria took in large numbers of asylum seekers during Europe s migration crisis, many of them from Muslim countries. Austria s Jewish community of just over 10,000 is tiny relative to the more than half a million Muslims who live in the nation of almost 9 million, many of whom are Turkish or of Turkish origin. Both Kurz and Strache have warned of Muslim parallel societies they say are emerging in Austria, despite there being few obvious signs of sectarian tension. Kurz flew to Brussels on Tuesday to dispel concerns that his alliance with the far right will undermine the European Union. In their speeches to parliament, both he and Strache said they opposed Turkey joining the European Union a position that polls show a majority of Austrians support. Turkey is moving in the wrong direction, which means Turkey will certainly have no future in the European Union, said Kurz, who has criticised Ankara s clampdown on dissent since a failed coup last year. On Tuesday night during his first foreign visit as chancellor, to Brussels, Kurz told broadcaster ORF he would soon meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I hope we will succeed in dispelling the concerns that exist regarding the FPO government members, Kurz said. It would be in the interest of both our countries. | 1 |
6,002 | Trump’s Inner Circle Is Busily Making Revenge A Top Priority | This is truly a sad group of people we ve put in charge of the country. Trump himself doesn t want to work and seems to be actively avoiding it, his transition team is in chaos, and now, some of his inner circle are reportedly talking about getting revenge on Republicans who opposed him during the election.This is despite the fact that many of those Republicans are now saying that they look forward to working with him. To be sure, it s not uncommon for incoming administrations to subtly reward loyalty and just as subtly punish opposition. However, these people (probably because they re tied to Trump, who would expect no less) are being far more blatant about it: The source suggested that Trump s political operation would steer business away from Republicans who were involved in the #NeverTrump effort to block Trump from the GOP nomination. Denying opponents and critics positions within the administration is one thing. This is something entirely different. This has shades of actually trying to ruin some of the Republicans that had enough of a brain and a conscience to refuse to support Trump.And, as Trumpkins are suddenly so fond of saying, the election is over, he won, so move the fuck on. Except the Republicans who opposed Trump and went over the line in their opposition can now either work with Trump or basically, put up and shut up. They aren t likely to get very far in continuing to stand against him the way they did during the election cycle.This is as opposed to all the people who are legitimately frightened by the idea of a racist president who appeals to Christian bigots and white supremacists and thinks sexually assaulting women is okay. We won t be getting over it anytime soon because we re afraid, and with good reason.Trying to ruin Republicans by steering business and what-not away from them isn t the only thing they re discussing, though. There s also this: [T]he website seen as the unofficial news organ of Trump World, Breitbart News which was co-founded by Trump s campaign chairman and possible White House chief of staff Steve Bannon has signaled that it intends to continue its crusade against House Speaker Paul Ryan. Anybody who thinks that Bannon doesn t have anything to do with Breitbart s vendetta has another thing coming. Bannon regularly referred to Ryan as the enemy there, and personally made it Breitbart s mission to destroy him. The publication has gone at that task with glee and will continue to do so.Ryan, for his part, was full of praise for Trump on Election Night. He also believes their initial meeting went well. It may well have, and Ryan is probably clueless about any talk of destroying him. Or he doesn t believe Trump is directly involved, or that such efforts will even succeed.Whether there s a chance for success or not, this is scary, and it actually sounds exactly like Trump. All through the election, he felt getting revenge on people who slighted him was more important than actually running for President. So now, we ve got a man and his inner circle in the White House who seem to believe that revenge is more important than actually building an administration.Featured image by Joe Raedle via Getty Images | 0 |
6,003 | Trump administration bans selected words at health agencies: paper | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration has told agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services to avoid using certain words or phrases in official documents being drafted for next year’s budget, the Washington Post reported on Saturday. The newspaper said one of the agencies, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was given a list of seven prohibited words or phrases: “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.” Officials at a second agency were also told to use “Obamacare” instead of the Affordable Care Act to describe President Barack Obama’s 2010 healthcare law and to use “exchanges” instead of “marketplaces” in reference to venues where people can buy federally subsidized health insurance, the Post reported. The HHS pushed back on the report. “The assertion that HHS has ‘banned words’ is a complete mischaracterization of discussions regarding the budget formulation process,” spokesman Matt Lloyd said in a statement. “HHS will continue to use the best scientific evidence available to improve the health of all Americans. HHS also strongly encourages the use of outcome and evidence data in program evaluations and budget decisions,” he said. The newspaper said State Department documents also now refer to sex education as “sexual risk avoidance.” A briefing at the second HHS agency relied on a document from the White House Office of Management and Budget, which oversees President Donald Trump’s annual budget proposal to Congress, according to the Post. The Post said no explanations were given for the language changes. | 1 |
6,004 | U.N. Security Council condemns excessive violence in Myanmar | UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council expressed deep concern on Wednesday about violence in Myanmar s Rakhine state, where about 400,000 Rohingya Muslims have been forced to flee to Bangladesh. In a statement, the 15-member council expressed concern about reports of excessive violence during the security operations and called for immediate steps to end the violence in Rakhine, de-escalate the situation, re-establish law and order, ensure the protection of civilians. British U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said it was the first time in nine years the council had agreed a statement on Myanmar. | 1 |
6,005 | Dumbass Alaska Lawmaker Claims Women Have Abortions For A ‘Free Trip To The City’ (VIDEO) | Generations upon generations of incest have apparently caused the gerbils operating the brain of Alaska state Representative David Eastman to go on strike. As House Republicans are directly attacking the American people with their new Trumpcare plan, news broke that Eastman a lawmaker from Wasilla, Sarah Palin s neck of th1e woods decided to make the GOP sound even more heartless and stupid than they previously seemed.Eastman, who views the elimination of a clump of cells as the ultimate form of child abuse, recently tacked an anti-abortion message onto a state House resolution meant to raise awareness about sexual assault and child abuse a message he says could not possibly be delivered without badgering people about abortion. Abortion is a very serious issue, and it needs to be talked about, Eastman says, adding that women get pregnant just so they can get a free trip to the city for their glamorous abortion: We have folks who try to get pregnant in this state so that they can get a free trip to the city, and we have folks who want to carry their baby past the point of being able to have an abortion in this state so that they can have a free trip to Seattle. Medicaid can fund a woman s travel to Anchorage or Seattle if they seek an abortion. Asked for evidence that women get pregnant just to take advantage of the free travel a nonsensical claim Eastman said that a number of people have come to (his) office with stories, experiences. He offered no evidence to back the claim.This isn t the first horrible thing Eastman has done or said. KTUU notes that he recently was the only person to vote against resolutions honoring black soldiers who helped build the Alaska Highway during World War II and another honoring Hmong and Lao veterans who fought for the U.S. during the Vietnam War. Those resolutions had otherwise unanimous support.It is unclear if he has f*cked himself yet, or if he still needs to do that.Watch him shame his state below:Featured image via video screenshot | 0 |
6,006 | Trump declines to endorse Ryan, McCain for re-election: Washington Post | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump on Tuesday declined to endorse two fellow Republicans, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and U.S. Senator John McCain, in their upcoming re-election battles after both Republicans criticized his remarks about the family of a slain Muslim U.S. Army captain. Mirroring the language Ryan used about supporting Trump before his eventual endorsement, Trump told The Washington Post he’s “not quite there yet” on supporting the congressman in Tuesday’s primary in Wisconsin. | 1 |
6,007 | Senator Hatch raps House's Puerto Rico debt bill | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A high-ranking Republican senator on Tuesday dismissed as “not satisfactory” draft legislation aimed at addressing Puerto Rico’s fiscal crisis before a looming debt default on May 1, deepening intraparty divisions on the complex rescue effort. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who chairs the powerful Senate Finance Committee, told reporters that draft legislation introduced this month by the House Natural Resources Committee is “not satisfactory and it’s not going to work. And we’re not going to be able to pass it over here” in the Senate. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and fellow Republican leaders already were struggling to advance a bill to help Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, deal with its crippling $70 billion debt. Their efforts have been complicated by opposition from some conservative lawmakers, even as they have been negotiating with the Obama administration over details. Some conservative House Republicans, who want to protect creditors’ rights, have balked at an element of the bill that could allow Puerto Rico to cut repayments to creditors without their consent, a so-called cram-down debt restructuring. Hatch, too, wants to protect creditors, but said the bill must include cram-down authority to ensure that more senior bondholders, like those holding Puerto Rico’s constitutionally backed public debt, are better protected. “Let’s face it, you’ve got to protect the preferred creditors. If you don’t do that, I mean, you’re violating the rule of law to begin with,” Hatch said, adding that he is working on a different approach to the legislation. The internal division showcases the complexity of the task facing lawmakers - to keep Puerto Rico’s economy intact, while also protecting the competing interests of 18 classes of bondholders owed money by the island. In a brief interview with Reuters on Tuesday, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop expressed confidence that once rank-and-file House Republicans familiarize themselves with his bill, it will gain momentum. He added that “bondholders and other players” were beginning to contact lawmakers to talk up the legislation. Time is of the essence. Puerto Rico’s Government Development Bank owes creditors $422 million on May 1, a payment the island’s governor, Alejandro Garcia Padilla, has said it cannot afford. A default at GDB, the primary liquidity source for most of Puerto Rico’s public agencies, would be the island’s most significant default to date. The bill would also create a federal board to oversee Puerto Rico’s finances, but legislators are debating how much power it should have. Hatch on Tuesday said an oversight board would need “the power to resolve the problems.” “If you don’t give them the power to do that, it’s just another bailout,” he said. “We’ll be back here two years from now.” Hector Negroni, a prominent municipal finance investor, objects to the draft bill, saying it changes the rules under which debt was sold to investors and puts creditors at the bottom of the pile while ignoring the priority of payments. That pivot will have a more adverse affect on the municipal bond market than any potential default in Puerto Rico, Negroni said on Saturday, in a panel discussion held by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Washington. “So we have a framework here which doesn’t help Puerto Rico, harms the state and local marketplaces by risking an expectation and change in the rules and raising borrowing costs,” he said. “So if it is not for Puerto Rico, and it is not for state and local governments, I’m not sure who this bill is for.” Representative Steny Hoyer, the second-ranking House Democrat, told reporters on Tuesday that the bill is falling victim to intra-party divisions among Republicans. Hoyer said Republicans should collaborate with Democrats to advance a bill by next week that would need the support of only 40-50 of the House’s 246 Republicans. That would be a dangerous political step for Speaker Ryan, however, because he would be turning his back on a majority of members of his own political party on a major piece of legislation during an election year. For now, Republicans “seem to be at risk of not doing it at all,” Hoyer said, referring to a Puerto Rico debt relief bill. (The story is refiled to clarify that Negroni spoke on Saturday, not Friday, paragraph 15) | 1 |
6,008 | Legendary Humorist And Radio Host HAMMERS Trump In Devastating Open Letter | Minnesota humorist Garrison Keillor just nailed Donald Trump in one of the best take-downs yet.Donald Trump is an insecure little man who thinks the presidency will finally make people respect him, and nobody made that clearer than Keillor, who wrote a column published on Wednesday that puts the Republican nominee in his place.Keillor begins by focusing on Trump s hat. The brim shadows your face, which gives a sinister look, as if you d come to town to announce the closing of the pulp factory, he wrote. Your eyes look dead and your scowl does not suggest American greatness so much as American indigestion. Keillor continued by pointing out that Trump has apparently been trying for his entire life to be liked and respected by the Manhattan elite. The New York Times treats you like the village idiot, Keillor wrote. This is painful for a Queens boy trying to win respect in Manhattan When you came to Manhattan 40 years ago, you discovered that in entertainment, the press, politics, finance, everywhere you went, you ran into Jews, and they are not like you: Jews didn t go in for big yachts and a fleet of aircraft they showed off by way of philanthropy or by raising brilliant offspring. They sympathized with the civil rights movement. In Queens, blacks were a threat to property values they belonged in the Bronx, not down the street. To the Times, Queens is Cleveland. Bush league. You are Queens. The casinos were totally Queens, the gold faucets in your triplex, the bragging, the insults, but you wanted to be liked by Those People. This explains why Trump would throw his hat into the presidential ring. He is desperate for respect from his wealthy peers. Running for president is your last bid for the respect of Manhattan, Keillor continued. If you were to win election, they couldn t ridicule you anymore. They could be horrified, but there is nothing ridiculous about being Leader of the Free World. You have B-52 bombers at your command. When you go places, a battalion of security guys comb the environs. You attract really really good speechwriters who give you Churchillian cadences and toss in quotes from Emerson and Aeschylus and Ecclesiastes. Keillor then went on to mock Trump over the bad month he had in August. The teleprompter is not your friend. You are in the old tradition of locker room ranting and big honkers in the steam room, sitting naked, talking man talk, griping about the goons and ginks and lousy workmanship and the uppity broads and the great lays and how you vanquished your enemies at the bank. Keillor concludes by pointing out that running for president is the hardest work Trump has ever done in his life and breaks the news to Donald that in the end he is going to lose and he won t get a damn thing he wanted. It s the hardest work you ve ever done. You walk out in the white cap and you rant for an hour about stuff that means nothing and the fans scream and wave their signs and you wish you could level with them for once and say one true thing: I love you to death and when this is over I will have nothing that I want. Donald Trump is currently imploding in the polls and his campaign continues fly off the rails even as he insists that he is winning and that everybody loves him.This is a man in serious denial and Keillor just hit him with the reality that he has always been a loser and will always be a loser.Featured image via Getty | 0 |
6,009 | Kremlin says ready to mediate North Korea-U.S. talks, if both sides willing | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is ready to act as a mediator between North Korea and the United States if both parties are willing for it to play such a role, the Kremlin said on Tuesday. Moscow has long called for the two sides to hold negotiations aimed at reducing tensions over the nuclear and missile program North Korea is pursuing in defiance of years of U.N. Security Council resolutions. Russia s readiness to clear the way for de-escalation is obvious, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a phone call with reporters. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called on Monday for Washington and Pyongyang to start negotiations, saying Russia was ready to facilitate such talks. Though U.S. diplomats have said they are pursuing a diplomatic solution, President Donald Trump has said Pyongyang must commit to giving up its nuclear weapons before any talks can begin. In a phone call, Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday that Washington s aggressive rhetoric and beefing up of its military presence in the region had heightened tension on the Korean peninsula and was unacceptable. The necessity of the fastest move to the negotiating process from the language of sanctions was underscored, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. The U.N. Security Council unanimously voted to impose new sanctions on North Korea on Friday in response to its recent intercontinental ballistic missile test, a move North Korea called an act of war, tantamount to a complete economic blockade. | 1 |
6,010 | What ‘States Rights?’ – Ted Cruz Calls For Federal Law To Crush ALL Labor Unions Nationwide | In an effort to meet his weekly requirements of hypocrisy, Ted Cruz embraced the idea of a draconian federal law that would make it next to impossible for labor unions to function within America. Cruz called for a national right to work law, which would prevent unions from automatically collecting dues from employees that they cover. This would cause the labor unions to go bankrupt and make workers lose practically all of their collective bargaining power resulting in lower wages, worse working environments, and a reduction or loss of benefits.Hearing someone like Cruz, who completely embraces the idea of states rights when it suits them, calling for a federal law to override all state-based labor union protections is a joke. Hypocrisy is not new to Cruz or Republicans, though. Cruz called for the law to protect the fundamental rights of employees. Common spin on legislation like this is that somehow the mandatory dues deducted from your paycheck to fund union representation are a violation of your rights as a worker.Apparently, the rights to collective bargaining and the fact you lose about 1500 dollars a year if you are non-union are completely lost to your average Republican legislator and voter. This is why these laws are regularly called right to work for less. The sudden obsession with labor law is a strange diversion for Cruz, who worries more about finding ways to legalize discrimination and repeal Obamacare. The reason for it likely has less to do with allowing employers to steal money from their workers, and more with the fact he is trying to win the Wisconsin Republican primary.Cruz is echoing the only noteworthy thing Koch puppet Governor Scott Walker managed to do during his time as Governor of Wisconsin. Walker s entire claim to fame was being the corporate goon boy for attacks on labor unions. Despite his reasonable success in ruining labor unions in the state, Wisconsin still has some of the worst job prospects in America and shows no signs of serious improvement anytime soon. How advocating for a nationwide roll out of a huge Republican policy failure will help Cruz is anyone s guess. Republicans have voted for stupider things, though, so it could prove to be just the nudge Cruz needs to secure a win in Wisconsin.Featured image via (Photo by Spencer Platt /Getty Images) | 0 |
6,011 | ‘Portal To Hell’: The Internet Loses It Over Mysterious Red Lights Flashing Inside The White House | Earlier this month, a sinkhole opened up outside of Donald Trump s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and that happened just after the alleged president placed his tiny hands on a glowing globe, along with Saudi Leaders. Then, last night red lights began illuminating from the White House for almost 20 minutes starting at about 8:30 p.m. TV cameras caught footage of the phenomena.Watch:Red lights flashing at the White House. What's going on? We're checking on it .@wsvn pic.twitter.com/8UncIP9uGB Robbin Simmons (@RobbinSimmons7) May 29, 2017We re just glad it didn t happen at 6:66 o clock. It s possible the strobes were sent in Morse code as a scream for help, but on the other hand, Melania might be in New York City so who knows because the Secret Service offered no comment on the cause of the strobing red lights.Here s another view via Fox 5 Atlanta: One Twitter user wondered if the former reality show star stole the orb.@Breaking911 Did Trump steal the orb? pic.twitter.com/SXJ5GtC6Yb Shannon Mugrage (@shannon_mugrage) May 29, 2017 Either Jared and Ivanka are playing laser tag, or Steve Bannon recited an incantation that opened a portal to hell, another Twitter user wrote.Either Jared and Ivanka are playing laser tag, or Steve Bannon recited an incantation that opened a portal to hell. https://t.co/eufNmxa0Jc daniel modell (@dmnyc) May 29, 2017Or it could be Jared Kushner s shredder machine overheating.@Mess_OfMe @cheerymonkey @PiinkyPants1 @FOX35Tom @WhiteHouse It the overheat warning light on Jared's shredder RunBeast (@RunBeast11) May 29, 2017Or maybe Trump ran out of Twinkies.@RobbinSimmons7 @wsvn It's Morse code for 'out of Twinkies' susann g (@Susann_G) May 29, 2017Another possibility: Trump could be playing laser tag.@RobbinSimmons7 @wsvn It's just Trump playing Laser Tag! LOL Joe Batzel #NFB (@RacingNut48) May 29, 2017Or they re busting out some dance moves in the White House.@ucla_007 @RobbinSimmons7 @wsvn Disco Party pic.twitter.com/8wXh4dfn59 M. Wilson (@LWOSmwilson1113) May 29, 2017Trump is tweeting again!@FOX35Tom @WhiteHouse 2) They've fixed it so when Trump starts to tweet, lights warn the staff. #WhiteHouseFlashingLights RonEdens (@RonEdens) May 29, 2017 It has escaped. RED WARNING LIGHTS AT THE WHITE HOUSE MEANS ONE THING:IT HAS ESCAPED pic.twitter.com/O7PZf4kEmf hot weather takes (@paulythegun) May 29, 2017We re hoping this Twitter user is correct and the White House is testing out the Vacancy sign.@FOX35Tom @WhiteHouse @Reince45 @realDonaldTrump #whitehouseflashinglights10) They're testing out the "Vacancy" sign, just in case. RonEdens (@RonEdens) May 29, 2017Or this?@Breaking911 Think we got it pic.twitter.com/HX60LBfEU3 Eddie (@Slapshoted24) May 29, 2017Many Twitter users are saying it s the orb. Not me, but many people are saying that. Believe me.@FOX35Tom @WhiteHouse Shit !!! He is using the Orb pic.twitter.com/GoYj4ROQsq (@justin_C4se) May 29, 2017Another Twitter user speculated that someone fed Steve Bannon after midnight.Flashing red lights at The White House just great. Who fed Bannon after midnight? https://t.co/AKjzmxfDgk Drew Gibson (@SuppressThis) May 29, 2017It s a signal to Putin.The Red Lights at the White House are a signal to Putin indicatin' the extraction point. https://t.co/j7U4AHTOth Tea Pain (@TeaPainUSA) May 29, 2017Conspiracy site Infowars (I m not linking to them, k? I just can t do it) thinks Twitter users are acting conspiratorial. Because the Internet is totally not mocking Trump s insane administration, right? Infowars says anti-Trumpers have been triggered. Well, Infowars, you seem a bit triggered over people having fun. Also, keep those apologies from Alex Jones coming that he was forced to make after losing in court over the conspiracy theories he circulated.We think it s a sign that Kellyanne Conway is crawling out of her crypt again. IDK Image via screen capture. | 0 |
6,012 | India, China need to do more to avoid border disputes: India foreign secretary | NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping agreed that more needed to be done to avoid future border disputes, India s foreign secretary said on Tuesday. Modi and Xi on Tuesday met for more than an hour on the sidelines of the BRICS nations summit in the Chinese city of Xiamen, a week after agreeing to end a more than two-month long stand-off along their disputed border. One of the important points made during the meeting was that peace and tranquility in the border areas was a prerequisite for the further development of our relationship, S. Jaishankar told reporters. | 1 |
6,013 | sheriff clarke on obamas final days obamas like a tenant whos been evicted from a property and hes gonna trash the place on the way out the door video | go to article austin texas was the scene of protest against presidentelect donald trump and police officers the same weekend three police officers were ambushed | 1 |
6,014 | Trump says current Fed chair Yellen is 'excellent' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he thought Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen was “excellent” but declined to say who was his pick to lead the U.S. central bank ahead of a planned announcement on Thursday afternoon. “I think Janet Yellen is excellent,” Trump told reporters during a meeting with cabinet officials. Asked if Yellen was his choice to keep leading the Fed, Trump said: “I didn’t say that. I think she’s excellent.” | 1 |
6,015 | Saturday Night Live’s Post-Inauguration Opener Was Exactly The Laugh We Needed (VIDEO) | On Friday, Donald Trump the guy who can t be trusted with a Twitter account was handed the launch codes to our nuclear weapons and the power to destroy lives. Shortly after our nation handed him the keys to the car, he slammed on the gas and began heading for the cliff s edge, signing an executive order aimed at destroying President Obama s signature healthcare law and removing all mention of civil rights, climate change, and many other topics Republicans conveniently love to ignore as they pursue their ultimate goal of getting rid of all those goddamn brown-skinned people they think are ruining the country. In short, you need a laugh.Fortunately, Saturday Night Live came through for us with a hilarious address to the nation not from Trump, but from the real winner of the election, Vladimir Putin. Donald, let s talk as friends. You re not off to a great start, man. I thought you d be better at this. However, I m glad to see so many people showed up at your inauguration, Beck Bennett s Putin said as an image of the Women s March on Washington appeared onscreen. Oh wait, that s the women s march. Here is inauguration. The image changed to one of The Donald s pathetic Friday crowd.Comparing the crowds at Donald Trump s and Barack Obama s inaugurations https://t.co/U4dIVzCKbH pic.twitter.com/zf8hxVDMpO The New York Times (@nytimes) January 20, 2017 Today, you went to the CIA and said 1 million people came to see you in Washington, D.C.? If you re going to lie, don t make it so obvious. Say you are friends with Lebron James, not that you are Lebron James, Putin quipped.Trump and his team spent Saturday making excuses for the terrible crowd. At first, supporters said that people skipped because of rain. This swiftly shifted to the excuse that they all have jobs and needed to go to work. Ultimately, Sean Spicer used his first press conference to inform everyone that it was actually the biggest crowd to ever appear, ever, and that floor mats were to blame for hiding all the people. Trump, of course, falsely claimed that one million people showed up a clear sign that he can never measure up to Obama, for whom 1.8 million people came out from under the floor mats when he was first elected, even in The Donald s fantasies.The next four years will be a complete sh*tshow, but at least we have SNL at least until Trump follows in his puppetmaster s footsteps and starts killing his critics.Watch the opener below:Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
6,016 | Thousands rally for gay marriage before Australian postal vote closes | SYDNEY - (Reuters) - Thousands of people rallied around Australia on Saturday urging the legalization of same-sex marriage, one week before final ballots can be submitted in a contentious postal survey on the issue that has divided the country. The largest crowd was in Sydney, where organizers said between 5,000 and 10,000 people gathered in front of Central Station before marching along one of the city s biggest roads to Victoria Park. It s a good reflection of the enthusiasm of people, Australian Marriage Equality s Tiernan Brady said. They are very determined, very positive and not complacent. Other rallies in favor of same-sex marriage were held in the northern city of Brisbane and the central hub of Alice Springs. Rallies organized by the Coalition for Marriage, the lead campaigner against same-sex marriage, also were held across the country. The coalition, which includes the Australian Christian Lobby and other religious groups, encouraged those who haven t returned their surveys to do so. We re so pleased so many people have engaged with this process and we encourage those who haven t to tick no and put it in the post, spokeswoman Monica Doumit said. Though the postal ballot is non-binding, a yes vote is expected to lead to the legalization of same-sex marriage which could further fracture the government of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Ballots were mailed out from Sept. 12, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics recommending all votes be returned via the postal service by Oct. 27. The latest update from the ABS, issued on Oct. 17, showed almost 11 million postal votes had been returned, about 68 per cent of the total distributed. The result is expected on Nov. 15. | 1 |
6,017 | Fox & Friends Ignores FBI Director’s Trump Bombshell, And Jake Tapper CALLS THEM OUT | Fox & Friends continues to embarrass themselves in defense of Donald Trump, and CNN host Jake Tapper took them to task for it.On Monday, FBI Director James Comey testified under oath on Capitol Hill that Trump s accusation that President Obama wiretapped him is totally false and that Trump is under investigation for colluding with Russia during the 2016 Election.Trump s credibility was completely destroyed and his Russia scandal only deepened.But Fox & Friends downplayed Comey s damning testimony by claiming that Americans didn t miss much and posted a video on Twitter featuring 25 seconds of footage of Comey telling lawmakers that he can t answer their question. The footage included absolutely no context and completely left out Comey s confirmation that Trump slandered President Obama and his confirmation that Trump is being investigated by the FBI.If you missed yesterday s congressional hearing with FBI Dir. James Comey, you didn t miss much pic.twitter.com/AnJdtWcGxK FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) March 21, 2017CNN anchor Jake Tapper was not amused and soon responded by informing Fox News that Comey s testimony was quite consequential. False. Quite consequential. FBI confirmed it is investigating whether Trump campaign coordinated with Russia. https://t.co/ROcDGl4weP Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) March 21, 2017Other Twitter users also barraged Fox & Friends with sharp criticism for ignoring the bombshell testimony.@foxandfriends Pretty sure he answered a couple of important questions. You can bury the lede deep, but we ll still find it. Tick, tock. Mike Mass (@mikemasse) March 21, 2017@foxandfriends Maybe you missed it, but we didn t. Maria Langer ? (@mlanger) March 21, 2017MT @foxandfriends If you missed yesterday s Fox & Friends, you didn t miss much pic.twitter.com/Nhd7DyAWzo Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) March 21, 2017.@foxandfriends except for that little part where they re investigating the Trump campaign for collusion with Russia which would be treason Victor Huckabee (@popesaintvictor) March 21, 2017@foxandfriends This is pathetic, even for you. Seth Grahame-Smith (@sethgs) March 21, 2017@foxandfriends I see we ve reached the rimming period of your ass kissing. Brian Scully (@brianscully) March 21, 2017After being called a partisan correspondent, Tapper responded by reminding everyone that facts are not partisan.@devansADR facts aren t partisan. Any FBI director confirming this investigation in open hearing is huge news. Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) March 21, 2017Fox & Friends demonstrated once again that they are nothing more than Trump s personal propaganda team. They have zero credibility and every single one of them should removed from the air like Andrew Napolitano was after he lied in defense of Trump.Featured image via screenshot | 0 |
6,018 | ‘Empire’ Takes On Racist Police Violence, Guns In America In Breathtaking New Song (VIDEO) | The season premiere of the hit television drama Empire features an amazing song performed by Jussie Smollett, who plays Jamal on the show. The song, entitled Need Freedom has a very clear message: gun violence, senseless killings, and police brutality against people of color must stop, because our nation is ripping itself apart. Smollett says of the decisions that inspired him to record Need Freedom : I recorded this exactly seven days after Philando Castile was shot. Between the shootings of Castile, Alton Sterling, at the Pulse in Orlando and the police officers in Dallas not to mention the other numerous killings over the last couple of years it was like we couldn t breathe. What are we doing as a people, a nation; what messages are we sending to the next generation. Then this song came. Smollet is right, of course, and what better way to inspire people in an effort to draw peace in such a tense and violent time, where there is such anger, such division, such justified outrage, than by doing so in song? Here are just a few of the more inspiring lyrics from Smollet s song:As I sit and think about All that s goin on My soul just cries out Can you tell me please?Tell me who s to blame For causing all this pain The one s we call to help us turn They kills us everyday See war is not the answer And love is what we need Take the chains off, break the bondage Set my people freeWe gotta make it better Something s gotta change The world needs your voice just to make it through the rain When I think of what s goin on in this world Ohh it gets me to see my sister not breathe My sister, my brother here with meNeed freedom Our world is cryin , no more silence, with guns and violence Need freedom I can t keep dyin , we re way too quiet, no more silence Need freedom Stop this evil, free my people, we re all equal Need freedom Our world get s brighter, keep on tryin , keep on fightin for freedomThese lyrics come on this night, September 21, as, at this very moment, protests are erupting in Charlotte, North Carolina, because yet another black man, Keith Lamont Scott, is dead at the hands of the police. Already, as per usual, the police are in front of cameras, in damage control mode, spinning the story they want the public to hear. Whether it is true matters not to them; they only want to cover their own asses, because black lives simply don t matter to them. This message is one that is definitely needed.It is, of course, a message that will likely fall on deaf ears. We live in a nation where people think that the right of every person to have as many guns as they like, anytime they like, no matter what, should supercede the rights of innocent people to live. These are the same people who think that cops can do no wrong, and that the bloodshed at their hands is always justified. These are same people who believe that freedom only applies to certain people, and to hell with everyone else. They re the people who think that every black man shot by police was just another thug anyway, and that the void left in the lives of his loved ones is of no importance.They re the same people who don t care about what happened in Orlando, or Oregon, or Newtown, or any of the other countless places where people who should have never had firearms carried out massacres. They only care about their guns and their rigid belief that whatever happened was worth their version of freedom. Hopefully, the people who need to hear this message the most will, and the killing will stop. However, I sadly won t be able to hold my breath on that one. It will only continue another day, in another city after another innocent life is lost, or another unbelievably tragic and preventable massacre is carried out. Sadly, that is the America we live in today.Watch the video below:Featured image via screenshot | 0 |
6,019 | Dear President Moron: Since You Don’t Seem To Get How NATO Works, Please Allow Me To Educate You | Donald Trump doesn t like NATO. Much like the fact he doesn t understand NATO, this is clear. On the campaign trail, his common statement was that the alliance was obsolete. He has dozens of quotes trashing the alliance. Now, he endlessly rails against our allies not meeting financial obligations which do not exist. We ll explore why those obligations do not exist in a moment, but for now, a simple metaphor to explain why nobody owes NATO or the United States a dime:Imagine you re in a homeowners association, which collects small fees to run a neighborhood watch, and also, one of the bylaws deals with appearances a guideline states all members should spend two percent of household income on the yard, paint, etc. Imagine a neighbor fails to meet the two percent benchmark. Did they fulfill the guideline s obligation? No. Do they owe you, their neighbor, money? No, that s silly. You aren t paying for their yard, and the fees have already been collected for the collective spending on the neighborhood watch. You can be pissed their yard doesn t look as good as yours, but they re not costing you a dime, and they owe you nothing. That s why world leaders openly laughed at Trump s idiotic nonsense at his NATO speech. He has no understanding of how this works. NATO, as an organization, has its own funding:The North Atlantic alliance has its own military budget worth 1.29 billion ($1.4 billion), which is used to fund some operations and the NATO strategic command center, as well as training and research. But it is miniscule compared to overall spending on defense by NATO countries, which NATO estimates will total more than $921 billion in 2017.The alliance also has a civilian budget of 234.4 million ($252 million), used mainly to fund the NATO headquarters in Belgium, and its administration. (Source)Who pays how much is determined by the size of the economy of each country:The U.S. share is calculated on the basis of gross national income the total domestic and foreign output claimed by residents of a country and adjusted regularly. Currently that would be about 22 percent, compared to about 15 percent for Germany, 11 percent for France, 10 percent for the United Kingdom, 8 percent for Italy, 7 percent for Canada, and so forth.When conservatives say the United States pays 22 percent of the budget for NATO, and then list our own defense spending, that s extremely misleading. Let s examine the following paragraph from Fox Business:The United States contributed more than 22 percent of the organization s budget in 2016, according to White House data, far outpacing all other members. The government spent 3.6 percent of GDP, or $664 billion, on defense. The United States financial commitments to defense have fallen over recent years, down from more than $757.4 billion in 2009. However, President Trump s new budget looks to reverse that trend with a $54 billion injection into the defense sector.Despite the first two sentences being placed side-by-side, they are unrelated. We did pay 22 percent of NATO s budget. We also paid $664 billion for our own defense. Those two numbers are unrelated because we pay NATO less than $500 million per year (PDF). It s almost as if Trump never bothers to read anything, and that the outlets which support him are willing to publish any lie (or truth twisted beyond recognition, to the point of lying, such as in this case) to try and make his ignorant incompetence more palatable.And considering we are the largest member nation by orders of magnitude, and that the American empire has 300,000 soldiers stationed in 150 nations around the globe, it makes sense that we would be spending the most money on our own military. Other member nations do not have a global military force. We have a standing army three times larger than every other member except Turkey. NATO is not responsible for each nation s national defense; there is no collective spending pool for each nation s military. NATO is a military alliance that says I ve got your back if you get attacked. The alliance has guidelines not rules and advice on how to best allocate funding for national defense in order to prevent war in the first place. Deterrence through preparedness.So when Fox News or Donald Trump tell you our allies aren t paying their fair share for collective defense, or that the United States is spending far more to support NATO than they are, that s simply bullshit. That s not NATO s budget the numbers they are talking about are a guideline for national defense, not NATO. And they re just that a guideline. There is no penalty for spending less than two percent of GDP on the military. In fact, our bloated and wasteful military budget is not something to brag about. A certain quote by President Dwight Eisenhower comes to mind:Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.There is one point that I will begrudgingly give Trump our allies are over-reliant on the fact they have a military juggernaut in their alliance. They are meeting their financial obligations to NATO, despite what Trump says. However, there s a reason that NATO has a two percent guideline for spending on national defense as stated above, preparedness through deterrence. Right now, for many members, deterrence comes from big brother on the west side of the Atlantic. Yet Trump s misleading rhetoric on this subject is masking the reality they re already moving to expand their military budgets and have been for three years, thanks to the growing threat of Trump s buddy Putin, who has demonstrated in Ukraine and Georgia that he is willing to violate the sovereignty of and use force against his neighbors.Here s more, via CNN:At a summit in 2014, all members who were falling short promised to move toward the official target within a decade.That pledge appears to be holding: The alliance as a whole increased defense spending for the first time in two decades in 2015.So why don t more countries spend 2% of GDP? Many experts point out that the target is problematic.NATO has warned against a rush to spend for the sake of spending, emphasizing that budget decisions must be based on strategic planning. For example, it wants countries to spend 20% of their defense budgets on equipment.Some member countries simply don t have armies big enough to be able to absorb a huge increase in funding quickly that s why the 2014 summit pledge gave laggards until 2024 to do more.So, Trump s badgering is pointless. Latvia, for example, increased spending by over 40 percent last year alone. Almost every other member nation is steadily increasing military spending to be on track with the two percent of GDP guideline and the pledge made in 2014, which already solved this problem. In fact, his stance on this issue is somewhat more sinister than just military buildup: he is accomplishing nothing but seeding ill will among our closest allies. Between his blatant disrespect and refusal to directly endorse Article 5, it seems more like he is trying to sabotage NATO than improve it. And notably, we are the only nation to ever invoke Article 5 and call our allies to our defense. Soldiers from other nations fought and died for ours, and now when asked to state we will come to their defense, Trump won t say so. Instead, he demands money he isn t owed.And who benefits from all of this the most?Russia.Featured image via Stefan Rousseau Pool/Getty Images | 0 |
6,020 | JUST IN: OBAMA APPOINTED JUDGE Presiding Over Michael Flynn’s Case SUDDENLY Recuses Himself…CLINTON Appointed Judge Will Sentence Flynn | Now, a Clinton appointed judge who took Flynn s guilty plea has suddenly recused himself and Flynn will now face an Obama appointed judge for his sentencing. Hmmm Politico President Donald Trump s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, will face a different judge to be sentenced than the one who took Flynn s guilty plea to a felony false statement charge last week, court records show.Judge Emmet Sullivan was randomly assigned to take over the case after Judge Rudolph Contreras recused himself.A court spokeswoman confirmed to POLITICO that the reassignment of the case was due to Contreras recusal, but did not immediately respond to a query about the reason.Sullivan is an appointee of President Bill Clinton, while Contreras was appointed by President Barack Obama.Flynn pleaded guilty last Friday to a false statement charge brought by prosecutors from the office of special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. | 0 |
6,021 | Guess Which Supreme Court Justice Got Caught SLEEPING During A Case (IMAGE) | These days, a certain few justices on the Supreme Court (the Republicans, of course) are known to be doing little more than occupying space and selling their votes to the corporate owners of the Republican Party. The one who is most notorious for being a useless sack of protoplasm is Justice Clarence Thomas. The guy never says a word. He just sits there, staring into space and waiting until he can render his verdict. It s a contemptible type of conduct for someone who is supposed to help decide on issues that are of grave importance to millions of if not all Americans on a daily basis.Thomas has openly admitted in the past that he has a work ethic that can be summed up best by the word zero. There were times he had admitted that he decided how he would rule on a case before it even started. This is literally judicial malpractice. As a judge, the essence of how you do your job is tied to listening to evidence and making a conclusion based on the facts in an impartial way. What Clarence Thomas does is a complete abdication of his responsibilities as a Supreme Court justice.So you must be wondering, What does Clarence Thomas do all day at work if he doesn t actually DO or even SAY anything? You ll get your answer by hitting the play button below:look at this drawing from SCOTUS oral arguments yesterday pic.twitter.com/eSTR9IiEfN sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) April 22, 2016A courtroom artist decided to be brutally honest and draw Clarence Thomas doing exactly what he does sleeping on the job.Yes, a judge on the highest court in the free world, responsible for deciding cases of monumental importance to the function of our republic, finds it to be just fine to just sit and sleep during his work day. After all, it s not like he will have anything to say! Why not just sit there and sleep while getting paid. Right?This is the trash you get when you have Republican presidents. This is why it s important to vote.Featured image via Wikicommons | 0 |
6,022 | FL Toddler Shoots Himself In The Face After ‘Responsible Gun Owner’ Leaves Weapon In Truck (VIDEO) | A Florida two-year-old is in critical condition after he shot himself in the face Monday night while playing with his responsible gun-owning grandfather s unattended gun. WFTV reports that the unnamed child was riding in his grandfather s pickup truck when grandpa parked and ran inside the family s home, leaving the little boy to his own devices. Grandpa, whose name has not been released, also left his gun behind because what s the point in being irresponsible if you re not going to go all-out?The grandfather says he left the little boy playing with some tools in the back seat, but the child managed to climb into the front of the truck, where Granddaddy kept his .32-caliber Kel-Tec gun. The gun was responsibly kept in a holster, but the child removed it and shot himself in the cheek, near his eye. The boy was airlifted to Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Orlando, where he remains in critical condition. They are talking to individuals that were at the residence, possibly in the residence and we have forensics out gathering some evidence, said Twis Lizasuain, Osceola County Sheriff s Office media relations director, who noted that evidence thus far suggests the discharge was accidental a word we too often hear when one of the good guys with guns shoots a child or, through negligence, allows a child to shoot him or herself. We will always encourage you to secure a weapon, especially when children are present. Though the shooting will likely be called accidental, grandpa might not escape unscathed. He could still be charged under a law that allows an irresponsible person to be held accountable if a child gets ahold of a gun that was not properly stored out of reach.Watch a report on this latest example of why guns make it into far too many hands than needed, below:Featured image via NLM | 0 |
6,023 | Mueller says Trump Jr, Manafort can testify publicly in Senate: Feinstein | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s eldest son and former campaign chairman can testify publicly before U.S. Senate committees, Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein told CNN on Tuesday. Feinstein said Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign, has said Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort were free to testify. Feinstein is the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is among the congressional panels pursuing Russia investigations. | 1 |
6,024 | Trump administration in spotlight as U.S. top court returns | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration’s ability to win over the U.S. Supreme Court will be put to the test when the nine justices begin their new term on Monday with major cases awaiting on voting rights, religious liberty, union funding and class-action suits. President Donald Trump’s Justice Department already has flipped the government’s position in some important cases, reversing the stance taken under Democratic former President Barack Obama, and could have a receptive audience on the court, whose term runs through June. The addition of Trump’s appointee Neil Gorsuch in April restored the court’s 5-4 conservative majority, as the new justice prepares to begin his first full term. The administration has backed companies against employees and supported voting laws that critics say could prevent eligible people from casting ballots. [Graphic showing major cases: tmsnrt.rs/2y3eCs6] It also has reversed the Obama administration’s stance in support of protections for gay workers under federal law, an issue that could reach the court within weeks. The Supreme Court generally gives special deference to the views of the U.S. solicitor general, the federal government’s top lawyer. Trump’s appointee Noel Francisco holds the job. But some justices may look dimly upon the government abruptly changing its position in cases. Former Justice Department lawyer Pratik Shah said a flip-flop can provide an opening for justices sympathetic to the view of the prior administration, who can ask: “What in the law has changed to warrant a different view?” The court’s oldest justice, 84-year-old liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has called the upcoming term “momentous” owing to the importance of the cases on the docket. On Tuesday, the term’s second day, the justices are due to hear a case that could help shape U.S. elections for decades involving the long-standing practice of a majority party manipulating electoral boundaries for future elections to try to cement their hold on power. Wisconsin is appealing a lower-court ruling that the way the Republican-led legislature redrew boundaries following the 2010 census was so far-reaching in its bid to marginalize Democratic voters that it violated the Constitution. In a case expected to be argued in December involving free speech, religious liberty and gay rights, the justices will weigh whether a Denver-area baker who cited his Christian beliefs in refusing to make a wedding cake for a gay couple can be penalized for violating a Colorado anti-discrimination law. The new administration has backed the baker, infuriating groups that support gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual rights. “President Trump said on the campaign trail that he’s an advocate for LGBT people, but actions speak much louder than words,” said James Esseks, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who works on gay rights issues. The Supreme Court on Monday canceled arguments that had been scheduled for Oct. 10 in what would have been the biggest case of the term, whether Trump’s ban on people entering the United States from several Muslim-majority countries amounted to unconstitutional discrimination against Muslims. The action came after a temporary ban expired and the administration announced a new set of restrictions. ‘ONE-TWO PUNCH’ A case on the first day of the term on Monday presents a rarity, with the administration facing off against one of the federal government’s own agencies, the National Labor Relations Board. “That will be a first for me in the nearly 25 years I have served on the court,” Ginsburg said at a Georgetown Law Center event on Sept. 20. The administration is no longer defending the NLRB’s position that employment agreements in which businesses require workers to waive their rights to bring class-action claims are invalid. The waivers compel workers to individually arbitrate disputes with employers rather than bringing collective lawsuits with co-workers. The court’s conservative majority is expected to be sympathetic to the arguments made by employers. The court on Thursday agreed to hear a case that could end an important source of funding for unions representing police, teachers and other government employees. The dispute centers on fees that some states require non-union members to pay to unions in lieu of dues to fund collective bargaining and other organized labor activities. Claire Prestel, associate general counsel of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), said those cases could lead to a “one-two punch against workers.” The Obama administration backed the unions in a similar case in which the justices ended with a 4-4 deadlock last year. The Trump administration may change course and back the anti-union challengers. In another about-face, Trump’s Justice Department has also sided with Ohio in its bid to revive a state policy of purging infrequent voters from voter-registration lists, reversing the Obama administration’s stance that the practice was illegal. Obama’s former attorney general, Eric Holder, joined a friend-of-the-court brief criticizing the reversal, saying the Trump administration policy departed from the government’s interpretation of Ohio’s law dating back more than 20 years and spanning administrations from both parties. The justices are set to hear that case on Nov. 8. | 1 |
6,025 | Trump’s ‘Condolences’ To Grieving Star Were ALL About Wanting To F*ck Her | Trump has no compassion, and he has no empathy. He only focuses on himself, which is proven with a blog post of supposed condolences, to Hollywood star Kelly Preston after her son died from a seizure in 2009. His mind is so warped he couldn t even say, I m sorry for your loss, without first going into detail about how he tried to get Preston into his bed, along with bragging about his outstanding record on bedding beautiful women: A long time ago, before I was married, I met Kelly Preston at a club and worked like hell to try and pick her up. She was beautiful, personable, and definitely had allure. At the time I had no idea she was married to John Travolta.In any event, my track record on this subject has always been outstanding, but Kelly wouldn t give me the time of day. She was very nice, very elegant, but I didn t have a chance with her, and that was that. Seriously. That was the first thing he said in the he dedicated to her on Trump U. s site. Only when he was done talking about trying to have sex with her, and how great he is at getting women to have sex with him, did he finally get around to actually saying what ought to be said in such letters: When I later found out she was married to John, I liked and respected her even more. Some people have values that matter to them, and she is one of them. Her loyalty was unwavering and I have always remembered that about her.Being true to someone is very close to being true to yourself. That s a valuable attribute in today s world. I m sure she was a wonderful mother to Jett and my thoughts are with her and her family after their terrible loss. He could have left When I later found out she was married to John, out, along with the sheer insensitivity that was the first two paragraphs, but his ego wouldn t let him. He should have simply said that he knew, liked and respected her as someone who was true to her values, and he was sorry for her terrible loss. The fact that he couldn t is yet another a clear window into the way he thinks about women.Of course, ever since the Access Hollywood tape came out, we ve all been more acutely aware than ever that Trump is nothing more than a womanizing sexual predator who believes he s entitled to the, ahem, company of beautiful women. Any remaining delusion any sane person had that this man-boy actually has a heart, though, is now destroyed.This man-child is a piece of primordial slime through to his core.Featured image by Joe Raedle via Getty Images | 0 |
6,026 | (VIDEO) MADNESS IN THE STREETS: OVER 100 COPS HURT IN BALTIMORE AS OBAMA’S PLAN FOR CHAOS SPREADS | Bill O Reilly isn t my favorite and can be belligerently wrong sometimes but this rant is spot on: The truth is we don t know what happened to Mr. Gray. The same way we did not know what happened in Ferguson, MO, O Reilly said, going on to make the point that it is irresponsible for people to make judgments about what happened before all the facts are known. The litany of excuse-making is excruciating. The rioters are angry because America s a country of mass incarceration. People who burn down buildings and loot are just misdirected folks who feel hopeless. And if you feel hopeless, it s okay to riot. You see it s really not the fault of those who commit crimes. It s the fault of America because we don t provide jobs for everyone. Instead of pinpointing the real problem, and trying to solve it, you get crazy theories that attempt to provide justification for Americans hurting other Americans. If you can t make big money go ahead and sell heroin. No problem!Here s the truth. How could anyone provide a job that pays adecent salary to someone who can t read or write? To someone who can t speak basic English? To someone who has tattoos all over their body who s defiant, disrespectful doesn t even want to work because they have a sense of entitlement that says they re victims and YOU owe me. Does that sound like a good job-seeking resume to you? And don t tell me those folks don t exist. They re legion.So these politicians out on the street trying to justify rioting by saying that we don t provide jobs are dishonest in the extreme. If you get educated and are willing to work hard you can get a job. It may not be the best paying job at first, but you work your way up! OFFICERS HURT SINCE VIOLENCE BROKE OUT IN BALTIMORE:Nearly 100 officers have been hurt since violence broke out in the city on Monday, Baltimore Police said. Capt. Eric Kowalczyk said Thursday afternoon that more than 40 officers required some sort of treatment at the hospital. Protesters have been throwing bricks, bottles and other items at officers trying to contain demonstrations after the death of Freddie Gray, a black man who suffered critical injuries while he was in police custody. I m Just a Regular Guy From Baltimore : Amateur Photographer Shot Time s Poignant Protest Cover Kowalczyk also said that more than half of the people detained during Monday s riots have been released without charges. He said 201 people were arrested during the riots and 106 of them were subsequently released after 48 hours because specific charges couldn t be filed. He said police are reviewing surveillance footage and expect to charge many of those people once their identities have been confirmed.MARC THIESSEN: You ve got a mayor who is constantly backing off in the face of rioters and looters [ ] all of the sudden they re young people who need support. The rioters don t need support. The people of Baltimore need support. The people with their businesses destroyed need support. A 51-year-old man was found dead in the cab of a tractor trailer, about a block away from where a crowd of police, protesters and reporters gathered just before the citywide curfew went into effect Thursday night, police said.The man was not identified, and police labeled his death suspicious. Officers found the body, which showed no obvious signs of trauma or foul play, in the 2500 block of Pennsylvania Ave. at about 9:30 p.m., police said.Meanwhile Five people were shot in Baltimore Thursday night as the violence in west Baltimore surges.Police also identified two men who were fatally shot Wednesday in Baltimore: Andre Hunt, 28, of the 600 block of Woodgreen Circle was fatally shot in the 3800 block of Liberty Heights Ave. Davon William Johnson, 26, was killed in the 500 block of Edgewood St. He lived in the block, police said.Don t expect any protests for these two. Only very few black lives seem to matter.Read more: GATEWAY PUNDIT | 0 |
6,027 | Trump would want Moore to step aside if sexual misconduct allegations true: White House | DANANG, Vietnam (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump would want Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore to step aside if sexual misconduct allegations against him are true, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said on Friday. A woman has accused Roy Moore, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Alabama, of initiating a sexual encounter with her when she was 14 years old and he was 32, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. Moore, 70, the state’s former chief judge, vehemently denied the allegations, calling them “completely false and a desperate political attack.” “Like most Americans, the president believes we cannot allow a mere allegation, in this case one from many years ago, to destroy a person’s life,” Sanders said. “However, the president also believes that if these allegations are true, Judge Moore will do the right thing and step aside,” she said, as Trump arrived in Vietnam on his 12-day Asia tour. | 1 |
6,028 | Clinton attacks Trump's foreign policy as a threat to U.S. safety | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton lambasted Donald Trump’s foreign policy platform as “dangerously incoherent” in a speech on Thursday that cast her Republican rival as both a frightening and laughable figure. In remarks that at times resembled a comedy roast, Clinton unleashed a torrent of polished zingers and one-liners to attack Trump’s policies and character, suggesting Trump might start a nuclear war if elected to the White House simply because “somebody got under his very thin skin.” “Donald Trump’s ideas are not just different, they are dangerously incoherent,” she said to a room of supporters in San Diego, California. “They’re not even really ideas, just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds and outright lies.” Clinton, the front-runner in the race to become the Democratic presidential nominee, delivered her speech as she seeks to shift her attention to the Nov. 8 election against likely rival Trump and away from Bernie Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, who is continuing his long-shot bid for the nomination. Clinton was speaking in San Diego ahead of California’s June 7 primary election. Democratic Party leaders have fretted about how to best oppose Trump, who managed to knock out all 16 rivals for the Republican nomination in part with his uninhibited style of assailing them with personal insults. Trump revels in referring to Clinton as “Crooked Hillary” and dredging up the infidelities of her husband, Bill Clinton, the former president. Clinton’s remarks were intended in part to show she would not be cowed and that she could go toe-to-toe with him in scornful put-downs. “He says he has foreign policy experience because he ran the Miss Universe pageant in Russia,” she said as the crowd guffawed, and she suggested Trump would run the U.S. economy “like one of his casinos.” During her speech, Clinton predicted Trump, who has been deeply critical of Clinton’s foreign policy record, would take to his Twitter account to insult her, and he did. “Bad performance by Crooked Hillary Clinton!” ran one posting during the speech, which included a typo. “Reading poorly from the telepromter! She doesn’t even look presidential!” Trump has said previously that Clinton is distorting his actual policies. Amid the laugh lines, Clinton cited her own experience as secretary of state, in particular her role advising President Barack Obama during the mission to kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, to suggest her approach to foreign policy was the more serious. “He praises dictators like Vladimir Putin and picks fights with our friends, including the British prime minister, the mayor of London, the German chancellor, the president of Mexico and the pope,” Clinton said, listing some of the allies with whom Trump has verbally sparred in the last year. Obama, who has also been repeatedly mocked by Trump, has criticized Trump as being ignorant or cavalier about world affairs and has said that Trump’s rise has “rattled” foreign leaders. Trump has talked tough on foreign policy. He has said he would bring back waterboarding and other brutal interrogation techniques for terrorism suspects that are widely regarded as torture and were discontinued by Obama. Trump has also vowed to renegotiate trade deals, called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country, and said he would ask members of the 28-nation NATO alliance to “pay up” or “get out.” He has said he would sit down with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to try to stop Pyongyang’s nuclear program. Clinton derided these and other positions, promising she would do a better job keeping the United States safe. Standing in front of a backdrop of 19 large U.S. flags, an unusual abundance even by the standards of presidential campaign events, Clinton painted the election as a choice between “two very different visions.” “One that’s angry, afraid and based on the idea that America is fundamentally weak and in decline,” she said, summing up Trumpism. “The other is hopeful, generous and confident in the knowledge that America is great, just like we always have been.” Trump has criticized Clinton for her handling of foreign policy during her 2009-2013 stint as secretary of state, including the Sept. 11, 2012, attack by Islamist militants on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. He cites Clinton’s support for the war in Iraq, launched by former Republican President George W. Bush, as another example of her shortcomings. Democratic challenger Sanders echoed Clinton’s concerns about Trump after her speech, though he also criticized Clinton’s foreign policy. “I agree ... that Donald Trump’s foreign policy ideas are incredibly reckless and irresponsible,” Sanders said in a statement. In criticizing Clinton, Sanders cited her vote for the war in Iraq, calling it “the worst foreign policy blunder in modern American history,” and said “she has been a proponent of regime change, as in Libya, without thinking through the consequences.” In assailing each other’s suitability for the White House, Clinton and Trump are reflecting a negative voter mood ahead of next month’s party conventions that will choose the presidential nominees. Both Clinton and Trump are facing record-low favorability ratings. A Reuters/Ipsos poll taken Friday through Tuesday shows half of Trump supporters say the primary reason they are going to vote for him is “I don’t want Hillary Clinton to win,” while 41 percent of Clinton supporters cite their primary reason as not wanting Trump to win. | 1 |
6,029 | Megyn Kelly Laughably Claims Fox News Does Not Have A Right-Wing Bias (VIDEO) | You ll have a hard time not laughing out loud about this one.Despite having a clear right-wing bias, Megyn Kelly actually had the audacity to claim that Fox News is totally fair and balanced while whining about a supposed liberal bias in the rest of the mainstream media.During an interview with CBS host Charlie Rose on Sunday, Kelly accused most media outlets of having a liberal bias when reporting the news. I do believe that there is a left-leaning bias in news and most of news, Kelly somehow managed to blurt out without her nose growing like Pinocchio s. You don t believe there is a right-wing bias at Fox, a conservative bias at Fox? Rose asked even though Kelly s answer was predictable even before he uttered the question. No, I don t. I think that Fox News is fair and balanced. And I think the conservatives who are on air here make no bones about their ideology. Again, Kelly s nose remained the same even though Fox News does, indeed, have a clear right-wing bias and is the propaganda machine of the Republican Party and the evidence of that has piled up over the years.Here s the video via YouTube.In November 2014, Fox News did more than just report that Republicans had taken over the Senate, they openly celebrated about it.In April 2014, Fox head honcho and Kelly s boss Rupert Murdoch actually bragged that his network saved the Republican Party. A Gallup poll even confirms that an overwhelming 94 percent of Fox viewers lean or identify as Republicans.Additionally, even one of the most conservative senators in Congress has repeatedly pointed out that Fox is totally not fair and totally not balanced. Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn urged his constituents to stop believing everything they hear on Fox because There are certain shows on Fox I can t watch because they re totally not fair and totally not balanced. Coburn said the same thing to constituents four years earlier in 2010 after Fox News tried to scare people by demonizing the Affordable Care Act and painting Nancy Pelosi as a bad person. The intention is not to put anybody in jail, Coburn said of the Fox claim that people would go to jail for not purchasing health insurance. That makes for good TV news on Fox, but that isn t the intention. What we have to have is make sure we have a debate in this country so that you can see what s going on and make the determination yourself, Coburn continued before blasting Fox for besmirching Pelosi s character. So, don t catch yourself being biased by Fox News that somebody s no good. Late last year, a Fox News HOST actually had the gall to claim that everyone benefited from locking up more black people in a racist statement that drew outrage.Fox News has even told blatant lies on the air about Muslims that they had to publicly apologize for telling.Next up, take a look at just one broadcast of Sean Hannity s show on Fox as an example of his own work to make the network a pit of right-wing bias even as he claims to be fair and balanced in the same breath. As one of my colleagues wrote,During a two-minute opening to the segment in which he makes his ludicrous claim, Hannity used the following words and phrases to describe President Obama: liberal, left wing, all out assault on the 2nd Amendment and the rights of law abiding Americans, trampling on your rights, What s his next target? The First Amendment, The Anointed One, failed on the economy, failed to create jobs, failed to reign in radical extremism abroad.Here s the video via Media Matters.Last time I checked, President Obama has not taken anyone s gun away, the economy is stronger than it was eight years ago, and jobs are being created at a record pace. Yet, Fox employees like Hannity still repeat the same accusations over and over again.And finally, let s take a look at Bill O Reilly, who got his ass handed to him by a group of high school students early last year for his lack of journalistic ethics. In their final report after watching a segment of the host s show, the students found that Fox News is not practicing journalism as much as they are practicing rank propaganda. In short, Fox News has never been fair and balanced and if Megyn Kelly wanted to be known as a credible journalist she should have had the courage to admit it rather than try to sell us another lie like Fox hosts do on a daily basis.Featured image via Myside s Spew | 0 |
6,030 | U.S. foreign policy veteran warns Trump would make world less stable | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump’s foreign policy proposals would make the world a less stable place, former Secretary of State James Baker told a U.S. Senate hearing on Thursday as the Republican presidential candidate met elsewhere with party congressional leaders. Under questioning from Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a former Trump rival in the presidential race, Baker said the world “would be far less stable” with a weaker NATO or if more countries had nuclear weapons as Trump has proposed. “We’ve a got a lot of problems today, but we’d have a hell of a lot more if that were the case,” Baker told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, adding that U.S. commitments around the world “promote U.S. security.” Trump met with Baker on Thursday at Trump’s request, said a Baker spokesman, who declined further comment. The hearing, on “America’s Role in the World,” was called by the committee’s Republican chairman, Senator Bob Corker. Corker praised a foreign policy speech Trump gave in Washington last month. Some U.S. allies worried after Trump’s remarks that his invocation of an “America first” agenda is a threat to retreat from the world. Without naming Trump, Rubio referred to the businessman-turned-candidate’s suggestions that the United States should rethink the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and that Japan and South Korea should consider getting nuclear weapons to defend themselves. “Some have suggested ‘why don’t you just let Japan and South Korea get their own nuclear weapons and let them defend themselves?’” Rubio asked. “The more countries that acquire nuclear weapons, the more instability there is going to be in the world, in my opinion,” Baker said. Tom Donilon, Democratic President Barack Obama’s former national security adviser, called Rubio’s question an “important thought experiment,” as he backed Baker’s comments about the importance of NATO. “It’s not just a thought experiment, it’s actually been proposed,” Rubio said. As the hearing took place, Trump was on Capitol Hill meeting with Republican congressional leaders on how to heal divisions within the party, including those between establishment figures like Baker and the insurgent candidate. Baker, a Republican who was secretary of state under President George Bush and Treasury secretary under President Ronald Reagan, testified alongside Donilon. Former Presidents Bush and George W. Bush do not plan to endorse Trump, or any candidate, in this year’s White House race. | 1 |
6,031 | Bette Midler Has Theory As To Why People Ignore Ted ‘Jackass’ Cruz Is Canadian (TWEET) | It s pretty much common knowledge at this point that Republican presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz wasn t born in the United States. In fact, he was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in 1970 to a Cuban immigrant. Now, people have been saying that since Cruz s mother was an American citizen, this automatically makes the senator a citizen as well. However, as Talking Points Memo has pointed out, Cruz s mom was eligible to vote in Canada, thus making it seem as though she was a Canadian citizen at some point.The entire scenario of Cruz being born in Canada and being considered a natural-born citizen as the Constitution stipulates has been a bit of a gray area for some time now. While some say it s a closed issue, others say he s not eligible to run due to the true nature of natural-born meant as defined by the Founding Fathers.While all of this is still being discussed at great length, one person has come up with a pretty damn valid theory as to why so many think Cruz is a natural-born American. Bette Midler took to Twitter to pose a very good question. She asked: Are people ignoring the fact that Ted Cruz isn t a natural-born American because it s impossible to believe such a jackass came from Canada? Are people ignoring the fact thatTed Cruz isn t a natural-born Americanbecause it s impossible to believe such a jackass came from Canada? Bette Midler (@BetteMidler) February 1, 2016This could be entirely true. Canadians are generally very kind-natured and not at all known to be the slimy, bigoted narcissists that Ted Cruz most definitely is. After all, we re stuck with Justin Bieber, too.Since no one has come to a definitive conclusion regarding Cruz s citizenship status, Midler s theory holds as much weight as anything else. Very good question indeed. Featured image: Twitter | 0 |
6,032 | House panel chair introduces $81 billion disaster aid bill | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee introduced a bill on Monday to provide $81 billion in emergency aid for recent hurricanes and wildfires. The legislation includes $27.6 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and $26.1 billion for community development block grants, Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen said in a statement. President Donald Trump had requested $44 billion last month, which was widely criticized by lawmakers as being insufficient. | 1 |
6,033 | Ammon Bundy Arrested, Ryan Bundy And ‘Tarp Man’ Shot After Confrontation With Police (VIDEO) | The ammosexual terrorists currently staging an armed occupation in a federal bird sanctuary in Oregon are standing their ground amid reports that Ammon Bundy and three of their compatriots have been arrested. Monumental imbecile, godawful radio host, and wannabe journalist Pete Santilli s live feed cut out as he stood in front of a hospital near the Malheur Wildlife Refuge to announce that Bundy and others had been arrested, and two had been shot.Santilli says that one of the Faithful received a phone call from the FBI: The word is right now that everyone and this is the message that they wanted to convey, and if anybody s watching this stream at the refuge the FBI has conveyed a message: you are free to go, and you must leave now. The confirmation is as follows, Santilli said. It is reported that Ammon Bundy is in custody by police. The roads are on lockdown reports of shots being fired and the report that we re getting right now is that two people have been shot. WRGB reports that one of the militants is dead: Officials said it all began with a traffic stop while Bundy and some of his followers were en route to a community meeting in John Day, about 70 miles away.Shots were fired after FBI agents, Oregon State troopers and other law enforcement agencies made the stop. CNN reports its unclear who fired first.Details of the arrest and confrontation remain unknown, but charges are pending related to the group s 25-day takeover of the wildlife refuge.According to Oregon Live, Ryan Bundy suffered a minor gunshot wound, and Santilli s staff reports that Tarp Man Lavoy Finicum, who once warned that he would take death over jail, was also struck by gunfire. The name of the deceased has not been officially released. However, Assemblywoman Michele Fiore says that Finicum is, indeed, dead: If in fact Ammon Bundy has been taken into custody, he added, It s not a good thing. Certainly not a good thing. During the stream, Santilli received a phone call and the stream cut out shortly afterward. According to Oregon Live, aside from Ammon and Ryan Bundy, the following were arrested:Ryan W. Payne, 32, of Anaconda, Mont., Brian Cavalier, 44, of Bunkerville, Nevada, and Shawna J. Cox, 59, of Kanab, Utah.They have all been charged with conspiracy to impede federal officers, a felony.It is unclear if the remaining domestic terrorists will go home, but it seems unlikely. Many have pledged to fight to the death, with the group begging for clean underwear, tampons, and snacks to survive a long stay at the refuge. What this means for the occupation remains to be known, but we sincerely hope that Y all Qaeda recognize defeat, give up peacefully, and slink home with their tails between their legs before lives are lost.Watch Santilli report the arrest below:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b-jYxOSnWY&w=560&h=315]The militants back at base are backing down, calling for all patriots to join them in defending their illegally-occupied land:[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RoeNxjaShk]Militant Jon Ritzheimer posted a video of himself saying goodbye to his children. FYI. I came home to AZ to visit my family, he writes. The feds know I am here and are charging me with Conspiracy to impede a federal officer. I need an attorney. My family needs help and I am hoping they grant me bail. He added that he is in dire need of a lawyer.A friend of LaVoy Finnicum s confirmed that he is, indeed, dead. The unnamed man put out a call for help, anticipating a raid.[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uh8XKRnHs68?rel=0&showinfo=0&w=420&h=315]Featured image via screengrab | 0 |
6,034 | Robert Michel, champion of Washington civility in senior House post, dies at 93 | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Robert Michel, a gentlemanly Midwesterner who championed civility in Washington as House Republican leader but left Congress dismayed by the rise of conservative firebrands in his own party, died on Friday at age 93, a former aide said. Michel died at the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Virginia, where he had been admitted in the last few weeks with pneumonia, said Michael Johnson, a former chief of staff to the congressman. Michel, a decorated World War Two veteran who was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge, was first elected in 1956 to the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois and served for 38 years. His time in the House came during a four-decade era of Democratic control, but as minority leader starting in 1981 Michel helped shepherd the policies of Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush through Congress. In a statement, Bush called Michel “a great American for whom the words ‘duty’ and ‘honor’ and ‘country’ weren’t just a campaign slogan, but a lifelong creed.” The courtly Michel (pronounced “Michael”), known as Bob, amassed a conservative voting record but believed in bipartisanship and maintained friendships with many Democratic colleagues, including House Speakers Tip O’Neill and Tom Foley. “It has always puzzled me that in Washington we have no public vocabulary to describe civility, which I believe is among the highest public virtues,” Michel said in 1991. “Raising the level of your voice doesn’t raise the level of discussion. Listening with care is better than talking in sound bites and thinking in slogans. ... Peaks of uncommon progress can be reached by paths of common courtesy.” Michel served as House Republican leader for 14 years until deciding not to seek re-election to the House in the November 1994 elections. With the rise of conservative rabble-rousers like Georgia’s Newt Gingrich in the House Republican caucus in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Michel’s brand of leadership - consultation with Democrats instead of confrontation - was becoming obsolete. After Gingrich signaled he might try to depose him as Republican leader, Michel expressed confidence that he would have won but said such a fight would have been “fratricidal.” Gingrich and his allies sought to portray the Democratic leaders of the House as corrupt legislative dictators. In May 1993, Michel warned that the “politics of anger” was slowly destroying the United States’ civic environment. Michel announced in October 1993 he would retire from the House after the 1994 election. Michel lamented that Congress was becoming a place lacking camaraderie and deplored colleagues who resorted to “trashing the institution” for political gain. Gingrich helped engineer a Republican takeover of the House in the 1994 elections and rose to the job of speaker. His ascendancy and Michel’s retirement ushered in a new combative style of leadership for House Republicans, who have remained largely uncompromising ever since. Michel served in the House under five Republican and four Democratic presidents. The last of them, Democrat Bill Clinton, honored him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest U.S. civilian award. “In the best sense he is a gentleman legislator who, in spite of the great swings in public opinion from year to year, has remained always true to the Midwestern values he represents so faithfully in the House,” Clinton said during the August 1994 ceremony. Michel was born in 1923 in Peoria, Illinois, long viewed as a symbol of small-town America, and grew up in the Great Depression. He served as an infantryman in Europe during World War Two and earned two Bronze Stars, the Purple Heart and four Battle Stars. After graduating from Bradley University in Peoria, Michel worked in a congressional office until winning his House seat in 1956. He married his wife Corinne in 1948 and the couple had four children. She died in 2003. | 1 |
6,035 | FLASHBACK: WATCH TED CRUZ Promise To Support Donald Trump As Republican Candidate [Video] | Yes, he did promise to support Donald Trump: | 0 |
6,036 | California Single-Payer Health Care Bill Shelved And People Aren’t Happy | To say people aren t happy is an understatement. People are extremely angry about state Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon shelving the single-payer healthcare bill in California.Huffington Post reports that Rendon has received death threats since making this decision.It is a shame that the bill got shelved as we all wanted to see how California would fare, but nobody should be threatening another life over it. We, as people, are meant to be better than that. Especially those of us with progressive outlooks.Rendon opted to pull the bill last week despite his support for a single-payer system. He called the plan woefully incomplete. He urged the state Senate to fill the holes and send the Assembly a workable bill next year. Even senators who voted for SB 562 noted there are potentially fatal flaws in the bill, he said in a statement on Friday. These include its failure to address many serious issues, such as financing, delivery of care, cost controls, or the realities of needed action by the Trump administration and voters to make the bill a genuine piece of legislation, he said.That sounds fair, does it not? If we re going to do something progressive, we need to do it as correctly as possible, not half-baked. Rendon does not sound like he s against the plan.Yet, the death threats poured in. Supporters organized protests at Rendon s district office in Los Angeles County, as well as outside the state capitol in Sacramento. Some single-payer supporters held signs depicting the California state flag s grizzly bear stabbed in the back with a knife that reads Rendon. Social media got ugly, as always.I get it. We re all frustrated over the current healthcare situation in America. We all wanted to see how California would do with a single-payer system. It could pave the way for other states and do amazing things for everyone. But I think we should all step back and be rational about things. Rome wasn t built in a day.You have a right to be angry, but people need to stop sending death threats when things don t work out.Featured image via ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images | 0 |
6,037 | AWESOME! Watch President Trump and Leaders Inaugurate Center For Combating Extremist Ideology [Video] | What a great photo of President Trump joined by the President of Egypt and Saudi King Salman to inaugurate The Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology.Essentially the center appears to be a Saudi data hub for monitoring multiple media and social media platforms, detecting extremist sentiments and countering the concerning rhetoric with positive social media messaging. In the U.S. we have the NSA cyber command monitoring system. Hoping this will help in the war on ISIS and other terrorists. We ll see | 0 |
6,038 | Taliban call on Trump to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan | KABUL (Reuters) - The Afghan Taliban on Wednesday called on U.S. president-elect Donald Trump to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan. “Our message is that the Americans should draft a policy not to take away the independence and sovereignty of other nations. Most importantly they should withdraw all their troops from Afghanistan,” the Taliban said in a statement in reaction to Trump’s surprise election win. | 1 |
6,039 | Steve Bannon Promised That There Is ‘No Doubt’ We Will Be At War With China Soon (AUDIO) | According to white supremacist dirtbag, former head honcho of far-Right propaganda factory Breitbart, and Donald Trump s chief strategist Steve Bannon, the administration expects to throw us into a war with China within the next few years if their plans work out.Speaking on his radio show in March, Bannon said that relations with China would deteriorate and we will be at war in the South China Sea in five to 10 years. There s no doubt about that. They re taking their sandbars and making basically stationary aircraft carriers and putting missiles on those. They come here to the United States in front of our face and you understand how important face is and say it s an ancient territorial sea, Bannon said.He s likely right that the United States will be involved in some conflict, but it will be because of the Trump administration that this happens. Throughout his campaign and even after he was elected President-With-An-Asterisk, the Donald has been poking China repeatedly. We can t continue to allow China to rape our country, and that s what they re doing, Trump said while campaigning in May. We re going to turn it around. And we have the cards, don t forget it. We re like the piggy bank that s being robbed. We have the cards. We have a lot of power with China. Just before he was sworn in, Trump needled china on Twitter and caused an international incident by bragging that the President of Taiwan CALLED (caps are all him) to congratulate him on his victory. The President of Taiwan CALLED ME today to wish me congratulations on winning the Presidency. Thank you! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 3, 2016China has been taking out massive amounts of money & wealth from the U.S. in totally one-sided trade, but won't help with North Korea. Nice! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2017In the past, Bannon has compared himself to Lenin. According to the white nationalist misinformation pimp, Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today s establishment a great goal for someone Trump just installed on the National Security Council.If Trump and Bannon have their way (and so far, Republicans have allowed them to get away with a lot), they will be able to act on all their twisted fantasies of bombing every nation that they don t like. Instead of the tweet button, a thin-skinned bully and his white supremacist sidekick now have the big red button and they are itching to use it.Listen to Bannon s prediction below:Featured image via Getty Images/Paul Marotta | 0 |
6,040 | Comedy Central’s Roast Of Rob Lowe HIJACKED As Comedians EPICALLY Roast Ann Coulter | Comedy Central s roasts of various celebrities are well known by this point, and it s just as well known is that the roasts almost never focus exclusively on the person being roasted. This year s roast is all about Rob Lowe, and the roasters do go after him quite heartily and gleefully. However, it seems that Ann Coulter is also inexplicably a roaster this year, and the other roasters decided to burn her about as bad as they did Rob Lowe.Coulter is a Trump fangirl. She s also just about the most racist and hateful public figure in all of existence. She takes all of Trump s bizarre rhetoric 700 steps farther than it needs to go, while calling him out for not going far enough. These comedians don t really seem to like her all that much, and neither did the audience. They actually booed her for using her appearance there to promote her most recent book, In Trump We Trust. Oh, please.Variety did us all a favor and captured the following zingers delivered at Coulter s expense:Nikki Glaser: The only person you will ever make happy is the Mexican who digs your grave. Peyton Manning: I m not the only athlete up here. As you know, earlier this year, Ann Coulter won the Kentucky Derby. Davidson: If you are here, Ann, who is scaring the crows away from our crops? Lowe: After seeing your set tonight, we ve seen the first bombing you can t blame on a Muslim. Jeff Ross: Ann is against gay marriage. What is your thinking on that? If I can t get a husband, they can t either? Jewel: I do want to say as a feminist that I can t support everything that s been said tonight. But as someone who hates Ann Coulter, I m delighted. Rob Riggle: If Ann Coulter is here, someone must have said her name three times. Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! And perhaps the harshest, from Jimmy Carr: Ann is one of the most repugnant, hateful, hatchet-face bitches alive. It s not too late to change, Ann. You could kill yourself. Coulter herself tried to play comedian, too, and threw out this, ahem, gem, which was probably the only gem she uttered all night: I want to welcome everybody to the Ann Coulter roast with Rob Lowe. That s about the only thing she s ever gotten even close to right, even if she did solidify the idea that this roast is all about her. Everything she thinks is twisted, bigoted, false, and delusional. As the old clich goes, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Coulter, however, is right considerably less frequently than that.These are just a few of the jokes various Rob Lowe roasters shot her way, despite the fact that she was likewise a roaster, but has no connection to Lowe. Lowe explained her appearance by saying that they need all flavors at these roasts in order to make them work, and that s why she was there.Whatever the reason, though, Variety insinuates that her entire performance fell far more flat than anybody else s. Poor, poor Ann. Our hearts bleed for her and how stupid she ll look on Labor Day, which is when this will air.Featured image by Christopher Polk/Getty Images | 0 |
6,041 | Turkish court orders detention of two over U.S. court case: CNN Turk | ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A Turkish court has issued detention warrants for two people including a former opposition lawmaker for allegedly providing fake evidence and documents to a court case in the United States, private broadcaster CNN Turk said on Tuesday. CNN Turk identified the two wanted individuals as former Republican People s Party (CHP) lawmaker Aykan Erdemir and banking auditor Osman Zeki Canitez, both of whom it said were named in a witness list presented for the U.S. trial of former Halkbank executive Mehmet Hakan Atilla. The media relations office at the Istanbul prosecutor s office said they did not have any information regarding the detention warrants. U.S. authorities charged Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab and eight other people, including Turkey s former economy minister and three executives of Turkish state-owned Halkbank, with engaging in transactions worth hundreds of millions of dollars for Iran s government and Iranian entities from 2010 to 2015 in a scheme to evade U.S. sanctions. Mehmet Hakan Atilla, who pleaded not guilty, will be the only person on trial in the U.S. case. U.S. District Judge Richard Berman told potential jurots on Monday that Zarrab, who has been the focus of the case, will not go on trial this week. Atilla and Zarrab are the only two defendants who were arrested by U.S. authorities. Turkish authorities have said that some evidence presented by prosecutors was fabricated for political motives, and state media said two weeks ago authorities had launched an investigation into the prosecutors who initiated the U.S. case. Halkbank and Turkish officials have said all the bank s transactions have been fully compliant with national and international regulations, but investors are worried. At 1100 GMT, shares in Turkey s state-owned lender Halkbank were trading 4.47 percent lower at 8.97 lira. | 1 |
6,042 | Another U.S. appeals court refuses to revive Trump travel ban | SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump suffered another legal setback on Monday as a second federal appeals court refused to revive his travel ban on people entering the United States from six Muslim-majority nations in a dispute headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals used narrow grounds to reject the Trump administration’s bid to undo a Hawaii federal judge’s decision blocking the temporary ban. It said the Republican president’s March 6 order violated existing immigration law. But the three-judge panel - all Democratic appointees - did not address whether it was unconstitutional discrimination against Muslims. A second court, the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, on May 25 upheld a Maryland judge’s ruling that also blocked Trump’s 90-day ban on travelers from Libya, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The 4th Circuit had ruled that the ban, which replaced an earlier Jan. 27 one also blocked by the courts, “drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination” aimed at Muslims. The 9th Circuit largely left in place a nationwide injunction by Judge Derrick Watson that stopped parts of the order, which Trump said was urgently needed to prevent terrorism in the United States. That ruling came in a lawsuit challenging the order brought by the state of Hawaii, which stated the ban would harm its universities and tourism industry. Even before Monday’s ruling, the case was on the fast track to the Supreme Court, where the administration on June 1 filed an emergency request seeking to reinstate the order and hear its appeal of the 4th Circuit ruling. The Supreme Court could act on the administration’s request as soon as this week. Trump has been on the losing side in all four court rulings on the March order. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the administration is reviewing Monday’s decision and expressed continued confidence that the order is fully lawful and ultimately will be upheld by the Supreme Court. “I think we can all attest that these are very dangerous times and we need every available tool at our disposal to prevent terrorists from entering the United States and committing acts of bloodshed and violence,” Spicer told a briefing. The 9th Circuit upheld the block on Trump’s three-month travel ban for the six countries and four-month suspension of all refugee admissions. But the court pared back part of Watson’s injunction in order to allow the government to conduct internal reviews on vetting procedures for these travelers. The administration said the travel ban was needed to allow time to implement stronger vetting measures, although it has already rolled out some new requirements not blocked by courts, including additional questions for visa applicants. Rather than focusing on Trump campaign statements as the Virginia-based court did, the 9th Circuit said the language in the executive order itself did not make a rational case for why a travel ban was needed. “The order does not offer a sufficient justification to suspend the entry of more than 180 million people on the basis of nationality,” the court wrote, referring the combined populations of the six countries. Under immigration law, the administration was required to make findings that entry of the people in question would be detrimental to the United States but failed to do so, the court said. Stephen Vladeck, a professor at University of Texas School of Law, said the 9th Circuit provided an easier path for the Supreme Court to keep the travel ban on hold, because it avoided entirely the controversy over Trump’s campaign statements. “It provides a very attractive way to leave the injunction in place without setting broader doctrinal rules about which they may have pause,” Vladeck said. Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” Monday was the deadline for the ban’s challengers to respond to the administration’s request that the order be allowed to go into effect. The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents people challenging the ban in the separate Maryland suit handled by the 4th Circuit, filed court papers urging the court not to take up the case, saying the order will become moot on Wednesday, 90 days from when Trump issued it. Lawyers for Hawaii called the order a “thinly veiled Muslim ban.” Trump’s earlier Jan. 27 order also included Iraq among the countries targeted and a total ban on refugees from Syria. The March order was intended to overcome the legal issues posed by the original ban, but was blocked before it could go into effect on March 16. The suits by Hawaii and the Maryland challengers argued that the order violated federal immigration law and a section of the Constitution’s First Amendment that prohibits the government from favoring or disfavoring any particular religion. Hawaii’s court papers mentioned a series of Trump Twitter posts on June 5. Trump described the order as a “watered down, politically correct” version of his original one. | 1 |
6,043 | Kenya police shoot dead two during opposition protest: commissioner | NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenyan police shot dead two people and wounded a third when a crowd tried to storm a police station during an opposition protest against a looming presidential vote re-run, a senior official said. Around 20 youths attempted to take over the station during an otherwise peaceful rally in the town of Bondo in the southwest county of Siaya, forcing officers to open fire, County Commissioner Josephine Onunga said by phone. Police also used teargas to break up small demonstrations in Kenya s three main cities - Kisumu, the capital and the port of Mombasa - defying a government ban on rallies in city centers. Hospital authorities said 20 people were injured in Kisumu, an opposition stronghold. Kenya s supreme court nullified the presidential election in August, citing procedural irregularities and voiding the victory of President Uhuru Kenyatta. The ruling opening the way to a repeat vote on Oct. 26. But opposition leader Raila Odinga has refused to take part, saying the re-run should not happen until wide-ranging reforms are brought in to prevent another failed vote. The election board has said the polls will go ahead anyway, pitting Kenyatta against six other candidates, none of whom polled more than 1 percent in August. Odinga told Reuters that he might consider returning to the Supreme Court for clarification on whether the Oct. 26 poll was legal. As far as we are concerned, that (original Supreme court) ruling is still valid, Odinga said during a visit to London. What we are demanding is that the electoral commission should respect the Supreme Court and carry out elections in accordance with the ruling. He supported protesters right to demonstrate, he said, but has so far stopped short of calling people onto the streets himself. In Nairobi, opposition legislators were repeatedly teargassed as they tried to drive into the city center. We are asking Uhuru s government to ... let us protest in peace and truth and we are saying we want change and we do not want Uhuru and his people, said protester Mellen Kirumbo. In Kisumu, protesters reacted angrily when police turned water cannon on them to prevent them from entering the city center. Our demonstrations have a (valid) basis and are peaceful, said Odinga supporter Hezron Tirus Aloyo. We condemn the directive ... on the limitation of our rights to demonstrate. The Jaramogi Oginga Odinga hospital in Kisumu, named after Odinga s father, said it had admitted 20 patients injured in the demonstrations. Three had gunshot wounds, said superintendent Juliana Otieno. Martin Kimani, the Director of the Kenyan government s National Counter Terrorism Centre, said the authorities were trying to maintain law and order. A lot of those provocations or demonstrations taking place are an attempt to create the appearance of a crisis, he said. | 1 |
6,044 | Trump pushes drugmakers for lower prices, more U.S. production | WASHINGTON/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump in a meeting on Tuesday with pharmaceutical executives called on them to manufacture more of their drugs in the United States and cut prices, while vowing to speed approval of new medicines and ease regulation. Trump told them the government was paying “astronomical” prices for medicines in its health programs for older, disabled and poor people and said he would soon appoint a new U.S. Food and Drug Administration leader. “We’re going to streamline the FDA,” Trump said in a statement, referring to the regulatory agency responsible for vetting that new drugs are safe and effective. The meeting between Trump and the pharmaceutical executives signaled a defusing of tensions that have kept drug stock prices in check since the presidential election. Shares of most of the group rallied on Tuesday following the meeting, even as the broader stock market slid. “Trump is a populist above all else, and having these (drug) prices skyrocket, he’s commented that under his administration, this is not going to happen,” said market strategist Quincy Crosby of Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey. She said Trump was playing a balancing act between controlling prices and loosening regulations. “I don’t think the majority of Americans want all regulations lifted from drug makers.” Attending the meeting were top executives at Merck & Co Inc, Johnson &, Celgene Corp, Eli Lilly & Co, Amgen Inc and Switzerland’s Novartis AG <NOV N.S> as well as the head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) lobbying group. According to a transcript of the televised portion of the meeting, Amgen Chief Executive Officer Robert Brad way promised to add 1,600 U.S. jobs at his California-based biotechnology company this year. Amgen clarified in an email that it currently employs around 20,000 people worldwide, including 12,000 in the United States, and said the 1,600 includes new staff as well as hires to address attrition. Celgene, Lilly, Merck and Amgen said by email after the meeting that they were encouraged by Trump’s focus on innovation, tax reform and the need for a more value-driven health care system. Lilly said discussion topics also included stronger trade agreements and removing “outdated regulations that drive up costs and slow innovation.” PhRMA echoed those points in its own post-meeting statement, adding that the policies, if enacted, would result in up to 350,000 new jobs over the next 10 years. “Tax, deregulation - those are things that could really help us expand operations,” Lilly CEO Dave Ricks said. Officials at Novartis and J&J did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment. Shares of the six companies were mostly higher, for an overall gain averaging 0.7 percent, compared with a 0.4 percent drop in the broad S&P 500. The Nasdaq Biotech Index was up 1.2 percent, reversing earlier losses, and the S&P 500 health care index gained 0.6 percent. “We have to get prices down for a lot of reasons. We have no choice, for Medicare and Medicaid,” Trump said, citing the nation’s government insurance programs for the elderly, the poor and the disabled. Trump also said currency devaluation by other countries had increased drugmakers’ outsourcing their production, and he called on the companies to make more of their products in the United States. Foreign countries must pay a fair share for drug development costs, he added. “We’re going to end global freeloading.” The United States typically pays more for drugs than any other developed nation. Most Western European countries, as well as Japan, have government-run health care coverage under which drug prices are negotiated. High drug prices have become a national issue during the past two years as healthcare costs have risen Trump spooked pharmaceutical and biotech investors by saying on Jan. 11, before his inauguration, that drug companies were “getting away with murder” on what they charged the government for medicine and that he would do something about it. Company executives, meanwhile, have tried to tread a careful line in defending their industry while expressing optimism that the United States would continue to reward scientific advances. “Regulations - great, streamlining the FDA, perhaps,” Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at BMO Private Bank in Chicago said. “But if Trump is going to address his constituency, drug prices have to come down. So I think this is maybe a Pyrrhic victory.” | 1 |
6,045 | Hurricane Irma to move over portions of Virgin Islands soon: NHC | (Reuters) - The eye of potentially catastrophic category 5 Hurricane Irma is closing in on the Virgin Islands, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in its latest advisory on Wednesday. Hurricane Irma is about 140 miles (225 km) east of San Juan Puerto Rico, with maximum sustained winds of 185 mph (295 km/h), the Miami-based weather forecaster said. The extremely dangerous core of Irma will move over portions of the Virgin Islands very soon, pass near or just north of Puerto Rico this afternoon or tonight, the NHC said. Irma will pass near or just north of the coast of the Dominican Republic Thursday, and be near the Turks and Caicos and southeastern Bahamas late Thursday, it added. | 1 |
6,046 | Trump seeks to boost presidential bid with $10 million infusion: reports | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump has given $10 million of his personal money to his presidential campaign in an effort to boost his White House bid 11 days before the Nov. 8 election, according to media reports. The Wall Street Journal, citing two advisers, said the Republican presidential nominee wired the money on Friday morning. A Fox News reporter said Trump told him he would give $10 million to the campaign on Friday. | 1 |
6,047 | Palestinian prime minister visits Gaza in move to reconcile with Hamas | GAZA (Reuters) - The West Bank-based Palestinian prime minister crossed into the Gaza Strip on Monday in a move towards reconciliation between the mainstream Fatah party and Hamas, a decade after the Islamist group seized the territory in a civil war. Rami al-Hamdallah said at a welcome ceremony his unity government would begin assuming control of Gaza s administrative affairs, as well as security responsibilities and responsibility for crossings and borders . Hamas, considered a terrorist group by Israel and the West, made its dramatic step towards unity last month, disbanding its Gaza shadow government, after Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates imposed an economic boycott on its main donor, Qatar, over alleged support of terrorism. Qatar denies the allegation. Under previous understandings, some 3,000 Fatah security men would be integrated gradually into a Gaza police force overseen by an Interior Ministry headed by Hamdallah. That deployment would still leave Hamas s armed wing analysts say it has at least 25,000 well-equipped fighters the dominant power in the Palestinian enclave of 2 million people. We return to Gaza in order to conclude reconciliation and national unity and end the painful impacts of divisions and to rebuild Gaza brick by brick, said Hamdallah, who is an independent. Forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas lost control of Gaza in fighting with Hamas in 2007. Hamas s reversal is the most significant step towards Palestinian reconciliation since the unity government was formed in 2014. It failed to function in Gaza - where Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since 2008 - because of disputes between Hamas and Fatah over its responsibilities. In his first comments after Hamdallah and his entourage entered Gaza, Abbas told Egyptian TV station CBC in an interview that his sanctions on the enclave would be lifted after the unity government takes control. Everything must be in the hands of the Palestinian Authority, it must be the one to control the crossing points (in and out of Gaza), he said, adding that there could be only one regime setting laws and enforcing them. Analysts said narrowing internal divisions could help Western-backed Abbas counter Israel s argument that it has no negotiating partner for peace with the Palestinians. A Hamas police honor guard and hundreds of Palestinians, many of them waving Palestinian flags, awaited Hamdallah outside the Hamas-controlled checkpoint, down the road from Israel s Erez border crossing through which the prime minister and his motorcade passed. It is a day of Eid, a national holiday, said Abdel-Majid Ali, 46. We hope this time reconciliation is for real. Nickolay Mladenov, the U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, wrote on Twitter: The road ahead will be long and hard, but momentum of reconciliation and peace should not be missed. The unity drive also marked a return to prominence of exiled former Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan, once one of Hamas s fiercest enemies and now a leading figure in regional efforts to pull the territory back into the Palestinian mainstream. Dahlan, based since 2011 in the United Arab Emirates, is behind an influx of cash to prop up Gaza and detente between Hamas and Arab states including Egypt, which hosted reconciliation talks. Michael Oren, deputy minister for diplomacy in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu s cabinet, said a key issue for Israel was whether Hamas, which is dedicated to Israel s destruction, would retain its weapons. If it does, then it s a non-starter for Israel, he said. The U.S. was watching developments closely with the aim of improving humanitarian conditions in Gaza, Jason Greenblatt, U.S. President Donald Trump s Middle East envoy, said on Twitter, but insisted the new administration must abandon violence. The United States stresses that any Palestinian government must unambiguously and explicitly commit to nonviolence, recognition of the State of Israel, acceptance of previous agreements and obligations between the parties, and peaceful negotiations, Greenblatt wrote. Both Israel and Egypt maintain a partial blockade of Gaza, citing security concerns. In public remarks at a lunch with Hamdallah, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh appeared to be uncompromising about any accommodation with Israel, calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state on the full Palestinian soil with Jerusalem as its capital and the return of refugees to their lands and homes . On Tuesday, the Palestinian unity cabinet will meet in Gaza. The agenda is crowded with ideas and projects, Culture Minister Ehad Bseisso said. In addition to setting a date for holding presidential and parliamentary elections, rival factions will have to resolve the issue of the fate of the 40,000 to 50,000 civil and military staff Hamas had hired since 2007. | 1 |
6,048 | Chelsea Clinton stands her mother's ground in New Hampshire | MANCHESTER, N.H. (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton cannot be in two places at once in the weeks before the first party-nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, but she came close on Tuesday with daughter Chelsea Clinton’s campaign trail debut. Hillary Clinton was in Iowa discussing how she would tax the wealthiest at a higher rate. Chelsea Clinton was in New Hampshire promoting her mother’s positions on health care and student debt. It was a day when multiple polls showed that Clinton’s lead over her chief challenger, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, has eroded in Iowa and New Hampshire, which hold their nominating contests on Feb. 1 and Feb. 9. A Quinnipiac University poll showed that Sanders has climbed to 49 percent in Iowa, with a 5 percentage point lead over Clinton. A Monmouth University poll showed Sanders had widened his lead in New Hampshire by 14 points. The polls had an error margin of 4.4 and 4.8 points, respectively. Chelsea Clinton, 35, highlighted how her mother differs from Sanders, acting as a surrogate to woo younger voters with whom he is particularly popular. At a stop in Manchester, Sarah Odell, a teacher at a girls’ boarding school in Connecticut, asked why young people should support the former secretary of state. Chelsea Clinton said Sanders wants to dismantle the 2010 Affordable Care Act and pursue a single-payer system at a time when the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress is intent on undermining President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law. “I worry that if we give Republicans Democratic permission to do that,” Clinton told Odell, “that will strip millions, millions and millions of people of their health insurance.” At a women’s event in Portsmouth, Clinton said that another important difference are plans to deal with educational debt. Sanders has said he wants to make higher education free; Clinton has focused on making it more affordable for the poor and middle class. “She has actually articulated how she is going to pay for all of this, which is a big distinction between her and her main opponent,” Clinton said. Clinton took questions on the resettlement of the West Bank, cost-of-living adjustments for fixed-income retirees, Wall Street reform and autism, sprinkling anecdotes about baby daughter Charlotte, whom Hillary Clinton often mentions. At times her diction was nearly identical to her mother’s. “It is important to stand your ground, but it is important to find common ground,” Clinton said, echoing a popular campaign-trail riff about bipartisanship. For more on the 2016 U.S. presidential race and to learn about the undecided voters who determine elections, visit the Reuters website. (here). | 1 |
6,049 | Senate Committee backs Trump pick to run Medicare, Medicaid | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump’s nominee to run the department overseeing the U.S. government’s health programs for the elderly and disabled won the backing of a Senate committee on Thursday, paving the way for a full vote in the Senate. The Senate Committee on Finance voted 13-12 to support Seema Verma to run the $1 trillion Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Verma is the owner of SVC, a healthcare consulting firm, and has helped redesign Medicaid programs in several states, including Indiana. She worked in Indiana to expand Medicaid to include thousands of additional low-income residents. Those residents are required to make small monthly payments toward their care through health savings accounts. It is a model that could influence how the Trump administration thinks about providing health care to low-income people. In a speech to Congress on Tuesday, Trump said the government should help Americans buy health insurance through the use of tax credits and expanded health savings accounts. Verma has worked closely with Vice President Mike Pence, who as governor of Indiana awarded her the Sagamore of the Wabash award, typically bestowed on those who have rendered distinguished services to the state or to the governor. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah said in a statement that addressing the challenges facing Medicare and Medicaid will require a strong partnership with the administration. Verma, he said, “will help facilitate that partnership and as we work to repeal and replace Obamacare, she will play a vital role in realigning the focus on patient-centered solutions.” Speaking before a preliminary vote on Wednesday, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon expressed concern that in her confirmation hearing last month, Verma had failed to answer questions about how she would tackle high drug prices. He also said that while helping manage the state of Indiana’s health program, her firm was being paid by companies that were providing services and products to the program. “She was on both sides of the deal,” he said. Verma has denied any wrong-doing. In a Jan. 31 letter to the Department of Health and Human Services, she outlined various steps she would take to avoid any conflicts of interest if confirmed as administrator of CMS, including divesting her financial interest in SVC Inc within 90 days of confirmation. | 1 |
6,050 | HILLARY SHOWS HER TRUE COLORS IN A VIDEO SHE DIDN’T THINK ANYONE WOULD SEE | Since Hillary s making a big announcement today we thought we d give everyone a chance to see the real Hillary. This is a side of Hillary that we ve all heard about, but is rarely captured on film.Don t look now Hillary, but your arrogance is showing.Hillary s war on women | 0 |
6,051 | Republican’s Excuse For Cutting Food Stamps: The Bible Says Unemployed ‘Shall Not Eat’ | Republican lawmakers love using the Bible to dictate their policies. They especially love using it to justify pushing spending cuts to social programs even if it means intentionally misreading their favorite passages.In Texas, Rep. Jodey Arrington decided his support for cutting parts of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program needed a bit of New Testament spin. How does one defend taking the food out of mouths of hungry people using the Bible? By cherrypicking this quote: If a man will not work, he shall not eat. During a debate on whether or not Republicans will further gut SNAP benefits, Arrington cited the biblical verse in response to a Jewish anti-hunger group pleading with Congress not to do something so foolish as to further dismantle food stamps. He probably thought he was being pretty clever.Arrington isn t the first to use the line. It s extremely popular with conservatives. So popular, in fact, that the Daily Kos once devoted an entire article to debunking the misinterpretation of the quote.What s important to understand is working was secondary in this context, this is not so much a moral decree about work, the main message is a warning not to take advantage of the Christian obligation to feed the hungry, especially if you are screwing up the church and community tasked with doing that by behaving like a twelve year-old socialite.In other words, the real meaning is to judge a man by his heart, not by his employment status. And as the Washington Post points out, in today s economy, being unemployed doesn t mean lazy, unmotivated, or being a leech. As the economy continues to separate between the haves and the have-nots, finding employment can be hard.The verse in question applies specifically to people who can work or otherwise contribute to society but choose not to, said theologians from several denominations who spoke to The Post. There is a perception, among some voters and lawmakers, that many adult SNAP recipients are exactly this sort of freeloader. But policy experts say that is not the case. Many unemployed adults on SNAP simply cannot work, they say. Those include the mentally ill, the borderline disabled and veterans.Here s economist Justin Wolfers putting the sad reality of America s employment into a stunning graph:It takes a certain kind of mind to look at these trends and conclude that tax cuts for the top 1% are an urgent national priority. pic.twitter.com/6s9Jwr0a8w Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) March 31, 2017Arrington has both biblical and economic reasons to doubt his own reasoning. Instead, his real ideology the Church of Conservative Magical Thinking led him to ignore it all in favor of more cuts to the poor to benefit the very richest in the country.And as if voters needed yet another reminder of why elections matter: Arrington has only been on the job two months. He was voted into office this year. He barely moved into his office and already he s going after the most disadvantaged people in his district. Hats off to his efficiency, but then, institutionalized cruelty often is.Featured image via the Washington Post | 0 |
6,052 | ULTIMATE HYPOCRITES! RUSSIAN Ambassador Visited Obama’s White House 6 TIMES During Hillary’s Uranium Deal…Bill Clinton Bagged $500K Speaking Fee In Moscow [VIDEO] | According to the New Yorker, Bill Clinton received a $500,000 speaking fee for a speech in Moscow paid for by a Kremlin-connected bank. I ve gotta pay our bills, explained Bill Clinton.Clinton s State Department was one of eight agencies to review the deal, but Hillary Clinton was the only agency head whose family foundation bagged $145 million in donations, reports the New York Times and Clinton Cash.Indeed, the head of the Russian government s uranium company, Ian Teller made a secret $2.35 million foreign donation to the Clinton Foundation, as was confirmed by the New York Times. BreitbartThe visitor logs, which Obama made public in 2009 in a push for transparency, show that the long-time Russian ambassador to the United States visited the White House at least 22 times between 2009 and 2016.Kislyak appeared in the logs as recently as September 2016 when he had a meeting scheduled with one of Obama s senior advisers, John Holdren, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The other visitors listed at the meeting are Marina W. Gross, Alexander Ermolaev, Alexey Lopatin, Vyacheslav Balakirev and Sergey Sarazhinskiy. Though the appointment was scheduled to begin at 12:00 pm, it does not include an end time. Daily CallerAmbassador Kislyak met with Obama White House officials six times in 2010 during the Clinton uranium scandal. Kislyak met with Obama officials six times in 2010: December 2010, October 2010, May 2010, April 2010, February 2010 and March 2010.In October 2010 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton permitted the Russian takeover of Uranium One a move estimated to give HALF of US Uranium output to the Russian government.Throughout the deal $145,000,000 poured into the Clinton Foundation from investors who profited from the deal. Gateway PunditBesides the media and the Democrat Party, who can forget when Obama was running for his second term and was caught on a hot mic telling at a global nuclear security summit in South Korea, asking Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for more space. This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility. : Here is the timeline of Hillary s transfer of half of the US Uranium to the Russian government (courtesy of Breitbart News) : | 0 |
6,053 | ILLEGAL INVASION CONTINUES: NYC RAMPING UP TO GIVE 1 MILLION ILLEGALS VOTING RIGHTS | Insane! This really is the definition of insanity. Letting non-citizens vote in our elections is something no other country would even consider ever! When you elect a socialist radical as mayor then I guess that s what you get New York City lawmakers and Mayor Bill de Blasio are reportedly discussing legislation that would give voting rights to non-citizens in local elections. The Guardian noted that under the legislation that is being discussed, legally documented residents who have lived in New York City for at least six months will be able to vote in municipal elections. Lawmakers are reportedly discussing the legislation with Mayor Bill de Blasio s office and a bill might be introduced as soon as this spring. Two years ago, city councilman Daniel Dromm won the support of 35 of the city council s 51 members, forming a veto-proof majority when he tried to advance the non-citizen voting bill, but he faced the obstruction of then council speaker Christine Quinn and the unbreakable opposition of the Bloomberg administration. De Blasio has said he is willing to continue the conversation on non-citizen voting. Non-citizens make up as much as half the population in areas that Dromm represents and studies have found that more than a million would be eligible to vote citywide if such de Blasio were to sign such a bill. New York recently instituted its IDNYC card, which gives illegal immigrants access to a variety of city services in addition to the municipal identification card. As the Guardian points out, many Americans find the idea of non-citizen voting entirely unpalatable and fear that it undermines the sanctity and privilege of citizenship. Peter Schuck, an emeritus professor of law at Yale University, told the outlet, My guess is that it would cause many Americans to wonder what the point of citizenship is if anyone can vote without even bothering to learn or be committed enough to apply for naturalization. Eric Ulrich, one of three Republicans on the city council, recently told Newsday, The right to vote is a privilege and a sacred obligation that citizens have enjoyed. It should only be for United States citizens. It s also a reason for people who are on a path to citizenship to aspire to citizenship. It s something for them to look forward to. Six Maryland jurisdictions and Chicago allow non-citizens to vote in some local elections, and activists in Amherst, Massachusetts, Madison, Wisconsin, and Burlington, Vermont are also clamoring to give voting rights to non-citizens. -Breitbart NewsVia: Brietbart News | 0 |
6,054 | EU concerned over challenges to Romanian judicial independence | BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Justice reform has stagnated in Romania this year, and challenges to judicial independence remain a persistent source of concern, the European Commission said on Wednesday. The European Union has monitored the justice systems of Romania and its neighbor Bulgaria since they joined the bloc a decade ago. It has backed an unprecedented crackdown on high-level graft in Romania, which Transparency International ranks among the bloc s most corrupt states. Romanian prosecutors have investigated hundreds of public officials, including a former prime minister. This week, anti-corruption prosecutors opened an investigation into the leader of the ruling Social Democrat Party on suspicion of forming a criminal group to siphon off cash from state projects, some of them EU-funded. While progress in meeting some recommendations was advancing well ... the reform momentum in 2017 was lost overall, said the Commission s latest justice monitoring report, released on Wednesday. Challenges to and questioning judicial independence have also been a persistent source of concern. The ruling Social Democrats are preparing a judicial overhaul that the Commission, foreign diplomats, thousands of magistrates and Romania s president have criticized as placing the justice system under political control. Thousands of Romanians protested against the measures this month. The overhaul, announced by the justice minister in August, is under debate in parliament and the Social Democrat Party has said it aims to approve it by the end of this parliamentary session. The most contested changes include those to a judicial inspection unit which oversees magistrates conduct, and the way in which chief prosecutors are appointed. Justice Minister Tudorel Toader said on Wednesday of the Commission report: The report refers to legal solutions that are still at the start of parliamentary debate, that are not finalised. President Klaus Iohannis said in a statement he thought the report was a serious warning signal the ruling coalition must take into account . Affecting the independence of the judicial system and, in general, any pressure or attempt to politically control the judiciary will only return Romania to the past, he said. This spring, Romania saw its largest street protests in decades, against what demonstrators saw as attempts by the ruling coalition to weaken the crackdown on high-level corruption. In May, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Romania should be able to persuade the EU to lift special monitoring of its justice system by the time it takes over the presidency of the EU Council in 2019. | 1 |
6,055 | Sinn Fein says Northern Ireland talks have failed | BELFAST (Reuters) - Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein said on Wednesday that its talks with the pro-British Democratic Unionist Party aimed at re-establishing a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland had failed. Sinn Fein is disappointed that after the last few weeks of negotiations that it has ended in failure, Sinn Fein s leader in Northern Ireland, Michelle O Neill, told journalists. We did our best to be flexible. She called on the British and Irish government s to act urgently to deliver equality in Northern Ireland following the failure of the assembly to deliver it, citing the terms of the 1998 Good Friday peace deal. | 1 |
6,056 | Fiscally Conservative GOP Governor Begs The Public To Pay His Bills For Him | Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has blown so much money on his vanity presidential campaign that he put himself $1.2 million dollars in debt. An odd accomplishment for a fiscally conservative Republican who says that our government s debt is the most evil thing ever.Walker is trying to sell off the surplus garbage campaign merchandise that nobody wanted to buy the first time around, in order to cover his debts. He sent out an e-mail begging people to buy t-shirts from him for $45. If you really want to wear a t-shirt which will announce to everyone how stupid you are, you can find similar Walker merch online for about half the price.Walker isn t even able to fulfill color or size requests due to a lack of resources. He wants you to pay 45 bucks for something you may not even want to, or be physically able to, wear properly. Don t worry, though! If you get a shirt that is 3 sizes too small or a hideous color, he also said in the e-mail that the shirts can be framed or used for crafty things like a pillow cover or bag.That exactly what I d do; Lay my head on a Scott Walker pillow as I stare at a Scott Walker framed t-shirt on my wall.Walker dropped $90,000 a day on his 70-day presidential run, which is a fact he isn t divulging to the people he s asking for cash. 70 days is pretty impressive to go from the great white right-wing hope to Scott who? In the e-mail that he sent out to the people who are now upset that they forgot to unsubscribe from his mailing list months ago, Walker made some strange statements about how careful he is with money. If there is one thing the American people learned about me during our presidential campaign, it is that I am thrifty. Source: APWalker then went on to cite how he uses coupons and loves hitting up the discount racks when shopping. Do they give coupons for failed presidential vanity campaigns intended for boosting speaking fees and book deals?There s $1,200,000 worth of irony to be found in a thrifty guy, who is against big spending, asking people to waste 45 bucks on what is essentially an I m with stupid t-shirt. He would need a little over 26,000 people who are bad enough with their money to think this is a good deal, in order to cover his debt.Featured image via Scott Olson / Getty | 0 |
6,057 | WATCH: FL Governor Refuses To Acknowledge Mass Shooting As Anti-Gay Hate Crime (VIDEO) | During a telephone interview with CNN s Jake Tapper, Florida Governor Rick Scott carefully avoided any acknowledgement that the gay community had been targeted in the June 12 mass shooting, which left 50 people dead and 53 more injured in Orlando.During the interview, Tapper pointed out that the gay community appears to have been directly targeted in the attack. He went on to acknowledge the impact the shooting has had on Florida s LGBT community, saying: There are a lot of members of that community and supporting friends and family who are very worried. Obviously if this was radical Islam, which the special agent in charge of the FBI suggested it may have been, that is a community that has been under siege from radical Islam. Tapper asked Scott what steps are being taken to protect Florida s gay and lesbian community from further threats.Scott refused to acknowledge the gay community, instead providing a generic, barely coherent statement in response to the question, saying: We don t want anybody in our state to ever be targeted. We don t want anybody to be discriminated against. And so in every case, when we believe there is somebody doing the wrong thing, we work hard to make sure we take care of them. He went on to explain: And so what we ll you know, as we go through this process, what we ll learn through this, is we ll learn what we can do to hopefully to never, never, ever to let this happen again. Tapper pressed the issue, apparently hoping that Florida s right-wing governor was capable of giving a response that addressed the needs of the LGBT community in his state. But, I guess my point is, Tapper responded, you ve declared a state of emergency in Orange County, but there are areas of the state of Florida South Beach, for example where there may be a large and thriving LGBT community that might be very, very afraid this morning. He again asked Scott about the precautions his administration is taking to protect members of the gay community, and specifically asked whether there would be additional law enforcement presence to protect against possible copycat attacks or on the off chance that the shooter wasn t acting alone.While it seems clear from the interview that Tapper was hoping to get Scott to reach out to members of the LGBT community in his own state following the deadliest mass shooting in history, Scott never did that.Instead he offered more generic assurances about how the state responds when something like this happens. Scott said, one of the first things you do on top of dealing with the issue you have at hand, is say, Who else could this impact and what can we do to make sure that does not happen? When asked what people can do to help, Scott responded by saying They can pray. This is what a truly incompetent leader sounds like.Watch the interview below, courtesy of Raw Story on YouTube. Featured imae via video screen capture via Raw Story on YouTube | 0 |
6,058 | Germany sees jump in citizenship applications from U.S. | BERLIN (Reuters) - German consulates in the United States have seen a significant rise in requests for citizenship since November 2016, when Donald Trump was elected president, data collected by the German foreign ministry shows. Total citizenship applications - including those filed by U.S. citizens already living in Germany - are reported yearly, with data for this year not expected until summer 2018. However, German consulates receive citizenship requests filed overseas, including those filed by former Germans who were stripped of their citizenship during the Nazi era. The German government s offices in the United States are currently seeing a significant increase in legal queries related to citizenship issues, the German interior ministry said in response to an official query by the Greens party. Applications do not ask why an applicant wants to become a citizen, so the reasons for the increase are a matter of conjecture. But applications by German stripped of citizenship during the Nazi era and their descendants rose sharply after the U.S. election in early November. Such applications climbed from 92 in October 2016 to 124 in November, 144 in December and 159 in January 2017. At least 100 people living in the United States have applied every month through June. Data from the German foreign ministry showed that, all told, 1,190 such applicants sought citizenship in the first eight months of 2017, compared with 792 in the full year of 2016. Germany has also seen a surge in British nationals applying for German citizenship since the country voted to leave the European Union last year. The Federal Statistics Office said a total of 110,400 foreigners took up German citizenship last year, a 2.9 percent increase from the previous year, with Britons making up the largest share of the increase. | 1 |
6,059 | military veteran bonus scandal might be much worse than initially reported | by kurt nimmo blacklisted news
in the video below the folk hero of the iraqi counterterror services and regular iraqi army takes a direct hit in the battle for mosul
the destruction of an abrams tank by a russian atgm kornet missile is good news if youre a stockholder in general dynamics land systems formerly chrysler defense
general dynamics makes the abrams battle tank
each one costs million
the us will simply ship another tank to replace the one destroyed along with its presumed iraqi crew iraqi lives are a cheap commodity so it will not be a problem to find another expendable tank crew
back in former army chief of staff gen raymond odierno testified to congress that the army has more than enough tanks he suggested the line at general dynamics be shut down temporarily our tank fleet is two and a half years old on average now were in good shape and these are additional tanks that we dont need he said
congress budgeted more money for new tanks anyway rep mac thornberry a texas republican and chairman of the house armed services committee said more tanks were needed in europe to confront vladimir putin
military readiness is a consumable said maj gen thomas a horlander the armys budget director military hardware is cumulative according to the pentagon
on tuesday general dynamics stock opened at and closed at last week the corporation was awarded a million contract for an airtoground rocket system earlier this month general dynamics was awarded a million contract over five years to provide engineering and technical services for major weapon systems program technical assistance support systems requirements and assist with production decisionmaking and program controls according to marketwatch
the united states is the largest producer and exporter of weapons in the world the us armed forces budget topped out over billion in
us military budgets
obama fy billion per year bush jr fy | 0 |
6,060 | U.S. tax plan roils popular bet in bond market | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Passage of a long-anticipated U.S. tax overhaul has up-ended the bond market’s favorite trade of the year as yields on some long-dated Treasuries shot to their highest in months, but doubts that the tax cuts will fuel inflation have many investors confident the reversal will be short-lived. The view that the U.S. Federal Reserve will keep raising short-term interest rates, even as inflation remains subdued, has made longer-dated Treasury bonds more appealing to own than short-dated ones. This has made so-called yield curve flattener trades - a bet that the gap between short- and long-dated bond yields will narrow - a profitable bet in the bond market this year. Investors’ appetite for this trade drove the yield curve to its flattest level in a decade earlier this week. However, a sharp reversal got underway as the tax bill’s passage became certain, paving the way for a bigger government deficit and more federal borrowing. “It’s a great time to cash out,” said Brian Reynolds, asset class strategist at New York-based Canaccord Genuity. Both Republican-controlled Congressional chambers have approved the tax legislation, and President Donald Trump is expected to sign it in the days ahead. The Treasury market selloff pushed the benchmark 10-year yield up to nearly 2.50 percent, its highest in nine months and the 30-year yield to around 2.87 percent, a five-week peak. Some analysts reckoned the jump in yields reflects investors demanding higher compensation, or term premium, in case the tax cuts stoke inflation and hurt longer-dated bonds. How long this prevails is an open question, though, given previous episodes of curve steepening in the last year have quickly faded. “In other words, sharp term premium moves tend not be permanent,” Cornerstone Macro analysts said in a note on Wednesday. In late afternoon trading, the spread between two-year and 10-year Treasury yields was 63 basis points versus 60 basis points on Tuesday and around 51 earlier in the week. Even with this week’s steepening, the two-to-10-year part of the curve has flattened nearly 63 basis points this year. Curve flatteners are seen as likely to regain popularity in the long run due to a low inflation outlook and sturdy global demand for long-dated U.S. debt. In the short term, however, it may prove a choppy trade as investors gauge the bill’s impact. “It’s hard to predict how the yield curve would behave in the short term. The biggest question is the timing and level of cash flows going to the government after tax reform,” Canaccord’s Reynolds said. One factor is the mountain of corporate cash held overseas. As part of the new tax code, U.S. multinational companies could bring back some of the estimated $2.6 trillion in business profits they have overseas and the Treasury Department could benefit from the taxes on the repatriated money. Reynolds estimated the Treasury might receive as much as $225 billion in tax receipts in 2018 if the companies bring back all their overseas profits. This means the government could issue fewer two- and three-year Treasury securities, pressuring these yields lower and steepening the yield curve into 2019, he said. Independent government estimates suggest the tax plan could add at least $1 trillion to the $20 trillion in national debt in 10 years as the Treasury Department would ratchet up borrowing to compensate for shortfalls in tax receipts. The degree to which the bill may spur both business investment and consumer spending, which could lift tax receipts and cap the rise in the deficit, is another key unknown for the shape of the yield curve going forward. Still, the dominant view on Wall Street remains that the cut will provide only a short-term bump up in economic growth, and many analysts expect the longer-term curve-flattening trend to reassert itself in the year ahead. “Accordingly, we maintain our conviction on curve flattening going into 2018,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a note on Wednesday. | 1 |
6,061 | WATCH: Trump’s Attorney Flat-Out ADMITS Trump Admin Just Too Intellectually Lazy To Study Facts | Trump s Syrian policy is all over the place, to the point where The Economist actually published a story saying, Wanted: a coherent Syria policy. Trump s position was let Syria handle its own problems, right up until Assad dropped sarin gas on his people. It wasn t until the images of poisoned children started coming in that he decided we needed to respond. Why?Trump s attorney, Michael Cohen, appeared on CNN with Chris Cuomo to discuss President Flip-Flop s new Syria policy. Cuomo asked why Trump would shift from a hands-off-Syria policy to an intervene-now policy, and Cohen s response was downright frightening: When we were watching, whether it was here on CNN or any of the other stations, the Syrian refugees that were leaving, they weren t the young. They weren t the aged. They weren t women. They were all these 19 to 25-year-old men that when they were walking to these makeshift homes in Germany that they put up for them, it looked like a military operation. Cuomo responded by saying that those videos were selective, and the numbers and facts painted a very different picture of the refugees coming out of Syria. Yes, you have young men, but those refugees are the same people that the president is saying he cares so much about. Cuomo is referring to the sheer hypocrisy of this administration s current Syria policy: Assad is gassed his own people, including women and children, but Trump doesn t want to accept the refugees Assad s regime creates. Unfortunately, that didn t sway Cohen, who doubled down on the idea that misleading videos are more reliable than data and facts:CUOMO: Yeah, the question is, why were people picking those videos? Was it misleading? The data would say yes.COHEN: But maybe it wasn t misleading. Maybe it was more of the reality, what was going on.CUOMO: No, but the numbers, Michael, say it s not the reality.COHEN: Again, I don t want to start talking about numbers. Numbers have not proven to suit me well.And there it is: Cohen and Trump and probably a large chunk of the entire administration is too intellectually lazy to try and understand facts and data.Watch the full exchange below:Featured image via screen capture from embedded video | 0 |
6,062 | Russia warns it is close to retaliating after new U.S. sanctions bill: Ifax | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said it had repeatedly warned the United States it would retaliate against what it saw as hostile moves and was growing tired of showing restraint, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said, the Interfax news agency reported. Ryabkov’s comments came after the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to slap new sanctions on Russia and force President Donald Trump to obtain lawmakers’ permission before easing any sanctions on Moscow. | 1 |
6,063 | Iran's Velayati says east Syria, Idlib to be cleared 'soon' | AMMAN (Reuters) - The top adviser to Iran s supreme leader said he expects the Syrian army to soon recapture rebel-held Idlib province, as well as eastern Syria, an area where U.S.-backed militias hold swathes of territory. Iran is a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Iranian official, Ali Akbar Velayati, was speaking in Aleppo, from which the Syrian army drove rebels after a siege last year with help from Tehran. The military alliance backing Assad, which also includes Russia and Shi ite Muslim militias, has this year focused on the war in central and eastern Syria against Islamic State (IS) militants. But Damascus is now setting its sights on territory held by Kurdish-led forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition that has also been fighting the Sunni Muslim IS in northern and eastern Syria. Soon we will see the eastern Syria cleared, and then the Idlib area in west, said Velayati, the top aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in comments reported by Mehr news agency. He also hailed the success of Iranian allies across the region, including Lebanon s Hezbollah, in remarks likely to infuriate Tehran s main regional foe Saudi Arabia, lauding a resistance line from Tehran to Beirut. Assad s forces have also made some advances into rebel-held areas in northwest Syria adjacent to Idlib, a region that represents the insurgents biggest remaining stronghold. Visiting Aleppo, Velayati was quoted by a military news outlet run by Hezbollah as saying Tehran s involvement in the Syrian civil war had averted wider violence. The resistance line starts from Tehran and passes through Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut to reach Palestine, he was quoted as telling a group of Shi ite militia volunteers by a military news outlet run by Hezbollah. Iran s role, first by providing military advisers and then by training and arming Shi ite militia in support of Assad, has not only helped shape the Syrian conflict, it has strengthened Tehran s own hand across the region. For the first time, Iran s revolutionary theocracy is exerting decisive authority in an arc of influence that Sunni Arab powers, particularly Saudi Arabia, have been warning about for years. The Hezbollah news outlet said the fighters Velayati was addressing had come to defend the Sayeda Zeinab shrine in Damascus, a magnet for thousands of Iraqi and Afghan Shi ite militia recruits who go there before being assigned to front lines to fight Sunni rebel groups opposed to Assad. Almost every Shi ite militiaman bears insignia on his combat fatigues with the words For your sake, Sayeda Zeinab . Velayati s visit was the second by a senior Iranian official to the war-torn country in nearly two weeks, showing how Tehran is openly raising its support for the Syrian government. Iran s military chief of staff paid a rare visit to Syria last month in which he warned Israel against breaching Syrian air space and territory a day before he visited a frontline position near Aleppo. Saudi Arabia, its Arab allies and regional powerhouse Israel accuse Iran of seeking to expand its influence in the Arab world with the goal of carving out a land route through Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean. The Syrian opposition also say Shi ite Iran s military presence in Syria stokes sectarian conflict and blames its militias for demographic changes that have uprooted Sunnis. | 1 |
6,064 | Former Trump Campaign Manager Says It’s Too Dangerous For Trump To Be Around Black People (VIDEO) | After being fired from the Trump campaign, Trump s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is still spreading hate on behalf of his former boss. This time, when asked about why Trump had virtually no African-Americans at a rally where he was talking about African-Americans, Lewandowski answered that it would be too dangerous to have African-Americans in the crowd. As a campaign manager, wouldn t you want your candidate saying some of these things directly to the people he s supposedly addressing? Anderson Cooper asked. You know what s amazing to me, is no one remembers Donald Trump went to go have a rally in Chicago at the university, responded Lewandoski. And do you remember what happened? It was so chaotic, and it was so out of control, Secret Service and the Chicago Police Department told him you could not get in and out of that facility safely, and that rally was canceled. And you showed the footage many times of the individuals who attended that rally. Donald Trump had that rally booked, Lewandowski said. That is a black community. He went to the heart of Chicago to go and give a speech to the University of Chicago in a campus, which is predominantly African-American, to make that argument. And you know what happened? The campus was overrun, and it was not a safe environment, he said.Source: The HillThe rally Lewandowski was speaking of occurred in Chicago in March or rather, it didn t occur in Chicago in March because it was shut down over protests. The largely African-American protesters objected to the violence that has been occurring at Trump rallies, but I guess it s okay if white people are violent.Here s the video:Trump, who has a zero percent approval rating with African-Americans, is trying to appear less racist. Lewandowski isn t helping, but to be fair, neither is Trump. His African-American outreach has been nothing but empty, insulting attempts at pandering. It was Trump, not Lewandowski, who appeared on Bill O Reilly to say that he d give Chicago police carte blanche to do whatever it takes to stop black crime.Perhaps Trump should focus on the crimes that are taking place right under his nose, whether that be the violence at his rallies or the alleged crimes taking place right in his offices.Featured image via video screen capture. | 0 |
6,065 | Classic! Kid Rock Hits Back At Fake News And Lefty Watchdog Group: ‘Go F*ck Yourselves’ | Not much to say after this classic response from Kid Rock to a watchdog group who accused him of an election violation. The left is desperate to end his candidacy before it even begins. Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow has been fundraising and fear mongering off of the possibility of a Kid Rock candidacy.Here s Kid Rock s Epic Response:The Detroit Free Press reported:The group Common Cause says the Detroit musician violated the law by declaring himself a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan but not registering his candidacy or reporting campaign contributions. They filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission and also asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate whether the musician whose real name is Robert Ritchie has violated election law. | 0 |
6,066 | Bundy Terrorists Disturb Native American Artifacts Stored At Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (VIDEO) | Ammon Bundy and his band of gun-toting domestic terrorists are living up to their Vanilla ISIS nickname.As you ll recall, the international community has condemned ISIS for destroying archaeological sites and artifacts during the organization s rampage through the Middle East. They are literally destroying history and heritage.Well, that s kinda what Bundy and his pals are doing now at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.In addition to being a wildlife refuge, Malheur is also a storage place for thousands of Native American artifacts, many of which are associated with the local Paiute tribe.And instead of leaving the artifacts alone and undisturbed, the tantrum-throwing white rednecks decided to search through the artifacts, thus putting them at risk of being damaged or stolen or destroyed entirely.The militants even posted a video of themselves doing this, and they accused the Bureau of Land Management of not storing the artifacts properly.Here s the video via Facebook.// < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ // < ![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]>SHARE! BREAKING UPDATE BURNS OREGON BLM LEFT NATIVE ARTIFACTS TO ROT IN MICE DROPPINGS!Posted by Bundy Ranch on Wednesday, January 20, 2016The Y all-Qaeda militants claim that the artifacts were left to rot in mouse droppings, but the video really doesn t offer much evidence of this. Instead it appears to show artifacts wrapped in plastic and placed in boxes that are organized neatly on shelves.In fact, the Paiute tribe isn t as worried about the federal government handling the artifacts as they are about the militants handling them. We are really worried about the status of the artifacts down there, said Burns Paiute tribal chairperson Charlotte Roderique. The tribe has also demanded that any barbarian militant who even so much as disturbs an artifacts be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and they have the legal statutes on their side.According to Indian Country Today: The tribe delivered a letter to federal agencies including the U.S. Attorney and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service demanding prosecution of Ammon Bundy and other armed militants occupying the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, If the occupiers disturb, damage, remove, alter, or deface any archaeological resource on the refuge property.There are approximately 4,000 artifacts belonging to the tribe in the buildings the militants are holding. The occupation is entering its third week.The tribe is demanding federal action under both the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 and a protection against bad men provision in the treaty the tribe signed with the United States in 1868.Under ARPA, a federal law authorizing law enforcement and penalties in the defense of archeological sites on public land, removing artifacts is a felony offense. First time offenders can be fined up to $20,000 and imprisoned for up to one year. Second time offenders can be fined up to $100,000 and imprisoned for up to 5 years. It s not like the militants actually respect Native American culture either. Not too long ago, Ryan Bundy said that Native Americans have no claim to the land and that current culture (a.k.a. white culture) is more important. We also recognize that the Native Americans had the claim to the land, but they lost that claim. There are things to learn from cultures of the past, but the current culture is the most important. In short, Bundy and his boys are acting like ISIS. They have no respect for Native Americans or the artifacts of their culture. By all rights, they should prepare to be hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, which they would have to pay from behind bars if the Justice Department actually did their damn job by arresting and charging these assholes as the criminals they are.Featured Image: Facebook | 0 |
6,067 | tape reveals bill clinton urging mistress to deny he helped her get job | they also said that obamacare woulls save you money and that benghazi murders were because of a movie and that the electionisnot rigged more obama lies | 1 |
6,068 | Billy Bush suspended from 'Today' show after tape of Trump's lewd comments: memo | (Reuters) - NBC has suspended television personality Billy Bush from the “Today” show after fallout over the host’s 2005 taped lewd conversation with U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, according to a show memo seen by Reuters on Sunday. The suspension comes as a flood of Republicans have withdrawn their support for Trump over the video that emerged on Friday showing the businessman, then a reality TV star, talking with Bush on an open microphone about groping women and trying to seduce a married woman. In the recorded conversation, Trump was chatting on a bus with Bush, then host of NBC’s “Access Hollywood,” ahead of a segment they were about to tape. Bush said in a statement to Variety on Friday he was “embarrassed and ashamed” of his comments. NBC said Bush had been suspended indefinitely from the “Today” show, where he hosts the third hour of programming. Noah Oppenheim, the executive in charge of the morning show, wrote in a memo to staff that “there is simply no excuse for Billy’s language and behavior on that tape.” Oppenheim said: “NBC has decided to suspend Billy, pending further review of this matter.” The controversy has pitched Trump, 70, into the biggest crisis of his campaign and deepened fissures between him and establishment Republicans just a month ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election. | 1 |
6,069 | Clinton campaign: no evidence computer systems were compromised | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign said on Friday that an analytics data program maintained by the Democratic National Committee and used by the campaign was accessed as part of a hack, but outside experts have found no evidence that its internal systems have been compromised. | 1 |
6,070 | Petty Trump Responds To Trumpcare Failure By Hoping American Healthcare System Falls Apart | Donald Trump is so petty about not getting his way on healthcare that he is literally hoping that our healthcare system fails.On Friday, House Republicans were forced to cancel a floor vote on their Trumpcare bill for the second time because it was heading for a massive defeat.It was a humiliating blow for a party that controls the House, Senate, and the White House.The Republican healthcare plan would have repealed the Affordable Care Act. Over 20 million Americans would have lost their health insurance and premiums would have skyrocketed.Only 17 percent of Americans supported the bill, which makes it far less popular than the Affordable Care Act.Trump immediately reacted by blaming Democrats, but again, Republicans control Congress so that excuse won t fly.On Saturday morning, Trump reacted again by expressing his hope that the healthcare system will collapse and told everyone not to worry because he will create a plan for the people, even though his previous attempt would have hurt millions.ObamaCare will explode and we will all get together and piece together a great healthcare plan for THE PEOPLE. Do not worry! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 25, 2017What you just witnessed is a sitting president literally desiring the failure of our healthcare system. Also, notice that Trump has stopped saying that the Affordable Care Act is imploding and is instead now saying that it will explode. It sounds like Trump just admitted that the Affordable Care Act was not crumbling as he previously claimed. Now he is just making a prediction.Of course, Twitter users responded by humiliating Trump for failing to gut the Affordable Care Act and torched him for hoping that healthcare fails in America.@realDonaldTrump To be clear: Trump s plan at this point is to try to slowly degrade health care then blame the ACA. Mikel Jollett (@Mikel_Jollett) March 25, 201724 million people keeping healthcare = exploding https://t.co/zCnumlKzMx Jordan Uhl (@JordanUhl) March 25, 2017.@realDonaldTrump gleefully hoping the current health plan explodes shows what a truly heartless, disturbed man you actually are Roland Scahill (@rolandscahill) March 25, 2017.@realDonaldTrump So, we should not worry, because the health insurance market will collapse ? Great logic. Simon Hedlin (@simonhedlin) March 25, 2017@realDonaldTrump The only thing exploding is your orange head, after realising you can t always get what you want, as your fave song goes. Mike P Williams (@Mike_P_Williams) March 25, 2017@realDonaldTrump Trumpcare exploded first. Mark Pygas (@MarkPygas) March 25, 2017@realDonaldTrump Maybe make a better plan now and work with both sides? This isn t a reality show, you turd. Ben Berkon (@BenBerkon) March 25, 2017@realDonaldTrump Great leadership! Hoping a program that insures millions will fail cause you COULDN T CLOSE THE DEAL! Erich McElroy (@erichmcelroy) March 25, 2017u r a creep @realDonaldTrump ROSIE (@Rosie) March 25, 2017@realDonaldTrump The fact that you re so gleeful about the possibility of millions of people dying if healthcare does fail, speaks volumes. Nick Bilton (@nickbilton) March 25, 2017@nickbilton @realDonaldTrump to be clear, it was imploding earlier this month. Why the change in talking points? Ben Fox Rubin (@benfoxrubin) March 25, 2017.@realDonaldTrump so, just to recap, you d like Americans to die from losing health insurance or terrorism just so you can yell TOLDYA! Jess Dweck (@TheDweck) March 25, 2017A lot of people will die if Trump s wish comes true and he ll likely try to make it come true by killing regulations and funding in order to sabotage the Affordable Care Act. Trump is not a patriot and he s definitely not a human being. He s a f*cking monster.Featured image via Mario Tama/Getty Images | 0 |
6,071 | Britain needs 'new paradigm' for financial services trade with EU: Hammond | LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will need a new paradigm to sell financial services to the European Union after Brexit as existing trade deals the EU has with foreign countries do not go far enough, the country s finance minister said on Tuesday. Philip Hammond, widely viewed as the most pro-European of Prime Minister Theresa May s senior colleagues, said in a speech at the annual dinner of finance association CityUK that future trading arrangements with the EU had to be durable and fair . Britain has yet to start serious trade talks with the EU ahead of its March 2019 departure, as the process is currently bogged down in disagreements over border arrangements between the British province of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. May came under pressure on Tuesday from opposition parties and some allies to soften the EU divorce by keeping Britain in the single market and customs union after Brexit, hours after an attempt to break the logjam over the Irish border collapsed. Hammond said he would not comment on the events of last two days concerning Northern Ireland, but added that Britain and the EU had made good progress in talks over recent weeks. I am optimistic that we will achieve sufficient progress at the Council next week, and move on to the next stage of the negotiations, Hammond said, referring to a scheduled meeting of EU leaders on Dec. 14 and 15. Britain wants to protect its existing trading arrangements with the EU, and the type of deal the EU has struck with other countries in the past is not acceptable, Hammond said. We must develop a new paradigm for our future trading relationship in financial services, he said. No existing trade agreement, nor third-country access to the EU, could support the scale and complexity of reciprocal trade in financial services that exists between the UK and the EU, he added. Earlier on Tuesday, the Bank of England reiterated its warning that without legislative changes in Britain and the EU, tens of billions of pounds of cross-border insurance contracts risk legal uncertainty after Brexit, and said it was considering if banks needed to hold extra capital. | 1 |
6,072 | Clinton ex-employee tells FBI no sign email server was hacked: NYT | NEW YORK (Reuters) - The technician who helped manage Hillary Clinton’s private email server for her work as secretary of state has given security logs to investigators that he said show no signs of foreign hacking, the New York Times reported on Thursday. Bryan Pagliano is cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s criminal inquiry into the email setup in exchange for limited immunity by the U.S. Department of Justice, according to the Times, citing unnamed people who know about the investigation. With limited immunity, his testimony cannot be used in a prosecution against him, the Times said. The investigation has overshadowed Hillary Clinton’s campaign to become the Democratic Party’s candidate in the November presidential election. Clinton has apologized for the arrangement but says she did nothing wrong and that she believes the government will vindicate her. Pagliano, who helped set up and run the email system in Clinton’s New York home, told investigators that the logs he handed over indicated that no intrusion occurred, the Times said. The security logs show who accessed the server and when, though they may not capture more sophisticated hacking, the Times said. Pagliano was still working at the State Department’s Bureau of Information Resource Management as recently as last September, but has since left, a department spokesman said on Monday. The spokesman declined to say when he left or why. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is doing its own analysis of whether the server was attacked, according to media reports. FBI agents plan to seek interviews with Clinton’s aides in coming weeks and would like to interview Clinton herself as their investigation enters a new phase, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing two people familiar with the inquiry. The interviews would look into how the server was set up and used and what precautions were taken to protect sensitive data, according to the people, who described the matter on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing, Bloomberg News said. Investigators were almost finished examining computers and other physical evidence as part of the inquiry, which is focused on whether Clinton’s use of private email while serving as the nation’s top diplomat led to the improper handling of classified information, according to the people. Pagliano previously worked on Clinton’s failed 2008 presidential campaign, and ended up joining her at the State Department in 2009 as a political appointee, working as a technology specialist and maintaining Clinton’s email server. His employment ended with Clinton in February 2013, but he stayed on as a contractor. More than 2,000 of Clinton’s emails contain classified information that could harm national security if leaked, according to the State Department. The government forbids sending or storing such information outside secure, government-controlled channels, and has prosecuted people for breaches. The FBI and the Justice Department have declined to comment on their investigation, including who might be its target, beyond confirming its existence. Pagliano’s lawyer did not respond to requests for comment. A Clinton spokesman said the campaign is pleased that Pagliano is cooperating, but declined to respond to questions. For more on the 2016 presidential race, see the Reuters blog, “Tales from the Trail” (here). (Reporting by Jonathan Allen, additional reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by David Gregorio and Andrew Hay) 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 |
6,073 | Obama hits campaign trail, says ready to 'pass baton' to Clinton | CHARLOTTE, N.C. (Reuters) - After months on the sidelines, President Barack Obama joined Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail at a rally in North Carolina on Tuesday, telling voters he was ready to “pass the baton” to his former secretary of state. Obama took the microphone in Charlotte, chanting “Hillary!” and told the crowd there had never been a candidate as prepared to be president as Clinton, his rival in 2008 for the Democratic nomination. “I’ve run my last campaign, and I couldn’t be prouder of the things we’ve done together, but I’m ready to pass the baton,” Obama said, in what was likely to be the first of many trips this year on Clinton’s behalf. “I know Hillary Clinton is going to take it, and I know she can run that race,” he said. Obama was returning the favor after Clinton backed him in 2008’s general election. This year, he waited while she battled U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination before endorsing Clinton last month once she became the party’s presumptive nominee. In Charlotte, Clinton preceded Obama, saying, “We’re going to build on the vision for America that President Obama has always championed, a vision for a future where we do great things together.” The North Carolina trip came the same day that Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey said the agency would not recommend that Clinton face criminal charges over her use of a personal email system while secretary of state. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama did not get advance notice of Comey’s announcement and said the president would not discuss the FBI’s investigation with Clinton. Clinton’s campaign welcomed the end of a probe that had cast a cloud over her campaign, but Republicans seized on Comey’s criticism of what he termed Clinton’s “extremely careless” handling of emails. Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, who was due to campaign in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Tuesday, criticized FBI recommendation, tweeting, “As usual, bad judgment.” The first joint campaign appearance by Obama and Clinton was initially planned for soon after she clinched the Democratic nomination. But it was postponed following the mass shooting on June 12 at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida. On Tuesday, Obama appeared at ease back on the campaign trail. He mocked Trump’s promise to “Make America Great Again,” saying, “America is really great.” And he sought to contrast Clinton’s preparedness for the White House and passion for helping working families with Trump, a political neophyte he referred to at times as “the other guy.” “Everybody can tweet, but nobody actually knows what it takes to do the job until you’ve sat behind the desk,” he said, an apparent reference to the wealthy New York businessman’s fondness for Twitter. Clinton hopes to reclaim North Carolina for the Democrats in the Nov. 8 election. Obama won the state in the 2008 general election but lost it narrowly in his 2012 re-election. Obama’s appearance with the former first lady closes a circle on a relationship that began cordially when the two were U.S. Senate colleagues, grew tense when they were presidential rivals in 2008, and became close when Clinton served in Obama’s Cabinet during his first term. Clinton and her family have played a role in Obama’s elections. Clinton and Obama appeared together in Unity, New Hampshire, following their divisive primary fight in 2008, and Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, gave a well-received speech at the 2012 Democratic convention. Obama has focused on what he touts as Clinton’s strength of character, in hopes of shoring up support among voters who find her untrustworthy, a weakness Trump has sought to exploit. Clinton needs Obama to woo young and left-leaning voters who backed Sanders and who made up part of the president’s voting coalition in 2008 and 2012. Clinton has also campaigned with high-profile liberal U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, and she will appear later this week with Vice President Joe Biden. Clinton and Obama traveled to North Carolina on the presidential plane Air Force One, which Trump characterized as a burden on taxpayers. A Clinton spokesman said the campaign would cover its portion of the travel costs. | 1 |
6,074 | Donald Trump Campaign CEO Caught Committing Voter Fraud | Republicans are great at creating controversy where there is none. They shut down the get out the vote organization, ACORN, because they fraudulently made people believe that ACORN was a criminal front (because, you know, black people). They ve also tried to strangle the life out of Planned Parenthood, again, for fraudulent reasons.One persistent non-problem that Republicans are manufacturing is voter fraud, which is virtually non-existent. This is actually pretty big deal. According to a poll released this week, more than half of respondents felt that voter fraud was real, and most of those were Republicans.Trump himself has been beating the drum about voter fraud when he proactively claims that the only way he d lose is if the election is rigged. Well, maybe Trump should look right under his nose. It appears that there is voter fraud, but it s coming from Trump s own newly hired campaign CEO, Steve Bannon. Bannon is registered in the swing state of Florida, but records show that no one actually lives at the address to which he s registered. In fact, it s set to be torn down. That makes him a criminal, at least according to Florida law.According to a report in The Guardian, Bannon has never lived in the house he claims as his residence. His ex-wife, Diane Clohesy once lived there. She moved out earlier in the year. The two divorced seven years ago.If you think that s just some sort of inadvertent paperwork error, well, it happened twice.Bannon previously rented another house for Clohesy in Miami from 2013 to 2015 and assigned his voter registration to the property during that period. But a source with direct knowledge of the rental agreement for this house said Bannon did not live there either, and that Bannon and Clohesy were not in a relationship.Bannon, Clohesy and Trump s campaign repeatedly declined to answer detailed questions about Bannon s voting arrangements. Jason Miller, a Trump campaign spokesman, eventually said in an email: Mr Bannon moved to another location in Florida. Miller declined to answer further questions.According to neighbors, Bannon has been to the first house (which he paid $5,500 a month for), but only a few times and he certainly didn t live there. The neighbors at the second house say they ve never seen Bannon.Bannon does set up shop in what he calls Breitbart embassy, which is a $2.4 million townhouse right next to the Supreme Court building. Bannon lives upstairs while his staff works in the basement. That, however, is owned by Mostafa El-Gindy, who s an Egyptian businessman.This may be less about voter fraud than tax fraud. Florida has no income tax, so people often try to set up Florida addresses to escape taxes. Attorneys typically recommend that they also attach a voter registration address as some sort of evidence of residency. There is no record Bannon has voted from that address.If Bannon is found guilty of submitting false information on a Florida registration form, it s a third-degree felony and punishable by up to five years in prison. Of course, the odds of him actually being prosecuted are pretty damned slim, but it does put a big wrench in the Trump campaign s claims of voter fraud.Featured image via CNN video screen capture. | 0 |
6,075 | Reports suggest North Korea treating foreign detainees inhumanely: U.N. | GENEVA (Reuters) - Foreign detainees in North Korea are reportedly being denied due process in court and being held in inhumane conditions, a United Nations investigator said on Friday. Tomas Ojea Quintana, U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in North Korea, also said that military threats being exchanged by Washington and Pyongyang were diverting attention from the needs of ordinary North Koreans. He welcomed the release this week of Canadian pastor Hyeon Soo Lim on humanitarian grounds after serving more than two years of a sentence of hard labour for life on charges of plotting to overthrow the regime. Lim’s family said on Thursday that he was not in critical condition. But at least nine other foreigners — three Americans and six citizens of South Korea — remain in custody in North Korea, the U.N. expert said. Otto Warmbier, a U.S. student held for 17 months after being sentenced to 15 years hard labour for trying to steal a propaganda item from his hotel, was released in a coma in June and died within days. The circumstances of his death remain unclear. “I am concerned by reports that detainees are not receiving due legal process and are being held in inhumane conditions,” Ojea Quintana said in a statement issued in Geneva. North Korean authorities are obliged to provide foreign detainees with access to consular support and an interpreter, “but these entitlements cannot be taken for granted, based on the information I have been receiving”, he said. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which visits detainees worldwide, does not have access to political prison camps in North Korea, believed to hold some 100,000 people. U.S. President Donald Trump issued a new threat to North Korea on Friday, saying American weapons were “locked and loaded” as Pyongyang accused him of driving the Korean Peninsula to the brink of nuclear war. “These threats divert attention from the situation of ordinary North Koreans, whose subsistence and protection needs should be treated as an absolute priority,” said Ojea Quintana, an Argentine lawyer who took up the independent U.N. post last year. A 2014 U.N. report catalogued massive violations in North Korea — including large prison camps, starvation and executions — that it said should be brought to the International Criminal Court (ICC). The landmark report, strongly rejected by Pyongyang, said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un might be personally responsible for crimes against humanity. | 1 |
6,076 | Make EU gentleman's agreement with Britain binding: EU lawmakers | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Parliament will insist on quickly making the deal reached between the European Union and Britain on divorce terms legally binding, worried London may not honor a gentleman s agreement, the parliament s chief Brexit coordinator said. The EU and Britain, which is will leave the EU in March 2019, agreed last Friday on the divorce terms in three key areas a financial settlement, citizens rights and how to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. The European Commission said on Monday the deal was not legally binding yet, but it regarded it as a deal between gentlemen with the clear understanding that it is fully backed and endorsed by the UK government . But Britain s Brexit minister David Davis said on Sunday that the deal, which allows both sides to start talks on a future trade agreement crucial for Britain, was more of a statement of intent than a legally binding measure. This caused concern among EU officials that London may want to go back on the agreement. Remarks by David Davis that Phase One deal last week not binding were unhelpful and undermines trust. European Parliament text will now reflect this and insist agreement translated into legal text as soon as possible, Guy Verhofstadt, who leads the European Parliament Brexit coordination team, tweeted. He said that after Davis s unacceptable remarks , the European Parliament will ask EU leaders meeting on Brexit on Friday to formally make negotiations on a future trade agreement with London conditional on including the agreement so far in full in the treaty on Britain leaving the EU. A draft text which leaders are set to adopt on Friday already states that negotiations in the second phase can only progress as long as all commitments undertaken during the first phase are respected in full and translated faithfully in legal terms as quickly as possible . | 1 |
6,077 | Venezuela government and foes resume talks, breakthrough unlikely | SANTO DOMINGO/CARACAS (Reuters) - Members of Venezuela s leftist government and opposition coalition began a new round of talks in the Dominican Republic on Friday aimed at resolving the OPEC nation s long-running and often bloody political standoff. Various mediation efforts have failed in recent years: foes accuse President Nicolas Maduro of exploiting dialogue to buy time, while he says the opposition prefers violence. Few Venezuelans expect a breakthrough this time, with opponents demoralized at seeing Maduro consolidate power and position himself for possible re-election in 2018. The Democratic Unity coalition - which failed to dislodge Maduro in months of street protests this year that led to about 125 deaths - is pressing primarily for a guarantee of free and fair voting next year. It also wants a foreign humanitarian aid corridor to alleviate one of the worst economic crises in modern history, as well as freedom for several hundred jailed activists, and respect for the opposition-led congress. We ve come to seek solutions to Venezuela s problems: food, medicines, free elections, and the need to restore democracy, lead opposition negotiator Julio Borges said. It s a difficult path. The opposition s bargaining power has been weakened by a surprising defeat in October gubernatorial elections. Furthermore, the multi-party group is divided, with more militant sectors opposing the talks. The dialogue they are planning to start is a parody ... an instrument for the regime to gain time and keep itself in power, said Antonio Ledezma, an opposition leader who escaped house arrest this month to seek asylum abroad. Maduro has instructed negotiators to focus on opposition to U.S. sanctions against his government. He was strengthened by the October vote and anticipates another win in mayoral elections set for December, which the opposition is mainly boycotting. President Donald Trump has slapped individual sanctions on a raft of officials for alleged rights abuses, corruption and drugs crimes, as well as economic measures intended to stop the Venezuelan government issuing new debt. Maduro wants any potential deal with the opposition to include joint pressure on Washington to back off. He has blamed the U.S. measures for Venezuela s economic problems, which in fact began several years ago amid failed statist policies and a plunge in global oil prices. We came to demand the immediate end of the economic aggressions against Venezuela, said chief government negotiator and Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez. There is no indication, however, that Trump would be prepared to ease pressure on Maduro, whom he has called a bad leader who dreams of becoming a dictator. On the contrary, U.S. officials say Washington could strengthen sanctions unless Maduro enacts democratic changes. The government also wants recognition for Venezuela s Constituent Assembly, an entirely pro-Maduro superbody elected in July despite an opposition boycott and widespread international condemnation. With an eye to its push to refinance more than $120 billion in foreign debt, Maduro would like the opposition-led congress to agree to approve any negotiations with bondholders, a potential loophole to get round the U.S. sanctions. Foreign ministers from Chile, Mexico, Bolivia, Nicaragua and host Dominican Republic were acting as guarantors at the talks over two days at the Foreign Ministry building in Santo Domingo. Major near-term breakthroughs remain unlikely given the complexity of issues on the table and the distance between each side s preferences, said Eurasia group consultancy. | 1 |
6,078 | IS SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM PLANNING To Make Hero Out Of Third Rate QB, Race Agitator Colin Kaepernick? | Martin Luther King Jr. would not likely be pleased to see such a divisive figure using his position as a professional athlete to promote a violent and threatening movement funded and promoted by politicians to divide our nation Colin Kaepernick s football career remains very much a question mark, but he s already left an impression on American culture, as his jersey and other gear from his protests in 2016 are now in the hands of the Smithsonian.The Smithsonian s National Museum of African American History and Culture continuously collects items of historic significance from African Americans involved in all phases of American life, and the sociologist and author Harry Edwards encouraged the museum to take a close look at Kaepernick. The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback drew nationwide attention last year when he knelt during the national anthem to protest police brutality in America.In September, 2016, the union for police officers who work San Francisco home games threatened a boycott of policing the stadium after the 49ers refused to discipline Colin Kaepernick for not standing during the national anthem and for his statements about law enforcement. If the 49ers organization fails to take action to stop this type of inappropriate behavior it could result in police officers choosing not to work at your facilities, the letter reads. The board of directors of the Santa Clara Police Officer s Association has a duty to protect its members and work to make all of their working environments free of harassing behavior. It also criticized what it called anti-police statements made by Kaepernick, calling them insulting, inaccurate and completely unsupported by any facts. Edwards arranged for the donation of a jersey and other equipment to the Smithsonian, but did so with a request. I said, Don t wait 50 years to try to get some memorabilia and so forth on Kaepernick, Edwards said, according to USA Today. Let me give you a game jersey, some shoes, a picture. And it should be put right there alongside Muhammad Ali. He s this generation s Ali. Daily Wire Adopted by white parents in Wisconsin, Kaepernick is the biological child of a white woman and a black man. He was born in 1987.Kaepernick explained his refusal to stand for the Star-Spangled Banner, expressing solidarity with the net-marxist racial narratives of Black Lives Matter: I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder. Kaepernick describes himself as a black man in a society that oppresses black people. Kaepernick s refusal to stand for our national anthem was considered anything but brave by many of his fans. Here s a picture of a fan burning Colin s jersey, a trend that was started shortly after Kaepernick used his position to promote the violent Black Lives Matter movement on the field as the other players honored our nation:Kaepernick remains unsigned even as players like Ryan Fitzpatrick sign deals, and there is, of course, the question of how much his very public and very controversial political stances may be harming his marketability. Yahoo | 0 |
6,079 | ALABAMA: MIDDLE CLASS WHITE WOMAN Rejected For Jobs In City Filled ILLEGAL Immigrants…”I can’t find a job because I don’t speak Spanish” | Democrats don t care if this legal immigrant has a job. Making America work again is not something they have very much interest in addressing. What s most important to them is how the illegal immigrants they have welcomed into our country with open arms will vote There s one question Sandra Langlois is sick of hearing in job interviews. Do you speak Spanish? Langlois doesn t and doesn t think she should have to.At 42, she already speaks two languages. Born in Germany, she moved to Pennsylvania as a child and learned to speak English fluently. She thought that would be enough to get a job in the United States.Now, as she waits for an interview at the Albertville unemployment office, she s not sure it will be.Hispanic immigrants, she says, have transformed the state she s called home for decades. And the ones who came to the United States illegally, she says, make a tough job market even tougher.Langlois needs to find work, and fast: Her family is living in a motel after the power company turned out the lights in their trailer. She s sharing a car and cell phone with her father-in-law.The Spanish question, she says, has abruptly ended more than one interview. She hopes it won t throw her out of the running this time, too. It s kind of, really, discrimination, she says. If you re not here legally, then you need to go ahead and go back home. They need to come over here the right way. Don t sneak over. Don t stay here. It s a sentiment that runs deep through some circles of this largely white, working-class town, which made headlines as the epicenter of Alabama s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration. Five years later, people in Albertville are still split over the changes they ve seen and what they think should happen next.So is the country.A CNN/Kaiser Family Foundation poll (PDF) released this week reveals deep divides across the United States on immigration.Working-class whites a group some analysts say could play a decisive role in the presidential election are far more likely than others to say immigrants who arrived illegally should be deported. More than half (55%) say that s something the government should attempt, compared with 27% of white college grads.Those statistics don t surprise Glenda Barnes. The 70-year-old Albertville resident says she moved out of her neighborhood when immigrants started moving in. Her street started to go downhill, she says, as people crammed cars onto lawns and stopped taking care of homes. If you lived here, you d understand, she says. Our town was so neat, a nice little town. Now it s like we don t care, and everything s falling in. Rachel Zavaleta isn t surprised by the numbers either. The 29-year-old still remembers what people shouted at her on the playground when she came to Albertville with her family nearly 20 years ago: Go back to Mexico.A changing landscapeDebates about deporting immigrants who came here illegally aren t just political talking points in Albertville; they re personal.This is a city where officials tried hard to force them out, in a state where lawmakers passed the toughest law in the country aimed at doing the same thing.Five years later, even people who don t see eye to eye on immigration can agree on one thing: It didn t work.Albertville proudly bills itself as the Fire Hydrant Capital of the World, for the Mueller factory that s manufactured millions there. But across the state, it s better known for another industry: poultry processing plants, which employ thousands of workers many of them immigrants.More than a quarter of the town s roughly 22,000 residents are Hispanic. And Alabama s 2011 immigration law scared many people who d found jobs in the area.Terrified they d be rounded up and deported, they abandoned homes, pulled their kids out of school and moved to other states. Neighborhoods were left nearly empty. Shopping districts became ghost towns.But in 2012, a federal appeals court gutted much of the law, ruling that parts of it were unconstitutional, including a requirement that public schools determine the immigration status of students and parents.Now, Albertville s Latino immigrant population is thriving once again. A growing number of Haitian refugees, recruited by chicken plants in recent years, have moved to the city, too.The large Catholic church where thousands pray in Spanish every Sunday just paid off its new $1.2 million building, thanks to donations from the congregation.Eateries serving tacos and tamales are easier to find in some parts of the city than restaurants offering grits or fried catfish.The relationships between residents and the approaches local leaders take have changed.But it doesn t take long to see that tensions are still simmering.Stop by the basketball court where Mexican workers are shooting hoops, and you ll hear how afraid they are that Donald Trump might be president, and what it was like a few years back when people couldn t get water or electricity in their homes unless they could prove they were here legally.Sit for a moment in the Little League stands nearby, and a woman flipping through a coupon book as she leans back in a lawn chair will tell you how immigrants should stop speaking Spanish and sucking benefits from the system.Step into a shopping mall off the busy four-lane highway through town, and you ll see immigrants searching for the right words in an English class as they talk with their teacher about what foods to eat on American holidays and how fast the cashiers speak at Walmart.Cross the parking lot to visit the unemployment office, and you ll hear some people say the influx of immigrants gave the region s economy a boost, while others grumble it cost them their jobs. There s plenty of jobs Langlois runs her fingers through her hair as she scans the bulletin board at the unemployment office, looking for a lead.Could she be a dishwasher or a welder? Will she go back to working at a chicken plant? Is there any other choice?As an immigrant herself, Langlois says she s had to follow strict rules and make sure her documents are in order when she applies for jobs. And she resents immigrants who came to the United States illegally for finding ways to skirt the system. It s just not fair, she says. It s like they re getting special treatment. The CNN/KFF poll found that working-class whites were significantly more likely than other groups to say illegal immigration had directly affected them.More than a quarter (27%) say their family has been negatively affected by undocumented immigrants taking jobs in their community, and among this group, 8 in 10 want the government to deport all undocumented immigrants.The trend is even stronger in the South. Via: KITV | 0 |
6,080 | SHOCKING HYPOCRISY: THE MOST RACIST INDUSTRY IN AMERICA | So much for tolerance and diversity How would you describe an industry in which the number of blacks employed has now dropped to 1968 levels?Think about it. In 1968 democrats were still fighting to keep blacks from being equal to whites. Actually the number of blacks employed in this industry is worse than in 1968 when you take their percentage of the overall population into account. In 1968 blacks accounted for 10.9% of the population. Today they constitute 13.2% of the population. So, what industry is the most rife with racism? The media.Is this just too delicious for words or what? The same media who inflate and lie about news stories in order to inject racism into the mix, themselves are the biggest racists in America. Today, only 4.78% of all newsroom employees are black. In 1968 there were less than 5% employed in the newsroom. So basically the same percentage despite the fact that there are many more blacks today that in 1968.Take a look at this White House press conference and tell me how many blacks you see:This is typical of liberals, Do as I say and not as I do. Alex T. Williams of the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) breaks down the numbers for al minorities: The percentage of minorities employed in daily newspapers (the ASNE looks at black, Hispanic, Asian American, Native American, and multiracial populations) has increased from 3.95 percent in 1978, when the ASNE began conducting the census, to 13.34 percent in 2014. The Radio Television Digital News Association estimates that in 2014, minorities made up 13 percent of journalists in radio and 22.4 percent of journalists in television. Still, these figures are a far cry from the 37.4 percent of Americans that are minorities. It s not a matter of blacks not wanting to be newsroom workers. To the contrary, there are plenty of black college graduates who majored in journalism. It s just that the media won t hire them. More from Williams of CJR: Here, I found an alarming trend. Comparing the 2013 job placement rates, graduating minorities that specialized in print were 17 percentage points less likely to find a full-time job than non-minorities; minorities specializing in broadcasting were 17 percentage points less likely to find a full-time job; and minorities specializing in public relations were 25 percentage points less likely to find a full-time job. In contrast, minorities specializing in advertising were only 2 percentage points less likely to find a full-time job than their white counterparts. Via: PC GraveyardSorry friends, the media may suffer from an inability to tell the truth, but these facts don t lie | 0 |
6,081 | Two Trump kids won't be voting for Dad in New York primary | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Presidential candidate Donald Trump says two of his children feel guilty about missing a voter registration deadline, meaning they will not be able to vote for him next week in New York’s Republican primary. Eric Trump, 32, and Ivanka Trump, 34, the Republican front-runner’s second and third children, have campaigned extensively with their father, but both missed the deadline for registering as Republicans to vote in the New York primary on April 19. In a telephone interview with “Fox & Friends,” Trump joked that he would have to find some way to punish Eric and Ivanka for their mistake. “No more allowance!” the New York billionaire said with a laugh. For already registered voters, any request to switch party affiliation must have been made by early October. The deadline for new voter registrations was March 25. “They were unaware of the rules,” Trump said Monday on Fox News. “They feel very, very guilty. “But it’s fine. I mean, I understand that.” Records from the New York State Board of Elections show both Eric and Ivanka are registered voters who are “not enrolled in a party,” ABC News reported. Like their father, they have made political contributions to both Democrats and Republicans, Federal Election Commission records show. Trump’s oldest child, Donald Jr., 38, already was registered Republican. The registration status of his other voting-age child, Tiffany, was not immediately known. Trump’s comments on Monday brought swift rebukes on Twitter from critics who said the Trump children’s lapse bolsters doubts about whether Trump is a true Republican. Trump previously supported abortion rights and has donated to Democrats, including his now-rival Hillary Clinton. “I for one am shocked as the whole family really seem like lifelong conservatives,” user Awen Lake (@AwenLake) posted on Twitter, adding the hashtag #reallydemocrat. “This is so funny. I always knew he was a liberal,” a user named Allen (@alb309O) wrote. “He has his supporters bamboozled.” | 1 |
6,082 | Hurricane Harvey could push forward U.S. debt ceiling deadline: Mnuchin | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Thursday that Hurricane Harvey could bring forward the deadline by which the nation’s debt ceiling needs to be raised and that he is open to the borrowing cap being dealt with as part of a wider bill. “We obviously have now the hurricane spending, which is an issue. So that’s going to have some impact on our September spending,” Mnuchin said in a interview with broadcaster CNBC, adding that it could affect the debt ceiling deadline by a couple of days. He also said projections may move around once the Treasury receives corporate tax receipts on Sept. 15. The U.S. government has a statutory limit on how much money it can borrow to cover the budget deficit that results from Washington spending more than it collects in taxes. Only Congress can raise that limit. Mnuchin told lawmakers in July they needed to raise the debt limit by Sept 29, otherwise the U.S. government might not have enough money to pay all its bills. Yields on U.S. Treasury bills maturing in the first two weeks of October shot up by between 4 and 5 basis points each following Mnuchin’s comments. The moves reflect some concern in the short-term Treasury securities market that lawmakers might not raise the limit in time. Mnuchin’s comments came as financial firms fear that the U.S. Congress may fail to reach a deal to raise the country’s debt limit. The Treasury chief appeared open to the possibility of raising the debt ceiling as part of a larger bill in Congress. Asked if he would support the debt ceiling being tied to a bill on Hurricane Harvey relief in Congress, he said while his preference was a ‘clean’ increase “at the end of the day, it’s all about raising it. If they want to raise it and attach it to something, that’s fine with me as well.” Mnuchin said he was having discussions on the debt cap with both Republican and Democrat leaders and he remained “very confident” the ceiling would be raised. Separately, Mnuchin suggested the Trump administration’s position on financial regulation reform was not overly distant from that of the nation’s central bank. Last week Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen warned against rolling back reforms introduced following the 2007 to 2009 crisis, and said any changes should be modest. “We are working on a lot of things together with the Fed and see many aspects of [regulation] the same way,” Mnuchin said. President Donald Trump has yet to decide whether to renominate Yellen when her term as chair ends in February. Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs president who is now Trump’s chief economic advisor, is also seen as a strong contender. Mnuchin, who is involved in the selection process, declined to comment on the possible frontrunners but said that he and Yellen, who meet on a weekly basis for breakfast, “have a very constructive dialog on a lot of issues, including regulation.” | 1 |
6,083 | Anti-Mugabe pastor acquitted in Zimbabwe of public violence charges | HARARE (Reuters) - A Zimbabwean court on Friday acquitted a pastor critical of President Robert Mugabe on charges of committing public violence and disorderly conduct. The charge was linked to an address Evan Mawarire made during a demonstration by university students earlier this year. Mawarire, who is also on trial for separate and more serious charges that he attempted to subvert the government, had been arrested in June after addressing medical students protesting against an increase in fees. Magistrate Tilda Mazhande said state prosecutors had failed to establish a case against the 40-year-old. Mawarire s High Court trial on subversion charges came to a close on Friday after eight state witnesses testified. His lawyer Harrison Nkomo said he would apply to the judge to have the case dismissed. Meanwhile, police fired teargas during sporadic clashes with a group of protesters demonstrating against cash shortages and economic difficulties in central Harare. Pressure group #Tajamuka called for the demonstration following shortages of fuel and panic buying of basic goods last weekend, which the government blamed on social media for spreading false rumors. A reporter and photographer from the private Daily News newspaper covering the protest were beaten with batons and injured by police, Editor-in-Chief Hama Saburi told Reuters. The two were admitted at a local private hospital. Police spokeswoman Charity Charamba could not be reached for comment. A Reuters witness also saw police firing into the air near an office mall in the central business district frequented by illegal foreign currency traders, forcing people to flee. Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa on Thursday told parliament that the government published rules allowing police to arrest unlicensed foreign currency traders and those found guilty would face up to ten years in prison. Most spots usually occupied by foreign currency dealers were deserted on Friday. | 1 |
6,084 | Trump narrows high court search, to name conservative next week | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump, poised to restore the conservative majority on the Supreme Court, met with key senators on Tuesday and promised to unveil his nominee next week, with three U.S. appeals court judges among those under close consideration. Trump met at the White House with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and the top Republican and Democrat on the Judiciary Committee to discuss filling the court’s lingering vacancy caused by the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia more than 11 months ago. The lifetime appointment as a Supreme Court justice requires Senate confirmation. Leonard Leo, a conservative lawyer advising Trump, said the president “has definitely narrowed his focus” and is “looking very seriously” at a short list of candidates. Among the frontrunners are three conservative jurists: Neil Gorsuch, a judge on the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; Thomas Hardiman, who serves on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; and William Pryor, a judge on the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “Judges Gorsuch and Hardiman and Pryor have received a lot of attention from the president. He knows who they are. He is familiar with their records. He’s clearly impressed with their backgrounds,” Leo said. All three were appointed to the bench by Republican former President George W. Bush. “I’ll be making my decision this week. We’ll be announcing next week. We have outstanding candidates, and we will pick a truly great Supreme Court justice,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. The leading candidates all have strong conservative credentials. Gorsuch joined a ruling in 2013 saying that owners of private companies can object on religious grounds to a provision of the Obamacare health insurance law requiring employers to provide insurance covering birth control for women. Hardiman wrote an opinion in 2013 embracing a broad interpretation of the U.S. Constitution’s right to bear arms. Pryor has been an outspoken critic of the court’s 1973 landmark ruling that legalized abortion. Leo said all three are “very much in the mold of Justice Scalia,” who was among the most conservative members of the court. After the meeting with Trump, Schumer said he reiterated that the president “should pick a mainstream nominee who could earn bipartisan support” and that Democrats would fight any nominee they deem outside the mainstream. “I anticipate what we’re going to get from the president is a highly qualified, well-credentialed conservative jurist,” McConnell told reporters. Trump can name Scalia’s replacement because the Republican-led U.S. Senate, in an action with little precedent in U.S. history, last year refused to consider Democratic President Barack Obama’s nominee, appeals court judge Merrick Garland. Obama, who handed over power to Trump last Friday, nominated Garland on March 16, but Republican senators led by McConnell denied Garland the customary confirmation hearings and vote. Since Scalia’s death, the court has been deadlocked ideologically with four conservative justices and four liberals. A conservative replacement for Scalia would reinstate the court’s narrow conservative majority in place for decades. Trump’s fellow Republicans have a 52-48 majority in the Senate. Democrats, irate over Garland’s rebuff, potentially could try to block the nomination using procedural hurdles. | 1 |
6,085 | U.N. evacuates first group of refugees from Libya to Niger | TUNIS (Reuters) - A group of 25 refugees have been evacuated from Libya to Niger to have resettlement claims processed, in the first operation of its kind from the North African country, the United Nations said on Sunday. The move is part of efforts to provide protection for refugees and other vulnerable migrants who travel to Libya, often intending to attempt the dangerous sea crossing to Italy. Many are trapped in smuggling networks or detention centers where they are exposed to a range of abuses including rape and torture that have been widely documented by human rights organizations and U.N. agencies. About 43,000 refugees and asylum seekers registered by U.N. refugee agency UNHCR are now in Libya. It is hard to resettle refugees directly from Libya partly because most countries closed their embassies in Tripoli after fighting escalated there in 2014. The initial group evacuated by air from Tripoli to Niamey on Saturday was made up of 15 women, six men and four children from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan, according to the United Nations. Today s evacuation symbolizes hope in finding safe solutions for vulnerable refugees in Libya, Roberto Mignone, the UNHCR representative for Libya, said in a statement. The operation was the result of a joint initiative by UNHCR and the governments of Libya and Niger, and Niger has agreed to host the group until their claims to be resettled in third countries are dealt with, it said. We hope to be able to carry out more evacuations in the near future, said Vincent Cochetel, UNHCR s Special Envoy for the Central Mediterranean. But he said the scheme would remain limited in scale as long as commitments to resettle refugees remained insufficient . These refugee evacuations can only be part of broader asylum-building and migration management efforts to address the complex movement of migrants and refugees who embark on perilous journeys across the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea, he said. Most migrants traveling through Libya towards Europe come from sub-Saharan African countries. Many fleeing poverty, repression or conflict journey across the desert through Niger, Algeria or Sudan. The Libya to Italy crossing has become the main migrant route to Europe since an agreement between the EU and Turkey shut down smuggling through Greece last year. More than 600,000 have crossed by boat to Italy since 2014. European states have pledged tens of millions of euros to Libya, Niger and migrants countries of origin in an effort to stem the flows. Departures from Libya have dropped since July due to changes in smuggling activity and increased activity by Libya s European-backed coastguard. European policy has drawn criticism from human rights groups that say it traps migrants in Libya, exposing them to further abuse there. UNHCR is seeking to open a refugee transit center in Tripoli early next year to shelter some of the most vulnerable refugees as they await evacuation or resettlement. The International Organization for Migration carries out voluntary repatriations of migrants from Libya, flying home more than 10,600 so far this year. | 1 |
6,086 | Mark Zuckerberg Supports Vaccinations, And Anti-Vaxxers Are Super Pissed About It (IMAGE) | Mark Zuckerberg has a daughter, and unlike parents involved in the anti-vaxxer movement, he s a responsible parent who cares about the health of his kid and those around her.The Facebook founder posted a photo of himself holding his daughter Max in a doctor s office waiting for vaccinations. Doctor s visit time for vaccines! Zuckerberg wrote.// < ![CDATA[ (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); // ]]>Doctor s visit time for vaccines!Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Friday, January 8, 2016Because of this responsible act, Zuckerberg is protecting his daughter from diseases such as measles and rubella, the former of which has come roaring back as a threat because anti-vaxxers refuse to vaccinate their damn kids.But while most people praised Zuckerberg, anti-vaxxers were quick to attack him and demonize the vaccines and science that has saved hundreds of millions of people around the world since the MMR vaccine became available in 1971.According to Raw Story, a woman named Amy Smith claimed in a comment that one of her family members allegedly had a seizure because of vaccines. We all care about our kids. Growing up, my mom s best friend had a perfectly healthy daughter. She received MMR and had a grand mal seizure and suffered brain damage. Her dr diagnosed her with vaccine injury. She was left unable to talk or walk for the rest of her life. So that was MY first personal experience with vaccines. Bottom line A pharmaceutical that carries at least a risk of harm to some, should never be mandated. Because, in the end, no one seems to care about the sacrifices made for the common good. Another woman named Colleen Kennedy wrote furiously that herd immunity is a myth and proceeded to try and scare people by listing the ingredients of the vaccine as if this has not been public knowledge for years.Others attacked the pharmaceutical industry for allegedly created epidemics so that they can sell more vaccines. You know, crazy ravings from paranoid people.As we all know, measles became a national story once again as the virus became an epidemic in this country, especially in California where many parents send their unvaccinated kids to school. Measles had been largely wiped out in this country by 1997, but because of anti-vaxxers, measles made a comeback and killed an American for the first time in 12 years.The MMR vaccine is one of the most successful preventive measures a parent can take to keep their kids healthy. Not only is measles the eighth leading cause of death worldwide, it s deadlier than the Ebola virus that sent Americans over the edge with fear in 2014. Even Fox News own medical expert strongly endorsed vaccines and ripped anti-vaxxers a new one when asked about the new epidemic.Mark Zuckerberg is being a responsible parent and leading by example that he doesn t fear vaccines and trusts science. Other parents would be wise to follow suit for the sake of their own children.Featured Image: Raw Story | 0 |
6,087 | Belgium PM says did not invite ousted Catalan leader to Brussels | BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Carles Puigdemont, the Catalan president ousted by Spain, did not come to Belgium on invitation of the country s government, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said on Tuesday, adding that he would be treated as any other EU citizens. Puigdemont held a press conference in Brussels saying he accepted the snap election called by the central government in Madrid but called for judicial guarantees before returning to Spain. The Belgian government has not taken a single step to encourage Mr. Puigdemont to come to Belgium, the office of Prime Minister Charles Michel said in a statement. The Belgian government has repeatedly called for a political dialogue to solve the crisis in Spain, in the framework of national and international order, it added. | 1 |
6,088 | More than 50 arrested for looting in Miami during Irma: police | MIAMI (Reuters) - Miami area police arrested more than 50 suspected looters during Hurricane Irma, including 26 people who were accused of breaking into a single Wal-Mart (WMT.N> store, authorities said on Tuesday. City officials on Tuesday lifted a local 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew that had been in place since Sunday. As normality began to return, police commanders said officers will work 12-hour shifts, 24 hours a day, to discourage any more criminality. I said we would not tolerate criminal activity or looting or anybody who takes advantage of our residents, Deputy Chief of Police Luis Cabrera said at a news conference. I was not joking. The Wal-Mart incident took place on Saturday night at a store on the north side of the City of Miami, said Miami-Dade Police Department spokesman Alvaro Zabaleta. Among others suspected of looting were six men arrested on Monday and accused of breaking into stores at the Midtown Miami shopping complex, near the fashionable Wynwood district, before making off with merchandise that included shoes, bags and laptops. The looting attempts spanned the city, said Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado, from the well-heeled Brickell and downtown neighborhoods to the low-income Liberty City and Little Haiti areas. He said police will stay vigilant as the cleanup goes on. Officers have also been busy trawling roads that can be perilous for motorists because power cuts shut off traffic lights at intersections and streets have accumulated shredded vegetation spread by the storm s powerful winds. We have never experienced, not even with Hurricane Andrew, the amount of trees that are downed in the city, Regalado told the news conference. Hurricane Andrew hit Florida in 1992. Since Irma began bearing down on the state late last week, authorities have been warning any would-be looters against taking advantage of the situation. Rick Maglione, the police chief of Fort Lauderdale, about 30 miles (48 km) north of Miami, told residents to stay home during the storm and look after their loved ones. Going to prison over a pair of sneakers is a fairly bad life choice, Maglione said in a statement. Miami police posted a photo on Facebook of several accused looters sitting in a jail cell under the caption: Thinking about looting? Ask these guys how that turned out. #stayindoors. | 1 |
6,089 | Japan PM Abe: Confident of building relationship of trust with Trump | NEW YORK (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Thursday he was confident of building a relationship based on trust with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Abe said the two talked about various issues but refrained from disclosing the contents of the meeting with Trump because the talks were unofficial. He made the comments in New York after a meeting that was intended to smooth relations following Trump’s campaign rhetoric that cast doubt on long-standing U.S. alliances. | 1 |
6,090 | REPORT: Fox News Might Be Under Investigation By Federal Authorities | If federal authorities discover what they are reportedly looking for, the Republican propaganda network could be in deep sh*t.Last year, Roger Ailes was ousted as Fox News boss because Gretchen Carlson and other female anchors filed sexual harassment lawsuits.According to Carlson s lawsuit, Ailes punished her after she refused to have sex with him. He constantly ogled her and told her to wear short skirts to emphasize her legs. He also allowed misogyny to run rampant. Carlson even named current Fox & Friends host Steve Doocy in the lawsuit.First, Ailes demoted Carlson by removing her from Fox & Friends. And then he fired her after she continued to refuse to sleep with him to further her career.The case against Ailes was so damning that even Megyn Kelly defended Carlson.Eventually, Ailes settled the lawsuit and Fox News paid Carlson $20 million. Ailes was then fired by the company and given a $40 million severance package.And that money is the source of a possible investigation that federal authorities are considering or already moving forward with.Andrea Tantaros lawyer Judd Burstein, who is representing her in her sexual harassment lawsuit against Fox News and Roger Ailes, recently received a subpoena from federal prosecutors. And he told the Hollywood Reporter what it means. Once I saw it, I knew what was happening, Burstein said. They were investigating whether Fox News violated securities laws by not reporting settlements to the Securities and Exchange Commission. In other words, Fox News may have settled the lawsuit against Ailes without informing the shareholders of the decision to pay Carlson $20 million while also agreeing to pay Ailes $40 million. Their haste to quickly sweep the lawsuit out of national headlines would be a violation of rules set up by the Securities and Exchange Commission.In a statement following the report, Fox News claimed the corporation has not received a subpoena, but did say they have been in contact with U.S. Attorneys. The court granted FOX News motion to send Andrea Tantaros case to arbitration, where it always belonged, and rejected her counsel Judd Burstein s histrionics. Apparently one of Mr. Burstein s other clients has received a subpoena. Neither FOX News nor 21CF has received a subpoena, but we have been in communication with the U.S. Attorney s office for months. We have and will continue to cooperate on all inquiries with any interested authorities. If Fox News gets busted for not informing their shareholders they could end up paying a hefty fine to settle with the SEC. That just takes more money out of Rupert Murdoch s pockets and could make it more difficult for the company to make huge offers to Fox hosts and anchors to stick around when it s time to renew contracts. It would be a major financial setback for the conservative propaganda machine.Hopefully, federal authorities are able to launch or continue their investigation without interference from Donald Trump.Featured image via Dangerous Minds | 0 |
6,091 | From Russia with love: why the Kremlin backs Trump | MOSCOW (Reuters) - Donald Trump is a brave pro-Putin political maverick who would end U.S. foreign wars and perhaps lift sanctions on Moscow. Hillary Clinton, however, is a warmonger beholden to the military-industrial complex. Russian state TV, which hews closely to the Kremlin’s world view, leaves little doubt about who Moscow supports in November’s U.S. presidential election: “The Donald.” Vladimir Putin’s spokesman took brief exception this month to a Trump attack video which showed Putin laughing at the prospect of Clinton defending America. But officials and analysts say the Kremlin still sees Trump as the best candidate by a mile. Putin has hailed Trump as “very talented”. The head of the Russian parliament’s foreign affairs committee said he’d be a worthy winner of the 2015 “man of the year” title in the United States. And Dmitry Kiselyov, presenter of Russia’s main weekly TV news show “Vesti Nedeli,” claimed this month that the Republican party elite had struck a secret deal with the Democrats to derail Trump, in part because of his sympathy for Russia. “Trump doesn’t suit the Republican party,” Kiselyov told viewers. “They usually divide up the state budget (among themselves) by frightening people about Russia. But Trump is ready to find a common language with Putin. That’s why they don’t need Trump and even regard him as dangerous.” Kiselyov has been one of the chief proponents of state television’s strongly anti-American tone, once saying Moscow could turn the United States into radioactive ash. Some experts say Trump appeals to Moscow because Putin believes a Trump presidency would be isolationist and leave Russia with a free hand. “The Kremlin can’t believe its luck,” said Konstantin von Eggert, an independent Moscow-based political analyst who believes the Obama administration has not been forceful in countering Russia. “President Obama and (Secretary of State) John Kerry were a dream team for them, but now they have an even better option; someone who thinks that America should have nothing to do with the rest of the world.” RT, the Kremlin’s English-language TV channel formerly known as Russia Today, says it does not back any U.S. candidates. But it has described Trump as “idiosyncratic and raw,” and suggested he represents the popular will of U.S. voters, which a sinister U.S. establishment is trying to subvert. “Can America’s elections be truly called democratic if the political establishment aligns itself against the popular will?” lamented Peter Lavelle, the American host of RT’s flagship talk “CrossTalk” show. “As things stand now millions of voters could be disenfranchised.” Trump has received advice from Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, a former U.S. military intelligence chief who advocates better ties with Russia, and who shared a dinner table in Moscow with Putin in December to celebrate RT’s 10th anniversary. Trump has won friends in Moscow with statements praising Putin as a strong leader that he could probably get along with. His support for Russian air strikes in Syria was welcomed. In January, after a British judge ruled that Putin had “probably” authorized the murder of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London, Trump said he saw “no evidence” the Russian president was guilty. “First of all, he says he didn’t do it. Many people say it wasn’t him. So who knows who did it?” Trump said. This week, Trump said the United States should reduce funding for NATO. A Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman said his comments showed the alliance was in crisis. “For the last two years all we heard from Western newspapers and TV was very critical of Russia,” Victoria Zhuravleva, a Moscow-based expert on U.S.-Russia relations, told Reuters. “So when you hear something that is not so critical and even more friendly towards your country it’s like: ‘Thank God, There’s one person we can talk to: Donald Trump’” Trump and Putin were similar, she said: “They are both open-minded, pragmatic, and say what they think.” The mutual appreciation between Trump and Putin has invited comparisons to the Russian leader’s friendship with another billionaire-turned-politician, Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, who outraged Ukrainians and irked EU leaders last year by visiting Russian-annexed Crimea with Putin. They toured a Crimean winery and drank a priceless 240-year-old bottle from its cellar. By contrast, Hillary Clinton, who is well known to the Kremlin because of her 2009-2013 stint as U.S. Secretary of State, is clearly not to Moscow’s taste. “We really don’t want Hillary,” said one Russian official, who spoke anonymously because of the subject’s sensitivity. “She’s no friend of Russia’s.” State media coverage has focused on what it has cast as her wacky promise to declassify UFO files and on the pressure she has faced for using her personal email account for government business and over her response to the fatal 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. Pro-Kremlin bloggers, corralled by a Putin supporter who used to represent the ruling party in parliament, are enthused by the prospect of agitating on behalf of Trump. “Trump is the first member of the American elite in 20 years who compliments Russia. Trump will smash America as we know it, we’ve got nothing to lose,” Konstantin Rykov told his followers on social media. “Do we want the grandmother Hillary? No. Maybe it’s time to help the old brigand.” | 1 |
6,092 | WHOA! FBI’S COMEY DEFIED DOJ’S LORETTA LYNCH In Sending Letter To Congress…This Just Got Uglier! | FBI Director James Comey defied his boss s instructions when he told Congress he will reopen the probe into Hillary Clinton private e-mail server, according to a report on Saturday.Attorney General Loretta Lynch asked Comey to follow past Justice Department policies and not do anything to meddle in an election but he felt compelled to do so anyway, because he promised to update Congress with any developments in the case, an Administration official told the New Yorker.Comey a Republican who was appointed by President Obama also felt that the upcoming election was precisely why the public needed to be informed, the source added.Lynch and Justice Department officials are now studying the unprecedented situation, the Administration source told the publication.A former senior Justice Department official called Comey s Friday letter to Congress aberrational, and said it violates decades of practice. Read more: NYP | 0 |
6,093 | Trump and Japan's Abe agree to keep pressure on North Korea | TOKYO (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed in a telephone conversation on Wednesday that pressure should be maintained on North Korea, a senior Japanese government official told reporters. The two men also agreed that dialogue for the purpose of dialogue was meaningless, the official said. In recent weeks North Korea has launched two missiles over Japan and conducted its sixth nuclear test, and may be fast advancing toward its goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said last weekend that Washington was directly communicating with Pyongyang on its nuclear and missile programs but that Pyongyang had shown no interest in dialogue. Trump later dismissed any prospect of talks with North Korea as a waste of time. During the 12-minute telephone conversation, Abe also offered condolences over the mass shooting in Las Vegas, and told Trump that Japan was 100 percent behind the American people. Trump will be traveling to Japan, China, South Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines next month. | 1 |
6,094 | Mattis slams 'false' reports on Trump request for nuclear arms hike | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Wednesday slammed what he said were “absolutely false” media reports asserting that President Donald Trump had called for an increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. “This kind of erroneous reporting is irresponsible,” Mattis said in a written statement. NBC had reported that Trump sought a tenfold increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, something Trump had already denied. | 1 |
6,095 | Hillary Clinton: Supreme Court abortion ruling 'a victory for women' | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Monday praised the Supreme Court ruling striking down Texas abortion restrictions as “a victory for women in Texas and across America.” “This fight isn’t over: The next president has to protect women’s health. Women won’t be ‘punished’ for exercising their basic rights,” she said in a tweet, a dig at Republican candidate Donald Trump, who once suggested women who get illegal abortions should face “some sort of punishment.” | 1 |
6,096 | What Ann Coulter Just Called Fox News And Ted Cruz Takes The GOP Civil War To Another Level (IMAGE) | This one has to be seen to be believed.Liberals no longer have to accuse Fox News or Ted Cruz of conspiring against America. All they have to do is let Ann Coulter do it for them.The right-wing Trump supporter sounded off on Cruz and the conservative network in a Twitter post that turned into a rant about Mexicans, black people, and communists. Fox News & Cruz are American traitors, in league with the liberal establishment, Coulter wrote. Silent majority must face fire from a unified oligarchy. Fox News & Cruz are American traitors, in league with the liberal establishment. Silent majority must face fire from a unified oligarchy. Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) March 12, 2016Coulter finally admits that Fox News and Ted Cruz are traitors to this country, but it s strange that she considers them liberals. Ted Cruz rode the Tea party wave the Senate in 2012 and is as right-wing as they get. And it s not like Fox News has ever done anything except attack Democrats and the policies they support and let s not forget that Fox News helping create Trump and put him in the position to become the Republican front-runner.But Coulter wasn t done yet. Soon after that tweet, she proceeded to disparage minorities, even going so far as to call them animals. And she referred to Cruz as a fascist who took their side. On the other hand, left-wing fascists violently shut down a peaceful Trump rally last night & Cruz + the entire media took the animals side Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) March 12, 2016Coulter is wrong, of course. Fascism is a right-wing movement. Ann really needs to learn her place on the political spectrum.And then she referred to black teens as hoodlums. I apologize if one of my tweets last night came off as insensitive. Usually black hoodlum wordfilters to teen. Don t know what happened. Conservative Pundit (@DemsRRealRacist) March 12, 2016But at least she got in a good knock on Marco Rubio that we can all appreciate. Rubio proud no violent protesters at his rallies. Physics question: Is it possible for 4 people to riot? Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) March 12, 2016Get more popcorn, folks. Because the GOP civil war just got crazier.Featured image: Twitter | 0 |
6,097 | Trump to offer federal coal to industry awash in reserves | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has billed his move to re-open federal lands to new coal leases as a win for miners seeking to expand production. But a review of company filings shows that coal miners with the most to gain already have enough leases in hand to last well over a decade. Trump will sign a decree on Tuesday to reverse former President Barack Obama’s 2016 ban on new federal coal leases, part of a wide-ranging executive order to sweep away green regulations his administration says have hobbled the drilling and mining industries. “When we evaluate energy, let’s look at the social cost of not having a job,” Trump’s Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said in a Twitter post on Tuesday ahead of the executive order. But companies focused on coal deposits below federal lands, such as Peabody Energy, Arch Coal, and Cloud Peak, have enough coal in the ground on existing leases to last an average of more than 17 years at 2015 sales levels, earnings reports show. That suggests miners could already ramp up production levels immediately if the market demanded more coal. Energy experts say that is unlikely on a large scale due to stiff competition from cheap and abundant natural gas. “These initiatives prevent things from getting worse for coal, but they won’t help much,” said Charles Dayton, vice president of market analytics at Doyle Trading Consultants in Colorado, which has been tracking reserve levels on public lands. Shares in Cloud Peak were up about 3 percent in early trading on Tuesday, ahead of the executive order, with Peabody up 1.5 percent and Arch down 0.3 percent. The current level of reserves appeared to be within historical norms. A decade ago, under Republican President George W. Bush when there were no bans on federal coal leasing, the industry had about 18 years worth of leases on federal lands, according to a Reuters examination of securities filings. Arch Coal and Peabody confirmed they have substantial reserves on their federal leases already, but nonetheless welcomed Trump’s move. “Peabody has a comfortable amount of reserves in the Powder River Basin, although we recognize the poor public policy represented by the leasing moratorium put into place by the prior administration,” Peabody spokesman Vic Svec told Reuters in an email. Arch Coal has “sufficient permitted reserves to sustain our operations on federal lands for a number of years to come,” spokeswoman Logan Bonacorsi said. “But as with all producers we will need to add reserves over time, and the ability to obtain those reserves when needed is important.” Officials at Peak and Contura did not respond to requests for comment. Trump’s executive order will also seek to undo Obama-era rules limiting carbon emissions. One example is the Clean Power Plan, a regulation that would have increased pressure on states to replace coal-fired power stations with ones using cleaner fuels like natural gas, wind and solar. Obama’s administration imposed the temporary ban on new federal coal leases in January 2016 as part of a broad environmental and economic review to ensure royalties from lease deals provide fair returns to taxpayers. It was not immediately clear whether the royalty review would continue even with the ban on leases lifted. Some analysts said this scenario could trigger a near-term land rush by companies fearing higher royalty rates in the future. Coal accounts for about a third of U.S. electricity production, down from about half a decade ago. About 40 percent of all U.S. coal comes from federal lands, mainly in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana. Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Association industry group, said he expected Trump’s executive order to have symbolic impact, at least. “Lifting the moratorium would strengthen the signal to markets that the federal government is not any longer standing in the way of fossil energy,” he said. He added that re-opening federal lands to new leases could also play into a production upswing if demand ultimately increases. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has forecast a 9 percent increase in western coal production to 443.4 million short tons by 2018, driven mainly by higher natural gas prices. Others were less optimistic about the U.S. coal industry’s outlook, saying the best Trump could do is slow the sector’s decline. Since 2012, coal production has plunged more than 25 percent to the lowest levels since 1978 due to falling prices. The industry has been hit with massive layoffs and bankruptcies. | 1 |
6,098 | Hamas says ready to hand Gaza to a Palestinian unity government | CAIRO/RAMALLAH (Reuters) - Hamas has agreed to dissolve the administration that runs Gaza, it said on Sunday, a major step towards handing control of the enclave to a Palestinian unity government after a decade of bitter rivalry with President Mahmoud Abbas. The Islamist group, which has ruled Gaza since a brief Palestinian civil war in 2007, said it had taken a courageous, serious and patriotic decision to dissolve the administrative committee that runs the territory of 2 million people, and hand power to some form of unity government. Reunification a decade after Hamas and Abbas s secular Fatah movement battled for control of Gaza may hinge on whether complex issues related to power-sharing - which stymied reconciliation bids in the past - can be resolved. Abbas welcomed Hamas move - a result of talks mediated by Egypt - and said he would convene the Palestinian leadership for discussions upon his return from New York where he was attending the U.N. General Assembly. The development would enable the formation of a national reconciliation government to work in the Gaza Strip and hold ... elections, he said in a statement on official news agency WAFA. Earlier, a Palestinian government spokesman said Cairo s mediation had presented a historic opportunity that could help Palestinians toward full statehood. But Fatah said it still needed clarification from Hamas on the handing over of government ministries in Gaza and control of the enclave s border crossings with Israel and Egypt. Hamas and Fatah agreed in 2014 to form a national reconciliation administration but could not agree on the details. A unity government formed after Hamas won the last Palestinian general election, in 2006, was short-lived. Aiming to pressure Hamas to relinquish control of Gaza, Abbas cut payments to Israel for the electricity it supplies to the enclave, leading to power provided for less than four hours on some days, and never more than six hours a day. Azzam Al-Ahmad, who headed Fatah s delegation to the talks in Cairo, told WAFA: This step will enhance the unity of the Palestinians and end ugly division. The two parties did not meet at the talks which took the form of shuttle-diplomacy with Egyptian officials mediating. Ahmad said the two sides planned to meet face-to-face but gave no date. Other Palestinian factions would join the talks later to discuss practical steps to implement the agreement, he added. Mending fences with Western-backed Abbas would be another step in Hamas diplomatic push to improve relations with its neighbor Egypt, which has kept its frontier with Gaza largely closed and accused the group in the past of aiding Islamist militants in Egypt s Sinai desert, something Hamas denies. The United Nations envoy welcomed Sunday s news. All parties must seize this opportunity to restore unity and open a new page for the Palestinian people, U.N. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov said in a statement, adding that the U.N. was ready to assist the talks in order to alleviate hardship in Gaza. Mladenov thanked Egypt for its tireless efforts in creating this positive momentum. Some opinion polls have showed that if parliamentary elections were held now, Hamas would win both in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the seat of Abbas s Palestinian Authority. Abbas, 82, is 12 years into what was meant to be a four-year term as president and opinion polls show him to be unpopular. He has no clear successor and no new presidential election appears imminent. | 1 |
6,099 | BREAKING: 4 AMERICAN HOSTAGES TAKEN BY IRAN-BACKED HOUTHIS IN YEMEN | These 4 hostages must certainly feel a sense of comfort knowing that our strong Commander In Chief would never desert an Ameri never mind It was reported weeks ago that the American government has abandoned citizens in Yemen, forcing them fend for themselves. Now we re facing the prospect of Iranian allies holding our countrymen hostage.It really is amazing how many parallels Obama shares with Jimmy Carter. Here s a pretty awful one:The rebel group that has seized power in Yemen has taken at least four U.S. citizens prisoner, according to U.S. officials who said that efforts to secure the Americans release have faltered.One of the prisoners had been cleared for release in recent days only to have that decision reversed by members of the Houthi rebellion that toppled the U.S.-backed government earlier this year and now controls most levers of power in Yemen.The Americans are believed to be held at a prison in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, which has been bombed repeatedly as part of an air campaign led by Saudi Arabia aimed at dislodging the Houthis from power. The United States has provided intelligence support to that operation.The detention of the Americans has complicated U.S. efforts to navigate the chaotic aftermath of the Houthi takeover, which displaced a government that had cooperated extensively with the United States on drone strikes and other counterterrorism operations against a dangerous al-Qaeda affiliate in the country.U.S. officials said three of the prisoners worked in private-sector jobs and that a fourth, whose occupation is unknown, has dual U.S.-Yemeni citizenship. The officials said none of the four were employees of the U.S. government.Via: SooperMexican | 0 |
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